its relations to and reactions upon the original pair, the law
of _Multiplicity in Unity_ naturally follows, as does the law
of _Consonance_, or repetition, since the primal process of
differentiation tends to repeat itself, and the original combinations
to reappear--but to reappear in changed form, hence the law of
_Diversity in Monotony_. The law of _Balance_ is seen to be but a
modification of the law of Polarity, and since all things are waxing
and waning, there is the law whereby they wax and wane, that of
_Rhythmic Change_. _Radiation_ rediscovers and reaffirms, even in the
utmost complexity, that essential and fundamental unity from which
complexity was wrought.

Everything, beautiful or ugly, obeys and illustrates one or another of
these laws, so universal are they, so inseparably attendant upon every
kind of manifestation in time and space. It is the number of them
which finds illustration within small compass, and the aptness and
completeness of such illustration, which makes for beauty, because
beauty is the fine flower of a sort of sublime ingenuity. A work of
art is nothing if not _artful_: like an acrostic, the more different
ways it can be read--up, down, across, from right to left and from
left to right--the better it is, other things being equal. This
statement, of course, may be construed in such a way as to appear
absurd; what is meant is simply that the more a work of art is
freighted and fraught with meaning beyond meaning, the more secure its
immortality, the more powerful its appeal. For enjoyment, it is not
necessary that all these meanings should be fathomed, it is only
necessary that they should be felt.

Consider for a moment the manner in which Leonardo da Vinci's Last
Supper, an acknowledged masterpiece, conforms to everyone of the laws
of beauty enumerated above (Illustration 32). It illustrates the law
of Unity in that it movingly portrays a single significant episode in
the life of Christ. The eye is led to dwell upon the central personage
of this drama by many artful expedients: the visible part of the
figure of Christ conforms to the lines of an equilateral triangle
placed exactly in the center of the picture; the figure is separated
by a considerable space from the groups of the disciples on either
hand, and stands relieved against the largest parallelogram of light,
and the vanishing point of the perspective is in the head of Christ,
at the apex, therefore, of the triangle. The law