To give this fitness, then, is the ultimate task and test of genius:
it is, in fact, calling form and life out of what before was but a
chaos of materials, and making them the subject and exponents of the
will. As the master-principle, also, it is the disposer, regulator,
and modifier of shape, line, and quantity, adding, diminishing,
changing, shaping, till it becomes clear and intelligible, and it
finally manifests itself in pleasurable identity with the harmony
within us.

To reduce the operation of this principle to precise rules is,
perhaps, without the province of human power: we might else expect to
see poets and painters made by recipe. As in many other operations of
the mind, we must here be content to note a few of the more tangible
facts, if we may be allowed the phrase, which have occasionally been
gathered by observation during the process. The first fact presented
is, that equal quantities, when coming together, produce monotony,
and, if at all admissible, are only so when absolutely needed, at
a proper distance, to echo back or recall the theme, which would
otherwise be lost in the excess of variety. We speak of quantity here
as of a mass, not of the minutiae; for _the essential components_
of a part may often be _equal quantities_, (as in a piece of
architecture, of armour, &c.,) which are analogous to poetic feet, for
instance, a spondee. The same effect we find from parallel lines and
repetition of shapes. Hence we obtain the law of a limited variety.
The next is, that the quantities must be so disposed as to balance
each other; otherwise, if all or too many of the larger be on one
side, they will endanger the imaginary circle, or other figure, by
which every composition is supposed to be bounded, making it appear
"lop-sided," or to be falling either in upon the smaller quantities,
or out of the picture: from which we infer the necessity of balance.