“ What we objectify in beauty is a sensation. What we objectify in the sublime is an act. ”
George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty (1896). copy citation
| Author | George Santayana |
|---|---|
| Source | The Sense of Beauty |
| Topic | beauty sensation |
| Date | 1896 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26842/26842-h/26842-h.htm |
Context
“Thoughts and actions are properly sublime, and visible things only by analogy and suggestion when they induce a certain moral emotion; whereas beauty belongs properly to sensible things, and can be predicated of moral facts only by a figure of rhetoric. What we objectify in beauty is a sensation. What we objectify in the sublime is an act. This act is necessarily pleasant, for if it were not the sublime would be a bad quality and one we should rather never encounter in the world. The glorious joy of self-assertion in the face of an uncontrollable world is indeed so deep and entire, that it furnishes just that transcendent element of worth for which we were looking when we tried to understand how the expression of pain could sometimes please.”
source
