That we ever live not only in a material, but also in a spiritual world, can be easily apprehended without at all entangling ourselves in the web-work of metaphysics.  The least of our acts or motions, is it not always preceded by a thought, a volition, a something intangible, invisible?  All that we voluntarily do is, must be, an offspring of mind.  The waving of the hand is never a simple, it is a compound process:  mind and body, spirit and matter, concur in it.  The visible, corporeal movement is but the outward expression of an inward, incorporeal movement.  And so in all our acts and motions, from birth till death; they issue out of the invisible within us; they are feelings actualized, thoughts embodied.  The embodiment is perishable, the source of it imperishable.  It is not a recondite, super-subtle, metaphysical or psychological postulate, it is a palpable, and may be and ought to be a familiar fact, that each one of us is ruled by the eternal and invisible within us.

Now, just as our words and deeds and movements stand to our mind, as being the utterance and embodiment of that, so do we stand towards Deity, being the utterance and embodiment of the divine thought and will.  As all our doings are but exhibitions of our minds, so ourselves are manifestations of God.  Through all things shines the eternal soul.  The more perfect the embodiment, the more translucent is the soul; and when this is most transparent, making the body luminous with the fullness of its presence, there is beauty, which may be said to be the most intense and refined incarnation and exhibition of the divine spirit.

Behind and within every form of being is immanent the creative power; and thence, in proportion as this power discloses itself, is object, act, or emotion beautiful.  Thus is beauty always spiritual, a revelation more or less clear of the creative spirit.  Hence our emotion in presence of the truly beautiful, which calms and exalts us.  Hence evil never is, cannot be, beautiful:  the bad is, must be, ugly.  Evil consists in the deficiency of the divine creative spirit, whose fullness gives, is, beauty.  Evil is imperfection, unripeness, shapelessness, weakness in, or opposition to, the creative spirit.  Evil is life that is unhealthy, short-coming.  Wherever there is full, unperverted life, there is, there must be, beauty.  The beautiful blossoms on every stem of unpoisoned power.  The sap of sound life ever molds itself into forms of beauty.

But however rich the exhibition of the divine soul, however glowing with perfection the form, however noble the act and pure the feeling, the richness, the perfection, the nobleness, the purity will be lost on us, unless within us there be sympathy with the spirit whence they flow.  Only by spirit can spirit be greeted.