2. Returning to our first consideration, we shall examine the nature
of the element of beauty in bodies. It is something perceivable at the
very first glance, something which the soul recognizes as kindred, and
sympathetic to her own nature, which she welcomes and assimilates.
But as soon as she meets an ugly object, she recoils, repudiates it,
and rejects it as something foreign, towards which her real nature
feels antipathy. That is the reason why the soul, being such as it is,
namely, of an essence superior to all other beings, when she perceives
an object kindred to her own nature, or which reveals only some traces
of it, rejoices, is transported, compares this object with her own
nature, thinks of herself, and of her intimate being as it would be
impossible to fail to perceive this resemblance.