Title: The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4) - Hegel's Aesthetik
Author: Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Language: English
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THE PHILOSOPHY OF

FINE ART

BY

G. W. F. HEGEL

TRANSLATED, WITH NOTES, BY

F. P. B. OSMASTON, B.A.

AUTHOR OF "THE ART AND GENIUS OF TINTORET," "AN ESSAY
ON THE FUTURE OF POETRY," AND OTHER WORKS

VOL. I

LONDON

G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.

1920



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE


The translation of Hegel's "Aesthetik" or "Philosophy of Fine Art,"
which is contained in the four volumes of the present work, is the
first complete translation in English of the three volumes devoted to
this subject in the collected edition (Berlin, 1835). I know of four
partial translations in English of this work and one in French. These
are Mr. W. M. Bryant's translation of Part II[1], Mr. Kedney's short
analysis of the entire work[2], Mr. Hastie's translation of Michelet's
short "Philosophy of Art[3]," prefaced by Hegel's Introduction, partly
translated and partly summarized and lastly Professor B. Bosanquet's
complete translation of Hegel's first Introduction with notes[4].

The French translation of M. Bénard purports to be more or less
a reproduction of the entire work and runs into two large-sized
volumes. It also is, however, so far as Hegel's Introduction and the
first two Parts are concerned, merely a compressed summary, and only
in particular passages is the translation anything but a very free
rendering of the original, though there is a far closer approach to
this in Part III.

I have not seen Mr. Bryant's translation. As any approach to an
adequate reproduction of Hegel's writing Mr. Hastie's translation of
Michelet's work and Mr. Kedney's analysis are of very little value[5].
Professor Bosanquet's translation is admirable within the limits
imposed. To that extent I have merely followed, as I was able, in
my friend's footsteps; but this advance covers little more than one
sixteenth part of the entire work of 1,600 pages.

With regard to all such analyses I entirely concur with Professor
Bosanquet's view stated in his preface, that such merely mislead if
regarded as in any way a reflex of either Hegel himself or the German
text. It is true that this work is--as are in their degree other
volumes of the collected edition, the "Outlines of the Philosophy
of Right" for example--a heterogeneous product, in our own instance
not merely lacking the final revision of the author, but rather put
together as such a connected treatise by the editor responsible (i)
from several autograph MSS. of Hegel[6], some of which were little
more than fragmentary notes for lectures, (ii) supplemented further
from notes[7] taken by pupils who attended such lectures, the entire
conglomerate being (iii) finally dovetailed together with connecting
links by the editorial hand much as, to cite his own illustration, a
careful picture restorer might do in order to secure the impression of
a unified work, the unity aimed at by himself being rather that of a
connected literary treatise than a series of lectures.

It is obvious that a product of this nature will vary considerably
throughout in the degree that the personality and unique flavour of
Hegel himself, whether viewed as writer or thinker, asserts itself.

The introductions[8] have been, it would appear, taken almost
exclusively from Hegel's own MSS.; but even these remained unrevised
for the press, owing to the premature and sudden death of their author.

Of the greater portion of the work we can merely form our judgment of
the nature of its authenticity from the content itself. On the whole I
should myself say that the result was more favourable than might under
such conditions have been expected. The editor assures us expressly
that so far as all illustrations and the substantive content of the
work is concerned no attempt has been made whatever to supplement the
same. Hegel is throughout here entirely responsible. I think, further,
that the endeavour claimed by the editor to preserve the general
character and tone (_Kolorit_) of Hegel's own diction has attained a
degree of success that could only have been within the reach of devoted
pupils and friends of the man himself, who for many years both attended
his lectures and studied his published works. Whatever opinion,
however, we may arrive at on this head there can hardly be two opinions
as to the sources in which the main interest consists for a modern
reader.

First, I should lay particular stress on the forceful and
characteristic manner in which the fundamental philosophical
conceptions which underlie the entire fabric are worked into and
elaborated explicitly, throughout its detail. The very nature of this
unwearied and insistent interfusion (_Durchdringung_) of positive
fact, whether historical, scientific, or aesthetic, with the dialectic
movement of the Idea is here as essentially the method of Hegel as it
is elsewhere. And this is so despite the fact that it is here presented
for the most part in a form less repellent to the ordinary reader and
less provocative of hostile criticism. Translators therefore, who,
following the example of the French translator[9], deliberately seek
to lighten the burden of their cargo by throwing overboard what they
choose to call the "injurious dialectic," or the "dark labyrinth" of
this aspect of our work may reproduce much that is of instruction or
interest, but most certainly do not reproduce either the main strength
of Hegel as a thinker, or the most characteristic impression--to say
nothing of the repetitions--of such style or absence of literary style
that he possessed.

Secondly, if there is one feature more striking than any other in this
work, which is bound at least to surprise anyone who still harbours
the obsolete notion that this philosopher moved in an exclusively
abstract region of idea remote from the concrete experience of life and
scientific or artistic knowledge, it is the wealth and extraordinary
range of the illustrations in these volumes no less than the vigour and
freshness of their application. In this respect two translations which
merely amount to a summary of theoretical content simply omit the vital
or at least the most attractive heart of the interest.

As to the present claim of this laborious work to recognition and
study, its historical significance is, I think, admitted by the most
acknowledged authorities on the subject. As Schasler has called it,
it is the first complete system of a philosophy of Art. The nature
of its importance to our own most able and learned historian of the
Philosophy of Fine Art may not only be deduced from his own summary of
its contents and significance in his invaluable historical survey[10],
but is further illustrated by the fact that he has reproduced the
concluding portion of Hegel's Introduction _in extenso_ in an Appendix
to this work.

Other writers have been less judicious both as hostile critics and in
the degree of their praise or enthusiasm. One German authority has
called it Hegel's masterpiece. Such a title is, apart from any other
ground, sufficiently excluded by its history alone. Whether Hegel might
have made it his masterpiece had he lived is of course another question.

Other admirers, such as the late Professor Caird[11], have more
legitimately accepted such a distinction for the "Phenomenologie des
Geistes." Mr. Hastie will even have it that throughout "All is clear,
radiant, harmonious and dim with the things that are a joy for ever."
Such an effusive display of abstract _Vorstellung_ reminds one little
of either the dour temper of the Swabian philosopher, or the concrete
intelligence which most distinguishes him from his rivals now and in
his lifetime. I can promise no such garden of Hesperides, or even
Platonic banquet, to any of my readers. It is true that we have here,
the work being primarily built upon lectures intended to instruct
the ordinary student, no such parade of the dialectic method in its
formal structure such as constitutes the root of offence in some other
works of Hegel. But if we approach it with the belief that all is
therefore the plain sailing we meet with in the world of journalistic
art criticism and the commonsense conceptions of everyday life, or
with the assurance that the work is, or can be, intelligible without
some real attempt to grapple with the fundamental ideas of Hegelian
metaphysic, we may find our disappointment very considerable. As a
humble translator I am bound to say that in a very large number of
passages I have by no means discovered immediacy of intelligibility
or radiance to be a conspicuous feature of the original. Radiance is
indeed, I should say, not an attribute emphatically characteristic of
any kind of Teutonic literature, and least of all of its scientific and
philosophical literature. The present work is certainly no exception.
With its untiring, not to say remorseless, effort to press home in
repeated expression, often but slightly varied, the same fundamental
points, its dogged and endless persistence in the careful explication
through rational definition of every kind of positive material
that presents itself from the nature of the divine in man, or the
soul of living beast to the accurate determination in the terms of
expressed thought of a musical sound or an epigram or simile, with
its well-nigh total disregard of the beauty of literary style, and
its by no means unfrequent disregard of all principle of proportion
in the co-ordination of its varied subject-matter--whatever else
such a product may be it is most assuredly not, at least to English
apprehension, reminiscent of the radiance either of Homer or Apollo.

But though even sincere admiration may smile over such a description,
it does unquestionably reflect to a remarkable extent the thoroughness,
tenacity of purpose, the absence of superficial rhetoric, the wide
range, the extraordinary combination of constructive idea and detailed
knowledge and research we rightly associate with the most valued works
of German science and philosophy. It has never been more needful
than at this time of day to draw attention to such qualities, when
the national bias is to ignore or belittle their presence. It is,
moreover, not without passages which attain to a very real elevation of
eloquence, eloquence marked by the profoundest earnestness and entirely
free from the least flavour of bombast or sentimentalism. To the right
kind of reader it can hardly fail to convey a certain fascination
which is not merely due to the presence of a powerful and original
intellect, but is equally inseparable from the product of a human soul
intent upon getting at the heart of its subject, and keeping its vision
throughout fixed on that. Nor is the mere breadth of the canvas and the
depth of its content its only attraction. The work is indeed full of
digressions of exceptional interest to the general reader, and as such
bears the indelible stamp of Hegel's manner as a lecturer, which his
editor maintains stood out in such marked contrast to his more concise
style as an author, drawing as he did when lecturing so largely on his
encyclopaedic stores of knowledge.

To treat all the text as we now have it with the same respect may
very possibly betoken to some an excess of zeal on the part of the
translator; but after all the most important thing for an English
reader is to know what the volumes actually contain. In dealing with
Hegel the outlined sketch, whether secured through a process of
distillation or adulteration, is by no means any compensation for the
loss of the complete picture. If we are impatient over many aspects of
this philosopher's particularity, we had much better dispense with him
altogether.

Sympathetically studied it is hardly too much to say that this
monumental work is an education in itself. It is at any rate one which
cannot fail to enlarge our conceptions of the significance and dignity
of human art. Nor is this by any means impossible, even though we are
unable to concur in, or indeed remain insufficiently qualified to
express a judgment upon all or even a few of the most important of
its conclusions. But it is perhaps not wholly unnecessary to observe
that before venturing upon a verdict in our wisdom we must, as Robert
Browning submitted in reference to the criticism passed upon his
poetry, have awakened both our senses and intelligence "that they may
the better judge." It is the modest aim of the present translation to
make that preparatory process more easy for the English reader, to
assist that intelligent assimilation of the truth as it appears to a
great and world-famous thinker, which is the necessary condition of
any criticism meriting respectful attention at all. Such assimilation
is perhaps impossible in the case of Hegel without effort, and indeed
something of sympathy with his general outlook and temper, making as
he does little or no appeal whatever to the lover of literature as
such, who had consequently far better leave him austerely alone to the
consideration of others who are more attracted.

I do not propose in these prefatory remarks to enlarge further on the
actual content of the work, or on the nature of the criticism which has
been directed either to fundamental positions or matters of detail.
Some of these I have referred to in my notes on the text where they are
most obviously pertinent. The general reader will find a very useful
introduction to some of the more primary difficulties in the study of
Hegel in Professor Bosanquet's prefatory essay to his translation.
The more serious student can hardly dispense with the perusal of a
considerable portion of the same writer's history of Aesthetik, at
least that portion which directly deals with the writings of Kant,
Schiller, Goethe, Schelling, and Hegel himself on the subject[12].

I hold my translation to be as literal as is possible consistently with
an endeavour to render or interpret German philosophical language in
the language or idiom of really expressive and intelligible English. It
is now generally admitted that all translation is in the nature of an
interpretation. However much I may have fallen short of my aim, that
aim has been throughout to express the actual ideal content of the
German, not merely with all the force and directness I could muster,
but with as near an approach to the formal structure of the German text
as was consistent with the like condition of really readable English.
Above all I have striven to avoid the lassitude of mere paraphrase,
that vague generalization of content which conceives itself to possess
the right to eliminate from the text pretty much what it pleases.

The Index attached to the final volume is limited in its reference
to proper names, and pre-eminently to illustrations in the text of
works either of general literature, or other products of art, which I
considered of use or interest to the general reader.

In the table of contents to the several volumes I have notified with
brackets my own contributions to the German original. In all other
respects I have retained the divisions of subject-matter as I found
them recorded by Hegel or his editor.

F. P. O.


[Footnote 1: New York, Appleton and Co.]

[Footnote 2: Chicago, Griggs and Co., 1885.]

[Footnote 3: Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, 1886. The translation is
literal and of good quality for a little over thirty pages. After that
it is a mere summary.]

[Footnote 4: Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., 1886.]

[Footnote 5: Mr. Kedney's volume only amounts to about three hundred
small-sized pages altogether.]

[Footnote 6: The most important source were MSS. for lectures given
in 1820. This formed the basis of further lectures in 1823, 1826, and
1829.]

[Footnote 7: The notes to which our editor had access referred to the
lectures given in 1823 and 1826, with others of those in 1826 and 1829.]

[Footnote 8: The first Introduction is obviously taken from Hegel's
MS., the editor not even venturing in this case to obliterate its form
as an address in the lecture room. It represents perhaps the nearest
approach we possess to the revised MS.]

[Footnote 9: An almost inevitable defect of such a translation is that
criticism may be offered without supplying the material necessary for
any satisfactory verdict upon its sufficiency. Thus M. Bénard cites
with approval an adverse criticism passed upon what is called Hegel's
inadequate treatment of the Idea of Beauty as a partial manifestation
of the absolute Idea, but barely includes any of the passages which
refer to this in his translation (note, p. 36). Such can lead to no
conclusion whatever, though it obviously may entirely mislead his
readers.]

[Footnote 10: "History of Aesthetik," by Bernard Bosanquet
(Sonnenschein, 1892). See in particular pp. 333-362. With regard to the
comparative value of the work of Schelling and Hegel on this subject
the author says (p. 334): "It may be said that while we prefer Hegel
to Schelling this is partly because Schelling is best represented in
Hegel." I can claim but a very limited firsthand knowledge of modern
German works on Aesthetik. But I may observe that the section of
Lötze's history of German works on the subject devoted to Hegel's
"Philosophy of Fine Art" appears to me by no means equal in ability to
other portions of the work. The aim of the author appears rather that
of proving that his own researches occupy a ground wholly unoccupied
by Hegel than of defining with any completeness the ground actually
appropriated by Hegel.]

[Footnote 11: "Life of Hegel," p. 110.]

[Footnote 12: The most authoritative introduction to the study of
the Hegelian standpoint for English readers is, of course, the late
Professor Wallace's Prolegomena to his translation of the lesser Logic,
and the introduction to his translation of the Philosophy of Mind.]



CONTENTS OF VOL. I


TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

I.  The Limits of Aesthetic defined, and certain Objections
against the Philosophy of Art refuted

[(_a_) Aesthetic confined to Beauty of Art

(_b_)  Is Art unworthy of scientific consideration?

(_c_)  Or at least is it incapable of truly philosophical
exposition? Negative answer to both these questions]

II.  Scientific Methods which apply to the Beautiful and Art

[1.  The Empirical Method

2.   Abstract Reflection

3.   The Philosophical Idea of artistic Beauty, that is,
the notional concept thereof, provisionally defined]

III. The Notion of the Beauty of Art

Observations upon the ordinary ideas about Art

1.  The art-work is a creation of human activity

[(_a_) Theory of imitation of Art by rule

(_b_) Art as direct inspiration

(_c_) The rank of Art relatively to Nature

(_d_) The nature of the human Art-impulse]

2.  The art-work is addressed to human sense

[(_a_) Theory that its object is to excite feeling

(_b_) The nature of artistic taste

(_c_) The nature of art-scholarship as contrasted
with artistic taste

(_d_) The more philosophical consequences of the
fact that Art appeals to sense and requires
a sensuous medium  for its expression]

3.  The End or Interest of Art

[(_a_) Is it imitation of Nature?

(_b_)  Is the end or content identical with the dictum,
"Humani nihil a me alienum," etc.

(_c_)  How far it is a mitigation or purification of
the passions

(_d_)  The higher object of Art which consists in
its revelation of truth in itself]

IV.  Historical Deduction of the true Notion of Art

1. The philosophy of Kant

[(_a_) Feeling of aesthetic satisfaction not appetitive

(_b_)  Beauty an object of universal satisfaction

(_c_)  Teleological aspect of the Beautiful

(_d_)  Pleasure in the Beautiful necessary, though
felt

2.  Schiller, Winckelmann, and Schelling

3.  Irony]

V.  Division of the Subject

[1. Inquiry as to the mode under which the divisions
of the subject arise from the notional concept
of Beauty

2.  Part I. The Ideal

3.  Part II. The particular general types of Beauty

(_a_)  The Symbolic type of Art

(_b_)  The Classical type of Art

(_c_)  The Romantic type of Art

4.  Part III. The specific arts

(_a_)  Architecture

(_b_)  Sculpture

(_c_)  Romantic art, which includes

(_α_)  Painting

(_β_)  Music

(_γ_)  Poetry

5.   Conclusion]


FIRST PART

THE IDEA OF THE BEAUTY OF ART OR THE IDEAL

The Position of Art relatively to finite Reality, Religion,
and Philosophy

[(_a_) Theory that the Beautiful is no intelligible object
of thought

(_b_) The relation of the human reason to Nature both
empirically and speculatively

(_c_) The realm of Fine Art that of the Absolute Spirit

(_d_) How far Art responds to a genuine spiritual want in
man

(_e_) The truth which forms the content of art, religion,
and philosophy differs only in the modes under
which it is presented]


CHAPTER I

THE NOTION OF THE BEAUTIFUL IN GENERAL

1. The Idea

[(_a_) The Idea is concrete, not abstract

(_b_) Objectivity is the real existence of the notion, and
the means whereby it is actualized

(_c_) The Idea is the harmonized totality of the two aspects]

2. The Determinate Existence of the Idea

3.  The Idea of the Beautiful

[(_a_) Not apprehended alone by the faculty of the understanding,
or the finite categories

(_b_) The nature of finite or abstract apprehension and
practical volition considered

(_c_) The object of beauty resolves and the one-sidedness
of both standpoints in a free and infinite totality]


CHAPTER II

THE BEAUTY OF NATURE

A. The Beauty of Nature as such

1. The Idea as Life

[(_a_) The first mode under which the notion is in
Nature asserted as objectivity is that of physical
matter, the ideal unity whereof is not
found as ideality

(_b_)  A further step is the integration of natural
objects under a unified system, as the solar system

(_c_)  The third mode is that of organic Life. This
alone is a determinate existence of the Idea]

2. The animated life of Nature as Beauty

[(_a_) The motion of life considered in relation to the
conception of beauty

(_b_) The nature of organic unity, and the degree it
contributes to the beauty of an object

(_c_) The inward unity of soul-life and the degree it
contributes to the correlation of parts of an
organism, or is asserted in external form to
our senses rather than our reflection]

3. Modes under which the beauty of Nature is investigated

[(_a_) Where the form is immediately in the _materia_
as its essence or conformative energy, as in
crystals, or more concretely as the informing
soul through the living organism

(_b_) Mobility in animals as a test of their apparent
beauty

(_c_) Self-conscious life the culminating mode]

B. The external Beauty of abstract Form viewed as
Uniformity, Symmetry, Conformity to Rule, and
Harmony. Also Beauty regarded generally as
abstract unity of the Sensuous Material

C. The Defective Aspects of the Beauty of Nature

1. The Inward principle in its immediacy as merely
such inwardness

[(_a_) Immediate singularity as conserved in the purely
animal organism

(_b_) Of the nature of the contrast between the above
and the human body

(_c_) Social organizations viewed in such particularized
immediacy, and the defects they betray
as such external totalities]

2. The Dependence of particular existence as viewed
in its immediate singularity

[(_a_) The dependence of animal life upon its natural
environment

(_b_) The nature of a similar dependence in the case
of the human organism

(_c_) The dependence of human souls, or spiritual
interests, on the prose-life of ordinary existence]

3. The limitations implied by such conditions

[(_a_) The restriction of species in the animal world,
and of the social condition as it affects human
individuality

(_b_) The limitation of racial division, or of particular
families, or particular professions, and the
effect of such upon the aspect of beauty

(_c_) It is the very defects of this finite plane of reality,
which stimulates man to recover the vision of
his freedom in Art]


CHAPTER III

THE BEAUTY OF ART OR THE IDEAL

A. The Ideal as such

1.  Individuality which partakes of Beauty.

[(_a_) The nature of the conditions under which Art
can express a profound and infinite spiritual
content

(_b_) What Art rejects from natural embodiment in
order to effect this revelation, which is also a
purification

(_c_) This "referring back" of external form to spirituality,
or inwardness, issuing in harmonious
individuality, is the very nature of the Ideal

(_α_) The blythe serenity of antique art

(_β_) The treatment of emotion by romantic art

(_γ_) Irony]

2.  The Ideal relatively to Nature

[(_a_) The formal ideality of a work of art, _i.e._, the
element of poetry therein

(_b_) The creative faculty contrasted with Nature in
its power to grasp ideal significance, with
illustrations of this power

(_c_) The nature of this spiritual recreation of natural
fact by Art originating in the energy of mind.
Illustration with the example of Dutch art in
its genre painting, also with that of portraiture
and classical art]

B.  The Determinate Character of the Ideal

I. Ideal determinacy as such

1. Thought apart from the plastic material can only
comprehend the Divine in its universality and
unity. Mohammedan and Hebrew art

2. The polytheistic aspect of Hellenic art considered,
as also Christian art

3. The relation of the arts of painting and sculpture
to the latter. The transition from the principle
of spiritual repose to that of development and
conflict


II.  The Action

1.  The universal World-condition

[(_a_)

(_α_) The self-subsistency of such a condition
as a necessary _prius_ of the embodiment of
the Ideal

(_β_) The nature of the reality adapted to artistic
treatment as contrasted with what is
not so adapted. The fixed order of the
State as contrasted with conditions most
favourable to free individuality

(_γ_) Further examination of contrast in relation
to judicial functions and the ideas of punishment
or revenge as we find it in the heroic
age. The reappearance of an analogous
condition in the Middle Ages

(_b_) Modern prosaic life the condition most favourable
to the private or personal life as an
object of interest

(_c_) Resistance by individual poets to this process
of social change. The permanent demand
for the heroic]

2.  The Situation

[(_a_) The situation that is devoid of situation

(_b_) The situation as defined in its harmlessness
or absence of further conflict

(_α_) The movement from pure tranquillity to
movement or expression. Illustrations from
classical art

(_β_) Movement as related to externality. The
initial stage of action. Greek sculpture

(_γ_) Situation in movement presented as an
opportunity to further expression. Illustrations
from poetry]

(_c_) The Collision

[(_α_) Collisions which arise from wholly material
conditions. Only of artistic interest as a
consequence of natural misfortune. Illustrations

(_β_) Spiritual collisions dependent on natural
conditions. Classified and illustrated.

(_γ_) The above only form the starting-point of
the collision of the essential forces of
spiritual life. The third and most important
type is the collision caused by the disruption
of Spirit alone. Illustrations]


3.  The Action

(_a_) The universal forces operative in the action.

[(_α_) These forces are the eternally paramount
religious and ethical modes of relationship,
such as family, fatherland, church, friendship,
status, honour, and love. They are
children of the one absolute Idea. Illustration
of their contention

(_β_) They must not act in discord with the main
action. The position of evil powers as confronting
them, and its treatment by classic
and modern poetry

(_γ_) Such forces must appear in Art as embodied
in particular personalities. Contrast
between ancient and modern art in this
respect]

(_b_) The individuals concerned in the action

[(_α_) The relations between gods and men in
classical art, and that between the Divine
and the human in Christian art

[_β_] Pathos considered in its relation to various
modes of art]

(_c_) Character

[(_α_) Viewed as co-extensive or self-coherent
individuality, relatively, that is, to the intrinsic
wealth it connotes. Illustrations

(_β_) Viewed relatively to the particular form
under which it is bound to appear

(_γ_) Viewed as a concrete unity coalescing
wholly with its determinate form and as
assured character. Illustrations classified
in their stability and lack of such]

III.  The External Determination of the Ideal.

1. The abstract Externality as such.

[(_a_) Spatiality, Uniformity, Figure, Time, and
Colour.

(_α_) How far such contribute to artistic production

(_β_) The necessity of clear articulation of form
and tone considered]

2.  The Coalescence of the concrete Ideal with its
external Reality

[(_α_) The bond of unity regarded as no positive
reality, but as a mysterious or secret connection.
The relation of external Nature to
the work of art. The Homeric poems contrasted
with the "Niebelungenlied" in this
respect

(_b_) Where the unity is expressly due to human
activity and human adaptation of means to ends

[(_α_) The use made by man of ornament or of
anything used for mere show, _e.g._, precious
metals for statuary

(_β_) The question how far objects used for
practical purposes are suited for art. The
idyllic, civilized and heroic condition compared
in the degree they are thus adapted

(_γ_) The spiritual environment itself in social
institutions, etc., regarded in its relation to
ideal character]

3. The Externality of a work of Art in relation to a
Public

(_a_) What is implied in the assertion by the artist
of the particular culture of his own times?

(_b_) What may be regarded as truth when the
reference is to a Past, either in an exclusive
or objective sense?

(_c_) What may still be regarded as valid in truth
though the matter be appropriated from a
time and nationality foreign to the artist?
All three questions discussed and illustrated]

C.  The Artist

1.  Imagination, Genius, and Inspiration

2.  The objective character of the artistic presentation

3.  Manner, Style, and Originality.



THE PHILOSOPHY OF FINE ART



INTRODUCTION


I


The present inquiry[1] has for its subject-matter _Aesthetic_. It is
a subject co-extensive with the entire _realm of the beautiful_; more
specifically described, its province is that of _Art_, or rather, we
should say, of _Fine Art._

For a subject-matter such as this the term "Aesthetic" is no doubt
not entirely appropriate, for "Aesthetic" denotes more accurately the
science of the senses or emotion. It came by its origins as a science,
or rather as something that to start with purported to be a branch of
philosophy, during the period of the school of Wolff, in other words
when works of art were generally regarded in Germany with reference
to the feelings they were calculated to evoke, as, for example, the
feelings of pleasure, admiration, fear, pity, and so forth. It is owing
to the unsuitability or, more strictly speaking, the superficiality
of this term that the attempt has been made by some to apply the name
"Callistic" to this science. Yet this also is clearly insufficient
inasmuch as the science here referred to does not investigate beauty in
its general signification, but the beauty of art pure and simple. For
this reason we shall accommodate ourselves to the term Aesthetic, all
the more so as the mere question of nomenclature is for ourselves a
matter of indifference. It has as such been provisionally accepted in
ordinary speech, and we cannot do better than retain it. The _term_,
however, which fully expresses our science is "Philosophy of Art," and,
with still more precision, "Philosophy of Fine Art."

(_a_) In virtue of this expression we at once exclude the beauty of
Nature from the scientific exposition of Fine Art. Such a limitation
of our subject may very well appear from a certain point of view as
an arbitrary boundary line, similar to that which every science is
entitled to fix in the demarcation of its subject-matter. We must not,
however, understand the limitation of "Aesthetic" to the beauty of art
in this sense. We are accustomed, no doubt, in ordinary life to speak
of a beautiful colour, a beautiful heaven, a beautiful stream, to say
nothing of beautiful flowers, animals, and, above all, of beautiful
human beings. Without entering now into the disputed question how far
the quality of beauty can justly be predicated of such objects, and
consequently the beauty of Nature comes generally into competition with
that of art, we are justified in maintaining categorically that the
beauty of art stands _higher_ than Nature. For the beauty of art is a
beauty begotten, a new birth of mind[2]; and to the extent that Spirit
and its creations stand higher than Nature and its phenomena, to that
extent the beauty of art is more exalted than the beauty of Nature.
Indeed, if we regard the matter in its formal aspect, that is to say,
according to the way it is there, any chance fancy that passes through
any one's head[3], is of higher rank than any product of Nature. For
in every case intellectual conception and freedom are inseparable
from such a conceit. In respect to _content_ the sun appears to us an
absolutely necessary constituent of actual fact, while the perverse
fancy passes away as something accidental and evanescent. None the
less in its own independent being a natural existence such as the sun
possesses no power of self-differentiation; it is neither essentially
free nor self-aware; and, if we regard it in its necessary cohesion
with other things, we do not regard it independently for its own sake,
and consequently not as beautiful.

Merely to maintain, in a general way, that mind and the beauty of art
which originates therefrom stand _higher_ than the beauty of Nature
is no doubt to establish next to nothing. The expression _higher_
is obviously entirely indefinite; it still indicates the beauty of
Nature and art as standing juxtaposed in the field of conception, and
emphasizes the difference as a quantitative and accordingly external
difference. But in predicating of mind and its artistic beauty a
higher place in contrast to Nature, we do not denote a distinction
which is merely relative. Mind, and mind alone, is pervious to truth,
comprehending all in itself, so that all which is beautiful can only
be veritably beautiful as partaking in this higher sphere and as
begotten of the same. Regarded under this point of view it is only a
reflection of the beauty appertinent to mind, that is, we have it under
an imperfect and incomplete mode, and one whose substantive being is
already contained in the mind itself.

And apart from this we shall find the restriction to the beauty of
art only natural, for in so far as the beauties of Nature may have
come under discussion--a rarer occurrence among ancient writers than
among ourselves--yet at least it has occurred to no one to insist
emphatically on the beauty of natural objects to the extent of
proposing a science, or systematic exposition of such beauties. It is
true that the point of view of _utility_ has been selected for such
exclusive treatment. We have, for example, the conception of a science
of natural objects in so far as they are useful in the conflict with
diseases, in other words a description of minerals, chemical products,
plants, animals, which subserve the art of healing. We do not find
any analogous exploitation and consideration of the realm of Nature
in its aspect of beauty. In the case of natural beauty we are too
keenly conscious that we are dealing with an indefinite subject-matter
destitute of any real criterion. It is for this reason that such an
effort of comparison would carry with it too little interest to justify
the attempt.

These preliminary observations over beauty in Nature and art, over the
relation of both, and the exclusion of the first-mentioned from the
province of our real subject-matter are intended to disabuse us of
the notion that the limitation of our science is simply a question of
capricious selection. We have, however, not reached the point where a
_demonstration_ of this fact is feasible for the reason that such an
investigation falls within the limits of our science itself, and it is
therefore only at a later stage that we can either discuss or prove the
same.

Assuming, however, that we have, by way of prelude, limited our inquiry
to the beauty of art, we are merely by this first step involved in
fresh difficulties.

(_b_) What must first of all occur to us is the question whether
Fine Art in itself is truly susceptible to a scientific treatment.
It is a simple fact that beauty and art pervade all the affairs of
life like some friendly genius, and embellish with their cheer all
our surroundings, mental no less than material. They alleviate the
strenuousness of such relations, the varied changes of actual life;
they banish the tedium of our existence with their entertainment; and
where nothing really worth having is actually achieved, it is at least
an advantage that they occupy the place of actual vice. Yet while
art prevails on all sides with its pleasing shapes, from the crude
decorations of savage tribes up to the splendours of the sacred shrine
adorned with every conceivable beauty of design, none the less such
shapes themselves appear to fall outside the real purposes of life,
and even where the imaginative work of art is not impervious to such
serious objects, nay, rather at times even appear to assist them, to
the extent at least of removing what is evil to a distance, yet for
all that art essentially belongs to the _relaxation_ and _recreation_
of spiritual life, whereas its substantive interests rather make a
call upon its strained energy. On such grounds an attempt to treat
that which on its own account is not of a serious character with all
the gravity of scientific exposition may very possibly appear to be
unsuitable and pedantic. In any case from such a point of view art
appears a _superfluity_ if contrasted with the essential needs and
interests of life, even assuming that the _softening_ of the soul which
a preoccupation with the beauty of objects is capable of producing,
does not actually prove injurious in its effeminate influence upon
the serious quality of those _practical_ interests. Owing to this
fundamental assumption that they are a luxury it has often appeared
necessary to undertake the defence of the fine arts relatively to
the necessities of practical life, and in particular relatively to
morality and piety; and inasmuch as this harmlessness is incapable of
demonstration, the idea has been at least to make it appear credible,
that this luxury of human experience contributes a larger proportion of
_advantages_ than _disadvantages_. In this respect serious aims have
been attributed to art, and in many quarters it has been commended as
a mediator between reason and sensuous associations, between private
inclinations and duty, personified in short as a reconciler of these
forces in the strenuous conflict and opposition which this antagonism
generates. But it is just conceivable[4] that, even assuming the
presence of such aims with all their indubitably greater seriousness,
neither reason nor duty come by much profit from such mediation, for
the simple reason that they are incapable by their very nature of
any such interfusion or compromise, demanding throughout the same
purity which they intrinsically possess. And we might add that art
does not become in any respect more worthy thereby of scientific
discussion, inasmuch as it remains still on two sides a menial, that
is, subservient to idleness and frivolity, if also to objects of more
elevated character. In such service, moreover, it can at most merely
appear as a means instead of being an object for its own sake. And, in
conclusion, assuming that art is a means, it still invariably labours
under the formal defect, that so far as it in fact is subservient to
more serious objects, and produces results of like nature, the means
which actually brings this about is _deception._ For beauty is made
vital in the _appearance_[5]. Now it can hardly be denied that aims
which are true and serious ought not to be achieved by deception; and
though such an effect is here and there secured by this means, such
ought only to be the case in a restricted degree; and even in the
exceptional case we are not justified in regarding deception as the
right means. For the means ought to correspond with the dignity of the
aim. Neither semblance nor deception, but only what is itself real and
true, possesses a title to create what is real and true. Just in the
same way science has to investigate the true interests of the mind in
accordance with the actual process of the real world and the manner of
conceiving it as we actually find it.

We may possibly conclude from the above grounds that the art of beauty
is unworthy of philosophical examination. It is after all, it may be
said, only a pleasant pastime, and, though we may admit more serious
aims are also in its purview, nevertheless it is essentially opposed to
such aims in their seriousness. It is at the most merely the servant of
specific amusements no less than the exceptional serious objects, and
for the medium of its existence as also for the means of its operations
can merely avail itself of deception and show.

But yet further in the _second_ place, it is a still more plausible
contention that even supposing fine art to be compatible generally
with philosophical disquisition, none the less it would form no really
adequate subject-matter for scientific enquiry in the strict sense.
For the beauty of art is presented to sense, feeling, perception, and
imagination: its field is not that of thought, and the comprehension of
its activity and its creations demands another faculty than that of the
scientific intelligence. Furthermore, what we enjoy in artistic beauty
is just the _freedom_ of its creative and plastic activity. In the
production and contemplation of these we appear to escape the principle
of rule and system. In the creations of art we seek for an atmosphere
of repose and animation as some counterpoise to the austerity of the
realm of law and the sombre self-concentration of thought; we seek for
blithe and powerful reality in exchange for the shadow-world of the
Idea. And, last of all, the free activity of the imagination is the
source of the fair works of art, which in this world of the mind are
even more free than Nature is herself. Not only has art at its service
the entire wealth of natural form in all their superabundant variety,
but the creative imagination is able inexhaustibly to extend the realm
of form by its _own_ productions and modifications. In the presence of
such an immeasurable depth of inspired creation and its free products,
it may not unreasonably be supposed that thought will lose the courage
to apprehend such in their apparent _range_, to pronounce its verdict
thereon, and to appropriate such beneath its universal formulae.

Science, on the other hand, everyone must admit, is formally bound
to occupy itself with thinking which abstracts from the mass of
particulars: and for this very reason, from one point of view, the
imagination and its contingency and caprice, in other words the organ
of artistic activity and enjoyment, is excluded from it. On the other
hand, when art gives joyous animation to just this gloomy and arid
dryness of the notion, bringing its abstractions and divisions into
reconciliation with concrete fact, supplementing with its detail
what is wanting to the notion in this respect, even in that case
a _purely_ contemplative reflection simply removes once more all
that has been added, does away with it, conducting the notion once
again to that simplicity denuded of positive reality which belongs
to it and its shadowland of abstraction. It is also a possible
contention that science in respect to content is concerned with what
is essentially _necessary._ If our science of Aesthetic places on one
side natural beauty, not merely have we apparently made no advance,
but rather separated ourselves yet further from what is necessary. The
expression _Nature_ implies from the first the ideas of _necessity_
and _uniformity_, that is to say a constitution which gives every
expectation of its proximity and adaptability to scientific inquiry.
In mental operations generally, and most of all in the imagination,
if contrasted in this respect with Nature, caprice and superiority
to every kind of formal restriction, caprice, it is here assumed, is
uniquely in its right place, and these at once put out of court the
basis of a scientific inquiry.

From each and all these points of view consequently, in its origin,
that is to say, in its effect and in its range, fine art, so far
from proving itself fitted for scientific effort, rather appears
fundamentally to resist the regulative principle of thought, and to be
ill-adapted for exact scientific discussion.

Difficulties of this kind, and others like them, which have been raised
in respect to a thoroughly scientific treatment of fine art have been
borrowed from current ideas, points of view, and reflection, the more
systematic expansion of which we may read _ad nauseam_ in previous
literature, in particular French literature, upon the subject of beauty
and the fine arts. Such contain to some extent facts which have their
justification; in fact, elaborate arguments[6] are deduced therefrom,
which also are not without their tincture of apparent plausibility.
In this way, for instance, there is the fact that the configuration
of beauty is as multifold as the phenomenon of beauty is of universal
extension; from which we may conclude, if we care to do so, that a
universal impulse towards beauty is enclosed in our common nature,
and may yet further conceivably infer, that because the conceptions
of beauty are so countless in their variety and withal are obviously
something _particular_, it is impossible to secure laws of _universal_
validity either relatively to beauty or our taste for it.

Before turning away from such theories to the subject, as we ourselves
conceive it, it will be a necessary and preliminary task to discuss the
questions and objections raised above.

First, as to the _worthiness_ of art to form the object of scientific
inquiry, it is no doubt the case that art can be utilized as a mere
pastime in the service of pleasure and entertainment, either in the
embellishment of our surroundings, the imprinting of a delight-giving
surface to the external conditions of life, or the emphasis placed by
decoration on other objects. In these respects it is unquestionably no
independent or free art, but an art subservient to certain objects.
The kind of art, however, which _we_ ourselves propose to examine is
one which is _free_ in its aim and its means. That art in general can
serve other objects, and even be merely a pastime, is a relation which
it possesses in common with thought itself. From one point of view
thought likewise, as science subservient to other ends, can be used in
just the same way for finite purposes and means as they chance to crop
up, and as such serviceable faculty of science is not self-determined,
but determined by something alien to it. But, further, as distinct
from such subservience to particular objects, science is raised of its
own essential resources in free independence to truth, and exclusively
united with its own aims in discovering the true fulfillment in that
truth.

Fine art is not art in the true sense of the term until it is also
thus free, and its _highest_ function is only then satisfied when it
has established itself in a sphere which it shares with religion,
and philosophy, becoming thereby merely one mode and form through
which the _Divine_, the profoundest interests of mankind, and
spiritual truths of widest range, art brought home to consciousness
and expressed. It is in works of art that nations have deposited the
richest intuitions and ideas they possess; and not infrequently fine
art supplies a key of interpretation to the wisdom and religion of
peoples; in the case of many it is the only one. This is an attribute
which art shares in common with religion and philosophy, the peculiar
distinction in the case of art being that its presentation of the
most exalted subject-matter is in sensuous form, thereby bringing
them nearer to Nature and her mode of envisagement, that is closer
to our sensitive and emotional life. The world, into the profundity
of which thought penetrates, is a supersensuous one, a world which
to start with is posited as a Beyond in contrast to the immediacy of
ordinary conscious life and present sensation. It is the freedom of
reflecting consciousness which disengages itself from this immersion in
the "_this side_," or immediacy, in other words sensuous reality and
finitude. But the mind is able, too, to heal the _fracture_ which is
thus created in its progression. From the wealth of its own resources
it brings into being the works of fine art as the primary bond of
mediation between that which is exclusively external, sensuous and
transitory, and the medium of pure thought, between Nature and its
finite reality, and the infinite freedom of a reason which comprehends.
Now it was objected that the _element_[7] _of art_ was, if we view it
as a whole, of an _unworthy_ character, inasmuch as it consisted of
appearance and deceptions inseparable from such. Such a contention
would of course be justifiable, if we were entitled to assume that
appearance had no _locus standi_[8] at all. An appearance or show
is, however, essential to actuality. There could be no such thing as
truth if it did not appear, or, rather, let itself appear[9], were it
not further true for some _one_ thing or person, _for_ itself as also
_for_ spirit. Consequently it cannot be appearance in general against
which such an objection can be raised, but the particular mode of its
manifestation under which art makes actual what is essentially real
and true. If, then, the appearance, in the medium of which art gives
determinate existence to its creations, be defined as _deception_, such
an objection is in the first instance intelligible if we compare it
with the _external world_ of a phenomena, and its _immediate_ relation
to ourselves as material substance, or view it relatively to our own
world of emotions, that is our inward sensuous life. Both these are
worlds to which in our everyday life, the life, that is, of visible
experience, we are accustomed to attach the worth and name of reality,
actuality and truth as contrasted with that of art, which fails to
possess such reality as we suppose. Now it is just this entire sphere
of the empirical world, whether on its personal side or its objective
side, which we ought rather to call in a stricter sense than when
we apply the term to the world of art, merely a show or appearance,
and an even more unyielding form of deception. It is only beyond the
immediacy of emotional life and that world of external objects that
we shall discover reality in any true sense of the term. Nothing
is actually real but that which is actual in its own independent
right and substance[10], that which is at once of the substance of
Nature and of mind, which, while it is actually _here_ in present and
determinate existence, yet retains under such limitation an essential
and self-concentred being, and only in virtue of such is truly real.
The predominance of these universal powers is precisely that which art
accentuates and manifests. In the external and soul-world of ordinary
experience we have also no doubt this essence of actuality, but in the
chaotic congeries of particular detail, encumbered by the immediacy of
sensuous envisagement, and every kind of caprice of condition, event,
character, and so forth. Now it is just the show and deception of this
false and evanescent world which art disengages from the veritable
significance of phenomena to which we have referred, implanting in
the same a reality of more exalted rank born of mind. The phenomena
of art therefore are not merely not appearance and nothing more; we
are justified in ascribing to them, as contrasted with the realities
of our ordinary life, an actually higher reality and more veritable
existence. To as little extent are the representations of art a
deceptive appearance as compared with the assumed truer delineations
of historical writing. For immediate existence also does not belong to
historical writing. It only possesses the intellectual appearance of
the same as the medium of its delineations, and its content remains
charged with the entire contingent _materia_ of ordinary reality and
its events, developments and personalities, whereas the work of art
brings us face to face with the eternal powers paramount in history
with this incidental association of the immediate sensuous present and
its unstable appearance expunged.

If, however, it is in contrast with philosophic thought and religious
and ethical principles, that the mode of appearance of the shapes of
art, is described as a deception, there is certainly this in support
of the view that the mode of revelation attained by a content in the
realm of thought is the truest reality. In comparison, nevertheless,
with the appearance of immediate sensuous existence and that of
historical narration, the show of art possesses the advantage that, in
its own virtue, it points beyond itself, directing us to a somewhat
spiritual, which it seeks to envisage to the conceptive mind. Immediate
appearance, on the contrary, does not give itself out to be thus
illusive, but rather to be the true and real, though as a matter of
fact such truth is contaminated and obstructed by the immediately
sensuous medium. The hard rind of Nature and the everyday world offer
more difficulty to the mind in breaking through to the Idea than do the
products of art.

But if from this particular point of view we place art thus highly, we
must not, on the other hand, fail to remember that neither in respect
to content or form is art either the highest or most absolute mode of
bringing the true interests of our spiritual life to consciousness.
The very form of art itself is sufficient to limit it to a definite
content. It is only a particular sphere and grade of truth which is
capable of being reproduced in the form of a work of art. Such truth
must have the power in its own determinate character to go out freely
into sensuous shape and remain adequate to itself therein, if it is
to be the genuine content of art, as is the case, for example, with
the gods of Greece. On the other hand there is a profounder grasp of
truth, in which the form is no longer on such easy and friendly terms
with the sensuous material as to be adequately accepted and expressed
by that medium. Of such a type is the Christian conception of truth;
and above all it is the prevailing spirit of our modern world, or,
more strictly, of our religion and our intellectual culture, which
have passed beyond the point at which art is the highest mode under
which the absolute is brought home to human consciousness. The type
peculiar to art-production and its products fails any longer to satisfy
man's highest need. We are beyond the stage of reverence for works of
art as divine and objects deserving our worship. The impression they
produce is one of a more reflective[11] kind, and the emotions which
they arouse require a higher test and a further verification. Thought
and reflection have taken their flight above fine art. To those who
are fond of complaint and grumbling such a condition of things may be
held as a form of decadence; it may be ascribed to the obsession of
passion and selfish interests, which scare away the seriousness of art
no less than its blithesomeness. Or we may find the fault to lie in
the exigencies of the present day, the complex conditions of social
and political life, which prevent the soul, entangled as it is in
microscopic interests, from securing its freedom in the nobler objects
of art, a condition, too, in which the intelligence itself becomes
a menial to such trifling wants and the interests they excite in
sciences, which subserve objects of a like nature, and are seduced into
the voluntary exile of such a wilderness.

But however we may explain the fact it certainly is the case that Art
is no longer able to discover that satisfaction of spiritual wants,
which previous epochs and nations have sought for in it and exclusively
found in it, a satisfaction which, at least on the religious side, was
associated with art in the most intimate way. The fair days of Greek
art, as also the golden time of the later middle ages, are over. The
reflective culture of our life of to-day makes it inevitable, both
relatively to our volitional power and our judgment, that we adhere
strictly to general points of view, and regulate particular matters in
consonance with them, so that universal forms, laws, duties, rights,
and maxims hold valid as the determining basis of our life and the
force within of main importance. What is demanded for artistic interest
as also for artistic creation is, speaking in general terms, a vital
energy, in which the universal is not present as law and maxim, but
is operative in union with the soul and emotions, just as also, in
the imagination, what is universal and rational is enclosed only as
brought into unity with a concrete sensuous phenomenon. For this reason
the present time is not, if we review its conditions in their widest
range, favourable to art. And with regard to the executive artist
himself it is not merely that reflection on every side, which _will_
insist on utterance, owing to the universal habit of critical opinion
and judgment, leads him astray from his art and infects his mind
with a like desire to accumulate abstract thought in his creations;
rather the entire spiritual culture of the times is of such a nature
that he himself stands within a world thus disposed to reflection
and the conditions it presupposes, and, do what he may, he cannot
release himself either by his wish or his power of decision from their
influence, neither can he by means of exceptional education, or a
removal from the ordinary conditions of life, conjure up for himself
and secure a solitude capable of replacing all that is lost.

In all these respects art is and remains for us, on the side, of its
highest possibilities, a thing of the past. Herein it has further lost
its genuine truth and life, and is rather transported to our world of
_ideas_ than is able to maintain its former necessity and its superior
place in reality. What is now stimulated in us by works of art is, in
addition to the fact of immediate enjoyment, our judgment. In other
words we subject the content, and the means of presentation of the
work of art, and the suitability and unsuitability of both, to the
contemplation of our thought. A _science_ of art is therefore a far
more urgent necessity in our own days than in times in which art as
art sufficed by itself alone to give complete satisfaction. We are
invited by art to contemplate it reflectively, not, that is to say,
with the object of recreating such art[12], but in order to ascertain
scientifically its nature.

In doing our best to accept such an invitation we are confronted with
the objection already adverted to, that even assuming that art is a
subject adapted for philosophical investigation in a general way, yet
it unquestionably is not so adapted to the systematic procedure of
science. Such an objection, however, implies to start with the false
notion that we can have a philosophical inquiry which is at the same
time unscientific. In reply to such a point I can only here state
summarily my opinion, that whatever ideas other people may have of
philosophy and philosophizing, I myself conceive philosophical inquiry
of any sort or kind to be inseparable from the methods of science. The
function of philosophy is to examine subject-matter in the light of the
principle of necessity, not, it is true, merely in accordance with its
subjective[13] necessity or external co-ordination, classification,
and so forth; it has rather to unfold and demonstrate the object under
review out of the necessity of its own intimate nature. Until this
essential process is made explicit the scientific quality of such an
inquiry is absent. In so far, however, as the objective necessity of
an object subsists essentially in its logical and metaphysical nature
the isolated examination of art may in such a case, at any rate, or
rather inevitably, must be carried forward with a certain relaxation
of scientific stringency. For art is based upon many assumptions, part
of which relate to its content, part to its material or conceptive[14]
medium, in virtue of which art is never far from the borders of
contingency and caprice. Consequently it is only relatively to the
essential and ideal progression of its content and its means of
expression that we are able to recall with advantage the formative
principle of its necessity[15].

The objection that works of fine art defy the examination of scientific
thought, because they originate in the unregulated world of imagination
and temperament, and assert their effect exclusively on the emotions
and the fancy with a complexity and variety which defies exact
analysis, raises a difficulty which still carries genuine weight behind
it[16]. As a matter of fact the beauty of art does appear in a form
which is expressly to be contrasted with abstract thought, a form which
it is compelled to disturb in order to exercise its own activity in
its own way. Such a result is simply a corollary of the thesis that
reality anywhere and everywhere, whether the life of Nature or mind,
is defaced and slain by its comprehension; that so far from being
brought more close to us by the comprehension of thinking, it is only
by this means that it is in the complete sense removed apart from us,
so that in his attempt to grasp through thought as a _means_ the nature
of life, man rather renders nugatory this very aim. An exhaustive
discussion of the subject is here impossible; we propose merely to
indicate the point of view from which the removal of this difficulty or
impossibility and incompatibility might be effected. It will at least
be readily admitted that mind is capable of self-contemplation, and
of possessing a consciousness, and indeed one that implies a power of
thought co-extensive with itself and everything which originates from
itself. It is, in fact, precisely _thought_, the process of thinking,
which constitutes the most intimate and essential nature of mind.
It is in this thinking-consciousness over itself and its products,
despite all the freedom and caprice such may otherwise and indeed
must invariably possess--assuming only mind or spirit to be veritably
pregnant therein--that mind exhibits the activity congenial to its
essential nature. Art and the creations of art, being works which
originate in and are begotten of the spirit, are themselves stamped
with the hall-mark of spirit, even though the mode of its presentation
accept for its own the phenomenal guise of sensuous reality, permeating
as it does the sensuous substance with intelligence. Viewed in this
light art is placed from the first nearer to spirit and its thought
than the purely external and unintelligent Nature. In the products
of art mind is exclusively dealing with that which is its own. And
although works of art are not thought and notion simply as such, but
an evolution of the notion out of itself, an alienation of the same
in the direction of sensuous being, yet for all that the might of the
thinking spirit is discovered _not merely_ in its ability to grasp
_itself_ in its most native form as pure thinking, but also, and as
completely, to recognize itself in its self-divestment in the medium
of emotion and the sensuous, to retain the grasp of itself in that
"other" which it transforms but is not, transmuting the alien factor
into thought-expression, and by so doing recovering it to itself. And
moreover in this active and frequent relation to that "other" than
itself the reflective mind is not in any way untrue to itself. We have
here no oblivion or surrender of itself; neither is it so impotent as
to be unable to comprehend what is differentiated from that other[17];
what it actually does is to grasp in the notion _both_ itself and its
opposite. For the notion is the universal, which maintains itself in
its particularizations, which covers in its grasp both itself and its
"other," and consequently contains the power and energy to cancel the
very alienation into which it passes. For this reason the work of
art, in which thought divests itself of itself[18], belongs to the
realm of comprehending thought; and mind, by subjecting it[19] to
scientific contemplation, thereby simply satisfies its most essential
nature. For inasmuch as thought is its essence and notion, it can only
ultimately find such a satisfaction after passing all the products of
its activity through the alembic of rational thought, and in this way
making them for the first time in very truth part of its own substance.
But though art, as we shall eventually see with yet more distinctness,
is far indeed from being the highest form of mind, it is only in the
philosophy of art that it comes into all that it may justly claim.

In the same way art is not debarred from a philosophical inquiry by
reason of its unregulated caprice. As already intimated, it is its
true function to bring to consciousness the highest interests of mind.
An immediate consequence of this is that, so far as the _content_ of
fine art is concerned, it cannot range about in all the wildness of an
unbridled fancy; these interests of spirit posit categorically for the
content that embodies them definite points of attachment[20], however
multifold and inexhaustible may be the forms and shapes they assume.
The same may be said of the forms themselves. They too do not remain
unaffected by constraining principles. It is not every chance form
which is capable of expressing and presenting these interests, capable
of assimilating them and reproducing them. It is only through one
determinate content that the form adequate to its embodiment is defined.

It is upon grounds such as these that we are also able to discover a
track adapted to critical reflection through the apparently endless
vistas of artistic creations and shapes.

We have now, I trust, by way of prelude, succeeded in restricting the
content of our science on the lines of definition proposed. We have
made it clear that neither is fine art unworthy of philosophical study,
nor is such a philosophical study incapable of accepting as an object
of its cognition the essence of fine art.



II


If we now investigate the required _mode_ of such scientific
investigation, we are here again face to face with two contradictory
modes of handling the subject, each of which appears to exclude the
other and to permit us to arrive at no satisfactory result.

On the one hand we _observe_ the science of art, merely so to speak,
from an external point of view busying itself with actual works of art,
cataloguing them in a history of art, drawing up a sort of commentary
upon extant works, or propounding theories which are intended to supply
the general points of view for artistic criticism no less than artistic
production.

On the other hand we find science wholly giving itself up in
its independence and self-assured to the contemplation of the
beautiful, offering generalizations which do not concern the specific
characteristics of a work of art, producing in short an abstract
philosophy of the beautiful.

1. With regard to the first mentioned method of study, the
starting-point of which is the _empirical_ study of definite _facts_,
such is the path everyone must tread who means to study art at all. And
just as everyone nowadays, even though he does not actually concern
himself with physical science, yet deems it indispensable to his
intellectual equipment to have some kind of knowledge of the principles
of that science[21], so too it is generally considered more or less
essential to any man of real cultivation, that he should possess some
general knowledge of art; and indeed the pretension to be ranked as
dilletante, or even as genuine _connoisseur_, meets with comparatively
few exceptions.

(_a_) If however knowledge of this kind is really to claim the rank
of _connoisseurship_ of the first class it must be both varied in its
character and of the widest range. It is an indispensable condition
to such that it should possess an accurate knowledge of the well-nigh
limitless field of particular works of art both of ancient and modern
times, some of which have already disappeared, while others are only to
be found in distant countries or portions of the globe, and which it is
the misfortune of our situation to be unable to inspect. Add to this
that every work of art belongs to _one_ age, _one_ nationality, and
depends upon particular historical or other ends and ideas. On account
of this it is indispensable that the finest type of art-scholarship
should have at its command not merely historical knowledge of a wide
range, but knowledge that is highly specialized. In other words, a
work of art is associated with particular[22] detail in a peculiar
sense, and a specific treatment, is imperative to the comprehension and
interpretation of it. And in conclusion this connoisseurship of the
finest class does not merely imply like every other a retentive memory,
but also a keen imaginative sense, in order to hold clearly before
the mind the images of such artistic representations in all their
characteristic lines, and above all, to have them ready for comparison
with other works of art.

(_b_) Within the limits of such a method of study which is primarily
historical[23], distinct points of view will soon assert themselves
which in the contemplation of such works we are not suffered to
lose sight of, inasmuch as they are indispensable to a critical
verdict. Such points of view, as is the case with other sciences the
commencement of which is empirical, are summarized, after their due
collection as separate units and comparison, in general criteria and
propositions, emerging in a yet further stage of formal generalization
in "_Theories_ of the arts." This is not the place to dwell at length
upon literature of this kind; we will merely recall a few specimens
of such work in the most general way. There is, for instance, the
"Poetics" of Aristotle, which contains a theory of tragedy still of
real interest. With still more pertinency among the ancients the
"Ars Poetica" of Horace and the Essay on the "Sublime" by Longinus
will exemplify generally the manner in which this type of theorizing
is carried out. The general theses which are therein formulated are
intended to stand as premises and rules, in accordance with which works
of art ought to be produced, their necessity being above all insisted
on in times of the decadence of poetry and art. They are, in short,
prescriptions to the practitioner. The prescriptions, however, of these
physicians of art were even less successful in their curative effect on
art than are the ordinary ones in the restoration of bodily health.

As to such theories I will merely remark that although in their
_detail_ they contain much that is instructive, yet what they have to
say is based on a very limited range of artistic production, which
passed no doubt for _the_ superlatively beautiful ones, but for all
that occupied but a very restricted portion of the entire field of
survey. From a further point of view such generalizations are in part
very trivial reflections, which in their generality led up to no secure
grasp of actual detail, though that is above all the matter of most
importance. The epistle of Horace already cited is full of such general
theses, and consequently a book for everyone, but one which for this
very reason contains much of no importance at all. Take the lines:

     Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci
     Lectorum delectando pariterque monendo--

"He carries all votes who has interfused the useful and the pleasant,
by at the same time charming and instructing his reader." This is no
better than copybook headings such as "Stay where you are and earn
an honest sixpence"--which are good enough as generalization, but
are defective in the concrete determinacy upon which action depends.
An interest of another kind deducible from this type of artistic
study does not so much consist in the expressed object to promote
the production of genuine works of art: the intention appears to be
rather that of influencing the judgment of others upon artistic works
by such theories, creating, in short, a _standard of taste._ It is
for an object of this kind that Horne's "Elements of Criticism," the
writings of Batteux, and Ramler's "Introduction to the Fine Arts" have
found many readers in their day. Taste, in this sense, has to do with
co-ordination and artistic treatment, the thing in its right place,
and all that concerns the finish of that which belongs to the external
embodiment of a work of art. Add to this that to the principles of such
a taste views were attached which belonged to the psychology in fashion
at the time, views which had been discovered by empirical observations
of capacities and activities of the soul, or of passions and their
potential aggrandizement, succession, and so forth. It is, however,
an invariable fact that every one forms his opinion of works of art,
or characters, actions and events according to the measure of his
insight and his perceptive temperament; and inasmuch as the formation
of taste to which we have referred merely touched what was external
and therefore jejune, and apart from this deduced its prescriptions
entirely from a limited circle of artistic works and an intellectual
culture and emotional discipline equally restricted, its sphere of
influence was ineffective, and it had neither the power to comprehend
the profounder significance[24] and the true, nor to make the vision
more keen for their apprehension.

Such theories proceed through generalization as do the rest of the
non-philosophic sciences. The content which they submit to examination
is accepted from ordinary ideas as something final and received
as such. Questions are then asked about the constitution of such
a concept, the need for more distinct specification making itself
apparent, and this too is borrowed from current ideas, and forthwith
finally established from it in definitions. But in such a procedure we
at once find ourselves on an insecure basis exposed to controversy.
It might in the first instance no doubt appear that the beautiful was
quite a simple idea. But we soon discover it combines several aspects;
one writer will emphasize one of these, another some other one; or,
even assuming the same points of view are considered, the question for
dispute still remains which aspect is to be regarded as essential.

With regard to such questions it is generally reckoned as inseparable
from scientific completeness, that the various definitions of the
beautiful should be enumerated and criticized. For ourselves we do
not propose to attempt this with such historical _exhaustiveness_ as
would unfold all the many refinements of such essays at definition,
nor indeed on account of their _historical_ interest. We simply, by
way of illustration, shall offer a few specimens of the more recent
and more interesting ways of regarding the matter which do in fact
hit off pretty nearly what is actually implied in the idea of the
beautiful. With this in view it is of first importance to recall
Goethe's definition of the beautiful, which Meyer has incorporated
in his "History of the Creative Arts in Greece," in which work he
also brings forward the views of Hirt, though he does not actually
mention his name. Hirt, one of the greatest among connoisseurs of
the first class in our time, in his "Essay upon Fine Art" (_Horen_,
1797, seventh number), after considering the beautiful in the several
arts, summarizes his conclusions in the statement that the basis of a
just criticism of fine art and cultivation of taste is the idea of the
_Characteristic._ In other words he defines the beautiful ultimately
as the "Consummate[25] which is or can be an object of eye, ear, or
imagination." He then proceeds to define this "consummate" as "that
which is adequate to its aim, which nature or art aimed at producing
in the constitution of the object--after its generic kind and specific
type." For which reason it is necessary that, in order to instruct
our critical sense of beauty, we should direct our attention, so far
as possible, to the specific indications of the object's essential
constitution. It is, in fact, these _insignia_ of individuality which
are its characteristic. Consequently under the term _character_
as a principle of art he understands "that definite individual
characterization[26], whereby forms, movement and gesture, mien and
expression, local colouring, light and shadow, chiaroscuro and pose are
severally distinguished in due relation of course to the requirements
of the object previously selected." This formula is more significant
in its actual terms than other definitions in vogue. If we proceed
to ask what the "characteristic" is we find that it implies, first,
a _content_, as, for instance, a definite emotion, situation, event,
action, individual person or thing; secondly, the specific _manner_
in accordance with which such a content is represented. It is to this
mode or manner of presentation that the artistic principle of the
"characteristic" is related. It requires that every aspect of detail in
the mode of expression shall subserve the clearer definition of that
expression's content, and become a vital member of such expression.

The abstract determination of the characteristic emphasizes therefore
the pertinency with which particular detail ought to bring into
prominence the content which it is intended to reproduce. Attempting an
elucidation of this conception apart from technical phrase we may state
the limitation implied in it as follows: In the drama, for instance, it
is an action which constitutes the content. That is to say, the drama
has to represent how this or that action takes place. Now men do all
kinds of different things. They speak to each other, take their meals,
sleep, put on their clothes, say this and that, and all the rest of
it. But in all this business of life what does not lie in immediate
relation with the particular action selected as the real dramatic
content, must be excluded in order that relatively to it everything
shall be significant. In the same way in a picture which only includes
one moment of that action, and it is possible to accumulate--such are
the countless vistas into which the objective world draws us--a mass
of circumstances, persons, situations or other occurrences, which
stand in no relation to the specific action as it actually occurs,
nor subserve in any way the clearer characterization of the same. But
according to the definition given of the characteristic only that ought
to enter into a work of art, which is appertinent to the manifestation
and essential expression of precisely this one content and no other.
Nothing must declare itself as idle or superfluous.

This definition is no doubt of real importance, and from a certain
point of view admits of justification. Meyer, however, in the work
cited, is of opinion that the view propounded has vanished, every
vestige of it, and in his opinion only to the advantage of art. Such a
conception he thinks would in all probability lead to caricature. This
judgment is based on the previous idea that an attempt of this kind to
define the beautiful once and for all is associated with the notion of
_prescription._ The philosophy of art has absolutely nothing to do with
precepts for artists. The object is to unfold the essential nature of
the beautiful, and--apart from any intention to propound rules for the
executant--how it is illustrated in actual work, that is works of art.
To such a criticism we may observe that the definition of Hirt no doubt
includes what is capable of being caricature, for caricature may also
be characteristic. The obvious point to make, however, against it is
this, that in caricature character in its definition is emphasized to
the point of exaggeration and is, if we may say so, a superfluity of
the characteristic. But a surfeit of this kind is no longer appropriate
to the characteristic, but a burdensome reiteration whereby the
characteristic may itself be ousted from what it ought to be. Moreover,
what is of the nature of caricature is displayed as the characteristic
presentment of what is ugly, which is of course a mode of distortion.
_Ugliness_ is in its own right in this way more closely related to the
content[27], so that it may be actually asserted that the principle of
the characteristic includes also ugliness and the presentment of the
same as a part of its essential determination. The definition of Hirt,
of course, gives us no further account of the content of the beautiful.
It merely supplies us in this respect with a purely formal statement,
which, however, contains real truth in it although formulated in
abstract terms.

There is, however, the further question--what Meyer would substitute
for the artistic principle of Hirt, what he proposes himself? He deals
in the first instance exclusively with the principle as we have it
in ancient works of art, which, however, must contain in the widest
connotation of the term the essential determinant[28] of beauty[29].
In doing so he finds occasion to refer to Mengs and to Winckelmann's
definition of the Ideal, and expresses himself to the effect that he
does not wish either to reject or wholly to accept this principle
of beauty, but on the other hand that he feels no hesitation in
subscribing to the opinion of an enlightened judge of art (that is
Goethe), inasmuch as its meaning is distinct and it appears to solve
the problem with more accuracy. Now what Goethe says is this: "The
highest principle of the ancients was the _significant_; the highest
result of successful artistic _handling_ is the _beautiful._"

If we look more closely at what this dictum implies we have again once
more two aspects, that is to say a content or subject matter, and the
mode of its presentation. In our consideration of a work of art we
begin with that which is directly presented to us, and after seeing
it we proceed to inquire what its significance or content is. That
external husk possesses no value to us simply as such. We assume that
there is an inward, an ideality or a significance behind it, in virtue
of which the external appearance is made alive with mind or spirit. It
is to this, its soul, that the external appearance points and attests.
For an appearance which is significant of something does not present
itself to us, and merely that which it is _quâ_ externality, but
something other than this; as also does the symbol for example and with
yet more clarity the fable, the significance of which is simply the
moral and teaching of the same. In fact there is no word which does not
point to a meaning, possessing no value by itself. In the same way the
human eye, the face, flesh, skin, the entire presence are a revelation
of spirit, intelligence and soul; and in such a case the significance
is without exception something beyond that which is offered in
the bare appearance. In this way too the work of art must possess
significance; it must not appear to have told its tale simply in the
fact of particular lines, curves, surfaces, indentations, reliefs of
stone-work, in particular colours, tones, sounds of words, whatever
medium in fact art may employ. Its function is to unveil an inward or
ideal vitality, emotion, soul, a content and mind, which is precisely
what we mean by the significance of a work of art.

This demand, therefore, for significance in a work of art is to all
intents, and in its embrace much the same thing as Hirt's principle of
the characteristic.

According to this conception we find as characteristic constituents
of the beautiful an inward somewhat, a content, and an external rind
which possesses that content as its significance. The inner or ideal
constituent appears in the external and thus enables itself to be
recognized, that which is external pointing away from itself to the
inward.

We cannot, however, pursue the matter here into further detail.

(_c_) But the earlier fashion of this "theory-spinning," no less than
the laying down of rules for the executant already adverted to, has
already been thrust on one side despotically in Germany--mainly owing
to the appearance of genuine living poetry--and the right of genius,
its work and effects, have had their full independence insisted upon
as against the pretensions of such rules of thumb and the broad
water-ducts of theory. From this foundation of an art which is itself
of truly spiritual rank, as also of a sympathy and absorption of the
same, have arisen the receptivity and freedom which make it possible
for us to enjoy and appreciate great works of art which have long since
been within our reach, whether it be those of the modern world, of the
Middle Ages, or of wholly foreign peoples of the Past, the works of
India for example; works, which, in virtue of their antiquity or the
remoteness of their nationality, possess unquestionably for ourselves
a side alien to ourselves; but which, if we consider the way in which
their content passes over and beyond such national limits, and the
matter in it of common appeal to all mankind, can only be hallmarked
by the prejudice of theory among the products of a barbarous or corrupt
taste. This recognition of works of art anywhere and everywhere, works
which depart from the specific circle and forms of those upon which
in the main the abstractions of theory were based, has, as a primary
consequence, led to the recognition of a peculiar type of art—-_the
romantic art._ It became necessary to apprehend the notion and the
nature of the beautiful in a profounder way than these theories
attempted. With this fact another, too, cooperated, viz., that the
notions in its form of apperception, the mind as pure thought on its
part reached in philosophy a point of profounder self-cognition, and
was thereby compelled forthwith to grasp the essence of art too on
profounder lines. In this way, even in virtue of the point in the
process reached of this general evolution of human thought, the type
of theorizing upon art we have described, both relatively to its
principles no less than their elaboration, has become obsolete. It is
only the _scholarship_ of the history of art which retains an abiding
value, and must continue to retain it in proportion as the boundaries
of its survey have enlarged in every direction by means of the advance
made in man's powers of receptivity already noticed. Its business
and function consists in the aesthetic appreciation of particular
works of art and the knowledge of the historical, in other words the
external conditions from which the work of art originates. It is an
attitude of the mind, which, if assisted with sound sense and critical
insight, supported too with historical knowledge, is an indispensable
condition to the complete penetration into the individuality of a
given work of art. The many writings of Goethe upon art and works of
art are an excellent illustration. Theorizing, in the specific sense
noticed, is not the aim of this type of examination, although no doubt
it not unfrequently also busies itself with abstract principles and
categories, and may drop into such a style unconsciously. If, however,
without letting such deviations on our route detain us, we keep before
our vision those concrete illustrations of artistic works, such at
least, whatever else they may do, supply a philosophy of art with the
visible warrant and confirmation of actual work, into the historical
detail of which, in each particular case, philosophy is not permitted
to enter.

This then may be accepted as the first method of art study. It starts
from the particular work which we have before us.

2. The method or point of view to be contrasted with this, in other
words an entirely theoretical reflection, which is concerned to
cognize the beautiful as such from its own intrinsic wealth, and
to penetrate to the idea of it, is essentially distinct from the
first method. As is well known, Plato was the first to demand of
philosophical inquiry in a profounder sense, that objects should not
be cognized in their _particularity_, but in their _universality_,
in their generic type, their essential being and its explicit
manifestation. He maintained that this true essence[30] did not consist
in _particular_ actions which were good, in particular true opinions,
handsome men or beautiful works of art, but in _goodness_, _beauty_,
and _truth_ in their universality. Now if in fact the beautiful ought
to be cognized according to its essence and notion, this can only
be effected by means of the thinking notion[31], by means of which
the logical and metaphysical nature of the _Idea as such_, as also
of that of the particular _Idea of the beautiful_ enters into the
thinking consciousness. But the consideration of the beautiful in
its self-independence and its idea may readily once more become an
abstract metaphysic; and even though Plato is accepted as founder and
pioneer, the Platonic abstraction no longer supplies all we require,
not even for the logical Idea of the beautiful. We are bound to grasp
this idea more profoundly and more in the concrete. The emptiness of
content which clings to the Platonic Idea, no longer satisfies the
richer philosophical requirements of the mind to-day. It is no doubt
the case that we also in the philosophy of art must make the Idea of
the beautiful our starting point; but it is by no means inevitable that
we should adhere to the Platonic ideas in their abstraction, ideas from
which the philosophy of the beautiful merely dates its origins.

3. The philosophical idea of the beautiful to indicate at any rate
its true nature provisionally, must contain both extremes which
we have described mediated in itself. It must combine, that is to
say, metaphysical universality with the determinate content of real
particularity. It is only by this means that it is grasped in its
essential no less than explicit truth. For on the one hand it is then,
as contrasted with the sterility of one-sided reflection, fruit-bearing
out of its own wealth. It is its function, in consonance with its own
notion, to develop into a totality of definite qualities, and this
essential conception itself, no less than its detailed explication,
comprises the necessary coherence of its particular features as also
of the progress and transition of one phase thereof into another.
On the other hand, these particulars into which the passage is made
essentially carry the universality and essentiality of the fundamental
notion, as the particulars of which they appear. The modes of inquiry
hitherto discussed lack both these aspects, and for this reason it
is only the notion, as above formulated, in its completeness, which
conducts us to definitive principles which are substantive, necessary,
and self-contained in their completeness.



III


After these preliminaries we come to closer quarters with our actual
subject-matter, namely, the philosophy of Fine Art[32]; and for
the reason that we are undertaking to treat it scientifically, our
commencement must be with the notional concept of the same. It is
only after we have definitely ascertained this that we can map out
the division of its parts, and with it the plan of the science as a
whole. A division of this kind, if it is not to be, as is the case with
non-philosophical inquiry, undertaken in a purely external way, must
discover its principle in the notion of the subject treated itself.

Face to face with such a demand we are at once met by the question:
"Whence do we arrive at such a conception?" If we begin with the
notional concept of Fine Art itself the same at once becomes a
_pre-supposition_ and mere assumption. Mere assumptions, however,
are excluded from the philosophical method; whatever here is allowed
as valid must have its truth demonstrated, in other words must be
established in its necessity.

We will endeavour to arrive at an understanding in a few words in the
presence of this difficulty which invariably recurs in the introduction
to every course of philosophical study if treated independently. The
subject-matter of every science presents in the first instance two
aspects for consideration: first, the fact that a given object _is_;
secondly, the question _what_ it is.

Upon the question of fact in ordinary scientific inquiry little
difficulty is experienced. Indeed it might on a cursory view even
appear ridiculous if the demand were made that we had to prove in
geometry, for instance, that there were such objects as space, and
geometrical figures, or in astronomy and physics that there was a sun,
stars, and magnetic phenomena. In these sciences, which are concerned
with what is actually presented to sense perception, objects are
accepted from objective experience, and so far from it being regarded
necessary to demonstrate (_beweisen_) them, it is deemed sufficient
to point to (_weisen_) the bare facts. Yet even within the limits of
non-philosophical instruction doubts may arise as to the existence of
certain objects. In psychology, for example, the science of mind, the
doubt is possible whether there _is_ a soul, an intelligence, _i.e._,
something distinct from material conditions, something immaterial[33],
independent and self-substantive, or in the theology whether a God
actually _exists._ Moreover, assuming the objects of the science to be
thus immaterial, in other words, merely present in the mind, and not a
part of the objective world we perceive, we have to face the possible
conviction that there is nothing in the mind, but that which it has
evoked in virtue of its own activity. This brings up incidentally the
question whether men have produced this idea or intuition which is
inward to their minds or not, and even if we do actually accept the
first alternative, whether they have not made such an idea once more
to vanish, or depreciated, the same at any rate to an idea of wholly
_subjective_ validity, whose content possesses no independent or
self-contained existence[34]. In this way, for example, the beautiful
has been frequently regarded as possessing no necessarily essential and
independent stability in the world of our ideas; rather it is accepted
as a pleasure purely personal to ourselves, due to the caprice of our
senses[35]. Even our external intuitions, observations and perceptions
frequently deceive and lead us astray; but still more is this the case
with those ideas that do not arise from sense-perception, even though
they possess in themselves the greatest vitality, and are able to
transport us into passion, we are powerless to resist.

This doubt, then, whether an object of the inward world of our ideas
and intuitions actually exists as an independent fact or not, as also
that further incidental problem, whether the particular consciousness
in question has produced it in itself, and whether the particular
mode or process, in which it objectified it to itself, is also
adequate to the object thus envisaged in its essential and independent
nature--these are precisely the kind of questions which have awakened
in men the higher demand of philosophy, which is that, even if there
is every appearance that an object is, or that we have before us
such an object, yet none the less that object must be expounded or
demonstrated on the basis of its necessity. A demonstration of this
kind, if developed on truly philosophical lines, ought at the same time
to supply a sufficient answer to the question: _What_ a given object
is. To work this out fully would, however, carry us further than is
now possible. We propose to limit ourselves to the following general
remarks.

If we are to propound the necessity of our subject-matter, in other
words the beauty of art, we are bound to prove that art, or the
beautiful, is a result of antecedents such as, when regarded relatively
to their true notional concept, conduct us with scientific necessity
to the similar notion of fine art itself. Inasmuch as, however, we
propose to make art the point of departure, and its idea and the
objective presence of the same, and do _not_ propose to deal with the
antecedent conditions which are essential to the necessary exposition
of its notional concept, for this reason art, in our treatment of it as
a particular object of scientific inquiry, involves a pre-assumption,
which lies outside the boundary of our investigation; which, implying
as it does a different content, belongs, as scientifically treated,
to another course of philosophical inquiry. We have therefore now no
other alternative than frankly to accept the notional idea of art,
so to speak, provisionally[36], which is inevitable with every one
of the _particular_ philosophical sciences, if regarded in their
abstract isolation. For it is the entire body of philosophy, and that
alone, which either is or can be the comprehension of the universe
as one essentially _single_ organic totality; and which, as such a
totality, self-evolved from its own notional Idea, and returning into
itself so as to form a whole in virtue of the necessary principle
in which it is placed relatively to itself, encloses itself, and
all that is itself, into one single world of truth. In the coronal
of this scientific necessity is every particular member thereof a
self-complete circle which returns into itself, while, at the same
time, and as imperatively, it possesses a necessary bond of connection
with other parts. This bond of coherence is a backward from which it
is self-derived, no less than a forward to which it is self-impelled
onward, in so far as it fruitfully begets fresh material from its
own resources, and renders the same open and pervious to scientific
cognition. It is not therefore our purpose to demonstrate the Idea of
the beautiful, which is our point of departure, or, in other words,
to deduce it in all its necessity from the assumptions which are its
antecedents in philosophy, and from the womb of which it is born. This
is the object appropriate to an encyclopaedic development of philosophy
as a whole and in its specific branches. For ourselves the notional
concept of the beautiful and art is a pre-supposition supplied us by
the system of philosophy. Inasmuch, however, as we are not prepared
to discuss this system, and the association of art with it in the
present context[37], we have not as yet the idea of the beautiful
before us in a _scientific form_: what we have and are able to deal
with are simply the phases and aspects of the same as we find them in
the various conceptions of beauty and art of our everyday conscious
life, or as they have been conceived by previous writers. Having made
our start at this point we shall then at a later stage pass on to the
more fundamental investigation of those views, in order thereby to
secure the advantage of, in the first instance, working out a general
idea of our subject-matter no less than obtaining a provisional
acquaintance, as a result of our necessarily brief criticism, with its
higher principles, which will occupy our thoughts in the inquiry which
follows[38]. By this means our final introduction[39] will supply a
sort of overture to the exposition of the subject itself, and will aim
at being a general concatenation and direction of our reflection on the
real subject-matter before us. What in the first instance is known to
us under current conceptions of a work of art may be subsumed under the
three following determinations:

(1) A work of art is no product of Nature. It is brought into being
through the agency of man.

(2) It is created essentially _for_ man; and, what, is more, it is to a
greater-or less degree delivered from a sensuous medium, and addressed
to his _senses_[40].

(3) It contains an _end_ bound up with it.

1. With regard to the first point, that a work of art is a product of
human activity, an inference has been drawn from this (_a_) that such
an activity, being the conscious production of an external object can
also be _known_ and _divulged_, and learned and reproduced by others.
For that which one is able to effect, another--such is the notion--is
able to effect or to imitate[41], when he has once simply mastered the
way of doing it. In short we have merely to assume an acquaintance with
the rules of art-production universally shared, and anybody may then,
if he cares to do so, give effect to executive ability of the same
type, and produce works of art. It is out of reasoning of this kind
that the above-mentioned theories, with their provision of rules, and
their prescriptions formulated for practical acceptance, have arisen.
Unfortunately that which is capable of being brought into effect in
accordance with suggestions of this description can only be something
formally regular and mechanical. For only that which is mechanical is
of so exterior a type that only an entirely empty effort of will and
dexterity is required to accept it among our working conceptions, and
forthwith to carry it out; an effort, in fact, which is not under the
necessity to contribute out of its own resources anything concrete such
as is quite outside the prescriptive power of such general rules.

This is apparent with most vividness when precepts of this kind are not
limited to what is purely external and mechanical, but extend their
pretensions to the activity of the artist in the sense that implies
wealth of significance and intelligence. In this field our rules pass
off to purely indefinite generalities, such as "the theme ought to be
interesting, and each individual person must speak as is appropriate
to his status, age, sex and situation." But if rules are really to
suffice for such a purpose their directions ought to be formulated
with such directness of detail that, without any further co-operation
of mind, they could be executed precisely in the manner they are
prescribed. Such rules being, in respect to this content, abstract,
clearly and entirely fall short of their pretension of being able to
complete[42] the artistic consciousness. Artistic production is not a
formal activity in accordance with a series of definitions; it is, as
an activity of soul, constrained to work out of its own wealth, and
to bring before the mind's eye a wholly other and far richer content,
and a more embracing and unique[43] creation than ever can be thus
prescribed. In particular cases such rules may prove, of assistance,
in so far, that is, as they contain something really definite and
consequently useful for practice. But even here their guidance will
only apply to conditions wholly external.

(_b_) This above indicated tendency has consequently been wholly given
up; but writers in doing so have only fallen as unreservedly into
the opposite extreme. A work of art came to be looked upon, and so
far rightly, as no longer the product of an activity _shared by all
men_, but rather as a creation of a mind gifted in an extraordinary
degree. A mind of this type has in this view _merely_ to give free
vent to its peculiar endowment, regarded as a specific natural power.
It has to free itself absolutely from a pursuit of rules of universal
application, as also from any admixture of conscious reflection with
its creative and, as thus viewed, wholly instinctive powers, or rather
it should be on its guard therefrom, the assumption being that such
an exercise of conscious thought can only act on its creations as an
infection and a taint. Agreeably to such a view the work of art has
been heralded as the product of _talent_ and _genius_; and it is mainly
the aspect of natural gift inseparable from the ordinary conception of
talent and genius, which has been emphasized. There is to some extent
real truth in this. Talent is specific, genius universal capacity. With
neither[44] of these can a man endow himself _simply_ by the exercise
of his self-conscious activity. We shall consider this at greater
length in a subsequent chapter[45].

In the present context we would merely draw attention to the false
assumption in this view that in artistic production every kind of
self-reflection upon the artist's own activity was regarded as not
merely superfluous, but actually injurious. In such a view the
process of creation by talent or genius simply is taken to be a
general _state_; or we may define it more precisely as a condition of
inspiration. To such a condition, it is said, genius is in some measure
exalted by the subject-matter itself; it is also to some extent
voluntarily able to place itself under such a condition, a process of
self-inhibition in which the genial service of the champagne bottle
is not forgotten[46]. An idea of this kind was in vogue during the
so-called "Epoch of Genius," which originated with the early poetical
work of Goethe, receiving subsequent illustration in those of Schiller.
These poets by their rejection of all rules hitherto fabricated made
as it were an entirely new start; with deliberate intention they ran
counter to such rules, and while doing so distanced all competitors by
many lengths. I do not, however, propose to discuss with more detail
the confusions which have prevailed over the conception of inspiration
and genius, and the notion, which even at the present day finds
advocates, that inspiration simply by itself can effect anything and
everything. The real and indeed sole point to maintain as essential is
the thesis that although artistic talent and genius essentially implies
an element of natural power, yet it is equally indispensable that it
should be thoughtfully cultivated, that reflection should be brought
to bear on the particular way it is exercised, and that it should be
also kept alive with use and practice in actual work. The fact is
that an important aspect of the creating process is merely facility
in the use of a medium[47]; that is to say, a work of art possesses a
purely technical side, which extends to the borders of mere handicraft.
This is most obviously the case in architecture and sculpture, less
so in painting and music, least of all in poetry. A facility here
is not assisted at all by inspiration; what solely indispensable is
reflection, industry, and practice. Such technical skill an artist
simply _must_ possess in order that he may be master over the external
material, and not be thwarted by its obstinacy.

Add to this that the more exalted the rank of an artist the more
profoundly ought he to portray depths of soul and mind; and these are
not to be known by flashlight, but are exclusively to be sounded, if
at all, by the direction of the man's own intelligence on the world
of souls and the objective world. In this respect, therefore, once
more _study_ is the means whereby the artist brings to consciousness
such a content, and appropriates the material and structure of his
conceptions. At the same time no doubt one art will require such a
conscious reception and cognitive mastery of the content in question
more than another. Music, for example, which has exclusively to deal
with the entirely undefined motion of the soul within, with the musical
tones of that which is, relatively, feeling denuded of positive
thought, has little or no need to bring home to consciousness the
substance of intellectual conception[48]. For this very reason musical
talent declares itself as a rule in very early youth, when the head
is still empty and the emotions have barely had a flutter; it has, in
fact, attained real distinction at a time in the artist's life when
both intelligence and life are practically without experience. And
for the matter of that we often enough see very great accomplishment
in musical composition and execution hung together with considerable
indigence of mind and character. It is quite another matter in the
case of poetry. What is of main importance here is a presentation
of our humanity rich in subject-matter and reflective power, of its
profounder interests, and of the forces which move it. Here at least
mind and heart must themselves be richly and profoundly disciplined
by life, experience, and thought before genius itself can bring
into being the fruit that is ripe, the content that has substance,
and is essentially consummate. The early productions of Goethe and
Schiller are characterized by an immaturity, we may even call it a
rawness and barbarity, which really are appalling. This phenomenon,
that in the majority of those experiments we find a preponderating
mass of features which are absolutely prosaic, or at least uninspired
and commonplace, is a main objection to the ordinary notion that
inspiration is inseparable from youth and its sirocco season. These two
men of genius were the first beyond question to give our nation true
works of poetry, are, in fact, our national poets; but for all that it
was only their mature manhood, which made it a present of creations
profound, sterling of their kind, creations of genuine inspiration, and
no less technically complete in their artistic form[49]. We naturally
recall the case of the veteran Homer, who only composed and uttered his
immortal songs in his old age.

(_c_) A third view, held relatively to the idea of a work of art as a
product of human activity, concerns the position of such towards the
phenomena of Nature. The natural tendency of ordinary thinking in this
respect is to assume that the product of human art is of _subordinate_
rank to the works of Nature. The work of art possesses no feeling of
its own; it is not through and through a living thing, but, regarded as
an external object, is a dead thing. It is usual to regard that which
is alive of higher worth than what is dead. We may admit, of course,
that the work of art is not in itself capable of movement and alive.
The living, natural thing is, whether looked at within or without, an
organization with the life-purpose of such worked out into the minutest
detail. The work of art merely attains to the show of animation on
its surface. Below this it is ordinary stone, wood, or canvas[50],
or in the case of poetry idea, the medium of such being speech and
letters. But this element of external existence is not that which makes
a work a creation of fine art. A work of art is only truly such in
so far as originating in the human spirit, it continues to belong to
the soil from which it sprang, has received, in short, the baptism of
the mind and soul of man, and only presents that which is fashioned
in consonance with such a sacrament. An interest vital to man, the
spiritual values which the single event, one individual character, one
action possesses in its devolution and final issue, is seized in the
work of art and emphasized with greater purity[51] and clarity than
is possible on the ground of ordinary reality where human art is not.
And for this reason the work of art is of higher rank than any product
of Nature whatever, which has not submitted to this passage through
the mind. In virtue of the emotion and insight, for example, in the
atmosphere of which a landscape is portrayed by the art of painting,
this creation of the human spirit assumes a higher rank than the purely
natural landscape. Everything which partakes of spirit is better than
anything begotten of mere Nature. However this may be, the fact remains
that no purely natural existence is able, as art is, to represent
divine ideals.

And further, all that the mind borrows from its own ideal content
it is able, even in the direction of external existence, to endow
with _permanence._ The individual living thing on the contrary is
transitory; it vanishes and is unstable in its external aspect. The
work of art persists. At the same time it is not mere continuation, but
rather the form and pressure thereon of the mintage of soul-life which
constitutes its true pre-eminence as contrasted with Nature's reality.

But this higher position we have thus assigned to the work of art is
yet further contested by another prevalent conception of ordinary
ideas. It is contended that Nature and all that proceeds from her are
a work of God, created by His goodness and wisdom. The work of art
is on the contrary _merely_ a human product fashioned by human hands
according to human design. The fallacy implied in this contrast between
the products of Nature viewed as a divine creation and human activity
as of wholly finite energy consists in the apparent assumption that
God is not operative in and through man, but limits the sphere of His
activity to Nature alone. We must place this false conception entirely
on one side if we are desirous of penetrating to the true idea of art;
or rather, as opposed to such a conception we ought to accept the
extreme opposite thereto, namely, that God is more honoured by that
which mind makes and creates than by everything brought into being and
fashioned in the natural process. For not only is there a divinity in
man, but it is actually effective in him in a form which is adequate to
the essential nature of God in a far higher degree than in the work of
Nature. God is a Spirit, and it is only in man that the medium, through
which the Divine passes, possesses the form of spirit fully conscious
of the activity in which it manifests its ideal presence. In Nature
the medium correspondent to this is the unconscious sensuous[52] and
external _materia_, which is by many degrees inferior to consciousness
in its worth. In the products of art God works precisely as He works
through the phenomena of Nature. The divine substance, however, as it
is asserted in the work of art has secured, being begotten of spirit
life itself, a highway commensurable to its existence; determinate
existence in the unconscious sensuousness of Nature is not a mode of
appearance adequate to the Divine Being.

(_d_) Assuming, then, that the work of art is a creation of man in
the sense that it is the offspring of mind or spirit we have still
a further question in conclusion, which will help us to draw a more
profound inference still from our previous discussion. That question
is, "What is the human _need_ which stimulates art-production?" On the
one hand the artistic activity may be regarded as the mere play of
accident, or human conceits, which might just as well be left alone
as attempted. For, it may be urged, there are other and better means
for carrying into effect the aims of art, and man bears within himself
higher and more weighty interests, than art is capable of satisfying.
In contrast to such a view art appears to originate in a higher
impulse, and to satisfy more elevated needs, nay, at certain times the
highest and most absolute of all, being, as it has been, united to the
most embracing views of entire epochs and nations upon the constitution
of the world and the nature of their religion.

This inquiry, however, concerning a necessity for art which shall not
be merely contingent, but absolute, we are not as yet able to answer
with completeness; it demands, in fact, a concreter mode of exposition
than is compatible with the form of this introduction. We must
accordingly deem it sufficient for the present merely to establish the
following points.

The universal and absolute want from which art on its side of essential
form[53] arises originates in the fact that man is a _thinking_
consciousness, in other words that he renders explicit _to himself_ and
from his own substance[54], what he is and all in fact that exists.
The objects of Nature exist exclusively in immediacy and _once for
all._[55] Man, on the contrary, as mind _reduplicates_ himself. He is,
to start with, an object of Nature as other objects; but in addition to
this, and no less truly, he exists _for himself_; he observes himself,
makes himself present to his imagination and thought, and only in
virtue of this active power of self-realization is he actually mind
or spirit. This consciousness of himself man acquires in a twofold
way; in the _first_ instance _theoretically._ This is so in so far as
he is under a constraint to bring himself in his own inner life to
consciousness--all which moves in the human heart, all that surges up
and strives therein--and generally, so far as he is impelled to make
himself an object of perception and conception, to fix for himself
definitively that which thought discovers as essential being, and in
all that he summons out of himself, no less than in that which is
received from without, to recognize only himself. And _secondly_, this
realization is effected through a _practical_ activity. In other words
man possesses an impulse to assert himself in that which is presented
him in immediacy, in that which is at hand as an external something
to himself, and by doing so at the same time once more to recognize
himself therein. This purpose he achieved by the alteration he effects
in such external objects, upon which he imprints the seal of his inner
life, rediscovering in them thereby the features of his own determinate
nature. And man does all this, in order that he may as a free agent
divest the external world of its stubborn alienation from himself--and
in order that he may enjoy in the configuration of objective fact an
external reality simply of himself. The very first impulse of the child
implies in essentials this practical process of deliberate change in
external fact. A boy throws stones into the stream, and then looks
with wonder at the circles which follow in the water, regarding them
as a result in which he sees something of his own doing. This human
need runs through the most varied phenomena up to that particular
form of self-reproduction in the external fact which is presented us
in human art. And it is not merely in relation to external objects
that man acts thus. He treats himself, that is, his natural form, in
a similar manner: he will not permit it to remain as he finds it; he
alters it deliberately. This is the rational ground of all ornament
and decoration, though it may be as barbarous, tasteless, entirely
disfiguring, nay, as injurious as the crushing of the feet of Chinese
ladies, or the slitting of ears and lips. For it is among the really
cultured alone that a change of figure, behaviour, and every mode and
manner of self-expression will issue in harmony with the dictates of
mental elevation[56].

This universal demand for artistic expression[57] is based on the
rational impulse in man's nature to exalt both the world of his soul
experience and that of Nature for himself into the conscious embrace
of mind as an object in which he rediscovers himself. He satisfies
the demand of this spiritual freedom by making explicit to, his
_inner_ life all that exists, no less than from the further point of
view giving a realized _external_ embodiment to the self made thus
explicit. And by this reduplication of what is his own he places
before the vision and within the cognition of himself and others what
is within him. This is the free rationality of man, in which art as
also all action and knowledge originates. We shall investigate at
a later stage the specific need for art as compared with that for
other political and ethical action, or that for religious ideas and
scientific knowledge.

2. We have hitherto considered the work of art under the aspect that
it is fashioned by man; we will now pass over to the second part of
our definition, that it is produced for his _sense-apprehension_,
and consequently is to a more or less degree under obligations to a
sensuous medium.

(_a_) This reflection has been responsible for the inference that the
function of fine art is to arouse feeling, more precisely the feeling
which suits us--that is, pleasant feeling. From such a point of view
writers have converted the investigation of fine art into a treatise on
the emotions and asked what kind of feelings art ought to excite--take
fear, for example, and compassion--with the further question how such
can be regarded as pleasant, how, in short, the contemplation of a
misfortune can bring satisfaction. This tendency of reflection dates
for the most part from the times of Moses Mendelssohn, and many such
trains of reasoning may be found in his writings. A discussion of
this kind, however, did not carry the problem far. Feeling is the
undefined obscure region of spiritual life. What is felt, remains
cloaked in the form of the separate personal experience under its
most abstract persistence[58]; and for this reason the distinctions
of feeling are wholly abstract; they are not distinctions which apply
to the subject-matter itself. To take examples--fear, anxiety, care,
dread, are of course one type of emotion under various modifications;
but in part they are purely quantitative degrees of intensity, and in
part forms which reflect no light, on their content itself, but are
indifferent to it. In the case of fear, for instance, an existence is
assumed, for which the individual in question possesses an interest,
but sees at the same time the negative approach which threatens to
destroy this existence, and thereupon discovers in immediate fusion
within himself the above interest and the approach of that negative as
a contradictory affection of his personal life. A fear of this sort,
however, does not on its own account condition any particular content;
it may associate with itself subject-matter of the most opposed and
varied character. The feeling merely as such is in short a wholly empty
form of a subjective state. Such a form may no doubt in certain cases
itself be essentially complex, as we find it is with hope, pain, joy,
and pleasure; it may also in this very complexity appropriate various
modes of content, as, for example, we have a feeling of justice, an
ethical feeling, a sublime religious feeling, and so forth; but despite
the fact that a content of this kind is present in different modes of
feeling, no light whatever is thereby thrown on such content which will
disclose its essential and definite character. The feeling throughout
remains a purely subjective state which belongs to me, one in which
the concrete fact vanishes, as though contracted to a vanishing point
in the most abstract of all spheres[59]. For this reason an inquiry
over the nature of the emotions which art ought or ought not to arouse,
comes simply to a standstill in the undefined; it is an investigation
which deliberately abstracts from genuine content and its concrete
substance and notion. Reflection upon feeling is satisfied with the
observation of the personal emotional state and its singularity,
instead of penetrating and sounding the matter for study, in other
words the work of art, and in doing so bidding good-bye to the wholly
subjective state and its conditions. In feeling, however, it is just
this subjective state void of content which is not merely accepted,
but becomes the main thing; and that is precisely why people are so
proud of having emotions. And for no other reason that is why such an
investigation is tedious owing to its indefinite nature and emptiness,
and even repellent in its attention to trivial personal idiosyncrasies.

