RECOGNITION OF BEAUTY DEPENDS ON PRELIMINARY INTERIOR BEAUTY.
Further, the cause of beauty must be either ugly, beautiful or indifferent. If it were ugly, it could not produce its opposite. If it were indifferent, it would have no more reason to produce that which is beautiful, than that which is ugly. Therefore nature which produces so many beautiful objects must in herself possess a very superior beauty. But as we do not have the habit of seeing the interior of things, which remains unknown, we attach ourselves only to their exterior, forgetting that which moves us hides itself within them; and (in this habit of ours) we resemble (Narcissus[206]), who, on seeing his image, and not knowing whence it came, would try to catch it. It is not the mass of an object that constitutes its attractiveness for us, for it is not in mass that beauty inheres.[207] This is revealed by the beauty found in the sciences, in the virtues, and in general in the souls, where it shines more truly and brilliantly on contemplation and admiration of its inherent wisdom. Then we do not regard the countenance, which may be ugly; we leave aside the form of the body, to attach ourselves exclusively to interior beauty. If, carried away by the emotion that such a spectacle should cause, you should not proclaim its beauty; and if, on directing your gaze within yourself, you should not experience all the charm of beauty,[208] then you search for intelligible beauty, by such a method, would be vain; for you would seek it only with what is impure and ugly.[209] That is why these discussions are not intended for all men. But if you have recognized beauty within yourself they you may rise to the reminiscence (of intelligible beauty).