The Beauty of Being

Chapter II — The Most General Properties of Being

Article 1. The Beauty of Being

The transcendental properties of being are, as we have seen, unity, goodness, truth. These are attributes of being of every class, and are but aspects of being itself as such. In addition to these transcendental properties, there are properties of being that somehow fall short of the truly transcendental. These are two: beauty and perfection. We call these, not transcendental, but most general properties of being. Of these two properties we speak in the present Chapter, which is, accordingly, divided into two Articles:

c) Expression of Beauty

a) Meaning of Beauty

The first note or mark about a beautiful thing is that it makes us think well of it, it pleases us, it appeals to us, it wins our approval. And the appeal of such a thing comes to us through the senses, chiefly that of sight, and, secondarily, that of hearing. But this appeal is not a matter of the senses alone. The higher animals have sight, hearing, and the inner sense called imagination, and yet they give no manifestation of an appreciation of the beautiful, no evidence that they sense beauty at all. The senses are the channels of beauty to an understanding mind. Even in the appreciation of a landscape, or of a concourse of sweet sounds, eye and ear are powerless to account for the fact that the scene or the music is discerned as beautiful. The eye and ear are required, indeed, to perceive the objects here mentioned; they are required for the apprehending of this type of the beautiful; but they are not sufficient; back of the senses must be mind or intellect. Hence we are in error when we speak of a sense of beauty, or,—with a fine appreciation of Greek roots,—of the aesthetic sense, if we mean the term sense to be understood in its literal meaning as an organic faculty.

There is beauty in an ordered and well-directed life; there is beauty in the logic of an argument; there is beauty in the deep speculations of a thinker. These are types of moral and intellectual beauty, of beauty that belongs to will and to mind, and no sense is directly concerned with the appreciation of such beauty, for it is spiritual and supra-sensile. Yet the senses are required as avenues by which to come at such beauty; there must be visible evidence of the admirable life; there must be sensible expression of the logic and of the deep and valuable thoughts; else we cannot know of their existence. But no matter how material, how much a matter of the senses, is the manifestation of beauty, the grasp of the beautiful is never a matter for the senses alone. It is the intellect which sees the beautiful, which apprehends it. Mr. Eric Gill, in his book Beauty Looks After Herself, says that truth is the object of the intellect, and goodness the object of the will, and beauty the object of the whole soul. Now, it is quite true that the object of the intellect is the true (or truth), and that the object of the will is the good (or goodness7; but it is not true that “the whole soul” apprehends beauty. It is a truth established in philosophical psychology that the soul operates only through powers or “faculties” which are really distinct from the substance of the soul itself. Now, the soul has two fundamental faculties,—intellect and will. Each of these has diversities of operations, and they are often called by special names by reason of such operations, but they are never divided into really distinct sub-faculties, and there are no other soul-faculties which exist in the same order and line as themselves. Fundamentally, therefore, the apprehension and appreciation of beauty is a matter of intellect or of will or of both. In so far as the apprehending of the beautiful is rather a matter of knowing than of willing,—and surely it is formally such,—we must say that the intellect is the true aesthetic faculty. But the will has a part to play in the fruition or enjoyment or satisfaction which comes with the appreciation of the beautiful, and deserves to be called an aesthetic faculty, at least in a secondary way. And the senses of sight and hearing, together with the imagination which preserves the findings of sense and reproduces them, constitute the sentient element of the aesthetic faculty. So we should not be far wrong if we summed up the whole matter by saying that the beautiful is apprehended by the intellect upon the action of the senses (sight, hearing, imagination), and into the full appreciation of the beautiful the will enters. Thus the aesthetic faculty is a collective name for sight, hearing, imagination, intellect, will; and among these five elements, the intellect undoubtedly holds the first place.

If the intellect is the chief element in the aesthetic faculty (i. e., the faculty for apprehending the beautiful) there must be a close connection between the beautiful and the true, for the object of the intellect, the thing which it is made to grasp, is truth. Still, the beautiful is not entirely snyonymous with the true, for there are many truths which are not apprehended as beautiful. We have said that the first note or mark about a beautiful thing (after it is apprehended, of course) is that it pleases us, it is the occasion of satisfaction, and this brings the beautiful into the domain of the good, which is the object of the will.

