ABSTRACT
This is obvious also from another angle: If a man loves a beautiful form with animal desire, he deserves reproof, even condemnation and
the charge of sin, as, for instance, those who commit unnatural adultery and in general people who go astray. But whenever he loves a pleasing form with an intellectual consideration, in the matter we have explained, then this is to be considered as an approximation to nobility and an increase in goodness. For he covets something whereby he will come nearer to the influence of That which is the First Source of influence and the Pure Object of love, and more similar to the exalted and noble beings. And this will dispose him to grace, generosity, and kindness. For this reason, one will never find the wise – those who belong to the noble and learned, and who do not follow the way of those who make greedy and avaricious demands – to be free from having their hearts occupied with a beautiful human form. Therefore, if a man acquires over and above those perfections which humans have in addition [to those possessed by other beings] the excellence of a harmonious form – which derives from the integrity and harmony of nature and from the exhibition of a divine impression – then that man has the strongest claim to receive the very kernel of the fruit of the heart and the very essence of the purest kind of love. Therefore the prophet says: Seek ye satisfaction of your needs in those of beautiful countenance, the plain meaning of which is that beauty of form is to be found only where there is a good natural composition, and that this good harmony and composition serve to improve the internal disposition and to sweeten the character. It does sometimes happen, however, that a man is ugly in external form and beautiful in internal disposition. In such a case only two explanations are possible: either his external ugliness is not due to an ugliness of harmony within lying in the very essence of the composition, but to an accidental external damage; or else the beauty of his internal disposition is not due to nature but to long habit. Similarly it sometimes happens that a man who is beautiful in external form is of an ugly disposition. In that case, again, only two explanations are possible: either the ugliness of his character is something that has happened accidentally to his nature after the completion of its composition, or it is due to a strong influence of habit.
