[Illustration: Friedrick Schiller]




                  Aesthetical and Philosophical Essays
                            INTRODUCING THE
 DISSERTATION ON THE “CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL MAN.”


                                   BY

                           FRIEDRICK SCHILLER


                            Library Edition

[Illustration]

                               NEW YORK:
                    The Publishers Plate Renting Co.




                               CONTENTS.


                                                                   PAGE

 INTRODUCTION                                                         5


 LETTERS ON THE ÆSTHETICAL EDUCATION OF MAN                          33


 ÆSTHETICAL ESSAYS:—

      THE MORAL UTILITY OF ÆSTHETIC MANNERS                         126

      ON THE SUBLIME                                                135

      THE PATHETIC                                                  149

      ON GRACE AND DIGNITY                                          175

      ON DIGNITY                                                    211

      ON THE NECESSARY LIMITATIONS IN THE USE OF BEAUTY AND FORM    230

      REFLECTIONS ON THE USE OF THE VULGAR AND LOW ELEMENTS IN
        WORKS OF ART                                                254

      DETACHED REFLECTIONS ON DIFFERENT QUESTIONS OF ÆSTHETICS      261

      ON SIMPLE AND SENTIMENTAL POETRY                              269

      THE STAGE AS A MORAL INSTITUTION                              339

      ON THE TRAGIC ART                                             346

      OF THE CAUSE OF THE PLEASURE WE DERIVE FROM TRAGIC OBJECTS    367


 SCHILLER’S PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS:—

      PREFATORY REMARKS                                             379

      THEOSOPHY OF JULIUS                                           387

      ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ANIMAL AND THE SPIRITUAL
        NATURE IN MAN                                               406

      PHYSICAL CONNECTION                                           408

      PHILOSOPHICAL CONNECTION                                      415




                             INTRODUCTION.


The special subject of the greater part of the letters and essays of
Schiller contained in this volume is Æsthetics; and before passing to
any remarks on his treatment of the subject it will be useful to offer a
few observations on the nature of this topic, and on its treatment by
the philosophical spirit of different ages.

First, then, æsthetics has for its object the vast realm of the
beautiful, and it may be most adequately defined as the philosophy of
art or of the fine arts. To some the definition may seem arbitrary, as
excluding the beautiful in nature; but it will cease to appear so if it
is remarked that the beauty which is the work of art is higher than
natural beauty, because it is the offspring of the mind. Moreover, if,
in conformity with a certain school of modern philosophy, the mind be
viewed as the true being, including all in itself, it must be admitted
that 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 the
beauty of the mind, only an imperfect beauty, which as to its essence is
included in that of the mind. Nor has it ever entered into the mind of
any thinker to develop the beautiful in natural objects, so as to
convert it into a science and a system. The field of natural beauty is
too uncertain and too fluctuating for this purpose. Moreover, the
relation of beauty in nature and beauty in art forms a part of the
science of æsthetics, 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
has it a more serious side? When compared with the absorbing necessities
of human existence, it might seem a luxury, a superfluity, calculated to
enfeeble the heart by the assiduous worship of beauty, and thus to be
actually prejudicial to the true interest of practical life. This view
seems to be largely countenanced by a dominant party in modern times,
and practical men, as they are styled, are only too ready to take this
superficial view of the office of art.

Many have indeed undertaken to defend art on this score, and to show
that, far from being a mere luxury, it has serious and solid advantages.
It has been even apparently exaggerated in this respect, and represented
as a kind of mediator between reason and sense, between inclination and
duty, having as its mission the work of reconciling the conflicting
elements in the human heart. A strong trace of this view will be found
in Schiller, especially in all that he says about the play instinct in
his “Æsthetical Letters.”

Nevertheless, art is worthy of science; æsthetics is a true science, and
the office of art is as high as that assigned to it in the pages of
Schiller. We admit that art viewed only as an ornament and a charm is no
longer 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 it
is only free when liberated from all other considerations; it rises up
to truth, 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 whether
it has to be placed beside religion and philosophy as being nothing else
than a particular mode or a special form of revealing God to
consciousness, and of expressing the deepest interests of human nature
and the widest truths of the human mind.

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

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

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

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

It will be generally admitted that the mind of man has the power of
considering itself, of making itself its own object and all that issues
from its activity; for thought constitutes the essence of the mind. Now
art and its work, as creations of the mind, are themselves of a
spiritual nature. In this respect art is much nearer to the mind than
nature. In studying the works of art the mind has to do with itself,
with what proceeds from itself, and is itself.

Thus art finds its highest confirmation in science.

Nor does art refuse a philosophical treatment because it is dependent on
caprice, and subject to no law. If its highest aim be to reveal to the
human consciousness the highest interest of the mind, it is evident that
the substance or contents of the representations are not given up to the
control of a wild and irregular imagination. It is strictly determined
by the ideas that concern our intelligence and by the laws of their
development, whatever may be the inexhaustible variety of forms in which
they are produced. Nor are these forms arbitrary, for every form is not
fitted to express every idea. The form is determined by the substance
which it has to suit.

A further consideration of the true nature of beauty, and therefore of
the vocation of the artist, will aid us still more in our endeavor to
show the high dignity of art and of æsthetics. The history of philosophy
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 only consider the
most important among them. The coarsest of these theories defines the
beautiful as that which pleases the senses. This theory, issuing from
the philosophy of sensation of the school of Locke and Condillac, only
explains the idea and the feeling of the beautiful by disfiguring it. It
is entirely contradicted by facts. For it converts it into desire, but
desire is egotistical and insatiable, while admiration is respectful,
and is its own satisfaction without seeking possession.

Others have thought the beautiful consists in proportion, and no doubt
this is one of the conditions of beauty, but only one. An
ill-proportioned object cannot be beautiful, but the exact
correspondence of parts, as in geometrical figures, does not constitute
beauty.

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

The most plausible theory of beauty is that which makes it consist in
two contrary and equally necessary elements—unity and variety. A
beautiful flower has all the elements we have named; it has unity,
symmetry, and variety of shades of color. There is no beauty without
life, and life is movement, diversity. These elements are found in
beautiful and also in sublime objects. A beautiful object is complete,
finished, limited with symmetrical parts. A sublime object whose forms,
though not out of proportion, are less determined, ever awakens in us
the feeling of the infinite. In objects of sense all qualities that can
produce the feeling of the beautiful come under one class called
physical beauty. But above and beyond this in the region of mind we have
first intellectual beauty, including the laws that govern intelligence
and the creative genius of the artist, the poet, and the philosopher.
Again, the moral world has beauty in its ideas of liberty, of virtue, of
devotion, the justice of Aristides, the heroism of Leonidas.

We have now ascertained that there is beauty and sublimity in nature, in
ideas, in feelings, and in actions. After all this it might be supposed
that a unity could be found amidst these different kinds of beauty. The
sight of a statue, as the Apollo of Belvedere, of a man, of Socrates
expiring, are adduced as producing impressions of the beautiful; but the
form 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 moral
beauty 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 for
principle that of all truth.

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

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

Many questions bearing on art and relating to the beautiful had been
propounded before, seen as far back as Plotinus, Plato, and Socrates;
but recent times have been the real cradle of æsthetics as a science.
Modern philosophy was the first to recognize that beauty in art is one
of the means by which the contradictions can be removed between mind
considered in its abstract and absolute existence and nature
constituting the world of sense, bringing back these two factors to
unity.

Kant was the first who felt the want of this union and expressed it, but
without determining its conditions or expressing it scientifically. He
was impeded in his efforts to effect this union by the opposition
between the subjective and the objective, by his placing practical
reason above theoretical reason, and he set up the opposition found in
the moral sphere as the highest principle of morality. Reduced to this
difficulty, all that Kant could do was to express the union under the
form of the subjective ideas of reason, or as postulates to be deduced
from the practical reason, without their essential character being
known, and representing 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
the contrary, to consider the living organism in such wise that, the
general including the particular, and determining it as an end,
consequently the idea also determines the external, the compound of the
organs, not by an act springing from without but issuing from within. In
this way the end and the means, the interior and exterior, the general
and particular, are confounded in unity. But this judgment only
expresses a subjective act of reflection, and does not throw any light
on the object in itself. Kant has the same view of the æsthetic
judgment. According to him the judgment does not proceed either from
reason, as the faculty of general ideas, or from sensuous perception,
but from the free play of the reason and of the imagination. In this
analysis of the cognitive faculty, the object only exists relatively to
the subject and to the feeling of pleasure 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, without
awakening in us the consciousness of an abstract idea and of a category
of reason to which we might refer our judgment.

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

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

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

Such is an outline of the principal results of Kant’s criticism, and
Hegel passes high praise on the profoundly philosophic mind of Schiller,
who demanded the union and reconciliation of the two principles, and who
tried to give a scientific explanation of it before the problem had been
solved by philosophy. In his “Letters on Æsthetic Education,” Schiller
admits that man carries in himself the germ of the ideal man which is
realized and represented by the state. There are two ways for the
individual man to approach the ideal man; first, when the state,
considered as morality, justice, and general reason, absorbs the
individualities in its unity; secondly, when the individual rises to the
ideal of his species by the perfecting of himself. Reason demands unity,
conformity to the species; nature, on the other hand, demands plurality
and individuality; and man is at once solicited by two contrary laws. In
this conflict, æsthetic education must come in to effect the
reconciliation of the two principles; for, according to Schiller, it has
as its end to fashion and polish the inclinations and passions so that
they may become reasonable, and that, on the other hand, reason and
freedom may issue from their abstract character, may unite with nature,
may spiritualize it, become incarnate, and take a body in it. Beauty is
thus given as the simultaneous development of the rational and of the
sensuous, fused together, and interpenetrated one by the other, an union
that constitutes in fact true reality.

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

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

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

Our space only allows us to give a glance, first, at the metaphysics of
the beautiful as developed by Hegel in the first part of his
‘Aesthetik,’ and then at the later development of the same system in
recent writers issuing 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 up
with an examination of the qualities of the artist.

His preliminary remarks are directed to show the relations of art to
religion and philosophy, and he shows that man’s destination is an
infinite development. In real life he only satisfies his longing
partially and imperfectly by limited enjoyments. In science he finds a
nobler pleasure, and civil life opens a career for his activity; but he
only finds an imperfect pleasure in these pursuits. He cannot then find
the ideal after which he sighs. Then he rises to a higher sphere, where
all contradictions are effaced and the ideas of good and happiness are
realized in perfect accord and in constant harmony. This deep want of
the soul is satisfied in three ways: in art, in religion, and in
philosophy.

Art is intended to make us contemplate the true and the infinite in
forms of sense. Yet even art does not fully satisfy the deepest need of
the soul. 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 its
characteristics. It is infinite, and it is free; the contemplation of
the beautiful suffices to itself, it awakens no desire. The soul
experiences something like a godlike felicity and is transported into a
sphere remote from the miseries of life. This theory of the beautiful
comes very near that of Plato.

Secondly, as to beauty in nature. Physical beauty, considered
externally, presents itself successively under the aspects of regularity
and of symmetry, of conformity with a law, and of harmony, also of
purity and simplicity of matter.

Thirdly, beauty in art or the ideal is beauty in a higher degree of
perfection than real beauty. The ideal in art is not contrary to the
real, but the real idealized, purified, and perfectly expressed. The
ideal is also the soul arrived at the consciousness of itself, free and
fully enjoying its faculties; it is life, but spiritual life and spirit.
Nor is the ideal a cold abstraction, it is the spiritual principle under
the 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 Greek
divinities; the Christian ideal, as expressed in all its highest purity
in God the Father, the Christ, the Virgin. Its essential features are
calm, majesty, serenity.

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

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

A recent exponent of Hegel’s æsthetical ideas further developed
expresses himself thus on the nature of beauty:—

“After the bitterness of the world, the sweetness of art soothes and
refreshes us. This is the high value of the beautiful—that it solves the
contradiction of mind and matter, of the moral and sensuous world, in
harmony. Thus the beautiful and its representation in art procures for
intuition what philosophy gives to the cognitive insight and religion to
the believing frame of mind. Hence the delight with which Schiller’s
wonderful poem on the Bell celebrates the accord of the inner and outer
life, the fulfilment of the longing and demands of the soul by the
events in nature. The externality of phenomena is removed in the
beautiful; it is raised into the circle of ideal existence; for it is
recognized as the revelation of the ideal, and thus transfigured it
gives to the latter additional splendor.

“Thus the beautiful is active, living unity, full existence without
defect, as Plato and Schelling have said, or as recent writers describe
it; the idea that is quite present in the appearance, the appearance
which is quite formed and penetrated by the idea.”

“Beauty is the world secret that invites us in image and word,” is the
poetical expression of Plato; and we may add, because it is revealed in
both. We feel in it the harmony of the world; it breaks forth in a
beauty, in a lovely accord, in a radiant point, and starting thence we
penetrate further and yet further, and find as the ground of all
existence 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 jet
forth in royal beauty, exceeding that of Solomon, if the inner ground of
nature were not beauty?

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

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

The beautiful not only presents itself to us as mediator of a foreign
excellence or of a remote divinity, but the ideal and the godlike are
present in it. Hence æsthetics requires as its basis the system in which
God is known as indwelling in the world, that He is not far distant from
any one of us, but that He animates us, and that we live in Him.
Æsthetics requires the knowledge that mind is the creative force and
unity of all that is extended and developed in time and space.

The beautiful is thus, according to these later thinkers, the revelation
of 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 the
senses; thus the entire man feels himself raised and satisfied by it. By
the unity of the beautiful with us we experience with delight that
thought and the material world are present for our individuality, that
they utter tones and shine forth in it, that both penetrate each other
and blend in it and thus become one with it. We feel one with them and
one in them.

This later view was to a great extent expressed by Schiller in his
“Æsthetical Letters.”

But art and æsthetics, in the sense in which these terms are used and
understood by German philosophical writers, such as Schiller, embrace a
wider field than the line arts. Lessing, in his “Laocoon,” had already
shown the point of contrast between painting and poetry; and æsthetics,
being defined as the science of the beautiful, must of necessity embrace
poetry. Accordingly Schiller’s essays on tragic art, pathos, and
sentimental poetry, contained in this volume, are justly classed under
his æsthetical writings.

This being so, it is important to estimate briefly the transitions of
German poetry before Schiller, and the position that he occupied in its
historic development.

The first classical period of German poetry and literature was contained
between A.D. 1190 and 1300. It exhibits the intimate blending of the
German and Christian elements, and their full development in splendid
productions, 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 of art
and poetry, save perhaps, and that imperfectly, the heroic and
post-Homeric age of early Greece.

The poetical efforts of that early age may be grouped under—(1) national
epos: the “Nibelungenlied;” (2) art epos: the “Rolandslied,” “Percival,”
etc.; (3) the introduction of antique legends: Veldeck’s “Æneide,” and
Konrad’s “War of Troy;” (4) Christian legends: “Barlaam,” “Sylvester,”
“Pilatus,” &c.; (5) poetical narratives: “Crescentia,” “Graf Rudolf,”
etc.; (6) animal legends; “Reinecke Vos;” (7) didactic poems: “Der
Renner;” (8) the Minne-poetry, and prose.

The fourth group, though introduced from a foreign source, gives the
special character and much of the charm of the period we consider. This
is the sphere of legends derived from ecclesiastical ground. One of the
best German writers on the history of German literature remarks: “If the
aim and nature of all poetry is to let yourself be filled by a subject
and to become penetrated with it; if the simple representation of
unartificial, true, and glowing feelings belongs to its most beautiful
adornments; if the faithful direction of the heart to the invisible and
eternal is the ground on which at all times the most lovely flowers of
poetry have sprouted forth, these legendary poems of early Germany, in
their lovely heartiness, in their unambitious limitation, and their
pious sense, deserve a friendly acknowledgment. What man has considered
the pious images in the prayer-books of the Middle Ages, the unadorned
innocence, the piety and purity, the patience of the martyrs, the calm,
heavenly transparency of the figures of the holy angels, without, being
attracted by the simple innocence and humility of these forms, the
creation of pious artists’ hands? Who has beheld them without tranquil
joy at the soft splendor poured over them, without deep sympathy, nay,
without a certain emotion and tenderness? And the same spirit that
created these images also produced those poetical effusions, the same
spirit of pious belief, of deep devotion, of heavenly longing. If we
make a present reality of the heroic songs of the early German popular
poetry, and the chivalrous epics of the art poetry, the military
expeditions and dress of the Crusades, this legendary poetry appears as
the invention of humble pilgrims, who wander slowly on the weary way to
Jerusalem, with scollop and pilgrim’s staff, engaged in quiet prayer,
till they are all to kneel at the Saviour’s sepulchre; and thus
contented, 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 tournaments
and joyous festivals, the poetry of the earthly love for the earthly
bride, the poetry of the legends is that of the spontaneous life of
poverty, the poetry of the solitary cloister cell, of the quiet,
well-walled convent garden, the poetry of heavenly brides, who without
lamenting the joys of the world, which they need not, have their joy in
their Saviour in tranquil piety and devout resignation—who attend at the
espousals of Anna and Joachim, sing the Magnificat with the Holy Mother
of 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 in the glades of Paradise. While the Minne-poetry was the tender
homage offered to the beauty, the gentleness, the grace, and charm of
noble women of this world, legendary poetry was the homage given to the
Virgin Mother, the Queen of Heaven, transfiguring earthly love into a
heavenly and 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 the deepest and simplest and truest, most enthusiastic and
faithful veneration of the Virgin Mary. If we, by a certain effort,
manage to place ourselves back on the standpoint of childlike poetic
faith of that time, and set aside in thought the materializing and
exaggeration of the hagiology and Mariolatry produced by later
centuries, rendering the reaction of the Reformation unavoidable—if now
in our age, turned exclusively to logical ideas and a negative
dialectic, we live again by thought in those ages of feeling and
poetry—if we acknowledge all these things to be something more than
harmless play of words and fancy, and as the true lifelike contents of
the period, then we can properly appreciate this legendary poetry as a
necessary link in the crown of pearls of our ancient poetry.”

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

Then came degeneracy and artifice; after that the great shock of the
Reformation; subsequently a servile and pedantic study of classical
forms without imbibing their spirit, but preparing the way for a truer
art spirit, extracted from their study by the masterly criticism of
Winckelmann and Lessing, till the second classical period of German
literature and poetry bloomed forth in full beauty, blending the
national and legendary elements so well expressed by Herder with the
highest effusions of dramatic poetry, partly creative and partly
imitative of the Greek models, in Schiller and Goethe.

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

Lessing, the founder of the modern German drama, sought to banish all
pomp from the theatre, and in doing so some critics have thought that he
banished the ideal and fell into affectation. At any rate, his
“Dramaturgy” is full of original ideas, and when he drew out the sphere
of poetry contrasted with that of painting in his “Laocoon,” all Germany
resounded with his praise. “With that delight,” says Goethe, “we saluted
this luminous ray which a thinker of the first order caused to break
forth from its clouds. It is necessary to have all the fire of youth to
conceive the effect produced on us by the ‘Laocoon’ of Lessing.” Another
great contemporary, whose name is imperishable as that of art, struck a
mortal blow at a false taste in the study of the antique. Winckelmann
questioned the works of the Greek chisel with an intelligence full of
love, and initiated his countrymen into poetry by a feeling for
sculpture! What an enthusiasm he displayed for classical beauty! what a
worship of the form! what a fervor of paganism is found in its eloquent
pages when he also comments on the admirable group of the Laocoon, or
the still purer masterpiece of the Apollo of Belvedere.

These men were the vanguard of the great Germanic army; Schiller and
Goethe alone formed its main column. In them German poetry shows itself
in its perfection, and completely realizes the ideal designed for it by
the critic. Every factitious precept and conventional law was now
overthrown; these poetical Protestants broke away entirely from the yoke
of tradition. Yet their genius was not without a rule. Every work bears
in itself the organic laws of its development. Thus, although they laugh
at the famous precept of the three unities, it is because they dig still
deeper down to the root of things, to grasp the true principle from
which the precept issued. “Men have not understood,” said Goethe, “the
basis of this law. The law of the comprehensive—‘das Fassliche’—is the
principle; and the three unities have only value as far as they attain
it. When they become an obstacle to the comprehension it is madness to
wish to observe them. The Greeks themselves, from whom the rule is
derived, did not always follow it. In the ‘Phaeton’ of Euripides, and in
other pieces, there was change, place; accordingly they prefer to give a
perfect exposition of their subject, rather than blindly respect a law
never very essential in itself. The pieces of Shakspeare violate in the
highest degree the unity of time and of place; but they are full of
comprehensiveness; nothing is easier to grasp, and for that reason they
would have found favor with the Greeks. The French poets tried to obey
exactly the law of the three unities; but they violate the law of
comprehensiveness, as they do not expound dramatic subjects by dramas
but by recitals.”

Poetical creation was therefore viewed as free, but at the same time
responsible. Immediately, as if fecundity were the reward of
correctness, the German theatre became filled with true and living
characters. The stage widens under their steps that they may have room
to move. History with its great proportions and its terrible lessons, is
now able to take place on the stage. The whole Thirty Years’ War passes
before us in “Wallenstein.” We hear the tumult of camps, the disorder of
a fanatical and undisciplined army, peasants, recruits, sutlers,
soldiers. The illusion is complete, and enthusiasm breaks out among the
spectators. Similar merits attach to many other of Schiller’s plays.

This new drama, which seemed to give all to the natural sphere, concedes
still more to the ideal. An able critic has said the details which are
the truth of history are also its poetry. Here the German school
professes a principle of the highest learning, and one that seems to be
borrowed from its profoundest philosophers; it is that of the universal
beauty of life, of the identity of beauty and existence. “Our
æsthetics,” says Goethe, “speak a great deal of poetical or antipoetical
subjects; fundamentally there is no subject that has not its poetry; it
is for the poet to find it there.”

Schiller and Goethe divide the empire over modern German poetry, and
represent its two principal powers; the one, Schiller, impassioned and
lyrical, pours his soul over all the subjects he touches; in him every
composition, ode, or drama is always one of his noble ideas, borrowing
its dress and ornament from the external world. He is a poet especially
through the heart, by the force with which he rushes in and carries you
with him. Goethe is especially an epic; no doubt he paints the passions
with admirable truth, but he commands them; like the god of the seas in
Virgil, 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 works
in this volume, his Æsthetical Letters and Essays. Schiller, in his
Æsthetical Essays, did not choose the pure abstract method of deduction
and conception like Kant, nor the historical like Herder, who strove
thus to account for the genesis of our ideas of beauty and art. He
struck out a middle path, which presents certain deficiencies to the
advocates of either of these two systems. He leans upon Kantian ideas,
but without scholastic constraint. Pure speculation, which seeks to set
free the form from all contents and matter, was remote from his creative
genius, to which the world of matter and sense was no hinderance, but a
necessary envelop for his forms.

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

The Æsthetical Essays in this volume appeared for the most part since
1792, in the “Thalia” and the “Hours” periodicals. The first, “On the
Ground of our Pleasure in Tragic Subjects” (1792), applies Kantian
principles of the sublime to tragedy, and shows Schiller’s lofty
estimate of this class of poetry. With Kant he shows that the source of
all pleasure is suitableness; the touching and sublime elicit this
feeling, implying the existence of unsuitableness. In this article he
makes the aim and source of art to consist in giving enjoyment, in
pleasing. To nature pleasure is a mediate object, to art its main
object. The same proposition appears in Schiller’s paper on Tragic Art
(1792), closely connected with the former. This article contains views
of the affection of pity that seem to approximate the Aristotelian
propositions about tragedy.

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

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

The following year, 1795, appeared his most important contribution to
æsthetics, in his Æsthetical Letters.

In these letters he remarks that beauty is the work of free
contemplation, and we enter with it into the world of ideas, but without
leaving the world of sense. Beauty is to us an object, and yet at the
same time a state of our subjectivity, because the feeling of the
conditional is under that which we have of it. Beauty is a form because
we consider it, and life because we feel it; in a word, it is at once
our state and our art. And exactly because it is both it serves us as a
triumphant proof that suffering does not exclude activity, nor matter
form, nor limitation the infinite, for in the enjoyment of beauty both
natures are united, and by this is proved the capacity of the infinite
to be developed in the finite, and accordingly the possibility of the
sublimest humanity.

The free play of the faculty of cognition which had been determined by
Kant is also developed by Schiller. His representation of this matter is
this: Man, as a spirit, is reason and will, self-active, determining,
form-giving; this is described by Schiller as the form-instinct; man, as
a sensuous being, is determinable, receptive, termed to matter; Schiller
describes this as the material instinct, “Stofftrieb.” In the midst
between these two is situated the beautiful, in which reason and the
sensuous penetrate each other, and their enjoyable product is designated
by Schiller the play instinct. This expression is not happily chosen.
Schiller means to describe by it the free play of the forces, activity
according to nature, which is at once a joy and a happiness; he reminds
us of the life of Olympus, and adds: “Man is only quite a man when he
plays.” Personality is that which lasts, the state of feeling is the
changeable in man; he is the fixed unity remaining eternally himself in
the floods of change. Man in contact with the world is to take it up in
himself, 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 is
only by his being independent that there is reality out of him; only by
being susceptible of feeling that there is reality in him. The object of
sensuous instinct is life; that of the purer instinct figure; living
figure or beauty is the object of the play instinct.

Only inasmuch as life is formed in the understanding and form in feeling
does 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 of
special force is strung to harmony, and man made a complete whole.

Schiller adds that beauty knits together thought and feeling; the
fullest unity of spirit and matter. Its freedom is not lack, but
harmony, of laws; its conditions are not exclusions, inclusion of all
infinity determined in itself. A true work of art generates lofty
serenity and freedom of mind. Thus the æsthetic disposition bestows on
us the highest of all gifts, that of a disposition to humanity, and we
may call beauty our second creator.

In these letters Schiller spoke out the mildest and highest sentiments
on art, and in his paper on Simple and Sentimental Poetry (1795) he
constructs the ideal of the perfect poet. This is by far the most
fruitful of Schiller’s essays in its results. It has much that is
practically applicable, and contains a very able estimate of German
poetry. The writing is also very pointed and telling, because it is
based upon actual perceptions, and it is interesting because the
contrast drawn out throughout it between the simple and the sentimental
has been referred to his own contrast with Goethe. He also wished to
vindicate modern poetry, which Goethe seemed to wish to sacrifice to the
antique.

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

On the whole it may be said, taking a survey of these labors, that if
Schiller had developed his ideas systematically and the unity of his
intuition of the world, which were present in his feelings, and if he
had based them scientifically, a new epoch in philosophy might have been
anticipated. For he had obtained a view of such a future field of
thought 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
of genius that Goethe had inaugurated. But as he was the last arrival of
that productive period of tempestuous agitation, he retained more of its
elements in his later life and poetry than any others who had passed
through earlier agitations, such as Goethe. For Goethe cast himself free
in a great measure from the early intoxication of his youthful
imagination, devoting himself partly to nobler matter and partly to
purer forms.

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

Gervinus remarks that Schiller had at Weimar long fallen off from
Christianity, and occupied his mind tranquilly for a time with the views
of Spinoza (realistic pantheism). Like Herder and Goethe, he viewed life
in 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 became
a German and a Kantian. He receives the Godhead in His will, and He
descends from His throne, He dwells in his soul; the poet sees divine
revelations, and as a seer announces them to man. He is a moral educator
of his people, who utters the tones of life in his poetry from youth
upwards. Philosophy was not disclosed to Plato in the highest and purest
thought, nor is poetry to Schiller merely an artificial edifice in the
harmony of speech; philosophy and poetry are to both a vibration of love
in the soul upwards to God, a liberation from the bonds of sense, a
purification of man, a moral art. On this reposes the religious
consecration of the Platonic spirit and of that of Schiller.

Issuing from the philosophical school of Kant, and imbued with the
antagonism of the age against constituted authorities, it is natural
that Schiller should be a rationalist in his religious views. It has
been justly said of him that while Goethe’s system was an apotheosis of
nature Schiller’s was an apotheosis of man.

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

In conclusion, we may attempt to classify and give Schiller his place in
the progress of the world’s literary history. Progress is no doubt a law
of the individual, of nations, and of the whole race. To grow in
perfection, to exist in some sort at a higher degree, is the task
imposed by God on man, the continuation of the very work of God, the
complement of creation. But this moral growth, this need of increase,
may, like all the forces of nature, yield to a greater force; it is an
impulsion rather than a necessity; it solicits and does not constrain. A
thousand obstacles stay its development in individuals and in societies;
moral liberty may retard or accelerate its effects. Progress is
therefore a law 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 the
providential action that presides over our destinies to prevail. Looking
at the same total of the life of the world, humanity undoubtedly
advances: there are in our time fewer moral miseries, fewer physical
miseries, than were known in the past.

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

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

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

The middle ages introduced spiritualism in art; before this new idea the
smiling untruths of Greek poetry fled away frightened. The classical
form so beautiful, so pure, cannot contain high Catholic thought. A new
art is formed; on this side the Alps it does not reach the maturity that
produces 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 resuscitates
the traditions of antique science and seeks to unite them to the truths
of Christianity. The art of the middle ages, as a vessel of too limited
capacity, is broken by the new flood poured into it. These different
ideas are stirred up and in conflict in the sixteenth century; they
became co-ordinate and attain to an admirable expression in the
following age.

In the eighteenth century there is a new invasion of ideas; all is
examined and questioned; religion, government, society, all becomes a
matter of discussion for the school called philosophical. Poetry
appeared dying out, history drying up, till a truer spirit was breathed
into the literary atmosphere by the criticism of Lessing, the philosophy
of Kant, and the poetry of Klopstock. It was at this transition period
that Schiller appeared, retaining throughout his literary career much of
the revolutionary and convulsive spirit of his early days, and
faithfully reflecting much of the dominant German philosophy of his
time.

Part of the nineteenth century seems to take in hand the task of
reconstructing the moral edifice and of giving back to thought a larger
form. The literary result of its effects is the renaissance of lyrical
poetry with an admirable development in history.

Schiller’s most brilliant works were in the former walk, his histories
have inferior merit, and his philosophical writings bespeak a deep
thinking nature with great originality of conception, such as naturally
results from a combination of high poetic inspiration with much
intellectual power.

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

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

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

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

Yet there is another side to Germanism which is prone to the ideal and
the mystical, and bears still the trace of those lovely legends of
mediæval growth to which we have adverted. For Christianity was not a
foreign and antagonistic importation in Germany; rather, the German
character obtained its completeness through Christianity. The German
found himself again in the Church of Christ, only raised, transfigured,
and sanctified. The apostolic representation of the Church as the bride
of Christ has found its fullest and truest correspondence in that of
Germany. Hence when the German spirit was thoroughly espoused to the
Christian spirit, we find that character of love, tenderness, and depth
so characteristic of the early classics of German poetry, and
reappearing in 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 nature
that has enabled spirits born of negation and revolution, like Schiller,
to unite with those elements the most genial and creative inspirations
of poetry.




                       VOCABULARY OF TERMINOLOGY.


_Absolute, The._ A conception, or, more strictly, in Kantian language;
an idea of the pure reason, embracing the fundamental and necessary yet
free ground of all things.

_Antinomy._ The conflict of the laws of pure reason; as in the question
of free will and necessity.

_Autonomy_ (autonomous). Governing itself by the spontaneous action of
free will.

_Æsthetics._ The science of beauty; as ethics of duty.

_Cognition_ (knowledge; Germanicè, “Erkenntniss”) is either an intuition
or a conception. The former has an immediate relation to the object, and
is singular and individual; the latter has but a mediate relation, by
means of a characteristic mark, which may be common to several things.

Cognition is an objective perception.

_Conception._ A conception is either empirical or pure. A pure
conception, 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 and
perception, and on the other hand from the intuitions of pure reason or
ideas. They are distinctly the product of thought and of the
understanding, except when quite free from empirical elements.

_Feeling_ (Gefühl). That part of our nature which relates to passion and
instinct. Feelings are connected both with our sensuous nature, our
imagination, 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_.
Perfection in all its aspects is an idea, virtue and wisdom in their
perfect purity and ideas. Kant remarks (“Critique of Pure Reason,”
Meiklejohn’s translation, p. 256): “It is from the understanding alone
that pure and transcendental conceptions take their origin; the reason
does not properly give birth to any conception, but only frees the
conception of the understanding from the unavoidable limitation of
possible experience. A conception formed from notions which transcend
the possibility of experience is an idea or a conception of reason.”

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

_Matter and Form._ “These two conceptions are at the foundation of all
other reflection, being inseparably connected with every mode of
exercising the understanding. By the former is implied that which can be
determined in general; the second implies its determination, both in a
transcendental sense, abstraction being made of any difference in that
which is given, and of the mode in which it is determined. That which in
the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but that
which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under
certain 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 of
mind are objective to my thoughts. In a popular sense objective means
external, as contrasted with the subjective or internal.

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

_Phenomena_ (Erscheinungen). The undetermined object of an empirical
intuition is called phenomenon.

_Reason_ (pure; Germanicè, “Vernunft”). The source of ideas of moral
feelings and of conceptions free from all elements taken up from
experience.

_Representation_ (Vorstellung). All the products of the mind are styled
representations (except emotions and mere sensations) and the term is
applied to the whole genus.

Representation with consciousness is _perceptio_.

_Sensation._ The capacity of receiving representations through the mode
in which we are affected by objects is called sensibility. By means of
sensibility objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes with
intentions meaning sensuous intuitions. By the understanding they are
thought, and from it arise conceptions.

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

_Super-sensuous._ Contrasted with and opposed to the sensuous. What is
exclusively related to sense or imparted through the sensuous ideas is
super-sensuous. See _Transcendental_.

_Transcendental._ What exceeds the limits of sense and empirical
observation. “I apply the term _transcendental_ to all knowledge which
is not so much occupied with objects as with the mode of our cognition
of these objects, so far as this mode of cognition is possible _à
priori_.” Kant’s “Critique,” _op. cit._ p. 16.

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




                                LETTERS
                                 ON THE
                      ÆSTHETICAL EDUCATION OF MAN.


                               LETTER I.

By your permission I lay before you, in a series of letters, the results
of my researches upon _beauty_ and _art_. I am keenly sensible of the
importance as well as of the charm and dignity of this undertaking. I
shall treat a subject which is closely connected with the better portion
of our happiness and not far removed from the moral nobility of human
nature. I shall plead this cause of the beautiful before a heart by
which her whole power is felt and exercised, and which will take upon
itself the most difficult part of my task in an investigation where one
is compelled to appeal as frequently to feelings as to principles.

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

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

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

Permit me therefore to crave your indulgence if the following researches
should remove their object from the sphere of sense while endeavoring to
draw it towards the understanding. That which I before said of moral
experience can be applied with greater truth to the manifestation of
“the beautiful.” It is the mystery which enchants, and its being is
extinguished with the extinction of the necessary combination of its
elements.


                               LETTER II.

But I might perhaps make a better use of the opening you afford me if I
were to direct your mind to a loftier theme than that of art. It would
appear to be unseasonable to go in search of a code for the æsthetic
world, when the moral world offers matter of so much higher interest,
and when the spirit of philosophical inquiry is so stringently
challenged by the circumstances of our times to occupy itself with the
most perfect of all works of art—the establishment and structure of a
true political freedom.

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

But the voice of our age seems by no means favorable to art, at all
events to that kind of art to which my inquiry is directed. The course
of events has given a direction to the genius of the time that threatens
to remove it continually further from the ideal of art. For art has to
leave reality, it has to raise itself boldly above necessity and
neediness; for art is the daughter of freedom, and it requires its
prescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity of spirits and
not by that of matter. But in our day it is necessity, neediness, that
prevails, and lends a degraded humanity under its iron yoke. _Utility_
is the great idol of the time, to which all powers do homage and all
subjects are subservient. In this great balance on utility, the
spiritual service of art has no weight, and, deprived of all
encouragement, it vanishes from the noisy Vanity Fair of our time. The
very spirit of philosophical inquiry itself robs the imagination of one
promise after another, and the frontiers of art are narrowed in
proportion as the limits of science are enlarged.

The eyes of the philosopher as well as of the man of the world are
anxiously turned to the theatre of political events, where it is
presumed the great destiny of man is to be played out. It would almost
seem to betray a culpable indifference to the welfare of society if we
did not share this general interest. For this great commerce in social
and moral principles is of necessity a matter of the greatest concern to
every human being, on the ground both of its subject and of its results.
It must accordingly be of deepest moment to every man to think for
himself. It would seem that now at length a question that formerly was
only settled by the law of the stronger is to be determined by the calm
judgment of the reason, and every man who is capable of placing himself
in a central position, and raising his individuality into that of his
species, can look upon himself as in possession of this judicial faculty
of reason; being moreover, as man and member of the human family, a
party in the case under trial and involved more or less in its
decisions. It would thus appear that this great political process is not
only engaged with his individual case, it has also to pronounce
enactments, which he as a rational spirit is capable of enunciating and
entitled to pronounce.

It is evident that it would have been most attractive to me to inquire
into an object such as this, to decide such a question in conjunction
with a thinker of powerful mind, a man of liberal sympathies, and a
heart imbued with a noble enthusiasm for the weal of humanity. Though so
widely separated by worldly position, it would have been a delightful
surprise to have found your unprejudiced mind arriving at the same
result as my own in the field of ideas. Nevertheless, I think I can not
only excuse, but even justify by solid grounds, my step in resisting
this attractive purpose and in preferring beauty to freedom. I hope that
I shall succeed in convincing you that this matter of art is less
foreign to the needs than to the tastes of our age; nay, that, to arrive
at a solution even in the political problem, the road of æsthetics must
be pursued, because it is through beauty that we arrive at freedom. But
I cannot carry out this proof without my bringing to your remembrance
the principles by which the reason is guided in political legislation.


                              LETTER III.

Man is not better treated by nature in his first start than her other
works are; so long as he is unable to act for himself as an independent
intelligence she acts for him. But the very fact that constitutes him a
man 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
him anticipate, that he can convert the work of necessity into one of
free solution, and elevate physical necessity into a moral law.

When man is raised from his slumber in the senses he feels that he is a
man; he surveys his surroundings and finds that he is in a state. He was
introduced into this state by the power of circumstances, before he
could freely select his own position. But as a moral being he cannot
possibly rest satisfied with a political condition forced upon him by
necessity, and only calculated for that condition; and it would be
unfortunate if this did satisfy him. In many cases man shakes off this
blind law of necessity, by his free spontaneous action, of which among
many others we have an instance, in his ennobling by beauty and
suppressing by moral influence the powerful impulse implanted in him by
nature in the passion of love. Thus, when arrived at maturity, he
recovers his childhood by an artificial process, he founds a state of
nature in his ideas, not given him by any experience, but established by
the necessary laws and conditions of his reason, and he attributes to
this ideal condition an object, an aim, of which he was not cognizant in
the actual reality of nature. 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 exchanging his original state of bondage for one of complete
independence, doing this with complete insight and of his free decision.
He is justified in regarding this work of political thraldom as
non-existing though a wild and arbitrary caprice may have founded its
work very artfully; though it may strive to maintain it with great
arrogance and encompass it with a halo of veneration. For the work of
blind powers possesses no authority before which freedom need bow, and
all must be made to adapt itself to the highest end which reason has set
up in his personality. It is in this wise that a people in a state of
manhood is justified in exchanging a condition of thraldom for one of
moral freedom.

Now the term natural condition can be applied to every political body
which owes its establishment originally to forces and not to laws, and
such a state contradicts the moral nature of man, because lawfulness can
alone have authority over this. At the same time this natural condition
is quite sufficient for the physical man, who only gives himself laws in
order to get rid of brute force. Moreover, the physical man is a
_reality_, and the moral man _problematical_. Therefore when the reason
suppresses the natural condition, as she must if she wishes to
substitute her own, she weighs the real physical man against the
problematical moral man, she weighs the existence of society against a
possible, though morally necessary, ideal of society. She takes from man
something which he really possesses, and without which he possesses
nothing, and refers him as a substitute to something that he ought to
possess and might possess; and if reason had relied too exclusively on
him she might, in order to secure him a state of humanity in which he is
wanting and can want without injury to his life, have robbed him even of
the means of animal existence, which is the first necessary _condition_
of his being a man. 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, to
prevent physical society from ceasing for a moment _in time_, while the
moral society is being formed in the _idea_; in other words, to prevent
its existence from being placed in jeopardy for the sake of the moral
dignity of man. When the mechanic has to mend a watch he lets the wheels
run out; but the living watchworks of the state have to be repaired
while they act, and a wheel has to be exchanged for another during its
revolutions. Accordingly props must be sought for to support society and
keep it going while it is made independent of the natural condition from
which it is sought to emancipate it.

This prop is not found in the natural character of man, who, being
selfish and violent, directs his energies rather to the destruction than
to 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 on
by the lawgiver, because it is free and _never appears_. It would seem,
therefore, that another measure must be adopted. It would seem that the
physical character of the arbitrary must be separated from moral
freedom; that it is incumbent to make the former harmonize with the laws
and the latter dependent on impressions; it would be expedient to remove
the former still farther from matter and to bring the latter somewhat
more near to it; in short, to produce a third character related to both
the others—the physical and the moral—paving the way to a transition
from the sway of mere force to that of law, without preventing the
proper development of the moral character, but serving rather as a
pledge in the sensuous sphere of a morality in the unseen.


                               LETTER IV.

Thus much is certain. It is only when a third character, as previously
suggested, has preponderance that a revolution in a state according to
moral principles can be free from injurious consequences; nor can
anything else secure its endurance. In proposing or setting up a moral
state, the moral law is relied upon as a real power, and free will is
drawn into the realm of causes, where all hangs together mutually with
stringent necessity and rigidity. But we know that the condition of the
human will always remains contingent, and that only in the Absolute
Being physical coexists with moral necessity. Accordingly, if it is
wished to depend on the moral conduct of man as on _natural_ results,
this conduct must _become_ nature, and he must be led by natural impulse
to such a course of action as can only and invariably have moral
results. But the will of man is perfectly free between inclination and
duty, and no physical necessity ought to enter as a sharer in this
magisterial personality. If, therefore, he is to retain this power of
solution, and yet become a reliable link in the causal concatenation of
forces, this can only be effected when the operations of both these
impulses are presented quite equally in the world of appearances. It is
only possible when, with every difference of form, the matter of man’s
volition remains the same, when all his impulses agreeing with his
reason are sufficient to have the value of a universal legislation.

It may be urged that every individual man carries within himself, at
least in his adaptation and destination, a purely ideal man. The great
problem of his existence is to bring all the incessant changes of his
outer life into conformity with the unchanging unity of this ideal. This
pure ideal man, which makes itself known more or less clearly in every
subject, is represented by the state, which is the objective, and, so to
speak, canonical form in which the manifold differences of the subjects
strive to unite. Now two ways present themselves to the thought in which
the man of time can agree with the man of idea, and there are also two
ways in which the state can maintain itself in individuals. One of these
ways is when the pure ideal man subdues the empirical man, and the state
suppresses the individual, or again when the individual _becomes_ the
state, 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 morality
this difference vanishes, for the reason is satisfied if her law
prevails unconditionally. But when the survey taken is complete and
embraces the whole man (anthropology), where the form is considered
together with the substance, and a living feeling has a voice, the
difference will become far more evident. No doubt the reason demands
unity, and nature variety, and both legislations take man in hand. The
law of the former is stamped upon him by an incorruptible consciousness,
that of the latter by an ineradicable feeling. Consequently education
will always appear deficient when the moral feeling can only be
maintained with the sacrifice of what is natural; and a political
administration will always be very imperfect when it is only able to
bring about unity by suppressing variety. The state ought not only to
respect the objective and generic, but also the subjective and specific
in individuals; and while diffusing the unseen world of morals, it must
not depopulate the kingdom of appearance, the external world of matter.

When the mechanical artist places his hand on the formless block, to
give it a form according to his intention, he has not any scruples in
doing violence to it. For the nature on which he works does not deserve
any respect in itself, and he does not value the whole for its parts,
but the parts on account of the whole. When the child of the fine arts
sets his hand to the same block, he has no scruples either in doing
violence to it, he only avoids showing this violence. He does not
respect the matter in which he works any more than the mechanical
artist; but he seeks by an apparent consideration for it to deceive the
eye which takes this matter under its protection. The political and
educating artist follows a very different course, while making man at
once his material and his end. In this case the aim or end meets in the
material, and it is only because the whole serves the parts that the
parts adapt themselves to the end. The political artist has to treat his
material—man—with a very different kind of respect than that shown by
the artist of fine art to his work. He must spare man’s peculiarity and
personality, not to produce a defective effect on the senses, but
objectively and out of consideration for his inner being.

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

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

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


                               LETTER V.

Does the present age, do passing events, present this character? I
direct my attention at once to the most prominent object in this vast
structure.

It is true that the consideration of opinion is fallen; caprice is
unnerved, and, although still armed with power, receives no longer any
respect. Man has awakened from his long lethargy and self-deception, and
he demands with impressive unanimity to be restored to his imperishable
rights. But he does not only demand them; he rises on all sides to seize
force what, in his opinion, has been unjustly wrested from him. The
edifice of the natural state is tottering, its foundations shake, and a
_physical_ 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 of political union. Vain hope! The _moral_ possibility is wanting,
and the generous occasion finds an unsusceptible rule.

Man paints himself in his actions, and what is the form depicted in the
drama of the present time? On the one hand, he is seen running wild, on
the other, in a state of lethargy; the two extremest stages of human
degeneracy, 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, and
hastening with unbridled fury to satisfy their savage instinct.
Objective humanity may have had cause to complain of the state; yet
subjective man must honor its institutions. Ought he to be blamed
because he lost sight of the dignity of human nature, so long as he was
concerned in preserving his existence? Can we blame him that he
proceeded to separate by the force of gravity, to fasten by the force of
cohesion, at a time when there could be no thought of building or
raising up? The extinction of the state contains its justification.
Society set free, instead of hastening upward into organic life,
collapses into its elements.

On the other hand, the civilized classes give us the still more
repulsive sight of lethargy, and of a depravity of character which is
the more revolting because it roots in culture. I forget who of the
older or more recent philosophers makes the remark, that what is more
noble is the more revolting in its destruction. The remark applies with
truth to the world of 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 classes pride themselves with some ground, shows on the
whole so little of an ennobling influence on the mind that it seems
rather to confirm corruption by its maxims. We deny nature on her
legitimate field and feel her tyranny in the moral sphere, and while
resisting her impressions, we receive our principles from her. While the
affected decency of our manners does not even grant to nature a
pardonable influence in the initial stage, our materialistic system of
morals allows her the casting vote in the last and essential stage.
Egotism has founded its system in the very bosom of a refined society,
and without developing even a sociable character, we feel all the
contagions and miseries of society. We subject our free judgment to its
despotic opinions, our feelings to its bizarre customs, and our will to
its seductions. We only maintain our caprice against her holy rights.
The man 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 man seeks for nothing more than to save his wretched
property from the general destruction, as it were from some great
conflagration. It is conceived that the only way to find a shelter
against the aberrations of sentiment is by completely foregoing its
indulgence, and mockery, which is often a useful chastener of mysticism,
slanders in the same breath the noblest aspirations. Culture, far from
giving us freedom, only develops, as it advances, new necessities; the
fetters of the physical close more tightly around us, so that the fear
of loss quenches even the ardent impulse toward improvement, and the
maxims of passive obedience are held to be the highest wisdom of life.
Thus the spirit of the time is seen to waver between perversion and
savagism, between what is unnatural and mere nature, between
superstition and moral unbelief, and it is often nothing but the
equilibrium of evils that sets bounds to it.


                               LETTER VI.

Have I gone too far in this portraiture of our times? I do not
anticipate this stricture, but rather another—that I have proved too
much by it. You will tell me that the picture I have presented resembles
the humanity of our day, but it also bodies forth all nations engaged in
the same degree of culture, because all, without exception, have fallen
off from nature by the abuse of reason, before they can return to it
through reason.

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

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

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

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

It was culture itself that gave these wounds to modern humanity. The
inner union of human nature was broken, and a destructive contest
divided its harmonious forces directly; on the one hand, an enlarged
experience and a more distinct thinking necessitated a sharper
separation of the sciences, while, on the other hand, the more
complicated machinery of states necessitated a stricter sundering of
ranks and occupations. Intuitive and speculative understanding took up a
hostile attitude in opposite fields, whose borders were guarded with
jealousy and distrust; and by limiting its operation to a narrow sphere,
men have made unto themselves a master who is wont not unfrequently to
end by subduing and oppressing all the other faculties. Whilst on the
one hand a luxuriant imagination creates ravages in the plantations that
have cost the intelligence so much labor; on the other hand, a spirit of
abstraction suffocates the fire that might have warmed the heart and
inflamed the imagination.

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

If the community or state measures man by his function, only asking of
its citizens memory, or the intelligence of a craftsman, or mechanical
skill, we cannot be surprised that the other faculties of the mind are
neglected for the exclusive culture of the one that brings in honor and
profit. Such is the necessary result of an organization that is
indifferent about character, only looking to acquirements, whilst in
other cases it tolerates the thickest darkness, to favor a spirit of law
and order; it must result if it wishes that individuals in the exercise
of special aptitudes should gain in depth what they are permitted to
lose in extension. We are aware, no doubt, that a powerful genius does
not shut up its activity within the limits of its functions; but
mediocre talents consume in the craft fallen to their lot the whole of
their feeble energy; and if some of their energy is reserved for matters
of preference, without prejudice to its functions, such a state of
things at once bespeaks a spirit soaring above the vulgar. Moreover, it
is rarely a recommendation in the eye of a state to have a capacity
superior to your employment, or one of those noble intellectual cravings
of a man of talent which contend in rivalry with the duties of office.
The state is so jealous of the exclusive possession of its servants that
it would prefer—nor can it be blamed in this—for functionaries to show
their powers with the Venus of Cytherea rather than the Uranian Venus.

It is thus that concrete individual life is extinguished, in order that
the abstract whole may continue its miserable life, and the state
remains forever a stranger to its citizens, because feeling does not
discover it anywhere. The governing authorities find themselves
compelled to classify, and thereby simplify the multiplicity of
citizens, and only to know humanity in a representative form and at
second-hand. Accordingly they end by entirely losing sight of humanity,
and by confounding it with a simple artificial creation of the
understanding, whilst on their part the subject-classes cannot help
receiving coldly laws that address themselves so little to their
personality. At length, society, weary of having a burden that the state
takes so little trouble to lighten, falls to pieces and is broken up—a
destiny that has long since attended most European states. They are
dissolved in what may be called a state of moral nature, in which public
authority is only one function more, hated and deceived by those who
think it necessary, respected only by those who can do without it.

Thus compressed between two forces, within and without, could humanity
follow any other course than that which it has taken? The speculative
mind, pursuing imprescriptible goods and rights in the sphere of ideas,
must needs have become a stranger to the world of sense, and lose sight
of matter for the sake of form. On its part, the world of public
affairs, shut up in a monotonous circle of objects, and even there
restricted by formulas, was led to lose sight of the life and liberty of
the whole, while becoming impoverished at the same time in its own
sphere. Just as the speculative mind was tempted to model the real after
the intelligible, and to raise the subjective laws of its imagination
into laws constituting the existence of things, so the state spirit
rushed into the opposite extreme, wished to make a particular and
fragmentary experience the measure of all observation, and to apply
without exception to all affairs the rules of its own particular craft.
The speculative mind had necessarily to become the prey of a vain
subtlety, the state spirit of a narrow pedantry; for the former was
placed too high to see the individual, and the latter too low to survey
the whole. But the disadvantage of this direction of mind was not
confined to knowledge and mental production; it extended to action and
feeling. 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 deprive
the imagination of its warmth and energy, and a restricted sphere of
objects must diminish its wealth. It is for this reason that the
abstract thinker has very often a _cold_ heart, because he analyzes
impressions, which only move the mind by their combination or totality;
on the other hand, the man of business, the statesman, has very often a
_narrow_ heart, because, shut up in the narrow circle of his employment,
his imagination can neither expand nor adapt itself to another manner of
viewing things.

My subject has led me naturally to place in relief the distressing
tendency of the character of our own times and to show the sources of
the evil, without its being my province to point out the compensations
offered by nature. I will readily admit to you that, although this
splitting up of their being was unfavorable for individuals, it was the
only open road for the progress of the race. The point at which we see
humanity arrived among the Greeks was undoubtedly a _maximum_; it could
neither stop there nor rise higher. It could not stop there, for the sum
of notions acquired forced infallibly the intelligence to break with
feeling and intuition, and to lead to clearness of knowledge. Nor could
it rise any higher; for it is only in a determinate measure that
clearness can be reconciled with a certain degree of abundance and of
warmth. The Greeks had attained this measure, and to continue their
progress in culture, they, as we, were obliged to renounce the totality
of their being, and to follow different and separate roads in order to
seek after truth.

There was no other way to develop the manifold aptitudes of man than to
bring them in opposition with one another. This antagonism of forces is
the great instrument of culture, but it is only an instrument: for as
long as this antagonism lasts man is only on the road to culture. It is
only because these special forces are isolated in man, and because they
take on themselves to impose an exclusive legislation, that they enter
into strife with the truth of things, and oblige common sense, which
generally adheres imperturbably to external phenomena, to dive into the
essence of things. While pure understanding usurps authority in the
world of sense, and empiricism attempts to subject this intellect to the
conditions of experience, these two rival directions arrive at the
highest possible development, and exhaust the whole extent of their
sphere. While, on the one hand, imagination, by its tyranny, ventures to
destroy the order of the world, it forces reason, on the other side, to
rise up to the supreme sources of knowledge, and to invoke against this
predominance of fancy the help of the law of necessity.

By an exclusive spirit in the case of his faculties, the individual is
fatally led to error; but the species is led to truth. It is only by
gathering up all the energy of our mind in a single focus, and
concentrating a single force in our being, that we give in some sort
wings to this isolated force, and that we draw it on artificially far
beyond the limits that nature seems to have imposed upon it. If it be
certain that all human individuals taken together would never have
arrived, with the visual power given them by nature, to see a satellite
of Jupiter, discovered by the telescope of the astronomer, it is just as
well established that never would the human understanding have produced
the analysis of the infinite, or the critique of pure reason, if in
particular branches, destined for this mission, reason had not applied
itself to special researches, and it, after having, as it were, freed
itself from all matter, it had not, by the most powerful abstraction
given to the spiritual eye of man the force necessary, in order to look
into the absolute. But the question is, if a spirit thus absorbed in
pure reason and intuition will be able to emancipate itself from the
rigorous fetters of logic, to take the free action of poetry, and seize
the individuality of things with a faithful and chaste sense? Here
nature 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
make its principal occupation the search for arms against errors.

But whatever may be the final profit for the totality of the world, of
this distinct and special perfecting of the human faculties, it cannot
be denied that this final aim of the universe, which devotes them to
this kind of culture, is a cause of suffering, and a kind of malediction
for individuals. I admit that the exercises of the gymnasium form
athletic bodies; but beauty is only developed by the free and equal play
of the limbs. In the same way the tension of the isolated spiritual
forces may make extraordinary men; but it is only the well-tempered
equilibrium of these forces that can produce happy and accomplished men.
And in what relation should we be placed with past and future ages if
the perfecting of human nature made such a sacrifice indispensable? In
that case we should have been the slaves of humanity, we should have
consumed our forces in servile work for it during some thousands of
years, and we should have stamped on our humiliated, mutilated nature
the shameful brand of this slavery—all this in order that future
generations, in a happy leisure, might consecrate themselves to the cure
of their moral health, 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 is
prescribed to us by the aim of reason? It must be false that the
perfecting of particular faculties renders the sacrifice of their
totality necessary; and even if the law of nature had imperiously this
tendency, we must have the power to reform by a superior art this
totality of our being, which art has destroyed.


                              LETTER VII.

Can this effect of harmony be attained by the state? That is not
possible, for the state, as at present constituted, has given occasion
to evil, and the state as conceived in the idea, instead of being able
to establish this more perfect humanity, ought to be based upon it. Thus
the researches in which I have indulged would have brought me back to
the same point from which they had called me off for a time. The present
age, far from offering us this form of humanity, which we have
acknowledged as a necessary condition of an improvement of the state,
shows us rather the diametrically opposite form. If, therefore, the
principles I have laid down are correct, and if experience confirms the
picture I have traced of the present time, it would be necessary to
qualify as unseasonable every attempt to effect a similar change in the
state, and all hope as chimerical that would be based on such an
attempt, until the division of the inner man ceases, and nature has been
sufficiently developed to become herself the instrument of this great
change and secure the reality of the political creation of reason.

In the physical creation, nature shows us the road that we have to
follow in the moral creation. Only when the struggle of elementary
forces has ceased in inferior organizations, nature rises to the noble
form of the physical man. In like manner, the conflict of the elements
of the moral man and that of blind instincts must have ceased, and a
coarse antagonism in himself, before the attempt can be hazarded. On the
other hand, the independence of man’s character must be secured, and his
submission to despotic forms must have given place to a suitable
liberty, before the variety in his constitution can be made subordinate
to the unity of the ideal. When the man of nature still makes such an
anarchial abuse of his will, his liberty ought hardly to be disclosed to
him. And when the man fashioned by culture makes so little use of his
freedom, his free will ought not to be taken from him. The concession of
liberal principles becomes a treason to social order when it is
associated with a force still in fermentation, and increases the already
exuberant energy of its nature. Again, the law of conformity under one
level becomes tyranny to the individual when it is allied to a weakness
already holding sway and to natural obstacles, and when it comes to
extinguish the last spark of spontaneity and of originality.

The tone of the age must therefore rise from its profound moral
degradation; on the one hand it must emancipate itself from the blind
service of nature, and on the other it must revert to its simplicity,
its truth, and its fruitful sap; a sufficient task for more than a
century. However, I admit readily, more than one special effort may meet
with success, but no improvement of the whole will result from it, and
contradictions in action will be a continual protest against the unity
of maxims. It will be quite possible, then, that in remote corners of
the world humanity may be honored in the person of the negro, while in
Europe it may be degraded in the person of the thinker. The old
principles will remain, but they will adopt the dress of the age, and
philosophy will lend its name to an oppression that was formerly
authorized by the church. In one place, alarmed at the liberty which in
its opening efforts always shows itself an enemy, it will cast itself
into the arms of a convenient servitude. In another place, reduced to
despair by a pedantic tutelage, it will be driven into the savage
license of the state of nature. Usurpation will invoke the weakness of
human nature, and insurrection will invoke its dignity, till at length
the great sovereign of all human things, blind force, shall come in and
decide, like a vulgar pugilist, this pretended contest of principles.


                              LETTER VIII.

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

Not in the least. It is true that reason herself will never attempt
directly a struggle with this brutal force which resists her arms, and
she will be as far as the son of Saturn in the “Iliad” from descending
into the dismal field of battle, to fight them in person. But she
chooses the most deserving among the combatants, clothes him with divine
arms as Jupiter gave them to his son-in-law, and by her triumphing force
she finally decides the victory.

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

Whence, in fact, proceeds this general sway of prejudices; this might of
the understanding in the midst of the light disseminated by philosophy
and experience? The age is enlightened, that is to say, that knowledge,
obtained and vulgarized, suffices to set right at least our practical
principles. The spirit of free inquiry has dissipated the erroneous
opinions which long barred the access to truth, and has undermined the
ground on which fanaticism and deception had erected their throne.
Reason has purified itself from the illusions of the senses and from a
mendacious sophistry, and philosophy herself raises her voice and
exhorts us to return to the bosom of nature, to which she had first made
us unfaithful. Whence then is it that we remain still barbarians?

There must be something in the spirit of man—as it is not in the objects
themselves—which prevents us from receiving the truth, notwithstanding
the brilliant light she diffuses, and from accepting her, whatever may
be her strength for producing conviction. This something was perceived
and expressed by an ancient sage in this very significant maxim: _sapere
aude_.[1]

Dare to be wise! A spirited courage is required to triumph over the
impediments that the indolence of nature as well as the cowardice of the
heart oppose to our instruction. It was not without reason that the
ancient Mythos made Minerva issue fully armed from the head of Jupiter,
for it is with warfare that this instruction commences. From its very
outset it has to sustain a hard fight against the senses, which do not
like to be roused from their easy slumber. The greater part of men are
much too exhausted and enervated by their struggle with want to be able
to engage in a new and severe contest with error. Satisfied if they
themselves can escape from the hard labor of thought, they willingly
abandon to others the guardianship of their thoughts. And if it happens
that nobler necessities agitate their soul, they cling with a greedy
faith to the formula that the state and the church hold in reserve for
such cases. If these unhappy men deserve our compassion, those others
deserve our just contempt, who, though set free from those necessities
by more fortunate circumstances, yet willingly bend to their yoke. These
latter persons prefer this twilight of obscure ideas, where the feelings
have more intensity, and the imagination can at will create convenient
chimeras, to the rays of truth which put to flight the pleasant
illusions of their dreams. They have founded the whole structure of
their happiness on these very illusions, which ought to be combated and
dissipated by the light of knowledge, and they would think they were
paying too dearly for a truth which begins by robbing them of all that
has value in their sight. It would be necessary that they should be
already sages to love wisdom: a truth that was felt at once by him to
whom philosophy owes its name.[2]

It is therefore not going far enough to say that the light of the
understanding only deserves respect when it reacts on the character; to
a certain extent it is from the character that this light proceeds; for
the road that terminates in the head must pass through the heart.
Accordingly, the most pressing need of the present time is to educate
the sensibility, because it is the means, not only to render efficacious
in practice the improvement of ideas, but to call this improvement into
existence.


                               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 improvement
in 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 seek for this end an instrument that the state does not furnish, and
to open sources that would have preserved themselves pure in the midst
of political corruption.

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

Art, like science, is emancipated from all that is positive, and all
that is humanly conventional; both are completely independent of the
arbitrary will of man. The political legislator may place their empire
under an interdict, but he cannot reign there. He can proscribe the
friend of truth, but truth subsists; he can degrade the artist, but he
cannot change art. No doubt, nothing is more common than to see science
and art bend before the spirit of the age, and creative taste receive
its law from critical taste. When the character becomes stiff and
hardens itself, we see science severely keeping her limits, and art
subject to the harsh restraint of rules; when the character is relaxed
and softened, science endeavors to please and art to rejoice. For whole
ages philosophers as well as artists show themselves occupied in letting
down truth and beauty to the depths of vulgar humanity. They themselves
are swallowed up in it; but, thanks to their essential vigor and
indestructible 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 he
is its disciple or even its favorite! Let a beneficent deity carry off
in good time the suckling from the breast of its mother, let it nourish
him on the milk of a better age, and suffer him to grow up and arrive at
virility under the distant sky of Greece. When he has attained manhood,
let him come back, presenting a face strange to his own age; let him
come, not to delight it with his apparition, but rather to purify it,
terrible as the son of Agamemnon. He will, indeed, receive his matter
from the present time, but he will borrow the form from a nobler time
and even beyond all time, from the essential, absolute, immutable unity.
There, issuing from the pure ether of its heavenly nature, flows the
source of all beauty, which was never tainted by the corruptions of
generations or of ages, which roll along far beneath it in dark eddies.
Its matter may be dishonored as well as ennobled by fancy, but the
ever-chaste form escapes from the caprices of imagination. The Roman had
already bent his knee for long years to the divinity of the emperors,
and yet the statues of the gods stood erect; the temples retained their
sanctity for the eye long after the gods had become a theme for mockery,
and the noble architecture of the palaces that shielded the infamies of
Nero and of Commodus were a protest against them. Humanity has lost its
dignity, but art has saved it, and preserves it in marbles full of
meaning; truth continues to live in illusion, and the copy will serve to
re-establish the model. If the nobility of art has _survived_ the
nobility of nature, it also goes before it like an inspiring genius,
forming and awakening minds. Before truth causes her triumphant light to
penetrate into the depths of the heart, poetry intercepts her rays, and
the summits of humanity shine in a bright light, while a dark and humid
night still hangs over the valleys.

But how will the artist avoid the corruption of his time which encloses
him 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 a
vain activity which would imprint its trace on the fugitive moment, and
from the dreams of an impatient enthusiasm which applies the measure of
the absolute to the paltry productions of time, let the artist abandon
the real to the understanding, for that is its proper field; But let the
artist endeavor to give birth to the ideal by the union of the possible
and of the necessary. Let him stamp illusion and truth with the effigy
of this ideal; let him apply it to the play of his imagination and his
most serious actions, in short, to all sensuous and spiritual forms;
then let him quietly launch his work into infinite time.

But the minds set on fire by this ideal have not all received an equal
share of calm from the creative genius—that great and patient temper
which is required to impress the ideal on the dumb marble, or to spread
it over a page of cold, sober letters, and then intrust it to the
faithful hands of time. This divine instinct, and creative force, much
too ardent to follow this peaceful walk, often throws itself immediately
on the present, on active life, and strives to transform the shapeless
matter of the moral world. The misfortune of his brothers, of the whole
species, appeals loudly to the heart of the man of feeling; their
abasement appeals still louder: enthusiasm is inflamed, and in souls
endowed with energy the burning desire aspires impatiently to action and
facts. But has this innovator examined himself to see if these disorders
of the moral world wound his reason, or if they do not rather wound his
self-love? If he does not determine this point at once, he will find it
from the impulsiveness with which he pursues a prompt and definite end.
A pure, moral motive has for its end the absolute; time does not exist
for it, and the future becomes the present to it directly; by a
necessary development, it has to issue from the present. To a reason
having no limits the direction towards an end becomes confounded with
the accomplishment of this end, and to enter on a course is to have
finished it.

If, then, a young friend of the true and of the beautiful were to ask me
how, notwithstanding the resistance of the times, he can satisfy the
noble longing of his heart, I should reply: Direct the world on which
you act towards that which is good, and the measured and peaceful course
of time will bring about the results. You have given it this direction
if by your teaching you raise its thoughts towards the necessary and the
eternal; if, by your acts or your creations, you make the necessary and
the eternal the object of your leanings. The structure of error and of
all that is arbitrary must fall, and it has already fallen, as soon as
you are sure that it is tottering. But it is important that it should
not only totter in the external but also in the internal man. Cherish
triumphant truth in the modest sanctuary of our heart; give it an
incarnate form through beauty, that it may not only be in the
understanding that does homage to it, but that feeling may lovingly
grasp its appearance. And that you may not by any chance take from
external reality the model which you yourself ought to furnish, do not
venture into its dangerous society before you are assured in your own
heart that you have a good escort furnished by ideal nature. Live with
your age, but be not its creation; labor for your contemporaries, but do
for them what they need, and not what they praise. Without having shared
their faults, share their punishment with a noble resignation, and bend
under the yoke which they find it as painful to dispense with as to
bear. By the constancy with which you will despise their good fortune,
you will prove to them that it is not through cowardice that you submit
to their sufferings. See them in thought such as they ought to be when
you must act upon them; but see them as they are when you are tempted to
act for them. Seek to owe their suffrage to their dignity; but to make
them happy keep an account of their unworthiness: thus, on the one hand,
the nobleness of your heart will kindle theirs, and, on the other, your
end will not be reduced to nothingness by their unworthiness. The
gravity of your principles will keep them off from you, but in play they
will still endure them. Their taste is purer than their heart, and it is
by their taste you must lay hold of this suspicious fugitive. In vain
will you combat their maxims, in vain will you condemn their actions;
but you can try your moulding hand on their leisure. Drive away caprice,
frivolity, and coarseness from their pleasures, and you will banish them
imperceptibly from their acts, and at length from their feelings.
Everywhere that you meet them, surround them with great, noble, and
ingenious forms; multiply around them the symbols of perfection, till
appearance triumphs over reality, and art over nature.


                               LETTER X.

Convinced by my preceding letters, you agree with me on this point, that
man can depart from his destination by two opposite roads, that our
epoch is actually moving on these two false roads, and that it has
become the prey, in one case, of coarseness, and elsewhere of exhaustion
and depravity. It is the beautiful that must bring it back from this
twofold departure. But how can the cultivation of the fine arts remedy,
at the same time, these opposite defects, and unite in itself two
contradictory qualities? Can it bind nature in the savage, and set it
free in the barbarian? Can it at once tighten a spring and loose it; and
if it cannot produce this double effect, how will it be reasonable to
expect from it so important a result as the education of man?

It may be urged that it is almost a proverbial adage that the feeling
developed by the beautiful refines manners, and any new proof offered on
the subject would appear superfluous. Men base this maxim on daily
experience, which shows us almost always clearness of intellect,
delicacy of feeling, liberality and even dignity of conduct, associated
with a cultivated taste, while an uncultivated taste is almost always
accompanied by the opposite qualities. With considerable assurance, the
most civilized nation of antiquity is cited as an evidence of this, the
Greeks, among whom the perception of the beautiful attained its highest
development, and, as a contrast, it is usual to point to nations in a
partial savage state, and partly barbarous, who expiate their
insensibility to the beautiful by a coarse, or, at all events, a hard,
austere character. Nevertheless, some thinkers are tempted occasionally
to deny either the fact itself or to dispute the legitimacy of the
consequences that are derived from it. They do not entertain so
unfavorable an opinion of that savage coarseness which is made a
reproach in the case of certain nations; nor do they form so
advantageous an opinion of the refinement so highly lauded in the case
of cultivated nations. Even as far back as in antiquity there were men
who by no means regarded the culture of the liberal arts as a benefit,
and who were consequently led to forbid the entrance of their republic
to imagination.

I do not speak of those who calumniate art because they have never been
favored by it. These persons only appreciate a possession by the trouble
it takes to acquire it, and by the profit it brings: and how could they
properly appreciate the silent labor of taste in the exterior and
interior man? How evident it is that the accidental disadvantages
attending liberal culture would make them lose sight of its essential
advantages? The man deficient in form despises the grace of diction as a
means of corruption, courtesy in the social relations as dissimulation,
delicacy and generosity in conduct as an affected exaggeration. He
cannot forgive the favorite of the Graces for having enlivened all
assemblies as a man of the world, of having directed all men to his
views like a statesman, and of giving his impress to the whole century
as a writer: while he, the victim of labor, can only obtain with all his
learning, the least attention or overcome the least difficulty. As he
cannot learn from his fortunate rival the secret of pleasing, the only
course open to him is to deplore the corruption of human nature, which
adores rather the appearance than the reality.

But there are also opinions deserving respect, that pronounce themselves
adverse to the effects of the beautiful, and find formidable arms in
experience, with which to wage war against it. “We are free to
admit”—such is their language—“that the charms of the beautiful can
further honorable ends in pure hands; but it is not repugnant to its
nature to produce, in impure hands, a directly contrary effect, and to
employ in the service of injustice and error the power that throws the
soul of man into chains. It is exactly because taste only attends to the
form and never to the substance; it ends by placing the soul on the
dangerous incline, leading it to neglect all reality and to sacrifice
truth and morality to an attractive envelope. All the real difference of
things vanishes, and it is only the appearance that determines the
value! How many men of talent”—thus these arguers proceed—“have been
turned aside from all effort by the seductive power of the beautiful, or
have been led away from all serious exercise of their activity, or have
been induced to use it very feebly? How many weak minds have been
impelled to quarrel with the organizations of society, simply because it
has pleased the imagination of poets to present the image of a world
constituted differently, where no propriety chains down opinion and no
artifice holds nature in thraldom? What a dangerous logic of the
passions they have learned since the poets have painted them in their
pictures in the most brilliant colors, and since, in the contest with
law and duty, they have commonly remained masters of the battle-field.
What has society gained by the relations of society, formerly under the
sway of truth, being now subject to the laws of the beautiful, or by the
external impression deciding the estimation in which merit is to be
held? We admit that all virtues whose appearance produces an agreeable
effect are now seen to flourish, and those which, in society, give a
value to the man who possesses them. But, as a compensation, all kinds
of excesses are seen to prevail, and all vices are in vogue that can be
reconciled with a graceful exterior.” It is certainly a matter entitled
to reflection that, at almost all the periods of history when art
flourished and taste held sway, humanity is found in a state of decline;
nor can a single instance be cited of the union of a large diffusion of
æsthetic culture with political liberty and social virtue, of fine
manners associated with good morals, and of politeness fraternizing with
truth and loyalty of character and life.

As long as Athens and Sparta preserved their independence, and as long
as their institutions were based on respect for the laws, taste did not
reach its maturity, art remained in its infancy, and beauty was far from
exercising her empire over minds. No doubt, poetry had already taken a
sublime flight, but it was on the wings of genius, and we know that
genius borders very closely on savage coarseness, that it is a light
which shines readily in the midst of darkness, and which therefore often
argues against rather than in favor of the taste of time. When the
golden age of art appears under Pericles and Alexander, and the sway of
taste 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 had
to exhaust their energies in civil wars, and, corrupted by Oriental
luxury, to bow their heads under the yoke of a fortunate despot, before
Grecian art triumphed over the stiffness of their character. The same
was the case with the Arabs: civilization only dawned upon them when the
vigor of their military spirit became softened under the sceptre of the
Abbassides. Art did not appear in modern Italy till the glorious Lombard
League was dissolved, Florence submitting to the Medici; and all those
brave cities gave up the spirit of independence for an inglorious
resignation. It is almost superfluous to call to mind the example of
modern nations, with whom refinement has increased in direct proportion
to the decline of their liberties. Wherever we direct our eyes in past
times, we see taste and freedom mutually avoiding each other. Everywhere
we see that the beautiful only founds its sway on the ruins of heroic
virtues.

And yet this strength of character, which is commonly sacrificed to
establish æsthetic culture, is the most powerful spring of all that is
great and excellent in man, and no other advantage, however great, can
make up for it. Accordingly, if we only keep to the experiments hitherto
made, as to the influence of the beautiful, we cannot certainly be much
encouraged in developing feelings so dangerous to the real culture of
man. At the risk of being hard and coarse, it will seem preferable to
dispense with this dissolving force of the beautiful rather than see
human nature a prey to its enervating influence, notwithstanding all its
refining advantages. However, experience is perhaps not the proper
tribunal at which to decide such a question; before giving so much
weight to its testimony, it would be well to inquire if the beauty we
have been discussing is the power that is condemned by the previous
examples. And the beauty we are discussing seems to assume an idea of
the beautiful derived from a source different from experience, for it is
this higher notion of the beautiful which has to decide if what is
called beauty by experience is entitled to the name.

This pure and rational idea of the beautiful—supposing it can be placed
in evidence—cannot be taken from any real and special case, and must, on
the contrary, direct and give sanction to our judgment in each special
case. It must therefore be sought for by a process of abstraction, and
it ought to be deduced from the simple possibility of a nature both
sensuous and rational; in short, beauty ought to present itself as a
necessary condition of humanity. It is therefore essential that we
should rise to the pure idea of humanity, and as experience shows us
nothing but individuals, in particular cases, and never humanity at
large, we must endeavor to find in their individual and variable mode of
being the absolute and the permanent, and to grasp the necessary
conditions of their existence, suppressing all accidental limits. No
doubt this transcendental procedure will remove us for some time from
the familiar circle of phenomena, and the living presence of objects, to
keep us on the unproductive ground of abstract idea; but we are engaged
in the search after a principle of knowledge solid enough not to be
shaken by anything, and the man who does not dare to rise above reality
will never conquer this truth.


                               LETTER XI.

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

The person and the condition, I and my determinations, which we
represent as one and the same thing in the necessary being, are
eternally distinct in the finite being. Notwithstanding all continuance
in the person, the condition changes; in spite of all change of
condition the person remains. We pass from rest to activity, from
emotion to indifference, from assent to contradiction, but we are always
_we ourselves_, and what immediately springs from _ourselves_ remains.
It is only in the absolute subject that all his determinations continue
with his personality. All that Divinity is, it is because it is so;
consequently it is eternally what it is, because it is eternal.

As the person and the condition are distinct in man, because he is a
finite being, the condition cannot be founded on the person, nor the
person on the condition. Admitting the second case, the person would
have to change; and in the former case, the condition would have to
continue. Thus in either supposition, either the personality or the
quality of a finite being would necessarily cease. It is not because we
think, feel, and will that we are; it is not because we are that we
think, feel, and will. We are because we are. We feel, think, and will
because 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 we
should 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
condition must have a foundation, and as it is not through the person,
and is not therefore absolute, it must be a _sequence_ and a _result_;
and thus, in the second place, we should have arrived at the condition
of every independent being, of everything in the process of becoming
something else: that is, of the idea of _time_. “Time is the necessary
condition of all processes, of becoming (Werden);” this is an identical
proposition, for it says nothing but this: “That something may follow,
there must be a succession.”

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

Thus, therefore, the matter of activity, or reality, that the supreme
intelligence draws from its own being, must be _received_ by man; and he
does, in fact, receive it, through the medium of perception, as
something which is outside him in space, and which changes in him in
time. This matter which changes in him is always accompanied by the Ego,
the personality, that never changes; and the rule prescribed for man by
his rational nature is to remain immutably _himself_ in the midst of
change, to refer 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 of all time. The matter only exists in as far as it
changes: _he_, his personality, only exists in as far as he does not
change. Consequently, represented in his perfection, man would be the
permanent unity, which remains always the same, among the waves of
change.

Now, although an infinite being, a divinity could not _become_ (or be
subject to time), still a tendency ought to be named divine which has
for its infinite end the most characteristic attribute of the divinity;
the absolute manifestation of power—the reality of all the possible—and
the absolute unity of the manifestation (the necessity of all reality).
It cannot be disputed that man bears within himself, in his personality,
a predisposition for divinity. The way to divinity—if the word “way” can
be applied to what never leads to its end—is open to him in every
_direction_.

Considered in itself, and independently of all sensuous matter, his
personality is nothing but the pure virtuality of a possible infinite
manifestation; and so long as there is neither intuition nor feeling, it
is nothing more than a form, an empty power. Considered in itself, and
independently of all spontaneous activity of the mind, sensuousness can
only make a material man; without it, it is a pure form; but it cannot
in any way establish a union between matter and it. So long as he only
feels, wishes, and acts under the influence of desire, he is nothing
more than the world, if by this word we point out only the formless
contents of time. Without doubt, it is only his sensuousness that makes
his strength pass into efficacious acts, but it is his personality alone
that makes this activity his own. Thus, that he may not only be a world,
he must give form to matter, and in order not to be a mere form, he must
give reality to the virtuality that he bears in him. He gives matter to
form by creating time, and by opposing the immutable to change, the
diversity of the world to the eternal unity of the Ego. He gives a form
to 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 two
fundamental laws of sensuous-rational nature. The first has for its
object 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 its
object absolute _formality_; it must destroy in him all that is only
world, and carry out harmony in all changes. In other terms, he must
manifest all that is internal, and give form to all that is external.
Considered in its most lofty accomplishment, this twofold labor brings
back to the idea of humanity, which was my starting-point.


                              LETTER XII.

This twofold labor or task, which consists in making the necessary pass
into reality in us and in making _out of us_ reality subject to the law
of necessity, is urged upon us as a duty by two opposing forces, which
are justly styled impulsions or instincts, because they impel us to
realize their object. The first of these impulsions, which I shall call
the _sensuous instinct_, issues from the physical existence of man, or
from sensuous nature; and it is this instinct which tends to enclose him
in the limits of time, and to make of him a material being; I do not say
to give him matter, for to do that a certain free activity of the
personality would be necessary, which, receiving matter, distinguishes
it from the Ego, or what is permanent. By matter I only understand in
this place the change or reality that fills time. Consequently the
instinct requires that there should be change, and that time should
contain something. This simply filled state of time is named sensation,
and it is only in this state that physical existence manifests itself.

As all that is in time is _successive_, it follows by that fact alone
that something is: all the remainder is excluded. When one note on an
instrument is touched, among all those that it virtually offers, this
note alone is real. When man is actually modified, the infinite
possibility of all his modifications is limited to this single mode of
existence. Thus, then, the exclusive action of sensuous impulsion has
for its necessary consequence the narrowest limitation. In this state
man is only a unity of magnitude, a complete moment in time; or, to
speak more correctly, _he_ is not, for his personality is suppressed as
long as sensation holds sway over him and carries time along with it.

This instinct extends its domains over the entire sphere of the finite
in man, and as form is only revealed in matter, and the absolute by
means of its limits, the total manifestation of human nature is
connected on a close analysis with the sensuous instinct. But though it
is only this instinct that awakens and develops what exists virtually in
man, it is nevertheless this very instinct which renders his perfection
impossible. It binds down to the world of sense by indestructible ties
the spirit that 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 will
victoriously resist its exigencies: but soon compressed nature resumes
her rights to give an imperious reality to our existence, to give it
contents, substance, knowledge, and an aim for our activity.