(_b_) Inasmuch, however, as the work of art is not merely concerned
with exciting some kind of emotion or other--for this is an object it
would share without any valid distinction with eloquence, historical
composition, religious edification and much else--but is only a work
of art in so far as it is beautiful, it occurred to reflective minds
to discover a _specific feeling for beauty_, and a distinct _sense
faculty_ correspondent with it. In such an inquiry it soon became
clear that a sense of this kind was no definite and mere[60] instinct
rigidly fixed by Nature, which was able by itself and independently
to distinguish the beautiful. As a consequence the demand was made
for _culture_ as a condition precedent to such a sense, and the sense
of beauty as thus cultivated was called _taste_, which, albeit an
instructed apprehension and discovery of the beautiful, was none the
less assumed to persist in the character of immediate feeling. We
have already discussed the way in which abstract theory attempted
to form such a sense of taste, and how external and one-sided that
sense remained. While the critical sense generally of the time when
such ideas were in currency was lacking in the _universality_ of its
principles, as a _specific_ critique of particular works of art it
was less concerned to substantiate a judgment _more decisive_ than
hitherto--indeed the material to effectuate this was not as yet
forthcoming--than to promote in a general way the _cultivation_ of such
a taste[61]. Consequently this educative process also came to a halt
in the region of the more indefinite, and merely busied itself by its
reflections in the fitting out of feeling as a sense of beauty in such
a way that beauty could immediately be discovered whenever and wherever
it might chance to appear. The real depth of the subject-matter
remained notwithstanding a closed book to such a taste. Profundity of
this kind demands not merely sensitive reception and abstract thought,
but the reason in its concrete grasp and the most sterling qualities
of soul-life. Taste on the contrary is merely directed to the outside
surfaces, which are the playground of the feelings, and upon which
one-sided principles may very well pass, as currency. But for this very
reason our so-called good taste is scared by every kind of profounder
artistic effect, and is dumb where the ideal significance[62] is in
question, and all mere externalities and accessories vanish. For when
great passions and the movements of a profound soul assert themselves,
we do not bother ourselves any more with the finer distinctions of
taste and its retail traffic in trifles. It is[63] conscious that
genius leaves such ground far behind it in its stride; and shrinking
before that power feels on its part far from comfortable, not knowing
very well which way to turn.

(_c_) Thus it is the further change has come about that critics of
art-production no longer have an eye simply to the education of taste,
or are intent upon the illustration of such a sense. The _connoisseur_,
or art-scholar, has taken the place of the man, or judge of artistic
taste. The positive side of art-scholarship, in so far as it implies
a sound and exhaustive acquaintance with the entire embrace of what
is distinctive and peculiar in a given work of art, we have already
maintained to be a necessary condition of artistic research. A work of
art, owing to its nature, which, if it is material from one point of
view, is also related to a particular person, originates from specific
conditions of the most varied kind, among which as exceptionally
important we may mention the date and place of its origins, the
characteristic personality of the artist, and, above all, the degree
of executive accomplishment secured by the art. All these points
of view have to be taken into consideration if we wish to obtain a
view and knowledge of such a work which is clear in its outlines, and
founded on a true basis, nay, even wish to enjoy it rightly. It is
with these that our art-scholarship is mainly occupied; and all that
it can do for us in this way should be gratefully accepted. Though it
is quite true such art-scholarship must be reckoned as of essential
importance, it ought not to be regarded as the sole, or indeed the
highest, constituent in the relation of the contemplative spirit to
a work of art and art generally. Such art-scholarship (this is the
defective tendency) may restrict itself wholly to a knowledge of purely
external characteristics, either on the side of technique or historical
condition, or in other directions; it may continue to possess the
barest inkling of the true nature of a given work, or simply no
knowledge at all. It may even form a depreciatory verdict on the
value of profounder inquiries as compared with purely matter of fact,
technical, and historical knowledge. Yet even so an art-scholarship,
assuming it to be really genuine and thorough, at least proceeds upon
grounds and knowledge which are definite, and an intelligent judgment;
and it is association with such that our more accurate review of the
distinct, if also to some extent exterior, aspects of a work of art,
and our estimate of their relative significance, is secured.

(_d_) Following the above observations upon the modes of inquiry which
were suggested by that aspect of a work of art in which, as itself an
object with a material medium, it possessed an essential relation to
man as himself receptive through sense, we will now examine this point
of view in its more essential connection with art itself. We propose to
do this partly (α) in respect to the art-product viewed as an object,
partly (β) as regards the personal characteristics of the artist, his
genius, talent, and so forth. We do not, however, propose to enter
into matter which can in this connection exclusively proceed from the
knowledge of art according to its universal concept[64]. The truth
is we are not as yet in the full sense on scientific ground; we have
merely reached the province of external reflection.

(α) There is no question, then, that a work of art is presented to
sensuous apprehension. It is submitted to the emotional sense, whether
outer or inner, to sensuous perception and the imaged sense, precisely
as the objective world is so presented around us, or as is our own
inward sensitive nature. Even a speech, for example, may be addressed
to the sensuous imagination and feeling. Notwithstanding this fact,
however, the work of art is not exclusively directed to the _sensuous_
apprehension, viewed, that is, as an object materially conditioned. Its
position is of the nature, that along with its sensuous presentation it
is fundamentally addressed to the _mind._ The mind is intended to be
affected by it and to receive some kind of satisfaction in it.

This function of the work of art at once makes it clear how it is that
it is in no way intended to be a natural product or, on the side where
it impinges on Nature, to possess the living principle of Nature. This,
at least, is a fact whether the natural product is ranked lower or
higher than a _mere_ work of art, as people are accustomed to express
themselves in the tone of depreciation.

In other words the sensuous aspect of a work of art has a right to
determinate existence only in so far as it exists for the human mind,
not, however, in so far as itself, as a material object, exists for
itself independently.

If we examine more closely in what way the sensuous _materia_ is
presented to man we find that what is so can be placed under various
relations to the mind.

(αα) The lowest in grade and that least compatible with relation to
intelligence is purely sensuous sensation. It consists primarily in
mere looking, listening, just as in times of mental overstrain it may
often be a relaxation to go about without thought, and merely listen
and have a look round. The mind, however, does not rest in the mere
apprehension of external objects through sight and hearing; it makes
them objective to its own inward nature, which thereupon, is impelled
itself to give effect to itself in these things as a further step
under a sensuous mode, in other words, it relates itself to them as
_desire._ In this appetitive relation to the external world man, as a
sensuous[65] particular thing, stands in a relation of opposition, to
things in general as in the same way particulars. He does not address
himself to them with open mind and the universal ideas of thought; he
retains an isolated position, with its personal impulses and interests,
relatively to objects as fixed in their obduracy as himself, and makes
himself at home in them by using them, or eating them up altogether,
and, in short, gives effect to his self-satisfaction by the sacrifice
he makes of them. In this negative relation desire requires for itself
not merely the superficial show of external objects, but the actual
things themselves in their material concrete existence. Mere pictures
of the wood, which it seeks to make use of, or of the animals, which it
hopes to eat up, would be of no service to desire. Just as little is it
possible for desire to suffer the object to remain in its freedom; its
craving is just this to force it to annihilate this self-subsistency
and freedom of external facts, and to demonstrate that these things
are only there to be destroyed and devoured. But at the same time
the particular person is neither himself free, begirt as he is by
the particular limited and transitory interests of his desires, for
his definite acts do not proceed from the essential universality and
rationality of his will, neither is he free relatively to the external
world, for desire[66] remains essentially determined by things and
related to them.

This relation, then, of desire is not that in which man is related to
the work of art. He suffers it to exist in its free independence as
an object; he associates himself with it without any craving of this
kind, rather as with an object reflective of himself[67], which exists
solely for the contemplative faculty of mind. For this reason, as we
have said, the work of art, although it possesses sensuous existence,
does not require sensuous concrete existence, nor yet the animated life
of such objects. Or, rather, we should add, it _ought_ not to remain
on such a level, in so far as its true function is exclusively to
satisfy spiritual interests, and to shut the door on all approach to
mere desire. Hence we can understand how it is that practical desire
rates the particular works of Nature in the organic or inorganic world,
which are at its service, more highly than works of art, which are
obviously useless in this sense, and only contribute enjoyment to other
capacities of man's spirit.

(ββ) A second mode under which the externally present comes before
the conscious subject is, as contrasted with the single sensuous
perception and active desire, the purely theoretical relation to
the _intelligence._ The theoretic contemplation of objects has no
interest in consuming the same in their particularity and satisfying
or maintaining itself through the sense by their means; its object
is to attain a knowledge of them in their _universality_, to seek
out their ideal nature and principle, to comprehend them according
to their notional idea. Consequently this contemplative interest is
content to leave the particular things as they are, and stands aloof
from them in their objective singularity, which is not the object of
such a faculty's investigation. For the rational intelligence is not
a property of the particular person in the sense that desire is so;
it appertains to his singularity as being itself likewise essentially
universal. So long as it persists in this relation of universality to
the objects in question, it is his reason in its universal potency
which is attempting to discover _itself_ in Nature, and thereby the
inward or essential being of the natural objects, which his sensuous
existence does not present under its mode of immediacy, although such
existence is founded therein. This interest of contemplation, the
satisfaction of which is the task of _science_, is, however, shared in
this scientific form just as little by art as it shared in the common
table of those impulses of the purely practical desire. Science can,
it is true, take as its point of departure the sensuous thing in its
singularity, and possess itself of some conception, how this individual
thing is present in its specific colour or form. But for all that this
isolated thing of sense as such possesses no further relation to mind,
inasmuch as the interest of intelligence makes for the universal,
the law, the thought and notion of the object, and consequently not
only does it forsake it in its immediate singularity, but it actually
transforms it within the region of idea[68], converting a concrete
object of sense into an abstract subject-matter of thought, that is
converting it into something other than the same object of its sensuous
perception actually was. The artistic interest does not follow such
a process, and is distinct from that of science for this reason.
The contemplation of art restricts its interest simply in the way
in which the work of art, as external object, in the directness of
its definition, and in the singularity wherein it appears to sense,
is manifested in all its features of colour, form, and sound, or as
a single isolated vision of the whole; it does not go so far beyond
the immediately received objective character as to propose, as is the
case with science, the ideal or conceptive thinking of this particular
objectivity under the terms of the rational and universal notion which
underlies it.

The interest of art, therefore, is distinguishable from the practical
interest of desire in virtue of the fact that it suffers its object to
remain in its free independence, whereas desire applies it, even to the
point of destruction, to its own uses. The contemplation of art, on
the other hand, differs from that of a scientific intelligence in an
analogous way[69] in virtue of the fact that it cherishes an interest
for the object in its isolated existence, and is not concerned to
transform the same into terms of universal thought and notion.

(γγ) It follows, then, that, though the sensuous _materia_ is
unquestionably present in a work of art, it is only as surface or
_show_ of the sensuous that it is under any necessity to appear. In
the sensuous appearance of the work of art it is neither the concrete
material stuff, the empirically perceived completeness and extension
of the internal organism which is the object of desire, nor is it the
universal thought of pure ideality, which in either case the mind
seeks for. Its aim is the sensuous presence, which, albeit suffered
to persist in its sensuousness, is equally entitled to be delivered
from the framework of its purely material substance. Consequently, as
compared with the immediately envisaged and incorporated object of
Nature, the sensuous presence in the work of art is transmuted to mere
semblance or _show_, and the work of art occupies a midway ground, with
the directly perceived objective world on one side and the ideality of
pure thought on the other. It is not as yet pure thought, but, despite
the element of sensuousness which adheres to it, it is no longer purely
material existence, in the sense at least that stones, plants, and
organic life are such. The sensuous element in a work of art is rather
itself somewhat of ideal intension[70], which, however, as not being
actually the ideal medium of thought, is still externally presented at
the same time as an object. This semblance of the sensuous presents
itself to the mind externally as the form, visible appearance, and
harmonious vibration of things. This is always assuming that it suffers
the objects to remain in their freedom as objective facts, and does not
seek to penetrate into their inward essence by abstract thought, for by
doing so they would (as above explained) entirely cease to exist for it
in their external singularity.

For this reason the sensuous aspect of art is only related to the two
_theoretical_[71] senses of _sight_ and _hearing_; smell, on the other
hand, taste, and the feeling of touch are excluded from the springs of
art's enjoyment. Smell, taste, and touch come into contact with matter
simply as such[72], and with the immediate sensuous qualities of the
same; smell with the material volatization through the air; taste with
the material dissolution of substance, and touch or mere bodily feeling
with qualities such as heat, coldness, smoothness, and so forth. On
this account these senses cannot have to do with the objects of art,
which ought to subsist in their actual and very independence, admitting
of no purely sensuous or rather physical relation. The pleasant for
such senses is not the beauty of art. Thus art on its sensuous side
brings before us deliberately merely a shadow-world of shapes, tones,
and imaged conceptions[73], and it is quite beside the point to
maintain that it is simply a proof of the impotence and limitations
of man that he can only present us with the surface of the physical
world, mere _schemata_, when he calls into being his creative works. In
art these sensuous shapes and tones are not offered as exclusively for
themselves and their form to our direct vision. They are presented with
the intent to secure in such shape satisfaction for higher and more
spiritual interests, inasmuch as they are mighty to summon an echo and
response in the human spirit evoked from all depths of its conscious
life. In this way the sensuous is _spiritualized_ in art, or, in other
words, the life of _spirit_ comes to dwell in it under sensuous guise.

(β) For this reason, however, a product of art is only possible in
so far as it has received its passage through the mind, and has
originated from the productive activity of mind. This brings us to
another question we have to answer, and it is this: "How is the
sensuous or material aspect, which is imperative as a condition of
art, operative in the artist as conjoined to his personal productive
activity[74]?" Now this mode or manner of artistic production contains,
as an activity personal to the artist, in essentials just the same
determinants which we found posited in the work of art. It must be
a spiritual activity, which, however, at the same time possesses in
itself the element of sensuousness and immediacy. It is neither, on
the one hand, purely mechanical work, such as is purely unconscious
facility in sleight of hand upon physical objects, or a stereotyped
activity according to teachable rule of thumb; nor, on the other
hand, is it a productive process of science, which tends to pass
from sensuous things to abstract ideas and thoughts, or is active
exclusively in the medium of pure thought. In contrast to these the
two aspects of mental idea and sensuous material must in the artistic
product be united. For example, it would be possible in the case of
poetical compositions to attempt to embody what was the subject-matter
in the form of prosaic thought in the first instance, and only after
doing so to attach to the same imaginative ideas rhymes and so on,
so that as a net result such imagery would be appendent to the
abstract reflections as so much ornament and decoration. An attempt
of this kind, however, could only lead us to a poor sort of poetry,
for in it we should have operative a twofold kind of activity in its
_separation_, which in the activity of genuine artistic work only
holds good in inseparable unity. It is this true kind of creative
activity which forms what is generally described as the artistic
_imagination_. It is the rational element, which in its import as
spirit only exists, in so far as it actively forces its way into the
presence of consciousness, yet likewise, and only subject to this
condition, displays all its content to itself under a sensuous form.
This activity possesses therefore a spiritual content, but it clothes
the same in sensuous image, and for this reason that it is only able
to come to a knowledge of the same under this sensuous garb. We may
compare such a process with that of a man of experience in life, a man,
shall we add, of real geniality and wit, who--while at the same time
being fully conscious in what the main importance of life consists,
what are the things which essentially bind men together, what moves
them and is the mainspring of their lives--nevertheless has neither
brought home this content in universal maxims, nor indeed is able to
unfold it to others in the generalities of the reflective process, but
makes these mature results of his intelligence without exception clear
to himself and others in particular cases, whether real or invented,
or by examples and such like which hit the mark. For in the ideas of
such a man everything shapes itself into the concrete image determinate
in its time and place, to which therefore the addition of names and
any other detail of external condition causes no difficulty. Yet such
a kind of imagination rather rests on the recollection of conditions,
he has lived through, actual experience, than it is a creative
power of itself. Memory preserves and renews the particularity and
external fashion of such previous events with all their more distinct
circumstances, but on the other hand does not suffer the universal
to appear independently. The creative imagination of an artist is
the imagination of a great mind and a big heart; it is the grasp and
excogitation of ideas and shapes, and, in fact, nothing less than
this grasp of the profoundest and most embracing human interests in
the wholly definite presentation of imagery borrowed from objective
experience. A consequence of this is, that imagination of this type[75]
is based in a certain sense on a natural gift, a general talent for
it, as we say, because its creative power essentially implies an
aspect of sense presentation. It is no doubt not unusual to speak in
the same way of scientific "talent." The sciences, however, merely
presuppose the general capacity for thought, which does not possess, as
imagination does, together with its intellectual activity, a reference
to the concrete testimony of Nature, but rather precisely abstracts
from the activity that form in which we find it in Nature. It would be,
therefore, truer to the mark if we said there is no specific scientific
talent in the sense of a purely natural endowment. Imagination[76],
on the other hand, combines within it a mode of instinct-like
creativeness. In other words the essential plasticity and material
element in a work of art is subjectively present in the artist as part
of his native disposition and impulse[77], and as his unconscious
activity belongs in part to that which man receives straight from
Nature. No doubt the entire talent and genius of an individual is
not wholly exhausted by that we describe as natural capability. The
creation of art is quite as much a spiritual and self-cognized process;
but for all that we affirm that its spirituality contains an element
of plastic or configurative facility which Nature[78] confers on it.
For this reason, though almost anybody can reach a certain point in
art, yet, in order to pass beyond this--and it is here that the art
in question really begins--a talent for art which is inborn and of a
higher order altogether is indispensable.

Considered simply as a natural basis a talent of this kind asserts
itself for the most part in early youth, and is manifested in the
restless persistency, ever intent with vivacity and alertness, to
create artistic shapes in some particular sensuous medium, and to make
this mode of expression and utterance the unique one or the one of
main importance and most suitable. And thus also a virtuosity up to a
certain point in the technique of art which is arrived at with ease is
a sign of inborn talent. A sculptor finds everything convertible into
plastic shape, and from early days takes to modelling clay; and so
on generally whatever men of such innate powers have in their minds,
whatever excites and moves their souls, becomes forthwith a plastic
figure, a drawing, a melody, or a poem.

(_γ_) Thirdly, and in conclusion: the _content_ of art is also in some
respects borrowed from the objective world perceived in sense, that
is Nature; or, in any case, if the content is also of a spiritual
character, it can only be grasped in such a way, that the spiritual
element therein, as human relations, for example, are displayed in the
form of phenomena which possess objective reality.

3. There is yet another question to solve, namely, what the interest
or the _End_ is, which man proposes to himself in the creation of the
content embodied by a work of art. This was, in fact, the third point
of view, which we propounded relatively to the art-product. Its more
detailed discussion will finally introduce us to the true notional
concept of art itself.

If we take a glance at our ordinary ideas on this subject, one of the
most prevalent is obviously

(_a_) The principle of the imitation of Nature. According to this view
the essential aim or object of art consists in imitation, by which is
understood a facility in copying natural forms as present to us in a
manner which shall most fully correspond to such facts. The success of
such an exact representation of Nature is assumed to afford us complete
satisfaction.

(_α_) Now in this definition there is to start with absolutely nothing
but the formal aim to bring about the bare repetition a second time
by man, so far as his means will permit of this, of all that was
already in the external world, precisely too in the way it is there. A
repetition of this sort may at once be set down as

(_αα_) A _superfluous_ task for the reason that everything
which pictures, theatrical performances represent by way of
imitation--animals, natural scenery, incidents of human life--we have
already elsewhere before us in our gardens or at home, or in other
examples of the more restricted or extended reaches of our personal
acquaintance. Looked at, moreover, more closely, such a superfluity of
energy can hardly appear otherwise than a presumptuous trifling; it is
so because

(_ββ_) It lags so far behind Nature. In other words art is limited in
its means of representation. It can only produce one-sided illusions,
a semblance, to take one example, of real fact addressed exclusively
to _one_ sense. And, moreover, if it does wholly rely on the bare
aim of _mere_ imitation, instead of Nature's life all it gives us
ever is the mere pretence of its substance. For some such reason the
Turks, who are Mohammedans, will not put up with any pictures or
copies of men and other objects. When James Bruce, in his travels
through Abyssinia, showed a painted fish to a Turk, that worthy was
at first astonished; but, quickly recovering himself, he made answer
as follows: "If this fish shall rise up against you at the last day,
and say, 'You have certainly given me a body, but no living soul,'
how are you going to justify yourself against such a complaint?" The
prophet himself, moreover, if we may believe the Sunna, said to the
two women Ommi Hubiba and Ommi Selma, who told him of certain pictures
in the Aethiopian churches: "These pictures will rise up in judgment
against their creators on the Last Day." There are, no doubt, no less
examples of completely deceptive imitation. The painted grapes of
Zeuxis, have been accepted from antiquity and long after as an instance
of art's triumph, and also of that of the principle of imitation,
because, we are told, actual doves pecked at them. We might add to
this ancient example that more modern one of Bültner's monkey, which
bit to pieces a painted cockchafer in Rösel's "Diversions of Insects,"
and was consequently forgiven by his master, although he destroyed by
this means a fine copy of the precious work, because he proved thus
the excellence of its illustrations. But if we will only reflect a
moment on such and other instances we can only come to the conclusion
that instead of praising works of art, because they have deceived
_even_ doves and monkeys, the foolish people ought to be condemned
who imagine that the quality of a work of art is enhanced if they are
able to proclaim an effect of the same so miserable as the supreme
and last word they can say for it. In short, to sum up, we may state
emphatically that in the mere business of imitation art cannot maintain
its rivalry with Nature, and if it makes the attempt it must look like
a worm which undertakes to crawl after an elephant.

(_γγ_) Having regard, then, to this invariable failure, that is,
relative failure of human imitation as contrasted with the natural
prototype, we have no end left us but the pleasure offered by sleight
of hand in its effort to produce something which resembles Nature. And
it is unquestionably a fact that mankind are able to derive enjoyment
from the attempt to reproduce with their individual labour, skill, and
industry what they find around them. But a delight and admiration of
this kind also becomes, if taken alone[79], indeed just in proportion
as the copy follows slavishly the thing copied, so much the more icily
null and cold, or brings its reaction of surfeit and repugnance.
There are portraits which, as has been drily remarked, are positively
shameless in their likeness[80]; and Kant brings forward a further
example of this pleasure in imitation pure and simple to the effect
that we are very soon tired of a man--and there really are such--who
is able to imitate the nightingale's song quite perfectly; for we
no sooner find that it is a man who is producing the strain than we
have had enough of it. We then take it to be nothing but a clever
trick, neither the free outpouring of Nature, nor yet a work of art.
We expect, in short, from the free creative power of men something
quite other than a music of this kind, which only retains our interest
when, as in the case of the nightingale's note, it breaks forth in
unpremeditated fashion, resembling in this respect the rhythmic flood
of human feeling, from the native springs of its life. And as a general
rule this delight we experience in the skill of imitation can only be
of a restricted character; it becomes a man better to derive enjoyment
from that which he brings to birth from himself. In this respect the
invention of every insignificant technical product is of higher rank;
and mankind may feel more proud at having invented the hammer, nail,
and so forth, than in making themselves adepts as imitators. For this
abstract zest in the pursuit of imitation is on the same lines as the
feat of the man who had taught himself to throw lentils through a
small aperture without missing. He made an exhibition of this feat to
Alexander, and Alexander merely made him a present as a reward for this
art, empty and useless as it was, of a bushel of lentils.

(_β_) Inasmuch as, moreover, the principle of imitation is purely
formal, _objective beauty_ itself disappears, if that principle is
accepted as the end. For the question is then no longer what is the
_constitution_ of that which is to be imitated, but simply whether the
copy is _correct_ or no. The object and the content of the beautiful
comes to be regarded as a matter of indifference. When, in other words,
putting the principle of mere imitation on one side, we speak, in
connection with animals, human beings, places, actions, and characters,
of a distinction between beauty and ugliness, it remains none the
less the fact that relatively to such a principle we are referring
to a distinction which does not properly belong to an art for which
we have appropriated this principle of imitation to the exclusion
of all others. In such a case, therefore, whenever we select objects
and attempt to distinguish between their beauty and ugliness, owing
to this absence of a standard we can apply to the infinite forms of
Nature, we have in the final resort only left us the _personal taste_,
which is fixed by no rule, and admits of no discussion. And, in truth,
if we start, in the selection of objects for representation, from
that which mankind _generally_ discover as beautiful and ugly, and
accept accordingly for artistic imitation, in other words, form their
particular taste, there is no province in the domain of the objective
world which is not open to us, and which is hardly likely to fail
to secure its admirer. At any rate, among men we may assume, that,
though the case of every husband and his wife may be disputed, yet at
least every bridegroom regards his bride as beautiful, very possibly
being the only person who does so; and that an individual taste for a
beauty of this kind admits of no fixed rules at all may be regarded
as a bit of luck for both parties. If, moreover, we cast a glance
wholly beyond mere individuals and their accidental taste to that of
nations, this again is full of diversity and opposition. How often we
hear it repeated that a European beauty would not please a Chinaman,
or even a Hottentot--a Chinaman having a totally distinct notion of
beauty from that of a black man, and the black man in his turn from
that of a European. Indeed, if we consider the works of art of those
extra-European peoples, their images of gods, for instance, which have
been imaginatively conceived as worthy of veneration and sublime, they
can only appear to us as frightful idols; their music will merely ring
in our ears as an abominable noise, while, from the opposite point of
view, such aliens will regard our sculptures, paintings, and musical
compositions as having no meaning or actually ugly.

(_γ_) But even assuming that we abstract from an objective principle
of art, and retain the beautiful as established on the subjective
and individual taste, we shall soon discover, from the point of view
of art itself, that the imitation of natural objects, which appeared
to be a universal principle, and indeed one secured by important
authorities, is not to be relied upon, at least under this general
and wholly abstract conception of it. If we look at the particular
arts we cannot fail to observe that, albeit painting and sculpture
portray objects which resemble those of Nature, or the type of which
is essentially borrowed from Nature, the works of architecture on the
contrary--and this, too, is one of the _fine_ arts--quite as little as
the compositions of poetry, to the extent at least that these latter
are not restricted to mere description, cannot justly be described as
imitations of Nature. At any rate, if we are desirous of maintaining
such a thesis with respect to the arts thus excluded, we should find
ourselves forced to make important deviations from the track, in order
to condition our proposition in various ways, and level down our
so-called truth at least to the plane of probability. But once accept
probability, and we should again be confronted with a great difficulty
in determining precisely what is and what is not probable; and in the
end no one could really think of or succeed, even if he did so, in
excluding from poetry all compositions of an entirely capricious and
completely imaginative[81] character.

The end or object of art must therefore consist in something other than
the purely formal[82] imitation of what is given to objective sense,
which invariably can merely call into being technical _legerdemain_
and not _works_ of art[83]. It is no doubt an essential constituent
of a work of art that it should have natural forms as a foundation,
because the mode of its representation is in external form, and thereby
along with it in that of natural phenomena. In painting it is obviously
an important study to learn to copy with accuracy colours in their
mutual relations, such as light effects and reflections, and so forth,
and, with no less accuracy, the forms and shapes of objects carried
into their most subtle gradations of line. It is in this respect that
in modern times more particularly the principle of the imitation of
Nature and naturalism generally has come into vogue. The object has
been to recall an art, which has deteriorated into weakness and
nebulosity, to the strength and determinate outlines of Nature, or,
in yet another direction, as against the purely arbitrary caprice and
convention of a studio, which is in truth as remote from Nature as it
is from art, and merely indicates the path of art's declension, to
assert the claim of the legitimate, direct, and independent, no less
than coherent stability of natural fact. But while admitting that from
a certain point of view such an effort is reasonable enough, yet for
all that the naturalism which it demands, taken by itself, is neither
the substantive thing, not yet of primary importance, in the true
basis of art; and although the external fact in its natural appearance
constitutes an element of essential value, yet the objective fact alone
does not supply the _standard_ of rightness, nor is the mere imitation
of external phenomena, in their external shape that is, the _end_ of
art.

(_b_) And as a consequence of this we have the further question--"What
is the true _content_ of art, and with what aim is that content brought
before us?" On this head we are confronted by the common opinion that
it is the task and object of art to bring before our sense, feeling,
and power of emulation[84] _every thing_ that the spirit of man can
perceive or conceive. Art has in short to realize for us the well-known
saying, "_Nihil humani a me alienum puto._" Its object is therefore
declared to be that of arousing and giving life to slumbering emotions,
inclinations, passions of _every_ description, of filling the heart up
to the brim; of compelling mankind, whether cultured or the reverse, to
pass through all that the human soul carries in its most intimate and
mysterious chambers, all that it is able to experience and reproduce,
all that the heart is able to stir and evoke in its depths and its
countlessly manifold possibilities; and yet further to deliver to the
domain of feeling and the delight of our vision all that the mind
may possess of essential and exalted being in its thought and the
Idea--that majestic hierarchy of the noble, eternal, and true; and no
less to interpret for us misfortune and misery, wickedness and crime;
to make the hearts of men realize through and through[85] all that
is atrocious and dreadful, no less than every kind of pleasure and
blessedness; and last of all to start the imagination like a rover
among the day-dream playing-fields of the fancy, there to revel in the
seductive mirage of visions and emotions which captivate the senses.
All this infinitely manifold content--so it is held--it is the function
of art to explore, in order that by this means the experience of our
external life may be repaired of its deficiencies, and yet from a
further point of view that the passions we share with all men[86] may
be excited, not merely that the experiences of life may not have us
unmoved, but that we ourselves may thereafter long to make ourselves
open channels of a universal experience. Such a stimulus is not
presented on the plane of actual experience itself[87], but can only
come through the semblance of it, that is to say through the illusions
which art, in its creations, substitutes for the actual world. And the
possibility of such a deception, by means of the semblances of art,
depends on the fact that all reality must for man pass through the
medium of the vision and imaginative idea; and it is only after such
a passage that it penetrates the emotional life and the will. In such
a process it is of no consequence whether it is immediate external
reality which claims his attention, or whether the result is effected
by some other way, in other words by means of images, symbols, and
ideas, which contain and display the content of such actuality. Men are
able to imagine things, which do not actually exist, as if they did
exist. Consequently it is precisely the same thing for our emotional
life, whether it is the objective world or merely the show of the same,
in virtue of which a situation, a relation, or any content of life, in
short, is brought home to us. Either mode is equally able to stir in
us an echo to the essential secret which it carries, whether it be in
grief or joy, in agitation or convulsion, and can cause to flow through
us the feelings and passions of anger, hate, pity, anxiety, fear, love,
reverence and admiration, honour and fame.

The awakening of every kind of emotion in us, the drawing our soul
through every content of life, the realization of all these movements
of soul-life by means of a presence which is only external as an
illusion--this it is which, in the opinion described, is pre-eminently
regarded as the peculiar and transcendent power of artistic creation.

We must not, however, overlook the fact that in this view of art as a
means to imprint on the soul and the mind what is good and evil alike,
to make man more strong in the pursuit of what is noblest, no less than
enervate his definite course[88], by transporting his emotional life
through the most sensuous and selfish desires, the task as yet proposed
to art remains throughout of an entirely formal character; without
possessing independently an assured aim all that art can offer is the
empty form for every possible kind of ideal and formative content.

(_c_) As a matter of fact art does not possess this formal side,
namely, that it is able to bring before our senses and feeling and
artistically adorn every possible kind of material, precisely as
the thoughts of ordinary reflection[89] elaborate every possible
subject-matter and modes of action, supplying the same with its
equipment of reasons and vindications. In the presence, however,
of such a variety of content we cannot fail to observe that these
diversified emotions and ideas, which it is assumed art has to
stimulate or enforce, intersect each other, contradict and mutually
cancel each other. Indeed, under this aspect, the more art inspires men
to emotions thus opposed, to that extent precisely it merely enlarges
the cleavage in their feelings and passions, and sets them staggering
about in Bacchantic riot, or passes over into sophistry and scepticism
precisely as your ordinary free thinkers do. This variety of the
material of art itself compels us, therefore, not to remain satisfied
with so formal a determination. Our rational nature forces its way into
this motley array of discord, and demands to see the resurrection of
a higher and more universal purpose from these elements despite their
opposition, and to be conscious of its attainment. Just in a similar
manner the social life of mankind and the State are no doubt credited
with the aim that in them _all_ human capacities and _all_ individual
potencies should meet with expansion and expression in _all_ their
features and tendencies. But in opposition to so formal a view there
very quickly crops up the question in what _unity_ these manifold
manifestations are to be concentrated, and what _single end_ they must
have for their fundamental concept and ultimate end. Just as in the
case of the notional concept of the human State so too there arises in
that of human art the need, as to a part thereof, for an end _common_
to the particular aspects, no less than in part for one which is more
exalted and _substantive_ in its character[90].

As such a substantive end the conclusion of reflection is readily
brought home to us that art possesses at once the power and function to
mitigate the savagery of mere desires.

(_α_) With regard to this first conception we have merely to ascertain
what characteristic peculiar to art implies this possibility of
eliminating this rawness of desire, and of fettering and instructing
the impulses and passions. Coarseness in general has its ground-root
in an unmitigated self-seeking of sensuous impulses, which take their
plunge off and are exclusively intent on the satisfaction of their
concupiscence. Sensual desire is, however, all the more brutal and
domineering, in proportion as, in its isolation and confinement, it
appropriates the _entire man_, so that he does not retain the power to
separate himself in his universal capacity from this determinacy and to
maintain the conscious presence of such universality[91]. Even if the
man in such a case exclaims, "the passion is mightier than myself,"
though it is true no doubt that for that man's mind the abstract ego is
separate from the particular passion, yet it is purely so in a formal
way. All that such a separation amounts to is that as against the force
of the passion the ego, in its universal form or competency, is of no
account at all. The savageness of passion consists therefore in the
fusion[92] of the ego as such a universal with the confined content
of its desire, so that a man no longer possesses volitional power
outside this single passion. Such savageness and untamed force of the
possibilities of passion art mitigates in the first instance to the
extent that it brings home to the mind and imagination of man what he
does actually feel and carry into effect in such a condition. And even
if art restricts itself to this that it places before the vision of
the mind pictures of passion, nay, even assuming such to be flattering
pictures, yet for all that a power of amelioration is contained
therein. At least we may say, that by this means is brought before a
man's intelligence what apart from such presentment he merely _is._ The
man in this way contemplates his impulses and inclinations; and whereas
apart from this they whirl him away without giving him time to reflect,
he now sees them outside himself and already, for the reason that they
come before him rather as objects than a part of himself, he begins
to be free from them as aliens. For this reason it may often happen
that an artist, under the weight of grief, mitigates and weakens the
intensity of his own emotions in their effect upon him by the artistic
representation of them. Comfort, too, is to be found even in tears. The
man who to start with is wholly given up to and concentrated in sorrow,
is able thus, at any rate, to express that which is merely felt within
in a direct way. Yet more alleviating is the utterance of such inner
life in words, images, musical sound, and shapes.

It was therefore a good old custom in the case of funerals and
layings-out to appoint wailing women, in order to give audible
expression to grief, or generally to create an external sympathy. For
manifestations of sympathy bring the content of human sorrow to the
sufferer in an objective form; he is by their repetition driven to
reflect upon it, and the burden is thereby made lighter. And so it has
from of old been considered that to weep or to speak oneself out are
equally means whereby freedom is secured from the oppressing burden, or
at least the heart is appreciably lifted. Consequently the mitigation
of the violence of passions admits of this general explanation that
man is released from his unmediated confinement[93] in an emotion,
becomes aware of it as a thing external to himself, to which he is
consequently obliged to place himself in an ideal relation. Art, while
still remaining within the sphere of the senses, faces man from the
might of his sensitive experience by means of its representations.
No doubt we frequently hear that pet phrase of many that it is man's
duty to remain in immediate union with Nature. Such union is in its
unmediated purity nothing more or less than savagery and wildness;
and art, precisely in the way that it dissolves this unity for human
beings, lifts them with gentle hands over this inclosure in Nature.
The way men are occupied with the objects of art's creation remains
throughout of a contemplative[94] character; and albeit in the first
instance it educates merely an attention to the actual facts portrayed,
yet over and beyond this, and with a power no less decisive, it draws
man's attention to their significance, it forces him to compare their
content with that of others, and to receive without reserve the general
conclusions of such a survey and all the ramifications[95] such imply.

(_β_) To the characteristic above discussed adheres in natural sequence
the second which has been predicated of art as its essential aim,
namely, the _purification_ of the passions, an instruction, that is,
and a building to _moral_ completeness. For the defining role that
art has to bridle savage nature and educate the passions remained one
wholly formal and general, so that the further question must arise as
to a _specific_ kind and an essential and _culminating_ point of such
an educative process.

(_αα_) The doctrine of the purification of the passions shares in the
defect previously noted as adhering to the mitigation of desires. It
does, however, emphasize more closely the fact that the representations
of art needed a standard, by means of which it would be possible to
estimate their comparative worth and unworth. This standard is just
their effectiveness to separate what is pure from that which is the
reverse in the passions. Art, therefore, requires a content which
is capable of expressing this purifying power, and in so far as the
power to assert such effectiveness is assumed to constitute the
substantive end of art, the purifying content will consist in asserting
that effective power before consciousness in its _universality_ and
_essentiality._[96]

(_ββ_) It is a deduction from the point of view just described that it
is the end of art to _instruct._ Thus, on the one hand, the peculiar
character of art consists in the movement of the emotions and in
the satisfaction which is found in this movement, even in fear,
compassion, in painful agitation and shock--that is to say, in the
satisfying concern of the feelings and passions, and to that extent in
a complacent, delighted, or enthusiastic attitude to the objects of
art and their presentation and effect: while, on the other hand, this
artistic object is held to discover its higher standard exclusively
in its power to instruct, in the _fabula docet_, and thereby in the
usefulness, which the work of art is able to exercise on the recipient.
In this respect the Horatian adage

     Et prodesse volunt et delectare poetae[97]

contains, concentrated into a few words, all that in after times has
been drawn out as a doctrine of art through every conceivable grade of
dilution to the last extreme of insipidity.

In respect, then, to such instruction we have to ask whether the idea
is that the same ought to be direct or indirect in the work of art,
explicit or implicit.

Now if the question at issue is one of general importance to art about
a universal rather than contingent purpose, such an ultimate end, on
account of the essential spirituality of art, can only be itself of
spiritual import; in other words, so far from being of accidental
importance it must be true in virtue of its own nature and on its own
account. An end of this kind can only apply to instruction in so far as
a genuine and essentially explicit content is brought before the mind
by means of the work of art. From such a point of view we are entitled
to affirm that it is the function of art to accept so much the more
of a content of this nature within its compass in proportion to the
nobility of its rank, and that only in the verity of such a content
will it discover the standard according to which the pertinency of
or the reverse of what is expressed is adjudged. Art is in truth the
primary[98] _instructress_ of peoples.

But, on the other hand, if the object of instruction is so entirely
treated as an _end_ that the universal nature of the content presented
cannot fail to be asserted and rendered-bluntly and on its own account
explicit as abstract thesis, prosaic reflection or general maxim,
rather than merely in an indirect way contained by implication in the
concrete embodiment of art, then and in that case, by means of such a
separation, the sensuous, plastic configuration, which is precisely
that which makes the artistic product a _work of art_, is merely an
otiose accessory, a husk, a semblance, which are expressly posited
as nothing more than _shell_ and semblance. Thereby the very nature
of a work of art is abused. For the work of art ought not to bring
before the imaginative vision a content in its universality as such,
but rather this universality under the mode of individual concreteness
and distinctive sensuous particularity. If the work in question
does not conform to such a principle, but rather sets before us the
generalization of its content with the express object of instruction
pure and simple, then the imaginative no less than the material aspect
of it are merely an external and superfluous ornament, and the work
of art is itself a shattered thing within that ornament[99], a ruin
wherein form and content no longer appear as a mutually adherent
growth. For, in the case supposed, the particular object of the senses
and the ideal content apprehended by the mind[100] have become external
to one another.

Furthermore, if the object of art is assumed to consist in
utilitarian _instruction_ of this kind, that other aspect of delight,
entertainment, and diversion is simply abandoned on its own account
as _unessential_; it has now to look for its substance to the utility
of the matter of instruction, to which it is simply an accompaniment.
But this amounts to saying, that art does not carry its vocation and
purpose in itself, but that its fundamental conception is in something
else, to which it subserves as a _means._ Art becomes, in short, merely
one of the many means, which are either of use, or may be employed
to secure, the aim of instruction. This brings us to the boundary
line where art can only cease to be an end on its own independent
account; it is deliberately deposed either to the mere plaything of
entertainment, or a mere means of instruction.

(_γγ_) The line of this limit is most emphasized when the question
is raised as to the end or object of highest rank for the sake of
which the passions have to be purified or men have to be instructed.
This goal has frequently in modern times been identified with _moral
improvement_, and the end of art is assumed to consist in this that its
function is to prepare our inclinations and impulses, and generally
to conduct us to the supreme goal of moral perfection. In this view
we find instruction and purification combined. The notion is that art
by the insight it gives us of genuine moral goodness, in other words,
through its instruction, at the same time summons us to the process of
purification, and in this way alone can and ought to bring about the
improvement of mankind as the right use they can make of it and its
supreme object.

With reference to the relation in which art stands to the end of
improvement, we may practically say the same thing as we did about the
didactic end. It may readily be admitted that art as its principle
ought not to make the immoral and its advance its end. But it is one
thing deliberately to make immorality the aim of its presentation and
another not expressly to do so in the case of morality. It is possible
to deduce an excellent moral from any work of art whatever; but such
depends, of course, on a particular interpretation and consequently on
the individual who draws the moral. The defence is made of the most
immoral representations on the ground that people ought to become
acquainted with evil and sin in order to act morally. Conversely, it
has been maintained that the portrayal of Mary Magdalene, the fair
sinner, who afterwards repented, has seduced many into sin, because
art makes repentance look so beautiful, and you must first sin before
you can repent. The doctrine of moral improvement, however logically
carried out, is not merely satisfied that a moral should be conceivably
deducible from a work of art through interpretation; on the contrary,
it would have the moral instruction clearly made to emerge as the
substantive aim of the work[101]; nay, further, it would deliberately
exclude from art's products all subjects, characters, actions, and
events which fail to be moral in its own sense. For art, in distinction
from history and the sciences, which have their subject-matter
determined for them, has a choice in the selection of its subjects.

In order that we may be in a position to estimate this view of the
moral end of art on the basis of principle, we ought above all to raise
the question as to the precise standpoint of the morality which is
recommended for our reception by this view. If we examine more closely
the standpoint of morality such, as is submitted us to-day under an
enlightened interpretation[102], we soon discover that its conception
does not immediately coincide with that which we describe in a general
way as virtue, respectability[103], uprightness, and so forth. To be
a respectable honest man is not sufficient to make a man moral in the
sense under discussion, for morality in this sense implies _reflection_
and the definite consciousness of what is consonant with duty, and the
acts which issue from such a consciousness. Now duty is itself the law
of the will, which man, however, freely establishes out of himself,
and thereon is taken to determine himself to this duty for duty's
sake and its fulfilment's sake; in other words he only does good as
acting under the conviction already secured that it is the good. This
law--the duty which is selected and carried into effect for duty's
sake to be the rule of conduct out of free conviction and the inner
conscience--is, on its own account, the abstract universal of the will,
which is the absolute antithesis to Nature, the impulses of sense,
selfish interests, the passions and all that is commonly described
collectively as emotional life and heart. In this opposition the one
side is regarded as _negating_ the other; and for the reason that both
are present in the individual in their opposition, he is compelled,
as determining himself from his own identity, to adopt the choice of
one to the rejection of the other. Such a decision and the act carried
out in accordance with it merely become moral from the standpoint now
considered on the one hand in virtue of the free conviction of duty,
and on the other by reason of the victory secured not only over the
particular will, the natural motives, inclinations, passions and so on,
but also in virtue of the noble feelings and higher impulses. For the
modern ethic starts from the fixed opposition between the will in its
spiritual universality and its sensuous natural particularity; it does
not consist in the perfected mediation of these opposed aspects, but in
their mutual conflict as opposed to one another, which carries with
it the demand, that the impulses in their antagonism to duty ought to
yield to it.

An opposition of this nature is not merely present to mind in the
restricted confines of moral action; it asserts itself as a fundamental
severation and antithesis between that which is actual essentially,
and on its own account, and that which is external reality and
existence[104]. Apprehended in entirely formal terms it is the contrast
exposed by the universal, in so far as it is fixed in its substantive
independence over against the particular, as the latter is also on its
part rigidly exterior to it. In more concrete form it appears in Nature
as the opposition of the abstract law to the wealth of particular
phenomena, each of which possesses its specific characteristics. It
appears in mind as that between the sensuous and spiritual in man, as
the conflict of spirit with the flesh; it is that of duty for duty's
sake; of the cold imperative with particular impulses, the warm heart,
the sensuous inclinations and impulses, in a word with man simply as
individual. Or it appears as the harsh antagonism between the inward
freedom and the external necessity of natural condition, and, lastly,
as the contradiction of the dead, essentially emptied, concept, when
confronted with the fulness of concrete life, in other words, of theory
and subjective thought as contrasted with objective existence and
experience.

Such are antithetical points of view, the discovery of which is not
to be ascribed either to the ingenuity of reflective minds, or the
pedantry of a philosophical cult. They have in all ages, if in manifold
guise, occupied and disquieted the human consciousness, although it
is our more modern culture which has emphasized their opposition
most deliberately, and forced it in each case to the keenest edge of
contradiction. Intellectual culture, or rather the rapier edge of the
modern understanding, creates in man this contrast, which converts him
into some amphibious animal. He is compelled to live in two worlds
mutually contradictory; and in this divided house consciousness,
too, wanders aimlessly; tossed over from one side to the other it is
unable to discover permanent satisfaction[105] for itself in either
one side or the other. For, on the one hand, we see mankind confined
within common reality and earthly temporal condition, oppressed by
necessity and want, in Nature's toils, entangled in matter, in sensuous
aims and their enjoyment, dominated and whirled away by impulse and
passion. On the other hand he lifts himself up to eternal idea's, to
a realm of thought and freedom. As Will he legislates for himself
universal laws and destinations[106], he disrobes the world of the
life and blossom of its reality; he dissolves it in abstractions, that
the mind may vindicate its right and intrinsic worth by this very
dissolution of Nature's rights and such maltreatment, a process in
which he brings home to her again the necessity and violence he has
experienced at her hands. Such a cleavage of life and mind is, however,
accompanied for modern culture with the demand that a contradiction
so deep-seated should be dissolved. The mere understanding of
abstract reflection is unable to disengage itself from the obstinacy
of such contradictions. The solution consequently remains here for
consciousness a mere _ought_, and the present and reality is merely
moved within the continuous unrest of a to and fro, which seeks for
that reconciliation it is unable to find. The problem therefore arises
whether such a many-sided and fundamental antagonism, which is unable
to pass beyond the mere ought and postulate of its solution, can be
the essential and wholly expressed truth, and[107], indeed, the final
and supreme consummation. If the culture of the civilized world has
fallen into such a contradiction it becomes the task of philosophy to
dissolve the same, in other words to demonstrate that neither the one
side or the other, in its one sided abstractness, should be held to
possess truth, but that they contain within themselves the principle
of their dissolution. The truth only _then_ comes before us in the
reconciliation and mediation of both; and this mediation is no mere
postulate, but is, in its essential nature, and in its actual presence
the at the same time accomplished and self-accomplishing. And, in
fact, this view agrees directly with unwitting[108] faith and will,
which always has before its conscious life this contradiction in its
resolution, and in action accepts it as its aim and carries it into
effect. All that philosophy achieves is to contribute the insight of
thought into the essence of such cleavage. It demonstrates, or seeks to
demonstrate, how that which truth really is is simply the resolution of
the fracture, and, be it added, not in the sense that this antagonism
and its alternative aspects in any way _are not_, but in the sense that
they are _there_[109] in reconciliation.

(_d_) When discussing moral improvement as the ultimate end accepted
for art it was found that its principle pointed to a higher standpoint.
It will be necessary also to vindicate this standpoint for art.

Thereby the false position to which we have already directed attention
vanishes, namely, that art has to serve as a means for moral ends and
the moral end of the world generally by means of its didactive and
ameliorating influence, and by doing so has its essential aim not in
itself, but in something else. If we therefore continue still to speak
of an end or goal of art, we must at once remove the perverse idea,
which in the question, "What is the end?" will still make it include
the supplemental query, "What is the use?" The perverseness consists in
this that the work of art would then have to be regarded as related to
something else, which is presented us as what is essential and ought
to be. A work of art would in that case be merely a useful instrument
in the realization of an end which possessed real and independent
importance outside the realm of art. As opposed to this we must
maintain that it is art's function to reveal _truth_ under the mode of
art's sensuous or material configuration, to display the reconciled
antithesis previously described, and by this means to prove that it
possesses its final aim in itself, in this representation in short and
self-revelation. For other ends such as instruction, purification,
improvement, procuring of wealth, struggle after fame and honour have
nothing whatever to do with this work of art as such, still less do
they determine the fundamental idea[110] of it.

It is then from this point of view, into which the reflective
consideration of our subject-matter finally issues, that we have to
grasp the fundamental idea of art in terms of its ideal or inward
necessity, as it is also from this point of view that historically
regarded the true appreciation and acquaintance with art took its
origin. For that antithesis, to which we have drawn attention, did not
merely assert its presence within the general thought of educated men,
but equally in philosophy as such. It was only after philosophy was in
a position to overcome this opposition absolutely that it grasped the
fundamental notion of its own content, and, to the extent it did so,
the idea of Nature and of art.

For this reason, as this point of view implies the reawakening of
philosophy in the widest connotation of the term, so also it is the
re-awakening of the science of art. We may go further and affirm
that aesthetic as a science is in a real sense primarily indebted to
this re-awakening for its true origination, and art for its higher
estimation.

IV

From this point of transition, I will briefly summarize the historical
subject-matter that I have in my mind's eye, partly on account of the
historical importance itself, and in part because thereby the points
of view are more clearly indicated to which importance is attached,
and upon the basis of which we propose to continue the superstructure.
In its most general definition that basis consists in this, that the
beauty of art has become recognized as one of the means which resolve
and bring back to unity that antithesis and contradiction between the
mind and Nature as they repose in abstract alienation from each other
in themselves, whether this latter is regarded as external phenomena or
the inward world of individual feeling and emotion[111].

1. It was the philosophy of Kant which, in the first instance, not
merely experienced the want of such a point of union, but secured
definite knowledge of it and brought it clearly before the mind.
Speaking generally, Kant accepted as his basis for intelligence no
less than for the will the rationality which relates itself to itself
or freedom, the self-consciousness that discovers and knows itself
essentially as infinite. This knowledge of the absoluteness of reason
in its essential substance, which has proved in more modern times the
turning-point of philosophy, this absolute point of departure deserves
recognition, and does not admit of refutation, even though in other
respects the Kantian philosophy is inadequate. But at the same time it
was Kant who through falling back upon the fixed opposition between
subjective thought and objective things, between abstract universality
and the sensuous individuality of the will, in a pre-eminent degree
strained to the extremest limit the very antithesis of morality we
have previously adverted to, inasmuch as over and above this he
emphasized the practical operation of mind to the disadvantage of the
contemplative. In virtue of this fixity of the antithesis as cognized
by the faculty of the understanding he had no other alternative than
to express the unity exclusively in the form of subjective ideas for
which no adequate reality could be demonstrated as correspondent; or,
on its practical side, as postulates, which it was no doubt possible
to deduce from the practical reason, but whose essential being was
not within the cognition of thought, and the practical fulfilment
of which remained throughout a mere "ought" deferred to infinity.
And for this reason, though Kant did actually bring the reconciled
opposition within the compass of intelligible ideas, he was neither
able to develop its essential truth scientifically, nor to assert the
same as actual and exclusive reality. Unquestionably Kant did press
beyond this point, in the sense, that is to say, that he discovered the
unity demanded in what he called the _intuitive_ understanding; but
in this respect too he is held up by the opposition of subjectivity
and objectivity, so that, while he no doubt offers us a resolution in
an abstract sense of the antithesis between conception and reality,
universality and particularity, understanding and sense-perception,
and suggests the Idea, yet he once more conceives this resolution and
reconciliation itself in a wholly _subjective_ sense, not as being
true and real both essentially and on its own independent account. In
this respect the Critique of the power of the judgment, in which he
investigates the aesthetic and teleological power of the judgment is
both instructive and remarkable. The beautiful objects of Nature and
art, the products of Nature with their adaptations to ends, by means
of which he approaches more closely the notion of the organic and the
living, he considers wholly from the point of view of the reflection
which judges them subjectively. And indeed Kant himself generally
defines the power of judgment as "the capacity to think the particular
as comprised under the universal," and calls the power of judgment
_reflective_ "when it has only the particular submitted to it, and has
to discover the universal under which it is subsumed." To this end it
requires a law, a principle, which it has to contribute to itself; and
Kant affirms _teleology_ to be this law. With regard to the conception
of freedom which belongs to the practical reason the achievement of end
or purpose gets no further than a mere "ought"; and in the teleological
judgment, however, relatively to the living thing, Kant does manage to
regard the living organism in such a way that the notional concept, the
universal, succeeds in also including the particular, and as end does
not determine the particular and external, the structure of the members
from outside, but as an inward principle, and under the mode, that the
particular conforms to the end spontaneously. Yet with such a judgment
once more it is assumed that the objective nature of the thing is not
known, but that it is only a mode of subjective reflection which is
thereby expressed. In a similar way Kant so conceives the _aesthetic_
judgment that it neither proceeds from the understanding, as such,
in other words as the faculty of ideas, nor yet from the sensuous
perception as such, and its varied manifold, but from the free play of
the understanding and the imagination. In this common agreement of the
faculties of knowledge the object finds its relation to the individual
consciousness, and its feeling of pleasure and contentment.

(_a_) Now this general feeling of contentment is, in the first place,
without any interest, that is to say, it is _devoid of relation_ to
our _appetitive faculty._ If we have an interest of curiosity, shall
we say, or a sensuous interest excited for a physical want, a desire
for possession and use, then the objects are not important for their
own sake, but in virtue of our need of them. In a case such as this
what exists merely possesses a value in relation to such a need, and
the relation is of the kind, that the object is on the one side and on
the other is an attribute distinct from the object to which we relate
it none the less. As an illustration if I consume the object in order
to nourish myself therewith, this interest rests exclusively in me,
and remains alien to the object. Now, in Kant's view, our position
relatively to the beautiful is not of this description. The aesthetic
judgment suffers that which is externally presented to subsist in free
independence, proceeding as it does from the desire to permit the
object to persist on its own account and to retain its end unimpaired
within itself. This is, as we have already observed, an important
observation.

(_b_) In the second place, Kant maintains that the beautiful is
definable as that which without a conception, _i.e._, without a
category of the understanding, is placed before us as the object of a
_universal_ satisfaction. To estimate the beautiful an educated mind
is indispensable. The man in the street[112] has no judgment about
the beautiful; this judgment, in fact, claims universal validity.
The universal is no doubt in the first instance simply, _as such_,
an abstraction, one which, however, is in its essential and on its
independent account, true; and consequently carries essentially the
property and demand to pass also as universally valid. In this sense,
too, the beautiful ought to be universally recognized, although the
mere concepts of the understanding are compatible with no judgment
thereupon. The good--the right which enters into particular actions,
for example--is subsumed under universal concepts, and the action is
accepted as good, if it is conformable to such concepts. The beautiful,
on the contrary, ought, according to this view, to arouse a universal
satisfaction without any such mediation of concept. This simply means
that in the contemplation of the beautiful we are not conscious of the
notional concept or any subsumption under it, and do not permit the
independent passage of the separation between the particular object
and the universal concept, which is present in all other cases of the
judgment.

(_c_) Thirdly, in this view of Kant, the beautiful ought to have the
_teleological_ form to the extent that the teleological relation
is apprehended in the object without the idea of an end. This is
substantially a mere repetition of the view just discussed. Any natural
product--take, for instance, a plant or an animal--is organized as
adapted to an end, and is so immediately to us in this its teleological
purpose, that we have no conception of the end on its own account as
separate and distinct from the actual presence of the object. It is
in this way that the beautiful also is presented us teleologically.
In finite teleology end and means remain external to each other; the
end stands in no essential inner relation to the material means of
its execution[113]. In this case the idea of the end as recognized
in apartness[114] is distinguishable from the object in which the
end appears as realized. The beautiful, on the contrary, exists as
teleological in the essential sense, without means and end appearing
as disparate in aspects distinct from each other. For example, the
purpose of the members of the organism is the principle of life which
exists in the members as actual therein. In their separation[115] the
parts cease to be members of a whole. For in the living thing the end
and material medium of the end are so immediately united, that the
existing being only exists in so far as the end remains indwelling.
The beautiful, as thus regarded and in Kant's view, does not carry
its teleological purpose as an external form attached to it: but the
teleological correspondence of the inner and outer is to be regarded as
the immanent nature of the beautiful object.

(_d_) Fourthly and finally the view of Kant posits the beautiful under
the mode that it is recognized without a universal concept as object
of a _necessary_ feeling of satisfaction. Necessity is an abstract
category, and indicates an ideal and essential relation between two
aspects or sides: if the one is, and because the one is, then, and for
that reason, the other is also. The one likewise includes the other
within its determinate nature. Cause is meaningless without effect. The
pleasure which we obtain from beauty is necessary in this sense, and
it is so wholly without a relation to conceptions, that is to say the
categories of the understanding. Thus, no doubt, we derive pleasure
from what is symmetrical, for this is constructed in accord with an
idea of the understanding. Kant, however, demands more as a definition
of delight in art than the unity and uniformity of such an idea as this.

Now what we find in all these theses of Kant is the non-severation
of that which otherwise is assumed to be distinct in consciousness.
In the beautiful this separation is found to be abolished. The
universal and particular, purpose and means, idea and object completely
interpenetrate each other. Thus, too, Kant sees the beauty of _art_
as a concurrence, in which the particular itself is conformable to
the conception. Particulars, taken alone, are primarily, both as
against each other and the universal, of a contingent nature; and
this very contingent element, whether we find it in sense, feeling,
susceptibility, or impulse, is now in the beauty of art not merely
_subsumed_ under the categories of the understanding, and _dominated_
by the notion of freedom in its abstract universality, but united to
the universal in such a way that it appears inwardly and on its own
merits as realized fact adequate thereto. By this means thought is
incorporated in fine art, and the material is not externally defined
by such thought, but continues to exist in its own freedom. In other
words, what is natural--the senses, emotional temperament, and so
forth--possess in themselves measure, end, and agreement. Perception
and feeling, too, in the same way are raised to a power of spiritual
universality; and thought no less not merely renounces its hostility to
Nature, but is made blithe therein. Feeling, pleasure, and enjoyment
are thereby justified and sanctified, and thus it is that Nature and
freedom, sense and idea in _one_ presence discover their just place and
their satisfaction. Yet even this apparently complete reconciliation
is ultimately still assumed to be[116] merely subjective in respect
to our judgment no less than our productive activity, and not to be
essentially and on its own account either the true or real.

These may, I think, be taken to be the main results of the Critique
of Kant so far as they affect our present inquiry. It constitutes the
starting-point for the true conception of the beauty of art. Such a
conception could, however, only make itself effective as the higher
comprehension of the true union of necessity and freedom, particular
and universal, sensuous and rational, by its overcoming the defects
still latent in the previous standpoint.

It must in fact be admitted that the artistic sense of a profound
and, at the same time, philosophical spirit anticipated philosophy in
the stricter sense by its demand for and expression of the principle
of totality and reconciliation in its opposition to that abstract
finiteness of thought, that duty for duty's sake, that understanding
faculty devoid of any substantive content, which one and all apprehend
nature and reality, sense and feeling, merely as a _limits_ something
downright alien or hostile. It is Schiller who must be credited with
the important service of having broken through the Kantian subjectivity
and abstractness of thought, and of having ventured the attempt to
pass beyond the same by comprehending in thought the principles of
unity and reconciliation as the truth, and giving artistic realization
to that truth. For Schiller, in his aesthetic investigations, did not
merely adhere to art and its interest unaffected by their relation
to philosophy proper, but he compared his own interest in the beauty
of art in their due relation to philosophical principles; and it is
only from the starting-point of these latter and by their aid that
he penetrated the profounder nature and notional concept of Beauty.
Thus we are conscious that it was a feature of a certain period of
his productive activity that he was actively engaged with reflective
thought, more perhaps than was wholly favourable to the simple and
direct beauty of his work as an art product. The deliberate character
of abstract reflections, and even the interest of the philosophical
notion, arrest the attention in several of his poems. He has, in fact,
been made the subject of stricture on this account; and especially
his work has been blamed and depreciated in its contrast with the
equable serenity and straightforward simplicity of Goethe's ideas
and more objective naturalism. But in this respect Schiller as poet
did but pay the debt of his century. A real ideal evolution[117] was
responsible, the recognition of which only redounds to the honour
of this sublime soul and profound genius, as it has been no less of
signal profit to science and knowledge. This stimulating movement of
science during the same epoch also diverted Goethe from the sphere,
most distinctively his own, as poet. But just as Schiller was absorbed
in the study of the ideal depths of the _mind_, so the characteristic
predilection of Goethe inclined to the _physical_ aspect of art, to
external nature, such as animal and vegetable organization, crystals,
cloud-formation and colours. To such scientific inquiry Goethe applied
his extraordinary powers of intuition, which in these provinces have
driven off the field the theories of the mere understanding and their
errors, just as Schiller, on the other side, succeeded in demonstrating
the Idea of the free totality of Beauty as against the theory of the
analytical understanding relative to volition and thinking. An entire
series of Schiller's productions is devoted to this insight into
the nature of art. Above all in importance come the "Letters upon
aesthetic education." In these letters the main point of departure is
that every individual man contains within himself the natural capacity
of an ideal humanity. This genuine human being is represented by the
State, which, in his view, is the objective, universal, and, in short,
normal form, in which the separate individuals or subjects of such
human consciousness aim at making all coalesce and concentrate in
unity. There were then, in his view, two imaginable ways in which man
in the temporal process could thus coalesce with the human being in
the notional Idea[118]. On the one hand this could be effected in the
suppression of individuality by the State under its generic idea of
morality, law, and intelligence[119]: while, on the other, a similar
result could be effected by the individual himself raising himself to
the level of such a generic conception, in other words, by the man of
the particular temporal condition ennobling himself to the level of
the essential man of the Idea. Now, in this view, reason demands unity
as such, the generic attribution; Nature, however, asks for variety
and individuality, and both these legislatures make a simultaneous
claim upon man. Confronted with the conflict of these antagonistic
rivals, aesthetic education simply consists in giving actual effect
to the demand for their mediation and reconcilement. The aim of
such an education is, according to Schiller, to give vital form to
inclination, the senses, impulse and emotional life in such a way that
they become essentially permeated with mind; and, from the reverse
point of view, that reason, freedom, and spirituality come forth from
the grave-clothes of their abstractedness, are mated in union with the
natural element thus essentially rationalized, and thus receive the
substance of flesh and blood. Beauty is therefore affirmed to be the
conformative unification[120] of the rational and the sensuous, and
this union is pronounced the truly real.

This view of Schiller will in its general terms be all the more readily
recognized in "Anmuth und Würde[121]," as also in his poems for the
reason that the praise of women is in such works more particularly the
theme. It was pre-eminently in _their_ character that he recognized and
emphasized the spontaneously present conjunction of the spiritual and
natural.

This unity of the universal and particular, of freedom and necessity,
of spirituality and the natural element, which Schiller conceived
with scientific thoroughness as the principle and essence of art, and
endeavoured indefatigably to call into actual life by means of art
and aesthetic education, has received yet further recognition in _the
Idea itself_, cognized as the supreme principle of knowledge and of
existence, the Idea in this sense being apprehended as sole truth and
reality. By means of this acknowledgment science, in the philosophy
of Schelling, attained its absolute standpoint; and although art had
already begun to assert its peculiar rights and dignity in their
relation to the highest interests of man, it was only now that the
_notion_ itself and the scientific position of art were discovered.
It was then that art was--even if, from a certain point of view,
with a measure of perversity, which this is not the proper place to
discuss--accepted with due reference to its exalted and true vocation.
Even before this time and independently Winckelmann had been inspired
by his observation of the ideals of the ancients in a way which
prompted the creation of a new sense of artistic contemplation, the
disengagement of it from the association of vulgar aims and mere
imitation of Nature, and exercised a mighty influence in the discovery
of the idea of art in works of art and in its history. Winckelmann
ought, in fact, to be regarded as belonging to the type of men who have
been able in the field of art to supply the mind with a new organ and
wholly new methods of observation His views have, however, exercised
less influence on the theory and the scientific knowledge of art.

To summarize these historical antecedents further yet more briefly,
in association with the renaissance of our modern philosophy, A. W.
and Friedrich von Schlegel, impelled by their zest for novelty and all
that was either distinctive or arresting, assimilated just so much
of the philosophical ideas as was compatible with minds essentially
critical, though by no means really philosophical in any strict sense
of the term. Neither of these writers in fact can claim the reputation
of being speculative thinkers. They did, however, in virtue of their
critical sagacity, at least approach the standpoint of the Idea;
and with the aid of remarkable boldness of speech and audacity of
innovation--to which, however, but very few ingredients of genuine
philosophy contributed--directed a brilliant polemic against views
hitherto received, and by this means unquestionably introduced a novel
standard of criticism and new ways of looking at things which were
of superior value to those they attacked. For the reason, however,
that their criticism was not accompanied with a knowledge of the
nature of such a standard based on philosophical principles, a lack
of definition and continuity was inseparable from this standard; and
they at one time attempted too much and again at another too little.
Despite, therefore, of the fact that it may be reckoned to their
credit that they have once more drawn attention to and emphasized with
genuine enthusiasm much hitherto regarded as obsolete and too little
appreciated by their times, the works of the older Italian masters, for
example, and certain Flemish paintings, as also the "Niebelungen Lied"
among other things; despite the fact that they even endeavoured with
zeal to acquire knowledge of matter barely known at all, such as the
poetry and mythology of India, nevertheless they not only attached too
high an importance to the works of such a period, but also themselves
committed the mistake of admiring works of very average merit, such
as the comedies of Holberg, or of attaching an absolute value to what
possessed a purely relative worth, or even of boldly proving themselves
the enthusiasts of a perverse tendency and a subordinate standpoint as
though one of first-rate importance.

From this tendency, and particularly from the opinions[122] and
doctrines of Friedrich von Schlegel, issued in all its manifold forms
the so-called _Irony._ The idea had its profounder root, as to one of
its aspects, in the philosophy of Fichte, in so far as the principles
of that philosophy were applied to art. Friedrich von Schlegel, as also
Schelling, made the standpoint of Fichte their point of departure.
Schelling passed wholly beyond it; Fried, von Schlegel elaborated it
in his own peculiar fashion, and then flung himself free of it. With
reference to the more intimate connection of the doctrines of Fichte
with one tendency of this irony, it is only necessary to emphasize
the following point in our present context, namely this, that Fichte
posits the Ego as the absolute principle of all knowledge, reason, and
cognition, and in fact posits it as the Ego which persists throughout
in its abstraction of pure form. For this reason this Ego is, in the
second place, wholly and essentially simple, and, on the one hand, it
is the negation of every particularity, attribute--in short, every
content--for every positive subject-matter[123] is overwhelmed in this
abstract freedom and unity. On the other hand, every content, which is
to pass muster for the Ego, is posited and recognized as exclusively so
in virtue of the activity of the Ego. Whatever is, is only in virtue of
the Ego; whatever is through me (that is, my Ego) I am in turn able to
annihilate.

Now if we abide in these entirely vacant forms, which originate in the
absoluteness of the abstract Ego, nothing can then be regarded as of
value in itself, that is, essentially and on its own account[124]. It
is exclusively produced by the subjectivity of the Ego. But this being
so, it follows that the Ego remains lord and master over everything.
In no sphere of morals or law, of all that is human or divine, profane
or sacred, is there anything at all which would not in the first
instance have to be posited by the Ego, and which consequently could
not equally be nullified by the same agency. This is nothing less than
making all that exists on its own actual and independent warranty a
mere semblance, not true and a part of reality on account of itself
and by its own instrumentality, but a mere _show_ in virtue of the
Ego, within whose power and caprice it remains at the free disposition
of such. To suffer its presence and to destroy it stands purely in
the favour of the Ego, which has attained the absolute standpoint as
essentially the Ego, that and nothing more than that.

Thirdly, the Ego is a _living_, active individual, and its life
consists in bringing home its individuality to itself no less than
to others, in giving expression to itself and revealing itself among
phenomena[125]. For every man during his life endeavours to realize
himself and does realize himself. In relation to the beautiful and
art this means that he lives the life of an artist, and shapes his
life _artistically._ But, according to the principle now discussed,
I live as artist when all my action and expression whatever, in so
far as it has to do with a content, is for myself on the plane of
mere _semblance_, and assumes a formal content which is wholly at my
disposal. So I am not truly _serious_ either about this content or,
speaking generally, about its expression and realization. Genuine
seriousness only issues from a substantive interest, a subject-matter
which itself possesses a rich content, such as truth, morality, and
so on--in other words, from a content which as it stands I regard as
essential, so that I only become essential on my own account, in so
far as I have absorbed myself in such a content, and have come to
conform myself to it in the entire range of my thought and action.
At the standpoint at which the artist is the Ego, which both posits
and resolves everything through its own essential fiat[126], for
which no content of consciousness appears as absolute and essentially
independent, but only as itself a semblance created and destroyable,
such seriousness can find no place, nothing here receiving a right to
be save the formalism of the Ego.

No doubt for others my self-revealment, in which I appear to them,
may be taken seriously, inasmuch as they interpret me as though in
reality I was in earnest about the business; but therein they are
deluded, poor, _borné_ creatures, without the faculty or the power
to comprehend and attain to the height of my argument. And by this
it is brought home to me that _everyone_ is not so free (_e.g.,_
that is _formally_ free) as to see in all which is usually of value,
dignity and sanctity to mankind, merely a product of each man's own
possibilities of inclination, which is operative in permitting him to
determine and make rich the course of his life, or the reverse. It is
thus that this virtuosity of your ironical artist's life comes to be
credited as some _god-like geniality_, for which every conceivable
thing is a purely spectral creature, to which the free creator, knowing
himself to be absolutely unattached, does not yoke himself, for he can
ever annihilate the same no less than create it. Whoever has reached
such a standpoint of god-like geniality consequently looks down in his
superior fashion on all other mortals. They are ruled out as narrow
and dull, in so far, that is, as law, morals, and the rest retain for
them a validity that is assured, obligatory, and essential. And the
individual who thus lives this artist life, which he does no doubt
associate with others, whether friends or mistresses or I know not
what, yet as man of genius sets no real stock on such relations as they
stand to his individual personality and particular actions. All these
are as nothing in their contrast to the universal which is his in its
own and independent warranty, namely that genius which faces all such
with irony. This is the universal import of the genial god-like irony
as this concentration of the Ego in itself, for which all bands are
broken, and which can only live in the bliss of self-enjoyment. This
irony was the discovery of Herr Fried, von Schlegel, and many have
chattered about it after him, or it may be are giving us a fresh sample
of such chatter.

The proximate form of this negativity which has been called irony is,
then, on the one hand, the illusory nature[127] of all that is matter
of fact, or moral, or of substantive content, the nothingness of all
that is objective and of essential and independent worth. So long as
the Ego adheres to such, a standpoint as this, everything appears to be
null and void, the personal subjectivity alone excepted, which thereby
becomes hollow and empty, and nothing but conceit itself. Conversely,
however, from the opposite point of view, the Ego may also fail to
find satisfaction in this self-delight; it may prove an insufficient
supply to its craving, so that it now feels a thirst for what is secure
and substantive, definite and essential interests. From a situation
such as this there arises unhappiness and the contradiction, that
whereas, on the one hand, the individual seeks to penetrate into truth
and longs after objectivity, yet on the other he is unable to divest
himself of this isolation and self-seclusion, is unable to overcome
this unsatisfied and abstract soul-inwardness, and consequently is
seized with a fit of sentimental yearning, which we have also marked
as one of the emanations of the philosophy of Fichte. The discontent
of this quiescence and impotence, which is unable either to act or set
its hands to anything, lest it have to surrender the harmony within,
and which remains unreal and empty, even though it may be essentially
unflecked, despite all its craving for reality and the absolute--is
the source of morbid saintliness[128] and yearning. A soul that is
fair or saintly in a true sense acts and is a reality. But all that
yearning and heart burning is merely the feeling of the nothingness of
the empty and vain personage, who has it, and yet has not the power
to cast himself adrift of this empty void, and fill himself with that
which is solid and substantive. In so far, however, as the irony is
made an art type it did not restrict itself in giving artistic shape
to the life and particular individuality of the man who appropriated
the irony. Over and beyond the artistic content of his own actions,
etc., the artist had also to produce objective works of art as the
creations of his imagination. The principle of such productions,
which mainly are confined to the domain of poetry, is once more the
display of the god-like as Irony. The ironical here, however, as genial
individuality, consists in the self-annihilation of what is noble,
great, and excellent. Consequently the independent figures of art
will also have to illustrate the principle of absolute subjectivity,
and to do so by exhibiting all that is of human worth and dignity as
a mere naught in this process of self-annihilation. This implies not
merely that we are not to take seriously justice, morality and truth,
but that there is really nothing in what is highest and best. In short
it amounts to this, that irony contradicts and annihilates itself as
manifested in individuals, characters and actions, and consequently
is an irony which overreaches itself[129]. This mode or art-type,
abstractly considered, approaches closely to the principle of comedy.
At the same time we ought fundamentally to distinguish the comic from
the ironical as thus associated. For the comic must be limited to the
making null what is essentially itself of no worth, that is to say, a
false and contradictory appearance, a whim, for instance, a piece of
egotism, a particular caprice, as set over against a mighty passion; or
even some principle, _assumed_ to be efficacious, or rigid maxims may
be thus exposed in their nullity. But it is wholly a different matter,
when what is in fact moral and true, generally something with really
substantive core, is asserted in an individual and through the same
as essentially of no account. Such an individual is then nugatory and
despicable in his character, and the weakness and absence of character
are thus introduced into the representation. In this distinction,
therefore, between the ironical and the comic the point of real
importance is what is the nature of the _content_ which is destroyed.
They are in the case of irony evil, good for nothing subjects, persons
unable to hold staunchly to their fixed and important purposes, only
too ready to give it up and to permit its destruction within them.
Your "Irony" loves this irony of the characterless. For true character
implies on the one hand an essential substance in its purpose, and on
the other adherence to such a purpose, so that individuality would be
rifled of its veritable existence, if it was compelled to let it drop
and give it up. This doggedness and stability constitutes the keynote
of character. Cato can only live as Roman and republican. Now if
irony is made the keynote of the representation, we have the extreme
antithesis to art accepted as the true principle of the work of art.
For what we have here is in part insipid figures, in part figures
that have neither content nor defined position[130]. Seeing that what
is of substance in them is proved to be an illusion. And, last of
all, we have into the bargain those yearning floods and unresolved
contradictions of the soul. Compositions of this kind are not likely
to arouse real interest. And for this very reason it is precisely from
the advocates of this Irony that we have the continuous round of lament
over the public's want of critical sense, artistic insight and genius,
which of course cannot appreciate the lofty ways of such an Irony; in
other words what the public does not like is this very mediocrity,
which is the half of it mere trifling[131], and the other half without
distinctive character. And it is right that these spectre-like,
moon-shine gazing natures are no favourites; it is a comfort to think
that this insincerity and hypocrisy is not in fashion, and that what
men, on the contrary, demand imperatively are full and veritable
interests, and no less so characters which remain true to the weighty
substance at their core. We may add as a matter of historical interest
that it was Solger and Ludwig Tieck who above all accepted irony as the
highest principle of art.

This is not the place to speak of Solger at the length he really
merits; and I must content myself with a few general remarks. Solger
was not, as the others were, satisfied with a superficial philosophical
culture. A truly speculative impulse of his innermost nature made him
probe the very depths of the philosophical idea. And in doing so he
came upon the dialectical phase of the Idea, that transition point
which I call the infinite absolute negativity, the activity of the
idea in its negation of itself as infinite and universal, in order to
pass into finiteness and particularity, and with no less truth once
more in order to annul this negation, and in so doing to establish
again the universal and infinite within the finite and particular.
Solger did not get beyond this negativity; and unquestionably it is a
_phase_[132] in the speculative idea; but nevertheless, as exclusively
conceived in this dialectic unrest and dissolution of the infinite
no less than the finite, it is _only_ such a phase contributory, and
not, as Solger imagined, the _Entire Idea._ Unfortunately Solger's
life was too early broken off to permit him to grasp the concrete
evolvement of the philosophical Idea in all it implies. And so he never
got beyond this aspect of negativity, which possesses an affinity
with the dissolution by irony of all that is determinate no less than
essentially substantive, a negative movement which he identified with
the principle of artistic activity. Yet in the actual conditions of
his life, and with due reference to the stability, seriousness, and
sterling qualities of his character, he was neither himself an ironic
artist in the sense we have previously described, nor was his really
profound instinct for true works of art, a sense which a long course
of study of art had developed greatly, either of such an ironical
character. So much we will venture in the vindication of Solger, whose
life, philosophy, and actual contributions to art merit being wholly
kept separate from the apostles of irony previously named.

With regard to Ludwig Tieck, his culture, too, dates from that period
in which Jena was the literary centre. Tieck and others who belonged
to these superior people are on excellent terms with such modes of
expression, without being able to tell us much what they mean. Thus
Tieck always insists on the importance of Irony. But when it comes
to delivering judgment on great works of art, though his recognition
and description of their greatness is no doubt beyond reproach, yet
if one imagines that in any particular example--let us say "Romeo and
Juliet"--we have the opportunity put for an explanation of that in
which here the irony consists, we are wide of the mark. We hear nothing
more whatever about Irony.



V[133]


1. After the above introductory observations we may now pass on to the
consideration of our subject itself. We are, however, still within the
introduction; and being so I do not propose to attempt anything more
than indicate by way of sketch the main outlines of the general course
of the scientific inquiry which is to follow it. Inasmuch, however,
as we have referred to art as issuing from the absolute Idea itself,
and, indeed, have assigned as its end the sensuous presentation of the
Absolute itself, it will be incumbent on us to conduct this survey of
the entire field in such a way, as at least to disclose generally, how
the particular parts originate in the notional concept of the beauty of
art. We must therefore attempt to awaken some idea of this notion in
its broadest significance.

It has already been stated that the content of art is the Idea, and the
form of its display the configuration of the sensuous or plastic image.
It is further the function of art to mediate these two aspects under
the reconciled mode of free totality. The _first_ determinant implied
by this is the demand that the content, which has to secure artistic
representation, shall disclose an essential capacity for such display.
If this is not so all that we possess is a defective combination.
A content that, independently, is ill adapted to plastic form and
external presentment is compelled to accept this form, or a matter that
is of itself prosaic in its character is driven to make the best it can
of a mode of presentation which is antagonistic to its nature.

The _second_ requirement, which is deducible from the first, is the
demand that the content of art should be nothing essentially abstracts
This does not mean, however, that it should be merely concrete in
the sense that the sensuous object is such in its contrast to all
that is spiritual and the content of thought, regarding these as the
essentially simple and abstract. Everything that possesses truth for
Spirit; no less than, as part of Nature, is essentially concrete,
and, despite its universality, possesses both ideality[134] and
particularity essentially within it. When we state, for example, of
God that he is simple One, the Supreme Being as such, we have thereby
merely given utterance to a lifeless abstraction of the irrational
understanding. Such a God, as He is thus not conceived in His concrete
truth, can supply no content for art, least of all plastic art.
Consequently neither the Jews nor the Turks have been able to represent
their God, who is not even an abstraction of the understanding in
the above sense, under the positive mode in which Christians have
represented Him. For in Christianity God is conceived in His Truth, and
as such essentially concrete, as personality[135], as the subjective
focus of conscious life, or, more accurately defined, as Spirit. And
what He is as Spirit is made explicit to the religious apprehension
as a trinity of persons, which at the same time are, in their
independence, regarded as One. Here is essentiality, universality, and
particularity, no less than their reconciled unity, and it is only
a unity such as this which gives us the concrete. And inasmuch as a
content, in order to unveil truth at all, must be of this concrete
character, art makes the demand for a like concreteness, and, for this
reason, that a purely abstract universal does not in itself possess the
property to proceed to particularity and external manifestation, and to
unity with itself therein.

If, then, a sensuous form and configuration is to be correspondent
with a true and therefore concrete content, such must in the third
place likewise be as clearly individual, entirely concrete and a
self-enclosed unity. This character of concreteness, predicable of
both aspects of art, the content no less than the representation, is
just the point in which both coalesce and fall in with one another.
The natural form of the human body is, for example, such a sensuous
concrete capable of displaying Spirit in its essential concreteness and
of adapting itself wholly to such a presentment. For which reason we
must quit ourselves of the idea that it is a matter of mere accident
that an actual phenomenon of the objective world is accepted as the
mode in which to embody such a form coalescent with truth. Art does
not lay hold of this form either because it is simply there or because
there is no other. The concrete content itself implies the presence
of external and actual, we may even add the sensuous appearance. But
to make this possible this sensuous concrete, which is essentially
impressed with a content that is open to mind, is also essentially
addressed to the inward conscious life, and the external mode of its
configuration, whereby it is visible to perception and the world of
idea, has for its aim the being there exclusively for the soul and mind
of man. This is the sole reason that content and artistic conformation
are dovetailed one into the other. The _purely_ sensuous concrete, that
is external Nature as such, does not exclusively originate in such an
end. The variously coloured plumage of birds is resplendent unseen; the
notes of this song are unheard. The Cereus[136], which only blossoms
for a night, withers away without any admiration from another in the
wilderness of the southern forests; and these forests, receptacles
themselves of the most beautiful and luxuriant vegetation, with the
richest and most aromatic perfumes, perish and collapse in like manner
unenjoyed. The work of art has no such naïve and independent being. It
is essentially a question, an address to the responding soul of man, an
appeal to affections and intelligence.

Although the endowment by art of sensuous shape is not in this
respect accidental, yet on the other hand it is not the highest mode
of grasping the spiritually concrete. Thought is a higher mode of
presentment than that of the sensuous concrete. Though abstract in a
relative sense; yet it must not be one-sided, but concrete thinking, in
order to be true and rational. The extent to which a definite content
possesses for its appropriate form sensuous artistic representation,
or essentially requires, in virtue of its nature, a higher and more
spiritual embodiment is a question of difference exemplified at once
if we compare the Greek gods with God as conceived under Christian
ideas. The Greek god is not abstract, but individual, and is in close
association with the natural human form. The Christian God is also, no
doubt, a concrete personality, but under the mode of pure spiritual
actuality, who is cognized as Spirit and in Spirit[137]. His medium of
determinate existence is therefore essentially knowledge of the mind
and not external natural shape, by means of which His representation
can only be imperfect, and not in the entire depths of His idea or
notional concept.

Inasmuch, however, as it is the function of art to represent the Idea
to immediate vision in sensuous shape and not in the form of thought
and pure spirituality in the strict sense, and inasmuch as the value
and intrinsic worth of this presentment consists in the correspondence
and unity of the two aspects, that is the Idea and its sensuous shape,
the supreme level and excellence of art and the reality, which is truly
consonant with its notion, will depend upon the degree of intimacy and
union with which idea and configuration appear together in elaborated
fusion. The higher truth consequently is spiritual content which has
received the shape adequate to the conception of its essence; and this
it is which supplies the principle of division for the philosophy of
art. For before the mind can attain to the true notion of its absolute
essence, it is constrained to traverse a series of stages rooted in
this very notional concept; and to this course of stages which it
unfolds to itself, corresponds a coalescent series, immediately related
therewith, of the plastic types of art, under the configuration whereof
mind as art-spirit presents to itself the consciousness of itself[138].

This evolution within the art-spirit has further itself two sides
in virtue of its intrinsic nature. _First_, that is to say, the
development is itself a spiritual and universal one; in other words
there are the definite and comprehensive views of the world[139] in
their series of gradations which give artistic embodiment to the
specific but widely embracing consciousness of Nature, man, and God.
_Secondly_, this ideal or _universal_ art-development has to provide
for itself immediate existence and sensuous configuration, and the
definite modes of this art-actualization in the sensuous medium are
themselves a totality of necessary distinctions in the realm of
art--that is to say, they are the _particular types_ of art. No doubt
the types of artistic configuration on the one hand are, in respect to
their spirituality, of a general character, and not restricted to any
one material, and the sensuous existence is similarly itself of varied
multiplicity of medium. Inasmuch, however, as this material potentially
possesses, precisely as the mind or spirit does, the Idea for its
inward soul or significance, it follows that a definite sensuous
involves with itself a closer relation and secret bond of association
with the spiritual-distinctions and specific types of artistic
embodiment[140].

Relatively to these points of view our philosophy will divided into
three fundamental parts.

_First_, we have a _general_ part. It has for its content object the
universal Idea of fine art, conceived here as the Ideal, together with
the more elaborated relation under which it is placed respectively to
Nature and human artistic production.

_Secondly_, we have evolved from the notional concept of the beauty of
art a _particular_ part, in so far as the essential distinctions, which
this idea contains in itself, are unfolded in a graduated series of
_particular_ modes of configuration[141].

_Thirdly_, there results a _final_ part which has to consider the
particularized content of fine art itself. It consists in the advance
of art to the sensuous realization of its shapes and its consummation
in a system of the several arts and their genera and species.

2. In respect to the first and second of these divisions it is
important to recollect, in order to make all that follows intelligible,
that the Idea, viewed as the beautiful in art, is not the Idea in the
strict sense, that is as a metaphysical Logic apprehends it as the
Absolute. It is rather the Idea as carried into concrete form in the
direction of express realization, and as having entered into immediate
and adequate unity with such reality. For the _Idea as such_, although
it is both potentially and explicitly true, is only truth in its
universality and not as yet presented in objective embodiment. The Idea
as fine art, however, is the Idea with the more specific property of
being essentially individual reality, in other words, an individual
configuration of reality whose express function it is to make manifest
the Idea--in its appearance. This amounts to the demand that the Idea
and its formative configuration as concrete realization must be brought
together under a mode of complete adequacy. The Idea as so conceived,
a reality, that is to-say, moulded in conformity with the notional
concept of the Idea, is the Ideal. The problem of such consonancy
might, in the first instance, be understood in the wholly formal sense
that the Idea might be any idea so long as the actual shape, it matters
not what the shape might be, represented this particular Idea and no
other. In that case, however, the required truth of the Ideal is a
fact simply interchangeable with mere correctness, a correctness which
consists in the expression of any significance in a manner adapted to
it, provided that its meaning is thereby directly discoverable in the
form. The Ideal, however, is not to be thus understood. According to
the standard or test of its own nature any content whatever can receive
adequate presentation, but it does not necessarily thereby possess a
claim to be the fine art of the Ideal. Nay, more, in comparison with
ideal beauty the presentation will even appear defective. And in this
connection we may once for all observe--though actual proof is reserved
to a later stage--that the defects of a work of art are not invariably
to be attributed to defects of executive skill. _Defectiveness of form_
arises also from _defectiveness of content_. The Chinese, Hindoos, and
Egyptians, for example, in their artistic images, sculptured deities
and idols, never passed beyond a formless condition, or a definition
of shape that was vicious and false, and were unable to master true
beauty. And this was so for the reason that their mythological
conceptions, the content and thought of their works of art, were still
essentially indeterminate, or only determinate in a false sense, did
not, in fact, attain to a content which was absolute in itself. Viewed
in this sense the excellence of works of art is so much the greater
in the degree that their content and thought is ideal and profound.
And in affirming this we have not merely in our mind the degree of
executive mastery displayed in the grasp and imitation of natural
form as we find it in the objective world. For in certain stages of
the artistic consciousness and its reproductive effects the desertion
and distortion of the conformations of Nature is not so much due to
unintentional technical inexperience or lack of ability, as it is to
deliberate alteration, which originates in the mental content itself,
and is demanded by the same. From this point of view there is therefore
imperfect art, which, both in technical and other respects, may be
quite consummate in its _own specific sphere_, yet if tested with the
true notion of art and the Ideal can only appear as defective. Only
in the highest art are the Idea and the artistic presentation truly
consonant with one another in the sense that the objective embodiment
of the Idea is in itself essentially and as realized the true
configuration, because the content of the Idea thus expressed is itself
in truth the genuine content. It is appertinent to this, as already
noted, that the Idea must be defined in and through itself as concrete
totality, thereby essentially possessing in itself the principle and
standard of its particularization and definition as thus manifested
objectively. For example, the Christian imagination will only be able
to represent God in human form and with man's means of spiritual
expression, because it is herein that God Himself is fully known in
Himself as mind or Spirit. Determinacy is, as it were, the bridge to
phenomenal presence. Where this determinacy is not totality derived
from the Idea itself, where the Idea is not conceived as that which
is self-definitive and self-differentiating, it remains abstract and
possesses its definition, and with it the principle for the particular
mode of embodiment adapted to itself not within itself but as something
outside it. And owing to this the Idea is also still abstract and the
configuration it assumes is not as yet posited by itself. The Idea,
however, which is essentially concrete, carries the principle of its
manifestation in itself, and is thereby the means of its own free
manifestation. Thus it is only the truly concrete Idea that is able to
evoke the true embodiment, and this appropriate coalescence of both is
the Ideal.

3. But inasmuch as in this way the Idea is concrete unity, this unity
can only enter the artistic consciousness by the expansion and further
mediation of the particular aspects of the Idea; and it is through this
evolution that the beauty of art receives a _totality of particular
stages and forms._ Therefore, after we have considered fine art in its
essence and on its own account, we must see how the beautiful in its
entirety breaks up into its particular determinations. This gives, as
our second part, the _doctrine of the types of art._ The origin of
these types is to be found in the varied ways under which the Idea is
conceived as the content of art; it is by this means that a distinction
in the mode of form under which it manifests itself is conditioned.
These types are therefore simply the different modes of relation which
obtain between the Idea and its configuration, relations which emanate
from the Idea itself, and thereby present us with the general basis of
division for this sphere. For the principle of division must always be
found in the notional concept, the particularization and division of
which it is.

We have here to consider _three_ relations of the Idea to its external
process of configuration.

(_a_) _First_, the origin of artistic creation proceeds from the
Idea when, being itself still involved in defective definition and
obscurity, or in vicious and untrue determinacy, it becomes embodied
in the shapes of art. As indeterminate it does not as yet possess
in itself that individuality which the Ideal demands. Its abstract
character and one-sidedness leaves its objective presentment still
defective and contingent. Consequently this first type of art is rather
a mere search after plastic configuration than a power of genuine
representation. The Idea has not as yet found the formative principle
within itself, and therefore still continues to be the mere effort and
strain to find it. We may in general terms describe this form as the
_symbolic_ type of art. The abstract Idea possesses in it its external
shape outside itself in the purely material substance of Nature, from
which the shaping process proceeds, and to which in its expression
it is entirely yoked. Natural objects are thus in the first instance
left just as they are, while, at the same time the substantive Idea
is imposed upon them as their significance, so that their function
is henceforth to express the same, and they claim to be interpreted,
as though the Idea itself was present in them. A rationale of this
is to be found in the fact that the external objects of reality do
essentially possess an aspect in which they are qualified to express
a universal import. But as a completely adequate coalescence is not
yet possible, all that can be the outcome of such a relation is an
_abstract attribute_, as when a lion is understood to symbolize
strength.

On the other hand this abstractness of the relation makes present
to consciousness no less markedly how the Idea stands relatively to
natural phenomena as an alien; and albeit it expatiates in all these
shapes, having no other means of expression among all that is real, and
seeks after itself in their unrest and defects of genuine proportion,
yet for all that it finds them inadequate to meet its needs. It
consequently exaggerates natural shapes and the phenomena of Nature in
every degree of indefinite and limitless extension; it flounders about
in them like a drunkard, and seethes and ferments, doing violence to
their truth with the distorted growth of unnatural shapes, and strives
vainly by the contrast, hugeness, and splendour of the forms accepted
to exalt the phenomena to the plane of the Idea. For the Idea is here
still more or less indeterminate, and unadaptable, while the objects of
Nature are wholly definite in their shape.

Hence, on account of the incompatibility of the two sides of ideality
and objective form to one another, the relation of the Idea to the
other becomes a _negative_ one. The former, being in its nature ideal,
is unsatisfied with such an embodiment, and posits itself as its inward
or ideally universal substance under a relation of _sublimity_ over and
above all this inadequate superfluity of natural form. In virtue of
this sublimity the natural phenomena, of course, and the human form and
event are accepted and left simply as they are, but at the same time,
recognized as unequal to their significance, which is exalted far above
all earthly content.

These features constitute in general terms the character of the
primitive artistic pantheism of the East, which, on the one hand,
charges the meanest objects with the significance of the absolute
Idea, or, on the other, compels natural form, by doing violence to its
structure, to express its world-ideas. And, in consequence, it becomes
bizarre, grotesque, and deficient in taste, or turns the infinite but
abstract freedom of the substantive Idea contemptuously against all
phenomenal existence as alike nugatory and evanescent. By such means
the significance cannot be completely presented in the expression, and
despite all straining and endeavour the final inadequacy of plastic
configuration to Idea remains insuperable. Such may be accepted as the
first type of art--symbolic art with its yearning, its fermentation,
its mystery, and sublimity.

