betrayed to us through the breath or exhalement which permeates the whole, gives some unity to all the members, and reveals in the entire instinctive life the first germs of an independent character. Herein lies the primary defect of the beauty of Nature, even when taken at its point of culminating form: and it is precisely this defect which will introduce us to the necessity of _the Ideal_ as the beauty of art. But before we consider at length the nature of this Ideal, there are two determinations involved as the most immediate result of this inherent defect in natural beauty, which invite our attention. We have stated that in the animal form the soul appears as the bond of connection within the organism and the unified point of animation only under a cloud[240] and destitute of any fully realized content. We only find there a quite indeterminate and restricted mode of soul-life. We will now consider the abstract limitations of this mode more closely. B. THE EXTERNAL BEAUTY OF ABSTRACT FORM REGARDED AS UNIFORMITY, SYMMETRY, CONFORMITY TO RULE AND HARMONY AND REALITY IN THE SENSE OF ABSTRACT UNITY OF THE PHYSICAL MATERIAL. There is in Nature an external reality which is, of course, visible and definitely objective, but the inward unity of which, instead of presenting itself in the concrete inwardness referable to the unity of soul-life, only goes to the point of indeterminacy and abstraction. In other words, it stops short of the inwardness self-actualized in an ideal form and as the particular existence conformable to its ideal content. Its appearance is that of the defining principle on the face of external reality. Now the specific characteristics of inwardness in all its concreteness should be these. First, the principle of soul-life is asserted for itself no less than is potentially replete with content. Secondly, external reality interpenetrates this ideal arcanum, and by so doing fully reveals its true form as such external reality. A concrete unity of this nature is not reached by mere natural beauty: it lies beyond as the Ideal. On this plane of existence we cannot say that such a concrete unity enters into the manifestation of form. We have to deduce it through analysis, examining in their separation and singularity the _distinguishing features_ which the unity supports. The form that informs here and the sensuous external reality _fall apart_ from one another; or rather we have _two_ distinct aspects which we are compelled to consider separately. By virtue of this fact, which we may either regard as a division of the material of sense or as a review of certain facts taken in abstraction, the inward unity, which is one aspect of the external reality, itself falls outside it; that is to say, it is not itself asserted in that rational reality as the wholly immanent form of the entire notion which constitutes it, but rather as an Ideality and determinacy imposed externally.