The beautiful pleases us. Whether it is seen (i. e., apprehended) by the bodily eyes of an intelligent beholder, or by the mind alone, it is that “which pleases the beholder.” This description of the beautiful must not mislead us into thinking that the whole essence of the beautiful lies in the pleasure which it gives, the emotion which it evokes, the approval and joyous contemplation of the one who experiences it. For it is not entirely true that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder.“ There is an objective, a trans-subjective, foundation for the beautiful. The subjective element or factor (i. e., the element furnished by the beholder) is a strong and important one in the apprehending and appreciation of the beautiful, but it is not the only one. It is true, indeed, that the same object may appeal to one beholder as beautiful, to a second as lacking beauty, to a third as positively repulsive and ugly. Think, for instance, of the variety of opinions about the beauty of a “modernistic” painting (say a piece of surrealism), or about the beauty of a Beuronese statue, or the beauty of Strawinski’s music or of Sandburg’s verse. Thus it is manifest that the subjective factor, the individual “taste” of the “beholder,” is a matter of wide variety. Tastes differ, and there is no disputing about tastes, partly, as G. K. Chesterton points out, because some tastes are beyond dispute. But wide as the field of tastes may be, it is not all-inclusive and all-sufficient when the beautiful is in question. There are objective (or trans-subjective) factors which enter into the very concept of the beautiful. To list these is not easy, yet it must be attempted. Here we propose no new or fantastic theory, but submit, in our own way, the traditional doctrine.

First, a beautiful thing has about it a natural completeness or integrity. Broken arches or ruined towers may be beautiful, but it is not because of their incompleteness that they are so; if it were, any half-built house would be beautiful, which is manifestly not the case. The arches and towers are beautiful because time and natural processes have softened their rugged outlines, and made them fit into a larger picture of a whole landscape; and because they stir the pleasing vague memory of a dimly-suggested past. A twisted hand is not beautiful, nor is a withered branch of a tree; yet either of these may be telling details in a larger picture which is truly pleasing. Therefore, when incompleteness or lack of soundness is found in a beautiful object, its presence does not constitute beauty, but may help (by contrast or suggestion) to manifest the beauty of the whole object,—and the wholeness of the object is a requisite for its claim to be something beautiful. But completeness or integrity does not mean maturity. There is beauty in a rosebud, and in a little child, quite apart from the implied forecast or promise of what is to come. The rosebud and the child have each a complete nature, even if it be an immature nature.

In addition to completeness or integrity, a beautiful thing must have about it a certain opulence or richness which is powerful in its influence upon the beholder. In a word, it must have a kind of fulness, fineness, and effectiveness. Sometimes this fulness is described as largeness, but the term may be misleading. For, while there is undoubted beauty in far distances, in the wide sweep of sea or plain, or in the noble dimensions of a mountain range, it is not physical largeness that constitutes the effectiveness of every beautiful object. Some beautiful things are quite small. There is beauty in the tiny gem; there is beauty in the crystal, though it requires a microscope to render it visible. Physical bigness is an element of beauty in some things, but not in all. But the fulness and effectiveness of which we speak here is rather a kind of richness; a rounded nature richly graced. These things are not easy to set down in human speech; no terms are adequate to express what is in itself never completely expressible; but it seems that the terms fulness and richness are more justly suggestive of the second objective requirement for the beautiful, than the term largeness.

The third objective (or trans-subjective) element of the beautiful is variety, A beautiful thing presents to view a certain pleasing complexity of elements or parts, of viewpoints or aspects. There is no beauty in a single sustained tone, unrelated to other tones. There is no beauty in a single curved line which is not a part of any picture. Even that which is perfectly simple is not apprehended as beautiful by man’s mind until it has been intellectually grasped as presenting a variety of logical distinctions. God is perfectly simple, uncomposed, undivided. Yet in God there is the real variety of the Holy Trinity of Persons, and in the undivided Divine Essence the student and the devout worshipper find phase after phase of surpassing beauty; and throughout eternity, our faith assures us, the blessed in heaven will behold God as an endless revelation of unspeakable beauty, the Ever Ancient, Ever New. We repeat: for a thing to be beautiful it must have parts, or present aspects that are various. The beautiful gem, though a single stone, presents a number of facets, each shattering the light into a variety of colors and blended tints.

