the objective method are selected by us from among countless other
objects and called beautiful because they have a value for us, without
a feeling for which we should not know them to be beautiful at all.
They are not, like sun and moon, independent of mind and will and
capable of being understood in complete isolation from man. No world
of beauty exists apart from a purpose that finds realization there.
We are, to be sure, not always aware of the existence of this purpose
when we enjoy a picture or a poem or a bit of landscape; yet it is
present none the less. The child is equally unaware of the purpose of
the food which pleases him, yet the purpose is the ground of his
pleasure; and we can understand his hunger only through a knowledge
of it.

The dependence of beauty upon a relation to purpose is clear from the
fact that in our feelings and judgments about art we not only change
and disagree, but correct ourselves and each other. The history of
taste, both in the individual and the race, is not a mere process, but
a progress, an evolution. "We were wrong in calling that poem
beautiful," we say; "you are mistaken in thinking that picture a good
one"; "the eighteenth century held a false view of the nature of
poetry"; "the English Pre-Raphaelites confused the functions of poetry
and painting"; "to-day we understand what the truly pictorial is better
than Giotto did"; and so on. Now nothing can be of worth to us, one
thing cannot be better than another, nor can we be mistaken as to its
value except with reference to some purpose which it fulfills or does
not fulfill. There is no growth or evolution apart from a purpose in
terms of which we can read the direction of change as forward rather
than backward.

This purpose cannot be understood by the observation and analysis, no