PT 
 
 |X)RNELL 
 
 ^y>3 
 
 UNIVERSm 
 
 /9s 
 
 LBRAKY 
 
 /Sr-?S 
 
OLIN LIBRARY ~ CIRCULATION 
 DATE DUE 
 
 ''i*Ml 
 
 aig^sfipf**-^ 
 
 iBS 
 
 jyi j U » 'i9tg 
 
 ^4^ 
 
 juuu-im: 
 
 iSmm 
 
 m 
 
 ,^#iR & ei^g9s 
 
 JU M I nyg& 
 
 
 S*!**?*.. 
 
 PRINTCOINU.S.A. f^- 
 
 PT 2473.A5"'l895™""' """^ 
 ***;ii?n,!ii!iif',LS';;.l£'!,i!9.soph|c^^ essavs. 
 
 3 1924 026 198 683 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026198683 
 
IvXPECTATION. 
 
THE WORKS 
 
 FREDERICK SCHILLER. 
 
 ^STHETICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 TRAnSLATRD FROM THE GERMAN, 
 
 ILLUSg-RATED. 
 
 HARVARD PUBLISHING COMPANY" 
 
 189s 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
This edition is limited to one thousand 
 copies, of which this is no.\:.^.,.. . 
 
 W. W. PRO UT, Printer. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 iNTKODtrCTION 5 
 
 -Letters on the ^sthetioal Eddcation of Man ... 33 
 
 jEsthetical Essays : — 
 
 The Moral Utility of Esthetic Manners . . .126 
 
 On the Sublime 135 
 
 The Pathetic 149 
 
 On Guace and Dignity 175 
 
 On Dignity . . . . .... 211 
 
 On the necessary Limitations in the Use of Beauty 
 
 AND Form 230 
 
 Reflections on the Use of the Vulgar and Low 
 
 Elements in Works op Art 254 
 
 _- Detached Reflections on Different Questions of 
 
 .(Esthetics . 261 
 
 - On Simple and SentimeiAal Poetry .... 269 
 
 ^ The Stage as a Moral Institution 339 
 
 ■^ On the Tragic Art 346 
 
 ^^ Of the Cause of the Pleasure we derive from Tragic 
 
 Objects . 367 
 
 Schiller's Philosophical Letters: — 
 
 Prefatory Remarks 379 
 
 Theosophy of Julius 387 
 
 On the Connection between the Animal and the 
 
 Spiritual Nature in Man 406 
 
 Physical Connection 408 
 
 Philosophical Connection . 41i> 
 
INTEODUCTIOK. 
 
 The special subject of the greater part of the letterr tMid 
 essays of Schiller contained in this volume is iEsthe'^ics ; 
 and before passing to any remarks on his treatment of 
 the subject it will be useful to offer a few observations on 
 the nature of this topic, and on its treatment hy the philo- 
 sophical spirit of different ages. 
 
 First, then, aesthetics has for its object the vast realm 
 of the beautiful, and it may be most adequately defined 
 as the philosophy of art or of the fine arts. To some the 
 definition may seem arbitrary, as excluding the beautiful 
 in nature ; but it will cease to appear so if it is I'emarked 
 that the beauty which is the work of art is higher than 
 natural beauty, because it is the offspring of the mind. 
 Moreover, if, in conformity with a certain school of 
 modem philosophy, the mind be viewed as the true being, 
 including all in itself, it must he admitted that beauty is 
 only truly beautiful when i|^ shares in the nature of mind, 
 and is mind's offspring. 
 
 Viewed in this light, the beauty of nature is only a 
 reflection of the beauty of the mind, onl3- an imperfect 
 beauty, which as to its essence is included in that of the 
 mind. Nor has it ever entered into the mind of any 
 thinker to develop the beautiful in natural objects, so as to 
 convert it into a science and a system. The field of natural 
 beaut}' is too uncertain and too fluctuating for this pur- 
 pose. Moreover, the relation of beauty in nature and 
 beautj' in art forms a part of the science of aesthetics, 
 and finds again its proper place. 
 
 But it maj- be urged that art is not worthy of a scientific 
 treatment. Art is no doubt an ornament of our life and 
 a charm to the fancy ; but has it a more serious side ? 
 
 5 
 
6 ^STHETICAL I.ETTEES AND ESSAYS. 
 
 "When compared with the absorbing necessities of human 
 existence, it might seem a luxurj', a superfluity, cal- 
 culated to enfeeble the heart by the assiduous worship 
 of beauty, and thus to be actually prejudicial to the true 
 interest of practical life. This view seems to be largely 
 countenanced by a dominant part}- in modern times, and 
 practical men, as they are styled, are only too ready to 
 take this superficial view of the office of art. 
 
 Many have indeed undertaken to defend art on this 
 score, and to show that, far from being a mere luxury, it 
 has serious and solid advantages. It has been even 
 apparently exaggerated in this respect, and represented 
 as a kind of mediator between reason and sense, between 
 inclination and dutj', having as its mission the work of 
 reconciling the conflicting elements in the human heart. 
 A strong trace of this view will be found in Schiller, 
 especiallv in all that he says about the play-instinct in 
 his " iEsthetical Letters." 
 
 Nevertheless, art is worthy' of science ; aesthetics is a 
 true science, and the office of art is as high as that 
 assigned to it in the pages of Schiller. We admit that 
 art viewed onh' as an ornament and a charm is no longer 
 free, bat a slave. But this is a perversion of its proper 
 end. Science has to be considered as free in its aim and 
 in its means, and it is only free when liberated from all 
 other considerations; it rises up to truth, which is its 
 only real object, and can alone fuUj* satisfy it'. Art in 
 like manner is alone truly art when it is free and inde- 
 |)endent, when it solves the problem of its high destina- 
 tion — that problem whether it has to be placed beside 
 religion and philosophy' as being nothing else than a 
 particular mode or a special form of revealing God to con- 
 sciousness, and of expressing the deepest interests of 
 lunnan nature and the widest truths of the human mind. 
 
 For it is in their works of art that the nations have 
 iini)rinted their favorite thoughts and their richest intui- 
 tions, and not unfrequentl}' the fine arts are the only 
 means by which we can penetrate into the secrets of their 
 wisdom and the mysteries of their religion. 
 
 It is made a reproach to art that it produces its effects 
 by appearance and illusion; but can it be established that 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 appearance is objectionable? The phenomena of nature 
 and the acts of human life are nothing more than appear- 
 ances, and are yet looked upon as constituting a true 
 reality ; for this reality must be sought for beyond the 
 objects perceived immediately by the sense, the substance 
 and speech and principle underlying all things manifesting 
 itself in time and space through these real existences, 
 but preserving its absolute existence in itself. Now, the 
 very special object and aim of art is to represent the 
 action and development of this universal force. In nature 
 this force or principle appears confounded with particular 
 interests and transitory' circumstances, mixed up with 
 what is arbitrary in the passions and in individual wills. 
 Art sets the truth free from the illusory and mendacious 
 forms of this coarse, imperfect world, and clothes it in a 
 nobler, purer form created bj' the mind itself. Thus 
 the forms of art, far from being mere appearances, per- 
 fectly illusory, contain more realitj' and truth than the 
 phenomenal existences of the real world. The world of 
 art is truer than that of histor}' or nature. 
 
 Nor is this all : the representations of art are more ex- 
 pressive and transparent than the phenomena of the real 
 world or the events of historj-. The mind finds it harder 
 to pierce through the hard envelop of nature and common 
 life than to penetrate into works of art. 
 
 Two more reflections appear completel}' to meet the 
 objection that art or aesthetics is not entitled to the 
 name of science. 
 
 It will be generally admitted that the mind of man has 
 the power of considering itself, of making itself its own 
 object and all that issues from its activitj' ; for thought 
 constitutes the essence of the mind. Now art and its 
 work, as creations of the mind, are themselves of a 
 spiritual nature. In this respect art is much nearer to the 
 mind than nature. In studj'ing the works of art the 
 mind has to do with itself, with what proceeds from itself, 
 and is itself. 
 
 Thus art finds its highest confirmation in science. 
 
 Nor does art refuse a philosophical treatment because 
 it is dependent on caprice, and subject to no law. If its 
 highest aim be to reveal to the human consciousness the 
 
8 iESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 highest interest of the mind, it is evident that the sub- 
 stance or contents of the representations are not given up 
 to tlie control of a wild &nd irregular imagination. It 
 is strictly- determined by the ideas that concern our intelli- 
 gence and by the laws of their development, whatever may 
 be the inexhaustible variety of forms in which they are 
 produced. Nor are these forms arbitrary, for every form 
 is not iitted to express everj' idea. The form is deter- 
 mined by the substance which it has to suit. 
 
 A farther consideration of the true nature of beauty, 
 and therefore of tlie vocation of the artist, will aid us still 
 more in our endeavor to show the high dignity of art and 
 of aesthetics. The history of philosophy presents us with 
 many theories on the natiire of the beautiful ; but as it 
 would lead us too far to examine them all, we shall only 
 consider the most important among them. The coarsest of 
 these theories defines tlie beautiful as that which pleases 
 the senses. This theory, issuing from the philosophj- of 
 sensation of the school of Locke and Condillac, only 
 explains the idea and the feeling of the beautiful by dis- 
 figuring it. It is entirely contradicted b}- facts. For it 
 converts it into desire, but desire is egotistical and insati- 
 able, while admiration is I'espectful, and is its own 
 satisfaction without seeldng possession. 
 
 Others liave thought the beautiful consists in proportion, 
 and no doubt this is one of the conditions of beauty, but 
 only one. An ill-proportioned object cannot be beautiful, 
 but the exact correspondence of parts, as in geometrical 
 figures, does not constitute beauty. 
 
 A noted ancient theory makes beautj- consist in the per- 
 fect suitableness of means to their end. In this case the 
 l)eautiful is not the useful, it is the suitable ; &nd the latter 
 idea is more akin to that of beaut3-. But it has not the 
 true character of the beautiful. Again, order is a less 
 mathematical idea than proportion, but it does not explain 
 what is free and flowing in certain beanties. 
 
 The most plausible theory' of beauty is that which makes 
 It consist in two contrary a.'id eqna]]\- necessary elements 
 — unity and variety. A beautiful flower has all the 
 elements we have named ; it has unity, symmetry, and 
 variety of shades of color. There is no beauty without 
 
INTRODUCTION. H 
 
 life, and life is movement, diversit3-. These elements are 
 found in beautiful and also in sublime objects. A 
 beautiful object is complete, finished, limited with symmet- 
 rical parts. A sublime object whose forms, though not 
 out of proportion, are less determined, ever awakens in 
 us the feeling of the infinite. In objects of sense all 
 qualities that can produce the feeling of the beautiful come 
 under one class called physical beaut}-. But above and 
 beyond this in the region of mind we have first intellectual 
 beautj', including the laws that govern intelligence and 
 the creative genius of the artist, the poet, and the 
 philosopher. Again, the moral world has beautj' in its 
 ideas of libert}-, of virtue, of devotion, the justice of 
 Aristides, the heroism of Leonidas. 
 
 We have now ascertained that there is beaut^' and 
 sublimity in nature, in ideas, in feelings, and in actions. 
 After ail this it might be supposed that a unity could be 
 found amidst these different kinds of beauty. The 
 sight of a statue, as the Apollo of Belvedere, of a man, of 
 Socrates expiring, are adduced as producing impressions 
 of tlie beautiful ; but the form cannot be a form l)y 
 itself, it must be the form of something. Physical be.Tiity 
 is the sign of an interior beauty, a spiritual and moral 
 beauty which is the basis, the principle, and the unity of 
 the beautiful. 
 
 Physical beauty is an envelop to intellectual and to 
 moral beautj-. • 
 
 Intellectual beautj', the splendor of the true, can only 
 have for principle that of all truth. 
 
 Moral beauty comprehends two distinct elements, equallj- 
 beautiful, justice and charity. Thus God is the principle 
 of the three orders of beauty, physical, intellectual, and 
 moral. He also construes the two great powers distrib- 
 uted over the three orders, the beautiful and the sublime. 
 God is beaut}' par excellence ; He is therefore perfectly 
 beautiful ; He is equally sublime. He is to us the type 
 and sense of the two great forms of beauty. In short, the 
 Absolute Being as absolute unit}- and absolute variety is 
 necessarily the ultimate principle, the extreme basis, the 
 finished ideal of all beautj-. This was the marvellous 
 beauty which Diotimus had seen, and which is described 
 in the Banquet of Socrates. 
 
so jJESTPE'nCAI. LETTKK.s A.Vi) KSSAVS. 
 
 It i'l our purpose after the prcvio-.is discussion to 
 aUempt to elucidate still furthsr the 'deft o*' art b^' follow- 
 ing its historic development. 
 
 Manj- questions bearing on prt and relating to the 
 beautiful had been propounded hsfore, even as far back 
 as Plotinus, Plato, and Socrates^ but recent times have 
 been the real cradle of aesthetics as a science. Modern 
 philosophy was the first to recognise that beautj- in art is 
 one of the means by vrhich the contradictions can be 
 removed between mind considered in its abstract and 
 absolute existence and nature constituting the world of 
 sense, bringing back these two factors to unity. 
 
 Kant was the first, who felt the want of this union and 
 expressed it, but without determining its conditions or 
 "expressing it scientifically. He was impeded in his efl'orts 
 to eflfect this union by the opposition between the subjec- 
 tive and the objective, by his placing practical reason 
 ^bove theoretical reason, and he set up the opposition 
 found in the moral sphere as the highest principle of 
 morality. Reduced to this difficulty, all that Kant could 
 ilo was to express the union under the form of the sub- 
 jective ideas of reason, or as postulates to be deduced 
 from the practical reason, without their essential character 
 being known, and representing their realization as nothing 
 more than a simple i/ou ought, or imperative " Du 
 soUst." 
 
 In his teleological judgment applied to living beings, 
 Kant comes, on the contrary; to consider the living organ- 
 ism in such wise that, the general including the particular, 
 and determining it as an end, consequently the idea also 
 determines the external, the compound of the organs, not 
 by an act springing from without but issuing from within. 
 In this way the end and th6 means, the interior and ex- 
 terior, the general and particular, are confounded in 
 unity. But this judgment onlj' expresses a subjective 
 act of reflection, and does not throw any light on the 
 object in itself. Kant has the same view of the aesthetic 
 judgment. According to him the judgment does not pro- 
 ceed either from reason, as the faculty of general ideas, or 
 from sensuous perception, but from the free pla}- of the 
 reason and of the imagination. In this analysis of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 cognitive facultj', the oliject only exists relatively to 
 the subject and to the feeling of pleasure or the enjoy- 
 ment that it experiences. 
 
 The characteristics of the beautiful are, according to 
 Kant : — 
 
 1. The pleasure it procures is free from interest. 
 
 2'. Beauty appears to us as an object of general enjoy- 
 ment, without awaliening in us the consciousness of an 
 abstract idea and of a category of reason to which we 
 might refer our judgment. 
 
 3. Beautj' ought to embrace in itself the relation of 
 conformit}' to its end, but in such a way that this conform- 
 ity may be grasped without the idea of the end being 
 offered to our mind. 
 
 4. Though it be not accompanied by an abstract idea, 
 beauty ought be to aclinowledged as the object of a neces- 
 sar3' enjoyment. 
 
 _ A^ged£U_XeiUJli^Li^f^aU this systemJs thejndissgluble 
 J;li3it31_of_vi^at^su|jpo8ed_tojte^ in consciousness. 
 
 This distinction disappears in the beautifijl, because inlt 
 the general and tlie particular, the end and the means, the 
 idea and the object, mentally penetrate each other com- 
 pletely. The particular in itself, whether it be opposed 
 to itself or to what is general, is something accidental. 
 But here what may be considered as an accidental form 
 is so intimateh' connected with the general that it is con- 
 founded and identified with-it. By this means the beauti- 
 ful in art presents thought to us as incarnate. On the 
 other hand, matter, nature, the sensuous as themselves 
 possessing measure, end, and harmony, are raised to the 
 dignity of spirit and share in its general character. 
 Thought not only abandons its hostility against nature, 
 but smiles in her. Sensation and enjoyment are justified 
 and sanctified, so that nature and liberty, sense and ideas, 
 find their justification and their sanctiflcation in this 
 union. Nevertheless this reconciliation, though seem- 
 ingly perfect, is stricken with the character of subjective- 
 ness. It cannot constitute the absolutely true and real. 
 
 Such is an outline of the principal results of Kant's 
 criticism, .ind Hegel passes high praise on the profoundly 
 philosophic mind of Schiller, who demanded the union 
 
12 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 and reconciliation of tlie two principles, and who tried to 
 give a scientific explanation of it before the problem had 
 been solved by philosophy. In his " Letters on Esthetic 
 Education," Schiller admits that man carries in himself 
 the germ of the ideal man which is realized and repre- 
 sented by the state. There are two ways for the individual 
 man to approach the ideal man ; first, when the state, 
 considered as morality, justice, and general reason, absorbs 
 the individualities in its unity ; secondly, when the indi- 
 vidual rises to the ideal of his species by the perfecting 
 of himself Reason demands unity, conformity to the 
 species ; nature, on the other hand, demands plurality 
 and individuality ; and man is at once solicited by two 
 contrary laws. In this conflict, aesthetic education must 
 come in to effect the reconciliation of the two principles ; 
 for, according to Schiller, it has as its end to fashion and 
 polish the inclinations and passions so that thej- may 
 become reasonable, and that, on the other hand, reason 
 and freedom may issue from their abstract character, may 
 unite with nature, may spiritualize it, become incarnate, 
 and take a body in it. Beauty is thus given as the simul- 
 taneous development of the rational and of the sensuous, 
 fused together, and interpenetrated one hy the other, an 
 union that constitutes in fact true reality. 
 
 This unitj' of the general and of the particular, of liberty' 
 and necessity of the spiritual and material, which Schiller 
 understood scientiflcallj' as the spirit of art, and which he 
 tried to make appear in real life by aesthetic art and edu- 
 cation, was afterwards put forward under the name of 
 idea as the principle of all knowledge and existence. In 
 this way, through the agency of Schelling, science raised 
 itself to an absolute point of view. It was thus that art 
 began to claim its proper nature and dignity. From that 
 time its proper place was finally marked out for it in 
 science, though the mode of A'iewing it still labored under 
 certain defects. Its high and true distinction were at 
 length understood. 
 
 In viewing the higher position to which recent philo- 
 sophical systems have raised the theory of art in Germany, 
 we must not overlook the ndvantnges contributed by the 
 study of the ideal of the ancients by such men as Winckel- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 mann, who, by a kind of inspiration, raised art criticism 
 from a carping about petty details to seelc the true spirit 
 of great works of art, and their true ideas, by a study of 
 the spirit of the originals. 
 
 It has appeared expedient to conclude this introduction 
 with a summary of the latest and highest theory of art 
 and aesthetics issuing from Kant and Schiller, and devel- 
 oped in the later philosophy of Hegel. 
 
 Our space only allows us to give a glance, first, at the 
 metaphysics of the beautiful as developed by Hegel in 
 the, first part of his ' Aesthetik,' and then at the later 
 development of the same system in recent writers issuing 
 from his school. 
 
 Hegel considers, first, the abstract idea of the beautiful ; 
 secoudlj', beauty in nature ; thirdl}', beauty in art or the 
 ideal ; and he winds up with an examination of the qualities 
 of the artist. 
 
 His preliminary remarks are directed to show the rela- 
 tions of art to religion and pliilosoph}-, and he shows that 
 man's destination is an infinite development. In real life 
 he only satisfies his longing partially and imperfectly by 
 limited enjoyments. In science he finds a nobler pleasure, 
 and civil life opens a career for his acti^■itJ■ ; but he only 
 finds an imperfect pleasure in these pursuits. He cannot 
 then find the ideal after which he sighs. Tlien lie rises to 
 a higher sphere, where all contradictions are effaced and 
 the ideas of good and happiness are realized in perfect 
 accord and in constant harmonj-. This deep want of the 
 soul is satisfied in three ways : in art, in religion, and in 
 philosophj^ 
 
 Art is intended to make us contemplate the true and 
 the infinite in forms of sense. Yet even art does not fully 
 satisfy the deepest need of the soul. The soul wants to 
 contemplate truth in its inmost consciousness. Religion 
 is placed above the dominion of art. 
 
 First, as to idea of the beautiful, Hegel begins by 
 giving its characteristics. It is infinite, and it is free ; 
 the contemplation of the beautiful suffices to itself, it 
 awakens no desire. The soul experiences something like 
 a godlike felicity and is transported into a sphere remote 
 from the miseries of life. This theory of the beautiful 
 comes verj' near that of Plato, 
 
14 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 Secondly, as to beauty in nature. Physical beauty, 
 considered externallj^ presents itself successivel}' under 
 the aspects of regularity and of symmetry, of conformity 
 with a law, and of harmony, also of purity and simplicity 
 of matter. 
 
 Thirdly, beauty in art or the ideal is beauty in a higher 
 degree of perfection than real beauty. The ideal in art 
 is not contrary to the real, but the real idealized, purified, 
 and perfectly expressed. The ideal is also the soul arrived 
 at the consciousness of itself, free and fully enjoying its 
 faculties ; it is life, but spiritual life and spirit. Nor is 
 the ideal a cold abstraction, it is the spiritual principle 
 under the form of a living individuality freed from the laws 
 of the finite. The ideal in its highest form is the divine, as 
 expressed in the Greek divinities ; the Christian ideal, as 
 expressed in all its highest purity in God the Father, the 
 Christ, the Virgin. Its essential features are calm, 
 majesty, serenity. 
 
 At a lower degree the ideal is in man the victory of the 
 eternal principles that fill the human heart, the triumph of 
 the nobler part of the soul, the moral and divine principle. 
 
 But the ideal manifested in the world becomes action, 
 and action implies a form of society, a determinate situa- 
 tion with collision, and an action properly so called. The 
 heroic age is the best society for the ideal in action ; in 
 Its determinate situation the ideal in action must appear 
 as the manifestation of moral power, and in action, properly 
 so called, it must contain three points in the ideal: first, 
 general principles ; secondly, personages ; thirdly, their 
 character and their passions. Hegel winds up 'by con- 
 sidering the quahties necessary in an artist : imagination, 
 genius, inspiration, originality, etc. 
 
 A recent exponent of Hegel's sesthetical ideas further 
 developed expresses himself thus on the nature of 
 beauty : — 
 
 " After the bitterness of the world, the sweetness of art 
 soothes and refreshes us. This is the high value of the 
 beautiful — that it solves the contradiction of mind and 
 matter of the moral and sensuous world, in harmony. 
 Ihus the beautiful and its representation in art procures 
 for intuition what philosophy gives to the cognitive insight 
 
INTEODUOTION. 15 
 
 and religLon to the believing frame of mind. Hence tlie 
 deliglit with which Schiller's wonderful poem on the Bell 
 celebrates the accord of the inner and outer life, the fulfil- 
 ment of the longing and demands of the soul by the events 
 in nature. The externality- of phenomena is removed in 
 the beautiful ; it is raised into the circle of ideal existence ; 
 for it is recognized as the revelation of the ideal, and thus 
 transfigured it gives to the latter additional splendor. 
 
 " Thus the beautiful is active, living unity, full existence 
 without defect, as Plato and Schelling have said, or as 
 recent writers describe it ; the idea that is quite present 
 in the appearance, the appearance which is quite formed 
 and penetrated bj' the idea." 
 
 " Beauty is the world secret that invites us in image 
 and word," is the poetical expression of Plato ; and we 
 may add, beca;use it is revealed in both. We feel in it the 
 harmony of the world ; it breaks forth in a beautj', in a 
 lo\ely accord, in a radiant point, and starting thence we 
 penetrate further and yet further, and find as the ground 
 of all existence the same charm which had refreshed us in 
 individual forms. Thus Christ pointed to the lilies of the 
 field to knit His followers' reliance on Providence with 
 the phenomena of nature : and could they jet forth in royal 
 beauty, exceeding that of Solomon, if the inner ground 
 of nature were not beauty? 
 
 We may also name beauty in a certain sense a mys- 
 terj-, as it mediates to us is a sensuous sign a heavenly 
 gift of grace, that it opens to us a view into the Eternal 
 Being, teaching us to know nature in God and God in 
 nature, that it brings the divine even to the perception 
 of sense, and establishes the energy of love and free- 
 dom as the ground, the bond, and the end of the world. 
 
 In the midst of the temporal the eternal is made pal- 
 pable and j)resent to us in the beautiful, and offers itself 
 to our enjoyment. The separation is suppressed, and 
 the original unity, as it is in God, appears as the 
 first, as what holds together even the past in the uni- 
 verse, and what constitutes the aim of the development in 
 a finite accord. 
 
 The beautiful not only presents itself to us as mediator 
 of a foreign excellence or of a remote divinity, but the 
 
16 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 ideal and the godlike are present in it. Hence aesthetics 
 requires as its basis the sj'stem in which God is known as 
 indwelling in the world, that He is not far distant from 
 any one of us, but that He animates us, and that we live 
 in Him. ^Esthetics requires the knowledge that mind is 
 the creative force and unitj' of all that is extended and 
 developed in time and space. 
 
 The beautiful is thus, according to these later thinkers, 
 the revelation of God to the mind through the senses ; 
 it is the appearance of the idea. Tn f.he beautiful spirit 
 reveals itself to spirit through matter and^the senses ; 
 thus the._entire inanT feels hini^_elf.i'aised and... satisfied „bj: 
 it. By the unitj- of the beautiful with us we experience 
 with delight that thought and the material world are 
 present for our individualitj', that the_v utter tones and 
 fehine forth in it, that both penetrate each other and blend 
 in it and thus become one with it. We feel one with 
 them and one in them. 
 
 This later -view was to a great extent expressed b}- 
 Schiller in his "^sthetical Letters." 
 
 But art and aesthetics, in the sense in which these terms 
 are used and understood by German philosoi^hical writers, 
 such as Schiller, embrace a wider field than the fine arts. 
 Lessing, in his " Laocoon," had already shown the point 
 of contrast between painting and poetry ; and aesthetics, 
 being defined as the science of the beautiful, must of 
 necessity embrace poetrj-. Accordingly Schiller's essays 
 on tragic art, pathos, and sentimental poetry, contained 
 in this volume, are justly classed under his aesthetical 
 writings. 
 
 This being so, it is important to estimate briefly the 
 transitions of German poetry before Schiller, and the 
 position that he occupied in its historic development. 
 
 The first classical period of German poetry and litera- 
 ture was contained between A.D 1190 and 1300. It 
 extiibits the intimate blending of the German and Chris- 
 tian elements, and their full development in splendid 
 productions, for this was the period of the German na- 
 tional epos, the " Nibelungenlied," and of the " Minne- 
 gesang." ' 
 
 This was a period which has nothing to compare with 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 it in point of art and poetiy, save perhaps, and that im- 
 perfectlj', the heroic and post-Homeric age of earlj- 
 Greece. 
 
 The poetical efforts of that early age may be grouped 
 under — (1) national epos : the ■■ Nibelungenlied ; " (2) 
 art epos: the " Rolandslied," " Percival," etc. ; (3) the 
 introduction of antique legends: Veldeck's "JSneide," 
 and Konrad's " War of Tro}- ; " (4) Christian legends: 
 '' Barlaam," " S3'lvester," " Pilatus,"&c. ; (5)poetical nar- 
 ratives : " Crescentia," " Graf Rudolf," etc. ; (6) animal 
 legends; " Reinecke Vos ; " (7) didactic poems: " Der 
 Renner ; " (8) the Miune-poetrj', and prose. 
 
 The fourth group, ttiough introduced from a foreign 
 source, gives the special character and uiueh of tlie 
 charm of the period we consider. This is the sphere 
 of legends derived from ecclesiastical ground. One 
 of the best German writers on the history of German 
 literature remarks: "If the aim and nature of all 
 poetry is to let yourself be filled bj' a subject and to 
 become penetrated with it ; if the simple representation 
 of unartificial, true, and glowing feelings belongs to its 
 most beautiful adornments ; if the faithful direction of 
 the heart to the invisible and eternal is the ground on 
 which at all times the most lovely flowers of poetry have 
 sprouted forth, these legendarj' poems of early Germany, 
 in their lovel}' heartiness, in their unambitious limitation, 
 and their pious sense, deserve a friendl}- acknowledg- 
 ment. What man has confidered the pious images in the 
 praj'er-books of the Middle Ages, the unadorned inno- 
 cence, the piet}' and purit3', the patience of the martyrs, 
 the calm, heavenly transparency of the figures of the holy 
 angels, without being attracted by the simple innocence 
 and hurailitj' of these forms, the creation of pious artists' 
 hands? Who has beheld them without tranquil joy at 
 the soft splendor poured over them, without deep sym- 
 pathy, nay, without a certain emotion and tenderness? 
 And the same spirit that created these images also pro- 
 duced those poetical effusions, the same spirit of pious 
 belief, of deep devotion, of heavenly longing. If we 
 make a present realitj- of the heroic songs of the early 
 German popular poetry, and the chivalrous epics of the 
 
18 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 art poetiy, the military expeditions and dress of the 
 Crusades, this legendary poetry appears as the invention 
 of humble pilgrims, who wander slowly on the weary way 
 to Jerusalem, with scollop and pilgrim's staff', engaged in 
 quiet prayer, till they are all to kneel at the Saviour's 
 sepulchre '; and thus contented, after touching the holy 
 earth with their lips, they return, poor as they were, but 
 full of holy comfort, to their distant home. 
 
 ' ' While the knightly poetry is the poetry of the splen- 
 did secular life, full of cheerful joy, full of harp-tones 
 and song, full of tournaments and joyous festivals, the 
 poetry of the earthly love for the earthly bride, the 
 poetry of the legends is that of the spontaneous life 
 of poverty, the poetry of the solitary cloister cell, 
 of the quiet, well-walled convent garden, the poetry 
 of heavenly brides, who without lamenting the jo3-s of 
 the world, which they need not, have their joy in their 
 Saviour in tranquil piety and devout resignation — 
 who attend at the espousals of Anna and Joachim, sing 
 the Magnificat with the Holy Mother of God, stand 
 weeping beneath the cross, to be pierced also bj' the 
 sword, who hear the angel harp with St. Cecilia, and walk 
 with St. Theresa in the glades of Paradise. While the 
 Miune-poetr}' was the tender homage offered to the beauty, 
 the gentleness, the grace, and charm of noble women of 
 this world, legendary poetry. was the homage given to the 
 Virgin Mother, the Queen of Hea^•en, transfiguring earthly 
 love into a heavenly and eternal love. 
 
 " P'or the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the time of 
 woman cidtus, such as has never been before or since seen ; 
 it is also the time of the deepest and simplest and truest, 
 most enthusiastic and faithful veneration of theVirgin Mary. 
 If we, by a certain eff'ort, manage to place ourselves back 
 on the standpoint of childlike poetic faith of that time, 
 and set aside in thought the materializing and exaggera- 
 tion of the hagiology and Mariolatrj' produced b3' later 
 centuries, rendering the reaction of the Reformation 
 unavoidable — if now in our age, turned exclusively to 
 logical ideas and a negative dialectic, we live again b)- 
 thought in those ages of feeling and poetrj- — if we 
 acknowledge all these things to be something more than 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 harmless play of words and faucj-, and as the true lifelike 
 contents of the period, then we can properly appreciate 
 this legendary poetry as a necessary link in the crown of 
 pearls of our ancient poetrj-." 
 
 In short, the first classical period of German literature 
 vvas a time of youthful freshness, of pure harmonj-, 
 plunged in verse and song, full of the richest tones and 
 the noblest rhythm, so thai rhyme and song alone must be 
 looked for as the form of poetic creations. Accordingl}- 
 it had no proper prose. Like our own youth, it was a 
 happj-, free, and true j-outh, it knew no prose ; like us it 
 dreamed to speechless songs ; and as we expressed our 
 jouthfnl language and hopes, woes and joj'S, in rhyme and 
 song, thus a whole people and age had its beautiful youth 
 full of song and verse tones. The life was poetrj- and 
 poetr}- was the life. 
 
 Then came degeneracy and artifice ; after that the great 
 shock of the Reformation ; subsequentlj' a servile and 
 pedantic studj' of classical forms without imbibing their 
 spirit, but preparing the way for a truer art spirit, ex- 
 tracted from their study bj' the masterly criticism of 
 Winckelmann and Lessing, till the second classical period 
 of German literature and poetry bloomed forth in full 
 beauty, blending the national and legendary elements so 
 well expressed bj- Herder with the highest eff"usions of 
 dramatic poetry, partly creative and partlj- imitative of the 
 Greek models, in Schiller a^d Goethe. 
 
 Modern German literature presents a ^•ely remarkable 
 spectacle, though far from unique in historj-, for there we 
 see criticism begetting genius. 
 
 Lessing, the founder of the modern German drama, 
 sought to banish all pomp from the theatre, and in doing 
 so some critics have thought that he banished the ideal 
 and fell nito aflfectation. At any rate, his " Dramaturgy " is 
 full of original ideas, and when he drew out the sphere of 
 poetry contrasted with that of painting in his " Laocoon," 
 all Germany resounded with his praise. " AVith that 
 delight," says Goethe, " we saluted this luminous ray 
 which a thinker of the first order caused to break forth 
 from its clouds. It is necessary to have all the fire of 
 youth to conceive the effect produced on us bj" the ' Lao- 
 
20 iESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 coon' of Lessing." Another great contemporary, whose 
 name is imperishable as that of art, struck a mortal blow 
 at a false taste in the study of the antique. Winckelmann 
 questioned the works of the Greek chisel with an intelli- 
 gence full of love, and initiated his countrymen into 
 poetry by a feeling for sculpture ! What an enthusiasm 
 he displayed ff)r classical beauty ! what a worship of the 
 form ! what a fervor of paganism is found in its eloquent 
 pages when he also comments on the admirable group 
 of "the Laoooon, or the still purer masterpiece of the 
 Apollo of Belvedere. 
 
 These men were the vanguard of the great Germanic 
 army ; Schiller and Goethe alone formed its main column. 
 In t'hem German poetry shows itself in its perfection, and 
 completely realizes the ideal designed for it by the critic. 
 Kvery factitious precept and conventional law was now 
 overthrown ; these poetical Protestants broke away en- 
 tirely from the yoke of tradition. Yet their genius was 
 not without a rule. Every work bears in itself the organic 
 laws of its development. Thus, although they laugh at 
 the famous precept of the three unities, it is because they 
 dig still deeper down to the root of things, to grasp the 
 true principle from which the precept issued. "Men have 
 not understood," said Goethe, " the basis of this law. 
 The law of the comprehensive — • das Fassliche ' — is the 
 principle ; an I the three unities have only value as far 
 as they attain it. When they become an obstacle to the 
 comprehension it is madness to wish to observe thom. 
 The Greeks themselves, from whom the rule is derived, 
 did not alwaj's follow it. In the 'Phaeton' of Euri- 
 pides, and in other pieces, there was change, place ; ac- 
 cordingly they prefer to give a perfect exposition of 
 their subject, rather than blindlj- respect a law never very 
 essential in itself. The pieces of Shakspeare violate in 
 the highest degree the unity of time and of place ; but 
 they are full of comprehensiveness ; nothing is easier to 
 grasp, and for that reason they would have found favor. 
 with the Greeks. The French poets tried to obey exactly 
 the law of the three unities ; but they violate the law of 
 comprehensiveness, as they do not expound dramatic sub- 
 jects by dramas but by recitals." 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 Poetical creation was therefore viewed as free, but at 
 tlie same time responsible. Immediatel}', as if fecundity 
 were the reward of correctness, the German tiieatre be- 
 came filled with true and li\'ing characters The stage 
 widens under their steps that they maj- have room to mo\-e. 
 Histoiy with its great proportions and its terrible lessons, 
 is now able to take place on the stage. The whole Thirtj- 
 Years' War passes before us in " Wallenstein." We hear 
 the tumult of camps, the disorder of a fanatical and un- 
 disciplined army, peasants, recruits, sutlers, soldiers. The 
 • iUusion is complete, and enthusiasm breaks out among the 
 spectators. Similar merits attach to many other of Schil- 
 ler's plays. 
 
 This new drama, which seemed to give all to the natural 
 sphere, concedes still more to the ideal. An able critic 
 has said the details which are the truth of history are also 
 its poetry. Here the German school professes a principle 
 of the highest learning, and one that seems to be borrowed 
 from its profoundest philosophers ; it is that of the uni- 
 versal beautj' of life, of the identity- of beauty and exist- 
 ence. "Our aesthetics," says Goethe, "speak a great 
 deal of poetical or antipeetical subjects ; fundamentally 
 there is no subject that has not its poetry ; it is for the 
 poet to find it there." 
 
 Schiller and Goethe divide the empire over modern Ger- 
 man poetry, and represent its two principal powers ; the 
 one, Schiller, impassioned^nd lyrical, pours his soul over 
 all the subjects he touches ; in him every composition, 
 ode, or drama is always one of his noble ideas, borrowing 
 its di'ess and ornament from the external world. He is a 
 poet especially through the heart, by the force with which 
 he rushes in and carries you with hira. Goethe is espe- 
 cially an epic ; no doubt he paints the passions with admir- 
 able truth, but he commands them ; like the god of the 
 seas in Virgil, he raises above the angry waves his calm 
 and sublime forehead. 
 