(_b_) In the _second_ type of art, which we propose to call
"_Classical_," the twofold defect of symbolic art is annulled. Now
the symbolic configuration is imperfect, because, first, the Idea
here only enters into consciousness in _abstract_ determinacy or
indeterminateness: and, secondly, by reason of the fact that the
coalescence of import with embodiment can only throughout remain
defective, and in its turn also wholly abstract. The classical art-type
solves both these difficulties. It is, in fact, the free and adequate
embodiment of the Idea in the shape which, according to its notional
concept, is uniquely appropriate to the Idea itself. The Idea is
consequently able to unite in free and completely assonant concord with
it. For this reason the classical type of art is the first to present
us with the creation and vision of the complete Ideal, and to establish
the same as realized fact.

The conformability, however, of notion and reality in the classical
type ought not to be taken in the purely _formal_ sense of the
coalescence of a content with its external form, any more than this was
possible in the case of the Ideal. Otherwise every copy from Nature,
and every kind of portrait, every landscape, flower, scene, and so
forth, which form the aim of the presentment, would at once become
classical in virtue of the fact of the agreement it offers between such
content and form. In classical art, on the contrary, the characteristic
feature of the content consists in this, that it is itself concrete
Idea, and as such the concrete spiritual; for it is only that which
pertains to Spirit which is veritable ideality[142]. To secure such a
content we must find out that in Nature which on its own account is
that which is essentially and explicitly appropriate to the spiritual.
It must be the _original_ notion itself[143], which has invented the
form for concrete spirituality, and now the _subjective_ notion--in
the present case the spirit of art--has merely _discovered_ it, and
made it, as an existence possessed of natural shape, concordant with
free and individual spirituality. Such a configuration, which the
Idea essentially possesses as spiritual, and indeed as individually
determinate spirituality, when it must perforce appear as a temporal
phenomenon, is the _human form._ Personification and anthropomorphism
have frequently been abused as a degradation of the spiritual. But
art, in so far as its function is to bring to vision the spiritual
in sensuous guise, must advance to such anthropomorphism, inasmuch
as Spirit is only adequately presented to perception in its bodily
presence. The transmigration of souls in this respect an abstract
conception[144], and physiology ought to make it one of its fundamental
principles, that life has necessarily, in the course of its evolution,
to proceed to the human form, for the reason that it is alone the
visible phenomenon adequate to the expression of intelligence.

The human bodily form, then, is employed in the classical type of art
not as purely sensuous existence, but exclusively as the existence and
natural shape appropriate to mind. It has therefore to be relieved
of all the defective excrescences which adhere to it in its purely
physical aspect, and from the contingent finiteness of its phenomenal
appearance. The external shape must in this way be purified in order
to express in itself the content adequate for such a purpose; and,
furthermore, along with this, that the coalescence of import and
embodiment may be complete, the spirituality which constitutes the
content must be of such a character that it is completely able to
express itself in the natural form of man, without projecting beyond
the limits of such expression within the sensuous and purely physical
sphere of existence. Under such a condition Spirit is at the same
time defined as particular, the spirit or mind of man, not as simply
absolute and eternal. In this latter case it is only capable of
asserting and expressing itself as intellectual being[145].

Out of this latter distinction arises, in its turn, the defect which
brings about the dissolution of the classical type of art, and makes
the demand for a third and higher form, namely the _romantic_ type.

(_c_) The romantic type of art annuls the completed union of the Idea
and its reality, and occurs, if on a higher plane, to the difference
and opposition of both sides, which remained unovercome in symbolic
art. The classical type of art no doubt attained the highest excellence
of which the sensuous embodiment of art is capable. The defect, such
as it is, is due to the defect which obtains in art itself throughout,
the limitations of its entire province, that is to say. The limitation
consists in this, that art in general and, agreeably to its fundamental
idea, accepts for its object Spirit, the notion of which is infinite
concrete universality, under the guise of sensuously concrete form. In
the classical type it sets up the perfected coalescence of spiritual
and sensuous existence as adequate conformation of both. As a matter of
fact, however, in this fusion mind itself is not represented agreeably
to its _true notional concept._ Mind is the infinite subjectivity of
the Idea, which as absolute inwardness[146], is not capable of freely
expanding in its entire independence, so long as it remains within the
mould of the bodily shape, fused therein as in the existence wholly
congenial to it.

To escape from such a condition the romantic type of art once more
cancels that inseparable unity of the classical type, by securing
a content which passes beyond the classical stage and its mode
of expression. This content, if we may recall familiar ideas--is
coincident with what Christianity affirms to be true of God as Spirit,
in contrast to the Greek faith in gods which forms the essential and
most fitting content of classical art. In Greek art the concrete ideal
substance is potentially, but not as fully realized, the unity of the
human and divine nature; a unity which for the very reason that it
is purely _immediate_ and not wholly explicit, is manifested without
defect under an immediate and _sensuous_ mode. The Greek god is the
object of naïve intuition and sensuous imagination. His shape is
therefore the bodily form of man. The sphere of his power and his being
is individual and individually limited; and in his opposition to the
individual person[147] is an essence and a power with whom the inward
life of soul[148] is merely potentially in unity, but does not itself
possess this unity as inward subjective knowledge. The higher stage
is the _knowledge_ of this _implied_ unity, which in its latency the
classical art-type receives as its content and is able to perfectly
represent in bodily shape. This elevation of mere potentiality into
self-conscious knowledge constitutes an enormous difference. It is
nothing less than the infinite difference which, for example, separates
man generally from the animal creation. Man is animal; but even in
his animal functions he is not restricted within the potential sphere
as the animal is, but becomes conscious of them, learns to understand
them, and raises them--as, for instance, the process of digestion--into
self-conscious science. By this means man dissolves the boundaries of
his merely potential immediacy; in virtue of the very fact that he
knows himself to be animal he ceases to be merely animal, and as mind
is endowed with self-knowledge.

If, then, in this way the unity of the human and divine nature,
which in the previous stage was potential, is raised out of this
immediate into a self-conscious unity, it follows that the genuine
medium for the reality of this content is no longer the sensuous
and immediate existence of what is spiritual, that is, the physical
body of man, but the _self-aware_ inner life of _soul itself._ Now
it is Christianity--for the reason that it presents to mind God as
_Spirit_, and not as the particular individual spirit, but as absolute
in spirit and in truth--which steps back from the sensuousness of
imagination into the inward life of reason, and makes _this_ rather
than _bodily_ form the medium and determinate existence of its content.
So also, the unity of the human and divine nature is a conscious unity
exclusively capable of realization by means of _spiritual_ knowledge,
and in _Spirit._ The new content secured thereby is consequently not
indefeasibly bound up with the sensuous presentation, as the mode
completely adequate, but is rather delivered from this immediate
existence, which has to be hypostatized as a negative factor, overcome
and reflected back into the spiritual unity. In this way romantic art
must be regarded as art transcending itself, albeit within the boundary
of its own province, and in the form of art itself.

We may therefore briefly summarize our conclusion that in this third
stage the object of art consists in the free and concrete presence
of spiritual activity[149], whose vocation it is to appear as such a
presence or activity for the inner world of conscious intelligence. In
consonance with such an object art cannot merely work for sensuous
perception. It must deliver itself to the inward life, which coalesces
with its object simply as though this were none other than itself[150],
in other words, to the intimacy of soul, to the heart, the emotional
life, which as the medium of Spirit itself essentially strives after
freedom, and seeks and possesses its reconciliation only in the inner
chamber of spirit. It is this inward or ideal world which constitutes
the content of the romantic sphere: it will therefore necessarily
discover its representation as such inner idea or feeling, and in the
show or appearance of the same. The world of the soul and intelligence
celebrates its triumph over the external world, and, actually in the
medium of that outer world, makes that victory to appear, by reason of
which the sensuous appearance sinks into worthlessness.

On the other hand, this type of art, like every other, needs an
external vehicle of expression. As already stated, the spiritual
content has here withdrawn from the external world and its immediate
unity into its own world. The sensuous externality of form is
consequently accepted and represented, as in the symbolic type, as
unessential and transient; furthermore the subjective finite spirit
and volition is treated in a similar way; a treatment which even
includes the idiosyncrasies or caprice of individuals, character,
action, or the particular features of incident and plot. The aspect
of external existence is committed to contingency and handed over to
the adventurous action of imagination, whose caprice is just as able
to reflect the facts given _as_ they are[151], as it can change the
shapes of the external world into a medley of its own invention and
distort them to mere caricature. For this external element has no
longer its notion and significance in its own essential province, as in
classical art. It is now discovered in the emotional realm, and this
is manifested in the medium of that realm itself rather than in the
external and _its_ form of reality, and is able to secure or to recover
again the condition of reconciliation with itself in every accident,
in all the chance circumstance that falls into independent shape, in
all misfortune and sorrow, nay, in crime itself.

Hence it comes about that the characteristics of symbolic art, its
indifference, incompatibility and severance of Idea from configurative
expression, are here reproduced once more, if with essential
difference. And this difference consists in the fact that in romantic
art the Idea, whose defectiveness, in the case of the symbol, brought
with it the defect of external form, has to display itself as Spirit
and in the medium of soul-life as essentially self-complete. And it
is to complete fundamentally this higher perfection that it withdraws
itself from the external element, It can, in short, seek and consummate
its true reality and manifestation nowhere but in its own domain.

This we may take to be in general terms the character of the symbolic,
classical, and romantic types of art, which in fact constitute
the three relations of the Idea to its embodiment in the realm of
human art. They consist in the aspiration after, the attainment and
transcendency of the Ideal, viewed as the true concrete notion of
beauty.

4. In contrast to these two previous divisions of our subject the
_third_ part presupposes the notional concept of the Ideal, and the
universal art-types. It in other words consists in their realization
through specific sensuous media. We have consequently no longer to deal
with the inner or ideal evolution of the beauty of art in conformity
with its widest and most fundamental determinations. What we have
now before us to consider is how these ideal determinants pass into
actual existence, how they are distinguishable in their external
aspect, and how they give an independent and a realized shape to every
element implied in the evolution of this Idea of beauty as _a work of
art_, and not merely as a _universal type._ Now it is the peculiar
differences immanent in the Idea of beauty which are carried over by
it into external existence. For this reason in this third fundamental
division these general art-types must themselves supply the basic
principle for the articulation and definition of the _particular
arts._ Or, to put the same thing another way, the several species
of art possess in themselves the same essential differences, which
we have already become acquainted with as the universal art-types.
_External_ objectivity, however, to which these types are subjected
in a sensuous and consequently _specific_ material, necessitates the
differentiation of these types into diverse and independent modes of
realization, in other words, those of particular arts. Each general
type discovers its determinate character in one determinate external
material or medium, in which its adequate presentation is secured
under the manner it prescribes. But, from another point of view, these
types of art, inasmuch as their definition is none the less consistent
with the fact of the _universality_ of their typical import, break
through the boundaries of their _specific_ realization in some definite
art-species, and achieve an existence in other arts no less, although
their position in such is of subordinate importance. For this reason,
albeit the particular arts belong specifically to one of these general
art-types respectively, the _adequate_ external embodiment whereof
they severally constitute, yet this does not prevent them, each after
its own mode of external configuration, from representing the totality
of these art-types[152]. To summarize, then, in this third principal
division we are dealing with the beauty of art, as it unveils itself in
a world of realized beauty by means of the arts and their creations.
The content of this world is the beautiful, and the true beautiful,
as we have seen, is spiritual being in concrete form, the Ideal; or
apprehended with still more intimacy it is the absolute mind and truth
itself. This region of divine truth artistically presented to sensuous
vision and emotion forms the centre of the entire world of art. It
is the independent, free and divine Image[153], which has completely
appropriated the externality of form and medium, and now wears them
simply as the means of its self-manifestation. Inasmuch, however, as
the beautiful is unfolded here as _objective_ reality, and in this
process is differentiated into particular aspects and phases, this
centre posits its extremes, as realized in their peculiar actuality, in
antithetical relation to itself. Thus one of these extremes consists
of an objectivity as yet devoid of mind, which we may call the natural
environment of God. Here the external element, when it receives form,
remains as it was, and does not possess its spiritual aim and content
in itself, but in another[154]. The other extreme is the divine as
inward, something known, as the manifold particularized _subjective_
existence of Deity. It is the truth as operative and vital in sense,
soul, and intelligence of particular persons, which does not persist
as poured forth into its mould of external shape, but returns into the
inward life of individuals. The Divine is under such a mode at once
distinguishable from its pure manifestation as Godhead, and passes
itself thereby into the variety of particularization which belongs to
every kind of particular subjective knowledge, feeling, perception,
and emotion. In the analogous province of religion with which art, at
its highest elevation, is immediately connected, we conceive the same
distinction as follows. First, we imagine the natural life on Earth in
its finitude as standing on one side; but then, secondly, the human
consciousness accepts God for its object, in which the distinction
between objectivity and subjectivity falls away; then, finally, we
advance from God as such to the devotion of the _community_, that is to
God as He is alive and present in the subjective consciousness. These
three fundamental modifications present themselves in the world of art
in independent evolution.

(_a_) The _first_ of the particular arts with which, according to their
fundamental principle, we have to start is architecture considered
as a fine art. Its function consists in so elaborating the external
material of inorganic Nature that the same becomes intimately connected
with Spirit as an artistic and external environment. Its medium is
matter itself as an external object, a heavy mass that is subject
to mechanical laws; and its forms persist as the forms of inorganic
Nature co-ordinated with the relations of the abstract understanding
such as symmetry and so forth. In this material and in these forms the
Ideal is incapable of realization as concrete spirituality, and the
reality thus presented remains confronting the Idea as an external
fabric with which it enters into no fusion, or has only entered so
far as to establish an abstract relation. And it is in consequence
of this that the fundamental type of the art of building is that of
_symbolism._ Architecture is in fact the first pioneer on the highway
toward the adequate realization of Godhead. In this service it is put
to severe labour with objective nature, that it may disengage it by
its effort from the confused growth of finitude and the distortions of
contingency. By this means it levels a space for the God, informs His
external environment, and builds Him His temple, as a fit place for
the concentration of Spirit, and its direction to the absolute objects
of intelligent life. It raises an enclosure for the congregation of
those assembled, as a defence against the threatening of the tempest,
against rain, the hurricane, and savage animals. It in short reveals
the will thus to assemble, and although under an external relation, yet
in agreement with the principles of art. A significance such as this it
can to a greater or less extent import into its material and its forms,
in proportion as the determinate content of its fabric, which is the
object of its operations and effort, is more or less significant, is
more concrete or more abstract, more profound in penetrating its own
essential depth, or more obscure and superficial. Indeed architecture
may in this respect proceed so far in the execution of such a purpose
as to create an adequate artistic existence for such an ideal content
in its very forms and material. In doing so, however, it has already
passed beyond its peculiar province and is diverted into the stage
immediately above it of sculpture. For the boundary of sculpture
lies precisely, in this that it retains the spiritual as an inward
being which persists in direct contrast to the external embodiment
of architecture. It can consequently merely point to that which is
absorbed in soul-life as to something external to itself.

(_b_) Nevertheless, as above explained, the external and inorganic
world is purified by architecture, it is co-ordinated under symmetrical
laws, and made cognate with mind, and as a result the temple of God,
the house of his community, stands before us. Into this temple, in
the _second_ place, the God himself enters in the lightning-flash of
individuality which smites its way into the inert mass, permeating the
same with its presence. In other words the infinite[155] and no longer
purely symmetrical form belonging to intelligence brings as it were
to a focus and informs the shape in which it is most at home. This is
the task of _sculpture._ In so far as in it the inward life of Spirit,
to which the art of architecture can merely point away to, makes its
dwelling within the sensuous shape and its external material, and
to the extent that these two sides come into plastic communion with
one another in such a manner that neither is predominant, sculpture
receives as its fundamental type the _classical_ art-form.

For this reason the sensuous element on its own account admits of no
expression here which is not affected by spiritual affinities[156],
just as, conversely, sculpture can reproduce with completeness no
spiritual content, which does not maintain throughout adequate
presentation to perception in bodily form. What sculpture, in
short, has to do is to make the presence of Spirit stand before us
in its bodily shape and in immediate union therewith at rest and
in blessedness; and this form has to be made vital by means of the
content of spiritual individuality. The external sensuous material
is consequently no longer elaborated either in conformity with its
mechanical quality alone, as a mass of weight, nor in shapes of the
inorganic world simply, nor in entire indifference to colour, etc. It
is carried into the ideal forms of the human figure, and, we may add,
in the completeness of all three spatial dimensions. In other words and
relatively to such a process we must maintain for sculpture that in
it the inward or ideal content of Spirit are first revealed in their
eternal repose and essential self-stability. To such repose and unity
with itself there can only correspond that external shape which itself
persists in such unity and repose. And this condition is satisfied by
configuration viewed in its _abstract spatiality._[157] The spirit
which sculpture represents is that which is essentially sound, not
broken up in the play of chance conceits and passions; and for this
reason its external form also is not dissolved in the manifold variety
of appearance, but exhibits itself under this one presentment only as
the abstraction of space in the totality of its dimensions.

Assuming, then, that the art of architecture has executed its temple,
and the hand of sculpture has placed therein the image of the god, we
have in the _third_ place to assume the _community_ of the faithful
as confronting the god thus presented to vision in the wide chambers
of his dwelling-place. Now this community is the spiritual reflection
into its own world of that sensuous presence, the subjective and inward
animating life of soul, in its union with which, both for the artistic
content and the external material which manifests it, the determining
principle may be identified with particularization in varied shapes
and qualities, individualization and the life of soul[158] which they
imply. The downright and solid fact of unity the god possesses in
sculpture breaks up into the multiplicity of a world of particular
souls[159], whose union is no longer sensuous but wholly ideal.

Here for the first time God Himself is revealed as veritably
Spirit--viz., the Spirit revealed in His community. Here at last He
is seen apprehended as this moving to-and-fro, as this alternation
between His own essential unity and His realization in the knowledge
of individual persons and that separation which it involves, as also
in the universal spiritual, being[160] and union of the many. In such
a community God is disengaged from the abstraction of His unfolded
self-seclusion and self-identity, no less than from the immediate
absorption in bodily shape, in which He is presented by sculpture. He
is, in a word, lifted into the actual sphere of spiritual existence
and knowledge, into the reflected appearance, whose manifestation
is essentially inward and the life of heart and soul. Thereby the
higher content is now the nature of Spirit, and that in its ultimate
or absolute shape. But at the same time the separation to which
we have alluded displays this as _particular_ spiritual being, a
specific emotional life. Moreover, for the reason that the main
thing here is not the untroubled repose of the God in himself[161],
but his manifestation simply, the Being which is _for another_,
self-revealment in fact, it follows that, on the plane we have now
reached, all the varied content of human subjectivity in its vital
movement and activity, whether viewed as passion, action, or event,
or more generally the wide realm of human feeling, volition and its
discontinuance, become one and all for their own sake objects of
artistic representation.

Agreeably with such a content the sensuous element of art has likewise
to show itself potentially adapted to such particularization and the
display of such an inward content of heart and mind. Media of this
description are supplied by colour, musical tones, and finally in sound
as mere sign for ideal perceptions and conceptions; and we further
obtain the means of realizing with the use of such media a content
of this kind in the arts of painting, music, and poetry. Throughout
this sphere the sensuous medium is found to be essentially disparate
in itself and throughout posited[162] as ideal. In this way it
responds in the highest degree to the fundamentally spiritual content
of art, and the coalescence of spiritual significance and sensuous
material attains a more intimate union than was possible either in
architecture or sculpture. At the same time such a union is necessarily
more near to soul-life, leaning exclusively to the subjective side
of human experience; one which, in so far as form and content are
thus constrained to particularization and to posit their result as
ideal, can only be actually effected at the expense of the objective
universality of the content as also of the fusion with the immediately
sensuous medium[163].

The arts, then, which are lifted into a higher strain of ideality,
abandoning as they do the symbolism of architecture and the classical
Ideal of sculpture, accept their predominant type from the _romantic_
art-form; and these are the arts most fitted to express its mode of
configuration. They are, however, a totality of arts, because the
romantic type is itself essentially the most concrete.

(_c_) The articulation of this _third sphere_ of the particular arts
may be fixed as follows:

(_α_) The _first_ art which comes next to sculpture is that of
painting. It avails itself for a medium of its content and the plastic
configuration of the same of visibility as such, to the extent that
it is differentiated in its own nature, in other words is defined in
the continuity of colour. No doubt the material of architecture and
sculpture is likewise both visible and coloured. It is, however, not,
as in painting, visibility in its pure nature, not the essentially
simple light, which by its differentiating of itself in its opposition
to darkness, and in association with that darkness gives rise to
colour[164]. This quality of visibility made essentially ideal[165]
and treated as such no longer either requires, as in architecture, the
abstractly mechanical qualities of mass as appropriate to materials of
weight, nor, as is the case with sculpture, the complete dimensuration
of spatial condition, even when concentrated into organic forms. The
visibility and the making apparent, which belong to painting, possess
differences of quality under a more ideal mode--that is, in the
specific varieties of colour--which liberates art from the objective
totality of spatial condition, by being limited to a plane surface.

On the other hand the content also attains the widest compass of
particularity. Whatever can find a place in the human heart, as
emotion, idea, and purpose, whatever it is capable of actually
shaping--all such diversity may form part of the varied presentations
of painting. The entire world of particular existence, from the most
exalted embodiment of mind to the most insignificant natural fact,
finds a place here. For it is possible even for finite Nature, in its
particular scenes and phenomena, to form part of such artistic display,
provided only that we have some reference to conscious life which makes
it akin to human thought and emotion[166].

(_β_) The _second_ art which continues the further realization of the
romantic type and forms a distinct contrast to painting is that of
_music._ Its medium, albeit still sensuous, yet proceeds into still
profounder subjectivity and particularization. We have here, too, the
deliberate treatment of the sensuous medium as ideal, and it consists
in the negation and idealization into the isolated unity of a single
point[167], the indifferent external collocation of space[168], whose
complete appearance is retained by painting and deliberately feigned
in its completeness. This isolated point, viewed as this process of
negation, is an essentially concrete and active process of cancellation
within the determinate substance of the material medium, viewed, that
is, as motion and vibration of the material object within itself and in
its relation to itself. Such an inchoate ideality of matter, which no
longer appears under the form of space, but as temporal ideality[169],
is sound or tone. We have here the sensuous set down as negated, and
its abstract visibility converted into audibility. In other words sound
liberates the ideal content from its fetters in the material substance.
This earliest[170] secured inwardness of matter and impregnation of
it with soul-life supplies the medium for the intimacy and soul of
Spirit--itself as yet indefinite--permitting, as it does, the echo
and reverberation of man's emotional world through its entire range
of feelings and passions. In this way music forms the centre of the
romantic arts, just as sculpture represents the midway point of arrest
between architecture and the arts of the romantic subjectivity. Thus,
too, it forms the point of transition between the abstract, spatial
sensuousness of painting and the abstract spirituality of poetry.
Music carries within itself, like architecture, and in contrast to the
emotional world simply and its inward self-seclusion, a relation of
quantity conformable to the principles of the understanding and their
modes of co-ordinated configuration[171].

(_γ_) We must look for our _third_ and most spiritual type of artistic
presentation among the romantic arts in that of _poetry._ The supreme
characteristic of poetry consists in the power with which it brings
into vassalage of the mind and its conceptions the sensuous element
from which music and painting began to liberate art. For sound, the
only remaining external material retained by poetry, is in it no
longer the feeling of the sonorous itself, but is a mere sign without
independent significance. And it is, moreover, a sign of idea which has
become essentially concrete, and not merely[172] of indefinite feeling
and its subtle modes and gradations. And this is how sound develops
into the Word, as essentially articulate voice, whose intention it is
to indicate ideas and thoughts. The purely negative moment to which
music advanced now asserts itself as the wholly concrete point, the
point which is mind itself, the self-conscious individual, which
produces from itself the infinite expansion of its ideas and unites
the same with the temporal condition of sound. Yet this sensuous
element, which was still in music immediately united to emotion, is in
poetry separated from the content of consciousness. Mind, in short,
here determines this content for its own sake and apart from all else
into the content of idea; to express such idea it no doubt avails
itself of sound, but employs it merely as a sign without independent
worth or substance. Thus viewed, the sound here may be just as well
reproduced by the mere letter, for the audible, like the visible, is
here reduced to a mere indication of mind[173]. For this reason, the
true medium of poetical representation is the poetical imagination and
the intellectual presentation itself; and inasmuch as this element
is common to all types of art it follows that poetry is a common
thread through them all, and is developed independently in each.
Poetry is, in short, the universal art of the mind, which has become
essentially free, and which is not fettered in its realization to an
externally sensuous material, but which is creatively active in the
space, and time belonging to the inner world of ideas and emotion. Yet
it is precisely in this its highest phase, that art terminates, by
transcending itself; it is just here that it deserts the medium of a
harmonious presentation of mind in sensuous shape and passes from the
poetry of imaginative idea into the prose of thought.

Such we may accept as the articulate totality of the particular
arts; they are the external art of architecture, the objective art
of sculpture and the subjective arts of painting, music, and poetry.
Many other classifications than these have been attempted, for a work
of art presents such a wealth of aspects, that it is quite possible,
as has frequently been the case, to make first one and then another
the basis of division. For instance, you may take the sensuous medium
simply. Architecture may then be viewed as a kind of crystallization;
sculpture, as the organic configuration of material in its sensuous
and spatial totality; painting as the coloured surface and line, while
in music, space, as such, passes over into the point or moment of
time replete with content in itself, until we come finally to poetry,
where the external medium is wholly suppressed into insignificance.
Or, again, these differences have been viewed with reference to their
purely abstract conditions of space and time. Such abstract divisions
of works of art may, as their medium also may be consequentially traced
in their characteristic features. They cannot, however, be worked out
as the final and fundamental principle, because such aspects themselves
derive their origins from a higher principle, and must therefore fall
into subordination thereto.

This higher principle we have discovered in the types of art--symbolic,
classical, and romantic--which are the universal stages or phases of
the Idea of beauty itself.

Their relation to the individual arts in their concrete manifestation
as embodiment is of a kind that these arts constitute the real and
positive existence of these general art-types. For _symbolic_ art
attains its most adequate realization and most pertinent application
in _architecture_, in which it expatiates in the full import of its
notion, and is not as yet depreciated, as it were, into the merely
inorganic nature dealt with by some other art. The _classical_ type of
art finds its unfettered realization, on the other hand, in sculpture,
treating architecture merely as the enclosure which surrounds it,
and being unable to elaborate painting and music into the wholly
adequate[174] forms of its content. Finally, the _romantic_ art-type
is supreme in the products of painting and music, and likewise in
poetical composition, as their preeminent and unconditionally adequate
modes of expression. Poetry is, however, conformable to all types of
the beautiful, and its embrace reaches them all for the reason that
the poetic imagination is its own proper medium, and imagination is
essential to every creation of beauty, whatever its type may be.

To sum up, then, what the particular arts realize in particular works
of art, are according to their fundamental conception, simply the
universal types which constitute the self-unfolding Idea of beauty.
It is as the external realization of this Idea that the wide Pantheon
of art is being raised; and the architect and builder thereof is the
spirit of beauty as it gradually comes to self-cognition, and to
complete which the history of the world will require its evolution of
centuries.

[Footnote 1: The introduction begins as an introduction of lectures.
But as the work is merely based to a large extent on notes for
lectures, or on a manuscript which did not preserve the lectures as
they were delivered, it will be found most convenient to ignore this
fact, and in references to regard it simply as a written treatise.]

[Footnote 2: Hegel, alluding no doubt to the words of the Gospel, puts
it "born and born again from mind (spirit)."]

[Footnote 3: It is assumed that such a fancy is seized and defined as
such in separation from other experience.]

[Footnote 4: The sentence is slightly ironical.]

[Footnote 5: _Dem Scheine._]

[Footnote 6: _Raisonnements_: a disparaging expression.]

[Footnote 7: Hegel here means the formal character, not the material on
which it is imposed in the several arts.]

[Footnote 8: Hegel says, "as that which has no right to be," _das
Nichtseyn sollende._]

[Footnote 9: _Erscheine_ as contrasted with _scheine._]

[Footnote 10: _Das An-und-Fürsichseyende._ That which is explicitly to
itself self-determinate being, no less than essentially such in its
substantive right.]

[Footnote 11: _Besonnener Art._ Possibly Hegel means "one more
compatible with common sense."]

[Footnote 12: I think by the words _kunst wieder hervorzurufen_ Hegel
rather means to call up art as it was previously cultivated than merely
to "stimulate art production." The latter is, however, Professor
Bosanquet's translation.]

[Footnote 13: _Subjective_ apparently in the sense of being wholly
personal to the writer or philosopher in so far as the form of his
treatise deals in classification and arrangement peculiar to himself
and so _external_, if not entirely arbitrary.]

[Footnote 14: I agree with the note of Professor Bosanquet (Trans., p.
21) that the word _element_ refers here to the mental constituents of
art, as contrasted with the sensuous medium.]

[Footnote 15: That is to say, the essential formative process involved
in its necessity.]

[Footnote 16: There must be a misprint or oversight in Professor
Bosanquet's rendering of this passage (p. 21). As the sentence now
stands it does not appear to me to make sense.]

[Footnote 17: _Von ihm._ The pronoun, I take it, must refer here to
_das Andere_ rather than the subject of the verb.]

[Footnote 18: "Makes itself an alien to itself" perhaps expresses the
German better.]

[Footnote 19: That is, the work of art.]

[Footnote 20: _Haltpunkte._ Points of arrest in essential ideas
necessary which restrain this tendency to purely arbitrary caprice.]

[Footnote 21: I do not think the first part of this sentence ironical.
Hegel admits that a general knowledge is a legitimate feature of modern
culture. But he points out that people are only too ready to confuse
such a general knowledge with real art scholarship. To bring out this I
have translated rather freely.]

[Footnote 22: Detail of historical fact and artistic observation.]

[Footnote 23: It is historical, first, regarded as a survey of
historical condition, and, secondly, because facts are collected
whether in relation to ancient or modern art as a historian collects
his facts.]

[Footnote 24: Lit., the inmost or most ideal (meaning).]

[Footnote 25: _Vollkommen._ Complete or rather completely articulate
and rounded in itself. It is not easy to select the English word that
exactly corresponds.]

[Footnote 26: _Bestimmte Individualität._ The definition may, as Hegel
says, be more significant, but it is for all that not very clearly
expressed. Professor Bosanquet translates the words "determinate
individual modification."]

[Footnote 27: My view is that what Hegel means to say is that in
caricature ugliness is emphasized and made more (_näher_) a part of
the content than belongs to the true nature of the characteristic of
which it is (in Hegel's opinion) no essential determinant or property.
The view stated in the sentence is therefore a kind of _reductio ad
absurdum._ Professor Bosanquet's translation appears to me to leave it
doubtful whether the view stated is a just one or not. He translates
_näher_ by "closely," not the comparative. In my view Hegel agrees
that caricature may be characteristic, but he does not agree that it
is a genuine property of the characteristic where it is pressed to the
excess of ugliness.]

[Footnote 28: _Bestimmung._]

[Footnote 29: That is, in Hegel's view.]

[Footnote 30: _Das Wahre_.]

[Footnote 31: _Den denkenden Begriff._ It is possible that the "notion
of thought" would express Hegel's meaning, as it would be a less
strange expression. But I have retained the more literal translation
as the reference may be to the self-evolution of Thought in its own
dialectical process, thought or the Idea thinking out itself in the
Hegelian sense. Professor Bosanquet seems to assume this, as he
translates "the thinking Idea."]

[Footnote 32: _Kunstschönen._ I have translated this by the expression
"fine art" because Hegel in the opening of the introduction makes the
expression interchangeable with _schöne kunst._ At the same time it
must be recollected that the emphasis here is even more on "beauty"
than the fact that it is the beauty of human art. And it is for
this reason, I presume, that Professor Bosanquet translates it here
"artistic beauty." The only objection I have to make to this, apart
from Hegel's words I have referred to, is that the expression "artistic
beauty" is sometimes used to signify beauty that is capable of being
expressed by art. Of course that is excluded from Hegel's use of the
term; he means the beauty of artistic work.]

[Footnote 33: _Subjektiven._]

[Footnote 34: Independent, that is, of the consciousness of any
particular individual. Hegel does not necessarily mean independent of
consciousness altogether. He has, no doubt, generally in his mind the
kind of scepticism which received its most logical exposition in Hume.]

[Footnote 35: This appears to me the meaning of _zufälliger Sinn._
Professor Bosanquet translates it "accidental sense." By that I presume
he understands the meaning to be "a sense of beauty that is entirely
personal to the recipient," it may be possessed by one man, but not by
another. Hegel's illustration hardly supports this, so it seems to me.]

[Footnote 36: I do not know the exact translation of _lemmatisch_, and
by a curious slip the sentence is omitted from Professor Bosanquet's
translation. The general sense is plain enough. Every particular
science accepts its subject-matter as a _datum_. It starts from the
empirical fact. Whether it admits the assumption or not, it does assume
such facts. It is obvious that Hegel's adoption of this standpoint is
only relatively true.]

[Footnote 37: Hegel means, I presume, mainly in the introduction.
After that he does in a qualified degree discuss the profounder import
of the Idea of Fine Art. His statements are not perhaps wholly free
from inconsistency, because he has previously said that apart from an
encyclopaedic consideration of all the sciences, it was not possible to
do so, and also some of His statements seem to imply that he does not
intend to do so.]

[Footnote 38: That is, in the first Part of the entire treatise.]

[Footnote 39: What Hegel means by the _die letzte einleitende
Betrachtung_ I am not quite sure. I presume he means the introduction
to the first Part. The whole of this paragraph is not very clear.]

[Footnote 40: By man's sensitive life in its widest sense is, I think,
intended.]

[Footnote 41: The German words are _machen_ and _nachmachen._ We have
no exact equivalents.]

[Footnote 42: _Lit._, "to fill out (_ausfüllen_) in complete
equipment."]

[Footnote 43: _Individuelle._]

[Footnote 44: The German will admit of the interpretation that the
reference is merely to genius, but I think Hegel clearly means that
neither one nor the other can be thus conjured up.]

[Footnote 45: At the end of the first main division of the work.]

[Footnote 46: One of Meredith's correspondents has put the question
with all gravity whether he considered inspiration could be assisted
by wine drinking. With equal gravity our humourist replied that though
wine might be something of a restorative after mental effort it was
not his experience that it contributed to first-rate artistic work. He
actually mentions the case of Schiller. Though I have read somewhere
that this poet used to be inspired by the smell of rotten apples I do
not recollect reading that he favoured the champagne bottle. Meredith
also mentions the case of Hoffmann, and adds that the type of his work
does not increase our respect for the precedent.]

[Footnote 47: _Eine äusserliche Arbeit._ A craftsmanship which
has to deal with the outside surface. We may translate "external
craftsmanship"; but the translation in the text gives the meaning best,
I think.]

[Footnote 48: _Keinen geistigen Stoff._ Professor Bosanquet translates
"spiritual content." I imagine the emphasis to be mainly on the absence
of positive ideas available to knowledge. In any case Hegel appears
to press his point of contrast too far. Men of genius such as Mozart
(who was probably in his mind) and Schubert may bear him out. But on
the other hand we have a Keats, Shelley, and Raphael. Genius matures
rapidly, but the greatest works of musical art no less than any other
imply a real maturity of mind at least, and more than is here assumed
of, I should say, a rich experience. Mozart, of course, upsets any
theory, and it is questionable even whether Mozart is really an
exception. It depends on the point of view from which we are estimating
the intelligible content of music as an expression of soul-life.]

[Footnote 49: The "Iphigenie" was completed in Goethe's thirty-eighth
year, fourteen years later than "Götz." The bulk of his more important
works are of the same date or later. Schiller's "Wallenstein" was
completed after his thirty-fifth year.]

[Footnote 50: This is surely not quite accurate. The medium of painting
in the sense that speech or writing is the medium of poetry is not
canvas or panel but oil or other colour. Canvas would correspond with
the blank pages of a book.]

[Footnote 51: Free, that is, from accidental and irrelevant matter.]

[Footnote 52: Professor Bosanquet translates _sinnliche_ here as
"sensitive." I am inclined to think that Hegel here rather leaves out
of sight the fact that in the process of Nature we have sensitive
organic life no less than unconscious inorganic. His contrast is rather
between the conscious life of man and unconscious nature, the conscious
life that is not self-conscious being for the object of the contrast
treated as equivalent to unconscious. He would also apparently ignore
the fact that man himself and the higher beauty which attaches to him
is also from ope point of view a part of the natural process.]

[Footnote 53: That is, apart from purely personal ends in its pursuit,
which are accidental to its essential notion.]

[Footnote 54: That is, in the medium of conscious life.]

[Footnote 55: _Einmal._ They are there, but they do not know they are
there.]

[Footnote 56: _Aus geistiger Bildung, i.e._, a high level of mental
culture is necessary before the advent of civilized manners and
customs in which spiritual life is reflected with real refinement and
directness.]

[Footnote 57: _Bedürfniss zur Kunst._]

[Footnote 58: _Lit._, "In the form of the most abstract single
subjectivity." That is to say, that the main fact about it is that it
is felt; but, except in respect to intensity, it cannot be described
as an object of thought with defining attributes, It is abstract
individual sensation.]

[Footnote 59: By the expression _Kreis_ Hegel would mean rather an
indefinite sphere than a definite circle. The simile is perhaps not
very apt. The idea, apparently, is of a sphere of feeling, that is,
such as being self-complete, but is so abstract or indefinable that the
introduction into it of positive ideas such as justice, etc., are the
mere entrance of spectral forms which vanish in such an indefinable
medium, without disclosing their nature. They are felt but not cognized
for what they really are.]

[Footnote 60: _Blinder_, blind in the sense that it is not guided by
deliberate and self-conscious reason, _i.e._, mere animal instinct.]

[Footnote 61: A difficult sentence to translate. I have followed
Professor Bosanquet in assuming that the substantive with which
_mangelhaft_ agrees must be borrowed from the following sentence,
though it seems also to be carried on in a loose kind of way from the
previous sentence (_Gesckmacksinn._) The entire sentence is built,
as we have it, on the further confusion that there are two parallels
which before the sentence ends are regarded as one! That is to say, the
general critical sense is contrasted with the critique of particular
works of art and further the defect of that general sense in its
neglect of _universal_ principles is further contrasted with the way
the specific critique deals with _particular_ works. I hardly think,
however, that my admirable predecessor is justified in ignoring the
comparative degree of _bestimmteres_, or in his translation of _Zeug_
as "power." I take it to mean the material of actual works of art.
The sentence is a good example of, some of the difficulties of Hegel
translation.]

[Footnote 62: _Die Sache._ The subject-matter in its most real sense as
"content."]

[Footnote 63: That is, the so-called "good taste."]

[Footnote 64: _Begriff._ Concrete notional Idea.]

[Footnote 65: That is, in his physical form.]

[Footnote 66: Hegel is here considering desire abstractedly, that
is, on its own account (_als solche._) It may of course in its turn
subserve a rational purpose, such as the preservation of health or
life. But the contrast here is between the relation of appetite, and
that of the theoretic faculty to objects.]

[Footnote 67: _Sein Objekt._ The object in which he finds himself;
rather this, I think, than that which he has created.]

[Footnote 68: _Innerlich_, _i.e._, in the world of mind as contrasted
with that of the sensuous _vorhandene._]

[Footnote 69: Hegel or his editors have "in a converse way." This is
obviously a mistake. In both examples the point is that the object
is _preserved_ as against _desire_ with its destruction, and the
_contemplative intelligence_ with its ideal transformation.]

[Footnote 70: _Ein ideelles._ The meaning is, I think, that the
_materia_ is stamped with the hall-mark of deliberate artistic purpose.
The ideality, though relatively jejune on such a work as the pyramids,
in the higher reaches of art such as poetry and music affects of course
the medium itself, the musical chord being pure ideality. Professor
Bosanquet's translation omits this and the previous sentence, probably
by an oversight. But it is also possible that this thinker conceived
the statement _as here expressed_ to be misleading, or at least open to
misconception. In architecture and even painting it is obvious, from
a certain point of view, the sensuous _materia_, if directed to an
artistic end, remains none the less the material borrowed from natural
fact though the fact as natural may be modified in its form. Painting
may _represent_ the semblance, but it employs a medium simply sensuous.
Hegel has mainly before his attention here obviously the arts of
painting, poetry, and music.]

[Footnote 71: They are _theoretical_ because as applied to a work of
art they imply the presence of the contemplative faculty. In a later
section of the work Hegel makes a more complete analysis of what is
implied in the sense of hearing as applied to musical composition and
in the colour sense. In both cases it is obvious the mind contributes
to the facts cognized. Hearing is, however, from Hegel's point of view
the most _ideal_ of the two, and he conceives the position of the ears
itself points to this distinction.]

[Footnote 72: It may at least be questioned whether the ground given
here of this distinction, or part of it, is strictly accurate. It may
be said that our sense of sight and hearing are both in contact with
the waves of the medium, the vibration of which produces the impression
we call sound or light. The most obvious distinction then appears to be
that the natural object is left as it is by hearing and sight. This at
least holds good as against taste. But at least it may be questioned,
I think, whether the sense of touch may not be the source of artistic
enjoyment, certainly in the case of the blind. And the sense of smell
at least leaves objects as they are, and some may contend that it is
a source of enjoyment of the beauty of Nature. Hegel would reply, of
course, that no works of human art are enjoyed by such means. The main
ground is, however, that sight and hearing are the senses closest to
intelligence.]

[Footnote 73: By _Anschauungen_ Hegel apparently has in mind all the
ideas of poetry. We should certainly rather have expected the word
_Vorstellungen_, the word used being rather "visible perceptions." But
the three words here seem generally to denote the subject-matter of
painting, music, and poetry.]

[Footnote 74: Lit., "Operative in the artist viewed (_i.e._, the
artist) as the personal energy (_Subjektivität_) which creates."
Professor Bosanquet's translation "as a productive state of the person"
would appear to make "the sensuous side" a subjective state of the
artist. But apart from construction, can we speak of this as a "state"?
It is modified by his energy--but it can hardly be regarded as a part
of it.]

[Footnote 75: I find it impossible to fix any one English equivalent
to Hegel's use of the words _Einbildungskraft_, _Phantasie_, or
_Vorstellung_, in the sense at least that fancy, imagination, or
phantasy have been used and defined by famous English writers.
Generally speaking, I should say that _Phantasie_, or as it is called
sometimes "artistic" or "creative" _Phantasie_, stands for the most
intellectual faculty, though _Vorstellung_ is also used in much the
same sense. But it is impossible to arrive at any clear distinction
such as was originally made so profoundly by Ruskin between fancy, the
instrument of poetical talent, the surface gift, and imagination or,
as he called it, _penetrative_ imagination, which summarizes all the
powers of a genius and personality and enters into the heart of the
subject-matter by an illuminating flash which _reveals_ reality rather
than illustrates by means of image. The present passage appears to me
even more unsatisfactory than the more carefully digested analysis
at the end of Part I, when Hegel discusses the artist. It not merely
ignores the indispensable presence of imagination in the pioneers
of science, but appears to myself to confuse talent as the natural
gift of a man with the mode in which it is exercised in presenting
ideas in sensuous imagery, or at least makes the former depend on the
latter. Professor Bosanquet translates _Phantasie_ here by "fancy."
But "fancy" is, in our way of looking at it, precisely not the faculty
which _distinctively_ belongs to "the great mind and the big heart or
soul," though other parts of the description are more applicable. And
in short, as I say, to fix definite English equivalents to Hegel's
phraseology appears to me impossible.]

[Footnote 76: _Die Phantasie_.]

[Footnote 77: This is, I presume, Hegel's way of putting the simple
fact, that much of the process of artistic production is unconscious.
One man instinctively draws, or picks up his notes on the piano,
another cannot. I think Hegel rather refers to this _original_ talent
than the much more important one in which genius, right into maturity,
rides over difficulties without knowing how it does so. Such happy
or even miraculous effects--such as artists sometimes playfully call
them--are obviously in part, if only in part, the result of profound
artistic experience. He is dealing almost exclusively with the natural
bias, which makes one man naturally an artist, whether creative or
executant, and is absent from another. He hardly approaches the
question what constitutes the artist of genius as contrasted with the
man of natural talent.]

[Footnote 78: This confirms the conclusion above.]

[Footnote 79: _Für sich._ If merely admired as imitation and nothing
more.]

[Footnote 80: _Zur Ekelhaftigkeit._ "Sickeningly like" is Professor
Bosanquet's closer translation. The expression "damnably like" is not
unknown.]

[Footnote 81: I think with Professor Bosanquet that _phantastischen_
is here not "fantastic" but strictly derived from _Phantasie_ in its
sense of imagination. "Completely," of course, as involving no direct
imitation of Nature.]

[Footnote 82: Formal, _i.e._, implying no creative supplement from the
artist, purely mechanical.]

[Footnote 83: It would be both instructive and interesting to discuss
if, and how far, and by virtue of what, that distinct type of modern
art known as "still life," such as a few objects of the library, or
even a shell or two and so on up to more important organic life was
excluded from this condemnation. It is quite clear that Ruskin would
have a good deal to say that would imply important qualification.]

[Footnote 84: _Begeisterung._ I think this must be the meaning.
Inspiration hardly makes sense. It is art that is inspired, not those
who attend the celebration.]

[Footnote 85: _Im Innersten_ is I think here obviously to be taken with
the verb, not with the substantives.]

[Footnote 86: _Ueberhaupt._]

[Footnote 87: The meaning of _in diesem Gebiete_ is, I presume, the
actual world. But if so it is simply otiose, and I have left it out.]

[Footnote 88: _Bestimmung._ The translation given appears to be the
sense, though we should rather say weaken a _man_ from the pursuit of a
definite course. Professor Bosanquet, who translates the word "aim" a
little lower down, evades the word here.]

[Footnote 89: _Raisonnirende_ here and _raissonnement_ below have
a depreciatory sense--and signify ordinary reasoning in the first
instance and the methods of the popular secularist in the second.]

[Footnote 90: A sentence omitted by Professor Bosanquet, and it seems
to amount to little more than a more generalized statement of what has
gone before. The end of art both directly and indirectly concerns its
subject-matter, or rather, as Hegel puts it, the need of the notion or
Idea of it carries us to a further end beyond the end shared in common
by its particular content.]

[Footnote 91: I follow Professor Bosanquet in his translation of the
words _als Allgemeines für sich zu zuerden_; but I am not sure that the
more literal translation is not simply as the words stand, the sense
being not to be self-conscious of himself (_für sich_) as the universal
principle, to be aware of this property, but rather as universal
principle to become _for_ himself, _i.e._ "independent of desire."]

[Footnote 92: _Einheit_--unity to the point of fusion, identity.]

[Footnote 93: _Unmittelbaren Befangenheit._ "Sunkenness" is Professor
Bosanquet's translation.]

[Footnote 94: _Theoretic_ as a direct transcript of _θεώρια, θεωρειν._]

[Footnote 95: _Gesichtspunkte._ The various points of view necessary to
arrive at such a general conclusion.]

[Footnote 96: Though not entirely confident I am right in accepting
the words _zu bringen_ as a repetition of the _hervorzubringen_
just before, the alternative of Professor Bosanquet which takes the
words _wird zu bringen seyn_ as equivalent to _gebracht seyn sollte_
certainly appears to me no direct translation.]

[Footnote 97: "Poets aim at utility and entertainment alike."]

[Footnote 98: I think that Hegel in his use of _erste_ here rather
refers to the fact of past history than a fact in the individual
history of nations. "Art is, in the early days of history, the
instructress of nations," gives, I think, his meaning. It is the first
instructress in the history of nations.]

[Footnote 99: I venture to think if Professor Bosanquet's translation
were the right one the German would be _ein in sich selbst
gebrochenes._ I do not think _in ihm selbst_ can be a German rendering
of "in itself." But I admit the translation is tempting whether Hegel
had in his mind the "house divided against itself" or not.]

[Footnote 100: Lit., "the spiritual universal," _i.e._, the universal
substance of its ideal content.]

[Footnote 101: Precisely as Ruskin, for example, in his "Modern
Painters" condemns both Titian and Tintoret, not because they painted
the _Paradise_ or the _Assunta_, to produce fine paintings, or even
because they did not or did themselves believe in the truth of their
subject-matter, but because they did not paint _in order to make
converts_, an extraordinary lapse of judgment.]

[Footnote 102: _Im besten Sinne des Wortes._]

[Footnote 103: Professor Bosanquet points out in a note on this
passage (p. 101) that _Sittlichkeit_ here, which he translates, as I
have done, "respectability," is the _habit_ of virtue, without the
reflective aspiration after goodness as an ideal. Of course there is
no depreciation in the use of the term. It is simply the morality of
ordinary people, who do generally what their neighbours think the right
thing. The word _moralität_ and _moralisch_, which I have only been
able to translate by a paraphrase, is the morality of the standpoint
discussed, which is very much that of Kant or "Duty for duty's sake" in
Bradley's "Ethical Studies."]

[Footnote 104: That is the contingency of the world of Nature as
contrasted with the essential stability of mind or spirit.]

[Footnote 105: Lit., "To satisfy itself in its _real_ or independent
self (_für sich_)." It cannot identify itself with either side as its
wholly real self made therein explicit. It is neither fish nor fowl.]

[Footnote 106: _Bestimmüngen_ may here be a reference to man's broadest
spiritual characterizations as one of the human family, the race, the
nation, and so forth, or, as I think, a reference to his vocation,
future destiny, general welfare.]

[Footnote 107: _An und für sich Wahre._]

[Footnote 108: _Unbefangenen_, _i.e._, the naïve outlook of ordinary
life.]

[Footnote 109: Professor Bosanquet merely translates _are not_ and
_are_ in italic as in the text, which of course, except that he adds
a comma after _are_, is a literal translation. But the sense, as I
understand it, is that the writer says it is not in the sense that
these two contradictories do not exist _at all_ (_i.e._, as relative
reality), but rather in the sense that in _philosophical thought_
which grasps their essence they are not only present but present as
reconciled factors of one truth. Professor Bosanquet's translation
appears to me to amount to this: that all Hegel maintains is that
the sense he means is not that such contradictory elements are _not_
reconciled, but in the sense that they _are_ reconciled. Perhaps this
is his view. But if so, I fail to see the importance of the antithesis,
which appears to me between _gar nicht sind_ and _in Versöhnung sind._
Hegel before had expressly said that such contradictory sides were
reconciled in philosophy, so I do not see why he should so emphatically
repeat himself. The comma, of course, may be a misprint.]

[Footnote 110: _Begriff._ Notion, or concrete Idea of it.]

[Footnote 111: Of that world in its opposition to reason.]

[Footnote 112: _Der Mensch als er geht und steht._ The man in ordinary
conditions—-the _average_ man, however, rather than the _natural_ man,
which carries slightly different associations.]

[Footnote 113: The difference between a material instrument, which is
a mere means to an end conceived by the craftsman, such as a plough
for ploughing, a rake for raking, and a purpose inseparable from the
organic whole as a mouth for eating, for without life the organism
collapses.]

[Footnote 114: _Für sich._]

[Footnote 115: In his history of Aesthetic in Germany Lötze disputes
this. It seems to some extent a question of definition. In Hegel's view
a dead body is not a human body in the full sense, but the _corpse_ of
a man. A hand separated from the body, whether we call it a hand or
not, is no longer, whatever it may be, a living member, its essential
significance as a hand has disappeared. It was only a hand in its
coherence as part of a larger whole. It may still for a time preserve
the semblance of its life, but it is cut off as the withered leaf.
These are facts at least that are undeniable, and the objection appears
to me based on a misunderstanding. A hand is only _an und für sich_
human when it is part of a living man. What is the organic reality in
the complete sense is the man as a _whole._ The hand is merely the
extremity of one of his arms. You may call a dead hand a hand if you
like. The point is what was implied in the fact that you called it a
hand at all whether alive or dead.]

[Footnote 116: That is, by Kant, of course.]

[Footnote 117: By _Verwicklung_ I understand the general evolution of
ideal philosophy which the defects of the Kantian Critique stimulated.
Professor Bosanquet apparently limits it to a perplexity personal to
Schiller. I doubt whether the word will bear this.]

[Footnote 118: That is, the concrete idea of humanity as a collective
aggregate.]

[Footnote 119: That is, intelligence as asserted by a society of human
beings as public opinion, etc.]

[Footnote 120: _Die Ineinsbildung._]

[Footnote 121: "Grace and Dignity."]

[Footnote 122: _Gesinnungen._ "Sentimental views" is probably what is
implied.]

[Footnote 123: _Alle Sache._]

[Footnote 124: Professor Bosanquet is clearly right in his view that
the order of the words here should be reversed. The words _an und für
sich_ are obviously the wider explication of _in sick selbst_, the
auxiliary, as not unfrequently in Hegel, being almost equivalent to
_nämlich._ Whether a misprint or an oversight I have translated subject
to this correction.]

[Footnote 125: I presume the revelation is not merely that of visible
shape or even mainly.]

[Footnote 126: _Das alles aus sich setzende und auflösende Ich._ The
three points emphasized by Hegel in Fichte's "Philosophy" are: (_a_)
The Ego is abstract; (_b_) Everything is a _show_ for it; (_c_) Its own
acts are a semblance.]

[Footnote 127: Hegel uses the word _Eitelkeit_ and _eitle_ in their
double sense of empty-nothingness--futility and vain or conceited. This
cannot be readily reproduced in English.]

[Footnote 128: _Schönseligkeit._ Borrowed no doubt from Goethe's notion
of a "fair soul."]

[Footnote 129: Like the "vaulting ambition" of Shakespeare which falls
on the other side, is _über sich selbst._]

[Footnote 130: _Haltung._ Professor Bosanquet translates this
"conduct." I rather think it refers to "bearing, demeanour." They are,
as we say, "featureless, flaccid figures."]

[Footnote 131: _Läppische._ I am not quite sure what is exactly
meant. Professor Bosanquet translates it "grotesque." But the word
is a provincial form of _Schlaff_ apparently--loose, flaccid and so
childish, trifling.]

[Footnote 132: _Moment._ A phase in an evolutionary, or, as it is here,
a dialectical process. A momentary feature of it.]

[Footnote 133: This final section is called the Division of the
Subject.]

[Footnote 134: _Subjektivität._ That is, the ideality of consciousness,
or thought.]

[Footnote 135: Professor Bosanquet, in his note on this passage,
expresses the opinion that Hegel when he writes thus is referring "To
the self-consciousness of individual human beings as constituting,
and reflecting on, an ideal unity between them." This no doubt, as he
suggests, does put a somewhat unnatural meaning on the word "person"
or "subjekt." No doubt there is a sense in which we can ascribe
personality to a state, or nation, in the concrete unity of its life.
But while admitting that unity such as this, which is not sensuous but
ideal, can be "effective and actual," I find it difficult to conclude
that Hegel did himself hold that the unity of the Divine Being was
_merely_ identical with the unity or totality of concrete human life
as reflected upon by single individuals. How far is human life as a
whole on this Earth a unity or totality at all? That question has
been discussed by Professor Bradley and others with very different
conclusions. Nay, how far does human existence itself exhaust the
actually present realization or self-realization of self-conscious
Spirit or Intelligence? Whatever maybe the wisest answer to such and
other questions I can hardly think that Hegel would have accepted
Professor Bosanquet's interpretation as completely adequate.]

[Footnote 136: _Fackeldistel_. "Torch thistle," a plant of the genus
Cereus.]

[Footnote 137: Or, "as mind and in mind."]

[Footnote 138: That is to say, presents to itself to conscious grasp of
itself as such Art-spirit (_als künstlerischer._)]

[Footnote 139: The two evolutions here alluded to are (i) that of a
particular way of regarding Nature, man, and God in a particular age
and nation such as the Egyptian, Greek, and Christian viewed in express
relation to art; (ii) The several arts--sculpture, music, poetry,
etc., each on their own foundation and viewed relatively to the former
evolution.]

[Footnote 140: The point, of course, is that the different media of the
several arts are inherently, and in virtue of the fact that we have
not here _mere_ matter as opposed to that which is intellectual rather
than sensuous, but matter in which the notional concept is already
essentially present or pregnant (sound is, for instance, more ideal
than the spatial matter of architecture), adapted to the particular
arts in which they serve as the medium of expression.]

[Footnote 141: Professor Bosanquet explains these "plastic forms"
(_Gestaltungs formen_) as the various modifications of the
subject-matter of art (Trans., p. 140 note). I am not quite sure of
the meaning here intended. It would apparently identify the term with
the _Gebilde_ referred to in the third division. I should myself
rather incline to think that Hegel had mainly in his mind the specific
general types, that is, the three relations of the Idea itself to its
external configuration, viewed as a historical evolution, which Hegel
calls symbolic, classical, and romantic. Perhaps this is what Professor
Bosanquet means. But in that case it does not appear to me so much the
subject-matter as the generic forms in the shaping of that matter.]

[Footnote 142: _Das wahrhaft Innere._ That is, the inward of the truth
of conscious life.]

[Footnote 143: Means apparently the notion in its absolute sense.]

[Footnote 144: Because it represents spirit as independent of an
appropriate bodily form.]

[Footnote 145: What appears to be denoted by _Geistigkeit_ is the
generic term of intelligence--that activity of conscious life which
does not necessarily make us think of a single individual--the common
nature of all spirit.]

[Footnote 146: By _Innerlichkeit_, which might also be rendered as pure
ideality, what is signified is that in a mental state there are no
parts outside of each other.]

[Footnote 147: _Subjekt_, _i.e._, the individual Ego of
self-consciousness.]

[Footnote 148: _Das subjective Innere,_ lit., the subjective inner
state.]

[Footnote 149: _Geistigkeit._ Professor Bosanquet translates it here
"intellectual being."]

[Footnote 150: The distinction between a percipient and an external
object falls away. The content displayed is part of the soul-life
itself.]

[Footnote 151: Professor Bosanquet apparently assumes a negative has
slipped out. But the text probably is correct in the rather awkward
form in which it stands.]

[Footnote 152: Thus poetry is primarily a romantic art, but in the Epic
it is affiliated with the objective character of classical art, or we
may say that there is a romantic and classical type of architecture,
though the art is primarily symbolic.]

[Footnote 153: _Gestalt._ Plastic power is perhaps a better
translation.]

[Footnote 154: He means that in architecture the building is merely a
shrine or environment of the image of the god.]

[Footnote 155: Infinite, of course, in the concrete sense of rounded in
itself, as the circle, or, still more, the living organism.]

[Footnote 156: Lit., "which is not also that of the spiritual sphere."]

[Footnote 157: That is, an object limited only in space.]

[Footnote 158: _Subjektivität._ The particularization in romantic art
implies the presence of an ideal element imported by the soul of the
artist, which appeals directly to the soul in its emotional life.
Compare a picture by an Italian master with a Greek statue.]

[Footnote 159: Lit., "A multiplicity of isolated examples of
inwardness."]

[Footnote 160: That is, in the life shared by all as one community
actuated by a common purpose.]

[Footnote 161: As in sculpture.]

[Footnote 162: Professor Bosanquet's note is here (Trans., p. 166)
"Posited or laid down to be ideal. This almost is equal to made _to be_
in the sense of _not being._ In other words musical sound is "ideal"
as existing, _quâ_ work of art, in memory only, the moment in which it
is actually heard being fugitive. A picture is equally so in respect
of the third dimension, which has to be read into it. Poetry is almost
wholly ideal, uses hardly any sensuous element, and appeals almost
wholly to what exists in the _mind._"]

[Footnote 163: By particularization is meant the variety in the
material of colours, musical tones, and ideas, which latter are really
quite as much the medium of poetry as written language. The _sensuous_
medium is here an abstract sign and, as Hegel would contend, nothing
more than this.]

[Footnote 164: Reference, of course, to Hegel's unfortunate acceptance
of Goethe's theory of colour.]

[Footnote 165: The colour of art is not merely ideal as applied to
only two dimensions of space, but also is "subjective" in the artistic
treatment of it under a definite "scheme." It is not clear whether
Hegel alludes also to this; apparently not, though it is the most
important feature. In fact, even assuming his theory of light to be
correct, it is difficult entirely to follow his distinction between the
appearance of colour on a flat or a round surface. As _natural_ colour
the one would be as ideal as the other. Only regarded as a composition
would painting present distinction.]

[Footnote 166: It is obvious that the reference here is mainly to
an intentional appeal to the human soul through the content of the
composition. But the appeal may also be made through the technique and
artistic treatment of the medium itself.]

[Footnote 167: The parts of a chord are not in space, but are ideally
cognized. Hegel describes this by saying that music idealizes space and
concentrates it to a point. It would perhaps be more intelligible to
say that it transmutes the positive effects of a material substance in
motion into the positive and more ideal condition of time. The point
which is continually negated is at least _quâ_ music the point, or
rather, moment, of a temporal process.]

[Footnote 168: By the indifferent externality of space is signified the
fact that the parts of space, though external to each other, are not
qualitatively distinguishable.]

[Footnote 169: Succession in time is "more ideal" than coexistence in
space because it exists only as continuity in a conscious subject.]

[Footnote 170: Painting no doubt introduces ideal elements into the
artistic composition of colour, but the colour still remains the
appearance of a material thing or superficies.]

[Footnote 171: That is to say, music or harmony is based on a solid
conformity to law on the part of its tones in their conjunction and
succession, their structure and resolution.]

[Footnote 172: As in painting.]

[Footnote 173: The views here propounded suggest considerable
criticism. It appears to me that the stress here laid upon the
intelligible content of poetry as contrasted with the sensuous
qualities of its form as modulated speech is certainly untenable.
What we call the music of verse may unquestionably be most intimately
associated with the ideal content expressed; but apart from the
artistic collocation of language as sound no less than symbol we
certainly do not get the art of poetry. Even where Hegel deals directly
with rhythm and rhyme in the body of the treatise I think it is clear
he underrates all that is implied in the difference between the musical
expression of poetry as contrasted even with the sonorous language of
mere prose. A further question upon which more doubt is permissible is
how far the actual script in written or printed letters is not entitled
to be regarded as at least in part the sensuous medium. No doubt the
poem is not dependent upon it as a painting is upon colour, or the
canvas which supports it, for it may be recited. But at least it is
practically dependent upon it for its preservation. The point may very
possibly appear, however, as nugatory or entirely unimportant, beside
the question whether the medium of the art is not really imaginative
idea rather than articulate speech.]

[Footnote 174: _Absolute Formen._ Adequate in the sense of being
unconditionally so.]



FIRST PART

THE IDEA OF FINE ART, OR THE IDEAL



THE POSITION OF ART RELATIVELY TO FINITE REALITY, RELIGION, AND
PHILOSOPHY


The conclusion of the introduction brings within sight the more
methodical exposition of our subject. It will in the first place be
useful as a point of departure for a true philosophy of the beautiful
to sum up shortly the position of Fine Art in its general relation
to the Real, no less than to emphasize the salient features which
distinguish the philosophy of Fine Art from other philosophical
inquiries.

(_a_) With this object in view we will first enumerate the diverse
attempts which have been made to apprehend the beautiful in thought,
placing each in the order which will best assist a critical verdict.
We have already contributed something to this in our introduction.
And, moreover, we may add that the mere inquiry what others have
contributed either rightly or wrongly to our subject, at least with
the hope of ascertaining something really instructive to an exposition
which claims to be wholly scientific, will not assist us much. So far
from this being so we must preface our remarks with the admission that,
in the opinion of many, the beautiful, for the very reason that it
is the beautiful, does not admit of such intellectual apprehension,
is, in short, no object intelligible to human thought. To such a
thesis we must for the present--in our response to those who at this
time of day contend that all Truth is ultimately incomprehensible,
and only the finiteness of the phenomenal and the contingent matters
of temporal existence is within our mental grasp--reply that it is
precisely Truth, and Truth alone, which is to be thus _comprehended_,
and for this reason that it possesses the absolute _notion_, or, more
succinctly, the Idea for its basic support. Now beauty is no other
than a particular determination under which the True is expressed
and revealed to us; and it lies open to the fullest comprehension of
thought in so far as such can equip it with the armoury of the concrete
notion. It is quite true that no idea has suffered more severely in
our own time from misconceptions than this which we call the notion
in its fullest explication. One is only too often misunderstood to
mean a determination which is abstract and one sided, or at least a
conception of the analytical understanding. As thus understood neither
the totality of Truth nor the idea of beauty as a concrete whole can be
brought home to a thinking consciousness. But the idea of beauty, as we
have already observed, and shall seek to make more intelligible as we
proceed, is no such abstraction of the mind: rather it may be defined
as the absolute notion in its self-evolved concreteness, or still more
specifically defined, the absolute Idea.

(_b_) And, further, we cannot more succinctly define the _absolute
Idea_, in the above use of the expression, than by saying it is
mind (Spirit): and we may add that the mind thus referred to is not
mind regarded as finite, that is, subject to the conditions and
limitations of sense-perception, but the universal and _absolute_
Intelligence[175], which, out of its own free activity, determines
Truth in the profoundest signification of the term. To the ordinary
consciousness of everyday life the object of perception, no doubt,
breaks away from mind, as though our thought stood in opposition
to Nature, which receives from us a validity equal at least to the
consciousness which perceives it. But in this way of looking at Nature
and the conscious subject as two neighbours set over against one
another in territories equally self-subsistent it is only the finite
and limited mind, not that which it is as an infinite substance and
in its notional truth, which is apprehended. Nature is not thus to
be set over against absolute Mind, either as conjoint with a sphere
of the Real of equal worth, or as an independent boundary thereto.
Rather the aspect which Nature appears to hold in this respect is
that which mind or spirit itself sets up, and of which it becomes
the product as a Nature in which limit and boundary are themselves
determining constituents. In fact, Mind in its absolute or infinite
substance can only be apprehended as this free activity, which is
manifested in self-development through differentiation. This object,
this _other_, through which such differentiation proceeds, is regarded
in such opposition as Nature, but as the object of intelligence it is
quite as much indebted to Mind for the free gift and fulness of its
own essential substance. We must therefore conceive Nature as herself
containing in potency the absolute Idea. She is that Idea in _apparent
shape_, which mind, in its synthetic power, posits as the object
opposed to itself. She is so far a product, a creation. The truth
of Nature therefore is simply the determination by mind of its own
substance, its ideality and power of determination, through a process
which no doubt begins with a separation of itself into two factors
which apparently negate each other, but which, by the very activity
of such negation and separation, passes beyond the contradiction
it implies to a unity which heals the fracture. Instead of finding
our-elves opposed to a limit and a barrier we have a totality in which
the parts which opposed each other are fused together by the free
universality of mind. This ideality, in other words this infinite
power of determination[176], is that which constitutes the profound
notion of Mind's _subjectivity._ As subjectivity mind is, in the first
instance, merely Nature, Mind, or Spirit that is _not explicitly_
unfolded, mind which has not arrived at the grasp of its true notion.
Nature is here set up in opposition to Mind, not as an object which
itself has created, but as one whose limits it fails to overcome,
an object, moreover, which, as assumed to be already subsisting in
independence, Mind remains alongside of in the internal seclusion of
knowledge and volition, and is only able to constitute the other side
of Nature. The finiteness of scientific theory, no less than that of
practical life, is to be, found in this limited mode of consciousness,
where intelligence is restricted to the use of finite categories and
the formal "ought" in the realization of ethical perfection[177]. We
find here, as we have pointed out was the case with Nature, that
the phenomenal is not adequate to the essential truth of that which
appears; what we receive is still the confusing medley of abilities,
passions, intentions, opinions, and talents, which no sooner make
themselves felt than they are displaced, working at cross purposes
as often against as on the side of each other, in a strife between
volition, opinion, and reflection, which brings to the surface every
phase of fortuitous experience in all its confusing variety. It is
the standpoint of the entirely finite, temporal, contradictory, and
for that reason transitory, unsatisfied, and unreconciled spirit. For
the satisfactions which obtain in such a consciousness, through the
finiteness which inseparably clings to its entire outlook, itself so
limited and confused, are of a purely relative and isolated validity.
It is inevitable that consciousness, volition, and thought should make
an effort to rise above this condition and seek for the universality,
unity, and satisfaction which it eventually finds in the infinite
substance of Spirit and its Truth. This unity and satisfaction, to
which mind is carried forward by the impulse of its own ideal activity,
transmuting the raw material of its finite conditions, constitutes the
first revelation of that which the world of appearances is under a
more notional grasp of it. Mind grasps its finiteness as the negation
of its own essential substance, and is aware of its infinity. And this
essential truth of the finite mind is the absolute Mind or Spirit. In
this form of self-consciousness mind is merely actualized as absolute
negativity. The element of finitude which it confronts is apprehended
as such and annulled. In this, the highest sphere of its activity,
mind becomes the object of volition. The Absolute itself becomes the
_object_ of mind. Spirit, as self-consciousness, differentiates itself
as the _knowing subject_ from the absolute Spirit as the _object_
of knowledge. Mind in this latter sense, in contradistinction from
mind which has not overcome the conditions of finite perception, may
therefore be defined as a finite mind in possession of the principle
of differentiation from its true object. In the higher and more
speculative consideration of truth, however, it is the _absolute
mind itself_, which, in order to unfold explicitly the knowledge of
itself, essentially becomes a principle of differentiation to itself,
and thereby posits the finitude of mind, within which it becomes for
itself absolute object of the knowledge of itself. It is now absolute
mind within the ideal community[178] which belongs to it, the actual
Absolute of itself in the form of Mind and knowledge[179].

This is, in fact, the starting-point of the Philosophy of Fine Art.
For the idea of Fine Art is neither the _logical Idea_, absolute
Thought, that is, which develops itself in the medium of its freest
activity, nor is it the Idea of _Nature_ apprehended under more finite
categories. Its province is rather that of Mind untrammelled by either
the judgments or the actions of the _finite_ spirit.

(_c_) The realm of Fine Art is the realm of _absolute Spirit._ We can
but briefly indicate the reason why this is so. A fully philosophical
proof belongs rather to treatises which immediately deal with those
questions of philosophy we have noticed already, by which we mean those
which treat of Logic, whose content, as above explained, is that of the
absolute Idea, or the philosophy of Nature, or lastly, the philosophy
of Mind in its determinate spheres of finitude. For in these sciences
the object is to show not merely how the logical Idea presupposes the
objective particularity of Nature as a vehicle to its determinate
existence, but also how it is capable of passing from such externality
to mind, and, finally, of freeing itself from all the finitude that
clings to it and of attaining to Spirit in its eternal concreteness and
truth.

From such a point of view, which is also applicable to art when
regarded in all the fulness of worth it in truth implies, we are
justified in associating it with the self-same province which belongs
to religion and speculative philosophy. In every direction in which
Mind or Spirit becomes identical with the absolute Mind it frees itself
from the restricting limits of its positive existence, and, while
liberating itself from the contingent relations, which pertain to it
in its temporal existence, and the finite content of its objects and
interests, is made aware of and discloses the entire wealth of reality
it contains.

It may be of service here to expand more completely the position which
Art thus occupies in its relation respectively to the life of Nature
and Spirit.

A survey of the entire field of human existence presents to the
ordinary consciousness of mankind the widest variety of interests and
means of satisfaction. There is, in the first instance, the complex
system of purely physical necessities, to the satisfaction of which the
whole economy of industrial enterprise, through all its complicated
tissue of commerce, merchandize, and technical crafts, is actively
pursued. If we raise the level of our review to a more spiritual range,
we are confronted with the world where rights are established and
enforced, the world of legislative enactment, family life, division of
social classes, in a word, the concrete living organism of the State.
And more than this, there is the religious want, which asserts itself
in the hearts of particular men and women, and finds its satisfaction
in the life of a church. Finally, there is the many-sided and
intricately specialized activity of scientific research, the organized
effort to integrate all knowledge, and the comprehension which that
knowledge implies, in one all-embracing system. Within this latter
are comprised the activities of the fine arts, the interest, that is
to say, in beauty, and which derives its spiritual nutriment in the
realization of that beauty in plastic shapes.

(_d_) The question becomes inevitable how far a spiritual want of this
kind is bound up as a necessary element in the life of man and his
world-history. In the first instance these two spheres[180] appear
simply as immediate factors of our entire survey. It is, however, the
requirement of philosophy to probe more deeply into that which binds
them as essential and necessarily interacting constituents of one
organic whole. For on closer inspection it will be found that they do
not stand in relation to one another on the mere basis of utility;
rather we shall discover that only through the one we shall fully
comprehend the other. In other words, the one circle overlaps the
other, in the sense that the higher forms of its activity are found
to be a part of the other; and that which is of less value in its own
province is lifted into a finer atmosphere; and what had failed to free
itself from its original bounds is now enlarged to liberty through the
profounder satisfaction it receives in the widening of the range of its
interests[181]. And it is this which makes clear the necessity of the
ideal bond.

We will recall now for a moment the analysis we established of the
notion of the beautiful and that of art generally. Two opposed aspects
come under notice. In the first place we have a content, an end, a
significance; and in addition to that we get the artistic expression
of the same, the appearance and realization of such content; and,
thirdly, these two aspects of the artistic product so pass into each
other that the rationality or particularity is nothing short of the
expression of the artistic purpose, nothing more or less is given us
than the essential expression of the entire content. What we designate
as content, "significance," is just this simplicity of idea, the work
of art resolved into its simplest yet most comprehensive determinants,
as it exists for mind in contrast with the actual work executed. As
an example we may summarize the content of a book from a few words or
sentences the book contains, and nothing may be necessary to expound
the content of that book sufficiently in its general import. This
simple idea, the thesis or main problem of our book, which forms the
fundamental basis on which the entire structure is built, is the
abstract significance. It is only the detailed exposition which gives
us the concrete totality.

Both sides, however, of this opposition do not stand in an indifferent
or purely external relation one to the other, as, for instance,
is the case when we contrast with it the particular content of an
abstract mathematical figure, such as a triangle or an ellipse, to
which the external particularity of its size or figure is related
without affecting its significance. Rather in the former case we shall
find that the content of its form, taken in abstraction in itself,
possesses a determinate impulse in the direction of realization and
thereby concreteness. There is in it essentially the "_should_" of
purpose. However strongly form is here posited in independence, we are
unable to rest satisfied with such abstraction, and ask for something
more. This is at first apprehended merely as an unsatisfied want, a
desire in the conscious subject, which strives to annul itself and
secure satisfaction. From such a standpoint all we can say is that the
content is purely self-contained, or _subjective_, over against which
the objective other-than-itself is placed in opposition in such a way
as to emphasize the desire to make the subjective content _objective._
Such a conflict between the subjective content and the objective,
reality which confronts it, no less than the mere impulse to transcend
the opposition, is a universal characteristic of the determination of
all self-conscious life[182]. Even that aspect of human life which we
call physical, and still more that world of man's spiritual aims and
interests depends on this necessity to carry forward that which is at
first purely subjective and ideal into the objective world, that a
fuller satisfaction in its essential substance may be realized. But
so long as the content of aims and interests is merely and at first
apprehended in the one-sided form of subjective consciousness, and
that one-sidedness is apprehended as a mere limit, this loss makes
itself simply felt as unrest or pain. It is a negative something
which is bound to resolve itself as such negativity, and, in order to
remove the sense of defect, exerts an impulse to transcend the barrier
itself, already an object of consciousness and thought. And, moreover,
this transcendency does not merely amount to this, that the objective
"other" ceases to be an opposed factor to the general subjective
consciousness: rather in the more determinate connection, this defect
of _subjective_ thought is itself and _within_ itself a defect and
_negation_ which involves an impulse to negate and pass beyond. In
other words the conscious subject is implicitly and according to its
essential notion the _complete whole_[183], that is, not merely what
is inward, but the realization no less of that which is inward or
ideal in and through what is without. If we assume that it exists only
abstractly in one form we have to face the contradiction that whereas
it is, according to its concrete notion the whole, yet according to its
mode of existence it remains merely one side of that totality. It is
only through the entire resolution of such a contradiction that life
becomes affirmative. To pass through each phase of this opposition,
contradiction and its final abrogation is the higher and legitimate
demand of conscious life. That which remains always affirmative, is,
and remains, without life. Life is built upon negation and pain. It
is only by crushing out such contradictions in the crucible of fuller
life and knowledge that it remains in its affirmative substance. If it
anchor wholly on contradiction without such a possibility of resolution
it must be infallibly wrecked thereon.

Such, then, is the nature of these determinations of thought regarded
in their abstraction to which it was necessary to draw attention at the
present stage.

The most exalted content which lies within the grasp of self-conscious
life may be concisely called _freedom._ Freedom is the highest
determination of Spirit. In its formal aspect freedom, in its first
instance, consists in this, that the subject thereof ceases to find a
limit or barrier in the material which is set over against it; this
is no longer an element foreign to it, but one in which it finds
itself again. Even under this formal definition of it all necessity
and misfortune disappears; the individual consciousness is reconciled
with the world, finds satisfaction in such reconciliation, and all
opposition and contradiction is thereby dissolved.

But over and above this, on closer inspection, we find that it is
universally the rational--that is to say ethical relations in practical
life, truth in thought--which constitutes the content of freedom. But,
furthermore, inasmuch as freedom itself is in the first instance only
subjective, not wholly carried into effect, there must remain for
the individual an element of unfreedom, a somewhat purely objective
opposed to it as a necessity of Nature; and it is accompanied likewise
with the demand to secure a reconciliation of this opposition. From
the reverse point of view a similar contradiction is apparent in the
internal domain of the subjective consciousness itself. We have, on
the one hand, that which is universal and self-subsistent in its own
right, in other words the universal dictates or principles of justice,
goodness, and truth. On the other there are the various impulses of
mankind, all the emotions, preferences, and passions which exercise
their power over the heart of each man and woman individually. This
opposition no less than the other excites conflict and contradiction,
and in this strife man becomes subject to every conceivable longing,
the profoundest grief, and, in a word, to every kind of worry and
discontent. It is the prerogative of the spiritual life of mankind
to be a veil severed and broken asunder, tossed as it must be on the
waves of contradiction. The animal creation lives at peace with itself
and its environment. Man is unable to find a complete refuge in that
which is exclusively inward, the soul as such, pure thought, in the
world of legal obligation and its _universality._ He is dependent also
upon his sensuous existence, his emotions, and all that appeals to his
heart and soul. It is the part of philosophy to give expression to this
contradiction in thought, as it extends throughout its all-embracing
compass, and to overcome the same with a reconciliation equally
comprehensive.

In the immediacy of everyday life, however, man seeks to secure an
_immediate_ satisfaction. Perhaps the most obvious example of such
a resolution is to be found in the domain of animal wants and their
satisfaction.

The states of hunger, thirst, fatigue on the one hand, and feeding,
drinking, sleep on the other, with all such similar states, illustrate
the contradictions and resolutions to which we here refer.

In this sphere of human existence, which is fundamentally the same as
purely animal life, the content of such satisfaction is, however, of a
finite and limited range. Such satiety carries with it no permanence,
but moves forward without rest to a renewed sense of want. Men eat,
drink, and sleep, and on the morrow are as hungry and weary as before.
Man is compelled, therefore, to strive for a freedom more lasting in
that element of the spiritual life which he appropriates in knowledge
and volition, the sciences and his social activities. The ignorant
man is unfree because he faces a world which is foreign to himself, a
world which tosses hither and thither aimlessly, to which he is joined
as an appendage, unable to unite that foreign world to itself, and to
feel itself at home there as in its own demesne. The merest impulse of
curiosity, the awakening of the love of knowledge, the lowest phase
of animate unrest, and the highest grasp of philosophical insight are
ultimately derived from the same source, namely, the desire to overcome
every condition that is unfavourable to freedom, and to bring the
world of everyday life, and that of the subject which reflects upon
it, into one harmonious unity. If we consider the world of _action_
the result is the same; freedom in human action is the attempt to
make positive or real the reason of the Will. Reason is realized by
voluntary action through the life of the State. In a State that is
differentiated through itself on any rational principle, all the laws
and social institutions which belong to it are simply a realization of
freedom according to their own essential determinants. This being so,
the reason that belongs to any citizen discovers in such institutions
its own essential life: and, so long as such is not in revolt from
those laws, proceeds with them as with its own kith and kin rather than
a foreign adversary. We not infrequently find licence identified with
freedom. But the freedom of licence is irrational; it depends upon a
choice and self-determination which has nothing to do with a rational
will, but is rather the product of accidental impulses and their
dependence on the world of sense and physical Nature.

We may conclude, then, that the physical needs of man, no less than
his knowledge and power of volition, receive in fact, each in its
own sphere, a satisfaction in the world, and deliberately break up
the contradiction between the subjective and objective, that is to
say, between the freedom of consciousness and the external necessity
of things with which it is confronted. The content, however, of
such a freedom and the satisfaction which is therein experienced
is still subject to _limitations_, and for this reason both still
retain an element of _finitude._ And wherever we find such an element
supervening it is inevitable that the original contradiction should
again reassert itself, and the self-satisfaction only maintain a
relative significance. For example, in the sphere of jurisprudence and
its realization in the State it is true enough that the rationality
of each citizen, his will and his freedom are recognized; he is a
person and as such is respected; he is the owner of property, and
if that property is in danger the courts of law reassert his rights
in their integrity. This recognition, however, and the freedom it
establishes are confined to single relations and isolated objects,
such as a particular house, a sum of money, some particular right
or law, in fine some particular transaction in the practical world.
What the consciousness has at any one time before it are particular
things, which no doubt are related to one another, and in fact form a
nucleus of such relations; but, on the other hand, they are appropriate
to categories of purely relative validity, are subject to various
conditions of tenure, which make the satisfaction only immediately
experienced when their predominance is reasserted, or at any rate
fail to establish any degree of permanence. And further than this
the life of the State in its organic entirety, as a related whole of
monarch, government, courts of justice, military control, and general
grouping of all the various societies which compose it, no less than
the obligations and duties which such arrangements presuppose, the
aims and satisfaction to which they are directed, the entire scope of
its civic and commercial activities already referred to, in one word
the complete organism of a nation's life, is indeed in a genuine State
complete in itself, and in a sense rounded off as a real totality. At
the same time we must observe that the fundamental _principle_, for
the realization of which the State exists, and wherein the individual
man finds his satisfaction as a citizen, is, despite all the variety
of that life, all the manifold differentiation of class within itself
and as related to the world without, still a whole that is _one-sided_
and in a real sense abstract. It is only the rational freedom of the
_will_ made explicit in a particular totality. It is, in short, only
the national life, and further the life of a _particular_ nation;
a life, moreover, in which freedom is realized in a _particular_
sphere of existence as individualized reality. And on this account
it is that we are necessarily conscious, that rights and obligations
in the mere bounds of civic existence, on the plane, that is to say,
of merely this world's or temporal existence, do not discover the
absolute satisfaction we are seeking. We require as rational beings a
higher realization of their objective truth as private individuals,
a fuller sanction of their imperative validity than they themselves,
in such a sphere, can offer us. What mankind, pressed on all sides
by the boundaries of his purely terrestrial life, in fact requires
is that region of more essential reality, in which every opposition
and contradiction is overcome, and freedom can finally claim to be
wholly at peace with itself. And this is, of course, nothing other
than absolute Truth itself, no merely relative truth. In the Truth,
according to its highest notion, all must be brought home to one unity.
In it there can be no more opposition between freedom and necessity,
Spirit and Nature, knowledge and the object of knowledge, law and
impulse, between whatever form, in fact, the opposition of these
contradictory phenomena of human experience may assume.

It is in virtue of such truth that proof is possible that neither
a freedom which is essentially subjective and disparate from every
element of necessity is true in the absolute sense; nor, on the other
hand, is it admissible to predicate truth of a necessity conceived in
absolute isolation from consciousness. Our ordinary conscious life
fails to overcome this contradiction, and either plunges desperately
into the same, or thrusts it on one side and makes its escape from it
in some other way. Philosophy will, however, so address itself to the
two determinating factors of the contradiction as to show that they are
apprehended as isolate from each other in abstraction, not according
to their concrete notion; and by the grasp of this latter it will
demonstrate the one-sidedness in its relative character, placing these
opposing aspects in the fuller union and harmony which is truth. It is
the function of philosophy to grasp and formulate this notion of truth.
Unquestionably philosophy recognizes the concrete notion throughout;
and it is in virtue of this that it is Thought with full grasp of
truth. But what we call the notion is something other than this,
truth, that is, in its essential verity together with the existence
which is either adequate to it or is not so. In all finite reality the
determinations, which are essential to ideal truth, appear separable
from each other, dividing the veil of that which in its absolute Truth
is a complete totality. Take the case of a living being. Under such
finite categories we are forced to regard it as a subject in opposition
to the inorganic Nature which environs it. Both the points of view are
no doubt present in the notion, but they are there reconciled. Finite
existence, however, thrusts them apart. It is, in short, an existence
or reality which is unequal to the unity of the notion. We may
therefore say that the notion is valid in every sphere of actuality. At
the same time the main point to be determined is whether the notion in
its ideal concreteness is actually completed in the particular unity
presented, wherein the two aspects posited in opposition persist in
no ultimate self-subsistence and coherence over against each other,
but are rather ideal phases which tend to pass into a higher unity
which cancels such opposition. And the reality of this highest mode
of union is only reached when we enter the sphere of truth, freedom,
and the satisfaction which they create. The higher life which belongs
to this sphere, this supreme enjoyment of truth, which as feeling is
called "blessedness," and as conscious thought "contemplation," we may
describe generically as the life known to religion. For religion is
just this universal domain[184], in virtue of which the _one_ concrete
totality of the World comes to each man in union with himself, as his
essential substance, while it remains no less for consciousness the
essential truth of Nature. And it is this profounder truth of the Real
which alone proves itself invincible over all that is merely particular
and finite, being as it is the one absolute harmony wherein all that is
otherwise discordant and opposed is finally resolved. Now it is through
its direct concern in the true, regarded as the absolute object of
consciousness, that Art belongs to the supreme sphere of Spirit, and
it is to be placed, in respect to its content, if in a more specific
sense, on the same basis as religion and philosophy. I connect these
two last for the reason that philosophy has no other object than God.
In its substance it is in fact rational theology, and in its service of
the truth a continual service of God.

(_e_) Accepting, then, this fundamental similarity of content these
three spheres of absolute Spirit only differ in the _forms_ under
which they present their object, that is, the Absolute, to human
consciousness. The differences which are perceptible in these modes of
presentment are due to the notion of the absolute Spirit (Mind) itself.
Spirit, in its truth, is essential substance brought home to itself. It
is, therefore, no essence which lies outside and in abstract relation
to objectivity, but rather is, within the compass of that objectivity,
the re-collected presence[185] of the substance of all objects within
finite spirit. It is the finite which grasps its own essential
universality, and, in doing so, grasps essential Being in the absolute
sense. The _first_ mode of this comprehension is an _immediate_ one,
that is to say, it is a sensuous cognition, a cognition in the form and
semblance of the object of sense-perception, in which the Absolute is
presented directly to the understanding[186] and feeling. The _second_
form is that of the _conceptive_ or imaginative consciousness. _Last_
of all, we have the _free thought_ of absolute Spirit. The form of
_sensuous perception_ is appropriate to art in the sense that it is art
which presents truth to consciousness in its sensuous semblance; but
it is a semblance which, under the mode of its appearance, possesses
a higher and profounder meaning and significance, although it is
not its function to render the universality of the notion wholly
intelligible through the medium of sense. It is indeed rather the
_unity_ to which art attains with that of the particular appearance
which constitutes the essence of the beautiful, the essence of the
artistic product. This union is perfected in art not _entirely_
through sensuous objectification, but also through the medium of
_imaginative conception._ This is exceptionally so in the art of
poetry. At the same time, even in this, the most intellectual or
ideal art, the union between significance and the individual mode of
its presentation is present with the same, although it is displayed
to the imaginative consciousness, and every part of its content is
conceived in its immediacy and visualized for the imagination[187]. And
generally we must accept the fact that art, possessing as it does truth
or Spirit for its object, is unable to reproduce the same by merely
copying particular objects of Nature, such as the sun, moon, earth,
and stars. Such are, no doubt, objects of sensuous perception; but,
simply as such, they are isolated and can offer no reflection of what
is spiritual. In thus attributing to art this absolute significance
as a manifestation of Spirit we have expressly set on one side the
conception of art which finds its content of too various a nature, or
too much occupied with interests foreign to it, to merit such a view.
And at the other extreme religion, no doubt, frequently summons art
to her service, in order to bring the truths of religion more near
to the emotion, or to clothe the same in imaginative form. In both
cases unquestionably art is rendering a service to a province not,
in strictness, its own. At the same time where art is found in most
exalted perfection, in that case no doubt it unfolds in plastic guise
the mode of exposition most adequate and essentially necessary to the
content of the truth accepted. Among the Greeks, for example, Art was
the highest medium under which the community conceived its gods, and
became conscious of truth. For this reason we may justly say that the
poets and artists of Greece created the gods of their people. In other
words, they defined for the imagination of their people the active life
and energy of the Divine Presence, giving Them the definite content
of a religion. And this statement must not merely be taken to imply
that all Greek artists did was to clothe in imagery or embellish with
the beauty of poesy vague conceptions and hearsays which, as general
religious maxims or isolated determinations of conscious life, were
already present before the era of such poetic creations. The truth of
this artistic production is rather to be found in this, that art and
poetry were the exclusive forms in which these creative artists could
bring to life and expression the ideas which fermented in themselves.
In other phases of that consciousness, where we find the content less
completely represented by the plastic imagery of art, the scope of Art
as the handmaid of religion is of less importance.

We have thus indicated what was, at any rate, once the true position of
Art in its relation to the highest interests of man's spiritual life.

But inasmuch as art is preceded in Nature and the finite processes of
life by a kind of antenatal history, so too there is a history that
follows its culmination, which in other terms passes over and beyond
its purely conceptive or plastic grasp of the Infinite. For art carries
in the notion that gives it life a limit; and it is from this boundary
that the human consciousness passes beyond into forms more adequate
to its spiritual import. It is this inherent _shortness of the mark_
that fixes the subordinate position we are only too ready to assign to
art in our daily life nowadays. For us European art is no longer the
highest means in which the actuality of truth is possessed. Speaking
generally, thought has long ago pronounced a verdict upon art when it
defined it as the portrayal of the Divine by concepts which appeal to
sense-perception. This was the judgment passed on it by the Jews and
the followers of Mohammed. Nay, we find it present among the Greeks
themselves, as the strong opposition of Plato and Homer and Hesiod to
the popular conception of the gods proves clearly. There is a period in
the education of every civilized nation, when art becomes a sign-post,
as it were, to that which stands beyond her border. The evolution of
Christendom is itself an illustration. The historical features of
that religion, the resurrection of Christ, His life and death, have
doubtless offered to the art of painting a mighty field on which to
exercise its imaginative bounty; and the Church has either surrounded
such art with its magnificent protection, or suffered it simply to work
on unheeded. But as the love of knowledge and scientific research, and
yet more the felt want of a more intimate and personal spirituality
necessitated the Reformation, the religious imagination was called away
from the sensuous medium which enwrapped it, and centred once for all
upon the inward spirituality of emotional life and conscious thought.
In this way there grew up, so to speak, that posterior twilight of
Art's history I referred to, where the want has found a dwelling in
man to rest satisfied alone with the pure medium of the soul as the
ultimate form of truth. In the earliest beginnings of art we shall
find mystery still present, a secret strain and longing which persists
because Art's imaginative powers are unable to envisage to sense the
complete truth of its content. When once, however, the mind of man has
succeeded in endowing such content with perfect outward shape in art,
it is driven inevitably away from this objective realization to its own
free spiritual activity as from something repellent to it. A period
such as this is our own. We may, indeed, express the hope that art will
rise to yet higher grades of technical perfection; but in any case Art
in its specific form has ceased to meet the highest requirements of
spiritual life. We may still wonder at the unrivalled excellence of the
statues of the gods of Hellas, and imagine that God the Father, Christ,
and the Virgin Mary have received ideal representation at the hands of
more recent painters. But it is of no use. Our knees no longer bow to
them.

The sphere of conscious life nearest to that of art is that of
religion. The form which belongs to the religious consciousness is that
of the _imaginative concept._ The Absolute is here removed from the
externality of artistic production, and received in a more spiritual
way by the imagination, so that the heart and emotions, the inner life
of the individual that is to say, become its vehicle. This progress in
spiritual insight from art to religion may be further defined by the
statement that art is only one aspect of the religious consciousness.
In other words, when a work of art objectifies the truth or mind for
sense-perfection, and apprehends this form of the Absolute as the one
appropriate to its vision, religion blends with the same the devotional
attitude that flows from the inner life confronted with the absolute
reality as thus presented. Devotion is a type of emotional existence
which is, strictly speaking, outside the province of art. It originates
in the fact that the individual suffers that object which art has
rendered visible to sense to penetrate the arcana of his emotional
life, and so completely identifies himself with it that this inward
presence, which the imagination and the inherent might of feeling has
rendered possible, becomes an essential phase in the manifestation
of absolute reality. Devotion is this cultus of the community in its
purest, most intimate, and subjective form; a culture, in which the
principle of objectivity is at the same time consumed and absorbed, and
the content thereof is transmuted without such objectivity into the
possession of heart and soul.

The _third_ and last form or phase in the evolution of absolute mind
(spirit) is _philosophy._ In the boundaries of the religious sphere,
where God is apprehended in the first instance perforce as an external
object, and men are taught that there is a God, and how He has revealed
Himself and still is revealed to mankind, the subjective consciousness
is indeed made the vehicle of such knowledge, and the religious sense
imparted stirs and fills the heart of the community; but the inwardness
of devotion which is born of the emotions and the imagination is not
the highest form of inwardness. We are bound to recognize that the
purest form of knowledge is conscious _thought_ in its freest activity.
In this alone the content of knowledge is, adequate to the demands
of that which is consciously apprehended: here alone we are in the
presence of that most intelligent form of cultus, which seeks wholly
to appropriate to itself, and to grasp in concrete thought what is
otherwise only the evanescent content of feeling or the imagination.
In the purview of such a philosophy art and religion, as two aspects
of one truth, become related under a unifying conception. On the one
hand, though philosophy, by its surrender of all sensuous externality,
has lost the _objective_ presentation of art, yet it has exchanged
it for the highest form under which concrete reality is objectively
apprehended and redeemed, in other words, that of _speculative reason._
It has, on the other, lost the emotional subjectivity of the religious
consciousness in the same pure medium. For while human thought is
the most inward and appropriate vehicle of subjective life, such
thought, in its fullest grasp of truth, the Idea, is actuality in the
most objective and universal sense of the term, and is only to be
apprehended by pure thought in the medium native to itself.