A fourth objective (or trans-subjective) element or factor of the beautiful is unity or harmony. For variety alone is not beautiful; only that variety is beautiful which is set in order, which is harmonious and unified. A room of fine proportions, with all the furniture needed to make it a beautiful place, is not beautiful if the furniture is heaped together in the middle of the floor or scattered about at haphazard. Order, balance, unity, harmony,—-these enter into the objective structure of a beautiful thing.

A fifth and final trans-subjective element of the beautiful is the result or product of the first four, and, indeed, may be considered not so much an element of the beautiful as a snyonym for beauty itself. This is a certain clarity, splendor, refulgence, lightsomeness, or glory, which emerges from that which is integrally complete in the fulness of rich and gracious being, and which presents to view a pleasing variety unified in proportionate and balanced harmonies.

These five factors, then, enter into the objective or trans-subjective structure of a beautiful thing. No matter how tastes may vary,—and they vary widely and even wildly,—that which appeals to any taste as beautiful has about it some real or apparent completeness, fineness, variety, harmony, and splendor.

We come now to the formulation of a definition of beauty or the beautiful. We may put it thus: Beauty is an attribute or property of that being •which, in its parts, elements, aspects, or activities, manifests, in a manner pleasing to the mind and satisfactory to the will and the emotions, a striking resplendence of completeness and harmony, of proportion and balance. This definition is cumbrous, indeed, but it appears to cover the ground and to meet at all points the requirements of the essence defined. It takes account of the subjective element or factor in the apprehending and appreciation of the beautiful (as is evident in the terms pleasing, satisfactory, striking) as well as the objective or trans-subjective factors in the beautiful thing. For it indicates completeness and harmony by name, and suggests variety (“in parts, elements, aspects, activities”); richness and effectiveness are suggested in the term striking; and clarity or splendor are indicated in the term resplendence.

There are current many famous definitions of beauty, many of them brief and pointed in expression, but, for the most part, these definitions justify the ancient saying, “Trying to be brief, I become obscure.” Such are the following: “Beauty is the splendor of truth”; “Beauty is the splendor of being”; “Beauty is the splendor of order”; “Beauty is the splendor of perfection.” Andre and Cousin define beauty as “Unity amid variety,” but the definition is not acceptable for it leaves out entirely the subjective factor, the appeal to the mind, the pleasure and satisfaction which comes to the beholder. Kant says that beauty is the power of a thing to stir imagination without upsetting the understanding; but this definition is inadequate on both the subjective and the objective side, and its terms are too vague to convey an accurate meaning. Keats declares:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty; that is all

You know on earth, and all you need to know. But the statement is not true. For while the beautiful is necessarily true with the truth of all being, it is quite easy to instance cases of truth that is not beautiful. The concept of being as such is a true and objective concept, but being as such is too simple and abstract to admit the trans-subjective factors of the beautiful. It may be said that Keats did not mean to make beauty identical with transcendental truth, but with logical truth. But there are many items of knowledge (logical truth) that are not beautiful. To know that there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, or that a railway accident occurred yesterday, or that prices of commodities are steadily rising, does not suggest beauty to the mind; such knowledge is surely not to be identified with beauty. To identify beauty with transcendental truth is to widen the concept of beauty to an extent that destroys it; to identify beauty with logical truth is to narrow its limits destructively. For fiction is not an expression of logical truth, but of the figures and fancies of the imagination under the light of the mind and the direction of the will; and yet fiction is often beautiful. Therefore, truth and beauty are not to be identified. The beautiful is true, inasmuch as it is being, but it does not follow that the true is necessarily beautiful.

b) Classification of Beauty

I. Beauty is ideal and real. Ideal beauty is a kind of standard in the mind, according to which known objects and activities are measured in judging whether they merit the description of “beautiful.” The perfect ideal beauty, free from every possible mistaken whim or prejudice, is to be found only in the Perfect Mind, that is, in God. Yet there is an ideal of the beautiful in every normal and experienced human mind, limited and imperfect as such a mind ever is. Thus we distinguish two types of ideal beauty, the divine and the human.—Real beauty is the objective or trans-subjective beauty of things knowable. It is the beauty of an object that has integrity or completeness, richness of being, variety, unity, resplendence.

