But to determine what anything does, or fulfills, or exemplifies,
is not the same as to determine what it is in itself. The most
that can be said is that the end, or function, shapes the means
or constitution. The end is a logical imperative. Beauty does,
and must do, such things. To ask how, is at once to indicate
an ultimate departure from the philosophical point of view; for
the means to an end are different, and to be empirically
determined.

Now the constitution of Beauty can be only the means to the
end of Beauty,--that combination of qualities in the object
which will bring about the end fixed by philosophical definition.
The end is general; the means may be different kinds. Evidently,
then, the philosophical definition cannot be applied directly to
the object until the possibilities, conditions, and limitations
of that object's fitness for the purpose assigned are known. We
cannot ask, Does the Sistine Madonna express the Idea of Sense?
until we know all possibilities and conditions of the visual for
attaining that expression. But, indeed, the consideration of
causes and effects suggests at once that natural science must
guide further investigation. Philosophy must lay down what
Beauty has to do, but since it is in our experience of Beauty
that its end is accomplished, since the analysis of such
experience and the study of its contributing elements is a work
of the natural science of such experience--it would follow that psychology must deal with the various means through which this
end is to be reached.

Thus we see that Fechner's reproach is unjustified. Those concepts
which are too general to apply to particular cases are not meant