to meet the mind." But this partial view could not
remain. Matter and idea came to be both recognized
as indispensable in all beauty, and it was their union
in some way which constituted the beauty. Kant
placed this union, the uniting act, in the judgment
as the faculty by which all multiplicity is gathered
into a unity. And since Kant, the prevalent theory
has been that beauty essentially consists not in the
idea merely, or in the matter only ; but in a union
of the two effected by the faculty of the judgment.
The unity is essential ; but it is a mere subjective
unity, which of course, as we have seen, denies all
objective reality in beauty, and a subjective unity
effected specifically by the judgment.
It is apparent that if we but drop the subjective
coloring of the German speculations and adopt the
doctrine that beauty has a true objective reality, we
must pass directly to the theory presented in the
preceding chapters ; — that while both idea and mat-
ter are recognized as essential in all beauty, the
union between these elements is objective like them.
This theory is thus the legitimate result of all spec-
ulations on the nature of beauty to the present
time and must be accepted as the teaching of the
history of aesthetic philosophy when exploded errors
are rejected and generally admitted truths are re-
ceived.
PRINCIPLES OF DIVISION. 5/



BOOK II.
KINDS OF BEAUTY.
CHAPTER I.
PRINCIPLES OF DIVISION.
