AESTHETICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

by Frederick Schiller

CONTENTS

 INTRODUCTION

 VOCABULARY OF TERMINOLOGY

 LETTERS ON THE AESTHETICAL EDUCATION OF MAN

 AESTHETICAL ESSAYS:--

 THE MORAL UTILITY OF AESTHETIC MANNERS ON THE SUBLIME THE PATHETIC ON GRACE AND DIGNITY ON DIGNITY ON THE NECESSARY LIMITATIONS IN THE USE OF BEAUTY AND FORM REFLECTIONS ON THE USE OF THE VULGAR AND LOW ELEMENTS IN WORKS OF ART DETACHED REFLECTIONS ON DIFFERENT QUESTIONS OF AESTHETICS ON SIMPLE AND SENTIMENTAL POETRY THE STAGE AS A MORAL INSTITUTION ON THE TRAGIC ART OF THE CAUSE OF THE PLEASURE WE DERIVE FROM TRAGIC OBJECTS

INTRODUCTION. 

The special subject of the greater part of the letters and essays ofSchiller contained in this volume is Aesthetics; and before passing toany remarks on his treatment of the subject it will be useful to offer afew observations on the nature of this topic, and on its treatment by thephilosophical spirit of different ages. 

First, then, aesthetics has for its object the vast realm of thebeautiful, and it may be most adequately defined as the philosophy of artor of the fine arts. To some the definition may seem arbitrary, asexcluding the beautiful in nature; but it will cease to appear so if itis remarked that the beauty which is the work of art is higher thannatural beauty, because it is the offspring of the mind. Moreover, if, in conformity with a certain school of modern philosophy, the mind beviewed as the true being, including all in itself, it must be admittedthat beauty is only truly beautiful when it shares in the nature of mind, and is mind's offspring. 

Viewed in this light, the beauty of nature is only a reflection of thebeauty of the mind, only an imperfect beauty, which as to its essence isincluded in that of the mind. Nor has it ever entered into the mind ofany thinker to develop the beautiful in natural objects, so as to convertit into a science and a system. The field of natural beauty is toouncertain and too fluctuating for this purpose. Moreover, the relationof beauty in nature and beauty in art forms a part of the science ofaesthetics, and finds again its proper place. 

But it may be urged that art is not worthy of a scientific treatment. Art is no doubt an ornament of our life and a charm to the fancy; but hasit a more serious side? When compared with the absorbing necessities ofhuman existence, it might seem a luxury, a superfluity, calculated toenfeeble the heart by the assiduous worship of beauty, and thus to beactually prejudicial to the true interest of practical life. This viewseems to be largely countenanced by a dominant party in modern times, andpractical men, as they are styled, are only too ready to take thissuperficial view of the office of art. 

Many have indeed undertaken to defend art on this score, and to showthat, far from being a mere luxury, it has serious and solid advantages. It has been even apparently exaggerated in this respect, and representedas a kind of mediator between reason and sense, between inclination andduty, having as its mission the work of reconciling the conflictingelements in the human heart. A strong trace of this view will be foundin Schiller, especially in all that he says about the play-instinct inhis "Aesthetical Letters. "

Nevertheless, art is worthy of science; aesthetics is a true science, andthe office of art is as high as that assigned to it in the pages ofSchiller. We admit that art viewed only as an ornament and a charm is nolonger free, but a slave. But this is a perversion of its proper end. Science has to be considered as free in its aim and in its means, and itis only free when liberated from all other considerations; it rises up totruth, which is its only real object, and can alone fully satisfy it. Art in like manner is alone truly art when it is free and independent, when it solves the problem of its high destination--that problem whetherit has to be placed beside religion and philosophy as being nothing elsethan a particular mode or a special form of revealing God toconsciousness, and of expressing the deepest interests of human natureand the widest truths of the human mind. 

For it is in their works of art that the nations have imprinted theirfavorite thoughts and their richest intuitions, and not unfrequently thefine arts are the only means by which we can penetrate into the secretsof their wisdom and the mysteries of their religion. 

It is made a reproach to art that it produces its effects by appearanceand illusion; but can it be established that appearance is objectionable?The phenomena of nature and the acts of human life are nothing more thanappearances, and are yet looked upon as constituting a true reality; forthis reality must be sought for beyond the objects perceived immediatelyby the sense, the substance and speech and principle underlying allthings manifesting itself in time and space through these realexistences, but preserving its absolute existence in itself. Now, thevery special object and aim of art is to represent the action anddevelopment of this universal force. In nature this force or principleappears confounded with particular interests and transitorycircumstances, mixed up with what is arbitrary in the passions and inindividual wills. Art sets the truth free from the illusory andmendacious forms of this coarse, imperfect world, and clothes it in anobler, purer form created by the mind itself. Thus the forms of art, far from being mere appearances, perfectly illusory, contain more realityand truth than the phenomenal existences of the real world. The world ofart is truer than that of history or nature. 

Nor is this all: the representations of art are more expressive andtransparent than the phenomena of the real world or the events ofhistory. The mind finds it harder to pierce through the hard envelop ofnature and common life than to penetrate into works of art. 

Two more reflections appear completely to meet the objection that art oraesthetics is not entitled to the name of science. 

It will be generally admitted that the mind of man has the power ofconsidering itself, of making itself its own object and all that issuesfrom its activity; for thought constitutes the essence of the mind. Nowart and its work, as creations of the mind, are themselves of a spiritualnature. In this respect art is much nearer to the mind than nature. Instudying the works of art the mind has to do with itself, with whatproceeds from itself, and is itself. 

Thus art finds its highest confirmation in science. 

Nor does art refuse a philosophical treatment because it is dependent oncaprice, and subject to no law. If its highest aim be to reveal to thehuman consciousness the highest interest of the mind, it is evident thatthe substance or contents of the representations are not given up to thecontrol of a wild and irregular imagination. It is strictly determinedby the ideas that concern our intelligence and by the laws of theirdevelopment, whatever may be the inexhaustible variety of forms in whichthey are produced. Nor are these forms arbitrary, for every form is notfitted to express every idea. The form is determined by the substancewhich it has to suit. 

A further consideration of the true nature of beauty, and therefore ofthe vocation of the artist, will aid us still more in our endeavor toshow the high dignity of art and of aesthetics. The history ofphilosophy presents us with many theories on the nature of the beautiful;but as it would lead us too far to examine them all, we shall onlyconsider the most important among them. The coarsest of these theoriesdefines the beautiful as that which pleases the senses. This theory, issuing from the philosophy of sensation of the school of Locke andCondillac, only explains the idea and the feeling of the beautiful bydisfiguring it. It is entirely contradicted by facts. For it convertsit into desire, but desire is egotistical and insatiable, whileadmiration is respectful, and is its own satisfaction without seekingpossession. 

Others have thought the beautiful consists in proportion, and nodoubt this is one of the conditions of beauty, but only one. Anill-proportioned object cannot be beautiful, but the exact correspondenceof parts, as in geometrical figures, does not constitute beauty. 

A noted ancient theory makes beauty consist in the perfect suitablenessof means to their end. In this case the beautiful is not the useful, itis the suitable; and the latter idea is more akin to that of beauty. Butit has not the true character of the beautiful. Again, order is a lessmathematical idea than proportion, but it does not explain what is freeand flowing in certain beauties. 

The most plausible theory of beauty is that which makes it consist in twocontrary and equally necessary elements--unity and variety. A beautifulflower has all the elements we have named; it has unity, symmetry, andvariety of shades of color. There is no beauty without life, and life ismovement, diversity. These elements are found in beautiful and also insublime objects. A beautiful object is complete, finished, limited withsymmetrical parts. A sublime object whose forms, though not out ofproportion, are less determined, ever awakens in us the feeling of theinfinite. In objects of sense all qualities that can produce the feelingof the beautiful come under one class called physical beauty. But aboveand beyond this in the region of mind we have first intellectual beauty, including the laws that govern intelligence and the creative genius ofthe artist, the poet, and the philosopher. Again, the moral world hasbeauty in its ideas of liberty, of virtue, of devotion, the justice ofAristides, the heroism of Leonidas. 

We have now ascertained that there is beauty and sublimity in nature, inideas, in feelings, and in actions. After all this it might be supposedthat a unity could be found amidst these different kinds of beauty. Thesight of a statue, as the Apollo of Belvedere, of a man, of Socratesexpiring, are adduced as producing impressions of the beautiful; but theform cannot be a form by itself, it must be the form of something. Physical beauty is the sign of an interior beauty, a spiritual and moralbeauty which is the basis, the principle, and the unity of the beautiful. 

Physical beauty is an envelop to intellectual and to moral beauty. 

Intellectual beauty, the splendor of the true, can only have forprinciple that of all truth. 

Moral beauty comprehends two distinct elements, equally beautiful, justice and charity. Thus God is the principle of the three orders ofbeauty, physical, intellectual, and moral. He also construes the twogreat powers distributed over the three orders, the beautiful and thesublime. God is beauty par excellence; He is therefore perfectlybeautiful; He is equally sublime. He is to us the type and sense of thetwo great forms of beauty. In short, the Absolute Being as absoluteunity and absolute variety is necessarily the ultimate principle, theextreme basis, the finished ideal of all beauty. This was the marvellousbeauty which Diotimus had seen, and which is described in the Banquet ofSocrates. 

It is our purpose after the previous discussion to attempt to elucidatestill further the idea of art by following its historic development. 

Many questions bearing on art and relating to the beautiful had beenpropounded before, even as far back as Plotinus, Plato, and Socrates, butrecent times have been the real cradle of aesthetics as a science. Modern philosophy was the first to recognize that beauty in art is one ofthe means by which the contradictions can be removed between mindconsidered in its abstract and absolute existence and nature constitutingthe world of sense, bringing back these two factors to unity. 

Kant was the first who felt the want of this union and expressed it, butwithout determining its conditions or expressing it scientifically. Hewas impeded in his efforts to effect this union by the opposition betweenthe subjective and the objective, by his placing practical reason abovetheoretical reason, and he set up the opposition found in the moralsphere as the highest principle of morality. Reduced to this difficulty, all that Kant could do was to express the union under the form of thesubjective ideas of reason, or as postulates to be deduced from thepractical reason, without their essential character being known, andrepresenting their realization as nothing more than a simple you ought, or imperative "Du sollst. "

In his teleological judgment applied to living beings, Kant comes, on thecontrary, to consider the living organism in such wise that, the generalincluding the particular, and determining it as an end, consequently theidea also determines the external, the compound of the organs, not by anact springing from without but issuing from within. In this way the endand the means, the interior and exterior, the general and particular, areconfounded in unity. But this judgment only expresses a subjective actof reflection, and does not throw any light on the object in itself. Kant has the same view of the aesthetic judgment. According to him thejudgment does not proceed either from reason, as the faculty of generalideas, or from sensuous perception, but from the free play of the reasonand of the imagination. In this analysis of the cognitive faculty, theobject only exists relatively to the subject and to the feeling ofpleasure or the enjoyment that it experiences. 

The characteristics of the beautiful are, according to Kant:--

1. The pleasure it procures is free from interest. 

2. Beauty appears to us as an object of general enjoyment, withoutawakening in us the consciousness of an abstract idea and of a categoryof reason to which we might refer our judgment. 

3. Beauty ought to embrace in itself the relation of conformity to itsend, but in such a way that this conformity may be grasped without theidea of the end being offered to our mind. 

4. Though it be not accompanied by an abstract idea, beauty ought to beacknowledged as the object of a necessary enjoyment. 

A special feature of all this system is the indissoluble unity of what issupposed to be separated in consciousness. This distinction disappearsin the beautiful, because in it the general and the particular, the endand the means, the idea and the object, mentally penetrate each othercompletely. The particular in itself, whether it be opposed to itself orto what is general, is something accidental. But here what may beconsidered as an accidental form is so intimately connected with thegeneral that it is confounded and identified with it. By this means thebeautiful in art presents thought to us as incarnate. On the other hand, matter, nature, the sensuous as themselves possessing measure, end, andharmony, are raised to the dignity of spirit and share in its generalcharacter. Thought not only abandons its hostility against nature, butsmiles in her. Sensation and enjoyment are justified and sanctified, sothat nature and liberty, sense and ideas, find their justification andtheir sanctification in this union. Nevertheless this reconciliation, though seemingly perfect, is stricken with the character ofsubjectiveness. It cannot constitute the absolutely true and real. 

Such is an outline of the principal results of Kant's criticism, andHegel passes high praise on the profoundly philosophic mind of Schiller, who demanded the union and reconciliation of the two principles, and whotried to give a scientific explanation of it before the problem had beensolved by philosophy. In his "Letters on Aesthetic Education, " Schilleradmits that man carries in himself the germ of the ideal man which isrealized and represented by the state. There are two ways for theindividual man to approach the ideal man; first, when the state, considered as morality, justice, and general reason, absorbs theindividualities in its unity; secondly, when the individual rises to theideal of his species by the perfecting of himself. Reason demands unity, conformity to the species; nature, on the other hand, demands pluralityand individuality; and man is at once solicited by two contrary laws. Inthis conflict, aesthetic education must come in to effect thereconciliation of the two principles; for, according to Schiller, it hasas its end to fashion and polish the inclinations and passions so thatthey may become reasonable, and that, on the other hand, reason andfreedom may issue from their abstract character, may unite with nature, may spiritualize it, become incarnate, and take a body in it. Beauty isthus given as the simultaneous development of the rational and of thesensuous, fused together, and interpenetrated one by the other, an unionthat constitutes in fact true reality. 

This unity of the general and of the particular, of liberty and necessityof the spiritual and material, which Schiller understood scientificallyas the spirit of art, and which he tried to make appear in real life byaesthetic art and education, was afterwards put forward under the name ofidea as the principle of all knowledge and existence. In this way, through the agency of Schelling, science raised itself to an absolutepoint of view. It was thus that art began to claim its proper nature anddignity. From that time its proper place was finally marked out for itin science, though the mode of viewing it still labored under certaindefects. Its high and true distinction were at length understood. 

In viewing the higher position to which recent philosophical systems haveraised the theory of art in Germany, we must not overlook the advantagescontributed by the study of the ideal of the ancients by such men asWinckelmann, who, by a kind of inspiration, raised art criticism from acarping about petty details to seek the true spirit of great works ofart, and their true ideas, by a study of the spirit of the originals. 

It has appeared expedient to conclude this introduction with a summary ofthe latest and highest theory of art and aesthetics issuing from Kant andSchiller, and developed in the later philosophy of Hegel. 

Our space only allows us to give a glance, first, at the metaphysics ofthe beautiful as developed by Hegel in the first part of his 'Aesthetik, 'and then at the later development of the same system in recent writersissuing from his school. 

Hegel considers, first, the abstract idea of the beautiful; secondly, beauty in nature; thirdly, beauty in art or the ideal; and he winds upwith an examination of the qualities of the artist. 

His preliminary remarks are directed to show the relations of art toreligion and philosophy, and he shows that man's destination is aninfinite development. In real life he only satisfies his longingpartially and imperfectly by limited enjoyments. In science he finds anobler pleasure, and civil life opens a career for his activity; but heonly finds an imperfect pleasure in these pursuits. He cannot then findthe ideal after which he sighs. Then he rises to a higher sphere, whereall contradictions are effaced and the ideas of good and happiness arerealized in perfect accord and in constant harmony. This deep want ofthe soul is satisfied in three ways: in art, in religion, and inphilosophy. 

Art is intended to make us contemplate the true and the infinite in formsof sense. Yet even art does not fully satisfy the deepest need of thesoul. The soul wants to contemplate truth in its inmost consciousness. Religion is placed above the dominion of art. 

First, as to idea of the beautiful, Hegel begins by giving itscharacteristics. It is infinite, and it is free; the contemplation ofthe beautiful suffices to itself, it awakens no desire. The soulexperiences something like a godlike felicity and is transported into asphere remote from the miseries of life. This theory of the beautifulcomes very near that of Plato. 

Secondly, as to beauty in nature. Physical beauty, consideredexternally, presents itself successively under the aspects of regularityand of symmetry, of conformity with a law, and of harmony, also of purityand simplicity of matter. 

Thirdly, beauty in art or the ideal is beauty in a higher degree ofperfection than real beauty. The ideal in art is not contrary to thereal, but the real idealized, purified, and perfectly expressed. Theideal is also the soul arrived at the consciousness of itself, free andfully enjoying its faculties; it is life, but spiritual life and spirit. Nor is the ideal a cold abstraction, it is the spiritual principle underthe form of a living individuality freed from the laws of the finite. The ideal in its highest form is the divine, as expressed in the Greekdivinities; the Christian ideal, as expressed in all its highest purityin God the Father, the Christ, the Virgin. Its essential features arecalm, majesty, serenity. 

At a lower degree the ideal is in man the victory of the eternalprinciples that fill the human heart, the triumph of the nobler part ofthe soul, the moral and divine principle. 

But the ideal manifested in the world becomes action, and action impliesa form of society, a determinate situation with collision, and an actionproperly so called. The heroic age is the best society for the ideal inaction; in its determinate situation the ideal in action must appear asthe manifestation of moral power, and in action, properly so called, itmust contain three points in the ideal: first, general principles;secondly, personages; thirdly, their character and their passions. Hegelwinds up by considering the qualities necessary in an artist:imagination, genius, inspiration, originality, etc. 

A recent exponent of Hegel's aesthetical ideas further developedexpresses himself thus on the nature of beauty:--

"After the bitterness of the world, the sweetness of art soothes andrefreshes us. This is the high value of the beautiful--that it solvesthe contradiction of mind and matter, of the moral and sensuous world, inharmony. Thus the beautiful and its representation in art procures forintuition what philosophy gives to the cognitive insight and religion tothe believing frame of mind. Hence the delight with which Schiller'swonderful poem on the Bell celebrates the accord of the inner and outerlife, the fulfilment of the longing and demands of the soul by the eventsin nature. The externality of phenomena is removed in the beautiful; itis raised into the circle of ideal existence; for it is recognized as therevelation of the ideal, and thus transfigured it gives to the latteradditional splendor. "

"Thus the beautiful is active, living unity, full existence withoutdefect, as Plato and Schelling have said, or as recent writers describeit; the idea that is quite present in the appearance, the appearancewhich is quite formed and penetrated by the idea. "

"Beauty is the world secret that invites us in image and word, " is thepoetical expression of Plato; and we may add, because it is revealed inboth. We feel in it the harmony of the world; it breaks forth in abeauty, in a lovely accord, in a radiant point, and starting thence wepenetrate further and yet further, and find as the ground of allexistence the same charm which had refreshed us in individual forms. Thus Christ pointed to the lilies of the field to knit His followers'reliance on Providence with the phenomena of nature: and could they jetforth in royal beauty, exceeding that of Solomon, if the inner ground ofnature were not beauty?

We may also name beauty in a certain sense a mystery, as it mediates tous in a sensuous sign a heavenly gift of grace, that it opens to us aview into the eternal Being, teaching us to know nature in God and God innature, that it brings the divine even to the perception of sense, andestablishes the energy of love and freedom as the ground, the bond, andthe end of the world. 

In the midst of the temporal the eternal is made palpable and present tous in the beautiful, and offers itself to our enjoyment. The separationis suppressed, and the original unity, as it is in God, appears as thefirst, as what holds together even the past in the universe, and whatconstitutes the aim of the development in a finite accord. 

The beautiful not only presents itself to us as mediator of a foreignexcellence or of a remote divinity, but the ideal and the godlike arepresent in it. Hence aesthetics requires as its basis the system inwhich God is known as indwelling in the world, that He is not far distantfrom any one of us, but that He animates us, and that we live in Him. Aesthetics requires the knowledge that mind is the creative force andunity of all that is extended and developed in time and space. 

The beautiful is thus, according to these later thinkers, the revelationof God to the mind through the senses; it is the appearance of the idea. In the beautiful spirit reveals itself to spirit through matter and thesenses; thus the entire man feels himself raised and satisfied by it. Bythe unity of the beautiful with us we experience with delight thatthought and the material world are present for our individuality, thatthey utter tones and shine forth in it, that both penetrate each otherand blend in it and thus become one with it. We feel one with them andone in them. 

This later view was to a great extent expressed by Schiller in his"Aesthetical Letters. "

But art and aesthetics, in the sense in which these terms are used andunderstood by German philosophical writers, such as Schiller, embrace awider field than the fine arts. Lessing, in his "Laocoon, " had alreadyshown the point of contrast between painting and poetry; and aesthetics, being defined as the science of the beautiful, must of necessity embracepoetry. Accordingly Schiller's essays on tragic art, pathos, andsentimental poetry, contained in this volume, are justly classed underhis aesthetical writings. 

This being so, it is important to estimate briefly the transitions ofGerman poetry before Schiller, and the position that he occupied in itshistoric development. 

The first classical period of German poetry and literature was containedbetween A. D. 1190 and 1300. It exhibits the intimate blending of theGerman and Christian elements, and their full development in splendidproductions, for this was the period of the German national epos, the"Nibelungenlied, " and of the "Minnegesang. "

This was a period which has nothing to compare with it in point ofart and poetry, save perhaps, and that imperfectly, the heroic andpost-Homeric age of early Greece. 

The poetical efforts of that early age may be grouped under--(1) nationalepos: the "Nibelungenlied;" (2) art epos: the "Rolandslied, " "Percival, "etc. ; (3) the introduction of antique legends: Veldeck's "Aeneide, " andKonrad's "War of Troy;" (4) Christian legends "Barlaam, " "Sylvester, ""Pilatus, " etc. ; (5) poetical narratives: "Crescentia, " "Graf Rudolf, "etc. ; (6) animal legends; "Reinecke Vos;" (7) didactic poems: "DerRenner;" (8) the Minne-poetry, and prose. 

The fourth group, though introduced from a foreign source, gives thespecial character and much of the charm of the period we consider. Thisis the sphere of legends derived from ecclesiastical ground. One of thebest German writers on the history of German literature remarks: "If theaim and nature of all poetry is to let yourself be filled by a subjectand to become penetrated with it; if the simple representation ofunartificial, true, and glowing feelings belongs to its most beautifuladornments; if the faithful direction of the heart to the invisible andeternal is the ground on which at all times the most lovely flowers ofpoetry have sprouted forth, these legendary poems of early Germany, intheir lovely heartiness, in their unambitious limitation, and their pioussense, deserve a friendly acknowledgment. What man has considered thepious images in the prayer-books of the Middle Ages, the unadornedinnocence, the piety and purity, the patience of the martyrs, the calm, heavenly transparency of the figures of the holy angels, without beingattracted by the simple innocence and humility of these forms, thecreation of pious artists' hands? Who has beheld them without tranquiljoy at the soft splendor poured, over them, without deep sympathy, nay, without a certain emotion and tenderness? And the same spirit thatcreated these images also produced those poetical effusions, the samespirit of pious belief, of deep devotion, of heavenly longing. If wemake a present reality of the heroic songs of the early German popularpoetry, and the chivalrous epics of the art poetry, the militaryexpeditions and dress of the Crusades, this legendary poetry appears asthe invention of humble pilgrims, who wander slowly on the weary way toJerusalem, with scollop and pilgrim's staff, engaged in quiet prayer, till they are all to kneel at the Saviour's sepulchre; and thuscontented, after touching the holy earth with their lips, they return, poor as they were, but full of holy comfort, to their distant home. 

"While the knightly poetry is the poetry of the splendid secular life, full of cheerful joy, full of harp-tones and song, full of tournamentsand joyous festivals, the poetry of the earthly love for the earthlybride, the poetry of the legends is that of the spontaneous life ofpoverty, the poetry of the solitary cloister cell, of the quiet, well-walled convent garden, the poetry of heavenly brides, who withoutlamenting the joys of the world, which they need not, have their joy intheir Saviour in tranquil piety and devout resignation--who attend at theespousals of Anna and Joachim, sing the Magnificat with the Holy Motherof God, stand weeping beneath the cross, to be pierced also by the sword, who hear the angel harp with St. Cecilia, and walk with St. Theresa inthe glades of Paradise. While the Minne-poetry was the tender homageoffered to the beauty, the gentleness, the grace, and charm of noblewomen of this world, legendary poetry was the homage given to the VirginMother, the Queen of Heaven, transfiguring earthly love into a heavenlyand eternal love. "

"For the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the time of woman cultus, such as has never been before or since seen; it is also the time of thedeepest and simplest and truest, most enthusiastic and faithfulveneration of the Virgin Mary. If we, by a certain effort, manage toplace ourselves back on the standpoint of childlike poetic faith of thattime, and set aside in thought the materializing and exaggeration of thehagiology and Mariolatry produced by later centuries, rendering thereaction of the Reformation unavoidable--if now in our age, turnedexclusively to logical ideas and a negative dialectic, we live again bythought in those ages of feeling and poetry--if we acknowledge all thesethings to be something more than harmless play of words and fancy, and asthe true lifelike contents of the period, then we can properly appreciatethis legendary poetry as a necessary link in the crown of pearls of ourancient poetry. "

In short, the first classical period of German literature was a time ofyouthful freshness, of pure harmony, plunged in verse and song, full ofthe richest tones and the noblest rhythm, so that rhyme and song alonemust be looked for as the form of poetic creations. Accordingly it hadno proper prose. Like our own youth, it was a happy, free, and trueyouth, it knew no prose; like us it dreamed to speechless songs; and aswe expressed our youthful language and hopes, woes and joys, in rhyme andsong, thus a whole people and age had its beautiful youth full of songand verse tones. The life was poetry and poetry was the life. 

Then came degeneracy and artifice; after that the great shock of theReformation; subsequently a servile and pedantic study of classical formswithout imbibing their spirit, but preparing the way for a truer artspirit, extracted from their study by the masterly criticism ofWinckelmann and Lessing, till the second classical period of Germanliterature and poetry bloomed forth in full beauty, blending the nationaland legendary elements so well expressed by Herder with the highesteffusions of dramatic poetry, partly creative and partly imitative of theGreek models, in Schiller and Goethe. 

Modern German literature presents a very remarkable spectacle, though farfrom unique in history, for there we see criticism begetting genius. 

Lessing, the founder of the modern German drama, sought to banish allpomp from the theatre, and in doing so some critics have thought that hebanished the ideal and fell into affectation. At any rate, his"Dramaturgy" is full of original ideas, and when he drew out the sphereof poetry contrasted with that of painting in his "Laocoon, " all Germanyresounded with his praise. "With that delight, " says Goethe, "we salutedthis luminous ray which a thinker of the first order caused to breakforth from its clouds. It is necessary to have all the fire of youth toconceive the effect produced on us by the 'Laocoon' of Lessing. " Anothergreat contemporary, whose name is imperishable as that of art, struck amortal blow at a false taste in the study of the antique. Winckelmannquestioned the works of the Greek chisel with an intelligence full oflove, and initiated his countrymen into poetry by a feeling forsculpture! What an enthusiasm he displayed for classical beauty! what aworship of the form! what a fervor of paganism is found in its eloquentpages when he also comments on the admirable group of the Laocoon, or thestill purer masterpiece of the Apollo of Belvedere. 

These men were the vanguard of the great Germanic army; Schiller andGoethe alone formed its main column. In them German poetry shows itselfin its perfection, and completely realizes the ideal designed for it bythe critic. Every factitious precept and conventional law was nowoverthrown; these poetical Protestants broke away entirely from the yokeof tradition. Yet their genius was not without a rule. Every work bearsin itself the organic laws of its development. Thus, although they laughat the famous precept of the three unities, it is because they dig stilldeeper down to the root of things, to grasp the true principle from whichthe precept issued. "Men have not understood, " said Goethe, "the basisof this law. The law of the comprehensive--'das Fassliche'--is theprinciple; and the three unities have only value as far as they attainit. When they become an obstacle to the comprehension it is madness towish to observe them. The Greeks themselves, from whom the rule isderived, did not always follow it. In the 'Phaeton' of Euripides, and inother pieces, there was change, place; accordingly they prefer to give aperfect exposition of their subject, rather than blindly respect a lawnever very essential in itself. The pieces of Shakspeare violate in thehighest degree the unity of time and of place; but they are full ofcomprehensiveness; nothing is easier to grasp, and for that reason theywould have found favor with the Greeks. The French poets tried to obeyexactly the law of the three unities; but they violate the law ofcomprehensiveness, as they do not expound dramatic subjects by dramas butby recitals. "

Poetical creation was therefore viewed as free, but at the same timeresponsible. Immediately, as if fecundity were the reward ofcorrectness, the German theatre became filled with true and livingcharacters. The stage widens under their steps that they may have roomto move. History with its great proportions and its terrible lessons, isnow able to take place on the stage. The whole Thirty Years' War passesbefore us in "Wallenstein. " We hear the tumult of camps, the disorder ofa fanatical and undisciplined army, peasants, recruits, sutlers, soldiers. The illusion is complete, and enthusiasm breaks out among thespectators. Similar merits attach to many other of Schiller's plays. 

This new drama, which seemed to give all to the natural sphere, concedesstill more to the ideal. An able critic has said the details which arethe truth of history are also its poetry. Here the German schoolprofesses a principle of the highest learning, and one that seems to beborrowed from its profoundest philosophers; it is that of the universalbeauty of life, of the identity of beauty and existence. "Ouraesthetics, " says Goethe, "speak a great deal of poetical or antipoeticalsubjects; fundamentally there is no subject that has not its poetry; itis for the poet to find it there. "

Schiller and Goethe divide the empire over modern German poetry, andrepresent its two principal powers; the one, Schiller, impassioned andlyrical, pours his soul over all the subjects he touches; in him everycomposition, ode, or drama is always one of his noble ideas, borrowingits dress and ornament from the external world. He is a poet especiallythrough the heart, by the force with which he rushes in and carries youwith him. Goethe is especially an epic; no doubt he paints the passionswith admirable truth, but he commands them; like the god of the seas inVirgil, he raises above the angry waves his calm and sublime forehead. 

After this glance at the position and chief characteristics of Schiller, it may be useful to offer a few remarks on those of the principal worksin this volume, his Aesthetical Letters and Essays. Schiller, in hisAesthetical Essays, did not choose the pure abstract method of deductionand conception like Kant, nor the historical like Herder, who strove thusto account for the genesis of our ideas of beauty and art. He struck outa middle path, which presents certain deficiencies to the advocates ofeither of these two systems. He leans upon Kantian ideas, but withoutscholastic constraint. Pure speculation, which seeks to set free theform from all contents and matter, was remote from his creative genius, to which the world of matter and sense was no hinderance, but a necessaryenvelop for his forms. 

His removal to Jena in 1791, and acquaintance with Reinhold, familiarizedhim with the Kantian philosophy, but he only appreciated it by halves. The bare and bald dealing with fundamental principles was at this timeequally repulsive to Goethe and Schiller, the man of the world and theman of life. But Schiller did not find anywhere at that time justicedone to the dignity of art, or honor to the substantial value of beauty. 

The Aesthetical Essays in this volume appeared for the most part since1792, in the "Thalia" and the "Hours" periodicals. The first "On theGround of our Pleasure in Tragic Subjects" (1792), applies Kantianprinciples of the sublime to tragedy, and shows Schiller's lofty estimateof this class of poetry. With Kant he shows that the source of allpleasure is suitableness; the touching and sublime elicit this feeling, implying the existence of unsuitableness. In this article he makes theaim and source of art to consist in giving enjoyment, in pleasing. Tonature pleasure is a mediate object, to art its main object. The sameproposition appears in Schiller's paper on Tragic Art (1792), closelyconnected with the former. This article contains views of the affectionof pity that seem to approximate the Aristotelian propositions abouttragedy. 

His views on the sublime are expressed in two papers, "The Sublime" and"The Pathetic, " in which we trace considerable influence of Lessing andWinckelmann. He is led especially to strong antagonism against theFrench tragedy, and he indulges in a lengthy consideration of the passageof Virgil on Laocoon, showing the necessity of suffering and the patheticin connection with moral adaptations to interest us deeply. 

All these essays bespeak the poet who has tried his hand at tragedy, butin his next paper, "On Grace and Dignity, " we trace more of the moralist. Those passages where he takes up a medium position between sense andreason, between Goethe and Kant, are specially attractive. The theme ofthis paper is the conception of grace, or the expression of a beautifulsoul and dignity, or that of a lofty mind. The idea of grace has beendeveloped more deeply and truly by Schiller than by Wieland orWinckelmann, but the special value of the paper is its constantlypointing to the ideal of a higher humanity. In it he does full justiceto the sensuous and to the moral, and commencing with the beautifulnature of the Greeks, to whom sense was never mere sense, nor reason merereason, he concludes with an image of perfected humanity in which graceand dignity are united, the former by architectonic beauty (structure), the last supported by power. 

The following year, 1795, appeared his most important contribution toaesthetics, in his Aesthetical Letters. 

In these letters he remarks that beauty is the work of freecontemplation, and we enter with it into the world of ideas, but withoutleaving the world of sense. Beauty is to us an object, and yet at thesame time a state of our subjectivity, because the feeling of theconditional is under that which we have of it. Beauty is a form becausewe consider it, and life because we feel it; in a word, it is at once ourstate and our art. And exactly because it is both it serves us as atriumphant proof that suffering does not exclude activity, nor matterform, nor limitation the infinite, for in the enjoyment of beauty bothnatures are united, and by this is proved the capacity of the infinite tobe developed in the finite, and accordingly the possibility of thesublimest humanity. 

The free play of the faculty of cognition which had been determined byKant is also developed by Schiller. His representation of this matter isthis: Man, as a spirit, is reason and will, self-active, determining, form-giving; this is described by Schiller as the form-instinct; man, asa sensuous being, is determinable, receptive, termed to matter; Schillerdescribes this as the material instinct, "Stofftrieb. " In the midstbetween these two is situated the beautiful, in which reason and thesensuous penetrate each other, and their enjoyable product is designatedby Schiller the play instinct. This expression is not happily chosen. Schiller means to describe by it the free play of the forces, activityaccording to nature, which is at once a joy and a happiness; he remindsus of the life of Olympus, and adds: "Man is only quite a man when heplays. " Personality is that which lasts, the state of feeling is thechangeable in man; he is the fixed unity remaining eternally himself inthe floods of change. Man in contact with the world is to take it up inhimself, but to unite with it the highest freedom and independence, and, instead of being lost in the world, to subject it to his reason. It isonly by his being independent that there is reality out of him; only bybeing susceptible of feeling that there is reality in him. The object ofsensuous instinct is life; that of the purer instinct figure; livingfigure or beauty is the object of the play instinct. 

Only inasmuch as life is formed in the understanding and form in feelingdoes life win a form and form win life, and only thus does beauty arise. By beauty the sensuous man is led up to reason, the one-sided tension ofspecial force is strung to harmony, and man made a complete whole. 

Schiller adds that beauty knits together thought and feeling; the fullestunity of spirit and matter. Its freedom is not lack, but harmony, oflaws; its conditions are not exclusions, inclusion of all infinitydetermined in itself. A true work of art generates lofty serenity andfreedom of mind. Thus the aesthetic disposition bestows on us thehighest of all gifts, that of a disposition to humanity, and we may callbeauty our second creator. 

In these letters Schiller spoke out the mildest and highest sentiments onart, and in his paper on Simple and Sentimental Poetry (1795) heconstructs the ideal of the perfect poet. This is by far the mostfruitful of Schiller's essays in its results. It has much that ispractically applicable, and contains a very able estimate of Germanpoetry. The writing is also very pointed and telling, because it isbased upon actual perceptions, and it is interesting because the contrastdrawn out throughout it between the simple and the sentimental has beenreferred to his own contrast with Goethe. He also wished to vindicatemodern poetry, which Goethe seemed to wish to sacrifice to the antique. 

The sentimental poetry is the fruit of quiet and retirement; simplepoetry the child of life. One is a favor of nature; the sentimentaldepends on itself, the simple on the world of experience. Thesentimental is in danger of extending the limits of human nature too far, of being too ideal, too mystical. Neither character exhausts the idealof humanity, but the intimate union of both. Both are founded in humannature; the contradictions lying at their basis, when cleared in thoughtfrom the poetical faculty, are realism and idealism. These also aresides of human nature, which, when unconnected, bring forth disastrousresults. Their opposition is as old as the beginning of culture, andtill its end can hardly be set aside, save in the individual. Theidealist is a nobler but a far less perfect being; the realist appearsfar less noble, but is more perfect, for the noble lies in the proof of agreat capacity, but the perfect in the general attitude of the whole andin the real facts. 

On the whole it may be said, taking a survey of these labors, that ifSchiller had developed his ideas systematically and the unity of hisintuition of the world, which were present in his feelings, and if he hadbased them scientifically, a new epoch in philosophy might have beenanticipated. For he had obtained a view of such a future field ofthought with the deep clairvoyance of his genius. 

A few words may be desirable on Schiller's religious standpoint, especially in connection with his philosophical letters. 

Schiller came up ten years later than Goethe, and concluded the cyclus ofgenius that Goethe had inaugurated. But as he was the last arrival ofthat productive period of tempestuous agitation, he retained more of itselements in his later life and poetry than any others who had passedthrough earlier agitations, such as Goethe. For Goethe cast himself freein a great measure from the early intoxication of his youthfulimagination, devoting himself partly to nobler matter and partly to purerforms. 

Schiller derived from the stormy times of his youth his direction to theideal, to the hostility against the narrow spirit of civil relations, andto all given conditions of society in general. He derived from it hisdisposition, not to let himself be moulded by matter, but to place hisown creative and determining impress on matter, not so much to graspreality poetically and represent it poetically as to cast ideas intoreality, a disposition for lively representation and strong oratoricalcoloring. All this he derived from the genial period, though later onsomewhat modified, and carried it over into his whole life and poetry;and for this very reason he is not only together with Goethe, but beforeGoethe, the favorite poet of the nation, and especially with that part ofthe nation which sympathizes with him in the choice of poetic materialand in his mode of feeling. 

Gervinus remarks that Schiller had at Weimar long fallen off fromChristianity, and occupied his mind tranquilly for a time with the viewsof Spinoza (realistic pantheism). Like Herder and Goethe, he viewed lifein its great entirety and sacrificed the individual to the species. Accordingly, through the gods of Greece, he fell out with strict, orthodox Christians. 

But Schiller had deeply religious and even Christian elements, as becamea German and a Kantian. He receives the Godhead in His will, and Hedescends from His throne, He dwells in his soul; the poet sees divinerevelations, and as a seer announces them to man. He is a moral educatorof his people, who utters the tones of life in his poetry from youthupwards. Philosophy was not disclosed to Plato in the highest and purestthought, nor is poetry to Schiller merely an artificial edifice in theharmony of speech; philosophy and poetry are to both a vibration of lovein the soul upwards to God, a liberation from the bonds of sense, apurification of man, a moral art. On this reposes the religiousconsecration of the Platonic spirit and of that of Schiller. 

Issuing from the philosophical school of Kant, and imbued with theantagonism of the age against constituted authorities, it is natural thatSchiller should be a rationalist in his religious views. It has beenjustly said of him that while Goethe's system was an apotheosis of natureSchiller's was an apotheosis of man. 

Historically he was not prepared enough to test and search the questionof evidence as applied to divine things handed down by testimony, and hisKantian coloring naturally disposed him to include all religions withinthe limits of pure reason, and to seek it rather in the subject than inanything objective. 

In conclusion, we may attempt to classify and give Schiller his place inthe progress of the world's literary history. Progress is no doubt a lawof the individual, of nations, and of the whole race. To grow inperfection, to exist in some sort at a higher degree, is the task imposedby God on man, the continuation of the very work of God, the complementof creation. But this moral growth, this need of increase, may, like allthe forces of nature, yield to a greater force; it is an impulsion ratherthan a necessity; it solicits and does not constrain. A thousandobstacles stay its development in individuals and in societies; moralliberty may retard or accelerate its effects. Progress is therefore alaw which cannot be abrogated, but which is not invariably obeyed. 

Nevertheless, in proportion to the increase of the mass of individuals, the caprices of chance and of liberty neutralize each other to allow theprovidential action that presides over our destinies to prevail. Lookingat the same total of the life of the world, humanity undoubtedlyadvances: there are in our time fewer moral miseries, fewer physicalmiseries, than were known in the past. 

Consequently art and literature, which express the different states ofsociety, must share in some degree in this progressive march. But thereare two things in literary work: on the one hand the ideas and socialmanners which it expresses, on the other the intelligence, the feeling, the imagination of the writer who becomes its interpreter. While theformer of these elements tends incessantly to a greater perfection, thelatter is subject to all the hazards of individual genius. Accordinglythe progressive literature is only in the inspiration, and so to speak inthe matter; it may and must therefore not be continuous in form. 

But more than this: in very advanced societies the very grandeur ofideas, the abundance of models, the satiety of the public render the taskof the artist more and more difficult. The artist himself has no longerthe enthusiasm of the first ages, the youth of imagination and of theheart; he is an old man whose riches have increased, but who enjoys hiswealth less. 

If all the epochs of literature are considered as a whole it will be seenthat they succeed each other in a constant order. After the period whenthe idea and the form combined in a harmonious manner comes another wherethe social idea is superabundant, and destroys the literary form of thepreceding epoch. 

The middle ages introduced spiritualism in art; before this new idea thesmiling untruths of Greek poetry fled away frightened. The classicalform so beautiful, so pure, cannot contain high Catholic thought. A newart is formed; on this side the Alps it does not reach the maturity thatproduces masterpieces. But at that time all Europe was one fatherland;Italy completes what is lacking in France and elsewhere. 

The renaissance introduces new ideas into civilization; it resuscitatesthe traditions of antique science and seeks to unite them to the truthsof Christianity. The art of the middle ages, as a vessel of too limitedcapacity, is broken by the new flood poured into it. These differentideas are stirred up and in conflict in the sixteenth century; theybecame co-ordinate and attain to an admirable expression in the followingage. 

In the eighteenth century there is a new invasion of ideas; all isexamined and questioned; religion, government, society, all becomes amatter of discussion for the school called philosophical. Poetryappeared dying out, history drying up, till a truer spirit was breathedinto the literary atmosphere by the criticism of Lessing, the philosophyof Kant, and the poetry of Klopstock. It was at this transition periodthat Schiller appeared, retaining throughout his literary career much ofthe revolutionary and convulsive spirit of his early days, and faithfullyreflecting much of the dominant German philosophy of his time. 

Part of the nineteenth century seems to take in hand the task ofreconstructing the moral edifice and of giving back to thought a largerform. The literary result of its effects is the renaissance of lyricalpoetry with an admirable development in history. 

Schiller's most brilliant works were in the former walk, his historieshave inferior merit, and his philosophical writings bespeak a deepthinking nature with great originality of conception, such as naturallyresults from a combination of high poetic inspiration with muchintellectual power. 

Schiller, like all great men of genius, was a representative man of hiscountry and of his age. A German, a Protestant free-thinker, aworshipper of the classical, he was the expression of these aspects ofnational and general thought. 

The religious reformation was the work of the North. The instinct ofraces came in it to complicate the questions of dogmas. The awakening ofindividual nationalities was one of the characters of the epoch. 

The nations compressed in the severe unity of the Middle Ages escaped inthe Reformation from the uniform mould that had long enveloped them, andtended to that other unity, still very distant, which must spring fromthe spontaneous view of the same truth by all men, result from the freeand original development of each nation, and, as in a vast concert, uniteharmonious dissonances. Europe, without being conscious of its aim, seized greedily at the means--insurrection; the only thought was tooverthrow, without yet thinking of a reconstruction. The sixteenthcentury was the vanguard of the eighteenth. At all times the North hadfretted under the antipathetic yoke of the South. Under the Romans, Germany, though frequently conquered, had never been subdued. She hadinvaded the Empire and determined its fall. In the Middle Ages thestruggle had continued; not only instincts, but ideas, were in conflict;force and spirit, violence and polity, feudalism and the Catholichierarchy, hereditary and elective forms, represented the opposition oftwo races. In the sixteenth century the schism long anticipated tookplace. The Catholic dogma had hitherto triumphed over all outbreaks--over Arnaldo of Brescia, the Waldenses, and Wickliffe. But Lutherappeared, and the work was accomplished: Catholic unity was broken. 

And this breaking with authority went on fermenting in the nations tillits last great outburst at the French Revolution; and Schiller was bornat this convulsive period, and bears strong traces of his parentage inhis anti-dogmatic spirit. 

Yet there is another side to Germanism which is prone to the ideal andthe mystical, and bears still the trace of those lovely legends ofmediaeval growth to which we have adverted. For Christianity was not aforeign and antagonistic importation in Germany; rather, the Germancharacter obtained its completeness through Christianity. The Germanfound himself again in the Church of Christ, only raised, transfigured, and sanctified. The apostolic representation of the Church as the brideof Christ has found its fullest and truest correspondence in that ofGermany. Hence when the German spirit was thoroughly espoused to theChristian spirit, we find that character of love, tenderness, and depthso characteristic of the early classics of German poetry, and reappearingin glorious afterglow in the second classics, in Klopstock, Herder, and, above all, Schiller. 

It is this special instinct for the ideal and mystical in German naturethat has enabled spirits born of negation and revolution, like Schiller, to unite with those elements the most genial and creative inspirations ofpoetry. 

VOCABULARY OF TERMINOLOGY. 

Absolute, The. A conception, or, more strictly, in Kantian language, anidea of the pure reason, embracing the fundamental and necessary yet freeground of all things. 

Antinomy. The conflict of the laws of pure reason; as in the question offree will and necessity. 

Autonomy (autonomous). Governing itself by the spontaneous action offree will. 

Aesthetics. The science of beauty; as ethics of duty. 

Cognition (knowledge; Germanice, "Erkenntniss") is either an intuition ora conception. The former has an immediate relation to the object, and issingular and individual; the latter has but a mediate relation, by meansof a characteristic mark, which may be common to several things. 

Cognition is an objective perception. 

Conception. A conception is either empirical or pure. A pureconception, in so far as it has its origin in the understanding alone, and is not the conception of a pure sensuous image, is called notio. 

Conceptions are distinguished on the one hand from sensation andperception, and on the other hand from the intuitions of pure reason orideas. They are distinctly the product of thought and of theunderstanding, except when quite free from empirical elements. 

Feeling (Gefuehl). That part of our nature which relates to passion andinstinct. Feelings are connected both with our sensuous nature, ourimagination, and the pure reason. 

Form. See Matter. 

Ideas. The product of the pure reason (Vernunft) or intuitive faculty. Wherever the absolute is introduced in thought we have ideas. Perfectionin all its aspects is an idea, virtue and wisdom in their perfect purityand ideas. Kant remarks ("Critique of Pure Reason, " Meiklejohn'stranslation, p. 256): "It is from the understanding alone that pure andtranscendental conceptions take their origin; the reason does notproperly give birth to any conception, but only frees the conception ofthe understanding from the unavoidable limitation of possible experience. A conception formed from notions which transcend the possibility ofexperience is an idea or a conception of reason. "

Intuition (Anschauung) as used by Kant, is external or internal. External, sensuous intuition is identical with perception; internalintuition gives birth to ideas. 

Matter and Form. "These two conceptions are at the foundation of allother reflection, being inseparably connected with every mode ofexercising the understanding. By the former is implied that which can bedetermined in general; the second implies its determination, both in atranscendental sense, abstraction being made of any difference in thatwhich is given, and of the mode in which it is determined. That which inthe phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but thatwhich effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged undercertain relations, I call its form. "--Kant, "Critique, " op. Cit. 

Objective. What is inherent or relative to an object, or not Myself, except in the case when I reflect on myself, in which case my states ofmind are objective to my thoughts. In a popular sense objective meansexternal, as contrasted with the subjective or internal. 

Perception, if it relates only to the subject as a modification of itsstate, is a sensation. An objective perception is a cognition(Erkenntniss). 

Phenomena (Erscheinnngen). The undetermined object of an empiricalintuition is called phenomenon. 

Reason (pure; Germanice, "Vernunft"). The source of ideas of moralfeelings and of conceptions free from all elements taken up fromexperience. 

Representation (Vorstellung). All the products of the mind are styledrepresentations (except emotions and mere sensations) and the term isapplied to the whole genus. 

Representation with consciousness is perceptio. 

Sensation. The capacity of receiving representations through the mode inwhich we are affected by objects is called sensibility. By means ofsensibility objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes withintentions meaning sensuous intuitions. By the understanding they arethought, and from it arise conceptions. 

Subjective. What has its source in and relation to the personality, toMyself, I, or the Ego; opposed to the objective, or what is inherent inand relative to the object. Not myself, except in the case when mystates of mind are the object of my own reflection. 

Supersensuous. Contrasted with and opposed to the sensuous. What isexclusively related to sense or imparted through the sensuous ideas issupersensuous. See Transcendental. 

Transcendental. What exceeds the limits of sense and empiricalobservation. "I apply the term transcendental to all knowledge which isnot so much occupied with objects as with the mode of our cognition ofthese objects, so far as this mode of cognition is possible a priori. "Kant's "Critique, " op. Cit. P. 16. 

Understanding (Verstand). The thought of faculty, the source ofconceptions and notions (Begriffe) of the laws of logic, the categories, and judgment. 

LETTERS ON THE AESTHETICAL EDUCATION OF MAN. 

LETTER I. 

By your permission I lay before you, in a series of letters, the resultsof my researches upon beauty and art. I am keenly sensible of theimportance as well as of the charm and dignity of this undertaking. Ishall treat a subject which is closely connected with the better portionof our happiness and not far removed from the moral nobility of humannature. I shall plead this cause of the beautiful before a heart bywhich her whole power is felt and exercised, and which will take uponitself the most difficult part of my task in an investigation where oneis compelled to appeal as frequently to feelings as to principles. 

That which I would beg of you as a favor, you generously impose upon meas a duty; and, when I solely consult my inclination, you impute to me aservice. The liberty of action you prescribe is rather a necessity forme than a constraint. Little exercised in formal rules, I shall scarcelyincur the risk of sinning against good taste by any undue use of them; myideas, drawn rather from within than from reading or from an intimateexperience with the world, will not disown their origin; they wouldrather incur any reproach than that of a sectarian bias, and would preferto succumb by their innate feebleness than sustain themselves by borrowedauthority and foreign support. 

In truth, I will not keep back from you that the assertions which followrest chiefly upon Kantian principles; but if in the course of theseresearches you should be reminded of any special school of philosophy, ascribe it to my incapacity, not to those principles. No; your libertyof mind shall be sacred to me; and the facts upon which I build will befurnished by your own sentiments; your own unfettered thought willdictate the laws according to which we have to proceed. 

With regard to the ideas which predominate in the practical part ofKant's system, philosophers only disagree, whilst mankind, I am confidentof proving, have never done so. If stripped of their technical shape, they will appear as the verdict of reason pronounced from time immemorialby common consent, and as facts of the moral instinct which nature, inher wisdom, has given to man in order to serve as guide and teacher untilhis enlightened intelligence gives him maturity. But this very technicalshape which renders truth visible to the understanding conceals it fromthe feelings; for, unhappily, understanding begins by destroying theobject of the inner sense before it can appropriate the object. Like thechemist, the philosopher finds synthesis only by analysis, or thespontaneous work of nature only through the torture of art. Thus, inorder to detain the fleeting apparition, he must enchain it in thefetters of rule, dissect its fair proportions into abstract notions, andpreserve its living spirit in a fleshless skeleton of words. Is itsurprising that natural feeling should not recognize itself in such acopy, and if in the report of the analyst the truth appears as paradox?

Permit me therefore to crave your indulgence if the following researchesshould remove their object from the sphere of sense while endeavoring todraw it towards the understanding. That which I before said of moralexperience can be applied with greater truth to the manifestation of "thebeautiful. " It is the mystery which enchants, and its being isextinguished with the extinction of the necessary combination of itselements. 

LETTER II. 

But I might perhaps make a better use of the opening you afford me if Iwere to direct your mind to a loftier theme than that of art. It wouldappear to be unseasonable to go in search of a code for the aestheticworld, when the moral world offers matter of so much higher interest, andwhen the spirit of philosophical inquiry is so stringently challenged bythe circumstances of our times to occupy itself with the most perfect ofall works of art--the establishment and structure of a true politicalfreedom. 

It is unsatisfactory to live out of your own age and to work for othertimes. It is equally incumbent on us to be good members of our own ageas of our own state or country. If it is conceived to be unseemly andeven unlawful for a man to segregate himself from the customs and mannersof the circle in which he lives, it would be inconsistent not to see thatit is equally his duty to grant a proper share of influence to the voiceof his own epoch, to its taste and its requirements, in the operations inwhich he engages. 

But the voice of our age seems by no means favorable to art, at allevents to that kind of art to which my inquiry is directed. The courseof events has given a direction to the genius of the time that threatensto remove it continually further from the ideal of art. For art has toleave reality, it has to raise itself boldly above necessity andneediness; for art is the daughter of freedom, and it requires itsprescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity of spirits andnot by that of matter. But in our day it is necessity, neediness, thatprevails, and lends a degraded humanity under its iron yoke. Utility isthe great idol of the time, to which all powers do homage and allsubjects are subservient. In this great balance on utility, thespiritual service of art has no weight, and, deprived of allencouragement, it vanishes from the noisy Vanity Fair of our time. Thevery spirit of philosophical inquiry itself robs the imagination of onepromise after another, and the frontiers of art are narrowed inproportion as the limits of science are enlarged. 

The eyes of the philosopher as well as of the man of the world areanxiously turned to the theatre of political events, where it is presumedthe great destiny of man is to be played out. It would almost seem tobetray a culpable indifference to the welfare of society if we did notshare this general interest. For this great commerce in social and moralprinciples is of necessity a matter of the greatest concern to everyhuman being, on the ground both of its subject and of its results. Itmust accordingly be of deepest moment to every man to think for himself. It would seem that now at length a question that formerly was onlysettled by the law of the stronger is to be determined by the calmjudgment of the reason, and every man who is capable of placing himselfin a central position, and raising his individuality into that of hisspecies, can look upon himself as in possession of this judicial facultyof reason; being moreover, as man and member of the human family, a partyin the case under trial and involved more or less in its decisions. Itwould thus appear that this great political process is not only engagedwith his individual case, it has also to pronounce enactments, which heas a rational spirit is capable of enunciating and entitled to pronounce. 

It is evident that it would have been most attractive to me to inquireinto an object such as this, to decide such a question in conjunctionwith a thinker of powerful mind, a man of liberal sympathies, and a heartimbued with a noble enthusiasm for the weal of humanity. Though sowidely separated by worldly position, it would have been a delightfulsurprise to have found your unprejudiced mind arriving at the same resultas my own in the field of ideas. Nevertheless, I think I can not onlyexcuse, but even justify by solid grounds, my step in resisting thisattractive purpose and in preferring beauty to freedom. I hope that Ishall succeed in convincing you that this matter of art is less foreignto the needs than to the tastes of our age; nay, that, to arrive at asolution even in the political problem, the road of aesthetics must bepursued, because it is through beauty that we arrive at freedom. But Icannot carry out this proof without my bringing to your remembrance theprinciples by which the reason is guided in political legislation. 

LETTER III. 

Man is not better treated by nature in his first start than her otherworks are; so long as he is unable to act for himself as an independentintelligence she acts for him. But the very fact that constitutes him aman is that he does not remain stationary, where nature has placed him, that he can pass with his reason, retracing the steps nature had made himanticipate, that he can convert the work of necessity into one of freesolution, and elevate physical necessity into a moral law. 

When man is raised from his slumber in the senses he feels that he is aman; he surveys his surroundings and finds that he is in a state. He wasintroduced into this state by the power of circumstances, before he couldfreely select his own position. But as a moral being he cannot possiblyrest satisfied with a political condition forced upon him by necessity, and only calculated for that condition; and it would be unfortunate ifthis did satisfy him. In many cases man shakes off this blind law ofnecessity, by his free spontaneous action, of which among many others wehave an instance, in his ennobling by beauty and suppressing by moralinfluence the powerful impulse implanted in him by nature in the passionof love. Thus, when arrived at maturity, he recovers his childhood by anartificial process, he founds a state of nature in his ideas, not givenhim by any experience, but established by the necessary laws andconditions of his reason, and he attributes to this ideal condition anobject, an aim, of which he was not cognizant in the actual reality ofnature. He gives himself a choice of which he was not capable before, and sets to work just as if he were beginning anew, and were exchanginghis original state of bondage for one of complete independence, doingthis with complete insight and of his free decision. He is justified inregarding this work of political thraldom as non-existing, though a wildand arbitrary caprice may have founded its work very artfully; though itmay strive to maintain it with great arrogance and encompass it with ahalo of veneration. For the work of blind powers possesses no authoritybefore which freedom need bow, and all must be made to adapt itself tothe highest end which reason has set up in his personality. It is inthis wise that a people in a state of manhood is justified in exchanginga condition of thraldom for one of moral freedom. 

Now the term natural condition can be applied to every political bodywhich owes its establishment originally to forces and not to laws, andsuch a state contradicts the moral nature of man, because lawfulness canalone have authority over this. At the same time this natural conditionis quite sufficient for the physical man, who only gives himself laws inorder to get rid of brute force. Moreover, the physical man is areality, and the moral man problematical. Therefore when the reasonsuppresses the natural condition, as she must if she wishes to substituteher own, she weighs the real physical man against the problematical moralman, she weighs the existence of society against a possible, thoughmorally necessary, ideal of society. She takes from man something whichhe really possesses, and without which he possesses nothing, and refershim as a substitute to something that he ought to possess and mightpossess; and if reason had relied too exclusively on him she might, inorder to secure him a state of humanity in which he is wanting and canwant without injury to his life, have robbed him even of the means ofanimal existence, which is the first necessary condition of his being aman. Before he had opportunity to hold firm to the law with his will, reason would have withdrawn from his feet the ladder of nature. 

The great point is, therefore, to reconcile these two considerations, toprevent physical society from ceasing for a moment in time, while themoral society is being formed in the idea; in other words, to prevent itsexistence from being placed in jeopardy for the sake of the moral dignityof man. When the mechanic has to mend a watch he lets the wheels runout; but the living watchworks of the state have to be repaired whilethey act, and a wheel has to be exchanged for another during itsrevolutions. Accordingly props must be sought for to support society andkeep it going while it is made independent of the natural condition fromwhich it is sought to emancipate it. 

This prop is not found in the natural character of man, who, beingselfish and violent, directs his energies rather to the destruction thanto the preservation of society. Nor is it found in his moral character, which has to be formed, which can never be worked upon or calculated onby the lawgiver, because it is free and never appears. It would seem, therefore, that another measure must be adopted. It would seem that thephysical character of the arbitrary must be separated from moral freedom;that it is incumbent to make the former harmonize with the laws and thelatter dependent on impressions; it would be expedient to remove theformer still farther from matter and to bring the latter somewhat morenear to it; in short, to produce a third character related to both theothers--the physical and the moral--paving the way to a transition fromthe sway of mere force to that of law, without preventing the properdevelopment of the moral character, but serving rather as a pledge in thesensuous sphere of a morality in the unseen. 

LETTER IV. 

Thus much is certain. It is only when a third character, as previouslysuggested, has preponderance that a revolution in a state according tomoral principles can be free from injurious consequences; nor cananything else secure its endurance. In proposing or setting up a moralstate, the moral law is relied upon as a real power, and free-will isdrawn into the realm of causes, where all hangs together mutually withstringent necessity and rigidity. But we know that the condition of thehuman will always remains contingent, and that only in the Absolute Beingphysical coexists with moral necessity. Accordingly, if it is wished todepend on the moral conduct of man as on natural results, this conductmust become nature, and he must be led by natural impulse to such acourse of action as can only and invariably have moral results. But thewill of man is perfectly free between inclination and duty, and nophysical necessity ought to enter as a sharer in this magisterialpersonality. If, therefore, he is to retain this power of solution, andyet become a reliable link in the causal concatenation of forces, thiscan only be effected when the operations of both these impulses arepresented quite equally in the world of appearances. It is only possiblewhen, with every difference of form, the matter of man's volition remainsthe same, when all his impulses agreeing with his reason are sufficientto have the value of a universal legislation. 

It may be urged that every individual man carries within himself, atleast in his adaptation and destination, a purely ideal man. The greatproblem of his existence is to bring all the incessant changes of hisouter life into conformity with the unchanging unity of this ideal. Thispure ideal man, which makes itself known more or less clearly in everysubject, is represented by the state, which is the objective, and, so tospeak, canonical form in which the manifold differences of the subjectsstrive to unite. Now two ways present themselves to the thought in whichthe man of time can agree with the man of idea, and there are also twoways in which the state can maintain itself in individuals. One of theseways is when the pure ideal man subdues the empirical man, and the statesuppresses the individual, or again when the individual becomes thestate, and the man of time is ennobled to the man of idea. 

I admit that in a one-sided estimate from the point of view of moralitythis difference vanishes, for the reason is satisfied if her law prevailsunconditionally. But when the survey taken is complete and embraces thewhole man (anthropology), where the form is considered together with thesubstance, and a living feeling has a voice, the difference will becomefar more evident. No doubt the reason demands unity, and nature variety, and both legislations take man in hand. The law of the former is stampedupon him by an incorruptible consciousness, that of the latter by anineradicable feeling. Consequently education will always appeardeficient when the moral feeling can only be maintained with thesacrifice of what is natural; and a political administration will alwaysbe very imperfect when it is only able to bring about unity bysuppressing variety. The state ought not only to respect the objectiveand generic, but also the subjective and specific in individuals; andwhile diffusing the unseen world of morals, it must not depopulate thekingdom of appearance, the external world of matter. 

When the mechanical artist places his hand on the formless block, to giveit a form according to his intention, he has not any scruples in doingviolence to it. For the nature on which he works does not deserve anyrespect in itself, and he does not value the whole for its parts, but theparts on account of the whole. When the child of the fine arts sets hishand to the same block, he has no scruples either in doing violence toit, he only avoids showing this violence. He does not respect the matterin which he works any more than the mechanical artist; but he seeks by anapparent consideration for it to deceive the eye which takes this matterunder its protection. The political and educating artist follows a verydifferent course, while making man at once his material and his end. Inthis case the aim or end meets in the material, and it is only becausethe whole serves the parts that the parts adapt themselves to the end. The political artist has to treat his material--man--with a verydifferent kind of respect than that shown by the artist of fine art tohis work. He must spare man's peculiarity and personality, not toproduce a defective effect on the senses, but objectively and out ofconsideration for his inner being. 

But the state is an organization which fashions itself through itself andfor itself, and for this reason it can only be realized when the partshave been accorded to the idea of the whole. The state serves thepurpose of a representative, both to pure ideal and to objectivehumanity, in the breast of its citizens, accordingly it will have toobserve the same relation to its citizens in which they are placed to it;and it will only respect their subjective humanity in the same degreethat it is ennobled to an objective existence. If the internal man isone with himself he will be able to rescue his peculiarity, even in thegreatest generalization of his conduct, and the state will only becomethe exponent of his fine instinct, the clearer formula of his internallegislation. But if the subjective man is in conflict with theobjective, and contradicts him in the character of a people, so that onlythe oppression of the former can give victory to the latter, then thestate will take up the severe aspect of the law against the citizen, andin order not to fall a sacrifice, it will have to crush under foot such ahostile individuality without any compromise. 

Now man can be opposed to himself in a twofold manner; either as asavage, when his feelings rule over his principles; or as a barbarian, when his principles destroy his feelings. The savage despises art, andacknowledges nature as his despotic ruler; the barbarian laughs atnature, and dishonors it, but he often proceeds in a more contemptibleway than the savage to be the slave of his senses. The cultivated manmakes of nature his friend, and honors its friendship, while onlybridling its caprice. 

Consequently, when reason brings her moral unity into physical society, she must not injure the manifold in nature. When nature strives tomaintain her manifold character in the moral structure of society, thismust not create any breach in moral unity; the victorious form is equallyremote from uniformity and confusion. Therefore, totality of charactermust be found in the people which is capable and worthy to exchange thestate of necessity for that of freedom. 

LETTER V. 

Does the present age, do passing events, present this character? Idirect my attention at once to the most prominent object in this vaststructure. 

It is true that the consideration of opinion is fallen; caprice isunnerved, and, although still armed with power, receives no longer anyrespect. Man has awakened from his long lethargy and self-deception, andhe demands with impressive unanimity to be restored to his imperishablerights. But he does not only demand them; he rises on all sides to seizeby force what, in his opinion, has been unjustly wrested from him. Theedifice of the natural state is tottering, its foundations shake, and aphysical possibility seems at length granted to place law on the throne, to honor man at length as an end, and to make true freedom the basis ofpolitical union. Vain hope! The moral possibility is wanting, and thegenerous occasion finds an unsusceptible rule. 

Man paints himself in his actions, and what is the form depicted in thedrama of the present time? On the one hand, he is seen running wild, onthe other, in a state of lethargy; the two extremest stages of humandegeneracy, and both seen in one and the same period. 

In the lower larger masses, coarse, lawless impulses come to view, breaking loose when the bonds of civil order are burst asunder, andhastening with unbridled fury to satisfy their savage instinct. Objective humanity may have had cause to complain of the state; yetsubjective man must honor its institutions. Ought he to be blamedbecause he lost sight of the dignity of human nature, so long as he wasconcerned in preserving his existence? Can we blame him that heproceeded to separate by the force of gravity, to fasten by the force ofcohesion, at a time when there could be no thought of building or raisingup? The extinction of the state contains its justification. Society setfree, instead of hastening upward into organic life, collapses into itselements. 

On the other hand, the civilized classes give us the still more repulsivesight of lethargy, and of a depravity of character which is the morerevolting because it roots in culture. I forget who of the older or morerecent philosophers makes the remark, that what is more noble is the morerevolting in its destruction. The remark applies with truth to the worldof morals. The child of nature, when he breaks loose, becomes a madman;but the art scholar, when he breaks loose, becomes a debased character. The enlightenment of the understanding, on which the more refined classespride themselves with some ground, shows on the whole so little of anennobling influence on the mind that it seems rather to confirmcorruption by its maxims. We deny nature on her legitimate field andfeel her tyranny in the moral sphere, and while resisting herimpressions, we receive our principles from her. While the affecteddecency of our manners does not even grant to nature a pardonableinfluence in the initial stage, our materialistic system of morals allowsher the casting vote in the last and essential stage. Egotism hasfounded its system in the very bosom of a refined society, and withoutdeveloping even a sociable character, we feel all the contagions andmiseries of society. We subject our free judgment to its despoticopinions, our feelings to its bizarre customs, and our will to itsseductions. We only maintain our caprice against her holy rights. Theman of the world has his heart contracted by a proud self-complacency, while that of the man of nature often beats in sympathy; and every manseeks for nothing more than to save his wretched property from thegeneral destruction, as it were from some great conflagration. It isconceived that the only way to find a shelter against the aberrations ofsentiment is by completely foregoing its indulgence, and mockery, whichis often a useful chastener of mysticism, slanders in the same breath thenoblest aspirations. Culture, far from giving us freedom, only develops, as it advances, new necessities; the fetters of the physical close moretightly around us, so that the fear of loss quenches even the ardentimpulse toward improvement, and the maxims of passive obedience are heldto be the highest wisdom of life. Thus the spirit of the time is seen towaver between perversion and savagism, between what is unnatural and merenature, between superstition and moral unbelief, and it is often nothingbut the equilibrium of evils that sets bounds to it. 

LETTER VI. 

Have I gone too far in this portraiture of our times? I do notanticipate this stricture, but rather another--that I have proved toomuch by it. You will tell me that the picture I have presented resemblesthe humanity of our day, but it also bodies forth all nations engaged inthe same degree of culture, because all, without exception, have fallenoff from nature by the abuse of reason, before they can return to itthrough reason. 

But if we bestow some serious attention to the character of our times, weshall be astonished at the contrast between the present and the previousform of humanity, especially that of Greece. We are justified inclaiming the reputation of culture and refinement, when contrasted with apurely natural state of society, but not so comparing ourselves with theGrecian nature. For the latter was combined with all the charms of artand with all the dignity of wisdom, without, however, as with us, becoming a victim to these influences. The Greeks have put us to shamenot only by their simplicity, which is foreign to our age; they are atthe same time our rivals, nay, frequently our models, in those verypoints of superiority from which we seek comfort when regretting theunnatural character of our manners. We see that remarkable peopleuniting at once fulness of form and fulness of substance, bothphilosophizing and creating, both tender and energetic, uniting ayouthful fancy to the virility of reason in a glorious humanity. 

At the period of Greek culture, which was an awakening of the powers ofthe mind, the senses and the spirit had no distinctly separated property;no division had yet torn them asunder, leading them to partition in ahostile attitude, and to mark off their limits with precision. Poetryhad not as yet become the adversary of wit, nor had speculation abuseditself by passing into quibbling. In cases of necessity both poetry andwit could exchange parts, because they both honored truth only in theirspecial way. However high might be the flight of reason, it drew matterin a loving spirit after it, and while sharply and stiffly defining it, never mutilated what it touched. It is true the Greek mind displacedhumanity, and recast it on a magnified scale in the glorious circle ofits gods; but it did this not by dissecting human nature, but by givingit fresh combinations, for the whole of human nature was represented ineach of the gods. How different is the course followed by us moderns!We also displace and magnify individuals to form the image of thespecies, but we do this in a fragmentary way, not by alteredcombinations, so that it is necessary to gather up from differentindividuals the elements that form the species in its totality. It wouldalmost appear as if the powers of mind express themselves with us in reallife or empirically as separately as the psychologist distinguishes themin the representation. For we see not only individual subjects, butwhole classes of men, uphold their capacities only in part, while therest of their faculties scarcely show a germ of activity, as in the caseof the stunted growth of plants. 

I do not overlook the advantages to which the present race, regarded as aunity and in the balance of the understanding, may lay claim over what isbest in the ancient world; but it is obliged to engage in the contest asa compact mass, and measure itself as a whole against a whole. Who amongthe moderns could step forth, man against man, and strive with anAthenian for the prize of higher humanity. 

Whence comes this disadvantageous relation of individuals coupled withgreat advantages of the race? Why could the individual Greek bequalified as the type of his time; and why can no modern dare to offerhimself as such? Because all-uniting nature imparted its forms to theGreek, and an all-dividing understanding gives our forms to us. 

It was culture itself that gave these wounds to modern humanity. Theinner union of human nature was broken, and a destructive contest dividedits harmonious forces directly; on the one hand, an enlarged experienceand a more distinct thinking necessitated a sharper separation of thesciences, while, on the other hand, the more complicated machinery ofstates necessitated a stricter sundering of ranks and occupations. Intuitive and speculative understanding took up a hostile attitude inopposite fields, whose borders were guarded with jealousy and distrust;and by limiting its operation to a narrow sphere, men have made untothemselves a master who is wont not unfrequently to end by subduing andoppressing all the other faculties. Whilst on the one hand a luxuriantimagination creates ravages in the plantations that have cost theintelligence so much labor; on the other hand, a spirit of abstractionsuffocates the fire that might have warmed the heart and inflamed theimagination. 

This subversion, commenced by art and learning in the inner man, wascarried out to fulness and finished by the spirit of innovation ingovernment. It was, no doubt, reasonable to expect that the simpleorganization of the primitive republics should survive the quaintness ofprimitive manners and of the relations of antiquity. But, instead ofrising to a higher and nobler degree of animal life, this organizationdegenerated into a common and coarse mechanism. The zoophyte conditionof the Grecian states, where each individual enjoyed an independent life, and could, in cases of necessity, become a separate whole and unit inhimself, gave way to an ingenious mechanism, when, from the splitting upinto numberless parts, there results a mechanical life in thecombination. Then there was a rupture between the state and the church, between laws and customs; enjoyment was separated from labor, the meansfrom the end, the effort from the reward. Man himself, eternally chaineddown to a little fragment of the whole, only forms a kind of fragment;having nothing in his ears but the monotonous sound of the perpetuallyrevolving wheel, he never develops the harmony of his being, and insteadof imprinting the seal of humanity on his being, he ends by being nothingmore than the living impress of the craft to which he devotes himself, ofthe science that he cultivates. This very partial and paltry relation, linking the isolated members to the whole, does not depend on forms thatare given spontaneously; for how could a complicated machine, which shunsthe light, confide itself to the free will of man? This relation israther dictated, with a rigorous strictness, by a formulary in which thefree intelligence of man is chained down. The dead letter takes theplace of a living meaning, and a practised memory becomes a safer guidethan genius and feeling. 

If the community or state measures man by his function, only asking ofits citizens memory, or the intelligence of a craftsman, or mechanicalskill, we cannot be surprised that the other faculties of the mind areneglected for the exclusive culture of the one that brings in honor andprofit. Such is the necessary result of an organization that isindifferent about character, only looking to acquirements, whilst inother cases it tolerates the thickest darkness, to favor a spirit of lawand order; it must result if it wishes that individuals in the exerciseof special aptitudes should gain in depth what they are permitted to losein extension. We are aware, no doubt, that a powerful genius does notshut up its activity within the limits of its functions; but mediocretalents consume in the craft fallen to their lot the whole of theirfeeble energy; and if some of their energy is reserved for matters ofpreference, without prejudice to its functions, such a state of things atonce bespeaks a spirit soaring above the vulgar. Moreover, it is rarelya recommendation in the eye of a state to have a capacity superior toyour employment, or one of those noble intellectual cravings of a man oftalent which contend in rivalry with the duties of office. The state isso jealous of the exclusive possession of its servants that it wouldprefer--nor can it be blamed in this--for functionaries to show theirpowers with the Venus of Cytherea rather than the Uranian Venus. 

It is thus that concrete individual life is extinguished, in order thatthe abstract whole may continue its miserable life, and the state remainsforever a stranger to its citizens, because feeling does not discover itanywhere. The governing authorities find themselves compelled toclassify, and thereby simplify the multiplicity of citizens, and only toknow humanity in a representative form and at second-hand. Accordinglythey end by entirely losing sight of humanity, and by confounding it witha simple artificial creation of the understanding, whilst on their partthe subject-classes cannot help receiving coldly laws that addressthemselves so little to their personality. At length, society, weary ofhaving a burden that the state takes so little trouble to lighten, fallsto pieces and is broken up--a destiny that has long since attended mostEuropean states. They are dissolved in what may be called a state ofmoral nature, in which public authority is only one function more, hatedand deceived by those who think it necessary, respected only by those whocan do without it. 

Thus compressed between two forces, within and without, could humanityfollow any other course than that which it has taken? The speculativemind, pursuing imprescriptible goods and rights in the sphere of ideas, must needs have become a stranger to the world of sense, and lose sightof matter for the sake of form. On its part, the world of publicaffairs, shut up in a monotonous circle of objects, and even thererestricted by formulas, was led to lose sight of the life and liberty ofthe whole, while becoming impoverished at the same time in its ownsphere. Just as the speculative mind was tempted to model the real afterthe intelligible, and to raise the subjective laws of its imaginationinto laws constituting the existence of things, so the state spiritrushed into the opposite extreme, wished to make a particular andfragmentary experience the measure of all observation, and to applywithout exception to all affairs the rules of its own particular craft. The speculative mind had necessarily to become the prey of a vainsubtlety, the state spirit of a narrow pedantry; for the former wasplaced too high to see the individual, and the latter too low to surveythe whole. But the disadvantage of this direction of mind was notconfined to knowledge and mental production; it extended to action andfeeling. We know that the sensibility of the mind depends, as to degree, on the liveliness, and for extent on the richness of the imagination. Now the predominance of the faculty of analysis must necessarily deprivethe imagination of its warmth and energy, and a restricted sphere ofobjects must diminish its wealth. It is for this reason that theabstract thinker has very often a cold heart, because he analyzesimpressions, which only move the mind by their combination or totality;on the other hand, the man of business, the statesman, has very often anarrow heart, because, shut up in the narrow circle of his employment, his imagination can neither expand nor adapt itself to another manner ofviewing things. 

My subject has led me naturally to place in relief the distressingtendency of the character of our own times and to show the sources of theevil, without its being my province to point out the compensationsoffered by nature. I will readily admit to you that, although thissplitting up of their being was unfavorable for individuals, it was theonly open road for the progress of the race. The point at which we seehumanity arrived among the Greeks was undoubtedly a maximum; it couldneither stop there nor rise higher. It could not stop there, for the sumof notions acquired forced infallibly the intelligence to break withfeeling and intuition, and to lead to clearness of knowledge. Nor couldit rise any higher; for it is only in a determinate measure thatclearness can be reconciled with a certain degree of abundance and ofwarmth. The Greeks had attained this measure, and to continue theirprogress in culture, they, as we, were obliged to renounce the totalityof their being, and to follow different and separate roads in order toseek after truth. 

There was no other way to develop the manifold aptitudes of man than tobring them in opposition with one another. This antagonism of forces isthe great instrument of culture, but it is only an instrument: for aslong as this antagonism lasts man is only on the road to culture. It isonly because these special forces are isolated in man, and because theytake on themselves to impose all exclusive legislation, that they enterinto strife with the truth of things, and oblige common sense, whichgenerally adheres imperturbably to external phenomena, to dive into theessence of things. While pure understanding usurps authority in theworld of sense, and empiricism attempts to subject this intellect to theconditions of experience, these two rival directions arrive at thehighest possible development, and exhaust the whole extent of theirsphere. While, on the one hand, imagination, by its tyranny, ventures todestroy the order of the world, it forces reason, on the other side, torise up to the supreme sources of knowledge, and to invoke against thispredominance of fancy the help of the law of necessity. 

By an exclusive spirit in the case of his faculties, the individual isfatally led to error; but the species is led to truth. It is only bygathering up all the energy of our mind in a single focus, andconcentrating a single force in our being, that we give in some sortwings to this isolated force, and that we draw it on artificially farbeyond the limits that nature seems to have imposed upon it. If it becertain that all human individuals taken together would never havearrived, with the visual power given them by nature, to see a satelliteof Jupiter, discovered by the telescope of the astronomer, it is just aswell established that never would the human understanding have producedthe analysis of the infinite, or the critique of pure reason, if inparticular branches, destined for this mission, reason had not applieditself to special researches, and it, after having, as it were, freeditself from all matter, it had not, by the most powerful abstractiongiven to the spiritual eye of man the force necessary, in order to lookinto the absolute. But the question is, if a spirit thus absorbed inpure reason and intuition will be able to emancipate itself from therigorous fetters of logic, to take the free action of poetry, and seizethe individuality of things with a faithful and chaste sense? Herenature imposes even on the most universal genius a limit it cannot pass, and truth will make martyrs as long as philosophy will be reduced to makeits principal occupation the search for arms against errors. 

But whatever may be the final profit for the totality of the world, ofthis distinct and special perfecting of the human faculties, it cannot bedenied that this final aim of the universe, which devotes them to thiskind of culture, is a cause of suffering, and a kind of malediction forindividuals. I admit that the exercises of the gymnasium form athleticbodies; but beauty is only developed by the free and equal play of thelimbs. In the same way the tension of the isolated spiritual forces maymake extraordinary men; but it is only the well-tempered equilibrium ofthese forces that can produce happy and accomplished men. And in whatrelation should we be placed with past and future ages if the perfectingof human nature made such a sacrifice indispensable? In that case weshould have been the slaves of humanity, we should have consumed ourforces in servile work for it during some thousands of years, and weshould have stamped on our humiliated, mutilated nature the shamefulbrand of this slavery--all this in order that future generations, in ahappy leisure, might consecrate themselves to the cure of their moralhealth, and develop the whole of human nature by their free culture. 