With this adumbration of the difference between the spheres of art,
religion, and philosophy we must on the present occasion rest content.

The sensuous mode of consciousness is that which first appears in
the history of mankind. The earliest stages of religion are for this
reason indistinguishable from a religion of art and its sensuous manner
of presentation. In the religion of Spirit for the first time is God
as Spirit cognized also on a higher plane, and one more adequate
to thought, wherein it likewise follows as a corollary, that the
presentation of truth in sensuous shape is not truly adequate to Spirit.

Now that we know something of the position which art occupies in the
field of spiritual activity, and that which belongs to the philosophy
of art among the several philosophical sciences, we will proceed in
this introductory portion of our work in the first place to investigate
the general idea of the beauty of art.



SUBDIVISION OF SUBJECT

IDEA OF THE BEAUTY OF ART, OTHERWISE, FINE ART

To arrive at the Idea of Fine Art in all its concreteness it will be
necessary for us to consider it under three phases.

1. The _first_ is concerned with the _notion_ of the beautiful
generally.

2. The _second_ is that of _natural_ beauty, the defects of which will
demonstrate the necessity of the _Ideal_ as _Fine Art._

3. In the _third_ of these aspects the subject of our investigation
will be the _Ideal_ in its _positive realization_, in other words as
the artistic display of this Ideal in particular _works of art._

[Footnote 175: The German word here is _Geist._ I have translated it
as best seems to suit the particular context in which the German word
occurs.]

[Footnote 176: _Unendliche Negativität._]

[Footnote 177: This is the "Ought" of practical feeling. As such just
as in the case of the analytical sciences, what it lacks is objective
determination (see "Phil. of Mind," trans. of W. Wallace, p. 94).]

[Footnote 178: _In seiner Gemeinde._ We should rather expect _in seiner
Gebiete._]

[Footnote 179: The reference here appears to be to the three attitudes
of thought to the objective world which may be generally indicated
as that of ordinary consciousness, that of empiricism and that of
speculative Philosophy. In the paragraph which follows, however, Hegel
mainly refers to the logical process of dialectic and the Idea of
Nature (_die natürliche Idee._) The latter may, however, refer to both
the previous divisions, _i.e._, the commonsense point of view and the
scientific.]

[Footnote 180: The spheres of art and social life are first perceived
as merely independent circles of activity.]

[Footnote 181: That is to say, nations have not only found in Art the
best means of expressing their religious consciousness, but, even
where religion has been raised to a higher power, have found in it the
most adequate form in which to express the ideality of their general
spiritual life.]

[Footnote 182: _Welche sick durch alles hindurchzieht_, _i.e._, which
permeates all experience.]

[Footnote 183: In this metaphysical passage Hegel appears to be
contrasting his own philosophical standpoint, absolute idealism, with
that of critical or empirical philosophy, those at least who conceive
reality either as a thing-in-itself, or the _materia_ supplied to
sense-perception from a world outside the human consciousness. The
entire content of the Real is, on the contrary, all included under the
form of self-conscious thought.]

[Footnote 184: He means, I think, province of the universal, rather
than "universal expansion of horizon."]

[Footnote 185: The words of Hegel are "_innerhalb derselben im
endlichen Geiste die Erinnerung des Wesens aller Dinge_." He no doubt
has in his mind the derivation of the word _Erinnerung._ It is the
_inwardization_ or idealization of such substance.]

[Footnote 186: _Anschauung_, that is to say, it is the object of man's
receptive senses.]

[Footnote 187: The punctuation is clearly wrong. It is also very
possible that _derselben_ is a misprint for _dieselbe._ But in any case
there should be comma rather than semicolon.]



CHAPTER I

THE NOTION OF THE BEAUTIFUL IN ITS GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE

I

We have defined beauty to be the Idea of the beautiful.

By this definition is implied that we have to conceive the beautiful
as Idea, and, moreover, as Idea in a determinate shape, as _Ideal._
Idea, as thus posited, is just this, the conceptive notion, the
realization of the same, and the unity of both. The notion, as such, is
not yet the Idea, although the terms notion and idea are often loosely
interchanged. Idea is the notion only as presented in, and brought
into coalescence with, its objective reality. This unity, however, is
by no means to be regarded as the mere _neutralization_ of notion and
reality, so that the individual character and quality of either is
absorbed; as, for example, where we find that in a chemical compound
salt-potash and acid tend to neutralize each other in so far as they
have weakened their opposition. In this unity, on the contrary, the
notion is retained as the commanding factor. It is already implicitly,
in virtue of its own nature, this very identity. Out of its own wealth
it evolves the reality as part of itself, by means of a process which,
being no other than that of development, surrenders nothing of its
own nature, but brings into more concrete actuality the riches of the
notion, and for this reason continues in unity with itself and its
objective realization. Such a unity of the notional concept and its
realization is the Idea defined in abstract terms. The word idea is,
of course, frequently used by authors of works dealing with the theory
of art. It must, however, be admitted that many connoisseurs of high
standing are particularly severe upon its employment. The latest and
most interesting example of this polemical attitude is to be found
in Herr von Rumohr's "Italian investigations." This work is based on
the practical interest that the arts excite, and is wholly unconcerned
with that which for brevity we may call the Idea. The truth is that
this writer, who appears to have no knowledge of the development of
philosophy in modern times, freely confuses the expression as above
defined with the undetermined conceptions of the phantasy, or the
abstract and characterless Ideal of well-known art theories or schools
of art, ideas which present a lean contrast to the clearly defined and
richly caparisoned objects of Nature in their truth, and which this
writer opposes to the idea and empty Ideal, which the artist himself
evolves from his own consciousness. We have, of course, no more right
to suppose that creative work can be the result of such poverty, than
we can with justice assume that a thinker can think with conceptions
wholly indeterminate, and persist in his thought with a content
destitute of all defined relation. Such an objection, however, does not
apply in any respect to the Idea in the sense we use the expression.
This Idea is through and through concrete; a whole which consists of
relations and is simply beautiful from being in direct union with the
objective form adequate to its expression.

Herr von Rumohr has placed on record in this very book (Book I, pp.
145-46) the following assertion, that "beauty in the most comprehensive
meaning of the term, and as it is understood by intelligent people of
our day, includes every quality of an object, which may either stir the
sense of sight with satisfaction, or through that sense attune the soul
and delight the mind."

These qualities are then further subdivided into three classes
as follows: "First, there is all that is perceptible through the
eye; secondly, that which is apprehended by means of the peculiar,
presumably innate sense of mankind for spatial relations; and thirdly,
all that in the first instance works upon the understanding, and
only indirectly through cognition on the emotions." This third and
most important determination rests apparently on forms "which quite
independently of all pleasure to the sense and the beauty of extended
shape arouse in us a specific delight which is ethical or spiritual
in its quality, which in part to all appearance proceeds from the
enjoyment we derive from the images excited (I presume he means ethical
or spiritual ones)[188], and in part from the pleasure which the mere
activity of an intelligent appreciation infallibly brings with it."

Such are the principal factors according to which this undoubted
connoisseur of art defines his subject relatively to the beautiful. It
may very possibly pass muster with a certain type of uncritical reader.
It is, however, very unsatisfactory regarded from the philosophical
standpoint. For what does it at bottom amount to but this, namely, that
the sense of vision or spiritual sense, we may add the understanding
itself, are moved pleasurably, or excite a feeling which results in
awakened pleasure. The entire argument hinges on this one aspect of
awakened gratification. This reduction, however, of the activity of the
beautiful to terms of feeling--that which pleases and charms us--has
been disposed of once for all by Kant. His exposition has already left
far behind the feeling for the beautiful.

We will direct our attention now from this polemical tractate to a
further consideration of the Idea its hostility has failed to weaken.
In this, as already stated, is comprehended the concrete _unity_ of the
_notion_ and its objective realization.

(_a_) Now, first, we will observe, in directing our attention more
closely to the essential nature of the notion, that it is no purely
_abstract unity_ opposed to the _differences_ of _phenomenal reality_;
rather, as the notion, it is already the unity that integrates
those relations, and by doing so is concrete totality. The abstract
conceptions such as man, the quality blueness, and their like, are not
notions as such at all, but rather should be called abstract general
concepts, which are only raised to the dignity of the notion, when
we have demonstrated that they contain opposing factors in unity,
and, in such a way, that this self-related nexus of unity constitutes
their notional truth. For instance, the concept "blueness" as a colour
receives such a notional value when it is grasped as the unity, and,
indeed, the specific unity of light and darkness[189]. In the same way
the concept "man" contains within it the opposing factors of sense,
life, and reason, body and mind (spirit); but a particular man is not
to be regarded as a whole consisting in some way of these two aspects
of his personality placed in a relation of indifference side by side
as constituents of the same. Rather, in virtue of the notion, such
a whole contains these constituents in concrete and mediated[190]
union. Add to this that the notion is so completely the absolute bond
and unity of its differences, that independently they cease to exist,
they are unable to assert the particularity, in virtue of which they
might escape from such a union. For this reason the notion includes
all its determining constituents in the form of its own _ideal unity_
and universality, which constitute its _subjective_ character in
contradistinction from the real as the object of sense-perception. For
example, gold is, as a particular object, of specific weight, definite
colour, and placed in a certain relation to specific acids. Such are
varied characteristics of gold, and yet are invariably found in a
unified whole. The smallest speck contains them all in inseparable
union. By analysis or abstraction we indeed separate them, but in their
notion they are inseparably one. The inability of the differences,
which the notion in its truth essentially possesses, to stand alone
in their isolated self-identity is of a similar nature. A still more
apposite illustration is presented by the unique concept of the
self-conscious Ego in its universality. For that which we call soul, or
more appositely the Ego, is the notion itself in its free existence.
The Ego contains a congeries of most distinct concepts and thoughts
in itself; it is a world of ideas; yet none the less this infinitely
complex content, in so far as it lies within the Ego, remains without
a vestige of substantiality or materiality packed within this ideal
unity, as the pure and throughout fluid transparency of the Ego itself
reflected to itself. And this is precisely the way in which the notion
retains its varied determinations in ideal unity.

The determinants of the notion which are most cognate to the notion as
such are the _universal_, the _particular_, and the _single_. Every one
of these determinate qualities taken by itself is a mere abstraction.
As thus regarded, however, abstract, that is to say, from one another,
they are not present in the notion: that is rather their ideal _unity._
The notion is therefore the universal, which, on the one hand, negates
itself to a condition of relativity and _particularization_, but, on
the other, this riving asunder, in so far as it is negation of the
universal, is itself again _annulled._ For the universal as present
in the particular, which itself is only the particular aspects of the
_universal_ itself is present in no particular absolutely, but rather
in that very particular reaffirms once more its essential unity as
universal. In this return upon itself the notion is infinite negation;
negation, I mean, not as against another, but self-determination, in
which alone it subsists in its positive and correlative unity. In this
way it is _singularity_ in its truth; it is the universal nexus which
shuts itself up with itself in its particulars. As the highest example
of this property of the notion we would refer back to what we have
already, if in a summary way, said about the essential activity of
Spirit.

Through this infinite capacity of return upon itself the notion is
already, by virtue of its intrinsic wealth, totality. It finds the
unity of itself in the being of another, and for this reason possesses
a free activity, being, however, negation as self-determination, not
as the alien limitation of its own substance through something other
than itself. But regarded as such totality the notion is already in
potential possession of all phenomenal reality, and is that which
mediates and restores the unity of the Idea. And whoever ventures
to think that in the Idea we have presented to us something totally
different and apart from the notion, has as little knowledge of the
nature of the Idea as he has of the notion. At the same time there
is, no doubt, a difference between the notion and the Idea, and it
is this: in the former the particularization is only an abstract
particularization, for this reason that in the notion the determinate
relations are alone coherent in its transparent medium, that is to say,
in its unity and ideal universality. The notion, therefore, itself
remains subject to the one-sidedness of its particular material, and
is hampered with the defect that although in its own nature it is a
totality, yet it is only in the aspect of it as unity and universality
that it is entitled to free self-development. But inasmuch as this
defect in its completeness is foreign to its own essential form, the
process of its activity is to remove it. It negates itself as this very
ideal unity and universality and allows that which is enclosed in the
barren chamber of ideal subjectivity to flow forth freely into real and
substantive _objectivity._ In other words, the notion through its own
activity posits itself as objective reality.

(_b_) Objectivity is therefore, truly apprehended, the _real existence_
of the _notion._ It is, however, the notion under the mode of
self-substantive particularization and of a differentiation of all
_antithetical_ phases[191] of reality, whose ideal unity the notion in
its subjective capacity constituted.

But inasmuch as it is the _notion_, and only the notion, whose function
it is to endow objectivity with its determinate existence and reality,
so too it is only through objectivity that the _notion_ is unveiled in
its actuality. The notion is, however, the mediating and _ideal unity_
of all its particular antitheses. Within its differentiated reality
this ideal unity, effective throughout particularity in modes adequate
to the notion, has to establish itself in them, precisely in a way
similar to that in which the realized particularity of their unity, as
thus mediated to the point of ideality, has also to exist in them[192].
This is the might of the notion, which refuses to surrender or forfeit
its universality among the _disjecta membra_ of the objective world,
but rather reveals its essential unity through such reality and within
it. For it is nothing less than the very life of the notion to preserve
its unity in the material which is offered it. Only by so doing is it
real and veritable totality.

(_c_) This totality is the _Idea._ The Idea is not simply the ideal
unity and subjectivity of the notion. It is quite as much its true
and objective reality; it is, however, an objectivity which does not
confront the notion as an opposing factor, but is rather that in
which the notion itself is self-determined. In whichever aspect we
contemplate the notion, whether as subjective to our apprehension, or
as objectively real, the Idea it manifests is a totality. But it is
more than this. It is the unity which for ever is mediating between and
bringing into more perfected harmony the two totalities. Only as thus
apprehended is the Idea truth and indeed all truth.

2. All that exists, then, has only truth in so far as it is a definite
existence of the Idea. For the Idea is alone the truly real. The truth
of the phenomenal is not derived from the fact that its particular
existence is of an inward or external character, and as such is in
a general sense reality; it is so wholly in virtue of the fact that
such reality is adequate to the notion. Then alone is determinate
existence real and true. And the truth, to which we here refer, is
not a _subjective_ interpretation of it, namely, that a particular
existence is accordant with my own conception of it. It is truth in the
objective sense that the reality of the Ego, or of any external object,
action, or circumstance actually contributes to the realization of
the notion. If this identity is not established the existence remains
purely phenomenal. Instead of the objectification of the notion in its
completeness what obtains is purely a detached aspect of it; and with
regard to this, whatever self-subsistence it may appear to have in
opposition to the unity and universality of the notion, such can only
work to its final confusion by setting it in hostility to the true
notion itself. Our conclusion, therefore, is that only the reality
which adequately expresses the notion is truly reality, and the reason
it is so is that therein the Idea manifests itself as existence.

3. We have maintained that beauty is _Idea_. It follows that
_beauty_ and _truth_ are, in one aspect of them, _identical_. In
other words, beauty must itself in its intrinsic being be true. A
closer investigation will further show to us that truth must be
_distinguished_ from beauty.

The idea is true in the sense that it is so by virtue of its essential
being and according to its fundamental principle[193], and as such
truth it is thought[194]. It is not its sensuous and external
existence, but the _universal_ Idea of thought as present in this. At
the same time the Idea is driven to seek its realization in external
and objectively determined existence, both in the sphere of Nature
and that of Mind. The true, in the absolute sense, also exists. And
in so far as, in this its external existence, it is immediately
apprehended by consciousness, and the notion rests in immediate unity
with its external appearance, the Idea is not only true, but is also
_beautiful._ The _beautiful_ may therefore be defined as the _sensuous
semblance_[195] of the Idea. For the sensuous condition and the
objective world generally maintain no real self-subsistence in beauty,
but have merely to surrender the immediacy of their _being._ In beauty
such are posited simply as the determinate existence and externality
of the notion, and as a form of reality, which itself manifests the
_notion_ in unity with its external appearance in this its particular
objective existence. For this reason it can only pass as the semblance
of the notion.

(_a_) Accordantly with this it is impossible for the understanding[196]
alone to grasp the significance of beauty. For inasmuch as objective
reality is apprehended by this faculty as something at least quite
other than ideality, sensuous perception, as something very different
from the notion, the external object as something that is anywhere
rather than within world of the conscious self, to that extent it
cannot fail to emphasize the contradictions implied in such separation,
rather than penetrate to the ideal unity we have above described. The
understanding remains rooted in the finite, the incomplete and untrue
abstraction. The beautiful is on the contrary itself essentially
_infinite_ and free.

For although the content of beauty is stamped with particularity and
to that extent limited, such content is essentially in its mode of
environment a totality that is infinite[197] and a free existence; and
it is both for the reason that it is the notion, which does not pass
beyond this its objective semblance, and so fall into finite and one
sided abstraction with it, but rather is immersed as a blossom with
this its objectification and through the imminent unity and perfection
of such inclusion is revealed as essentially infinite. With equal
truth we may affirm that the notion in sealing, as it were, with a
soul the real existence, in which it is part of the objective world,
is itself by itself freely manifest in that world. For the notion will
not suffer that external existence in the sphere of beauty to follow,
as it would otherwise, the laws that therein are paramount: rather
it determines out of its own riches the articulation and form of its
appearance therein; and it is precisely this harmony of the notion with
the mode of its external existence which constitutes the essential
life of beauty. And the bond which braces all together, no less than
the power behind it, is self-conscious life, unity, soul, and artistic
personality.

(_b_) We conclude, then, that if we consider beauty in its relation to
conscious life, on the _subjective_ side that is, it is neither to be
adequately apprehended by an intelligence that persists in the unfree
medium of purely finite existence, nor is it the object of the finite
Will. We will enlarge a little on both points.

As finite intelligence we are aware in feeling of the inner no less
than the outer objects of consciousness; we observe them, perceive
them to be true to our senses, allow them to form part of the content
of our perceptions, concepts, and finally, no doubt, to become the
abstractions which our understanding presents to us, reflecting
on their appearance, and endowing them with the abstract form of
universality.

Now the finiteness and absence of freedom inseparable from this mental
attitude consists in the assumption that the things perceived are
self-subsistent. We direct our attention to these objects, suffer them
to impress us, form our ideas of them, possessed with the faith in
their material existence as objects, and convinced that all we have
to do is to perceive them as they appear to our passive reception,
to preserve, in short, the formal side of our attention intact,
holding such unfettered by our fancies, opinions, and prejudices.
In thus accepting this one-sided freedom of objects we posit at
the same time the want of freedom in their mental apprehension. To
such the content is one wholly _given_ from outside; and instead of
a true self-determination through difference we have nothing but
the reception and acceptance of what is presented as a part of the
objective thing. We would arrive at truth by the suppression of all
that belongs to ourselves[198].

A criticism of like nature, though the defect is here just at the
other extreme, may be applied to the finite _Will._ In this theory
interests, objects, intentions, and conclusions are all relegated to
the subject, whose will it is to enforce them as against the existence
and properties of the material thing. This it can only do by the
annihilation of the object itself, or at least, in so far as it can
modify or change its form and energies, by transmuting its qualities,
or permitting them to exercise such a change on each other, as water
may exercise on fire, fire on iron, iron on wood, and so forth. We now
find that it is the particular things, which the subject has enrolled
in its service, as things to be regarded and treated as _useful_,
which in their turn have been deprived of their self-subsistence.
In other words, they have come to be regarded as objects, whose
notion and meaning is not their own, but derived from the reflecting
consciousness, so that what is most essential to them is precisely this
relation of service in which they stand to the subjective purpose, that
is, our own intelligence. The values of either side of the relation
are thus completely reversed. The objective thing has lost freedom and
the conscious subject secured it. As a matter of fact, the freedom
on _both_ aspects of the relation is, owing to the finitude and
abstraction it implies under such a view, a purely supposititious one.

In the sphere of _theory_ here it is the assumed independence of the
objective world which creates the finitude and bondage of the conscious
Ego. In that of the practical world this dependence is due to its
one-sidedness, the conflict and contradiction of its aims within and
the impulses and passions which press from without, no less than to
the unreconciled opposition of a world of objects. For the separation
and opposition of these two aspects of one whole, that is, objects
and relating self-conscious life, is presupposed in, and indeed is an
accurate definition of, this point of view.

And, similarly, with reference to the lack of freedom in the object.
Here, too, in the sphere of intelligible conception, the independence
of the object is assumed, but the freedom assumed is only apparent. For
it is only posited as bare objectivity without securing the presence
of its notion, as the unity and universality of the conscious subject,
within such objectivity. It still remains outside it. Every object thus
placed external to the notion merely exists as particularity, which
comes back to us in external guise together with its manifold, and
is, in all the unlimited scope of its relations, through its contact
with other objects, subject to the conditions of its origin, change,
opposing force and final overthrow. In the _practical_ world the
dependence of the object is expressly, in this view, assumed, and the
opposition of the thing is posited in definite relation to volition
without possessing in itself the power of ultimate self-subsistency
permitted to the latter.

(_c_) The apprehension of the object as _beautiful_ unites these two
abstract points of view. It in fact annuls the one-sidedness of both
whether relatively to the subject of consciousness or its object, and
by doing so cancels the finitude and lack of freedom which characterize
them.

Philosophically regarded[199], the reason is this, that the object is
not apprehended in its existence as an isolated thing whose notion
as the object of human thought is removed from the objectivity which
belongs to it as something outside it, and which in its particular
reality extends and is dissipated in every conceivable direction
as a manifold content of intelligible relations. An object which
is beautiful suffers its own notion to appear as realized in its
objective presence, and reveals in that appearance the unity and life
inseparable from the conscious subject. For this reason the object may
be conceived as sweeping back into the curve of its unity that impulse
of continuous externality, cancelling its dependence on other objects,
and transmuting to our vision its unfree finitude into free infinity.

Furthermore, the Ego in its relation to the object of beauty ceases
to be merely the abstract attention or sensuous perception, and the
floating away of such perceptions into equally abstract reflections.
Rather, it is itself concretely realized in this object, being at once
the unity and reality of its notional idea, and uniting for itself
in its rounded concreteness that which has hitherto remained, as
abstractly perceived, apart in the Ego of the subject of perception and
the thing perceived.

Coming now to the practical import of this relation as it applies to
the object of beauty, we have already drawn attention to the fact at
some length, that in the contemplation of it the element of sensuous
passion drops away. All personal impulse that the individual may
feel toward the object is done away with through that very aesthetic
contemplation, which regards it as self-subsistent in itself, in other
words, its own object. For this reason, the purely finite relation
of the object also disappears, the relation, that is, in which it
subserved, as a means for their realization, aims which were foreign
to it, and towards the fulfilment of which it was either presented
as unfree or was compelled to take up, however strange, into its
own existence. At the same time that relation of the Ego in the
practical world which we found to be unfree disappears, inasmuch as it
differentiates itself no longer in subjective motives and their means
or material, remaining fixed in the finite relation of the formal
"ought" for the carrying out of its subjective ends in the object, but
is here confronted with the notion and its aim completely realized.

We may say, then, that the aesthetic contemplation of the beautiful is
a liberal education, a portrayal of the object in its free and infinite
being, with no detracting consideration of its use or employment
for finite wants and purposes. Further, the _object_ as a _thing of
beauty_ is neither under force or compulsion at our hands, nor is it
in conflict with and overcome by other things outside it. It is of the
essence of beauty that the notion, end and soul thereof, no less than
its existent form, and variety generally, manifest themselves out of
their own intrinsic wealth rather than through the energy of something
outside them. The reason of this lies in the fact, already insisted
upon, that their truth consists solely in the unity and harmony of
their notion with their objective existence. And inasmuch as the notion
is itself concrete totality, its objective reality also appears as
a manifestation of the same, homogeneous in all its parts, which,
as thus imbedded in the notion, appear to fall into such ideal unity
and animation. For this harmony of the notion and its envisagement is
nothing less than perfected suffusion[200]. Accordingly the exterior
form and shape is manifested, not as such by its separation from other
material, or as an impression mechanically related to aims which
are foreign to it, but as the form of reality wherein the notion
accommodates itself out of its own stuff and substance. Finally,
however much the particular aspects, parts or articulations of the
beautiful object are presented in the ideal unity of the notion and
its unified envisagement, that harmony must be so rendered visible to
sense, that in relation to one another they preserve the semblance of
self-subsistent freedom; in other words they must not only possess the
ideal unity of the _notion as such_, but must reflect back the side
of a reality which is substantially objective also. Both aspects, in
short, must be present in beautiful objects; for these are, on the
one hand, the _necessity_ posited through the notion and discovered
in the harmonious conclusion of these particular aspects, and on the
other, the envisagement of their freedom as essentially one with the
whole, and _not merely_ that of the _unity_ which exists between the
parts. Necessity in its full definition means the just relation of
the two aspects, which coalesce so completely that to posit one is to
posit the other. Such a necessity must unquestionably be present in
beautiful objects. It is not, however, under the mode of necessity that
it appears; rather it should conceal itself beneath the semblance of
unintentional accident. Otherwise the particular parts of such a real
presence lose the position they should occupy according to their own
real existence, and only appear in the service of their ideal unity, to
which they therefore remain in abstract subordination.

In virtue of the freedom and infinitude above analysed, which is
inherent in the notion of beauty, whether we view it in its objective
presence as a thing of beauty, or under its aesthetic contemplation, we
disengage the province of the beautiful from the relations of finite
condition, to exalt it into that of the Idea and its truth.

[Footnote 188: This is, of course, a note of Hegel himself.]

[Footnote 189: This, of course, has reference to Hegel's unfortunate
belief in Goethe's theory of colour.]

[Footnote 190: Mediated (_vermittelt_), because the concrete is first
apprehended through its differences, and only after reflection do we
arrive at the notional unity which transcends and unites them.]

[Footnote 191: _Momente._ Phases asserted and reconciled in the evolved
notional unity, organic or otherwise. The notion is subjective because
it is an ideal unity.]

[Footnote 192: The text is clearly corrupt. The full-stop after
_herzustellen_ should be a comma, and _auch_ would be preferably
changed to _als die._]

[Footnote 193: As essentially reason.]

[Footnote 194: Not the substantive, but past participle.]

[Footnote 195: _Das sinnliche Scheinen._]

[Footnote 196: _Verstand_ in the technical sense of Kant's philosophy;
that is, the faculty of scientific observation or ordinary
perception--analytical, in contrast to reason (_Vernunft_), the
synthetic faculty.]

[Footnote 197: Infinite, that is to say, as human freedom is infinite,
as mind is infinite, an ideal totality, a whole complete in itself, not
an endless progress, which is a contradiction.]

[Footnote 198: Or, as Hegel says, "by suppressing the subjective
principle altogether."]

[Footnote 199: _Theoretischen_ here used in sense of true philosophical
theory, not one-sided views as above.]

[Footnote 200: _Vollendete Durchdringung_, _i.e._, a penetration
through all parts.]



CHAPTER II


THE BEAUTY OF NATURE


Beauty is the Idea as the immediate unity of the notion and its
objective reality, yet is only the Idea in so far as its unity is
immediately present in shape apprehensible to the senses and as
semblance of the real. The most elementary form of existence, which the
Idea take to itself is _Nature_, and the first form of beauty is that
of _Nature._

A. THE BEAUTY OF NATURE AS SUCH

1. In the world of Nature we must distinguish between the modes
according to which the notion becomes existent reality in order to be
part of the Idea.

(_a_) In the _first_ place the notion is absorbed so immediately in
pure objectivity, that, in its character of subjective and ideal
unity, it wholly fails to assert itself, and passes over instead as a
thing without a soul into the raw _materia_ presented to sense. The
purely mechanical or physical bodies in their isolated singularity
are of this order. A particular metal is, for example, essentially no
doubt a manifold of mechanical and physical qualities; every part of
it, however, has such qualities equally in itself. Such a body not
merely fails to possess any entire articulation of its parts in the
sense that every one of its different parts receives for itself a
particular material existence, but even the negative ideal unity of
such differentiation is absent, which might assert itself as animating
principle[201]. The difference here is a purely abstract multiplicity,
and the unity posited the indifferent equilibrium of identical
qualities.

This is the first mode of the existence of the notion. The differences
here receive no independent existence, and the ideal unity is not found
as ideality. For this reason such isolated bodies are essentially
defective and abstract existences.

(_b_) Natural objects of a higher order suffer the differences asserted
by the notion to appear as free, so that each one as external to
another is itself independently existent. Here we have for the first
time the true character of objectivity. Objectivity is just this
independent assertion of the segregated differences determined by the
notion. On this plane of existence the notion asserts itself in such a
way that it is at least a totality of its differences, which is truly
realized, in so far as the particular bodies, while they each severally
possess independent existence for themselves, are at the same time
members of _one inclusive system._ Of such a character is the solar
system. In one aspect of them the sun, comets, moon, and planets appear
as independent heavenly bodies apart from one another; in another,
however, they derive their definite character from being parts of
one system of such material bodies. Not only their specific modes of
motion, but also their physical qualities, are only to be deduced from
their relation to this system. This nexus which binds them together
constitutes that inward unity which relates these particular existences
together in one whole.

But further than this, in this conception of system the operation of
the notion is not exhausted in the _existent unity_ of independent
bodies as essential parts of it. For just as the differences are real
the unity which relates them to the totality has to assert itself
as real. This unity, in other words, differentiates itself from
the multifold particularity of those objective bodies of which it
is the integrating principle. And on this plane of existence it is
differentiated therefore itself against such a particularity as real,
independent and objective existence. In the solar system the sun exists
over against all particularity related to that system, as such a unity
of the system.

Such a material existence of the ideal unity of the notion is still
very defective; for whereas on the one hand we have this unity posited
in its reality only as the relation or material connection between the
severally independent bodies, on the other we have it posited as a
body which belongs to that system, whose unity, in opposition to its
real differences, it essentially represents. The sun, in short, which
we take to be[202] the soul of the system, has itself an independent
entity apart from the members which form the explicit content of this
soul. It is itself only _one_ particular mode or phase of the notion,
that, namely, of unity in its _difference_ from the actual separation
of the several parts, a unity which remains outside itself, and is
consequently abstract. For however much the sun by virtue of its
physical quality is plainly a principle of unity, the illuminating
body as such, this is after all merely an abstract identity. For light
is simple, undifferentiated appearance and nothing more. We find
therefore in the solar system the unity of the notion indeed objective,
and the totality of its differences explicitly realized, each body
making visible _one_ particular phase[203] of the notion; but here,
too, it lies absorbed in its objective reality, and it fails to assert
itself in such material as is truly inherent and explicit ideality.
The form of its existence which here prevails remains the independent
segregation of its particular phasal units[204].

It is, however, essential to the true existence of the notion, that the
_differences_ of the objectively real, the reality, that is to say, of
the separate independent parts and the equally independent unity that
is therein objectively realized, should as such be together brought
back into unity. Only thus such a totality of innate differences can
make wholly explicit either the notion as the realized differentiation
of its characteristics, or at the same time release each particular
that belongs to it from the element of isolated independence which it
cancels by enabling the ideality, in which these differences recover
their subjective unity, to assert itself fully as the universal
principle of their animated being. In that case they become no longer
_parts_ hanging loosely to one another by a bond that still leaves
their particularity unaffected, but genuine _members_ of one body.
They no longer possess an existence in their isolated singularity,
but retain such truly in the ideal unity which binds them together.
Only in such an organic articulation the ideal unity of the notion is
present to the parts thus integrated. It is at once their support and
immanent soul; here for the first time the notion is not overwhelmed in
objective reality, but passes over into actual existence as the inward
identity and universality, which it essentially is.

(_c_) But this _third_ mode of Nature's manifestation is a determinate
existence of the _Idea_, and the Idea as thus manifested in Nature
is _Life._ Dead or inorganic nature is not adequate to express the
Idea; only the organic life of Nature unfolds its reality. For in life
we shall find, _first_, that the objective reality of the notion as
differentiated is presented as such reality; _secondly_, however, that
the negation of such differences is entirely one of distinction in that
reality[205], the ideal subjectivity of the notion overcoming to itself
this very reality; _thirdly_, the unifying principle of animation is
now the positive appearance of the notion in the form of its bodily
substance, that is to say, the form of infinity, which is sufficiently
powerful to assert itself thus formally in its content.

(_α_) If we ask ordinary consciousness[206] for a definition of Life,
we have two determinations presented, either the imaginative conception
of it as bodily life, or as soul-life. In the same view we distinguish
these two determinations with qualities peculiarly belonging to each.
This _contrast_ we set up between soul and body is also of great
importance in the more philosophical consideration of our subject. And
it is no less part of our inquiry to investigate it. At the same time
we would point out that the philosophical interest concentrates itself
quite as much on the _unity_ which exists between soul and body, a part
of this inquiry which a really adequate survey of the subject has at
all times found beset with the greatest difficulties. It is, however,
precisely in virtue of this unity that Life is the first genuine
appearance of the Idea in Nature. We must consequently apprehend the
identity of soul and body as no fortuitous connection[207], but a
union of profounder significance. In other words, we must recognize
the body and its members as the objective existence of the notion
itself in systematic articulation, which in the members of the living
organism, secures an objective existence for its determinate features,
analogously no doubt, if on a higher plane, to the facts presented
by the solar system. Within this real existence the notion asserts
itself in like manner as the ideal unity of all these determinate
parts. This ideal unity is the soul. The soul is the substantive unity
and interfused universality which is no less a simple relation of
self-determining than it is ideal Being-for-itself or self-coherent
totality. This is the higher view of the union between soul and body.
To put it in other words both are not merely distinct aspects set side
by side; they are one and the same totality of identical determinants.
Just as the Idea generally can only be grasped in its explicit reality
as the notion evolving itself as such[208], in which conception the
differentiation and unity of both sides, that is both the notion and
its objective reality, are inseparably present, in the same way Life
must be conceived as the unity of both soul and body.

And further, the subjective no less than substantive unity of soul
within the body is presented us and exemplified in Feeling. The feeling
of a living organism is, that is to say, not merely an independent
product of a particular member, but it is also this ideal and simple
unity of the entire organism. It is carried through every member of
the body is felt throughout in more than a hundred places at once; and
indeed, to put it shortly, rather than saying there are many thousand
sensitive points[209] in a single organism we should more justly say
there is but one, namely, the subject of consciousness. And inasmuch
as the animating principle of organic Nature includes in itself this
distinction between the real existence of the organic members, and the
abstract or simple self-coherence within such parts, which we call the
growing soul, mediating between them both by virtue of its inherent
unity, such a principle of Life stands on a higher plane than that of
inorganic Nature. Only with Life is the Idea existent, and only thus is
the Idea truth. No doubt even in the organic world this truth can be
extinguished. We find the body unable to perfect its essential ideality
and animating energy. Such is the case in disease. Here we find the
notion deprived of its controlling sovereignty, and other powers are
potent with it. Such a life is, however, defective and crippled: it
merely continues, because the inadequacy of reality to the notion has
not reached the point of absolute contradiction; it is still only
relatively valid. Once assume that all harmony between the two sides is
broken, that all genuine articulation of the members of the body and
their true identity has dropped away, and life is dissolved in death.
The several members are now mere appendages to each other, with no
principle of Life to hold them in unsevered unity.

(_β_) We must add that when we stated the soul is the totality of the
notion regarded as the subjective and ideal unity, the body on the
other hand, as distinguished by its members, is the same totality
but rather in its material aspect as the juxtaposition and sensuous
accretion of all the several parts, affirming at the same time that
both soul and body are posited as _one_ in the living organism, there
is no doubt something contradictory in the statement. For the ideal
unity, so far from being this material juxtaposition of parts, in which
each particularity possesses its independent consistency and exclusive
character, is rather in direct antithesis to such external reality.
That what is diametrically opposed should nevertheless be identical is
obviously a contradiction in terms. The man, however, who declares the
non-existence of anything from the fact that it carries in our notion
of it a contradiction which implies the identity of opposed antitheses,
simply excludes Life itself from the idea of existence. For the force
of Life and still more the power of Spirit (mind) consists in this
very movement, namely, to assert the law of contradiction inherent
within them, to bear the burden thereof and to overcome it. This
affirmation and resolution of the contradiction which obtains between
the ideal unity and material juxtaposition of the members, constitutes
the appointed _process_ of life itself. And Life is simply _process._
And this process of life includes an activity which has two distinct
functions. On the one hand it has continually to affirm the material
existence of the physical distinctions[210] among the members of the
organism thus determined; on the other, just in proportion as such
distinctions grow obdurate in their independent particularity, and tend
to remain fixed in absolute separation from each other, it has to make
good once more that universal ideality, which is the principle of their
life. This is the idealism of Life's process. Philosophy is not the
only idealism; far from it. Nature herself in her domain of actuality
creates in the life-process just that which the philosophy of idealism
completes in the world of contemplative thought. Only where we have
these two aspects of one activity, that is, the constant realization
of the corporeal definition of the organism no less than the synthetic
affirmation of such material presentment in the ideal unity, which
it is as one with the notion[211], then and only then we have the
completed process of Life, whose more primitive forms[212], however,
this is not the place to discuss. Through this unity of Life's energy
in both its branches all the members of the organism are up held in
their integrity, and continually flushed anew with the ideality of
their life. This ideality is furthermore declared by the organic parts
in the fundamental law of their being, that this unity of Life is not
so much an accidental quality as, on the contrary, the substance of it.
In this alone they are able to preserve their specific character. This
it is which precisely constitutes the difference between the part of a
mere conglomerate and the member of an organism. The particular parts
of a house, for example, the stones, windows, and so forth, remain just
what they are, whether they form part of the structure of a house,
or whether they do not. Their relationship to one another is quite
indifferent, and the conceptual notion remains in their case a purely
external form, which possesses no life in these parts raising them to
the ideality of a subjective unity.

The members of an organism have, it is true, an external reality, but
for all that it is the notion of Life which constitutes the inward,
nay, the characteristic being of such reality, a reality which is not
expressed through one external form uniting them, but in the ideal
coherence of their parts in one living whole. For this reason the limbs
have no such reality as belongs to the stones of a building, or the
planets, moon, and comets in the solar system. Their reality is one
wholly within the content of the organism, and all appearance to the
contrary is, as such, ideally imposed on them. Dissever the hand from
the body and it loses its independent existence as a member of the
organism which made it what it was. Its activity, form, and colour,
all that constitutes it, is at once changed; it enters the process of
corruption, and ultimately ceases to exist[213]. Consistent character
it only possesses as a limb of organic life, reality only in constant
reunion with that ideal unity which sustains it. And that is just the
superior mode of reality which the living organism possesses in itself.
The real or positive is for ever being set up as both the negation
of itself and withal the ideal resumption of itself, such ideality
constituting, in fact, both the maintenance and specific character of
the mode under which each of the separate parts of the bodily presence
are associated together.

(_γ_) The reality, then, which the Idea wins for itself in the life
of Nature is reality as a phenomenal process. Such an _appearance_
stated in its simplest terms is this, that a reality exists, but its
potential being[214] is not immediately in its possession, rather it is
at the same time negatively affirmed[215] in the particular form that
belongs to it. The negation of the immediately external and particular
members of a body is not only a negative relative relation as the
activity of the inherent idealization[216], but is as such a positive
realization[217].

Hitherto we have considered the particular objects of the real as
positive in their self-exclusive particularity. This independence,
however, is negated in the living object, and the ideal unity asserted
within the bodily organism is alone found to assert over itself the
full force of positive determination. Such a positive ideality in
the principle of negation it asserts is the soul. On the appearance
of the soul in the body we have at once such an affirmative presence
as the one indicated. The soul not merely asserts itself as a power
against the subdivision of the bodily members, it is their plastic
creator[218], which preserves as inward and ideal that which is
externally minted in the shape of physical members. And consequently
it is this very positive and ideal inward[219] which appears in the
outer structure; in other words, the external, so far as it is a mere
external, is a mere abstraction, a mere aspect that is untrue for
the whole. In organic life the external we are confronted with is an
externality through which the inward is made visible. The outward, that
is to say, declares itself in its potential nature as that inward,
which is its notion. Further to this notion appertains the reality
in which it as notion is made visible. Inasmuch, however, as in the
objective world the notion, strictly as such, is the principle of
subjective life and self-determined life becoming _explicit_ in its
own objective reality[220], life exists only as a _living thing_, an
individual subject. It is only with life thus concentrated to a point
that we find this negating _centrum_ of unity. And it is negative in
this sense that the ideal explicitly self-unified totality[221] can
only now stand forth in its reality by virtue of this principle of
ideality being asserted through the differentiation of its positive
presence, together with which the ideal unity of such totality is at
the same time incorporated. It is of the greatest importance to make
clear this aspect of the principle of subjectivity. It is only as the
single living thing thus unified by such a principle that life is
actually present.

If we inquire further in what manner the Idea is manifested within the
actual life of such living individuals our survey will be as follows:
_first_, this principle of Life will be realized as the totality of an
organism possessing bodily shape; _secondly_, this physical shape is
not presented as a rigid product[222], but as a continous process of
ideal generation, in which a living soul asserts itself. _Thirdly_,
the changes and determinations through which this totality passes
are not imposed externally to it, but are changes of form which are
evolved from its inherent nature, imposed on itself and for itself, in
a process wherein it stands self-determined as the subjective unity no
less than the ultimate end of its being.

This free self-subsistence of the subjective principle of life is
especially exemplified in the spontaneous motion of a living organism.
The inanimate bodies of inorganic Nature are fettered to the conditions
of Space, which limits them to one place, or they are only moved from
it by external forces. The motion, in short, does not originate in
themselves; and, when it is visible upon them, it appears as an energy
which is foreign to them, to remove which the only force they exert
is that of reaction. And if the motion of the planets with similar
phenomena appear to be otherwise produced, such are at least wholly
fettered by natural laws and their abstract necessity. The living
animal, on the contrary, in its freedom of motion, negatives this
enforced limitation to one spot by virtue of its own activity. It is
through such self-determination the continuous liberation of itself
from the material isolation. And for the same reason it is in this
freedom of motion, if only in a subordinate degree, the release of
itself from the former abstractness referable to the particular modes
of motion, their direction and their speed. Under a yet closer view,
moreover, the animal, regarded by itself in its organism, presents the
same sensuous matter that is moved; and here, too, life is as before a
freedom of motion within this organic reality, evidenced in the flow of
blood and the movement of the limbs.

Motion, however, is not the only expression of animated life. The free
tones of the voice of animals, which are unknown in the inorganic
world, where bodies merely roar and clatter through the blow of objects
external to them, these already present to us the higher expression
of animated subjectivity. The most intimate and vital expression of
such ideal activity is, however, brought before us when we find the
living individual able to concentrate itself as individuality over
against the objective world, while at the same time it appropriates
and transfigures that world _for its own._ And this is accomplished in
part through observation by means of vision, and partly for practical
purposes, in so far as such an individual brings the outer world
into subjection to himself, utilizes the same, assimilates it as a
means of nourishment, and in this manner continually reproduces his
individuality in that objective _alterum._ Such a process, of course,
as it ascends through stronger organisms, assumes more and more
emphatic degrees of unsatisfied desire, assimilation, satisfaction, or
satiety.

Such, then, are the activities, in which the notion of animated life
makes itself apparent. Moreover, the principle of Ideality thus
rendered visible is not merely the result of _our_ reflection; it
is _objectively_ real itself in the living subject, whose existence
consequently we may go so far as to call an objective idealism. And
it is the soul, as before stated, which, as this ideal energy, brings
about its own manifestation[223], always reducing the _purely_ external
reality of the body to an appearance, and thereby affirming itself as
objective totality in that very bodily shape.

2. Now it is as the Idea made objectively visible to the senses that
the animated life of Nature is _beautiful_; in so far, that is to
say, as the truth or the Idea, presented in the form of Nature, where
under it first appears, in other words life, is immediately given in
the particular shape of reality adequate to it. Owing, however, to its
sensuous immediacy the living beauty of Nature is neither beautiful
_for itself_ nor is the beauty strictly that which is _the outcome_ of
itself, a product, that is, of its purely objective appearance. The
beauty of Nature is only beautiful for another, that is _for us_, the
consciousness that apprehends its beauty. The question therefore arises
in what way and by virtue of what characteristics the principle of life
appears to us beautiful in its _immediate_ existence.

(_a_) If we look at the practical way in which a living object
becomes visible and preserves itself, the first thing which rivets
our attention is _spontaneous motion._ This motion, regarded simply
as motion, is nothing more than the entirely abstract freedom of
motion from place to place and from time to time, which we find
exemplified in the spontaneous, but entirely haphazard movements of
animal life. In music and the dance we have, it is true, motion in
its generic significance; but here motion is not merely a matter of
chance and impulse, but it exhibits the laws which regulate it; it
is defined, complete in itself and subject to measure; and it is all
this, though we still abstract from it the significance whereof it is
the beautiful expression. If we again interpret the motion of animals
as the realization of an aim originating within themselves, this
excited impulse is still entirely accidental, an end of most restricted
import. If we further extend our survey and conceive such motion as
the activity and working together of all parts of the animal organism
towards a definite purpose, we shall merely find that such a conception
is rendered possible by our own effort of imagination[224]. The case is
just the same if we reflect upon the way in which an animal gratifies
its physical wants, obtains nourishment through the organs which
grasp it, consume it, digest it, and generally is a subject of the
process which preserves its life. For in this case also we have either
only before us single desires and their spontaneous and haphazard
gratification, in which the inward activity[225] of the organism is not
present at all, or at least all these activities and their means of
expression have become the subject of our imaginative reflection, which
is at pains to understand such a process by relating it to definite
ends, and to establish a harmony between aims assumed to belong to the
animal itself and the organs which fulfill them.

We shall rather find that neither the sensuous perception of single
haphazard appetites, arbitrary movements and efforts towards
self-satisfaction, nor the fanciful consideration of the animal
organism as one directed by purpose will present to us purely animal
life as a part of the beauty of Nature. The beauty consists in the
appearance of individual form, both in repose and motion, quite apart
from the relation of its self-gratification to any purpose thus
subserved, as it is apart from the entirely isolated contingency of
self-imposed movement[226]. Such beauty is related to the _form_ alone,
because it is only as such that it is the external appearance, in which
the objective idealism of the principle of life makes itself known
to us as a thing perceived and contemplated upon through the senses.
Thought apprehends this "objective idealism" in the medium of its
notion, appropriating the same in the element of _universality_ which
belongs to it, albeit the contemplation of its beauty is inseparably
bound with its _phenomenal reality._ And this reality is the external
form of the articulated organism, which is, in our view of it, quite
as much determinate particularity as it is a semblance, namely, that
of the physical manifold of the separate members, which can only form
part of the concrete totality of the _living form_ under the guise of
phenomenal appearance.

(_b_) From the explanation of the notion of life already given we
may deduce more narrowly the form of this appearance as follows. The
form is one of spatial extension, limitation, and configuration,
distinguished through its various shape, colour, and motion, being, in
fact, a manifold of such distinctions. If, however, the organism which
manifests these differences is a living organism, it will inevitably
appear that the organism does not derive its true existence from such
a _manifold_ and its physical configurations. This is brought about by
the fact that the different parts, which are apprehended by us through
the senses, are at the same time conjoined together in one totality;
they appear consequently as the _members_ of one individual existence,
which is a unity of such differences, and which not merely possesses
them in their difference, but as parts of one homogeneous whole.

(_α_) In the first place, however, this unity will assert itself as
the _purposeless_ identity of such differences, that is to say with
no abstract relation to any causal end whatever. The parts in such
a case are not rendered visible to sense merely as a means to or in
the service of some defined purpose, nor are they able to fix the
determinate relation of form and structure which they occupy one over
against the other.

(_β_) Rather the contrary is the case, for, in the _second_ place, the
bodily members have for our sense-perception the appearance of being
quite _accidental_ in their form; in other words the determination of
one appears to be quite indifferent to that of another. In other words,
we can never conclude because one has a certain form another will have
the same, as would be the case if a material uniformity was clear
between them. Where uniformity is the rule an abstract determination
of some kind of form, size, or whatever it may be, is the property
of all parts. The windows of a building, for example, are all of one
size, or at least are placed together in one row. Or we may illustrate
the same similarity with the uniform worn by all soldiers belonging
to one regiment. We have various parts of such clothing differing in
colour, texture and the rest, but their formal opposition is no matter
of chance; each has its causal connection with some other; it is
there because the other is there. Neither is there here any complete
distinction of form, nor any unique independence wholly asserted. With
the individual organism of life the case is entirely otherwise. Here
every part is absolutely distinguished; the nose from the forehead, the
mouth from the cheek, the breast from the neck, the arms from the legs,
and so on. Inasmuch as for our sense-perception every member possesses
its unique form rather than one which belongs to another, or one which
is determined by that of another, the members appear as self-subsistent
parts, and for this reason free and spontaneous[227]. For the material
juxtaposition of the parts alone throws no light upon their particular
form.

(_γ_) _Thirdly_, it is obvious there must be for our imaginative
perception a more inward bond of connection present in the
self-subsistence of the organism, if the unity is not offered us in
its rational, spatial, temporal, or quantitative relations such as
are presented in the examples of uniformity referred to, which, as we
have seen, the unique particularity of the parts can extinguish. This
identity is not sensuous and immediately present to perception in the
way the distinction between the members is presented; it is rather a
secret and _inward_ bond of necessity and harmonious relation between
the members and their form. If it were only inward, quite out of
reach of our vision, such a necessary unity would be apprehended only
in thought, removed from our sense-perception altogether. In such a
case, however, it would fail to enter into the beautiful object of our
vision, and what we found as such in the living, object would cease to
be the Idea in its own objective and phenomenal reality. Such a unity
must consequently enter into what is externally perceived, although it
is, as the ideal principle of life within it, not entirely apparent
to sense or confined in spatial dimensions. It appears in fact in
the individual totality as the universal ideality of its members,
constituting thus the fundamental basis which supports and holds them
together, the subject of the living subject. And this subjective unity
in organic life finds its first direct expression in feeling. In the
emotional life the Soul finds its true expression as _Soul._ For
soul the mere juxtaposition of limbs have no real truth, and in the
presence of its subjective ideality the purely spatial multiplicity
of external configuration ceases to exist. Such a manifold, with its
unique differentiations, its organic articulation of parts[228] is
no doubt presupposed; but when and in so far as the soul expresses
itself through such in feeling the more inward unity ever-present
to life asserts itself equally as the dissolution of all absolute
independence between the physical parts, which reveal now not merely
their _materia_, but also that wave of animation which fuses all in
their soul.

(_c_) To start with, however, we must observe that the emotional
expression of soul-life neither offers us the visual impression of any
necessary inter-dependence between the separate members, nor indeed the
perception of an identity which is necessary between such _physical_
articulation and the _subjective_ unity conferred on it by simple
feeling. We will investigate this more narrowly.

(_α_) If indeed the form and only the form renders in some way visible
this inward harmony and its necessity, it may be because we look
upon this juxtaposition as the _habitual_ relation of such members,
a connection which brings to our view some specific type and the
oft-repeated formal exemplifications of such a type. But the necessity
of custom is after all only a _subjective necessity._[229] According
to such a principle we may find certain animals ugly for no other
reason than that we find in them an organism which differs from our
ordinary experience, or runs contrary to it. For this reason we call
the organisms of certain animals bizarre in so far as the way in which
their organs are related together is foreign to what is more common to
our experience or entirely contradicts it. Fishes whose bodies are in
size out of all proportion to their length of tail, or those in which
we find eyes together on one side of the head only, are an example. In
the world of plants we are already prepared to find many such strange
departures from type, although the cactus with its spines, and the more
rectilinear shaping of its angular junctures[230] may still arouse our
wonder. The more a man is educated, however, in all branches of natural
history, the more able he will be to recognize in their truth the
subordination of all parts of organic life, and carry in the memory the
greatest variety of types in their proper classification, and the less
anything he may observe will surprise him.

(_β_) A profounder penetration into this correlation of the parts will,
however, in the _second_ place, tend to give us that truer insight
competent to determine from one of the parts the entire form to which
it must belong. Cuvier is a famous example of such aptitude: a man
of science, who by the examination of a single bone, whether fossil
or otherwise, was able to specify at once by its characteristics the
kind of animal to which it belonged. An excellent illustration this of
_ex ungue leonem._ So from a claw or a thigh bone we may discover the
conformation of the teeth, or _vice versa_ from the teeth that of the
hip-bone, or that of the vertebral column. Such a profound synthesis
of the type and the knowledge it implies carries us, however, beyond
habitual experience only. We must assume, to render it possible,
previous thought and the systematic arrangement of the isolated facts
of science. Our example Cuvier had no doubt secured from previous
experience a determinate content and some specific quality which
prevailed in each generic conception, and asserted itself as a unity
of principle in all particulars however distinct, and so enabled
him to recognize their affinity. Such a specific quality is that of
flesh-eating, which is then the determinating principle of the form of
the other members of the organism to which it belongs. A flesh-eating
animal requires teeth and jaws of exceptional vigour; when hunting it
will require claws to seize its prey, mere hoofs are insufficient. Here
in short is a quality which necessarily determines for us the form and
principle of affinity among all the organic members. A conception of
such a typical character is the ordinary one we form of the strength
of an eagle or a lion. We may no doubt find something both beautiful
and instructive[231] in this way of regarding the animal world, in so
far as we derive from it some unified idea of its configuration, which
is not a mere repetition of that unity in all the parts, but gives
full value to the distinctions they possess. For all that it must be
remembered the dominant factor of this survey is not the _perception
of our senses_, but the generic _thought_ of our minds with which it
is made to conform. Reviewed in this light we ought not to say that we
find the object as such _beautiful_, but rather attribute that beauty
to the _reflection_ of our own minds upon it. And if we examine these
reflections more closely we shall find they are after all a deduction
of our principle of unity from a limited aspect of the organic whole.
We concentrate our attention, for example, on the mode in which
it is nourished, _i.e._, whether such an animal is carnivorous or
herbivorous. Through such a limited determination we are still removed
from a vision of the coalescent unity of the whole we identified with
the notion, the soul itself.

(_γ_) The truth is we can only, in this sphere, bring before our
consciousness the entire unity of life by means of our thought and
grasp of reason. In the natural world the _soul_, in its full activity,
is not found; that is to say, the subjective unity, in its pure
ideality, does not exist there for a self-consciousness.

If, however, by means of thought, we endeavour to grasp the nature of
soul-life according to its essential notion we shall find two aspects
under which we may regard it; first, as the form subject to such a
principle of animation; secondly, as the notion of soul for thought
in all that the conception implies. Such a complete grasp of its true
nature is not possible in the sensuous perception of the objects of
beauty. Such must neither pass before us as thought, nor must we
allow the interest of Thought as such to form a barrier of difference
or opposition between itself and the vision revealed to us. We are
left, then, with no alternative but to consider, under this point of
view, the object as wholly presented to sense; we must assume that in
the sphere of Nature a _sensuous_ perception of the natural form is
our genuine mode of contemplating the beautiful. "Sense," that is the
master-key[232] to the position; a word which in itself is interpreted
in two opposed senses. In the first place we may indicate thereby the
organs of immediate[233] perception, secondly, by the "sense of a
thing" we may refer to the significance, or the element of thought and
the universal within it. In this way "Sense" is related on one side to
the immediate externality of existence, and on the other to its inward
or essential nature. A sensuous perception of that existence in fact
preserves both sides in unity, or rather in one direction so presents
the aspect that is opposed to it in the immediate sense vision as to
include therein both the essence and notion of the object. But for the
reason that it combines these opposed determinations in unfractured
unity, the notion is not presented as such to consciousness, but is
rather to be dimly foreshadowed there[234]. We accept, for example,
as a determinate fact the existence of three realms of Nature, which
we define as that of the mineral world, that of plants, and finally
that of animals; we can conclude from this, as already foreshadowed
by its truth regarded as a process rising from plane to plane, that
there is an inward necessity inherent in the notional articulation
of its divisions, and do not confine ourselves only to the purely
imaginative conception of it as a world conforming on its exterior
side only to a final end. In the same way when confronted with the
variety of the external presentment in each of these realms, the
sense-perception surmises a controlling unity intelligible to mind, a
progress subject to laws of thought, visible no less in the formation
of mountain ranges than in the orderly succession of plant-life and
of the animal races. The same tendency is presupposed when, after an
examination of the form of any particular animal organism, an insect's,
for example, as subdivided into head, body, abdomen, and extremities,
we conclude the correlation of such parts to be based on a rational
principle, and are confident that though, at first blush, it may appear
quite accidental that we are in possession of five senses, we shall
discover a true bond of relation between that number and the notion
therein asserted. Of just this type is Goethe's method of observing
and accounting for the innate reason of Nature and her phenomena. With
an extraordinary intuitive sense he directed his attention directly
to[235] the objects of experience, entirely convinced of the ideal bond
of unity which explained their interconnection. History may be written
with a like object. The narration of facts and individual lives is
given in such a way as indirectly to throw a light on the essential
significance which such events or persons contributed to the period in
which they are necessarily bound together in one organic whole.

3. Consequently we may affirm that Nature generally, regarded as the
sensuous manifestation of the concrete notion and the Idea, is to
be considered an object of beauty in so far as by such a sensuous
perception of natural forms some kind of foreshadowing of the notional
unity consonant to them is surmised, and we are able through the
channels of sense to discover not merely their form, but somewhat of
the inner necessity which binds together all their parts. Further than
this incomplete surmise of the notion the sensuous contemplation of
Nature as beautiful is not carried. This way of comprehending things,
for which the separate parts, despite their appearance of independent
freedom among themselves, nevertheless reveal to the sight the harmony
that exists there either in the characteristics of _their form_, or
detached portions of it or their motion and so forth, remains for
all that _indefinite_ and _abstract._ The inward unity is not open
to external sense, nor can it appear in its ideal and concrete form
to such perception[236], whether imaginative or no; such at most
acquiesces generally in the universality of a law of connection
inherent in every living thing.

(_a_) It is, then, in the first instance only in this bond of union
which reveals itself as a necessary adjunct of vitality from the
objectivity of Nature, in so far as the same is presented in forms
adequate to the notion, that we have before us the beauty of Nature.
With this coalescence the _materia_ is wholly identical; the form
is immediately at home in the matter, as its true essence and its
conforming energy[237]. This description may in fact stand for us, so
far as beauty at this stage is concerned, as a general definition of
it. We admire, for example, the natural form of a crystal on account of
the law of uniformity it manifests, a law which through no mere action
of forces external to it, but by virtue of its own specific definition
and free activity, free in all its aspects as itself an object, is
manifested there. For although an activity external to it could as
such equally be free, yet in crystals the conformative activity is not
extraneous to the object; rather it is a form operative as belonging
to the mineral's innate character. We may define it as the free force
of its substance, which out of its own resources informs itself and
is not merely passively receptive of its environment. Consequently
we find here the constituent material in its realized form as a free
and independent creation. In still higher and more concrete mode the
immanent form projects itself through the living organism and all its
parts, in the articulate form and, above all, in its motion and its
vital expression as feeling. For in this last case we have the inward
vitality pregnant itself as living.

(_b_) It is moreover through this indeterminacy of the beauty of
Nature, originating in its inward principle of animation that (_α_)
both in virtue of the conception of life and the intuition of its true
notion no less than of the habitual types conformable to its adequate
presentment, we are able to distinguish between animals which are
beautiful and those which are ugly. Animals incapable of vitality,
such as the sloth, which creeps about with difficulty, and whose entire
mode of life is suggestive of incapacity for motion or activity, offend
our aesthetic sense for this very reason[238]. Activity and mobility
are precisely the qualities which assert the higher ideality of life.
For the same reason we condemn forms of amphibious life, certain
species of fishes, crocodiles, toads, and many kinds of insects;
an additional reason will influence our similar attitude to hybrid
species, where confusion of form marks the passage from one determinate
type to another; the ornithorhyncus is an example[239], an animal which
with its mixture of bird and four-footed beast may indeed astonish
us, but at the same time is repulsive to our sense of beauty. Such
feelings of repulsion can no doubt be traced entirely to our habitual
prepossessions which have moulded for the imagination a fixed type of
animal species consonant to experience. But even so there is already
actively present the intuitive surmise that the configuration of a
bird, for example, is related in its parts by a necessary principle
of unity, and cannot as such graft upon itself forms which belong
to other species without being thereby transformed into a hybrid
variety. Such abnormal deviations from type appear to us both strange
and contradictory. Neither the one sided narrowness of organization,
which is so defective and mean in its manifestation, that it exercises
no activity over the straitened conditions of its environment, nor
confusions and passages of type, which, albeit they are not so enclosed
within themselves, are unable to hold fast the distinctive features of
their type, belong strictly to the sphere of natural beauty.

(_β_) There is another sense in which we attribute beauty to Nature,
namely, when we have the collective picture of a landscape before us
rather than observe the living form of a simple object. Here we have
no organic articulation of parts such as is derived from their notion
and is presented to us as such ideal unity in spontaneous life. We have
instead a rich variety of objects both organic and inorganic, which are
united together on one or more planes of vision in their distinctive
features, contour of mountains, winding outlines of rivers, groups
of trees, huts, dwellings, palaces, and cities of mankind, ships,
roadways, heaven and sea, valley and rock-cleft. We find, in addition
to this variety and proceeding therefrom, a delightful or imposing
harmony which appeals to our sense and interests us.

It is lastly a peculiar characteristic of the beauty of Nature that it
should excite or exercise a harmonious influence over our emotional
life. A mood of this kind is aroused by the stillness of moonlight,
the peace of a valley, through which some brook or other meanders, the
sublimity of the immeasurable storm-tossed sea, the tranquil depth of
the star-strewn heavens. But the significant factor in this case is not
so much to be found in the objects as in the peculiar moods they arouse
in our feelings and affections. On analogous grounds we attribute
beauty to animals, when the expression of their life directly suggests
human qualities, such as courage, strength, cunning, good nature, and
the rest. Such, no doubt, in one aspect of it, truly expresses the
nature of the animals themselves; but there is also our own conception
of its affinity to ourselves, and the mood in which we receive it.

(_c_) However much animal life, as the culminating point of natural
beauty, unfolds its freest expression as a living principle, it
is comparatively narrow in its range and subject to very limited
qualities. The circle of such existence is a strait one; and in this
the predominant interests are those of the satisfaction of natural
instincts such as hunger and sex-attraction. Soul-life, regarded as
the inward principle expressed through external figure, is poor,
abstract, and empty of content. Add to this the consideration that
this inward is not manifested at all as _inward._ The soul in its
essential substance is not revealed by the life of Nature; it is, in
fact, the determining characteristic of Nature that its soul remains
shut in itself, does not, in other words, proclaim itself in its
ideality. As already pointed out, the soul of an animal is not this
ideal unity _self-acknowledged._ If it were otherwise we should have
the manifestation of such personality brought home to others. Only in
the self-conscious Ego do we find the ideal in its simplest terms,
which is itself an ideal medium to itself, knows itself as this simple
unity, and thereby endows itself with a reality, which is not limited
to bodily and sensuous form, but is itself of an ideal character. Here,
for the first time, reality is in possession of a form adequate to
the notion; or rather the notion sets itself up as its own opposite,
makes itself objectively real and finds its own realization in that
objectivity. The animal life, on the contrary, is only _potentially_
such a unity as that in which reality as bodily form is other than the
ideal unity of soul. In self-consciousness we have this unity realized,
whose opposing factors are constituent elements of one transparent
ideality. And it is as this concrete totality of self-consciousness
that the Ego is manifested to others. The forms of animal life
merely enable us through imaginative perception to divine the soul's
existence. Such only possess the troubled semblance of a soul,
betrayed to us through the breath or exhalement which permeates the
whole, gives some unity to all the members, and reveals in the entire
instinctive life the first germs of an independent character. Herein
lies the primary defect of the beauty of Nature, even when taken at its
point of culminating form: and it is precisely this defect which will
introduce us to the necessity of _the Ideal_ as the beauty of art. But
before we consider at length the nature of this Ideal, there are two
determinations involved as the most immediate result of this inherent
defect in natural beauty, which invite our attention.

We have stated that in the animal form the soul appears as the bond of
connection within the organism and the unified point of animation only
under a cloud[240] and destitute of any fully realized content. We only
find there a quite indeterminate and restricted mode of soul-life. We
will now consider the abstract limitations of this mode more closely.



B. THE EXTERNAL BEAUTY OF ABSTRACT FORM REGARDED AS UNIFORMITY,
SYMMETRY, CONFORMITY TO RULE AND HARMONY AND REALITY IN THE SENSE OF
ABSTRACT UNITY OF THE PHYSICAL MATERIAL.


There is in Nature an external reality which is, of course, visible
and definitely objective, but the inward unity of which, instead of
presenting itself in the concrete inwardness referable to the unity of
soul-life, only goes to the point of indeterminacy and abstraction. In
other words, it stops short of the inwardness self-actualized in an
ideal form and as the particular existence conformable to its ideal
content. Its appearance is that of the defining principle on the face
of external reality. Now the specific characteristics of inwardness in
all its concreteness should be these. First, the principle of soul-life
is asserted for itself no less than is potentially replete with
content. Secondly, external reality interpenetrates this ideal arcanum,
and by so doing fully reveals its true form as such external reality.
A concrete unity of this nature is not reached by mere natural beauty:
it lies beyond as the Ideal. On this plane of existence we cannot say
that such a concrete unity enters into the manifestation of form. We
have to deduce it through analysis, examining in their separation and
singularity the _distinguishing features_ which the unity supports. The
form that informs here and the sensuous external reality _fall apart_
from one another; or rather we have _two_ distinct aspects which we are
compelled to consider separately. By virtue of this fact, which we may
either regard as a division of the material of sense or as a review
of certain facts taken in abstraction, the inward unity, which is one
aspect of the external reality, itself falls outside it; that is to
say, it is not itself asserted in that rational reality as the wholly
immanent form of the entire notion which constitutes it, but rather as
an Ideality and determinacy imposed externally.

Such are the points of view thus presented us which we will now
consider more closely.

First, then, we have to discuss

1. THE BEAUTY OF ABSTRACT FORM

The form of natural beauty in its abstraction is a form which is
determinate and thus of limited range; in a further aspect of it
it is focussed in a unity of abstract relation to itself[241]. On
closer inspection we shall, however, find that the external manifold
controls this form of abstract beauty by reason of its own determinacy
and unity. We must not, however, imply in these latter any immanent
inwardness or form of vital ideality, but regard them as purely
material definitions and unity of the external medium. Forms of such a
character are uniformity, symmetry, or conformity to rule, and finally
harmony.

_(a) Uniformity_

Uniformity is, speaking generally, equality in external presentment,
or, more specifically, the unbroken repetition of one and the same
definite form, supplied by the determining unity to the form of
objects. Such a unity, in virtue of its initial abstraction, is at the
furthest extreme removed from the rational totality of the concrete
notion. Its beauty is therefore a beauty which is referable to the
faculty of the analytical understanding. The fundamental process of
that faculty is to perceive objects in their abstraction, not in their
self-determined completeness and identity. For example, among all lines
the straight line is that which is most uniform, because it alone
manifests one abstract and undeviating direction. For the same reason
the cube is a figure dominated by regularity of content. All its sides
are of the same size, the same length of line and the same angles,
which, on account of their being rectangular, however much their size
is changed, manifest no change in the form of their angles as is the
case with angles which are obtuse or acute.

With this characteristic of uniformity we must closely connect that
of _symmetry._ Form is unable long to rest in that barest abstraction
of its determination, namely, undifferentiated equality. A diverse
relation is sure to assert itself, breaking into the empty form of
identity. In this way we obtain _symmetry_, which consists in no
mere identical repetition of one form, but in a combination with
some such form analogous to it, identical, that is to say, in its
self-determination, and yet manifesting a distinct contrast with it.
Through such a combination we obtain another kind of equality and
unity, whose determination is more extensive and more varied. If, for
example, on one side of a house we meet with three windows of the same
size separated at equal intervals of distance, then three or four more
of loftier size than the first-mentioned standing at more extended or
closer intervals in relation to them, and again three more precisely
similar in size and distance to our original ones, we have then before
us a symmetrical arrangement. Mere uniformity and repetition of the
same distinctions will never produce this result. We may find such
distinguishing features in size, position, form, colour, tones, and
many others like them, which, however, to produce symmetry must be
harmoniously related to similar forms of construction. When we find a
combination which presents to us an arrangement of such distinguishing
characteristics according to some clearly uniform principle that then
is symmetry.

Both these attributes, uniformity and symmetry, being the
determinations of the form and unity of external appearance, are
mainly applicable to _distinctions in size._ For it stands to reason
that what is expressly posited as external rather than truly immanent
determination is generally a quantitative[242] determination, whereas
the qualitative fixes the inherent character of anything. Consequently
that which is assumed only to affect the external appearance cannot be
concerned with the changes which are found in the qualitative aspect.
Size, on the other hand, and its alteration regarded merely as size,
is for the qualitative determination, when it is unable to assert
itself in terms of measure, an indifferent determination. That is to
say, measure is quantity, precisely in so far as it can give to itself
an aspect which qualifies it, and thereby a qualitative determination
is united to the purely quantitative one. As thus explained[243]
uniformity and symmetry are merely restricted to the determinations
of size and their uniform appearance or arrangement of differences
in symmetrical order. Further inquiry will show us that this due
co-ordination of size is as applicable to the forms of organic life as
it is to those of inorganic Nature. The human organism is, for example,
at least in a certain degree both uniform and symmetrical. We have two
eyes, two arms, two legs, similar hip-joints, shoulder-blades, and so
on. Of other portions of the body the reverse is the case. We find
no conspicuous uniformity in the heart, lungs, bowels, or liver. The
question arises what precisely constitutes the difference here. The
side on which uniformity, whether of size, form, or position mainly
asserts itself, is obviously the aspect of the organism viewed from
the outside. The uniform and symmetrical determination, in complete
conformity with what we should expect, is most apparent where the fact
as objectively determined is itself the external envisagement itself,
and carries with it the least impression of inherent life. The reality,
which is most constant to this pure externality, rests satisfied
with the abstract unity congenial to it. Within the organism, on the
contrary, where we find the heart of the life-process, and still more
openly in the medium of untrammelled reason uniformity gives way before
the subjective unity of life. Nature is, no doubt, in its opposition
to mind, a determinate existence external and independent; but even in
her we find that uniformity only pre-eminently asserts itself where
externality is the predominant principle.

(_α_) Reviewing, then, shortly the _prominent classifications_ of
natural objects, we observe, in the first place, that minerals, taking
the crystal for an example, as structures destitute of the principle
of life, are characterized in their fundamental form by uniformity
and symmetry. As already remarked, their form, it is true, is one
appropriate to themselves, is not merely the determination of external
forces. Through an unseen energy the form that makes them what they
are as products of Nature creates their configuration both within and
without. This activity, however, is not yet the completed energy of the
concrete notion as an ideal principle, which directs the independent
consistency of the positive reality, subsuming them under an ideal
totality such as is present in animal life. The unity and definition of
their form persists in purely abstract one-sidedness, and we have as
the characteristics of a unity which is wholly on the outside the bare
forms of uniformity and symmetry, the determinating factor in each case
being an abstraction.

_(β) Plant life_ is, of course, many degrees above the order of
crystals. From the very commencement its evolution is marked by a
harmonious articulation, and consumes material in a constantly active
process of self-nourishment. But plant-life also is not yet really
the living whole[244]. Although organically divided into parts, its
activity is still one that consists wholly in assimilation[245]. It is
rooted in the earth with no independent power of motion from place to
place; its growth is continuous, and such energy of assimilation and
self-nourishment as it possesses is not the tranquil self-subsistence
of a completely individualized organic existence, but rather a
continuous extension of its growth as an external object. An animal
grows just as a plant grows, but at a determinate point that growth
in its external size ceases, and that which reproduces itself in
self-subsistence is one and the same individual. Plant-life, however,
enlarges without intermission, and only its decease renders the further
increase of its boughs and leaves impossible. And, moreover, all
that it separately produces in this process is for ever the repeated
pattern of the same organism in its entirety. For every bough is a
new plant, and not, as in the case with the animal organism, only
an isolated member. On account of this persistent enlargement of
itself through all the separate plant formations whereof it consists
plant-life is without the subjective animation peculiar to sensation
and the ideal unity which belongs to it. And, generally speaking,
we may say that plant-life, however much the digestive process is
an inward one, in which we find nourishment is assimilated and the
organism determines the form which is impressed on its substance out
of itself by virtue of the increasing freedom of the notional type
working through that substance, nevertheless substantially, through the
entire process of its life, it remains rooted to externality without
either a true independence or unity, and such self-subsistence as it
possesses is continuous without a break. And it is on account of this
characteristic of plant-growth, namely, that it is for ever asserted
on the side of externality, that we find uniformity and symmetry to be
the fundamental unity of its self-expression as it is a predominant
principle of its structure. No doubt uniformity is not so regnant here
as we observed it to be in the formation of minerals, and it is not
expressed in the same extreme degree through the abstract straight line
and right angle: but it prevails here notwithstanding. The stem for the
most part runs on a straight line; the rings of plants of higher type
form themselves in circles; leaves closely approach the configuration
of crystals; and, at least as the basis of their type, we find that the
blossoms themselves in the number of their leaves, their position and
form are determined with uniformity and symmetry.

(_γ_) Finally, in the living organism of _animals_ a difference is
asserted in the reduplicated structure of the members. In the bodies
of animals, more particularly if we examine the higher species, the
organism is a more inward, self-contained and self-determined totality;
like a sphere, it returns, so to speak, on itself, while still
remaining an external organism. It is an external process, and yet, as
a process, asserted against externality. The more important organs are
those within, such as heart, lungs, and liver, and in these the life
is bound up. Such are not determined under the simple characteristics
of uniformity. In those members, however, even of the animal organism,
which are fixed in direct relation to the outside world, symmetrical
arrangement prevails. Among such must be reckoned the members and
organs which assert the subjective principle externally no less than
those which are the instruments of the active life. The sense-organs,
such as sight and hearing, belong to the former; all that we see and
hear is left as we found it. The organs of smell and taste already mark
the point of union with an activity exercised externally. We only smell
that which is already assimilated[246] by the organ of sense, and we
only exercise our taste through an act of destruction. We have, it is
true, but one nose, but it is subdivided into two sections, each of
which is uniform in structure. The same description is applicable to
the lips and teeth and other organs like them. Further than this the
eyes and ears, and the limbs employed in motion from place to place,
or for direct control over external objects, in other words, legs and
arms, are entirely uniform in position, form, and other qualities.
We find, therefore, that in the organic world no less than in the
inorganic uniformity asserts a very real predominance, qualified,
however, by the fact that its presence is limited to those members
which are the instruments of the organism in its direct relation to
the external world. On those through which the life-process returns
on itself by virtue of its own subjective principle there is no such
impression of uniformity.

Such, then, are the leading characteristics of the forms of uniformity
and symmetry, and the manner in which they are asserted in the
configuration of natural phenomena.

_(b) Conformity to Rule_

We now propose to distinguish the more generic conception of conformity
to law[247], so far as it appears on a higher plane of organic
evolution than that already adverted to, and marks the passage of
the same to the freedom of natural no less than spiritual life,
from the more abstract forms discussed above. Taken by itself, no
doubt, conformity to rule is not alone sufficient to give us the
subjective unity and freedom of _totality_; but we do find in the
configuration to which it corresponds a totality of essentially
_distinguished characteristics_, such as do not merely emerge in
_difference_ and opposition, but betray both _unity_ and determinate
connection in such totality. A unity thus controlled, albeit still
only positively asserted in quantitative substance, is no longer
referable to essentially exterior distinctions of mere size numerically
ascertainable, but already introduces to our notice a qualitative
relation of consistency between these contrasted determinations. In
other words we have here neither the abstract repetition of one and
the same determinant[248], nor a uniform interchange of similarity
and dissimilarity[249], but the contemporaneous association of aspects
essentially distinct from one another. We find, in fact, our sense of
sight gratified by the association of these distinguishing features in
their completeness. And it is the principle of reason which affords
us such satisfaction, gratifying our sense only through the totality,
or rather through the very totality of differences the nature of the
fact requires. Such a connection, however, still remains an unexplained
nexus, which sense-perception arrives at partly on account of its
persistent repetition, and in part through an intuition of deeper
source.

A few examples will make clear the process of definition from
uniformity to conformity with law. Parallel lines of equal length are
abstractly uniform. A further step is taken when we compare geometrical
figures of the same form, triangles, for example, but assume their size
to be unequal. Here the angles subtended by the corners of each and
the relation of line to line is the same, but we find such similarity
in different _quanta._ Take again the circle, it does not possess the
uniformity of the straight line, but at the same time the determination
of abstract equality strictly applies to it, for all its radii are of
equal length. The circle is consequently still but a curved line that
awakes no particular interest[250].

On the other hand, there is still less uniformity in the _ellipse_ and
the _parabola_, and they are only understood through the law of their
form. In other words the _radii vectores_ of the ellipse are both
unequal and in conformity with rule, and the same qualification applies
to the greater and lesser axis of their lines of differentiation[251];
moreover, their foci are not central as is the case with the circle. We
find in these examples, therefore, a qualitative relation of difference
assert itself in the law applicable to such lines and constructive of
their interconnection. If, however, we divide the ellipse by means of
its greater and lesser axes we obtain four equal sections; regarded as
a whole, therefore, we still find the principle of uniformity paramount
in this figure. Of a higher degree of freedom in its conformity to law
is the _oval._ We know there is such a law, though mathematicians have
been unable to express its formula. This figure is not an ellipse, but
the higher curve differs from that below it. Still we find that even in
this example of freer eccentricity in Nature, if we divide it through
its greater axis, we have still two equal halves. The final expression
of mere uniformity in conformity to law is shown in lines, which, as in
the example of the oval, when divided through the smaller[252] axis,
give us unequal sections, neither section being a mere repetition of
the other. The so-called undulatory line is an example of this, in the
sense Hogarth describes it as the line of beauty. Thus the inclination
of the arms as they fall on either side of the human body is opposed.
Here we have conformity to rule without uniformity pure and simple.
Such a kind of conformity especially characterises with its variety the
conformation of the nobler living organisms.

Conformity to law is, then, an attribute of substantiality, binding
together both its differences and its unity; but it remains still
abstract on the side of its controlling form, unable to supply
individuality with the freedom of motion, or rather by virtue of that
form is entirely without the higher freedom of subjectivity, and quite
incapable of revealing the vitality and ideality proper to it.

_(c) Harmony_

On a higher plane in the sphere of abstract beauty must be placed
_harmony._ In harmony we find qualitative distinctions are held
together, and further held together in a totality of differentiation,
such as is based on the essential nature of the fact itself. This
consistency of support is derived from conformity to law, in so far
as that form unfolds what is essentially uniformity, and thereby
passes beyond the mere characteristics of equality and repetition.
But in doing this the distinctions of quality assert themselves not
only in their difference of opposition and contradiction, but in
aspects of a unity that rivets them together, a unity in which all
distinguishing features, it is true, are maintained in their proper
place, but still only as belonging to one single whole. This unity of
accordance is what constitutes harmony. We may either regard it as a
totality of aspects essentially distinct, or as the resolution of the
element of mere contradiction asserted by them, revealing their more
vital interconnection and ideal solidarity. In this sense we refer
to the harmony of form, or colour, or musical tone. As an example,
we have blue, yellow, green, and red as the fundamentally necessary
differentiation of colour[253].

In these irresolvable data of the spectrum we have not merely the
inequality we found in symmetry, but contradictory opposites, such as
yellow and blue, their neutralization and withal concrete identity.
The beauty of their harmony is revealed in the avoidance of their
crude opposition, which is softened thereby in such a way as to put
before us the concordance hidden beneath their difference. They do,
in fact, emanate from one source, namely colour, which is not an
abstract conception[254], but an essential totality. So far, indeed,
can the compulsive force of such totality carry us, that we can, as
Goethe has pointed out, when we have but one colour presented to us,
still subjectively recognize another at the same time. In the same
way the tonic, mediant, and dominant are essential distinctions among
musical tones, which the unity of harmony associates through their
difference in one whole. We may submit the harmony of form, which is
differentiated through the varied aspects of position, repose, and
motion to a similar analysis. If we suffer any one of the subordinate
distinctions to assume an exclusive predominance the unity which
relates them will be destroyed.

Harmony, however, is not to be confused with free ideal subjectivity
and soul-life. In the latter the unity manifested is not merely an
interconnection and concordance, but a positive negation of difference,
which, for the first time, reveals their concrete and ideal unity. A
concrete unity such as this is not the result of harmony. Such concrete
unity is, for example, that which we find in the actually melodious
thing[255], which no doubt possesses harmony as its fundamental form,
but at the same time possesses the higher characteristic of free
subjectivity, and by means of song gives expression to that. Harmony
alone has nothing to do with the appearance of subjective life, as
such, nor of that of mind, although it is the highest manifestation of
abstract form, and stands in close affinity to free subjectivity. Such,
then, is our determination of abstract unity as we find it brought
before us in the specific modes of abstract form.

2. BEAUTY AS ABSTRACT UNITY OF THE MATERIAL MEDIUM

The side of abstract unity which we have now to consider is not that
directly related to form, but to the sensuous material simply in which
it is asserted. The unity is manifested on this side as the entirely
undifferentiated concordance of the particular sensuous material. It
is the one form of unity, which the material of sense, in its purely
objective aspect, is capable of receiving. On this plane and under the
above noted relation[256] the abstract _purity_ of the _materia_ in
its form, colour, or tone constitutes what is most essential to it.
Entirely straight drawn lines, which run without a shadow of difference
in their straightness or strength, bare superficies and similar
examples please us by virtue of their persistent regularity and their
uniform homogeneousness. The purity of the heavens, the translucence
of the atmosphere, a mirror-like lake the smoothness of the ocean's
face, all give pleasure by virtue of this unity. We find the same
truth brought home to us by purity of tone. The voice when purely
produced, though taken quite by itself, possesses an attraction for us
inexpressibly delightful; vocal notes which are not thus pure on the
contrary, by permitting us to hear the organ of production along with
them, disturb or weaken the pure resonance and definition of their
music. In much the same way human speech possesses pure tones in its
vowels, a, e, i, o, u, and its compound vowels, ae, ü, and ö. Popular
dialects are particularly characterized by impurity of vocalization
and mediate tones such as oa. Purity of tones consists further in this
that the vowels are associated with consonants, whose sound does not
tend to blurr the sonority of the vowel tones, as is too frequently the
case with our northern languages, when contrasted with the way in which
their purity is preserved by the Italian, a characteristic which makes
that language so adaptable to singing. We experience an enjoyment of
similar nature through the sight of colour in its simplest purity of
tint, an absolutely pure red or blue for example, not by any means a
common occurrence, such pristine colours being often weakened through
the addition to them of yellow or tints of each other[257]. Violet can
no doubt appear to us as a pure colour, but only in an external object,
not, that is to say, as a compounded colour[258], for it is not itself
an elementary colour belonging to colour's essential differentiation.
It is these elementary or cardinal colours, easily recognized by sense
in their purity, which, on account of their crude opposition, are most
difficult to unite together in harmony. Colours, on the contrary,
which are blurred in their transparency by many other tints, although
not so antagonistic to general harmony, fail to give us such direct
enjoyment from the very fact that the energy of opposition in them is
weakened. Green, for instance, is a compound of blue and yellow, but it
is the neutralization of these cardinal colours, and for that reason
less attractive to us in its own purity than blue and yellow in their
secure[259] opposition. Such are the points of most importance we have
to remark upon in dealing with the abstract unity of form no less than
the simplicity and purity of the sensuous material. In whichever aspect
we regard our subject-matter we have to review that which is by virtue
of its abstract character destitute of life, and a unity with no true
actuality. Ideal subjectivity is inseparable from this, and such is
entirely absent from the beauty of Nature even at the highest potency
of its manifestation. This essential defect points us imperatively
forward to the Ideal, which Nature is unable to reveal to us, and in
contrast with which the beauty of Nature appears as a subordinate mode.

C. DEFECTIVE ASPECTS OF THE BEAUTY OF NATURE

The true object of our inquiry is the beauty of art viewed as the only
reality adequate to the Idea of beauty. We have hitherto treated the
beauty of Nature as the first mode of the existence of the beautiful.
We have now to inquire more closely into that which distinguishes
natural beauty from that of art.

As an abstract proposition we may affirm that the Ideal is beauty in
its rounded completeness. Nature, on the contrary, brings before us
beauty in its incompleteness. Such abstract predicates do not, however,
help us much, for our real problem is rather to explain exactly what
it is which makes the difference between the completeness of the one
from the incompleteness of the other. Our inquiry therefore hinges on
the question how it comes about that Nature is necessarily incomplete
as a mode of beauty and how this incompleteness is asserted. When we
have answered that we shall be in a better position to deduce both the
necessity and essential significance of the Ideal.

We have already in following the process of Nature up to its
culminating manifestation in animal life drawn attention to the modes
of beauty revealed in that process. It is now of the first importance
that we fix our attention more definitely on the culminating phase of
that evolution where we find subjectivity and individuality presented
to us in the living organism.

We have already referred to the beautiful as the Idea in a manner
identical to that we employ when we speak of the good and true as the
Idea, in the sense, that is to say, where we characterize the Idea as
the wholly substantial and universal, the absolute substance--with no
sensuous material therewith--of reality, in short, the consistency
of the world. Determined more strictly, however, as already pointed
out, the Idea is not merely substantiality and _universality_, but
the unity of the _notion_ and its _reality_, just that, the notion
revealed to us as notion in its coincident objectivity. It was Plato
who, as we have remarked in our introduction, posited the Idea as
that which was alone true and universal, and, indeed, as the one
_concrete_ Universal. The Platonic _Idea_ is, however, not itself as
yet the concrete _real_, for apprehended under the _notion_ and its
_universality_ it is already coincident with the real. Apprehended,
however, only in its _universality_[260], it is not _realized_,
realized, that is to say, as Truth in its self-determinate realization.
It is still only the _potency_ of such self-realization. But just
as the notion is not the notion of real existence without its full
objectivity, in the same way the Idea without its realization in the
objective world is not the Idea in its Truth as existent reality. The
Idea must proceed to such realization, which is only present itself
for the first time in a really existent subjectivity adequate to the
notion, and its ideal unity and self-determination. In the generic
species we find its reality first manifested as free and concrete
individuality. Life only exists as a _living thing_; goodness is only
realized in _particular_ men; and all truth is simply the consciousness
of _knowledge_--Spirit which has come to its own vital inheritance.
Only the concrete singularity is both true and really existent, mere
abstract universality and particularity is not so. This self-subsistent
actuality, this subjectivity is the point on which everything turns,
and which we must fully grasp in its significance. Subjectivity may be
defined as ideal determination by virtue of a principle of ideal unity
which asserts itself through _negation_ of the differences presented
to it as consistent parts of one objective reality[261]. The unity of
the Idea and its realization is the _negative_ unity of the _Idea_
as such and its _reality_; it is at once and at the same time the
_subsumption_ and _deposition_ in a unified content of the difference
asserted on either side. Only in this active process is the unity of
the Idea affirmatively determined in its full activity, a unity and
subjectivity whose process of self-determination is infinite. We have
consequently to apprehend the Idea of the beautiful in its realized
mode of existence as essentially concrete subjectivity and, moreover,
as individual substantiality, by virtue of which it is the Idea really
existent, possessing the form of its reality in concrete and individual
singularity.

But here we must distinguish between _two_ distinct modes of
singularity or individuality, namely, that which is immediately
presented us by _Nature_ and that which is predicated of _mind_
(spirit). In both forms it is given determinate existence, and
consequently is in both substantive content, the Idea in short, and
in the particular sphere of our inquiry for both forms the Idea
as beauty. Viewed in this way we may affirm if we please that the
beautiful of Nature has a _similar_ content with that of the Ideal. In
contradistinction, however, to such a point of view we must not fail to
observe that the difference of form, in which the Idea herein attains
reality, that is to say the difference between the individuality
which prevails in the spheres of Nature and Spirit, the difference
asserted in its respective appearance, this it is which constitutes an
_essential distinction._ As we shall see, the real point of our inquiry
is this, namely, which of these two forms is really the one most
adequate to the Idea, for it is obvious that it is only in the entirely
adequate form that the totality of the Idea is _in its full content_
explicitly realized. This is the more immediate point we have now to
examine in so far as the difference between natural beauty and the
Ideal falls into line with the formal differentiation of singularity.

_Immediate_ singularity is no doubt primarily found in the domain of
Spirit no less than in Nature as such. For, in the first place, Spirit
is possessed of an external existence in bodily form; secondly, even
in spiritual relations, Spirit, in the first instance, only exists in
its union with immediate reality. Subdividing our inquiry in conformity
with such facts, we will consider the nature of immediate singularity
from _three_ different points of view.

1. (_a_) We have already seen that the animal organism preserves its
determinate existence through a persistent evolutionary process of
its own in opposition to an environing inorganic Nature, which it
assimilates by means of consumption and digestion, compelling thereby
what is external to submit to that process, and asserting its own
independent existence by so doing. We found at the same time that
this living process is a system of activities, which is realized in
a system of organs, whose functional action consists in those very
activities. The one and single aim of this homogeneous system is
the self-preservation of the living totality thereof through such a
process. The animal life consists, therefore, in a life of sensuous
impulses, whose general course and satisfaction is realized in the
above-mentioned organic system. The living organism is for this reason
articulated in its parts under a _teleological principle_, and the
principle or end subserved is self-preservation. Life is immanent in
every member; they are united to life, and life is one with them. And
the net result of this animate process is that the animal is maintained
as a thing conscious of itself as an individual subject of feeling,
life and the self-enjoyment its singularity procures for it. We have
only to compare animal life with plant life to see the difference
implied in the absence of such a sense-consciousness. The plant simply
brings to the birth new specimens of its species, without even being
able to concentrate any single one on that point of negation, which
constitutes self-singularity. We must, however, add that even in the
animal organism and its life we never have actually before our eyes the
true manifestation of this _centre of unity_, but rather simply the
_manifold_ of its members. Life is still too deficient on the side of
freedom and in opposition to the mere caprice of sense-life to manifest
such a subjective individuality as is capable of breaking through the
external envisagement of its organic parts. The vital centre of such
activities in the animal organism still remains veiled from vision, and
all that we see are the mere outlines of the figure, and this for the
most part concealed from our view by feathers, scales, hair, fur, or
spines. There can be no question that coverings of this nature, though
characteristic of the animal world, are coverings which partake of the
form of the vegetable world. And it is precisely at this point that
the beauty of animal life declares its essential insufficiency. That
which the organism makes most visible to us is not the soul-principle.
That which is directed outward and throughout appears is not the life
within, but rather formations accepted from a lower plane of existence
than the essential embodiment of life. The animal is _only_ fully alive
beneath that outer crust, and consequently for this very reason that
its _inwardness_[262] is not wholly made real in a form adequate to
reveal it, we are unable to see the principle of Life everywhere shine
freely through it; it remains _only_ an _inwardness_, and the shell is
_external only_ unpermeated by the vital principle.

(_b_) The _human_ body, in virtue of its more exalted station, presents
us with a striking contrast. In this we are everywhere reminded that
man is in possession of a unity of feeling, a soul. The human skin
is not covered over plant-like with an apparently lifeless sheath;
the pulsation of the blood is visible throughout the entire surface;
the beating heart of life is everywhere at the same time apparent;
and we have in this outward manifestation, as it were, the real
fount Of life made visible, the _turgor vitae_ as it streams from
its centre. In the same way the human skin, sensitive throughout in
its minutest parts, reveals to us the _morbidezza_ of its colouring,
those tints of flesh-colour and vein-colour which are the despair of
an artist. On the other hand, however much the human body presents,
as the apparent mirror of Life, a contrast with that of animals, it
undoubtedly expresses also the natural process of self-preservation in
the subdivision of the skin, and the indentations, wrinkles, pores,
small hairs and veins which we find attach thereto. In fact the skin
itself, though permitting the inner life to shine through it, is
none the less an external protection of that life, a means obviously
intended for such self-preservation. The supreme significance, however,
of the contrast here presented is traceable in this extraordinary
sensitiveness of the human cuticle, which, although not absolutely
the seat of feeling itself, alone renders such feeling possible. But
at the same time even in this direction we are made conscious of the
defect, that this sensitiveness does not penetrate as a vital impulse
of concentrated emphasis equally through all the members. We find in
the human body itself certain organs whose form is entirely appropriate
to mere animal functions, while others give a more adequate expression
to the entire soul-life, its feelings and passions. Regarded in this
way it is obvious that even in the human body the inner life of soul
has not found its complete reflection in all parts of its external
realization.

(_c_) The same defect is apparent on the higher plane of the
_spiritual_ world and its organizations, if we consider such under
the aspect of life as immediately presented. The more extensive and
the richer their configurations are, the more we shall find that the
fundamental object of the inner life of such totalities requires other
means co-operative with such externality for its adequate expression.
Such organizations no doubt appear in immediate reality as organic
wholes in which definite purpose is realized, and the realization of
such purpose is manifested by the mediation of voluntary effort. Every
centre of such a spiritual organism, such as the State or the family,
that is to say each individual organic totality, is in possession of a
_will_ capable of such exercise, and appears in unity with the other
members of the same organism; but the _one_ inner soul of this nexus,
the freedom and reason of the aim of all is not visible in external
reality as such in the absolute freedom of its subjective and universal
principle of life, nor is it thus manifested in every part.