The second impulsion, which may be named the _formal instinct_, issues
from the absolute existence of man, or from his rational nature, and
tends to set free, and bring harmony into the diversity of its
manifestations, and to maintain personality notwithstanding all the
changes of state. As this personality, being an absolute and indivisible
unity, can never be in contradiction with itself, as _we are ourselves_
forever, this impulsion, which tends to maintain personality, can never
exact in one time anything but what it exacts and requires forever. It
therefore decides for always what it decides now, and orders now what it
orders forever. Hence it embraces the whole series of times, or what
comes to the same thing, it suppresses time and change. It wishes the
real to be necessary and eternal, and it wishes the eternal and the
necessary to be real; in other terms, it tends to truth and justice.

If the sensuous instinct only produces _accidents_, the formal instinct
gives 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 the
subject, whether we act in virtue of knowledge or make of the objective
the determining principle of our state; in both cases we withdraw this
state from the jurisdiction of time, and we attribute to it reality for
all men and for all time, that is, universality and necessity. Feeling
can only say: “That is true _for this subject_ and _at this moment_,”
and there may come another moment, another subject, which withdraws the
affirmation from the actual feeling. But when once thought pronounces
and says: “_That is_,” it decides forever and ever, and the validity of
its decision is guaranteed by the personality itself, which defies all
change. Inclination can only say: “That is good _for your individuality_
and _present necessity_”; but the changing current of affairs will sweep
them away, and what you ardently desire to-day will form the object of
your aversion to-morrow. But when the moral feeling says: “That ought to
be,” it decides forever. If you confess the truth because it is the
truth, and if you practise justice because it is justice, you have made
of a particular case the law of all possible cases, and treated one
moment of your life as eternity.

Accordingly, when the formal impulse holds sway and the pure object acts
in us, the being attains its highest expansion, all barriers disappear,
and from the unity of magnitude in which man was enclosed by a narrow
sensuousness, he rises to the _unity of idea_, which embraces and keeps
subject the entire sphere of phenomena. During this operation we are no
longer in time, but time is in us with its infinite succession. We are
no longer individuals but a species; the judgment of all spirits is
expressed by our own, and the choice of all hearts is represented by our
own act.


                              LETTER XIII.

On a first survey, nothing appears more opposed than these two
impulsions; one having for its object change, the other immutability,
and yet it is these two notions that exhaust the notion of humanity, and
a third _fundamental impulsion_, holding a medium between them, is quite
inconceivable. How then shall we re-establish the unity of human nature,
a unity that appears completely destroyed by this primitive and radical
opposition?

I admit these two tendencies are contradictory, but it should be noticed
that they are not so in the _same objects_. But things that do not meet
cannot come into collision. No doubt the sensuous impulsion desires
change; but it does not wish that it should extend to personality and
its field, nor that there should be a change of principles. The formal
impulsion seeks unity and permanence, but it does not wish the condition
to remain fixed with the person, that there should be identity of
feeling. Therefore these two impulsions are not divided by nature, and
if, nevertheless, they appear so, it is because they have become divided
by transgressing nature freely, by ignoring themselves, and by
confounding their spheres. The office of culture is to watch over them
and to secure to each one its proper _limits_; therefore culture has to
give equal justice to both, and to defend not only the rational
impulsion against the sensuous, but also the latter against the former.
Hence she has to act a twofold part: first, to protect sense against the
attacks of freedom; secondly, to secure personality against the power of
sensations. One of these ends is attained by the cultivation of the
sensuous, the other by that of reason.

Since the world is developed in time, or change, the perfection of the
faculty that places men in relation with the world will necessarily be
the greatest possible mutability and extensiveness. Since personality is
permanence in change, the perfection of this faculty, which must be
opposed to change, will be the greatest possible freedom of action
(autonomy) and intensity. The more the receptivity is developed under
manifold aspects, the more it is movable and otters surfaces to
phenomena, the larger is the part of the world _seized_ upon by man, and
the more virtualities he develops in himself. Again, in proportion as
man gains strength and depth, and depth and reason gain in freedom, in
that proportion man _takes in_ a larger share of the world, and throws
out forms outside himself. Therefore his culture will consist, first, in
placing his receptivity in contact with the world in the greatest number
of points possible, and in raising passivity, to the highest exponent on
the side of feeling; secondly, in procuring for the determining faculty
the greatest possible amount of independence, in relation to the
receptive power, and in raising activity to the highest degree on the
side of reason. By the union of these two qualities man will associate
the highest degree of self-spontaneity (autonomy) and of freedom with
the fullest plenitude of existence, and instead of abandoning himself to
the world so as to get lost in it, he will rather absorb it in himself,
with all the infinitude of its phenomena, and subject it to the unity of
his reason.

But man can invert this relation, and thus fail in attaining his
destination in two ways. He can hand over to the passive force the
intensity demanded by the active force; he can encroach by material
impulsion on the formal impulsion, and convert the receptive into the
determining power. He can attribute to the active force the
extensiveness belonging to the passive force, he can encroach by the
formal impulsion on the material impulsion, and substitute the
determining for the receptive power. In the former case, he will never
be 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 senses
become lawgivers, and if the world stifles personality, he loses as
object what he gains in force. It may be said of man that when he is
only the contents of time, he is not and consequently _he has_ no other
contents. His condition is destroyed at the same time as his
personality, because these are two correlative ideas, because change
presupposes permanence, and a limited reality implies an infinite
reality. If the formal impulsion becomes receptive, that is, if thought
anticipates sensation, and the person substitutes itself in the place of
the world, it loses as a subject and autonomous force what it gains as
object, because immutability implies change, and that to manifest itself
also absolute reality requires limits. As soon as man is only form, he
has no form, and the personality vanishes with the condition. In a word,
it is only inasmuch as he is spontaneous, autonomous, that there is
reality out of him, that he is also receptive; and it is only inasmuch
as he is receptive that there is reality in him, that he is a thinking
force.

Consequently these two impulsions require limits, and looked upon as
forces, they need tempering; the former that it may not encroach on the
field of legislation, the latter that it may not invade the ground of
feeling. But this tempering and moderating the sensuous impulsion ought
not to be the effect of physical impotence or of a blunting of
sensations, which is always a matter for contempt. It must be a free
act, an activity of the person, which by its moral intensity moderates
the sensuous intensity, and by the sway of impressions takes from them
in depth what it gives them in surface or breadth. The character must
place limits to temperament, for the senses have only the right to lose
elements if it be to the advantage of the mind. In its turn, the
tempering of the formal impulsion must not result from moral impotence,
from a relaxation of thought and will, which would degrade humanity. It
is necessary that the glorious source of this second tempering should be
the fulness of sensations; it is necessary that sensuousness itself
should defend its field with a victorious arm and resist the violence
that the invading activity of the mind would do to it. In a word, it is
necessary that the material impulsion should be contained in the limits
of propriety by personality, and the formal impulsion by receptivity or
nature.


                              LETTER XIV.

We have been brought to the idea of such a correlation between the two
impulsions that the action of the one establishes and limits at the same
time the action of the other, and that each of them, taken in isolation,
does arrive at its highest manifestation just because the other is
active.

No doubt this correlation of the two impulsions is simply a problem
advanced by reason, and which man will only be able to solve in the
perfection of his being. It is in the strictest signification of the
term: _the idea of his humanity_; accordingly, it is an infinite to
which he can approach nearer and nearer in the course of time, but
without ever reaching it. “He ought not to aim at form to the injury of
reality, nor to reality to the detriment of the form. He must rather
seek the absolute being by means of a determinate being, and the
determinate being by means of an infinite being. He must set the world
before him because he is a person, and he must be a person because he
has the world before him. He must feel because he has a consciousness of
himself, and he must have a consciousness of himself because he feels.”
It is only in conformity 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 up exclusively to one of these two impulsions, or only
satisfies them one after the other. For as long as he only feels, his
absolute personality and existence remain a mystery to him, and as long
as he only thinks, his condition or existence in time escapes him. But
if there were cases in which he could have _at once_ this twofold
experience in which he would have the consciousness of his freedom and
the feeling of his existence together in which he would simultaneously
feel as matter and know himself as spirit, in such cases, and in such
only, would he have a complete intuition of his humanity, and the object
that would procure him this intuition would be a symbol of his
accomplished destiny and consequently serve to express the infinite to
him—since this destination can 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 the other two impulsions would co-operate in it, would be
opposed to each of them taken in isolation, and might, with good
grounds, be taken for a new impulsion. The sensuous impulsion requires
that there should be change, that time should have contents; the formal
impulsion requires that time should be suppressed, that there should be
no change. Consequently, the impulsion in which both of the others act
in concert—allow me to call it the _instinct of play_, till I explain
the term—the instinct of play would have as its object to suppress time
in time, to conciliate the state of transition or _becoming_ with the
absolute being, change with identity.

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

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

Moreover, as the sensuous impulsion controls us physically, and the
formal impulsion morally, the former makes our formal constitution
contingent, and the latter makes our material constitution contingent,
that is to say, there is contingence in the agreement of our happiness
with our perfection, and reciprocally. The instinct of play, in which
both act in concert, will render both our formal and our material
constitution contingent; accordingly, our perfection and our happiness
in like manner. And on the other hand, exactly because it makes _both of
them_ contingent, and because the contingent disappears with necessity,
it will suppress this contingence in both, and will thus give form to
matter and reality to form. In proportion that it will lessen the
dynamic influence of feeling and passion, it will place them in harmony
with rational ideas, and by taking from the laws of reason their moral
constraint, 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 path
offering few attractions. Be pleased to follow me a few steps further,
and a large horizon will open up to you, and a delightful prospect will
reward 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 all material 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
inexact acceptation; a conception that embraces all formal qualities of
things and all relations of the same to the thinking powers. The object
of the play instinct, represented in a general statement, may therefore
bear the name of _living form_; a term that serves to describe all
æsthetic qualities of phenomena, and what people style, in the widest
sense, _beauty_.

Beauty is neither extended to the whole field of all living things nor
merely enclosed in this field. A marble block, though it is and remains
lifeless, can nevertheless become a living form by the architect and
sculptor; a man, though he lives and has a form, is far from being a
living form on that account. For this to be the case, it is necessary
that his form should be life, and that his life should be a form. As
long as we only think of his form, it is lifeless, a mere abstraction;
as long as we only feel his life, it is without form, a mere impression.
It is only when his form lives in our feeling, and his life in our
understanding, he is the living form, and this will everywhere be the
case where we judge him to be beautiful.

But the genesis of beauty is by no means declared because we know how to
point out the component parts, which in their combination produce
beauty. For to this end it would be necessary to comprehend that
_combination itself_, which continues to defy our exploration, as well
as all mutual operation between the finite and the infinite. The reason,
on transcendental grounds, makes the following demand: There shall be a
communion between the formal impulse and the material impulse—that is,
there shall be a play instinct—because it is only the unity of reality
with the form, of the accidental with the necessary, of the passive
state with freedom, that the conception of humanity is completed. Reason
is obliged to make this demand, because her nature impels her to
completeness and to the removal of all bounds; while every exclusive
activity of one or the other impulse leaves human nature incomplete and
places a limit in it. Accordingly, as soon as reason issues the mandate,
“a humanity shall exist,” it proclaims at the same time the law, “there
shall be a beauty.” Experience can answer us if there is a beauty, and
we 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
a humanity is possible.

We know that man is neither exclusively matter nor exclusively spirit.
Accordingly, beauty as the consummation of humanity, can neither be
exclusively mere life, as has been asserted by sharp-sighted observers,
who kept too close to the testimony of experience, and to which the
taste of the time would gladly degrade it; Nor can beauty be merely
form, as has been judged by speculative sophists, who departed too far
from experience, and by philosophic artists, who were led too much by
the necessity of art in explaining beauty; it is rather the common
object of both impulses, that is of the play instinct. The use of
language completely justifies this name, as it is wont to qualify with
the word play what is neither subjectively nor objectively accidental,
and yet does not impose necessity either externally or internally. As
the mind in the intuition of the beautiful finds itself in a happy
medium between law and necessity, it is, because it divides itself
between both, emancipated from the pressure of both. The formal impulse
and the material impulse are equally earnest in their demands, because
one relates in its cognition to things in their reality and the other to
their necessity; because in action the first is directed to the
preservation of life, the second to the preservation of dignity, and
therefore both to truth and perfection. But life becomes more
indifferent when dignity is mixed up with it, and duty no longer coerces
when inclination attracts. In like manner the mind takes in the reality
of things, material truth, more freely and tranquilly as soon as it
encounters formal truth, the law of necessity; nor does the mind find
itself strung by abstraction as soon as immediate intuition can
accompany it. In one word, when the mind comes into communion with
ideas, all reality loses its serious value because it becomes _small_;
and as it comes in contact with feeling, necessity parts also with its
serious value because it is _easy_.

But perhaps the objection has for some time occurred to you, Is not the
beautiful degraded by this, that it is made a mere play? and is it not
reduced to the level of frivolous objects which have for ages passed
under that name? Does it not contradict the conception of the reason and
the dignity of beauty, which is nevertheless regarded as an instrument
of culture, to confine it to the work of being a mere play? and does it
not contradict the empirical conception of play, which can co-exist with
the exclusion of all taste, to confine it merely to beauty?

But what is meant by a _mere play_, when we know that in all conditions
of humanity that very thing is play, and _only_ that is play which makes
man complete and develops simultaneously his twofold nature? What you
style _limitation_, according to your representation of the matter,
according to my views, which I have justified by proofs. I name
_enlargement_. Consequently I should have said exactly the reverse: man
is serious _only_ with the agreeable, with the good, and with the
perfect, but he _plays_ with beauty. In saying this we must not indeed
think of the plays that are in vogue in real life, and which commonly
refer only to his material state. But in real life we should also seek
in vain for the beauty of which we are here speaking. The actually
present beauty is worthy of the really, 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 also presented, 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 beauty
on the same road on which we satisfy our play-impulse. We can
immediately understand why the ideal form of a Venus, of a Juno, and of
an Apollo, is to be sought not at Rome, but in Greece, if we contrast
the Greek population, delighting in the bloodless athletic contests of
boxing, racing, and intellectual rivalry at Olympia, with the Roman
people gloating over the agony of a gladiator. Now the reason pronounces
that 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 of
absolute formality and absolute reality. Reason also utters the decision
that 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 meaning
of 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, will receive a great and deep meaning if we have advanced
far enough to apply it to the twofold seriousness of duty and of
destiny. I promise you that the whole edifice of æsthetic art and the
still more difficult art of life will be supported by this principle.
But this proposition is only unexpected in science; long ago it lived
and worked in art and in the feeling of the Greeks, her most
accomplished masters; only they removed to Olympus what ought to have
been preserved on earth. Influenced by the truth of this principle, they
effaced from the brow of their gods the earnestness and labor which
furrow the cheeks of mortals, and also the hollow lust that smoothes the
empty face. They set free the ever serene from the chains of every
purpose, of every duty, of every care, and they made _indolence_ and
_indifference_ the envied condition of the godlike race; merely human
appellations for the freest and highest mind. As well the material
pressure of natural laws as the spiritual pressure of moral laws lost
itself in its higher idea of necessity, which embraced at the same time
both worlds, and out of the union of these two necessities issued true
freedom. Inspired by this spirit the Greeks also effaced from the
features of their ideal, together with _desire or inclination_, all
traces of _volition_, or, better still, they made both unrecognizable,
because they knew how to wed them both in the closest alliance. It is
neither charm, nor is it dignity, which speaks from the glorious face of
Juno Ludovici; it is neither of these, for it is both at once. While the
female god challenges our veneration, the godlike woman at the same time
kindles our love. But while in ecstacy we give ourselves up to the
heavenly beauty, the heavenly self-repose awes us back. The whole form
rests and dwells in itself—a fully complete creation in itself—and as if
she were out of space, without advance or resistance; it shows no force
contending with force, no opening through which time could break in.
Irresistibly carried away and attracted by her womanly charm, kept off
at a distance by her godly dignity, we also find ourselves at length in
the state of the greatest repose, and the result is a wonderful
impression for which the understanding has no idea and language no name.


                              LETTER XVI.

From the antagonism of the two impulsions, and from the association of
two opposite principles, we have seen beauty to result, of which the
highest ideal must therefore be sought in the most perfect union and
equilibrium possible of the reality and of the form. But this
equilibrium remains always an idea that reality can never completely
reach. In reality, there will always remain a preponderance of one of
these elements over the other, and the highest point to which experience
can reach will consist in an oscillation between two principles, when
sometimes reality and at others form will have the advantage. Ideal
beauty is therefore eternally one and indivisible, because there can
only be one single equilibrium; on the contrary, experimental beauty
will be eternally double, because in the oscillation the equilibrium may
be destroyed in two ways—this side and that.

I have called attention in the foregoing letters to a fact that can also
be rigorously deduced, from the considerations that have engaged our
attention to the present point; this fact is that an exciting and also a
moderating action may be expected from the beautiful. The _tempering_
action is directed to keep within proper limits the sensuous and the
formal impulsions; the _exciting_, to maintain both of them in their
full force. But these two modes of action of beauty ought to be
completely identified in the idea. The beautiful ought to temper while
uniformly exciting the two natures, and it ought also to excite while
uniformly moderating them. This result flows at once from the idea of a
correlation, in virtue of which the two terms mutually imply each other,
and are the reciprocal condition one of the other, a correlation of
which the purest product is beauty. But experience does not offer an
example of so perfect a correlation. In the field of experience it will
always happen more or less that excess on the one side will give rise to
deficiency on the other, and deficiency will give birth to excess. It
results from this that what in the beau-ideal is only distinct in the
idea is different in reality in empirical beauty. The beau-ideal, though
simple and indivisible, discloses, when viewed in two different aspects,
on the one hand, a property of gentleness and grace, and on the other,
an energetic property; in experience there is a gentle and graceful
beauty and there is an energetic beauty. It is so, and it will be always
so, so long as the absolute is enclosed in the limits of time, and the
ideas of reason have to be realized in humanity. For example, the
intellectual man has the ideal of virtue, of truth, and of happiness;
but the active man will only practise _virtues_, will only grasp
_truths_, and enjoy _happy days_. The business of physical and moral
education is to bring back this multiplicity to unity, to put morality
in the place of manners, science in the place of knowledge; the business
of æsthetic education is to make out of beauties the beautiful.

Energetic beauty can no more preserve a man from a certain residue of
savage violence and harshness than graceful beauty can secure him
against a certain degree of effeminacy and weakness. As it is the effect
of the energetic beauty to elevate the mind in a physical and moral
point of view and to augment its momentum, it only too often happens
that the resistance of the temperament and of the character diminishes
the aptitude to receive impressions, that the delicate part of humanity
suffers an oppression which ought only to affect its grosser part, and
that this coarse nature participates in an increase of force that ought
only to turn to the account of free personality. It is for this reason
that, at the periods when we find much strength and abundant sap in
humanity, true greatness of thought is seen associated with what is
gigantic and extravagant, and the sublimest feeling is found coupled
with the most horrible excess of passion. It is also the reason why, in
the periods distinguished for regularity and form, nature is as often
oppressed as it is governed, as often outraged as it is surpassed. And
as the action of gentle and graceful beauty is to relax the mind in the
moral sphere as well as the physical, it happens quite as easily that
the energy of feelings is extinguished with the violence of desires, and
that character shares in the loss of strength which ought only to affect
the passions. This is the reason why, in ages assumed to be refined, it
is not a rare thing to see gentleness degenerate into effeminacy,
politeness into platitude, correctness into empty sterility, liberal
ways into arbitrary caprice, ease into frivolity, calm into apathy, and,
lastly, a most miserable caricature treads on the heels of the noblest,
the most beautiful type of humanity. Gentle and graceful beauty is
therefore a want to the man who suffers the constraint of manner and of
forms, for he is moved by grandeur and strength long before he becomes
sensible to harmony and grace. Energetic beauty is a necessity to the
man who is under the indulgent sway of taste, for in his state of
refinement he is only too much disposed to make light of the strength
that he retained in his state of rude savagism.

I think I have now answered and also cleared up the contradiction
commonly met in the judgments of men respecting the influence of the
beautiful, and the appreciation of æsthetic culture. This contradiction
is explained directly we remember that there are two sorts of
experimental beauty, and that on both hands an affirmation is extended
to the entire race, when it can only be proved of one of the species.
This contradiction disappears the moment we distinguish a twofold want
in humanity to which two kinds of beauty correspond. It is therefore
probable that both sides would make good their claims if they come to an
understanding respecting the kind of beauty and the form of humanity
that they have in view.

Consequently in the sequel of my researches I shall adopt the course
that nature herself follows with man considered from the point of view
of æsthetics, and setting out from the two kinds of beauty, I shall rise
to the idea of the genus. I shall examine the effects produced on man by
the gentle and graceful beauty when its springs of action are in full
play, 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
the beau-ideal, in the same way that the two opposite forms and modes of
being 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 from
the conception of human nature in general, we had only to consider in
the latter the limits established essentially in itself, and inseparable
from the notion of the finite. Without attending to the contingent
restrictions that human nature may undergo in the real world of
phenomena, we have drawn the conception of this nature directly from
reason, as a source of every necessity, and the ideal of beauty has been
given us at the same time with the ideal of humanity.

But now we are coming down from the region of ideas to the scene of
reality, to find man in a _determinate state_, and consequently in
limits which are not derived from the pure conception of humanity, but
from external circumstances and from an accidental use of his freedom.
But, although the limitation of the idea of humanity may be very
manifold in the individual, the contents of this idea suffice to teach
us that we can only depart from it by _two_ opposite roads. For if the
perfection of man consist in the harmonious energy of his sensuous and
spiritual forces, he can only lack this perfection through the want of
harmony and the want of energy. Thus, then, before having received on
this point the testimony of experience, reason suffices to assure us
that we shall find the real and consequently limited man in a state of
tension or relaxation according as the exclusive activity of isolated
forces troubles the harmony of his being, or as the unity of his nature
is based on the uniform relaxation of his physical and spiritual forces.
These opposite limits are, as we have now to prove, suppressed by the
beautiful, which re-establishes harmony in man when excited, and energy
in man when relaxed; and which, in this way, in conformity with the
nature of the beautiful, restores the state of limitation to an absolute
state, and makes of man a whole, complete in himself.

Thus the beautiful by no means belies in reality the idea which we have
made of it in speculation; only its action is much less free in it than
in the field of theory, where we were able to apply it to the pure
conception of humanity. In man, as experience shows him to us, the
beautiful finds a matter, already damaged and resisting, which robs him
in _ideal_ perfection of what it communicates to him of its _individual_
mode of being. Accordingly in reality the beautiful will always appear a
peculiar and limited species, and not as the pure genus; in excited
minds in a state of tension it will lose its freedom and variety; in
relaxed minds, it will lose its vivifying force: but we, who have become
familiar with the true character of this contradictory phenomenon,
cannot be led astray by it. We shall not follow the great crowd of
critics, in determining their conception by separate experiences, and to
make _them_ answerable for the deficiencies which man shows under their
influence. We know rather that it is man who transfers the imperfections
of his individuality over to them, who stands perpetually in the way of
their perfection by his subjective limitation, and lowers their absolute
ideal to two limited forms of phenomena.

It was advanced that soft beauty is for an unstrung mind, and the
energetic beauty for the tightly strung mind. But I apply the term
unstrung to a man when he is rather under the pressure of feelings than
under the pressure of conceptions. Every _exclusive_ sway of one of his
two 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 sensuously
unstrung, is emancipated and set free by matter. The soft and graceful
beauty, to satisfy this twofold problem, must therefore show herself
under 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 with
sensuous power, and lead back the conception to intuition and law to
feeling. The former service she does to the man of nature, the second to
the man of art. But because she does not in both cases hold complete
sway over her matter, but depends on that which is furnished either by
formless nature or unnatural art, she will in both cases bear traces of
her origin, and lose herself in one place in material life and in
another in mere abstract form.

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


                             LETTER XVIII.

By beauty the sensuous man is led to form and to thought; by beauty the
spiritual man is brought back to matter and restored to the world of
sense.

From this statement it would appear to follow that between matter and
form, between passivity and activity, there must be a _middle state_,
and that beauty plants us in this state. It actually happens that the
greater part of mankind really form this conception of beauty as soon as
they begin to reflect on its operations, and all experience seems to
point to this conclusion. But, on the other hand, nothing is more
unwarrantable and contradictory than such a conception, because the
aversion of matter and form, the passive and the active, feeling and
thought, is _eternal_, and cannot be mediated in any way. How can we
remove this contradiction? Beauty weds the two opposed conditions of
feeling and thinking, and yet there is absolutely no medium between
them. The former is immediately certain through experience, the other
through the reason.

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

But this requires two very different operations, which must necessarily
support each other in this inquiry. Beauty, it is said, weds two
conditions with one another _which are opposite to each other_, and can
never be one. We must start from this opposition; we must grasp and
recognize them in their entire purity and strictness, so that both
conditions are separated in the most definite manner; otherwise we mix,
but we do not unite them. Secondly, it is usual to say, beauty _unites_
those two opposed conditions, and therefore removes the opposition. But
because both conditions remain eternally opposed to one another, they
cannot be united in any other way than by being suppressed. Our second
business is therefore to make this connection perfect, to carry them out
with such purity and perfection that both conditions disappear entirely
in a third one, and no trace of separation remains in the whole;
otherwise we segregate, but do not unite. All the disputes that have
ever prevailed and still prevail in the philosophical world respecting
the conception of beauty have no other origin than their commencing
without a sufficiently strict distinction, or that it is not carried out
fully to a pure union. Those philosophers who blindly follow their
_feeling_ in reflecting on this topic can obtain no other _conception_
of beauty, because they distinguish nothing separate in the totality of
the sensuous impression. Other philosophers, who take the understanding
as their exclusive guide, can never obtain a conception of beauty,
because they never see anything else in the whole than the parts; and
spirit and matter remain eternally separate, even in their most perfect
unity. The first fear to suppress beauty _dynamically_, that is, as a
working power, if they must separate what is united in the feeling. The
others fear to suppress beauty _logically_, that is, as a conception,
when they have to hold together what in the understanding is separate.
The former wish to think 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 to follow infinite nature with their limited thinking
power; the others, because they wish to limit unlimited nature according
to their laws of thought. The first fear to rob beauty of its freedom by
a too strict dissection, the others fear to destroy the distinctness of
the conception by a too violent union. But the former do not reflect
that the freedom in which they very properly place the essence of beauty
is not lawlessness, but harmony of law’s; not caprice, but the highest
internal necessity. The others do not remember that distinctness, which
they with equal right demand from beauty, does not consist in the
_exclusion of certain realities_, but the _absolute including of all_;
that is not therefore limitation but infinitude. We shall avoid the
quicksands on which both have made shipwreck if we begin from the two
elements in which beauty divides itself before the understanding, but
then afterwards rise to a pure æsthetic unity by which it works on
feeling, and in which both those conditions completely disappear.


                              LETTER XIX.

Two principal and different states of passive and active capacity of
being determined[3] can be distinguished in man; in like manner two
states of passive and active determination.[4] The explanation of this
proposition leads us most readily to our end.

The condition of the state of man before destination or direction is
given him by the impression of the senses is an unlimited capacity of
being determined. The infinite of time and space is given to his
imagination for its free use; and, because nothing is settled in this
kingdom of the possible, and therefore nothing is excluded from it, this
state 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
that in the indefinite series of possible determinations one alone
should become real. One perception must spring up in it. That which, in
the previous state of determinableness, was only an empty potency
becomes now an active force, and receives contents; but, at the same
time, as an active force it receives a limit, after having been, as a
simple power, unlimited. Reality exists now, but the infinite has
disappeared. To describe a figure in space, we are obliged to _limit_
infinite space; to represent to ourselves a change in time, we are
obliged to _divide_ the totality of time. Thus we only arrive at reality
by limitation, at the positive, 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
sensuous impression ever give birth to a perception, if there were not
something from which it was excluded, if by an absolute act of the mind
the negation were not referred to something positive, and if opposition
did not issue out of non-position. This act of the mind is styled
judging or thinking, and the result is named _thought_.

Before we determine a place in space, there is no space for us; but
without absolute space we could never determine a place. The same is the
case with time. Before we have an instant, there is no time to us: but
without infinite time—eternity—we should never have a representation of
the instant. Thus, therefore, we can only arrive at the whole by the
part, to the unlimited through limitation; but reciprocally we only
arrive at the part through the whole, at limitation through the
unlimited.

It follows from this, that when it is affirmed of beauty that it
mediates for man, the transition from feeling to thought, this must not
be understood to mean that beauty can fill up the gap that separates
feeling from thought, the passive from the active. This gap is infinite;
and, without the interposition of a new and independent faculty, it is
impossible for the general to issue from the individual, the necessary
from the contingent. Thought is the immediate act of this absolute
power, which, I admit, can only be manifested in connection with
sensuous impressions, but which in this manifestation depends so little
on the sensuous that it reveals itself specially in an opposition to it.
The spontaneity or autonomy with which it acts excludes every foreign
influence; and it is not in as far as it _helps_ thought—which
comprehends a manifest contradiction—but only in as far as it procures
for the intellectual faculties the freedom to manifest themselves in
conformity with their proper laws. It does it only because the beautiful
can become a means of leading man from matter to form, from feeling to
laws, from a limited existence to an absolute existence.

But this assumes that the freedom of the intellectual faculties can be
balked, which appears contradictory to the conception of an autonomous
power. For a power which only receives the matter of its activity from
without can only be hindered in its action by the privation of this
matter, and consequently by way of negation; it is therefore a
misconception of the nature of the mind to attribute to the sensuous
passions the power of oppressing positively the freedom of the mind.
Experience does indeed present numerous examples where the rational
forces appear compressed in proportion to the violence of the sensuous
forces. But instead of deducing this spiritual weakness from the energy
of passion, this passionate energy must rather be explained by the
weakness of the human mind. For the sense can only have a sway such as
this over man when the mind has spontaneously neglected to assert its
power.

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

Here we must remember that we have before us, not the infinite mind, but
the finite. The finite mind is that which only becomes active through
the passive, only arrives at the absolute through limitation, and only
acts and fashions in as far as it receives matter. Accordingly, a mind
of this nature must associate with the impulse towards form or the
absolute, an impulse towards matter or limitation, conditions without
which it could not have the former impulse nor satisfy it. How can two
such opposite tendencies exist together in the same being? This is a
problem that can no doubt embarrass the metaphysician, but not the
transcendental philosopher. The latter does not presume to explain the
possibility of things, but he is satisfied with giving a solid basis to
the knowledge that makes us understand the possibility of experience.
And as experience would be equally impossible without this autonomy in
the mind, and without the absolute unity of the mind, it lays down these
two conceptions as two conditions of experience equals necessary without
troubling itself any more to reconcile them. Moreover, this immanence of
two fundamental impulses does not in any degree contradict the absolute
unity of the mind, as soon as the mind itself, its _selfhood_, is
distinguished from those two motors. No doubt, these two impulses
_exist_ and _act in it_, but _itself_ is neither matter nor form, nor
the sensuous nor reason, and this is a point that does not seem always
to have occurred to those who only look upon the mind as itself acting
when its acts are in harmony with reason, and who declare it passive
when its acts contradict reason.

Arrived at its development, each of these two fundamental impulsions
tends of necessity and by its nature to satisfy itself; but precisely
because each of them has a necessary tendency, and both nevertheless
have an opposite tendency, this twofold constraint mutually destroys
itself, and the will preserves an entire freedom between them both. It
is therefore the will that conducts itself like a _power_—as the basis
of reality—with respect to both these impulses; but neither of them can
by itself act as a power with respect to the other. A violent man, by
his positive tendency to justice, which never fails in him, is turned
away from injustice; nor can a temptation of pleasure, however strong,
make a strong character violate its principles. There is in man no other
power than his will; and death alone, which destroys man, or some
privation of self-consciousness, is the only thing that can rob man of
his internal freedom.

An _external_ necessity determines our condition, our existence in time,
by means of the sensuous. The latter is quite involuntary, and directly
it is produced in us we are necessarily passive. In the same manner an
_internal_ necessity awakens our personality in connection with
sensations, and by its antagonism with them; for consciousness cannot
depend on the will, which presupposes it. This primitive manifestation
of personality is no more a merit to us than its privation is a defect
in us. Reason can only be required in a being who is self-conscious, for
reason is an absolute consecutiveness and universality of consciousness;
before this is the case he is not a man, nor can any act of humanity be
expected from him. The _metaphysician_ can no more explain the
limitation imposed by sensation on a free and autonomous mind than the
_natural philosopher_ can understand the infinite, which is revealed in
consciousness in connection with these limits. Neither abstraction nor
experience can bring us back to the source whence issue our ideas of
necessity and of universality: this source is concealed in its origin in
time from the observer, and its super-sensuous origin from the
researches of the metaphysician. But, to sum up in a few words,
consciousness is there, and, together with its immutable unity, the law
of all that _is_ for man is established, as well as 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 without our being able to say why
or how, we see eternity in time, the necessary following the contingent.
It is thus that, without any share on the part of the subject, the
sensation and self-consciousness arise, and the origin of both is beyond
our volition, as it is out of the sphere of our knowledge.

But as soon as these two faculties have passed into action, and man has
verified by his experience, through the medium of sensation, a
determinate existence, and through the medium of consciousness its
absolute existence, the two fundamental impulses exert their influence
directly their object is given. The sensuous impulse is awakened with
the experience of life—with the beginning of the individual; the
rational impulsion with the experience of law—with the beginning of his
personality; and it is only when these two inclinations have come into
existence that the human type is realized. Up to that time, everything
takes place in man according to the law of necessity; but now the hand
of _nature_ lets him go, and it is for _him_ to keep upright humanity,
which nature places as a germ in his heart. And thus we see that
directly the two opposite and fundamental impulses exercise their
influence in him, both lose their constraint, and the autonomy of two
necessities gives birth to freedom.


                               LETTER XX.

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

Thus it is possible, both with regard to the entire species as to the
individual, to remark the moment when man is yet incomplete, and when
one of the two exclusions acts solely in him. We know that man commences
by life simply, to end by form; that he is more of an individual than a
person, and that he starts from the limited or finite to approach the
infinite. The sensuous impulsion comes into play therefore before the
rational impulsion, because sensation precedes consciousness; and in
this priority of sensuous impulsion we find the key of the history of
the whole of human liberty.

There is a moment, in fact, when the instinct of life, not yet opposed
to the instinct of form, acts as nature and as necessity; when the
sensuous is a power because man has not begun; for even in man there can
be no other power than his will. But when man shall have attained to the
power of thought, reason, on the contrary, will be a power, and moral or
logical necessity will take the place of physical necessity. Sensuous
power must then be annihilated before the law which must govern it can
be established. It is not enough that something shall begin which as yet
was not; previously something must end which had begun. Man cannot pass
immediately from sensuousness to thought. He must step backwards, for it
is only when one determination is suppressed that the contrary
determination can take place. Consequently, in order to exchange passive
against active liberty, a passive determination against an active, he
must be momentarily free from all determination, and must traverse a
state of pure determinability. He has then to return in some degree to
that state of pure negative indetermination in which he was before his
senses were affected by anything. But this state was absolutely empty of
all contents, and now the question is to reconcile an equal
determination and a determinability equally without limit, with the
greatest possible fulness, because from this situation something
positive must immediately follow. The determination which man received
by sensation must be preserved, because he should not lose the reality;
but at the same time, in so far as finite, it should be suppressed,
because a determinability without limit would take place. The problem
consists then in annihilating the determination of the mode of
existence, and yet at the same time in preserving it, which is only
possible in one way: _in opposing to it another_. The two sides of a
balance are in equilibrium when empty; they are also in equilibrium when
their contents are of equal weight.

Thus, to pass from sensation to thought, the soul traverses a medium
position, in which sensibility and reason are at the same time active,
and thus they mutually destroy their determinant power, and by their
antagonism produce a negation. This medium situation in which the soul
is neither physically nor morally constrained, and yet is in both ways
active, merits essentially the name of a free situation; and if we call
the state of sensuous determination _physical_, and the state of
rational determination _logical_ or _moral_, that state of real and
active determination should be called the _æsthetic_.


                              LETTER XXI.

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

The mind can be determined—is determinable—only in as far as it is not
determined; it is, however, determinable also, in as far as it is not
exclusively determined; that is, if it is not confined in its
determination. The former is only a want of determination—it is without
limits, because it is without reality; but the latter, the æsthetic
determinableness, has no limits, because it unites all reality.

The mind is determined, inasmuch as it is only limited; but it is also
determined because it limits itself of its own absolute capacity. It is
situated in the former position when it feels, in the second when it
thinks. Accordingly the æsthetic constitution is in relation to
determinableness what thought is in relation to determination. The
latter is a negative from internal and infinite completeness, the former
a limitation from internal infinite power. Feeling and thought come into
contact in one single point, the mind is determined in both conditions,
the man becomes something and exists—either as individual or person—by
exclusion; in other cases these two faculties stand infinitely apart.
Just in the same manner the æsthetic determinableness comes in contact
with the mere want of determination in a single point, by both excluding
every distinct determined existence, by thus being in all other points
nothing and all, and hence by being infinitely different. Therefore if
the latter, in the absence of determination from deficiency, is
represented as an _empty infiniteness_, the æsthetic freedom of
determination, which forms the proper counterpart to the former, can be
considered as a _completed infiniteness_; a representation which exactly
agrees with the teachings of the previous investigations.

Man is therefore _nothing_ in the æsthetic state, if attention is given
to the single result, and not to the whole faculty, and if we regard
only the absence or want of every special determination. We must
therefore do justice to those who pronounce the beautiful, and the
disposition in which it places the mind, as entirely indifferent and
unprofitable, in relation to _knowledge_ and _feeling_. They are
perfectly right; for it is certain that beauty gives no separate, single
result, either for the understanding or for the will; it does not carry
out a single intellectual or moral object; it discovers no truth, does
not help us to fulfil a single duty, and, in _one_ word, is equally
unfit to found the character or to clear the head. Accordingly, the
personal worth of a man, or his dignity, as far as this can only depend
on himself, remains entirety undetermined by æsthetic culture, and
nothing further is attained than that, on the _part_ of _nature_, it is
made profitable for him to make of himself what he will; that the
freedom to be what he ought to be is restored perfectly to him.

But by this something infinite is attained. But as soon as we remember
that freedom is taken from man by the one-sided compulsion of nature in
feeling, and by the exclusive legislation of the reason in thinking, we
must consider the capacity restored to him by the æsthetical
disposition, as the highest of all gifts, as the gift of humanity. I
admit that he possesses this capacity for humanity, before every
definite determination in which he may be placed. But, as a matter of
fact, he loses it with every determined condition into which he may
come; and if he is to pass over to an opposite condition, humanity must
be in every case restored to him by the æsthetic life.

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


                              LETTER XXII.

Accordingly, if the æsthetic disposition of the mind must be looked upon
in _one_ respect as _nothing_—that is, when we confine our view to
separate and determined operations—it must be looked upon in another
respect as a state of the highest reality, in as far as we attend to the
absence of all limits and the sum of powers which are commonly active in
it. Accordingly we cannot pronounce them, again, to be wrong who
describe the æsthetic state to be the most productive in relation to
knowledge and morality. They are perfectly right, for a state of mind
which comprises the whole of humanity in itself must of necessity
include in itself also—necessarily and potentially—every separate
expression of it. Again, a disposition of mind that removes all
limitation from the totality of human nature must also remove it from
every special expression of the same. Exactly because its “æsthetic
disposition” does not exclusively shelter any separate function of
humanity, it is favorable to all without distinction; nor does it favor
any particular functions, precisely because it is the foundation of the
possibility of all. All other exercises give to the mind some special
aptitude, but for that very reason give it some definite limits; only
the æsthetical leads him to the unlimited. Every other condition in
which we can live refers us to a previous condition, and requires for
its solution a following condition; only the æsthetic is a complete
whole in itself, for it unites in itself all conditions of its source
and of its duration. Here alone we feel ourselves swept out of time, and
our humanity expresses itself with purity and _integrity_ as if it had
not yet received any impression or interruption from the operation of
external powers.

That which flatters our senses in immediate sensation opens our wreak
and volatile spirit to every impression, but makes us in the same degree
less apt for exertion. That which stretches our thinking power and
invites to abstract conceptions strengthens our mind for every kind of
resistance, but hardens it also in the same proportion, and deprives us
of susceptibility in the same ratio that it helps us to greater mental
activity. For this very reason, one as well as the other brings us at
length to exhaustion, because matter cannot long do without the shaping,
constructive force, and the force cannot do without the constructible
material. But on the other hand, if we have resigned ourselves to the
enjoyment of genuine beauty, we are at such a moment of our passive and
active powers in the same degree master, and we shall turn with ease
from grave to gay, from rest to movement, from submission to resistance,
to abstract thinking and intuition.

This high indifference and freedom of mind, united with power and
elasticity, is the disposition in which a true work of art ought to
dismiss us, and there is no better test of true æsthetic excellence. If
after an enjoyment of this kind we find ourselves specialty impelled to
a particular mode of feeling or action, and unfit for other modes, this
serves as an infallible proof that we have not experienced _any pure
æsthetic_ effect, whether this is owing to the object, to our own mode
of feeling—as generally happens—or to both together.

As in reality no purely æsthetical effect can be met with—for man can
never leave his dependence on material forces—the excellence of a work
of art can only consist in its greater approximation to its ideal of
æsthetic purity, and however high we may raise the freedom of this
effect, we shall always leave it with a particular disposition and a
particular bias. Any class of productions or separate work in the world
of art is noble and excellent in proportion to the universality of the
disposition and the unlimited character of the bias thereby presented to
our 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 musical
performance with our feelings excited, the reading of a noble poem with
a quickened imagination, a beautiful statue or building with an awakened
understanding; but a man would not choose an opportune moment who
attempted to invite us to abstract thinking after a high musical
enjoyment, or to attend to a prosaic affair of common life after a high
poetical enjoyment, or to kindle our imagination and astonish our
feelings directly after inspecting a fine statue or edifice. The reason
of this is, that music, _by its matter_, even when most spiritual,
presents a greater affinity with the senses than is permitted by
æsthetic liberty; it is because even the most happy poetry, having _for
its medium_ the arbitrary and contingent play of the imagination, always
shares in it more than the intimate necessity of the really beautiful
allows; it is because the best sculpture touches on severe science _by
what is determinate in its conception_. However, these particular
affinities are lost in proportion as the works of these three kinds of
art rise to a greater elevation, and it is a natural and necessary
consequence of their perfection, that, without confounding their
objective limits, the different arts come to resemble each other more
and more, in the action _which 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 an antique statue; in its most elevated
perfection, the plastic art ought to become music and move us by the
immediate action exercised on the mind by the senses; in its most
complete development, poetry ought both to stir us powerfully like music
and like plastic art to surround us with a peaceful light. In each art,
the perfect style consists exactly in knowing how to remove specific
limits, while sacrificing at the same time the particular advantages of
the art, and to give it by a wise use of what belongs to it specially a
more general character.

Nor is it only the limits inherent in the specific character of each
kind of art that the artist ought to over step in putting his hand to
the work; he must also triumph over those which are inherent in the
particular subject of which he treats. In a really beautiful work of
art, the substance ought to be inoperative, the form should do
everything; for by the form the whole man is acted on; the substance
acts on nothing but isolated forces. Thus, however vast and sublime it
may be, the substance always exercises a restrictive action on the mind,
and true æsthetic liberty can only be expected from the form.
Consequently the true search of the matter consists in _destroying
matter by the form_; and the triumph of art is great in proportion as it
overcomes matter and maintains its sway over those who enjoy its work.
It is great particularly in destroying matter when most imposing,
ambitious, and attractive, when therefore matter has most power to
produce the effect proper to it, or, again, when it leads those who
consider it more closely to enter directly into relation with it. The
mind of the spectator and of the hearer must remain perfectly free and
intact; it must issue pure and entire from the magic circle of the
artist, as from the hands of the Creator. The most frivolous subject
ought to be treated in such a way that we preserve the faculty to
exchange it immediately for the most serious work. The arts which have
passion for their object, as a tragedy for example, do not present a
difficulty here; for, in the first place, these arts are not entirely
free, because they are in the service of a particular end (the
pathetic), and then no connoisseur will deny that even in this class a
work is perfect in proportion as amidst the most violent storms of
passion it respects the liberty of the soul. There is a fine art of
passion, but an impassioned fine art is a contradiction in terms, for
the infallible 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 of the beautiful than to give a determinate tendency to
the mind.

However, from the fact that a work produces effects only by its
substance, it must not always be inferred that there is a want of form
in this work; this conclusion may quite as well testify to a want of
form in the observer. If his mind is too stretched or too relaxed, if it
is only accustomed to receive things either by the senses or the
intelligence, even in the most perfect combination, it will only stop to
look at the parts, and it will only see matter in the most beautiful
form. Only sensible of the coarse _elements_, he must first destroy the
æsthetic organization of a work to find enjoyment in it, and carefully
disinter the details which genius has caused to vanish, with infinite
art, in the harmony of the whole. The interest he takes in the work is
either solely moral or exclusively physical; the only thing wanting to
it is to be exactly what it ought to be—æsthetical. The readers of this
class enjoy a serious and pathetic poem as they do a sermon: a simple
and playful work, as an inebriating draught; and if on the one hand they
have so 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
infallibly scandalized 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 apply
the principles I laid down to practical art and the appreciation of its
works.

The transition from the passivity of sensuousness to the activity of
thought and of will can be effected only by the intermediary state of
æsthetic liberty; and though in itself this state decides nothing
respecting our opinions and our sentiments, and therefore it leaves our
intellectual and moral value entirely problematical, it is, however, the
necessary condition without which we should never attain to an opinion
or a sentiment. In a word, there is no other way to make a reasonable
being out of a sensuous man than by making him first æsthetic.

But, you might object: Is this mediation absolutely indispensable? Could
not 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 it
possible but it is absolutely necessary that they owe solely to
themselves their determining force, and nothing would be more
contradictory to our preceding affirmations than to appear to defend the
contrary opinion. It has been expressly proved that the beautiful
furnishes no result, either for the comprehension or for the will; that
it mingles with no operations, either of thought or of resolution; and
that it confers this double power without determining anything with
regard to the real exercise of this power. Here all foreign help
disappears, and the pure logical form, the idea, would speak immediately
to the intelligence, as the pure moral form, the law, immediately to the
will.

But that the pure form should be capable of it, and that there is in
general a pure form for sensuous man, is that, I maintain, which should
be rendered possible by the æsthetic disposition of the soul. Truth is
not a thing which can be received from without like reality or the
visible existence of objects. It is the thinking force, in his own
liberty and activity, which produces it, and it is just this liberty
proper to it, this liberty which we seek in vain in sensuous man. The
sensuous man is already determined physically, and thenceforth he has no
longer his free determinability; he must necessarily first enter into
possession of this lost determinability before he can exchange the
passive against an active determination. Therefore, in order to recover
it, he must either lose the passive determination that he had, or he
should enclose already in himself the active determination to which he
should pass. If he confined himself to lose passive determination, he
would at the same time lose with it the possibility of an active
determination, because thought needs a body, and form can only be
realized through matter. He must therefore contain already in himself
the active determination, that he may be at once both actively and
passively determined, that is to say, he becomes necessarily æsthetic.

Consequently, by the æsthetic disposition of the soul the proper
activity of reason is already revealed in the sphere of sensuousness,
the power of sense is already broken within its own boundaries, and the
ennobling of physical man carried far enough, for spiritual man has only
to develop himself according to the laws of liberty. The transition from
an æsthetic state to a logical and moral state (from the beautiful to
truth and duty) is then infinitely more easy than the transition from
the physical state to the æsthetic state (from life pure and blind to
form). This transition man can effectuate alone by his liberty, whist he
has only to enter into possession of himself not to give it himself; but
to separate the elements of his nature, and not to enlarge it. Having
attained to the æsthetic disposition, man will give to his judgments and
to his actions a universal value as soon as he desires it. This passage
from brute nature to beauty, in which an entirely new faculty would
awaken in him, nature would render easier, and his will has no power
over a disposition which, we know, itself gives birth to the will. To
bring the æsthetic man to profound views, to elevated sentiments, he
requires nothing more than important occasions: to obtain the same thing
from the sensuous man, his nature must at first be changed. To make of
the former a hero, a sage, it is often only necessary to meet with a
sublime situation, which exercises upon the faculty of the will the more
immediate action; for the second, it must first be transplanted under
another sky.

One of the most important tasks of culture, then, is to submit man to
form, even in a purely physical life, and to render it æsthetic as far
as the domain of the beautiful can be extended, for it is alone in the
æsthetic state, and not in the physical state, that the moral state can
be developed. If in each particular case man ought to possess the power
to make his judgment and his will the judgment of the entire species; if
he ought to find in each limited existence the transition to an infinite
existence; if, lastly, he ought from every dependent situation to take
his flight to rise to autonomy and to liberty, it must be observed that
at 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 ends
of nature, to rational ends, in the sphere of the former he must already
have exercised himself in the second; he must already have realized his
physical destiny with a certain liberty that belongs only to spiritual
nature, that is to say according to the laws of the beautiful.

And that he can effect without thwarting in the least degree his
physical aim. The exigencies of nature with regard to him turn only upon
what he does—upon the substance of his acts; but the ends of nature in
no degree determine the way in which he acts, the form of his actions.
On the contrary, the exigencies of reason have rigorously the form of
his activity for its object. Thus, so much as it is necessary for the
moral destination of man, that he be purely moral, that he shows an
absolute personal activity, so much is he indifferent that his physical
destination be entirely physical, that he acts in a manner entirely
passive. Henceforth with regard to this last destination, it entirely
depends 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, as
absolute force, as a rational being. To which of these does his dignity
best respond? Of this there can be no question. It is as disgraceful and
contemptible for him to do under sensuous impulsion that which he ought
to have determined merely by the motive of duty, as it is noble and
honorable for him to incline towards conformity with laws, harmony,
independence; there even where the vulgar man only satisfies a
legitimate want. In a word, in the domain of truth and morality,
sensuousness must have nothing to determine; but in the sphere of
happiness, form may find a place, and the instinct of play prevail.

Thus then, in the indifferent sphere of physical life, man ought to
already commence his moral life; his own proper activity ought already
to make way in passivity, and his rational liberty beyond the limits of
sense; he ought already to impose the law of his will upon his
inclinations; he ought—if you will permit me the expression—to carry
into the domain of matter the war against matter, in order to be
dispensed from combatting this redoubtable enemy upon the sacred field
of liberty; he ought to learn to have nobler desires, not to be forced
to have sublime volitions. This is the fruit of æsthetic culture, which
submits to the laws of the beautiful, in which neither the laws of
nature nor those of reason suffer, which does not force the will of man,
and which by the form it gives to exterior life already opens internal
life.


                              LETTER XXIV.

Accordingly three different moments or stages of development can be
distinguished, which the individual man, as well as the whole race, must
of necessity traverse in a determinate order if they are to fulfil the
circle of their determination. No doubt, the separate periods can be
lengthened or shortened, through accidental causes which are inherent
either in the influence of external things or under the free caprice of
men: but neither of them can be overstepped, and the order of their
sequence cannot be inverted either by nature or by the will. Man, in his
_physical_ condition, suffers only the power of nature; he gets rid of
this power in the æsthetical condition, and he rules them in the moral
state.

What is man before beauty liberates him from free pleasure, and the
serenity of form tames down the savageness of life? Eternally uniform in
his aims, eternally changing in his judgments, self-seeking without
being himself, unfettered without being free, a slave without serving
any rule. At this period, the world is to him only destiny, not yet an
object; all has existence for him only in as far as it procures
existence to him; a thing that neither seeks from nor gives to him is
non-existent. Every phenomenon stands out before him separate and cut
off, as he finds himself in the series of beings. All that is, is to him
through the bias of the moment; every change is to him an entirely fresh
creation, because with the necessary _in him_, the necessary _out of
him_ is wanting, which binds together all the changing forms in the
universe, and which holds fast 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 before him; he sees in her glorious fulness
nothing but his prey, in her power and greatness nothing but his enemy.
Either he encounters objects, and wishes to draw them to himself in
desire, or the objects press in a destructive manner upon him, and he
thrusts them away in dismay and terror. In both cases his relation to
the world of sense is immediate _contact_; and perpetually anxious
through its pressure, restless and plagued 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 in
others, and conscious of his own savage greed, he fears it in every
creature that he sees like himself. He never sees others in himself,
only himself in others, and human society, instead of enlarging him to
the race, only shuts him up continually closer in his individuality.
Thus limited, he wanders through his sunless life, till favoring nature
rolls away the load of matter from his darkened senses, reflection
separates him from things, and objects show themselves at length in the
afterglow of the consciousness.

It is true we cannot point out this state of rude nature as we have here
portrayed it in any definite people and age. It is only an idea, but an
idea with which experience agrees most closely in special features. It
may 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 rudest
subjects, unmistakable traces of rational freedom can be found, and even
in the most cultivated, features are not wanting that remind us of that
dismal natural condition. It is possible for man, at one and the same
time, to unite the highest and the lowest in his nature; and if his
_dignity_ depends on a strict separation of one from the other, his
_happiness_ depends on a skilful removal of this separation. The culture
which is to bring his dignity into agreement with his happiness will
therefore have to provide for the greatest purity of these two
principles in their most intimate combination.

Consequently the first appearance of reason in man is not the
beginning of humanity. This is first decided by his freedom, and
reason begins first by making his sensuous dependence boundless; a
phenomenon that does not appear to me to have been sufficiently
elucidated, considering its importance and universality. We know that
the reason makes itself known to 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 or single state of his
physical life, he is obliged to leave the physical entirely and to
rise from a limited reality to ideas. But although the true meaning of
that demand of the reason is to withdraw him from the limits 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 avoided in
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 imagination
leaves the narrow limits of the present, in which mere animality is
enclosed, in order to strive on to an unlimited future. But while the
limitless is unfolded to his dazed _imagination_, his heart has not
ceased to live in the separate, and to serve the moment. The impulse
towards the absolute seizes him suddenly in the midst of his animality,
and as in this cloddish condition all his efforts aim only at the
material and temporal, and are limited by his individuality, he is only
led by that demand of the reason to extend his individuality into the
infinite, instead of to abstract from it. He will be led to seek instead
of form an inexhaustible matter, instead of the unchangeable an
everlasting change and an absolute securing of his temporal existence.
The same impulse which, directed to his thought and action, ought to
lead to truth and morality, now directed to his passion and emotional
state, produces nothing but an unlimited desire and an absolute want.
The first fruits, therefore, that he reaps in the world of spirits are
cares and fear—both operations of the reason; not of sensuousness, but
of a reason that mistakes its object and applies its categorical
imperative to matter. All unconditional systems of happiness are fruits
of this tree, whether they have for their object the present day or the
whole of life, or what does not make them any more respectable, the
whole of eternity, for their object. An unlimited duration of existence
and of well-being is only an ideal of the desires; hence a demand which
can only be put forth by an animality striving up to the absolute. Man,
therefore, without gaining anything for his humanity by a rational
expression of this sort, loses the happy limitation of the animal, over
which he now only possesses the unenviable superiority of losing the
present for an endeavor after what is remote, yet without seeking in the
limitless future anything but the present.

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

In fact, it is now that he ought to abandon entirely the world of sense
in order to take his flight into the realm of ideas; for the
intelligence remains eternally shut up in the finite and in the
contingent, and does not 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 an abstraction, 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 it below in the region of sentiment, and will
appear to find it. No doubt the sensuous shows him nothing that has its
foundation in itself, and that legislates for itself, but it shows him
something that does not care for foundation or law; therefore, thus not
being able to quiet the intelligence by showing it a final cause, he
reduces it to silence by the conception which desires no cause; and
being incapable of understanding the sublime necessity of reason, he
keeps to the blind constraint of matter. As sensuousness knows no other
end than its interest, and is determined by nothing except blind chance,
it makes the former the motive of its actions, and the latter the master
of the world.

Even the divine part in man, the moral law, in its first manifestation
in the sensuous cannot avoid this perversion. As this moral law is only
prohibited, and combats in man the interest of sensuous egotism, it must
appear to him as something strange until he has come to consider this
self-love as the stranger, and the voice of reason as his true self.
Therefore he confines himself to feeling the fetters which the latter
imposes on him, without having the consciousness of the infinite
emancipation which it procures for him. Without suspecting in himself
the dignity of lawgiver, he only experiences the constraint and the
impotent revolt of a subject fretting under the yoke, because in this
experience the sensuous impulsion precedes the moral impulsion, he gives
to the law of necessity a beginning in him, a positive origin, and by
the most unfortunate of all mistakes he converts the immutable and the
eternal in himself into a transitory accident. He makes up his mind to
consider the notions of the just and the unjust as statutes which have
been introduced by a will, and not as having in themselves an eternal
value. Just as in the explanation of certain natural phenomena he goes
beyond nature and seeks out of her what can only be found in her, in her
own laws; so also in the explanation of moral phenomena he goes beyond
reason and makes light of his humanity, seeking a god in this way. It is
not wonderful that a religion which he has purchased at the cost of his
humanity shows itself worthy of this origin, and that he only considers
as absolute and eternally binding laws that have never been binding from
all eternity. He has placed himself in relation with, not a holy being,
but a powerful. Therefore the spirit of his religion, of the homage that
he gives to God, is a fear that abases him, and not a veneration that
elevates him in his own esteem.

Though these different aberrations by which man departs from the ideal
of his destination cannot all take place at the same time, because
several degrees have to be passed over in the transition from the
obscure of thought to error, and from the obscure of will to the
corruption of the will; these degrees are all, without exception, the
consequence of his physical state, because in all the vital impulsion
sways the formal impulsion. Now, two cases may happen: either reason may
not yet have spoken in man, and the physical may reign over him with a
blind necessity, or reason may not be sufficiently purified from
sensuous impressions, and the moral may still be subject to the
physical; in both cases the only principle that has a real power over
him is a material principle, and man, at least as regards his ultimate
tendency, is a sensuous being. The only difference is, that in the
former case he is an animal without reason, and in the second case a
rational animal. But he ought to be neither one nor the other: he ought
to be a man. Nature ought not to rule him exclusively; nor reason
conditionally. The two legislations ought to be completely independent,
and yet mutually complementary.


                              LETTER XXV.

Whilst man, in his first physical condition, is only passively affected
by the world of sense, he is still entirely identified with it; and for
this reason the external world, as yet, has no objective existence for
him. When he begins in his æsthetic state of mind to regard the world
objectively, then only is his personality severed from it, and the world
appears to him an objective reality, for the simple reason that he has
ceased to form an identical portion of it.

That which first connects man with the surrounding universe is the power
of reflective contemplation. Whereas desire seizes at once its object,
reflection removes it to a distance and renders it inalienably her own
by saving it from the greed of passion. The necessity of sense which he
obeyed during the period of mere sensations, lessens during the period
of reflection; the senses are for the time in abeyance; even
ever-fleeting time stands still whilst the scattered rays of
consciousness are gathering and shape themselves; an image of the
infinite is reflected upon 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 the storm lulls throughout the universe, and the
contending forces of nature find rest within prescribed limits. Hence we
cannot wonder if ancient traditions allude to these great changes in the
inner man as to a revolution in surrounding nature, and symbolize
thought triumphing over the laws of time, by the figure of Zeus, which
terminates the reign of Saturn.

As long as man derives sensations from a contact with nature, he is her
slave; but as soon as he begins to reflect upon her objects and laws he
becomes her lawgiver. Nature, which previously ruled him as a power, now
expands before him as an object. What is objective to him can have no
power over him, for in order to become objective it has to experience
his own power. As far and as long as he impresses a form upon matter, he
cannot be injured by its effect; for a spirit can only be injured by
that which deprives it of its freedom. Whereas he proves his own freedom
by giving a form to the formless; where the mass rules heavily and
without shape, and its undefined outlines are for ever fluctuating
between uncertain boundaries, fear takes up its abode; but man rises
above any natural terror as soon as he knows how to mould it, and
transform it into an object of his art. As soon as he upholds his
independence towards phenomenal natures he maintains his dignity toward
her as a thing of power, and with a noble freedom he rises against his
gods. They throw aside 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 world with the blind force of a beast of prey,
dwindles to the charming outline of humanity in Greek fable; the empire
of the Titans is crushed, and boundless force is tamed by infinite form.

But whilst I have been merely searching for an issue from the material
world, and a passage into the world of mind, the bold flight of my
imagination 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 from the 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 pace with 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 us
from the world of sense, as occurs when a truth is perceived and
acknowledged. This is the pure product of a process of abstraction from
everything material and accidental, a pure object free from every
subjective barrier, a pure state of self-activity without any admixture
of passive sensations. There is indeed a way back to sensation from the
highest abstraction; for thought teaches the inner sensation, and the
idea of logical or moral unity passes into a sensation of sensual
accord. But if we delight in knowledge we separate very accurately our
own conceptions from our sensations; we look upon the latter as
something accidental, which might have been omitted without the
knowledge being impaired thereby, without truth being less true. It
would, however, be a vain attempt to suppress this connection of the
faculty of feeling with the idea of beauty, consequently, we shall not
succeed in representing to ourselves one as the effect of the other, but
we must look upon them both together and reciprocally as cause and
effect. In the pleasure which we derive from knowledge we readily
distinguish the passage from the active to the passive state, and we
clearly perceive that the first ends when the second begins. On the
contrary, from the pleasure which we take in beauty, this transition
from the active to the passive is not perceivable, and reflection is so
intimately blended with feeling that we believe we feel the form
immediately. Beauty is then an object to us, it is true, because
reflection is the condition of the feeling which we have of it; but it
is also a state of our personality (our Ego) because the feeling is the
condition of the idea we conceive of it: beauty is therefore doubtless
form, because we contemplate it, but it is equally life 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, it triumphantly
proves to us that the passive does not exclude the active, neither
matter nor form, neither the finite nor the infinite; and that
consequently the physical dependence to which man is necessarily devoted
does not in any way destroy his moral liberty. This is the proof of
beauty, and I ought to add that this _alone_ can prove it. In fact, as
in the possession of truth or of logical unity, feeling is not
necessarily one with the thought, but follows it accidentally; it is a
fact which only proves that a sensitive nature can succeed a rational
nature, and _vice versa_; not that they co-exist, that they exercise a
reciprocal action one over the other; and, lastly, that they ought to be
united in an absolute and necessary manner. From this exclusion of
feeling as long as there is thought, and of thought so long as there is
feeling, we should on the contrary conclude that the two natures are
incompatible, so that in order to demonstrate that pure reason is to be
realized in humanity, the best proof given by the analysis is that this
realization is demanded. But, as in the realization of beauty or of
æsthetic unity, there is a real union, mutual substitution of matter and
of form, of passive and of active, by this alone is proved the
compatibility of the two natures, the possible realization of the
infinite in the finite, and consequently also the possibility of the
most sublime humanity.

Henceforth we need no longer be embarrassed to find a transition from
dependent feeling to moral liberty, because beauty reveals to us the
fact that they can perfectly co-exist, and that to show himself a
spirit, man need not escape from matter. But if on one side he is free,
even in his relation with a visible world, as the fact of beauty
teaches, and if on the other side freedom is something absolute and
super-sensuous, as its idea necessarily implies, the question is no
longer how man succeeds in raising himself from the finite to the
absolute, and opposing himself in his thought and will to sensuality, as
this has already been produced in the fact of beauty. In a word, we have
no longer to ask how he passes from virtue to truth which is already
included in the former, but how he opens a way for himself from vulgar
reality to æsthetic reality, and from 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 æsthetic
disposition of the soul that gives birth to liberty, it cannot therefore
be derived from liberty nor have a moral origin. It must be a gift of
nature; the favor of chance alone can break the bonds of the physical
state and bring the savage to duty. The germ of the beautiful will find
an equal difficulty in developing itself in countries where a severe
nature forbids man to enjoy himself, and in those where a prodigal
nature dispenses him from all effort; where the blunted senses
experience no want, and where violent desire can never be satisfied. The
delightful flower of the beautiful will never unfold itself in the case
of the Troglodyte hid in his cavern always alone, and never finding
humanity outside himself; nor among nomads, who, travelling in great
troops, only consist of a multitude, and have no individual humanity. It
will only flourish in places where man converses peacefully with himself
in his cottage, and with the whole race when he issues from it. In those
climates where a limpid ether opens the senses to the lightest
impression, whilst a life-giving warmth develops a luxuriant nature,
where even in the inanimate creation the sway of inert matter is
overthrown, and the victorious form ennobles even the most abject
natures; in this joyful state and fortunate zone, where activity alone
leads to enjoyment, and enjoyment to activity, from life itself issues a
holy harmony, and the laws of order develop life, a different result
takes place. When imagination incessantly escapes from reality, and does
not abandon the simplicity of nature in its wanderings: then and there
only the mind and the senses, the receptive force and the plastic force,
are developed in that happy equilibrium which is the soul of the
beautiful 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 among
all people who have shaken off the slavery of the animal state: the love
of appearance, the inclination for dress and for games.

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

It is self-evident that I am speaking of æsthetical evidence different
from reality and truth, and not of logical appearance identical with
them. Therefore if it is liked it is because it is an appearance, and
not because it is held to be something better than it is: the first
principle alone is a play, whilst the second is a deception. To give a
value to the appearance of the first kind can never injure truth,
because it is never to be feared that it will supplant it—the only way
in which truth can be injured. To despise this appearance is to despise
in general all the fine arts of which it is the essence. Nevertheless,
it happens sometimes that the understanding carries its zeal for reality
as far as this intolerance, and strikes with a sentence of ostracism all
the arts relating to beauty in appearance, because it is only an
appearance. However, the intelligence only shows this vigorous spirit
when it calls to mind the affinity pointed out further back. I shall
find some day the occasion to treat specially of the limits of beauty in
its appearance.

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

The instinct of play likes appearance, and directly it is awakened it is
followed by the formal imitative instinct which treats appearance as an
independent thing. Directly man has come to distinguish the appearance
from the reality, the form from the body, he can separate, in fact he
has already done so. Thus the faculty of the art of imitation is given
with the faculty of form in general. The inclination that draws us to it
reposes on another tendency I have not to notice here. The exact period
when the æsthetic instinct, or that of art, develops, depends entirely
on the attraction that mere appearance has for men.

As every real existence proceeds from nature as a foreign power, whilst
every appearance comes in the first place from man as a percipient
subject, he only uses his absolute sight in separating semblance from
essence, and arranging according to subjective law. With an unbridled
liberty he can unite what nature has severed, provided he can imagine
his union, and he can separate what nature has united, provided this
separation can take place in his intelligence. Here nothing can be
sacred to him but his own law: the only condition imposed upon him is to
respect the border which separates his own sphere from the existence of
things 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 guarding
the frontiers of truth, will be in proportion with the strictness with
which he separates form from substance: for if he frees appearance from
reality, he must also do the converse.

But man possesses sovereign power only in the world of appearance, in
the unsubstantial realm of imagination, only by abstaining from giving
being to appearance in theory, and by giving it being in practice. It
follows that the poet transgresses his proper limits when he attributes
being to his 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, that of encroaching by the ideal on the field of experience, and
by pretending to determine real existence in virtue of a simple
possibility, or else he renounces his right as a poet by letting
experience encroach on the sphere of the ideal, and by restricting
possibility to the conditions of reality.

It is only by being frank or disclaiming all reality, and by being
independent or doing without reality, that the appearance is æsthetical.
Directly it apes reality or needs reality for effect, it is nothing more
than a vile instrument for material ends, and can prove nothing for the
freedom of the mind. Moreover, the object in which we find beauty need
not be unreal if our judgment disregards this reality; for if it regards
this the judgment is no longer æsthetical. A beautiful woman, if living,
would no doubt please us as much and rather more than an equally
beautiful woman seen in painting; but what makes the former please men
is not her being an independent appearance; she no longer pleases the
pure æsthetic feeling. In the painting, life must only attract as an
appearance, and reality as an idea. But it is certain that to feel in a
living object only the pure appearance requires a greatly higher
æsthetic culture than to do without life in the appearance.

When the frank and independent appearance is found in man separately, or
in a whole people, it may be inferred they have mind, taste, and all
prerogatives connected with them. In this case the ideal will be seen to
govern 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 crown
will be more valued than a purple mantle. Impotence and perversity alone
have recourse to false and paltry semblance, and individuals as well as
nations who lend to reality the support of appearance, or to the
æsthetic appearance the support of reality, show their moral
unworthiness and their æsthetical impotence. Therefore, a short and
conclusive answer can be given to this question—how far will appearance
be permitted in the moral world? It will run thus in proportion as this
appearance will be æsthetical, that is, an appearance that does not try
to make up for reality, nor requires to be made up for by it. The
æsthetical appearance can never endanger the truth of morals: wherever
it seems to do so the appearance is not æsthetical. Only a stranger to
the fashionable world can take the polite assurances, which are only a
form, for proofs of affection, and say he has been deceived; but only a
clumsy fellow in good society calls in the aid of duplicity and flatters
to become amiable. The former lacks the pure sense for independent
appearance; 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
these paltry complaints—that all solidity has disappeared from the
world, and that essence is neglected for semblance. Though I feel by no
means called upon to defend this age against these reproaches, I must
say that the wide application of these criticisms shows that they attach
blame to the age, not only on the score of the false, but also of the
frank appearance. And even the exceptions they admit in favor of the
beautiful have for their object less the independent appearance than the
needy appearance. Not only do they attack the artificial coloring that
hides truth and replaces reality, but also the beneficent appearance
that fills a vacuum and clothes poverty; and they even attack the ideal
appearance that ennobles a vulgar reality. Their strict sense of truth
is rightly offended by the falsity of manners; unfortunately, they class
politeness in this category. It displeases them that the noisy and showy
so often eclipse true merit, but they are no less shocked that
appearance is also demanded from merit, and that a real substance does
not dispense with an agreeable form. They regret the cordiality, the
energy, and solidity of ancient times; they would restore with them
ancient coarseness, heaviness, and the old Gothic profusion. By
judgments of this kind they show an esteem for the matter itself
unworthy of humanity, which ought only to value the matter inasmuch as
it can receive a form and enlarge the empire of ideas. Accordingly, the
taste of the age need not much fear these criticisms if it can clear
itself before better judges. Our defect is not to grant a value to
æsthetic appearance (we do not do this enough): a severe judge of the
beautiful might rather reproach us with not having arrived at pure
appearance, with not having separated clearly enough existence from the
phenomenon, and thus established their limits. We shall deserve this
reproach so long as we cannot enjoy the beautiful in living nature
without desiring it; as long as we cannot admire the beautiful in the
imitative arts without having an end in view; as long as we do not grant
to imagination an absolute legislation of its own; and as long as we do
not inspire it with care for its dignity by the esteem we testify for
its works.


                             LETTER XXVII.

Do not fear for reality and truth. Even if the elevated idea of æsthetic
appearance become general, it would not become so, as long as man
remains so little cultivated as to abuse it; and if it became general,
this would result from a culture that would prevent all abuse of it. The
pursuit of independent appearance requires more power of abstraction,
freedom of heart, and energy of will than man requires to shut himself
up in reality; and he must have left the latter behind him if he wishes
to attain to æsthetic appearance. Therefore, a man would calculate very
badly who took the road of the ideal to save himself that of reality.
Thus reality would not have much to fear from appearance, as we
understand it; but, on the other hand, appearance would have more to
fear from reality. Chained to matter, man uses appearance for his
purposes before he allows it a proper personality in the art of the
ideal: to come to that point a complete revolution must take place in
his mode 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
disinterested esteem, 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 found even in the first and rude attempts that he makes to
embellish his existence, even at the risk of making it worse in its
material conditions. As soon as he begins to prefer form to substance
and to risk reality for appearance (known by him to be such), the
barriers of animal life 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
the present necessity; but afterwards he wishes a superabundance in
matter, an æsthetical supplement to satisfy the impulse for the formal,
to extend enjoyment beyond necessity. By piling up provisions simply for
a future use, and anticipating their enjoyment in the imagination, he
outsteps the limits of the present moment, but not those of time in
general. He enjoys more; he does not enjoy differently. But as soon as
he makes form enter into his enjoyment, and he keeps in view the forms
of the objects which satisfy his desires, he has not only increased his
pleasure in extent and intensity, but he has also ennobled it in mode
and species.

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
animal life. When the lion is not tormented by hunger, and when no wild
beast challenges him to fight, his unemployed energy creates an object
for himself; full of ardor, he fills the re-echoing desert with his
terrible roars, and his exuberant force rejoices in itself, showing
itself without an object. The insect flits about rejoicing in life in
the sunlight, and it is certainly not the cry of want that makes itself
heard in the melodious song of the bird; there is undeniably freedom in
these movements, though it is not emancipation from want in general, but
from a determinate external necessity.

The animal _works_, when a privation is the motor of its activity, and
it _plays_ when the plenitude of force is this motor, when an exuberant
life is excited to action. Even in inanimate nature a luxury of strength
and a latitude of determination are shown, which in this material sense
might be styled play. The tree produces numberless germs that are
abortive without 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 and joyful movements. It is thus that nature offers in her
material sphere a sort of prelude to the limitless, and that even there
she suppresses partially the chains from which she will be completely
emancipated in the realm of form. The constraint of superabundance or
_physical play_ answers as a transition from the constraint of
necessity, or of _physical seriousness_, to æsthetical play; and before
shaking off, in the supreme freedom of the beautiful, the yoke of any
special aim, nature already approaches, at least remotely, this
independence, by the _free movement_ which is itself its own end and
means.

The imagination, like the bodily organs, has in man its free movement
and its material play, a play in which, without any reference to form,
it simply takes pleasure in its arbitrary power and in the absence of
all hinderance. These plays of fancy, inasmuch as form is not mixed up
with them, and because a free succession of images makes all their
charm, though confined to man, belong exclusively to animal life, and
only prove one thing—that he is delivered from all external sensuous
constraint—without our being entitled to infer that there is in it an
independent plastic force.

From this play of _free association_ of ideas, which is still quite
material in nature and is explained by simple natural laws, the
imagination, by making the attempt of creating a free form, passes at
length at a jump to the æsthetic play: I say at one leap, for quite a
new force enters into action here; for here, for the first time, the
legislative mind is mixed with the acts of a blind instinct, subjects
the arbitrary 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 to change, will yet retain too much strength, it will oppose
itself by its different caprices to this necessity; by its agitation to
this permanence; by its manifold needs to this independence, and by its
insatiability to this sublime simplicity. It will be also troublesome to
recognize the instinct of play in its first trials, seeing that the
sensuous impulsion, with its capricious humor and its violent appetites,
constantly crosses. It is on that account that we see the taste, still
coarse, seize that which is new and startling, the disordered, the
adventurous and the strange, the violent and the savage, and fly from
nothing so much as from calm and simplicity. It invents grotesque
figures, it likes rapid transitions, luxurious forms, sharply-marked
changes, acute tones, a pathetic song. That which man calls beautiful at
this time is that which excites him, that which gives him matter; but
that which excites him to give his personality to the object, that which
gives matter to a _possible plastic operation_, for otherwise it would
not be the beautiful for him. A remarkable change has therefore taken
place in the form of his judgments; he searches for these objects, not
because they affect him, but because they furnish him with the occasion
of acting; they please him, not because they answer to a want, but
because they 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 to
please: in the first place, it is true, only by that which belongs to
him; afterwards by that which he is. That which he possesses, that which
he 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 also
to reflect the enlightened intelligence which imagines it, the hand
which shaped it with affection, the mind free and serene which chose it
and exposed it to view. Now, the ancient German searches for more
_magnificent_ furs, for more _splendid_ antlers of the stag, for more
elegant drinking-horns; and the Caledonian chooses the prettiest shells
for his festivals. The arms themselves ought to be no longer only
objects of terror, but also of pleasure; and the skilfully-worked
scabbard will not attract less attention than the homicidal edge of the
sword. The instinct of play, not satisfied with bringing into the sphere
of the necessary an æsthetic superabundance for the future more free, is
at last completely emancipated from the bonds of duty, and the beautiful
becomes of itself an object of man’s exertions. He adorns himself. The
free pleasure comes to take a place among his wants, and the useless
soon becomes the best part of his joys. Form, which from the outside
gradually 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 disordered
leaps of joy become the dance, the formless gesture is changed into an
amiable and harmonious pantomime, the confused accents of feeling are
developed, and begin to obey measures and adapt themselves to song.
When, like the flight of cranes, the Trojan army rushes on to the field
of battle with thrilling cries, the Greek army approaches in silence and
with a noble and measured step. On the one side we see but the
exuberance of a blind force, on the other the triumph of form, and the
simple majesty of law.

Now, a nobler necessity binds the two sexes mutually, and the interests
of the heart contribute in rendering durable an alliance which was at
first capricious and changing like the desire that knits it. Delivered
from the heavy fetters of desire, the eye, now calmer, attends to the
form, the soul contemplates the soul, and the interested exchange of
pleasure becomes a generous exchange of mutual inclination. Desire
enlarges and rises to love, in proportion as it sees humanity dawn in
its object; and, despising the vile triumphs gained by the senses, man
tries to win a nobler victory over the will. The necessity of pleasing
subjects the powerful nature to the gentle laws of taste; pleasure may
be stolen, but love must be a gift. To obtain this higher recompense, it
is only through the form and not through matter that it can carry on the
contest. It must cease to act on feeling as a force, to appear in the
intelligence as a simple phenomenon; it must respect liberty, as it is
liberty it wishes to please. The beautiful reconciles the contrast of
different natures in its simplest and purest expression. It also
reconciles the eternal contrast of the two sexes in the whole complex
framework of society, or at all events it seeks to do so; and, taking as
its model the free alliance it has knit between manly strength and
womanly gentleness, it strives to place in harmony, in the moral world,
all the elements of gentleness and of violence. Now, at length, weakness
becomes sacred, and an unbridled strength disgraces; the injustice of
nature is corrected by the generosity of chivalrous manners. The being
whom no power can make tremble, is disarmed by the amiable blush of
modesty, and tears extinguish a vengeance that blood could not have
quenched. Hatred itself hears the delicate voice of honor, the
conqueror’s sword spares the disarmed enemy, and a hospitable hearth
smokes for the stranger on the dreaded hillside where murder alone
awaited him before.

In the midst of the formidable realm of forces, and of the sacred empire
of laws, the æsthetic impulse of form creates by degrees a third and a
joyous realm, that of play and of the appearance, where she emancipates
man from fetters, in all his relations, and from all that is named
constraint, whether physical or moral.

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

The dynamic state can only make society simple possibly by subduing
nature through nature; the moral (ethical) state can only make it
morally necessary by submitting the will of the individual to the
general will. The æsthetic state alone can make it real, because it
carries out the will of all through the nature of the individual. If
necessity alone forces man to enter into society, and if his reason
engraves on his soul social principles, it is beauty only that can give
him a social _character_; taste alone brings harmony into society,
because it creates harmony in the individual. All other forms of
perception divide the man, because they are based exclusively either in
the sensuous or in the spiritual part of his being. It is only the
perception of beauty that makes of him an entirety, because it demands
the co-operation of his two natures. All other forms of communication
divide society, because they apply exclusively either to the receptivity
or to the private activity of its members, and therefore to what
distinguishes men one from the other. The æsthetic communication alone
unites society because it applies to what is common to all its members.
We only enjoy the pleasures of sense as individuals, without the nature
of the race in us sharing in it; accordingly, we cannot generalize our
individual pleasures, because we cannot generalize our individuality. We
enjoy the pleasures of knowledge as a race, dropping the individual in
our judgment; but we cannot generalize the pleasures of the
understanding, because we cannot eliminate individuality from the
judgments of others as we do from our own. Beauty alone can we enjoy
both as individuals and as a race, that is, as representing a race. Good
appertaining to sense can only make one person happy, because it is
founded on inclination, which is always exclusive; and it can only make
a man partially happy, because his real personality does not share in
it. Absolute good can only render a man happy conditionally, for truth
is only the reward of abnegation, and a pure heart alone has faith in a
pure will. Beauty alone confers happiness on all, and under its
influence every being forgets that he is limited.

