Phaedrus on Beauty

Beauty is the only piece of knowledge that is manifested visually on earth. All other positive ideals that can be experienced during the journey of a soul cannot be seen. This one trait sets beauty apart from allother ideals. When a soul is a witness to beauty a great emotional reactiontakes place. This reaction could be caused by anything physically beautiful suchas a painting, a landscape, or even music- as some argue that all beauty triesto measure up to music in the aspect of the ability to bring out human emotion.However, when a soul looks upon beauty in the form of a lover it responds withspiritual love. Beauty being able to spark this reaction is a monumental. Itmeans that in order for spiritual love occur there MUST be an element of visualbeauty. Ideals such as justice,temperance and knowledge cannot initiate spiritual love, for they cannot bevisibly manifested. It is thought that eyes are the windows to the soul. Soperhaps, due to this belief, beauty must be visual to spark a spiritual lovebecause physical beauty has a direct access to the soul of a person throughtheir eyes. And if it has direct access to the soul then it will undoubtedlyhave a stronger effect than any other ideal will in only an instant. Spiritual love does crazy things to the soul. It acts as a healing power and causes extreme pain and discomfort. It istortuous and wonderful at the same time. You see, when the soul firstexperience spiritual love it goes through an emotional and spiritual growthwhich is metaphorically symbolized with the growth of wings. Wings are chosento be the symbol for spiritual growth because it is a positive growth whichlifts the soul up to another plane of knowledge and thought and spirituality.Anyways, back to the effects of spiritual love upon the soul. At first the lovestimulates the growth of wings and the soul is filled with a strange warmbubbling that can be compared to an uneasy tickling feeling. However ifseparation occurs between the lover and the loved the pain and torture isunbearable. Such deep emotion is evoked from within the soul at the sight of beauty.