But can it be true that man has to neglect himself for any end whatever?Can nature snatch from us, for any end whatever, the perfection which isprescribed to us by the aim of reason? It must be false that theperfecting of particular faculties renders the sacrifice of theirtotality necessary; and even if the law of nature had imperiously thistendency, we must have the power to reform by a superior art thistotality of our being, which art has destroyed. 

LETTER VII. 

Can this effect of harmony be attained by the state? That is notpossible, for the state, as at present constituted, has given occasion toevil, and the state as conceived in the idea, instead of being able toestablish this more perfect humanity, ought to be based upon it. Thusthe researches in which I have indulged would have brought me back to thesame point from which they had called me off for a time. The presentage, far from offering us this form of humanity, which we haveacknowledged as a necessary condition of an improvement of the state, shows us rather the diametrically opposite form. If, therefore, theprinciples I have laid down are correct, and if experience confirms thepicture I have traced of the present time, it would be necessary toqualify as unseasonable every attempt to effect a similar change in thestate, and all hope as chimerical that would be based on such an attempt, until the division of the inner man ceases, and nature has beensufficiently developed to become herself the instrument of this greatchange and secure the reality of the political creation of reason. 

In the physical creation, nature shows us the road that we have to followin the moral creation. Only when the struggle of elementary forces hasceased in inferior organizations, nature rises to the noble form of thephysical man. In like manner, the conflict of the elements of the moralman and that of blind instincts must have ceased, and a coarse antagonismin himself, before the attempt can be hazarded. On the other hand, theindependence of man's character must be secured, and his submission todespotic forms must have given place to a suitable liberty, before thevariety in his constitution can be made subordinate to the unity of theideal. When the man of nature still makes such an anarchial abuse of hiswill, his liberty ought hardly to be disclosed to him. And when the manfashioned by culture makes so little use of his freedom, his free willought not to be taken from him. The concession of liberal principlesbecomes a treason to social order when it is associated with a forcestill in fermentation, and increases the already exuberant energy of itsnature. Again, the law of conformity under one level becomes tyranny tothe individual when it is allied to a weakness already holding sway andto natural obstacles, and when it comes to extinguish the last spark ofspontaneity and of originality. 

The tone of the age must therefore rise from its profound moraldegradation; on the one hand it must emancipate itself from the blindservice of nature, and on the other it must revert to its simplicity, itstruth, and its fruitful sap; a sufficient task for more than a century. However, I admit readily, more than one special effort may meet withsuccess, but no improvement of the whole will result from it, andcontradictions in action will be a continual protest against the unity ofmaxims. It will be quite possible, then, that in remote corners of theworld humanity may be honored in the person of the negro, while in Europeit may be degraded in the person of the thinker. The old principles willremain, but they will adopt the dress of the age, and philosophy willlend its name to an oppression that was formerly authorized by thechurch. In one place, alarmed at the liberty which in its openingefforts always shows itself an enemy, it will cast itself into the armsof a convenient servitude. In another place, reduced to despair by apedantic tutelage, it will be driven into the savage license of the stateof nature. Usurpation will invoke the weakness of human nature, andinsurrection will invoke its dignity, till at length the great sovereignof all human things, blind force, shall come in and decide, like a vulgarpugilist, this pretended contest of principles. 

LETTER VIII. 

Must philosophy therefore retire from this field, disappointed in itshopes? Whilst in all other directions the dominion of forms is extended, must this the most precious of all gifts be abandoned to a formlesschance? Must the contest of blind forces last eternally in the politicalworld, and is social law never to triumph over a hating egotism?

Not in the least. It is true that reason herself will never attemptdirectly a struggle with this brutal force which resists her arms, andshe will be as far as the son of Saturn in the "Iliad" from descendinginto the dismal field of battle, to fight them in person. But shechooses the most deserving among the combatants, clothes him with divinearms as Jupiter gave them to his son-in-law, and by her triumphing forceshe finally decides the victory. 

Reason has done all that she could in finding the law and promulgatingit; it is for the energy of the will and the ardor of feeling to carry itout. To issue victoriously from her contest with force, truth herselfmust first become a force, and turn one of the instincts of man into herchampion in the empire of phenomena. For instincts are the only motiveforces in the material world. If hitherto truth has so little manifestedher victorious power, this has not depended on the understanding, whichcould not have unveiled it, but on the heart which remained closed to itand on instinct which did not act with it. 

Whence, in fact, proceeds this general sway of prejudices, this might ofthe understanding in the midst of the light disseminated by philosophyand experience? The age is enlightened, that is to say, that knowledge, obtained and vulgarized, suffices to set right at least on practicalprinciples. The spirit of free inquiry has dissipated the erroneousopinions which long barred the access to truth, and has undermined theground on which fanaticism and deception had erected their throne. Reason has purified itself from the illusions of the senses and from amendacious sophistry, and philosophy herself raises her voice and exhortsus to return to the bosom of nature, to which she had first made usunfaithful. Whence then is it that we remain still barbarians?

There must be something in the spirit of man--as it is not in the objectsthemselves--which prevents us from receiving the truth, notwithstandingthe brilliant light she diffuses, and from accepting her, whatever may beher strength for producing conviction. This something was perceived andexpressed by an ancient sage in this very significant maxim: sapere aude[dare to be wise. ]

Dare to be wise! A spirited courage is required to triumph over theimpediments that the indolence of nature as well as the cowardice of theheart oppose to our instruction. It was not without reason that theancient Mythos made Minerva issue fully armed from the head of Jupiter, for it is with warfare that this instruction commences. From its veryoutset it has to sustain a hard fight against the senses, which do notlike to be roused from their easy slumber. The greater part of men aremuch too exhausted and enervated by their struggle with want to be ableto engage in a new and severe contest with error. Satisfied if theythemselves can escape from the hard labor of thought, they willinglyabandon to others the guardianship of their thoughts. And if it happensthat nobler necessities agitate their soul, they cling with a greedyfaith to the formula that the state and the church hold in reserve forsuch cases. If these unhappy men deserve our compassion, those othersdeserve our just contempt, who, though set free from those necessities bymore fortunate circumstances, yet willingly bend to their yoke. Theselatter persons prefer this twilight of obscure ideas, where the feelingshave more intensity, and the imagination can at will create convenientchimeras, to the rays of truth which put to flight the pleasant illusionsof their dreams. They have founded the whole structure of theirhappiness on these very illusions, which ought to be combated anddissipated by the light of knowledge, and they would think they werepaying too dearly for a truth which begins by robbing them of all thathas value in their sight. It would be necessary that they should bealready sages to love wisdom: a truth that was felt at once by him towhom philosophy owes its name. [The Greek word means, as is known, loveof wisdom. ]

It is therefore not going far enough to say that the light of theunderstanding only deserves respect when it reacts on the character; to acertain extent it is from the character that this light proceeds; for theroad that terminates in the head must pass through the heart. Accordingly, the most pressing need of the present time is to educate thesensibility, because it is the means, not only to render efficacious inpractice the improvement of ideas, but to call this improvement intoexistence. 

LETTER IX. 

But perhaps there is a vicious circle in our previous reasoning!Theoretical culture must it seems bring along with it practical culture, and yet the latter must be the condition of the former. All improvementin the political sphere must proceed from the ennobling of the character. But, subject to the influence of a social constitution still barbarous, how can character become ennobled? It would then be necessary to seekfor this end an instrument that the state does not furnish, and to opensources that would have preserved themselves pure in the midst ofpolitical corruption. 

I have now reached the point to which all the considerations tended thathave engaged me up to the present time. This instrument is the art ofthe beautiful; these sources are open to us in its immortal models. 

Art, like science, is emancipated from all that is positive, and all thatis humanly conventional; both are completely independent of the arbitrarywill of man. The political legislator may place their empire under aninterdict, but he cannot reign there. He can proscribe the friend oftruth, but truth subsists; he can degrade the artist, but he cannotchange art. No doubt, nothing is more common than to see science and artbend before the spirit of the age, and creative taste receive its lawfrom critical taste. When the character becomes stiff and hardensitself, we see science severely keeping her limits, and art subject tothe harsh restraint of rules; when the character is relaxed and softened, science endeavors to please and art to rejoice. For whole agesphilosophers as well as artists show themselves occupied in letting downtruth and beauty to the depths of vulgar humanity. They themselves areswallowed up in it; but, thanks to their essential vigor andindestructible life, the true and the beautiful make a victorious fight, and issue triumphant from the abyss. 

No doubt the artist is the child of his time, but unhappy for him if heis its disciple or even its favorite! Let a beneficent deity carry offin good time the suckling from the breast of its mother, let it nourishhim on the milk of a better age, and suffer him to grow up and arrive atvirility under the distant sky of Greece. When he has attained manhood, let him come back, presenting a face strange to his own age; let himcome, not to delight it with his apparition, but rather to purify it, terrible as the son of Agamemnon. He will, indeed, receive his matterfrom the present time, but he will borrow the form from a nobler time andeven beyond all time, from the essential, absolute, immutable unity. There, issuing from the pure ether of its heavenly nature, flows thesource of all beauty, which was never tainted by the corruptions ofgenerations or of ages, which roll along far beneath it in dark eddies. Its matter may be dishonored as well as ennobled by fancy, but theever-chaste form escapes from the caprices of imagination. The Roman hadalready bent his knee for long years to the divinity of the emperors, andyet the statues of the gods stood erect; the temples retained theirsanctity for the eye long after the gods had become a theme for mockery, and the noble architecture of the palaces that shielded the infamies ofNero and of Commodus were a protest against them. Humanity has lost itsdignity, but art has saved it, and preserves it in marbles full ofmeaning; truth continues to live in illusion, and the copy will serve tore-establish the model. If the nobility of art has survived the nobilityof nature, it also goes before it like an inspiring genius, forming andawakening minds. Before truth causes her triumphant light to penetrateinto the depths of the heart, poetry intercepts her rays, and the summitsof humanity shine in a bright light, while a dark and humid night stillhangs over the valleys. 

But how will the artist avoid the corruption of his time which encloseshim on all hands? Let him raise his eyes to his own dignity, and to law;let him not lower them to necessity and fortune. Equally exempt from avain activity which would imprint its trace on the fugitive moment, andfrom the dreams of an impatient enthusiasm which applies the measure ofthe absolute to the paltry productions of time, let the artist abandonthe real to the understanding, for that is its proper field. But let theartist endeavor to give birth to the ideal by the union of the possibleand of the necessary. Let him stamp illusion and truth with the effigyof this ideal; let him apply it to the play of his imagination and hismost serious actions, in short, to all sensuous and spiritual forms; thenlet him quietly launch his work into infinite time. 

But the minds set on fire by this ideal have not all received an equalshare of calm from the creative genius--that great and patient temperwhich is required to impress the ideal on the dumb marble, or to spreadit over a page of cold, sober letters, and then intrust it to thefaithful hands of time. This divine instinct, and creative force, muchtoo ardent to follow this peaceful walk, often throws itself immediatelyon the present, on active life, and strives to transform the shapelessmatter of the moral world. The misfortune of his brothers, of the wholespecies, appeals loudly to the heart of the man of feeling; theirabasement appeals still louder: enthusiasm is inflamed, and in soulsendowed with energy the burning desire aspires impatiently to action andfacts. But has this innovator examined himself to see if these disordersof the moral world wound his reason, or if they do not rather wound hisself-love? If he does not determine this point at once, he will find itfrom the impulsiveness with which he pursues a prompt and definite end. A pure, moral motive has for its end the absolute; time does not existfor it, and the future becomes the present to it directly; by a necessarydevelopment, it has to issue from the present. To a reason having nolimits the direction towards an end becomes confounded with theaccomplishment of this end, and to enter on a course is to have finishedit. 

If, then, a young friend of the true and of the beautiful were to ask mehow, notwithstanding the resistance of the times, he can satisfy thenoble longing of his heart, I should reply: Direct the world on which youact towards that which is good, and the measured and peaceful course oftime will bring about the results. You have given it this direction ifby your teaching you raise its thoughts towards the necessary and theeternal; if, by your acts or your creations, you make the necessary andthe eternal the object of your leanings. The structure of error and ofall that is arbitrary must fall, and it has already fallen, as soon asyou are sure that it is tottering. But it is important that it shouldnot only totter in the external but also in the internal man. Cherishtriumphant truth in the modest sanctuary of your heart; give it anincarnate form through beauty, that it may not only be in theunderstanding that does homage to it, but that feeling may lovingly graspits appearance. And that you may not by any chance take from externalreality the model which you yourself ought to furnish, do not ventureinto its dangerous society before you are assured in your own heart thatyou have a good escort furnished by ideal nature. Live with your age, but be not its creation; labor for your contemporaries, but do for themwhat they need, and not what they praise. Without having shared theirfaults, share their punishment with a noble resignation, and bend underthe yoke which they find it as painful to dispense with as to bear. Bythe constancy with which you will despise their good fortune, you willprove to them that it is not through cowardice that you submit to theirsufferings. See them in thought such as they ought to be when you mustact upon them; but see them as they are when you are tempted to act forthem. Seek to owe their suffrage to their dignity; but to make themhappy keep an account of their unworthiness: thus, on the one hand, thenobleness of your heart will kindle theirs, and, on the other, your endwill not be reduced to nothingness by their unworthiness. The gravity ofyour principles will keep them off from you, but in play they will stillendure them. Their taste is purer than their heart, and it is by theirtaste you must lay hold of this suspicious fugitive. In vain will youcombat their maxims, in vain will you condemn their actions; but you cantry your moulding hand on their leisure. Drive away caprice, frivolity, and coarseness from their pleasures, and you will banish themimperceptibly from their acts, and at length from their feelings. Everywhere that you meet them, surround them with great, noble, andingenious forms; multiply around them the symbols of perfection, tillappearance triumphs over reality, and art over nature. 

LETTER X. 

Convinced by my preceding letters, you agree with me on this point, thatman can depart from his destination by two opposite roads, that our epochis actually moving on these two false roads, and that it has become theprey, in one case, of coarseness, and elsewhere of exhaustion anddepravity. It is the beautiful that must bring it back from this twofolddeparture. But how can the cultivation of the fine arts remedy, at thesame time, these opposite defects, and unite in itself two contradictoryqualities? Can it bind nature in the savage, and set it free in thebarbarian? Can it at once tighten a spring and loose it; and if itcannot produce this double effect, how will it be reasonable to expectfrom it so important a result as the education of man?

It may be urged that it is almost a proverbial adage that the feelingdeveloped by the beautiful refines manners, and any new proof offered onthe subject would appear superfluous. Men base this maxim on dailyexperience, which shows us almost always clearness of intellect, delicacyof feeling, liberality and even dignity of conduct, associated with acultivated taste, while an uncultivated taste is almost alwaysaccompanied by the opposite qualities. With considerable assurance, themost civilized nation of antiquity is cited as an evidence of this, theGreeks, among whom the perception of the beautiful attained its highestdevelopment, and, as a contrast, it is usual to point to nations in apartial savage state, and partly barbarous, who expiate theirinsensibility to the beautiful by a coarse, or, at all events, a hard, austere character. Nevertheless, some thinkers are tempted occasionallyto deny either the fact itself or to dispute the legitimacy of theconsequences that are derived from it. They do not entertain sounfavorable an opinion of that savage coarseness which is made a reproachin the case of certain nations; nor do they form so advantageous anopinion of the refinement so highly lauded in the case of cultivatednations. Even as far back as in antiquity there were men who by no meansregarded the culture of the liberal arts as a benefit, and who wereconsequently led to forbid the entrance of their republic to imagination. 

I do not speak of those who calumniate art because they have never beenfavored by it. These persons only appreciate a possession by the troubleit takes to acquire it, and by the profit it brings: and how could theyproperly appreciate the silent labor of taste in the exterior andinterior man? How evident it is that the accidental disadvantagesattending liberal culture would make them lose sight of its essentialadvantages? The man deficient in form despises the grace of diction as ameans of corruption, courtesy in the social relations as dissimulation, delicacy and generosity in conduct as an affected exaggeration. Hecannot forgive the favorite of the Graces for having enlivened allassemblies as a man of the world, of having directed all men to his viewslike a statesman, and of giving his impress to the whole century as awriter: while he, the victim of labor, can only obtain with all hislearning, the least attention or overcome the least difficulty. As hecannot learn from his fortunate rival the secret of pleasing, the onlycourse open to him is to deplore the corruption of human nature, whichadores rather the appearance than the reality. 

But there are also opinions deserving respect, that pronounce themselvesadverse to the effects of the beautiful, and find formidable arms inexperience, with which to wage war against it. "We are free to admit"--such is their language--"that the charms of the beautiful can furtherhonorable ends in pure hands; but it is not repugnant to its nature toproduce, in impure hands, a directly contrary effect, and to employ inthe service of injustice and error the power that throws the soul of maninto chains. It is exactly because taste only attends to the form andnever to the substance; it ends by placing the soul on the dangerousincline, leading it to neglect all reality and to sacrifice truth andmorality to an attractive envelope. All the real difference of thingsvanishes, and it is only the appearance that determines the value! Howmany men of talent"--thus these arguers proceed--"have been turned asidefrom all effort by the seductive power of the beautiful, or have been ledaway from all serious exercise of their activity, or have been induced touse it very feebly? How many weak minds have been impelled to quarrelwith the organizations of society, simply because it has pleased theimagination of poets to present the image of a world constituteddifferently, where no propriety chains down opinion and no artifice holdsnature in thraldom? What a dangerous logic of the passions they havelearned since the poets have painted them in their pictures in the mostbrilliant colors, and since, in the contest with law and duty, they havecommonly remained masters of the battle-field. What has society gainedby the relations of society, formerly under the sway of truth, being nowsubject to the laws of the beautiful, or by the external impressiondeciding the estimation in which merit is to be held? We admit that allvirtues whose appearance produces an agreeable effect are now seen toflourish, and those which, in society, give a value to the man whopossesses them. But, as a compensation, all kinds of excesses are seento prevail, and all vices are in vogue that can be reconciled with agraceful exterior. " It is certainly a matter entitled to reflectionthat, at almost all the periods of history when art flourished and tasteheld sway, humanity is found in a state of decline; nor can a singleinstance be cited of the union of a large diffusion of aesthetic culturewith political liberty and social virtue, of fine manners associated withgood morals, and of politeness fraternizing with truth and loyalty ofcharacter and life. 

As long as Athens and Sparta preserved their independence, and as long astheir institutions were based on respect for the laws, taste did notreach its maturity, art remained in its infancy, and beauty was far fromexercising her empire over minds. No doubt, poetry had already taken asublime flight, but it was on the wings of genius, and we know thatgenius borders very closely on savage coarseness, that it is a lightwhich shines readily in the midst of darkness, and which therefore oftenargues against rather than in favor of the taste of time. When thegolden age of art appears under Pericles and Alexander, and the sway oftaste becomes more general, strength and liberty have abandoned Greece;eloquence corrupts the truth, wisdom offends it on the lips of Socrates, and virtue in the life of Phocion. It is well known that the Romans hadto exhaust their energies in civil wars, and, corrupted by Orientalluxury, to bow their heads under the yoke of a fortunate despot, beforeGrecian art triumphed over the stiffness of their character. The samewas the case with the Arabs: civilization only dawned upon them when thevigor of their military spirit became softened under the sceptre of theAbbassides. Art did not appear in modern Italy till the glorious LombardLeague was dissolved, Florence submitting to the Medici; and all thosebrave cities gave up the spirit of independence for an ingloriousresignation. It is almost superfluous to call to mind the example ofmodern nations, with whom refinement has increased in direct proportionto the decline of their liberties. Wherever we direct our eyes in pasttimes, we see taste and freedom mutually avoiding each other. Everywherewe see that the beautiful only founds its sway on the ruins of heroicvirtues. 

And yet this strength of character, which is commonly sacrificed toestablish aesthetic culture, is the most powerful spring of all that isgreat and excellent in man, and no other advantage, however great, canmake up for it. Accordingly, if we only keep to the experiments hithertomade, as to the influence of the beautiful, we cannot certainly be muchencouraged in developing feelings so dangerous to the real culture ofman. At the risk of being hard and coarse, it will seem preferable todispense with this dissolving force of the beautiful rather than seehuman nature a prey to its enervating influence, notwithstanding all itsrefining advantages. However, experience is perhaps not the propertribunal at which to decide such a question; before giving so much weightto its testimony, it would be well to inquire if the beauty we have beendiscussing is the power that is condemned by the previous examples. Andthe beauty we are discussing seems to assume an idea of the beautifulderived from a source different from experience, for it is this highernotion of the beautiful which has to decide if what is called beauty byexperience is entitled to the name. 

This pure and rational idea of the beautiful--supposing it can be placedin evidence--cannot be taken from any real and special case, and must, onthe contrary, direct and give sanction to our judgment in each specialcase. It must therefore be sought for by a process of abstraction, andit ought to be deduced from the simple possibility of a nature bothsensuous and rational; in short, beauty ought to present itself as anecessary condition of humanity. It is therefore essential that weshould rise to the pure idea of humanity, and as experience shows usnothing but individuals, in particular cases, and never humanity atlarge, we must endeavor to find in their individual and variable mode ofbeing the absolute and the permanent, and to grasp the necessaryconditions of their existence, suppressing all accidental limits. Nodoubt this transcendental procedure will remove us for some time from thefamiliar circle of phenomena, and the living presence of objects, to keepus on the unproductive ground of abstract idea; but we are engaged in thesearch after a principle of knowledge solid enough not to be shaken byanything, and the man who does not dare to rise above reality will neverconquer this truth. 

LETTER XI. 

If abstraction rises to as great an elevation as possible, it arrives attwo primary ideas, before which it is obliged to stop and to recognizeits limits. It distinguishes in man something that continues, andsomething that changes incessantly. That which continues it names hisperson; that which changes his position, his condition. 

The person and the condition, I and my determinations, which we representas one and the same thing in the necessary being, are eternally distinctin the finite being. Notwithstanding all continuance in the person, thecondition changes; in spite of all change of condition the personremains. We pass from rest to activity, from emotion to indifference, from assent to contradiction, but we are always we ourselves, and whatimmediately springs from ourselves remains. It is only in the absolutesubject that all his determinations continue with his personality. Allthat Divinity is, it is because it is so; consequently it is eternallywhat it is, because it is eternal. 

As the person and the condition are distinct in man, because he is afinite being, the condition cannot be founded on the person, nor theperson on the condition. Admitting the second case, the person wouldhave to change; and in the former case, the condition would have tocontinue. Thus in either supposition, either the personality or thequality of a finite being would necessarily cease. It is not because wethink, feel, and will that we are; it is not because we are that wethink, feel, and will. We are because we are. We feel, think, and willbecause there is out of us something that is not ourselves. 

Consequently the person must have its principle of existence in itself, because the permanent cannot be derived from the changeable, and thus weshould be at once in possession of the idea of the absolute being, founded on itself; that is to say, of the idea of freedom. The conditionmust have a foundation, and as it is not through the person, and is nottherefore absolute, it must be a sequence and a result; and thus, in thesecond place, we should have arrived at the condition of everyindependent being, of everything in the process of becoming somethingelse: that is, of the idea of tine. "Time is the necessary condition ofall processes, of becoming (Werden);" this is an identical proposition, for it says nothing but this: "That something may follow, there must be asuccession. "

The person which manifested itself in the eternally continuing Ego, or Imyself, and only in him, cannot become something or begin in time, because it is much rather time that must begin with him, because thepermanent must serve as basis to the changeable. That change may takeplace, something must change; this something cannot therefore be thechange itself. When we say the flower opens and fades, we make of thisflower a permanent being in the midst of this transformation; we lend it, in some sort, a personality, in which these two conditions aremanifested. It cannot be objected that man is born, and becomessomething; for man is not only a person simply, but he is a personfinding himself in a determinate condition. Now our determinate state ofcondition springs up in time, and it is thus that man, as a phenomenon orappearance, must have a beginning, though in him pure intelligence iseternal. Without time, that is, without a becoming, he would not be adeterminate being; his personality would exist virtually no doubt, butnot in action. It is not by the succession of its perceptions that theimmutable Ego or person manifests himself to himself. 

Thus, therefore, the matter of activity, or reality, that the supremeintelligence draws from its own being, must be received by man; and hedoes, in fact, receive it, through the medium of perception, as somethingwhich is outside him in space, and which changes in him in time. Thismatter which changes in him is always accompanied by the Ego, thepersonality, that never changes; and the rule prescribed for man by hisrational nature is to remain immutably himself in the midst of change, torefer all perceptions to experience, that is, to the unity of knowledge, and to make of each of its manifestations of its modes in time the law ofall time. The matter only exists in as far as it changes: he, hispersonality, only exists in as far as he does not change. Consequently, represented in his perfection, man would be the permanent unity, whichremains always the same, among the waves of change. 

Now, although an infinite being, a divinity could not become (or besubject to time), still a tendency ought to be named divine which has forits infinite end the most characteristic attribute of the divinity; theabsolute manifestation of power--the reality of all the possible--and theabsolute unity of the manifestation (the necessity of all reality). Itcannot be disputed that man bears within himself, in his personality, apredisposition for divinity. The way to divinity--if the word "way" canbe applied to what never leads to its end--is open to him in everydirection. 

Considered in itself, and independently of all sensuous matter, hispersonality is nothing but the pure virtuality of a possible infinitemanifestation; and so long as there is neither intuition nor feeling, itis nothing more than a form, an empty power. Considered in itself, andindependently of all spontaneous activity of the mind, sensuousness canonly make a material man; without it, it is a pure form; but it cannot inany way establish a union between matter and it. So long as he onlyfeels, wishes, and acts under the influence of desire, he is nothing morethan the world, if by this word we point out only the formless contentsof time. Without doubt, it is only his sensuousness that makes hisstrength pass into efficacious acts, but it is his personality alone thatmakes this activity his own. Thus, that he may not only be a world, hemust give form to matter, and in order not to be a mere form, he mustgive reality to the virtuality that he bears in him. He gives matter toform by creating time, and by opposing the immutable to change, thediversity of the world to the eternal unity of the Ego. He gives a formto matter by again suppressing time, by maintaining permanence in change, and by placing the diversity of the world under the unity of the Ego. 

Now from this source issue for man two opposite exigencies, the twofundamental laws of sensuous-rational nature. The first has for itsobject absolute reality; it must make a world of what is only form, manifest all that in it is only a force. The second law has for itsobject absolute formality; it must destroy in him all that is only world, and carry out harmony in all changes. In other terms, he must manifestall that is internal, and give form to all that is external. Consideredin its most lofty accomplishment, this twofold labor brings back to theidea of humanity, which was my starting-point. 

LETTER XII. 

This twofold labor or task, which consists in making the necessary passinto reality in us and in making out of us reality subject to the law ofnecessity, is urged upon us as a duty by two opposing forces, which arejustly styled impulsions or instincts, because they impel us to realizetheir object. The first of these impulsions, which I shall call thesensuous instinct, issues from the physical existence of man, or fromsensuous nature; and it is this instinct which tends to enclose him inthe limits of time, and to make of him a material being; I do not say togive him matter, for to do that a certain free activity of thepersonality would be necessary, which, receiving matter, distinguishes itfrom the Ego, or what is permanent. By matter I only understand in thisplace the change or reality that fills time. Consequently the instinctrequires that there should be change, and that time should containsomething. This simply filled state of time is named sensation, and itis only in this state that physical existence manifests itself. 

As all that is in time is successive, it follows by that fact alone thatsomething is: all the remainder is excluded. When one note on aninstrument is touched, among all those that it virtually offers, thisnote alone is real. When man is actually modified, the infinitepossibility of all his modifications is limited to this single mode ofexistence. Thus, then, the exclusive action of sensuous impulsion hasfor its necessary consequence the narrowest limitation. In this stateman is only a unity of magnitude, a complete moment in time; or, to speakmore correctly, he is not, for his personality is suppressed as long assensation holds sway over him and carries time along with it. 

This instinct extends its domains over the entire sphere of the finite inman, and as form is only revealed in matter, and the absolute by means ofits limits, the total manifestation of human nature is connected on aclose analysis with the sensuous instinct. But though it is only thisinstinct that awakens and develops what exists virtually in man, it isnevertheless this very instinct which renders his perfection impossible. It binds down to the world of sense by indestructible ties the spiritthat tends higher, and it calls back to the limits of the present, abstraction which had its free development in the sphere of the infinite. No doubt, thought can escape it for a moment, and a firm willvictoriously resist its exigencies: but soon compressed nature resumesher rights to give an imperious reality to our existence, to give itcontents, substance, knowledge, and an aim for our activity. 

The second impulsion, which may be named the formal instinct, issues fromthe absolute existence of man, or from his rational nature, and tends toset free, and bring harmony into the diversity of its manifestations, andto maintain personality notwithstanding all the changes of state. Asthis personality, being an absolute and indivisible unity, can never bein contradiction with itself, as we are ourselves forever, thisimpulsion, which tends to maintain personality, can never exact in onetime anything but what it exacts and requires forever. It thereforedecides for always what it decides now, and orders now what it ordersforever. Hence it embraces the whole series of times, or what comes tothe same thing, it suppresses time and change. It wishes the real to benecessary and eternal, and it wishes the eternal and the necessary to bereal; in other terms, it tends to truth and justice. 

If the sensuous instinct only produces accidents, the formal instinctgives laws, laws for every judgment when it is a question of knowledge, laws for every will when it is a question of action. Whether, therefore, we recognize an object or conceive an objective value to a state of thesubject, whether we act in virtue of knowledge or make of the objectivethe determining principle of our state; in both cases we withdraw thisstate from the jurisdiction of time, and we attribute to it reality forall men and for all time, that is, universality and necessity. Feelingcan only say: "That is true for this subject and at this moment, " andthere may come another moment, another subject, which withdraws theaffirmation from the actual feeling. But when once thought pronouncesand says: "That is, " it decides forever and ever, and the validity of itsdecision is guaranteed by the personality itself, which defies allchange. Inclination can only say: "That is good for your individualityand present necessity"; but the changing current of affairs will sweepthem away, and what you ardently desire to-day will form the object ofyour aversion to-morrow. But when the moral feeling says: "That ought tobe, " it decides forever. If you confess the truth because it is thetruth, and if you practise justice because it is justice, you have madeof a particular case the law of all possible cases, and treated onemoment of your life as eternity. 

Accordingly, when the formal impulse holds sway and the pure object actsin us, the being attains its highest expansion, all barriers disappear, and from the unity of magnitude in which man was enclosed by a narrowsensuousness, he rises to the unity of idea, which embraces and keepssubject the entire sphere of phenomena. During this operation we are nolonger in time, but time is in us with its infinite succession. We areno longer individuals but a species; the judgment of all spirits isexpressed by our own, and the choice of all hearts is represented by ourown act. 

LETTER XIII. 

On a first survey, nothing appears more opposed than these twoimpulsions; one having for its object change, the other immutability, andyet it is these two notions that exhaust the notion of humanity, and athird fundamental impulsion, holding a medium between them, is quiteinconceivable. How then shall we re-establish the unity of human nature, a unity that appears completely destroyed by this primitive and radicalopposition?

I admit these two tendencies are contradictory, but it should be noticedthat they are not so in the same objects. But things that do not meetcannot come into collision. No doubt the sensuous impulsion desireschange; but it does not wish that it should extend to personality and itsfield, nor that there should be a change of principles. The formalimpulsion seeks unity and permanence, but it does not wish the conditionto remain fixed with the person, that there should be identity offeeling. Therefore these two impulsions are not divided by nature, andif, nevertheless, they appear so, it is because they have become dividedby transgressing nature freely, by ignoring themselves, and byconfounding their spheres. The office of culture is to watch over themand to secure to each one its proper limits; therefore culture has togive equal justice to both, and to defend not only the rational impulsionagainst the sensuous, but also the latter against the former. Hence shehas to act a twofold part: first, to protect sense against the attacks offreedom; secondly, to secure personality against the power of sensations. One of these ends is attained by the cultivation of the sensuous, theother by that of reason. 

Since the world is developed in time, or change, the perfection of thefaculty that places men in relation with the world will necessarily bethe greatest possible mutability and extensiveness. Since personality ispermanence in change, the perfection of this faculty, which must beopposed to change, will be the greatest possible freedom of action(autonomy) and intensity. The more the receptivity is developed undermanifold aspects, the more it is movable and offers surfaces tophenomena, the larger is the part of the world seized upon by man, andthe more virtualities he develops in himself. Again, in proportion asman gains strength and depth, and depth and reason gain in freedom, inthat proportion man takes in a larger share of the world, and throws outforms outside himself. Therefore his culture will consist, first, inplacing his receptivity in contact with the world in the greatest numberof points possible, and in raising passivity, to the highest exponent onthe side of feeling; secondly, in procuring for the determining facultythe greatest possible amount of independence, in relation to thereceptive power, and in raising activity to the highest degree on theside of reason. By the union of these two qualities man will associatethe highest degree of self-spontaneity (autonomy) and of freedom with thefullest plenitude of existence, and instead of abandoning himself to theworld so as to get lost in it, he will rather absorb it in himself, withall the infinitude of its phenomena, and subject it to the unity of hisreason. 

But man can invert this relation, and thus fail in attaining hisdestination in two ways. He can hand over to the passive force theintensity demanded by the active force; he can encroach by materialimpulsion on the formal impulsion, and convert the receptive into thedetermining power. He can attribute to the active force theextensiveness belonging to the passive force, he can encroach by theformal impulsion on the material impulsion, and substitute thedetermining for the receptive power. In the former case, he will neverbe an Ego, a personality; in the second case, he will never be a Non-Ego, and hence in both cases he will be neither the one nor the other, consequently he will be nothing. 

In fact, if the sensuous impulsion becomes determining, if the sensesbecome lawgivers, and if the world stifles personality, he loses asobject what he gains in force. It may be said of man that when he isonly the contents of time, he is not and consequently he has no othercontents. His condition is destroyed at the same time as hispersonality, because these are two correlative ideas, because changepresupposes permanence, and a limited reality implies an infinitereality. If the formal impulsion becomes receptive, that is, if thoughtanticipates sensation, and the person substitutes itself in the place ofthe world, it loses as a subject and autonomous force what it gains asobject, because immutability implies change, and that to manifest itselfalso absolute reality requires limits. As soon as man is only form, hehas no form, and the personality vanishes with the condition. In a word, it is only inasmuch as he is spontaneous, autonomous, that there isreality out of him, that he is also receptive; and it is only inasmuch ashe is receptive that there is reality in him, that he is a thinkingforce. 

Consequently these two impulsions require limits, and looked upon asforces, they need tempering; the former that it may not encroach on thefield of legislation, the latter that it may not invade the ground offeeling. But this tempering and moderating the sensuous impulsion oughtnot to be the effect of physical impotence or of a blunting ofsensations, which is always a matter for contempt. It must be a freeact, an activity of the person, which by its moral intensity moderatesthe sensuous intensity, and by the sway of impressions takes from them indepth what it gives them in surface or breadth. The character must placelimits to temperament, for the senses have only the right to loseelements if it be to the advantage of the mind. In its turn, thetempering of the formal impulsion must not result from moral impotence, from a relaxation of thought and will, which would degrade humanity. Itis necessary that the glorious source of this second tempering should bethe fulness of sensations; it is necessary that sensuousness itselfshould defend its field with a victorious arm and resist the violencethat the invading activity of the mind would do to it. In a word, it isnecessary that the material impulsion should be contained in the limitsof propriety by personality, and the formal impulsion by receptivity ornature. 

LETTER XIV. 

We have been brought to the idea of such a correlation between the twoimpulsions that the action of the one establishes and limits at the sametime the action of the other, and that each of them, taken in isolation, does arrive at its highest manifestation just because the other isactive. 

No doubt this correlation of the two impulsions is simply a problemadvanced by reason, and which man will only be able to solve in theperfection of his being. It is in the strictest signification of theterm: the idea of his humanity; accordingly, it is an infinite to whichhe can approach nearer and nearer in the course of time, but without everreaching it. "He ought not to aim at form to the injury of reality, norto reality to the detriment of the form. He must rather seek theabsolute being by means of a determinate being, and the determinate beingby means of an infinite being. He must set the world before him becausehe is a person, and he must be a person because he has the world beforehim. He must feel because he has a consciousness of himself, and he musthave a consciousness of himself because he feels. " It is only inconformity with this idea that he is a man in the full sense of the word;but he cannot be convinced of this so long as he gives himself upexclusively to one of these two impulsions, or only satisfies them oneafter the other. For as long as he only feels, his absolute personalityand existence remain a mystery to him, and as long as he only thinks, hiscondition or existence in time escapes him. But if there were cases inwhich he could have at once this twofold experience in which he wouldhave the consciousness of his freedom and the feeling of his existencetogether, in which he would simultaneously feel as matter and knowhimself as spirit, in such cases, and in such only, would he have acomplete intuition of his humanity, and the object that would procure himthis intuition would be a symbol of his accomplished destiny andconsequently serve to express the infinite to him--since this destinationcan only be fulfilled in the fulness of time. 

Presuming that cases of this kind could present themselves in experience, they would awake in him a new impulsion, which, precisely because theother two impulsions would co-operate in it, would be opposed to each ofthem taken in isolation, and might, with good grounds, be taken for a newimpulsion. The sensuous impulsion requires that there should be change, that time should have contents; the formal impulsion requires that timeshould be suppressed, that there should be no change. Consequently, theimpulsion in which both of the others act in concert--allow me to call itthe instinct of play, till I explain the term--the instinct of play wouldhave as its object to suppress time in time, to conciliate the state oftransition or becoming with the absolute being, change with identity. 

The sensuous instinct wishes to be determined, it wishes to receive anobject; the formal instinct wishes to determine itself, it wishes toproduce an object. Therefore the instinct of play will endeavor toreceive as it would itself have produced, and to produce as it aspires toreceive. 

The sensuous impulsion excludes from its subject all autonomy andfreedom; the formal impulsion excludes all dependence and passivity. Butthe exclusion of freedom is physical necessity; the exclusion ofpassivity is moral necessity. Thus the two impulsions subdue the mind:the former to the laws of nature, the latter to the laws of reason. Itresults from this that the instinct of play, which unites the doubleaction of the two other instincts, will content the mind at once morallyand physically. Hence, as it suppresses all that is contingent, it willalso suppress all coercion, and will set man free physically and morally. When we welcome with effusion some one who deserves our contempt, we feelpainfully that nature is constrained. When we have a hostile feelingagainst a person who commands our esteem, we feel painfully theconstraint of reason. But if this person inspires us with interest, andalso wins our esteem, the constraint of feeling vanishes together withthe constraint of reason, and we begin to love him, that is to say, toplay, to take recreation, at once with our inclination and our esteem. 

Moreover, as the sensuous impulsion controls us physically, and theformal impulsion morally, the former makes our formal constitutioncontingent, and the latter makes our material constitution contingent, that is to say, there is contingence in the agreement of our happinesswith our perfection, and reciprocally. The instinct of play, in whichboth act in concert, will render both our formal and our materialconstitution contingent; accordingly, our perfection and our happiness inlike manner. And on the other hand, exactly because it makes both ofthem contingent, and because the contingent disappears with necessity, itwill suppress this contingence in both, and will thus give form to matterand reality to form. In proportion that it will lessen the dynamicinfluence of feeling and passion, it will place them in harmony withrational ideas, and by taking from the laws of reason their moralconstraint, it will reconcile them with the interest of the senses. 

LETTER XV. 

I approach continually nearer to the end to which I lead you, by a pathoffering few attractions. Be pleased to follow me a few steps further, and a large horizon will open up to you, and a delightful prospect willreward you for the labor of the way. 

The object of the sensuous instinct, expressed in a universal conception, is named Life in the widest acceptation; a conception that expresses allmaterial existence and all that is immediately present in the senses. The object of the formal instinct, expressed in a universal conception, is called shape or form, as well in an exact as in an inexactacceptation; a conception that embraces all formal qualities of thingsand all relations of the same to the thinking powers. The object of theplay instinct, represented in a general statement, may therefore bear thename of living form; a term that serves to describe all aestheticqualities of phenomena, and what people style, in the widest sense, beauty. 

Beauty is neither extended to the whole field of all living things normerely enclosed in this field. A marble block, though it is and remainslifeless, can nevertheless become a living form by the architect andsculptor; a man, though he lives and has a form, is far from being aliving form on that account. For this to be the case, it is necessarythat his form should be life, and that his life should be a form. Aslong as we only think of his form, it is lifeless, a mere abstraction; aslong as we only feel his life, it is without form, a mere impression. Itis only when his form lives in our feeling, and his life in ourunderstanding, he is the living form, and this will everywhere be thecase where we judge him to be beautiful. 

But the genesis of beauty is by no means declared because we know how topoint out the component parts, which in their combination produce beauty. For to this end it would be necessary to comprehend that combinationitself, which continues to defy our exploration, as well as all mutualoperation between the finite and the infinite. The reason, ontranscendental grounds, makes the following demand: There shall be acommunion between the formal impulse and the material impulse--that is, there shall be a play instinct--because it is only the unity of realitywith the form, of the accidental with the necessary, of the passive statewith freedom, that the conception of humanity is completed. Reason isobliged to make this demand, because her nature impels her tocompleteness and to the removal of all bounds; while every exclusiveactivity of one or the other impulse leaves human nature incomplete andplaces a limit in it. Accordingly, as soon as reason issues the mandate, "a humanity shall exist, " it proclaims at the same time the law, "thereshall be a beauty. " Experience can answer us if there is a beauty, andwe shall know it as soon as she has taught us if a humanity can exist. But neither reason nor experience can tell us how beauty can be and how ahumanity is possible. 

We know that man is neither exclusively matter nor exclusively spirit. Accordingly, beauty as the consummation of humanity, can neither beexclusively mere life, as has been asserted by sharp-sighted observers, who kept too close to the testimony of experience, and to which the tasteof the time would gladly degrade it; Nor can beauty be merely form, ashas been judged by speculative sophists, who departed too far fromexperience, and by philosophic artists, who were led too much by thenecessity of art in explaining beauty; it is rather the common object ofboth impulses, that is of the play instinct. The use of languagecompletely justifies this name, as it is wont to qualify with the wordplay what is neither subjectively nor objectively accidental, and yetdoes not impose necessity either externally or internally. As the mindin the intuition of the beautiful finds itself in a happy medium betweenlaw and necessity, it is, because it divides itself between both, emancipated from the pressure of both. The formal impulse and thematerial impulse are equally earnest in their demands, because onerelates in its cognition to things in their reality and the other totheir necessity; because in action the first is directed to thepreservation of life, the second to the preservation of dignity, andtherefore both to truth and perfection. But life becomes moreindifferent when dignity is mixed up with it, and duty no longer coerceswhen inclination attracts. In like manner the mind takes in the realityof things, material truth, more freely and tranquilly as soon as itencounters formal truth, the law of necessity; nor does the mind finditself strung by abstraction as soon as immediate intuition can accompanyit. In one word, when the mind comes into communion with ideas, allreality loses its serious value because it becomes small; and as it comesin contact with feeling, necessity parts also with its serious valuebecause it is easy. 

But perhaps the objection has for some time occurred to you, Is not thebeautiful degraded by this, that it is made a mere play? and is it notreduced to the level of frivolous objects which have for ages passedunder that name? Does it not contradict the conception of the reason andthe dignity of beauty, which is nevertheless regarded as an instrument ofculture, to confine it to the work of being a mere play? and does it notcontradict the empirical conception of play, which can coexist with theexclusion of all taste, to confine it merely to beauty?

But what is meant by a mere play, when we know that in all conditions ofhumanity that very thing is play, and only that is play which makes mancomplete and develops simultaneously his twofold nature? What you stylelimitation, according to your representation of the matter, according tomy views, which I have justified by proofs, I name enlargement. Consequently I should have said exactly the reverse: man is serious onlywith the agreeable, with the good, and with the perfect, but he playswith beauty. In saying this we must not indeed think of the plays thatare in vogue in real life, and which commonly refer only to his materialstate. But in real life we should also seek in vain for the beauty ofwhich we are here speaking. The actually present beauty is worthy of thereally, of the actually present play-impulse; but by the ideal of beauty, which is set up by the reason, an ideal of the play-instinct is alsopresented, which man ought to have before his eyes in all his plays. 

Therefore, no error will ever be incurred if we seek the ideal of beautyon the same road on which we satisfy our play-impulse. We canimmediately understand why the ideal form of a Venus, of a Juno, and ofan Apollo, is to be sought not at Rome, but in Greece, if we contrast theGreek population, delighting in the bloodless athletic contests ofboxing, racing, and intellectual rivalry at Olympia, with the Romanpeople gloating over the agony of a gladiator. Now the reason pronouncesthat the beautiful must not only be life and form, but a living form, that is, beauty, inasmuch as it dictates to man the twofold law ofabsolute formality and absolute reality. Reason also utters the decisionthat man shall only play with beauty, and he shall only play with beauty. 

For, to speak out once for all, man only plays when in the full meaningof the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays. This proposition, which at this moment perhaps appears paradoxical, willreceive a great and deep meaning if we have advanced far enough to applyit to the twofold seriousness of duty and of destiny. I promise you thatthe whole edifice of aesthetic art and the still more difficult art oflife will be supported by this principle. But this proposition is onlyunexpected in science; long ago it lived and worked in art and in thefeeling of the Greeks, her most accomplished masters; only they removedto Olympus what ought to have been preserved on earth. Influenced by thetruth of this principle, they effaced from the brow of their gods theearnestness and labor which furrow the cheeks of mortals, and also thehollow lust that smoothes the empty face. They set free the ever serenefrom the chains of every purpose, of every duty, of every care, and theymade indolence and indifference the envied condition of the godlike race;merely human appellations for the freest and highest mind. As well thematerial pressure of natural laws as the spiritual pressure of moral lawslost itself in its higher idea of necessity, which embraced at the sametime both worlds, and out of the union of these two necessities issuedtrue freedom. Inspired by this spirit the Greeks also effaced from thefeatures of their ideal, together with desire or inclination, all tracesof volition, or, better still, they made both unrecognizable, becausethey knew how to wed them both in the closest alliance. It is neithercharm, nor is it dignity, which speaks from the glorious face of JunoLudovici; it is neither of these, for it is both at once. While thefemale god challenges our veneration, the godlike woman at the same timekindles our love. But while in ecstacy we give ourselves up to theheavenly beauty, the heavenly self-repose awes us back. The whole formrests and dwells in itself--a fully complete creation in itself--and asif she were out of space, without advance or resistance; it shows noforce contending with force, no opening through which time could breakin. Irresistibly carried away and attracted by her womanly charm, keptoff at a distance by her godly dignity, we also find ourselves at lengthin the state of the greatest repose, and the result is a wonderfulimpression for which the understanding has no idea and language no name. 

LETTER XVI. 

From the antagonism of the two impulsions, and from the association oftwo opposite principles, we have seen beauty to result, of which thehighest ideal must therefore be sought in the most perfect union andequilibrium possible of the reality and of the form. But thisequilibrium remains always an idea that reality can never completelyreach. In reality, there will always remain a preponderance of one ofthese elements over the other, and the highest point to which experiencecan reach will consist in an oscillation between two principles, whensometimes reality and at others form will have the advantage. Idealbeauty is therefore eternally one and indivisible, because there can onlybe one single equilibrium; on the contrary, experimental beauty will beeternally double, because in the oscillation the equilibrium may bedestroyed in two ways--this side and that. 

I have called attention in the foregoing letters to a fact that can alsobe rigorously deduced from the considerations that have engaged ourattention to the present point; this fact is that an exciting and also amoderating action may be expected from the beautiful. The temperingaction is directed to keep within proper limits the sensuous and theformal impulsions; the exciting, to maintain both of them in their fullforce. But these two modes of action of beauty ought to be completelyidentified in the idea. The beautiful ought to temper while uniformlyexciting the two natures, and it ought also to excite while uniformlymoderating them. This result flows at once from the idea of acorrelation, in virtue of which the two terms mutually imply each other, and are the reciprocal condition one of the other, a correlation of whichthe purest product is beauty. But experience does not offer an exampleof so perfect a correlation. In the field of experience it will alwayshappen more or less that excess on the one side will give rise todeficiency on the other, and deficiency will give birth to excess. Itresults from this that what in the beau-ideal is only distinct in theidea is different in reality in empirical beauty. The beau-ideal, thoughsimple and indivisible, discloses, when viewed in two different aspects, on the one hand, a property of gentleness and grace, and on the other, anenergetic property; in experience there is a gentle and graceful beautyand there is an energetic beauty. It is so, and it will be always so, solong as the absolute is enclosed in the limits of time, and the ideas ofreason have to be realized in humanity. For example, the intellectualman has the ideal of virtue, of truth, and of happiness; but the activeman will only practise virtues, will only grasp truths, and enjoy happydays. The business of physical and moral education is to bring back thismultiplicity to unity, to put morality in the place of manners, sciencein the place of knowledge; the business of aesthetic education is to makeout of beauties the beautiful. 

Energetic beauty can no more preserve a man from a certain residue ofsavage violence and harshness than graceful beauty can secure him againsta certain degree of effeminacy and weakness. As it is the effect of theenergetic beauty to elevate the mind in a physical and moral point ofview and to augment its momentum, it only too often happens that theresistance of the temperament and of the character diminishes theaptitude to receive impressions, that the delicate part of humanitysuffers an oppression which ought only to affect its grosser part, andthat this coarse nature participates in an increase of force that oughtonly to turn to the account of free personality. It is for this reasonthat, at the periods when we find much strength and abundant sap inhumanity, true greatness of thought is seen associated with what isgigantic and extravagant, and the sublimest feeling is found coupled withthe most horrible excess of passion. It is also the reason why, in theperiods distinguished for regularity and form, nature is as oftenoppressed as it is governed, as often outraged as it is surpassed. Andas the action of gentle and graceful beauty is to relax the mind in themoral sphere as well as the physical, it happens quite as easily that theenergy of feelings is extinguished with the violence of desires, and thatcharacter shares in the loss of strength which ought only to affect thepassions. This is the reason why, in ages assumed to be refined, it isnot a rare thing to see gentleness degenerate into effeminacy, politenessinto platitude, correctness into empty sterility, liberal ways intoarbitrary caprice, ease into frivolity, calm into apathy, and, lastly, amost miserable caricature treads on the heels of the noblest, the mostbeautiful type of humanity. Gentle and graceful beauty is therefore awant to the man who suffers the constraint of manner and of forms, for heis moved by grandeur and strength long before he becomes sensible toharmony and grace. Energetic beauty is a necessity to the man who isunder the indulgent sway of taste, for in his state of refinement he isonly too much disposed to make light of the strength that he retained inhis state of rude savagism. 

I think I have now answered and also cleared up the contradictioncommonly met in the judgments of men respecting the influence of thebeautiful, and the appreciation of aesthetic culture. This contradictionis explained directly we remember that there are two sorts ofexperimental beauty, and that on both hands an affirmation is extended tothe entire race, when it can only be proved of one of the species. Thiscontradiction disappears the moment we distinguish a twofold want inhumanity to which two kinds of beauty correspond. It is thereforeprobable that both sides would make good their claims if they come to anunderstanding respecting the kind of beauty and the form of humanity thatthey have in view. 

Consequently in the sequel of my researches I shall adopt the course thatnature herself follows with man considered from the point of view ofaesthetics, and setting out from the two kinds of beauty, I shall rise tothe idea of the genus. I shall examine the effects produced on man bythe gentle and graceful beauty when its springs of action are in fullplay, and also those produced by energetic beauty when they are relaxed. I shall do this to confound these two sorts of beauty in the unity of thebeau-ideal, in the same way that the two opposite forms and modes ofbeing of humanity are absorbed in the unity of the ideal man. 

LETTER XVII. 

While we were only engaged in deducing the universal idea of beauty fromthe conception of human nature in general, we had only to consider in thelatter the limits established essentially in itself, and inseparable fromthe notion of the finite. Without attending to the contingentrestrictions that human nature may undergo in the real world ofphenomena, we have drawn the conception of this nature directly fromreason, as a source of every necessity, and the ideal of beauty has beengiven us at the same time with the ideal of humanity. 

But now we are coming down from the region of ideas to the scene ofreality, to find man in a determinate state, and consequently in limitswhich are not derived from the pure conception of humanity, but fromexternal circumstances and from an accidental use of his freedom. But, although the limitation of the idea of humanity may be very manifold inthe individual, the contents of this idea suffice to teach us that we canonly depart from it by two opposite roads. For if the perfection of manconsist in the harmonious energy of his sensuous and spiritual forces, hecan only lack this perfection through the want of harmony and the want ofenergy. Thus, then, before having received on this point the testimonyof experience, reason suffices to assure us that we shall find the realand consequently limited man in a state of tension or relaxation, according as the exclusive activity of isolated forces troubles theharmony of his being, or as the unity of his nature is based on theuniform relaxation of his physical and spiritual forces. These oppositelimits are, as we have now to prove, suppressed by the beautiful, whichre-establishes harmony in man when excited, and energy in man whenrelaxed; and which, in this way, in conformity with the nature of thebeautiful, restores the state of limitation to an absolute state, andmakes of man a whole, complete in himself. 

Thus the beautiful by no means belies in reality the idea which we havemade of it in speculation; only its action is much less free in it thanin the field of theory, where we were able to apply it to the pureconception of humanity. In man, as experience shows him to us, thebeautiful finds a matter, already damaged and resisting, which robs himin ideal perfection of what it communicates to him of its individual modeof being. Accordingly in reality the beautiful will always appear apeculiar and limited species, and not as the pure genus; in excited mindsin a state of tension it will lose its freedom and variety; in relaxedminds, it will lose its vivifying force; but we, who have become familiarwith the true character of this contradictory phenomenon, cannot be ledastray by it. We shall not follow the great crowd of critics, indetermining their conception by separate experiences, and to make themanswerable for the deficiencies which man shows under their influence. We know rather that it is man who transfers the imperfections of hisindividuality over to them, who stands perpetually in the way of theirperfection by his subjective limitation, and lowers their absolute idealto two limited forms of phenomena. 

It was advanced that soft beauty is for an unstrung mind, and theenergetic beauty for the tightly strung mind. But I apply the termunstrung to a man when he is rather under the pressure of feelings thanunder the pressure of conceptions. Every exclusive sway of one of histwo fundamental impulses is for man a state of compulsion and violence, and freedom only exists in the co-operation of his two natures. Accordingly, the man governed preponderately by feelings, or sensuouslyunstrung, is emancipated and set free by matter. The soft and gracefulbeauty, to satisfy this twofold problem, must therefore show herselfunder two aspects--in two distinct forms. First, as a form in repose, she will tone down savage life, and pave the way from feeling to thought. She will, secondly, as a living image, equip the abstract form withsensuous power, and lead back the conception to intuition and law tofeeling. The former service she does to the man of nature, the second tothe man of art. But because she does not in both cases hold completesway over her matter, but depends on that which is furnished either byformless nature or unnatural art, she will in both cases bear traces ofher origin, and lose herself in one place in material life and in anotherin mere abstract form. 

To be able to arrive at a conception how beauty can become a means toremove this twofold relaxation, we must explore its source in the humanmind. Accordingly, make up your mind to dwell a little longer in theregion of speculation, in order then to leave it forever, and to advancewith securer footing on the ground of experience. 

LETTER XVIII. 

By beauty the sensuous man is led to form and to thought; by beauty thespiritual man is brought back to matter and restored to the world ofsense. 

From this statement it would appear to follow that between matter andform, between passivity and activity, there must be a middle state, andthat beauty plants us in this state. It actually happens that thegreater part of mankind really form this conception of beauty as soon asthey begin to reflect on its operations, and all experience seems topoint to this conclusion. But, on the other hand, nothing is moreunwarrantable and contradictory than such a conception, because theaversion of matter and form, the passive and the active, feeling andthought, is eternal, and cannot be mediated in any way. How can weremove this contradiction? Beauty weds the two opposed conditions offeeling and thinking, and yet there is absolutely no medium between them. The former is immediately certain through experience, the other throughthe reason. 

This is the point to which the whole question of beauty leads, and if wesucceed in settling this point in a satisfactory way, we have at lengthfound the clue that will conduct us through the whole labyrinth ofaesthetics. 

But this requires two very different operations, which must necessarilysupport each other in this inquiry. Beauty, it is said, weds twoconditions with one another which are opposite to each other, and cannever be one. We must start from this opposition; we must grasp andrecognize them in their entire purity and strictness, so that bothconditions are separated in the most definite manner; otherwise we mix, but we do not unite them. Secondly, it is usual to say, beauty unitesthose two opposed conditions, and therefore removes the opposition. Butbecause both conditions remain eternally opposed to one another, theycannot be united in any other way than by being suppressed. Our secondbusiness is therefore to make this connection perfect, to carry them outwith such purity and perfection that both conditions disappear entirelyin a third one, and no trace of separation remains in the whole;otherwise we segregate, but do not unite. All the disputes that haveever prevailed and still prevail in the philosophical world respectingthe conception of beauty have no other origin than their commencingwithout a sufficiently strict distinction, or that it is not carried outfully to a pure union. Those philosophers who blindly follow theirfeeling in reflecting on this topic can obtain no other conception ofbeauty, because they distinguish nothing separate in the totality of thesensuous impression. Other philosophers, who take the understanding astheir exclusive guide, can never obtain a conception of beauty, becausethey never see anything else in the whole than the parts; and spirit andmatter remain eternally separate, even in their most perfect unity. Thefirst fear to suppress beauty dynamically, that is, as a working power, if they must separate what is united in the feeling. The others fear tosuppress beauty logically, that is, as a conception, when they have tohold together what in the understanding is separate. The former wish tothink of beauty as it works; the latter wish it to work as it is thought. Both therefore must miss the truth; the former, because they try tofollow infinite nature with their limited thinking power; the others, because they wish to limit unlimited nature according to their laws ofthought. The first fear to rob beauty of its freedom by a too strictdissection, the others fear to destroy the distinctness of the conceptionby a too violent union. But the former do not reflect that the freedomin which they very properly place the essence of beauty is notlawlessness, but harmony of laws; not caprice, but the highest internalnecessity. The others do not remember that distinctness, which they withequal right demand from beauty, does not consist in the exclusion ofcertain realities, but the absolute including of all; that is nottherefore limitation but infinitude. We shall avoid the quicksands onwhich both have made shipwreck if we begin from the two elements in whichbeauty divides itself before the understanding, but then afterwards riseto a pure aesthetic unity by which it works on feeling, and in which boththose conditions completely disappear. 

LETTER XIX. 

Two principal and different states of passive and active capacity ofbeing determined [Bestimmbarkeit] can be distinguished in man; in likemanner two states of passive and active determination [Bestimmung]. Theexplanation of this proposition leads us most readily to our end. 

The condition of the state of man before destination or direction isgiven him by the impression of the senses is an unlimited capacity ofbeing determined. The infinite of time and space is given to hisimagination for its free use; and, because nothing is settled in thiskingdom of the possible, and therefore nothing is excluded from it, thisstate of absence of determination can be named an empty infiniteness, which must not by any means be confounded with an infinite void. 

Now it is necessary that his sensuous nature should be modified, and thatin the indefinite series of possible determinations one alone shouldbecome real. One perception must spring up in it. That which, in theprevious state of determinableness, was only an empty potency becomes nowan active force, and receives contents; but, at the same time, as anactive force it receives a limit, after having been, as a simple power, unlimited. Reality exists now, but the infinite has disappeared. Todescribe a figure in space, we are obliged to limit infinite space; torepresent to ourselves a change in time, we are obliged to divide thetotality of time. Thus we only arrive at reality by limitation, at thepositive, at a real position, by negation or exclusion; to determination, by the suppression of our free determinableness. 

But mere exclusion would never beget a reality, nor would a mere sensuousimpression ever give birth to a perception, if there were not somethingfrom which it was excluded, if by an absolute act of the mind thenegation were not referred to something positive, and if opposition didnot issue out of non-position. This act of the mind is styled judging orthinking, and the result is named thought. 

Before we determine a place in space, there is no space for us; butwithout absolute space we could never determine a place. The same is thecase with time. Before we have an instant, there is no time to us: butwithout infinite time--eternity--we should never have a representation ofthe instant. Thus, therefore, we can only arrive at the whole by thepart, to the unlimited through limitation; but reciprocally we onlyarrive at the part through the whole, at limitation through theunlimited. 

It follows from this, that when it is affirmed of beauty that it mediatesfor man, the transition from feeling to thought, this must not beunderstood to mean that beauty can fill up the gap that separates feelingfrom thought, the passive from the active. This gap is infinite; and, without the interposition of a new and independent faculty, it isimpossible for the general to issue from the individual, the necessaryfrom the contingent. Thought is the immediate act of this absolutepower, which, I admit, can only be manifested in connection with sensuousimpressions, but which in this manifestation depends so little on thesensuous that it reveals itself specially in an opposition to it. Thespontaneity or autonomy with which it acts excludes every foreigninfluence; and it is not in as far as it helps thought--which comprehendsa manifest contradiction but only in as far as it procures for theintellectual faculties the freedom to manifest themselves in conformitywith their proper laws. It does it only because the beautiful can becomea means of leading man from matter to form, from feeling to laws, from alimited existence to an absolute existence. 

But this assumes that the freedom of the intellectual faculties can bebalked, which appears contradictory to the conception of an autonomouspower. For a power which only receives the matter of its activity fromwithout can only be hindered in its action by the privation of thismatter, and consequently by way of negation; it is therefore amisconception of the nature of the mind to attribute to the sensuouspassions the power of oppressing positively the freedom of the mind. Experience does indeed present numerous examples where the rationalforces appear compressed in proportion to the violence of the sensuousforces. But instead of deducing this spiritual weakness from the energyof passion, this passionate energy must rather be explained by theweakness of the human mind. For the sense can only have a sway such asthis over man when the mind has spontaneously neglected to assert itspower. 

Yet in trying by these explanations to move one objection, I appear tohave exposed myself to another, and I have only saved the autonomy of themind at the cost of its unity. For how can the mind derive at the sametime from itself the principles of inactivity and of activity, if it isnot itself divided, and if it is not in opposition with itself?

Here we must remember that we have before us, not the infinite mind, butthe finite. The finite mind is that which only becomes active throughthe passive, only arrives at the absolute through limitation, and onlyacts and fashions in as far as it receives matter. Accordingly, a mindof this nature must associate with the impulse towards form or theabsolute, an impulse towards matter or limitation, conditions withoutwhich it could not have the former impulse nor satisfy it. How can twosuch opposite tendencies exist together in the same being? This is aproblem that can no doubt embarrass the metaphysician, but not thetranscendental philosopher. The latter does not presume to explain thepossibility of things, but he is satisfied with giving a solid basis tothe knowledge that makes us understand the possibility of experience. And as experience would be equally impossible without this autonomy inthe mind, and without the absolute unity of the mind, it lays down thesetwo conceptions as two conditions of experience equally necessary withouttroubling itself any more to reconcile them. Moreover, this immanence oftwo fundamental impulses does not in any degree contradict the absoluteunity of the mind, as soon as the mind itself, its selfhood, isdistinguished from those two motors. No doubt, these two impulses existand act in it, but itself is neither matter nor form, nor the sensuousnor reason, and this is a point that does not seem always to haveoccurred to those who only look upon the mind as itself acting when itsacts are in harmony with reason, and who declare it passive when its actscontradict reason. 

Arrived at its development, each of these two fundamental impulsionstends of necessity and by its nature to satisfy itself; but preciselybecause each of them has a necessary tendency, and both nevertheless havean opposite tendency, this twofold constraint mutually destroys itself, and the will preserves an entire freedom between them both. It istherefore the will that conducts itself like a power--as the basis ofreality--with respect to both these impulses; but neither of them can byitself act as a power with respect to the other. A violent man, by hispositive tendency to justice, which never fails in him, is turned awayfrom injustice; nor can a temptation of pleasure, however strong, make astrong character violate its principles. There is in man no other powerthan his will; and death alone, which destroys man, or some privation ofself-consciousness, is the only thing that can rob man of his internalfreedom. 

An external necessity determines our condition, our existence in time, bymeans of the sensuous. The latter is quite involuntary, and directly itis produced in us we are necessarily passive. In the same manner aninternal necessity awakens our personality in connection with sensations, and by its antagonism with them; for consciousness cannot depend on thewill, which presupposes it. This primitive manifestation of personalityis no more a merit to us than its privation is a defect in us. Reasoncan only be required in a being who is self-conscious, for reason is anabsolute consecutiveness and universality of consciousness; before thisis the case he is not a man, nor can any act of humanity be expected fromhim. The metaphysician can no more explain the limitation imposed bysensation on a free and autonomous mind than the natural philosopher canunderstand the infinite, which is revealed in consciousness in connectionwith these limits. Neither abstraction nor experience can bring us backto the source whence issue our ideas of necessity and of universality:this source is concealed in its origin in time from the observer, and itssuper-sensuous origin from the researches of the metaphysician. But, tosum up in a few words, consciousness is there, and, together with itsimmutable unity, the law of all that is for man is established, as wellas of all that is to be by man, for his understanding and his activity. The ideas of truth and of right present themselves inevitable, incorruptible, immeasurable, even in the age of sensuousness; and withoutour being able to say why or how, we see eternity in time, the necessaryfollowing the contingent. It is thus that, without any share on the partof the subject, the sensation and self-consciousness arise, and theorigin of both is beyond our volition, as it is out of the sphere of ourknowledge. 

But as soon as these two faculties have passed into action, and man hasverified by his experience, through the medium of sensation, adeterminate existence, and through the medium of consciousness itsabsolute existence, the two fundamental impulses exert their influencedirectly their object is given. The sensuous impulse is awakened withthe experience of life--with the beginning of the individual; therational impulsion with the experience of law--with the beginning of hispersonality; and it is only when these two inclinations have come intoexistence that the human type is realized. Up to that time, everythingtakes place in man according to the law of necessity; but now the hand ofnature lets him go, and it is for him to keep upright humanity, whichnature places as a germ in his heart. And thus we see that directly thetwo opposite and fundamental impulses exercise their influence in him, both lose their constraint, and the autonomy of two necessities givesbirth to freedom. 

LETTER XX. 

That freedom is an active and not a passive principle results from itsvery conception; but that liberty itself should be an effect of nature(taking this word in its widest sense), and not the work of man, andtherefore that it can be favored or thwarted by natural means, is thenecessary consequence of that which precedes. It begins only when man iscomplete, and when these two fundamental impulsions have been developed. It will then be wanting whilst he is incomplete, and while one of theseimpulsions is excluded, and it will be re-established by all that givesback to man his integrity. 

Thus it is possible, both with regard to the entire species as to theindividual, to remark the moment when man is yet incomplete, and when oneof the two exclusions acts solely in him. We know that man commences bylife simply, to end by form; that he is more of an individual than aperson, and that he starts from the limited or finite to approach theinfinite. The sensuous impulsion comes into play therefore before therational impulsion, because sensation precedes consciousness; and in thispriority of sensuous impulsion we find the key of the history of thewhole of human liberty. 

There is a moment, in fact, when the instinct of life, not yet opposed tothe instinct of form, acts as nature and as necessity; when the sensuousis a power because man has not begun; for even in man there can be noother power than his will. But when man shall have attained to the powerof thought, reason, on the contrary, will be a power, and moral orlogical necessity will take the place of physical necessity. Sensuouspower must then be annihilated before the law which must govern it can beestablished. It is not enough that something shall begin which as yetwas not; previously something must end which had begun. Man cannot passimmediately from sensuousness to thought. He must step backwards, for itis only when one determination is suppressed that the contrarydetermination can take place. Consequently, in order to exchange passiveagainst active liberty, a passive determination against an active, hemust be momentarily free from all determination, and must traverse astate of pure determinability. He has then to return in some degree tothat state of pure negative indetermination in which he was before hissenses were affected by anything. But this state was absolutely empty ofall contents, and now the question is to reconcile an equal determinationand a determinability equally without limit, with the greatest possiblefulness, because from this situation something positive must immediatelyfollow. The determination which man received by sensation must bepreserved, because he should not lose the reality; but at the same time, in so far as finite, it should be suppressed, because a determinabilitywithout limit would take place. The problem consists then inannihilating the determination of the mode of existence, and yet at thesame time in preserving it, which is only possible in one way: inopposing to it another. The two sides of a balance are in equilibriumwhen empty; they are also in equilibrium when their contents are of equalweight. 

Thus, to pass from sensation to thought, the soul traverses a mediumposition, in which sensibility and reason are at the same time active, and thus they mutually destroy their determinant power, and by theirantagonism produce a negation. This medium situation in which the soulis neither physically nor morally constrained, and yet is in both waysactive, merits essentially the name of a free situation; and if we callthe state of sensuous determination physical, and the state of rationaldetermination logical or moral, that state of real and activedetermination should be called the aesthetic. 

LETTER XXI. 

I have remarked in the beginning of the foregoing letter that there is atwofold condition of determinableness and a twofold condition ofdetermination. And now I can clear up this proposition. 

The mind can be determined--is determinable--only in as far as it is notdetermined; it is, however, determinable also, in as far as it is notexclusively determined; that is, if it is not confined in itsdetermination. The former is only a want of determination--it is withoutlimits, because it is without reality; but the latter, the aestheticdeterminableness, has no limits, because it unites all reality. 

The mind is determined, inasmuch as it is only limited; but it is alsodetermined because it limits itself of its own absolute capacity. It issituated in the former position when it feels, in the second when itthinks. Accordingly the aesthetic constitution is in relation todeterminableness what thought is in relation to determination. Thelatter is a negative from internal and infinite completeness, the formera limitation from internal infinite power. Feeling and thought come intocontact in one single point, the mind is determined in both conditions, the man becomes something and exists--either as individual or person--byexclusion; in other cases these two faculties stand infinitely apart. Just in the same manner the aesthetic determinableness comes in contactwith the mere want of determination in a single point, by both excludingevery distinct determined existence, by thus being in all other pointsnothing and all, and hence by being infinitely different. Therefore ifthe latter, in the absence of determination from deficiency, isrepresented as an empty infiniteness, the aesthetic freedom ofdetermination, which forms the proper counterpart to the former, can beconsidered as a completed infiniteness; a representation which exactlyagrees with the teachings of the previous investigations. 

Man is therefore nothing in the aesthetic state, if attention is given tothe single result, and not to the whole faculty, and if we regard onlythe absence or want of every special determination. We must therefore dojustice to those who pronounce the beautiful, and the disposition inwhich it places the mind, as entirely indifferent and unprofitable, inrelation to knowledge and feeling. They are perfectly right; for it iscertain that beauty gives no separate, single result, either for theunderstanding or for the will; it does not carry out a singleintellectual or moral object; it discovers no truth, does not help us tofulfil a single duty, and, in one word, is equally unfit to found thecharacter or to clear the head. Accordingly, the personal worth of aman, or his dignity, as far as this can only depend on himself, remainsentirely undetermined by aesthetic culture, and nothing further isattained than that, on the part of nature, it is made profitable for himto make of himself what he will; that the freedom to be what he ought tobe is restored perfectly to him. 

But by this something infinite is attained. But as soon as we rememberthat freedom is taken from man by the one-sided compulsion of nature infeeling, and by the exclusive legislation of the reason in thinking, wemust consider the capacity restored to him by the aestheticaldisposition, as the highest of all gifts, as the gift of humanity. Iadmit that he possesses this capacity for humanity, before every definitedetermination in which he may be placed. But, as a matter of fact, heloses it with every determined condition into which he may come; and ifhe is to pass over to an opposite condition, humanity must be in everycase restored to him by the aesthetic life. 

It is therefore not only a poetical license, but also philosophicallycorrect, when beauty is named our second creator. Nor is thisinconsistent with the fact that she only makes it possible for us toattain and realize humanity, leaving this to our free will. For in thisshe acts in common with our original creator, nature, which has impartedto us nothing further than this capacity for humanity, but leaves the useof it to our own determination of will. 

LETTER XXII. 

Accordingly, if the aesthetic disposition of the mind must be looked uponin one respect as nothing--that is, when we confine our view to separateand determined operations--it must be looked upon in another respect as astate of the highest reality, in as far as we attend to the absence ofall limits and the sum of powers which are commonly active in it. Accordingly we cannot pronounce them, again, to be wrong who describe theaesthetic state to be the most productive in relation to knowledge andmorality. They are perfectly right, for a state of mind which comprisesthe whole of humanity in itself must of necessity include in itself also--necessarily and potentially--every separate expression of it. Again, adisposition of mind that removes all limitation from the totality ofhuman nature must also remove it from every special expression of thesame. Exactly because its "aesthetic disposition" does not exclusivelyshelter any separate function of humanity, it is favorable to all withoutdistinction; nor does it favor any particular functions, preciselybecause it is the foundation of the possibility of all. All otherexercises give to the mind some special aptitude, but for that veryreason give it some definite limits; only the aesthetical leads him tothe unlimited. Every other condition in which we can live refers us to aprevious condition, and requires for its solution a following condition;only the aesthetic is a complete whole in itself, for it unites in itselfall conditions of its source and of its duration. Here alone we feelourselves swept out of time, and our humanity expresses itself withpurity and integrity as if it had not yet received any impression orinterruption from the operation of external powers. 

That which flatters our senses in immediate sensation opens our weak andvolatile spirit to every impression, but makes us in the same degree lessapt for exertion. That which stretches our thinking power and invites toabstract conceptions strengthens our mind for every kind of resistance, but hardens it also in the same proportion, and deprives us ofsusceptibility in the same ratio that it helps us to greater mentalactivity. For this very reason, one as well as the other brings us atlength to exhaustion, because matter cannot long do without the shaping, constructive force, and the force cannot do without the constructiblematerial. But on the other hand, if we have resigned ourselves to theenjoyment of genuine beauty, we are at such a moment of our passive andactive powers in the same degree master, and we shall turn with ease fromgrave to gay, from rest to movement, from submission to resistance, toabstract thinking and intuition. 

This high indifference and freedom of mind, united with power andelasticity, is the disposition in which a true work of art ought todismiss us, and there is no better test of true aesthetic excellence. Ifafter an enjoyment of this kind we find ourselves specially impelled to aparticular mode of feeling or action, and unfit for other modes, thisserves as an infallible proof that we have not experienced any pureaesthetic effect, whether this is owing to the object, to our own mode offeeling--as generally happens--or to both together. 

As in reality no purely aesthetical effect can be met with--for man cannever leave his dependence on material forces--the excellence of a workof art can only consist in its greater approximation to its ideal ofaesthetic purity, and however high we may raise the freedom of thiseffect, we shall always leave it with a particular disposition and aparticular bias. Any class of productions or separate work in the worldof art is noble and excellent in proportion to the universality of thedisposition and the unlimited character of the bias thereby presented toour mind. This truth can be applied to works in various branches of art, and also to different works in the same branch. We leave a grand musicalperformance with our feelings excited, the reading of a noble poem with aquickened imagination, a beautiful statue or building with an awakenedunderstanding; but a man would not choose an opportune moment whoattempted to invite us to abstract thinking after a high musicalenjoyment, or to attend to a prosaic affair of common life after a highpoetical enjoyment, or to kindle our imagination and astonish ourfeelings directly after inspecting a fine statue or edifice. The reasonof this is, that music, by its matter, even when most spiritual, presentsa greater affinity with the senses than is permitted by aestheticliberty; it is because even the most happy poetry, having for its mediumthe arbitrary and contingent play of the imagination, always shares in itmore than the intimate necessity of the really beautiful allows; it isbecause the best sculpture touches on severe science by what isdeterminate in its conception. However, these particular affinities arelost in proportion as the works of these three kinds of art rise to agreater elevation, and it is a natural and necessary consequence of theirperfection, that, without confounding their objective limits, thedifferent arts come to resemble each other more and more, in the actionwhich they exercise on the mind. At its highest degree of ennobling, music ought to become a form, and act on us with the calm power of anantique statue; in its most elevated perfection, the plastic art ought tobecome music and move us by the immediate action exercised on the mind bythe senses; in its most complete development, poetry ought both to stirus powerfully like music and like plastic art to surround us with apeaceful light. In each art, the perfect style consists exactly inknowing how to remove specific limits, while sacrificing at the same timethe particular advantages of the art, and to give it by a wise use ofwhat belongs to it specially a more general character. 

Nor is it only the limits inherent in the specific character of each kindof art that the artist ought to overstep in putting his hand to the work;he must also triumph over those which are inherent in the particularsubject of which he treats. In a really beautiful work of art, thesubstance ought to be inoperative, the form should do everything; for bythe form the whole man is acted on; the substance acts on nothing butisolated forces. Thus, however vast and sublime it may be, the substancealways exercises a restrictive action on the mind, and true aestheticliberty can only be expected from the form. Consequently the true searchof the matter consists in destroying matter by the form; and the triumphof art is great in proportion as it overcomes matter and maintains itssway over those who enjoy its work. It is great particularly indestroying matter when most imposing, ambitious, and attractive, whentherefore matter has most power to produce the effect proper to it, or, again, when it leads those who consider it more closely to enter directlyinto relation with it. The mind of the spectator and of the hearer mustremain perfectly free and intact; it must issue pure and entire from themagic circle of the artist, as from the hands of the Creator. The mostfrivolous subject ought to be treated in such a way that we preserve thefaculty to exchange it immediately for the most serious work. The artswhich have passion for their object, as a tragedy for example, do notpresent a difficulty here; for, in the first place, these arts are notentirely free, because they are in the service of a particular end (thepathetic), and then no connoisseur will deny that even in this class awork is perfect in proportion as amidst the most violent storms ofpassion it respects the liberty of the soul. There is a fine art ofpassion, but an impassioned fine art is a contradiction in terms, for theinfallible effect of the beautiful is emancipation from the passions. The idea of an instructive fine art (didactic art) or improving (moral)art is no less contradictory, for nothing agrees less with the idea ofthe beautiful than to give a determinate tendency to the mind. 

However, from the fact that a work produces effects only by itssubstance, it must not always be inferred that there is a want of form inthis work; this conclusion may quite as well testify to a want of form inthe observer. If his mind is too stretched or too relaxed, if it is onlyaccustomed to receive things either by the senses or the intelligence, even in the most perfect combination, it will only stop to look at theparts, and it will only see matter in the most beautiful form. Onlysensible of the coarse elements, he must first destroy the aestheticorganization of a work to find enjoyment in it, and carefully disinterthe details which genius has caused to vanish, with infinite art, in theharmony of the whole. The interest he takes in the work is either solelymoral or exclusively physical; the only thing wanting to it is to beexactly what it ought to be--aesthetical. The readers of this classenjoy a serious and pathetic poem as they do a sermon: a simple andplayful work, as an inebriating draught; and if on the one hand they haveso little taste as to demand edification from a tragedy or from an epos, even such as the "Messias, " on the other hand they will be infalliblyscandalized by a piece after the fashion of Anacreon and Catullus. 

LETTER XXIII. 

