6. I refrain from any reference to Beauty as a principle of Design. It
is not a principle, but an experience. It is an experience which defies
analysis and has no explanation. We distinguish it from all other
experiences. It gives us pleasure, perhaps the highest pleasure that we
have. At the same time it is idle to talk about it, or to write about
it. The less said about it the better. “It is beautiful,” you say.
Then somebody asks, “Why is it beautiful?” There is no answer to that
question. You say it is beautiful because it gives you pleasure: but
other things give you pleasure which are not beautiful. Pleasure is,
therefore, no criterion of Beauty. What is the pleasure which Beauty
gives? It is the pleasure which you have in the sense of Beauty. That
is all you can say. You cannot explain either the experience or the
kind of pleasure which it gives you.
While I am quite unable to give any definition or explanation of
Beauty, I know where to look for it, where I am sure to find it. The
Beautiful is revealed, always, so far as I know, in the forms of Order,
in the modes of Harmony, of Balance, or of Rhythm. While there are many
instances of Harmony, Balance, and Rhythm which are not particularly
beautiful, there is, I believe, nothing really beautiful which is not
orderly in one or the other, in two, or in all three of these modes. In
seeking the Beautiful, therefore, we look for it in instances of Order,
in instances of Harmony, Balance, and Rhythm. We shall find it in what
may be called supreme instances. This is perhaps our nearest approach
to a definition of Beauty: that it is a supreme instance of Order,
intuitively felt, instinctively appreciated.