THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

60 The Harmony of Virtueeyes, for it perceives what does not exist, but the perceptive eyeonly what does exist.Wilson: You are right.Keshav: I mean that nothing without form can have an effecton the retina of the perceptive eye.Wilson: That is evident.Keshav: Then to be visible to the perceptive eye, the colourof a quality, which is really the soul of the quality, must suffusethe action which expresses it, which is the body of the quality.Wilson: It must.Keshav: And is colour without form a perfect type ofbeauty?Wilson: No.Keshav: Then a quality must suffuse its body with its soul,or, since the word action is growing ambiguous, its expressionwith its colour.Wilson: Yes, I agree to that.Keshav: And so the quality will so suffuse its expression asto be visible to the perceptive eye, just as the soul of a rose,which is the effect on the retina of the imaginative eye, suffusesher form with colour which is the effect on the retina of theperceptive eye, and varies according to the variety of colours,and if two roses have the same form but one is crimson and theother yellow, the soul of the red rose is seen to be scarlet withunholy passion, but the soul of the yellow rose is seen to be dulland blanched and languid, like the reaction after extremely voluptuousenjoyment.And so virtue may possess both form and colour, and, Isuppose, may artistically possess both, or will colour be detrimentalto the perfection of virtue as tinting to the perfection ofsculpture?Treneth: By no means; for qualities are not hewn of marbleor cast in beaten gold or chiselled in Indian ivory, but are mouldedin the delicate and flower-like texture of human emotion and, ifcolourless, are scarcely beautiful.Keshav: Then we are agreed that a quality must possess bothform and colour or will not be a perfect virtue.Treneth: Plainly.