If the preceding argument be admitted, it will be found to have relieved the student of two delusive dogmas,—­and the more delusive, as carrying with them a plausible show of science.

As to the flowery declamations about Beauty, they would not here be noticed, were they not occasionally met with in works of high merit, and not unfrequently mixed up with philosophic truth.  If they have any definite meaning, it amounts to this,—­that the Beautiful is the summit of every possible excellence!  The extravagance, not to say absurdity, of such a proposition, confounding, as it does, all received distinctions, both in the moral and the natural world, needs no comment.  It is hardly to be believed, however, that the writers in question could have deliberately intended this.  It is more probable, that, in so expressing themselves, they were only giving vent to an enthusiastic feeling, which we all know is generally most vague when associated with admiration; it is not therefore strange that the ardent expression of it should partake of its vagueness.  Among the few critical works of authority in which the word is so used, we may mention the (in many respects admirable) Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, where we find the following sentence:—­“The beauty of the Hercules is one, of the Gladiator another, of the Apollo another; which, of course, would present three different Ideas of Beauty.”  If this had been said of various animals, differing in kind, the term so applied might, perhaps, have been appropriate.  But the same term is here applied to objects of the same kind, differing not essentially even in age; we say age, inasmuch as in the three great divisions, or periods, of human life, namely, childhood, youth, and maturity, the characteristic conditions of each are so essentially distinct, as virtually to separate them into positive kinds.

But it is no less idle than invidious to employ our time in overturning the errors of others; if we establish Truth, they will fall of themselves.  There cannot be two right sides to any question; and, if we are right, what is opposed to us must of necessity he wrong.  Whether we are so or not must be determined by those who admit or reject what has already been advanced on the subject of Beauty, in the first Discourse.  It will be remembered, that, in the course of our argument there, we were brought to the conclusion, that Beauty was the Idea of a certain physical condition, both general and ultimate; general, as presiding over objects of many kinds, and ultimate, as being the perfection of that peculiar condition in each, and therefore not applicable to, or representing, its degrees in any; which, as approximations only to the one supreme Idea, should truly be distinguished by other terms.  Accordingly, we cannot, strictly speaking, say of two persons of the same age and sex, differing from each other, that they are equally beautiful.  We hear this, indeed, almost daily; it is nevertheless