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Cornell University Library
N64 .H46 1886

The introduction
to Hegel's Philosophy
3 1924 030 652 352

olin
Cornell University
Library
The
original of this
book
is in
the Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright
restrictions in
the United States on the use of the
text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030652352
THE INTRODUCTION TO
HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF FINE ART
71^0 f
s-%.
THE INTRODUCTION TO
HEGEL'S
PHILOSOPHY OF FINE ART
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
WITH NOTES AND PREFATORY ESSAY
BERNARD BOSANQUET,
M.A.
LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH &
CO.,
1886
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
A< IT-HS^:
(Tlfo?
rights of translation
and of reproduction
are reserved.)
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
Hegel's
is
"
JSstketik," or "Philosophy of Fine Art,"
a work which should no longer be inaccessible to
English reading
the
of which, in
its'
public,
but the reproduction
complete form of 1600 pages,
task not to be lightly undertaken.
know
is
of three
partial reproductions of the "sEsthetik" in English,
Mr.
viz.
Bryant's
translation
Kedney's short analysis of the
of
Part
II.,*
entire work,-f-
Mr.
and
Mr. Hastie's translation of Michelet's short "Philo-
sophy of Art,"
prefaced
by Hegel's
Introduction,
partly translated and partly analysed.

I
wholly disapprove of analyses (among which
may be
reckoned Michelet's summary above men-
tioned) as representations of Hegel's writing, which

*
New
York, Appleton and Co.
t Chicago,
Griggs and Co., 1885.
% Edinburgh, Oliver
and Boyd,
1886.
is
chiefly
attractive
detail.
its
am
by the
force
and freshness of
convinced that Hegel should
be
allowed to speak for himself, and that failing the
copious
I
the whole
of
translation
selections,
have adopted
late
the
entire
the best
course
the present volume,
This Introduc-
so
be said to have literary manner at

in a
and
is
as he can
far
all,
work which has been produced by
lecture-notes,
especially
editors from
tolerably complete in
itself.
not contained as a whole in any of the above-
It is
mentioned works.
Mr.
Hastie's
ought to say, however, that
translation
after the first thirty-four
Nor
analysis.
I
viz. to trans-
Introduction, including the chapter
Hegel's best manner
in
is
of very
that which
is
"Division of the Subject."
entitled,
tion
in
or
"JSstketik,"
is it
is
excellent in style
pages
it
also
many who, without being
sophy, are intelligent lovers of art.
done
my
but
becomes an
wholly free from serious mistakes.
have hoped that the present volume
interest to
may
be of
students of philoI
have therefore
best to interpret philosophical expressions,
instead of merely furnishing their technical equivalents.
have also added a few short notes, either
to explain literary allusions, or to complete the in-
The
terpretation of technical terms.
was written with a
prefatory essay
similar intention, not as original
speculation, but as an assistance to general readers

in
apprehending the point of view from which Fine
Art
regarded by Hegel and kindred writers.
is
have broken up the " Einleitimg" or Introduc-
tion proper,
which
continuous
is
in
the original, into
four chapters,* hoping that the arrangement of the
may be
discussion
The
" Eintheilungl'
thus rendered
a separate chapter in
contents
is
My
Chapter
The
the original.
V.,
table
is
of
translated from the original, excepting
those portions of
brackets,
my
which forms
to follow.
easier
it
which are enclosed
in
square
J.
literary notes are entirely
borrowed from the
late Mrs. F. C. Conybeare's translation of Scherer's
" History of
to the
German
Literature
"
work invaluable
English student, whose gratitude must for
long be saddened by the
untimely death of the
translator.
*
Of these, Chapter
III. is subdivided into
two Parts, because
of the disproportionate length of the division in the original to
which
it
corresponds.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Prefatory Essay by the Translator
CHAPTER
...
..
vii
I.
The Range of Êsthetic
defined, and some Objections

against the Philosophy of Art refuted (1-25).
[a.
Beauty of Art
...
Treatment ?
Treatment appropriate to Art ?
.(Esthetic confined to
0.
Does Art merit
y.
Is Scientific
5.
*.
Answer
Answer
to
Scientific
...
j8.
to 7.]
...
...
...
[1.
Empirical Method
(a) Its
Range
(b)
It generates
(c)
The Rights
Art-scholarship
...
...
Rules and Theories

of Genius...
2.
Abstract Reflection
3.
The
Philosophical
notion of]
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
20
II.
Methods of Science Applicable to Beauty and Art

is
8
13
...
...
2
5
...
...
...
CHAPTER
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
28
...
3s
...
...
27
27
...
...
...
(26-42).
Conception of Artistic Beauty, general

...
...
...
41
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
III.
Artistic Beauty,
beginning with current ideas of art (43-105).
The Philosophical Conception of
PAGE
Part I. The Work of Art as Made and as Sensuous

1. Work of Art as Product of Human Activity ...
[(a)
(b)
Artistic Inspiration...
(c)
Dignity of Production by
Man's Need
(b)
Feeling of Beauty
(<r)
Art-scholarship
(d)
Taste
...
...
...
60
...
...
...
Profounder Consequences of Sensuous Nature of Art

...
(0) Relations of the Sensuous to the Mind
...
...
...
(00) Desire
...
(00)
Theory
...
(0)
...
The Content
/J.art II. The End of
...
Mere Repetition
...
...
of Nature
...
...
...
Humani nihil ?
Mitigation of the Passions
...
...
Hand
74
78
...
...
...
It
(77)
Nor
explicitly
Purpose
own Purpose
...
...
80
80
82
...
83
85
...
90
79
...
...
...
87
...
...
addressed
...
79
...
...
must have a Worthy Content

(00) But ought not to be Didactic...
(aa.)
its
70
72
...
...
Sleight of
Bow Art mitigates the Passions

How Art purifies the Passions
Art has
67
68
(79-106)
...
Arts cannot be called Imitative
(<r)
(0)
is
...
Amusing merely as
What is Good to Imitate ?
(b)
(a)
65
66
the
...
...
...
(77)
Some
...
...
(00) Imperfect
(7)
in
63
Art.
(00) Superfluous
(0)
...
...
...
of Art Sensuous]
[The Interest or End of Art

(a) Imitation of Nature ?
(o)
...
Spiritual
The Sensuous Element, how Present

Artist
(7)
...
Symbol of
(77) Sensuous as
(a)
57
...
...
...
48
48
50
54
...60-78
...
...
...
...
...
...
to
3.
...
...
Man
...
...
...
produce Wqrks of Art]

Work of Art as addressed to Man's Sense
Pleasant Feeling ?
...
[() Object of Art
(d)
2.
Conscious Production by Rule
...43-78
to
...
as Revelation of
91
...
94
...
95
9c
...
Moral
...
Truth
gg
...
ick
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
IV.
Historical Deduction of the True Idea of Art in

Modern Philosophy (107-132).
PAGE
I.
Kant
...
[()
l/~
Pleasure in Beauty not Appetitive
(b)
Pleasure in Beauty Universal
(c)
The
[d)
...
...
...
...
...
...
Beautiful in its Teleological Aspect
...
...
...
...
Winckelmann, Schilling
^.
Schiller,
3.
The Irony
...
...
...
...
...
CHAPTER
...
...
113
116
...
...
111
112
...
Delight in the Beautiful necessary though felt\
107
110
...
...
120
V.
Division of the Subject (133-175).

[1.
The Condition
of Artistic Presentation
of Matter and Plastic

2. Part
3.
Part
I.The Ideal
II.The Types
(a)
(j8)
(7)
4.
of Art
..
Symbolic Art
Classical Art
Romantic Art
Part III. The Several Arts
is
the Correspondence
133
141
144
H5
148
IS'
Architecture
157
160
(/3)
Sculpture
162
(y)
Romantic Art, comprising
164
(a)
(i.)
(ii.)
(iii.)
5.
Porm
Conclusion]
Painting
167
Music
169
Poetry
171
...
173
PREFATORY ESSAY BY THE TRANSLATOR.
ON THE TRUE CONCEPTION OF ANOTHER WORLD.

"With such barren forms of thought, that are always in a
Its object is
world beyond, Philosophy has nothing to do.
always something concrete, and in the highest sense present."
Hegel's Logic, Wallace's translation, p. 150.
It will surprise many readers to be told that the

words which I have quoted above embody the very
essence of Hegelian thought.
The
Infinite,
the supra-
sensuous, the divine, are so connected in our minds
with
futile
rackings of the imagination about remote
matters which only distract us from our duties, that

a philosophy which designates
its
problems by such
terms as these seems self-condemned as cloudy and

inane.
But,
all
appearances to the contrary notwith-
standing, Hegel
concrete.
is
always dealing with

lay,"
faithful to the
present and the
In the study of his philosophy
human
experience.
"
we
are
My stress
says Mr. Browning,* "on the incidents in the

*
Preface to " Sordello."
PREFATORY ESSAY.
development of a soul
little
else
worth study."
is
For "a soul" read "the mind," and you have the
subject-matter to which Hegel's eighteen closeprinted
volumes are devoted.
ductory remarks are meant

point of view.
The
to insist
present intro-
on
this neglected
wish to point out, in two or three
undergone by
when sedulously applied to life,
and restrained from generating an empty " beyond."
By so doing I hope to pave the way for a due
salient instances, the transformation
speculative notions
appreciation of Hegel's philosophy of fine
art.
That
the world of mind, or the world above sense, exists

as an actual
and organized whole,
is
a truth most
easily realized in the study of the beautiful.
And
grasp this principle as Hegel applies
nothing
less
life.
it
is
to
than to acquire a new contact with spiritual
The
spiritual
world, which
present, actual,
is
and concrete, contains much besides beauty.

But
to apprehend one element of such a whole constitutes
and presupposes a long step towards apprehending
the
rest.
It is for this
reason that
propose, in the
by prominent examples, the

conception of a spiritual world which is present and
actual, and then to let Hegel speak for himself on
the particular sphere of art.
So closely connected
indeed are all the embodiments of mind, that the
first
place, to explain,
Introduction
to
the
"
Philosophy of Fine Art
almost a microcosm of his entire system.
''
is
THE OTHER WORLD.
We
know, to our
cost,
the popular conception of
Whatever that world is,

not here and not now.
the supra-sensuous world.

it is,
That
commonly thought
as
to say,
is
miracle, at
of,-
here and now,
if
it
is
so
by a
sort of
which we are called upon to wonder, as
when angels are said to be near us, or the dead to

know what we do. Again, it is a counterpart of our
and
world,
present
senses, than
as such.
in
It is
its
imperceptible
rather
to
otir
nature beyond contact with sense
peopled by persons,
who
live eternally,
which means through endless ages, and to whose
communion with
actual
God, we look forward
us, as also to
in the future.
our
It
own with
even perhaps
contains a supra-sensuous original corresponding to
every thing and movement in this world of ours.

'
And
of
it
life,
does not necessarily deepen our conception
but only reduplicates
it.
Such a world, whatever we may think about

actual existence,
sophy.
are
The
is
" things
not seen
Plato,
world.
indeed,
way
"
of Plato or of Hegel
projection
not a double or a
conceptions in a
its
not the " other world " of philo-
wavered
of the existing
between
the
two
that should have warned his
interpreters of the divergence in his track of thought.
But
in Hegel, at least, there
world of
When we
spirits
with him
is
is
no ambiguity.
study the embodiments of mind or
in his pages,
and read of
The
no world of ghosts.
law, property,
spirit
and national
PREFATORY ESSAY.
unity
of fine
intellect
the religious community, and the
art,
that has
attained
scientific
self-conscious-
we may miss our other world with its obscure

"beyond," but we at any rate feel ourselves to be
ness,
and with the deepest

concerns of life. We may deny to such matters the
titles which
philosophy bestows upon them
we
may say that this is no "other world," no realm of
dealing with something
real,
spirits,
nothing
infinite or divine
but this matters
we know what we are talking about,

and are talking about the best we know. And what
we discuss when Hegel is our guide, will always
be some great achievement or essential attribute of
the human mind. He never asks, "Is it?" but always
little
so long as
"What
is
it?" and therefore has instruction,
from experience, even
for those to
whom
the
drawn
titles
of
seem fraudulent or bombastic.

These few remarks are not directed to maintaining any thesis about the reality of nature and of
his inquiries
Their object
sense.
falls
between the world
do not know.
life.
am
am
is
to enforce a distinction which
we know, and not

we know and another which we
the world which
within
-.
This distinction
is
real,
and governs
not denying any other distinction, but
insisting
on
this.
No
really great philosopher,

\
nor religious teacher, neither Plato, nor Kant, nor

St. Paul
can be understood unless we grasp this
antithesis in the right way.
All of these teachers
I
*
THE OTHER WORLD.

have pointed men to another World.
perhaps, were led at times
reality of their
All of them,
by the very
own thought
and
force
into the fatal
separa-
So strong was their

sense of the gulf between the trifles and the realities
tion that cancels
of
imagination
transmute
into
an
But
their
bility,
they gave
that
life,
meaning.
its
in
themselves
this gulf
and
inaccessibility
others
in
that
all
to
effort
apprehension.
defies
purpose was to overcome
hardest of
indolent
the
to
from a measure of moral
not to heighten
The
occasion
this
inaccessi-
it.
lessons in interpretation
is
to
We
believe that great men mean what they say.
are below their level, and what they actually say
seems impossible to us, till we have adulterated it
to suit our
own
imbecility.
speak of the highest

of reality to
what
realities,
they
Especially
we
when they
attach our notio n
pronounc e to be rea L_
And
thus we Banêvery attempt to deep en our_Jdeas_gi

the woridltT which we live." The work of intelligence
is
hard
that of the sensuous fancy
is
easy
and so
we substitute the latter for the former. '^We are told,

for instance, by Plato, that goodness, beauty, and
truth are realities, but not visible or tangible.
Instead of responding to the call so made on our
intelligence by scrutinizing the nature and conditions
of these intellectual facts though we know well how
tardily they are produced by the culture of ages we
PREFATORY ESSAY.
apply forthwith our idea of 'reality as something
separate in space and time, and so "refute" Plato
with ease, and remain as wise as
And
true
is
it
we were
Plato, handling
that
import with the mind
and
ideas
before.
of vast
language of his day,
sometimes by a similar error refutes himself.* He

makes, for instance, the disembodied soul see the
invisible ideas.
mind
as
Thus he
travesties his things of the
though they were things of sense, only not of
our sense
thereby
destroying the deeper difference
of kind that alone enables them to find a place
our world.
That
doctrine of ideas
his
was
in
really
rooted, not in mysticism, but in scientific enthusiasm,

is
truth
that
is
veiled
inconsistencies, but far
from
us
partly
by
his
more by our own erroneous
preconceptions.!
There
" this "
is,
however, a genuine distinction between
world and the
"
other
"
world, which
is
merely
parodied by the vulgar antitheses between natural
and supernatural, finite and infinite, phenomenal

and noumenal. We sometimes hear it said, " The
*
" Endless duration
whiter,"
ideas,
is
and
one of
is
just,
makes good no better, nor white any

comments on Plato's " eternal
Aristotle's
unless " eternal " conveys a difference of
kind.
t Whewell, I think, misinterprets Plato's language about
astronomy in this sense. Plato is not decrying observation, but
demanding a theoretical treatment of the laws of motion, a
remarkable anticipation of modern ideas.
THE OTHER WORLD.

world
quite changed to
is
person," or
me
to
"
such
literally true
since
knew such a
an idea."
The expression may be
and we do not commonly exaggerate,
underrate
vastly
but
me
studied such a subject," or " had suggested
instance, in a
good
import.
its
We
read,
for
"These twenty kinds
authority,
of birds (which Virgil mentions) do not correspond
much
so
to our species as to our genera
Greeks and Romans,
very rough-and-ready methods of

as
is
Any one may
the observation of
called
lifer
"
same fact as regards

Every yellow ranunculus
verify the
flower/i.
everjy large
a "butter-c
hemlock."
which men consciousl

considerable degree
no metaphor, but
environment
is
is
ulveît least as
s
ofj
al objects.
wish b
"
ural objects, although
per*
it
world.
consciousness does not
into
oid, I cannot, indeed,
"m
by
makes our immediate
is
But there
Without going
more in the matter t
enabling us to
as a
It
the training even of
mere apprehension
I
much
or blindness.
say that man's whole
transfo
maintain that mind
the surroundings in
liter;
metaphysics, which
white umbel-
hundreds of other
wijth
Ti
differences of percepti
his
classification, just
the case with uneducated people at the present
day."*
is
for the
need hardly say, had only
ma
Year with the Birds.
!Jf
unquestionably
My individual
create the differences
%n an Oxford
Tutor.
PREFATORY ESSAY.
between the species of ranunculus, although
my
create
doi
it
But when we
knowledge of them.
corr
to speak of the world of morals or art or politic
we may
venture
much
further in our assertions. /Tr
actual facts of this world
are causally sustained
do
directly arise out of an
by conscious
intelligence
The
these facts form the world above sense.

of a Christian church or congregation
fact of life
may
is
is
is
unity?
this
it
is,
unity
it
visible
and
so,
Wh;
to be.
tangible, like
human body? /ho, the unity is

exists in the medium of thought
made up
What
Is
come
unit
a governin
that of a family or a nation
hope, will that of humanity
unity of a
that
so
is
an
tr.
"ideal;
only
of certain sentiments, purposes, and idea
even
of
an
army?
Here,
an
too,
ide;
the mainspring. of action.
Without mutu;
intelligence and reciprocal reliance you may ha\
a mob, but you cannot have an army. But all the:
conditions exist and can e:- ist in the mind only. A
is
army, qua army,

only does
does that
it
is
not a mere fact of sense
need mind to perceive
but
The world
it
also needs
mind
it
to
for nc
a heap of san
make
it.
of these governing facts of
life
is
tl
world of the things not seen, the object of reaso

the world of the truly infinite and divine.
It is,
course, a false antithesis to contrast seeing with tr
bodily eye and

.
seeing eye
is
seeing with the mind's eye. Tr

always the mind's eye. The distinctic
THE OTHER WORLD.

between sense and
within
between the
mind
is
spirit or intellect is
mind, just as
the
and the
spirit
that only sees colour
is
flesh.
The
self-conscious spirit.
opposition
<Nevertheless,__the
sense or sense-p
from th e mind that
different
a distinction
Paul's
St.
_sees_
er ceptio n
latter includes the former,
To
but the former does not include the
latter.
one the colour
to the other
is
an element
is
in
the ultimate fact
a thing of beauty.
above
The "things not
sense.
the
it
This relation
prevails throughout between the world of sense
the world
beauty, ifl__
and
seen,"
philosophically speaking, are no world of existences
and severed from
or of intelligences co-ordinate with

this
They
present world.
are a value, an
import,
a significance, superadded to the phenomenal world,
which
may
thus be said, though with some risk of
degraded
misunderstanding, to be
The
house,
the
the
cathedral,
into
judge's
a symbol.
robe,
the
general's uniform, are ultimate facts for the child or
the savage
but
for
symbols of domestic
State.
its
*"
the
life,
civilized
man
they are
of the Church, and of the
Even where the supra-sensuous world has
purest expression, in the knowledge and will of
intelligent
beings,
it
presupposes a sensuous world
as the material of ideas
and of
actions.
"
This " world
and the "other" world are continuous and inseparable,

and all men must live in some degree for both. But
the completion of the Noumenal world, and the
PREFATORY ESSAY.
apprehension of
by
task
I
fulfilling
its
and completeness,
reality
is
the
which humanity advances.
pass to the interpretation, neither technical noi
two of Hegel's most alarming
controversial, of one or
phrases.
The
"infinite"
seems to practical minds the ver>
opposite of anything
the description of
life
we knowTas
the very
a"oEthesjs_of_any
appears
to"
be
the mere negation o f the
the description of a purpose,
ceive to be attainable
it?
by denying every
fcTfned
had not selected
most precious
of
common
in
And
this
logic,
though
what
be,
is
tha
the place and meet!
fills
the problem of that conception.
how this can

when we read about
could wis!
much-abused tern
different in nature to
yet rightly
explain
predicate
most real anc

adhered to it, no doubt
He
life.
infinity,
i<
we can con
purpose that
as the distinctive predicate of
because his
it
as the description of a being
which we attach to personality.

that Hegel
As
or valuable.
real, present,
life, it is
will
attempt
and what ve are
infinity in the
t(
discussing
Hegelian philo
sophy.
It is
an obvious remark, that
infinity
was a symbo
of evil in Hellenic speculation, whereas to Christiai
and modern thought

idle talk has arisen
it is
on
identified with good.
Mud
this account, as to the limita
tion of the Hellenic mind.
For
in fact, the
Finit
ascribed to Pythagoras, and the idea of limit and pro
THE OTHER WORLD.

portion in Plato or in Aristotle, are far more nearly-
akin to true infinity than
popular philosophy.
limit.
infinity,
which
may be
with enumeration ad infinitum,
infinity of Hegel
is
modern
means the negation of
Infinite
Now, common
in general
the Infinite of
is
identified
the false
the attempt to negate or transcend
a limit which inevitably recurs.
'It arises
from attempt-
we
without making any advance^
ing a task or problem in the wrong way, so that
may go on
towards
its
for
ever
achievement.
which of course has
its
All quantitative infinity
definite uses, subject to proper
reservations
change
character by_ mere continuance, and the
its
of this nature.
is
"aggregate of a million units
is
process_ does not
no more
the aggregate of ten.
limitation than
._
"A
free
from
defect in
kind cannot be compensated by mere quantity. We

see the fallacious attempt in savage, barbaric, or
vulgar
Meaningless
art.
iteration, objectless labour,

jj
size,
extravagant costliness, indicate the
effort to satlify
marTTheed Of expiessferfby the mere
enormous
accumulation of work without adequate idea or purBut such efforts, however stupendous, never
pose.
attain their goal.
They
constitute a recurrent failure
to transcend a recurrent
to enumeration
ad
limit,
infinitum.
precisely
analogous
hundred thousand
pounds' worth of bricks and mortar comes no nearer

to the embodiment of mind than a thousand pounds'
worth.
To
attempt adequate expression by mere
PREFATORY ESSAY.
aggregation of cost or size
is
therefore to
fall
into the
infinite process or the false infinity.
Another well-known instance

happiness
in
the form
of
"
is
the pursuit of
pleasure for pleasure's
The recurrence of unchanging units leaves us

where we were. A process which does not change
sake."
remains the same, and

at
first,
will
on producing
somehow
straight
infinity
or
line
we
if it
did not bring satisfaction
not do so at last.*
We
might as well go
parallels to infinity, in the
somewhere they may meet.
may
serve as
hope that
An
infinite
a type of the kind of
are considering.
Infinity in the Hegelian sense does not partake

in
any way of this endlessness, or of the unreality which
attaches to
faction.
because
it.
Its root-idea
That which
it
is
is
self-completeness or satis-
" infinite " is
does not refer beyond
or for justification
without boundary,
itself for
and therefore.in
all
explanation,
human existence
or production infinity can only be an aspect or element.
picture, for instance,
art, justifies itself,
regarded as a work of fine
gives satisfaction directly
and without raising questions of cause or of comparison, and

is in this sense
i.e. in respect of its beauty
regarded
When, on
as "
infinite.''
this
same work of art
the other hand,
as an historical
a link in a chain of causation
e.g.
we
consider
phenomenon, as
as elucidating the
development of a school, or proving the existence

of
*
See note above,
p. xii.
THE OTHER WORLD.

a certain technical process at a certain date
go beyond
depress
it
itself for its interest
at
once into a
that which presents
finite
itself as
then we
and explanation, and
The
object
incomplete
finite is
<
the infinite
that which presents itself as complete, and which,

therefore, does not force
upon us the
This character belongs
tation.
fact of its limita-
in the highest
degree
to self-conscious mind, as realized in the world above
sense
world
and
in
some degree
to
elements of that
all
for instance, to the State
in as far as
represent man's realized self-consciousness.
nature of self-consciousness to be
infinite,
they
It is the
because
it
what was opposed to

is its
organized sphere
it, and thus to make itself into an
that has value and reality within, and not beyond
If false infinity was represented by an infinite
itself.
straight line, true infinity may be compared to a
nature to take into
itself
circle or a sphere.
between true and false infinity is

The sickly yearnimport.
moral
of the profoundest
ing that longs only to escape from the real, rooted
The
distinction
in the antithesis
between the
infinite
and the actual

"
"
or concrete, or in the idea of the monotonous infini
"
"
is
the
or
gouffre,"
which is one with the abtme"
appraised
to rest
by
this test at its true value.
on a mere
sentiment.
So
far
It is
pathetic fallacy of thought
from
the infinite
seen
and
being remote,
can be truly
abstract, unreal,' nothing but the infinite
PREFATORY ESSAY.
present, concrete,
us
of
and
The
real.
always refers
finite
away and away through an endless series of causes,

effects, or of relations.
The infinite is individual,
and bears the character of knowledge, achievement,

In short, the actual realities which we
attainment.
have
in
infinite,
mind when,
unity and general
we speak
in philosophy,
are such as a nation that

will,
of the
conscious of
is
its
or the realm of fine art as
the recognition of man's higher-na ture,
the religious
""community with its""cbnviction of arnncTwelling Deity.
Now, whether we
like the
term
whether or no we think that man's
Infinite or
life
not,
can be ex-
plained and justified within the limits of these aims

and these phenomena, there is no doubt that these
matters are real, and are the most momentous of
In acquainting ourselves with their struc-
realities.
ture, evolution,
and
relation to individual
at least not wasting time, nor
life,
we
are
treating of matters
beyond human intelligence.

There is a very similar contrast in the conception
of human Freedom. " Free will " is so old a vexed
question, that though the conflict
round
it,
upon
turn
its
abstract, " Is
But when
decision.
man
rages
free
fitfully
much can
in place of the
we
are confronted with the

what, and as what, does
carry out his will with least hindrance and
with
concrete inquiry, "
man
still
the world hardly conceives that
fullest
"
When,
satisfaction?"
in
then
we have
before us
the
THE OTHER WORLD.

actual
phenomena of
civilization, instead of
an
idle
and abstract Yes or No.

Man's Freedom, in the sense thus contemplated,
lies in the spiritual or supra-sensuous world by which
his humanity is realized, and in which his will finds
The
fulfilment.
law are the
family, for example, property,
and
In them
steps of man's freedom.
first
the individual's will obtains and bestows recognition

as an agent in a society
i.e.
whose bond of union is ideal

and this recog-
existing only in consciousness
nition develops into duties
man
that
finds
which and
As
and
something to
rights.
live
for,
It is in these
something
in
sake of which to assert himself.
for the
society develops he lives on the whole
more
in
the civilized or spiritual world, and less in the savage

or purely natural world.
expands with the

its
'
His
institutions
will,
which
is
himself,
and ideas that form
purpose, and the history of this expansion
human
history of
more barbarously
freedom.
irrational,
Nothing
is
is
the
m ore shallow,
than to regard the pro- 7
gTESs of civilizafion" as the accumulation of restrictions.
Laws
extended
ImcT'T-nie's
capacities.
a positive nature, and

conditions,
and every
relations.
To
are "a
necessary" aspect of
Every power that we gain has

therefore
involves
positive
positive condition has negative
accomplish a particular purpose you
must go to work in a particular way, and in no other

way. To complain of this is like complaining of a
PREFATORY ESSAY.
house because
has a definite shape.
it
If
freedom
"
" freer
means absence of attributes,
than any edifice. Of course a house may be so ugly
that we may say we would rather have none at all.
empty space
may
Civilization
say
" rather
are
we
it
bring
such horrors that
savagery than this
and
spiritual,
The
but in neither case
civilization,
free.
effort
to ^grasp
and apply such an idea as
can hardly be barren.
this
we may
man becomes human,,
only in_îvj3jzaIIanVthat
is
"
Great as are the vices of
serious.
is
brings us face to face
It
with concrete facts of history, and of man's actual
motives and purposes.
True philosophy
here,
as
everywhere, plunges into the concrete and the real

it is
the indolent abstract fancy that thrusts problems
away
mind
is
free
preacher,
moment
'
when
But
wills.
beyond
"
and
or into futile abstrac-
knows well that the

achieves what as a whole it truly
it
Plato,
refers
the allegorist
the
soul's
and
freedom
imaginative
to
a fleeting
of ante-natal choice, which he vainly strives
exempt from causal
tion,
"
Plato, the philosopher,
tion.
to
remote
into the
with
its
future,
Finally,
is
it
influence.
'Pictorial imagina-
ready reference to occurrences
in
past
the great foe to philosophic intelligence.

is
the notion of an
impossible to omit
all
reference to
immanent Deity, which forms the
very centre of Hegel's thought.

tive English reader first
When
an unspecula-.
meets with Hegel's passionate
THE OTHER WORLD.

insistence
God
that
is
and that
deny
to
a Trinity of persons,
this is to represent
who know
heathen
He
not unknowable, that
necessarily reveals himself as
not God," he
He
taken sand into his mouth.
men
as "the
feels as if
is
he had
inclined to ask
what these Neo-Platonic or mediaeval doctrines are

doing
in the nineteenth century,
dead
resuscitate
possible .value
logomachies
for
life
and why we should

can
that
not attempt here to discuss the
no
must
have
conducts. Now,
or
question of
difficult
Hegel's ultimate conception of the being of God,
and.
am bound
these pages that
though
by
conception.
no hesitation
to
I
warn any one who may read

only profess to reproduce one
most prominent
far the
side
of that
But, subject to this reservation, I have

in saying, that our
own
prejudices form
the only hindrance to our seeing that Hegel's subject-
matter
is
here, as elsewhere,
us what he takes to be the
human
He
life.
literal truth,
gives
and we
will
Verbally contradicting
have it to be metaphor.
Kant, he accepts, completes, and enforces Kant's
" Revelation can never be the true ground
thought.
of religion," said
accident,
and
Kant
religion
intelligent nature."
ledge of
God
"
is
" for revelation is
an historical
a rational necessity of man's
Revelation
is
the only true know-
and ground of religion," says Hegel,
" because revelation consists in the realization
man's
intelligent nature!"
We
are,
of God in
however, not unac-
PREFATORY ESSAY.
customed to such phrases, and our imagination
equal to
We
its
is
habitual task of evading their meaning.
take them to be a strong metaphor, meaning
that God,
off, is,
who
a sort of ghostly being a long
is
way
notwithstanding, more or less within the know-
ledge of our minds, and so
is " in "
them, as a book
London may be in my memory

when I am in Scotland. Now, right or wrong, this
is not what Hegel means.
He means what he says
that God is spirit or mind,* and exists in the medium
which
is
actually in
of mind, which
rate,
only
thought
is
is
in
actual as intelligence, for us at any
the
human
hard from
its
very simplicity,
stru ggle, as always, to avoid grasping

spirits as
made
The
and we
self-consciousness.
it.
We
imagine
of a sort of thin matter, and so as
existing just like bodies, although
we call them diswe think of this disembodied

an alternative to human form, and suppose
have somehow a purer existence apart from
embodied.
form as
spirit to
And
then
human
body.
This error really springs from imagining the two as existences of the same kind, and
so conflicting, and from not realizing the notion of
spirit as
way
mind
or self-consciousness, which
of conceiving
its
is
the only
actual presence in our world.
* The fusion of these meanings in the German " Geist

gives a force to his pleading which English cannot render.
He appeals, e.g., triumphantly to " God is a Spirit," i.e. not "
ghost " but " mind."
THE OTHER WORLD.

Mind
uses sensuous existence as
its
The poet who has
even needs
it.
so nearly,*
fails
here
symbol
perhaps
thought
hit Hegel's
" This weight of
Are they not sign and symbol of thy
body and limb,
division from
Him?"
Here we leave the track of the higher Pantheism

for that
of vulgar mysticism.
conceived
shape,
because
embodiment, or because
of
its
Now,
Hegelian idea.
human
being
somehow incompatible with
as
either
own.
Spiritual
this
incapable
of
has a quasi-material shape
it
the reverse of the
just
is
According to Hegel,
The
notion
bodily
any concrete
it
is
only in the
formJ:hat intelligence can for us find
expression.
is
its full
of a spiritual body other
than and incompatible with the natural body does

not
Spiritêxists in the
arise.
medium of consciousThe spirituali-
ness, not in a peculiar kind of matter.
zation of the natural
an
body
is
not to be looked for in
astral or angel body, but in the gait
and gesture,
the significance and dignity, that malce the" body- of
man
the civilized
distinguislT
The human
*
the outward image of his soul, and
him from the savage

soul becomes actual
as from the animal.

itself,
and
visible to
See Tennyson's " Higher Pantheism," especially the
fine
lines
" Speak to Him thou, for

meet,
Closer
is
He
He
hears,
and
Spirit with Spirit
than breathin?, and nearer than hands and
can
feet."
00/1/,
t-iicr/i i ujtr
by moulding the body into its symbol

and instrument. It ought to have been an axiom of
physiology, Hegel says, that the series of animated
forms must necessarily lead up to that of man. For
others, only
only sensuous form in which mind could
this is the
Thus anthropomor-
attain adequate manifestation.
phism
in fine art
no accident, nor an unworthy
is
portrayal of divinity.
to
sense,
it
If the
must be
in
Deity
is
to be symbolized
the image of man.
The
symbol is not indeed the reality, as the sensuous

image is not conscious thought but this is a defect
;
inherent in artistic presentation, and not attributable

to
anthropomorphism
in particular.
obvious that in the light of such a conception,
It is
a speculative import can be attached to the doctrine

of the Incarnation, and Hegel's reading of Christian
ideas
sense.
is,
in
This
views, which,
fact,
is
to
be interpreted entirely
in
this
not the place to go deeper into such
however profound,
may
perhaps continue
seem non-natural expositions of Christian dogma.