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

Duty and stern necessity must change their forbidding tone, only excused
by resistance, and do homage to nature by a nobler trust in her. Taste
leads our knowledge from the mysteries of science into the open expanse
of common sense, and changes a narrow scholasticism into the common
property of the human race. Here the highest genius must leave its
particular elevation, and make itself familiar to the comprehension even
of a child. Strength must let the Graces bind it, and the arbitrary lion
must yield to the reins of love. For this purpose taste throws a veil
over physical necessity, offending a free mind by its coarse nudity, and
dissimulating our degrading parentage with matter by a delightful
illusion of freedom. Mercenary art itself rises from the dust; and the
bondage of the bodily, at its magic touch, falls off from the inanimate
and animate. In the æsthetic state the most slavish tool is a free
citizen, having the same rights as the noblest; and the intellect which
shapes the mass to its intent must consult it concerning its
destination. Consequently, in the realm of æsthetic appearance, the idea
of equality is realized, which the political zealot would gladly see
carried out socially. It has often been said that perfect politeness is
only found near a throne. If thus restricted in the material, man has,
as elsewhere appears, to find compensation in the ideal world.

Does such a state of beauty in appearance exist, and where? It must be
in 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 are
not formed by the empty imitations of the foreign, but by the very
beauty of nature; where man passes through all sorts of complications in
all simplicity and innocence, neither forced to trench on another’s
freedom to preserve his own, nor to show grace at the cost of dignity.




                           ÆSTHETICAL ESSAYS.


                 THE MORAL UTILITY OF ÆSTHETIC MANNERS.

The author of the article which appeared in the eleventh number of “The
Hours,” of 1795, upon “The Danger of Æsthetic Manners,” was right to
hold 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 a
strong and pure feeling for the beautiful ought to exercise a salutary
influence upon the moral life; and this is the question of which I am
about to treat.

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

It is absolutely the same with respect to internal liberty as with
external physical liberty. I act freely in a physical sense only when,
independently of all external influence, I simply obey my will. But for
the possibility of thus obeying without hinderance my own will, it is
probable, ultimately, that I am indebted to a principle beyond or
distinct from myself immediately it is admitted that this principle
would hamper my will. The same also with regard to the possibility of
accomplishing such action in conformity with duty—it may be that I owe
it, ultimately, to a principle distinct from my reason; that is
possible, the moment the idea of this principle is recognized as a force
which could have constrained my independence. Thus the same as we can
say of a man, that he holds his liberty from another man, although
liberty in its proper sense consists in not being forced to be regulated
by another—in like manner we can also say that taste here obeys virtue,
although virtue herself expressly carries this idea, that in the
practice of virtue she makes use of no other foreign help. An action
does not in any degree cease to be free, because he who could hamper its
accomplishment should fortunately abstain from putting any obstacle in
the way; it suffices to know that this agent has been moved by his own
will without any consideration of another will. In the same way, an
action of the moral order does not lose its right to be qualified as a
moral action, because the temptations which might have turned it in
another direction did not present themselves; it suffices to admit that
the agent obeyed solely the decree of his reason to the exclusion of all
foreign springs of action. The liberty of an external act is established
as soon as it directly proceeds from the will of a person; the morality
of an interior action is established from the moment that the will of
the agent is at once determined to it by the laws of reason.

It may be rendered easier or more difficult to act as free men according
as we meet or not in our path forces adverse to our will that must be
overcome. In this sense liberty is more or less susceptible. It is
greater, or at least more visible, when we enable it to prevail over the
opposing forces, however energetic their opposition; but it is not
suspended because our will should have met with no resistance, or that a
foreign 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 resistance
to offer in order on the instant to obey our reason, according as it
awakens or not in us those instincts which struggle against its
precepts, and which must be put aside. In this sense morality is
susceptible of more or of less. Our morality is greater, or at least
more in relief, when we immediately obey reason, however powerful the
instincts are which push us in a contrary direction; but it is not
suspended because we have had no temptation to disobey, or that this
force had been paralyzed by some other force other than our will. We are
incited to an action solely because it is moral, without previously
asking ourselves if it is the most agreeable. It is enough that such an
action is morally good, and it would preserve this character even if
there were cause to believe that we should have acted differently if the
action had cost us any trouble, or had deprived us of a pleasure.

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

There may be, therefore, two different ways of favoring morality, the
same as there are two kinds of obstacles which thwart it: either we must
strengthen the side of reason, and the power of the good will, so that
no temptation can overcome it; or we must break the force of temptation,
in order that the reason and the will, although feebler, should yet be
in a state to surmount it.

It might be said, without doubt, that true morality gains little by this
second proceeding, because it happens without any modification of the
will, and yet that it is the nature of the will that alone give to
actions 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
bad will which should require to be changed, but only a will turned to
good, but which is feeble. Therefore, this will, inclined to good, but
too feeble, does not fail to attain by this route to good actions, which
might not have happened if a stronger impulsion had drawn it in a
contrary sense. But every time that a strong will towards good becomes
the principle of an action, we are really in presence of a moral action.
I have therefore no scruple in advancing this proposition—that all which
neutralizes the resistance offered to the law of duty really favors
morality.

Morality has within us a natural enemy, the sensuous instinct; this, as
soon as some object solicits its desires, aspires at once to gratify it,
and, as soon as reason requires from it anything repugnant, it does not
fail to rebel against its precepts. This sensuous instinct is constantly
occupied in gaining the will on its side. The will is nevertheless under
the jurisdiction of the moral law, and it is under an obligation never
to be in contradiction with that which reason demands.

But the sensuous instinct does not recognize the moral law; it wishes to
enjoy its object and to induce the will to realize it also,
notwithstanding what the reason may advance. This tendency of the
faculty of our appetites, of immediately directing the will without
troubling itself about superior laws, is perpetually in conflict with
our moral destination, and it is the most powerful adversary that man
has to combat in his moral conduct. The coarse soul, without either
moral or æsthetic education, receives directly the law of appetite, and
acts only according to the good pleasure of the senses. The moral soul,
but which wants æsthetic 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 æsthetic soul, there is moreover another
motive, another force, 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
everything sharp, hard and violent; it likes all that shapes itself with
ease and harmony. To listen to the voice of reason amidst the tempest of
the senses, and to know where to place a limit to nature in its most
brutified explosions, is, as we are aware, required by good breeding,
which is no other than an æsthetic law; this is required of every
civilized man. Well, then, this constraint imposed upon civilized man in
the expression of his feelings, confers upon him already a certain
degree of authority over them, or at least develops in him a certain
aptitude to rise above the purely passive state of the soul, to
interrupt this state by an initiative act, and to stop by reflection the
petulance of the feelings, ever ready to pass from affections to acts.
Therefore everything that interrupts the blind impetuosity of these
movements of the affections does not as yet, however, produce, I own, a
virtue (for virtue ought never to have any other active principle than
itself), but that at least opens the road to the will, in order to turn
it on the side of virtue. Still, this victory of taste over brutish
affections is by no means a moral action, and the freedom which the will
acquires by the intervention of taste is as yet in no way a moral
liberty. Taste delivers the soul from the yoke of instinct, only to
impose upon it chains of its own; and in discerning the first enemy, the
declared enemy of 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 of pleasure; 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 yet morality.

Notwithstanding this, a great point is gained already by the
intervention of taste in the operations of the will. All those material
inclinations and brutal appetites, which oppose with so much obstinacy
and vehemence the practice of good, the soul is freed from through the
æsthetic taste; and in their place, it implants in us nobler and gentler
inclinations, which draw nearer to order, to harmony, and to perfection;
and although these inclinations are not by themselves virtues, they have
at least something in common with virtue; it is their _object_.
Thenceforth, if it is the appetite that speaks, it will have to undergo
a rigorous control before the sense of the beautiful: if it is the
reason which speaks, and which commands in its acts conformity with
order, harmony, and perfection, not only will it no longer meet with an
adversary on the side of inclination, but it will find the most active
competition. If we survey all the forms under which morality can be
produced, we shall see that all these forms can be reduced to two;
either it is sensuous nature which moves the soul either to do this
thing or not to do the other, and the will finally decides after the law
of the reason; or it is the reason itself which impels the motion, and
the will obeys it without seeking counsel of the senses.

The Greek princess, Anna Comnena, speaks of a rebel prisoner, whom her
father Alexis, then a simple general of his predecessor, had been
charged to conduct to Constantinople. During the journey, as they were
riding side by side, Alexis desired to halt under the shade of a tree to
refresh himself during the great heat of the day. It was not long before
he fell asleep, whilst his companion, who felt no inclination to repose
with the fear of death awaiting him before his eyes, remained awake.
Alexis slumbered profoundly, with his sword hanging upon a branch above
his head; the prisoner perceived the sword, and immediately conceived
the idea of killing his guardian and thus of regaining his freedom. Anna
Comnena gives us to understand that she knows not what might have been
the result had not Alexis fortunately awoke at that instant. In this
there is a moral of the highest kind, in which the sensuous instinct
first raised its voice, and of which the reason had only afterwards
taken cognizance in quality of judge. But suppose that the prisoner had
triumphed over the temptation only out of respect for justice, there
could be no doubt the action would have been a moral action.

When the late Duke Leopold of Brunswick, standing upon the banks of the
raging waters of the Oder, asked himself if at the peril of his life he
ought to venture into the impetuous flood in order to save some
unfortunates who without his aid were sure to perish; and when—I suppose
a case—simply under the influence of duty, he throws himself into the
boat into which none other dares to enter, no one will contest doubtless
that he acted morally. The duke was here in a contrary position to that
of the preceding one. The idea of duty, in this circumstance, was the
first which presented itself, and afterwards only the instinct of
self-preservation was roused to oppose itself to that prescribed by
reason. But in both cases the will acted in the same way; it obeyed
unhesitatingly the reason, yet both of them are moral actions.

But would the action have continued moral in both cases, if we suppose
the æsthetic taste to have taken part in it? For example, suppose that
the first, who was tempted to commit a bad action, and who gave it up
from respect for justice, had the taste sufficiently cultivated to feel
an invincible horror aroused in him against all disgraceful or violent
action, the æsthetic sense alone will suffice to turn him from it; there
is no longer any deliberation before the moral tribunal, before the
conscience; another motive, another jurisdiction has already pronounced.
But the æsthetic 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 a
baseness. Therefore all, in this, took place before the feelings alone,
and the conduct of this man, although in conformity with the law, is
morally indifferent; it is simply a fine effect of nature.

Now let us suppose that the second, he to whom his reason prescribed to
do a thing against which natural instinct protested; suppose that this
man had to the same extent a susceptibility for the beautiful, so that
all which is great and perfect enraptured him; at the same moment, when
reason gave the order, the feelings would place themselves on the same
side, and he would do willingly that which without the inclination for
the beautiful he would have had to do contrary to inclination. But would
this be a reason for us to find it less perfect? Assuredly not, because
in principle it acts out of pure respect for the prescriptions of
reason; and if it follows these injunctions with joy, that can take
nothing away from the moral _purity_ of the act. Thus, this man will be
quite as _perfect in the moral sense_; and, on the contrary, he will be
incomparably more perfect in the physical sense, because he is
infinitely more capable of making a virtuous subject.

Thus, taste gives a direction to the soul which disposes it to virtue,
in keeping away such inclinations as are contrary to it, and in rousing
those which are favorable. Taste could not injure true virtue, although
in every case where natural instinct speaks first, taste commences by
deciding for its chief that which conscience otherwise ought to have
known; in consequence it is the cause that, amongst the actions of those
whom it governs, there are many more actions morally indifferent than
actions truly moral. It thus happens that the excellency of the man does
not consist in the least degree in producing a larger sum of vigorously
moral particular actions, but by evincing as a whole a greater
conformity of all his natural dispositions with the moral law; and it is
not a thing to give people a very high idea of their country or of their
age to hear morality so often spoken of and particular acts boasted of
as traits of virtue. Let us hope that the day when civilization shall
have consummated its work (if we can realize this term in the mind)
there will no longer be any question of this. But, on the other side,
taste can become of possible utility to true virtue, in all cases when,
the first instigations issuing from reason, its voice incurs the risk of
being stifled by the more powerful solicitations of natural instinct.
Thus, taste determines our feelings to take the part of duty, and in
this manner renders a mediocre moral force of will sufficient for the
practice of virtue.

In this light, if the taste never injures true morality, and if in many
cases it is of evident use—and this circumstance is very important—then
it is supremely favorable to the legality of our conduct. Suppose that
æsthetic education contributes in no degree to the improvement of our
feelings, at least it renders us better able to act, although without
true moral disposition, as we should have acted if our soul had been
truly moral. Therefore, it is quite true that, before the tribunal of
the conscience, our acts have absolutely no importance but as the
expression of our feelings: but it is precisely the contrary in the
physical order and in the plan of nature: there it is no longer our
sentiments that are of importance; they are only important so far as
they give occasion to acts which conduce to the aims of nature. But the
physical order which is governed by forces, and the moral order which
governs itself by laws, are so exactly made one for the other, and are
so intimately blended, that the actions which are by their form morally
suitable, necessarily contain also a physical suitability; and as the
entire edifice of nature seems to exist only to render possible the
highest of all aims, which is the good, in the same manner the good can
in its turn be employed as the means of preserving the edifice. Thus,
the natural order has been rendered dependent upon the morality of our
souls, and we cannot go against the moral laws of the world without at
the same time provoking a perturbation in the physical world.

If, then, it is impossible to expect that human nature, as long as it is
only human nature, should act without interruption or feebleness,
uniformly and constantly as pure reason, and that it never offend the
laws of moral order; if fully persuaded, as we are, both of the
necessity and the possibility of pure virtue, we are forced to avow how
subject to accident is the exercise of it, and how little we ought to
reckon upon the steadfastness of our best principles; if with this
conviction of human fragility we bear in mind that each of the
infractions of the moral law attacks the edifice of nature, if we recall
all these considerations to our memory, it would be assuredly the most
criminal boldness to place the interests of the entire world at the
mercy of the uncertainty of our virtue. Let us rather draw from it the
following conclusion, that it is for us an obligation to satisfy at the
very least the physical order by the object of our acts, even when we do
not satisfy the exigencies of the moral order by the form of these acts;
to pay, at least, as perfect instruments the aims of nature, that which
we owe as imperfect persons to reason, in order not to appear shamefaced
before both tribunals. For if we refused to make any effort to conform
our acts to it because simple legality is without moral merit, the order
of the world might in the meanwhile be dissolved, and before we had
succeeded in establishing our principles all the links of society might
be broken No, the more our morality is subjected to chance, the more is
it necessary to take measures in order to assure its legality; to
neglect, either from levity or pride, this legality is a fault for which
we shall have to answer before morality. When a maniac believes himself
threatened with a fit of madness, he leaves no knife within reach of his
hands, and he puts himself under constraint, in order to avoid
responsibility in a state of sanity 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 bonds which religion and the æsthetic laws
present to us, in order that during the crisis when our passion is
dominant it shall not injure the physical order.

It is not unintentionally that I have placed religion and taste in one
and the same class; the reason is that both one and the other have the
merit, similar in effect, although dissimilar in principle and in value,
to take the place of virtue properly so called, and to assure legality
where there is no possibility to hope for morality. Doubtless that would
hold an incontestably higher rank in the order of pure spirits, as they
would need neither the attraction of the beautiful nor the perspective
of eternal life, to conform on every occasion to the demands of reason;
but we know man is short-sighted, and his feebleness forces the most
rigid moralist to temper in some degree the rigidity of his system in
practice, although he will yield nothing in theory; it obliges him, in
order to insure the welfare of the human race, which would be ill
protected by a virtue subjected to chance, to have further recourse to
two strong anchors—those of religion and taste.


                            ON THE SUBLIME.

“Man is never obliged to say, _I must—must_” says the Jew Nathan[5] to
the dervish; and this expression is true in a wider sense than man might
be tempted to suppose. The will is the specific character of man, and
reason itself is only the eternal rule of his will. All nature acts
reasonably; all our prerogative is to act reasonably, with consciousness
and with will. All other objects obey necessity; man is the being who
wills.

It is exactly for this reason that there is nothing more inconsistent
with the dignity of man than to suffer violence, for violence effaces
him. He who does violence to us disputes nothing less than our humanity;
he who submits in a cowardly spirit to the violence abdicates his
quality of man. But this pretension to remain absolutely free from all
that is violence seems to imply a being in possession of a force
sufficiently great to keep off all other forces. But if this pretension
is found in a being who, in the order of forces, cannot claim the first
rank, the result is an unfortunate contradiction between his instinct
and his power.

Man is precisely in this case. Surrounded by numberless forces, which
are all superior to him and hold sway over him, he aspires by his nature
not to have to suffer any injury at their hands. It is true that by his
intelligence he adds artificially to his natural forces, and that up to
a certain point he actually succeeds in reigning physically over
everything that is physical. The proverb says, “there is a remedy for
everything except death;” but this exception, if it is one in the
strictest acceptation of the term, would suffice to entirely ruin the
very idea of our 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 to what he does not wish. This single terrible exception,
to be or to do what is necessary and not what he wishes, this idea will
pursue him as a phantom; and as we see in fact among the greater part of
men, it will give him up a prey to the blind terrors of imagination. His
boasted liberty is nothing, if there is a single point where he is under
constraint and bound. It is education that must give back liberty to
man, 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 repeat
it, man is the being who wills.

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

Thus beyond the point in question his freedom would be lost, were he
only susceptible of physical education. But he must be man in the full
sense of the term, and consequently he must have nothing to endure, in
any case, _contrary_ to his will. Accordingly, when he can no longer
oppose to the physical forces any proportional physical force, only one
resource remains to him to avoid suffering any violence: that is, to
cause to _cease 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. He
is 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, for
before reaching him it has become an _act of his own will_, and dynamic
nature could never touch him, because he spontaneously keeps away from
all to which she can reach. But to attain to this state of mind, which
morality designates as resignation to necessary things, and religion
styles absolute submission to the counsels of Providence, to reach this
by an effort of his free will and with reflection, a certain clearness
is required in thought, and a certain energy in the will, superior to
what man commonly possesses in active life. Happily for him, man finds
here not only in his rational nature a moral aptitude that can be
developed by the understanding, but also in his reasonable and sensible
nature—that is, in his human nature—an _æsthetic_ tendency which seems
to have been placed there expressly: a faculty awakens of itself in the
presence of certain sensuous objects, and which, after our feelings are
purified, can be cultivated to such a point as to become a powerful
ideal development. This aptitude, I grant, is _idealistic_ in its
principle and in its essence, but one which even the realist allows to
be seen clearly enough in his conduct, though he does not acknowledge
this in theory. I am now about 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 of nature as far as it is a force. A mind that has ennobled
itself sufficiently to be more sensible of the form than of the matter
of things, contains in itself a plenitude of existence that nothing
could make it lose, especially as it does not trouble itself about the
possession of the things in question, and finds a very liberal pleasure
in the mere contemplation of the phenomenon. As this mind has no want to
appropriate the objects in the midst of which it lives, it has no fear
of being deprived of them. But it is nevertheless necessary that these
phenomena should have a body, through which they manifest themselves;
and, consequently, as long as we feel the want even only of finding a
beautiful appearance or a beautiful phenomenon, this want implies that
of the existence of certain objects; and it follows that our
satisfaction still depends on nature, considered as a force, because it
is nature who disposes of all existence in a sovereign manner. It is a
different thing, in fact, to feel in yourself the want of objects
endowed with beauty and goodness, or simply to require that the objects
which surround us are good and beautiful. This last desire is compatible
with the most perfect freedom of the soul; but it is not so with the
other. We are entitled to require that the object before us should be
beautiful and good, but we can only wish that the beautiful and the good
should be realized objectively before us. Now the disposition of mind
is, _par excellence_, called grand and sublime, in which no attention is
given to the question of knowing if the beautiful, the good, and the
perfect exist; but when it is rigorously required that that which exists
should be good, beautiful and perfect, this character of mind is called
sublime, because it contains in it positively all the characteristics of
a fine mind without sharing its negative features.

A sign by which beautiful and good minds, but having weaknesses, are
recognized, is the aspiring always to find their moral ideal realized in
the world of facts, and their being painfully affected by all that
places an obstacle to it. A mind thus constituted is reduced to a sad
state of dependence in relation to chance, and it may always be
predicted of it, without fear of deception, that it will give too large
a share to the matter in moral and æsthetical things, and that it will
not sustain the more critical trials of character and taste. Moral
imperfections ought not to be to us a cause of _suffering_ and of pain:
suffering and pain bespeak rather an ungratified wish than an
unsatisfied moral want. An unsatisfied moral want ought to be
accompanied by a more manly feeling, and fortify our mind and confirm it
in its energy rather than make us unhappy and pusillanimous.

Nature has given to us two genii as companions in our life in this lower
world. The one, amiable and of good companionship, shortens the troubles
of the journey by the gayety of its plays. It makes the chains of
necessity light to us, and leads us amidst joy and laughter, to the most
perilous spots, where we must act as pure spirits and strip ourselves of
all 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 the
world of sense; its earthly wings could not carry it beyond. But at this
moment the other companion steps upon the stage, silent and grave, and
with 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 itself
is already an expression of liberty. This liberty is not the kind that
raises us above the power of nature, and that sets us free from all
bodily influence, but it is only the liberty which we enjoy as men,
without issuing from the limits of nature. In the presence of beauty we
feel ourselves free, because the sensuous instincts are in harmony with
the laws of reason. In presence of the sublime we feel ourselves
sublime, because the sensuous instincts have no influence over the
jurisdiction of reason, because it is then the pure spirit that acts in
us 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 _painful
state_, which in its paroxysm is manifested by a kind of shudder, and a
_joyous state_, that may rise to rapture, and which, without being
property a pleasure, is greatly preferred to every kind of pleasure by
delicate souls. This union of two contrary sensations in one and the
same feeling proves in a peremptory manner our moral independence. For
as it is absolutely impossible that the same object should be with us in
two opposite relations, it follows that it is we _ourselves_ who sustain
two different relations with the object. It follows that these two
opposed natures should be united in us, which, on the idea of this
object, are brought into play in two perfectly opposite ways. Thus we
experience by the feeling of the beautiful that the state of our
spiritual nature is not necessarily determined by the state of our
sensuous nature; that the laws of nature are not necessarily our laws;
and that there is in us an autonomous principle independent of all
sensuous impressions.

The sublime object may be considered in two lights. We either represent
it to our _comprehension_, and we try in vain to make an image or idea
of it, or we refer it to our _vital force_, and we consider it as a
power before which ours is nothing. But though in both cases we
experience in connection with this object the painful feeling of _our
limits_, yet we do not seek to avoid it; on the contrary we are
attracted to it by an irresistible force. Could this be the case if the
limits of our imagination were at the same time those of our
comprehension? Should we be willingly called back to the feeling of the
omnipotence of the forces of nature if we had not in us something that
cannot be a prey of these forces. We are pleased with the spectacle of
the sensuous infinite, because we are able to attain by thought what the
senses can no longer embrace and what the understanding cannot grasp.
The sight of a terrible object transports us with enthusiasm, because we
are capable of willing what the instincts reject with horror, and of
rejecting what they desire. We willingly allow our imagination to find
something in the world of phenomena that passes beyond it; because,
after all, it is only one sensuous force that triumphs over another
sensuous force, but nature, notwithstanding all her infinity, cannot
attain to the absolute grandeur which is in ourselves. We submit
willingly to physical necessity both our well-being and our existence.
This is because the very power reminds us that there are in us
principles that escape its empire. Man is in the hands 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
are something more than mere sensuous natures. She has even known how to
make use of our sensations to put us on the track of this discovery—that
we 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 by
the beautiful; I mean the beautiful of the _real_ world, for the sublime
itself is surpassed by the _ideal_. In the presence of beauty, reason
and sense are in harmony, and it is only on account of this harmony that
the beautiful has attraction for us. Consequently, beauty alone could
never teach us that our destination is to act as pure intelligences, and
that we are capable of showing ourselves such. In the presence of the
sublime, on the contrary, reason and the sensuous are not in harmony,
and it is precisely this contradiction between the two which makes the
charm of the sublime,—its irresistible action on our minds. Here the
physical man and the moral man separate in the most marked manner; for
it is exactly in the presence of objects that make us feel at once how
limited the former is that the other makes the experience of its force.
The very thing that lowers one to the earth is precisely that which
raises the other to the infinite.

Let us imagine a man endowed with all the virtues of which the union
constitutes a _fine_ character. Let us suppose a man who finds his
delight in practising justice, beneficence, moderation, constant, and
good faith. All the duties whose accomplishment is prescribed to him by
circumstances are only a play to him, and I admit that fortune favors
him in such wise that none of the actions which his good heart may
demand of him will be hard to him. Who would not be charmed with such a
delightful harmony between the instincts of nature and the prescriptions
of reason? and who could help admiring such a man? Nevertheless, though
he may inspire us with affection, are we quite sure that he is really
virtuous? or in general that he has anything that corresponds to the
idea of virtue? If this man had only in view to obtain agreeable
sensations, unless he were mad he could not act in another possible way;
and he would have to be his own enemy to wish to be vicious. Perhaps the
principle of his actions is pure, but this is a question to be discussed
between 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
who had no other god than pleasure. Thus all his virtue is a phenomenon
that is explained by reasons derived from the sensuous order, and we are
by no means driven to seek for reasons beyond the world of sense.

Let us suppose that this same man falls suddenly under misfortune. He is
deprived of his possessions: his reputation is destroyed; he is chained
to his bed by sickness and suffering; he is robbed by death of all those
he 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 practice
of the same virtues under trial as he formerly had practised during the
period of his prosperity. If he is found to be absolutely the same as
before, if his poverty has not deteriorated his benevolence, or
ingratitude his kindly offices of good will, or bodily suffering his
equanimity, or adversity his joy in the happiness of others; if his
change of fortune is perceptible in externals, but not in his habits, in
the matter, but not in the form of his conduct; then, doubtless, his
virtue could not be explained by any reason drawn from the physical
order; _the idea of nature_—which always necessarily supposes that
actual phenomena rest upon some anterior phenomenon, as effects upon
cause—this idea no longer suffices to enable us to comprehend this man;
because there is nothing more contradictory than to admit that effect
can remain the same when the cause has changed to its contrary. We must
then give up all natural explanation or thought of finding the reason of
his acts in his condition; we must of necessity go beyond the physical
order, and seek the principle of his conduct in quite another world, to
which the reason can indeed raise itself with its ideas, but which the
understanding cannot grasp by its conceptions. It is this revelation of
the absolute moral power which is subjected to no condition of nature,
it is this which gives to the melancholy feeling that seizes our heart
at the sight of such a man that peculiar, inexpressible charm, which no
delight of the senses, however refined, could arouse in us to the same
extent as the sublime.

Thus the sublime opens to us a road to overstep the limits of the world
of sense, in which the feeling of the beautiful would forever imprison
us. It is not little by little (for between absolute dependence and
absolute liberty there is no possible transition), it is suddenly and by
a shock that the sublime wrenches our spiritual and independent nature
away from the net which feeling has spun round us, and which enchains
the soul the more tightly because of its subtle texture. Whatever may be
the extent to which feeling has gained a mastery over men by the latent
influence of a softening taste, when even it should have succeeded in
penetrating into the most secret recesses of moral jurisdiction under
the deceptive envelope of spiritual beauty, and there poisoning the
holiness of principle at its source—one single sublime emotion often
suffices to break all this tissue of imposture, at one blow to give
freedom to the fettered elasticity of spiritual nature, to reveal its
true destination, and to oblige it to conceive, for one instant at
least, the feeling of its liberty. Beauty, under the shape of the divine
Calypso, bewitched the virtuous son of Ulysses, and the power of her
charms held him long a prisoner in her island. For long he believed he
was obeying an immortal divinity, whilst he was only the slave of sense;
but suddenly an impression of the sublime in the form of Mentor seizes
him; he remembers that 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
should lend its aid. The aim of nature supposes already that we ought
spontaneously to advance towards the beautiful, although we still avoid
the sublime: for the beautiful is like the nurse of our childhood, and
it is for her to refine our soul in withdrawing it from the rude state
of nature. But though she is our first affection, and our faculty of
feeling is first developed for her, nature has so provided,
nevertheless, that this faculty ripens slowly and awaits its full
development until the understanding and the heart are formed. If taste
attains its full maturity before truth and morality have been
established in our heart by a better road than that which taste would
take, the sensuous world would remain the limit of our aspirations. We
should not know, either in our ideas or in our feelings, how to pass
beyond the world of sense, and all that imagination failed to represent
would be without reality to us. But happily it enters into the plan of
nature, that taste, although it first comes 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 of ideas, a treasure of
principles in his heart, and then to develop especially, in drawing from
reason, his feeling for the great and the sublime.

As long as man was only the slave of physical necessity, while he had
found no issue to escape from the narrow circle of his appetites, and
while he as yet felt none of that superior liberty which connects him
with the _angels_, nature, so far as she is _incomprehensible_, could
not fail to impress him with the insufficiency of his imagination, and
again, as far as she is a destructive force, to recall his physical
powerlessness. He is forced then to pass timidly towards one, and to
turn away with affright from the other. But scarcely has free
contemplation assured him against the blind oppression of the forces of
nature—scarcely has he recognized amidst the tide of phenomena something
permanent in his own being—than at once the coarse agglomeration of
nature that surrounds him begins to speak in another language to his
heart, and the relative grandeur which is without becomes for him a
mirror in which he contemplates the absolute greatness which is within
himself. He approaches without fear, and with a thrill of pleasure,
those pictures which terrified his imagination, and intentionally makes
an appeal to the whole strength of that faculty by which we represent
the infinite 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 all that the highest sensuous faculty can give. The sight of a
distant infinity—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
simple majesty of nature offers him a less circumscribed measure for
estimating its grandeur, and, surrounded by the grand outlines which it
presents to him, he can no longer bear anything mean in his way of
thinking. Who can tell how many luminous ideas, how many heroic
resolutions, which would never have been conceived in the dark study of
the imprisoned man of science, 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 the generous struggle of the soul with the great
spirit of nature? Who knows if it is not owing to a less frequent
intercourse with this sublime spirit that we must partially attribute
the narrowness of mind so common to the dwellers in towns, always bent
under the minutiæ which dwarf and wither their soul, whilst the soul of
the nomad remains open and free as the firmament beneath which he
pitches his tent?

But it is not only the unimaginable or the sublime in quantity, it is
also the incomprehensible, that which escapes the understanding and that
which _troubles_ it, which can serve to give us an idea of the
super-sensuous infinity. As soon as this element attains the grandiose
and announces itself to us as the work of nature (for otherwise it is
only despicable), it then aids the soul to represent to itself the
ideal, and imprints upon it a noble development. Who does not love the
eloquent disorder of natural scenery to the insipid regularity of a
French garden? Who does not admire in the plains of Sicily the
marvellous combat of nature with herself—of her creative force and her
destructive power? Who does not prefer to feast his eyes upon the wild
streams and waterfalls of Scotland, upon its misty mountains, upon that
romantic nature from which Ossian drew his inspiration—rather than to
grow enthusiastic in this stiff Holland, before the laborious triumph of
patience over the most stubborn of elements? No one will deny that in
the rich grazing-grounds of Holland, things are not better ordered for
the wants of physical man than upon the perfid crater of Vesuvius, and
that the understanding which likes to comprehend and arrange all things,
does not find its requirements rather in the regularly planted
farm-garden than in the uncultivated beauty of natural scenery. But man
has requirements which go beyond those of natural life and comfort or
well-being; he has another destiny than merely to comprehend the
phenomena which surround him.

In the same manner as for the observant traveller, the strange wildness
of nature is so attractive in physical nature—thus, and for the same
reason, every soul capable of enthusiasm finds even in the regretable
anarchy found in the moral world a source of singular pleasure. Without
doubt he who sees the grand economy of nature only from the impoverished
light of the understanding; he who has never any other thought than to
reform its defiant disorder and to substitute harmony, such a one could
not find pleasure in a world which seems given up to the caprice of
chance rather than governed according to a wise ordination, and where
merit and fortune are for the most part in opposition. He desires that
the whole world throughout its vast space should be ruled like a house
well regulated; and when this much-desired regularity is not found, he
has no other resource than to defer to a future life, and to another and
better nature, the satisfaction which is his due, but which neither the
present nor the past afford him. On the contrary, he renounces willingly
the pretension of restoring this chaos of phenomena to one single
notion; he regains on another side, and with interest, what he loses on
this side. Just this want of connection, this anarchy, in the phenomena,
making them useless to the understanding, is what makes them valuable to
reason. The more they are disorderly the more they represent the freedom
of nature. In a sense, if you suppress all connection, you have
independence. Thus, under the idea of liberty, reason brings back to
_unity of thought_ that which the understanding could not bring to unity
of notion. It thus shows its superiority over the understanding, as a
faculty subject to the conditions of a sensuous order. When we consider
of what value it is to a rational being to be independent of natural
laws, we see how much man finds in the liberty of sublime objects as a
set-off against the checks of his cognitive faculty. Liberty, with all
its drawbacks, is everywhere vastly more attractive to a noble soul than
good social order without it—than society like a flock of sheep, or a
machine working like a watch. This mechanism makes of man only a
product; liberty makes him the citizen of a better world.

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

But if we give up explanation it is different. Nature, in being
capricious and defying logic, in pulling down great and little, in
crushing the noblest works of man, taking centuries to form—nature, by
deviating from intellectual laws, proves that you cannot explain nature
by nature’s laws _themselves_, and this sight drives the mind to the
world of ideas, to the absolute.

But though nature as a sensuous activity drives us to the ideal, it
throws us still more into the world of ideas by the terrible. Our
highest aspiration is to be in good relations with physical nature,
without violating morality. But it is not always convenient to serve two
masters; and though duty and the appetites should never be at strife,
physical necessity is peremptory, and nothing can save men from evil
destiny. Happy is he who learns to bear what he cannot change! There are
cases where fate overpowers all ramparts, and where the only resistance
is, like a pure spirit, to throw freely off all interest of sense, and
strip yourself of your body. Now this force comes from sublime emotions,
and a frequent commerce with destructive nature. Pathos is a sort of
artificial misfortune, and brings us to the spiritual law that commands
our soul. Real misfortune does not always choose its time opportunely,
while pathos finds us armed at all points. By frequently renewing this
exercise of its own activity the mind controls the sensuous, so that
when real misfortune comes, it can treat it as an artificial suffering,
and make it a sublime emotion. Thus pathos takes away some of the
malignity of destiny, and wards off its blows.

Away then with that false theory which supposes falsely a harmony
binding well-being and well doing. Let evil destiny show its face. Our
safety is not in blindness, but in facing our dangers. What can do so
better than familiarity with the splendid and terrible evolution of
events, or than pictures showing man in conflict with chance; evil
triumphant, security deceived—pictures shown us throughout history, and
placed before us by tragedy? Whoever passes in review the terrible fate
of Mithridates, of Syracuse, and Carthage, cannot help keeping his
appetite in check, at least for a time, and, seeing the vanity of
things, strive after that which is permanent. The capacity of the
sublime is one of the noblest aptitudes of man. Beauty is useful, but
does not go beyond man. The sublime applies to the pure spirit. The
sublime must be joined to the beautiful to complete the _æsthetic
education_, and to enlarge man’s heart beyond the sensuous world.

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

Many things in nature offer man the beautiful and sublime. But here
again he is better served at second-hand. He prefers to have them
ready-made in art rather than seek them painfully in nature. This
instinct for imitation in art has the advantage of being able to make
those points essential that nature has made secondary. While nature
_suffers_ violence in the organic world, or exercises violence, working
with power upon man, though she can only be æsthetical as an object of
pure contemplation, art, plastic art, is fully free, because it throws
off all accidental restrictions and leaves the mind free, because it
imitates the appearance, not the reality of objects. As all sublimity
and 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 never
the end of art, but it is of the greatest importance as a means of
attaining its end. The highest aim of art is to represent the
super-sensuous, and this is effected in particular by tragic art,
because it represents by sensible marks the moral man, maintaining
himself in a state of passion, independently of the laws of nature. The
principle of freedom in man becomes conscious of itself only by the
resistance it offers to the violence of the feelings. Now the resistance
can only be measured by the strength of the attack. In order, therefore,
that the intelligence may reveal itself in man as a force independent of
nature, it is necessary that nature should have first displayed all her
power before our eyes. The _sensuous_ being must be profoundly and
strongly _affected, passion_ must be in play, that the _reasonable_
being may be able to testify his independence and manifest himself in
_action_.

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

Therefore the _pathetic_ is the first condition required most strictly
in a tragic author, and he is allowed to carry his description of
suffering as far as possible, without prejudice to the _highest end of
his art_, that is, without moral freedom being oppressed by it. He must
give in some sort to his hero, as to his reader, their full _load_ of
suffering, without which the question will always be put whether the
resistance opposed to suffering is an act of the soul, something
_positive_, or whether it is not rather a purely _negative_ thing, a
simple deficiency.

The latter case is offered in the purer French tragedy, where it is very
rare, or perhaps unexampled, for the author to place before the reader
suffering nature, and where generally, on the contrary, it is only the
poet who warms up and declaims, or the comedian who struts about on
stilts. The icy tone of declamation extinguishes all nature here, and
the French tragedians, with their superstitious worship of _decorum_,
make it quite impossible for them to paint human nature truly. Decorum,
wherever it is, even in its proper place, always falsifies the
expression of nature, and yet this expression is rigorously required by
art. In a French tragedy, it is difficult for us to believe that the
hero ever suffers, for he explains the state of his soul, as the coolest
man would do, and always thinking of the effect he is making on others,
he never lets nature pour forth freely. The kings, the princesses, and
the heroes of Corneille or Voltaire never forget their _rank_ even in
the most violent excess of passion; and they part with their _humanity_
much sooner than with their _dignity_. They are like those kings and
emperors of our old picturebooks, who go to bed with their crowns on.

What a difference from the Greeks and those of the moderns who have been
inspired with their spirit, in poetry! Never does the Greek poet blush
at nature; he leaves to the sensuous all its rights, and yet he is quite
certain never to be subdued by it. He has too much depth and too much
rectitude in his mind not to distinguish the accidental, which is the
principal point with false taste, from the really necessary; but all
that is not humanity itself is accidental in man. The Greek artist who
has to represent a Laocoon, a Niobe, and a Philoctetes, does not care
for the king, the princess, or the king’s son; he keeps to the _man_.
Accordingly the 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 because drapery is to him an accidental thing, and because the
necessary ought never to be sacrificed to the accidental. It is also
because, if decency and physical necessities have their laws, these laws
are not those of art. The statuary ought to show us, and wishes to show
us, the _man_ himself; drapery conceals him, therefore he sets that
aside, and with reason.

The Greek sculptor rejects drapery as a useless and embarrassing load,
to make way for _human nature_; and in like manner the Greek poet
emancipates the human personages he brings forward from the equally
useless constraint of decorum, and all those icy laws of propriety,
which put nothing but what is artificial in man, and conceal nature in
it. Take Homer and the tragedians; suffering nature speaks the language
of truth and ingenuousness in their pages, and in a way to penetrate to
the depths of our hearts. All the passions play their part freely, nor
do the rules of propriety compress any feeling with the Greeks. The
heroes are just as much under the influence of suffering as other men,
and what makes them heroes is the very fact that they feel suffering
strongly and deeply, without suffering overcoming them. They love life
as ardently as others; but they are not so ruled by this feeling as to
be unable to give up life when the duties of honor or humanity call on
them to do so. Philoctetes filled the Greek stage with his lamentations;
Hercules himself, when in fury, does not keep under his grief.
Iphigenia, on the point of being sacrificed, confesses with a touching
ingenuousness that she grieves to part with the light of the sun. Never
does the Greek place his glory in being insensible or indifferent to
suffering, but rather in _supporting_ it, though feeling it in its
fulness. The very gods of the Greeks must pay their tribute to nature,
when the poet wishes to make them approximate to humanity. Mars, when
wounded, roars like ten thousand men together, and Venus, scratched by
an iron lance, mounts again 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 the
monuments of Greek art, and filling us with such deep and lively
emotions—this is a model presented for the imitation of all artists; it
is a law which Greek genius has laid down for the fine arts. It is
always and eternally nature which has the first rights over man; she
ought never to be fettered, because man, before being anything else, is
a sensuous creature. After the rights of nature come those of _reason_,
because man is a rational, sensuous being, a moral person, and because
it is a duty for this person not to let himself be ruled by nature, but
to rule her. It is only after satisfaction has been given in the _first
place_ to _nature_, and after reason in the _second place_ has made its
rights acknowledged, that it is permitted for decorum in the third place
to make good its claims, to impose on man, in the expression of his
moral feelings and of his sensations, considerations towards society,
and to show in it the social being, the civilized man. The first law of
the tragic art was to represent suffering nature. The second law is to
represent the resistance of morality opposed to suffering.

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

The soft emotions, only producing tenderness, are of the nature of the
_agreeable_, with which the fine arts are not concerned. They only
caress the senses, while relaxing and creating languidness, and only
relate to external nature, not at all to the inner nature of man. A good
number of our romances and of our tragedies, particularly those that
bear the name of dramas—a sort of compromise between tragedy and
comedy—a good number also of those highly-appreciated family portraits,
belong to this class. The only effect of these works is to empty the
lachrymal duct, and soothe the overflowing feelings; but the mind comes
back from them empty, and the moral being, the noblest part of our
nature, gathers no new strength whatever from them, “It is thus,” says
Kant, “that many persons feel themselves _edified_ by a sermon that has
nothing _edifying_ in it.” It seems also that modern music only aims at
interesting the sensuous, and in this it flatters the taste of the day,
which seeks to be agreeably tickled, but not to be startled, nor
strongly moved and elevated. Accordingly we see music prefer all that is
_tender_; and whatever be the noise in a concert-room, silence is
immediately restored, and every one is all ears directly a sentimental
passage is performed. Then an expression of sensibility common to
animalism shows itself commonly on all faces; the eyes are swimming with
intoxication, the open mouth is all desire, a voluptuous trembling takes
hold of the entire body, the breath is quick and full, in short, all the
symptoms of intoxication appear. This is an evident proof that the
senses swim in delight, but that the mind or the principle of freedom in
man has become a prey to the violence of the sensuous impression. Real
taste, that of noble and manly minds, rejects all these emotions as
unworthy of art, because they only please the _senses_, with which art
has nothing in common.

But, on the other hand, real taste excludes all extreme affections,
which only put sensuousness to the _torture_, without giving the mind
any compensation. These affections oppress moral liberty by _pain_, as
the others by voluptuousness; consequently they can excite aversion, and
not the emotion that would alone be worthy of art. Art ought to charm
the mind and give satisfaction to the feeling of moral freedom. This man
who is a prey to his pain is to me simply a tortured animate being, and
not a man tried by suffering. For a moral resistance to painful
affections is already required of man—a resistance which can alone allow
the principle of 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 when
they seek to reach the pathetic only by the sensuous force of affection
and by representing suffering in the most vivid manner. They forget that
suffering in itself can never be the last end of imitation, nor the
immediate source of the pleasure we experience in tragedy. The pathetic
only has æsthetic value in as far as it is sublime. Now, effects that
only allow us to infer a purely sensuous cause, and that are founded
only on the affection experienced by the faculty of sense, are never
sublime, whatever energy they may display, for everything sublime
proceeds _exclusively_ from the reason.

I imply by passion the affections of pleasure as well as the painful
affections, and to represent passion only, without coupling with it the
expression of the super-sensuous faculty which resists it, is to fall
into what is properly called _vulgarity_; and the opposite is called
_nobility_. Vulgarity and nobility are two ideas which, wherever they
are applied, have more or less relation with the super-sensuous share a
man takes in a work. There is nothing noble but what has its source in
the reason; all that issues from sensuousness alone is _vulgar_ or
_common_. We say of a man that he acts in a _vulgar_ manner when he is
satisfied with obeying the suggestions of his sensuous instinct; that he
acts suitably when he only obeys his instinct in conformity with the
laws; that he acts _nobly_ 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 trace of the spiritual man, the intelligence;
we say it has expression when it is the mind which has determined its
features: and that it is noble when a pure spirit has determined them.
If an architectural work is in question we qualify it as _common_ if it
aims at nothing but a physical end; we name it noble if, independently
of all physical aim, we find in it at the same time the expression of a
conception.

Accordingly, I repeat it, correct taste disallows all painting of the
affections, however energetic, which rests satisfied with expressing
physical suffering and the physical resistance opposed to it by the
subject, without making visible at the same time the superior principle
of the nature of man, the presence of a super-sensuous faculty. It does
this in virtue of the principle developed farther back, namely, that it
is not suffering in itself, but only the resistance opposed to
suffering, that is pathetic and deserving of being represented. It is
for this reason that all the absolutely extreme degrees of the
affections are forbidden 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 of themselves, and without any necessity of other symptoms,
the oppression of this force, because no affection can reach this last
degree of intensity as long as the intelligence in man makes any
resistance.

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

On the other hand, the contest with affection is a contest with
sensuousness, and consequently presupposes something that is distinct
from sensuous nature. Man can defend himself with the help of common
sense 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 the
affections, or be awakened by this portraiture in order that the
pathetic may exist. But it is impossible to represent ideas, in the
proper sense of the word, and positively, as nothing corresponds to pure
ideas in the world of sense. But they can be always represented
negatively and in an indirect way if the sensuous phenomenon by which
they are manifested has some character of which you would seek in vain
the conditions in _physical nature_. All phenomena of which the ultimate
principle cannot be derived from the world of sense are an indirect
representation of the upper-sensuous element.

And how does one succeed in representing something that is above nature
without having recourse to supernatural means? What can this phenomenon
be which is accomplished by natural forces—otherwise it would not be a
phenomenon—and yet which cannot be derived from physical causes without
a contradiction? This is the problem; how can the artist solve it?

It must be remembered that the phenomena observable in a man in a state
of passion are of two kinds. They are either phenomena connected simply
with animal nature, and which, therefore, only obey the physical law,
without the will being able to master them, or the independent force in
him being able to exercise an immediate influence over them. It is the
instinct which immediately produces these phenomena, and they obey
blindly the laws of instinct. To this kind belong, for example, the
organs of the circulation of the blood, of respiration, and all the
surface of the skin. But, moreover, the other organs, and those subject
to the will, do not always await the decision of the will; and often
instinct itself sets them immediately, in play, especially when the
physical state is threatened with pain or with danger. Thus, the
movements of my arm depend, it is true, on my will; but if I place my
hand, without knowing it, on a burning body, the movement by which I
draw it back is certainly not a voluntary act, but a purely instinctive
phenomenon. Nay more, speech is assuredly subject to the empire of the
will, and yet instinct can also dispose of this organ according to its
whim, and even of this and of the mind, without consulting beforehand
the will, directly a sharp pain, or even an energetic affection, takes
us by surprise. Take the most impassible stoic and make him see suddenly
something very wonderful, or a terrible and unexpected object. Fancy
him, for example, present when a man slips and falls to the bottom of an
abyss. A shout, a resounding cry, and not only inarticulate, but a
distinct word will escape his lips, and nature will have acted in him
before the will: a certain proof that there are in man phenomena which
cannot be referred to his person as an intelligence, but only to his
instinct as a natural force.

But there is also in man a _second_ order of phenomena, which are
subject to the influence and empire of the will, or which may be
considered at all events as being of such a kind that will might _always
have prevented_ them, consequently phenomena for which the _person_ and
not instinct is responsible. It is the office of instinct to watch with
a blind zeal over the interests of the senses; but it is the office of
the _person_ to hold instinct in proper bounds, out of respect for the
moral law. Instinct in itself does not hold account of any law; but the
person ought to watch that instinct may not infringe in any way on the
decrees of reason. It is therefore evident that it is not for instinct
alone to determine unconditionally all the phenomena that take place in
man in the state of affection, and that on the contrary the will of man
can place limits to instinct. When instinct only determines all
phenomena in man, there is nothing more that can recall the _person_;
there is only a physical creature before you, and consequently an
animal; for every physical creature subject to the sway of instinct is
nothing else. Therefore, if you wish to represent the person itself, you
must propose to yourself in man certain phenomena that have been
determined in opposition to instinct, or at least that have not been
determined by instinct. That they have not been determined by instinct
is sufficient to refer them to a higher source, the moment we see that
instinct would no doubt have determined them in another way if its force
had not been broken by some obstacle.

We are now in a position to point out in what way the super-sensuous
element, the moral and independent force of man, his Ego in short, can
be represented in the phenomena of the affections. I understand that
this is possible if the parts which only obey physical nature, those
where will either disposes nothing at all, or only under certain
circumstances, betray the presence of suffering; and if those, on the
contrary, that escape the blind sway of instinct, that only obey
physical nature, show no trace, or only a very feeble trace, of
suffering, and consequently appear to have a certain degree of freedom.
Now this want of harmony between the features imprinted on animal nature
in virtue of the laws of physical necessity, and those determined with
the spiritual and independent faculty of man, is precisely the point by
which that super-sensuous principle is discovered in man capable of
placing limits to the effects produced by physical nature, and therefore
distinct from the latter. The purely animal part of man obeys the
physical law, and consequently 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 only be judged according to the force of the
attack. Thus in proportion as the affection manifests itself with
decision and violence in the field of _animal nature_, without being
able to exercise the same power in the field of _human nature_, so in
proportion the latter makes itself manifestly known—in the same
proportion the moral independence of man shows itself gloriously: the
portraiture becomes pathetic and the pathetic sublime.

The statues of the ancients make this principle of æsthetics sensible to
us; but it is difficult to reduce to conceptions and express in words
what the very inspection of ancient statues makes the senses feel in so
lively a manner. The group of Laocoon and his children can give to a
great extent the measure of what the plastic art of the ancients was
capable of producing in the matter of pathos. Winckelmann, in his
“History of Art,” says: “Laocoon is nature seized in the highest degree
of suffering, under the features of a man who seeks to gather up against
pain all the strength of which the mind is conscious. Hence while his
suffering swells his muscles and stretches his nerves, the mind, armed
with an interior force shows itself on his contracted brow, and the
breast rises, because the breathing is broken, and because there is an
internal struggle to keep in the expression of pain, and press it back
into his heart. The sigh of anguish he wishes to keep in, his very
breath which he smothers, exhaust the lower part of his trunk, and works
into his flanks, which make us judge in some degree of the palpitations
of his visceral organs. But his own suffering appears to occasion less
anguish than the pain of his children, who turn their faces toward their
father, and implore him, crying for help. His father’s heart shows
itself in his eyes, full of sadness, and where pity seems to swim in a
troubled cloud. His face expresses lament, but he does not cry; his eyes
are turned to heaven, and implore help from on high. His mouth also
marks a supreme sadness, which depresses the lower lip and seems to
weigh upon it, while the upper lip, contracted from the top to the
bottom, expresses at once both physical suffering and that of the soul.
Under the mouth there is an expression of indignation that seems to
protest against an undeserved suffering, and is revealed in the
nostrils, which swell out and enlarge and draw upwards. Under the
forehead, the struggle between pain and moral strength, united as it
were in a single point, is represented with great truth, for, while pain
contracts and raises the eyebrows, the effort opposed to it by the will
draws down towards the upper eyelid all the muscles above it, so that
the eyelid is almost covered by them. The artist, not being able to
embellish nature, has sought at least to develop its means, to increase
its effect and power. Where is the greatest amount of pain is also the
highest beauty. The left side, which the serpent besets with his furious
bites, and where he instils his poison, is that which appears to suffer
the most intensely, because sensation is there nearest to the heart. The
legs strive to raise themselves as if to shun the evil; the whole body
is nothing but movement, 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 a
superior style is this struggle between spirit and the suffering of
nature developed! How correctly the author has seized each of the
phenomena in which the animal element and the human element manifest
themselves, the constraint of nature and the independence of reason! It
is well known that Virgil has described this same scene in his “Æneid,”
but it did not enter into the plan of the epic poet to pause as the
sculptor did, and describe the moral nature of Laocoon; for this recital
is in Virgil only an episode; and the object he proposes is sufficiently
attained by the simple description of the physical phenomenon, without
the necessity on his part of looking into the soul of the unhappy
sufferer, as his aim is less to inspire us with pity than to fill us
with terror. The duty of the poet from this point of view was purely
negative; I mean he had only to avoid carrying the picture of physical
suffering to such a degree that all expression of human dignity or of
moral resistance would cease, for if he had done this indignation and
disgust would certainly be felt. He, therefore, preferred to confine
himself to the representation of the _least_ of the suffering, and he
found it advisable to dwell at length on the formidable nature of the
two serpents, and on the rage with which they attack their victims,
rather than on the feelings of Laocoon. He only skims over those
feelings, because his first object was to represent a chastisement sent
by the gods, and to produce an impression of terror that nothing could
diminish. If he had, on the contrary, detained our looks on the person
of Laocoon himself with as much perseverance as the statuary, instead of
on the chastizing deity, the suffering man would have become the hero of
the scene, and the episode would have lost its propriety in connection
with the whole piece.

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

     Ecce auterm gemini Tenedo tranquilla per alta
     (Horresco referens) immensis orbibus angues
     Incumbunt pelago, pariterque ad litora tendunt;
     Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta jubæque
     Sanguinæ exsuperant undas; pars cætera 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!
                                             _Æneid_, ii. 203–211.

We find here realized the first of the three conditions of the sublime
that have been mentioned further back,—a very powerful natural force,
armed for destruction, and ridiculing all resistance. But that this
strong element may at the same time be _terrible_, and thereby
_sublime_, two distinct operations of the mind are wanted; I mean two
representations that we produce in ourselves by our own activity.
_First_, we recognize this irresistible natural force as terrible by
comparing it with the weakness of the faculty of resistance that the
physical man can oppose to it; and, _secondly_, it is by referring it to
our will, and recalling to our consciousness that the will is absolutely
independent of all influence of physical nature, that this force becomes
to us a sublime object. But it is _we ourselves_ who represent these two
relations; the poet has only given us an object armed with a great force
seeking to manifest itself. If this object makes us _tremble_, it is
only because we in thought suppose ourselves, or some one like us,
engaged with this force. And if trembling in this way, we experience the
feeling of the sublime, it is because our consciousness tells us that,
if we are the victims of this force, we should have nothing to fear,
from the freedom of our Ego, for the _autonomy_ of the determinations of
our will. In short the description up to here is sublime, but quite a
contemplative, intuitive sublimity:—

              Diffugimus visu exsangues, illi agmine certo
              Laocoonta petunt....—_Æneid_, ii. 212–213.

Here the force is presented to us as _terrible_ also; and contemplative
sublimity passes into the pathetic. We see that force enter really into
strife with man’s impotence. Whether it concerns Laocoon or ourselves is
only a question of degree. The instinct of sympathy excites and
frightens 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 refer
it 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, as
in the preceding moment, a purely subjective ground, residing in our
soul; it has an objective ground, residing in the object. For, even if
we recognize in this entire scene a simple fiction of the imagination,
we nevertheless distinguish in this fiction a conception communicated to
us from without, from another conception that we produce spontaneously
in ourselves.

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

If we were only sensuous creatures, obeying no other instinct than that
of self-preservation, we should stop here, and we should remain in a
state of mere and pure affection. But there is something in us which
takes no part in the affections of sensuous nature, and whose activity
is not directed according to physical conditions. According, then, as
this independently acting principle (the disposition, the moral faculty)
has become to a degree developed in the soul, there is left more or less
space for passive nature, and there remains more or less of the
independent principle in the affection.

In the truly moral soul the terrible trial (of the imagination) passes
quickly and readily into the sublime. In proportion as imagination loses
its liberty, reason makes its own prevail, and the soul ceases not to
enlarge within when it thus finds _outward_ limits. Driven from all the
intrenchments which would give physical protection to sensuous
creatures, we seek refuge in the stronghold of our moral liberty, and we
arrive by that means at an absolute and unlimited safety, at the very
moment when we seem to be deprived in the world of phenomena of a
relative and precarious rampart. But precisely because it was necessary
to have arrived at the physical oppression before having recourse to the
assistance of our moral nature, we can only buy this high sentiment of
our liberty through suffering. An ordinary soul confines itself entirely
to this suffering, and never comprehends in the sublime or the pathetic
anything 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
terrible object knows how to draw out the sublime.

The moral man (the father[6]) is here attacked before the physical man,
and that has a grand effect. All the affections become more æsthetic
when we receive them second-hand; there is no stronger sympathy than
that we feel for sympathy. [7] The moment had arrived when the hero
himself had to be recommended to our respect as a moral personage, and
the poet seized upon that moment. We already know by his description all
the force, all the rage of the two monsters who menace Laocoon, and we
know how all resistance would be in vain. If Laocoon were only a common
man he would better understand his own interests, and, like the rest of
the Trojans, he would find safety in rapid flight. But there is a heart
in that breast; the danger to his children holds him back, and decides
him to meet his fate. This trait alone renders him worthy of our pity.
At whatever moment the serpents had assailed him, we should have always
been touched and troubled. But because it happens just at the moment
when as father he shows himself so worthy of respect, his fate appears
to us as the result of having fulfilled his duty as parent, of his
tender disquietude for his children. It is this which calls forth our
sympathy in the highest degree. It appears, in fact, as if he
deliberately devoted 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, to
interest our spiritual nature. All portraiture in which the expression
of suffering nature is wanting remains without æsthetic action, and our
heart is untouched. All portraiture in which the expression of moral
aptitude is wanting, even did it possess all the sensuous force
possible, could not attain to the pathetic, and would infallibly revolt
our feelings. Throughout moral liberty we require the human being who
suffers; throughout all the sufferings of human nature we always desire
to perceive the independent spirit, or the capacity for independence.

But the independence of the spiritual being in the state of suffering
can manifest itself in two ways. Either negatively, when the moral man
does not receive the law from the physical man, and his state exercises
no influence over his manner of feeling; or positively, when the moral
man is a ruler over the physical being, and his manner of feeling
exercises an influence upon his state. In the first case, it is the
sublime of disposition; in the second, it is the sublime of action.

The sublime of disposition is seen in all character independent of the
accidents of fate. “A noble heart struggling against adversity,” says
Seneca, “is a spectacle full of attraction even for the gods.” Such for
example is that which the Roman Senate offered after the disaster of
Cannæ. Lucifer even, in Milton, when for the first time he contemplates
hell—which is to be his future abode—penetrates us with a sentiment of
admiration 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,” &c.

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

The sublime of disposition makes itself seen, it is visible to the
spectator, because it rests upon co-existence, the simultaneous; the
sublime action, on the contrary, is _conceived only by the thought_,
because the impression and the act are successive, and the intervention
of the mind is necessary to infer from a free determination the idea of
previous 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 can
extend his domain over one and the other. Even more; when the plastic
art has to represent a sublime action, it must necessarily bring it back
to sublimity.

In order that the sublimity of action should take place, not only must
the suffering of man have no influence upon the moral constitution, but
rather the opposite must be the case. The affection is the work of his
moral character. This can happen in two ways: either mediately, or
according to the law of liberty, when out of respect for such and such a
duty it decides from free choice to suffer—in this case, the idea of
duty determines as a motive, and its suffering is a voluntary act—or
immediately, and according to the necessity of nature, when he expiates
by a moral suffering the violation of duty; in this second case, the
idea of duty determines him as a _force_, and his suffering is no longer
an _effect_. Regulus offers us an example of the first kind, when, to
keep his word, he gives himself up to the vengeance of the
Carthaginians; and he would serve as an example of the second class, if,
having betrayed his trust, the consciousness of this crime would have
made him miserable. In both cases suffering has a moral course, but with
this difference, that on the one part Regulus shows us its moral
character, and that, on the other, he only shows us that he was made to
have such a character. In the first case he is in our eyes a morally
great person; in the second he is only æsthetically great.

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

Man is already a sublime object, but only in the æsthetic sense, when
the _state_ in which he is gives us an idea of his human destination,
even though we might not find this destination realized in his _person_.
He only becomes sublime to us in a moral point of view, when he acts,
moreover, as a person, in a manner conformable with this destination; if
our respect bears not only on his moral faculty, but on the use he makes
of this faculty; if dignity, in his case, is due, not only to his moral
aptitude, but to the real morality of his conduct. It is quite a
different thing to direct our judgment and attention to the moral
faculty generally, and to the possibility of a will absolutely free, and
to be directing it to the use of this faculty, and to the reality of
this absolute freedom of willing.

It is, I repeat, quite a different thing; and this difference is
connected not only with the objects to which we may have to direct our
judgment, but to the very criterion of our judgment. The same object can
displease us if we appreciate it in a moral point of view, and be very
attractive to us in the æsthetical point of view. But even if the moral
judgment and the æsthetical judgment were both satisfied, this object
would produce this effect on one and the other in quite a different way.
It is not morally satisfactory because it has an æsthetical value, nor
has it an æsthetical value because it satisfies us morally. Let us take,
as example, Leonidas and his devotion at Thermopylæ. Judged from the
moral point of view, this action represents to me the moral law carried
out notwithstanding all the repugnance of instinct. Judged from the
æsthetic point of view, it gives me the idea of the moral faculty,
independent of every constraint of instinct. The act of Leonidas
_satisfies_ the moral sense, the reason; it enraptures the æsthetical
sense, the imagination.

Whence comes this difference in the feelings in connection with the same
object? I account for it thus:—

In the same way that our being consists of two principles and natures,
so also and consequently our feelings are divided into two kinds,
entirely different. As reasonable beings we experience a feeling of
approbation or of disapprobation; as sensuous creatures we experience
pleasure or displeasure. The two feelings, approbation and pleasure,
repose on satisfaction: one on a satisfaction given to a requirement of
reason—reason has only requirements, and not wants. The other depends on
a satisfaction given to a sensuous want—sense only knows of wants, and
cannot prescribe anything. These two terms—requirements of reason, wants
of the senses—are mutually related, as absolute necessity and the
necessity of nature. Accordingly, both are included in the idea of
necessity, but with this difference, that the necessity of reason is
unconditional, and the necessity of sense only takes place under
conditions. But, for both, satisfaction is a purely contingent thing.
Accordingly every feeling, whether of pleasure or approbation, rests
definitively on an agreement between the contingent and the necessary.
If the necessary has thus an imperative character, the feeling
experienced will be that of approbation. If necessity has the character
of a want, the feeling experienced will be that of pleasure, and both
will be strong in proportion as the satisfaction will be contingent.
Now, underlying every moral judgment there is a requirement of reason
which requires us to act conformably with the moral law, and it is an
absolute necessity that we should wish what is good. But as the will is
free, it is physically an accidental thing that we should do in fact
what is good. If we actually do it, this agreement between the
contingent in the use of free will and the imperative demand of reason
gives rise to our assent or approbation, which will be greater in
proportion as the resistance of the inclinations made this use that we
make of our free will more accidental and more doubtful. Every æsthetic
judgment, on the contrary, refers the object to the necessity which
cannot help willing imperatively, but only desires that there should be
an agreement between the accidental and its own interest. Now what is
the interest of imagination? It is to emancipate itself from all laws,
and to play its part freely. The obligation imposed on the will by the
moral law, which prescribes its object in the strictest manner, is by no
means favorable to this need of independence. And as the moral
obligation of the will is the object of the moral judgment, it is clear
that in this mode of judging, the imagination could not find its
interest. But a moral obligation imposed on the will cannot be
conceived, except by supposing this same will absolutely independent of
the moral instincts and from their constraint. Accordingly the
_possibility_ of the moral act requires liberty, and therefore agrees
here in the most perfect manner with the interest of imagination. But as
imagination, through the medium of its wants, cannot give orders to the
will of the individual, as reason does by its imperative character, it
follows that the faculty of freedom, in relation to imagination, is
something accidental, and consequently that the agreement between the
accidental and the necessary (conditionally necessary) must excite
pleasure. Therefore, if we bring to bear a _moral_ judgment on this act
of Leonidas, we shall consider it from a point of view where its
accidental character strikes the eye less than its necessary side. If,
on the other hand, we apply the _æsthetical_ judgment to it, this is
another point of view, where its character of necessity strikes us less
forcibly than its accidental character. It is a duty for every will to
act thus, directly it is a free will; but the fact that there is a free
will that makes this act possible is a favor of nature in regard to this
faculty, to which freedom is a necessity. Thus an act of virtue judged
by the moral sense—by reason—will give us as its only satisfaction the
feeling of approbation, because reason can never find _more_, and seldom
finds _as much_ as it requires. This same act, judged, on the contrary,
by the æsthetic sense—by imagination—will give us a positive pleasure,
because the imagination, never requiring the end to agree with the
demand, must be surprised, enraptured, at the real satisfaction of this
demand as at a happy chance. Our reason will merely approve, and only
approve, of Leonidas actually taking this heroic resolution; but that he
_could_ take this resolution is what delights and enraptures us.

This distinction between the two sorts of judgments becomes more evident
still, if we take an example where the moral sense and the æsthetic
sense pronounce a different verdict. Suppose we take the act of
Peregrinus Proteus burning himself at Olympia. Judging this act morally,
I cannot give it my approbation, inasmuch as I see it determined by
impure motives, to which Proteus sacrifices the _duty_ of respecting his
own existence. But in the æsthetic judgment this same act delights me;
it delights me precisely because it testifies to a power of will capable
of resisting even the most potent of _instincts_, that of
self-preservation. Was it a moral feeling, or only a more powerful
sensuous attraction, that silenced the instinct of self-preservation in
this enthusiast. It matters little, when I appreciate the act from an
æsthetic point of view. I then drop the individual, I take away the
relation of his will to the law that ought to govern him; I think of
human will in general, considered as a common faculty of the race, and I
regard it in connection with all the forces of nature. We have seen that
in a moral point of view, the preservation of our being seemed to us a
duty, and therefore we were offended at seeing Proteus violate this
duty. In an æsthetic point of view the self-preservation only appears as
an interest, and therefore the sacrifice of this interest pleases us.
Thus the operation that we perform in the judgments of the second kind
is precisely the inverse of that which we perform in those of the first.
In the former we oppose the individual, a sensuous and limited being,
and his personal will, which can be effected pathologically, to the
absolute law of the will in general, and of unconditional duty which
binds every spiritual being; in the second case, on the contrary, we
oppose the _faculty_ of willing, absolute volition, and the spiritual
force as an infinite thing, to the solicitations of nature and the
impediments of sense. This is the reason why the æsthetical judgment
leaves us free, and delights and enraptures us. It is because the mere
conception of this faculty of willing in an absolute manner, the mere
idea of this moral aptitude, gives us in itself a consciousness of a
manifest advantage over the sensuous. It is because the mere possibility
of emancipating ourselves from the impediments of nature is in itself a
satisfaction that flatters our thirst for freedom. This is the reason
why moral judgment, on the contrary, makes us experience a feeling of
constraint that humbles us. It is because in connection with each
voluntary act we appreciate in this manner, we feel, as regards the
absolute law that ought to rule the will in general, in a position of
inferiority more or less decided, and because the constraint of the will
thus limited to a single determination, which duty requires of it at all
costs, contradicts the instinct of freedom which is the property of
imagination. 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 in
the narrow limits of the individual. We cannot therefore be surprised if
the æsthetical judgment enlarges the heart, while the moral judgment
constrains and straitens it.

It results, therefore, from all that which precedes, that the moral
judgment and the æsthetic, far from mutually corroborating each other,
impede and hinder each other, because they impress on the soul two
directions entirely opposite. In fact, this observance of rule which
reason requires of us as moral judge is incompatible with the
independence which the imagination calls for as æsthetic judge. It
follows that an object will have so much the less æsthetic value the
more it has the character of a moral object, and if the poet were
obliged notwithstanding 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 that of our imagination to the power of the will. In his own
interest it is necessary for the poet to enter on this path, for with
our liberty his empire finishes. We belong to him only inasmuch as we
look beyond ourselves; we escape from him the moment we re-enter into
our innermost selves, and that is what infallibly takes place the moment
an object ceases to be a phenomenon in our consideration, and takes the
character of a law which judges us.

Even in the manifestation of the most sublime virtue, the poet can only
employ for his own views that which in those acts belongs to force. As
to 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 our
soul by the contemplation of this spectacle. Moreover, nothing can
rejoice our soul except that which improves our personality, and nothing
can give us a spiritual joy except that which elevates the spiritual
faculty. But in what way can the morality of another improve our own
personality, and raise our spiritual force? That this other one
accomplishes really his duty results from an accidental use which he
makes of his liberty, and which for that very reason can prove nothing
to us. We only have in common with him the faculty to conform ourselves
equally to duty; the moral power which he exhibits reminds us also of
our own, and that is why we then feel something which upraises our
spiritual force. Thus it is only the idea of the possibility of an
absolutely free will which makes the real exercise of this will in us
charming to the æsthetic feeling.

We shall be still more convinced when we think how little the poetic
force of impression which is awakened in us by an act or a moral
character is dependent on their historic reality. The pleasure which we
take in considering an ideal character will in no way be lessened when
we come 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
every æsthetic impression of the feelings rest. Moreover, poetic truth
does not consist in that this or that thing has effectually taken place,
but in that it may have happened, that is to say, that the thing is in
itself possible. Thus the æsthetic force is necessarily obliged to rest
in the first place in the idea of possibility.

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

It was long thought that a great service was rendered to German poetry
by recommending German poets to treat of national themes. Why, it was
asked, did Greek poetry have so much power over the mind? Because it
brought forward national events and immortalized domestic exploits. No
doubt the poetry of the ancients may have been indebted to this
circumstance for certain effects of which modern poetry cannot boast;
but do these effects belong to art and the poet? It is small glory for
the Greek genius if it had only this accidental advantage over modern
genius; still more if it were necessary for the poets, in order to gain
this advantage, to obtain it by this conformity of their invention with
real history! It is only a barbarous taste that requires this stimulant
of a national interest to be captivated by beautiful things; and it is
only a scribbler who borrows from matter a force to which he despairs of
giving a form.

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

Happily, true genius does not make much account of all these counsels
that people are so anxious to give her with better intentions than
competence. Otherwise, Sulzer and his school might have made German
poetry adopt a very equivocal style. It is no doubt a very honorable aim
in 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 sublime
and of the beautiful are adapted to exercise this influence. But that
which poetry obtains excellently by indirect means it would accomplish
very badly as an immediate end. Poetry is not made to serve in man for
the accomplishment of a particular matter, nor could any instrument be
selected less fitted to cause a particular object to succeed, or to
carry out special projects and details. Poetry acts on the whole of
human nature, and it is only by its general influence on the character
of a man that it can influence particular acts. Poetry can be for man
what love is for the hero. It can neither counsel him, nor strike for
him, nor do anything for him in short; but it can form a hero in him,
call him to great deeds, and arm him with a strength to be all that he
ought to be.

Thus the degree of æsthetical energy with which sublime feelings and
sublime acts take possession of our souls, does not rest at all on the
interest of reason, which requires every action to be _really_
conformable with the idea of good. But it rests on the interest of the
imagination, which requires conformity with good should be possible, or,
in other terms, that no feeling, however strong, should oppress the
freedom of the soul. Now this possibility is found in every act that
testifies with energy to liberty, and to the force of the will; and if
the poet meets with an action of this kind, it matters little where, he
has a subject suitable for his art. To _him_, and to the interest we
have in him, it is quite the same, to take his hero in one class of
characters or in another, among the good or the wicked, as it often
requires as much strength of character to do evil conscientiously and
persistently as to do good. If a proof be required that in our æsthetic
judgments we attend more to the force than to its direction, to its
freedom than to its lawfulness, this is sufficient for our evidence. We
prefer to see force and freedom manifest themselves at the cost of moral
regularity, rather than regularity at the cost of freedom and strength.
For directly one of those cases offers itself, in which the general law
agrees with the instincts which by their strength threaten to carry away
the will, the æsthetic value of the character is increased, if he be
capable of resisting these instincts. A vicious person begins to
interest us as soon as he must risk his happiness and life to carry out
his perverse designs; on the contrary, a virtuous person loses in
proportion as he finds it useful to be virtuous. Vengeance, for
instance, is certainly an ignoble and a vile affection, but this does
not prevent it from becoming æsthetical, if to satisfy it we must endure
painful sacrifice. Medea slaying her children aims at the heart of
Jason, but at the same time she strikes a heavy blow at her own heart,
and her vengeance æsthetically becomes sublime directly we see in her a
tender mother.

In this sense the æsthetic judgment has more of truth than is ordinarily
believed. The vices which show a great force of will evidently announce
a greater aptitude for real moral liberty than do virtues which borrow
support from inclination; seeing that it only requires of the man who
persistently does evil to gain a single victory over himself, one simple
upset of his maxims, to gain ever after to the service of virtue his
whole 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 at
times follow with trembling admiration one which is altogether wicked?
It is evident, that with regard to the former, we renounce all hope, we
cannot even conceive the possibility of finding absolute liberty of the
will; whilst with the other, on the contrary, each time he displays his
faculties, we feel that one single act of the will would suffice to
raise him up to the fullest height of human dignity.

Thus, in the æsthetic judgment, that which excites our interest is not
morality itself, but liberty alone; and moral purity can only please our
imagination when it places in relief the forces of the will. It is then
manifestly to confound two very distinct orders of ideas, to require in
æsthetic things so exact a morality, and, in order to stretch the domain
of reason, to exclude the imagination from its own legitimate sphere.

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


                         ON GRACE AND DIGNITY.

The Greek fable attributes to the goddess of beauty a wonderful girdle
which has the quality of lending _grace_ and of gaining hearts in all
who wear it. This same divinity is accompanied by the Graces, or
goddesses of grace. From this we see that the Greeks distinguished from
beauty grace and the divinities styled the Graces, as they expressed the
ideas by proper attributes, separable from the goddess of beauty. All
that is graceful is beautiful, for the girdle of love winning
attractions is the property of the goddess of Cnidus; but all beauty is
not of necessity grace, for Venus, even without this girdle, does not
cease to be what she is.

However, according to this allegory, the goddess of beauty is the _only_
one who wears and who lends to others the girdle of attractions. Juno,
the powerful queen of Olympus, must begin by _borrowing_ this girdle
from Venus, when she seeks to charm Jupiter on Mount Ida.[8] Thus
greatness, even clothed with a certain degree of beauty, which is by no
means disputed in the spouse of Jupiter, is never sure 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 own charms but
from the girdle of Venus.

But we see, moreover, that the goddess of beauty can part with this
girdle, and _grant_ it, with its quality and effects, to a being less
endowed with beauty. Thus grace is not the _exclusive_ privilege of the
beautiful; it can also be handed over, but only by beauty, to an object
less beautiful, or even to an object deprived of beauty.

If these same Greeks saw a man gifted in other respects with all the
advantages of mind, but lacking grace, they advised him to sacrifice to
the Graces. If, therefore, they conceived these deities as forming an
escort to the beauty of the other sex, they also thought that they would
be favorable to man, and that to please he absolutely required their
help.

But what then is grace, if it be true that it prefers to unite with
beauty, yet not in an exclusive manner? What is grace if it proceeds
from beauty, but yet produces the effects of beauty, even when beauty is
absent. What is it, if beauty can exist indeed _without it_, and yet has
no attraction except with it? The delicate feeling of the Greek people
had marked at an early date this distinction between grace and beauty,
whereof the reason was not then able to give an account; and, seeking
the means to express it, it borrowed images from the imagination,
because the understanding could not offer notions to this end. On this
score, the myth of the girdle deserves to fix the attention of the
philosopher, who, however, ought to be satisfied to seek ideas
corresponding with these pictures when the pure instinctive feeling
throws out its discoveries, or, in other words, with explaining the
hieroglyphs of sensation. If we strip off its allegorical veil from this
conception of the Greeks, the following appears the only meaning it
admits.

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

But this girdle as a symbol of movable beauty has this particular
feature, that the person adorned with it not only appears more graceful,
but actually becomes so. The girdle communicates _objectively_ this
property of grace, in this contrasting with other articles of dress,
which have only subjective effects, and without modifying the person
herself, only modify the impression produced on the imagination of
others. Such is the express meaning of the Greek myth; grace becomes the
property of the person who puts on this girdle; she does more than
appear amiable, it _is_ so in fact.

No doubt it may be thought that a girdle, which after all is only an
outward, artificial ornament, does not prove a perfectly correct emblem
to express grace as a _personal_ quality. But a personal quality that is
conceived at the same time as separable from the subject, could only be
represented to the senses by an accidental ornament which can be
detached from 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
it would not change anything in the person itself) but by a magical
effect; that is to say, its virtue extends beyond all natural
conditions. By this means, which is nothing more, I admit, than an
expedient, it has been attempted to avoid the contradiction to which the
mind, as regards its representative faculty, is unavoidably reduced,
every time it asks an expression from nature herself, for an object
foreign to nature and which belongs to the free field of the ideal. If
this magic girdle is the symbol of an objective property which can be
separated from its subject without modifying in any degree its nature,
this myth can only express one thing—the beauty of movement, because
movement is the only modification that can affect an object without
changing its identity.

The beauty of movement is an idea that satisfies the two conditions
contained in the myth which now occupies us. In the first place, it is
an objective beauty, not entirely depending upon the impression that we
receive from the object, but belonging to the object itself. In the
second place, this beauty has in itself something accidental, and the
object remains identical even when we conceive it to be deprived of this
property. The girdle of attractions does not lose its magic virtue in
passing to an object of less beauty, or even to that which is without
beauty; that is to say, that a being less beautiful, or even one which
is not beautiful, may also lay claim to the beauty of movement. The myth
tells us that grace is something accidental in the subject in which we
suppose it to be. It follows that we can attribute this property only to
accidental movements. In an ideal of beauty the necessary movements must
be beautiful, because inasmuch as necessary they form an integral part
of its nature; the idea of Venus once given, the idea of this beauty of
necessary movements is that implicitly comprised in it; but it is not
the same with the beauty of accidental movements; this is an extension
of the former; there can be a grace in the voice, there is none in
respiration.

But all this beauty in accidental movements—is it necessarily grace? It
is scarcely necessary to notice that the Greek fable attributes grace
exclusively to humanity. It goes still further, for even the beauty of
form it restricts within the limits of the human species, in which, as
we know, the Greeks included also their gods. But if grace is the
exclusive privilege of the human form, none of the movements which are
common to man with the rest of nature can evidently pretend to it. Thus,
for example, if it were admitted that the ringlets of hair on a
beautiful head undulate with grace, there would also be no reason to
deny a grace of movement to the branches of trees, to the waves of the
stream, to the ears of a field of corn, or to the limbs of animals. No,
the goddess of Cnidus represents exclusively the human species;
therefore, as soon as you see only a physical creature in man, a purely
sensuous object, she is no longer concerned with him. Thus, grace can
only be met with in voluntary movements, and then in those only which
express some sentiment of the _moral order_. Those which have as
principle only animal sensuousness belong only, however voluntary we may
suppose them to be, to physical nature, which never reaches of itself to
grace. If it were possible to have grace in the manifestations of the
physical appetites and instincts, grace would no longer be either
capable or worthy to serve as the expression of humanity. Yet it is
_humanity_ alone which to the Greek contains all the idea of beauty and
of perfection. He never consents to see separated from the soul the
purely sensuous part, and such is with him that which might be called
man’s sensuous nature, which it is equally impossible for him to
_isolate_ either from his lower nature or from his intelligence. In the
same way that no idea presents itself to his mind without taking at once
a visible form, and without his endeavoring to give a bodily envelope
even to his intellectual conceptions, so he desires in man that all his
instinctive acts should express at the same time his moral destination.
Never for the Greek is nature purely physical nature, and for that
reason he does not blush to honor it; never for him is reason purely
reason, and for that reason he has not to tremble in submitting to its
rule. The physical nature and moral sentiments, matter and mind, earth
and heaven, melt together with a marvellous beauty in his poetry. Free
activity, which is truly at home only in Olympus, was introduced by him
even into the domain of sense, and it is a further reason for not
attaching blame to him if reciprocally he transported the affections of
the sense into Olympus. Thus, this delicate sense of the Greeks, which
never suffered the material element unless accompanied by the spiritual
principle, recognizes in man no voluntary movement belonging only to
sense which did not at the same time manifest the moral sentiment of the
soul. It follows that for them grace is one of the manifestations of the
soul, revealed through beauty in voluntary movements; therefore,
wherever there is grace, it is the soul which is the mobile, and it is
in her that beauty of movement has its principle. The mythological
allegory thus expresses the thought, “Grace is 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 of
grace from the Greek myth, and I hope I have not forced the sense: may I
now be permitted to try to what result a philosophical investigation on
this 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
flatter itself that it can discover anything which has not already been
vaguely perceived by sentiment and revealed in poetry?