I take up the thread of my researches, which I broke off only to applythe principles I laid down to practical art and the appreciation of itsworks. 

The transition from the passivity of sensuousness to the activity ofthought and of will can be effected only by the intermediary state ofaesthetic liberty; and though in itself this state decides nothingrespecting our opinions and our sentiments, and therefore it leaves ourintellectual and moral value entirely problematical, it is, however, thenecessary condition without which we should never attain to an opinion ora sentiment. In a word, there is no other way to make a reasonable beingout of a sensuous man than by making him first aesthetic. 

But, you might object: Is this mediation absolutely indispensable? Couldnot truth and duty, one or the other, in themselves and by themselves, find access to the sensuous man? To this I reply: Not only is itpossible but it is absolutely necessary that they owe solely tothemselves their determining force, and nothing would be morecontradictory to our preceding affirmations than to appear to defend thecontrary opinion. It has been expressly proved that the beautifulfurnishes no result, either for the comprehension or for the will; thatit mingles with no operations, either of thought or of resolution; andthat it confers this double power without determining anything withregard to the real exercise of this power. Here all foreign helpdisappears, and the pure logical form, the idea, would speak immediatelyto the intelligence, as the pure moral form, the law, immediately to thewill. 

But that the pure form should be capable of it, and that there is ingeneral a pure form for sensuous man, is that, I maintain, which shouldbe rendered possible by the aesthetic disposition of the soul. Truth isnot a thing which can be received from without like reality or thevisible existence of objects. It is the thinking force, in his ownliberty and activity, which produces it, and it is just this libertyproper to it, this liberty which we seek in vain in sensuous man. Thesensuous man is already determined physically, and thenceforth he has nolonger his free determinability; he must necessarily first enter intopossession of this lost determinability before he can exchange thepassive against an active determination. Therefore, in order to recoverit, he must either lose the passive determination that he had, or heshould enclose already in himself the active determination to which heshould pass. If he confined himself to lose passive determination, hewould at the same time lose with it the possibility of an activedetermination, because thought needs a body, and form can only berealized through matter. He must therefore contain already in himselfthe active determination, that he may be at once both actively andpassively determined, that is to say, he becomes necessarily aesthetic. 

Consequently, by the aesthetic disposition of the soul the properactivity of reason is already revealed in the sphere of sensuousness, thepower of sense is already broken within its own boundaries, and theennobling of physical man carried far enough, for spiritual man has onlyto develop himself according to the laws of liberty. The transition froman aesthetic state to a logical and moral state (from the beautiful totruth and duty) is then infinitely more easy than the transition from thephysical state to the aesthetic state (from life pure and blind to form). This transition man can effectuate alone by his liberty, whilst he hasonly to enter into possession of himself not to give it himself; but toseparate the elements of his nature, and not to enlarge it. Havingattained to the aesthetic disposition, man will give to his judgments andto his actions a universal value as soon as he desires it. This passagefrom brute nature to beauty, in which an entirely new faculty wouldawaken in him, nature would render easier, and his will has no power overa disposition which, we know, itself gives birth to the will. To bringthe aesthetic man to profound views, to elevated sentiments, he requiresnothing more than important occasions: to obtain the same thing from thesensuous man, his nature must at first be changed. To make of the formera hero, a sage, it is often only necessary to meet with a sublimesituation, which exercises upon the faculty of the will the moreimmediate action; for the second, it must first be transplanted underanother sky. 

One of the most important tasks of culture, then, is to submit man toform, even in a purely physical life, and to render it aesthetic as faras the domain of the beautiful can be extended, for it is alone in theaesthetic state, and not in the physical state, that the moral state canbe developed. If in each particular case man ought to possess the powerto make his judgment and his will the judgment of the entire species; ifhe ought to find in each limited existence the transition to an infiniteexistence; if, lastly, he ought from every dependent situation to takehis flight to rise to autonomy and to liberty, it must be observed thatat no moment he is only individual and solely obeys the laws of nature. To be apt and ready to raise himself from the narrow circle of the endsof nature, to rational ends, in the sphere of the former he must alreadyhave exercised himself in the second; he must already have realized hisphysical destiny with a certain liberty that belongs only to spiritualnature, that is to say according to the laws of the beautiful. 

And that he can effect without thwarting in the least degree his physicalaim. The exigencies of nature with regard to him turn only upon what hedoes--upon the substance of his acts; but the ends of nature in no degreedetermine the way in which he acts, the form of his actions. On thecontrary, the exigencies of reason have rigorously the form of hisactivity for its object. Thus, so much as it is necessary for the moraldestination of man, that he be purely moral, that he shows an absolutepersonal activity, so much is he indifferent that his physicaldestination be entirely physical, that he acts in a manner entirelypassive. Henceforth with regard to this last destination, it entirelydepends on him to fulfil it solely as a sensuous being and natural force(as a force which acts only as it diminishes) or, at the same time, asabsolute force, as a rational being. To which of these does his dignitybest respond? Of this there can be no question. It is as disgracefuland contemptible for him to do under sensuous impulsion that which heought to have determined merely by the motive of duty, as it is noble andhonorable for him to incline towards conformity with laws, harmony, independence; there even where the vulgar man only satisfies a legitimatewant. In a word, in the domain of truth and morality, sensuousness musthave nothing to determine; but in the sphere of happiness, form may finda place, and the instinct of play prevail. 

Thus then, in the indifferent sphere of physical life, man ought toalready commence his moral life; his own proper activity ought already tomake way in passivity, and his rational liberty beyond the limits ofsense; he ought already to impose the law of his will upon hisinclinations; he ought--if you will permit me the expression--to carryinto the domain of matter the war against matter, in order to bedispensed from combating this redoubtable enemy upon the sacred field ofliberty; he ought to learn to have nobler desires, not to be forced tohave sublime volitions. This is the fruit of aesthetic culture, whichsubmits to the laws of the beautiful, in which neither the laws of naturenor those of reason suffer, which does not force the will of man, andwhich by the form it gives to exterior life already opens internal life. 

LETTER XXIV. 

Accordingly three different moments or stages of development can bedistinguished, which the individual man, as well as the whole race, mustof necessity traverse in a determinate order if they are to fulfil thecircle of their determination. No doubt, the separate periods can belengthened or shortened, through accidental causes which are inherenteither in the influence of external things or under the free caprice ofmen: but neither of them can be overstepped, and the order of theirsequence cannot be inverted either by nature or by the will. Man, in hisphysical condition, suffers only the power of nature; he gets rid of thispower in the aesthetical condition, and he rules them in the moral state. 

What is man before beauty liberates him from free pleasure, and theserenity of form tames down the savageness of life? Eternally uniform inhis aims, eternally changing in his judgments, self-seeking without beinghimself, unfettered without being free, a slave without serving any rule. At this period, the world is to him only destiny, not yet an object; allhas existence for him only in as far as it procures existence to him; athing that neither seeks from nor gives to him is non-existent. Everyphenomenon stands out before him separate and cut off, as he findshimself in the series of beings. All that is, is to him through the biasof the moment; every change is to him an entirely fresh creation, becausewith the necessary in him, the necessary out of him is wanting, whichbinds together all the changing forms in the universe, and which holdsfast the law on the theatre of his action, while the individual departs. It is in vain that nature lets the rich variety of her forms pass beforehim; he sees in her glorious fulness nothing but his prey, in her powerand greatness nothing but his enemy. Either he encounters objects, andwishes to draw them to himself in desire, or the objects press in adestructive manner upon him, and he thrusts them away in dismay andterror. In both cases his relation to the world of sense is immediatecontact; and perpetually anxious through its pressure, restless andplagued by imperious wants, he nowhere finds rest except in enervation, and nowhere limits save in exhausted desire. 

 "True, his is the powerful breast, and the mighty hand of the Titans. . . . A certain inheritance; yet the god welded Round his forehead a brazen band; Advice, moderation, wisdom, and patience, -- Hid it from his shy, sinister look. Every desire is with him a rage, And his rage prowls around limitless. "--Iphigenia in Tauris. 

Ignorant of his own human dignity, he is far removed from honoring it inothers, and conscious of his own savage greed, he fears it in everycreature that he sees like himself. He never sees others in himself, only himself in others, and human society, instead of enlarging him tothe race, only shuts him up continually closer in his individuality. Thus limited, he wanders through his sunless life, till favoring naturerolls away the load of matter from his darkened senses, reflectionseparates him from things, and objects show themselves at length in theafterglow of the consciousness. 

It is true we cannot point out this state of rude nature as we have hereportrayed it in any definite people and age. It is only an idea, but anidea with which experience agrees most closely in special features. Itmay be said that man was never in this animal condition, but he has not, on the other hand, ever entirely escaped from it. Even in the rudestsubjects, unmistakable traces of rational freedom can be found, and evenin the most cultivated, features are not wanting that remind us of thatdismal natural condition. It is possible for man, at one and the sametime, to unite the highest and the lowest in his nature; and if hisdignity depends on a strict separation of one from the other, hishappiness depends on a skilful removal of this separation. The culturewhich is to bring his dignity into agreement with his happiness willtherefore have to provide for the greatest purity of these two principlesin their most intimate combination. 

Consequently the first appearance of reason in man is not the beginningof humanity. This is first decided by his freedom, and reason beginsfirst by making his sensuous dependence boundless; a phenomenon that doesnot appear to me to have been sufficiently elucidated, considering itsimportance and universality. We know that the reason makes itself knownto man by the demand for the absolute--the self-dependent and necessary. But as this want of the reason cannot be satisfied in any separate orsingle state of his physical life, he is obliged to leave the physicalentirely and to rise from a limited reality to ideas. But although thetrue meaning of that demand of the reason is to withdraw him from thelimits of time and to lead him from the world of sense to an ideal world, yet this same demand of reason, by misapplication--scarcely to be avoidedin this life, prone to sensuousness--can direct him to physical life, and, instead of making man free, plunge him in the most terrible slavery. 

Facts verify this supposition. Man raised on the wings of imaginationleaves the narrow limits of the present, in which mere animality isenclosed, in order to strive on to an unlimited future. But while thelimitless is unfolded to his dazed imagination, his heart has not ceasedto live in the separate, and to serve the moment. The impulse towardsthe absolute seizes him suddenly in the midst of his animality, and as inthis cloddish condition all his efforts aim only at the material andtemporal, and are limited by his individuality, he is only led by thatdemand of the reason to extend his individuality into the infinite, instead of to abstract from it. He will be led to seek instead of forman inexhaustible matter, instead of the unchangeable an everlastingchange and an absolute securing of his temporal existence. The sameimpulse which, directed to his thought and action, ought to lead to truthand morality, now directed to his passion and emotional state, producesnothing but an unlimited desire and an absolute want. The first fruits, therefore, that he reaps in the world of spirits are cares and fear--bothoperations of the reason; not of sensuousness, but of a reason thatmistakes its object and applies its categorical imperative to matter. All unconditional systems of happiness are fruits of this tree, whetherthey have for their object the present day or the whole of life, or whatdoes not make them any more respectable, the whole of eternity, for theirobject. An unlimited duration of existence and of well-being is only anideal of the desires; hence a demand which can only be put forth by ananimality striving up to the absolute. Man, therefore, without gaininganything for his humanity by a rational expression of this sort, losesthe happy limitation of the animal, over which he now only possesses theunenviable superiority of losing the present for an endeavor after whatis remote, yet without seeking in the limitless future anything but thepresent. 

But even if the reason does not go astray in its object, or err in thequestion, sensuousness will continue to falsify the answer for a longtime. As soon as man has begun to use his understanding and to knittogether phenomena in cause and effect, the reason, according to itsconception, presses on to an absolute knitting together and to anunconditional basis. In order, merely, to be able to put forward thisdemand, man must already have stepped beyond the sensuous, but thesensuous uses this very demand to bring back the fugitive. 

In fact, it is now that he ought to abandon entirely the world of sensein order to take his flight into the realm of ideas; for the intelligenceremains eternally shut up in the finite and in the contingent, and doesnot cease putting questions without reaching the last link of the chain. But as the man with whom we are engaged is not yet capable of such anabstraction, and does not find it in the sphere of sensuous knowledge, and because he does not look for it in pure reason, he will seek for itbelow in the region of sentiment, and will appear to find it. No doubtthe sensuous shows him nothing that has its foundation in itself, andthat legislates for itself, but it shows him something that does not carefor foundation or law; therefore, thus not being able to quiet theintelligence by showing it a final cause, he reduces it to silence by theconception which desires no cause; and being incapable of understandingthe sublime necessity of reason, he keeps to the blind constraint ofmatter. As sensuousness knows no other end than its interest, and isdetermined by nothing except blind chance, it makes the former the motiveof its actions, and the latter the master of the world. 

Even the divine part in man, the moral law, in its first manifestation inthe sensuous cannot avoid this perversion. As this moral law is onlyprohibited, and combats in man the interest of sensuous egotism, it mustappear to him as something strange until he has come to consider thisself-love as the stranger, and the voice of reason as his true self. Therefore he confines himself to feeling the fetters which the latterimposes on him, without having the consciousness of the infiniteemancipation which it procures for him. Without suspecting in himselfthe dignity of lawgiver, he only experiences the constraint and theimpotent revolt of a subject fretting under the yoke, because in thisexperience the sensuous impulsion precedes the moral impulsion, he givesto the law of necessity a beginning in him, a positive origin, and by themost unfortunate of all mistakes he converts the immutable and theeternal in himself into a transitory accident. He makes up his mind toconsider the notions of the just and the unjust as statutes which havebeen introduced by a will, and not as having in themselves an eternalvalue. Just as in the explanation of certain natural phenomena he goesbeyond nature and seeks out of her what can only be found in her, in herown laws; so also in the explanation of moral phenomena he goes beyondreason and makes light of his humanity, seeking a god in this way. It isnot wonderful that a religion which he has purchased at the cost of hishumanity shows itself worthy of this origin, and that he only considersas absolute and eternally binding laws that have never been binding fromall eternity. He has placed himself in relation with, not a holy being, but a powerful. Therefore the spirit of his religion, of the homage thathe gives to God, is a fear that abases him, and not a veneration thatelevates him in his own esteem. 

Though these different aberrations by which man departs from the ideal ofhis destination cannot all take place at the same time, because severaldegrees have to be passed over in the transition from the obscure ofthought to error, and from the obscure of will to the corruption of thewill; these degrees are all, without exception, the consequence of hisphysical state, because in all the vital impulsion sways the formalimpulsion. Now, two cases may happen: either reason may not yet havespoken in man, and the physical may reign over him with a blindnecessity, or reason may not be sufficiently purified from sensuousimpressions, and the moral may still be subject to the physical; in bothcases the only principle that has a real power over him is a materialprinciple, and man, at least as regards his ultimate tendency, is asensuous being. The only difference is, that in the former case he is ananimal without reason, and in the second case a rational animal. But heought to be neither one nor the other: he ought to be a man. Natureought not to rule him exclusively; nor reason conditionally. The twolegislations ought to be completely independent, and yet mutuallycomplementary. 

LETTER XXV. 

Whilst man, in his first physical condition, is only passively affectedby the world of sense, he is still entirely identified with it; and forthis reason the external world, as yet, has no objective existence forhim. When he begins in his aesthetic state of mind to regard the worldobjectively, then only is his personality severed from it, and the worldappears to him an objective reality, for the simple reason that he hasceased to form an identical portion of it. 

That which first connects man with the surrounding universe is the powerof reflective contemplation. Whereas desire seizes at once its object, reflection removes it to a distance and renders it inalienably her own bysaving it from the greed of passion. The necessity of sense which heobeyed during the period of mere sensations, lessens during the period ofreflection; the senses are for the time in abeyance; even ever-fleetingtime stands still whilst the scattered rays of consciousness aregathering and shape themselves; an image of the infinite is reflectedupon the perishable ground. As soon as light dawns in man, there is no, longer night outside of him; as soon as there is peace within him thestorm lulls throughout the universe, and the contending forces of naturefind rest within prescribed limits. Hence we cannot wonder if ancienttraditions allude to these great changes in the inner man as to arevolution in surrounding nature, and symbolize thought triumphing overthe laws of time, by the figure of Zeus, which terminates the reign ofSaturn. 

As long as man derives sensations from a contact with nature, he is herslave; but as soon as he begins to reflect upon her objects and laws hebecomes her lawgiver. Nature, which previously ruled him as a power, nowexpands before him as an object. What is objective to him can have nopower over him, for in order to become objective it has to experience hisown power. As far and as long as he impresses a form upon matter, hecannot be injured by its effect; for a spirit can only be injured by thatwhich deprives it of its freedom. Whereas he proves his own freedom bygiving a form to the formless; where the mass rules heavily and withoutshape, and its undefined outlines are for ever fluctuating betweenuncertain boundaries, fear takes up its abode; but man rises above anynatural terror as soon as he knows how to mould it, and transform it intoan object of his art. As soon as he upholds his independence towardsphenomenal natures he maintains his dignity toward her as a thing ofpower, and with a noble freedom he rises against his gods. They throwaside the mask with which they had kept him in awe during his infancy, and to his surprise his mind perceives the reflection of his own image. The divine monster of the Oriental, which roams about changing the worldwith the blind force of a beast of prey, dwindles to the charming outlineof humanity in Greek fable; the empire of the Titans is crushed, andboundless force is tamed by infinite form. 

But whilst I have been merely searching for an issue from the materialworld, and a passage into the world of mind, the bold flight of myimagination has already taken me into the very midst of the latter world. The beauty of which we are in search we have left behind by passing fromthe life of mere sensations to the pure form and to the pure object. Such a leap exceeds the condition of human nature; in order to keep pacewith the latter we must return to the world of sense. 

Beauty is indeed the sphere of unfettered contemplation and reflection;beauty conducts us into the world of ideas, without however taking usfrom the world of sense, as occurs when a truth is perceived andacknowledged. This is the pure product of a process of abstraction fromeverything material and accidental, a pure object free from everysubjective barrier, a pure state of self-activity without any admixtureof passive sensations. There is indeed a way back to sensation from thehighest abstraction; for thought teaches the inner sensation, and theidea of logical or moral unity passes into a sensation of sensual accord. But if we delight in knowledge we separate very accurately our ownconceptions from our sensations; we look upon the latter as somethingaccidental, which might have been omitted without the knowledge beingimpaired thereby, without truth being less true. It would, however, be avain attempt to suppress this connection of the faculty of feeling withthe idea of beauty, consequently, we shall not succeed in representing toourselves one as the effect of the other, but we must look upon them bothtogether and reciprocally as cause and effect. In the pleasure which wederive from knowledge we readily distinguish the passage from the activeto the passive state, and we clearly perceive that the first ends whenthe second begins. On the contrary, from the pleasure which we take inbeauty, this transition from the active to the passive is notperceivable, and reflection is so intimately blended with feeling that webelieve we feel the form immediately. Beauty is then an object to us, itis true, because reflection is the condition of the feeling which we haveof it; but it is also a state of our personality (our Ego) because thefeeling is the condition of the idea we conceive of it: beauty istherefore doubtless form, because we contemplate it, but it is equallylife because we feel it. In a word, it is at once our state and our act. And precisely because it is at the same time both a state and an act, ittriumphantly proves to us that the passive does not exclude the active, neither matter nor form, neither the finite nor the infinite; and thatconsequently the physical dependence to which man is necessarily devoteddoes not in any way destroy his moral liberty. This is the proof ofbeauty, and I ought to add that this alone can prove it. In fact, as inthe possession of truth or of logical unity, feeling is not necessarilyone with the thought, but follows it accidentally; it is a fact whichonly proves that a sensitive nature can succeed a rational nature, andvice versa; not that they co-exist, that they exercise a reciprocalaction one over the other; and, lastly, that they ought to be united inan absolute and necessary manner. From this exclusion of feeling as longas there is thought, and of thought so long as there is feeling, weshould on the contrary conclude that the two natures are incompatible, sothat in order to demonstrate that pure reason is to be realized inhumanity, the best proof given by the analysis is that this realizationis demanded. But, as in the realization of beauty or of aesthetic unity, there is a real union, mutual substitution of matter and of form, ofpassive and of active, by this alone is proved the compatibility of thetwo natures, the possible realization of the infinite in the finite, andconsequently also the possibility of the most sublime humanity. 

Henceforth we need no longer be embarrassed to find a transition fromdependent feeling to moral liberty, because beauty reveals to us the factthat they can perfectly coexist, and that to show himself a spirit, manneed not escape from matter. But if on one side he is free, even in hisrelation with a visible world, as the fact of beauty teaches, and if onthe other side freedom is something absolute and supersensuous, as itsidea necessarily implies, the question is no longer how man succeeds inraising himself from the finite to the absolute, and opposing himself inhis thought and will to sensuality, as this has already been produced inthe fact of beauty. In a word, we have no longer to ask how he passesfrom virtue to truth which is already included in the former, but how heopens a way for himself from vulgar reality to aesthetic reality, andfrom the ordinary feelings of life to the perception of the beautiful. 

LETTER XXVI. 

I have shown in the previous letters that it is only the aestheticdisposition of the soul that gives birth to liberty, it cannot thereforebe derived from liberty nor have a moral origin. It must be a gift ofnature; the favor of chance alone can break the bonds of the physicalstate and bring the savage to duty. The germ of the beautiful will findan equal difficulty in developing itself in countries where a severenature forbids man to enjoy himself, and in those where a prodigal naturedispenses him from all effort; where the blunted senses experience nowant, and where violent desire can never be satisfied. The delightfulflower of the beautiful will never unfold itself in the case of theTroglodyte hid in his cavern always alone, and never finding humanityoutside himself; nor among nomads, who, travelling in great troops, onlyconsist of a multitude, and have no individual humanity. It will onlyflourish in places where man converses peacefully with himself in hiscottage, and with the whole race when he issues from it. In thoseclimates where a limpid ether opens the senses to the lightestimpression, whilst a life-giving warmth develops a luxuriant nature, where even in the inanimate creation the sway of inert matter isoverthrown, and the victorious form ennobles even the most abjectnatures; in this joyful state and fortunate zone, where activity aloneleads to enjoyment, and enjoyment to activity, from life itself issues aholy harmony, and the laws of order develop life, a different resulttakes place. When imagination incessantly escapes from reality, and doesnot abandon the simplicity of nature in its wanderings: then and thereonly the mind and the senses, the receptive force and the plastic force, are developed in that happy equilibrium which is the soul of thebeautiful and the condition of humanity. 

What phenomenon accompanies the initiation of the savage into humanity?However far we look back into history the phenomenon is identical amongall people who have shaken off the slavery of the animal state: the loveof appearance, the inclination for dress and for games. 

Extreme stupidity and extreme intelligence have a certain affinity inonly seeking the real and being completely insensible to mere appearance. The former is only drawn forth by the immediate presence of an object inthe senses, and the second is reduced to a quiescent state only byreferring conceptions to the facts of experience. In short, stupiditycannot rise above reality, nor the intelligence descend below truth. Thus, in as far as the want of reality and attachment to the real areonly the consequence of a want and a defect, indifference to the real andan interest taken in appearances are a real enlargement of humanity and adecisive step towards culture. In the first place it is the proof of anexterior liberty, for as long as necessity commands and want solicits, the fancy is strictly chained down to the real: it is only when want issatisfied that it develops without hinderance. But it is also the proofof an internal liberty, because it reveals to us a force which, independent of an external substratum, sets itself in motion, and hassufficient energy to remove from itself the solicitations of nature. Thereality of things is effected by things, the appearance of things is thework of man, and a soul that takes pleasure in appearance does not takepleasure in what it receives but in what it makes. 

It is self-evident that I am speaking of aesthetical evidence differentfrom reality and truth, and not of logical appearance identical withthem. Therefore if it is liked it is because it is an appearance, andnot because it is held to be something better than it is: the firstprinciple alone is a play, whilst the second is a deception. To give avalue to the appearance of the first kind can never injure truth, becauseit is never to be feared that it will supplant it--the only way in whichtruth can be injured. To despise this appearance is to despise ingeneral all the fine arts of which it is the essence. Nevertheless, ithappens sometimes that the understanding carries its zeal for reality asfar as this intolerance, and strikes with a sentence of ostracism all thearts relating to beauty in appearance, because it is only an appearance. However, the intelligence only shows this vigorous spirit when it callsto mind the affinity pointed out further back. I shall find some day theoccasion to treat specially of the limits of beauty in its appearance. 

It is nature herself which raises man from reality to appearance byendowing him with two senses which only lead him to the knowledge of thereal through appearance. In the eye and the ear the organs of the sensesare already freed from the persecutions of nature, and the object withwhich we are immediately in contact through the animal senses is remoterfrom us. What we see by the eye differs from what we feel; for theunderstanding to reach objects overleaps the light which separates usfrom them. In truth, we are passive to an object: in sight and hearingthe object is a form we create. While still a savage, man only enjoysthrough touch merely aided by sight and sound. He either does not riseto perception through sight, or does not rest there. As soon as hebegins to enjoy through sight, vision has an independent value, he isaesthetically free, and the instinct of play is developed. 

The instinct of play likes appearance, and directly it is awakened it isfollowed by the formal imitative instinct which treats appearance as anindependent thing. Directly man has come to distinguish the appearancefrom the reality, the form from the body, he can separate, in fact he hasalready done so. Thus the faculty of the art of imitation is given withthe faculty of form in general. The inclination that draws us to itreposes on another tendency I have not to notice here. The exact periodwhen the aesthetic instinct, or that of art, develops, depends entirelyon the attraction that mere appearance has for men. 

As every real existence proceeds from nature as a foreign power, whilstevery appearance comes in the first place from man as a percipientsubject, he only uses his absolute sight in separating semblance fromessence, and arranging according to subjective law. With an unbridledliberty he can unite what nature has severed, provided he can imagine hisunion, and he can separate what nature has united, provided thisseparation can take place in his intelligence. Here nothing can besacred to him but his own law: the only condition imposed upon him is torespect the border which separates his own sphere from the existence ofthings or from the realm of nature. 

This human right of ruling is exercised by man in the art of appearance;and his success in extending the empire of the beautiful, and guardingthe frontiers of truth, will be in proportion with the strictness withwhich he separates form from substance: for if he frees appearance fromreality, he must also do the converse. 

But man possesses sovereign power only in the world of appearance, in theunsubstantial realm of imagination, only by abstaining from giving beingto appearance in theory, and by giving it being in practice. It followsthat the poet transgresses his proper limits when he attributes being tohis ideal, and when he gives this ideal aim as a determined existence. For he can only reach this result by exceeding his right as a poet, thatof encroaching by the ideal on the field of experience, and by pretendingto determine real existence in virtue of a simple possibility, or else herenounces his right as a poet by letting experience encroach on thesphere of the ideal, and by restricting possibility to the conditions ofreality. 

It is only by being frank or disclaiming all reality, and by beingindependent or doing without reality, that the appearance is aesthetical. Directly it apes reality or needs reality for effect, it is nothing morethan a vile instrument for material ends, and can prove nothing for thefreedom of the mind. Moreover, the object in which we find beauty neednot be unreal if our judgment disregards this reality; for if it regardsthis the judgment is no longer aesthetical. A beautiful woman, ifliving, would no doubt please us as much and rather more than an equallybeautiful woman seen in painting; but what makes the former please men isnot her being an independent appearance; she no longer pleases the pureaesthetic feeling. In the painting, life must only attract as anappearance, and reality as an idea. But it is certain that to feel in aliving object only the pure appearance requires a greatly higheraesthetic culture than to do without life in the appearance. 

When the frank and independent appearance is found in man separately, orin a whole people, it may be inferred they have mind, taste, and allprerogatives connected with them. In this case the ideal will be seen togovern real life, honor triumphing over fortune, thought over enjoyment, the dream of immortality over a transitory existence. 

In this case public opinion will no longer be feared, and an olive crownwill be more valued than a purple mantle. Impotence and perversity alonehave recourse to false and paltry semblance, and individuals as well asnations who lend to reality the support of appearance, or to theaesthetic appearance the support of reality, show their moralunworthiness and their aesthetical impotence. Therefore, a short andconclusive answer can be given to this question--how far will appearancebe permitted in the moral world? It will run thus in proportion as thisappearance will be aesthetical, that is, an appearance that does not tryto make up for reality, nor requires to be made up for by it. Theaesthetical appearance can never endanger the truth of morals: whereverit seems to do so the appearance is not aesthetical. Only a stranger tothe fashionable world can take the polite assurances, which are only aform, for proofs of affection, and say he has been deceived; but only aclumsy fellow in good society calls in the aid of duplicity and flattersto become amiable. The former lacks the pure sense for independentappearance; therefore he can only give a value to appearance by truth. The second lacks reality, and wishes to replace it by appearance. Nothing is more common than to hear depreciators of the times utter thesepaltry complaints--that all solidity has disappeared from the world, andthat essence is neglected for semblance. Though I feel by no meanscalled upon to defend this age against these reproaches, I must say thatthe wide application of these criticisms shows that they attach blame tothe age, not only on the score of the false, but also of the frankappearance. And even the exceptions they admit in favor of the beautifulhave for their object less the independent appearance than the needyappearance. Not only do they attack the artificial coloring that hidestruth and replaces reality, but also the beneficent appearance that fillsa vacuum and clothes poverty; and they even attack the ideal appearancethat ennobles a vulgar reality. Their strict sense of truth is rightlyoffended by the falsity of manners; unfortunately, they class politenessin this category. It displeases them that the noisy and showy so ofteneclipse true merit, but they are no less shocked that appearance is alsodemanded from merit, and that a real substance does not dispense with anagreeable form. They regret the cordiality, the energy, and solidity ofancient times; they would restore with them ancient coarseness, heaviness, and the old Gothic profusion. By judgments of this kind theyshow an esteem for the matter itself unworthy of humanity, which oughtonly to value the matter inasmuch as it can receive a form and enlargethe empire of ideas. Accordingly, the taste of the age need not muchfear these criticisms if it can clear itself before better judges. Ourdefect is not to grant a value to aesthetic appearance (we do not do thisenough): a severe judge of the beautiful might rather reproach us withnot having arrived at pure appearance, with not having separated clearlyenough existence from the phenomenon, and thus established their limits. We shall deserve this reproach so long as we cannot enjoy the beautifulin living nature without desiring it; as long as we cannot admire thebeautiful in the imitative arts without having an end in view; as long aswe do not grant to imagination an absolute legislation of its own; and aslong as we do not inspire it with care for its dignity by the esteem wetestify for its works. 

LETTER XXVII. 

Do not fear for reality and truth. Even if the elevated idea ofaesthetic appearance become general, it would not become so, as long asman remains so little cultivated as to abuse it; and if it becamegeneral, this would result from a culture that would prevent all abuse ofit. The pursuit of independent appearance requires more power ofabstraction, freedom of heart, and energy of will than man requires toshut himself up in reality; and he must have left the latter behind himif he wishes to attain to aesthetic appearance. Therefore, a man wouldcalculate very badly who took the road of the ideal to save himself thatof reality. Thus, reality would not have much to fear from appearance, as we understand it; but, on the other hand, appearance would have moreto fear from reality. Chained to matter, man uses appearance for hispurposes before he allows it a proper personality in the art of theideal: to come to that point a complete revolution must take place in hismode of feeling, otherwise, he would not be even on the way to the ideal. Consequently, when we find in man the signs of a pure and disinterestedesteem, we can infer that this revolution has taken place in his nature, and that humanity has really begun in him. Signs of this kind are foundeven in the first and rude attempts that he makes to embellish hisexistence, even at the risk of making it worse in its materialconditions. As soon as he begins to prefer form to substance and to riskreality for appearance (known by him to be such), the barriers of animallife fall, and he finds himself on a track that has no end. 

Not satisfied with the needs of nature, he demands the superfluous. First, only the superfluous of matter, to secure his enjoyment beyond thepresent necessity; but afterward; he wishes a superabundance in matter, an aesthetical supplement to satisfy the impulse for the formal, toextend enjoyment beyond necessity. By piling up provisions simply for afuture use, and anticipating their enjoyment in the imagination, heoutsteps the limits of the present moment, but not those of time ingeneral. He enjoys more; he does not enjoy differently. But as soon ashe makes form enter into his enjoyment, and he keeps in view the forms ofthe objects which satisfy his desires, he has not only increased hispleasure in extent and intensity, but he has also ennobled it in mode andspecies. 

No doubt nature has given more than is necessary to unreasoning beings;she has caused a gleam of freedom to shine even in the darkness of animallife. When the lion is not tormented by hunger, and when no wild beastchallenges him to fight, his unemployed energy creates an object forhimself; full of ardor, he fills the re-echoing desert with his terribleroars, and his exuberant force rejoices in itself, showing itself withoutan object. The insect flits about rejoicing in life in the sunlight, andit is certainly not the cry of want that makes itself heard in themelodious song of the bird; there is undeniably freedom in thesemovements, though it is not emancipation from want in general, but from adeterminate external necessity. 

The animal works, when a privation is the motor of its activity, and itplays when the plenitude of force is this motor, when an exuberant lifeis excited to action. Even in inanimate nature a luxury of strength anda latitude of determination are shown, which in this material sense mightbe styled play. The tree produces numberless germs that are abortivewithout developing, and it sends forth more roots, branches, and leaves, organs of nutrition, than are used for the preservation of the species. Whatever this tree restores to the elements of its exuberant life, without using it or enjoying it, may be expended by life in free andjoyful movements. It is thus that nature offers in her material sphere asort of prelude to the limitless, and that even there she suppressespartially the chains from which she will be completely emancipated in therealm of form. The constraint of superabundance or physical play answersas a transition from the constraint of necessity, or of physicalseriousness, to aesthetical play; and before shaking off, in the supremefreedom of the beautiful, the yoke of any special aim, nature alreadyapproaches, at least remotely, this independence, by the free movementwhich is itself its own end and means. 

The imagination, like the bodily organs, has in man its free movement andits material play, a play in which, without any reference to form, itsimply takes pleasure in its arbitrary power and in the absence of allhinderance. These plays of fancy, inasmuch as form is not mixed up withthem, and because a free succession of images makes all their charm, though confined to man, belong exclusively to animal life, and only proveone thing--that he is delivered from all external sensuous constraintwithout our being entitled to infer that there is in it an independentplastic force. 

From this play of free association of ideas, which is still quitematerial in nature and is explained by simple natural laws, theimagination, by making the attempt of creating a free form, passes atlength at a jump to the aesthetic play: I say at one leap, for quite anew force enters into action here; for here, for the first time, thelegislative mind is mixed with the acts of a blind instinct, subjects thearbitrary march of the imagination to its eternal and immutable unity, causes its independent permanence to enter in that which is transitory, and its infinity in the sensuous. Nevertheless, as long as rude nature, which knows of no other law than running incessantly from change tochange, will yet retain too much strength, it will oppose itself by itsdifferent caprices to this necessity; by its agitation to thispermanence; by its manifold needs to this independence, and by itsinsatiability to this sublime simplicity. It will be also troublesome torecognize the instinct of play in its first trials, seeing that thesensuous impulsion, with its capricious humor and its violent appetites, constantly crosses. It is on that account that we see the taste, stillcoarse, seize that which is new and startling, the disordered, theadventurous and the strange, the violent and the savage, and fly fromnothing so much as from calm and simplicity. It invents grotesquefigures, it likes rapid transitions, luxurious forms, sharply-markedchanges, acute tones, a pathetic song. That which man calls beautiful atthis time is that which excites him, that which gives him matter; butthat which excites him to give his personality to the object, that whichgives matter to a possible plastic operation, for otherwise it would notbe the beautiful for him. A remarkable change has therefore taken placein the form of his judgments; he searches for these objects, not becausethey affect him, but because they furnish him with the occasion ofacting; they please him, not because they answer to a want, but becausethey satisfy a law which speaks in his breast, although quite low as yet. 

Soon it will not be sufficient for things to please him; he will wish toplease: in the first place, it is true, only by that which belongs tohim; afterwards by that which he is. That which he possesses, that whichhe produces, ought not merely to bear any more the traces of servitude, nor to mark out the end, simply and scrupulously, by the form. Independently of the use to which it is destined, the object ought alsoto reflect the enlightened intelligence which imagines it, the hand whichshaped it with affection, the mind free and serene which chose it andexposed it to view. Now, the ancient German searches for moremagnificent furs, for more splendid antlers of the stag, for more elegantdrinking-horns; and the Caledonian chooses the prettiest shells for hisfestivals. The arms themselves ought to be no longer only objects ofterror, but also of pleasure; and the skilfully-worked scabbard will notattract less attention than the homicidal edge of the sword. Theinstinct of play, not satisfied with bringing into the sphere of thenecessary an aesthetic superabundance for the future more free, is atlast completely emancipated from the bonds of duty, and the beautifulbecomes of itself an object of man's exertions. He adorns himself. Thefree pleasure comes to take a place among his wants, and the useless soonbecomes the best part of his joys. Form, which from the outsidegradually approaches him, in his dwelling, his furniture, his clothing, begins at last to take possession of the man himself, to transform him, at first exteriorly, and afterwards in the interior. The disorderedleaps of joy become the dance, the formless gesture is changed into anamiable and harmonious pantomime, the confused accents of feeling aredeveloped, and begin to obey measures and adapt themselves to song. When, like the flight of cranes, the Trojan army rushes on to the fieldof battle with thrilling cries, the Greek army approaches in silence andwith a noble and measured step. On the one side we see but theexuberance of a blind force, on the other the triumph of form, and thesimple majesty of law. 

Now, a nobler necessity binds the two sexes mutually, and the interestsof the heart contribute in rendering durable an alliance which was atfirst capricious and changing like the desire that knits it. Deliveredfrom the heavy fetters of desire, the eye, now calmer, attends to theform, the soul contemplates the soul, and the interested exchange ofpleasure becomes a generous exchange of mutual inclination. Desireenlarges and rises to love, in proportion as it sees humanity dawn in itsobject; and, despising the vile triumphs gained by the senses, man triesto win a nobler victory over the will. The necessity of pleasingsubjects the powerful nature to the gentle laws of taste; pleasure may bestolen, but love must be a gift. To obtain this higher recompense, it isonly through the form and not through matter that it can carry on thecontest. It must cease to act on feeling as a force, to appear in theintelligence as a simple phenomenon; it must respect liberty, as it isliberty it wishes to please. The beautiful reconciles the contrast ofdifferent natures in its simplest and purest expression. It alsoreconciles the eternal contrast of the two sexes in the whole complexframework of society, or at all events it seeks to do so; and, taking asits model the free alliance it has knit between manly strength andwomanly gentleness, it strives to place in harmony, in the moral world, all the elements of gentleness and of violence. Now, at length, weaknessbecomes sacred, and an unbridled strength disgraces; the injustice ofnature is corrected by the generosity of chivalrous manners. The beingwhom no power can make tremble, is disarmed by the amiable blush ofmodesty, and tears extinguish a vengeance that blood could not havequenched. Hatred itself hears the delicate voice of honor, theconqueror's sword spares the disarmed enemy, and a hospitable hearthsmokes for the stranger on the dreaded hillside where murder aloneawaited him before. 

In the midst of the formidable realm of forces, and of the sacred empireof laws, the aesthetic impulse of form creates by degrees a third and ajoyous realm, that of play and of the appearance, where she emancipatesman from fetters, in all his relations, and from all that is namedconstraint, whether physical or moral. 

If in the dynamic state of rights men mutually move and come intocollision as forces, in the moral (ethical) state of duties, man opposesto man the majesty of the laws, and chains down his will. In this realmof the beautiful or the aesthetic state, man ought to appear to man onlyas a form, and an object of free play. To give freedom through freedomis the fundamental law of this realm. 

The dynamic state can only make society simple possibly by subduingnature through nature; the moral (ethical) state can only make it morallynecessary by submitting the will of the individual to the general will. 

The aesthetic state alone can make it real, because it carries out thewill of all through the nature of the individual. If necessity aloneforces man to enter into society, and if his reason engraves on his soulsocial principles, it is beauty only that can give him a socialcharacter; taste alone brings harmony into society, because it createsharmony in the individual. All other forms of perception divide the man, because they are based exclusively either in the sensuous or in thespiritual part of his being. It is only the perception of beauty thatmakes of him an entirety, because it demands the co-operation of his twonatures. All other forms of communication divide society, because theyapply exclusively either to the receptivity or to the private activity ofits members, and therefore to what distinguishes men one from the other. The aesthetic communication alone unites society because it applies towhat is common to all its members. We only enjoy the pleasures of senseas individuals, without the nature of the race in us sharing in it;accordingly, we cannot generalize our individual pleasures, because wecannot generalize our individuality. We enjoy the pleasures of knowledgeas a race, dropping the individual in our judgment; but we cannotgeneralize the pleasures of the understanding, because we cannoteliminate individuality from the judgments of others as we do from ourown. Beauty alone can we enjoy both as individuals and as a race, thatis, as representing a race. Good appertaining to sense can only make oneperson happy, because it is founded on inclination, which is alwaysexclusive; and it can only make a man partially happy, because his realpersonality does not share in it. Absolute good can only render a manhappy conditionally, for truth is only the reward of abnegation, and apure heart alone has faith in a pure will. Beauty alone confershappiness on all, and under its influence every being forgets that he islimited. 

Taste does not suffer any superior or absolute authority, and the sway ofbeauty is extended over appearance. It extends up to the seat ofreason's supremacy, suppressing all that is material. It extends down towhere sensuous impulse rules with blind compulsion, and form isundeveloped. Taste ever maintains its power on these remote borders, where legislation is taken from it. Particular desires must renouncetheir egotism, and the agreeable, otherwise tempting the senses, must inmatters of taste adorn the mind with the attractions of grace. 

Duty and stern necessity must change their forbidding tone, only excusedby resistance, and do homage to nature by a nobler trust in her. Tasteleads our knowledge from the mysteries of science into the open expanseof common sense, and changes a narrow scholasticism into the commonproperty of the human race. Here the highest genius must leave itsparticular elevation, and make itself familiar to the comprehension evenof a child. Strength must let the Graces bind it, and the arbitrary lionmust yield to the reins of love. For this purpose taste throws a veilover physical necessity, offending a free mind by its coarse nudity, anddissimulating our degrading parentage with matter by a delightfulillusion of freedom. Mercenary art itself rises from the dust; and thebondage of the bodily, at its magic touch, falls off from the inanimateand animate. In the aesthetic state the most slavish tool is a freecitizen, having the same rights as the noblest; and the intellect whichshapes the mass to its intent must consult it concerning its destination. Consequently, in the realm of aesthetic appearance, the idea of equalityis realized, which the political zealot would gladly see carried outsocially. It has often been said that perfect politeness is only foundnear a throne. If thus restricted in the material, man has, as elsewhereappears, to find compensation in the ideal world. 

Does such a state of beauty in appearance exist, and where? It must bein every finely-harmonized soul; but as a fact, only in select circles, like the pure ideal of the church and state--in circles where manners arenot formed by the empty imitations of the foreign, but by the very beautyof nature; where man passes through all sorts of complications in allsimplicity and innocence, neither forced to trench on another's freedomto preserve his own, nor to show grace at the cost of dignity. 

===

AESTHETICAL ESSAYS. 

THE MORAL UTILITY OF AESTHETIC MANNERS. 

The author of the article which appeared in the eleventh number of "TheHours, " of 1795, upon "The Danger of Aesthetic Manners, " was right tohold as doubtful a morality founded only on a feeling for the beautiful, and which has no other warrant than taste; but it is evident that astrong and pure feeling for the beautiful ought to exercise a salutaryinfluence upon the moral life; and this is the question of which I amabout to treat. 

When I attribute to taste the merit of contributing to moral progress, itis not in the least my intention to pretend that the interest that goodtaste takes in an action suffices to make an action moral; morality couldnever have any other foundation than her own. Taste can be favorable tomorality in the conduct, as I hope to point out in the present essay; butalone, and by its unaided influence, it could never produce anythingmoral. 

It is absolutely the same with respect to internal liberty as withexternal physical liberty. I act freely in a physical sense only when, independently of all external influence, I simply obey my will. But forthe possibility of thus obeying without hinderance my own will, it isprobable, ultimately, that I am indebted to a principle beyond ordistinct from myself immediately it is admitted that this principle wouldhamper my will. The same also with regard to the possibility ofaccomplishing such action in conformity with duty--it may be that I oweit, ultimately, to a principle distinct from my reason; that is possible, the moment the idea of this principle is recognized as a force whichcould have constrained my independence. Thus the same as we can say of aman, that he holds his liberty from another man, although liberty in itsproper sense consists in not being forced to be regulated by another--inlike manner we can also say that taste here obeys virtue, although virtueherself expressly carries this idea, that in the practice of virtue shemakes use of no other foreign help. An action does not in any degreecease to be free, because he who could hamper its accomplishment shouldfortunately abstain from putting any obstacle in the way; it suffices toknow that this agent has been moved by his own will without anyconsideration of another will. In the same way, an action of the moralorder does not lose its right to be qualified as a moral action, becausethe temptations which might have turned it in another direction did notpresent themselves; it suffices to admit that the agent obeyed solely thedecree of his reason to the exclusion of all foreign springs of action. The liberty of an external act is established as soon as it directlyproceeds from the will of a person; the morality of an interior action isestablished from the moment that the will of the agent is at oncedetermined to it by the laws of reason. 

It may be rendered easier or more difficult to act as free men accordingas we meet or not in our path forces adverse to our will that must beovercome. In this sense liberty is more or less susceptible. It isgreater, or at least more visible, when we enable it to prevail over theopposing forces, however energetic their opposition; but it is notsuspended because our will should have met with no resistance, or that aforeign succor coming to our aid should have destroyed this resistance, without any help from ourselves. 

The same with respect to morality; we might have more or less resistanceto offer in order on the instant to obey our reason, according as itawakens or not in us those instincts which struggle against its precepts, and which must be put aside. In this sense morality is susceptible ofmore or of less. Our morality is greater, or at least more in relief, when we immediately obey reason, however powerful the instincts are whichpush us in a contrary direction; but it is not suspended because we havehad no temptation to disobey, or that this force had been paralyzed bysome other force other than our will. We are incited to an action solelybecause it is moral, without previously asking ourselves if it is themost agreeable. It is enough that such an action is morally good, and itwould preserve this character even if there were cause to believe that weshould have acted differently if the action had cost us any trouble, orhad deprived us of a pleasure. 

It can be admitted, for the honor of humanity, that no man could fall solow as to prefer evil solely because it is evil, but rather that everyman, without exception, would prefer the good because it is the good, ifby some accidental circumstance the good did not exclude the agreeable, or did not entail trouble. Thus in reality all moral action seems tohave no other principle than a conflict between the good and theagreeable; or, that which comes to the same thing, between desire andreason; the force of our sensuous instincts on one side, and, on theother side, the feebleness of will, the moral faculty: such apparently isthe source of all our faults. 

There may be, therefore, two different ways of favoring morality, thesame as there are two kinds of obstacles which thwart it: either we muststrengthen the side of reason, and the power of the good will, so that notemptation can overcome it; or we must break the force of temptation, inorder that the reason and the will, although feebler, should yet be in astate to surmount it. 

It might be said, without doubt, that true morality gains little by thissecond proceeding, because it happens without any modification of thewill, and yet that it is the nature of the will that alone give toactions their moral character. But I say also, in the case in question, a change of will is not at all necessary; because we do not suppose a badwill which should require to be changed, but only a will turned to good, but which is feeble. Therefore, this will, inclined to good, but toofeeble, does not fail to attain by this route to good actions, whichmight not have happened if a stronger impulsion had drawn it in acontrary sense. But every time that a strong will towards good becomesthe principle of an action, we are really in presence of a moral action. I have therefore no scruple in advancing this proposition--that all whichneutralizes the resistance offered to the law of duty really favorsmorality. 

Morality has within us a natural enemy, the sensuous instinct; this, assoon as some object solicits its desires, aspires at once to gratify it, and, as soon as reason requires from it anything repugnant, it does notfail to rebel against its precepts. This sensuous instinct is constantlyoccupied in gaining the will on its side. The will is nevertheless underthe jurisdiction of the moral law, and it is under an obligation never tobe in contradiction with that which reason demands. 

But the sensuous instinct does not recognize the moral law; it wishes toenjoy its object and to induce the will to realize it also, notwithstanding what the reason may advance. This tendency of thefaculty of our appetites, of immediately directing the will withouttroubling itself about superior laws, is perpetually in conflict with ourmoral destination, and it is the most powerful adversary that man has tocombat in his moral conduct. The coarse soul, without either moral oraesthetic education, receives directly the law of appetite, and acts onlyaccording to the good pleasure of the senses. The moral soul, but whichwants aesthetic culture, receives in a direct manner the law of reason, and it is only out of respect for duty that it triumphs over temptation. In the purified aesthetic soul, there is moreover another motive, anotherforce, which frequently takes the place of virtue when virtue is absent, and which renders it easier when it is present--that is, taste. 

Taste demands of us moderation and dignity; it has a horror of everythingsharp, hard and violent; it likes all that shapes itself with ease andharmony. To listen to the voice of reason amidst the tempest of thesenses, and to know where to place a limit to nature in its mostbrutified explosions, is, as we are aware, required by good breeding, which is no other than an aesthetic law; this is required of everycivilized man. Well, then, this constraint imposed upon civilized man inthe expression of his feelings, confers upon him already a certain degreeof authority over them, or at least develops in him a certain aptitude torise above the purely passive state of the soul, to interrupt this stateby an initiative act, and to stop by reflection the petulance of thefeelings, ever ready to pass from affections to acts. Thereforeeverything that interrupts the blind impetuosity of these movements ofthe affections does not as yet, however, produce, I own, a virtue (forvirtue ought never to have any other active principle than itself), butthat at least opens the road to the will, in order to turn it on the sideof virtue. Still, this victory of taste over brutish affections is by nomeans a moral action, and the freedom which the will acquires by theintervention of taste is as yet in no way a moral liberty. Tastedelivers the soul from the yoke of instinct, only to impose upon itchains of its own; and in discerning the first enemy, the declared enemyof moral liberty, it remains itself, too often, as a second enemy, perhaps even the more dangerous as it assumes the aspect of a friend. Taste effectively governs the soul itself only by the attraction ofpleasure; it is true of a nobler type, because its principle is reason, but still as long as the will is determined by pleasure there is not yetmorality. 

Notwithstanding this, a great point is gained already by the interventionof taste in the operations of the will. All those material inclinationsand brutal appetites, which oppose with so much obstinacy and vehemencethe practice of good, the soul is freed from through the aesthetic taste;and in their place, it implants in us nobler and gentler inclinations, which draw nearer to order, to harmony, and to perfection; and althoughthese inclinations are not by themselves virtues, they have at leastsomething in common with virtue; it is their object. Thenceforth, if itis the appetite that speaks, it will have to undergo a rigorous controlbefore the sense of the beautiful; if it is the reason which speaks, andwhich commands in its acts conformity with order, harmony, andperfection, not only will it no longer meet with an adversary on the sideof inclination, but it will find the most active competition. If wesurvey all the forms under which morality can be produced, we shall seethat all these forms can be reduced to two; either it is sensuous naturewhich moves the soul either to do this thing or not to do the other, andthe will finally decides after the law of the reason; or it is the reasonitself which impels the motion, and the will obeys it without seekingcounsel of the senses. 

The Greek princess, Anna Comnena, speaks of a rebel prisoner, whom herfather Alexis, then a simple general of his predecessor, had been chargedto conduct to Constantinople. During the journey, as they were ridingside by side, Alexis desired to halt under the shade of a tree to refreshhimself during the great heat of the day. It was not long before he fellasleep, whilst his companion, who felt no inclination to repose with thefear of death awaiting him before his eyes, remained awake. Alexisslumbered profoundly, with his sword hanging upon a branch above hishead; the prisoner perceived the sword, and immediately conceived theidea of killing his guardian and thus of regaining his freedom. AnnaComnena gives us to understand that she knows not what might have beenthe result had not Alexis fortunately awoke at that instant. In thisthere is a moral of the highest kind, in which the sensuous instinctfirst raised its voice, and of which the reason had only afterwards takencognizance in quality of judge. But suppose that the prisoner hadtriumphed over the temptation only out of respect for justice, therecould be no doubt the action would have been a moral action. 

When the late Duke Leopold of Brunswick, standing upon the banks of theraging waters of the Oder, asked himself if at the peril of his life heought to venture into the impetuous flood in order to save someunfortunates who without his aid were sure to perish; and when--I supposea case--simply under the influence of duty, he throws himself into theboat into which none other dares to enter, no one will contest doubtlessthat he acted morally. The duke was here in a contrary position to thatof the preceding one. The idea of duty, in this circumstance, was thefirst which presented itself, and afterwards only the instinct ofself-preservation was roused to oppose itself to that prescribed byreason, But in both cases the will acted in the same way; it obeyedunhesitatingly the reason, yet both of them are moral actions. 

But would the action have continued moral in both cases, if we supposethe aesthetic taste to have taken part in it? For example, suppose thatthe first, who was tempted to commit a bad action, and who gave it upfrom respect for justice, had the taste sufficiently cultivated to feelan invincible horror aroused in him against all disgraceful or violentaction, the aesthetic sense alone will suffice to turn him from it; thereis no longer any deliberation before the moral tribunal, before theconscience; another motive, another jurisdiction has already pronounced. But the aesthetic sense governs the will by the feeling and not by laws. Thus this man refuses to enjoy the agreeable sensation of a life saved, because he cannot support his odious feelings of having committed abaseness. Therefore all, in this, took place before the feelings alone, and the conduct of this man, although in conformity with the law, ismorally indifferent; it is simply a fine effect of nature. 

Now let us suppose that the second, he to whom his reason prescribed todo a thing against which natural instinct protested; suppose that thisman had to the same extent a susceptibility for the beautiful, so thatall which is great and perfect enraptured him; at the same moment, whenreason gave the order, the feelings would place themselves on the sameside, and he would do willingly that which without the inclination forthe beautiful he would have had to do contrary to inclination. But wouldthis be a reason for us to find it less perfect? Assuredly not, becausein principle it acts out of pure respect for the prescriptions of reason;and if it follows these injunctions with joy, that can take nothing awayfrom the moral purity of the act. Thus, this man will be quite asperfect in the moral sense; and, on the contrary, he will be incomparablymore perfect in the physical sense, because he is infinitely more capableof making a virtuous subject. 

Thus, taste gives a direction to the soul which disposes it to virtue, inkeeping away such inclinations as are contrary to it, and in rousingthose which are favorable. Taste could not injure true virtue, althoughin every case where natural instinct speaks first, taste commences bydeciding for its chief that which conscience otherwise ought to haveknown; in consequence it is the cause that, amongst the actions of thosewhom it governs, there are many more actions morally indifferent thanactions truly moral. It thus happens that the excellency of the man doesnot consist in the least degree in producing a larger sum of vigorouslymoral particular actions, but by evincing as a whole a greater conformityof all his natural dispositions with the moral law; and it is not a thingto give people a very high idea of their country or of their age to hearmorality so often spoken of and particular acts boasted of as traits ofvirtue. Let us hope that the day when civilization shall haveconsummated its work (if we can realize this term in the mind) there willno longer be any question of this. But, on the other side, taste canbecome of possible utility to true virtue, in all cases when, the firstinstigations issuing from reason, its voice incurs the risk of beingstifled by the more powerful solicitations of natural instinct. Thus, taste determines our feelings to take the part of duty, and in thismanner renders a mediocre moral force of will sufficient for the practiceof virtue. 

In this light, if the taste never injures true morality, and if in manycases it is of evident use--and this circumstance is very important--thenit is supremely favorable to the legality of our conduct. Suppose thataesthetic education contributes in no degree to the improvement of ourfeelings, at least it renders us better able to act, although withouttrue moral disposition, as we should have acted if our soul had beentruly moral. Therefore, it is quite true that, before the tribunal ofthe conscience, our acts have absolutely no importance but as theexpression of our feelings: but it is precisely the contrary in thephysical order and in the plan of nature: there it is no longer oursentiments that are of importance; they are only important so far as theygive occasion to acts which conduce to the aims of nature. But thephysical order which is governed by forces, and the moral order whichgoverns itself by laws, are so exactly made one for the other, and are sointimately blended, that the actions which are by their form morallysuitable, necessarily contain also a physical suitability; and as theentire edifice of nature seems to exist only to render possible thehighest of all aims, which is the good, in the same manner the good canin its turn be employed as the means of preserving the edifice. Thus, the natural order has been rendered dependent upon the morality of oursouls, and we cannot go against the moral laws of the world without atthe same time provoking a perturbation in the physical world. 

If, then, it is impossible to expect that human nature, as long as it isonly human nature, should act without interruption or feebleness, uniformly and constantly as pure reason, and that it never offend thelaws of moral order; if fully persuaded, as we are, both of the necessityand the possibility of pure virtue, we are forced to avow how subject toaccident is the exercise of it, and how little we ought to reckon uponthe steadfastness of our best principles; if with this conviction ofhuman fragility we bear in mind that each of the infractions of the morallaw attacks the edifice of nature, if we recall all these considerationsto our memory, it would be assuredly the most criminal boldness to placethe interests of the entire world at the mercy of the uncertainty of ourvirtue. Let us rather draw from it the following conclusion, that it isfor us an obligation to satisfy at the very least the physical order bythe object of our acts, even when we do not satisfy the exigencies of themoral order by the form of these acts; to pay, at least, as perfectinstruments the aims of nature, that which we owe as imperfect persons toreason, in order not to appear shamefaced before both tribunals. For ifwe refused to make any effort to conform our acts to it because simplelegality is without moral merit, the order of the world might in themeanwhile be dissolved, and before we had succeeded in establishing ourprinciples all the links of society might be broken. No, the more ourmorality is subjected to chance, the more is it necessary to takemeasures in order to assure its legality; to neglect, either from levityor pride, this legality is a fault for which we shall have to answerbefore morality. When a maniac believes himself threatened with a fit ofmadness, he leaves no knife within reach of his hands, and he putshimself under constraint, in order to avoid responsibility in a state ofsanity for the crimes which his troubled brain might lead him to commit. In a similar manner it is an obligation for us to seek the salutary bondswhich religion and the aesthetic laws present to us, in order that duringthe crisis when our passion is dominant it shall not injure the physicalorder. 

It is not unintentionally that I have placed religion and taste in oneand the same class; the reason is that both one and the other have themerit, similar in effect, although dissimilar in principle and in value, to take the place of virtue properly so called, and to assure legalitywhere there is no possibility to hope for morality. Doubtless that wouldhold an incontestably higher rank in the order of pure spirits, as theywould need neither the attraction of the beautiful nor the perspective ofeternal life, to conform on every occasion to the demands of reason; butwe know man is short-sighted, and his feebleness forces the most rigidmoralist to temper in some degree the rigidity of his system in practice, although he will yield nothing in theory; it obliges him, in order toinsure the welfare of the human race, which would be ill protected by avirtue subjected to chance, to have further recourse to two stronganchors--those of religion and taste. 

ON THE SUBLIME. 

"Man is never obliged to say, I must--must, " says the Jew Nathan[Lessing's play, "Nathan the Wise, " act i. Scene 3. ] to the dervish; andthis expression is true in a wider sense than man might be tempted tosuppose. The will is the specific character of man, and reason itself isonly the eternal rule of his will. All nature acts reasonably; all ourprerogative is to act reasonably, with consciousness and with will. Allother objects obey necessity; man is the being who wills. 

It is exactly for this reason that there is nothing more inconsistentwith the dignity of man than to suffer violence, for violence effaceshim. He who does violence to us disputes nothing less than our humanity;he who submits in a cowardly spirit to the violence abdicates his qualityof man. But this pretension to remain absolutely free from all that isviolence seems to imply a being in possession of a force sufficientlygreat to keep off all other forces. But if this pretension is found in abeing who, in the order of forces, cannot claim the first rank, theresult is an unfortunate contradiction between his instinct and hispower. 

Man is precisely in this case. Surrounded by numberless forces, whichare all superior to him and hold sway over him, he aspires by his naturenot to have to suffer any injury at their hands. It is true that by hisintelligence he adds artificially to his natural forces, and that up to acertain point he actually succeeds in reigning physically over everythingthat is physical. The proverb says, "there is a remedy for everythingexcept death;" but this exception, if it is one in the strictestacceptation of the term, would suffice to entirely ruin the very idea ofour nature. Never will man be the cause that wills, if there is a case, a single case, in which, with or without his consent, he is forced towhat he does not wish. This single terrible exception, to be or to dowhat is necessary and not what he wishes, this idea will pursue him as aphantom; and as we see in fact among the greater part of men, it willgive him up a prey to the blind terrors of imagination. His boastedliberty is nothing, if there is a single point where he is underconstraint and bound. It is education that must give back liberty toman, and help him to complete the whole idea of his nature. It ought, therefore, to make him capable of making his will prevail, for, I repeatit, man is the being who wills. 

It is possible to reach this end in two ways: either really, by opposingforce to force, by commanding nature, as nature yourself; or by the idea, issuing from nature, and by thus destroying in relation to self the veryidea of violence. All that helps man really to hold sway over nature iswhat is styled physical education. Man cultivates his understanding anddevelops his physical force, either to convert the forces of nature, according to their proper laws, into the instruments of his will, or tosecure himself against their effects when he cannot direct them. But theforces of nature can only be directed or turned aside up to a certainpoint; beyond that point they withdraw from the influence of man andplace him under theirs. 

Thus beyond the point in question his freedom would be lost, were he onlysusceptible of physical education. But he must be man in the full senseof the term, and consequently he must have nothing to endure, in anycase, contrary to his will. Accordingly, when he can no longer oppose tothe physical forces any proportional physical force, only one resourceremains to him to avoid suffering any violence: that is, to cause tocease entirely that relation which is so fatal to him. It is, in short, to annihilate as an idea the violence he is obliged to suffer in fact. The education that fits man for this is called moral education. 

The man fashioned by moral education, and he only, is entirely free. Heis either superior to nature as a power, or he is in harmony with her. None of the actions that she brings to bear upon him is violence, forbefore reaching him it has become an act of his own will, and dynamicnature could never touch him, because he spontaneously keeps away fromall to which she can reach. But to attain to this state of mind, whichmorality designates as resignation to necessary things, and religionstyles absolute submission to the counsels of Providence, to reach thisby an effort of his free will and with reflection, a certain clearness isrequired in thought, and a certain energy in the will, superior to whatman commonly possesses in active life. Happily for him, man finds herenot only in his rational nature a moral aptitude that can be developed bythe understanding, but also in his reasonable and sensible nature--thatis, in his human nature--an aesthetic tendency which seems to have beenplaced there expressly: a faculty awakens of itself in the presence ofcertain sensuous objects, and which, after our feelings are purified, canbe cultivated to such a point as to become a powerful ideal development. This aptitude, I grant, is idealistic in its principle and in itsessence, but one which even the realist allows to be seen clearly enoughin his conduct, though he does not acknowledge this in theory. I am nowabout to discuss this faculty. 

I admit that the sense of the beautiful, when it is developed by culture, suffices of itself even to make us, in a certain sense, independent ofnature as far as it is a force. A mind that has ennobled itselfsufficiently to be more sensible of the form than of the matter ofthings, contains in itself a plenitude of existence that nothing couldmake it lose, especially as it does not trouble itself about thepossession of the things in question, and finds a very liberal pleasurein the mere contemplation of the phenomenon. As this mind has no want toappropriate the objects in the midst of which it lives, it has no fear ofbeing deprived of them. But it is nevertheless necessary that thesephenomena should have a body, through which they manifest themselves;and, consequently, as long as we feel the want even only of finding abeautiful appearance or a beautiful phenomenon, this want implies that ofthe existence of certain objects; and it follows that our satisfactionstill depends on nature, considered as a force, because it is nature whodisposes of all existence in a sovereign manner. It is a differentthing, in fact, to feel in yourself the want of objects endowed withbeauty and goodness, or simply to require that the objects which surroundus are good and beautiful. This last desire is compatible with the mostperfect freedom of the soul; but it is not so with the other. We areentitled to require that the object before us should be beautiful andgood, but we can only wish that the beautiful and the good should berealized objectively before us. Now the disposition of mind is, parexcellence, called grand and sublime, in which no attention is given tothe question of knowing if the beautiful, the good, and the perfectexist; but when it is rigorously required that that which exists shouldbe good, beautiful and perfect, this character of mind is called sublime, because it contains in it positively all the characteristics of a finemind without sharing its negative features. A sign by which beautifuland good minds, but having weaknesses, are recognized, is the aspiringalways to find their moral ideal realized in the world of facts, andtheir being painfully affected by all that places an obstacle to it. Amind thus constituted is reduced to a sad state of dependence in relationto chance, and it may always be predicted of it, without fear ofdeception, that it will give too large a share to the matter in moral andaesthetical things, and that it will not sustain the more critical trialsof character and taste. Moral imperfections ought not to be to us acause of suffering and of pain: suffering and pain bespeak rather anungratified wish than an unsatisfied moral want. An unsatisfied moralwant ought to be accompanied by a more manly feeling, and fortify ourmind and confirm it in its energy rather than make us unhappy andpusillanimous. 

Nature has given to us two genii as companions in our life in this lowerworld. The one, amiable and of good companionship, shortens the troublesof the journey by the gayety of its plays. It makes the chains ofnecessity light to us, and leads us amidst joy and laughter, to the mostperilous spots, where we must act as pure spirits and strip ourselves ofall that is body, on the knowledge of the true and the practice of duty. Once when we are there, it abandons us, for its realm is limited to theworld of sense; its earthly wings could not carry it beyond. But at thismoment the other companion steps upon the stage, silent and grave, andwith his powerful arm carries us beyond the precipice that made us giddy. 

In the former of these genii we recognize the feeling of the beautiful, in the other the feeling of the sublime. No doubt the beautiful itselfis already an expression of liberty. This liberty is not the kind thatraises us above the power of nature, and that sets us free from allbodily influence, but it is only the liberty which we enjoy as men, without issuing from the limits of nature. In the presence of beauty wefeel ourselves free, because the sensuous instincts are in harmony withthe laws of reason. In presence of the sublime we feel ourselvessublime, because the sensuous instincts have no influence over thejurisdiction of reason, because it is then the pure spirit that acts inus as if it were not absolutely subject to any other laws than its own. 

The feeling of the sublime is a mixed feeling. It is at once a painfulstate, which in its paroxysm is manifested by a kind of shudder, and ajoyous state, that may rise to rapture, and which, without being properlya pleasure, is greatly preferred to every kind of pleasure by delicatesouls. This union of two contrary sensations in one and the same feelingproves in a peremptory manner our moral independence. For as it isabsolutely impossible that the same object should be with us in twoopposite relations, it follows that it is we ourselves who sustain twodifferent relations with the object. It follows that these two opposednatures should be united in us, which, on the idea of this object, arebrought into play in two perfectly opposite ways. Thus we experience bythe feeling of the beautiful that the state of our spiritual nature isnot necessarily determined by the state of our sensuous nature; that thelaws of nature are not necessarily our laws; and that there is in us anautonomous principle independent of all sensuous impressions. 

The sublime object may be considered in two lights. We either representit to our comprehension, and we try in vain to make an image or idea ofit, or we refer it to our vital force, and we consider it as a powerbefore which ours is nothing. But though in both cases we experience inconnection with this object the painful feeling of our limits, yet we donot seek to avoid it; on the contrary we are attracted to it by anirresistible force. Could this be the case if the limits of ourimagination were at the same time those of our comprehension? Should webe willingly called back to the feeling of the omnipotence of the forcesof nature if we had not in us something that cannot be a prey of theseforces. We are pleased with the spectacle of the sensuous infinite, because we are able to attain by thought what the senses can no longerembrace and what the understanding cannot grasp. The sight of a terribleobject transports us with enthusiasm, because we are capable of willingwhat the instincts reject with horror, and of rejecting what they desire. We willingly allow our imagination to find something in the world ofphenomena that passes beyond it; because, after all, it is only onesensuous force that triumphs over another sensuous force, but nature, notwithstanding all her infinity, cannot attain to the absolute grandeurwhich is in ourselves. We submit willingly to physical necessity bothour well-being and our existence. This is because the very power remindsus that there are in us principles that escape its empire. Man is in thehands of nature, but the will of man is in his own hands. 

Nature herself has actually used a sensuous means to teach us that we aresomething more than mere sensuous natures. She has even known how tomake use of our sensations to put us on the track of this discovery--thatwe are by no means subject as slaves to the violence of the sensations. And this is quite a different effect from that which can be produced bythe beautiful; I mean the beautiful of the real world, for the sublimeitself is surpassed by the ideal. In the presence of beauty, reason andsense are in harmony, and it is only on account of this harmony that thebeautiful has attraction for us. Consequently, beauty alone could neverteach us that our destination is to act as pure intelligences, and thatwe are capable of showing ourselves such. In the presence of thesublime, on the contrary, reason and the sensuous are not in harmony, andit is precisely this contradiction between the two which makes the charmof the sublime--its irresistible action on our minds. Here the physicalman and the moral man separate in the most marked manner; for it isexactly in the presence of objects that make us feel at once how limitedthe former is that the other makes the experience of its force. The verything that lowers one to the earth is precisely that which raises theother to the infinite. 

Let us imagine a man endowed with all the virtues of which the unionconstitutes a fine character. Let us suppose a man who finds his delightin practising justice, beneficence, moderation, constancy, and goodfaith. All the duties whose accomplishment is prescribed to him bycircumstances are only a play to him, and I admit that fortune favors himin such wise that none of the actions which his good heart may demand ofhim will be hard to him. Who would not be charmed with such a delightfulharmony between the instincts of nature and the prescriptions of reason?and who could help admiring such a man? Nevertheless, though he mayinspire us with affection, are we quite sure that he is really virtuous?Or in general that he has anything that corresponds to the idea ofvirtue? If this man had only in view to obtain agreeable sensations, unless he were mad he could not act in any other possible way; and hewould have to be his own enemy to wish to be vicious. Perhaps theprinciple of his actions is pure, but this is a question to be discussedbetween himself and his conscience. For our part, we see nothing of it;we do not see him do anything more than a simply clever man would do whohad no other god than pleasure. Thus all his virtue is a phenomenon thatis explained by reasons derived from the sensuous order, and we are by nomeans driven to seek for reasons beyond the world of sense. 

Let us suppose that this same man falls suddenly under misfortune. He isdeprived of his possessions; his reputation is destroyed; he is chainedto his bed by sickness and suffering; he is robbed by death of all thosehe loves; he is forsaken in his distress by all in whom he had trusted. Let us under these circumstances again seek him, and demand the practiceof the same virtues under trial as he formerly had practised during theperiod of his prosperity. If he is found to be absolutely the same asbefore, if his poverty has not deteriorated his benevolence, oringratitude his kindly offices of good-will, or bodily suffering hisequanimity, or adversity his joy in the happiness of others; if hischange of fortune is perceptible in externals, but not in his habits, inthe matter, but not in the form of his conduct; then, doubtless, hisvirtue could not be explained by any reason drawn from the physicalorder; the idea of nature--which always necessarily supposes that actualphenomena rest upon some anterior phenomenon, as effects upon cause--thisidea no longer suffices to enable us to comprehend this man; becausethere is nothing more contradictory than to admit that effect can remainthe same when the cause has changed to its contrary. We must then giveup all natural explanation or thought of finding the reason of his actsin his condition; we must of necessity go beyond the physical order, andseek the principle of his conduct in quite another world, to which thereason can indeed raise itself with its ideas, but which theunderstanding cannot grasp by its conceptions. It is this revelation ofthe absolute moral power which is subjected to no condition of nature, itis this which gives to the melancholy feeling that seizes our heart atthe sight of such a man that peculiar, inexpressible charm, which nodelight of the senses, however refined, could arouse in us to the sameextent as the sublime. 

Thus the sublime opens to us a road to overstep the limits of the worldof sense, in which the feeling of the beautiful would forever imprisonus. It is not little by little (for between absolute dependence andabsolute liberty there is no possible transition), it is suddenly and bya shock that the sublime wrenches our spiritual and independent natureaway from the net which feeling has spun round us, and which enchains thesoul the more tightly because of its subtle texture. Whatever may be theextent to which feeling has gained a mastery over men by the latentinfluence of a softening taste, when even it should have succeeded inpenetrating into the most secret recesses of moral jurisdiction under thedeceptive envelope of spiritual beauty, and there poisoning the holinessof principle at its source--one single sublime emotion often suffices tobreak all this tissue of imposture, at one blow to give freedom to thefettered elasticity of spiritual nature, to reveal its true destination, and to oblige it to conceive, for one instant at least, the feeling ofits liberty. Beauty, under the shape of the divine Calypso, bewitchedthe virtuous son of Ulysses, and the power of her charms held him long aprisoner in her island. For long he believed he was obeying an immortaldivinity, whilst he was only the slave of sense; but suddenly animpression of the sublime in the form of Mentor seizes him; he remembersthat he is called to a higher destiny--he throws himself into the waves, and is free. 

The sublime, like the beautiful, is spread profusely throughout nature, and the faculty to feel both one and the other has been given to all men;but the germ does not develop equally; it is necessary that art shouldlend its aid. The aim of nature supposes already that we oughtspontaneously to advance towards the beautiful, although we still avoidthe sublime: for the beautiful is like the nurse of our childhood, and itis for her to refine our soul in withdrawing it from the rude state ofnature. But though she is our first affection, and our faculty offeeling is first developed for her, nature has so provided, nevertheless, that this faculty ripens slowly and awaits its full development until theunderstanding and the heart are formed. If taste attains its fullmaturity before truth and morality have been established in our heart bya better road than that which taste would take, the sensuous world wouldremain the limit of our aspirations. We should not know, either in ourideas or in our feelings, how to pass beyond the world of sense, and allthat imagination failed to represent would be without reality to us. Buthappily it enters into the plan of nature, that taste, although it firstcomes into bloom, is the last to ripen of all the faculties of the mind. During this interval, man has time to store up in his mind a provision ofideas, a treasure of principles in his heart, and then to developespecially, in drawing from reason, his feeling for the great and thesublime. 

As long as man was only the slave of physical necessity, while he hadfound no issue to escape from the narrow circle of his appetites, andwhile he as yet felt none of that superior liberty which connects himwith the angels, nature, so far as she is incomprehensible, could notfail to impress him with the insufficiency of his imagination, and again, as far as she is a destructive force, to recall his physicalpowerlessness. He is forced then to pass timidly towards one, and toturn away with affright from the other. But scarcely has freecontemplation assured him against the blind oppression of the forces ofnature--scarcely has he recognized amidst the tide of phenomena somethingpermanent in his own being--than at once the coarse agglomeration ofnature that surrounds him begins to speak in another language to hisheart, and the relative grandeur which is without becomes for him amirror in which he contemplates the absolute greatness which is withinhimself. He approaches without fear, and with a thrill of pleasure, those pictures which terrified his imagination, and intentionally makesan appeal to the whole strength of that faculty by which we represent theinfinite perceived by the senses, in order if she fails in this attempt, to feel all the more vividly how much these ideas are superior to allthat the highest sensuous faculty can give. The sight of a distantinfinity--of heights beyond vision, this vast ocean which is at his feet, that other ocean still more vast which stretches above his head, transport and ravish his mind beyond the narrow circle of the real, beyond this narrow and oppressive prison of physical life. The simplemajesty of nature offers him a less circumscribed measure for estimatingits grandeur, and, surrounded by the grand outlines which it presents tohim, he can no longer bear anything mean in his way of thinking. Who cantell how many luminous ideas, how many heroic resolutions, which wouldnever have been conceived in the dark study of the imprisoned man ofscience, nor in the saloons where the people of society elbow each other, have been inspired on a sudden during a walk, only by the contact and thegenerous struggle of the soul with the great spirit of nature? Who knowsif it is not owing to a less frequent intercourse with this sublimespirit that we must partially attribute the narrowness of mind so commonto the dwellers in towns, always bent under the minutiae which dwarf andwither their soul, whilst the soul of the nomad remains open and free asthe firmament beneath which he pitches his tent?

But it is not only the unimaginable or the sublime in quantity, it isalso the incomprehensible, that which escapes the understanding andthat which troubles it, which can serve to give us an idea of thesuper-sensuous infinity. As soon as this element attains the grandioseand announces itself to us as the work of nature (for otherwise it isonly despicable), it then aids the soul to represent to itself the ideal, and imprints upon it a noble development. Who does not love the eloquentdisorder of natural scenery to the insipid regularity of a French garden?Who does not admire in the plains of Sicily the marvellous combat ofnature with herself--of her creative force and her destructive power?Who does not prefer to feast his eyes upon the wild streams andwaterfalls of Scotland, upon its misty mountains, upon that romanticnature from which Ossian drew his inspiration--rather than to growenthusiastic in this stiff Holland, before the laborious triumph ofpatience over the most stubborn of elements? No one will deny that inthe rich grazing-grounds of Holland, things are not better orderedfor the wants of physical man than upon the perfid crater of Vesuvius, and that the understanding which likes to comprehend and arrange allthings, does not find its requirements rather in the regularly plantedfarm-garden than in the uncultivated beauty of natural scenery. Butman has requirements which go beyond those of natural life and comfortor well-being; he has another destiny than merely to comprehend thephenomena which surround him. 

In the same manner as for the observant traveller, the strange wildnessof nature is so attractive in physical nature--thus, and for the samereason, every soul capable of enthusiasm finds even in the regrettableanarchy found in the moral world a source of singular pleasure. Withoutdoubt he who sees the grand economy of nature only from the impoverishedlight of the understanding; he who has never any other thought than toreform its defiant disorder and to substitute harmony, such a one couldnot find pleasure in a world which seems given up to the caprice ofchance rather than governed according to a wise ordination, and wheremerit and fortune are for the most part in opposition. He desires thatthe whole world throughout its vast space should be ruled like a housewell regulated; and when this much-desired regularity is not found, hehas no other resource than to defer to a future life, and to another andbetter nature, the satisfaction which is his due, but which neither thepresent nor the past afford him. On the contrary, he renounces willinglythe pretension of restoring this chaos of phenomena to one single notion;he regains on another side, and with interest, what he loses on thisside. Just this want of connection, this anarchy, in the phenomena, making them useless to the understanding, is what makes them valuable toreason. The more they are disorderly the more they represent the freedomof nature. In a sense, if you suppress all connection, you haveindependence. Thus, under the idea of liberty, reason brings back tounity of thought that which the understanding could not bring to unity ofnotion. It thus shows its superiority over the understanding, as afaculty subject to the conditions of a sensuous order. When we considerof what value it is to a rational being to be independent of naturallaws, we see how much man finds in the liberty of sublime objects as aset-off against the checks of his cognitive faculty. Liberty, with allits drawbacks, is everywhere vastly more attractive to a noble soul thangood social order without it--than society like a flock of sheep, or amachine working like a watch. This mechanism makes of man only aproduct; liberty makes him the citizen of a better world. 

It is only thus viewed that history is sublime to me. The world, as ahistoric object, is only the strife of natural forces; with one anotherand with man's freedom. History registers more actions referable tonature than to free will; it is only in a few cases, like Cato andPhocion, that reason has made its power felt. If we expect a treasury ofknowledge in history how we are deceived! All attempts of philosophy toreconcile what the moral world demands with what the real world gives isbelied by experience, and nature seems as illogical in history as she islogical in the organic kingdoms. 