The same thing may be observed in particular actions and events, where
we find a similar organic totality present. The inner motive from which
they proceed is not wholly made visible upon the external surface
of their actual presence. What we do find is a total presentment of
_fact_, whose most fundamental ground of unity and vitality still
remains _hidden from sight._

Finally, when we consider from the same point of view any single
individual we are confronted with the same truth. Every human person
is a self-rounded totality, held together by the central unity of
life. In the immediate envisagement of reality, that is in his life,
action, avoidance of action, desires and impulses, he only appears in
a fragmentary way; none the less it is only from a general survey of
all his actions or sufferings that we are able to form an estimate
of character. The centre of unity which thus concentrates to a point
the entire subject-matter of our extended survey is not as such either
visible or directly apprehended.

2. The second point of importance to which we would draw attention
is this. With the immediate appearance of individuality the Idea, as
we have already indicated, receives determinate existence. Through
this very immediacy however it becomes interwoven with the complexity
of the external world, is conditioned by the limitations of external
circumstance and the relative character of means and ends which are
found there, in one word is carried into the finitude of external
Nature. For though immediate singularity is in the first place a fully
rounded off unity, it is for the same reason only self-exclusive
as a centre of negation opposed to _others_, and is, by virtue of
its immediate singularity, influenced by, no less than related to,
a totality of real existence other than its own, upon which it is
dependent in a thousand different ways. The Idea, in short, is in this
very immediacy realized in every direction as _individual distinction._
It is consequently now merely a reflex of the inherent energy of the
notion which binds all individual existence, that of Nature no less
than mind in reciprocal correlation[263]. Such a relation to the
existences themselves is a purely external one, and appears also to
them as a single _external necessity_ uniting each part of the manifold
in one shifting complexus of interrelated reciprocity. The immediacy
of determinate existence is therefore, as thus regarded, a system of
necessary relations between apparently self-subsistent individual
things and forces, in which each singular entity is committed as a
means to the service of ends foreign to it, or itself is compelled to
utilize that which is external to itself as such a means. And inasmuch
as the Idea is under this aspect wholly realized on the ground of
externality, there appears at the same time the unrestrained play of
every caprice and accident, no less than the uncontrolled discharge of
the burden of indigence. Singularity as immediate appearance lives and
moves in the realm of unfreedom.

(_a_) The individual _animal_ is, for example, fettered wholly within
the bounds of its natural environment of air, water and land. Its
entire way of living, the mode of its self-nourishment, everything that
concerns it, is thereby determined. It is this which differentiates
with such variety the species of animal life. We find, moreover,
intermediate strains, such as swimming birds and suckling animals,
which live in the water, amphibious species and others which still
further mediate between the more obviously generic. These are,
however, mere confusions of race, and indicate no higher mediation
of considerable range. Throughout we find the animal subject in its
self-preservation to the absolute necessities of external nature, cold,
drought, or insufficient supply of the means of nourishment. Under this
despotic dominion it is liable through the parsimony of circumstance to
lose the fulness of external form, the blossom of its beauty, in short
to become as it were the reflex of starving Nature herself. External
conditions fix imperatively the measure of beauty it either preserves
or forfeits.

(_b_) The human organism, in its particular bodily existence is
subject, if not in the same measure, to external forces of Nature, and
is compelled to face the same contingencies, deficient livelihoods, and
every kind of harassing disease and misery.

(_c_) If we carry investigation further to that still higher plane
of immediate reality where _spiritual_ interests are predominant we
shall find this dependence on external condition for the first time
emphasized in its full relativity. Here we are face to face with the
prose of human existence in its entire length and breadth. The contrast
already noticed between ends subservient to purely physical wants, and
those profounder aims of spiritual life, and the conflict which tends
to inflict a loss on one side or the other, already opens our view of
it. Add to this every individual man, in order to preserve himself as
such, is compelled to make himself in many ways subservient to others,
and the limited aims of others, and on the other hand, in order to
satisfy his own narrow interests, to accept the service of others as a
mere means for their fulfilment. The individual, then, as he appears
in the prose-life of everyday existence, is not therefore active
out of his own particular totality, nor is he intelligible so much
in virtue of himself as in virtue of that which he is not[264]. For
individual man stands in a relation of dependence to the influences,
laws, organizations and other social relations of civic life which
he finds already existing around him, and to which he must submit
whether he forfeit his own independent soul-life thereby or not. And
more than this, each separate individual is not presented to others
as such totality, but is only reflected in whatever isolated interest
they may happen at the time to possess in his actions, desires, and
opinions. And what interests mankind mainly is some relation to
their own particular thoughts and aims. Even historically important
actions and events, with which the community is expressly associated,
appear in this field of relative appearances merely as a manifold of
isolated efforts. It is a varied collection to which each contributes
as he may, with aims by no means identical, some of which meet with
success while others miscarry, and indeed, be they ever so fortunate,
are significant in a very subordinate degree if we consider them as
contributions to the wellbeing of all. What the majority may carry
through, in contrast with the entire aggregate of events and the end
applicable to all[265], to which it furnishes its quota, is after all
a mere patch; nay, even men of eminent standing, who feel and are
fully conscious of the universal passage of events[266], as their own
world, are for all that clearly immeshed in the same net of particular
circumstances, conditions, and a thousand other hindrances involved
in their relative position. On all these grounds it is plain that in
this sphere of exterior life the individual world is unable to offer
us the vision of that independent and complete freedom of the living
principle, such as is essential to the true notion of beauty. It is,
of course, true that the immediate appearance of human reality and
its events and organizations is not without system, and as such is a
totality of activities; but this whole is rather in its appearance a
mere mass of isolated fragments. Moreover the practical concerns of
such activities are divided and subdivided into countless parts, and in
such a way that each single part is in touch with the merest fraction
of all; and, in short, however much individuals may remain steadfast to
their own purposes, and only bring forth to the light that which their
own interest has employed as a means, the self-subsistence and freedom
of their will remains more or less of a formal character, determined by
external circumstance or accident, and constantly thwarted by natural
causes[267].

This is the prose of the world, as presented to our own consciousness
no less than to that of others; a world of finitude and change, a world
immeshed in relation and submerged beneath the pressure of necessity,
a world from which no individual can extricate himself. The central
paradox of life confronts every unit of the living whole. On the one
hand there is the impulse of individuality to perfect its isolated
unity in self-exclusion; on the other there is the necessary condition
of dependence on others from which none may claim immunity. However
prolonged the struggle to overcome this contradiction may be the effort
of that interminable battle only terminates with life itself.

3. Thirdly, the immediate singularity of the worlds of Nature and Mind
is not merely conditioned by dependence on others, but is deficient in
any complete self-subsistency owing to its _confined_ nature, or with
more accuracy, because it is particularized in its own specific mode of
manifestation.

(_a_) We will explain our meaning further. Every single specimen of
life in the animal world is from the first fettered by a definite,
that is to say, a restricted and constant species, beyond the limits
of which it cannot pass. There is in the spiritual world, no doubt, a
general picture of life and its organization, which floats vaguely
before our vision; but in the real world, which is one with Nature,
this universal organism breaks up into a multitude of particulars,
each of which possesses the determinate type of form and grade of
cultivation in which it is related to a definite portion of the
social organism. In addition to this and within these insuperable
limits, we find the pressure of that element of contingency, as
regards general condition or external environment, predominantly
asserted both uniquely and in haphazard fashion throughout every one
of those individual units. Such a state of things disturbs our vision
of the self-subsistency and freedom, which the idea of true beauty
imperatively requires.

(_b_) As already observed, it is unquestionably true that Spirit
discovers in its own bodily organism the notion of life completely
realized. This is so much the case that, in contrast with it, the forms
of the animal world appear not only as incomplete, but in inferior
species as even pitiable objects. The human organism is also, however,
broken up, if to a less, degree, in racial subdivisions and the
ascending grades of beauty which distinguish such races. Moreover, in
addition to this obviously very general line of demarcation, we have
presented to us all the accidental variety of qualities, peculiar to
distinct families and their interfusion with one another, such as modes
of life, facial expression, and general demeanour. We must further
associate with such characteristic traits, which all of them emphasize
a condition of essentially unfree particularity, those peculiarities
which are inseparable from activity employed in the endless round of
commercial life or professional career; qualities which find their
ultimate expression in the specific habits or idiosyncracies of any
exceptionally marked character or temperament, or, as the reverse side
of the picture, in the various confusions of arrested development.
Poverty, care, anger, coldness, and indifference, the rage of passion,
the obstinate retention of narrow purposes, indications of change
and division in the spiritual world, entire dependence on that of
Nature--in one word all that is implied in the transitory condition of
human life--leaves its indelible, if quite incalculable, expression
on the varied surface of the faces of mankind. Who has not crossed
weather-beaten types of such, on which the storm of all the passions
has imprinted its disturbing wave; or others, where the coldness and
superficiality of the soul within is all the impression we receive; or,
lastly, as the final verdict of self-absorbed particularity[268], cases
in which the general type seems almost totally to have disappeared.
There is no end to the caprice of the human features. Speaking
generally, we would associate with this ground the fact that the beauty
of children most arrests us. In their faces we find all pronounced
idiosyncracies slumber as it were beneath a quiet veil; no dominating
passion as yet ravages their soul; not one of the thousand interests of
the grown man has engraved for ever the expression of its necessity on
these mobile features. This envisaged innocence of the child, however,
though we may discover in its flexible animation the possibility of
Life's completed fulness, obviously fails to reveal those profounder
indications of a spirit which has been carried forward to explore
the range of its own recesses and to make its life one with rational
purpose.

We may regard, then, immediate existence, both in the purely physical
and spiritual sense of the term, as a _finitude_, or more justly as a
finitude which does not satisfy its notion and for this very reason
declares its finitude. For the notion, and more concretely still, the
Idea, is essentially _independent_ and _free._ Purely animal life,
although as Life it is the Idea, is no manifestation of infinity as
such or freedom. This is alone possible under conditions, where we find
the notion penetrate so completely the reality which is adequate to
it, that it finds itself entirely at home therein, with no extraneous
matter, to disturb its possession. Then alone do we find it a really
free and concrete individuality. The natural life, on the contrary,
is unable to overcome the element of feeling to which it is attached,
and which renders it incapable of penetrating the entire reality
which enrings it. It finds itself, moreover, immediately conditioned
in itself, restricted in its range and dependent, a result which is
due to the fact that its freedom is not truly self-determinate, but
conditioned by the external: object. And the same thing is true of the
immediate and finite reality of the spirit world in its knowledge,
volitional action, and fateful history. For although in this latter
case we find centres of unity expressed which have a real significance,
neither these any more than the particularities they unite have truth
as they stand by themselves; but only that truth which, in their
reciprocal relation to each other, they manifest as constituent
parts of a whole. And this whole, albeit in a sense adequate to its
notion, does not correspond to it in such a way as to manifest itself
in its full totality[269], which consequently still remains aloof
from such envisagement, or rather, is only apprehended in the ideal
world of thought. In other words, the notion finds no fully adequate
presentation in external reality, such as is powerful enough to marshal
homogeneously all the numberless fragments of particularity, and to
concentrate them into _one_ expression and _one_ single form.

(_c_) This, then, is the fundamental reason which prevents Spirit
itself, on the finite planes of determinate existence, and under
the restricting conditions of its externality and necessity, from
rediscovering the immediate vision and enjoyment of its freedom. It
is consequently driven by its absence to seek that vision in a higher
sphere. That sphere is art, and its realization is the Ideal.

We have thus seen that it is the defects of immediate reality which
drive us forward inevitably to the idea of the beauty of art. We are
further under an obligation to prove that its fundamental object[270]
is to manifest here on this very plane of rational reality and in its
freedom the envisagement of life, and, most important of all, the life
of Spirit. Here, then, we have at last the external revealed to us in a
form adequate to the notion. Here, for the first time, truth is lifted
up from its environment of temporal conditions, from its running to
and fro among the whirl of finite particularity, and attains repose;
nay, more than this, discovers an external form, from which the hunger
of Nature and the prose of life no longer stare at us. Here at last we
have a form worthy of substantial truth, which is wholly self-contained
and self-dependent, determining with freedom its own content, and not
driven from such self-assertion by the weight of that of others.

[Footnote 201: _Als Beseelung sich kund gäbe._ The reference is to
the second class which follows rather than truly animates life. The
sun is such an animating principle. How far modern physics with its
investigations of the laws of motion that obtain among the chemical
atoms of any specific form of matter and its denial of all dead matter
would have modified Hegel's view is an interesting question.]

[Footnote 202: _Wir wollen betrachten._ Hegel seems to be conscious
himself that there is something fanciful in this interpretation of the
significance of what is simply an arbitrary, if systematic, arrangement
of bodies according to natural laws.]

[Footnote 203: _Ein besonderes Moment._ See note [191] on p. 152. I
think what Hegel means here is that every body as a vehicle of light
reflects the mode in which the identity of the notion as system in the
different parts asserts itself.]

[Footnote 204: In other words what should be phasal elements
(_Momente_) of a whole integrated within that unity remain independent
units. They are not Momente in the full sense.]

[Footnote 205: _Als bloss real unterschiedener._ The meaning is that
the distinction is only in the totality, not as in the former case in a
body which though part of a system, could be viewed as an independent
body like the sun.]

[Footnote 206: _Gewöhnliches Bewustseyn_, _i.e._, the ordinary view of
understanding (_Verstand_) and sense-perception.]

[Footnote 207: _Blosser Zusammenhang._ Fortuitous is rather too strong.
He means a bond of union cemented by one principle without which either
side fails to possess its specific character, _e.g._, the human body
apart from the human soul its animate individuality, ceases to be
human.]

[Footnote 208: _Als Begriff seyende Begriff._ The reference I take to
be to the logical or dialectical movement of the Idea.]

[Footnote 209: _Viele tausend empfindende_, or centres of feeling.]

[Footnote 210: _Die realen Unterschiede_, _i. e._, the distinctions of
the body viewed as part of the physical process of Nature.]

[Footnote 211: _Zu ihrer subjektiven Einheit_, that is to say, their
unity with the notion of Life as objectively realized in Nature,
subjective only in the sense that it is ideal, not apprehended by
sense-perception as such.]

[Footnote 212: _Nähere._ I think Hegel uses _nähe_ in the idiomatic
sense in which he uses it in the phrase (p. 150) when he speaks of
Nature as _das nächst Daseyn der Idee_, _i.e._, most elementary, more
near to it when the notion first presses out of abstraction into
totality.]

[Footnote 213: Lötze apparently disputes this distinction, but it
appears to me very clear.]

[Footnote 214: _Seyn._ The logical terms are here employed in their
technical Hegelian sense. _Seyn_ is "being" as part of a process, it
is rather a tendency to become than a particular or determinate being
(_daseyn._)]

[Footnote 215: _Das Negiren_, the negation of them as entirely
independent structures.]

[Footnote 216: _Des Idealisirens_, _e.g._, the principle of ideality
which is in one aspect of it negation.]

[Footnote 217: _Affirmatives Fürsichseyn_, _e.g._, the explicit ideal
totality of Life apart from the process.]

[Footnote 218: _Bilderin._]

[Footnote 219: _Das Innere_, otherwise called subjective (see note
above) and meaning what is not externally visible as _materia_, though
it may be visible indirectly as explained further on.]

[Footnote 220: The rather difficult German here is: _Da nun aber in
der Objektivität der Begriff als Begriff die sich auf sich beziehende
in ihrer Realität für sich seyende Subjektivität ist._ The comma after
_Begriff_ is clearly a misprint.]

[Footnote 221: The words here are _das subjektive Fürsichseyn_, _i.e._,
the self-conclusion of an explicit whole in virtue of a principle of
ideal unity (_i.e._, life) asserted, throughout.]

[Footnote 222: _Ein Beharrendes_,> one that persists in an inert form.]

[Footnote 223: Hegel uses the word _scheinen_ both for the ideal
manifestation of the Idea in the object and the appearance of material
reality reduced by it to mere "show" (_herabgesetzt zum scheinen_),
_i.e._, deprived of its independent reality. This introduces a slight
confusion I have endeavoured to avoid by using different terms.]

[Footnote 224: _Unseres Verstandes._ We supply the notion of
intelligent purpose.]

[Footnote 225: That is, the assumed subordination of all organs to one
definite end.]

[Footnote 226: _Sichbewegens._ The emphasis is of course on the self.
But even then the statement is rather an excess. For it seems difficult
to attribute all the beauty visible in the spontaneous movements of so
many living creatures, notably that of birds, to their purely formal
character. At least there is something given by such motion analogous
to the impression we receive from music and the dance; they are
_gesetzmässig_ in short.]

[Footnote 227: _Zufällig_--capricious as opposed to a uniform
principle. There is, however, one apparent bond of external similarity,
between the majority of such members, namely, their covering of skin;
this not merely relates the cheek to the neck, for example, but to some
extent destroys the distinction.]

[Footnote 228: Physical parts, that is to say.]

[Footnote 229: That is to say, it is based on a purely limited
experience which does not necessarily concern the true nature of the
objects perceived.]

[Footnote 230: _Stangen._ The word may express the branches on which
the flowers are carried or the stamens they carry at their apex.]

[Footnote 231: _Geistreich_, "intelligent," _i.e._, an ingenious way of
regarding such facts.]

[Footnote 232: _Dies wunderbare Wort._]

[Footnote 233: The use of the word _Sinn_ to which Hegel here alludes
is not quite identical with our word _Sense._ In the English use
of the term there is more stress on the _materia_ presented to
sense-perception and perhaps less reference to intellect when the word
is employed in such an expression as "That man has sense." However,
Milton has "What surmounts the reach of human sense," and no doubt both
are employed very similarly in many writers.]

[Footnote 234: _Bleibt bei der Ahnung._]

[Footnote 235: _Naiver Weise_, a common epithet of Hegel to denote
freedom from all philosophical prepossessions, a frank and simple
attitude of reception.]

[Footnote 236: _Betrachtung_ appears to imply in its contrast with
_Anschauung_ the presence of that intuitive sense or imaginative
co-ordination above discussed.]

[Footnote 237: _Gestaltende Macht_, _i.e._, plastic force.]

[Footnote 238: This account of the criterium to be adopted in
determining beauty in the animal creation is open to some criticism.
Mobility is no doubt one element of beauty, but it is only one.
Professor Bosanquet points out in his criticism of the passage ("Hist,
of Aesthetik," p. 338) that it amounts to the assertion that ugliness
is purely relative. The defect is not only due, it seems to me, to
Hegel's insufficient regard for Nature as a modern painter would so
regard it, but it may be traced also to his manifest preference for
motion in all the manifestations of Nature.]

[Footnote 239: _Schnabelthier_, otherwise called the _duck-billed
platyptis_, a mammal found in Australia, much the size of an otter,
with the horny beak of a duck and paws formed for swimming.]

[Footnote 240: _Getrübt_, we have the word _trüben_ above, translated
there "troubled," life merely seen through the thick veil of
instinctive sense.]

[Footnote 241: That is, the unity manifested is as abstract from all
concrete totality as the form itself.]

[Footnote 242: This shows clearly that symmetry is only in an analogous
way applicable to musical tones.]

[Footnote 243: In other words, uniformity is outside the purely
qualitative relation, whereas symmetry is not so.]

[Footnote 244: _Beseelte Lebendigkeit_, lit., the insouled
life-principle.]

[Footnote 245: Lit., "Is continually thrust out into the external." Its
activity as life is directed outward.]

[Footnote 246: _Was schon im Sichverzehren begriffen ist._ I think the
distinction implied is that in smell we are in actual contact with a
part of the object. The same thing would, however, be true of sight
according to former theory exploded by Newton's hypothesis.]

[Footnote 247: _Gesetzmässigkeit._ I cannot think of an English word
that quite reproduces it. I am not sure that either conformity to rule
or law singly quite expresses it. It implies both.]

[Footnote 248: As in uniformity.]

[Footnote 249: As in symmetry.]

[Footnote 250: That is to say, apart from symbolical meaning, it
possesses no hidden law to be discovered in the relation of part to
part.]

[Footnote 251: The words are _die grosse und kleine Axe von
wesentlichem Unterschiede._ These refer primarily, it appears, to the
axes of an ellipse, but the expression may possibly include the axes of
a parabola parallel to the sides of a cone. However I admit frankly I
find the words _von wesentlichem Unterschiede_ difficult to interpret
closely.]

[Footnote 252: In the text _grossen_, obviously a misprint.]

[Footnote 253: The incorrectness of this statement according to more
recent analysis does not, of course, affect the argument.]

[Footnote 254: _Nicht einseitig._ I think the meaning here is that
colour is not an abstract idea for independent qualities, but is the
generic notion of a really existing totality.]

[Footnote 255: _Alles melodische_, primarily, organic, of course.]

[Footnote 256: Namely, that of abstract unity.]

[Footnote 257: Hegel expresses this rather differently by saying that
they tend to pass over into pink (_röthliche_) or orange (_gelbliche_)
and green. I have put the same statement rather more directly.]

[Footnote 258: I think this is the meaning of the words _aber nur
äusserlich, d.h._, _nicht beschmützt._ Violet, however, is now regarded
as a cardinal colour. It may also be doubted whether the difficulty of
harmonizing pure colour is as Hegel states it.]

[Footnote 259: This of course is a very questionable position from the
point of view of aesthetic taste no less than the conformity of our
sight to natural objects. The obvious retort is, it all depends what
the nature of the green is. Why is there such a preponderance of green
in Nature as we find it?]

[Footnote 260: That is to say, under the Platonic view of universal.]

[Footnote 261: So I have interpreted the words, _Die Subjectivität nun
aber liegt in der Negativen Einheit als Ideellsetzen der Unterschiede
und ihres realen Bestehens._]

[Footnote 262: _Das Insichseyn_, _i.e._, the incipient singularity of a
feeling subject.]

[Footnote 263: I have translated the words _bleibt nur die innre Macht_
"merely a _reflex_ of the inherent energy," etc. I do not pretend
thereby to clear up all the difficulties of this paragraph. I would
rather remind the general reader that in this entire discussion of
the principle of individuality and its modes of real existence we are
face to face with one the fundamental difficulties of the Hegelian
philosophy, the passage of the Idea to Nature. Readers who wish to see
difficulties more fully developed on this aspect of Hegel's thought
should read Professor Seth's interesting and on the whole moderately
worded criticism contained in his little book "Hegelianism and
Personality" (Blackwood and Sons; see particularly Lecture IV, Thought
and Reality).]

[Footnote 264: _Aus Anderem_, _e.g._, the not-self of experience.]

[Footnote 265: _Des totalen Zwecks_.]

[Footnote 266: I think the expression _das Ganze der Sache_ means this
rather than the entire "organic whole of living reality."]

[Footnote 267: It is well for the general reader to remember that we
have here no full account of what constitutes the _content_ of a free
will. The emphasis throughout is on human activity as exercised in a
world conditioned in its external aspect by necessary laws of Nature.]

[Footnote 268: The reference here must I think he mainly, perhaps
wholly, to the distorted face of the criminal, outcast, or insane
classes. But it is just possible that a certain type of aggressive
genius may also be denoted.]

[Footnote 269: The totality of the notion.]

[Footnote 270: _Beruf_, _i.e._, that which it professes to do.]



CHAPTER III


THE BEAUTY OF ART, OR THE IDEAL


In our consideration of the beauty of art we will confine our attention
to three fundamental points of view:

_First_, the Ideal in its essential import.

_Secondly_, the determination of the Ideal in a particular work of art.

_Thirdly_, the creative subjectivity of the artist.

A. THE IDEAL SIMPLY, OR AS SUCH

1. The most general conclusion which may be gathered from the
examination we have already made in a merely formal way of the Ideal
of art may be thus summarized. Truth, in its unravelment as external
reality, is only fully in possession of a true and determinate
existence, however much it may combine and retain in embracing unity
a manifold content, in so far as every portion of the content thus
unfolded permits this unity, which may be called either the animating
soul or the unified totality, freely to appear. To take the human form
once more under review as the most direct illustration of this, we have
already remarked that it is a totality of organic members each of which
is penetrated by the notion, differentiated thus in every particular
organ by some particular mode of activity and the specific motion
congenial to it. If we ask ourselves now in which particular organ the
soul appears as such in its entirety we shall at once point to the eye.
For in the eye the soul concentrates itself; it not merely uses the eye
as its instrument, but is itself therein manifest. We have, however,
already stated, when referring to the external covering of the human
body, that in contrast with the bodies of animals, the heart of life
pulses through and throughout it. And in much the same sense it can
be asserted of art that it has to convert every point of the external
appearance into the direct testimony of the human eye, which is the
source of soul-life, and reveals Spirit. Take the famous adjuration of
Plato to the stars in the lines:

     When thou gazest forth at the stars, my star,
     Would that I were the heavens and thence on thee
     Could gaze forth out of a thousand eyes.

Conversely we may exclaim that art gives to her forms the dilation
of a thousand-eyed Argus, through which the inward life of Spirit at
every point breaks into view. And not merely is it the bodily form,
the expression of countenance, the attitude and demeanour which thus
avails; the same appearance is everywhere visible in actions and
events, speech and voice-modulation, in short, under every condition of
life through which it passes, and under which it is possible for soul
to make itself recognized in its freedom and ideal infinity.

(_a_) And, in close connection with this inquiry into the
interpenetration through all parts of the animating soul, we may justly
ask ourselves, what precisely we understand under this conception
of a soul which is throughout visible: or to restrict attention to
definite limits we may inquire what are the specific characteristics
of the soul whereof art reveals to us the truest manifestation. For in
ordinary parlance one refers to the animating principle[271] peculiar
to metals, stones, wild animals, to say nothing of that belonging
to every kind of human character and its expressions. To natural
objects, however, such as stones and plants, the expression "soul" in
the complete acceptation of the term above mentioned is not strictly
applicable. Such soul as purely natural objects possess is entirely
finite, transitory, and rather a specific nature than a soul. The
determinate individuality of such existences is consequently completely
exposed in their finite existence; and, inasmuch as all that is
present there is a positive limit of restriction, such appearance as
there may be of a further claim to independence and freedom is only
an appearance; ideal characteristics which may indeed be imported
into them from without by means of art, but are not in the nature of
the objects by themselves. In the same way the soul of sense-feeling,
through which Nature manifests first the Life-principle only betrays
a subjective individuality, which still remains shut within itself,
unable to assert its reality in the further sense of a return upon
itself in a consciousness which shall attach to it the form of
infinity. Its content is, therefore, of a restricted nature, and its
manifestation in part the unrest, power of motion, sexual impulse,
anxiety or fear of the dependent life; and, in part, it is the mere
expression of an _inwardness_ capable of overcoming its finitude. The
animating life of Spirit (mind) brings us first into contact with the
free infinity capable within its own external and determinate existence
of remaining constant to the inner principle of unity, and, in the
act of expression, still reflected back upon its ideal substance. To
Spirit consequently is it alone permitted to impress the hall-mark of
its infinity and free self-recurrence on its external expression, even
though by such expression it enters the realm of narrow boundaries.
At the same time we may observe that Spirit, too, is only free and
infinite in so far as it truly apprehends its universality, and
deliberately posits for itself and accepts those ends which are
adequate to its own notion. Consequently, in so far as it fails to
grasp its own freedom it can only exist in a restricted content,
a character that is stunted, a temperament at once crippled and
superficial. In combination with nullity of this kind the manifestation
of Spirit must perforce remain wholly formal. We shall only find here
the abstract crust of self-conscious Spirit, whereof the content
contradicts the infinity of its freedom. Only by virtue of a genuine
and essentially substantive content through which the restricted and
mutable particularity derives its essential self-subsistency--so
that definite structure and intrinsic worth, determined limit and
substantial content, are realized in one totality--is such existence
thereby able, through the very mode of expression which confines it,
to proclaim itself also in its universal substance of self-contained
soul-life. It is, in short, the province of art to comprehend and
enunciate determinate and rational existence in its _truth_, that is to
say, in the form adequate to its substance, the truly explicit content.
And, consequently, the truth of art cannot consist in a mere conformity
such as that to which we restrict the so-called imitation of Nature;
external form must express harmoniously an internal content which is in
itself harmonious throughout, and consequently can express itself as
such.

(_b_) Art then, by comparing what is otherwise stained and rent
through the contingent elements of external existence with the harmony
that is essential to its notional truth, rejects that in the world
of appearance which it is unable to combine in such a unity, and for
the first time through this _purification_ reveals the Ideal. It
is possible to regard such a result as the flattery of art, as we
sometimes hear it said, for example, that portrait-painters flatter.
But even the portrait-painter, a type of art in which the Ideal is
less prominent than in many others, should at least flatter in this
sense, that he is bound to treat with indifference all that is merely
the external detail of form, texture, and colour, the mere adjuncts,
that is to say, of physical life such as hairs, pores, scars, and other
external accidents, in his undivided effort both to apprehend and
deliver the subject selected in its universal character and permanent
spiritual individuality. It is one thing to imitate a physiognomy in
the general outlines of purely superficial repose apparent at any time;
it is quite another to detect and delineate the particular features
which reveal the fundamental soul-life or character of the sitter.
As already remarked, the Ideal is only truly found when the external
presentment is in itself a vehicle of the soul. It is one of our latest
fashions to attempt, by means of those so-called "living pictures," an
intentional and gratifying imitation of famous masterpieces. In these
we find a fair reproduction of general accessories, such as grouping
and draping; but, instead of the spiritual expression of the figures,
have only too often to put up with faces absolutely commonplace. Such
a defect mars the entire reproduction. The Madonnas of Raphael, on the
contrary, in every detail of their countenance--whether it be cheeks,
eyes, nose, or mouth--exhibit with harmonious consistency one supreme
type of sacred joy, the pious, modest love of a devoted mother. We may
affirm, if we will, that all women are capable of such emotion; but, at
any rate, not every formal shape of feminine countenance is capable of
expressing the depth of the same so consummately.

(_c_) This reference, then, of all points of external existence to
their spiritual significance, so that the external appearance unveils
in adequate measure the spirit thereof, is just what constitutes the
nature of the Ideal. It is, however, a "carrying back" into inwardness,
in which we do not find the universal thus carried back to its
extremest limit to the form of abstract _thought_, that is to say, but
is rather suffered to rest halfway at the point in which we find the
purely external and the purely inward meet together harmoniously. The
Ideal is consequently the reality selected out of the mass of chance
particulars, in so far as the inner core in this external totality thus
raised in opposition to universality is itself manifested as _living
individuality._[272] For the individual subjectivity, which not only
carries in itself a substantive content, but permits the same to appear
in its own external appearance, stands in this central position, that
in it all that is substantially the content is not suffered in its
universal aspect to appear as an abstraction of itself, but still
remains enclosed within the sphere of individuality, and consequently
appears associated with a determinate existence, which now for its
part, freed from mere finitude and transitory condition, is gathered
up in a free and harmonious expression of most intimate soul-life.
Schiller, in his poem "The Ideal and Life," contrasts the reality and
its pains and struggles with "the still shadowland of Beauty." Such
a land of shadow is the Ideal. The _spirits_ which rise up here have
lost in death immediate existence, are released from the hunger of
Nature, freed from the claims which fettered them in subjection to
external forces and all the changes and confusions which are linked
together with finite appearance. But however much the Ideal treads
under foot the mere object of sense and natural form, it draws at the
same time the very wealth of it to itself, for it is art that is able
to assign the very limits to all that the external appearance required
for its self-preservation within which the external thing may appear
as the manifestation of spiritual freedom. For this reason it is the
Ideal which alone among things envisaged to sense presents a free and
self-contained content reposing on its own resources, in complete
sensuous enjoyment and satisfaction with itself. The music of this
rapture may be heard through every embodiment of the Ideal. However far
the external form may be carried the soul of the Ideal is never wholly
absorbed in it. And in truth such manifestation is only beautiful in so
far as its beauty not merely permeates the whole, but is a subjective
unity, by virtue of which the subject-matter of the Ideal must appear
emergent from all the fracture of its former individual parts and their
respective ends and energies, raised in the Ideal itself to a higher
totality and self-subsistence.

(_α_) We may in this respect point to the blessed repose[273], this
self-contentment in its own self-secure consummation, as the crown of
the Ideal. The ideal form of art stands like some blissful god before
us. For the blessed gods are ultimately above and beyond the grim
earnest of actual necessity, anger, and interest in finite existence
and purely finite ends; and this positive withdrawal involved in the
negation of all isolated particularity give them the characteristics of
cheerfulness and repose. In this sense we may interpret that phrase of
Schiller: "Life is earnest, Art is _cheerful._" Pedants, no doubt, have
often enough cracked a joke over it, inasmuch as poetry in general,
and Schiller's in particular, is a serious matter; and in truth no
ideal art is without such a quality; but for all that in this very
earnestness the essential character of cheerfulness[274] remains. This
force of individuality, this triumph of self-concentrated freedom, is
that which we recognize in an exceptional degree in ancient works of
art and the blithesome repose of their figures. And this is not merely
the case when we face a satisfaction that involves no struggle, but
even in an example where the subject is rent by some breach in the
entire content of its existence. For when the heroes of tragedy are
represented as subject to Fate we find that the demeanour they present,
which may be summed up in the words, "It is so!" still remains a simple
withdrawal into personality[275]. The subject thus depicted remains
throughout true to himself. He surrenders that which is seized from
him, but the aims he pursued are not simply taken away; he suffers them
to lapse and consequently does not lose his initiative. The man who is
the bondman of Destiny may lose his life, but not his freedom. This
repose on the essential birthright of Spirit is that which is able to
preserve and reveal the blithe atmosphere of repose in grief itself.

(_β_) In romantic art, it is true, the breach or dissonance of the
subjective principle is carried further, inasmuch as in it the
exposed contradictions are emphasized and their division can be
preserved. Thus, to take an example, we find the art of painting, in
its representation of the Passion, not unfrequently dallies round
the expression of ribaldry visible in the hideous contortions and
grimaces of tormenting common soldiers; and, in its attachment to
such discordant emotions, especially when depicting what is criminal,
shameless, or evil, permitting the glad serenity of the Ideal to pass
away. Even when such disruption loses its force, we find frequently
that ugliness, or, at least, the absence of real beauty, is set up in
its place. In another school of the earlier Flemish art of painting
the downright directness and truth of the representation, no less than
the inextinguishable confidence of the faith to which it testifies,
tend to assert, in despite of itself, a reconciliation in the feelings
of all who behold it[276]. But such an unyielding result falls[277]
short of the entire cheerfulness and satisfaction appropriate to the
Ideal. However, it is possible also in romantic art, albeit here
the representation of suffering and grief penetrates the soul and
its emotions more deeply than is the case with antique art, that
the delineation may reveal to us a spiritual intimacy, a delight in
resignation, a blessedness in pain, a rapture in sorrow, nay, even
a voluptuous ecstasy in martyrdom[278]. Not only in painting but in
the profoundly religious music of Italian composers, we find this
ecstasy and illumination of grief abundantly expressed. We may, as a
summary definition in romantic art, call it "the smile through tears."
The tears have their origin in affliction, the smile in blithesome
serenity, and consequently this smile through weeping indicates, as it
were, the point of self-repose in the midst of pain and suffering. It
is hardly necessary to add that the smile indicated here is no mere
sentimental emotion, no mere vanity of the subject treated or dabbling
with beauty[279] over painful effects and insignificant traits of
subjective feeling; rather (on its artistic side) it must appear as the
firm delineation and freedom of beauty in defiance of all pain, in the
spirit of what was said of Ximenes in the romances of the Cid, "how
beautiful she was in tears." In contrast to this emotional abandonment
in men is either ugly and repellent, or actually ridiculous. Children,
for example, break into tears at the slightest provocation, and we can
only laugh at them. The tears, however, in the eyes of a man of earnest
and self-contained character, under stress of deep feeling, betray a
very different type of emotion. Laughter and tears can, however, very
readily fall apart as unrelated, and are, as such, falsely utilized as
a vehicle of art in such abstraction; the laughter chorus in Weber's
"Freischütz" may be cited as an example. Laughter, after all, is a kind
of explosion, which it is impossible to exercise without restraint and
preserve the Ideal. Another example of this laughter, which is nothing
but laughter, occurs in a duet of Weber's "Oberon," throughout which
we are in a continual state of anxiety for the prima donna's throat
and lungs. How very differently the inextinguishable laughter of the
gods affects us in Homer, a sound which breaks from the blessed repose
of divinity, and rather expresses gladsome serenity than abstract
and wanton abandonment. Just as little ought weeping, devoid of all
restraint, to be introduced into the ideal work of art, of such a kind
as that we may hear in all its comfortlessness in another part of the
"Freischütz." And speaking generally, in music singing must take to
itself the kind of joy and rapture which we catch from the lark in the
open sky. Shrieking, whether of pain or delight, is not music at all.
Even in the expression of suffering the sweet tones of the plaint must
penetrate and clarify the sorrows, so that it continually may seem to
us worth all the suffering to arrive at such sweetness of plaint in its
expression. And this is the sweetness of melody, the singing of every
kind of art.

(_γ_) Regarded in a certain relation to this fundamental axiom of art
we may find some justification for the principle of irony in its modern
sense; but it must not be overlooked that irony is frequently destitute
of all real seriousness, and is particularly prone to expatiate over
bad subject-matter; and, in another aspect of it, it is apt to run to
seed in the mere yearning of emotion rather than actively participate
in practical life, as is proved by the case of Novalis, one of the
finer temperaments who have made this point of view their own, and
for lack of definite interest, or through shrinking from the real
world, are driven up and down, and cajoled into this sort of spiritual
consumption. This is the kind of yearning which will not descend
to mere practical business and production, because it is afraid of
soiling itself with the contact of finite things, although it already
secretly feels the defects of such exclusion. No doubt we find in
irony that absolute principle of negativity, in which the subject of
consciousness becomes self-centred through the annihilation of definite
relations and particulars; but in this case the act of annihilation
of definite relations and particulars, as we have already pointed out
when discussing the principle, is not, as in comedy, essentially in
its right place, simply exposing its own want of substance, but is
directed quite as often against everything else excellent in itself
and of sterling worth. Whether we regard irony, then, as this art of
universal destruction, or as the yearning of which we have spoken in
contrast with the true Ideal, it betrays a secret lack of proportion
and restraint which is detrimental to the artist. Substantive form is
what the Ideal demands, which, owing to the fact that it is clothed in
the form and figure of external things, is unquestionably qualified
by particularity no less than limitation; but this limitation of its
form is at the same time included in such a way that everything merely
external in its appearance is annulled and abolished. Only through
this negation of mere externality is the determinate form of the Ideal
a real exposition of the substantive content which belongs to it in a
mode of appearance susceptible to sense-perception and the imagination.

2. The plastic presentment of form, which is as much a constituent
feature of the Ideal as it is of the essentially homogeneous character
of its content, and the way these two aspects are fused together,
render necessary an inquiry into the relation obtaining between the
ideal representation of art and Nature. For this external aspect and
its embodiment is closely associated with that which we generally
call Nature. In this connection we once more come upon that old and
ever-renewed and still unsettled dispute, whether the representation
of art should follow the objects of Nature as they appear strictly to
sense, or should rather ennoble and illumine them. The right of Nature,
the rule of beauty, the Ideal and the truth of Nature--with indefinite
conceptions such as these arguments for and against may be bandied
about for ever. A work of art, we are told, should unquestionably be
natural, but there is such a thing as a mean or ugly Nature, we must
not of course imitate _that_; on the other hand--and so our disputants
wrangle on and never come to a satisfactory conclusion.

In recent times the opposition between the Ideal and Nature has once
more been emphasized and received an exceptional significance through
the writings of Winckelmann. Winckelmann's enthusiasm, as already
pointed out[280], was first awakened by his study of the antique and
its ideal forms. This insight into the peculiar excellence of classic
art he thoroughly mastered and only ceased from his labours after
making all that he had learned through his study of such masterpieces
famous throughout Europe. From this recognition, however, originated a
kind of craze for ideal representation, which, despite all its belief
in the discovery of beauty, was really a relapse into flatness, absence
of vitality, and superficiality. It is this kind of emptiness more
particularly in the art of painting, which Herr von Rumohr had before
him in the polemical writings I have already noticed.

The theory of art has to solve this difficulty. As for its interest, on
the practical side of art, we shall do well to pass it wholly by. We
may formulate principles as we please for mediocrity and the talents
that express it, the result is always the same. Whether our theory
is a distorted one or unexceptionable all we shall get is something
commonplace or weak. At the same time Art and more particularly
painting has unquestionably received a stimulus other than that we have
deprecated from this very quest of so-called Ideals; and, through the
renewed interest thereby excited in old Italian and German painters,
has at least made an effort to secure a profounder and more vital
content in its work.

The world is quite as tired of hearing the praises of that equally
exclusive Ideal in the opposite camp, namely, that of undiluted realism
in art. Theatregoers are, to take an example close at hand, heartily
sick of the realistic type of domestic drama. The old story over and
over again--disputes between husband and wife, sons and daughters, the
source of our income, the inventory of our expenses, the servility of
ministers and the intrigues of their lackeys and secretaries, down to
the question of the last sixpence between the dame of the house and
her kitchen-maid, or up to the last gossip of the daughters over their
touching love-affairs in the parlour--such tales of woe most of us will
prefer to take where, we may at least get them without adulteration--at
home.

In this opposition between Ideal and Nature writers have been inclined
to regard one type of art to the exclusion of others, with an especial
predilection, however, for painting, whose subject-matter is the
particularity of sense-perception. We will test our problem by putting
the question to start with wholly in general terms, thus: "Is art to
be prose or poetry?" Now what is truly poetical in art is just that
which we have called the Ideal. If the question of difficulty in
question is a mere matter of terminology we are quite prepared to call
the Ideal something else. But, however called, the question remains
what it is which constitutes poetry or prose in art. And although the
adherence to what is in itself poetical in the determination of it by
certain crafts may lead those arts into confusion, and, indeed, has
already done so, it is contended that in so far as any subject has an
express affinity with poetry, such has been also the subject of genuine
pictorial treatment, genuine for the simple reason that such a content
is unquestionably of a true poetical nature.

Well, let us examine a concrete case. The present exhibition of art
(1818) contains several pictures, all of which are of one school, the
so-called Düsseldorf. Every one of these have borrowed subjects from
poetry, and indeed from the emotional side of poetry peculiarly adapted
to pictorial representation. The more often and carefully we examine
these pictures, the more complete will be our impression of their
excessive sweetness and insipidity[281].

In the foregoing contradiction there are present the following general
characteristics[282]:

(_a_) First, there is the formal ideality of the work of art, that is
to say, the element of poetry in its general signification, which is,
as the term implies, something composed and brought together by man,
which he has taken into his imagination[283] and then actively worked
into the artistic composition.

(_α_) The nature of the content of such a translation may however, be
a matter of indifference or, apart from the artistic representation we
thus obtain of common life, may only interest us indirectly for the
moment. In this way the Dutch school of painting, for example, has
recreated, as it were, by means of human workmanship, the evanescent
everyday appearances of natural objects in countless new artistic
effects. Velvet, armour, light, horses, work-folk, old cronies,
peasants puffing their smoke from old pipe stumps, the glitter of wine
in transparent tumblers, rustics in soiled jackets playing with cards
as ancient--such and a hundred other subjects like them which trouble
us little enough in everyday life, for the best of reasons, that
although we too may have our game at cards, our drink, and our gossip
we are really occupied with quite another class of interests--all this
medley of objects is brought before us in their pictures. Now the claim
of art in the representation of such things is precisely this external
show, or reappearance of them as a product of spiritual activity,
which has transmuted that which was purely external and sensuously
material into a new medium supplied by mind. For instead of wool or
silk that are tangible, instead of actual hair, glasses, flesh, and
metals, all we see now is colour; instead of the three dimensions which
are essential to external Nature, we have only superficies; and yet,
despite all our losses, we have a representation identical with that of
reality.

(_β_) In opposition to the immediate and prosaic reality of objects,
then, this _show_ of things which is effected by the mind is the
wonder of ideality, a jest, if anyone cares to put it so, and an
irony directed against purely external existence. Only contrast with
it the preparations Nature or man has to make in ordinary life, the
countless instruments of every kind they have to employ to effect the
same result. What opposition the material of such objects--take a
metal for example--may offer to any active effect upon it. The world
of ideas, on the contrary, out of which art creates its products, is
a malleable and simple element, which readily converts everything,
which either Nature or man in his purely natural existence is forced
to leave bluntly just as they are, to the uses which are appropriate
to it. In the same way the objects of ordinary apprehension and man
as we meet him in everyday life are of no incommensurable wealth, but
subject to limitations--precious stones, plants, animals, etc., by
themselves are of a certain positive and particular character. But
man in his creative capacity is an entire world of content, which
he has filched from Nature, and piled together in the comprehensive
treasure-house of his world of images, and which he is now free to give
forth again simply and without the restraint of external conditions and
the detailed processes of actual phenomena. In this idealization art
stands midway between the purely objective and restricted existence and
the entirely subjective world of idea. It gives indeed objects, but
they are supplied from the life of mind; it offers them for uses other
than those which belong to them; it concentrates their entire interest
in the abstract form of the ideal show which it therewith manifests to
aesthetic contemplation, and to that alone.

(_γ_) Art consequently, through the ideality above explained, _exalts_
objects otherwise unimportant, determining them, despite their ordinary
character, in a fixed relation to her own medium and essential aim,
and by so doing secures from us a sympathy in subject-matter which
otherwise would not have enlisted our serious attention. We find the
same transformation in the relation of art to Time. Its position is
here too frankly ideal. That which in Nature rapidly passes by in art
is secured with permanence; the flash of a smile, the sudden curve of
roguish merriment on the lips, a glance, a gleam of sunshine, together
with all those evanescent traits of human life, events and accidents
which come and are gone, and are as quickly lost to memory. There is
nothing which she cannot wrest from momentary existence, and in this
respect even becomes the vanquisher of Nature herself.

In this formal ideality of art, however, it is not the content itself
which makes the pre-eminent claim upon us, but the satisfaction we
derive from the act of artistic reproduction. The representation must
certainly strike us as natural, but it is not the reality of Nature
that we require; it is rather that of the process of reproduction, this
very deposition, in fact, of material conditions which is the poetical
and ideal element of the work in the formal sense above indicated[284].
We delight in a manifestation, which appears to us a product of Nature,
and which is nevertheless a product of mind without the means at
Nature's disposition. The objects charm us not so much by virtue of
their approach to Nature, but rather because the _artist_ has been able
to effect that approach.

(_b_) A further and still profounder reason for our interest in
artistic products consists in this, that the content is not brought
before us in those forms in which it is found in immediate existence,
but, being itself minted by the mind, is capable of considerable
extension and modification within such forms. All that exists in
Nature is particular, and, indeed, limited in every direction by
such particularity. The creative faculty[285], however, contains an
intrinsic determination of universal import. And all that it produces
possesses forthwith a character of universality distinct from the
particularity of Nature. The creative faculty thereby secures this
advantage; that being of a wider range it is more qualified to grasp
ideal significance, and to insist on that explicitly in all that it
shows us.

It is quite true that a work of art is not entirely the imaginative
concept in its universal aspect, but rather the determinate form of
its envisagement. It is for all that bound, emanating as it does from
the creative medium and operations of mind, and despite the living
resemblance to real things we may find upon it, to permeate the whole
with this universal quality. And in this we have that higher ideality
of the poetical product as contrasted with the purely formal ideality
of the art of production. From this point of view it is the task of
a work of art to grasp the object in its universal relations, and in
the envisagement it presents to let fall everything which stands in a
wholly external or indifferent relation to the content. An artist for
this reason will refuse to accept all forms and means of expression
offered him by the external world, on the mere ground that he finds
them there. His main effort will be, if at least his aim be a real
poetical creation, to secure that which will appropriately work in
with his own imaginative conception; and, if he looks to Nature for
assistance in supplying him with details, or, generally, as material
to translate into his work, he will utilize such, not because he finds
them so in Nature, but because they fall in their _right_ place as a
part of his composition and are rightly made for him. This "right" of
the artist is a higher one than the mere right of immediate _fact._

In his representation of the human form, for instance, an artist will
not attempt such imitation as we find attempted by those restorers of
ancient pictures, who reproduce old cracks, which through the swelling
of either paint or varnish have involved all the older parts of the
picture in a kind of arabesque, even on the portions restored. The
portrait-painter will rather permit the tracery of the flesh, and _a
fortiori_ such incidents as freckles, pustules, warts, and so forth,
to disappear entirely. In this respect the painter Denner, so famous
for his close realization of Nature, is by no means an ideal master.
For the same reason indications of muscles and veins may be given,
but their distinction and relief should be far slighter than that we
observe in Nature. In all such impressions little or nothing of spirit
is manifested, and the expression of spirit is what is essential in
the human form[286]. I cannot think it therefore wholly a disadvantage
that we moderns have less to do with the nude in sculpture than
the ancients. On the other hand the general style of our dress in
comparison with the ideal drapery of classical times is less artistic
and more commonplace. The object in both cases is to cover the form.
The drapery, however, we find in the antique is, taken by itself, a
more or less formal smooth surface only so far determinate in its
adjustment to the frame by its attachment to the shoulder. In other
respects the garment remains entirely formal[287], hanging down simply
and freely by virtue of its own immanent weight, or only determined
through the position of the body and the pose and motion of the limbs.
In the determination thus implied we find the external shape entirely
reflecting the mutable expression of the spirit which animates the
body. The particular form of the garment, the folds of it, the motion
of it either up or down is clothed in the shape dictated direct from
the inward impulse, and as each may momentarily appear appropriate to
the particular pose or movement--and it is this form of determination
which constitutes the ideality of such drapery. In the clothing we
have adopted nowadays, on the contrary, the entire material is, from
the first, cut out and worked up stiffly into the forms of particular
limbs, so that anything approaching spontaneity in its rise and
fall is impossible. Even the character of the folds is determined by
previous models, and generally both cut and fall are worked out wholly
by the technical rules and craftsmanship of the tailor. It is true,
of course, that the configuration of the limbs determines generally
the form of such clothing; but in this arrangement of the bodily form
we merely have either a perverse imitation, or an enveloping of human
limbs according to the convention of fashion and the accidental taste
of the times. The cut of our cloth once made is irrevocably made,
and neither the position of the body nor the motion of the limbs can
appreciably affect it. We may move our arms and legs about as much
as we please, the sleeves of our jackets and our trousers remain
unalterable. Folds or creases may perhaps appear in them, but even
then only on the lines of the original cutting out, as we see them,
for example, on the statue of Scharnhorst. Our modern way of clothing
is consequently, as an external cover, not sufficiently differentiated
from the inner life to appear on its reverse side as the formal
expression of that life; instead of this we have a false imitation of
the human form stereotyped in the preordained and unalterable cut of
our tailor.

A criticism similar to that we have directed to the representation by
art of the human form and its exterior clothing might be applied to a
whole multitude of things which make up the external show of life, or
minister to its wants, such as eating, drinking, and sleeping--things
necessary enough in themselves and useful to all men, which, however
much in their manifold variety, as constituent features of the physical
life of mankind, they may blend with those activities more directly
related to its spirit, do not themselves form part of such activities,
or stand in essential relation either to their determinations or
their interests, and thereby contribute to what is the truly ideal or
universal element in the content of human life. Physical aspects of
life such as these may no doubt receive poetical treatment in art;
and it is generally admitted that the descriptions of a poet such
as Homer in this direction adhere very closely to Nature. Yet we
find that even Homer, despite all his _ἐνέργεια_, all the vividness
of his presentment, is forced to limit his descriptions to general
observations; no one expects to find in him an entirely accurate
picture of the facts in all their detail as they actually would occur
in life. He may give us, no doubt, in his delineation of the bodily
presence of Achilles, the lofty brow, the prominent nose, the long
and stalwart legs, but he is not likely to include in the picture
every detail of the veritable existence of limbs point for point, and
the relation in which they stand to one another in colour, size, and
so forth, in other words to offer us Nature's reality instead of an
artist's portrait. And the reason is obvious inasmuch as in the art of
poetry the type of expression is always the universal concept of the
imagination as distinguished from the bare particularity of Nature.
Instead of the fact the poet always gives us the denominant, the word,
in which the particular thing is universalized; for the word is a
product of mental conception, and as such already carries in itself
the nature of a universal. One is entitled to say, of course, that
it is _natural_ in the formation of concepts and speech to employ a
nomenclature, the word, as such an infinite[288] abridgment of the
existence we find in Nature; but if we do so the Nature to which we
refer it would not merely be opposed to the natural existence with
which we compare it, but would be just that which cancels it. We are
therefore confronted with the question in what sense we use the word
Nature when we contrast it with the characteristic of poetry. The mere
undefined use of the word Nature by itself tells us nothing at all.
What poetry should always give us is the energetic, the essential,
the truly characteristic; and this fundamental expressiveness is
precisely the Ideal and not the merely immediate, to enumerate all the
details of which in the narration of an event or the portrayal of a
scene will render either of these simply dull, spiritless, tedious,
and intolerable. In the manifestation of this universality, however,
one type of art will reveal more clearly its ideal characteristics;
another will rather emphasize, by a restricted use of material form,
the infinite detail of external reality. Sculpture, for example, is
in its presentments more abstract than painting; in poetry the epic
type, in its realization of the external appearance of life itself,
will not be so complete as a dramatic poem should be. On the other
hand it will surpass the latter in its portrayal of the fulness of
its imaginative vision, the epic poet being most indebted to concrete
pictures his imagination borrows from past history. In contrast with
him the dramatist is mainly restricted to the motives of an action, the
attitude of the will to it, the psychological problem in short.

(_c_) It is, then, _Mind_ (Spirit), which gives external realization in
a particular form to the inward world of content which is of essential
interest to it; and it is in close relation to this fact that we should
consider the question, what precise significance we are to infer from
the opposition above discussed between the Ideal and _naturalness._
And first we must observe that from such a point of view the word
_natural_ is not employed in the most genuine signification of the
term. As a description of the external form imposed upon facts by mind
it obviously is neither the immediate naturality we find in animal
life, nor that presented in Nature's landscape. Rather its very form
of determination, in so far, that is to say, as we see the mind here
giving to itself an embodiment, will show us that it is an expression
of mind, an expression moreover suffused with ideality. For this
taking up into the mind, this plastic recreation of form on the part
of mind is nothing less than idealization. It is sometimes remarked
of the countenances of dead people that they take on themselves once
more the lineaments of childhood. The obdurate expression of passion,
custom and strife, the characteristic seal of their life of strenuous
action, passes off, and the indeterminacy of the features of a child's
face reappears. In life, however, all traits whatsoever, the entire
presentment in fact, receive their characteristic expression from the
world of soul; and in much the same way the different races and classes
of mankind reflect the distinguishing features of their spiritual
tendencies and activities in their external manifestation. In all such
organizations that which is outward is visibly permeated with mind;
and, by virtue of its energy, already confronts _mere_ Nature as an
idealized creation. Only a clear perception of this truth will enable
us to sift this significant question of an opposition between Nature
and the Ideal to the bottom. If we do not possess this we shall find
ourselves maintaining that the forms in which Spirit is visualized as
a part of Nature have already lost in that real appearance, which is
independent of art's imitative action, such an intrinsic completeness,
beauty, and excellence, that it is quite impossible that there can be
another and more exalted type of beauty, which presents itself as the
Ideal in contradistinction to this immediate reality, and this all
the more for the reason that art is unable entirely to attain even to
that which is present in Nature herself. Or, if our thoughts lean to
the opposite extreme, we shall look to art to supply us independently,
in opposition to Nature's reality, with more ideal modes of
representation. The polemics of Herr von Rumohr, which we have already
criticized, are well worthy of attention in this connection. This
writer, at any rate, whatever others may say who have the word Ideal so
frequently on their lips in depreciation of the vulgarity of Nature,
refers to the Idea and the Ideal in phrases of respect and contempt
with absolute impartiality.

The real truth of the matter is rather this. There is in the spiritual
world, both outwardly and inwardly regarded, a Nature of vulgar type,
which testifies to its meanness outwardly for the simple reason that
its inward content is mean, that is to say, when all that it can
realize externally in its activities are the aims of envy, jealousy,
and avarice in every detail of sensuous life. Such a poverty-stricken
Nature can no doubt form part of the subject-matter of art, and has
been treated as such. When this is the case, however, as we have
already explained, it is not the subject-matter, but wholly the
artistic handling of it, which creates an interest of any permanent
character; and the artist will look in vain for sympathy in his
subject, or rather the mere material of his subject from the true
connoisseur. A particularly pertinent illustration of this type of
art is the so-called _genre_ painting, which has not shown itself
above accepting subjects of this character, the artistic treatment
of which has been carried by the Dutch school to the extreme limit
of perfection. It may, however, be as well to ask ourselves,
first, what the precise contribution of the Dutch has been to this
_genre_-painting, what, in short, is the nature of content their
dainty pictures express, pictures which at least have asserted an
extraordinary power of attraction and obviously cannot be shelved right
away beneath the common stigma of vulgarity. We shall not improbably
find, on closer examination, that the subject-matter of these pictures
is not so contemptible as it is often taken to be[289].

The Dutch have selected the subject-matter of their artistic production
out of their own substance, out of the actual presence of their daily
life. To have once for all realized that presence even in art is no
matter of reproach to them. To estimate the character of their artistic
interest we must view them in close connection with the actual panorama
of their own times. This is a problem of history. The Dutchman has
in great measure himself created the ground wherein he lives and
finds a home, and has been forced continuously to preserve and defend
that home against the invasion of the sea. The citizens of the towns
no less than the rural population have together, through courage,
endurance, and bravery, repulsed the power of Spain in the hands of
Philip II, son of Charles V, the sovereign of a world-wide empire,
and in fighting their battle for civic freedom, they were fighting
that of religious liberty. This staunch sense of citizenship, this
passionate love of enterprise in the narrow limits of their fatherland,
no less than abroad on the high seas, this careful and at the same
time clean and dainty mode of life, together with the geniality and
invincible self-respect which distinguishes them, all this is as much
the fruit of their own actions as it is the general content of their
artistic production. Such a content as this is no common material,
though obviously it is not of the kind we must suppose we can approach
with the supercilious superiority of critics for whom the exalted
taste of courts and fine society is everything. From a sterling
national self-consciousness of this sort Rembrandt painted his famous
"Night-Watch" now in Amsterdam, Van Dyck so many of his portraits,
Wouvermans so many of his battle-pieces; nor should even those
reflections of rustic drinking-bouts, jovialities, and other scenes of
merriment be wholly excluded from the category. And in illustration of
its excellence we would point, by way of contrast, to a work in this
year's exhibition, which, though not downright bad _genre_-painting,
is much inferior to the handling by old Dutch masters of similar
subject-matter, coming nowhere near to their freedom and joy of life.
In this picture a housewife is seen entering an alehouse to give her
husband a good scolding. Here we have just a scene of cantankerous and
waspish human-kind and nothing more. These Dutchmen painted their folk
very differently; whether we find them among their cups, at weddings
or dances, feasting or drinking, nay, even when the matter proceeds to
ribaldry and blows, liveliness and lustiness is the prevailing temper.
Young maids and women laugh with the rest, and a feeling of free and
abandoned merriment carries all before it. This intimate delight in all
enjoyment justifiably human, which will even absorb itself wholly in
animal life and crop up at times as mere satiety and grossness; this
freshly awakened sense of freedom and life, fully grasped and embodied
in composition and colour, is what constitutes the higher spiritual
import[290] of these Dutch pictures.

On much the same grounds the beggar boys of Murillo, in the central
gallery of the Munich collection, are excellent. Superficially
regarded, the subject here, too, is of a vulgar character. The mother
is scolding one of the youngsters, as he quickly munches a piece of
bread; two others hard by, ragged and poor, are eating melons and
grapes[291]. But in this very poverty of half-nakedness what gleams
forth from the entire composition as the soul of that beggar life is
its complete carelessness and spontaneity. No dancing dervish himself
could give it us more frankly in its impression of entire health and
jubilant vitality. This freedom from all external care, this inward
liberty reflecting itself in that which is visible, is precisely that
which the notion of the Ideal demands. There is in Paris a certain
portrait of a boy by Raphael; the head leans propped at leisure on
one arm, and gazes with such ecstasy of careless contentment into the
open landscape that we are loth to turn away from a picture expressive
of such health and exuberant animation. We receive a delight of very
much the same nature from these lads of Murillo. It is obvious enough
that neither their objects nor their interests aim high, but this is
no result of stupidity; there they chaffer on God's earth with, we may
almost say, the bliss and contentment of the Olympian gods themselves.
They, too, have their business; but though we hear little about it
they are a genuine sample of humanity, neither morose nor discontented
with their lot. Feeling this ground-root in them of all sterling
performance we can readily imagine that in favourable conditions youth
such as this might be capable of most things. A composition of this
kind is entirely on a different level from the one above mentioned of
the scolding housewife, or two others we might also contrast with it,
of a certain peasant mending his whip and a postillion sleeping on a
straw pallet[292]. Such paintings of _genre_ should unquestionably be
of small size; and, indeed, in their total impression on the sense,
they must be made to appear of comparative insignificance, that we may
not feel the character of their subject-matter and its presentment
has received undue prominence. It would be intolerable to have such
subjects painted life size as though the fulness of the reality were
sufficiently attractive to claim our attention.

Such are the principles which should regulate our artistic treatment
of and sympathy with that which it is usual to stigmatize as mean or
vulgar in ordinary life.

There is, no doubt, plenty of material for art to appropriate of
higher grade than the representation of animal spirits and downright
citizenship in all their essentially insignificant detail. Man has
clearly more serious interests and objects than these, interests which
have unfolded as his own spirit has widened and deepened, and in
harmony with which it is his truest interest to remain. An art will
take highest rank which sets before itself the task of giving adequate
representation to this more vital, or at least more profound, content.
And here at once we are confronted with the old question, what is
the source which will supply us with the forms most fitting to such
creations of mind. On the one side theorists maintain the opinion that,
inasmuch as the artist creates these lofty ideas, which he desires to
clothe in artistic form, he must, also supply their artistic forms,
create, for example, from his imagination the ideal figures of Greek
gods, Christ, his apostles, saints, and so on. In strenuous opposition
to this view Herr von Rumohr has entered the lists. This writer is
of opinion that art is on a false track in supposing that the artist
discovers the forms of his production in himself rather than in Nature,
and it is under this conviction that he has reviewed the masterpieces
both of Italian and Dutch painters. On this head he finds it a matter
of censure ("Italian Investigations," i, p. 105) "that the theory
of art, during the sixty years which have elapsed, should be at the
pains to prove that it is an object, or rather the main object, of
art to improve upon creation as it is particularised, and by doing so
to substitute forms which have no particular relation to anything,
which would ape Nature's creation by going several points beyond her,
and release mortal man from all responsibility for the fact that
Nature has not known how to make her appearance more beautiful." And
consistently with such a point of view he further advises the artist
"to have nothing to do with the gigantic task of attempting to ennoble
or elucidate the natural form, or attempt any such exalted function
of the human Spirit under what name soever it may be written down in
works upon art" (_ibid._ p. 63). He is, in short, wholly convinced
that, however exalted and spiritual[293] the subject to be treated may
be, completely adequate forms are to be found in Nature as immediately
perceived, and consequently maintains (p. 83), "that the exposition of
Art, even in the case of subject-matter as highly _spiritual_ as it is
possible to conceive, is never indebted to a symbolism capriciously
created by man[294], but depends wholly for its consistency upon what
is presented as significant by Nature in organic form." No doubt in
advancing this Herr von Rumohr has particularly under review the ideal
types of antique art as they are expounded by Winckelmann. It is for
all that the abiding service of Winckelmann to have pointed out and
set forth in harmonious relation these very types, although he may
doubtless have, committed errors of judgment with regard to particular
masterpieces while carrying through the same. As a possible example
of such an oversight Herr von Rumohr thinks he has made out (p. 115)
that the increase of length in the lower half of the body, which
Winckelmann has characterized as an ideal feature of the antique,
is really borrowed from Roman statuary. And naturally enough, as an
opponent of the Ideal, improves the occasion by insisting that the
artist should unreservedly take Nature into his confidence in the
study of form. Here, and here alone, he will find the presence of true
beauty. To quote this writer once more it is affirmed (p. 144), "that
the beauty of most importance depends on a symbolic of forms rooted in
Nature rather than human caprice, a beauty through which these forms
are nourished into their characteristic and symbolic relations, in
the vision of which we necessarily have brought back to our memory
definite images and conceptions, and are made more definitely conscious
of previously dormant feeling.[295]" I And so finally it appears that
in this writer's view (p. 105) "a mysterious trait of our spiritual
life, what many would perhaps call Idea, seems to bind together the
artist and the appearances of Nature, in which latter he is constantly
and continuously learning to recognize the true character of his own
artistic purpose[296], and to find himself in a position through them
to give expression to it."

There can be no question, of course, that ideal art has no business at
all with "a symbolism capriciously created;" and, if it really is the
case that these ideal types of the ancients have been composed only to
reduce the veritable forms of Nature to false and empty abstraction,
we may freely admit that Herr von Rumohr is justified in his most
trenchant opposition.

For our own part we would emphasize the points of fundamental
importance to be grasped in this antithesis between the ideal of art
and Nature as follows:

The forms which are borrowed from immediate Nature to determine an
ideal content must be assumed to be thus taken symbolically in the
usual sense of the term, namely, that they are not thus immediately
significant in themselves, but only as the external embodiment of that
which is inward and spiritual, the content, in fact, they express. It
is only Spirit, even in the reality which they possess outside the
limits of art, which constitutes their ideality in its contrast with
that they entirely owe to Nature simply as such, and which is unable
to reveal to us what is essentially mind. It is the object of art, on
its more noble plane, to give external shape to the inward content of
Spirit. This content we discover in the conscious life of men realized
in the world. As such it possesses--we include with it our conscious
human experience generally--an external semblance directly presented in
and through which it finds expression. So much may readily be conceded.
At the same time from a philosophical point of view it is simply futile
to inquire whether we ought to look to the direct facts of Nature alone
for objects and physiognomical traits of beauty and expression to serve
as entirely adequate materials for art's representation, shall we say,
of the majesty, repose, and power of a Jupiter or of a Juno, Venus,
Peter, Christ, Madonna, or any other divinity, or saint. Arguments may
be supported on either side, and the question can only remain finally
undecided, being wholly empirical. For the only sufficient way of
deciding the matter would be to contrast what is borrowed with the
realities it purports to represent, and this, in the assumed case of
the Greek gods, might be matter of some difficulty; and, to take the
present day, one man will see traits of beauty in their perfection
where another a thousand times more acute will see nothing. But over
and above such considerations we must observe that the mere beauty
of form will never give us that we have named the Ideal, inasmuch as
the individuality of the content is a constituent part of it, and
therein form is necessarily included. A human face, for example, may
be both regular and beautiful in its outlines and yet remain cold and
devoid of all expression. The ideal figures of the Greek gods are,
on the contrary, true individualizations; the universality of their
ideal conception does not exclude the characteristic determination
which belongs to each of them. And the vitality of the Ideal consists
just in this, that this determinate and fundamental spiritual
significance, which it is the function of art to exhibit, should
wholly transfuse by appropriate artistic treatment all the particular
aspects of the external embodiment, such as composition, pose, motion,
physiognomy, and configuration of limbs, so that nothing empty or
insignificant should be left, but the entire work should reflect that
ideal significance. All that we have learned from Greek sculpture in
recent times of a quality which, in fact, emanates from the school
of Pheidias, is characterized by nothing so much as this penetrative
vitality. The Ideal is preserved in all its severity without any lapse
in the direction of mere grace, softness, elegance, and exuberance,
yet retains the form in close relation to the ideal significance which
should be embodied throughout the whole. This supreme vitality is the
distinguishing mark of the great artist.

We may call a typical significance of this kind, in contrast to the
particularity of the external world, essentially abstract. This is
pre-eminently the case in sculpture and painting, arts which illuminate
but a momentary state, without proceeding to such a varied development
of exposition as we find, for example, in that where Homer is able to
depict the character of Achilles as mild and courteous no less than
severe and terrible, to say nothing of all his other characteristics.
No doubt it is possible to find such a significance expressed in
purely immediate reality. There are, for instance, few countenances
which cannot reflect the moods of piety, devotion, and cheerfulness;
but such faces also express countless other moods which either are
quite inappropriate to that ideal significance, or are only indirectly
related to it. For this reason it is by virtue of its particular
realization that a portrait acquaints us of the fact that it is a
portrait. In many old German and Flemish pictures we find the patron
of the picture included in the composition with his entire family of
sons and daughters. All are necessarily painted as though taken in
an act of devotion, and this spirit illuminates every countenance;
but at the same time we have quite as clearly set before us in the
men stalwart warriors, men of vigorous action, disciplined on the
strenuous field of life and commerce, and in the women dames of an
equally doughty life-experience. If we compare with such faces--and
we may restrict our comparison wholly to these very pictures, which
are famous for their close approach to Nature in their delineation of
physiognomy--those of the Virgin Mary, and the saints and apostles
who surround her, we shall find in these latter one preponderating
expression; and all the physical lineaments, whether we look at build
of bone, structure, or muscle, traits of that express motion or
repose, are concentrated upon this one artistic effect. That which is
felt to be appropriate to the one class and not to the other exactly
differentiates the distinction between the genuine Ideal and mere
portraiture.

Some may imagine it possible for the artist to compose the ideal
content of genuine types by a process of sifting and selection from
the facts of immediate Nature, or quite possibly from the various
physiognomies and compositions which collections of engravings from
the copper-plate or the wood may furnish. But a process such as this
of mere collection and sifting is not the end of the matter. An artist
must maintain the creative impulse alert throughout. He must himself,
in the strength of his own imagination, already impregnated with the
knowledge of appropriate form and made vital with profound experience
and emotion, give such an embodiment to the significance, which is the
inspiring motive of the work, as will make it appear throughout as
metal cast at one time and is one state of fusion.

B. THE DETERMINACY OF THE IDEAL

To comprehend the Ideal in its intrinsic significance, that is to say,
according to its fundamental notion, was a comparatively easy task. But
the beauty of art, in so far as it is the Idea, is not to be restricted
to the purely universal standpoint of its notional concept; even as
so comprehended it must necessarily include within it determination
and particularity, and is compelled to take definite embodiment as
external reality. The question consequently arises in what way is the
Ideal able still to assert itself in this process of objectification
in the medium of external things and their finitude, and despite all
that is antagonistic to ideality; and as a corollary to this we have to
inquire how finite and determinate existence is enabled to attach to
itself the ideality of the beauty of all art.

We propose to regulate this inquiry with the following division of our
subject matter.

_First_, the determination of the Ideal in its simplest terms.

_Secondly_, the determination of it, in so far as it proceeds by virtue
of its particularity to a condition of _discordant parts_ within itself
and to their resolution, a condition we may generally, define as
_action_[297].

_Thirdly_, the determination of the Ideal from the point of view of it
as an _external object._

I. THE IDEAL DEFINITION AS SUCH

1. We have already observed that it is the function of art to make the
Divine the focus or centre of its entire exposition. It is, however,
only possible for thought in its pure medium, that is to say, apart
from all the sensuous material of the figurative imagination, to
comprehend the Divine in its essential significance of _unity_ and
_universality._ To attempt to do otherwise, by imagining a picture of
God more readily grasped by the perception of the senses, is, as we
know, forbidden both Jews and Mahommedans. This cuts away the ground of
the figurative arts, which absolutely require form as their medium in
all its concreteness of actual life; and we have only lyrical poetry
left us to celebrate in its exaltation the praise of His power and
glory.

2. Considered, however, from the reverse point of view, we must equally
assert that however much unity and universality are predicable of the
Divine, He is in His essential substance determined, and, so far as He
withdraws Himself from the pure quality, of such predicates in their
abstraction, is thereby an object for the figurative sense and external
perception. If the Divine is consequently apprehended and figuratively
embodied for us through the forms of the imagination, we are at once
confronted with a possible variety in such determination; and it is at
this point that the actual realm of ideal art finds its commencement.
For, in the _first_ place, the one Divine substance disunites and
breaks itself up into a multiplicity of self-subsistent gods, such as
we find presented by the polytheistic system of Grecian art; and even
in the religious consciousness of Christianity God is, in opposition to
His purely spiritual unity, immediately revealed on Earth and in the
world-process as man. And, _secondly_, the Divine, regarded generally
in its determinate appearance and reality, is both present and realized
in emotional feeling, will, and the education[298] of mankind. For this
reason and in this sphere men who are filled with the Spirit of God,
saints, martyrs, and, in short, all who share in the religious life,
are equally the appropriate subject of ideal art. With this principle
of the individuality of the Divine and its determinate existence
realized necessarily in the world-process, we are face to face
with--and this is the _third_ point to be considered--the particularity
of human existence. For the entire world of human emotion, with all
that stirs it most profoundly--and what a power is implied in that
open sea of feeling and passion, everything of deepest interest to the
human heart--this entire content is nothing less than its exposition
and expression. If it is true, then, that the Divine in its purest
essence of reason is only the object of the thinking consciousness,
it is equally true that Spirit, which takes to itself an actively
bodily presence, so far, that is to say, and only so far as we find it
reverberate in the heart of humanity, all this lies within the sphere
of art. Once admit this, and we must admit the content of particular
interests and actions, specific characters, and momentary situations,
in short, the entire process of development in the external order; and
it becomes of first importance to indicate under a general principle
in what the relation between the Ideal and this positive determination
consists.

3. In conformity with what we have already advanced it is clear
that here, too, the Ideal will be most purely manifested in the
representation--whether it be of gods, Christ, apostles, saints, or
any other type of devout persons--which brings most clearly before
us the qualities of beatified repose and satisfaction, a peace
undisturbed with that which is earthly, and subject to the storms of
life's manifolded complexities, struggles, and contradictions. We are
therefore not surprised to find that both the arts of sculpture and
painting have been peculiarly fitted to incorporate under ideal form
not merely the ancient gods, but Christ as saviour of the world, and
individual apostles and saints. That which is the most essential truth
in actual life is concentrated to a focus on itself in the determinate
embodiment of art, rather than continually forced from its serenity
through dependence upon finite conditions. This essential concentration
is not destitute of particularity, but the divergent separation, which
is a feature of the external and finite state, is purified to one
simple definition, so that it appears as though all traces of external
influence and the relation thus created were overcome. This deedless
and infinite self-repose, this "taking a rest," as we find it, for
example, in certain statues of Hercules, is just what constitutes the
significance of the Ideal. If the gods are represented in contact with
the process of Nature, they must still carry with them their immortal
and unapproachable majesty. Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Mars, and their
like are, it is true, definite personalities, but they are at the same
time unyielding potentates and powers, which preserve within them
their self-subsistent liberty, even when they are actively related
to the world. And for this reason it is not merely that a specific
particularity must characterize the determinacy of the Ideal, but
spiritual freedom must be manifested thereby as totality, and in this
state of repose suggest the potency of unfettered freedom of action.
If we turn now from the gods to the less exalted plane of temporal
existence and human life, we shall find the Ideal active in its
representation of the substantial content of such humanity, and its
dominant repression of wholly subjective particularity. By this we mean
that all that is entirely isolate in feeling and action is wrested from
the element of contingency, and particularity is represented in its
concreteness, that is to say in its wider bond of relation with what
most truly and intimately belongs to its life. When, for instance,
we speak of the nobility, excellence, or perfection in particular
men, we assert in so many words that the substantial core of what is
spiritual, ethical, and divine has announced itself as prevailing in
the individual, and man has submerged his active life, his volitions,
his interests, and passions wholly in this substantive basis, that he
may thereby give full satisfaction to the most authentic necessities of
his soul.

At the same time, however much in the case of the Ideal the
determination of Spirit and its external presence appears to be
absorbed in the simple self-relation, the principle of _development_
is likewise directly associated with the particularity unfolded[299]
in determinate existence, and along with this in that relation to
environment which necessitates both the opposition and conflict
of clashing forces. This fact necessitates a closer examination
of the determination of the Ideal regarded in this very aspect of
differentiation and process, an aspect which we may in a general way
define as _action_.

II. THE ACTION

The gracious innocence of beatific enjoyment, the inactive repose, the
majesty of power in self-reliant tranquillity, as also the concentrated
compactness generally of that which is most substantial in a given
content--all these are essentially ideal modes of determination. That
which is inward, however, and spiritual is in an equal degree active
movement and development. One-sidedness and division are inseparable
from development. Spirit that is wholly itself and a totality will,
expanding into all particularity, step forth out of its repose,
in despite of all satisfaction therein, and involve itself in the
contradictions of the broken and confused medley of earthly existence,
and is by so doing unable in this divided world to withdraw itself from
the ill-fortune and ill-health that clings to finite existence.

Even the immortal gods of Polytheism do not dwell in eternal peace,
but take sides in mighty conflicts wherein contending passions and
interests are roused, being subject themselves to Destiny; nay,
more, even the God of Christians is, not delivered from a passage
of humiliation endured through suffering and shame of death, is not
spared the bitterness of soul, which perforce cried aloud: "My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me." And the mother of Christ experienced
an agony of the same poignant character, and human life in every
direction is a life of struggle, battle, and pain. For greatness and
force of character is evolved in the greatness and force of contending
elements, out of which Spirit concentrates itself again and again
upon its unity. The intensity and depth of subjectivity is only the
more emphasized, the more unbroken and unexampled the resistance
of circumstances to its unity grows, and the more irreconcilable
the contradictions appear under which it has to preserve its own
self-centred equilibrium. In this development and through this alone
the might of the Idea and the Ideal is preserved, for power consists
precisely in this self-preservation through a process of self-negation.

Inasmuch as it is the fact, then, that the particularity of the
Ideal passes into a relation with the external world through such
development, and by so doing is made partaker in a world, which, so
far from manifesting the ideally free association of the notion and
its external reality, presents an existence which is just that which
it ought not to be, in apprehending the true nature of this relation
we have to consider how far the determinations which affect the Ideal
either in themselves contain immediately the principle of Ideality, or
are to a more or less degree susceptible of it.

In this connection we would direct attention to three fundamental
points of view.

In the _first_ place we have the _actual condition_ of the _world
generally_, which is assumed as involved in individual action and
its specific character. _Secondly_, we have the _particularity_ of
condition, the determination of which introduces difference and tension
within the substantive unity, which is the motive-spring of the action,
in other words the _situation._

Thirdly, we have to consider the situation from the side of
subjectivity, and furthermore the reaction by virtue of which the
conflict and resolution of the element of difference is expressly
asserted, in other words, the _action_ in its strict sense.

1. THE GENERAL WORLD-CONDITION

The ideal subjectivity is as such essentially a personal relation,
a relation, that is to say, of self to every aspect of motion or
activity, in which the self has to assert or perfect its own
substance. And to effect this a world environment is necessary as the
universal ground of its realization. When in reference to this we speak
of _condition_ we understand by this the universally prevailing mode,
under which, within the sphere of spiritual reality, that which is the
_substantive_ and essentially coalescing fabric of the same is present.
In this sense we refer to a _condition_ of education, the sciences,
the religious sense, or even of finance, administration of justice,
family life, and similar examples. All these objects of reference are,
however, merely aspects of one and the same spiritual content, which
is thus in and through them rendered explicit and real. In further
considering the general condition of the world as the universal mode of
the reality of Spirit it will be necessary to pursue our examination
from the point of view of the _Will._ It is through the exercise of
volition that Spirit generally unites itself to-determinate existence;
and the substantial _nexi_ which are immediately present in reality
betray themselves in the specific modes in which the determinations of
Will, ethical and legal conceptions, and, indeed, all that belongs to
that which we are accustomed, in a general way, to define as justice,
actively asserts itself.

The question consequently arises how such a universal condition must be
characterized in order that it may appear adequate to the individuality
of the Ideal.

(_a_) Pursuant to the foregoing considerations we may, to begin with,
emphasize the following points:

(_α_) The Ideal is essential unity; not a purely formal and external
unity, but the immanent unity of the content in itself. This
substantive repose on its own resources we have already characterized
as the self-sufficiency, rest, and beatitude of the Ideal. We will, in
direct relation to the plane of discussion we have now reached, develop
this characteristic of _self-subsistency_[300], making it a primary
demand of our argument that what we have termed the general condition
of the world appear in such a self-subsistent form as will enable it to
accept the embodiment of the Ideal.

(_αα_) Now self-subsistency is an equivocal expression to start with.
In ordinary parlance that which is essentially substantial is called
simply self-subsistent by virtue of the element of causation being
implied within this substantiality; we are wont to use it in this sense
when describing the intrinsically divine and absolute. But as retained
in this universality of substance merely as such it is not declared
as itself subjective, and consequently meets with its irresolvable
contradiction in the particularity of concrete individuality. In this
bare antithesis all true self-subsistency disappears.

(_ββ_) On the other hand, it is not uncommon to find such subsistency
ascribed to purely formal individuality, consisting solely in
its self-reliance upon the fixed determinacy of its subjective
characteristics. This subjectivity, however, in so far as the actual
content of life drops away from it, so that the forces and substances
which lie without it acquire in themselves an independent stability,
and as such confront the subject and the inward life as a content
wholly unrelated, lapses through this, too, into unequivocable
contradiction with the actual substantiality of determinate existence,
and forfeits all claim to self-subsistency and freedom of content.
True self-subsistence consists alone in the unity and interpenetration
of both individuality and universality with each other. The universal
acquires through the individual a concrete existence; the subjectivity
of the particular thing discovers for the first time in the universal
the unassailable basis and the most genuine form of its realized
totality.

(_γγ_) Consequently in making this demand of the universal
world-condition we must ask for a form of self-subsistency in the same
sense, namely, that the substantially universal in such a condition
must contain within itself as the vehicle of its self-subsistence
the form of subjectivity. The most obvious presentment of this
identity is that of thought. For if thought is, in one aspect of it,
subjective, in another it possesses universality as the product of its
inherent activity, and encloses both universality and subjectivity
in unfettered unity. The universal of thought is, however, not that
of art, whose object is the beautiful. And, indeed, apart from this
distinction, particular individuality as confronted by thought in its
natural envisagement, or form, no less than in its active effects and
complete realization, stands in no necessary correspondence with the
universality of thought. There is, for example, a clear distinction
between the subject apprehended in its concrete content of the actual
world and that which is simply the thinking subject, or at least it is
open to such a distinction. The same kind of cleavage affects the form
of the universal itself. In other words the moment the universal begins
to assert itself in distinction from its otherwise related reality by
that act it has in _objective_ existence separated itself from all the
varied play of its phenomenal particularity, and, in opposition to
the same, has already established an independent position assured and
powerful.

In the Ideal, however, it is precisely the particular individuality
which ought to persist in inseparable co-ordination with the
substantive reality, and to the full extent that freedom and the
self-subsistency of the subjective principle may attach to the Ideal
the world-environment of conditions and relations should possess no
essential objectivity independent of the individual in the subjective
aspect above referred to or already presupposed. For the ideal
individual is a self-enclosed totality, which already includes the
objective principle, and it must not be permitted to have independent
motion and development apart from the individuality of the subject;
otherwise the subject falls back into a purely subordinate position
in contrast to a world whose independence is already assured.
Consequently the universal must indeed be actual in the individual as
that which is in a unique sense its own, but not so as the property
of the individual, as a _thinker_, but as that of his _character_ and
_temperament._ To put the same truth in another way, what is required
for this unity of the universal and individual in art as opposed to the
mediation and differentiation of thought, is the form of _immediacy_;
and the self-subsistency which we claim here is the form of immediate
self-subsistency. With that, however, the element of _contingency_ is
associated. That is to say, so long as the universal and effective[301]
constituents of spiritual life, such as the self-subsistency of
individuals exhibits, are only presented to us in the immediate guise
of subjective feeling, temperament, and disposition of character, and
debarred any other category of existence, such are thereby already
given over to the contingency of volition and its realization. All
we have left us, then, is what is peculiar to each individual viewed
as such and his sensuous experience. Such a possession of what is
nothing more than personal idiosyncracy is unable to assert for itself
any further potency or necessity; it appears simply as inclusion of
content, fixed achievement and at the same time arbitrary commitment
of the wholly self-dependent subject to the influence of feeling,
disposition, energy, general ability, cunning, and talents, instead
of carrying out its realization over and over again according to a
principle of universal import and acknowledged stability.

This type of contingency, then, is the characteristic quality of the
condition which we required for the ground upon which all the varied
wealth of the Ideal is to appear.

(_β_) In order to make more clear the actual character of the reality
which is most adapted to artistic treatment we will contrast it with
that aspect of existence which is not so adapted.

(_αα_) We find this pre-eminently where the ethical notion, that is,
justice and rational freedom, have already won for themselves and
maintain a fixed position in the social _order_ regulated by _law_,
so that, even in the external world, it appears as a positive and
necessary power, which is quite independent of the individuality and
subjectivity of specific temperament and characters. This is the
case in the life of the _State_, where that life is manifested in a
form adequate to the true notion of citizenship. For obviously it is
not every chance association of human beings, any more than every
patriarchal community, that will fulfil the requisites of State-life.
In the true State laws, customs, and rights, in so far as they
constitute the determinations of freedom applicable to all, are of
paramount force even in this _universal_ and abstract relation, and
are not conditioned in their applicability by the chance requirements
of any individual's idiosyncracy. As the consciousness of society has
issued for itself commands and laws in a mode of statement of general
application, in the same way these are externally valid as such
universal fiat, which proceeds in the path of order thereby indicated,
armed with powers of restraint and compulsion against any individual
who may attempt to assert his caprice in an injurious opposition to
such regulations.

(_ββ_) Such a condition at once assumes a dividing line between the
universal ordinances of the regulative understanding and the immediate
life, connoting by this latter term the unity in which all that is
substantive and essential in morals and the conduct of justice only
finds a form for its existence in the experience of _individuals_,
their ethical feeling and opinion, that is to say, and thereby alone
is exercised. In the civilized State right and justice, even religion
and science, or, at any rate, provident interest in religious and
scientific education, are subject to _public_ control, which directs
and co-ordinates the same.

(_γγ_) The position, then, that isolated individuals occupy in the
State is one which contracts them within a fixed and organized order,
and subordinates them thereto; and they stand in this relation for
the reason that the character and disposition of each is not the only
embodiment of ethical forces; but, if the State to which they belong is
a genuine example, they are on the contrary compelled to regulate all
the external detail of their actions, opinions, and feelings with a due
regard to what is legally permissible, and to bring the same into line
with it. This dependence upon the objective rationality of the State
in its power of self-assertion above all subjective caprice may either
be regarded as a mere subjection, inasmuch as laws and institutions
possess, as the paramount power, a constraining force, or we may see
in it merely the free recognition and acceptance of the reason that
underlies such a necessity of fact, an acknowledgment through which the
individual finds himself again in that objective order.

But even in the latter case isolated individuals continue to remain
as merely incidental facts, and apart from the organic reality of the
State possess no real substantiality in themselves. For substantiality,
in the sense we here use the term, is by no means only the _particular_
property of this or that individual, but a fully _explicit_
reality[302], minted, as it were, in all aspects of it, and down to the
merest detail in a mode universally applicable and _necessary._ All
that mere individuals can effect with _volition_ and _accomplishment_
even in actions right, moral, and legal in themselves in the interest
of and attendant upon the progress of the whole, remains and must
always remain, in contrast with that whole, insignificant and a mere
example. Their actions are always only an entirely partial realization
of a single case; and, moreover, the realization of the same has no
universal significance in the sense that the particular example of it
is thereby of objective validity as law, or, as such law, makes its
appearance. And for the same reason, to put the matter the other way,
it is wholly unimportant whether the validity of right and justice
is acknowledged by private individuals judging as individuals. The
validity is a vital fact of State life which holds whether it be
acknowledged or no. No doubt it is a matter of interest to the general
public that every one should fall in with the order established and
desire it; but the wishes of isolated individuals have no influence
upon that interest in the sense that it is only by virtue of the assent
of this or that person that right and a moral order is preserved. Such
require no such isolated example of assent; and a breach of either is
followed by punishment.

The subordinate position of private persons in the civilized State
is finally emphasized in the fact that, whatever share any one may
have in the general civic life, it is of a definite and in every
case restricted character. In the real State work must have some
relation to the general good[303], just as the active enterprise of
the bourgeoisie in the commercial business is subdivided in the most
varied way, so that the entire life of the State shall not appear as
the concrete achievement of any _single_ person, or in general can be
entrusted to the arbitrary wishes, enterprise, courage, resources,
and discretion of such, but on account of the fact that it comprises
activities and trades of countless complexity, and must be carried out
by associations of business men at least as varied. The punishment of
a criminal is no longer an affair of personal heroism or the virtue
of any _one_ individual, but is throughout the entire process, in the
investigation and discovery of the felonious act, in the pronouncement
of judicial sentence and its execution, contributed to by different
persons; nay, every important phase of such a process is in the same
way subject to some kind of division of labour. To see that the laws
are properly administered, then, is not within the special province of
any _one_ man, but results from an organized effort of great variety
and the rules which direct it. Add to this every man who assists in
such a process is bound to follow certain general principles which are
laid down for his guidance, and all that is carried out under their
direction is further subject to the criticism and control of yet higher
officials.

(_γ_) In all such civic relations, then, we find that in a truly
regulated State the public authority is not impressed with the
imprimatur of any single person, but it is the general Will which
prevails here in its universality, a condition under which the
particular life of the individual has the appearance of vanishing or,
at least, of becoming of a quite subsidiary importance. In a condition
of things such as this the self-subsistency we were seeking for is
out of the question. And for this reason we required for the free
embodiment of individuality conditions which are precisely the reverse
of this, in which the validity of the ethical principle derives its
support from individuals, and only from individuals, men who make for
themselves a great place in the arena of life through the activity
of exceptional volitional power and the inherent greatness and
effectiveness of their character. With such right is simply that which
they choose to accept as such; and if that which is essentially moral
is compromised by their action, there is no all-constraining public
might which brings them to judgment and exacts punishment, but only
the right of that inner voice of necessity, which accentuates itself
as vital in particular character and through external circumstance
and condition and only thus is actually existent. This is what
differentiates _punishment_ from _revenge._ The punishment exacted by
law asserts the validity of the generally applicable and carefully
defined right against the violation of that right, and makes use of
the public power according to a definite process as its instrument, in
other words, it employs a tribunal and a judge, an instrument to which
personality is attached as something accidental. Even revenge may in a
similar way find a justification; but such as it has is based entirely
on the _subjective conscience_ of those who deal with the criminal act,
and, in pursuance of their own _private_ convictions, avenge themselves
on the unrighteous act and its perpetrator. The revenge of Orestes
is, for example, justifiable; but he exacted it under the direction
of the law which his own virtue prescribed, not as the execution of a
judgment and a right. In the condition, then, that we claim as the most
suitable for artistic treatment, that which is moral and just must be
throughout personal, in the sense that its source is exclusively in the
individual life, and it only is actual in such dependence. Moreover,
to proceed with our contrasted conditions, in regulated States the
external environment of man is made secure, and properly is protected,
and he is only permitted to retain in absolute independence for himself
his private views and opinions. But in that condition where the
essential features of a State are not found the protection of life and
property depends on the isolated energy and courage of each individual
by himself, who is compelled to look after his own security and that of
everything which belongs to him. Such a condition we are accustomed to
identify with the _heroic age._ It is not, of course, our province here
either to discuss or decide which of these two contrasted conditions
of life is the worthier; suffice it to say that, so far as the Ideal
of art is concerned, it is imperatively necessary that this hard and
fixed line between the universal as an independent existence and
individuality should be removed, however much this distinction may be
necessary in other directions for the realization of human existence.
The reason of this is that Art and its Ideal is just that universal,
in so far as it may be presented to the perception of the senses, and
by such presentment is permitted to enter into the variety and living
forms of the world of objects.

(_αα_) What we were looking for, therefore, is supplied us by the
heroic age, for it is here that virtue, _ἀρετὴ_ in the full sense of
that Greek word, creates the root-basis of actions. In this connection
it would appear that we must distinguish between _ἀρετὴ_ and _virtus_
as understood by the Roman themselves. The Romans had already their
State, Fatherland, and legal institutions, and as contrasted with
the State, as the controlling object of all, they had surrendered
personality. To be simply a citizen of Rome, to have one object for
the imagination and for every other personal energy to centre itself
upon, namely, the fatherland and its sovereign majesty, therein lies
the earnestness and grit of Roman virtue. Heroes, on the contrary,
are individuals who undertake and accomplish a complete enterprise
in consistent reliance upon their personal resources and initiative,
and with whom it is consequently a purely arbitrary act of their own
when they execute anything in accordance with the moral principle.
This immediate unity, however, of what we may call the substantive
import and individuality of inclination, impulse, and will is the
characteristic of Greek virtue. According to this view personality is
a law to itself without any further subjection to a law, judgment,
and tribunal of independent subsistence. The Greek heroes make their
appearance in an epoch anterior to legal enactment, or they are
themselves the founders of States, so that right and social order,
law and ethical custom, emanate from them, and persist as their own
creation in an indefeasible relation to them. In this way Hercules was
regarded so highly by the ancients themselves, and represents an Ideal
of original and heroic virtue. His free and self-reliant virtue, with
which he championed the right and battled against the monstrosities
of men and Nature is not a prevailing characteristic of the age, but
belongs to him as an exclusive and unique possession. And we may add he
was not strictly a moral hero, as his reception of the fifty daughters
of Thespius in one night[304] clearly shows us; neither would it
appear from the tale about the Augaean stables is he pre-eminent for
gentility. He is rather the general type of self-reliant strength and
resource in its championship of right and justice, to exemplify which
he elected summarily and from a free choice to undergo countless toils
and labours. It is true that some of his deeds were carried out at the
instigation of Eurystheus, but this submission is, after all, rather
a formal association than a real one, no connection at least of legal
validity or inevitable necessity through which the strength of his
self-reliant personality was diverted from its independent course.