I am only concerned to show how here, also, the
speculative idea, operating upon the concrete and
actual, generates a fresh and inspiring insight into
life and conduct.
Few chapters of anthropology are
more thorough, profound, and suggestive than Hegel's,
to
account of the
"
attributes which
by stamping
it
actual soul
make
the
"
i.e.
body
of the habits and
human
Nor has
distinctively
with the impress of mind.
THE OTHER WORLD.

philosophic insight ever done better service to the
history of religion than in grasping the essence of
Christianity as the unity, (not merely the union) of the
divine
and human nature.

the things which are
Among
spiritually discerned,
an important place belongs to beauty.
As
a boun-
dary and transition between sense and thought,

is
peculiarly fitted to illustrate the reality which
claim, in contradistinction to
what
ance, for
is
best
it
we
mere sensuous appear-
Many who
life.
distrust
Hegelian formulae are convinced thafbeauty at least

is
real.
They
will
admit that
nition of beauty are not
fine art
trifles,
and the recog-
not amusements, but
rank high among the interests that gjyf
l;ff>
''<
Vf^pp
All such will find themselves in sympathy with the
purpose of a great philosopher who has bent
power of
his genius
and
all
the
his industry to vindicating
a place for art as an embodiment of the divine nature.
The
that
Introduction to Hegel's "./Esthetic," which

it
was possible
is
all
to reproduce in the present volume,
and detailed elaboration

care for thorough and
of the
noble thought on a great subject, and for a defence
of their faith in the true spiritual realities, I have
lacks, of course, the solidity

treatise.
Yet
to all
who
hope that the ensuing pages, however marred by

imperfect translation, will be welcome.
HEGEL'S .ESTHETIC.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER
I.
THE RANGE OF .ESTHETIC DEFINED, AND SOME

OBJECTIONS REFUTED.
The
present course of lectures deals with " Êsthetic."
Their subject
more
is
the wide realm of the beautiful, and,
particularly,
restrict
it,
their province
is
Art
we
may-
indeed, to Fine Art.
The name
"
Êsthetic " in
its
natural sense
not quite appropriate to this subject.
is
"Êsthetic"
means more precisely the science of sensation or

Thus understood, it arose as a new science,
feeling.
rather
as something that was to become a branch
or
of philosophy for the
first
time,* in the school
of
* InBaumgarten's" JEsthetica,"i7So. See Lotze's "Êsthetik

n Deutschland," p. 4, and Scherer's " Hist, of German Litera;ure,"
Engl. Transl.,
ii.
25.
THE RANGE OF ESTHETIC.
[Chap.
I.
when works of art were being

Germany in the light of the feelings
Wolff, at the epoch
considered in
which they were supposed
evoke
to
so inappropriate,
or, strictly
that for this reason
names,
it
feelings
of
The name was
pleasure, admiration, fear, pity, etc.
speaking, so superficial,
was attempted to form other

But this name, again, is
"Kallistic."
e.g.
unsatisfactory, for the science to be designated does
not treat of beauty in general, but merely of
We
beauty.
Êsthetic to stand, because
and so
is
permit
therefore,
shall,
it is
the
a name, therefore,
it
common
may be
name
nothing but a name,
indifferent to us, and, moreover,
a certain point passed into
artistic
has up to
As
language.
retained.
The
proper
expression, however, for our science is the "Philosophyof

>Ârt," or,
a.
more
By
definitely, the "
may
we
Such a
the beauty of Nature.

subject
Philosophy of Fine Art."
the above expression
at once exclude
of our
limitation
appear to be an arbitrary demarcation,
resting on the principle that every science has the

,
prerogative of marking out
But
this is
its
boundaries at pleasure.
not the sense in which
we
are to under-
stand the limit ation of Êsthetic to the beauty of

It is true that in
common
life
we
speaking of beautiful colour, a beautiful sky, a

river,
and, moreover, of beautiful
animals, and, above
We will
not just
now
all,
art.
are in the habit of

beautiful';
flowers, beautiful
of beautiful
human
beings.
enter into the controversy
how
ChAp.
far
I.]
ART HIGHER THAN NATURE.
such objects can justly have the attribute
beauty ascribed
them,
to
how
or
of
speaking
far,
generally, natural beauty ought to be recognized as
We
existing besides artistic beauty.
begin at once by asserting that
may, however,)
artistic
beau ty stands I
higher th an nature.
For the beauty of
art is
the
beauty_ _that__is
born
is
of
the
born
again,
mindj* and by as much
as the
are hi gher t h an
anrl
much
even
a man's head
for
content,
its
products
its
is
appearances, by so
higher than the beauty of
if
'-
higher than any product of nature
such a fancy must at
least
be characterized by
being and by freedom .t
intellectual
its
is
min d and
we look at it formally i.e. only

what way it exists, not what there is
silly fancy such as may pass through
Indeed,
considering in
it,
"
the beauty of art
nature.
in
ria1 llrp
that
In respect of'
on the other hand, the sun,
for instance/
appears to us to be an absolutely necessary factor in

the universe, while a blundering notion passes
away
own
being,
is
1
accidental and transient
but yet, in
natural existence such as the sun
not free or self-conscious, while if
"* Aus dem
Geiste
allusion
to
is
we
"born of
its
indifferent,t_js
consider
walpsr
it
in
and of the
Spirit."
t Not in the sense of fancying what you please, but in the

echnical sense of having separate existence ; detached, so to
ipeak, from the general background of things, not a mere
:oncurrence of other elements.

% Has no power of distinguishing
itself
from other
things.
THE RANGE OF ÊSTHETIC.
its
necessary connection with other things
regarding
fore,
it
by
itself
or for
its
own
[Chap.
we
are not
sake, and, there-
not as beautiful.
To
say, as
we have
said, in general
terms, that
mind and
its artistic
beauty,
no doubt to determine almost nothing.
is
"higher"
beauty stand higher than natural
For
an utterly indefinite expression, which
is
the beauty of nature and that of art as
designates
if
I.
merely standing side by side
in the
space of the
imagination, and states the difference between them

as purely quantitative, and, therefore, purely external.
But the mind and

compared with
as
its artistic
not simply relative.
Mind, and mind only,
and comprehends
_of truth,
whatever
is
beauty, in being "-higher"
nature, have a distinction which

is
in itself all that lsTscTthat
can only be really and truly
beautiful
beautiful as partaking in this higher element
created thereby.
_
is
capable
and
as
In this sense the beauty of naturei<
reveals itself -as but a reflection of the beauty wKTcTi
belongs to the . miud*. _as an imperfect.
mode
of being, as a
"element
is
contained
Moreover,
we
mod e whose
in
the mind
Tnc omplei
really substantial
itself.
shall find the restriction to fine art
very natural, for however
much has been and is said

by the ancients than by ourselves
of the beauties of nature, yet no one has taken it
though
less
head to emphasize the point of view of the

beauty of natural objects, and to attempt to
make a
into his
Chap.
BEAUTY OF NATURE EXCLUDED.
I.]
science, a systern atic_agcount of these beauties.
The
aspect of Utility, indeed, has been accentuated, and
a science,
e.g.
of natural things useful against diseases/-}
a materia medica, has been compiled, consisting
in a"'
description of minerals, chemical products, plants, and
animals that are of use for curative purposes.
realm of nature
the
has
not
been
arrayed
estimated under the aspect of beauty.
with natural beauty
and too
we
But
and
In dealing
ourselves too open to
find
which
~
would have little interest.
above prefatory remarks upon beauty in
vagueness,
destitute of a criterion ; for
"reason" such a review

""Trie
nature and in
upon the
art,
relation
between the
two, and the exclusion of the former from the region
of the subject proper, are meant to remove any idea
owing merely to
that, the limitation of our science is
choice and to caprice.
But
this is not the place to
demonstrate the above relation, for the consideration
of
it falls
within our science
and therefore
itself,
cannot be discussed and demonstrated
till
it
later.
Supposing that for the present we have limited

ourselves to the beauty of art, this first step brings
us at once into contact with fresh
The
/3.
us
is
first
thing that
whether
the difficulty
.
genius,
all
suggest
fine art
deserve, a__seientific treatment:
doubt, pervade
difficulties.
may
Beauty and
the business of
life like
to
itself
shows
itself
Jo
art,
no
a kindly
and form the bright adornment of
all
our
OBJECTIONS REFUTED.
[Chap.
I.
surroundings, both mental and material, soothing the
sadness of our condition and the embarrassments

of real
where there
is
nothing good to be achieved, occupying
the place of what
Yet
vice.
and
killing time in entertaining fashion,
life,
is
vicious, better, at
any
than
rate,
although art presses in with its pleasing
shapes on every possible occasion, from the rude
adornments of the savage to the splendour of the

temple with
these shapes themselves

real
art
if
decoration,
untold wealth of
its
purposes of
life.
appear to
And
even
do not prove detrimental
if
fall
still
outside the
the creations of
to our graver purposes,
they appear at times actually to further them by
keeping
evil
a distance,
at
still
it
is
so
far true
that art belongs rather to the relaxation and leisure

of the mind, while the substantive interests of
demand
its
exertion.
and pedantic to
is
not in
Hence
it
may seem
treat with scientific seriousness
itself of
a serious nature.
life
unsuitable
what
In any case, upon
such a view art appears as a superfluity, even
if
the
softening of the mental temper which pre-occupation
with beauty has power to produce, does not turn out

a detrimental, because effeminating influence.
In
this aspect of the matter, the fine arts
to be a luxury,
various
to
ways
their
it
has been thought necessary
to take
relation
being granted
up
in
their defence with reference
towards practical necessities, and
more especially towards morality and piety
and, as
Chap.
it.
is
I.]
ART UNWORTHY OF STUDY?
IS
impossible to demonstrate their harmlessness,
at least to
make
it
credible that the mental luxury in
question afforded a larger
With
disadvantages.
been ascribed to
various ways
art,
and
sum
of advantages than of
view very serious aims have
this
it
has been recommended in
as a mediator
between reason
and
sensuousness, between inclination and duty, as the

reconciler of these elements in the obstinate conflict
and repulsion which their collision generates. But

the opinion may be maintained that, assuming such
aims of art, more serious though they are, nothing
is
gained
and duty by
reason
for
the attempt
at mediation, because these principles, as essentially
incapable of intermixture, can be parties to no such
compromise, but demand
in
same purity which they have
their manifestation the
And
in themselves.
it
might be said that art itself is not made any more

worthy of scientific discussion by such treatment,
seeing that
is
it
still
doubly a servant
to
higher
aims, no doubt, on the one hand, but none the less^

to vacuity
and
service can at
frivolity
on the other
and
in
such
best only display itself as a means,
instead of being ah end pursued for

Finally, art, considered as a means,
under
this defect of form, that,
its
own
sake.
seems to labour
supposing
to be
it
subordinated to serious ends, and to produce results

of importance,
such purposes
still
the means employed
is deception.
by
For beauty has
art for
its
being
OBJECTIONS REFUTED.
Now, it will
in appearance.*
an aim which-is~rea4
I.
readily be admitted that
arrd< true in itself
be attaingd__by_ dece ption, and

there achieve
[Chap.
some success
if
in
ought not_to
does here and
it
this
way, that can
only be the case to a limited extent, and even then

deception cannot approve itself as the right means.
For the means should correspond to the dignity of

the end, and only what is real and true, not semblance
or deception, has power to create what is real and
true
just
-the true
as science, for instance, has

interests
of the mind in
the truth of reality and the true
In
all
these respects
were unworthy of
as
is
even
alleged,
if it
it
is
it
way
may
scientific
to
of conceiving
appear as
consideration
at best a pleasing
pursues more serious aims
consider
accordance with
is
it,
if fine art
;
because,
amusement, and
in contradiction
is at best the mere servant

amusement and of serious aims, and yet has
command, whether as the element of its being or
the vehicle of its action, nothing beyond deception
with their nature, but

alike of
at
as
and semblance.
)
y.
But, in the second place,
it is
able aspect of the question that, even
still
more prob-
if fine art
were
to form a subject of philosophical reflections in a general
way,
it
would be no appropriate matter
scientific treatment.
The beauty
for strictly
of art presents
to sense, to feeling, to perception, to imagination

* "
Das Schdne
in dem Sckeine."
itself
;
its
ART UNSUITABLE FOR STUDY?
CHAP. L]
IS
sphere
not that of thought, and the apprehension
of
its
is
and
activity
organ than that of the
what we enjoy
over,
the freedom of
in
scientific intelligence.
the beauty of art
is
precisely
the origination, as in the contemplation, of

tions
rule
we appear
and
More-
productive and plastic energy.
its
demand another
productions
its
In
its crea-
to escape wholly from the fetters of
we seek
In the forms of art
regularity.
for
repose and animation in place of the austerity of the

reign of law
thought
and the sombre self-concentration of
we would exchange
the shadowland of the
And
idea for cheerful vigorous reality.
source of artistic creations
which
Not only
self.
has^ art at
the
the free activity of fancy,
is
in her imagination
lastly,
is
more
free than nature's
command
the whole wealth
of natural forms in the brilliant variety of their appearance, but also the xreative imagination has power
to expaflate inex haust ibly
ducts of itso&m.
It
may
beyond
their
be supposed
li
mit in pro -
that, in presence
of this immeasurable abundance of inspiration and

its
free creations,
thought
will necessarily lose
courage to bring them completely before

them, and to array them under
its
it,
universal formulae.
Science, on the contrary, every one admits,
pelled
by
its
form to busy
abstracts from the
itself
the
to criticize
is
com-
with thought which
mass of particulars. For this reason,
on the one hand, imagination with its contingency

and caprice that is, the organ of artistic activity and
OBJECTIONS REFUTED.
io
enjoyment is of
[Chap.
from
necessity excluded
I.
science.
on the other hand, seeing that art is what cheers

and animates the dull and withered dryness of the
idea, reconciles with reality its abstraction and its dis-
And
sociation therefrom,
what
is
real
world
we may
think,
and supplies out of the
lacking to the notion,
it
follows,
that a purely intellectual treatment of art destroys

this very means of supplementation, annihilates it,
and reduces the idea once more to its simplicity
devoid of reality, and to its shadowy abstractness.
And
further, -it
!oT content,
is
objected that science, as a matter
occupies itself with what
is
necessary.
^'ÊsthetlcTputs aside jtE'e~Eeauty of nature,
bnly gain _iiQthixig-in_ respect
jof necessity,
appearance have got further away from
it.
Now,
we
but to
not
all
For the
expression Nature at once gives us_th,ideauif_Nees-
and Uniformity,* that
sity
which
may
is
to say, of a behaviour
be hoped to be akin to science, and
But
^capable of submitting thereto.

generally,
and more particularly
in
the mind,
in the imagination,
compared with nature, caprice and lawlessness are

supposed to be peculiarly at home and these withdraw themselves as a matter of course from all scien;
tific
explanation.
Thus
in range
in all these aspects
in
fine art, instead of
scientific study,
seems rather
origin, in effect,
showing
in its
itself fitted for
own
* " Gisetsmassigkeit."
and
right to resist
THAP.
BASIS OF THE OBJECTIONS.
I.]
he regulating activity of thought, and to be uniuitable for strict scientific discussion.
These and
icientific
similar objections against a genuinely
treatment of fine art are drawn from com-
non ideas, points of view, and considerations, which

nay be read ad nauseam in full elaboration in the
)lder writers upon beauty and the fine arts, especially
n the works of French authors. And
which have a certain truth
:ontain facts
he argumentation
*_
ve choose,
there fs'lhe~fa-ct
e.g.,
we may
omnipresent
is
and from
this, if
proceed to conclude to a universal
'mpulse of Beauty in
human
the further inference
ire
Thus,
forms of beauty are as manifold as the phe-
nomenon of beauty
:o
they
in part, too,
based upon these facts appears
plausible. at_rst_sight r ihat the
in part
;
nature,
and then go on
that because ideas of beauty
so endlessly various,
and
therefore,
as
seems
are something particular,^ it follows that

can be no universal laws of beauty and of taste.
Before it is possible for us to turn from such
jbvious,
:here
:onsiderations to our subject proper,

ness to
it
is
our busi-
devote a brief introductory discussion to the

and doubts which have been raised. In
objections
:he first place, as regards the worthiness of art to

* "
Raisonnement"
a disparaging term
be
in Hegel.
" Particular "different unconnected matters, considered as

t
nerely thrown together in an aggregate, or occurring in a series
>pposed to parts or cases united by an essential principle.
OBJECTIONS REFUTED.
12
scientifically considered,
art can
it
[Chap.
I.
no doubt the case that
is
be employed as a fleeting pastime, to serve
the ends of pleasure and entertainment, to decorate
our surroundings, to impart pleasantness to the exlife, and to emphasize other

by means of ornament. In this mode of
employment art is indeed not independent, not free,
ternal conditions of our
objects
but
art
fBut what we mean to consider,
servile.
which
That
is
free in
its
end as
in its
art is in the abstract
capable of serving other
aims, and of being a mere pastime,

relation
which
it
in
as an accidental means,
and
self-determined, but determined

relations
itself
by
alien objects
this service to rise in free
to the attainment of truth, in

all
finite purposes,
in that case is not
on the other hand, science
but,
from
moreover a
For, on the
the shape of the subservient
understanding, submits to be used for
and
is
shares with thought.
one hand, science,
interference,
the
is
meansj
it fulfils
independence
which medium,
itself in
and
liberates
free from
conformity with
its
proper aims.
Fine art
|
is
not real art
and only achieves
its
it
is
highest task
in this sense free,
when
it
has taken
same sphere with religion and philosophy, and has become simply a mode of revealing to
its
till
place in the
consciousness and bringing to utterance the Divine

,
Nature,* the deepest interests of humanity, and the

*
"Das
Gdttliche?
Chap.
ART NOT UNWORTHY.
I.]
13
most comprehensive truths of the mind. It is in\;

works of art that nations have deposited the pro-]
foundest intuitipns and ideas of their hearts
and\
fine art is frequently the key
with many nations)
;
there
is
to
no other
wisdom and
the understanding of
their (
of their religion.
This is an attribute which(art) shares with religion

and philosophy, only in this peculiar mode, that it
v
represents even the highest ideas in sensuous forms, 1
thereb^bringing^ them nearer
to-,
the -character, dfjf
natural phenomena, to the ^senses, and to feeling.!
The
world, into whose depths thought penetrates, is a
supra-sensuous \world, which

erected
as
is
thus, to begin with, ^4
a beyontl over against immediate con-
sciousness and present. sensation
thus rescues
actuality
itself
and
from the
heal this schism which

itself
the power which
here, that consists in the
finiteness of sense,
thought in cognition.
rates out of
*
'
is
"
the freedom of
But the mind

its
)^
able
is
advance creates
it
to
"
gene-
the works of fine art as the
first
middle term of reconciliation between ^pure thought'^

and what is external, sensuous, and transitory, be-
tween nature with
its finite
actuality
and the
freedom of the reason that comprehends.

S. The element of art was said to be in
its
infinite
general
nature an unworthy element, as consisting in appear-
ance and deception.

devoid of justice,
if it
The
censure would be not
were possible to class appear-
"-'
OBJECTIONS REFUTED.
14
ance as something that ought not to
[Chap.
I.
An
exist.
essential to existence.
appearance or show, however,
is
Truth could not
not appear and reveal
itself,*
for
were
it
be, did
it
not truth for some one or something,
itself as also
Therefore there can be no
for Mind.
objection against appearance in general, but,
mode
against the particular

art gives actuality to
what
of appearance in which
is
in itself real
If,
in this aspect, the appearance with
its
conceptions
termed a
life
if at all,
which
and
as determinate existences
deception, this
is
true.
art gives
is
to
be
a criticism which primarily
meaning by comparison with the external

world of phenomena and its immediate contact with
us as matter, and in like manner by the standard of
receives
our
its
own world
of feeling, that
is,
the inner world of
These are the two worlds to which, in the life

of daily experience, in our own phenomenal | life, we
are accustomed to attribute the value and the title
of actuality, reality, and truth, in contrast to art,
sense.
which we
down as lacking such reality and truth.

whole sphere of the empirical inner and
outer world is just what is not th>_ world of genuine
reality, but is" to be entitled a mere appearance more
Now,
set
this
strictly
than
Genuine
is
true of art,
reality
" Schiene
The
life
is
and a crueller deception.
only to be found beyond the
und erschiene."
which we treat common circumstances and
in
sensations as, in their degree, realities.
Chap.
ART NOT UNTRUE.
I.]
15
immediacy of feeling and of external

Nothing is genuinely real but that which is
objects.l
actual in
own right,* that which is the substance of nature

and of_mind^- fixing itself indeed in present and
its
definite existence, but in this existence
still
retaining
and self-centredjbejng, and thus and no

otherwise attaining genuine reality. The dominion
of these universal powers is exactly what art accentuates and reveals.
The common outer and
inner world also no doubt present to us this essence
its
essential
of reality, but in the shape of a chaos of accidental

matters,
encumbered by the immediateness of sen-
suous presentation, and by arbitrary

characters,
etc.
.Art
liberates
the
states,
real
events,
import of
appearances from the semblance and deception of this

J
bad and
fleeting world,
and imparts
phenomenal |
to
semblances a -hig her .reali ty, born of mind. The I

appearances of art, therefore, far from being mere
semblances, have the higher reality and the more
genuine existence in comparison with the
common
realities
of
life.
Just as
little
called a deceptive
can the representations of art be
semblance
in
comparison with the
representations of historical narrative, as
the more genuine truth.
if
that
had
For history has not even
immediate existence, but only the intellectual presentation of it, for the element of its portrayals, and
* " Das An und Fiirsichseyende."
OBJECTIONS REFUTED.
its
[Chap.
I.
content remains burdened with the whole mass of
by common reality with its

and individualities. But
contingent matter formed
occurrences, complications,
the work of art brings before us the eternal powers

that hold dominion in history, without
way
fluity in the
and
any such super-
of immediate sensuous presentation
unstable semblances.
its
mode of appearance of the shapes promay be called a deception in comparison
Again, the
duced by
art
with philosophic thought, with religious or moral
Beyond a doubt the mode of
principles.
which a content attains

truest reality
in
historical narrative, the artistic
advantage that
refers
us
it
is
the
but in comparison with the show or
of immediate sensuous existence or of
semblance
which
revelation
the realm of thought
in itself
away from
it
semblance has the
points beyond
itself
itself,
and
to something spiritual
meant to bring before the mind's eye.

Whereas immediate appearance does not give itself
is
out to be deceptive, but rather to be real and
though
all
infected
by the immediate sensuous element.
the time
its
truth
is
true,
contaminated and
The
lhard rind of nature and the__com mon world give th e
[mind more trouble
mhando
But
to
art,
in
breaking through
th e products of
if,
on the one
we must no
hand, that art
is
side,
less
to_ the idea.
art.
we
assign this high position,
bear in mind, on the other
not, either in content or in form,
Chap.
ART NOT ULTIMATE TRUTH.
I.]
supreme and absolute mode of bringing the
the
mind's genuine
form of
interests
enough
art. is
Only a
tent.
certain
to a restricted con-
it
and grade of truth
circle
Such truth must have
go
own
in its
forth into sensuous form
itself therein, if it is
as is the
medium of
to be a genuinely artistic content,
There
and so
it
is
is,
no
friendly to sense as
be adequately embraced and expressed by that
medium.
of truth
Of
such a kind
and more
come
world, or, to
is
the Christian conception
especially the spirit of our

closer,
which
art
is
no longer
beyond the stage
mode assumed by man's

The peculiar mode
absolute.
the highest
consciousness of the
which
modern
of our religion and our
intellectual culture, reveals itself as
to
art.
and be adequate to
case with the gods of Greece.
longer so closely 'akin
at
is
nature the capacity^
however, a deeper form of truth, in which
to
The
consciousness.
into
to limit
capable of being represented in the
to
17
artistic
production and works of art belong
satisfies
our supreme fneed.
We are
above
the level at which works of art can be venerated

as divine,
and actually worshipped the impression

make is of a more considerate kind, and
;
which they
within
the feelings which they stir
us
higher test and a further confirmation.
and
reflection
have taken their
Those who delight

set
down
this
in
flight
require a
Thought"
above
fine art.
grumbling and censure
phenomenon
for
may
a corruption, and
OBJECTIONS REFUTED.
18
ascribe
it
to the
predominance of passion and
which scare away

and the cheerfulness of art.
interests,
feelings,
civil
and
selfish
at once the seriousness
Or we may accuse
the
political life as
hindering the
entangled in minute preoccupations, from
freeing themselves,
art,
I.
time and the complicated
troubles of the present
condition of
[Chap.
and
rising to the higher
aims of
the intelligence itself being subordinate to petty
needs and
such
which only subserve
interests, in sciences
purposes and are seduced into making
this
barren region their home.
However
all this
may
be,l it
certainly
is
the case,
that art no longer affords that satisfaction of spiritual
wants which
earlier epochs and peoples have sought

and have found therein onlyj a satisfaction
which, at all events on the religious side, was most
intimately and profoundly connected with art. The
therein,
beautiful days of
Greek
art,
and the golden time
of the later middle ages are gone by.

culture of our
for
us,
life
of to-day, makes
in respect of
The
it
reflective
a necessity
our will no less than of our
judgment, to adhere to general points of view, and

to regulate particular matters according to them, so
that general forms, laws, duties, rights,
what have
validity as
are the chief regulative force.

for
artistic
interest
maxims
are
grounds of determination and

as
for
But what
artistic
is
required
production
is,
speaking generally, a living creation, In which the
hap.
MODERN REFLECTIVENESS.
I.]
niversal
if
19
not present as law and maxim, but acts
is
one with the
mood and
the feelings, just
the imagination, the universal and rational
lined only as brought
snsuous phenomenon.
condition
niversal
is
which
finds
is
as,
con-
into unity with a concrete
Therefore, our present in
not favourable to
egards the artist himself,

eflection
it
its
As
art.
not merely that the
is
utterance
round him, and
all
he universal habit of having an opinion and passing
udgment about art infect him, and mislead him into

mtting more abstract thought into his works them:elves
but also the whole spiritual culture of the
ige is of
such a kind that he himself stands within
world and
reflective
his
mpossible for
him
its
conditions,
to abstract from
esolve, or to contrive for himself
jy
means of
elations of
ill
that
In
it
by
and
it
and bring to
is
and
will
pass,
peculiar education or removal from the
life,
a peculiar solitude that would replace
is lost.
all
these respects art
is,
and remains
for
us,
3nfhe"side of Its highest, destiny^ a thing of the past.
Herein
ind
:han
has further lost for us'
it
life,
and rather
asserts
its
is
its
transferred
into
former necessity, or
former place, in reality.
What
is
genuine "truth
our ideas
assumes
now aroused
its
in
by works of art is over and above our immediate

and together with it, our judgment;
inasmuch as we subject the content and the means
us
enjoyment,
OBJECTIONS REFUTED.
20
[Chap.
I.
of representation of the work of art and the suitability or unsuitability of the
consideration.
more pressing need

which
art,
simply as
satisfaction.
two to our
intellectual
Therefore, the science of art
Art
in
art,
is
a much
our day, than in times
was enough to furnish a
invites us
to consideration
in
full
of
it
",
by means of thought, not
to the end of stimulating
art production, but in order to ascertain scientifically
what
art
e.
As
we
is.
soon as
we propose
to accept this invitation
met by the difficulty which has already been

touched upon in the suggestion that, though art is
are
a suitable subject for philosophical reflection in the
general sense, yet
it
scientific discussion.
false
is
not so for systematic and
In this objection there
idea that a philosophical
nevertheless,
be
ideas others
may have
lies the
consideration may,
On
unscientific.
this point it can

only be remarked here with brevity, that, whatever
of philosophy and philoso-
phizing, I regard the pursuit of philosophy as utterly
incapable of existing apart from a scientific procedure,

j
Philosophy has to consider its object in its necessity,
not, indeed, in
subjective necessity or external
its
arrangement, classification,
etc.,
but
it
has to unfold
and demonstrate the object out of the necessity of its
own
inner nature.
Until this evolution *
to pass the scientific element

*
is
is
brought,;
lacking to the
"Explication?
treat-
Zhap.
ART NOT UNSUITABLE.
I.]
merit.
In as
an object
af
21
however, as the objective necessity
far,
lies essentially in its logical
and metamust
physical nature, the isolated treatment of art
be conducted with a certain relaxation of scientific

stringency.
For
art involves the
most complex pre-
suppositions, partly in reference to
medium
its
content, partly
and element,f
which
in
respect of
is
constantly on the borders of the arbitrary or acci-
dental.
its
Thus
it
is
innermost progress of
its
content and of
we must
prescribed by
necessity.
its
call to
its
media of
mind the
outline
objection that works of fine art elude the
treatment of
scientific
thought because they originate
out of the unregulated fancy and out of the

are of a
art
only as regards the essential
expression that
The
in
number and
feelings,
variety that defy the attempt to
gain a conspectus, and therefore take effect only on

feeling
and
appears
still
imagination,
raises
to have importance.
problem which
For the beauty of
appear in a form which is expressly

thought, and which the latter
abstract
contrasted with
is forced to destroy in exerting the activity which is
art does in fact
This idea coheres with the opinion that

reality as such, the life of nature and of mind, is
disfigured and slain by comprehension that, so far
its
nature.
e.g. colour, sound, heavy matter, etc.