But if we give up explanation it is different. Nature, in beingcapricious and defying logic, in pulling down great and little, incrushing the noblest works of man, taking centuries to form--nature, bydeviating from intellectual laws, proves that you cannot explain natureby nature's laws themselves, and this sight drives the mind to the worldof ideas, to the absolute. 

But though nature as a sensuous activity drives us to the ideal, itthrows us still more into the world of ideas by the terrible. Ourhighest aspiration is to be in good relations with physical nature, without violating morality. But it is not always convenient to serve twomasters; and though duty and the appetites should never be at strife, physical necessity is peremptory, and nothing can save men from evildestiny. Happy is he who learns to bear what he cannot change! Thereare cases where fate overpowers all ramparts, and where the onlyresistance is, like a pure spirit, to throw freely off all interest ofsense, and strip yourself of your body. Now this force comes fromsublime emotions, and a frequent commerce with destructive nature. Pathos is a sort of artificial misfortune, and brings us to the spirituallaw that commands our soul. Real misfortune does not always choose itstime opportunely, while pathos finds us armed at all points. Byfrequently renewing this exercise of its own activity the mind controlsthe sensuous, so that when real misfortune comes, it can treat it as anartificial suffering, and make it a sublime emotion. Thus pathos takesaway some of the malignity of destiny, and wards off its blows. 

Away then with that false theory which supposes falsely a harmony bindingwell being and well doing. Let evil destiny show its face. Our safetyis not in blindness, but in facing our dangers. What can do so betterthan familiarity with the splendid and terrible evolution of events, orthan pictures showing man in conflict with chance; evil triumphant, security deceived--pictures shown us throughout history, and placedbefore us by tragedy? Whoever passes in review the terrible fate ofMithridates, of Syracuse, and Carthage, cannot help keeping his appetitein check, at least for a time, and, seeing the vanity of things, striveafter that which is permanent. The capacity of the sublime is one of thenoblest aptitudes of man. Beauty is useful, but does not go beyond man. The sublime applies to the pure spirit. The sublime must be joined tothe beautiful to complete the aesthetic education, and to enlarge man'sheart beyond the sensuous world. 

Without the beautiful there would be an eternal strife between ournatural and rational destiny. If we only thought of our vocation asspirits we should be strangers to this sphere of life. Without thesublime, beauty would make us forget our dignity. Enervated--wedded tothis transient state, we should lose sight of our true country. We areonly perfect citizens of nature when the sublime is wedded to thebeautiful. 

Many things in nature offer man the beautiful and sublime. But hereagain he is better served at second-hand. He prefers to have themready-made in art rather than seek them painfully in nature. Thisinstinct for imitation in art has the advantage of being able to makethose points essential that nature has made secondary. While naturesuffers violence in the organic world, or exercises violence, workingwith power upon man, though she can only be aesthetical as an object ofpure contemplation, art, plastic art, is fully free, because it throwsoff all accidental restrictions and leaves the mind free, because itimitates the appearance, not the reality of objects. As all sublimityand beauty consists in the appearance, and not in the value of the object, it follows that art has all the advantages of nature without her shackles. 

THE PATHETIC. 

The depicting of suffering, in the shape of simple suffering, is neverthe end of art, but it is of the greatest importance as a means ofattaining its end. The highest aim of art is to represent thesuper-sensuous, and this is effected in particular by tragic art, because it represents by sensible marks the moral man, maintaininghimself in a state of passion, independently of the laws of nature. The principle of freedom in man becomes conscious of itself only bythe resistance it offers to the violence of the feelings. Now theresistance can only be measured by the strength of the attack. Inorder, therefore, that the intelligence may reveal itself in man as aforce independent of nature, it is necessary that nature should havefirst displayed all her power before our eyes. The sensuous being mustbe profoundly and strongly affected, passion must be in play, that thereasonable being may be able to testify his independence and manifesthimself in action. 

It is impossible to know if the empire which man has over his affectionsis the effect of a moral force, till we have acquired the certainty thatit is not an effect of insensibility. There is no merit in mastering thefeelings which only lightly and transitorily skim over the surface of thesoul. But to resist a tempest which stirs up the whole of sensuousnature, and to preserve in it the freedom of the soul, a faculty ofresistance is required infinitely superior to the act of natural force. Accordingly it will not be possible to represent moral freedom, except byexpressing passion, or suffering nature, with the greatest vividness; andthe hero of tragedy must first have justified his claim to be a sensuousbeing before aspiring to our homage as a reasonable being, and making usbelieve in his strength of mind. 

Therefore the pathetic is the first condition required most strictly in atragic author, and he is allowed to carry his description of suffering asfar as possible, without prejudice to the highest end of his art, thatis, without moral freedom being oppressed by it. He must give in somesort to his hero, as to his reader, their full load of suffering, withoutwhich the question will always be put whether the resistance opposed tosuffering is an act of the soul, something positive, or whether it is notrather a purely negative thing, a simple deficiency. 

The latter case is offered in the purer French tragedy, where it is veryrare, or perhaps unexampled, for the author to place before the readersuffering nature, and where generally, on the contrary, it is only thepoet who warms up and declaims, or the comedian who struts about onstilts. The icy tone of declamation extinguishes all nature here, andthe French tragedians, with their superstitious worship of decorum, makeit quite impossible for them to paint human nature truly. Decorum, wherever it is, even in its proper place, always falsifies the expressionof nature, and yet this expression is rigorously required by art. In aFrench tragedy, it is difficult for us to believe that the hero eversuffers, for he explains the state of his soul, as the coolest man woulddo, and always thinking of the effect he is making on others, he neverlets nature pour forth freely. The kings, the princesses, and the heroesof Corneille or Voltaire never forget their rank even in the most violentexcess of passion; and they part with their humanity much sooner thanwith their dignity. They are like those kings and emperors of our oldpicture-books, who go to bed with their crowns on. 

What a difference from the Greeks and those of the moderns who have beeninspired with their spirit in poetry! Never does the Greek poet blush atnature; he leaves to the sensuous all its rights, and yet he is quitecertain never to be subdued by it. He has too much depth and too muchrectitude in his mind not to distinguish the accidental, which is theprincipal point with false taste, from the really necessary; but all thatis not humanity itself is accidental in man. The Greek artist who has torepresent a Laocoon, a Niobe, and a Philoctetes, does not care for theking, the princess, or the king's son; he keeps to the man. Accordinglythe skilful statuary sets aside the drapery, and shows us nude figures, though he knows quite well it is not so in real life. This is becausedrapery is to him an accidental thing, and because the necessary oughtnever to be sacrificed to the accidental. It is also because, if decencyand physical necessities have their laws, these laws are not those ofart. The statuary ought to show us, and wishes to show us, the manhimself; drapery conceals him, therefore he sets that aside, and withreason. 

The Greek sculptor rejects drapery as a useless and embarrassing load, tomake way for human nature; and in like manner the Greek poet emancipatesthe human personages he brings forward from the equally uselessconstraint of decorum, and all those icy laws of propriety, which putnothing but what is artificial in man, and conceal nature in it. TakeHomer and the tragedians; suffering nature speaks the language of truthand ingenuousness in their pages, and in a way to penetrate to the depthsof our hearts. All the passions play their part freely, nor do the rulesof propriety compress any feeling with the Greeks. The heroes are justas much under the influence of suffering as other men, and what makesthem heroes is the very fact that they feel suffering strongly anddeeply, without suffering overcoming them. They love life as ardently asothers; but they are not so ruled by this feeling as to be unable to giveup life when the duties of honor or humanity call on them to do so. Philoctetes filled the Greek stage with his lamentations; Herculeshimself, when in fury, does not keep under his grief. Iphigenia, on thepoint of being sacrificed, confesses with a touching ingenuousness thatshe grieves to part with the light of the sun. Never does the Greekplace his glory in being insensible or indifferent to suffering, butrather in supporting it, though feeling it in its fulness. The very godsof the Greeks must pay their tribute to nature, when the poet wishes tomake them approximate to humanity. Mars, when wounded, roars like tenthousand men together, and Venus, scratched by an iron lance, mountsagain to Olympus, weeping, and cursing all battles. 

This lively susceptibility on the score of suffering, this warm, ingenuous nature, showing itself uncovered and in all truth in themonuments of Greek art, and filling us with such deep and livelyemotions--this is a model presented for the imitation of all artists; itis a law which Greek genius has laid down for the fine arts. It isalways and eternally nature which has the first rights over man; sheought never to be fettered, because man, before being anything else, is asensuous creature. After the rights of nature come those of reason, because man is a rational, sensuous being, a moral person, and because itis a duty for this person not to let himself be ruled by nature, but torule her. It is only after satisfaction has been given in the firstplace to nature, and after reason in the second place has made its rightsacknowledged, that it is permitted for decorum in the third place to makegood its claims, to impose on man, in the expression of his moralfeelings and of his sensations, considerations towards society, and toshow in it the social being, the civilized man. The first law of thetragic art was to represent suffering nature. The second law is torepresent the resistance of morality opposed to suffering. 

Affection, as affection, is an unimportant thing; and the portraiture ofaffection, considered in itself, would be without any aesthetic value;for, I repeat it, nothing that only interests sensuous nature is worthyof being represented by art. Thus not only the affections that donothing but enervate and soften man, but in general all affections, eventhose that are exalted, ecstatic, whatever may be their nature, arebeneath the dignity of tragic art. 

The soft emotions, only producing tenderness, are of the nature of theagreeable, with which the fine arts are not concerned. They only caressthe senses, while relaxing and creating languidness, and only relate toexternal nature, not at all to the inner nature of man. A good number ofour romances and of our tragedies, particularly those that bear the nameof dramas--a sort of compromise between tragedy and comedy--a good numberalso of those highly-appreciated family portraits, belong to this class. The only effect of these works is to empty the lachrymal duct, and soothethe overflowing feelings; but the mind comes back from them empty, andthe moral being, the noblest part of our nature, gathers no new strengthwhatever from them. "It is thus, " says Kant, "that many persons feelthemselves edified by a sermon that has nothing edifying in it. " Itseems also that modern music only aims at interesting the sensuous, andin this it flatters the taste of the day, which seeks to be agreeablytickled, but not to be startled, nor strongly moved and elevated. Accordingly we see music prefer all that is tender; and whatever be thenoise in a concert-room, silence is immediately restored, and every oneis all ears directly a sentimental passage is performed. Then anexpression of sensibility common to animalism shows itself commonly onall faces; the eyes are swimming with intoxication, the open mouth is alldesire, a voluptuous trembling takes hold of the entire body, the breathis quick and full, in short, all the symptoms of intoxication appear. This is an evident proof that the senses swim in delight, but that themind or the principle of freedom in man has become a prey to the violenceof the sensuous impression. Real taste, that of noble and manly minds, rejects all these emotions as unworthy of art, because they only pleasethe senses, with which art has nothing in common. 

But, on the other hand, real taste excludes all extreme affections, whichonly put sensuousness to the torture, without giving the mind anycompensation. These affections oppress moral liberty by pain, as theothers by voluptuousness; consequently they can excite aversion, and notthe emotion that would alone be worthy of art. Art ought to charm themind and give satisfaction to the feeling of moral freedom. This man whois a prey to his pain is to me simply a tortured animate being, and not aman tried by suffering. For a moral resistance to painful affections isalready required of man--a resistance which can alone allow the principleof moral freedom, the intelligence, to make itself known in it. 

If it is so, the poets and the artists are poor adepts in their art whenthey seek to reach the pathetic only by the sensuous force of affectionand by representing suffering in the most vivid manner. They forget thatsuffering in itself can never be the last end of imitation, nor theimmediate source of the pleasure we experience in tragedy. The patheticonly has aesthetic value in as far as it is sublime. Now, effects thatonly allow us to infer a purely sensuous cause, and that are founded onlyon the affection experienced by the faculty of sense, are never sublime, whatever energy they may display, for everything sublime proceedsexclusively from the reason. 

I imply by passion the affections of pleasure as well as the painfulaffections, and to represent passion only, without coupling with it theexpression of the super-sensuous faculty which resists it, is to fallinto what is properly called vulgarity; and the opposite is callednobility. Vulgarity and nobility are two ideas which, wherever they areapplied, have more or less relation with the super-sensuous share a mantakes in a work. There is nothing noble but what has its source in thereason; all that issues from sensuousness alone is vulgar or common. Wesay of a man that he acts in a vulgar manner when he is satisfied withobeying the suggestions of his sensuous instinct; that he acts suitablywhen he only obeys his instinct in conformity with the laws; that he actsnobly when he obeys reason only, without having regard to his instincts. We say of a physiognomy that it is common when it does not show any traceof the spiritual man, the intelligence; we say it has expression when itis the mind which has determined its features: and that it is noble whena pure spirit has determined them. If an architectural work is inquestion we qualify it as common if it aims at nothing but a physicalend; we name it noble if, independently of all physical aim, we find init at the same time the expression of a conception. 

Accordingly, I repeat it, correct taste disallows all painting of theaffections, however energetic, which rests satisfied with expressingphysical suffering and the physical resistance opposed to it by thesubject, without making visible at the same time the superior principleof the nature of man, the presence of a super-sensuous faculty. It doesthis in virtue of the principle developed farther back, namely, that itis not suffering in itself, but only the resistance opposed to suffering, that is pathetic and deserving of being represented. It is for thisreason that all the absolutely extreme degrees of the affections areforbidden to the artist as well as to the poet. All of these, in fact, oppress the force that resists from within or rather, all betray ofthemselves, and without any necessity of other symptoms, the oppressionof this force, because no affection can reach this last degree ofintensity as long as the intelligence in man makes any resistance. 

Then another question presents itself. How is this principle ofresistance, this super-sensuous force, manifested in the phenomenon ofthe affections? Only in one way, by mastering or, more commonly, bycombating affection. I say affection, for sensuousness can also fight, but this combat of sensuousness is not carried on with the affection, butwith the cause that produces it; a contest which has no moral character, but is all physical, the same combat that the earthworm, trodden underfoot, and the wounded bull engage in, without thereby exciting thepathetic. When suffering man seeks to give an expression to hisfeelings, to remove his enemy, to shelter the suffering limb, he does allthis in common with the animals, and instinct alone takes the initiativehere, without the will being applied to. Therefore, this is not an actthat emanates from the man himself, nor does it show him as anintelligence. Sensuous nature will always fight the enemy that makes itsuffer, but it will never fight against itself. 

On the other hand, the contest with affection is a contest withsensuousness, and consequently presupposes something that is distinctfrom sensuous nature. Man can defend himself with the help of commonsense and his muscular strength against the object that makes him suffer;against suffering itself he has no other arms than those of reason. 

These ideas must present themselves to the eye in the portraiture of theaffections, or be awakened by this portraiture in order that the patheticmay exist. But it is impossible to represent ideas, in the proper senseof the word, and positively, as nothing corresponds to pure ideas in theworld of sense. But they can be always represented negatively and in anindirect way if the sensuous phenomenon by which they are manifestedhas some character of which you would seek in vain the conditions inphysical nature. All phenomena of which the ultimate principle cannotbe derived from the world of sense are an indirect representation ofthe upper-sensuous element. 

And how does one succeed in representing something that is above naturewithout having recourse to supernatural means? What can this phenomenonbe which is accomplished by natural forces--otherwise it would not be aphenomenon--and yet which cannot be derived from physical causes withouta contradiction? This is the problem; how can the artist solve it?

It must be remembered that the phenomena observable in a man in a stateof passion are of two kinds. They are either phenomena connected simplywith animal nature, and which, therefore, only obey the physical law, without the will being able to master them, or the independent force inhim being able to exercise an immediate influence over them. It is theinstinct which immediately produces these phenomena, and they obeyblindly the laws of instinct. To this kind belong, for example, theorgans of the circulation of the blood, of respiration, and all thesurface of the skin. But, moreover, the other organs, and those subjectto the will, do not always await the decision of the will; and ofteninstinct itself sets them immediately in play, especially when thephysical state is threatened with pain or with danger. Thus, themovements of my arm depend, it is true, on my will; but if I place myhand, without knowing it, on a burning body, the movement by which I drawit back is certainly not a voluntary act, but a purely instinctivephenomenon. Nay more, speech is assuredly subject to the empire of thewill, and yet instinct can also dispose of this organ according to itswhim, and even of this and of the mind, without consulting beforehand thewill, directly a sharp pain, or even an energetic affection, takes us bysurprise. Take the most impassible stoic and make him see suddenlysomething very wonderful, or a terrible and unexpected object. Fancyhim, for example, present when a man slips and falls to the bottom of anabyss. A shout, a resounding cry, and not only inarticulate, but adistinct word will escape his lips, and nature will have acted in himbefore the will: a certain proof that there are in man phenomena whichcannot be referred to his person as an intelligence, but only to hisinstinct as a natural force. 

But there is also in man a second order of phenomena, which are subjectto the influence and empire of the will, or which may be considered atall events as being of such a kind that will might always have preventedthem, consequently phenomena for which the person and not instinct isresponsible. It is the office of instinct to watch with a blind zealover the interests of the senses; but it is the office of the person tohold instinct in proper bounds, out of respect for the moral law. Instinct in itself does not hold account of any law; but the person oughtto watch that instinct may not infringe in any way on the decrees ofreason. It is therefore evident that it is not for instinct alone todetermine unconditionally all the phenomena that take place in man in thestate of affection, and that on the contrary the will of man can placelimits to instinct. When instinct only determines all phenomena in man, there is nothing more that can recall the person; there is only aphysical creature before you, and consequently an animal; for everyphysical creature subject to the sway of instinct is nothing else. Therefore, if you wish to represent the person itself, you must proposeto yourself in man certain phenomena that have been determined inopposition to instinct, or at least that have not been determined byinstinct. That they have not been determined by instinct is sufficientto refer them to a higher source, the moment we see that instinct wouldno doubt have determined them in another way if its force had not beenbroken by some obstacle. 

We are now in a position to point out in what way the super-sensuouselement, the moral and independent force of man, his Ego in short, can berepresented in the phenomena of the affections. I understand that thisis possible if the parts which only obey physical nature, those wherewill either disposes nothing at all, or only under certain circumstances, betray the presence of suffering; and if those, on the contrary, thatescape the blind sway of instinct, that only obey physical nature, showno trace, or only a very feeble trace, of suffering, and consequentlyappear to have a certain degree of freedom. Now this want of harmonybetween the features imprinted on animal nature in virtue of the laws ofphysical necessity, and those determined with the spiritual andindependent faculty of man, is precisely the point by which thatsuper-sensuous principle is discovered in man capable of placing limitsto the effects produced by physical nature, and therefore distinct fromthe latter. The purely animal part of man obeys the physical law, andconsequently may show itself oppressed by the affection. It is, therefore, in this part that all the strength of passion shows itself, and it answers in some degree as a measure to estimate the resistance--that is to say, of the energy of the moral faculty in man--which can onlybe judged according to the force of the attack. Thus in proportion asthe affection manifests itself with decision and violence in the field ofanimal nature, without being able to exercise the same power in the fieldof human nature, so in proportion the latter makes itself manifestlyknown--in the same proportion the moral independence of man shows itselfgloriously: the portraiture becomes pathetic and the pathetic sublime. 

The statues of the ancients make this principle of aesthetics sensible tous; but it is difficult to reduce to conceptions and express in wordswhat the very inspection of ancient statues makes the senses feel in solively a manner. The group of Laocoon and his children can give to agreat extent the measure of what the plastic art of the ancients wascapable of producing in the matter of pathos. Winckelmann, in his"History of Art, ", says: "Laocoon is nature seized in the highest degreeof suffering, under the features of a man who seeks to gather up againstpain all the strength of which the mind is conscious. Hence while hissuffering swells his muscles and stretches his nerves, the mind, armedwith an interior force shows itself on his contracted brow, and thebreast rises, because the breathing is broken, and because there is aninternal struggle to keep in the expression of pain, and press it backinto his heart. The sigh of anguish he wishes to keep in, his verybreath which he smothers, exhaust the lower part of his trunk, and worksinto his flanks, which make us judge in some degree of the palpitationsof his visceral organs. But his own suffering appears to occasion lessanguish than the pain of his children, who turn their faces toward theirfather, and implore him, crying for help. His father's heart showsitself in his eyes, full of sadness, and where pity seems to swim in atroubled cloud. His face expresses lament, but he does not cry; his eyesare turned to heaven, and implore help from on high. His mouth alsomarks a supreme sadness, which depresses the lower lip and seems to weighupon it, while the upper lip, contracted from the top to the bottom, expresses at once both physical suffering and that of the soul. Underthe mouth there is an expression of indignation that seems to protestagainst an undeserved suffering, and is revealed in the nostrils, whichswell out and enlarge and draw upwards. Under the forehead, the strugglebetween pain and moral strength, united as it were in a single point, isrepresented with great truth, for, while pain contracts and raises theeyebrows, the effort opposed to it by the will draws down towards theupper eyelid all the muscles above it, so that the eyelid is almostcovered by them. The artist, not being able to embellish nature, hassought at least to develop its means, to increase its effect and power. Where is the greatest amount of pain is also the highest beauty. Theleft side, which the serpent besets with his furious bites, and where heinstils his poison, is that which appears to suffer the most intensely, because sensation is there nearest to the heart. The legs strive toraise themselves as if to shun the evil; the whole body is nothing butmovement, and even the traces of the chisel contribute to the illusion;we seem to see the shuddering and icy-cold skin. "

How great is the truth and acuteness of this analysis! In what asuperior style is this struggle between spirit and the suffering ofnature developed! How correctly the author has seized each of thephenomena in which the animal element and the human element manifestthemselves, the constraint of nature and the independence of reason! Itis well known that Virgil has described this same scene in his "Aeneid, "but it did not enter into the plan of the epic poet to pause as thesculptor did, and describe the moral nature of Laocoon; for this recitalis in Virgil only an episode; and the object he proposes is sufficientlyattained by the simple description of the physical phenomenon, withoutthe necessity on his part of looking into the soul of the unhappysufferer, as his aim is less to inspire us with pity than to fill us withterror. The duty of the poet from this point of view was purelynegative; I mean he had only to avoid carrying the picture of physicalsuffering to such a degree that all expression of human dignity or ofmoral resistance would cease, for if he had done this indignation anddisgust would certainly be felt. He, therefore, preferred to confinehimself to the representation of the least of the suffering, and he foundit advisable to dwell at length on the formidable nature of the twoserpents, and on the rage with which they attack their victims, ratherthan on the feelings of Laocoon. He only skims over those feelings, because his first object was to represent a chastisement sent by thegods, and to produce an impression of terror that nothing could diminish. If he had, on the contrary, detained our looks on the person of Laocoonhimself with as much perseverance as the statuary, instead of on thechastizing deity, the suffering man would have become the hero of thescene, and the episode would have lost its propriety in connection withthe whole piece. 

The narrative of Virgil is well known through the excellent commentary ofLessing. But Lessing only proposed to make evident by this example thelimits that separate partial description from painting, and not to makethe notion of the pathetic issue from it. Yet the passage of Virgil doesnot appear to me less valuable for this latter object, and I cravepermission to bring it forward again under this point of view:--

 Ecce autem gemini Tenedo tranquilla per alta (Horresco referens) immensis orbibus angues Incumbunt pelago, pariterque ad litora tendunt; Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta jubaeque Sanguineae exsuperant undas; pars caetera pontum Pone legit, sinuatque immensa volumine terga. Fit sonitus spumante salo, jamque arva tenebant, Ardentes oculos suffecti sanguine et igni, Sibila lambebant linguis vibrantibus ora! Aeneid, ii. 203-211. 

We find here realized the first of the three conditions of the sublimethat have been mentioned further back, --a very powerful natural force, armed for destruction, and ridiculing all resistance. But that thisstrong element may at the same time be terrible, and thereby sublime, twodistinct operations of the mind are wanted; I mean two representationsthat we produce in ourselves by our own activity. First, we recognizethis irresistible natural force as terrible by comparing it with theweakness of the faculty of resistance that the physical man can oppose toit; and, secondly, it is by referring it to our will, and recalling toour consciousness that the will is absolutely independent of allinfluence of physical nature, that this force becomes to us a sublimeobject. But it is we ourselves who represent these two relations; thepoet has only given us an object armed with a great force seeking tomanifest itself. If this object makes us tremble, it is only because wein thought suppose ourselves, or some one like us, engaged with thisforce. And if trembling in this way, we experience the feeling of thesublime, it is because our consciousness tells us that, if we are thevictims of this force, we should have nothing to fear, from the freedomof our Ego, for the autonomy of the determinations of our will. In shortthe description up to here is sublime, but quite a contemplative, intuitive sublimity:--

 Diffugimus visu exsangues, illi agmine certo Laocoonta petunt . . . --Aeneid, ii. 212-213. 

Here the force is presented to us as terrible also; and contemplativesublimity passes into the pathetic. We see that force enter really intostrife with man's impotence. Whether it concerns Laocoon or ourselves isonly a question of degree. The instinct of sympathy excites andfrightens in us the instinct of preservation: there are the monsters, they are darting--on ourselves; there is no more safety, flight is vain. 

It is no more in our power to measure this force with ours, and to referit or not to our own existence. This happens without our co-operation, and is given us by the object itself. Accordingly our fear has not, asin the preceding moment, a purely subjective ground, residing in oursoul; it has an objective ground, residing in the object. For, even ifwe recognize in this entire scene a simple fiction of the imagination, wenevertheless distinguish in this fiction a conception communicated to usfrom without, from another conception that we produce spontaneously inourselves. 

Thus the mind loses a part of her freedom, inasmuch as she receives nowfrom without that which she produced before her own activity. The ideaof danger puts on an appearance of objective reality, and affectionbecomes now a serious affair. 

If we were only sensuous creatures, obeying no other instinct than thatof self-preservation, we should stop here, and we should remain in astate of mere and pure affection. But there is something in us whichtakes no part in the affections of sensuous nature, and whose activity isnot directed according to physical conditions. According, then, as thisindependently acting principle (the disposition, the moral faculty) hasbecome to a degree developed in the soul, there is left more or lessspace for passive nature, and there remains more or less of theindependent principle in the affection. 

In the truly moral soul the terrible trial (of the imagination) passesquickly and readily into the sublime. In proportion as imagination losesits liberty, reason makes its own prevail, and the soul ceases not toenlarge within when it thus finds outward limits. Driven from all theintrenchments which would give physical protection to sensuous creatures, we seek refuge in the stronghold of our moral liberty, and we arrive bythat means at an absolute and unlimited safety, at the very moment whenwe seem to be deprived in the world of phenomena of a relative andprecarious rampart. But precisely because it was necessary to havearrived at the physical oppression before having recourse to theassistance of our moral nature, we can only buy this high sentiment ofour liberty through suffering. An ordinary soul confines itself entirelyto this suffering, and never comprehends in the sublime or the patheticanything beyond the terrible. An independent soul, on the contrary, precisely seizes this occasion to rise to the feeling of his moral force, in all that is most magnificent in this force, and from every terribleobject knows how to draw out the sublime. 

The moral man (the father) [see Aeneid, ii. 213-215] is here attackedbefore the physical man, and that has a grand effect. All the affectionsbecome more aesthetic when we receive them second-hand; there is nostronger sympathy than that we feel for sympathy. 

The moment [see Aeneid, ii. 216-217] had arrived when the hero himselfhad to be recommended to our respect as a moral personage, and the poetseized upon that moment. We already know by his description all theforce, all the rage of the two monsters who menace Laocoon, and we knowhow all resistance would be in vain. If Laocoon were only a common manhe would better understand his own interests, and, like the rest of theTrojans, he would find safety in rapid flight. But there is a heart inthat breast; the danger to his children holds him back, and decides himto meet his fate. This trait alone renders him worthy of our pity. Atwhatever moment the serpents had assailed him, we should have always beentouched and troubled. But because it happens just at the moment when asfather he shows himself so worthy of respect, his fate appears to us asthe result of having fulfilled his duty as parent, of his tenderdisquietude for his children. It is this which calls forth our sympathyin the highest degree. It appears, in fact, as if he deliberatelydevoted himself to destruction, and his death becomes an act of the will. 

Thus there are two conditions in every kind of the pathetic: 1st. Suffering, to interest our sensuous nature; 2d. Moral liberty, tointerest our spiritual nature. All portraiture in which the expressionof suffering nature is wanting remains without aesthetic action, and ourheart is untouched. All portraiture in which the expression of moralaptitude is wanting, even did it possess all the sensuous force possible, could not attain to the pathetic, and would infallibly revolt ourfeelings. Throughout moral liberty we require the human being whosuffers; throughout all the sufferings of human nature we always desireto perceive the independent spirit, or the capacity for independence. 

But the independence of the spiritual being in the state of suffering canmanifest itself in two ways. Either negatively, when the moral man doesnot receive the law from the physical man, and his state exercises noinfluence over his manner of feeling; or positively, when the moral manis a ruler over the physical being, and his manner of feeling exercisesan influence upon his state. In the first case, it is the sublime ofdisposition; in the second, it is the sublime of action. 

The sublime of disposition is seen in all character independent of theaccidents of fate. "A noble heart struggling against adversity, " saysSeneca, "is a spectacle full of attraction even for the gods. " Such forexample is that which the Roman Senate offered after the disaster ofCannae. Lucifer even, in Milton, when for the first time he contemplateshell--which is to be his future abode--penetrates us with a sentiment ofadmiration by the force of soul he displays:--

 "Hail, horrors, hail. Infernal world, and thou, profoundest Hell; Receive thy new possessor!--one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time; The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell. . . . Here at least We shall be free, " etc. 

The reply of Medea in the tragedy belongs also to this order of thesublime. 

The sublime of disposition makes itself seen, it is visible to thespectator, because it rests upon co-existence, the simultaneous; thesublime action, on the contrary, is conceived only by the thought, because the impression and the act are successive, and the interventionof the mind is necessary to infer from a free determination the idea ofprevious suffering. 

It follows that the first alone can be expressed by the plastic arts, because these arts give but that which is simultaneous; but the poet canextend his domain over one and the other. Even more; when the plasticart has to represent a sublime action, it must necessarily bring it backto sublimity. 

In order that the sublimity of action should take place, not only mustthe suffering of man have no influence upon the moral constitution, butrather the opposite must be the case. The affection is the work of hismoral character. This can happen in two ways: either mediately, oraccording to the law of liberty, when out of respect for such and such aduty it decides from free choice to suffer--in this case, the idea ofduty determines as a motive, and its suffering is a voluntary act--orimmediately, and according to the necessity of nature, when he expiatesby a moral suffering the violation of duty; in this second case, the ideaof duty determines him as a force, and his suffering is no longer aneffect. Regulus offers us an example of the first kind, when, to keephis word, he gives himself up to the vengeance of the Carthaginians; andhe would serve as an example of the second class, if, having betrayed histrust, the consciousness of this crime would have made him miserable. Inboth cases suffering has a moral course, but with this difference, thaton the one part Regulus shows us its moral character, and that, on theother, he only shows us that he was made to have such a character. Inthe first case he is in our eyes a morally great person; in the second heis only aesthetically great. 

This last distinction is important for the tragic art; it consequentlydeserves to be examined more closely. 

Man is already a sublime object, but only in the aesthetic sense, whenthe state in which he is gives us an idea of his human destination, eventhough we might not find this destination realized in his person. Heonly becomes sublime to us in a moral point of view, when he acts, moreover, as a person, in a manner conformable with this destination; ifour respect bears not only on his moral faculty, but on the use he makesof this faculty; if dignity, in his case, is due, not only to his moralaptitude; but to the real morality of his conduct. It is quite adifferent thing to direct our judgment and attention to the moral facultygenerally, and to the possibility of a will absolutely free, and to bedirecting it to the use of this faculty, and to the reality of thisabsolute freedom of willing. 

It is, I repeat, quite a different thing; and this difference isconnected not only with the objects to which we may have to direct ourjudgment, but to the very criterion of our judgment. The same object candisplease us if we appreciate it in a moral point of view, and be veryattractive to us in the aesthetical point of view. But even if the moraljudgment and the aesthetical judgment were both satisfied, this objectwould produce this effect on one and the other in quite a different way. It is not morally satisfactory because it has an aesthetical value, norhas it an aesthetical value because it satisfies us morally. Let ustake, as example, Leonidas and his devotion at Thermopylae. Judged fromthe moral point of view, this action represents to me the moral lawcarried out notwithstanding all the repugnance of instinct. Judged fromthe aesthetic point of view, it gives me the idea of the moral faculty, independent of every constraint of instinct. The act of Leonidassatisfies the moral sense, the reason; it enraptures the aestheticalsense, the imagination. 

Whence comes this difference in the feelings in connection with the sameobject? I account for it thus:--

In the same way that our being consists of two principles and natures, soalso and consequently our feelings are divided into two kinds, entirelydifferent. As reasonable beings we experience a feeling of approbationor of disapprobation; as sensuous creatures we experience pleasure ordispleasure. The two feelings, approbation and pleasure, repose onsatisfaction: one on a satisfaction given to a requirement of reason--reason has only requirements, and not wants. The other depends on asatisfaction given to a sensuous want--sense only knows of wants, andcannot prescribe anything. These two terms--requirements of reason, wants of the senses--are mutually related, as absolute necessity and thenecessity of nature. Accordingly, both are included in the idea ofnecessity, but with this difference, that the necessity of reason isunconditional, and the necessity of sense only takes place underconditions. But, for both, satisfaction is a purely contingent thing. Accordingly every feeling, whether of pleasure or approbation, restsdefinitively on an agreement between the contingent and the necessary. If the necessary has thus an imperative character, the feelingexperienced will be that of approbation. If necessity has the characterof a want, the feeling experienced will be that of pleasure, and bothwill be strong in proportion as the satisfaction will be contingent. Now, underlying every moral judgment there is a requirement of reasonwhich requires us to act conformably with the moral law, and it is anabsolute necessity that we should wish what is good. But as the will isfree, it is physically an accidental thing that we should do in fact whatis good. If we actually do it, this agreement between the contingent inthe use of free will and the imperative demand of reason gives rise toour assent or approbation, which will be greater in proportion as theresistance of the inclinations made this use that we make of our freewill more accidental and more doubtful. Every aesthetic judgment, on thecontrary, refers the object to the necessity which cannot help willingimperatively, but only desires that there should be an agreement betweenthe accidental and its own interest. Now what is the interest ofimagination? It is to emancipate itself from all laws, and to play itspart freely. The obligation imposed on the will by the moral law, whichprescribes its object in the strictest manner, is by no means favorableto this need of independence. And as the moral obligation of the will isthe object of the moral judgment, it is clear that in this mode ofjudging, the imagination could not find its interest. But a moralobligation imposed on the will cannot be conceived, except by supposingthis same will absolutely independent of the moral instincts and fromtheir constraint. Accordingly the possibility of the moral act requiresliberty, and therefore agrees here in the most perfect manner with theinterest of imagination. But as imagination, through the medium of itswants, cannot give orders to the will of the individual, as reason doesby its imperative character, it follows that the faculty of freedom, inrelation to imagination, is something accidental, and consequently thatthe agreement between the accidental and the necessary (conditionallynecessary) must excite pleasure. Therefore, if we bring to bear a moraljudgment on this act of Leonidas, we shall consider it from a point ofview where its accidental character strikes the eye less than itsnecessary side. If, on the other hand, we apply the aesthetical judgmentto it, this is another point of view, where its character of necessitystrikes us less forcibly than its accidental character. It is a duty forevery will to act thus, directly it is a free will; but the fact thatthere is a free will that makes this act possible is a favor of nature inregard to this faculty, to which freedom is a necessity. Thus an act ofvirtue judged by the moral sense--by reason--will give us as its onlysatisfaction the feeling of approbation, because reason can never findmore, and seldom finds as much as it requires. This same act, judged, onthe contrary, by the aesthetic sense--by imagination--will give us apositive pleasure, because the imagination, never requiring the end toagree with the demand, must be surprised, enraptured, at the realsatisfaction of this demand as at a happy chance. Our reason will merelyapprove, and only approve, of Leonidas actually taking this heroicresolution; but that he could take this resolution is what delights andenraptures us. 

This distinction between the two sorts of judgments becomes more evidentstill, if we take an example where the moral sense and the aestheticsense pronounce a different verdict. Suppose we take the act ofPerigrinus Proteus burning himself at Olympia. Judging this act morally, I cannot give it my approbation, inasmuch as I see it determined byimpure motives, to which Proteus sacrifices the duty of respecting hisown existence. But in the aesthetic judgment this same act delightsme; it delights me precisely because it testifies to a power of willcapable of resisting even the most potent of instincts, that ofself-preservation. Was it a moral feeling, or only a more powerfulsensuous attraction, that silenced the instinct of self-preservation inthis enthusiast. It matters little, when I appreciate the act from anaesthetic point of view. I then drop the individual, I take away therelation of his will to the law that ought to govern him; I think ofhuman will in general, considered as a common faculty of the race, and Iregard it in connection with all the forces of nature. We have seen thatin a moral point of view, the preservation of our being seemed to us aduty, and therefore we were offended at seeing Proteus violate this duty. In an aesthetic point of view the self-preservation only appears as aninterest, and therefore the sacrifice of this interest pleases us. Thusthe operation that we perform in the judgments of the second kind isprecisely the inverse of that which we perform in those of the first. Inthe former we oppose the individual, a sensuous and limited being, andhis personal will, which can be effected pathologically, to the absolutelaw of the will in general, and of unconditional duty which binds everyspiritual being; in the second case, on the contrary, we oppose thefaculty of willing, absolute volition, and the spiritual force as aninfinite thing, to the solicitations of nature and the impediments ofsense. This is the reason why the aesthetical judgment leaves us free, and delights and enraptures us. It is because the mere conception ofthis faculty of willing in an absolute manner, the mere idea of thismoral aptitude, gives us in itself a consciousness of a manifestadvantage over the sensuous. It is because the mere possibility ofemancipating ourselves from the impediments of nature is in itself asatisfaction that flatters our thirst for freedom. This is the reasonwhy moral judgment, on the contrary, makes us experience a feeling ofconstraint that humbles us. It is because in connection with eachvoluntary act we appreciate in this manner, we feel, as regards theabsolute law that ought to rule the will in general, in a position ofinferiority more or less decided, and because the constraint of the willthus limited to a single determination, which duty requires of it at allcosts, contradicts the instinct of freedom which is the property ofimagination. In the former case we soared from the real to the possible, and from the individual to the species; in the latter, on the contrary, we descend from the possible to the real, and we shut up the species inthe narrow limits of the individual. We cannot therefore be surprised ifthe aesthetical judgment enlarges the heart, while the moral judgmentconstrains and straitens it. 

It results, therefore, from all that which precedes, that the moraljudgment and the aesthetic, far from mutually corroborating each other, impede and hinder each other, because they impress on the soul twodirections entirely opposite. In fact, this observance of rule whichreason requires of us as moral judge is incompatible with theindependence which the imagination calls for as aesthetic judge. Itfollows that an object will have so much the less aesthetic value themore it has the character of a moral object, and if the poet were obligednotwithstanding that to choose it, he would do well in treating of it, not to call the attention of our reason to the rule of the will, but thatof our imagination to the power of the will. In his own interest it isnecessary for the poet to enter on this path, for with our liberty hisempire finishes. We belong to him only inasmuch as we look beyondourselves; we escape from him the moment we re-enter into our innermostselves, and that is what infallibly takes place the moment an objectceases to be a phenomenon in our consideration, and takes the characterof a law which judges us. 

Even in the manifestation of the most sublime virtue, the poet can onlyemploy for his own views that which in those acts belongs to force. Asto the direction of the force, he has no reason to be anxious. The poet, even when he places before our eyes the most perfect models of morality, has not, and ought not to have, any other end than that of rejoicing oursoul by the contemplation of this spectacle. Moreover, nothing canrejoice our soul except that which improves our personality, and nothingcan give us a spiritual joy except that which elevates the spiritualfaculty. But in what way can the morality of another improve our ownpersonality, and raise our spiritual force? That this other oneaccomplishes really his duty results from an accidental use which hemakes of his liberty, and which for that very reason can prove nothing tous. We only have in common with him the faculty to conform ourselvesequally to duty; the moral power which he exhibits reminds us also of ourown, and that is why we then feel something which upraises our spiritualforce. Thus it is only the idea of the possibility of an absolutely freewill which makes the real exercise of this will in us charming to theaesthetic feeling. 

We shall be still more convinced when we think how little the poeticforce of impression which is awakened in us by an act or a moralcharacter is dependent on their historic reality. The pleasure which wetake in considering an ideal character will in no way be lessened when wecome to think that this character is nothing more than a poetic fiction;for it is on the poetic truth, and not on historic truth, that everyaesthetic impression of the feelings rest. Moreover, poetic truth doesnot consist in that this or that thing has effectually taken place, butin that it may have happened, that is to say, that the thing is in itselfpossible. Thus the aesthetic force is necessarily obliged to rest in thefirst place in the idea of possibility. 

Even in real subjects, for which the actors are borrowed from history, itis not the reality of the simple possibility of the fact, but that whichis guaranteed to us by its very reality which constitutes the poeticelement. That these personages have indeed existed, and that theseevents have in truth taken place, is a circumstance which can, it istrue, in many cases add to our pleasure, but that which it adds to it islike a foreign addition, much rather unfavorable than advantageous to thepoetical impression. 

It was long thought that a great service was rendered to German poetry byrecommending German poets to treat of national themes. Why, it wasasked, did Greek poetry have so much power over the mind? Because itbrought forward national events and immortalized domestic exploits. Nodoubt the poetry of the ancients may have been indebted to thiscircumstance for certain effects of which modern poetry cannot boast; butdo these effects belong to art and the poet? It is small glory for theGreek genius if it had only this accidental advantage over modern genius;still more if it were necessary for the poets, in order to gain thisadvantage, to obtain it by this conformity of their invention with realhistory! It is only a barbarous taste that requires this stimulant of anational interest to be captivated by beautiful things; and it is only ascribbler who borrows from matter a force to which he despairs of givinga form. 

Poetry ought not to take its course through the frigid region of memory;it ought never to convert learning into its interpreter, nor privateinterest its advocate with the popular mind. It ought to go straight tothe heart, because it has come from the heart; and aim at the man in thecitizen, not the citizen in the man. 

Happily, true genius does not make much account of all these counselsthat people are so anxious to give her with better intentions thancompetence. Otherwise, Sulzer and his school might have made Germanpoetry adopt a very equivocal style. It is no doubt a very honorable aimin a poet to moralize the man, and excite the patriotism of the citizen, and the Muses know better than any one how well the arts of the sublimeand of the beautiful are adapted to exercise this influence. But thatwhich poetry obtains excellently by indirect means it would accomplishvery badly as an immediate end. Poetry is not made to serve in man forthe accomplishment of a particular matter, nor could any instrument beselected less fitted to cause a particular object to succeed, or to carryout special projects and details. Poetry acts on the whole of humannature, and it is only by its general influence on the character of a manthat it can influence particular acts. Poetry can be for man what loveis for the hero. It can neither counsel him, nor strike for him, nor doanything for him in short; but it can form a hero in him, call him togreat deeds, and arm him with a strength to be all that he ought to be. 

Thus the degree of aesthetical energy with which sublime feelings andsublime acts take possession of our souls, does not rest at all on theinterest of reason, which requires every action to be really conformablewith the idea of good. But it rests on the interest of the imagination, which requires conformity with good should be possible, or, in otherterms, that no feeling, however strong, should oppress the freedom of thesoul. Now this possibility is found in every act that testifies withenergy to liberty, and to the force of the will; and if the poet meetswith an action of this kind, it matters little where, he has a subjectsuitable for his art. To him, and to the interest we have in him, it isquite the same, to take his hero in one class of characters or inanother, among the good or the wicked, as it often requires as muchstrength of character to do evil conscientiously and persistently as todo good. If a proof be required that in our aesthetic judgments weattend more to the force than to its direction, to its freedom than toits lawfulness, this is sufficient for our evidence. We prefer to seeforce and freedom manifest themselves at the cost of moral regularity, rather than regularity at the cost of freedom and strength. For directlyone of those cases offers itself, in which the general law agrees withthe instincts which by their strength threaten to carry away the will, the aesthetic value of the character is increased, if he be capable ofresisting these instincts. A vicious person begins to interest us assoon as he must risk his happiness and life to carry out his perversedesigns; on the contrary, a virtuous person loses in proportion as hefinds it useful to be virtuous. Vengeance, for instance, is certainly anignoble and a vile affection, but this does not prevent it from becomingaesthetical, if to satisfy it we must endure painful sacrifice. Medeaslaying her children aims at the heart of Jason, but at the same time shestrikes a heavy blow at her own heart, and her vengeance aestheticallybecomes sublime directly we see in her a tender mother. 

In this sense the aesthetic judgment has more of truth than is ordinarilybelieved. The vices which show a great force of will evidently announcea greater aptitude for real moral liberty than do virtues which borrowsupport from inclination; seeing that it only requires of the man whopersistently does evil to gain a single victory over himself, one simpleupset of his maxims, to gain ever after to the service of virtue hiswhole plan of life, and all the force of will which he lavished on evil. And why is it we receive with dislike medium characters, whilst we attimes follow with trembling admiration one which is altogether wicked?It is evident, that with regard to the former, we renounce all hope, wecannot even conceive the possibility of finding absolute liberty of thewill; whilst with the other, on the contrary, each time he displays hisfaculties, we feel that one single act of the will would suffice to raisehim up to the fullest height of human dignity. 

Thus, in the aesthetic judgment, that which excites our interest is notmorality itself, but liberty alone; and moral purity can only please ourimagination when it places in relief the forces of the will. It is thenmanifestly to confound two very distinct orders of ideas, to require inaesthetic things so exact a morality, and, in order to stretch the domainof reason, to exclude the imagination from its own legitimate sphere. 

Either it would be necessary to subject it entirely, then there would bean end to all aesthetic effect; or it would share the realm of reason, then morality would not gain much. For if we pretend to pursue at thesame time two different ends, there would be risk of missing both one andthe other. The liberty of the imagination would be fettered by too greatrespect for the moral law; and violence would be done to the character ofnecessity which is in the reason, in missing the liberty which belongs tothe imagination. 

ON GRACE AND DIGNITY. 

The Greek fable attributes to the goddess of beauty a wonderful girdlewhich has the quality of lending grace and of gaining hearts in all whowear it. This same divinity is accompanied by the Graces, or goddessesof grace. From this we see that the Greeks distinguished from beautygrace and the divinities styled the Graces, as they expressed the ideasby proper attributes, separable from the goddess of beauty. All that isgraceful is beautiful, for the girdle of love winning attractions is theproperty of the goddess of Cnidus; but all beauty is not of necessitygrace, for Venus, even without this girdle, does not cease to be what sheis. 

However, according to this allegory, the goddess of beauty is the onlyone who wears and who lends to others the girdle of attractions. Juno, the powerful queen of Olympus, must begin by borrowing this girdle fromVenus, when she seeks to charm Jupiter on Mount Ida [Pope's "Iliad, " BookXIV. V. 220]. Thus greatness, even clothed with a certain degree ofbeauty, which is by no means disputed in the spouse of Jupiter, is neversure of pleasing without the grace, since the august queen of the gods, to subdue the heart of her consort, expects the victory not from her owncharms but from the girdle of Venus. 

But we see, moreover, that the goddess of beauty can part with thisgirdle, and grant it, with its quality and effects, to a being lessendowed with beauty. Thus grace is not the exclusive privilege of thebeautiful; it can also be handed over, but only by beauty, to an objectless beautiful, or even to an object deprived of beauty. 

If these same Greeks saw a man gifted in other respects with all theadvantages of mind, but lacking grace, they advised him to sacrifice tothe Graces. If, therefore, they conceived these deities as forming anescort to the beauty of the other sex, they also thought that they wouldbe favorable to man, and that to please he absolutely required theirhelp. 

But what then is grace, if it be true that it prefers to unite withbeauty, yet not in an exclusive manner? What is grace if it proceedsfrom beauty, but yet produces the effects of beauty, even when beauty isabsent. What is it, if beauty can exist indeed without it, and yet hasno attraction except with it? The delicate feeling of the Greek peoplehad marked at an early date this distinction between grace and beauty, whereof the reason was not then able to give an account; and, seeking themeans to express it, it borrowed images from the imagination, because theunderstanding could not offer notions to this end. On this score, themyth of the girdle deserves to fix the attention of the philosopher, who, however, ought to be satisfied to seek ideas corresponding with thesepictures when the pure instinctive feeling throws out its discoveries, or, in other words, with explaining the hieroglyphs of sensation. If westrip off its allegorical veil from this conception of the Greeks, thefollowing appears the only meaning it admits. 

Grace is a kind of movable beauty, I mean a beauty which does not belongessentially to its subject, but which may be produced accidentally in it, as it may also disappear from it. It is in this that grace isdistinguished from beauty properly so called, or fixed beauty, which isnecessarily inherent in the subject itself. Venus can no doubt take offher girdle and give it up for the moment to Juno, but she could only giveup her beauty with her very person. Venus, without a girdle, is nolonger the charming Venus, without beauty she is no longer Venus. 

But this girdle as a symbol of movable beauty has this particularfeature, that the person adorned with it not only appears more graceful, but actually becomes so. The girdle communicates objectively thisproperty of grace, in this contrasting with other articles of dress, which have only subjective effects, and without modifying the personherself, only modify the impression produced on the imagination ofothers. Such is the express meaning of the Greek myth; grace becomes theproperty of the person who puts on this girdle; she does more than appearamiable, it is so in fact. 

No doubt it may be thought that a girdle, which after all is only anoutward, artificial ornament, does not prove a perfectly correct emblemto express grace as a personal quality. But a personal quality that isconceived at the same time as separable from the subject, could only berepresented to the senses by an accidental ornament which can be detachedfrom the person, without the essence of the latter being affected by it. 

Thus the girdle of charms operates not by a natural effect (for then itwould not change anything in the person itself) but by a magical effect;that is to say, its virtue extends beyond all natural conditions. Bythis means, which is nothing more, I admit, than an expedient, it hasbeen attempted to avoid the contradiction to which the mind, as regardsits representative faculty, is unavoidably reduced, every time it asks anexpression from nature herself, for an object foreign to nature and whichbelongs to the free field of the ideal. If this magic girdle is thesymbol of an objective property which can be separated from its subjectwithout modifying in any degree its nature, this myth can only expressone thing--the beauty of movement, because movement is the onlymodification that can affect an object without changing its identity. 

The beauty of movement is an idea that satisfies the two conditionscontained in the myth which now occupies us. In the first place, it isan objective beauty, not entirely depending upon the impression that wereceive from the object, but belonging to the object itself. In thesecond place, this beauty has in itself something accidental, and theobject remains identical even when we conceive it to be deprived of thisproperty. The girdle of attractions does not lose its magic virtue inpassing to an object of less beauty, or even to that which is withoutbeauty; that is to say, that a being less beautiful, or even one which isnot beautiful, may also lay claim to the beauty of movement. The mythtells us that grace is something accidental in the subject in which wesuppose it to be. It follows that we can attribute this property only toaccidental movements. In an ideal of beauty the necessary movements mustbe beautiful, because inasmuch as necessary they form an integral part ofits nature; the idea of Venus once given, the idea of this beauty ofnecessary movements is that implicitly comprised in it; but it is not thesame with the beauty of accidental movements; this is an extension of theformer; there can be a grace in the voice, there is none in respiration. 

But all this beauty in accidental movements--is it necessarily grace? Itis scarcely necessary to notice that the Greek fable attributes graceexclusively to humanity. It goes still further, for even the beauty ofform it restricts within the limits of the human species, in which, as weknow, the Greeks included also their gods. But if grace is the exclusiveprivilege of the human form, none of the movements which are common toman with the rest of nature can evidently pretend to it. Thus, forexample, if it were admitted that the ringlets of hair on a beautifulhead undulate with grace, there would also be no reason to deny a graceof movement to the branches of trees, to the waves of the stream, to theears of a field of corn, or to the limbs of animals. No, the goddess ofCnidus represents exclusively the human species; therefore, as soon asyou see only a physical creature in man, a purely sensuous object, she isno longer concerned with him. Thus, grace can only be met with involuntary movements, and then in those only which express some sentimentof the moral order. Those which have as principle only animalsensuousness belong only, however voluntary we may suppose them to be, tophysical nature, which never reaches of itself to grace. If it werepossible to have grace in the manifestations of the physical appetitesand instincts, grace would no longer be either capable or worthy to serveas the expression of humanity. Yet it is humanity alone which to theGreek contains all the idea of beauty and of perfection. He neverconsents to see separated from the soul the purely sensuous part, andsuch is with him that which might be called man's sensuous nature, whichit is equally impossible for him to isolate either from his lower natureor from his intelligence. In the same way that no idea presents itselfto his mind without taking at once a visible form, and without hisendeavoring to give a bodily envelope even to his intellectualconceptions, so he desires in man that all his instinctive acts shouldexpress at the same time his moral destination. Never for the Greek isnature purely physical nature, and for that reason he does not blush tohonor it; never for him is reason purely reason, and for that reason hehas not to tremble in submitting to its rule. The physical nature andmoral sentiments, matter and mind, earth and heaven, melt together with amarvellous beauty in his poetry. Free activity, which is truly at homeonly in Olympus, was introduced by him even into the domain of sense, andit is a further reason for not attaching blame to him if reciprocally hetransported the affections of the sense into Olympus. Thus, thisdelicate sense of the Greeks, which never suffered the material elementunless accompanied by the spiritual principle, recognizes in man novoluntary movement belonging only to sense which did not at the same timemanifest the moral sentiment of the soul. It follows that for them graceis one of the manifestations of the soul, revealed through beauty involuntary movements; therefore, wherever there is grace, it is the soulwhich is the mobile, and it is in her that beauty of movement has itsprinciple. The mythological allegory thus expresses the thought, "Graceis a beauty not given by nature, but produced by the subject itself. "

Up to the present time I have confined myself to unfolding the idea ofgrace from the Greek myth, and I hope I have not forced the sense: may Inow be permitted to try to what result a philosophical investigation onthis point will lead us, and to see if this subject, as so many others, will confirm this truth, that the spirit of philosophy can hardly flatteritself that it can discover anything which has not already been vaguelyperceived by sentiment and revealed in poetry?

Without her girdle, and without the Graces, Venus represents the ideal ofbeauty, such as she could have come forth from the hands of nature, andsuch as she is made without the intervention of mind endowed withsentiment and by the virtue alone of plastic forces. It is not withoutreason that the fable created a particular divinity to represent thissort of beauty, because it suffices to see and to feel in order todistinguish it very distinctly from the other, from that which derivesits origin from the influence of a mind endowed with sentiments. 

This first beauty, thus formed by nature solely and in virtue of the lawsof necessity, I shall distinguish from that which is regulated uponconditions of liberty, in calling it, if allowed, beauty of structure(architectonic beauty). It is agreed, therefore, to designate under thisname that portion of human beauty which not only has as efficientprinciple the forces and agents of physical nature (for we can say asmuch for every phenomenon), but which also is determined, so far as it isbeauty solely, by the forces of this nature. 

Well-proportioned limbs, rounded contours, an agreeable complexion, delicacy of skin, an easy and graceful figure, a harmonious tone ofvoice, etc. , are advantages which are gifts of nature and fortune: ofnature, which predisposed to this, and developed it herself; of fortune, which protects against all influence adverse to the work of nature. 

Venus came forth perfect and complete from the foam of the sea. Whyperfect? because she is the finished and exactly determined work ofnecessity, and on that account she is neither susceptible of variety norof progress. In other terms, as she is only a beautiful representationof the various ends which nature had in view in forming man, and thenceeach of her properties is perfectly determined by the idea that sherealizes; hence it follows that we can consider her as definitive anddetermined (with regard to its connection with the first conception)although this conception is subject, in its development, to theconditions of time. 

The architectonic beauty of the human form and its technical perfectionare two ideas, which we must take good care not to confound. By thelatter, the ensemble of particular ends must be understood, such as theyco-ordinate between themselves towards a general and higher end; by theother, on the contrary, a character suited to the representation of theseends, as far as these are revealed, under a visible form, to our facultyof seeing and observing. When, then, we speak of beauty, we neither takeinto consideration the justness of the aims of nature in themselves, norformally, the degree of adaptation to the principles of art which theircombination could offer. Our contemplative faculties hold to the mannerin which the object appears to them, without taking heed to its logicalconstitution. Thus, although the architectonic beauty, in the structureof man, be determined by the idea which has presided at this structure, and by the ends that nature proposes for it, the aesthetic judgment, making abstraction of these ends, considers this beauty in itself; and inthe idea which we form of it, nothing enters which does not immediatelyand properly belong to the exterior appearance. 

We are, then, not obliged to say that the dignity of man and of hiscondition heightens the beauty of his structure. The idea we have of hisdignity may influence, it is true, the judgment that we form on thebeauty of his structure; but then this judgment ceases to be purelyaesthetic. Doubtless, the technical constitution of the human form is anexpression of its destiny, and, as such, it ought to excite ouradmiration; but this technical constitution is represented to theunderstanding and not to sense; it is a conception and not a phenomenon. The architectonic beauty, on the contrary, could never be an expressionof the destiny of man, because it addresses itself to quite a differentfaculty from that to which it belongs to pronounce upon his destiny. 

If, then, man is, amongst all the technical forces created by nature, that to whom more especially we attribute beauty, this is exact and trueonly under one condition, which is, that at once and upon the simpleappearance he justifies this superiority, without the necessity, in orderto appreciate it, that we bring to mind his humanity. For, to recallthis, we must pass through a conception; and then it would no longer bethe sense, but the understanding, that would become the judge of beauty, which would imply contradiction. Man, therefore, cannot put forward thedignity of his moral destiny, nor give prominence to his superiority asintelligence, to increase the price of his beauty. Man, here, is but abeing thrown like others into space--a phenomenon amongst otherphenomena. In the world of sense no account is made of the rank he holdsin the world of ideas; and if he desires in that to hold the first place, he can only owe it to that in him which belongs to the physical order. 

But his physical nature is determined, we know, by the idea of hishumanity; from which it follows that his architectonic beauty is so alsomediately. If, then he is distinguished by superior beauty from allother creatures of the sensuous world, it is incontestable that he owesthis advantage to his destiny as man, because it is in it that the reasonis of the differences which in general separate him from the rest of thesensuous world. But the beauty of the human form is not due to its beingthe expression of this superior destiny, for if it were so, this formwould necessarily cease to be beautiful, from the moment it began toexpress a less high destiny, and the contrary to this form would bebeautiful as soon as it could be admitted that it expresses this higherdestination. However, suppose that at the sight of a fine human face wecould completely forget that which it expresses, and put in its place, without chancing anything of its outside, the savage instincts of thetiger, the judgment of the eyesight would remain absolutely the same, andthe tiger would be for it the chef-d'oeuvre of the Creator. 

The destiny of man as intelligence contributes, then, to the beauty ofhis structure only so far as the form that represents this destiny, theexpression that makes it felt, satisfies at the same time the conditionswhich are prescribed in the world of sense to the manifestations of thebeautiful; which signifies that beauty ought always to remain a pureeffect of physical nature, and that the rational conception which haddetermined the technical utility of the human structure cannot conferbeauty, but simply be compatible with beauty. 

It could be objected, it is true, that in general all which is manifestedby a sensuous representation is produced by the forces of nature, andthat consequently this character cannot be exclusively an indication ofthe beautiful. Certainly, and without doubt, all technical creations arethe work of nature; but it is not by the fact of nature that they aretechnical, or at least that they are so judged to be. They are technicalonly through the understanding, and thus their technical perfection hasalready its existence in the understanding, before passing into the worldof sense, and becoming a sensible phenomenon. Beauty, on the contrary, has the peculiarity, that the sensuous world is not only its theatre, butthe first source from whence it derives its birth, and that it owes tonature not only its expression, but also its creation. Beauty isabsolutely but a property of the world of sense; and the artist, who hasthe beautiful in view, would not attain to it but inasmuch as heentertains this illusion, that his work is the work of nature. 

In order to appreciate the technical perfection of the human body, wemust bear in mind the ends to which it is appropriated; this being quiteunnecessary for the appreciation of its beauty. Here the senses requireno aid, and of themselves judge with full competence; however they wouldnot be competent judges of the beautiful, if the world of sense (thesenses have no other object) did not contain all the conditions of beautyand was therefore competent to produce it. The beauty of man, it istrue, has for mediate reason the idea of his humanity, because all hisphysical nature is founded on this idea; but the senses, we know, hold toimmediate phenomena, and for them it is exactly the same as if thisbeauty were a simple effect of nature, perfectly independent. 

From what we have said, up to the present time, it would appear that thebeautiful can offer absolutely no interest to the understanding, becauseits principle belongs solely to the world of sense, and amongst all ourfaculties of knowledge it addresses itself only to our senses. And infact, the moment that we sever from the idea of the beautiful, as aforeign element, all that is mixed with the idea of technical perfection, almost inevitably, in the judgment of beauty, it appears that nothingremains to it by which it can become the object of an intellectualpleasure. And nevertheless, it is quite as incontestable that thebeautiful pleases the understanding, as it is beyond doubt that thebeautiful rests upon no property of the object that could not bediscovered but by the understanding. 

To solve this apparent contradiction, it must be remembered that thephenomena can in two different ways pass to the state of objects of theunderstanding and express ideas. It is not always necessary that theunderstanding draws these ideas from phenomena; it can also put them intothem. In the two cases, the phenomena will be adequate to a rationalconception, with this simple difference, that, in the first case, theunderstanding finds it objectively given, and to a certain extent onlyreceives it from the object because it is necessary that the idea shouldbe given to explain the nature and often even the possibility of theobject; whilst in the second case, on the contrary, it is theunderstanding which of itself interprets, in a manner to make of it theexpression of its idea, that which the phenomenon offers us, without anyconnection with this idea, and thus treats by a metaphysical process thatwhich in reality is purely physical. There, then, in the association ofthe idea with the object there is an objective necessity; here, on thecontrary, a subjective necessity at the utmost. It is unnecessary to saythat, in my mind, the first of these two connections ought to beunderstood of technical perfection, the second, of the beautiful. 

As then in the second case it is a thing quite contingent for thesensuous object that there should or should not be outside of it anobject which perceives it--an understanding that associates one of itsown ideas with it, consequently, the ensemble of these objectiveproperties ought to be considered as fully independent of this idea; wehave perfectly the right to reduce the beautiful, objectively, to thesimple conditions of physical nature, and to see nothing more in beautythan effect belonging purely to the world of sense. But as, on the otherside, the understanding makes of this simple fact of the world of sense atranscendent usage, and in lending it a higher signification inasmuch ashe marks it, as it were, with his image, we have equally the right totransport the beautiful, subjectively, into the world of intelligence. It is in this manner that beauty belongs at the same time to the twoworlds--to one by the right of birth, to the other by adoption; it takesits being in the world of sense, it acquires the rights of citizenship inthe world of understanding. It is that which explains how it can be thattaste, as the faculty for appreciating the beautiful, holds at once thespiritual element and that of sense; and that these two natures, incompatible one with the other, approach in order to form in it a happyunion. It is this that explains how taste can conciliate respect for theunderstanding with the material element, and with the rational principlethe favor and the sympathy of the senses, how it can ennoble theperceptions of the senses so as to make ideas of them, and, in a certainmeasure, transform the physical world itself into a domain of the ideal. 

At all events, if it is accidental with regard to the object, that theunderstanding associates, at the representation of this object, one ofits own ideas with it, it is not the less necessary for the subject whichrepresents it to attach to such a representation such an idea. Thisidea, and the sensuous indication which corresponds to it in the object, ought to be one with the other in such relation, that the understandingbe forced to this association by its own immutable laws; theunderstanding then must have in itself the reason which leads it toassociate exclusively a certain phenomenon with a certain determinedidea, and, reciprocally, the object should have in itself the reason forwhich it exclusively provokes that idea and not another. As to knowingwhat the idea can be which the understanding carries into the beautiful, and by what objective property the object gifted with beauty can becapable of serving as symbol to this idea, is then a question much toograve to be solved here in passing, and I reserve this examination for ananalytical theory of the beautiful. 

The architectonic beauty of man is then, in the way I have explained it, the visible expression of a rational conception, but it is so only in thesame sense and the same title as are in general all the beautifulcreations of nature. As to the degree, I agree that it surpasses all theother beauties; but with regard to kind, it is upon the same rank as theyare, because it also manifests that which alone is perceptible of itssubject, and it is only when we represent it to ourselves that itreceives a super-sensuous value. 

If the ends of creation are marked in man with more of success and ofbeauty than in the organic beings, it is to some extent a favor which theintelligence, inasmuch as it dictated the laws of the human structure, has shown to nature charged to execute those laws. The intelligence, itis true, pursues its end in the technique of man with a rigorousnecessity, but happily its exigencies meet and accord with the necessarylaws of nature so well, that one executes the order of the other whilstacting according to its own inclination. 

But this can only be true respecting the architectonic beauty of man, where the necessary laws of physical nature are sustained by anothernecessity, that of the teleological principle which determines them. Itis here only that the beautiful could be calculated by relation to thetechnique of the structure, which can no longer take place when thenecessity is on one side alone, and the super-sensuous cause whichdetermines the phenomenon takes a contingent character. Thus, it isnature alone who takes upon herself the architectonic beauty of man, because here, from the first design, she had been charged once for all bythe creating intelligence with the execution of all that man needs inorder to arrive at the ends for which he is destined, and she has inconsequence no change to fear in this organic work which sheaccomplishes. 

But man is moreover a person--that is to say, a being whose differentstates can have their cause in himself, and absolutely their last cause;a being who can be modified by reason that he draws from himself. Themanner in which he appears in the world of sense depends upon the mannerin which he feels and wills, and, consequently, upon certain states whichare freely determined by himself, and not fatally by nature. 

If man were only a physical creature, nature, at the same time that sheestablishes the general laws of his being, would determine also thevarious causes of application. But here she divides her empire with freearbitration; and, although its laws are fixed, it is the mind thatpronounces upon particular cases. 

The domain of mind extends as far as living nature goes, and it finishesonly at the point at which organic life loses itself in unformed matter, at the point at which the animal forces cease to act. It is known thatall the motive forces in man are connected one with the other, and thismakes us understand how the mind, even considered as principle ofvoluntary movement, can propagate its action through all organisms. Itis not only the instruments of the will, but the organs themselves uponwhich the will does not immediately exercise its empire, that undergo, indirectly at least, the influence of mind; the mind determines then, notonly designedly when it acts, but again, without design, when it feels. 

From nature in herself (this result is clearly perceived from whatprecedes) we must ask nothing but a fixed beauty, that of the phenomenathat she alone has determined according to the law of necessity. Butwith free arbitration, chance (the accidental), interferes in the work ofnature, and the modifications that affect it thus under the empire offree will are no longer, although all behave according to its own laws, determined by these laws. From thence it is to the mind to decide theuse it will make of its instruments, and with regard to that part ofbeauty which depends on this use, nature has nothing further to command, nor, consequently, to incur any responsibility. 

And thus man by reason that, making use of his liberty, he raises himselfinto the sphere of pure intelligences, would find himself in danger ofsinking, inasmuch as he is a creature of sense, and of losing in thejudgment of taste that which he gains at the tribunal of reason. Thismoral destiny, therefore, accomplished by the moral action of man, wouldcost him a privilege which was assured to him by this same moral destinywhen only indicated in his structure; a purely sensuous privilege, it istrue, but one which receives, as we have seen, a signification and ahigher value from the understanding. No; nature is too much enamoredwith harmony to be guilty of so gross a contradiction, and that which isharmonious in the world of the understanding could not be rendered by adiscord in the world of sense. 

As soon, then, as in man the person, the moral and free agent, takes uponhimself to determine the play of phenomena, and by his intervention takesfrom nature the power to protect the beauty of her work, he then, as itwere, substitutes himself for nature, and assumes in a certain measure, with the rights of nature, a part of the obligations incumbent on her. When the mind, taking possession of the sensuous matter subservient toit, implicates it in his destiny and makes it depend on its ownmodifications, it transforms itself to a certain point into a sensuousphenomenon, and, as such, is obliged to recognize the law which regulatesin general all the phenomena. In its own interest it engages to permitthat nature in its service, placed under its dependence, shall stillpreserve its character of nature, and never act in a manner contrary toits anterior obligations. I call the beautiful an obligation ofphenomena, because the want which corresponds to it in the subject hasits reason in the understanding itself, and thus it is consequentlyuniversal and necessary. I call it an anterior obligation because thesenses, in the matter of beauty, have given their judgment before theunderstanding commences to perform its office. 

Thus it is now free arbitration which rules the beautiful. If nature hasfurnished the architectonic beauty, the soul in its turn determines thebeauty of the play, and now also we know what we must understand by charmand grace. Grace is the beauty of the form under the influence of freewill; it is the beauty of this kind of phenomena that the person himselfdetermines. The architectonic beauty does honor to the author of nature;grace does honor to him who possesses it. That is a gift, this is apersonal merit. 

Grace can be found only in movement, for a modification which takes placein the soul can only be manifested in the sensuous world as movement. But this does not prevent features fixed and in repose also frompossessing grace. There immobility is, in its origin, movement which, from being frequently repeated, at length becomes habitual, leavingdurable traces. 

But all the movements of man are not capable of grace. Grace is neverotherwise than beauty of form animated into movement by free will; andthe movements which belong only to physical nature could not merit thename. It is true that an intellectual man, if he be keen, ends byrendering himself master of almost all the movements of the body; butwhen the chain which links a fine lineament to a moral sentimentlengthens much, this lineament becomes the property of the structure, andcan no longer be counted as a grace. It happens, ultimately, that themind moulds the body, and that the structure is forced to modify itselfaccording to the play that the soul imprints upon the organs, soentirely, that grace finally is transformed--and the examples are notrare--into architectonic beauty. As at one time an antagonistic mindwhich is ill at ease with itself alters and destroys the most perfectbeauty of structure, until at last it becomes impossible to recognizethis magnificent chef-d'oeuvre of nature in the state to which it isreduced under the unworthy hands of free will, so at other times theserenity and perfect harmony of the soul come to the aid of the hamperedtechnique, unloose nature and develop with divine splendor the beauty ofform, enveloped until then, and oppressed. 

The plastic nature of man has in it an infinity of resources to retrievethe negligencies and repair the faults that she may have committed. Tothis end it is sufficient that the mind, the moral agent, sustain it, oreven withhold from troubling it in the labor of rebuilding. 

Since the movements become fixed (gestures pass to a state of lineament), are themselves capable of grace, it would perhaps appear to be rationalto comprehend equally under this idea of beauty some apparent orimitative movements (the flamboyant lines for example, undulations). Itis this which Mendelssohn upholds. But then the idea of grace would beconfounded with the ideal of beauty in general, for all beauty isdefinitively but a property of true or apparent movement (objective orsubjective), as I hope to demonstrate in an analysis of beauty. Withregard to grace, the only movements which can offer any are those whichrespond at the same time to a sentiment. 

The person (it is known what I mean by the expression) prescribes themovements of the body, either through the will, when he desires torealize in the world of sense an effect of which he has proposed theidea, and in that case the movements are said to be voluntary orintentional; or, on the other hand, they take place without its willtaking any part in it--in virtue of a fatal law of the organism--but onthe occasion of a sentiment, in the latter case, I say that the movementsare sympathetic. The sympathetic movement, though it may be involuntaryand provoked by a sentiment, ought not to be confounded with those purelyinstinctive movements that proceed from physical sensibility. Physicalinstinct is not a free agent, and that which it executes is not an act ofthe person; I understand then here exclusively, by sympathetic movements, those which accompany a sentiment, a disposition of the moral order. 

The question that now presents itself is this: Of these two kinds ofmovement, having their principle in the person, which is capable ofgrace?

That which we are rigorously forced to distinguish in philosophicanalysis is not always separated also in the real. Thus it is rare thatwe meet intentional movements without sympathetic movements, because thewill determines the intentional movements only after being decided itselfby the moral sentiments which are the principle of the sympatheticmovements. When a person speaks, we see his looks, his lineaments, hishands, often the whole person all together speaks to us; and it is notrare that this mimic part of the discourse is the most eloquent. Stillmore there are cases where an intentional movement can be considered atthe same time as sympathetic; and it is that which happens when somethinginvoluntary mingles with the voluntary act which determines thismovement. 

I will explain: the mode, the manner in which a voluntary movement isexecuted, is not a thing so exactly determined by the intention which isproposed by it that it cannot be executed in several different ways. Well, then, that which the will or intention leaves undetermined can besympathetically determined by the state of moral sensibility in which theperson is found to be, and consequently can express this state. When Iextend the arm to seize an object, I execute, in truth, an intention, andthe movement I make is determined in general by the end that I have inview; but in what way does my arm approach the object? how far do theother parts of my body follow this impulsion? What will be the degree ofslowness or of the rapidity of the movement? What amount of force shallI employ? This is a calculation of which my will, at the instant, takesno account, and in consequence there is a something left to thediscretion of nature. 

But nevertheless, though that part of the movement is not determined bythe intention itself, it must be decided at length in one way or theother, and the reason is that the manner in which my moral sensibility isaffected can have here decisive influence: it is this which will give thetone, and which thus determines the mode and the manner of the movement. Therefore this influence, which exercises upon the voluntary movement thestate of moral sensibility in which the subject is found, representsprecisely the involuntary part of this movement, and it is there thenthat we must seek for grace. 

A voluntary movement, if it is not linked to any sympathetic movement--orthat which comes to the same thing, if there is nothing involuntary mixedup with it having for principle the moral state of sensibility in whichthe subject happens to be--could not in any manner present grace, forgrace always supposes as a cause a disposition of the soul. Voluntarymovement is produced after an operation of the soul, which in consequenceis already completed at the moment in which the movement takes place. 

The sympathetic movement, on the contrary, accompanies this operation ofthe soul, and the moral state of sensibility which decides it to thisoperation. So that this movement ought to be considered as simultaneouswith regard to both one and the other. 

From that alone it results that voluntary movement not proceedingimmediately from the disposition of the subject could not be anexpression of this disposition also. For between the disposition and themovement itself the volition has intervened, which, considered in itself, is something perfectly indifferent. This movement is the work of thevolition, it is determined by the aim that is proposed; it is not thework of the person, nor the product of the sentiments that affect it. 

The voluntary movement is united but accidentally with the dispositionwhich precedes it; the concomitant movement, on the contrary, isnecessarily linked to it. The first is to the soul that which theconventional signs of speech are to the thoughts which they express. Thesecond, on the contrary, the sympathetic movement or concomitant, is tothe soul that which the cry of passion is to the passion itself. Theinvoluntary movement is, then, an expression of the mind, not by itsnature, but only by its use. And in consequence we are not authorized tosay that the mind is revealed in a voluntary movement; this movementnever expresses more than the substance of the will (the aim), and notthe form of the will (the disposition). The disposition can onlymanifest itself to us by concomitant movements. 

It follows that we can infer from the words of a man the kind ofcharacter he desires to have attributed to him; but if we desire to knowwhat is in reality his character we must seek to divine it in the mimicexpression which accompanies his words, and in his gestures, that is tosay, in the movements which he did not desire. If we perceive that thisman wills even the expression of his features, from the instant we havemade this discovery we cease to believe in his physiognomy and to see init an indication of his sentiments. 

It is true that a man, by dint of art and of study, can at last arrive atthis result, to subdue to his will even the concomitant movements; and, like a clever juggler, to shape according to his pleasure such or such aphysiognomy upon the mirror from which his soul is reflected throughmimic action. But then, with such a man all is dissembling, and artentirely absorbs nature. The true grace, on the contrary, ought alwaysto be pure nature, that is to say, involuntary (or at least appear to beso), to be graceful. The subject even ought not to appear to know thatit possesses grace. 

By which we can also see incidentally what we must think of grace, eitherimitated or learned (I would willingly call it theatrical grace, or thegrace of the dancing-master). It is the pendant of that sort of beautywhich a woman seeks from her toilet-table, reinforced with rouge, whitepaint, false ringlets, pads, and whalebone. Imitative grace is to truegrace what beauty of toilet is to architectonic beauty. One and theother could act in absolutely the same manner upon the senses badlyexercised, as the original of which they wish to be the imitation; and attimes even, if much art is put into it, they might create an illusion tothe connoisseur. But there will be always some indication through whichthe intention and constraint will betray it in the end, and thisdiscovery will lead inevitably to indifference, if not even to contemptand disgust. If we are warned that the architectonic beauty isfactitious, at once, the more it has borrowed from a nature which is notits own, the more it loses in our eyes of that which belongs to humanity(so far as it is phenomenal), and then we, who forbid the renunciationlightly of an accidental advantage, how can we see with pleasure or evenwith indifference an exchange through which man sacrifices a part of hisproper nature in order to substitute elements taken from inferior nature?How, even supposing we could forgive the illusion produced, how could weavoid despising the deception? If we are told that grace is artificial, our heart at once closes; our soul, which at first advanced with so muchvivacity to meet the graceful object, shrinks back. That which was mindhas suddenly become matter. Juno and her celestial beauty has vanished, and in her place there is nothing but a phantom of vapour. 

Although grace ought to be, or at least ought to appear, somethinginvoluntary, still we seek it only in the movements that depend more orless on the will. I know also that grace is attributed to a certainmimic language, and we say a pleasing smile, a charming blush, though thesmile and the blush are sympathetic movements, not determined by thewill, but by moral sensibility. But besides that, the first of thesemovements is, after all, in our power, and that it is not shown that inthe second there is, properly speaking, any grace, it is right to say, ingeneral, that most frequently when grace appears it is on the occasion ofa voluntary movement. Grace is desired both in language and in song; itis asked for in the play of the eyes and of the mouth, in the movementsof the hands and the arms whenever these movements are free andvoluntary; it is required in the walk, in the bearing, and attitude, in aword, in all exterior demonstrations of man, so far as they depend on hiswill. As to the movements which the instinct of nature produces in us, or which an overpowering affection excites, or, so to speak, is lordover; that which we ask of these movements, in origin purely physical, is, as we shall see presently, quite another thing than grace. Thesekinds of movements belong to nature, and not to the person, but it isfrom the person alone, as we have seen, that all grace issues. 

If, then, grace is a property that we demand only from voluntarymovements, and if, on the other hand, all voluntary element should berigorously excluded from grace, we have no longer to seek it but in thatportion of the intentional movements to which the intention of thesubject is unknown, but which, however, does not cease to answer in thesoul to a moral cause. 

We now know in what kind of movements he must ask for grace; but we knownothing more, and a movement can have these different characters, withouton that account being graceful; it is as yet only speaking (or mimic). 

I call speaking (in the widest sense of the word) every physicalphenomenon which accompanies and expresses a certain state of the soul;thus, in this acceptation, all the sympathetic movements are speaking, including those which accompany the simple affections of the animalsensibility. 