The Homeric heroes are of a similar type. No doubt they have their
clan chieftain; but the associating bond is no fixed relation already
determined by law, which enforces their submission; of their own free
will it is that they follow Agamemnon, who is no monarch in the modern
sense of the term. Consequently every hero volunteers his own advice,
the enraged Achilles acts independently for himself in his separation,
and, speaking generally, each and all come and go, act, or take
their leisure as they please. In much the same independent position,
that is to say, united in no fixed organization, to which they are
as individuals entirely subordinate, we find the heroes of Arabian
poetry portrayed, and even the Shah-Rameh of Ferdusi furnishes us
with similar examples. In latter-day Christendom the age of feudalism
and knighthood supplies a fertile field for the free growth of heroic
enterprise and the type of individuality which belongs to it. Of such
are the heroes of the round table, no less than the heroic circle of
which Charles the Great is the focus. Charles is, much like Agamemnon,
surrounded with independent chieftains of heroic mould, a union which
as such is powerless[305]. He is consequently always compelled to
take counsel with them, however much each of them may be influenced
by private passions; he may bluster like a very Olympian Jupiter,
and none the less find himself and his undertakings suddenly left in
the lurch while his confederates are off on some adventures of their
own. The Cid is perhaps the most complete example of the type. He,
too, is the ally of a confederacy, the dependent of a king, and is
bound to render duty as vassal; but in opposition to this obligation
he is pre-eminently influenced by the principle of honour, the purely
personal consideration of his own glory, nobility, and reputation[306].
And so in this case also the king can only determine a fixed line of
action and make war after consulting and obtaining the consent of his
vassals. If this is not given they do not fight, and, moreover, a
mere majority of votes is not sufficient to compel them. Every man is
independent of his neighbour, and exercises his will and steers his own
course as such. We find in the accounts given us of Saracen heroes an
equally brilliant picture of self-reliant and still more inflexible
personality. Even the Reinecke Fuchs fable is a fresh example of this
state of things. Here, it is true, the lion is master and king, but
the wolf and the bear sit in council. Even Reinecke and the rest do
just what they like; and when there is a general outcry, the sly fellow
either gets out of the mess with his story-telling, or manages to make
some particular interest of king and queen work to his own advantage,
and in his own cunning way talks over his sovereign somehow.

(_ββ_) Moreover, in much the same way that each individual example of
this heroic type of _personality_ persists in immediate unity with
all that he may will, act, and accomplish, a similar unity is further
maintained in all the consequences which flow from such initiative.
When we ourselves, on the contrary, act or estimate a particular
action, we assume that only full responsibility can attach where the
individual under consideration is in complete possession of the true
nature of his action and its attendant circumstances. If the content of
those surrounding conditions is otherwise than that which is present
to the agent's consciousness in such a case a man nowadays will not
take upon himself the burden of all that is implied in his action. He
will thrust on one side that part of it which he would not have done
had he known completely or not misconceived the circumstances, and he
only accepts that which was fully under his cognisance and carried out
with deliberate intention in conformity thereto. The heroic character
makes no such distinction. He adheres simply to all the consequences
and makes good his personal responsibility for the whole. Œdipus on
his way to consult the oracle meets a certain man, quarrels with him
and strikes him. In those days such an act was not a crime at all.
He only returned a blow after being vigorously attacked. But the
stranger was his father. Œdipus further marries a royal lady. His
wife is his mother. Without knowing it he commits an act of shame.
On learning the truth he acknowledges such enormities to their full
extent, inflicts a punishment on himself as murderer of his father and
a man of incest, and this although he was entirely ignorant of the
true nature of these acts, or had any intention of doing them. The
self-reliant stubbornness and entirety of the heroic character refuses
to parcel out responsibility and knows nothing of such distinctions
as personal intention and the objective act and its consequences. In
the evolution and ramification of an action as we moderns regard it
these opposed points of view constantly recur, and guilt is thrown into
the background as far as possible. No doubt our view of the matter
is more in accordance with _ethical principle_, in so far as the
condition of a personal knowledge of the particular circumstances, or
the consciousness of an object good in itself, in short, generally the
intent of an act, is what materially assists us in our judgment. But in
the heroic age, where we find the individual essentially indivisible
and the objective act proceeding from himself as entirely his own, each
person claims absolutely all that he may do, and refuses to surrender
one jot or tittle of responsibility therefor.

To an extent equally minute the heroic figure is separated from the
ethical whole, to which he belongs, and his self-consciousness is bound
up wholly in substantial unity with that whole. According to the views
in vogue now we draw a line of distinction as private individuals
between objects which are wholly personal and those which affect the
community. The individual acts in all that he does from his own private
personality as distinct from others, and views even his actions rather
as relative to this than as part of all that is farmed out by the
organic whole to which he belongs. We consequently make a distinction
between individuals and their families. Such is unknown in the heroic
age. The guilt of ancestors adheres to their descendants, and an
entire family will suffer for the original defaulter. Men inherit
the fatality of guilt and transgression. A condemnation such as this
appears to us unjust as an irrational subjection to a blind fate. With
us the achievements of ancestors reflect no more honour on children and
descendants than the punishments and crimes of such contaminate those
that follow after them, and least of all is their private character
thus affected; nay, modern opinion is already close to the view that
the confiscation of family property is a punishment which violates the
profounder conception of liberty. But in the ancient and more plastic
totality the individual is not so isolated, but rather a member
of his family and race. For this reason the character, action, and
fortunes of the family continue to be the private affair of each member
of it; and so far from denying the actions of his parents, each man
voluntarily accepts them as his own; they live in him, and he is just
that which his fathers were, suffered, or transgressed. This appears to
us a hardship, but that which we replace it with, this standing alone
on our own possessions[307], and the more subjective self-stability
thus acquired is also from another point of view only the abstract
self-sufficiency of each. The individuality of heroic times is none
the less of a more ideal type, because it does not declare itself as
satisfied with the mere form of freedom and infinity, but remains in
unalterable and immediate unity with all that is most substantial
in the relations of spirit which it of itself endows with living
actuality. In such an individuality the substantial is immediately
individual, and the individual thereby himself essentially substantive.

(_γγ_) From considerations such as these we conclude that the ideal
figures of art must be sought for in the age of mythos, that is to say,
speaking generally, in past times, where we shall find the soil most
congenial to their growth. If such material is taken from the age we
live in, whose most native form, as we actually find it, is tightly
shut off from the imagination, it matters not how we regard it, then
the modifications which the poet can hardly avoid making in it will not
readily escape the appearance of a purely artificial and intentional
composition. The Past entirely belongs to memory, and memory perfects
the infolding veil of character, events, and actions in the vesture
of universality, through which the particular external or contingent
detail is unable to penetrate. Many trifling circumstances and
mediating conditions, many varied and isolated phases of activity, are
inseparable from the actual existence of an action or a character: in
the mirror of memory all these insignificant details are obliterated.
In this liberation of his work from what is accidental in the
external fact the artist has a freer hand for his artistic powers of
composition, when dealing with that which is individual and particular
in it, if the actions, histories, and characters are borrowed from
ancient times. He has, it is true, also historical memories, out of
which he must mould a content conformable to the universal; but the
picture of the Past possesses, as already observed, an advantage,
taken simply as a picture of greater universality, while the manifold
texture of mediating condition and circumstance, interwoven as it
is in the entire framework of finite existence which surrounds it,
offers him material ample enough to prevent his hand obliterating the
individuality, which is essential to his work of art. The more closely
we consider it, the clearer will be our conclusion that a heroic age
has the advantage over later and more civilized times in that the
isolated character and personality generally in such an age does not as
yet find what is substantive either in the sphere of ethical custom, or
moral obligation opposed to itself in the necessary embodiment of legal
institution, and thereby presents immediately to the poet all that the
form of the Ideal requires. Shakespeare has, for example, selected
much material for his tragedies from chronicles and earlier romances,
framed upon a condition of life which has not as yet received the
impression of a fully articulated social order, but in which the energy
of individuals, as emphasized in personal resolve and achievement, is
still the prevailing characteristic. His genuine historical dramas
have, on the contrary, a vein of historical substance running through
them in the strictest sense, and for this reason lean farther away from
an ideal exposition, although here, too, both circumstances and actions
are made to fall in with, or are removed to suit, the unyielding
self-sufficiency and wilfulness of particular characters. No doubt this
characteristic remains for the most part in their case a purely formal
self-inclusion, whereas if we contrast it with the self-subsistency of
heroic characters we find that here the essential _content_ of all such
have proposed to accomplish is bound up therewith.

It is on account of this contrast that we should find a reason for
repeating the general thesis in connection with the Ideal, to the
effect that the _Idyllic_ is exceptionally adapted for its expression,
inasmuch as where that is presented the cleavage between what is
determined by legal necessity and the living person is wholly absent.
To this we must reply that, however simple and original idyllic
situations may be, however far removed they may be from the artificial
prose-existence of society, such simplicity, if we consider the nature
of its content, has, in fact, too insignificant an interest to satisfy
the most substantial and essential requirements of the Ideal. Material
of this sort fails entirely to include the most weighty motives of
heroic character such as Fatherland, moral and family problems, and
their development; it is a kind of treatment which is apt to select
as the very core of its subject such a fact as the loss of a single
sheep or the falling in love of a girl. In this way the Idyllic not
unfrequently becomes merely the resource and recreation of our hearts,
to which poets such as Gessner, for example, will add their dose of
sickly sweetness and sentimentalism. The idyllic aspect of the days
we live in have, further, this defect, that this _naïveté_, this
domesticated or rural atmosphere in the emotional aspect of love or the
enjoyment of a good cup of coffee in the open and things of that sort
are not likely to awake much interest, when we find in them nothing but
the country parson flavour--find them cut off, that is to say, from
all wider relations with the outside world, and not a trace of the
profounder web of purposes with which that world is interwoven. It is
precisely here that we have reason to admire the genius of Goethe, when
he concentrated his poetic talent on material of this kind in his poem
of "Hermann and Dorothea." It is true that he selects from the life of
the Present a particular theme of very limited extension, but at the
same time he unfolds before us as the background and atmosphere of the
picture in which his characters are portrayed the great interests of
the revolution and his own native country, and, in short, associates
with a subject-matter necessarily narrow in its range facts of
world-history of the widest and most potent significance.

Generally speaking, we shall find that the ills of life and its evil,
war, battles, and revenge, are not excluded from the subject-matter
of the Ideal, but are frequently the very source and substance of
the heroic age and its myths, whose form grows all the wilder and
sterner in proportion to the remoteness of such a period from a fully
developed society of law and moral order. In the chivalrous adventures
of knight-errantry we find the heroes of such tales themselves
often enough sharing the savage and dissolute characteristics of the
times, and in much the same way the martyrdom of the heroes of the
Church presupposes a condition of ferocious cruelty around them. At
bottom, however, the Christian ideal, which is based on the depth and
inwardness of man's spiritual nature, stands in a relation of entire
indifference to the external world.

We have demonstrated that the condition of particular centuries is more
applicable to the Ideal; in the same way Art selects pre-eminently
a particular class of society for the form under which the Ideal
shall appear, the order, that is to say, of _princes._ And the
selection is made not because art is necessarily aristocratic, or has
any predilection for gentility[308], but simply on account of the
perfection in which free will and its products may be exemplified
imaginatively through the highly placed class. We have in the chorus of
ancient tragedy the characteristics and universal background of general
maxims, modes of imaginative thought, and emotion, before which the
definite movements of the action proceed. In contrast to this appear
the more clearly defined individualities of the personages immediately
concerned in the action, men and women of authority, and belonging for
the most part to royal families. On the other hand, the main impression
forced upon us, when seeing representatives of a lower class carrying
on pursuits which are of a narrower range, is one of subjection; and,
indeed, in an artificial[309] state of society the freedom of action
of such a class is fettered in every direction, and is necessarily
involved with all its passions and interests in all the medley and
despotic forces of external circumstance. It is, in fact, held closely
behind the invincible power of the social order, which it is unable to
come out of, and is an alien from the authority of the dominant order,
even when that is asserted in accordance with just principle. In this
limitation of outlook through the hard conditions of life all real
independence is wrecked. For this reason both the circumstances and
characters which we find in such a sphere of life are more appropriate
to the treatment of comedy, everybody being permitted in comedy to rate
themselves as they please, and to lay claims to a self-sufficiency
in all that they will and think, which is none the less immediately
negatived by the spiritual no less than the external dependence of
their lives. As a rule, such a false and second-hand self-subsistency
must inevitably fall to pieces when confronted with the actual
conditions of life and the distorted view which is formed of them. The
force of circumstances is presented to the lower orders of society
on a totally different level from that in which it acts upon rulers
and princes. In Schiller's "Braut von Messina" Don Caesar is able to
exclaim, and justly: "there stands no higher judge than myself!" And
when he has to be punished he must himself give judgment and execute
it. He is, in fact, subject to no external necessity of right and
law, and even when punishment is the question is wholly dependent on
himself. The characters in the Shakespearean drama do not entirely
belong to the princely order and only partially are taken from mythical
sources, but they are placed in the era of civil wars, in which the
ties of social order and legislative enactment are either weakened
or shattered, and they secure from such a condition the exceptional
independence and self-sufficiency we are looking for.

(_b_) If we transfer our attention now from the characteristic
conditions of society we have hitherto mainly considered to the actual
state of the world around us and its carefully articulated scheme
of ethical, judicial, and political institutions, we shall not fail
to observe that the material we have here offered us for figures of
truly ideal type is of a very restricted character. The province
here in which an entirely open field is presented for the display of
independent purpose in its fullest individuality is limited both in
its range and the measure of opportunity. The qualities that make a
man thorough in his relations to his own family and his business, the
ideals, in short, of honest citizens and excellent wives, in so far
as will and activity are concentrated on the field in which it is
still possible for a man to exercise his free personality, to carry
out, in short, all that he has a mind to do, this is the prevailing
feature of our modern society. Such ideals inevitably lack the depth
of a fuller content, and the most significant feature of them is
that of the attitude of the individual mind to their realization;
for we find here the content is already presented by existing social
institutions, and consequently the essential interest we take in it
depends on the particular way in which that content is realized and
appears in the _personal life_, its moral and inward significance.
For this reason it is not possible, as in the case of former times,
to create ideals from the positions of judgeship and kingship. If a
man carries out his judicial functions nowadays in accordance with
duty and the requirements of his office, he merely is acting within
the bounds already marked out for him by legislative enactments in
the social order as the sphere of his responsibilities. All that may
characterize his tenure of office beyond this, as proceeding from
personal qualities, such as suavity of demeanour or acuteness of
judgment, is not the main point or the substantial content, but rather
an aspect of it which it is possible to dispense with as something
accidental. In the same way the monarchs of our own day are no longer,
as was the case with the heroes of mythical times, in themselves the
embodying and culminating unity of society itself, but rather a more
or less unsubstantial _centrum_ around which all legal and social
institutions, however moulded in the course of time, group themselves
in independent relations. All the most important functions of the
executive have nowadays been separated from the royal prerogative.
Kings do not lay down the law, control finance; the preservation
of social order is not one of their most characteristic functions.
Peace and war are determined through the particular circumstances of
international politics, which it is not within their power exclusively
either to direct or control; and, if it happens that any important
decision with regard to either depends in the last resort on their
judgment, such a decision is not generally so much in the nature of
its substance the result of any personal preference, as it is the
formal seal of monarchical authority on what is already determined on
public grounds, the mere imposition of that which is strictly official
rather than personal in its character. In the same way, a general or
field-marshal of our times has unquestionably great authority; objects
and interests of profound importance are under his control and his
circumspection; his courage, his determination, and his intelligence
are involved in the weightiest decisions; nevertheless, whatever may
be definitely traced to the essentially personal characteristics of
the man has little opportunity for display in such a result. For, in
the first place, the objects upon which his decisions turn are not of
his own selection, and arise out of circumstances which lie beyond
the sphere of his influence rather than are spontaneously fixed by
himself; secondly, the means adopted to carry out such objects are not
the sole result of his initiative. On the contrary, they are supplied
him from sources which are not immediately under his authority or
personal influence, but stand rather quite apart from the sphere of his
individual powers as a general.

To sum up, then, though it is true that under the present condition of
the civilized world a man may act independently for himself in many
directions, the fact remains that in whatever direction he may turn
he is still only a member of a fixed order of society and appears as
such limited in his range rather than the vital representative and
individual embodiment of society itself. He acts necessarily under such
a condition of restriction, and our interest in such a personality, no
less than in the content of his aims and activity, is entirely devoid
of completeness. In the end we are invariably driven to concentrate
our attention on the purely personal interest, how far, that is to
say, he attained success, what was the nature of the obstacles and
complications which, in either, through untoward chance or necessity,
confronted or distracted his progress. And if it is, moreover, true
that our modern personality is of infinite significance when we
estimate the character thus manifested as a spiritual product, in
its actions, sufferings, moral opinions, and conduct that is to say,
it is also true that the moral content which is realized in such an
individual is of a restricted character, rather than, as is the case
in the heroic times, the realization of universal right, custom, and
legality. The individual is no longer the exclusive vehicle and actual
embodiment of these powers as in the previous times.

(_c_) Our interest, however, in and need to have presented us such
a completely realized individuality and living self-dependence will
always persist, however strongly we may recognize the worth and
reasonable nature of the more developed condition of an organized and
trained civic society. It is this necessity which makes us regard
with astonishment the youthful spirit of Schiller and Goethe when
they sought to discover that lost self-sufficiency in the prevailing
conditions of modern times. How do we find in particular this attempt
is made by Schiller in his earliest works? Simply by a rebellion
directed against the whole organic framework of civil society. Karl
Moor, suffering injury from the existing order at the hands of those
who abuse the power entrusted them, has the courage to break the
bonds which bind him to law and order altogether, cuts himself adrift
and creates for himself a heroic situation, in which he appears as
the champion of right, and the self-constituted avenger of wrong,
injustice, and oppression. None the less, how insignificant and
isolated must a private revenge of this kind appear, if we estimate
it from the practical point of view, according to the probability of
its success; and, in fact, in one aspect of it, it already contains
the germ of wrong which can only lead to the criminal act on which
it will fall to pieces. No doubt, as personal to Karl Moor himself,
this is a misfortune, a fatality, however, which, despite the tragical
element in it, can only engraft on mere boys the blight of such a
"robber-ideal." In much the same way the characters depicted in "Kabale
und Liebe" suffer wrong under prevailing conditions of life, absorbed
in the trivial facts and passions wholly personal to themselves. It is
not until we come to the dramas of "Fiesco" and "Don Carlos" that we
find characters of nobler significance and more substantive content,
heroes, for example, resolved to liberate their country, or assert the
liberty of religious conviction. With a nobility still more striking
Wallenstein places himself at the head of his army that the crisis in
the political situation may come to a focus. He is fully cognisant
of the nature of the political forces upon which his only means of
control, his army, is dependent; consequently he hesitates for long
whether to follow his private inclination or his duty. He has barely
arrived at a decision when he finds the instrument on which he most
depended slip from his grasp; his means of action is gone. For that
which in the last instance unites the leading officers and generals
is no gratitude for anything that may be due to him on the ground of
past services rendered; his fame as a general has nothing to do with
it, but rather the duty they owe to the universally recognized seat
of government, the oath they have sworn to the head of the State,
the emperor of the Austrian monarchy. He finds himself consequently
in the end isolated, and is not so much fought with and overcome
by an external foe as he is stripped of all means of executing his
purpose. He is deserted by his army and from that moment is a lost
man. The "Götz"[310] of Goethe starts from a dramatic situation of an
analogous though somewhat inverse type. The times of Götz and Franz
von Sickingen belong to the interesting epoch in which knight-errantry
and the self-reliant individuality of the class of nobility is being
superseded by the new creation of an external and legally constituted
social order. To have selected precisely this critical time where we
find the heroic characteristics of the Middle Ages and the legalized
fabric of modern society meet and collide for the subject of his first
artistic production shows much penetration on the part of Goethe.
For Götz and Sickingen are still heroes in the genuine sense, who
are resolved to exercise their influence over circumstances, whether
immediately affecting them or of wider range, out of the resources of
their own personalities, their courage, and their private sense of
right. The new order of things involves Götz in acts of illegality and
brings about the catastrophe of his life. It is only in the Middle
Ages that knight-errantry and the relations of feudalism will supply
a field entirely open to this type of self-reliant manhood. When we
find, moreover, the legalized order co-ordinated more completely in
its prosaic form, the predominant authority in fact, the adventurous
self-dependence of knighthood is left outside it as an unrelated
excrescence; and if an attempt is made to assert it as though it were
still a valid means of attacking wrong, and assisting the oppressed, it
becomes simply an object of ridicule, such as Cervantes illustrates for
us in his "Don Quixote."

In this allusion to the opposition which exists between two
differently constituted _régimes_ of society and the collision which
results from action in defiance of their particular character we have
already indicated what we have above defined generally as the closer
determination and differentiation of the universal state of the world,
that is to say, the _situation_ as generally expressed.

2. THE SITUATION

The ideal world-condition which it is the function of art to present
in contrast to prosaic reality we may conclude from our previous
discussion to be merely a general background of society of a specific
kind; it is merely the _possible_ condition necessary for the
particular presentation, not the presentation itself. What we have
hitherto directed attention to is, in fact, the general background
upon which the living figures of art may appear. It is undoubtedly
fructified with individuality and is supported by its self-subsistency;
but as a _general_ condition it is not yet the active movement of
particular individuals in the very form of life, just as we may say
that the temple which Art erects is not as yet the representation of
the personal godhead, but only encloses the germ of the same. For this
reason we must in the first instance regard this world-condition as
a kind of medium in repose, a harmony, so to speak, of forces which
are operative in it, and to this extent it possesses a substantial
consistency of uniform worth, which, however, must not be accepted
as identical with what has been called "the age of innocence." For
it is a condition in the fulness and sovereignty of whose ethical
atmosphere the terrors of division only are slumbering because, in
our contemplation of it, we have before us, for the first time, the
aspect of its substantial unity, and consequently are only presented
with individuality in its most universal terms, a mode of viewing it
which makes it fade away as though without definition or any essential
disturbance of its unity, instead of giving to it the full value of
definite characteristics. But such characterization is essential to
individuality. And if the Ideal is to appear as _definite form_ it is
necessary for it to escape from such pure universality, or in other
words for it to give the universal a particular expression, and by so
doing impart to it both existence and appearance. Art consequently has
in this connection not only to translate into its medium a _universal_
world-condition, but must proceed beyond this quite indefinite
conception to the composition of pictures of _definite_ character and
action.

Regarded from the aspect under which it affects _individual_ character
this general condition is the environment of circumstance which,
according to its specifically detached form, tends to excite both
collisions and development, forcing thereby the individuals thus
affected to express their _nature_ and exhibit such expression in a
definite form. From the point of view of the world-condition this
self-revelation of particular individuals appears as the passing of its
universality into the distinct embodiments of living individuality,
an aggregate over which _universal forces_ still assert the
_mastery._[311] For the eternal powers operative in the world-process
constitute the substantive content of the Ideal as specifically
defined in what it essentially is. The mode of existence, however,
which is realized through the bare form of external condition is
unworthy of this content. For in the first place such a condition is
associated with habit, and the habitual is no adequate determination
of those profounder interests which are active in _self-conscious
mind._ Furthermore, as we have observed, it was the _contingency_ and
_caprice_ of individuality, by virtue of whose spontaneous activity
these very interests are permitted to appear in life; but this
unessential contingency and caprice is again quite as little adequate
to the substantive universality, which constitutes the notion of
essential actuality. On these grounds respectively we are therefore
compelled to seek an art-envisagement more worthy and better defined
for the concrete content[312] of the Ideal.

This new configuration the universal powers can only retain in
its _determinate existence_ in virtue of the fact that they are
manifested in their essential modes of difference and movement, or,
to put the matter more specifically, through their assertion of the
contradictions which they relatively unfold. Two aspects of the
process of individualization into which the universal thus passes must
be here emphasized. In the first place, there is the _substance_ as
an embracing sphere of universal forces through the differentiation
indicated, which is broken from its substantive unity into its
component parts; secondly, there are the _individuals_, which spring
forth as the active completion of these forces and give to them a
specific objectification.

Now what we have characterized as the difference and opposition in
which the world-condition, hitherto harmonious with the individuals
conditioned by it, is involved, if we consider it from the point of
view of universal condition, is the manifestation of the _essential
content_ which it carries in itself. On the other hand we observe that
the substantive universal in that condition is articulated through
particular units in such a way that this very universal procures
for itself determinate existence, albeit it is thus immersed in the
appearance of chance, disunion, and division, an appearance, which,
however, is rendered nugatory by the fact that it is the universal
which thus appears.

The separation of these forces and their objectification[313] in
individuals can, however, further take place under definite conditions
and circumstances, under which and as a constituent aspect of which
the entire objective appearance receives a determinate form, or as
the stimulative impulse of this very realization. By themselves such
circumstances are without interest[314], and it is only through their
relation to mankind that they receive such a significance, through
whose self-consciousness the content of these spiritual forces is
carried actively into objective appearance. The external circumstances
are consequently only to be regarded of significance in so far as they
supply an essential relation to Spirit, in so far, that is to say,
as they are comprehended by those individual units and afford them
a stimulus to actualize their inward _spiritual_ needs, the aims,
ideas, the determinate substance, in short, of all that requires an
individual embodiment. Regarded as a stimulating influence of this
kind particular circumstances and conditions create what we have called
the _situation_, which is specifically presupposed in the actual
self-expansion and activity of all that still lies undeveloped in the
universal world-condition; it is for this reason we have considered the
previous determination of the notion of the situation as necessary to
any inquiry into the true constituents of _action._

The situation expressed in general terms is in one aspect of it the
circumstance _particularized_ to the point of _definite character_,
and under this characterization it is, to put it another way, the
stimulating impulse to a particular expression of content, which it
is the function of artistic presentation to transmute into a specific
form of existence. Looked at from this latter point of view especially
the situation offers a wide field for contemplation, inasmuch as it
has ever been one of the most essential objects of art to discover
situations of real interest, that is to say, of such a kind as will
present to us the profound and weighty interest, the truest content of
spiritual life. The requirements of the several arts in this respect no
doubt differ. Sculpture, for example, is pre-eminently limited in its
reference to the inwardly detailed variety of situations. Painting and
music are already operative in a freer and more comprehensive medium.
Finally, we are least able among them all to exhaust the possibilities
of poetry in this respect.

Since we have not yet arrived at that portion of our subject where we
deal directly with the specific arts, it will be sufficient here to
draw attention to a few of the most general aspects of that inquiry,
which we may subdivide in the following manner.

_First_, we would observe that the situation still retains the
form of _universality_ and thereby of _indeterminacy_, so long as
it is undeveloped and without definite characterization; we have,
consequently, at first present before us a situation which is without
situation. For the form of indeterminacy is itself only _one_ form
as opposed to its contradiction of determinacy, and is shown to be,
by virtue of this very contrast, a one-sided aspect which as such
possesses a determinate relation.

_Secondly_, however, the situation passes in separation away from this
universality, and becomes certainly determinate to that extent, but at
first with a determinacy which produces no destructive consequences,
that is to say, it is one which offers no stimulus to _active
opposition_ and its necessary resolution.

_Thirdly_, we find the element of _disunion_ in all its vigour creating
by the definition of its opposed characteristics the essence of the
situation, which thereby is carried into a _collision_, which again
proceeds to reactions, and, as such, forms the point of departure to
the conception of artistic action properly so called.

We may, in fact, characterize the situation generally as the
_intermediate plane_ between the universal world-condition still in
a state of equilibrium, and the concrete action unfolded in all its
tendency to movement and reaction, a position which gives to it the
characteristics of both extremes, and enables us to pass over from the
one to the other.

_(a) The Absence of Situation_[315]

We passed from the notion of the universal world-condition in
presenting to ourselves the form of it as essentially individual
self-subsistency. Self-subsistency, however, regarded simply in its
essential form, presents to us in the first instance merely the
secure repose upon its own resources in its bare tranquillity. The
form as thus defined is carried into no relation with another, but
remains at one with itself in inclusion with its unity both, within
and without. This presents us with the situation which is without
situation, an illustration of which we may take those ancient types of
temple-building dating from the earliest days of art, whose character
of profound immutable seriousness, of tranquil, nay even of austere
and grandiose, dignity has been the object of imitation even in more
recent times proceeding on lines of a similar type. The Egyptian and
most ancient Greek sculptures will further illustrate for us the same
kind of indeterminate situation. In the plastic art of Christianity,
especially if we consider particular examples of early bust-sculpture,
we shall find both God the Father and Christ are presented in a similar
spirit. Indeed, such a mode of delineation is peculiarly adapted to
present us with the secure substantiality of the Divine, whether such
be apprehended as a definite and particular Godhead, or is grasped as
essentially absolute personality; and this is so in virtue of the very
defect of such a representation, that it gives us portraits of persons
of middle-age which are without any trace of definite situations,
in which the character of the individual as such can reveal itself,
and only the attempt is made to express the entirety of determinate
character in its quality of stability[316].

_(b) The Situation defined in its Harmlessness_[317]

The second point to emphasize is, inasmuch as the situation generally
is reached in the _definition_ of form, the passage from this
tranquillity and blessed repose, or from the unbroken severity
and force of self-consistency, forms which subsist in unfeatured
equilibrium, that is to say, immutable both within and without, have to
be set in motion and surrender their undressed simplicity. This bare
progression to a more specific manifestation in some particular mode of
expression is what we may describe certainly as definite situation, but
a situation which has not yet asserted conflicting elements in itself,
and is fully ripe for collision.

This first step in the process of individualized expression is
consequently of a kind that carries with it no further result; it is
set in no antagonistic opposition to something else, in a relation
which evokes both collision and reaction; it is already in its
character of unconstrainedness finished and complete in itself. With
such a type of situation we may associate those which are mainly to
be regarded as a kind of play, in so far as all that proceeds or is
carried out in them indicates no real seriousness of purpose. For
all earnestness in any kind of activity is generally the result of
oppositions and contradictions, which drive on their way to the final
removal or victory of one side or the other. For this reason situations
of this kind cannot themselves be identified with actions, nor are they
the stimulative impulse of actions; they are indeed, in a certain
aspect, of determinate character, but they are either circumstances of
the most trivial significance, or a form of action which is without an
essentially serious object, which either is the result of conflicts, or
is able to carry the action yet further into conflicts.

(_α_) The first thing to arrest us in this process is the passage
generally from the repose of the unfeatured situation to a condition of
emotion and expression: this is asserted partly as purely mechanical
motion, in part also as the first impulse and satisfaction of any
internal want. The Egyptians, for example, represented the gods in
their sculpture with closely locked limbs. The Greeks, on the contrary,
released both arms and legs, and endowed the bodily form with all
that is appropriate to the advance and general variety of movement.
Permanent repose, a seated attitude, a tranquil gaze, are all of them
simple conditions under which the Greeks apprehended their gods; they
are modes which unquestionably gave to the self-subsistent figure of
Godhead a certain characterization, but one nevertheless which is
not carried forward into other relations and oppositions, but rather
remains enclosed within itself, and permanently significant as such.
Situations of this simple kind attach in a particular way to sculpture,
and the ancients, above all others, were inexhaustible in discovering
fit subjects for such a condition of unconstrained freedom. In this
respect they showed an extraordinary insight; for it is precisely
through contrast with the insignificance of the particular situation
that the majesty and self-subsistency of the ideal types of the Greek
Pantheon were made to appear so striking. It was, in fact, through the
harmlessness and insignificance of what appeared to be done or left
undone that the blessed peaceful tranquillity and immutability of the
immortal gods was brought most clearly to consciousness. The situation
merely indicates the particular character of either god or hero in
quite a general way, such as brings them into no relation with other
gods, or at least into no relation suggestive of hostility or division.

(_β_) It is a further step in the direction of more defined situation,
when we find in such any particular purpose already represented in it,
an activity which stands in definite relation to something external,
and the self-subsistent figure itself expressed as within the sphere
of such purpose or activity. Even objectification such as these,
however, which have no real disturbing influence upon the tranquillity
and cheerful blessedness of the figures represented, are rather to be
regarded as particular modes of presentation incidental to this very
quality of cheerful contentment. The invention of the Greeks was here,
too, exceptionally thoughtful and fruitful. It is essential to the
unconstrainedness of such situations that the activity here presented
should merely indicate an action in its initial stage in such a way
that no further developments or oppositions are likely to proceed from
it, but that all that appears necessary to complete it should be found
enclosed in the action depicted.

As an illustration of this the situation of the Belvedere Apollo is
seized at the moment when he moves forward in wrathful majesty after
slaying the Python with his arrow. A situation of this kind has
not the grandiose simplicity of the earlier Greek sculpture, which
asserts for our intelligence the repose and open clarity of the gods
by means of expressed actions of less significance. Take the case of
Aphrodite peacefully gazing at herself while emerging from her bath
in full possession of her charms; or of fauns and satyrs at play,
play that is wholly absorbed in itself; or of that famous satyr who
dandled the young Bacchus in his arms, while he looks down upon him
with infinite tenderness and grace; to say nothing of the endless
variety of unconstrained activities in which Eros is depicted. Such
are a few examples of this type of situation. If the action is of more
concrete character we are confronted with a more involved situation,
which, at least for the artistic presentment of the Greek gods as
self-substantive powers, is less appropriate. In a case of this kind
the pure universality of the individual god is less able to transpierce
the accumulated detail of the particular action which he expresses. The
Mercury of Pigalli, which is a present of Louis XV to the exposition
of statuary in Sanssouci, is fastening on his winged sandals. This
is a perfectly harmonious action. The Mercury of Thorwaldsen, on the
contrary, is depicted under a situation which is almost too complicated
for sculpture. He listens attentively to the flute of Marsyas. At
the same time he is craftily spying him to see how he may slay him
while his hand grasps maliciously for the dagger he has concealed. In
opposition to this, if we may add one more illustration from a more
modern work of art, is that representation by Rudolf Schadow, of a
maiden binding her sandals in much the same simple manner as we find in
the case of Mercury. In this example the naïveté of the situation does
not contain the interest we experience when it is a god who exhibits
such unconstrained action. When it is only a maiden who fastens her
sandals or spins, there is little else to engage our attention but the
simple action, which is by itself of little significance or importance.

(_γ_) We shall find further, if we follow up the above train of
thought, that the more closely defined situation can be treated more
generally, as merely a more or less definite stimulus presenting the
_opportunity_ for further development of expressed action of wider
range related to the primary subject with varying degrees of affinity.
Many lyrical poems have what we may call an occasional situation
of this kind. A particular mood or a certain atmosphere of emotion
is a situation which can be arrested poetically for consciousness,
and, furthermore, in particular relation to external circumstances,
festivals, or public victories, is able to carry us forward to this or
that artistic expression, either of more comprehensive or restricted
range, and in every kind of embodiment of feeling and idea. Pindar's
odes of victory are supreme examples of this type of occasional
poetry. Goethe, too, has selected as the subject-matter of his muse
many lyrical situations of a similar character; and, in fact, if we
look closely into the matter, we shall hardly be wrong in calling his
"Werther" a poem of occasion. It is through the medium of "Werther"
that Goethe has elaborated the convulsions and anguish of his own
heart, incorporated, in short, the facts of his own experience in a
work of art. This, after all, is true of every lyrical poet; he gives
poetical expression to that which nearly affects him, and thereby
throws the windows of his heart open to the fresh air. That which has
hitherto been sealed up within is released in the external object,
from which our humanity has freed itself, just as we are the lighter
for the rain of tears, in which the sorrow is wept away. So Goethe,
as in fact he has told us himself, by his composition of Werther,
liberated himself from the mastery and pressure of his heart troubles.
At the same time we must point out that this last-mentioned situation
is not really appropriate to the type with which we are now dealing;
it obviously presents the profoundest contradiction in itself which
calls for resolution. No doubt in the kind of lyrical situation we have
identified with "the occasional" we may have declared a circumstance
objectively determined, in other words, an activity in close relation
to the external world; but, on the other hand, we find the poetic
temperament equally able to withdraw itself within the atmosphere it
creates wholly free from its external environment, and to make that
inward world which is the combined product of circumstance and emotion
its true point of departure.

_(c) The Collision_

All the situations to which we have hitherto directed attention are,
as already observed, neither true actions in themselves nor indeed the
stimulative source of such action. Their determination was to a greater
or less degree the purely occasional circumstance or condition, or an
action in itself of no significance, in which a substantive content was
expressed in such a way that its specific character appeared as a mere
harmless play, in which nothing of a truly serious nature was implied.
The full seriousness and weighty import of a situation can only begin
when we find in it the element of disruption, where the determination
itself exposes an essential aspect of difference, and by its opposition
to something else becomes the source of a collision.

The _collision_ arises, as we are now considering it, in an act of
_violation_, which is unable to retain its character as such, but is
compelled to find a new principle of unity; it is a change in the
previously existent condition of harmony, a change which is still in
process. The collision is, however, not an _action_, and is to be taken
simply as stimulus to action to all that characterizes the situation.
And this is true, although the contradiction in which the collision
is enclosed may be the result of previous action. As an example of
this we may cite the trilogies of the ancients, which carry forward
the main theme by presenting at the close of one drama the collision
which forms the stimulative impulse of the next, which, in its return,
renders necessary the resolution which is carried out by the third.
And, moreover, for this very reason that the collision always requires
some resolution attendant on this conflict of opposing elements, the
more a situation is full of it the more it is peculiarly adapted to the
subject-matter of dramatic art, it being the especial claim of that
art to present beauty in its completest and profoundest development.
Sculpture, on the contrary, is not wholly suited to give embodiment to
any action, through which the great spiritual forces are manifested
either in their division or reconciliation, and indeed the art of
painting, despite its more extended spatial significance, is only able
to objectify a single moment of action.

These situations of tragic significance introduce a peculiar difficulty
in dealing with them which is inherent in their very conception. For
inasmuch as they obviously arise from violations of the world-condition
they offer to our consideration circumstances which are unable to
continue as they are, which render necessary something of a remedial
nature to reclothe them. But the beauty of the Ideal consists precisely
in its undisturbed unity, repose, and consummation with itself. The
collision, on the other hand, disturbs this harmony of what is truly
real and ethical, and drives this unity of the Ideal into discord
and opposition. Through the representation of such disruption the
Ideal itself suffers violation. The function of art will undoubtedly
consist partly in preventing the entire destruction of free beauty
in this difference, and partly in only carrying this breach of unity
and the conflict it occasions to a point in which harmony may again
be recovered as the result of such a conflict and its resolution,
and in this way become manifest for the first time in its essential
perfection. It is, however, impossible to determine on a general
principle the precise limit to which such discordance may be carried
inasmuch as the several arts in this respect preserve their independent
character. The medium of the subjective idea can support a far intenser
disruption than that of the plastic arts[318]. In other words,
poetry is quite within its right when it breaks up the unity of the
world of the imagination even to the point of the extremest form of
desperation, and in its delineation of external objects to that of
absolute ugliness. In the case of the plastic arts, on the contrary, in
painting, that is to say, and even more so in sculpture, the external
form remains in unalterable fixity; it can neither be removed nor
lightly passed over in such a way that it again disappears. Under such
conditions it would be a serious defect to represent once and for all
an ugliness, which could not possibly be transmuted. Consequently all
that would be quite compatible in dramatic poetry, which is able to
represent a momentary appearance that again vanishes, is not within the
province of the plastic arts.

In discussing the more obvious types of collision we can only in this
portion of our inquiry indicate the most general points of view. We
would particularly draw attention to three fundamental aspects under
which they may be co-ordinated.

_First_, there are those collisions which proceed from purely
_natural_, that is to say, physical conditions, in so far as these
are characterized with qualities which are negative or evil and
consequently discordant.

_Secondly_, we have collisions which are of a _spiritual_ nature,
but which depend on _natural_ conditions, conditions which may in
themselves have a positive[319] character yet for the spirit contain
within themselves the seeds of difference and contradiction.

_Thirdly_, there are divisions which are caused entirely by disruption
in the Spirit alone; to these alone we are justified in attaching the
peculiar interest of contradiction which is bound up with genuine
_human activity_.

(_α_) Now with reference to the first type of conflicting forces--for
the reason that here it is only external Nature, through the
maladies and other evils and infirmities which are incidental to
her creating, conditions which destroy the pre-existent harmony of
life, replacing such with a state of antagonism--such can at most
merely serve as a stimulus for something outside them. Regarded
wholly by themselves such collisions are of no interest; they are the
subject-matter of art simply for the sake of the disruption which may
follow as a _consequence_ of some natural misfortune. The "Alcestis"
of Euripides, we may add, too, that of Gluck, the subject of whose
opera is practically the same, are examples of this; in both the
sickness of Admetus is necessarily presupposed. That sickness merely
by itself could not fitly supply a subject for artistic treatment.
It only becomes, even in the handling of Euripides, associated with
it by virtue of the individual characters, who, on account of such
misfortune, are compelled to face a further collision. It is the word
of the oracle that Admetus must die unless another will pass to the
underworld for his sake. Alcestis, out of love for her husband, devotes
herself to such a sacrifice, resolves to die, in order to restrain
Death from touching her beloved, the father of her children, the king.
In the Philoctetes of Sophocles a physical malady is also the cause of
the collision. Here the Greeks during their voyage to Troy place the
man who is suffering from a wounded foot, caused by the serpent's bite
in Chrysas, on the island of Lemnos. In this case, too, the physical
mishap is merely the extreme meeting point and incentive of a further
collision. For, according to the prophecy, Troy can only fall when the
arrows of Hercules are in the hands of the storming army. Philoctetes
refuses to give them up because he has been compelled for nine years
to suffer the martyrdom of his banishment. This refusal, no less than
the fact of his unrighteous desertion from which it springs, could have
been followed by every variety of result other than that which took
place; the real interest accordingly does not centre in the malady and
its physical necessity, but in the opposition which arises from the
refusal of Philoctetes to surrender the arrows. The case of the plague
in the Greek camp before Troy is very similar; although this is already
represented entirely as the consequence of former transgression, as a
punishment, in short, a mode of statement more adapted to epic than
dramatic poetry, nevertheless it is closely associated with evils
incidental to natural misfortune such as storm, shipwreck, and drought.
As a rule, however, art will not represent such mischance as mere
accident, but rather as an obstruction and misfortune whose necessity
simply consists in assuming precisely this particular form rather than
another.

(_β_) But, to turn now to our second type of the collision, inasmuch
as the external powers of Nature are not that which is most essential
to the interests and contradictions of human life, in cases where they
are found closely associated with such spiritual relations, they will
present themselves merely as the ground from which the collision breaks
forth in its true character. This is the point of view from which we
must regard all situations, where we trace the original source of
conflict in the facts of natural _birth._ We will shortly distinguish
between three particular cases of this.

(_αα_) In the first place we have the right that is bound up with
natural condition, that which constitutes relationship and inheritance
for example, which for the very reason that it stands in close
connection with Nature carries with it a number of relations that are
bound up with her, and this though the right, the fact is one and only
one. The most important example of this is the right of succession to
the throne. It is important to observe that this right must not as
yet, in relation to the collisions which spring from it, be absolutely
fixed by rule, otherwise the resultant conflict will be of quite
another character. If, that is to say, the right of succession is
not as yet entirely controlled by legislation and the social order
which it implies, no wrong will necessarily attach to any one of the
alternatives, namely, whether it be an older or younger brother, or any
other relative of the royal household who obtains the sovereignty. But
inasmuch as sovereignty is a qualitative rather than a quantitative
possession, which cannot like gold and other material goods be divided
up according to a just principle, dispute and contention is inevitably
the result of such a form of succession. When Œdipus, for example,
leaves the throne of Thebes without a ruler, he leaves his two sons
confronting each other with a right and claim of equal strength. The
brothers arrange to occupy the throne alternately from year to year.
Eteocles, however, breaks the compact and Polynices brings an army
against Thebes to enforce his right. The antagonism of brothers has
always been in the history of art a fruitful source of collision; it
commences indeed with the story of Cain who slew his brother Abel. In
the tale of Shah-Rameh, the earliest example we have of a Persian book
of heroic legend, it is a contention of throne succession which is the
source of the most varied conflicts. In this Feridu divided the Earth
among his three brothers. Selm receives as his portion Rum and Chawer;
Turan and Osin are given to Thur, and Fredysh becomes lord of the Earth
from Iran. All three, however, claim the land which belongs to his
brothers, and endless quarrels and wars are the result. In the Middle
Ages we find just the same countless examples of family and dynastic
broils. Such dissensions, however, appear in themselves to be due to
accidental circumstance. It is not necessary that brothers should be
at enmity; particular circumstances and more important causes must be
attached, such as the in itself tragic birth of the sons of Œdipus, or,
as we find in "the Bride of Messina," the author is at pains to shift
the quarrel of the brothers on to still more fateful circumstances.
In Shakespeare's "Macbeth" a similar collision is the foundation of
the tragic dénouement. Duncan is king and Macbeth, as his nearest
and oldest relation, is consequently heir to the throne with a right
precedent even to Duncan's sons. The primary incentive of Macbeth's
crime is the wrong which the king has done him in naming his own son as
heir to the throne. This justification of Macbeth, which is supported
by the chronicles of the time, Shakespeare has entirely passed over,
because, it was solely his object to bring into startling relief the
repulsive aspect of Macbeth's ambitious passion, in order thereby
to make his work agreeable to King James, who would be naturally
interested in finding the crime of Macbeth depicted without extenuating
circumstances. As a consequence we can find no sufficient reason why,
under Shakespeare's handling of the subject, Macbeth fails to murder
the sons of Duncan no less than their father, lets them escape in
fact; nor can we understand why they are wholly overlooked by the
nobles. However, the entire collision upon which, the drama of Macbeth
turns carries us beyond the particular type which we are now mainly
considering.

(_ββ_) In the _second_ of our examples in the type of collision[320]
we are now discussing we find the reverse situation to that just
discussed, and it consists in this that difference of birth, which
carries within itself a _wrongs_ is moreover, through ethical _custom_
or _law_, held within the chains of an insuperable _barrier_, so that
it receives at the same time the appearance of an innate wrong, and
consequently is the cause of collisions. Slavery, serfdom, differences
of caste, the position of Jews in many states and, with certain
qualifications, even the contrast between an aristocratical and citizen
class are all of them cases for consideration under this head. The
conflict here consists in this, that on the one hand humanity has
rights, relations, desires, aims and requirements which belong to it
essentially in virtue of its fundamental idea, which nevertheless
in each one of the above mentioned examples meet with dangerous
restriction and obstruction owing to the compulsive necessity of
natural birth. On this type of collision we have the following remarks
to offer.

The differences which obtain between classes, such as the ruled and
the rulers, are, no doubt, essential to the notion of state-life,
and are founded on reason, for they are caused by the inevitable
articulation of the organic community, and assert themselves as such
through the specific forms of occupation, disposition, modes of life,
and general levels of education in all their branches. It is another
matter, however, when these differences as they affect individuals are
determined absolutely by the accident of birth, so that the individual
man from the very start is not on account of any quality in himself,
but solely through the accident of Nature, irrevocably relegated
to a particular class or caste. In such a case it is obvious these
differences appear as innate and are, moreover, though purely external,
girt with force in its highest and most aggressive mode. We are not
bound to ask ourselves how this fixity and compulsive restraint came
originally into existence. For the nation may originally have been
united, and the natural distinction between freeman and serf been only
evolved at a later time, or the difference between castes, classes,
and privileged persons may have grown out of earlier distinctions of
nations and races, as many are inclined to think is the explanation of
the caste distinctions of India. All this is a matter of no moment to
us here. The main point simply consists in this, that vital relations
of this kind, which regulate the entire course of human existence,
have their source in natural conditions. On general principles, no
doubt, distinctions of class can be justified, but at the same time no
individual should be wholly robbed of his right to determine as his
choice may direct to which particular class he shall belong. Natural
capacity, talents, adaptability, and education are the only right
means to direct the way and decide in this respect. When, however,
the right of choice is debarred from birth onwards and a man is made
thereby dependent on Nature and its contingency, there is always the
possibility of conflict within the sphere of this necessity between
the states thus enforced on the individual by natural conditions and
the measure of spiritual education which he may acquire and the higher
demand which it may justly make. This is a pathetic and unfortunate
type of collision which has its source in an essential _wrong_ which
the freedom of art is quite unable to respect. In the social condition
of our own days distinctions of class, with a few exceptions, are
not determined by birth. The ruling dynasty and the peerage are the
only exceptions, and these depend on a higher conception of the State
altogether. For the rest, the mere fact of birth creates no essential
distinction that can ultimately determine the class to which a man
may belong if he is otherwise competent to join it. For this reason,
however, we must condition the demand for entire liberty of choice
with the requirement that in education, knowledge, ability, and
general tastes the individual is equal to the particular society with
which he may desire to associate. If, on the contrary, the fact of a
man's birth presents an insuperable obstacle to such claims, which he
would otherwise be quite competent to satisfy by virtue of his own
vigorous activity, then such a situation must appear to us not merely
a misfortune, but essentially a wrong under which he is compelled to
suffer injury. He is thus separated by a purely natural partition
wall which is essentially unjust, that is to say, one beyond which
his talents, sentiments, and general education have already raised
him, from that which he was competent to reach, and a purely natural
condition whose legalized fixity has been determined wholly by caprice
presumes to oppose insuperable barriers to the freedom rightly demanded
by all spiritual life.

To examine more closely the nature of this type of collision we shall
do well to look at it from three different points of view, each of
which are of essential importance.

In the _first_ place, it is necessary that the individual should, in
the strength of his own spiritual resources, already really have passed
beyond the natural barriers whose opposition is to give way before
his aims and desires, otherwise the demand is simply an act of folly.
If, for example, a domestic servant, whose education and ability is
merely that of a menial, falls in love with a princess or a lady of
high society, or, inversely, either of these with him, such a love
affair is both absurd and devoid of all taste, and this is so even if
the artistic representation of this passion display all the depth and
interest of which an ardent heart is capable. In such a case it is
not so much the difference of birth which creates the obstacle; this
is rather to be found in the entire content of interests, education,
aims of life, requirements, and mode of sentiment which distinguish in
status, material resources, and social qualifications a lady in high
position from a domestic servant. If love is, as in the case assumed,
the one and only bond of a union, and is associated with nothing else
throughout the entire sphere of all that men and women have to live
through in just accordance with that which a particular status requires
from their intelligence and experience, it must necessarily remain
devoid of content and is simply a union of the senses. Love, to be
wholly complete, is nothing less than a real harmony of the entire
conscious life, in which the full nobility of sentiment can be shared
and appreciated.

The _second_ case we wish to examine is that in which the dependence of
birth surrounds an essentially free human life and the objects it may
rightly set before itself with legalized fetters of obstruction. This
collision also presents an element unadapted for artistic treatment,
opposed, that is to say, to the notion of the Ideal, despite its love
to make use of it and the facility with which it may attempt to do
so. If distinctions of birth through positive laws and the powers
which support them create a persistent wrong, as doubtless may be the
case where a man is born an outcast or a Jew, he obviously, from one
point of view, is entirely right in holding with all the strength of
his inward life, which rebels before such a barrier, that the same is
dissolvable, that he, in fact, recognizes his individuality as apart
from it. To oppose such restraint appears to be wholly justifiable.
But in so far as it becomes impossible through the force of existing
circumstances to overcome such a barrier, which is consequently
converted into an irrevocable necessity, a situation of this kind can
only be regarded as a misfortune which itself is not without an element
of falsity. For the rational man is inevitably forced, in so far as
he is unable to subjugate the opposing necessity, to submit to the
same: it is not in reason to continue to fight against the inevitable,
but rather quietly to let it pass over him. He must, in fact, abandon
the sense of interest in and need of that which is, by virtue of this
barrier, swept from his reach, and suffer what he fails to overcome
with the quiet courage of passive endurance. Where a struggle is of
no avail it is the part of wisdom to be quit of it in order at the
least to retire into the _formal_ independence of personal liberty.
By doing so the forces of wrong have no longer power over him; if, on
the contrary, he battles against them he must necessarily experience
his dependence in its fullest extent. At the same time it remains
unquestionable that neither this abstraction of formal independence any
more than that content which can lead to no result are truly beautiful
when artistically considered.

There is a _third_ type of collision which, while being immediately
connected with that we have just considered, is equally removed from
the genuine Ideal. It is to be found affecting that class of persons
who attempt to assert some privilege which the mere fact of birth
concedes them and supports with the full weight of a religious title,
positive enactments, and the prevailing conditions of society. In such
a case, it is true, we have an independent position in harmonious
relation with what is externally realized in positive institutions,
but when considered as the mere consistency of that which is in itself
unjust and irrational it is quite as much as in our former example a
purely formal independence, and the notion of the Ideal disappears.
We may, no doubt, very possibly persuade ourselves that the Ideal is
retained because we have here an appearance as though the personal life
is in full union with the universal and its legalized constitution,
remaining consistently in such unity; but it will be observed that here
the universal does not assert its dominating power in the _particular
person_, as we found the heroic Ideal demanded, but only in and through
the public authority of positive laws and their administration;
moreover, what the individual here asserts is assumed to be essentially
wrong, and he loses in consequence the substantive significance which
we have seen to be also essential to the Ideal. An affair in which the
ideal subject of art is concerned must itself be at bottom true and
justifiable. To this type belong the legalized lordship exercised over
slaves or serfs, the right to rob a foreigner of his liberty, or to
sacrifice the same to the gods. No doubt it is quite possible that such
a right may be sustained by individuals with unquestioning belief that
they are justified in so doing, as in India, for example, the higher
castes make use of their privileges, or as Thoas ordered the sacrifice
of Orestes, or in Russia the lords are wont to flout their serfs.
In fact, those who are in authority are very likely to execute such
rights as legalized rights on account of the interest they may have in
preserving them. But in a case of this kind their right will be merely
the unrighteous right of the barbarian, and they must themselves appear
to us in the category of barbarians, at least, who resolve to carry
out and perfect what is essentially injustice. The legalized form,
under which the individual shelters himself, is, for the time to which
it belongs, and its spirit and the educational standard adapted to
it, no doubt to be respected and justified. But if we reflect upon it
rationally and apart from that, it is wholly positive[321], containing
no intrinsic claims or authority. Moreover, if the individual makes use
of his privileges for purely personal objects, under the mastery of
particular passions and the aims of mere selfishness, in addition to
our barbarian we get a bad character to boot.

Poets have frequently sought to arouse our pity, and it may be our fear
as well, through the presentation of conflicts of this kind, following
the rule of Aristotle, who lays it down that fear and compassion are
objects of tragedy. Strictly speaking we experience neither fear nor
reverence when confronted with rights which only exist among barbarians
and are the misfortune of uncivilized times. Any compassion which such
situations are likely to arouse is almost immediately converted into a
spirit of indignant hostility. The only true artistic _dénouement_ of
such a conflict is one where we find such illegitimate rights are not
carried into execution, as, for example, neither Iphigenia nor Orestes
are respectively sacrificed in Aulis and Tauris.

(_γγ_) The _third_ and last class of that type of collision which is
based on purely natural condition is that which is duetto personal
passion caused by natural peculiarities of temperament and character.
The jealousy of Othello is a supreme example of this. Ambition,
avarice, nay, even love itself in certain aspects, will furnish other
illustrations. Collision of this kind is only properly referred to such
passions in so far as individuals, seized and dominated exclusively by
the power of such emotions, are thereby forced into antagonism with
the truly ethical constitution and inherently justifiable course of
human existence, and consequently are plunged into a still more serious
conflict.

This carries our inquiry into the consideration of that third
subdivision of our original classification of general types of
collision, the type of which is based exclusively upon the conflict of
spiritual forces, in so far as such opposition is the result of human
activity.

(_γ_) We have already observed when dealing with purely natural
collisions that they only form the starting-point as it were for
further states of contradiction. And the same is more or less true
of the second type of conflict already adverted to. All these, in
artistic compositions of really profound significance, are unable to
remain in such forms of opposition as we have hitherto discussed. Such
disturbances and conflicting elements merely substantiate the opportune
moment, out of which the true and essential forces of spiritual life
will clash together in opposition and contend for the mastery. That
which is spiritual can only be set in activity by virtue of spirit.
Consequently the oppositions of Spirit can only win reality in actual
human deed, can only thus manifest themselves in their true character.

The position we have arrived at, then, is this. We have on one hand a
difficulty, an obstacle, a violation effected through something human
life has carried out in action. We have on the other a violation of
interests and forces intrinsically just and right. By treating these
two forms of determination in close juxtaposition we, for the first
time, are able to gauge the full depth of this last type of collision.

We may distinguish between the prominent examples which fall within the
consideration of this class of cases as follows:

(_αα_) In passing from the sphere of that type of conflict which we
have pointed out rests for its primary basis on what is entirely due
to Nature we observe that the first class of cases which confronts us
on crossing the boundary to the consideration of a new type is closely
related to that we have just left behind us. If, then, human action
is assumed to be responsible for the collision, it will follow that
what is carried out as natural through human action, that is to say,
in so far as humanity is not entirely _spiritual_, will consist in
this that a particular action is performed _unconsciously_ and without
purpose, which will be found afterwards to be a positive infraction of
the forces of self-respecting and civilized society. The consciousness
which any man latterly acquires of the injurious nature of an action,
of which he was previously unaware, will drive him who still accepts
the responsibility of such an action into division and conflict. The
ground of such a conflict, in fact, consists in the opposition with
which the mind is confronted between that which was actually before
it _when the action took place_, and the subsequent discovery of all
that was really _implied_ in the act itself. The cases of Œdipus and
Ajax will at once suggest themselves as examples. The action of Œdipus,
if viewed simply with reference to his will and knowledge, amounted
merely to the fact that he killed a perfect stranger in a quarrel.
The unconscious act was the reality in its full significance, that
is to say, the murder of his own father. Ajax, in a fit of frenzy,
slaughtered the cattle of the Greeks believing them to be the Greek
chieftains. On regaining his senses and discovering what he really did
he is seized with a sense of shame which drives him into collision with
himself. We must, however, observe that what has been unconsciously
violated by a man in the type of collision we are now examining ought
to be something which he himself, when fully in a position to judge,
would both honour and revere. If such a reverential attitude has its
roots merely in personal idiosyncrasy or superstition, such a collision
can arouse, to say the least, no really profound interest.

(_ββ_) Further, inasmuch as in the cases we are now discussing the
conflict arises from a _spiritual_ violation of spiritual forces
through human action, the collision more generally appropriate to
the type will consist in a violation which is perpetrated with full
consciousness _proceeding out of such_ and the intention it implies.
The point of departure here may centre again in passion, violence,
folly, and other similar qualities. The Trojan war, for example,
originates in the rape of Helen. Agamemnon afterwards sacrifices
Iphigenia, and so violates the feelings of her mother, slaying thus the
darling of her womb. Clytemnestra, in consequence, murders her spouse.
Orestes avenges the murder of his father and king by assassinating his
mother. In a similar way in "Hamlet" the father is sent to his grave by
a stratagem, and the mother of Hamlet insults the _manes_ of the dead
man by a precipitate marriage with his murderer.

In the case of these collisions as in those already considered, the
main point is this, that humanity is engaged in a self-imposed conflict
with what is intrinsically moral, true, and worthy of reverence. If
this is not so, then, for all who are really conscious of what is moral
and right, such a conflict can only appear without worth or material
significance, as is the case, for example, in the famous episode of the
Mahâ-Bhârata, with reference to Nalas and Damayanti. King Nalas marries
the princess Damayanti, who is allowed the privilege of making a free
choice among her sisters. All the other suitors are genii floating in
the air; Nalas stands on the Earth alone as a man, and she has the good
sense to select him. The genii are consequently much enraged, and watch
for the moment when they may find King Nalas tripping. For many years
they can bring to his charge no offence, as he is capable of none.
At last, however, they obtain power over him, for he commits a great
crime; the crime is this, namely, that after making water, he treads
with his foot upon the earth thus watered. According to Indian ideas
this is a severe offence which cannot escape punishment. From that
moment the genii have him in their power; one renders all his amatory
desires abortive, another excites his brother against him, and finally
poor Nalas, after forfeiting his throne and being reduced to beggary,
is driven forth a wanderer in wretchedness with Damayanti. At length
he is even compelled to part with her, until, as the tale will have
it, after many adventures, he is once more set on the throne of his
original happiness. The real conflict upon which for the Indians of old
days the whole of this story was supported was an essential desecration
of a sacred thing: according to our notions the tale is absurd from
beginning to end.

(_γγ_) Thirdly, it is not necessary that the disruption should be
direct, or, in other words, that the action taken solely by itself
should be an act of collision; the fact of collision may well appear
out of relations and circumstances of opposition and antagonism which
are forced upon the mind during the process of that action's execution.
Juliet and Romeo are in love with one another. In the mere fact of
their love there is nothing to suggest disunion. But they are aware
that their families are living in mutual hate and hostility, that their
parents will never consent to the marriage, and they are carried into
collision by virtue of this preassumed situation of antagonistic forces.

We must content ourselves here with these very general remarks upon the
relation which the determinate situation occupies in its opposition
to the universal world-condition. Were we to extend our inquiry into
all the divergent aspects, modifications, and nuances of the subject,
attempting thereby to express an opinion upon every possible form of
situation, this chapter would alone present us with sufficient matter
for discussions of endless prolixity and diffuseness. The discovery of
different situations implies a content of exhaustless possibilities;
and in every particular example the essential question involved is
how such may be adapted to the treatment of any specific art, in true
subordination to the principles and character of such an art. To the
fairy story much is permitted which is forbidden to a more stringent
mode of artistic representation. And we may say that generally the
discovery[322] of the situation is a critical point in the process of
art-production which often presents great difficulty to artists. In our
own days the difficulty of obtaining a suitable subject-matter as a
source for the circumstances and situations which the artist requires
is a common complaint. At first sight it may appear to us more in
keeping with our notion of poet if he borrow from his own resources,
and invent situations himself; but such independence does little to
increase his claims as a creative artist. For the situation does not
directly constitute the spirituality of his work nor indeed give us
its true artistic form: all that it does is to supply the external
material in which as its appropriate medium a character or temperament
is unfolded before us. It is only after working into this external
material in which actions and characters find their starting-point
that the true genius of the artist is actively displayed. The poet
consequently has little or no claim to our thanks for merely having
himself invented this least of all poetical aspects of his production.
He is, in fact, fully entitled to draw as much and as frequently as he
pleases from anything that comes to his hand, whether it be history,
saga, mythos, or chronicle, nay, even from material and situations
which have already been artistically treated. Just as we find in the
art of painting the external matter of the situation is borrowed from
legends of saints, and the process has been repeated on similar lines
over and over again. To discover the real artistic significance of
such artistic work we must penetrate far beyond the mere invention of
particular situations. The same remarks will apply in full force to
the entire wealth of the circumstances and developments artistically
handled. In reference to this it is frequently claimed as a virtue of
modern art in contrast with that of the ancients that we find in it
an infinitely more exuberant imagination. As a matter of fact, we do
find in the artistic creations of the Middle Ages and our modern world
the most extraordinary variety and interfusion of situations, events,
and occurrences, whether tragic or otherwise. This fulness of detail,
however, does not take us far. In spite of it all we have very few
dramas or epics of the first excellence. For the main point is not the
external course and interchange of a variety of events, when we find
such events and histories merely complete the entire content of our
work of art; rather it is the ethical and spiritual form which embodies
them, and the masterful movements of temperament and character which
are exposed and unveiled during the entire process of this artistic
embodiment.

Glancing now at the main position we have arrived at, and from which
our inquiry will proceed, we have found that circumstances, conditions,
and relations, whether determined with a reference to the external
world or the subjective consciousness, only create the situation by
virtue of the _temperament_ or passion which experiences them and
derives its nutriment through them. We have further seen that the
situation breaks up this determinate form in opposition, obstruction,
development, and disruption, so that the _emotional_ life feels itself
compelled by the force of the affecting circumstances to _react with
energy against_ this disturbing and restraining influence, which stands
in the way of its objects and passions. It is here, in truth, that
the action, strictly speaking, commences, when, that is to say, the
contradiction has fully asserted itself, which was already implied in
the fully defined situation. Inasmuch as, however, the action which is
based on this collision disturbs the unity of that which is opposed
to it, it calls into being by its antagonism the opposing force of
that which it confronts, and consequently the _action_ is immediately
associated with the _reaction._ With this analysis of the forces
rendered necessary by dramatic action, we have at length arrived at
the notion of the Ideal as a fully defined process. For we are here
presented with two distinct spheres of interest, both of which have
been rent, as it were, from the harmony they originally possessed, and
confront each other in conflict. Such, by the contradiction which is
involved in them, make a _resolution_ of the discord necessary. This
movement, regarded as a homogeneous whole, belongs no more to the
province of the mere situation and its conflicts; we are carried now
into that portion of our inquiry to which we have already given the
name of the genuine action.


3. THE ACTION

In the development of the subject under consideration, the _action_
immediately follows after the universal _world-condition_ and the
particular _situation._ In considering the action in its external
relation to that portion of our inquiry we have just concluded it will
be well to bear in mind the result we arrived at, that it presupposes
circumstances which necessitate collisions, action, and reaction. It
is impossible to determine at what point in the circumstances thus
presupposed the action will _begin._ For that which in one aspect will
appear as commencement will very possibly present itself in another as
the result of earlier developments, and to that extent will postpone
the real starting-point. And in like manner this, too, we may regard
as a fact resulting from former collisions. To take an example; in
the house of Agamemnon Iphigenia in Tauris expiates the guilt and
misfortune of her family. The commencement here of this deliverance on
the part of Iphigenia is the fact that Diana carries her to Tauris.
This circumstance is, however, merely the result of earlier stages of
the story, such as the sacrifice in Aulis, which is again conditioned
by the injury done to Menelaus in the rape of Helen by Paris, and so
on, ever backward, until we come to the famous egg of Leda. In the same
way the events which are the subject-matter of the Iphigenia in Tauris
presuppose the murder of Agamemnon, and all the crimes associated
with the house of Tantalus. An analysis of much the same character
might be applied to the Theban circle of mythos. If an action is to
be represented with all the facts that condition it, poetry is the
only real art that can attempt this. Such a complete exposition of
historical fact has already become, as a certain proverb reminds us,
rather a wearisome business; it is, in fact, more within the province
of simple prose, and, in contrast with such completeness, poetry will
rather consider its true function to be that of taking its audience at
once into the heart of the matter. There is a further important reason
why it should not be to the interest of art to make its commencement
from that point where we find the action under consideration is in the
first instance externally conditioned, and it is this: such a point
of departure is, after all, only related to the process regarded
as natural or historical fact[323]. The association of the action
with this commencement merely concerns the empirical unity of its
appearance; it may, however, in itself be of no significance at all
to the real content of the action. This external unity of historical
sequence remains just as it was, however it may chance that one
particular person is affected by the involved threads of a varying
series of fact. No doubt the entirety of the facts of life, its actions
and fatalities, tends to make the individual what he is; but for all
that his true nature, the real core of his thoughts and capacities, is
manifested in _one_ great situation and action independently of them.
It is the progress of these which reveals to us really what a character
is made of, a character which previously to their occurrence had been
known merely in a nominal way, that is the name of one more fact among
the external facts of experience.

We must therefore not look for the commencement of the action in that
_empirical_ source of it; we must rather centre the attention upon
those circumstances which have taken a hold upon the particular nature
with which we are dealing, and created or satisfied its needs; we
must, in fact, reveal the particular collision in whose conflict and
resolution the action in question consists. Homer, for example, in the
"Iliad," makes a start at once with the particular fact on which his
entire epic is founded, that is to say, with the wrath of Achilles.
He tells us nothing of earlier history of the life of Achilles, but
emphasizes at once the critical collision, and, moreover, does it in a
way which unfolds a background of the greatest interest to his picture.

The representation, then, of the action as a process complete in
itself, in which action, reaction, and resolution are constituent
elements, is, above all, the function of the poetic art; all the other
arts can at most only seize upon and secure in their presentation
one moment of this process. It is quite true that if we direct our
attention to that aspect of the medium they employ which is richest,
they may appear to have an advantage over poetry; in painting
especially[324] we find a control asserted not merely over the entire
external form, but also over the expression of external demeanour and
the play of such relatively to other objects grouped around it. Such a
means of expression, however, cannot compare as an interpreter of truth
with human speech. The action itself is the clearest means of unfolding
to us individual character, whether we view it relatively to the entire
emotional life[325] or the objects of mind. All that a man is at the
very root of his nature is first revealed to us through his acts; and
action, for the reason that it is an expression of spirit, finds its
ultimate expression as such most clearly and concisely in speech alone.
When we speak in general terms of human action we are apt to figure to
ourselves an incalculable variety of mode. For Art, however, the sphere
of action suitable to artistic representation is, generally speaking,
limited. Her province is wholly restricted to the type of action which
is conformable to the necessary configuration of the Idea.

There are three points of essential importance necessary to grasp in
connection with such action as is capable of artistic representation,
and which we may emphasize as follows. The situation and the resulting
conflict is that which generally stimulates it; the active movement,
however, taken by itself, the element of difference, that is to say,
of the Ideal in its activity, is made apparent first by virtue of the
reaction. This movement may be resolved into the following component
features:

_First_, we have the _universal_[326] _forces_, which constitute the
essential content and object, for the sake of which the action takes
place.

_Secondly_, we have the _realization_[327] of these forces in the
_individuals_ who act.

_Thirdly_, the two aspects above mentioned have to unite themselves in
that which, in default of any better generic term, we will here call
_character._

_(a) The Universal Forces of Action_

(_a_) However much we have finally arrived in our consideration of
the action at a point where the definition and differentiation of the
Ideal is of the first importance, nevertheless the very notion of art
renders it necessary that in the sphere of true beauty, be the aspect
of it whatsoever it may, it must still have upon it the stamp of the
Ideal; it cannot, that is to say, maintain itself without rationality
and the justification it implies. Interests of an ideal character must
inevitably be in conflict with another, so that might is opposed to
might. These interests are, in fact, the eternal and universal forces
of spiritual existence, the essential cravings of the human heart,
the spontaneous and inevitable objects of human action, justifiable
and rational in virtue of their own character, and consequently the
very universal powers to which we have referred. They are indeed not
the absolute Divine itself, but rather the sons of the one absolute
Idea[328], and consequently dominant and valid. They are the children
of the one universal truth, albeit only determinate, particular
moments of the same. Through their very distinction, it is true, they
can fall into contradiction or disunion, yet despite all the element
of difference contained, they must possess the original essentiality
within them in order to appear as the determinate Ideal. Such are the
supreme motive forces of art. They are the eternal[329] religious and
ethical modes of relationship, status, personal character[330], and in
the world of romance, before everything else, honour and love. In the
particular grade of their significance these powers differ, but all are
essentially the product of reason. At the same time it is these powers
in the human heart and mind, which man, by virtue of his humanity,
is bound to recognize, to give free play to, and to actualize. At
the same time they ought not directly to appear as rights in positive
legislation. For, to take one reason, the form of positive legislation,
as we have seen, is already in partial conflict with the notion and
content of the Ideal; furthermore, it is quite possible that the
content of positive rights may contribute to that which is essentially
unjust, albeit entirely clothed in the attributes of law. The relations
we have above referred to, however, are not merely the supreme stable
embodiment of the external world[331], but the essentially substantive
powers, which for the very reason that they contain in themselves the
actual content of human existence, continue to be the stimulating
source of its activity, and ultimately all that ever carried it forward
to perfection.

Of this kind are the interests and objects which contend against each
other in the "Antigone" of Sophocles. Creon, the king, as ruler of the
state, by a decree couched in the severest terms, forbade the right
of burial to the son of Œdipus, who had proved himself an enemy of
his country by bringing an army against Thebes. This proclamation was
so far justifiable that it expressed care for the weal of the entire
city. Antigone, however, is animated by an ethical principle of equal
authority, in other words by her love for her brother, whom she finds
it impossible to leave unburied, the prey of carrion birds. To leave
such a duty unfulfilled would be in direct opposition to the sacred
instincts of her personal relationship. She consequently violates the
decree of Creon.

(_β_) Collisions of the type with which we are now dealing may be
introduced in every possible way; the necessity of the reaction,
however, must not be occasioned by means of anything out of place or
at cross purposes[332] with the main action, but through that which is
in itself reasonable and justifiable. For example, in the well-known
German poem of Hartmann von der Aue, "The Poor Henry," the collision
is repulsive. The hero in this poem is visited by a fatality, that is
to say, an incurable disease. He turns for assistance to the monks of
Salermo. They state as the condition of his cure that a human being
must willingly surrender his or her life, on the ground that the
necessary salve can alone be forthcoming from a human heart. A poor
maiden who is in love with the knight offers freely her own life and
accompanies him into Italy. This is pure barbarism, and the silent
love and pathetic devotion of the maiden are unable, consequently,
to produce their full effect. It is true that we find the injustice
of human sacrifice presented us by the ancients as the ground of the
collision. The famous example is that of the story of Iphigenia, who is
first offered as such a sacrifice, and afterwards is on the point of
offering up her brother. But, in the first place, it is to be observed
that in these examples the conflict is in close connection with other
relations which are in themselves justifiable; secondly, the artistic
principle is really satisfied, as we have already observed, by the fact
that both Iphigenia and Orestes are finally delivered, and the power of
a collision which is opposed to our notion of right is thus destroyed.
And, indeed, this is also the case in the above mentioned poem of
Hartmann, in so far as we may acknowledge the _dénouement_ offered us
in which, on Henry refusing to accept the sacrifice, God releases him
from his malady, and the maiden is rewarded for her true love[333].

In apparent association with the positive powers we have enumerated
must be added others set over against them, that is to say, the forces
of that which is negative and bad, evil in short. That which is purely
negative, however, ought not to be taken in the ideal representation of
an action as the essential ground-motive for the necessary reaction.
The reality of the purely negative case, it is true, corresponds to the
negative and its appropriate character, but, if the implied[334] notion
and object is already in itself rendered nugatory, it is even less
possible that the ugliness which is exposed in the inward life should
manifest any genuine beauty upon its external reality. The sophistry of
passion can, indeed, by means of the capacity, strength, and energy of
a character, make the attempt to graft positive characteristics upon
the negative, but we only obtain thereby the vision of a whitewashed
grave. For that which is purely negative is generally flat and stale
and leaves us consequently either void or drives us back, whether
it be used as the motive force of an action or merely as a means to
promote a reaction in another. The horrible, unfortunate, the harshness
of dominion, and the obduracy of superior power may form part of the
content and burden of the imagination when such characteristics are
exalted and carried by the abundant greatness of a particular character
or object. Evil, however, taken simply for what it is, envy, cowardice,
and meanness, is merely repulsive. The devil, if we take him for what
he really ought to be, is consequently a bad subject, or rather a
figure for which Art has no uses at all. He is just a falsehood and
nothing more, and consequently an extremely prosaic personality. In
the same way it is perfectly true that the Furies of hate and many
other allegorical figures of later times are potencies of a kind,
but they are without affirmative subsistency and holdfastness[335],
unfavourable to ideal representation, although in this respect a wide
margin of difference is permissible in the several arts respectively,
and in the particular mode in which they may immediately visualize such
objects. Evil is, to express it in most general terms, essentially
cold and devoid of content, because as such it is merely the source of
negation, discord, and misfortune. All art, however, which is true to
its essential notion, should reflect on us the vision of a harmony.
Meanness, above all, is despicable, for it is a quality which arises
from the envy and hatred of all that is noble, and does not shrink
from distorting even a power that is essentially based upon the good
into a means conformable to its own perverse and shameless passion.
The great poets and artists of the classical world have in consequence
never presented us with the vision of absolute evil and depravity.
Shakespeare, on the contrary, in his tragedy of "King Lear," unfolds
before us the spectacle of wickedness in all its horrors. The old
Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters, and, while doing so, is
foolish enough to believe in their false and flattering speeches, and
to misinterpret the silent and faithful Cordelia. There is already
folly and madness in this, and it is followed by the most outrageous
ingratitude and worthlessness of the elder daughters and their husbands
to the point of absolute craze. As an antithesis of this the heroes
of the French school of tragedy are stretched and puffed out with
every sort of grandiose and sublime motive, and make a great parade of
their honour and nobility, and yet despite of it all destroy the very
meaning of such motives by the mere fact of what they really are and
accomplish. But it is in modern times more especially that we find this
unstable dissolution of everything spiritual[336], which forces its way
through every dissonance, however repulsive, become quite _à la mode_;
moreover, it has even given us what we may describe as the humour of
the abominable thing, a kind of burlesque simulation of irony, an
atmosphere in which a Theodor Hoffmann, for example, has found himself
so much at home.

(_γ_) We may conclude, then, that it is the essentially positive
and substantive powers in the spiritual world which supply the real
content of the ideal action. These sources of energy, however, in their
artistic embodiment, must not appear in their inherent universality,
albeit within the reality of the action they are essential phases of
the Idea. Rather they must receive the form of independent individuals.
If this were not so they would remain as merely the universals of
thought or abstract conceptions which do not properly fall within the
province of art. Though in their origin they should be held as intact
as it is possible to hold them from mere caprices of the fancy, it
is equally necessary that in their development they should acquire
determinacy no less than self-consistency[337], and in this way
appear as essentially particularized. Such definition as they possess
ought not to be carried to the point of the particularity of external
objects, nor should their concentration be carried to that of the
subjective self-consciousness[338]. Otherwise the individuality of
those universal powers is necessarily involved in all the developments
of finite existence. In this respect we may say, then, that the
determinacy of their individuality is not to be taken too seriously.
The gods of the Greek Pantheon are the most conspicuous example of this
manifestation and sway of the universal forces we have just discussed
in their self-subsistent form. However they may be brought before
us, their blessedness and cheerfulness remains unaffected. Regarded
separately as particular gods no doubt they engage in conflict, but
in all their battles we shall ultimately find they are not really
serious in the sense that they concentrate themselves on any definite
object with the entire consequential energy of their character and
passion, fully prepared to stake their existence upon the result. They
engage in this affair or that wherever it may take place, identify
particular interests in concrete examples with their own; they are,
however, equally ready to leave the matter at any point and wing their
way back happily to Olympus. Such is the view we get of the gods when
they engage in warfare on the pages of Homer. The determinacy of their
characterization is capable of conflict, but they remain for all
that the purely universal determinations which at bottom they are.
A battle begins to rage; heroes advance singly one against another;
then we lose sight of individuals altogether in the universal storm
and crush; it is no longer the specific qualities of individuals
which are now set in relief against each other--it is the universal
rush of the fight, the daemon of war loosed and roaring, and now it
is that the universal powers, the gods themselves, step forth on the
scene of battle. From such a temporary display of the contrasts of
their characterization they ever withdraw themselves into the solitude
of their self-subsistency and repose. For though the individuality
of their form carries them perforce into the region of time and
contingency, nevertheless inasmuch as the universal they claim as gods
is that which ultimately must prevail, the individual characteristic
shrinks away into the determination of external form only; they are
unable in their personality to penetrate the true arcana of conscious
spirit[339].

Their physical definition is, in fact, either more or less only the
accommodating form of their divinity. But this self-subsistency and
careless repose is precisely that which gives to them their plastic
individuality, and relieves them of any anxiety and constraint[340] in
relation to earthly objects and events[341]. For this reason we find
in the gods of Homer no final result when actively occupied with the
concrete facts of human life, although such activity is displayed for
us in many and diverse directions. The material and interest of human
events which happen in time is that which gives them something to do
and nothing more. And in like manner we may remark other peculiar
characteristics attached to the Greek gods, which we can only regard as
essentially unrelated to the general notion of divinity which each god
respectively connotes. Mercury is, for example, the slayer of Argus;
Apollo that of the hydra; of the love affairs of Zeus we have countless
tales, and, among other things, he hangs his wife on an anvil. These
and many other stories like them are merely supplementary additions,
which attach to the gods in their aspect of natural forces by virtue
of symbol and allegory, the origin of which we propose to discuss
more fully later on. In modern art we shall, it is true, find certain
indications which point to a conception of definite and at the same
time universal powers. These are, however, for the most part simply
cold and frost-like allegories of hate, envy, hope, love, faithfulness,
that is to say, generally of virtues and vices in the actual truth of
which we can retain no belief. For with us moderns it is the concrete
subjectivity alone, for which we, in the representations of art, feel
that profounder interest, wherein abstractions such as these do not
appear in their isolation, but are made to appear merely as phases or
aspects of human character, whether we regard it in its particularity
or as a concrete whole. In much the same way the angels possess no
essential universality and self-subsistency such as characterize Mars,
Venus, and Apollo, or even Oceanus and Helios. They are, it is true,
objects of imaginative conception, but their specific character is that
of vassals of the one Divine and essential substance, which is not in
this case broken up into self-subsistent individualities, as we find
it in the Greek Pantheon. For this reason we have here no imaginative
vision of many objective powers dwelling in a state of tranquillity,
which may be represented as essentially Divine personalities. We find,
on the contrary, the essential content of such either as subsisting
in the Godhead, or realized in a mode which is both particular and
subjective in wholly human characters and actions. Nevertheless
it was precisely in the conception[342] of self-subsistency and
individualization that the ideal representation of the gods originated.

_(b) The Individuals in the Action_

In the cases we have just discussed of the ideal gods it is not a
difficult matter for art to secure the ideality she requires. But in
approaching the concrete action, ideal representation is confronted
with a real difficulty. For though it is here that the gods and, in
general terms, the universal powers may be identified with a principle
which stimulates and compels activity, we are not therefore on the
plane of reality entitled to find in them the source of genuine
individual action. Action is rather essentially the manifestation of
human life. Consequently there are in this connection two distinct
aspects of the problem to be considered. On the one hand we have these
universal forces in their self-subsistent repose and for that reason
more abstract substantiality; on the other there is the individuality
of men, in which we must seek the final spring and determinating
impulse to action no less than its actual accomplishment. It is, of
course, only the simple truth that these eternally dominant powers
are immanent in the identical nature of mankind, constituting, in
fact, the substantive core of its character; but in so far as they are
comprehended in their Divine nature themselves as individuals[343],
and thereby in an exclusive way, their relation to the subject of human
consciousness must remain an external one. And this fact enables us to
see the essential difficulty we noticed above. There is, in truth, a
contradiction immediately involved in this relation between the gods
and men. It is quite true that the content of the gods is that which
belongs to humanity, and announces itself as his passion, resolve,
and will. It is, however, equally true that the gods must not only be
assumed to be and comprehended as independent from man individually
considered in their actual existence, but, furthermore, as the forces
at the root of all his activity and determination. And this, too, in
such a way that we are forced to consider the same determinations at
one time as personified in the self-subsistent and Divine personality,
and at another that which appears most essentially to belong to the
human heart. And it is for this reason that the free self-subsistency
of the gods no less than the freedom of human individuals in their
activity is seriously compromised if, to the detriment of human
independence, which we have already stated to be of most essential
importance to the Ideal of Art, we ascribe an exclusive power of
command to the gods. And we may observe this is precisely the same
kind of difficulty which confronts us in the form of the religious
conceptions of Christianity. It is stated in terms that the spirit of
God leads up to God. Taken strictly such a phrase can only imply that
the inward life of man is regarded as a purely passive ground, upon
which the spirit of God labours. In such a conception the human will
disappears as a free will, and at the same time the Divine purpose
which motives the "in working" above mentioned can only appear to
man as a kind of Fate, under which he fails to come by his own true
personality[344].

(_α_) If, however, this question of mutual relation[345] is so
understood that man in his action is conceived as standing in a purely
external opposition to God, here posited as eternal substance, the
relation of both is one of pure matter of fact[346]. God gives a
command, and man is obliged to hearken. Even great poets have found
themselves unable to dispense with this conception of external
opposition between gods and men. In the "Philoctetes" of Sophocles,
for example, we find that Philoctetes, after he has confounded the
deceit of Odysseus, persists in his determination not to return to the
Grecian camp until Heracles appears at length as _Deus ex machina_,
and orders him to yield to the entreaty of Neoptolimus. The content of
this apparition is, no doubt, sufficiently motived, and answers to our
own expectation; the catastrophe itself, however, is for all that not
rightly homogeneous, but rather outside the action; and in his noblest
tragedies Sophocles makes no such use of this kind of representation,
according to which, if we but carry it one step further, the gods
are reduced to lifeless machines, and individual men simply to the
instruments of a foreign caprice. In a similar way we constantly in
epic poetry meet with the active intervention of the gods represented
in a mode which is external to human freedom. Hermes, for example,
conducts Priam to Achilles; Apollo gives Patroclus the blow between the
shoulders which ends his life. We also frequently find mythological
traits treated in such a way that they appear as wholly external to the
actual lives of the individuals thus affected. Achilles, for example,
is dipped by his mother in the Styx and thereby rendered invulnerable
and invincible to the one point of his heels. If we reflect on this
rationally it is obvious that all real bravery disappears, and all
that is heroic in the character of Achilles is converted from a real
trait of his essential manhood to a purely physical advantage. Such a
mode of representation is, however, far more permissible to the epic
than it is to the dramatic type of poetry, for the good reason that
in the epic that aspect of spiritual life which is directly concerned
with the intention implied in the execution of objects falls into the
background and a larger field is, in general, offered for the play of
external characteristics. Such a criticism of the prosaic understanding
as the one above, which charges a poet with the absurdity that his
heroes are no heroes at all, should only be advanced with the greatest
caution, for it is partly in such traits as will appear shortly, that
the poetical relation between gods and men is preserved. It is another
matter, and we have nothing left us but prose, when in addition the
powers, which are posited as substantive individuals, are mere empty
shadows, the creations of the caprice of fancy and the arbitrariness of
a false originality. They are then for the most part only the adjuncts
of superstition or imbecility.

(_β_) The truly poetic relation of ideality consists, then, in the
identity of gods and men; and this must assert itself even though
the universal powers are presented as independent and free from
the particularity of human beings and passions. In other words,
all that we attribute to the gods must at the same time establish
itself as that which is essentially cognate with the spiritual life
of particular men in this sense, that while the dominating powers
appear as essentially personified, yet at the same time all that is
thus posited in an external relation to man is none the less clearly
that which is immanent in his own spirit and character. The true
function of the artist is, therefore, to introduce a mediating link
between the difference involved in these two aspects, to bind them, in
short, by a finely conceived thread of relation which, while clearly
emphasizing their springs in the spiritual life of man, shall make
no less visible the universal and essential element which is therein
implied and present such to the imagination in individual form. The
emotional life of man must reveal itself in the gods, who, in fact,
are the self-subsistent and universal embodiments of that which is
active and dominant in his own spiritual experience. Then alone are the
gods at the same time gods in cognate relation with his own heart and
emotions. When, for example, we are told by the ancients that Venus or
Amor has put a constraint upon the heart, no doubt in the first place
these divinities are apprehended as external powers; but human love is
equally a stimulus and a passion, which is implanted in the heart and
is part of that it independently contains.

In much the same sense is the frequent reference to the Eumenides. We
have to picture in the first instance no doubt these avenging maidens
as Furies, who pursue the transgressor in an external form. But this
pursuit is but another aspect of the Fury which drives through the soul
of the perpetrator of crime; and Sophocles in the Œdipus Colonus (I.
1434) actually refers to them in this sense of inward spiritual forces,
as the Eumenides of Œdipus himself, that is to say, who signify the
father's curse as the result of the stress of emotion caused by the
conduct of his sons. We have, then, and equally have not reason on our
side whether we identify the gods with powers external to man, or find
in them that which belongs exclusively to his spiritual life. They are
in fact both. In Homer, for example, the activity of gods and men is a
constantly involved skein[347]. The gods appear to accomplish what is
foreign to human activity, and yet for all that execute only that which
is in vital co-ordination with his own emotional life. In the "Iliad,"
for example, when Achilles, in the stress of controversy, is about to
raise his sword against Agamemnon, Athene steps forth behind him and
takes hold of his head of flaxen hair, visible only to himself. Hero,
who is equally anxious over Achilles and Agamemnon, sends for them from
Olympus, and their admission there appears to be wholly independent
of the desire of Achilles. On the other hand we have no difficulty in
seeing that the sudden appearance of Athene, the wisdom which puts
constraint upon the hero's wrath, is simply a reflection of internal
conflict, that the entire description but states in imaginative form
what was experienced in the heart of our hero. In fact Homer himself
points this out a few verses previously ("Iliad," I, v, 190), when he
relates about the debate that took place in his heart in the following
terms:

     ἢ ὅγε φάσγανον ὀξὺ ἐρυσσάμενος παρὰ μηροῦ
     τοὺς μὲν ἀναστήσειεν, ὃ δ᾽ Ἀτρέιδην ἐναρίξοι,
     ἡὲ χόλον πάυσειεν ἐρητύσείε τε θυμὀν.[348]

This inward breaking up of anger into a divided self, this constraint,
for it is in opposition to the anger, and Achilles appears at first
to be wholly filled with wrath, the epic poet has a perfect right
to represent at the same time as an external event. In a similar
case in the "Odyssey" we find Minerva acting the part of escort for
Telemachus. This attendance is rather more difficult to grasp as a
personal experience of the emotional life of Telemachus, although we
can readily fix on certain points of contact between the external
image and the emotion experienced. And this it is we may generally
say which constitutes the cheerful buoyancy of the Homeric gods, and
the irony implied in the honour paid to them. Their self-consistency
and seriousness are characteristics which tend to dissolve like a
cloud, precisely to the extent that they unfold themselves as the very
powers which are native to man's emotional life, and thereby, in their
manifestation, leave humanity alone with its own possessions.

However, it is not necessary to look so far abroad for a complete
example of the conversion of a purely mechanical conception of Divine
activity into the atmosphere of the subjective consciousness, the
sphere, that is, of freedom and ethical beauty. In his Iphigenia in
Tauris Goethe has in this connection carried the process through with
a beauty that we cannot sufficiently admire. In the drama of Euripides
Orestes in complicity with Iphigenia carries off the statue of Diana.
This is simply an act of stealing. Then Thoas comes on the scene, and
orders their pursuit, and the recovery of the bust of the goddess.
Finally, in very prosaic fashion, Athene appears and orders Thoas
to stay his hand on the ground that she has independently commended
Orestes to the charge of Poseidon, and he, in deference to her wishes,
has already carried Orestes far over seas. Thoas submits to her advice
and replies to it in the following terms (v, 1442, 43): "Lady Athene,
whoever, on hearing the words of the gods, does not obey them is but
a fool. For how could it be right and fit to contend with the mighty
gods."

In this relation we can only see the bare external command of Athene
on the one side, and an equally futile submission of Thoas on the
other. In Goethe's treatment of the subject, on the contrary, Iphigenia
becomes herself exalted to the rank of a goddess, in reliance upon the
truth she feels within herself, the truth of a human heart. In this
sense she turns to Thoas and exclaims:

     Is it then man alone who has the right
     To accomplish things none ever heard before!
     Shall he alone impress upon the strength
     Of hearts heroic the impossible?

That which in the drama of Euripides the command of Athene effects, the
change in the attitude of Thoas, Goethe's Iphigenia endeavours to bring
about, and in fact does bring about, through the depth of the feelings
and ideas with which she confronts him.

                   With motions strange
     An enterprise audacious soars within me;
     A vast reproach and ills yet graver still
     Will break on me if the event miscarry;
     But, see, I place it on your knees! Be true,
     Be only true and worthy of your fame,
     So your assistance shall declare it truth,
     Truth glorified through me.

And to this reply of Thoas:

                        What! you believe
     The Scythian wild and the barbarian
     Hear the wise voice of Truth and hearts humane
     When Atreus of Greece still failed to hear.

she answers with the gentlest, purest trust:

                        Nay, all thus hear
     Beneath whatever sky their birth was laid;
     All needs must hear for whom the springs of life
     Flow without let and purely through the soul.

Then it is she makes the final call upon her greatness of soul, and the
tenderness of her faith at its highest point of effort; her entreaty
touches, then masters and wrings from him, in a way that must appeal
to every heart, the permission to return to her own. This alone is
necessary. She has no need of the statue of the goddess; she can depart
on her journey without deceit or betrayal of trust. And it is with the
finest sense of beauty that Goethe refers here to the oracular word of
the god:

     Bring but to Greece again the sister who
     All loth at heart in holy temple bides
     On shores of Tauris, and the curse is gone.

The very human reconciliation disclosed in these words is clearly
that the pure and holy Iphigenia, the sister, is in fact the divine
personification and the protectress of the house.

     Noble and beautiful I wot in sooth
     All that the goddess counselled seemed to me,

exclaims Orestes to Thoas and Iphigenia:

                Like to a holy picture
     The fate unalterable which walled our town
     By one mysterious word, one word Divine,
     Is banished, now that city takes thee back,
     Who art the true protectress of our home;
     Reserve thyself in holy quietness,
     A blessing to thy brother and thine own;
     It seemed that all deliverance on Earth
     Had passed away, and all comes back with thee.

In the spirit of these healing words of reconciliation Iphigenia has
already revealed herself to Orestes by virtue of the purity and ethical
beauty of her inner life. It is true that her discernment drives him
half mad, who in the convulsion of his spirit has lost all faith in
peace; but the pure love of the sister does not fail to heal him from
every pang with which he is tortured by the Furies of his soul:

                   Within thine arms
     The evil clawed me with its direst clutch
     For the last time, and to the very marrow
     I shuddered horribly: and then it vanished,
     E'en as a serpent to its lair. Anew,
     And all through thee, the day's breadth I enjoy.

Here, as elsewhere throughout it, we can hardly emphasize sufficiently
our admiration for the profound beauty of this poem.

