ave an ultimate identity
with that portion of the soul's outflowing which has been directed
by the aesthetic sense and which we call the idea of beauty.

This identity between truth and goodness on the one hand and
beauty on the other cannot be regarded as an absolute identity. The
idea of truth continues to represent one facet of the universe, the
idea of goodness another, and the idea of beauty another or a third.
What we mean by the use of the term "identity" is simply this: that
the universe revealed by each one of these three ideas is the same
universe as is revealed by the others, and the emotional
out-flowing of the individual soul, which reveals each of these
separate facets or aspects of the universe, is the same in each of
the three ideas which govern its direction.

It is, however, only at their supreme point, when they are fused
together by the apex-thought of the complex vision, that the
activity of these separate ideas is found to be in complete
harmony. Short of this extreme limit they tend to deviate from
each other and to utter contradictory oracles. We may therefore lay
it down as an unalterable law of their activity that when any one of
these ideas contradicts another it does so because of a weakness
and imperfection in its own intensity or in the intensity of the idea
it contradicts.

Thus if an idea of goodness is found irreconcilable with an idea of
beauty, something is wrong with one or the other of these ideas, or
perhaps with both of them. And we are not only able to say that
something is wrong with such ideas when they contradict one
another, we are able to predicate with certainty as to what
precisely is wrong. For the "something wrong" which leads to this
contradiction, the "something wrong" which stands in the way of
the rhythmic activity of the soul's apex-thought, will invariably be
found to be a weakening of the outflowing of the emotion of love
in one or other or perhaps all three of the implicated ideas.

For the outflowing of the soul's emotion is not only the life of the
root of this "tree of knowledge"; it is also the life of the sap of the
uttermost branches; it is the force that makes the fragrance of each
topmost leaf mingle with that of all the rest, in that unified breath
of the whole tree which loses itself in the air.

Thus we arrive at our final conclusion as to the nature of art. And
when we apply our criterion to any of the supreme works of art of
the world we find i