" Element " perhaps more especially any mental function
t
entering into art sense, imagination, understanding, etc.
* " Material,"
:
OBJECTIONS REFUTED.
i-z
[Chap.
I.
from being brought close to us by the thought which

comprehends,
it
is
by
it
that such
dissociated from us, so that,
by the use
the means of grasping what has
life,
himself off from this his purpose.

fully
on
life
is
of thought as
man
We
absolutely
rather cuts
cannot speak
this subject in the present passage,
but only
indicate the point of view from which the removal of

this
difficulty,
or impossibility depending on mal-
adaptation, might be effected.
be admitted, to begin with, that the mind
It will
capable of contemplating
itself,
is
and of possessing a
consciousness, and that a thinking consciousness, of

itself
and
to think
all
innermost
is
that
is
generated by
precisely that in
and essential
nature,
is
itself
gaining
and
behaving according to
its
its
this
pro-
essential
may
display, supposing only that
Now
they have mind in them.
in
art
\vorks as generated and created by the mind

are themselves of a spiritual nature, even
mode
its
however much freedom and caprice those
products
truth
mind
In
nature.
thinking consciousness concerning

ducts, the
Thought
itself.
which the mind has
real
and
its
(spirit),
if
their
of representation admits into itself the sem-
blance of
sensuous
sensuous with mind.
being,
and pervades what
In this respect art
is,
is
to begin
with, nearer to mind and its thinking activity than is

mere external unintelligent nature in works of art,
mind has to do but with its own. And even if artistic
;
Chap.
THE MIND KNO WS ITS CREA TIONS.
I.]
23
works are not abstract thought and notion, but are an

evolution of the notion out of itself, an alienation from
towards the sensuous,
itself
thinking
(mind)
spirit
still
the power of the
lies herein,
not merely to grasp
form of the self-conscious
itself only in its peculiar

spirit (mind),
but just as
much
to recognize itself in
alienation in the shape of feeling
its
and the sensuous,
by transmuting the metamorphosed

thought back into definite thoughts, and so restoring
in
it
of
other form,
its
to
itself.
itself
And
in this preoccupation with the other
the thinking spirit
itself as if forgetting
nor
is it
what
is
not to be held untrue to
or surrendering itself therein,
so weak as to lack strength to comprehend
different from itself, but it comprehends bothx

and its opposite. For the notion is the universal, which preserves itself in its particularizations,
dominates alike itself and its " other," and so becomes
the power and activity that consists in undoing the
alienation which it had evolved. And thus the work
of art in which thought alienates itself belongs, like
thought itself, to the realm of comprehending thought,
is
itself
and the mind,

tion, is
in subjecting
inmost nature.
and notion,
when
its
it
to scientific considera-
it
For because thought
can in the
last resort
has succeeded in imbuing
activity with thought,
time
it
thereby but satisfying the want of

is
made them genuinely
its
own
essence
only be satisfied
all
the products of
and has thus

its
its
own.
for the first
But, as
we
r
,
OBJECTIONS REFUTED.
24
more
shall see
definitely below, art
is
[Chap.
far
the highest form of mind, and receives
I.
from being
its
true rati-
only from science.*
fication
Just as
does art elude philosophical con-
little
sideration
by unbridled
indicated,
it is its
caprice.
As
has already been
true task to bring to consciousness
the highest interests of the mind.
Hence
it
follows
at once with respect to the content that fine art cannot
rove in the wildness of unfettered fancy, for these
determine definite basest for
spiritual
interests
content,
how manifold and
forms and shapes
may
the forms themselves.
inexhaustible soever
The same
be.
its
its
holds true for
They, again, are not at the
Not every plastic shape % is

capable of being the expression and representation
of those spiritual interests, of absorbing and of reproducing them
every definite content determines a
mercy of mere chance.
form suitable to
it.
In this aspect too, then,
we
are in a position to
find our bearings according to the needs of thought

in the
apparently unmanageable mass of works and
types of
art.
Thus,
hope,
we have begun by
defining the
* " Philosophy," "
Wissenschaft"
t " Haltpunkte :"
ultimate points that the matter of art

of, leading ideas that must somehow
must not leave hold
dominate it.
i " Gestaltung :" shaping, as
if
arrangement of shapes.
Thap.
ART NOT
I.]
:ontent
of
our science, to which
;onfine ourselves,
irt
CAPRICIOUS.
25
we propose
and have seen that neither
is
to
fine
unworthy of a philosophical consideration, nor
is
philosophical consideration incompetent to arrive
it
a knowledge of the essence of fine
art.
CHAPTER
II.
METHODS OF SCIENCE APPLICABLE TO BEAUTY

AND ART.
If
we now
investigate the reqtiired
consideration,
ways of
to
we
mode of
scientific
here again meet with two opposite
treating the subject, each of which appears
exclude the other, and so
to
hinder us
from
arriving at any true result.
On
one side we see the science of
art merely, so to
speak, busying itself about the actual productions of

art
from the outside, arranging them
history
of
art,
initiating
discussions
in series as a
about extant
works, or sketching out theories intended to provide

the general points of view that are to govern both
criticism
On
and
artistic
production.
the other side
we
see science
abandoning
independently to reflection upon the beautiful,

and producing mere generalities which do not touch
itself
the work of art in
its
peculiarity, creating, in short,
an abstract philosophy of the beautiful.
Chap.
II.]
1.
As
ART-SCHOLARSHIP.
regards the former
from the empirical
starts
27
mode of treatment, which
side, it is
the indispensable
road for any one who means to become a student of art.
And just
he
is
as in the present
day every one, even though
not busied with natural science, yet pretends to
be equipped with the essentials of physical knowledge, so
it
has become more or
man
a cultivated
less
obligatory for
some acquaintance with
to possess
and the pretension to display one's-self as a

and connoisseur is pretty universal.
art,*
dilettante
(a) If
such information
as art-scholarship,t
The
of wide range.
acquaintance
with
is
really to be recognized
must be of various kinds and
it
first
the
necessity
immeasurable
individual works of art of ancient and
works which
is
region
modern
have actually perished,
in part
exact
an
of
times,
in part
belong to distant countries or portions of the world,

or which adverse fortune has withdrawn from one's
own
its
observation.
age, to
its
Moreover, every work belongs to
nation,
and
to
its
environment, and
depends upon particular historical and other ideas

For this reason art-scholarship further
and aims.
requires a vast wealth of historical information of a
very special
kind,
seeing
nature of the work of art
that
is
the
related
individualized
to
individual
and demands special matter to aid in its comprehension and elucidation. And lastly, this kind
detail
" Kunstkenntniss."
t " Gelehrsamkeit."
28
METHODS OF ESTHETIC
SCIENCE.
[Chap.
II.
of scholarship not only needs, like every other, a
memory
but a vivid imagination
for information,
in
order to retain distinctly the images of artistic forms
and especially in order

them present to the mind for purposes of
in all their different features,
to have
comparison with other works.
Within
{p)
this
kind of consideration, which
is
primarily historical, there soon emerge various points
of view which cannot be lost sight of in contemplating
a work of
art,
inasmuch as our judgments must be
derived from them.
these points of view, as
which have an empirical
starting-
when extracted and put together form
universal
in other sciences
point,
Now
criteria
and
rules, and, in
still
further stage of formal
This
generalization, Theories of the arts.
is
not the
place to go into detail about literature of this kind,
and
it
may,
writings in
there
therefore,
For
the most general way.
particularly,
Poetica
mention a few
to
instance,
Aristotle's " Poetics," the theory of tragedy
is
contained in which
more
suffice
"
is still
among
and Longinus's
of interest
and
to speak
the ancients, Horace's

" Treatise
"
Ars
on the Sublime
"
a general idea of the way in which this

kind of theorizing has been carried on. The general
suffice to give
formulae which were abstracted
meant to stand
by such
writers were
precepts and rules,

according to which, particularly in times of degeneration of poetry and art, works of art were meant to
especially
as
Chap.
ART-PRESCRIPTIONS.
II.]
be produced.
The
29
prescriptions, however, compiled
by these physicians of
art
had even
less
assured
success than those of physicians whose aim
was the
restoration of health.
Respecting theories of this kind,
propose merely
to mention that, though in detail they contain
that
is
instructive, yet their
from a very limited

which passed
much
remarks were abstracted
circle
of artistic productions,
the genuinely beautiful ones, but
for
yet always belonged to a but narrow range of
And
again, such
reflections
which
establishment
formulae
in their
of
are
in
part very trivial
generality proceed
although this
particulars,
art.
to
no
the
is
matter of chief concern.
The above-mentioned Horatian

these reflections, and, therefore,
but one which for
amounts
"
"
He
to nothing,
very reason contains
e.g.
carries all votes,

useful,
reader."
This
"
epistle is full of
a book for
all
men,
much
that
Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci

Lectorem delectando pariterque monendo "
and the
e.g.
this
is
who
has mingled the pleasant
by at once charming and

is
just like so
instructing his
many copybook headings,*
Stay at home and earn an honest
which are right enough as
livelihood,"
generalities, but lack the
concrete determinations on which action depends.
Another kind of
* "
interest
was found, not
Paranetischen Lekren."
in the
METHODS OF AESTHETIC
30
SCIENCE.
[Chap.
II.
express aim of directly causing the production of
genuine works of
art,
but in the
purpose which
emerged of influencing men's judgment upon works

of art
by such theories, in short of forming taste.

Home's " Elements of Criticism,"
aspect,
this
In
the
writings of Batteux, and Ramler's " Introduction to
the Fine Arts," were works
Taste
in this sense
treatment, the
much
read in their day.
has to do with arrangement and
harmony and finish of what belongs to

work of art. Besides, they
the external aspect of a
brought
in
among
the principles of taste views that
belonged to the psychology that was then in vogue,
and that had been drawn from empirical observation

of capacities and activities of the soul, of the passions
and
it
their probable heightening, succession, etc.
remains invariably the case that every
works of
art,
man
But
judges
and incidents
insight and his feel-
or characters, actions,
according to the measure of his
and as that formation of taste only touched

what was meagre and external, and moreover drew
ings
its
precepts only from a narrow range of works of art
and from a bornf culture of intellect and feelings, its

whole sphere was inadequate, and incapable of seizing
the inmost and the true, and of sharpening- the eye
for the
apprehension thereof.
Such
theories proceed in general outline, as do the

remaining non-philosophic sciences.
The content
which they subject to consideration is borrowed from
if
*
!
>
'
Chap.
II.]
DEFINITIONS OF THE BEAUTIFUL.
our idea of
it,
as something found there
31
then further
questions are asked about the nature of this idea,
inasmuch as a need reveals itself for closer determinations, which are also found in our idea of the matter,
and drawn from

so doing,
we
it
debatable ground.
as
it
if
to be fixed in definitions.
But
in
on uncertain and
might indeed appear at first
find ourselves at once

It
the beautiful were a perfectly simple idea.
soon becomes evident that manifold sides
But
may be
in it, one of which is emphasized by one writer

and another by another, or, even if the same points of
view are adopted, a dispute arises on the question which
found
side after all
is
to be regarded as the essential one.
With a view
scientific
to such questions
it is
held a point of
completeness to adduce and to
various definitions of the beautiful.
We
criticize
will
do
the
this
neither with historical exhaustiveness, so as to learn

all
the subtleties which have emerged in the defining
process, nor for the sake of the historical interest
but
we
some
come
will
of the
simply produce by way of
more
interesting
illustration,
modern views which
pretty close in their purport to what in fact the
idea of the beautiful does involve.
For such purpose
we have chiefly to mention Goethe's account of the

beautiful, which Meyer embodied in his " History of
the Formative Arts * in Greece," on which occasion he
* "
Bildenden Kiinste." I am not sure if I have given the

It is wider than Plastik, because it includes
best rendering.
painting
and
architecture.
METHODS OF ESTHETIC
32
brings
also
forward
SCIENCE.
view,
Hirt's
[Chap.
II.
though without
mentioning him.
Hirt,
in
one of the greatest of genuine connoisseurs
the present day, in
his
brochure about
artistic
beauty (Horen* 1797, seventh number), after speaking of the beautiful in the several arts,
sums up
his
ideas in the result that the basis of a just criticism
of beauty in art and of the formation of taste
conception of the Characteristic.
That
is
defines the beautiful as the "perfect, which
be an object of eye,
ear, or imagination."
is
to say, he
is
or can
Then he
goes on to define the perfect as "that which
adequate to
its
the
is
aim, that which nature or art aimed
at producing within the given
genus and species]!
in
the formation of the object."
For which reason,
in
order to form our judgment on a question of beauty,
we ought
to direct our observation as far as possible
marks which constitute a definite

essence.
For it is just these marks that form its
characteristics.
And so by character as the law of
art he means " that determinate individual modificato the individual
tion \
*
by
whereby forms, movement and
Die Horen
the
gesture, bearing
monthly magazine whose establishment
Schiller, in
1795, fir st brought Schiller and Goethe into

It only existed for three yearsSee Scherer, Eng.
contact.
Trans.,
ii.
173.
t That is, not a caprice of nature or art, but the perfection

of the object after its kind.
\ " Individuality."
Zhap.
THE CHARACTERISTIC.
II.]
33
ind expression, local colour, light and shade, chiaro-r

scuro *
and attitude distinguish themselves,
in con-
brmity, of course, with the requirements of an object
This formula gives us at once
Dreviously selected."
something more significant than the other definitions,

[f
we go on
see that
what
to ask
" the characteristic "
involves in the
it
first
place a content,
is,
we
as, for
nstance, a particular feeling, situation, incident, action,

Individual
and secondly, the mode and fashion in

embodied in a representation,
ivhich this content is

[t
irtistic
is
law of the
''
of representation, that the
of expression shall subserve the definite indica-
tion of
its
content and be a
The
Df that content.
member
priateness with
form
irtistic
expression
abstract formula of the charac-
which the particular
sets
in
relief
intended to represent.
conception in
If
detail
of the
the content which
we
it
it
desire to illustrate
a quite popular way,
explain the limitation which

[n
in the
thus has reference to the degree of appro-
teristic
this
inasmuch
characteristic " refers,
requires that every particular element in the
it
mode
is
mode
to this, the
is
we may
involves as follows.
a dramatic work, for instance, an action forms
:he content
the
drama f is to represent how this

Now, men and women do all
iction takes place.

sorts
of things
*
t
they speak to each other from time
" Helldunkel."
"
Drama," Gr.
Spapa
= Handlung, " action."

D
METHODS OF ÊSTHETIC
34
to time, at intervals
[Chap.
in all this,
II.
put on their
eat, sleep,
one thing and another, and so
clothes, say
But
they
SCIENCE.
whatever does not stand
in
forth.
immediate
connection with that particular action considered as

the content proper,
reference to
it
is
nothing
to
be excluded, so that
may
be without import.
So,
only represented a single phase of
too, a picture, that
that action, might yet include in
it
so wide are the

a multitude
ramifications of the external world
moment have no
that
at
action in question,
of
and other matters
circumstances, persons, positions,
which
in
reference to the
and are not subservient
to
its
distinctive character.
But, according to the rule of the characteristic,
only so
belongs
much ought
to
the
to enter into the
display* and,
work of
essentially,
expression of that content and no other
must announce
This
fied
in
is
itself as otiose
a certain aspect.
view has vanished and
^.judgment, to the benefit of
may
be
Meyer, however,
it
left
as his
no
art.
the
for nothing
superfluous.
a very important rule, which
above-mentioned work, gives

this
and
art as
to
justi-
in
his
opinion that
trace, and, in his
For he thinks
that
the conception in question would probably have led

to caricature.
This judgment at once contains the
perversity of implying that such a determination of
the beautiful had to do with leading.

* "
Erscheinung."
The Philosophy
Chap.
II.]
OBJECTION TO" CHARACTERISTIC?
of art does not trouble
but
it
how
it
has displayed
works of
about precepts for
find
it
be
to
general
in
itself in actual
this, if
true,
we examine
no doubt, that
the criticism,
Hirt's definition
for
characteristic
on the other hand,
but,
even
answered at once that

speak,
is
and
productions, in
includes caricature,
character
artists,
is,
without meaning to give rules for guid-
art,
Apart from
ance.
we
itself
has to ascertain what beauty
3;
caricature
in
intensified, to exaggeration,
superfluity
of
superfluity ceases to be
may be
must be
a caricature
it
the
definite
and
is,
the characteristic.
what
is
so to
But a
properly required in
order to be characteristic, and becomes an offensive
whereby the
iteration,
made
unnatural.
caricature
shows
characteristic
Moreover, what
itself in
teristic representation
may be
itself
of the nature of
the light of the charac-
of what
of course, a distortion.
is,
is
is
ugly,
which ugliness
Ugliness, for
its
closely connected with the content, so that
it
part, is
may
be
said that the principle of the characteristic involves as
a fundamental property both ugliness and the repre-
what is ugly. Hirt's definition, of course,

no more precise information as to what is to be
characterized and what is not, in the artistically beautisentation of
gives
ful,
in
or about the content of the beautiful, but
this respect
:ontains
Then
some
a mere formal
truth,
rule,
it
furnishes
which nevertheless
although stated in abstract shape.
follows the further question
what
Meyer
36
opposes to Hirt's
artistic principle,
He
self prefers.
SCIENCE.
i.e.
what he him-
shown
in the artistic
principle, however,
of the ancients, which
clude the essential attribute * of beauty.
he
subject
this
is
and Winckelmann's
pronounces
to
himself
the
speak
to
led
principle *
of
effect
to reject nor wholly
neither
II.
treating, in the first place, ex-
is
clusively of the principle
with
[Chap.
the
that
works
must
in-
In dealing
Mengs
of
Ideal,
and
he desires
accept this law of
to
beauty, but, on the other hand, has no hesitation in
of an enlightened
attaching himself to the opinion
judge of art (Goethe), as
enigma more
solve the
Goethe
says
"
it
is definite,t
and seems
to
precisely.
The
highest
of the
principle
ancients was the significant, but the highest result of

successful treatment, the beautiful."
If
we
find in
in hand,
look closer at what this opinion implies, we

again two elements
it
we begin with what
sents itself immediately to us,
consider what
is its
and
after that
pre-
go on
to
significance or content.
former, the external element, has no value for
us simply as
behind
the content or matter
and the mode and fashion of representation.
In looking at a work of art
The
it,
it
stands
we assume something
further
something inward, a significance, by which
the external semblance has a soul breathed into

* " Bestimmung.'"
% " Begeistet wird"
" Besti?)nnend."
"Is spiritualized."
it.J
Chap.
THE SIGNIFICANT.
II.]
It is this, its soul, that
37
the external appearance indi-
For an appearance which means something,

does not present to the mind's eye itself and that
which it is qua external, but something else as does
cates.
the symbol for instance, and
more obviously the

whose moral and precept constitutes its meanIndeed eveiy word points to a meaning and has
fable,
ing.
no value
jfa.ce,
!
soul,
human
Just so the
in itself.
flesh, skin, his
mind and
still
and
whole
in this case the
meaning
something other than what shows

,
immediate appearance.
This
work of
its
art
should have
is
eye, a man's
a revelation of
figure, are
always
within the
itself
the
is
way
which a
in
meaning, and not appear
as exhausted in these mere particular lines, curves,

surfaces, borings, reliefs in the stone, in these colours,
tones, sounds, of words, or whatever other
employed
but
it
should reveal
import and mind, which

significance of a
art
work of
just
is
life,
from Hirt's principle of the

this
is
soul,
what we mean by the
art.
Thus this requirement of significance

amounts to hardly anything beyond
According to
medium
^feeling,
in a
work of
or different
characteristic.
notion, then,
we
find
distin-
guished as the elements of the beautiful something

inward, a cofitent, and something outer which has that
content as
its
significance
outer and gives itself
much
the inner shows
to be known by
as the outer points
its
itself in
the
means, inas-
away from itself to
the inner.
METHODS OF ÊSTHETIC SCIENCE.
38
We cannot go
(c)
But the
into detail
on
[Chap.
II.
this head.
earlier fashion alike of rules
and of
theories has already been violently thrown aside in
Germany
especially
owing to the appearance of
genuine living poetry,
works and
and
their effects,
the jjghts_of genius,
have had
its
their value asserted
against the encroachment of such legalities and against
the
wide watery streams of theory.
foundation both of an art which

spiritual,
with
it,
is
From
itself
this
genuinely
and of a general sympathy and communion
have arisen the receptivity and freedom which
enabled us to enjoy and to recognize the great works

of art which have long been in
those of the
existence, whether
modern world,* of the middle
even of peoples of antiquity quite alien to us

Indian productions)
foreign
content
element
common
in
to
their foreign character

is
{e.g.
works which by reason of
antiquity or of their alien nationality have,

a
ages, or
the
their
no doubt,
them, yet in view of their
all
humanity and dominating
could
not have been branded
products of bad and barbarous taste, except by
the prejudices of theory.
This recognition, to speak
works of art which depart from the

sphere and form of those upon which more especially
generally, of
:he
abstractions of theory were based, led, in the
Srst instance, to
the recognition of a peculiar kind
I have no doubt he means Shakespeare, who

was unpopular
n Germany before Goethe's time. Vide " Wilhelm Meister."
Chap.
RIGHTS OF GENIUS.
II.]
of art
that
is,
of romantic
became necessary
to
art,
and
possible for those theories.

viz.
With
its side,
its
self-con-
attained at this time,
a deeper self-knowledge in philosophy,
and was thereby

essence of
way than was
this influence there
that the idea in
scious form, the thinking mind,
on
therefore
it
apprehend the idea and the
nature of the beautiful in a deeper
co-operated another,
39
directly impelled to understand the
art, too, in
a profounder fashion.
Thus, then, even judging by the phases of this

more general evolution of ideas, the theoretical mode
of reflection upon art which we were considering
has become antiquated alike in its principles and
Only the scholarship of the hisin its particulars.
tory of art has retained its permanent value, and
cannot but retain it, all the more that the advance
of intellectual receptivity, of which
extended
its
we
range of vision on every
spoke, has
Its
side.
business and vocation consists in the aesthetic appreciation of individual
with
the
condition
historical
such
made with
works of
sense
and
circumstances
works
requisite historical
art,
and
an
in acquaintance
that
externally
appreciation
mind,
information,
supported
is
which,
if
by the
the only power'
that can penetrate the entire individuality of a
work
of art. Thus Goethe, for instance, wrote much about

Theorizing proper
art and particular works of art.
is
not the purpose of this
mode
of consideration,
40
although no doubt
abstract principles
who does
[Chap.
and
categories,
not
may
and
aware of
give
for
hinder him, but keeps
let this
which we spoke of just now,
way
But
it
him the concrete accounts of works of
before
II.
frequently busies itself with
it
to this tendency without being
a reader
SCIENCE.
it
art,
at all events furnishes
the philosophy of art with the perceptible illustrations
and
instances, into the particular historical details of
which philosophy cannot

This^ then,
the study of
may be
enter.
taken to be the
art, starting
first
mode
of
from particular and extant
works.
2. There is an essential distinction between this
and the opposite aspect, the wholly theoretical reflection, which made an effort to understand beauty as
such out of
itself alone,
and
to get to the
bottom of
its idea.
It is
well
known
that Plato
was the
first
to require
of philosophical study, in a really profound sense, that

its
objects should be apprehended, not in their par-
but in their universality, in their genius,

their own nature and its realization
inasmuch as
ticularity,
in
he affirmed that the truth of things * did not consist
good actions, true opinions, beautiful

human beings or works of art, but in goodness, beauty^
truth themselves.
Now, if the beautiful is in fact
in
to
individual
be known according to
* "
Das Wahre
its
essence and conception,
seyen nicht die einzelnen," etc.
Chap.
PURE THEORY.
II.]
this is only possible
41
by help of the thinking
idea,
by
means of which the logico-metaphysical nature of the

Idea as such, as also that of the particular Idea of the
But
beautiful enters into the thinking consciousness.
the study of the beautiful in
own
in its
idea
may
its
separate nature and
turn into an abstract Meta-
itself
and even though Plato is accepted in such art

inquiry as foundation and as guide, still the Platonic
abstraction must not satisfy us, even for the logical
idea of beauty. We must understand this idea more
profoundly and more in the concrete, for the emptiness
of content which characterizes the Platonic idea is
no longer satisfactory to the fuller philosophical
wants of the mind of to-day. Thus it is, no doubt,
the case that we, too, in modern times, must in our
philosophy of art start from the idea of the beautiful>
physic,
we ought not
but
ideas,
to abide
by
the fashion of Platonic
which was purely abstract, and was the mere
beginning of the philosophic study of beauty.
The
.3.
indicate
its
philosophic conception of the beautiful, to

true nature at least
contain, reconciled within
it,
by
anticipation,
must
the two extremes which
have been mentioned, by combining metaphysical

universality with the determinateness of real particularity.
real
own
Only thus
is it
apprehended
and explicit nature.
It is
then
in its truth, in its

fertile
out of
its
resources, in contrast to the barrenness of one-
sided reflection.
pFor
it
has in accordance with
its
42
METHODS OF AESTHETIC
own conception to develop into a

while the conception
SCIENCE.
On
and
II.
totality of attributes,
itself as well as
exposition contains the necessity of

also of their progress
[Chap.
its
its
detailed
particulars, as
transition one into
anotherj
the other hand, again, these particulars, to which
the transition
sality
and
ticulars
is
made, carry in themselves the univer-
essentiality of the conception as the par-
of which
they
consideration of which
appear.
we have
The modes
of
so far been treating,
lack both these qualities,* and for this reason
only the complete conception of which
we have
it is
just
spoken that can lead to substantive, necessary, and

self-complete determinations.
* The exhibition of particulars as contained in the
and of the principle as contained in particulars.
principle,
CHAPTER
III.
THE CONCEPTION OF ARTISTIC BEAUTY.

'art
The Work, of Art
I.
^lFTER the above
as
Made and
prefatory remarks,
as Sensuous.
we approach
loser to our subject, the philosophy of artistic beauty,
as we are undertaking
we must begin with its
nasmuch
ifically
ill
we have
to treat it,scien-
ut the division, and with

f the science
it
Not
we map
Conceftioti.
established this conception can
the plan of the entirety
for a division, if
it is
not, as is the case
ath unphilosophical inquiries, taken in hand in a

urely external manner, must find
onception of the object
its
principle in the
itself.
demand we are at once met

"Whence do we get this conception ?
In presence of such a
y the question,
f
we begin with
eauty
itself,
that
the given conception of artistic

is
enough
on and mere assumption

re
not admitted
by
to
;
make
it
a pre-supposi-\
now, mere assumptions
the philosophical method, but
u"
44
CONCEPTION OF ARTISTIC BEAUTY.
whatever
allows to pass must have
it
monstrated,
We
i.e.
its
[Chap.
III.
truth de-
displayed as necessary.
devote a few words to coming to an
will
understanding upon this
difficulty,
which concerns the
introduction to every philosophical branch of study
when taken in hand by itself.

The object of every science
two aspects
second place, what
in the
In ordinary science
first
of these points.
little difficulty
might even, at
It
astronomy and physics
nomena,
was a
is;
attaches to the
first sight,
were presented
look
that, in
should be demonstrated
it
sun, heavenly bodies, magnetic phe-
In these sciences, which have to do
etc.
with what
prima facie
such an object
it is.
ridiculous, if the requirement
that there
presents
in the first place, that
given to sense, the objects are taken
is
from external experience, and instead of demonstrating them
them
("
("
beweisen
weisen
").
") it is
it
may
e.g.
be doubted
sufficient to
show
Yet even within the non-philoso-
may arise about the existence of
phical sciences, doubts

their objects, as
thought
in psychology, the science of mind,

if
there
is
a soul, a mind,
i.e.
some-
thing subjective, separate, and independent, distinct
from what
is.
If,
is
material
or in theology, whether a God
moreover, the objects are of subjective kind,
are given only in the mind,
and not as external

sensuous objects, we are confronted by our conviction
i.e.
that there is -nothing in the
mind but what
its
own
ictivity
BEAUTY A FACT?
IS
Ihap. III.]
)r
This brings up the accidental
has produced.
men have produced
mestion whether
45
this inner idea
perception in their minds or not, and even
if
the
brmer is actually the case, whether they have not

nade the idea in question vanish again, or at any
:ontent has
it to a merely subjective idea, whose

no natural and independent being. So,
for instance,
the beautiful has often been regarded as
ate
degraded
not naturally
ideas,
Our
sense.
perceptions
still
and independently necessary
in
our
but as a mere subjective pleasure or accidental
more
is
external
intuitions,
observations,
and
are often deceptive and erroneous, but

this the case with the inner ideas,
even
if
they have in themselves the greatest vividness, and

are forcible
enough to transport us
passion.
irresistibly into
This doubt whether an object of inward ideas and

inward perception as such
is
or
is
not, as also the
accidental question whether the subjective conscious-
and whether the act or

before itself was in its
turn adequate to the object in its essential and independent nature all this is just what aroused in men
the higher scientific need, which demands that, even
ness has produced
it
mode
brought
in
which
it
in
itself,
it
if
we have an
idea that an object
is,
or that there
is
such an object, the object must yet be displayed or
demonstrated
This proof,
in
terms of
if it is
its
necessity.
developed in a really
scientific
46
[Chap.
III.
way, must also satisfy the further question What an
expound this relation would carry

and we can only make the
following remarks on the point.
object
But
is.
to
us too far in this place,
If
I
we
are to display the necessity of our object,
the beautiful in
art,
we should have
to prove that art
or beauty was a result of antecedents such
when
as,
considered in their true conception, to lead us on with

idea of fine
scientific necessity to the
far as
we begin with
essence of
its
in as
treat of the
idea and of the realization of that idea,
not of antecedents which go before

its idea,
But
art.
and propose to
art,
it
as demanded by
so far art, as a peculiar scientific object, has,
for us, a pre-supposition
sideration,
which
lies
and which, being a
beyond our con-
different content, be-
longs in scientific treatment to a different branch of
ôr
philosophical study,
it
whole of philosophy that
nothing short of the
is
is
the knowledge of the
universe as in itself one single organic totality which
develops
itself
out of
own
its
conception, and which,
returning into itself so as to form a whole in virtue of

the
necessity in
binds
itself
which
it
together with
is
placed towards
itself into
itself,
one single world
of truthtT In the coronal of this scientific necessity,

A each individual
returns into
part
itself,
as
is
it
just as
has,
much a
at the
same
necessary connection with other parts.

tion
is
backward out of which
it
circle that
derives
time, a
This connecitself,
as well
Chap.
WE START FROM COMMON IDEAS.
III.]
own
as a forward, to which in
its
on and on,
it is
in as far as
matter out of
range of
itself,
and issuing
knowledge.
scientific
nature
fertile
it
impels
by creating
it
47
itself
fresh
into the further
Therefore,
it
is
not
our present aim to demonstrate the idea of beauty

from, which
to
its
its
we
set out, that
is,
to derive
it
according
necessity from the pre-suppositions which are
antecedents in science.
This task belongs to an
encyclopaedic development of philosophy as a whole
and of
its
particular branches.
beauty and of art
is
system of philosophy.
discuss this system,
we have
For
us, the idea
of
a pre-supposition jjiyen in the"
But as we cannot
in this place
and the connection of
art with
it,
not yet the idea of the beautiful before us in
a scientific form; what we have at command are

merely the elements and aspects of it, as they are
or have at former periods been presented, in the
diverse ideas of the beautiful and of art in the mere
common consciousness. Having started from this
point, we shall subsequently pass to the more profound
consideration of
the views
in
question,
in
order
thereby to gain the advantage of, in the first place,

obtaining a general idea of our object, and further, by
a brief criticism effecting a preliminary acquaintance

with its higher principles, with which we shall have to
do
in the sequel.
By
this
mode
of treatment our
final introduction will act, so to speak, as the overture
to the account of the subject
itself,
and
will serve the
48
[Chap.
III.
purpose of a general collection and direction of our

thoughts towards the proper object-matter of our
discussion.
What we know,
work of
of the
art,
general predicates
(i)
We
to begin with, as a current idea
comes under the three following
suppose the work of art to be no natural
product, but brought to pass
by means of human
activity.
To be
(2)
made for man, and, indeed,

borrowed from the sensuous and
essentially
to be more or
less
addressed to man's sense.

(3)
1.
is
To contain an end.
As regards the first
taken to be a product of
has given
rise (a) to
point, that a
human
work
of art
activity, this
view
the view that this activity, being
the conscious production of an external object, can

also be
known and expounded, and learnt, and proseFor, what one can do, it might
,
cuted by others.
seem, another can do,* or imitate,t as soon as he

is acquainted with the mode of procedure
so that,
;
supposing universal
familiarity
artistic production, it
would only be a matter of any
with
the
rules
of
one's will and pleasure to carry out the process in
a uniform way, and so to produce works of art. It

thus that the above-mentioned rule-providing
is
theories
*
and
their precepts, calculated for practical
"Machen."
"NacA-macken."
:hap.
RULES IN ART.
III.]
ibservance,
have
49
But that which can be~
arisen.
xecuted according' t o such in structio n, can only be

omething formally regular and mechanical.
mly what
mechanical
is
is
hat no more than a purely

.nd dexterity
deas
and put
is
it
required
in act
For'
of such an external kind
empty
to
exercise of will
receive
it
among
our
such an exercise not needing
be supplemented by anything concrete, or anyhing that goes beyond the precepts conveyed in
This
;eneral rules.
irecepts of the
elves to
>ut
what
most vividly displayed when
purely external and mechanical,
is
extend to the meaning-laden
f true art.
>ut
is
kind in question do not limit them-
spiritual
activity
In this region the rules contain nothing
The theme ought to

and each individual ought to be made
indefinite generalities
e interesting,
e.g. "
speak according to his rank, age, sex, and position."

Jut if rules are meant to be adequate on this subject,
3
tieir
precepts ought to have been
drawn up with
uch determinateness that they could be carried out

they are expressed, without further and
jst as
riginal activity of mind.
1
their
content,
Being abstract, however,
such rules
reveal
themselves, in
aspect of their pretension of being adequate to

ae consciousness of the
lasmuch as
1
artistic
artist, as
production
is
not formal activity
For it is
work by drawing on
accordance with given determinations.
ound
as spiritual activity to
fill
wholly inadequate,
50
its

own
resources,
[Chap.
III.
and to bring before the mind's eye
a quite other and richer content and ampler individual
than any
creations
Such
may
rules
abstract
can
formulae
dictate.
furnish guidance in case of need,
if
they contain anything really definite, and therefore

i
of practical
utility
but their directions can only
apply to purely external circumstances.

