the following passage from Senancour, touching the "secret of
relation" we have just analyzed.

"It was dark and rather cold. I was gloomy, and walked because
I had nothing to do. I passed by some flowers placed breast-
high upon a wall. A jonquil in bloom was there. It is the
strongest expression of desire: it was the first perfume of
the year. I felt all the happiness destined for man. This
unutterable harmony of souls, the phantom of the ideal world,
arose in me complete. I never felt anything so great or so
instantaneous. I know not what shape, what analogy, what
secret of relation it was that made me see in this flower a
limitless beauty.... I shall never inclose in a conception this
power, this immensity that nothing will express; this form that
nothing will contain; this ideal of a better world which one
feels, but which it would seem that nature has not made."<1>

<1> Translation by Carleton Noyes: _The Enjoyment of Art_, 1903,
p. 65.

Our philosophical definition of Beauty has thus taken final
shape. The beautiful object possesses those qualities which
bring the personality into a state of unity and self-completeness.
Lightly to case aside such a definition as abstract, vague,
Empty, is no less short sighted than to treat the idea of the
Absolute Will, of the Transcendental Reason, of the Eternal
Love, as mere intellectual factors in the aesthetic experience.
It should not be criticised as giving "no objective account of
the nature and origin of Beauty." The nature of Beauty is
indicated in the definition; the origin of Beauty may be studied