The aspect, even, under which the animals present themselves, can bespeaking, as soon as they outwardly show their inward dispositions. But, with them, it is nature alone which speaks, and NOT LIBERTY. By thepermanent configuration of animals through their fixed and architectonicfeatures, nature expresses the aim she proposed in creating them; bytheir mimic traits she expresses the want awakened and the wantsatisfied. Necessity reigns in the animal as well as in the plant, without meeting the obstacle of a person. The animals have noindividuality farther than each of them is a specimen by itself of ageneral type of nature, and the aspect under which they presentthemselves at such or such an instant of their duration is only aparticular example of the accomplishment of the views of nature underdetermined natural conditions. 

To take the word in a more restricted sense, the configuration of manalone is speaking, and it is itself so only in those of the phenomenathat accompany and express the state of its moral sensibility. 

I say it is only in this sort of phenomena; for, in all the others, manis in the same rank as the rest of sensible beings. By the permanentconfiguration of man, by his architectonic features, nature onlyexpresses, just as in the animals and other organic beings, her ownintention. It is true the intention of nature may go here much further, and the means she employs to reach her end may offer in their combinationmore of art and complication; but all that ought to be placed solely tothe account of nature, and can confer no advantage on man himself. 

In the animal, and in the plant, nature gives not only the destination;she acts herself and acts alone in the accomplishment of her ends. Inman, nature limits herself in marking her views; she leaves to himselftheir accomplishment, it is this alone that makes of him a man. 

Alone of all known beings--man, in his quality of person, has theprivilege to break the chain of necessity by his will, and to determinein himself an entire series of fresh spontaneous phenomena. The act bywhich he thus determines himself is properly that which we call anaction, and the things that result from this sort of action are what weexclusively name his acts. Thus man can only show his personality by hisown acts. 

The configuration of the animal not only expresses the idea of hisdestination, but also the relation of his present state with thisdestination. And as in the animal it is nature which determines and atthe same time accomplishes its destiny, the configuration of the animalcan never express anything else than the work of nature. 

If then nature, whilst determining the destiny of man, abandons to thewill of man himself the care to accomplish it, the relation of hispresent state with his destiny cannot be a work of nature, but ought tobe the work of the person; it follows, that all in the configurationwhich expresses this relation will belong, not to nature, but to theperson, that is to say, will be considered as a personal expression; ifthen, the architectonic part of his configuration tells us the views thatnature proposed to herself in creating him, the mimic part of his facereveals what he has himself done for the accomplishment of these views. 

It is not then enough for us, when there is question of the form of man, to find in it the expression of humanity in general, or even of thatwhich nature has herself contributed to the individual in particular, inorder to realize the human type in it; for he would have that in commonwith every kind of technical configuration. We expect something more ofhis face; we desire that it reveal to us at the same time, up to whatpoint man himself, in his liberty, has contributed towards the aim ofnature; in other words, we desire that his face bear witness to hischaracter. In the first case we see that nature proposed to create inhim a man; but it is in the second case only that we can judge if he hasbecome so in reality. 

Thus, the face of a man is truly his own only inasmuch as his face ismimic; but also all that is mimic in his face is entirely his own. For, if we suppose the case in which the greatest part, and even the totality, of these mimic features express nothing more than animal sensations orinstincts, and, in consequence, would show nothing more than the animalin him, it would still remain that it was in his destiny and in his powerto limit, by his liberty, his sensuous nature. The presence of thesekinds of traits clearly witness that he has not made use of this faculty. We see by that he has not accomplished his destiny, and in this sensehis face is speaking; it is still a moral expression, the same as thenon-accomplishment of an act commanded by duty is likewise a sort ofaction. 

We must distinguish from these speaking features which are always anexpression of the soul, the features non-speaking or dumb, which areexclusively the work of plastic nature, and which it impresses on thehuman face when it acts independently of all influence of the soul. Icall them dumb, because, like incomprehensible figures put there bynature, they are silent upon the character. They mark only distinctiveproperties attributed by nature to all the kind; and if at times they aresufficient to distinguish the individual, they at least never expressanything of the person. 

These features are by no means devoid of signification for thephysiognomies, because the physiognomies not only studies that which manhas made of his being, but also that which nature has done for him andagainst him. 

It is not also easy to determine with precision where the dumb traits orfeatures end, where the speaking traits commence. The plastic forces onone side, with their uniform action, and, on the other, the affectionswhich depend on no law, dispute incessantly the ground; and that whichnature, in its dumb and indefatigable activity, has succeeded in raisingup, often is overturned by liberty, as a river that overflows and spreadsover its banks: the mind when it is gifted with vivacity acquiresinfluence over all the movements of the body, and arrives at lastindirectly to modify by force the sympathetic play as far as thearchitectonic and fixed forms of nature, upon which the will has no hold. In a man thus constituted it becomes at last characteristic; and it isthat which we can often observe upon certain heads which a long life, strange accidents, and an active mind have moulded and worked. In thesekinds of faces there is only the generic character which belongs toplastic nature; all which here forms individuality is the act of theperson himself, and it is this which causes it to be said, with muchreason, that those faces are all soul. 

Look at that man, on the contrary, who has made for himself a mechanicalexistence, those disciples of the rule. The rule can well calm thesensuous nature, but not awaken human nature, the superior faculties:look at those flat and inexpressive physiognomies; the finger of naturehas alone left there its impression; a soul inhabits these bodies, but itis a sluggish soul, a discreet guest, and, as a peaceful and silentneighbour who does not disturb the plastic force at its work, left toitself. Never a thought which requires an effort, never a movement ofpassion, hurries the calm cadence of physical life. There is no dangerthat the architectonic features ever become changed by the play ofvoluntary movements, and never would liberty trouble the functions ofvegetative life. As the profound calm of the mind does not bring about anotable degeneracy of forces, the expense would never surpass thereceipts; it is rather the animal economy which would always be inexcess. In exchange for a certain sum of well-being which it throws asbait, the mind makes itself the servant, the punctual major-domo ofphysical nature, and places all his glory in keeping his books in order. Thus will be accomplished that which organic nature can accomplish; thuswill the work of nutrition and of reproduction prosper. So happy aconcord between animal nature and the will cannot but be favorable toarchitectonic beauty, and it is there that we can observe this beauty inall its purity. But the general forces of nature, as every one knows, are eternally at warfare with the particular or organic forces, and, however cleverly balanced is the technique of a body, the cohesion andthe weight end always by getting the upper hand. Also architectonicbeauty, so far as it is a simple production of nature, has its fixedperiods, its blossoming, its maturity, and its decline--periods therevolution of which can easily be accelerated, but not retarded in anycase, by the play of the will, and this is the way in which it mostfrequently finishes; little by little matter takes the upper hand overform, and the plastic principle, which vivified the being, prepares foritself its tomb under the accumulation of matter. 

However, although no dumb trait, considered in an isolated point of view, can be an expression of the mind, a face composed entirely of these kindsof features can be characterized in its entireness by precisely the samereason as a face which is speaking only as an expression of sensuousnature can be nevertheless characteristic. I mean to say that the mindis obliged to exercise its activity and to feel conformably to its moralnature, and it accuses itself and betrays its fault when the face whichit animates shows no trace of this moral activity. If, therefore, thepure and beautiful expression of the destination of man, which is markedin his architectonic structure, penetrates us with satisfaction andrespect for the sovereign, reason, who is the author of it, at all eventsthese two sentiments will not be for us without mixture but in as far aswe see in man a simple creation of nature. But if we consider in him themoral person, we have a right to demand of his face an expression of theperson, and if this expectation is deceived contempt will infalliblyfollow. Simply organic beings have a right to our respect as creatures;man cannot pretend to it but in the capacity of creator, that is to say, as being himself the determiner of his own condition. He ought not only, as the other sensuous creatures, to reflect the rays of a foreignintelligence, were it even the divine intelligence; man ought, as a sun, to shine by his own light. 

Thus we require of man a speaking expression as soon as he becomesconscious of his moral destiny; but we desire at the same time that thisexpression speak to his advantage, that is to say, it marks in himsentiments conformable to his moral destiny, and a superior moralaptitude. This is what reason requires in the human face. 

But, on the other side, man, as far as he is a phenomenon, is an objectof sense; there, where the moral sentiment is satisfied, the aestheticsentiment does not understand its being made a sacrifice, and theconformity with an idea ought not to lessen the beauty of the phenomenon. Thus, as much as reason requires an expression of the morality of thesubject in the human face, so much, and with no less rigor, does the eyedemand beauty. As these two requirements, although coming from theprinciples of the appreciation of different degrees, address themselvesto the same object, also both one and the other must be givensatisfaction by one and the same cause. The disposition of the soulwhich places man in the best state for accomplishing his moral destinyought to give place to an expression that will be at the same time themost advantageous to his beauty as phenomenon; in other terms, his moralexercise ought to be revealed by grace. 

But a great difficulty now presents itself from the idea alone of theexpressive movements which bear witness to the morality of the subject:it appears that the cause of these movements is necessarily a moralcause, a principle which resides beyond the world of sense; and from thesole idea of beauty it is not less evident that its principle is purelysensuous, and that it ought to be a simple effect of nature, or at theleast appear to be such. But if the ultimate reason of the movementswhich offer a moral expression is necessarily without, and the ultimatereason of the beautiful necessarily within, the sensuous world, itappears that grace, which ought to unite both of them, contains amanifest contradiction. 

To avoid this contradiction we must admit that the moral cause, which inour soul is the foundation of grace, brings, in a necessary manner, inthe sensibility which depends on that cause, precisely that state whichcontains in itself the natural conditions of beauty. I will explain. The beautiful, as each sensuous phenomenon, supposes certain conditions, and, in as far as it is beautiful, these are purely conditions of thesenses; well, then, in that the mind (in virtue of a law that we cannotfathom), from the state in which it is, itself prescribes to physicalnature which accompanies it, its own state, and in that the state ofmoral perfection is precisely in it the most favorable for theaccomplishment of the physical conditions of beauty, it follows that itis the mind which renders beauty possible; and there its action ends. But whether real beauty comes forth from it, that depends upon thephysical conditions alluded to, and is consequently a free effect ofnature. Therefore, as it cannot be said that nature is properly free inthe voluntary movements, in which it is employed but as a means to attainan end, and as, on the other side, it cannot be said that it is free inits involuntary movements, which express the moral, the liberty withwhich it manifests itself, dependent as it is on the will of the subject, must be a concession that the mind makes to nature; and, consequently, itcan be said that grace is a favor in which the moral has desired togratify the sensuous element; the same as the architectonic beauty may beconsidered as nature acquiescing to the technical form. 

May I be permitted a comparison to clear up this point? Let us suppose amonarchical state administered in such a way that, although all goes onaccording to the will of one person, each citizen could persuade himselfthat he governs and obeys only his own inclination, we should call thatgovernment a liberal government. 

But we should look twice before we should thus qualify a government inwhich the chief makes his will outweigh the wishes of the citizens, or agovernment in which the will of the citizens outweighs that of the chief. In the first case, the government would be no more liberal; in thesecond, it would not be a government at all. 

It is not difficult to make application of these examples to what thehuman face could be under the government of the mind. If the mind ismanifested in such a way through the sensuous nature subject to itsempire that it executes its behests with the most faithful exactitude, orexpresses its sentiments in the most perfectly speaking manner, withoutgoing in the least against that which the aesthetic sense demands from itas a phenomenon, then we shall see produced that which we call grace. But this is far from being grace, if mind is manifested in a constrainedmanner by the sensuous nature, or if sensuous nature acting alone in allliberty the expression of moral nature was absent. In the first casethere would not be beauty; in the second the beauty would be devoid ofplay. 

The super-sensuous cause, therefore, the cause of which the principle isin the soul, can alone render grace speaking, and it is the purelysensuous cause having its principle in nature which alone can render itbeautiful. We are not more authorized in asserting that mind engendersbeauty than we should be, in the former example, in maintaining that thechief of the state produces liberty; because we can indeed leave a man inhis liberty, but not give it to him. 

But just as when a people feels itself free under the constraint of aforeign will, it is in a great degree due to the sentiments animating theprince; and as this liberty would run great risks if the prince tookopposite sentiments, so also it is in the moral dispositions of the mindwhich suggests them that we must seek the beauty of free movements. Andnow the question which is presented is this one: What then are theconditions of personal morality which assure the utmost amount of libertyto the sensuous instruments of the will? and what are the moralsentiments which agree the best in their expression with the beautiful?

That which is evident is that neither the will, in the intentionalmovement, nor the passion, in the sympathetic movement, ought to act as aforce with regard to the physical nature which is subject to it, in orderthat this, in obeying it, may have beauty. In truth, without goingfurther, common sense considers ease to be the first requisite of grace. It is not less evident that, on another side, nature ought not to act asa force with regard to mind, in order to give occasion for a fine moralexpression; for there, where physical nature commands alone, it isabsolutely necessary that the character of the man should vanish. 

We can conceive three sorts of relation of man with himself: I mean thesensuous part of man with the reasonable part. From these threerelations we have to seek which is that one which best suits him in thesensuous world, and the expression of which constitutes the beautiful. Either man enforces silence upon the exigencies of his sensuous nature, to govern himself conformably with the superior exigencies of hisreasonable nature; or else, on the contrary, he subjects the reasonableportion of his being to the sensuous part, reducing himself thus to obeyonly the impulses which the necessity of nature imprints upon him, aswell as upon the other phenomena; or lastly, harmony is establishedbetween the impulsions of the one and the laws of the other, and man isin perfect accord with himself. 

If he has the consciousness of his spiritual person, of his pureautonomy, man rejects all that is sensuous, and it is only when thusisolated from matter that he feels to the full his moral liberty. Butfor that, as his sensuous nature opposes an obstinate and vigorousresistance to him, he must, on his side, exercise upon it a notablepressure and a strong effort, without which he could neither put asidethe appetites nor reduce to silence the energetic voice of instinct. Amind of this quality makes the physical nature which depends on him feelthat it has a master in him, whether it fulfils the orders of the will orendeavors to anticipate them. Under its stern discipline sensuousnessappears then repressed, and interior resistance will betray itselfexteriorly by the constraint. This moral state cannot, then, befavorable to beauty, because nature cannot produce the beautiful but asfar as it is free, and consequently that which betrays to us thestruggles of moral liberty against matter cannot either be grace. 

If, on the contrary, subdued by its wants, man allows himself to begoverned without reserve by the instinct of nature, it is his interiorautonomy that vanishes, and with it all trace of this autonomy isexteriorly effaced. The animal nature is alone visible upon his visage;the eye is watery and languishing, the mouth rapaciously open, the voicetrembling and muffled, the breathing short and rapid, the limbs tremblingwith nervous agitation: the whole body by its languor betrays its moraldegradation. Moral force has renounced all resistance, and physicalnature, with such a man, is placed in full liberty. But precisely thiscomplete abandonment of moral independence, which occurs ordinarily atthe moment of sensuous desire, and more still at the moment of enjoyment, sets suddenly brute matter at liberty which until then had been kept inequilibrium by the active and passive forces. The inert forces of naturecommence from thence to gain the upper hand over the living forces of theorganism; the form is oppressed by matter, humanity by common nature. The eye, in which the soul shone forth, becomes dull, or it protrudesfrom its socket with I know not what glassy haggardness; the delicatepink of the cheeks thickens, and spreads as a coarse pigment in uniformlayers. The mouth is no longer anything but a simple opening, becauseits form no longer depends upon the action of forces, but on theirnon-resistance; the gasping voice and breathing are no more than aneffort to ease the laborious and oppressed lungs, and which show a simplemechanical want, with nothing that reveals a soul. In a word, in thatstate of liberty which physical nature arrogates to itself from itschief, we must not think of beauty. Under the empire of the moral agent, the liberty of form was only restrained, here it is crushed by brutalmatter, which gains as much ground as is abstracted from the will. Manin this state not only revolts the moral sense, which incessantly claimsof the face an expression of human dignity, but the aesthetic sense, which is not content with simple matter, and which finds in the form anunfettered pleasure--the aesthetic sense will turn away with disgust fromsuch a spectacle, where concupiscence could alone find its gratification. 

Of these two relations between the moral nature of man and his physicalnature, the first makes us think of a monarchy, where strict surveillanceof the prince holds in hand all free movement; the second is anochlocracy, where the citizen, in refusing to obey his legitimatesovereign, finds he has liberty quite as little as the human face hasbeauty when the moral autonomy is oppressed; nay, on the contrary, justas the citizens are given over to the brutal despotism of the lowestclasses, so the form is given over here to the despotism of matter. Justas liberty finds itself between the two extremes of legal oppression andanarchy, so also we shall find the beautiful between two extremes, between the expression of dignity which bears witness to the dominationexercised by the mind, and the voluptuous expression which reveals thedomination exercised by instinct. 

In other terms, if the beauty of expression is incompatible with theabsolute government of reason over sensuous nature, and with thegovernment of sensuous nature over the reason, it follows that the thirdstate (for one could not conceive a fourth)--that in which the reason andthe senses, duty and inclination, are in harmony--will be that in whichthe beauty of play is produced. In order that obedience to reason maybecome an object of inclination, it must represent for us the principleof pleasure; for pleasure and pain are the only springs which set theinstincts in motion. It is true that in life it is the reverse thattakes place, and pleasure is ordinarily the motive for which we actaccording to reason. If morality itself has at last ceased to hold thislanguage, it is to the immortal author of the "Critique" to whom we mustoffer our thanks; it is to him to whom the glory is due of havingrestored the healthy reason in separating it from all systems. But inthe manner in which the principles of this philosopher are ordinarilyexpressed by himself and also by others, it appears that the inclinationcan never be for the moral sense otherwise than a very suspiciouscompanion, and pleasure a dangerous auxiliary for moral determinations. In admitting that the instinct of happiness does not exercise a blinddomination over man, it does not the less desire to interfere in themoral actions which depend on free arbitration, and by that it changesthe pure action of the will, which ought always to obey the law alone, never the instinct. Thus, to be altogether sure that the inclination hasnot interfered with the demonstrations of the will, we prefer to see itin opposition rather than in accord with the law of reason; because itmay happen too easily, when the inclination speaks in favor of duty, thatduty draws from the recommendation all its credit over the will. And infact, as in practical morals, it is not the conformity of the acts withthe law, but only the conformity of the sentiments with duty, which isimportant. We do not attach, and with reason, any value to thisconsideration, that it is ordinarily more favorable to the conformity ofacts with the law that inclination is on the side of duty. As aconsequence, this much appears evident: that the assent of sense, if itdoes not render suspicious the conformity of the will with duty, at leastdoes not guarantee it. Thus the sensuous expression of this assent, expression that grace offers to us, could never bear a sufficientavailable witness to the morality of the act in which it is met; and itis not from that which an action or a sentiment manifests to the eyes bygraceful expression that we must judge of the moral merit of thatsentiment or of that action. 

Up to the present time I believe I have been in perfect accord with therigorists in morals. I shall not become, I hope, a relaxed moralist inendeavoring to maintain in the world of phenomena and in the realfulfilment of the law of duty those rights of sensuous nature which, uponthe ground of pure reason and in the jurisdiction of the moral law, arecompletely set aside and excluded. 

I will explain. Convinced as I am, and precisely because I am convinced, that the inclination in associating itself to an act of the will offersno witness to the pure conformity of this act with the duty, I believethat we are able to infer from this that the moral perfection of mancannot shine forth except from this very association of his inclinationwith his moral conduct. In fact, the destiny of man is not to accomplishisolated moral acts, but to be a moral being. That which is prescribedto him does not consist of virtues, but of virtue, and virtue is notanything else "than an inclination for duty. " Whatever, then, in theobjective sense, may be the opposition which separates the acts suggestedby the inclination from those which duty determines, we cannot say it isthe same in the subjective sense; and not only is it permitted to man toaccord duty with pleasure, but he ought to establish between them thisaccord, he ought to obey his reason with a sentiment of joy. It is notto throw it off as a burden, nor to cast it off as a too coarse skin. No, it is to unite it, by a union the most intimate, with his Ego, withthe most noble part of his being, that a sensuous nature has beenassociated in him to his purely spiritual nature. By the fact thatnature has made of him a being both at once reasonable and sensuous, thatis to say, a man, it has prescribed to him the obligation not to separatethat which she has united; not to sacrifice in him the sensuous being, were it in the most pure manifestations of the divine part; and never tofound the triumph of one over the oppression and the ruin of the other. It is only when he gathers, so to speak, his entire humanity together, and his way of thinking in morals becomes the result of the united actionof the two principles, when morality has become to him a second nature, it is then only that it is secure; for, as far as the mind and the dutyare obliged to employ violence, it is necessary that the instinct shallhave force to resist them. The enemy which only is overturned can riseup again, but the enemy reconciled is truly vanquished. In the moralphilosophy of Kant the idea of duty is proposed with a harshness enoughto ruffle the Graces, and one which could easily tempt a feeble mind toseek for moral perfection in the sombre paths of an ascetic and monasticlife. Whatever precautions the great philosopher has been able to takein order to shelter himself against this false interpretation, which mustbe repugnant more than all else to the serenity of the free mind, he haslent it a strong impulse, it seems to me, in opposing to each other by aharsh contrast the two principles which act upon the human will. Perhapsit was hardly possible, from the point of view in which he was placed, toavoid this mistake; but he has exposed himself seriously to it. Upon thebasis of the question there is no longer, after the demonstration he hasgiven, any discussion possible, at least for the heads which think andwhich are quite willing to be persuaded; and I am not at all sure if itwould not be better to renounce at once all the attributes of the humanbeing than to be willing to reach on this point, by reason, a differentresult. But although he began to work without any prejudice when hesearched for the truth, and though all is here explained by purelyobjective reasons, it appears that when he put forward the truth oncefound he had been guided by a more subjective maxim, which is notdifficult, I believe, to be accounted for by the time and circumstances. 

What, in fact, was the moral of his time, either in theory or in itsapplication? On one side, a gross materialism, of which the shamelessmaxims would revolt his soul; impure resting-places offered to thebastard characters of a century by the unworthy complacency ofphilosophers; on the other side, a pretended system of perfectibility, not less suspicious, which, to realize the chimera of a generalperfection common to the whole universe, would not be embarrassed for achoice of means. This is what would meet his attention. So he carriedthere, where the most pressing danger lay and reform was the most urgent, the strongest forces of his principles, and made it a law to pursuesensualism without pity, whether it walks with a bold face, impudentlyinsulting morality, or dissimulates under the imposing veil of a moral, praiseworthy end, under which a certain fanatical kind of order know howto disguise it. He had not to disguise ignorance, but to reformperversion; for such a cure a violent blow, and not persuasion orflattery, was necessary; and the more the contrast would be violentbetween the true principles and the dominant maxims, the more he wouldhope to provoke reflection upon this point. He was the Draco of histime, because his time seemed to him as yet unworthy to possess a Solon, neither capable of receiving him. From the sanctuary of pure reason hedrew forth the moral law, unknown then, and yet, in another way, soknown; he made it appear in all its saintliness before a degradedcentury, and troubled himself little to know whether there were eyes tooenfeebled to bear the brightness. 

But what had the children of the house done for him to have occupiedhimself only with the valets? Because strongly impure inclinations oftenusurp the name of virtue, was it a reason for disinterested inclinationsin the noblest heart to be also rendered suspicious? Because the moralepicurean had willingly relaxed the law of reason, in order to fit it asa plaything to his customs, was it a reason to thus exaggerate harshness, and to make the fulfilment of duty, which is the most powerfulmanifestation of moral freedom, another kind of decorated servitude of amore specious name? And, in fact, between the esteem and the contempt ofhimself has the truly moral man a more free choice than the slave ofsense between pleasure and pain? Is there less of constraint there for apure will than here for a depraved will? Must one, by this imperativeform given to the moral law, accuse man and humble him, and make of thislaw, which is the most sublime witness of our grandeur, the most crushingargument for our fragility? Was it possible with this imperative forceto avoid that a prescription which man imposes on himself, as areasonable being, and which is obligatory only for him on that account, and which is conciliatory with the sentiment of his liberty only--thatthis prescription, say I, took the appearance of a foreign law, apositive law, an appearance which could hardly lessen the radicaltendency which we impute to man to react against the law?

It is certainly not an advantage for moral truth to have against itselfsentiments which man can avow without shame. Thus, how can the sentimentof the beautiful, the sentiment of liberty, accord with the austere mindof a legislation which governs man rather through fear than trust, whichtends constantly to separate that which nature has united, and which isreduced to hold us in defiance against a part of our being, to assure itsempire over the rest? Human nature forms a whole more united in realitythan it is permitted to the philosopher, who can only analyze, to allowit to appear. The reason can never reject as unworthy of it theaffections which the heart recognizes with joy; and there, where manwould be morally fallen, he can hardly rise in his own esteem. If in themoral order the sensuous nature were only the oppressed party and not anally, how could it associate with all the ardor of its sentiments in atriumph which would be celebrated only over itself? how could it be sokeen a participator in the satisfaction of a pure spirit havingconsciousness of itself, if in the end it could not attach itself to thepure spirit with such closeness that it is not possible even tointellectual analysis to separate it without violence. 

The will, besides, is in more immediate relation with the faculty offeeling than with the cognitive faculties, and it would be regrettable inmany circumstances if it were obliged, in order to guide itself, to takeadvice of pure reason. I prejudge nothing good of a man who dares solittle trust to the voice of instinct that he is obliged each time tomake it appear first before the moral law; he is much more estimable whoabandons himself with a certain security to inclination, without havingto fear being led astray by her. That proves in fact that with him thetwo principles are already in harmony--in that harmony which places aseat upon the perfection of the human being, and which constitutes thatwhich we understand by a noble soul. 

It is said of a man that he has a great soul when the moral sense hasfinished assuring itself of all the affections, to the extent ofabandoning without fear the direction of the senses to the will, andnever incurring the risk of finding himself in discord with itsdecisions. It follows that in a noble soul it is not this or thatparticular action, it is the entire character which is moral. Thus wecan make a merit of none of its actions because the satisfaction of aninstinct could not be meritorious. A noble soul has no other merit thanto be a noble soul. With as great a facility as if the instinct alonewere acting, it accomplishes the most painful duties of humanity, and themost heroic sacrifice that she obtains over the instinct of nature seemsthe effect of the free action of the instinct itself. Also, it has noidea of the beauty of its act, and it never occurs to it that any otherway of acting could be possible; on the contrary, the moralist formed bythe school and by rule, is always ready at the first question of themaster to give an account with the most rigorous precision of theconformity of its acts with the moral law. The life of this one is likea drawing where the pencil has indicated by harsh and stiff lines allthat the rule demands, and which could, if necessary, serve for a studentto learn the elements of art. The life of a noble soul, on the contrary, is like a painting of Titian; all the harsh outlines are effaced, whichdoes not prevent the whole face being more true, lifelike and harmonious. 

It is then in a noble soul that is found the true harmony between reasonand sense, between inclination and duty, and grace is the expression ofthis harmony in the sensuous world. It is only in the service of a noblesoul that nature can at the same time be in possession of its liberty, and preserve from all alteration the beauty of its forms; for the one, its liberty would be compromised under the tyranny of an austere soul, the other, under the anarchical regimen of sensuousness. A noble soulspreads even over a face in which the architectonic beauty is wanting anirresistible grace, and often even triumphs over the natural disfavor. All the movements which proceed from a noble soul are easy, sweet, andyet animated. The eye beams with serenity as with liberty, and with thebrightness of sentiment; gentleness of heart would naturally give to themouth a grace that no affectation, no art, could attain. You trace thereno effort in the varied play of the physiognomy, no constraint in thevoluntary movements--a noble soul knows not constraint; the voice becomesmusic, and the limpid stream of its modulations touches the heart. Thebeauty of structure can excite pleasure, admiration, astonishment; gracealone can charm. Beauty has its adorers; grace alone has its lovers: forwe pay our homage to the Creator, and we love man. As a whole, gracewould be met with especially amongst women; beauty, on the contrary, ismet with more frequently in man, and we need not go far without findingthe reason. For grace we require the union of bodily structure, as wellas that of character: the body, by its suppleness, by its promptitude toreceive impressions and to bring them into action; the character, by themoral harmony of the sentiments. Upon these two points nature has beenmore favorable to the woman than to man. 

The more delicate structure of the woman receives more rapidly eachimpression and allows it to escape as rapidly. It requires a storm toshake a strong constitution, and when vigorous muscles begin to move weshould not find the ease which is one of the conditions of grace. Thatwhich upon the face of woman is still a beautiful sensation would expresssuffering already upon the face of man. Woman has the more tendernerves; it is a reed which bends under the gentlest breath of passion. The soul glides in soft and amiable ripples upon her expressive face, which soon regains the calm and smooth surface of the mirror. 

The same also for the character: for that necessary union of the soulwith grace the woman is more happily gifted than man. The character ofwoman rises rarely to the supreme ideal of moral purity, and would rarelygo beyond acts of affection; her character would often resistsensuousness with heroic force. Precisely because the moral nature ofwoman is generally on the side of inclination, the effect becomes thesame, in that which touches the sensuous expression of this moral state, as if the inclination were on the side of duty. Thus grace would be theexpression of feminine virtue, and this expression would often be wantingin manly virtue. 

ON DIGNITY. 

As grace is the expression of a noble soul, so is dignity the expressionof elevated feeling. 

It has been prescribed to man, it is true, to establish between his twonatures a unison, to form always an harmonious whole, and to act as inunion with his entire humanity. But this beauty of character, this lastfruit of human maturity, is but an ideal to which he ought to force hisconformity with a constant vigilance, but to which, with all his efforts, he can never attain. 

He cannot attain to it because his nature is thus made and it will notchange; the physical conditions of his existence themselves are opposedto it. 

In fact, his existence, so far as he is a sensuous creature, depends oncertain physical conditions; and in order to insure this existence manought--because, in his quality of a free being, capable of determininghis modifications by his own will--to watch over his own preservationhimself. Man ought to be made capable of certain acts in order to fulfilthese physical conditions of his existence, and when these conditions areout of order to re-establish them. 

But although nature had to give up to him this care which she reservesexclusively to herself in those creatures which have only a vegetativelife, still it was necessary that the satisfaction of so essential awant, in which even the existence of the individual and of the species isinterested, should not be absolutely left to the discretion of man, andhis doubtful foresight. It has then provided for this interest, which inthe foundation concerns it, and it has also interfered with regard to theform in placing in the determination of free arbitration a principle ofnecessity. From that arises natural instinct, which is nothing else thana principle of physical necessity which acts upon free arbitration by themeans of sensation. 

The natural instinct solicits the sensuous faculty through the combinedforce of pain and of pleasure: by pain when it asks satisfaction, and bypleasure when it has found what it asks. 

As there is no bargaining possible with physical necessity, man mustalso, in spite of his liberty, feel what nature desires him to feel. According as it awakens in him a painful or an agreeable sensation, therewill infallibly result in him either aversion or desire. Upon this pointman quite resembles the brute; and the stoic, whatever his power of soul, is not less sensible of hunger, and has no less aversion to it, than theworm that crawls at his feet. 

But here begins the great difference: with the lower creature actionsucceeds to desire or aversion quite as of necessity, as the desire tothe sensation, and the expression to the external impression. It is herea perpetual circle, a chain, the links of which necessarily join one tothe other. With man there is one more force--the will, which, as asuper-sensuous faculty, is not so subject to the law of nature, nor thatof reason, that he remains without freedom to choose, and to guidehimself according to this or to that. The animal cannot do otherwisethan seek to free itself from pain; man can decide to suffer. 

The will of man is a privilege, a sublime idea, even when we do notconsider the moral use that he can make of it. But firstly, the animalnature must be in abeyance before approaching the other, and from thatcause it is always a considerable step towards reaching the moralemancipation of the will to have conquered in us the necessity of nature, even in indifferent things, by the exercise in us of the simple will. 

The jurisdiction of nature extends as far as the will, but there itstops, and the empire of reason commences. Placed between these twojurisdictions, the will is absolutely free to receive the law from oneand the other; but it is not in the same relation with one and the other. Inasmuch as it is a natural force it is equally free with regard tonature and with respect to reason; I mean to say it is not forced to passeither on the side of one or of the other: but as far as it is a moralfaculty it is not free; I mean that it ought to choose the law of reason. It is not chained to one or the other, but it is obliged towards the lawof reason. The will really then makes use of its liberty even whilst itacts contrary to reason: but it makes use of it unworthily, because, notwithstanding its liberty, it is no less under the jurisdiction ofnature, and adds no real action to the operation of pure instinct; for towill by virtue of desire is only to desire in a different way. 

There may be conflict between the law of nature, which works in usthrough the instinct, and the law of reason, which comes out ofprinciples, when the instinct, to satisfy itself, demands of us an actionwhich disgusts our moral sense. It is, then, the duty of the will tomake the exigencies of the instinct give way to reason. Whilst the lawsof nature oblige the will only conditionally, the laws of reason obligeabsolutely and without conditions. 

But nature obstinately maintains her rights, and as it is never by theresult of free choice that she solicits us, she also does not withdrawany of her exigencies as long as she has not been satisfied. Since, fromthe first cause which gave the impulsion to the threshold of the willwhere its jurisdiction ends, all in her is rigorously necessary, consequently she can neither give way nor go back, but must always goforward and press more and more the will on which depends thesatisfaction of her wants. Sometimes, it is true, we could say thatnature shortens her road and acts immediately as a cause for thesatisfaction of her needs without having in the first instance carriedher request before the will. In such a case, that is to say, if man notsimply allowed instinct to follow a free course, but if instinct tookthis course of itself, man would be no more than the brute. But it isvery doubtful whether this case would ever present itself, and if ever itwere really presented it would remain to be seen whether we should notblame the will itself for this blind power which the instinct would haveusurped. 

Thus the appetitive faculty claims with persistence the satisfaction ofits wants, and the will is solicited to procure it; but the will shouldreceive from the reason the motives by which she determines. What doesthe reason permit? What does she prescribe? This is what the willshould decide upon. Well, then, if the will turns towards the reasonbefore consenting to the request of the instinct, it is properly a moralact; but if it immediately decides, without consulting the reason, it isa physical act. 

Every time, then, that nature manifests an exigence and seeks to draw thewill along with it by the blind violence of affective movement, it is theduty of the will to order nature to halt until reason has pronounced. The sentence which reason pronounces, will it be favorable or thecontrary to the interest of sensuousness? This is, up to the presenttime, what the will does not know. Also it should observe this conductfor all the affective movements without exception, and when it is naturewhich has spoken the first, never allow it to act as an immediate cause. Man would testify only by that to his independence. It is when, by anact of his will, he breaks the violence of his desires, which hastentowards the object which should satisfy them, and would dispense entirelywith the co-operation of the will, --it is only then that he revealshimself in quality of a moral being, that is to say, as a free agent, which does not only allow itself to experience either aversion or desire, but which at all times must will his aversions and his desires. 

But this act of taking previously the advice of reason is already anattempt against nature, who is a competent judge in her own cause, andwho will not allow her sentences to be submitted to a new and strangejurisdiction; this act of the will which thus brings the appetitivefaculty before the tribunal of reason is then, in the proper acceptationof the word, an act against nature, in that it renders accidental thatwhich is necessary, in that it attributes to the laws of reason the rightto decide in a cause where the laws of nature can alone pronounce, andwhere they have pronounced effectively. Just, in fact, as the reason inthe exercise of its moral jurisdiction is little troubled to know if thedecisions it can come to will satisfy or not the sensuous nature, so thesensuous in the exercise of the right which is proper to it does nottrouble itself whether its decisions would satisfy pure reason or not. Each is equally necessary, though different in necessity, and thischaracter of necessity would be destroyed if it were permitted for one tomodify arbitrarily the decisions of the other. This is why the man whohas the most moral energy cannot, whatever resistance he opposes toinstinct, free himself from sensuousness, or stifle desire, but can onlydeny it an influence upon the decisions of his will; he can disarminstinct by moral means, but he cannot appease it but by natural means. By his independent force he may prevent the laws of nature fromexercising any constraint over his will, but he can absolutely changenothing of the laws themselves. 

Thus in the affective movements in which nature (instinct) acts the firstand seeks to do without the will, or to draw it violently to its side, the morality of character cannot manifest itself but by its resistance, and there is but one means of preventing the instinct from restrainingthe liberty of the will: it is to restrain the instinct itself. Thus wecan only have agreement between the law of reason and the affectivephenomena, under the condition of putting both in discord with theexigencies of instinct. And as nature never gives way to moral reasons, and recalls her claims, and as on her side, consequently, all remains inthe same state, in whatever manner the will acts towards her, it resultsthat there is no possible accord between the inclination and duty, between reason and sense; and that here man cannot act at the same timewith all his being and with all the harmony of his nature, butexclusively with his reasonable nature. Thus in these sorts of actionswe could not find moral beauty, because an action is morally good only asfar as inclination has taken part in it, and here the inclinationprotests against much more than it concurs with it. But these actionshave moral grandeur, because all that testifies to a preponderatingauthority exercised over the sensuous nature has grandeur, and grandeuris found only there. 

It is, then, in the affective movements that this great soul of which wespeak transforms itself and becomes sublime; and it is the touchstone todistinguish the soul truly great from what is called a good heart, orfrom the virtue of temperament. When in man the inclination is ranged onthe side of morality only because morality itself is happily on the sideof inclination, it will happen that the instinct of nature in theaffective movements will exercise upon the will a full empire, and if asacrifice is necessary it is the moral nature, and not the sensuousnature, that will make it. If, on the contrary, it is reason itselfwhich has made the inclination pass to the side of duty (which is thecase in the fine character), and which has only confided the rudder tothe sensuous nature, it will be always able to retake it as soon as theinstinct should misuse its full powers. Thus the virtue of temperamentin the affective movements falls back to the state of simple productionof nature, whilst the noble soul passes to heroism and rises to the rankof pure intelligence. 

The rule over the instincts by moral force is the emancipation of mind, and the expression by which this independence presents itself to the eyesin the world of phenomena is what is called dignity. 

To consider this rigorously: the moral force in man is susceptible of norepresentation, for the super-sensuous could not explain itself by aphenomenon that falls under the sense; but it can be representedindirectly to the mind by sensuous signs, and this is actually the casewith dignity in the configuration of man. 

When the instinct of nature is excited, it is accompanied just as theheart in its moral emotions is, by certain movements of the body, whichsometimes go before the will, sometimes, even as movements purelysympathetic, escape altogether its empire. In fact, as neithersensation, nor the desire, nor aversion, are subject to the freearbitration of man, man has no right over the physical movements whichimmediately depend on it. But the instinct does not confine itself tosimple desire; it presses, it advances, it endeavors to realize itsobject; and if it does not meet in the autonomy of the mind an energeticresistance, it will even anticipate it, it will itself take theinitiative of those sorts of acts over which the will alone has the rightto pronounce. For the instinct of conservation tends without ceasing tousurp the legislative powers in the domain of the will, and its effortsgo to exercise over man a domination as absolute as over the beast. There are, then, two sorts of distinct movements, which, in themselvesand by their origin, in each affective phenomenon, arise in man by theinstinct of conservation: those firstly which immediately proceed fromsensation, and which, consequently, are quite involuntary; then thosewhich in principle could and would be voluntary, but from which the blindinstinct of nature takes all freedom. The first refer to the affectionitself, and are united necessarily with it; the others respond rather tothe cause and to the object of the affections, and are thus accidentaland susceptible of modification, and cannot be mistaken for infalliblesigns of the affective phenomena. But as both one and the other, whenonce the object is determined, are equally necessary to the instinct ofnature, so they assist, both one and the other, the expression ofaffective phenomena; a necessary competition, in order that theexpression should be complete and form a harmonious whole. 

If, then, the will is sufficiently independent to repress the aggressionsof instinct and to maintain its rights against this blind force, all thephenomena which the instinct of nature, once excited, produce, in itsproper domain, will preserve, it is true, their force; but those of thesecond kind, those which came out of a foreign jurisdiction, and which itpretended to subject arbitrarily to its power, these phenomena would nottake place. Thus the phenomena are no longer in harmony; but it isprecisely in their opposition that consists the expression of the moralforce. Suppose that we see a man a prey to the most poignant affection, manifested by movements of the first kind, by quite involuntarymovements. His veins swell, his muscles contract convulsively, his voiceis stifled, his chest is raised and projects, whilst the lower portion ofthe torso is sunken and compressed; but at the same time the voluntarymovements are soft, the features of the face free, and serenity beamsforth from the brow and in the look. If man were only a physical being, all his traits, being determined only by one and the same principle, would be in unison one with the other, and would have a similarexpression. Here, for example, they would unite in expressingexclusively suffering; but as those traits which express calmness aremixed up with those which express suffering, and as similar causes do notproduce opposite effects, we must recognize in this contrast the presenceand the action of a moral force, independent of the passive affections, and superior to the impressions beneath which we see sensuous nature giveway. And this is why calmness under suffering, in which properlyconsists dignity, becomes--indirectly, it is true, and by means ofreasoning--a representation of the pure intelligence which is in man, andan expression of his moral liberty. But it is not only under suffering, in the restricted sense of the word, in the sense in which it marks onlythe painful affections, but generally in all the cases in which theappetitive faculty is strongly interested, that mind ought to show itsliberty, and that dignity ought to be the dominant expression. Dignityis not less required in the agreeable affections than in the painfulaffections, because in both cases nature would willingly play the part ofmaster, and has to be held in check by the will. Dignity relates to theform and not to the nature of the affection, and this is why it can bepossible that often an affection, praiseworthy in the main, but one towhich we blindly commit ourselves, degenerates, from the want of dignity, into vulgarity and baseness; and, on the contrary, a condemnableaffection, as soon as it testifies by its form to the empire of the mindover the senses, changes often its character and approaches even towardsthe sublime. 

Thus in dignity the mind reigns over the body and bears itself as ruler:here it has its independence to defend against imperious impulse, alwaysready to do without it, to act and shake off its yoke. But in grace, onthe contrary, the mind governs with a liberal government, for here themind itself causes sensuous nature to act, and it finds no resistance toovercome. But obedience only merits forbearance, and severity is onlyjustifiable when provoked by opposition. 

Thus grace is nothing else than the liberty of voluntary movements, anddignity consists in mastering involuntary movements. Grace leaves tosensuous nature, where it obeys the orders of the mind, a certain air ofindependence; dignity, on the contrary, submits the sensuous nature tomind where it would make the pretensions to rule; wherever instinct takesthe initiative and allows itself to trespass upon the attributes of thewill, the will must show it no indulgence, but it must testify to its ownindependence (autonomy), in opposing to it the most energetic resistance. If, on the contrary, it is the will that commences, and if instinct doesbut follow it, the free arbitration has no longer to display any rigor, now it must show indulgence. Such is in a few words the law which oughtto regulate the relation of the two natures of man in what regards theexpression of this relation in the world of phenomena. 

It follows that dignity is required, and is seen particularly in passiveaffection, whilst grace is shown in the conduct, for it is only insuffering that the liberty of the soul can be manifested, and only inaction that the liberty of the body can be displayed. 

If dignity is an expression of resistance opposed to instinct by moralliberty, and if the instinct consequently ought to be considered as aforce that renders resistance necessary, it follows that dignity isridiculous where you have no force of this kind to resist, andcontemptible where there ought not to be any such force to combat. Welaugh at a comedian, whatever rank or condition he may occupy, who evenin indifferent actions affects dignity. We despise those small soulswho, for having accomplished an ordinary action, and often for havingsimply abstained from a base one, plume themselves on their dignity. 

Generally, what is demanded of virtue is not properly speaking dignity, but grace. Dignity is implicitly contained in the idea of virtue, whicheven by its nature supposes already the rule of man over his instincts. It is rather sensuous nature that, in the fulfilment of moral duties, isfound in a state of oppression and constraint, particularly when itconsummates in a painful sacrifice. But as the ideal of perfection inman does not require a struggle, but harmony between the moral andphysical nature, this ideal is little compatible with dignity, which isonly the expression of a struggle between the two natures, and as suchrenders visible either the particular impotence of the individual, or theimpotence common to the species. In the first case, when the want ofharmony between inclination and duty, with regard to a moral act, belongsto the particular powerlessness of the subject, the act would always loseits moral value, in as far as that combat is necessary, and, inconsequence, proportionally as there would be dignity in the exteriorexpression of this act; for our moral judgment connects each individualwith the common measure of the species, and we do not allow man to bestopped by other limits than those of human nature. 

In the second case, when the action commanded by duty cannot be placed inharmony with the exigencies of instinct without going against the idea ofhuman nature, the resistance of the inclination is necessary, and thenonly the sight of the combat can convince us of the possibility ofvictory. Thus we ask here of the features and attitudes an expression ofthis interior struggle, not being able to take upon ourselves to believein virtue where there is no trace of humanity. Where then the moral lawcommands of us an action which necessarily makes the sensuous naturesuffer, there the matter is serious, and ought not to be treated as play;ease and lightness in accomplishing this act would be much more likely torevolt us than to satisfy us; and thus, in consequence, expression is nolonger grace, but dignity. In general, the law which prevails here is, that man ought to accomplish with grace all the acts that he can executein the sphere of human nature; and with dignity all those for theaccomplishment of which he is obliged to go beyond his nature. 

In like manner as we ask of virtue to have grace, we ask of inclinationto have dignity. Grace is not less natural to inclination than dignityto virtue, and that is evident from the idea of grace, which is allsensuous and favorable to the liberty of physical nature, and which isrepugnant to all idea of constraint. The man without cultivation lacksnot by himself a certain degree of grace, when love or any otheraffection of this kind animates him; and where do we find more grace thanin children, who are nevertheless entirely under the direction ofinstinct. The danger is rather that inclination should end by making thestate of passion the dominant one, stifling the independence of mind, andbringing about a general relaxation. Therefore in order to conciliatethe esteem of a noble sentiment--esteem can only be inspired by thatwhich proceeds from a moral source--the inclination must always beaccompanied by dignity. It is for that reason a person in love desiresto find dignity in the object of this passion. Dignity alone is thewarrant that it is not need which has forced, but free choice which haschosen, that he is not desired as a thing, but esteemed as a person. 

We require grace of him who obliges, dignity of the person obliged: thefirst, to set aside an advantage which he has over the other, and whichmight wound, ought to give to his actions, though his decision may havebeen disinterested, the character of an affective movement, that thus, from the part which he allows inclination to take, he may have theappearance of being the one who gains the most: the second, not tocompromise by the dependence in which he put himself the honor ofhumanity, of which liberty is the saintly palladium, ought to raise whatis only a pure movement of instinct to the height of an act of the will, and in this manner, at the moment when he receives a favor, return in acertain sense another favor. 

We must censure with grace, and own our faults with dignity: to putdignity into our remonstrances is to have the air of a man too penetratedby his own advantage: to put grace into our confessions is to forget theinferiority in which our fault has placed us. Do the powerful desire toconciliate affection? Their superiority must be tempered by grace. Thefeeble, do they desire to conciliate esteem? They must through dignityrise above their powerlessness. Generally it is thought that dignity issuitable to the throne, and every one knows that those seated upon itdesire to find in their councillors, their confessors, and in theirparliaments--grace. But that which may be good and praiseworthy in akingdom is not so always in the domain of taste. The prince himselfenters into this domain as soon as he descends from his throne (forthrones have their privileges), and the crouching courtier places himselfunder the saintly and free probation of this law as soon as he standserect and becomes again a man. The first we would counsel to supplementfrom the superfluity of the second that which he himself needs, and togive him as much of his dignity as he requires to borrow grace from him. 

Although dignity and grace have each their proper domain in which theyare manifest, they do not exclude each other. They can be met with inthe same person, and even in the same state of that person. Further, itis grace alone which guarantees and accredits dignity, and dignity alonecan give value to grace. 

Dignity alone, wherever met with, testifies that the desires andinclinations are restrained within certain limits. But what we take fora force which moderates and rules, may it not be rather an obliterationof the faculty of feeling (hardness)? Is it really the moral autonomy, and may it not be rather the preponderance of another affection, and inconsequence a voluntary interested effort that restrains the outburst ofthe present affection? This is what grace alone can put out of doubt injoining itself to dignity. It is grace, I mean to say, that testifies toa peaceful soul in harmony with itself and a feeling heart. 

In like manner grace by itself shows a certain susceptibility of thefeeling faculty, and a certain harmony of sentiment. But may this not bea certain relaxation of the mind which allows so much liberty to sensuousnature and which opens the heart to all impressions? Is it indeed themoral which has established this harmony between the sentiments? It isdignity alone which can in its turn guarantee this to us in joiningitself to grace; I mean it is dignity alone which attests in the subjectan independent force, and at the moment when the will represses thelicense of involuntary movement, it is by dignity that it makes knownthat the liberty of voluntary movements is a simple concession on itspart. 

If grace and dignity, still supported, the one by architectonic beautyand the other by force, were united in the same person, the expression ofhuman nature would be accomplished in him: such a person would bejustified in the spiritual world and set at liberty in the sensuousworld. Here the two domains touch so closely that their limits areindistinguishable. The smile that plays on the lips; this sweetlyanimated look; that serenity spread over the brow--it is the liberty ofthe reason which gleams forth in a softened light. This noble majestyimpressed on the face is the sublime adieu of the necessity of nature, which disappears before the mind. Such is the ideal of human beautyaccording to which the antique conceptions were formed, and we see it inthe divine forms of a Niobe, of the Apollo Belvedere, in the wingedGenius of the Borghese, and in the Muse of the Barberini palace. There, where grace and dignity are united, we experience by turns attraction andrepulsion; attraction as spiritual creatures, and repulsion as beingsensuous creatures. 

Dignity offers to us an example of subordination of sensuous nature tomoral nature--an example which we are bound to imitate, but which at thesame time goes beyond the measure of our sensuous faculty. Thisopposition between the instincts of nature and the exigencies of themoral law, exigencies, however, that we recognize as legitimate, bringsour feelings into play and awakens a sentiment that we name esteem, whichis inseparable from dignity. 

With grace, on the contrary, as with beauty in general, reason finds itsdemands satisfied in the world of sense, and sees with surprise one ofits own ideas presented to it, realized in the world of phenomena. Thisunexpected encounter between the accident of nature and the necessity ofreason awakens in us a sentiment of joyous approval (contentment) whichcalms the senses, but which animates and occupies the mind, and itresults necessarily that we are attracted by a charm towards the sensuousobject. It is this attraction which we call kindliness, or love--asentiment inseparable from grace and beauty. 

The attraction--I mean the attraction (stimulus) not of love but ofvoluptuousness--proposes to the senses a sensuous object that promises tothese the satisfaction of a want, that is to say a pleasure; the sensesare consequently solicited towards this sensuous object, and from thatsprings desire, a sentiment which increases and excites the sensuousnature, but which, on the contrary, relaxes the spiritual nature. 

We can say of esteem that it inclines towards its object; of love, thatit approaches with inclination towards its object; of desire, that itprecipitates itself upon its object; with esteem, the object is reason, and the subject is sensuous nature; with love, the object is sensuous, and the subject is moral nature; with desire, the object and the subjectare purely sensuous. 

With love alone is sentiment free, because it is pure in its principle, and because it draws its source from the seat of liberty, from the breastof our divine nature. Here, it is not the weak and base part of ournature that measures itself with the greater and more noble part; it isnot the sensibility, a prey to vertigo, which gazes up at the law ofreason. It is absolute greatness which is reflected in beauty and ingrace, and satisfied in morality; it becomes the legislator even, the godin us who plays with his own image in the world of sense. Thus loveconsoles and dilates the heart, whilst esteem strains it; because herethere is nothing which could limit the heart and compress its impulses, there being nothing higher than absolute greatness; and sensibility, fromwhich alone hinderance could come, is reconciled, in the breast of beautyand of grace, with the ideas even of the mind. Love has but to descend;esteem aspires with effort towards an object placed above it. This isthe reason that the wicked love nothing, though they are obliged toesteem many things. This is why the well-disposed man can hardly esteemwithout at once feeling love for the object. Pure spirit can only love, but not esteem; the senses know only esteem, but not love. 

The culpable man is perpetually a prey to fear, that he may meet in theworld of sense the legislator within himself; and sees an enemy in allthat bears the stamp of greatness, of beauty, and of perfection: the man, on the contrary, in whom a noble soul breathes, knows no greater pleasurethan to meet out of himself the image or realization of the divine thatis in him; and to embrace in the world of sense a symbol of the immortalfriend he loves. Love is at the same time the most generous and the mostegotistical thing in nature; the most generous, because it receivesnothing and gives all--pure mind being only able to give and not receive;the most egotistical, for that which he seeks in the subject, that whichhe enjoys in it, is himself and never anything else. 

But precisely because he who loves receives from the beloved objectnothing but that which he has himself given, it often happens that hegives more than he has received. 

The exterior senses believe to have discovered in the object that whichthe internal sense alone contemplates in it, in the end believing what isdesired with ardor, and the riches belonging to the one who loves hidethe poverty of the object loved. This is the reason why love is subjectto illusion, whilst esteem and desire are never deceived. As long as thesuper-excitement of the internal senses overcomes the internal senses, the soul remains under the charm of this Platonic love, which gives placeonly in duration to the delights enjoyed by the immortals. But as soonas internal sense ceases to share its visions with the exterior sense, these take possession of their rights and imperiously demand that whichis its due--matter. It is the terrestrial Venus who profits by the firekindled by the celestial Venus, and it is not rare to find the physicalinstinct, so long sacrificed, revenge itself by a rule all the moreabsolute. As external sense is never a dupe to illusion, it makes thisadvantage felt with a brutal insolence over its noble rival; and itpossesses audacity to the point of asserting that it has settled anaccount that the spiritual nature had left under sufferance. 

Dignity prevents love from degenerating into desire, and grace, fromesteem turning into fear. True beauty, true grace, ought never to causedesire. Where desire is mingled, either the object wants dignity, or hewho considers it wants morality in his sentiments. True greatness oughtnever to cause fear. If fear finds a place, you may hold for certaineither that the object is wanting in taste and grace, or that he whoconsiders it is not at peace with his conscience. 

Attraction, charm, grace: words commonly employed as synonyms, but whichare not, or ought not to be so, the idea they express being capable ofmany determinations, requiring different designations. 

There is a kind of grace which animates, and another which calms theheart. One touches nearly the sphere of the senses, and the pleasurewhich is found in these, if not restrained by dignity, would easilydegenerate into concupiscence; we may use the word attraction [Reiz] todesignate this grace. A man with whom the feelings have littleelasticity does not find in himself the necessary force to awaken hisaffections: he needs to borrow it from without and to seek fromimpressions which easily exercise the phantasy, by rapid transition fromsentiment to action, in order to establish in himself the elasticity hehad lost. It is the advantage that he will find in the society of anattractive person, who by conversation and look would stir hisimagination and agitate this stagnant water. 

The calming grace approaches more nearly to dignity, inasmuch as itmanifests itself through the moderation which it imposes upon theimpetuosity of the movements. It is to this the man addresses himselfwhose imagination is over-excited; it is in this peaceful atmosphere thatthe heart seeks repose after the violence of the storm. It is to thisthat I reserve especially the appellation of grace. Attraction is notincompatible with laughter, jest, or the sting of raillery; grace agreesonly with sympathy and love. 

Dignity has also its degrees and its shades. If it approaches grace andbeauty, it takes the name of nobleness; if, on the contrary, it inclinestowards the side of fear, it becomes haughtiness. 

The utmost degree of grace is ravishing charm. Dignity, in its highestform, is called majesty. In the ravishing we love our Ego, and we feelour being fused with the object. Liberty in its plenitude and in itshighest enjoyment tends to the complete destruction of liberty, and theexcitement of the mind to the delirium of the voluptuousness of thesenses. Majesty, on the contrary, proposes to us a law, a moral ideal, which constrains us to turn back our looks upon ourselves. God is there, and the sentiment we have of His presence makes us bend our eyes upon theground. We forget all that is without ourselves, and we feel but theheavy burden of our own existence. 

Majesty belongs to what is holy. A man capable of giving us an idea ofholiness possesses majesty, and if we do not go so far as to kneel, ourmind at least prostrates itself before him. But the mind recoils at onceupon the slightest trace of human imperfection which he discovers in theobject of his adoration, because that which is only comparatively greatcannot subdue the heart. 

Power alone, however terrible or without limit we may suppose it to be, can never confer majesty. Power imposes only upon the sensuous being;majesty should act upon the mind itself, and rob it of its liberty. Aman who can pronounce upon me a sentence of death has neither more norless of majesty for me the moment I am what I ought to be. His advantageover me ceases as soon as I insist on it. But he who offers to me in hisperson the image of pure will, before him I would prostrate myself, if itis possible, for all eternity. 

Grace and dignity are too high in value for vanity and stupidity not tobe excited to appropriate them by imitation. There is only one means ofattaining this: it is to imitate the moral state of which they are theexpression. All other imitation is but to ape them, and would berecognized directly through exaggeration. 

Just as exaggeration of the sublime leads to inflation, and affectationof nobleness to preciosity, in the same manner affectation of grace endsin coquetry, and that of dignity to stiff solemnity, false gravity. 

There where true grace simply used ease and provenance, affected gracebecomes effeminacy. One is content to use discreetly the voluntarymovements, and not thwart unnecessarily the liberty of nature; the otherhas not even the heart to use properly the organs of will, and, not tofall into hardness and heaviness, it prefers to sacrifice something ofthe aim of movement, or else it seeks to reach it by cross ways andindirect means. An awkward and stiff dancer expends as much force as ifhe had to work a windmill; with his feet and arms he describes lines asangular as if he were tracing figures with geometrical precision; theaffected dancer, on the other hand, glides with an excess of delicacy, asif he feared to injure himself on coming in contact with the ground, andhis feet and hands describe only lines in sinuous curves. The other sex, which is essentially in possession of true grace, is also that one whichis more frequently culpable of affected grace, but this affectation isnever more distasteful than when used as a bait to desire. The smile oftrue grace thus gives place to the most repulsive grimace; the fine playof look, so ravishing when it displays a true sentiment, is onlycontortion; the melodious inflections of the voice, an irresistibleattraction from candid lips, are only a vain cadence, a tremulousnesswhich savors of study: in a word, all the harmonious charms of womanbecome only deception, an artifice of the toilet. 

If we have many occasions to observe the affected grace in the theatreand in the ball-room, there is also often occasion of studying theaffected dignity in the cabinet of ministers and in the study-rooms ofmen of science (notably at universities). True dignity is content toprevent the domination of the affections, to keep the instinct withinjust limits, but there only where it pretends to be master in theinvoluntary movements; false dignity regulates with an iron sceptre eventhe voluntary movements, it oppresses the moral movements, which weresacred to true dignity, as well as the sensual movements, and destroysall the mimic play of the features by which the soul gleams forth uponthe face. It arms itself not only against rebel nature, but againstsubmissive nature, and ridiculously seeks its greatness in subjectingnature to its yoke, or, if this does not succeed, in hiding it. As if ithad vowed hatred to all that is called nature, it swathes the body inlong, heavy-plaited garments, which hide the human structure; itparalyzes the limbs in surcharging them with vain ornaments, and goeseven the length of cutting the hair to replace this gift of nature by anartificial production. True dignity does not blush for nature, but onlyfor brute nature; it always has an open and frank air; feeling gleams inits look; calm and serenity of mind is legible upon the brow in eloquenttraits. False gravity, on the contrary, places its dignity in the linesof its visage; it is close, mysterious, and guards its features with thecare of an actor; all the muscles of its face are tormented, all naturaland true expression disappears, and the entire man is like a sealedletter. 

But false dignity is not always wrong to keep the mimic play of itsfeatures under sharp discipline, because it might betray more than wouldbe desired, a precaution true dignity has not to consider. True dignitywishes only to rule, not to conceal nature; in false dignity, on thecontrary, nature rules the more powerfully within because it iscontrolled outwardly. [Art can make use of a proper solemnity. Itsobject is only to prepare the mind for something important. When thepoet is anxious to produce a great impression he tunes the mind toreceive it. ]

ON THE NECESSARY LIMITATIONS IN THE USE OF BEAUTY OF FORM. 

The abuse of the beautiful and the encroachments of imagination, when, having only the casting vote, it seeks to grasp the law-giving sceptre, has done great injury alike in life and in science. It is thereforehighly expedient to examine very closely the bounds that have beenassigned to the use of beautiful forms. These limits are embodied in thevery nature of the beautiful, and we have only to call to mind how tasteexpresses its influence to be able to determine how far it ought toextend it. 

The following are the principal operations of taste; to bring thesensuous and spiritual powers of man into harmony, and to unite them in aclose alliance. Consequently, whenever such an intimate alliance betweenreason and the senses is suitable and legitimate, taste may be allowedinfluence. But taste reaches the bounds which it is not permitted topass without defeating its end or removing us from our duty, in all caseswhere the bond between mind and matter is given up for a time, where wemust act for the time as purely creatures of reason, whether it be toattain an end or to perform a duty. Cases of this kind do really occur, and they are even incumbent on us in carrying out our destiny. 

For we are destined to obtain knowledge and to act from knowledge. Inboth cases a certain readiness is required to exclude the senses fromthat which the spirit does, because feelings must be abstracted fromknowledge, and passion or desire from every moral act of the will. 

When we know, we take up an active attitude, and our attention isdirected to an object, to a relation between different representations. When we feel, we have a passive attitude, and our attention--if we maycall that so, which is no conscious operation of the mind--is onlydirected to our own condition, as far as it is modified by the impressionreceived. Now, as we only feel and do not know the beautiful, we do notdistinguish any relation between it and other objects, we do not referits representation to other representations, but to ourselves who haveexperienced the impression. We learn or experience nothing in thebeautiful object, but we perceive a change occasioned by it in our owncondition, of which the impression produced is the expression. Accordingly our knowledge is not enlarged by judgments of taste, and noknowledge, not even that of beauty, is obtained by the feeling of beauty. Therefore, when knowledge is the object, taste can give us no help, atleast directly and immediately; on the contrary, knowledge is shut out aslong as we are occupied with beauty. 

But it may be objected, What is the use then of a graceful embodiment ofconceptions, if the object of the discussion or treatise, which is simplyand solely to produce knowledge, is rather hindered than benefited byornament? To convince the understanding this gracefulness of clothingcan certainly avail as little as the tasteful arrangement of a banquetcan satisfy the appetite of the guests, or the outward elegance of aperson can give a clue to his intrinsic worth. But just as the appetiteis excited by the beautiful arrangement of the table, and attention isdirected to the elegant person in question, by the attractiveness of theexterior, so also we are placed in a favorable attitude to receive truthby the charming representation given of it; we are led to open our soulsto its reception, and the obstacles are removed from our minds whichwould have otherwise opposed the difficult pursuit of a long and strictconcatenation of thought. It is never the contents, the substance, thatgains by the beauty of form; nor is it the understanding that is helpedby taste in the act of knowing. The substance, the contents, mustcommend themselves to the understanding directly, of themselves; whilstthe beautiful form speaks to the imagination, and flatters it with anappearance of freedom. 

But even further limitations are necessary in this innocent subserviencyto the senses, which is only allowed in the form, without changinganything in the substance. Great moderation must be always used, andsometimes the end in view may be completely defeated according to thekind of knowledge and degree of conviction aimed at in imparting ourviews to others. There is a scientific knowledge, which is based onclear conceptions and known principles; and a popular knowledge, which isfounded on feelings more or less developed. What may be very useful tothe latter is quite possibly adverse to the former. 

When the object in view is to produce a strict conviction on principles, it is not sufficient to present the truth only in respect to its contentsor subject; the test of the truth must at the same time be contained inthe manner of its presentation. But this can mean nothing else than thatnot only the contents, but also the mode of stating them, must beaccording to the laws of thought. They must be connected in thepresentation with the same strict logical sequence with which they arechained together in the seasonings of the understanding; the stability ofthe representation must guarantee that of the ideas. But the strictnecessity with which the understanding links together reasonings andconclusions, is quite antagonistic to the freedom granted to imaginationin matters of knowledge. By its very nature, the imagination strivesafter perceptions, that is, after complete and completely determinaterepresentations, and is indefatigably active to represent the universalin one single case, to limit it in time and space, to make of everyconception an individual, and to give a body to abstractions. Moreover, the imagination likes freedom in its combinations, and admits no otherlaw in them than the accidental connection with time and space; for thisis the only connection that remains to our representations, if weseparate from them in thought all that is conception, all that binds theminternally and substantially together. The understanding, following adiametrically opposite course, only occupies itself with partrepresentations or conceptions, and its effort is directed to distinguishfeatures in the living unity of a perception. The understanding proceedson the same principles in putting together and taking to pieces, but itcan only combine things by part-representations, just as it can separatethem; for it only unites, according to their inner relations, things thatfirst disclosed themselves in their separation. 

The understanding observes a strict necessity and conformity with laws inits combinations, and it is only the consistent connection of ideas thatsatisfies it. But this connection is destroyed as often as theimagination insinuates entire representations (individual cases) in thischain of abstractions, and mixes up the accidents of time with the strictnecessity of a chain of circumstances. Accordingly, in every case whereit is essential to carry out a rigidly accurate sequence of reasoning, imagination must forego its capricious character; and its endeavor toobtain all possible sensuousness in conceptions, and all freedom in theircombination, must be made subordinate and sacrificed to the necessity ofthe understanding. From this it follows that the exposition must be sofashioned as to overthrow this effort of the imagination by the exclusionof all that is individual and sensuous. The poetic impulse ofimagination must be curbed by distinctness of expression, and itscapricious tendency to combine must be limited by a strictly legitimatecourse of procedure. I grant that it will not bend to this yoke withoutresistance; but in this matter reliance is properly placed on a certainamount of self-denial, and on an earnest determination of the hearer orreader not to be deterred by the difficulties accompanying the form, forthe sake of the subject-matter. But in all cases where no sufficientdependence can be placed on this self-denial, or where the interest feltin the subject-matter is insufficient to inspire courage for such anamount of exertion, it is necessary to resign the idea of impartingstrictly scientific knowledge; and to gain instead greater latitude inthe form of its presentation. In such a case it is expedient to abandonthe form of science, which exercises too great violence over theimagination, and can only be made acceptable through the importance ofthe object in view. Instead of this, it is proper to choose the form ofbeauty, which, independent of the contents or subject, recommends itselfby its very appearance. As the matter cannot excuse the form in thiscase, the form must trespass on the matter. 

Popular instruction is compatible with this freedom. By the term popularspeakers or popular writers I imply all those who do not direct theirremarks exclusively to the learned. Now, as these persons do not addressany carefully trained body of hearers or readers, but take them as theyfind them, they must only assume the existence of the general conditionsof thought, only the universal impulses that call attention, but nospecial gift of thinking, no acquaintance with distinct conceptions, norany interest in special subjects. These lecturers and authors must notbe too particular as to whether their audience or readers assign by theirimagination a proper meaning to their abstractions, or whether they willfurnish a proper subject-matter for the universal conceptions to whichthe scientific discourse is limited. In order to pursue a safer, easiercourse, these persons will present along with their ideas the perceptionsand separate cases to which they relate, and they leave it to theunderstanding of the reader to form a proper conception impromptu. Accordingly, the faculty of imagination is much more mixed up with apopular discourse, but only to reproduce, to renew previously receivedrepresentations, and not to produce, to express its own self-creatingpower. Those special cases or perceptions are much too certainlycalculated for the object on hand, and much too closely applied to theuse that is to be made of them, to allow the imagination ever to forgetthat it only acts in the service of the understanding. It is true that adiscourse of this popular kind holds somewhat closer to life and theworld of sense, but it does not become lost in it. The mode ofpresenting the subject is still didactic; for in order to be beautiful itis still wanting in the two most distinguished features of beauty, sensuousness of expression and freedom of movement. 

The mode of presenting a theme may be called free when the understanding, while determining the connection of ideas, does so with so littleprominence that the imagination appears to act quite capriciously in thematter, and to follow only the accident of time. The presentation of asubject becomes sensuous when it conceals the general in the particular, and when the fancy gives the living image (the whole representation), where attention is merely concerned with the conception (the partrepresentation). Accordingly, sensuous presentation is, viewed in oneaspect, rich, for in cases where only one condition is desired, acomplete picture, an entirety of conditions, an individual is offered. But viewed in another aspect it is limited and poor, because it onlyconfines to a single individual and a single case what ought to beunderstood of a whole sphere. It therefore curtails the understanding inthe same proportion that it grants preponderance to the imagination; forthe completer a representation is in substance, the smaller it is incompass. 

It is the interest of the imagination to change objects according to itscaprice; the interest of the understanding is to unite itsrepresentations with strict logical necessity. 

To satisfy the imagination, a discourse must have a material part, abody; and these are formed by the perceptions, from which theunderstanding separates distinct features or conceptions. For though wemay attempt to obtain the highest pitch of abstraction, somethingsensuous always lies at the ground of the thought. But imaginationstrives to pass unfettered and lawless from one conception to anotherconception, and seeks not to be bound by any other connection than thatof time. So when the perceptions that constitute the bodily part of adiscourse have no concatenation as things, when they appear rather tostand apart as independent limbs and separate unities, when they betraythe utter disorder of a sportive imagination, obedient to itself alone, then the clothing has aesthetic freedom and the wants of the fancy aresatisfied. A mode of presentation such as this might be styled anorganic product, in which not only the whole lives, but also each parthas its individual life. A merely scientific presentation is amechanical work, when the parts, lifeless in themselves, impart by theirconnection an artificial life to the whole. 

On the other hand, a discourse, in order to satisfy the understanding andto produce knowledge, must have a spiritual part, it must havesignificance, and it receives this through the conceptions, by means ofwhich those perceptions are referred to one another and united into awhole. The problem of satisfying the understanding by conformity withlaw, while the imagination is flattered by being set free fromrestrictions, is solved thus: by obtaining the closest connection betweenthe conceptions forming the spiritual part of the discourse, while theperceptions, corresponding to them and forming the sensuous part of thediscourse, appear to cohere merely through an arbitrary play of thefancy. 

If an inquiry be instituted into the magic influence of a beautifuldiction, it will always be found that it consists in this happy relationbetween external freedom and internal necessity. The principal featuresthat contribute to this freedom of the imagination are theindividualizing of objects and the figurative or inexact expression of athing; the former employed to give force to its sensuousness, the latterto produce it where it does not exist. When we express a species or kindby an individual, and portray a conception in a single case, we removefrom fancy the chains which the understanding has placed upon her andgive her the power to act as a creator. Always grasping at completelydeterminate images, the imagination obtains and exercises the right tocomplete according to her wish the image afforded to her, to animate it, to fashion it, to follow it in all the associations and transformationsof which it is capable. She may forget for a moment her subordinateposition, and act as an independent power, only self-directing, becausethe strictness of the inner concatenation has sufficiently guardedagainst her breaking loose from the control of the understanding. Aninexact or figurative expression adds to the liberty, by associatingideas which in their nature differ essentially from one another, butwhich unite in subordination to the higher idea. The imagination adheresto the concrete object, the understanding to this higher idea, and thusthe former finds movement and variety even where the other verifies amost perfect continuity. The conceptions are developed according to thelaw of necessity, but they pass before the imagination according to thelaw of liberty. 

Thought remains the same; the medium that represents it is the only thingthat changes. It is thus that an eloquent writer knows how to extractthe most splendid order from the very centre of anarchy, and that hesucceeds in erecting a solid structure on a constantly moving ground, onthe very torrent of imagination. 

If we compare together scientific statement or address, popular address, and fine language, it is seen directly that all three express the ideawith an equal faithfulness as regards the matter, and consequently thatall three help us to acquire knowledge, but that as regards the mode anddegree of this knowledge a very marked difference exists between them. The writer who uses the language of the beautiful rather represents thematter of which he treats as possible and desirable than indulges inattempts to convince us of its reality, and still less of its necessity. His thought does in fact only present itself as an arbitrary creation ofthe imagination, which is never qualified, in itself, to guarantee thereality of what it represents. No doubt the popular writer leads us tobelieve that the matter really is as he describes it, but does notrequire anything more firm; for, though he may make the truth of aproposition credible to our feelings, he does not make it absolutelycertain. Now, feeling may always teach us what is, but not what must be. The philosophical writer raises this belief to a conviction, for heproves by undeniable reasons that the matter is necessarily so. 

Starting from the principle that we have just established, it will not bedifficult to assign its proper part and sphere to each of the three formsof diction. Generally it may be laid down as a rule that preferenceought to be given to the scientific style whenever the chiefconsideration is not only the result, but also the proofs. But when theresult merely is of the most essential importance the advantage must begiven to popular elocution and fine language. But it may be asked inwhat cases ought popular elocution to rise to a fine, a noble style?This depends on the degree of interest in the reader, or which you wishto excite in his mind. 

The purely scientific statement may incline either to popular discourseor to philosophic language, and according to this bias it places us moreor less in possession of some branch of knowledge. All that popularelocution does is to lend us this knowledge for a momentary pleasure orenjoyment. The first, if I may be allowed the comparison, gives us atree with its roots, though with the condition that we wait patiently forit to blossom and bear fruit. The other, or fine diction, is satisfiedwith gathering its flowers and fruits, but the tree that bore them doesnot become our property, and when once the flowers are faded and thefruit is consumed our riches depart. It would therefore be equallyunreasonable to give only the flower and fruit to a man who wishes thewhole tree to be transplanted into his garden, and to offer the wholetree with its fruit in the germ to a man who only looks for the ripefruit. The application of the comparison is self-evident, and I now onlyremark that a fine ornate style is as little suited to the professor'schair as the scholastic style to a drawing-room, the pulpit, or the bar. 

The student accumulates in view of an ulterior end and for a future use;accordingly the professor ought to endeavor to transmit the full andentire property of the knowledge that he communicates to him. Now, nothing belongs to us as our own but what has been communicated to theunderstanding. The orator, on the other hand, has in view an immediateend, and his voice must correspond with an immediate want of the public. His interest is to make his knowledge practically available as soon aspossible; and the surest way is to hand it over to the senses, and toprepare it for the use of sensation. The professor, who only admitshearers on certain conditions, and who is entitled to suppose in hishearers the dispositions of mind in which a man ought to be to receivethe truth, has only in view in his lecture the object of which he istreating; while the orator, who cannot make any conditions with hisaudience, and who needs above everything sympathy, to secure it on hisside, must regulate his action and treatment according to the subjects onwhich he turns his discourse. The hearers of the professor have alreadyattended his lectures, and will attend them again; they only wantfragments that will form a whole after having been linked to thepreceding lectures. The audience of the orator is continually renewed;it comes unprepared, and perhaps will not return; accordingly in everyaddress the orator must finish what he wishes to do; each of hisharangues must form a whole and contain expressly and entirely hisconclusion. 

It is not therefore surprising that a dogmatic composition or address, however solid, should not have any success either in conversation or inthe pulpit, nor that a fine diction, whatever wit it may contain, shouldnot bear fruit in a professor's chair. It is not surprising that thefashionable world should not read writings that stand out in relief inthe scientific world, and that the scholar and the man of science areignorant of works belonging to the school of worldly people that aredevoured greedily by all lovers of the beautiful. Each of these worksmay be entitled to admiration in the circle to which it belongs; and morethan this, both, fundamentally, may be quite of equal value; but it wouldbe requiring an impossibility to expect that the work which demands allthe application of the thinker should at the same time offer an easyrecreation to the man who is only a fine wit. 

For the same reason I consider that it is hurtful to choose for theinstruction of youth books in which scientific matters are clothed in anattractive style. I do not speak here of those in which the substance issacrificed to the form, but of certain writings really excellent, whichare sufficiently well digested to stand the strictest examination, butwhich do not offer their proofs by their very form. No doubt books ofthis kind attain their end, they are read; but this is always at the costof a more important end, the end for which they ought to be read. Inthis sort of reading the understanding is never exercised save in as faras it agrees with the fancy; it does not learn to distinguish the formfrom the substance, nor to act alone as pure understanding. And yet theexercise of the pure understanding is in itself an essential and capitalpoint in the instruction of youth; and very often the exercise itself ofthought is much more important than the object on which it is exercised. If you wish for a matter to be done seriously, be very careful not toannounce it as a diversion. It is preferable, on the contrary, to secureattention and effort by the very form that is employed, and to use a kindof violence to draw minds over from the passive to an active state. Theprofessor ought never to hide from his pupil the exact regularity of themethod; he ought rather to fix his attention on it, and if possible tomake him desire this strictness. The student ought to learn to pursue anend, and in the interest of that end to put up with a difficult process. He ought early to aspire to that loftier satisfaction which is the rewardof exertion. In a scientific lecture the senses are altogether setaside; in an aesthetic address it is wished to interest them. What isthe result? A writing or conversation of the aesthetic class is devouredwith interest; but questions are put as to its conclusions; the hearer isscarcely able to give an answer. And this is quite natural, as here theconceptions reach the mind only in entire masses, and the understandingonly knows what it analyzes. The mind during a lecture of this kind ismore passive than active, and the intellect only possesses what it hasproduced by its own activity. 

However, all this applies only to the vulgarly beautiful, and to a vulgarfashion of perceiving beauty. True beauty reposes on the strictestlimitation, on the most exact definition, on the highest and mostintimate necessity. Only this limitation ought rather to let itself besought for than be imposed violently. It requires the most perfectconformity to law, but this must appear quite natural. A product thatunites these conditions will fully satisfy the understanding as soon asstudy is made of it. But exactly because this result is reallybeautiful, its conformity is not expressed; it does not take theunderstanding apart to address it exclusively; it is a harmonious unitywhich addresses the entire man--all his faculties together; it is naturespeaking to nature. 

A vulgar criticism may perhaps find it empty, paltry, and too littledetermined. He who has no other knowledge than that of distinguishing, and no other sense than that for the particular, is actually pained bywhat is precisely the triumph of art, this harmonious unity where theparts are blended in a pure entirety. No doubt it is necessary, in aphilosophical discourse, that the understanding, as a faculty ofanalysis, find what will satisfy it; it must obtain single concreteresults; this is the essential that must not by any means be lost sightof. But if the writer, while giving all possible precision to thesubstance of his conceptions, has taken the necessary measures to enablethe understanding, as soon as it will take the trouble, to find ofnecessity these truths, I do not see that he is a less good writerbecause he has approached more to the highest perfection. Nature alwaysacts as a harmonious unity, and when she loses this in her efforts afterabstraction, nothing appears more urgent to her than to re-establish it, and the writer we are speaking of is not less commendable if he obeysnature by attaching to the understanding what had been separated byabstraction, and when, by appealing at the same time to the sensuous andto the spiritual faculties, he addresses altogether the entire man. Nodoubt the vulgar critic will give very scant thanks to this writer forhaving given him a double task. For vulgar criticism has not the feelingfor this harmony, it only runs after details, and even in the Basilica ofSt. Peter would exclusively attend to the pillars on which the etherealedifice reposes. The fact is that this critic must begin by translatingit to understand it--in the same way that the pure understanding, left toitself, if it meets beauty and harmony, either in nature or in art, mustbegin by transferring them into its own language--and by decomposing it, by doing in fact what the pupil does who spells before reading. But itis not from the narrow mind of his readers that the writer who expresseshis conceptions in the language of the beautiful receives his laws. Theideal which he carries in himself is the goal at which he aims withouttroubling himself as to who follows and who remains behind. Many willstay behind; for if it be a rare thing to find readers simply capable ofthinking, it is infinitely more rare to meet any who can think withimagination. Thus our writer, by the force of circumstances, will fallout, on the one hand, with those who have only intuitive ideas andfeelings, for he imposes on them a painful task by forcing them to think;and, on the other hand, he aggravates those who only know how to think, for he asks of them what is absolutely impossible--to give a living, animated form to conception. But as both only represent true humanityvery imperfectly--that normal humanity which requires the absoluteharmony of these two operations--their contradictory objections have noweight, and if their judgments prove anything, it is rather that theauthor has succeeded in attaining his end. The abstract thinker findsthat the substance of the work is solidly thought; the reader ofintuitive ideas finds his style lively and animated; both consequentlyfind and approve in him what they are able to understand, and that aloneis wanting which exceeds their capacity. 