{b)
The tendency which we have
has therefore been abandoned, and,
just
indicated
in place of
it,
the
opposite principle has been pursued to no less lengths.
For the work of
came
art
to be regarded
no longer
as the product of an activity general in mankind, but

as the
work of a^mind endowed with wholly
gifts.
This mind,
it
do but simply to give
peculiar
thought, has then nothing to
is
free
play to
its
particular
gift,
as
though
to
be entirely released from attention, to laws of
it
were a
specific force of nature,
universal validity, as also from
its
it
is
is
the interference of
reflection in its instinctively creative operation.
indeed,
and
to be guarded therefrom,
And,
inasmuch
as
productions could only be infected and tainted
by such a consciousness. In this aspect the work

of art was pronounced to be the product of talent
and genius, and stress was laid on the natural element
which talent and genius contain.
The view was
partly right.
Talent
endow
is specific,
and genius
universal
which a man has not the power to

himself simply by his own self-conscious
capability, with
Chap.
INSPIRATION IN ART.
III.]
We
activity.
treat
shall
this
51
point more fully in
the sequel.
In this place
we have only
to mention the aspect
of falsity in the view before us, in thaâll consciousness respecting the man's own_activjty was held, in
the case of artistic production, not merely superfluous^
but eyen_jnj urious.
Production on the part of talent
and genius then appears,
and, in particular, as a state of inspiration.
a state,
object,
said,
it is
and
genius
in part it
will to place itself
is
in part excited
has the power of
state,
To
such
by a given
its
own
free
therein, in which process, moreover,
the good service of the

forgotten.
in general_terms, as
champagne
bottle
This notion became prominent
in
is
not
Germany
of genius, which was introduced

by the early poetical productions of Goethe, and subsequently sustained by those of Schiller.* In their
in the so-called epoch
works these poets began everything anew,

scorn of all the rules which had then been fabri-
earliest
in
cated, transgressed these rules of set purpose, and,
while doing
I
will
so,
distanced
not enter more
all rivals
by a long
closely into
interval.
the confusions
which have prevailed respecting the conception of

inspiration and genius, and which prevail even at the
present day respecting the omnipotence of inspiration
* See Appendix to Eng. Trans, of Scherer, ii. 347. Goethe's
" Gotz von Berlichingen " appeared in 1773 ; Schiller's "Raliber"
in 1781.
52
as such.
We
view
though the
that,
III.
need only lay down as essential the
it
essentially in need
is
of cultivation
by thought, and of
mode
it
which
and genius con-
artist's talent
tains a natural element, yet
in
[Chap.
on the
reflection
produces, as well as of practice and
main feature of such production is unquestionably external workmanship, inasmuch as the work of art has a purely technical side,
most
which extends into the region of handicraft
especially in architecture and sculpture, less so in
skill in
producing.
painting and music, least of
poetry.
all in
Skill in
comes not by inspiration, but solely by reflection,

industry, and practice and such skill is indispensable
this
to the artist, in order that he
material,
may
and not be thwarted by
Moreover, the higher an
master his external

its
stubbornness.
artist ranks, the
more
profoundly ought he to represent the depths of heart
and mind
and these are not known without learning
Ihem, but are only to be fathomed by the direction

of a man's
So
own mind
here, too, study
is
and outer
to the inner
the means whereby the
world.
artist
brings this content into his consciousness, and wins

the matter and burden of his conceptions.
In this respect one art
may
need the conscious-
ness and cognition of such matter
more than
Music, for instance, which concerns

the undefined
movement
itself
others.
only with
of the inward spiritual nature,
and deals with musical sounds
as,
so to speak, feeling
Chap.
THE NEED OF STUDY.
III.]
without thought, needs
little
53
or no spiritual content
to be present in consciousness.
It is for this reason

si
that musical talent generally announces itself in very-
empty and the 7

moved, and is capable of
early youth, while the head
heart has been but
little
is
still
attaining to a very considerable height in early years,
before
And
mind and
have experience of themselvesr
life
again, as a matter of fact
we
often
enough see
very great expertness in musical composition, as also

in execution, subsist
of
mind and
poetry.
along with remarkable barrenness
The
character.
In poetry
which must be
all
full
reverse
is
the case with
depends on the representation,
of matter and thought
</3'
of man,
of his profounder interests, and of the powers that
move
him and therefore mind and heart themselves must^

be richly and profoundly educated by life, experience,
and reflection, before genius can bring to pass any;
thing mature, substantial, and self-complete.
and
Schiller's first productions are of
Goethe's
an immaturity,
and even of a rudeness and barbarism, that are absoThis phenomenon, that the greater
lutely terrifying.
part of those attempts display a predominant mass of
thoroughly prosaic and in part of frigid and commonplace elements, furnishes the chief objection to the
common
opinion, that inspiration
youth and youthful

it
may be
said,
fire.
were the
first
of true poetry, and yet
is
inseparable from
Those two men of

it
genius,
to give our nation works
was only
their
mature
54
manhood
* that
inspiration,
Thus,
while no less thoroughly perfect in form.

it
was not
till
III.
presented us with creations profound,
and the outcome of genuine
substantial,
[Chap.
his old
age that
Homer
too,
devised and
uttered his immortal songs.

(c)
work of
third view,
which concerns the idea of the
art as a product of
human
activity, refers to
work towards the external

appearances of nature. It was an obvious opinion
for the common consciousness to adopt on this head,
that the work of art made by man ranked below the.
product of nature. The work of art has no feeling
in itself, and is not through and through a living
the position of such a
thing, but, regarded as
an external object,
is
dead.
But we are wont to prize the living more than the
We
must admit, of course, that the work of

art has not in itself movement and life. An animated
being in nature is within and without an organization
dead.
down
appropriately elaborated
parts, while the
animation on
stone, or
is
work of
its
to
all
art attains the
its
semblance of
surface only, but within
wood and
canvas,
idea, uttering itself in
or,
minutest
is
common
as in the case of poetry,
speech and
letters.
But
this
* The " Iphigenie '" was completed in Goethe's thirty-eighth

year, fourteen years later* than " Gbtz."
The bulk of his great
works are of the same date as the " Iphigenie," or later. See
Scherer,
ii.
152,
was completed
and Appendix,
1.
c.
"
Schiller's " Wallenstein
after his thirty-fifth year.
Chap.
ART AND NATURE.
III.]
55
aspect, viz. its external existence, is not
what makes
a work into a production of fine art it is a work of
art on l y in as far as, being the offspring of mindît
continue sjt o belong to the realm of mind, has receiver^
;
thebaptism_of the
spiritual, and only rep resents that

which has been moulded. Jn harmony with mind.
human
interest, the spiritual value
which attaches to
an incident, to an individual character, to an action in

plot and in its denoiiment, is apprehended in the
its
and exhibited more purely * and transparently than is possible on the soil of common
unartistic reality. This gives the work of art a higher
rank than anything produced by nature, which has
work of
art,
not sustained this passage through the mind.
So, for
by reason of the feeling and insight of which

a landscape as depicted by an artist is a manifestation,
such a work of mind assumes a higher rank than
instance,
the mere natural landscape.

is
better than
existence in
For everything
At any
anything natural.
nature
is
able,
like art,
divine ideals.
to
spiritual
rate,
n>'
represent
Upon that which, in works of art, the mind borrows

from its own inner life it is able, even on the side of
external existence, to confe r permanence; whereas the
i
ndivi dual living thing of nature
ing^ and mutable in

persists.
its
is
transient, vanish- -,
aspect,while the
Though, indeed,
* Free from
it is
work of
art 1
not mere permanence,
irrelevancies.
56
CONCEPTION OF ARTISTIC BEA UTY.
[Chap.
III.
but the accentuation of the character which animation
by mind
confers, that constitutes
eminence as compared with natural
genuine pre-
its
reality.
Nevertheless, this higher rank assigned to the work
of art
common
turn disputed
in
is
consciousness.
by another idea of the
It is said that
nature and
its
products are a work of God, created by his goodness
and wisdom, whereas the work of art is merely a

human production, made after man's devising by
man's hands.
In this antithesis between natural pro-
duction as a divine creation and
merely
human
activity as a
we at once come upon the misGod does not work in man and
finite creation,
conception,
that
through man, but limits the range of his activity to

n ature al one^. This false opinion is to be entirely
abandoned
tion of art.
if
we mean
to penetrate the true concep-
Indeed, in opposition to such an idea,
we
must adhere to the very reverse, believing that God

is more honoured by what mind does or makes than
by the productions or formations of nature. For not
only
tive
is
there a divinity in man, but in
under a form that
of God, in a
nature.
the
mode
Jjod_is __a_
is
quite other
Spirit,
has the form of conscious
and
medium through which
itself.
him
it is
opera-
appropriate to the essence
it
and higher than

is
only
in
man
in
that
the divine element passes
spirit,
that actively realizes
In nature the corresponding
medium
unconscious, sensible, and external, which
is
far
is
the
below
Chap.
MAN'S NEED OF ART.
III.]
consciousness in value.
isjjperatiye neither
mena
itself
of nature
known
In
57
in the
but the divine element, as
in the
work of
God
th e products of art
more nor Jessjthan

art,
pheno-
it
makes
has attained, as being
generated out of the mind, an adequate thoroughfare

for its existence
while existence in the unconscious
sensuousness of nature
is
not a
mode
of appearance
adequate to the Divine Being.
work of art is made

we come to the last
enable us to draw a deeper result
(d) Granting, then, that the
by man
as a creation of mind,
question,
which
will
from what has been
said.
produce works of art
duction
may
What
On
man's need to
is
the one hand the pro-
be regarded as a mere toy of chance and
of man's fancies, that might just as well be

as pursued.
better
For,
means
it
may
be
let
alone
said, there are other
for effecting that
which
is
and
the aim of
art,
and man bears in him interests that are yet higher

and of more import than art has power to satisfy.
But, on the other hand,lart appears to arise from the
higher impulse and to satisfy the higher needs, at
times, indeed, even the highest, the absolute need of
man, being wedded to the religious interests of whole

epochs and peoples, and to their most universal intuitions respecting the world.~l
This inquiry concerning
the not contingent but absolute need of art
we cannot
as yet answer completely, seeing that
more con-
crete than
it is
any shape which could here be given
to
58
the answer.*
We
[Chap.
III.
must, therefore, content ourselves
for the present with
merely establishing the following
points.
The
on
man
universal
and absolute need out of which
formal side,f arises has
its
is
its
art,
source in the fact that
a thinking consciousness,
i.e.
that he draws out
of himself, and makes explicit for himself, that which
he
/
is,
and, generally, whatever
nature are only immediate
is.
The
things of
and single, but man
as
mind
Reduplicates himself, inasmuch as prima facie he
is
but in the second place just
like the things of nature,
for himself, perceives himself, has ideas of

himself, thinks himself, and only thus is active selfas really
is
realizedness.J
This consciousness of himself
obtains in a twofold
in as far as
own
way
man
in the first place tlieoretically,
he has inwardly to bring himself into
consciousness, with
all
that
and works
breast, all that stirs

rally, to
moves
in the
his
human
therein, and, gene-
observe and form an idea of himself, to
fix
before himself what thought ascertains to be his real

being, and, in
as in
what
i.e.
what
it
is
summoned
out of his inner
self
received from without, to recognize only
Secondly,
himself.
ing on a
is
man
is
realized for himself
by
requires a definite or determinate answer, depend-
number of
ideas which cannot be explained in an
introduction.
t
i.e.
considered generally, apart from the wishes and, per-
haps, selfish aims of individual

\ " Fursichsein."
artists.
Chap.
MAN MUST
III.]
ACT.
59
practical activity, inasmuch as he has the impulse, in
the
medium which
is
directly
given to him, and
externally presented before him, to produce himself,
and therein at the same time to recognize himself.
by the modification of
"This purpose he achieves
external things upon which he impresses the seal of

his inner being,
own
and then
Man
characteristics.
subject
his
does this in order as a free
world of
the outer
to strip
them
finds repeated in
stubborn
its
and to enjoy in the shape and fashion of

things a mere external reality of himself* Even the
foreignness,
child's
impulse involves
first
cation of external things.
this practical modifi-
boy throws stones
into
the river, and then stands admiring the circles that

trace themselves on the water, as an effect in which
he attains the sight of something that
is
his
own
doing.
This need traverses the most manifold phenomena, up

to the
mode
art.
And
it
medium
of self-production in the
external things as
is
treats in this
it is
known
to us in the
man
not only external things that
way, but himself no
less,
i.e.
his
own
natural form, which he does not leave as he finds
but alters of set purpose.
This
ornament and decoration, though
is
the cause of
may
it
of
work of
it,
all
be as bar-
barous, as tasteless, as utterly disfiguring or even

destructive
as
slitting the ears
crushing Chinese ladies'
and
lips.
* Reality derivative
It is
only
from
his
feef,
among
own
reality.
or as
cultivated
60
men
from
mode
of self-utterance emanate
spiritual education.-^
The
universal
need for expression in art %
and outer world
into a spiritual consciousness forjhim
which he recognizes his own
as an object in
satisfies the
he makes
and
all
himself,
need of
way
in this reduplication o
him into vision and into know

own mind and for that of others. This
is
in
the free rationality of man, in which, as
knowledge, so also art has

origin.
sell
freedom whei
realizes this his explici
evoking thereby,
what
ledge for his
this spiritual
that exists explicit for himself within
corresponding
in a
self without,
lies
impulse to exalt the inne
therefore, in jnan's rational
He
II]
that change of the figure* of behaviour, an<
of every kind and
self,
[Chap.
The
tradistinction
specific
all
action anc
ground and_ necessan
its
need of
art,
however, in con
to other action, political or
religious imagination
and to
moral,
t<
scientific cognition, w<
shall consider later.
We
2.
have so
work of
the
far
art in
been considering that aspect c
which
have now to pass on to

it is
made
for
man's
it
its
sense,
is
made by man.
second characteristic, tha
and
for this reason
is
mor
or less borrowed from the sensuous.

()
This reflection has furnished occasion for th
consideration to be advanced that fine art

*
He means
t "
is
intendei
as in attitude, bearing, gentle movement, etc.

\ " Bedurfniss zur Kunst."
BUdiing."
Chap.
ART AND FEELING.
III.]
to arouse feeling,
feeling
and indeed more particularly the
which we find
Looking
ing.
6t
suits us
-that,
at the question thus,
is
pleasant feel-
men have
treated
the investigation of fine art as an investigation of the
and asked what
feelings,
sion
for
it
must be held that
fear, for example, and compasand then, how these could be pleasant how,
ought to evoke,
art
feelings
example, the contemplation of misfortune could
produce
This tendency of reflection
satisfaction.
traceable particularly to
Moses Mendelssohn's
is
times,
and many such discussions are to be found in his

Yet such an investigation did not lead
writings.
men
the
far, for
mind
feeling
what
is
is felt
the indefinite dull region of
remains wrapped in the form
of the most abstract individual subjectivity,*

therefore the
distinctions
and
of feeling are also quite
and are not distinctions of the actual objectFor instance, fear, anxiety, alarm,
itself.
matter
terror, are no doubt of one and the same sort of
abstract,
feeling variously
but
modified,
in
part
are
mere
themselves have nothing to do with their content
itself,
for
in
part are forms which
quantitative heightenings, in
but are indifferent to
instance,
subject
{i.e.
an
existence
a person) has an
it.
is
In the case of
fear,
given in which
the
interest,
but at the same
time sees approaching the negative that threatens to

* i.e. you cannot describe it or picture it definitely, like a
thing with attributes, although you feel it in yourself.
62
annihilate this existence,
and so
finds
[Chap.
III.
immediately
in
himself, as a contradictory affection of his subjectivity,
Now,
the two at once, this interest and that negative.
such fear considered
not enough to condi-
in itself is
any content, but is capable of receiving into itself

the most diverse and opposite matters.* Feeling, as
such, is a thoroughly empty form of subject ive
No doubt this form may in some cases
affection.
tion
be manifold
and,
in itself, as
again,
may
hope, grief, joy, or pleasure
is
such
in
varied contents, as there
is
diversity
a feeling of justice, moral
sublime religious feeling, and so
feeling,
the fact that such content
forms of feeling
essential
and
is
is
forthcoming
forth.
But
in different
not enough to bring to light
definite
comprehend
nature
they remain
its
purely
subjective affections of myself, in which the concrete
matter vanishes, as though narrowed into a

the utmost abstraction.!
circle of
(Therefore, the inquiry into
the feelings which art arouses, or ought to arouse,
comes
a
utterly to a standstill in the indefinite,
mode
is
of study which precisely abstracts from the
content proper and from

notion. J
and
For
reflection
its
upon
concrete essence and

feeling contents
itself
with the observation of the subjective affection in

you may be afraid of anything the fact that you are
what you are afraid of.
f My private feeling is compared to a small circle, in which
morality, justice, etc., may be, but have not room to show their
Feeling allows of no definition.
nature.
*
i.e.
afraid does not in itself indicate
Chap.
SENSE OF BEAUTY.
III.]
instead of diving into and fathoming the
its isolation,
matter in question
engaged with
and
jectivity
it,
its
the
first
the work of
itself,
In feeling
states.
place,
and, while
is
just
is
it
this
not merely retained, but
and that
fond of having emotions.
And
why men
is
for the
such a study becomes tedious from
and vacancy, and repulsive from

little
art,
simply letting go the mere sub-
vacant subjectivity that
given
63
its
its
are so
same reason
indefiniteness
attentiveness to
subjective peculiarities.
Now,
(b)
as a
work
of art
is
not merely to do in
general something of the nature of arousing emotion
for this
is
a purpose which
it
would have
in
common,
without specific difference, with eloquence, historical
but
composition, religious edification, and so forth
hit
do so only in as far as it is beautiful/ reflection

upon the 'idea, seeing that beauty was the object,
of
searching
is
to
correspond to
of
out
it,
a peculiar feeling of beauty to
and of discovering a
In this search
beauty.
no blind
it
instinct
particular sense
soon appeared that such
made
rigidly definite
a sense
is
nature,
and capable from the beginning
in its
by
own
Hence
independent essence of discerning beauty.
it followed that education came to be demanded for
this sense,
be called
tion
and
and the educated sense of beauty came to
taste,
which, although an educated apprecia-
apprehension
of
the
beautiful,
was yet
supposed to retain the nature of immediate
feeling.
64
We
have already mentioned
how
[Chap.
abstract theories
undertook to educate such a sense of
taste,
and how
The
and one-sided that sense remained.
external
criticism of the time
III.
when those views
prevailed,
was
not only defective in universal principles, but also, in

particular
its
was
references to individual
less directed to justifying
the power to
than
of taste.
For
came
to a
art,
a definite judgment
make one not having
acquired
works of
been
at that time
advancing the general education
to
this reason
standstill
in
such education in
its
turn
the indefinite, and merely
endeavoured so to equip feeling as sense of beauty
by help
of reflection, that there might thenceforth be
capacity to find out beauty whenever and wherever

it
should exist.
Yet
the
depths
remained a sealed book to mere
demand not only
of
the
taste,
matter
for
these
and abstract
reflection, but the undivided reason and the mind
while taste was only directed to
in its solid vigour
depths
sensibility
the external surface about which the feelings play,
and on which one-sided maxims may pass for

But, for this very reason, what is called good
valid.
taste
more profound effects of art, and is

silent where the reality comes in question, and where
externalities and trivialities vanish.
For when great
passions and the movements of a profound soul are
unveiled, we are no longer concerned with the finer
takes fright at
all
distinctions of taste
and
its
pettifogging particularities.
Chap.
VALUE OF ART-SCHOLARSHIP-
III.]
65
It feels that
genius strides contemptuously over such
ground
this,
as
and, shrinking
before
power,
its
becomes uneasy, and knows not which way to

(c)
And
thus,
as
we should
abandoned the tendency
expect,
men have
works of
to consider
solely with an eye to the education of taste,
noisseur, or scholar of art,
man
of taste.
so far as
it
The
art
and with
The
the purpose of merely displaying taste.
or
turn.
con-
has replaced the art-judge,
positive side of art-scholarship,
concerns a thorough acquaintance with
the entire circumference * of the individual character

in
a given work of
art,
we have
already pronounced
to be essential to the study of art.
owing to
art,
individual,
is
its
For a work of
nature as at once material and
by particular conmost various kinds, to which belong
essentially originated
ditions of the
especially the time
and place of
the peculiar individuality of the
its
production, then
artist,
and
in parti-
cular the grade of technical
development attained
by
these aspects
his art.
Attention to
all
is
indis-
pensable to distinct and thorough insight and cogni-
and even
tion,
it
to the
enjoyment of a work of
ship, is chiefly
us in
its
occupied
own way
is
to
and
All
its
all
that
it
can do for
be accepted with gratitude.
Yet, though such scholarship

*
art
with them that connoisseurship, or art-scholar-
is
is
entitled to rank as
positive aspects or relations, age, phase, artist's
history, etc.
66
something
essential, still
supreme element
for the sole or
general.
art in
defective side)
ought not to be taken
it
art,
which
and towards
For art-scholarship (and
is
in the relation
work of
the mind adopts towards a
[Chap. III.
this is its
capable of resting in an acquaintance
with purely external aspects, such as technical or

historical details, etc.,
and of guessing but
little,
or
even knowing absolutely nothing, of the true and

real nature of a
work of
It
art.
may
even form a
disparaging estimate of the value of more profound

considerations in
technical,
and
comparison with purely
historical information.
art-scholarship, if only
it
least strives after definite
and an
intelligent
conjoined the more
even
if
is
of a
positive,
Still,
even
so,
genuine kind, at
grounds and information,
judgment, with which
closely
is
precise distinction of the different,
partly external, aspects in a
work of
art,
and
the estimation of their importance.

(d) After these
remarks upon the modes of study
which have arisen out of that aspect of a work of

art in which,
being a sensuous object,
with a relation to
now
man
consider this aspect in
tion to art as such,
work of
it
is
invested
as a sensuous being,
and so
its
(a)
more
will
partly as regards the
art as object, (|3) partly with respect to the
and
so
relative
to
subjectivity of the artist, his genius, talent,
on
we
essential rela-
but without entering into matter
these points that can only proceed from the
know-
Chap.
HOW
ART,
III.]
ledge of art in
its
FAR SENSUOUS.
67
For we are not
universal idea.
yet on genuinely scientific ground, but have only
reached the province of external
The work
(a)
to sensuous apprehension.
It is
itself
addressed to sensuous
outer or inner, to sensuous perception and
feeling,
imagination, just as
without, or our
is
own
the nature that surrounds
may be
addressed to sensuous
Notwithstanding, the work
imagination and feeling.

is
us-
Even
sensitive nature within.
a speech, for instance,
of art
reflection.
of art then, of course, presents
not only for the sensuous apprehension as
sensuous object, but
position
its
is
of such a kind
same time essentially

addressed to the mind, that the mind is meant to
be affected by it, and to find some sort of satisfaction
that as sensuous
in
it.
it
is
is
it
at the
This intention of the work of

in
no way meant
to possess
natural
life,
to be ranked higher or lower than a mere
of
art,
it is
a right to existence only in as far as
man's mind, but not
in as far as
has separate existence by

*
mind,
it
art has
exists for
qua sensuous thing
itself.*
If
we examine
sensuous aspect has no independent warrant or justifian animal has in its own separate
So it must simply be such as is enough to appeal to man's
Its
cation, as that, for example, of

life.
work
often called in a depreciatory sense.
For the sensuous aspect of the work of
it
and
whether a natural product
is
as
how
art explains
to be a natural product
e.g.
mere surface
painting.
>
68
more
closely in
to man,
we
[Chap.
III.
what way the sensuous is presented

that what is sensuous may bear
find
various relations to the mind.

{ad)
least
The
mode
lowest
of apprehension, and that
appropriate to the mind,
apprehension.
It consists
is
purely sensuous
naturally in mere looking,
listening, feeling, just as in seasons of

it
may
often
mental fatigue
be entertaining to go about without
thought, and just to hear and look around
The
us.
mind, however, does not rest in the mere apprehension of external things
them
objects for
is itself
by
sight
own
its
as
it
makes
impelled in a correspondingly sensuous form
to realize itself in the things,
them
and hearing,
inner nature, which then
desire.
outer world, the
and
relates itself to
In this appetitive relation to the
man
stands as a sensuous particular
over against the things as likewise particulars
he
does not open his mind to them with general ideas

,
as a thinking being, but has relations dictated

particular impulses
and
interests to
by
the objects as
themselves particulars, and preserves himself in them,
inasmuch as he uses them, consumes them, and puts

in act his
self-satisfaction
by
sacrificing
them
In this negative relation desire requires for
to
itself
it.
not
merely the superficial appearance of external things,

but themselves in their concrete sensuous existence.
Mere
pictures of the
of the animals that
it
wood
that
wants to
it
eat,
wants to
use, or
would be of no
Chap.
ART EXCLUDES
III.]
service
to
Just as
desire.
DESIRE.
little
is
desire to let the object subsist in
its
its
impulse urges
it
it
69
possible
for
For
freedom.
precisely to destroy this
just
independence and freedom of external things, and

to be destroyed
show that they are only there

and consumed. But, at the same
to
time, the subject
and
himself, as entangled in the particular limited
valueless interests of his desires,

himself, for
is
neither free in
he does not determine himself out of
the essential universality and rationality of his
will,
nor free in relation to the outer world, for his desire

remains essentially determined by things, and related
to them. This relation of desire is not that in which
man
He
stands to the work of art
allows
it
to,
and independent, and enters

apart from desire, as with an
subsist as an object, free
into relation with
it
object which only appeals to the theoretic side of
the mind.
\Yox
this reason the
work of
art,
although
existence, yet, in this point of view,
has sensuous
does not require concrete sensuous existence and
natural life; indeed, it even ought not to remain
it
on such a
level,
seeing that
the interests of mind, and

itself all desire.)
Hence
it
is
is,
it
has to satisfy "orrry
bound
to exclude from
indeed, that practical
desire rates individual things in nature, organic
of
art,
and
higher than works
which are serviceable to

which reveal themselves to be useless
inorganic,
it,
purpose, and enjoyable only for other
for its
modes of mind.
70

Q3/3)
present
mode
second
may
in
is,
and
perception
contrast
desire,
relation to the Intelligence.
purely theoretical
no
theoretic contemplation of things has
consuming them
particulars, in
as
III.
which the externally
in
be related to the mind
with singular sensuous
[Chap.
sensuously, and in preserving itself
the
The
interest in
satisfying itself
by
their means,
but rather in becoming acquainted with them in their

universality, in finding their inner being
in conceiving
them
in
and
law,
terms of their notion.
and
There-
fore the theoretical interest lets the single things be,
and holds aloof from them as sensuous

because this sensuous particularity
is
particulars,
not what the
contemplation exercised by the intelligence looks
^For the
rational intelligence does not belong, as
desires, to the individual subject * as such, but
the individual as at the

versal.
In as far as
man
of this universality,
it
same time
for.
do the
only to
in his nature uni-
has relation to things in respect

is
his
universal reason which
attempts to find himself in nature, and thereby to
reproduce the inner essence of things, which sensuous

existence, though having
its
ground
therein, cannot
immediately display. But again,
this theoretic interest,
the satisfaction of which
work of science, is in
by art, than the
is
the
the scientific form no more shared

latter
makes common cause with the impulse of the

Science may, no doubt, start
purely practical desires.

*
i.e.
person.
Chap.
ART DOES NOT ANALYSE.
III.]
from the sensuous thing
individual presents itself in

Still, this
and may-
in its individuality,
possess a sensuous idea of the
size, etc.
71
its
way
in
which such an
individual colour, shape,
isolated sensuous thing, as such,
has no further relation to the mind, inasmuch as

the intelligence aims at the universal, the law, the
Not only, therefore,
thought and notion of the object.

does
it
abandon
all
given individual, but transforms
it
within the mind,
making a concrete object of sense into an abstract

matter of thought, and so into something quite other
than the same object qua sensuous phenomenon. The
artistic interest, as distinguished
act thus.
from science, does not
Artistic contemplation accepts the
art just as
it
work of
displays itself qua external object, in
immediate determinateness and sensuous individuality

clothed in colour, figure, and sound, or as a single
isolated perception, etc., and does not go so far
beyond the immediate appearance of objectivity which
is
presented before
it,
as to aim, like science, at appre-
hending the notion of such an objective appearance

as a universal notion.
Thus, the interest of art distinguishes

the practical interest of desire
mits
its
dence, while desire utilizes
differs
by the
On the other
it
in its
hand,
itself
fact that
object to subsist freely and
destruction.
intercourse with the thing as a
own
artistic
in
it
from
per-
indepen-
service
by
its
contemplation
from theoretical consideration by the
scientific
72
[Chap.
III.
intelligence, in cherishing interest for the object as
individual existence,
mute
it
into
and not setting to work to trans-
universal thought
its
an
(yy) It follows, then,
and notion.
from the above, that though
the sensuous must be present in a
work of
art,
yet
it
must only appear as surface and semblance of the
work of
the mind seeks neither the concrete framework of
For, in the sensuous aspect of a
sensuous.
art,
matter, that empirically thorough completeness
and
development of the organism which desire demands,

nor the universal and merely ideal thought.
requires
is
What
it
sensuous presence, which, while not ceasing
to be sensuous,
is
to be liberated from the apparatus
merely material nature.
of
its
in
works of
art
is
And
thus the sensuous
exalted to the rank of a mere
semblance in comparison with the immediate existence

of things in nature, and the
mean between what

thought.
itself to
look,
work of
art occupies the
immediately sensuous and ideal

This semblance of the sensuous presents,
the
is
mind externally
as the shape, the visible
and the sonorous vibration of things
that the
mind
supposing
leaves the objects uninterfered with
(physically), but yet does not
descend into their inner
essence (by abstract thought), for
if it
did so,
it
would
entirely destroy their external existence as separate
individuals /<?r it. For this reason the sensuous aspect

of art only refers to the two theoretical senses of sight
and hearing, while
smell, taste,
and feeling remain
Chap.
III.]
THE SENSUOUS IN ART A SYMBOL.
excluded from being sources of
For
smell, taste,
as such,
and
and with
feeling
its
73
enjoyment.
artistic
have to do with matter
immediate sensuous
smell with material volatilization in
air,
qualities
taste with
the material dissolution of substance,* and feeling with
warmth, coldness, smoothness,
On
etc.
account
this
these senses cannot have to do with the objects of
which are destined to maintain themselves
in
art,
theirj
actuaj_mdependent_existence, and admit of no purely;
sensuous relation.
is
The
not the beautiful in
pleasant for these latter senses
art.
side purposely produces
Thus
art
on
its
sensuous
no more than a shadow-
world of shapes, sounds, and imaginable ideas

it
is
f and
absolutely out of the question to maintain that
owing to simple powerlessness and to the limitations on his actions that man, when evoking worlds
of art into existence, fails to present more than the
mere surface of the sensuous, than mere schemata.%
In art, these sensuous shapes and sounds present themselves, not simply for their own sake and for that of
it is
their
immediate structure^ but with the purpose of"
affording in that shape satisfaction to higher spiritual

interests, seeing that they are powerful to call forth
a response and echo in the mind from
all
the depths
* Nothing can be tasted which is not dissolved in a liquid,

t " Anschauungen."
X Abstract forms, which are to reality as a diagram to a
picture.
Lit. " figure," Gestalt.
;'
74
of consciousness.
is
spiritualised,
It is
thus that, in
art,
[Chap.
III.
the sensuous
the spiritual appears in sensuous
i.e.
shape.
Q3) But for this very reason
of art only in so far as
it
we have a product
has found a passage through
the mind, and has been generated
ductive activity.
which
is
spiritually pro-
This leads us to the other question
which we have to answer

side,
by
how, that
indispensable to
art, is
is,
the sensuous
operative in the
artist as
a productive state of the subject or person.
This, the
method and fasHion of production, contains

a subjective activity just the same pro-
in
itself as
perties
which we found objectively present
work of
art
in
the
must be a spiritual activity which,

the same time has in itself the element
it
nevertheless, at
of sensuousness and immediateness.

It is neither,
on the one hand, purely mechanical work, as mere
unconscious
skill
in
sensuous sleight of hand* or
a formal activity according to fixed rules learnt by

rote
nor
is
it,
on the other hand, a
scientific pro-
ductive process, which passes from sense to abstract

ideas
and thoughts, or exercises
the element of pure thinking
itself exclusively in
rather the spiritual and
the sensuous side must in artistic production be as

one.
For instance,
creation to try
it would be possible in poetical

and proceed by first apprehending
the theme to be treated as a prosaic thought, and by

* "
Handgriffen."
THE ARTIST'S FANCY.
Zhap. III.]
:hen putting
ind so forth
so that the pictorial element would
hung upon the
simply be
ornament or decoration.
produce bad poetry, for in
is
and into rhyme,
into pictorial ideas,
it
;
75
two separate
activities
abstract reflections as an
Such a process could only

it there would be operative
that which in artistic pro-
duction has _its_rjght_ place, only as undivided unity.
mode
This genuine
of production
activity of artistic fancy.
which, qtio^spirit, -only exists in as far as
extrudes
itself into consciousness,
array before
in
so
a
it
what
import, which, however,
with the habit even of a
or wit,
the
till
it
does
it
embodies
in
Such a process may be compared
sensuous shape.
of the world,
actively
This activity has, therefore,
sensuous form.
spiritual
it
element
but yet does not
bears within itself
it
the
constitutes
It is the rational
or, again,
man
with great experience
with that of a
man
of esprit *
who, although he has complete knowledge of
main stakes of
life,
that hold
men
of what
the power
is
of the substantive interests
together, of
what moves them, and
that they recognize, yet neither
has himself apprehended this content in the form

able to explain
of general rules, nor
is
in general reflections,
but makes plain to himself and
to others
what occupies
it
to others
his consciousness always in
particular cases, whether real or invented, in adequate

instances,
and the
like.
* "
For
in his ideas, everything
Eines geistreichen?
76
shapes
and
itself into
place,
to
III.
concrete images, determinate in time
which, therefore,
circumstances of
external
[Chap.
names and other

must not be
kinds
all
Yet such a kind of imagination rather rests

on the recollection of states that he has gone through,
wanting.
and of experiences that have befallen him, than
is
His recollection preserves

its own strength.
and reproduces the individuality and external fashion
of occurrences that had such and such results with all
creative in
and prevents the universal

But the productive
fancy of the artist is the fancy of a great mind and
heart, the apprehension and creation of ideas and of
their external circumstances,
from emerging
in its
own
shape.
shapes, and, indeed, the exhibition of the profoundest
and most universal human
interests in the definite
From
sensuous mould of pictorial representation.

this
follows
it
unquestionably
\
generally,
on
at
rests
talent
y-equires a sensuous
in the
once, that
on
in
one aspect Fancy
natural
gifts
speaking
because
its
medium.
It is true that
same way of scientific
mode
" talent,"
of production
we speak
but the sciences
only presuppose the universal capacity of thought,
which has
an
all
it
not, like
Fancy, a natural
intellectual one),
mode
(as well as
but abstracts just precisely from
that is natural (or native) in an activity and thus

would be more correct to say that there is no
;
specifically scientific
natural
endowment.
talent
in
the sense of a mere
Now, Fancy has
in
it
mode
Chap.
of
ART NEEDS NATIVE TALENT.
III.]
must
be
as
the
and sensuousness of the work of
essential plasticity
art
inasmuch
instin ct-like^, productiveness,
77
subjectively present in
the artist as
and natural impulse, and, considering that it is unconscious operation, must belong
to the natural element in man, as well as to the
rational.
Of course, natural capacity leaves room
natural
disposition
for other
elements in talent and genius, for
production
just as
is
conscious nature
much
we can but say
artistic
of a spiritual and
that
its
self-
spirituality
must, ^somehow, have an element of natural,
plastic,
For this reason, though

and forrnative tendency.
nearly every one can reach a certain point in an' art,
yet, in order to
go beyond
this point,
art in the strict sense begins,
pense with native
it
is
artistic talent of
with which the
impossible to disthe highest order.
Considered as a natural endowment, moreover,
such talent reveals

youth, and
that
is
busies
the most part in early
itself for
manifested in the impelling restlessness
with vivacity
itself,
some
and
industry,
in
medium,
utterance
and
comand in seizing on this species of
munication as the only one, or as the chief and the
creating shapes in
most
suitable
one.
technical facility, that
ment
is
without
sculptor
finds
particular sensuous
And
up
thus,
too,
precocious
to a certain grade of attain-
effort, is
a sign of natural talent.
everything
transmute
itself
into
shapes, and he soon begins to take up the clay and
78
model
[Chap.
III.
And, speaking generally, whatever men
it.
of such talents have in their imagination, whatever

rouses and
moves
their
inner nature, turns at once
into shape, drawing, melody, or
and to conclude the content of art

some respects borrowed from the sensuous,
(y) Thirdly,
is
also in
from nature
is
poem.
or,
in
of a spiritual kind,
any
it
case,
even
if
the content
can only be seized and fixed
human
by representing
the
relations, in the
shape of phenomena with external
reality.
spiritual
fact,
such as
79
CHAPTER
III. {Continued).
THE CONCEPTION OF ARTISTIC BEAUTY.

