we also welcome it as a sign of civilization when people turn their care and attention to things that are not at all useful and seem rather useless, e.g., if the green spaces necessary in a town to be used as playgrounds and air reservoirs also have flower beds, or if the windows of peoples’ homes are decorated with flower pots. We soon notice that this useless part, which we expect civilization to value, is beauty. We require civilized man to revere beauty wherever he encounters it in nature and to manufacture it for objects to the extent he is capable of doing so.
