  While rejecting any interpretation of obscurity or confusion as itself the source of our pleasure in beauty (On Sentiments, note h; Philosophical Writings, p. 79), Mendelssohn also rejects the idea of the Abbé Du Bos (and of Meier’s theory of the emotions) that the mere arousal of feelings as such is the aim of art (On Sentiments, Conclusion; Philosophical Writings, p. 71), as well as the idea of Charles Batteux that “the imitation of nature is the general means by which the fine arts please us, and [that] it is possible to derive all particular rules of the fine arts and sciences from this single principle” (“On the Main Principles of the Fine Arts and Sciences”, Philosophical Writings, p. 170). Yet Mendelssohn no more rejects the idea that works of art do arouse our emotions and that they are, at least in many cases, imitations of nature than he rejects the idea that the perception of perfection and the perfection of perception is central to our experience of beauty and other aesthetic properties. So how does he fit all of these ideas together into his own distinctive theory?