Part
3.
The
or the
The End of Art.
II.
question then arises, what the interest
End
is
which man proposes Jo himself when
he reproduces such a content

of art
[jy
form of works
in the
This wasTEe third point of view which' we"
set before us with reference to the
work f
the closer discussion of which will finally

transition to the actual
If in this aspect
and true conception of
we
sciousness, a current idea

(a)
The
glance at the
which
may
and
art,
make
the
art.
common
occur to us
principle of the imitation of nature.
conis
Ac-
cording to this view the essential purpose of art

consists in imitation, in the sense of a facility in copy-
ing natural forms as they exist in a
way
sponds precisely to them
s uccess
and the
that corre-
of such
a reH?ii]Ei22i exactly corresponding to nature,

is
supposed to be what affords complete
'
satisfaction.
(aJTThTs definition contains, prima' facie, nothing
80
beyond the purely formal
made
to be
it
therein,
is
is
by man as a copy
he can do it with the means
a second time
of the former, as well as
command.
at his
III.
aim that whatever already
exists in the external world, just as
now
[Chap.
repetition as^__,_
But we
-.
may
at
once regard this
kûfierf/unus Jfahnnr, seeing that the things
(ad)
Avhich pictures, theatrical representations,
and represent
animals,
imitate
etc.,
natural scenes, incidents in
human life are before us in other cases already, in

our own gardens or our own houses, or in cases
within our closer or
And _JooJdrig_jcQpre
ance.
labour
circle of acquaint-
closely,
superfluous
-this
more remote
as
_we_ may regard
presumptuous
sport
which
Comes
(/3/3)
restricted in its
far
short
of
nature.
means of representation
produce only one-sided d eceptions,
i.e.
For art is
and can
;
for
instance,
a semblance of reality addressed to one sense only

and, in fact,
it
invariably gives
rise, if it rests in
the
formal purpose of mere imitation, to a mere parody

of
life,
instead of a genuine vitality.
Turks, being
Mohammedans,
tolerate,
Just so the
as
well
is
known, no pictures copied from men or the like and

when James Bruce, on his journey to Abyssinia,
;
General, abstract, as
much
applicable to one thing as
to another.
t
"
Heuchelei?
lit.
" hypocrisy."
Chap.
DECEPTIVE IMITATION.
III.]
81
showed paintings of fish to a Turk, the man was

amazed at first, but soon enough made answer " If
this fish shall rise up against you on the last day, and
:
say,
'
soul,'
You have created for me a body, but no living

how will you defend yourself against such an
accusation
The
"
prophet, moreover,
it is
recorded in
women, Ommi Habiba

him of pictures in
Êthiopian churches" These pictures will accuse
their authors on the day of judgment
There are, no doubt, as well, examples of comthe Sunna, said to the two
Ommi
and
who
Selma,
told
Zeuxis' painted grapes
pletely deceptive imitation.
have from antiquity downward been taken to be

of
the triumph of this principle of the imitation

nature, because the story
modern
the
in
We
them.
at
is
that living doves pecked
might add to
one of
Biittner's
pieces a painted cockchafer in
sions of the Insect World,"

his
example
monkey, which bit
this ancient
master,
beautiful
in
spite
of
copy of
his
this
Rosel's
"
Diver-
and was pardoned by

having thereby spoilt
valuable
work, because
of this proof of the excellence of the pictures.
when we
must
at
reflect
on these and similar

art
because they have actually
deceived even pigeons and monkeys,

to
censure the people
of art
by
it
us that, in place of com-
once occur to
mending works of
But
instances,
who mean
predicating, as
its
we ought simply
to exalt a
highest and
work
ultimate
82
poor an
quality, so
as this.
effect
[Chap.
III.
In general,
we
saying that, as a matter of mere
may sum up by
imitation, art cannot maintain a rivalry with nature,
and,
must looklike a worm
if it tries,
after
"trying to crawl
an elephant.
(yy) Considering the unvarying failure comparaoi imitation when contrasted

tive failure, at least
_m
nature, there remains as end

nothing beyond our pleasure in the sleight of hand *
with" the original
which can produce something so

it is
doubtless open to
over again what
is
man
like nature.
And
to be pleased at producing
already present in
its
own
right,
But enjoyment
by his Jabour, skilly and jndustry
and admiration, even of this kind, naturally grow
.
frigid or chilled precisely in
proportion to the resem-
blance of the copy to the natural type, or are even
converted into tedium and repugnance.

portraits which, as has
ingly
like
There are
said, are sicken-
Kant adduces another
and
been wittily
instance
relative to this pleasure in imitation as such, viz. that
we soon grow tired of a man and there are such

men who is able to mimic the nightingale's strain
quite perfectly
man
is
and as soon as
producing the notes,
of the song.
We
a conjuring
trick,
nature, nor a
/
it
we
is
then recognize in
neither
work_ of artj
the
for
discovered that
are at once weary
free
it
nothing but
production
we expect
" Kunststuck:
of
frorn~the
CHAP.
IMITATION A CONJURING TRICK.
III.]
free productive capacity of
other than
quite
note,
it
music as
such
when, as
interests us
is
human
83
beings something
this,
which only
the case with the nightingale's
gushes forth from the creature's own vitality
without special purpose, and yet recalls the utterance

of
human
skill in
man
In general, such delight at our
feeling.
mimicking can be but
limited,
better to take delight in
of himself.
and
it
becomes
what he produces out
In this sense the invention of any un-
important and technical product has the higher value,
and man may be prouder of having invented the

hammer, the nail, and so forth, than of achieving
feats of mimicry.
ing
is
For
this fervour_ of abstract
to be evened with the feat of the _man
t3ugEt~ himself to
throw
"of
Tiis
frivolous
is
through a small
displayed~thTs"~skill
before Alexander, and Alexander presented
him with a bushel of

~~()3)
lentils
He
opening without missing.
^copy-
who had \
lentils
and meaningless
as
a reward for his
art.
^Moreover, seeing that the principle o f imitation^
purely formah_to
make
it
the end has the result that
objective beauty itself disappears.
For the question
is
no longer of what nature that is which is

to be copied, but only whether it is correctly copied
The object and content of the beautiful comes then to
in that case
mere copying, devoting one's-self to the one-sided

making a thing over again^without putting any life
"or meaning into it.
/
/ /
/
i.e.
purpose of
'
84
[Chap.
That
be regarded as matter of entire indifference.

to say,
if
we go
men, landscapes,
and ugliness
in considering beasts,
or characters,
actions,
is
and speak of a
outside the principle
difference of beauty
III.
maxim
nevertheless, in presence of the
this
must
in question,*
be set down as a distinction that does not belong

particularly to art, for which nothing
is
left
but ab-
In this case the above-mentioned
stract imitation.
lack of a criterion in dealing with the endless forms

of nature reduces us, as regards the selection of objects
and
their distinction in
jective taste as
beauty and ugliness, to sub-
an ultimate
and admits of no
fact,
which accepts no rule
Andînfactîf
discussion.
we
ing objects for representation
start
in select-
from what men
think be~aufifuTor ugly, and therefore deserving artistic

imitation
that
is,
from their
taste,
then
all circles
of
natnra1 objecti open to us, and not one of
be likely to
fail
stanceTTtis the case that at
thinks his
alone
not,
and that subjective

rule
6ne
parties.
may
may
be, every
taste for such
husband
his wife
beauty has no fixed
hold to be the good fortune of both

moreover, look quite beyond indi-
their
nations, this again
it
If we,
viduals and
contrast.
any rate every bridegroom
bride beautiful, and indeed, perhaps, he
though
Among
of a patron.
them will
meh7 for tn-
How
Which
accidental
is
often
full
taste,
to
the taste of
of extreme diversity and
we hear
it
said that a
says that the business of art
is
European
to imitate.
Chap.
NOT ALL ARTS ARE
III.]
IMITATIVE.
85
beauty would not please a Chinese or even a Hottentot, in
Chinaman has
as far as the
quite a different
conception of beauty from the negro, and the negro
from the European, and so
in turn
we look
peoples
works of
at the
Indeed,
forth.
if
art of those extra- European
their images of the gods,'for instancewhich
their fancy has originated as venerable
they
may
and
their
and sublime,
appear to us as the most gruesome
music
horrible noise
may sound
to our ears as the
idols,
most
while they, on their side, will regard our
sculptures, paintings,
and musical productions as trivial
or ugly.
(-y)
But even
principle of art,
jective
if
and
we
if
and individual
the side of art
abstract from
beauty
taste,
itself
we
is
an objective
to be based on sub-
shall
still
soon find on
that the imitation of nature,
which certainly appeared to be a universal principle

and one guaranteed by high authority, is at any rate
not to be accepted in this universal and merely abstract
form.
For
if
we look
at the different arts
it
will at
once beâTrnfteSTthat even if painting and sculpture

"represent objects which appear like those of nature, or
the type of which
is
essentially
borrowed from nature,
yet works of architecture on the other hand and

and the proarchitecture belongs to the fine arts
ductions of poetry, in as far as they do not confine
themselves to mere description, are by no means to
be called imitations of nature.
At
least, if
we
desired
CONCEPTION OF ARTISTIC SEA UTY.
86
[Chap.
III.
to maintain the principle as valid in the case of these
we
latter arts,
make a long
should have to
conditioning the proposition
by
various ways, and
in
circuit
reducing the so-called truth* at any rate to proba-
But
bility.
we admitted
if
probability
we should
again be met by a great difficulty in determining
what
is
probable and what
not
is
and
one would neither consent nor find

clude from poetry
all
still,
moreover,
possible to ex-
it
wholly arbitrary and completely
original f imaginations.
,'
The end
of art must, therefore,
diffeTenTTrom the purely formal
we
something
in
what
any case can bring t6TKe"birth
and not works of art. It is, indeed, an
find giv en,
only tricks
lie
which
imitation "of
in
element es se ntial to the work of art to have natural

shapes fo rJte^foujQda.tinn
"Eion is in
the
medium
natural phenomena.
important study to
seeing thaf
light,
representa-
In painting, for instance,
know how
the colours in their relations
of
its"
of external and therefore of

it is
an
copy with precision

to one another, the effects
reflections, etc., and,
to'
no
less,
the forms and
down to their
subtlest characteristics^
It is in this respect chiefly that
the principle of natural-
figures of objects
Of imitation.
"
Phantastischett."
"Fantastic" means "odd or wild."
Hegel only means "original," "creative."
t
X Mechanical, without origination.

" Niiancen." Context seems to forbid referring
suspect it of meaning character of outline.
it
to colour.
Chap.
ism
"
III.]
HUMANI
NIHIL."
87
and of copying nature has recovered its

modern times. Its aim is to recall an art
which has grown feeble and indistinct to the vigour
and crispness of nature or, again, to invoke against
in general
influence in
the purely arbitrary and
unnatural as
it
was
conventionalism, as
artificial
which art had strayed,
inartistic, into
the uniform, direct, and solidly coherent sequences of

nature.
But however true
right in this
that there
it is
is
something
endeavour from one point of view, yet
the naturalism at which
it
aims
is
not as such the sub-
stantive and primary concern that underlies
And,
still
fine art.
therefore, although external appearance in the
shape of natural reality constitutes an essential condition of art, yet, nevertheless, neither
natural world
its
rule,
nor
is
external appearance as external

(6)
The
its
to be presented.
and with what aim
On this subject our

the common opinion
supplies us with
the given
end.
further question then arises
true content of art,
is
the mere imitation of
What
is
is
the
this content
consciousness
that
it
is
the
task and aim of art to bring in contact with our sense,
our feeling, our inspiration, all that finds a place in
mind of man.) Art,
the
in
us
nihil
in
that
me
is
familiar saying,
alienum puto."
arousing and
tions, inclinations,
in
it
forcing the
thought, should realize

"
animating
Homo sum
aim
Its
the
and passions
human
being,
is
humani
therefore placed
slumbering
emo-
in filling the heart,
whether cultured or
88
in
its
inmost and
to experience
move and
in its
and to
and
mind possesses
in the Idea
misfortune and
make men
and
and no
misery,
idle toyings of fancy,
make
less to
inmost nature of
and luxuriating
all
held, art
is
which our external existence
to
that
is
roving in
in the seductive
This endlessly
bound
to embrace,
partly in order to complete the natural

in
intelligible
pleasure and
all
of sense-stimulating visions.
is
thought
wickedness and crime
and, finally, to set imagination
it
that
all
its
the splendour of the noble, the
all
realize the
varied content,
able to
to present
lofty in
shocking and horrible, as also of

delight
is
depths and
its
and to perception
of real
and the true
eternal,
spells
that
all
breast in
manifold aspects and possibilities
as a delight to emotion
the
and
create,
human
to stir the
corners
secret
III.
what man's
has power
the whole range of
uncultured, to feel
soul
[Chap.
experience
and partly
consists,
with the general aim of provoking the passions of
our nature, both
may
in
order that the experiences of
not leave us unmoved, and because
attain to a receptivity that
welcomes
all
we
life
desire to
phenomena.
Now, such a stimulus is not given in this sphere

by actual experience itself, but can only come by
the semblance thereof, by art, that is, deceptively
substituting
its
The
creations for reality.
of this deception
on the fact that
by means of
all
artistic
possibility
semblance
reality must, for
rests
man, traverse
Chap.
WHA T PARTICULAR END f
III.]
medium
the
otherwise
of perception and ideas, and
penetrate the feelings and the
this process
tion
it
cannot
will.
In
quite indifferent whether his atten-
is
claimed by immediate external
is
89
or
reality,
whether
produced by another means
that is, by images, symbols, and ideas, containing or
this effect is
Man
representing the content of reality.

to_Juiosslf_-ideas_i5f_ things
though they were
actual.
that
are
Hence
it
can frame's
not actual as(

is
all
the^samejf"
to^bur feelings" whether external reality or only the
semblance of
it
is
the means of bringing in contact
with us a situation, a relation, or the import of a

Either
mode
suffices to
burden, in grief
in
horror* and
passions
fear, love,
and
awaken our response

in
rejoicing,
in
life.
to its
pathos
and
in traversing the emotions and the
of wrath, hatred, compassion, of anxiety,

reverence,
and admiration, or of the desire
of honour and of fame.

This awakening of
all feelings in us,
the dragging
of the heart through the whole significance of

realization of all such inner
life,
the
movements by means of
a presented exterior consisting merely in deception
was what, from the point of view which we

considering, constituted the peculiar and
been
have
all this
pre-eminent power of
Now,
as this
art.
mode
of treatment credits art with
the vocation of impressing on the heart and on the

*
" Ersckiittern."
'
90
[Chap.
III.
imagination good and bad alike, and of strengthening
man
to the noblest, as of enervating
sensuous and
selfish
emotions,
it
him
most
to the
follows that the task
set before art is still purely formal,
and so
it
would
have no certain purpose, but would merely furnish
empty form
and content.
the
(c)
It is
side, in that
for every possible
kind of significance
a fact that art does include this formal

it
has power to present every possible
subject-matter in artistic dress, before perception and

feeling, just exactly as
argumentative * reflection has
the power of manipulating
possible objects and
all
modes of action, and of furnishing them with reasons

and justifications. But when we admit so great a
variety of content we are at once met by the remark
that the manifold feelings and ideas, which art aims
at provoking or reinforcing, intersect
and
by
mutual
interference
cancel
and contradict,
one
another.
Indeed, in this aspect, in so far as art inspires

to directly opposite emotions,
contradiction of our feelings

sets
them staggering
it
and passions, and
either
like Bacchantes, or passes into
sophistry and scepticism, in the
same way
as argu-
mentation.! This diversity of the material of art
" Raisonnirende ; "
men
only magnifies the
itself
a term of disparagement in Hegel,
applied to proofs, pro and con, which do not rest on a thorough

conception of the fundamental nature of what is being discussed.
t
" Raisonnement."
Chap.
"
III.]
compels
EMOLLIT MORES?
us, therefore,
an aim for
it,
91
not to be content with so formal *
seeing that rationality forces
this wild diversity,
more
of a higher and
its
way into
and demands to see the emergence

universal purpose from these
elements in spite of their self-contradiction, and to
be assured of
way
its
being attained.
the State and the social
life
Just in the
of
men
are,
same
of course,
them all human

and all individual powers are to be
developed and to find utterance in all directions and
credited with the purpose that in

capacities
with all tendencies.
But
in opposition to so
formal*
a view there at once arises the question in what unity

manifold formations must be comprehended,
these
and
what
single
end they
must have
for
their
fundamental idea and ultimate purpose.
As
such an end, reflection soon suggests the notion
and the function of
that art has the capacity
miti-
gating the fierceness of the desires.

(a)
In respect to this
ascertain in
capacity
lies
first idea,
what feature peculiar
we have only
to art
it
is
to
that the
of eliminating brutality and taming and
educating the impulses, desires, and passions.

tality in general
has
its
Bru-
reason in a direct selfishness
of the impulses, which go to work right away, and

exclusively for the satisfaction of their concupiscence.
* "
Formal " means here as
usual, empty, or general
not taking account of varieties in the matter to which

.
applied.
it
i.e.
is
92
Now,
desire
is
[Chap.
most savage and imperious
portion as, being isolated and narrow,
whole man, so that he does not
III.
pro-
in
occupies the
it
power
retain the
of separating himself as a universal being from this

determinateness, and becoming aware of himself as
universal.
passion
I is
is
Even
if
stronger than
in
but
as this separation
"
The
true that the abstract
I," it is
still
is
only in a formal way, inasmuch
only
made
order to pronounce
in
power of the passion, the
that, against the
consists, therefore, in the
The savageness
of no account whatever.
oneness of the
with the limited content of
man
such a case says,
then separated for consciousness from the parti-
cular passion
is
man
the
its
as such
of passion
as universal
desires, so that the
has no will outside this particular passion.
Now,
such brutality and untamed violence of passion

softened through
that
it
art, to
brings before the
is
begin with, by the mere fact
man as an idea what in such

And even if art restricts
a state he feels and does.

itself to
merely setting up pictures of the passions
before the mind's eye, or even

flatter
them,
still
this
is
by
if it
itself
softening power, inasmuch as the

least
were actually
to
enough
to have a
man
thereby at
is
made aware, of what, apart from such
presenta-
For then the man observes his

impulses and inclinations, and whereas before they
bore him on without power of reflection, he now sees
them outside himself, and begins already to be free
tion,
he simply
is.
Chap.
EXPRESSION RELIEVES PASSION.
III.]
from them, in so
they form an object which
far as
Hence
he contrasts with himself.
be the case with the
frequently
it
comfort
Tears, even, are enough to bring
in art.
who
the man,
and concentrated
utter
in
his
on his own mind by repre-
feelings in its effect
senting
to
may
it
when attacked by
artist that
he softens and weakens the intensity of
grief
own
93
to begin with
is
utterly
in grief, is able thus, at
a direct fashion this

however,
his
any
sunk
rate,
inner state.
Still
more of a
what
is within in words, images, pictures, sounds, andr
relief,
is
the utterance of
this reason it was a good old custom

and funerals to appoint wailing women, in
order to bring the grief before the mind in its utterManifestations of sympathy, too, hold up the
ance.
For
shapes.
at deaths
content of a man's misfortune to his view
much
is
talked about he
thereby relieved.
that to
weep or
is
when
forced to reflect upon
And
so
it
it,
it is
and
has always been held
to speak one's
fill
is
a means to
obtain freedom from the oppressive weight of care,

or at least to find
momentary
relief for the heart.
Hence the mitigation of the violence of passion has

for its universal
reason that
immediate sunkenness*
conscious
of
it
as
man
is
released from his
a feeling,
and becomes
of something external to him,
towards which he must

relation.
in
now
Art, by means of
its
enter
into
an ideal
representations, while
* " Befangensein."
94
[Chap.
remaining within the sensuous sphere, delivers

at the
Of
course
we may
often hear those favourite phrases

in
oneness with nature, but such oneness in
is
fjJaway
immediate
its
abstrac-
simply and solely coarseness and savagery
art, in
the very process of dissolving this oneness
him with gentle hand above and

from mere sunkenness in nature. Man's mode
man,
for
man
same time from the power of sensuousness.
about man's duty being to remain
tion
and
III.
is
raising
of occupying himself with works of art
is
always
purely contemplative,* and educates thereby, in the

first
place,
sentations
it
no doubt, merely attention to the reprethemselves, but then, going
beyond
cultivates attention to their significance, the
this,
power
of comparison with other contents, and receptivity for

the general consideration of them, and for the points
of view which
(]3)
To
it
involves.
the above there attaches itself in natural
connection the second characteristic which has been

ascribed to art as
its
essential purpose, viz. the purifi-
cation of the passio ns, instruction 3.nd-mnral perfect-
For the
mg.
characteristic that
art
was to
bridle
savageness and educate the passions remained quite

abstract and general, so that a question
arise
must again
about a determinate kind and an essential end of
this education.
* " Theoretisch" I have no doubt that it has here the meanflewpe?v without a trace of allusion to
"theory." It is
ing of
opposed
to " destructive," or " appetitive."
Chap.
ART AND
III.]
The
(aa)
suffers
ITS
"
MORAL."
95
doctrine of the purification
of passion
indeed under the same defect as the above
doctrine of the mitigation of the desires
more
closely 'looked at,
at
it
any
yet,
when
rate arrives at the

"
point of accentuating the fact that the representations
of art
their
may be
held to lack- a..standard by which
worth or unworthiness could be measured.
This
standard simply means their effectiveness in separating
pure from impure in the passions.
It therefore requires
a content that has capacity to exercise this purifying
power, and, in as far as the production of such an
taken to constitute the substantive end of

must follow that the purifying content must be
brought before consciousness in its universality and
effect is
art, it
essentiality.
In this latter aspect the end of art has been
(j3j3)
pronounced to be that
it
should
teach.
Thus, on the
one side, the peculiar character of art would consist in

the
movement
which
of the emotions and in the satisfaction
lies in this
movement, even
in fear,
compassion,
that is to say, in the

in painful pathos and shock
satisfying engagement of the emotions and passions,
and to that extent
in a
complacency, entertainment,
and
delight in the objects of art, in their representa-
tion
and
art)
is
effect
but,
on the other
held to find
its
instructiveness, in the
*
side, this
purpose (of
higher standard only in
its
fabula docet* and thus in the

The
moral.
96
useful influence
[Chap.
III.
which the work of art succeeds
in
In this respect the Hora-
exerting on the subject.*
"Et prodesse volunt
tian saw,t
("
Poets aim at utility and entertainment alike
tains,
concentrated in a few words,
quently been elaborated
As
art.
ask,
it
or
is
")
con-
that has subse-
in infinite degrees,
regards such instruction
whether
explicitly
all
and diluted
extreme of insipidity as a doctrine
into the uttermost
of
et delectare poetae,"
meant
implicitly
we
have, then, to
to be directly or indirectly,
contained
the work of
in
art.
If,
speaking generally,
purpose which
is
we
universal
are concerned about a
and not contingent,
it
follows that this purpose, considering the essentially

spiritual nature of art,
cannot but be
and indeed, moreover, one which

but actual in
purpose
its
nature and for
in relation to
is
its
itself spiritual,
not contingent,!
own
sake.
Such a
teaching could only consist in
bringing before consciousness, by help of the work of

art,
a really and explicitly significant spiritual content.
From
this point of
higher art ranks
view
itself,
it
is
to be asserted that the
the more
essence of such a content can

*
Person,
" Kernsfiruch."
% "
i.e.,
the
exists or not.
it
find
the standard
here, audience or spectator.
much " what may or may not

which makes no difference whether it
Contingent " means, not so
exist," as
is bound to admit
and that only in the
it
into itself such a content as this,
trivial,
Chap.
III.]
THE DIDACTIC PURPOSE.
which determines whether what

priate or inappropriate.
is
97
expressed
Art was,
is
appro-
in fact, the first
instructress of peoples.
But the purpose of instruction
may
be treated as
purpose, to such a degree that the universal nature of

is doomed to be exhibited
and expounded directly and obviously as abstract
the represented content
proposition,
prosaic reflection, or general theorem,
and not merely
an indirect way
in
form _o_f_ a work of
in the concrete
By^ such a severance
art.
sensuous plastic form, which
work of arta work of
art,
"accessory, a husk which
is
is
just
what makes
thel
thel
becomes a mere otiosa

expressly pronounced to
be mere husk, a semblance expressly pronounced to be
mere semblance. But thereby the very nature of the

work of art is distorted. For the work of art ought
to bring a content before the mind's eye, not in its
generality as such, but with this generality
and sensuously
lutely individual,
the
work of
but sets in
art does not proceed

relief its generalized
made
abso-
particularized.
from
If
this principle,
aspect with the pur-
pose of abstract instruction, then the imaginative and

sensuous aspect
is
only an external and superfluous
adornment, and the work of art

against
itself,* in
is
a thing divided
which form and content no longer
appear as grown into one.
In that case the sensuously
* " In ihtn selbst gebrochenes"

an allusion to the words I use.
do not suppose there
is
98
[Chap.
III.
become ex-
individual and the spiritually general are

ternal to one another.
And
further, if the
purpose of art
limited to this
is
didactic utility, then its other aspect, that of pleasure,
entertainment, and delight,
merely
But
does not bear

its
which
among
pronounced to be
in the utility of the teaching
attendant.
that
is
and ought to have
itself unessential,
it
amounts
this
is
Art is, in this

means which prove
us to the boundary at which art
into a
its
own
is
is
else,
case, only
useful
to
one
and are
This brings
made no
merits, seeing that
but
itself,
rooted in something
applied for the purpose of instruction.
be an end on
it
to pronouncing that art
a means.
the several
in
substance
on which
vocation and purpose in
its
conception
is
its
it is
longer to
degraded
mere toy of entertainment or a mere means of
instruction.
(yy) This
boundary becomes most sharply marked
when a question
end and aim
is
raised, in its turn,
for the
about a supreme
sake of which the passions are to
be purified and men are to be instructed.
This aim
has often, in modern times, been declared to bejmoral
improvement, and the aim of art has been placed
in
the function of preparing the inclinations and impulses

for moral perfection, and of leading them to this goal.
This idea combines purification with instruction, inas-
much
as
art
is,
by communicating an insight into

that is, by instruction,
at
genuine moral goodness
Chap.
THE MORAL PURPOSE.
III.]
same time
the
to incite to purification,
99
and
in this way-
alone to bring about the improvement of mankind as

its
useful purpose
Regarding
the
and supreme
same has prima facie
didactic purpose.
its
But
furtherance.
moral improvement,
to be said as about the
We may
must not as a principle take

and
goal.
art in reference to
readily grant that art

for its
it is
aim the immoral
one thing to take im-
morality for the express aim of representation, and
Every
genuine work of art may have a good moral drawn
from it, but, of course, in doing so much depends on
from taking morality.
another to abstain
and on him who draws the moral.

