Augustine thought that what pleases people in beauty is design: "And in design, dimensions; and in dimensions, number" (De Ordine ch. 15). Beauty is ultimately a matter of numerical proportion. Rhythm, too, is based on numerical proportions (De Musica Book 6). Augustine sees numeric proportions as eternal and divine, yet at the same time he hints that the soul itself may be "the very number by which all things are numbered" (De Ordine ch. 15). If so, then he locates the source of all Beauty within the human soul, and this inner Beauty could be one of God's traces in the world.

See Also

Aesthetic Judgment; Beauty; Number.

Bibliography

Beardsley, Monroe C. Aesthetics from Classical Greece to the Present: A Short History. New York: Macmillan, 1966.