I am not sure if I was satisfied with the way that Santayana approached this topic. I understand that some of these issues come with his perspective as a philosopher. Frankly, spending the beginning of the book saying a hundred ways that people define beauty and then using the last half to define what it is he has determined beauty to be, seems a bit backward. Perhaps I am a bit too much of a conventionalist but I would have preferred if he had spend the earlier portion of his work being more clear about what he thought the humans ability to connect to beauty and define such actually is. He spent one lousy chapter on symmetry which I personally think is the strongest case for an overarching consensus on beauty that is available. Genetically humans are programed to find symmetry beautiful but only to a certain point. Perhaps he could have brought in topics such as the golden ratio? This seems like a more likely place to start. Instead he defines beauty through the eyes of truth, morality and a whole bunch of other nonsensical notions. I just don't know if I entirely agree with his approach, or his conclusions. Beauty is a difficult thing to describe, since for the most part it is highly subjective. Aesthetics perhaps a bit easier, but still. I think the author covered some good bullet points, I just was not sure if this work was fleshed out enough to be cohesive in my opinion. Perhaps he saves it by calling it an outline? Or is that just a cop out?