beauty

I. 6. 2
(Armstrong Selection and Translation AP)

(Beauty in material things is the result of the action on them of Form and logos, which unifies, and so makes beautiful, things of diverse parts and informs natural unities as a whole.)

We maintain that the things in this world are beautiful by participating in Form; for every shapeless thing which is naturally capable of receiving shape and form is ugly and outside the divine logos as long as it has no share in logos and form. This is absolute ugliness. But a thing is also ugly when it is not completely dominated by shape and logos, since its matter has not submitted to be completely shaped according to the form. The form, then, approaches and composes that which is to come into being from many parts into a single ordered whole; it brings it into a completed unity and makes it one by agreement of its parts; for since it is one itself that which is shaped by it must also be one as far as a thing can be which is composed of many parts. So beauty rests upon the material thing when it has been brought into unity, and gives itself to parts and wholes alike. When it comes upon something that is one and composed of like parts it gives the same gift to the whole; as sometimes art gives beauty to a whole house with its parts, and sometimes nature gives beauty to a single stone. So then the beautiful body comes into being by sharing in a logos which comes from the divine Forms.