2. That which has real beauty has either material or spiritual beauty. Material beauty is that which makes a direct appeal through the senses; it is sensible beauty. Of course, we have already learned that beauty is never entirely material or sensible, since it involves the mind, and, to an extent, also the will. It is accurate to say that material beauty is that which is discerned in sensible objects. Such is the beauty of face or form, of a flower, of a painting, of a piece of needlework, of the starry heavens.—Spiritual beauty appeals to the understanding and the noble will. Thus we find spiritual beauty in a beautiful life (though it be lived in rags and in squalid surroundings), in virtue, in an innocent mind, in a sweet and trusting disposition, in high ideals, in grace, in devotion, in the true religion, in self-sacrifice, in resignation.

5. Real beauty, whether spiritual or material, may be manifested in varying degrees. Thus, on the score of effectiveness in the beautiful object, we distinguish that beauty which gently moves the beholder to a certain tenderness of appreciation, that which moves him more strongly, and that which overpowers him and renders him incapable of a just expression of his appreciation. The first of these three types or degrees of beauty may be called loveliness, charm, graciousness. The second is simply the beautiful or beauty. The third is the sublime or sublimity. The beauty of a face, of manner, of conduct, is of the first type. Most beautiful objects belong to the widely inclusive field of the second type, the simply beautiful. The beauty of God, or, in the material order, the beauty of the mighty ocean in a wild tempest, is of the third type, the sublime.

c) Expression of Beauty

The beautiful, in so far as it is capable of material expression by the skill and effort of human beings, who have nobly conceived it in mind and adequately imaged it in fancy, is the object of what we call the fine arts. The term art, taken simply, may be defined subjectively and objectively. Subjectively considered (that is, considered from the standpoint of the subject, the person, the artist or artisan), art is a suitable conception, a right idea of how things should be done to produce a useful or a beautiful result (recta ratio factibilium). Objectively, art is the process of producing useful or beautiful things, or it is the fruit of that process, that is, it is the collection or sum-total of beautiful or useful things produced.

An art which aims at the production of useful things of bodily character, is a ‘mechanical art. Such, for example, are the arts of weaving, of dressmaking, of practical carpentry. An art which aims at the production of beauty in a fuller knowledge and a nobler life, is a liberal art. An art which aims at the production of beautiful objects in the material order is a fine art. A programme of valuable studies which serve to enlighten the mind and enrich culture is a list of liberal arts, and it is of such arts that we turn out Bachelors and Masters at every college commencement. Among the fine arts we list architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry, and music. It is manifest that many of the arts are of mingled character; dressmaking, for instance, is itself a mechanical art, yet the dressmaker certainly aims at producing something that is beautiful as well as useful, and in so far, her art is a fine art. A competent workman who exercises any of the mechanical arts is called an artisan. A follower of the liberal arts is usually called a student, a philosopher, a theologian, a theoretical scientist, a scholar, etc. Only the follower of one of the fine arts is called an artist, and, in current colloquial speech, the name artist suggests one devoted to the art of painting; sometimes the term is extended to include the sculptor and the musician; seldom is it applied to the architect or the poet.

Our listing of arts is suggestive, not exhaustive. We might mention the political arts (lawmaking, government, polity), the professional arts (teaching, administration, etc.), the household arts (management, cookery, decoration, budgeting, etc.), and many other items of an almost endless litany. Nor have we given a full list of even the fine arts; we have, for example, made no mention of the dramatic art, the elocutionary art, and so on. But the three varieties mentioned (mechanical arts, liberal arts, fine arts) are the major classifications of art; most individual arts are readily grouped, each in its logical place, under these three headings.

A product of a mechanical art is called an artificial thing; a product of a fine art is called an artistic thing. It is manifest that a thing may be artificial and also artistic (for as we have seen the mechanical and the fine arts have points at which they overlap). It is equally evident that every artistic product, inasmuch as it is the fruit of applied human effort and skill, is artificial, that is arte factum, “a thing made by art.” Beautiful objects of the material order are classed as beauties of nature and beauties of art, or as natural and artificial beauties.