 After this glance at the position and chief characteristics 
 of Schiller, it may be useful to ofl'er a few remarks on 
 those of the principal works in this volume, his ^sthetical 
 Letters and Essays. Schiller, in his iEsthetical Essays, 
 did not choose the pure abstract method of deduction and 
 
22 .ESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 conception like Kant, nor the historical lilje Herder, who 
 strove thns to account for tlie genesis of our ideas of 
 beauty and art. lie struck out a middle path, which pre- 
 sents certain deficiencies to the advocates of either 
 of these two systems. Me leans upon Kantian ideas, 
 but without scholastic constraint. Pure speculation, 
 which seeks to set free the form from all contents 
 and matter, was remote from his creative genius, to which 
 the world of matter and sense was no hinderance, but a 
 necessarj- envelop for his forms. 
 
 His removal to Jena in 1791, and acquaintance with- 
 Reinhold, familiarized him with the Kantian philosophy, 
 but he only appreciated it by halves. The bare and bald 
 dealing with fundamental principles was at this time 
 equally repulsive to Goethe and Schiller, the man of the 
 world and the man of life. But Schiller did not find any- 
 where at that time justice done to the dignit}' of art, or 
 honor to the substantial value of beauty. 
 
 The iEsthetical Essays in this volume appeared for the 
 most part since 1792, in the "Thalia" and the "Hours" 
 pei'iodicals. The first, " On the Ground of our Pleasure 
 in Tragic Subjects" (1792), applies Kantian princii)les of 
 the sublime to traged}', and shows Schiller's I<;fty estimate 
 of this class of poetry-. With Kant he pjiows that the 
 source of aW pleasure is suitableness; the touching and 
 sublime elicit this feeling, implj-ing the existence of un- 
 suitableness. In this article he makes the aim and source 
 of art to consist in giving enjoyment, in pleasing. To na- 
 ture pleasure is a mediate object, to art its main object. 
 The same proposition appears in Schiller's paper on Tragic 
 Art (1792), closely connected with the former. This 
 article contains views of the affection of pity that seem 
 to approximate the Aristotelian propositions about tragedy. 
 
 His views on the sublime are expressed in two papei's. 
 " The Sublime" and " The Pathetic," in which we trace con- 
 siderable influence of Lessing and Winckelmann. He is 
 led especially to strong antagonism against the French 
 fragedj-, and he indulges in a lengthy consideration of the 
 passage of Virgil on Laocoon, showing the necessity of 
 suffering and the pathetic in connection with moral adapt- 
 ations to interest us deeply. 
 
INTRO DUCTIOX. 23 
 
 All these essays bespeak the poet who has tiiod his 
 hand at tragi'cly, Viiit in liis next |)!iper, " On Ora'je and 
 Dignity," we trace more of the moralist. Those passages 
 where he takes up a medium position between sen;e and 
 re,ason, between Goethe and Kant, are specially attractive. 
 The therae of this paper is the conception of grace, or the ex- 
 pression of a beautiful soul and dignity, or that of a lofty 
 mind. The idea of grace has been developed more deeply 
 and truly by Schiller than by Wieland or Winckelmann, 
 but the special value of the paper is its constantly point- 
 ing to the ideal of a higher humanity'. In it he does full 
 justice to the sensuous and to the moral, and commencing 
 with the beautiful nature of the Greeks, to whom sense 
 was never mere sense, nor reason mere reason, he con- 
 cludes with an image of perfected humanity in which grace 
 and dignitj- are united, the former by architectonic beauty 
 (structure), the last supported by power. 
 
 Tlie following year, 1795, appeared his most important 
 contribution to sesthetics, in his ^sthetical Letters. 
 
 In these letters he remarks that beauty is the work of 
 free contemplation, and we enter with it into the world of 
 ideas, but without leaving the world of sense. Beauty is 
 to us an object, and yet at the same time a state of oui 
 subjectivity, because the feeling of the conditional is under 
 that which we have of it. Beauty is a form because we 
 consider it, and life because we feel it ; in a word, it is at 
 once our state and our ajjt. And exactly because it is 
 both it serves us as a triumphant proof that suffering does 
 not exclude activity, nor matter form, nor limitation the 
 infinite, for in the enjoj'ment of beauty both natures are 
 united, and by this is proved, the capacity of the infinite 
 to be developed in the finite, and according!}- the possi- 
 bility of the sublimest humanity. 
 
 The free play of the facultj- of cognition which had been 
 determined bj- Kant is also developed by Schiller. His 
 representation of this matter is this : Man, as a spirit, is 
 reason and will, self-active, determining, form-giving ; 
 this is described by Schiller as the forui-instinct ; man, as 
 a sensuous being, is determinable, receptive, termed to 
 matter ; Schiller describes this as the material instinct, 
 ■' Stofftrieb." In the midst between these two is situated 
 
24 7ESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAVS. 
 
 the beautiful, in wliicb ix'ason and the sensuous ijenetrate 
 each other, and theii- enjoval)le product is designated b}- 
 Schiller the play instinct. This expression is not happily 
 chosen. Schiller means to descrilic by it the free play of 
 the forces, activity according to nature, which is at once a 
 joy and a happiness ; he reminds us of the life of Olympus, 
 arid adds: "Man is only quite a man when he plays." 
 Personality is that which fasts, the state of feeling is the 
 changeable in man; he, is the fixed unity remaining 
 eternally himself in the floods of change. Man in con- 
 tact with the world is to take it up in himself, but to unite 
 with it the highest freedom and independence, and, instead 
 of being lost in the world, to subject it to his reason. It 
 is only b3- his being independent that there is reality out 
 of him ; onl^- by being susceptible of feeling that there is 
 reality in him. The olyect of sensuous instinct is life; 
 that of the purer instinct figure ; living figure or beauty 
 is the object of tiie play instinct. 
 
 Only inasmuch as life is formed in the understanding 
 and form in feeling does life win a form and form win 
 life, and only thus does beauty arise. By beauty the 
 sensuous man is led up to reason, the one-sided tension 
 of special force is strung to harmon}-", and man made a 
 complete whole. 
 
 Schiller adds that beauty knits together thought and 
 feeling ; the fullest unity of spirit and matter. Its free- 
 dom is not lack, but harmony, of laws ; its conditions are 
 not exclusions, inclusion of all infinity determined in 
 itself. A true work of art generates lofty serenitj" and' 
 freedom of mind. Thus the aesthetic disposition bestows 
 on us the highest of all gifts, that of a disposition to 
 humanity, and we may call beauty our second creator. 
 
 In tliese letters Schiller spoke out the mildest and high- 
 est sentiments on art, and in his paper on Simple and 
 Sentimental Poetry (171)5) he constructs the ideal of the 
 perfect poet. This is by far the most fruitful of Schiller's 
 essays in its results. It has much that is practically 
 applicable, and contains a veiy able estimate of German 
 poetry. The writing is also \-ery pointed and telling, 
 because it is based upon actual perceptions, and it is 
 interesting because tlie contrast drawn out throughout it 
 
INTRODICTIOX. 25 
 
 between tlie simple and tlie sentimental lias been I'ofeneil 
 to his own contrast with Goethe. He also wislied to vin- 
 dicate modern poetry, which Goethe seemed to wish to 
 sacrifice to the antique. 
 
 The sentimental poefcrj- is tiie fruit of qniet and retire- 
 ment ; simple poetry the child of life. One is a favor of 
 nature ; the sentimental depends on itself, the simple on 
 the world of experience. The sentimental is in danger 
 of extending the limits of human nature too far, of being 
 too ideal, too mj-stical. Neither character exhausts the 
 ideal of humanitj-, but the intimate union of both. Both 
 are founded in human nature ; the contradictions hing at 
 their basis, when cleared in thought from the poetical 
 faculty, are realism and idealism. These also are sides 
 of human nature, which, when unconnected, bring forth 
 disastrous results. Their opposition is as old as the^ 
 beginning of culture, and till its end can hardly be set 
 aside, save in the individual. The idealist is a nobler but 
 a far less perfect being ; the realist appears far less noble, 
 but is more perfect, for the noble lies in the proof of a 
 great capacity, but the perfect in the general attitude of 
 the whole and in the real facts. 
 
 On the whole it may be said, taking a survey of these 
 labors, that if Schiller had developed his ideas system- 
 atically and the unity of his intuition of the world, which 
 were present in his feelings, and if he had based them 
 scientiflcallj-, a new epoch in philosophy might have been 
 anticipated. For he had obtained a view of such a 
 future field of thought with the deep clairvoyance of his 
 genius. 
 
 A few words may be desirable on Schiller's religious 
 standpoint, especially in connection with his philosophical 
 letters 
 
 Schiller came up ten j-ears later than Goethe, and con- 
 cluded the cyclus of genius that Goethe had inaugurated. 
 But as he was the last arrival of that productive period 
 of tempestuous agitation, he retained more of its ele- 
 ments in his later life and poetry than any others who 
 had passed through earlier agitations, such as Goethe. 
 For Goethe cast himself free in a great measure from 
 the earl}- intoxication of his youthful imagination, de- 
 
26 ^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 voting himself partly to iioblci' matter and partly to purer 
 forms. 
 
 Schiller derived from the stormy times of his youth his 
 direction to the ideal, to the hostility against the narrow 
 spirit of civil relations, and to all given conditions of 
 society in general. He derived from it his disposition, not 
 to let himself be moulded by matter, but to place his own 
 creative and determining impress on matter, not so much 
 to grasp reality poetically and represent it poetically as 
 to cast ideas into reality, a disposition for lively represent- 
 ation and strong oratorical coloring. All this he derived 
 from the genial period, though later on somewhat modi- 
 fied, and carried it over into his whole life and poetry; 
 and for this very reason he is not only together with 
 Goethe, but before Goethe, the favorite poet of the nation, 
 and especially with that part of the nation which sympa- 
 thizes with him in the choice of poetic material and in his 
 mode of feeling. 
 
 Gerviniis remarks that Schiller had at Weimar long 
 fallen off from Christianity, and occupied his mind tran- 
 quilly for a time with the views of Spinoza (realistic panthe- 
 ism). Like Herder and Goethe, lie viewed life in its great 
 entirety, and sacrificed the individual to the species. 
 Aecoidingly, through the gods of Greece, he fell out with 
 strict, orthodox Christians. 
 
 But Schiller had deeply religious and even Christian 
 elements, as became a German and a Kantian. He re- 
 ceives the Godhead in His will, and He descends from His 
 throne. He dwells in his soul ; the poet sees divine reve- 
 lations, and as a seer announces them to man. He is a 
 moral educator of his people, who utters the tones of life 
 in his poetry from youth upwards. Philosophy was not 
 disclosed to Plato in the highest and purest thought, nor 
 is poetry to Schiller merely an artificial edifice in the har- 
 mony of speech ; philosophj- and poetry are to both a 
 vibration of love in the soul upwards to God, a liberation 
 from the bonds of sense, a purification of man, a moral 
 art. On this reposes the religious consecration of the 
 Platonic spirit and of that of Schiller. 
 
 Issuing from the philosophical school of Kant, and 
 .'mbued with the antagonism of the aiie against constituted 
 
INTRODCOTION. 27 
 
 authorities, it is natural tliat .Scliilier siiould be a rational- 
 ist in his religious views. It has been justl}' said of him 
 that while Goethe's system was an apotheosis of nature 
 Schiller's was an apotheosis of man. 
 
 Historically he was not pi-epared enough to test and 
 search the question of evidence as applied to divine things 
 handed down b^' testimony, and his Kantian coloring 
 naturallj' disposed him to include all religions within the 
 limits of pure reason, and to seek it rather in the subject 
 than in an3-thing objective. 
 
 In conclusion, we may attempt to classify and give 
 Schiller his place in the progress of the world's literarj- 
 history. Progress is no doubt a law of the individual, 
 of nations, and of the whole race. To grow in perfection, 
 to exist in some sort at a higher degree, is the task im- 
 posed b}' God on man, the continuation of the very work 
 of God, the complement of creation. But this moral 
 growth, this need of increase, may, like all the forces of 
 nature, yield to a greater force ; it is an impulsion rather 
 than a necessity ; it solicits and does not constrain. A 
 thousand obstacles stay its development in individuals and 
 in societies ; moral liberty ma^- retard or accelerate its 
 effects. Progress is therefore a lavv which cannot be abro- 
 gated, but which is not invariabl}' obeyed. 
 
 Nevertheless, in proportion to the increase of the mass 
 of individuals, the caprices of chance and of liberty' neu- 
 tralize each other to allow tke providential action that 
 presides over our destinies to prevail. Looking at the 
 same total of the life of the world, humanity undoubtedly 
 advances : there are in our time fewer moral miseries, 
 fewer ph^-sical miseries, than were known in the past. 
 
 Consequently art and literature, which express the dif- 
 ferent states of society, must share in some degree in this 
 progressive march. But there are two things in literary 
 work : on the one hand the ideas and social manners which 
 it expresses, on tlie other the intelligence, the feehng, the 
 imagination of the writer who becomes its interpreter. 
 While the former of these elements tends incessantly to a 
 greater perfection, the latter is subject to all the hazards 
 of individual genius. Accordingly the progressive litera- 
 ture is only in the inspiration, and so to speak in the 
 
28 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 matter; it may and must therefore not lie eontinnous in 
 form. 
 
 Bnt more than (his : in very ad\anced societies tiie very 
 grandenr of ideas, the al)undanee of models, the satiety 
 of the public render the task of the artist more and more 
 difficult. The aitist himself lias no longer the enthusiasm 
 of the first ages, the youth of imagination and of the heart ; 
 he is an old man whose riches have increased, but who 
 enjoys his wealtli less. 
 
 If all the epochs of literature- are considered as a whole 
 it will be seen that they succeed each other in a constant 
 order. After the period when the idea and the form com- 
 bined in a harmonious manner comes another where the 
 social idea is superabundant, and destrojs the literar3- 
 form of the preceding epoch. 
 
 The middle ages introduced spiritualism in art; before 
 this new idea the smiling untruths of Greek [loetry fled 
 away frightened. The classical form so beautiful, so pure, 
 cannot contain high Catholic thought. A new art is 
 formed ; on this side the Alps it does not reach the ma- 
 turity that produces masterpieces. But at that time all 
 Europe was one fatherland ; Ital3- completes what is lack- 
 ing in France and elsewhere. 
 
 The renaissance introduces new ideas intt) civilization; 
 it resuscitates the traditions of antique science and seeks 
 to unite them to the truths of Christianity. The art of 
 the middle ages, as a vessel of too limited capacity, is 
 broken bj- the n-ew flood poured into it. These different 
 ideas are stirred up and in conflict in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury ; the^' became co-ordinate and attain to an admirable 
 expression in the following a'ge. 
 
 In the eighteenth century there is a new invasion of 
 ideas; all is examined and questioned ; religion, govern- 
 ment, society, all becomes a matter of discussion foi' tlie 
 school called [ihilosophical. Poetry appeared dying out. 
 history drying up, till a truer spirit was breathed into the 
 literarj' atmosphere by the criticism of Lessing, the phi- 
 losophy of Kant, and the poetry of Klopstock. It was at 
 this transition period that Schiller appeared, retaining 
 throughout his literary career nuich of the revolutionary 
 and convulsive spirit of his eai-ly days, and faithfuUV 
 
INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 reflecting much of the dominant German philosophj' of his 
 time. 
 
 Part of the nineteenth century seems to take in hand 
 the task of reconstructing the moral edifice and of giving 
 back to tliought a larger form Tlie literary result of its 
 effects is the renaissance of Ijrical poetry- with an admira- 
 ble development in history, 
 
 Schiller's most brilliant works were in the former walk, 
 his histories have inferior merit, and his philosophical 
 writings bespeak a deep thinking nature with great origi- 
 nality of conception, such as naturally results from a 
 combination of high poetic inspiration with much intellect- 
 ual power. 
 
 Schiller, Hke all great men of genius, was a representa- 
 tive man of his country and of his age. A German, a 
 Protestant free-thinker, a woi'shipper of the classical, he 
 was the expression of these aspects of national and gen- 
 eral thought. 
 
 The religious reformation was the work of tht North. 
 The instinct of races came iu it to complicate the questions 
 of dogmas. The awakening of individual nationalities 
 was one of the characters of the epoch. 
 
 The nations compressed in the severe unity of the Mid- 
 dle Ages escaped in the Reformation from the uniform 
 mould that had long enveloped them, and tended to that 
 other unity, still very distant, which must spring from the 
 spontaneous view of the same truth by all men, result 
 from the free and original development of each nation, 
 and, as in a vast concert, unite harmonious disonances. 
 Europe, without being conscious of its aim, seized greed- 
 ily at the means — insurrection ; the only thought was to 
 overthrow, without yet thinking of a reconstruction. The 
 sixteenth century was the vanguard of the eighteenth. 
 At all times the North had fretted under the antipathetic 
 yoke of the South. Under the Romans, Germany, though 
 frequently conquered, had never been subdued. She had 
 invaded the Empire and determined its fall. In the Mid- 
 dle Ages the struggle had continued ; not only instincts, 
 but ideas, were in conflict ; force and spirit, violence and 
 polity, feudalism and the Catholic hierarchy, hereditary 
 and elective forms, represeuted the opposition of two 
 
30 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 races. In the sixteenth century the schism long antici- 
 pated toolv place. The Catholic dogma had hitherto 
 triumphed over all outbreaks — over Arnaldo of Brescia, 
 the Waldenses, and Wickhffe. But Luther appeared, and 
 the work was accomplished : Catholic unit}- was broken. _ 
 
 And this bivaking with authority went on fernientin-; in 
 the nations till its last great outburst at the French Revo- 
 lution ; and Schiller was born at this convulsive period, 
 and bears strong traces of his parentage in his anti-dog- 
 matic spirit. 
 
 Yet there is another side to Germanism which is prone 
 to the ideal and the mystical, and bears still the trace of 
 those lovely legends of mediaeval growth to which we have 
 adverted. For Christianity was not a foreign and antag- 
 onistic importation in Germany ; rather, the German char- 
 acter obtained its completeness through Christianity. The 
 German found himself again in the Church of Christ, only 
 raised, transfigured, and sanctified. The apostolic repre- 
 sentation of the Church as the bride of Christ has found 
 its fullest and truest correspondence in that of Germany. 
 Hence when the German spirit was thoroughly espoused 
 to the Ciiristian spirit, we find that character of love, 
 tenderness, and depth so characteristic of the early class- 
 sics of German poetry, and reappearing in glorious after- 
 glow in the second classics, in Klopstock, Herder, and, 
 above all, Schiller. 
 
 It is this special instinct for the ideal and mystical in 
 German nature that has enabled spirits born of negation 
 and revolution, like Schiller, to unite with those elements 
 the most genial and creative inspirations of poetrj'. 
 
VOCABULARY OF TERMINOLOGY. 
 
 Absolute, The. A conception, or, more strictly, in Kantian lan- 
 guage, an idea of the pure reason, embracing the fundamental and 
 necessary yet free ground of all things. 
 
 Antinomy. The conflict of the laws of pure reason ; as in the 
 question of free will and necessity. 
 
 Autonomy (autonomous). Governing itself by the spontaneous 
 action of free will. 
 
 Esthetics. The science of beauty; as ethics of duty. 
 
 Cofjnition (knowledge; Germanicfe, " Erketnntniss " ) is either 
 an intuition or a conception. The former has an immediate relation 
 to the object, and is singular and individual; the latter has but a 
 mediate relation, by means of a characteristic mark, which may be 
 common to several things. 
 
 Cognition is an objective perception. 
 
 Conception. A conception is either empirical or pure. A pure 
 conception, in so far as it has its origin in the understanding 
 alone, and is not the conception of a pure sensuous image, is called 
 notio. 
 
 Conceptions are distinguished on the one hand from sensation 
 and perception, and on the other hand from the intuitions of pure 
 reason or ideas. They are distinctly the product of thought and 
 of the understanding, except vphen quite free from empirical ele- 
 ments. 
 
 Feeling (Gefiihl). That part'fcf our nature which relates to pas- 
 sion and instinct. Feelings are connected both witli our sensuous 
 nature, our imagination, and the pure reason. 
 
 Form. See Matter. 
 
 Ideas. The product of the pure reason (Vernunft) or intuitive 
 faculty. Wherever the absolute is introduced in thought we have 
 ideas. Perfection in all its aspects is an idea, virtue and wisdom 
 in their perfect purity and ideas. Kant remai'ks (" Critique of Pure 
 Reason," Meiklejohn's translation, p. 2.56): "It is from the under- 
 standing alone that pure and transcendental conceptions take their 
 origin ; the reason does not properly give birth to any conception, 
 but only frees the conception of the understanding from the un- 
 avoidable limitation of possible experience. A conception formed 
 from notions which transcend the possibility of experience is an 
 idea or a conception of reason."' 
 
 Intuition (Anschauung) as used by Kant, is external or internal. 
 Externa], sensuous intuition is identical with perception; internaV 
 Intuition gives birth to ideas. 
 
 31 
 
32 JiSTIIETICAL LETTERS AXD ESSAYS. 
 
 UTatter and Form. " These two conceptions are at the foundation 
 of 3ll other reflection, being inseparably connected with every iiiode 
 of exercising the understanding. By the former is imphed that 
 wliicli can be determined in general; the second implies us deter- 
 raiiiatioii, both in a transcenilental sense, abstraction being made 
 of T,ny diffei'ence in tliat wliich is given, and of the mode in which 
 it is determinerl. That which in the phenomenon corresponds to 
 the sensation, I term its matter; but that which effects that the 
 content of tlie phenomenon can be arranged under certain re- 
 lations, I call its form." — Kant, " Critique," op. cit. 
 
 Objective. What is inherent or relative to aii object, or not 
 Myself, except in the case when I reflect on myself, in which case 
 my states of mind are objective to my thoughts. In a popular 
 sense objective means external, as contrasted with the subjective or 
 inlernal. 
 
 Perceidion, if it relates only to the subject as a modification of 
 \u state, is a sensation. An objective perception is a cognition 
 (Krlcenntiiiss). 
 
 Phenomena (Erscheinungen). The undetermined object of an 
 empirical intuition is called phenomenon. 
 
 Ueason (pure; Germanicfe, " Vernunft"). The source of ideas 
 of moral feelings and of conceptions free from all elements taken 
 up from experience. 
 
 Representation ( Vorstellung). All the products of the mind are 
 styled representations (except emotions and mere sensations) and 
 tiie terra is applied to the whole genus. 
 
 Representation with consciousness is perceptlo. 
 
 Sensation. The capacity of receiving representations through 
 the mode in wliich we are affectei by objects is called sensibility. 
 By means of sensibility objects are given to us, and it alone fur- 
 nishes witli intentions meaning sensuous intuitions. By the 
 understanding tliey are thought, and from it arise conceptions. 
 
 Subjective. What has its source in and relation to the person- 
 ality, to Myself, I, or the Ego; opposed to tlie objective, or what 
 is inlierent in and relative to tlie object. Not myself, except 
 in the case when my states of mind are the object of my own 
 reflection. 
 
 Sujiersennuous. Contrasted with and opposed to the sensuous. 
 What is exclusively related to sense or imparted through the sen- 
 suous ideas is supersensuous. See Tranf:cenclental. 
 
 Transcendental. What exceeds the limits of sense and empirical 
 observation. " 1 apply the term transcendental to all knowl- 
 edge which is not so much occupied with objects as with the mode 
 of our cognition of these objects, so far as this mode of cognition 
 is possible H priori." Kant's "Critique," op. cit. p. 16. 
 
 Unilerstandin^j (Verstand). Tlie thought of faculty, the source 
 of conceptions and notions (Begriffe) of the laws of logic, the 
 c.itegories, and judgment. 
 
LETTEES 
 
 ^STHETICAL EDUCATIOl^ OF MAN. 
 
 Letter I. 
 
 By your permission I lay before you, in a series of letters, 
 the results of my researches upon beai/ii/ and art. I am 
 keenly sensible of the importance as well as of the charm 
 and dignity of this undertakmg. I shall treat a subject 
 which is closely connected with the better portion of our 
 happiness and not far removed from the moral nobility of 
 human nature. I shall plead this cause of the beautiful be- 
 fore a heart by which her whole power is felt arid exer- 
 cised, and which will take upon itself the most difficult 
 part of my task in an investigation where one is compelled 
 to appeal as frequently to feelings as to principles. 
 
 That which I would beg of you as a favor, you gener- 
 ously impose upon me as a duty ; and, when I solely con- 
 sult m}' inclination, you impute to me a service. The 
 libertj'' of action you prescribe is rather a necessity for 
 me than a constraint. Little exercised in formal rules, I 
 shall scarcely incur the risk of sinning against good taste 
 by any undue use of them ; my ideas, drawn rather from 
 within than from reading or from an intimate experience 
 with the world, will not disown their origin ; they would 
 rather incur any reproach than that of a sectarian bias, 
 and would prefer to succumb bj- their innate feebleness 
 than sustain themselves bj' borrowed authority and foreign 
 support. 
 
 In truth, I will not keep back from you that the asser- 
 tions which follow rest chiefly upon Kantian principles ; 
 
34 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 but if in the course. of these researches jou should be re- 
 minded of any special school of philosophj-, ascribe it to 
 my incapacity, not to those principles. No ; your liberty 
 of mind shall be sacred to me ; and the facts upon which 
 I build will be furnished bj- your own sentiments ; your 
 own unfettered thought will dictate the laws according to 
 which we have to proceed. 
 
 With regard to the ideas which predominate in the 
 practical part of Kant's system, philosophers only disagree, 
 whilst mankind, I am confident of proving, ha\'e never 
 done so. If stripped of their technical shape, they will 
 appear as the A'erdiet of reason pronounced from time 
 immemorial bj' common consent, and as facts of the moral 
 instinct which nature, in her wisdom, has given to man in 
 order to serve as guide and teacher until his enlightened 
 intelligence gi^■es him maturity. But this very technical 
 shape which renders truth visible to the understanding 
 conceals it from the feelings ; for, unhappily, understand- 
 ing begins by destroying the object of the inner sense 
 before it can appropriate the object. Like the chemist, 
 the philosopher finds synthesis only by analysis, or the 
 spontaneous work of nature only through the torture of 
 art. Thus, in order to detain the fleeting apparition, he 
 must enchain it in the fetters of rule, dissect its fair 
 proportions into abstract notions, and preser^'e its living 
 spirit in a fleshless skeleton of words. Is it surprising 
 that natural feeling should not recognize itself in such a 
 copy, and if in the report of the analyst the truth appears 
 as paradox ? 
 
 Permit me therefore to crave j'our indulgence if the 
 following researches should remove their object from the 
 sphere of sense while endea^-oring to draw it towards 
 the understanding. That which I before said of moral 
 experience can be applied with greater truth to the mani- 
 festation of "the beautiful." It is the mystery which 
 enchants, and its being is extinguished with the extinction 
 of the necessary combination of its elements. 
 
^STHETICAIi LKTTEES AND ESSAYS. 35 
 
 Letter II. 
 
 But T might perhaps make a better use of the opening 
 j'Ou afford me if I were to direct your mind to a loftier 
 theme than that of art. It would appear to be unseason- 
 able to go in search of a code for the sesthetic world, 
 when the moral world offers matter of so much higher 
 interest, and when the spirit of philosophical inquiry- is so 
 stringently challenged by the circumstances of our times 
 to occupy itself with the most perfect of all works of 
 art — the establishment and structure of a true political 
 freedom. 
 
 It is unsatisfactory to live out of your own age and to 
 work for other times. It is equally incumbent on us to 
 be good members of our own age as of our own state or 
 country. If it is conceived to be unseemly and even 
 unlawful for a man to segregate himself from the customs 
 and manners of the circle in which he lives, it would be 
 inconsistent not to see that it is equally his dutj' to grant 
 a proper share of influence to the voice of his own epoch, 
 to its taste and its requirements, in the operations in which 
 he engages. 
 
 But the voice of our age seems by no means favorable 
 to art, p< ail events to that kind of art to which my in- 
 quiry IS directed. The course of events has given a 
 direction to the genius of the time that threatens to re- 
 move it continually furthSr from the ideal of art. For 
 art has to leave reality, it has to raise itself boldlj^ above 
 necessity and neediness ; for art is the daughter of freedom, 
 and it requires its prescriptions and r ules to be fumish ed 
 liy^he'hecessityT3f%piittS"Hndm)tTJ5That of inattei\ KuT 
 ^■iioiir~Tte}-" ifr^isTiecessity, neecTiness, that^rBrailsriind 
 Jends a degraded humanity under its iron yoke. Utiliti/ 
 is the great idol of the AijHf'i„to_v»^clLJiiL4iOwer8_do 
 libmage and jflEIauhjects _are_snb^er\-ient. In this g reat 
 balance on utility, the spiritual service of art has no 
 weight, and, depiT\fed "of all] encdufagemeTit^ Tt^linishes 
 from the noisy Vanity Fair of "oiirtime. — -Tlie very spirit 
 of philosophical inquiry itself robs the imagination of one 
 promise after another, and the frontiers of art are nar- 
 
36 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 rowed in proportion as the limits of science are en- 
 larged. 
 
 The eyes of the philosopher as well as of the man of 
 the world are anxiouslj- turned to the theatre of political 
 events, where it is presumed the great destinj- of man is 
 to be plaj-ed out. It would almost seem to betray a culpa- 
 ble indifference to the welfare of society if we did not 
 share this general interest. For this great commerce in 
 social and moral principles is of necessity a matter of the 
 greatest concern to every human being, on the ground 
 both of its subject and of its results. It must accord- 
 ingly be of deepest moment to everj- man to think for 
 himself. It would seem that now at length a question 
 that formerly was onlj' settled by the law of the stronger 
 is to be determined by the calm judgment of the reason, 
 and every man who is capable of placing himself in a cen- 
 tral position, and raising his individuality into that of his 
 species, can look upon himself as in possession of this 
 judicial faculty of reason ; being moreover, as man and 
 member of the human family, a party in the case under 
 trial and involved more or less in its decisions. It would 
 thus appear that this great political process is not only 
 engaged with his individual case, it has also to pronounce 
 enactments, which he as a rational spirit is capable of 
 enunciating and entitled to pronounce. 
 
 It is evident that it would have been most attractive to 
 me to inquire into an object such as this, to decide such a 
 question in conjunction with a thinker of powerful mind, 
 a man of liberal sympathies, and a heart imbued with a 
 noble enthusiasm for the weal of humanity. Though so 
 widely separated by worldly position, it would have been 
 a delightful surprise to have found your unprejudiced 
 mind arriving at the same result as my own in the field of 
 ideas. Nevertheless, I think I can not only excuse, but 
 even justify by solid grounds, my step in resisting this 
 attractive purpose and in preferring beautj' to freedom. 
 [ hope that I shall succeed in convincing you that this 
 matter of art is less foreign to the needs than to the tastes 
 of our age ; nay, that, to arrive at a solution even in the 
 political problem, the road of assthetics must be pursued, 
 because it is through beauty that we arrive at freedom. 
 
JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 37 
 
 But I cannot carry out this proof without my bringing to 
 your remembrance the principles by which the reason ib 
 guided in political legislation. 
 
 Letter III. 
 
 Man is not better treated bj- nature in his first start than 
 her other works are ; so long as he is unable to act for 
 himself as an independent intelligence she acts for him. 
 But the very fact that constitutes him a man is that he 
 does not remain stationarj% where^ nature has placed him. 
 that he can pass with his reason, retracing the steps na- 
 ture had made him anticipate, that he can convert the 
 work of necessity into one of free solution, and elevate 
 ph3-sical necessity into a moral law. 
 
 When man is raised from his slumber in the senses he 
 feels that he is a man ; he surveys his surroundings and 
 finds that he is in a state. He was introduced into this 
 state by the power of circumstances, before he could freely 
 select his own position. But as a moral being he cannot 
 possibly rest satisfied with a political condition forced 
 upon him by necessity, and onlj' calculated for that condi- 
 tion ; and it would be unfortunate if this did satisfj' him. 
 In many cases man shakes off this blind law of necessit}-, 
 by his free spontaneous action, of which among many 
 others we have an instance, in his ennobling by beauty 
 and suppressing b}- moraf infiuence the powerful nnpulse 
 implanted in him by nature in the passion of lo^■e. Thus, 
 when arrived at maturity', he recovers his childhood by an 
 artificial process, he founds a state of nature in his ideas, 
 not gi\-en him by any experience, but established by the 
 necessary laws and conditions of his reason, and he attrib- 
 utes to this ideal condition an object, an aim, of which 
 he was not cognizant in the actual realitj' of nature. He 
 gives himself a choice of which he was not capable before, 
 and sets to work just as if he were beginning anew, and 
 were exchanging his original state of bondage for one of 
 complete independence, doing this with complete insight 
 and of his free decision. He is justified in regarding this 
 work of political thraldom as non-existing though a wild 
 
38 ^STHETICAL LETTEKW AND ESSAYS. 
 
 and arbitraiy caprice may have founded its worlf veiy art- 
 fully ; though it may strive to maintain it with great arro- 
 gance and encompass it with a halo of veneration. For 
 the work of blind powers possesses no authority before 
 which freedom need bow, and all must be made to adapt 
 itself to the highest end which reason has set up in his 
 personahty. It is in this wise that a people in a state of 
 manhood is justified in exchanging a condition of thraldom 
 for one of moral freedom. 
 
 Now the term natural condition can be applied to every 
 political body which owes its establishment originally to 
 forces and not to laws, and such a state contradicts the 
 moral nature of man, because lawfulness can alone have 
 authority' over this. At the same time this natural condi- 
 tion is quite sufficient for the phj'sical man, who onlj- gives 
 himself laws in order to get rid of brute force. More- 
 over, the physical man is a reality, and the moral man 
 prohlematical. Therefore when the reason suppresses the 
 natural condition, as she must if she wishes to substitute 
 her own, she weighs the real physical man against the prob- 
 lematical moral man, she weighs the existence of societ}' 
 against a possible, though morally necessary, ideal of 
 societ\'. She takes from man something which he really 
 possesses, and without which he possesses nothing, and 
 refers him as a substitute to something that he ought to 
 possess and might possess ; and if reason had relied too 
 exclusively on him she might, in order to secure him a 
 state of humanit3- in which he is wanting and can want 
 without injury to his life, have robbed him even of the 
 means of animal existence, which is the first necessar3- 
 condition of his being a man. Before he had opportunity 
 to hold firm to the law with his will, reason would iiave 
 withdrawn from his feet the ladder of nature. 
 
 The great point is, therefore, to reconcile these two con- 
 siderations, to prevent physical societj- from ceasing for a 
 moment in time, while the moral society is being formed 
 in the idea ; in other words, to prevent its existence from 
 being placed in jeopardy for the sake of the moral dig- 
 nity of man. When the mechanic has to mend a watch 
 he lets the wheels run out ; but the living watchworks of 
 the state have to be repaired while they act, and a wheel 
 
JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 39 
 
 has to be exchanged for another during its revolutions. 
 Accordingly props must be sought for to support society 
 and keep it going while it is made independent of the 
 natural condition from which it is sought to emancipate it. 
 This prop is not found in the natural character of man, 
 who, being selfish and violent, directs his energies rather 
 to the destruction than to the preservation of society. 
 Nor is it found in his moral character, which has to be 
 formed, which can never be worked upon or calculated on 
 by the lawgiver, because it is free and never appears. It 
 would seem, therefore, that another measure must be 
 adopted. It would seem that the physical character of the 
 arbitrary must be separated from moral freedom ; that it is 
 incumbent to make the former harmonize with the laws and 
 the latter dependent on impressions ; it would be expedient 
 to remove the' former still farther from matter and to 
 bring the latter somewhat more near to it ; in short, to pro- 
 duce a third character related to both the others — the 
 physical and the moral — paving the way to a transition 
 from the sway of mere force to that of law, without pre- 
 venting the proper development of the moral character, 
 but serving rather as a pledge in the sensuous sphere of a 
 morality in the unseen. 
 
 Letter IV, 
 
 Thus much is certain. 'It is only when a third character, 
 as previously suggested, has preponderance that a revolu- 
 tion in a state according to moral principles can be free 
 from injurious consequences ; nor can anything else secure 
 its endurance. In proposing or setting up a moral state, the 
 moral law is relied upon as a real power, and free-will is 
 drawn into the realm of causes, where all hangs together 
 mutually with stringent necessity and rigidity. But we 
 know that the condition of the human will always remains 
 contingent, and that only in the Absolute Being physical 
 coexists with moral necessity. Accordingly, if it is wished 
 to depend on the moral conduct of man as on natural re- 
 sults, this conduct must become nature, and he must be 
 led by natural impulse to such a course of action as can 
 
40 ^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 only and invariably have moral results. But the will of 
 man is perfectly free between inclination and duty, and no 
 physical necessity ought to enter as a sharer in this mag- 
 isterial personality. If, therefore, he is to retain this 
 power of solution, and yet become a reliable link in the 
 causal concatenation of forces, this can only be effected 
 when the operations of both these impulses are presented 
 quite equally in the world of appearances. It is only 
 possible when, with every difference of form, the matter 
 of man's volition remains the same, when all his impulses 
 agreeing with his reason are sufficient to have the value of 
 a universal legislation. 
 
 It may be urged that every individual man carries 
 within himself, at least in his adaptation and destination, 
 a purely ideal man. The great problem of his existence 
 is to bring all the incessant changes of his outer life into 
 conformity with the unchanging unitj- of this ideal. This 
 pure ideal man, which makes itself known more or less 
 clearlj' in every subject, is represented by the state, which 
 is the objective, and, so to speak, canonical form in which 
 the manifold differences of the subjects strive to unite. 
 Now two ways present themselves to the thought in which 
 the man of time can agree with the man of idea, and there 
 are also two ways in which the state can maintain itself 
 in individuals. One of these ways is when the pure ideal 
 man subdues the empirical man, and the state suppresses 
 the individual, or again when the individual becomes the 
 state, and the man of time is ennobled to the man of 
 idea. 
 
