Chapter II
Francis Plumptre Beresford Osmaston translation
THE BEAUTY OF NATURE
A. The Beauty of Nature as such 160
1. The Idea as Life 160
[(a) The first mode under which the notion is in Nature asserted as objectivity is that of physical matter, the ideal unity whereof is not found as ideality 160
(b) A further step is the integration of natural objects under a unified system, as the solar system 161
(c) The third mode is that of organic Life. This alone is a determinate existence of the Idea] 163
2. The animated life of Nature as Beauty 171
[(a) The motion of life considered in relation to the conception of beauty 171
(b) The nature of organic unity, and the degree it contributes to the beauty of an object 173
(c) The inward unity of soul-life and the degree it contributes to the correlation of parts of an organism, or is asserted in external form to our senses rather than our reflection] 175
3. Modes under which the beauty of Nature is investigated 179
[(a) Where the form is immediately in the materia as its essence or conformative energy, as in crystals, or more concretely as the informing soul through the living organism 180
(b) Mobility in animals as a test of their apparent beauty 180
(c) Self-conscious life the culminating mode] 182
B. The external Beauty of abstract Form viewed as Uniformity, Symmetry, Conformity to Rule, and Harmony. Also Beauty regarded generally as abstract unity of the Sensuous Material 184
C. The Defective Aspects of the Beauty of Nature 196
1. The Inward principle in its immediacy as merely such inwardness 199
[(a) Immediate singularity as conserved in the purely animal organism 199
(b) Of the nature of the contrast between the above and the human body 200
(c) Social organizations viewed in such particularized immediacy, and the defects they betray as such external totalities] 201
2. The Dependence of particular existence as viewed in its immediate singularity 202
[(a) The dependence of animal life upon its natural environment 203
(b) The nature of a similar dependence in the case of the human organism 203
(c) The dependence of human souls, or spiritual interests, on the prose-life of ordinary existence] 204
3. The limitations implied by such conditions 205
[(a) The restriction of species in the animal world, and of the social condition as it affects human individuality 205
(b) The limitation of racial division, or of particular families, or particular professions, and the effect of such upon the aspect of beauty 206
(c) It is the very defects of this finite plane of reality, which stimulates man to recover the vision of his freedom in Art] 208