Such theories proceed through generalization as do the rest of the non-philosophic sciences. The content which they submit to examination is accepted from ordinary ideas as something final and received as such. Questions are then asked about the constitution of such a concept, the need for more distinct specification making itself apparent, and this too is borrowed from current ideas, and forthwith finally established from it in definitions. But in such a procedure we at once find ourselves on an insecure basis exposed to controversy. It might in the first instance no doubt appear that the beautiful was quite a simple idea. But we soon discover it combines several aspects; one writer will emphasize one of these, another some other one; or, even assuming the same points of view are considered, the question for dispute still remains which aspect is to be regarded as essential. With regard to such questions it is generally reckoned as inseparable from scientific completeness, that the various definitions of the beautiful should be enumerated and criticized. For ourselves we do not propose to attempt this with such historical _exhaustiveness_ as would unfold all the many refinements of such essays at definition, nor indeed on account of their _historical_ interest. We simply, by way of illustration, shall offer a few specimens of the more recent and more interesting ways of regarding the matter which do in fact hit off pretty nearly what is actually implied in the idea of the beautiful. With this in view it is of first importance to recall Goethe's definition of the beautiful, which Meyer has incorporated in his "History of the Creative Arts in Greece," in which work he also brings forward the views of Hirt, though he does not actually mention his name. Hirt, one of the greatest among connoisseurs of the first class in our time, in his "Essay upon Fine Art" (_Horen_, 1797, seventh number), after considering the beautiful in the several arts, summarizes his conclusions in the statement that the basis of a just criticism of fine art and cultivation of taste is the idea of the _Characteristic._ In other words he defines the beautiful ultimately as the "Consummate[25] which is or can be an object of eye, ear, or imagination." He then proceeds to define this "consummate" as "that which is adequate to its aim, which nature or art aimed at producing in the constitution of the object--after its generic kind and specific type." For which reason it is necessary that, in order to instruct our critical sense of beauty, we should direct our attention, so far as possible, to the specific indications of the object's essential constitution. It is, in fact, these _insignia_ of individuality which are its characteristic. Consequently under the term _character_ as a principle of art he understands "that definite individual characterization[26], whereby forms, movement and gesture, mien and expression, local colouring, light and shadow, chiaroscuro and pose are