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SUGGESTIONS ON AESTHETIC. 523 perception, and is entirely matter of belief; because I am willing to infer that it is there. But I would suggest that the best future of aesthetic may lie in a gradual transference of the grounds of such beauty from the region of inference to that of immediate perception. In the case of music some such transference has occurred. Modern harmonies sound beautiful only in virtue of our, by this time instinctive, acceptance of the scale as the basis of our music ; a basis partly conventional. And if it be asked what is to be our protection against accepting extravagances and absurdities in art at the bidding of the artist, it may be suggested that there are phenomena which taken together do in very truth represent the one ultimate meaning better than other phenomena would do ; that the highest artistic faculty consists in the power of recognising these phenomena ; and that the human race have so far the power of recognising the same phenomena instinctively, that the artists who select them are sooner or later felt to be supreme. I have been speaking of the beauty of "meaning". Pre- viously I described such beauty as arising when quality holds its own in an " antagonistic medium". It is interest- ing to examine these very different phrases side by side. Let us inquire a little further into the " antagonism " ; our previous instances of it were the adverse medium of stone in which the quality of humanness holds its own, and the adverse medium of five-syllabled-ness in which nine- syllabled-ness was still present. Does a similar antagonism occur in every instance of beauty, whether expressive or merely formal? Yes ; and there is no difficulty in seeing that it is so. In a beautiful geometrical figure there are, for each line that stands correctly drawn, an infinite number of incorrect directions that it might have taken. In spite of infinite possibilities of error swarming round it, the line takes the one infinitesimal right course. Here, too, we have Gautier's " forme rebelle," out of which the beautiful figure forces its way, in the immense number of difficult conditions to be fulfilled ; for it is necessary that every one of the infinitely numerous parts of every line should be in its one correct posi- tion, and not in any of the infinitely numerous incorrect adjacent positions. Turn now to the beauty of expression. In it we have factors that offer more or less or perhaps very little actual sameness in difference, and an indefinite degree of potential or implied or believed-in sameness in difference. Now here, too, we have a fulfilment of conditions ; the items are (we