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Single Idea 4870

[filed under theme 21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 5. Natural Beauty ]

Full Idea

The most beautiful hand seen through the microscope will appear horrible.

Gist of Idea

The most beautiful hand seen through the microscope will appear horrible

Source

Baruch de Spinoza (Letters to Hugo Boxel [1674], 1674?)

Book Ref

Spinoza,Benedict de: 'Ethics, Improvement of Understanding, Letters', ed/tr. Elwes,R [Dover 1955], p.382

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A Reaction

Spinoza offers this nicely expressed point to support his view that beauty is strictly relative to observers, but I am unconvinced. If the outline of the hand is its key aesthetic feature, the viewer through the microscope cannot see it.

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The 14 ideas with the same theme [beauty in people, life and landscape]:

185	Socrates despised good looks [Socrates, by Plato]

282	Non-physical beauty can only be shown clearly by speech [Plato]

183	Stage two is the realisation that beauty of soul is of more value than beauty of body [Plato]

184	Progress goes from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, and reaches absolute beauty [Plato]

2837	Nothing contrary to nature is beautiful [Aristotle]

5851	Pentathletes look the most beautiful, because they combine speed and strength [Aristotle]

4870	The most beautiful hand seen through the microscope will appear horrible [Spinoza]

7540	Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws [Goethe]

19578

Only self-illuminated perfect individuals are beautiful [Novalis]

22042

Natural beauty is unimportant, because it doesn't show human freedom [Hegel, by Pinkard]

18326

The beautiful never stands alone; it derives from man's pleasure in man [Nietzsche]

23921

Our feeling for natural beauty is different from the aesthetic emotion of art [Bell,C]

23929

We only see landscapes as artistic if we ignore their instrumental value [Bell,C]

18548

Natural beauty reassures us that the world is where we belong [Scruton]