CHAPTER IV - OF FALSE OPINIONS HELD CONCERNING BEAUTY

Summary

Of the false opinion that Truth is Beauty, and vice versâ

I purpose at present to speak only of four of the more current opinions respecting Beauty, for of the errors connected with the pleasurableness of constructive proportion, and of the expression of right feelings in the countenance, I shall have opportunity to treat in the succeeding chapters (compare Ch. VI., Ch. XIV.).

Those erring or inconsistent positions which I would at once dismiss are: the first, that the Beautiful is the True; the second, that the Beautiful is the Useful; the third, that it is dependent on Custom; and the fourth, that it is dependent on the Association of Ideas.

(A) To assert that the Beautiful is the True, appears, at first, like asserting that propositions are matter, and matter propositions. But giving the best and most rational interpretation we can, and supposing the holders of this strange position to mean only that things are beautiful which appear what they indeed are, and ugly which appear what they are not, we find them instantly contradicted by each and every conclusion of experience. A stone looks as truly a stone as a rose looks a rose, and yet is not so beautiful: a cloud may look more like a castle than a cloud, and be the more beautiful on that account.