Tastes of Infinity
Art and the Consoling
Power of Beauty
"Thus Peace carries with it a surpassing of personality... It is primarily a trust in the efficacy of Beauty...There is thus involved a grasp of infinitude, an appeal beyond boundaries. Its emotional effect is the subsidence of turbulence which inhibits."
In times of trial, we turn to many things. We turn to other people—friends, loved ones, communities of care. We draw on inner resources—resilience, memory, prayer, will. We turn to nature—the steadiness of trees, the rhythm of waves, the vastness of sky. We lean on the quiet presence of companion animals, who stay close without asking for explanations. And often, quietly and without fanfare, we turn to art. We open a worn book of poetry, hum an old hymn, lose ourselves in a film, listen to music that meets us where words fail. We walk through a museum or a forest and feel something shift. We are not always looking for answers. We are seeking a way to hold the weight of what has happened.
Of course, art functions in many ways beyond moments of suffering. It is not only a balm for the broken heart but a catalyst for the adventurous spirit. It can stir us from stagnation, infusing life with a sense of movement and possibility. It awakens us to truths—both comforting and uncomfortable—that are honest to the facts of existence. It introduces novelty for the sheer joy of surprise, reminding us that freshness is a value in itself. And often, it calls us back to the present moment, inviting us into mindfulness, where time slows and awareness deepens. In these ways, art becomes a companion not only in hardship, but in the ongoing improvisation of being alive. We do not need to be suffering in order to turn to art. We need only want to be alive.
Still, art does help us times times of trial. In such moments, we don’t need explanation so much as companionship—something or someone that can be with us in the unspeakable. And sometimes, art does just that. It meets us not with instruction, but with presence. It does not reduce grief to a lesson or joy to a technique. Instead, it lures us—quietly, tenderly—toward feeling.
“It is an essential doctrine in the philosophy of organism that the primary function of a proposition is to be relevant as a lure for feeling.” (Process and Reality)
For Whitehead, all meaningful expression—whether in philosophy, conversation, or art—functions first and foremost as a lure for feeling. It is not merely about conveying information. It is about opening us to a way of feeling the world. Art offers us propositions, not in the form of logical deductions, but as gestures, moods, and intensities. A brushstroke, a note, a silence, a phrase—all invite us into a deeper awareness.
“It is one function of great literature to evoke a vivid feeling of what lies beyond words.” (Modes of Thought)
This “vivid feeling” is not always comforting. It can be sorrowful, searching, unsettling. But sometimes—when the artwork is true, and we are ready—it leads us into something deeper still. A moment of stillness. A softening. A felt sense that, despite the pain or uncertainty, something beautiful holds us. Whitehead calls this feeling Peace.
“It is a positive feeling which crowns the ‘life and motion’ of the soul. It is hard to define and difficult to speak of. It is not a hope for the future, nor is it an interest in present details. It is a broadening of feeling due to the emergence of some deep metaphysical insight, unverbalized and yet momentous in its coordination of values… It is primarily a trust in the efficacy of Beauty.” (Adventures of Ideas)
He adds that this Peace - this trust in the efficacy of Beauty - involves a surpassing of personality, a falling away of boundaries, and a momentary taste of infinity.
He adds that this Peace - this trust in the efficacy of Beauty - involves a surpassing of personality, a falling away of boundaries, and a momentary taste of infinity.
"Thus Peace carries with it a surpassing of personality. There is an inversion of relative values. It is primarily a trust in the efficacy of Beauty...There is thus involved a grasp of infinitude, an appeal beyond boundaries. Its emotional effect is the subsidence of turbulence which inhibits...The trust in the self-justification of Beauty introduces faith, where reason fails to reveal the details." (Adventures of Ideas)
Peace, in this sense, is not mere calm or escape. It is not found by denying sorrow, but by seeing it held within a larger beauty. It is a feeling that crowns the soul’s motion—a moment of grace, a reorientation of value. We stop grasping, stop striving. And for a moment, we rest in Beauty.
This Peace, Whitehead believed, is not simply a psychological state. It is a metaphysical intuition—an echo of something ultimate. It reflects a trust, not in explanations or outcomes, but in Beauty itself. As he writes, “The trust in the self-justification of Beauty introduces faith, where reason fails to reveal the details.”
