immediate expression.

With regard to works in all the branches of the fine arts, I may remark

that the pleasure arising from novelty must of course be allowed its due

place and weight. This pleasure consists in the identity of two opposite

elements - that is to say, sameness and variety. If in the midst of the

variety there be not some fixed object for the attention, the unceasing

succession of the variety will prevent the mind from observing the

difference of the individual objects; and the only thing remaining will

be the succession, which will then produce precisely the same effect as

sameness. This we experience when we let the trees or hedges pass

before the fixed eye during a rapid movement in a carriage, or, on the

other hand, when we suffer a file of soldiers or ranks of men in

procession to go on before us without resting the eye on anyone in

particular. In order to derive pleasure from the occupation of the mind,

the principle of unity must always be present, so that in the midst of the

multeity the cetripetal force be never suspended, nor the sense be

fatigued by the predominance of the centrifugal force. This unity in

multeity I have elsewhere stated as the principle of beauty. It is equally

the source of pleasure in variety, and in fact a higher term including

both. What is the seclusive or distinguishing term between them?

Remember that there is a difference between form as proceeding, and

shape as superinduced; - the latter is either the death or the

imprisonment of the thing; - the former is its self-witnessing and self-

effected sphere of agency. Art would or should be the abridgment of

nature. Now the fullness of nature is without character, as water is

purest when without taste, smell, or color; but this is the highest, the

apex only - it is not the whole. The object of art is to give the whole ad

hominem; hence each step of nature hath its ideal, and hence the

possibility of a climax up to the perfect form of a harmonized chaos.

To the idea of life victory or strife is necessary; as virtue consists not

simply in the absence of vices, but in the overcoming of them. So it is

in beauty. The sight of what is subordinated and conquered heightens