which has shaped the work must be regarded apart from
the material serviceableness of the object itself. Beauty consists not
in the actual material, but in the unity of relations which the object
embodies. We appreciate the art involved in the making of the first
lock and key only as we look beyond the merely practical usefulness
of the device and so apprehend the harmony of relations effected
through its construction. As the lock and key serve to fasten the door,
they are useful; they are beautiful as they manifest design and we
feel their harmony. Beauty is removed from practical life, not
because it is unrelated to life,--just the reverse of that is true,--but
because the enjoyment of beauty is disinterested. The detachment
involved in appreciation is a detachment from material. The
appreciator may seem to be a looker-on at life, in that he does not
act but simply feels. But his spirit is correspondingly alert. In the
measure that he is released from servitude to material he gives free
play to his emotion.

Although beauty is founded upon design, design is not the whole of
beauty. Not all objects which exhibit equal integrity of design are
equally beautiful. The beauty of a work of art is determined by the
degree of emotion which impelled its creation and by the degree in
which the work itself is able to communicate the emotion
immediately. The feeling which entered into the making of the first
lock and key was simply the inventor's desire for such a device, his
desire being the feeling which accompanied his consciousness of his
need. At the other extreme is the emotion such as attended
Michelangelo's vision of his "David" and urged his hand as he set
his chisel to the unshaped waiting block. And so all the way between.
Many pictures are executed in a wholly mechanical spirit, as so
much manufacture; and they exhibit correspondingly little beauty.
Many useful things, as a candle-stick, a pair of andirons, a chair, are
wrought in the spirit of art; into them goes something of the maker's
joy in his work; they become the expression of his emotion: and
they are so far beautiful. It is asserted that Millet's "Angelus" is a
greater picture than the painting entitled "War" by Franz Stuck,
because "the idea of peasants telling their beads is more beautiful
than the idea of a ruthless destroyer only in so far as it is morally
higher." The moral value as such has very little to do with it. It is a
question of emotion. If Stu