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

This first beauty, thus formed by nature solely and in virtue of the
laws of necessity, I shall distinguish from that which is regulated upon
conditions of liberty, in calling it, if allowed, beauty of structure
(architectonic beauty). It is agreed, therefore, to designate under this
name that portion of human beauty which not only has as efficient
principle the forces and agents of physical nature (for we can say as
much for every phenomenon), but which also is determined, so far as it
is beauty 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 of
voice, etc., are advantages which are gifts of nature and fortune: of
nature, 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. Why
perfect? because she is the finished and exactly determined work of
necessity, and on that account she is neither susceptible of variety nor
of progress. In other terms, as she is only a beautiful representation
of the various ends which nature had in view in forming man, and thence
each of her properties is perfectly determined by the idea that she
realizes; hence it follows that we can consider her as definitive and
determined (with regard to its connection with the first conception)
although this conception is subject, in its development, to the
conditions of time.

The architectonic beauty of the human form and its technical perfection
are two ideas, which we must take good care not to confound. By the
latter, the _ensemble_ of particular ends must be understood, such as
they co-ordinate between themselves towards a general and higher end; by
the other, on the contrary, a character suited to the representation of
these ends, as far as these are revealed, under a visible form, to our
faculty of seeing and observing. When, then, we speak of beauty, we
neither take into consideration the justness of the aims of nature in
themselves, nor formally, the degree of adaptation to the principles of
art which their combination could offer. Our contemplative faculties
hold to the manner in which the object appears to them, without taking
heed to its logical constitution. Thus, although the architectonic
beauty, in the structure of man, be determined by the idea which has
presided at this structure, and by the ends that nature proposes for it,
the æsthetic judgment, making abstraction of these ends, considers this
beauty in itself; and in the idea which we form of it, nothing enters
which does not immediately and properly belong to the exterior
appearance.

We are, then, not obliged to say that the dignity of man and of his
condition heightens the beauty of his structure. The idea we have of his
dignity may influence, it is true, the judgment that we form on the
beauty of his structure; but then this judgment ceases to be purely
æsthetic. Doubtless, the technical constitution of the human form is an
expression of its destiny, and, as such, it ought to excite our
admiration; but this technical constitution is represented to the
understanding and not to sense; it is a conception and not a phenomenon.
The architectonic beauty, on the contrary, could never be an expression
of the destiny of man, because it addresses itself to quite a different
faculty 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 true
only under one condition, which is, that at once and upon the simple
appearance he justifies this superiority, without the necessity, in
order to appreciate it, that we bring to mind his humanity. For, to
recall this, we must pass through a conception; and then it would no
longer be the sense, but the understanding, that would become the judge
of beauty, which would imply contradiction. Man, therefore, cannot put
forward the dignity of his moral destiny, nor give prominence to his
superiority as intelligence, to increase the price of his beauty. Man,
here, is but a being thrown like others into space—a phenomenon amongst
other phenomena. In the world of sense no account is made of the rank he
holds in 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 his
humanity; from which it follows that his architectonic beauty is so also
mediately. If, then he is distinguished by superior beauty from all
other creatures of the sensuous world, it is incontestable that he owes
this advantage to his destiny as man, because it is in it that the
reason is of the differences which in general separate him from the rest
of the sensuous world. But the beauty of the human form is not due to
its being the expression of this superior destiny, for if it were so,
this form would necessarily cease to be beautiful, from the moment it
began to express a less high destiny, and the contrary to this form
would be beautiful as soon as it could be admitted that it expresses
this higher destination. However, suppose that at the sight of a fine
human face we could completely forget that which it expresses, and put
in its place, without changing anything of its outside, the savage
instincts of the tiger, the judgment of the eyesight would remain
absolutely the same, and the tiger would be for it the _chef-d’œuvre_ of
the Creator.

The destiny of man as intelligence contributes, then, to the beauty of
his structure only so far as the form that represents this destiny, the
expression that makes it felt, satisfies at the same time the conditions
which are prescribed in the world of sense to the manifestations of the
beautiful; which signifies that beauty ought always to remain a pure
effect of physical nature, and that the rational conception which had
determined the technical utility of the human structure cannot confer
beauty, but simply be compatible with beauty.

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

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

From what we have said, up to the present time, it would appear that the
beautiful can offer absolutely no interest to the understanding, because
its principle belongs solely to the world of sense, and amongst all our
faculties of knowledge it addresses itself only to our senses. And in
fact, the moment that we sever from the idea of the beautiful, as a
foreign element, all that is mixed with the idea of technical
perfection, almost inevitably, in the judgment of beauty, it appears
that nothing remains to it by which it can become the object of an
intellectual pleasure. And nevertheless, it is quite as incontestable
that the beautiful pleases the understanding, as it is beyond doubt that
the beautiful rests upon no property of the object that could not be
discovered but by the understanding.

To solve this apparent contradiction, it must be remembered that the
phenomena can in two different ways pass to the state of objects of the
understanding and express ideas. It is not always necessary that the
understanding draws these ideas from phenomena; it can also put them
into them. In the two cases, the phenomena will be adequate to a
rational conception, with this simple difference, that, in the first
case, the understanding finds it objectively given, and to a certain
extent only receives it from the object because it is necessary that the
idea should be given to explain the nature and often even the
possibility of the object; whilst in the second case, on the contrary,
it is the understanding which of itself interprets, in a manner to make
of it the expression of its idea, that which the phenomenon offers us,
without any connection with this idea, and thus treats by a metaphysical
process that which in reality is purely physical. There, then, in the
association of the idea with the object there is an objective necessity:
here, on the contrary, a subjective necessity at the utmost. It is
unnecessary to say that, in my mind, the first of these two connections
ought to be understood of technical perfection, the second, of the
beautiful.

As then in the second case it is a thing quite contingent for the
sensuous object that there should or should not be outside of it an
object which perceives it—an understanding that associates one of its
own ideas with it, consequently, the _ensemble_ of these objective
properties ought to be considered as fully independent of this idea; we
have perfectly the right to reduce the beautiful, objectively, to the
simple conditions of physical nature, and to see nothing more in beauty
than effect belonging purely to the world of sense. But as, on the other
side, the understanding makes of this simple fact of the world of sense
a transcendent usage, and in lending it a higher signification inasmuch
as he marks it, as it were, with his image, we have equally the right to
transport the beautiful, subjectively, into the world of intelligence.
It is in this manner that beauty belongs at the same time to the two
worlds—to one by the right of birth, to the other by adoption; it takes
its being in the world of sense, it acquires the rights of citizenship
in the world of understanding. It is that which explains how it can be
that taste, as the faculty for appreciating the beautiful, holds at once
the spiritual element and that of sense; and that these two natures,
incompatible one with the other, approach in order to form in it a happy
union. It is this that explains how taste can conciliate respect for the
understanding with the material element, and with the rational principle
the favor and the sympathy of the senses, how it can ennoble the
perceptions of the senses so as to make ideas of them, and, in a certain
measure, transform the physical world itself into a domain of the ideal.

At all events, if it is accidental with regard to the object, that the
understanding associates, at the representation of this object, one of
its own ideas with it, it is not the less necessary for the subject
which represents it to attach to such a representation such an idea.
This idea, and the sensuous indication which corresponds to it in the
object, ought to be one with the other in such relation, that the
understanding be forced to this association by its own immutable laws;
the understanding then must have in itself the reason which leads it to
associate exclusively a certain phenomenon with a certain determined
idea, and, reciprocally, the object should have in itself the reason for
which it exclusively provokes that idea and not another. As to knowing
what the idea can be which the understanding carries into the beautiful,
and by what objective property the object gifted with beauty can be
capable of serving as symbol to this idea, is then a question much too
grave to be solved here in passing, and I reserve this examination for
an analytical 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
the same sense and the same title as are in general all the beautiful
creations of nature. As to the _degree_, I agree that it surpasses all
the other beauties; but with regard to _kind_, it is upon the same rank
as they are, because it also manifests that which alone is perceptible
of its subject, and it is only when we represent it to ourselves that it
receives a super-sensuous value.

If the ends of creation are marked in man with more of success and of
beauty than in the organic beings, it is to some extent a favor which
the intelligence, inasmuch as it dictated the laws of the human
structure, has shown to nature charged to execute those laws. The
intelligence, it is true, pursues its end in the technique of man with a
rigorous necessity, but happily its exigencies meet and accord with the
necessary laws of nature so well, that one executes the order of the
other whilst acting 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 another
necessity, that of the teleological principle which determines them. It
is here only that the beautiful could be calculated by relation to the
technique of the structure, which can no longer take place when the
necessity is on one side alone, and the super-sensuous cause which
determines the phenomenon takes a contingent character. Thus, it is
nature alone who takes upon herself the architectonic beauty of man,
because here, from the first design, she had been charged once for all
by the creating intelligence with the execution of all that man needs in
order to arrive at the ends for which he is destined, and she has in
consequence no change to fear in this organic work which she
accomplishes.

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

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

The domain of mind extends as far as living nature goes, and it finishes
only 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 that
all the motive forces in man are connected one with the other, and this
makes us understand how the mind, even considered as principle of
voluntary movement, can propagate its action through all organisms. It
is not only the instruments of the will, but the organs themselves upon
which the will does not immediately exercise its empire, that undergo,
indirectly at least, the influence of mind; the mind determines them,
not only designedly when it acts, but again, without design, when it
feels.

From nature in herself (this result is clearly perceived from what
precedes) we must ask nothing but a fixed beauty, that of the phenomena
that she alone has determined according to the law of necessity. But
with free arbitration, chance (the accidental), interferes in the work
of nature, and the modifications that affect it thus under the empire of
free 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 the
use it will make of its instruments, and with regard to that part of
beauty 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
himself into the sphere of pure intelligences, would find himself in
danger of sinking, inasmuch as he is a creature of sense, and of losing
in the judgment of taste that which he gains at the tribunal of reason.
This moral destiny, therefore, _accomplished_ by the moral action of
man, would cost him a privilege which was assured to him by this same
moral destiny _when only indicated_ in his structure; a purely sensuous
privilege, it is true, but one which receives, as we have seen, a
signification and a higher value from the understanding. No; nature is
too much enamored with harmony to be guilty of so gross a contradiction,
and that which is harmonious in the world of the understanding could not
be rendered by a discord in the world of sense.

As soon, then, as in man the _person_, the moral and free agent, takes
upon himself to determine the play of phenomena, and by his intervention
takes from nature the power to protect the beauty of _her_ work, he
then, as it were, 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 to it, implicates it in his destiny and makes it
depend on its own modifications, it transforms itself to a certain point
into a sensuous phenomenon, and, as such, is obliged to recognize the
law which regulates in general all the phenomena. In its own interest it
engages to permit that nature in its service, placed under its
dependence, shall still preserve its character of nature, and never act
in a manner contrary to its anterior obligations. I call the beautiful
an obligation of phenomena, because the want which corresponds to it in
the subject has its reason in the understanding itself, and thus it is
consequently universal and necessary. I call it an anterior obligation
because the senses, in the matter of beauty, have given their judgment
before the understanding commences to perform its office.

Thus it is now free arbitration which rules the beautiful. If nature has
furnished the architectonic beauty, the soul in its turn determines the
_beauty of the play_, and now also we know what we must understand by
charm and grace. Grace is the beauty of the form under the influence of
free will; it is the beauty of this kind of phenomena that the person
himself determines. The architectonic beauty does honor to the author of
nature; grace does honor to him who possesses it. That is a _gift_, this
is a _personal merit_.

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

But all the movements of man are not capable of grace. Grace is never
otherwise than _beauty of form animated into movement by free will_; and
the movements which belong only to _physical nature_ could not merit the
name. It is true that an intellectual man, if he be keen, ends by
rendering himself master of almost all the movements of the body; but
when the chain which links a fine lineament to a moral sentiment
lengthens much, this lineament becomes the property of the structure,
and can no longer be counted as a grace. It happens, ultimately, that
the mind moulds the body, and that the structure is forced to modify
itself according to the _play_ that the soul imprints upon the organs,
so entirely, that grace finally is transformed—and the examples are not
rare—into architectonic beauty. As at one time an antagonistic mind
which is ill at ease with itself alters and destroys the most perfect
beauty of structure, until at last it becomes impossible to recognize
this magnificent _chef-d’œuvre_ of nature in the state to which it is
reduced under the unworthy hands of free will, so at other times the
serenity and perfect harmony of the soul come to the aid of the hampered
technique, unloose nature and develop with divine splendor the beauty of
form, enveloped until then, and oppressed.

The plastic nature of man has in it an infinity of resources to retrieve
the negligencies and repair the faults that she may have committed. To
this end it is sufficient that the mind, the moral agent, sustain it, or
even 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 rational to comprehend equally under this idea of beauty some
apparent or imitative movements (the flamboyant lines for example,
undulations). It is this which Mendelssohn upholds. But then the idea of
grace would be confounded with the ideal of beauty in general, for all
beauty is definitively but a property of true or apparent movement
(objective or subjective), as I hope to demonstrate in an analysis of
beauty. With regard to grace, the only movements which can offer any are
those which respond at the same time to a sentiment.

The person (it is known what I mean by the expression) prescribes the
movements of the body, either through the will, when he desires to
realize in the world of sense an effect of which he has proposed the
idea, and in that case the movements are said to be voluntary or
intentional; or, on the other hand, they take place without its will
taking any part in it—in virtue of a fatal law of the organism—but on
the occasion of a sentiment, in the latter case, I say that the
movements are sympathetic. The sympathetic movement, though it may be
involuntary and provoked by a sentiment, ought not to be confounded with
those purely instinctive movements that proceed from physical
sensibility. Physical instinct is not a free agent, and that which it
executes is not an act of the 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 of
movement, having their principle in the person, which is capable of
grace?

That which we are rigorously forced to distinguish in philosophic
analysis is not always separated also in the real. Thus it is rare that
we meet intentional movements without sympathetic movements, because the
will determines the intentional movements only after being decided
itself by the moral sentiments which are the principle of the
sympathetic movements. When a person speaks, we see his looks, his
lineaments, his hands, often the whole person all together speaks to us;
and it is not rare that this mimic part of the discourse is the most
eloquent. Still more there are cases where an intentional movement can
be considered at the same time as sympathetic; and it is that which
happens when something involuntary mingles with the voluntary act which
determines this movement.

I will explain: the mode, the manner in which a voluntary movement is
executed, is not a thing so exactly determined by the intention which is
proposed by it that it cannot be executed in several different ways.
Well, then, that which the will or intention leaves undetermined can be
sympathetically determined by the state of moral sensibility in which
the person is found to be, and consequently can express this state. When
I extend the arm to seize an object, I execute, in truth, an intention,
and the movement I make is determined in general by the end that I have
in view; but in what way does my arm approach the object? how far do the
other parts of my body follow this impulsion? What will be the degree of
slowness or of the rapidity of the movement? What amount of force shall
I employ? This is a calculation of which my will, at the instant, takes
no account, and in consequence there is a something left to the
discretion of nature.

But nevertheless, though that part of the movement is not determined by
the intention itself, it must be decided at length in one way or the
other, and the reason is that the manner in which my moral sensibility
is affected can have here decisive influence: it is this which will give
the _tone_, and which thus determines the mode and the manner of the
movement. Therefore this influence, which exercises upon the voluntary
movement the state of moral sensibility in which the subject is found,
represents precisely the involuntary part of this movement, and it is
there then that we must seek for grace.

A voluntary movement, if it is not linked to any sympathetic movement—or
that which comes to the same thing, if there is nothing involuntary
mixed up with it having for principle the moral state of sensibility in
which the subject happens to be—could not in any manner present _grace_,
for grace always supposes as a cause a disposition of the soul.
Voluntary movement is produced after an operation of the soul, which in
consequence is already completed at the moment in which the movement
takes place.

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

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

The voluntary movement is united but accidentally with the disposition
which precedes it; the concomitant movement, on the contrary, is
necessarily linked to it. The first is to the soul that which the
conventional signs of speech are to the thoughts which they express. The
second, on the contrary, the sympathetic movement or concomitant, is to
the soul that which the cry of passion is to the passion itself. The
involuntary movement is, then, an expression of the mind, not by its
_nature_, but only by its _use_. And in consequence we are not
authorized to say that the mind is revealed in a voluntary movement;
this movement never expresses more than the substance of the will (the
aim), and not the form of the will (the disposition). The disposition
can only manifest itself to us by concomitant movements.

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

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

By which we can also see incidentally what we must think of grace,
either imitated or learned (I would willingly call it theatrical grace,
or the grace of the dancing-master). It is the pendant of that sort of
beauty which a woman seeks from her toilet-table, reinforced with rouge,
white paint, false ringlets, pads, and whalebone. Imittative grace is to
true grace what beauty of toilet is to architectonic beauty. One and the
other could act in absolutely the same manner upon the senses badly
exercised, as the original of which they wish to be the imitation; and
at times even, if much art is put into it, they might create an illusion
to the _connoisseur_. But there will be always some indication through
which the intention and constraint will betray it in the end, and this
discovery will lead inevitably to indifference, if not even to contempt
and disgust. If we are warned that the architectonic beauty is
factitious, at once, the more it has borrowed from a nature which is not
its 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 renunciation
lightly of an accidental advantage, how can we see with pleasure or even
with indifference an exchange through which man sacrifices a part of his
proper nature in order to substitute elements taken from inferior
nature? How, even supposing we could forgive the illusion produced, how
could we avoid despising the deception? If we are told that _grace_ is
artificial, our heart at once closes; our soul, which at first advanced
with so much vivacity to meet the graceful object, shrinks back. That
which was mind has suddenly become matter. Juno and her celestial beauty
has vanished, and in her place there is nothing but a phantom of vapor.

Although grace ought to be, or at least ought to appear, something
involuntary, still we seek it only in the movements that depend more or
less on the will. I know also that grace is attributed to a certain
mimic language, and we say a pleasing smile, a charming blush, though
the smile and the blush are sympathetic movements, not determined by the
will, but by moral sensibility. But besides that, the first of these
movements is, after all, in our power, and that it is not shown that in
the second there is, properly speaking, any grace, it is right to say,
in general, that most frequently when grace appears it is on the
occasion of a voluntary movement. Grace is desired both in language and
in song; it is asked for in the play of the eyes and of the mouth, in
the movements of the hands and the arms whenever these movements are
free and voluntary; it is required in the walk, in the bearing, and
attitude, in a word, in all exterior demonstrations of man, so far as
they depend on his will. As to the movements which the instinct of
nature produces in us, or which an overpowering affection excites, or,
so to speak, is lord over; that which we ask of these movements, in
origin purely physical, is, as we shall see presently, quite another
thing than grace. These kinds of movements belong to _nature_, and not
to the _person_; but it is from the person alone, as we have seen, that
all grace issues.

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

We now know in what kind of movements he must ask for grace; but we know
nothing more, and a movement can have these different characters,
without on that account being graceful; it is as yet only speaking (or
mimic).

I call _speaking_ (in the widest sense of the word) every physical
phenomenon 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 animal
sensibility.

The aspect, even, under which the animals present themselves, can be
speaking, as soon as they outwardly show their inward dispositions. But,
with them, it is nature alone which speaks, and NOT LIBERTY. By the
permanent configuration of animals through their fixed and architectonic
features, nature expresses the aim she proposed in creating them; by
their mimic traits she expresses the want awakened and the want
satisfied. Necessity reigns in the animal as well as in the plant,
without meeting the obstacle of a person. The animals have no
individuality farther than each of them is a specimen by itself of a
general type of nature, and the aspect under which they present
themselves at such or such an instant of their duration is only a
particular example of the accomplishment of the views of nature under
determined natural conditions.

To take the word in a more _restricted_ sense, the configuration of man
alone is speaking, and it is itself so only in those of the phenomena
that accompany and express the state of its moral sensibility.

I say it is only in this sort of phenomena; for, in all the others, man
is in the same rank as the rest of sensible beings. By the permanent
configuration of man, by his architectonic features, nature only
expresses, just as in the animals and other organic beings, her own
intention. 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
combination more of art and complication; but all that ought to be
placed solely to the 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_. In
man, nature limits herself in marking her views; she leaves to himself
their accomplishment, it is this alone that makes of him a man.

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

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

If then nature, whilst determining the destiny of man, abandons to the
will of man himself the care to accomplish it, the relation of his
present state with his destiny cannot be a work of nature, but ought to
be the work of the person; it follows, that all in the configuration
which expresses this relation will belong, not to nature, but to the
person, that is to say, will be considered as a personal expression; if
then, the architectonic part of his configuration tells us the views
that nature proposed to herself in creating him, the mimic part of his
face reveals 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 that
which nature has herself contributed to the individual in particular, in
order to realize the human type in it; for he would have that in common
with every kind of technical configuration. We expect something more of
his face; we desire that it reveal to us at the same time, up to what
point man himself, in his liberty, has contributed towards the aim of
nature; in other words, we desire that his face bear witness to his
character. In the first case we see that nature proposed to create in
him a man; but it is in the second case only that we can judge if he has
become so in reality.

Thus, the face of a man is truly his own only inasmuch as his face is
mimic; 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 or instincts, and, in consequence, would show nothing more
than the animal in him, it would still remain that it was in his destiny
and in his power to limit, by his liberty, his sensuous nature. The
presence of these kinds 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 sense his face is speaking; it is still a moral expression,
the same as the non-accomplishment of an act commanded by duty is
likewise a sort of action.

We must distinguish from these speaking features which, are always an
expression of the soul, the features nonspeaking or dumb, which are
exclusively the work of plastic nature, and which it impresses on the
human face when it acts independently of all influence of the soul. I
call them dumb, because, like incomprehensible figures put there by
nature, they are silent upon the character. They mark only distinctive
properties attributed by nature to all the kind; and if at times they
are sufficient to distinguish the individual, they at least never
express anything of the person.

These features are by no means devoid of signification for the
physiognomist, because the physiognomist not only studies that which man
has made of his being, but also that which nature has done for him and
against him.

It is not also easy to determine with precision where the dumb traits or
features end, where the speaking traits commence. The plastic forces on
one side, with their uniform action, and, on the other, the affections
which depend on no law, dispute incessantly the ground; and that which
nature, in its dumb and indefatigable activity, has succeeded in raising
up, often is overturned by liberty, as a river that overflows and
spreads over its banks: the mind when it is gifted with vivacity
acquires influence over all the movements of the body, and arrives at
last indirectly to modify by force the sympathetic play as far as the
architectonic and fixed forms of nature, upon which the will has no
hold. In a man thus constituted it becomes at last characteristic; and
it is that which we can often observe upon certain heads which a long
life, strange accidents, and an active mind have moulded and worked. In
these kinds of faces there is only the generic character which belongs
to plastic nature; all which here forms individuality is the act of the
_person_ himself, and it is this which causes it to be said, with much
reason, that those faces are all soul.

Look at that man, on the contrary, who has made for himself a mechanical
existence, those disciples of the rule. The rule can well calm the
sensuous nature, but not awaken human nature, the superior faculties:
look at those flat and inexpressive physiognomies; the finger of nature
has alone left there its impression; a soul inhabits these bodies, but
it is a sluggish soul, a discreet guest, and, as a peaceful and silent
neighbor who does not disturb the plastic force at its work, left to
itself. Never a thought which requires an effort, never a movement of
passion, hurries the calm cadence of physical life. There is no danger
that the architectonic features ever become changed by the play of
voluntary movements, and never would liberty trouble the functions of
vegetative life. As the profound calm of the mind does not bring about a
notable degeneracy of forces, the expense would never surpass the
receipts; it is rather the animal economy which would always be in
excess. In exchange for a certain sum of well-being which it throws as
bait, the mind makes itself the servant, the punctual major-domo of
physical nature, and places all his glory in keeping his books in order.
Thus will be accomplished that which organic nature can accomplish; thus
will the work of nutrition and of reproduction prosper. So happy a
concord between animal nature and the will cannot but be favorable to
architectonic beauty, and it is there that we can observe this beauty in
all 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 and
the weight end always by getting the upper hand. Also architectonic
beauty, so far as it is a simple production of nature, has its fixed
periods, its blossoming, its maturity, and its decline—periods the
revolution of which can easily be accelerated, but not retarded in any
case, by the play of the will, and this is the way in which it most
frequently finishes; little by little matter takes the upper hand over
form, and the plastic principle, which vivified the being, prepares for
itself 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 kinds of features can be characterized in its entireness by
precisely the same reason as a face which is speaking only as an
expression of sensuous nature can be nevertheless characteristic. I mean
to say that the mind is obliged to exercise its activity and to feel
conformably to its moral nature, and it accuses itself and betrays its
fault when the face which it animates shows no trace of this moral
activity. If, therefore, the pure and beautiful expression of the
destination of man, which is marked in his architectonic structure,
penetrates us with satisfaction and respect for the sovereign, reason,
who is the author of it, at all events these two sentiments will not be
for us without mixture but in as far as we see in man a simple creation
of nature. But if we consider in him the moral person, we have a right
to demand of his face an expression of the person, and if this
expectation is deceived contempt will infallibly follow. 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 foreign intelligence, 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 becomes
_conscious_ of his moral destiny; but we desire at the same time that
this expression speak to his advantage, that is to say, it marks in him
sentiments conformable to his moral destiny, and a superior moral
aptitude. This is what reason requires in the human face.

But, on the other side, man, as far as he is a phenomenon, is an object
of sense; there, where the _moral_ sentiment is satisfied, the æsthetic
sentiment does not understand its being made a sacrifice, and the
concomity with an idea ought not to lessen the beauty of the phenomenon.
Thus, as much as reason requires an expression of the morality of the
subject in the human face, so much, and with no less rigor, does the eye
demand beauty. As these two requirements, although coming from the
principles of the appreciation of different degrees, address themselves
to the same object, also both one and the other must be given
satisfaction by one and the same cause. The disposition of the soul
which places man in the best state for accomplishing his moral destiny
ought to give place to an expression that will be at the same time the
most advantageous to his beauty as phenomenon; in other terms, his moral
exercise ought to be revealed by _grace_.

But a great difficulty now presents itself from the idea alone of the
expressive movements which bear witness to the morality of the subject:
it appears that the cause of these movements is necessarily a moral
cause, a principle which resides beyond the world of sense; and from the
sole idea of beauty it is not less evident that its principle is purely
sensuous, and that it ought to be a simple effect of nature, or at the
least appear to be such. But if the ultimate reason of the movements
which offer a moral expression is necessarily _without_, and the
ultimate reason of the beautiful necessarily _within_, the sensuous
world, it appears that _grace_, which ought to unite both of them,
contains a manifest contradiction.

To avoid this contradiction we must admit that the moral cause, which in
our soul is the foundation of grace, brings, in a necessary manner, in
the sensibility which depends on that cause, precisely that state which
contains 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 the
senses; well, then, in that the mind (in virtue of a law that we cannot
fathom), from the state in which it is, itself prescribes to physical
nature which accompanies it, its own state, and in that the state of
moral perfection is precisely in it the most favorable for the
accomplishment of the physical conditions of beauty, it follows that it
is the mind which renders beauty possible; and there its action ends.
But whether real beauty comes forth from it, that depends upon the
physical conditions alluded to, and is consequently a free effect of
nature. Therefore, as it cannot be said that nature is properly free in
the voluntary movements, in which it is employed but as a means to
attain an end, and as, on the other side, it cannot be said that it is
free in its involuntary movements, which express the moral, the liberty
with which 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, it can be said that _grace_ is a _favor_ in which the
moral has desired to gratify the sensuous element; the same as the
architectonic beauty may be considered as nature acquiescing to the
technical form.

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

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

It is not difficult to make application of these examples to what the
human face could be under the government of the mind. If the mind is
manifested in such a way through the sensuous nature subject to its
empire that it executes its behests with the most faithful exactitude,
or expresses its sentiments in the most perfectly speaking manner,
without going in the least against that which the æsthetic sense demands
from it as 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
constrained manner by the sensuous nature, or if sensuous nature acting
alone in all liberty the expression of moral nature was absent. In the
first case there would not be beauty; in the second the beauty would be
devoid of _play_.

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

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

That which is evident is that neither the will, in the intentional
movement, nor the passion, in the sympathetic movement, ought to act as
a force with regard to the physical nature which is subject to it, in
order that this, in obeying it, may have beauty. In truth, without going
further, 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 as a force with regard to mind, in order to give occasion for a fine
moral expression; for there, where physical nature commands alone, it is
absolutely necessary that the character of the man should vanish.

We can conceive three sorts of relation of man with himself: I mean the
sensuous part of man with the reasonable part. From these three
relations we have to seek which is that one which best suits him in the
sensuous 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 his
reasonable nature; or else, on the contrary, he subjects the reasonable
portion of his being to the sensuous part, reducing himself thus to obey
only the impulses which the necessity of nature imprints upon him, as
well as upon the other phenomena; or lastly, harmony is established
between the impulsions of the one and the laws of the other, and man is
in perfect accord with himself.

If he has the consciousness of his spiritual person, of his pure
autonomy, man rejects all that is sensuous, and it is only when thus
isolated from matter that he feels to the full his moral liberty. But
for that, as his sensuous nature opposes an obstinate and vigorous
resistance to him, he must, on his side, exercise upon it a notable
pressure and a strong effort, without which he could neither put aside
the appetites nor reduce to silence the energetic voice of instinct. A
mind of this quality makes the physical nature which depends on him feel
that it has a master in him, whether it fulfils the orders of the will
or endeavors to anticipate them. Under its stern discipline sensuousness
appears then repressed, and interior resistance will betray itself
exteriorly by the constraint. This moral state cannot, then, be
favorable to beauty, because nature cannot produce the beautiful but as
far as it is free, and consequently that which betrays to us the
struggles of moral liberty against matter cannot either be grace.

If, on the contrary, subdued by its wants, man allows himself to be
governed without reserve by the instinct of nature, it is his interior
autonomy that vanishes, and with it all trace of this autonomy is
exteriorly effaced. The animal nature is alone visible upon his visage;
the eye is watery and languishing, the mouth rapaciously open, the voice
trembling and muffled, the breathing short and rapid, the limbs
trembling with nervous agitation: the whole body by its languor betrays
its moral degradation. Moral force has renounced all resistance, and
physical nature, with such a man, is placed in full liberty. But
precisely this complete abandonment of moral independence, which occurs
ordinarily at the moment of sensuous desire, and more still at the
moment of enjoyment, sets suddenly brute matter at liberty which until
then had been kept in equilibrium by the active and passive forces. The
inert forces of nature commence from thence to gain the upper hand over
the living forces of the organism; the form is oppressed by matter,
humanity by common nature. The eye, in which the soul shone forth,
becomes dull, or it protrudes from its socket with I know not what
glassy haggardness; the delicate pink of the cheeks thickens, and
spreads as a coarse pigment in uniform layers. The mouth is no longer
anything but a simple opening, because its form no longer depends upon
the action of forces, but on their non-resistance; the gasping voice and
breathing are no more than an effort to ease the laborious and oppressed
lungs, and which show a simple mechanical want, with nothing that
reveals a soul. In a word, in that state of liberty which physical
nature arrogates to itself from its chief, 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 brutal matter, which gains as much
ground as is abstracted from the will. Man in this state not only
revolts the moral sense, which incessantly claims of the face an
expression of human dignity, but the _æsthetic_ sense, which is not
content with simple matter, and which finds in the form an unfettered
pleasure—the æsthetic sense will turn away with disgust from such a
spectacle, where _concupiscence_ could alone find its gratification.

Of these two relations between the moral nature of man and his physical
nature, the first makes us think of a monarchy, where strict
_surveillance_ of the prince holds in hand all free movement; the second
is an ochlocracy, where the citizen, in refusing to obey his legitimate
sovereign, finds he has liberty quite as little as the human face has
beauty when the moral autonomy is oppressed; nay, on the contrary, just
as the citizens are given over to the brutal despotism of the lowest
classes, so the form is given over here to the despotism of matter. Just
as liberty finds itself between the two extremes of legal oppression and
anarchy, so also we shall find the beautiful between two extremes,
between the expression of dignity which bears witness to the domination
exercised by the mind, and the voluptuous expression which reveals the
domination exercised by instinct.

In other terms, if the beauty of expression is incompatible with the
absolute government of reason over sensuous nature, and with the
government of sensuous nature over the reason, it follows that the third
state (for one could not conceive a fourth)—that in which the reason and
the senses, duty and inclination, are in harmony—will be that in which
the beauty of play is produced. In order that obedience to reason may
become an object of inclination, it must represent for us the principle
of pleasure; for pleasure and pain are the only springs which set the
instincts in motion. It is true that in life it is the reverse that
takes place, and pleasure is ordinarily the motive for which we act
according to reason. If morality itself has at last ceased to hold this
language, it is to the immortal author of the “Critique” to whom we must
offer our thanks; it is to him to whom the glory is due of having
restored the healthy reason in separating it from all systems. But in
the manner in which the principles of this philosopher are ordinarily
expressed by himself and also by others, it appears that the inclination
can never be for the moral sense otherwise than a very suspicious
companion, and pleasure a dangerous auxiliary for moral determinations.
In admitting that the instinct of happiness does not exercise a blind
domination over man, it does not the less desire to interfere in the
moral actions which depend on free arbitration, and by that it changes
the pure action of the will, which ought always to obey the law alone,
never the _instinct_. Thus, to be altogether sure that the inclination
has not interfered with the demonstrations of the will, we prefer to see
it in opposition rather than in accord with the law of reason; because
it may happen too easily, when the inclination speaks in favor of duty,
that duty draws from the recommendation all its credit over the will.
And in fact, as in practical morals, it is not the conformity of the
acts with the law, but only the conformity of the sentiments with duty,
which is important. We do not attach, and with reason, any value to this
consideration, that it is ordinarily more favorable to the conformity of
acts with the law that inclination is on the side of duty. As a
consequence, this much appears evident: that the assent of sense, if it
does not render suspicious the conformity of the will with duty, at
least does not guarantee it. Thus the sensuous expression of this
assent, expression that grace offers to us, could never bear a
sufficient available witness to the morality of the act in which it is
met; and it is not from that which an action or a sentiment manifests to
the eyes by graceful expression that we must judge of the moral merit of
that sentiment or of that action.

Up to the present time I believe I have been in perfect accord with the
rigorists in morals. I shall not become, I hope, a relaxed moralist in
endeavoring to maintain in the world of phenomena and in the real
fulfilment of the law of duty those rights of sensuous nature which,
upon the ground of pure reason and in the jurisdiction of the moral law,
are completely 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 offers
no witness to the pure conformity of this act with the duty, I believe
that we are able to infer from this that the moral perfection of man
cannot shine forth except from this very association of his inclination
with his moral conduct. In fact, the destiny of man is not to accomplish
isolated moral acts, but to be a moral being. That which is prescribed
to him does not consist of virtues, but of virtue, and virtue is not
anything else “than an inclination for duty.” Whatever, then, in the
objective sense, may be the opposition which separates the acts
suggested by the inclination from those which duty determines, we cannot
say it is the same in the subjective sense; and not only is it permitted
to man to accord duty with pleasure, but he ought to establish between
them this accord, he ought to obey his reason with a sentiment of joy.
It is not to 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, with the most noble part of his being, that a sensuous nature
has been associated in him to his purely spiritual nature. By the fact
that nature has made of him a being both at once reasonable and
sensuous, that is to say, a man, it has prescribed to him the obligation
not to separate that 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 to found 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 action of 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 duty are obliged to employ violence, it is
necessary that the instinct shall have force to resist them. The enemy
which only is overturned can rise up again, but the enemy reconciled is
truly vanquished. In the moral philosophy of Kant the idea of duty is
proposed with a harshness enough to ruffle the Graces, and one which
could easily tempt a feeble mind to seek for moral perfection in the
sombre paths of an ascetic and monastic life. Whatever precautions the
great philosopher has been able to take in order to shelter himself
against this false interpretation, which must be repugnant more than all
else to the serenity of the free mind, he has lent it a strong impulse,
it seems to me, in opposing to each other by a harsh contrast the two
principles which act upon the human will. Perhaps it was hardly
possible, from the point of view in which he was placed, to avoid this
mistake; but he has exposed himself seriously to it. Upon the basis of
the question there is no longer, after the demonstration he has given,
any discussion possible, at least for the heads which think and which
are quite _willing to be persuaded_; and I am not at all sure if it
would not be better to renounce at once all the attributes of the human
being than to be willing to reach on this point, by reason, a different
result. But although he began to work without any prejudice when he
searched for the truth, and though all is here explained by purely
objective reasons, it appears that when he put forward the truth once
found he had been guided by a more subjective maxim, which is not
difficult, 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 its
application? On one side, a gross materialism, of which the shameless
maxims would revolt his soul; impure resting-places offered to the
bastard characters of a century by the unworthy complacency of
philosophers; on the other side, a pretended system of perfectibility,
not less suspicious, which, to realize the chimera of a general
perfection common to the whole universe, would not be embarrassed for a
choice of means. This is what would meet his attention. So he carried
there, where the most pressing danger lay and reform was the most
urgent, the strongest forces of his principles, and made it a law to
pursue sensualism without pity, whether it walks with a bold face,
impudently insulting morality, or dissimulates under the imposing veil
of a moral, praiseworthy end, under which a certain fanatical kind of
order know how to disguise it. He had not to disguise _ignorance_, but
to reform _perversion_; for such a cure a violent blow, and not
persuasion or flattery, was necessary; and the more the contrast would
be violent between the true principles and the dominant maxims, the more
he would hope to provoke reflection upon this point. He was the Draco of
his time, because his time seemed to him as yet unworthy to possess a
Solon, neither capable of receiving him. From the sanctuary of pure
reason he drew forth the moral law, unknown then, and yet, in another
way, so known; he made it appear in all its saintliness before a
degraded century, and troubled himself little to know whether there were
eyes too enfeebled to bear the brightness.

But what had the _children of the house_ done for him to have occupied
himself only with the _valets_? Because strongly impure inclinations
often usurp the name of virtue, was it a reason for disinterested
inclinations in the noblest heart to be also rendered suspicious?
Because the moral epicurean had willingly relaxed the law of reason, in
order to fit it as a plaything to his customs, was it a reason to thus
exaggerate harshness, and to make the fulfilment of duty, which is the
most powerful manifestation of moral freedom, another kind of decorated
servitude of a more specious name? And, in fact, between the esteem and
the contempt of himself has the truly moral man a more free choice than
the slave of sense between pleasure and pain? Is there less of
constraint there for a pure will than here for a depraved will? Must
one, by this imperative form given to the moral law, accuse man and
humble him, and make of this law, which is the most sublime witness of
our grandeur, the most crushing argument for our fragility? Was it
possible with this imperative force to avoid that a prescription which
man imposes on himself, as a reasonable being, and which is obligatory
only for him on that account, and which is conciliatory with the
sentiment of his liberty only—that this prescription, say I, took the
appearance of a foreign law, a positive law, an appearance which could
hardly lessen the radical tendency which we impute to man to react
against the law?

It is certainly not an advantage for moral truth to have against itself
sentiments which man can avow without shame. Thus, how can the sentiment
of the beautiful, the sentiment of liberty, accord with the austere mind
of a legislation which governs man rather through fear than trust, which
tends constantly to separate that which nature has united, and which is
reduced to hold us in defiance against a part of our being, to assure
its empire over the rest? Human nature forms a whole more united in
reality than it is permitted to the philosopher, who can only analyze,
to allow it to appear. The reason can never reject as unworthy of it the
affections which the heart recognizes with joy; and there, where man
would be morally fallen, he can hardly rise in his own esteem. If in the
moral order the sensuous nature were only the oppressed party and not an
ally, how could it associate with all the ardor of its sentiments in a
triumph which would be celebrated only over itself? how could it be so
keen a participator in the satisfaction of a pure spirit having
consciousness of itself, if in the end it could not attach itself to the
pure spirit with such closeness that it is not possible even to
intellectual analysis to separate it without violence.

The will, besides, is in more immediate relation with the faculty of
feeling than with the cognitive faculties, and it would be regrettable
in many circumstances if it were obliged, in order to guide itself, to
take advice of pure reason. I prejudge nothing good of a man who dares
so little trust to the voice of instinct that he is obliged each time to
make it appear first before the moral law; he is much more estimable who
abandons himself with a certain security to inclination, without having
to fear being led astray by her. That proves in fact that with him the
two principles are already in harmony—in that harmony which places a
seat upon the perfection of the human being, and which constitutes that
which we understand by a noble soul.

It is said of a man that he has a great soul when the moral sense has
finished assuring itself of all the affections, to the extent of
abandoning without fear the direction of the senses to the will, and
never incurring the risk of finding himself in discord with its
decisions. It follows that in a noble soul it is not this or that
particular action, it is the entire character which is moral. Thus we
can make a merit of none of its actions because the satisfaction of an
instinct could not be meritorious. A noble soul has no other merit than
to be a noble soul. With as great a facility as if the instinct alone
were acting, it accomplishes the most painful duties of humanity, and
the most heroic sacrifice that she obtains over the instinct of nature
seems the effect of the free action of the instinct itself. Also, it has
no idea of the beauty of its act, and it never occurs to it that any
other way of acting could be possible; on the contrary, the moralist
formed by the school and by rule, is always ready at the first question
of the master to give an account with the most rigorous precision of the
conformity of its acts with the moral law. The life of this one is like
a drawing where the pencil has indicated by harsh and stiff lines all
that the rule demands, and which could, if necessary, serve for a
student to 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, which does 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 reason
and sense, between inclination and duty, and grace is the expression of
this harmony in the sensuous world. It is only in the service of a noble
soul 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 soul
spreads even over a face in which the architectonic beauty is wanting an
irresistible grace, and often even triumphs over the natural disfavor.
All the movements which proceed from a noble soul are easy, sweet, and
yet animated. The eye beams with serenity as with liberty, and with the
brightness of sentiment; gentleness of heart would naturally give to the
mouth a grace that no affectation, no art, could attain. You trace there
no effort in the varied play of the physiognomy, no constraint in the
voluntary movements—a noble soul knows not constraint; the voice becomes
music, and the limpid stream of its modulations touches the heart. The
beauty of structure can excite pleasure, admiration, astonishment; grace
alone can charm. Beauty has its adorers; grace alone has its lovers: for
we pay our homage to the Creator, and we love man. As a whole, grace
would be met with especially amongst women; beauty, on the contrary, is
met with more frequently in man, and we need not go far without finding
the reason. For grace we require the union of bodily structure, as well
as that of character: the body, by its suppleness, by its promptitude to
receive impressions and to bring them into action; the character, by the
moral harmony of the sentiments. Upon these two points nature has been
more favorable to the woman than to man.

The more delicate structure of the woman receives more rapid each
impression and allows it to escape as rapidly. It requires a storm to
shake a strong constitution, and when vigorous muscles begin to move we
should not find the ease which is one of the conditions of grace. That
which upon the face of woman is still a beautiful sensation would
express suffering already upon the face of man. Woman has the more
tender nerves; 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 soul
with grace the woman is more happily gifted than man. The character of
woman rises rarely to the supreme ideal of moral purity, and would
rarely go beyond acts of affection; her character would often resist
sensuousness with heroic force. Precisely because the moral nature of
woman is generally on the side of inclination, the effect becomes the
same, 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 the
expression of feminine virtue, and this expression would often be
wanting in manly virtue.


                              ON DIGNITY.

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

It has been prescribed to man, it is true, to establish between his two
natures a unison, to form always an harmonious whole, and to act as in
union with his entire humanity. But this beauty of character, this last
fruit of human maturity, is but an ideal to which he ought to force his
conformity 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 not
change; the physical conditions of his existence themselves are opposed
to it.

In fact, his existence, so far as he is a sensuous creature, depends on
certain physical conditions; and in order to insure this existence man
ought—because, in his quality of a free being, capable of determining
his modifications by his own will—to watch over his own preservation
himself. Man ought to be made capable of certain acts in order to fulfil
these physical conditions of his existence, and when these conditions
are out of order to re-establish them.

But although nature had to give up to him this care which she reserves
exclusively to herself in those creatures which have only a vegetative
life, still it was necessary that the satisfaction of so essential a
want, in which even the existence of the individual and of the species
is interested, should not be absolutely left to the discretion of man,
and his doubtful foresight. It has then provided for this interest,
which in the foundation concerns it, and it has also interfered with
regard to the form in placing in the determination of free arbitration a
principle of necessity. From that arises natural instinct, which is
nothing else than a principle of physical necessity which acts upon free
arbitration by the means of sensation.

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

As there is no bargaining possible with physical necessity, man must
also, in spite of his liberty, feel what nature desires him to feel.
According as it awakens in him a painful or an agreeable sensation,
there will infallibly result in him either aversion or desire. Upon this
point man 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 the worm that crawls at his feet.

But here begins the great difference: with the lower creature action
succeeds to desire or aversion quite as of necessity, as the desire to
the sensation, and the expression to the external impression. It is here
a perpetual circle, a chain, the links of which necessarily join one to
the other. With man there is one more force—the will, which, as a
super-sensuous faculty, is not so subject to the law of nature, nor that
of reason, that he remains without freedom to choose, and to guide
himself according to this or to that. The animal cannot do otherwise
than 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 not
consider the moral use that he can make of it. But firstly, the animal
nature must be in abeyance before approaching the other, and from that
cause it is always a considerable step towards reaching the moral
emancipation 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 it
stops, and the empire of reason commences. Placed between these two
jurisdictions, the will is absolutely free to receive the law from one
and 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
to nature and with respect to reason; I mean to say it is not forced to
pass either on the side of one or of the other: but as far as it is a
moral faculty 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 law of reason. The will really then makes use of its liberty
even whilst it acts contrary to reason: but it makes use of it
unworthily, because, notwithstanding its liberty, it is no less under
the jurisdiction of nature, and adds no real action to the operation of
pure instinct; for to will by virtue of _desire_ is only to desire in a
different way.

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

But nature obstinately maintains her rights, and as it is never by the
result of free choice that she solicits us, she also does not withdraw
any of her exigencies as long as she has not been satisfied. Since, from
the first cause which gave the impulsion to the threshold of the will
where its jurisdiction ends, all in her is rigorously necessary,
consequently she can neither give way nor go back, but must always go
forward and press more and more the will on which depends the
satisfaction of her wants. Sometimes, it is true, we could say that
nature shortens her road and acts immediately as a cause for the
satisfaction of her needs without having in the first instance carried
her request before the will. In such a case, that is to say, if man not
simply allowed instinct to follow a free course, but if instinct took
this course of itself, man would be no more than the brute. But it is
very doubtful whether this case would ever present itself, and if ever
it were really presented it would remain to be seen whether we should
not blame the will itself for this blind power which the instinct would
have usurped.

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

Every time, then, that nature manifests an exigence and seeks to draw
the will along with it by the blind violence of affective movement, it
is the duty of the will to order nature to halt until reason has
pronounced. The sentence which reason pronounces, will it be favorable
or the contrary to the interest of sensuousness? This is, up to the
present time, what the will does not know. Also it should observe this
conduct for all the affective movements without exception, and when it
is nature which 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 an act of his will, he breaks the violence of his desires,
which hasten towards the object which should satisfy them, and would
dispense entirely with the co-operation of the will,—it is only then
that he reveals himself 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, out which at all times must _will_ his aversions and
his desires.

But this act of taking previously the advice of reason is already an
attempt against nature, who is a competent judge in her own cause, and
who will not allow her sentences to be submitted to a new and strange
jurisdiction; this act of the will which thus brings the appetitive
faculty before the tribunal of reason is then, in the proper acceptation
of the word, an _act against nature_, in that it renders accidental that
which is necessary, in that it attributes to the laws of reason the
right to decide in a cause where the laws of nature can alone pronounce,
and where they have pronounced effectively. Just, in fact, as the reason
in the exercise of its moral jurisdiction is little troubled to know if
the decisions it can come to will satisfy or not the sensuous nature, so
the sensuous in the exercise of the right which is proper to it does not
trouble itself whether its decisions would satisfy pure reason or not.
Each is equally necessary, though different in necessity, and this
character of necessity would be destroyed if it were permitted for one
to modify arbitrarily the decisions of the other. This is why the man
who has the most moral energy cannot, whatever resistance he opposes to
instinct, free himself from sensuousness, or stifle desire, but can only
deny it an influence upon the decisions of his will; he can disarm
instinct by moral means, but he cannot appease it but by natural means.
By his independent force he may prevent the laws of nature from
exercising any constraint over his will, but he can absolutely change
nothing of the laws themselves.

Thus in the affective movements in which nature (instinct) acts the
_first_ and 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
restraining the liberty of the will: it is to restrain the instinct
itself. Thus we can only have agreement between the law of reason and
the affective phenomena, under the condition of putting both in discord
with the exigencies of instinct. And as nature never gives way to moral
reasons, and recalls her claims, and as on her side, consequently, all
remains in the same state, in whatever manner the will acts towards her,
it results that there is no possible accord between the inclination and
duty, between reason and sense; and that here man cannot act at the same
time with all his being and with all the harmony of his nature, but
exclusive with his reasonable nature. Thus in these sorts of actions we
could not find moral beauty, because an action is morally good only as
far as inclination has taken part in it, and here the inclination
protests against much more than it concurs with it. But these actions
have moral grandeur, because all that testifies to a preponderating
authority exercised over the sensuous nature has grandeur, and grandeur
is found only there.

It is, then, in the affective movements that this great soul of which we
speak transforms itself and becomes sublime; and it is the touchstone to
distinguish the soul truly great from what is called a _good_ heart, or
from the virtue of _temperament_. When in man the inclination is ranged
on the side of morality only because moral itself is happily on the side
of inclination, it will happen that the instinct of nature in the
affective movements will exercise upon the will a full empire, and if a
sacrifice is necessary it is the moral nature, and not the sensuous
nature, that will make it. If, on the contrary, it is reason itself
which has made the inclination pass to the side of duty (which is the
case in the fine character), and which has only confided the rudder to
the sensuous nature, it will be always able to retake it as soon as the
instinct should misuse its full powers. Thus the virtue of temperament
in the affective movements falls back to the state of simple production
of nature, whilst the noble soul passes to heroism and rises to the rank
of 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
eyes in the world of phenomena is what is called _dignity_.

To consider this rigorously: the moral force in man is susceptible of no
representation, for the super-sensuous could not explain itself by a
phenomenon that falls under the sense; but it can be represented
indirectly to the mind by sensuous signs, and this is actually the case
with dignity in the configuration of man.

When the instinct of nature is excited, it is accompanied just as the
heart in its moral emotions is, by certain movements of the body, which
sometimes go before the will, sometimes, even as movements purely
sympathetic, escape altogether its empire. In fact, as neither
sensation, nor the desire, nor aversion, are subject to the free
arbitration of man, man has no right over the physical movements which
immediately depend on it. But the instinct does not confine itself to
simple desire; it presses, it advances, it endeavors to realize its
object; and if it does not meet in the autonomy of the mind an energetic
resistance, it will even anticipate it, it will itself take the
initiative of those sorts of acts over which the will alone has the
right to pronounce. For the instinct of conservation tends without
ceasing to usurp the legislative powers in the domain of the will, and
its efforts go to exercise over man a domination as absolute as over the
beast. There are, then, two sorts of distinct movements, which, in
themselves and by their origin, in each affective phenomenon, arise in
man by the instinct of conservation: those firstly which immediately
proceed from sensation, and which, consequently, are quite involuntary;
then those which in principle could and would be voluntary, but from
which the blind instinct of nature takes all freedom. The first refer to
the affection itself, and are united necessarily with it; the others
respond rather to the cause and to the object of the affections, and are
thus accidental and susceptible of modification, and cannot be mistaken
for infallible signs of the affective phenomena. But as both one and the
other, when once the object is determined, are equally necessary to the
instinct of nature, so they assist, both one and the other, the
expression of affective phenomena; a necessary competition, in order
that the expression should be complete and form a harmonious whole.

If, then, the will is sufficiently independent to repress the
aggressions of instinct and to maintain its rights against this blind
force, all the phenomena which the instinct of nature, once excited,
produce, in its proper domain, will preserve, it is true, their force;
but those of the second kind, those which came out of a foreign
jurisdiction, and which it pretended to subject arbitrarily to its
power, these phenomena would not take place. Thus the phenomena are no
longer in harmony; but it is precisely in their opposition that consists
the expression of the moral force. Suppose that we see a man a prey to
the most poignant affection, manifested by movements of the first kind,
by quite involuntary movements. His veins swell, his muscles contract
convulsively, his voice is stifled, his chest is raised and projects,
whilst the lower portion of the torso is sunken and compressed; but at
the same time the voluntary movements are soft, the features of the face
free, and serenity beams forth 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 similar expression. Here, for example, they would unite in
expressing exclusively suffering; but as those traits which express
calmness are mixed up with those which express suffering, and as similar
causes do not produce opposite effects, we must recognize in this
contrast the presence and the action of a moral force, independent of
the passive affections, and superior to the impressions beneath which we
see sensuous nature give way. And this is why calmness under suffering,
in which properly consists dignity, becomes—indirectly, it is true, and
by means of reasoning—a representation of the pure intelligence which is
in man, and an 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 only the painful affections, but generally in all the cases in
which the appetitive faculty is strongly interested, that mind ought to
show its liberty, and that dignity ought to be the dominant expression.
Dignity is not less required in the agreeable affections than in the
painful affections, because in both cases nature would willingly play
the part of master, and has to be held in check by the will. Dignity
relates to the form and not to the nature of the affection, and this is
why it can be possible that often an affection, praiseworthy in the
main, but one to which we blindly commit ourselves, degenerates, from
the want of dignity, into vulgarity and baseness; and, on the contrary,
a condemnable affection, as soon as it testifies by its form to the
empire of the mind over the senses, changes often its character and
approaches even towards the 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, always
ready to do without it, to act and shake off its yoke. But in grace, on
the contrary, the mind governs with a _liberal_ government, for here the
mind itself causes sensuous nature to act, and it finds no resistance to
overcome. But obedience only merits forbearance, and severity is only
justifiable when provoked by opposition.

Thus grace is nothing else than the liberty of voluntary movements, and
dignity consists in mastering involuntary movements. Grace leaves to
sensuous nature, where it obeys the orders of the mind, a certain air of
independence: dignity, on the contrary, submits the sensuous nature to
mind where it would make the pretensions to rule; wherever instinct
takes the initiative and allows itself to trespass upon the attributes
of the will, the will must show it no indulgence, but it must testify to
its own independence (autonomy), in opposing to it the most energetic
resistance. If, on the contrary, it is the will that commences, and if
instinct does but 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 ought to regulate the relation of the two natures of man
in what regards the expression of this relation in the world of
phenomena.

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

If dignity is an expression of resistance opposed to instinct by moral
liberty, and if the instinct consequently ought to be considered as a
force that renders resistance necessary, it follows that dignity is
ridiculous where you have no force of this kind to resist, and
contemptible where there ought not to be any such force to combat. We
laugh at a comedian, whatever rank or condition he may occupy, who even
in indifferent actions affects dignity. We despise those small souls
who, for having accomplished an ordinary action, and often for having
simply 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, which
even by its nature supposes already the rule of man over his instincts.
It is rather sensuous nature that, in the fulfilment of moral duties, is
found in a state of oppression and constraint, particularly when it
consummates in a painful sacrifice. But as the ideal of perfection in
man does not require a struggle, but harmony between the moral and
physical nature, this ideal is little compatible with dignity, which is
only the expression of a struggle between the two natures, and as such
renders visible either the particular impotence of the individual, or
the impotence common to the species. In the first case, when the want of
harmony between inclination and duty, with regard to a moral act,
belongs to the particular powerlessness of the subject, the act would
always lose its moral value, in as far as that combat is necessary, and,
in consequence, proportionally as there would be dignity in the exterior
expression of this act; for our moral judgment connects each individual
with the common measure of the species, and we do not allow man to be
stopped by other limits than those of human nature.

In the second case, when the action commanded by duty cannot be placed
in harmony with the exigencies of instinct without going against the
idea of human nature, the resistance of the inclination is necessary,
and then only the sight of the combat can convince us of the possibility
of victory. Thus we ask here of the features and attitudes an expression
of this interior struggle, not being able to take upon ourselves to
believe in virtue where there is no trace of humanity. Where then the
moral law commands of us an action which necessarily makes the sensuous
nature suffer, 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 to revolt us than to satisfy us; and thus, in consequence,
expression is no longer grace, but dignity. In general, the law which
prevails here is, that man ought to accomplish with grace all the acts
that he can execute in the sphere of human nature; and with dignity all
those for the accomplishment of which he is obliged to go beyond his
nature.

In like manner as we ask of virtue to have grace, we ask of inclination
to have dignity. Grace is not less natural to inclination than dignity
to virtue, and that is evident from the idea of grace, which is all
sensuous and favorable to the liberty of physical nature, and which is
repugnant to all idea of constraint. The man without cultivation lacks
not by himself a certain degree of grace, when love or any other
affection of this kind animates him; and where do we find more grace
than in children, who are nevertheless entirely under the direction of
instinct. The danger is rather that inclination should end by making the
state of passion the dominant one, stifling the independence of mind,
and bringing about a general relaxation. Therefore in order to
conciliate the esteem of a noble sentiment—esteem can only be inspired
by that which proceeds from a moral source—the inclination must always
be accompanied by dignity. It is for that reason a person in love
desires to find dignity in the object of this passion. Dignity alone is
the warrant that it is not need which has forced, but free choice which
has chosen, 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: the
first, to set aside an advantage which he has over the other, and which
might wound, ought to give to his actions, though his decision may have
been disinterested, the character of an affective movement, that thus,
from the part which he allows inclination to take, he may have the
appearance of being the one who gains the most: the second, not to
compromise by the dependence in which he put himself the honor of
humanity, of which liberty is the saintly palladium, ought to raise what
is 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 a
certain sense another favor.

We must censure with grace, and own our faults with dignity: to put
dignity into our remonstrances is to have the air of a man too
penetrated by his own advantage: to put grace into our confessions is to
forget the inferiority in which our fault has placed us. Do the powerful
desire to conciliate affection? Their superiority must be tempered by
grace. The feeble, do they desire to conciliate esteem? They must
through dignity rise above their powerlessness. Generally it is thought
that dignity is suitable to the throne, and every one knows that those
seated upon it desire to find in their councillors, their confessors,
and in their parliaments—grace. But that which may be good and
praiseworthy in a kingdom is not so always in the domain of taste. The
prince himself enters into this domain as soon as he descends from his
throne (for thrones have their privileges), and the crouching courtier
places himself under the saintly and free probation of this law as soon
as he stands erect and becomes again a man. The first we would counsel
to supplement from the superfluity of the second that which he himself
needs, and to give 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 they
are manifest, they do not exclude each other. They can be met with in
the same person, and even in the same state of that person. Further, it
is grace alone which guarantees and accredits dignity, and dignity alone
can give value to grace.

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

In like manner grace by itself shows a certain susceptibility of the
feeling faculty, and a certain harmony of sentiment. But may this not be
a certain relaxation of the mind which allows so much liberty to
sensuous nature and which opens the heart to all impressions? Is it
indeed the moral which has established this harmony between the
sentiments? It is dignity alone which can in its turn guarantee this to
us in joining itself to grace; I mean it is dignity alone which attests
in the subject an independent force, and at the moment when the will
represses the license of involuntary movement, it is by dignity that it
makes known that the _liberty_ of voluntary movements is a simple
concession on its part.

If grace and dignity, still supported, the one by architectonic beauty
and the other by force, were united in the same person, the expression
of human nature would be accomplished in him: such a person would be
justified in the spiritual world and set at liberty in the sensuous
world. Here the two domains touch so closely that their units are
indistinguishable. The smile that plays on the lips; this sweetly
animated look; that serenity spread over the brow—it is the liberty of
the reason which gleams forth in a softened light. This noble majesty
impressed on the face is the sublime adieu of the necessity of nature,
which disappears before the mind. Such is the ideal of human beauty
according to which the antique conceptions were formed, and we see it in
the divine forms of a Niobe, of the Apollo Belvedere, in the winged
Genius of the Borghese, and in the Muse of the Barberini palace. There,
where grace and dignity are united, we experience by turns attraction
and repulsion; attraction as spiritual creatures, and repulsion as being
sensuous creatures.

Dignity offers to us an example of subordination of sensuous nature to
moral nature—an example which we are bound to imitate, but which at the
same time goes beyond the measure of our sensuous faculty. This
opposition between the instincts of nature and the exigencies of the
moral law, exigencies, however, that we recognize as legitimate, brings
our feelings into play and awakens a sentiment that we name _esteem_,
which is inseparable from dignity.

With grace, on the contrary, as with beauty in general, reason finds its
demands satisfied in the world of sense, and sees with surprise one of
its own ideas presented to it, realized in the world of phenomena. This
unexpected encounter between the accident of nature and the necessity of
reason awakens in us a sentiment of joyous approval (contentment) which
calms the senses, but which animates and occupies the mind, and it
results necessarily that we are attracted by a charm towards the
sensuous object. It is this attraction which we call kindliness, or
love—a sentiment inseparable from grace and beauty.

The attraction—I mean the attraction (_stimulus_) not of love but of
voluptuousness—proposes to the senses a sensuous object that promises to
these the satisfaction of a want, that is to say a pleasure; the senses
are consequently solicited towards this sensuous object, and from that
springs desire, a sentiment which increases and excites the sensuous
nature, but which, on the contrary, relaxes the spiritual nature.

We can say of _esteem_ that it inclines towards its object; of _love_,
that it approaches with inclination towards its object; of _desire_,
that it precipitates 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 subject are 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
breast of our divine nature. Here, it is not the weak and base part of
our nature that measures itself with the greater and more noble part; it
is not the sensibility, a prey to vertigo, which gazes up at the law of
reason. It is _absolute greatness_ which is reflected in beauty and in
grace, and satisfied in morality; it becomes the legislator even, the
god in us who plays with his own image in the world of sense. Thus love
consoles and dilates the heart, whilst esteem strains it; because here
there is nothing which could limit the heart and compress its impulses,
there being nothing higher than absolute greatness; and sensibility,
from which alone hinderance could come, is reconciled, in the breast of
beauty and 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 is the reason that the wicked love nothing, though they are obliged
to esteem many things. This is why the well-disposed man can hardly
esteem without 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 the
world of sense the legislator within himself; and sees an enemy in all
that bears the stamp of greatness, of beauty, and of perfection: the
man, on the contrary, in whom a noble soul breathes, knows no greater
pleasure than to meet out of himself the image or realization of the
divine that is in him; and to embrace in the world of sense a symbol of
the immortal friend he loves. Love is at the same time the most generous
and the most egotistical thing in nature; the most generous, because it
receives nothing 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 which he enjoys in it, is himself and never anything else.

But precisely because he who loves receives from the beloved object
nothing but that which he has himself given, it often happens that he
gives more than he has received.

The exterior senses believe to have discovered in the object that which
the internal sense alone contemplates in it, in the end believing what
is desired with ardor, and the riches belonging to the one who loves
hide the poverty of the object loved. This is the reason why love is
subject to illusion, whilst esteem and desire are never deceived. As
long as the super-excitement of the internal senses overcomes the
internal senses, the soul remains under the charm of this Platonic love,
which gives place only in duration to the delights enjoyed by the
immortals. But as soon as internal sense ceases to share its visions
with the exterior sense, these take possession of their rights and
imperiously demand that which is its due—matter. It is the terrestrial
Venus who profits by the fire kindled by the celestial Venus, and it is
not rare to find the physical instinct, so long sacrificed, revenge
itself by a rule all the more absolute. As external sense is never a
dupe to illusion, it makes this advantage felt with a brutal insolence
over its noble rival; and it possesses audacity to the point of
asserting that it has settled an account that the spiritual nature had
left under sufferance.

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

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

There is a kind of grace which animates, and another which calms the
heart. One touches nearly the sphere of the senses, and the pleasure
which is found in these, if not restrained by dignity, would easily
degenerate into concupiscence; we may use the word attraction [_Reiz_]
to designate this grace. A man with whom the feelings have little
elasticity does not find in himself the necessary force to awaken his
affections: he needs to borrow it from without and to seek from
impressions which easily exercise the phantasy, by rapid transition from
sentiment to action, in order to establish in himself the elasticity he
had lost. It is the advantage that he will find in the society of an
attractive person, who by conversation and look would stir his
imagination and agitate this stagnant water.

The calming grace approaches more nearly to dignity, inasmuch as it
manifests itself through the moderation which it imposes upon the
impetuosity of the movements. It is to this the man addresses himself
whose imagination is over-excited; it is in this peaceful atmosphere
that the heart seeks repose after the violence of the storm. It is to
this that I reserve especially the appellation of grace. Attraction is
not incompatible with laughter, jest, or the sting of raillery; grace
agrees only with sympathy and love.

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

The utmost degree of grace is _ravishing charm_. Dignity, in its highest
form, is called _majesty_. In the ravishing we love our Ego, and we feel
our being fused with the object. Liberty in its plenitude and in its
highest enjoyment tends to the complete destruction of liberty, and the
excitement of the mind to the delirium of the voluptuousness of the
senses. 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
the ground. We forget all that is without ourselves, and we feel but the
heavy burden of our own existence.

Majesty belongs to what is holy. A man capable of giving us an idea of
holiness possesses majesty, and if we do not go so far as to kneel, our
mind at least prostrates itself before him. But the mind recoils at once
upon the slightest trace of _human imperfection_ which he discovers in
the object of his adoration, because that which is only comparatively
great cannot 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. A
man who can pronounce upon me a sentence of death has neither more nor
less of majesty for me the moment I am what I ought to be. His advantage
over me ceases as soon as I insist on it. But he who offers to me in his
person the image of pure will, before him I would prostrate myself, if
it is possible, for all eternity.

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

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

There where true grace simply used ease and _prévenance_, affected grace
becomes effeminacy. One is content to use discreetly the voluntary
movements, and not thwart unnecessarily the liberty of nature; the other
has not even the heart to use properly the organs of will, and, not to
fall into hardness and heaviness, it prefers to _sacrifice_ something of
the aim of movement, or else it seeks to reach it by cross ways and
indirect means. An awkward and stiff dancer expends as much force as if
he had to work a windmill; with his feet and arms he describes lines as
angular as if he were tracing figures with geometrical precision; the
affected dancer, on the other hand, glides with an excess of delicacy,
as if he feared to injure himself on coming in contact with the ground,
and his feet and hands describe only lines in sinuous curves. The other
sex, which is essentially in possession of true grace, is also that one
which is more frequently culpable of affected grace, but this
affectation is never more distasteful than when used as a bait to
desire. The smile of true grace thus gives place to the most repulsive
grimace; the fine play of look, so ravishing when it displays a true
sentiment, is only contortion; the melodious inflections of the voice,
an irresistible attraction from candid lips, are only a vain cadence, a
tremulousness which savors of study: in a word, all the harmonious
charms of woman become only deception, an artifice of the toilet.

If we have many occasions to observe the affected grace in the theatre
and in the ball-room, there is also often occasion of studying the
affected dignity in the cabinet of ministers and in the study-rooms of
men of science (notably at universities). True dignity is content to
prevent the domination of the affections, to keep the instinct within
just limits, but there only where it pretends to be master in the
involuntary movements; false dignity regulates with an iron sceptre even
the voluntary movements, it oppresses the moral movements, which were
sacred to true dignity as well as the sensual movements, and destroys
all the mimic play of the features by which the soul gleams forth upon
the face. It arms itself not only against rebel nature, but against
submissive nature, and ridiculously seeks its greatness in subjecting
nature to its yoke, or, if this does not succeed, in hiding it. As if it
had vowed hatred to all that is called nature, it swathes the body in
long, heavy-plaited garments, which hide the human structure; it
paralyzes the limbs in surcharging them with vain ornaments, and goes
even the length of cutting the hair to replace this gift of nature by an
artificial production. True dignity does not blush for nature, but only
for brute nature; it always has an open and frank air; feeling gleams in
its look; calm and serenity of mind is legible upon the brow in eloquent
traits. False gravity, on the contrary, places its dignity in the lines
of its visage; it is close, mysterious, and guards its features with the
care of an actor; all the muscles of its face are tormented, all natural
and true expression disappears, and the entire man is like a sealed
letter.

But false dignity is not always wrong to keep the mimic play of its
features under sharp discipline, because it might betray more than would
be desired, a precaution true dignity has not to consider. True dignity
wishes only to rule, not to conceal nature; in false dignity, on the
contrary, nature rules the more powerfully within because it is
controlled outwardly.[9]


       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 therefore
highly expedient to examine very closely the bounds that have been
assigned to the use of beautiful forms. These limits are embodied in the
very nature of the beautiful, and we have only to call to mind how taste
expresses its influence to be able to determine _how far_ it ought to
extend it.

The following are the principal operations of taste; to bring the
sensuous and spiritual powers of man into harmony, and to unite them in
a close alliance. Consequently, whenever such an intimate alliance
between reason and the senses is suitable and legitimate, taste may be
allowed influence. But taste reaches the bounds which it is not
permitted to pass without defeating its end or removing us from our
duty, in all cases where the bond between mind and matter is given up
for a time, where we must act for the time as purely creatures of
reason, whether it be to attain 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. In
both cases a certain readiness is required to exclude the senses from
that which the spirit does, because feelings must be abstracted from
knowledge, and passion or desire from every moral act of the will.

When we _know_, we take up an active attitude, and our attention is
directed to an _object_, to a relation between different
representations. When we _feel_, we have a _passive_ attitude, and our
attention—if we may call that so, which is no conscious operation of the
mind—is only directed to our own _condition_, as far as it is modified
by the impression received. Now, as we only feel and do not know the
beautiful, we do not distinguish any relation between it and other
objects, we do not refer its representation to other representations,
but to ourselves who have experienced the impression. We learn or
experience nothing in the beautiful object, but we perceive a change
occasioned by it in our own condition, of which the impression produced
is the expression. Accordingly our knowledge is not enlarged by
judgments of taste, and no knowledge, not even that of beauty, is
obtained by the feeling of beauty. Therefore, when knowledge is the
object, taste can give us no help, at least directly and immediately; on
the contrary, knowledge is shut out as long as we are occupied with
beauty.

But it may be objected, What is the use then of a graceful embodiment of
conceptions, if the object of the discussion or treatise, which is
simply and solely to produce knowledge, is rather hindered than
benefited by ornament? To convince the understanding this gracefulness
of clothing can certainly avail as little as the tasteful arrangement of
a banquet can satisfy the appetite of the guests, or the outward
elegance of a person can give a clue to his intrinsic worth. But just as
the appetite is excited by the beautiful arrangement of the table, and
attention is directed to the elegant person in question, by the
attractiveness of the exterior, so also we are placed in a favorable
attitude to receive truth by the charming representation given of it; we
are led to open our souls to its reception, and the obstacles are
removed from our minds which would have otherwise opposed the difficult
pursuit of a long and strict concatenation of thought. It is never the
contents, the substance, that gains by the beauty of form; nor is it the
understanding that is helped by taste in the act of knowing. The
substance, the contents, must commend themselves to the understanding
directly, of themselves; whilst the beautiful form speaks to the
imagination, and flatters it with an appearance of freedom.

But even further limitations are necessary in this innocent subserviency
to the senses, which is only allowed in the _form_, without changing
anything in the substance. Great moderation must be always used, and
sometimes the end in view may be completely defeated according to the
kind of knowledge and degree of conviction aimed at in imparting our
views to others. There is a _scientific_ knowledge, which is based on
clear conceptions and known principles; and a _popular_ knowledge, which
is founded on feelings more or less developed. What may be very useful
to the 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
contents or subject; the test of the truth must at the same time be
contained in the manner of its presentation. But this can mean nothing
else than that not only the contents, but also the mode of stating them,
must be according to the laws of thought. They must be connected in the
presentation with the same strict logical sequence with which they are
chained together in the reasonings of the understanding; the stability
of the representation must guarantee that of the ideas. But the strict
necessity with which the understanding links together reasonings and
conclusions, is quite antagonistic to the freedom granted to imagination
in matters of knowledge. By its very nature, the imagination strives
after perceptions, that is, after complete and completely determinate
representations, and is indefatigably active to represent the universal
in one single case, to limit it in time and space, to make of every
conception an individual, and to give a body to abstractions. Moreover,
the imagination likes freedom in its combinations, and admits no other
law in them than the accidental connection with time and space; for this
is the only connection that remains to our representations, if we
separate from them in thought all that is conception, all that binds
them internally and substantially together. The understanding, following
a diametrically opposite course, only occupies itself with part
representations or conceptions, and its effort is directed to
distinguish features in the living unity of a perception. The
understanding proceeds on the same principles in putting together and
taking to pieces, but it can only combine things by part
representations, just as it can _separate_ them; for it only unites,
_according to their inner relations_, things that first disclosed
themselves in their separation.

The understanding observes a strict necessity and conformity with laws
in its combinations, and it is only the consistent connection of ideas
that satisfies it. But this connection is destroyed as often as the
imagination insinuates _entire_ representations (individual cases) in
this chain of abstractions, and mixes up the accidents of time with the
strict necessity of a chain of circumstances. Accordingly, in every case
where it is essential to carry out a rigidly accurate sequence of
reasoning, imagination must forego its capricious character; and its
endeavor to obtain all possible sensuousness in conceptions, and all
freedom in their combination, must be made subordinate and sacrificed to
the necessity of the understanding. From this it follows that the
exposition must be so fashioned as to overthrow this effort of the
imagination by the exclusion of all that is individual and sensuous. The
poetic impulse of imagination must be curbed by distinctness of
expression, and its capricious tendency to combine must be limited by a
strictly legitimate course of procedure. I grant that it will not bend
to this yoke without resistance; but in this matter reliance is properly
placed on a certain amount of self-denial, and on an earnest
determination of the hearer or reader not to be deterred by the
difficulties accompanying the form, for the sake of the subject-matter.
But in all cases where no sufficient dependence can be placed on this
self-denial, or where the interest felt in the subject-matter is
insufficient to inspire courage for such an amount of exertion, it is
necessary to resign the idea of imparting strictly scientific knowledge;
and to gain instead greater latitude in the form of its presentation. In
such a case it is expedient to abandon the form of science, which
exercises too great violence over the imagination, and can only be made
acceptable through the importance of the object in view. Instead of
this, it is proper to choose the form of beauty, which, independent of
the contents or subject, recommends itself by its very appearance. As
the matter cannot excuse the form in this case, the form must trespass
on the matter.

Popular instruction is compatible with this freedom. By the term popular
speakers or popular writers I imply all those who do not direct their
remarks exclusively to the learned. Now, as these persons do not address
any carefully trained body of hearers or readers, but take them as they
find them, they must only assume the existence of the general conditions
of thought, only the universal impulses that call attention, but no
special _gift of thinking_, no acquaintance with distinct conceptions,
nor any interest in special subjects. These lecturers and authors must
not be too particular as to whether their audience or readers assign by
their imagination a proper meaning to their abstractions, or whether
they will furnish a proper subject-matter for the universal conceptions
to which the scientific discourse is limited. In order to pursue a
safer, easier course, these persons will present along with their ideas
the perceptions and separate cases to which they relate, and they leave
it to the understanding of the reader to form a proper conception
impromptu. Accordingly, the faculty of imagination is much more mixed up
with a popular discourse, but only to _reproduce_, to renew previously
received representations, and not to _produce_, to express its own
self-creating power. Those special cases or perceptions are much too
certainly calculated for the object on hand, and much too closely
applied to the use that is to be made of them, to allow the imagination
ever to forget that it only acts in the _service of the understanding_.
It is true that a discourse of this popular kind holds somewhat closer
to life and the world of sense, but it does not become lost in it. The
mode of presenting the subject is still _didactic_; for in order to be
beautiful it is 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 little prominence that the imagination appears to act quite
capriciously in the matter, and to follow only the accident of time. The
presentation of a subject 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 part representation). Accordingly, sensuous presentation
is viewed in one aspect, _rich_, for in cases where only _one_ condition
is desired, a complete picture, an entirety of conditions, an individual
is offered. But viewed in another aspect it is _limited and poor_,
because it only confines to a single individual and a single case what
ought to be understood of a whole sphere. It therefore curtails the
understanding in the same proportion that it grants preponderance to the
imagination; for the completer a representation is in substance, the
smaller it is in compass.

It is the interest of the imagination to change objects according to its
caprice; the interest of the understanding is to unite its
representations with strict logical necessity.

To satisfy the imagination, a discourse must have a material part, a
_body_; and these are formed by the perceptions, from which the
understanding separates distinct features or conceptions. For though we
may attempt to obtain the highest pitch of abstraction, something
sensuous always lies at the ground of the thought. But imagination
strives to pass unfettered and lawless from one conception to another
conception, and seeks not to be bound by any other connection than that
of time. So when the perceptions that constitute the bodily part of a
discourse have no concatenation as things, when they appear rather to
stand apart as independent limbs and separate unities, when they betray
the utter disorder of a sportive imagination, obedient to itself alone,
then the clothing has æsthetic freedom and the wants of the fancy are
satisfied. A mode of presentation such as this might be styled an
_organic_ product, in which not only the whole lives, but also each part
has its individual life. A merely scientific presentation is a
_mechanical_ work, when the parts, lifeless in themselves, impart by
their connection an artificial life to the whole.

On the other hand, a discourse, in order to satisfy the understanding
and to produce knowledge, must have a spiritual part, it must have
_significance_, and it receives this through the conceptions, by means
of which those perceptions are referred to one another and united into a
whole. The problem of satisfying the understanding by conformity with
law, while the imagination is flattered by being set free from
restrictions, is solved thus: by obtaining the closest connection
between the conceptions forming the spiritual part of the discourse,
while the perceptions, corresponding to them and forming the sensuous
part of the discourse, appear to cohere merely through an arbitrary play
of the fancy.

If an inquiry be instituted into the magic influence of a beautiful
diction, it will always be found that it consists in this happy relation
between external freedom and internal necessity. The principal features
that contribute to this freedom of the imagination are the
_individualizing_ of objects and the figurative or _inexact expression_
of a thing; the former employed to give force to its sensuousness, the
latter to produce it where it does not exist. When we express a species
or kind by an individual, and portray a conception in a single case, we
remove from fancy the chains which the understanding has placed upon her
and give her the power to act as a creator. Always grasping at
completely determinate images, the imagination obtains and exercises the
right to complete according to her wish the image afforded to her, to
animate it, to fashion it, to follow it in all the associations and
transformations of which it is capable. She may forget for a moment her
subordinate position, and act as an independent power, only
self-directing, because the strictness of the inner concatenation has
sufficiently guarded against her breaking loose from the control of the
understanding. An inexact or figurative expression adds to the liberty,
by associating ideas which in their nature differ essentially from one
another, but which unite in subordination to the higher idea. The
imagination adheres to the concrete object, the understanding to this
higher idea, and thus the former finds movement and variety even where
the other verifies a most perfect continuity. The conceptions are
developed according to the _law of necessity_, but they pass before the
imagination according to the _law of liberty_.

Thought remains the same; the medium that represents it is the only
thing that changes. It is thus that an eloquent writer knows how to
extract the most splendid order from the very centre of anarchy, and
that he succeeds in erecting a solid structure on a constantly moving
ground, on the 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 idea
with an equal faithfulness as regards the matter, and consequently that
all three help us to acquire knowledge, but that as regards the mode and
degree of this knowledge a very marked difference exists between them.
The writer who uses the language of the beautiful rather represents the
matter of which he treats as _possible_ and _desirable_ than indulges in
attempts to convince us of its reality, and still less of its necessity.
His thought does in fact only present itself as an arbitrary creation of
the imagination, which is never qualified, in itself, to guarantee the
reality of what it represents. No doubt the popular writer leads us to
believe that the matter _really_ is as he describes it, but does not
require anything more firm; for, though he may make the truth of a
proposition credible to our feelings, he does not make it absolutely
certain. Now, feeling may always teach us what _is_, but not what _must
be_. The philosophical writer raises this belief to a conviction, for he
proves by undeniable reasons that the matter is _necessarily_ so.

Starting from the principle that we have just established, it will not
be difficult to assign its proper part and sphere to each of the three
forms of diction. Generally it may be laid down as a rule that
preference ought to be given to the scientific style whenever the chief
consideration is not only the result, but also the proofs. But when the
result merely is of the most essential importance the advantage must be
given to popular elocution and fine language. But it may be asked in
_what 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 wish
to excite in his mind.

