Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to

O seekers of wisdom, gather close, for the words of Walter Pater strike to the heart of an eternal pursuit. "Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to define beauty in the abstract, to express it in the most general terms, to find some universal formula for it." In these words, Pater reveals a truth that has echoed through the ages: beauty—that elusive, radiant force that stirs the soul—is not easily captured, not easily defined. It slips through our fingers like water, like light, always beyond our grasp yet always present, always near. And yet, throughout the centuries, humanity has tried again and again to give form to this most sacred of experiences, to understand it, to make it something we can define and contain.

In the days of ancient Greece, the concept of beauty was not merely an abstraction but a guiding force. The great philosophers like Plato and Aristotle sought to define beauty in terms that could be understood by the mind. Plato, in his Symposium, spoke of beauty as something eternal and unchanging, a form that existed in the realm of the divine, beyond the physical world. To him, beauty was not just the pleasing shape of a flower or the grace of a figure; it was the very essence of truth itself, a reflection of the divine order that governed all things. Aristotle, too, spoke of beauty, but in more practical terms, seeing it as a harmony of parts, a balance of form and function. Yet both men, though brilliant in their reasoning, were grasping at the same elusive concept that Pater refers to: beauty as something that cannot be fully defined, something that cannot be captured by the intellect alone.

In the years that followed, poets, artists, and philosophers continued to grapple with this idea of beauty. Keats, the poet of romanticism, sought to understand beauty through his famous words, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” For Keats, beauty was not something to be contained or analyzed, but something to be experienced in the moment, something that transcended the boundaries of reason and intellect. His poetry sought to capture the fleeting, ephemeral nature of beauty, to show that it is not something that can be defined but something that must be felt, something that must be lived. In his works, beauty was not a distant ideal but a present reality, shining through the ordinary and the everyday.

Consider also the work of Michelangelo, whose art sought to capture the divine in human form. The proportions of the human body in his sculptures were not mere representations of the physical world but attempts to capture something more, to reveal the inner beauty that lay beneath the surface. His masterpiece, the David, is not just a figure of a man; it is a symbol of human potential, of the divine spark that resides within each of us. Yet, even in this work of genius, Michelangelo was still wrestling with the same challenge: to define and capture the ineffable nature of beauty. His art, like the works of all great artists, was an attempt to reach beyond the physical realm and touch something eternal, something universal.

In his reflections, Pater points to this age-old struggle: the attempt to define beauty in the abstract, to reduce it to a set of principles or formulas. But herein lies the lesson, O children of wisdom: beauty cannot be fully captured by any single formula, by any single definition. It is not something that can be confined to a set of logical rules or intellectual concepts. Beauty transcends the mind’s ability to fully comprehend it. It is both universal and personal, an experience that resonates with each of us in a unique way, yet one that is shared by all.

The true understanding of beauty, then, is not in the attempt to define it or to find a universal formula, but in the experience of it. It is in the moment of seeing, hearing, or feeling something that stirs the soul, that moves us to a place beyond ourselves. Whether it is the sound of a bird’s song at dawn, the brushstrokes of a painting, or the words of a poem that echo in the heart, beauty is a living thing, not a dead concept. It is in the pursuit of this experience, in the way we open ourselves to the world, that we begin to understand the true nature of beauty.

Thus, O children of wisdom, the lesson of Pater’s words is clear: do not spend your days chasing after abstract definitions, seeking to capture beauty in formulas or rules. Instead, embrace the world around you with an open heart, and let beauty reveal itself to you in all its forms. Whether in the arts, in nature, or in human connection, let beauty be your guide, and let it lead you to a deeper understanding of life itself. For it is not in the defining, but in the experiencing, that we truly come to know the heart of beauty. Let it stir your soul, and in that stirring, you will find the divine.