every species of beauty. The sense Of beauty arises
from iic joyous recognition in objects of sense of the perfection- of the idea embodied in them (r6 Si koXXoq o iv rviroig, I '/'ii. iv, vii, 8 ; i, vi, 1). It is an immediate and instinctive perception, which discerns in the excellence of t he form (the Aristotelian form is nearly equivalent to idea, and signifies essential char- acter, n utward shape), the presence, the perfection,
and the participation of the divine reason and purpose in the creation; for the eternal i- kindred with the beautiful i-. diStov avyytvig T(;~i Kct\<ji. Enn. v, iii. It. The f..rm. the idea, the design of God, revealed to the char intelligence and quickened affection, constitutes beamy, both a- producing cause and as produced emo- tion, c.rporcal beauties, or things beautiful to sense, are only veils, shadow-, spectral images of real beauty, and derive their power of communicating delight from the intellectual or t ransmundane beauty which they ob- scure even more than thej displaj {Enn. i, vi, 3, 5). Iu- i. II., mil beauty, or beauty in the intelligible world, is the pure effluence of God i Enn. iii. \ iii, 10; v, 1); the
PLOTINUS
299
PLOUCQUET
perfect, beneficent plan of the good, accordant with the absolute excellence of the Divine Being (y) KaXkovt) iKil votjtov ciyaBov 0uot£, Enn. vi, vii. 33). As the yrhole energies of the soul are directed towards the good lor which it was constituted (Enn. i, vii, 1 ; Procl. I/ist. Theolog. § ccix), its eager appetencies are instinc- tively excited by every manifestation of the good. The sense of beauty becomes both purified and intensified as the intelligent and sympathetic soul ascends nearer to the thought of the divine mind, and to the vision of the excellences and glories of the Divine (Enn. i, vi, G). Thence all ideas proceed : thither all forms aspire : and " the power of beauty is the bloom of the universal beauty, which creates all beauty, generating it, and making it more beautiful from the redundance of the beauty in the Divine, which is the beginning and the end of all beauty" (Enn. vi, vii, 32). The whole nature of beauty, therefore, consists in the immediate and lov- ing apprehension of the goodness and wisdom and ex- cellence of the Creator, as imperfectly shown in the in- complete perfections of parts of the creation. Whence is this faculty of recognition derived? It comes from the yearning of all spirit for the beautiful and the good and the divine. It is sustained, elevated, and illumined by the influx of the beautiful — by the epiphany in the soul of the splendors and loveliness of God. As the eye sees the sun by the light which proceeds from it, so the soul recognises goodness by the goodness which God gives, and beauty by the apt sense and sensibility which are communicated from the source of all beauty — the beautiful in itself (0<«c iipa fug upci, ov Si dWov, Enn. v, iii, G, et Mars. Ficin. ad loc. v, v, 7). Thus all things are suspended from the Divine, and are tilled with di- vinity (-n-ai'-a iUl^rcu tCov ShHjv. Meara jrdvTa Stiur. Procl. Inst. Theolog. § cxlv, cxlvi).
This explanation may appear vague and visionary; but the philosophy of Plotinus can find no other mode of expression for its transcendental reveries. It is, how- ever, no more indistinct than the language of more pro- saic intellects in regard to the like subjects. It accords with the declarations of Avicenna and Averroes, of Duns Scotus anil S. Thomas Aquinas, of Leibnitz and of Coleridge (Scot. In Sentent. ii, xi. i, torn, vi, ps. ii, p. 652-5; S. Thorn. Aquin. Sumni. Theolog. i, lxxxix; i, iii; lxxix, iv ; Ixxxiv, v; Leibn. Prim: Philos. ad Pr. Eugen. § 42; Coleridge, .4 ids to Refection, p. 242. 2(14. note).
Beauty thus connects itself immediately with the search after the first or supreme Good (Enn. ii, ix, 8); and in its grades of ascension is a sure progress towrards its apprehension. ■■Since all things are beautiful, and in some sort fidl of delight, all creatures of this sensible world lead the wise and contemplative mind to the Eternal God : they are the shadows, the echoes, and the pictures; the traces, the images, and the visions of that effectuating, exemplifying, and ordaining Artist" (S. Bonaventura, Itin. Mentis ad Deum, c. vii; comp. Kog. Bacon, Opus Tertium, c. lxiv. p. 2GG).
"Ipse vocat nostros auimos ad sidera nnmdus"
(Manilii Astronom. iv, 912).
Ugliness is defect of the idea and its inadequate re- alization. It corresponds to physical and moral evil, and indicates a falling away (--w/<« ri/c ^''V/',') ir,,m the goodness which was designed in the creation (Enn. i, vi, 8, 9 ; viii, 14). The perfection of every nature is this re-assimilation to the divine. In the expressions of Plotinus with regard to human souls and man's du- ties there are frequent echoes of the contemporaneous Christianity which he opposed — exquisite utterances of religious fervor, in which Platonism seems to lose itself in the beauties of the new religion (Enn. vi, ix : iii. ii. 2, 5; iv, G; v, 1, 2; iii, 8, etc.). The highest aim of the spirit is access or reunion to God, which can be ac- complished only through the constant intervention and co-operation of the Divinity (a—ovcaioQ avrtpyovvTci lavTiii tuv SaifAova t^wi', Enn. iv, iv. G; comp. 1 Thess. ii, 13; Eph. ii, 18; Pom. viii, 11, 1G). For it is "God