rare. [a. Gr. θεωρία a looking at, contemplation, f. θεώρειν to look at.]
† 1. ? Contemplation, survey. Obs. rare.
1590. Marlowe, 2nd Pt. Tamburl., IV. iii. My love, In whom the learned Rabbis of this age Might find as many wondrous miracles As in the theoria of the world!
2. The perception of beauty regarded as a moral faculty. (Used in this sense by Ruskin, in contradistinction to æsthesis: cf. THEORETIC a. 4.)
1846. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., II. III. I. i. § 1. The impressions of beauty … are neither sensual nor intellectual, but moral; and for the faculty receiving them … no term can be more accurate … than that employed by the Greeks, ‘Theoretic,’ which I pray permission … to use, and to call the operation of the faculty itself, Theoria. Ibid., § 6. The mere animal consciousness of the pleasantness I call Æsthesis; but the exulting, reverent, and grateful perception of it I call Theoria.