But precisely for this very reason a writer of this class is not adaptedto make known to an ignorant reader the object of what he treats, or, inthe most proper sense of the word, to teach. Happily also, he is notrequired for that, for means will not be wanting for the teaching ofscholars. The professor in the strictest acceptation is obliged to bindhimself to the needs of his scholars; the first thing he has topresuppose is the ignorance of those who listen to him; the other, on theother hand, demands a certain maturity and culture in his reader oraudience. Nor is his office confined to impart to them dead ideas; hegrasps the living object with a living energy, and seizes at once on theentire man--his understanding, his heart, and his will. 

We have found that it is dangerous for the soundness of knowledge to givefree scope to the exigencies of taste in teaching, properly so called. But this does not mean by any means that the culture of this faculty inthe student is a premature thing. He must, on the contrary, beencouraged to apply the knowledge that he has appropriated in the schoolto the field of living development. When once the first point has beenobserved, and the knowledge acquired, the other point, the exercise oftaste, can only have useful results. It is certain that it is necessaryto be quite the master of a truth to abandon without danger the form inwhich it has been found; a great strength of understanding is requirednot to lose sight of your object while giving free play to theimagination. He who transmits his knowledge under a scholastic formpersuades me, I admit, that he has grasped these truths properly and thathe knows how to support them. But he who besides this is in a conditionto communicate them to me in a beautiful form not only proves that he isadapted to promulgate them, he shows moreover that he has assimilatedthem and that he is able to make their image pass into his productionsand into his acts. There is for the results of thought only one way bywhich they can penetrate into the will and pass into life; that is, byspontaneous imagination, only what in ourselves was already a living actcan become so out of us; and the same thing happens with the creations ofthe mind as with those of organic nature, that the fruit issues only fromthe flower. If we consider how many truths were living and active asinterior intuitions before philosophy showed their existence, and howmany truths most firmly secured by proofs often remain inactive on thewill and the feelings, it will be seen how important it is for practicallife to follow in this the indications of nature, and when we haveacquired a knowledge scientifically to bring it back again to the stateof a living intuition. It is the only way to enable those whose naturehas forbidden them to follow the artificial path of science to share inthe treasures of wisdom. The beautiful renders us here in relation withknowledge what, in morals, it does in relation with conduct; it placesmen in harmony on results, and on the substance of things, who wouldnever have agreed on the form and principles. 

The other sex, by its very nature and fair destiny, cannot and ought notto rival ours in scientific knowledge; but it can share truth with us bythe reproduction of things. Man agrees to have his taste offended, provided compensation be given to his understanding by the increasedvalue of its possessions. But women do not forgive negligence in form, whatever be the nature of the conception; and the inner structure of alltheir being gives them the right to show a strict severity on this point. The fair sex, even if it did not rule by beauty, would still be entitledto its name because it is ruled by beauty, and makes all objectspresented to it appear before the tribunal of feeling, and all that doesnot speak to feeling or belies it is lost in the opinion of women. Nodoubt through this medium nothing can be made to reach the mind of womansave the matter of truth, and not truth itself, which is inseparable fromits proofs. But happily woman only needs the matter of truth to reachher highest perfection, and the few exceptions hitherto seen are not of anature to make us wish that the exception should become the rule. As, therefore, nature has not only dispensed but cut off the other sex fromthis task, man must give a double attention to it if he wishes to viewith woman and be equal to her in what is of great interest in humanlife. Consequently he will try to transfer all that he can from thefield of abstraction, where he is master, to that of imagination, offeeling, where woman is at once a model and a judge. The mind of womanbeing a ground that does not admit of durable cultivation, he will try tomake his own ground yield as many flowers and as much fruit as possible, so as to renew as often as possible the quickly-fading produce on theother ground, and to keep up a sort of artificial harvest where naturalharvests could not ripen. Taste corrects or hides the naturaldifferences of the two sexes. It nourishes and adorns the mind of womanwith the productions of that of man, and allows the fair sex to feelwithout being previously fatigued by thought, and to enjoy pleasureswithout having bought them with labors. Thus, save the restrictions Ihave named, it is to the taste that is intrusted the care of form inevery statement by which knowledge is communicated, but under the expresscondition that it will not encroach on the substance of things. Tastemust never forget that it carries out an order emanating elsewhere, andthat it is not its own affairs it is treating of. All its parts must belimited to place our minds in a condition favorable to knowledge; overall that concerns knowledge itself it has no right to any authority. Forit exceeds its mission, it betrays it, it disfigures the object that itought faithfully to transmit, it lays claim to authority out of itsproper province; if it tries to carry out there, too, its own law, whichis nothing but that of pleasing the imagination and making itselfagreeable to the intuitive faculties; if it applies this law not only tothe operation, but also to the matter itself; if it follows this rule notonly to arrange the materials, but also to choose them. When this is thecase the first consideration is not the things themselves, but the bestmode of presenting them so as to recommend them to the senses. Thelogical sequence of conceptions of which only the strictness should havebeen hidden from us is rejected as a disagreeable impediment. Perfectionis sacrificed to ornament, the truth of the parts to the beauty of thewhole, the inmost nature of things to the exterior impression. Now, directly the substance is subordinated to form, properly speaking itceases to exist; the statement is empty, and instead of having extendedour knowledge we have only indulged in an amusing game. 

The writers who have more wit than understanding and more taste thanscience, are too often guilty of this deception; and readers moreaccustomed to feel than to think are only too inclined to forgive them. In general it is unsafe to give to the aesthetical sense all its culturebefore having exercised the understanding as the pure thinking faculty, and before having enriched the head with conceptions; for as taste alwayslooks at the carrying out and not at the basis of things, wherever itbecomes the only arbiter, there is an end of the essential differencebetween things. Men become indifferent to reality, and they finish bygiving value to form and appearance only. 

Hence arises that superficial and frivolous bel-esprit that we often seehold sway in social conditions and in circles where men pride themselves, and not unreasonably, on the finest culture. It is a fatal thing tointroduce a young man into assemblies where the Graces hold sway beforethe Muses have dismissed him and owned his majority. Moreover, it canhardly be prevented that what completes the external education of a youngman whose mind is ripe turns him who is not ripened by study into a fool. I admit that to have a fund of conceptions, and not form, is only a halfpossession. For the most splendid knowledge in a head incapable ofgiving them form is like a treasure buried in the earth. But formwithout substance is a shadow of riches, and all possible cleverness inexpression is of no use to him who has nothing to express. 

Thus, to avoid the graces of education leading us in a wrong road, tastemust be confined to regulating the external form, while reason andexperience determine the substance and the essence of conceptions. Ifthe impression made on the senses is converted into a supreme criterion, and if things are exclusively referred to sensation, man will never ceaseto be in the service of matter; he will never clear a way for hisintelligence; in short, reason will lose in freedom in proportion as itallows imagination to usurp undue influence. 

The beautiful produces its effect by mere intuition; the truth demandsstudy. Accordingly, the man who among all his faculties has onlyexercised the sense of the beautiful is satisfied even when study isabsolutely required, with a superficial view of things; and he fancies hecan make a mere play of wit of that which demands a serious effort. Butmere intuition cannot give any result. To produce something great it isnecessary to enter into the fundamental nature of things, to distinguishthem strictly, to associate them in different manners, and study themwith a steady attention. Even the artist and the poet, though both ofthem labor to procure us only the pleasure of intuition, can only by mostlaborious and engrossing study succeed in giving us a delightfulrecreation by their works. 

I believe this to be the test to distinguish the mere dilettante from theartist of real genius. The seductive charm exercised by the sublime andthe beautiful, the fire which they kindle in the young imagination, theapparent ease with which they place the senses under an illusion, haveoften persuaded inexperienced minds to take in hand the palette or theharp, and to transform into figures or to pour out in melody what theyfelt living in their heart. Misty ideas circulate in their heads, like aworld in formation, and make them believe that they are inspired. Theytake obscurity for depth, savage vehemence for strength, the undeterminedfor the infinite, what has not senses for the super-sensuous. And howthey revel in these creations of their brain! But the judgment of theconnoisseur does not confirm this testimony of an excited self-love. With his pitiless criticism he dissipates all the prestige of theimagination and of its dreams, and carrying the torch before thesenovices he leads them into the mysterious depths of science and life, where, far from profane eyes, the source of all true beauty flows evertowards him who is initiated. If now a true genius slumbers in the youngaspirant, no doubt his modesty will at first receive a shock; but soonthe consciousness of real talent will embolden him for the trial. Ifnature has endowed him with gifts for plastic art, he will study thestructure of man with the scalpel of the anatomist; he will descend intothe lowest depths to be true in representing surfaces, and he willquestion the whole race in order to be just to the individual. If he isborn to be a poet, he examines humanity in his own heart to understandthe infinite variety of scenes in which it acts on the vast theatre ofthe world. He subjects imagination and its exuberant fruitfulness to thediscipline of taste, and charges the understanding to mark out in itscool wisdom the banks that should confine the raging waters ofinspiration. He knows full well that the great is only formed of thelittle--from the imperceptible. He piles up, grain by grain, thematerials of the wonderful structure, which, suddenly disclosed to oureyes, produces a startling effect and turns our head. But if nature hasonly intended him for a dilettante, difficulties damp his impotent zeal, and one of two things happens: either he abandons, if he is modest, thatto which he was diverted by a mistaken notion of his vocation; or, if hehas no modesty, he brings back the ideal to the narrow limits of hisfaculties, for want of being able to enlarge his faculties to the vastproportions of the ideal. Thus the true genius of the artist will bealways recognized by this sign--that when most enthusiastic for thewhole, he preserves a coolness, a patience defying all obstacles, asregards details. Moreover, in order not to do any injury to perfection, he would rather renounce the enjoyment given by the completion. For thesimple amateur, it is the difficulty of means that disgusts him and turnshim from his aim; his dreams would be to have no more trouble inproducing than he had in conception and intuition. 

I have spoken hitherto of the dangers to which we are exposed by anexaggerated sensuousness and susceptibility to the beautiful in the form, and from too extensive aesthetical requirements; and I have consideredthese dangers in relation to the faculty of thinking and knowing. What, then, will be the result when these pretensions of the aesthetical tastebear on the will? It is one thing to be stopped in your scientificprogress by too great a love of the beautiful, another to see thisinclination become a cause of degeneracy in character itself, and make usviolate the law of duty. In matters of thought the caprices of "taste"are no doubt an evil, and they must of necessity darken the intelligence;but these same caprices applied to the maxims of the will become reallypernicious and infallibly deprave the heart. Yet this is the dangerousextreme to which too refined an aesthetic culture brings us directly weabandon ourselves exclusively to the feelings for the beautiful, anddirectly we raise taste to the part of absolute lawgiver over our will. 

The moral destination of man requires that the will should be completelyindependent of all influence of sensuous instincts, and we know thattaste labors incessantly at making the link between reason and the sensescontinually closer. Now this effort has certainly as its result theennobling of the appetites, and to make them more conformable with therequirements of reason; but this very point may be a serious danger formorality. 

I proceed to explain my meaning. A very refined aesthetical educationaccustoms the imagination to direct itself according to laws, even in itsfree exercise, and leads the sensuous not to have any enjoyments withoutthe concurrence of reason; but it soon follows that reason, in its turn, is required to be directed, even in the most serious operations of itslegislative power, according to the interests of imagination, and to giveno more orders to the will without the consent of the sensuous instincts. The moral obligation of the will, which is, however, an absolute andunconditional law, takes unperceived the character of a simple contract, which only binds each of the contracting parties when the other fulfilsits engagement. The purely accidental agreement of duty with inclinationends by being considered a necessary condition, and thus the principle ofall morality is quenched in its source. 

How does the character become thus gradually depraved? The process maybe explained thus: So long as man is only a savage, and his instincts'only bear on material things and a coarse egotism determines his actions, sensuousness can only become a danger to morality by its blind strength, and does not oppose reason except as a force. The voice of justice, moderation, and humanity is stifled by the appetites, which make astronger appeal. Man is then terrible in his vengeance, because he isterribly sensitive to insults. He robs, he kills, because his desiresare still too powerful for the feeble guidance of reason. He is towardsothers like a wild beast, because the instinct of nature still rules himafter the fashion of animals. 

But when to the savage state, to that of nature, succeeds civilization;when taste ennobles the instincts, and holds out to them more worthyobjects taken from the moral order; when culture moderates the brutaloutbursts of the appetites and brings them back under the discipline ofthe beautiful, it may happen that these same instincts, which were onlydangerous before by their blind power, coming to assume an air of dignityand a certain assumed authority, may become more dangerous than before tothe morality of the character; and that, under the guise of innocence, nobleness, and purity, they may exercise over the will a tyranny ahundred times worse than the other. 

The man of taste willingly escapes the gross thraldom of the appetites. He submits to reason the instinct which impels him to pleasure, and he iswilling to take counsel from his spiritual and thinking nature for thechoice of the objects he ought to desire. Now, reason is very apt tomistake a spiritualized instinct for one of its own instincts, and atlength to give up to it the guidance of the will, and this in proportionas moral judgment and aesthetic judgment, the sense of the good and thesense of the beautiful, meet in the same object and in the same decision. 

So long as it remains possible for inclination and duty to meet in thesame object and in a common desire, this representation of the moralsense by the aesthetic sense may not draw after it positively evilconsequences, though, if the matter be strictly considered, the moralityof particular actions does not gain by this agreement. But theconsequences will be quite different when sensuousness and reason haveeach of them a different interest. If, for example, duty commands us toperform an action that revolts our taste, or if taste feels itself drawntowards an object which reason as a moral judge is obliged to condemn, then, in fact, we suddenly encounter the necessity of distinguishingbetween the requirements of the moral sense and those of the aestheticsense, which so long an agreement had almost confounded to such a degreethat they could not be distinguished. We must now determine theirreciprocal rights, and find which of them is the real master in our soul. But such a long representation of the moral sense by the sense of thebeautiful has made us forget this master. When we have so long practisedthis rule of obeying at once the suggestions of taste, and when we havefound the result always satisfactory, taste ends by assuming a kind ofappearance of right. As taste has shown itself irreproachable in thevigilant watch it has kept over the will, we necessarily come to grant acertain esteem to its decisions; and it is precisely to this esteem thatinclination, with captious logic, gives weight against the duties ofconscience. 

Esteem is a feeling that can only be felt for law, and what correspondsto it. Whatever is entitled to esteem lays claim to an unconditionalhomage. The ennobled inclination which has succeeded in captivating ouresteem will, therefore, no longer be satisfied with being subordinate toreason; it aspires to rank alongside it. It does not wish to be takenfor a faithless subject in revolt against his sovereign; it wishes to beregarded as a queen; and, treating reason as its peer, to dictate, likereason, laws to the conscience. Thus, if we listen to her, she wouldweigh by right equally in the scale; and then have we not good reason tofear that interest will decide?

Of all the inclinations that are decided from the feeling for thebeautiful and that are special to refined minds, none commends itself somuch to the moral sense as the ennobled instinct of love; none is sofruitful in impressions which correspond to the true dignity of man. Towhat an elevation does it raise human nature! and often what divinesparks does it kindle in the common soul! It is a sacred fire thatconsumes every egotistical inclination, and the very principles ofmorality are scarcely a greater safeguard of the soul's chastity thanlove is for the nobility of the heart. How often it happens while themoral principles are still struggling that love prevails in their favor, and hastens by its irresistible power the resolutions that duty alonewould have vainly demanded from weak human nature! Who, then, woulddistrust an affection that protects so powerfully what is most excellentin human nature, and which fights so victoriously against the moral foeof all morality, egotism?

But do not follow this guide till you have secured a better. Suppose aloved object be met that is unhappy, and unhappy because of you, and thatit depends only on you to make it happy by sacrificing a few moralscruples. You may be disposed to say, "Shall I let this loved beingsuffer for the pleasure of keeping our conscience pure? Is thisresistance required by this generous, devoted affection, always ready toforget itself for its object? I grant it is going against conscience tohave recourse to this immoral means to solace the being we love; but canwe be said to love if in presence of this being and of its sorrow wecontinue to think of ourselves? Are we not more taken up with ourselvesthan with it, since we prefer to see it unhappy rather than consent to beso ourselves by the reproaches of our conscience?" These are thesophisms that the passion of love sets against conscience (whose voicethwarts its interests), making its utterances despicable as suggestionsof selfishness, and representing our moral dignity as one of thecomponents of our happiness that we are free to alienate. Then, if themorality of our character is not strongly backed by good principles, weshall surrender, whatever may be the impetus of our exalted imagination, to disgraceful acts; and we shall think that we gain a glorious victoryover our self-love, while we are only the despicable victims of thisinstinct. A well-known French romance, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses, " givesus a striking example of this delusion, by which love betrays a soulotherwise pure and beautiful. The Presidente de Tourvel errs bysurprise, and seeks to calm her remorse by the idea that she hassacrificed her virtue to her generosity. 

Secondary and imperfect duties, as they are styled, are those that thefeeling for the beautiful takes most willingly under its patronage, andwhich it allows to prevail on many occasions over perfect duties. Asthey assign a much larger place to the arbitrary option of the subject, and at the same time as they have the appearance of merit, which givesthem lustre, they commend themselves far more to the aesthetic taste thanperfect or necessary duties, which oblige us strictly andunconditionally. How many people allow themselves to be unjust that theymay be generous! How many fail in their duties to society that they maydo good to an individual, and reciprocally! How many people forgive alie sooner than a rudeness, a crime against humanity rather than aninsult to honor! How many debase their bodies to hasten the perfectionof their minds, and degrade their character to adorn their understanding!How many do not scruple to commit a crime when they have a laudable endin view, pursue an ideal of political happiness through all the terrorsof anarchy, tread under foot existing laws to make way for better ones, and do not scruple to devote the present generation to misery to secureat this cost the happiness of future generations! The apparentunselfishness of certain virtues gives them a varnish of purity, whichmakes them rash enough to break and run counter to the moral law; andmany people are the dupes of this strange illusion, to rise higher thanmorality and to endeavor to be more reasonable than reason. 

The man of a refined taste is susceptible, in this respect, of a moralcorruption, from which the rude child of nature is preserved by his verycoarseness. In the latter, the opposite of the demands of sense and thedecrees of the moral law is so strongly marked and so manifest, and thespiritual element has so small a share in his desires, that although theappetites exercise a despotic sway over him, they cannot wrest his esteemfrom him. Thus, when the savage, yielding to the superior attraction ofsense, gives way to the committal of an unjust action, he may yield totemptation, but he will not hide from himself that he is committing afault, and he will do homage to reason even while he violates itsmandates. The child of civilization, on the contrary, the man ofrefinement, will not admit that he commits a fault, and to soothe hisconscience he prefers to impose on it by a sophism. No doubt he wishesto obey his appetite, but at the same time without falling in his ownesteem. How does he manage this? He begins by overthrowing the superiorauthority that thwarts his inclination, and before transgressing the lawhe calls in question the competence of the lawgiver. Could it beexpected that a corrupt will should so corrupt the intelligence? Theonly dignity that an inclination can assume accrues to it from itsagreement with reason; yet we find that inclination, independent as wellas blind, aspires, at the very moment she enters into contest withreason, to keep this dignity which she owes to reason alone. Nay, inclination even aspires to use this dignity she owes to reason againstreason itself. 

These are the dangers that threaten the morality of the character whentoo intimate an association is attempted between sensuous instincts andmoral instincts, which can never perfectly agree in real life, but onlyin the ideal. I admit that the sensuous risks nothing in thisassociation, because it possesses nothing except what it must give updirectly duty speaks and reason demands the sacrifice. But reason, asthe arbiter of the moral law, will run the more risk from this union ifit receives as a gift from inclination what it might enforce; for, underthe appearance of freedom, the feeling of obligation may be easily lost, and what reason accepts as a favor may quite well be refused it when thesensuous finds it painful to grant it. It is, therefore, infinitelysafer for the morality of the character to suspend, at least for a time, this misrepresentation of the moral sense by the sense of the beautiful. It is best of all that reason should command by itself without mediation, and that it should show to the will its true master. The remark is, therefore, quite justified, that true morality only knows itself in theschool of adversity, and that a continual prosperity becomes easily arock of offence to virtue. I mean here by prosperity the state of a manwho, to enjoy the goods of life, need not commit injustice, and who toconform to justice need not renounce any of the goods of life. The manwho enjoys a continual prosperity never sees moral duty face to face, because his inclinations, naturally regular and moderate, alwaysanticipate the mandate of reason, and because no temptation to violatethe law recalls to his mind the idea of law. Entirely guided by thesense of the beautiful, which represents reason in the world of sense, hewill reach the tomb without having known by experience the dignity of hisdestiny. On the other hand, the unfortunate man, if he be at the sametime a virtuous man, enjoys the sublime privilege of being in immediateintercourse with the divine majesty of the moral law; and as his virtueis not seconded by any inclination, he bears witness in this lower world, and as a human being, of the freedom of pure spirits!

REFLECTIONS ON THE USE OF THE VULGAR AND LOW ELEMENTS IN WORKS OF ART. 

I call vulgar (common) all that does not speak to the mind, of which allthe interest is addressed only to the senses. There are, no doubt, aninfinite number of things vulgar in themselves from their material andsubject. But as the vulgarity of the material can always be ennobled bythe treatment, in respect of art the only question is that relating tothe vulgarity in form. A vulgar mind will dishonor the most noble matterby treating it in a common manner. A great and noble mind, on thecontrary, will ennoble even a common matter, and it will do so bysuperadding to it something spiritual and discovering in it some aspectin which this matter has greatness. Thus, for example, a vulgarhistorian will relate to us the most insignificant actions of a hero witha scrupulousness as great as that bestowed on his sublimest exploit, andwill dwell as lengthily on his pedigree, his costume, and his householdas on his projects and his enterprises. He will relate those of hisactions that have the most grandeur in such wise that no one willperceive that character in them. On the contrary, a historian of genius, himself endowed with nobleness of mind, will give even to the privatelife and the least considerable actions of his hero an interest and avalue that will make them considerable. Thus, again, in the matter ofthe plastic arts, the Dutch and Flemish painters have given proof of avulgar taste; the Italians, and still more the ancient Greeks, of a grandand noble taste. The Greeks always went to the ideal; they rejectedevery vulgar feature, and chose no common subject. 

A portrait painter can represent his model in a common manner or withgrandeur; in a common manner if he reproduce the merely accidentaldetails with the same care as the essential features, if he neglect thegreat to carry out the minutiae curiously. He does it grandly if he knowhow to find out and place in relief what is most interesting, anddistinguish the accidental from the necessary; if he be satisfied withindicating what is paltry, reserving all the finish of the execution forwhat is great. And the only thing that is great is the expression of thesoul itself, manifesting itself by actions, gestures, or attitudes. 

The poet treats his subject in a common manner when in the execution ofhis theme he dwells on valueless facts and only skims rapidly over thosethat are important. He treats his theme with grandeur when he associateswith it what is great. For example, Homer treated the shield of Achillesgrandly, though the making of a shield, looking merely at the matter, isa very commonplace affair. 

One degree below the common or the vulgar is the element of the base orgross, which differs from the common in being not only somethingnegative, a simple lack of inspiration or nobleness, but somethingpositive, marking coarse feelings, bad morals, and contemptible manners. Vulgarity only testifies that an advantage is wanting, whereof theabsence is a matter of regret; baseness indicates the want of a qualitywhich we are authorized to require in all. Thus, for example, revenge, considered in itself, in whatever place or way it manifests itself, issomething vulgar, because it is the proof of a lack of generosity. Butthere is, moreover, a base vengeance, when the man, to satisfy it, employs means exposed to contempt. The base always implies somethinggross, or reminds one of the mob, while the common can be found in awell-born and well-bred man, who may think and act in a common manner ifhe has only mediocre faculties. A man acts in a common manner when he isonly taken up with his own interest, and it is in this that he is inopposition with the really noble man, who, when necessary, knows how toforget himself to procure some enjoyment for others. But the same manwould act in a base manner if he consulted his interests at the cost ofhis honor, and if in such a case he did not even take upon himself torespect the laws of decency. Thus the common is only the contrary of thenoble; the base is the contrary both of the noble and the seemly. Togive yourself up, unresisting, to all your passions, to satisfy all yourimpulses, without being checked even by the rules of propriety, stillless by those of morality, is to conduct yourself basely, and to betraybaseness of the soul. 

The artist also may fall into a low style, not only by choosing ignoblesubjects, offensive to decency and good taste, but moreover by treatingthem in a base manner. It is to treat a subject in a base manner ifthose sides are made prominent which propriety directs us to conceal, orif it is expressed in a manner that incidentally awakens low ideas. Thelives of the greater part of men can present particulars of a low kind, but it is only a low imagination that will pick out these forrepresentation. 

There are pictures describing sacred history in which the Apostles, theVirgin, and even the Christ, are depicted in such wise that they might besupposed to be taken from the dregs of the populace. This style ofexecution always betrays a low taste, and might justly lead to theinference that the artist himself thinks coarsely and like the mob. 

No doubt there are cases where art itself may be allowed to produce baseimages: for example, when the aim is to provoke laughter. A man ofpolished manners may also sometimes, and without betraying a corrupttaste, be amused by certain features when nature expresses herselfcrudely but with truth, and he may enjoy the contrast between the mannersof polished society and those of the lower orders. A man of positionappearing intoxicated will always make a disagreeable impression on us;but a drunken driver, sailor, or carter will only be a risible object. Jests that would be insufferable in a man of education amuse us in themouth of the people. Of this kind are many of the scenes ofAristophanes, who unhappily sometimes exceeds this limit, and becomesabsolutely condemnable. This is, moreover, the source of the pleasure wetake in parodies, when the feelings, the language, and the mode of actionof the common people are fictitiously lent to the same personages whomthe poet has treated with all possible dignity and decency. As soon asthe poet means only to jest, and seeks only to amuse, we can overlooktraits of a low kind, provided he never stirs up indignation or disgust. 

He stirs up indignation when he places baseness where it is quiteunpardonable, that is in the case of men who are expected to showfine moral sense. In attributing baseness to them he will eitheroutrage truth, for we prefer to think him a liar than to believe thatwell-trained men can act in a base manner; or his personages will offendour moral sense, and, what is worse, excite our imagination. I do notmean by this to condemn farces; a farce implies between the poet and thespectator a tacit consent that no truth is to be expected in the piece. In a farce we exempt the poet from all faithfulness in his pictures; hehas a kind of privilege to tell us untruths. Here, in fact, all thecomic consists exactly in its contrast with the truth, and so it cannotpossibly be true. 

This is not all: even in the serious and the tragic there are certainplaces where the low element can be brought into play. But in this casethe affair must pass into the terrible, and the momentary violation ofour good taste must be masked by a strong impression, which brings ourpassion into play. In other words, the low impression must be absorbedby a superior tragic impression. Theft, for example, is a thingabsolutely base, and whatever arguments our heart may suggest to excusethe thief, whatever the pressure of circumstances that led him to thetheft, it is always an indelible brand stamped upon him, and, aesthetically speaking, he will always remain a base object. On thispoint taste is even less forgiving than morality, and its tribunal ismore severe; because an aesthetical object is responsible even for theaccessory ideas that are awakened in us by such an object, while moraljudgment eliminates all that is merely accidental. According to thisview a man who robs would always be an object to be rejected by the poetwho wishes to present serious pictures. But suppose this man is at thesame time a murderer, he is even more to be condemned than before by themoral law. But in the aesthetic judgment he is raised one degree higherand made better adapted to figure in a work of art. Continuing to judgehim from the aesthetic point of view, it may be added that he who abaseshimself by a vile action can to a certain extent be raised by a crime, and can be thus reinstated in our aesthetic estimation. Thiscontradiction between the moral judgment and the aesthetical judgment isa fact entitled to attention and consideration. It may be explained indifferent ways. First, I have already said that, as the aestheticjudgment depends on the imagination, all the accessory ideas awakened inus by an object and naturally associated with it, must themselvesinfluence this judgment. Now, if these accessory ideas are base, theyinfallibly stamp this character on the principal object. 

In the second place, what we look for in the aesthetic judgment isstrength; whilst in a judgment pronounced in the name of the moral sensewe consider lawfulness. The lack of strength is something contemptible, and every action from which it may be inferred that the agent lacksstrength is, by that very fact, a contemptible action. Every cowardlyand underhand action is repugnant to us, because it is a proof ofimpotence; and, on the contrary, a devilish wickedness can, aestheticallyspeaking, flatter our taste, as soon as it marks strength. Now, a thefttestifies to a vile and grovelling mind: a murder has at least on itsside the appearance of strength; the interest we take in it aestheticallyis in proportion to the strength that is manifested in it. 

A third reason is, because in presence of a deep and horrible crime we nolonger think of the quality but the awful consequences of the action. The stronger emotion covers and stifles the weaker one. We do not lookback into the mind of the agent; we look onward into his destiny, wethink of the effects of his action. Now, directly we begin to trembleall the delicacies of taste are reduced to silence. The principalimpression entirely fills our mind: the accessory and accidental ideas, in which chiefly dwell all impressions of baseness, are effaced from it. It is for this reason that the theft committed by young Ruhberg, in the"Crime through Ambition, " [a play of Iffland] far from displeasing on thestage, is a real tragic effect. The poet with great skill has managedthe circumstances in such wise that we are carried away; we are leftalmost breathless. The frightful misery of the family, and especiallythe grief of the father, are objects that attract our attention, turn itaside, from the person of the agent, towards the consequences of his act. We are too much moved to tarry long in representing to our minds thestamp of infamy with which the theft is marked. In a word, the baseelement disappears in the terrible. It is singular that this theft, really accomplished by young Ruhberg, inspires us with less repugnancethan, in another piece, the mere suspicion of a theft, a suspicion whichis actually without foundation. In the latter case it is a young officerwho is accused without grounds of having abstracted a silver spoon, whichis recovered later on. Thus the base element is reduced in this case toa purely imaginary thing, a mere suspicion, and this sufficesnevertheless to do an irreparable injury, in our aestheticalappreciation, to the hero of the piece, in spite of his innocence. Thisis because a man who is supposed capable of a base action did notapparently enjoy a very solid reputation for morality, for the laws ofpropriety require that a man should be held to be a man of honor as longas he does not show the opposite. If therefore anything contemptible isimputed to him, it seems that by some part of his past conduct he hasgiven rise to a suspicion of this kind, and this does him injury, thoughall the odious and the base in an undeserved suspicion are on the side ofhim who accuses. A point that does still greater injury to the hero ofthe piece of which I am speaking is the fact that he is an officer, andthe lover of a lady of condition brought up in a manner suitable to herrank. With these two titles, that of thief makes quite a revoltingcontrast, and it is impossible for us, when we see him near his lady, notto think that perhaps at that very moment he had the silver spoon in hispocket. Lastly, the most unfortunate part of the business is, that hehas no idea of the suspicion weighing over him, for if he had a knowledgeof it, in his character of officer, he would exact a sanguinaryreparation. In this case the consequences of the suspicion would changeto the terrible, and all that is base in the situation would disappear. 

We must distinguish, moreover, between the baseness of feeling and thatwhich is connected with the mode of treatment and circumstance. Theformer in all respects is below aesthetic dignity; the second in manycases may perfectly agree with it. Slavery, for example, is abase thing;but a servile mind in a free man is contemptible. The labors of theslave, on the contrary, are not so when his feelings are not servile. Far from this, a base condition, when joined to elevated feelings, canbecome a source of the sublime. The master of Epictetus, who beat him, acted basely, and the slave beaten by him showed a sublime soul. Truegreatness, when it is met in a base condition, is only the more brilliantand splendid on that account: and the artist must not fear to show us hisheroes even under a contemptible exterior as soon as he is sure of beingable to give them, when he wishes, the expression of moral dignity. 

But what can be granted to the poet is not always allowed in the artist. The poet only addresses the imagination; the painter addresses the sensesdirectly. It follows not only that the impression of the picture is morelively than that of the poem, but also that the painter, if he employonly his natural signs, cannot make the minds of his personages asvisible as the poet can with the arbitrary signs at his command: yet itis only the sight of the mind that can reconcile us to certain exteriors. When Homer causes his Ulysses to appear in the rags of a beggar["Odyssey, " book xiii. V. 397], we are at liberty to represent his imageto our mind more or less fully, and to dwell on it as long as we like. But in no case will it be sufficiently vivid to excite our repugnance ordisgust. But if a painter, or even a tragedian, try to reproducefaithfully the Ulysses of Homer, we turn away from the picture withrepugnance. It is because in this case the greater or less vividness ofthe impression no longer depends on our will: we cannot help seeing whatthe painter places under our eyes; and it is not easy for us to removethe accessory repugnant ideas which the picture recalls to our mind. 

DETACHED REFLECTIONS ON DIFFERENT QUESTIONS OF AESTHETICS. 

All the properties by which an object can become aesthetic, can bereferred to four classes, which, as well according to their objectivedifferences as according to their different relation with the subject, produce on our passive and active faculties pleasures unequal not only inintensity but also in worth; classes which also are of an unequal use forthe end of the fine arts: they are the agreeable, the good, the sublime, and the beautiful. 

Of these four categories, the sublime and the beautiful only belongproperly to art. The agreeable is not worthy of art, and the good is atleast not its end; for the aim of art is to please, and the good, whetherwe consider it in theory or in practice, neither can nor ought to serveas a means of satisfying the wants of sensuousness. The agreeable onlysatisfies the senses, and is distinguished thereby from the good, whichonly pleases the reason. The agreeable only pleases by its matter, forit is only matter that can affect the senses, and all that is form canonly please the reason. It is true that the beautiful only pleasesthrough the medium of the senses, by which it is distinguished from thegood; but it pleases reason, on account of its form, by which it isessentially distinguished from the agreeable. It might be said that thegood pleases only by its form being in harmony with reason; the beautifulby its form having some relation of resemblance with reason, and that theagreeable absolutely does not please by its form. The good is perceivedby thought, the beautiful by intuition, and the agreeable only by thesenses. The first pleases by the conception, the second by the idea, andthe third by material sensation. 

The distance between the good and the agreeable is that which strikes theeyes the most. The good widens our understanding, because it procuresand supposes an idea of its object; the pleasure which it makes usperceive rests on an objective foundation, even when this pleasure itselfis but a certain state in which we are situated. The agreeable, on thecontrary, produces no notion of its object, and, indeed, reposes on noobjective foundation. It is agreeable only inasmuch as it is felt by thesubject, and the idea of it completely vanishes the moment an obstructionis placed on the affectibility of the senses, or only when it ismodified. For a man who feels the cold the agreeable would be a warmair; but this same man, in the heat of summer, would seek the shade andcoolness; but we must agree that in both cases he has judged well. 

On the other hand, that which is objective is altogether independent ofus, and that which to-day appears to us true, useful, reasonable, oughtyet (if this judgment of to-day be admitted as just) to seem to us thesame twenty years hence. But our judgment of the agreeable changes assoon as our state, with regard to its object, has changed. The agreeableis therefore not a property of the object; it springs entirely from therelations of such an object with our senses, for the constitution of oursenses is a necessary condition thereof. 

The good, on the contrary, is good in itself, before being represented tous, and before being felt. The property by which it pleases exists fullyin itself without being in want of our subject, although the pleasurewhich we take in it rests on an aptitude for feeling that which is in us. Thus we can say that the agreeable exists only because it is experienced, and that the good, on the contrary, is experienced because it exists. 

The distinction between the beautiful and the agreeable, great as it is, moreover, strikes the eye less. The beautiful approaches the agreeablein this--that it must always be proposed to the senses, inasmuch as itpleases only as a phenomenon. It comes near to it again in as far as itneither procures nor supposes any notion of its object. But, on theother hand, it is widely separated from the agreeable, because it pleasesby the form under which it is produced, and not by the fact of thematerial sensation. No doubt it only pleases the reasonable subject inso far as it is also a sensuous subject; but also it pleases the sensuoussubject only inasmuch as it is at the same time a reasonable subject. The beautiful is not only pleasing to the individual but to the wholespecies; and although it draws its existence but from its relation withcreatures at the same time reasonable and sensuous, it is not lessindependent of all empirical limitations of sensuousness, and it remainsidentical even when the particular constitution of the individual ismodified. The beautiful has exactly in common with the good that bywhich it differs from the agreeable, and it differs from the good exactlyin that in which it approximates to the agreeable. 

By the good we must understand that in which reason recognizes aconformity with her theoretical and practical laws. But the same objectcan be perfectly conformable to the theoretical reason, and not be theless in contradiction in the highest degree with the practical reason. We can disapprove of the end of an enterprise, and yet admire the skillof the means and their relation with the end in view. We can despise thepleasures which the voluptuous man makes the end of his life, andnevertheless praise the skill which he exhibits in the choice of hismeans, and the logical result with which he carries out his principles. That which pleases us only by its form is good, absolutely good, andwithout any conditions, when its form is at the same time its matter. The good is also an object of sensuousness, but not of an immediatesensuousness, as the agreeable, nor moreover of a mixed sensuousness, asthe beautiful. It does not excite desire as the first, nor inclinationas the second. The simple idea of the good inspires only esteem. 

The difference separating the agreeable, the good, and the beautifulbeing thus established, it is evident that the same object can be ugly, defective, even to be morally rejected, and nevertheless be agreeable andpleasing to the senses; that an object can revolt the senses, and yet begood, i. E. , please the reason; that an object can from its inmost naturerevolt the moral senses, and yet please the imagination whichcontemplates it, and still be beautiful. It is because each one of theseideas interests different faculties, and interests differently. 

But have we exhausted the classification of the aesthetic attributes?No, there are objects at the same time ugly, revolting, and horrifying tothe senses, which do not please the understanding, and of no account tothe moral judgment, and these objects do not fail to please; certainly toplease to such a degree, that we would willingly sacrifice the pleasureof these senses and that of the understanding to procure for us theenjoyment of these objects. There is nothing more attractive in naturethan a beautiful landscape, illuminated by the purple light of evening. The rich variety of the objects, the mellow outlines, the play of lightsinfinitely varying the aspect, the light vapors which envelop distantobjects, --all combine in charming the senses; and add to it, to increaseour pleasure, the soft murmur of a cascade, the song of the nightingales, an agreeable music. We give ourselves up to a soft sensation of repose, and whilst our senses, touched by the harmony of the colors, the forms, and the sounds, experience the agreeable in the highest, the mind isrejoiced by the easy and rich flow of the ideas, the heart by thesentiments which overflow in it like a torrent. All at once a stormsprings up, darkening the sky and all the landscape, surpassing andsilencing all other noises, and suddenly taking from us all ourpleasures. Black clouds encircle the horizon; the thunder falls with adeafening noise. Flash succeeds flash. Our sight and hearing isaffected in the most revolting manner. The lightning only appears torender to us more visible the horrors of the night: we see the electricfluid strike, nay, we begin to fear lest it may strike us. Well, thatdoes not prevent us from believing that we have gained more than lost bythe change; I except, of course, those whom fear has bereft of allliberty of judgment. We are, on the one hand, forcibly drawn towardsthis terrible spectacle, which on the other wounds and repulses oursenses, and we pause before it with a feeling which we cannot properlycall a pleasure, but one which we often like much more than pleasure. But still, the spectacle that nature then offers to us is in itselfrather destructive than good (at all events we in no way need to think ofthe utility of a storm to take pleasure in this phenomenon), is in itselfrather ugly than beautiful, for the darkness, hiding from us all theimages which light affords, cannot be in itself a pleasant thing; andthose sudden crashes with which the thunder shakes the atmosphere, thosesudden flashes when the lightning rends the cloud--all is contrary to oneof the essential conditions of the beautiful, which carries with itnothing abrupt, nothing violent. And moreover this phenomenon, if weconsider only our senses, is rather painful than agreeable, for thenerves of our sight and those of our hearing are each in their turnpainfully strained, then not less violently relaxed, by the alternationsof light and darkness, of the explosion of the thunder, and silence. Andin spite of all these causes of displeasure, a storm is an attractivephenomenon for whomsoever is not afraid of it. 

Another example. In the midst of a green and smiling plain there rises anaked and barren hillock, which hides from the sight a part of the view. Each one would wish that this hillock were removed which disfigures thebeauty of all the landscape. Well, let us imagine this hillock rising, rising still, without indeed changing at all its shape, and preserving, although on a greater scale, the same proportions between its width andheight. To begin with, our impression of displeasure will but increasewith the hillock itself, which will the more strike the sight, and whichwill be the more repulsive. But continue; raise it up twice as high as atower, and insensibly the displeasure will efface itself to make way forquite another feeling. The hill has at last become a mountain, so high amountain that it is quite impossible for our eyes to take it in at onelook. There is an object more precocious than all this smiling plainwhich surrounds it, and the impression that it makes on us is of such anature that we should regret to exchange it for any other impression, however beautiful it might be. Now, suppose this mountain to be leaning, and of such an inclination that we could expect it every minute to crashdown, the previous impression will be complicated with anotherimpression: terror will be joined to it: the object itself will be butstill more attractive. But suppose it were possible to prop up thisleaning mountain with another mountain, the terror would disappear, andwith it a good part of the pleasure we experienced. Suppose that therewere beside this mountain four or five other mountains, of which each onewas a fourth or a fifth part lower than the one which came immediatelyafter; the first impression with which the height of one mountaininspired us will be notably weakened. Something somewhat analogous wouldtake place if the mountain itself were cut into ten or twelve terraces, uniformly diminishing; or again if it were artificially decorated withplantations. We have at first subjected one mountain to no otheroperation than that of increasing its size, leaving it otherwise just asit was, and without altering its form; and this simple circumstance hassufficed to make an indifferent or even disagreeable object satisfying tothe eyes. By the second operation, this enlarged object has become atthe same time an object of terror; and the pleasure which we have foundin contemplating it has but been the greater. Finally, by the lastoperation which we have made, we have diminished the terror which itssight occasioned, and the pleasure has diminished as much. We havediminished subjectively the idea of its height, whether by dividing theattention of the spectator between several objects, or in giving to theeyes, by means of these smaller mountains, placed near to the large one, a measure by which to master the height of the mountain all the moreeasily. The great and the terrible can therefore be of themselves incertain cases a source of aesthetic pleasure. 

There is not in the Greek mythology a more terrible, and at the same timemore hideous, picture than the Furies, or Erinyes, quitting the infernalregions to throw themselves in the pursuit of a criminal. Their facesfrightfully contracted and grimacing, their fleshless bodies, their headscovered with serpents in the place of hair--revolt our senses as much asthey offend our taste. However, when these monsters are represented tous in the pursuit of Orestes, the murderer of his mother, when they areshown to us brandishing the torches in their hands, and chasing theirprey, without peace or truce, from country to country, until at last, theanger of justice being appeased, they engulf themselves in the abyss ofthe infernal regions; then we pause before the picture with a horrormixed with pleasure. But not only the remorse of a criminal which ispersonified by the Furies, even his unrighteous acts nay, the realperpetration of a crime, are able to please us in a work of art. Medea, in the Greek tragedy; Clytemnestra, who takes the life of her husband;Orestes, who kills his mother, fill our soul with horror and withpleasure. Even in real life, indifferent and even repulsive or frightfulobjects begin to interest us the moment that they approach the monstrousor the terrible. An altogether vulgar and insignificant man will beginto please us the moment that a violent passion, which indeed in no wayupraises his personal value, makes him an object of fear and terror, inthe same way that a vulgar, meaningless object becomes to us the sourceof aesthetic pleasure the instant we have enlarged it to the point whereit threatens to overstep our comprehension. An ugly man is made stillmore ugly by passion, and nevertheless it is in bursts of this passion, provided that it turns to the terrible and not to the ridiculous, thatthis man will be to us of the most interest. This remark extends even toanimals. An ox at the plow, a horse before a carriage, a dog, are commonobjects; but excite this bull to the combat, enrage this horse who is sopeaceable, or represent to yourself this dog a prey to madness; instantlythese animals are raised to the rank of aesthetic objects, and we beginto regard them with a feeling which borders on pleasure and esteem. Theinclination to the pathetic--an inclination common to all men--thestrength of the sympathetic sentiment--this force which in mature makesus wish to see suffering, terror, dismay, which has so many attractionsfor us in art, which makes us hurry to the theatre, which makes us takeso much pleasure in the picturing of great misfortune, --all this bearstestimony to a fourth source of aesthetic pleasure, which neither theagreeable, nor the good, nor the beautiful are in a state to produce. 

All the examples that I have alleged up to the present have this incommon--that the feeling they excite in us rests on something objective. In all these phenomena we receive the idea of something "which oversteps, or which threatens to overstep, the power of comprehension of our senses, or their power of resistance"; but not, however, going so far as toparalyze these two powers, or so far as to render us incapable ofstriving, either to know the object, or to resist the impression it makeson us. There is in the phenomena a complexity which we cannot retrace tounity without driving the intuitive faculty to its furthest limits. 

We have the idea of a force in comparison with which our own vanishes, and which we are nevertheless compelled to compare with our own. Eitherit is an object which at the same time presents and hides itself from ourfaculty of intuition, and which urges us to strive to represent it toourselves, without leaving room to hope that this aspiration will besatisfied; or else it is an object which appears to upraise itself as anenemy, even against our existence--which provokes us, so to say, tocombat, and makes us anxious as to the issue. In all the allegedexamples there is visible in the same way the same action on the facultyof feeling. All throw our souls into an anxious agitation and strain itssprings. A certain gravity which can even raise itself to a solemnrejoicing takes possession of our soul, and whilst our organs betrayevident signs of internal anxiety, our mind falls back on itself byreflection, and appears to find a support in a higher consciousness ofits independent strength and dignity. This consciousness of ourselvesmust always dominate in order that the great and the horrible may havefor us an aesthetic value. It is because the soul before such sights asthese feels itself inspired and lifted above itself that they aredesignated under the name of sublime, although the things themselves areobjectively in no way sublime; and consequently it would be more just tosay that they are elevating than to call them in themselves elevated orsublime. 

For an object to be called sublime it must be in opposition with oursensuousness. In general it is possible to conceive but two differentrelations between the objects and our sensuousness, and consequentlythere ought to be two kinds of resistance. They ought either to beconsidered as objects from which we wish to draw a knowledge, or elsethey should be regarded as a force with which we compare our own. According to this division there are two kinds of the sublime, thesublime of knowledge and the sublime of force. Moreover, the sensuousfaculties contribute to knowledge only in grasping a given matter, andputting one by the other its complexity in time and in space. 

As to dissecting this complex property and assorting it, it is thebusiness of the understanding and not of the imagination. It is for theunderstanding alone that the diversity exists: for the imagination(considered simply as a sensuous faculty) there is but an uniformity, andconsequently it is but the number of the uniform things (the quantity andnot the quality) which can give origin to any difference between thesensuous perception of phenomena. Thus, in order that the faculty ofpicturing things sensuously maybe reduced to impotence before an object, necessarily it is imperative that this object exceeds in its quantity thecapacity of our imagination. 

ON SIMPLE AND SENTIMENTAL POETRY. 

There are moments in life when nature inspires us with a sort of love andrespectful emotion, not because she is pleasing to our senses, or becauseshe satisfies our mind or our taste (it is often the very opposite thathappens), but merely because she is nature. This feeling is oftenelicited when nature is considered in her plants, in her mineral kingdom, in rural districts; also in the case of human nature, in the case ofchildren, and in the manners of country people and of the primitiveraces. Every man of refined feeling, provided he has a soul, experiencesthis feeling when he walks out under the open sky, when he lives in thecountry, or when he stops to contemplate the monuments of early ages; inshort, when escaping from factitious situations and relations, he findshimself suddenly face to face with nature. This interest, which is oftenexalted in us so as to become a want, is the explanation of many of ourfancies for flowers and for animals, our preference for gardens laid outin the natural style, our love of walks, of the country and those wholive there, of a great number of objects proceeding from a remoteantiquity, etc. It is taken for granted that no affectation exists inthe matter, and moreover that no accidental interest comes into play. But this sort of interest which we take in nature is only possible undertwo conditions. First the object that inspires us with this feeling mustbe really nature, or something we take for nature; secondly this objectmust be in the full sense of the word simple, that is, presenting theentire contrast of nature with art, all the advantage remaining on theside of nature. Directly this second condition is united to the first, but no sooner, nature assumes the character of simplicity. 

Considered thus, nature is for us nothing but existence in all itsfreedom; it is the constitution of things taken in themselves; it isexistence itself according to its proper and immutable laws. 

It is strictly necessary that we should have this idea of nature to takean interest in phenomena of this kind. If we conceive an artificialflower so perfectly imitated that it has all the appearance of nature andwould produce the most complete illusion, or if we imagine the imitationof simplicity carried out to the extremest degree, the instant wediscover it is only an imitation, the feeling of which I have beenspeaking is completely destroyed. It is, therefore, quite evident thatthis kind of satisfaction which nature causes us to feel is not asatisfaction of the aesthetical taste, but a satisfaction of the moralsense; for it is produced by means of a conception and not immediately bythe single fact of intuition: accordingly it is by no means determined bythe different degrees of beauty in forms. For, after all, is thereanything so specially charming in a flower of common appearance, in aspring, a moss-covered stone, the warbling of birds, or the buzzing ofbees, etc. ? What is that can give these objects a claim to our love? Itis not these objects in themselves; it is an idea represented by themthat we love in them. We love in them life and its latent action, theeffects peacefully produced by beings of themselves, existence under itsproper laws, the inmost necessity of things, the eternal unity of theirnature. 

These objects which captivate us are what we were, what we must be againsome day. We were nature as they are; and culture, following the way ofreason and of liberty, must bring us back to nature. Accordingly, theseobjects are an image of our infancy irrevocably past--of our infancywhich will remain eternally very dear to us, and thus they infuse acertain melancholy into us; they are also the image of our highestperfection in the ideal world, whence they excite a sublime emotion inus. 

But the perfection of these objects is not a merit that belongs to them, because it is not the effect of their free choice. Accordingly theyprocure quite a peculiar pleasure for us, by being our models withouthaving anything humiliating for us. It is like a constant manifestationof the divinity surrounding us, which refreshes without dazzling us. Thevery feature that constitutes their character is precisely what islacking in ours to make it complete; and what distinguishes us from themis precisely what they lack to be divine. We are free and they arenecessary; we change and they remain identical. Now it is only whenthese two conditions are united, when the will submits freely to the lawsof necessity, and when, in the midst of all the changes of which theimagination is susceptible, reason maintains its rule--it is only thenthat the divine or the ideal is manifested. Thus we perceive eternallyin them that which we have not, but which we are continually forced tostrive after; that which we can never reach, but which we can hope toapproach by continual progress. And we perceive in ourselves anadvantage which they lack, but in which some of them--the beings deprivedof reason--cannot absolutely share, and in which the others, such aschildren, can only one day have a share by following our way. Accordingly, they procure us the most delicious feeling of our humannature, as an idea, though in relation to each determinate state of ournature they cannot fail to humble us. 

As this interest in nature is based on an idea, it can only manifestitself in a soul capable of ideas, that is, in a moral soul. For theimmense majority it is nothing more than pure affectation; and this tasteof sentimentality so widely diffused in our day, manifesting itself, especially since the appearance of certain books, by sentimentalexcursions and journeys, by sentimental gardens, and other fancies akinto these--this taste by no means proves that true refinement of sense hasbecome general. Nevertheless, it is certain that nature will alwaysproduce something of this impression, even on the most insensible hearts, because all that is required for this is the moral disposition oraptitude, which is common to all men. For all men, however contrarytheir acts may be to simplicity and to the truth of nature, are broughtback to it in their ideas. This sensibility in connection with nature isspecially and most strongly manifested, in the greater part of persons, in connection with those sorts of objects which are closely related tous, and which, causing us to look closer into ourselves, show us moreclearly what in us departs from nature; for example, in connection withchildren, or with nations in a state of infancy. It is an error tosuppose that it is only the idea of their weakness that, in certainmoments, makes us dwell with our eyes on children with so much emotion. This may be true with those who, in the presence of a feeble being, areused to feel nothing but their own superiority. But the feeling of whichI speak is only experienced in a very peculiar moral disposition, normust it be confounded with the feeling awakened in us by the joyousactivity of children. The feeling of which I speak is calculated ratherto humble than to flatter our self-love; and if it gives us the idea ofsome advantage, this advantage is at all events not on our side. 

We are moved in the presence of childhood, but it is not because from theheight of our strength and of our perfection we drop a look of pity onit; it is, on the contrary, because from the depths of our impotence, ofwhich the feeling is inseparable from that of the real and determinatestate to which we have arrived, we raise our eyes to the child'sdeterminableness and pure innocence. The feeling we then experience istoo evidently mingled with sadness for us to mistake its source. In thechild, all is disposition and destination; in us, all is in the state ofa completed, finished thing, and the completion always remains infinitelybelow the destination. It follows that the child is to us like therepresentation of the ideal; not, indeed, of the ideal as we haverealized it, but such as our destination admitted; and, consequently, itis not at all the idea of its indigence, of its hinderances, that makesus experience emotion in the child's presence; it is, on the contrary, the idea of its pure and free force, of the integrity, the infinity ofits being. This is the reason why, in the sight of every moral andsensible man, the child will always be a sacred thing; I mean an objectwhich, by the grandeur of an idea, reduces to nothingness all grandeurrealized by experience; an object which, in spite of all it may lose inthe judgment of the understanding, regains largely the advantage beforethe judgment of reason. 

Now it is precisely this contradiction between the judgment of reason andthat of the understanding which produces in us this quite specialphenomenon, this mixed feeling, called forth in us by the sight of thesimple--I mean the simple in the manner of thinking. It is at once theidea of a childlike simplicity and of a childish simplicity. By what ithas of childish simplicity it exposes a weak side to the understanding, and provokes in us that smile by which we testify our superiority (anentirely speculative superiority). But directly we have reason to thinkthat childish simplicity is at the same time a childlike simplicity--thatit is not consequently a want of intelligence, an infirmity in atheoretical point of view, but a superior force (practically), aheart-full of truth and innocence, which is its source, a heart that hasdespised the help of art because it was conscious of its real andinternal greatness--directly this is understood, the understanding nolonger seeks to triumph. Then raillery, which was directed againstsimpleness, makes way for the admiration inspired by noble simplicity. We feel ourselves obliged to esteem this object, which at first made ussmile, and directing our eyes to ourselves, to feel ourselves unhappy innot resembling it. Thus is produced that very special phenomenon of afeeling in which good-natured raillery, respect, and sadness areconfounded. It is the condition of the simple that nature should triumphover art, either unconsciously to the individual and against hisinclination, or with his full and entire cognizance. In the former caseit is simplicity as a surprise, and the impression resulting from it isone of gayety; in the second case, it is simplicity of feeling, and weare moved. 

With regard to simplicity as a surprise, the person must be morallycapable of denying nature. In simplicity of feeling the person may bemorally incapable of this, but we must not think him physicallyincapable, in order that it may make upon us the impression of thesimple. This is the reason why the acts and words of children onlyproduce the impression of simplicity upon us when we forget that they arephysically incapable of artifice, and in general only when we areexclusively impressed by the contrast between their natural character andwhat is artificial in us. Simplicity is a childlike ingenuousness whichis encountered when it is not expected; and it is for this very reasonthat, taking the word in its strictest sense, simplicity could not beattributed to childhood properly speaking. 

But in both cases, in simplicity as a surprise and simplicity as afeeling, nature must always have the upper hand, and art succumb to her. 

Until we have established this distinction we can only form an incompleteidea of simplicity. The affections are also something natural, and therules of decency are artificial; yet the triumph of the affections overdecency is anything but simple. But when affection triumphs overartifice, over false decency, over dissimulation, we shall have nodifficulty in applying the word simple to this. Nature must thereforetriumph over art, not by its blind and brutal force as a dynamical power, but in virtue of its form as a moral magnitude; in a word, not as a want, but as an internal necessity. It must not be insufficiency, but theinopportune character of the latter that gives nature her victory; forinsufficiency is only a want and a defect, and nothing that results froma want or defect could produce esteem. No doubt in the simplicityresulting from surprise, it is always the predominance of affection and awant of reflection that causes us to appear natural. But this want andthis predominance do not by any means suffice to constitute simplicity;they merely give occasion to nature to obey without let or hinderance hermoral constitution, that is, the law of harmony. 

The simplicity resulting from surprise can only be encountered in man andthat only in as far as at the moment he ceases to be a pure and innocentnature. This sort of simplicity implies a will that is not in harmonywith that which nature does of her own accord. A person simple afterthis fashion, when recalled to himself, will be the first to be alarmedat what he is; on the other hand, a person in whom simplicity is found asa feeling, will only wonder at one thing, that is, at the way in whichmen feel astonishment. As it is not the moral subject as a person, butonly his natural character set free by affection, that confesses thetruth, it follows from this that we shall not attribute this sincerity toman as a merit, and that we shall be entitled to laugh at it, ourraillery not being held in check by any personal esteem for hischaracter. Nevertheless, as it is still the sincerity of nature which, even in the simplicity caused by surprise, pierces suddenly through theveil of dissimulation, a satisfaction of a superior order is mixed withthe mischievous joy we feel in having caught any one in the act. This isbecause nature, opposed to affectation, and truth, opposed to deception, must in every case inspire us with esteem. Thus we experience, even inthe presence of simplicity originating in surprise, a really moralpleasure, though it be not in connection with a moral object. 

I admit that in simplicity proceeding from surprise we always experiencea feeling of esteem for nature, because we must esteem truth; whereas inthe simplicity of feeling we esteem the person himself, enjoying in thisway not only a moral satisfaction, but also a satisfaction of which theobject is moral. In both cases nature is right, since she speaks thetruth; but in the second case not only is nature right, but there is alsoan act that does honor to the person. In the first case the sincerity ofnature always puts the person to the blush, because it is involuntary; inthe second it is always a merit which must be placed to the credit of theperson, even when what he confesses is of a nature to cause a blush. 

We attribute simplicity of feeling to a man, when, in the judgments hepronounces on things, he passes, without seeing them, over all thefactitious and artificial sides of an object, to keep exclusively tosimple nature. We require of him all the judgments that can be formed ofthings without departing from a sound nature; and we only hold himentirely free in what presupposes a departure from nature in his mode ofthinking or feeling. 

If a father relates to his son that such and such a person is dying ofhunger, and if the child goes and carries the purse of his father to thisunfortunate being, this is a simple action. It is in fact a healthynature that acts in the child; and in a world where healthy nature wouldbe the law, he would be perfectly right to act so. He only sees themisery of his neighbor and the speediest means of relieving him. Theextension given to the right of property, in consequence of which part ofthe human race might perish, is not based on mere nature. Thus the actof this child puts to shame real society, and this is acknowledged by ourheart in the pleasure it experiences from this action. 

If a good-hearted man, inexperienced in the ways of the world, confideshis secrets to another, who deceives him, but who is skilful indisguising his perfidy, and if by his very sincerity he furnishes himwith the means of doing him injury, we find his conduct simple. We laughat him, yet we cannot avoid esteeming him, precisely on account of hissimplicity. This is because his trust in others proceeds from therectitude of his own heart; at all events, there is simplicity here onlyas far as this is the case. 

Simplicity in the mode of thinking cannot then ever be the act of adepraved man; this quality only belongs to children, and to men who arechildren in heart. It often happens to these in the midst of theartificial relations of the great world to act or to think in a simplemanner. Being themselves of a truly good and humane nature, they forgetthat they have to do with a depraved world; and they act, even in thecourts of kings, with an ingenuousness and an innocence that are onlyfound in the world of pastoral idyls. 

Nor is it always such an easy matter to distinguish exactly childishcandor from childlike candor, for there are actions that are on theskirts of both. Is a certain act foolishly simple, and must we laugh atit? or is it nobly simple, and must we esteem the actors the higher onthat account? It is difficult to know which side to take in some cases. A very remarkable example of this is found in the history of thegovernment of Pope Adrian VI. , related by Mr. Schroeckh with all thesolidity and the spirit of practical truth which distinguish him. Adrian, a Netherlander by birth, exerted the pontifical sway at one ofthe most critical moments for the hierarchy--at a time when anexasperated party laid bare without any scruple all the weak sides of theRoman Church, while the opposite party was interested in the highestdegree in covering them over. I do not entertain the question how a manof a truly simple character ought to act in such a case, if such acharacter were placed in the papal chair. But, we ask, how could thissimplicity of feeling be compatible with the part of a pope? Thisquestion gave indeed very little embarrassment to the predecessors andsuccessors of Adrian. They followed uniformly the system adopted oncefor all by the court of Rome, not to make any concessions anywhere. ButAdrian had preserved the upright character of his nation and theinnocence of his previous condition. Issuing from the humble sphere ofliterary men to rise to this eminent position, he did not belie at thatelevation the primitive simplicity of his character. He was moved by theabuses of the Roman Church, and he was much too sincere to dissimulatepublicly what he confessed privately. It was in consequence of thismanner of thinking that, in his instruction to his legate in Germany, heallowed himself to be drawn into avowals hitherto unheard of in asovereign pontiff, and diametrically contrary to the principles of thatcourt "We know well, " he said, among other things, "that for many yearsmany abominable things have taken place in this holy chair; it is nottherefore astonishing that the evil has been propagated from the head tothe members, from the pope to the prelates. We have all gone astray fromthe good road, and for a long time there is none of us, not one, who hasdone anything good. " Elsewhere he orders his legate to declare in hisname "that he, Adrian, cannot be blamed for what other popes have donebefore him; that he himself, when he occupied a comparatively mediocreposition, had always condemned these excesses. " It may easily beconceived how such simplicity in a pope must have been received by theRoman clergy. The smallest crime of which he was accused was that ofbetraying the church and delivering it over to heretics. Now thisproceeding, supremely imprudent in a pope, would yet deserve our esteemand admiration if we could believe it was real simplicity; that is, thatAdrian, without fear of consequences, had made such an avowal, moved byhis natural sincerity, and that he would have persisted in acting thus, though he had understood all the drift of his clumsiness. Unhappily wehave some reason to believe that he did not consider his conduct asaltogether impolitic, and that in his candor he went so far as to flatterhimself that he had served very usefully the interests of his church byhis indulgence to his adversaries. He did not even imagine that he oughtto act thus in his quality as an honest man; he thought also as a pope tobe able to justify himself, and forgetting that the most artificial ofstructures could only be supported by continuing to deny the truth, hecommitted the unpardonable fault of having recourse to means of safety, excellent perhaps, in a natural situation, but here applied to entirelycontrary circumstances. This necessarily modifies our judgment verymuch, and although we cannot refuse our esteem for the honesty of heartin which the act originates, this esteem is greatly lessened when wereflect that nature on this occasion was too easily mistress of art, andthat the heart too easily overruled the head. 

True genius is of necessity simple, or it is not genius. Simplicityalone gives it this character, and it cannot belie in the moral orderwhat it is in the intellectual and aesthetical order. It does not knowthose rules, the crutches of feebleness, those pedagogues which prop upslippery spirits; it is only guided by nature and instinct, its guardianangel; it walks with a firm, calm step across all the snares of falsetaste, snares in which the man without genius, if he have not theprudence to avoid them the moment he detects them, remains infalliblyimbedded. It is therefore the part only of genius to issue from theknown without ceasing to be at home, or to enlarge the circle of naturewithout overstepping it. It does indeed sometimes happen that a greatgenius oversteps it; but only because geniuses have their moments offrenzy, when nature, their protector, abandons them, because the force ofexample impels them, or because the corrupt taste of their age leads themastray. 

The most intricate problems must be solved by genius with simplicity, without pretension, with ease; the egg of Christopher Columbus is theemblem of all the discoveries of genius. It only justifies its characteras genius by triumphing through simplicity over all the complications ofart. It does not proceed according to known principles, but by feelingsand inspiration; the sallies of genius are the inspirations of a God (allthat healthy nature produces is divine); its feelings are laws for alltime, for all human generations. 

This childlike character imprinted by genius on its works is also shownby it in its private life and manners. It is modest, because nature isalways so; but it is not decent, because corruption alone is decent. Itis intelligent, because nature cannot lack intelligence; but it is notcunning, because art only can be cunning. It is faithful to itscharacter and inclinations, but this is not so much because it hasprinciples as because nature, notwithstanding all its oscillations, always returns to its equilibrium, and brings back the same wants. It ismodest and even timid, because genius remains always a secret to itself;but it is not anxious, because it does not know the dangers of the roadin which it walks. We know little of the private life of the greatestgeniuses; but the little that we know of it--what tradition haspreserved, for example, of Sophocles, of Archimedes, of Hippocrates, andin modern times of Ariosto, of Dante, of Tasso, of Raphael, of AlbertDuerer, of Cervantes, of Shakespeare, of Fielding, of Sterne, etc. --confirms this assertion. 

Nay, more; though this admission seems more difficult to support, eventhe greatest philosophers and great commanders, if great by their genius, have simplicity in their character. Among the ancients I need only nameJulius Caesar and Epaminondas; among the moderns Henry IV. In France, Gustavus Adolphus in Sweden, and the Czar Peter the Great. The Duke ofMarlborough, Turenne, and Vendome all present this character. Withregard to the other sex, nature proposes to it simplicity of character asthe supreme perfection to which it should reach. Accordingly, the loveof pleasing in women strives after nothing so much as the appearance ofsimplicity; a sufficient proof, if it were the only one, that thegreatest power of the sex reposes in this quality. But, as theprinciples that prevail in the education of women are perpetuallystruggling with this character, it is as difficult for them in the moralorder to reconcile this magnificent gift of nature with the advantages ofa good education as it is difficult for men to preserve them unchanged inthe intellectual order: and the woman who knows how to join a knowledgeof the world to this sort of simplicity in manners is as deserving ofrespect as a scholar who joins to the strictness of scholastic rules thefreedom and originality of thought. 

Simplicity in our mode of thinking brings with it of necessity simplicityin our mode of expression, simplicity in terms as well as movement; andit is in this that grace especially consists. Genius expresses its mostsublime and its deepest thoughts with this simple grace; they are thedivine oracles that issue from the lips of a child; while the scholasticspirit, always anxious to avoid error, tortures all its words, all itsideas, and makes them pass through the crucible of grammar and logic, hard and rigid, in order to keep from vagueness, and uses few words inorder not to say too much, enervates and blunts thought in order not towound the reader who is not on his guard--genius gives to its expression, with a single and happy stroke of the brush, a precise, firm, and yetperfectly free form. In the case of grammar and logic, the sign and thething signified are always heterogenous and strangers to each other: withgenius, on the contrary, the expression gushes forth spontaneously fromthe idea, the language and the thought are one and the same; so that eventhough the expression thus gives it a body the spirit appears as ifdisclosed in a nude state. This fashion of expression, when the signdisappears entirely in the thing signified, when the tongue, so to speak, leaves the thought it translates naked, whilst the other mode ofexpression cannot represent thought without veiling it at the same time:this is what is called originality and inspiration in style. 

This freedom, this natural mode by which genius expresses itself in worksof intellect, is also the expression of the innocence of heart in theintercourse of life. Every one knows that in the world men have departedfrom simplicity, from the rigorous veracity of language, in the sameproportion as they have lost the simplicity of feelings. The guiltyconscience easily wounded, the imagination easily seduced, made ananxious decency necessary. Without telling what is false, people oftenspeak differently from what they think; we are obliged to makecircumlocutions to say certain things, which however, can never afflictany but a sickly self-love, and that have no danger except for a depravedimagination. The ignorance of these laws of propriety (conventionallaws), coupled with a natural sincerity which despises all kinds of biasand all appearance of falsity (sincerity I mean, not coarseness, forcoarseness dispenses with forms because it is hampered), gives rise inthe intercourse of life to a simplicity of expression that consists innaming things by their proper name without circumlocution. This is donebecause we do not venture to designate them as they are, or only to do soby artificial means. The ordinary expressions of children are of thiskind. They make us smile because they are in opposition to receivedmanners; but men would always agree in the bottom of their hearts thatthe child is right. 

It is true that simplicity of feeling cannot properly be attributed tothe child any more than to the man, --that is, to a being not absolutelysubject to nature, though there is still no simplicity, except on thecondition that it is pure nature that acts through him. But by an effortof the imagination, which likes to poetise things, we often carry overthese attributes of a rational being to beings destitute of reason. Itis thus that, on seeing an animal, a landscape, a building, and nature ingeneral, from opposition to what is arbitrary and fantastic in theconceptions of man, we often attribute to them a simple character. Butthat implies always that in our thought we attribute a will to thesethings that have none, and that we are struck to see it directedrigorously according to the laws of necessity. Discontented as we arethat we have ill employed our own moral freedom, and that we no longerfind moral harmony in our conduct, we are easily led to a certaindisposition of mind, in which we willingly address ourselves to a beingdestitute of reason, as if it were a person. And we readily view it asif it had really had to struggle against the temptation of actingotherwise, and proceed to make a merit of its eternal uniformity, and toenvy its peaceable constancy. We are quite disposed to consider in thosemoments reason, this prerogative of the human race, as a pernicious giftand as an evil; we feel so vividly all that is imperfect in our conductthat we forget to be just to our destiny and to our aptitudes. 

We see, then, in nature, destitute of reason, only a sister who, morefortunate than ourselves, has remained under the maternal roof, while inthe intoxication of our freedom we have fled from it to throw ourselvesinto a stranger world. We regret this place of safety, we earnestly longto come back to it as soon as we have begun to feel the bitter side ofcivilization, and in the totally artificial life in which we are exiledwe hear in deep emotion the voice of our mother. While we were stillonly children of nature we were happy, we were perfect: we have becomefree, and we have lost both advantages. Hence a twofold and very unequallonging for nature: the longing for happiness and the longing for theperfection that prevails there. Man, as a sensuous being, deploressensibly the loss of the former of these goods; it is only the moral manwho can be afflicted at the loss of the other. 

Therefore, let the man with a sensible heart and a loving nature questionhimself closely. Is it your indolence that longs for its repose, or yourwounded moral sense that longs for its harmony? Ask yourself well, when, disgusted with the artifices, offended by the abuses that you discover insocial life, you feel yourself attracted towards inanimate nature, in themidst of solitude ask yourself what impels you to fly the world. Is itthe privation from which you suffer, its loads, its troubles? or is itthe moral anarchy, the caprice, the disorder that prevail there? Yourheart ought to plunge into these troubles with joy, and to find in themthe compensation in the liberty of which they are the consequence. Youcan, I admit, propose as your aim, in a distant future, the calm and thehappiness of nature; but only that sort of happiness which is the rewardof your dignity. Thus, then, let there be no more complaint about theloads of life, the inequality of conditions, or the hampering of socialrelations, or the uncertainty of possession, ingratitude, oppression, andpersecution. You must submit to all these evils of civilization with afree resignation; it is the natural condition of good, par excellence, ofthe only good, and you ought to respect it under this head. In all theseevils you ought only to deplore what is morally evil in them, and youmust do so not with cowardly tears only. Rather watch to remain pureyourself in the midst of these impurities, free amidst this slavery, constant with yourself in the midst of these capricious changes, afaithful observer of the law amidst this anarchy. Be not frightened atthe disorder that is without you, but at the disorder which is within;aspire after unity, but seek it not in uniformity; aspire after repose, but through equilibrium, and not by suspending the action of yourfaculties. This nature which you envy in the being destitute of reasondeserves no esteem: it is not worth a wish. You have passed beyond it;it ought to remain for ever behind you. The ladder that carried youhaving given way under your foot, the only thing for you to do is toseize again on the moral law freely, with a free consciousness, a freewill, or else to roll down, hopeless of safety, into a bottomless abyss. 

But when you have consoled yourself for having lost the happiness ofnature, let its perfection be a model to your heart. If you can issuefrom the circle in which art keeps you enclosed and find nature again, ifit shows itself to you in its greatness and in its calm, in its simplebeauty, in its childlike innocence and simplicity, oh! then pause beforeits image, cultivate this feeling lovingly. It is worthy of you, and ofwhat is noblest in man. Let it no more come into your mind to changewith it; rather embrace it, absorb it into your being, and try toassociate the infinite advantage it has over you with that infiniteprerogative that is peculiar to you, and let the divine issue from thissublime union. Let nature breathe around you like a lovely idyl, wherefar from artifice and its wanderings you may always find yourself again, where you may go to draw fresh courage, a new confidence, to resume yourcourse, and kindle again in your heart the flame of the ideal, so readilyextinguished amidst the tempests of life. 

If we think of that beautiful nature which surrounded the ancient Greeks, if we remember how intimately that people, under its blessed sky, couldlive with that free nature; how their mode of imagining, and of feeling, and their manners, approached far nearer than ours to the simplicity ofnature, how faithfully the works of their poets express this; we mustnecessarily remark, as a strange fact, that so few traces are met amongthem of that sentimental interest that we moderns ever take in the scenesof nature and in natural characters. I admit that the Greeks aresuperiorly exact and faithful in their descriptions of nature. Theyreproduce their details with care, but we see that they take no moreinterest in them and more heart in them than in describing a vestment, ashield, armor, a piece of furniture, or any production of the mechanicalarts. In their love for the object it seems that they make no differencebetween what exists in itself and what owes its existence to art, to thehuman will. It seems that nature interests their minds and theircuriosity more than moral feeling. They do not attach themselves to itwith that depth of feeling, with that gentle melancholy, thatcharacterize the moderns. Nay, more, by personifying nature in itsparticular phenomena, by deifying it, by representing its effects as theacts of free being, they take from it that character of calm necessitywhich is precisely what makes it so attractive to us. Their impatientimagination only traverses nature to pass beyond it to the drama of humanlife. It only takes pleasure in the spectacle of what is living andfree; it requires characters, acts, the accidents of fortune and ofmanners; and whilst it happens with us, at least in certain moraldispositions, to curse our prerogative, this free will, which exposes usto so many combats with ourselves, to so many anxieties and errors, andto wish to exchange it for the condition of beings destitute of reason, for that fatal existence that no longer admits of any choice, but whichis so calm in its uniformity;--while we do this, the Greeks, on thecontrary, only have their imagination occupied in retracing human naturein the inanimate world, and in giving to the will an influence whereblind necessity rules. 

Whence can arise this difference between the spirit of the ancients andthe modern spirit? How comes it that, being, for all that relates tonature, incomparably below the ancients, we are superior to themprecisely on this point, that we render a more complete homage to nature;that we have a closer attachment to it; and that we are capable ofembracing even the inanimate world with the most ardent sensibility. Itis because nature, in our time, is no longer in man, and that we nolonger encounter it in its primitive truth, except out of humanity, inthe inanimate world. It is not because we are more conformable tonature--quite the contrary; it is because in our social relations, in ourmode of existence, in our manners, we are in opposition with nature. This is what leads us, when the instinct of truth and of simplicity isawakened--this instinct which, like the moral aptitude from which itproceeds, lives incorruptible and indelible in every human heart--toprocure for it in the physical world the satisfaction which there is nohope of finding in the moral order. This is the reason why the feelingthat attaches us to nature is connected so closely with that which makesus regret our infancy, forever flown, and our primitive innocence. Ourchildhood is all that remains of nature in humanity, such as civilizationhas made it, of untouched, unmutilated nature. It is, therefore, notwonderful, when we meet out of us the impress of nature, that we arealways brought back to the idea of our childhood. 

It was quite different with the Greeks in antiquity. Civilization withthem did not degenerate, nor was it carried to such an excess that it wasnecessary to break with nature. The entire structure of their sociallife reposed on feelings, and not on a factitious conception, on a workof art. Their very theology was the inspiration of a simple spirit, thefruit of a joyous imagination, and not, like the ecclesiastical dogmas ofmodern nations, subtle combinations of the understanding. Since, therefore, the Greeks had not lost sight of nature in humanity, they hadno reason, when meeting it out of man, to be surprised at theirdiscovery, and they would not feel very imperiously the need of objectsin which nature could be retraced. In accord with themselves, happy infeeling themselves men, they would of necessity keep to humanity as towhat was greatest to them, and they must needs try to make all the restapproach it; while we, who are not in accord with ourselves--we who arediscontented with the experience we have made of our humanity--have nomore pressing interest than to fly out of it and to remove from our sighta so ill-fashioned form. The feeling of which we are treating here is, therefore, not that which was known by the ancients; it approaches farmore nearly that which we ourselves experience for the ancients. Theancients felt naturally; we, on our part, feel what is natural. It wascertainly a very different inspiration that filled the soul of Homer, when he depicted his divine cowherd [Dios uphorbos, "Odyssey, " xiv. 413, etc. ] giving hospitality to Ulysses, from that which agitated the soul ofthe young Werther at the moment when he read the "Odyssey" [Werther, May26, June 21, August 28, May 9, etc. ] on issuing from an assembly in whichhe had only found tedium. The feeling we experience for nature resemblesthat of a sick man for health. 

As soon as nature gradually vanishes from human life--that is, inproportion as it ceases to be experienced as a subject (active andpassive)--we see it dawn and increase in the poetical world in the guiseof an idea and as an object. The people who have carried farthest thewant of nature, and at the same time the reflections on that matter, mustneeds have been the people who at the same time were most struck withthis phenomenon of the simple, and gave it a name. If I am not mistaken, this people was the French. But the feeling of the simple, and theinterest we take in it, must naturally go much farther back, and it datesfrom the time when the moral sense and the aesthetical sense began to becorrupt. This modification in the manner of feeling is exceedinglystriking in Euripides, for example, if compared with his predecessors, especially Aeschylus; and yet Euripides was the favorite poet of histime. The same revolution is perceptible in the ancient historians. Horace, the poet of a cultivated and corrupt epoch, praises, under theshady groves of Tibur, the calm and happiness of the country, and hemight be termed the true founder of this sentimental poetry, of which hehas remained the unsurpassed model. In Propertius, Virgil, and others, we find also traces of this mode of feeling; less of it is found in Ovid, who would have required for that more abundance of heart, and who in hisexile at Tomes sorrowfully regrets the happiness that Horace so readilydispensed with in his villa at Tibur. 

It is in the fundamental idea of poetry that the poet is everywhere theguardian of nature. When he can no longer entirely fill this part, andhas already in himself suffered the deleterious influence of arbitraryand factitious forms, or has had to struggle against this influence, hepresents himself as the witness of nature and as its avenger. The poetwill, therefore, be the expression of nature itself, or his part will beto seek it, if men have lost sight of it. Hence arise two kinds ofpoetry, which embrace and exhaust the entire field of poetry. All poets--I mean those who are really so--will belong, according to the time whenthey flourish, according to the accidental circumstances that haveinfluenced their education generally, and the different dispositions ofmind through which they pass, will belong, I say, to the order of thesentimental poetry or to simple poetry. 