 I admit that in a one-sided estimate from the point of 
 view of morality' this difference vanishes, for the reason is 
 satisfied if her law prevails uuconditionallj-. But when 
 the surve\- taken is complete and embraces the whole man 
 (anthropology), where the form is considered together with 
 the substance, and a living feeling has a voice, the differ- 
 ence will become far more evident. No doubt the reason 
 demands unitj', and nature variety, and both legislations 
 take man in hand. The law of the former is stamped 
 upon him by an incorruptible consciousness, that of the lat- 
 ter by an ineradicable feeling. Consequently education will 
 always appear deficient when the moral feeling can only be 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 41 
 
 maintained with the sacrifice of what is natural ; and a 
 political administration will alwa3S be very imperfect when 
 it is only able to bring about unity by suppressing variety. 
 The state ought not onh- to respect the objective and 
 generic, but also the subjective and specific in individuals ; 
 and while diffusing the unseen world of morals, it must 
 not depopulate the kingdom of appearance, the external 
 world of matter. 
 
 When the mechanical artist places his hand on the form- 
 less block, to give it a form according to his intention, he 
 has not any scruples in doing violence to it. For the 
 nature on which he works does not deserve any respect in 
 itself, and he does not value the whole for its parts, but 
 the parts on account of the whole. When the child of 
 the fine arts sets his hand to the same block, he has no 
 scruples either in doing violence to it, he onl^' avoids show- 
 ing this violence. He does not respect the matter in 
 which he works any more than the mechanical artist ; but 
 he seeks by an apparent consideration for it to deceive the 
 eye which takes this matter under its protection. The 
 political and educating artist follows a very different course, 
 while making man at once his material and his end. In j 
 this case the aim or end meets in the material, and it is 
 only because the whole serves the parts that the parts 
 adapt themselves to the end. The political artist has to 
 treat his material — man — with a very different kind of re- 
 spect than that shown by the artist of fine art to his work. 
 He must spare man's peculiarity and personality, not to I 
 produce a defective effect on the senses, but objectively 
 and out of consideration for his inner being. i 
 
 But the state is an organization which fashions itself"! 
 through itself and for itself, and for this reason it can only 
 be realized when the parts have been accorded to the idea 
 of the whole. The state serves the purpose of a repre- 
 sentative, both to pure ideal and to objective humanity, in 
 the breast of its citizens, accordingly it will have to ob- 
 serve the same relation to its citizens in which they are 
 placed to it ; and it will only respect their subjective , 
 humanity in the same degree that it is ennobled to an ob- I 
 jective existence. If the internal man is one with himself"^ 
 he will be able to rescue his peculiarity, even in the greatest 
 
42 ^STHKTICAL LETTKRS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 generalization of his conduct, and the state will only 
 become the exponent of his fine instinct, tlie clearer formula 
 of his internal legislation. But if the subjective man is in 
 ; conflict with the objective, and contradicts him in the 
 character of a people, so that only the oppression of the 
 former can give victor3' to the latter, then the state will 
 take up the severe aspect of the law against the citizen, 
 and in order not to fall a sacrifice, it will have to crush 
 under foot such a hostile individuality without any com- 
 promise. 
 
 '' Now man can be opposed to himself in a twofold 
 manner ; either as a savage, when his feelings rule over 
 his principles ; or as a barbarian, when his principles 
 destroy his feelings. The savage despises art, and acknowl- 
 edges nature as his despotic ruler ; the barbarian laughs 
 at nature, and dishonors it, but he often proceeds in a 
 more contemptible way than the savage to be the slave 
 ; of his senses. The cultivated man makes of nature his 
 friend, and honors its friendship, while only bridling its 
 caprice. 
 
 Consequently, when reason brings her moral unity into 
 physical society, she must not injure the manifold in na- 
 ture. When nature strives to maintain her manifold 
 character in the moral structure of society, this must not 
 create any breach in moral unit}' ; the victorious form is 
 equally remote from uniformity and confusion. There- 
 in fore, totality of character must be found in the people 
 i which is capable and worthy to exchange the state of 
 ' necessity for that of freedom. 
 
 Letter V. 
 
 Does the present age, do passing events, present this 
 character? I direct my attention at once to the most 
 prominent object in this vast structure. 
 
 It is true that the consideration of opinion is fallen ; 
 caprice is unnerved, and, although still armed with power, 
 receives no longer any respect. Man has awakened from 
 his long lethargy and self-deception, and he demands with 
 impressive unanimity to be restored to his imperishable 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 43 
 
 rights. But he does not only demand them ; he rises on 
 all sides to seize by force what, in his opinion, has been 
 unjustly svrested from him. The edifice of the natural 
 state is tottering, its foundations shake, and a physical 
 possibility seems at length granted to place law on the 
 throne, to honor man at length as an end, and to make 
 true freedom the basis of political union. Vain hope ! 
 The moral possibility is wanting, and the generous occa- 
 sion finds an unsusceptible rule. 
 
 Man paints himself in his actions, and what is the form 
 depicted in the drama of the present time ? On the one 
 hand, he is seen running wild, on the other, in a state of 
 letharg\- ; the two extremest stages of human degeneracy, 
 and both seen in one and the same period. 
 
 In the lower larger masses, coarse, lawless impulses 
 come to view, breaking loose when the bonds of civil 
 order are burst asunder, and ha.stening with unbridled 
 fury to satisfy their savage instinct. Objective humanity 
 may have had cause to complain of the state ; jet subject- 
 ive man must honor its institutions. Ought he to be 
 blamed because he lost sight of the dignity of human 
 nature, so long as he was concerned in preserving his 
 existence ? Can we blame him that he proceeded to sepa- 
 rate bj- the force of gravity, to fasten by the force of 
 cohesion, at a time when there could be no thought of 
 building or raising up? The extinction of the state con- 
 tains its justification. Society set free, instead of hasten- 
 ing upward into organic iffe, collapses into its elements. 
 
 On the other hand, the civilized classes give us the still 
 more repulsive sight of lethargy, and of a depravity of 
 character which is the more revolting because it roots in 
 culture. I forget who of the older or more recent philoso- 
 phers makes the remark, that what is more noble is the 
 more revolting in its destruction. The remark applies 
 with truth to the world of morals. The child of nature, 
 when he breaks loose, becomes a madman ; but the art 
 scholar, when he breaks loose, becomes a debased char- 
 acter. The enlightenment of the understanding, on which 
 the more refined classes pride themselves with some 
 ground, shows on the whole so little of an ennobling 
 influence on the mind that it seems rather to confirm cor- 
 
44 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 ruption by its maxims. We deny nature on her legitimate 
 Held and feel her tyranny in the moral sphere, and while 
 resisting her impressions, we receive our principles from 
 her. While the affected decency of our manners does not 
 even grant to nature a pardonable influence in the initial 
 stage, our materialistic system of morals allows her the 
 casting vote in tlie last and essential stage. Egotism has 
 founded its system in the very bosom of a refined society, 
 and witlioutdevelo|)ing even a sociable character, we feel 
 all the contagions and miseries of society. We subject 
 our free judgment to its despotic opinions, our feelings to 
 its bizarre customs, and our will to its seductions. We 
 only maintain our caprice against her holy rights. The 
 man of the world has his heart contracted bj- a proud self- 
 complacency, while that of the man of nature often beats 
 in sympathy ; and every man seeks for nothing more than 
 to save his wretched property irom the general destruction, 
 as it were from some great conflagration. It is conceived 
 that the only way to find a shelter against the aberrations of 
 sentiment is by completely foregoing its indulgence, and 
 mockery, which is often a useful chastener of mysticism, 
 slanders in the same breath the noblest aspirations. Cul- 
 ture, far from giving us freedom, onty develops, as it 
 advances, new necessities ; the fetters of the physical close 
 more tightly around us, so that the fear of loss quenches 
 even the ardent impulse toward improvement, and the 
 inaxims of passive obedience are held to be the highest 
 wisdom of life. Thus the spirit of the time is seen to 
 waver between perversion and savagism, between what 
 is unnatural and mere nature, between superstition and 
 moral unbelief, audit is often nothing but the equilibrium of 
 evils that sets bounds to it. 
 
 Letter VI. 
 
 Have I gone too far in this portraiture of our times ? I 
 do not anticipate this stricture, but rather another — that 
 I have proved too much by it. You will tell me that the 
 picture I have presented resembles the humanitj' of our 
 day, but it also bodies forth all nations engaged in the 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 45 
 
 same degree of culture, because all, without exception, 
 have fallen off from nature b^- the abuse of reason, before 
 they can return to it through reason. 
 
 But if we bestow some serious attention to the character 
 of our times, we shall be astonished at the contrast between 
 the present and the previous form of humanity, especially 
 that of Greece. We are justified in claiming the reputa- 
 tion of culture and refinement, when contrasted with a 
 purely natural state of society, but not so comparing our- 
 selves with the Grecian nature. For the latter was com- 
 bined with all the charms of art and with all the dignity 
 of wisdom, without, however, as with us, becoming a vic- 
 tim tottiese influences. The Greeks have put us to shame 
 not only by their simplicity, which is foreign to our age ; ! 
 they are at. the same time our rivals, nay, frequentlj- our ! 
 models, in those very points of superiority from which we 
 seek comfort when regretting the unnatural character of our 
 manners. We see that remarkable people uniting at 
 once fulness of form and fulness of substance, both 
 philosophizing and creating, both tender and energetic, 
 uniting a youthful fancy to the virility of reason in a 
 glorious humanity. 
 
 At the period of Greek culture, which was an awakening 
 of the powers of the mind, the senses and the spirit had no 
 distinctly separated property ; no division had yet torn 
 them asunder, leading them to partition in a hostile atti- 
 tude, and to mark off their limits with precision. Poetry 
 had not as yet become the^dversary of wit, nor had spec- 
 ulation abused itself bj' passing into quibbling. In cases 
 of iiecessitj- both poetry and wit could exchange parts, 
 because they both honored truth onlj' in their special way. 
 However high might he the flight of reason, it drew matter 
 in a loving spirit after it, and while sharply and stiflfly 
 defining it, never mutilated what it touched. It is true 
 the Greek mind displaced humanity, and recast it on a 
 magnified scale in the glorious circle of its gods ; but it 
 did this not by dissecting human nature, but by giving it 
 fresh combinations, for the whole of human nature was 
 represented in each of the gods. How different is the 
 course followed by us moderns ! We also displace and 
 magnify individuals to form the image of the species, but 
 
46 ^STHETICAI- LKTTERS AND ESSAYS 
 
 we do this in a fragmentary way, not by altered combina- 
 tions, so that it is necessary to gather up from diflFerent 
 individuals the elements that form the species in its totality. 
 It would almost appear as if the powers of mind express 
 themselves with us in real life or empirically as separately 
 as the psychologist distinguishes them in the representation. 
 For we see not only individual subjects, but whole classes 
 of men, uphold their capacities only in part, while the rest 
 of their faculties scarcely show a germ of activity, as in 
 the case of the stunted growth of plants. 
 
 I do not overlook the advantages to which the present 
 race, regarded as a unity and in the balance of the under- 
 standing, may lay c' ..im over what is best in the ancient 
 world ; but it is obliged to engage in the contest as a com- 
 pact mass, and measure itself as a whole against a whole. 
 Who among the moderns could step forth, man against 
 man, and strive with an Athenian for the prize of higher 
 humanitj'. 
 
 Whence comes this disadvantageous relation of individ- 
 uals coupled with great advantages of the race? Why 
 could the individual Greek be qualified as the type of his 
 time ; and why can no modern dare to offer himself as 
 such? Because all-uniting nature imparted its forms to 
 the Greek, and an all-dividing understanding gives our 
 forms to us. 
 
 It was culture itself that gave these wounds to modem 
 humanity. The inner union of human nature was broken, 
 and a destructive contest divided its harmonious forces 
 directl}' ; on the one hand, an enlarged experience and a 
 more distinct thinking necessitated a sharper separation of 
 the sciences, while, on the other hand, the more complicat- 
 ed machinery of states necessitated a stricter sundering of 
 ranks and occupations. Intuitive and speculative under- 
 standing took up a hostile attitude in opposite fields, whose 
 borders were guarded with jealousy and distrust ; and by 
 limiting its operation to a narrow sphere, men have made 
 unto themselves a master who is wont not unfrequentlj' to 
 end by subduing and oppressing all the other faculties. 
 Whilst on the one hand a luxuriant imagination creates 
 ravages in the plantations that have cost the intelligence 
 so much labor ; on the other band, a spirit of abstiaction 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 47 
 
 suffocates the fire that might have warmed the heart and 
 inflamed the imagination. 
 
 This subversion, commenced by art and learning in the 
 inner man, was carried out to fulness and finished by the 
 spirit of innovation in government. It was, no doubt, 
 reasonable to expect that the simple organization of the 
 primitive republics should survive the quaintness of primi- 
 tive manners and of the relations of antiquit}-. But, in- 
 stead of rising to a higher and nobler degree of animal | 
 life, this organization degenerated into a common and j 
 coarse mechanism. The zoophyte condition of the Grecian ' 
 states, where each individual enjoj^ed an independent life, 
 and could, in cases of necessity, become a separate whole 
 and unit in himself, gave way to an ingenious mechanism, 
 when, from the splitting up into numberless parts, there 
 results a mechanical life in the combination. Then there'll 
 was a rupture between the state and the church, between ' 
 laws and customs ; enjoyment was separated from labor, 
 the means from the end, the effort from the reward. Man 
 himself, eternally chained down to a little fragment of the 
 whole, only forms a kind of fragment ; having nothing in 
 his ears but the monotonous sound of the perpetually re- 
 volving wheel, he never develops the harmony of his being, 
 and instead of imprinting the seal of humanitj- on his being, 
 he ends by being nothing more than the living impress of , 
 the craft to which he devotes himself, of the science thatj 
 he cultivates. This very partial and paltr\- relation, link- 
 ing the isolated members to*the whole, does not depend on 
 forms that are given spontaneously ; for how could a com- 1 
 plicated machine, which shuns the light, confide itself to 
 the free will of man? This relation is rather dictated,^ 
 with a rigorous strictness, by a formulary in which the 
 free intelligence of man is chained down. The dead letteri 
 takes the place of a living meaning, and a practised mem- 
 ory becomes a safer guide than genius and feeling. 
 
 If the community or state measures man by his function,- 
 only asking of its citizens memory, or the intelligence of 
 a craftsman, or mechanical skill, we cannot be surprised 
 that the other faculties of the mind are neglected for the 
 exclusive culture of the one that brings in honor and profit. ! 
 Such is the necessary result of an organization that is 
 
48 ^STHETIOAL LETTERS ANP ESS ATS. 
 
 indifferent about character, only looking to acquirements, 
 wiiilst in other cases it tolerates the thickest darkness, to 
 favor a spirit of law and order ; it must result if it wishes 
 that individuals in the exercise of special aptitudes 
 should gain in depth what they are permitted to lose in 
 extension. We are aware, no doubt, that a powerful 
 genius does not shut up its activity within the limits of its 
 functions ; but mediocre talents consume in the craft fallen 
 to their lot the whole of their feeble energy ; and if some 
 of their energy is reserved for matters of preference, 
 without prejudice to its functions, such a state of things 
 at once bespeaks a spirit soaring above the vulgar. Mora- 
 
 • over, it is rarely a recommendation in the ej'e of a state 
 to have a capacity superior to your employment, or one 
 of those noble intellectual cravings of a man of talent 
 which contend in rivalry with the duties of office. The 
 state is so jealous of the exclusive possession of its ser- 
 vants that it would prefer — nor can it be blamed in this 
 — for functionaries to show their powers with the Venus 
 of Cytherea rather than the Uranian Venus. 
 
 - It is thus that concrete individual life is extinguished, 
 in order that the abstract whole may continue its miserable 
 life, and the state remains forever a stranger to its citizens, 
 because feeling does not discover it anywhere. The gov- 
 erning authorities find themselves compelled to classify, 
 and thereby simplify the multiplicity of citizens, and 
 only to know humanity in a representative form and at 
 second-hand. Accordingly they end by entirely losing 
 sight of humanity, and by confounding it with a simple 
 artificial creation of the understanding, whilst on their 
 part the subject-classes cannot help receiving coldly laws 
 that address themselves so little to their personality. At 
 length, society, weary of having a burden that the state 
 takes so little trouble to lighten, falls to pieces and is 
 broken up — a destiny that has long since attended most 
 European states. They are dissolved in what may be 
 called a state of moral nature, in which public authority 
 is only one function more, hated and deceived by those 
 who think it necessary, respected only by those who can 
 do without it. 
 Thus compressed between two forces, within and with- 
 
^STHETICAIi LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 49 
 
 out, could humanity follow any other course than that 
 which it has taken? The speculative mind, pursuing 
 imprescriptible goods and rights in the sphere of id-eas, 
 must needs have become a stranger to the world of sense, 
 and lose sight of matter for the sake of form. On its 
 part, the world of public affairs, shut up in a monotonous 
 circle of objects, and even there restricted bj* formulas, 
 was led to lose sight of the life and liberty of the whole, 
 while becoming impoverished at the same time in its own 
 sphere. Just as the speculative mind was tempted to 
 model the real after the intelligible, and to raise the sub- 
 jective laws of its imagination into laws constituting the 
 existence of things, so the state spirit rushed into the 
 opposite extreme, wished to make a particular and frag- 
 mentary experience the measure of all observation, and to 
 apply without exception to all affairs the rules of its own 
 particular craft. The speculative mind had nece?sarily to 
 become the prey of a vain subtlety, the state spirit of a 
 narrow pedantry ; for the former was placed too high to see 
 the individual, and tlie latter too low to survey the whole. 
 But the disadvantage of this direction of mind was not 
 confined to knowledge and mental production ; it extended 
 to action and feeling. We know that the sensibility of 
 the mind depends, as to degree, on the liveliness, and for 
 extent on the richness of the imagination. Now the pre- 
 dominance of the faculty of analysis must necessaril}' 
 deprive the imagination of Its warmth and energj-, and a 
 restricted sphere of objects must diminish its wealth. It 
 is for this reason that the abstract thinker has very often 
 a cold heart, because he analyzes impressions, which only 
 move the mind by their combination or totality ; on the 
 other hand, the man of business, the statesman, has very i 
 often a narrow heart, because, shut up in the narrow circle i 
 of his employment, liis iiiuigination can neither expand nor 
 adapt itself to another manner of viewing things. 
 
 My subject has led me naturally to place in relief the 
 distressing tendency of the character of oiu' own times and to 
 show the sources of the evil, without its being my province 
 to point out the compensations offered by nature. I will 
 readily admit to 3-ou that, although this splitting up of 
 their being was unfavorable for individuals, it was the 
 
50 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 only open road for the progress of the race. The point 
 at which we see humanitj' arrived among the Greeks was 
 undoubtedly a maximum; it could neither stop there nor 
 rise higher. It could not stop there, for the sum of notions 
 acquired forced infallibly the intelligence to break with 
 feeling and intuition, and to lead to clearness of know- 
 ledge. Nor could it rise any higher ; for it is only in a 
 determinate measure that clearness can be reconciled with 
 a certain degree of abundance and of warmth. The 
 Greeks had attained this measure, and to continue their 
 progress in culture, they, as we, were obliged to renounce 
 the totality of their being, and to follow different and sep- 
 arate roads in order to seek after truth. 
 
 There was no other way to develop the manifold apti- 
 tudes of man than to bring them in opposition with one 
 another. This antagonism of forces is the great instru- 
 ment of culture, but it is only an instrument : for as long 
 as this antagonism lasts man is only on the road to cul- 
 ture. It is onl}" because these special forces are isolated 
 in man, and because they take on themselves to impose an 
 exclusive legislation, that they enter into strife with the 
 truth of things, and oblige common sense, which generally 
 adheres imperturbably to external phenomena, to dive into 
 the essence of things. While pure understanding usurps 
 authority in the world of sense, and empiricism attempts 
 to subject this intellect to the conditions of experience, 
 these two rival directions arrive at the highest possible 
 development, and exhaust the whole extent of their sphere. 
 While, on the one hand, imagination, bj' its t^yranny, ven- 
 tures to destroy the order of the world, it forces reason, 
 on the other side, to rise up to the supreme sources of 
 knowledge, and to invoke against this predominance of 
 fancy the help of the. law of neeessitj*. 
 
 By an exclusive spirit in the case of Ms faculties, the 
 individual is fatally led to error ; but the species is led to 
 truth. It is only by gathering up all the energj'^ of oui 
 mind in a single focus, and concentrating a single force in 
 our being, that we give in some sort wings to this isolated 
 force, and that we draw it on artificially far beyond the 
 limits that nature seems to have imposed upon it. If it 
 be certain that all human individuals taken togethei 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSATS. 51 
 
 would never have arrived, with the visual power given 
 them by nature, to see a satellite of Jupiter, discovered 
 by the telescope of the astronomer, it is just as well 
 established that never would the human understanding 
 have produced the anah'sis of the iniinite, or the critique 
 of pure reason, if in particular branches, destined for this 
 mission, reason had not applied itself to special researches, 
 and it, after having, as it were, freed itself from all mat- 
 ter, it had not, bj^ the most powerful abstraction given to 
 the spiritual ej^e of man the force necessary, in order to 
 look into the absolute. But the question is, if a spirit 
 thus absorbed in pure reason and intuition will be able to 
 emancipate itself from the rigorous fetters of logic, to 
 take the free action of poetrj', and seize the individ- 
 uality of things with a faithful and chaste sense ? Here 
 nature imposes even on the most universal genius a limit 
 it cannot pass, and truth will make martyrs as long as 
 philosophj' will be reduced to make its principal occupa- 
 tion the search for arms against errors. 
 
 But whatever may be the final profit for the totality of 
 the world, of this distinct and special perfecting of the 
 human faculties, it cannot be denied that this final aim of 
 the universe, which devotes them to this liind of culture, 
 is a cause of suflfering, and a kind of malediction for in- 
 dividuals. I admit that the exercises of the gymnasium 
 form athletic bodies ; but beauty is only developed by the 
 free and equal play of th^ limbs. In the same way the 
 tension of the isolated spiritual forces ma}' make extraor- 
 dinary men ; but it is only the well-tempered equilibrium 
 of these forces that can produce happy and accomplished 
 men. And in what relation should we be placed with 
 past and future ages if the perfecting of human nature 
 made such a sa.crifice indispensable? In that case we 
 should have been the slaves of humanity, we should have 
 consumed our forces in servile work for it during some 
 thousands of years, and we sliould have stamped on our 
 humiliated, mutilated nature the shameful brand of this 
 slavery — all this in order that future generations, in a 
 happy leisure, might consecrate themselves to the cure of 
 their moral health, and develop the whole of human na- 
 ture by their free culture. 
 
52 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 But can it be true that man has to neglect himself fo: 
 any end whatever ? Can nature snatch from us, for ani 
 end whatever, the perfection which is prescribed to us bj 
 the aim of reason ? It must be false that the perfecting 
 of particular faculties renders the sacrifice of their totaliti 
 necessary ; and even if the law of nature had imperiouslj 
 this tendency, we must have the power to reform by t 
 superior art this totality of our being, which art hai 
 destroyed. 
 
 Lettee VII. 
 
 Can this effect of harmony be attained by the state 
 That is not possible, for the state, as at present consti 
 tuted, has given occasion to evil, and the state as con 
 ceived in the idea, instead of being able to establish thii 
 more perfect humanity, ought to be based upon it. Thui 
 the researches in which I have indulged would hav( 
 brought me back to the same point from which thej' hat 
 called me off for a time. The present age, far fron 
 offering us this form of humanity', which we haAC acknowl 
 edged as a necessary condition of an improvement of th( 
 state, shows us rather the diametrically opposite form. If 
 therefore, the principles I have laid down are correct, anc 
 if experience confirms the picture I have traced of thi 
 present time, it would be necessary to qualifj- as unsea 
 sonable everj^ attempt to effect a similar change in th( 
 state, and all hope as chimerical that would be based oi 
 such an attempt, until the division of the inner man ceases 
 and nature has been sufficiently developed to become her 
 self the instrument of this great change and secure th< 
 reality of the political creation of reason. 
 
 In the physical creation, nature shows, us the road thai 
 we have to follow in the moral creation. Only when the 
 struggle of elementary forces has ceased in inferior organ- 
 izations, nature rises to the noble form of the physica 
 man. In like manner, the conflict of the elements of the 
 moral man and that of blind instincts must have ceased, 
 and a coarse antagonism in himself, before the attempt car 
 be hazarded. On the other hand, the independence of 
 man's character must be secured, and his submission tc 
 
>3ESTHETICAL LETTEKS AND ESSAYS. 53 
 
 despotic forms must have given place to a suitable libertj-, 
 before the variety in his constitution can be made subordi- 
 nate to the unity of the ideal. When the man of nature 
 still makes such an anarchial abuse of his will, his liberty 
 ought hardly to be disclosed to him. And when the man 
 fashioned by culture makes so little use of his freedom, 
 Ills free will ought not to be taken from him. The conces- 
 sion of liberal principles becomes a treason to social order 
 when it is associated with a force still in fermentation, and 
 increases the already exuberant energy of its nature. 
 Again, the law of conformity under one level becomes 
 t3Tanny to the individual when it is allied to a weakness 
 alreadj' holding sway and to natural obstacles, and when 
 it comes to extinguish the last spark of spontaneity^ and 
 of originality. 
 
 The tone of the age must therefore rise from its pro- 
 found moral degradation ; on the one hand it must eman- 
 cipate itself from the blind service of nature, and on the 
 other it must re^•ert to its simplicity, its truth, and its fruit- 
 ful sap ; a sufficient task for more than a centur}-. How- 
 ever, I admit readily', more than one special effort may 
 meet with success, but no improvement of the whole will 
 result from it, and contradictions in action will be a con- 
 tinual protest against the unity of maxims. It will be 
 quite possible, then, that in remote corners of the world 
 humanity may be honored in the person of the negro, 
 while in Europe it may be^legraded in the person of the 
 thinker. The old principles will remain, but they will 
 adopt the dress of the age, and philosophy will lend its 
 name to an oppression that was formerly authorized by the 
 church. In one place, alarmed at the libert3- which in its 
 opening efforts alwa3's shows itself an enemy, it will cast 
 itself into the arms of a convenient servitude. In another 
 place, reduced to despair by a pedantic tutelage, it will be 
 driven into the savage license of the state of nature. 
 Usurpation will invoke the weakness of human nature, 
 and insurrection will invoke its dignity, till at length the 
 great sovereign of all human things, blind force, shall 
 come in and decide, like a vulgar pugilist, this pretended 
 contest of principles. 
 
54 iESTHETICAL LETTEES AND ESSAYS. 
 
 Letter VIII. 
 
 Must philosophy therefore retire from this field, disap- 
 pointed in its hopes ? Whilst in all other directions _ the 
 dominion of forms is extended, must this the most precious 
 of all gifts be abandoned to a formless chance ? Must 
 the contest of blind forces last eternally in the political 
 world, and is social law never to triumph over a hating 
 egotism ? 
 
 Not in the least. It is true that reason herself will never 
 attempt directly a struggle with this brutal force which 
 resists her arms, and she will be as far as the son of Saturn 
 in the "Iliad" from descending into the dismal field of 
 battle, to fight them in person. But she chooses the most 
 deserving among the combatants, clothes him with divine 
 arms as Jupiter gave them to his son-in-law, and by her 
 triumphing force she finally decides the victory. 
 
 Reason has done all that she could in finding the law 
 and promulgating it ; it is for the energy of the will and 
 the ardor of feeling to carry it out. To issue victoriously 
 from her contest with force, truth herself must first be- 
 come a, force, and turn one of the instincts of man into 
 her champion in the empire of phenomena. For instincts 
 are the onlj' motive forces in the material world. If liith- 
 erto truth has so little manifested her victorious power, 
 this has not depended on the understanding, which 
 could not have unveiled it, but on the heart which re- 
 mained closed to it and on instinct which did not act with 
 it. 
 
 Whence, in fact, proceeds this general sway of pi'eju- 
 dices, this might of the understanding in the midst of the 
 light disseminated by philosophy and experience? The 
 age is enlightened, that is to say, that knowledge, obtain- 
 ed and vulgarized, suffices to set right at least our practi- 
 cal principles. The spirit of free inquiry has dissipated 
 the erroneous opinions which long barred the access to 
 truth, and has undermined the ground on which fanaticism 
 and deception had erected their throne. Reason has pur- 
 ified itself from the illusions of the senses and from a 
 mendacious sophistry, and philosophy herself raises her 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 55 
 
 voice and exhorts us to return to the bosom of nature, to 
 which she had first made us unfaithful. Whence then is 
 it that we remain still barbarians ? 
 
 There must be something in the spirit of man — as it is 
 not in the objects themselves — which prevents us from 
 receiving the truth, notwithstanding the brilliant light she 
 diffuses, and from accepting her, whatever may be her 
 strength for producing conviction. This something was 
 perceived and expressed by an ancient sage in this very 
 significant maxim : sapere aude.* 
 
 Dare to be wise ! A spirited courage is required to 
 triumph over the impediments that the indolence of nature 
 as well as the cowardice of the heart oppose to our in- 
 struction. It was not without reason that the ancient 
 Mythos made Minerva issue fully armed from the head of 
 Jupiter, for it is with warfare that this instruction com- 
 mences. From its very outset it has to sustain a hard 
 fight against the senses, which do not like to be roused 
 from their easy slumber. The greater part of men are 
 much too exhausted and enervated by their struggle with 
 want to be able to engage in a new and severe contest with 
 error. Satisfied if they themselves can escape from the 
 hard labor of thought, they willingly abandon to others 
 the guardianship of their thoughts. And if it happens 
 that nobler necessities agitate their soul, they cling with a 
 greedy faith to the formula that the state and the church 
 hold in reserve for such cases. If these unhappy men 
 deserve our compassion, those others deserve our just 
 contempt, who, though set free from those necessities by 
 more fortunate circumstances, yet willingly bend to their 
 yoke. These latter persons prefer this twilight of obscure 
 ideas, where the feelings have more intensity, and the 
 imagination can at will create convenient chimeras, to the 
 rays of truth which put to flight the pleasant illusions of 
 their dreams. They have founded the wnole structure of 
 their happiness on these very illusions, which ought to be 
 combated and dissipated by the light of knowledge, and 
 they would think they were paying too dearly for a truth 
 which begins by robbing them of all that has value in 
 their sight. It would be necessary that they should 
 
 • Dare to be wise. 
 
56 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 be already sages to love wisdom : a truth that was felt at 
 once by him to whom philosopliy owes its name.* 
 
 It is' therefore not going far enough to say that the light 
 of the understanding only deserves respect when it reacts 
 on the character ; to a certain extent it is from the charac- 
 ter that this light proceeds ; for the road that terminates 
 in the head must pass through the heart. Accordingly, 
 the most pressing need of the present time is to educate 
 {the sensibility, because it is the means, not only to render 
 lefflcacious in practice the improvement of ideas, but to call 
 this improvement into existence. 
 
 Letter IX. 
 
 But perhaps there is a vicious circle in our previous rea- 
 soning ! Theoretical culture must it seems bring along 
 with it practical culture, and yet the latter must be the 
 condition of the former. All improvement in the political 
 sphere must proceed from the ennobling of the character. 
 But, subject to the influence of a social constitution still 
 barbarous, how can character become ennobled ? It would 
 then be necessary to seek for this end an instrument that 
 the state does not furnish, and to open sources that would 
 have preserved themselves pure in the midst of political 
 corruption. 
 
 I have now reached the point to which all the consider- 
 ations tended that have engaged me up to the present 
 time. This instrument is the art of the beautiful; these 
 sources are open to us in its immortal models. 
 
 Art, like science, is emancipated from all that is posi- 
 tive, and all that is humanly conventional ; both are com- 
 pletely independent of the arbitrarj' will of man. The 
 political legislator ma}- place their empire under an inter- 
 dict, but he cannot reign there. He can proscribe the 
 friend of truth, but truth subsists ; he can degrade the 
 artist, but he cannot change art. Xd doubt, nothing is 
 more common than to see science and art bend before the 
 spirit of the age, and cicaliNe taste receive its law from 
 critical taste. When the character becomes stiff and 
 
 * Tlie Greek Avord iiiuans, ^s is known, love of wisdom. 
 
^STHETICAL LETTJERS AND ESSAYS. 57 
 
 hardens itself, we see science severely keeping iier limits, 
 and art subject to the harsh restraint of rules ; when the 
 character is relaxed and softened, science endeavors to 
 please and art to rejoice. For whole ages philosophers 
 as well as artists show themselves occupied in letting 
 down truth and beauty to the depths of vulgar humanitj'. 
 The}' themselves are swallowed up in it ; but, thanks to 
 their essential vigor and indestructible life, the true and the 
 beautiful make a victorious fight, and issue triumphant 
 from the abyss. 
 
 No doubt the artist is the child of his time, but un- 
 happy for him if he is its disciple or even its favorite ! 
 Let a beneficent deitj' carry off in good time the suckling 
 from the breast of its mother, let it nourish him on the 
 milk of a better age, and suffer him to grow up and arrive 
 at virility under the distant sky of Greece. When he has 
 attained manhood, let him come back, presenting a face 
 strange to his own age ; let him come, not to delight it 
 witli his apparition, but rather to purify it, terrible as the 
 son of Agamemnon. He will, indeed, receive his matter 
 from the present time, but he will borrow the form from a 
 nobler time and even beyond all time, from the essential, 
 absolute, immutable unitj'. There, issuing from the pure 
 ether of its heavenlj' nature, flows the source of all beau- 
 ty, which was never tainted by the corruptions of genera- 
 tions or of ages, which roll along far beneath it in dark 
 eddies. Its matter may be dishonored as well as ennobled 
 by fancy, but the ever-chasfe form escapes from the caprices 
 of imagination. The Roman had already bent his knee 
 for long years to the divinity of the emperors, and yet the 
 statues of the gods stood erect ; the temples retained their 
 sanctity for the eye long after the gods had become a theme 
 for mockery, and the noble architecture of the palaces 
 that shielded the infamies of Nero and of Commodus were 
 a protest against them. Humanity has lost its dignity, 
 but art has saved it, and preserves it in marbles full of 
 meaning ; truth continues to live in illusion, and the copy 
 will serve to re-establish the model. If the nobility of art 
 has survived the nobility of nature, it also goes before it 
 like an inspiring genius, forming and awakening minds. 
 Before truth causes her triumphant light to penetrate into 
 
58 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 the depths of the heart, poetry intercepts her rays, and 
 the summits of humanity shine in a bright light, while 
 a dark and humid night still hangs over the valleys. 
 
 But how will the artist avoid the corruption of his time 
 which encloses him on all hands? Let him raise his eyes 
 to his own dignity, and to law ; let him not lower them to 
 necessity and fortune. Equally exempt from a vain activ- 
 ity which would imprint its trace on the fugitive moment, 
 and from the dreams of an impatient enthusiasm which 
 applies the measure of the absolute to the paltry produc- 
 tions of time, let the artist abandon the real to the under- 
 standing, for that is its proper field. But let the artist 
 endeavor to give birth to the ideal by the union of the 
 possible and of the necessarj'. Let him stamp illusion and 
 truth with the efflg3' of this ideal ; let him apply it to the 
 play of his imagination and his most serious actions, in 
 short, to all sensuous and spiritual forms ; then let him 
 quietlj- launch his work into infinite time. 
 
 But the minds set on fire by this ideal have not all 
 received an equal share of calm from the creative genius 
 — that great and patient temper which is required to 
 impress the ideal on the dumb marble, or to spread it over 
 a page of cold, sober letters, and then intrust it to the 
 faithful hands of time. This divine instinct, and creative 
 force, much too ardent to follow this peaceful walk, often 
 throws itself immediately- on the present, on active life, 
 and strives to transform the shapeless matter of the moral 
 world. The misfortune ( f his brothers, of the whole spe- 
 cies, appeals loudly to the h( art of the man of feeling ; 
 their abasement appeals still louder : enthusiasm is in- 
 flamed, and in souls -dowed with energy the burning desire 
 aspires impatiently to action and facts. But has this 
 innovator examined himself to see if these disorders of 
 the moral world wound his reason, or if tliey do not rather 
 wound his self-love ? If he does not determine this point 
 at once, he will find it from the impulsiveness with which 
 he pursues a prompt and definite end. A pure, moral 
 motive has for its end the absolute ; time does not exist 
 for it, and the future becomes the present to it directly ; 
 by a necessary development, it has to issue from the 
 present. To a reason having no limits the direction to- 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 59 
 
 wards an end becomes confounded with the accomplish 
 ment of this end, and to enter on a course is to have fin- 
 ished it. 
 
