It is thus evident that the higher the beauty in the Associated Arts, the simpler are the signs or sign combinations which produce it; and hence the Law of Recognition rests on a secure foundation, for the simple must necessarily be recognized before the complex.
General opinion the test of beauty in the Associated Arts.
The first aim of art is sensorial beauty, because sensorial experience must precede the impression of beauty upon the mind. The extent to which something appears to be sensorially harmonious depends upon the condition or character of the nerves conveying the impression of it to the brain. We know from experience that exercise of these nerves results in the removal or partial removal of natural irregularities therein, and enables a complex form of beauty to be recognized which was not before perceived. The vast majority of the people have not cultivated their sense nerves except involuntarily, and consequently can only recognize more or less simple beauty: thus, as the sign combinations become more complicated, so is diminished the number of persons capable of appreciating the beauty thereof.
The highest form of beauty conceivable to the imagination is that of the human being, because here corporeal and intellectual beauty may be combined. This is universally admitted and has been so since the first records of mental activity. The human figure must be regarded as a single sign since the relation of its parts to each other is fixed and invariable; and further it is the simplest, because of all signs none is so quickly recognized by the rudimentary understanding. In the Associated Arts therefore, the highest beauty is to be found in the simplest sign, and this is the one supremely important sign in these arts, for without it only the lowest forms may be produced.
From all this we determine that the higher the beauty in a work of the Associated Arts, the larger is the number of persons capable of recognizing it; so that if we say that something in these arts is beautiful because it pleases, we imply that it is still more beautiful if we say that it generally pleases, and the highest of all standards of beauty is involved in the interpretation of Longinus: "That is sublime and beautiful which always pleases, and takes equally with all sorts of men." Thus, in the Associated Arts, the general opinion as to the æsthetic value of a work of high art is both demonstration and law.[27]