Yet the expression of this thought is pleasant, among other reasons,
because of the rhythmic charm of language. We shall come back to this
fact in our chapter on "The Problem of Evil in Aesthetics." There is
no contradiction between the fair form of a work of art and its content,
however repellent. For if we value the sympathetic knowledge of life,
we shall be glad of any means impelling us to undertake what alone can
give this--a friendly dwelling with life itself. Thus the decorative
and the expressive functions of art are reconciled--pleasure and
intuition meet.

Just as from time to time pleasure in sensation has been one-sidedly
thought to be the purpose of art, so likewise the unity characteristic
of beautiful things. Indeed, beauty and order have become almost
synonymous in popular thought. And, to be sure, this unity, as we have
already remarked, has its own value; the mind delights in order just
for its own sake, and the artist, who is bent on making something
worthful on its own account, strives to develop it for that reason.
And yet unity is no more independent of expression and intuition than
sensation is; it too enters into their service. Many forms of unity
in works of art are themselves media of expression--the simplest and
most striking example is perhaps the rhythmical ordering of sounds in
poetry and music, the emotional value of which everybody appreciates.
In a later chapter, I shall try to show that the same is true of harmony
and balance. In another way, also, unity serves intuition. For the
existence of order in an experience is indispensable to that wholeness
of view, that mastery in the mind, which is half of intuition. The
merely various, the chaotic, the disorganized, cannot be grasped or
understood. In order that an experience may be understood, its items
must be strung together by some principle in terms of which they may