Part 2, Section 12
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 2: Of the passions
“It is by participation of species that we call every sensible object beautiful.”
—
Plotinus
An Essay on the Beautiful
Context: It is by participation of species that we call every sensible object beautiful. Thus, since everything void of form is by nature fitted for its reception, as far as it is destitute of reason and form it is base and separate from the divine reason, the great fountain of forms; and whatever is entirely remote from this immortal source is perfectly base and deformed. And such is matter, which by its nature is ever averse from the supervening irradiations of form. Whenever, therefore, form accedes, it conciliates in amicable unity the parts which are about to compose a whole; for being itself one it is not wonderful that the subject of its power should tend to unity, as far as the nature of a compound will admit. Hence beauty is established in multitude when the many is reduced into one, and in this case it communicates itself both to the parts and to the whole. But when a particular one, composed from similar parts, is received it gives itself to the whole, without departing from the sameness and integrity of its nature. Thus at one and the same time it communicates itself to the whole building and its several parts; and at another time confines itself to a single stone, and then the first participation arises from the operations of art, but the second from the formation of nature. And hence body becomes beautiful through the communion supernally proceeding from divinity.
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Plotinus 15
Neoplatonist philosopher 203–270Related quotes
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[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 20, 978-1-93659700-0]
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Source: Outlines of a Philosophy of Art, 1925, p. 7
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George Bancroft
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Literary and Historical Miscellanies (1855), The Necessity, the Reality, and the Promise of the Progress of the Human Race (1854)
Context: The unchanging character of law is the only basis on which continuous action can rest. Without it man would be but as the traveller over endless morasses; the builder on quicksands; the mariner without compass or rudder, driven successively whithersoever changing winds may blow. The universe is the reflex and image of its Creator. "The true work of art," says Michael Angelo, "is but a shadow of the Divine perfections." We may say in a more general manner, that Beauty Itself Is But The Sensible Image Of The Infinite; that all creation is a manifestation of the Almighty; not the result of caprice, but the glorious display of his perfection; and as the universe thus produced, is always in the course of change, so its regulating mind is a living Providence, perpetually exerting itself anew. If his designs could be thwarted, we should lose the great evidence of his unity, as well as the anchor of our own hope.
Harmony is the characteristic of the intellectual system of the universe; and immutable laws of moral existence must pervade all time and all space, all ages and all worlds.
Frances Bean Cobain
(1992) American artist
17 June 2014 https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666/status/479082538904723457
Twitter https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666 posts
Ilya Prigogine
(1917–2003) physical chemist
Source: Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature (1984), p. 293.
Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 13 (p. 288)
“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
Variant: It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.
Source: The Secret History