Thus one may hear the most immoral representations
defended by saying that we must know evil, or sin, in
interpretation
order to act morally
and, conversely, it has been said
Mary Magdalene,
that the portrayal of
sinner
into
who
sin,
repent,
the beautiful
many
afterwards repented, has seduced
because art makes
and you must
it
sin before
look so beautiful to
you can
the doctrine of moral improvement,
if
carried out, goes in general yet further.
repent.
But
consistently
It
would not
be satisfied with the possibility of extracting a moral
from a work of art by interpretation, but
it
would, on
the contrary, display the moral instruction as the substantive purpose of the
work of art,
and, indeed, would
actually admit to portrayal none but moral subjects,
moral characters, actions, and incidents.
For
art
has
ioo
the choice
among
its
[Chap.III.
subjects, in contradistinction to
history or the sciences which have their matter fixed
them.
for
In order that
we may be able
to form a thoroughly
adequate estimate of the idea that the aim of art
is
moral from this point of view, we musr^ inquire
of
all for
first
the definite standpoint of the morality on which

If we look closely at the standwe have to understand it in the
present day, we soon find that its
this doctrine is based.
point of morality as
best sense at the
conception does not immediately coincide with what

apart from
way
it
we are
in the habit of calling in a general
To
virtue, respectability,* uprightness, etc.
respectable and virtuous
man moralf
is
not enough to
Morality involves
reflection
be
make
and the
definite consciousness of that
which duty prescribes,

and acting out of such a prior consciousness. Duty
itself is the law of the will, which man nevertheless
down
lays
freely out of his
own
supposed to determine himself to
and
its
and then
self,
this
duty for duty's
by doing good
fulfilment's sake,
solely from
the conviction which he has attained that
good.
Now
this law, the
* " Sittlichkeil "

It
almost
duty which
morality
is
is
it
is
the
chosen for
in
the English sense.
means the habit of virtue, without the
reflective aspiration
goodness as an ideal.
"
Moralitat" almost = conscientiousness or scrupulosity.
The above sentence is hardly true with the English word
after
t
" moral."
Chap.
THE MORALISTIC VIEW.
III.]
iei
duty's sake to be the guide of action, out of free
conviction and the inner conscience, and
upon,
will,
is,
and
taken by
is
itself,*
is
then acted
the abstract universal of the
the direct antithesis of nature, the sensuous
impulses, the self-seeking interests, the passions,
of
that
all
and the
and
comprehensively entitled the feelings
is
In this antagonism the one side
heart.
regarded as negativing the other
f
is
and, seeing that
both are present as antagonists within the subject

(person),
he
has, as determining himself out of himself,
the choice of following the one or the other.
But,
according to the view under discussion, a moral aspect

is
in
acquired by such a decision, and by the act performed
accordance with
it,
only through the free conviction
of duty on the one hand, and, on the other hand, through

the conquest, not only of the particular or separate
of the natural motives, inclinations, passions,
also
etc.,
will,
but
through that of the nobler emotions and the
higher impulses.)
For the modern moralistic view
from the fixed antithesis of the
starts
spiritual universality to its

larity,J
* "
and consists not in the completed
Fur sick, v
is
often used
velopment, and seems very like
will
in
its
sensuous natural particu-
where there
"an
is
reconciliation
no notion of de-
sich."
t "Gemiith."
%
As
e.g. if
we suppose
that
an act done
at the bidding of
natural affection cannot also be a fulfilment of the
The
would be
command
of
supposing the natural

affection, e.g. for parents, to operate as a moral motive, being
transformed by a recognition of its sacred or spiritual character.
duty.
"rejonciliation
''
in
io2
[Chap.
III.
of these contrasted sides, but in their conflict with
one another, which involves the requirement that the

impulses which conflict with duty ought to yield to
This antithesis does not merely display
it.
itself for
our consciousness, in the limited region of moral

but also emerges as a fundamental distincand antagonism between that which is real
essentially and in its own right,* and that which
Formulated in the
is external reality and existence.
abstract, it is the contrast of the universal and partiaction
tion
cular,
the
when
the former
latter, just
more
is
explicitly fixed over against
as the latter
concretely,
it
is
over against the former
appears in nature as the opposition
of the abstract law against the abundance of individual
phenomena, each having
its
own
character
in
the
mind, as the sensuous and spiritual in man, as the

battle of the spirit against the flesh, of
sake, the cold
warm
the
command, with the
feelings,
the
duty
for duty's
individual interest,
sensuous
inclinations
impulses, the individual disposition as such
hard
conflict
necessity
conception
of inward
further, as
empty
freedom
and
of
and
as the
natural
the contradiction of the dead

in
itself
compared
with
full
concrete vitality, or of theory and subjective thought
contrasted with objective existence and experience.
These are antitheses which have not been inby the subtlety of reflection or by the
vented, either
" An undfiir sick."
Chap.
THE MORAL ANTITHESIS.
III.]
pedantry of philosophy, but which have from
and
in
the
human
all tin
manifold forms preoccupied and disquiete
culture
consciousness, although
that
them up
forced
tradiction.
was modei
it
elaborated them most
distinctly,
ar
most unbending
culture and the modern
pi;
to the point of
Intellectual
man
of understanding create in
co:
this contrast, whii
makes him an amphibious animal, inasmuch as

sets him to live in two contradictory worlds at ono
so that even consciousness wanders back and forwa:
unable to satisfy
to side,
is
side as
on the
man
common
itself
reality
01
we
and earthly
S'
ter
drivi
nature, entangled in matter, in sensuous aims ar
their
enjoyments
on the other
side,
he exalts himse
and freedoi
to eternal ideas, to a realm of thought
a will universal laws ar
imposes on himself
as
attributions, strips the
world of
ing reality and dissolves

as the
mind
is
dignity simply
maltreating
it,
it
living
and
flourish
by denying the
its
rights
and
rights of nature ar
thereby retaliating the oppression ar
Such a discrepancy
modern
its
into abstractions, inasmui
put upon vindicating
violence which itself has
for
si<
on the
by want and poverty, hard
porality, oppressed
by
as
itself
For, on the one side,
other.
a prisoner in
from
and, shuttle-cocked
in this contradiction,
culture
in life
and
its
experienced from natui
and consciousness involv

understanding the demai
that the contradiction should be resolved.
Yet
tl
104
understanding cannot release
The
these antitheses.
consciousness a mere
itself
out finding
fro,
fixity of
and the present and
oiight,
the unrest of a per-
which seeks a reconciliation with-
Then
it.
from the
III.
solution, therefore, remains for
reality only stir themselves in
petual to and
[Chap.
the question arises, whether
such a many-sided and fundamental opposition which

never gets beyond a mere ought and a postulated
solution,
can be the genuine and complete* truth,
and, in general, the supreme purpose.
If the culture
of the world \ has fallen into such a contradiction,

it
it,
becomes the task of philosophy to undo or cancel

i.e. to show that neither the one alternative in its
nor
abstraction
possesses
dissolving
truth,
;
other
the
similar
in
one-sideness
but that they are essentially
that truth only
lies in
mediation of the two, and that this mediation
mere
postulate, but
is
in
self-
the conciliation and

is
no
nature and in reality
its
accomplished and always self-accomplishing.

intuition agrees directly with the natural
This
fajth
and
which always has present to the mind's eye precisely this resolved antithesis, and in action makes it
will,
its
purpose and achieves
does
is
of the antithesis in as far as

stitutes truth
and that not

*
" An
All that philosophy
it.
to furnish a reflective insight into the essence
is
it
shows that what con-
merely the resolution of
in the sense that
und fur sich
IVakre."
"
this antithesis,
the conflict and

Allgemeine Bildung:
its
1
Chap.
TRUTH IN SENSUOUS SHAPE.
III.]
any way are
aspects in
not,
ios
but in the sense that they
are, in reconciliation.
Now,
(d)
as an ultimate aim implied a higher stand-
we
point in the case of moral improvement,
have to vindicate
less
shall
this higher standpoint for art
nc
Thereby we at once lay aside

which has already been remarked
than for morals.
the false position,
upon, that art has to serve as a means for moral ends,
and to conduce to the moral end of the world,
by
such,
instruction
thereby has
something
substantive aim, not in
its
else.
If,
as
and moral improvement, and

therefore,
speak of an aim or purpose,
itself,
we now
we must,
but
in
continue to
in the first
instance, get rid of the perverse idea, which, in asking

"
What
is
the aim
of the question,
? "
retains the accessory
What
"
is
the use ?
The
".
ness of this lies in the point that the
meaning
perverse-
work of art would
then be regarded as aspiring to something else which

is
set before
what ought
to
consciousness as the essential and as
be
so that then the
work of
art
would
only have value as a useful instrument in the realization of
an end having substantive importance outside
the sphere of art.
Against
this
it
is
necessary to
maintain that art has the vocation of revealing the

truth in the
form of sensuous
artistic shape,
of repre-
senting the reconciled antithesis just described, and,/

therefore, has its
tion
and
purpose in
revelation.
itself,
For other
in this representa-j
objects,
such as
106
instruction, purification,
endeavour
after
[Chap.
III.
improvement, pecuniary gain,
fame and honour, have nothing
to
do
with the work of art as such, and do not determine

its
conception.
this point of view, into
which
consideration of the matter resolves
itself,
from
It is
have
apprehend
to
necessity, as indeed
of
idea
the
it
was from
in
art
reflective
inner
its
this point of view,
and
historically speaking, that the true appreciation
understanding of art took

thesis, of
general
within
discovered
grasped
it
far as
i
how
it
it
overcome
to
its
no
but
was not
till
own conception
which alone
and
and, indeed,
aesthetic
in
less
philosophy
and, just in as
this point of view, as it is the
the science of art
anti-
not only
did so, the conception of nature and of
Hence
origin,
itself felt,
this antithesis absolutely,
of philosophy in general, so also
to
For that
origin.
culture,
reflective
philosophy as such, and
that
its
which we spoke, made
we
that
is
art.
re-awakening
the re-awakening of
it is
this
as a science
art its higher estimation.
re-awakening
owes
its
true
CHAPTER
IV.
HISTORICAL DEDUCTION OF THE TRUE IDEA OF

ART IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY.
I
SHALL touch
briefly
upon the
the transition above alluded
partly for
to,
torical interest, partly because, in
more
closely indicate
doing
so,
important, and on the foundation of which
sha
ai
we mea
most general formi
In
lation, this basis consists in
recognizing
its
hi
its
we
the critical points which
to continue our structure.
as
side
historical
artistic
beaut
one of the means which resolve and reduce to
unit
the above antithesis and contradiction between
tr
mind and actual natur

whether that of external phenomena, or the inm
abstract self-concentrated
subjective feelings
i.
and emotions.
The Kantian philosophy
merely feeling the lack of

attaining definite
led the
way by
n<
this point of union, bi
knowledge of it, and bringing it with
the range of our ideas.*
In general, Kant treate
as his foundation for the intelligence as for the wi'

* " Vorstellung."
108
[Chap. IV.
the self-related rationality or freedom, the self-con-
knows
sciousness that finds and
itself as in-
itself in
finite.*
This knowledge of the absoluteness of reason
in itself
which has brought philosophy to
its
turning-
point in modern times, this absolute beginning, deserves

recognition even
if
inadequate, and
refuted.
is
we pronounce Kant's philosophy

an element in
But, in as far as
Kant
it
fell
which cannot be
back again into
the fixed antithesis of subjective thought and objective

|
and the sensuous

was he more especially who
things, of the abstract universality
individuality of the will,
strained
to
the
it
highest possible pitch the above-
mentioned contradiction called morality.f seeing that

he moreover exalted the practical side of the mind
above the
antithesis,
In
theoretical.
with
its fixity
presence of this fixed
acknowledged by the under-
standing, he had no course open but to
propound the
unity merely in the form of subjective ideas of the

reason to which no adequate reality could be shown
to correspond, or again, to treat
it
as consisting in
postulates which might indeed be deduced from the
whose essential nature J was not

him knowable by thought, and whose practical
accomplishment remained a mere ought deferred to
infinity.
Thus, then, Kant no doubt brought the
practical reason, but

for
See
Or conscientiousness
Pref. Essay, p. xix.
moralistic view.
what was
above described as the
% "
An st'ch."
KANT ON JUDGMENT.
Chap. IV.]
reconciled contradiction within the range of our ide;
he succeeded
but
ing
its
true
neither
in
genuine essence nor
and
sole reality.
scientifically
presenting
unfol
as
Kant indeed pressed on
si
in
it
inasmuch as he recognized the required uni

what he called the intuitive understanding; t
here, again, he comes to a standstill in the contrad
tion of subjectivity and objectivity, so that although
further,
in
suggests in the abstract a solution of the contradicti

of concept and reality, universality and particulari
understanding and sense, and thereby points to

Idea, yet,
on the other hand, he makes
and reconciliation
one which
own
is
true
merits.*
itself
this soluti
a purely subjective one,
and actual
in its nature
and on
In this respect the Critique of
power of judgment, in which he treats of the aesthe

and teleological powers of judgment, is instruct
and remarkable.
art,
The
beautiful objects of nature a
the rightly adapted products of nature,
necting which
Kant
is
by
cc
led to a closer treatment
organic and animated beings, are regarded by h
only from the point of view of the reflection

subjectively judges of them.
wh
Indeed Kant defines
power of judgment generally as "the power of thii

ing the particular as contained under the universal
and he
it
calls the
power of judgment
has only the particular given to

* "
An
it,
reflective "
and has
undfiir sich wahrem und wirklichem."
wl
to f
no
the universal under which
it
upon
end
this
it
has to impose
law that of
this
In the idea of freedom that belongs to the
Teleology.
practical reason, the

left
it
and Kant suggests as
itself;
To
comes."
requires a law, a principle, which
[Chap. IV.
as a mere
accomplishment of the end
" ought,"
but in the teleological
ment dealing with animated
beings,
Kant
hits
is
judg-
on the
notion of regarding the living organism in the light

that in
it
the idea, the universal, contains the particulars
as well.
Thus
in its capacity as end,
determines
it
the particular and external, the structure of the limbs,
not from without, but from within, and in the sense

that the particular conforms to the end spontaneously.
Yet even
not to
in
such a judgment, again,
know
are supposed
mode
of reflection.
cesthetic
judgment as
only to be enunciating a subjective

Similarly,
we
the objective nature of the thing, but
Kant understands the
neither proceeding from the understanding as such
qua the faculty of
ideas,
as such with
manifold variety, but from the free
its
nor from sensuous perception
play of the understanding and of the imagination.

is
in this free
agreement of the
that the thing
is
Now
knowledge,
related to the subject or person,
to his feeling of pleasure

(a)
faculties of
this
appetitive faculty.
interest,
If
and
and complacency.
complacency
be devoid of any
It
i.e.,
is,
in the first place, to
devoid of relation
we have an
interest,
curiosity for instance, or a sensuous interest
to
our
by way of
on behalf
CHAP.
THE
IV.]
"
UNIVERSAL DELIGHT?
of our sensuous want, a desire of possession and use,
then the objects are not important to us for their

sake, but for the sake of our want.
what
exists has a value only with reference to such a
want, and the relation

is
on the one
tion
we
which
relate
side,
is
distinct
If,
it.
of such a kind that the object
is
and on the other stands an

from the
for instance, I
order to nourish myself
by
it,
what Kant
asserts
is,
not of this kind.
attribu-
but to which
object,
consume the object
in
only in
this interest lies
me, and remains foreign to the object
is
own
In that case,
Now,
itself.
that the relation to the beautiful
The
aesthetic
judgment allows the
<
external existence to subsist free and independent,

giving licence to the object to have
This
is,
we saw
as
end
its
in itself.
above, an important considera-
tion.*
(3)
is
The
beautiful, in the second place, says Kant,
definable as that which, without a conception,
without a category of the understanding,

as the object
man f has no judgment about

universal
tion
mind
validity.
The
indeed to begin with, as such an abstrac-
but that which in
itself
and on
its
own
* See p. 68, supra.

" Der mensch wie er geht und steht."
t
% "
estimate\
the natural
the beautiful, seeing
judgment claims universal

is,
i.e.
perceived
To
of a universal delight.
the beautiful requires a cultivated
that this
is
An
und fur sick."
merits %
ii2
is
true, bears in itself the attribution
[Chap. IV.
and the claim to
In this sense the beautiful,
be valid even universally.
ought to be universally recognized, although the
too,
mere conceptions of the understanding are competent
The good,
to no judgment thereupon.
which
right in particular actions,
is
tions.
subsumed under
for good
conceptions, and the act passes
universal
when
is
that, for instance,
succeeds in corresponding to these concep-
it
Beauty, on the other hand, according to the
theory, should
awaken a universal delight directly,

This amounts to nothing
without any such relation.
than that,
else
in
contemplating beauty,
we
are not
conscious of the conception and of the subsumption
under
and do not permit
it,
to take place the severance
of the individual object and of the universal conception
which
in all
other cases
is
present in the judg-
ment.
(c)
In the third place, the beautiful (Kant says) has
the form of teleology,* in as far as
character
is
At bottom
of an end.
only repeats the view
this
Any
which we have just discussed.

duction,
i.e.
logically,
its
a plant or an animal,
and
is
so immediately a
teleology that
we have no
the end, distinct from
way
a teleological
perceived in the object without the idea
its
natural
pro-
organized teleo-
datum
to us in this
separate abstract idea of
given reality.
that even the beautiful

* "
is
is
It is in this
to be displayed to us
Zweck-massigkeit."
BEAUTY A FELT NECESSITY.
Chap. IV.]
113
as teleological.
In finite teleology * end and means
remain external to one another, inasmuch as the end
stands in no essential inner relation to the material
medium
of
its
of the end in
accomplishment.
its
In this case, the idea
abstraction f distinguishes itself from
the object in which the end appears as realized.
The
on the other hand, exists as teleological in

without means and end revealing themselves
beautiful,
itself,
in
it
as distinct aspects.
For instance, the purpose of

is the vitality which exists
the limbs of an organism
as actual in the limbs themselves
cease to be limbs.
For
in
separately they
the living thing the end
and the material medium of the end are so directly

united, that the existing being only exists so long as
purpose dwells in
its
tains,
The
when considered from
not wear
it
it.
its
beautiful,
Kant main-
this point of view,
does
teleology as an external form attached to
but the teleological correspondence of the innerA
and outer
is
the
immanent nature of the
beautiful
object.
(<a?)
ful,
Lastly, Kant's treatment determines the beauti-
in the
fourth place, as being recognized, without a
conception, as object of a necessary delight.
Necessity
* i.e. in any means which we adopt in order to effect an

end which we have distinctly before us as an idea. A knife
does not include cutting, nor a spade digging, although their
But a man does include
construction is relative to these ends.
living, i.e. he is not a man if he ceases to live.
t
"Fur sick."
I
U4
is
[Chap. IV.
an abstract category, and indicates an inner essenof two
relation
tial
because the one
The one
is,
aspects
if the
one
and
is,
then (and therefore) the other
is.
in its nature involves the other as well as
has no meaning without
itself,
just as cause,
The
delight which the beautiful involves
e.g.,
necessary consequence, wholly without

conceptions,
effect.
such a
is
relation
to
to categories of the understanding.
i.e.
Thus, for instance, we are pleased no doubt by what

is
symmetrical, and this
is
constructed in accordance
But Kant
with a conception of the understanding.

requires, to give us pleasure,
even more than the unity
and equality that belong to such a conception of the

understanding.
Now, what we
find in all these
a non-severance of that which in
supposed
in
all
Kantian laws
other cases
our consciousness to be distinct.
beautiful this severance finds itself cancelled,

,
is
is
pre-
In the
inasmuch
as universal and particular, end and means, conception
and object thoroughly interpenetrate one another.
And
an
thus, again,
agreement
Kant regards the
in
beautiful in art as
which the particular
accordance with the conception.
itself is
in
Particulars, as such,
axe prima facie contingent, both as regards one another
and as regards the
universal,
and
this
very contingent
element, sense, feeling, temper, inclination,
is
now
in
the beauty of art not merely subsumed under universal

categories of the understanding and controlled
by the
Chap. IV.]
KANTS SOLUTION SUBJECTIVE.
conception of feeling in
its
abstract universality, but
so united with the universal that
inwardly and in
By
115
reveals itself as
it
nature and realization * adequate
its
means the beauty of art becomes'

embodiment of a thought, and the material is not
externally determined by this thought, but exists
itself in its freedom.
For in this case the natural,
sensuous, the feelings and so forth have in themselves
proportion, purpose, and agreement while perception
and feeling are exalted into spiritual universality, and
thereto.
this
thought
itself,
not content with renouncing
its hostility
Thus
to nature, finds cheerfulness therein.
feeling,
and enjoyment are justified and sanctified,

so that nature and freedom, sensuousness and the
idea, find their warrant and their satisfaction all in
pleasure,
one.
is
Yet even
this apparently
complete reconciliation
ultimately inferred! to be,
merely
nevertheless,
subjective in respect of our appreciation as in respect
and not
of our production,
completely true and
to be the naturally
These we may take as the main

Kantian Criticism, so
in
far
for
the
results of the
as they have interest
for us
This criticism forms the
our present inquiry.
starting-point
and
real.
true
of
conception
artistic
Yet this conception had to overcome the
beauty.
Kantian
defects
before
it
could
assert
itself
as
the higher grasp of the true unity of necessity and

*
"An undfur sick."
By
Kant.
n6
[Chap. IV.
freedom, of the particular and the universal, of the
sensuous and the rational.

2.
And
so
it
must be admitted that the
artistic
sense of a profound, and, at the same time, philosophic
mind was beforehand with philosophy as such, in

demanding and enunciating the principle of totality
and reconciliation as against that abstract endlessness
of reflective thought, that duty for duty's sake, that
intelligence devoid of plastic shape,
which apprehend
nature and reality, sensation and feeling as a mere

limit,
and as an absolutely
hostile
For
element.
must be credited with the great merit of

having broken through the Kantian subjectivity and
abstractness of thought, and having dared the attempt
to transcend these limits by intellectually grasping
the principles of unity and reconciliation as the truth,
Schiller
:'
\and realizing them

discussions, did
in
not
Schiller, in his aesthetic
art.
simply adhere to art and
interest without concerning himself
to
about
its
its
relation
philosophy proper, but compared his interest in
beauty with the principles of philosophy and

was only by starting from the latter, and by their
help that he penetrated the profounder nature and
artistic
it
notion of the beautiful.
Thus we
feel
it
to be a
feature in one period of his works that he has busied
himself with thought
more
perhaps than was con-
ducive to their unsophisticated beauty as works of

art.
The
intentional character of abstract reflection
SCHILLER AND GOETHE.
CHAP. IV.]
117
and even the
interest of the philosophical idea
noticeable in
many
of his poems.
are
This has been
made a ground of censure against him, especially by

way of blaming and depreciating him in comparison
with
Goethe's
objectivity.
agreeable
But
straightforwardness *
and
in this respect Schiller, as poet, did
but pay the debt of his time
and the reason lay
in
a perplexity which turned out only to the honour

of that sublime soul and profound character, and to
the profit of science and cognition.
At
the
same epoch the same
withdrew Goethe,
Yet
too,
just as Schiller
scientific
stimulus
from poetry, his proper sphere.
immersed himself
in the
study of
the inner depths of the mind, so Goethe's idiosyncrasy
him to the physical side of art, to external nature,

to animal and vegetable organisms, to crystals, to
cloud formation, and to colour. To such scientific
led
research Goethe brought the power of his great mind,
which
in these
regions put to rout \ the science of
mere understanding with its errors, just as Schiller,

on the other side, succeeded in asserting the idea of
the free totality of beauty against the understanding's
science
of
Schiller's
volition
and thought.
productions
is
whole set of
devoted to this insight of his
" Unbefangenheit."
On Goethe's discoveries in morphology and errors in
<;
Popular Lectures," series i., lecture ii.
optics, see Helmholtz's
but compare Schopenhauer, " Werke,"vol. i., " Ueber das Sehn
*
t
und die Farben"
i.i
[Chap. IV.
into the nature of art, especially the "Letters
/Esthetic
Education."
In these letters the central
point from which Schiller starts

/
human being
vidual
an
ideal humanity.
be the
in
that every indi-
is
has within him the capacity of
This genuine
by the
says, is represented
upon
State,*
human
being, he
which he takes to
objective, universal, or, so to speak,
normal form
which t he diversity of particula r subjects o r perso ns
aims at aggregating and combining
itself into
a unity.
There were, then, he considered, two imaginable ways

in which the human being in time (in the actual
course of events) might
being in the Idea
human
coincide with the
on the one hand, by the State, qua
genus or class-idea of morality, f law, and intelligence,

destroying individuality
on the other hand, by the
individual raising himself to the level of his genus,

i.e.
by the human being_that
lives in
time ennobling
_himself into__theJiuman being of the. Idea.

reason, he thinks,
dem ands
characteiv-Jbut nature^dernands
and both these
viduality,;
diver sity a nd
legislative authorities
simultaneous claims on man.

conflict
Now
unity as such t_the_jreneric

indi-
have
In presence of the
between these antagonistic elements,
aesthetic
education simply consists in realizing the requirement

*
Compare Browning's " Luria

"
To
t
"
but the attempt of many

rise to the completer life of one."
people
is
Or " Of the moral,
etc.,
man."
ÊSTHETIC EDUCATION.
Chap. IV.]
119
of mediation and reconciliation between them.
aim of
this education
For the
according to Schiller, to give
is,
such form to inclination, sensuousness, impulse, and;
may become rational in themselves,

same process reason, freedom, and
may come forward out of their abstrac-
heart, that they
by
and
the
spirituality
tion,
and
uniting with
throughout,
rationalized
flesh
the
may
Beauty
and blood.
is
the unification of the rational

this unification to
This notion of
in
and the sensuous, and

real.
may be readily recognized

of " Anmuth und Wiirde," * and in
Schiller's
poems more particularly from the
the praise of
now
be invested with
thus pronounced to be
be the genuinely
the general views
his
element,
natural
in it
women
fact that
his subject matter
he makes
because
it
was
in their character that he recognized and held up to
notice the spontaneously present combination of the

spiritual
and
natural.
Now this
Unity_of the u nive rsal and particula r, of

freedom and necessity, of thejspiritual and the nat ural,
whiclTSchiller grasped from a scientific point of view
as the principle
and essence of
art,
and laboured
indefatigably to evoke into actual existence by help
of art and aesthetic culture, was considered, by a further

advance, as the Idea itself, and was thus constituted
the principle of knowledge and of existence, while the
*
work
" Ueber
Anmuth und
Wiirde," "
of Schiller that appeared in 1793.
Of Grace and
Dignity," a
120
Idea
and
[Chap. IV-
was recognized as the
sole truth
in this sense
By means
reality.
of this recognition, science, in
Schelling's philosophy, attained
and although
absolute standpoint,
had previously begun to assert its

and dignity in relation to the highest
art
peculiar nature
înterests of
its
was now that the actual

place in scientific theory were
humanity, yet
it
and its
Art was now accepted, even if erroneously
in one respect, which this is not the place to discuss,
yet in its higher and genuine vocation. No doubt
notion of art
discovered.
before this time so early a writer as
had been inspired by

of the ancients in a
a
new
Winckelmann
his observation of the ideals
way
that led
him
sense for the contemplation of
to develop
art,
to rescue
from the notions of commonplace aims and of

mere mimicry of nature, and to exert an immense
it
influence in favour of searching out the idea of art in
the works of art and in
its
For Winckelmann
history.
should be regarded as one of the
men who have
suc-
ceeded in furnishing the mind with a new organ and
new methods
of study in the field of
theory, however,
his
view has had

3.
To
subject,
and the
scientific
On
art.
knowledge of
the
art
less influence.
touch briefly on the further course of the
A.
W. and
Friedrich
von
Schlegel,
in
proximity to the renaissance of philosophy, being

covetous of novelty and with a thirst for what was
striking
and extraordinary, appropriated
as
much
THE SCHLEGELS.
Chap. IV.]
121
of the philosophical idea as their natures, which were
anything
critical
but philosophical, and essentially of the
stamp, were capable of absorbing.
Neither
of them can claim the reputation of a speculative
But
was they who, armed with their

set
themselves somewhere
near the standpoint of the Idea, and with great
plainness of speech and audacity of innovation,
thinker.
critical
it
understanding,
though with but a poor admixture of philosophy,

directed a clever polemic against the traditional views.
And
thus they undoubtedly introduced in several
branches of art a
new standard
of judgment in con-
formity with notions which were higher than those

that they attacked.
As, however, their criticism was
not accompanied by the thorough philosophical com-
prehension of their standard, this standard retained

a character of indefiniteness and vacillation, with the
result that
times too
much and some-
they sometimes did too

little.
No
doubt they are to be credited
with the merit of bringing afresh to light and extolling

in a loving spirit
much
that
was held obsolete and
was inadequately esteemed by
their
age,
e.g.
the
work of the older painters of Italy and the Netherand, again, they
lands, the " Nibelungen Lied," etc.
endeavoured with zeal to learn and to teach subjects
that were little known, such as the Indian poetry and
;
mythology.
Nevertheless, they attributed too high
a value to the productions of such epochs, and some-
122
times themselves
[Chap. IV.
admiring
into the blunder of
fell
what was but mediocre,
e.g.
Holberg's comedies, and
attaching a universal importance to what had only

relative
boldly showing themselves
or even
value,
enthusiasts for a perverse tendency
standpoint as
Out of
if it
and subordinate
were something supreme.
this tendency,
and especially out of the
sentiments* and doctrines of Fried, von Schlegel, there

further
grew
Irony.
This idea had
in
one of
manifold shapes the so-called
in all its
its
its
aspects, in
deeper root,
to
art.
Fried,
it,
take
philosophy were applied
Fried,
Schelling, to pass wholly
von Schlegel to develop
it
in
peculiar fashion, and to tear himself loose from
As
a
it.
regards the intimate connection of Fichte's prin-
ciples with
one tendency (among others) of the irony,
we need only
lay stress on the following point, that
Fichte establishes the

all
it
von Schlegel, as also Schelling, started
from Fichte's point of view
beyond
we
philosophy, in so
Fichte's
far as the principles of his
if
knowledge, of
all
in the sense of the I
utterly abstract
which
and formal.
second place, this
I is
matter
is
is
is,
and
For
and that
no more than,
this reason, in the
characteristic, every attribute,
negated therein
annihilated
is
in itself absolutely simple, and,
on the one hand, every

every content
as the absolute principle of
reason and cognition
by absorption
* " Gesinnungen."
for
every positive
into this abstract
FICHTETHE EGO.
Chap. IV.]
freedom and unity
which
is
recognition
on the other
am
I, is
I,*
every content
side,
given position and
only by favour of the
only by favour of the
is
to be of value for the
123
Whatever
I.
and what
in turn able to annihilate.
Now,
if
we abide by
which have their origin

abstract
I,
and regarded \
follows that the I
is
and
in
of everything,
human
by the
be
as well
making
But
I.
or divine, profane or sacred,
I,
and that might
that
semblance, not true
actual in
and
it
is
there
not, therefore, just
This amounts
own right % a mere

its own sake and by
its
real for
within whose power and caprice
at its free disposal.
if so,
being given
own means, but a mere appearance due
its
I,
is
and
able to remain lord and master

no sphere of morality or legality,
in turn annihilated thereby.

all
real
its
anything that would not have to begin by

position
of the
in itself, but only as
produced by the subjectivity of the
of things
empty forms
these utterly
in the absoluteness
then nothing has value in
nature,
actual
to
my favour
by
is
is,
To admit
it
it
to the
remains, and
or to annihilate
it
stands purely in the pleasure of the I which has

attained absoluteness in itself
*
sie
and simply as
The Baccalaureus' speech
war
nicht, eh' ich sie
in Faust (Part
erschufêtc, appears
I.
2)
"Die Welt,
to
be a parody
of Fichte's ideas in this aspect.

t
ist
think the order of the
nichts
't
an undfiir
sick
German must be a
und in sick selbst
"An undfiir sick seyende''
misprint.
" So
werthvoll betrachtetP
124
In the third place, * then, the

individual,
viduality to
and
its
its
own
[Chap. IV.
a living, active
I is
consists in bringing
life
indi-
its
consciousness as to that of others,
uttering itself and taking shape in phenomena.

For every human being while he lives, seeks to realize
himself, and does realize himself.
With respect to
in
beauty and art

artist
this receives
and forming one's
the meaning of living as
life artistically.
But, accord-
ing to the principle before us, IJive a s artist
my action
and utterance
when
all
in general whenever it has

do with any content, is fo r me on the level of m ere
se mblance, and ass umes a shape w hich is wholly in my
power. So I am not really in earnest, either about
,
to
content, or generally, about
its utterance and

For genuine earnest comes into being
only by means of a substantial interest, a matter tha t
ha s someth i ng in it, tru th,_rnoralitv. and so Jorth by
this
,
realization.
means of a content which, as such (without my help)

is enough to have value for me as something essential,
so that
myself only become essential in
eyes in as far as
have immersed myself
my own
in
such a
matter and have come to be in conformity with
my
whole knowledge and
according to which the

loosest of
*
thing
The
its
a semblance for
semblance.
t
is
Not
literal.
artist is
own power,
three points are,
"
At
action.
(i.)
it.
Das alles an
The
(iii.)
in
the I that binds and
whom no
for
it
the standpoint
is
Its
abstract,
own
sich setzende
content of
(ii.)
Everya
acts, even, are
und auflosende Ich."
Chap.
CONCEIT OF THE IRONY.
IV.]
125
consciousness counts as absolute and as essentiallyreal,
but only as
an
itself
artificial
and dissoluble
semblance, such earnest can never
come
as nothing has validity ascribed to
but the formalism/
of the
I
By
I.
others, indeed,
present myself to
asmuch as they
my
self-display in
them may be taken
interpret
me
into being,
1
it
as though
concerned about the matter in hand
which
seriously, inI
were really
but therein they
shnply deceived, poor borne" creatures, without
are
talent
and capacity to apprehend and to attain my

And this shows me that not every one is
standpoint.
so free {formally * free, that
usually has value, dignity,
simply a product of his
by he
is
matters,
tent
by
living
is)
as to see in
and sanctity
own power
for
all
that
mankind,
of caprice, where-
able to set his seal on the value of such
and to determine himself and obtain a contheir means, or not.
an ironical
artist life
And
then this
apprehends
skill in
itself as
God-like geniality, \ for which every possible thing
mere dead
creature, to
which the
free creator,
is
a
a
knowing
himself to be wholly unattached, feels in no
way
bound, seeing that he can annihilate as well as create
He who
it.
has attained such a standpoint of God-
Formal freedom
is
detachment from everything, or the
(apparent) capacity of alternatives ; it is opposed to real freedom,

which is identification ofone's-self with something that is capable
of satisfying one.
of mind in
t "Genialitat:" the character or state
is
dominanthere, the mere
which genius
self-enjoyment of genius.
126
down
like geniality looks
besides, for they are
their fixed, obligatory,
who
on
all
mankind
pronounced born^ and dull
as far as law, morality,
the individual
in superiority
[Chap. IV.
and so forth retain

and
And
essential validity.
thus lives his artist
life
in
them
for
assigns
himself indeed relation to others, lives with friends,

mistresses,
to
right
towards
it.
This
is
that
his
or
actions,
ticular
own
but as genius he sets no value on
etc.,
relation
this
determinate reality and

to
what
universal
is
the universal import of the genial God-like

I
into itself for
bonds are broken, and which
all
endure to
its
he assumes an ironical attitude
is,
irony, as that concentration of the
/which
par-
in
live in
will
the bliss of self-enjoyment*
only
This
irony was the invention of Herr Fried, von Schlegel,
and many followed him

are prating of
The proximate form

plays
itself
futility t
of
as irony
all
in prating
about
it
then, or
afresh just now.
it
that
is
is,
of this negativity which disthen,
on the one hand the
matter of
fact,
or moral
and of
substantive import in itself; the nothingness of

that
is
value.
objective,
and that has
If the
remains at this point of view,
essential
all
and actual
all
* " Selbstgenuss."
I do not think it means self-indulgence,
but the above-described enjoyment of reposing in the superiority
of the ego.
" Eitelkeil," also
t
this attitude.
= " conceit
Hegel uses
it
" which
;
on purpose.
is
the other side of
FALSE SAINTLINESS.
Chap. IV.]
appears to
own
it
and as
as nothing worth
127
futile,
excepting
which thereby becomes hollow

and empty, and itself mere conceit.* But on the
its
subjectivity,
other hand, the reverse
may
happen, and the
also_find itself unsatisfied in its
and
may
quence to
prove insufficient to
feel
itself,
itself,
so as in conse-
a craving for the solid and substantial, for
Out of this
determinate and essential interests.

arises
may
enjoyment of
there
misfortune and antinomy, in that the subject
and has a craving for

unable to abandon its isolation
desires to penetrate into truth

objectivity,
but yet
is
and ^retirement into

this unsatisfied
itself,
and to
s trip
ab stract inwardness
itself free
has a seizure of sickly yearning \ which

seen emanate from
school.
Fichte's
tent of this quiescence
feebleness,
we have also
The discon-
which
or
surrendering
inward harmony, and,
craving after the absolute,
for
remains none
unreal and empty, even though pure in
itself,
source of morbid saintlinessj and yearning.

true saintly soul acts
craving
is
does
touch anything for fear of
not like to act

its
to
and
of
mind ), and so
(of
and
is
a reality.
But
all
its
the less
the
is
For a
all
that
the feeling of the nullity of the empty
* "Eitle?
" Sehnsuchtigkeit."
t
% " Krankhafte
SchonseligkeW
Schonseligkeit seems
to
be really a word formed like Redselig, etc., but to be given an

equivocating reference to " Schbne Seele," which I have rendered
in
the next sentence
by " saintly
soul."
128
futile * subject
escape this
[Chap. IV.
or person, which lacks the strength to
and to
its futility,*
fill
t itself
with some-
thing of substantial value.

