33. When we speak of absolute Beauty, we must therefore withdraw from
all determinate shape, setting none before the eyes (of our mind);
otherwise, we would expose ourselves to descending from absolute
beauty to something which does not deserve the name of beauty but by
virtue of an obscure and feeble participation[139]; while absolute
Beauty is a shapeless form, if it be at all allowed to be an idea (or
form). Thus you may approach the universal Shape only by abstraction.
Abstract even the form found in the reason (that is, the essence), by
which we distinguish one action from another. Abstract, for instance,
the difference that separates temperance from justice, though both be
beautiful. For by the mere fact that intelligence conceives an object
as something proper, the object that it conceives is diminished, even
though this object were the totality of intelligible entities; and,
on the other hand, if each of them, taken apart, have a single form,
nevertheless all taken together will offer a certain variety.