 If, then, a young friend of the true and of the beautiful 
 were to ask me how, notwithstanding the resistance of 
 the times, he can satisfy the noble longing of his heart, I 
 should reply : Direct the world on which you act towards 
 that which is good, and the measured and peaceful course 
 of time will bring about the results. You have given it 
 this direction if bj' j'our teaching you raise its thoughts 
 towards the necessary and the eternal ; if, bj- jour acts or 
 your creations, you make the necessarj- and the eternal the 
 object of your leanings. The structure of error and of 
 all that is arbitrarj' must fall, and it has already fallen, as 
 soon as you are sure that it is tottering. But it is impor- 
 tant that it should not onlj' totter in the external but also 
 in the internal man. Cherish triumphant truth in the 
 modest sanctuary of your heart ; give it an incarnate form 
 through beautj', that it maj- not only be in the understand- 
 ing that does homage to it, but that feeling may lovingly 
 grasp its appearance. And that you may not bj' any 
 chance take from external reality the model which j'ou 
 yourself ought to furnish, do not venture into its danger- 
 ous society before you are assured in j'Our own heart that 
 you have a good escort furnished by ideal nature. Live 
 with your age, but be not its creation ; labor for your 
 contemporaries, but do for^them what they need, and not 
 what they praise. Without having shared their faults, 
 share their punishment with a noble resignation, and bend 
 under the joke which thej' find it as painful to dispense 
 with as to bear. Bj^ the constancy with which j'ou will 
 despite their good fortune, j'Ou will prove to them that it 
 is not through cowardice that j'ou submit to their sufl'er- 
 ings. See them in thought such as they ought to be when 
 you must act upon them ; but see them as they are when 
 you are tempted to act for them. Seek to owe their suf- 
 frage to their dignitj' ; but to make them happy keep an 
 account of their unworthiness : thus, on the one hand, the 
 nobleness of your heart will kindle theirs, and, on the 
 other, your end will not be reduced to nothingness by their 
 unworthiness. The gravity of your principles will keep 
 
60 ^STHETICAL LETTEES AND ESSAYS. 
 
 them off from you, but in play they will still endure them. 
 Their taste is purer than their heart, and it is by their 
 taste you must lay hold of this suspicious fugitive. In 
 vain will you combat their maxims, in vain will you con- 
 demn their actions ; but you can try your moulding hand 
 on their leisure. Drive away caprice, frivolity, and coarse- 
 ness from their pleasures, and you will banish them imper- 
 ceptibly from their acts, and at length from their feelings. 
 Everywhere that you meet them, surround them with great, 
 noble, and ingenious forms ; multiply around them the 
 symbols of perfection, till appearance triumphs over real- 
 ity, and art over nature. 
 
 Letter X. 
 
 Convinced by my preceding letters, you agree with me on 
 this point, that man can depart from his destination by 
 two opposite roads, that our epoch is actually moving on 
 these two false roads, and that it has become the prey, in 
 one case, of coarseness, and elsewhere of exhaustion and 
 depravity. It is the beautiful that must bring it back from 
 this twofold departure. But how can the cultivation of 
 the fine arts remedy, at the same time, these opposite de- 
 fects, and unite in itself two contradictory qualities? Can 
 it bind nature in the savage, and set it free in the barba- 
 rian ? Can it at once tighten a spring and loose it ; and if 
 it cannot produce this double effect, how will it be rea- 
 sonable to expect from it so important a result as the edu- 
 cation of man? 
 
 It may be urged that it is almost a proverbial adage 
 that the feeling developed bj^ the beautiful refines manners, 
 and any new proof offered on the subject would appear 
 superfluous. Men base this maxim on daily experience, 
 which shows us almost always clearness of intellect, delicacj' 
 of feeling, liberality and even dignity of conduct, asso- 
 ciated with a cultivated taste, while an uncultivated taste 
 is almost always accompanied by the opposite qualities. 
 With consideralDle assurance, the most civilized nation of 
 antiquity is cited as an evidence of this, the Greeks, among 
 whom the perception of the beautiful attained its highest 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 61 
 
 development, and, as a contrast, it is usual to point tfi 
 nations in a partial savage state, and partly barbarous, 
 who expiate their insensibility to the beautiful by a coarse, 
 or, at all events, a hard, austere character. Nevertheless, 
 some thinkers are tempted occasionallj' to denj- either the 
 fact itself or to dispute the legitimacy of the consequences 
 that are derived from it. They do not entertain so unfa- 
 vorable an opinion of that savage coarseness which is 
 made a reproach in the case of certain nations ; nor do 
 they form so advantageous an opinion of the refinement so 
 highly lauded in the case of cultivated nations. Even as 
 far back as in antiquity there were men who by no means 
 regarded the culture of the liberal arts as a benefit, and 
 who were consequentlj' led to forbid the entrance of their 
 republic to imagination. 
 
 I do not speak of those who calumniate art because 
 they have never been favored by it. These persons only 
 appreciate a possession by the trouble it takes to acquire 
 it, and by the profit it brings : and how could the}' prop- 
 erly appreciate the silent labor of taste in the exterior and 
 interior man? How evident it is that the accidental dis- 
 advantages attending liberal culture would make them lose 
 sight of its essential advantages? The man deficient in 
 form despises the grace of diction as a means of corrup- 
 tion, courtes}' in the social relations as dissimulation, deli- 
 cacy and generosity in conduct as an afl'ected exaggeration. 
 He cannot forgive the favorite of the Graces for having 
 enlivened all assemblies as a man of the world, of having 
 directed all men to his views like a statesman, and of giv- 
 ing his impress to the whole century as a writer: while he, 
 the victim of labor, can only obtain with all his learning, 
 the least attention or overcome the least difficulty. As he 
 cannot learn from his fortunate rival the secret of pleasing, 
 the onlj- course open to him is to deplore the corruption 
 of human nature, which adores rather the appearance than 
 the reality. 
 
 But there are also opinions deserving respect, that pro- 
 nounce themselves adverse to the effects of the beautiful, and 
 find formidable arms in experience, with which to wage war 
 against it. " We are free to admit " — such is their lan- 
 guage — " that the charms of the beautiful can further hon- 
 
62 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 orable ends in pure hands ; but it is not repugnant to its 
 nature to produce, in impure hands, a directly contrary 
 effect, and to employ in the service of injustice and 
 error the power that throws the soul of man into chains. 
 It is exactly because taste only attends to the form and 
 never to the substance ; it ends by placing the soul on the 
 dangerous incline, leading it to neglect all realitj' and to 
 sacrifice truth and morality to an attractive envelope. All 
 the real difference of things vanishes, and it is only the 
 appearance that determines the value ! How manj' men 
 of talent" — thus these arguers proceed — "have been 
 turned aside from all effort bj^ the seductive power of the 
 beautiful, or have been led awaj' from all serious exercise 
 of their activitj^, or have been induced to use it verj' fee- 
 bly ? How many weak minds have been impelled to quar- 
 rel with the orgaaizations of societj', simplj- because it 
 has pleased the imagination of poets to present the image 
 of a world constituted differenth", where no proprietj' 
 chains down opinion and no artifice holds nature in thral- 
 dom ? What a dangerous logic of the passions they have 
 learned since the poets have painted them in their pictures 
 in the most brilliant colors, and since, in the contest with 
 law and duty, they have commonly remained masters of 
 the battle-flcld. What has society gained by the relations 
 of society, formerly under the swa^^ of truth, being now 
 subject to the laws of the beautiful, or by the external 
 impression deciding the estimation in which merit 
 is to be held? We admit that all virtues whose 
 appearance produces an agreeable eff"ect are now seen 
 to flourish, and those which, in society, give a value 
 to the man who possesses them. But, as a compensation, 
 all kinds of excesses are seen to prevail, and all vices are 
 in vogue that can be reconciled with a graceful exterior." 
 It is certainly a matter entitled to reflection that, at almost 
 all the periods of history when art flourished and taste held 
 sway, humanity is found in a state of decline ; nor can a sin- 
 gle instance be cited of the union of a large difl'usion of 
 aesthetic culture with political liberty and social virtue, 
 of fine m-anners associated with good morals, and of 
 politeness fraternizing with truth and loyalty of character 
 and life. 
 
^STHETICAL LETTEKS AND ESSAYS. 63 
 
 As long as Athens and Sparta preserved their inde- 
 pendence, and as long as their institutions were based on 
 respect for the laws, taste did not reach its maturity, art 
 remained in its infancy, and beauty was far from exercis- 
 ing her empire over minds. No doubt, poetry had already 
 taken a sublime flight, but it was on the wings of genius, 
 and we know that genius borders very closely on savage 
 coarseness, that it is a light which shines readily in the 
 midst of darkness, and which therefore often argues 
 against rather than in favor of the taste of time. When 
 the golden age of art appears under Pericles and Alexan- 
 der, and the sway of taste becomes more general, strength 
 and liberty have abandoned Greece ; eloquence corrupts 
 the truth, wisdom offends it on the lips of Socrates, and 
 virtue in the life of Phocion. It is well known that the 
 Romans had to exhaust their energies in civil wars, and, 
 corrupted by Oriental luxury, to bow their heads under the 
 yoke of a fortunate despot, before Grecian art triumphed 
 over the stiffness of their character. The same was 
 the case with the Arabs : civilization only dawned upon 
 them when the vigor of their military spirit became soft- 
 ened under the sceptre of the Abbassides. Art did not 
 appear in modern Italy till the glorious Lombard League 
 was dissolved, Florence submitting to the Medici ; and all 
 those brave cities gave up the spirit of independence for 
 an inglorious resignation. It is almost superfluous to call 
 to mind the example of modern nations, with whom refine- 
 ment has increased in direct proportion to the decline of 
 their liberties. Wherever we direct our eyes in past times, , 
 we see taste and freedom mutually avoiding each other. I 
 Everywhere we see that the beautiful onl}' founds its sway I 
 on the ruins of heroic virtues. ' 
 
 And j'et this strength of character, which is commonly 
 sacrificed to establish sesthetic culture, is the most power- 
 ful spring of all that is great and excellent in man, and 
 no other advantage, however great, can make up for it. 
 Accordingly, if we only keep to the experiments hitherto 
 made, as to the influence of the beautiful, we cannot cer- 
 tainly be much encouraged in developing feelings so dan- 
 gerous to the real culture of man. At the risk of being 
 hard and coarse, it will seem preferable to dispense with 
 
64 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 this dissolving force of the beautiful rather than see human 
 nature a pre}- to its enervating influence, notwithstanding 
 all its refining advantages. However, experience is per- 
 haps not the proper tribunal at which to decide such a 
 question ; before giving so much weight to its testimonj', 
 it would be well to inquire if the beauty we have been 
 discussing is the power that is condemned bj' the previous 
 examples. And the beauty we are discussing seems to 
 assume an idea of the beautiful derived from a source 
 diflferent from experience, for it is this higher notion of the 
 beautiful which has to decide if what is called beautj- by 
 experience is entitled to the name. 
 
 This pure and rational idea of the beautiful — supposing 
 it can be placed in evidence — cannot be taken from any 
 real and special case, and must, on the contrary, direct 
 and give sanction to our judgment in each special case. 
 It must therefore be sought for by a process of abstraction, 
 and it ought to be deduced from the simple possibility of 
 a nature both sensuous and rational ; in short, beauty 
 ought to present itself as a necessary condition of human- 
 ity. It is therefore essential that we should rise to the 
 pure idea of humanit}', and as experience shows us nothing 
 but individuals, in particular cases, and never humanity at 
 large, we must endeavor to find in their individual and 
 variable mode of being the absolute and the permanent, 
 and to grasp the necessary conditions of their existence, 
 suppressing all accidental limits. No doubt this transcen- 
 dental procedure will remove us for some time from the 
 familiar .circle of phenomena, and the living presence of 
 objects, to keep us on the unproductive ground of abstract 
 idea ; but we are engaged in the search after a principle 
 of knowledge solid enough not to be shaken bj- an^^thing, 
 and the man who does not dare to rise above reality will 
 never conquer this truth. 
 
 Letter XI. 
 
 If abstraction rises to as great an elevation as possible, it 
 arrives at two primary ideas, before which it is obliged to 
 stop and to recognize its limits. It distinguishes in man 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 65 
 
 something that continues, and something that changes 
 incessantly. That which continues it names his person ; that 
 which changes his position, his condition. 
 
 The person and the condition, I and my determinations, 
 which we represent as one and the same thing in the necesr 
 sary being, are eternally distinct in the finite being. Not- 
 withstanding all continuance in the person, the condition 
 changes ; in spite of all change of condition the person 
 remains. We pass from rest to activity, from emotion to 
 indifference, from assent to contradiction, but we are 
 always we ourselves, and what immediately springs from 
 ourseloes remains. It is onl3' in the absolute subject that 
 all his determinations continue with his personality. All 
 that Divinity is, it is because it is so ; consequently it is 
 eternally what it is, because it is eternal. 
 
 As the person and the condition are distinct in man, be- 
 cause he is a finite being, the condition cannot be founded 
 on the person, nor the person on the condition. Admit- 
 ting the second case, the person would have to change ; 
 and in the former case, the condition would have to con- 
 tinue. Thus in either supposition, either the personalit}' 
 or the quality of a finite being would necessarilj- cease. 
 It is not because we think, feel, and will that we are ; it 
 is not because we are that we think, feel, and will. ^Ve 
 are because we are. We feel, think, and will because 
 there is out of us something that is not ourselves. 
 
 Consequently the person must have its principle of 
 existence in itself, becaui^ the permanent cannot be de- 
 rived from the changeable, and thus we should be at once 
 in possession of the idea of the absolute being, founded 
 on itself; that is to saj-, of the iihi't of freedom. The 
 condition must have a foundation, and as it is not through 
 the person, and is not therefore absolute, it must be & 
 sequence and a result; and thus, in the second place, wt 
 should have arrived at the condition of every independent 
 being, of everj'thing in the process of becoming something 
 else : that is, of the idea of time. " Time is the necessary 
 condition of all processes, of becoming (Werden) ; " this 
 is an identical proposition, for it says nothing but this : 
 " That something may follow, there must be a succes- 
 sion. " 
 
66 iBSTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 The person which manifested itself in the eternally con- 
 tinuing Ego, or I mj'self, and only in him, cannot become 
 something or begin in time, because it is much rather time 
 that must begin with him, because the permanent must 
 serve as basis to the changeable. That change may take 
 place, something must change ; this something cannot 
 therefore be the change itself. When we say the flower 
 opens and fades, we make of this flower a permanent 
 being in the midst of this transformation ; we lend it, in 
 some sort, a personality, in which these two conditions 
 are manifested. It cannot be objected that man is born, 
 and becomes something ; for man is not only a person 
 simply, but he is a person finding himself in a deter- 
 minate condition. Now our determinate state of con- 
 dition springs up in time, and it is thus that man, as a 
 phenomenon or appearance, must have a beginning, 
 though in him pure intelligence is eternal. Without time, 
 that is, without a becoming, he would not be a determinate 
 being ; his personalit3' would exist virtually no doubt, but 
 not in action. It is not by the succession of its percep- 
 tions that the immutable Ego or person manifests himself 
 to himself. 
 
 Thus, therefore, the matter of activity, or realit}-, that 
 the supreme intelligence draws from its own being, must 
 be received b}- man ; and he does, in fact, receive it, 
 through the medium of perception, as something which 
 is outside him in space, and which changes in him in time. 
 This matter which changes in him is alwaj'S accompanied 
 bjr the Ego, the personalilj', that never changes ; and the 
 rule prescribed for man by his rational nature is to remain 
 immutably himself in the midst of change, to refer all 
 perceptions to experience, that is, to the unity of knowl- 
 edge, and to make of each of its manifestations of its 
 modes in time the law of all time. The matter only exists 
 in as far as it changes : he, his personality, only exists in 
 as far as he does not change. Consequently, represented 
 in his perfection, man would be the permanent unity, 
 which remains alwaj'S the same, among the waves of 
 change. 
 
 Now, although an infinite being, a divinity could not 
 become (or be subject to time), still a tendency ought to 
 
JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 67 
 
 he named divine which has for its infinite end the most 
 characteristic attribute of the divinity ; the absolute mani- 
 festation of power — the reality of all. the possible — and 
 the absolute unity of the manifestation (the necessity of 
 all reality) . It cannot be disputed that man bears within 
 himself, in his personality, a predisposition for'divinitJ^ 
 The way to divinitj'— if the word " way" can be applied 
 to what never leads to its end — is open to him in everj' 
 direction. 
 
 Considered in itself, and independently of all sensuous 
 matter, his personality is nothing but the pure virtuality 
 of a possible infinite manifestation ; and so long as there 
 is neither intuition nor feeling, it is nothing more than a 
 form, an empty power. Considered in itself, and inde- 
 pendently of all spontaneous activitj' of the mind, sensu- 
 ousness can only make a material man ; without it, it is a 
 pure form ; but it cannot in any wa}' establish a union 
 between matter and it. So long as he only feels, wishes, 
 and acts under the influence of desire, he is nothing more 
 than the world, if by this word we point out onlj- the 
 formless contents of time. Without doubt, it is onl}' his 
 sensuousness that makes his strength pass into efficacious 
 acts, but it is his personality alone that makes this activ- 
 itj" his own. Thus, that he may not onl}- be a world, he 
 must give form to matter, and in order not to be a mere 
 form, he must give reality to the virtuality that he bears 
 in him. He gives matter to form by creating time, and 
 by opposing the immutable to change, the diAcrsitj' of the 
 world to the eternal unitj' of the Ego. He gives a form 
 to matter by again suppressing time, bj- maintaining per- 
 manence in change, and b}- placing the diversity of the 
 world under the unity of the Ego. 
 
 Now from this source issue for man two opposite 
 exigencies, the two fundamental laws of sensuous-rational 
 nature. The first has for its object absolute realitij: it 
 must make a world of what is only form, manifest all that 
 in it is only a force. The second law has for its object 
 absolute /br^'iaZiYy/ it must destroy in him all that is only 
 world, and carr}' out liarmony in all changes. In other 
 terms, he must manifest all that is internal, and give fori'i 
 to all that is external. Considered in its most lort\- 
 
68 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 accomplishment, this twofold labor brings back to the idea 
 of humanitj^, which was my starting-point. 
 
 Letter XII. 
 
 This twofold labor or task, which consists in making the 
 necessary pass into reality in us and in making out of us 
 reality subject to the law of necessity, is urged upon us as 
 a duty by two opposing forces, which are justly styled 
 impulsions or instincts, because they impel us to realize 
 - their object. The first of these impulsions, which I shall 
 call the sensuous instinct, issues from the physical exist- 
 ence of man, or from sensuous nature ; and it is this instinct 
 which tends to enclose him in the limits of time, and to 
 make of him a material being ; I do not say to give him 
 matter, for to do that a certain free activity of the person- 
 ality would be necessary, which, receiving matter, distin- 
 guishes it from the Ego, or what is permanent. By matter 
 I only understand in this place the change or realit}- that 
 fills time. Consequently the instinct requires that there 
 should be change, and that time should contain something. 
 This simply filled state of time is named sensation, and 
 it is only in this state that physical existence manifests 
 itself. 
 
 As all that is in time is successive, it follows bj' that 
 fact alone that something is : all the remainder is excluded. 
 When one note on an instrument is touched, among all 
 those that it virtually oflTers, this note alone is real. When 
 man is actually modified, the infinite possibilitj' of all his 
 modifications is limited to this single mode of existence. 
 Thus, then, the exclusive action of sensuous impulsion has 
 for its necessary' consequence the narrowest limitation. 
 In this state man is onl3' a unit}' of magnitude, a complete 
 moment in time ; or, to speak more correctly-, he is not, 
 for his personality is suppressed as long as sensation holds 
 sway over him and carries time along with it. 
 
 This instinct extends its domains over the entire sphere 
 of the finite in man, and as form is only revealed in matter, 
 and the absolute by means of its limits, the total mani- 
 festation of human nature is connected on a close analysis 
 
iESTUEXIOAL LETTKK8 AND ESSAYS. 69 
 
 with the sensuous instinct. But though it is only this 
 instinct that awakens and develops what exists virtualh* 
 in man, it is nevertheless this ver\' instinct which renders 
 his perfection impossible. It binds down to the world of 
 sense bj- indestructible ties the spirit that tends higher, 
 and it calls back to the limits of the present, abstraction 
 which had its free development in the sphere of the 
 infinite. No doubt, thought can escape it for a moment, 
 and a firm will vlctoriouslj- resist its exigencies : but soon 
 compressed nature resumes her rights to give an imperious 
 realitj- to our existence, to give it contents, substance, 
 knowledge, and an aim for our activity. . 
 
 The second impulsion, which may be named the formal | 
 ■iaatinct, issues from the absolute existence of man, or from 
 his rational nature, and tends to set free, and bring har- 
 mony into the diversity of its manifestations, and to main- 
 tain personalitj' notwithstanding all the changes of state. 
 As this personalitj-, being an absolute and indivisible 
 unit}', can never be in contradiction with itself, as we are 
 ourselves forever, this impulsion, which tends to maintain 
 personalit}-, can never exact in one time anything but 
 what it exacts and requires forever. It therefore decides 
 for alwaj's what it decides now, and orders now what it 
 orders forever. Hence it embraces the whole series of 
 times, or what comes to the same thing, it suppresses 
 time and change. It wishes the i«al to be necessary and 
 eternal, and it wishes the etgrnal and the necessary to be 
 real ; in other terms, it tends to truth and justice. 
 
 If the sensuous instinct onl}' produces accidents, the i 
 formal instinct gives laws, laws for ever}' judgment when 
 it is a question of knowledge, laws for every will when it ■ 
 is a question of action. Whether, therefore, we recognize J 
 an object or conceive an objective value to a state of the 
 subject, whether we act in virtue of knowledge or make of 
 the objective the determining principle of our state ; in 
 both cases we withdraw this state from the jurisdiction of 
 time, and we attribute to it reality for all men and for all 
 time, that is, universality and necessity. Feeling can only 
 say : " That is true for this subject and at this moment" 
 and there may come another moment, another subject, 
 which withdraws the affirmation from the actual feeling. 
 
70 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 But when once thought pronounces and says : " That is" 
 it decides forever and e\'er, and the validitj- of its decision 
 is guaranteed by the personality itself, which defies all 
 change. Inclination can only say : " That is good ./or yowr 
 indwidualitii and jore«e;4i necessity '' ; but the changing 
 current of affairs will sweep them awaj', and what j'ou 
 ardently desire to-day will form the object of 3'our aversion 
 _ to-morrow. But when the moral feeling saj's : "That 
 ought to be," it decides forever. If you confess the truth 
 because it is the truth, and if you practise justice because 
 it is justice, you have made of a particular case the law 
 of all possible cases, and treated one moment of your life as 
 eternit}-. 
 
 Accordingly, when the formal impulse holds sway and 
 the pure object acts in us, the being attains its highest 
 expansion, all barriers disappear^ and from the unity of 
 magnitude in which man was enclosed by a narrow 
 sehsuousness, he rises to the wniiy of idea, which embraces 
 and keeps subject the entire sphere of phenX)mena. Dur- 
 ing this operation we are no longer in time, but time is in 
 us with its infinite succession. We are no longer individ- 
 uals but a species ; the judgment of all spirits is expressed 
 by our own, and the choice of all hearts is represented by 
 our own act. 
 
 Letter XIII. 
 
 On a first survey, nothing appears more opposed than 
 these two impulsions ; one having for its object change, 
 the other immutabilitj', and yet it is these two notions that 
 exhaust the notion of humanity, and a ihvcA fundamental 
 iiiipidsion, holding a medium between them, is quite 
 inconceivable. How then shall we re-establish the unity 
 of human nature, a unit}' that appears completely destroyed 
 by this primitive and radical opposition ? 
 
 I admit these two tendencies are contradictor}-, but it 
 should be noticed that they are not so in the same objects. 
 But things that do not meet cannot come into collision. 
 No doubt the sensuous impulsion desires change ; but it 
 does not wish that it should extend to personality and its 
 
^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 71 
 
 field, nor that there should be a change of principles. 
 The formal impulsion seeks unitj' and permanence, but it 
 does not wish the condition to remain fixed with the 
 person, that there should be identitj- of feeling. There- 
 fore these two impulsions are not divided bj' nature, and 
 if, nevertheless, thej- appear so, it is because they have 
 become divided by transgressing nature freely, by ignoring 
 themselves, and bj- confounding their spheres. The office 
 of culture is to watch over them and to secure to each one 
 its proper limits ; therefore culture has to give equal justice 
 to both, and to defend not onlj' the rational impulsion 
 against the sensuous, but also the latter against the former. 
 Hence she has to act a twofold part : first, to protect sense 
 against tlie attacks of freedom ; secondly, to secure per- 
 sonality against the power of sensations. One of these 
 ends is attained by the cultivation of the sensuous, the 
 other by that of reason. 
 
 Since the world is developed in time, or change, the 
 perfection of the facultj- that places men in relation with 
 the world will necessarily be the greatest possible muta- 
 bility and extensiveness. Since personality is permanence 
 in change, the perfection of this faculty, which must be 
 opposed to change, will be the greatest possible freedom 
 of action (autonomy) and intensity. The more the recep- 
 tivity is developed under manifold aspects, the more it is 
 movable and offers surfaces to phenomena, the larger 
 is the part of the world seized upon by man, and the 
 more virtualities he develops in himself. Again, in pro- 
 portion as man gains strength and depth, and depth 
 and reason gain in freedom, in that proportion man takes 
 in a larger share of the world, and throws out forms 
 outside himself. Therefore his culture will consist, first, 
 in placing his receptivity in contact with the world in 
 the greatest number of points possible, and in raising 
 passivity, to the highest exponent on the side of feeling ; 
 secondly, in procuring for the determining faculty the 
 greatest possible amount of independence, in relation 
 to the receptive power, and in raising activity to 
 the highest degree on the side of reason. By the 
 union of these two qualities man will associate the 
 highest degree of self-spontaneity (autonomy) and of 
 
72 AESTHETIC AL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 freedom with the fullest plenitude of existence, and 
 instead of abandoning himself to the world so as to get 
 lost in it, he will rather absorb it in himself, with all the 
 infinitude of its phenomena, and subject it to the unity 
 of his reason. 
 
 But man can invert this relation, and thus fail in 
 attaining his destination in two ways. He can hand over 
 to the passive force the intensity demanded by the active 
 force ; he can encroach b}' material impulsion on the 
 formal impulsion, and convert the recei:)tive into the deter- 
 mining power. He can attribute to the active force the 
 extensiveness belonging to the passive force, he can en- 
 croach by the formal impulsion on the material impulsion, 
 and substitute the determining for the receptive power. 
 In the former case, he will never be an Ego, a personality ; 
 in the second case, he will never be a Non-Ego, and hence 
 in both cases he will be neither the one nor the other, 
 consequently he will be nothing. 
 
 In fact, if the sensuous impulsion becomes determining, 
 if the senses become lawgivers, and if the world stifles 
 personality', he loses as object what he gains in force. 
 It may be said of man that when he is only the contents 
 of time, he is not and consequently he has no other 
 contents. His condition is destroj'ed at the same time as 
 his personality, because these are two correlative ideas, 
 because change presupposes permanence, and a limited 
 realit3- implies an infinite reality. If the formal impulsion 
 becomes receptive, that is, if thought anticipates sensation, 
 and the person substitutes itself in the place of the world, 
 it loses as a subject and autonomous force what it gains 
 as object, because immutability implies change, and that 
 to manifest itself also absolute reality requires limits. As 
 soon as man is only form, he has no form, and the person- 
 ality vanishes with the condition. In a word, it is onl3' 
 inasmuch as he is spontaneous, autonomous, that there is 
 realit}' out of him, that he is also receptive ; and it is only 
 inasmuch as he is receptive that there is reality in him, 
 that he is a thinking force. 
 
 Consequently these two impulsions require limits, and 
 looked upon as forces, they need tempering ; the former 
 that it maj' not encroach on the field of legislation, the 
 
^<:STHETIOAL LETTERS ANU E8BAVS. lO 
 
 latter that it may not invade tlie ground of feeling. But 
 this tempering and moderating the ponsuous impulsion 
 ought not to be the effect of physical iiiipotence or of a 
 blunting of sensations, which is always a matter for 
 contempt. It must be a free act, an activity of the person, 
 which by its moral intensity moderates the sensuous 
 intensitj-, and bj' the sway of impressions takes from them 
 in depth what it gives them in surface or breadth. The 
 character must place limits to temperament, for the senses 
 have only the right to lose elements if it be to the advan- 
 tage of the mind. In its turn, the tempering of the 
 formal impulsion must not result from moral impotence, 
 from a relaxation of thought and will, which would de- 
 grade humanity. It is necessary that the glorious source 
 of this second tempering should be the fulness of sensa- 
 tions ; it is necessarj- that sensuousness itself should 
 defend its field with a victorious arm and resist the 
 violence that the invading activity of the mind would do 
 to it. In a word, it is necessary that the material impul- 
 sion should be contained in the limits of propriety b}- 
 personality, and the formal impulsion by receptivity or 
 natul'e. 
 
 Lettee XIV. 
 
 We have been brought ta the idea of such a correlation 
 between the two impulsions that the action of the one 
 establishes and limits at the same time the action of the 
 other, and that each of them, taken in isolation, does 
 arrive at its highest manifestation just because the other 
 is active. 
 
 No doubt this correlation of the two impulsions is 
 simply a problem advanced bj' reason, and which man will 
 only be able to solve in the perfection of his being. It is 
 in the strictest signification of the term : the idea of his 
 humanity; accordingl}', it is an infinite to which he can 
 approach nearer and nearer in the course of time, but 
 without ever reaching it. " He ought not to aim at form 
 to the injur}- of realitj, nor to reality to the detriment of 
 the form. He must rather seek the absolute Jbcing bv 
 
74 ^STHBTICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 means of a determinate being, and the determinate being by 
 means of an infinite being. He must set the world before 
 him because he is a person, and he must be a person 
 because he has the world before him. He must feel be- 
 cause he has a consciousness of himself, and he must have 
 a consciousness of himself because he feels." It is only 
 in conformity with this idea that he is a man in the full 
 sense of the word ; but he cannot be convinced of this so 
 long as he gives himself up exclusively to one of these two 
 impulsions, or only satisfies them one after the other. 
 For as long as he only feels, his absolute personality and 
 existence remain a mystery to him, and as long as he only 
 thinks, his condition or existence in time escapes him. 
 But if there were cases in which he could have at once this 
 twofold experience in which he would have the conscious- 
 ness of his freedom- and the feeling of his existence to- 
 gether, in which he would simultaneously feel as matter 
 and know himself as si)irit, in such cases, and in such 
 only, would he have a complete intuition of his humanity, 
 and the object that would procure him this intuition would 
 be a symbol of his accomplished destiny' and consequently 
 serve to express the infinite to him — -since this destination 
 can only be fulfilled in the fulness of time. 
 
 Presuming that cases of this kind could present thera- 
 seh'es in experience, they would awake in him a new 
 impulsion, which, precisely because the other two impul- 
 sions would co-operate in it, would be opposed to each of 
 them taken in isolation, and might, with good grounds, be 
 taken for a new impulsion. The sensuous impulsion 
 
 I requires that there shoukl be change, that time should 
 
 '• have contents ; the formal impulsion requires that time 
 should be suppressed, that there shoLild be no change. 
 Consequently, the impulsion in which both of the others 
 act in concert — allow me to call \t Vae. instinct o/" jofoy, till 
 I explain the term — the instinct of play would have as its 
 object to suppress time in time, to conciliate the state of 
 
 ' transition or becoming with the absolute being, change 
 
 L with identity. 
 
 The sensuous instinct wishes to be determined, it wishes 
 to receive an object ; the formal instinct wishes to deter- 
 mine Itself, it wishes to produce an object. Therefore the 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 75 
 
 instinct of pla}- will endeaxor to receive as it would 
 itself have produced, and to produce as it aspires to 
 receive. 
 
 The sensuous impulsion excludes from its subject all 1 
 autonomy and freedom ; the formal impulsion excludes 
 all dependence and passivit}-. But the exclusion of free- 
 dom is phj'sical necessitj- ; the exclusion of passi^it}- is 
 moral necessit}'. Thus the two impulsions subdue the 
 mind : the former to the laws of nature, the latter to the 
 laws of reason. It results from this that the instinct of 
 pla}-, which unites the double action of the two other 
 instincts, will content the mind at once morall}- and phy- 
 sicall3^ Hence, as it suppresses all that is contingent, it 
 will also sujjpress all coercion, and will set man free ph3-si-j 
 cally and morally. When we welcome with effusion some 
 one who deserves our contempt, we feel painfully that 
 nature is constrainejj . When we have a hostile feeling 
 I'.gainst a person who commands our esteem, we feel pain- 
 full}' the constraint of reaso)i. But if this person inspires 
 us with interest, and also wins our esteem, the constraint 
 of feeling vanishes together with the constramt of reason, ' 
 and we begin to love him, that is to say, to play, to take ; 
 recreation, at once with our inclination and our esteem. 
 
 Moreover, as the sensuous impulsion controls us phy- 
 sically, and the formal impulsion morally, the former 
 makes our formal constitution contingent, and the latter 
 makes our material constitution contingent, that is to saj', 
 there is contingence in tHe agreement of our happiness 
 with our perfection, and reciprocall}-. The instinct of 
 play, in which both act in concert, will render both our 
 formal and our material constitution contingent ; accord- 
 ingly, our perfection and our happiness in like manner. 
 And on the other hand, exactlj- because it makes both of 
 them contingent, and because the contingent disappears 
 with necessity, it will suppress this contingence in both, 
 and will thus give form to matter and reality to form. In i 
 proportion that it will lessen the dynamic influence of 
 feeling and passion, it will place them in harmonj- with 
 rational ideas, and by taking from the laws of reason their 
 moral constraint, it will reconcile them with the interest 
 of the senses. 
 
76 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 Letter XV. 
 
 I APPROACH continually nearer to the end to which I lead 
 jou, by a path offering few attractions. Be pleased to 
 follow me a few steps further, and a lai'ge horizon will 
 open up to j'ou, and a delightful prospect will reward you 
 for the labor of the waj-. 
 ,- The object of the sensuous instinct, expressed in a 
 L universal conception, is named Life in the widest accepta- 
 tion ; a conception that expresses all material existence 
 and all that is immediately present in the senses. The 
 r object of the formal instinct, expressed in a universal con- 
 i ception, is called shape or form, as well in an exact as in 
 an inexact acceptation ; a conception that embraces all 
 formal qualities of things and all relations of tiie same to 
 the thinking powers. The object of the pla}' instinct,^ 
 represented in a general statement, ma,y therefore bear 
 the name of living form; a term that serves to describe 
 all sestiietic qualities of phenomena, and what people stj'le, 
 in the widest sense, beauty. 
 
 , Beautj- is neither extended to the whole field of all 
 ( living things nor merelj' enclosed in this field. A marble 
 block, though it is and remains lifeless., can nevertheless 
 become a living form bj' the ai'chitect and sculptor ; a 
 man, though he lives and has a form, is far from being 
 a living form on that account. For this to be the case, it 
 is necessary that his form should be life, and that his life 
 should be a form. As long as we onh' think of his form, 
 it is lifeless, a mere abstraction ; as long as we onlj' feel 
 his life, it is without form, a mere impression. It is only 
 when his form lives in our feeling, and his 'life in our 
 understanding, he is the living form, and this will 
 evervwhere be the case where we judge him to be beau- 
 tiful" 
 
 But the genesis of beautj- is by no means declared 
 because we know how to point out the component parts, 
 which in their combination produce beaut3-. For to this 
 end it would be necessary to comprehend that combination 
 itself, which continues to defy our exploration, as well as 
 
JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 77 
 
 all mutual operation between the finite and tiie infinite. 
 The reason, on transcendental grounds, makes the fol- 
 lowing demand : There shall be a communion between the 
 formal impulse and the material impulse — that is, there 
 shall be a pla}' instinct — because it is onlj^ the unity of 
 reality with the form, of the accidental with the necessary, 
 of the passive state with freedom, that the conception of 
 humanity is completed. Reason is obliged to make this 
 demand, because her nature impels her to completeness 
 and to the removal of all bounds ; while every exclusive 
 activity of one or the other impulse leaves human nature 
 incomplete and places a limit in it. Accordingl}', as soon 
 as reason issues the mandate, " a humanity shall exist, " 
 it proclaims at the same time the law, '■ there shall be a 
 beautj'." Kxperionce can answer us if there is a beauty, 
 and we shall know it as soon as she has taught us if a 
 humanity can exist. But neither reason nor experience 
 can tell us how beauty can be and how a humanity is 
 possible. 
 
 We know that man is neither exclusively matter nor 
 exclusively spirit. Accordingly, beauty as the consum- 
 mation of humanity, can neither be exclusivel3' mere life, 
 as has been asserted by sharp-sighted observers, who 
 kept too close to the testimony of experience, and to 
 which the taste of the time would gladly degrade it ; 
 Xor can beauty be merely form, as has been judged b}' 
 speculative sophists, who departed too far from experience, 
 and by philosophic arti!^ts, who were led too much by the 
 necessity of art in explaining beauty ; it is rather the 
 coumion object of both impulses, that is of the plaj- 
 instinct. The use of language completely justifies this 
 name, as it it wont to qualify with the word play what is 
 neither subjectively nor objectively accidental, and j^et 
 does not impose necessity either externally or internally. 
 As the mind in the intuition of the beautiful finds itself 
 in a happy medium between law and necessity, it is, be- 
 cause it divides itself between both, emancipated from 
 the pressure of both. The formal impulse and the ma- 
 terial impulse are equally earnest in their demands, 
 because one relates in its cognition to things in their 
 •■eality and the other to their necessity ; because in action 
 
78 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 the first is directed to the preservation of life, the second 
 to the preservation of dignitj', and therefore both to truth 
 and perfection. But life becomes more indifferent when 
 dignity is mixed up with it, and dutj' no longer coerces 
 when inclination attracts. In like manner the mind takes 
 in the reality of things, material truth, more freely and 
 tranquilly as soon as it encounters formal truth, the law 
 of necessity ; nor does the mind find itself strung by 
 abstraction as soon as immediate intuition can accompany 
 it. In one word, when the mind comes into communion 
 with ideas, all reality loses its serious value because 
 it becomes small; and as it comes in contact with feel- 
 ing, necessity parts also with its serious value because it 
 is easy. 
 
