Here there is a difficulty:  since the judgment of taste does not express a characteristic of the object, but a state of mind in the observer, a feeling, a satisfaction, it is purely subjective; and yet it puts forth a claim to be universally communicable.  The difficulty can be removed only on the assumption of a common aesthetic sense, of a corresponding organization of the powers of representation in all men, which yields the common standard for the pleasurableness of the impression.  The agreeable appeals to that in man which is different in different individuals, the beautiful to that which functions alike in all; the former addresses itself to the passive sensibility, the latter to the active judgment.  The agreeable—­because of the non-calculable differences in our sensuous inclinations, which are in part conditioned by bodily states—­possesses no universality whatever, the good possesses an objective, and the beautiful a subjective universality.  The judgment concerning the agreeable has an empirical, that concerning the beautiful an a priori, determining ground:  in the former case, the judgment follows the feeling, in the latter, it precedes it.

An object is considered beautiful (for, strictly speaking, we may say only this, not that it is beautiful) when its form puts the powers of the human mind in a state of harmony, brings the intuitive and rational faculties into concordant activity, and produces an agreeable proportion between the imagination and the understanding.  In giving the occasion for an harmonious play of the cognitive activities (that is, for an easy combination of the manifold into unity) the beautiful object is purposive for us, for our function of apprehension; it is—­here we obtain a determination of the judgment of taste from the standpoint of relation—­purposive without a definite purpose.  We know perfectly well that a landscape which attracts us has not been specially arranged for the purpose of delighting us, and we do not wish to find in a work of art anything of an intention to please.  An object is perfect when it is purposive for itself (corresponds to its concept); useful when it is purposive for our desire (corresponds to a practical intention of man); beautiful when the arrangement of its parts is purposive for the relation between the fancy and understanding of the beholder (corresponds in an unusual degree to the conditions of our apprehension).  Perfection is internal (real, objective) purposiveness, and utility is external purposiveness, both for a definite purpose; beauty, on the other hand, is purposiveness without a purpose, formal, subjective purposiveness.  The beautiful pleases by its mere form.  The satisfaction in the perfect is of a conceptual or intellectual kind, the satisfaction in the beautiful, emotional or aesthetic in character.

The combination of these four determinations yields an exhaustive definition of the beautiful:  The beautiful is that which universally and necessarily arouses disinterested satisfaction by its mere form (purposiveness without the representation of a purpose).