The poet of a young world, simple and inspired, as also the poet who atan epoch of artificial civilization approaches nearest to the primitivebards, is austere and prudish, like the virginal Diana in her forests. Wholly unconfiding, he hides himself from the heart that seeks him, fromthe desire that wishes to embrace him. It is not rare for the dry truthwith which he treats his subject to resemble insensibility. The wholeobject possesses him, and to reach his heart it does not suffice, as withmetals of little value, to stir up the surface; as with pure gold, youmust go down to the lowest depths. Like the Deity behind this universe, the simple poet hides himself behind his work; he is himself his work, and his work is himself. A man must be no longer worthy of the work, norunderstand it, or be tired of it, to be even anxious to learn who is itsauthor. 

Such appears to us, for instance, Homer in antiquity, and Shakespeareamong moderns: two natures infinitely different and separated in time byan abyss, but perfectly identical as to this trait of character. When, at a very youthful age, I became first acquainted with Shakespeare, I wasdispleased with his coldness, with his insensibility, which allows him tojest even in the most pathetic moments, to disturb the impression of themost harrowing scenes in "Hamlet, " in "King Lear, " and in "Macbeth, "etc. , by mixing with them the buffooneries of a madman. I was revoltedby his insensibility, which allowed him to pause sometimes at placeswhere my sensibility would bid me hasten and bear me along, and whichsometimes carried him away with indifference when my heart would be sohappy to pause. Though I was accustomed, by the practice of modernpoets, to seek at once the poet in his works, to meet his heart, toreflect with him in his theme--in a word, to see the object in thesubject--I could not bear that the poet could in Shakespeare never beseized, that he would never give me an account of himself. For someyears Shakespeare had been the object of my study and of all my respectbefore I had learned to love his personality. I was not yet able tocomprehend nature at first hand. All that my eyes could bear was itsimage only, reflected by the understanding and arranged by rules: and onthis score the sentimental poetry of the French, or that of the Germansof 1750 to 1780, was what suited me best. For the rest, I do not blushat this childish judgment: adult critics pronounced in that day in thesame way, and carried their simplicity so far as to publish theirdecisions to the world. 

The same thing happened to me in the case of Homer, with whom I madeacquaintance at a later date. I remember now that remarkable passage ofthe sixth book of the "Iliad, " where Glaucus and Diomed meet each otherin the strife, and then, recognizing each other as host and guest, exchange presents. With this touching picture of the piety with whichthe laws of hospitality were observed even in war, may be compared apicture of chivalrous generosity in Ariosto. The knights, rivals inlove, Ferragus and Rinaldo--the former a Saracen, the latter a Christian--after having fought to extremity, all covered with wounds, make peacetogether, and mount the same horse to go and seek the fugitive Angelica. These two examples, however different in other respects, are very similarwith regard to the impression produced on our heart: both represent thenoble victory of moral feeling over passion, and touch us by thesimplicity of feeling displayed in them. But what a difference in theway in which the two poets go to work to describe two such analogousscenes! Ariosto, who belongs to an advanced epoch, to a world wheresimplicity of manners no longer existed, in relating this trait, cannotconceal the astonishment, the admiration, he feels at it. He measuresthe distance from those manners to the manners of his own age, and thisfeeling of astonishment is too strong for him. He abandons suddenly thepainting of the object, and comes himself on the scene in person. Thisbeautiful stanza is well known, and has been always specially admired atall times:--

"Oh nobleness, oh generosity of the ancient manners of chivalry! Thesewere rivals, separated by their faith, suffering bitter pain throughouttheir frames in consequence of a desperate combat; and, without anysuspicion, behold them riding in company along dark and winding paths. Stimulated by four spurs, the horse hastens his pace till they arrive atthe place where the road divides. " ["Orlando Furioso, " canto i. , stanza32. ]

Now let us turn to old Homer. Scarcely has Diomed learned by the storyof Glaucus, his adversary, that the latter has been, from the time oftheir fathers, the host and friend of his family, when he drives hislance into the ground, converses familiarly with him, and both agreehenceforth to avoid each other in the strife. But let us hear Homerhimself:--

"'Thus, then, I am for thee a faithful host in Argos, and thou to me inLycia, when I shall visit that country. We shall, therefore, avoid ourlances meeting in the strife. Are there not for me other Trojans orbrave allies to kill when a god shall offer them to me and my steps shallreach them? And for thee, Glaucus, are there not enough Achaeans, thatthou mayest immolate whom thou wishest? But let us exchange our arms, inorder that others may also see that we boast of having been hosts andguests at the time of our fathers. ' Thus they spoke, and, rushing fromtheir chariots, they seized each other's hands, and swore friendship theone to the other. " [Pope's "Iliad, " vi. 264-287. ]

It would have been difficult for a modern poet (at least to one who wouldbe modern in the moral sense of the term) even to wait as long as thisbefore expressing his joy in the presence of such an action. We shouldpardon this in him the more easily, because we also, in reading it, feelthat our heart makes a pause here, and readily turns aside from theobject to bring back its thoughts on itself. But there is not the leasttrace of this in Homer. As if he had been relating something that isseen everyday--nay, more, as if he had no heart beating in his breast--hecontinues, with his dry truthfulness:--

"Then the son of Saturn blinded Glaucus, who, exchanging his armor withDiomed, gave him golden arms of the value of one hecatomb, for brass armsonly worth nine beeves. " ["Iliad, " vi. 234-236. ]

The poets of this order, --the genuinely simple poets, are scarcely anylonger in their place in this artificial age. Accordingly they arescarcely possible in it, or at least they are only possible on thecondition of traversing their age, like scared persons, at a runningpace, and of being preserved by a happy star from the influence of theirage, which would mutilate their genius. Never, for ay and forever, willsociety produce these poets; but out of society they still appearsometimes at intervals, rather, I admit, as strangers, who excite wonder, or as ill-trained children of nature, who give offence. Theseapparitions, so very comforting for the artist who studies them, and forthe real connoisseur, who knows how to appreciate them, are, as a generalconclusion, in the age when they are begotten, to a very small degreepreposterous. The seal of empire is stamped on their brow, and we, --weask the Muses to cradle us, to carry us in their arms. The critics, asregular constables of art, detest these poets as disturbers of rules orof limits. Homer himself may have been only indebted to the testimony often centuries for the reward these aristarchs are kindly willing toconcede him. Moreover, they find it a hard matter to maintain theirrules against his example, or his authority against their rules. 

SENTIMENTAL POETRY. 

I have previously remarked that the poet is nature, or he seeks nature. In the former case, he is a simple poet, in the second case, asentimental poet. 

The poetic spirit is immortal, nor can it disappear from humanity; it canonly disappear with humanity itself, or with the aptitude to be a man, ahuman being. And actually, though man by the freedom of his imaginationand of his understanding departs from simplicity, from truth, from thenecessity of nature, not only a road always remains open to him to returnto it, but, moreover, a powerful and indestructible instinct, the moralinstinct, brings him incessantly back to nature; and it is precisely thepoetical faculty that is united to this instinct by the ties of theclosest relationship. Thus man does not lose the poetic faculty directlyhe parts with the simplicity of nature; only this faculty acts out of himin another direction. 

Even at present nature is the only flame that kindles and warms thepoetic soul. From nature alone it obtains all its force; to nature aloneit speaks in the artificial culture-seeking man. Any other form ofdisplaying its activity is remote from the poetic spirit. Accordingly itmay be remarked that it is incorrect to apply the expression poetic toany of the so-styled productions of wit, though the high credit given toFrench literature has led people for a long period to class them in thatcategory. I repeat that at present, even in the existing phase ofculture, it is still nature that powerfully stirs up the poetic spirit, only its present relation to nature is of a different order fromformerly. 

As long as man dwells in a state of pure nature (I mean pure and notcoarse nature), all his being acts at once like a simple sensuous unity, like a harmonious whole. The senses and reason, the receptive facultyand the spontaneously active faculty, have not been as yet separated intheir respective functions: a fortiori they are not yet in contradictionwith each other. Then the feelings of man are not the formless play ofchance; nor are his thoughts an empty play of the imagination, withoutany value. His feelings proceed from the law of necessity; his thoughtsfrom reality. But when man enters the state of civilization, and art hasfashioned him, this sensuous harmony which was in him disappears, andhenceforth he can only manifest himself as a moral unity, that is, asaspiring to unity. The harmony that existed as a fact in the formerstate, the harmony of feeling and thought, only exists now in an idealstate. It is no longer in him, but out of him; it is a conception ofthought which he must begin by realizing in himself; it is no longer afact, a reality of his life. Well, now let us take the idea of poetry, which is nothing else than expressing humanity as completely as possible, and let us apply this idea to these two states. We shall be brought toinfer that, on the one hand, in the state of natural simplicity, when allthe faculties of man are exerted together, his being still manifestsitself in a harmonious unity, where, consequently, the totality of hisnature expresses itself in reality itself, the part of the poet isnecessarily to imitate the real as completely as is possible. In thestate of civilization, on the contrary, when this harmonious competitionof the whole of human nature is no longer anything but an idea, the partof the poet is necessarily to raise reality to the ideal, or, whatamounts to the same thing, to represent the ideal. And, actually, theseare the only two ways in which, in general, the poetic genius canmanifest itself. Their great difference is quite evident, but thoughthere be great opposition between them, a higher idea exists thatembraces both, and there is no cause to be astonished if this ideacoincides with the very idea of humanity. 

This is not the place to pursue this thought any further, as it wouldrequire a separate discussion to place it in its full light. But if weonly compare the modern and ancient poets together, not according to theaccidental forms which they may have employed, but according to theirspirit, we shall be easily convinced of the truth of this thought. Thething that touches us in the ancient poets is nature; it is the truth ofsense, it is a present and a living reality modern poets touch us throughthe medium of ideas. 

The path followed by modern poets is moreover that necessarily followedby man generally, individuals as well as the species. Nature reconcilesman with himself; art divides and disunites him; the ideal brings himback to unity. Now, the ideal being an infinite that he never succeedsin reaching, it follows that civilized man can never become perfect inhis kind, while the man of nature can become so in his. Accordingly inrelation to perfection one would be infinitely below the other, if weonly considered the relation in which they are both to their own kind andto their maximum. If, on the other hand, it is the kinds that arecompared together, it is ascertained that the end to which man tends bycivilization is infinitely superior to that which he reaches throughnature. Thus one has his reward, because having for object a finitemagnitude, he completely reaches this object; the merit of the other isto approach an object that is of infinite magnitude. Now, as there areonly degrees, and as there is only progress in the second of theseevolutions, it follows that the relative merit of the man engaged in theways of civilization is never determinable in general, though this man, taking the individuals separately, is necessarily at a disadvantage, compared with the man in whom nature acts in all its perfection. But weknow also that humanity cannot reach its final end except by progress, and that the man of nature cannot make progress save through culture, andconsequently by passing himself through the way of civilization. Accordingly there is no occasion to ask with which of the two theadvantage must remain, considering this last end. 

All that we say here of the different forms of humanity may be appliedequally to the two orders of poets who correspond to them. 

Accordingly it would have been desirable not to compare at all theancient and the modern poets, the simple and the sentimental poets, oronly to compare them by referring them to a higher idea (since there isreally only one) which embraces both. For, sooth to say, if we begin byforming a specific idea of poetry, merely from the ancient poets, nothingis easier, but also nothing is more vulgar, than to depreciate themoderns by this comparison. If persons wish to confine the name ofpoetry to that which has in all times produced the same impression insimple nature, this places them in the necessity of contesting the titleof poet in the moderns precisely in that which constitutes their highestbeauties, their greatest originality and sublimity; for precisely in thepoints where they excel the most, it is the child of civilization whomthey address, and they have nothing to say to the simple child of nature. 

To the man who is not disposed beforehand to issue from reality in orderto enter the field of the ideal, the richest and most substantial poetryis an empty appearance, and the sublimest flights of poetic inspirationare an exaggeration. Never will a reasonable man think of placingalongside Homer, in his grandest episodes, any of our modern poets; andit has a discordant and ridiculous effect to hear Milton or Klopstockhonored with the name of a "new Homer. " But take in modern poets whatcharacterizes them, what makes their special merit, and try to compareany ancient poet with them in this point, they will not be able tosupport the comparison any better, and Homer less than any other. Ishould express it thus: the power of the ancients consists in compressingobjects into the finite, and the moderns excel in the art of theinfinite. 

What we have said here may be extended to the fine arts in general, except certain restrictions that are self-evident. If, then, thestrength of the artists of antiquity consists in determining and limitingobjects, we must no longer wonder that in the field of the plastic artsthe ancients remain so far superior to the moderns, nor especially thatpoetry and the plastic arts with the moderns, compared respectively withwhat they were among the ancients, do not offer the same relative value. This is because an object that addresses itself to the eyes is onlyperfect in proportion as the object is clearly limited in it; whilst awork that is addressed to the imagination can also reach the perfectionwhich is proper to it by means of the ideal and the infinite. This iswhy the superiority of the moderns in what relates to ideas is not ofgreat aid to them in the plastic arts, where it is necessary for them todetermine in space, with the greatest precision, the image which theirimagination has conceived, and where they must therefore measurethemselves with the ancient artist just on a point where his superioritycannot be contested. In the matter of poetry it is another affair, andif the advantage is still with the ancients on that ground, as respectsthe simplicity of forms--all that can be represented by sensuousfeatures, all that is something bodily--yet, on the other hand, themoderns have the advantage over the ancients as regards fundamentalwealth, and all that can neither be represented nor translated bysensuous signs, in short, for all that is called mind and idea in theworks of art. 

From the moment that the simple poet is content to follow simple natureand feeling, that he is contented with the imitation of the real world, he can only be placed, with regard to his subject, in a single relation. And in this respect he has no choice as to the manner of treating it. Ifsimple poetry produces different impressions--I do not, of course, speakof the impressions that are connected with the nature of the subject, butonly of those that are dependent on poetic execution--the wholedifference is in the degree; there is only one way of feeling, whichvaries from more to less; even the diversity of external forms changesnothing in the quality of aesthetic impressions. Whether the form belyric or epic, dramatic or descriptive, we can receive an impressioneither stronger or weaker, but if we remove what is connected with thenature of the subject, we shall always be affected in the same way. Thefeeling we experience is absolutely identical; it proceeds entirely fromone single and the same element to such a degree that we are unable tomake any distinction. The very difference of tongues and that of timesdoes not here occasion any diversity, for their strict unity of originand of effect is precisely a characteristic of simple poetry. 

It is quite different with sentimental poetry. The sentimental poetreflects on the impression produced on him by objects; and it is only onthis reflection that his poetic force is based. It follows that thesentimental poet is always concerned with two opposite forces, has twomodes of representing objects to himself, and of feeling them; these are, the real or limited, and the ideal or infinite; and the mixed feelingthat he will awaken will always testify to this duality of origin. Sentimental poetry thus admitting more than one principle, it remains toknow which of the two will be predominant in the poet, both in hisfashion of feeling and in that of representing the object; andconsequently a difference in the mode of treating it is possible. Here, then, a new subject is presented: shall the poet attach himself to thereal or the ideal? to the real as an object of aversion and of disgust, or to the ideal as an object of inclination? The poet will therefore beable to treat the same subject either in its satirical aspect or in itselegiac aspect, --taking these words in a larger sense, which will beexplained in the sequel: every sentimental poet will of necessity becomeattached to one or the other of these two modes of feeling. 

SATIRICAL POETRY. 

The poet is a satirist when he takes as subject the distance at whichthings are from nature, and the contrast between reality and the ideal:as regards the impression received by the soul, these two subjects blendinto the same. In the execution, he may place earnestness and passion, or jests and levity, according as he takes pleasure in the domain of thewill or in that of the understanding. In the former case it is avengingand pathetic satire; in the second case it is sportive, humorous, andmirthful satire. 

Properly speaking, the object of poetry is not compatible either with thetone of punishment or that of amusement. The former is too grave forplay, which should be the main feature of poetry; the latter is tootrifling for seriousness, which should form the basis of all poetic play. Our mind is necessarily interested in moral contradictions, and thesedeprive the mind of its liberty. Nevertheless, all personal interest, and reference to a personal necessity, should be banished from poeticfeeling. But mental contradictions do not touch the heart, neverthelessthe poet deals with the highest interests of the heart--nature and theideal. Accordingly it is a hard matter for him not to violate the poeticform in pathetic satire, because this form consists in the liberty ofmovement; and in sportive satire he is very apt to miss the true spiritof poetry, which ought to be the infinite. The problem can only besolved in one way: by the pathetic satire assuming the character of thesublime, and the playful satire acquiring poetic substance by envelopingthe theme in beauty. 

In satire, the real as imperfection is opposed to the ideal, consideredas the highest reality. In other respects it is by no means essentialthat the ideal should be expressly represented, provided the poet knowshow to awaken it in our souls, but he must in all cases awaken it, otherwise he will exert absolutely no poetic action. Thus reality ishere a necessary object of aversion; but it is also necessary, for thewhole question centres here, that this aversion should come necessarilyfrom the ideal, which is opposed to reality. To make this clear--thisaversion might proceed from a purely sensuous source, and repose only ona want of which the satisfaction finds obstacles in the real. How often, in fact, we think we feel, against society a moral discontent, while weare simply soured by the obstacles that it opposes to our inclination. It is this entirely material interest that the vulgar satirist bringsinto play; and as by this road he never fails to call forth in usmovements connected with the affections, he fancies that he holds ourheart in his hand, and thinks he has graduated in the pathetic. But allpathos derived from this source is unworthy of poetry, which ought onlyto move us through the medium of ideas, and reach our heart only bypassing through the reason. Moreover, this impure and material pathoswill never have its effect on minds, except by over-exciting theaffective faculties and by occupying our hearts with painful feelings; inthis it differs entirely from the truly poetic pathos, which raises in usthe feeling of moral independence, and which is recognized by the freedomof our mind persisting in it even while it is in the state of affection. And, in fact, when the emotion emanates from the ideal opposed to thereal, the sublime beauty of the ideal corrects all impression ofrestraint; and the grandeur of the idea with which we are imbued raisesus above all the limits of experience. Thus in the representation ofsome revolting reality, the essential thing is that the necessary be thefoundation on which the poet or the narrator places the real: that heknow how to dispose our mind for ideas. Provided the point from which wesee and judge be elevated, it matters little if the object be low and farbeneath us. When the historian Tacitus depicts the profound decadence ofthe Romans of the first century, it is a great soul which from a loftierposition lets his looks drop down on a low object; and the disposition inwhich he places us is truly poetic, because it is the height where he ishimself placed, and where he has succeeded in raising us, which alonerenders so perceptible the baseness of the object. 

Accordingly the satire of pathos must always issue from a mind deeplyimbued with the ideal. It is nothing but an impulsion towards harmonythat can give rise to that deep feeling of moral opposition and thatardent indignation against moral obliquity which amounted to the fulnessof enthusiasm in Juvenal, Swift, Rousseau, Haller, and others. Thesesame poets would have succeeded equally well in forms of poetry relatingto all that is tender and touching in feeling, and it was only theaccidents of life in their early days that diverted their minds intoother walks. Nay, some amongst them actually tried their handsuccessfully in these other branches of poetry. The poets whose nameshave been just mentioned lived either at a period of degeneracy, and hadscenes of painful moral obliquity presented to their view, or personaltroubles had combined to fill their souls with bitter feelings. Thestrictly austere spirit in which Rousseau, Haller, and others paintreality is a natural result, moreover, of the philosophical mind, whenwith rigid adherence to laws of thought it separates the mere phenomenonfrom the substance of things. Yet these outer and contingent influences, which always put restraint on the mind, should never be allowed to domore than decide the direction taken by enthusiasm, nor should they evergive the material for it. The substance ought always to remainunchanged, emancipated from all external motion or stimulus, and it oughtto issue from an ardent impulsion towards the ideal, which forms the onlytrue motive that can be put forth for satirical poetry, and indeed forall sentimental poetry. 

While the satire of pathos is only adapted to elevated minds, playfulsatire can only be adequately represented by a heart imbued with beauty. The former is preserved from triviality by the serious nature of thetheme; but the latter, whose proper sphere is confined to the treatmentof subjects of morally unimportant nature, would infallibly adopt theform of frivolity, and be deprived of all poetic dignity, were it notthat the substance is ennobled by the form, and did not the personaldignity of the poet compensate for the insignificance of the subject. Now, it is only given to mind imbued with beauty to impress itscharacter, its entire image, on each of its manifestations, independentlyof the object of its manifestations. A sublime soul can only make itselfknown as such by single victories over the rebellion of the senses, onlyin certain moments of exaltation, and by efforts of short duration. In amind imbued with beauty, on the contrary, the ideal acts in the samemanner as nature, and therefore continuously; accordingly it can manifestitself in it in a state of repose. The deep sea never appears moresublime than when it is agitated; the true beauty of a clear stream is inits peaceful course. 

The question has often been raised as to the comparative preference to beawarded to tragedy or comedy. If the question is confined merely totheir respective themes, it is certain that tragedy has the advantage. But if our inquiry be directed to ascertain which has the more importantpersonality, it is probable that a decision may be given in favor ofcomedy. In tragedy the theme in itself does great things; in comedy theobject does nothing and the poet all. Now, as in the judgments of tasteno account must be kept of the matter treated of, it follows naturallythat the aesthetic value of these two kinds will be in an inverse ratioto the proper importance of their themes. 

The tragic poet is supported by the theme, while the comic poet, on thecontrary, has to keep up the aesthetic character of his theme by his ownindividual influence. The former may soar, which is not a very difficultmatter, but the latter has to remain one and the same in tone; he has tobe in the elevated region of art, where he must be at home, but where thetragic poet has to be projected and elevated by a bound. And this isprecisely what distinguishes a soul of beauty from a sublime soul. Asoul of beauty bears in itself by anticipation all great ideas; they flowwithout constraint and without difficulty from its very nature--aninfinite nature, at least in potency, at whatever point of its career youseize it. A sublime soul can rise to all kinds of greatness, but by aneffort; it can tear itself from all bondage, to all that limits andconstrains it, but only by strength of will. Consequently the sublimesoul is only free by broken efforts; the other with ease and always. 

The noble task of comedy is to produce and keep up in us this freedom ofmind, just as the end of tragedy is to re-establish in us this freedom ofmind by aesthetic ways, when it has been violently suspended by passion. Consequently it is necessary that in tragedy the poet, as if he made anexperiment, should artificially suspend our freedom of mind, sincetragedy shows its poetic virtue by re-establishing it; in comedy, on theother hand, care must be taken that things never reach this suspension offreedom. 

It is for this reason that the tragic poet invariably treats his theme ina practical manner, and the comic poet in a theoretic manner, even whenthe former, as happened with Lessing in his "Nathan, " should have thecurious fancy to select a theoretical, and the latter should have that ofchoosing a practical subject. A piece is constituted a tragedy or acomedy not by the sphere from which the theme is taken, but by thetribunal before which it is judged. A tragic poet ought never to indulgein tranquil reasoning, and ought always to gain the interest of theheart; but the comic poet ought to shun the pathetic and bring into playthe understanding. The former displays his art by creating continualexcitement, the latter by perpetually subduing his passion; and it isnatural that the art in both cases should acquire magnitude and strengthin proportion as the theme of one poet is abstract and that of the otherpathetic in character. Accordingly, if tragedy sets out from a moreexalted place, it must be allowed, on the other hand, that comedy aims ata more important end; and if this end could be actually attained it wouldmake all tragedy not only unnecessary, but impossible. The aim thatcomedy has in view is the same as that of the highest destiny of man, andthis consists in liberating himself from the influence of violentpassions, and taking a calm and lucid survey of all that surrounds him, and also of his own being, and of seeing everywhere occurrence ratherthan fate or hazard, and ultimately rather smiling at the absurditiesthan shedding tears and feeling anger at sight of the wickedness of man. 

It frequently happens in human life that facility of imagination, agreeable talents, a good-natured mirthfulness are taken for ornaments ofthe mind. The same fact is discerned in the case of poetical displays. 

Now, public taste scarcely if ever soars above the sphere of theagreeable, and authors gifted with this sort of elegance of mind andstyle do not find it a difficult matter to usurp a glory which is orought to be the reward of so much real labor. Nevertheless, aninfallible text exists to enable us to discriminate a natural facility ofmanner from ideal gentleness, and qualities that consist in nothing morethan natural virtue from genuine moral worth of character. This test ispresented by trials such as those presented by difficulty and eventsoffering great opportunities. Placed in positions of this kind, thegenius whose essence is elegance is sure infallibly to fall intoplatitudes, and that virtue which only results from natural causes dropsdown to a material sphere. But a mind imbued with true and spiritualbeauty is in cases of the kind we have supposed sure to be elevated tothe highest sphere of character and of feeling. So long as Lucian merelyfurnishes absurdity, as in his "Wishes, " in the "Lapithae, " in "JupiterTragoedus, " etc. , he is only a humorist, and gratifies us by his sportivehumor; but he changes character in many passages in his "Nigrinus, " his"Timon, " and his "Alexander, " when his satire directs its shafts againstmoral depravity. Thus he begins in his "Nigrinus" his picture of thedegraded corruption of Rome at that time in this way: "Wretch, why didstthou quit Greece, the sunlight, and that free and happy life? Why didstthou come here into this turmoil of splendid slavery, of service andfestivals, of sycophants, flatterers, poisoners, orphan-robbers, andfalse friends?" It is on such occasions that the poet ought to show thelofty earnestness of soul which has to form the basis of all plays, if apoetical character is to be obtained by them. A serious intention mayeven be detected under the malicious jests with which Lucian andAristophanes pursue Socrates. Their purpose is to avenge truth againstsophistry, and to do combat for an ideal which is not always prominentlyput forward. There can be no doubt that Lucian has justified thischaracter in his Diogenes and Demonax. Again, among modern writers, howgrave and beautiful is the character depicted on all occasions byCervantes in his Don Quixote! How splendid must have been the ideal thatfilled the mind of a poet who created a Tom Jones and a Sophonisba! Howdeeply and strongly our hearts are moved by the jests of Yorick when hepleases! I detect this seriousness also in our own Wieland: even thewanton sportiveness of his humor is elevated and impeded by the goodnessof his heart; it has an influence even on his rhythm; nor does he everlack elastic power, when it is his wish, to raise us up to the mostelevated planes of beauty and of thought. 

The same judgment cannot be pronounced on the satire of Voltaire. Nodoubt, also, in his case, it is the truth and simplicity of nature whichhere and there makes us experience poetic emotions, whether he reallyencounters nature and depicts it in a simple character, as many times inhis "Ingenu;" or whether he seeks it and avenges it as in his "Candide"and elsewhere. But when neither one nor the other takes place, he candoubtless amuse us with his fine wit, but he assuredly never touches usas a poet. There is always rather too little of the serious under hisraillery, and this is what makes his vocation as poet justly suspicious. You always meet his intelligence only; never his feelings. No ideal canbe detected under this light gauze envelope; scarcely can anythingabsolutely fixed be found under this perpetual movement. His prodigiousdiversity of externals and forms, far from proving anything in favor ofthe inner fulness of his inspiration, rather testifies to the contrary;for he has exhausted all forms without finding a single one on which hehas succeeded in impressing his heart. We are almost driven to fear thatin the case of his rich talent the poverty of heart alone determined hischoice of satire. And how could we otherwise explain the fact that hecould pursue so long a road without ever issuing from its narrow rut?Whatever may be the variety of matter and of external forms, we see theinner form return everywhere with its sterile and eternal uniformity, andin spite of his so productive career, he never accomplished in himselfthe circle of humanity, that circle which we see joyfully traversedthroughout by the satirists previously named. 

ELEGIAC POETRY. 

When the poet opposes nature to art, and the ideal to the real, so thatnature and the ideal form the principal object of his pictures, and thatthe pleasure we take in them is the dominant impression, I call him anelegiac poet. In this kind, as well as in satire, I distinguish twoclasses. Either nature and the ideal are objects of sadness, when one isrepresented as lost to man and the other as unattained; or both areobjects of joy, being represented to us as reality. In the first case itis elegy in the narrower sense of the term; in the second case it is theidyl in its most extended acceptation. 

Indignation in the pathetic and ridicule in mirthful satire areoccasioned by an enthusiasm which the ideal has excited; and thus alsosadness should issue from the same source in elegy. It is this, and thisonly, that gives poetic value to elegy, and any other origin for thisdescription of poetical effusion is entirely beneath the dignity ofpoetry. The elegiac poet seeks after nature, but he strives to find herin her beauty, and not only in her mirth; in her agreement withconception, and not merely in her facile disposition towards therequirements and demands of sense. Melancholy at the privation of joys, complaints at the disappearance of the world's golden age, or at thevanished happiness of youth, affection, etc. , can only become the properthemes for elegiac poetry if those conditions implying peace and calm inthe sphere of the senses can moreover be portrayed as states of moralharmony. On this account I cannot bring myself to regard as poetry thecomplaints of Ovid, which he transmitted from his place of exile by theBlack Sea; nor would they appear so to me however touching and howeverfull of passages of the highest poetry they might be. His suffering istoo devoid of spirit, and nobleness. His lamentations display a want ofstrength and enthusiasm; though they may not reflect the traces of avulgar soul, they display a low and sensuous condition of a noble spiritthat has been trampled into the dust by its hard destiny. If, indeed, wecall to mind that his regrets are directed to Rome, in the Augustan age, we forgive him the pain he suffers; but even Rome in all its splendor, except it be transfigured by the imagination, is a limited greatness, andtherefore a subject unworthy of poetry, which, raised above every traceof the actual, ought only to mourn over what is infinite. 

Thus the object of poetic complaint ought never to be an external object, but only an internal and ideal object; even when it deplores a real loss, it must begin by making it an ideal loss. The proper work of the poetconsists in bringing back the finite object to the proportions of theinfinite. Consequently the external matter of elegy, considered initself, is always indifferent, since poetry can never employ it as itfinds it, and because it is only by what it makes of it that it conferson it a poetic dignity. The elegiac poet seeks nature, but nature as anidea, and in a degree of perfection that it has never reached in reality, although he weeps over this perfection as something that has existed andis now lost. When Ossian speaks to us of the days that are no more, andof the heroes that have disappeared, his imagination has long sincetransformed these pictures represented to him by his memory into a pureideal, and changed these heroes into gods. The different experiences ofsuch or such a life in particular have become extended and confounded inthe universal idea of transitoriness, and the bard, deeply moved, pursuedby the increase of ruin everywhere present, takes his flight towardsheaven, to find there in the course of the sun an emblem of what does notpass away. 

I turn now to the elegiac poets of modern times. Rousseau, whetherconsidered as a poet or a philosopher, always obeys the same tendency; toseek nature or to avenge it by art. According to the state of his heart, whether he prefers to seek nature or to avenge it, we see him at one timeroused by elegiac feelings, at others showing the tone of the satire ofJuneval; and again, as in his Julia, delighting in the sphere of theidyl. His compositions have undoubtedly a poetic value, since theirobject is ideal; only he does not know how to treat it in a poeticfashion. No doubt his serious character prevents him from falling intofrivolity; but this seriousness also does not allow him to rise to poeticplay. Sometimes absorbed by passion, at others by abstractions, heseldom if ever reaches aesthetic freedom, which the poet ought tomaintain in spite of his material before his object, and in which heought to make the reader share. Either he is governed by his sicklysensibility and his impressions become a torture, or the force of thoughtchains down his imagination and destroys by its strictness of reasoningall the grace of his pictures. These two faculties, whose reciprocalinfluence and intimate union are what properly make the poet, are foundin this writer in an uncommon degree, and he only lacks one thing--it isthat the two qualities should manifest themselves actually united; it isthat the proper activity of thought should show itself mixed more withfeeling, and the sensuous more with thought. Accordingly, even in theideal which he has made of human nature, he is too much taken up with thelimits of this nature, and not enough with its capabilities; he alwaysbetrays a want of physical repose rather than want of moral harmony. Hispassionate sensuousness must be blamed when, to finish as quickly aspossible that struggle in humanity which offends him, he prefers to carryman back to the unintelligent uniformity of his primitive condition, rather than see that struggle carried out in the intellectual harmony ofperfect cultivation, when, rather than await the fulfilment of art heprefers not to let it begin; in short, when he prefers to place the aimnearer the earth, and to lower the ideal in order to reach it the soonerand the safer. 

Among the poets of Germany who belong to this class, I shall only mentionhere Haller, Kleist, and Klopstock. The character of their poetry issentimental; it is by the ideal that they touch us, not by sensuousreality; and that not so much because they are themselves nature, asbecause they know how to fill us with enthusiasm for nature. However, what is true in general, as well of these three poets as of everysentimental poet, does not evidently exclude the faculty of moving us, inparticular, by beauties of the simple genus; without this they would notbe poets. I only mean that it is not their proper and dominantcharacteristic to receive the impression of objects with a calm feeling, simple, easy, and to give forth in like manner the impression received. Involuntarily the imagination in them anticipates intuition, andreflection is in play before the sensuous nature has done its function;they shut their eyes and stop their ears to plunge into internalmeditations. Their souls could not be touched by any impression withoutobserving immediately their own movements, without placing before theireyes and outside themselves what takes place in them. It follows fromthis that we never see the object itself, but what the intelligence andreflection of the poet have made of the object; and even if this objectbe the person itself of the poet, even when he wishes to represent to ushis own feelings, we are not informed of his state immediately or atfirst hand; we only see how this state is reflected in his mind and whathe has thought of it in the capacity of spectator of himself. WhenHaller deplores the death of his wife--every one knows this beautifulelegy--and begins in the following manner:--

 "If I must needs sing of thy death, O Marian, what a song it would be! When sighs strive against words, And idea follows fast on idea, " etc. , we feel that this description is strictly true, but we feel also that thepoet does not communicate to us, properly speaking, his feelings, but thethoughts that they suggest to him. Accordingly, the emotion we feel onhearing him is much less vivid! people remark that the poet's mind musthave been singularly cooled down to become thus a spectator of his ownemotion. 

Haller scarcely treated any subjects but the super-sensuous, and part ofthe poems of Klopstock are also of this nature: this choice itselfexcludes them from the simple kind. Accordingly, in order to treat thesesuper-sensuous themes in a poetic fashion, as no body could be given tothem, and they could not be made the objects of sensuous intuition, itwas necessary to make them pass from the finite to the infinite, andraise them to the state of objects of spiritual intuition. In general, it may be said, that it is only in this sense that a didactic poetry canbe conceived without involving contradiction; for, repeating again whathas been so often said, poetry has only two fields, the world of senseand the ideal world, since in the sphere of conceptions, in the world ofthe understanding, it cannot absolutely thrive. I confess that I do notknow as yet any didactic poem, either among the ancients or among themoderns, where the subject is completely brought down to the individual, or purely and completely raised to the ideal. The most common case, inthe most happy essays, is where the two principles are used together; theabstract idea predominates, and the imagination, which ought to reignover the whole domain of poetry, has merely the permission to serve theunderstanding. A didactic poem in which thought itself would be poetic, and would remain so, is a thing which we must still wait to see. 

What we say here of didactic poems in general is true in particular ofthe poems of Haller. The thought itself of these poems is not poetical, but the execution becomes so sometimes, occasionally by the use ofimages, at other times by a flight towards the ideal. It is from thislast quality only that the poems of Haller belong to this class. Energy, depth, a pathetic earnestness--these are the traits that distinguish thispoet. He has in his soul an ideal that enkindles it, and his ardent loveof truth seeks in the peaceful valleys of the Alps that innocence of thefirst ages that the world no longer knows. His complaint is deeplytouching; he retraces in an energetic and almost bitter satire thewanderings of the mind and of the heart, and he lovingly portrays thebeautiful simplicity of nature. Only, in his pictures as well as in hissoul, abstraction prevails too much, and the sensuous is overweighted bythe intellectual. He constantly teaches rather than paints; and even inhis paintings his brush is more energetic than lovable. He is great, bold, full of fire, sublime; but he rarely and perhaps never attains tobeauty. 

For the solidity and depth of ideas, Kleist is far inferior to Haller; inpoint of grace, perhaps, he would have the advantage--if, as happensoccasionally, we did not impute to him as a merit, on the one side, thatwhich really is a want on the other. The sensuous soul of Kleist takesespecial delight at the sight of country scenes and manners; he withdrawsgladly from the vain jingle and rattle of society, and finds in the heartof inanimate nature the harmony and peace that are not offered to him bythe moral world. How touching is his "Aspiration after Repose"! how muchtruth and feeling there is in these verses!--

 "O world, thou art the tomb of true life! Often a generous instinct attracts me to virtue; My heart is sad, a torrent of tears bathes my cheeks But example conquers, and thou, O fire of youth! Soon you dry these noble tears. A true man must live far from men!"

But if the poetic instinct of Kleist leads him thus far away from thenarrow circle of social relations, in solitude, and among the fruitfulinspirations of nature, the image of social life and of its anguishpursues him, and also, alas! its chains. What he flees from he carriesin himself, and what he seeks remains entirely outside him: never can hetriumph over the fatal influence of his time. In vain does he findsufficient flame in his heart and enough energy in his imagination toanimate by painting the cold conceptions of the understanding; coldthought each time kills the living creations of fancy, and reflectiondestroys the secret work of the sensuous nature. His poetry, it must beadmitted, is of as brilliant color and as variegated as the spring hecelebrated in verse; his imagination is vivid and active; but it might besaid that it is more variable than rich, that it sports rather thancreates, that it always goes forward with a changeful gait, rather thanstops to accumulate and mould things into shape. Traits succeed eachother rapidly, with exuberance, but without concentrating to form anindividual, without completing each other to make a living whole, withoutrounding to a form, a figure. Whilst he remains in purely lyricalpoetry, and pauses amidst his landscapes of country life, on the one handthe greater freedom of the lyrical form, and on the other the morearbitrary nature of the subject, prevent us from being struck with thisdefect; in these sorts of works it is in general rather the feelings ofthe poet, than the object in itself, of which we expect the portraiture. But this defect becomes too apparent when he undertakes, as in Cisseisand Paches, or in his Seneca, to represent men and human actions; becausehere the imagination sees itself kept in within certain fixed andnecessary limits, and because here the effect can only be derived fromthe object itself. Kleist becomes poor, tiresome, jejune, andinsupportably frigid; an example full of lessons for those who, withouthaving an inner vocation, aspire to issue from musical poetry, to rise tothe regions of plastic poetry. A spirit of this family, Thomson, haspaid the same penalty to human infirmity. 

In the sentimental kind, and especially in that part of the sentimentalkind which we name elegiac, there are but few modern poets, and stillfewer ancient ones, who can be compared to our Klopstock. Musical poetryhas produced in this poet all that can be attained out of the limits ofthe living form, and out of the sphere of individuality, in the region ofideas. It would, no doubt, be doing him a great injustice to disputeentirely in his case that individual truth and that feeling of life withwhich the simple poet describes his pictures. Many of his odes, manyseparate traits in his dramas, and in his "Messiah, " represent the objectwith a striking truth, and mark the outline admirably; especially, whenthe object is his own heart, he has given evidence on many occasions of agreat natural disposition and of a charming simplicity. I mean only thatit is not in this that the proper force of Klopstock consists, and thatit would not perhaps be right to seek for this throughout his work. Viewed as a production of musical poetry, the "Messiah" is a magnificentwork; but in the light of plastic poetry, where we look for determinedforms and forms determined for the intuition, the "Messiah" leaves muchto be desired. Perhaps in this poem the figures are sufficientlydetermined, but they are not so with intuition in view. It isabstraction alone that created them, and abstraction alone can discernthem. They are excellent types to express ideas, but they are notindividuals nor living figures. With regard to the imagination, whichthe poet ought to address, and which he ought to command by puttingbefore it always perfectly determinate forms, it is left here much toofree to represent as it wishes these men and these angels, thesedivinities and demons, this paradise and this hell. We see quite wellthe vague outlines in which the understanding must be kept to conceivethese personages; but we do not find the limit clearly traced in whichthe imagination must be enclosed to represent them. And what I say hereof characters must apply to all that in this poem is, or ought to be, action and life, and not only in this epopoeia, but also in the dramaticpoetry of Klopstock. For the understanding all is perfectly determinedand bounded in them--I need only here recall his Judas, his Pilate, hisPhilo, his Solomon in the tragedy that bears that name--but for theimagination all this wants form too much, and I must readily confess I donot find that our poet is at all in his sphere here. His sphere isalways the realm of ideas; and he knows how to raise all he touches tothe infinite. It might be said that he strips away their bodilyenvelope, to spiritualize them from all the objects with which he isoccupied, in the same way that other poets clothe all that is spiritualwith a body. The pleasure occasioned by his poems must almost always beobtained by an exercise of the faculty of reflection; the feelings heawakens in us, and that so deeply and energetically, flow always fromsuper-sensuous sources. Hence the earnestness, the strength, theelasticity, the depth, that characterize all that comes from him; butfrom that also issues that perpetual tension of mind in which we are keptwhen reading him. No poet--except perhaps Young, who in this respectexacts even more than Klopstock, without giving us so much compensation--no poet could be less adapted than Klopstock to play the part offavorite author and guide in life, because he never does anything elsethan lead us out of life, because he never calls to arms anything savespirit, without giving recreation and refreshment to sensuous nature bythe calm presence of any object. His muse is chaste, it has nothing ofthe earthly, it is immaterial and holy as his religion; and we are forcedto admit with admiration that if he wanders sometimes on these highplaces, it never happened to him to fall from them. But precisely forthis reason, I confess in all ingenuousness, that I am not free fromanxiety for the common sense of those who quite seriously andunaffectedly make Klopstock the favorite book, the book in which we findsentiments fitting all situations, or to which we may revert at alltimes: perhaps even--and I suspect it--Germany has seen enough results ofhis dangerous influence. It is only in certain dispositions of the mind, and in hours of exaltation, that recourse can be had to Klopstock, andthat he can be felt. It is for this reason that he is the idol of youth, without, however, being by any means the happiest choice that they couldmake. Youth, which always aspires to something beyond real life, whichavoids all stiffness of form, and finds all limits too narrow, letsitself be carried away with love, with delight, into the infinite spacesopened up to them by this poet. But wait till the youth has become aman, and till, from the domain of ideas, he comes back to the world ofexperience, then you will see this enthusiastic love of Klopstockdecrease greatly, without, however, a riper age changing at all theesteem due to this unique phenomenon, to this so extraordinary genius, tothese noble sentiments--the esteem that Germany in particular owes to hishigh merit. 

I have said that this poet was great specially in the elegiac style, andit is scarcely necessary to confirm this judgment by entering intoparticulars. Capable of exercising all kinds of action on the heart, andhaving graduated as master in all that relates to sentimental poetry, hecan sometimes shake the soul by the most sublime pathos, at others cradleit with sweet and heavenly sensations. Yet his heart prefers to followthe direction of a lofty spiritual melancholy; and, however sublime bethe tones of his harp and of his lyre, they are always the tender notesof his lute that resound with most truth and the deepest emotion. I takeas witnesses all those whose nature is pure and sensuous: would they notbe ready to give all the passages where Klopstock is strong, and bold;all those fictions, all the magnificent descriptions, all the models ofeloquence which abound in the "Messiah, " all those dazzling comparisonsin which our poet excels, --would they not exchange them for the pagesbreathing tenderness, the "Elegy to Ebert" for example, or that admirablepoem entitled "Bardalus, " or again, the "Tombs Opened before the Hour, "the "Summer's Night, " the "Lake of Zurich, " and many other pieces of thiskind? In the same way the "Messiah" is dear to me as a treasure ofelegiac feelings and of ideal paintings, though I am not much satisfiedwith it as the recital of an action and as an epic. 

I ought, perhaps, before quitting this department, to recall the meritsin this style of Uz, Denis, Gessner in the "Death of Abel"--Jacobi, Gerstenberg, Hoelty, De Goeckingk, and several others, who all knew howto touch by ideas, and whose poems belong to the sentimental kind in thesense in which we have agreed to understand the word. But my object isnot here to write a history of German poetry; I only wished to clear upwhat I said further back by some examples from our literature. I wishedto show that the ancient and the modern poets, the authors of simplepoetry and of sentimental poetry, follow essentially different paths toarrive at the same end: that the former move by nature, individuality, avery vivid sensuous element; while the latter do it by means of ideas anda high spirituality, exercising over our minds an equally powerful thoughless extensive influence. 

It has been seen, by the examples which precede, how sentimental poetryconceives and treats subjects taken from nature; perhaps the reader maybe curious to know how also simple poetry treats a subject of thesentimental order. This is, as it seems, an entirely new question, andone of special difficulty; for, in the first place, has a subject of thesentimental order ever been presented in primitive and simple periods?And in modern times, where is the simple poet with whom we could makethis experiment? This has not, however, prevented genius from settingthis problem, and solving it in a wonderfully happy way. A poet in whosemind nature works with a purer and more faithful activity than in anyother, and who is perhaps of all modern poets the one who departs theleast from the sensuous truth of things, has proposed this problem tohimself in his conception of a mind, and of the dangerous extreme of thesentimental character. This mind and this character have been portrayedby the modern poet we speak of, a character which with a burningsensuousness embraces the ideal and flies the real, to soar up to aninfinite devoid of being, always occupied in seeking out of himself whathe incessantly destroys in himself; a mind that only finds reality in hisdreams, and to whom the realities of life are only limits and obstacles;in short, a mind that sees only in its own existence a barrier, and goeson, as it were, logically to break down this barrier in order topenetrate to true reality. 

It is interesting to see with what a happy instinct all that is of anature to feed the sentimental mind is gathered together in Werther: adreamy and unhappy love, a very vivid feeling for nature, the religioussense coupled with the spirit of philosophic contemplation, and lastly, to omit nothing, the world of Ossian, dark, formless, melancholy. Add tothis the aspect under which reality is presented, all is depicted whichis least adapted to make it lovable, or rather all that is most fit tomake it hated; see how all external circumstances unite to drive back theunhappy man into his ideal world; and now we understand that it was quiteimpossible for a character thus constituted to save itself, and issuefrom the circle in which it was enclosed. The same contrast reappears inthe "Torquato Tasso" of the same poet, though the characters are verydifferent. Even his last romance presents, like his first, thisopposition between the poetic mind and the common sense of practical men, between the ideal and the real, between the subjective mode and theobjective mode of seeing and representing things; it is the sameopposition, I say, but with what a diversity! Even in "Faust" we stillfind this contrast, rendered, I admit--as the subject required--much morecoarsely on both hands, and materialized. It would be quite worth whileif a psychological explanation were attempted of this character, personified and specified in four such different ways. 

It has been observed further back that a mere disposition to frivolity ofmind, to a merry humor, if a certain fund of the ideal is not joined toit, does not suffice to constitute the vocation of a satirical poet, though this mistake is frequently made. In the same way a meredisposition for tender sentiments, softness of heart, and melancholy donot suffice to constitute a vocation for elegy. I cannot detect the truepoetical talent, either on one side or the other; it wants the essential, I mean the energetic and fruitful principle that ought to enliven thesubject, and produce true beauty. Accordingly the productions of thislatter nature, of the tender nature, do nothing but enervate us; andwithout refreshing the heart, without occupying the mind, they are onlyable to flatter in us the sensuous nature. A constant disposition tothis mode of feeling ends necessarily, in the long run, by weakening thecharacter, and makes it fall into a state of passivity from which nothingreal can issue, either for external or for internal life. People have, therefore, been quite right to persecute by pitiless raillery this fatalmania of sentimentality and of tearful melancholy which possessed Germanyeighteen years since, in consequence of certain excellent works that wereill understood and indiscreetly imitated. People have been right, I say, to combat this perversity, though the indulgence with which men aredisposed to receive the parodies of these elegiac caricatures--that arevery little better themselves--the complaisance shown to bad wit, toheartless satire and spiritless mirth, show clearly enough that this zealagainst false sentimentalism does not issue from quite a pure source. Inthe balance of true taste one cannot weigh more than the other, considering that both here and there is wanting that which forms theaesthetic value of a work of art, the intimate union of spirit withmatter, and the twofold relation of the work with the faculty ofperception as well as with the faculty of the ideal. 

People have turned Siegwart ["Siegwart, " a novel by J. Mailer, publishedat Ulm, 1776] and his convent story into ridicule, and yet the "Travelsinto the South of France" are admired; yet both works have an equal claimto be esteemed in certain respects, and as little to be unreservedlypraised in others. A true, though excessive, sensuousness gives value tothe former of these two romances; a lively and sportive humor, a finewit, recommends the other: but one totally lacks all sobriety of mindthat would befit it, the other lacks all aesthetic dignity. If youconsult experience, one is rather ridiculous; if you think of the ideal, the other is almost contemptible. Now, as true beauty must of necessityaccord both with nature and with the ideal, it is clear that neither theone nor the other of these two romances could pretend to pass for a finework. And notwithstanding all this, it is natural, as I know it by myown experience, that the romance of Thummel should be read with muchpleasure. As a fact it only wounds those requirements which have theirprinciple in the ideal, and which consequently do not exist for thegreater part of readers; requirements that, even in persons of mostdelicate feeling, do not make themselves felt at the moments when we readromances. With regard to the other needs of the mind, and especially tothose of the senses, this book, on the other hand, affords unusualsatisfaction. Accordingly, it must be, and will be so, that this bookwill remain justly one of the favorite works of our age, and of allepochs when men only write aesthetic works to please, and people onlyread to get pleasure. 

But does not poetical literature also offer, even in its classicalmonuments, some analogous examples of injuries inflicted or attemptedagainst the ideal and its superior purity? Are there not some who, bythe gross, sensuous nature of their subject, seem to depart strangelyfrom the spiritualism I here demand of all works of art? If this ispermitted to the poet, the chaste nurseling of the muses, ought it not tobe conceded to the novelist, who is only the half-brother of the poet, and who still touches by so many points? I can the less avoid thisquestion because there are masterpieces, both in the elegiac and in thesatirical kind, where the authors seek and preach up a nature quitedifferent from that I am discussing in this essay, and where they seem todefend it, not so much against bad as against good morals. The naturalconclusion would be either that this sort of poem ought to be rejected, or that, in tracing here the idea of elegiac poetry, we have granted fartoo much to what is arbitrary. 

The question I asked was, whether what was permitted by the poet mightnot be tolerated in a prose narrator too? The answer is contained in thequestion. What is allowed in the poet proves nothing about what must beallowed in one who is not a poet. This tolerancy in fact reposes on thevery idea which we ought to make to ourselves of the poet, and only onthis idea; what in his case is legitimate freedom, is only a licenseworthy of contempt as soon as it no longer takes its source in the ideal, in those high and noble inspirations which make the poet. 

The laws of decency are strangers to innocent nature; the experience ofcorruption alone has given birth to them. But when once this experiencehas been made, and natural innocence has disappeared from manners, theselaws are henceforth sacred laws that man, who has a moral sense, oughtnot to infringe upon. They reign in an artificial world with the sameright that the laws of nature reign in the innocence of primitive ages. But by what characteristic is the poet recognized? Precisely by hissilencing in his soul all that recalls an artificial world, and bycausing nature herself to revive in him with her primitive simplicity. The moment he has done this he is emancipated by this alone from all thelaws by which a depraved heart secures itself against itself. He ispure, he is innocent, and all that is permitted to innocent nature isequally permitted to him. But you who read him or listen to him, if youhave lost your innocence, and if you are incapable of finding it again, even for a moment, in a purifying contact with the poet, it is your ownfault, and not his: why do not you leave him alone? it is not for youthat he has sung!

Here follows, therefore, in what relates to these kinds of freedoms, therules that we can lay down. 

Let us remark in the first place that nature only can justify theselicenses; whence it follows that you could not legitimately take them upof your own choice, nor with a determination of imitating them; the will, in fact, ought always to be directed according to the laws of morality, and on its part all condescending to the sensuous is absolutelyunpardonable. These licenses must, therefore, above all, be simplicity. But how can we be convinced that they are actually simple? We shall holdthem to be so if we see them accompanied and supported by all the othercircumstances which also have their spring of action in nature; fornature can only be recognized by the close and strict consistency, by theunity and uniformity of its effects. It is only a soul that has on alloccasions a horror of all kinds of artifice, and which consequentlyrejects them even where they would be useful--it is only that soul whichwe permit to be emancipated from them when the artificialconventionalities hamper and hinder it. A heart that submits to all theobligations of nature has alone the right to profit also by the libertieswhich it authorizes. All the other feelings of that heart oughtconsequently to bear the stamp of nature: it will be true, simple, free, frank, sensible, and straightforward; all disguise, all cunning, allarbitrary fancy, all egotistical pettiness, will be banished from hischaracter, and you will see no trace of them in his writings. 

Second rule: beautiful nature alone can justify freedoms of this kind;whence it follows that they ought not to be a mere outbreak of theappetites; for all that proceeds exclusively from the wants of sensuousnature is contemptible. It is, therefore, from the totality and thefulness of human nature that these vivid manifestations must also issue. We must find humanity in them. But how can we judge that they proceed infact from our whole nature, and not only from an exclusive and vulgarwant of the sensuous nature? For this purpose it is necessary that weshould see--that they should represent to us--this whole of which theyform a particular feature. This disposition of the mind to experiencethe impressions of the sensuous is in itself an innocent and anindifferent thing. It does not sit well on a man only because of itsbeing common to animals with him; it augurs in him the lack of true andperfect humanity. It only shocks us in the poem because such a workhaving the pretension to please us, the author consequently seems tothink us capable, us also, of this moral infirmity. But when we see inthe man who has let himself be drawn into it by surprise all the othercharacteristics that human nature in general embraces; when we find inthe work where these liberties have been taken the expression of all therealities of human nature, this motive of discontent disappears, and wecan enjoy, without anything changing our joy, this simple expression of atrue and beautiful nature. Consequently this same poet who ventures toallow himself to associate us with feelings so basely human, ought toknow, on the other hand, how to raise us to all that is grand, beautiful, and sublime in our nature. 

We should, therefore, have found there a measure to which we couldsubject the poet with confidence, when he trespasses on the ground ofdecency, and when he does not fear to penetrate as far as that in orderfreely to paint nature. His work is common, base, absolutelyinexcusable, from the moment it is frigid, and from the moment it isempty, because that shows a prejudice, a vulgar necessity, an unhealthyappeal to our appetites. His work, on the other hand, is beautiful andnoble, and we ought to applaud it without any consideration for all theobjections of frigid decency, as soon as we recognize in it simplicity, the alliance of spiritual nature and of the heart. 

Perhaps I shall be told that if we adopt this criterion, most of therecitals of this kind composed by the French, and the best imitationsmade of them in Germany, would not perhaps find their interest in it; andthat it might be the same, at least in part, with many of the productionsof our most intellectual and amiable poets, without even excepting hismasterpieces. I should have nothing to reply to this. The sentenceafter all is anything but new, and I am only justifying the judgmentpronounced long since on this matter by all men of delicate perceptions. But these same principles which, applied to the works of which I havejust spoken, seem perhaps in too strict a spirit, might also be found tooindulgent when applied to some other works. I do not deny, in fact, thatthe same reasons which make me hold to be quite inexcusable the dangerouspictures drawn by the Roman Ovid and the German Ovid, those of Crebillon, of Voltaire, of Marmontel, who pretends to write moral tales!--ofLacroix, and of many others--that these same reasons, I say, reconcile mewith the elegies of the Roman Propertius and of the German Propertius, and even with some of the decried productions of Diderot. This isbecause the former of those works are only witty, prosaic, andvoluptuous, while the others are poetic, human, and simple. 

IDYL. 

It remains for me to say a few words about this third kind of sentimentalpoetry--some few words and no more, for I propose to speak of it atanother time with the developments particularly demanded by the theme. 

This kind of poetry generally presents the idea and description of aninnocent and happy humanity. This innocence and bliss seeming remotefrom the artificial refinements of fashionable society, poets haveremoved the scene of the idyl from crowds of worldly life to the simpleshepherd's cot, and have given it a place in the infancy of humanitybefore the beginning of culture. These limitations are evidentlyaccidental; they do not form the object of the idyl, but are only to beregarded as the most natural means to attain this end. The end iseverywhere to portray man in a state of innocence: which means a state ofharmony and peace with himself and the external world. 

But a state such as this is not merely met with before the dawn ofcivilization; it is also the state to which civilization aspires, as toits last end, if only it obeys a determined tendency in its progress. The idea of a similar state, and the belief of the possible reality ofthis state, is the only thing that can reconcile man with all the evilsto which he is exposed in the path of civilization; and if this idea wereonly a chimera, the complaints of those who accuse civil life and theculture of the intelligence as an evil for which there is nocompensation, and who represent this primitive state of nature that wehave renounced as the real end of humanity--their complaints, I say, would have a perfectly just foundation. It is, therefore, of infiniteimportance for the man engaged in the path of civilization to seeconfirmed in a sensuous manner the belief that this idea can beaccomplished in the world of sense, that this state of innocence can berealized in it; and as real experience, far from keeping up this belief, is rather made incessantly to contradict it, poetry comes here, as inmany other cases, in aid of reason, to cause this idea to pass into thecondition of an intuitive idea, and to realize it in a particular fact. No doubt this innocence of pastoral life is also a poetic idea, and theimagination must already have shown its creative power in that. But theproblem, with this datum, becomes infinitely simpler and easier to solve;and we must not forget that the elements of these pictures alreadyexisted in real life, and that it was only requisite to gather up theseparate traits to form a whole. Under a fine sky, in a primitivesociety, when all the relations are still simple, when science is limitedto so little, nature is easily satisfied, and man only turns to savagerywhen he is tortured by want. All nations that have a history have aparadise, an age of innocence, a golden age. Nay, more than this, everyman has his paradise, his golden age, which he remembers with more orless enthusiasm, according as he is more or less poetical. Thusexperience itself furnishes sufficient traits to this picture which thepastoral idyl executes. But this does not prevent the pastoral idyl fromremaining always a beautiful and an encouraging fiction; and poeticgenius, in retracing these pictures, has really worked in favor of theideal. For, to the man who has once departed from simple nature, and whohas been abandoned to the dangerous guidance of his reason, it is of thegreatest importance to find the laws of nature expressed in a faithfulcopy, to see their image in a clear mirror, and to reject all the stainsof artificial life. There is, however, a circumstance which remarkablylessens the aesthetic value of these sorts of poetry. By the very factthat the idyl is transported to the time that precedes civilization, italso loses the advantages thereof; and by its nature finds itself inopposition to itself. Thus, in a theoretical sense, it takes us back atthe same time that in a practical sense it leads us on and ennobles us. Unhappily it places behind us the end towards which it ought to lead us, and consequently it can only inspire us with the sad feeling of a loss, and not the joyous feeling of a hope. As these poems can only attaintheir end by dispensing with all art, and by simplifying human nature, they have the highest value for the heart, but they are also far too poorfor what concerns the mind, and their uniform circle is too quicklytraversed. Accordingly we can only seek them and love them in moments inwhich we need calm, and not when our faculties aspire after movement andexercise. A morbid mind will find its cure in them, a sound soul willnot find its food in them. They cannot vivify, they can only soften. This defect, grounded in the essence of the pastoral idyll, has not beenremedied by the whole art of poets. I know that this kind of poem is notwithout admirers, and that there are readers enough who prefer an Amyntusand a Daphnis to the most splendid masterpieces of the epic or thedramatic muse; but in them it is less the aesthetical taste than thefeeling of an individual want that pronounces on works of art; and theirjudgment, by that very fact, could not be taken into consideration here. The reader who judges with his mind, and whose heart is sensuous, withoutbeing blind to the merit of these poems, will confess that he is rarelyaffected by them, and that they tire him most quickly. But they act withso much the more effect in the exact moment of need. But must the trulybeautiful be reduced to await our hours of need? and is it not rather itsoffice to awaken in our soul the want that it is going to satisfy?

The reproaches I here level against the bucolic idyl cannot be understoodof the sentimental. The simple pastoral, in fact, cannot be deprived ofaesthetic value, since this value is already found in the mere form. Toexplain myself: every kind of poetry is bound to possess an infiniteideal value, which alone constitutes it a true poetry; but it can satisfythis condition in two different ways. It can give us the feeling of theinfinite as to form, by representing the object altogether limited andindividualizing it; it can awaken in us the feeling of the infinite as tomatter, in freeing its object from all limits in which it is enclosed, byidealizing this object; therefore it can have an ideal value either by anabsolute representation or by the representation of an absolute. Simplepoetry takes the former road, the other is that of sentimental poetry. Accordingly the simple poet is not exposed to failure in value so long ashe keeps faithfully to nature, which is always completely circumscribed, that is, is infinite as regards form. The sentimental poet, on thecontrary, by that very fact, that nature only offers him completelycircumscribed objects, finds in it an obstruction when he wishes to givean absolute value to a particular object. Thus the sentimental poetunderstands his interests badly when he goes along the trail of thesimple poet, and borrows his objects from him--objects which bythemselves are perfectly indifferent, and which only become poetical bythe way in which they are treated. By this he imposes on himself withoutany necessity the same limits that confine the field of the simple poet, without, however, being able to carry out the limitation properly, or tovie with his rival in absolute definiteness of representation. He oughtrather, therefore, to depart from the simple poet, just in the choice ofobject; because, the latter having the advantage of him on the score ofform, it is only by the nature of the objects that he can resume theupper hand. 

Applying this to the pastoral idyls of the sentimental poet, we see whythese poems, whatever amount of art and genius be displayed in them, donot fully satisfy the heart or the mind. An ideal is proposed in it, and, at the same time, the writer keeps to this narrow and poor medium ofpastoral life. Would it not have been better, on the contrary, to choosefor the ideal another frame, or for the pastoral world another kind ofpicture? These pictures are just ideal enough for painting to lose itsindividual truth in them, and, again, just individual enough for theideal in them to suffer therefrom. For example, a shepherd of Gessnercan neither charm by the illusion of nature nor by the beauty ofimitation; he is too ideal a being for that, but he does not satisfy usany more as an ideal by the infinity of the thought: he is a far toolimited creature to give us this satisfaction. He will, therefore, please up to a certain point all classes of readers, without exception, because he seeks to unite the simple with the sentimental, and he thusgives a commencement of satisfaction to the two opposite exigencies thatmay be brought to bear on any particular part of a poem; but the author, in trying to unite the two points, does not fully satisfy either one orthe other exigency, as you do not find in him either pure nature or thepure ideal; he cannot rank himself as entirely up to the mark of astringent critical taste, for taste does not accept anything equivocal orincomplete in aesthetical matters. It is a strange thing that, in thepoet whom I have named, this equivocal character extends to the language, which floats undecided between poetry and prose, as if he feared eitherto depart too far from nature, by speaking rhythmical language, or if hecompletely freed himself from rhythm, to lose all poetic flight. Miltongives a higher satisfaction to the mind, in the magnificent picture ofthe first human pair, and of the state of innocence in paradise;--themost beautiful idyl I know of the sentimental kind. Here nature isnoble, inspired, simple, full of breadth, and, at the same time, ofdepth; it is humanity in its highest moral value, clothed in the mostgraceful form. 

Thus, even in respect to the idyl, as well as to all kinds of poetry, wemust once for all declare either for individuality or ideality; for toaspire to give satisfaction to both exigencies is the surest means, unless you have reached the terminus of perfection, to miss both ends. If the modern poet thinks he feels enough of the Greeks' mind to vie withthem, notwithstanding all the indocility of his matter, on their ownground, namely that of simple poetry, let him do it exclusively, andplace himself apart from all the requirements of the sentimental taste ofhis age. No doubt it is very doubtful if he come up to his models;between the original and the happiest imitation there will always remaina notable distance; but, by taking this road, he is at all events secureof producing a really poetic work. If, on the other hand, he feelshimself carried to the ideal by the instinct of sentimental poetry, lethim decide to pursue this end fully; let him seek the ideal in itspurity, and let him not pause till he has reached the highest regionswithout looking behind him to know if the real follows him, and does notleave him by the way. Let him not lower himself to this wretchedexpedient of spoiling the ideal to accommodate himself to the wants ofhuman weakness, and to turn out mind in order to play more easily withthe heart. Let him not take us back to our infancy, to make us buy, atthe cost of the most precious acquisitions of the understanding, a reposethat can only last as long as the slumber of our spiritual faculties; butlet him lead us on to emancipation, and give us this feeling of higherharmony which compensates for all his troubles and secures the happinessof the victor! Let him prepare as his task an idyl that realizes thepastoral innocence, even in the children of civilization, and in all theconditions of the most militant and excited life; of thought enlarged byculture; of the most refined art; of the most delicate socialconventionalities--an idyl, in short, that is made, not to bring back manto Arcadia, but to lead him to Elysium. 

This idyl, as I conceive it, is the idea of humanity definitelyreconciled with itself, in the individual as well as in the whole ofsociety; it is union freely re-established between inclination and duty;it is nature purified, raised to its highest moral dignity; in short, itis no less than the ideal of beauty applied to real life. Thus, thecharacter of this idyl is to reconcile perfectly all the contradictionsbetween the real and the ideal, which formed the matter of satirical andelegiac poetry, and, setting aside their contradictions, to put an end toall conflict between the feelings of the soul. Thus, the dominantexpression of this kind of poetry would be calm; but the calm thatfollows the accomplishment, and not that of indolence--the calm thatcomes from the equilibrium re-established between the faculties, and notfrom the suspending of their exercise; from the fulness of our strength, and not from our infirmity; the calm, in short, which is accompanied inthe soul by the feeling of an infinite power. But precisely because idylthus conceived removes all idea of struggle, it will be infinitely moredifficult than it was in two previously-named kinds of poetry to expressmovement; yet this is an indispensable condition, without which poetrycan never act on men's souls. The most perfect unity is required, butunity ought not to wrong variety; the heart must be satisfied, butwithout the inspiration ceasing on that account. The solution of thisproblem is properly what ought to be given us by the theory of the idyl. 

Now, what are the relations of the two poetries to one another, and theirrelations to the poetic ideal? Here are the principles we haveestablished. 

Nature has granted this favor to the simple poet, to act always as anindivisible unity, to be at all times identical and perfect, and torepresent, in the real world, humanity at its highest value. Inopposition, it has given a powerful faculty to the sentimental poet, or, rather, it has imprinted an ardent feeling on him; this is to replace outof himself this first unity that abstraction has destroyed in him, tocomplete humanity in his person, and to pass from a limited state to aninfinite state. They both propose to represent human nature fully, orthey would not be poets; but the simple poet has always the advantage ofsensuous reality over the sentimental poet, by setting forth as a realfact what the other aspires only to reach. Every one experiences this inthe pleasure he takes in simple poetry. 

We there feel that the human faculties are brought into play; no vacuumis felt; we have the feeling of unity, without distinguishing anything ofwhat we experience; we enjoy both our spiritual activity and also thefulness of physical life. Very different is the disposition of mindelicited by the sentimental poet. Here we feel only a vivid aspirationto produce in us this harmony of which we had in the other case theconsciousness and reality; to make of ourselves a single and sametotality; to realize in ourselves the idea of humanity as a completeexpression. Hence it comes that the mind is here all in movement, stretched, hesitating between contrary feelings; whereas it was beforecalm and at rest, in harmony with itself, and fully satisfied. 

But if the simple poet has the advantage over the sentimental poet on thescore of reality; if he causes really to live that of which the other canonly elicit a vivid instinct, the sentimental poet, in compensation, hasthis great advantage over the simple poet: to be in a position to offerto this instinct a greater object than that given by his rival, and theonly one he could give. All reality, we know, is below the ideal; allthat exists has limits, but thought is infinite. This limitation, towhich everything is subject in sensuous reality, is, therefore, adisadvantage for the simple poet, while the absolute, unconditionalfreedom of the ideal profits the sentimental poet. No doubt the formeraccomplishes his object, but this object is limited; the second, I admit, does not entirely accomplish his, but his object is infinite. Here Iappeal to experience. We pass pleasantly to real life and things fromthe frame of mind in which the simple poet has placed us. On the otherhand, the sentimental poet will always disgust us, for a time, with reallife. This is because the infinite character has, in a manner, enlargedour mind beyond its natural measure, so that nothing it finds in theworld of sense can fill its capacity. We prefer to fall back incontemplation on ourselves, where we find food for this awakened impulsetowards the ideal world; while, in the simple poet, we only strive toissue out of ourselves, in search of sensuous objects. Sentimentalpoetry is the offspring of retirement and science, and invites to it;simple poetry is inspired by the spectacle of life, and brings back life. 

I have styled simple poetry a gift of nature to show that thought has noshare in it. It is a first jet, a happy inspiration, that needs nocorrection, when it turns out well, and which cannot be rectified if illturned out. The entire work of the simple genius is accomplished byfeeling; in that is its strength, and in it are its limits. If, then, hehas not felt at once in a poetic manner--that is, in a perfectly humanmanner--no art in the world can remedy this defect. Criticism may helphim to see the defect, but can place no beauty in its stead. Simplegenius must draw all from nature; it can do nothing, or almost nothing, by its will; and it will fulfil the idea of this kind of poetry providednature acts in it by an inner necessity. Now, it is true that all whichhappens by nature is necessary, and all the productions, happy or not, ofthe simple genius, which is disassociated from nothing so much as fromarbitrary will, are also imprinted with this character of necessity;momentary constraint is one thing, and the internal necessity dependenton the totality of things another. Considered as a whole, nature isindependent and infinite; in isolated operations it is poor and limited. The same distinction holds good in respect to the nature of the poet. The very moment when he is most happily inspired depends on a precedinginstant, and consequently only a conditional necessity can be attributedto him. But now the problem that the poet ought to solve is to make anindividual state similar to the human whole, and consequently to base itin an absolute and necessary manner on itself. It is therefore necessarythat at the moment of inspiration every trace of a temporal need shouldbe banished, and that the object itself, however limited, should notlimit the flight of the poet. But it may be conceived that this is onlypossible in so far as the poet brings to the object an absolute freedom, an absolute fulness of faculties, and in so far as he is prepared by ananterior exercise to embrace all things with all his humanity. Now hecannot acquire this exercise except by the world in which he lives, andof which he receives the impressions immediately. Thus simple genius isin a state of dependence with regard to experience, while the sentimentalgenius is forced from it. We know that the sentimental genius begins itsoperation at the place where the other finishes its own: its virtue is tocomplete by the elements which it derives from itself a defective object, and to transport itself by its own strength from a limited state to oneof absolute freedom. Thus the simple poet needs a help from without, while the sentimental poet feeds his genius from his own fund, andpurifies himself by himself. The former requires a picturesque nature, apoetical world, a simple humanity which casts its eyes around; for heought to do his work without issuing from the sensuous sphere. Ifexternal aid fails him, if he be surrounded by matter not speaking tomind, one of two things will happen: either, if the general character ofthe poet-race is what prevails in him, he issues from the particularclass to which he belongs as a poet, and becomes sentimental to be at anyrate poetic; or, if his particular character as simple poet has the upperhand, he leaves his species and becomes a common nature, in order toremain at any rate natural. The former of these two alternatives mightrepresent the case of the principal poets of the sentimental kind inRoman antiquity and in modern times. Born at another period of theworld, transplanted under another sky, these poets who stir us now byideas, would have charmed us by individual truth and simple beauty. Theother alternative is the almost unavoidable quicksand for a poet who, thrown into a vulgar world, cannot resolve to lose sight of nature. 

I mean, to lose sight of actual nature; but the greatest care must begiven to distinguish actual nature from true nature, which is the subjectof simple poetry. Actual nature exists everywhere; but true nature is somuch the more rare because it requires an internal necessity thatdetermines its existence. Every eruption of passion, however vulgar, isreal--it may be even true nature; but it is not true human nature, fortrue human nature requires that the self-directing faculty in us shouldhave a share in the manifestation, and the expression of this faculty isalways dignified. All moral baseness is an actual human phenomenon, butI hope not real human nature, which is always noble. All the faults oftaste cannot be surveyed that have been occasioned in criticism or thepractice of art by this--confusion between actual human nature and truehuman nature. The greatest trivialities are tolerated and applaudedunder the pretext that they are real nature. Caricatures not to betolerated in the real world are carefully preserved in the poetic worldand reproduced according to nature! The poet can certainly imitate alower nature; and it enters into the very definition of a satirical poet:but then a beauty by its own nature must sustain and raise the object, and the vulgarity of the subject must not lower the imitator too much. If at the moment he paints he is true human nature himself, the object ofhis paintings is indifferent; but it is only on this condition we cantolerate a faithful reproduction of reality. Unhappy for us readers whenthe rod of satire falls into hands that nature meant to handle anotherinstrument, and when, devoid of all poetic talent, with nothing but theape's mimicry, they exercise it brutally at the expense of our taste!

But vulgar nature has even its dangers for the simple poet; for thesimple poet is formed by this fine harmony of the feeling and thinkingfaculty, which yet is only an idea, never actually realized. Even in thehappiest geniuses of this class, receptivity will always more or lesscarry the day over spontaneous activity. But receptivity is always moreor less subordinate to external impressions, and nothing but a perpetualactivity of the creative faculty could prevent matter from exercising ablind violence over this quality. Now, every time this happens thefeeling becomes vulgar instead of poetical. 

No genius of the simple class, from Homer down to Bodmer, has entirelysteered clear of this quicksand. It is evident that it is most perilousto those who have to struggle against external vulgarity, or who haveparted with their refinement owing to a want of proper restraint. Thefirst-named difficulty is the reason why even authors of high cultivationare not always emancipated from platitudes--a fact which has preventedmany splendid talents from occupying the place to which they weresummoned by nature. For this reason, a comic poet whose genius haschiefly to deal with scenes of real life, is more liable to the dangerof acquiring vulgar habits of style and expression--a fact evidenced inthe case of Aristophanes, Plautus, and all the poets who have followedin their track. Even Shakspeare, with all his sublimity, suffers us tofall very low now and then. Again, Lope De Vega, Moliere, Regnard, Goldoni worry us with frequent trifling. Holberg drags us down intothe mire. Schlegel, a German poet, among the most remarkable forintellectual talent, with genius to raise him to a place among poets ofthe first order; Gellert, a truly simple poet, Rabener, and Lessinghimself, if I am warranted to introduce his name in this category--thishighly-cultivated scholar of criticism and vigilant examiner of his owngenius--all these suffer in different degrees from the platitudes anduninspired movements of the natures they chose as the theme of theirsatire. With regard to more recent authors of this class, I avoid namingany of them, as I can make no exceptions in their case. 

But not only is simple genius exposed to the danger of coming too near tovulgar reality; the ease of expression, even this too close approximationto reality, encourages vulgar imitators to try their hand in poetry. Sentimental poetry, though offering danger enough, has this advantage, tokeep this crowd at a distance, for it is not for the first comer to riseto the ideal; but simple poetry makes them believe that, with feeling andhumor, you need only imitate real nature to claim the title of poet. Nownothing is more revolting than platitude when it tries to be simple andamiable, instead of hiding its repulsive nature under the veil of art. This occasions the incredible trivialities loved by the Germans under thename of simple and facetious songs, and which give them endless amusementround a well-garnished table. Under the pretext of good humor and ofsentiment people tolerate these poverties: but this good humor and thissentiment ought to be carefully proscribed. The Muses of the Pleisse, inparticular, are singularly pitiful; and other Muses respond to them, fromthe banks of the Seine, and the Elbe. If these pleasantries are flat, the passion heard on our tragic stage is equally pitiful, for, instead ofimitating true nature, it is only an insipid and ignoble expression ofthe actual. Thus, after shedding torrents of tears, you feel as youwould after visiting a hospital or reading the "Human Misery" ofSaltzmann. But the evil is worse in satirical poetry and comic romance, kinds which touch closely on every-day life, and which consequently, asall frontier posts, ought to be in safer hands. In truth, he less thanany other is called on to become the painter of his century, who ishimself the child and caricature of his century. But as, after all, nothing is easier than to take in hand, among our acquaintances, a comiccharacter--a big, fat man--and draw a coarse likeness of him on paper, the sworn enemies of poetic inspiration are often led to blot some paperin this way to amuse a circle of friends. It is true that a pure heart, a well-made mind, will never confound these vulgar productions with theinspirations of simple genius. But purity of feeling is the very thingthat is wanting, and in most cases nothing is thought of but satisfying awant of sense, without spiritual nature having any share. Afundamentally just idea, ill understood, that works of bel esprit serveto recreate the mind, contributes to keep up this indulgence, ifindulgence it may be called when nothing higher occupies the mind, andreader as well as writer find their chief interest therein. This isbecause vulgar natures, if overstrained, can only be refreshed byvacuity; and even a higher intelligence, when not sustained by aproportional culture, can only rest from its work amidst sensuousenjoyments, from which spiritual nature is absent. 

Poetic genius ought to have strength enough to rise with a free andinnate activity above all the accidental hinderances which areinseparable from every confined condition, to arrive at a representationof humanity in the absolute plenitude of its powers; it is not, however, permitted, on the other hand, to emancipate itself from the necessarylimits implied by the very idea of human nature; for the absolute only inthe circle of humanity is its true problem. Simple genius is not exposedto overstep this sphere, but rather not to fill it entirely, giving toomuch scope to external necessity, to accidental wants, at the expense ofthe inner necessity. The danger for the sentimental genius is, on theother hand, by trying to remove all limits, of nullifying human natureabsolutely, and not only rising, as is its right and duty, beyond finiteand determinate reality, as far as absolute possibility, or in otherterms to idealize; but of passing even beyond possibility, or, in otherwords, dreaming. This fault--overstraining--is precisely dependent onthe specific property of the sentimental process, as the opposite defect, inertia, depends on the peculiar operation of the simple genius. Thesimple genius lets nature dominate, without restricting it; and as naturein her particular phenomena is always subject to some want, it followsthat the simple sentiment will not be always exalted enough to resist theaccidental limitations of the present hour. The sentimental genius, onthe contrary, leaves aside the real world, to rise to the ideal and tocommand its matter with free spontaneity. But while reason, according tolaw, aspires always to the unconditional, so the sentimental genius willnot always remain calm enough to restrain itself uniformly and withoutinterruption within the conditions implied by the idea of human nature, and to which reason must always, even in its freest acts, remainattached. He could only confine himself in these conditions by help of areceptivity proportioned to his free activity; but most commonly theactivity predominates over receptivity in the sentimental poet, as muchas receptivity over activity in the simple poet. Hence, in theproductions of simple genius, if sometimes inspiration is wanting, soalso in works of sentimental poetry the object is often missed. Thus, though they proceed in opposite ways, they will both fall into a vacuum, for before the aesthetic judgment an object without inspiration, andinspiration without an object, are both negations. 

