for it tells him of a truth, which might else have never been
remembered,--that he has once been a man.

And here may occur a question,--which might well be left to the ultra
advocates of the _cui bono_,--whether a simple flower may not
sometimes be of higher use than a labor-saving machine.

As to the objects whose effect on the mind is here discussed, it is
needless to specify them; they are, in general, all such as are known
to affect us in the manner described. The catalogue will vary both in
number and kind with different persons, according to the degree of
force or developement in the overruling Principle.

We proceed, then, to reply to such objections as will doubtless be
urged against the characteristic assumed. And first, as regards the
Beautiful, we shall probably be met by the received notion, that we
experience in Beauty one of the most powerful incentives to passion;
while examples without number will be brought in array to prove it
also the wonder-working cause of almost fabulous transformations,--as
giving energy to the indolent, patience to the quick, perseverance
to the fickle, even courage to the timid; and, _vice versâ_, as
unmanning the hero,--nay, urging the honorable to falsehood, treason,
and murder; in a word, through the mastered, bewildered, sophisticated
_self_, as indifferently raising and sinking the fascinated
object to the heights and depths of pleasure and misery, of virtue and
vice.

Now, if the Beauty here referred to is of the _human being_, we
do not gainsay it; but this is beauty in its _mixed mode_,--not
in its high, passionless form, its singleness and purity. It is not