 But perhaps the objection has for some time occurred 
 to you. Is not the beautiful degraded by this, that it is 
 made a mere play .? and is it not reduced to the level of 
 frivolous objects which have for ages passed under that 
 name? Does it not contradict the conception of the 
 reason and the dignity of beauty, which is nevertheless 
 regarded as an instrument of culture, to confine it to the 
 work of being a mere plaj'? and does it not contradict the 
 empirical conception of play, which can coexist with the 
 exclusion of all taste, to confine it merely to beauty? 
 
 But what is meant bj- a tnere play, when we know that 
 in all conditions of humanity that very thing is plaj^, and 
 only that is play which makes man complete and develops 
 simultaueousl.y his twofold nature? What j'ou stj'le 
 limitation, according to your representation of the matter, 
 according to my views, which I have justified by proofs, I 
 name enlargement. Consequenth' I should have said 
 exactly the reverse : man is serious only with the agreeable, 
 with the good, and with the perfect, but he ^j/ays with 
 beauty. In sajing this we must not indeed think of the 
 plays that are in vogue in real life, and which commonly 
 refer onl}' to his material state. But in real life we should 
 also seek in vain for the beaut}' of which we are here 
 speaking. The actually- present beauty- is worthy of the 
 really, of the actually- present play -impulse ; hut hy the 
 ideal of beauty, \vhich is set up by the reason, an ideal of 
 the play-instinctjis also presented, which man ought to have 
 before his eyes in all his plays. 
 
JESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 79 
 
 Therefore, no error will ever be incurred if we seek the 
 Ideal of beauty on the same road ou which we satirfj' our 
 play-impulse. We can immediately understand why the 
 ideal form of a Venus, of a Juno, and of an Apollo, is to 
 be souglit not at Rome, but in Greece, if we contrast the 
 Greek population, delighting in the bloodless athletic 
 contests of boxing, racing, and intellectual rivalry at 
 Olympia, with the Roman people gloating over the agony 
 of a gladiator. Now the reason pronounces that the beau- 
 tiful must not only be life and form, but a living form, 
 that is, beaut}', inasmuch as it dictates to man the twofold 
 law of absolute formality and absolute reality. Reason 
 also utters the decision that man shall onl}' play with 
 beauty, and he shall onlij flay with heanty. 
 
 For, to speak out once for all, man only plaj-s when in 
 the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only 
 completely a maniohhi he plays. This proposition, which 
 at this moment perliaps appears paradoxical, will receive 
 a great and deep meaning if we have advanced far enough 
 to apply it to the twofold seriousness of dutj- and of 
 destiny. I promise j-ou that the whole edifice of aesthetic 
 art and the still more difficult art of life will be supported 
 by this principle. But this proposition is only unexpected 
 in science ; long ago it lived and worked in art and in the 
 feeling of the Greeks, her most accomplished masters ; 
 only they removed to Olj-mpus what ought to have been 
 preserved on earth. Influenced b}' the truth of this prin- 
 ciple, they effaced fromk;hebrow of their gods the earnest- 
 ness and labor which furrow the cheeks of mortals, and 
 also the hollow lust that smoothes the emptj' face. They 
 set free the ever serene from the chains of every purpose, 
 of every duty, of every care, and they made indolence 
 and indifference the envied condition of the godlike race ; 
 merely human appellations for the freest and highest mind. 
 As well the material pressure of natural laws as the 
 spiritual pressure of moral laws lost itself in its higher 
 idea of necessity, which embraced at the same time both 
 worlds, and out of the union of these two necessities issued 
 true freedom. Inspired b}' this spirit the Greeks also 
 effaced from the features of their ideal, together with 
 desire or inclination., all traces of volition, or, better still, 
 
80 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 they made both unrecognizable, because they knew how 
 to *ed them both in the closest alliance. It is neither 
 charm, nor is it dignity, which speaks from the glorious 
 face of Juno Ludovici ; it is neither of these, for it is both 
 at once. While the female god challenges our veneration, 
 tlie godlike woman at the same time kindles our love. But 
 while in ecstacy we give ourselves up to the heavenly 
 beauty, the heavenly self-repose awes us back. The whole 
 form rests and dwells in itself — a fully complete creation 
 in itself — and as if she were out of space, without 
 advance or resistance ; it shows no force contending with 
 force, no opening through whicli time could break in. 
 Irresistibly carried away and attracted by her womanlj^ 
 charm, kept off at a distance by her godly dignity, we also 
 lind ourselves at length in the state of the greatest repose, 
 and the result is a wonderful impression for which the under- 
 standing has no idea and language no name. 
 
 Letter XVT. 
 
 From the antagonism of the two impulsions, and from the 
 association of two opposite principles, we have seen 
 beauty to result, of which the highest ideal must therefore 
 be sought in the most perfect union and equilibrium possi- 
 rble of the reality and of the form. But this equilibrium 
 I remains always an idea that reality can never completelj' 
 ( reach. In reality, there will alwaj's remain a preponder- 
 ance of one of these elements over the other, and the 
 highest point to which experience can reach will consist in 
 an oscillation between two principles, when sometimes 
 reality and at others form will have the advantage. Ideal 
 beauty is therefore eternally one and indivisible, because 
 there can only be one single equilibrium ; on the contrary, 
 e'xperimeutal beauty will be eternally double, because in 
 the oscillation tlie equilibrium maj^ be destroj'ed in two 
 waj's — this side 'and that. 
 
 I have called attention in the foregoing letters to a fact 
 that can also be rigorouslj^ deduced from the considera- 
 tions that have engaged our attention to the present point; 
 this fact is that an es-citing and also a moderating action 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 81 
 
 may be expected from the beautiful. The tempering action 
 is directed to keep within proper limits the sensuous and 
 the formal impulsions ; the exciting, to maintain both of 
 them in their full force. But these two modes of action 
 of beauty ought to be complete!}" identified in the idea. 
 The beautiful ought to temper while uniformly exciting 
 the two natures, and it ought also to excite while uni- 
 formly moderating them. This result flows at once from 
 the idea of a correlation, in virtue of which the two terms 
 mutually imply each other, and are the reciprocal condition 
 one of the other, a correlation of which the purest pro- 
 duct is beauty. But experience does not offer an example 
 of so perfect a correlation. In the field of experience it 
 will always happen more or less that excess on the one 
 side will give rise to deficiency on the other, and deficiency 
 will give birth to excess. It results from this that what 
 in the beau-ideal is only distinct in the idea is different in 
 reality in empirical beauty. The beau-ideal, though sim- 
 ple and indivisible, discloses, when viewed in two different 
 aspects, on the one hand, a property of gentleness and 
 grace, and on the other, an energetic property ; in expe- 
 rience there is a gentle and graceful beauty and there is 
 an energetic beauty. It is so, and it will be always so, so 
 long as the absolute is enclosed in the limits of time, and 
 the ideas of reason have to be realized in humanity. For 
 example, the intellectual man has the ideal of virtue, of 
 truth, and of happiness ; but the active man will onl^- 
 practise virtues, will only §rasp truths, and enjoj' happy 
 days. The business of physical and moral education is 
 to bring back this multiplicitj- to unitj', to put morality in \ 
 the place of manners, science in the place of knowledge ; i 
 the business of aesthetic education is to make out of j 
 beauties the beautiful. 
 
 Energetic beaut}' can no more preserve a man from a 
 certain residue of sa^'age violence and harshness than 
 graceful beauty can secure him against a certain degree of 
 efreminacj' and weakness. As it is the effect of the 
 energetic beautj' to ele^•ate the mind in a physical and 
 moral point of view and to augment its momentum, it onlj' 
 too often happens that the resistance of the temperamsnt 
 and of the character diminishes the aptitude to receive 
 
82 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 impressions, that the delicate part of humanity suffers as 
 oppression which ought onlj- to affect its grosser part, and 
 that this coarse nature participates in an increase of 
 force that ought only to turn to the account of free per- 
 sonality. It is for this reason that, at the periods when 
 we find much strength and abundant sap in humanitj-, 
 true greatness of thought is seen associated with what is 
 gigantic and extravagant, and the subli.mest feeling is 
 found coupled with the most horrible excess of passion. 
 It is also the reason why, in the periods distinguished for 
 regularity and form, nature is as often oppressed as it is 
 governed, as often outraged as it is surpassed. And as 
 the action of gentle and graceful beauty is to relax the 
 mind in the moral sphere as well as the physical, it hap- 
 pens quite as easily that the energy of feelings is extin- 
 guished with the violence of desires, and that character 
 shares in the loss of strength which ought only to affect 
 the passions. This is the reason •" hy, in ages assumed to 
 be refined, it is not a rare thing to see gentleness degen- 
 erate into effeminac3', politeness into platitude, correctness 
 into empty sterilitj', liberal ways into arbitrarj" -caprice, 
 ease into frivolity, calm into apathy, and, lastly, a most 
 miserable caricature treads on the heels of the noblest, the 
 most beautiful tj-pe of humanit3'. Gentle and graceful 
 beauty is therefore a want to the man who suffers the 
 constraint of manner and of forms, for he is moved hj 
 grandeur and strength long before he becomes sensible to 
 harmony and grace. Energetic beauty is a necessity to 
 the man who is under the indulgent swaj- of taste, for 
 in his state of refinement he is only too much disposed 
 to make light of the strength that he retained in his state 
 of rude savagism. 
 
 I think I have now answered and also cleared up the 
 contradiction commonly met in the judgments of men 
 respecting the influence of the beautiful, and the appre- 
 ciation of aesthetic culture. This contradiction is ex- 
 plained directly we remember that there are two sorts 
 of experimental beauty, and that on both hands an affir- 
 mation is extended to the entire race, when it can only 
 be*pro^-ed of one of the species. This contradiction dis- 
 appears the moment we distinguish a, twofold want in 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 83 
 
 humanity to which two kinds of beauty corresponfl. It is 
 therefore probable that both sides would make good their 
 claims if they come to an understanding respecting the 
 kind of beauty and the form of humanity that thej have 
 in view. 
 
 Consequently in the sequel of my researches I shall 
 adopt the course that nature lierself follows with man 
 considered from the point of view of aesthetics, and setting 
 out from the two kinds of beauty, I shall rise to the idea 
 of the genus. I shall examine the effects produced on 
 man by the gentle and graceful beauty when its springs 
 of action are in full play, and also those produced by 
 energetic beauty when they are relaxed. I shall do this 
 to confound these two sorts of beauty in the unity of the 
 beau-ideal, in the same way that the two opposite forms 
 and modes of being of humanity are absorbed in the unity 
 of the ideal man. 
 
 Letter XVII. 
 
 While we were only engaged in deducing the universal 
 idea of beauty from the conception of human nature in 
 general, we had only to consider in the latter the limits 
 established essentially in itself, and inseparable from the 
 notion of the finite. Without attending to the contingent 
 restrictions that human ^ature may undergo in the real 
 world of phenomena, we have drawn the conception of 
 this nature directly from reason, as a source of every 
 necessity, and the ideal of beauty has been given us at the 
 same time with the ideal of humanitJ^ 
 
 But now we are coming down from the region of ideas 
 to the scene of reality, to find man in a determinate state, 
 and consequently in limits which are not derived from the 
 pure conception of humanity, but from external circum- 
 stances and from an accidental use of his freedom. But, 
 although the limitation of the idea of humanity may be 
 very manifold in the individual, the contents of this 'idea 
 suflSce to teach us that we can only depart from it by two 
 opposite roads. For if the perfection of man consist in 
 the harmonious energy of his sensuous and spiritual forces. 
 
84 JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 he can only lack this perfection through the want of har- 
 mony and 'the want of energy. Thus, then, before having 
 received on this point the testimony of experience, reason 
 suffices to assure us that we shall find the real and conse- 
 quently limited man in a state of tension or relaxation, 
 according as the exclusive activity of isolated forces 
 troubles the harmony of his being, or as the unity of his 
 nature is based on the uniform relaxation of his physical 
 and spiritual forces. These opposite limits are, as we 
 have now to prove, suppressed by the beautiful, which 
 re-establishes harmony in man when excited, and energy 
 in man when relaxed ; and which, in this waj', in con- 
 formitj- with the nature of the beautiful, restores the state 
 of limitation to an absolute state, and makes of man a 
 whole, complete in himself. 
 
 Thus the beautiful bj' no means belies in reality the 
 idea which we have made of it in speculation ; only its 
 action is much less free in it than in the field of theory, 
 where we were able to apply it to the jjure conception of 
 humanity. In man. as experience shows him to us, the 
 beautiful finds a matter, already damaged and resisting, 
 which robs him in ideal perfection of what it communicates 
 to him of its individual mode of being. Accordingh- in 
 realitj' the beautiful will alwaj's appear a peculiar and 
 limited species, and not as the pure genus ; in excited 
 minds in a state of tension it will lose its freedom and 
 varietj- ; in relaxed minds, it will lose its vivifying force ; 
 but we, who have become familiar with the true character 
 of this contradictory phenomenon, cannot be led astray by 
 it. We shall not follow the great crowd of critics, in 
 determining their conception by separate experiences, and 
 to make them answerable for the deficiencies which man 
 shows under their influence. We know rather that it is 
 man who transfers the imperfections of his individualit3' 
 over to them, who stands perpetually in the wa}' of their 
 perfection by his subjective limitation, and lowers their 
 absolute ideal to two limited forms of phenomena. 
 
 It was advanced that soft beauty is for an unstrung 
 mind, and the energetic beauty for the tightly strung mind. 
 But I apply the term unstrung to a man when he is rather 
 under the pressure of feelings than under the pressure of 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 85 
 
 donceptious. Eveiy exclusive sy^&y of one of his two 
 fundamental impulses is for man a state of compulsion 
 and violence, and freedom only exists in the co-operation 
 of his two natures. Accordingl}-, the man governed 
 preponderately by feelings, or sensuously unstrung, is 
 emancipated and set free by matter. The soft and grace- 
 ful beauty, to satisfy this twofold problem, must therefore 
 show herself under two aspects — in two distinct forms. 
 First, as a form in repose, she will tone down savage life, 
 and pave the way from feeling to thought. She will, 
 secondl3', as a living image, equip the abstract form with 
 sensuous power, and lead back the conception to intuition 
 and law to feeling. The former service she does to the 
 man of natui'e, the second to the man of art, But be- 
 cause she does not in both cases hold complete swaj- o^er 
 her matter, but depends on that which is furnished either 
 b}' formless nature or unnatural art, she will in both cases 
 bear traces of her origin, and lose herself in one place in 
 material life and in another in mere abstract form. 
 
 To be able to arrive at a conception how beautj- can 
 become a means to remove this twofold relaxation, we 
 must explore its source in the human mind. Accordingly, 
 make up 30ur mind to dwell a little longer in the 
 region of speculation, in order then to leave it forever, 
 and to advance with securer footing on the ground of 
 experience. 
 
 LEftER XVIII. 
 
 By beauty the sensuous man is led to form and to thought ; 
 b}- beauty the spiritual man is brought back to matter and 
 restored to the world of sense. 
 
 From this statement it would appear to follow that 
 between matter and form, between passivity and activity, 
 there must be a middle state, and that beautj- plants us in 
 this state. It actuall3- happens that the greater part of 
 mankind reallv form this conception of beauty as soon as 
 they begin to reflect on its operations, and all experience 
 seems to point to this conclusion. But, on the other hand, 
 nothing is more unwarrantable and contradictory than such 
 a conception, because the aversion of matter and form, 
 
86 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 the passive and the active, feeling and thought, is eternal, 
 and cannot be mediated in anj- wa}'. How can we re- 
 move this contradiction? Beauty weds the two opposed 
 conditions of feeling and thinking, and yet there is ab- 
 solutely no medium between them. The former is imme- 
 diately certain through experience, the other through the 
 reason. 
 
 This is the point to which the whole question of beauty 
 leads, and if we succeed in settling this point in a 
 satisfactor}' wa}', we have at length found the clue 
 that will conduct us through the whole labyrinth of ses- 
 theties. 
 
 But this requires two ver}' different operations, which 
 must necessarily support each other in this inquirj'. 
 Beautj', it is said, weds two conditions with one another 
 which are opposite to each other, and can never be one. 
 We must start from this opposition ; we must grasp and 
 recognize them in their entire purity and strictness, so that 
 both conditions are separated in the most definite manner ; 
 otherwise we mix, but we do not unite them. Secondlj-, 
 it is usual to say, beauty unites those two opposed condi- 
 tions, and therefore removes the opposition. But because 
 l)oth conditions remain eternally opposed to one another, 
 thej- cannot be united in any other way than by being 
 suppressed. Our second business is therefore to make 
 this connection perfect, tocarrj'' them out with such purity 
 and perfection that both conditions disappear entirely in a 
 third one, and no trace of separation remains in the whole ; 
 otherwise we segregate, but do not unite. All the disputes 
 that have ever prevailed and still prevail in the philosoph- 
 ical world respecting the conception of beauty have no 
 other origin than their commencing without a sufficiently 
 strict distinction, or that it is not carried out fully to a 
 pure union. Those philosophers who blindly follow their 
 feeling in reflecting on this topic can obtain no other 
 conception of beauty, because they distinguish nothing 
 separate in the totality of the sensuous impression. Other 
 philosophers, who take the understanding as their ex- 
 clusive guide, can never obtain a conception of beauty, 
 because they never see .anything else in the whole than the 
 parts : and spirit and matter remain eternally separate, 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 87 
 
 even in their most perfect unity. The first fear to sup- 
 press beauty dynamically, that is, as a working power, if 
 the}' must separate what is united in the feeling. The 
 others fear to suppress beauty logically, that is, as a con- 
 ception, when they have to hold together vrhat in the 
 understanding is separate. The former wish to think of 
 beaut}- as it works ; the latter wish it to work as it is 
 thought. Both therefore must miss the truth ; the former, 
 because they try to follow infinite nature with their limited 
 thinking power ; the others, because they wish to limit 
 unlimited nature according to their laws of thought. The 
 first fear to rob beauty of its freedom by a too strict dis- 
 section, the others fear to destroy the distinctness of the 
 conception by a too violent union. But the former do not 
 reflect that the freedom in which the}' very properly place 
 the essence of beauty is not lawlessness, but harmony of 
 laws ; not caprice, but the highest internal necessity. 
 The others do not remember that distinctness, which they 
 with equal right demand from beauty, does not consist in 
 the exclvsion of certain realities, but the absolute includ- 
 ing of all ; that is not therefore limitation but infinitude. 
 We shall avoid the quicksands on which both have made 
 shipwreck if we begin from the two elements in which beau- 
 ty divides itself before the understanding, but then after- 
 wards rise to a pure aesthetic unity by which it works on 
 feeling, and in which both those conditions completely dis- 
 appear. 
 
 Lettek XIX. 
 
 Two principal and different states of passive and active 
 capacity of being determined* can be distinguished in 
 man ; in like manner two states of passive and active 
 determi nation . f The explanation of this proposition leads 
 us most readily to our end. 
 
 The condition of the state of man before destination or 
 direction is given him by the impression of the senses is 
 an unlimited capacity of being determined. The infinite 
 of time and space is given to his imagination for its free 
 use ; and, because nothing is settled in this kingdom of 
 
 * Bestimmbarkeit. t Bestimmung. 
 
88 ^sthetical letters and essays. 
 
 the possible, and therefore nothing is excluded from it) 
 this state of absence of determination can be named an 
 empty infiniteness, which must not by anj' means be con- 
 founded with an infinite void. 
 
 Now it is necessarj' that his sensuous nature should be 
 modified, and that in the indefinite series of possible de- 
 terminations one alone should become real. One percep- 
 tion must spring up in it. That which, in the previous 
 state of determinableness, was onlj- an empty potency be- 
 comes now an active force, and receives contents ; but, 
 at the same time, as an active force it receives a limit, 
 after having been, as a simple power, unlimited. Reality 
 exists now, but the infinite has disappeared. To describe 
 a figure in space, we are obliged to limit infinite space ; 
 to represent to ourselves a change in time, we are obliged 
 to divide the totality of time. Thus we onlj- arrive at 
 reality by limitation, at the positive, at a real position, by 
 negation or exclusion ; to determination, by the suppres- 
 sion of our free determinableness. 
 
 But mere exclusion would never beget a reality, nor 
 would a mere sensuous impression ever give birth to a 
 perception, if there were not something fi'om which it was 
 excluded, if by an absolute act of the mind the negation 
 were not referred to something positive, and if opposition 
 did not issue out of non-position. This act of the mind 
 is styled judging or thinking, and the result is named 
 thought. 
 
 Before we determine a place in space, there is no space 
 for us ; but without alisolute space we could never deter- 
 mine a place. The same is the case with time. Before 
 we have an instant, there is no time to us : but without 
 infinite time — eternity — we should never have a repre- 
 sentation of the instant. Thus, therefore, we can only 
 arrive at the whole by the part, to the unlimited through 
 limitation ; but i-eciprocallj' we only arrive at the part 
 through the whole, at limitation through the unlimited. 
 
 It follows from this, that when it is affirmed of beauty 
 that it mediates for man, the transition from feeling to 
 thought, this must not be understood to mean that beauty 
 can fill up the gap that separates feeling from thought, the 
 passive from the active. This gap is infinite ; and, without 
 
JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 8C 
 
 the interposition of a new and independent faculty, it is 
 impossible for the general to issue from the individual, the 
 necessary from the contingent. Thought is the immediate 
 act of this absolute power, which, I admit, can only be 
 manifested in connection with sensuous impressions, but 
 which in this manifestation depends so little on the sen- 
 suous that it reveals itself specially in an opposition to it. 
 The spontaneity or autonomy with which it acts excludes 
 every foreign influence ; and it is not in as far as it /te^:>s 
 thought — which comprehends a manifest contradiction — 
 but only in as far as it procures for the intellectual 
 faculties the freedom to manifest themselves in conformity 
 witli their proper laws. It does it only because the 
 beautiful can become a, means of leading man from matter 
 to form, from feeling to laws, from a limited existence to 
 an absolute existence. 
 
 But this assumes that the freedom of the intellectual 
 faculties can be balked, which appears contradictory to 
 the conception of an autonomous power. For a power 
 which only receives the matter of its activitj' from without 
 can only be hindered in its action by the privation of this 
 matter, and consequently by way of negation ; it is there- 
 fore a misconception of the nature of the mind to attri- 
 bute to the sensuous passions the power of oppressing 
 positively the freedom of the mind. Experience does 
 indeed present numerous examples where the rational forces 
 appear compressed in proportion to the violence of the 
 sensuous forces. But %istead of deducing this spiritual 
 weakness from the energy of passion, this passionate 
 energy must rather be explained by the weakness of the 
 human mind. For the sense can onlv have a sway such 
 as this over man when the mind has spontaneously' neglected 
 to assert its power. 
 
 Yet in trying by these explanations to move one objec- 
 tion, I appear to have exposed myself to another, and I 
 have only saved the autonomy of the mind at the cost of 
 its unity. For how can the mind derive at the same time 
 from itself the principles of inactivity and of activity, if 
 it is not itself divided, and if it is not in opposition with 
 itself ? 
 
 Here we must remember that we have before us, not the 
 
90 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 infinite mind, but the finite. Tte finite mind is that 
 which only becomes active through the passi\'e, only 
 arrives at the absolute through limitation, and only acts 
 and fashions in as far as it receives matter. Accordinglj', 
 a mind of this nature must associate with the impulse 
 towards form or the absolute, an impulse towards matter 
 or limitation, conditions without which it could not have 
 the former impulse nor satisfy it. How can two such 
 opposite tendencies exist together in the same being? 
 This is a problem that can no doubt embarrass the meta- 
 physician, but not the transcendental philosopher. The 
 latter does not presume to explain the possibility of things, 
 but he is satisfied with giving a solid basis to the knowl- 
 edge that makes us understand the possibility of expe- 
 rience. And as experience would be equally impossible 
 without this autonomy in the mind, and without the 
 absolute unity of the mind, it lays ^down these two con- 
 ceptions as two conditions of experience equally necessary 
 without troubling itself any moi'e to reconcile them. 
 Moreover, this immanence of two fundamental impulses 
 does not in any degree contradict the absolute unitj' of 
 the mind, as soon as the mind itself, its selfhood, is dis- 
 tinguished from those two motors. No doubt, these two 
 impulses exist and act in it, but itself is neither matter nor 
 form, nor the sensuous nor reason, and this is a point that 
 does not seem alwajs to have occurred to those who only 
 look upon the mind as itself acting when its acts are in 
 harmonj' with reason, and who declare it passive when its 
 acts contradict reason. 
 
 Arrived at its development, each of these two funda- 
 mental impulsions tends of necessitj- and bj' its nature to 
 satisfy itself; but precisely because each of them has a 
 necessary tendenc}-, and both nevertheless have an oppo- 
 site tendency, this twofold constraint mutually destroys 
 itself, and tlie will preserves an entire freedom between 
 them both. It is therefore the will that conducts itself 
 like a power — as the basis of realitj' — with respect to 
 both these impulses ; but neither of them can by itself act 
 as a power with respect to the other. A violent man, bj' 
 his positive tendency to justice, which never fails in him, 
 -s turned away from injustice ; nor can a temptation of 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 91 
 
 pleasure, however strong, make a Sjtrong character violate 
 its principles. There is in man no other power than his 
 will ; and death alone, which destro.ys man, or some priva- 
 tion of self-consciousness, is the onlj- thing that can rob 
 man of his internal freedom. 
 
 An external necessity determines our condition, our 
 existence in time, by means of the sensuous. The latter 
 is quite involuntary, and directl}- it is produced in us we 
 are necessarily passive. In the same manner an internal 
 necessitj- awakens our personality in connection with sen- 
 sations, and bj- its antagonism with them ; for conscious- 
 ness cannot depend on the will, which presupposes it. 
 This primitive manifestation of personality' is no more a 
 merit to us than its privation is a defect in us. Reason 
 can only be required in a being who is self-conscious, for 
 reason is an absolute consecutiveness and universalitj- of 
 consciousness ; before this is the case he is not a man, nor 
 can any act of humanity- be expected from hini. The 
 metaphysician can no more explain the limitation imposed 
 by sensation on a free and autonomous mind than the 
 natural philosopher can understand the infinite, which is 
 revealed in consciousness in connection with these limits. 
 Neither abstraction nor experience can bring us back to 
 the source whence issue our ideas of necessity and of 
 universality : this source is concealed in its origin in time 
 from the observer, and its super-sensuous origin from the 
 researches of the metaphysician. But, to sum up in a few 
 words, consciousness is there, and, together with its im- 
 mutable unity, the law of all that is for man is established, 
 as well as of all that is to be by man, for his understand- 
 ing and his activity. The ideas of truth and of right 
 present themselves inevitable, incorruptible, immeasurable, 
 even in the age of sensuousness ; and without our being 
 able to saj- wh}- or how, we see eternity in time, the neces- 
 sary following the contingent. It is thus that, without 
 any shai-e on the part of the subject, the sensation and 
 self-consciousness arise, and the origin of both is be- 
 yond our volition, as it is out of the sphere of our knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 But as soon as these two faculties have passed into 
 action, and man has verified by his experience, through the 
 
92 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 mediumof sensation, a determinate existence, and through 
 the medium of consciousness its absolute existence, the 
 two fundamental impulses exert their influence directly 
 their object is given. The sensuous impulse is awakened 
 ■with the experience of life — with the beginning of the 
 individual ; the rational impulsion with the experience of 
 law — with the beginning of his personalit3- ; and it is 
 only when these two inclinations have come into existence 
 that the human type is realized. Up to that time, 
 ex-erything takes place in man according to the law of 
 necessity ; but now the hand of 7ic(ture lets him go, and it 
 is for Mm to keep upright humanity, which nature 
 places as a germ in l)is heart. And thus we see that 
 directly the two opposite and fundamental impulses 
 exercise their influence in him, both lose their constraint, 
 and the autonomy of two necessities gives birth to free- 
 dom. 
 
 Letter XX. 
 
 That freedom is an active and not a passive principle 
 results from its very conception ; but that liberty itself 
 should be an effect of nature (taking this word in its 
 widest sense), and not the work of man, and therefore 
 that it can be favored or thwarted bj' natural means, is 
 the necessary consequence of that which precedes. It 
 begins only when man is complete, and when these two 
 fundamental impulsions have been developed. It will 
 then be wanting whilst he is incomplete, and while one of 
 these impulsions is excluded, and it will be re-established 
 by all that gives back to man his integrity. 
 
 Thus it is possible, both with regard to the entire 
 species as to the individual, to remark the moment when 
 man is yet incomplete, and when one of the two exclusions 
 acts solely in him. We know that man commences by 
 life simply, to end by form ; that he is more of an indi- 
 vidual than a person, and that he starts from the limited 
 or finite to approach the infinite. The sensuous impulsion 
 comes into play therefore before the rational impulsion, 
 because sensation jirecedes consciousness ; and in this 
 
iESTHETICAL T.ETTERS AND ESSAYS. 93 
 
 priority of sensuous iiupulsiou we find tlie key of the 
 historj^ of tiie whole of human liberty'. 
 
 There is a moment, in fact, when the instinct of life, 
 not yet opposed to the instinct of form, acts as nature and 
 as necessity ; when the sensuous is a power because man 
 has not begun ; for even in man there can be no other 
 power than his will. But when man shall have attained 
 to the power of thought, reason, on the contrarj', will be 
 a power, and moral or logical necessitj' will take the place 
 of phj'sical necessity. Sensuous power must then be 
 annihilated before the law which must govern it can be 
 established. It is not enough that something shall begin 
 which as yet was not ; previously- something must end 
 which had begun. Man cannot pass immediately from 
 sensnousness to thought. He must step backwards, for it 
 is only when one determination is suppressed that the con- 
 trary determination can take place. Consequentl}', in order 
 to exchange passive against active libertj', a passive de- 
 termination against an active, he must be momentarily 
 free from all determination, and must traverse a state of 
 pure determinability. He has then to return in some 
 degree to that state of pure negative indetermination in 
 which he was before his senses were affected by anything. 
 But this state was absolutely empt}' of all contents, and 
 now the question is to reconcile an equal determination 
 and a determinability equallj- without limit, wiih the 
 greatest possible fulness, because from this situation some- 
 thing positive must immediately follow. The determi- 
 nation which man received b^' sensation must be preserved, 
 because he should not lose the realit}' ; but at the same 
 time, in so far as finite, it should be suppressed, because 
 a determinabilit}- without limit would take place. The 
 problem consists then in annihilating the determination of 
 the mode of existence, and yet at the same time in pre- 
 serving it, which is onl^' possible in one way • hi opposim/ 
 to it another. The two sides of a balance are in equi- 
 librium when empt}' ; they are also in equilibrium when their 
 contents are of equal weight. 
 
 Thus, to pass from sensation to thought, the soul tra- 
 verses a medium position, in which sensibility and reason 
 are at the same time active, and thus they mutually- destroy 
 
94 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 their determinant power, and by their antagonism produce 
 a negation. Ttiis medium situation in wtiicli the soul is 
 neither phj'sicall^- nor morally constrained, and yet is in 
 both ways active, merits esserjtiall3- the name of a free 
 situation ; and if we call the state of sensuous determina- 
 tion physical, and the state of rational determination 
 logical or moral, that state of real and active determination 
 should be called the aesthetic. 
 
 Letter XXI. 
 
 I HAVE remarked in the beginning of the foregoing letter 
 that there, is a twofold condition of determinableness and 
 a twofold condition of determination. And now I can 
 clear up tliis proposition. 
 
 The mind can be determined — is determinable — only 
 in as far as it is not determined ; it is, however, deter- 
 minable also, in as far as it is not exclusivelj^ determined ; 
 that is, if it is not confined in its determination. The 
 former is only a want of determination — it is without 
 limits, because it is without reality' ; but the latter, the 
 aesthetic determinableness, has no limits, because it unites 
 all realit}'. 
 
 The mind is determined, inasmuch as it is only limited ; 
 but it is also determined because it limits itself of its 
 own absolute capacity. It is situated in the former 
 position when it feels, in the second when it thinks. 
 Accordingly the sesthetic constitution is in relation to 
 determinableness what thought is in relation to determin- 
 ation. The latter is a negative from internal and infinite 
 completeness, the former a limitation from internal 
 infinite power. Feeling and thought come into contact in 
 one single point, the mind is determined in both conditions, 
 the man becomes something and exists — either as indi- 
 vidual or person — b^- exclusion ; in other cases these two 
 faculties stand infinitely apart. Just in the same manner 
 the aesthetic determinableness comes in contact with the 
 mere want of determination in a single point, by both 
 excluding every distinct determined existence, b}- thus 
 being in all other points nothing and all, and hence by being 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 95 
 
 infinitely different. Therefore if the latter, in the absence 
 of determination from deficiency, is represented as an 
 empty infiniteness, the aesthetic freedom of determination, 
 which forms the proper counterpart to the former, can be 
 considered as a completed infiniteness; a representation 
 which exactly agrees with the teachings of the previous 
 investigations. 
 
 Man is therefore nothing in the aesthetic state, if atten- ] 
 tion is given to the single result, and not to the whole J 
 faculty, and if we regard only the absence or want of 
 every special determination. We must therefore do justice 
 to those who pronounce the beautiful, and the disposition 
 in which it places the mind, as entirely indifferent and 
 unprofitable, in relation to knowledge and feeling. They 
 are perfectly right ; for it is certain that beautj- gives no 
 separate, single result, either for the understanding or for 
 the will ; it does not carry out a single Intellectual or 
 moral object ; it discovers no truth, does not help us to 
 fulfil a single dutj-, and, in one word, is equally unfit to 
 found the character or to clear the head. Accordingly, 
 the personal worth of a man, or his dignitj', as far as this 
 can only depend on himself, remains entirely undetermined 
 by aesthetic culture, and nothing further is attained than 
 that, on the part of nature., it is made profitable for him 
 to make of himself what he will ; that the freedom to be 
 what he ought to be is restored perfectly to Him. 
 
 But by this something infinite is attained. But as , 
 soon as we remember *hat freedom is taken from man ' 
 by the one-sided compulsion of nature in feeling, and by \ 
 the exclusive legislation of the reason in thinking, we ! 
 must consider the capacity restored to him by the aesthet- 
 ical disposition, as the highest of all gifts, as the gift of 
 humanit}'. I admit that he possesses this capacity for 
 humanity, before every definite determination in which 
 he ma}- be placed. But, as a matter of fact, he loses it 
 with every determined condition into which he ma,y 
 come ; and if he is to pass over to an opposite condition, 
 humanity must be in every case restored to him by the 
 aesthetic life. 
 
 It is therefore not only a poetical license, but also 
 philosophically correct, when beauty is named our second 
 
96 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 creator. Nor is this inconsistent with the fact that she 
 only makes it possible for us to attain and realize humanity, 
 leaving this to our free will. For in this she acts in 
 common with our original creator, nature, which has 
 imparted to us nothing further than this capacity for 
 humanity, but leaves the use of it to our own determina- 
 tion of will. 
 
 Letter XXII. 
 
 Accordingly, if the aesthetic disposition of the mind 
 must be looked upon in one respect as nothing — that is, 
 when we confine our view to separate and determined 
 operations — it must be looked upon in another respect as 
 a state of the highest reality, in as far as we attend to the 
 absence of all limits and the sum of powers which are 
 commonly active in it. Accordingly we cannot pronounce 
 them, again, to be wrong who describe the aesthetic state 
 to be the most productive in relation to knowledge and 
 morality. They are perfectly right, for a state of mind 
 which comprises the whole of humanit}' in itself must of 
 necessity include in itself also — necessarily and poten- 
 tially — every separate expression of it. Again, a dis- 
 position of mind tliat removes all limitation from the 
 totalitj' of human nature must also remove it from everj' 
 special expression of the same. Exactly because its 
 "aesthetic disposition " does not exclusively shelter any 
 separate function of liumanitj^, it is favorable to all with- 
 out distinction ; nor does it favor any particular functions, 
 precisely because it is the foundation of the possibilitj' of 
 all. All other exercises give to the mind some special 
 aptitude, but for that ver}' reason give it some definite 
 limits ; onlj- the sesthetical leads him to the unlimited. 
 Ever^- other condition in which we can li\'e refers us to a 
 previous condition, and requires for its solution a following 
 condition ; onlj' the aesthetic is a complete whole in itself, 
 for it unites in itself all conditions of its source and of its 
 duration. Here alone we feel ourselves swept out of 
 time, and our humanity expresses itself with puritj' 
 and integrity as if it had not j-et received any im- 
 
>E8THETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 97 
 
 pretss'ob or interruption from the operation of external 
 powers. 
 
 That wXiich flatters our senses in immediate sensation 
 opens our weak and volatile spirit to everj- impression, 
 but makes us in the same degree less apt for exertion. 
 That which s';retches our thinking power and invites to 
 abstract conceptions strengthens our mind for every kind 
 of resistance, but hardens it also in the same proportion, 
 and deprives us of susceptibility in the same ratio that it 
 helps us to greater mental activity. For this very reason, 
 one as well as the other brings us at length to exhaustion, 
 because matter cannot long do without the shaping, 
 constructive force, and the force cannot do without the con- 
 structible material. But on the other hand, if we have 
 resigned ourselves to the enjoyment of genuine beauty, we 
 are at such a moment of our passive and active powers in 
 the same degree master, and we shall turn with ease from 
 grave to gay, from rest to movement, from submission to 
 resistance, to abstract thinking and intuition. 
 
 This high indifference and freedom of mind, united with 
 power and elasticitj-, is the disposition in which a true 
 work of art ought to dismiss us, and there is no better 
 test of true aesthetic excellence. If after an enjoyment i 
 of this kind we find ourselves specially impelled to a ; 
 particular mode of feeling or action, and unfit for other j 
 modes, this serves as an infallible proof that we have not 
 experienced cm y pure msthetic effect, whether this is owing I 
 to the object, to our ow« mode of feeling — as generally I 
 happens — or to both together. 
 