The material which has the impress of Christianity upon it is more
open to criticism than that which was the subject-matter of antique
art. In the sacred legends, and generally speaking where the religious
conceptions of Christendom prevail, no doubt we may find the appearance
of Christ, the Virgin Mary and other saints the subject of universal
belief; but along with them the imagination has clothed itself with
fanciful aberrations in every direction, so that witches, ghosts, and
every sort of spectral apparition are yet more conspicuous objects. In
the face of such conceptions, so far at least as they appear foreign
powers to our human nature, and man submits himself unreservedly to
the charm, seduction, and influence of their illusions, artistic
representation is wholly given up to every kind of folly and caprice of
mere contingency. It is of unique importance that in the treatment of
such material the artist take care that the freedom and independence
of judgment are in no way impaired. Shakespeare has shown us how to
do this in most noble fashion. The witches in Macbeth, for example,
appear as external powers, who foretell for Macbeth his future destiny.
What they _do_ foretell, however, is precisely that which is his own
most secret wish, which is reflected back on him and declared in this,
merely in appearance, external form[349]. With a still closer regard to
beauty, yet profounder insight, is the ghost in Hamlet treated as the
purely objective embodiment of Hamlet's own intuitions. We find Hamlet
in the first instance overpowered with a vague feeling that something
horrible has taken place. His father's ghost then appears and gives
definite form to these awful premonitions. We naturally expect that
Hamlet, after receiving the facts set forth in his father's warning,
will at once proceed with energy and bring the murderer to book, a
revenge which appears to have ample excuse. But he delays and delays.
Critics have made this inactivity a matter of reproach to Shakespeare,
blamed him, in fact, as though for this reason the play to some
extent never gets properly off. But we must remember Hamlet is not a
strongly practical nature, rather a finely strung one, with emotions
held in persistent reserve; a nature which finds it difficult to tear
itself from its internal harmony; melancholy too, prone to subtleties,
hypochondriacal, with emotions deeply rooted. For this reason it is
obvious that he is _prima facie_ indisposed to prompt action. And this
is fundamentally Goethe's conception of him when he tells us that what
Shakespeare sought to represent "was the imposition of some supreme
action on a soul whose growth was unadapted to its execution." He
in fact interprets the entire drama relatively to this conception
of Hamlet. "We have here," he maintains, "an oak tree planted in an
exquisite vase, which ought really only to contain and shelter the
fair flowers; the roots spread, the vase is shattered." But it should
be noticed that Shakespeare, when referring to the apparition of the
ghost, contributes a far profounder trait of character in explanation
of this debated point. Hamlet delays, because he does not right off
wholly believe in the ghost.

             The spirit that I have seen
     May be a devil: and the devil hath power
     To assume a pleasing shape; yea and perhaps,
     Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
     As he is very potent with such spirits,
     Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
     More relative than this: the play's the thing,
     Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

In this passage it is obvious that the apparition as such does
not leave Hamlet merely devoid of all stability[350], but that he
entertains a reasonable doubt, and is determined to make his conviction
a certainty by his own experiments before he proceeds to act upon it.

(_γ_) As a summary description of these universal powers, which appear
not merely in their external independence, but are the vital and
moving forces in the human heart and all that is implied in its most
intimate life, we may borrow an expression in use among the ancients,
that is to say Pathos (_πάθος._) To translate this word adequately is
not easy. Passion almost always implies as its concomitant an element
of meanness or baseness. We contend in ordinary parlance that a man
should not surrender himself to his passions. It must therefore be
understood that we use the expression pathos in a nobler and more
universal sense than this without the slightest implication of anything
blameworthy or egotistic. The devoted love of the sister Antigone is
an excellent example of a pathos in the full significance of the Greek
use of the term. Pathos in this sense is a power of the emotional life
which completely justifies itself, an essential part of the content
of rationality and the free will. Orestes, for example, kills his
mother not so much on account of any force of his emotional life which
we strictly can call passion; rather it is a pathos in itself fully
considered upon and essentially sane which carries him on to the awful
deed. Thus understood we may add that it is impossible to say that the
gods possess pathos. They are merely the universal content of that
which is the stimulating energy in the resolves and actions of human
individuality. The gods as such continue in their repose and freedom
from passion, and however much they may quarrel or contend among
themselves, there is nothing really serious in it all, or their strife
possessed merely a symbolical significance in the view we may take of
it as a universal war of the gods. We must therefore strictly limit
pathos to the actions of mankind, and conceive thereunder the essential
or rational content, which is present in the human consciousness
identical with itself and throughout suffuses the emotional life.

(_αα_) We may say, then, that pathos constitutes the true mediating
link[351], the veritable domain of art. The representation of it is the
most truly effective part of a work of art, as it is its influence upon
those who look at it. Pathos sets a string in motion, which vibrates
through every human heart. Every one must know the type of worth and
reason, which underlies the content of a genuine example of pathos,
must recognize it at once when he sees it. And the cause of this is
that pathos moves us because it is that which is essentially the vital
force of our human existence. And it equally follows that that which
is wholly external, the natural environment and particular scene, in
its active support of the effect of pathos, need only be treated quite
subordinately. Nature must in consequence be drawn upon as a fact
essentially symbolical and suffer the pathos to re-echo from her walls,
which is the most real subject-matter of artistic representation.
Landscape is, for example, a type or genre of painting of less
importance than historical painting; but even there we find that the
school of landscape most independent should not be without a general
harmonic relation to human feeling, and, in fact, possesses a certain
type of pathos. In this sense we are told art generally ought to touch
the emotions. Before accepting this principle, however, we ought first
to inquire through what means this peculiar effect of art must be
brought about. "To touch the emotions" is in general the activity of
something in union with feeling, and mankind, more particularly the
mankind of to-day, are, or a more considerable portion of them are,
only too readily open to such experiments. The man who showers tears
on us, starts the seeds of tears, which grow up fast enough. In art,
however, only that ought to move us which contains in itself the real
import of pathos.

(_ββ_) For such reasons we may affirm that neither in comedy nor
in tragedy ought pathos to be that which is only folly or personal
idiosyncracy. Shakespeare's Timon, for example, is on purely material
grounds a misanthrope; his friends have eaten him up, consumed his
substance, and when he himself requires their gold desert him. He
consequently becomes a passionate enemy of mankind. The situation is
both conceivable and consistent with nature, but it contains no pathos
that can be justified on principle. Even to a more striking extent
is the hate we find in "The Misanthrope," that play of Schiller's
apprenticeship, purely a vagary of modern ideas. For in this latter
case the misanthrope is in addition a thoughtful, perspicacious, and
entirely noble man, great-hearted towards his peasants, whom he has
freed from their villeinage, and devoted to his daughter, who is, apart
from her beauty, in all respects worthy of his love. In much the same
way, in that novel of August Lafontaine, Quintius Heimeran von Flaming
is worried with the follies of mankind. It is, however, our most
latter-day poetry which, above all, loves to wind itself into every
conceivable knot of fantastical falsehood[352], attempting thereby to
secure an effect through mere oddity, but failing to find the slightest
response in any sane person for the reason that every vestige of what
is really present in human life has vanished from such refinements of
mental athletics.

In another direction we may remark that everything which depends
solely, that is to say, in so far as scientific apprehension is
the main requirement, upon instruction, testimony to the truth, and
insight of what is offered as such, is no fit subject-matter for
the representation of a genuine pathos. The facts of _scientific
knowledge_ are a part of this material. And the reason of this is that
science demands a particular form of education, an effort towards
and a knowledge of the specific forms of science and their relative
importance of exceptional variety and extension; an interest in this
type of study is by no means a universally moving influence in the
hearts of men, but is limited and must ever remain limited to a narrow
circle of votaries. The treatment of purely _religious_ instruction
presents similar difficulty, if we mean by that the development of
the same in its profoundest import. No doubt the universal content
of religion, such as the belief in God and similar theses, is of the
deepest interest to anyone worthy of it. Art is, however, not directly
concerned either in the exposition of religious dogmas, nor, indeed,
in any exceptional insight into their truth; it is consequently of
importance that she should be held aloof front such disquisitions. It
is all the more necessary that we should through art entrust every type
of pathos to the human heart, every motive of ethical significance,
which are of practical and vital interest. The influence of religious
ideas is rather upon the subjective world of emotion, the heaven
of the heart, the ever-repeated consolation and uplifting of the
individual life, than upon direct action in the strict sense. For that
which is Divine in religion on its practical side is morality and the
powers which are potent in the ethical life. These powers, however,
in contrast with the heaven of religion in its purest form, are in
definite relation to the world and that which is entirely human. Among
the ancients this worldly content was fundamentally included in their
conception of Deity, and consequently their gods could be related
directly to human action and its artistic presentation.

From all this it will readily appear that the significant moments
of volitional activity which present to us the pathos we have just
endeavoured to define are numerically small and the range of them
restricted. In the opera especially it is inevitable that the sphere
from which such may be selected is a narrow one; we consequently have
for ever dinned in our ears the plaints and delights, the misfortunes
and happiness of love, fame, honour, friendship, maternal and marital
devotion.

(_γγ_) Now a pathos of this kind requires for its display not merely
the power of exposition, but also that of perfected _elaboration_[353].
And what is more, the soul which entrusts to its pathos the spiritual
wealth it possesses must be one with real wealth to dispose of,
and not one that can rest in a condition of purely intensive
self-concentration. It must, in short, be ready to give an outward
semblance to its self-expression and rise to the finished perfection of
that. The distinction between this power of self-concentration and that
of self-revelation is of great importance; and we shall find that in
this respect the types of individuality such as generically represent
different races offer essential points of contrast. Nations whose
reflective consciousness has been highly trained are more eloquent
in the expression of their passions than others who are not so. The
ancients, for example, were accustomed to unfold the pathos, which
is the animating principle of human personality, in its profoundest
significance, without running off into cold generalities or empty
tattle. The French also in this respect are naturally gifted, and
their eloquence in the expression of passion is not by any means
always merely a piling up of words, as we Germans, following the bent
of our national reserve, to which the repeated expression of emotion
appears to be a kind of wrong inflicted upon it, are only too ready
to think it is. In fact, we have gone so far in this direction that
we could mention a distinct phase in our poetical history, when the
younger spirits, at any rate, sick to death of that which they dubbed
"the flush of French rhetorical water-drops," yearned to such an
extent after the simplicity of Nature that their artistic energy could
only express itself for the most part in interjections. It is hardly
necessary to observe, however, that we shall arrive at no "open sesame"
with Ahs and Ohs, a damn here and there thrown in, or any other random
note of storm and bluster. The inspiration of mere interjections is a
feeble one, or rather is simply the way in which the still unrefined
nature expresses itself. The spirit which is to reveal to us pathos
must be a spirit which is full to running over, which is able to spread
itself abroad and give expression to its virtue.

We may add, too, that in this respect Goethe and Schiller present a
most marked contrast. Goethe is less pathetic than Schiller, makes
use of a mode of artistic expression which is more intensive; more
especially in his lyrics we are struck by this characteristic of
self-reserve. His songs, and this is the true quality of the pure
lyric, go naturally on their way, without entirely giving us all
that they contain. Schiller, on the contrary, is clearly anxious to
unfold the pathos of his subject to its furthest limit, and with all
the clearness and force of expression he can muster. Claudius in
"Wands-becker Boten"[354] has contrasted Voltaire and Shakespeare in
much the same fashion, maintaining that the one _is_ what the other
only _appears_ to be. "Master Arouet tells us: 'I weep'; Shakespeare
really weeps!" To this we can only reply that it is precisely with such
telling and appearance that art is concerned and not with the mere
positive fact. If Shakespeare merely wept while Voltaire made others
think he wept, so much the worse for the poet Shakespeare.

To conclude, then, it is necessary that pathos, in order to be in
itself concrete, as it should be in ideal art, be presented in its
artistic manifestation as the pathos issuing from a spiritual nature,
rich and comprehensive. And this result carries us forward to that
third aspect of our consideration of "the action" already adverted to,
that is to say, an inquiry into what is implied by _character_ in this
connection.

_(c) Character_

We will summarize the proceeding argument. Our point of departure was
the _universal_ and substantive powers which are the original stimulus
to action. Such require as the medium of their active realization human
_individuality_, in which they then appear as _affecting_ pathos[355].
But, furthermore, the universal inherent in these powers must in
particular individuals acquire the concentrated unity and concreteness
of a _whole_, and a _single whole._ This totality is man apprehended in
his fulfilled spiritual content and the subjectivity therein comprised,
in one word the entire self-contained human individuality which we
designate as character. The gods are born into the pathos of men, and
pathos in its more concrete form of activity is human character.

In character, then, we find the real focus[356] of the ideal exposition
of art, that is to say in so far as the embodiment unites in itself the
separate aspects of it already developed as consistent phases, in the
construction of its own totality. For the Idea as _Ideal_, by which
we mean as clothed in a form within the grasp of sensuous imagination
and perception, and in its activity as action and accomplishment, is,
if we define it strictly, just this self-relation of the _subjective
individuality._ The individuality, however, which is truly _free_,
and nothing short of this will satisfy the Ideal, has not merely to
declare itself as universality, but at the same time, to assert its
nature as concrete singularity, as the mediating bond which unites and
transpierces both sides thus related, which in their _self-related_
actuality subsist as unity. And this is precisely what we understand
by character, the ideal form of which consists in the wealth of energy
with which all the constituent aspects of the subjective life are
welded in one whole.

We will now inquire rather more closely into the nature of this
conception of character viewed under three distinct aspects.

_First_, as co-extensive[357] individuality, that is to say, with, our
attention directed to the wealth of substance contained in it.

_Secondly_, with direct reference to its particularity, the form in
which it is bound to appear, albeit still a totality, as one that is
more _defined_ or specific.

_Thirdly_, in our final apprehension of it as a unity which is fully
identified with its own determinate form, that is, which is throughout
fused with the same by virtue of its own principle of subjective
self-identity, and thereby attaches to the whole the significance of an
essentially _assured_ character.

We will now develop and elucidate more fully what we conceive to be
implied in the above general propositions.

(_α_) And first we would draw attention to the fact that this
pathos, though an essential feature in the development of completed
individuality, is not, in the specific form of its appearance, the
_sole_ or exclusive interest of the individuality portrayed. It is,
in fact, merely one aspect of the efficient[358] character, if one
of paramount importance. To put it in rather a strong way, the human
soul does not merely carry within it _one_ god as the original of
its pathos; on the contrary, the spiritual scope of humanity has
wider borders, and we may affirm that many gods make their dwelling
in one true man, or, rather, all the powers which are scattered
throughout the heaven of the gods are enclosed within that one breast.
It is co-extensive with the entire field of Olympus. In this sense
one of old has said: "Out of thine own passions, O man, hast thou
created the gods." And, as a matter of fact, in proportion as the
intelligence of the Hellenic folk quickened, the number of their gods
increased; and, furthermore, the gods of their earliest days were less
intelligent, that is to say, they were god-like figures deficient both
in individuality and determinate character.

In this wealth of content, accordingly, it is necessary that the
character adequate to ideal art should display itself. And this is just
that which creates the interest we feel in a character, namely, that
a totality such as that we have above described emerges from it, and
the character, while reposing on its abundance, nevertheless persists
in perfect equality with itself, as one secure and self-excluding
subject. If the character, however, be not conceived and depicted as
this rounded and subjective unity, is abstract in the sense that
it is entirely the sport of one passion, such must then appear as
self-destructive[359], or at least cracked, weak, and without real
fibre. For the weakness and inertness of individuals is just this very
thing, that the eternal forces of which we have spoken never assert
themselves in them as a real part of their most essential substance,
as, to put it logically, predicates which adhere to them as the
subjects of such.

In Homer[360], for example, every hero is the living focus of a whole
congeries of qualities and traits. Achilles is the most youthful hero
in the host, but his youthful exuberance is represented as quite
compatible with all other entirely human qualities, and Homer unfolds
before us this variety through situations which offer the finest
contrast. He loves his mother, Thetis, he weeps for Briseis, when she
is snatched from him, and his violated sense of honour drives him
into the conflict with Agamemnon, which is the original fount of all
the events that follow after it in the "Iliad." Add to this he is the
truest friend of Patroclus and Antilochus; moreover, he is the most
blooming, fiery youth, swift of foot, brave, yet full of reverence
for gray hairs; the faithful Phoenix and trusty servant are at his
feet, and at the funeral of Patroclus the hoary Nestor is treated
with the highest deference and honour. And, in contrast to all this,
Achilles is represented as inflammable to a degree, effervescent,
revengeful, and full of the most brutal austerity when face to face
with the foe. He binds the slain Hector to his chariot, trails the
corpse in fell hunter's fashion three times round the walls of Troy;
yet stays his anger when the old Priam comes to his tent, and, as he
thinks within his heart of his own old father, reaches to the weeping
king the hand which has done to death his son. Of Achilles we may
well exclaim: "here is a man indeed, and human nature, ay, noble
human too, in all the length and breadth of its riches, is unveiled
before us in this one man!" It is just the same with all the other
Homeric characters—-Odysseus, Diomedes, Ajax, Agamemnon, Hector,
Andromache--every one of them is a whole, a world in itself, a complete
and living member of humanity, something very different at least from
your allegorical abstract of some one particular trait. What frosty,
faded personalities, despite all their vigour and rigour, are the
horned Siegfried, Hagen of Troy, nay, even Volker, the musician, in
comparison.

It is this variety of characterization, and this alone, which can give
to a character the interest of life. At the same time this fulness of
detail must really appear as included in the personality itself, that
is, it must not strike us as the mere diversion, passing freak, or
suggestion of an excited fancy, such as we see in the case of children
who will take up everything in turn, and even make something out of it,
yet, for all that, are without essential character. Character in this
latter sense will penetrate and make itself a home in the most diverse
phases of the emotional life of man, will steep itself to overflowing
with that abundance, and, at the same time, not remain thus immersed,
but throughout all the congeries of interest, objects, qualities, all
the traits that distinguish or arrest it, maintain the form of its
self-exclusive and alert subjectivity intact.

For the representation of such exhaustive types of character epic
poetry is, above all others, adapted, dramatic and lyrical poetry are
less so.

(_β_) Art, however, will not be content to remain at the point which
the course of our inquiry has reached, namely, the notion of character
as a mere congeries of traits. For the object we have before us now is
the Ideal in its specific determination, and singularity, or, rather,
concrete _individuality_, are both of them prominent and necessary
features. Action, more than anything else, in its conflict and reaction
is impossible without some restriction and clear definition of form.
For this reason the heroes of dramatic poetry are for the most part of
simpler definition than those of epic poetry. And the way we get at a
clear definition is through some pathos out of the ordinary which is
so portrayed as to make some essential trait of character stand out
in bold relief, and itself to be the stimulus to particular objects,
resolves, and actions. If, however, this simplification is carried so
far that any character appears as though it were pared down to a mere
shadow-like semblance of any form of pathos, such as love or honour,
all real vitality and spiritual depth must necessarily vanish, and the
representation, as is not unfrequently the case in the French school
of drama for this very reason, can only offer us a cold and jejune
result. We may therefore conclude that in this aspect of particularity
the prominent feature which asserts itself pre-eminently will be this,
that within the borders of this very limitation the fulness of life
is completely preserved, so that the personality in question has free
scope allowed it for further expansion in many directions, a power to
adapt itself to every variety of situation, and, in short, is able to
unfold and express in every possible way the wealth of a truly complete
spiritual life[361]. Despite the supreme simplicity of their pathos the
characters in the Sophoclean drama possess this intrinsic vitality. We
may indeed compare them in their plastic self-seclusion to the figures
of sculpture. For it is also quite possible that sculpture express
very various delineations of character despite all the tenacity of its
definition. In contrast to the bluster of overpowering passion, which
concentrates all its forces upon one single point, it exhibits out of
its tranquillity and speechlessness that predominant neutrality, which
peacefully envelops all powers within itself; but this unperturbed
unity does not, however, persist in any indissoluble union with mere
formal definition, but, rather, in virtue of its beauty, suffers at
the same time the birth-throes of all that pertains to it to disrobe
itself as through a cloud of immediate possibility into fresh relations
of every variety. In the finest figures of sculpture we behold a
tranquil depth, which unfolds, as it were, the pregnant womb, from
which all other potencies may be born. In contrast with sculpture it
is yet of more vital importance to the arts of painting, music, and
poetry, that they should display the inmost complexity of character,
and real artists of every age have recognized this. In Shakespeare's
"Romeo and Juliet," for example, the most pathetic characteristic of
Romeo is his love: but he is also placed before us under relations of
the greatest contrast, whether it be in reference to his parents, his
friends, his love troubles, or his affair of honour in which he fights
with Tybalt, his attitude of deference and trust to the monk, nay, even
on the verge of the grave his conversation with the apothecary, from
whom he purchases the poison. Throughout he is the same worthy and
noble man of deep emotions. In the same way the character of Juliet
is unfolded throughout the range of her relations to father, mother,
nurse, the Count Paris, and father Lawrence. And, despite of this, she
is as deeply immersed[362] in her one preoccupation as she is in every
one of these situations, and her entire character is transpierced with
and carried away by the one single emotion, her passionate love for her
lover, which is as deep and broad as the unbounded sea, so that it is
but the simple truth when she exclaims, "The more I give, the more I
possess, both are infinite."

From all this it appears that even when there is but one pathos
visible, it must unfold itself as the wealth of all it possesses. And
this is what really happens even in lyrical poetry, where we find the
pathos is not attached to actions determined by positive circumstances
and conditions. For in this latter case the pathos can only assert
itself as the spiritual state of an emotional nature otherwise complete
in itself, which is, that is to say, free to express itself in any
other conceivable circumstance and situation which may confront it.
The use of words of vital significance, an imagination which can
associate itself with all the world, can restore the Past to the
Present, can transform the entire external environment of man's life
to a symbolical expression of his spirit, can bravely adventure into
the depths of comprehensive thought, and, while doing so, reveal an
exuberant, capacious, clear, exalted, and noble nature--a wealth of
character such as this, freely expressing such a world, is a prize
indeed for the Lyric Muse. No doubt a purely logical reflection may
find it impossible that such, variety of character should co-exist
with a masterful clearness of type. We may be asked, for instance,
in reference to the heroic character of Achilles, whose strength of
youth is the pre-eminent, trait of his beauty, how it is possible to
reconcile the tender heart so manifest in his relations to his father
and his friend with the cruel act of revenge wherewith he drags Hector
round the walls. Precisely the same kind of inconsequence is to be met
with in Shakespeare's clowns. They are, with scarcely an exception,
bubbling over with wit and the humour of genius. And, no doubt, there
will always be fools enough to ask us how men thus spiritually gifted
could ever betake themselves to such tomfooleries. The truth is that
the reflection of the formal logic is sure to emphasize one aspect
of a character, and conclude that the entire man is minted under its
impression to the exclusion of all others. To such everything that
asserts itself as alien to the hallmark of its beggarly mintage can
only appear as an inconsequence. In the truely rational contemplation
of the whole as distinct from the parts, and thereby of the living
thing, that which appears as inconsequent will be precisely that which
brings all into fit co-ordination. For our humanity is just this
very paradox. We have not merely to carry[363] the contradictions of
our complex nature, but to suffer the load[363] with patience, and
throughout prove staunch to our burden.

(_γ_) We may conclude, then, that character must fuse together
its particularity in the element of its spiritual substance; it
should possess a definite type, and at the same time retain in this
distinction the force and stability of a _single_ fully self-consistent
pathos. Where we find our humanity represented without such a centre
of unity, the different aspects of such variety it may possess
will lose all relative meaning or significance and fall away from
each other. In art we shall find that what we distinguish in our
conception of personality as infinite or the Divine is just this
self-consistency in unity. If this view be a just one it is obvious
that such characterizations as stability and determination are of
great importance in the ideal representation of character. And we
shall only obtain such a result, as already observed, in so far as the
universality of the powers inherent in our humanity are permitted to
transpierce the mere particularity of the individual character and, by
virtue of the unity thus set up, create a subjective and at the same
time individual life which supplies its own principle of unity and
self-identity.

Such a condition is all important, and we must now advert to a number
of artistic compositions, more particularly of later times, in express
relation to it.

In the "Cid" of Corneille, for example, the collision between the
opposing principles of love and honour is a match, no doubt, of
brilliant effects. A pathos of this kind, involved as it is in the
opposition of distinct forces may, no doubt, be the operative ground of
conflicts; but when we find such portrayed as the spiritual struggle
of one and the same character, though such antagonism may very readily
supply us with the material for brilliant rhetoric and effective
monologue, the cataclysm which is here presented in the emotional life
of one person driven thus by turns from its abstract subjection to
honour into the equally abstract one of love, and forthwith hounded
back again, is not favourable to the portrayal of a character of
genuine stability and homogeneousness.

It is equally inconsistent with the delineation of resolute personality
when a leading character, already under the predominant influence
of some specific pathos, is portrayed as one overmastered by the
direction or persuasion of a subordinate character, such is thus
enabled to shift the responsibility upon other shoulders. This is
what actually takes place in the "Phedra" of Racine when the mind
of Phedra is depicted as entirely motived by the words of Oenone. A
character of real distinction acts out of its own initiative, and will
not suffer the views of a mere stranger to be that which determines
its own resolution. Only when action is the direct result of its own
reflections do we get that clear relation between personal initiative
and the consequent result which carries with it the full weight of
guilt or responsibility.

We find yet another type of this instability of character as quite a
peculiar possession of the more recent literary output of Germany. It
is a type of character in which a kind of flatulence in emotion is
the rule no less than the source. The classic example is the Werther
of Goethe's romance, a thoroughly morbid type of character, without
any vestige of real manliness such as might carry him beyond the
egotism of his love-passion. What makes him interesting is the passion
and beauty of his emotional life, the intimate fellowship between
himself and Nature which the course of his spiritual experience and
the pliability of his temperament accentuate. This effeminacy has yet
more recently embodied itself in many other forms of expression which
descend with increasing rapidity to the lowest circle of jejune and
tasteless egotism. We must not even omit, for instance, to include
in our list that illustration of the lovely soul which we find in
Jacobi's "Woldemar." In this romance we are made a present of the
glory of emotional volubility in all its pretensions. It would be
difficult, indeed, to cite a better example of the self-deceptive
illusion of personal virtue and excellence. Here we have all that
sublimity and divinity of soul, which relates itself crookedly to every
possible aspect of the actual world; that type of feebleness which is
wholly unable to share in or tolerate any portion of the labours or
interests of practical life as it really is. So rooted is it in its
own consciousness of superiority it passes everything as unworthy of
it on the other side. It is, in fact, a peculiar feature of this type
of "lovely soul" that, even when face to face with the truly ethical
interests and wholly sane objects of life, instead of meeting them
frankly, it retires into the seclusion of itself, where it weaves its
own threads of finery and passes its time in hatching out its exquisite
brood of religious and moral reflections. And connected closely with
this personal enthusiasm for our superabundant excellence, which we set
forth in front of ourselves with such a brave show, there will always
be an intense sensitiveness for all other beings who may appear at any
moment to sympathize with, comprehend, and appreciate this beauty of
the solitary life. If such fellow-feeling is not forthcoming we find
the very heart of us troubled to its depths and infinitely bruised.
We have lost at one stroke all humanity, friendship, and love. We are
unable to put away with whatever act of pedantry or rudeness may be in
question, some trivial circumstance or stupidity over which the vision
of any character of breadth or strength would pass without a tremor. It
whirls away the thought of everything else, and that which is by itself
of least significance proves to be that which finally most reduces us
to despair. Such is the source of all that endless train of melancholy,
trouble, heartache, peevishness, sickness, dejection, and poverty
of spirit which follows, such the spring of all those self-torturing
reflections one on the top of another, that cramp and obstinacy, nay,
finally, that cruelty of soul, through which the wretchedness and
weakness of the spiritual content of such a type, of "loveliness"
consummates and declares itself. No heart that is truly sound can
wish to unite itself with such an emotional hermitage. For it is a
fundamental characteristic of all genuine character that it carries
within itself both the courage and the strength to do and to will some
actual thing. The interest, therefore, that such natures which are for
ever revolving round themselves may arouse in us is after all an empty
interest, and necessarily so despite all the conviction with which such
natures may assure us that they belong to a higher and purer sphere
than our own, a sphere which has revealed to our vision that peculiar
type of the Divine they have uncovered from their secret parts and
finally present to us, to borrow an apt figure, _en negligée._

This want of genuine solidity of character appears in yet another form
where we find the particular manifestations of this world of "fine
feelings" turned as it were upside down and hypostatized as independent
forces. Much that passes for magic, magnetism, spiritualism, the
apparitions of _clairvoyance_, the morbid condition of sleep-walking,
is attributable to this source. The living person in question is
placed in a relation to these abstruse powers, which from one point
of view identifies him with them, and in another makes them appear as
something foreign to his spiritual life, which determines and controls
it. It is assumed that underlying these undefined forces there is some
inexplicable truth which borders on the marvellous, or at any rate
passes comprehension. From the world of art, however, all such powers
of darkness should be banished. In art there is no darkness at all, but
all is lucid and transparent, and in adventuring after such types of
myopy speech merely flounders into spiritual disease, or plays loose as
poetry with the nebulous, empty, and trivial, a good example of which
is the verse of Hoffmann, and that piece by Henry von Klust entitled
the "Prince of Homburg." The truly ideal character has nothing in his
composition, or the pathos which expresses it, of another world and its
ghosts, but only actual interests, in which he finds himself at home.
More particularly is this feature of _clairvoyance_ become a trivial
and vulgar recipe of our more modern poets. In Schiller's "Tell," on
the contrary, when the old Attinghausen on the brink of the grave
foretells the destiny of his country, the prophetic instinct is quite
in its right place. It is always, however, a misfortune for an artist
to find himself forced to exchange the sanity of a character with some
malady of the soul whether it be to motive the collision or excite
interest. For this reason he should only avail himself of the condition
of insanity in quite exceptional cases.

In conclusion we may connect with these distortions of a sane
vision, which are so much opposed to all real unity and consistency
of character, the principle of our latter-day irony. This false
theory has betrayed the poet into grafting upon his characters
qualities so essentially diverse that they are incapable of all
homogeneous relation; the essential unity of every character is thus
confounded. According to this theory a character is first presented
as characterized in a certain way, and immediately after we have that
very determination converted into its opposite, and the character
itself is propounded to us as nothing more than the negation of what
it was and is. Moreover this very futility is accepted by this irony
as the supreme discovery of art. An audience should not, in short,
be carried away by an essentially positive interest, but should be
pulled up at the critical moment, much as the irony itself is no
sooner launched upon anything than it is off again. They would even
explain the characters of Shakespeare according to such a principle.
We are informed that Lady Macbeth was an irreproachable wife of the
tenderest feeling, despite the fact that she not only falls in with
the suggestion of the murder, but actually eggs her husband on to
its execution. But if the signet mark of Shakespeare is conspicuous
on any one quality it is on the firm and decisive delineation of his
characters, even when it is only the formal greatness and consistency
of evil that is in question. Hamlet, it is true, is a case of mental
indecision, but even he is only in doubt as to the way he shall carry
out his purpose, not at all as to what has to be done. Yet nowadays
they would assimilate even Shakespeare's characters to a world of
ghosts, and appear to think that this futility and indecision of ups
and downs, this general squeamishness[364] in short can by itself
contribute to our interest. The Ideal, however, is centred in this,
that Idea is made _actual_, and our humanity is associated with such
actuality as subject and consequently as a unity which is essentially
firm-rooted.

We may here, so far at least as this portion of our inquiry is
concerned, bring our observations upon the individuality which is
consistent with real character to a close. That which we have mainly
sought to emphasize is a pathos which is at once self-determined and
essential, the possession of a rich and complete nature, the spiritual
world of which such a pathos transfuses under such a form that this
process of transfusion no less than the pathos itself receives its
artistic presentment. At the same time this pathos must not be allowed
to come into conflict with itself in the hearts of men so as to
stultify its very nature and consistency as pathos.

III. THE EXTERNAL DETERMINATION OF THE IDEAL

Our consideration of the determination of the Ideal was in the _first_
instance occupied with the general inquiry why it was and how it came
about that the Ideal ever received at all the definite embodiment of
a particular form. Following after this we arrived at the conclusion
that inherent process was essential to our notion of it, that in fact
the element of difference was only by this means asserted within it,
and that this process viewed as a whole is presented us in the action.
We discovered, however, that in virtue of the action the Ideal passes
over into actual relations with the external world; we have therefore,
and this is the _third_ important step, to solve the further question
what kind of form this its final aspect, as associated with external
reality, the Ideal will receive under adequate artistic representation.
We would recall the fact that the Ideal is the Idea under a form which
is in union with its own _actuality._ Up to the present point of our
inquiry our attention has been exclusively occupied with that aspect
or phase of this actuality which we may call in general terms human
individuality and its character. Man is, however, also in possession of
a concrete and _external existence._ In separation from this it is true
he concentrates his spiritual life to a point in self-consciousness,
but he remains for all that, even in this subjective unity, immediately
related to the external world. To the actual existence of mankind the
surrounding sphere of a world is as indispensable as the protection of
a temple is to the statues of the god it contains. And for this very
reason we must now advert to all or some of those many diverse threads,
whereby the Ideal is woven in with this external environment and is
shown in relief against it[365].

This opens to our view a practically immeasurable expanse of relations
and modes under which the process of the external and relative world
is determined. For in the first place we are confronted at once
with the bare facts of external Nature such as particular locality,
situation, whether habitable or not, temporal condition, the nature of
the prevailing climate, whether in our earth's northern or southern
hemispheres, and in fact in whatever direction we advance we have a
fresh picture before us. Moreover, external Nature is made use of by
man to satisfy his own needs and purposes; and all the ways under
which he converts her to that use, that is to say the adroitness with
which he discovers and then equips himself with tools and a home to
live in, with weapons, with seats to recline upon, carriages to ride
in, nay, all that the art of cooking may bring with it for his food,
the entire apparatus of his luxury no less than his comfort, all this
and much more fall within the limits of our inquiry. Add to this the
further and yet more important consideration that every man lives
within a comprehensive and equally real world of spiritual relations,
which itself, too, presents to his view all the different modes under
which command and submission is maintained, that is to say the family,
blood-relationship, property, country and town life, the _cultus_ of
religion, the organization of defence and offence, civic and political
associations, private society, in short every conceivable form under
which ethical customs and usages are organized in the institutions and
permanent activities which contribute to the actual environment of
human existence.

In all the directions enumerated above the Ideal is in immediate
contact with the reality of the practical world in its everyday dress,
or in other words, with the commonplace prose of life. And impressed by
this fact we may easily be led to the conclusion, if we have already
accepted the nebulous conception of idealism elaborated recently,
that art can have no alternative but to dissever herself absolutely
from all connection with this world of relative appearances. Such at
least can only be logically inferred from a theory which assumes that
this relation of externality is one of pure indifference, or rather,
in contrast to the subjective world of spirit, is of no substantive
significance or worth. Agreeably to this view art is a spiritual
dominion, whose sole object is to exalt us above the sphere of material
wants, necessities, and dependence, and to liberate us from the
logic, and we may add the comedy, of facts, which in this field claim
the exclusive attention of our humanity. For, apart from any other
consideration, all that meets us upon this _terra firma_ of life's
prose is for the most part of a purely conventional character, and,
conditioned as it is by time, space, and custom, simply a congeries
of contingent facts, which it is derogatory to the nature of art to
accept. This view of ideality, which is really an illusive one, is
in part due to one of those highly flavoured abstractions of our
latter-day thinking, in which we merely find that the thinker's courage
has failed him to come to terms with the external world in question;
in part also it is due to that type of prepossession which drives a
man to assert summarily his independence of practical necessities
when the advantages of birth, status, and social position have not
already effected this for him. For such a man the only relief available
is a complete withdrawal into the secret world of the emotions, a
prison-house of unreality he steps out of never. Here he remains
in what he conceives to be the temple of wisdom gazing ecstatic at
what he takes to be the stars, and naturally values at the price of
a nutshell all that is found on the Earth. The real Ideal, however,
is not confined to the shadow-like world of the emotions, but in its
perfected whole must freely borrow from the definite structure of
external objects of sight in every direction. And the reason of this
is that man himself, whose nature is the central source that gives
to that Ideal all its significance, is alive, and his life is only
actual in a particular place and time, as one with the Present, as the
individualized type of infinity[366]; and in short the opposition of
an external garland of Nature is a fundamental characteristic of his
life and its association with him and his activity is imperative. It
follows that if this activity is to be apprehended by art, not merely
as belonging to man alone, but in the specific form it may take in
that world of appearance, the mode of its existence there will assert
itself, as the mobility, reaction, and animating force of life itself
in contact and transfusion with the material complex which surrounds it.

Man is, however, in virtue of his self-consciousness a world in
himself[367], and as such is differentiated from the external world of
Nature which confronts him; and this external world is equally with
himself a rounded whole whose unity asserts itself in the principle of
causality. This self-exclusion of these two worlds is, however, only
apparent; they are in their separation essentially related, and it is
precisely this association which constitutes concrete reality, whose
artistic embodiment is the content of the Ideal. And this brings us
once more to the question already mooted, namely, in what semblance or
form the external material which we find in this mutually related world
we have referred to as concrete reality[368] can be presented to us by
art in a manner consistent with the Ideal of art.

We will once more accept the triple division of our subject-matter,
and examine a work of art from three distinct points of view. _First_,
there is the material of externality accepted in the bare abstractness
of its forms, such as space, figure, time, colour, which we must
consider relatively to the artistic form most adapted to it.

_Secondly_, we must consider externality in its full and actualized
concreteness, as above explained, a mode of reality which imperatively
requires in a work of art that it should be in close affiliation with
the subjective content of the spiritual life of man immediately related
to it.

_Thirdly_, our consideration will be directed to the important fact
that a work of art is created for the delight of human perceptions, for
a public in short, which justly claims that the objects of art should
bring home to it the interests of its spiritual life, its real beliefs,
emotions, and ideas, so that it may enter with a genuine response into
their artistic presentation.

1. THE CONDITION OF EXTERNALITY IN ITS SIMPLE ABSTRACTNESS

The Ideal in passing out of the bare image of its essential form into
external or determinate existence secures for itself a reality which
presents two distinct aspects. From one point of view we see that a
work of art discloses necessarily in the content of the Ideal the
concrete semblance of reality, that is to say it presents that content
as a definite situation or particular circumstance, action, event or
character, and presents it moreover in the mode of external existence.
From another it is equally obvious that art makes some specific and
sensuous material the vehicle of the particular content in its entirety
of all that we have above summarized; it creates in short a new world
sensible to eye and ear, the world of art. Under both these aspects
we may further observe that art penetrates to the remotest limits of
externality which are compatible with its form as the self-including
unity of the Ideal and conformable to its appearance as a concrete
whole permeated with the energy of spirit[369]. A work of art moreover
itself may, as an object qualified by externality, be viewed in two
distinct ways. We may regard it simply as an external thing, and as
such only conformable to a unity that is external in the sense external
objects are such. In considering it from this latter point of view
we have once more to consider that relation of externality which
we found it necessary to discuss in our examination of the beauty
of Nature. And for this reason we shall again have to make use of
those specific determinants which we previously discussed, and even
then primarily in their connection with art. The modes under which
external form was in the previous section exhaustively considered were
then treated in a twofold way. First we analysed such conceptions as
uniformity, symmetry, and conformity to rule; we then examined unity
itself regarded as the simplicity and purity of the sensuous material,
which art makes use of as the external medium for the existence of her
expositions.

(_a_) We will start our inquiry by examining the position in which we
now find ourselves relatively to such conceptions as uniformity and
symmetry. It is obvious that these, expressing as they do the entirely
lifeless unity of the geometrical logic, can by no means exhaust the
nature of a work of art even when entirely regarded as an external
object. Such determinations are only exhaustive in their relation
to what is in itself lifeless, such as time and the configuration
of space. Confined in this way though they be to the barest forms
of externality, they are then true witnesses both to the power and
substance of reason. And consequently we find they assert themselves in
a twofold manner even in art. In the first of these, it is this very
quality of their abstractness which operates by way of contrast to
the living pulse of art, which is forced even in the confines of its
sensuous material to raise itself over and beyond mere symmetry into
the freedom of the Ideal. In this process of liberation which may be
exemplified in the melodies of the art of music we do not, however,
find that the conformity to rule disappears altogether, it is merely
made subservient as a foundation. In the second, this principle of
measure and rule in its application to the indefinite and unlimited is
the one and only qualifying principle which certain arts can accept
owing to the nature of the media which those arts make use of. In such
cases uniformity is itself and alone raised to the ideal significance
of the art. The principal example of an art of this type is that of
architecture; and the reason of this is that a work of art which is
wholly architectonic is directed to the one object of reconstituting,
by means of an artistic form, that which is essentially the external
and inorganic environment of spirit. In this art, consequently, all
that is rectilinear, right-angled, circular, or presents uniformity of
pillars, windows, arches, piers, vaults, and so forth is the dominant
principle of unity.

The artistic structure of architecture is not erected entirely as an
object in itself, but rather as an external frame, embellishment and
local habitation for something else which it subserves. A building
is not complete until it has received the statue of the god or the
society of human beings who make their dwelling therein. An artistic
work of this kind should not therefore receive all or indeed the main
attention. Holding this in our minds, it will appear obviously to the
purpose that uniformity and symmetry should be here the prevailing
characteristic of the structure; the mind passes over very readily one
that is throughout uniform, and will not trouble itself about it for
any length of time. Of course, we cannot here discuss the symbolical
significance, which, in addition to that above examined, may attach to
architectural form in its immediate relation to the spiritual content
it envelops and emphasizes with a positive localization. The same
principle applies to the art of making gardens, which we may define
as a specific mode of architecture, in so far at least as an artistic
conformation is imposed on external Nature[370]. In the garden no less
than in the building man himself is the main object. There are two
distinct types in this art of garden-construction. The one adopts as
its main principle uniformity and symmetry; the other those of variety
and irregularity. As an artistic product the former is to be preferred.
Labyrinths, however numerous and intricate, garden-beds in endless
alternation of spiral lines, bridges over water usually stagnant,
with every conceivable surprise that gothic church, temples, Chinese
pagodas, hermitages, urns, summer-houses, mounds, statues may claim to
afford us--one glance and only one glance at such things is sufficient,
the vulgar and artificial pretensions of it all is too patent, and we
do not seek for another. It is quite another matter when we cross any
actual situation of real natural beauty, which has not at least been
exploited expressly for our enjoyment[371], and by its own exceptional
merit makes an irresistible appeal to our love of Nature and our
sense of her beauty. A garden laid out with strict reference to the
other extreme of regularity, makes no such attempts at surprises, but
permits human beings to appear as the principal object in the external
framework of natural beauty[372]. And this is really what a garden
should be. Again in the art of painting the principle of uniformity
and symmetry is clearly visible in the co-ordination of the whole, the
grouping of the figures, their place and pose in the composition. But
inasmuch as in painting the animation of life can assert itself through
objects in a far profounder degree than is possible in architecture
we find that it presents much less scope for the purely formal unity
of the symmetrical, and the rule of uniformity in all its severity is
for the most part to be traced only as the fundamental principle of
composition in the earliest phases of art, making way in its more
advanced forms to the freer line, which is associated in our minds
with organic form rather than such we meet with in the pyramid and
similar geometrical shapes. Conformity to rule and symmetry are further
important factors in the composition of music and poetry. Owing to
the incident of duration in the length of tones we find in these arts
an aspect of what is intrinsically a purely external relation, which
is incompatible with any other more concrete mode of presentation.
If we take the spatial condition it is obvious that here everything
which lies in juxtaposition can be seen at a glance. It is otherwise
with that which occurs in Time. Here we have merely a succession
of moments, every one of which takes the place of another, and in
this vanishing procession they flow on for ever. And it is precisely
this indeterminacy which it is the function of musical time or beat
to inform by adding thereto a real definition capable of uniform
repetition. In this way the indefinite progression is subordinated to
a rational principle. In musical time we have a power which exerts
such a fascination upon us, that, so far from being able to treat it
with indifference, we not unfrequently find ourselves beating time
quite unconsciously with it while listening. This constant recurrence
of equal lengths of time according to a definite measure has nothing
to do with tones and their duration as we find them in Nature. Tone
simply as musical sound and time abstractly regarded, are both of them
equally indifferent to such uniform divisions and repetitions. Musical
time is consequently something wholly created by the human mind; and
indeed there is more than a suggestion of this in the fact that in
listening to musical time we are at once impressed with the conviction,
that we have, in this control of time according to fixed rule, nothing
less than a real reflection of our spiritual nature, or rather that
of the fundamental truth of self-identity, an illustration absolutely
precise of the way in which the subject of consciousness applies this
very principle of uniformity, unity with itself, that is to say, in
constant recurrence, throughout all the variety and most intricate
multiplicity of experience. And it is for this reason that the beat of
musical time meets with such a startling response in the very depths of
our being, gripping hold, as it does, of that self-identity, which is
the fundamental abstract principle of our inmost life. Considered in
this relation it is not; the spiritual content, not the concrete soul
of our emotions, any more than it is the musical tone as tone, which
appeals to us so intimately; it is simply the formal unity which the
unity of consciousness transfers to the temporal process, and which is
thus re-echoed back to our conscious life. And the same remarks apply
to the measure and rhyme of poetry. The sensuous medium is here, too,
in the same way carried out of the sphere of that which is external to
ourselves, and at once asserts there the presence of something over and
above that which is expressed by our ordinary consciousness, which in
its general use treats the time-divisions of tones with indifference or
caprice.

A uniformity of similar character, if not so consistently defined,
may be traced still further, and is involved in the living content of
poetry itself, although the relation here is quite an external one.
By this we mean that in an epic poem or a drama, both of which have
their particular subdivisions, cantos, or acts, whatever may be the
specific term applicable, there is an approximate principle of equality
apparent in the division of subject-matter. And the same characteristic
is generally true in the grouping of the subject in pictures, although
such should not appear to be a necessary result of the nature of the
subject-matter itself, nor create the impression that this uniform
distribution is due to any controlling principle of first importance.

Conformity to rule and symmetry, which are the abstract unity and
definition of all that is essentially spatial and its configuration no
less than of all which is external under temporal condition, are mainly
the co-ordinating principles of quantity and size, as we have already
noticed in our consideration of the beauty of Nature. All that which
does not, in virtue of its own specific medium[373], strictly form part
of external extension, is consequently freed from the range of those
principles which assert themselves exclusively in the relations of
quantity, and are determined through relations of deeper significance,
and the unity which co-ordinates them. It follows from this that
the further art embraces subject-matter which is independent of the
external condition, so much the less significant the principle of
uniformity becomes, in the co-ordination of that art's subject-matter
and the more completely is it restricted to a subordinate position.

It will be, perhaps, advisable here to close the above discussion
of symmetry with a few general observations upon _harmony_. The
relation of harmony is no longer one to mere quantity, but rather one
to essential distinctions of _quality_, differences of tone, that
is to say, which do not persist against each other in their native
opposition, but as harmony or music have to be brought into concord.
In music we find that the relation of the tonic to the mediant and
dominant notes of the scale is no relation of bare quantity[374],
but implies the presence of tones whose difference is _essentially_
a qualitative difference; which, that is to say, combine naturally
in a unity, rather than continue to assert their distinguishing
_timbre_ in all its glaring antithesis and contradiction. The true
discord, on the contrary, requires its harmonic resolution. The same
qualitative consistency is to be found in the harmony of colour, in
reference to which it is likewise one of the requirements of art
that it should neither manifest itself in a picture as a motley and
haphazard juxtaposition of pigments, nor as a neutral surface whereon
all fundamental distinction is dissolved[375], but as the artistic
expression of a whole in which essential contrast is mediated through
some principle of harmonious unity. Furthermore, we observe that
harmony contains in itself a definite number of contrasted differences,
which have naturally a particular significance of their own. Thus we
find under the differentiation of colour a definite number known as
the cardinal colours, which are primary derivatives of the fundamental
notion of colour, and are not due to accidental composition. Harmony
consists in bringing together a number of positive colours such as this
classification implies, and uniting them in concordant unity. We must,
that is to say, have in a picture not merely all the primary colours,
yellow, blue, green, and red present, but also a harmonious scheme
under which they are related; and the old masters have, without direct
consciousness of the principle involved, paid express attention to this
completeness of effect and arrived at artistic results which flowed out
of it. And furthermore, for the very reason that we find in harmony
the beginnings of a release from the bare condition of externality it
is duly qualified to absorb and express a spiritual content of wider
significance. We may mark an illustration of this in the way the old
masters distinguished between the drapery of their principal figures
and of those of less importance, painting that of the former in
elementary colours of absolute purity, but only conceding to that of
the rest compound varieties. The mantle of the Virgin Mary is almost
always blue; blue in its assuaging sense of tranquillity is accepted as
the counterfeit of the repose and tenderness of the heart. It is only
rarely that we find her in a drapery of emphatic red.

(_b_) The second aspect of externality is the relation it occupies
directly in the various material which art employs in the various media
of its presentations. The unity here consists in the clear definition
and homogeneousness of the material, which ought not to deviate
in the direction of a vague characterization and mere confusion,
or, speaking generally, give us the impression of dirtiness. This
determinacy is also entirely dependent upon the spatial condition,
that is to say, upon the purity of its delineation, the distinctness
of its rectilinear and circular lines, and so on, no less than upon a
consistent definition of Time such as we find in the accurate measure
of the musical beat. It depends furthermore on the translucency both
of specific tones and colours. In a good picture we shall find that
there is nothing unclean or "dirty"[376] in the colours employed,
but everything is clear and asserts itself openly for what it is.
The directness of its purity is, in fact, that which constitutes the
lovely impression of colour upon our sense; and those colours which
are most direct in their simplicity, such as a yellow which has no dash
of green in it, or a red that is wholly independent of blue or yellow,
produce the most emphatic effect. On the other hand, it is obviously
more difficult to maintain a harmony of the whole when colours are thus
contrasted in all their pristine simplicity. Yet in despite of this
these essentially simple colours form the foundation of every true
colour scheme, and although it may be impossible to dispense with a
considerable use of their compounds, even these should not be allowed
to appear in one dead and dull interfusion, but with their simple and
luminous derivations shining through them[377]; otherwise instead of
the clear lambency of colour we shall get nothing but a muddy residuum.
We shall find that the same thing is necessary in the _timbre_ of
musical tone. In the case of strings whether of metal or catgut it is
the vibration of the material, and, moreover, of a material of definite
tension and length, which educes the musical note. If the tension is
insufficient, or the length of the string which is struck is not the
right one, the tone inevitably loses its clearness of definition,
rings false, as we say, owing to the interfusion with it of other
tones[378]. We have the same kind of result when a purely mechanical
fretting or scraping is suffered to interfere with the purity of the
vibratory motion, and so to render the emitted sound confused and
harsh. In the same way, it is of the first importance to the art of
singing that the human voice should be produced from throat and chest
freely and with purest intonation; the voice should be heard without
the least indication of its organic instrument, or, as in the case
of hoarseness, with an obstructive accompaniment the singer fails to
repress. We may conclude, then, that this translucency and purity,
free from all admixture with anything foreign to it, and consistent
throughout in its clearness, is that which creates the beauty of tone
as immediately apprehended by our senses, and which distinguishes
it from every kind of mere noise. And we may add further it is this
which in human speech conspicuously applies to the articulation of the
vowels. A language which enunciates the five vowels with distinction
and purity, as is strongly the case in the Italian, is essentially
musical and adapted to song. The diphthongs, on the contrary, always
produce a confused tone. In literature little attention is paid to
the direct reproduction of folk-dialects; we find them rather reduced
to the simplest form of expression. In actual speech, however, this
clearness of intonation only too often entirely disappears, so that we
find, and markedly so in the case of dialects such as the South German,
Swabian, and Swiss, men actually speak with an articulation of sound
it is quite impossible to write down. We do not regard this, however,
to be necessarily a defect in human speech, but rather a reflection of
the rawness of the common folk. And here we must close our observations
upon that external aspect of art, which, from the fact that it is
external, and nothing more, is only capable of receiving an external
and abstract unity.

Now according to its more comprehensive definition it is the _concrete
individuality_ of the Ideal impregnated with reason, which takes to
itself externality as the form of its embodiment, and, moreover, in
such a way that the external semblance, which is thus the medium of
its expression, is throughout suffused with the mind inherent in this
concrete individual form. In consequence of this such modes of relation
as uniformity, symmetry, and harmony, or, in other words, the more
simple determinations of the sensuous material are no longer adequate.
This defect naturally extends our inquiry to that second aspect of the
external determination of the Ideal already stated.


2. THE COALESCENCE OF THE CONCRETE IDEAL WITH ITS EXTERNAL REALITY

The fundamental truth which we shall endeavour to substantiate before
everything in the matter which now immediately engages our attention is
this, that man is under an obligation to make himself at peace and at
home in the environment of the world; or, to put it rather differently,
his individuality must live itself into Nature and all the conditions
of that external world, and by doing so assert its freedom visibly.
And, moreover, this must take place in such a way that these two
related factors, that is, on the one side, the entirety of his inward
life and the character it possesses or displays in all conditions or
actions whatsoever, and, on the other, that objective entirety of
external existence which confronts him, must wholly lose the appearance
of two worlds which are either indifferent to or not homogeneous
with[379] each other, and forthwith proclaim themselves as harmoniously
related and identical in substance. This externally objective world
must, in so far as it is the reality of the Ideal, surrender the
semblance of its own objective self-subsistency and stubbornness, in
order that its fundamental unity with that to which it supplies the
external and particular embodiment may be exhibited in truth.

To establish this unity with more conclusiveness we propose now to
examine our subject under three different heads of discussion.

_First_, we may investigate the same from the point of view that this
unity which binds the two factors already defined is merely a bond
which possesses _no positive reality_[380], but is merely a mysterious
and secret connection both in its origin and appearance, by virtue of
which our humanity is looped together with its environment.

_Secondly_, however, as a deduction from the fact that it is the
concrete _spiritual_ life of man and the individuality which pertains
to it which constitutes the point of departure, or rather the essential
content of the Ideal, we shall further examine this association, as in
truth the creation of _human_ activity itself and only possible as such
a creation.

_Finally_, we shall prove that this unified world created by the human
Spirit is itself a complete entirety, which, in the determinate form
of its existence, is objectively valid, and in essential relation with
which every unit of our common humanity who is actively engaged with
the vital concerns of art must infallibly remain.

In opening our discussion of the position we proposed first we would
at once point out an important conclusion involved in it. We have here
posited that the environment of the Ideal is not directly due to human
activity, it can therefore only be regarded in this first step of our
inquiry as something external to man, that is to say Nature. How, then,
is this something outside man to be exhibited in the ideal work of art?
We will discuss this at least in its more general terms, and here, too,
draw attention to three aspects of importance.

(_α_) In the first place external Nature, so far as the reproduction of
its external form is concerned, is in every respect a reality which is
embodied in some _definite_ shape. If our representation is in every
respect to satisfy really all that is implied in this condition it
must be the exact counterpart of the phenomenal truth of Nature. We
have, however, already drawn attention to material points of difference
between the truth of Nature and its reproduction by art which cannot be
disregarded. We may, however, observe that it is an almost universal
characteristic of the great masters that they are conspicuously true
in their delineation and elaboration of the broad facts of Nature. And
this is not so much due to a love of imitation as it is due to the fact
that Nature is not merely in a general way the objective facts of a
heaven and an Earth with humanity suspended, as it were, in a _vacuo_
between them; but rather that the emotional life and activity of man
can only be rightly conceived as alive and operative in a given place
with all its associations of streams, rivers, hills, mountains, plains,
dales, and forests. Take the case, for example, of Homer, who is not at
all a poet of the picturesque in natural scenery as we now understand
it; we shall, nevertheless, find even in him the descriptions and
indications he gives us of actual places or natural features such
as the rivers Scamander or Simois, the coast and bays of the sea
and so forth correspond with such truth to Nature that geographical
investigators only quite recently have been able to map out the
locality to which he refers in entire accordance with his descriptions.
The ballad-singers of the Middle Ages present a sordid[381] contrast
to him in this respect, no less than in their power of depicting
character; the effect of their productions either way is bald, jejune
and nebulous. Even in the case of the Meistersingers, though they
versify old biblical stories which they locate in Jerusalem and
elsewhere, it is little more than the bare names which we get. In the
Book of heroes[382] the effect is precisely similar. Otnith rides
through the pine-forest, fights with the dragon, but it is no world
of men or distinct locality we can recognize, and our imagination is
consequently in this respect left without any support. Even in the
Nibelungenlied there is no real increase of local interest. It is
true the names of Worms, the Rhine, and the Danube are mentioned;
but practically all further detail is omitted and the result is as
barren as before. And yet it is clearly through this very clearness of
definition that our narration becomes individual and real; without this
it is a mere abstraction which directly gives the lie to the concrete
reality it proposes to present.

(_β_) In addition to these fundamental requirements of clear definition
and correspondence with the natural facts a certain elaboration of
detail will frequently much assist us in presenting the external
aspects of a picture which our perception or imagination can readily
seize. Unquestionably, owing to the nature of the particular medium
in which the several arts express themselves, there will be a marked
difference of range to which, in any particular case, this process
may be carried. If we take the art of sculpture, for example, we
shall find that the repose and universality, which are the fundamental
features of its characterization, are less consistent with this
elaboration of external detail than is the case in some other arts.
Externality is here neither defined as a particular place nor a
particular environment, but is entirely concentrated upon such details
as drapery, arrangement of hair, dress, weapons of war, mode of seat
and the like. Nay more, the actual definition of many figures in
antique sculpture is only obtained through an entirely conventional
arrangement of drapery or hair, or other distinguishing accessories.
This is not, however, the place to discuss further the significance of
the conventional. It is obviously outside the sphere of natural fact
and rather related to the contingent; or, to put the matter in this
particular case more fully, it is the means through which we arrive
at that which is more universal and persistent in our final artistic
effect.

As a reverse case to that of sculpture the subject-matter of lyrical
poetry is pre-eminently man's emotional life; for this reason it is
not so necessary in this type of poetry to lay stress on the detail of
actual facts even when reference is made to the external world. It is,
on the other hand, part of the function of epic poetry to state events
as actual facts, to be precise as to the place where actions occurred
and in what manner they were performed; and, in short, of all types
of poetry it is the one to which the widest latitude and the closest
accuracy of local detail is most essential. And, furthermore, if we
contrast all the arts together in this respect we shall find that not
one of them is, by virtue of its medium[383], so exclusively occupied
with the detail of external Nature as that of painting. At the same
time we must add a word that applies equally to all of them. Whatever
the definition of Nature may be, it never ought to give the erroneous
impression of Nature's prose reality, that is to say, as the immediate
imitation of such; nor should that fulness of detail, which is devoted
to the spiritual aspect of individual life and its events, be carried
by enthusiasm out of the due relation of its importance to the whole.
And generally we may affirm of both that such exclusive definition
ought not to be all that is anywhere presented, inasmuch as everywhere
in a work of art that which is a natural fact should only receive its
artistic embodiment in close relation to man's spiritual life.

(_γ_) We have here struck the very note we wish particularly to
emphasize. We have already remarked that there are two essential
conditions to any effective presentation of a real personality; we
must have before us both the reflection of the man's inner life and
the natural environment which surrounds him. And in order that this
external surrounding appear as one that is truly his own an essential
bond of relation must be established between him and it, one which
to a greater or less degree is part of his own spiritual substance,
where we may, doubtless, cross many traces of contingent matter and
yet find the spiritual bed of this nexus still maintained. Throughout
the entire spiritual _apparatus_ of the heroes of Epic poetry, for
example, their mode of life, that is, opinions, emotions, and all that
they do we ought to be able to recognize a subtle homogeneousness, a
harmonious _en rapport_, which fuses the two aspects of such a life
into one concordant whole. The Arab is thus united with Nature, and,
indeed, apart from his sky, his stars, his torrid deserts, his tents,
his camels, and his horses is unintelligible. He is only truly himself
and at home under such conditions. In the same way the heroes of Ossian
possess in the highest degree an intense inward life; but in their
very gloominess and melancholy they appear as the genuine growth of
their hills of heather, whose thistles are swept by the wind, of their
rain-clouds, mists, mountains, and dark caves. The physiognomy of the
conditions under which they live reveals to us as nothing else can
the secret of that inner life of emotion which is lived through with
all its sadness, mourning, its pains, its battles, and its mist-like
apparitions in such a natural setting; they are, in short, entirely at
home in it and in it alone.

Such considerations supply us with ample ground for the statement we
let fall previously unsupported that the subject-matter of history
offers unrivalled opportunities for perfecting this intimate relation
between the two aspects of human life we have been discussing, and
enabling, us to carry the same directly into the minutest particulars.
Very rarely, indeed, are we likely to find that the imagination can
simply through its own initiative create such a harmony, although
we ought to feel its presence throughout, however little it may, in
fact, have produced of the raw material it combines into artistic
completeness. No doubt there is a common tendency to rate what we
fancy is the free creation of imaginative genius above the effort of
assimilating in artistic form a material which is borrowed; but it is
for all that quite impossible that the imagination should alone create
that harmonious _entente_, the unity of the Ideal requires in the
consistent and defined form which lies before us in actual existence,
where national traits, to cite the examples above, are the veritable
growth of such a harmony.

And here we close our consideration of the principle accordant with
which we have rendered more clear that aspect of the unity of the
inner life with its natural environment which we posited as secret or
potential, not at any rate directly due to human activity.

(_b_) The second phase of this harmonious relation may be explained
more positively, being expressly due to man's own activity and his
adaptation of means to ends. For man adapts external objects to his
own uses and, by means of the satisfaction which his work supplies,
places himself in a harmonious relation to them. In contrast therefore
to our first indefinite[384], and, in fact, entirely general type of
harmonious association the present one is directly concerned with what
is particular, as exemplified in the particular needs of man and their
satisfaction by his converting to his use such natural objects as he
may require. The range of his wants and the consequent impulse of their
satisfaction is of a practically unlimited variety; yet it is nothing
in comparison with the variety of Nature herself. Simplification is
therefore inseparable from the task whereby, our humanity imposes on
the facts of Nature its own vital purposes, and interpenetrates the
external world with its own volitions. In this way man's environment is
humanized; he proves by his own acts that it is capable of satisfying
his nature and is unable to preserve any predominant independence over
against him. Here at last, by virtue, that is, of his own productive
exertions, we find him no longer in a merely general sense of the term,
but actually in every detail of his particular surroundings a real
centre of his own substance and at home.

The fundamental conception which it is most important to emphasize as
that which affects art throughout in its relation to all we have above
considered may be thus stated. If we look closely at the relative
position man occupies in all the infinite variety of his material
wants, desires, and aims, we shall find that it is not one merely of
_general_ significance, but one of actual _dependence_. The absence
of freedom implied in this relative position is antagonistic to the
Ideal; and in order that man may become a suitable object for art, he
must have already released himself from the travail of this enforced
condition, and thrown off the chains of his dependence. Moreover, this
act of mutual accommodation, when we trace it to its origin, may strike
us in one of two different ways. Either he may conclude that Nature
in all friendliness on her own part supplies man with what he needs,
and so far from throwing obstacles in the path of his interests and
objects, rather freely gives them him as one who meets him half way
wherever he goes. Or, on the contrary, we shall not fail to observe
that our humanity has wants and desires, whose immediate satisfaction
Nature is quite unable to secure. In cases that fall under the second
type it is obvious that man can only work out the self-satisfaction
vital to him through his own energies; he must take possession of that
which Nature possesses, set to rights the defects which appear, modify
their form, removing all that stands in his way with adroitness; and,
in short, convert Nature's raw material into means through which he
will be able to attain all that he proposes. The relation in which the
unity between man and his environment will be most conspicuous must be
sought for in an example, where there is already a real contact between
them, where, that is to say, human ability is on such good terms with
the amenability of Nature that all the severity of a conflict between
them as unreconciled forces disappears, and we have forthwith the
completed symphony under our eyes.

For the reasons, then, already advanced the ideal province of art must
be held secure from the bare necessities of life. Property and the
favour of circumstances, in so far as they supply a condition, under
which poverty and labour vanish not merely for this or that hour, but
for the most part altogether, are for this reason, we will not say
incompatible with art, but rather in full concurrence with the Ideal.
Yet it would only betray a real lack of comprehension[385], if in cases
where the conditions of our art compelled us to consider the facts
of life in all their multifold variety, we nevertheless omitted from
our composition all reference to the relation in which human life is
placed to these very natural constraints. It is true enough that such
are purely finite conditions; but art is not therefore able to dispense
with them. They must not, in fact, even be treated by her as something
merely bad. It is rather her function to reconcile them with the Real
in her embracing unity. And indeed the finest actions and opinions
which she reflects on her mirror, if we consider the particular form
of the determination and content alone[386], are necessarily limited
and consequently finite. That I find it necessary to provide myself
with nourishment, food and drink, a house to live in, and clothing to
wear, seats to sit upon, and everything else incidental to domestic
life is no doubt an inevitable concomitant of the fact that I live
in the world; but the life that only I myself experience within me
permeates, this external aspect of my life so completely, that men
are fain to clothe and arm the very gods themselves, and to picture
them under conditions inseparable from a variety of things they seek
to possess, and find their satisfaction in obtaining. In short, for
art to be possible, this satisfaction of the necessities of life must
be assured to us. Or to take an example where this is not so, there
is that of adventurous knights who only secure their immunity from
external hardship through the continued success of their enterprise,
which is therefore itself but a contingency, in much the same way as
the prosperity of savages is contingent upon the amenities of Nature.
The conditions in both cases are not favourable to Art. Her true Ideal
is not merely to be found where our humanity is barely lifted above
the most rigorous condition of dependence upon the smiles or frowns of
Nature, but is most of all at home in that superfluity which suffers it
in conjunction with Nature's bounty to expatiate with freedom no less
than delight.

The above remarks are obviously of very general application. Two
considerations, however, of a somewhat more restricted interest may be
deduced from them.

(_α_) The first of these relates to the kind of use to which mankind
put the objects of Nature in seeking for a satisfaction which is wholly
_aesthetic_, or due to some habit of the mind. Everything in the nature
of ornament and finery, or, in general terms, everything that men
convert to their use for the sake of mere show comes under this head.
And the point to which we draw attention is this, that when we find men
thus decorating themselves no less than their immediate surroundings,
we ought not so much to conclude that all that they thus collect
together from Nature's most costly and beautiful storehouse, whatever
may most attract their eyes in the same--whether it be gold, precious
stones, pearls, ivory, or precious raiment--that all this unrivalled
rarity and brilliancy, in short, is that which for its own sake, and
primarily as a product of Nature, interests them: rather their interest
in it all is essentially personal as a thing suitable for the houses
they live in, or for that which they most love and honour, whether it
be their rulers, their temples, or their gods. A man selects in this
way that which already appears to him as externally beautiful, pure
translucent colour, glitter of metals, fragrant woods, marble, and all
the rest. Poetry, and particularly Oriental poetry, makes a willing
use of such wealth, a fact we may even illustrate from such a poem as
the Nibelungenlied: and generally it is true enough that Art in such
matters is not merely content with a general description of the beauty
or value of such fine things; but, where the artistic form and the
occasion allows, will describe such works in all the detail of their
workmanship with as royal a bounty as the works themselves. There was
no stint of either gold or ivory on the statue of Pallas at Athens,
or that of Zeus at Olympia; and the temples of the ancient gods, the
churches of Christendom, the pictures of saints, and the palaces of
kings, are notable illustrations among all nations that possess any
of them, to what kind of service splendour and brilliant show may be
devoted; thus have nations in every age delighted in seeing upon their
gods the visible presence of their own wealth, precisely as they have
found delight in the splendour of their princes as a glory they still
possessed, though ravished from themselves.

We all know, of course, that type of moralist who is only too ready
to disturb the vision of such an enjoyment. We shall, no doubt, be
reminded how many poor Athenians the aegis of Pallas could have
supplied with a hearty meal, or how many slaves could have thus been
liberated; and, doubtless, we must admit that in the case of the
ancient world, no less than in days more near to our own wealth, all
that has been lavished on temple, cloister, or cathedral, or other
objects of public utility, has been expended under social conditions of
the direst need to many. Nay, we may carry such melancholy reflections
yet further, and find in them a condemnation not merely of particular
works of art, but of Art herself and all that she gives us. What sums
of money are involved in the building by the State of an Academy of
Arts, or the purchase of ancient and modern works of art, and the
appropriate embellishment of public galleries, theatres, and museums!
But whatever the effect of such reflections may be upon us, whether
ethical or otherwise, such is, after all, only due to the fact that
we are once more reminded of those very constraints and hardships
whose removal is a vital condition of the appearance of Fine Art. The
appropriation of a unique sphere in its life for the exposition of its
artistic treasures, which stands safe above the stress of that reality
to which it contributes so largely, can therefore only redound to the
glory and supreme honour of any people.

(_β_) But, further, mankind is not merely interested in the adornment
of individuals and the environment of their life, but is actively
employed in adapting the objects of Nature to its practical needs and
purposes. It is on this plane that we come into contact for the first
time with all the labour and struggle which the dependence of our
humanity upon the prose of its finite life implies. And the question
inevitably arises, how far all that is involved in this practical
effort is suitable to artistic presentation.

(_αα_) In attempting some answer to this problem, we would draw
attention to the historical fact that the earliest way in which Art
attempted to banish all the prose reality of human life was the
conception of the well-known golden age or, if we care to call it so,
the idyllic state. In this we have Nature depicted as satisfying man's
every want with no trouble to himself: while he, for his part, enjoys
in a state of innocence all that mead, wood, flocks, garden, shelter,
and so forth, can supply him with nourishment, dwelling, and all other
comforts incidental to such a life. Of the passions of ambition or
avarice, indeed of every impulse that may appear to run counter to the
nobility of man's spiritual nature, we hear no word at all. At first
blush, no doubt, a state of this description may strike us more or less
as ideal, and certain types of art, limited in their range, may find
definite satisfaction in presenting us with a picture of it. But we
have only to penetrate further below the surface and we shall quickly
have enough of such a vision. The writings of Gessner are little read
nowadays, and when we do read them we find in such little satisfaction.
The truth is that a restricted state of life, such as the above
described, presupposes a very elementary stage in human development.
Manhood which has attained to any real fulness of spiritual stature is
moved by impulses of loftier range, and is not likely to be satisfied
with the life which clings closest to Nature and its immediate
products. In such idyllic poverty of soul no man ought to live, but
rather to accept his birthright of toil: that which his spiritual
impulse urges him forward to, that he must secure through his own
activity. Once regard the matter in this way and these very physical
wants of man will be found to bring into being a wide and diverse range
of activities, implanting in him the conscious sense of his own powers,
from the heart of which the profounder interests and forces of his life
can slowly unravel themselves. But, at the same time, it is necessary
that here, too, the harmonious relation between the outward and inner
life should be maintained as the fundamental principle of artistic
presentation. Few things are more offensive to our aesthetic taste
than to find in a work of art the severity of some physical disaster
portrayed through every detail of horror. Dante flashes on us the
starvation of Ugolino in a few trenchant strokes. When a Gerstenberg,
in his tragedy of Ugolino, wrings out every detail of the catastrophe
to the last drop, telling us precisely how first Ugolino's two sons,
and after them their father, were done to death by starvation, we feel
at once that the subject, as thus handled, is entirely at variance with
the principles of fine art.

(_ββ_) We shall, however, find that the condition of life which offers
the strongest contrast to that we have described as the idyllic state,
we will call it the generally civilized life[387], presents, though on
other grounds, difficulties to an ideal exposition which are equally
serious. In a Culture-State the complexus of social wants and labour,
of interests and all that may go to satisfying the same, is throughout
and in all its comprehensiveness completely evolved. Every individual
here is immersed in an infinite network of relations with other units
of the whole, and with so much loss to his complete independence. What
he himself requires for himself is either nothing at all, or only, in
a quite insignificant fraction of it, the result of his own labour:
add to this the tendency of all a man's normal activities is to become
more and more mechanical. We find, too, at the heart of this industrial
development and the interchange of employment and rejection of human
labour which it implies, on the one hand the most ruthless conditions
of poverty, and on the other a class which, raised as it is above
the bare necessities of existence, stands out in relief as wealthy,
entirely released from all toil for the sake of a subsistence, able
at any rate to devote individual attention to the finer interests of
life and its pathetic contrasts. No doubt the possession of such a
superfluity may create an impression as though for the favoured few the
constant recurrence of a position of dependence had passed away, and
a man is just so much the more released from the accidents incidental
to property because his hands are at length free from the grime which
soils them in securing it. But such a consolatory reflection will never
make a man thoroughly at home in all that immediately surrounds him in
the real sense that such is the garland of his own labour. For he is
the centre of that to the upraising of which he has not himself been
instrumental; it has come there out of that provision store which was
already full without him, which quite other persons and for the most
part in a quite mechanical and, therefore, formal way have provided,
and to which he is only introduced after a long series of effort and
struggle wholly strange to himself.

(_γγ_) We are consequently led to the conclusion that it is rather a
_third_ type of human society, a society which we may place halfway
between the idyllic golden age and the burgher State in its fully
developed industrial form, which is most fitted to be the subject
matter of ideal art. We have already analysed this state of society
in another connection under the description of the _heroic_ and
pre-eminently ideal world-condition. The heroic age is no longer
restricted to that idyllic garden of spiritual attenuation, but
includes within its borders passions and aims of deeper moment; and yet
withal that which in the circle of the individual life touches closest
the satisfaction of each man's immediate wants is still the entire
product of his own activity.

Moreover, the means of nourishment such as honey, milk, and wine are
less complex and consequently lend themselves more readily to ideal
treatment[388]. A diet which includes coffee, brandy, and such like
luxuries is associated in our minds with countless industries which
are necessary to their preparation. Our heroes, on the contrary, kill
and roast their own food, break in their own chargers, are the makers
to a considerable extent of all their household gods; ploughs, armour
for defence, shields, coats of mail, swords, spears, all are either the
work of the possessor, or are made directly under his supervision. In
a condition of life of this kind a man necessarily feels that in all
the things he makes use of, and in all that encircles him, he is in
touch with something produced by himself; that in contact with external
objects he is in contact with his own substance rather than with
objects which emanate from a world strange to himself and outside that
in which he is himself master. It is, of course, assumed that all the
energy he expends upon working up the material into forms adapted for
his use is not so much troublesome labour, but a work which, through
the satisfaction it brings him, falls easy from his shoulders, a work,
in short, which he can carry over every obstacle to success.

We find a society of this type in Homer. Agamemnon's sceptre is a
family staff which his ancestor himself shaped from the block and left
as an heirloom to his descendants. Odysseus put together with his
own hands the mighty bed he shared with Penelope; and if the famous
weapons of Achilles are no work of his own we only find the various and
interfused array of his own activities abated that a god, Hephaestus
himself, may provide them at the request of his mother Thetis. In a
word, we meet everywhere the youthful delight in novel discovery, the
freshness of personal possession, the victorious sense of enjoyment.
Everything is in its place and at home, in everything a man discovers
the energy of his own sinew, the adroitness of his own hand, the
cunning of his own spirit, or somewhat that follows from his own
courage and bravery. In this way, and by this alone, the instruments
which satisfy our human sense are not as yet relegated to a merely
external relation, but men have before them the living process of the
instruments themselves, the vital consciousness of the human worth they
attach to them; and they find it there inasmuch as for them they are
not mere lifeless things or things which habit has made lifeless, but
creations impregnated with their own energies. And for the same reason
we find here an idyllic condition of things, it is true, but not in
that restricted sense of the term that the Earth and her streams, seas,
forests, and cattle supply to mankind their sustaining substance, while
man himself is only visible to us as a passive creature limited by the
active powers which support him and their enjoyment. Rather we already
see within this morning-time of human life deep interests at work, in
relation to which the great world itself is but a subordinate realm,
the ground and the instrument for bringing into being the higher aims
which are present, as a ground and environment, however, over which
that harmonious concord, yet withal independence, of both sides of our
human world prevails; and which does prevail in the sight of all for
this reason that everything there exists as the product and for the use
of human life, is at the same time the creation and enjoyment of the
man who creates and enjoys its use[389].

To apply such a mode of artistic presentation to material borrowed
from more recent times, whose completed culture offers the strongest
contrast to the heroic age above-mentioned, is always beset with
extreme difficulty and liable to failure. Yet for all that Goethe in
his "Hermann and Dorothea" has furnished us in this respect with an
admirable masterpiece. Here an attempt will only be made to elucidate
a few significant points by contrasting the same with a composition
of similar type. Voss, in his famous romance "Louise," had depicted
on much the same idyllic lines our human life and activity in a quiet
circle of narrow range, if also marked with independent characteristics
of its own. The country parson, the tobacco-pipe, the dressing-gown,
the garden-bench, and finally our coffee-pot, have all of them here
important parts to play. Coffee and sugar are, however, products, which
are really here out of place; they belong to an entirely different
world[390] throughout associated with all the varied ramifications
of commercial and textile industries. This circle of country life
is consequently not self-inclusive. In the beautiful picture of
"Hermann and Dorothea" we are, on the contrary, under no necessity to
demand such a consistency. As we already have pointed out in another
connection, we find interwoven with the main threads of this poem,
which is, no doubt, in its prevailing atmosphere entirely idyllic, the
great political interests of the time, the struggles of the French
Revolution, the defence of the Fatherland, asserted in a worthy way
no less than with decision. The more limited scope of family life in
a little country town is not so presented us as a whole which can
even possibly remain in total ignorance of that mighty wave of the
great world under stress of a real cataclysm of events, which is the
view we are given of the pastor in the "Louise" of Voss. In Goethe's
poem we have, on the contrary, by means of the interfusion of these
great world-movements, within which the idyllic characters and events
are portrayed, the picture of a life with a typical character of its
own set in the frame of a world of more significant content; and the
apothecary, who is here presented as the out-and-out Philistine, and
who merely lives within the more narrow borders of that country life's
surroundings, affected by that only, is excellently sketched for us
with the good heart, but at the same time peevish isolation, which we
find so natural. Add to this, in that which most closely touches the
life of the characters thus portrayed, we find a particular emphasis
laid on the fundamental aspect of this idyllic life as previously
indicated in our former discussion of it. To mention one point only, we
may observe that the host does not by any means drink coffee with his
guests, the parson and the apothecary; on the contrary, to cite a line
or two:

    Carefully brought in the mother the sparkling and glorious red-wine,
    Poured in the clear-cut glasses, with rimlets all polished of pewter,
    Brought in the green-coloured rummers, those goblets most fit for the
          Rhine-wine.

They drink in the fresh air what has been grown at home, of the '83
vintage, and withal in glasses that, as home-made, are just the right
ones for Rhine-wine. A few lines further on our fancy is yet further
kindled with the "streams of the Rhine river and its dearly-loved
banks," and we are even introduced to the vineyard of the host behind
the house itself; and, in short, there is nothing to arrest our
attention outside the typical circle of a self-contented life which of
its own bounty provides for its wants.

(_c_) In addition to both these types of human environment we must
mention yet another in close association with which we all necessarily
live. It is no other than the universally prevailing _spiritual_
surroundings of our life whether they be religious, legal, or moral,
the organization of the State, that is to say, the constitution of the
government, the judicial institutions, the family, the institutions
of both public and private life, and all other social relations. For
the ideal character is not merely to be portrayed in its relation
to all that satisfies material wants, but as itself a focus of
spiritual interests. It is certainly true that all that is truly
substantive, divine, and essentially necessary in all these relations
is fundamentally an envisagement of one reality. In the objective
world, however, the forms under which this reality is manifested are
various, and they are, one and all, involved in that which is wholly
contingent in particular examples, and the conventional usages which
are only valid for definite periods of time and distinct nations. In
this variety of form all the interests of men's spiritual life receive
an external embodiment of reality, with which every man is confronted
in the customs, usages, and habits of society. Every man thereby, in
addition to possessing a self-exclusive individuality of his own,
becomes, in virtue of his association with such spiritual realities,
even more a member of a whole cognate with and vital to himself than
as a unit of that external world of Nature with which he is similarly
conjoined. Speaking generally, we may attach to this spiritual
association, of human life very much the same terms and significance we
have already discussed in the foregoing sections; consequently we will
for the present pass over the more detailed consideration of it, whose
most important features will apply more strictly to another aspect of
our inquiry, and will then be more appropriately discussed.

3. THE EXTERNALITY OF THE IDEAL WORK OF ART IN ITS RELATION TO A PUBLIC

It is therefore necessary that art, as the representation of the Ideal,
must embody this Ideal in all the relations to external reality we
have above described, and thereby associate the inward possessions of
character with the objective world. A work of art, however much in form
it may be a self-including and harmonious world by itself, exists none
the less as such an object, both real and particular, not _for itself_
but for such as _behold_ and _enjoy_ it, that is the Public. Actors,
for example, in the representation they give us of a particular drama
do not merely enter into converse with one another, but appeal directly
to ourselves, their audience; and it is equally important that they
make themselves intelligible under both these aspects. Every work of
art is in fact a direct appeal to the intelligence of everyone who
confronts it. Now it is indeed true that the real Ideal, as envisaged
for us in the universal interests and passions of its gods and men, is
so far intelligible to everyone as it gives us a view of its characters
within some typical external world of customs, usages, and everything
else that characteristically distinguishes it. But the condition of art
we have above formulated makes it further necessary that this element
of external reality is not merely one with which the characters thereby
represented are harmoniously associated, but must be also one within
which we ourselves to whom the work is addressed feel equally at home.
The appropriateness of the external environment to the characters
enfolded within it must apply with equal force to our own attitude of
mind in regarding both. But it so happens that from whatever period
of the world's history the subject-matter of a work of art may be
borrowed it will be sure to contain essential features, which are quite
distinct from those which specifically determine other nations and
periods. In other words artists of every description, whether they be
poets, painters, sculptors, or musicians, select subject-matter from
the Past, which in their particular state of culture and intelligence,
ethical customs, usages, and the form of their government, differ
from the civilization of the times they live in. Moreover, as we have
already observed, this return upon the Past possesses the considerable
advantage that in having thus recourse to memory instead of being face
to face with all the facts of the present, there is an appreciable
diminution of the material from which the artist selects his subject,
and this he cannot readily dispense with. At the same time the artist
belongs only to his own century, and it is in the ethical customs,
modes of conception, and generally the intellectual outlook of that he
lives. The Homeric poems Homer, to take him for once as the individual
creator of both "Iliad" and "Odyssey," may have actually lived through
or he may not; but in any case they are at least four hundred years
later[391] than the time of the Trojan war; and further a period twice
as long separates the great Greek tragedians from the days of the
ancient heroes, who, as translated into the atmosphere of their own
time, form the subject-matter of their poetry. It is just the same
in the case of the Niebelungenlied and the artist who finally fused
together the various saga which that poem contains into one homogeneous
work. We may no doubt admit that the artist finds himself entirely on
congenial ground when dealing with everything truly pathetic, either
in the history of gods or men; but the external and actual conditions
of that ancient world, whose characters and actions he endeavours to
portray, have altered in essential features and become consequently
strange to him. And further than this a poet creates for the sake of a
Public, and primarily for his own nation and his time, both of which
should be able to enter into such a work of art with intelligence,
and feel at home in it. The most genuine works of art no doubt assert
a further claim to immortality, a hope that they may continue to be
a source of delight to all times and nations. But even in the case
of works of the highest class it is none the less true that nations
and times situated far away from those which produced them can only
fully apprehend them with the assistance of an extensive apparatus of
geographical, historical, and it may be even philosophical knowledge
and the results of much critical investigation.

Bearing in mind these fundamental, and to some extent incompatible
differences which characterize the various points of view from which
a work of art must be regarded, the question arises what kind of form
relatively to its external framework of locality, custom, usage,
and generally any and every condition of religious, political or
ethical significance a particular work of art should receive. Should
an artist suffer his own times to pass from his mind altogether, and
attempt only to secure the substantial appearance of the Past and
what actually then existed, so that his work become simply a true
portrayal of that; or is he not merely justified, but rather under
an obligation, to pay an exclusive attention to his own nation and
the life around him, elaborating his work with express regard to the
principle that it should stand in harmonious relation to his own
times? Or, to put the same thing in rather more technical language,
we may propound the problem thus: Is the subject-matter of a work
of art to be _objectively_ valid in its content as one entirely
appropriate historically considered, or should such matter be treated
_subjectively_, that is, in complete subordination to the artist's
personal standpoint relatively to the culture and social conditions
of his own time? We would rather observe that both these positions,
if thus pressed unduly, land us in extreme conclusions equally false;
and we propose now to examine them briefly that we may by their means
elucidate a more satisfactory theory.

And we would consider three fundamental aspects which this problem
suggests. We will _first_ examine what is implied in the above
subjective assertion of the particular culture of the artist's own
time; _secondly_, there is the question what may be regarded as
exclusively and objectively true when we refer to the Past; _thirdly_,
we have to consider what may still be objectively valid in the true
sense, though we still have a representation and appropriation of
material borrowed from a time and nationality foreign to that of the
artists.

(_a_) Now to start with, if we consider this purely subjective
assertion, it is obvious that when we press the position closely we
are finally driven to exclude the objective embodiment of the Past
altogether, and to maintain that artistic representation is exclusively
concerned with the appearance of present times.

(_α_) Such a result may be doubtless, under one aspect of it,
presented by mere ignorance of the Past. It is, then, rather the result
of a _naïveté_, which is unable to feel the contradiction between
the object itself and the representation given, or at least fails to
bring the same to consciousness. Such a form of artistic presentation
is therefore fundamentally due to lack of sufficient culture. We
could hardly wish for a more vivid illustration of this than we find
in the _naïve_ productions of Hans Sachs, who has, no doubt with a
vivid freshness of imaginative vigour and spirit, as we may truly say,
domesticated among us[392] our dear Lord and Father God no less than
Adam, Eve, and the rest of the patriarchs. Here, for example, God the
Father is portrayed as teaching a school in which Cain, Abel, and the
rest of Adam's children--are the pupils, precisely as any pedagogue of
the time might have done. He catechizes them upon the ten commandments
and the Lord's Prayer. Abel knows his lesson as a pious and good boy
ought to. Cain on the contrary behaves and replies to his teachers
as only naughty and wicked boys would think of doing; and when it is
his turn to repeat the commandments turns them inside out: thou shalt
steal, thou shalt not honour thy father and mother, and so forth. A
representation of much the same crude simplicity having for its subject
the tale of our Lord's Passion used to be carried out in South Germany,
was then made illegal, and has since once more been resuscitated.
In this Pilate is portrayed in the character of an insolent, rough,
and arrogant official, the common soldiers much in the same familiar
way our own might, offer Christ surreptitiously a pinch of tobacco;
he disdains it, and they flatten it out on his nose. Vulgarity finds
all the more jest in such an incident for the reason that it wholly
conforms to its notions of piety and reverence, indeed calls up such
feelings all the more readily through its immediate reference to that
which it finds in its own world, thereby making more vivid its own
sense of devotional fervour. No doubt there is a certain justification
for this mode of translating, so to speak, the appearance and form
of objective history into modern equivalents, such as we have found
in our literature; and we may even attach a kind of greatness to
the courage of Hans Sachs in making himself so familiar with God
Almighty, and those old religious ideas that without the least vestige
of impiety he could rivet them deep within the conditions of our most
commonplace life. At the same time such an attempt is none the less a
rude intrusion upon our feelings, and indicates lack of cultivation,
inasmuch as it not merely disallows to the object itself a right to
assert itself as it really is, but forces upon it a mode of appearance
so directly contrary to that which it possesses, that the result can
only impress us as an emphatic caricature.

(_β_) As an antithesis to the above type of subjectivity we find
another equally supreme asserting itself out of sheer pride in its
own culture under the belief that the views peculiar to its own
times, its ethical customs, and social conventions are those alone
worth preservation or acceptance. Owing to a bias of this kind it is
quite unable to enjoy the content of a work of art until such a form
of culture prevails in it. An illustration of this latter type is
the so-called classical good taste of the French school. Everything
that is here attempted must forthwith be Frenchified, and all that it
presents under the form of any other nationality and more particularly
with any reference to the Middle Ages is voted incorrect and barbarous
and is cast on one side with absolute contempt. Voltaire expressed
anything but the truth when he said that the French have improved the
works of the ancient world. What they have done is to nationalize
them; and by this process of recasting have corrupted them with every
kind of foreign and angular quality of their own that such a taste as
theirs could develop to any extent, requiring as it did throughout
a culture absolutely based on court etiquette, and a conformity to
conventional rule and generalization in both the meaning and mode of
any dramatic work. Indeed, we shall find the trail of this abstraction
of a superfine culture visible in the very diction of their poetry. Not
a poet among them dare venture to use the word _cochon_, or add their
own nomenclature to spoons, forks, and a thousand other simple objects.
Consequently we have roundabout definitions and circumlocutions. We
cannot have our spoons and forks; we get instead an instrument of the
hand which conveys our victuals in a liquid or arid state to the
mouth; and this by no means stands alone. And with all its refinement
their taste is vulgar to a degree; for the simple truth is that genuine
art, so far from planing away and polishing its content to one flat
and unruffled surface of generalities, is most of all anxious to set
in full relief all that makes toward the well-defined characterization
of life. It is on account of this very taste that the French can make
less of Shakespeare than any other poet. And when they have attempted
to work him up to their graces they have clipped off from him precisely
that portion which we Germans find nearest to our hearts. For the same
reason Voltaire makes merry over Pindar because he has made the remark,
_ἄριστον μὲν ὕδωρ._[393] And, consequently, in their works of art they
find it necessary to make Chinese, Americans, or the heroes of Greek
or Roman antiquity all speak in one tongue and in one manner--that
of their French court. Achilles, for instance, in the "Iphigenie en
Aulide"[394] is nothing more or less than a French prince; and if we
had no name to help us no one could conceivably discover one particle
of Achilles in him. It is true that in the theatrical representation of
this drama he was habited as a Greek, appeared at least in helmet and
coat of mail; but at the same time his hair was curled and powdered,
with broad hips through _poschen_[395], with red claws worked on shoes
fastened on the foot with coloured ribbons; and what is more, the
"Esther" of Racine was expressly popular in the time of Louis XIV, for
the particular reason that Ahasuerus, on his first entrance on the
stage, copied the appearance of Louis XIV himself, when he entered
the great hall of audience. No doubt, in this transcript, there was
a considerable admixture of the oriental luxuriance; but a Ahasuerus
he was none the less fully powdered and wearing the royal mantle of
ermine, and followed by a complete retinue of curled and powdered
chamberlains got up thoroughly _en habit français_ with their wigs,
their feathered caps under arm, their vests and hoses of _drap d'or_,
with their silk stockings and red buckles on their shoes. All that the
court and a select circle of the privileged few were only permitted
to see _de facto_ was here open to all classes alike--the _entrée_
of the king paraded in the poet's verses. The writing of history in
France is not unfrequently conducted on very much the same principle.
That is to say, history itself and the real objects of history are
not the main purpose of the historian, whose interest is rather
concentrated either on giving the government in vogue a lesson or
teaching others how they ought to detest it. And in the same way there
are a host of dramas which, either expressly throughout their entire
content or in passing episodes, divert the attention to the events of
the day; or, if passages occur in pieces which refer to former times
presenting anything which may bear on matters of contemporary interest,
the parallel or the contrast is deliberately emphasized with every
expression of enthusiasm.

(_γ_) A third type of this personal treatment by the artist of his
subject-matter may be sufficiently described as the separation of
the same from all genuine artistic form whether it be characteristic
of past or present works of art, a mode of production in fact which
simply presents us with the entirely evanescent colour of "the man
in the street" in his ordinary everyday action and vocation without
adding aught to the same. In other words we may describe it as the bare
counterpart of what the man of commonsense is conscious in the prosaic
facts of life, that and nothing more. In such an atmosphere of prose
no doubt everyone finds himself at home readily enough; or rather, he
will only not find himself at home who takes up such a work with some
definite conception of that which the very conditions of a work of art
demand, and consequently is aware that it is precisely from this type
of handling that Art undertakes to liberate us. Kotzebue, in his day,
obtained all his popular effects through compositions of this kind,
which aimed at nothing else but letting the general public both see and
hear life's troubles and vexations, the pocketing of silver spoons, the
risking of the pillory, or, to take particular characters, parsons,
chamberlains, ensign-bearers, secretaries, and cavalry-majors, in their
naked colours. Everyone might here recognize his own household, or, at
least, that of some relation or friend, might see at a glance where in
his own precious circumstances and aims of life the shoe pinched. An
originality of this sort necessarily fails to stir any real sense or
idea of that which is the vital content of a work of art, however much
it may awake an interest for its productions in hearts that are wont to
ask for so little and are so ready to put up with the commonplaces of
so-called ethical reflections. We may conclude, then, that the artistic
presentation of the facts of external reality under any one of these
three types just examined is subjective in a one-sided way, that is
to say, it wholly fails to present us with any adequate form of that
objective world as it really exists.

(_b_) We next propose to examine a mode of presentation the reverse of
the above, one which endeavours to restore us the characters and events
of the past so far as may be with every local detail of their former
environment no less than any and every ethical or other particular
characteristic which formerly distinguished them. We Germans have
particularly come to the front in this class of work. As a rule we are,
in striking contrast to the French, the most painstaking recorders of
all that is peculiar in nations other than our own, and consequently
make fidelity to the characteristic usages, dress, weapons, and all
such antiquarian detail appropriate to particular epochs and localities
a first requisite of our art. Add to this we have the necessary
patience to put ourselves to no end of trouble in the way of hard
study in order that we may thoroughly enter into the modes of thought
and perception which belong to foreign nations and centuries distant
from our own, and make ourselves thoroughly conversant with all their
peculiarities. This power of looking at facts from many and diverse
points of view in order to both apprehend and comprehend the spirit of
every kind of national existence makes us not merely tolerant in our
art towards all that strikes us as exceptionally strange in foreign
customs, but clamorous even to a painful degree in our insistence that
we have before us accurate correspondence with objective truth down
to the most insignificant detail. The French are, no doubt, full of
resource and energetic, but, however highly educated and practical men
they may be, such qualities do not increase, but rather diminish the
patience which they possess for quiet and exhaustive study. Criticism
is always of first importance with them. We Germans, on the contrary,
are by nature inclined to accept any picture of real truth for what
it is, and particularly this is so with foreign works of art. From
whatever part of Nature's storehouse such may come, whether it is
plants or other creations of foreign growth, implements of any kind or
form, dogs and cats, even absurdities, we accept them all genially; and
the result of this is we are able to be on excellent terms with modes
of thought the most removed from our own, ay, sacrificial customs,
legends of the saints and all the extraordinary follies that go with
them, to say nothing of a host of other marvels equally surprising.
And for the same reasons it only appears essentially rational that
in attempting to represent characters in action we should make their
conversation and pursuits conformable to their own substance, that
is to say, in strict accord with the times when they lived and their
own national characteristics, whether regarded individually or in
association with each other.

