and which is admired for its form alone.

Let us, for the present, confine our attention to this most limited
species of beauty,--the beauty of configuration only.

This beauty of mere outline has, by some celebrated writers, been
resolved into some certain curved line, or line of beauty; by others
into numerical proportion of dimensions; and again by others into early
pleasing associations with curvilinear forms. But, if we look at the
subject in an intellectual light, we shall find a better explanation.
Forms are the embodiment of thought or law. For the common eye they
must be embodied in material shape; while to the geometer and the
artist, they may be so distinctly shadowed forth in conception as to
need no material figure to render their beauty appreciable. Now this
embodiment, or this conception, in all cases, demands some law in the
mind, by which it is conceived or made; and we must look at the nature
of this law, in order to approach more nearly to understanding the
nature of beauty.

We are thus led, through our search for beauty, into the temple of
Geometry, the most ancient and venerable of sciences. From her oracles
alone can we learn the generation of beauty, so far as it consists in
form alone.

Maupertuis' law of the least action is not simply a mechanical, but it
is a universal axiom. The Divine Being does all things with the least
possible expenditure of force; and all hearts and all minds honor men
in proportion as they approach to this divine economy. As gracefulness
in motion consists in moving with the least waste of muscular power, so
elegance in intellectual and literary exertions arises from the ease