 As in reality no purely sesthetical effect can be met with 
 — for man can never leave his dependence on material 
 forces — the excellence of a work of art can only consist^ 
 in its greater approximation to its ideal of aesthetic purity, \ 
 and however high we may raise the freedom of this effect, 
 we shall always leave it with a particular disposition and 
 a particular bias. Any class of productions or separate 
 work in the world of art is noble and excellent in pro-' 
 portion to the universality of the disposition and the 
 unlimited character of the bias thereby presented to our 
 mind. This truth can be applied to works in various 
 branches of art, and also to different works in the same 
 
98 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 branch. We leave a grand musical performance with our 
 feelings excited, the reading of a noble poem with a 
 quickened Imagination, a beautiful statue or building with 
 an awakened understanding ; but a man would not choose 
 an opportune moment who attempted to invite us to abstract 
 thinking after a high musical enjoyment, or to attend to a 
 prosaic affair of common life after a high poetical enjoy- 
 ment, or to kindle our imagination and astonish our feel- 
 ings directly after inspecting a fine statue or edifice. The 
 reason of this is, that music, hy its riiatter, even when 
 most spiritual, presents a greater aflflnity with the senses 
 than is permitted by aesthetic liberty ; it is because even 
 the most happy poetry, having /br its medium the arbitrary 
 and contingent plaj' of the imagination, alwaj's shares in 
 it more than the intimate necessity of the reallj- beautiful 
 allows ; it is because the best sculpture touches on severe 
 science by what is determinate in its conception. However, 
 these particular aflSnities are lost in proportion as the 
 works of these three kinds of art rise to a greater eleva- 
 tion, and it is a natural aaid necessary consequence of 
 their perfection, that, without confounding their objective 
 limits, the different arts come to resemble each other more 
 and more, in the action which they exercise on the mind. 
 At its highest degree of ennobling, music ought to become 
 a form, and act on us with the calm power of an antique 
 statue ; in its most elevated perfection, the plastic art 
 ought to become music and move us by the immediate 
 action exercised on the mind bj' the senses ; in its most 
 complete development, poetry ought both to stir us pow- 
 erfully like music and like plastic art to surround us with 
 a peaceful light. In each art, the perfect style consists 
 exactlj' in knowing how to remove specific limits, while 
 sacrificing at the same time the particular advantages of 
 the art, and to give it by a wise use of what belongs to it 
 specially a more general character. 
 
 Nor is it only the limits inherent in the specific charac- 
 ter of each kind of art that the artist ought to over 
 step in putting his hand to the work ; he must also 
 triumph over those which are inherent in the particular 
 subject of which he treats. In a really beautiful work of 
 art, the substance ought to be inoperative, the form should 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 99 
 
 do everything ; for by the form the whole man is acted 
 on ; the substance acts on nothing but isolated forces. 
 Thus, however vast and sublime it may be, the substance 
 always exercises a restrictive action on the mind, and true 
 festhetic liberty can only be expected from the form. 
 Consequently the true search of the matter consists in 
 destroying matter by the form ; and the triumph of art is 
 great in proportion as it overcomes matter and maintains 
 Its sway over those who enjoy its work. It is great par- 
 ticularly in destroying matter when most imposing, ambi- 
 tious, and attractive, when therefore matter has most 
 power to produce the effect proper to it, or, again, when it 
 leads those wlio consider it more closelj' to enter directly 
 into relation with it. The mind of the spectator and of 
 the hearer must remain perfecth' free and intact ; it must 
 issue pure and entire from the magic circle of the artist, as 
 from the hands of the Creator. The most frivolous subject 
 ought to be treated in such a way that we preserve the 
 faculty to exchange it immediately for the most serious 
 work. The arts which have passion for their object, as a 
 tragedy for example, do not present a difficult}' here ; for, 
 in the first place, these arts are not entirel}' free, because 
 they are in the service of a particular end (the pathetic), 
 and then no connoisseur will deny that even in this class a 
 work is perfect in proportion as amidst the most violent 
 storms of passion it respects the liberty of the soul. 
 There is a fine art of passion, but an impassioned fine 
 art is a contradiction ii:^ terms, for the infallible effect of 
 the beautiful is emancipation from the passions. The idea 
 of an instructive fine art (didactic art) or improving (moral) 
 art is no less contradictor}', for nothing agrees less with 
 the idea of the beautiful than to give a determinate tend- 
 ency to the mind. 
 
 However, from the fact that a work produces effects 
 only by its substance, it must not always be inferred that 
 there is a want of form in this work ; this conclusion may 
 quite as well testify to a want of form in the observer. If 
 his mind is too stretched or too relaxed, if it is only 
 accustomed to receive things either by the senses or the 
 inteUigence, even in the most perfect combination, it 
 will only stop to look at the parts, and it will only see 
 
100 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 matter in the most beautiful form. Only sensible of the 
 i;oarse elements^ he must first destro.y the sesthetic organi- 
 zation of a work to find enjoyment in it, and carefuUj- 
 disinter the details which genius has «aused to vanish, 
 with infinite art, in the harmony- of tlie wliole. The 
 interest he takes in the work is either solelj' moral or 
 exclusivelj' physical ; the onl^* tiling wanting to it is to be 
 exactly what it ought to be — ggsthetical. The readers of 
 tlus class enjoj- a serious and pathetic poem as thej- do a 
 sermon : a simple and playful work, as an inebriating 
 draught; and if on the one hand they have so little taste 
 as to demand edification from a traged}' or from an epos, 
 even such as the " Messias, " on the otiicr hand they will be 
 infallibly scandalized by a piece after the fashion of Anac- 
 reon and Catullus. 
 
 Letter XXIII. 
 
 I TAKE up the thread of my researches, which I broke off' 
 only to apply the principles I laid down to practical art and 
 the appreciation of its works. 
 
 The transition from the passivity of sensuousness to the 
 activity of thought and of will can be effected only by the 
 intermediary state of aesthetic liberty ; and though in itself 
 this state decides nothing respecting our opinions and our 
 sentiments, and therefore it leaves our intellectual and 
 moral value entirely problematical, it is, however, the 
 necessary condition without which we should never attain 
 to an opinion or a sentiment. In a word, there is no other 
 wa}' to make a reasonable being out of a sensuous man 
 than bj- making him first sesthetic. 
 
 But, you might object : Is this mediation absolutely indis- 
 pensable? Could not truth and duty, one or the other, 
 in themselves and b^' themselves, find access to the sen- 
 suous man ? To this I reply : Not only is it possible but 
 it is absolutely necessarj' that they owe solel}' to themselves 
 their determining force, and nothing would be more 
 contradictory to our preceding affirmations than to appear 
 to defend the contrary opinion. It has been expressly 
 proved that the beautiful furnishes no result, either for the 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS ANP EPSAYS. 101 
 
 comprehension or for the will ; that it mingles with no 
 operations, either of thought or of resolution ; and that it 
 confers this double power without determining anything 
 with regard to the real exercise of this power. Here all ' 
 foreign help disappears, and the pure logical form, the 
 idea, would speak immediately to the intelligence, 
 as the pure moral form, the law, immediately to the 
 will. 
 
 But that the pure form should be capable of it, and that 
 there is in general a pure form for sensuous man, is that, 
 I maintain, which should be rendered possible by the 
 aesthetic disposition of the soul. Truth is not a thing 
 which can be received from without like reality or the 
 visible existence of objects. It is the thinking force, in 
 his own liberty and activity, which produces it, and it is 
 just this liberty proper to it, this lihertj- which we seek in 
 vain in sensuous man. The sensuous man is alreadj- ] 
 determined physically, and thenceforth he has uo longer I 
 his free determinability ; he must necessarily first enter j 
 into possession of this lost determinability before he can j 
 exchange the passive against an active determination. J 
 Therefore, in order to recover it, he must either lose the 
 passive determination that he had, or he should enclose 
 alreadj' in himself the active determination to which he 
 should pass. If he confined himself to lose passive deter- 
 mination, he would at the same time lose with it the possi- 
 bility of an active determination, because thought needs a 
 body, and form can only be realized through matter. He 
 must therefore contain already in himself the active de-, 
 termination, that he may be at once both activelj' and 
 passively determined, that is to saj-, he becomes necessarily 
 .esthetic. 
 
 Consequent!}', b}- the aesthetic disposition of the soul 
 the proper activity of reason is already revealed in the 
 sphere of sensuousness, the power of sense is already 
 broken within its own boundaries, and the ennobling of 
 physical man carried far enough, for spiritual man has onlj- 
 to develop himself according to the laws of liberty. The • 
 transition from an esthetic state to a logical and moral 
 state (from the beautiful to truth and dutj) is then infl- 
 nitelj-more easj- than the transition from the physical state 
 
102 ^STHETIOAIi LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 to the Eesthetic state (from life pure and blind to form). 
 This transition man can effectuate alone by his liberty, 
 whilst he has only to enter into possession of himself not 
 to give it himself; but to separate the elements of his 
 nature, and not to enlarge it. Having attained to the 
 aesthetic disposition, man will give to his judgments and 
 to his actions a universal value as soon as he desires it. 
 This passage from brute nature to beauty, in which an 
 entirely new faculty would awalien in him, nature would 
 render easier, and his will has no power over a disposition 
 which, we know, itself gives birth to the will. To bring 
 the aesthetic man to profound views, to elevated sentiments, 
 he requires nothing more than important occasions : to 
 obtain the same thing from the sensuous man, his nature 
 must at first be changed. To make of the former a hero, 
 a sage, it is often only necessary to meet with a sublime 
 situation, which exercises upon the faculty of the will the 
 more immediate action ; for the second, it must first be 
 transplanted under another sky. 
 
 One of the most important tasks of culture, then, is to 
 submit man to form, even in a purely physical life, and to 
 lender it aesthetic as far as the domain of the beautiful 
 can be extended, for it is alone in the aesthetic state, arid 
 not in the physical state, that the moral state can be 
 developed. If in each particular case man ought to pos- 
 sess the power to make his judgment and his will the 
 judgment of the entire species ; if he ought to find in each 
 limited existence the transition to an infinite existence ; if, 
 lastlj-, he ought from everj' dependent situation to take his 
 night to rise to autonomy and to libertj', it must be ob- 
 served that at no moment he is only individual and solely 
 obe3's the laws of nature. To be apt and read^' to raise 
 ' himself from the narrow circle of the ends of nature, to 
 rational ends, in the sphere of the former he must already 
 have exercised himself in the second ; he must already 
 have realized his physical destinj' with a certain liberty 
 that belongs onl}' to spiritual nature, that is to say accord- 
 ing to the laws of the beautiful. 
 
 And that he can effect without thwarting in the least 
 degree his physical aim. The exigencies of nature with 
 regard to Mm turn only upon what he does — upon the 
 
^STHETICAIi LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 103 
 
 substance of his acts ; but the ends of nature in no degree 
 determine the way in which he acts, the form of his 
 actions. On the contrar}', the exigencies of reason have 
 rigorously the form of his activity for its object. Thus, 
 so much as it is neeessarj' for tiie moral destination of 
 man, that he be purely moral, that he shows an absolute 
 personal activity, so much is he indiflferent that his 
 physical destination be entirely physical, that he acts in 
 a manner entirely passive. Henceforth with regard to 
 this last destination, it entirely depends on him to fulfil it 
 solely as a sensuous being and natural force (as a force 
 which acts onlj- as it diminishes) or, at the same time, as 
 absolute force, as a rational being. To which of these 
 does his dignit_y best respond? Of this there can be no 
 question. It is as disgraceful and contemptible for him to 
 do under sensuous impulsion that which he ought to have 
 determined merely by the motive of duty, as it is noble 
 and honorable for him to incline towards conformity with 
 laws, harmony, independence ; there even where the vulgar 
 man only satisfies a legitimate want. In a word, in the 
 domain of truth and morality, sensuousness must have 
 nothing to determine ; but in the sphere of happi- 
 ness, form maj' find a place, and the instinct of pla3' 
 prevail. 
 
 Thus then, in the indifferent sphere of physical life, 
 man ought to already commence his moral life ; his own 
 proper activity ought already to make way in passivity, 
 and his rational libeiity beyond the limits of sense ; he 
 ought already to impose the law of his will upon his 
 inclinations; he ought — if j'ou will permit me the ex- 
 pression — to carry into the domain of matter the war 
 against matter, in order to be dispensed from combatting 
 this redoubtable enemy upon the sacred field of liberty ; 
 he ought to learn to have nobler desires, not to be forced 
 to have sublime volitions. This is the fruit of sesthetic i 
 culture, which submits to the laws of the beautiful, in ' 
 which neither the laws of nature nor those of reason 
 suffer, which does not force the will of man, and which by 
 the form it gives to exterior life already opens internal 
 life. 
 
104 iESTHKTICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 Letter XXIV. 
 
 Accordingly three different moments or stages of devel- 
 opment can be distinguished, which the individual man, as 
 well as the whole race, must of necessity traverse in a 
 determinate order if thej- are to fulfil the circle of their 
 determination. No doubt, the separate periods can be 
 lengthened or shortened, through accidental causes which 
 are inherent either in the influence of external things or 
 under the free caprice of men : but neither of them can be 
 overstepped, and the order of their sequence cannot be 
 inverted either b}- nature or by the will. Man, in his 
 
 [physical condition, suffers only the power of nature ; he 
 gets rid of this power in the sesthetical condition, and he 
 Irules them in the moral state. 
 
 What is man before beauty liberates him from free 
 
 r pleasure, and the serenitj' of form tames down the savage- 
 
 , ness of life? Eternallj- uniform in his aims, eternally 
 
 changing in his judgments, self-seeking without being 
 
 ' ! himself, unfettered without being free, a slave without 
 
 serving any rule. At this period, the world is to him only 
 
 l^destinjr, not yet an object ; all has existence for him only 
 
 in as far as it procures existence to him ; a thing that 
 
 1 neither seeks from nor gives to him is non-existent. 
 
 \ Everj' phenomenon stands out before iiim separate and 
 cut off, as he finds himself in the series of beings. All 
 that is, is to him through the bias of the moment ; every 
 change is to him au entirely' fresh creation, because with 
 the necessarj- iM, him, the necessary out of him is wanting, 
 which binds together all the changing forms in the 
 universe, and wliich holds fast the law on the theatre of 
 his action, wliile the individual departs. It is in vain 
 that nature lets the rich variety of her forms pass before 
 him ; he sees in her glorious fulness nothing but his 'prey, 
 in her power and greatness nothing but his enem}'. 
 Pvitber he encounters objects, and wishes to draw them to 
 himself in desire, or the objects press in a destructive 
 manner upon him, and he thrusts them away in dismay 
 and terror. In both cases his relation to the world of 
 
^.STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 105 
 
 senseis immediate contact; and perpeluallj- anxious through 
 its pressure, restless and plagued bj- imperious wants, he 
 nowhere finds rest except in enervation, and nowhere limits 
 save in exhausted desire. 
 
 "True, his is the powerful breast, and the mighty hand «f the 
 Titans. . . . 
 A certain inheritance ; yet the god welded 
 Round his forehead a brazen band ; 
 Advice, moderation, wisdom, and patience,— 
 Hid it from his shy, sinister look. 
 Every desire is with him a rag-e. 
 And his rage prowls around limitless." — Iphigenia in Tauris. 
 
 Ignorant of his own human dignitj', he is far removed 
 from honoring it in others, and conscious of his own 
 savage greed, he fears it in eveiy creature that he sees like 
 himself. He never sees others in himself, onlj' himself in 
 others, and human societ}', instead of enlarging him to the 
 race, only shuts him up continually closer in his indi- 
 viduality. Thus limited, he wanders through liis sunless 
 life, till favoring nature rolls away the load of Katter from 
 his darliened senses, reflection separates him from things, 
 and objects show themselves at length in the afterglow of 
 the consciousness. 
 
 It is true we cannot point out this state__of rude iiature 
 as we have here portrayed it in any definite people and 
 age. It is only an idea, but an idea with which experience 
 agrees most closely in special features. It maj- be said 
 that man was never injhis animal condition, but he has 
 not, on the other hand, ever entirely escaped from it. 
 Even in the rudest subjects, unmistakable traces of ra- 
 tional freedom can be found, and even in the most culti- 
 vated, features are not wanting that remind us of that 
 dismal natural condition. It is possible for man, at one 
 and the same time, to unite the highest and the lowest in 
 his nature ; and if his dignity depends on a strict separa- 
 tion of one from the other, his happiness depends on a 
 skilful removal of this separation. The culture which is 
 to bring his dignity into agreement with his happiness 
 will therefore have to provide for the greatest purltj- 
 of these two principles in their most intimate combi- 
 nation. 
 
106 JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 Consequently the first appearance of reason in man is 
 not the beginning of humanity. This is first decided by 
 his freedom, and reason begins first by making his sen- 
 suous dependence boundless ; a phenomenon that does not 
 appear to me to have been sufficiently elucidated, consid- 
 ering its importance and universality. We know that the 
 reason makes itself known to man by the demand for the 
 absolute — the self-dependent and necessary. But as this 
 want of the reason cannot be satisfied in any separate or 
 single state of his physical life, he is obliged to leave the 
 physical entirely and to rise from a limited reality to ideas. 
 But although the true meaning of that demand of the 
 reason is to withdraw him from the limits of time and to 
 lead him from the world of sense to an ideal world, yet 
 this same demand of reason, b\- misapplication — scarcely 
 to be avoided in this life, prone to sensuousness — can 
 direct him to physical life, and, instead of making man 
 free, plunge him in the most terrible slavery. 
 
 Facts verify this supposition. Man raised on the wings 
 of imagination leaves the narrow limits of the present, in 
 which mere animality is enclosed, in order to strive on to 
 an unlimited future. But while the limitless is unfolded 
 to his dazed imagination, his heart has not ceased to live 
 in the separate, and to serve the moment. The impulse 
 towards the absolute seizes him suddenly in the midst of 
 his animalit}', and as in this cloddish condition all his ef- 
 forts aim only at the material and temporal, and are lim- 
 ited by his individuality, he is only led by that demand of 
 the reason to extend his individualitj- into the infinite, in- 
 stead of to abstract from it. He will be led to seek in- 
 stead of form an inexhaustible matter, instead of the un- 
 changeable an everlasting change and an absolute securing 
 of his temporal existence. The same impulse which, di- 
 rected to his thought and action, ought to lead to truth 
 and morality, now directed to his passion and emotional 
 state, produces nothing but an unlimited desire and an ab- 
 solute want. The first fruits, therefore, ^that he reaps in 
 the world of spirits are cares and fear — both operations 
 of the reason ; not of sensuousness, but of a reason that 
 mistakes its object and applies its categorical imperative 
 to matter. All unconditional systems of happiness ai'e 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 107 
 
 fruits of this tree, whether they have for their object the 
 present daj' or the whole of life, or what does not make 
 them any more respectable, the whole of eternitj-, for their 
 object. An unlimited duration of existence and of well- 
 being is only an ideal of the desires ; hence a demand 
 which can only be put forth b}' an animality striving up to 
 the absolute. Man, therefore, without gaining anything 
 for his humanity by a rational expression of this sort, 
 loses the happy limitation of the animal, over which he 
 now only possesses the unenviable superiority of losing 
 the present for an endeavor after what is remote, yet 
 without seeking in the limitless future anything but the 
 present. 
 
 But even if the reason does not go astray in its object, 
 or err in the question, sensuousness will continue to falsify 
 tlie answer for a long time. As soon as man has begun to 
 use his understanding and to knit together phenomena in 
 cause and effect, the reason, according to its conception, 
 presses on to an absolute knitting together and to an un- 
 conditional basis. In order, vaerely, to be able to put for- 
 ward this demand, man must already have stepped be3-ond 
 the sensuous, but the sensuous uses this very demand to 
 bring back the fugitive. 
 
 In fact, it is now that he ought to abandon entirely the 
 world of sense in order to take his flight into the realm of 
 ideas ; for the intelligence remains eternallj- shut up in the 
 finite and in the contingent, and does not cease putting 
 questions witliout reachWig the last link of the chain. But 
 as the man with whom we are engaged is not yet capable 
 of such an abstraction, and does not find it in the sphere 
 of sensuous knowledge, and because he does not look for 
 it in pure reason, he will seek for it below in the region of 
 sentiment, and will appear to And it. No doubt the sen- 
 suous shows him nothing that has its foundation in itself, 
 and that legislates for itself, but it shows him something 
 that does not care for foundation or law ; therefore, thus 
 not being able to quiet the intelligence by showing it a final 
 cause, he reduces it to silence by the conception which de- 
 sires no cause ; and being incapable of understanding the 
 sublime necessity of reason, he keeps to the blind con- 
 straint of matter. As sensuousness knows no other end 
 
108 ^STHKTICAL LKTTEHS ANO ESSAYS. 
 
 than its interest, and is determined by nothing except 
 blind chance, it maltes the former the motive of its actions, 
 and the latter the master of the world. 
 
 Even the divine part in man, the moral law, in its first 
 manifestation in the sensuous cannot avoid this perversion. 
 As this moral law is only prohibited, and combats in- man 
 the interest of sensuous egotism, it must appear to him as 
 something strange until he has come to consider this self- 
 love as the stranger, and the voice of reason as his true 
 self. Therefore he confines himself to feeling the fetters 
 which the latter imposes on him, without having the con- 
 sciousness of the infinite emancipation which it procures 
 for him. Without suspecting in himself the dignitj- of 
 lawgiver, he onlj' experiences the constraint and the im- 
 potent revolt of a subject fretting under the yoke, because 
 in this experience the sensuous impulsion precedes the 
 moral impulsion, he gives to the law of necessity a begin- 
 ning in him, a positive origin, and b}' the most unfortunate 
 of all mistakes he converts the immutable and the eternal 
 in himself into a transitorj- accident. He makes up his 
 mind to consider the notions of the just and the unjust as 
 statutes which have been introduced by a will, and not as 
 having in themselves an eternal value. Just as in the 
 explanation of certain natural phenomena he goes bej"ond 
 nature and seeks out of her what can only be found in 
 her, in her own laws ; so also in the explanation of moral 
 phenomena he goes beyond reason and makes light of his 
 humanity, seeking a god in tiiis wny. It is not wonderful 
 that a religion which he has purchased at the cost of his 
 humanit}- shows itself worth}* of this origin, and that he 
 only considers as absolute and eternally binding laws 
 that have never been binding from all eternity. He has 
 placed himself in relation with, not a holy being, but a 
 powerful. Therefore the spirit of his religion, of the 
 liomage that he gives to God, is a fear that abases him, 
 and not a veneration that elevates him in his own esteem. 
 
 Though these different aberrations hj which man de- 
 parts from the ideal of his destination cannot all take 
 place at the same time, because several degrees have to be 
 passed over in the transition from the obscure of thought 
 to error, and from the obscure of will to the corruption of 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 109 
 
 the will ; these degrees are all, without exception, the 
 consequence of his physical state, because in all the vital 
 impulsion sways the formal impulsion. Now, two cases 
 maj- happen : either reason may not yet have spoken in 
 man, and the physical maj^ reign over him with a blind 
 necessity, or reason may not be sufficiently purified from 
 sensuous impressions, and the moral ma}- still be subject 
 to the plysical ; in both cases the onlj* principle that has a 
 real power over him is a material principle, and man, at 
 least as regards his ultimate tendency, is a sensuous being. 
 The only difference is, that in tlie former ease he is an 
 animal without reason, and in the second case a rational 
 animal. But he ought to be neither one nor the other : he 
 ought to be a man. Nature ought not to rule him exclu- 
 sively ; nor reason conditionally. The two legislations 
 ought to be completelj' independent, aud yet mutually 
 complementary. 
 
 Letter XXV. 
 
 Whilst man, in his first phj-sical condition, is only pas- 
 sively affected b}- the world of sense, he is still entirely 
 identified with it ; and for this reason the external world, 
 as yet, has no objective existence for him. When he begins 
 in liis aesthetic state of mind to regard the irorld object- 
 ively, then onl}' is his personalitj' severed from it, and the 
 world appears to him aif objective reality, for the simple 
 reason that he has ceased to form an identical portion of it. 
 That which first connects man with the surrounding 
 universe is the power of reflective contemplation. "Whereas 
 desire seizes at once its object, reflection removes it to a 
 distance and renders it inalienably her own by saving it 
 from the greed of passion. The necessity of sense which 
 he obeyed during the period of mere sensations, lessens 
 during the period of reflection ; the senses are for the time 
 in abeyance ; even ever-fleeting time stands still whilst the 
 scattered raj's of consciousness are gathering and shape 
 themselves ; an image of the infinite is reflected upon the 
 perishable ground. As soon as light dawns in man, there 
 is no longer night outside of hiin ; as soon as there is 
 
110 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 peace within him the storm lulls throughout the universe, 
 and the contending forces of nature find rest within pre- 
 scribed limits. Hence we cannot wonder if ancient tradi- 
 tions allude to these great changes in the inner man as to 
 a revolution in surrounding nature, and symbolize thought 
 triumphing over the laws of time, by the figure of Zeus, 
 which terminates the reign of Saturn. 
 
 As long as man derives sensations from a contact with 
 nature, he is her slave ; but as soon as he begins to reflect 
 upon her objects and laws he becomes her lawgiver. 
 Nature, which previously ruled him as a power, now ex- 
 pands before him as an object. What is objective to him 
 can have no power over him, for in order to become ob- 
 jective it has to experience his own power. As far and 
 as long as he impresses a form upon matter, he cannot 
 be injured by its effect ; for a spirit can only be in- 
 jured by that which deprives it of its freedom. Whereas 
 he proves his own freedom bj- giving a form to the form- 
 less ; where the mass rules heavily and without shape, 
 and its undefined outlines are for ever fluctuating between 
 uncertain boundaries, fear takes up its abode ; but man 
 rises above any natural terror as soon as he knows how to 
 mould it, and transform it into an object of his art. As 
 soon as he upholds his independence towards phenomenal 
 natures he maintains his dignity toward her as a thing of 
 power, and with a noble freedom he rises against his gods. 
 They throw aside the mask with which they had kept 
 him in awe during his infancy, and to his surprise his mind 
 perceives the reflection of his own image. The divine 
 monster of the Oriental, which roams about chan -,ing the 
 world with the blind force of a beast of prey, dwindles to 
 the charming outline of humanitj' in Greek fable ; the 
 empire of the Titans is crushed, and boundless force is 
 tamed by infinite form. 
 
 But whilst I have been merely searching for an issue 
 from the material world, and a passage into the world of 
 mind, the bold flight of my imagination has already taken 
 me into the very midst of the latter world. The beauty 
 of which we are in search we have left behind by passing 
 from tlie life of mere sensations to the pure form and to 
 the pure object. Such a leap exceeds the condition of 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. Ill 
 
 human nature ; in order to keep pace with the latter we 
 must return to the world of sense. 
 
 Beauty is indeed the sphere of unfettered contemplation 
 and reflection ; beauty conducts us into the world of 
 ideas, without however taking us from the world of sense, 
 as occurs when a truth is perceived and acknowleged. 
 This is the pure product of a process of abstraction from 
 everything material and accidental, a pure object free 
 from every subjective barrier, a pure state of self-activitj- 
 without any admixture of passive sensations. There is 
 indeed a way back to sensation from the highest abstrac- 
 tion ; for thought teaches the inner sensation, and the 
 idea of logical or moral unity passes into a sensation of 
 sensual accord. But if we delight in knowledge we sepa- 
 rate very accuratelj' our own conceptions from our sensa- 
 tions ; we look upon the latter as something accidental, 
 which might have been omitted without the knowledge 
 being impaired thereby, without truth being less true. 
 It would, however, be a vain attempt to suppress this con- 
 nection of the facultj- of feeling with the idea of beauty, 
 consequently, we shall not succeed in representing to our- 
 selves one as the effect of the other, but we must look 
 upon them both together and reciprocal!}^ as cause and 
 effect. In the pleasure which we derive from knowledge 
 we readilj' distinguish the passage from the active to the 
 passive state, and we clearly perceive that the first ends 
 when the second begins. On the contrar}-, from the pleasure 
 which we take in beaut^, this transition from the active 
 to the passive is not perceivable, and reflection is so 
 intimately blended with feeling that we believe we feel 
 the form immediatelj'. Beautj' is tlien an object to us, 
 it is true, because reflection is the condition of the feeling 
 which we have of it ; but it is also a state of our person- 
 ahty (our Ego) because the feeling is the condition of the 
 idea we conceive of it : beauty is therefore doubtless form, 
 because we contemplate it, but it is equally life because we 
 feel it. In a word, it is at once our state and our act. 
 And precisely because it is at the same time both a state 
 and an act, it triumphantlj' proves to us that the passive 
 does not exclude the active, neither matter nor form, 
 neither the finite nor the infinite ; and that consequently the 
 
112 jESthetioal letters and essays. 
 
 phj-sclcal dependence to which man is necessarilj' devoted 
 does not in an}' waj' destroj' his moral liberty. This is the 
 proof of beauty, and I ought to add that this alone can 
 prove it. In fact, as in the possession of truth or of logical 
 unity, feeling is not necessarily one with the thought, but 
 follows it accidentally ; it is a fact which only proves 
 that a sensitive nature can succeed a rational nature, and 
 vice versa; not that thoj- co-exist, that they exercise a 
 reciprocal action one over the other ; and, lastly, that the}' 
 ought to be united in an absolute and necessary manner. 
 From this exclusion of feeling as long as there is thought, 
 and of thought so long as there is feeling, we should on 
 the contrary conclude that the two natures are incom- 
 patible, so that in order to demonstrate that pure reason 
 is to be realized in humanitj-, the best proof given hy the 
 analysis is that this realization is demanded. But, as in 
 the realization of beautj' or of a'sthetic unit}-, there is a 
 real union, mutual substitution of matter and of form, of 
 passive and of active, b}^ this alone is proved the com- 
 patibilitj^ of the two natures, the possible realization of 
 the infinite in the finite, and consequently also the possi- 
 bility of the most sublime humanity. 
 
 Henceforth we need no longer be embarrassed to find a 
 transition from dependent feeling to moral libertj', because 
 beauty reveals to us the fact that they can perfeotl}- co- 
 exist, and that to show himself a spirit, man need not 
 escape from matter. But if on one side he is free, even in 
 his relation witli a visible world, as the fact of beauty 
 teaches, and if on the other side freedom is something 
 absolute and supersensuous, as its idea necessarily implies, 
 the question is no longer how man succeeds in raising 
 himself from the finite to the absolute, and opposing him- 
 self in his thought and will to sensualit}', as this has 
 alread}' been produced in the fact of beautj'. In a word, 
 we have no longer to ask how he passes from virtue to 
 truth wliich is already included in the former, but how 
 he opens a way for himself from vulgar realitj- to aesthetic 
 reality, and from the ordinary feelings of. life to the per- 
 ception of the beautiful. 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 113 
 
 Letter XXVI. 
 
 I HAVE shown in the previous letters that it is only the r 
 aesthetic disposition of the soul that gives birth to libert}-, |j 
 it cannot therefore be derived from liberty nor have a " 
 moral origin. It must be a gift of nature ; the favor of 
 chance alone can break the bonds of the physical state and 
 bring the savage to dutj'. The germ of the beautiful will 
 find an equal difficulty in developing itself in countries 
 where a severe nature forbids man to enjoy himself, and 
 in those where a prodigal nature dispenses him from all 
 effort ; where the blunted senses experience no want, and 
 where violent desire can never be satisfied. The delight- 
 ful flower of the beautiful will never unfold itself in the 
 case of the Troglodj'te hid in his cavern always alone, 
 and never finding humanity outside himself; nor among 
 nomads, who, travelling in great troops, onlj' consist of a 
 multitude, and have no individual humanity. It will i 
 only flourish in places where man converses peacefully : 
 with himself in his cottage, and with the whole race when ; 
 he issues from it. In those climates where a limpid ether 
 opens the senses to the lightest impression, whilst a life- 
 giving warmth develops a luxuriant nature, where even 
 in the inanimate creation the sway of inert matter is over- 
 thrown, and the victorious form ennobles even the most 
 abject natures ; in this»joyful state and fortunate zone, 
 where activity alone leads to enjoj^ment, and enjo3'ment to 
 activitj', from life itself issues a holy harmony, and the 
 laws of order develop life, a different result takes place. 
 When imagination incessantlj- escapes from reality, and 
 does not abandon the simplicitj' of nature in its wander- 
 ings : then and there only the mind and the senses, the 
 receptive force and the plastic force, are developed in that 
 happy equilibrium which is the soul of the beautiful and 
 the condition of humanity. 
 
 What phenomenon accompanies the initiation of the 
 savage into humanity ? However far we look back into 
 history the phenomenon is identical among all people who 
 have shaken off the slaverj'' of the animal state : the love 
 of appearance, the inclination for dress and for games. 
 
114 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 Extreme stupidity and extreme intelligence have a 
 certain affinit}- in only seeking the real and being com- 
 pletely insensible to mere appearance. The former is onl}- 
 drawn forth by the immediate presence of an object in the 
 senses, and the second is reduced to a quiescent state only 
 by referring conceptions to the facts of experience. In 
 short, stupidity cannot rise above realit}-, nor the intelli- 
 gence descend below truth. Thus, in as far as the want 
 of reality and attachment to the real are only the conse- 
 quence of a want and a defect, indifterence to the real and 
 an interest talien in appearances are a real enlargement 
 of humanity and a decisive step towards culture. In the 
 first place it is the proof of an exterior liberty, for as long 
 as necessity commands and want solicits, the fancy is 
 strictly chained down to the real : it is onlj' when want 
 is satisfied that it develops without hinderance. But it is 
 also the proof of an internal liberty, because it reveals to 
 us a force which, independent of an external substratum, 
 sets itself in motion, and has sufficient energy to remove 
 from itself the solicitations of nature. The realit}' of 
 , things is effected by things, the appearance of things is 
 { I the work of man, and a soul that takes pleasure in ap- 
 ' ' pearance does not take pleasure in what it receives but in 
 what it makes. 
 
 It is self-evident that I am speaking of aesthetical evi- 
 dence different from reality and truth, and not of logical 
 appearance identical with them. Therefore if it is liked 
 it is because it is an appearance, and not because it is held 
 to be something better than it is : the first principle alone 
 is a play, whilst the second is a deception. To give a 
 value to the appearance of the first kind can never injure 
 truth, because it is never to be feared that it will supplant 
 it — the only wa}^ in which truth can be injured. To 
 despise this appearance is to despise in general all the fine 
 arts of which it is the essence. Nevertheless, it happens 
 sometimes that the understanding carries its zeal for reality 
 as far as this intolerance, and strikes with a sentence of 
 ostracism all the arts relating to beautj- in appearance, 
 because it is only an appearance. However, the intelli- 
 gence only sliows this vigorous spirit when it calls to mind 
 the atflnity pointed out further back. I shall find some 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 115 
 
 day the occasion to treat specially of the limits of beautj- 
 in its appearance. 
 
 It is nature herself which raises man from reality to 
 appearance by endowing him with two senses which only 
 lead him to the knowledge of the real through appearance. 
 In the eye and the ear the organs of the senses are alreadj^ 
 freed from the persecutions of nature, and the object with 
 which we are immediately in contact through the animal 
 senses is remoter from us. What we see b3- the eye differs 
 from what we feel ; for the understanding to reach objects 
 overleaps the light which separates us from them. In truth, 
 we are passive to an object : in sight and hearing the 
 object is a form we create. While still a savage, man onl}' 
 enjoys through touch merely aided by sight and sound. 
 He eitlier does not rise to perception through sight, or does 
 not rest there As soon as he begins to enjoj' through^ 
 sight, vision has an independent value, he is aesthetically , 
 free, and the instinct of play is developed. i 
 
 Tlie instinct of plaj- lil?es appearance, and directly it is j 
 awakened it is followed b^- the formal imitative instinct 
 which treats appearance as an independent thing. Directly ' 
 man has come to distinguish the appearance from the 
 reality, the form from the body, he can separate, in fact he 
 lias ah-eady done so. Thus the faculty of the art of imi- 
 tation is given with the faculty of form in general. The 
 inclination that draws us to it reposes on another tendency 
 I have not to notice%ere. The exact period when the 
 aesthetic instinct, or that of art, develops, depends entirely 
 on the attraction that mere appearance has for men. 
 
 As every real existence proceeds from nature as a 
 foreign power, whilst every appearance comes in the first 
 place from man as a percipient subject, he only uses his 
 absolute sight in separating semblance from essence, and 
 arranging according to subjective law. With an unbridled 
 liberty he can unite what nature has severed, provided he 
 can imagine his union, and he can separate what nature 
 has united, provided this separation can take place in his 
 intelligence. Here nothing can be sacred to him but his 
 own law : the only condition imposed upon him is to 
 respect the border which separates his own sphere from 
 the existence of things or from the realm of nature. 
 
116 ESTHETIC AL LETTERS AND ESSAYS, 
 
 This human right of ruling is exercised by man -in the 
 art of appearance ; and his success in extending the em- 
 pire of the beautiful, and guarding the frontiers of truth, 
 will be in proportion with the strictness with which he sep- 
 arates form from substance : for if he frees appearance 
 from reality-, he must also do the converse. 
 
 But man possesses sovereign power only in the world of 
 appearance, in the unsubstantial realm of imagination, 
 only by abstaining from giving being to appearance in 
 theory, and by giving it being in practice. It follows that 
 the poet transgresses his proper limits when he attributes 
 being to his ideal, and when he gives this ideal aim as a 
 determined existence. For he can only reach this result 
 by exceeding his right as a poet, that of encroaching by 
 the ideal on the field of experience, and by pretending to 
 determine real existence in virtue of a simple possibility, 
 or else he renounces his right as. a poet b}' letting experi- 
 ence encroach on the sphere of the ideal, and by restrict- 
 ing possibility to the conditions of realit}'. 
 
