have in these facts concerning pictorial art, a strong
corroboration of the inference from the use of discords in
music--the relativity of ugliness, and the possibility of its
progressive transformation. But there is a further point to be
emphasised, one which music, by reason of its abstractness,
could not well enforce, and one which is of profound
significance for the nature-mystic. Pictorial art is concerned
with the representation of external objects. How explain its
transforming power? Schopenhauer has an excellent answer to
the question. He says that the artist is endowed with an
exceptional measure of intuitive insight. He enjoys a genuine
vision of the Idea immanent in the object he reproduces in his
particular medium--he fixes attention upon this Idea, isolates it,
and reveals much that would otherwise escape notice. The result
is that his skill enables others to slip into his mood and share his
insight.

It is on some such lines as those tentatively traced in the last
few paragraphs that the most hopeful solution of the problem of
the ugly must be sought. The heart of the matter is that there is
no object in external nature which is absolutely ugly--no object
which cannot, even as things are, be transformed to some
degree by being set in fitting relation to others--no object which
is not capable of progress in its capacity for sharing and
manifesting the form and reason towards which the universe is
striving. Should there be thinkers who, like Kingsley, cannot
quite rid themselves of the feeling that ugliness is an absolute
reality--a positive mode of existence over against beauty--they
can only take refuge in the wider problem of evil. But care must
be exercised, as before observed, to distinguish between moral
evil and physical ugliness. To what extent the one may be
reflected in the other is a question on which it would not be safe
to dogmatise. The main theory, however, stands out clearly, and
involves a belief that the material phenomena of the universe, as
a grand whole, enjoy a wholesome freedom from positive
ugliness. Tennyson's "Ancient Sage" expresses the nature-mystic's
hopes concerning the fundamental beauty of the world he loves.

"My son, the world is dark with griefs and graves,
So dark, that men cry out against the Heavens,
Who knows but that the darkness is in man?
The doors of Night may be the gates of Light;
For wert thou born or blind or deaf, and then
Suddenl