The poets who borrow their matter too much from thought, and ratherconceive poetic pictures by the internal abundance of ideas than by thesuggestions of feeling, are more or less likely to be addicted to go thusastray. In their creations reason makes too little of the limits of thesensuous world, and thought is always carried too far for experience tofollow it. Now, when the idea is carried so far that not only noexperience corresponds to it--as is the case in the beau ideal--but alsothat it is repugnant to the conditions of all possible experience, sothat, in order to realize it, one must leave human nature altogether, itis no longer a poetic but an exaggerated thought; that is, supposing itclaims to be representable and poetical, for otherwise it is enough if itis not self-contradictory. If thought is contradictory it is notexaggeration, but nonsense; for what does not exist cannot exceed. Butwhen the thought is not an object proposed to the fancy, we are just aslittle justified in calling it exaggerated. For simple thought isinfinite, and what is limitless also cannot exceed. Exaggeration, therefore, is only that which wounds, not logical truth, but sensuoustruth, and what pretends to be sensuous truth. Consequently, if a poethas the unhappy chance to choose for his picture certain natures that aremerely superhuman and cannot possibly be represented, he can only avoidexaggeration by ceasing to be a poet, and not trusting the theme to hisimagination. Otherwise one of two things would happen: eitherimagination, applying its limits to the object, would make a limited andmerely human object of an absolute object--which happened with the godsof Greece--or the object would take away limits from fancy, that is, would render it null and void, and this is precisely exaggeration. 

Extravagance of feeling should be distinguished from extravagance ofportraiture; we are speaking of the former. The object of the feelingmay be unnatural, but the feeling itself is natural, and oughtaccordingly to be shadowed forth in the language of nature. Whileextravagant feelings may issue from a warm heart and a really poeticnature, extravagance of portraiture always displays a cold heart, andvery often a want of poetic capacity. Therefore this is not a danger forthe sentimental poet, but only for the imitator, who has no vocation; itis therefore often found with platitude, insipidity, and even baseness. Exaggeration of sentiment is not without truth, and must have a realobject; as nature inspires it, it admits of simplicity of expression andcoming from the heart it goes to the heart. As its object, however, isnot in nature, but artificially produced by the understanding, it hasonly a logical reality, and the feeling is not purely human. It was notan illusion that Heloise had for Abelard, Petrarch for Laura, Saint Preuxfor his Julia, Werther for his Charlotte; Agathon, Phanias, andPeregrinus--in Wieland--for the object of their dreams: the feeling istrue, only the object is factitious and outside nature. If their thoughthad kept to simple sensuous truth, it could not have taken this flight;but on the other hand a mere play of fancy, without inner value, couldnot have stirred the heart: this is only stirred by reason. Thus thissort of exaggeration must be called to order, but it is not contemptible:and those who ridicule it would do well to find out if the wisdom onwhich they pride themselves is not want of heart, and if it is notthrough want of reason that they are so acute. The exaggerated delicacyin gallantry and honor which characterizes the chivalrous romances, especially of Spain, is of this kind; also the refined and evenridiculous tenderness of French and English sentimental romances of thebest kind. These sentiments are not only subjectively true, but alsoobjectively they are not without value; they are sound sentiments issuingfrom a moral source, only reprehensible as overstepping the limits ofhuman truth. Without this moral reality how could they stir and touch sopowerfully? The same remark applies to moral and religious fanaticism, patriotism, and the love of freedom when carried up to exaltation. Asthe object of these sentiments is always a pure idea, and not an externalexperience, imagination with its proper activity has here a dangerousliberty, and cannot, as elsewhere, be called back to bounds by thepresence of a visible object. But neither the man nor the poet canwithdraw from the law of nature, except to submit to that of reason. Hecan only abandon reality for the ideal; for liberty must hold to one orthe other of these anchors. But it is far from the real to the ideal;and between the two is found fancy, with its arbitrary conceits and itsunbridled freedom. It must needs be, therefore, that man in general, andthe poet in particular, when he withdraws by liberty of his understandingfrom the dominion of feeling, without being moved to it by the laws ofreason--that is, when he abandons nature through pure liberty--he findshimself freed from all law, and therefore a prey to the illusions ofphantasy. 

It is testified by experience that entire nations, as well as individualmen, who have parted with the safe direction of nature, are actually inthis condition; and poets have gone astray in the same manner. The truegenius of sentimental poetry, if its aim is to raise itself to the rankof the ideal, must overstep the limits of the existing nature; but falsegenius oversteps all boundaries without any discrimination, flatteringitself with the belief that the wild sport of the imagination is poeticinspiration. A true poetical genius can never fall into this error, because it only abandons the real for the sake of the ideal, or, at allevents, it can only do so at certain moments when the poet forgetshimself; but his main tendencies may dispose him to extravagance withinthe sphere of the senses. His example may also drive others into a chaseof wild conceptions, because readers of lively fancy and weakunderstanding only remark the freedom which he takes with existingnature, and are unable to follow him in copying the elevated necessitiesof his inner being. The same difficulties beset the path of thesentimental genius in this respect, as those which afflict the career ofa genius of the simple order. If a genius of this class carries outevery work, obedient to the free and spontaneous impulses of his nature, the man devoid of genius who seeks to imitate him is not willing toconsider his own nature a worse guide than that of the great poet. Thisaccounts for the fact that masterpieces of simple poetry are commonlyfollowed by a host of stale and unprofitable works in print, andmasterpieces of the sentimental class by wild and fanciful effusions, --afact that may be easily verified on questioning the history ofliterature. 

Two maxims are prevalent in relation to poetry, both of them quitecorrect in themselves, but mutually destructive in the way in which theyare generally conceived. The first is, that "poetry serves as a means ofamusement and recreation, " and we have previously observed that thismaxim is highly favorable to aridity and platitudes in poetical actions. The other maxim, that "poetry is conducive to the moral progress ofhumanity, " takes under its shelter theories and views of the most wildand extravagant character. It may be profitable to examine moreattentively these two maxims, of which so much is heard, and which are sooften imperfectly understood and falsely applied. 

We say that a thing amuses us when it makes us pass from a forced stateto the state that is natural to us. The whole question here is to knowin what our natural state ought to consist, and what a forced statemeans. If our natural state is made to consist merely in the freedevelopment of all our physical powers, in emancipation from allconstraint, it follows that every act of reason by resisting what issensuous, is a violence we undergo, and rest of mind combined withphysical movement will be a recreation par excellence. But if we makeour natural state consist in a limitless power of human expression and offreely disposing of all our strength, all that divides these forces willbe a forced state, and recreation will be what brings all our nature toharmony. Thus, the first of these ideal recreations is simply determinedby the wants of our sensuous nature; the second, by the autonomousactivity of human nature. Which of these two kinds of recreation can bedemanded of the poet? Theoretically, the question is inadmissible, as noone would put the human ideal beneath the brutal. But in practice therequirements of a poet have been especially directed to the sensuousideal, and for the most part favor, though not the esteem, for thesesorts of works is regulated thereby. Men's minds are mostly engaged in alabor that exhausts them, or an enjoyment that sets them asleep. Nowlabor makes rest a sensible want, much more imperious than that of themoral nature; for physical nature must be satisfied before the mind canshow its requirements. On the other hand, enjoyment paralyzes the moralinstinct. Hence these two dispositions common in men are very injuriousto the feeling for true beauty, and thus very few even of the best judgesoundly in aesthetics. Beauty results from the harmony between spiritand sense; it addresses all the faculties of man, and can only beappreciated if a man employs fully all his strength. He must bring to itan open sense, a broad heart, a spirit full of freshness. All a man'snature must be on the alert, and this is not the case with those dividedby abstraction, narrowed by formulas, enervated by application. Theydemand, no doubt, a material for the senses; but not to quicken, only tosuspend, thought. They ask to be freed from what? From a load thatoppressed their indolence, and not a rein that curbed their activity. 

After this can one wonder at the success of mediocre talents inaesthetics? or at the bitter anger of small minds against true energeticbeauty? They reckon on finding therein a congenial recreation, andregret to discover that a display of strength is required to which theyare unequal. With mediocrity they are always welcome; however littlemind they bring, they want still less to exhaust the author'sinspiration. They are relieved of the load of thought; and their naturecan lull itself in beatific nothings on the soft pillow of platitude. Inthe temple of Thalia and Melpomene--at least, so it is with us--thestupid savant and the exhausted man of business are received on the broadbosom of the goddess, where their intelligence is wrapped in a magneticsleep, while their sluggish senses are warmed, and their imagination withgentle motions rocked. 

Vulgar people may be excused what happens to the best capacities. Thosemoments of repose demanded by nature after lengthy labor are notfavorable to aesthetic judgment, and hence in the busy classes few canpronounce safely on matters of taste. Nothing is more common than forscholars to make a ridiculous figure, in regard to a question of beauty, besides cultured men of the world; and technical critics are especiallythe laughing-stock of connoisseurs. Their opinion, from exaggeration, crudeness, or carelessness guides them generally quite awry, and they canonly devise a technical judgment, and not an aesthetical one, embracingthe whole work, in which feeling should decide. If they would kindlykeep to technicalities they might still be useful, for the poet inmoments of inspiration and readers under his spell are little inclined toconsider details. But the spectacle which they afford us is only themore ridiculous inasmuch as we see these crude natures--with whom alllabor and trouble only develop at the most a particular aptitude, --whenwe see them set up their paltry individualities as the representation ofuniversal and complete feeling, and in the sweat of their brow pronouncejudgment on beauty. 

We have just seen that the kind of recreation poetry ought to afford isgenerally conceived in too restricted a manner, and only referred to asimple sensuous want. Too much scope, however, is also given to theother idea, the moral ennobling the poet should have in view, inasmuch astoo purely an ideal aim is assigned. 

In fact, according to the pure ideal, the ennobling goes on to infinity, because reason is not restricted to any sensuous limits, and only findsrest in absolute perfection. Nothing can satisfy whilst a superior thingcan be conceived; it judges strictly and admits no excuses of infirmityand finite nature. It only admits for limits those of thought, whichtranscends time and space. Hence the poet could no more propose tohimself such an ideal of ennobling (traced for him by pure (didactic)reason) any more than the coarse ideal of recreation of sensuous nature. The aim is to free human nature from accidental hinderances, withoutdestroying the essential ideal of our humanity, or displacing its limits. All beyond this is exaggeration, and a quicksand in which the poet tooeasily suffers shipwreck if he mistakes the idea of nobleness. But, unfortunately, he cannot rise to the true ideal of ennobled human naturewithout going some steps beyond it. To rise so high he must abandon theworld of reality, for, like every ideal, it is only to be drawn from itsinner moral source. He does not find it in the turmoil of worldly life, but only in his heart, and that only in calm meditation. But in thisseparation from real life he is likely to lose sight of all the limits ofhuman nature, and seeking pure form he may easily lose himself inarbitrary and baseless conceptions. Reason will abstract itself too muchfrom experience, and the practical man will not be able to carry out, inthe crush of real life, what the contemplative mind has discovered on thepeaceful path of thought. Thus, what makes a dreamy man is the verything that alone could have made him a sage; and the advantage for thelatter is not that he has never been a dreamer, but rather that he hasnot remained one. 

We must not, then, allow the workers to determine recreation according totheir wants, nor thinkers that of nobleness according to theirspeculations, for fear of either a too low physical poetry, or a poetrytoo given to hyperphysical exaggeration. And as these two ideas directmost men's judgments on poetry, we must seek a class of mind at onceactive, but not slavishly so, and idealizing, but not dreamy; uniting thereality of life within as few limits as possible, obeying the current ofhuman affairs, but not enslaved by them. Such a class of men can alonepreserve the beautiful unity of human nature, that harmony which all workfor a moment disturbs, and a life of work destroys; such alone can, inall that is purely human, give by its feelings universal rules ofjudgment. Whether such a class exists, or whether the class now existingin like conditions answers to this ideal conception, I am not concernedto inquire. If it does not respond to the ideal it has only itself toblame. In such a class--here regarded as a mere ideal--the simple andsentimental would keep each other from extremes of extravagance andrelaxation. For the idea of a beautiful humanity is not exhausted byeither, but can only be presented in the union of both. 

THE STAGE AS A MORAL INSTITUTION. 

Sulzer has remarked that the stage has arisen from an irresistiblelonging for the new and extraordinary. Man, oppressed by divided cares, and satiated with sensual pleasure, felt an emptiness or want. Man, neither altogether satisfied with the senses, nor forever capable ofthought, wanted a middle state, a bridge between the two states, bringingthem into harmony. Beauty and aesthetics supplied that for him. But agood lawgiver is not satisfied with discovering the bent of his people--he turns it to account as an instrument for higher use; and hence hechose the stage, as giving nourishment to the soul, without straining it, and uniting the noblest education of the head and heart. 

The man who first pronounced religion to be the strongest pillar of thestate, unconsciously defended the stage, when he said so, in its noblestaspect. The uncertain nature of political events, rendering religion anecessity, also demands the stage as a moral force. Laws only preventdisturbances of social life; religion prescribes positive orderssustaining social order. Law only governs actions; religion controls theheart and follows thought to the source. 

Laws are flexible and capricious; religion binds forever. If religionhas this great sway over man's heart, can it also complete his culture?Separating the political from the divine element in it, religion actsmostly on the senses; she loses her sway if the senses are gone. By whatchannel does the stage operate? To most men religion vanishes with theloss of her symbols, images, and problems; and yet they are only picturesof the imagination, and insolvable problems. Both laws and religion arestrengthened by a union with the stage, where virtue and vice, joy andsorrow, are thoroughly displayed in a truthful and popular way; where avariety of providential problems are solved; where all secrets areunmasked, all artifice ends, and truth alone is the judge, asincorruptible as Rhadamanthus. 

Where the influence of civil laws ends that of the stage begins. Wherevenality and corruption blind and bias justice and judgment, andintimidation perverts its ends, the stage seizes the sword and scales andpronounces a terrible verdict on vice. The fields of fancy and ofhistory are open to the stage; great criminals of the past live overagain in the drama, and thus benefit an indignant posterity. They passbefore us as empty shadows of their age, and we heap curses on theirmemory while we enjoy on the stage the very horror of their crimes. Whenmorality is no more taught, religion no longer received, or laws exist, Medea would still terrify us with her infanticide. The sight of LadyMacbeth, while it makes us shudder, will also make us rejoice in a goodconscience, when we see her, the sleep-walker, washing her hands andseeking to destroy the awful smell of murder. Sight is always morepowerful to man than description; hence the stage acts more powerfullythan morality or law. 

But in this the stage only aids justice. A far wider field is reallyopen to it. There are a thousand vices unnoticed by human justice, butcondemned by the stage; so, also, a thousand virtues overlooked by man'slaws are honored on the stage. It is thus the handmaid of religion andphilosophy. From these pure sources it draws its high principles and theexalted teachings, and presents them in a lovely form. The soul swellswith noblest emotions when a divine ideal is placed before it. WhenAugustus offers his forgiving hand to Cinna, the conspirator, and says tohim: "Let us be friends, Cinna!" what man at the moment does not feelthat he could do the same. Again, when Francis von Sickingen, proceedingto punish a prince and redress a stranger, on turning sees the house, where his wife and children are, in flames, and yet goes on for the sakeof his word--how great humanity appears, how small the stern power offate!

Vice is portrayed on the stage in an equally telling manner. Thus, whenold Lear, blind, helpless, childless, is seen knocking in vain at hisdaughters' doors, and in tempest and night he recounts by telling hiswoes to the elements, and ends by saying: "I have given you all, "--howstrongly impressed we feel at the value of filial piety, and how hatefulingratitude seems to us!

The stage does even more than this. It cultivates the ground wherereligion and law do not think it dignified to stop. Folly often troublesthe world as much as crime; and it has been justly said that the heaviestloads often hang suspended by the slightest threads. Tracing actions totheir sources, the list of criminals diminish, and we laugh at the longcatalogue of fools. In our sex all forms of evil emanate almost entirelyfrom one source, and all our excesses are only varied and higher forms ofone quality, and that a quality which in the end we smile at and love;and why should not nature have followed this course in the opposite sextoo? In man there is only one secret to guard against depravity; thatis, to protect his heart against wickedness. 

Much of all this is shown up on the stage. It is a mirror to reflectfools and their thousand forms of folly, which are there turned toridicule. It curbs vice by terror, and folly still more effectually bysatire and jest. If a comparison be made between tragedy and comedy, guided by experience, we should probably give the palm to the latter asto effects produced. Hatred does not wound the conscience so much asmockery does the pride of man. We are exposed specially to the sting ofsatire by the very cowardice that shuns terrors. From sins we areguarded by law and conscience, but the ludicrous is specially punished onthe stage. Where we allow a friend to correct our morals, we rarelyforgive a laugh. We may bear heavy judgment on our transgressions, butour weaknesses and vulgarities must not be criticised by a witness. 

The stage alone can do this with impunity, chastising us as the anonymousfool. We can bear this rebuke without a blush, and even gratefully. 

But the stage does even more than this. It is a great school ofpractical wisdom, a guide for civil life, and a key to the mind in allits sinuosities. It does not, of course, remove egoism and stubbornnessin evil ways; for a thousand vices hold up their heads in spite of thestage, and a thousand virtues make no impression on cold-heartedspectators. Thus, probably, Moliere's Harpagon never altered ausurer's heart, nor did the suicide in Beverley save any one from thegaming-table. Nor, again, is it likely that the high roads will be saferthrough Karl Moor's untimely end. But, admitting this, and more thanthis, still how great is the influence of the stage! It has shown us thevices and virtues of men with whom we have to live. We are not surprisedat their weaknesses, we are prepared for them. The stage points them outto us, and their remedy. It drags off the mask from the hypocrite, andbetrays the meshes of intrigue. Duplicity and cunning have been forcedby it to show their hideous features in the light of day. Perhaps thedying Sarah may not deter a single debauchee, nor all the pictures ofavenged seduction stop the evil; yet unguarded innocence has been shownthe snares of the corrupter, and taught to distrust his oaths. 

The stage also teaches men to bear the strokes of fortune. Chance anddesign have equal sway over life. We have to bow to the former, but wecontrol the latter. It is a great advantage if inexorable facts do notfind us unprepared and unexercised, and if our breast has been steeled tobear adversity. Much human woe is placed before us on the stage. Itgives us momentary pain in the tears we shed for strangers' troubles, butas a compensation it fills us with a grand new stock of courage andendurance. We are led by it, with the abandoned Ariadne, through theIsle of Naxos, and we descend the Tower of Starvation in Ugolino; weascend the terrible scaffold, and we are present at the awful moment ofexecution. Things remotely present in thought become palpable realitiesnow. We see the deceived favorite abandoned by the queen. When about todie, the perfidious Moor is abandoned by his own sophistry. Eternityreveals the secrets of the unknown through the dead, and the hatefulwretch loses all screen of guilt when the tomb opens to condemn him. 

Then the stage teaches us to be more considerate to the unfortunate, andto judge gently. We can only pronounce on a man when we know his wholebeing and circumstances. Theft is a base crime, but tears mingle withour condemnation, when we read what obliged Edward Ruhberg to do thehorrid deed. Suicide is shocking; but the condemnation of an enragedfather, her love, and the fear of a convent, lead Marianne to drink thecup, and few would dare to condemn the victim of a dreadful tyranny. Humanity and tolerance have begun to prevail in our time at courts ofprinces and in courts of law. A large share of this may be due to theinfluence of the stage in showing man and his secret motives. 

The great of the world ought to be especially grateful to the stage, forit is here alone that they hear the truth. 

Not only man's mind, but also his intellectual culture, has been promotedby the higher drama. The lofty mind and the ardent patriot have oftenused the stage to spread enlightenment. 

Considering nations and ages, the thinker sees the masses enchained byopinion and cut off by adversity from happiness; truth only lights up afew minds, who perhaps have to acquire it by the trials of a lifetime. How can the wise ruler put these within the reach of his nation. 

The thoughtful and the worthier section of the people diffuse the lightof wisdom over the masses through the stage. Purer and better principlesand motives issue from the stage and circulate through society: the nightof barbarism and superstition vanishes. I would mention two gloriousfruits of the higher class of dramas. Religious toleration has latterlybecome universal. Before Nathan the Jew and Saladin the Saracen put usto shame, and showed that resignation to God's will did not depend on afancied belief of His nature--even before Joseph II. Contended with thehatred of a narrow piety--the stage had sown seeds of humanity andgentleness: pictures of fanaticism had taught a hatred of intolerance, and Christianity, seeing itself in this awful mirror, washed off itsstains. It is to be hoped that the stage will equally combat mistakensystems of education. This is a subject of the first politicalimportance, and yet none is so left to private whims and caprice. Thestage might give stirring examples of mistaken education, and leadparents to juster, better views of the subject. Many teachers are ledastray by false views, and methods are often artificial and fatal. 

Opinions about governments and classes might be reformed by the stage. Legislation could thus justify itself by foreign symbols, and silencedoubtful aspersions without offence. 

Now, if poets would be patriotic they could do much on the stage toforward invention and industry. A standing theatre would be a materialadvantage to a nation. It would have a great influence on the nationaltemper and mind by helping the nation to agree in opinions andinclinations. The stage alone can do this, because it commands all humanknowledge, exhausts all positions, illumines all hearts, unites allclasses, and makes its way to the heart and understanding by the mostpopular channels. 

If one feature characterized all dramas; if the poets were allied inaim--that is, if they selected well and from national topics--therewould be a national stage, and we should become a nation. It was thisthat knit the Greeks so strongly together, and this gave to them theall-absorbing interest in the republic and the advancement of humanity. 

Another advantage belongs to the stage; one which seems to have becomeacknowledged even by its censurers. Its influence on intellectual andmoral culture, which we have till now been advocating, may be doubted;but its very enemies have admitted that it has gained the palm over allother means of amusement. It has been of much higher service here thanpeople are often ready to allow. 

Human nature cannot bear to be always on the rack of business, and thecharms of sense die out with their gratification. Man, oppressed byappetites, weary of long exertion, thirsts for refined pleasure, orrushes into dissipations that hasten his fall and ruin, and disturbsocial order. Bacchanal joys, gambling, follies of all sorts to disturbennui, are unavoidable if the lawgiver produces nothing better. A man ofpublic business, who has made noble sacrifices to the state, is apt topay for them with melancholy, the scholar to become a pedant, and thepeople brutish, without the stage. The stage is an institution combiningamusement with instruction, rest with exertion, where no faculty of themind is overstrained, no pleasure enjoyed at the cost of the whole. Whenmelancholy gnaws the heart, when trouble poisons our solitude, when weare disgusted with the world, and a thousand worries oppress us, or whenour energies are destroyed by over-exercise, the stage revives us, wedream of another sphere, we recover ourselves, our torpid nature isroused by noble passions, our blood circulates more healthily. Theunhappy man forgets his tears in weeping for another. The happy man iscalmed, the secure made provident. Effeminate natures are steeled, savages made man, and, as the supreme triumph of nature, men of allclanks, zones, and conditions, emancipated from the chains ofconventionality and fashion, fraternize here in a universal sympathy, forget the world, and come nearer to their heavenly destination. Theindividual shares in the general ecstacy, and his breast has now onlyspace for an emotion: he is a man. 

ON THE TRAGIC ART. 

The state of passion in itself, independently of the good or badinfluence of its object on our morality, has something in it that charmsus. We aspire to transport ourselves into that state, even if it costsus some sacrifices. You will find this instinct at the bottom of all ourmost habitual pleasures. As to the nature itself of the affection, whether it be one of aversion or desire, agreeable or painful, this iswhat we take little into consideration. Experience teaches us thatpainful affections are those which have the most attraction for us, andthus that the pleasure we take in an affection is precisely in an inverseratio to its nature. It is a phenomenon common to all men, that sad, frightful things, even the horrible, exercise over us an irresistibleseduction, and that in presence of a scene of desolation and of terror wefeel at once repelled and attracted by two equal forces. Suppose thecase be an assassination. Then every one crowds round the narrator andshows a marked attention. Any ghost story, however embellished byromantic circumstances, is greedily devoured by us, and the more readilyin proportion as the story is calculated to make our hair stand on end. 

This disposition is developed in a more lively manner when the objectsthemselves are placed before our eyes. A tempest that would swallow upan entire fleet would be, seen from shore, a spectacle as attractive toour imagination as it would be shocking to our heart. It would bedifficult to believe with Lucretius that this natural pleasure resultsfrom a comparison between our own safety and the danger of which we arewitnesses. See what a crowd accompanies a criminal to the scene of hispunishment! This phenomenon cannot be explained either by the pleasureof satisfying our love of justice, nor the ignoble joy of vengeance. Perhaps the unhappy man may find excuses in the hearts of those present;perhaps the sincerest pity takes an interest in his reprieve: this doesnot prevent a lively curiosity in the spectators to watch his expressionsof pain with eye and ear. If an exception seems to exist here in thecase of a well-bred man, endowed with a delicate sense, this does notimply that he is a complete stranger to this instinct; but in his casethe painful strength of compassion carries the day over this instinct, orit is kept under by the laws of decency. The man of nature, who is notchained down by any feeling of human delicacy, abandons himself withoutany sense of shame to this powerful instinct. This attraction must, therefore, have its spring of action in an original disposition, and itmust be explained by a psychological law common to the whole species. 

But if it seems to us that these brutal instincts of nature areincompatible with the dignity of man, and if we hesitate, for thisreason, to establish on this fact a law common to the whole species, yetno experiences are required to prove, with the completest evidence, thatthe pleasure we take in painful emotions is real, and that it is general. The painful struggle of a heart drawn asunder between its inclinations orcontrary duties, a struggle which is a cause of misery to him whoexperiences it, delights the person who is a mere spectator. We followwith always heightening pleasure the progress of a passion to the abyssinto which it hurries its unhappy victim. The same delicate feeling thatmakes us turn our eyes aside from the sight of physical suffering, oreven from the physical expression of a purely moral pain, makes usexperience a pleasure heightened in sweetness, in the sympathy for apurely moral pain. The interest with which we stop to look at thepainting of these kinds of objects is a general phenomenon. 

Of course this can only be understood of sympathetic affections, or thosefelt as a secondary effect after their first impression; for commonlydirect and personal affections immediately call into life in us theinstinct of our own happiness, they take up all our thoughts, and seizehold of us too powerfully to allow any room for the feeling of pleasurethat accompanies them, when the affection is freed from all personalrelation. Thus, in the mind that is really a prey to painful passion, the feeling of pain commands all others notwithstanding all the charmthat the painting of its moral state may offer to the hearers and thespectators. And yet the painful affection is not deprived of allpleasure, even for him who experiences it directly; only this pleasurediffers in degree according to the nature of each person's mind. Thesports of chance would not have half so much attraction for us were therenot a kind of enjoyment in anxiety, in doubt, and in fear; danger wouldnot be encountered from mere foolhardiness; and the very sympathy whichinterests us in the trouble of another would not be to us that pleasurewhich is never more lively than at the very moment when the illusion isstrongest, and when we substitute ourselves most entirely in the place ofthe person who suffers. But this does not imply that disagreeableaffections cause pleasure of themselves, nor do I think any one willuphold this view; it suffices that these states of the mind are theconditions that alone make possible for its certain kinds of pleasure. Thus the hearts particularly sensitive to this kind of pleasure, and mostgreedy of them, will be more easily led to share these disagreeableaffections, which are the condition of the former; and even in the mostviolent storms of passion they will always preserve some remains of theirfreedom. 

The displeasure we feel in disagreeable affections comes from therelation of our sensuous faculty or of our moral faculty with theirobject. In like manner, the pleasure we experience in agreeableaffections proceeds from the very same source. The degree of libertythat may prevail in the affections depends on the proportion between themoral nature and the sensuous nature of a man. Now it is well known thatin the moral order there is nothing arbitrary for us, that, on thecontrary, the sensuous instinct is subject to the laws of reason andconsequently depends more or less on our will. Hence it is evident thatwe can keep our liberty full and entire in all those affections that areconcerned with the instinct of self-love, and that we are the masters todetermine the degree which they ought to attain. This degree will beless in proportion as the moral sense in a man will prevail over theinstinct of happiness, and as by obeying the universal laws of reasons hewill have freed himself from the selfish requirements of hisindividuality, his Ego. A man of this kind must therefore, in a state ofpassion, feel much less vividly the relation of an object with his owninstinct of happiness, and consequently he will be much less sensible ofthe displeasure that arises from this relation. On the other hand, hewill be perpetually more attentive to the relation of this same objectwith his moral nature, and for this very reason he will be more sensibleto the pleasure which the relation of the object with morality oftenmingles with the most painful affections. A mind thus constituted isbetter fitted than all others to enjoy the pleasure attaching tocompassion, and even to regard a personal affection as an object ofsimple compassion. Hence the inestimable value of a moral philosophy, which, by raising our eyes constantly towards general laws, weakens in usthe feeling of our individuality, teaches us to plunge our paltrypersonality in something great, and enables us thus to act to ourselvesas to strangers. This sublime state of the mind is the lot of strongphilosophic minds, which by working assiduously on themselves havelearned to bridle the egotistical instinct. Even the most cruel lossdoes not drive them beyond a certain degree of sadness, with which anappreciable sum of pleasure can always be reconciled. These souls, whichare alone capable of separating themselves from themselves, alone enjoythe privilege of sympathizing with themselves and of receiving of theirown sufferings only a reflex, softened by sympathy. 

The indications contained in what precedes will suffice to direct ourattention to the sources of the pleasure that the affection in itselfcauses, more particularly the sad affection. We have seen that thispleasure is more energetic in moral souls, and it acts with greaterfreedom in proportion as the soul is more independent of the egotisticalinstinct. This pleasure is, moreover, more vivid and stronger in sadaffections, when self-love is painfully disquieted, than in gayaffections, which imply a satisfaction of self-love. Accordingly thispleasure increases when the egotistical instinct is wounded, anddiminishes when that instinct is flattered. Now we only know of twosources of pleasure--the satisfaction of the instinct of happiness, andthe accomplishment of the moral laws. Therefore, when it is shown that aparticular pleasure does not emanate from the former source, it must ofnecessity issue from the second. It is therefore from our moral naturethat issues the charm of the painful affections shared by sympathy, andthe pleasure that we sometimes feel even where the painful affectiondirectly affects ourselves. 

Many attempts have been made to account for the pleasure of pity, butmost of these solutions had little chance of meeting the problem, becausethe principle of this phenomenon was sought for rather in theaccompanying circumstances than in the nature of the affection itself. To many persons the pleasure of pity is simply the pleasure taken by themind in exercising its own sensibility. To others it is the pleasure ofoccupying their forces energetically, of exercising the social facultyvividly--in short, of satisfying the instinct of restlessness. Othersagain make it derived from the discovery of morally fine features ofcharacter, placed in a clear light by the struggle against adversity oragainst the passions. But there is still the difficulty to explain whyit should be exactly the very feeling of pain, --suffering properly socalled, --that in objects of pity attracts us with the greatest force, while, according to those elucidations, a less degree of suffering oughtevidently to be more favorable to those causes to which the source of theemotion is traced. Various matters may, no doubt, increase the pleasureof the emotion without occasioning it. Of this nature are the vividnessand force of the ideas awakened in our imagination, the moral excellenceof the suffering persons, the reference to himself of the person feelingpity. I admit that the suffering of a weak soul, and the pain of awicked character, do not procure us this enjoyment. But this is becausethey do not excite our pity to the same degree as the hero who suffers, or the virtuous man who struggles. Thus we are constantly brought backto the first question: why is it precisely the degree of suffering thatdetermines the degree of sympathetic pleasure which we take in anemotion? and one answer only is possible; it is because the attack madeon our sensibility is precisely the condition necessary to set in motionthat quality of mind of which the activity produces the pleasure we feelin sympathetic affections. 

Now this faculty is no other than the reason; and because the freeexercise of reason, as an absolutely independent activity, deserves parexcellence the name of activity; as, moreover, the heart of man onlyfeels itself perfectly free and independent in its moral acts, it followsthat the charm of tragic emotions is really dependent on the fact thatthis instinct of activity finds its gratification in them. But, evenadmitting this, it is neither the great number nor the vivacity of theideas that are awakened then in our imagination, nor in general theexercise of the social faculty, but a certain kind of ideas and a certainactivity of the social faculty brought into play by reason, which is thefoundation of this pleasure. 

Thus the sympathetic affections in general are for us a source ofpleasure because they give satisfaction to our instinct of activity, andthe sad affections produce this effect with more vividness because theygive more satisfaction to this instinct. The mind only reveals all itsactivity when it is in full possession of its liberty, when it has aperfect consciousness of its rational nature, because it is only thenthat it displays a force superior to all resistance. 

Hence the state of mind which allows most effectually the manifestationof this force, and awakens most successfully its activity, is that statewhich is most suitable to a rational being, and which best satisfies ourinstincts of activity: whence it follows that a greater amount ofpleasure must be attached necessarily to this state. Now it is thetragic states that place our soul in this state, and the pleasure foundin them is necessarily higher than the charm produced by gay affections, in the same degree that moral power in us is superior to the power of thesenses. 

Points that are only subordinate and partial in a system of final causesmay be considered by art independently of that relation with the rest, and may be converted into principal objects. It is right that in thedesigns of nature pleasure should only be a mediate end, or a means; butfor art it is the highest end. It is therefore essentially important forart not to neglect this high enjoyment attaching to the tragic emotion. Now, tragic art, taking this term in its widest acceptation, is thatamong the fine arts which proposes as its principal object the pleasureof pity. 

Art attains its end by the imitation of nature, by satisfying theconditions which make pleasure possible in reality, and by combining, according to a plan traced by the intelligence, the scattered elementsfurnished by nature, so as to attain as a principal end to that which, for nature, was only an accessory end. Thus tragic art ought to imitatenature in those kinds of actions that are specially adapted to awakenpity. 

It follows that, in order to determine generally the system to befollowed by tragic art, it is necessary before all things to know on whatconditions in real life the pleasure of the emotion is commonly producedin the surest and the strongest manner; but it is necessary at the sametime to pay attention to the circumstances that restrict or absolutelyextinguish this pleasure. 

After what we have established in our essay "On the Cause of the Pleasurewe derive from Tragic Objects, " it is known that in every tragic emotionthere is an idea of incongruity, which, though the emotion may beattended with charm, must always lead on to the conception of a higherconsistency. Now it is the relation that these two opposite conceptionsmutually bear which determines in an emotion if the prevailing impressionshall be pleasurable or the reverse. If the conception of incongruity bemore vivid than that of the contrary, or if the end sacrificed is moreimportant than the end gained, the prevailing impression will always bedispleasure, whether this be understood objectively of the human race ingeneral, or only subjectively of certain individuals. 

If the cause that has produced a misfortune gives us too muchdispleasure, our compassion for the victim is diminished thereby. Theheart cannot feel simultaneously, in a high degree, two absolutelycontrary affections. Indignation against the person who is the primarycause of the suffering becomes the prevailing affection, and all otherfeeling has to yield to it. Thus our interest is always enfeebled whenthe unhappy man whom it would be desirable to pity had cast himself intoruin by a personal and an inexcusable fault; or if, being able to savehimself, he did not do so, either through feebleness of mind orpusillanimity. The interest we take in unhappy King Lear, ill-treated bytwo ungrateful daughters, is sensibly lessened by the circumstance thatthis aged man, in his second childhood, so weakly gave up his crown, anddivided his love among his daughters with so little discernment. In thetragedy of Kronegk, "Olinda and Sophronia, " the most terrible sufferingto which we see these martyrs to their faith exposed only excites ourpity feebly, and all their heroism only stirs our admiration moderately, because madness alone can suggest the act by which Olinda has placedhimself and all his people on the brink of the precipice. 

Our pity is equally lessened when the primary cause of a misfortune, whose innocent victim ought to inspire us with compassion, fills our mindwith horror. When the tragic poet cannot clear himself of his plotwithout introducing a wretch, and when he is reduced to derive thegreatness of suffering from the greatness of wickedness, the supremebeauty of his work must always be seriously injured. Iago and LadyMacbeth in Shakspeare, Cleopatra in the tragedy of "Rodogune, " or FranzMoor in "The Robbers, " are so many proofs in support of this assertion. A poet who understands his real interest will not bring about thecatastrophe through a malicious will which proposes misfortune as itsend; nor, and still less, by want of understanding: but rather throughthe imperious force of circumstances. If this catastrophe does not comefrom moral sources, but from outward things, which have no volition andare not subject to any will, the pity we experience is more pure, or atall events it is not weakened by any idea of moral incongruity. But thenthe spectator cannot be spared the disagreeable feeling of an incongruityin the order of nature, which can alone save in such a case moralpropriety. Pity is far more excited when it has for its object both himwho suffers and him who is the primary cause of the suffering. This canonly happen when the latter has neither elicited our contempt nor ourhatred, but when he has been brought against his inclination to becomethe cause of this misfortune. It is a singular beauty of the German playof "Iphigenia" that the King of Tauris, the only obstacle who thwarts thewishes of Orestes and of his sister, never loses our esteem, and that welove him to the end. 

There is something superior even to this kind of emotion; this is thecase when the cause of the misfortune not only is in no way repugnant tomorality, but only becomes possible through morality, and when thereciprocal suffering comes simply from the idea that a fellow-creaturehas been made to suffer. This is the situation of Chimene and Rodriguein "The Cid" of Pierre Corneille, which is undeniably in point ofintrigue the masterpiece of the tragic stage. Honor and filial love armthe hand of Rodrigue against the father of her whom he loves, and hisvalor gives him the victory. Honor and filial love rouse up against him, in the person of Chimene, the daughter of his victim, an accuser and aformidable persecutor. Both act in opposition to their inclination, andthey tremble with anguish at the thought of the misfortune of the objectagainst which they arm themselves, in proportion as zeal inspires themfor their duty to inflict this misfortune. Accordingly both conciliateour esteem in the highest sense, as they accomplish a moral duty at thecost of inclination; both inflame our pity in the highest degree, becausethey suffer spontaneously for a motive that renders them in the highestdegree to be respected. It results from this that our pity is in thiscase so little modified by any opposite feeling that it burns rather witha double flame; only the impossibility of reconciling the idea ofmisfortune with the idea of a morality so deserving of happiness mightstill disturb our sympathetic pleasure, and spread a shade of sadnessover it. It is besides a great point, no doubt, that the discontentgiven us by this contradiction does not bear upon our moral being, but isturned aside to a harmless place, to necessity only; but this blindsubjection to destiny is always afflicting and humiliating for freebeings, who determine themselves. This is the cause that always leavessomething to be wished for even in the best Greek pieces. In all thesepieces, at the bottom of the plot it is always fatality that is appealedto, and in this there is a knot that cannot be unravelled by our reason, which wishes to solve everything. 

But even this knot is untied, and with it vanishes every shade ofdispleasure, at the highest and last step to which man perfected bymorality rises, and at the highest point which is attained by the artwhich moves the feelings. This happens when the very discontent withdestiny becomes effaced, and is resolved in a presentiment or rather aclear consciousness of a teleological concatenation of things, of asublime order, of a beneficent will. Then, to the pleasure occasioned inus by moral consistency is joined the invigorating idea of the mostperfect suitability in the great whole of nature. In this case the thingthat seemed to militate against this order, and that caused us pain, in aparticular case, is only a spur that stimulates our reason to seek ingeneral laws for the justification of this particular case, and to solvethe problem of this separate discord in the centre of the generalharmony. Greek art never rose to this supreme serenity of tragicemotion, because neither the national religion, nor even the philosophyof the Greeks, lighted their step on this advanced road. It was reservedfor modern art, which enjoys the privilege of finding a purer matter in apurer philosophy, to satisfy also this exalted want, and thus to displayall the moral dignity of art. 

If we moderns must resign ourselves never to reproduce Greek art becausethe philosophic genius of our age, and modern civilization in general arenot favorable to poetry, these influences are at all events less hurtfulto tragic art, which is based rather on the moral element. Perhaps it isin the case of this art only that our civilization repairs the injurythat it has caused to art in general. 

In the same manner as the tragic emotion is weakened by the admixture ofconflicting ideas and feelings, and the charm attaching to it is thusdiminished, so this emotion can also, on the contrary, by approaching theexcess of direct and personal affection, become exaggerated to the pointwhere pain carries the day over pleasure. It has been remarked thatdispleasure, in the affections, comes from the relation of their objectwith our senses, in the same way as the pleasure felt in them comes fromthe relation of the affection itself to our moral faculty. This implies, then, between our senses and our moral faculty a determined relation, which decides as regards the relation between pleasure and displeasure intragic emotions. Nor could this relation be modified or overthrownwithout overthrowing at the same time the feelings of pleasure anddispleasure which we find in the emotions, or even without changing theminto their opposites. In the same ratio that the senses are vividlyroused in us, the influence of morality will be proportionatelydiminished; and reciprocally, as the sensuous loses, morality gainsground. Therefore that which in our hearts gives a preponderance to thesensuous faculty, must of necessity, by placing restrictions on the moralfaculty, diminish the pleasure that we take in tragic emotions, apleasure which emanates exclusively from this moral faculty. Inlike manner, all that in our heart impresses an impetus on thislatter faculty, must blunt the stimulus of pain even in direct andpersonal affections. Now our sensuous nature actually acquires thispreponderance, when the ideas of suffering rise to a degree of vividnessthat no longer allows us to distinguish a sympathetic affection froma personal affection, or our own proper Ego from the subject thatsuffers, --reality, in short, from poetry. The sensuous also gains theupper hand when it finds an aliment in the great number of its objects, and in that dazzling light which an over-excited imagination diffusesover it. On the contrary, nothing is more fit to reduce the sensuous toits proper bounds than to place alongside it super-sensuous ideas, moralideas, to which reason, oppressed just before, clings as to a kind ofspiritual props, to right and raise itself above the fogs of the sensuousto a serener atmosphere. Hence the great charm which general truths ormoral sentences, scattered opportunely over dramatic dialogue, have forall cultivated nations, and the almost excessive use that the Greeks madeof them. Nothing is more agreeable to a moral soul than to have thepower, after a purely passive state that has lasted too long, of escapingfrom the subjection of the senses, and of being recalled to itsspontaneous activity, and restored to the possession of its liberty. 

These are the remarks I had to make respecting the causes that restrictour pity and place an obstacle to our pleasure in tragic emotions. Ihave next to show on what conditions pity is solicited and the pleasureof the emotion excited in the most infallible and energetic manner. 

Every feeling of pity implies the idea of suffering, and the degree ofpity is regulated according to the degree more or less of vividness, oftruth, of intensity, and of duration of this idea. 

1st. The moral faculty is provoked to reaction in proportion to thevividness of ideas in the soul, which incites it to activity and solicitsits sensuous faculty. Now the ideas of suffering are conceived in twodifferent manners, which are not equally favorable to the vividness ofthe impression. The sufferings that we witness affect us incomparablymore than those that we have through a description or a narrative. Theformer suspend in us the free play of the fancy, and striking our sensesimmediately penetrate by the shortest road to our heart. In thenarrative, on the contrary, the particular is first raised to thegeneral, and it is from this that the knowledge of the special case isafterwards derived; accordingly, merely by this necessary operation ofthe understanding, the impression already loses greatly in strength. Nowa weak impression cannot take complete possession of our mind, and itwill allow other ideas to disturb its action and to dissipate theattention. Very frequently, moreover, the narrative account transportsus from the moral disposition, in which the acting person is placed, tothe state of mind of the narrator himself, which breaks up the illusionso necessary for pity. In every case, when the narrator in person putshimself forward, a certain stoppage takes place in the action, and, as anunavoidable result, in our sympathetic affection. This is what happenseven when the dramatic poet forgets himself in the dialogue, and puts inthe mouth of his dramatic persons reflections that could only enter themind of a disinterested spectator. It would be difficult to mention asingle one of our modern tragedies quite free from this defect; but theFrench alone have made a rule of it. Let us infer, then, that theimmediate vivid and sensuous presence of the object is necessary to giveto the ideas impressed on us by suffering that strength without which theemotion could not rise to a high degree. 

2d. But we can receive the most vivid impressions of the idea ofsuffering without, however, being led to a remarkable degree of pity, ifthese impressions lack truth. It is, necessary that we should form ofsuffering an idea of such a nature that we are obliged to share and takepart in it. To this end there must be a certain agreement between thissuffering and something that we have already in us. In other words, pityis only possible inasmuch as we can prove or suppose a resemblancebetween ourselves and the subject that suffers. Everywhere where thisresemblance makes itself known, pity is necessary; where this resemblanceis lacking, pity is impossible. The more visible and the greater is theresemblance, the more vivid is our pity; and they mutually slacken independence on each other. In order that we may feel the affections ofanother after him, all the internal conditions demanded by this affectionmust be found beforehand in us, in order that the external cause which, by meeting with the internal conditions, has given birth to theaffection, may also produce on us a like effect. It is necessary that, without doing violence to ourselves, we should be able to exchangepersons with another, and transport our Ego by an instantaneoussubstitution in the state of the subject. Now, how is it possible tofeel in us the state of another, if we have not beforehand recognizedourselves in this other. 

This resemblance bears on the totality of the constitution of the mind, in as far as that is necessary and universal. Now, this character ofnecessity and of universality belongs especially to our moral nature. The faculty of feeling can be determined differently by accidentalcauses: our cognitive faculties themselves depend on variable conditions:the moral faculty only has its principle in itself, and by that very factit can best give us a general measure and a certain criterion of thisresemblance. Thus an idea which we find in accord with our mode ofthinking and of feeling, which offers at once a certain relationship withthe train of our own ideas, which is easily grasped by our heart and ourmind, we call a true idea. If this relationship bears on what ispeculiar to our heart, on the private determinations that modify in usthe common fundamentals of humanity, and which may be withdrawn withoutaltering this general character, this idea is then simply true for us. If it bears on the general and necessary form that we suppose in thewhole species, the truth of this idea ought to be held to be equal toobjective truth. For the Roman, the sentence of the first Brutus and thesuicide of Cato are of subjective truth. The ideas and the feelings thathave inspired the actions of these two men are not an immediateconsequence of human nature in general, but the mediate consequence of ahuman nature determined by particular modifications. To share with themthese feelings we must have a Roman soul, or at least be capable ofassuming for a moment a Roman soul. It suffices, on the other hand, tobe a man in general, to be vividly touched by the heroic sacrifice ofLeonidas, by the quiet resignation of Aristides, by the voluntary deathof Socrates, and to be moved to tears by the terrible changes in thefortunes of Darius. We attribute to these kinds of ideas, in oppositionto the preceding ones, an objective truth because they agree with thenature of all human subjects, which gives them a character ofuniversality and of necessity as strict as if they were independent ofevery subjective condition. 

Moreover, although the subjectively true description is based onaccidental determinations, this is no reason for confounding it with anarbitrary description. After all, the subjectively true emanates alsofrom the general constitution of the human soul, modified only inparticular directions by special circumstances; and the two kinds oftruth are equally necessary conditions of the human mind. If theresolution of Cato were in contradiction with the general laws of humannature, it could not be true, even subjectively. The only difference isthat the ideas of the second kind are enclosed in a narrower sphere ofaction; because they imply, besides the general modes of the human mind, other special determinations. Tragedy can make use of it with a veryintense effect, if it will renounce the extensive effect; still theunconditionally true, what is purely human in human relations, will bealways the richest matter for the tragic poet, because this ground is theonly one on which tragedy, without ceasing to aspire to strength ofexpression can be certain of the generality of this impression. 

3d. Besides the vividness and the truth of tragic pictures, there mustalso be completeness. None of the external data that are necessary togive to the soul the desired movement ought to be omitted in therepresentation. In order that the spectator, however Roman hissentiments may be, may understand the moral state of Cato--that he maymake his own the high resolution of the republican, this resolution musthave its principle, not only in the mind of the Roman, but also in thecircumstances of the action. His external situation as well as hisinternal situation must be before our eyes in all their consequences andextent: and we must, lastly, have unrolled before us, without omitting asingle link, the whole chain of determinations to which are attached thehigh resolution of the Roman as a necessary consequence. It may be saidin general that without this third condition, even the truth of apainting cannot be recognized; for the similarity of circumstances, whichought to be fully evident, can alone justify our judgment on thesimilarity of the feelings, since it is only from the competition ofexternal conditions and of internal conditions that the affectivephenomenon results. To decide if we should have acted like Cato, we mustbefore all things transport ourselves in thought to the externalsituation in which Cato was placed, and then only we are entitled toplace our feelings alongside his, to pronounce if there is or is notlikeness, and to give a verdict on the truth of these feelings. 

A complete picture, as I understand it, is only possible by theconcatenation of several separate ideas, and of several separatefeelings, which are connected together as cause and effect, and which, intheir sum total, form one single whole for our cognitive faculty. Allthese ideas, in order to affect us closely, must make an immediateimpression on our senses; and, as the narrative form always weakens thisimpression, they must be produced by a present action. Thus, in orderthat a tragic picture may be complete, a whole series is required ofparticular actions, rendered sensuous and connected with the tragicaction as to one whole. 

4th. It is necessary, lastly, that the ideas we receive of sufferingshould act on us in a durable manner, to excite in us a high degree ofemotion. The affection created in us by the suffering of another is tous a constrained state, from which we hasten to get free; and theillusion so necessary for pity easily disappears in this case. It is, therefore, a necessity to fasten the mind closely to these ideas, and notto leave it the freedom to get rid too soon of the illusion. Thevividness of sudden ideas and the energy of sudden impressions, which inrapid succession affect our senses, would not suffice for this end. Forthe power of reaction in the mind is manifested in direct proportion tothe force with which the receptive faculty is solicited, and it ismanifested to triumph over this impression. Now, the poet who wishes tomove us ought not to weaken this independent power in us, for it isexactly in the struggle between it and the suffering of our sensuousnature that the higher charm of tragic emotions lies. In order that theheart, in spite of that spontaneous force which reacts against sensuousaffections, may remain attached to the impressions of sufferings, it is, therefore, necessary that these impressions should be cleverly suspendedat intervals, or even interrupted and intercepted by contraryimpressions, to return again with twofold energy and renew morefrequently the vividness of the first impression. Against the exhaustionand languor that result from habit, the most effectual remedy is topropose new objects to the senses; this variety retempers them, and thegradation of impressions calls forth the innate faculty, and makes itemploy a proportionately stronger resistance. This faculty ought to beincessantly occupied in maintaining its independence against the attacksof the senses, but it must not triumph before the end, still less must itsuccumb in the struggle. Otherwise, in the former case, suffering, and, in the latter, moral activity is set aside; while it is the union ofthese two that can alone elicit emotion. The great secret of the tragicart consists precisely in managing this struggle well; it is in this thatit shows itself in the most brilliant light. 

For this, a succession of alternate ideas is required: therefore asuitable combination is wanted of several particular actionscorresponding with these different ideas; actions round which theprincipal action and the tragic impression which it is wished to producethrough it unroll themselves like the yarn from the distaff, and end byenlacing our souls in nets, through which they cannot break. Let me bepermitted to make use of a simile, by saying that the artist ought tobegin by gathering up with parsimonious care all the separate rays thatissue from the object by aid of which he seeks to produce the tragiceffect that he has in view, and these rays, in his hands, become alightning flash, setting the hearts of all on fire. The tyro castssuddenly and vainly all the thunderbolts of horror and fear into thesoul; the artist, on the contrary, advances step by step to his end; heonly strikes with measured strokes, but he penetrates to the depth of oursoul, precisely because he has only stirred it by degrees. 

If we now form the proper deductions from the previous investigation, thefollowing will be the conditions that form bases of the tragic art. Itis necessary, in the first place, that the object of our pity shouldbelong to our own species--I mean belong in the full sense of the termand that the action in which it is sought to interest us be a moralaction; that is, an action comprehended in the field of free-will. It isnecessary, in the second place, that suffering, its sources, its degrees, should be completely communicated by a series of events chained together. It is necessary, in the third place, that the object of the passion berendered present to our senses, not in a mediate way and by description, but immediately and in action. In tragedy art unites all theseconditions and satisfies them. 

According to these principles tragedy might be defined as the poeticimitation of a coherent series of particular events (forming a completeaction): an imitation which shows us man in a state of suffering, andwhich has for its end to excite our pity. 

I say first that it is the imitation of an action; and this idea ofimitation already distinguishes tragedy from the other kinds of poetry, which only narrate or describe. In tragedy particular events arepresented to our imagination or to our senses at the very time of theiraccomplishment; they are present, we see them immediately, without theintervention of a third person. The epos, the romance, simple narrative, even in their form, withdraw action to a distance, causing the narratorto come between the acting person and the reader. Now what is distantand past always weakens, as we know, the impressions and the sympatheticaffection; what is present makes them stronger. All narrative forms makeof the present something past; all dramatic form makes of the past apresent. 

Secondly, I say that tragedy is the imitation of a succession of events, of an action. Tragedy has not only to represent by imitation thefeelings and the affections of tragic persons, but also the events thathave produced these feelings, and the occasion on which these affectionsare manifested. This distinguishes it from lyric poetry, and from itsdifferent forms, which no doubt offer, like tragedy, the poetic imitationof certain states of the mind, but not the poetic imitation of certainactions. An elegy, a song, an ode, can place before our eyes, byimitation, the moral state in which the poet actually is--whether hespeaks in his own name, or in that of an ideal person--a state determinedby particular circumstances; and up to this point these lyric forms seemcertainly to be incorporated in the idea of tragedy; but they do notcomplete that idea, because they are confined to representing ourfeelings. There are still more essential differences, if the end ofthese lyrical forms and that of tragedy are kept in view. 

I say, in the third place, that tragedy is the imitation of a completeaction. A separate event, though it be ever so tragic, does not initself constitute a tragedy. To do this, several events are required, based one on the other, like cause and effect, and suitably connected soas to form a whole; without which the truth of the feeling represented, of the character, etc. --that is, their conformity with the nature of ourmind, a conformity which alone determines our sympathy--will not berecognized. If we do not feel that we ourselves in similar circumstancesshould have experienced the same feelings and acted in the same way, ourpity would not be awakened. It is, therefore, important that we shouldbe able to follow in all its concatenation the action that is representedto us, that we should see it issue from the mind of the agent by anatural gradation, under the influence and with the concurrence ofexternal circumstances. It is thus that we see spring up, grow, and cometo maturity under our eyes, the curiosity of Oedipus and the jealousy ofIago. It is also the only way to fill up the great gap that existsbetween the joy of an innocent soul and the torments of a guiltyconscience, between the proud serenity of the happy man and his terriblecatastrophe; in short, between the state of calm, in which the reader isat the beginning, and the violent agitation he ought to experience at theend. 

A series of several connected incidents is required to produce in oursouls a succession of different movements which arrest the attention, which, appealing to all the faculties of our minds, enliven our instinctof activity when it is exhausted, and which, by delaying the satisfactionof this instinct, do not kindle it the less. Against the suffering ofsensuous nature the human heart has only recourse to its moral nature ascounterpoise. It is, therefore, necessary, in order to stimulate this ina more pressing manner, for the tragic poet to prolong the torments ofsense, but he must also give a glimpse to the latter of the satisfactionof its wants, so as to render the victory of the moral sense so much themore difficult and glorious. This twofold end can only be attained by asuccession of actions judiciously chosen and combined to this end. 

In the fourth place, I say that tragedy is the poetic imitation of anaction deserving of pity, and, therefore, tragic imitation is opposed tohistoric imitation. It would only be a historic imitation if it proposeda historic end, if its principal object were to teach us that a thing hastaken place, and how it took place. On this hypothesis it ought to keeprigorously to historic accuracy, for it would only attain its end byrepresenting faithfully that which really took place. But tragedy has apoetic end, that is to say, it represents an action to move us, and tocharm our souls by the medium of this emotion. If, therefore, a matterbeing given, tragedy treats it conformably with this poetic end, which isproper to it, it becomes, by that very thing, free in its imitation. Itis a right--nay, more, it is an obligation--for tragedy to subjecthistoric truth to the laws of poetry; and to treat its matter inconformity with requirements of this art. But as it cannot attain itsend, which is emotion, except on the condition of a perfect conformitywith the laws of nature, tragedy is, notwithstanding its freedom inregard to history, strictly subject to the laws of natural truth, which, in opposition to the truth of history, takes the name of poetic truth. It may thus be understood how much poetic truth may lose, in many casesby a strict observance of historic truth, and, reciprocally, how much itmay gain by even a very serious alteration of truth according to history. As the tragic poet, like poets in general, is only subject to the laws ofpoetic truth, the most conscientious observance of historic truth couldnever dispense him from his duties as poet, and could never excuse in himany infraction of poetic truth or lack of interest. It is, therefore, betraying very narrow ideas on tragic art, or rather on poetry ingeneral, to drag the tragic poet before the tribunal of history, and torequire instruction of the man who by his very title is only bound tomove and charm you. Even supposing the poet, by a scrupulous submissionto historic truth, had stripped himself of his privilege of artist, andthat he had tacitly acknowledged in history a jurisdiction over his work, art retains all her rights to summon him before its bar; and pieces suchas "The Death of Hermann, " "Minona, " "Fust of Stromberg, " if they couldnot stand the test on this side, would only be tragedies of mediocrevalue, notwithstanding all the minuteness of costume--of nationalcostume--and of the manners of the time. 

Fifthly, tragedy is the imitation of an action that lets us see mansuffering. The word man is essential to mark the limits of tragedy. Only the suffering of a being like ourselves can move our pity. Thus, evil genii, demons--or even men like them, without morals--and again purespirits, without our weaknesses, are unfit for tragedy. The very idea ofsuffering implies a man in the full sense of the term. A pure spiritcannot suffer, and a man approaching one will never awaken a high degreeof sympathy. A purely sensuous being can indeed have terrible suffering;but without moral sense it is a prey to it, and a suffering with reasoninactive is a disgusting spectacle. The tragedian is right to prefermixed characters, and to place the ideal of his hero half way betweenutter perversity and entire perfection. 

Lastly, tragedy unites all these requisites to excite pity. Many meansthe tragic poet takes might serve another object; but he frees himselffrom all requirements not relating to this end, and is thereby obliged todirect himself with a view to this supreme object. 

The final aim to which all the laws tend is called the end of any styleof poetry. The means by which it attains this are its form. The end andform are, therefore, closely related. The form is determined by the end, and when the form is well observed the end is generally attained. Eachkind of poetry having a special end must have a distinguishing form. What it exclusively produces it does in virtue of this special nature itpossesses. The end of tragedy is emotion; its form is the imitation ofan action that leads to suffering. Many kinds may have the same objectas tragedy, of emotion, though it be not their principal end. Therefore, what distinguishes tragedy is the relation of its form to its end, theway in which it attains its end by means of its subject. 

If the end of tragedy is to awaken sympathy, and its form is the means ofattaining it, the imitation of an action fit to move must have all thatfavors sympathy. Such is the form of tragedy. 

The production of a kind of poetry is perfect when the form peculiar toits kind has been used in the best way. Thus, a perfect tragedy is thatwhere the form is best used to awaken sympathy. Thus, the best tragedyis that where the pity excited results more from the treatment of thepoet than the theme. Such is the ideal of a tragedy. 

A good number of tragedies, though fine as poems are bad as dramas, because they do not seek their end by the best use of tragic form. Others, because they use the form to attain an end different fromtragedy. Some very popular ones only touch us on account of the subject, and we are blind enough to make this a merit in the poet. There areothers in which we seem to have quite forgotten the object of the poet, and, contented with pretty plays of fancy and wit, we issue with ourhearts cold from the theatre. Must art, so holy and venerable, defendits cause by such champions before such judges? The indulgence of thepublic only emboldens mediocrity: it causes genius to blush, anddiscourages it. 

OF THE CAUSE OF THE PLEASURE WE DERIVE FROM TRAGIC OBJECTS. 

Whatever pains some modern aesthetics give themselves to establish, contrary to general belief, that the arts of imagination and of feelinghave not pleasure for their object, and to defend them against thisdegrading accusation, this belief will not cease: it reposes upon a solidfoundation, and the fine arts would renounce with a bad grace thebeneficent mission which has in all times been assigned to them, toaccept the new employment to which it is generously proposed to raisethem. Without troubling themselves whether they lower themselves inproposing our pleasure as object, they become rather proud of theadvantages of reaching immediately an aim never attained except mediatelyin other routes followed by the activity of the human mind. That the aimof nature, with relation to man, is the happiness of man, --although heought of himself, in his moral conduct, to take no notice of this aim, --is what, I think, cannot be doubted in general by any one who admits thatnature has an aim. Thus the fine arts have the same aim as nature, orrather as the Author of nature, namely, to spread pleasure and renderpeople happy. It procures for us in play what at other more austeresources of good to man we extract only with difficulty. It lavishes as apure gift that which elsewhere is the price of many hard efforts. Withwhat labor, what application, do we not pay for the pleasures of theunderstanding; with what painful sacrifices the approbation of reason;with what hard privations the joys of sense! And if we abuse thesepleasures, with what a succession of evils do we expiate excess! Artalone supplies an enjoyment which requires no appreciable effort, whichcosts no sacrifice, and which we need not repay with repentance. But whocould class the merit of charming in this manner with the poor merit ofamusing? who would venture to deny the former of these two aims of thefine arts solely because they have a tendency higher than the latter. 

The praiseworthy object of pursuing everywhere moral good as the supremeaim, which has already brought forth in art so much mediocrity, hascaused also in theory a similar prejudice. To assign to the fine arts areally elevated position, to conciliate for them the favor of the State, the veneration of all men, they are pushed beyond their due domain, and avocation is imposed upon them contrary to their nature. It is supposedthat a great service is awarded to them by substituting for a frivolousaim--that of charming--a moral aim; and their influence upon morality, which is so apparent, necessarily militates against this pretension. Itis found illogical that the art which contributes in so great a measureto the development of all that is most elevated in man, should producebut accessorily this effect, and make its chief object an aim so vulgaras we imagine pleasure to be. But this apparent contradiction it wouldbe very easy to conciliate if we had a good theory of pleasure, and acomplete system of aesthetic philosophy. 

It would result from this theory that a free pleasure, as that which thefine arts procure for us, rests wholly upon moral conditions, and all themoral faculties of man are exercised in it. It would further result thatthis pleasure is an aim which can never be attained but by moral means, and consequently that art, to tend and perfectly attain to pleasure, asto a real aim, must follow the road of healthy morals. Thus it isperfectly indifferent for the dignity of art whether its aim should be amoral aim, or whether it should reach only through moral means; for inboth cases it has always to do with the morality, and must be rigorouslyin unison with the sentiment of duty; but for the perfection of art, itis by no means indifferent which of the two should be the aim and whichthe means. If it is the aim that is moral, art loses all that by whichit is powerful, --I mean its freedom, and that which gives it so muchinfluence over us--the charm of pleasure. The play which recreates ischanged into serious occupation, and yet it is precisely in recreating usthat art can the better complete the great affair--the moral work. Itcannot have a salutary influence upon the morals but in exercising itshighest aesthetic action, and it can only produce the aesthetic effect inits highest degree in fully exercising its liberty. 

It is certain, besides, that all pleasure, the moment it flows from amoral source, renders man morally better, and then the effect in its turnbecomes cause. The pleasure we find in what is beautiful, or touching, or sublime, strengthens our moral sentiments, as the pleasure we find inkindness, in love, etc. , strengthens these inclinations. And just ascontentment of the mind is the sure lot of the morally excellent man, somoral excellence willingly accompanies satisfaction of heart. Thus themoral efficacy of art is, not only because it employs moral means inorder to charm us, but also because even the pleasure which it procuresus is a means of morality. 

There are as many means by which art can attain its aim as there are ingeneral sources from which a free pleasure for the mind can flow. I calla free pleasure that which brings into play the spiritual forces--reasonand imagination--and which awakens in us a sentiment by therepresentation of an idea, in contradistinction to physical or sensuouspleasure, which places our soul under the dependence of the blind forcesof nature, and where sensation is immediately awakened in us by aphysical cause. Sensual pleasure is the only one excluded from thedomain of the fine arts; and the talent of exciting this kind of pleasurecould never raise itself to the dignity of an art, except in the casewhere the sensual impressions are ordered, reinforced or moderated, aftera plan which is the production of art, and which is recognized byrepresentation. But, in this case even, that alone here can merit thename of art which is the object of a free pleasure--I mean good taste inthe regulation, which pleases our understanding, and not physical charmsthemselves, which alone flatter our sensibility. 

The general source of all pleasure, even of sensual pleasure, ispropriety, the conformity with the aim. Pleasure is sensual when thispropriety is manifested by means of some necessary law of nature whichhas for physical result the sensation of pleasure. Thus the movement ofthe blood, and of the animal life, when in conformity with the aim ofnature, produces in certain organs, or in the entire organism, corporealpleasure with all its varieties and all its modes. We feel thisconformity by the means of agreeable sensation, but we arrive at norepresentation of it, either clear or confused. 

Pleasure is free when we represent to ourselves the conformability, andwhen the sensation that accompanies this representation is agreeable. Thus all the representations by which we have notice that there ispropriety and harmony between the end and the means, are for us thesources of free pleasure, and consequently can be employed to this end bythe fine arts. Thus, all the representations can be placed under one ofthese heads: the good, the true, the perfect, the beautiful, thetouching, the sublime. The good especially occupies our reason; the trueand perfect, our intelligence; the beautiful interests both theintelligence and the imagination; the touching and the sublime, thereason and the imagination. It is true that we also take pleasure in thecharm (Reiz) or the power called out by action from play, but art usescharm only to accompany the higher enjoyments which the idea of proprietygives to us. Considered in itself the charm or attraction is lost amidthe sensations of life, and art disdains it together with all merelysensual pleasures. 

We could not establish a classification of the fine arts only upon thedifference of the sources from which each of them draws the pleasurewhich it affords us; for in the same class of the fine arts many sorts ofpleasures may enter, and often all together. But in as far as a certainsort of pleasure is pursued as a principal aim, we can make of it, if nota specific character of a class properly so called, at least theprinciple and the tendency of a class in the works of art. Thus, forexample, we could take the arts which, above all, satisfy theintelligence and imagination--consequently those which have as chiefobject the true, the perfect, and the beautiful--and unite them under thename of fine arts (arts of taste, arts of intelligence); those, on theother hand, which especially occupy the imagination and the reason, andwhich, in consequence, have for principal object the good, the sublime, and the touching, could be limited in a particular class under thedenomination of touching arts (arts of sentiment, arts of the heart). Without doubt it is impossible to separate absolutely the touching fromthe beautiful, but the beautiful can perfectly subsist without thetouching. Thus, although we are not authorized to base upon thisdifference of principle a rigorous classification of the liberal arts, itcan at least serve to determine with more of precision the criterion, andprevent the confusion in which we are inevitably involved, when, drawingup laws of aesthetic things, we confound two absolutely differentdomains, as that of the touching and that of the beautiful. 

The touching and the sublime resemble in this point, that both one andthe other produce a pleasure by a feeling at first of displeasure, andthat consequently (pleasure proceeding from suitability, and displeasurefrom the contrary) they give us a feeling of suitability whichpresupposes an unsuitability. 

The feeling of the sublime is composed in part of the feeling of ourfeebleness, of our impotence to embrace an object; and, on the otherside, of the feeling of our moral power--of this superior faculty whichfears no obstacle, no limit, and which subdues spiritually that even towhich our physical forces give way. The object of the sublime thwarts, then, our physical power; and this contrariety (impropriety) mustnecessarily excite a displeasure in us. But it is, at the same time, anoccasion to recall to our conscience another faculty which is in us--afaculty which is even superior to the objects before which ourimagination yields. In consequence, a sublime object, precisely becauseit thwarts the senses, is suitable with relation to reason, and it givesto us a joy by means of a higher faculty, at the same time that it woundsus in an inferior one. 

The touching, in its proper sense, designates this mixed sensation, intowhich enters at the same time suffering and the pleasure that we find insuffering. Thus we can only feel this kind of emotion in the case of apersonal misfortune, only when the grief that we feel is sufficientlytempered to leave some place for that impression of pleasure that wouldbe felt by a compassionate spectator. The loss of a great goodprostrates for the time, and the remembrance itself of the grief willmake us experience emotion after a year. The feeble man is always theprey of his grief; the hero and the sage, whatever the misfortune thatstrikes them, never experience more than emotion. 

Emotion, like the sentiment of the sublime, is composed of twoaffections--grief and pleasure. There is, then, at the bottom apropriety, here as well as there, and under this propriety acontradiction. Thus it seems that it is a contradiction in nature thatman, who is not born to suffer, is nevertheless a prey to suffering, andthis contradiction hurts us. But the evil which this contradiction doesus is a propriety with regard to our reasonable nature in general, insomuch as this evil solicits us to act: it is a propriety also withregard to human society; consequently, even displeasure, which excites inus this contradiction, ought necessarily to make us experience asentiment of pleasure, because this displeasure is a propriety. Todetermine in an emotion if it is pleasure or displeasure which triumphs, we must ask ourselves if it is the idea of impropriety or that ofpropriety which affects us the more deeply. That can depend either onthe number of the aims reached or abortive, or on their connection withthe final aim of all. 

The suffering of the virtuous man moves us more painfully than that ofthe perverse man, because in the first case there is contradiction notonly to the general destiny of man, which is happiness, but also to thisother particular principle, viz. , that virtue renders happy; whilst inthe second case there is contradiction only with regard to the end of manin general. Reciprocally, the happiness of the wicked also offends usmuch more than the misfortune of the good man, because we find in it adouble contradiction: in the first place vice itself, and, in the secondplace, the recompense of vice. 

There is also this other consideration, that virtue is much more able torecompense itself than vice, when it triumphs, is to punish itself; andit is precisely for this that the virtuous man in misfortune would muchmore remain faithful to the cultus of virtue than the perverse man woulddream of converting himself in prosperity. 

But what is above all important in determining in the emotions therelation of pleasure and displeasure, is to compare the two ends--thatwhich has been fulfilled and that which has been ignored--and to seewhich is the most considerable. There is no propriety which touches usso nearly as moral propriety, and no superior pleasure to that which wefeel from it. Physical propriety could well be a problem, and a problemforever unsolvable. Moral propriety is already demonstrated. It aloneis founded upon our reasonable nature and upon internal necessity. It isour nearest interest, the most considerable, and, at the same time, themost easily recognized, because it is not determined by any externalelement but by an internal principle of our reason: it is the palladiumof our liberty. 

This moral propriety is never more vividly recognized than when it isfound in conflict with another propriety, and still keeps the upper hand;then only the moral law awakens in full power, when we find it strugglingagainst all the other forces of nature, and when all those forces lose inits presence their empire over a human soul. By these words, "the otherforces of nature, " we must understand all that is not moral force, allthat is not subject to the supreme legislation of reason: that is to say, feelings, affections, instincts, passions, as well as physical necessityand destiny. The more redoubtable the adversary, the more glorious thevictory; resistance alone brings out the strength of the force andrenders it visible. It follows that the highest degree of moralconsciousness can only exist in strife, and the highest moral pleasure isalways accompanied by pain. 

Consequently, the kind of poetry which secures us a high degree of moralpleasure, must employ mixed feelings, and please us through pain ordistress, --this is what tragedy does specially; and her realm embracesall that sacrifices a physical propriety to a moral one; or one moralpropriety to a higher one. It might be possible, perhaps, to form ameasure of moral pleasure, from the lowest to the highest degree, and todetermine by this principle of propriety the degree of pain or pleasureexperienced. Different orders of tragedy might be classified on the sameprinciple, so as to form a complete exhaustive tabulation of them. Thus, a tragedy being given, its place could be fixed, and its genusdetermined. Of this subject more will be said separately in its properplace. 

A few examples will show how far moral propriety commands physicalpropriety in our souls. 

Theron and Amanda are both tied to the stake as martyrs, and free tochoose life or death by the terrible ordeal of fire--they select thelatter. What is it which gives such pleasure to us in this scene? Theirposition so conflicting with the smiling destiny they reject, the rewardof misery given to virtue--all here awakens in us the feeling ofimpropriety: it ought to fill us with great distress. What is nature, and what are her ends and laws, if all this impropriety shows us moralpropriety in its full light. We here see the triumph of the moral law, so sublime an experience for us that we might even hail the calamitywhich elicits it. For harmony in the world of moral freedom gives usinfinitely more pleasure than all the discords in nature give us pain. 

When Coriolanus, obedient to duty as husband, son, and citizen, raisesthe siege of Rome, them almost conquered, withdrawing his army, andsilencing his vengeance, he commits a very contradictory act evidently. He loses all the fruit of previous victories, he runs spontaneously tohis ruin: yet what moral excellence and grandeur he offers! How noble toprefer any impropriety rather than wound moral sense; to violate naturalinterests and prudence in order to be in harmony with the higher morallaw! Every sacrifice of a life is a contradiction, for life is thecondition of all good; but in the light of morality the sacrifice of lifeis in a high degree proper, because life is not great in itself, but onlyas a means of accomplishing the moral law. If then the sacrifice of lifebe the way to do this, life must go. "It is not necessary for me tolive, but it is necessary for Rome to be saved from famine, " said Pompey, when the Romans embarked for Africa, and his friends begged him to deferhis departure till the gale was over. 

But the sufferings of a criminal are as charming to us tragically asthose of a virtuous man; yet here is the idea of moral impropriety. Theantagonism of his conduct to moral law, and the moral imperfection whichsuch conduct presupposes, ought to fill us with pain. Here there is nosatisfaction in the morality of his person, nothing to compensate for hismisconduct. Yet both supply a valuable object for art; this phenomenoncan easily be made to agree with what has been said. 

We find pleasure not only in obedience to morality, but in the punishmentgiven to its infraction. The pain resulting from moral imperfectionagrees with its opposite, the satisfaction at conformity with the law. Repentance, even despair, have nobleness morally, and can only exist ifan incorruptible sense of justice exists at the bottom of the criminalheart, and if conscience maintains its ground against self-love. Repentance comes by comparing our acts with the moral law, hence in themoment of repenting the moral law speaks loudly in man. Its power mustbe greater than the gain resulting from the crime as the infractionpoisons the enjoyment. Now, a state of mind where duty is sovereign ismorally proper, and therefore a source of moral pleasure. What, then, sublimer than the heroic despair that tramples even life underfoot, because it cannot bear the judgment within? A good man sacrificing hislife to conform to the moral law, or a criminal taking his own lifebecause of the morality he has violated: in both cases our respect forthe moral law is raised to the highest power. If there be any advantageit is in the case of the latter; for the good man may have beenencouraged in his sacrifice by an approving conscience, thus detractingfrom his merit. Repentance and regret at past crimes show us some of thesublimest pictures of morality in active condition. A man who violatesmorality comes back to the moral law by repentance. 

But moral pleasure is sometimes obtained only at the cost of moral pain. Thus one duty may clash with another. Let us suppose Coriolanus encampedwith a Roman army before Antium or Corioli, and his mother a Volscian; ifher prayers move him to desist, we now no longer admire him. Hisobedience to his mother would be at strife with a higher duty, that of acitizen. The governor to whom the alternative is proposed, either ofgiving up the town or of seeing his son stabbed, decides at once on thelatter, his duty as father being beneath that of citizen. At first ourheart revolts at this conduct in a father, but we soon pass to admirationthat moral instinct, even combined with inclination, could not leadreason astray in the empire where it commands. When Timoleon of Corinthputs to death his beloved but ambitious brother, Timophanes, he does itbecause his idea of duty to his country bids him to do so. The act hereinspires horror and repulsion as against nature and the moral sense, butthis feeling is soon succeeded by the highest admiration for his heroicvirtue, pronouncing, in a tumultuous conflict of emotions, freely andcalmly, with perfect rectitude. If we differ with Timoleon about hisduty as a republican, this does not change our view. Nay, in thosecases, where our understanding judges differently, we see all the moreclearly how high we put moral propriety above all other. 

But the judgments of men on this moral phenomenon are exceedinglyvarious, and the reason of it is clear. Moral sense is common to allmen, but differs in strength. To most men it suffices that an act bepartially conformable with the moral law to make them obey it; and tomake them condemn an action it must glaringly violate the law. But todetermine the relation of moral duties with the highest principle ofmorals requires an enlightened intelligence and an emancipated reason. Thus an action which to a few will be a supreme propriety, will seem tothe crowd a revolting impropriety, though both judge morally; and hencethe emotion felt at such actions is by no means uniform. To the mass thesublimest and highest is only exaggeration, because sublimity isperceived by reason, and all men have not the same share of it. A vulgarsoul is oppressed or overstretched by those sublime ideas, and the crowdsees dreadful disorder where a thinking mind sees the highest order. 

This is enough about moral propriety as a principle of tragic emotion, and the pleasure it elicits. It must be added that there are cases wherenatural propriety also seems to charm our mind even at the cost ofmorality. Thus we are always pleased by the sequence of machinations ofa perverse man, though his means and end are immoral. Such a man deeplyinterests us, and we tremble lest his plan fail, though we ought to wishit to do so. But this fact does not contradict what has been advancedabout moral propriety, --and the pleasure resulting from it. 

Propriety, the reference of means to an end, is to us, in all cases, asource of pleasure; even disconnected with morality. We experience thispleasure unmixed, so long as we do not think of any moral end whichdisallows action before us. Animal instincts give us pleasure--as theindustry of bees--without reference to morals; and in like manner humanactions are a pleasure to us when we consider in them only the relationof means to ends. But if a moral principle be added to these, andimpropriety be discovered, if the idea of moral agent comes in, a deepindignation succeeds our pleasure, which no intellectual propriety canremedy. We must not call to mind too vividly that Richard III. , Iago, and Lovelace are men; otherwise our sympathy for them infallibly turnsinto an opposite feeling. But, as daily experience teaches, we have thepower to direct our attention to different sides of things; and pleasure, only possible through this abstraction, invites us to exercise it, and toprolong its exercise. 

Yet it is not rare for intelligent perversity to secure our favor bybeing the means of procuring us the pleasure of moral propriety. Thetriumph of moral propriety will be great in proportion as the snares setby Lovelace for the virtue of Clarissa are formidable, and as the trialsof an innocent victim by a cruel tyrant are severe. It is a pleasure tosee the craft of a seducer foiled by the omnipotence of the moral sense. On the other hand, we reckon as a sort of merit the victory of amalefactor over his moral sense, because it is the proof of a certainstrength of mind and intellectual propriety. 

Yet this propriety in vice can never be the source of a perfect pleasure, except when it is humiliated by morality. In that case it is anessential part of our pleasure, because it brings moral sense intostronger relief. The last impression left on us by the author ofClarissa is a proof of this. The intellectual propriety in the plan ofLovelace is greatly surpassed by the rational propriety of Clarissa. This allows us to feel in full the satisfaction caused by both. 

When the tragic poet has for object to awaken in us the feeling of moralpropriety, and chooses his means skilfully for that end, he is sure tocharm doubly the connoisseur, by moral and by natural propriety. Thefirst satisfies the heart, the second the mind. The crowd is impressedthrough the heart without knowing the cause of the magic impression. But, on the other hand, there is a class of connoisseurs on whom thatwhich affects the heart is entirely lost, and who can only be gained bythe appropriateness of the means; a strange contradiction resulting fromover-refined taste, especially when moral culture remains behindintellectual. This class of connoisseurs seek only the intellectualside in touching and sublime themes. They appreciate this in thejustest manner, but you must beware how you appeal to their heart! Theover-culture of the age leads to this shoal, and nothing becomes thecultivated man so much as to escape by a happy victory this twofold andpernicious influence. Of all other European nations, our neighbors, theFrench, lean most to this extreme, and we, as in all things, strain everynerve to imitate this model.