What is the relation of art to morality? Can a painting, for instance, be really artistic (hence _beautiful_for the beautiful is the aim and end of the fine arts) if it depicts a scene offensive to Christian modesty ? May the artist ignore the laws of morality; may he consider himself freed by his art from the requirements which bind upon ordinary men? Is it true to say that art is its own justification, and that the moral law must not be allowed to interfere with the full expression of what is beautiful in itself? Is it right to say, “Art for art’s sake” ? Mr. G. K. Chesterton once said that, after viewing some of the work done by the proponents of “Art for art’s sake,” he felt strongly impelled to shout, “No art, for God’s sake!’’ But the questions propounded demand a serious answer. We shall set forth that answer in a series of three points:

z. It is a fundamental truth to be recognized by artist and critic that there can be no conflicting varieties of beauty. Grades or degrees of beauty, yes; but one sort of beauty conflicting with another, contradicting it, blocking it out, absolutely no. Now, morality is a sublimely beautiful thing in itself, and, in special, the virtue of modesty is wondrously beautiful. Therefore, what conies in conflict with this beauty cannot be itself beautiful. Art which conflicts with the moral law is not art in any true sense of the term. We do not mean to say that art and morality are identified, but we do mean to say that they are definitely related and are not in wholly independent fields. And since morality aims at the good, and ultimately at the summwm bonum or supreme good which is the driving force behind every human activity and the goal towards which every human existence is impelled, it has the supreme place in human life, and no human work can be divorced from its influence or free from its relationship. Therefore art cannot be either immoral (that is, in conflict with morality) or unmoral (that is, a thing wholly unrelated to morality).

2. It is the function of philosophical ethics to prove that man, in all his truly human (that is, knowing, deliberate, and free} activities, tends towards happiness in the possession of the summum bonum. In other words, the attainment of complete and endless happiness is the business of life, and towards the proper and full discharge of this business every feature, factor, and function of life must tend; for the primary obligation of any existence is to attain its end and purpose. Now, the moral law is the code of rules, the essential directions, for conducting the business of life as it should be conducted. Hence nothing must be allowed to conflict with this law, and everything must aid, according to its character and measure, in the fulfilling of this law. Therefore, art, far from being a thing indifferent or opposed to the moral law, must be its positive aid arid support. Art must not be immoral; it must not be unmoral or amoral (to use a term in fashion); it must be positively moral. That is to say, art must be a worthy human expression of the beautiful in terms that will not debase a man, but inspire him, lift up his heart and will and fancy, evoke noble emotions, and so further man in the attainment of the destiny for which he is put on the earth.

5. One cannot justly say, “Science ignores morality; why does not art have the same privilege?” First of all, science is a thing of the mind; it is concerned with knowledge. Art is not concerned with mind alone, but with will, and with powerful emotions which sway the will. Science seeks to know, but invites no approval upon its findings. To know evil is not to approve evil. Indeed, to know evil is necessary, even to avoid evil. Scientific knowledge (not pseudo-scientific theories) even of evil things is thus of direct service to man in the attaining of his final goal. It is not true, therefore, to say that science is wholly independent of morality. And even if it were true, art could not claim parity with science on the point, for art is expressed in objects that are meant to invite approval, to excite pleasure, to win the will to delight or at least to complacency.

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have learned the meaning of beauty and the beautiful. We have found that the subjective factors in the apprehending and appreciation of the beautiful are not the only ones to be considered; certain objective or trans-subjective factors exist, and these are perfections in the beautiful object itself, viz., completeness or integrity; fulness or opulence of being which gives effectiveness; unity of parts or aspects; harmony or balance of elements; and resplendence. We have classified beauty as real and ideal; spiritual and material; and have discerned certain degrees of beauty which make an object simply beautiful, graceful or charming or lovely, or sublime. We have considered the expression of the beautiful in the fine arts. We have discussed the mistaken principle of “Art for art’s sake,” and have seen wherein it is fallacious.