hieve only a one-sided moral excellence. The external world would
offer him little, if along with it a related, similar need and a
satisfying object of this need did not fortunately appear--we refer to
the demand for the sensuously beautiful, as revealed in a tangible
object. For the supreme product of an ever evolving nature is the
beautiful man. It is true that Nature can but seldom produce him,
because the ideal is opposed by many existing conditions, and even her
almighty power cannot tarry long with the perfect, and perpetuate the
beauty it has produced; for, to be exact, we may say it is only for a
moment that the beautiful man remains beautiful.

Against this mutability art now enters the lists. For, by being placed
at the summit of nature, man views himself as a complete nature, which
must now produce another consummation. He attains this end by striving
for virtue and perfection, by appealing to selection, arrangement,
harmony and significance, through which he at length rises to the
production of a work of art, which achieves a brilliant place among his
other works and actions. Once achieved and standing in its ideal reality
before the world, it produces a lasting and supreme effect. For in its
spiritual development from all of man's powers, it adopts all that is
noble and lovable; and by spiritualizing the human form and raising man
above himself, it closes the circle of his life and activity, and
deifies him in the present, in which both past and future are included.
By such emotions were those overwhelmed who saw the Olympian Jupiter, as
we gather from the descriptions and testimony of the ancients. God had
become man in order to raise man to God. One beheld supreme dignity and
was inspired by supreme beauty. In this sense we can only acknowledge
that the ancients were right when they said, with profoundest
conviction, that it was a misfortune to die without having seen this
great work.

For the appreciation of this beauty Winckelmann was by nature fitted. He
first learned of it in the writings of the ancients, but encountered it
personified in the works of art, in which we all first learn to know it,
that we may recognize and treasure it in nature's living creations.

When, however, the requirements of friendship and of beauty both find
inspiration in the same object, the happiness and gratitude of man seem
to pass all bounds. All that he possesses he would gladly give as a
feeble testimony of his attach