The purely scientific statement may incline either to popular discourse
or to philosophic language, and according to this bias it places us more
or less in possession of some branch of knowledge. All that popular
elocution does is to lend us this knowledge for a momentary pleasure or
enjoyment. The first, if I may be allowed the comparison, gives us a
tree with its roots, though with the condition that we wait patiently
for it to blossom and bear fruit. The other, or fine diction, is
satisfied with gathering its flowers and fruits, but the tree that bore
them does not become our property, and when once the flowers are faded
and the fruit is consumed our riches depart. It would therefore be
equally unreasonable to give only the flower and fruit to a man who
wishes the whole tree to be transplanted into his garden, and to offer
the whole tree with its fruit in the germ to a man who only looks for
the ripe fruit. The application of the comparison is self-evident, and I
now only remark that a fine ornate style is as little suited to the
professor’s chair 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 and
entire property_ of the knowledge that he communicates to him. Now,
nothing belongs to us as our own but what has been communicated to the
understanding. The orator, on the other hand, has in view an immediate
end, and his voice must correspond with an immediate want of the public.
His interest is to make his knowledge _practically available_ as soon as
possible; and the surest way is to hand it over to the senses, and to
prepare it for the use of _sensation_. The professor, who only admits
hearers on certain conditions, and who is entitled to suppose in his
hearers the dispositions of mind in which a man ought to be to receive
the truth, has only in view in his lecture the _object_ of which he is
treating; while the orator, who cannot make any conditions with his
audience, and who needs above everything sympathy, to secure it on his
side, must regulate his action and treatment according to the _subjects_
on which he turns his discourse. The hearers of the professor have
already attended his lectures, and will attend them again; they only
want fragments that will form a whole after having been linked to the
preceding lectures. The audience of the orator is continually renewed;
it comes unprepared, and perhaps will not return; accordingly in every
address the orator must _finish_ what he wishes to do; each of his
harangues must form a whole and contain expressly and entirely his
conclusion.

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

For the same reason I consider that it is hurtful to choose for the
instruction of youth books in which scientific matters are clothed in an
attractive style. I do not speak here of those in which the substance is
_sacrificed_ to the form, but of certain writings really excellent,
which are sufficiently well digested to stand the strictest examination,
but which do not offer their proofs by their very form. No doubt books
of this kind attain their end, they are read; but this is always at the
cost of a more important end, the end for which they ought to be read.
In this sort of reading the understanding is never exercised save in as
far as it agrees with the fancy; it does not learn to distinguish the
form from the substance, nor to act alone as pure understanding. And yet
the exercise of the pure understanding is in itself an essential and
capital point in the instruction of youth; and very often the exercise
itself of thought 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 to announce it as a diversion. It is preferable, on the
contrary, to secure attention and effort by the very form that is
employed, and to use a kind of violence to draw minds over from the
passive to an active state. The professor ought never to hide from his
pupil the exact regularity of the method; he ought rather to fix his
attention on it, and if possible to make him desire this strictness. The
student ought to learn to pursue an end, 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 reward of exertion. In a scientific
lecture the senses are altogether set aside; in an æsthetic address it
is wished to interest them. What is the result? A writing or
conversation of the æsthetic class is devoured with interest; but
questions are put as to its conclusions; the hearer is scarcely able to
give an answer. And this is quite natural, as here the conceptions reach
the mind only in entire masses, and the understanding only knows what it
analyzes. The mind during a lecture of this kind is more passive than
active, and the intellect only possesses what it has produced by its own
activity.

However, all this applies only to the vulgarly beautiful, and to a
vulgar fashion of perceiving beauty. True beauty reposes on the
strictest limitation, on the most exact definition, on the highest and
most intimate necessity. Only this limitation ought rather to let itself
be sought for than be imposed violently. It requires the most perfect
conformity to law, but this must appear quite natural. A product that
unites these conditions will fully satisfy the understanding as soon as
study is made of it. But exactly because this result is really
beautiful, its conformity is not expressed; it does not take the
understanding apart to address it exclusively; it is a harmonious unity
which addresses the entire man—all his faculties together; it is nature
speaking to nature.

A vulgar criticism may perhaps find it empty, paltry, and too little
determined. He who has no other knowledge than that of distinguishing,
and no other sense than that for the particular, is actually pained by
what is precisely the triumph of art, this harmonious unity where the
parts are blended in a pure entirety. No doubt it is necessary, in a
philosophical discourse, that the understanding, as a faculty of
analysis, find what will satisfy it; it must obtain single concrete
results; this is the essential that must not by any means be lost sight
of. But if the writer, while giving all possible precision to the
substance of his conceptions, has taken the necessary measures to enable
the understanding, as soon as it will take the trouble, to find of
necessity these truths, I do not see that he is a less good writer
because he has approached more to the highest perfection. Nature always
acts as a harmonious unity, and when she loses this in her efforts after
abstraction, nothing appears more urgent to her than to re-establish it,
and the writer we are speaking of is not less commendable if he obeys
nature by attaching to the understanding what had been separated by
abstraction, and when, by appealing at the same time to the sensuous and
to the spiritual faculties, he addresses altogether the entire man. No
doubt the vulgar critic will give very scant thanks to this writer for
having given him a double task. For vulgar criticism has not the feeling
for this harmony, it only runs after details, and even in the Basilica
of St. Peter would exclusively attend to the pillars on which the
ethereal edifice reposes. The fact is that this critic must begin by
_translating_ it to understand it—in the same way that the pure
understanding, left to itself, if it meets beauty and harmony, either in
nature or in art, must begin by transferring them into its own
language—and by decomposing it, by doing in fact what the pupil does who
spells before reading. But it is not from the narrow mind of his readers
that the writer who express his conceptions in the language of the
beautiful receives his laws. The ideal which he carries in himself is
the goal at which he aims without troubling himself as to who follows
and who remains behind. Many will stay behind; for if it be a rare thing
to find readers simply capable of thinking, it is infinitely more rare
to meet any who can think with imagination. Thus our writer, by the
force of circumstances, will fall out, on the one hand, with those who
have only intuitive ideas and feelings, 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 humanity very imperfectly—that normal humanity which
requires the absolute harmony of these two operations—their
contradictory objections have no weight, and if their judgments prove
anything, it is rather that the author has succeeded in attaining his
end. The abstract thinker finds that the substance of the work is
solidly thought; the reader of intuitive ideas finds his style lively
and animated; both consequently find and approve in him what they are
able to understand, and that alone is wanting which exceeds their
capacity.

But precisely for this very reason a writer of this class is not adapted
to make known to an ignorant reader the object of what he treats, or, in
the most proper sense of the word, to _teach_. Happily also, he is not
required for that, for means will not be wanting for the teaching of
scholars. The professor in the strictest acceptation is obliged to bind
himself to the needs of his scholars; the first thing he has to
presuppose is the ignorance of those who listen to him; the other, on
the other hand, demands a certain maturity and culture in his reader or
audience. Nor is his office confined to impart to them dead ideas; he
grasps the living object with a living energy, and seizes at once on the
entire man—his understanding, his heart, and his will.

We have found that it is dangerous for the soundness of knowledge to
give free 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 in the student is a premature thing. He must, on the contrary,
be encouraged to apply the knowledge that he has appropriated in the
school to the field of living development. When once the first point has
been observed, and the knowledge acquired, the other point, the exercise
of taste, can only have useful results. It is certain that it is
necessary to be quite the master of a truth to abandon without danger
the form in which it has been found; a great strength of understanding
is required not to lose sight of your object while giving free play to
the imagination. He who transmits his knowledge under a scholastic form
persuades me, I admit, that he has grasped these truths properly and
that he knows how to support them. But he who besides this is in a
condition to communicate them to me in a beautiful form not only proves
that he is adapted to promulgate them, he shows moreover that he has
assimilated them and that he is able to make their image pass into his
productions and into his acts. There is for the results of thought only
one way by which they can penetrate into the will and pass into life;
that is, by spontaneous imagination, only what in _ourselves_ was
already a living _act_ can become so _out of us_; and the same thing
happens with the creations of the mind as with those of organic nature,
that the fruit issues only from the flower. If we consider how many
truths were living and active as interior intuitions before philosophy
showed their existence, and how many truths most firmly secured by
proofs often remain inactive on the will and the feelings, it will be
seen how important it is for practical life to follow in this the
indications of nature, and when we have acquired a knowledge
scientifically to bring it back again to the state of a living
intuition. It is the only way to enable those whose nature has forbidden
them to follow the artificial path of science to share in the treasures
of wisdom. The beautiful renders us here in relation with knowledge
what, in morals, it does in relation with conduct; it places men in
harmony on results, and on the substance of things, who would never have
agreed on the form and principles.

The other sex, by its very nature and fair destiny, cannot and ought not
to rival ours in scientific knowledge; but it can share _truth_ with us
by the reproduction of things. Man agrees to have his taste offended,
provided compensation be given to his understanding by the increased
value of its possessions. But women do not forgive negligence in form,
whatever be the nature of the conception; and the inner structure of all
their 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
entitled to its name because it is ruled by beauty, and makes all
objects presented to it appear before the tribunal of feeling, and all
that does not speak to feeling or belies it is lost in the opinion of
women. No doubt through this medium nothing can be made to reach the
mind of woman save the matter of truth, and not truth itself, which is
inseparable from its proofs. But happily woman only needs the matter of
truth to reach her highest perfection, and the few exceptions hitherto
seen are not of a nature to make us wish that the exception should
become the rule. As, therefore, nature has not only dispensed but cut
off the other sex from this task, man must give a double attention to it
if he wishes to vie with woman and be equal to her in what is of great
interest in human life. Consequently he will try to transfer all that he
can from the field of abstraction, where he is master, to that of
imagination, of feeling, where woman is at once a model and a judge. The
mind of woman being a ground that does not admit of durable cultivation,
he will try to make his own ground yield as many flowers and as much
fruit as possible, so as to renew as often as possible the quick-fading
produce on the other ground, and to keep up a sort of artificial harvest
where natural harvests could not ripen. Taste corrects or hides the
natural differences of the two sexes. It nourishes and adorns the mind
of woman with the productions of that of man, and allows the fair sex to
feel without being previously fatigued by thought, and to enjoy
pleasures without having bought them with labors. Thus, save the
restrictions I have named, it is to the taste that is intrusted the care
of form in every statement by which knowledge is communicated, but under
the express condition that it will not encroach on the substance of
things. Taste must never forget that it carries out an order emanating
elsewhere, and that it is not its own affairs it is treating of. All its
parts must be limited to place our minds in a condition favorable to
knowledge; over all that concerns knowledge itself it has no right to
any authority. For it exceeds its mission, it betrays it, it disfigures
the object that it ought faithfully to transmit, it lays claim to
authority out of its proper province; if it tries to carry out there,
too, _its own_ law, which is nothing but that of pleasing the
imagination and making itself agreeable to the intuitive faculties; if
it applies this law not only to the _operation_, but also to the
_matter_ itself; if it follows this rule not only to arrange the
materials, but also to choose them. When this is the case the first
consideration is not the _things_ themselves, but the best mode of
presenting them so as to recommend them to the senses. The logical
sequence of conceptions of which only the strictness should have been
hidden from us is rejected as a disagreeable impediment. Perfection is
sacrificed to ornament, the truth of the parts to the beauty of the
whole, the inmost nature of things to the exterior impression. Now,
directly the substance is subordinated to form, properly speaking it
ceases to exist; the statement is empty, and instead of having extended
our knowledge we have only indulged in an amusing game.

The writers who have more wit than understanding and more taste than
science, are too often guilty of this deception; and readers more
accustomed to feel than to think are only too inclined to forgive them.
In general it is unsafe to give to the æsthetical sense all its culture
before having exercised the understanding as the pure thinking faculty,
and before having enriched the head with conceptions; for as taste
always looks at the carrying out and not at the basis of things,
wherever it becomes the only arbiter, there is an end of the essential
difference between things. Men become indifferent to reality, and they
finish by giving value to form and appearance only.

Hence arises that superficial and frivolous _bel esprit_ that we often
see hold sway in social conditions and in circles where men pride
themselves, and not unreasonably, on the finest culture. It is a fatal
thing to introduce a young man into assemblies where the Graces hold
sway before the Muses have dismissed him and owned his majority.
Moreover, it can hardly be prevented that what completes the external
education of a young man 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 half possession. For the most splendid knowledge in
a head incapable of giving them form is like a treasure buried in the
earth. But form without substance is a shadow of riches, and all
possible cleverness in expression is of no use to him who has nothing to
express.

Thus, to avoid the graces of education leading us in a wrong road, taste
must be confined to regulating the external form, while reason and
experience determine the substance and the essence of conceptions. If
the impression made on the senses is converted into a supreme
_criterion_, and if things are exclusively referred to sensation, man
will never cease to be in the service of matter; he will never clear a
way for his intelligence; in short, reason will lose in freedom in
proportion as it allows imagination to usurp undue influence.

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

I believe this to be the test to distinguish the mere _dilettante_ from
the artist of real genius. The seductive charm exercised by the sublime
and the beautiful, the fire which they kindle in the young imagination,
the apparent ease with which they place the senses under an illusion,
have often persuaded inexperienced minds to take in hand the palette or
the harp, and to transform into figures or to pour out in melody what
they felt living in their heart. Misty ideas circulate in their heads,
like a world in formation, and make them believe that they are inspired.
They take obscurity for depth, savage vehemence for strength, the
undetermined for the infinite, what has not senses for the
super-sensuous. And how they revel in these creations of their brain!
But the judgment of the connoisseur does not confirm this testimony of
an excited self-love. With his pitiless criticism he dissipates all the
prestige of the imagination and of its dreams, and carrying the torch
before these novices he leads them into the mysterious depths of science
and life, where, far from profane eyes, the source of all true beauty
flows ever towards him who is initiated. If now a true genius slumbers
in the young aspirant, no doubt his modesty will at first receive a
shock; but soon the consciousness of real talent will embolden him for
the trial. If nature has endowed him with gifts for plastic art, he will
study the structure of man with the scalpel of the anatomist; he will
descend _into the lowest depths_ to be true in _representing surfaces_,
and he will question the whole race in order to be just to the
individual. If he is born to be a poet, he examines humanity in his own
heart to understand the infinite variety of scenes in which it acts on
the vast theatre of the world. He subjects imagination and its exuberant
fruitfulness to the discipline of taste, and charges the understanding
to mark out in its cool wisdom the banks that should confine the raging
waters of inspiration. He knows full well that the great is only formed
of the little—from the imperceptible. He piles up, grain by grain, the
materials of the wonderful structure, which, suddenly disclosed to our
eyes, produces a startling effect and turns our head. But if nature has
only intended him for a _dilettante_, difficulties damp his impotent
zeal, and one of two things happens: either he abandons, if he is
modest, that to which he was diverted by a mistaken notion of his
vocation; or, if he has no modesty, he brings back the ideal to the
narrow limits of his faculties, for want of being able to enlarge his
faculties to the vast proportions of the ideal. Thus the true genius of
the artist will be always recognized by this sign—that when most
enthusiastic for the whole, he preserves a coolness, a patience defying
all obstacles, as regards details. Moreover, in order not to do any
injury to perfection, he would rather renounce the enjoyment given by
the completion. For the simple amateur, it is the difficulty of means
that disgusts him and turns him from his aim; his dreams would be to
have no more trouble in producing than he had in conception and
intuition.

I have spoken hitherto of the dangers to which we are exposed by an
exaggerated sensuousness and susceptibility to the beautiful in the
form, and from too extensive æsthetical requirements; and I have
considered these dangers in relation to the faculty of thinking and
knowing. What, then, will be the result when these pretensions of the
æsthetical taste bear on the _will_? It is one thing to be stopped in
your scientific progress by too great a love of the beautiful, another
to see this inclination become a cause of degeneracy in character
itself, and make us violate 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 really _pernicious_ and infallibly deprave the heart.
Yet this is the dangerous extreme to which too refined an æsthetic
culture brings us directly we abandon ourselves exclusively to the
feelings for the beautiful, and directly we raise taste to the part of
absolute lawgiver over our will.

The moral destination of man requires that the will should be completely
independent of all influence of sensuous instincts, and we know that
taste labors incessantly at making the link between reason and the
senses continually closer. Now this effort has certainly as its result
the ennobling of the appetites, and to make them more conformable with
the requirements of reason; but this very point may be a serious danger
for morality.

I proceed to explain my meaning. A very refined æsthetical education
accustoms the imagination to _direct itself according to laws, even in
its free exercise_, and leads the sensuous not to have any enjoyments
without the concurrence of reason; but it soon follows that reason, in
its turn, is required to be directed, even in the most _serious
operations of its legislative power, according to the interests of
imagination_, and to give no more orders to the will without the consent
of the sensuous instincts. The moral obligation of the will, which is,
however, an absolute and unconditional law, takes unperceived the
character of a simple contract, which only binds each of the contracting
parties when the other fulfils its engagement. The purely _accidental_
agreement of duty with inclination ends by being considered a
_necessary_ condition, and thus the principle of all morality is
quenched in its source.

How does the character become thus gradually depraved? The process may
be 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 a stronger appeal. Man is then terrible in his vengeance, because
he is terribly sensitive to insults. He robs, he kills, because his
desires are still too powerful for the feeble guidance of reason. He is
towards others like a wild beast, because the instinct of nature still
rules him after 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 worthy
objects taken from the moral order; when culture moderates the brutal
outbursts of the appetites and brings them back under the discipline of
the beautiful, it may happen that these same instincts, which were only
dangerous before by their _blind power_, coming to assume an air of
_dignity_ and a certain _assumed authority_, may become more dangerous
than before to the morality of the character; and that, under the guise
of innocence, nobleness, and purity, they may exercise over the will a
tyranny a hundred 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
is willing to take counsel from his spiritual and thinking nature for
the choice of the objects he ought to desire. Now, reason is very apt to
mistake a _spiritualized_ instinct for one of its _own_ instincts, and
at length to give up to it the guidance of the will, and this in
proportion as moral judgment and æsthetic judgment, the sense of the
good and the sense 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 the
same object and in a common desire, this _representation_ of the moral
sense by the æsthetic sense may not draw after it positively evil
consequences, though, if the matter be strictly considered, the morality
of particular actions does not gain by this agreement. But the
consequences will be quite different when sensuousness and reason have
each of them a different interest. If, for example, duty commands us to
perform an action that revolts our taste, or if taste feels itself drawn
towards an object which reason as a moral judge is obliged to condemn,
then, in fact, we suddenly encounter the necessity of distinguishing
between the requirements of the moral sense and those of the æsthetic
sense, which so long an agreement had almost confounded to such a degree
that they could not be distinguished. We must now determine their
reciprocal 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
the beautiful has made us forget this master. When we have so long
practised this rule of obeying at once the suggestions of taste, and
when we have found the result always satisfactory, taste ends by
assuming a kind of appearance of right. As taste has shown itself
_irreproachable_ in the vigilant watch it has kept over the will, we
necessarily come to grant a certain esteem to its decisions; and it is
precisely to this esteem that inclination, with captious logic, gives
weight against the duties of conscience.

Esteem is a feeling that can only be felt for _law_, and what
corresponds to it. Whatever is entitled to esteem lays claim to an
unconditional homage. The ennobled inclination which has succeeded in
captivating our esteem will, therefore, no longer be satisfied with
being subordinate to reason; it aspires to rank alongside it. It does
not wish to be taken for a faithless subject in revolt against his
sovereign; it wishes to be regarded as a queen; and, treating reason as
its peer, to dictate, like reason, laws to the conscience. Thus, if we
listen to her, she would weigh by right equally in the scale; and then
have we not good reason to fear that interest will decide?

Of all the inclinations that are decided from the feeling for the
beautiful and that are special to refined minds, none commends itself so
much to the moral sense as the ennobled instinct of _love_; none is so
fruitful in impressions which correspond to the true dignity of man. To
what an elevation does it raise human nature! and often what divine
sparks does it kindle in the common soul! It is a sacred fire that
consumes every egotistical inclination, and the very principles of
morality are scarcely a greater safeguard of the soul’s chastity than
love is for the nobility of the heart. How often it happens while the
moral principles are still struggling that love prevails in their favor,
and hastens by its irresistible power the resolutions that duty alone
would have vainly demanded from weak human nature! Who, then, would
distrust an affection that protects so powerfully what is most excellent
in human nature, and which fights so victoriously against the moral foe
of all morality, egotism?

But do not follow this guide till you have secured a better. Suppose a
loved object be met that is unhappy, and unhappy because of you, and
that it depends only on you to make it happy by sacrificing a few moral
scruples. You may be disposed to say, “Shall I let this loved being
suffer for the pleasure of keeping our conscience pure? Is this
resistance required by this generous, devoted affection, always ready to
forget itself for its object? I grant it is going against conscience to
have recourse to this immoral means to solace the being we love; but can
we be said to love if in presence of this being and of its sorrow we
continue to think of ourselves? Are we not more taken up with ourselves
than with it, since we prefer to see it unhappy rather than consent to
be so ourselves by the reproaches of our conscience?” These are the
sophisms that the passion of love sets against conscience (whose voice
thwarts its interests), making its utterances despicable as _suggestions
of selfishness_, and representing our moral dignity as _one of the
components of our happiness_ that we are free to alienate. Then, if the
morality of our character is not strongly backed by good principles, we
shall surrender, whatever may be the impetus of our exalted imagination,
to disgraceful acts; and we shall think that we gain a glorious victory
over our self-love, while we are only the despicable victims of this
instinct. A well-known French romance, “_Les Liaisons Dangereuses_,”
gives us a striking example of this delusion, by which love betrays a
soul otherwise pure and beautiful. The Presidente de Tourvel errs by
surprise, and seeks to calm her remorse by the idea that she has
sacrificed her virtue to her generosity.

Secondary and imperfect duties, as they are styled, are those that the
feeling for the beautiful takes most willingly under its patronage, and
which it allows to prevail on many occasions over perfect duties. As
they 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 gives
them lustre, they commend themselves far more to the æsthetic taste than
perfect or necessary duties, which oblige us strictly and
unconditionally. How many people allow themselves to be unjust that they
may be generous! How many fail in their duties to society that they may
do good to an individual, and reciprocally! How many people forgive a
lie sooner than a rudeness, a crime against humanity rather than an
insult to honor! How many debase their bodies to hasten the perfection
of their minds, and degrade their character to adorn their
understanding! How many do not scruple to commit a crime when they have
a laudable end in view, pursue an ideal of political happiness through
all the terrors of anarchy, tread under foot existing laws to make way
for better ones, and do not scruple to devote the present generation to
misery to secure at this cost the happiness of future generations! The
apparent unselfishness of certain virtues gives them a varnish of
purity, which makes them rash enough to break and run counter to the
moral law; and many people are the dupes of this strange illusion, to
rise higher than morality and to endeavor to be more reasonable than
reason.

The man of a refined taste is susceptible, in this respect, of a moral
corruption, from which the rude child of nature is preserved by his very
coarseness. In the latter, the opposite of the demands of sense and the
decrees of the moral law is so strongly marked and so manifest, and the
spiritual element has so small a share in his desires, that although the
appetites exercise a _despotic sway_ over him, they cannot wrest his
_esteem_ from him. Thus, when the savage, yielding to the superior
attraction of sense, gives way to the committal of an unjust action, he
may yield to temptation, but he will not hide from himself that he is
committing a _fault_, and he will do homage to reason even while he
violates its mandates. The child of civilization, on the contrary, the
man of refinement, will not admit that he commits a fault, and to soothe
his conscience he prefers to impose on it by a sophism. No doubt he
wishes to obey his appetite, but at the same time without falling in his
own esteem. How does he manage this? He begins by overthrowing the
superior authority that thwarts his inclination, and before
transgressing the law he calls in question the competence of the
lawgiver. Could it be expected that a corrupt will should so corrupt the
intelligence? The only dignity that an inclination can assume accrues to
it from its agreement with reason; yet we find that inclination,
independent as well as blind, aspires, at the very moment she enters
into contest with reason, to keep this dignity which she owes to reason
alone. Nay, inclination even aspires to use this dignity she owes to
reason against reason itself.

These are the dangers that threaten the morality of the character when
too intimate an association is attempted between sensuous instincts and
moral instincts, which can never perfectly agree in real life, but only
in the ideal. I admit that the sensuous risks nothing in this
association, because it possesses nothing except what it must give up
directly duty speaks and reason demands the sacrifice. But reason, as
the arbiter of the moral law, will run the more risk from this union if
it _receives as a gift_ from inclination what it might _enforce_; for,
under the 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 the sensuous finds it painful to grant it. It is,
therefore, infinitely safer 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 the school of adversity, and that a
continual prosperity becomes easily a rock of offence to virtue. I mean
here by prosperity the state of a man who, to enjoy the goods of life,
need not commit injustice, and who to conform to justice need not
renounce any of the goods of life. The man who enjoys a continual
prosperity never sees moral duty face to face, because his inclinations,
naturally regular and moderate, always _anticipate_ the mandate of
reason, and because no temptation to violate the law recalls to his mind
the idea of law. Entirely guided by the sense of the beautiful, which
represents reason in the world of sense, he will reach the tomb without
having known by experience the dignity of his destiny. On the other
hand, the unfortunate man, if he be at the same time a virtuous man,
enjoys the sublime privilege of being in _immediate_ intercourse with
the divine majesty of the moral law; and as his virtue is 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
all the interest is addressed only to the senses. There are, no doubt,
an infinite number of things vulgar in themselves from their material
and subject. But as the vulgarity of the material can always be ennobled
by the treatment, in respect of art the only question is that relating
to the _vulgarity_ in form. A vulgar mind will dishonor the most noble
matter by treating it in a common manner. A great and noble mind, on the
contrary, will ennoble even a common matter, and it will do so by
superadding to it something spiritual and discovering in it some aspect
in which this matter has greatness. Thus, for example, a vulgar
historian will relate to us the most insignificant actions of a hero
with a scrupulousness as great as that bestowed on his sublimest
exploit, and will dwell as lengthily on his pedigree, his costume, and
his household as on his projects and his enterprises. He will relate
those of his actions that have the most grandeur in such wise that no
one will perceive that character in them. On the contrary, a historian
of genius, himself endowed with nobleness of mind, will give even to the
private life and the least considerable actions of his hero an interest
and a value that will make them considerable. Thus, again, in the matter
of the plastic arts, the Dutch and Flemish painters have given proof of
a vulgar taste; the Italians, and still more the ancient Greeks, of a
grand and noble taste. The Greeks always went to the ideal; they
rejected every vulgar feature, and chose no common subject.

A portrait painter can represent his model in a _common_ manner or with
_grandeur;_ in a _common manner_ if he reproduce the merely _accidental_
details with the same care as the essential features, if he neglect the
great to carry out the minutiæ curiously. He does it grandly if he know
how to find out and place in relief what is most _interesting_, and
distinguish the accidental from the necessary; if he be satisfied with
indicating what is paltry, reserving all the finish of the execution for
what is great. And the only thing that is great is the expression of the
soul itself, manifesting itself by actions, gestures, or attitudes.

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

One degree below the common or the vulgar is the element of the base or
gross, which differs from the common in being not only something
_negative_, a simple lack of inspiration or nobleness, but something
_positive_, marking coarse feelings, bad morals, and contemptible
manners. Vulgarity only testifies that an advantage is wanting, whereof
the absence is a matter of regret; baseness indicates the want of a
quality which we are authorized to require in all. Thus, for example,
revenge, considered in itself, in _whatever place or way_ it manifests
itself, is something vulgar, because it is the proof of a lack of
generosity. But there is, moreover, a _base_ vengeance, when the man, to
satisfy it, employs means exposed to contempt. The base always implies
something gross, or reminds one of the mob, while the common can be
found in a well-born and well-bred man, who may think and act in a
common manner if he has only mediocre faculties. A man acts in a
_common_ manner when he is only taken up with his own interest, and it
is in this that he is in opposition with the really _noble_ man, who,
when necessary, knows how to forget himself to procure some enjoyment
for others. But the same man would act in a _base_ manner if he
consulted his interests at the cost of his honor, and if in such a case
he did not even take upon himself to respect the laws of decency. Thus
the common is only the contrary of the noble; the base is the contrary
both of the noble and the seemly. To give yourself up, unresisting, to
all your passions, to satisfy all your impulses, without being checked
even by the rules of propriety, still less by those of morality, is to
conduct yourself basely, and to betray baseness of the soul.

The artist also may fall into a low style, not only by choosing ignoble
subjects, offensive to decency and good taste, but moreover by treating
them in a _base manner_. It is to treat a subject in a _base manner_ if
those sides are made prominent which propriety directs us to conceal, or
if it is expressed in a manner that incidentally awakens low ideas. The
lives 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 for
representation.

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

No doubt there are cases where art itself may be allowed to produce base
images: for example, when the aim is to provoke laughter. A man of
polished manners may also sometimes, and without betraying a corrupt
taste, be amused by certain features when nature expresses herself
crudely but with truth, and he may enjoy the contrast between the
manners of polished society and those of the lower orders. A man of
position appearing 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 the mouth of the people. Of this kind are many of the scenes
of Aristophanes, who unhappily sometimes exceeds this limit, and becomes
absolutely condemnable. This is, moreover, the source of the pleasure we
take in parodies, when the feelings, the language, and the mode of
action of the common people are fictitiously lent to the same personages
whom the poet has treated with all possible dignity and decency. As soon
as the poet means only to jest, and seeks only to amuse, we can overlook
traits of a low kind, provided he never stirs up indignation or disgust.

He stirs up indignation when he places baseness where it is quite
unpardonable, that is in the case of men who are expected to show fine
moral sense. In attributing baseness to them he will either _outrage_
truth, for we prefer to think him a liar than to believe that
well-trained men can act in a base manner; or his personages will offend
our moral sense, and, what is worse, excite our imagination. I do not
mean by this to condemn _farces_; a farce implies between the poet and
the spectator 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; he has a kind of privilege to tell us untruths. Here, in fact,
all the comic consists exactly in its contrast with the truth, and so it
cannot possibly be true.

This is not all: even in the serious and the tragic there are certain
places where the low element can be brought into play. But in this case
the affair must pass into the _terrible_, and the momentary violation of
our good taste must be masked by a strong impression, which brings our
passion into play. In other words, the low impression must be absorbed
by a superior tragic impression. _Theft_, for example, is a thing
absolutely _base_, and whatever arguments our heart may suggest to
excuse the thief, whatever the pressure of circumstances that led him to
the theft, it is always an indelible brand stamped upon him, and,
æsthetically speaking, he will always remain a base object. On this
point taste is even less forgiving than morality, and its tribunal is
more severe; because an æsthetical object is responsible even for the
accessory ideas that are awakened in us by such an object, while moral
judgment eliminates all that is merely accidental. According to this
view a man who robs would always be an object to be rejected by the poet
who wishes to present serious pictures. But suppose this man is at the
same time a murderer, he is even more to be condemned than before by the
_moral_ law. But in the æsthetic judgment he is raised one degree higher
and made better adapted to figure in a work of art. Continuing to judge
him from the æsthetic point of view, it may be added that he who abases
himself by a _vile_ action can to a certain extent be raised by a
_crime_, and can be thus reinstated in our _æsthetic_ estimation. This
contradiction between the moral judgment and the æsthetical judgment is
a fact entitled to attention and consideration. It may be explained in
different ways. First, I have already said that, as the æsthetic
judgment depends on the imagination, all the accessory ideas awakened in
us by an object and naturally associated with it, must themselves
influence this judgment. Now, if these accessory ideas are base, they
infallibly stamp this character on the principal object.

In the second place, what we look for in the æsthetic judgment is
_strength;_ whilst in a judgment pronounced in the name of the moral
sense we consider _lawfulness_. The lack of strength is something
contemptible, and every action from which it may be inferred that the
agent lacks strength is, by that very fact, a contemptible action. Every
cowardly and underhand action is repugnant to us, because it is a proof
of impotence; and, on the contrary, a devilish wickedness can,
æsthetically speaking, flatter our taste, as soon as it marks strength.
Now, a theft testifies to a vile and grovelling mind: a murder has at
least on its side the appearance of strength; the interest we take in it
æsthetically is in proportion to the strength that is manifested in it.

A third reason is, because in presence of a deep and horrible crime we
no longer think of the _quality_ but the awful consequences of the
action. The stronger emotion covers and stifles the weaker one. We do
not look back into the mind of the agent: we look onward into his
destiny, we think of the effects of his action. Now, directly we begin
to _tremble_ all the delicacies of taste are reduced to silence. The
principal impression 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,”[10] far from displeasing
on the stage, is a real tragic effect. The poet with great skill has
managed the circumstances in such wise that we are carried away; we are
left almost breathless. The frightful misery of the family, and
especially the grief of the father, are objects that attract our
attention, turn it aside, 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 the stamp of infamy with which the theft is
marked. In a word, the base element disappears in the _terrible_. It is
singular that this theft, really accomplished by young Ruhberg, inspires
us with less repugnance than, in another piece, the mere suspicion of a
theft, a suspicion which is actually without foundation. In the latter
case it is a young officer who is accused without grounds of having
abstracted a silver spoon, which is recovered later on. Thus the base
element is reduced in this case to a purely imaginary thing, a mere
suspicion, and this suffices nevertheless to do an irreparable injury,
in our æsthetical appreciation, to the hero of the piece, in spite of
his innocence. This is because a man who is supposed capable of a base
action did not apparently enjoy a very solid reputation for morality,
for the laws of propriety require that a man should be held to be a man
of honor as long as he does not _show_ the opposite. If therefore
anything contemptible is imputed to him, it seems that by some part of
his past conduct he has given rise to a suspicion of this kind, and this
does him injury, though all the odious and the base in an undeserved
suspicion are on the side of him who accuses. A point that does still
greater injury to the hero of the piece of which I am speaking is the
fact that he is an _officer_, and the _lover_ of a lady of condition
brought up in a manner suitable to her rank. With these two titles, that
of thief makes quite a revolting contrast, and it is impossible for us,
when we see him near his lady, not to think that perhaps at that very
moment he had the silver spoon in his pocket. Lastly, the most
unfortunate part of the business is, that he has no idea of the
suspicion weighing over him, for if he had a knowledge of it, in his
character of officer, he would exact a sanguinary reparation. In this
case the consequences of the suspicion would change to the terrible, and
all that is base in the situation would disappear.

We must distinguish, moreover, between the baseness of feeling and that
which is connected with the mode of treatment and circumstance. The
former in all respects is _below_ æsthetic dignity; the second in many
cases may perfectly agree with it. _Slavery_, for example, is a base
thing; but a servile mind in a free man is contemptible. The labors of
the slave, on the contrary, are not so when his feelings are not
servile. Far from this, a base condition, when joined to elevated
feelings, can become a source of the sublime. The master of Epictetus,
who beat him, acted basely, and the slave beaten by him showed a sublime
soul. True greatness, when it is met in a base condition, is only the
more brilliant and splendid on that account: and the artist must not
fear to show us his heroes even under a contemptible exterior as soon as
he is sure of being able 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
senses directly. It follows not only that the impression of the picture
is more lively than that of the poem, but also that the painter, if he
employ only his natural signs, cannot make the minds of his personages
as visible as the poet can with the arbitrary signs at his command: yet
it is 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,[11] we are at liberty to represent his image to 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 or disgust. But if a
painter, or even a tragedian, try to reproduce faithfully the Ulysses of
Homer, we turn away from the picture with repugnance. It is because in
this case the greater or less vividness of the impression no longer
depends on our will: we _cannot help_ seeing what the painter places
under our eyes; and it is not easy for us to remove the accessory
repugnant ideas which the picture recalls to our mind.


       DETACHED REFLECTIONS ON DIFFERENT QUESTIONS OF ÆSTHETICS.

All the properties by which an object can become æsthetic, can be
referred to four classes, which, as well according to their objective
differences as according to their different relation with the subject,
produce on our passive and active faculties pleasures unequal not only
in intensity but also in worth; classes which also are of an unequal use
for the 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 belong
properly to art. The agreeable is not worthy of art, and the good is at
least not its end; for the aim of art is to please, and the good,
whether we consider it in theory or in practice, neither can nor ought
to serve as a means of satisfying the wants of sensuousness. The
agreeable only satisfies the senses, and is distinguished thereby from
the good, which only pleases the reason. The agreeable only pleases by
its matter, for it is only matter that can affect the senses, and all
that is form can only please the reason. It is true that the beautiful
only pleases through the medium of the senses, by which it is
distinguished from the good; but it pleases reason, on account of its
form, by which it is essentially distinguished from the agreeable. It
might be said that the good pleases only by its form being in harmony
with reason; the beautiful by its form having some relation of
resemblance with reason, and that the agreeable absolutely does not
please by its form. The good is perceived by thought, the beautiful by
intuition, and the agreeable only by the senses. The first pleases by
the conception, the second by the idea, and the third by material
sensation.

The distance between the good and the agreeable is that which strikes
the eyes the most. The good widens our understanding, because it
procures and supposes an idea of its object; the pleasure which it makes
us perceive rests on an objective foundation, even when this pleasure
itself is but a certain state in which we are situated. The agreeable,
on the contrary, produces no notion of its object, and, indeed, reposes
on no objective foundation. It is agreeable only inasmuch as it is felt
by the subject, and the idea of it completely vanishes the moment an
obstruction is placed on the affectibility of the senses, or only when
it is modified. For a man who feels the cold the agreeable would be a
warm air; but this same man, in the heat of summer, would seek the shade
and coolness; but we must agree that in both cases he has judged well.

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

The good, on the contrary, is good in itself, before being represented
to us, and before being felt. The property by which it pleases exists
fully in itself without being in want of our subject, although the
pleasure which 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 agreeable
in this—that it must always be proposed to the senses, inasmuch as it
pleases only as a phenomenon. It comes near to it again in as far as it
neither procures nor supposes any notion of its object. But, on the
other hand, it is widely separated from the agreeable, because it
pleases by the form under which it is produced, and not by the fact of
the material sensation. No doubt it only pleases the reasonable subject
in so far as it is also a sensuous subject; but also it pleases the
sensuous subject only inasmuch as it is at the same time a reasonable
subject. The beautiful is not only pleasing to the individual but to the
whole species; and although it draws its existence but from its relation
with creatures at the same time reasonable and sensuous, it is not less
independent of all empirical limitations of sensuousness, and it remains
identical even when the particular constitution of the individual is
modified. The beautiful has exactly in common with the good that by
which it differs from the agreeable, and it differs from the good
exactly in that in which it approximates to the agreeable.

By the good we must understand that in which reason recognizes a
conformity with her theoretical and practical laws. But the same object
can be perfectly conformable to the theoretical reason, and not be the
less in contradiction in the highest degree with the practical reason.
We can disapprove of the end of an enterprise, and yet admire the skill
of the means and their relation with the end in view. We can despise the
pleasures which the voluptuous man makes the end of his life, and
nevertheless praise the skill which he exhibits in the choice of his
means, and the logical result with which he carries out his principles.
That which pleases us only by its form is good, absolutely good, and
without any conditions, when its form is at the same time its matter.
The good is also an object of sensuousness, but not of an immediate
sensuousness, as the agreeable, nor moreover of a mixed sensuousness, as
the beautiful. It does not excite desire as the first, nor inclination
as the second. The simple idea of the good inspires only esteem.

The difference separating the agreeable, the good, and the beautiful
being thus established, it is evident that the same object can be ugly,
defective, even to be morally rejected, and nevertheless be agreeable
and pleasing to the senses; that an object can revolt the senses, and
yet be good, _i.e._, please the reason; that an object can from its
inmost nature revolt the moral senses, and yet please the imagination
which contemplates it, and still be beautiful. It is because each one of
these ideas interests different faculties, and interests differently.

But have we exhausted the classification of the æsthetic attributes? No,
there are objects at the same time ugly, revolting, and horrifying to
the senses, which do not please the understanding, and of no account to
the moral judgment, and these objects do not fail to please; certainly
to please to such a degree, that we would willingly sacrifice the
pleasure of these senses and that of the understanding to procure for us
the enjoyment of these objects. There is nothing more attractive in
nature than a beautiful landscape, illuminated by the purple light of
evening. The rich variety of the objects, the mellow outlines, the play
of lights infinitely varying the aspect, the light vapors which envelop
distant objects,—all combine in charming the senses; and add to it, to
increase our 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 is rejoiced by the easy and rich flow of the ideas,
the heart by the sentiments which overflow in it like a torrent. All at
once a storm springs up, darkening the sky and all the landscape,
surpassing and silencing all other noises, and suddenly taking from us
all our pleasures. Black clouds encircle the horizon; the thunder falls
with a deafening noise. Flash succeeds flash. Our sight and hearing is
affected in the most revolting manner. The lightning only appears to
render to us more visible the horrors of the night: we see the electric
fluid strike, nay, we begin to fear lest it may strike us. Well, that
does not prevent us from believing that we have gained more than lost by
the change; I except, of course, those whom fear has bereft of all
liberty of judgment. We are, on the one hand, forcibly drawn towards
this terrible spectacle, which on the other wounds and repulses our
senses, and we pause before it with a feeling which we cannot properly
call a pleasure, but one which we often like much more than pleasure.
But still, the spectacle that nature then offers to us is in itself
rather destructive than good (at all events we in no way need to think
of the utility of a storm to take pleasure in this phenomenon), is in
itself rather ugly than beautiful, for the darkness, hiding from us all
the images which light affords, cannot be in itself a pleasant thing;
and those sudden crashes with which the thunder shakes the atmosphere,
those sudden flashes when the lightning rends the cloud—all is contrary
to one of the essential conditions of the beautiful, which carries with
it nothing abrupt, nothing violent. And moreover this phenomenon, if we
consider only our senses, is rather painful than agreeable, for the
nerves of our sight and those of our hearing are each in their turn
painfully strained, then not less violently relaxed, by the alternations
of light and darkness, of the explosion of the thunder, and silence. And
in spite of all these causes of displeasure, a storm is an attractive
phenomenon for whomsoever is not afraid of it.

Another example. In the midst of a green and smiling plain there rises a
naked and barren hillock, which hides from the sight a part of the view.
Each one would wish that this hillock were removed which disfigures the
beauty 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 and
height. To begin with, our impression of displeasure will but increase
with the hillock itself, which will the more strike the sight, and which
will be the more repulsive. But continue; raise it up twice as high as a
tower, and insensibly the displeasure will efface itself to make way for
quite another feeling. The hill has at last become a mountain, so high a
mountain that it is quite impossible for our eyes to take it in at one
look. There is an object more precocious than all this smiling plain
which surrounds it, and the impression that it makes on us is of such a
nature 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 crash
down, the previous impression will be complicated with another
impression: terror will be joined to it: the object itself will be but
still more attractive. But suppose it were possible to prop up this
leaning mountain with another mountain, the terror would disappear, and
with it a good part of the pleasure we experienced. Suppose that there
were beside this mountain four or five other mountains, of which each
one was a fourth or a fifth part lower than the one which came
immediately after; the first impression with which the height of one
mountain inspired us will be notably weakened. Something somewhat
analogous would take place if the mountain itself were cut into ten or
twelve terraces, uniformly diminishing; or again if it were artificially
decorated with plantations. We have at first subjected one mountain to
no other operation than that of increasing its size, leaving it
otherwise just as it was, and without altering its form; and this simple
circumstance has sufficed to make an indifferent or even disagreeable
object satisfying to the eyes. By the second operation, this enlarged
object has become at the same time an object of terror; and the pleasure
which we have found in contemplating it has but been the greater.
Finally, by the last operation which we have made, we have diminished
the terror which its sight occasioned, and the pleasure has diminished
as much. We have diminished _subjectively_ the idea of its height,
whether by dividing the attention of the spectator between several
objects, or in giving to the eyes, 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 more easily. The great and the terrible can
therefore be of themselves in certain cases a source of æsthetic
pleasure.

There is not in the Greek mythology a more terrible, and at the same
time more hideous, picture than the Furies, or Erinyes, quitting the
infernal regions to throw themselves in the pursuit of a criminal. Their
faces frightfully contracted and grimacing, their fleshless bodies,
their heads covered with serpents in the place of hair—revolt our senses
as much as they offend our taste. However, when these monsters are
represented to us in the pursuit of Orestes, the murderer of his mother,
when they are shown to us brandishing the torches in their hands, and
chasing their prey, without peace or truce, from country to country,
until at last, the anger of justice being appeased, they engulf
themselves in the abyss of the infernal regions; then we pause before
the picture with a horror mixed with pleasure. But not only the remorse
of a criminal which is personified by the Furies, even his unrighteous
acts: nay, the real perpetration 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 with pleasure. Even in real life, indifferent and even
repulsive or frightful objects begin to interest us the moment that they
approach the monstrous or the terrible. An altogether vulgar and
insignificant man will begin to please us the moment that a violent
passion, which indeed in no way upraises his personal value, makes him
an object of fear and terror, in the same way that a vulgar, meaningless
object becomes to us the source of æsthetic pleasure the instant we have
enlarged it to the point where it threatens to overstep our
comprehension. An ugly man is made still more ugly by passion, and
nevertheless it is in bursts of this passion, provided that it turns to
the terrible and not to the ridiculous, that this man will be to us of
the most interest. This remark extends even to animals. An ox at the
plow, a horse before a carriage, a dog, are common objects; but excite
this bull to the combat, enrage this horse who is so peaceable, or
represent to yourself this dog a prey to madness; instantly these
animals are raised to the rank of æsthetic objects, and we begin to
regard them with a feeling which borders on pleasure and esteem. The
inclination to the pathetic—an inclination common to all men—the
strength of the sympathetic sentiment—this force which in nature makes
us wish to see suffering, terror, dismay, which has so many attractions
for us in art, which makes us hurry to the theatre, which makes us take
so much pleasure in the picturing of great misfortune,—all this bears
testimony to a fourth source of æsthetic pleasure, which neither the
agreeable, 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 in
common—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 to paralyze these two powers, or so far as to render us incapable
of striving, either to know the object, or to resist the impression it
makes on us. There is in the phenomena a complexity which we cannot
retrace to unity 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. Either
it is an object which at the same time presents and hides itself from
our faculty of intuition, and which urges us to strive to represent it
to ourselves, without leaving room to hope that this aspiration will be
satisfied; or else it is an object which appears to upraise itself as an
enemy, even against our existence—which provokes us, so to say, to
combat, and makes us anxious as to the issue. In all the alleged
examples there is visible in the same way the same action on the faculty
of feeling. All throw our souls into an anxious agitation and strain its
springs. A certain gravity which can even raise itself to a solemn
rejoicing takes possession of our soul, and whilst our organs betray
evident signs of internal anxiety, our mind falls back on itself by
reflection, and appears to find a support in a higher consciousness of
its independent strength and dignity. This consciousness of ourselves
must always dominate in order that the great and the horrible may have
for us an æsthetic value. It is because the soul before such sights as
these feels itself inspired and lifted above itself that they are
designated under the name of sublime, although the things themselves are
objectively in no way sublime; and consequently it would be more just to
say that they are elevating than to call them in themselves elevated or
sublime.

For an object to be called sublime it must be in opposition with our
sensuousness. In general it is possible to conceive but two different
relations between the objects and our sensuousness, and consequently
there ought to be two kinds of resistance. They ought either to be
considered as objects from which we wish to draw a knowledge, or else
they should be regarded as a force with which we compare our own.
According to this division there are two kinds of the sublime, the
sublime of knowledge and the sublime of force. Moreover, the sensuous
faculties contribute to knowledge only in grasping a given matter, and
putting one by the other its complexity in time and in space.

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


                   ON SIMPLE AND SENTIMENTAL POETRY.

There are moments in life when nature inspires us with a sort of love
and respectful emotion, not because she is pleasing to our senses, or
because she satisfies our mind or our taste (it is often the very
opposite that happens), but merely because she is nature. This feeling
is often elicited when nature is considered in her plants, in her
mineral kingdom, in rural districts; also in the case of human nature,
in the case of children, and in the manners of country people and of the
primitive races. Every man of refined feeling, provided he has a soul,
experiences this feeling when he walks out under the open sky, when he
lives in the country, or when he stops to contemplate the monuments of
early ages; in short, when escaping from factitious situations and
relations, he finds himself suddenly face to face with nature. This
interest, which is often exalted in us so as to become a want, is the
explanation of many of our fancies for flowers and for animals, our
preference for gardens laid out in the natural style, our love of walks,
of the country and those who live there, of a great number of objects
proceeding from a remote antiquity, etc. It is taken for granted that no
affectation exists in the matter, and moreover that no accidental
interest comes into play. But this sort of interest which we take in
nature is only possible under two conditions. First the object that
inspires us with this feeling must be really _nature_, or something we
take for nature; secondly this object must be in the full sense of the
word _simple_, that is, presenting the entire contrast of nature with
art, all the advantage remaining on the side 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 its
freedom; it is the constitution of things taken in themselves; it is
existence itself according to its proper and immutable laws.

It is strictly necessary that we should have this idea of nature to take
an interest in phenomena of this kind. If we conceive an artificial
flower so perfectly imitated that it has all the appearance of nature
and would produce the most complete illusion, or if we imagine the
imitation of simplicity carried out to the extremest degree, the instant
we discover it is only an imitation, the feeling of which I have been
speaking is completely destroyed. It is, therefore, quite evident that
this kind of satisfaction which nature causes us to feel is not a
satisfaction of the æsthetical taste, but a satisfaction of the moral
sense; for it is produced by means of a conception and not immediately
by the single fact of intuition: accordingly it is by no means
determined by the different degrees of beauty in forms. For, after all,
is there anything so specially charming in a flower of common
appearance, in a spring, a moss-covered stone, the warbling of birds, or
the buzzing of bees, etc.? What is that can give these objects a claim
to our love? It is not these objects in themselves; it is an idea
represented by them that we love in them. We love in them life and its
latent action, the effects peacefully produced by beings of themselves,
existence under its proper laws, the inmost necessity of things, the
eternal unity of their nature.

These objects which captivate us _are_ what we _were_, what we _must be_
again some day. We were nature as they are; and culture, following the
way of reason and of liberty, must bring us back to nature. Accordingly,
these objects are an image of our infancy irrevocably past—of our
infancy which will remain eternally very dear to us, and thus they
infuse a certain melancholy into us; they are also the image of our
highest perfection in the ideal world, whence they excite a sublime
emotion in us.

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 they
procure quite a peculiar pleasure for us, by being our models without
having any thing humiliating for us. It is like a constant manifestation
of the divinity surrounding us, which refreshes without dazzling us. The
very feature that constitutes their character is precisely what is
lacking in ours to make it complete; and what distinguishes us from them
is precisely what they lack to be divine. We are free and they are
necessary; we change and they remain identical. Now it is only when
these two conditions are united, when the will submits freely to the
laws of necessity, and when, in the midst of all the changes of which
the imagination is susceptible, reason maintains its rule—it is only
then that the divine or the ideal is manifested. Thus we perceive
eternally _in them_ that which we have not, but which we are continually
forced to strive after; that which we can never reach, but which we can
hope to approach by continual progress. And we perceive _in ourselves_
an advantage which they lack, but in which some of them—the beings
deprived of reason—cannot absolutely share, and in which the others,
such as children, can only one day have a share by following _our_ way.
Accordingly, they procure us the most delicious feeling of our human
nature, as an idea, though in relation to each _determinate_ state of
our nature they cannot fail to humble us.

As this interest in nature is based on an idea, it can only manifest
itself in a soul capable of ideas, that is, in a moral soul. For the
immense majority it is nothing more than pure affectation; and this
taste of _sentimentality_ so widely diffused in our day, manifesting
itself, especially since the appearance of certain books, by sentimental
excursions and journeys, by sentimental gardens, and other fancies akin
to these—this taste by no means proves that true refinement of sense has
become general. Nevertheless, it is certain that nature will always
produce something of this impression, even on the most insensible
hearts, because all that is required for this is the moral disposition
or aptitude, which is common to all men. For all men, however contrary
their acts may be to simplicity and to the truth of nature, are brought
back to it in their ideas. This sensibility in connection with nature is
specially and most strongly manifested, in the greater part of persons,
in connection with those sorts of objects which are closely related to
us, and which, causing us to look closer into ourselves, show us more
clearly what in us departs from nature; for example, in connection with
children, or with nations in a state of infancy. It is an error to
suppose that it is only the idea of their weakness that, in certain
moments, 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, are
used to feel nothing but their own superiority. But the feeling of which
I speak is only experienced in a very peculiar moral disposition, nor
must it be confounded with the feeling awakened in us by the joyous
activity of children. The feeling of which I speak is calculated rather
to humble than to flatter our self-love; and if it gives us the idea of
some 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
the height of our strength and of our perfection we drop a look of pity
on it; it is, on the contrary, because from the depths of our impotence,
of which the feeling is inseparable from that of the real and
determinate state to which we have arrived, we raise our eyes to the
child’s determinableness and pure innocence. The feeling we then
experience is too evidently mingled with sadness for us to mistake its
source. In the child, all is _disposition_ and _destination_; in us, all
is in the state of a _completed_, _finished_ thing, and the completion
always remains infinitely below the destination. It follows that the
child is to us like the representation of the ideal; not, indeed, of the
ideal as we have realized it, but such as our destination admitted; and,
consequently, it is not at all the idea of its indigence, of its
hinderances, that makes us 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 of its being. This is the reason why, in the
sight of every moral and sensible man, the child will always be a
_sacred_ thing; I mean an object which, by the grandeur of an idea,
reduces to nothingness all grandeur realized by experience; an object
which, in spite of all it may lose in the judgment of the understanding,
regains largely the advantage before the judgment of reason.

Now it is precisely this contradiction between the judgment of reason
and that of the understanding which produces in us this quite special
phenomenon, this mixed feeling, called forth in us by the sight of the
simple—I mean the simple in the manner of thinking. It is at once the
idea of a childlike simplicity and of a childish simplicity. By what it
has of childish simplicity it exposes a weak side to the understanding,
and provokes in us that smile by which we testify our superiority (an
entirely speculative superiority). But directly we have reason to think
that childish simplicity is at the same time a childlike simplicity—that
it is not consequently a want of intelligence, an infirmity in a
theoretical point of view, but a superior force (practically), a
heart-full of truth and innocence, which is its source, a heart that has
despised the help of art because it was conscious of its real and
internal greatness—directly this is understood, the understanding no
longer seeks to triumph. Then raillery, which was directed against
simpleness, makes way for the admiration inspired by noble simplicity.
We feel ourselves obliged to esteem this object, which at first made us
smile, and directing our eyes to ourselves, to feel ourselves unhappy in
not resembling it. Thus is produced that very special phenomenon of a
feeling in which good-natured raillery, respect, and sadness are
confounded. It is the condition of the simple that nature should triumph
over art, either unconsciously to the individual and against his
inclination, or with his full and entire cognizance. In the former case
it is _simplicity_ as a _surprise_, and the impression resulting from it
is one of gayety; in the second case, it is simplicity of _feeling_, and
we are moved.

With regard to simplicity as a surprise, the person must be _morally_
capable of denying nature. In simplicity of feeling the person may be
morally incapable of this, but we must not think him physically
incapable, in order that it may make upon us the impression of the
simple. This is the reason why the acts and words of children only
produce the impression of simplicity upon us when we forget that they
are physically incapable of artifice, and in general only when we are
exclusively impressed by the contrast between their natural character
and what is artificial in us. Simplicity is a _childlike ingenuousness_
which is encountered when it is not _expected_; and it is for this very
reason that, taking the word in its strictest sense, simplicity could
not be attributed to childhood properly speaking.

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

Until we have established this distinction we can only form an
incomplete idea of simplicity. The affections are also something
natural, and the rules of decency are artificial; yet the triumph of the
affections over decency is anything but simple. But when affection
triumphs over artifice, over false decency, over dissimulation, we shall
have no difficulty in applying the word simple to this. Nature must
therefore triumph 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 the inopportune character of the latter that gives
nature her victory; for insufficiency is only a want and a defect, and
nothing that results from a want or defect could produce esteem. No
doubt in the simplicity resulting from surprise, it is always the
predominance of affection and a want of reflection that causes us to
appear natural. But this want and this predominance do not by any means
suffice to constitute simplicity; they merely give occasion to nature to
_obey without let or hinderance_ her _moral constitution_, that is, the
_law of harmony_.

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

I admit that in simplicity proceeding from surprise we always experience
a feeling of esteem for _nature_, because we must esteem truth; whereas
in the simplicity of feeling we esteem the _person_ himself, enjoying in
this way not only a moral satisfaction, but also a satisfaction of which
the object is moral. In both cases nature is _right_, since she speaks
the truth; but in the second case not only is nature right, but there is
also an act that does _honor_ to the person. In the first case the
sincerity of nature always puts the person to the blush, because it is
involuntary; in the second it is always a merit which must be placed to
the credit of the person, 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 he
pronounces on things, he passes, without seeing them, over all the
factitious and artificial sides of an object, to keep exclusively to
simple nature. We require of him all the judgments that can be formed of
things without departing from a sound nature; and we only hold him
entirely free in what presupposes a departure from nature in his mode of
thinking or feeling.

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

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

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

Nor is it always such an easy matter to distinguish exactly childish
candor from childlike candor, for there are actions that are on the
skirts of both. Is a certain act foolishly simple, and must we laugh at
it? or is it nobly simple, and must we esteem the actors the higher on
that 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 the
government of Pope Adrian VI., related by Mr. Schröckh with all the
solidity and the spirit of practical truth which distinguish him.
Adrian, a Netherlander by birth, exerted the pontifical sway at one of
the most critical moments for the hierarchy—at a time when an
exasperated party laid bare without any scruple all the weak sides of
the Roman Church, while the opposite party was interested in the highest
degree in covering them over. I do not entertain the question how a man
of a truly simple character ought to act in such a case, if such a
character were placed in the papal chair. But, we ask, how could this
simplicity of feeling be compatible with the part of a pope? This
question gave indeed very little embarrassment to the predecessors and
successors of Adrian. They followed uniformly the system adopted once
for all by the court of Rome, not to make any concessions anywhere. But
Adrian had preserved the upright character of his nation and the
innocence of his previous condition. Issuing from the humble sphere of
literary men to rise to this eminent position, he did not belie at that
elevation the primitive simplicity of his character. He was moved by the
abuses of the Roman Church, and he was much too sincere to dissimulate
publicly what he confessed privately. It was in consequence of this
manner of thinking that, in his instruction to his legate in Germany, he
allowed himself to be drawn into avowals hitherto unheard of in a
sovereign pontiff, and diametrically contrary to the principles of that
court: “We know well,” he said, among other things, “that for many years
many abominable things have taken place in this holy chair; it is not
therefore astonishing that the evil has been propagated from the head to
the members, from the pope to the prelates. We have all gone astray from
the good road, and for a long time there is none of us, not one, who has
done anything good.” Elsewhere he orders his legate to declare in his
name “that he, Adrian, cannot be blamed for what other popes have done
before him; that he himself, when he occupied a comparatively mediocre
position, had always condemned these excesses.” It may easily be
conceived how such simplicity in a pope must have been received by the
Roman clergy. The smallest crime of which he was accused was that of
betraying the church and delivering it over to heretics. Now this
proceeding, supremely imprudent in a pope, would yet deserve our esteem
and admiration if we could believe it was real simplicity; that is, that
Adrian, without fear of consequences, had made such an avowal, moved by
his natural sincerity, and that he would have persisted in acting thus,
though he had understood all the drift of his clumsiness. Unhappily we
have some reason to believe that he did not consider his conduct as
altogether impolitic, and that in his candor he went so far as to
flatter himself that he had served very usefully the interests of his
church by his indulgence to his adversaries. He did not even imagine
that he ought to act thus in his quality as an honest man; he thought
also as a pope to be able to justify himself, and forgetting that the
most artificial of structures could only be supported by continuing to
deny the truth, he committed the unpardonable fault of having recourse
to means of safety, excellent perhaps, in a natural situation, but here
applied to entirely contrary circumstances. This necessarily modifies
our judgment very much, and although we cannot refuse our esteem for the
honesty of heart in which the act originates, this esteem is greatly
lessened when we reflect that nature on this occasion was too easily
mistress of art, and that the heart too easily overruled the head.

True genius is of necessity simple, or it is not genius. Simplicity
alone gives it this character, and it cannot belie in the moral order
what it is in the intellectual and æsthetical order. It does not know
those rules, the crutches of feebleness, those pedagogues which prop up
slippery spirits; it is only guided by nature and instinct, its guardian
angel; it walks with a firm, calm step across all the snares of false
taste, snares in which the man without genius, if he have not the
prudence to avoid them the moment he detects them, remains infallibly
imbedded. It is therefore the part only of genius to issue from the
known without ceasing to be at home, or to enlarge the circle of nature
without _overstepping_ it. It does indeed sometimes happen that a great
genius oversteps it; but only because geniuses have their moments of
frenzy, when nature, their protector, abandons them, because the force
of example impels them, or because the corrupt taste of their age leads
them astray.

The most intricate problems must be solved by genius with simplicity,
without pretension, with ease; the egg of Christopher Columbus is the
emblem of all the discoveries of genius. It only justifies its character
as genius by triumphing through simplicity over all the complications of
art. It does not proceed according to known principles, but by feelings
and inspiration; the sallies of genius are the inspirations of a God
(all that healthy nature produces is divine); its feelings are law’s for
all time, for all human generations.

This childlike character imprinted by genius on its works is also shown
by it in its private life and manners. It is _modest_, because nature is
always so; but it is not _decent_, because corruption alone is decent.
It is _intelligent_, because nature cannot lack intelligence; but it is
not _cunning_, because art only can be cunning. It is _faithful_ to its
character and inclinations, but this is not so much because it has
principles as because nature, notwithstanding all its oscillations,
always returns to its equilibrium, and brings back the same wants. It is
_modest_ 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 road in which it walks. We know little of the private life of the
greatest geniuses; but the little that we know of it—what tradition has
preserved, for example, of Sophocles, of Archimedes, of Hippocrates, and
in modern times of Ariosto, of Dante, of Tasso, of Raphael, of Albert
Dürer, of Cervantes, of Shakespeare, of Fielding, of Sterne,
etc.—confirms this assertion.

Nay, more; though this admission seems more difficult to support, even
the greatest philosophers and great commanders, if great by their
genius, have simplicity in their character. Among the ancients I need
only name Julius Cæsar and Epaminondas; among the moderns Henry IV. in
France, Gustavus Adolphus in Sweden, and the Czar Peter the Great. The
Duke of Marlborough, Turenne, and Vendôme all present this character.
With regard to the other sex, nature proposes to it _simplicity_ of
character as the supreme perfection to which it should reach.
Accordingly, the love of pleasing in women strives after nothing so much
as the appearance of simplicity; a sufficient proof, if it were the only
one, that the greatest power of the sex reposes in this quality. But, as
the principles that prevail in the education of women are perpetually
struggling with this character, it is as difficult for them in the moral
order to reconcile this magnificent gift of nature with the advantages
of a good education as it is difficult for men to preserve them
unchanged in the intellectual order: and the woman who knows how to join
a knowledge of the world to this sort of simplicity in manners is as
deserving of respect as a scholar who joins to the strictness of
scholastic rules the freedom and originality of thought.

Simplicity in our mode of thinking brings with it of necessity
simplicity in our mode of expression, simplicity in terms as well as
movement; and it is in this that grace especially consists. Genius
expresses its most sublime and its deepest thoughts with this simple
grace; they are the divine oracles that issue from the lips of a child;
while the scholastic spirit, always anxious to avoid error, tortures all
its words, all its ideas, and makes them pass through the crucible of
grammar and logic, hard and rigid, in order to keep from vagueness, and
uses few words in order not to say too much, enervates and blunts
thought in order not to wound 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 yet perfectly free form. In the case of grammar and
logic, the sign and the thing signified are always heterogeneous and
strangers to each other: with genius, on the contrary, the expression
gushes forth spontaneously from the idea, the language and the thought
are one and the same; so that even though the expression thus gives it a
body the spirit appears as if disclosed in a nude state. This fashion of
expression, when the sign disappears entirely in the thing signified,
when the tongue, so to speak, leaves the thought it translates naked,
whilst the other mode of expression 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
works of intellect, is also the expression of the innocence of heart in
the intercourse of life. Every one knows that in the world men have
departed from simplicity, from the rigorous veracity of language, in the
same proportion as they have lost the simplicity of feelings. The guilty
conscience easily wounded, the imagination easily seduced, made an
anxious decency necessary. Without telling what is false, people often
speak differently from what they think; we are obliged to make
circumlocutions to say certain things, which however, can never afflict
any but a sickly self-love, and that have no danger except for a
depraved imagination. The ignorance of these laws of propriety
(conventional laws), coupled with a natural sincerity which despises all
kinds of bias and all appearance of falsity (sincerity I mean, not
coarseness, for coarseness dispenses with forms because it is hampered),
gives rise in the intercourse of life to a simplicity of expression that
consists in naming things by their proper name without circumlocution.
This is done because we do not venture to designate them as they are, or
only to do so by artificial means. The ordinary expressions of children
are of this kind. They make us smile because they are in opposition to
received manners; but men would always agree in the bottom of their
hearts that the child is right.

It is true that simplicity of feeling cannot properly be attributed to
the child any more than to the man,—that is, to a being not absolutely
subject to nature, though there is still no simplicity, except on the
condition that it is pure nature that acts through him. But by an effort
of the imagination, which likes to poetise things, we often carry over
these attributes of a rational being to beings destitute of reason. It
is thus that, on seeing an animal, a landscape, a building, and nature
in general, from opposition to what is arbitrary and fantastic in the
conceptions of man, we often attribute to them a simple character. But
that implies always that in our thought we attribute a will to these
things that have none, and that we are struck to see it directed
rigorously according to the laws of necessity. Discontented as we are
that we have ill employed our own moral freedom, and that we no longer
find moral harmony in our conduct, we are easily led to a certain
disposition of mind, in which we willingly address ourselves to a being
destitute of reason, as if it were a person. And we readily view it as
if it had really had to struggle against the temptation of acting
otherwise, and proceed to make a merit of its eternal uniformity, and to
envy its peaceable constancy. We are quite disposed to consider in those
moments reason, this prerogative of the human race, as a pernicious gift
and as an evil; we feel so vividly all that is imperfect in our conduct
that we forget to be just to our destiny and to our aptitudes.

We see, then, in nature, destitute of reason, only a sister who, more
fortunate than ourselves, has remained under the maternal roof, while in
the intoxication of our freedom we have fled from it to throw ourselves
into a stranger world. We regret this place of safety, we earnestly long
to come back to it as soon as we have begun to feel the bitter side of
civilization, and in the totally artificial life in which we are exiled
we hear in deep emotion the voice of our mother. While we were still
only children of nature we were happy, we were perfect: we have become
free, and we have lost both advantages. Hence a twofold and very unequal
longing for nature: the longing for happiness and the longing for the
perfection that prevails there. Man, as a sensuous being, deplores
sensibly the loss of the former of these goods; it is only the moral man
who can be afflicted at the loss of the other.

Therefore, let the man with a sensible heart and a loving nature
question himself closely. Is it your indolence that longs for its
repose, or your wounded moral sense that longs for its harmony? Ask
yourself well, when, disgusted with the artifices, offended by the
abuses that you discover in social life, you feel yourself attracted
towards inanimate nature, in the midst of solitude ask yourself what
impels you to fly the world. Is it the privation from which you suffer,
its loads, its troubles? or is it the moral anarchy, the caprice, the
disorder that prevail there? Your heart ought to plunge into these
troubles with joy, and to find in them the compensation in the liberty
of which they are the consequence. You can, I admit, propose as your
aim, in a distant future, the calm and the happiness of nature; but only
that sort of happiness which is the reward of your dignity. Thus, then,
let there be no more complaint about the loads of life, the inequality
of conditions, or the hampering of social relations, or the uncertainty
of possession, ingratitude, oppression, and persecution. You must submit
to all these _evils_ of civilization with a free resignation; it is the
natural condition of good, _par excellence_, of the only good, and you
ought to respect it under this head. In all these _evils_ you ought only
to deplore what is _morally evil_ in them, and you must do so not with
cowardly tears only. Rather watch to remain pure yourself in the midst
of these impurities, free amidst this slavery, constant with yourself in
the midst of these capricious changes, a faithful observer of the law
amidst this anarchy. Be not frightened at the 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 your faculties. This nature which you
envy in the being destitute of reason deserves 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 you having given way under your
foot, the only thing for you to do is to seize again on the moral law
freely, with a free consciousness, a free will, or else to roll down,
hopeless of safety, into a bottomless abyss.

But when you have consoled yourself for having lost the _happiness_ of
nature, let its _perfection_ be a model to your heart. If you can issue
from the circle in which art keeps you enclosed and find nature again,
if it shows itself to you in its greatness and in its calm, in its
simple beauty, in its childlike innocence and simplicity, oh! then pause
before its image, cultivate this feeling lovingly. It is worthy of you,
and of what is noblest in man. Let it no more come into your mind to
_change_ with it; rather embrace it, absorb it into your being, and try
to associate the infinite advantage it has over you with that infinite
prerogative that is peculiar to you, and let the divine issue from this
sublime union. Let nature breathe around you like a lovely _idyl_, where
far from artifice and its wanderings you may always find yourself again,
where you may go to draw fresh courage, a new confidence, to resume your
course, and kindle again in your heart the flame of the _ideal_, so
readily extinguished 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, could live with that free nature; how their mode of imagining, and
of feeling, and their manners, approached far nearer than ours to the
simplicity of nature, how faithfully the works of their poets express
this; we must necessarily remark, as a strange fact, that so few traces
are met among them of that _sentimental_ interest that we moderns ever
take in the scenes of nature and in natural characters. I admit that the
Greeks are superiorly exact and faithful in their descriptions of
nature. They reproduce their details with care, but we see that they
take no more interest in them and more heart in them than in describing
a vestment, a shield, armor, a piece of furniture, or any production of
the mechanical arts. In their love for the object it seems that they
make no difference between what exists in itself and what owes its
existence to art, to the human will. It seems that nature interests
their minds and their curiosity more than moral feeling. They do not
attach themselves to it with that depth of feeling, with that gentle
melancholy, that characterize the moderns. Nay, more, by personifying
nature in its particular phenomena, by deifying it, by representing its
effects as the acts of free being, they take from it that character of
calm necessity which is precisely what makes it so attractive to us.
Their impatient imagination only traverses nature to pass beyond it to
the drama of human life. It only takes pleasure in the spectacle of what
is living and free; it requires characters, acts, the accidents of
fortune and of manners; and whilst it happens with us, at least in
certain moral dispositions, to curse our prerogative, this free will,
which exposes us to so many combats with ourselves, to so many anxieties
and errors, and to wish to exchange it for the condition of beings
destitute of reason, for that fatal existence that no longer admits of
any choice, but which is so calm in its uniformity;—while we do this,
the Greeks, on the contrary, only have their imagination occupied in
retracing human nature in the inanimate world, and in giving to the will
an influence where blind necessity rules.

Whence can arise this difference between the spirit of the ancients and
the modern spirit? How comes it that, being, for all that relates to
nature, incomparably below the ancients, we are superior to them
precisely 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
of embracing even the inanimate world with the most ardent sensibility.
It is because nature, in our time, is no longer in man, and that we no
longer encounter it in its primitive truth, except out of humanity, in
the inanimate world. It is not because we are more _conformable to
nature_—quite the contrary; it is because in our social relations, in
our mode of existence, in our manners, we are in _opposition with
nature_. This is what leads us, when the instinct of truth and of
simplicity is awakened—this instinct which, like the moral aptitude from
which it proceeds, lives incorruptible and indelible in every human
heart—to procure for it in the physical world the satisfaction which
there is no hope of finding in the moral order. This is the reason why
the feeling that attaches us to nature is connected so closely with that
which makes us regret our infancy, forever flown, and our primitive
innocence. Our childhood is all that remains of nature in humanity, such
as civilization has made it, of untouched, unmutilated nature. It is,
therefore, not wonderful, when we meet out of us the impress of nature,
that we are always brought back to the idea of our childhood.

It was quite different with the Greeks in antiquity. Civilization with
them did not degenerate, nor was it carried to such an excess that it
was necessary to break with nature. The entire structure of their social
life reposed on feelings, and not on a factitious conception, on a work
of art. Their very theology was the inspiration of a simple spirit, the
fruit of a joyous imagination, and not like the ecclesiastical dogmas of
modern nations, subtle combinations of the understanding. Since,
therefore, the Greeks had not lost sight of nature in humanity, they had
no reason, when meeting it out of man, to be surprised at their
discovery, and they would not feel very imperiously the need of objects
in which nature could be retraced. In accord with themselves, happy in
feeling themselves men, they would of necessity keep to humanity as to
what was greatest to them, and they must needs try to make all the rest
approach it; while we, who are not in accord with ourselves—we who are
discontented with the experience we have made of our humanity—have no
more pressing interest than to fly out of it and to remove from our
sight a so ill-fashioned form. The feeling of which we are treating here
is, therefore, not that which was known by the ancients; it approaches
far more nearly that _which we ourselves experience for the ancients_.
The ancients felt naturally; we, on our part, feel what is natural. It
was certainly a very different inspiration that filled the soul of
Homer, when he depicted his divine cowherd[12] giving hospitality to
Ulysses, from that which agitated the soul of the young Werther at the
moment when he read the “Odyssey”[13] on issuing from an assembly in
which he had only found tedium. The feeling we experience for nature
resembles that of a sick man for health.

As soon as nature gradually vanishes from human life—that is, in
proportion as it ceases to be _experienced_ as a _subject_ (active and
passive)—we see it dawn and increase in the poetical world in the guise
of an _idea_ and as an _object_. The people who have carried farthest
the want of nature, and at the same time the reflections on that matter,
must needs have been the people who at the same time were most struck
with this 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
the interest we take in it, must naturally go much farther back, and it
dates from the time when the moral sense and the æsthetical sense began
to be corrupt. This modification in the manner of feeling is exceedingly
striking in Euripides, for example, if compared with his predecessors,
especially Æschylus; and yet Euripides was the favorite poet of his
time. The same revolution is perceptible in the ancient historians.
Horace, the poet of a cultivated and corrupt epoch, praises, under the
shady groves of Tibur, the calm and happiness of the country, and he
might be termed the true founder of this sentimental poetry, of which he
has 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 his exile at Tomes sorrowfully regrets the happiness that Horace so
readily dispensed with in his villa at Tibur.

It is in the fundamental idea of poetry that the poet is everywhere the
_guardian_ of nature. When he can no longer entirely fill this part, and
has already in himself suffered the deleterious influence of arbitrary
and factitious forms, or has had to struggle against this influence, he
presents himself as the _witness_ of nature and as its avenger. The poet
will, therefore, be the _expression_ of nature itself, or his part will
be to _seek_ it, if men have lost sight of it. Hence arise two kinds of
poetry, which embrace and exhaust the entire field of poetry. All
poets—I mean those who are really so—will belong, according to the time
when they flourish, according to the accidental circumstances that have
influenced their education generally, and the different dispositions of
mind through which they pass, will belong, I say, to the order of the
_sentimental_ poetry or to _simple_ poetry.

The poet of a young world, simple and inspired, as also the poet who at
an epoch of artificial civilization approaches nearest to the primitive
bards, is austere and prudish, like the virginal Diana in her forests.
Wholly unconfiding, he hides himself from the heart that seeks him, from
the desire that wishes to embrace him. It is not rare for the dry truth
with which he treats his subject to resemble insensibility. The whole
object possesses him, and to reach his heart it does not suffice, as
with metals of little value, to stir up the surface; as with pure gold,
you must 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, nor understand it, or be tired of it, to be even anxious to
learn who is its author.

Such appears to us, for instance, Homer in antiquity, and Shakespeare
among moderns: two natures infinitely different and separated in time by
an abyss, but perfectly identical as to this trait of character. When,
at a very youthful age, I became first acquainted with Shakespeare, I
was displeased with his coldness, with his insensibility, which allows
him to jest even in the most pathetic moments, to disturb the impression
of the most harrowing scenes in “Hamlet,” in “King Lear,” and in
“Macbeth,” etc., by mixing with them the buffooneries of a madman. I was
revolted by his insensibility, which allowed him to pause sometimes at
places where my sensibility would bid me hasten and bear me along, and
which sometimes carried him away with indifference when my heart would
be so happy to pause. Though I was accustomed, by the practice of modern
poets, to seek at once the poet in his works, to meet his heart, to
reflect with him in his theme—in a word, to see the object in the
subject—I could not bear that the poet could in Shakespeare never be
seized, that he would never give me an account of himself. For some
years Shakespeare had been the object of my study and of all my respect
before I had learned to love his personality. I was not yet able to
comprehend nature at first hand. All that my eyes could bear was its
image only, reflected by the understanding and arranged by rules: and on
this score the sentimental poetry of the French, or that of the Germans
of 1750 to 1780, was what suited me best. For the rest, I do not blush
at this childish judgment: adult critics pronounced in that day in the
same way, and carried their simplicity so far as to publish their
decisions to the world.

The same thing happened to me in the case of Homer, with whom I made
acquaintance at a later date. I remember now that remarkable passage of
the sixth book of the “Iliad,” where Glaucus and Diomed meet each other
in the strife, and then, recognizing each other as host and guest,
exchange presents. With this touching picture of the piety with which
the laws of _hospitality_ were observed even in war, may be compared a
picture of chivalrous generosity in Ariosto. The knights, rivals in
love, Ferragus and Rinaldo—the former a Saracen, the latter a
Christian—after having fought to extremity, all covered with wounds,
make peace together, and mount the same horse to go and seek the
fugitive Angelica. These two examples, however different in other
respects, are very similar with regard to the impression produced on our
heart: both represent the noble victory of moral feeling over passion,
and touch us by the simplicity of feeling displayed in them. But what a
difference in the way in which the two poets go to work to describe two
such analogous scenes! Ariosto, who belongs to an advanced epoch, to a
world where simplicity of manners no longer existed, in relating this
trait, cannot conceal the astonishment, the admiration, he feels at it.
He measures the distance from those manners to the manners of his own
age, and this feeling of astonishment is too strong for him. He abandons
suddenly the painting of the object, and comes himself on the scene in
person. This beautiful stanza is well known, and has been always
specially admired at all times:—

“Oh nobleness, oh generosity of the ancient manners of chivalry! These
were rivals, separated by their faith, suffering bitter pain throughout
their frames in consequence of a desperate combat; and, without any
suspicion, behold them riding in company along dark and winding paths.
Stimulated by four spurs, the horse hastens his pace till they arrive at
the place where the road divides.”[14]

Now let us turn to old Homer. Scarcely has Diomed learned by the story
of Glaucus, his adversary, that the latter has been, from the time of
their fathers, the host and friend of his family, when he drives his
lance into the and friend of his family, when he drives his lance into
the ground, converses familiarly with him, and both agree henceforth to
avoid each other in the strife. But let us hear Homer himself:—

“Thus, then, I am for thee a faithful host in Argos, and thou to me in
Lycia, when I shall visit that country. We shall, therefore, avoid our
lances meeting in the strife. Are there not for me other Trojans or
brave allies to kill when a god shall offer them to me and my steps
shall reach them? And for thee, Glaucus, are there not enough Achæans,
that thou mayest immolate whom thou wishest? But let us exchange our
arms, in order that others may also see that we boast of having been
hosts and guests at the time of our fathers.” Thus they spoke, and,
rushing from their chariots, they seized each other’s hands, and swore
friendship the one to the other.[15]

It would have been difficult for a _modern_ poet (at least to one who
would be modern in the moral sense of the term) even to wait as long as
this before expressing his joy in the presence of such an action. We
should pardon this in him the more easily, because we also, in reading
it, feel that our heart makes a pause here, and readily turns aside from
the object to bring back its thoughts on itself. But there is not the
least trace of this in Homer. As if he had been relating something that
is seen every day—nay, more, as if he had no heart beating in his
breast—he continues, with his dry truthfulness:—

“Then the son of Saturn blinded Glaucus, who, exchanging his armor with
Diomed, gave him golden arms of the value of one hecatomb, for brass
arms only worth nine beeves.”[16]

The poets of this order,—the genuinely simple poets, are scarcely any
longer in their place in this artificial age. Accordingly they are
scarcely possible in it, or at least they are only possible on the
condition of _traversing_ their age, like _scared persons_, at a
_running_ pace, and of being preserved by a happy star from the
influence of their age, which would mutilate their genius. Never, for ay
and forever, will society produce these poets; but out of society they
still appear sometimes at intervals, rather, I admit, as strangers, who
excite wonder, or as ill-trained children of nature, who give offence.
These apparitions, so very comforting for the artist who studies them,
and for the real connoisseur, who knows how to appreciate them, are, as
a general conclusion, in the age when they are begotten, to a very small
degree preposterous. The seal of empire is stamped on their brow, and
we,—we ask the Muses to cradle us, to carry us in their arms. The
critics, as regular constables of art, detest these poets as _disturbers
of rules or of limits_. Homer himself may have been only indebted to the
testimony of ten centuries for the reward these aristarchs are kindly
willing to concede him. Moreover, they find it a hard matter to maintain
their rules 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, a
sentimental poet.