In so
form of
however, as the Irony was treated as a
far,
did not content itself with conferring
art, it
artistic
shape upon the
of the
artist.
own
actions, etc., the artist
to produce external
The
is,
was bound
works of art as creations of his
principle of these productions,
the most part can only
form,
and particular individuality
In addition to the works of art pre-
sented by his
fancy.
life
come
which for
to the birth in poetical
due course, the^ representation of the
in
The
rjiyjne__as_Jhe_lKmical.
ironical,
"genial"
as
what
and excellent; and thus even the
objective shapes of art will have to represent the mere
individuality, consists in the self-annihilation of
is
noble,
great,
principle of absolute subjectivity,
has value and nobleness for

annihilation.
man
by displaying what
as null in
This implies, not merely that
its
we
self-
are
not to be serious about the right, the moral, and the

true,
but that the highest and best of
in
inasmuch as
it,
characters,
itself,
taken
and
and so
is
in its exhibition
actions,
irony at
in the abstract,
* " Eitlen,"
it
refutes
own
has nothing
and annihilates
expense.
This mode,
borders closely on the principle
" Eitelkeit?
This recurring phrase

reminiscence of the Platonic
t
its
all
through individuals,
may be
used etymologically, as a
irMfoxxsBiu.
COMEDY AND
Chap. IV.]
comedy
of
IRONY.
but yet within this
129
comic
affinity the
must be essentially distinguished from the
ironical.
For the comic must be limited to bringing to nothing
what
is
a false and self-contradictory
in itself null,
phenomenon
for instance,
a whim, a perversity, or
particular caprice, set over against a
mighty passion
or even a supposed reliable principle or rigid
may be shown
thing
to be null.
when what
is
in
But
reality
it
is
an individual and
is
by
his
means.
quite another
moral and
substantial content as such, exhibits
maxim
any
true,
itself as null in
Such an individual
then null and despicable in character, and weakness
and want of character are thus introduced into the

In this distinction between the ironi-
representation.
cal
and the comic
it is
therefore an essential question
what import that has which
is
brought to nothing.
In the case supposed they are wretched worthless

subjects, persons destitute of the power to abide by
their
fixed
surrender
"
it
and
and
essential
let it
purpose,
be destroyed
but
in
Irony" loves this irony of the characterless.
character involves on the one
hand an
ready
them.
to
The
For true
essential import
on the other hand, adherence to that

purpose, such that the individuality would be robbed
of its whole existence if forced to desist from and to
in its
purpose
This stability and substance constitute

Cat? can Jive only as
the keynote of character.
Roman j,rid_as_reublican. Now, if Irony is taken
abandon
it)
3o
as the keynote of the representation, this
the supremely inartistic

of the
work of
figures
is
means that
taken as the true principle
For the
art.
[Chap. IV.
in part shapes void of
result
is
in part insipid
import and of conduct,*
seeing that their substantive nature turns out to be
a nullity
and
in part, finally, those
yearning moods
and unresolved contradictions of the heart that attach

themselves to such conceptions.
Representations of
And
kind can awake no genuine interest.
this
for
from the Irony that we have eternal
this reason it is
lamentations over the lack of profound feeling, artistic

insight,
and genius
in the public,
inasmuch as
not understand these heights of Irony.
does
it
That
is
to
say, the public does not like all this mediocrity, half
grotesque and half characterless.
And
these
natures
unsubstantial languishing
pleasure
is
well that
afford
no
a comfort that such insincerity and
is
it
it
hypocrisy are not approved, and that, on the contrary,
man
has a desire no
less for full
and genuine
interests
than for characters which remain true to the weighty

purposes of their
It
lives.
may be added
who more
as an historical remark that those
particularly adopted irony as the
principle of art were Solger
This
is
not the place to speak of Solger at the
length which
*
is
due tq him, and
Haltung: "bearing"
bearing of one
supreme
and Ludwig Tieck.
who
must content myself
in general, and more especially the

bears himself nobly by reason of a principle.
SOLGER.
Chap. IV.]
with a few observations.
131
Solger was not like the
others, satisfied with superficial philosophical culture,
but the genuine speculative need of his innermost

nature impelled
him
tical
the
descend into the depths of the
to
And
philosophic idea.
upon the
therein he hit
element of the Idea, the point to which
name
of
" infinite
of the idea in that
negates
itself as
finiteness
and just as really cancels

estab lishing thereby
give
absolute negativity," the activity
it
become
universal, so as to
dialec-^
this
the infinite and
and
particularity,
negation
theunive real and
in
turn,
infinite in the
and p articular. Solger got no further than this

negativity, and it is no doubt an element in the
finite
when conceived as this mere

and dissolution both of infinite and of
no more than an element not, as Solger mainthe entire Idea.
Unhappily Solger's life was too
speculative idea, but yet

dialectic unrest
finite
tains,
soon interrupted for him to have achieved the concrete
And
developmen t of the philosophical Ide a.
so he
never got beyond this aspect of negativity, which has

affinity
is
with the dissolution that Irony effects of what
determinate and of what has substantive value in
itself,
a negativity in which he saw the principle of
artistic activity.
Yet
in his
the solidity, seriousness,
actual
life,
and strength of
considering
his character,
he neither was himself, in the sense above depicted,
an ironical
artist,
genuine works of
nor was his profound feeling for

art,
developed
in
protracted art
132
[Chap. IV.
an ironical nature.
So much
studies, in this respect of
in vindication of Solger,
art
whose
merit to be distinguished
life,
philosophy, and
from the previously-
mentioned apostles of irony.
As
regards
Ludwig
from that period

literary
centre.*
in
Tieck, his culture, too, dates
which
some time Jena was the

and others of these dis-
for
Tieck
tinguished people display great familiarity with the
phrases in question, but without telling us what they
mean by them.
Thus, Tieck no doubt always says
there ought to be Irony
but when he himself ap-
proaches the criticism of great works of

his recognition
and portrayal of
excellent, yet, if
we fancy
that
work
as
Romeo and
we hear no more about
Juliet,"
we
though
their greatness
now
is
tunity to explain where the Irony

"
art,
is,
e.g.
in
such a
are taken in
the Irony.
* See Scherer, Eng. Transl.,
ii.
is
the best oppor-
248.
for
CHAPTER V
DIVISION OF
After
I.
THE
SUBJECT.
the above introductory remarks,
is
it
nov
Bu
time to pass to the study of our object-matter.
we
are
in the introduction,
still
and an
introductior
cannot do more than lay down, for the sake of ex

sketch of the entire cours(
planation, the general
which
will
be followed by our subsequent

As, however,
considerations.
as
proceeding
fr
even assigned as
of the absolute
review in a
way
om
its
scientifii
we have spoken
of ar
Id ea, and havi
the absolute
end the sensuous representatior
itsel f,
we
shall
have to conduct
to show, at least in general,
how
particular divisions of the subject spring from
thi:
th<
thi
conception of artistic beauty as the representation o

the absolute.
ja.
we must attempt
very general idea of this conception

It
is
Therefore
to awakei
itself.
has already been said that the content of ar
the Idea, and that
its
form
lies in
the plastic use o
DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT.
i34
images accessible to sense.

to reconcile into a full
which
attribution
this
that the content, which

representation, shall
These two
and united
involves
is
show
[Chap. V.
sides art has
The
totality.
first
the requirement
is
to be offered to artistic
be
itself to
worth y of such repres entation.
in
its
Otherwise
jiature
we only
obtain a bad combination, whereby a content that

will
not submit to plasticity and to external presenta-
tion, is forced into that form,
in its nature prosaic is
mode
and a matter which
is
expected to find an appropriate
of manifestation in the form antagonistic to
its
nature.
The
second requireme nt,
which
is
derivable from
demands of the content of art that jt should

not be anythin g abstract in itself
This does not
mean that it must be concrete as the sensuous is
concrete in contrast to everything spiritual and inthis first,
tellectual, these
and
in
abstract.
For everything that has ge nuine truth

is con crete in itself,
the mi nd as well as in nature
and
has, in spite of its universality, nevertheless,
subjectivity
and
particularity within
it.
If
we
both
say,
God that he is simply One, the supreme Being

such, we have only enunciated a lifeless abstraction
fg.,
as
being taken as in themselves simple
of
of the irrational understanding.
himself
ifford
is
Such a God, as he
not apprehended in his concrete truth, can
no material
for art, least of all for plastic art.
Hence the Jews and the Turks have not been able to
Chap. V.]
ART CONCRETE, NOT SENSUOUS.
represent their God,
such an
positive
God
135
who does not even amount
abstraction of the understanding, in
way
in
which Christians have done
in Christianity is conceived in
His
so.
truth,
to
the
For
and
Himself thoroughly concrete, as a

and more closely determined, as
therefore, as in
person, as a subject,*
mind or
spirit.
What He
is
as spirit unfolds itself to
the religious apprehension as the Trinity of Persons,
which at the same time
Here
is
in relation with itself
essentiality, universality,
and
together with their reconciled unity
One.
particularity,
and
such unity that constitutes the concrete.
it
is
only
Now,
as
must be of
demands the same concrete-
a content in order to possess truth at

this concrete nature, art
is
all
ness,
because a mere abstract universal has not in
itself
the vocation to advance to particularity and
phenomenal manifestation and to unity with
itself
therein.
a reader to ask in what person or subject

conceived to have reality. On this see below, p. 165. It
appears certain to me that Hegel, when he writes thus, is
referring to the selfkconscio usness of individual human being s
as co nstituting, and reflecting on, an ideal unity between them.
This~may seem to put a non-natural meaning on the term
" person " or " subject," as if the common element of a number
It is obvious that
of intelligences could be a single person.
the question hhi ges on the degree in which a un ity that is
I can
not sensuou s b ut ideal can be effective and actual.
only say here, that the more we consider the nature of ideal
* It is natural for
God
is
unity the higher
Essay, p.
xiv.
we
shall rate its capabilities.
See Prefatory
136
If a true
[Chap. V.
and therefore concrete content
corresponding to
it
is
to
have
a sensuous form and modelling,
sensuous form must, in the third place, be no less
this
emphatically something individual, wholly concrete in

itself,
The
and one.
character of concreteness as
belonging to both elements of

to the representation,
both
may
coincide and correspond to
as, for instance, the natural

is
is
concrete in
abandon the idea that
accident that an actual
world
is
no
itself,
it
human body
capable of represent-
and of displaying
we ought
Therefore
a mere matter of
is
phenomenon of the external
chosen to furnish a shape thus conformable
Art does not appropriate
to truth.
because
is
conformity therewith.
itself in
to
which
spirit,
one another
shape of the
such a sensuous concrete as
ing
to the content as
art,
precisely the point in which
is
it
simply finds
The
other.
it
this
form either
existing or because there
is
concrete content itself involves the
may say indeed of

But in compensation this
which a content essentially
element of external and actual, we

sensible
manifestation.
sensuous concrete, in
belonging to mind expresses
itself,
is
nature addressed to the inward being
element of shape, whereby the
reason
for
which content
and
own
in
its
its
external
content
perceptible and imaginable, has the
purely for the heart and mind.
is
made
aim of existing
This
artistic
fashioned in conformity with each other.
is
the only
shape
are
The mere
Chap. V.]
THAN
SPIRIT HIGHER
ART.
137
sensuous concrete, external nature as such, has not
purpose for
this
exclusive ground of origin.
The
plumage shines unseen, and
their
its
birds' variegated
song dies away unheard, the Cereus * which blossoms

only for a night withers without having been admired
in the wilds of southern forests,
and these
forests,
jungles of the most beautiful and luxuriant vegeta-
with the most odorous and aromatic perfumes,
tion,
perish
and decay no
unenjoyed.
less
The work of
but
art has not such a naive self-centred being,
essentially a question,
heart,
is
an address to the responsive
an appeal to affections and to minds.
Although the
bestowal of sensuous form
artistic
is in
this respect
hand
it is
not accidental, yet
on the other
mode of apprehending the

Though t is a higher mode than
by means of the s ensuous concrete.
not the highest
sp iritually concre te.

r epresentation
"Although in a relative sense abstract, yet
it
must not
be one-sided but concrete thinking, in order to be true
and
rational.
Whether a given content ha s sensuous
a rtistic represe nta tion for
its
virtue of its nature essentially
more
spiritual
embodimen t,
plays itself at once,
Greek gods with
G od
gr_jn
demands a higher an d
for instance,
as
a distinction that dis-
we compare
conceived
The Greek god
Christian ideas.
* Fackeldistel
if,
is
adequate form
is
the
accordi ng to
not abstract but

..
" Torch thistle," a plant of the genus Cereus,
Nat. Order Cactacecz.
138
[Chap. V.
human
individual,
and
shape
God is equally a concrete permode of pure spiritual existence,

His
be known as mind* and in mind.
is
closely akin to the natural
the Christian
sonality, but in the
and
to
is
medium of
existence
is
therefore essentially inward
knowledge and not external natural form, by means

of which He can only be represented imperfectly, and
not in the whole depth of His idea.
But inasmuch as the task of
art is to represent the
idea to direct perception in sensuous shape, and not

in the
form of thought or of pure spirituality as such,
and seeing that
this
work of representation has
its
value and dignity in the correspondence and the unity
of the two sides,
bodiment,
it
i.e.
its plastic emand excellency of
of the Idea and
follows that the level
art in attaining a realization
adequate to
its
idea,f
must depend upon the grade of inwardness and unity

with which Idea and Shape display themselves as
fused into one.
Thus
the higher truth isâpiritual being that has
attained a shape adequate to the conception of spirit.
This
is
what furnishes the
science of
true notion of
principle of division for the
For before the mind can attain the
art.
its
absolute essence,
a course of stages whose ground
and to
supplies
*
Or
this evolution
itself,
it
has to traverse
in this idea itself
is
of the content with which
there corresponds an evolution,
" as spirit
and
in spirit."
The
idea of
it
immeart.
THE SEVERAL ARTS.
Chap. V.]
139
diately connected therewith, of_the_plastic--fr-ms of
under the shape of which the mind as
art,
presents to itself the consciousness of
This evolution within_the

its
own nature two
velopment
itself is
artist
itself.
has again in
art-spirit
In the first place the de-
sides.
a spiritual * and universal one, in
so far -as the graduated series of definite conceptions of

the
definite but
world as the
comprehensive conscious-
ness of nature^,
man
shape
the second place, this universal de-
and, in
velopment of art
external existence
is
and, God, .gives
itself artistic
obliged to provide itself with
and sensuous form, and the
definite
modes of the sensuous art-existence are themselves a

totality of necessary distinctions in the
which are the several arts.
realm of art
It is true, indeed, that the
necessary kinds of artistic representation are on the

one hand qua spiritual of a very general nature, and
not restricted to any one material t while sensuous
;
The two
subject-matter
evolutions are, speaking roughly,

;
(ii.)
that of the particular
mode
(i.)
that of the
of art
(i.)
e.g.
you have Egyptian, Greek, Christian religion, etc., with the corresponding views and sentiments, each in its own relation to
art ; (ii.) you have, as a cross division to the former, the several
arts sculpture, music, poetry, etc., each having its special ground
and warrant.
should
T He is asking himself why sound or paint, etc.,
correspond to one type of art as theoretically denned this
these
being intellectual, not sensuous, at root and answers that
media qua natural objects have, though more latent than in
works of art, an import and purpose of their own, which reveals
itself in their suitability to
particular forms of art.
i4o
[Chap. V.
existence contains manifold varieties of matter.
But
as this latter, like the mind, has the Idea potentially

for its inner soul,
it
follows from this that particular
sensuous materials have a close affinity and secret

accord with the spiritual distinctions and types of art
presentation.
In
its
completeness, however, our science divides
jtself into three principal portions.

First,
we obtain a general part.
It
has for
tent and object the universal Idea of
this
artistic
its
con-
beauty
beauty being conceived as the Ideal together
with the nearer relation of the latter both to nature

I
and
to subjective artistic production.
Secondly, there develops itself out of the idea of

artistic
beauty a particular part, in as far as the essen-
tial differences
which
this idea contains in itself evolve
themselves into a scale of particular plastic * forms.

In the third place there results a final part, which
has for
its
subject the individualization of artistic
beauty, that consists in the advance of art to the
sensuous realization of
its
shapes and
tion as a system of the several arts t
and
its
self-comple-
and
their genera
species.
* " Gestaltungsformen." I use " plastic " all through in a pregnant sense, as one speaks of plastic fancy, etc. ; meaning ideally
determinate, and
fit
for translating into pictures, poetry, etc.
These "plastic forms" are the various modifications of the

subject-matter of art.
t
See
See note,
note, p. 139, above.
p. 139,
above.
THE IDEAL.
Chap. V.]
2.
by
With respect
to the
141
intelligible,
we must begin
make the sequel
part,
first
recalling to mind, in order to
that the Idea qua the beautiful in art
is
not the Idea as such, in the
mode
physical logic apprehends
as the absolute, but the
it
which a meta-
in
Idea as developed into concrete form
fit
for reality,
and as having entered into immediate and adequate

unity with this reality.
only in
its
shape
tive
at
For the Ideaâs
the essentially and actually true,
it is
such, although
yet the truth
is
generality which has not yet taken objec;
but the Idea as the beautiful in art
once the Idea when specially determined as
essence individual
and
reality,
an
also
shape of reality essentially destined to

reveal the Idea.
r equirement
to
one another.
Idea, as
individual
embody and J
This amounts to enunciating the
that the Idea,
c oncrete reality,
isPl
in its
are to be
When
and
its
plastic
mnnlH as
made completely adequate

reduced to such form the
a reality moulded in conformity with the
conception of the Idea,
is
the Ideal.
The problem
of this conformity might, to begin with, be under-
stood in the sense that
long as the actual
any Idea would
shape,
it
shape, represented this particular Idea
But
if so,
serve, so
did not matter what
the required truth of the Ideal
and no other.
confounded
is
with mere correctness, which consists in the expression

of any meaning whatever in appropriate fashion so
that
its
import
may be
readily recognized in the shape
142
The
created.
Any
Ideal
is
content whatever
not to be thus understood.
may
attain to being repre-
sented quite adequately, judged
own
its
nature, but
it
[Chap. V.
by the standard of
does not therefore gain the right
to claim the artistic beauty of the Ideal.
Compared
indeed with ideal beauty, even the presentation will

in
such a case appear defective.
From
this point of
view we must remark to begin with, what cannot be

proved
till
that the defects of a
later,
work of
art are
not to be regarded simply as always due, for instance,

to
unskilfulness.
Defectiveness of form
from defectiveness of content. So, for example,
Chinese, Indians, and Egyptians in their artistic
individual
aris es
trie
shapes, their forms of deities,
and
their idols, never
got beyond a formless phase, or one of a vicious and

false definiteness of form,
genuine beauty
and were unable to attain
because their mythological ideas, the
content and thought of their works of
art,
were as
yet indeterminate in themselves, or of a vicious determinateness, and did not consist in the content that
absolute in
in true
itself.
The more
is
that jworks of art excel
beauty of presentatio n, the more profound
is
And
in
the inner truth of their content and though t.

dealing with this point,
we have not
perhaps of the greater or lesser
skill
to think merely
with which the
natural forms as given in external reality are appre-
hended and imitated.

consciousness and
For
in certain stages of art-
of representation, the distortion
FORM AND CONTENT.
Chap. V.]
143
and disfigurement of natural structures
is
not unin-
and want of skill, but

which emanates from the content
tentional technical inexpertness

(intentional alteration,
that
is
in
consciousness,
and
is
Thus, from this point of view, there

imperfect art, which
and
cally
may
be quite
required
thereby.
such aihing_as
is
both techni-
perfect,
in other respects, in its determinate sphere,
yet reveals itself to be defective
when compared with
the conception of art as such, and with the Ideal.
^loly-in 4he-hjghest arl_axe_ the Idea and the representation genuinely adequate to one anothe r,
sense that the outward shape given to the Idea
n the
is
in
and actually the true shap p, because

the content of the Idea, which that shape expresses,
is itself the true and real content.
It is a corollary
itself essentially
from
this,
as
we
indicated above,* that the Idea
be defined in and through
and thereby possess

of
its
and standard
and determination in external
be able to represent
herein that
God only
intellectual
God Himself
human form
it
known
in
is
bridge to phenomenal existence.

is
in
expression, because
completely
Determinateness
Himself as mind.
nateness
concrete totality,
For example, the Christian imagination
and with man's

is
must
in itself the principle
particularization
appearance.
will
itself as
is,
as
Where
it
were, the
this determi-
not totality derived from the Idea
where the Idea
is
itself,
not conceived as self-determining

See
g. 134,
above.
144
[Chap. V.
/and self-particularizing, the Idea remains abstract and

has
its
determinateness, and therefore the principle
that dictates
mode
its
particular
and exclusively appropriate
of presentation, not in itself but external to
Therefore, the Idea
when
still
abstract has even
shape external, and not dictated by

however, which
of
mode
its
that
it
is
The Idea
itself.
concrete in itself bea rs the principle
of manifestation within
means the
Thus
is
it.
its
its elf,
free process of giving
and
shape to
is
by
itself.
only the truly concrete Idea that can
generate the true shape, and this correspondence of

the two
is
the Ideal.
Now because the
J.
unity,
it
Idea
is in
this fashion concrete
follows that this unity can enter into the art-
consciousness only
by the expansion and
tion of the particularities of the Idea,

this evolution that artistic
on
it is
through
beauty comes to possess
a totality of particular stages

after
and
re-concilia-
and forms.
Therefore,
we have studied the beauty of art in itself and

own merits, we must see how beauty as a whole
its
breaks up into
its
particular determinations.
This
our second part, the doctrine of the types of art.

These forms find their genesis in the .di fferent modes
gives, as
of grasping the Idea as artis tic content,
whereby
fconditionecTa differen ce of the form i n which

fests
itself.
Hence the jtyj)_es__of
art are
it
is
mani-
nothing but
the different relations of content and shape, relations
which
em anatgjxnm
the-
THpa
it-gpl^
and furnish thereby
SYMBOLIC ART.
Chap. V.]
145
the true basis of division for this sphere.

ciple of division must always
tion
whose
For the
prin-
be contained in rVtoconcep-
particularization
and
division
is
in question.
We
have here to consider three relations of the

Idea to its outward shaping.*
First,
a.
the Idea gives rise to the beginning of
Art when, being
itself still
in its indistin ctness
obscurity, or in vicious untrue determinateness,
made
minate
it
does not yet possess in
which the Ideal demands
ality
one-sidedness leave
and
As
the import of artistic creations.
defective.
rather a
its
The
mere search
indeter-
its
abstractness and
shape to be outwardly bizarre
first
form of art
is
therefore
after plastic portrayal than a
The Idea has not
yet found the true form even within
thereafter.
is
itself that individu-
capacity of genuine representation.
fore continues to be
and
it
itself,
and there-
merely the struggle and aspiration
In general terms
the
Symbolic form of
h as
its
art.
we may
In
it
call this
form
the abstract Idea
outward shape exter nal_to_jtself f
in natural
sensuous matter, with which the process of shaping

* "
GestaltungP
do not think
this
means the process of
shaping, but the shapes taken collectively.

He means
t i,e. not in a separate ideal shape devoted to it.
that man takes a stock or stone as representation or sy mbol of
is no real connection between divinity
and the stone, it may either be left untouched and unshaped,
or be hewn into any bizarre or arbitrary shape that comes to
hand see next paragraph.
the divine, and as there
146
begins,
[Chap. V.
and from which, qua outward expression,
it is
inseparable.
Natural objects are thus p ri marily left unaltered

and_ve t at the sam e time invested with_the substantial
,
Idea as their significance, so that they receive the

vocation of expressing
as
though the Idea
the root of this
is
them an aspect
it,
itself
and claim to be interpreted

were present
in
them.
At
the fact that natural objects have in
in
which they are capable of repreBut as an adequate
Fenting a universal meaning.
correspondence
is
not yet possible, this reference can
when
only concern an abstract attriFute, as

used to
On
mean
a _ lion
is
strength.
the other hand, this abstractness of the relation
brings to consciousness no less strongly the foreign ness of the Idea to natural
phenomena
having no other reality to express

these shapes, seeks itself in
them
it,
and the Idea,
expatiates in
all
in all their unrest
and disproportion, but nevertheless does not find them

adequate to
itself.
The n
the natur al shapes and the

indefiniteness
to
exaggerate
phenomen a of
reality into
it
proceeds
and disproportion tojntoxicate ilselfjn

,
them, to seethe _and_jer ment in them to do violence to

,
them, to distort and explode them into unnatural

shapes, a nd strives
by the variety, hugeness, and splen-
dour of the forms employed* toexaltthe phenomenon

* This description is probably directed, in the first place,
to
the Indian representation of deities, and would apply to those of
ORIENTAL PANTHEISM.
CHAP. V.]
147
to the level of the Ide a.
For the Idea is here still more

or less indeterminate and non-plastic, but the natural
objects are in their shape thoroughly determinate.
Hence, in view of the unsuitability of the two
elements to each other, the relation of the Idea
becomes a negative
to objective reality
former, as in
its
nature inward,*
such an externality, and as being
one, for the
unsatisfied with
is
its
inner universal
substance t persists in exaltation or Sublimity beyond
and above
all this
inadequate abundance of shapes*
In virtue of this sublimity the natural

the
human shapes and
as they were;
though
phenomena and
incidents are accepted, and left
at the
same time undexstOQcLto
be inadequate to their significance, which

far
is
exalted
above every earthly content.
These aspects may be pronounced
in general
terms
to constitute the character of the primitive artistic
pantheism of the East, which either charges even the
meanest objects with the absolute import, or again

coerces nature with violence into the expression of
view.
By
this
many barbaric
means
religions.
it
becomes
But
its
truth
its
bizarre, grotesque,
may be
very simply
verified in daily observation of the first attempts of the uneducated at plastic presentation of their ideas, wh ere costliness
,
ingenuity l abour, or size take the place of be auty.

* " Sie ah Inneres?
which gives these partial and

f ie. an idea or purpose
defective representations all the meaning they have, although
they are incapable of really expressing
it.
U8
and
tasteless, or turns the infinite
[Chap. V.
but abstract freedom
of the substantive Idea disdainfully against
menal being as
such means
By
and evanescent.
null
pheno-
all
the import cannot be completely embodied

expression, and in spite of
all
aspiration
the
in
and endeavour
the reciprocal inadequacy of shape and Idea remains
This
insuperable.
may
Symbolic art with
art,
mystery and
its
be taken as the
its aspiration., its
form of
sublimity.
In the second form of
(j3)
first
disqu iet,*Jts
art,
which we propose
to call " Classical" the double defect of symbolic art

is
The
cancelled.
plastic
imperfect, because, in the
shape of symbolic art
first
place, the Idea in
it
is
only
enters into consciousness in abstract determinateness
or indeterminateness,and, in the second place, this
must always make the conformity of shape to import

defective, and in its turn merely abstract. The classical
form of art
is
t he
free
is'
the solution of this double difficulty
and adequate embodiment of the
the shap e tha t, according to

l
iarly appropriate to the

is
accord.
Hence, the
classical
afford the production
and to establish
The
concept ion,
i tself.
With
it,
it
is
pecu-
therefore,
capable of entering into free and complete
the Idea
Ideal,
Idea
its
I dea, in
and
it
type of art
is
intuition of the
the
first
to
completed
as a realized fact/
conformity, however, of notion and reality in
must not be taken
classical art
*
"
Gdhrung,"
lit.
in the purely forma l
" fermentation."
CLASSICAL ART.
Chap. V.]
149
sense of the agreeme n t of a content with the external

sharje__given_to_it,
any more than
case with the Ideal
be the
this could
Otherwise every copy from

and every type of countenance, every landscape, flower, or scene, etc., which forms the purport
of any representation, would be at once made classical
by the agreement which it displays between form and
itself.
nature,
On
content.
the contrary, in classical art the peculi-
arity of the content consists in being itself co ncrete

idea,
an d, as such, the concret e spiritu al
spirifuaTinhe truly inner

'ten t, then,
on
its
own
we must
To
self.
on lythf
for
suit
such a con
search out that in Nature
w hicr
merits belongs to the essence and actuality
must be the absolute * notion thai

invented the shape appropriate to concrete mind
of the mind
It
so that the subjective notion
of art
has
existence
merely found
possessing
in
this case the spirii
and brought
it,
natural
shape,
it,
into
as ar
accorc
with free individual spirituality.!
This shape, wit!
as
individually deter-
which the Idea as
spiritual
minate spiritualityinvests
as a temporal
sonification
phenomenon,
itself
is
the
when manifestec
human form. Per
and anthropomorphism have often beer
decried as a degradation of the spiritual
but
art, in a:
" Der urspriingliche Begriff" lit. " the original notion."

God or the Universe invented man to be the expressioi
t
of mind art finds him, and adapts his shape to the artistic
embodiment of mind as concentrated in individual instances.
*
i.e.
ISO
end
far as its
is
to bring before perception the spiri-
tual in sensuous form,
must advance
pomorphism, as
only in
mind
it
is
of souls
is
the
life
had necessarily
human
that
is
to such anthro-
proper body that
The
migration
in this respect a false abstraction,*
made
physiology ought to have

that
its
adequately revealed to sense.
is
[Chap. V.
it
one of
and
axioms
its
in its evolution to attain to
phenomenon
\The human form is
shape, as the sole sensuous
appropriate to mind.
the classical type of art not as mere
employed
in
sensuous
existence,
but
the exist-
exclusively as
ence and physical form corresponding to mind, and

therefore
exempt from
the deficiencies of what
all
is
is
merely sensuous, and from the contingent finiteness

of phenomenal existencej
The
outer shape must be
thus purified in or de r to express in
adequate to
its elf;
import and content
meaning which
kind.
itself
It
is
and again,
to
is
is
itself
a cont en
the conformity of
be complete, the spiritual
the content
must, that
if
must be of a
partic ular
to say, be qualified to
exp ress
ma n,
without
completely in the physical form of
projecting into another world beyond the scope of
such an expression in sensuous and bodily terms.
This condition has the
effect that
Mind
is
bv
once specified as a particular case of mind, as

*
Because
appropriate
it
represents the soul as independent
body the human
beast's body.
it
at
human
of
an
soul as capable of existing in a
ROMANTIC ART.
Chap. V.]
15
ffind,
and not a s simply absolute and ete rnal, inas
much
as
mind
latter sense is
in this
incapab le
pr oclaiming and expressing itself otherwise
o:
t han â;
intellectual being.*
Out of
this
latter point arises, in
its
turn, the
which brings about the dissolution of classical

and demands a transition into a third and highei
defect
art,
form,
into the romantic form of art.
viz.
(7)
The romantic form
of art destroys the com-
pleted union of the Idea and
though
in
its reality,
antagonism of two aspects which was

quished by symbolic
t he
art.
The
classical
of art
is
capable
defective, the defect
imitation of
its
in
is
spher e.
and
type attaine c
if it is
the_conception of
which
is
any
in
art as a whn1p
i.e.
em
wa's
in th<
This limitation consists
the fac t that art as such takes for
in
unvan-
left
highest excellence, of which the sensuous
bodiment
l
and recurs
a higher phase, to that difference anc
infinite
its
object
ir
Mind
concrete universality
the shape of sen suous concreteness, and in th<
phase sets up the perfect amalgamation o

spiritual and sensuous existence as a Conformity o
the two. Now, as a matter of fact, in such an am al
classical
gamat ion Mind cannot be represented according

"
tc
The nature of thought, mind, or spirit." I

cannot be here rendered by mind or spirit, because these word;
make us think of an isolated individual, a mind or soul, anc
neglect the common spiritual or intellectual nature, which i;
* " Geistigkeit."
referred to
by the author.
152
,For_mind
itstrue notion.
of the Idea^-whjch
is
[Chap. V.
the infinite subjectivit y
as ab sol ute inwardness,*
capable of finding free expansion in
is
not
true nature
its
on condition of remaining transposed into a bodily
medium as the existence appropriate to

As an escape from such a condition
form of art
it.
the romantic
in its turn dissolves the inseparable unity
of the classical phase, because
it
has
won
signifi-
cance which goes beyond the classical form of art and

its
mode
This significance we may

coincides with what Christianity
of expression.-f-
recall familiar ideas
God
declares to be true of
tinction to the
essential
G reek
Greek
if
explicitly, the
import
is
explicit, is
it
is
is
In
potentially, but
no t
purely immediate
mod e.
of man.
* It is
The
His shape
is,
circle of his
sensuous
therefore, the bodily -shape-
power and of
his being, is
mind or thought not to have its

The so-called terms of a judgment
the essence of
outside one another.
The Greek
the object of naive intuition and
imagination.
capable of adequate manifestation
an immediate and sensuous
god
for classical art.
un ity of the human and divine nature
_a unity which, just because
in
gods which forms the
and appropriate content
art the concrete
and not
as Spirit, in contradis-
faith in
good instance of parts
in thought
which are inward
to
parts
are a
each
other.
t Compare Browning's " Old Pictures in Florence."