 It is only b3' being frank or disclaiming all reality, and 
 by being independent or doing without reality, that the 
 appearance is sesthetical. Directlj' it apes reality or needs 
 reality for eflfect, it is nothing more than a vile instrument 
 for material ends, and can prove nothing for the freedom 
 of the mind. Moreover, the object in which we find 
 beauty need not be unreal if our judgment disregards this 
 reality' ; for if it regards this the judgment is no longer 
 sesthetical. A beautiful woman, if living, would no doubt 
 please us as much and rather more than an equallj^ beauti- 
 ful woman seen in painting ; but what makes the former 
 please men is not her being an independent appearance ; 
 she no longer pleases the pure aesthetic feeling. In the 
 painting, life must only attract as an appearance, and 
 reality as an idea. But it is certain that to feel in a living 
 object only the pure appearance requires a greatly highei 
 aesthetic culture than to do without life in the appearance. 
 
 When the frank and independent appearance is found in 
 man separately, or in a whole people, it may be inferred 
 they have mind, taste, and all prerogatives connected with 
 them. In this case the ideal will be seen to govern real 
 life, honor triumphing over fortune, thought over enjoy- 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 117 
 
 ment, the dream of immortality over a transitory exist- 
 ence. 
 
 In this case public opinion will no longer be feared, 
 and an olive crown will be more valued than a purple 
 mantle. Impotence and perversity alone have recourse to 
 false and paltry semblance, and individuals as well as I 
 nations who lend to reality the support of appearance, or 
 to the sestlietic appearance the support of reality, show I 
 their moral unworthiness and their sesthetical impotence.! 
 Therefore, a short and conclusive answer can be given to 
 this question — how far will appearance be permitted in 
 the moral world ? It will run thus in proportion as this 
 appearance will be aesthetical, that is, an appearance that 
 does not try to make up for reality, nor requires to be made 
 up for by it. The sesthetical appearance can never en- , 
 danger the truth of morals : wherever it seems to do so 
 the appearance is not sesthetical. Only a stranger to the j 
 fashionable world can take the polite assurances, which 
 are only a form, for proofs of affection, and say he has 
 been deceived ; but only a clumsy fellow in good society 
 calls ill the aid of duplicity and flatters to become amiable. 
 The former lacks the pure sense for independent appear- 
 ance ; therefore he can only give a value to iip[)earance bj' 
 truth. The second lacks reality, and wishes to replace it 
 by appearance. Nothing is more common than to hear 
 depredators of the times utter these paltry complaints — 
 that all solidity has disappeared from the world, and that 
 essence is neglected Tor semblance. Tiiough I feel by no 
 means called upon to defend this age against these re- 
 proaches, I must say that the wide application of these 
 criticisms shows that the}' attach blame to the age, not 
 only on the score of the false, but also of the frank ap- 
 pearance. And even the exceptions thej- admit in favor 
 of the beautiful have for their object less the independent 
 appearance than the need}' appearance. Not onl}' do they 
 attack the artificial coloring that hides truth and replaces 
 reality, but also the beneficent appearance that fills a 
 vacuum and clothes poverty ; and they even attack the 
 ideal appearance that ennobles a vulgar reality. Their 
 strict sense of truth is rightly offended by the falsity of 
 manners ; unfortunately, they class politeness in this cate- 
 
118 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 gory. It displeases them that the noisy and showy so 
 often eclipse true merit, but they are no less shocked, that 
 appearance is also demanded from merit, and that ii real 
 substance does not dispense with an agreeable form. They 
 regret the cordiality, the energy, and soliditj' of ancient 
 times ; they would restore with them ancient coarseness, 
 heaviness, and the old Gothic profusion. By judgments 
 of this kind they show an esteem fo]' the matter itself un- 
 worthy of humanitj-, which ought only to value the matter 
 inasmuch as it can receive a form and enlarge the empire 
 of ideas. Accordingly, the taste of the age need not 
 much fear these criticisms if it can clear itself before 
 better judges. Our defect is not to grant a value to aes- 
 thetic appeaiance (we do not do this enough): a .severe 
 judge of the beautiful might rather reproach us with not 
 iiaving arrived at pure appearance, with not having sepa- 
 rated clearly enovigh existence from the phenomenon, and 
 thus established their limits. W-e shall deserve this re- 
 proach so long as we cannot enjoy the beautiful in living 
 nature witliout desiring it ; as long as we cannot admire 
 the beautiful in the imitative arts without having an end in 
 view ; as long as we do not grant to imagination an abso- 
 lute legislation of its own ; and as long as we do not in- 
 spire it with care for its dignitj- by the esteem we testify 
 for its works. 
 
 Letter XXVII. 
 
 Do not fear for reality and truth. Even if the elevated 
 idea of aesthetic appearance become general, it would not 
 become so, as long as man remains so little cultivated as 
 to abuse it ; and if it became general, this would result 
 from a culture that would prevent all abuse of it. The 
 pursuit of independent appearance, requires more power 
 of abstraction, freedom of heart, and energy of will than 
 man requires to shut himself up in realitj- ; and he must 
 have left the latter behind him if he wishes to attain to 
 aesthetic appearance. Therefore, a man would calculate 
 very badly who took the road of the ideal to save himself 
 that of reality. Thus realitj' would not have much to fear 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AXD ESSAYS. 119 
 
 I'loni appearance, as we understand it ; but, on the other 
 hand,, appearance would have more to fear from reality. 
 Chained to matter, man uses appearance for his purposes 
 before he allows it a proper personalitj' in the art of the 
 ideal : to come to that point a complete revolution must 
 take place in his mode of feeling, otherwise he would not 
 be even on the way to the ideal. Consequentl}', when we 
 find in man the signs of a pure and disinterested esteem, 
 we can infer that this revolution has taken place in his 
 nature, and that huraanitj' has realk begun in him. Signs 
 of this kind are found even in the first and rude attempts 
 that he makes to embellish his existence, even at the risk 
 of making it worse in its material conditions. As soon as 
 he begins to prefer form to substance and to risk realitj' 
 for appeai'ance (known by him to be such) , the barriers 
 of animal life fall, and he finds himself on a track that has 
 no end. 
 
 Not satisfied with the -needs of nature, he demands the 
 superfluous. First, only the superfluous of matter, to se- 
 cure bis enjoyment beyond the present necessity ; but af- 
 terwards he wishes a superabundance in matter, an ajsthet- 
 ical supplement to satisfy the impulse for the formal, to 
 extend enjo^-ment bej'ond necessity. By piling up provis- 
 ions simply for a future use, and anticipating their enjoy- 
 ment in the imagination, he outsteps the limits of the 
 present moment, but not those of time in general. He en- 
 joj's more ; he does not enjoy differently. But as soon as 
 he makes form enter fhto his enjoyment, and he keeps in 
 view the forms of the objects which satisfj^ his desires, he 
 has not only increased his pleasure in extent and intensitj-, 
 but he has also ennobled it in mode and species. 
 
 No doubt nature has given more than is necessarj- to 
 unreasoning beings ; she has caused_^a gleam of freedom to 
 shine even in the darkness of animal life. When the lion 
 is not tormented by hunger, and when no wild beast 
 challenges him to fight, his unemployed energy creates an 
 object for himself; full of ardor, he fills the re-echoing 
 desert with his terrible roars, and his exuberant force 
 rejoices in itself, showing itself without an object. The 
 insect flits about rejoicing in life in the sunlight, and it is 
 certainly not the cry of want that makes itself heard in the 
 
120 .KSTIIETICAL LKTTKRS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 melodious song of the bird ; there is undeniabl.y freedom \n 
 these movements, though it is not emancipation from want 
 in general, but from a determinate external necessitj-. 
 
 The animal works, when a privation is the motor of its 
 activity , and it plays when the plenitude of force is this 
 motor, when an exuberant life is excited to action. Even 
 in inanimate nature a luxury of strength and a latitude 
 of determination are shown, which in this material sense 
 might be styled plaj'. ' The tree produces numberless germs 
 that are abortive without developing, and it sends forth 
 more roots, branches, and leaves, organs of nutrition, than 
 are used 'for the preservation of the species. Whatever 
 this tree restores to the elements of its exuberant life, 
 without using it or enjoying it, maj' be expended by life 
 in free and joyful movements. It is thus that nature 
 ofl'ers in her material sphere a sort of prelude to the 
 limitless, and that even there she suppresses partiallj' the 
 chains from which she will be completely emancipated in 
 the realm of form. The constraint of superabundance or 
 physical play answers as a transition from the constraint of 
 necessity, or oi physical seriousness, to sesthetical plaj' ; 
 and before shaking off, in the supreme freedom of the 
 beautiful, the j'oke of any special aim, nature alreadj' ap- 
 proaches, at least remotely, this independence, by the/ree 
 movement which is itself its own end and means. 
 
 The imagination, like the bodilj' organs, has in man its 
 free movement and its material play, a play in which, 
 without any reference to form, it simply takes pleasure in 
 its arbitrary power and in the absence of all hinderance. 
 These plays of fancy, inasmuch as form is not mixed up 
 with them, and because a free succession of images makes 
 all their charm, though confined to man, belong exclu- 
 sively to animal life, and only prove one thing — that 
 he is delivered from all external sensuous constraint — 
 without our being entitled to infer that there is in it an 
 independent plastic force. 
 
 From this play of free associiifion of ideas, which is still 
 quite material in nature and is explained hj simple 
 natural laws, the imagination, by making the attempt of 
 creating a free form, passes at length at a jump to the 
 {esthetic plaj' ■ I say at one leap, for quite a new force 
 
^;is;iHKTICAI. LKTTEKS AND ESSAYS. 121 
 
 enters into action liere ; for here, for the first time, the 
 legislative mind is mixed with the acts of a blind instinct, 
 subjects the arbitrary march of the imagination to its 
 eternal and immutable unitj-, causes its independent 
 permanence to enter in that which is transitory, and its 
 infinity in the sensuous. Nevertheless, as long as rude 
 nature, which knows of no other law than running inces- 
 santlj' from change to change, will yet retain too much 
 strength, it will oppose itself bj' its difl'erent caprices to 
 this necessity ; by its agitation to this permanence ; by its 
 manifold needs to this independence, and hj its insatia- 
 bility to this sublime simplicity. It will be also trouble- 
 some to recognize the instinct of play in its first trials, 
 seeing that the sensuous impulsion, with its capricious 
 humor and its violent appetites, constantly crosses. It 
 is on that account that we see the taste, still coarse, seize 
 that which is new and startling, the disordered, the 
 adventurous and the strange, the violent and the 
 savage, and fly from nothing so much as from calm and 
 simplicity. It invents grotesque figures, it likes rapid 
 transitions, luxurious forms, sharplj'-marked changes, 
 acute tones, a pathetic song. That which man calls 
 beautiful at this time is that which excites him, that 
 which gives him matter ; but that which excites him to 
 give his personality to the object, that which gives matter 
 to a. possible plastic operation, for otherwise it would not 
 be the beautiful for him. A remarkable change has there- 
 fore taken place in the form of his judgments ; he searches 
 for these objects, not because they affect him, but because 
 they furnish him with the occasion of acting ; they please 
 hira, not because they answer to a want, but because they 
 satisfy a law which speaks in his breast, although quite 
 low as yet. 
 
 Soon it will not be sufficient for things to please him ; 
 he will wish to please : in the first place, it is true, onl}' 
 by that which belongs to him ; afterwards bj* that which 
 he is. That which he possesses, that which he produces, 
 ought not merely to bear any more the traces of servitude, 
 nor to mark out the end, simply and scrupulously, by the 
 form. Independently of the use to which it is destined, the 
 object ought also to reflect the enlightened intelligence 
 
122 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAY*!. 
 
 which imagines it, the hand which shaped it with affection, 
 the mind free and serene which chose it and exposed it to 
 view. Now, the ancient German searches for more ma^w- 
 ficent furs, for more splendid antlers of the stag, for more 
 elegant drinking-horns ; and the Caledonian chooses the 
 prettiest shells for his festivals. The arms themselves 
 ought to be no longer only objects of terror, but also of 
 pleasure ; and the skilfull3'- worked scabbard will not 
 attract less attention than the homicidal edge of the sword. 
 The instinct of play, not satisfied with bringing into the 
 sphere of the necessary an aesthetic superabundance for 
 the future more free, is at last completely emancipated 
 from the bonds of duty, and the beautiful becomes of itself 
 an object of man's exertions. He adorns himself. The free 
 pleasure comes to take a place among his wants, and the 
 useless soon becomes the best part of his joys. Form, which 
 from the outside gradually approaches him, in hisdwelhng, 
 his furniture, his clothing, begins at last to take possession 
 of the man himself, to transform him, at first exteriorly 
 and afterwards in the interior. The disordered leaps of 
 joy become the dance, the formless gesture is changed into 
 an amiable and harmonious pantomime, the confused 
 accents of feeling are developed, and • begin to obey 
 measures and adapt themselves to song. When, like the 
 flight of cranes, the Trojan army rushes on to the field of 
 battle with thrilling cries, the Greek army approaches in 
 silence and with a noble and measured step. On the one 
 side we see but the exubei-ance of a blind force, on the 
 other the triumph of form, and the simple majesty of law. 
 Now, a nobler necessity binds the two sexes mutually, 
 
 : and the interests of the heart contribute in rendering dur- 
 able an alliance which was at first capricious and changing 
 like the desire that knits it. Delivered from the heavy 
 fetters of desire, the eye, now calmer, attends to the form", 
 the soul contemplates the soul, and the interested exchange 
 of pleasure becomes a generous exchange of mutual incli- 
 
 ^ nation. Desire enlarges and rises to love, in proportion 
 as it sees humanity dawn in its object ; and, despising the 
 vile triumphs gained by the senses, man tries to win a 
 nobler victory over the will. The necessity of pleasing 
 subjects the powerful nature to the gentle laws of taste; 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 123 
 
 pleasure may be stolen, but love must be a gift. To 
 obtain tiiis higher recompense, it is only through the form 
 and not through matter that it can carry on the contest. 
 It must cease to act on feeling as a force, to appear in the 
 intelligence as a simple phenomenon ; it must respect 
 liberty, as it is liberty it wishes to please. The beautiful 
 reconciles the contrast of different natures in its simplest 
 and purest expression. It also reconciles the eternal con- 
 trast of the two sexes in the whole complex framework 
 of society, or at all events it seeks to do so ; and, taking" 
 as its model the free alliance it has knit between manly 
 strength and womanly gentleness, it strives to place in 
 harmonj', in the moral world, all the elements of gentleness 
 and of violence. Now, at length, weakness becomes sa- 
 cred, and an unbridled strength disgraces ; the injustice 
 of nature is corrected b3' the generosity of chivalrous 
 manners. The being whom no power can make tremble, 
 is disarmed b^- the amiable blush of modest}-, and tears 
 extinguish a vengeance thatblood could not have quenched. 
 Hatred itself hears the delicate voice of honor, the con- 
 queror's sword spares the disarmed enemy, and a hospitable 
 hearth smokes for the stranger on the dreaded hillside 
 where murder alone awaited him before. 
 
 In the midst of the formidable realm of forces, and of 
 the sacred empire of laws, the aesthetic impulse of form 
 creates by degrees a third and a joyous realm, that of play 
 and of the appearance, v^iere she emancipates man from 
 fetters, in all his relations, and from all that is named 
 constraint, whether phj-sical or moral. 
 
 If in the dynamic state of rights men mutually move 
 and come into collision as forces, in the moral (ethical) 
 state of duties, man opposes to man the majesty of the 
 laws, and chains down his will. In this realm of the 
 beautiful or the aesthetic state, man ought to appear to man 
 only as a form, and an object of free play. To give free- 
 dom through freedom is the fundamental law of this realm. 
 
 The dynamic state can only make society simple pos- 
 sibly by subduing nature through nature'; the moral 
 (ethical) state can only make it morally necessary by sub- 
 mitting the will of the individual to the general will. 
 The .-Esthetic state alone can make it real, because it 
 
124 yesthetical letters and essays. 
 
 carries out the will of all through the nature of the indi- 
 vidual. If necessity alone forces man to enter into 
 society, and if his reason engraves on his soul social prin- 
 ciples, it is beauty only that can give him a social char- 
 acter; taste alone brings harmony into society, because it 
 creates harmony in the individual. AH other forms of 
 perception divide the man, because they are based exclu- 
 sively either in the sensuous or in the spiritual part of his 
 being. ■ It is only the perception of beauty that makes of 
 him an entirety, because it demands the co-operation of 
 his two natures. All other forms of communication divide 
 society, because they apply exclusivel3' either to the 
 receptivity or to the private activitj' of its members, and 
 therefore to what distinguishes men one from the other. The 
 sesthetic communication alone unites societj' because it 
 applies to what is common to all its members. We only 
 enjoy the pleasures of sense as individuals, without the 
 nature of the race in us sharing in it ; accordingly, we 
 cannot generalize our individual pleasures, because we 
 cannot generalize our individuality. We enjoy the pleas- 
 ures of knowledge as a race, dropping the individual in 
 our judgment ; but we cannot generalize the pleasures of 
 the understanding, because we cannot eliminate individu- 
 alit}^ from the judgments of others as we do from our own. 
 -Beaut}' alone can we enjoy both as individuals and as a 
 race, that is, as representing a race. Good appertaining 
 to sense can only make one person happy, because it is 
 founded on inclination, which is always exclusive ; and 
 it can only make a man partially happj-, because his real 
 personality does not share in it. Absolute good can 
 only render a man happy conditionally, for truth is only 
 the reward of abnegation, and a pure heart alone has 
 faith in a pure will. Beauty alone confers happiness on 
 all, and under its influence every being forgets that he is 
 limited. 
 
 Taste does not suffer anj^ superior or absolute authority, 
 and the sway of beauty is extended over appearance. It 
 extends up to the seat of reason's supremacy, suppressing 
 all that is material. It extends down to where sensuous 
 impulse rules with blind compulsion, and form is undevel- 
 oped. Taste ever maintains its power on these remote 
 
iESTHETICAL I^ETTEItS AND ESSAY'S. 125 
 
 borders, where legislation is taken from it. Particular 
 desires must renounce their egotism, and the agreeable, 
 otherwise tempting the senses, must in matters of taste 
 adorn the mind with the attractions of grace. 
 
 Duty and stern necessity must change their forbidding 
 tone, only excused by resistance, and do homage to nature 
 by a nobler trust in her. Taste leads our knowledge from 
 the mysteries of science into the open expanse of common 
 sense, and changes a narrow scholasticism into the common 
 propertj- of the human race. Here the highest genius 
 must leave its particular elevation, and make itself familiar 
 to the comprehension even of a child. Strength must let 
 the Graces bind it, and the arbitrary lion must yield to 
 the reins of love. For this purpose taste throws a veil 
 over physical necessity, ofiending a free mind bj' its 
 coarse nudit3^ and dissimulating our degrading parentage 
 with matter by a delightful illusion of freedom. Mer- 
 cenar}- art itself rises from the dust ; and the bondage of 
 the bodily-, at its magic touch, falls off from the inanimate 
 and animate. In the sesthetic state the most slavish tool 
 is a free citizen, having the same rights as the noblest ; 
 and the intellect which shapes the mass to its intent must 
 consult it concerning its destination. Consequently, in the 
 realm of aesthetic appearance, the idea of equality is real- 
 ized, which the political zealot would gladly see carried 
 out socially. It has often been said that perfect politeness 
 is only found near a Jjirone. If thus restricted in the 
 material, man has, as elsewhere appears, to find compen- 
 sation in the ideal world. _ 
 
 Does such a state of beauty in appearance exist, and 
 where? It must be in every finely-harmonized soul ; bnt 
 as a fact, only in select circles, like the pure ideal of tlie 
 chu rch an d state — in circles where manners are not formed 
 byThe emptj' imitations of the foreign, but by the \cry 
 beauty of nature ; where man passes through all sorts of 
 complications in all simplicity and innocence, neither forced 
 to trench on {mother's freedom to preserve his own, nor to 
 show grace at the cost of dignity. 
 
^STHETICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 THE MORAL UTILITY OF ESTHETIC MANNERS. 
 
 The author of the article which appeared in the eleventh 
 number of " The Hours," of 1795, upon " The Danger of 
 iEsthetic Manners," was right to hold as doubtful a 
 moralitj- founded onty on a feeling for the beautiful, and 
 which has no other warrant than taste; but it is evident 
 that a strong and pure feeling for the beautiful ought to 
 exercise a salutary influence upon the moral life ; and this 
 is the question of which I am about to treat. 
 
 When I attribute to taste the merit of contributing to 
 moral progress, it is not in the least mj' intention to pre- 
 tend that the interest that good taste takes in an action 
 suffices to make an action moral ; moralit}' could never have 
 any other foundation than her own. Taste can be favor- 
 able to moralit3' in the conduct, as I hope to point out in 
 the present essay ; but alone, and by its unaided infjuonce, 
 it could never produce anything moral. 
 
 It is absolutel3' the same with respect to internal liberty 
 as with external physical libertj". I act freely in a physical 
 sense only when, independently of all external influence, 
 I simplj- obey my wilL But for the possibility of thus 
 obeying without hinderance my own will, it is probable, 
 ultimately, that I am indebted to a principle beyond or dis- 
 tinct from myself immediately it is admitted that this 
 principle would hamper my will. The same also with 
 regard to the possibility of accomplishing such action in 
 conformity with duty — it maj'be that I owe it, ultimately, 
 to a principle distinct from mj* reason ; that is possible, the 
 moment the idea of this principle is recognized as a force 
 
 126 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 127 
 
 which could have constrained my independence. Thus 
 the same as we can say of a man, that he holds his liberty 
 from another man, although libert}' in its proper sense 
 consists in not being forced to be regulated by another — 
 in like manner we can also saj- that taste here obeys 
 virtue, although virtue herself expressly' carries this idea, 
 that in the practice of virtue she makes use of no other 
 foreign help. An action does not in anj- degree cease to 
 be free, because he who could hamper its accomplishment 
 should fortunatel}' abstain from putting any obstacle in 
 the way ; it suffices to know that this agent has been 
 moved by his own will without anj- consideration of 
 another will. In the same way, an action of the moral order 
 does not lose its right to be qualified as a moral action, 
 because the temptations which might hs.\e turned it in 
 another direction did not present themselves ; it suffices to 
 admit that the agent obe3'ed solely the decree of his reason 
 to the exclusion of all foreign springs of action. The 
 liberty of an external act is established as soon as it 
 directly proceeds from the will of a person ; the moraliti" 
 of an interior action is established from the moment that 
 the will of the agent is at once determined to it b)' the 
 laws of reason. 
 
 It may be rendered easier or more difficult to act as free 
 men according as we meet or not in our path forces adverse 
 to our will that must be overcome. In this sense liberty 
 is more or less susceptibj^. It is greater, or at least more 
 visible, when we enable it to prevail over the opposing 
 forces, however energetic their opposition ; but it is not 
 suspended because our will should have met with no 
 resistance, or that a foreign succor coming to our aid 
 sliould have destroj-ed this resistance, without any help 
 from ourselves. 
 
 The same with respect to moralitj' ; we might have 
 more or less resistance to offer in order on the instant to 
 obe}^ our reason, according as it awakens or not in us 
 those instincts which struggle against its precepts, and 
 which must be put aside. In this sense morality is sus- 
 ceptible of more or of less. Our morality is greater, or at 
 least more in relief, when we immediately obey reason, 
 however powerful the instincts are which push us in a 
 
128 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 contrary direction ; but it is not suspended because we 
 have liad no temptation to disobey, or tliat tliis force had 
 been paralyzed by some other force other than our will. We 
 are incited to an action solelj- because it is moral, without 
 previously asking ourselves if it is the most agreeable. 
 It is enough that such an action is morally good, and it 
 would preserve this character even if there were cause to 
 believe that we should have acted differentlj' if the action 
 had cost us any trouble, or had deprived us of a pleasure. 
 
 It can be admitted, for the honor of humanity, that no 
 man could fall so low as to prefer evil solely because it is 
 evil, but rather that every man, without exception, would 
 prefer the good because it is the good, if by some acci- 
 dental circumstance the good did not exclude the agree- 
 able, or did not entail trouble. Thus in reality all moral 
 action seems to have no other principle than a conflict 
 between the good and the agreeable ; or, that which 
 comes to the same thing, between desire and reason ; 
 the force of our sensuous instincts on one side, and, on the 
 other side, the feebleness of will, the moral facultj' : such 
 \ apparently is the source of all our faults. 
 
 There may be, therefore, two different ways of favoring 
 
 morality, the same as there are two kinds of obstacles 
 
 which thwart it : either we must strengthen the side of 
 
 reason, and the power of the good will, so that no temp- 
 
 , tation can overcome it ; or we must break the force of 
 
 : temptation, in order that the reason and the will, although 
 
 ■ feebler, should yet be in a state to surmount it 
 
 It might be said, without doubt, that true morality gains 
 little b}' this second proceeding, because it happens with- 
 out any modiflcation of the will, and yet that it is the 
 nature of the will that alone give to actions their moral 
 character. But I say also, in the case in question, a change 
 of will is not at all necessary ; because we do not suppose 
 a bad will which should require to be changed, but only a 
 will turned to good, but which is feeble. Therefore, this 
 will, inclined to good, but too feeble, does not fail to attain 
 by this route to good actions, which might not have 
 happened if a stronger impulsion had drawn it in a 
 contrary sense. But every time that a strong will towards 
 good becomes the principle of an action, we are really in 
 
ESTHETIC AL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 129 
 
 presence of a moral action. I have therefore no scruple in 
 'advancing this proposition — that all which neutralizes 
 the resistance offered to the law of duty really favors 
 morality. 
 
 Morality has within us a natural enemy, the sensuous 
 instinct ; this, as soon as some object solicits its desires, 
 aspires at once to gratify it, and, as soon as reason requires 
 from it anything repugnant, it does not fail to rebel against 
 its precepts. This sensuous instinct is constantly occu- 
 pied in gaining the will on its side. The will is never- 
 theless under the jurisdiction of the moral law, and it is 
 under an obligation never to be in contradiction with that 
 which reason demands. 
 
 But the sensuous instinct does not recognize the moral 
 law , it wishes to enjo^- its object and to induce the will 
 to rea'ize it also, nothwithstaudiug what the reason may 
 advant^. This tendency of the faculty of our appetites, of 
 immedi!<*^elj' directing the will without troubling itself 
 about superior laws, is perpetually in conilict with our 
 moral destination, and it is the most powerful adversary 
 that man has to combat in his moral conduct. The coai'se 
 soul, without either moral or aesthetic education, receives 
 directly the law of appetite, and acts only according to 
 the good pleasure of the senses. The moral soul, but which 
 wants ffisthetic culture, receives in a direct manner the 
 law of reason, and it is only out of respect for duty that 
 it triumphs over temptation. In the purified aesthetic 
 soul, there is moreover another motive, another force, which 
 frequentlj^ takes the place of virtue when virtue is absent, 
 and which renders it easier when it is present — that is, 
 taste. 
 
 Taste demands of us moderation and dignity ; it has a 
 horror of everything sharp, hard and violent; it likes all 
 that shapes itself with ease and harmony. To listen to 
 the voice of reason amidst the tempest of the senses, and to 
 know where to place a limit to nature in its most brutified 
 explosions, is, as we are aware, required bj' good breeding, 
 which is no other than an aesthetic law ; this is required 
 of every civilized man. Well, then, this constraint im- 
 posed upon civilized man in the expression of his feelings, 
 confers upon him already a certain degree of authority 
 
130 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 over them, or at least develops in him a certain aptitude 
 to rise above the purelj- passive state of the soul, to inter- 
 rupt this state by an initiative act, and to stop by reflection 
 the petulance of the feelings, ever ready to pass from affec- 
 tions to acts. Therefore everything that interrupts _ the 
 blind impetiiositj' of these movements of the affections 
 does not as yet, however, produce, I own, a virtue (for 
 virtue ought never to have any other acti\e principle than 
 itself) , but that at least opens the road to the will, in order 
 to turn it on the side of virtue. Still, this victory of taste 
 over brutish affections is by no means a moral action, and 
 the freedom which the will acquires by the intervention 
 of taste is as j^et in no wa3' a moral lihertj'. Taste delivers 
 the soul from the yoke of instinct, only to impose upon it 
 chains of its own ; and in discerning the first enemy, the 
 declared enem3- of moral liberty, it remains itself, too 
 often, as a second enemj-, perhaps even the more dangerous 
 as it assumes the aspect of a fi-iend. Taste effectivelj' 
 governs the soul itself oii\y bj' the attraction of pleasure ; 
 it is true of a nobler type, because its principle is reason, 
 but still as long as the will is determined bj- pleasure 
 there is not yet morality. 
 
 Notwithstanduig this, a great point is gained already bj- 
 the intervention of taste in the operations of the will. 
 All those material inclinations and brutal appetites, which 
 oppose with so much obstinacy and -vehemence the prac- 
 tice of good, the soul is freed from through the sesthetic 
 taste ; and in their place, it implants in us nobler and 
 gentler inclinations, which draw nearer to order, to har- 
 mon}-, and to perfection ; and although these inclinations 
 are not bj' themselves virtues, they have at least some- 
 thing in common with virtue ; it is their object. Thence- 
 forth, if it is the appetite that speaks, it will have to 
 undergo a rigorous control before the sense of the beau- 
 tiful ; if it is the reason which speaks, and which commands 
 in its acts conformitj' with order, harmonj-, and perfection, 
 not only will it no longer meet with an adversary on the 
 side of inclination, but it will find the most active com- 
 petition. If we survey all the forms under which morality 
 can be produced, we shall see that all these forms can be 
 reduced to two ; either it is sensuous nature which moves 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 131 
 
 ilie soul either to do this thing or not to do the other, and 
 ido will finally decides after the law of the reason ; or it is 
 the reason itself which impels the motion, and the will obeys 
 it without seeking counsel of the senses. 
 
 The Greek i)riLicess, Anna Comnena, speaks of a rebel 
 prisoner, whojn her father Alexis, then a simple general 
 of his predecessor, had been charged to conduct to Con- 
 stantinople. Dtu'ing the journe}-, as thej' were riding side 
 by side, Alexis desired to halt under the shade of a tree 
 to refresh himself during the great heat of the day. It 
 was not long before he fell asleep, whilst his companion, 
 who felt no inclination to repose with the fear of death 
 awaiting him before his eyes, remained awake. Alexis 
 slumbered profoundly', with his sword hanging upon a branch 
 above- his head ; the prisoner perceived the sword, and 
 immediately conceived the idea of killing his guardian and 
 thus of regaining his freedom. Anna Comnena gives us to 
 understand that she knows not what might have been the 
 rssult had not Alexis fortunately awoke at that instant. 
 In this there is a moral of the highest kind, in which the 
 sensuous instinct first raised its voice, and of which the 
 reason had onl^^ afterwards taken cognizance in qualitj- of 
 judge. But suppose that the prisoner had triumphed over 
 the temptation only out of respect for justice, there could 
 be no doubt the action would have been a moral action. 
 
 When the late Duke Leopold of Brunswick, standing 
 upon the banks of the raging waters of the Oder, asked 
 himself if at the peril o^ his life he ought to venture into 
 the impetuous flood in order to save some unfortunates 
 who without his aid were sure to perish; and when — I 
 suppose a case — simply under the influence of duty, he 
 throws himself into the boat into which none other dares 
 to enter, no one will contest doubtless that he acted mor- 
 ally. Tiie duke was here in a contrary position to that of 
 ' the preceding one. The idea of dut}-, in this circumstance, 
 was the first which presented itself, and afterwards only 
 the instinct of self-preservation was roused to oppose 
 itself to that prescribed by reason. But in both cases the 
 will acted in the same way ; it obeyed unhesitatingly the 
 reason, yet both of them are moral actions. 
 
132 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 But would the action have continued moral in both 
 cases, if we suppose the aesthetic taste to have taken part 
 in it? For example, suppose that the first, who was 
 tempted to commit a bad action, and who gave it up from 
 respect for justice, had the taste sufficiently cultivated to 
 feel an invincible horror aroused in him against all dis- 
 graceful or violent action, the aesthetic sense alone will 
 suffice to turn him from it ; there is no longer any deliber- 
 ation before the moral tribunal, before the conscience ; 
 another motive, another jurisdiction has already pro- 
 nounced. But the aesthetic sense governs the will by the 
 feeling and not by laws. Thus this man refuses to enjoy 
 the agreeable sensation of a life saved, because he cannot 
 support his odious feelings of having committed a base- 
 ness. Therefore all, in this, took place before the feelings 
 alone, and the conduct of this man, although in conformity 
 with the law, is morally indifferent ; it is simply a fine 
 effect of nature. 
 
 Now let us suppose that the second, he to whom his 
 reason prescribed to do a thing against which natural 
 instinct protested ; suppose that this man had to the same 
 extent a susceptibilitj- for the beautiful, so that all which 
 is great and perfect enraptured him ; at the same moment, 
 when reason gave the order, the feelings would place 
 themselves on the same side, and he would do willinglj'' 
 that which without the inclination for the beautiful he 
 would have had to do contrary to inclination. But would 
 this be a reason for us to find it less perfect? Assuredl3' 
 not, because in principle it acts out of pure respect for 
 the prescriptions of reason ; and if it follows these injunc- 
 tions with joy, that can take nothing away from the moral 
 purity of the act. Thus, this man will be quite as perfect 
 in. the moral sense; and, on the contrary-, he will be 
 incomparably more perfect in the phj'sical sense, be- 
 cause he is inflnitelj' more capable of making a virtuous 
 subject. 
 
 Thus, taste gives a direction to the soul which disposes 
 it to virtue, in keeping away such inclinations as are con- 
 trary to it, and in rousing those which are favorable. 
 Taste could not injure true virtue, although in every case 
 where natural instinct speaks first, taste commences by 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 133 
 
 deciding for its chief that which conscience otherwise 
 ought to have known ; in consequence it is the eanse that, 
 amongst the actions of those whom it governs, there are 
 many more actions morallj* indifferent than actions truly 
 moral. It thus happens that the excellencj- of the man 
 does not consist in the least degree in producing a larger 
 sum of vigorously moral particular actions, but bj' evincing 
 as a whole a greater conformit}- of all his natural disposi- 
 tions with the moral law ; and it is not a thing to give 
 people a verj' high idea' of their country or of their age 
 to hear morality so often spoken of and particular acts 
 boasted of as traits of virtue. Let us hope that the day 
 when civilization shall have consummated its work (if we 
 can realize this term in the mind) there will no longer be 
 any question of this. But, on the other side, taste can 
 become of possible utility to true virtue, in all cases when, 
 the first instigations Issuing from reason, its Aoice incurs 
 the risk of being stifled by the more powerful solicitations 
 of natural instinct. Thus, taste determines our feehngs 
 to take the part of duty, and in this manner renders a 
 mediocre moral force of will sufi3cient for the practice of 
 virtue. 
 
 In this light, if the taste never injures true moralitj', 
 and if in many cases it is of evident use — and this cir- 
 cumstance is ver}' important — then it is supremely favor- 
 able to the legality of our conduct. Suppose that sesthetic 
 education contributes in no degree to the improvement of 
 our feelings, at least it renders us better able to act, 
 although without true moral disposition, as we should 
 ha\e acted if our soul had been truly moral. Therefore, 
 it is quite true that, before the tribunal of the conscience, 
 our acts have absolutely no importance but as the expres- 
 sion of our feelings : but it is precisely the contrarj' in 
 the physical order and in the plan of nature : there it is 
 no longer our sentiments that are of importance ; the}* are 
 only important so far as they give occasion to acts which 
 . conduce to the aims of nature. But the phjsical order 
 which is governed by forces, and the moral order which 
 governs itself by laws, are so exactly made one for the 
 other, and are so intimately blended, that the actions 
 which are by their form morally suitable, necessarily con- 
 
134 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 tain also a physical suitability ; and as the entire edifice of 
 nature seems to exist only to render possible the highest 
 of all aims, which is the good, in tiie same manner the 
 good can in its turn be employed as the means of preserv- 
 ing the edifice. Thus, the natural order has been rendered 
 dependent upon the morality of our souls, and we cannot 
 go against the moral laws ' of the world without at the 
 same time provoking a perturbation in the physical 
 world. 
 
 If, then, it is impossible to expect that human nature, 
 as long as it is only human nature, should act without 
 interruption or feebleness, uniformly and constantly as 
 pure reason, and that it never offend the laws of moral 
 order ; if fully persuaded, as we arc, both of the neces- 
 sity and the possibility of pure virtue, we are forced to 
 avow how subject to accident is the exercise of it, and 
 how little we ought to reckon upon the steadfastness of 
 our best principles ; if with tliis conviction of human 
 fragility we bear in mind that each of the infractions of 
 the moral law attacks the edifice of nature, if we recall 
 all these considerations to our memorv, it would be 
 assuredl}' the most criminal boldness to place the interests 
 of the entire world at the mercy of the uncertainty of our 
 virtue. Let us rather draw from it the following conclu- 
 sion, that it is for us an obligation to satisfj' at the very 
 least the physical order by the object of our acts, even 
 when we do not satisfy the exigencies of the moi'al order 
 by the form of these acts ; to paj', at least, as perfect 
 instruments the aims of nature, that which we owe as im- 
 perfect persons to reason, in order not to appear shame- 
 faced before both tribunals. For if we refused to make 
 any effort to conform our acts to it because simple legality 
 is without moral merit, the order of the world might in 
 the meanwhile be dissolved, and before we had succeeded 
 in establishing our principles all the links of society might 
 be broken No, the more our morality is subjected to 
 chance, the more' is it necessary to take measures in order 
 to assure its legality ; to neglect, either from levity or 
 pride, this legality is a fault for which we shall have to 
 answer before morality. When a maniac believes himself 
 threatened with a fit of madness, he leaves no knife 
 
JSSTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS 135 
 
 within reach of his hands, and he puts himself under con- 
 straint, in order to avoid responsibility in a state of sanity 
 for the crimes which his troubled brain might lead him to 
 commit. In a similar manner it is an obligation for us to 
 seek the salutary' bonds which religion and the eesthetic 
 laws present to us, in order that during the crisis when 
 our passion is dominant it shall not injure the physical 
 order. 
 