The poetic spirit is immortal, nor can it disappear from humanity; it
can only disappear with humanity itself, or with the aptitude to be a
man, a human being. And actually, though man by the freedom of his
imagination and of his understanding departs from simplicity, from
truth, from the necessity of nature, not only a road always remains open
to him to return to it, but, moreover, a powerful and indestructible
instinct, the moral instinct, brings him incessantly back to nature; and
it is precisely the poetical faculty that is united to this instinct by
the ties of the closest relationship. Thus man does not lose the poetic
faculty directly he parts with the simplicity of nature; only this
faculty acts out of him in another direction.

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

As long as man dwells in a state of pure nature (I mean pure and not
coarse nature), all his being acts at once like a simple sensuous unity,
like a harmonious whole. The senses and reason, the receptive faculty
and the spontaneously active faculty, have not been as yet separated in
their respective functions: _à fortiori_ they are not yet in
contradiction with each other. Then the feelings of man are not the
formless play of chance; nor are his thoughts an empty play of the
imagination, without any value. His feelings proceed from the law of
necessity; his _thoughts_ from _reality_. But when man enters the state
of civilization, and art has fashioned him, this _sensuous_ harmony
which was in him disappears, and henceforth he can only manifest himself
as a _moral unity_, that is, as aspiring to unity. The harmony that
existed as a _fact_ in the former state, the harmony of feeling and
thought, only exists now in an _ideal_ state. It is no longer in him,
but out of him; it is a conception of thought which he must begin by
realizing in himself; it is no longer a fact, 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 to infer that, on the one
hand, in the state of natural simplicity, when all the faculties of man
are exerted together, his being still manifests itself in a harmonious
unity, where, consequently, the _totality_ of his nature expresses
itself in reality itself, the part of the _poet_ is necessarily to
imitate the real as completely as is possible. In the state of
civilization, on the contrary, when this harmonious competition of the
whole of human nature is no longer anything but an idea, the part of the
poet is necessarily to raise reality to the ideal, or, what amounts to
the same thing, _to represent the ideal_. And, actually, these are the
only two ways in which, in general, the poetic genius can manifest
itself. Their great difference is quite evident, but though there be
great opposition between them, a higher idea exists that embraces both,
and there is no cause to be astonished if this idea coincides with the
very idea of humanity.

This is not the place to pursue this thought any further, as it would
require a separate discussion to place it in its full light. But if we
only compare the modern and ancient poets together, not according to the
accidental forms which they may have employed, but according to their
spirit, we shall be easily convinced of the truth of this thought. The
thing that touches us in the ancient poets is nature; it is the truth of
sense, it is a present and a living reality: modern poets touch us
through the medium of ideas.

The path followed by modern poets is moreover that necessarily followed
by man generally, individuals as well as the species. Nature reconciles
man with himself; art divides and disunites him; the ideal brings him
back to unity. Now, the ideal being an infinite that he never succeeds
in reaching, it follows that civilized man can never become perfect in
his kind, while the man of nature can become so in his. Accordingly in
relation to perfection one would be infinitely below the other, if we
only considered the relation in which they are both to their own kind
and to their maximum. If, on the other hand, it is the kinds that are
compared together, it is ascertained that the end to which man tends by
civilization is infinitely superior to that which he reaches through
nature. Thus one has his reward, because having for object a finite
magnitude, he completely reaches this object; the merit of the other is
to approach an object that is of infinite magnitude. Now, as there are
only degrees, and as there is only progress in the second of these
evolutions, it follows that the relative merit of the man engaged in the
ways 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 we
know also that humanity cannot reach its final end except by _progress_,
and that the man of nature cannot make progress save through culture,
and consequently by passing himself through the way of civilization.
Accordingly there is no occasion to ask with which of the two the
advantage must remain, considering this last end.

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

Accordingly it would have been desirable not to compare at all the
ancient and the modern poets, the simple and the sentimental poets, or
only to compare them by referring them to a higher idea (since there is
really only one) which embraces both. For, sooth to say, if we begin by
forming a specific idea of poetry, merely from the ancient poets,
nothing is easier, but also nothing is more vulgar, than to depreciate
the moderns by this comparison. If persons wish to confine the name of
poetry to that which has in all times produced the same impression in
simple nature, this places them in the necessity of contesting the title
of poet in the moderns precisely in that which constitutes their highest
beauties, their greatest originality and sublimity; for precisely in the
points where they excel the most, it is the child of civilization whom
they 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 order
to enter the field of the ideal, the richest and most substantial poetry
is an empty appearance, and the sublimest flights of poetic inspiration
are an exaggeration. Never will a reasonable man think of placing
alongside Homer, in his grandest episodes, any of our modern poets; and
it has a discordant and ridiculous effect to hear Milton or Klopstock
honored with the name of a “new Homer.” But take in modern poets what
characterizes them, what makes their special merit, and try to compare
any ancient poet with them in this point, they will not be able to
support the comparison any better, and Homer less than any other. I
should express it thus: the power of the ancients consists in
compressing objects into the finite, and the moderns excel in the art of
the infinite.

What we have said here may be extended to the fine arts in general,
except certain restrictions that are self-evident. If, then, the
strength of the artists of antiquity consists in determining and
limiting objects, we must no longer wonder that in the field of the
plastic arts the ancients remain so far superior to the moderns, nor
especially that poetry and the plastic arts with the moderns, compared
respectively with what they were among the ancients, do not offer the
same relative value. This is because an object that addresses itself to
the eyes is only perfect in proportion as the object is clearly limited
in it; whilst a work that is addressed to the imagination can also reach
the perfection which is proper to it by means of the ideal and the
infinite. This is why the superiority of the moderns in what relates to
ideas is not of great aid to them in the plastic arts, where it is
necessary for them to _determine_ in _space_, with the greatest
precision, the image which their imagination has conceived, and where
they must therefore measure themselves with the ancient artist just on a
point where his superiority cannot be contested. In the matter of poetry
it is another affair, and if the advantage is still with the ancients on
that ground, as respects the simplicity of forms—all that can be
represented by sensuous features, all that is something _bodily_—yet, on
the other hand, the moderns have the advantage over the ancients as
regards fundamental wealth, and all that can neither be represented nor
translated by sensuous signs, in short, for all that is called mind and
idea in the works of art.

From the moment that the simple poet is content to follow simple nature
and 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. If
simple poetry produces different impressions—I do not, of course, speak
of the impressions that are connected with the nature of the subject,
but only of those that are dependent on poetic execution—the whole
difference is in the _degree_; there is only one way of feeling, which
varies from more to less; even the diversity of external forms changes
nothing in the quality of æsthetic impressions. Whether the form be
lyric or epic, dramatic or descriptive, we can receive an impression
either stronger or weaker, but if we remove what is connected with the
nature of the subject, we shall always be affected in the same way. The
feeling we experience is absolutely identical; it proceeds entirety from
one single and the same element to such a degree that we are unable to
make any distinction. The very difference of tongues and that of times
does not here occasion any diversity, for their strict unity of origin
and of effect is precisely a characteristic of simple poetry.

It is quite different with sentimental poetry. The sentimental poet
_reflects_ on the impression produced on him by objects; and it is only
on this reflection that his poetic force is based. It follows that the
sentimental poet is always concerned with two opposite forces, has two
modes of representing objects to himself, and of feeling them; these
are, the real or limited, and the ideal or infinite; and the mixed
feeling that he will awaken will always testify to this duality of
origin. Sentimental poetry thus admitting more than one principle, it
remains to know which of the two will be _predominant_ in the poet, both
in his fashion of feeling and in that of representing the object; and
consequently a difference in the mode of treating it is possible. Here,
then, a new subject is presented: shall the poet attach himself to the
real 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 be
able to treat the same subject either in its _satirical aspect_ or in
its _elegiac_ aspect,—taking these words in a larger sense, which will
be explained in the sequel: every sentimental poet will of necessity
become attached 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 which
things are from nature, and the contrast between reality and the ideal:
as regards the impression received by the soul, these two subjects blend
into the same. In the execution, he may place earnestness and passion,
or jests and levity, according as he takes pleasure in the domain of the
will or in that of the understanding. In the former case it is avenging
and pathetic satire; in the second case it is sportive, humorous, and
mirthful satire.

Properly speaking, the object of poetry is not compatible either with
the tone of punishment or that of amusement. The former is too grave for
play, which should be the main feature of poetry; the latter is too
trifling for seriousness, which should form the basis of all poetic
play. Our mind is necessarily interested in moral contradictions, and
these deprive the mind of its liberty. Nevertheless, all personal
interest, and reference to a personal necessity, should be banished from
poetic feeling. But mental contradictions do not touch the heart,
nevertheless the poet deals with the highest interests of the
heart—nature and the ideal. Accordingly it is a hard matter for him not
to violate the poetic form in pathetic satire, because this form
consists in the liberty of movement; and in sportive satire he is very
apt to miss the true spirit of poetry, which ought to be the infinite.
The problem can only be solved in one way: by the pathetic satire
assuming the character of the sublime, and the playful satire acquiring
poetic substance by enveloping the theme in beauty.

In satire, the real as imperfection is opposed to the ideal, considered
as the highest reality. In other respects it is by no means essential
that the ideal should be expressly represented, provided the poet knows
how to awaken it in our souls, but he must in all cases awaken it,
otherwise he will exert absolutely no poetic action. Thus reality is
here a necessary object of aversion; but it is also necessary, for the
whole question centres here, that this aversion should come necessarily
from the ideal, which is opposed to reality. To make this clear—this
aversion might proceed from a purely sensuous source, and repose only on
a _want_ of which the satisfaction finds obstacles in the real. How
often, in fact, we think we feel against society a _moral_ discontent,
while we are simply soured by the obstacles that it opposes to our
inclination. It is this entirely material interest that the vulgar
satirist brings into play; and as by this road he never fails to call
forth in us movements connected with the affections, he fancies that he
holds our heart in his hand, and thinks he has graduated in the
pathetic. But all pathos derived from this source is unworthy of poetry,
which ought only to move us through the medium of ideas, and reach our
heart only by passing through the reason. Moreover, this impure and
material pathos will never have its effect on minds, except by
over-exciting the affective faculties and by occupying our hearts with
painful feelings: in this it differs entirely from the truly poetic
pathos, which raises in us the feeling of moral independence, and which
is recognized by the freedom of 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 the real, the sublime beauty of the ideal
corrects all impression of restraint; and the grandeur of the idea with
which we are imbued raises us above all the limits of experience. Thus
in the representation of some revolting reality, the essential thing is
that the necessary be the foundation on which the poet or the narrator
places the real: that he know how to dispose our mind for ideas.
Provided the point from which we see and judge be elevated, it matters
little if the object be low and far beneath us. When the historian
Tacitus depicts the profound decadence of the Romans of the first
century, it is a great soul which from a loftier position lets his looks
drop down on a low object; and the disposition in which he places us is
truly poetic, because it is the height where he is himself placed, and
where he has succeeded in raising us, which alone renders so perceptible
the baseness of the object.

Accordingly the satire of pathos must always issue from a mind deeply
imbued with the ideal. It is nothing but an impulsion towards harmony
that can give rise to that deep feeling of moral opposition and that
ardent indignation against moral obliquity which amounted to the fulness
of enthusiasm in Juvenal, Swift, Rousseau, Haller, and others. These
same poets would have succeeded equally well in forms of poetry relating
to all that is tender and touching in feeling, and it was only the
accidents of life in their early days that diverted their minds into
other walks. Nay, some amongst them actually tried their hand
successfully in these other branches of poetry. The poets whose names
have been just mentioned lived either at a period of degeneracy, and had
scenes of painful moral obliquity presented to their view, or personal
troubles had combined to fill their souls with bitter feelings. The
strictly austere spirit in which Rousseau, Haller, and others paint
reality is a natural result, moreover, of the philosophical mind, when
with rigid adherence to laws of thought it separates the mere phenomenon
from the substance of things. Yet these outer and contingent influences,
which always put restraint on the mind, should never be allowed to do
more than decide the direction taken by enthusiasm, nor should they ever
give the material for it. The substance ought always to remain
unchanged, emancipated from all external motion or stimulus, and it
ought to issue from an ardent impulsion towards the ideal, which forms
the only true motive that can be put forth for satirical poetry, and
indeed for all sentimental poetry.

While the satire of pathos is only adapted to elevated minds, playful
satire can only be adequately represented by a heart imbued with
_beauty_. The former is preserved from triviality by the serious nature
of the theme; but the latter, whose proper sphere is confined to the
treatment of subjects of morally unimportant nature, would infallibly
adopt the form of frivolity, and be deprived of all poetic dignity, were
it not that the substance is ennobled by the form, and did not the
personal dignity of the poet compensate for the insignificance of the
subject. Now, it is only given to mind imbued with beauty to impress its
character, its entire image, on each of its manifestations,
independently of the object of its manifestations. A sublime soul can
only make itself known as such by single victories over the rebellion of
the senses, only in certain moments of exaltation, and by efforts of
short duration. In a mind imbued with _beauty_, on the contrary, the
ideal acts in the same manner as nature, and therefore continuously;
accordingly it can manifest itself in it in a state of repose. The deep
sea never appears more sublime than when it is agitated; the true beauty
of a clear stream is in its peaceful course.

The question has often been raised as to the comparative preference to
be awarded to tragedy or comedy. If the question is confined merely to
their respective themes, it is certain that tragedy has the advantage.
But if our inquiry be directed to ascertain which has the more important
personality, it is probable that a decision may be given in favor of
comedy. In tragedy the theme in itself does great things; in comedy the
object does nothing and the poet all. Now, as in the judgments of taste
no account must be kept of the matter treated of, it follows naturally
that the æsthetic value of these two kinds will be in an inverse ratio
to the proper importance of their themes.

The tragic poet is supported by the theme, while the comic poet, on the
contrary, has to keep up the æsthetic character of his theme by his own
individual influence. The former may soar, which is not a very difficult
matter, but the latter has to remain one and the same in tone; he has to
be in the elevated region of art, where he must be at home, but where
the tragic poet has to be projected and elevated by a bound. And this is
precisely what distinguishes a soul of beauty from a sublime soul. A
soul of beauty bears in itself by anticipation all great ideas; they
flow without constraint and without difficulty from its very nature—an
infinite nature, at least in potency, at whatever point of its career
you seize it. A sublime soul can rise to all kinds of greatness, but by
an effort; it can tear itself from all bondage, to all that limits and
constrains it, but only by strength of will. Consequently the sublime
soul 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 of
mind, just as the end of tragedy is to re-establish in us this freedom
of mind by æsthetic ways, when it has been violently suspended by
passion. Consequently it is necessary that in tragedy the poet, as if he
made an experiment, should _artificially_ suspend our freedom of mind,
since tragedy shows its poetic virtue by re-establishing it; in comedy,
on the other hand, care must be taken that things never reach this
suspension of freedom.

It is for this reason that the tragic poet invariably treats his theme
in a practical manner, and the comic poet in a theoretic manner, even
when the former, as happened with Lessing in his “Nathan,” should have
the curious fancy to select a theoretical, and the latter should have
that of choosing a practical subject. A piece is constituted a tragedy
or a comedy not by the sphere from which the theme is taken, but by the
tribunal before which it is judged. A tragic poet ought never to indulge
in tranquil reasoning, and ought always to gain the interest of the
heart; but the comic poet ought to shun the pathetic and bring into play
the understanding. The former displays his art by creating continual
excitement, the latter by perpetually subduing his passion; and it is
natural that the art in both cases should acquire magnitude and strength
in proportion as the theme of one poet is abstract and that of the other
pathetic in character. Accordingly, if tragedy sets out from a more
exalted place, it must be allowed, on the other hand, that comedy aims
at a more important end; and if this end could be actually attained it
would make all tragedy not only unnecessary, but impossible. The aim
that comedy has in view is the same as that of the highest destiny of
man, and this consists in liberating himself from the influence of
violent passions, and taking a calm and lucid survey of all that
surrounds him, and also of his own being, and of seeing everywhere
occurrence rather than fate or hazard, and ultimately rather smiling at
the absurdities than 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
of the mind. The same fact is discerned in the case of poetical
displays.

Now, public taste scarcely if ever soars above the sphere of the
agreeable, and authors gifted with this sort of elegance of mind and
style do not find it a difficult matter to usurp a glory which is or
ought to be the reward of so much real labor. Nevertheless, an
infallible text exists to enable us to discriminate a natural facility
of manner from ideal gentleness, and qualities that consist in nothing
more than natural virtue from genuine moral worth of character. This
test is presented by trials such as those presented by difficulty and
events offering great opportunities. Placed in positions of this kind,
the genius whose essence is elegance is sure infallibly to fall into
platitudes, and that virtue which only results from natural causes drops
down to a material sphere. But a mind imbued with true and spiritual
beauty is in cases of the kind we have supposed sure to be elevated to
the highest sphere of character and of feeling. So long as Lucian merely
furnishes absurdity, as in his “Wishes,” in the “Lapithas,” in “Jupiter
Tragœdus,” etc., he is only a humorist, and gratifies us by his sportive
humor; but he changes character in many passages in his “Nigrinus,” his
“Timon,” and his “Alexander,” when his satire directs its shafts against
moral depravity. Thus he begins in his “Nigrinus” his picture of the
degraded corruption of Rome at that time in this way: “Wretch, why didst
thou quit Greece, the sunlight, and that free and happy life? Why didst
thou come here into this turmoil of splendid slavery, of service and
festivals, of sycophants, flatterers, poisoners, orphan-robbers, and
false friends?” It is on such occasions that the poet ought to show the
lofty earnestness of soul which has to form the basis of all plays, if a
poetical character is to be obtained by them. A serious intention may
even be detected under the malicious jests with which Lucian and
Aristophanes pursue Socrates. Their purpose is to avenge truth against
sophistry, and to do combat for an ideal which is not always prominently
put forward. There can be no doubt that Lucian has justified this
character in his Diogenes and Demonax. Again, among modern writers, how
grave and beautiful is the character depicted on all occasions by
Cervantes in his Don Quixote! How splendid must have been the ideal that
filled the mind of a poet who created a Tom Jones and a Sophonisba! How
deeply and strongly our hearts are moved by the jests of Yorick when he
pleases! I detect this seriousness also in our own Wieland: even the
wanton sportiveness of his humor is elevated and impeded by the goodness
of his heart; it has an influence even on his rhythm; nor does he ever
lack elastic power, when it is his wish, to raise us up to the most
elevated planes of beauty and of thought.

The same judgment cannot be pronounced on the satire of Voltaire. No
doubt, also, in his case, it is the truth and simplicity of nature which
here and there makes us experience poetic emotions, whether he really
encounters nature and depicts it in a simple character, as many times in
his “Ingénu;” or whether he seeks it and avenges it as in his “Candide”
and elsewhere. But when neither one nor the other takes place, he can
doubtless amuse us with his fine wit, but he assuredly never touches us
as a poet. There is always rather too little of the serious under his
raillery, and this is what makes his vocation as poet justly suspicious.
You always meet his intelligence only; never his feelings. No ideal can
be detected under this light gauze envelope; scarcely can anything
absolutely fixed be found under this perpetual movement. His prodigious
diversity of externals and forms, far from proving anything in favor of
the inner fulness of his inspiration, rather testifies to the contrary;
for he has exhausted all forms without finding a single one on which he
has succeeded in impressing his heart. We are almost driven to fear that
in the case of his rich talent the poverty of heart alone determined his
choice of satire. And how could we otherwise explain the fact that he
could 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 the
inner form return everywhere with its sterile and eternal uniformity,
and in spite of his so productive career, he never accomplished in
himself the circle of humanity, that circle which we see joyfully
traversed throughout by the satirists previously named.


                            ELEGIAC POETRY.

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

Indignation in the pathetic and ridicule in mirthful satire are
occasioned by an enthusiasm which the ideal has excited; and thus also
sadness should issue from the same source in elegy. It is this, and this
only, that gives poetic value to elegy, and any other origin for this
description of poetical effusion is entirely beneath the dignity of
poetry. The elegiac poet seeks after nature, but he strives to find her
in her beauty, and not only in her mirth; in her agreement with
conception, and not merely in her facile disposition towards the
requirements and demands of sense. Melancholy at the privation of joys,
complaints at the disappearance of the world’s golden age, or at the
vanished happiness of youth, affection, etc., can only become the proper
themes for elegiac poetry if those conditions implying peace and calm in
the sphere of the senses can moreover be portrayed as states of moral
harmony. On this account I cannot bring myself to regard as poetry the
complaints of Ovid, which he transmitted from his place of exile by the
Black Sea; nor would they appear so to me however touching and however
full of passages of the highest poetry they might be. His suffering is
too devoid of spirit, and nobleness. His lamentations display a want of
strength and enthusiasm; though they may not reflect the traces of a
vulgar soul, they display a low and sensuous condition of a noble spirit
that has been trampled into the dust by its hard destiny. If, indeed, we
call 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,
and therefore a subject unworthy of poetry, which, raised above every
trace of 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 poet consists in bringing back the finite object to the proportions
of the infinite. Consequently the external matter of elegy, considered
in itself, is always indifferent, since poetry can never employ it as it
finds it, and because it is only by what it makes of it that it confers
on it a poetic dignity. The elegiac poet seeks nature, but nature as an
idea, and in a degree of perfection that it has never reached in
reality, although he weeps over this perfection as something that has
existed and is now lost. When Ossian speaks to us of the days that are
no more, and of the heroes that have disappeared, his imagination has
long since transformed these pictures represented to him by his memory
into a pure ideal, and changed these heroes into gods. The different
experiences of such or such a life in particular have become extended
and confounded in the universal idea of transitoriness, and the bard,
deeply moved, pursued by the increase of ruin everywhere present, takes
his flight towards heaven, to find there in the course of the sun an
emblem of what does not pass away.

I turn now to the elegiac poets of modern times. Rousseau, whether
considered as a poet or a philosopher, always obeys the same tendency;
to seek 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 time roused by elegiac feelings, at others showing the tone of the
satire of Juneval; and again, as in his Julia, delighting in the sphere
of the idyl. His compositions have undoubtedly a poetic value, since
their object is ideal; only he does not know how to treat it in a poetic
fashion. No doubt his serious character prevents him from falling into
frivolity; but this seriousness also does not allow him to rise to
poetic play. Sometimes absorbed by passion, at others by abstractions,
he seldom if ever reaches æsthetic freedom, which the poet ought to
maintain in spite of his material before his object, and in which he
ought to make the reader share. Either he is governed by his sickly
sensibility and his impressions become a torture, or the force of
thought chains down his imagination and destroys by its strictness of
reasoning all the grace of his pictures. These two faculties, whose
reciprocal influence and intimate union are what properly make the poet,
are found in this writer in an uncommon degree, and he only lacks one
thing—it is that the two qualities should manifest themselves actually
united; it is that the proper activity of thought should show itself
mixed more with feeling, and the sensuous more with thought.
Accordingly, even in the ideal which he has made of human nature, he is
too much taken up with the limits of this nature, and not enough with
its capabilities; he always betrays a want of physical _repose_ rather
than want of moral _harmony_. His passionate sensuousness must be blamed
when, to finish as quickly as possible that struggle in humanity which
offends him, he prefers to carry man back to the unintelligent
uniformity of his primitive condition, rather than see that struggle
carried out in the intellectual harmony of perfect cultivation, when,
rather than await the fulfilment of art he prefers not to let it begin;
in short, when he prefers to place the aim nearer the earth, and to
lower the ideal in order to reach it the sooner and the safer.

Among the poets of Germany who belong to this class, I shall only
mention here Haller, Kleist, and Klopstock. The character of their
poetry is sentimental; it is by the ideal that they touch us, not by
sensuous reality; and that not so much because they are themselves
nature, as because they know how to fill us with enthusiasm for nature.
However, what is true _in general_, as well of these three poets as of
every sentimental poet, does not evidently exclude the faculty of moving
us, _in particular_, by beauties of the simple genus; without this they
would not be poets. I only mean that it is not their proper and dominant
characteristic 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, and
reflection is in play before the sensuous nature has done its function;
they shut their eyes and stop their ears to plunge into internal
meditations. Their souls could not be touched by any impression without
observing immediately their own movements, without placing before their
eyes and outside themselves what takes place in them. It follows from
this that we never see the object itself, but what the intelligence and
reflection of the poet have made of the object; and even if this object
be the person itself of the poet, even when he wishes to represent to us
his own feelings, we are not informed of his state immediately or at
first hand; we only see how this state is reflected in his mind and what
he has thought of it in the capacity of spectator of himself. When
Haller deplores the death of his wife—every one knows this beautiful
elegy—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
the poet does not communicate to us, properly speaking, his feelings,
but the thoughts that they suggest to him. Accordingly, the emotion we
feel on hearing him is much less vivid! people remark that the poet’s
mind must have been singularly cooled down to become thus a spectator of
his own emotion.

Haller scarcely treated any subjects but the super-sensuous, and part of
the poems of Klopstock are also of this nature: this choice itself
excludes them from the simple kind. Accordingly, in order to treat these
super-sensuous themes in a poetic fashion, as no body could be given to
them, and they could not be made the objects of sensuous intuition, it
was necessary to make them pass from the finite to the infinite, and
raise 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 can
be conceived without involving contradiction; for, repeating again what
has been so often said, poetry has only two fields, the world of sense
and the ideal world, since in the sphere of conceptions, in the world of
the understanding, it cannot absolutely thrive. I confess that I do not
know as yet any didactic poem, either among the ancients or among the
moderns, where the subject is completely brought down to the individual,
or purely and completely raised to the ideal. The most common case, in
the most happy essays, is where the two principles are used together;
the abstract idea predominates, and the imagination, which ought to
reign over the whole domain of poetry, has merely the permission to
serve the understanding. 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 of
the poems of Haller. The thought itself of these poems is not poetical,
but the execution becomes so sometimes, occasionally by the use of
images, at other times by a flight towards the ideal. It is from this
last quality only that the poems of Haller belong to this class. Energy,
depth, a pathetic earnestness—these are the traits that distinguish this
poet. He has in his soul an ideal that enkindles it, and his ardent love
of truth seeks in the peaceful valleys of the Alps that innocence of the
first ages that the world no longer knows. His complaint is deeply
touching; he retraces in an energetic and almost bitter satire the
wanderings of the mind and of the heart, and he lovingly portrays the
beautiful simplicity of nature. Only, in his pictures as well as in his
soul, abstraction prevails too much, and the sensuous is overweighted by
the intellectual. He constantly _teaches_ rather than _paints_; and even
in his paintings his brush is more energetic than lovable. He is great,
bold, full of fire, sublime; but he rarely and perhaps never attains to
beauty.

For the solidity and depth of ideas, Kleist is far inferior to Haller;
in point of grace, perhaps, he would have the advantage—if, as happens
occasionally, we did not impute to him as a merit, on the one side, that
which really is a want on the other. The sensuous soul of Kleist takes
especial delight at the sight of country scenes and manners; he
withdraws gladly from the vain jingle and rattle of society, and finds
in the heart of inanimate nature the harmony and peace that are not
offered to him by the moral world. How touching is his “Aspiration after
Repose”! how much truth 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 the
narrow circle of social relations, in solitude and among the fruitful
inspirations of nature, the image of social life and of its anguish
pursues him, and also, alas! its chains. What he flees from he carries
in himself, and what he seeks remains entirely outside him: never can he
triumph over the fatal influence of his time. In vain does he find
sufficient flame in his heart and enough energy in his imagination to
animate by painting the cold conceptions of the understanding; cold
thought each time kills the living creations of fancy, and reflection
destroys the secret work of the sensuous nature. His poetry, it must be
admitted, is of as brilliant color and as variegated as the spring he
celebrated in verse; his imagination is vivid and active; but it might
be said that it is more variable than rich, that it sports rather than
creates, that it always goes forward with a changeful gait, rather than
stops to accumulate and mould things into shape. Traits succeed each
other rapidly, with exuberance, but without concentrating to form an
individual, without completing each other to make a living whole,
without rounding to a form, a figure. Whilst he remains in purely
lyrical poetry, and pauses amidst his landscapes of country life, on the
one hand the greater freedom of the lyrical form, and on the other the
more arbitrary nature of the subject, prevent us from being struck with
this defect; in these sorts of works it is in general rather the
feelings of the poet, than the object in itself, of which we expect the
portraiture. But this defect becomes too apparent when he undertakes, as
in Cisseis and Paches, or in his Seneca, to represent men and human
actions; because here the imagination sees itself kept in within certain
fixed and necessary limits, and because here the effect can only be
derived from the _object_ itself. Kleist becomes poor, tiresome, jejune,
and insupportably frigid; an example full of lessons for those who,
without having an inner vocation, aspire to issue from _musical_ poetry,
to rise to the regions of _plastic_ poetry. A spirit of this family,
Thomson, has paid the same penalty to human infirmity.

In the sentimental kind, and especially in that part of the sentimental
kind which we name elegiac, there are but few modern poets, and still
fewer ancient ones, who can be compared to our Klopstock. Musical poetry
has produced in this poet all that can be attained out of the limits of
the living form, and out of the sphere of individuality, in the region
of ideas. It would, no doubt, be doing him a great injustice to dispute
entirely in his case that individual truth and that feeling of life with
which the simple poet describes his pictures. Many of his odes, many
separate traits in his dramas, and in his “Messiah,” represent the
object with a striking truth, and mark the outline admirably;
especially, when the object is his own heart, he has given evidence on
many occasions of a great natural disposition and of a charming
simplicity. I mean only that it is not in this that the _proper_ force
of Klopstock consists, and that it would not perhaps be right to seek
for this throughout his work. Viewed as a production of musical poetry,
the “Messiah” is a magnificent work; but in the light of _plastic_
poetry, where we look for determined forms and forms _determined_ for
the _intuition_, the “Messiah” leaves much to be desired. Perhaps in
this poem the figures are sufficiently determined, but they are not so
with intuition in view. It is abstraction alone that created them, and
abstraction alone can discern them. They are excellent _types_ to
express ideas, but they are not individuals nor living figures. With
regard to the imagination, which the poet ought to address, and which he
ought to command by putting before it always perfectly determinate
forms, it is left here much too free to represent as it wishes these men
and these angels, these divinities and demons, this paradise and this
hell. We see quite well the vague outlines in which the understanding
must be kept to conceive these personages; but we do not find the limit
clearly traced in which the imagination must be enclosed to represent
them. And what I say here of characters must apply to all that in this
poem is, or ought to be, action and life, and not only in this epopœia,
but also in the dramatic poetry of Klopstock. For the understanding all
is perfectly determined and bounded in them—I need only here recall his
Judas, his Pilate, his Philo, his Solomon in the tragedy that bears that
name—but for the imagination all this wants form too much, and I must
readily confess I do not find that our poet is at all in his sphere
here. His sphere is always the realm of ideas; and he knows how to raise
all he touches to the infinite. It might be said that he strips away
their bodily envelope, to spiritualize them from all the objects with
which he is occupied, in the same way that other poets clothe all that
is spiritual with a body. The pleasure occasioned by his poems must
almost always be obtained by an exercise of the faculty of reflection;
the feelings he awakens in us, and that so deeply and energetically,
flow always from super-sensuous sources. Hence the earnestness, the
strength, the elasticity, the depth, that characterize all that comes
from him; but from that also issues that perpetual tension of mind in
which we are kept when reading him. No poet—except perhaps Young, who in
this respect exacts even more than Klopstock, without giving us so much
compensation—no poet could be less adapted than Klopstock to play the
part of favorite author and guide in life, because he never does
anything else than lead us out of life, because he never calls to arms
anything save spirit, without giving recreation and refreshment to
sensuous nature by the calm presence of any object. His muse is chaste,
it has nothing of the earthly, it is immaterial and holy as his
religion; and we are forced to admit with admiration that if he wanders
sometimes on these high places, it never happened to him to fall from
them. But precisely for this reason, I confess in all ingenuousness,
that I am not free from anxiety for the common sense of those who quite
seriously and unaffectedly make Klopstock the favorite book, the book in
which we find sentiments fitting all situations, or to which we may
revert at all times: perhaps even—and I suspect it—Germany has seen
enough results of his dangerous influence. It is only in certain
dispositions of the mind, and in hours of exaltation, that recourse can
be had to Klopstock, and that 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 could make. Youth, which always aspires to
something beyond real life, which avoids all stiffness of form, and
finds all limits too narrow, lets itself be carried away with love, with
delight, into the infinite spaces opened up to them by this poet. But
wait till the youth has become a man, and till, from the domain of
ideas, he comes back to the world of experience, then you will see this
enthusiastic love of Klopstock decrease greatly, without, however, a
riper age changing at all the esteem due to this unique phenomenon, to
this so extraordinary genius, to these noble sentiments—the esteem that
Germany in particular owes to his high merit.

I have said that this poet was great specially in the elegiac style, and
it is scarcely necessary to confirm this judgment by entering into
particulars. Capable of exercising all kinds of action on the heart, and
having graduated as master in all that relates to sentimental poetry, he
can sometimes shake the soul by the most sublime pathos, at others
cradle it with sweet and heavenly sensations. Yet his heart prefers to
follow the direction of a lofty spiritual melancholy; and, however
sublime be the tones of his harp and of his lyre, they are always the
tender notes of his lute that resound with most truth and the deepest
emotion. I take as witnesses all those whose nature is pure and
sensuous: would they not be ready to give all the passages where
Klopstock is strong, and bold; all those fictions, all the magnificent
descriptions, all the models of eloquence which abound in the “Messiah,”
all those dazzling comparisons in which our poet excels,—would they not
exchange them for the pages breathing tenderness, the “Elegy to Ebert”
for example, or that admirable poem entitled “Bardalus,” or again, the
“Tombs Opened before the Hour,” the “Summer’s Night,” the “Lake of
Zurich,” and many other pieces of this kind? In the same way the
“Messiah” is dear to me as a treasure of elegiac feelings and of ideal
paintings, though I am not much satisfied with it as the recital of an
action and as an epic.

I ought, perhaps, before quitting this department, to recall the merits
in this style of Uz, Denis, Gessner—in the “Death of Abel”—Jacobi,
Gerstenberg, Hölty, De Göckingk, and several others, who all knew how to
touch by ideas, and whose poems belong to the sentimental kind in the
sense in which we have agreed to understand the word. But my object is
not here to write a history of German poetry; I only wished to clear up
what I said further back by some examples from our literature. I wished
to show that the ancient and the modern poets, the authors of simple
poetry and of sentimental poetry, follow essentially different paths to
arrive at the same end: that the former move by nature, individuality, a
very vivid _sensuous_ element; while the latter do it by means of ideas
and a high _spirituality_, exercising over our minds an equally powerful
though less extensive influence.

It has been seen, by the examples which precede, how sentimental poetry
conceives and treats subjects taken from nature; perhaps the reader may
be curious to know how also simple poetry treats a subject of the
sentimental order. This is, as it seems, an entirely new question, and
one of special difficulty; for, in the first place, has a _subject of
the sentimental order_ ever been presented in primitive and simple
periods? And in modern times, where is the _simple poet_ with whom we
could make this experiment? This has not, however, prevented genius from
setting this problem, and solving it in a wonderfully happy way. A poet
in whose mind nature works with a purer and more faithful activity than
in any other, and who is perhaps of all modern poets the one who departs
the least from the sensuous truth of things, has proposed this problem
to himself in his conception of a mind, and of the dangerous extreme of
the sentimental character. This mind and this character have been
portrayed by the modern poet we speak of, a character which with a
burning sensuousness embraces the ideal and flies the real, to soar up
to an infinite devoid of being, always occupied in seeking out of
himself what he incessantly destroys in himself; a mind that only finds
reality in his dreams, 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 goes on, as it were, logically to break down this barrier
in order to penetrate to true reality.

It is interesting to see with what a happy instinct all that is of a
nature to feed the sentimental mind is gathered together in Werther: a
dreamy and unhappy love, a very vivid feeling for nature, the religious
sense coupled with the spirit of philosophic contemplation, and lastly,
to omit nothing, the world of Ossian, dark, formless, melancholy. Add to
this the aspect under which reality is presented, all is depicted which
is least adapted to make it lovable, or rather all that is most fit to
make it hated; see how all external circumstances unite to drive back
the unhappy man into his ideal world; and now we understand that it was
quite impossible for a character thus constituted to save itself, and
issue from the circle in which it was enclosed. The same contrast
reappears in the “Torquato Tasso” of the same poet, though the
characters are very different. Even his last romance presents, like his
first, this opposition between the poetic mind and the common sense of
practical men, between the ideal and the real, between the subjective
mode and the objective mode of seeing and representing things; it is the
same opposition, I say, but with what a diversity! Even in “Faust” we
still find this contrast, rendered, I admit—as the subject required—much
more coarsely on both hands, and materialized. It would be quite worth
while if 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
of mind, to a merry humor, if a certain fund of the ideal is not joined
to it, does not suffice to constitute the vocation of a satirical poet,
though this mistake is frequently made. In the same way a mere
disposition for tender sentiments, softness of heart, and melancholy do
not suffice to constitute a vocation for elegy. I cannot detect the true
poetical talent, either on one side or the other; it wants the
essential, I mean the energetic and fruitful principle that ought to
enliven the subject, and produce true beauty. Accordingly the
productions of this latter nature, of the tender nature, do nothing but
enervate us; and without refreshing the heart, without occupying the
mind, they are only able to flatter in us the sensuous nature. A
constant disposition to this mode of feeling ends necessarily, in the
long run, by weakening the character, and makes it fall into a state of
passivity from which nothing real can issue, either for external or for
internal life. People have, therefore, been quite right to persecute by
pitiless raillery this fatal mania of _sentimentality_ and of _tearful
melancholy_ which possessed Germany eighteen years since, in consequence
of certain excellent works that were ill understood and indiscreetly
imitated. People have been right, I say, to combat this perversity,
though the indulgence with which men are disposed to receive the
parodies of these elegiac caricatures—that are very little better
themselves—the complaisance shown to bad wit, to heartless satire and
spiritless mirth, show clearly enough that this zeal against false
sentimentalism does not issue from quite a pure source. In the balance
of true taste one cannot weigh more than the other, considering that
both here and there is wanting that which forms the æsthetic value of a
work of art, the intimate union of spirit with matter, and the twofold
relation of the work with the faculty of perception as well as with the
faculty of the ideal.

People have turned Siegwart[17] and his convent story into ridicule, and
yet the “Travels into the South of France” are admired; yet both works
have an equal claim to be esteemed in certain respects, and as little to
be unreservedly praised in others. A true, though excessive,
sensuousness gives value to the former of these two romances; a lively
and sportive humor, a fine wit, recommends the other: but one totally
lacks all sobriety of mind that would befit it, the other lacks all
æsthetic dignity. If you consult experience, one is rather ridiculous;
if you think of the ideal, the other is almost contemptible. Now, as
true beauty must of necessity accord both with nature and with the
ideal, it is clear that neither the one nor the other of these two
romances could pretend to pass for a fine work. And notwithstanding all
this, it is natural, as I know it by my own experience, that the romance
of Thummel should be read with much pleasure. As a fact it only wounds
those requirements which have their principle in the ideal, and which
consequently do not exist for the greater part of readers; requirements
that, even in persons of most delicate feeling, do not make themselves
felt at the moments when we read romances. With regard to the other
needs of the mind, and especially to those of the senses, this book, on
the other hand, affords unusual satisfaction. Accordingly, it must be,
and will be so, that this book will remain justly one of the favorite
works of our age, and of all epochs when men only write æsthetic works
to please, and people only read to get pleasure.

But does not poetical literature also offer, even in its classical
monuments, some analogous examples of injuries inflicted or attempted
against the ideal and its superior purity? Are there not some who, by
the gross, sensuous nature of their subject, seem to depart strangely
from the spiritualism I here demand of all works of art? If this is
permitted to the poet, the chaste nursling of the muses, ought it not to
be 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 this
question because there are masterpieces, both in the elegiac and in the
satirical kind, where the authors seek and preach up a nature quite
different from that I am discussing in this essay, and where they seem
to defend it, not so much against bad as against good morals. The
natural conclusion 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 far too much to what is arbitrary.

The question I asked was, whether what was permitted by the poet might
not be tolerated in a prose narrator too? The answer is contained in the
question. What is allowed in the poet proves nothing about what must be
allowed in one who is not a poet. This tolerancy in fact reposes on the
very idea which we ought to make to ourselves of the poet, and only on
this idea; what in his case is legitimate freedom, is only a license
worthy 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 of
corruption alone has given birth to them. But when once this experience
has been made, and natural innocence has disappeared from manners, these
laws are henceforth sacred laws that man, who has a moral sense, ought
not to infringe upon. They reign in an artificial world with the same
right that the laws of nature reign in the innocence of primitive ages.
But by what characteristic is the poet recognized? Precisely by his
silencing in his soul all that recalls an artificial world, and by
causing nature herself to revive in him with her primitive simplicity.
The moment he has done this he is emancipated by this alone from all the
laws by which a depraved heart secures itself against itself. He is
pure, he is innocent, and all that is permitted to innocent nature is
equally permitted to him. But you who read him or listen to him, if you
have 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
own_ fault, and not his: why do not you leave him alone? it is not for
you that he has sung!

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

Let us remark in the first place that nature only can justify these
licenses; whence it follows that you could not legitimately take them up
of 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
absolutely unpardonable. These licenses must, therefore, above all, be
_simplicity_. But how can we be convinced that they are actually simple?
We shall hold them to be so if we see them accompanied and supported by
all the other circumstances which also have their spring of action in
nature; for nature can only be recognized by the close and strict
consistency, by the unity and uniformity of its effects. It is only a
soul that has on all occasions a horror of all kinds of artifice, and
which consequently rejects them even where they would be useful—it is
only that soul which we permit to be emancipated from them when the
artificial conventionalities hamper and hinder it. A heart that submits
to all the obligations of nature has alone the right to profit also by
the liberties which it authorizes. All the other feelings of that heart
ought consequently to bear the stamp of nature: it will be true, simple,
free, frank, sensible, and straightforward; all disguise, all cunning,
all arbitrary fancy, all egotistical pettiness, will be banished from
his character, 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 the
appetites; for all that proceeds exclusively from the wants of sensuous
nature is contemptible. It is, therefore, from the totality and the
fullness of human nature that these vivid manifestations must also
issue. We must find _humanity_ in them. But how can we judge that they
proceed in fact from our whole nature, and not only from an exclusive
and vulgar want of the sensuous nature? For this purpose it is necessary
that we should see—that they should represent to us—this whole of which
they form a particular feature. This disposition of the mind to
experience the impressions of the sensuous is in itself an innocent and
an indifferent thing. It does not sit well on a man only because of its
being common to animals with him; it augurs in him the lack of true and
perfect humanity. It only shocks us in the poem because such a work
having the pretension to please us, the author consequently seems to
think us capable, _us also_, of this moral infirmity. But when we see in
the man who has let himself be drawn into it by surprise all the other
characteristics that human nature in general embraces; when we find in
the work where these liberties have been taken the expression of all the
realities of human nature, this motive of discontent disappears, and we
can enjoy, without anything changing our joy, this simple expression of
a true and beautiful nature. Consequently this same poet who ventures to
allow himself to associate us with feelings so basely human, ought to
know, 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 could
subject the poet with confidence, when he trespasses on the ground of
decency, and when he does not fear to penetrate as far as that in order
freely to paint nature. His work is common, base, absolutely
inexcusable, from the moment it is frigid, and from the moment it is
_empty_, because that shows a prejudice, a vulgar necessity, an
unhealthy appeal to our appetites. His work, on the other hand, is
beautiful and noble, and we ought to applaud it without any
consideration for all the objections 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 the
recitals of this kind composed by the French, and the best imitations
made of them in Germany, would not perhaps find their interest in it;
and that it might be the same, at least in part, with many of the
productions of our most intellectual and amiable poets, without even
excepting his masterpieces. I should have nothing to reply to this. The
sentence after all is anything but new, and I am only justifying the
judgment pronounced long since on this matter by all men of delicate
perceptions. But these same principles which, applied to the works of
which I have just spoken, seem perhaps in too strict a spirit, might
also be found too indulgent when applied to some other works. I do not
deny, in fact, that the same reasons which make me hold to be quite
inexcusable the dangerous pictures drawn by the Roman Ovid and the
German Ovid, those of Crebillon, of Voltaire, of Marmontel, who pretends
to write _moral_ tales!—of Lacroix, and of many others—that these same
reasons, I say, reconcile me with the elegies of the Roman Propertius
and of the German Propertius, and even with some of the decried
productions of Diderot. This is because the former of those works are
only witty, prosaic, and voluptuous, while the others are poetic, human,
and simple.


                                 IDYL.

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

This kind of poetry generally presents the idea and description of an
innocent and happy humanity. This innocence and bliss seeming remote
from the artificial refinements of fashionable society, poets have
removed the scene of the idyl from crowds of worldly life to the simple
shepherd’s cot, and have given it a place in the infancy of humanity
before the beginning of culture. These limitations are evidently
accidental; they do not form the object of the idyl, but are only to be
regarded as the most natural means to attain this end. The end is
everywhere to portray man in a state of innocence: which means a state
of harmony and peace with himself and the external world.

But a state such as this is not merely met with before the dawn of
civilization; it is also the state to which civilization aspires, as to
its 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 of
this state, is the only thing that can reconcile man with all the evils
to which he is exposed in the path of civilization; and if this idea
were only a chimera, the complaints of those who accuse civil life and
the culture of the intelligence as an evil for which there is no
compensation, and who represent this primitive state of nature that we
have renounced as the real end of humanity—their complaints, I say,
would have a perfectly just foundation. It is, therefore, of infinite
importance for the man engaged in the path of civilization to see
confirmed in a sensuous manner the belief that this idea can be
accomplished in the world of sense, that this state of innocence can be
realized in it; and as real experience, far from keeping up this belief,
is rather made incessantly to contradict it, poetry comes here, as in
many other cases, in aid of reason, to cause this idea to pass into the
condition 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 the
imagination must already have shown its creative power in that. But the
problem, with this datum, becomes infinitely simpler and easier to
solve; and we must not forget that the elements of these pictures
already existed in real life, and that it was only requisite to gather
up the separate traits to form a whole. Under a fine sky, in a primitive
society, when all the relations are still simple, when science is
limited to so little, nature is easily satisfied, and man only turns to
savagery when he is tortured by want. All nations that have a history
have a paradise, an age of innocence, a golden age. Nay, more than this,
every man has his paradise, his golden age, which he remembers with more
or less enthusiasm, according as he is more or less poetical. Thus
experience itself furnishes sufficient traits to this picture which the
pastoral idyl executes. But this does not prevent the pastoral idyl from
remaining always a beautiful and an encouraging fiction; and poetic
genius, in retracing these pictures, has really worked in favor of the
ideal. For, to the man who has once departed from simple nature, and who
has been abandoned to the dangerous guidance of his reason, it is of the
greatest importance to find the laws of nature expressed in a faithful
copy, to see their image in a clear mirror, and to reject all the stains
of artificial life. There is, however, a circumstance which remarkably
lessens the æsthetic value of these sorts of poetry. By the very fact
that the idyl is transported to the time that precedes civilization, it
also loses the advantages thereof; and by its nature finds itself in
opposition to itself. Thus, in a _theoretical_ sense, it takes us back
at the 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
attain their 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 poor for what concerns the _mind_, and their uniform circle is
too quickly traversed. Accordingly we can only seek them and love them
in moments in which we need calm, and not when our faculties aspire
after movement and exercise. A morbid mind will find its _cure_ in them,
a sound soul will not find its _food_ in them. They cannot vivify, they
can only soften. This defect, grounded in the essence of the pastoral
idyll, has not been remedied by the whole art of poets. I know that this
kind of poem is not without admirers, and that there are readers enough
who prefer an Amyntus and a Daphnis to the most splendid masterpieces of
the epic or the dramatic muse; but in them it is less the æsthetical
taste than the feeling of an individual want that pronounces on works of
art; and their judgment, by that very fact, could not be taken into
consideration here. The reader who judges with his mind, and whose heart
is sensuous without being blind to the merit of these poems, will
confess that he is rarely affected by them, and that they tire him most
quickly. But they act with so much the more effect in the exact moment
of need. But must the truly beautiful be reduced to await our hours of
need? and is it not rather its office to awaken in our soul the want
that it is going to satisfy?

The reproaches I here level against the bucolic idyl cannot be
understood of the sentimental. The simple pastoral, in fact, cannot be
deprived of æsthetic value, since this value is already found in _the
mere form_. To explain myself: every kind of poetry is bound to possess
an infinite ideal value, which alone constitutes it a true poetry; but
it can satisfy this condition in two different ways. It can give us the
feeling of the infinite as to form, by representing the object
_altogether limited_ and individualizing it; it can awaken in us the
feeling of the infinite as to matter, in _freeing its object from all
limits_ in which it is enclosed, by idealizing this object; therefore it
can have an ideal value either by an absolute representation or by the
representation of an absolute. Simple poetry takes the former road, the
other is that of sentimental poetry. Accordingly the simple poet is not
exposed to failure in value so long as he keeps faithfully to nature,
which is always completely circumscribed, that is, is infinite as
regards form. The sentimental poet, on the contrary, by that very fact,
that nature only offers him completely circumscribed objects, finds in
it an obstruction when he wishes to give an absolute value to a
particular object. Thus the sentimental poet understands his interests
badly when he goes along the trail of the simple poet, and _borrows his
objects_ from him—objects which by themselves are perfectly indifferent,
and which only become poetical by the way in which they are treated. By
this he imposes on himself without any necessity the same limits that
confine the field of the simple poet, without, however, being able to
carry out the limitation properly, or to vie with his rival in absolute
definiteness of representation. He ought rather, therefore, to depart
from the simple poet, just in the choice of object; because, the latter
having the advantage of him on the score of form, it is only by the
nature of the objects that he can resume the upper hand.

Applying this to the pastoral idylls of the sentimental poet, we see why
these poems, whatever amount of art and genius be displayed in them, do
not 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
of pastoral life. Would it not have been better, on the contrary, to
choose for the ideal another frame, or for the pastoral world another
kind of picture? These pictures are just ideal enough for painting to
lose its individual truth in them, and, again, just individual enough
for the ideal in them to suffer therefrom. For example, a shepherd of
Gessner can neither charm by the illusion of nature nor by the beauty of
imitation; he is too ideal a being for that, but he does not satisfy us
any more as an ideal by the infinity of the thought; he is a far too
limited 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 thus gives a commencement of satisfaction to the two opposite
exigencies that may 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 or the other exigency, as you do not find in him
either pure nature or the pure ideal; he cannot rank himself as entirely
up to the mark of a stringent critical taste, for taste does not accept
anything equivocal or incomplete in æsthetical matters. It is a strange
thing that, in the poet whom I have named, this equivocal character
extends to the language, which floats undecided between poetry and
prose, as if he feared either to depart too far from nature, by speaking
rhythmical language, or if he completely freed himself from rhythm, to
lose all poetic flight. Milton gives a higher satisfaction to the mind,
in the magnificent picture of the first human pair, and of the state of
innocence in paradise;—the most beautiful idyl I know of the sentimental
kind. Here nature is noble, inspired, simple, full of breadth, and, at
the same time, of depth; it is humanity in its highest moral value,
clothed in the most graceful form.

Thus, even in respect to the idyl, as well as to all kinds of poetry, we
must once for all declare either for individuality or ideality; for to
aspire 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
with them, notwithstanding all the indocility of his matter, on their
own ground, namely that of simple poetry, let him do it exclusively, and
place himself apart from all the requirements of the sentimental taste
of his age. No doubt it is very doubtful if he come up to his models;
between the original and the happiest imitation there will always remain
a notable distance; but, by taking this road, he is at all events secure
of producing a really poetic work. If, on the other hand, he feels
himself carried to the ideal by the instinct of sentimental poetry, let
him decide to pursue this end fully; let him seek the ideal in its
purity, and let him not pause till he has reached the highest regions
without looking behind him to know if the real follows him, and does not
leave him by the way. Let him not lower himself to this wretched
expedient of spoiling the ideal to accommodate himself to the wants of
human weakness, and to turn out _mind_ in order to play more easily with
the _heart_. Let him not take us back to our infancy, to make us buy, at
the cost of the most precious acquisitions of the understanding, a
repose that can only last as long as the slumber of our spiritual
faculties; but let him lead us on to emancipation, and give us this
feeling of higher harmony which compensates for all his troubles and
secures the happiness of the victor! Let him prepare as his task an idyl
that realizes the pastoral innocence, even in the children of
civilization, and in all the conditions of the most militant and excited
life; of thought enlarged by culture; of the most refined art; of the
most delicate social conventionalities—an idyl, in short, that is made,
not to bring back man to _Arcadia_, but to lead him to _Elysium_.

This idyl, as I conceive it, is the idea of humanity definitely
reconciled with itself, in the individual as well as in the whole of
society; it is union freely re-established between inclination and duty;
it is nature purified, raised to its highest moral dignity; in short, it
is no less than the ideal of beauty applied to real life. Thus, the
character of this idyl is to reconcile perfectly all the _contradictions
between the real and the ideal_, which formed the matter of satirical
and elegiac poetry, and, setting aside their contradictions, to put an
end to all conflict between the feelings of the soul. Thus, the dominant
expression of this kind of poetry would be _calm_; but the calm that
follows the accomplishment, and not that of indolence—the calm that
comes from the equilibrium re-established between the faculties, and not
from the suspending of their exercise; from the fulness of our strength,
and not from our infirmity; the calm, in short, which is accompanied in
the soul by the feeling of an infinite power. But precisely because idyl
thus conceived removes all idea of struggle, it will be infinitely more
difficult than it was in two previously-named kinds of poetry to express
_movement_; yet this is an indispensable condition, without which poetry
can never act on men’s souls. The most perfect unity is required, but
unity ought not to wrong variety; the heart must be satisfied, but
without the inspiration ceasing on that account. The solution of this
problem 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
their relations to the poetic ideal? Here are the principles we have
established.

Nature has granted this favor to the simple poet, to act always as an
indivisible unity, to be at all times identical and perfect, and to
represent, in the real world, humanity at its highest value. In
opposition, it has given a powerful faculty to the sentimental poet, or,
rather, it has imprinted an ardent feeling on him; this is to replace
out of himself this first unity that abstraction has destroyed in him,
to complete humanity in his person, and to pass from a limited state to
an infinite state. They both propose to represent human nature fully, or
they would not be poets; but the simple poet has always the advantage of
sensuous reality over the sentimental poet, by setting forth as a real
fact what the other aspires only to reach. Every one experiences this in
the pleasure he takes in simple poetry. We there feel that the human
faculties are brought into play; no vacuum is felt; we have the feeling
of unity, without distinguishing anything of what we experience; we
enjoy both our spiritual activity and also the fulness of physical life.
Very different is the disposition of mind elicited by the sentimental
poet. Here we feel only a vivid _aspiration_ to produce in us this
harmony of which we had in the other case the consciousness and reality;
to make of ourselves a single and same totality; to realize in ourselves
the idea of humanity as a complete expression. Hence it comes that the
mind is here all in movement, stretched, hesitating between contrary
feelings; whereas it was before calm and at rest, in harmony with
itself, and fully satisfied.

But if the simple poet has the advantage over the sentimental poet on
the score of reality; if he causes really to live that of which the
other can only elicit a vivid instinct, the sentimental poet, in
compensation, has this great advantage over the simple poet: to be in a
position to offer to this instinct a _greater object_ than that given by
his rival, and the only one he could give. All reality, we know, is
below the ideal; all that exists has limits, but thought is infinite.
This limitation, to which everything is subject in sensuous reality, is,
therefore, a disadvantage for the simple poet, while the absolute,
unconditional freedom of the ideal profits the sentimental poet. No
doubt the former accomplishes his object, but this object is limited;
the second, I admit, does not entirely accomplish his, but his object is
infinite. Here I appeal to experience. We pass pleasantly to real life
and things from the frame of mind in which the simple poet has placed
us. On the other hand, the sentimental poet will always disgust us, for
a time, with real life. This is because the infinite character has, in a
manner, enlarged our mind beyond its natural measure, so that nothing it
finds in the world of sense can fill its capacity. We prefer to fall
back in contemplation on ourselves, where we find food for this awakened
impulse towards the ideal world; while, in the simple poet, we only
strive to issue out of ourselves, in search of sensuous objects.
Sentimental poetry 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
no share in it. It is a first jet, a happy inspiration, that needs no
correction, when it turns out well, and which cannot be rectified if ill
turned out. The entire work of the simple genius is accomplished by
feeling; in that is its strength, and in it are its limits. If, then, he
has not _felt_ at once in a poetic manner—that is, in a perfectly human
manner—no art in the world can remedy this defect. Criticism may help
him to see the defect, but can place no beauty in its stead. Simple
genius 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 provided
nature acts in it by an inner necessity. Now, it is true that all which
happens by nature is necessary, and all the productions, happy or not,
of the simple genius, which is disassociated from nothing so much as
from arbitrary will, are also imprinted with this character of
necessity; momentary constraint is one thing, and the internal necessity
dependent on the totality of things another. Considered as a whole,
nature is independent 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
preceding instant, and consequently only a conditional necessity can be
attributed to him. But now the problem that the poet ought to solve is
to make an individual state similar to the human whole, and consequently
to base it in an absolute and necessary manner on itself. It is
therefore necessary that at the moment of inspiration every trace of a
temporal need should be banished, and that the object itself, however
limited, should not limit the flight of the poet. But it may be
conceived that this is only possible 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 an anterior exercise to embrace all things with
all his humanity. Now he cannot acquire this exercise except by the
world in which he lives, and of which he receives the impressions
immediately. Thus simple genius is in a state of dependence with regard
to experience, while the sentimental genius is forced from it. We know
that the sentimental genius begins its operation at the place where the
other finishes its own: its virtue is to complete by _the elements which
it derives from itself_ a defective object, and to transport itself by
its own strength from a limited state to one of absolute freedom. Thus
the simple poet needs a help from without, while the sentimental poet
feeds his genius from his own fund, and purifies himself by himself. The
former requires a picturesque nature, a poetical world, a simple
humanity which casts its eyes around; for he ought to do his work
without issuing from the sensuous sphere. If external aid fails him, if
he be surrounded by matter not speaking to mind, one of two things will
happen: either, if the general character of the poet-race is what
prevails in him, he issues from the particular class to which he belongs
as a poet, and becomes sentimental to be at any rate poetic; or, if his
particular character as simple poet has the upper hand, he leaves his
species and becomes a common nature, in order to remain at any rate
natural. The former of these two alternatives might represent the case
of the principal poets of the sentimental kind in Roman antiquity and in
modern times. Born at another period of the world, transplanted under
another sky, these poets who stir us now by ideas, would have charmed us
by individual truth and simple beauty. The other 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 be
given to distinguish actual nature from true nature, which is the
subject of simple poetry. Actual nature exists everywhere; but true
nature is so much the more rare because it requires an internal
necessity that determines its existence. Every eruption of passion,
however vulgar, is _real_—it may be even _true_ nature; but it is not
true _human_ nature, for true human nature requires that the
self-directing faculty in us should have a share in the manifestation,
and the expression of this faculty is always dignified. All moral
baseness is an actual human phenomenon, but I hope not real human
nature, which is always noble. All the faults of taste cannot be
surveyed that have been occasioned in criticism or the practice of art
by this confusion between actual human nature and true human nature. The
greatest trivialities are tolerated and applauded under the pretext that
they are real nature. Caricatures not to be tolerated in the real world
are carefully preserved in the poetic world and reproduced according to
nature! The poet can certainly imitate a lower 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 of his paintings is
indifferent; but it is only on this condition we can tolerate a faithful
reproduction of reality. Unhappy for us readers when the rod of satire
falls into hands that nature meant to handle another instrument, and
when, devoid of all poetic talent, with nothing but the ape’s mimicry,
they exercise it brutally at the expense of our taste!

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

No genius of the simple class, from Homer down to Bodmer, has entirely
steered clear of this quicksand. It is evident that it is most perilous
to those who have to struggle against external vulgarity, or who have
parted with their refinement owing to a want of proper restraint. The
first-named difficulty is the reason why even authors of high
cultivation are not always emancipated from platitudes—a fact which has
prevented many splendid talents from occupying the place to which they
were summoned by nature. For this reason, a comic poet whose genius has
chiefly to deal with scenes of real life, is more liable to the danger
of acquiring vulgar habits of style and expression—a fact evidenced in
the case of Aristophanes, Plautus, and all the poets who have followed
in their track. Even Shakspeare, with all his sublimity, suffers us to
fall very low now and then. Again, Lope De Vega, Molière, Regnard,
Goldoni worry us with frequent trifling. Holberg drags us down into the
mire. Schlegel, a German poet, among the most remarkable for
intellectual talent, with genius to raise him to a place among poets of
the first order; Gellert, a truly simple poet, Rabener, and Lessing
himself, if I am warranted to introduce his name in this category—this
highly-cultivated scholar of criticism and vigilant examiner of his own
genius—all these suffer in different degrees from the platitudes and
uninspired movements of the natures they chose as the theme of their
satire. With regard to more recent authors of this class, I avoid naming
any 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
to vulgar reality; the ease of expression, even this too close
approximation to reality, encourages vulgar imitators to try their hand
in poetry. Sentimental poetry, though offering danger enough, has this
advantage, to keep this crowd at a distance, for it is not for the first
comer to rise to the ideal; but simple poetry makes them believe that,
with feeling and humor, you need only imitate real nature to claim the
title of poet. Now nothing is more revolting than platitude when it
tries to be simple and amiable, instead of hiding its repulsive nature
under the veil of art. This occasions the incredible trivialities loved
by the Germans under the name of simple and facetious songs, and which
give them endless amusement round a well-garnished table. Under the
pretext of good humor and of sentiment people tolerate these poverties:
but this good humor and this sentiment ought to be carefully proscribed.
The Muses of the Pleisse, in particular, are singularly pitiful; and
other Muses respond to them, from the banks of the Seine, and the Elbe.
If these pleasantries are flat, the passion heard on our tragic stage is
equally pitiful, for, instead of imitating true nature, it is only an
insipid and ignoble expression of _the actual_. Thus, after shedding
torrents of tears, you feel as you would after visiting a hospital or
reading the “Human Misery” of Saltzmann. But the evil is worse in
satirical poetry and comic romance, kinds which touch closely on
everyday life, and which consequently, as all frontier posts, ought to
be in safer hands. In truth, he less than any other is called on to
become the _painter_ of his century, who is himself the child and
_caricature_ of his century. But as, after all, nothing is easier than
to take in hand, among our acquaintances, a comic character—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 paper in 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 the inspirations of
simple genius. But purity of feeling is the very thing that is wanting,
and in most cases nothing is thought of but satisfying a want of sense,
without spiritual nature having any share. A fundamentally just idea,
ill understood, that works of _bel esprit_ serve to _recreate_ the mind,
contributes to keep up this indulgence, if indulgence it may be called
when nothing higher occupies the mind, and reader as well as writer find
their chief interest therein. This is because vulgar natures, if
overstrained, can only be refreshed by vacuity; and even a higher
intelligence, when not sustained by a proportional culture, can only
rest from its work amidst sensuous enjoyments, from which spiritual
nature is absent.

Poetic genius ought to have strength enough to rise with a free and
innate activity above all the _accidental_ hinderances which are
inseparable from every confined condition, to arrive at a representation
of humanity in the absolute plenitude of its powers; it is not, however,
permitted, on the other hand, to emancipate itself from the necessary
_limits_ implied by the very idea of human nature: for the absolute only
in the circle of humanity is its true problem. Simple genius is not
exposed to overstep this sphere, but rather _not to fill it entirely_,
giving too much scope to external necessity, to accidental wants, at the
expense of the inner necessity. The danger for the sentimental genius
is, on the other hand, by trying to remove all limits, of nullifying
human nature absolutely, and not only rising, as is its right and duty,
beyond finite and determinate reality, as far as absolute possibility,
or in other terms to idealize; but of passing even beyond possibility,
or, in other words, _dreaming_. This fault—overstraining—is precisely
dependent on the specific property of the sentimental process, as the
opposite defect, _inertia_, depends on the peculiar operation of the
simple genius. The simple genius lets nature dominate, without
restricting it; and as nature in her particular phenomena is always
subject to some want, it follows that the simple sentiment will not be
always _exalted_ enough to resist the accidental limitations of the
present hour. The sentimental genius, on the contrary, leaves aside the
real world, to rise to the ideal and to command its matter with free
spontaneity. But while reason, according to law, aspires always to the
unconditional, so the sentimental genius will not always remain _calm_
enough to restrain itself uniformly and without interruption within the
conditions implied by the idea of human nature, and to which reason must
always, even in its freest acts, remain attached. He could only confine
himself in these conditions by help of a receptivity proportioned to his
free activity; but most commonly the activity predominates over
receptivity in the sentimental poet, as much as receptivity over
activity in the simple poet. Hence, in the productions of simple genius,
if sometimes inspiration is wanting, so also 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
æsthetic judgment an object without inspiration, and inspiration without
an object, are both negations.

The poets who borrow their matter too much from thought, and rather
conceive poetic pictures by the internal abundance of ideas than by the
suggestions of feeling, are more or less likely to be addicted to go
thus astray. In their creations reason makes too little of the limits of
the sensuous world, and thought is always carried too far for experience
to follow it. Now, when the idea is carried so far that not only no
experience corresponds to it—as is the case in the _beau ideal_—but also
that it is repugnant to the conditions of all possible experience, so
that, in order to realize it, one must leave human nature altogether, it
is no longer a poetic but an exaggerated thought; that is, supposing it
claims to be representable and poetical, for otherwise it is enough if
it is not self-contradictory. If thought is contradictory it is not
exaggeration, but nonsense; for what does not exist cannot exceed. But
when the thought is not an object proposed to the fancy, we are just as
little justified in calling it exaggerated. For simple thought is
infinite, and what is limitless also cannot exceed. Exaggeration,
therefore, is only that which wounds, not logical truth, but sensuous
truth, and what pretends to be sensuous truth. Consequently, if a poet
has the unhappy chance to choose for his picture certain natures that
are merely _superhuman_ and _cannot possibly_ be represented, he can
only avoid exaggeration by ceasing to be a poet, and not trusting the
theme to his imagination. Otherwise one of two things would happen:
either imagination, applying its limits to the object, would make a
limited and merely _human_ object of an absolute object—which happened
with the gods of 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 of
portraiture; we are speaking of the former. The object of the feeling
may be unnatural, but the feeling itself is natural, and ought
accordingly to be shadowed forth in the language of nature. While
extravagant feelings may issue from a warm heart and a really poetic
nature, extravagance of portraiture always displays a cold heart, and
very often a want of poetic capacity. Therefore this is not a danger for
the sentimental poet, but only for the imitator, who has no vocation; it
is therefore often found with platitude, insipidity, and even baseness.
Exaggeration of sentiment is not without truth, and must have a real
object; as nature inspires it, it admits of simplicity of expression and
coming from the heart it goes to the heart. As its object, however, is
not in nature, but artificially produced by the understanding, it has
only a logical reality, and the feeling is not purely human. It was not
an illusion that Heloise had for Abelard, Petrarch for Laura, Saint
Preux for his Julia, Werther for his Charlotte; Agathon, Phanias, and
Peregrinus—in Wieland—for the object of their dreams: the feeling is
true, only the object is factitious and outside nature. If their thought
had 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, could
not have stirred the heart: this is only stirred by reason. Thus this
sort 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 on which they pride themselves is not want of heart, and if it is
not through want of reason that they are so acute. The exaggerated
delicacy in gallantry and honor which characterizes the chivalrous
romances, especially of Spain, is of this kind; also the refined and
even ridiculous tenderness of French and English sentimental romances of
the best kind. These sentiments are not only subjectively true, but also
objectively they are not without value; they are sound sentiments
issuing from a moral source, only reprehensible as overstepping the
limits of human truth. Without this moral reality how could they stir
and touch so powerfully? The same remark applies to moral and religious
fanaticism, patriotism, and the love of freedom when carried up to
exaltation. As the object of these sentiments is always a pure idea, and
not an external experience, imagination with its proper activity has
here a dangerous liberty, and cannot, as elsewhere, be called back to
bounds by the presence of a visible object. But neither the man nor the
poet can withdraw from the law of nature, except to submit to that of
reason. He can only abandon reality for the ideal; for liberty must hold
to one or the 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 its unbridled freedom. It must needs be, therefore, that man in
general, and the poet in particular, when he withdraws by liberty of his
understanding from the dominion of feeling, without being moved to it by
the laws of reason—that is, when he abandons nature through pure
liberty—he finds himself _freed from all law_, and therefore a prey to
the illusions of phantasy.

It is testified by experience that entire nations, as well as individual
men, who have parted with the safe direction of nature, are actually in
this condition; and poets have gone astray in the same manner. The true
genius of sentimental poetry, if its aim is to raise itself to the rank
of the ideal, must overstep the limits of the existing nature; but false
genius oversteps all boundaries without any discrimination, flattering
itself with the belief that the wild sport of the imagination is poetic
inspiration. A true poetical genius can never fall into this error,
because it only abandons the real for the sake of the ideal, or, at all
events, it can only do so at certain moments when the poet forgets
himself; but his main tendencies may dispose him to extravagance within
the sphere of the senses. His example may also drive others into a chase
of wild conceptions, because readers of lively fancy and weak
understanding only remark the freedom which he takes with existing
nature, and are unable to follow him in copying the elevated necessities
of his inner being. The same difficulties beset the path of the
sentimental genius in this respect, as those which afflict the career of
a genius of the simple order. If a genius of this class carries out
every work, obedient to the free and spontaneous impulses of his nature,
the man devoid of genius who seeks to imitate him is not willing to
consider his own nature a worse guide than that of the great poet. This
accounts for the fact that masterpieces of simple poetry are commonly
followed by a host of stale and unprofitable works in print, and
masterpieces of the sentimental class by wild and fanciful effusions,—a
fact that may be easily verified on questioning the history of
literature.

Two maxims are prevalent in relation to poetry, both of them quite
correct in themselves, but mutually destructive in the way in which they
are generally conceived. The first is, that “poetry serves as a means of
amusement and recreation,” and we have previously observed that this
maxim is highly favorable to aridity and platitudes in poetical
fictions. The other maxim, that “poetry is conducive to the moral
progress of humanity,” takes under its shelter theories and views of the
most wild and extravagant character. It may be profitable to examine
more attentively these two maxims, of which so much is heard, and which
are so often imperfectly understood and falsely applied.

We say that a thing amuses us when it makes us pass from a forced state
to the state that is natural to us. The whole question here is to know
in what our natural state ought to consist, and what a forced state
means. If our natural state is made to consist merely in the free
development of all our physical powers, in emancipation from all
constraint, it follows that every act of reason by resisting what is
sensuous, is a violence we undergo, and rest of mind combined with
physical movement will be a recreation _par excellence_. But if we make
our natural state consist in a limitless power of human expression and
of freely disposing of all our strength, all that divides these forces
will be a forced state, and recreation will be what brings all our
nature to harmony. Thus, the first of these ideal recreations is simply
determined by the wants of our _sensuous nature_; the second, by the
autonomous activity of _human nature_. Which of these two kinds of
recreation can be demanded of the poet? Theoretically, the question is
inadmissible, as no one would put the _human_ ideal beneath the brutal.
But in practice the requirements of a poet have been especially directed
to the sensuous ideal, and for the most part _favor_, though not the
_esteem_, for these sorts of works is regulated thereby. Men’s minds are
mostly engaged in a labor that exhausts them, or an enjoyment that sets
them asleep. Now labor makes rest a sensible want, much more imperious
than that of the moral nature; for physical nature must be satisfied
before the mind can show its requirements. On the other hand, enjoyment
paralyzes the moral instinct. Hence these two dispositions common in men
are very injurious to the feeling for true beauty, and thus very few
even of the best judge soundly in æsthetics. Beauty results from the
harmony between spirit and sense; it addresses all the faculties of man,
and can only be appreciated if a man employs fully all his strength. He
must bring to it an open sense, a broad heart, a spirit full of
freshness. All a man’s nature must be on the alert, and this is not the
case with those divided by abstraction, narrowed by formulas, enervated
by application. They demand, no doubt, a material for the senses; but
not to quicken, only to suspend, thought. They ask to be freed from
what? From a load that oppressed their indolence, and not a rein that
curbed their activity.

After this can one wonder at the success of mediocre talents in
æsthetics? or at the bitter anger of small minds against true energetic
beauty? They reckon on finding therein a congenial recreation, and
regret to discover that a display of strength is required to which they
are unequal. With mediocrity they are always welcome; however little
mind they bring, they want still less to exhaust the author’s
inspiration. They are relieved of the load of thought; and their nature
can lull itself in beatific nothings on the soft pillow of _platitude_.
In the temple of Thalia and Melpomene—at least, so it is with us—the
stupid _savant_ and the exhausted man of business are received on the
broad bosom of the goddess, where their intelligence is wrapped in a
magnetic sleep, while their sluggish senses are warmed, and their
imagination with gentle motions rocked.

Vulgar people may be excused what happens to the best capacities. Those
moments of repose demanded by nature after lengthy labor are not
favorable to æsthetic judgment, and hence in the busy classes few can
pronounce safely on matters of taste. Nothing is more common than for
scholars to make a ridiculous figure, in regard to a question of beauty,
besides cultured men of the world; and technical critics are especially
the laughing-stock of connoisseurs. Their opinion, from exaggeration,
crudeness, or carelessness guides them generally quite awry, and they
can only devise a _technical_ judgment, and not an _æsthetical_ one,
embracing the whole work, in which feeling should decide. If they would
kindly keep to technicalities they might still be useful, for the poet
in moments of inspiration and readers under his spell are little
inclined to consider details. But the spectacle which they afford us is
only the more ridiculous inasmuch as we see these crude natures—with
whom all labor and trouble only develop at the most a particular
aptitude,—when we see them set up their paltry individualities as the
representation of universal and complete feeling, and in the sweat of
their brow pronounce judgment on beauty.

We have just seen that the kind of recreation poetry ought to afford is
generally conceived in too restricted a manner, and only referred to a
simple sensuous want. Too much scope, however, is also given to the
other idea, the moral ennobling the poet should have in view, inasmuch
as too 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 finds
rest in absolute perfection. Nothing can satisfy whilst a superior thing
can be conceived; it judges strictly and admits no excuses of infirmity
and finite nature. It only admits for limits those of thought, which
transcends time and space. Hence the poet could no more propose to
himself 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, without
destroying the essential ideal of our humanity, or displacing its
limits. All beyond this is exaggeration, and a quicksand in which the
poet too easily suffers shipwreck if he mistakes the idea of nobleness.
But, unfortunately, he cannot rise to the true ideal of ennobled human
nature without going some steps beyond it. To rise so high he must
abandon the world of reality, for, like every ideal, it is only to be
drawn from its inner 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 this separation from real life he is likely to lose sight of all
the limits of human nature, and seeking pure form he may easily lose
himself in arbitrary and baseless conceptions. Reason will abstract
itself too much from experience, and the practical man will not be able
to carry out, in the crush of real life, what the contemplative mind has
discovered on the peaceful path of thought. Thus, what makes a dreamy
man is the very thing that alone could have made him a sage; and the
advantage for the latter is not that he has never been a dreamer, but
rather that he has not remained one.

We must not, then, allow the workers to determine recreation according
to their wants, nor thinkers that of nobleness according to their
speculations, for fear of either a too low physical poetry, or a poetry
too given to hyperphysical exaggeration. And as these two ideas direct
most men’s judgments on poetry, we must seek a class of mind at once
active, but not slavishly so, and idealizing, but not dreamy; uniting
the reality of life within as few limits as possible, obeying the
current of human affairs, but not enslaved by them. Such a class of men
can alone preserve the beautiful unity of human nature, that harmony
which all work for a moment disturbs, and a life of work destroys; such
alone can, in all that is purely human, give by its feelings universal
rules of judgment. Whether such a class exists, or whether the class now
existing in like conditions answers to this ideal conception, I am not
concerned to inquire. If it does not respond to the ideal it has only
itself to blame. In such a class—here regarded as a mere ideal—the
simple and sentimental would keep each other from extremes of
extravagance and relaxation. For the idea of a beautiful humanity is not
exhausted by either, 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 irresistible
longing 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 of
thought, wanted a middle state, a bridge between the two states,
bringing them into harmony. Beauty and æsthetics supplied that for him.
But a good lawgiver is not satisfied with discovering the bent of his
people—he turns it to account as an instrument for higher use; and hence
he chose 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 the
state, unconsciously defended the stage, when he said so, in its noblest
aspect. The uncertain nature of political events, rendering religion a
necessity, also demands the stage as a moral force. Laws only prevent
disturbances of social life; religion prescribes positive orders
sustaining social order. Law only governs actions; religion controls the
heart and follows thought to the source.

Laws are flexible and capricious; religion binds forever. If religion
has this great sway over man’s heart, can it also complete his culture?
Separating the political from the divine element in it, religion acts
mostly on the senses; she loses her sway if the senses are gone. By what
channel does the stage operate? To most men religion vanishes with the
loss of her symbols, images, and problems; and yet they are only
pictures of the imagination, and insolvable problems. Both laws and
religion are strengthened by a union with the stage, where virtue and
vice, joy and sorrow, are thoroughly displayed in a truthful and popular
way; where a variety of providential problems are solved; where all
secrets are unmasked, all artifice ends, and truth alone is the judge,
as incorruptible as Rhadamanthus.

Where the influence of civil laws ends that of the stage begins. Where
venality and corruption blind and bias justice and judgment, and
intimidation perverts its ends, the stage seizes the sword and scales
and pronounces a terrible verdict on vice. The fields of fancy and of
history are open to the stage; great criminals of the past live over
again in the drama, and thus benefit an indignant posterity. They pass
before us as empty shadows of their age, and we heap curses on their
memory while we enjoy on the stage the very horror of their crimes. When
morality is no more taught, religion no longer received, or laws exist,
Medea would still terrify us with her infanticide. The sight of Lady
Macbeth, while it makes us shudder, will also make us rejoice in a good
conscience, when we see her, the sleep-walker, washing her hands and
seeking to destroy the awful smell of murder. Sight is always more
powerful to man than description; hence the stage acts more powerfully
than morality or law.

But in this the stage only aids justice. A far wider field is really
open to it. There are a thousand vices unnoticed by human justice, but
condemned by the stage; so, also, a thousand virtues overlooked by man’s
laws are honored on the stage. It is thus the handmaid of religion and
philosophy. From these pure sources it draws its high principles and the
exalted teachings, and presents them in a lovely form. The soul swells
with noblest emotions when a divine ideal is placed before it. When
Augustus offers his forgiving hand to Cinna, the conspirator, and says
to him: “Let us be friends, Cinna!” what man at the moment does not feel
that he could do the same. Again, when Francis von Sickingen, proceeding
to 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 sake
of his word—how great humanity appears, how small the stern power of
fate!

Vice is portrayed on the stage in an equally telling manner. Thus, when
old Lear, blind, helpless, childless, is seen knocking in vain at his
daughters’ doors, and in tempest and night he recounts by telling his
woes to the elements, and ends by saying: “I have given you all,”—how
strongly impressed we feel at the value of filial piety, and how hateful
ingratitude seems to us!

The stage does even more than this. It cultivates the ground where
religion and law do not think it dignified to stop. Folly often troubles
the world as much as crime; and it has been justly said that the
heaviest loads often hang suspended by the slightest threads. Tracing
actions to their sources, the list of criminals diminish, and we laugh
at the long catalogue of fools. In our sex all forms of evil emanate
almost entirely from _one_ source, and all our excesses are only varied
and higher forms of one 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 sex too? In man there is only one secret to guard
against depravity; that is, to protect his heart against wickedness.

