Prospero's highly developed mind also allows him to hatch a plan to give the court party a chance to learn. Such is the manifestation of Nature in The Tempest , and such the cultured representation of Art. Debate between the two takes the form of a series of antitheses with Caliban frequently recurring as the representative of nature which allows comparison between the two worlds. Caliban is a measure of the incredible superiority of the world of Art and also a measure of its corruption and degeneracy. In terms of physical appearances, the world of Art is indisputably superior.
Physical appearance is an index of a character's nobility or vileness.
Caliban seems even more loathly in the presence of Ferdinand and Miranda's comeliness. Miranda is especially beautiful because the divine quality of nobility and her virtue illuminates her physical body such that both Ferdinand and Alonso take her for a goddess. This serves to emphasise the incomparability of the world of Art to the world of Nature in terms of physical appearances. In the practice of magic, Prospero's Art is the antithesis of the black magic of Sycorax. Prospero's divine magic achieves supremacy over the natural world through the exercise of virtuous knowledge gleaned through studious observation.