nerve cells or on logical arguments,
but does not in the least resemble either. But when we say that a
tree is beautiful, it is because, in the first instance, its mere
sensation-giving qualities, taken separately, affect us agreeably in our
various physical parts: the colour stimulating or soothing our colour
nerves, the size, enabling our visual nerves to take in its shape
agreeably; its shadyness, which even as a mere suggestion, pleases
our tactile nerves, its rustle, which pleasantly moves our nerves of
hearing; and even if we admit that the perception that the tree as a
whole is beautiful, as distinguished from certain of its qualities being
agreeable, depends upon something higher and more recondite than mere
nerve tickle, even then it remains that whatever abstract instinct of
beauty we may possess, it is only through physical sensations that this
instinct is reached; and that a man born blind cannot perceive beauty
of colours nor a man born deaf beauty of sounds, simply because the
physical receptive organs of sight and sound are wanting. Thus, in
short, beauty is a physical quality, as goodness is a moral quality: and
if they are in a way equivalents, beauty being physical goodness, and
goodness moral beauty, it is exactly because each has a separate sphere
in which each respectively, represents the best. That beauty is in
itself physical, is a point which few have denied: that beautiful curves
and harmonies are moral qualities very few have asserted. But few have
as yet been willing to admit that beauty is a quality independent of
goodness, independent sometimes to the extent of hostility: that it is
as independent of moral excellence as is logical correctness. Yet thus
it is; and thus all of us must vaguely feel; all those who think, must
closely perceive it to be. There is no justice, no charity, no moral
excellence in physical beauty. It is a negative thing. If it refuses to
associate with evil, to dwell in the putrid corpse or in the face of the
murderer, it is because physical beauty is a concomitant of physical
purity and health, and decaying corpses are always unhealthy, while evil
souls nearly always leave ugly marks on the bodies: but the putrescent
corpse and the murderer's face are both ugly because they are physically
wrong, not because they are morally abominable. Beauty, in itself, is
neither morally good nor morally bad: it is aesthetically good, even as
virtue is neither aesthetically good nor a