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

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

But the stage does even more than this. It is a great school of
practical wisdom, a guide for civil life, and a key to the mind in all
its sinuosities. It does not, of course, remove egoism and stubbornness
in evil ways; for a thousand vices hold up their heads in spite of the
stage, and a thousand virtues make no impression on cold-hearted
spectators. Thus, probably, Molière’s Harpagon never altered a usurer’s
heart, nor did the suicide in Beverley save any one from the
gaming-table. Nor, again, is it likely that the high roads will be safer
through Karl Moor’s untimely end. But, admitting this, and more than
this, still how great is the influence of the stage! It has shown us the
vices and virtues of men with whom we have to live. We are not surprised
at their weaknesses, we are prepared for them. The stage points them out
to us, and their remedy. It drags off the mask from the hypocrite, and
betrays the meshes of intrigue. Duplicity and cunning have been forced
by it to show their hideous features in the light of day. Perhaps the
dying Sarah may not deter a single debauchee, nor all the pictures of
avenged seduction stop the evil; yet unguarded innocence has been shown
the snares of the corrupter, and taught to distrust his oaths.

The stage also teaches men to bear the strokes of fortune. Chance and
design have equal sway over life. We have to bow to the former, but we
control the latter. It is a great advantage if inexorable facts do not
find us unprepared and unexercised, and if our breast has been steeled
to bear adversity. Much human woe is placed before us on the stage. It
gives us momentary pain in the tears we shed for strangers’ troubles,
but as a compensation it fills us with a grand new stock of courage and
endurance. We are led by it, with the abandoned Ariadne, through the
Isle of Naxos, and we descend the Tower of Starvation in Ugolino; we
ascend the terrible scaffold, and we are present at the awful moment of
execution. Things remotely present in thought become palpable realities
now. We see the deceived favorite abandoned by the queen. When about to
die, the perfidious Moor is abandoned by his own sophistry. Eternity
reveals the secrets of the unknown through the dead, and the hateful
wretch loses all screen of guilt when the tomb opens to condemn him.

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

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

Not only man’s mind, but also his intellectual culture, has been
promoted by the higher drama. The lofty mind and the ardent patriot have
often used the stage to spread enlightenment.

Considering nations and ages, the thinker sees the masses enchained by
opinion and cut off by adversity from happiness; truth only lights up a
few 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 light
of wisdom over the masses through the stage. Purer and better principles
and motives issue from the stage and circulate through society; the
night of barbarism and superstition vanishes. I would mention two
glorious fruits of the higher class of dramas. Religious toleration has
latterly become universal. Before Nathan the Jew and Saladin the Saracen
put us to shame, and showed that resignation to God’s will did not
depend on a fancied belief of His nature—even before Joseph II.
contended with the hatred of a narrow piety—the stage had sown seeds of
humanity and gentleness: pictures of fanaticism had taught a hatred of
intolerance, and Christianity, seeing itself in this awful mirror,
washed off its stains. It is to be hoped that the stage will equally
combat mistaken systems of education. This is a subject of the first
political importance, and yet none is so left to private whims and
caprice. The stage might give stirring examples of mistaken education,
and lead parents to juster, better views of the subject. Many teachers
are led astray 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 silence
doubtful aspersions without offence.

Now, if poets would be patriotic they could do much on the stage to
forward invention and industry. A standing theatre would be a material
advantage to a nation. It would have a great influence on the national
temper and mind by helping the nation to agree in opinions and
inclinations. The stage alone can do this, because it commands all human
knowledge, exhausts all positions, illumines all hearts, unites all
classes, and makes its way to the heart and understanding by the most
popular channels.

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

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

Human nature cannot bear to be always on the rack of business, and the
charms of sense die out with their gratification. Man, oppressed by
appetites, weary of long exertion, thirsts for refined pleasure, or
rushes into dissipations that hasten his fall and ruin, and disturb
social order. Bacchanal joys, gambling, follies of all sorts to disturb
ennui, are unavoidable if the lawgiver produces nothing better. A man of
public business, who has made noble sacrifices to the state, is apt to
pay for them with melancholy, the scholar to become a pedant, and the
people brutish, without the stage. The stage is an institution combining
amusement with instruction, rest with exertion, where no faculty of the
mind is overstrained, no pleasure enjoyed at the cost of the whole. When
melancholy gnaws the heart, when trouble poisons our solitude, when we
are disgusted with the world, and a thousand worries oppress us, or when
our energies are destroyed by over-exercise, the stage revives us, we
dream of another sphere, we recover ourselves, our torpid nature is
roused by noble passions, our blood circulates more healthily. The
unhappy man forgets his tears in weeping for another. The happy man is
calmed, the secure made provident. Effeminate natures are steeled,
savages made man, and, as the supreme triumph of nature, men of all
ranks, zones, and conditions, emancipated from the chains of
conventionality and fashion, fraternize here in a universal sympathy,
forget the world, and come nearer to their heavenly destination. The
individual shares in the general ecstacy, and his breast has now only
space for an emotion: he is a _man_.


                           ON THE TRAGIC ART.

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

This disposition is developed in a more lively manner when the objects
themselves are placed before our eyes. A tempest that would swallow up
an entire fleet would be, seen from shore, a spectacle as attractive to
our imagination as it would be shocking to our heart. It would be
difficult to believe with Lucretius that this natural pleasure results
from a comparison between our own safety and the danger of which we are
witnesses. See what a crowd accompanies a criminal to the scene of his
punishment! This phenomenon cannot be explained either by the pleasure
of 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 does
not prevent a lively curiosity in the spectators to watch his
expressions of pain with eye and ear. If an exception seems to exist
here in the case of a well-bred man, endowed with a delicate sense, this
does not imply that he is a complete stranger to this instinct; but in
his case the painful strength of compassion carries the day over this
instinct, or it is kept under by the laws of decency. The man of nature,
who is not chained down by any feeling of human delicacy, abandons
himself without any sense of shame to this powerful instinct. This
attraction must, therefore, have its spring of action in an original
disposition, and it must be explained by a psychological law common to
the whole species.

But if it seems to us that these brutal instincts of nature are
incompatible with the dignity of man, and if we hesitate, for this
reason, to establish on this fact a law common to the whole species, yet
no experiences are required to prove, with the completest evidence, that
the pleasure we take in painful emotions is real, and that it is
general. The painful struggle of a heart drawn asunder between its
inclinations or contrary duties, a struggle which is a cause of misery
to him who experiences it, delights the person who is a mere spectator.
We follow with always heightening pleasure the progress of a passion to
the abyss into which it hurries its unhappy victim. The same delicate
feeling that makes us turn our eyes aside from the sight of physical
suffering, or even from the physical expression of a purely moral pain,
makes us experience a pleasure heightened in sweetness, in the sympathy
for a purely moral pain. The interest with which we stop to look at the
painting of these kinds of objects is a general phenomenon.

Of course this can only be understood of sympathetic affections, or
those felt as a secondary effect after their _first impression_; for
commonly _direct_ and _personal_ affections immediately call into life
in us the instinct of our own happiness, they take up all our thoughts,
and seize hold of us too powerfully to allow any room for the feeling of
pleasure that accompanies them, when the affection is freed from all
personal relation. Thus, in the mind that is really a prey to painful
passion, the feeling of pain commands all others notwithstanding all the
charm that the painting of its moral state may offer to the hearers and
the spectators. And yet the painful affection is not deprived of all
pleasure, even for him who experiences it directly; only this pleasure
differs in degree according to the nature of each person’s mind. The
sports of chance would not have half so much attraction for us were
there not a kind of enjoyment in anxiety, in doubt, and in fear; danger
would not be encountered from mere foolhardiness; and the very sympathy
which interests us in the trouble of another would not be to us that
pleasure which is never more lively than at the very moment when the
illusion is strongest, and when we substitute ourselves most entirely in
the place of the person who suffers. But this does not imply that
disagreeable affections cause pleasure of themselves, nor do I think any
one will uphold this view; it suffices that these states of the mind are
the conditions that alone make possible for us certain kinds of
pleasure. Thus the hearts particularly sensitive to this kind of
pleasure, and most greedy of them, will be more easily led to share
these disagreeable affections, which are the condition of the former;
and even in the most violent storms of passion they will always preserve
some remains of their freedom.

The displeasure we feel in disagreeable affections comes from the
relation of our sensuous faculty or of our moral faculty with their
object. In like manner, the pleasure we experience in agreeable
affections proceeds from the very same source. The degree of liberty
that may prevail in the affections depends on the proportion between the
moral nature and the sensuous nature of a man. Now it is well known that
in the moral order there is nothing arbitrary for us, that, on the
contrary, the sensuous instinct is subject to the laws of reason and
consequently depends more or less on our will. Hence it is evident that
we can keep our liberty full and entire in all those affections that are
concerned with the instinct of self-love, and that we are the masters to
determine the degree which they ought to attain. This degree will be
less in proportion as the moral sense in a man will prevail over the
instinct of happiness, and as by obeying the universal laws of reason he
will have freed himself from the selfish requirements of his
individuality, his Ego. A man of this kind must therefore, in a state of
passion, feel much less vividly the relation of an object with his own
instinct of happiness, and consequently he will be much less sensible of
the displeasure that arises from this relation. On the other hand, he
will be perpetually more attentive to the relation of this same object
with his moral nature, and for this very reason he will be more sensible
to the pleasure which the relation of the object with morality often
mingles with the most painful affections. A mind thus constituted is
better fitted than all others to enjoy the pleasure attaching to
compassion, and even to regard a personal affection as an object of
simple compassion. Hence the inestimable value of a moral philosophy,
which, by raising our eyes constantly towards general laws, weakens in
us the feeling of our individuality, teaches us to plunge our paltry
personality in something great, and enables us thus to act to ourselves
as to strangers. This sublime state of the mind is the lot of strong
philosophic minds, which by working assiduously on themselves have
learned to bridle the egotistical instinct. Even the most cruel loss
does not drive them beyond a certain degree of sadness, with which an
appreciable sum of pleasure can always be reconciled. These souls, which
are alone capable of separating themselves from themselves, alone enjoy
the privilege of sympathizing with themselves and of receiving of their
own sufferings only a reflex, softened by sympathy.

The indications contained in what precedes will suffice to direct our
attention to the sources of the pleasure that the affection in itself
causes, more particularly the sad affection. We have seen that this
pleasure is more energetic in moral souls, and it acts with greater
freedom in proportion as the soul is more independent of the egotistical
instinct. This pleasure is, moreover, more vivid and stronger in sad
affections, when self-love is painfully disquieted, than in gay
affections, which imply a satisfaction of self-love. Accordingly this
pleasure increases when the egotistical instinct is wounded, and
diminishes when that instinct is flattered. Now we only know of two
sources of pleasure—the satisfaction of the instinct of happiness, and
the accomplishment of the moral laws. Therefore, when it is shown that a
particular pleasure does not emanate from the former source, it must of
necessity issue from the second. It is therefore from our moral nature
that issues the charm of the painful affections shared by sympathy, and
the pleasure that we sometimes feel even where the painful affection
directly affects ourselves.

Many attempts have been made to account for the pleasure of pity, but
most of these solutions had little chance of meeting the problem,
because the principle of this phenomenon was sought for rather in the
accompanying circumstances than in the nature of the affection itself.
To many persons the pleasure of pity is simply the pleasure taken by the
mind in exercising its own sensibility. To others it is the pleasure of
occupying their forces energetically, of exercising the social faculty
vividly—in short, of satisfying the instinct of restlessness. Others
again make it derived from the discovery of morally fine features of
character, placed in a clear light by the struggle against adversity or
against the passions. But there is still the difficulty to explain why
it should be exactly the very feeling of pain,—_suffering_ properly so
called,—that in objects of pity attracts us with the greatest force,
while, according to those elucidations, a less degree of suffering ought
evidently to be more favorable to those causes to which the source of
the emotion is traced. Various matters may, no doubt, increase the
pleasure of the emotion without occasioning it. Of this nature are: the
vividness and force of the ideas awakened in our imagination, the moral
excellence of the suffering persons, the reference to himself of the
person feeling pity. I admit that the suffering of a weak soul, and the
pain of a wicked character, do not procure us this enjoyment. But this
is because they 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 back to the first question: why is it precisely the degree of
suffering that determines the degree of sympathetic pleasure which we
take in an emotion? and one answer only is possible; it is because the
attack made on our sensibility is precisely the condition necessary to
set in motion that quality of mind of which the activity produces the
pleasure we feel in sympathetic affections.

Now this faculty is no other than the reason; and because the free
exercise of reason, as an absolutely independent activity, deserves _par
excellence_ the name of activity; as, moreover, the heart of man only
feels itself perfectly free and independent in its moral acts, it
follows that the charm of tragic emotions is really dependent on the
fact that this instinct of activity finds its gratification in them.
But, even admitting this, it is neither the great number nor the
vivacity of the ideas that are awakened then in our imagination, nor in
general the exercise of the social faculty, but a certain kind of ideas
and a certain activity of the social faculty brought into play by
reason, which is the foundation of this pleasure.

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

Hence the state of mind which allows most effectually the manifestation
of this force, and awakens most successfully its activity, is that state
which is most suitable to a rational being, and which best satisfies our
instincts of activity: whence it follows that a greater amount of
pleasure must be attached necessarily to this state. Now it is the
tragic states that place our soul in this state, and the pleasure found
in 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
the senses.

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

Art attains its end by the _imitation of nature_, by satisfying the
conditions which make pleasure possible in reality, and by combining,
according to a plan traced by the intelligence, the scattered elements
furnished 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 imitate
nature in those kinds of actions that are specially adapted to awaken
pity.

It follows that, in order to determine generally the system to be
followed by tragic art, it is necessary before all things to know on
what conditions in real life the pleasure of the emotion is commonly
produced in the surest and the strongest manner; but it is necessary at
the same time to pay attention to the circumstances that restrict or
absolutely extinguish this pleasure.

After what we have established in our essay “On the Cause of the
Pleasure we derive from Tragic Objects,” it is known that in every
tragic emotion there is an idea of incongruity, which, though the
emotion may be attended with charm, must always lead on to the
conception of a higher consistency. Now it is the relation that these
two opposite conceptions mutually bear which determines in an emotion if
the prevailing impression shall be pleasurable or the reverse. If the
conception of incongruity be more vivid than that of the contrary, or if
the end sacrificed is more important than the end gained, the prevailing
impression will always be displeasure, whether this be understood
_objectively_ of the human race in general, or only _subjectively_ of
certain individuals.

If the cause that has produced a misfortune gives us too much
displeasure, our compassion for the victim is diminished thereby. The
heart cannot feel simultaneously, in a high degree, two absolutely
contrary affections. Indignation against the person who is the primary
cause of the suffering becomes the prevailing affection, and all other
feeling has to yield to it. Thus our interest is always enfeebled when
the unhappy man whom it would be desirable to pity had cast himself into
ruin by a personal and an inexcusable fault; or if, being able to save
himself, he did not do so, either through feebleness of mind or
pusillanimity. The interest we take in unhappy King Lear, ill-treated by
two ungrateful daughters, is sensibly lessened by the circumstance that
this aged man, in his second childhood, so weakly gave up his crown, and
divided his love among his daughters with so little discernment. In the
tragedy of Kronegk, “Olinda and Sophronia,” the most terrible suffering
to which we see these martyrs to their faith exposed only excites our
pity feebly, and all their heroism only stirs our admiration moderately,
because madness alone can suggest the act by which Olinda has placed
himself 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
mind with horror. When the tragic poet cannot clear himself of his plot
without introducing a wretch, and when he is reduced to derive the
greatness of suffering from the greatness of wickedness, the supreme
beauty of his work must always be seriously injured. Iago and Lady
Macbeth in Shakspeare, Cleopatra in the tragedy of “Rodogune,” or Franz
Moor in “The Robbers,” are so many proofs in support of this assertion.
A poet who understands his real interest will not bring about the
catastrophe through a malicious will which proposes misfortune as its
end; nor, and still less, by want of understanding: but rather through
the imperious force of circumstances. If this catastrophe does not come
from moral sources, but from outward things, which have no volition and
are not subject to any will, the pity we experience is more pure, or at
all events it is not weakened by any idea of moral incongruity. But then
the spectator cannot be spared the disagreeable feeling of an
incongruity in the order of nature, which can alone save in such a case
moral propriety. Pity is far more excited when it has for its object
both him who suffers and him who is the primary cause of the suffering.
This can only happen when the latter has neither elicited our contempt
nor our hatred, but when he has been brought against his inclination to
become the cause of this misfortune. It is a singular beauty of the
German play of “Iphigenia” that the King of Tauris, the only obstacle
who thwarts the wishes of Orestes and of his sister, never loses our
esteem, and that we love him to the end.

There is something superior even to this kind of emotion; this is the
case when the cause of the misfortune not only is in no way repugnant to
morality, but only becomes possible through morality, and when the
reciprocal suffering comes simply from the idea that a fellow-creature
has been made to suffer. This is the situation of Chimene and Rodrigue
in “The Cid” of Pierre Corneille, which is undeniably in point of
intrigue the masterpiece of the tragic stage. Honor and filial love arm
the hand of Rodrigue against the father of her whom he loves, and his
valor 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 a
formidable persecutor. Both act in opposition to their inclination, and
they tremble with anguish at the thought of the misfortune of the object
against which they arm themselves, in proportion as zeal inspires them
for their duty to inflict this misfortune. Accordingly both conciliate
our esteem in the highest sense, as they accomplish a moral duty at the
cost of inclination; both inflame our pity in the highest degree,
because they suffer spontaneously for a motive that renders them in the
highest degree to be respected. It results from this that our pity is in
this case so little modified by any opposite feeling that it burns
rather with a double flame; only the impossibility of reconciling the
idea of misfortune with the idea of a morality so deserving of happiness
might still disturb our sympathetic pleasure, and spread a shade of
sadness over it. It is besides a great point, no doubt, that the
discontent given us by this contradiction does not bear upon our moral
being, but is turned _aside_ to a harmless place, to necessity only; but
this blind subjection to destiny is always afflicting and humiliating
for free beings, who determine themselves. This is the cause that always
leaves something to be wished for even in the best Greek pieces. In all
these pieces, at the bottom of the plot it is always fatality that is
appealed to, 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 of
displeasure, at the highest and last step to which man perfected by
morality rises, and at the highest point, which is attained by the art
which moves the feelings. This happens when the very discontent with
destiny becomes effaced, and is resolved in a presentiment or rather a
clear consciousness of a teleological concatenation of things, of a
sublime order, of a beneficent will. Then, to the pleasure occasioned in
us by moral consistency is joined the invigorating idea of the most
perfect suitability in the great whole of nature. In this case the thing
that seemed to militate against this order, and that caused us pain, in
a particular case, is only a spur that stimulates our reason to seek in
general laws for the justification of this particular case, and to solve
the problem of this separate discord in the centre of the general
harmony. Greek art never rose to this supreme serenity of tragic
emotion, because neither the national religion, nor even the philosophy
of the Greeks, lighted their step on this advanced road. It was reserved
for modern art, which enjoys the privilege of finding a purer matter in
a purer philosophy, to satisfy also this exalted want, and thus to
display all the moral dignity of art.

If we moderns must resign ourselves never to reproduce Greek art because
the philosophic genius of our age, and modern civilization in general
are not favorable to poetry, these influences are at all events less
hurtful to tragic art, which is based rather on the moral element.
Perhaps it is in the case of this art only that our civilization repairs
the injury that it has caused to art in general.

In the same manner as the tragic emotion is weakened by the admixture of
conflicting ideas and feelings, and the charm attaching to it is thus
diminished, so this emotion can also, on the contrary, by approaching
the excess of direct and personal affection, become exaggerated to the
point where pain carries the day over pleasure. It has been remarked
that displeasure, in the affections, comes from the relation of their
object with our senses, in the same way as the pleasure felt in them
comes from the 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 in tragic emotions. Nor could this relation be
modified or overthrown without overthrowing at the same time the
feelings of pleasure and displeasure which we find in the emotions, or
even without changing them into their opposites. In the same ratio that
the senses are vividly roused in us, the influence of morality will be
proportionately diminished; and reciprocally, as the sensuous loses,
morality gains ground. Therefore that which in our hearts gives a
preponderance to the sensuous faculty, must of necessity, by placing
restrictions on the moral faculty, diminish the pleasure that we take in
tragic emotions, a pleasure which emanates exclusively from this moral
faculty. In like manner, all that in our heart impresses an impetus on
this latter faculty, must blunt the stimulus of pain even in direct and
personal affections. Now our sensuous nature actually acquires this
preponderance, when the ideas of suffering rise to a degree of vividness
that no longer allows us to distinguish a sympathetic affection from a
personal affection, or our own proper Ego from the subject that
suffers,—reality, in short, from poetry. The sensuous also gains the
upper hand when it finds an aliment in the great number of its objects,
and in that dazzling light which an over-excited imagination diffuses
over it. On the contrary, nothing is more fit to reduce the sensuous to
its proper bounds than to place alongside it super-sensuous ideas, moral
ideas, to which reason, oppressed just before, clings as to a kind of
spiritual props, to right and raise itself above the fogs of the
sensuous to a serener atmosphere. Hence the great charm which general
truths or moral sentences, scattered opportunely over dramatic dialogue,
have for all cultivated nations, and the almost excessive use that the
Greeks made of them. Nothing is more agreeable to a moral soul than to
have the power, after a purely passive state that has lasted too long,
of escaping from the subjection of the senses, and of being recalled to
its spontaneous activity, and restored to the possession of its liberty.

These are the remarks I had to make respecting the causes that restrict
our pity and place an obstacle to our pleasure in tragic emotions. I
have next to show on what conditions pity is solicited and the pleasure
of the emotion excited in the most infallible and energetic manner.

Every feeling of pity implies the idea of suffering, and the degree of
pity is regulated according to the degree more or less of vividness, of
truth, of intensity, and of duration of this idea.

1st. The moral faculty is provoked to reaction in proportion to the
vividness of ideas in the soul, which incites it to activity and
solicits its sensuous faculty. Now the ideas of suffering are conceived
in two different manners, which are not equally favorable to the
vividness of the impression. The sufferings that we witness affect us
incomparably more than those that we have through a description or a
narrative. The former suspend in us the free play of the fancy, and
striking our senses immediately penetrate by the shortest road to our
heart. In the narrative, on the contrary, the particular is first raised
to the general, and it is from this that the knowledge of the special
case is afterwards derived; accordingly, merely by this necessary
operation of the understanding, the impression already loses greatly in
strength. Now a weak impression cannot take complete possession of our
mind, and it will allow other ideas to disturb its action and to
dissipate the attention. Very frequently, moreover, the narrative
account transports us from the moral disposition, in which the acting
person is placed, to the state of mind of the narrator himself, which
breaks up the illusion so necessary for pity. In every case, when the
narrator in person puts himself forward, a certain stoppage takes place
in the action, and, as an unavoidable result, in our sympathetic
affection. This is what happens even when the dramatic poet forgets
himself in the dialogue, and puts in the mouth of his dramatic persons
reflections that could only enter the mind of a disinterested spectator.
It would be difficult to mention a single one of our modern tragedies
quite free from this defect; but the French alone have made a rule of
it. Let us infer, then, that the immediate vivid and sensuous presence
of the object is necessary to give to the ideas impressed on us by
suffering that strength without which the emotion could not rise to a
high degree.

2d. But we can receive the most vivid impressions of the idea of
suffering without, however, being led to a remarkable degree of pity, if
these impressions lack _truth_. It is necessary that we should form of
suffering an _idea_ of such a nature that we are obliged to share and
take part in it. To this end there must be a certain agreement between
this suffering and something that w?e have already in us. In other
words, pity is only possible inasmuch as we can prove or suppose a
resemblance between ourselves and the subject that suffers. Everywhere
where this resemblance makes itself known, pity is necessary; where this
resemblance is lacking, pity is impossible. The more visible and the
greater is the resemblance, the more vivid is our pity; and they
mutually slacken in dependence on each other. In order that we may feel
the affections of another after him, all the _internal_ conditions
demanded by this affection must be found beforehand in us, in order that
the _external_ cause which, by meeting with the internal conditions, has
given birth to the affection, may also produce on us a like effect. It
is necessary that, without doing violence to ourselves, we should be
able to exchange persons with another, and transport our Ego by an
instantaneous substitution in the state of the subject. Now, how is it
possible to feel in us the state of another, if we have not beforehand
recognized ourselves 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 of
necessity and of universality belongs especially to our moral nature.
The faculty of feeling can be determined differently by accidental
causes: our cognitive faculties themselves depend on variable
conditions: the moral faculty only has its principle in itself, and by
that very fact it can best give us a general measure and a certain
criterion of this resemblance. Thus an idea which we find in accord with
our mode of thinking and of feeling, which offers at once a certain
relationship with the train of our own ideas, which is easily grasped by
our heart and our mind, we call a true idea. If this relationship bears
on what is peculiar to our heart, on the _private_ determinations that
modify in us the common fundamentals of humanity, and which may be
withdrawn without altering this general character, this idea is then
simply true _for us_. If it bears on the general and necessary form that
we suppose in the whole species, the truth of this idea ought to be held
to be equal to objective truth. For the Roman, the sentence of the first
Brutus and the suicide of Cato are of subjective truth. The ideas and
the feelings that have inspired the actions of these two men are not an
immediate consequence of human nature in general, but the mediate
consequence of a human nature determined by particular modifications. To
share with them these feelings we must have a Roman soul, or at least be
capable of assuming for a moment a Roman soul. It suffices, on the other
hand, to be a _man in general_, to be vividly touched by the heroic
sacrifice of Leonidas, by the quiet resignation of Aristides, by the
voluntary death of Socrates, and to be moved to tears by the terrible
changes in the fortunes of Darius. We attribute to these kinds of ideas,
in opposition to the preceding ones, an objective truth because they
agree with the _nature_ of all human subjects, which gives them a
character of universality and of necessity as strict as if they were
independent of every subjective condition.

Moreover, although the subjectively true description is based on
accidental determinations, this is no reason for confounding it with an
arbitrary description. After all, the subjectively true emanates also
from the general constitution of the human soul, modified only in
particular directions by special circumstances; and the two kinds of
truth are equally necessary conditions of the human mind. If the
resolution of Cato were in contradiction with the general laws of human
nature, it could not be true, even subjectively. The only difference is
that the ideas of the second kind are enclosed in a narrower sphere of
action; because they imply, besides the general modes of the human mind,
other special determinations. Tragedy can make use of it with a very
intense effect, if it will renounce the extensive effect; still the
unconditionally true, what is purely _human_ in human relations, will be
always the richest matter for the tragic poet, because this ground is
the only one on which tragedy, without ceasing to aspire to strength of
expression can be certain of the _generality_ of this impression.

3d. Besides the vividness and the truth of tragic pictures, there must
also be _completeness_. None of the external data that are necessary to
give to the soul the desired movement ought to be omitted in the
representation. In order that the spectator, however Roman his
sentiments may be, may understand the moral state of Cato—that he may
make his own the high resolution of the republican, this resolution must
have its principle, not only in the mind of the Roman, but also in the
circumstances of the action. His external situation as well as his
internal situation must be before our eyes in all their consequences and
extent: and we must, lastly, have unrolled before us, without omitting a
single link, the whole chain of determinations to which are attached the
high resolution of the Roman as a necessary consequence. It may be said
in general that without this third condition, even the truth of a
painting cannot be recognized; for the similarity of _circumstances_,
which ought to be fully evident, can alone justify our judgment on the
similarity of the _feelings_, since it is only from the competition of
external conditions and of internal conditions that the affective
phenomenon results. To decide if we should have acted like Cato, we must
before all things transport ourselves in thought to the external
situation in which Cato was placed, and then only we are entitled to
place our feelings alongside his, to pronounce if there is or is not
likeness, and to give a verdict on the truth of these feelings.

A complete picture, as I understand it, is only possible by the
concatenation of several separate ideas, and of several separate
feelings, which are connected together as cause and effect, and which,
in their sum total, form one single whole for our cognitive faculty. All
these ideas, in order to affect us closely, must make an immediate
impression on our senses; and, as the narrative form always weakens this
impression, they must be produced by a present action. Thus, in order
that a tragic picture may be complete, a whole series is required of
particular actions, rendered sensuous and connected with the tragic
action as to one whole.

4th. It is necessary, lastly, that the ideas we receive of suffering
should act on us in a durable manner, to excite in us a high degree of
emotion. The affection created in us by the suffering of another is to
us a constrained state, from which we hasten to get free; and the
illusion so necessary for pity easily disappears in this case. It is,
therefore, a necessity to fasten the mind closely to these ideas, and
not to leave it the freedom to get rid too soon of the illusion. The
vividness of sudden ideas and the energy of sudden impressions, which in
rapid succession affect our senses, would not suffice for this end. For
the power of reaction in the mind is manifested in direct proportion to
the force with which the receptive faculty is solicited, and it is
manifested to triumph over this impression. Now, the poet who wishes to
move us ought not to weaken this independent power in us, for it is
exactly in the struggle between it and the suffering of our sensuous
nature that the higher charm of tragic emotions lies. In order that the
heart, in spite of that spontaneous force which reacts against sensuous
affections, may remain attached to the impressions of sufferings, it is,
therefore, necessary that these impressions should be cleverly suspended
at intervals, or even interrupted and intercepted by contrary
impressions, to return again with twofold energy and renew more
frequently the vividness of the first impression. Against the exhaustion
and languor that result from habit, the most effectual remedy is to
propose new objects to the senses; this variety retempers them, and the
gradation of impressions calls forth the innate faculty, and makes it
employ a proportionately stronger resistance. This faculty ought to be
incessantly occupied in maintaining its independence against the attacks
of the senses, but it must not triumph before the end, still less must
it succumb in the struggle. Otherwise, in the former case, suffering,
and, in the latter, moral activity is set aside; while it is the union
of these two that can alone elicit emotion. The great secret of the
tragic art consists precisely in managing this struggle well; it is in
this that it shows itself in the most brilliant light.

For this, a succession of alternate ideas is required; therefore a
suitable combination is wanted of several particular actions
corresponding with these different ideas; actions round which the
principal action and the tragic impression which it is wished to produce
through it unroll themselves like the yarn from the distaff, and end by
enlacing our souls in nets, through which they cannot break. Let me be
permitted to make use of a simile, by saying that the artist ought to
begin by gathering up with parsimonious care all the separate rays that
issue from the object by aid of which he seeks to produce the tragic
effect that he has in view, and these rays, in his hands, become a
lightning flash, setting the hearts of all on fire. The tyro casts
suddenly and vainly all the thunderbolts of horror and fear into the
soul; the artist, on the contrary, advances step by step to his end; he
only strikes with measured strokes, but he penetrates to the depth of
our soul, precisely because he has only stirred it by degrees.

If we now form the proper deductions from the previous investigation,
the following will be the conditions that form bases of the tragic art.
It is necessary, in the first place, that the object of our pity should
belong to our own species—I mean belong in the full sense of the
term—and that the action in which it is sought to interest us be a moral
action; that is, an action comprehended in the field of free will. It is
necessary, 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 be rendered present to our senses, not in a mediate way and by
description, but immediately and in action. In tragedy art unites all
these conditions and satisfies them.

According to these principles tragedy might be defined as the poetic
imitation of a coherent series of particular events (forming a complete
action): an imitation which shows us man in a state of suffering, and
which has for its end to excite our pity.

I say first that it is the _imitation_ of an action; and this idea of
imitation already distinguishes tragedy from the other kinds of poetry,
which only narrate or describe. In tragedy particular events are
presented to our imagination or to our senses at the very time of their
accomplishment; they are present, we see them immediately, without the
intervention of a third person. The epos, the romance, simple narrative,
even in their form, withdraw action to a distance, causing the narrator
to come between the acting person and the reader. Now what is distant
and past always weakens, as we know, the impressions and the sympathetic
affection; what is present makes them stronger. All narrative forms make
of the present something past; all dramatic form makes of the past a
present.

Secondly, I say that tragedy is the imitation of a succession of
_events_, of an action. Tragedy has not only to represent by imitation
the feelings and the affections of tragic persons, but also the events
that have produced these feelings, and the occasion on which these
affections are manifested. This distinguishes it from lyric poetry, and
from its different forms, which no doubt offer, like tragedy, the poetic
imitation of certain states of the mind, but not the poetic imitation of
certain actions. An elegy, a song, an ode, can place before our eyes, by
imitation, the moral state in which the poet actually is—whether he
speaks in his own name, or in that of an ideal person—a state determined
by particular circumstances; and up to this point these lyric forms seem
certainly to be incorporated in the idea of tragedy; but they do not
complete that idea, because they are confined to representing our
feelings. There are still more essential differences, if the end of
these lyrical forms and that of tragedy are kept in view.

I say, in the third place, that tragedy is the imitation of a complete
action. A separate event, though it be ever so tragic, does not in
itself constitute a tragedy. To do this, several events are required,
based one on the other, like cause and effect, and suitably connected so
as to form a whole; without which the truth of the feeling represented,
of the character, etc.—that is, their conformity with the nature of our
mind, a conformity which alone determines our sympathy—will not be
recognized. If we do not feel that we ourselves in similar circumstances
should have experienced the same feelings and acted in the same way, our
pity would not be awakened. It is, therefore, important that we should
be able to follow in all its concatenation the action that is
represented to us, that we should see it issue from the mind of the
agent by a natural gradation, under the influence and with the
concurrence of external circumstances. It is thus that we see spring up,
grow, and come to maturity under our eyes, the curiosity of Œdipus and
the jealousy of Iago. It is also the only way to fill up the great gap
that exists between the joy of an innocent soul and the torments of a
guilty conscience, between the proud serenity of the happy man and his
terrible catastrophe; in short, between the state of calm, in which the
reader is at the beginning, and the violent agitation he ought to
experience at the end.

A series of several connected incidents is required to produce in our
souls a succession of different movements which arrest the attention,
which, appealing to all the faculties of our minds, enliven our instinct
of activity when it is exhausted, and which, by delaying the
satisfaction of this instinct, do not kindle it the less. Against the
suffering of sensuous nature the human heart has only recourse to its
moral nature as counterpoise. It is, therefore, necessary, in order to
stimulate this in a more pressing manner, for the tragic poet to prolong
the torments of sense, but he must also give a glimpse to the latter of
the satisfaction of its wants, so as to render the victory of the moral
sense so much the more difficult and glorious. This twofold end can only
be attained by a succession of actions judiciously chosen and combined
to this end.

In the fourth place, I say that tragedy is the poetic _imitation_ of an
action deserving of pity, and, therefore, tragic imitation is opposed to
_historic_ imitation. It would only be a historic imitation if it
proposed a historic end, if its principal object were to _teach_ us that
a thing has taken place, and how it took place. On this hypothesis it
ought to keep rigorously to historic accuracy, for it would only attain
its end by representing faithfully that which really took place. But
tragedy has a _poetic_ end, that is to say, it represents an action to
_move_ us, and to _charm_ our souls by the medium of this emotion. If,
therefore, a matter being given, tragedy treats it conformably with this
poetic end, which is proper to it, it becomes, by that very thing, free
in its imitation. It is a right—nay, more, it is an obligation—for
tragedy to subject historic truth to the laws of poetry; and to treat
its matter in conformity with requirements of this art. But as it cannot
attain its end, which is emotion, except on the condition of a perfect
conformity with the laws of nature, tragedy is, notwithstanding its
freedom in regard 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 cases by a strict observance of historic truth, and,
reciprocally, how much it may 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 of poetic truth, the most conscientious
observance of historic truth could never dispense him from his duties as
poet, and could never excuse in him any infraction of poetic truth or
lack of interest. It is, therefore, betraying very narrow ideas on
tragic art, or rather on poetry in general, to drag the tragic poet
before the tribunal of history, and to require _instruction_ of the man
who by his very title is only bound to move and charm you. Even
supposing the poet, by a scrupulous submission to historic truth, had
stripped himself of his privilege of artist, and that he had tacitly
acknowledged in history a jurisdiction over his work, art retains all
her rights to summon him before its bar; and pieces such as “The Death
of Hermann,” “Minona,” “Fust of Stromberg,” if they could not stand the
test on this side, would only be tragedies of mediocre value,
notwithstanding all the minuteness of costume—of national costume—and of
the manners of the time.

Fifthly, tragedy is the imitation of an action that lets us see _man
suffering_. 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 pure
spirits, without our weaknesses, are unfit for tragedy. The very idea of
suffering implies a man in the full sense of the term. A pure spirit
cannot suffer, and a man approaching one will never awaken a high degree
of sympathy. A purely sensuous being can indeed have terrible suffering;
but without moral sense it is a prey to it, and a suffering with reason
inactive is a disgusting spectacle. The tragedian is right to prefer
mixed characters, and to place the ideal of his hero half way between
utter perversity and entire perfection.

Lastly, tragedy unites all these requisites to excite pity. Many means
the tragic poet takes might serve another object; but he frees himself
from all requirements not relating to this end, and is thereby obliged
to direct himself with a view to this supreme object.

The final aim to which all the laws tend is called the _end_ of any
style of poetry. The means by which it attains this are its _form_. The
end and form are, therefore, closely related. The form is determined by
the end, and when the form is well observed the end is generally
attained. Each kind of poetry having a special end must have a
distinguishing form. What it exclusively produces it does in virtue of
this special nature it possesses. The end of tragedy is _emotion_; its
form is the imitation of an action that leads to suffering. Many kinds
may have the same object as tragedy, of emotion, though it be not their
principal end. Therefore, what distinguishes tragedy is the relation of
its form to its end, the way 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
of attaining it, the imitation of an action fit to move must have all
that favors sympathy. Such is the form of tragedy.

The production of a kind of poetry is perfect when the form peculiar to
its kind has been used in the best way. Thus, a perfect tragedy is that
where the form is best used to awaken sympathy. Thus, the best tragedy
is that where the pity excited results more from the treatment of the
poet 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 from
tragedy. 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 are
others 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 our
hearts cold from the theatre. Must art, so holy and venerable, defend
its cause by such champions before such judges? The indulgence of the
public only emboldens mediocrity: it causes genius to blush, and
discourages it.


      OF THE CAUSE OF THE PLEASURE WE DERIVE FROM TRAGIC OBJECTS.

Whatever pains some modern æsthetics give themselves to establish,
contrary to general belief, that the arts of imagination and of feeling
have not pleasure for their object, and to defend them against this
degrading accusation, this belief will not cease: it reposes upon a
solid foundation, and the fine arts would renounce with a bad grace the
beneficent mission which has in all times been assigned to them, to
accept the new employment to which it is generously proposed to raise
them. Without troubling themselves whether they lower themselves in
proposing our pleasure as object, they become rather proud of the
advantages of reaching immediately an aim never attained except
mediately in other routes followed by the activity of the human mind.
That the aim of nature, with relation to man, is the happiness of
man,—although he ought 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 that nature has an aim. Thus the fine arts have the
same aim as nature, or rather as the Author of nature, namely, to spread
pleasure and render people happy. It procures for us in play what at
other more austere sources of good to man we extract only with
difficulty. It lavishes as a pure gift that which elsewhere is the price
of many hard efforts. With what labor, what application, do we not pay
for the pleasures of the understanding; with what painful sacrifices the
approbation of reason; with what hard privations the joys of sense! And
if we abuse these pleasures, with what a succession of evils do we
expiate excess! Art alone supplies an enjoyment which requires no
appreciable effort, which costs no sacrifice, and which we need not
repay with repentance. But who could class the merit of charming in this
manner with the poor merit of amusing? who would venture to deny the
former of these two aims of the fine arts solely because they have a
tendency higher than the latter.

The praiseworthy object of pursuing everywhere moral good as the supreme
aim, which has already brought forth in art so much mediocrity, has
caused also in theory a similar prejudice. To assign to the fine arts a
really elevated position, to conciliate for them the favor of the State,
the veneration of all men, they are pushed beyond their true domain, and
a vocation is imposed upon them contrary to their nature. It is supposed
that a great service is awarded them by substituting for a frivolous
aim—that of charming—a moral aim; and their influence upon morality,
which is so apparent, necessarily militates in favor of this pretension.
It is found illogical that the art which contributes in so great a
measure to the development of all that is most elevated in man, should
produce but accessorily this effect, and make its chief object an aim so
vulgar as we imagine pleasure to be. But this apparent contradiction it
would be very easy to conciliate if we had a good theory of pleasure,
and a complete system of æsthetic philosophy.

It would result from this theory that a free pleasure, as that which the
fine arts procure for us, rests wholly upon moral conditions, and all
the moral faculties of man are exercised in it. It would further result
that this pleasure is an aim which can never be attained but by moral
means, and consequently that art, to tend and perfectly attain to
pleasure, as to a real aim, must follow the road of healthy morals. Thus
it is perfectly indifferent for the dignity of art whether its aim
should be a moral aim, or whether it should reach only through moral
means; for in both cases it has always to do with the morality, and must
be rigorously in unison with the sentiment of duty; but for the
perfection of art, it is by no means indifferent which of the two should
be the aim and which the means. If it is the aim that is moral, art
loses all that by which it is powerful,—I mean its freedom, and that
which gives it so much influence over us—the charm of pleasure. The play
which recreates is changed into serious occupation, and yet it is
precisely in recreating us that art can the better complete the great
affair—the moral work. It cannot have a salutary influence upon the
morals but in exercising its highest æsthetic action, and it can only
produce the æsthetic effect in its highest degree in fully exercising
its liberty.

It is certain, besides, that all pleasure, the moment it flows from a
moral source, renders man morally better, and then the effect in its
turn becomes cause. The pleasure we find in what is beautiful, or
touching, or sublime, strengthens our moral sentiments, as the pleasure
we find in kindness, in love, etc., strengthens these inclinations. And
just as contentment of mind is the sure lot of the morally excellent
man, so moral excellence willingly accompanies satisfaction of heart.
Thus the moral efficacy of art is, not only because it employs moral
means in order to charm us, but also because even the pleasure which it
procures us is a means of morality.

There are as many means by which art can attain its aim as there are in
general sources from which a free pleasure for the mind can flow. I call
a free pleasure that which brings into play the spiritual forces—reason
and imagination—and which awakens in us a sentiment by the
representation of an idea, in contradistinction to physical or sensuous
pleasure, which places our soul under the dependence of the blind forces
of nature, and where sensation is immediately awakened in us by a
physical cause. Sensual pleasure is the only one excluded from the
domain of the fine arts; and the talent of exciting this kind of
pleasure could never raise itself to the dignity of an art, except in
the case where the sensual impressions are ordered, reinforced or
moderated, after a plan which is the production of art, and which is
recognized by representation. But, in this case even, that alone here
can merit the name of art which is the object of a free pleasure—I mean
good taste in the regulation, which pleases our understanding, and not
physical charms themselves, which alone flatter our sensibility.

The general source of all pleasure, even of sensual pleasure, is
propriety, the conformity with the aim. Pleasure is sensual when this
propriety is manifested by means of some necessary law of nature which
has for physical result the sensation of pleasure. Thus the movement of
the blood, and of the animal life, when in conformity with the aim of
nature, produces in certain organs, or in the entire organism, corporeal
pleasure with all its varieties and all its modes. We feel this
conformity by the means of agreeable sensation, but we arrive at no
representation of it, either clear or confused.

Pleasure is free when we represent to ourselves the conformability, and
when the sensation that accompanies this representation is agreeable.
Thus all the representations by which we have notice that there is
propriety and harmony between the end and the means, are for us the
sources of free pleasure, and consequently can be employed to this end
by the fine arts. Thus, all the representations can be placed under one
of these heads: the good, the true, the perfect, the beautiful, the
touching, the sublime. The good especially occupies our reason; the true
and perfect, our intelligence; the beautiful interests both the
intelligence and the imagination; the touching and the sublime, the
reason and the imagination. It is true that we also take pleasure in the
charm (_Reiz_) or the power called out by action from play, but art uses
charm only to accompany the higher enjoyments which the idea of
propriety gives to us. Considered in itself the charm or attraction is
lost amid the sensations of life, and art disdains it together with all
merely sensual pleasures.

We could not establish a classification of the fine arts only upon the
difference of the sources from which each of them draws the pleasure
which it affords us; for in the same class of the fine arts many sorts
of pleasures may enter, and often all together. But in as far as a
certain sort of pleasure is pursued as a principal aim, we can make of
it, if not a specific character of a class properly so called, at least
the principle and the tendency of a class in the works of art. Thus, for
example, we could take the arts which, above all, satisfy the
intelligence and imagination—consequently those which have as chief
object the true, the perfect, and the beautiful—and unite them under the
name of fine arts (arts of taste, arts of intelligence); those, on the
other hand, which especially occupy the imagination and the reason, and
which, in consequence, have for principal object the good, the sublime,
and the touching, could be limited in a particular class under the
denomination of touching arts (arts of sentiment, arts of the heart).
Without doubt it is impossible to separate absolutely the touching from
the beautiful, but the beautiful can perfectly subsist without the
touching. Thus, although we are not authorized to base upon this
difference of principle a rigorous classification of the liberal arts,
it can at least serve to determine with more of precision the criterion,
and prevent the confusion in which we are inevitably involved, when,
drawing up laws of æsthetic things, we confound two absolutely different
domains, as that of the touching and that of the beautiful.

The touching and the sublime resemble in this point, that both one and
the other produce a pleasure by a feeling at first of displeasure, and
that consequently (pleasure proceeding from suitability, and displeasure
from the contrary) they give us a feeling of suitability which
presupposes an unsuitability.

The feeling of the sublime is composed in part of the feeling of our
feebleness, of our impotence to embrace an object; and, on the other
side, of the feeling of our moral power—of this superior faculty which
fears no obstacle, no limit, and which subdues spiritually that even to
which our physical forces give way. The object of the sublime thwarts,
then, our physical power; and this contrariety (impropriety) must
necessarily excite a displeasure in us. But it is, at the same time, an
occasion to recall to our conscience another faculty which is in us—a
faculty which is even superior to the objects before which our
imagination yields. In consequence, a sublime object, precisely because
it thwarts the senses, is suitable with relation to reason, and it gives
to us a joy by means of a higher faculty, at the same time that it
wounds us in an interior one.

The touching, in its proper sense, designates this mixed sensation, into
which enters at the same time suffering and the pleasure that we find in
suffering. Thus we can only feel this kind of emotion in the case of a
personal misfortune, only when the grief that we feel is sufficiently
tempered to leave some place for that impression of pleasure that would
be felt by a compassionate spectator. The loss of a great good
prostrates for the time, and the remembrance itself of the grief will
make us experience emotion after a year. The feeble man is always the
prey of his grief; the hero and the sage, whatever the misfortune that
strikes them, never experience more than emotion.

Emotion, like the sentiment of the sublime, is composed of two
affections—grief and pleasure. There is, then, at the bottom a
propriety, here as well as there, and under this propriety a
contradiction. Thus it seems that it is a contradiction in nature that
man, who is not born to suffer, is nevertheless a prey to suffering, and
this contradiction hurts us. But the evil which this contradiction does
us is a propriety with regard to our reasonable nature in general,
insomuch as this evil solicits us to act: it is a propriety also with
regard to human society; consequently, even displeasure, which excites
in us this contradiction, ought necessarily to make us experience a
sentiment of pleasure, because this displeasure is a propriety. To
determine in an emotion if it is pleasure or displeasure which triumphs,
we must ask ourselves if it is the idea of impropriety or that of
propriety which affects us the more deeply. That can depend either on
the number of the aims reached or abortive, or on their connection with
the final aim of all.

The suffering of the virtuous man moves us more painfully than that of
the perverse man, because in the first case there is contradiction not
only to the general destiny of man, which is happiness, but also to this
other particular principle, viz., that virtue renders happy; whilst in
the second case there is contradiction only with regard to the end of
man in general. Reciprocally, the happiness of the wicked also offends
us much more than the misfortune of the good man, because we find in it
a double contradiction: in the first place vice itself, and in the
second place, the recompense of vice.

There Is also this other consideration, that virtue is much more able to
recompense itself than vice, when it triumphs, is to punish itself; and
it is precisely for this that the virtuous man in misfortune would much
more remain faithful to the cultus of virtue than the perverse man would
dream of converting himself in prosperity.

But what is above all important in determining in the emotions the
relation of pleasure and displeasure, is to compare the two ends—that
which has been fulfilled and that which has been ignored—and to see
which is the most considerable. There is no propriety which touches us
so nearly as moral propriety, and no superior pleasure to that which we
feel from it. Physical propriety could well be a problem, and a problem
forever unsolvable. Moral propriety is already demonstrated. It alone is
founded upon our reasonable nature and upon internal necessity. It is
our nearest interest, the most considerable, and at the same time, the
most easily recognized, because it is not determined by any external
element but by an internal principle of our reason: it is the palladium
of our liberty.

This moral propriety is never more vividly recognized than when it is
found in conflict with another propriety, and still keeps the upper
hand; then only the moral law awakens in full power, when we find it
struggling against all the other forces of nature, and when all those
forces lose in its presence their empire over a human soul. By these
words, “the other forces of nature,” we must understand all that is not
moral force, all that is not subject to the supreme legislation of
reason: that is to say, feelings, affections, instincts, passions, as
well as physical necessity and destiny. The more redoubtable the
adversary, the more glorious the victory; resistance alone brings out
the strength of the force and renders it visible. It follows that the
highest degree of moral consciousness can only exist in strife, and the
highest moral pleasure is always accompanied by pain.

Consequently, the kind of poetry which secures us a high degree of moral
pleasure, must employ mixed feelings, and please us through pain or
distress,—this is what tragedy does specially; and her realm embraces
all that sacrifices a physical propriety to a moral one; or one moral
propriety to a higher one. It might be possible, perhaps, to form a
measure of moral pleasure, from the lowest to the highest degree, and to
determine by this principle of propriety the degree of pain or pleasure
experienced. Different orders of tragedy might be classified on the same
principle, so as to form a complete exhaustive tabulation of them. Thus,
a tragedy being given, its place could be fixed, and its genus
determined. Of this subject more will be said separately in its proper
place.

A few examples will show how far moral propriety commands physical
propriety in our souls.

Theron and Amanda are both tied to the stake as martyrs, and free to
choose life or death by the terrible ordeal of fire—they select the
latter. What is it which gives such pleasure to us in this scene? Their
position so conflicting with the smiling destiny they reject, the reward
of misery given to virtue—all here awakens in us the feeling of
impropriety: it ought to fill us with great distress. What is nature,
and what are her ends and laws, if all this impropriety shows us moral
propriety 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 calamity
which elicits it. For harmony in the world of moral freedom gives us
infinitely more pleasure than all the discords in nature give us pain.

When Coriolanus, obedient to duty as husband, son, and citizen, raises
the siege of Rome, then almost conquered, withdrawing his army, and
silencing his vengeance, he commits a very contradictory act evidently.
He loses all the fruit of previous victories, he runs spontaneously to
his ruin; yet what moral excellence and grandeur he offers! How noble to
prefer any impropriety rather than wound moral sense; to violate natural
interests and prudence in order to be in harmony with the higher moral
law! Every sacrifice of a life is a contradiction, for life is the
condition of all good; but in the light of morality the sacrifice of
life is in a high degree proper, because life is not great in itself,
but only as a means of accomplishing the moral law. If then the
sacrifice of life be the way to do this, life must go. “It is not
necessary for me to live, 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 defer his departure till the gale was over.

But the sufferings of a criminal are as charming to us tragically as
those of a virtuous man; yet here is the idea of moral impropriety. The
antagonism of his conduct to moral law, and the moral imperfection which
such conduct presupposes, ought to fill us with pain. Here there is no
satisfaction in the morality of his person, nothing to compensate for
his misconduct. Yet both supply a valuable object for art; this
phenomenon can easily be made to agree with what has been said.

We find pleasure not only in obedience to morality, but in the
punishment given to its infraction. The pain resulting from moral
imperfection agrees with its opposite, the satisfaction at conformity
with the law. Repentance, even despair, have nobleness morally, and can
only exist if an incorruptible sense of justice exists at the bottom of
the criminal heart, and if conscience maintains its ground against
self-love. Repentance comes by comparing our acts with the moral law,
hence in the moment of repenting the moral law speaks loudly in man. Its
power must be greater than the gain resulting from the crime as the
infraction poisons the enjoyment. Now, a state of mind where duty is
sovereign is morale 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 his life to conform to the moral law, or a criminal taking
his own life because of the morality he has violated: in both cases our
respect for the moral law is raised to the highest power. If there be
any advantage it is in the case of the latter; for the good man may have
been encouraged in his sacrifice by an approving conscience, thus
detracting from his merit. Repentance and regret at past crimes show us
some of the sublimest pictures of morality in active condition. A man
who violates morality 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 encamped
with a Roman army before Antium or Corioli, and his mother a Volscian;
if her prayers move him to desist, we now no longer admire him. His
obedience to his mother would be at strife with a higher duty, that of a
citizen. The governor to whom the alternative is proposed, either of
giving up the town or of seeing his son stabbed, decides at once on the
latter, his duty as father being beneath that of citizen. At first our
heart revolts at this conduct in a father, but we soon pass to
admiration that moral instinct, even combined with inclination, could
not lead reason astray in the empire where it commands. When Timoleon of
Corinth puts to death his beloved but ambitious brother, Timophanes, he
does it because his idea of duty to his country bids him to do so. The
act here inspires horror and repulsion as against nature and the moral
sense, but this feeling is soon succeeded by the highest admiration for
his heroic virtue, pronouncing, in a tumultuous conflict of emotions,
freely and calmly, with perfect rectitude. If we differ with Timoleon
about his duty as a republican, this does not change our view. Nay, in
those cases, where our understanding judges differently, we see all the
more clearly how high we put moral propriety above all other.

But the judgments of men on this moral phenomenon are exceedingly
various, and the reason of it is clear. Moral sense is common to all
men, but differs in strength. To most men it suffices that an act be
partially conformable with the moral law to make them obey it; and to
make them condemn an action it must glaringly violate the law. But to
determine the relation of moral duties with the highest principle of
morals requires an enlightened intelligence and an emancipated reason.
Thus an action which to a few will be a supreme propriety, will seem to
the crowd a revolting impropriety, though both judge morally; an hence
the emotion felt at such actions is by no means uniform. To the mass the
sublimest and highest is only exaggeration, because sublimity is
perceived by reason, and all men have not the same share of it. A vulgar
soul is oppressed or overstretched by those sublime ideas, and the crowd
sees 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 where
natural propriety also seems to charm our mind even at the cost of
morality. Thus we are always pleased by the sequence of machinations of
a perverse man, though his means and end are immoral. Such a man deeply
interests us, and we tremble lest his plan fail, though we ought to wish
it to do so. But this fact does not contradict what has been advanced
about moral propriety, and the pleasure resulting from it.

Propriety, the reference of means to an end, is to us, in all cases, a
source of pleasure; even disconnected with morality. We experience this
pleasure unmixed, so long as we do not think of any moral end which
disallows action before us. Animal instincts give us pleasure—as the
industry of bees—without reference to morals; and in like manner human
actions are a pleasure to us when we consider in them only the relation
of means to ends. But if a moral principle be added to these, and
impropriety be discovered, if the idea of moral agent comes in, a deep
indignation succeeds our pleasure, which no intellectual propriety can
remedy. We must not call to mind too vividly that Richard III., Iago,
and Lovelace are _men_; otherwise our sympathy for them infallibly turns
into an opposite feeling. But, as daily experience teaches, we have the
power to direct our attention to different sides of things; and
pleasure, only possible through this abstraction, invites us to exercise
it, and to prolong its exercise.

Yet it is not rare for intelligent perversity to secure our favor by
being the means of procuring us the pleasure of moral propriety. The
triumph of moral propriety will be great in proportion as the snares set
by Lovelace for the virtue of Clarissa are formidable, and as the trials
of an innocent victim by a cruel tyrant are severe. It is a pleasure to
see 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 a
malefactor over his moral sense, because it is the proof of a certain
strength 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
an essential part of our pleasure, because it brings moral sense into
stronger relief. The last impression left on us by the author of
Clarissa is a proof of this. The intellectual propriety in the plan of
Lovelace 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 moral
propriety, and chooses his means skilfully for that end, he is sure to
charm doubly the connoisseur, by moral and by natural propriety. The
first satisfies the heart, the second the mind. The crowd is impressed
through the heart without knowing the cause of the magic impression.
But, on the other hand, there is a class of connoisseurs on whom that
which affects the heart is entirely lost, and who can only be gained by
the appropriateness of the means; a strange contradiction resulting from
over-refined taste, especially when moral culture remains behind
intellectual. This class of connoisseurs seek only the intellectual side
in touching and sublime themes. They appreciate this in the justest
manner, but you must beware how you appeal to their heart! The
over-culture of the age leads to this shoal, and nothing becomes the
cultivated man so much as to escape by a happy victory this twofold and
pernicious influence. Of all other European nations, our neighbors, the
French, lean most to this extreme, and we, as in all things, strain
every nerve to imitate this model.




                   SCHILLER’S PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS.


                           PREFATORY REMARKS.

The reason passes, like the heart, through certain epochs and
transitions, but its development is not so often portrayed. Men seem to
have been satisfied with unfolding the passions in their extremes, their
aberration, and their results, without considering how closely they are
bound up with the intellectual constitution of the individual.
Degeneracy in morals roots in a one-sided and wavering philosophy,
doubly dangerous, because it blinds the beclouded intellect with an
appearance of correctness, truth, and conviction, which places it less
under the restraining influence of man’s instinctive moral sense. On the
other hand, an enlightened understanding ennobles the feelings,—the
heart must be formed by the head.

The present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase of a thinking
public, by the facilities afforded to the diffusion of reading; the
former happy resignation to ignorance begins to make way for a state of
half-enlightenment, and few persons are willing to remain in the
condition in which their birth has placed them. Under these
circumstances it may not be unprofitable to call attention to certain
periods of the awakening and progress of the reason, to place in their
proper light certain truths and errors, closely connected with morals,
and calculated to be a source of happiness or misery, and, at all
events, to point out the hidden shoals on which the reason of man has so
often suffered shipwreck. Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth
without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of
error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of
tranquil wisdom.

Some friends, inspired by an equal love of truth and moral beauty, who
have arrived at the same conviction by different roads, and who view
with serener eye the ground over which they have travelled, have thought
that it might be profitable to present a few of these resolutions and
epochs of thought. They propose to represent these and certain excesses
of the inquiring reason in the form of two young men, of unequal
character, engaged in epistolary correspondence. The following letters
are the beginning of this essay.

The opinions that are offered in these letters can only be true and
false relatively, and in the form in which the world is mirrored in the
soul of the correspondent, and of him only. But the course of the
correspondence will show that the one-sided, often exaggerated and
contradictory opinions at length issue in a general, purified, and
well-established truth.

Scepticism and free-thinking are the feverish paroxysms of the human
mind, and must needs at length confirm the health of well-organized
souls by the unnatural convulsion which they occasion. In proportion to
the dazzling and seducing nature of error will be the greatness of the
triumphs of truth: the demand for conviction and firm belief will be
strong and pressing in proportion to the torment occasioned by the pangs
of doubt. But doubt was necessary to elicit these errors; the knowledge
of the disease had to precede its cure. Truth suffers no loss if a
vehement youth fails in finding it, in the same way that virtue and
religion suffer no detriment if a criminal denies them.

It was necessary to offer these prefatory remarks to throw a proper
light on the point of view from which the following correspondence has
to be read and judged.


                               LETTER I.
                          _Julius to Raphael._

                                                                October.

You are gone, Raphael,—and the beauty of nature departs: the sere and
yellow leaves fall from the trees, while a thick autumn fog hangs
suspended like a bier over the lifeless fields. Solitary, I wander
through the melancholy country. I call aloud your name, and am irritated
that my Raphael does not answer me.

I had received your last embrace. The mournful sound of the carriage
wheels that bore you away had at length died upon my ear. In happier
moments I had just succeeded in raising a tumulus over the joys of the
past, but now again you stand up before me, as your departed spirit, in
these regions, and you accompany me to each favorite haunt and pleasant
walk. These rocks I have climbed by your side: by your side have my eyes
wandered over this immense landscape. In the dark sanctuary of this
beech-grove we first conceived the bold ideal of our friendship. It was
here that we unfolded the genealogical tree of the soul, and that we
found that Julius was so closely related to Raphael. Not a spring, not a
thicket, or a hill exists in this region where some memory of departed
happiness does not come to destroy my repose. All things combine to
prevent my recovery. Wherever I go, I repeat the painful scene of our
separation.

What have you done to me, Raphael? What am I become? Man of dangerous
power! would that I had never known or never lost you! Hasten back; come
on the wings of friendship, or the tender plant, your nursling, shall
have perished. How could you, endowed with such tender feelings, venture
to leave the work you had begun, but still so incomplete. The
foundations that your proud wisdom tried to establish in my brain and
heart are tottering; all the splendid palaces which you erected are
crumbling, and the worm crushed to earth is writhing under the ruins.

Happy, heavenly time, when I groped through life, with bandaged eyes,
like a drunken man,—when all my knowledge and my wishes were confined to
the narrow horizon of my childhood’s teachings! Blessed time, when a
cheerful sunset raised no higher aspiration in my soul than the wish of
a fine day on the morrow; when nothing reminded me of the world save the
newspaper; nothing spoke of eternity save the passing bell; only
ghost-stories brought to mind the thought of death and judgment; when I
trembled at the thought of the devil, and was proportionately drawn to
the Godhead! I felt and was happy. Raphael has taught me to think I am
on the way to regret that I was ever created.

Creation? No, that is only a sound lacking all meaning, which my reason
cannot receive. There was a time when I knew nothing, when no one knew
me: accordingly, it is usual to say, I was not. That time is past:
therefore it is usual to say that I was created. But also of the
millions who existed centuries ago nothing more is now known, and yet
men are wont to say, they are. On what do we found the right to grant
the beginning and to deny the end? It is assumed that the cessation of
thinking beings contradicts Infinite Goodness. Did, then, Infinite
Goodness come first into being at the creation of the world? If there
was a period when there were no spirits, Infinite Goodness must have
been imperative for a whole eternity. If the fabric of the universe is a
perfection of the Creator, He, therefore, lacked a perfection before the
creation of the world. But an assumption like this contradicts the idea
of perfect goodness, therefore there is no creation. To what have I
arrived, Raphael? Terrible fallacy of my conclusions! I give up the
Creator as soon as I believe in a God. Wherefore do I require a God, if
I suffice without the Creator?

You have robbed me of the thought that gave me peace. You have taught me
to despise where I prayed before. A thousand things were venerable in my
sight till your dismal wisdom stripped off the veil from them. I saw a
crowd of people streaming to church, I heard their enthusiastic devotion
poured forth in a common act of prayer and praise; twice did I stand
beside a deathbed, and saw—wonderful power of religion!—the hope of
heaven triumphant over the terror of annihilation, and the serene light
of joy beaming from the eyes of those departing.

“Surely that doctrine must be divine,” I exclaimed, “which is
acknowledged by the best among men, which triumphs and comforts so
wondrously!” Your coldblooded wisdom extinguished my enthusiasm. You
affirmed that an equal number of devotees streamed formerly round the
Irmensäule and to Jupiter’s temple; an equal number of votaries, with
like exultation, ascended the stake kindled in honor of Brahma. “Can the
very feeling,” you added, “which you found so detestable in heathenism
prove the truth of your doctrine?”

You proceeded to say: “Trust nothing but your own reason. There is
nothing holy, save truth.” I have obeyed you: I have sacrificed all my
opinions, I have set fire to all my ships when I landed on this island,
and I have destroyed all my hopes of return. Never can I become
reconciled to a doctrine which I joyfully welcomed once. My reason is
now all to me—my only warrant for God, virtue, and immortality. Woe to
me if I catch this, my only witness, in a contradiction! if my esteem
for its conclusions diminishes! if a broken vessel in my brain diverts
its action! My happiness is henceforth intrusted to the harmonious
action of my sensorium: woe to me if the strings of this instrument give
a false note in the critical moments of my life—if my convictions vary
with my pulsations!


                               LETTER II.
                          _Julius to Raphael._

Your doctrine has flattered my pride. I was a prisoner: you have led me
out into the daylight; the golden shimmer and the measureless vault have
enraptured my eye. Formerly, I was satisfied with the modest reputation
of being a good son of my father’s house, a friend of my friends, a
useful member of society. You have changed me into a citizen of the
universe. At that time my wishes had not aspired to infringe on the
rights of the great: I tolerated these fortunate people because beggars
tolerated me. I did not blush to envy a part of the human race, because
there was a still larger part of humanity that I was obliged to pity.
Meeting you, I learned for the first time that my claims on enjoyment
were as well founded as those of my brethren. Now, for the first time, I
learned that, raised one stratum above this atmosphere, I weighed just
as much and as little as the rulers of this world. Raphael severed all
bonds of agreement and of opinion. I felt myself quite free; for reason,
as Raphael declared, is the only monarchy in the world of spirits, and I
carried my imperial throne in my brain. All things in heaven and earth
have no value, no estimation, except that which my reason grants them.
The whole creation is mine, for I possess an irresistible omnipotence,
and am empowered to enjoy it fully. All spirits—one degree below the
most perfect Spirit—are my brethren, because we all obey one rule, and
do homage to one supremacy.

How magnificent and sublime this announcement sounds! What a field for
my thirst of knowledge! But—unlucky contradiction of nature—this free
and soaring spirit is woven together with the rigid, immovable clockwork
of a mortal body, mixed up with its little necessities, and yoked to its
fate—this god is banished into a world of worms. The immense space of
nature is opened to his research, but he cannot think two ideas at the
same time. With his eyes he reaches up to the sunny focus of the
Godhead, but he himself is obliged to creep after Him slowly and wearily
through the elements of time. To absorb one enjoyment he must give up
all others: two unlimited desires are too great for his little heart.
Every fresh joy costs him the sum of all previous joys. The present
moment is the sepulchre of all that went before it. An idyllic hour of
love is an intermittent pulsation of friendship.

Wherever I look, Raphael, how limited man appears! How great the
distance between his aims and their fulfilment!—yet do not begrudge him
his soothing slumber. Wake him not! He was so happy before he began to
inquire whither he was to go and whence he came! Reason is a torch in a
prison. The prisoner knew nothing of the light, but a dream of freedom
appeared over him like a flash in the night which leaves the darkness
deeper than before. Our philosophy is the unhappy curiosity of Œdipus,
who did not cease to inquire till the dreadful oracle was unravelled.
Mayest thou never learn who thou art!

Does your wisdom replace what it has set aside? If you had no key to
open heaven, why did you lead me away from earth? If you knew beforehand
that the way to wisdom leads through the frightful abyss of doubt, why
did you venture the innocence of your friend Julius on this desperate
throw?—

                If to the good, which I propose to do,
                Something very bad borders far too near,
                I prefer not to do this good.

You have pulled down a shelter that was inhabited, and founded a
splendid but lifeless palace on the spot.

Raphael, I claim my soul from you! I am unhappy. My courage is gone. I
despair of my own strength. Write to me soon!—your healing hand alone
can pour balm on my burning wounds.


                              LETTER III.
                          _Raphael to Julius._

Julius, happiness such as ours, if unbroken, would be too much for human
lot. This thought often haunted me even in the full enjoyment of our
friendship. This thought, then darkening our happiness, was a salutary
foretaste, intended to mitigate the pain of my present position.
Hardened in the stern school of resignation, I am still more susceptible
of the comfort of seeing in our separation a slight sacrifice whose
merit may win from fate the reward of our future reunion. You did not
yet know what privation was. You suffer for the first time.

And yet it is perhaps an advantage for you that I have been torn from
you exactly at this time. You have to endure a malady, from which you
can only perfectly recover by your own energy, so as not to suffer a
relapse. The more deserted you feel, the more you will stir up all
healing power in yourself, and in proportion as you derive little or no
benefit from temporary and deceptive palliatives, the more certainly
will you succeed in eradicating the evil fundamentally.

I do not repent that I roused you from your dream, though your present
position is painful. I have done nothing more than hasten a crisis,
which every soul like yours has sooner or later to pass through, and
where the essential thing is, at what time of life it is endured. There
are times and seasons when it is terrible to doubt truth and virtue. Woe
to the man who has to fight through the quibbles of a self-sufficient
reason while he is immersed in the storms of the passions. I have felt
in its fulness all that is expressed by this, and, to preserve you from
similar troubles I could devise no means but to ward off the pestilence
by timely inoculation.

Nor could I, my dear Julius, choose a more propitious time? I met you in
the full and glorious bloom of youthful intelligence and bodily vigor;
before you had been oppressed by care or enchained by passion; fully
prepared, in your freedom and strength, to stand the great fight, of
which a sublime tranquillity, produced by conviction, is the prize.
Truth and error had not yet been interwoven with your interests. Your
enjoyments and virtues were independent of both. You required no images
of terror to tear you from low dissipation. The feeling for nobler joys
had made these odious to you. You were good from instinct and from
unconsecrated moral grace. I had nothing to fear for your morality, if a
building crumbled down on which it was not founded. Nor do your
anxieties alarm me, though you may conjure up many dark anticipations in
your melancholy mood. I know you better, Julius!

You are ungrateful, too! You despise the reason, and forget what joys it
has procured you. Though you might have escaped the dangers of doubt all
your life, still it was my duty not to deprive you of the pleasures
which you were capable of enjoying. The height at which you were was not
worthy of you. The way up which you climbed gave you compensation for
all of which I deprived you. I still recall the delight—with what
delight you blessed the moment when the bandage dropped from your eyes!
The warmth with which you grasped the truth possibly may have led your
all-devouring imagination to an abyss at sight of which you draw back
shuddering.

I must follow the course of your inquiries to discover the sources of
your complaints. You have written down the results of your thoughts:
send me these papers and then I will answer you.


                               LETTER IV.
                          _Julius to Raphael._

I have been looking over my papers this morning. Among them I have found
a lost memorandum written down in those happy hours when I was inspired
with a proud enthusiasm. But on looking over it how different seem all
the things treated of! My former views look like the gloomy boarding of
a playhouse when the lights have been removed. My heart sought a
philosophy, and imagination substituted her dreams. I took the warmest
for the truest coloring.

I seek for the laws of spirits—I soar up to the infinite, but I forget
to prove that they really exist. A bold attack of materialism overthrows
my creation.

You will read through this fragment, my dear Raphael. Would that you
could succeed in kindling once again the extinct flames of my
enthusiasm, to reconcile me again to my genius! but my pride has sunk so
low that even Raphael’s friendly hand can hardly raise me up again.


                          THEOSOPHY OF JULIUS.
                   THE WORLD AND THE THINKING BEING.

The universe is a thought of God. After this ideal thought-fabric passed
out into reality, and the new-born world fulfilled the plan of its
Creator—permit me to use this human simile—the first duty of all
thinking beings has been to retrace the original design in this great
reality; to find the principle in the mechanism, the unity in the
compound, the law in the phenomenon, and to pass back from the structure
to its primitive foundation. Accordingly to me there is only one
appearance in nature—the thinking being. The great compound called the
world is only remarkable to me because it is present to shadow forth
symbolically the manifold expressions of that being. All in me and out
of me is only the hieroglyph of a power which is like to me. The laws of
nature are the cyphers which the thinking mind adds on to make itself
understandable to intelligence—the alphabet by means of which all
spirits communicate with the most perfect Spirit and with one another.
Harmony, truth, order, beauty, excellence, give me joy, because they
transport me into the active state of their author, of their possessor,
because they betray the presence of a rational and feeling Being, and
let me perceive my relationship with that Being. A new experience in
this kingdom of truth: gravitation, the circulation of the blood, the
natural system of Linnæus, correspond essentially in my mind to the
discovery of an antique dug up at Herculaneum—they are both only the
reflections of one spirit, a renewed acquaintance with a being like
myself. I speak with the Eternal through the instrument of
nature,—through the world’s history: I read the soul of the artist in
his Apollo.

If you wish to be convinced, my dear Raphael, look back. Each state of
the human mind has some parable in the physical creation by which it is
shadowed forth; nor is it only artists and poets, but even the most
abstract thinkers that have drawn from this source. Lively activity we
name fire; time is a stream that rolls on, sweeping all before it;
eternity is a circle; a mystery is hid in midnight gloom, and truth
dwells in the sun. Nay, I begin to believe that even the future destiny
of the human race is prefigured in the dark oracular utterances of
bodily creation. Each coming spring, forcing the sprouts of plants out
of the earth, gives me explanations of the awful riddle of death, and
contradicts my anxious fears about an everlasting sleep. The swallow
that we find stiffened in winter, and see waking up to life after; the
dead grub coming to life again as the butterfly and rising into the
air,—all these give excellent pictures of our immortality.

How strange all seems to me now, Raphael! Now all seems peopled round
about me. To me there is no solitude in nature. Wherever I see a body I
anticipate a spirit. Wherever I trace movement I infer thought.

Where no dead lie buried, where no resurrection will be, Omnipotence
speaks to me this through His works, and thus I understand the doctrine
of the omnipresence of God.


                                 IDEA.

All spirits are attracted by perfection. There may be deviations, but
there is no exception to this, for all strive after the condition of the
highest and freest exercise of their powers; all possess the common
instinct of extending their sphere of action; of drawing all, and
centring all in themselves; of appropriating all that is good, all that
is acknowledged as charming and excellent. When the beautiful, the true,
and the excellent are once seen, they are immediately grasped at. A
condition once perceived by us, we enter into it immediately. At the
moment when we think of them, we become possessors of a virtue, authors
of an action, discoverers of a truth, possessors of a happiness. We
ourselves become the object perceived. Let no ambiguous smile from you,
dear Raphael, disconcert me here,—this assumption is the basis on which
I found all that follows, and we must be agreed before I take courage to
complete the structure.

His inner feeling or innate consciousness tells every man almost the
same thing. For example, when we admire an act of magnanimity, of
bravery and wisdom, does not a secret feeling spring up in our heart
that we are capable of doing the same? Does not the rush of blood
coloring our cheeks on hearing narratives of this kind proclaim that our
modesty trembles at the admiration called forth by such acts? that we
are confused at the praise which this ennobling of our nature must call
down upon us? Even our body at such moments agrees with the attitude of
the man, and shows clearly that our soul has passed into the state we
admire. If you were ever present, Raphael, when a great event was
related to a large assembly, did you not see how the relater waited for
the incense of praise, how he devoured it, though it was given to the
hero of his story,—and if you were ever a relater did you not trace how
your heart was subject to this pleasing deception? You have had
examples, my dear Raphael, of how easily I can wrangle with my best
friend respecting the reading aloud of a pleasing anecdote or of a
beautiful poem, and my heart told me truly on these occasions that I was
only displeased at your carrying off the laurels because these passed
from the head of author to that of the reader. A quick and deep artistic
appreciation of virtue is justly held to be a great aptitude for virtue,
in the same way as it is usual to have no scruple in distrusting the
heart of a man whose intelligence is slow to take in moral beauty.

You need not advance as an objection that, frequently, coupled with a
lively perception of a perfection, the opposite failing is found to
co-exist, that evil-doers are often possessed with strong enthusiasm for
what is excellent, and that even the weak flame up into enthusiasm of
herculean growth. I know, for example, that our admired Haller, who
unmasked in so manly a spirit the sickly nothingness of vain honors; a
man whose philosophical greatness I so highly appreciated, that he was
not great enough to despise the still greater vanity of an order of
knighthood, which conferred an injury on his greatness. I am convinced
that in the happy moment of their ideal conceptions, the artist, the
philosopher, and the poet are really the great and good man whose image
they throw out; but with many this ennobling of the mind is only an
unnatural condition occasioned by a more active stirring of the blood,
or a more rapid vibration of the fancy: it is accordingly very
transient, like every other enchantment, disappearing rapidly and
leaving the heart more exhausted than before, and delivered over to the
despotic caprice of low passions. I expressly said more exhausted than
before, for universal experience teaches that a relapsing criminal is
always the most furious, and that the renegades of virtue seek
additional sweets in the arms of crime to compensate for the heavy
pressure of repentance.

I wished to establish, my Raphael, that it is our own condition, when we
feel that of another, that perfection becomes ours for the moment during
which we raise in ourselves the representation of it; that the delight
we take in truth, beauty, and virtue shows itself when closely analyzed
to be the consciousness of our individual ennobling and enriching; and I
think I have proved this.

We have ideas of the wisdom of the highest Being, of His goodness, of
His justice, but none of His omnipotence. To describe His omnipotence,
we help ourselves by the graduated representation of three successions:
Nothing, His Will, and Something. It is waste and empty; God calls on
light; and there is light. If we had a real idea of His operative
omnipotence we should be creators, as He.

Accordingly, every perfection which I perceive becomes my own; it gives
me joy, because it is my own; I desire it, because I love myself.
Perfection in nature is no property of matter, but of spirits. All
spirits are happy through their perfection. I desire the happiness of
all souls, because I love myself. The happiness which I represent to
myself becomes my happiness; accordingly I am interested in awakening
these representations, to realize them, to exalt them; I am interested
in diffusing happiness around me. Whenever I produce beauty, excellence,
or enjoyment beyond myself, I produce myself; when I neglect or destroy
anything, I neglect, I destroy myself. I desire the happiness of others,
because I desire my own; and the desire of the happiness of others we
call benevolence and love.


                                 LOVE.

Now, my most worthy Raphael, let me look round. The height has been
ascended, the mist is dissipated; I stand in the midst of immensity, as
in the middle of a glowing landscape. A purer ray of sunlight has
clarified all my thoughts. Love is the noblest phenomenon in the world
of souls, the all-powerful magnet in the spiritual sphere, the source of
devotion and of the sublimest virtue. Yet love is only the reflection of
this single original power, an attraction of the excellent, based upon
an instantaneous permutation of individuality, an interchange of being.

When I hate, I take something from myself; when I love, I become richer
by what I love. To pardon is to recover a property that has been lost.
Misanthropy is a protracted suicide: egotism is the supremest poverty of
a created being.

When Raphael tore himself from my embrace my soul was rent in twain, and
I weep over the loss of my nobler half. On that holy evening—you must
remember it—when our souls first communed together in ardent sympathy,
all your great emotions became my own, and I only entered into my
unvarying right of property over your excellence; I was prouder to love
you than to be loved by you, for my own affection had changed me into
Raphael.

            Was it not this almighty instinct
            That forced our hearts to meet
            In the eternal bond of love?
            Raphael! enraptured, resting on your arm,
            I venture, joyful, the march towards perfection,
            That leadeth to the spiritual sun.

            Happy! happy! I have found thee,
            Have secured thee ’midst millions,
            And of all this multitude thou art mine!
            Let the wild chaos return;
            Let it cast adrift the atoms!
            Forever our hearts fly to meet each other.

            Must I not draw reflections of my ecstasy
            From thy radiant, ardent eyes?
            In thee alone do I wonder at myself.
            The earth in brighter tints appears,
            Heaven itself shines in more glowing light,
            Seen through the soul and action of my friend.

            Sorrow drops the load of tears;
            Soothed, it rests from passion’s storms,
            Nursed upon the breast of love.
            Nay, delight grows torment, and seeks
            My Raphael, basking in thy soul,
            Sweetest sepulchre! impatiently.

            If I alone stood in the great All of things,
            Dreamed I of souls in the very rocks,
            And, embracing, I would have kissed them.
            I would have sighed my complaints into the air;
            The chasms would have answered me.
            O fool! sweet sympathy was every joy to me.

Love does not exist between monotonous souls, giving out the same tone;
it is found between harmonious souls. With pleasure I find again my
feelings in the mirror of yours, but with more ardent longing I devour
the higher emotions that are wanting in me. Friendship and love are led
by one common rule. The gentle Desdemona loves Othello for the dangers
through which he has passed; the manly Othello loves her for the tears
that she shed hearing of his troubles.

There are moments in life when we are impelled to press to our heart
every flower, every remote star, each worm, and the sublimest spirit we
can think of. We are impelled to embrace them, and all nature, in the
arms of our affection, as things most loved. You understand me, Raphael.
A man who has advanced so far as to read off all the beauty, greatness,
and excellence in the great and small of nature, and to find the great
unity for this manifold variety, has advanced much nearer to the
Divinity. The great creation flows into his personality. If each man
loved all men, each individual would possess the whole world.

I fear that the philosophy of our time contradicts this doctrine. Many
of our thinking brains have undertaken to drive out by mockery this
heavenly instinct from the human soul, to efface the effigy of Deity in
the soul, and to dissolve this energy, this noble enthusiasm, in the
cold, killing breath of a pusillanimous indifference. Under the slavish
influence of their own unworthiness they have entered into terms with
self-interest, the dangerous foe of benevolence; they have done this to
explain a phenomenon which was too godlike for their narrow hearts. They
have spun their comfortless doctrine out of a miserable egotism, and
they have made their own limits the measure of the Creator; degenerate
slaves decrying freedom amidst the rattle of their own chains. Swift,
who exaggerated the follies of men till he covered the whole race with
infamy, and wrote at length his own name on the gallows which he had
erected for it—even Swift could not inflict such deadly wounds on human
nature as these dangerous thinkers, who, laying great claim to
penetration, adorn their system with all the specious appearance of art,
and strengthen it with all the arguments of self-interest.