The faith of which Whitehead speaks is not belief in a doctrine or a creed. It is not believing this or that about God. It is instead a deep, non-verbal confidence—a felt sense that, even when we cannot explain or understand, there is an alrightness at the heart of things. Not that everything happens for a reason, nor that suffering is justified, but that there is an encompassing Reality that receives the whole of life—including its tragedy—and transfigures it, not by erasing the pain, but by weaving it into a larger harmony.
Such faith is faith in Beauty itself—understood not as surface prettiness or mere aesthetic pleasure, but as the ongoing, tender integration of contrast and complexity into something whole. Beauty, in this sense, is more than any particular moment or form. It is that which includes and exceeds all particulars. It is what Whitehead calls the Harmony of Harmonies, the divine art that holds everything without remainder
Some works of art offer us a taste of this Beauty. They do not bypass tragedy. They include it—honestly, fully—and yet suggest that even tragedy is not the final word. These works point, not with certainty but with trust, to what Whitehead calls the teleology of the universe:
Peace, in this sense, is not mere calm or escape. It is not found by denying sorrow, but by seeing it held within a larger beauty. It is a feeling that crowns the soul’s motion—a moment of grace, a reorientation of value. We stop grasping, stop striving. And for a moment, we rest in Beauty.
This Peace, Whitehead believed, is not simply a psychological state. It is a metaphysical intuition—an echo of something ultimate. It reflects a trust, not in explanations or outcomes, but in Beauty itself. As he writes, “The trust in the self-justification of Beauty introduces faith, where reason fails to reveal the details.”
The faith of which Whitehead speaks is not belief in a doctrine or a creed. It is not believing this or that about God. It is instead a deep, non-verbal confidence—a felt sense that, even when we cannot explain or understand, there is an alrightness at the heart of things. Not that everything happens for a reason, nor that suffering is justified, but that there is an encompassing Reality that receives the whole of life—including its tragedy—and transfigures it, not by erasing the pain, but by weaving it into a larger harmony.
Such faith is faith in Beauty itself—understood not as surface prettiness or mere aesthetic pleasure, but as the ongoing, tender integration of contrast and complexity into something whole. Beauty, in this sense, is more than any particular moment or form. It is that which includes and exceeds all particulars. It is what Whitehead calls the Harmony of Harmonies, the divine art that holds everything without remainder
Some works of art offer us a taste of this Beauty. They do not bypass tragedy. They include it—honestly, fully—and yet suggest that even tragedy is not the final word. These works point, not with certainty but with trust, to what Whitehead calls the teleology of the universe:
“The teleology of the Universe is directed toward the production of Beauty.” ( Adventures of Ideas)
Beauty is not escape. It is the shape that wholeness takes when it includes the broken. It is not perfection but integration. And the greatest works of art do not flatter us—they invite us. They open us to this trust.
In times of trial, this is not a small thing. It is everything. To feel Peace—even for a moment—is to know that the deepest truths are not always spoken, but lived, suffered, received, and transformed. And in such moments, we may glimpse the divine not as an explanation, but as a Presence.
And in that Presence, we may find Peace.
And yet, it is important to recognize that moments of infinity, as experienced through Beauty, are by no means limited to art. They can and do arise in the quiet presence of a friend, the laughter of a child, the loyal gaze of a companion animal. They emerge in the shared silence of a church, synagogue, mosque, or sangha—catalyzed by liturgies, music, and communal breath.
Beauty is not confined to galleries or concert halls. It is not the possession of artists alone. It shimmers through the whole of life. It meets us in the ordinary and the sacred, in solitude and in community, in grief and in celebration. It includes, but surpasses, the experience of Peace. For Peace is one of its fruits—perhaps the sweetest—but Beauty is vaster still.
To live with faith in Beauty, as Whitehead invites us to do, is to open ourselves to the possibility that everywhere and always, the world is offering more than we can grasp. That even amidst confusion and pain, we are being lured—tenderly, patiently—into deeper feeling, fuller being, and the ongoing work of divine transformation.
We do not always need to understand. We only need to listen. And when Beauty speaks—through art, through nature, through the faces and voices of others—it may whisper the same eternal word: You are held.
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