This fundamental idea that the objective truth of a work of art
is established by virtue of the type of historical accuracy above
described has obtained currency in comparatively recent times, mainly,
that is to say, since the literary work of Frederick von Schlegel. From
that time the importance of a first principle in literary criticism has
attached to it; and further than this, it is asserted that our purely
personal interest should above all restrict itself to the enjoyment we
may derive from historical accuracy of this kind and the life it thus
reproduces. Once accept these hard and fast rules and the conclusion
is obvious that we are allowed no additional interest of any superior
quality which an enquiry into the essential significance of any
artistic content may or may not provide for us any more than we are
permitted to derive any interest more vital to ourselves from aspects
of such a work directly associated with the culture and aims of our own
times. It is much on these lines that we find also in Germany, where
the enthusiasm of Herder in this direction started a closer attention
on all sides to the "Volkslied," a poetic inundation of national
folk-songs imitating native tones of every sort of nationality whether
it be the Iroquois, latter-day Greek, Lap, Turk, Tartar, Mongol, and
many another; and, of course, it is assumed to be indicative of
nothing less than first-rate genius[396] to possess the power of thus
diving into the ways and ideas of other folk, and converting all
we discover into poetry. At the same time it is clear that however
completely your poet may work his way into and emotionally realize all
this strange kind of world, it remains and must continue to remain for
that public to whose enjoyment these songs are addressed as something
very much aloof from it.

The truth is that such a theory, if pressed to its abstract logical
conclusion, limits its boundaries solely to the truth of history in
its formal accuracy, and by doing so neglects all consideration of
the nature of Art's content and questions relative to its essential
significance, just as it disregards every aspect of it in which the
culture and resources of modern thought and contemporary life are
asserted. But it is as impossible to detach ourselves from the truth
implied in this theory as it is from equally important truths which it
neglects; all equally claim satisfaction, and imperatively force upon
us the necessity of finding a further solution in which the claims of
historical truth may be reconciled with these rival aspects of truth
in a very different way to that just examined. And this brings us to
the third question we proposed as to the nature of that objectivity and
subjectivity which can be fully sustained together as the reality to
which a genuine work of art conforms.

(_c_) The point of essential importance which we should before
all others wish to emphasize here is this, that no one of those
various aspects of truth we have above indicated should be allowed a
predominant significance such as would impair the relative force of
the others; and, further, or rather notwithstanding this, historical
accuracy pure and simple in external matters, such as local conditions,
customs, usages, and social institutions generally, must receive in a
work of art their due place, if a subordinate one, it being only right
that the interest of mere historical truth should give way before that
of a vitally true and imperishable content for the present no less than
the past.

We cannot, perhaps, do better by way of explaining what we consider
to be the true form of artistic representation than by setting up in
contrast a few examples of some we take to be defective.

(_α_) Now, to start with, the presentation of the characteristic
features of a given period may be entirely just, accurate, and
impregnated with life, nay more, wholly intelligible to a modern
audience, and notwithstanding fail to escape the ordinary atmosphere of
prose, and present us with the real substance of poetry. Goethe's "Götz
von Berlichingen" will alone furnish us with notable illustrations of
this defect. It is only necessary to open the book at the first scene,
which introduces us to an inn near Schwarzenberg in Franconia; the
_dramatis personae_ are Metzler, and Sievers sitting at a table, two
grooms by the fire, also the landlord.

    _Sievers._ Another glass of brandy, Hans, my boy, and good
    Christian measure.

    _Landlord._ You carry a glass that is never full.

    _Metzler._ [_Aside to Sievers_.] Tell us that once again about
    Berlichingen; the Bambergers are in a pretty fume out there;
    ay, black as thunder (etc.).

The same kind of thing we find in the third Act.

    _George._ [_Enters with a gutter-spout._] There you have lead
    and to spare; spot the target with but one half of it, and
    devil a soul shall get off, who is like to say to your Majesty,
    that's a miss this time[397].

    _Lerse._ [_Aloud._] A fine piece of metal.

    _George._ The rain may take another road for all I care; a
    brave knight and a real good rain get through most things.

    _Lerse._ [_Pours into glass._] Hold the spoon. [_Goes to the
    window._] There's one of those imperial cockades prowling about
    with his musket; they believe we have aimed a point too far.
    He shall have a taste of my bullet, hot too and fresh from the
    pan. [_Loads._]

    _George._ [_Drops the spoon._] Let me have a look.

    _Lerse._ [_Fires._] There lies the fool (etc.).

All this is exceedingly vivid, intelligible, depicted in perfect
keeping with the situation and the characters portrayed. Yet for all
that these scenes are both trivial to a degree and essentially prosaic.
All we get from either the matter or the form is just the ordinary
man's way of seeing things and reality as it appears to him or rather
all of us to some extent. We find the same tendency in many another
of Goethe's youthful productions, which no doubt were deliberately
directed against everything which previously had passed for the rule
of the guild, and which sought for their most impressive effect by
means of the nearness made clear to ourselves, an impression gained by
the extraordinary grasp with which the poet's imagination and feeling
seized upon everything. But the nearness was itself too near, and the
vital content in part so petty, that such compositions ran constantly
into mere triviality. We are most conscious of this kind of triviality
in dramatic works when we see them on the stage; it is then that
after being worked up to some excitement by all the concomitants of a
theatrical performance, lights, well-dressed folk, and the rest of it,
we expect to see something more than a couple of peasants, and troopers
and a glass of schnapps thrown in[398]. This phase has mainly found its
admirers in readers; it never had a long run on the stage.

(_β_) If we now consider our subject from an opposite point of view
it may be admitted that we can sufficiently make ourselves acquainted
with and assimilate the historical content of a former mythology
and all that is most strange to ourselves in earlier conditions of
state-life and national custom to secure through such an intimacy
with, the general culture then prevailing a varied knowledge of the
past. In fact, this acquaintance with the art, mythology, literature,
_cultus_, and usages of antiquity is the starting point of our present
system of education. Every schoolboy knows something about the gods
and heroes of Greece and the prominent characters in ancient history.
It is therefore quite possible, in so far as they really enter into
the imaginative life of our own times, that we may find enjoyment in
the imaginative representation of such characters and interests. It
is further impossible to predict whether or no such an intimacy may
not be eventually carried equally as far in the case of the Indian,
Egyptian, and Scandinavian mythologies. We may further observe that
in the religious conceptions of all these peoples the Universal God
is presented. The determinate form, however, of such conceptions,
that is to say, the particular gods of Greece or India, are no longer
_true_ for us as so personified. We do not believe in their existence,
and the pleasure we take in them is derived from their appeal to our
imagination. For this reason they stand entirely apart from our deepest
emotional life, and we can imagine nothing more empty and cold than
such exclamations we hear only too often in opera: "O ye gods!" or "O
Jupiter!" or even "O Isis and Osiris!" And the folly of it all reaches
its height when we have the wretched saws of oracular wisdom thrown
in--and the opera can seldom get along without them--a position of
dignity which nowadays for the first time in tragic drama is occupied
by pure folly and clairvoyance.

The same criticism applies with equal truth to all other historical
material relating to national customs, laws, and the like. Such
historical fact is excellent in its way, but it belongs to the past;
and when it has once ceased to have anything in common with present
life it necessarily ceases, in spite of all our knowledge of it, to
belong to us. We have, in short, no interest[399] in what has passed
away on the mere ground that it once existed. What is historical can
only truly be said to belong to us when it is the possession of the
nation, to which we ourselves belong, or when we are able to regard
the present as in a general way casually connected with the events
in question, to whose continuous series the characters or actions
represented are united by a bond of essential membership. For if we
carefully consider the matter we shall find that the mere fact of
being formerly bound together with the same external environment and
people to which we ourselves belong is not sufficient--rather the very
part of our nation must present features in still closer relation
to the conditions, life, and existence of our own times. To take an
example of what we mean, we find ourselves in the Niebelungenlied
geographically on a soil that belongs to us still, but the Burgundians
and King Etzel are so absolutely cut off from all that touches our
present civilization and every interest which is now coincident with
patriotism that, without borrowing anything from the learning of the
subject, it is but simple truth to say we feel infinitely more at home
in the poems of Homer[400]. Klopstock, no doubt, in his enthusiasm for
everything that concerned the Fatherland, was prompted to substitute
his Scandinavian gods for those of Hellenic mythology; but, for all his
zeal, Wotan, Walhalla, and Freja remain mere names for us, which appeal
to our imaginations and patriotic emotions even less than Zeus and his
compeers of Olympus.

The point above all we desire to emphasize is this. Works of art are
not composed primarily for the mere student or the professor, but with
the express purpose that they shall be intelligible on their face,
and a source of enjoyment without any one having to undertake first a
circuitous route of extensive historical investigation. For Art is not
addressed to a small and select circle of the privileged few, but to
the nation at large. What, moreover, is generally valid for a work of
art applies also to the external form of the historical reality therein
portrayed. Such exposition also must express itself with clearness open
to the common apprehension requiring no considerable research to make
it intelligible, must be clear to ourselves as representations of our
century and our own people, so that we may be able to find ourselves
entirely at home in it, and not have before us a world foreign to that
we live in, if not actually unintelligible.

(_γ_) Considerations such as the foregoing have already brought us
within reach of the truer conception of the objective truth of art and
the mode under which it assimilates the material of past history. We
propose now to offer further illustrations in support of the same.

(_αα_) And we may start at once by drawing attention to a
characteristic which is common alike to the genuine national poetry
of all peoples and in every period of past history, namely, that the
historical and formal aspect of that poetry is entirely national,
that is to say, it retains nothing incongruous to the people for whom
it is composed. This is a feature shared alike by the great epics of
India, the Homeric poems and the Greek drama. Sophocles never made
his Philoctetes, Antigone, Ajax, Orestes, Œdipus, his choregi and
choruses speak in the speech and manner that would have been entirely
appropriate to their own times. The Spaniards have written their
romances of the Cid under the same guiding principle. Tasso in his
"Jerusalem Liberated" celebrated the universal interests of Catholic
Christendom. Camoens, the poet of Portugal, depicted the discovery of
the seaway to the East Indies round the Cape of Good Hope, and all the
infinitely various adventures of the sea heroes that made it possible;
and these acts of daring were the acts of his own people. Shakespeare
threw into dramatic form the tragic history of his own country and even
a Voltaire wrote his "Henriade." Far indeed have we Germans strayed
from the path thus marked for us when we hope to work up into national
epics histories remote from our own, which carry no longer with them
a national interest of any kind. Bodmer's "Noachide" and Kloptock's
"Messias" have started a new fashion of their own, ay, as they have
overturned that old one which taught us that it redounds to a nation's
glory to have its Homer, to say nothing of its Pindar and Sophocles.
Those biblical stories, it is true, present points of special affinity
with the national imagination owing to our close acquaintance with the
old and new Testaments; but the historical material in its association
with ancient custom and the like remains for all that only intelligible
to the savant, and all the most of us can pick up from such epics is
the prosaic interfusion of events and characters, which, in such a
process of translation, have merely some novel form of speech thrust
into their mouths, and the final result can only impress us as hollow
and artificial.

(_ββ_) At the same time art cannot be restricted wholly to material
borrowed from one nation. And as a matter of fact the more
nationalities have come into contact with one another, the more
their poets have looked abroad among all nations and times for the
subject-matter of their poems. But however this may be the case, it
is none the less an error to suppose that the mere fact that a poet
is able, so to speak, to live into times aloof from his own at once
stamps him as a man of creative genius. It is more to the point to
recollect that this historical framework must, in the co-ordination of
a poem, be retained only in strict subordination, and as a means of
expressing that which permanently belongs to our humanity. Precisely in
this way the Middle Ages long ago borrowed much from antiquity, but so
absolutely suffused it with the content of its own epoch that, in this
respect verging on the opposite extreme, we really get nothing from
that antiquity but the bare names of Alexander, Aeneas, and the emperor
Octavius.

First in importance, then, is this permanent condition of true art,
immediate intelligibility. It will be found an invariable truth that
all nations have emphasized precisely that in this life which was
most agreeable to their artistic sense, their desire being always to
find what was most intimate to themselves, their life and existence
in their art. It was this independent flavour of patriotism which
Calderon worked into such characters as his Zenobia and Semiramis; and
Shakespeare in the same way was able to imprint upon the most varied
subject-matter the hall-mark of his English ancestry, although he
knew how to preserve along with it the essential traits of historical
characters belonging to nations foreign to his own, the Roman for
example, in a far profounder degree than was possible to the Spanish
poets. Even the Greek tragedians had their eyes constantly directed to
the actual conditions of their times and the particular city in which
they lived. The "Œdipus Colonus" in its local references is not merely
in a peculiar way associated with Athens but, by virtue of the fact
that Œdipus dies in this locality, at once indicates him as the future
Preserver of that city. In somewhat other associations the "Eumenides"
of Aeschylus is, owing to the decisive sentence of the Areopagus,
marked by an interest of more vital interest to the Athenians[401].
On the other hand Greek mythology, despite all the varied and oft
repeated use that has been made of it since the revival of the arts
and learning, has never fully come home to the general sense of modern
emotions and in various degrees in the plastic arts and still more
in poetry, despite its very extensive influence here, has failed to
arouse real enthusiasm. No one thinks now of writing an ode to Venus,
Zeus, or Pallas[402]. Sculpture, it is true, can hardly get along even
in modern times without the assistance of the Greek Pantheon, but for
that very reason it is mainly only appreciated by and intelligible to a
select circle of cultivated men who are either connoisseurs or critics.
As one of these, Goethe spared no pains in his endeavour to arouse
in contemporary artists an enthusiasm which should go so far as to
imitate the pictures of Philostratus, but for the most part his pains
were thrown away. Such examples of the work of antiquity, on account
of the very flavour of past time and a life that has vanished, which
clings to them, remain as strange to contemporary art as they do to
the general public. As a contrary example of real success on the part
of Goethe we may instance the far profounder insight he has shown us
during the later period of his poetic activity in fusing by means of
his "Westöstlicher Divan" the colour of the East with the poetry that
really appeals to us to-day, giving to the Orient, in fact, its modern
embodiment. In this process of assimilation he has clearly shown
himself alive to the fact that he is a poet of the West and a German
as well, and consequently while preserving the fundamental key-note of
the Oriental spirit in his delineation of characters and situations to
which it was appropriate, was able at the same time fully to satisfy
the claims of the modern spirit and those of his own personality.
Subject to such reservations it is undoubtedly in the province of a
poet to borrow his material from remote regions, past centuries and
foreign nations, maintaining in their broad and most characteristic
outlines the historical form of ancient mythology, custom, and
institution. At the same time he will take care to utilize such forms
only as the external frame of his delineations, never permitting the
essential content of such productions to fall into any disharmony
with the profounder instincts of his own native world. As the most
extraordinary example of this Goethe's "Iphigenia" still stands without
a rival.

In their relation to such a transformation the several arts dispose of
their material very differently. In the love-poems of lyrical poetry
very little use is made of local associations depicted with historical
accuracy. The emotional situation and the movement of sentiment is
here the main thing. We receive, for example, in the sonnets of
Petrarch a very small substratum of natural fact relatively to Laura,
hardly anything more than her name, which might just as well have
been another. Of local interest we get the barest scraps, and that
entirely of general significance, such as the existence of the fountain
of Vaucluse and things of that kind. Epical poetry, on the contrary,
requires the greatest detail in its natural descriptions, and we are
most readily pleased with their historical truth, provided always that
the picture is both clear and intelligible. The use of the external
truth of historical facts presents the greatest pitfalls to dramatic
art, more particularly in reference to its theatrical presentation,
where everything is directly addressed to an audience, or purports to
strike upon sense with the vividness of life, so that we are willing
to recognize and entrust ourselves therein with equal directness. Here
the delineation of historical truth in its external aspects must for
the most part be of subsidiary importance, in fact retain little more
than the framework of it. It must, in short, remain true to that
natural relation we find in love-poetry, in which at the same time that
we are able completely to sympathize with the feelings expressed in
every way another name is given to the beloved than that of the lady
most loved by ourselves[403]. It does not here in the least signify
whether or no our critics fail to discover absolute precision in the
picture presented of the particular manners, culture, and emotional
expression of the time. In Shakespeare's historical dramas we find a
great deal that remains strange to us and of no considerable interest.
We are contented enough on a mere reading, but in the theatre our
enjoyment ceases. Critics and men of learning no doubt stick fast to
their idea that such exquisite scraps of genuine history should be
presented on the stage on their own merits and come down severely
upon the wretched taste of the public, when it lets us see how bored
it is over such things. Unfortunately a work of art and the direct
enjoyment we receive from it is in no sense particularly for critics
or savants, but for this very public. Critics have really no reason
to give themselves such airs. They are after all but units of this
public, and the mere attention to historical detail can be of as little
serious interest to them as any other members of it. For this reason
the English nowadays in their theatrical performances only include such
scenes from the Shakespearean drama which require nothing further to
make them clear and intelligible, being happily free from the pedantry
of our aesthetic professors who held that all that is most remote in
historical incident from the apprehension of an average audience should
be thrust before their eyes. It follows also from our view of the
matter that when foreign dramas are reproduced on the stage the public
is clearly entitled to have them considerably remodelled[404]. Even
that which is excellent in itself may require some alteration. No doubt
it will be contended that what is essentially first-rate art retains
its excellence for all times; but a work of art has also an aspect of
transitory worth, which yields to the years, and it is this of course
which requires remodelling. As people change so too the sense of beauty
alters; and it is important that the particular public, before whom any
work is represented, should feel themselves quite at home in the whole
of such a work including that aspect which derives all its significance
from external history.

It is this conditional acceptance of historical truth which at once
explains and justifies that which is generally known in Art as
_anachronism_, and which is usually attributed to artists as a serious
defect. Primarily such examples of anachronism will be found to attach
to matters of purely external interest. That a Falstaff should talk
about pistols is no matter of consequence whatever. The case is more
serious when we have a violin placed in the hands of Orpheus, for here
the association of such prehistorical times with an instrument so
essentially modern as the violin, one which everybody knows was not
invented in those days, presents too glaring a violation of truth.
For this reason it is now the fashion in theatrical circles to bestow
incredible pains and care upon the historical accuracy of details in
the matter of costume and the getting up of a piece, as, for example,
the infinite trouble lavished upon the historical procession in the
"Maid of Orleans."[405] Such efforts are in the majority of eases
lost labour, for the simple reason that they only concern matters of
relative interest or points that might be wholly passed over. The
more important type of anachronisms has nothing whatever to do with
stage costume and all that with which stage business is concerned,
but consists in making characters express their emotions and ideas,
venture upon soliloquies and actions in a form or of a substance which
absolutely contradicts the conditions of their times and culture,
their religious and general preconceptions. It is common to apply the
conception of natural truth to such examples of anachronism, in other
words, to say that it is unnatural for characters to speak or act
otherwise than they would have spoken and acted in their own days. If
we stick, however, too closely to the logic of this naturalism we shall
only land ourselves in further complications[406]. For an artist, in
depicting the emotional life with all that results from it, and the
fundamental passions that belong to it, being mainly interested in the
affirmation of individuality, ought not merely to repeat that life
under its ordinary daily dress; it is rather his business to show every
true manifestation of pathos in the particular light which best reveals
its real quality. The whole object of his attainment as an artist is
not merely to understand what is of vital significance in the truth
he faces, but to be able to give it the precise form which will best
direct our own eyes and ears and heart to his own discovery. To attain
this it is obvious that he must keep in view the particular culture of
his own time no less than all its various powers of expression. In the
time of the Trojan war the kind of speech in general use, and indeed
the whole fabric of social life, was as far removed from the type of
culture which is reflected on us from the pages of the "Iliad" as the
mass of the nation and the pre-eminent worthies of the royal houses
then reigning in Greece were separated from the fully developed form
of ideas and expression such as arouse our wonder when we read our
Aeschylus, or behold the perfected beauty of the style of Sophocles.
A violation of the so-called "path of Nature" of this kind is in art
an anachronism implied in her laws. The inward kernel of that which
she reveals remains unaffected, but the more developed power at the
artist's command, in revealing and disclosing this essential core
of his subject, renders some change in the mode of its expression
inevitable. It is a wholly different matter when a modification of this
kind proceeds so far as to impose ideas and conceptions of a later form
of the religious and moral consciousness on a century or a nation whose
entire spiritual outlook is opposed to such more recent conceptions.
The Christian religion has gathered in its train forms of the moral
life, which were entirely foreign to the moral consciousness of
ancient Greece. That inward introspection of conscience, for example,
ever on the alert to decide the ethical significance of action, with
its accompanying remorse and repentance, first appears in the moral
culture of a more modern date. The heroic character knows nothing of
a repentance which sets itself in hostility to its past. What it has
done it abides by. Orestes does not repent of his mother's murder. The
Furies that rise out of the shadow of his action pursue him, no doubt;
but the Eumenides are, at the same time, represented as universal
powers, and not as voices that cry out to him from his own conscience
simply. This very heart and substance of a given period of man's
history a poet must master, and only when we find him interfusing with
this central core of reality matter that directly contradicts it is he
guilty of any truly grave anachronism. In conclusion, then, we may say
that it is indeed part of the poet's function to live into the spirit
of past times and foreign peoples, for this substance of their life,
if it be truly such, remains a possession for all time; but to attempt
to reflect with every accuracy of detail all the definition of that
external show now buried beneath the rust of antiquity is merely the
effort of a learning essentially childish, intent on preserving what is
itself shadow rather than substance. No doubt even in this direction,
the truth of general outlines should be carefully respected, but never
to such lengths as would compel art to forfeit her claim of drawing
upon the fiction of her invention, and the truth of fact with equal
impartiality.

(_γγ_) We are now in a better condition to understand all that is
really implied in the assimilation by art of that which is strange in
the external features of remote history, and the true conception of the
_objective_ life of her creations. A work of art must primarily enclose
for us within its embrace the higher interests of spirit and volitional
power, all that is essentially human, and possesses real weight, the
depths, that is to say, of man's emotional life. The main thing of
all is that this embodied content[407] should transpierce all purely
external conditions of manifestation, should ring, as it were, through
all that is less vital in its significance[408] this fundamental
chord of truth. The real objectivity, therefore, unfolds as from a
sheath, the _pathos_, that is the substantive content of a situation,
unfolds, moreover, the rich and powerful personality in which the
essential phases of spirit are alive, and find their realization and
expression. For such embodiment all that is absolutely indispensable
is a definition and determination of the real, which is generally
suitable to the object thus defined, and which requires nothing further
to explain it. If we have once got hold of such a form unfolded in
strict accordance with our Ideal principle, then we have a work of art
essentially objective in the true sense, and the question whether each
and every historical detail is justified is of no further importance.
We have before us a work of art which appeals directly to our inner
life, and one which is our own possession. Once possessed of that, and
we may take as much as we please of that element of the form which lay
more closely to periods of life which have passed; but the eternal
foundation is that which appeals to all men in all places, which is
carried forward with a power that never wanes or fails to influence us,
and it does so because the objective life it reveals is the same that
abounds in and overflows our own souls. That which is merely historical
in the appearance is, on the contrary, the element that vanishes; and,
in dealing with works of art created in days remote from our own, we
must do our best to resolve the discordance, and, indeed, must be fully
prepared to blot out from our vision similar defects in works that
spring from our own times. Thus it is that the Psalms of David, with
their immortal celebration of the Lord in His goodness, and the wrath
of His almightiness, no less than the profound sorrows of the Hebrew
prophets as they face Babylon and Zion, touch men with the same force
to-day as they did of old time: nay, even a moral diatribe, such as
is sung by Sarastro in the "Zauberflöte," may come home to the hearts
of us all, including the sons of Egypt[409], owing to the soul and
vitality which rings through its melodies.

And we may add that every individual to whom a work of art objective
in this, the true sense, is presented, must on his part discard his
own false prepossessions, wherein he merely wishes to find his own
idiosyncrasies repeated. On the first reproduction of "William Tell,"
it appears, not a single Swiss among the audience was satisfied. In
much the same way, when the most beautiful love-songs have been sung,
many another, failing to find therein his own passions reflected, has
presumed to think the beauty untrue to life; just as so many more,
whose knowledge of love is confined to the perusal of romances, have
imagined that the love-god would only then be their immortal possession
when they found themselves face to face with precisely the same
emotions and situations their favourite studies had propounded.


C. THE ARTIST

We have, in this first part of our aesthetical philosophy, examined as
a first step the universal Idea of beauty; we then proceeded to inquire
in what respects it was defective in its existence as the beauty of
Nature, and after thus clearing the way we were in a position to grasp
the complete notion of the Ideal as the adequate realization of beauty.
We developed the Ideal, _first_, as conceived abstractly according to
the _general_ notion of it, and having determined that were assisted
thereby to elucidate the modes of its _particular_ manifestations.
Inasmuch, however, as a work of art has its origin in the human spirit
it requires the pregnant activity of an individual life from which it
proceeds, and as the creation of the same exists for others, that is,
a Public which is emotionally receptive. This spiritual and informing
activity is the imagination of the _artist_. We have consequently now,
and this is the _third_ and last aspect of the Ideal to which we shall
refer, to raise the question how it comes about that this product of
men's inner world is not the direct and native growth[410] of that
world, but receives its due form through the _creative impulse_ of
particular men, in other words, by virtue of the genius and talent
of the artist. At the same time we must admit that the question is
only raised that we may be able to add the statement that it really
is excluded from the sphere of scientific investigation, or, at the
most, we can only furnish a few general remarks towards its solution.
Yet it is undoubtedly a question frequently raised this, namely, from
what source an artist receives the gift and faculty of conception and
execution with which he creates his work. We should all of us like, no
doubt, to have a ready prescription, a recipe of what we must exactly
do, what conditions we must impose on ourselves to produce something as
wonderful. We would emulate Cardinal von Este when he asked Ariosto,
with reference to his raging Roland: "But, Master Louis, where in the
world did you get all this damned stuff from?" Raphael replied to a
similar question in a letter we still possess, that he was hunting
after a certain idea.

The more obvious aspects of artistic activity we propose to examine
under the following heads of discussion:

_First_, we will give our definition of the general conception of
artistic _genius_ and the inspiration it implies.

_Secondly_, we will make a few observations on the _objective_
character of this creative activity.

_Thirdly_, we will endeavour to ascertain in virtue of what real
artistic _originality_ consists.


1. IMAGINATION, GENIUS, AND INSPIRATION

Before inquiring more closely into the meaning of the term "genius"
we must obviously limit the field within which we propose to discuss
it. Genius is an expression of very wide connotation, and is used
not merely in its application to artists, but equally when we refer
to great generals and kings, as also to the heroic captains of
scientific discovery. For the sake of simplification we would once
more discuss the distinctions involved under a triple division of our
subject-matter.


_(a) The Imagination_[411]

The most conspicuous faculty of an artist which arrests our attention
when we direct it expressly upon the capacities implied in artistic
productivity is the _imagination._ And we must be careful here not
to confuse it with a _visionary fancy_ which is wholly passive. The
imagination creates.

(_α_) And, in the first place, we shall find that this creative
activity carries with it in possession and endowment a peculiar power
of _grasping reality_ and the forms it presents, all that through the
channels of alert eyes and ears imprints pictures of infinite variety
caught from the external world upon the mind, and further implies an
exceptionally retentive _memory_ wherein to store up this varied world
of innumerable reflections. The artist, therefore, in this initial
stage of our analysis is not merely thrown back upon images of his own
creation, but is rather compelled to turn aside from the dull level
of ideals falsely so called and to boldly enter the fields of Nature
and Life. To attempt art or poetry merely with fanciful ideas of our
own is always a suspicious way of starting on our journey; for the
artist must mould his creations from the abundance of his life and by
no means from the overplus of abstract generalities. It is not, as in
philosophy, thoughts, but the real external forms of what actually
exists which furnishes the material for artistic production. In contact
with this raw material to work upon the artist must feel thoroughly
at home. He must have seen much, heard much, and stored away a great
deal as well; and in illustration of this we almost invariably find
that a great personality is distinguished by a capacious memory. All
that interests mankind he will lay hold of, and the more profound his
spirit the more it will enlarge the field of its interests in countless
directions. This was the way in which we find the genius of Goethe
first opened its wings, and throughout his life the circle of his
spirit's restless horizon broadened and broadened. This peculiar gift
of receptiveness, this interest in the comprehension of facts after
their true definitions and colour, their steadfast adherence to the
truth of experience is the first thing we look for in a great artist.
And this accurate knowledge of the truth of form must be accompanied
in equal measure by a proved acquaintance with the souls of men, the
passions that rise in the heart, and everything that it yearns and
strives for. And, in addition to this twofold armory of knowledge, he
must understand yet further all the various ways that this world of the
human soul expresses itself on the face of the reality which confronts
his senses, transpiercing thus the outer veil.

(_β_) But, in the second place, this imaginative power is not exhausted
with merely receiving that which is presented to the senses, or is
inferred as the content of the human soul. The ideal work of art does
not merely embrace the outward semblance of the inward spirit as
clothed in the forms of its actual existence, but should rather succeed
in manifesting the essential truth and reason of the real itself. This
_element of reason_, as determined in the particular object the artist
has selected, must not merely be pressed in his own consciousness,
as an active influence, but must already have been reflected upon in
that essential and rich significance which brings it into relation
with the entire breadth and depth of reality. Without reflection no
man can grasp fully the wealth that is in him, and it is consequently
an inseparable feature of any great work of art that everything which
attaches to it both as a whole and in its detail has been long and
deeply weighed and thought out. No artistic work of real sterling value
can be thrown off with any mere imaginative _tour de force._[412] We
do not, of course, suggest that the artist must therefore comprehend
in the form of _philosophical_ thought this essential core of reason
in his experience; albeit such is the fundamental rock upon which
religion no less than philosophy and art is based. Philosophy is by
no means essential to his outfit; and, in fact, if he once begins to
think about things as a philosopher, he busies himself with modes of
thought which are diametrically opposed to that which should engage
an artist's attention. For what the imagination undertakes to do and
only to do is not to bring to consciousness this inner core of reason
in the form of general propositions and conceptions, but to apprehend
it clothed in the concrete form of actual existence and individuality.
All that ferments within his life the artist must reproduce in the
body and envisagement, whose connected picture and general outlines
he has already assimilated from the world outside, making such so
far subservient to his creative effort that they in their turn may
participate in the truth of his own substance and enable him to crown
it with complete expression. In this interfusion of an intelligible
content with an embodiment received from actual existence the artist
will avail himself of the ever wakeful circumspection of his reflective
faculties no less than the deep resources of emotional life which
leave the stamp of vitality on his work. It is consequently but one
more sample of critical aberration to imagine that poems such as the
Homeric were introduced to our poet in his sleep. Without intelligent
alertness, division, and distinctions of each part as related to the
whole, an artist will be unable to assert his mastery over any form
whatsoever that he may wish for; only fools are of the opinion that the
genuine artist does not in the least know what his hands and senses are
about.

Moreover, the concentration of the artist's emotional life on each
aspect of his work is also as necessary to its success as the
concentration of his mind. For it is mainly through the impression of
emotion, which permeates and gives a vital colour to the entire work,
that the artist asserts his claim to the substance and embodiment of
his creation as a part of his own spiritual substance, as something
he, a given personality, may peculiarly call his own. For the external
aspect of his work, the mere picture of it as we may say, tends rather
to place us outside it and apart; it is the emotional energy it
expresses which primarily unites it with affinity to our very souls.
Only when thus understood shall we be able to realize the truth that
an artist must not merely have much looked about him in the world and
assimilated a rich knowledge both of its outward show and the very
substance of its life, but, further, must himself have experienced many
things and great things, things that have moved him to the quick and
left their life-roots in his own heart and spirit--he must, as we say,
have "gone through much" and "lived abundantly"--before he will find
himself able to build from his stores in the concrete types of his art
something approaching Life's unsounded repletion. And this will at once
explain and justify the bluster and ferment of genius in its youth, as
amply reflected in the lives of Goethe and Schiller. But only the age
of maturity and gray hairs will bring us the perfect work of art in all
its rounded ripeness[413].

_(b) Talent and Genius_

This productive activity of the imagination by means of which the
artist gives, by a process of elaboration to that which is essentially
rational in its nature, a real embodiment, a creation more his own than
anything else--this is what is usually summarized as genius and talent.

(_α_) We have already drawn attention to those characteristics which
are most obviously referable to genius. Genius is the general capacity
of creating a genuine example of fine art no less than the energy
implied in the execution and elaboration of the same. Moreover, this
capability and the power which goes with it is essentially the property
of a human soul; that is to say, self-conscious individuality alone is
able to create in this sense that a spiritual creation of this quality
is just what it sets before itself to produce. Critics, intent on
closer definition, are wont to distinguish sharply between genius and
talent. And, in fact, they are not absolutely the same things, although
it is necessary to find them united in the artist who would give us
artistic work of the highest class. To be more exact, Art, in so far
as it generally becomes a _particular_ art, and is exemplified for us
in the real and definite appearance of its products, requires various
accomplishments appropriate to the peculiar modes of its realization.
Such forms of executive versatility we may call with propriety talent,
as we may say that anyone possesses a talent for perfect playing on
the violin, or anyone else for singing. But a mere talent for this or
that can only effect for us anything really good in the, so to speak,
insulated nooks and corners of art[414]; it moreover itself requires
for its true perfection something of more universal art-capacity as
also that soul-animation, something more which is essentially the
hall-mark of genius. Talent, in short, without the vital spark of
genius, never gets much beyond a purely mechanical facility.

(_β_) It is also an opinion very commonly held that superior talent and
genius are _inborn._ Here again we must distinguish; for if there is a
sense in which this is true, from another point of view it is equally
mistaken. No doubt every man, by virtue of his humanity, receives
at his birth the potential gifts of religion, thought, and science.
In other words he would not strictly be a man if he did not already
possess a capacity to grasp the idea of a Supreme Being, and generally
to become the subject of a thinking consciousness. All that he requires
to gain these things, in addition to the fact of his human birth, are
education, culture, and perseverance. With art, however, the matter
stands differently. Art requires _specific_ aptitude[415], in which
unquestionably natural endowment plays an essential part. As, that is
to say, beauty is itself the Idea realized in that which is apprehended
as real by the senses, and a work of art embodies the workings of
Spirit in a form of existence immediately cognized by the eye and the
ear, in the same way the artist must discover and embody the content of
his art not in the exclusively spiritual form of thought, but within
the sphere of sensuous perception and feeling, and indeed as creator
in actual relation to a given sensuous material and within the limits
of the same. This artistic creativeness consequently encloses within
itself, as art does throughout, the aspect of immediacy envisaged with
the directness of Nature's own creations, and it is this appearance,
which the individual is unable to evolve from himself, but has to find
it, if he finds it at all, as immediately presented to him. Herein lies
the significance of the statement, and herein alone, that genius and
talent are innate.

In much the same way the several arts adapt themselves as by a kind
of natural affinity to particular nations. Song and melody are, we may
almost say, the birth-gift of an Italian; with our northern peoples,
on the contrary, music[416] and the opera, though seriously cultivated
and with great success, are as far from being a real home growth as the
orange trees. The Greeks are conspicuous for the native and elaborate
beauty of their epic poetry, and most of all for the unique perfection
of their sculpture. The Romans never possessed an art that was in any
strict sense exclusively their own. All that grew into blossom on their
soil was transplanted from the gardens of Greece. The art whose growth
has the widest natural range is that of poetry; and the reason of this
is that in it we require least to draw upon a sensuous vehicle for its
expressed presentment. Within the province of poetry the folk-song is
most of all native to a people and inseparably yoked with their natural
conditions. For this very reason the folk-song breaks into blossom
even in times of the rudest culture and for the most part retains the
unconscious simplicity of Nature herself. Of this Goethe himself is an
example. Though he produced works in every type of poetical expression
his first songs still go deepest and carry least dust from the study.
In them, too, there is least the flavour of culture. The latter-day
Greek is still a living witness to a people whose native gift it is
both to write poetry and sing. Fauriel has published a collection of
modern Greek songs, taken for the most part just as women, nurses,
and school-girls were heard singing them, who could not for the world
understand what he found so wonderful in them. And this is a good
illustration of the way that we find Art and its specific appearance
associate itself with a particular national type. In the same way the
art of improvization is more than anywhere else the native growth
of Italy and exemplified there with quite extraordinary talent. An
Italian will even to-day improvize for you a five-act drama, and not a
word of it is committed to memory; all grows up out of his experience
of human passions and situations and the deeply-excited inspiration
of the moment. As an example we mention the fact that a certain poor
improvizer after rhapsodizing in this way for a considerable time, and
then finally trudging off on his round to collect his pence from the
bystanders in a battered hat, was still in such a fume of poetic frenzy
that he could not bring his declamations to a stop, waved about in fact
so lustily with his arms and hands that in the end all the money he had
begged was shaken to the winds.

(_γ_) It is, thirdly[417], a characteristic of genius that it should
possess, and indeed it is a part of this natural endowment[418],
facility in creating that which it is impelled to create, and in
adapting itself to the technical requirements of all the subsidiary
aspects of artistic work. We talk, for instance, of the fetters with
which the verse, measure, and rhyme shackle a poet; or, when referring
to a painter, of the endless difficulties that draughtsmanship,
knowledge of tints, chiaroscuro, and the rest fling in the way of
invention and execution. Unquestionably a long course of study is a
necessary condition of success in all the arts, a perseverance that
never tires, a facility that is continually assisted by repetition;
the greater the native strength, however, of the genius or superior
gift, and the richer its resources the less it will feel the weight of
its effort in securing all the necessary accomplishments involved in
creative excellence[419]. A really first-rate artist has the lust of
work _born in him_ and an imperative impulse akin to any other natural
want to give artistic form to his emotional and imaginative life that
is in him. His emotional life and his ideas irresistibly run into this
artistic mould; he finds as it were the instrument already within him
made to the hand, so fitted to express his soul-life that all the pains
it takes him to learn it are as nothing. A musician can thus unfold to
us in his melodies the depths of all that stirs and moves his soul and
only by this means. What he feels is at once wafted into melody, just
as the life of a painter is impressed upon form and colour, or that
of a poet is transmuted into the creations of his imagination, that
poetry which clothes his ideas in the beauty and music of the written
word. And this gift of vital form the artist does not merely possess
as an imaginative power, a phantasy, an emotional impulse "that leaves
not a wrack behind," but as a direct stimulus of feeling to active
enterprise, as a gift, that is, of real executive accomplishment. Both
of these aspects are united in the real artist. What springs to life in
his imagination is immediately alert upon his mobile fingers, precisely
as the sudden thought of our mind breaks into word from the tips, or
as our most intimate thoughts, ideas, and emotions are reflected on
the outward man and his demeanour. Genius of the real stamp, whenever
and wherever found, is easily quit of the difficulties presented by
the technical workshop; and indeed has found the most beggarly and
apparently impracticable material to accept and embody as it pleased
the inward shapes of imagination. No doubt the endowment which the
artist finds as a direct gift to himself must be kept alive and alert
by indefatigable recourse to it, but he must also possess naturally a
practical power of immediate execution. Without this all the facility
he may have acquired in imaginative conception will never produce an
essentially creative work of art. The very notion of art demands of us
that both things should go together hand in hand, the productive energy
of the soul and its technical realization in the forms of art.

_(c) Inspiration_

The activity of the imagination, then, and the power of technical
execution, taking both together as the inseparable antecedents of a
real artist, are commonly understood as _inspiration._[420]

(_α_) The first question that presents itself to us for solution with
regard to it is under what conditions it arises, as to which many
different views have been held.

(_αα_) There is, for instance, the strange notion, to some extent
arising from the general truth of the peculiar intimacy with which
genius attaches itself to the worlds of conscious life and Nature, that
inspiration can be conjured up through mere excitation of the senses.
But making our blood dance will not carry us far; we are still a long
way off from the Muses, despite the champagne bottle, Such, at least,
was the experience of Marmontel, for he tells us that he tried it in
a wine-cellar with six thousand bottles of champagne to choose from;
but not a breath of the Muses passed over him[421]. Ay, your genius
may be as great as he lists, and for all that stretch himself many a
time morning and evening on the green grass, while the fresh breeze
floats over him, and stare up into the sky, and not a whisper shall the
inspired Muses breathe in his ear.

(_ββ_) Just as little is it likely that we shall make the charmed gates
of inspiration spring open by merely presenting ourselves before them
with a desire to enter. Whoever fondly imagines that he is in the right
mood to compose a poem, or paint a picture, or run off a first-rate
melody without already possessing the stuff in him to quicken that
spark into vital form, and has first to hunt about for something to
say, despite all his talent, will find himself no better off for his
best intuitions, quite unable, at any rate, to conceive any complete
thing of beauty, or perfect a really sterling work of art. Neither the
mere tickling of our senses nor any act of will or determination can
father on us true inspiration. To attempt such things simply proves
that both the emotional life and the imagination have as yet no real
object of artistic interest. When once we have the artistic impulse of
the real kind, we may conclude the interest there has already its fixed
seal and object, a content that it intends to master.

(_γγ_) True inspiration consequently is fixed in the presence of a
specific content, which the imagination takes up in order to give
artistic expression to it. It is, in fact, the object of this active
process of giving form both as inwardly made visible to the mind, and
as outwardly reproduced in the execution of a work of art. Inspiration
is equally necessary for both these aspects of artistic activity. The
question once more presents itself to us, in what way such a material
will come to an artist, in order to bring about this inspiration. We
find many various opinions expressed on this head. On the one hand
it is frequently required of an artist that the material of his work
should be drawn up from the world within him. No doubt this may be so
when "the poet sings as a bird from the bough." His own cheerfulness
of spirit is then the incentive which enables him to represent a
particular mood of his own as the content of his production, and by
this very expression of it he gives vent to his enjoyment of the same.
A song of this kind, straight from the heart[422], is indeed a rich
reward. But quite as often, however, the greatest works of art are
created from the suggestion of objects wholly external to himself.
The odes of Pindar were frequently the result of direct commissions;
and, in the same way, the object and subject has times without number
been given to artists both for buildings and pictures, and they have
been able to arouse in themselves an enthusiasm for such. Indeed, it
is only too frequently the express complaint of artists that they have
not the subject-matter on which to work. Such a reference to things
outside, and its stimulus to artistic production, presents just that
relation of the artist to Nature and her immediacy which is essential
to the notion of superior executive gifts[423], and is at the same time
a condition to the appearance of genuine inspiration. If we consider
the artist from this point of view, we shall find that it is here that
this natural endowment relates itself immediately to a material already
found for him, and through the incentive thereby offered him, through
the inspiration of actual fact, or as, for example, was the case with
Shakespeare, through that which was presented by old tales, ballads,
romances, and chronicles, proceeds to embody such material in artistic
form, and thereby generally to express his own personality. The impulse
to production can therefore be given by something entirely outside the
artist's life, and the only condition essential to a successful result
is that the interest, which fixes the artist's attention should be of
real artistic significance, and that he is able to reproduce the same
in all its vitality. Such conditions virtually imply the presence of
rare inspiration. And an artist who is really alive and awake himself,
by reason of this very vitality of his own powers, discovers endless
opportunities for actively asserting the same, and feeling inspired
while doing so, opportunities which pass over other people without
similarly affecting them.

(_β_) If we ask further, viz., of what precisely this artistic
inspiration consists, we may perhaps best describe it by saying that
it is the capacity of being entirely absorbed in a given subject, a
capacity not merely wholly to realize it, but incapable of resting
until the same is completely minted anew, and rounded off in its
artistic form.

(_γ_) Moreover, when an artist has thus entirely appropriated his
subject, it is but saying the same thing the other way to affirm that
he must know how to forget his own individual idiosyncrasies, and all
that accidentally attaches to them; he must, in short, on his part lose
himself in the matter on hand. He must make his artistic personality
the pure form under which the content he has assimilated is clothed and
embodied. An inspiration in which the particular individual receives
too emphatic a predominance and assertion, rather than being the
vitally active instrument which displays the ideal significance of the
material worked upon, is an inferior type of inspiration. This truth
opens the way to a fuller consideration of what is generally understood
as the objective character of artistic production.


2. THE OBJECTIVE CHARACTER OF THE REPRESENTATION

(_a_) In the ordinary sense of the word we understand objectivity to
mean that the content in any work of art necessarily receives the
form of the reality already given, and in its artistic embodiment we
have the same clearly repeated. In this sense, that we desire to see
objective truth reproduced for us, we are entitled to call Kotzebue an
objective poet. In his work we undoubtedly find ordinary reality simply
as it is again. The object of art is, however, more precisely stated,
to strip away not merely the appearance, but the actual content of all
that meets us every day, and by means of the spiritual activity of the
artist most personal to himself, to work out that which is essentially
rational in that content in its really adequate external form. Indeed,
if we look at yet better examples of art than Kotzebue's, such as those
we have already glanced at in the youthful productions of Goethe,
we shall find that this realistic type of objectivity can be made
essentially living in its expression, and by virtue of this quality
prove highly attractive to ourselves, and yet, on account of the fact
that the artistic form remains defective, fail to arrive at the real
beauty of art. Purely external objectivity, therefore, which still
lacks the abiding and substantial significance, is not that for which
an artist should strive.

(_b_) A second type of objective realization presents itself to us in
the case where we find the external is not the artistic aim, but the
artist has seized hold of his subject with all the depth and strength
of his emotional life. This inward aspect of his work remains, however,
so entirely enclosed within itself and concentrated that it fails to
assert itself with a clearness thoroughly possessed, or to unfold
itself in its full truth. The eloquence of pathos simply restricts
itself by means of illustrations external to it, without possessing
either the power or the culture to be able to present the fulness of
that content in an explicit form. Folksongs pre-eminently belong to
such a mode of artistic production. Extremely simple as they are in
their form, they suggest an emotional life which lies at their root
of still wider range and depth, but which they are unable clearly to
express. Their art, in fact, is itself not sufficiently elaborate
or complete enough to carry into the light of day with transparent
reflection all that it would unfold, and is forced to rest satisfied
with suggesting to our sympathies the same by means of an external
symbolism. The heart remains thrown back and concentrated upon itself,
and in order to make its life intelligible to others, casts but a
fainter reflection of its world upon entirely finite and external
circumstances and phenomena, which, no doubt, are thus eloquent in a
degree, albeit we receive from them only a far-off echo of the emotions
and life they would bring home to us. Goethe has himself written many
quite exquisite songs of this kind. "The Shepherd's Lament" is one of
the most beautiful. In this refrain a heart that is broken with pain
and yearning still remains silent and reserved beneath the purely
external traits which would fain relieve it; and, despite of this, we
hear, as through an undertone, all the concentrated depth of emotion it
fails to express. In the "Erl-king," and many other of his songs, we
hear the same tone. This tone, however, we may also meet in degenerate
form right down to the most futile barbarism, unable to grasp either
the essential character of the facts or the situation, merely clinging
to their most finite aspects in all their crudeness and absence of
artistic taste. An example we may give from the "Drummer-comrade of the
boy Wunderhorn,"[424] such inanities as "O thou dwelling house of man,
O gallows," or "Adjutant sir corporal," expressions which are supposed
to move us deeply. When on the contrary Goethe sings:

     Der Strauss, den ich gepflücket,
     Grüsse Dich viel tausendmal,
     Ich habe mich oft gebücket
     Und ihn aus Herz gedrücket,
     Ach, wie viel tausendmal[425].

strong emotion is suggested in a very different way, which brings
before our mind nothing trivial or contrary to the main idea. What
however is, as a rule, defective in this particular type of poetical
realization is the expression of emotion in all its true intensity.
This, in the rarest art, should not be suffered to remain a depth shut
away, which merely reflects a distant echo through the external objects
presented: it should either break forth in its full character, or be
seen through the vehicle with complete transparency. Schiller, for
example, brings out his soul in its full strength in the pathos of his
work, withal a great soul, which penetrates to the very core of his
subject, and is able to express its very deepest significance in the
freest and most perspicuous way through the wealth and music of his
verse.

(_c_) In conformity, then, with the notion of the Ideal, we may
conclude that even when we are dealing with the mere expression of
emotional life, we shall never fully establish our title to truly
objective art so long as any part of all that is comprised in the
subject-matter, which stirs the artistic inspiration, remains still
wrapped up within the soul that seeks to express itself; rather all
that lies there should be completely unfolded, and unfolded in a way
which not merely shall reveal to us the essential soul and substance
of the content selected, but shall embody it in some completely
homogeneous type of individual art, through which, as through a
transparency, both soul and substance shall radiate. For that which is
highest and most excellent is not by any means that we are unable to
express, as though the poet contained in himself still greater depths
than those expressed on the face of his work. The work of an artist is
the consummate fruit of that artist, and reflects precisely what he is,
and only what he is, and all that remains behind in the temple of his
soul is a naught or nothing[426].


3. MANNER, STYLE, AND ORIGINALITY

However much it may be imperatively required of the artist that he
should give to his work an objective character such as we have above
indicated, this must not make us oblivious to the fact that the
artist's production is at the same time the work of _his_ inspiration;
it is he alone who has, by his entire identification of his personality
with the specific subject-matter and its artistic embodiment, brought
into being the entire creation out of the life of his _own_ emotional
nature and imagination. And it is this identity of the free personality
of the artist and the truly objective construction of his artistic
creation which constitutes the third fundamental aspect of his activity
as set forth above and which we must now shortly consider, in so far as
we may be thus enabled to unite that which we have hitherto separated
in our independent consideration of the conceptions of genius and
the objective presentment of a work of art. We may characterize such
a unity as the conception of true artistic _originality._ Before,
however, we come to close quarters with all that is implied in this
conception, it is necessary to clearly grasp two points of view already
related to it whose insufficiency we have to expose on the ground of
their one-sidedness before a true conception of originality can be
fully appreciated. These may be sufficiently indicated by the terms
"subjective _manner_"[427] and _style_.

_(a) The Subjective Manner_

The point of first importance in discussing the meaning of the
expression "artistic manner" is to differentiate it fundamentally from
artistic originality. The term "manner," in our view, is only used
in direct relation to the _specific_ and consequently _accidental
idiosyncrasies_ of the artist, that is, merely in so far as such
qualities assert themselves as effective in his work without being
called forth by the nature of the subject itself and its ideal
exposition.

(_α_) A manner thus interpreted has no connection with the universal
types of art, that is to say, types which require an essentially
different mode of representation, as, for instance, the landscape
painter necessarily treats the objects of Nature in quite a different
way from that under which a historical painter would so treat them; or
the epic poet would handle similar subject-matter in a different way
from that appropriate to the dramatic poet. On the contrary, "a manner"
is a form of artistic expression wholly emanating from a particular
individuality, an entirely supposititious idiosyncrasy of executive
ability which may be carried so far as to contradict absolutely the
true notion of the Ideal. As thus defined "manner" stands at the
bottom of the scale among the forms which may characterize an artist's
general handling. An artist who thus expresses his individuality simply
gives free rein to any chance notions of his own without testing them
as subject to the substantive claims of art. But it is a fundamental
principle of art that it should abolish precisely all that is merely
accidental to its content no less than to its artistic or rather
external mode of presentment. And this is only to say that it requires
of the artist that he should efface from his work all traces of purely
personal tastes and idiosyncrasies he shares with no one else[428].

(_β_) And for these reasons we would point out that "a manner"
of this kind is not so much to be contrasted directly with the true
exposition of art as to be considered in relation to the purely
external aspects of art where the individuality of the particular mode
of treatment comes into play. This kind of manner is most conspicuous
in the arts of painting and music for the reason that these arts[429]
present to the artist the widest variety of external characterization
for him to seize upon and reproduce. What we find here is a certain
artificial manner of general execution entirely peculiar to some
particular artist and the school of imitators or pupils who follow him,
which through constant repetition degenerates into mere habit.

(_αα_) And its tendency is to develop on one of two ways in which
we may regard the artistic work. First, there is the aspect of its
composition. To take painting, for example, we have all the variety
of ways under which the prevailing atmospheric tone, the arrangement
of foliage, the contrast of light and shade, in short the entire
scheme of colour may be treated. Most particularly in this feature
of the general scheme[430] of the colouring and lighting of a picture
we find that painters permit themselves the most varied freedom of
individual preference and distaste. Of course such a prevailing tone
may appear to us as that we do not find in Nature for the simple
reason that we have not had our attention directed to it although
it is really there. But we shall often find that such a scheme has
simply been adopted by this or that artist on grounds of personal
taste or convenience[431], and it becomes simply a habit in him to use
everything now as subject to that particular scheme. And what we have
observed with reference to colouring is equally true when applied to
the treatment of natural objects, their grouping, position, motion,
and general characterization. This inferior mode of treatment is
particularly to be observed in the works of the Dutch school. Take the
case of Van der Neer's night-scenes and his artificial presentation of
moonlight, or Van der Goyen's sand-hills in so many of his landscapes.
The ever-repeated reflections of light from satin and silk stuffs that
we find in so many pictures of other masters of the same school are
indications of the same artificial mode of handling.

(_ββ_) A manner of this type may be still further, traced in the
execution of other details, the handling of brush or pencil, the laying
on and blending of tints and many other features of executive work.

(_γγ_) The general conclusion we come to, after considering all such
examples of specialized handling and conception in which constant
repetition grows at last habitual to, and indeed becomes a second
nature of the artist, is this, that just in proportion as the manner
adopted is more specialized[432], there is an increasing and dangerous
tendency for it to degenerate into that which is nothing more than a
soulless and consequently arid repetition and mechanical exercise,
throughout which the artist is no longer present with the fulness of
his spiritual resources and the entire strength of his inspiration.
When this takes place his art necessarily sinks to the level of a
mere executive facility or accomplishment of his hands, and a manner,
otherwise innocent enough, may very readily grow starved and lifeless.

(_γ_) The more truly artistic "manner" has consequently to disengage
itself from such jejune peculiarities, to broaden out into a freer
atmosphere[433], so that no specialized mode of handling shall be
suffered to sterilize itself into what is simply a matter of habit. In
this way an artist will approach the facts of Nature with a breadth of
view more in keeping with her own, and will understand how to identify
his larger conceptions and the general technique of his craft with the
same ideal spirit. In something of the same sense we may describe it as
a peculiar manner of Goethe that he is particularly apt in concluding
not merely poems of society but also openings to works of a more
serious character with a sudden turn of pleasantry, in order to remove
the impression of or throw into the background the serious nature of
previous reflection or situation. We meet with the same characteristic
in the correspondence of Horace. It is, in fact, an application of the
art of conversation and general sociability, which, in order to avoid
following up any matter more deeply, comes to a stop, breaks off and
cleverly diverts the serious into more cheerful channels. Such a mode
of the literary art is undoubtedly part of the manner of the artist and
his individual style, but the individuality thus exemplified is based
upon a broader principle, and is asserted in a way wholly justified by
the artistic purpose of the work in hand. And this particular type of
an artistic manner will enable us to pass readily to the consideration
of "style" generally.


_(b) Style_

_Le style c'est l'homme même_ is a famous phrase of the French.
Style is here generally understood as the unique characterization of
personality, the particular mode of expression, however it may be
applied, which wholly reveals to us its substance. Herr von Rumohr,
on the other hand ("Italian Investigations," i, p. 87), endeavours
to interpret the expression as a mode habitual through its constant
repetition of bringing together the most vital characteristics of
the subject-matter artistically treated, by virtue of which the
sculptor informs his figures with reality, and the painter gives to
his the appearance of life. He further adds important observations
upon the appropriate form of representation which, in the case of
an art such as sculpture, the specific _sensuous_ material either
permits or proscribes. It is, however, not necessary to attach the
expression "style" solely to this aspect of sensuous material; we may
unquestionably extend it to all those determinations and rules of
artistic production which apply naturally to any particular type of
art, and in virtue of which an object is reproduced in the medium of
any one of them. We consequently distinguish in the art of music the
style of church music from that of opera, and in that of painting, the
historical style from the style of _genre_ painting. Style is therefore
a mode of artistic presentation, which not merely follows closely the
fundamental conditions of its material, but asserts itself as adequate
to all that any particular type of art demands for its composition and
execution and in strict conformity with the laws which apply to the
subject-matter on hand. Defect of style will then, in this extension
of the meaning, either imply an inability to present a composition
in accordance with such necessary conditions, or will amount to a
personal caprice which rather gives free rein to its own particular
predilections than accepts the conditions of composition which are
really proposed to it, in other words adopts an inferior "manner"
of its own. Consequently it is inadmissible, as Herr von Rumohr has
already pointed out, to apply principles peculiar to one type of art to
another, as Mengs has done in his famous museum in the villa Albani,
where both in the general conception and execution of his Apollo he
adopts the modes of colouring applicable only to sculpture. A defect
of the same kind may be traced in many of the pictures of Dürer, where
we see that even in painting, especially in the folding of his drapery,
he adopts the style of wood-cut in which he is so consummate a master.


_(c) Originality_

The final result, then, of our inquiry on this head is that true
originality does not consist in merely conforming to the paramount
conditions of style, but in a kind of inspired state[434] personal
to the artist which, instead of committing itself wholly to a
mere external manner of composition, seizes hold of a particular
subject-matter that is essentially rational, and by virtue of its own
resources and quality, re-clothes the same as from within the artist
himself and not merely in a way conformable to the essential notion of
the art adopted, but also in a form adequate to the universal notion of
the Ideal.

(_α_) True originality is consequently identical with true objectivity,
and combines that which is due to the personality of the artist and
the actual subject-matter of his work in such a way that both aspects
of his artistic product are held together in complete accord. Looked
at in one way, such a work appears to reveal to us the very essence
of the artist's personality, while regarded from another we only find
there the essence of the subject-matter artistically treated, so that
this very uniqueness of expression appears to arise from the unique
characteristics of the material to which it is applied; and we may
say with equal truth either that the expressed form is due to those
characteristics, or that this unique impression we obtain from them
proceeds from the creative unity of the artist.

(_β_) True originality must be entirely kept distinct from individual
caprice and every kind of personal expression that is due to fortuitous
causes. A common idea of originality is simply the stringing together
of so many curiosities, things which this particular individual and
no other could perpetuate or even faintly imagine. That is, however,
merely idiosyncracy gone mad. No people on earth are more original in
this meaning of the term than Englishmen, a country where every one
prides himself on committing some folly or other, which no man in his
senses is likely to repeat, and then fondly imagines his performance to
be original.

We may in this connection briefly refer to what has been so extolled,
and never more than in our own days as the originality of wit and
humour. An artist of this type of humour starts off from a point of
view or an experience wholly personal to himself, and constantly
recurs to the same so that the real object of his artistic production
is merely treated as the peg on which he may hang, or the field in
which he may give full play to, whatever wittiness, jest, quirks,
and sallies his mood may chance to light upon. In this way the real
object of his art and that which should render it vital in himself fall
entirely apart, and we have a capricious mode of artistic production,
in which the idiosyncrasy of the artist is made to appear as of first
importance. A humour of this kind is often replete with intellectual
brilliance and deep feeling, and in its general result is very apt to
impose on us; yet for all that it is not generally such a difficult
matter as is commonly believed. To constantly interrupt the rational
content of that which we are really dealing with, interrupting
all steady progress with a stream of capricious fresh starts and
conclusions, a sort of patchwork of whims and emotional excursions,
and thereby to create a caricature of imaginative vigour is far
easier than to develop and round off with completeness an artistic
whole of sterling quality throughout such as will testify to the real
Ideal. Moreover, our humour nowadays is only too ready to give us
the repulsive features of a talent for wit essentially crude, and is
constantly degenerating into coarse buffoonery and emptiness. We do
not often get from it real humour at all. The stalest trivialities are
wont to pass now for brilliancy and depth of soul provided they only
rig themselves out in the pretentious motley of humour. Shakespeare, on
the contrary, possessed a grand and profound sense of humour, but even
his works are by no means destitute of shallows. The humour of Jean
Paul too often surprises us with the depth of its wit and the beauty
of its sentiment, but we are quite as often repelled by the absurdly
eccentric way in which he hitches together his subjects, or rather
leaves them with the bare jointure to lie apart, and then floods all
he has to say with a kind of humour that leaves it almost impossible to
make head or tail of. No humourist, however great he may be, is likely
to find anything resembling it in his memory; and our main impression
is frequently, even in the case of Jean Paul's kaleidoscopic effects,
that they are rather the result of mechanical pasting together than
a spontaneous product from the crucible of genius. For this reason
Jean Paul finds it necessary, in order continually to present new
effects, to drag into books differing wholly in kind, botanical, legal
and philosophical disquisitions, no less than descriptions of travel;
whatever whim in fact may strike his fancy at the time is promptly
inserted. Even when his subject relates to scientific discovery he will
run together the most heterogeneous material such as a collection of
Brazilian plants and observations upon the old imperial chamber[435].
There are people who will praise a motley of this kind as original. But
it is really precisely the kind of caprice which originality of the
genuine stamp excludes.

While we are on this topic it will not be out of place to add some
further remarks upon irony, which particularly prides itself upon
presenting us with the very flower of originality on just those
occasions when it has ceased to treat any artistic material with
seriousness and converts the whole affair into a subject of witticism,
only worth notice for the sake of the wit it suggests. Looked at from
another point of view this irony rakes together a lot of things which
are quite foreign to the essence of the matter in hand, things the
deeper significance of which the poet keeps to himself, and his notion
seems to be that by this subtle exercise of his powers the imagination
will be enlarged. And it is just in external associations of this sort
that we get what we have already described as the poetry of a poetry,
wherein everything that is deepest and most excellent is concealed from
us for no other reason than this, that we must not be allowed to look
at it because it is so profound. And we really find in Friedrich von
Schlegel's poetry, more particularly when he became vain over his title
to the rank of poet, that which clearly is set forth as the aroma of
all is just that which is never expressed: no wonder this poetry of
poetry turns out to be the flattest prose.

(_γ_) A genuine work of art must consequently be held intact from all
originality of this perverse type. True originality will be asserted
throughout by this and this alone, that the work has the appearance
of being the unique creation of _one_ individual mind, which does
not go about picking up scraps from around it and then make thereof
a patchwork, but permits the material of that work, in complete
accordance with the unity most congenial to its own substance, to bind
itself together in a whole all parts of which are strictly related,
as truly stamped with one mint as the founder's cast. When we find
scenes and motives introduced upon grounds that are foreign to the
real artistic purpose, that is to say, which do not directly grow out
of the true subject, we must inevitably lose that subtle and necessary
connection of all the parts which create this unity, and what we thus
interpolate will unavoidably impress us as something fortuitously
attached by personal caprice. Much in this way it has been the fashion
to give exceptional praise to the "Götz von Berlichingen" of Goethe
on the grounds of its great originality. No doubt it is true enough,
as we have above remarked, that in this drama Goethe has with much
intrepidity given the lie direct to and turned his back upon all that
had been taken as the established principles of the aesthetic science
of his age; the execution of this work, however, does not bear the
stamp of genuine originality. One finds, on the contrary, in this
youthful production indications of the poverty of the material upon
which it is founded, so that many traits and entire scenes appear
to have been raked together and united by connections foreign to
the subject from material of an interest contemporary with that of
the artist's life instead of being the genuine elaboration of the
fundamental subject-matter. The scene, for example, between Götz and
brother Martin, where Martin Luther is clearly suggested, contains
ideas which Goethe could only have borrowed from a time such as his own
when people began once more to wail over the conditions of monastic
life, how they durst not drink wine, could only sleep off their meals,
were at the mercy of evil desires and generally must submit to the
three intolerable vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Brother
Martin, on the other hand, grows enthusiastic over the knightly life
of Götz, how he recalled to memory the load of booty he took from
his foe, whom he ran through with lance on horseback before he could
shoot, then tumbled over, horse and all, and finally returned to his
castle and wife. Whereupon the good monk drinks the health of the dame
Elizabeth, wiping his eyes the while. With mundane reflections of
this sort Luther never started on his journey, but rather as a pious
monk who had penetrated to their depths the religious conceptions
and convictions of Augustine, another source altogether. Subject to
precisely similar defects are the pedagogical references to that period
which occur in the following scene and for which Vasedow is mainly
responsible. We are informed that children of that age are taught much
that is unintelligible, that the true method of instruction should
rather educate their minds through the senses and experience. Karl, for
example, repeats phrases to his father by heart precisely similar to
those current in Goethe's own younger days: "Junthausen is a village
and castle on the Junt and for two hundred years has been the ancestral
property of the lords of Berlichingen." When Götz asks him if he knows
any lord of Berlichingen personally the lad stares blankly at him and
through sheer over-teaching does not know his own father. Götz declares
that he knew every path and road in the country before he knew the
names of a single river, village, or mountain. All this kind of thing
is mere literary stucco which has nothing to do with the actual subject
at all. And when an occasion does arise in which we ought to find some
really characteristic grip of the very marrow of the subject, as in the
conversations between Götz and Weisslingen, we get nothing more than
cold reflections upon the times.

We find much the same association of irrelevant matter in the same
poet's "Wahlverwandschaften."[436] The laying out of pleasure grounds,
the living pictures, the observations upon pendulum oscillations, the
testing of metals, the headaches, the entire description of elective
affinities, which is borrowed straight from chemical science, are all
of this category. It may, of course, be freely admitted that in a
romance, referring to an essentially prosaic age, such things are _prima
facie_ admissible, and more particularly so when we have a Goethe to
introduce them so cleverly and apply them so charmingly; moreover no
work of art of any kind can be kept wholly unaffected by the culture
of the artist's own age. It is one thing to allow the reflection of
contemporary culture to appear as part of the artistic whole, quite
another to bring together such material of research in a way that
places it as something wholly outside and independent of the genuine
substance of the composition. For the true originality of the artist no
less than that of his work consists exclusively in their being vitally
bound up with that which is only intelligible as part of the real
subject-matter treated. When the artist has fully Appropriated this
objective reason, without mixing up with it, to the detriment of its
clarity, details he may have borrowed from his personal experience or
other sources which do not strictly belong to it; in that case alone
will he stamp the material with the genuine mark of his own artistic
mintage. This personal effect upon his work merely serves him as a
bridge of Life over which he passes to secure a work of art wholly
complete in itself, just as in all genuine thought and action true
freedom consists in allowing that which is of essential significance to
assert itself without restraint, so that it becomes itself the force
which dominates both the particular thought and volition of the man
who thus appropriates it, and by so doing reconciles every vestige of
opposition. In this way the originality of art absorbs every accidental
trait peculiar to a given personality; but it only absorbs it that the
artist may follow without reserve the impulse and bent of his genius as
inspired through every fibre of the material he moulds, and instead of
reflecting a purely barren wilfulness and caprice of his own may give
an objective form to his true artistic individuality conjoined with
consummate accomplishment. To have no "manner" was ever the one great
"manner," and in this sense alone can we ascribe originality to Homer,
Sophocles, Rafael, and Shakespeare.

[Footnote 271: _Einer specifischen Seele._ We certainly should not in
ordinary speech say that inorganic objects possessed a soul. The phrase
indeed is difficult to follow, except as explained by the previous
technical discussion of _Einzelheit._]

[Footnote 272: The expression _in dieser der Allgemeinheit
entgegengehobenen Äusserlichkeit_ refers to the manifold in opposition
to which the principle of universality is posited as a test for the
selection of those aspects which manifest it as vital individuality.]

[Footnote 273: _Seligkeit._]

[Footnote 274: _Heiterkeit._ I cannot satisfy myself with one English
word. It seems to combine both _blithesomeness_ and _cheerfulness_ in
the literal meaning of the word.]

[Footnote 275: _In das einfache Beisichseyn._ Self-containedness would
be more literal.]

[Footnote 276: _Eine Versöhnung des Gemüths._ I think this refers
to the emotions of the spectators. The use of the word in the next
sentence points to this.]

[Footnote 277: _Diese Festigkeit_, _e.g._, such a religiously austere
mode of treatment, rather this than "rigorously true," is I think the
sense.]

[Footnote 278: Compare that wonderful poem of G. Meredith,
"Theodolinda."]

[Footnote 279: _Schönthuerei._]

[Footnote 280: See Introduction, pp. 86, 87.]

[Footnote 281: Such appears to me the sense of the above passage, but
it is not very clearly expressed. Hegel states the case of those who
contend that a picture must be a good one because the ideal element is
the main thing and to get that you have merely to borrow from poetry.
He then takes an example to show this is not so.]

[Footnote 282: Here commences the more thorough exposition of the
difficulty.]

[Footnote 283: _Vorstellung_, "world of ideas" would be perhaps better.]

[Footnote 284: Apart from an error in punctuation I think this sentence
is not as Hegel wrote it, certainly it is not as he would have left
it after revision; as it stands the grammatical construction is
entirely split into two discordant sections. I have at least made it
grammatical.]

[Footnote 285: _Die Vorstellung_, _i.e._, the imaginative conception.]

[Footnote 286: There is, however, the question of positive
characterization imposed on the work by the artist. The work of
Michelangelo is of course an extreme example. This is here rather
overlooked.]

[Footnote 287: That is to say, it remains the potency of many forms; it
is left in its abstract formality to be variously formed by limbs in
their motion and not cut into the forms devised by a tailor.]

[Footnote 288: Infinite, of course, not in the sense of extension,
but because it is a constituent of the universal medium of thought,
infinite as the judgment is so.]

[Footnote 289: This analysis of Dutch painting is remarkable for its
insight and impartiality, and may be contrasted in this respect with
the writings of Ruskin.]

[Footnote 290: _Die höhere Seele._ The ideal atmosphere throughout.]

[Footnote 291: It will be recalled that it was precisely this picture,
or one much resembling, that Ruskin, with less sympathy, criticized
severely.]

[Footnote 292: No doubt these were other pictures in the exhibition of
pictures contemporary with the date of Hegel's lecture.]

[Footnote 293: Ideal.]

[Footnote 294: _Auf willkürlich festgesetzten Zeichen_.]

[Footnote 295: Not a very lucid sentence. I presume the words _bei
deren Anblick_ refer, to the forms, not to the beauty which reposes on
them. The abstractness of such a point of view is obvious.]

[Footnote 296: I think _sein eigenes Wollen_ must practically amount to
this. But it is all very vague.]

[Footnote 297: _Handlung._ See below.]

[Footnote 298: _Vollbringen des Menschen._ The bringing up to fuller
content.]

[Footnote 299: Lit., "turned outside upon to confront, like a coat
turned inside out that the inside may face external facts."]

[Footnote 300: The German term is _Selbständigkeit._ It may often be
better translated by "independence."]

[Footnote 301: _Durchgreifende._ That which penetrates the whole as the
_causa efficiens._ The whole passage is difficult and technical.]

[Footnote 302: _Für sich selbst._ That is to say, a substance that is
not dependent on another for its reality but is explicit as such out of
its own resources.]

[Footnote 303: _Für das Allgemeine_.]

[Footnote 304: _In einer Nacht._ A condensed description of the true
story apparently.]

[Footnote 305: That is to say, it is made up of units all ready to pull
in different directions.]

[Footnote 306: A remarkable instance of the type in our own days was
General Gordon. A perusal of his correspondence from Khartoum makes it
sufficiently clear that he considered it his duty to remain despite all
orders to the contrary, so long as the garrison remained unwithdrawn;
no doubt he considered the reverse course dishonourable to England, but
first of all it was dishonourable to himself.]

[Footnote 307: _Fürsicheinsiehen._]

[Footnote 308: _Das Vornehme._ There is probably here a further
allusion to the respectability associated with grandeur. The same is
true of the compositions of the great Italian painters.]

[Footnote 309: _Ausgebildeten._ I have hesitated to translate this
"cultivated" as the context appears to suggest rather the kind of
_regime_ we find in the highly official centralization of such
a monarchy as that of Prussia in Hegel's time or the artificial
eighteenth century. But the whole passage rings rather strangely to
modern ideas, or at least to English notions of democracy.]

[Footnote 310: _Götz von Berlichengen_ was Goethe's first drama,
published in the year 1773, though the first version of it was written
in 1771.]

[Footnote 311: _Das Waltende_, _e.g._, a force which is predominant.]

[Footnote 312: _Gehalt_, content, that is, in its configurative energy.]

[Footnote 313: _Sichverwirklichen_, that is, objective
self-realization.]

[Footnote 314: The whole of this passage is difficult to follow and
translate, and has roots, no doubt, in some of the most disputed
positions in Hegelian philosophy, such as the independent reality of
Nature, and the use that Hegel makes of such conceptions as Chance
(_Zufälligkeit_) in his explanation of it. All that can be attempted
here is to give some kind of intelligible interpretation of the
expressions employed literally. The student will do well to consult
Professor A. C. Bradley's criticism of Hegel's Idea of tragedy in his
"Lectures on Poetry."]

[Footnote 315: The situation without defined situation.]

[Footnote 316: _Festigkeit._ Staunchness is perhaps better.]

[Footnote 317: _Harmlosigkeit_, _e.g._, its inability to cause
conflict.]

[Footnote 318: Such as painting and sculpture.]

[Footnote 319: By positive he means that in themselves they are not
actually discordant or negative but only render such discordance
possible in their relation to spirit.]

[Footnote 320: That is, where a collision depends upon natural causes.]

[Footnote 321: Positive, that is, relative to a particular concrete
condition.]

[Footnote 322: Perhaps _Erfindung_ would here be better translated with
"invention." Both processes are involved in the word.]

[Footnote 323: _Auf den natürlichen äusserlichen Verlauf._]

[Footnote 324: This must be implied, for it can only be asserted with
qualification of sculpture and it is not true of music.]

[Footnote 325: _In betreff seiner Besinnung._ _Besinnung_ suggests, no
doubt, something more of mind than _Gemüth._ It is the entire content
of self-consciousness on its sensuous side.]

[Footnote 326: _Die allgemeinen Mächte._ This phrase is explained in
the paragraph which follows.]

[Footnote 327: _Die Bethätigung._ The actualization would be a better
word perhaps.]

[Footnote 328: It may surprise some readers in such a context suddenly
to be confronted with such serious matters. But with Hegel such
surprises must be expected. With him the root of all spiritual activity
is never far absent, and the relation of the State is founded on the
same basis as that of the Church. And if we mean anything by the phrase
of the Divine Immanence we shall at least be able to follow him.]

[Footnote 329: _Die ewigen._ Eternal because essentially belonging to
the explication of reason.]

[Footnote 330: _Würde._ Worthiness of personal characteristics, _i.e._,
ethical character.]

[Footnote 331: _Das nur äuserlich Feststehende_. The organizations of
Spirit are the most permanent realities is, I think, the meaning.]

[Footnote 332: _Etwas bizarres oder widriges_, _i.e._, that which
is arbitrary and merely awakes curiosity or excites a feeling of
repulsion.]

[Footnote 333: There is obviously a symbolic meaning in this poem of
Hartmann which Hegel appears to have overlooked, the sacrifice which
the monks prescribed not necessarily involving a physical sacrifice,
but merely the gift of a love which would be equal to such a sacrifice.]

[Footnote 334: This passage is not easy to follow. I think _der innre
Begriff_ must mean the entire notion of the personality evolved in
the action as distinct from all particular aspects which are negative
and evil. The main difficulty of the passage consists in the abstract
conception of evil or the negative upon which Hegel centres the
attention.]

[Footnote 335: _Halt_, _i.e._, stable self-consistency.]

[Footnote 336: _Die innre haltlose Zerrissenkeit._]

[Footnote 337: _Abgeschlossenheit_, _i.e._, self-exclusive
individuality.]

[Footnote 338: _Zur subjektiven Innerlichkeit._ That is to say, the
entire self-concentration on the spiritual centre of conscious life.]

[Footnote 339: Lit., Their individuality remains rather external form,
in such a way that it fails to penetrate through to absolutely inward
subjectivity.]

[Footnote 340: _Noth_, the constraint of necessary conditions.]

[Footnote 341: _Mit der Bestimmten_, _i.e._, with the definite
subject-matter of temporal life.]

[Footnote 342: In the conception, that is to say, which is at the root
of the Greek idea of Divinity.]

[Footnote 343: I presume what Hegel means is as individual gods.]

[Footnote 344: _Er nicht mit seinem eigenen Selbst dabei ist._ He fails
to obtain the determinate freedom of the self-excluding subject.]

[Footnote 345: _I.e._, between gods and men.]

[Footnote 346: _Ganz prosaisch._ Viewed practically, that is to say,
rather than metaphysically. The examples explain the meaning.]

[Footnote 347: _Das Thun geht stets herüber und hinüber._ Is a skein in
which the threads run over and under one another.]

[Footnote 348: "_Iliad_," I, v, 190.]

[Footnote 349: This view may be well contrasted with the less vital
criticism of Schiller on this subject, which induced him actually to
exclude the feature from his amended edition of the play. In fact Hegel
shows more insight here than Coleridge.]

[Footnote 350: _Nicht über Hamlet haltlos verfügt._ It is also obvious,
I think, that such a passage need not necessarily be opposed to
Goethe's main conception. Such ideas may readily be explained as the
excuses of a man who inherently shrinks from forming a grave resolve of
vigorous action. No doubts are suggested when Hamlet sees the ghost.]

[Footnote 351: _Den eigentlichen Mittelpunkt._ Between what? I think
the examples show that it is both between a work of human art and
Nature and between the work of art itself and those to whom it is
addressed.]

[Footnote 352: Lit., Screws itself like a corkscrew into.]

[Footnote 353: _Ausmalung_. The metaphor is taken from the art of
painting and technically refers to the finish of the same in all its
details. It is here used generally.]

[Footnote 354: Vol. i, p. 153. I do not know the book.]

[Footnote 355: _Als bewegendes Pathos._ This may mean "as the motive
principle of pathos," but I incline to the interpretation "as the
pathos which affects others."]

[Footnote 356: This appears at first sight to be somewhat contrary to
the statement made above (p. 309) that "We cannot affirm pathos of
the gods." But if my translation in the above passage is the right
one _Die Götter werden zum menschlichen Pathos_, I think we must
understand _Die Götter_ here in a more universal sense of the Divine
than in the former passage, and find the emphasis here is laid upon the
word _menschlichen._ It is, in fact, but another way of stating the
incarnation of the Divine in humanity.]

[Footnote 357: _Als totale Individualität_, _i.e._, all that is
comprised in its essential notion.]

[Footnote 358: _Der handelnden Character_, _i.e._, Character manifest
in the action.]

[Footnote 359: _Ausser sich_, "goes to the dogs," as we say in vulgar
parlance, _i.e._, ceases to be character in the true sense at all.]

[Footnote 360: This example shows us that by the expression _früheren
Götter_ above Hegel must be referring to prehistoric times and quite
archaic conceptions of Greek godhead.]

[Footnote 361: _Eines in sick gebildeten Innern. Gebildet_ here used in
the sense of perfected, rounded to a co-ordinated content.]

[Footnote 362: _Hineingegraben_, lit., buried in.]

[Footnote 363: I am unable to express in two words the contrast
presented by the German _tragen_ and _ertragen._]

[Footnote 364: It is not easy to strike the exact interpretation of
such a word as _Quetschlichkeit._ Apparently this or the more usual
term _Quabbelig_ have the sense of "shaking." I believe there is a
synonym for quaker's grass, viz., quatch-grass.]

[Footnote 365: _Und durch sie sich hindurchziehen._ The most obvious
sense of these words would be: and (_i.e._, the threads) carry
themselves on through it (_i.e._, externality). Perhaps the meaning is
that the relations in question not merely unite the Ideal to the world
but are carried beyond (with the Ideal) the natural external world into
that higher plane of the objective spiritual world. In my translation
I have practically evaded the difficulty and assumed there is either
something missing, or we must understand, I admit, a very harsh change
of subject.]

[Footnote 366: Through self-consciousness he is both the individual
subject and the form of an infinite content.]

[Footnote 367: _Eine subjektive Totalität._]

[Footnote 368: I have amplified this sentence to make it quite clear
to which of the three worlds, viz., (_a_) the subjective world in its
abstraction, (_b_) the external world in its abstraction or, finally,
the world of reality, in which _a_ and _b_ are mutually related, the
writer here refers.]

[Footnote 369: _In welche die in sick totale Einheit des Ideals nicht
mehr ihrer konkreten Geistigkeit nach hineinzuscheinen befähigt ist._
Lit., Into which the self-complete unity of the Ideal is no longer
capable of penetrating by virtue of the concrete spirituality which it
essentially is.]

[Footnote 370: An obvious distinction between the arts of architecture
and garden-construction is that in the former all the materials used
have been already informed by human hands at least where building is in
any advanced stage.]

[Footnote 371: Hegel's actual words would seem to imply that the fact a
garden is created for use and enjoyment is detrimental to its beauty.]

[Footnote 372: It must be admitted that this summary treatment of
gardens is not very satisfactory. No doubt the best authorities concur
in the view that the formal garden is more artistic than the landscape,
but hardly on the main ground given here. Landscape gardening such as
we find it in our great English country houses has a real justification
of its own. And with regard to the reason given that a garden should be
entirely subordinate to the human object do we not strike here upon a
weakness which is to a certain extent apparent also in Hegel's theory
of the artistic purpose of architecture. I think it must be admitted
that though it is true the object of both these arts is not entirely
for their own beauty, and in certain cases, not even primarily so,
as in the case of a senate-house or ordinary garden, yet where the
artistic purpose is manifested throughout with great deliberation they
may be essentially an independent work of art; take the case,.of a
cathedral, for example, or a really beautiful and homogeneous formal
garden.]

[Footnote 373: _Element_, subject-matter would be really a better word.]

[Footnote 374: _Kein bloss quantatives._ They are not like a heap of
stones, for example, but they possess relations which qualify each
other, as of course the heap of stones will do in so far as it is
distinguished by diversity of colour.]

[Footnote 375: I think this must be the meaning of the words _noch ah
blass aufgelöste Gegensätze auftreten._]

[Footnote 376: _Grau_ is the word Hegel uses, but I think he must
use it in the sense I have translated it. Gray in itself is a very
beautiful compound, and the subtlety of its use is that which is one of
the distinguishing characteristics of the very greatest colourists such
as Turner and Velazquez.]

[Footnote 377: I am not quite sure that Hegel means this exactly, but
it is no doubt what an artist would mean and in water-colour especially
it is of the utmost importance. Compare the flesh colour of the artists
such as our Watts or Titian with that of Leighton. One of the most
marvellous examples I know is a small picture of Titian, the subject
of which is Herodias with the head of John the Baptist, in one of the
palaces at Rome. But a modern critic would, apart from the question of
dirtiness, about which there can be no doubt, say that Hegel insists
too much, precisely as Ruskin does, on the superiority of the pure
single colour.]

[Footnote 378: Hegel appears to be himself slightly incorrect here.
No doubt a string may ring false if it is not tightly fastened or if
too slack or too long it may produce sounds the human ear is unable
to appreciate. But primarily what musicians mean by a string ringing
false, with wolf notes and so on, is due to the bad material or false
composition of the string itself.]

[Footnote 379: _Disparat_, _i.e._, composed of different elements, not
merely separate in position.]

[Footnote 380: I think the expression _ein blosses an-sich_ must mean
this here. Of course the usual meaning is that of something potential,
unrealized, but here I think it rather signifies "not objectively or
really valid." No doubt in relation to the heads of discussion it is
potential also.]

[Footnote 381: _Die traurige Bünkelsängerei._ I think the adjective
must here rather refer to the contrast than to the nature of the
poetry. I presume the Minnesingers are referred to.]

[Footnote 382: I do not know what book this is, nor have I ever heard
of a hero with the name of _Otnith._]

[Footnote 383: Or rather by virtue both of its medium and object.
_Ihrer Natur nach_ are Hegel's words.]

[Footnote 384: _Jenem ersten Ansichseyenden._ That is to say, a
relation indefinite, but essentially implying a further realization.]

[Footnote 385: _Es nur eine unwahre Abstraction bezeigen würde._ "Lack
of comprehensiveness" would, of course, be more literal.]

[Footnote 386: _In ihrem abstracten Gehalt._ That is, regarded simply
as the opinions of a private individual, and apart from all that may be
implied in it under more universal relations.]

[Footnote 387: _Der Zustand der allgemeinen Bildung_, not an easy
phrase to translate: the "Culture-State" perhaps sums it up most
completely. "The state of universal education" is too indefinite or
goes too far.]

[Footnote 388: The whole spirit of this passage is a striking witness
to Hegel's admiration for classical art. Whether the arguments brought
forward are wholly sound when we consider them in connection with the
Elizabethan drama, for example, may readily admit of a question. At
the same time, as Hegel himself points out, Shakespeare unquestionably
throws the time back to what is practically a mythical age in at least
three of his greatest tragedies, "Hamlet," "Macbeth," and above all
"King Lear."]

[Footnote 389: For the element of beauty implied in ordinary
craftsmanship, and the modern view, pressed so strongly by William
Morris and others, of this aspect of art and its modern necessity, the
reader should peruse Professor Bosanquet's valuable "Three Lectures on
Aesthetic" (see particularly Lecture II, p. 61 _et seq._).]

[Footnote 390: Even an admirer of our author must admit, I think, here
that the argument is somewhat overstrained. That Hegel possessed real
humour and yet more irony few will deny who have studied him, but at
times "the man with a theory" rather tends, as is so frequently the
case with our German cousins, Goethe himself not excepted, to swallow
up such sanative juices altogether.]

[Footnote 391: I presume the meaning is that the poem in the shape we
now have it dates some 400 years after the Trojan war. But it is not
very clear from Hegel's language whether he regards Homer as the poet
who, as in the case of his example of the poet of the Niebelungenlied,
fused that together or no. For if he did how could he have lived
through the poems, an expression itself which is rather vague, more
particularly as the better opinion is that they represent a different
age themselves.]

[Footnote 392: _Vernürnbergert._ A word of course coined by Hegel. Made
them, that is to say, at home in the Nuremberg of Hans Sachs.]

[Footnote 393: "Best of all things water." Compare Meredith's exquisite
poem "Phoebus with Admetus," "Water, first of singers o'er rocky mount
and mead," etc., stanza 3.]

[Footnote 394: The drama of Racine.]

[Footnote 395: What this word means I do not know--possibly
quill-feathers.]

[Footnote 396: _Eine grosse Genialität._ "First-rate genius" is rather
too strong, "talents of the highest rank" would be more literal. We
have no word that expresses _Genialität._ As the passage is ironical I
have allowed "genius" to pass.]

[Footnote 397: _Wir haben schlecht gestanden._ Literally, "there is
some mistake between us." But the idiomatic sense I presume is, "You've
made a bad shot this time."]

[Footnote 398: What would Hegel have said of the first scene in the
"Merchant of Venice"? No doubt Shakespeare's play contains very much
more than such scenes, and there is a profound significance in that
opening scene, for it at once emphasizes the collision of families upon
which the entire tragedy turns. But is such a defence needed? There
appears to be indubitably a certain deficiency in the above criticism.
There is no reason that a scene in which a couple of peasants and two
troopers are the _dramatis personae_ should not be infinitely amusing
provided a Shakespeare, or even a Goethe, when he is not in one of his
dull moods, performs the office of teaching them how to speak.]

[Footnote 399: This surely goes too far unless "interest" is taken
strictly to mean artistic interest which would appear to be so from
the context. Everything that has once interested or affected mankind,
however remote, has at heart an historical and antiquarian interest,
and I am not sure that we should not be right in adding a general human
interest. At least such is almost a dogma with a poet of the type of
Browning.]

[Footnote 400: I do not know the Teutonic poem here referred to. But
what about Wagner's famous tetralogy? The above arguments, though
containing much that is true, appear to overlook for one thing the
symbolic significance of mythological history, and in a certain
sense to be lacking in sympathy for everything that is not modern or
Hellenic. How very differently Carlyle, for example, referred to this
very mythology, and his learning was not profound in the German sense.]

[Footnote 401: The intention of Aeschylus went, of course, much
farther than this, and the entire play is essentially one written by a
staunch conservative against modern innovation.]

[Footnote 402: It is strange that Hegel should have ventured such a
generalization in the face of his old friend Holderlein's poetry.
In England some fine poems have been written such as Lady Margaret
Sackville's hymn to Dionysus and Swinburne's to Proserpine. But for
a good essay in support of the main contention I know none equal to
Russell Lowell's Essay on Swinburne's "Atalanta." I think that both
our author and the critic who supports him somewhat fail to recognize
the permanent reality, whether symbolical or directly spiritual, that
an increasing number of men find in these Hellenic personalities, as
illustrated in the poetry of Meredith, to take the finest flavour of
the type.]

[Footnote 403: I presume this is the meaning of _unserer eigenen
Geliebten_, but from the example given of Petrarch's Laura one would
rather have expected that it was the poet's beloved whose name was not
given. In any case the sense is rather obscure.]

[Footnote 404: I think it must be admitted that Hegel goes too far
in the other extreme. The best tendency of our times is to reproduce
Shakespeare as near to the best authenticated text as possible.
No doubt our adaptation of French plays is in a certain sense an
illustration of Hegel's contention; but generally it is recognized that
where a work is great, as for example in the case of our Greek plays,
it is far better to let them speak for themselves, and attempt no
botching.]

[Footnote 405: Schiller's play.]

[Footnote 406: _Schiefheiten_, errors that divert truth from its path.]

[Footnote 407: We should rather have expected _Erhalt_ than _Gehalt_
here. _Gehalt_ means, therefore, the essential part of the entire
manifestation.]

[Footnote 408: _Durch all das anderweitige Getriebe_, _i.e._, through
all that is otherwise mechanical.]

[Footnote 409: I am not certain whether there is a definite allusion
here to anything in particular, or whether the Egyptian is taken
to signify any folk outside Western culture, with possibly some
subtle suggestion of those who held the favoured people in bondage,
Philistines in short.]

[Footnote 410: _Herausgeboren ist_, cast forth, that is to say, as the
natural growth of it--as Minerva from the head of Zeus.]

[Footnote 411: Imagination appears to me the best translation of
_Phantasie._ Our English word, however, seems rather to lie between
it and _Vorstellung_. Practically Hegel means here what we mean when
we distinguish it from fancy (_Einbildungskraft_), though in Ruskin's
original and most suggestive analysis of the terms, "fancy" of course
implied a limited power of creative activity or at least associative
activity.]

[Footnote 412: _Leichtfertigkeit der Phantasie_, _i.e._, a careless
facility of imaginative activity.]

[Footnote 413: It must not be overlooked, however, that, especially
in the arts of music and painting, genius may have reached maturity
at a very early period, as was the case with Mozart, Rafael, and many
another.]

[Footnote 414: _Ganz vereinzelten Seite._ It is a little strange to
find such an expression applied to the arts of violin-playing or
singing. But the emphasis is not so much on the art as a whole as to
the technical aspect of execution.]

[Footnote 415: _Anlage_, lit., a laying to, an impulse in a certain
direction.]

[Footnote 416: This statement is rather surprising from a fellow
countryman of Bach, Handel, Mozart, etc., down to Wagner and Strauss.
The explanation appears _first_ to be due to the distinction between
a national impulse toward popular singing which the Italian no doubt
possesses, and a deep-rooted emotional life which finally discovers
its supreme mode of expression in the art of instrumental music as
developed by the Teuton stock. _Secondly_, it is quite clear, I think,
from Hegel's correspondence that he had no real sympathy for orchestral
music though an enthusiastic admirer of opera, particularly Italian
opera.]

[Footnote 417: The other two aspects were: (_a_) That genius is a
spiritual activity and in its operation offers a contrast to talent,
where the personal initiative is not so prominent, (_b_) It has a
certain aspect which may be called innate.]

[Footnote 418: It is a little surprising to find Hegel tracing
technical accomplishment to the native gift. At least all technical
accomplishment has to be learned.]

[Footnote 419: This is the real point. Whatever ignoramuses may say of
the "shackles" of verse poets know only too well that they supply a
supreme stimulus to imaginative powers both in virtue of the atmosphere
of music into which they are thus carried and the suggestiveness of
the words themselves. What Hegel's analysis appears rather to fail in
is his perception of the unconscious work in the greatest men when
working in most inspired moments whether in painting or poetry--the
extraordinary power of their intuition.]

[Footnote 420: No doubt Hegel does not use our word "inspiration" in
quite the sense it is usually used, and I should have said even less
so the German word. At the same time we do apply the word inspiration
to the technical execution and most justly where it is used as a
distinction.]

[Footnote 421: Meredith in a letter to a correspondent expresses the
same conviction. He even adds that he thinks Schiller's compositions
were by no means improved by artificial stimulants.]

[Footnote 422: The Germans say, a song which "rings straight from the
throat," _der aus der Kehle dringt._]

[Footnote 423: _Welche zum Begriff des Talente gehört._ Talent no
doubt to some extent includes genius here, but mainly in its aspect of
productive power.]

[Footnote 424: I do not know the composition and cannot make much
of the quotations. For all I know _Tamboure-gesellen_ may be the
drummer-boy himself.]

[Footnote 425: This translation may pass perhaps:

    "This little nosegay plucked by me
     A thousand times may it greet thee!
     How many thousand times have I
     Bowed over it; how many times
     Pressed it to heart; how many times!"

[Footnote 426: Or, as Hegel puts it, "_that_ he is not."]

[Footnote 427: We should rather say a personal or individual manner
perhaps.]

[Footnote 428: I have translated _Zufälligen_ here with the words "he
shares with no one else." The suggestion is that there is no warrant or
principle to support them.]

[Footnote 429: It is rather surprising to find Hegel including music
here rather than sculpture or architecture, especially the latter,
which seems peculiarly adapted to illustrate what I understand to be
his general point of view. His own illustrations throw no light on the
matter as they are borrowed from painting or poetry.]

[Footnote 430: I presume the difference here alluded to is such as we
may see if we contrast the tone of a Correggio, for instance, with that
of a Titian or a Rembrandt.]

[Footnote 431: _Er hat ihn sich angeeignet._ Lack of artistic power is
the main factor in an artificial style. Though there are doubtless many
examples of men forced to paint in a way much below their true powers
to obtain a living. But it must be admitted Hegel does not express
himself very clearly. Individuality of handling is essential to a great
master. The real point is that it should not crystallize into a _mere_
habit, as in the Bologna school of painters.]

[Footnote 432: "Artificial" would perhaps come closer to the mark.]

[Footnote 433: _In sich selbst zu erweitern._ The phrase at once
suggests by contrast that expression so frequently used by painters
of "tightness," incapacity to enlarge, which is such a characteristic
of artificial handling, and indeed of most academic work, and so
frequently gives to the original sketch of an artist a greater artistic
value than to the highly finished work.]

[Footnote 434: _In der subjektiven Begeistrung._]

[Footnote 435: The chamber at Wetzlar.]

[Footnote 436: Elective Affinities.]


END OF VOL. I





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