Beauty

We are part of the animal kingdom, it is true, but as a species we are unique. We are the only animal who writes books, has religion, says prayers, farms, builds complex machines, and so on. This is part of what makes our dignity and worth as individual human beings different than that of the other animals. There are some people who disagree, thinking that the dignity of a human being is the same than that of a buffalo or an eagle (or a slug!). They are wrong, and this is easy to prove. Human beings are scientifically observably different from other animals. Many people project onto animals human characteristics, and some go even as far to call their domestic pets, in high-pitched and softly rounded language, their “children.” But that distorts the full dignity of what a person is.

Can you imagine a couple of cows walking through a museum, enjoying art? What about a horse, a kangaroo, or a cat sitting and staring at a painting for five minutes? It’s a ridiculous thought. You might have seen such a thing on an animated television cartoon, but that’s not reality. Human beings are the only animals with an appreciation of beauty. But what does that mean? What is beauty?

There is a whole branch of philosophy dedicated to this very question called aesthetics (or esthetics). It differentiates and defines two concepts: 1) a thing that is beautiful and 2) beauty itself. When I speak of beauty, I do not mean a beautiful day, or a beautiful woman, or a beautiful painting. What I do mean is the common characteristic among all three of those things – beauty itself.

Beauty is a good thing. We are all drawn toward it, and there is something about it which we desire. We are affected by beauty in a positive way that makes us feel good. How beauty does this to us is a bit of a mystery, but we can definitely learn and know some truths about it. We can look at what all beautiful things have in common and from that point demonstrate the uniqueness of the human race among other animals.

Beauty has three components: proportion, order, and harmony. Proportion refers to the size of something. Order has to do with the arrangement of something’s parts. Harmony is similar to the concepts of “unity” or “togetherness.” When combined in a certain way, these three components are recognized as something good that we all desire.