exist aesthetically, except by
virtue of materials. But if the confusion is not absolute, and we
have an inkling of the unity and character in the midst of the
strangeness of the form, then we have the grotesque. It is the
half-formed, the perplexed, and the suggestively monstrous.

The analogy to the comic is very close, as we can readily conceive
that it should be. In the comic we have this same juxtaposition of a
new and an old idea, and if the new is not futile and really
inconceivable, it may in time establish itself in the mind, and cease
to be ludicrous. Good wit is novel truth, as the good grotesque is
novel beauty. But there are natural conditions of organization, and
we must not mistake every mutilation for the creation of a new
form. The tendency of nature to establish well-marked species of
animals shows what various combinations are most stable in the
face of physical forces, and there is a fitness also for survival in the
mind, which is determined by the relation of any form to our fixed
method of perception. New things are therefore generally bad
because, as has been well said, they are incapable of becoming old.
A thousand originalities are produced by defect of faculty, for one
that is produced by genius. For in the pursuit of beauty, as in that
of truth, an infinite number of paths lead to failure, and only one to
success.

_The possibility of finite perfection._

Sec. 65. If these observations have any accuracy, they confirm this
important truth, -- that no aesthetic value is really founded on the
experience or the suggestion of evil. This conclusion will doubtless
seem the more interesting if we think of its possible extension to
the field of ethics and of the implied vindication of the ideal of
moral perfection as something essentially definable and attainable.
But without insisting on an analogy to ethics, which might be
misleading, we may hasten to state the principle which emerges
from our analysis of expression. Expressiveness may be found in
any one thing that suggests another, or draws from association with
that other any of its emotional colouring. There may, therefore, of
course, be an expressiveness of evil; but this expressiveness will
not have any aesthetic value. The description or suggestion of
suffering may have a worth as science or discipline, but can never
in itself enhance any beauty. Tragedy and comedy please in spite
of this expressiveness and not by virtue of it; and except