The Imperishability of the Aesthetic

It seems always the case that, when possible, even an object of pure utility is granted a certain amount of beauty, no matter how minute and negligible, in the process of design; and it is inherent in us all, as soon as the needs impressed upon us by what we might call the laws and ways of a psycho-physical world are sufficiently dealt with (for such needs will never fully leave us alone, but they renew hour after hour on this toiling earth), that we seek after beauty or something of interest which is intangible in some way or another. If we can find such things along the way, all the better. And that is often why we try to imbue everything we create with some quality which is over and above usefulness. But even where there is no aesthetic sense granted an object by its makers, it is always possible to view it in a certain way, to take from it what was not intended in its design. Every shape, texture, color, and combination holds its own mystery.

Given the qualitative frame of certain of our cognitive faculties, there is no object but can be received aesthetically. But given the aforementioned "laws and ways" of the "psycho-physical world", an object can only have utility if it can be used usefully in accord with those very constraints (Of course, an object can be merely usable, but it is of no utility if it is not both usable and useful, because it is possible to make use of something with which it is impossible to achieve a desired end (given this thought it would seem that even useful objects only ever have their utility in the moments that they are used and useful, unless we consider them as having latent utility, because of the fact of their being designed and proven, in even one particular instance, in use towards an end). 

All this to say that, while in the process of design it is possible to render something useless or even unusable, it is impossible that the aesthetic be taken out of it, because, the aesthetic sense of a thing, though often hidden in this case, can by consideration, always be revealed to us, though its impression might be different from person to person and from this time to that time. It is in the mind, but not in the object, though it is as equally real whether the latter or former was the case, for at least we can say that the object has that property with which it provokes the aesthetic sense we attribute to it, which sense exists apart from all objects. It emerges as a spark from the clashing of the cognition with its objects, however received. It is real and true, and is as ink lifted from a page resting in water, where the mystic clouds receive their shape from the words below. 

And also through alteration after an object has been created: in this way too an object may lose its utility, by the effect of whatever force, and though it may lose its utility, the quality of its aesthetic provocation is only ever altered. So then, in alteration, an object may lose any particular property, but never the "property of being able to provoke aesthetic qualia". And so too when there is a transition from thing to another thing, that other thing will always retain this very property even if the aesthetic qualia it provokes is different than the aesthetic qualia the former thing provoked. 

It can be imagined that one might interject: "Yes, but can't the concept of utility be applied to the "property of being able to provoke aesthetic qualia", in that that very property is useful towards that end?" Perhaps the confusion can be dispelled in this: No property can be of use whatsoever. Properties can only affect, but can never be used to affect. Only the objects to which the properties belong can be used to affect, even when an object is used with a particular property in mind.

To sum:

All objects whatsoever have the conjunctive property of "being able to lose utility & being not able to lose the property of being able to provoke aesthetic qualia". 

All this could be developed further, but perhaps it won't be. It is just an observation – maybe a trivial one. Up next: who knows.