3. The soul appreciates beauty by an especially ordered faculty, whose
sole function it is to appreciate all that concerns beauty, even
when the other faculties take part in this judgment. Often the soul
makes her (aesthetic) decisions by comparison with the form of the
beautiful which is within her, using this form as a standard by which
to judge. But what agreement can anything corporeal have with what
is incorporeal? For example, how can an architect judge a building
placed before him as beautiful, by comparing it with the Idea which he
has within himself? The only explanation can be that, on abstracting
the stones, the exterior object is nothing but the interior form, no
doubt divided within the extent of the matter, but still one, though
manifested in the manifold? When the senses perceive in an object the
form which combines, unites and dominates a substance which lacks
shape, and therefore is of a contrary nature; and if they also perceive
a shape which distinguishes itself from the other shapes by its
elegance, then the soul, uniting these multiple elements, fuses them,
comparing them to the indivisible form which she bears within herself,
then she pronounces their agreement, kinship and harmony with that
interior type.