Note 441 — Chapter IX

Footnote 441: (return) It is an opinion which goes as far back as the time of Plato, and even Pythagoras, and has ever since been widely entertained, that beauty of form consists in some sort of proportion or harmony which may admit of a mathematical expression; and later and more scientific research is altogether in its favor. It is now established that complementary colors, that is, colors which when combined make up the full beam, are felt to be beautiful when seen simultaneously; that is, the mind is made to delight in the unities of nature. At the basis of music there are certain fixed ratios; and in poetry, of every description, there are measures, and correspondencies. Pythagoras has often been ridiculed for his doctrine of "the music of the spheres;" and probably his doctrine was somewhat fanciful, but later science shows that there is a harmony in all nature--in its forms, in its forces, and in its motions. The highest unorganized and all organized objects take definite forms which are regulated by mathematical laws. The forces of nature can be estimated in numbers, and light and heat go in undulations, whilst the movements of the great bodies in nature admit of a precise quantitative expression. The harmonies of nature in respect of color, of number, of form, and of time are forcibly exhibited in "Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation," by M'Cosh.