% i. e. in the form of feeling and imagination not reflected
upon.
Chap.
V.]
individual
IMPORT OF ROMANTIC ART.

and individually
the subject,* he
is,
15:
In relation witr
limited.
an essence and a powei
therefore,
with which the subject's inner being
is
merely
ir
latent unity, not itself possessing this unity as inward
subjective knowledge.
knowledgeôi
Now
the higher stage
is
the
which as latent
is
the
this latent unity,
import of the classical form of
art,
and capable
perfect representation in bodily shape.

tion
of the~Tatent or potential
into
The.
self-conscious
knowledge produces an enormous
difference.
the infinite difference which,
separates
Man
such from the animals.

his animal functions
latent
and potential
conscious of them,
them
e.g.,
he
is
as, for instance,
self-conscious science.
It
man
animal, but even
is
as
ir
not confined within the
is
as the animal
le arns
o:
eleva-
to
know
is,
but becomes
the m, and raises
the process of digestion
By
this
intc
means Man breaks
the boundary of merely potential and immediate consciousness, so that just for the reason that he
knows
himself to be animal, he ceases to be animal, and,
as
mind, attains to self-knowledge.

If in the
above fashion the unity of the human and
divine nature, which in the Jormer phase

is
was potential
raised from an immediate to a conscious unity,
follows that the true
medium
it
for the reality of thi s
content j s no longer the se nsuous immediate existenc e

of the sp iritual, the
* Subject,
human
i. e.
bodily shape, but self-con-
conscious individual person.
154
inward
scious
God
,
Now,
intelligence*
Christianity brings
before our intelligence as spirit, or
particularized
spirit
and
individual, spirit, but
And
in truth.
[Chap. V.
mindnot
as
as
absol ute, in
for this reason Christianity
from the sensuousness of imagination into inand makes this, not bodily shape,
retires
tellectual inwardness,
medium and
the
actual existence of
its significance.
So, too, thgjinity_ofJJie humair.aruLdivine nature
is a,
by spiritual knowcontent, won by

the
new
Thus
conscious unity, only to be realized
ledge and in
this unity,
is
spirit. _
not inseparable from sensuous represen-
were adequate to it, but is freed from

immediate existence, which has to be posited t
tation, as if that
this
as negative, absorbed,
and
as art transcending
artistic
itself,
while remjiningjwithinthe
sphere and in -artistic form.
Therefore, in short,
ment
reflected into the spiritual
In this way, romantic art must be considered,
unity.
we may abide by
free, concrete intellectual being,
of revealing
world of
spirit.
must addres s
"
is_
which has the fun ction
itself as spiritual exist ence for
the inwa rd %
In conformity with such an object-
matter, art cannot
the state-
that in this third stage the object (of art )
work
itself to
Innerlickkettf
lit.
for
sensuous _perception.
It
theinward mind, which coalesces

"inwardness."
Taken, considered as or determined to be negative.

X " Inward," again, does not mean merely inside our heads,
but having the character of spirit in that its parts are not external
to one another.
A judgment is thus " inward."
t
MEDIUM OF ROMANTIC
Chap. V.]
with
object simply
its
and as though
ART.
this
15$
were
itself,*
to the subjective inwardness, to the heart, the feeling,
which, being spiritual, aspires to freedom within
and seeks and finds
its
It is this inner
within.
world that forms the content
and must therefore
of_the, -romantic,
find its repre-
sentation as such inward feeling, and in the
presentation of such feeling.

ness celebrates
its
The world
its
show or
of inward-
triumph over the outer world, and
actually in the sphere of the outer and in
manifests this
itself,
reconciliation only in the spirit
victory,
its
medium
owing to which the sensuous
appearance sinks into worthlessness.
on the ôther_ hand,
But,
this
type of Art,t like
every other, needs an external vehicle of expression.
Now
the spiritual has withdrawn i nto itself o utjjf the
For
external and Jts^ immediate oneness therewith.

tKlsTreason, the sensuous externality of concrete
is
accepted and represented, as in Symbolic
something transient and
measure
will,
is
fugitive.
even including the
peculiarity or
the individual, of character, action,
dent and plot.

is
i. e.
are n ot
*
The
as
the same
mind and
caprice
or
of
of inci-
left at
the mercy of
does not keep up a distinction between percipient and

between things in space. G oodness, n obleness, etc.,
felt
The
etc.,
art,
aspect of external existence
committed to contingency, and
object, as
And
dealt to the subjective finite
form
to
be other than or outside the mi nd.
romantic"
156
to mirror
what
given as
is
no more
likely
given, than to
throw
whose caprice
freaks of imagination,
it
is
[Chap. V.
is
the shapes of the outer world into chance medley, or

distort
them
in
classical art,
medium.
It
For
into grotesqueness.
element no longer has

in
its
own
its
this
external
notion and significance, as

sphere,
and
in
its
own
has come to find them in the feelings,
the display of which

in the external
in themselves instead of being
is
and
its
form of
and which
reality,
have the power to preserve or to regain their state of

reconciliation with themselves, in every accident, in
every unessential circumstance that takes independent

shape, in
all
Owing
misfortune and
grief,
and even
to this, the characteristics of
in difference, discrepancy,
in crime.
symbolic
and severance of Idea and
plastic shape, are here reproduced,
but with an essential
In the sphere of the romantic, the Idea,
difference.
whose defectiveness
in the case of the
symbol pro-
duced the defect of external shape, has to reveal

in the
medium
And
jtself.
/
that
it
it
is
because of
itself
this
true reality
higher perfection
from any adequate union with
the external element, inasmuch as

its
itself
of spirit and feelings as perfected in
withdraws
achieve
art,
it
can seek and
and revelation nowhere but
in
itself.
This
we may take
as in the abstract the character
of the symbolic, classical, and romantic forms of
art,
which represent the three relations of the Idea to
its
THE SEVERAL ARTS.
Chap. V.]
embodiment
the sphere of
in
157
They
art.
consist in
the aspiration afterâniihe attainment and transcend-}

]
en.ce
of the Ideal as the true Idea of beauty.
The
4.
tion to the
third part of our subject, in contradistinc-
two
just described, presupposes the concep-
tion of the Ideal,

as
it
and the general types of art, inasmuch
simply consists of their realization
with the inner development of

formity with
we have
its
in particular
Hence we have no longer
sensuous media.
to
do
beauty
in con-
general fundamental principles.
What
artistic
is how these principles pass into

how they distinguish themselves in
aspect, and how they give actuality to
to study
actual existence,
their external
every element contained

rately
as
and by
itself
a general type.
in
the idea of beauty, sepa-
as a work of art, and not merely
Now, what
art
transfers
into
external existence are the differences * proper to the

idea of beauty and
immanent
Therefore, the
therein.
general types of art must reveal themselves in this

third part, as before, in the character of the funda-
the arrangement
mental principle that determines
and
definition of the several arts
the species of art contain
in
in
other words,
themselves the same
essential modifications as those
come acquainted
with which we be-
as the general types of art.
External
objectivity, however, to which these forms are intro*
ciple.
i.e.
species, modifications naturally arising out [of a prin-
58
Suced through the
[Chap. V.
medium of a sensuous and
therefore
articular material, affects these types in the
way
of
making them separate into independent and so par-
For each
forms embodying their realization.
icular
ype finds
its
definite character in
xternal material, and
its
some one
adequate actuality
ess, its
types of
art,
being for
in
the
But, more-
lode of portrayal which that prescribes.

ver, these
definite
determinate-
all their
universal forms, break the bounds of particular
salization
by a determinate form of
art,
and achieve
xistence in other arts as well, although in suborinate fashion.
Therefore, the particular arts belong
ach of them specifically to one of the general types

f art,
nd
and constitute
its
adequate external actuality
also they represent, each of
them
after its
own
lode of external plasticity, the totality of the types

f art.*
Then, speaking generally,

lird principal division
we
nfolds itself in the several arts

lto
lis
and
a world of actualized beauty.
world
e saw,
is
more
r,
are dealing in this
with the beautiful of
Thus
is
art,
as
it
in their creations
The
content of
the beautiful, and the true beautiful, as
spiritual
being in concrete shape, the Ideal
closely looked at, the
absolute mind, and
Sculpture is the art which corresponds par

xellence to the general type called Classical Art but there is a
*
e.g.
embolic kind of sculpture, and I suppose a Romantic or modern

nd of sculpture, although neither of these types are exactly
ted to the capabilities of Sculpture.
THE TWO POLES OF ART.
Chap. V.]
the truth
159
This region, that of divine- truth
itself.
artistically represented to perception
and
forms the centre of the__whole world of
to feeling,
It is the
art.
and divine plasticity, which has

thoroughly mastered J;he external elements of form
independent,
free,
and of medium, and wears them simply as a means

to manifestation of
itself.
Still,
as the beautiful un-
folds itself in this region in the character of objective
and
reality,
in so
individual aspects
doing distinguishes within
itself its
and elements, permitting them
dependent particularity,
follows that this
it
in-
centre
erects its extremes, realized in their peculiar actuality,
into
own
its
antitheses.
comes to consist
Thus one of these extremes
an objectivity as yet devoid of
in
mind, in the merely natural vesture of God.
At
this
point the external element takes plastic shape as
something that has
its spiritual
aim and content, not
in itself, but in another.*
The
other extreme
something
known, as
is
the divine as inward, as
the
subjective existence of the
variously particularized
Deity;
it
is
the truth as
operative and vital in sense, heart, and mind of individual
subjects, not
external shapes, but
persisting in the
as
jective, individual inwardness.
Divine
*
is
at the
mould of
In such a mode, the
same time distinguished from
Architecture as relative to the purposes of

See below, p. 162.
religion.
its
having returned,, into sub-
life
its first
and of
160
nanifestation as Deity,
liversity of particulars
cnowledge
lighest stage
same
his
religion,
and
all
difference as follows.
life in its
subjective
In the
feeling.
with which art at
we
immediately connected,
is
arthly natural
ide
and passes thereby into the
which belongs to
emotion, perception,
malogous province of
[Chap. V.
we
First,
its
conceive
think of the
finiteness as standing
on one
makes God its

of objectivity and
but, then, secondly, consciousness

in
bject,
which the distinction
ubjectivity
done away.
is
And
at last, thirdly,
we
dvance from God as such to the devotion of the

ommunity, that is, to God as living and present in
subjective
tie
consciousness.
Just so these three
hief modifications present themselves in the

f art in
(a)
The
of the particular arts with
first
ccording to their fundamental principle,

egin, is architecture' considered as
isk lies in so
lat
it
orld.
i
world
independent development.
a fine art*
to
Its
manipulating external inorganic nature
becomes cognate to mind, as an
The
which,
we have
material of architecture
is
artistic
outer
matter
itself
immediate externality as a heavy mass subject

mechanical laws, and its forms do not depart from
its
forms of inorganic nature, but are merely set in

rder in conformity with relations of the abstract
le
nderstanding,
lis
i.e.
with relations of symmetry.
In
material and in such forms, the. ideal as concrete

*
Die schone Architecture
ARCHITECTURE.
Chap. V.]
spirituality does not
the reality which
admit of being
161
Hence
realized.
represented in them remains con-
is
trasted with the Idea, as something external which
it
has not penetrated, or has penetrated only to establish

an abstract relation. For these reasons, the funda-
mental type of the
fine art of building is the symbolical
form of
art.
for the
adequate realization of the God, and
its
It is architecture that
service bestows hard toil
order to disentangle
upon existing
way
in this
nature, in
from the jungle of finitude
it
and the abortiveness of chance.

levels a
pioneers the
By
this
means
it
space for the God, gives form to his external
him his temple as a fit place

concentration of spirit, and for its direction to the
surroundings, and builds

for
mind's absolute objects.
It raises
an enclosure round
the assembly of those gathered together, as a defence

against the threatening of the storm, against rain, the
hurricane,
and wild
beasts,
and reveals the
will
to
assemble, although externally, yet in conformity with
With such import
principles of art.
power to inspire
less
its
effectively, as
material and
its
as this
it
has
forms more or
the determinate character of the
work is more or
less significant, more concrete or more abstract, more
profound in sounding its own depths, or more dim
content on behalf of which
and more
superficial.
it
sets to
So much, indeed, may
archi-
tecture attempt in this respect as even to create an
adequate
artistic
existence for such an import in
its
162
shapes and in
material.
its
already overstepped
to sculpture, the
architecture
lies
its
But
in
[Chap. V.
such a case
own boundary, and
phase above
it.
is
it
has
leaning
For the limit of
precisely in this point, that
it
retains
the spiritual as an inward existence over against the

external forms of the
to
art,
what has soul only as
own
and consequently must
refer
to something other than
its
creations.
Q3) Architecture, however, as
the external world, and
purified
symmetrical order and with
we have
seen, has
endowed it with
mind and
affinity to
the temple of the God, the house of his community,
stands ready.
place, the
God
Into this temple, then, in the second

enters in the lightning-flash of indi-
which
strikes and permeates the inert mass,

while the infinite * and no longer merely symmetrical
viduality,
form belonging to mind
itself
concentrates and gives
shape to the corresponding bodily existence.

the task of Sculpture.
and
its
is
inward being which architecture can but
spiritual
indicate
This
In as far as in this art the
makes
itself at
home
in the
sensuous shape
external matter, and in as far as~these
two
sides are so adapted to
one another that neither is

predominant, sculpture must be assigned the classical
* In the sense " self-complete," " not primarily
regarded as
explained by anything outside," like a machine or an animal
contrasted with a wheel or a limb, which latter are finite,

because they demand explanation and supplementation from
without,
i.e.
necessarily
draw
attention to their
own
limit.
SCULPTURE.
Chap. V.]
form of art
as
its
163
fundamental type.
For
this reason
the sensuous element itself has here no expression
which could not be that of the

conversely, sculpture can
as,
spiritual element, just
represent no
spiritual
content which does not admit throughout of being
adequately presented to perception in bodily form.

Sculpture should place the spirit before us in
its
bodily form and in immediate unity therewith at rest
and
in
peace
and the form should be animated by
the content of spiritual
external sensuous matter

lated, either in
individuality.
is
And
so the
here no longer manipu-
conformity with
its
mechanical quality
alone, as a mass possessing weight, nor in shapes

belonging to the inorganic world, nor as indifferent to
colour, etc. ; but it is wrought in ideal forms of the
human
figure, and, it
must be remarked,
in all three
spatial dimensions.
last respect
In this
that
in
it is
it
we must
claim for sculpture,
that the inward and spiritual are
first
revealed in their eternal repose and essential self-
compieteness.
To
such repose and unity with
itself
there can correspond only that external shape which

itself
maintains
fulfilled
its
by shape
unity and repose.

in
its
And
this
abstract spatiality.*
is
The
which sculpture represents is that which is solid

in itself, not broken up in the play of trivialities and
of passions and hence its external form too is not
spirit
i.e.
shape taken simply as an object
filling
space.
164
[Chap. V.
abandoned to any manifold phases of appearance,

but appears under this one aspect only, as the abstraction of space in the
Now, after
and the hand of
whole of
its
dimensions.
architecture has erected the temple,
(y)
sculpture has supplied
it
with the
god
statue of the God, then, in the third place, this
present to sense
of his house
by
is
confronted in the spacious halls
The community
the community.
the spiritual reflection into itself of such

existence,
and
inner
which brings about the
life
is
the
animating
determining principle for the content of

as for the
medium which
sensuous
represents
it
that the
art,
in
as well
outward
form, comes to be particularization [dispersion
various shapes, attributes,

alization,
The
and the
solid unity
incidents,
subjectivity which
which the God has
and
subjectivity
result
etc.],
is
into
individu-
they require*
in sculpture
breaks
up into the multitudinous inner lives of individuals,

whose unity is not sensuous, but purely ideal, t
It is
only in this stage that
to be really
*
and truly
The terms used
in
spirit
the
God Himself comes

spirit in
His (God's)
the text explain themselves
if
we
compare, e.g., a Teniers with a Greek statue, or again, say, a

Turner with the same. " Subjectivity " means that the work
of art appeals to our ordinary feelings, experiences, etc.
Music
and poetry are still stronger cases than painting, according to
the theory.
Poetry especially can deal with eveiything.
t The unity of the individuals forming a church or nation
is not visible, but exists in common sentiments, purposes
etc.
and
in the recognition of their
community.
THE- SEVERAL ROMANTIC ARTS.
Chap. V.]
community
for
He
here begins to be a to-and-fro, an
alternation between His unity within himself

realization in the individual's
separate being, as also in the
common
And He
nature and
God
from the simple absorption
in a
by which
Him.
existence and
sculpture represents
which
into knowledge, into the reflected * appearance
displays
essentially
jectivity.
itself
the dispersion of which
same time
individual
this
inward
and
its
is
as
now
absolute shape.
we have spoken
Now, what manifests
phase as the main. thing
God
in
is
subthe
But
reveals this
and
as
itself
in
as particular spiritual being,
character.
escence of the
not the serene qui-
Himself, but appearance as
for another, self-manifestation.

hence, in the phase we have reached, all the
such, being
And
as
Therefore the higher content
spiritual nature, and that in
at the
is
self-
thus exalted into spiritual
is
his
in its
unexpanded
released from the abstractness of
bodily medium,
and
knowledge and
In the community,
union of the multitude.
identity, as well as
165
which
is
most manifold subjectivity in its living movement

and operation as human passion, action, and incident
and, in general, the wide realm of

*
it
human
feeling, will
expression constantly applied to consciousness, because
An
can look at itself. Cf.

" Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face
'
No, Cassius ; for the eye sees not itself
'
But by
reflection,
by some other things."
Julius Casar.
66
and
negation,
its
is
for its
own sake the

conformity
In
representation.
artistic
[Chap. V.
object of
with
this
content, the sensuous element of art has at once to

,
show
made
itself as
we have
requirement
and
finally in
ward
the
in
colour, in
in-
modes
of
and
ideas
and
as
import in question by help of these
this region the
down
this
fulfil
musical sound,
media we obtain painting, music, and

subdivided
as adapted
sound as the mere indication of
perceptions
realizing
and
Media that
particular in itself
inwardness.
subjective
to
in
sensuous
its
as ideal.*
medium
In
^poetry.
displays itself as
own being and universally set

Thus it has the highest degree of
conformity with the content of
art,
and the connection of
which, as such,
import
and sensuous medium develops into closer intimacy
than was possible in the case of architecture and
is
spiritual,
sculpture.
The
unity attained, however,
inward unity, the weight of which
on the subjective
*
or
Posited or laid
made
which
a more
thrown wholly
and which,
in as far as
down
to be ideal
almost = pronounced
e.g. musical sound is
to be in the sense of
in
is
is
side,
not being;
"ideal" as existing, qua work of
moment
intelligible
art,
in
memory
actually heard being fugitive
form
only, the
a picture,
in respect of the third dimension, which has to be read into it
and poetry is almost wholly ideal, i.e. uses hardly any sensuous
element, but appeals almost entirely to what exists in the mind.
"Subdivided," " besondert," like "particu/arisirt" above; because of the variety and diversity present in the mere material
it is
of colours, musical sounds, and ideas.
Chap.
PAINTING.
V.]
167
and content are compelled to particularize themselves

and give themselves merely ideal existence, can only
come
to pass at_the expense of the objective univer-
of the content and also of
jsality
its
amalgamation
with the immediately sensuous element*
The
arts, then,
themselves
to
of which form and content exalt
ideality,
abandon
the
character of
and the classical ideal of

sculpture, and therefore borrow their type from the
romantic form of art, whose mode of plasticity they
symbolic
architecture
most adequately adapted
are
a totality of
constitute
type
is
1.
The
It
it,
they
because the romantic
itself, t
articulation of this third sphere of the indi-
vidual arts
art in
arts,
the most concrete in
And
to express.
may be
determined as follows.
which comes next to sculpture,
employs as a medium
for its content
is
The first
painting.
and
for the
Again, the subject of a Turner or Teniers is not objectively

not something that is actually
;
and literally the same everywhere and for every one. And both
painting and music (immediately sensuous elements) are less
*
universal, in the simplest sense
completely amalgamated with the ideal, represent it less solidly

and thoroughly than the statue, so far as the ideal is itself
external or plastic.
t The greater affinity of
Romantic
art with the
movement
not only in the

compared with
greater flexibility of painting, music, or poetry, as
Romantic
architecture and sculpture, but in the fact that the
Symbolic
and
the
while
least,
arts
at
three
these
type contains
Classical types had only one art each.
and variety of the modern
spirit displays itself
68
plastic
embodiment of that content
in as far as it is specialized in its
developed into colour.
employed
and coloured
but
it is
such
visibility as
own
nature,
i.e.
as
true that the material
It is
in architecture
[Chap. V.
and sculpture
is
also visible
not, as in painting, visibility
as such, not the simple light which, differentiating
of
itself in virtue
its
combination with the

This quality of
and treated as
the
abstractly
operative
in
made
rise to
in
colour.*
subjective in itself
needs neither, like architecture,
mechanical
attribute
the properties
sculpture, the
like
gives
latter,
visibility,
ideal,
and
contrast with darkness,
of
mass
as
of heavy matter, nor,
complete sensuous attributes of
space, even though concentrated into organic shapes.
The
visibility
and the rendering
visible
which belong
painting have their differences in a
to
more
ideal
form, in the several kinds of colour, and they liberate
from the sensuous completeness
art
attaches to material things,
by
in space
which
restricting themselves
to a plane surface.
On
most
find
the other hand, the content also attains the
comprehensive
room
purpose
all
in the
whatever
Whatever
can
heart, as feeling, idea,
and
specification.
human
it is
capable of shaping into act
this diversity of material is
into- the" varied
capable of entering
content of painting.
The whole realm
* This is drawn from Goethe's doctrine of colour,

which
Hegel unfortunately adopted in opposition to Newton's theory.
Chap. V.]
MUSIC.
169
of particular existence, from the highest embodiment
mind down
of
most isolated object of nature,

For it is possible even for Jinite
to the
finds a place here.
nature,* in
make
its
allusion
particular scenes
appearance
to
affinity to
ii.
its
an
element
thought and
The
and phenomena, to
realm of
in the
art, if
only some
mind endows
of
it
with
feeling.
second art in which
the romantic type
realizes itself is contrasted with painting,
and
is
music.
medium, though still sensuous, yet develops into

still more thorough subjectivity and particularization.
Its
Music, too, treats the sensuous as ideal, and does so
by
negating,! and idealizing into the individual isolation

of a singlepoint, the Jndifferent externality % of space,
whose complete semblance
by
painting.
The
(excluding space)
is
accepted and imitated
single point, qua such a negativity

is
in
itself
process of positive negation
a concrete and active

within the attributes of
He means landscape, principally.

" Aufheben,'' used pregnantly by Hegel to mean both " canThe use
cel," "annul," and, "preserve," "fix in mind," "idealize."
See " Wiss. der
of this word is a cardinal point of his dialectic.
Logik.," i. 104. I know of no equivalent but " put by," provincial
*
Scotch " put past."
The
The negation
of space
no more
is
an
attribute of
space than are

the parts of a judgment. Hegel expresses this by saying that
music idealizes space and concentrates it into a point.
\ The parts of space, though external to each other, are not
music.
parts of a chord are
distinguished by qualitative peculiarities.

" Aufkeben."
in
170
matter, in the shape of a motion
body within
material
Such an inchoate
itself
and
[Chap. V.
and tremor of the
in its relation to itself.
ideality of matter,*
which appears
no longer as under the form of space, but as temporal

ideality,!
with
sound, the sensuous set
is
down
as negated,
abstract visibility converted into audibility,
its
inasmuch as sound, so to speak, liberates the ideal

content from
its
immersion
This
in matter.
earliest
inwardness of matter and inspiration of soul into

furnishes the
itself as
medium
yet indefinite,
mind concentrates
and
tones for the heart with
and passions.
romantic
for the soul % into
and
itself;
its
it
mental inwardness
for the
which
finds utterance in its
whole gamut of feelings
Thus music forms the centre of the
arts, just
as sculpture represents the central
point between architecture and the arts of romantic
Thus,
subjectivity.
too,
it
forms the point of transi-
between abstract spatial sensuousness, such as

painting employs, and the abstract spirituality of
tion
* " Ideality of matter " the distinctively material attribute

of a sonorous body, its extension, only appears in its sound indirectly, or inferentially, by modifying the nature of the sound.
:
It is, therefore, " idealized."
t Succession in
time
a degree
is
existence in space, because
memory.
\ " Seek
ing subject.
:"
mind on
" Geist "
intelligence.
Thus
concentrate
itself into
is
its
it
more
" ideal " than co-
exists solely in the
medium
of
individual side, as a particular feelmind as the common nature of
rather
in feeling
a soul.
and
self-feeling,
mind
is
said to
POETRY.
Chap. V.]
Music has within
poetry.
171
itself, like
architecture, a
relation of quantity conformable to the understanding,
as the antithesis to emotion

also as its basis a solid
and inwardness and has

conformity to law on the part
;
of the tones, of their conjunction, and of their succession.
As
iii.
regards the third and most spiritual
of representation of the romantic art-type,
look for
in poetry.
we must
Its characteristic peculiarity lies
power with which
in the
to
it
mode
it
subjects- to the
mind and
ideas the sensuous element from- which music
its
and painting in their degree began to liberate art.

For sound, the only external _ matter which poetry
retains, is in it
but
itself,
And
is
it
crete in
of
its
no longer the feeling of the sonorous
a sign, which by itself is void of import.

a sign of the idea which has become con-
is
itself,
feeling
and
how sound
de-
and not merely of indefinite

This
nuances and grades.
velops into the
Word, as voice
is
articulate in
itself,
whose import it is to indicate ideas and notions.

The merely negative point up to which music had
developed now makes its appearance as the completely concrete point, the point which is mind, the
self-conscious individual, which, producing out of itself
the infinite space of

character of sound.
in music
was
still
its ideas,
Yet
unites
this
it
with the temporal
sensuous element, which
immediately one with inward
ing, is in poetry separated
feel-
from the content of con-
172
[Chap. V.
mind determines this

content for its own sake, and apart from all else,
into the shape of ideas, and though it employs sound
to express them, yet treats it solely as a symbol
In
sciousness.
poetry
the
Thus considered, sound

mere letter, for the
thus depressed into a mere
without value or import.
may just
as well be reduced to a
audible, like the visible,
indication
medium
of
of poetical
is
For
mind.*
this
imagination and intellectual portrayal

this
element
is
common
to
that poetry runs through
independently in each.
the
all
Poetry
is
mind which has become
and which
is
not tied to find
is
And
art, it
as
follows
and develops
itself
the universal art of
free in its
its
the poetical
itself.
types of
all
them
proper
reason the
representation
own
nature,
realization in external
sensuous matter, but expatiates exclusively in the

* Hegel seems to accept this view.
Was he insensible to
sound in poetry ? Some very grotesque verses of his, preserved
in his biography, go to show that his ear was not sensitive.
Yet his critical estimate of poetry is usually just. Shakespeare
and Sophocles were probably his favourites. And, as a matter
It must be rememof proportion, what he here says is true.
bered that the beauty of sound in poetry is to a great extent
indirect, being supplied by the passion or emotion which the
ideas symbolized by the sounds arouse. The beauty of poetical
sound in itself is very likely less than often supposed. It must
have the capacity for receiving passionate expression but that
is not the same as the sensuous beauty of a note or a colour.
If
the, words used in a noble poem were divested of all meaning,
they would lose much, though not all, of the beauty of their
;
sound.
TYPES OF ART AND IDEA OF BEA UTY.
Chap. V.]
173
inner space and inner time of the ideas and feelings.
Yet
just in this its highest phase art
scending
itself,
inasmuch as
it
jmds by
tran-
abandons the medium
embodiment of mind in sensuous

and passes from the poetry _pf imagination into
of a harmonious
form,
the prose of thought.

5.
Such we may take
of the particular arts,
be the articulated
to
totality
the external art of archi-
viz.
and the
Many
poetry.
and
subjective art of painting music
other classifications have been attempted, for a
objective
tecture,
the
work of
art presents
art
so
of
many
sculpture,
aspects, that, as has
one and then another is

often been the case,
made the basis of classification. For instance, one
first
might take the sensuous medium.

is
treated as crystallization
Thus
architecture
sculpture, as the organic
modelling of the material in its sensuous and spatial

painting, as the coloured surface and line
totality
;
while in music, space, as such, passes into the point of

time possessed of content within itself, until finally the
external
medium
is
in
poetry depressed into complete
Or, again, these differences have been
insignificance.
considered with reference to their purely abstract

Such abstract pecuattributes of space and time.
liarities
of works
medium, be
of art
consistently
may,
like
explored
in
their
their
material
charac-
but they cannot be worked out as the

teristic traits
ultimate and fundamental law, because any such
;
174
aspect itself derives
its
[Chap. V.
origin from a higher principle,
and must therefore be subordinate thereto.

This higher principle
art
symbolic,
classical,
we have found
and romantic
in
the types of
which are the
universal stages or elements * of the Idea of beauty

itself.
reality
in
For symbolic art attains its most adequate

and most complete application in architecture,
which
and
is
it
holds sway in the
ganic nature dealt with
type of
full
import of
not yet degraded to be, as
art,
by another
it
its
art.
The
classical
on the other hand, finds adequate
tion in sculpture, while
it
realiza-
only as
treats architecture
furnishing an enclosure in which
notion,
were, the inor-
it is
to operate,
and
has not acquired the power of developing painting
and music as absolute t forms

romantic type of
art, finally,
takes possession of paint-
ing and music, and in like

sentation, as substantive
modes of
utterance.
because
manner of poetic
Poetry, however,
is conformable
and extends over them
the artistic imagination
medium, and imagination
is
is
its
proper
essential to every pro-
duct that belongs to the beautiful, whatever
may
repre-
and unconditionally adequate
to all types of the beautiful,

all,
The
for its content.
its
type
be.
* " Stages or elements."

" Momente" Hegel's technical
phrase for the stages which form the essential parts or factors of
any idea. They make their appearance successively, but the
earlier are implied and retained in the later.
\ Adequate, and so of permanent value.
Chap. V.]
And,
REALIZATION OF THE IDEA.

therefore,
what the
175
particular arts realize in
individual works of art, are according to their abstract
conception simply the universal types which constitute

the self-unfolding Idea of beauty.
It is as the
ternal realization of this Idea that the wide

art
is
spirit
being erected, whose architect and builder

of beauty as
to complete
its
it
awakens
ex-
Pantheon of
is
to self-knowledge,
which the history of the world
will
the
and
need
evolution of ages.
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

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CORNELL

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME

HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE

Cornell University Library

N64 .H46 1886

3 1924 030 652 352

the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright

the United States on the use of the

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN

WITH NOTES AND PREFATORY ESSAY

LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD

JSstketik," or "Philosophy of Fine Art,"

a work which should no longer be inaccessible to

but the reproduction

complete form of 1600 pages,

task not to be lightly undertaken.

partial reproductions of the "sEsthetik" in English,

Kedney's short analysis of the

Mr. Hastie's translation of Michelet's short "Philo-

partly translated and partly analysed.

wholly disapprove of analyses (among which

reckoned Michelet's summary above men-

tioned) as representations of Hegel's writing, which

York, Appleton and Co.

Griggs and Co., 1885.

convinced that Hegel should

allowed to speak for himself, and that failing the

the present volume,

be said to have literary manner at

work which has been produced by

not contained as a whole in any of the above-

ought to say, however, that

after the first thirty-four

Introduction, including the chapter

Hegel's best manner

"Division of the Subject."

many who, without being

sophy, are intelligent lovers of art.

wholly free from serious mistakes.

have hoped that the present volume

best to interpret philosophical expressions,

instead of merely furnishing their technical equivalents.

have also added a few short notes, either

to explain literary allusions, or to complete the in-

terpretation of technical terms.

was written with a

similar intention, not as original

speculation, but as an assistance to general readers

apprehending the point of view from which Fine

regarded by Hegel and kindred writers.

have broken up the " Einleitimg" or Introduc-

the original, into

four chapters,* hoping that the arrangement of the

translated from the original, excepting

which are enclosed

literary notes are entirely

borrowed from the

late Mrs. F. C. Conybeare's translation of Scherer's

English student, whose gratitude must for

long be saddened by the

untimely death of the

III. is subdivided into