Darwin as much as said, "Beauty has been the gleam which the instinct
of the race has followed in its upward development. Beauty has been
the genius of Evolution." Thus science has lent its authority to
philosophy. The idea is charming. In its power it is irresistible. It
certainly dominates modern literary art, being the principal dynamic
of Ibsen and Bernard Shaw and all their followers.
It is a very important matter. There can be nothing more important in
literary art, and indeed in one's articulate conception of the meaning
of life, than the notion of what is beautiful. What if this conception
be narrow, what if it be simply a generalisation, a generalisation
from too few observations? What if the wish were father to the
thought?
The only test of philosophy and art is experience. And it is the
wanderer, the life-explorer without irrelevant preoccupations, who
is the true naturalist, collecting experiences and making maps for
spiritual eyes. What then does the wanderer note?
First, that the knowledge of the beautiful is an affirmation.
Something in the soul suddenly rises up and ejaculates "Yes" to some
outside phenomenon, and then he is aware that he is looking at Beauty.
As he gazes he knows himself in communion with what he sees--sometimes
that communion is a great joy and sometimes a great sadness.
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