Why should the whole species suffer for the shortcomings of a few
members?

I admit freely that I believe in the existence of a disinterested love.
I am lost if I do not exist; I give up the Deity, immortality, and
virtue. I have no remaining proof of these hopes if I cease to believe
in love. A spirit that loves itself alone is an atom giving out a spark
in the immeasurable waste of space.


                               SACRIFICE.

But love has produced effects that seem to contradict its nature.

It can be conceived that I increase my own happiness by a sacrifice
which I offer for the happiness of others; but suppose this sacrifice is
my life? History has examples of this kind of sacrifice, and I feel most
vividly that it would cost me nothing to die in order to save Raphael.
How is it possible that we can hold death to be a means of increasing
the sum of our enjoyments? How can the cessation of my being be
reconciled with the enriching of my being?

The assumption of immortality removes this contradiction; but it also
displaces the supreme gracefulness of this act of sacrifice. The
consideration of a future reward excludes love. There must be a virtue
which even without the belief in immortality, even at the peril of
annihilation, suffices to carry out this sacrifice.

I grant it is ennobling to the human soul to sacrifice present enjoyment
for a future eternal good; it is the noblest degree of egotism; but
egotism and love separate humanity into two very unlike races, whose
limits are never confounded.

Egotism erects its centre in itself; love places it out of itself in the
axis of the universal whole. Love aims at unity, egotism at solitude.
Love is the citizen ruler of a flourishing republic, egotism is a despot
in a devastated creation. Egotism sows for gratitude, love for the
ungrateful. Love gives, egotism lends; and love does this before the
throne of judicial truth, indifferent if for the enjoyment of the
following moment, or with the view to a martyr’s crown—indifferent
whether the reward is in this life or in the next.

Think, O Raphael, of a truth that benefits the whole human race to
remote ages; add that this truth condemns its confessor to death; that
this truth can only be proved and believed if he dies. Conceive this man
gifted with the clear all-embracing and illumining eye of genius, with
the flaming torch of enthusiasm, with all the sublime adaptations for
love; let the grand ideal of this great effect be presented to his soul;
let him have only an obscure anticipation of all the happy beings he
will make; let the present and future crowd at the same time into his
soul; and then answer me,—does this man require to be referred to a
future life?

The sum of all these emotions will become confounded with his
personality; will flow together in his personal identity, his I or Ego.
The human race he is thinking of is himself. It is a body, in which his
life swims forgotten like a blood-drop, forgotten, but essential to the
welfare of the economy; and how quickly and readily he will shed it to
secure his health.


                                  GOD.

All perfections in the universe are united in God. God and nature are
two magnitudes which are quite alike. The whole sum of harmonic activity
which exists together in the divine substance, is in nature the antitype
of this substance, united to incalculable degrees, and measures, and
steps. If I may be allowed this expressive imagery, nature is an
infinitely divided God.

Just as in the prism a white ray of light is split up into seven darker
shades of color, so the divine personality or Ego has been broken into
countless susceptible substances. As seven darker shades melt together
in one clear pencil of light, out of the union of all these substances a
divine being would issue. The existing form of nature’s fabric is the
optical glass, and all the activities of spirits are only an endless
play of colors of that simple divine ray. If it pleased Omnipotence some
day to break up this prism, the barrier between it and the world would
fall down, all spirits would be absorbed in one infinite spirit, all
accords would flow together in one common harmony, all streams would
find their end in the ocean.

The bodily form of nature came to pass through the attractive force of
the elements. The attraction of spirits, varied and developed
infinitely, would at length lead to the cessation of that separation (or
may I venture the expression) would produce God. An attraction of this
kind is love.

Accordingly, my dear Raphael, love is the ladder by which we climb up to
likeness to God. Unconsciously to ourselves, without laying claim to it,
we aim at this.

             Lifeless masses are we, when we hate;
             Gods, when we cling in love to one another,
             Rejoicing in the gentle bond of love.
             Upwards this divinest impulse holdeth sway
             Through the thousandfold degrees of creation
             Of countless spirits who did not create.

             Arm-in-arm, higher and still higher,
             From the savage to the Grecian seer,
             Who is linked to the last seraph of the ring,
             We turn, of one mind, in the same magic dance,
             Till measure, and e’en time itself,
             Sink at death in the boundless, glowing sea.

             Friendless was the great world’s Master;
             And feeling this, he made the spirit world
             Blessed mirrors of his own blessedness!
             And though the Highest found no equal,
             Yet infinitude foams upward unto Him
             From the vast basin of creation’s realm.

Love is, Raphael, the great secret that can restore the dishonored king
of gold from the flat, unprofitable chalk; that can save the eternal
from the temporal and transient, and the great oracle of duration from
the consuming conflagration of time.

What does all that has been said amount to?

If we perceive excellence, it is ours. Let us become intimate with the
high ideal unity, and we shall be drawn to one another in brotherly
love. If we plant beauty and joy we shall reap beauty and joy. If we
think clearly we shall love ardently. “Be ye perfect, as your Father in
heaven is perfect,” says the Founder of our Faith. Weak human nature
turned pale at this command, therefore He explained himself in clearer
terms: “Love one another!”

              Wisdom, with thy sunlike look,
              Awful goddess! turn thee back,
                And give way to Love;
              Who before thee went, with hero heart,
              Up the steep and stormy path
              To the Godhead’s very throne;
              Who, unveiling the Holiest,
              Showed to thee Elysium
              Through the vaulted sepulchre.
                Did it not invite us in?
              Could we reach immortality—
              Or could we seek the spirit
              Without Love, the spirit’s master?
              Love, Love leadeth only to Nature’s Father,
                _Only love the spirits_.

I have now given you, Raphael, my spirit’s confession of faith—a flying
outline of the creation I have undertaken. As you may perceive, the seed
which you scattered in my soul took root. Mock, or rejoice, or blush at
your scholar, as you please. Certain it is this philosophy has ennobled
my heart, and extended and beautified the perspective of my life. It is
possible, my excellent friend, that the entire structure of my
conclusions may have been a baseless and visionary edifice. Perhaps the
world, as I depicted it, nowhere exists, save in the brain of your
Julius. Perhaps, after the lapse of thousands on thousands of years,
when the wiser Judge promised in the future, sits on the judgment-seat,
at the sight of the true original, filled with confusion, I should tear
in pieces my schoolboy’s design. All this may happen—I expect it; and
even if not a vestige of reality is found in my dream, the reality will
fill me with proportionately greater delight and wonder. Ought my ideas
to be more beautiful than those of the Creator? How so? Could we
tolerate that His exalted artistic structure should fall beneath the
expectations of a mortal connoisseur? This is exactly the fiery
probation of His great perfection, and the sweetest triumph for the
Exalted Spirit, that false conclusions and deception do not injure His
acknowledgment; that all tortuous deviations of the wandering reason at
length strike into the straight road of everlasting truth; that all
diverging arms and currents ultimately meet in the main stream. What an
idea, Raphael, I form of the Great Artist, who, differently travestied
in a thousand copies, still retains identical features in all this
diversity, from which even the depreciating hand of a blunderer cannot
remove admiration.

Moreover, my representation may certainly be fallacious, wholly an
invention,—nay, I am persuaded that it must necessarily be so; and yet
it is possible that all results of this may come to pass. All great
sages are agreed that our whole knowledge moves on ultimately to a
conventional deception, with which, however, the strictest truth can
co-exist. Our purest ideas are by no means images of things, but only
their signs or symbols determined by necessity, and co-existing with
them.

Neither God, nor the human soul, nor the world, are really what we
consider them. Our thoughts of these are only the endemic forms in which
the planet we inhabit hands them to us. Our brain belongs to this
planet; accordingly, also, the idioms of our ideas, which are treasured
up in it. But the power of the soul is peculiar, necessary, and always
consistent: the capricious nature of the materials through which it
finds expression changes nothing in the eternal laws, as long as this
capriciousness does not stand in contradiction with itself, and so long
as the sign remains true to the thing it designates. As the thinking
power develops the relations of the idioms, these relations of things
must also really be present in them. Therefore, truth is no property of
the idioms, but of the conclusion; it is not the likeness of the sign
with the thing signified, of the conception with the object; but the
agreement of this conception with the laws of thought. In a similar
manner, the doctrine of quantity makes use of cyphers which are nowhere
present, except upon paper, and yet it finds with them what is present
in the world of reality. For example, what resemblance is there between
the letters A and B, the signs: and =, +, and -, and the fact that has
to be ascertained? Yet the comet, foretold centuries before, advances
from a remote corner of the heavens, and the expected planet eclipses
the disk at the proper time. Trusting to the infallibility of his
calculation, the discoverer Columbus plunges into unknown regions of the
sea to seek the missing other half of the known hemisphere—the great
island of Atlantis—to fill up a blank in his geographical map. He found
this island of his paper calculation, and his calculation was right.
Would it have been less great if a hostile storm had shattered his fleet
or driven it back? The human mind makes a similar calculation when it
measures the supersensual by means of the sensible, and when mathematics
applies its conclusions to the hidden physics of the superhuman. But the
last test of its calculations is still wanting, for no traveller has
come back from that land to relate his discovery. Human nature has its
proper bounds, and so also has the individual. We will give each other
mutual comfort respecting the former: Raphael will concede this to the
boyish age of his Julius. I am poor in conceptions, a stranger in many
branches of knowledge which are thought to be essential in inquiries of
this nature. I have not belonged to any philosophical school, nor have I
read many printed books. It may quite well be that I occasionally
substitute my fancies in the place of stricter logical proofs, that I
mistake the rush of my blood or the hopes of my heart for sound wisdom;
yet, my dear friend, you must not grudge me the moments I have thus
lost. It is a real gain for universal perfection: it was the provision
of the Wisest Spirit that the erring reason should also people the
chaotic world of dreams, and make fruitful even the barren ground of
contradiction. It is not only the mechanical artist who polishes the
rough diamond into a brilliant whom we ought to value, but also that one
who ennobles mere ordinary stones by giving them the apparent dignity of
the diamond. The industry displayed in the forms may sometimes make us
forget the massive truth of the substance. Is not every exercise of the
thinking power, every sharpening of the edge of the spirit, a little
step towards its perfection; and every perfection has to obtain a being
and substantial existence in a complete and perfect world. Reality is
not confined to the absolutely necessary; it also embraces the
conditionally necessary: every offspring of the brain, every work
elaborated by the wit, has an irresistible right of citizenship in this
wider acceptation of creation. In the measureless plan of nature no
activity was to be left out, no degree of enjoyment was to be wanting in
universal happiness. The great Inventive Spirit would not even permit
error to be wasted, nor allow this wide world of thought to remain empty
and chaotic in the mind of man. For the Great Ruler of His world does
not even allow a straw to fall without use, leaves no space uninhabited
where life may be enjoyed; for He converts the very poison of man into
the food of vipers; He even raises plants from the realm of corruption,
and hospitably grants the little glimmer of pleasure that can co-exist
with madness. He turns crime and folly into excellence, and weaves out
of the very vices of a Tarquin the great idea of the universal monarchy
of Rome. Every facility of the reason, even in error, increases its
readiness to accept truth.

Dear friend of my soul, suffer me to add my contribution to the great
woof of human wisdom. The image of the sun is reflected differently in
the dewdrop and in the majestic mirror of the wide-stretching ocean.
Shame to the turbid, murky swamp, which never receives and never
reflects this image! Millions of plants drink from the four elements of
nature; a magazine of supplies is open for all: but they mix their sap
in a thousand different ways, and return it in a thousand new forms. The
most beautiful variety proclaims a rich Lord of this house. There are
four elements from which all spirits draw their supplies: their Ego or
individuality, Nature, God, and the Future. All intermingle in millions
of ways and offer themselves in a million differences of result: but one
truth remains which, like a firm axis, goes through all religions and
systems—draw nigh to the Godhead of whom you think!


                               LETTER V.
                          _Raphael to Julius._

It would be very unfortunate, my dear Julius, if there were no other way
of quieting you than by restoring the first fruits of your belief in
you. I found with delight these ideas, which I saw gaining in you,
written down in your papers. They are worthy of a soul like yours, but
you could not remain stationary in them. There are joys for every age
and enjoyments for each degree of spirits. It must have been a difficult
thing for you to sever yourself from a system that was entirely made to
meet the wants of your heart. I would wager that no other system will
strike such deep roots in you, and, possibly, if left quite to your own
direction, you would sooner or later become reconciled to your favorite
ideas. You would soon remark the weakness of the opposite system, and
then, if both systems appeared equally deficient in proof, you would
prefer the most desirable one, or, perhaps, you would find new arguments
to preserve at least the essential features of your former theory, even
if a few more doubtful points had to be given up.

But all this is remote from my plan. You must arrive at a higher
_freedom of mind_, where you no longer require support. I grant that
this is not the affair of a moment. The first aim of the earliest
teaching is commonly the subjugation of the mind, and among all the
artifices of the art of education this generally succeeds the first.
Even you, though endowed with great elasticity of character, yet appear
destined to submit readily to the sway of _opinions_, and even more
inclined to this than thousands; and this state of infancy might last
very long with you, as you do not readily feel the oppression of it.
Your head and heart are in very close connection. A doctrine is sweet to
you on account of the teacher. You soon succeeded in finding an
interesting side in this doctrine, you ennobled it according to the
wants of your heart, and you suffered your mind to be resigned to other
points that must needs appear strange to you. You regarded attacks on
this doctrine as boyish revenge taken by a slavish soul against the rod
of its tutor. You played with your chains, which you thought you carried
by your own free will.

I found you in this situation, and the sight gave me pain—how, in the
midst of the enjoyment of your glowing life, and while giving expression
to your noblest powers, you were hemmed in by narrow considerations. The
very logical consistency with which you acted according to your
convictions, and the strength of soul that made every sacrifice light to
you, were twofold hinderances to your activity and to your joys. I then
resolved to set aside these clumsy efforts by which it had been
endeavored to cramp a soul like yours in the measure of ordinary
natures. The result of your first exertions favored my intentions. I
admit that your imagination was more actively employed upon the work
than was your penetration. The loss of your fondest convictions was more
than atoned for by your presentiments, which gathered results much more
rapidly than the tortoise pace of cold scientific inquiry, passing from
the known to the unknown. Your kind of inspired system gave you your
first enjoyment in this new field of activity, and I was very careful
not to destroy a welcome enthusiasm which was very favorable to the
development of your excellent disposition. The scene is now changed. A
return into the restrictions of infancy is closed forever. Your way
leads onwards, and you require no further precautions.

You must not be surprised to find that a system such as yours cannot
resist the searching of a severe criticism. All essays of this kind,
equal in breadth and boldness to yours, have had no other fate. It was
also most natural that your philosophical progress began with you
individually, as with the human race in general. The _first object_ on
which man’s spirit of inquiry first attempted its strength was, at all
times, the universe. Hypotheses relating to the origin of the world, and
the combination of its parts, had occupied the greatest thinkers for
ages, when Socrates called down the philosophy of his day from heaven to
earth. But the limits of human wisdom were too narrow for the proud
intellect of his followers. New systems arose on the ruins of the former
ones. The penetrating mind of subsequent ages explored the immeasurable
field of possible answers to those ever-recurring questions, bearing on
the mysterious interior of nature, which could not be disclosed by any
human intellect. Some, indeed, succeeded in giving a certain coloring of
distinctness, completeness, and evidence to their views. There are many
conjuring tricks by which the pride of reason seeks to avoid the
disgrace of not being able to exceed the bounds of human nature in
extending the circle of its knowledge. It is a frequent conceit with men
to believe that they have discovered new truths, when they have
dissected a conception into the separate elements out of which it was
first compounded by an act of caprice. Not unfrequently an imperceptible
assumption lies at the basis of a chain of consequences, whose breaks
and deficiencies are cunningly concealed, while the false conclusions
are admired as sublime wisdom. In other cases, partial experiences are
accumulated to found a hypothesis, and all contradictory phenomena are
either ignored, or the meaning of words is changed according to the
requirements of the reasoning. Nor is it only the philosophical quack
who employs these conjuring tricks to deceive the public; without being
conscious of it, the most upright and the least prejudiced thinker uses
analogous means to satisfy his thirst for knowledge directly that he
issues from the only sphere where reason can legitimately enjoy the
fruit of its activity.

After what you have heard me say on former occasions, Julius, these
expressions must cause you no little astonishment; yet they are not the
product of a sceptical caprice. I could lay before you the foundations
on which they rest, but this would require, as prelude, a somewhat dry
examination into the nature of human knowledge,—and I prefer to reserve
this for a time when you will feel the want of it. You have not yet
arrived at that state of mind when humiliating truths on the limits of
human knowledge can have any interest for you. Make a first essay with
the system which has supplanted your own in your mind. Examine it with
the same impartiality as severity. Proceed in the same manner with other
theories with which you have recently become acquainted; and if none of
them can fully satisfy your requirements, you will ask yourself if,
after all, these requirements are reasonable.

Perhaps you will tell me this is a poor consolation. You will infer that
resignation is your only refuge after so many brilliant hopes had been
raised. “Was it worth while,” you will say, “to challenge me to a full
exercise of my reason in order to set bounds to it at the very moment
when it was beginning to bear the noblest fruit? Was I only to become
acquainted with a higher enjoyment in order to feel with a double
keenness how painful it is to be thus bounded?”

Nevertheless, it is this very feeling of discouragement that I expressly
wish to banish from your soul. My aim is this: to remove all that places
an obstacle to the free enjoyment of your being, to bring to life in you
the germ of all lofty inspiration—the consciousness of the nobility of
your soul. You have been awakened from the slumber in which you were
rocked by the slavery of others’ opinions; but you would never reach the
degree of grandeur to which you are called if you dissipated your
strength in the pursuit of an unattainable end. This course was all
proper up to the present time; it was the natural consequence of your
recently acquired freedom. It was necessary that the ideas which had
most engaged you previously should give the first impulse to the
activity of your mind. Among all possible directions that your mind
could take, is its present course the most fertile in results? The
answer would be given, sooner or later, by your own experience. My part
was confined to hastening, if possible, this crisis.

It is a common prejudice to take as a measure of the greatness of man
that matter on which he works, and not the manner of his work. But it is
certain that a superior Being honors the stamp of perfection even in the
most limited sphere, whilst He casts an eye of pity on the vain attempts
of the insect which seeks to overlook the universe. It follows from this
that I am especially unwilling to agree to the proposition in your
papers, which assumes that the high destiny of man is to detect the
spirit of the Divine Artist in the work of creation. To express the
activity of infinite perfection, I admit that I do not know any sublimer
image than art; but you appear to have overlooked an important
distinction. The universe is not the pure expression of an ideal, like
the accomplished work of a human artist. The latter governs despotically
the inanimate matter which he uses to give a body to his ideas. But in
the divine work the proper value of each one of its parts is respected,
and this conservative respect with which the Great Architect honors
every germ of activity, even in the lowliest creature, glorifies it as
much as the harmony of the immeasurable whole. Life and liberty to all
possible extent are the seal of divine creation; nowhere is it more
sublime than where it seems to have departed most widely from its ideal.
But it is precisely this highest perfection that prevents us from
grasping the limits in which we are at present confined. We embrace only
too small a part of the universe, and the explanation of most of its
discords is inaccessible to our faculties. Each step we climb in the
scale of being will make us more susceptible of these enjoyments of art;
but even then their only value will be that of means, and to excite us
to an analogous exercise of our activity. The idle admiration of a
greatness foreign to ourselves can never be a great merit. A superior
man is never wanting in matter for his activity, nor in the forces
necessary to become himself a creator in his sphere. This vocation is
yours also, Julius; when you have recognized this you will never have a
thought of complaining of the limits that your desire of knowledge
cannot overstep.

When you have arrived at this conviction I expect to find you wholly
reconciled to me. You must first know fully the extent of your strength
before you can appreciate the value of its freest manifestation. Till
then, continue to be dissatisfied with me, but do not despair of
yourself.


 ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ANIMAL AND THE SPIRITUAL NATURE IN MAN.

  “It behooves us to clearly realize, as the broad facts which have most
  wide-reaching consequences in mental physiology and pathology, that
  all parts of the body, the highest and the lowest, have a sympathy
  with one another more intelligent than conscious intelligence can yet,
  or perhaps ever will, conceive; that there is not an organic motion,
  visible or invisible, sensible or insensible, ministrant to the
  noblest or to the most humble purposes, which does not work its
  appointed effect in the complex recesses of the mind, _and that the
  mind, as the crowning achievement of organization, and the
  consummation and outcome of all its energies, really comprehends the
  bodily life_.”—MAWDESLEY, _Body and Mind_.

  “It is an indisputable truth that what we call the material world is
  only known to us under the forms of the ideal world, and, as Descartes
  tells us, our knowledge of the soul is more intimate and certain than
  our knowledge of the body.”—HUXLEY.


                             INTRODUCTION.


                                  § 1.

Many philosophers have asserted that the body is, as it were, the
prison-house of the spirit, holding it only too firmly to what is
earthly, and checking its so-called flight towards perfection. On the
other hand, it has been held by another philosophic school that
knowledge and virtue are not so much an end as a means towards
happiness, and that the whole perfection of man culminates in the
amelioration of his body.

Both opinions,[18] methinks, are one-sided. The latter system has almost
entirely disappeared from our schemes of ethics and philosophy, and is,
I am inclined to think, not seldom cast out with over-fanatical
zeal—(nothing assuredly is so dangerous to truth as when one-sided
opinions meet with one-sided opponents). The former system has on the
whole been more patiently endured, since it has the greatest capacity
for warming the heart towards virtue, and has already justified its
value in the case of truly great souls. Who is there that does not
admire the strength of mind of a Cato, the lofty virtue of a Brutus and
Aurelius, the equanimity of an Epictetus and a Seneca? But, in spite of
all this, the system in question is nothing more than a beautiful
aberration of the understanding, a real extreme, which in its wild
enthusiasm underrates one part of our human nature, and desires to raise
us into the order of ideal beings without at the same time relieving us
of our humanity,—a system which runs directly contrary to all that we
historically know or philosophically can explain either of the evolution
of the single man or of that of the entire race, and can in no way be
reconciled with the limitations of our human soul. It is therefore here,
as ever, the wisest plan to hold the balance between the two opinions,
and thus reach with greater certainty the middle line of truth. But,
inasmuch as a mistake has very often been committed by treating the
mental powers in an exclusive way, that is, in so far as they can be
considered in independence of the body, and through an intentional
subordination of this same body, the aim of this present essay will be
to bring into a clearer light the remarkable contributions made by the
body to the workings of the soul, and the great and real influence of
the animal system of sensations upon the spiritual. But this is as like
the philosophy of Epicurus as the holding of virtue to be the _summum
bonum_ is stoicism.


Before we seek to discover those higher moral ends which the animal
nature assists us in attaining to, we must establish their physical
necessity, and come to an agreement as to some fundamental conceptions.


                          PHYSICAL CONNECTION.
        THE ANIMAL NATURE STRENGTHENS THE ACTION OF THE SPIRIT.


  § 2.—_Organism of the Operations of the Soul—of its Maintenance and
                        Support—of Generation._

All those conditions which we accept as requisite to the perfection of
man in the moral and material world may be included in one fundamental
sentence: The perfection of man consists in his ability to exercise his
powers in the observation of the plan of the world; and since between
the measure of the power and the end towards which it works there must
exist the completest harmony, perfection will consist in the highest
possible activity of his powers, and, at the same time, in their mutual
subordination. But the action of the human soul is—from a necessity
which I do not understand—bound fast to the action of matter. The
changes in the world of matter must be modified and, so to speak,
refined by a peculiar class of secondary powers—I mean the senses—before
they can produce in me any corresponding ideas; while, on the other
hand, a fresh set of organic powers, the agents of voluntary movements,
must come into play between the inner spirit and the outward world in
order to make the changes of the former tell upon the latter; thus must
the operations of thinking and sensation alike correspond to certain
movements of the internal sensorium. All this goes to make up the
organism of the soul’s activities.

But matter is spoil stolen from the eternal change, and wears itself
away, even as it works; in its movement its very element is driven from
its grooves, chased away and lost. Because now, on the contrary, that
simple essence, the soul, possesses in itself permanence and stability,
and in its essence neither gains nor loses aught,—matter cannot keep
step with the activity of the spirit, and there would thus soon be an
end of the organism of spiritual life, and therewith of all action of
the soul. To prevent which there must be added to the first system of
organic powers a second one, which shall make good the losses sustained,
and sustain the decay by a chain of new creations ready to take the
place of those that have gone. This is the organism of maintenance.

Still further. After a short period of activity, when the equal balance
of loss and reparation is once removed, man quits the stage of life, and
the law of mortality depopulates the earth. There is not room enough for
the multitude of sentient beings, whom eternal love and wisdom seemed to
have called to a happy existence, to live side by side within the narrow
boundaries of our world, and the life of one generation shuts out the
life of another. Therefore was it necessary that new men should appear,
to take the place of those who had departed, and that life should be
kept up in unbroken succession. But of _creation_ there is no longer any
trace; what now becomes new becomes so only by development. The
development of man must come to pass through man, if it is to bear a
proportion to the original number, if man is to be cultivated into man.
On this account a new system of organic powers was added to the two that
had preceded it, which had for its object to quicken and to develop the
seed of humanity. This is the organism of generation.

These three organisms, brought into the most thorough connection, local
and real, go to form the human body.


                            § 3.—_The Body._

The organic powers of the human body naturally divide themselves into
two principal classes. The first class embraces those which no known
laws and phenomena of the physical world enable us to comprehend; and to
these belong the sensibility of the nerves and the irritability of the
muscles. Inasmuch as it has hitherto been impossible to penetrate the
economy of the invisible, men have sought to interpret this unknown
mechanism through that with which they were already familiar, and have
considered the nerves as a canal conducting an excessively fine,
volatile, and active fluid, which in rapidity of motion and fineness was
held to excel ether and the electric spark. This fluid was held to be
the principle and author of our sensibility and power of motion, and
hence received the name of the spirit of life. Further, the irritability
of the muscles was held to consist in a certain effort to contract
themselves on the touch of some external provocation. These two
principles go to form the specific character of animal organism.

The second class of powers embraces those which we can account for by
the universally-known laws of physics. Among these I reckon the
mechanism of motion, and the chemistry of the human body, the source of
vegetable life. Vegetation, then, and animal mechanism, thoroughly
mingled, form the proper physical life of the human body.


                          § 4.—_Animal Life._

This is not yet all. Since loss or misfortune, when it occurs, falls
more or less within the will-power of the spirit, the spirit must be
able to make some compensation for it. Further, since the body is
subjected to all the consequences of this connection, and in the circle
of circumstances is exposed to countless hostile forces, it must be
within the power of the soul to protect the body against these harmful
influences, and to bring it into such relations with the physical world
as shall tend most to its preservation. The soul must therefore be
conscious of the present evil or good state of its organs; from a bad
state it must draw dissatisfaction, from a good state satisfaction, so
that it may either retain or remove the condition, seek it or fly from
it. Here then we have the organism at once and closely linked to the
sensational capacity, and the soul drawn into the service of the body.
We have now something more than vegetation, something more than a dead
model and the mechanism of nerves and muscles. Now we have animal
life.[19]

A healthy condition of our animal life is, as we know, most important
for the healthy condition of our spiritual life; and we dare never
ignore the animal life so long as we are not quit of it. It must
therefore possess a firm foundation, not easily moved; that is, the soul
must be fitted and prepared for the actions of our bodily life by an
irresistible power. Were then the sensations of our animal loss or
well-being to become spiritual perceptions, and had they to be created
by thought, how often would the soul be obscured by the overwhelming
blaze of passion; how often stifled by laziness and stupidity; how often
overlooked in the absorptions and distractions of business! Further,
would not, in this case, the most perfect knowledge of his economy be
demanded of the animal man—would not the child need to be a master in a
branch of knowledge in which, after fifty years of investigation,
Harvey, Boerhaave, and Haller were only beginners? The soul could thus
have positively no _idea_ of the condition she was called upon to alter.
How shall she become acquainted with it? how shall she begin to act at
all?


                       § 5.—_Animal Sensations._

So far we have met with such sensations only as they take their rise in
an antecedent operation of the understanding; but we have now to deal
with sensations in which the understanding bears no part. These
sensations, if they are not exactly the expression of the present state
of our organs, mark it out specifically, or, better, accompany it. These
sensations have quickly and forcibly to determine the will to aversion
or desire; but, on the other hand, they are ever to float on the surface
of the soul, and never to extend to the province of the reason. The
part, accordingly, played by thought, in the case of a mental
perception, is here taken up by that modification in the animal parts of
us which either threatens the destruction of the sensation or insures
its duration: that is, an eternal law of wisdom has combined with that
condition of the machine which confirms its welfare, a pleasant emotion
of the soul; and, on the other hand, with that condition which
undermines it and threatens ruin, an unpleasant emotion is connected;
and this in such a manner that the sensation itself has not the faintest
resemblance to the state of the organs of which it is the mark. Animal
sensations have, on this showing, a double origin: (1) in the present
state of the machine; (2) in the capacity or faculty (of sensation).

We are now able to understand how it is that the animal sensations have
the power to drive the soul with an irresistible tyranny in the
direction of passionate action, and not seldom gain the upper hand in a
struggle with those sensations which are most purely intellectual. For
these last the soul has produced by means of thought, and therefore they
can by thought be solved or even destroyed. Abstraction and philosophy
have this power over the passions, over opinions—in short, over all the
situations of life; but the animal sensations are forced upon the soul
by a blind necessity, by a stern mechanical law. The understanding,
which did not create them, likewise cannot dissolve them and make them
as if they were not, though by giving an opposite direction to our
attention it can do much to weaken their power and obscure their
pretensions. The most stubborn stoic, lying in the agony of the stone,
will never be able to boast that he did not feel its pain; but, lost in
the consideration of the end of his existence, he will be able to divide
his whole power of sensation and perception, and the preponderating
pleasure of a great achievement, which can subordinate even pain to the
general welfare, will be victorious over the present discomfort. It was
neither absence of nor annihilation of sensation that enabled Mucius,
while he was roasting his hand in the fire, to gaze upon the foe with
the Roman look of proud repose, but the thought of great Rome in
admiration of his deed. This it was that ruled in his soul, and kept it
grandly self-possessed, so that the terrible provocation of the animal
pain was too slight to disturb the equal balance of his nature. But not
on this account was the pain the Roman suffered less than it would have
been in the case of the most effeminate voluptuary. True enough, the man
who is accustomed to pass his days in a state of confused ideas will be
less capable of manly action, in the critical moment of sensuous pain,
than he who lives persistently among ideas distinct and clear; but, for
all that, neither the loftiest virtue, nor the profoundest philosophy,
nor even divine religion, can save a man from the result of a necessary
law, though religion can bless her servants even at the stake, and make
them happy as the pile gives way.

The wisest purpose is served by the power which the animal sensations
possess over the perceptive faculty of the soul. The spirit once
initiated in the mysteries of a higher pleasure would look with disdain
upon the motions of its companion, and would pay no heed to the poor
necessities of physical life, were it not that the animal feeling
compelled it to do so. The mathematician, soaring in the region of the
infinite, and dreaming away reality in a world of abstractions, is
roused by the pang of hunger from his intellectual slumber; the natural
philosopher, dismembering the solar system, accompanying through
immeasurable space the wanderings of the planets, is restored by the
prick of a needle to his mother earth; the philosopher who unfolds the
nature of the Deity, and fancies himself to have broken through the
fetters of mortality, returns to himself and everyday life when the
bleak north wind whistles through his crazy hut, and teaches him that he
stands midway between the beast and the angel.

Against an excess of the animal sensations the severest mental exertion
in the end possesses no influence; as they continue to grow stronger,
reason closes her ears, and the fettered soul moves but to subserve the
purposes of the bodily organization. To satisfy hunger or to quench
thirst man will do deeds at which humanity will shudder: against his
will he turns traitor or murderer—even cannibal:—

       Tiger! in the bosom of thy mother wilt thou set thy teeth?

—so violent is the influence of the animal sensation over the mind. Such
watchful care has the Creator shown for the preservation of the machine
that the pillars on which it rests are the firmest, and experience has
taught us that it is rather the over-abundance than the want of animal
sensations that has carried destruction with it.

The animal sensations therefore may be said to further the welfare of
the animal nature, just as the moral and intellectual perceptions
promote spiritual progress or perfection. The system of animal
sensations and motions, then, comprises the conception of the animal
nature. This is the ground on which all the activities of the soul
depend, and the conformation of this fabric determines the duration of
the spiritual activity itself, and the degree of ease with which it
works. Here, then, we find ourselves in possession of the first member
of the connection between the two natures.


 § 6.—_Objections against the Connection of the Two Natures, drawn from
                          Ideas of Morality._

There is no doubt that thus much will be conceded; but the next remark
will be: “Here ends, too, any determining influence the body may
possess; beyond this point the body is but the soul’s inert companion,
with whom she must sustain a constant battle, attendance on whose
necessities robs her of all leisure, whose attacks and interruptions
break the thread of the most intricate speculation, and drive the spirit
from the clearest and plainest conceptions into a chaotic complexity of
the senses, whose pleasures remove the greatest part of our
fellow-creatures far from their high original, and reduce them to the
level of the beasts, which, in a word, entangles them in a slavery from
which death only can deliver them. Is it not senseless and injust,” our
complainer might go on to say, “to mix up a being, simple, necessary,
that has its subsistence in itself, with another being that moves in an
eternal whirl, exposed to every chance and change, and becomes the
victim of even external necessity?” On cooler afterthought we shall
perhaps see a great beauty take its rise out of this apparent confusion
and want of plan.


                       PHILOSOPHICAL CONNECTION.
      ANIMAL IMPULSES AWAKEN AND DEVELOP THE IMPULSES OF THE SOUL.


                           § 7.—_The Method_

The surest way, perhaps, to throw some light upon this matter is the
following: Let us detach from man all idea of what can be called
organization,—that is, let the body be separated from the spirit,
without, however, depriving the latter of the power to attain to
representations of, and to produce actions in, the corporeal world; and
let us then inquire how the spirit would set to work, would develop its
powers, what steps it would take towards its perfection: the result of
this investigation must be founded upon facts. The actual culture of the
individual man is thus surveyed, while we at the same time obtain a view
of the development of the whole race. In the first place, then, we have
this abstract case: the power of representation and will are present, a
sphere of action is present, and a free way opened from the soul to the
world, from the world to the soul. The question then is, How will the
spirit act?


       § 8.—_The Soul viewed as out of connection with the Body._

We can form no conception without the antecedent will to form it; no
will, unless by experience of a better condition thereby induced,
without [some] sensation; no sensation without an antecedent idea (for
along with the body we excluded bodily sensations), therefore no idea
without an idea.

Let us consider now the case of a child; that is, according to our
hypothesis, a spirit conscious in itself of the power to form ideas, but
which for the first time is about to exercise this power. What will
determine him to think, unless it be the pleasant sensation thereby
arising, and what can have procured for him the experience of this
pleasurable sensation? We have just seen that this, again, could be
nothing but thinking, and he is now for the first time to think.
Further, what shall invite him to a consideration of the [external]
world? Nothing but the experience of its perfection in so far as it
satisfies his instinct of activity, and as this satisfaction affords him
pleasure. What, then, can determine him to an exercise of his powers?
Nothing but the experience of their existence; and all these experiences
are now to be made for the first time. He must therefore have been
active from all eternity—which is contrary to the case as stated—or he
will to all eternity be inactive, just as the machine without a touch
from without remains idle and motionless.


          § 9.—_The Soul viewed in connection with the Body._

Now let the animal be added to the spirit. Weave these two natures so
closely together as they really are closely woven, and cause an unknown
something, born of the economy of the animal body, to be assailed by the
power of sensation,—let the soul be placed in the condition of physical
pain. _That_ was the first touch, the first ray to light up the night of
slumbering powers, a touch as from a golden finger upon nature’s lute.
Now is _sensation_ there, and _sensation_ only was it that before we
missed. This kind of sensation seems to have been made on purpose to
remove all these difficulties. In the first case none could be produced
because we were not allowed to presuppose an idea; here a modification
of the bodily organs becomes a substitute for the ideas that were
lacking, and thus does animal sensation come to the help of the spirits
inward mechanism, if I may so call it, and puts the same in motion. The
will is active, and the action of a single power is sufficient to set
all the rest to work. The following operations are self-developed and do
not belong to this chapter.


             § 10.—_Out of the History of the Individual._

Let us follow now the growth of the soul in the individual man in
relation to what I am trying to demonstrate, and let us observe how all
his spiritual capacities grow out of motive powers of sense.

_a._ The _child_. Still quite animal; or, rather more and at the same
time less than animal—human animal (for that being which at some time
shall be called man can at no time have been only animal). More wretched
than an animal, because he has not even instinct—the animal-mother may
with less danger leave her young than the mother abandon her child. Pain
may force from him a cry, but will never direct him to the source from
which it comes. The milk may give him pleasure, but he does not seek it.
He is altogether passive.

    His thinking rises only to sensation.
    His knowledge is but pain, hunger—and what binds these together.

_b._ The _boy_. Here we have already reflection, but only in so far as
it bears upon the satisfaction of the animal impulse. “He learns to
value,” says Garve,[20] “the things of others, and his actions in
respect of others, first of all through the fact of their affording him
[sensuous] pleasure.”

A love of work, the love to his parents, to friends, yea even love to
God, must go along the pathway of physical sense [Sinnlichkeit] to reach
his soul. “That only is the sun,” as Garve elsewhere observes, “which in
itself enlightens and warms: all other objects are dark and cold; but
they too can be warmed and illumined when they enter into such a
connection with the same as to become partakers of its rays.”[21] The
good things of the spirit possess a value with the boy only by
transference—they are the spiritual means to an animal end.

_c._ _Youth and man._ The frequent repetition of this process of
induction at last brings about a readiness, and the transference begins
to discover a beauty in what at first was regarded simply as a means.
The youth begins to linger in the process without knowing why. Without
observing it, he is often attracted to think about this means. Now is
the time when the beams of spiritual beauty in itself begin to fall upon
his open soul; the feeling of exercising his powers delights him, and
infuses an inclination to the object which, up to this time, was a means
only: the first end is forgotten. His enlightened mind and the richer
store of his ideas at last reveal to him the whole worth of spiritual
pleasures—the means has become the highest end.

Such is the teaching more or less of the history of each individual
man—whose means of education have been fairly good; and wisdom could
hardly choose a better road along which to lead mankind. Is not the mass
of the people even to this day in leading-strings?—much like our boy.
And has not the prophet from Medina left us an example of striking
plainness how to bridle the rude nature of the Saracens?

On this subject nothing more excellent can be said than what Garve
remarked in his translation of Ferguson’s “Moral Philosophy,” in the
chapter upon the Natural Impulses, and has developed as follows: “The
impulse of self-preservation and the attraction of sensual pleasure
first bring both man and beast to the point of action: he first comes to
value the things of others and his own actions in reference to them
according as they procure him pleasure. In proportion as the number of
things under whose influence he comes increases do his desires cover a
wider circle; as the road by which he reaches the objects of his wishes
lengthens, so do his desires become more artificial. Here we come to the
first line of separation between man and the mere animal, and herein we
may even discover a difference between one species of animal and
another. With few animals does the act of feeding follow immediately
upon the sensation of hunger; the heat of the chase, or the industry of
collection must come first. But in the case of no animal does the
satisfaction of this want follow so late upon the preparations made in
reference thereto as in the case of man; with no animal does the
endeavor wind through so long a chain of means and intentions before it
arrives at the last link. How far removed from this end, though in
reality they have no other, are the labors of the artisan or the
ploughman. But even this is not all. When the means of human subsistence
have become richer and more various through the institutions of society;
when man begins to discover that without a full expenditure of time and
labor a surplus remains to him; when at the same time by the
communication of ideas he becomes more enlightened; then he begins to
find a last end for all his actions in himself; he then remarks that,
even when his hunger is thoroughly satisfied, a good supply of raiment,
a roof above him, and a sufficiency of furniture within doors, there
still remains something over and above for him to do. He goes a step
further, he becomes conscious that in those very actions by which he has
procured for himself food and comfort—in so far as they have their
origin in certain powers of a spirit, and in so far as they exercise
these powers—there lies a higher good than in the external ends which
thereby are attained. From this moment on he works, indeed—in company
with the rest of the human race, and along with the whole animal
kingdom—to keep himself alive, and to provide for himself and his
friends the necessaries of physical existence;—for what else could he
do? What other sphere of action could he create for himself, if he were
to leave this? But he knows now that nature has not so much awakened in
him these various impulses and desires for the purpose of affording so
many particular pleasures,—but, and far more, places before him the
attraction of those pleasures and advantages, in order that these
impulses may be put in motion—and with this end, that to a thinking
being there may be given matter for thought, to a sensitive spirit
matter for sensations, to the benevolent means of beneficence, and to
the active opportunity for work. Thus does everything, living or
lifeless, assume to him a new form. All the facts and changes of life
were formerly estimated by him only in so far as they caused him
pleasure or pain: _now_, in so far as they offer occasion for expression
of his desire of perfection. In the first case, events are now good, now
bad; in the latter, all are equally good. For there is no chance or
accident which does not give scope for the exercise of some virtue, or
for the employment of a special faculty. At first he loved his fellows
because he believed that they could be of use to him; he loves them now
far more—because he looks upon benevolence as the condition of the
perfect mind.”


                 § 11.—_From the History of Humanity._

Yet once more, a glance at the universal history of the whole human
race—from its cradle to the maturity of full-grown man—and the truth of
what has been said up to this point will stand forth in clearest relief.

Hunger and nakedness first made of man a hunter, a fisher, a cowherd, a
husbandman, and a builder. Sensual pleasure founded families, and the
defencelessness of single men was the origin of the tribe. Here already
may the first roots of the social duties be discovered. The soil would
soon become too poor for the increasing multitude of men; hunger would
drive them to other climates and countries that would discover their
wealth to the necessity that forced men to seek it; in the process they
would learn many improvements in the cultivation of the soil, and
perhaps some means to escape the hurtful influence of many things they
would necessarily encounter. These separate experiences passed from
grandfather to grandson, and their number was always on the increase.
Man learned to use the powers of nature against herself; these powers
were brought into new relations and the first invention was made. Here
we have the first roots of the simple and healing arts—always, we admit,
art and invention for the behoof of the _animal_, but still an exercise
of power, an addition to knowledge; and at the very fire in whose embers
the savage roasted his fish, Boerhaave afterwards made his inquiries
into the composition of bodies; through the very knife which this wild
man used to cut up his game, Lionet invented what led to his discovery
of the nerves of insects; with the very circle wherewith at first hoofs
were measured, Newton measures heaven and earth. Thus did the body force
the mind to pay attention to the phenomena around it; thus was the world
made interesting and important, through being made indispensable. The
inward activity of their nature, and the barrenness of their native
soil, combined in teaching our forefathers to form bolder plans, and
invented for them a house wherein, under conduct of the stars, they
could safely move upon rivers and seas, and sail toward regions new:—

                Fluctibus ignotis insultavere carinæ.
                (Their keels danced upon waves unknown.)

Here again they met with new productions of nature, new dangers, new
needs that called for new exertions. The collision of animal instincts
drives hordes against hordes, forges a sword out of the raw metal,
begets adventurers, heroes, and despots. Towns are fortified, states are
founded: with the states arise civic duties and rights, arts, figures,
codes of law, subtle priests—and gods.

And now, when necessities have degenerated into luxury, what a boundless
field is opened to our eyes! Now are the veins of the earth burrowed
through, the foot of man is planted on the bottom of the sea, commerce
and travel flourish:—

                  Latet sub classibus æquor.
                  (The sea is hid beneath the fleets.)

The West wonders at the East, the East at the West; the productions of
foreign countries accustom themselves to grow under other skies, and the
art of gardening shows the products of three-quarters of the world in
one garden. Artists learn her works from nature, music soothes the
savage breast, beauty and harmony ennoble taste and manners, and art
leads the way to science and virtue “Man,” says Schlözer,[22] “this
mighty demigod, clears rocks from his path, digs out lakes, and drives
his plough where once the sail was seen. By canals he separates quarters
of the globe and provinces from one another; leads one stream to another
and discharges them upon a sandy desert, changed thereby into smiling
meadow; three-quarters of the globe he plunders and transplants them
into a fourth. Even climate, air, and weather acknowledge his sway.
While he roots out forests and drains the swamp, the heaven grows clear
above his head, moisture and mist are lost, winter becomes milder and
shorter, because rivers are no longer frozen over.” And the mind of man
is refined with the refining of his clime.

The state occupies the citizen in the necessities and comforts of life.
Industry gives the state security and rest from without; from within,
granting to thinker and artist that fruitful leisure through which the
age of Augustus came to be called the Golden Age. The arts now take a
more daring and untrammelled flight, science wins a light pure and dry,
natural history and physical science shatter superstition, history
extends a mirror of the times that were, and philosophy laughs at the
follies of mankind. But when luxury grows into effeminacy and excess,
when the bones begin to ache, and the pestilence to spread and the air
becomes infected, man hastens in his distress from one realm of nature
to another, that he may at least find means for lessening his pains.
Then he finds the divine plant of China; from the bowels of the earth he
digs out the mightily-working mercury, and from the poppy of the East
learns to distil its precious juice. The most hidden corners of nature
are investigated; chemistry separates material objects into their
ultimate elements, and creates worlds of her own; alchemists enrich the
province of physical science; the microscopic glance of a Schwammerdam
surprises nature in her most secret operations. Man goes still further;
necessity or curiosity transcends the boundaries set by superstition: he
seizes the knife, takes courage, and the masterpiece of nature is
discovered, even man. Thus did it behoove the least, the poorest, to
help us to reach the highest; disease and death must lend their aid to
man in teaching him Γνῶθι σεαύτον (“Know thyself!”). The plague produced
and formed our Hippocrates, our Sydenhams, as war is the mother of
generals; and we owe to the most devastating disease that ever visited
humanity an entire reformation of our medical system.

Our intention was to show the influence upon the perfecting of the soul
through the temperate enjoyment of the pleasures held out by the senses;
and how marvellously has the matter changed, even while under our hands!
We found that even excess and abuse in this direction have furthered the
real demands of humanity; the deflections from the primitive end of
nature—merchants, conquerors, and luxury—have, undoubtedly, tended to
hasten a progress which had otherwise been more regular, but very slow.
Let us compare the old world with the new! In the first, desire was
simple, its satisfaction easy; but how mistaken, how painful was the
judgment passed on nature and her laws! Now, the road is made more
difficult by a thousand windings, but how full the light that has been
shed upon all our conceptions!

We may, then, repeat: Man needed to be an animal before he knew that he
was a spirit; he needed to crawl in the dust before he ventured on a
Newtonian flight through the universe. The body, therefore, is the first
spur to action; sense the first step on the ladder to perfection.


             ANIMAL SENSATIONS ACCOMPANY MENTAL SENSATIONS.


                              § 12.—_Law._

The understanding of man is extremely limited, and, therefore, all
sensations resulting from its action must of necessity be also limited.
In order, therefore, to give these sensations greater impulse, and with
redoubled force to attract the will to good and restrain it from evil,
both natures, the spiritual and the animal, are so intimately connected
with each other that their modifications, being mutually interchanged,
impart strength to one another. Hence arises a fundamental law of mixed
natures, which, being reduced to its primary divisions, runs thus: the
activities of the body correspond to the activities of the mind; that
is, any overstraining of a mental activity is necessarily followed by an
overstraining of certain bodily actions,—just as the equilibrium, or
harmonious action, of the mental powers is associated with that of the
bodily powers in perfect accord. Further: mental indolence induces
indolence in the bodily actions; mental inaction causes them to cease
altogether. Thus, as perfection is ever accompanied by pleasure,
imperfection by the absence of pleasure, this law may be thus expressed:
Mental pleasure is invariably attended by animal pleasure, mental pain
by animal pain.[23]


    § 13.—_Mental Pleasure furthers the Welfare of the Human Frame._

Thus, a sensation which embraces within its range the whole spiritual
being agitates in the same measure the whole framework of the organic
body,—heart, veins and blood, muscles and nerves, all, from those mighty
nerves that give to the heart its living impulse of motion down to the
tiny and unimportant nerves by which hairs are attached to the skin,
share equally its influence. Everything tends to a more violent motion.
If the sensation be an agreeable one, all these parts will acquire a
higher degree of harmonious activity; the heart’s beat will be free,
lively, uniform, the blood will flow unchecked, gently or with fiery
speed, according as the affection is of a gentle or violent description;
digestion, secretion, and excretion will follow their natural course;
the excitable membranes will pliantly play in a gentle vapor-bath, and
excitability as well as sensitiveness will increase. Therefore the
condition of the greatest momentary mental pleasure is at the same time
the condition of the greatest bodily well-being.

As many as there may be of these partial activities (and is not every
beat of the pulse the result perhaps of thousands?) so many will be the
obscure sensations crowding upon the soul, each one of which indicates
perfection. Out of this confused complexity arises entire sensation of
the animal harmonies, that is, the highest possible combined sensation
of animal pleasure, which ranges itself, as it were, alongside of the
original intellectual or moral sensation, which this addition infinitely
increases. Thus is every agreeable affection the source of countless
bodily pleasures.

This is most evidently confirmed by the examples of sick persons who
have been cured by joy. Let one whom a terrible home-sickness has wasted
to a skeleton be brought back to his native land, and the bloom of
health will soon be his again; or let us enter a prison in which
miserable men have for ten or twenty years inhabited filthy dungeons and
possess at last barely strength to move,—and let us tell them suddenly
they are free; the single word of freedom will endow their limbs with
the strength of youth, and cause dead eyes to sparkle with life.
Sailors, whom thirst and famine have made their prey during a long
voyage, are half cured by the steersman’s cry of “Land!” and he would
certainly greatly err who ascribed the whole result to a prospect of
fresh food. The sight of a dear one, whom the sufferer has long desired
to see, sustains the life that was about to go, and imparts strength and
health. It is a fact, that joy can quicken the nervous system more
effectually than all the cordials of the apothecary, and can do wonders
in the case of inveterate internal disorders denied to the action of
rhubarb and even mercury. Who then does not perceive that the
constitution of the soul which knows how to derive pleasure from every
event and can dissipate every ache in the perfection of the universe,
must be the most beneficial to the whole organism? and this constitution
of the soul is—virtue.


   § 14.—_Mental pain undermines the Welfare of the Whole Organisms._

In the very same way, the opposite result is brought about by a
disagreeable affection of the mind. The ideas which rule so intensely
the angry or terrified man may, as rightly as Plato called the passions
a fever of the soul, be regarded as convulsions of the organ of thought.
These convulsions quickly extend through the nervous system, and so
disturb the vital powers that they lose their perfection, and all
organic actions lose their equilibrium. The heart beats violently and
irregularly; the blood is so confined to the lungs that the failing
pulse has barely enough to sustain it. The internal chemical processes
are at cross-purposes; beneficent juices lose their way and work harm in
other provinces, while what is malignant may attack the very core of our
organism. In a word, the condition of the greatest mental distress
becomes the condition of the greatest bodily sickness.

The soul is informed of the threatened ruin of the organs that should
have been her good and willing servants by a thousand obscure
sensations, and is filled with an entire sensation of pain, associating
itself to the primary mental suffering, and giving to this a sharper
sting.


                           § 15.—_Examples._

Deep, chronic pains of the soul, especially if accompanied by a strong
exertion of thought—among which I would give a prominent place to that
lingering anger which men call indignation—gnaw the very foundations of
physical life, and dry up the sap that nourish it. Sufferers of this
kind have a worn and pale appearance, and the inward grief betrays
itself by the hollow, sunken eyes. “Let me,” says Cæsar, “have men about
me that are fat”:—

             Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights;
             Yond’ Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
             He thinks too much—such men are dangerous.

Fear, trouble, distress of conscience, despair, are little less powerful
in their effects than the most violent fevers. Richard, when in deepest
anxiety, finds his former cheerfulness is gone, and thinks to bring it
back with a glass of wine. But it is not mental sorrow only that has
banished comfort, it is a sensation of discomfort proceeding from the
very root of his physical organism, the very same sensation that
announces a malignant fever. The Moor, heavily burdened with crimes, and
once crafty enough in absolving all the sensations of humanity—by his
skeleton-process—into nothing, now rises from a dreadful dream, pale and
breathless, with a cold sweat upon his brow. All the images of a future
judgment which he had perhaps believed in as a boy, and blotted out from
his remembrance as a man, assail his dream-bewildered brain. The
sensations are far too confused for the slower march of reason to
overtake and unravel them. Reason is still struggling with fancy, the
spirit with the horrors of the corporeal frame.[24]

  _Moor._—No! I am not shaking. It was but a dream. The dead are not
  beginning to rise. Who says I tremble and turn pale? I am quite well,
  quite well.

  _Bed._—You are pale as death; your voice is frightened and hesitating.

  _Moor._—I am feverish. I will be bled to-morrow. Say only, when the
  priest comes, that I have fever.

  _Bed._—But you are very ill.

  _Moor._—Yes truly; that is all. And sickness disturbs the brain and
  breeds strange mad dreams. Dreams mean nothing. Fie on womanish
  cowardice! Dreams mean nothing. I have just had a pleasant dream.

                                            [_He falls down in a faint._

Here we have the whole image of the dream suddenly forcing itself upon a
man, and setting in motion the entire system of obscure ideas, stirring
up from the foundation the organ of thought. From all these causes
arises an intense sensation of pain in its utmost concentration, which
shatters the soul from its depth, and lames _per consensum_ the whole
structure of the nerves.

The cold horror that seizes on the man who is about to commit some
crime, or who has just committed one, is nothing else than the horror
which agitates the feverish man, and which is felt on taking nauseous
medicines. The nightly tossings of those who are troubled by remorse,
always accompanied by a high pulse, are veritable fevers, induced by the
connection between the physical organism with the soul; and Lady
Macbeth, walking in her sleep, is an instance of brain delirium. Even
the imitation of a passion makes the actor for the moment ill; and after
Garrick had played Lear or Othello he spent some hours in convulsions on
his bed. Even the illusion of the spectator, through sympathy with acted
passion, has brought on shivering, gout, and fits of fainting.

Is not he, then, who is plagued with an evil temper, and draws gall and
bitterness from every situation in life: is not the vicious man, who
lives in a chronic state of hatred and malevolence; is not the envious
man, who finds torture in every excellence of his neighbor,—are not
these, all of them, the greatest foes to their own health? Has vice not
enough of the horrible in it, when it destroys not only happiness but
health.


                          § 16.—_Exceptions._

But a pleasant affection has sometimes been a fatal one, and an
unpleasant one has sometimes worked a marvellous cure. Both facts rest
upon experience: should they remove the limits of the law we have
expounded?

Joy is fatal when it rises into ecstacy: nature cannot support the
strain which in one moment is thrown upon the whole nervous system. The
motion of the brain is no longer harmony, but convulsion, an extremely
sudden and momentary force which soon changes into the ruin of the
organism, since it has transgressed the boundary line of health (for
into the very idea of health there enters and is essentially interwoven
the idea of a certain moderation of all natural motions). The joy as
well as the grief of finite beings is limited, and dare not pass beyond
a certain point without ruin.

As far as the second part is concerned, we have many examples of cure,
through a moderate fit of anger, of inveterate dyspepsia; and through
fright—as in the case of a fire—of rheumatic pains and lameness
apparently incurable. But even dysentery has sometimes resolved an
internal stoppage, and the itch has been a cure for melancholy madness
and insanity: is the itch, for this, less a disease?—is dysentery
therefore health.


 § 17.—_Indolence of Mind brings about greater Indolence in the Organic
                              Movements._

As, according to the testimony of Herr von Haller, activity of mind
during the day tends to quicken the pulse towards evening, will not
indolence of mind make it more sluggish, and absolute inactivity
completely stop it? For, although the circulation of the blood does not
seem to be so very dependent on the mind, is it altogether unreasonable
to suppose that the heart, which, in any case, borrows from the brain
the larger portion of its strength, must necessarily, _when the soul
ceases to maintain the action of the brain_, suffer thereby a great loss
of power? A condition of phlegm is accompanied by a sluggish pulse, the
blood is thin and watery, and the circulation defective in the abdomen.
The idiots, whom Muzell has described for us,[25] breathed slowly and
with difficulty, had no inclination to eat and drink, nor to the natural
functions; the pulse was slow, all bodily movements slumberous and
indicative of weariness. The mental numbness which is the result of
terror or wonder is sometimes accompanied by a general suspension of all
natural physical activity. Was the mind the origin of this condition, or
was it the body which brought about this torpid state of mind? But these
considerations lead to subtleties and intricate questions, and, besides,
must not be discussed in this place.


                          § 18.—_Second Law._

All that has been said of the transferrence of the mental sensations to
the animal holds true of the transferrence of animal affections to the
mental. Bodily sickness—for the most part the natural result of
intemperance—brings its punishment in the form of bodily pain; but the
mind also cannot escape a radical attack, in order that a twofold pain
may more powerfully impress upon it the necessity of restraint in the
desires. In like manner the feeling of bodily health is accompanied by a
more lively consciousness of mental improvement, and man is thus the
more spurred on to maintain his body in good condition. We arrive thus
at a second law of mixed natures—that, with the free action of the
bodily organism, the sensations and ideas gain a freer flow; and learn
that, with a corrupted organism, corruption of the thinking faculty and
of the sensations inevitably follows. Or, more shortly, that the general
sensation of a harmonious animal life is the fountain of mental
pleasure, and that animal pain and sickness is the fountain of mental
pain.

In these different respects, or from their consideration, soul and body
may not unaptly be compared with two stringed instruments tuned by the
same hand, and placed alongside of one another. When a string of one of
them is touched and a certain tone goes forth, the corresponding string
of the other will sound of itself and give the same tone, only somewhat
weaker. And, using this comparison, we may say that the string of
gladness in the body wakes the glad string in the soul, and the sad
string the string of sadness. This is that wonderful and noteworthy
sympathy which unites the heterogeneous principles in man so as to form
one being. Man is not soul and body—but the most inward and essential
blending of the two.


            § 19.—_Moods of Mind result from Moods of Body._

Hence the heaviness, the incapacity of thought, the discontented temper,
which are the consequence of excess in physical indulgence; hence the
wonderful effects of wine upon those who always drink in moderation.
“When you have drunk wine,” says Brother Martin, “you see everything
double, you think doubly easily, you are doubly ready for any
undertaking, and twice as quickly bring it to a conclusion.” Hence the
comfort and good humor experienced in fine weather, proceeding partly
from association of ideas, but mostly from the increased feeling of
bodily health that goes along with it, extending over all the functions
of our organism. Then it is that people use such expressions as, “I
_feel_ that I am well,” and at such a season they are more disposed
towards all manner of mental labor, and have a heart more open to the
humaner feelings, and more prompt to the practice of moral duties. The
same may be seen in the national character of different peoples. Those
who dwell in gloomy regions mourn along with the dismal scenery: in wild
and stormy zones man grows wild: where his lot is cast in friendly
climates he laughs with the sky that is bright above him. Only under the
clear heaven of Greece lived a Homer, a Plato, a Phidias; there were
born the Muses and the Graces, while the Lapland mists can hardly bring
forth men, and never a genius. While our Germany was yet a wild forest
or morass, the German was a hunter as wild as the beast whose skin he
slung about his shoulders. As soon as industry had changed the aspect of
his country began the epoch of moral progress. I will not maintain that
character takes its rise in climate only, but it is certain that towards
the civilization of a people one main means is the improvement of their
skies.

The disorders of the body may disorder the whole range of our moral
perceptions, and prepare the way for an outburst of the most evil
passions. A man whose constitution is ruined by a course of dissipation
is more easily led to extremes than one who has kept his body as it
should be kept. This is, indeed, the horrible plan of those who destroy
our youths, and that father of robbers must have known man well, who
said, “We must destroy both body and soul.” Catiline was a profligate
before he became a conspirator, and Doria greatly erred when he thought
he had no cause to fear a voluptuary like Fiesco. On the whole, it is
very often remarked that an evil spirit dwells in a sick body.

In diseases this sympathy is still more striking. All severe illnesses,
especially those of malignant nature and arising from the economy of the
abdominal regions, announce themselves, more or less, by a strange
revolution in the character. Even while the disease is still silently
stealing through the hidden corners of our mechanism, and undermining
the strength of nerve, the mind begins to anticipate by dark forebodings
the fall of her companion. This is a main element in that condition
which a great physician described in a masterly manner under the name of
“Horrores.” Hence their moroseness of disposition, which none can
account for, their wavering fancies and inclinations, their disgust at
what used to give them pleasure. The amiable man grows quarrelsome, the
merry man cross, and he who used to lose himself, and gladly, in the
bustle of the world, flies the face of man and retires into a gloomy
melancholy. But underneath this treacherous repose the enemy is making
ready for a deadly onslaught. The universal disturbance of the entire
mechanism, when the disease once breaks forth, is the most speaking
proof of the wonderful dependence of the soul on the body. The feeling,
springing from a thousand painful sensations, of the utter ruin of the
organism, brings about a frightful mental confusion. The most horrible
ideas and fancies rise from their graves. The villain whom nothing could
move yields under the dominant power of mere animal terror. Winchester,
in dying, yells in the anguish of despair. The soul is under a terrible
necessity, it would seem, of snatching at whatever will drag it deeper
into darkness, and rejects with obstinate madness every ray of comfort.
The string, the tone of pain is in the ascendant, and just as the
spiritual misery rose in the bodily disorder, so now it turns and
renders the disorder more universal and more intense.


                 § 20.—_Limitations of the foregoing._

But there are daily examples of sufferers who courageously lift
themselves above bodily ills: of dying men who, amidst the distressful
struggles of the frame, ask, “Where is thy sting, O death?” Should not
wisdom, one might urge, avail to combat the blind terrors of the organic
nature? Nay, much more than wisdom, should religion have so little power
to protect her friends against the assaults springing from the dust? Or,
what is the same thing, does it not depend upon the preceding condition
of the soul, as to how she accepts the alterations of the processes of
life?

Now, this is an irrefragable truth. Philosophy, and still more a mind
courageous and elevated by religion, are capable of completely weakening
the influence of the animal sensations which assault the soul of one in
pain, and able, as it were, to withdraw it from all coherence with the
material. The thought of God, which is interwoven with death, as with
all the universe, the harmony of past life, the anticipation of an
ever-happy future, spread a bright light over all its ideas; while night
is drawn round the soul of him who departs in folly and in unbelief. If
even involuntary pangs force themselves upon the Christian and wise man
(for is he less a human being?), yet will he resolve the sensations of
his dissolving frame into happiness:—

             The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
             At the drawn dagger and defies its point.
             The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
             Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
             But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
             Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
             The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds.

It is precisely this unwonted cheerfulness on the part of those who are
mortally sick which has often a physical reason at the basis, and which
has the most express significance for the practical physician. It is
often found in conjunction with the most fatal symptoms of Hippocrates,
and without being attributable to any bygone crisis. Such a cheerfulness
is of bad import. The nerves, which during the height of the fever have
been most sharply assailed, have now lost sensation; the inflamed
members, it is well known, cease to smart as soon as they are destroyed;
but it would be a hapless thought to rejoice that the time of burning
pain were passed and gone. Stimulus fails before the dead nerves, and a
deathly indolence belies future healing. The soul finds herself under
the illusion of a pleasant sensation, because she is free from a
long-enduring painful one. She is free from pain, not because the tone
of her instrument is restored, but because she no more experiences the
discord. Sympathy ceases as soon as the connection is lost.


               § 21.—_Further Aspects of the Connection._

If I might now begin to go deeper—if I might speak of delirium, of
slumber, of stupor, of epilepsy and catalepsy, and such like, wherein
the free and rational spirit is subjected to the despotism of the
body—if I might enlarge especially on the wide field of hysteria and
hypochondria—if it were allowed me to speak of temperaments,
idiosyncrasies, and constitutions, which for physicians and philosophers
are an abyss—in one word, should I attempt to demonstrate truth of the
foregoing from the bed of sickness, which is ever a chief school of
psychology—my matter would be extended to an endless length. We have, it
seems to me, enough to prove that the animal nature is throughout
mingled with the spiritual, and that this combination is perfection.


          PHYSICAL PHENOMENA EXPRESS THE EMOTIONS OF THE MIND.


                   § 22.—_Physiognomy of Sensations._

It is just this close correspondence between the two natures which is
the basis of the whole science of physiognomy. By means of this nervous
connection (which, as we have seen, lies at the bottom of the
communication of feelings) the most secret movements of the soul are
revealed on the exterior of the body, and passion penetrates even
through the veil of the hypocrite. Each passion has its specific
expressions, its peculiar dialect, so to speak, by which one knows it.
And, indeed, it is an admirable law of Supreme Wisdom, that every
passion which is noble and generous beautifies the body, while those
that are mean and hateful distort it into animal forms. The more the
mind departs from the likeness of the Deity, the nearer does the outward
form seem to approach the animal, and always that animal which has a
kindred proclivity. Thus, the mild expression of the philanthropist
attracts the needy, whom the insolent look of the angry man repels. This
is an indispensable guide in social life. It is astonishing what an
accordance bodily appearance has with the passions; heroism and
fearlessness pour life and strength through the veins and muscles, the
eyes sparkle, the breast heaves, all the limbs arm themselves alike for
combat—the man has the appearance of a war-horse. Fright and fear
extinguish the fire in the eyes, the limbs sink powerless and heavy, the
marrow in the bones seems frozen, the blood falls back on the heart like
a stone, a general weakness cripples the powers of life.

A great, bold, lofty thought compels us to stand on tiptoe, to hold up
the head, to expand the mouth and nose. The feeling of eternity, the
outlook on a wide open horizon, the sea, etc., make us stretch out our
arms—_we_ would merge ourselves into the eternal: with the mountains, we
would grow towards the heavens, rush thither on storms and waves:
yawning abysses throw us down in giddiness. In like manner, hate is
expressed in the body by a repelling force; while, on the contrary, in
every pressure of the hand, in every embrace, our body will merge into
that of our friend, in the same manner as the souls are in harmonious
combination. Pride makes the body erect as the soul rises; pettiness
bends the head, the limbs hang down; servile fear is expressed in the
cringing walk; the thought of pain distorts our face, if pleasurable
aspects spread a grace over the whole body; anger, on the other hand,
will break through every strong opposing cord, and need will almost
overcome the impossible. I would now ask through what mechanism it
happens that exactly these movements result from these feelings, that
just these organs are affected by these passions? Might I not just as
well want to know why a certain wounding of the ligament should stiffen
the lower jaw?

If the passion which sympathetically awakened these movements of the
frame be often renewed, if this sensation of soul become habitual, then
these movements of the body will become so also. If this matured passion
be of a lasting character, then these constitutional features of the
frame become deeply engraved: they become, if I may borrow the
pathologist’s word, “deuteropathetic,” and are at last organic. Thus, at
last, the firm perennial physiognomy of man is formed, so that it is
almost easier afterwards to change the soul than the form. In this
sense, one may also say, without being a “Stahlian,” that the soul forms
the body; and perhaps the earliest years of youth decide the features of
a man for life, as they certainly are the foundation of his moral
character. An inert and weak soul, which never overflows in passions,
has no physiognomy at all; and want of expression is the leading
characteristic of the countenance of the imbecile. The original features
which nature gave him continue unaltered; the face is smooth, for no
soul has played upon it; the eyebrows retain a perfect arch, for no wild
passion has distorted them; the whole form retains its roundness, for
the fat reposes in its cells; the face is regular, perhaps even
beautiful, but I pity the soul of it!

A physiognomy of (perfect) organic parts, _e.g._, as to the form and
size of the nose, eyes, mouth, ears, etc., the color of the hair, the
height of the neck, and such like, may perhaps possibly be found, but
certainly not very easily, however much Lavater should continue to rave
about it through ten quarto volumes. He who would reduce to order the
capricious play of nature, and classify the forms which she has punished
like a stepmother, or endowed as a mother, would venture more than
Linnæus, and should be very careful lest he become one with the original
presented to him, through its monstrous sportive variety.

Yet one more kind of sympathy deserves to be noticed, since it is of
great importance in physiology. I mean the sympathy of certain
sensations for the organs from which they sprang. A certain cramp in the
stomach causes a feeling of disgust; the reproduction of this sensation
brings back the cramp. How is this?


§ 23.—_The Remains of the Animal Nature is also a Source of Perfection._

Although the animal part of man preserves for him the many great
advantages of which we have already spoken, still, one may say that, in
another aspect, it remains always despicable; viz., the soul thus
depends, slave-like, on the activity of its tools; the periodical
relaxation of these prescribes to the soul an inactive pause and
annihilation at periods. I mean sleep, which, one cannot deny, robs us
at least of the third part of our life. Further, our mind is completely
dependent on the laws of the body, so that the cessation of the latter
puts a sudden stop to the continuance of thoughts, even though we be on
the straight, open path towards truth. If the reason have ever so little
fixed upon an idea, when the lazy matter refuses to carry it out, the
strings of the thinking organs grow weary, if they have been but
slightly strained; the body fails us where we need it most. What
astonishing steps, one may infer, would man make in the use of his
powers if he could continue to think in a state of unbroken intensity!
How he would unravel every idea to its final elements; how he would
trace every appearance to its most hidden sources, if he could keep them
uninterruptedly before his mind! But, alas! it is not thus. Why is it
not so?


                   § 24.—_Necessity for Relaxation._

The following will lead us on the track of truth:—

1. Pleasant sensation was necessary to lead man to perfection, and he
can only be perfect when he feels comfortable.

2. The nature of a mortal being makes unpleasant feeling unavoidable.
Evil does not shut man out from the best world, and the worldly-wise
find their perfection therein.

3. Thus pain and pleasure are necessary. It seems harder, but it is no
less true.

4. Every pain, as every pleasure, grows according to its nature, and
would continue to do so.

5. Every pain and every pleasure of a mixed being tend to their own
dissolution.


                          § 25.—_Explanation._

It is a well-known law of the connection between ideas that every
sensation, of whatever kind, immediately seizes another of its kind, and
enlarges itself through this addition. The larger and more manifold it
becomes, so much the more does it awaken similar sensations in all
directions through the organs of thought, until, by degrees, it becomes
universally predominant, and occupies the whole soul. Consequently,
every sensation grows through itself; every present condition of the
feeling power contains the root of a feeling to follow, similar, but
more intense. This is evident. Now, every mental sensation is, as we
know, allied to a similar animal one; in other words, each one is
connected with more or less movement of the nerves, which take a
direction according to the measure of their strength and extension.
Thus, as mental sensations grow, must the movements in the nervous
system increase also. This is no less clear. Now, pathology teaches us
that a nerve never suffers alone: and to say, “Here is a superfluity of
strength,” is as much as to say, “There is want of strength.” Thus,
every nervous movement grows through itself. Now, we have remarked that
the movements of the nervous system react upon the mind, and strengthen
the mental sensations;[26] _vice versa_, the strengthened sensation of
the mind increase and strengthen the motions of the nerves. Thus we have
a circle, in which sensation must always increase, and nervous movements
every moment become more powerful and universal.

Now, we know that the movements of the bodily frame which cause the
feeling of pain run counter to the harmony by which it would exist in
well-being; that is, that they are diseased. But disease cannot grow
unceasingly, therefore they end in the total destruction of the frame.
In relation to pain, it is thus proved that it aims at the death of the
subject.

But, the motions of the nerves under pleasant sensations being so
harmonious to the continuance of the machinery that the condition of
mind which constitutes pleasure is that of the greatest bodily
well-being, should not rather, then, pleasant sensation prolong the
bloom of the body eternally? This inference is too hasty. In a certain
stage of moderation, these nervous motions are wholesome, and really a
sign of health. But if they outgrow this stage, they may be the highest
activity, the highest momentary perfection; but, thus, they are excess
of health, no longer health itself.

We only call that condition of the natural motions health in which the
root of similar ones for the future lies, viz., those which confirm the
perfection of succeeding motions; thus, the destiny of continuance is
essentially contained in the idea of health. Thus, for example, the body
of the most debilitated profligate attains to its greatest harmony at
the moment of excess; but it is only momentarily, and a so much deeper
abatement shows sufficiently that overstraining was not health.
Therefore one may justly accept that an overstrained vigor of physical
action hastens death as much as the greatest disorder or the worst
illness. Both pain and pleasure draw us towards an unavoidable death,
unless something be present which limits their advance.


                 § 26.—_Excellence of this Abatement._

It is just this (the limit to their growth) which the abatement of the
animal nature causes. It must be no other than this limitation of our
fragile frame (that appeared to have lent to our opponents so strong a
proof against its perfection) which ameliorates all the evil
consequences that the mechanism otherwise makes unavoidable. It is
exactly this sinking, this lassitude of the organs, over which tinkers
complain so much, that prevents our own strength destroying us in a
short time; that does not permit our positions to be always increasing
towards our destruction. This limitation shows each passion the period
of its growth, its height and decline (if indeed the passion does not
die out in a total relaxation of the body), which leaves the excited
spirits time to resume their harmony, and the organs to recover. Hence,
the highest pitch of rapture, of fear, and of anger, are the same as
weariness, weakness, or fainting. But sleep vouchsafes more, for as
Shakspeare says:—

         Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
         The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
         Balm of hurt minds, great Nature’s sweet restorer.
                                                   —_Macbeth._

During sleep, the vital forces restore themselves to that healthy
balance which the continuance of our being so much requires; all the
cramped ideas and feelings, the overstrained actions which have troubled
us through the day, are solved in the entire relaxation of the
sensorium; the harmony of the motions of the mind are resumed, and the
newly-awakened man greets the coming day more calmly.

In relation to the arrangement of the whole, also, we cannot
sufficiently admire the worth and importance of this limitation. The
arrangement necessarily causes many, who should be no less happy, to be
sacrificed to the general order and to bear the lot of oppression.
Likewise, many, whom we perhaps unjustly envy, must expend their mental
and bodily strength in restless exertion, so that the repose of the
whole be preserved. The same with sick persons, the same with
unreasoning animals. Sleep seals the eye of care, takes from the prince
and statesman the heavy weight of governing; pours new force into the
veins of the sick man, and rest into his harassed soul; the day-laborer
no longer hears the voice of the oppressor, and the ill-used beast
escapes from the tyranny of man. Sleep buries all cares and troubles,
balances everything, equips every one with new-born powers to bear the
joys and sorrows of the next day.


                  § 27.—_Severing of the Connection._

At length arrived at the point in the circle where the mind has
fulfilled the aim of its being, an internal, unaccountable mechanism
has, at the same time, made the body incapable of being any longer its
instrument. All care for the well-being of the bodily state seems to
reach but to this epoch. It appears to me that, in the formation of our
physical nature, wisdom has shown such parsimony, that notwithstanding
constant compensations, decline must always keep in the ascendancy, so
that freedom misuses the mechanism, and death is germinated in life as
out of its seed. Matter dissolves again into its last elements, which
travel through the kingdom of nature in other forms and relations, to
serve other purposes. The mind continues to practise its thinking powers
in other circles, and to observe the universe from other sides.

We may truly say that it has not by any means exhausted this actual
sphere, that it might have left this sphere itself more perfect; but do
we know that this sphere is lost to it? We lay many a book aside which
we do not understand, but perhaps in a few years we shall understand it
better.


                                THE END

-----

Footnote 1:

  Dare to be wise.

Footnote 2:

  The Greek word means, as is known, love of wisdom.

Footnote 3:

  Bestimmbarkeit.

Footnote 4:

  Bestimmung.

Footnote 5:

  Lessing’s play, “Nathan the Wise,” act i. scene 3.

Footnote 6:

  See “Æneid,” ii. 213–215.

Footnote 7:

  Ibid, 216–217.

Footnote 8:

  Pope’s “Iliad,” Book XIV. v. 225.

Footnote 9:

  Art can make use of a proper solemnity. Its object is only to prepare
  the mind for something important. When the poet is anxious to produce
  a great impression he tunes the mind to receive it.

Footnote 10:

  A play of Iffland.

Footnote 11:

  “Odyssey,” book xiii. v. 397.

Footnote 12:

  Δῖος ὑφορβὸς, “Odyssey,” xiv. 413, etc.

Footnote 13:

  Werther, May 26, June 21, August 28, May 9, etc.

Footnote 14:

  “Orlando Furioso,” canto i., stanza 32.

Footnote 15:

  Pope’s “Iliad,” vi. 264–287.

Footnote 16:

  “Iliad,” vi. 234–236.

Footnote 17:

  “Siegwart,” a novel by J. Müller, published at Ulm, 1776.

Footnote 18:

  Huxley, speaking of psychology and physiology (idealism and
  materialism), says: “Our stem divides into two main branches, which
  grow in opposite ways, and bear flowers which look as different as
  they can well be. But each branch is sound and healthy, and has as
  much life and vigor as the other. If a botanist found this state of
  things in a new plant, I imagine he might be inclined to think that
  his tree was monœcious, that the flowers were of different sexes, and
  that, so far from setting up a barrier between the branches of the
  tree, the only hope of fertility lay in bringing them together. This
  is my notion of what is to be done with physics and metaphysics. Their
  differences are complementary, not antagonistic, and thought will
  never be completely fruitful until the one unites with the
  other.”—HUXLEY, _Macmillan’s Mag._, May 1870.

  Descartes’ method (according to Huxley) leads straight up to the
  critical idealism of his great successor, Kant, in declaring that the
  ultimate fact of all knowledge is a consciousness—_and therefore
  affirming that the highest of all certainties, and indeed the only
  absolute certainty, is the existence of mind_. But it stops short of
  Berkeley in declaring that matter does not exist: his arguments
  against its existence would equally tend to prove the non-existence of
  soul. In Descartes’ system, the body is simply a machine, in the midst
  of which the rational soul (peculiar to man) is lodged, and which it
  directs at its will, as a skilful engineer familiar with its working
  might do—through will and through affection he can “increase, slacken,
  and alter their movements at his pleasure.” At the same time, he
  admits, in all that regards its mere animal life—in active functions,
  such as those connected with hunger, respiration, sleep, digestion; in
  many passive ones, such as we are accustomed to call mental, as in
  memory, the perception of color, sound—a purely automatic action of
  the body, which it pursues simply by following out its own laws,
  independent of the soul’s direction or interference.

Footnote 19:

  But we have something more than the animal life of the animal (beast).
  A beast lives an animal life in order that it may experience pleasant
  sensations. It experiences pleasant sensations that it may preserve
  the animal life. It lives now, therefore, in order that it may live
  again to-morrow. It is happy now that it may be happy to-morrow. But
  it is a simple, an uncertain happiness, which depends upon the action
  of the organism, it is a slave to luck and blind chance; because it
  consists in sensation only. Man, too, lives an animal life,—is
  sensible of its pleasures and suffers its pains. But why? He feels and
  suffers that he may preserve his animal life. He preserves his animal
  life that he may longer have the power to live a spiritual one. Here,
  then, the means differ from the end; there, end and means seem to
  coincide. This is one of the lines of separation between man and the
  animal.

Footnote 20:

  Observations on Ferguson’s “Moral Philosophy,” p. 319.

Footnote 21:

  Observations on Ferguson’s “Moral Philosophy,” p. 393.

Footnote 22:

  See Schlözer’s Plan of his Universal History, § 6.

Footnote 23:

  _Complacency_ and _Displacency_ perhaps more aptly express the meaning
  of _Lust_ and _Unlust_, which we translate by _pleasure_ and _pain_.

Footnote 24:

  “Life of Moor,” tragedy of Krake. Act. v. sc. 1.

Footnote 25:

  Muzell’s “Medical and Surgical Considerations.”

Footnote 26:

          Why, how one weeps
          When one’s too weary!
                          Tears, tears! _why_ we weep,
          ’Tis worth inquiry:—that we’ve shamed a life,
          Or lost a love, or missed a world, perhaps?
          By no means. Simply, that we’ve walked too far,
          Or talked too much, or felt the wind in the east, etc.
                                                —_Aurora Leigh._

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
      spelling.
 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.