 It is not unintentionally that I have placed religion and 
 taste in one and the same class ; the reason is that both 
 one and the other have the merit, similar in effect, although 
 dissimilar in principle and in value, to take the place of 
 virtue properlj' so called, and to assure legality where 
 there is no possibility to hope for morality. Doubtless 
 that would hold an incontestably higher rank in the order 
 of pure spirits, as they would need neitlier the attraction 
 of the beautiful nor the perspective of eternal life, to 
 conform on ever}- occasion to the demands of reason ; but 
 we know man is short-sighted, and his feebleness forces 
 the most rigid moralist to temper in some degree the 
 rigidity of his S3'stem in practice, although he will j'ield 
 nothing in theory ; it obliges him, in order to insure the 
 welfare of the human race, which would be ill protected by 
 a virtue subjected to chance, to have further recourse to 
 two strong anchors — those of religion and taste. 
 
 ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 " Mak is never obliged to say, I must — must" says the 
 Jew Nathan * to the dervish ; and this expression is true 
 in a wider sense than man might be tempted to suppose. 
 The will is tlie specific character of man, and reason itself 
 is only the eternal rule of his will. All nature acts rea- 
 sonablj- ; all our prerogative is to act reasonablj-, with 
 consciousness and with will. All other objects obey neces- 
 sity ; man is the being who wills. 
 
 * Lessing's play, " Naihan the Wise," act 1. scene 3. 
 
136 ^.STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSATS. 
 
 It is exactly for this reason that there is nothing more 
 inconsistent with the dignity of man than to suffer vio- 
 lence, for violence effaces him. He who does violence to 
 us disputes nothing less than our humanity ; he who sub- 
 mits in a cowardly spirit to the violence abdicates his 
 quality of man. But this pretension to remain absolutely 
 free from all that is violence seems to imply a being in 
 possession of a force sufficiently great to keep ofi' all 
 other forces. But if this pretension is found in a being 
 who, in the order of forces, cannot claim the first rank, 
 the result is an unfortunate contradiction between his 
 instinct and his power. 
 
 Man is precisely in this case. Surrounded bj' number- 
 less forces, which are all superior to him and hold sway 
 over him, he aspires by his nature not to have to suffer 
 anjr injury' at their hands. It is true that bj- his intelli- 
 gence he adds artificially to his natural forces, and that up 
 to a certain point he actually succeeds in reigning physi- 
 cally over everything that is physical. The proverb says, 
 " there is a remedy for everything except death ;" but this 
 exception, if it is one in the strictest acceptation of the term, 
 would suffice to entirely' ruin the very idea of our nature. 
 Never will man be the cause that wills, if there is a case, 
 a single case, in which, with or without his consent, he is 
 forced to what he does not wish. This single terrible 
 exception, to be or to do what is necessary and not what 
 he wishes, this idea will pursue him as a phantom ; and as 
 we see in fact among the greater part of men, it will give 
 him up a prej* to the blind terrors of imagination. His 
 boasted liberty is nothing, if there is a single point where 
 he is under constraint and bound. It is education that 
 must give back liberty to man, and help him to complete 
 the whole idea of his nature. It ought, therefore, to make 
 him capable of making his will prevail, for, I repeat it, 
 man is the being who wills. 
 
 It is possible to reach this end in two ways : either 
 really, hy opposing force to force, by commanding nature, 
 as nature yourself; or by the idea, issuing from nature, 
 and bj' thus destroying in relation to self the very idea of 
 violence. All that helps man really to hold sway over 
 nature is what is styled physical education. Man culti- 
 
JESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND E9SATS. 137 
 
 vates his understanding and develops his physical loicBi 
 either to convert the forces of nature, according to their 
 proper laws, into the instruments of his will, or to secure 
 himself against their etfects when he cannot direct them. 
 But the forces of nature can onlj- be directed or turned 
 aside up to a certain point ; beyond that point the}' with- 
 draw from the influence of man and place him under 
 theirs. 
 
 Thus beyond the point in question his freedom would 
 be lost, were he only susceptible of physical education. 
 But he must be man in the full sense of the term, and 
 consequently he must have nothing to endure, in any case, 
 contrary to his will. Accordingly, when he can no longer 
 oppose to the physical forces anj' proportional phj-sical 
 force, onl}- one resource remains to him to avoid suffering 
 an}' violence : that is, to cause to cease entirely that rela- 
 tion which is so fatal to him. It is, in short, to annihilate 
 as an idea the violence he is obliged to suffer in fact. 
 The education that fits man for this is called moral edu- 
 cation. 
 
 The man fashioned by moral education, and he only, is 
 entirely free. He is either superior to nature as a power, 
 or he is in harmony with her. None of the actions that 
 she brings to bear upon him is violence, for before reach- 
 ing him it has become an act of his ovm will, and dj'namic 
 nature could never touch him, because he spontaneous!}' 
 Iteeps away from all to.which she can reach. But to at- 
 tain to this state of muid, which morality designates as 
 resignation to necessary things, and religion styles abso- 
 lute submission to the counsels of Providence!^ to reach 
 this by an effort of his free will and with reflection, a cer- 
 tain clearness is required in thought, and a certain energy 
 in the will, superior to what man commonly possesses in 
 active life. Happily for him, man finds here not only in 
 his rational nature a moral aptitude that can be developed 
 by the understanding, but also in his reasonable and sen- 
 sible nature — that is, in his human nature — an msthetie 
 tendency which seems to have been placed there expressly : 
 a faculty awakens of itself in the presence of certain sen- 
 suous objects, and which, after our feelings are purified, 
 can be cultivated to such a point as to become a powerful 
 
138 iESTHKTICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 ideal development. This aptitude, I grant, is idealistic in 
 its principle and in its essence, but one which even the 
 realist allows to be seen clearl3' enough in his conduct, 
 though he does not acknowledge this in theorj^ I am 
 now about to discuss this facult}-. 
 
 I admit that the sense of the beautiful, when it is 
 developed hy culture, suffices of itself even to make us, 
 in a certain sense, independent of nature as far as it is a 
 force. A mind that has ennobled itself sufficiently to be 
 more sensible of the form than of the matter of things, 
 contains in itself a plenitude of existence that nothing 
 could make it lose, especiallj- as it does not trouble itself 
 about the possession of the things in question, and finds 
 a very liberal pleasure in the mere contemplation of the 
 phenomenon. As this mind has no want to appropriate 
 the objects in the midst of which it lives, it has no fear of 
 being deprived of them. But it is nevertheless necessary 
 that these phenomena should have a body, through which 
 they manifest themselves ; and, consequently, as long as 
 we feel the want even only of finding a beautiful appear- 
 ance or a beautiful phenomenon," this want implies that of 
 the existence of certain objects ; and it follows that our 
 satisfaction still depends on nature, considered as a force, 
 because it is nature who disposes of all existence in a 
 sovereign manner. It is a different thing, in fact, to feel 
 in j^ourself the want of objects endowed with beaut}' and 
 goodness, or simply to require that the objects which 
 surround us are good and beautiful. This last desire is 
 compatible with the most perfect freedom of the soul ; but 
 it is not so with the other. We are entitled to require 
 that the object before us should be beautiful and good, but 
 we can only wish that the beautiful and the good should 
 be realized objectively before us. Novr the disposition of 
 mind is, par excellence, called grand and sublime, in which 
 no attention is given to the question of knowing if the 
 beautiful, the good, and the perfect exist ; but when it is 
 rigorously required that that which exists should be good, 
 beautiful and perfect, this character of mind is called sub- 
 lime, because it contains in it positively all the character- 
 istics of a fine mind without sharing its negative features. 
 
 A sign by which beautiful and good minds, but having 
 
JE8THETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 139 
 
 weaknesses, are recognized, is the aspiring alwaj's to find 
 their moral ideal realized in the world of facts, and their 
 being painfully affected hy all that places an obstacle to 
 it. A mind thus constituted is reduced to a sad state of 
 dependence in relation to chance, and it may always be 
 predicted of it, without fear of deception, that it will give 
 too large a share to the matter in moral and sesthetical 
 things, and that it will not sustain the more critical trials 
 of character and taste. Moral imperfections ought not to 
 be to us a cause oisufferiny and of pain : suffering and pain 
 bespeak rather an ungratified wish than an unsatisfied 
 moral want. An unsatisfied moral want ought to be 
 accompanied by a more manly feeling, and fortifj- our 
 mind and confirm it in its energy rather than make us 
 unhappj^ and pusillanimous. 
 
 Nature has given to us two genii as companions in our 
 life in this lower world. The one, amiable and of good 
 companionship, shortens the troubles of the journey by 
 the gayety of its plays. It makes the chains of necessity 
 light to us, and leads us amidst joy and laughter, to the 
 most perilous spots, where we must act as pure spirits 
 and strip ourselves of all that is bodj-, on the knowl- 
 edge of the true and the practice of duty. Once when 
 we are there, it abandons us, for its realm is limited to the 
 world of sense ; its earthly wings could not carry it 
 beyond. But at this moment the other companion steps 
 upon the stage, silent aad grave, and with his powerful 
 arm carries us beyond the precipice that made us giddj'. 
 
 In the former of these genii we recognize the feeling of 
 the beautiful, in the other the feeling of the sublime. 
 No doubt the beautiful itself is already an expression of 
 liberty. This liberty is not the kind that raises us 
 above the power of nature, and that sets us free from all 
 bodily influence, but it is only the liberty which we enjoy 
 as men, without issuing from the limits of nature. In the 
 presence of beauty we feel ourselves free, because the 
 sensuous instincts are in harmonj' with the laws of reason. 
 In presence of the sublime we feel ourselves sublime, be- 
 cause the sensuous instincts have no influence over the 
 jurisdiction of reason, because it is then the pure spirit that 
 acts in us as if it were not absolutely subject to any other 
 laws than its own. 
 
140 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 The feeling of the sublime is a mixed feeling. It is at 
 once a paiaful state^ which in its parox3-sm is manifested 
 by a kind of stiudder, and a joyous state, that may rise 
 to rapture, and which, without being properly a pleasure, 
 is greatly preferred to every kind of pleasure by delicate 
 souls. This union of two contrary' sensations in one and 
 the same feeling proves in a peremptory manner our moral 
 independence. For as it is absolutelj' impossible that the 
 same object should be with us in two opposite relations, 
 it follows that it is we ourselves who sustain two different 
 relations with the object. It follows that these two 
 opposed natures should be united in us, which, on the idea 
 of this object, are brought into play in two perfectly 
 opposite wajs. Thus we experience bj' the feeling of the 
 beautiful that the state of our spiritual nature is not 
 necessarilj' determined by the state of our sensuous 
 nature ; that the laws of nature are not necessarilj' our 
 laws ; and that there is in us an autonomous principle 
 independent of all sensuous impressions. 
 
 The sublime object may be considered in two lights. 
 We either represent it to our comprehension, and we tr3' in 
 vain to make an image or idea of it, or we refer it to 
 our vital force, and we consider it as a power before which 
 ours is nothing. But though in both cases we experience 
 in connection with this object the painful feeling of our 
 limits, yet we do not seek to a\'oid it ; on the contrary 
 we are attracted to it hj an irresistible force. Could this 
 be the case if the limits of our imagination were at the 
 same time those of our comprehension ? Should we be 
 willingly called back to the feeling of the omnipotence of 
 the forces of nature if we had not in us something that 
 cannot be a prey of these forces. We are pleased 
 with the spectacle of the sensuous infinite, because we are 
 able to attain by thought what the senses can no longer 
 embrace and what the understanding cannot grasp. 
 The sight of a terrible object transports us with enthu- 
 siasm, because we are capable of willing what the in- 
 stincts reject with horror, and of rejecting what they 
 desire. We willingl}' allow our imagination to find some- 
 thing in the world of phenomena that passes bej-ond it ; 
 because, after all, it is only one sensuous force that 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 141 
 
 triumphs over another sensuous force, but nature, not- 
 withstanding all her infinit}-, cannot attain to the 
 absolute grandeur which is in ourselves. We submit 
 willingly to phj-sical necessity- both our well-being and 
 our existence. This is because the verj- power reminds us 
 that there are in us principles that escape its empire. 
 Man is in the hands of nature, but the will of man is in his 
 own hands. 
 
 Nature herself has actually used a sensuous means to 
 teach us that we ai'e something more than mere sensuous 
 natures. She has even known how to make use of our 
 sensations to put us on the track of this discovery — that 
 we are bj' no means subject as slaves to the violence of 
 the sensations. And this is quite a different effect from 
 that which can be produced bj^ the beautiful ; I mean 
 the beautiful of the real world, for the sublime itself is 
 surpassed b\- the ideal. In the presence of beautj^, reason 
 and sense are in harmony, and it is onlj^ on account of 
 this harmony that the beautiful has attraction for us. 
 Consequently', beauty alone could never teach us that our 
 destination is to act as pure intelligences, and that we are 
 capable of showing ourselves such. In the presence of the 
 sublime, on the contrary, reason and the sensuous are 
 not in harmonjr, and it is pi'ecisely this contradiction 
 between the two which makes the charm of the sublime. 
 — its irresistible action on our minds. Here the pln'sical 
 man and the moral man separate in the most marked 
 manner ; for it is exactl5' in the presence of objects that 
 make us feel at once how limited the former is that the 
 other makes the experience of its force. The ver3' thing 
 that lowers one to the earth is precisely that which raises 
 the other to the infinite. 
 
 Let us imagine a luan endowed with all the virtues 
 of which the union constitutes a fine character. Let us 
 suppose a man who finds his delight in practising justice, 
 beneficence, moderation, constancy, and good faith. All the 
 duties whose accomplishment is prescribed to him by cir- 
 cumstances are onlj' a play to him, and I admit that for- 
 tune favors him in such wise that none of the actions which 
 his good heart may demand of him will be hard to him. 
 Who would not be charmed with such a dehghtful har- 
 
142 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 mony between the instincts of nature and tlie prescrip- 
 tions of reason ? and wlio could help admiring such a man ? 
 Nevertheless, though he maj' inspire us with affection, 
 are we quite sure that he is reallj' virtuous ? or in general 
 that he has anjtliing that corresponds to the idea of 
 virtue ? If this man had onlj' in view to obtain agreeable 
 sensations, unless he were mad he could not act in anj- 
 other possible way ; and he would have to be his own 
 enemy to wish to be vicious. Perhaps the principle of his 
 actions is pure, but this is a question to be discussed 
 between himself and his conscience. For our part, we see 
 nothing of it ; we do not see him do anything more than 
 a simply clever man would do who had no other god than 
 pleasure. Thus all his virtue is a phenomenon that is ex- 
 plained by reasons derived from the sensuous order, and 
 we are bj' no means driven to seek for reasons beyond the 
 world of sense. 
 
 Let us suppose that this same man falls suddenly under 
 misfortune. He is deprived of his possessions : his repu- 
 tation is destroyed ; he is chained to his bed by sickness 
 and suffering ; he is robbed by death of all those he 
 loves ; he is forsaken in his distress by all in whom he had 
 trusted. Let us under these circumstances again seek 
 him, and demand the practice of the same virtues under 
 trial as he formerly had practised during the period of 
 his prosperity'. If he is found to be absolutely the 
 same as before, if his poverty- has not deteriorated his 
 benevolence, or ingratitude his kindlj- offices of good-will, 
 or bodily suffering his equanimity, or adversitj- his joy in 
 the happiness of others ; if his change of fortune is 
 perceptible in externals, but not in his habits, in the 
 matter, but not in the form of his conduct ; then, doubt- 
 less, his virtue could not be explained by any reason drawn 
 from the phj'sical order; the idea of nature — which 
 always necessarilj^ supposes that actual phenomena rest 
 upon some anterior phenomenon, as effects upon cause — 
 this idea no longer suffices to enable us to comprehend this 
 man ; because there is nothing more contradictory than to 
 admit that effect can remain the same when the cause has 
 changed to its contrary. ^Ve must then gi\e up all natu- 
 ral explanation or thought of finding the reason of his acts 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 143 
 
 in his condition ; we must of necessitj- go beyond the 
 physical order, and seek the principle of his conduct in 
 quite another world, to which the reason can indeed raise 
 itself with its ideas, but which the understanding cannot 
 grasp by its conceptions. It is this revelation of the 
 absolute moral power which is subjected to no condition 
 of nature, it is this which gives to the melancholj' feeling 
 that seizes our heart at the sight of such a man that 
 peculiar, inexpressible charm, which no delight of the 
 senses, however refined, could arouse in us to the same 
 extent as the sublime. 
 
 Thus the sublime opens to us a road to overstep the 
 limits of the world of sense, in which the feeling of the 
 beautiful .would forever imprison us. It is not little by 
 little (forbetween absolute dependence and absolute liberty 
 there is no possible transition), it is suddenly and by a 
 shock that the sublime wrenches our spiritual and inde- 
 pendent nature away from the net which feehng has spun 
 round us, and which enchains the soul the more tightly 
 because of its subtle texture. Whatever may be the 
 extent to which feeling has gained a mastery over men by 
 the latent influence of a softening taste, when even it 
 should have succeeded in penetrating into the most secret 
 recesses of moral jurisdiction urider the deceptive envelope 
 of spiritual beauty, and there poisoning the holiness of 
 principle at its source — one single sublime emotion often 
 suffices to break all this tissue of imposture, at one blow 
 to give freedom to the fettered elasticity of spiritual nature, 
 to reveal its true destination, and to oblige it to conceive, 
 for one instant at least, the feeling of its liberty. Beauty, 
 under the shape of the divine Calypso, bewitched the 
 virtuous son of Ulysses, and the power of her charms held 
 him long a prisoner in her island. For long he believed 
 he was obeying an immortal divinity, whilst he was onlj' 
 the slave of sense ; but suddenly an impression of the 
 sublime in the form of Mentor seizes him ; he remembers 
 that he is called to a higher destiny — he throws himself 
 into the waves, and is free. 
 
 The sublime, like the beautiful, is spread profusely 
 throughout nature, and the faculty to feel both one and 
 the other has been given to all men ; but the germ does 
 
144 ESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 not develop equally ; it is necessary that art should lend 
 its aid. The aim of nature supposes already that we ought 
 spontaneously to advance towards the beautiful, although 
 we still avoid the sublime : for the beautiful is like the nurse 
 of our childhood, and it is for her to refine our soul in 
 withdrawing it from the rude state of nature. But though 
 she is our first affection, and our faculty of feeling is first 
 developed for her, nature has so provided, nevertheless, 
 that this faculty ripens slowly and awaits its full develop- 
 ment until the understanding and the heart are formed. 
 If taste attains its full maturity before truth and morality 
 have been established in our heart by u better road than 
 that which taste would take, tlie sensuous world would 
 remain the limit of our aspirations. We should not know, 
 either in our ideas or in our feelings, how to pass bej'ond 
 the world of sense, and all that imagination failed to rep- 
 resent would be without reality to us. But happily it 
 enters into the plan of nature, that taste, although it first 
 comes into bloom, is the last to ripen of all the faculties 
 of the mind. During this interval, man has time to store 
 up in his mind a provision of ideas, a treasure of princi- 
 ples in his heart, and then to develop especiallj^,. in 
 drawing from reason, his feeling for the great and the 
 sublime. 
 
 As long as man was only the slave of physical necessitj', 
 while he had found no issue to escape from the narrow 
 circle of his appetites, and while he as yet felt none of 
 that superior libertj' which connects him with the angels, 
 nature, so far as she is incomprehensible, could not fail to 
 impress him with the insufficiency of his imagination, and 
 again, as far as slie is a destructive force, to recall his 
 physical powerlessness. He is forced then to pass timidly 
 towards one, and to turn away with affright from the other. 
 But scarceljr has free contemplation assured him against 
 the blind oppression of the forces of nature — scarcely 
 has he recognized amidst the tide of phenomena somethin > 
 permanent in his own being — than at once the coarse 
 agglomeration of nature that surrounds him begins to 
 speak in another language to his heart, and the relative 
 grandeur which is without becomes for him a mirror in 
 which he contemplates the absolute greatness which is 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 145 
 
 within himself. He approaches without fear, and with a 
 thrill of pleasure, those pictures which terrified his imagi- 
 nation, and intentionally makes an appeal to the whole 
 strength of that facultj' by which we represent the infinite 
 perceived bj^ the senses, in order if she fails in this 
 attempt, to feel all the more vividly how much these ideas 
 are superior to all that the highest sensuous faculty can 
 give. The sight of a distant infinity — of heights bejond 
 vision, this vast ocean which is at his feet, that other 
 ocean still more vast which stretches above his head, 
 transport and ravish his mind beyond the narrow circle of 
 the real, beyond this narrow and oppressive prison of 
 physical life. The simple majesty of nature offers him a 
 less circumscribed measure for estimating its grandeur, 
 and, surrounded by the grand outlines which it presents to 
 him, he can no longer bear anything mean in his waj' of 
 thinking. Who can tell how many luminous ideas, how 
 many heroic resolutions, which would never ha^e been 
 conceived in the dark study of the imprisoned man of 
 science, nor in the saloons where the people of society 
 elbow each other, have been inspired on a sudden during 
 a walk, onlj' by the contact and the generous stiuggle of 
 the soul with the great spirit of nature ? Who knows if it 
 is not owing to a less frequent intercourse with this 
 sublime spirit that we must partiallj- attribute the 
 narrowness of mind so common to the dwellers in towns, 
 always bent under the minutite which dwarf and wither 
 their soul, whilst the soul of the nomad remains open 
 and free as the firmament beneath which he pitches his 
 tent? 
 
 But it is not only the unimaginable or the sublime in 
 quantity, it is also the incomprehensible, that which 
 escapes the understanding and that which troubles it, 
 which can serve to give ns an idea of the super-sensuous 
 infinity. As soon as tliis element nttains the grandiose 
 and announces itself to us as the work of nature (for 
 otherwise it is only despicable) . it then aids the soul to 
 represent to itself the ideal, and imprints upon it a noble 
 development. Who does not love the eloquent disorder 
 of natural scenery to the insipid regularity of a French 
 garden? Who does not admire in the plains of Sicilj' the 
 
146 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 marvellous combat of nature with herself — of her oreathe 
 force and her destructive power ? Who does not prefer 
 to feast his eyes upon the wild streams and waterfalls of 
 Scotland, upon its misty mountains, upon that romantic 
 nature from which Ossian drew his inspiration — rather 
 than to grow enthusiastic in this stiff Holland, before the 
 laborious triumph of patience over the most stubborn of 
 elements ? No one will deny that in the rich grazing- 
 grounds of Holland, things are not better ordered for the 
 wants of physical man than upon the perfid crater of Ve- 
 suvius, and that the understanding which likes to compre- 
 hend and arrange all things, does not find its requirements 
 rather in the regularly planted farm-garden than in the 
 uncultivated beauty of natural scenery. But ™^i ^^^ 
 requirements which go beyond those of natural life 
 and comfort or well-being ; he has another destiny than 
 merely to comprehend the phenomena which surround 
 him. 
 
 In the same manner as for the observant traveller, the 
 strange wildness of nature is so attractive in physical 
 nature — thus, and for the same reason, everj' soul capable 
 of enthusiasm finds even in the regretable anarchy found 
 in the moral world a source of singular pleasure. 
 Without doubt he who sees the grand econom}' of nature 
 only from the impoverished light of the understanding ; 
 he who has never any other thought than to reform its 
 defiant disorder and to substitute harmony, such a one 
 could not find pleasure in a world which seems given up to 
 the caprice of chance rather than governed according to a 
 wise ordination, and where merit and fortune are for the 
 most part in opposition. He desires that the whole world 
 throughout its vast space should be ruled like a house well 
 regulated ; and when this much-desired regularity is not 
 found, he has no other resource than to defer to a future 
 life, and to another and better nature, the satisfactio^i 
 which is his due, but which neither the present nor the 
 past afford him. On the contrary, he renounces willingly 
 the pretension of restoring this chaos of phenomena to 
 one single notion ; he regains on another side, and with 
 interest, what he loses on this side. Just this want of 
 connection, this anarchy, in the phenomena, making them 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS A?Vt) ESSAYS. 147 
 
 useless to the understanding, is what makea them valuable 
 to reason. The more thej- are disorderly the more they 
 represent the freedom of nature. In a sense, if 30U sup- 
 press all connection, jou have independence. Thus, 
 under the idea of liberty, reason brings back to unity of 
 thought that which the understanding couJd not bring to 
 unity of notion. It thus shows its superiority over the 
 understanding, as a faculty subject to the conditions of a 
 sensuous order. When we consider of what value it is to 
 a rational being to be independent of natural )?.ws, we see 
 how much man finds in the libert}- of sublime objeots as a 
 set-off against the checks of his cognitive faculty. Liberty, 
 with all its drawbacks, is everywhere vastly more attract- 
 ive to a noble soul than good social order without it — 
 than society like a flock of sheep, or a machine working 
 like 1 watch. This mechanism makes of man onty a pro- 
 duct ; liberty' makes him the citizen of a better world. 
 
 It is only thus viewed that history- is sublime to me 
 The world, as a historic object, is only the strife of natiira' 
 forces ; with one another and with man's freedom. His 
 tory registers more actions referable to nature than to fre*' 
 will ; it is only in a few cases, like Catoand Phocion, tha' 
 reason has made its power felt. If we expect a treasure 
 of knowledge in history- how we are deceived ! AU 
 attempts of philosophy to reconcile what the moral worW 
 demands with what the real world gives is belied by ex- 
 perience, and nature seepis as illogical in historj- as she ij 
 logical in the organic kingdoms. 
 
 But if we give up explanation it is different. Nature, 
 in being capricious and defying logic, in pulling down 
 great and little, in crushing the nobleSt works of man, 
 taking centuries to form — nature, by deviating from in- 
 tellectual laws, proves that j'ou cannot explain nature bj* 
 nature's laws themselves, and this sight drives the mind 
 to the world of ideas, to the absolute. 
 
 But though nature as a sensuous activit3' drives us to 
 the ideal, it throws us still more into the world of 
 ideas by the terrible. Our highest aspiration is to be 
 in good relations with phj'sical nature, without violating 
 morality. But it is not always convenient to serve two 
 masters ; and though duty and the appetites should never 
 
148 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 be at strife, phj-sical necessity is ptreiiiptory, and nothing 
 can save men from evil destinj'. Happj' is he who learns 
 to bear what he cannot change ! There are cases where 
 fate overpowers all ramparts, anil where the only resist- 
 ance is, like a pure spirit, to throw freely off all interest 
 of sense, and strip jourself of jour bodj% Now this force 
 comes from sublime emotions, and a frequent commerce 
 with destructive nature. Pathos is a sort of artificial mis- 
 fortune, and brings us to the spiritual law that commands 
 our soul. Eeal misfortune does not always choose its 
 time opportunely, while pathos finds us armed at 
 all points. By frequently renewing this exercise of its 
 own activity the mind controls the sensuous, so that when 
 real misfortune comes, it can treat it as an artificial suffer- 
 ing, and make it a sublime emotion. Thus pathos takes 
 away some of the malignity of destinj', and wards off its 
 blows. 
 
 Away then with that false theory which supposes falselj' 
 a harmony binding well being and well doing. Let evil 
 destinj' show its face. Our safety is not in blindness, but 
 in facing our dangers. What can do so better than 
 familiaritj- with the splendid and terrible evolution of 
 events, or than pictures showing man in conflict with 
 chance ; evil triumphant, securitj' deceived — pictures 
 shown us throughout history, and placed before us bj' 
 tragedy? Whoever passes in review the terrible fate 
 of Mithridates, of Sj'racuse, and Carthage, cannot help 
 keeping his appetite in check, at least for a time, and, 
 seeing the vanity of things, strive after that which is per- 
 manent. The capacity of the sublime is one of the 
 noblest aptitudes of man. Beauty is useful, but does not 
 go beyond man. The. sublime applies to the pure spirit. 
 The sublime must be joined to the beautiful to complete 
 the (esthetic education, and to enlarge man's heart beyond 
 the sensuous world. 
 
 Without the beautiful there would be an eternal strife 
 between our natural and rational destiny. If we only 
 thought of our vocation as spirits we should be strangers 
 to this sphere of life. Without the sublime, beauty would 
 make us forget our dignity. Enervated — wedded to this 
 transient state, we should lose sight of our true country. 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 14^ 
 
 We are only perfect citizens of nature when the sublime is 
 wedded to the beautiful. 
 
 Manj- things in nature offer man the beautiful and sub- 
 lime. But here again he is better served at second-hand. 
 He prefers to have them ready-made in art ratlier than 
 seek them painfully in nature. This instinct for imi- 
 tation in art has the advantage of being able to make 
 those points essential that nature has made secondar3-. 
 While nature suffers violence in the organic world, or 
 exercises violence, working with power upon man, though 
 she can onlj' be eesthetical as an object of pure contem- 
 plation, art, plastic art, is fully free, because it throws off 
 all accidental restrictions and leaves the mind free, be- 
 cause it imitates the appearance, not the realit3' of 
 objects. As all sublimity and beauty consists in the 
 appearance, and not in the value of the object, it follows 
 that art has all the advantages of nature without her 
 shackles. 
 
 THE PATHETIC. 
 
 The depicting of suffering, in the shape of simple suffer- 
 ing, is never the end of art, but it is of the greatest im- 
 portance as a means ^f attaining its end. The highest 
 aim of art is to represent the super-sensuous, and this is 
 effected in particular by tragic art, because it represents 
 by sensible marks the moral man, maintaining himself in 
 a state of passion, independentlj" of the laws of nature. 
 The principle of freedom in man becomes conscious of 
 itself onl}' by the resistance it offers to the violence of the 
 feelings. Now the resistance can only be measured bj' 
 the strength of the attack. In order, therefore, that the 
 intelligence may re\eal itself in man as a force independ- 
 ent of nature, it is necessary' that nature should have first 
 displayed all her power before our eyes. The sensuous 
 being must be profoundly and strongh'- affected, passion 
 must be in play, that the reasonable being may be able to 
 testifj- his independence and manifest himself in action. 
 
150 ^STHETICAL utntKXiS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 It is impossible to k^jOw :f tht empire which man has 
 over his affections is the effect .<;f a moral force, till we 
 have acquired the certainty that it vs not an effect of in- 
 sensibility. There is no merit in msistering the feelings 
 which only lightly and transitorih' skim over the surface 
 of the soul. But to resist a tempest which stirs up the 
 whole of sensuous nature, and to preserve in it the free- 
 dom of the soul, a facultj- of resistance is required infi- 
 nitely superior to the act of natural force. Accordingly 
 it will not be possible to represent moral fivedom, except 
 by expressing passion, or suffering nature, with the great- 
 est vividness ; and the hero of tragedy must first have jus- 
 tified his claim to be a sensuous being before aspiring to 
 our homage as a reasonable being, and making us believe 
 in his strength of mind. 
 
 Therefore the pathetic is the first condition required 
 most strictly in a tragic author, and he is allowed to carry 
 his description of suffering as far as possible, without 
 prejudice -to the highest end of his ((rt, that is, without 
 moral freedom being oppressed by it. He must give in 
 some sort to his hero, as to his reader, their full load of 
 suffering, without which the question will always be put 
 whether the resistance opposed to suffering is an act of 
 the soul, something positive, or whether it is not rather a 
 purely- )ief/ative thing, a simple deflcienc}-. 
 
 The latter case is offered in the purer French traged}', 
 where it is veiy rare, or perhaps unexampled, for the 
 author to place before the reader suffering nature, and 
 where generall}-, on the contrarj', it is onlj- the poet who 
 warms up and declaims, or the comedian who struts abouv 
 on stilts. The icy tone of declamation extinguishes all 
 nature here, and the French tragedians, with their super- 
 stitious worship of decorum, make it quite impossible for 
 them to paint human nature truly. Decorum, wherever it 
 is, even in its proper place, alwaj's falsifies the expression 
 of nature, and yet this expression is rigorousl}* required 
 by art. In a French tragedy, it is difficult for us to be- 
 lieve that the hero ever suffers, for he explains the state 
 of his soul, as the coolest man would do, and always; 
 thinking of the effect he is making on others, he never lets 
 nature pour forth freely. The kings, the princesses, and 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 151 
 
 the heroes of Corneille or Voltaire never forget their ranh 
 even in the most violent excess of passion ; and they part 
 with their hwmanity much sooner than with their dignity. 
 Thej- are like those kings and emperors of our old picture- 
 books, who go to bed with their crowns on. 
 
 What a difference from the Greeks and those of the 
 moderns who have been inspired with their spirit in 
 poetry ! Never does the Greek poet blush at nature ; he 
 [eaves to the sensuous all its rights, and j-et he is quite 
 certain never to be subdued by it. He has too much 
 depth and too much rectitude in his mind not to distin- 
 guish the accidental, which is the principal point with false 
 taste, from the reallj' necessary ; but all that is not 
 humanity itself is accidental in man. The Greek artist 
 who has to represent a Laocoon, a Niobe, and a Philoc- 
 tetes, does not care for the king, the princess, or the 
 king's son ; he keeps to the man. Accordinglj- the skil- 
 ful statuary sets aside the drapery, and shows us nude 
 figures, though he knows quite well it is not so in real life. 
 This is because drapery is to him an accidental thing, and 
 because the necessary ought never to be sacrificed to the 
 accidental. It is also because, if decencj' and phj'sical 
 necessities have their laws, these laws are not those of art. 
 The statuary ought to show us, and wishes to show us, the 
 man himself ; drapery conceals him, therefore he sets that 
 aside, and with reason. 
 
 The Greek sculptor rejects draperj' as a useless and 
 embarrassing load, to make way for human nature; and in 
 like manner the Greek poet emancipates the human per- 
 sonages he brings forward from the equallj' useless con- 
 straint of decorum, and all those icy laws of propriety, 
 which put nothing but what is artificial in man, and con- 
 ceal nature in it. Take Homer and the tragedians ; suffer- 
 ing nature speaks the language of truth and ingenuous- 
 ness in their pages, and in a way to penetrate to the 
 depths of our hearts. All the passions play their part 
 freely, nor do the rules of propriety compress any feeling 
 with the Greeks. The heroes are just as much under the 
 influence of suffering as other men, and what makes them 
 heroes is the verj' fact that they feel suffering strongly 
 and deeply, without suffering overcoming them. They 
 
152 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 love life as ardently as others ; but they are not so ruled 
 by this feeling as to be unable to give up life when the 
 duties of honor or humanity call on them to do so. 
 Philoctetes filled the Greek stage with his lamentations ; 
 Hercules himself, when in fury, does not keep under his 
 grief. Iphigenia, on the point of being sacrificed, con- 
 fesses with a touching ingenuousness that she grieves to 
 part with the light of the sun. Never does the Greek 
 place his glory in being insensible or indifferent to suffer- 
 ing, but rather in sxqijyorting it, though feeling it in its 
 fulness. The very gods of the Greeks must pay their 
 tribute to nature, when the poet wishes to make them 
 approximate to humanitj-. Mars, when wounded, roars 
 like ten thousand men together, and Venus, scratched by 
 an iron lance, mounts again to Olympus, weeping, and 
 cursing all battles. 
 
 This lively susceptibility on the score of suffering, this 
 warm, ingenuous nature, showing itself uncovered and in 
 all truth in the monuments of Greek art, and filling us 
 with such deep and livel}' emotions — this is a model pre- 
 sented for the imitation of all artists ; it is a law which 
 Greek genius has laid down for the fine arts. It is alwaj's 
 and eternallj' nature which has the first rights over man ; 
 she ought never to be fettered, because man, before being 
 anything else, is a sensuous creature. After the rights 
 of nature come those of reaso7i, because man is a rational, 
 sensuous being, a moral person, and because it is a dutj' 
 for this person not to let hmiself be ruled by nature, but 
 to rule her. It is only after satisfaction has been given in 
 the first place to nature, and after reason in the second 
 ■ place has made its rights acknowledged, that it is per- 
 mitted for decorum in the third place to make good its 
 claims, to impose on man, in the expression of his moral 
 feelings and of his sensations, considerations towards 
 society', and to show in it the social being, the civilized 
 man. The first law of the tragic art was to represent suf- 
 fering nature. The second law is to represent the resist- 
 ance of morality opposed to sufl'ering. 
 
 AflFection, as affection, is an unimportant thing; and 
 the portraiture of affection, considered in itself, would be 
 without anj' lesthetic value ; for, I repeat it, nothing that 
 
jEsthetical letters and essays. 153 
 
 only interests sensuous nature is worthy of being repre- 
 sented by art. Thus not only the affections that do 
 nothing but enervate and soften man, but in general all 
 affections, even those that are exalted, ecstatic, whatever 
 may be their nature, are beneath the dignity of tragic art. 
 
 The soft emotions, only producing tenderness, are of the 
 nature of the agreeMe, with which the fine arts are not 
 concerned. They only caress the senses, while relaxing 
 and creating languidness, and only relate to external 
 nature, not at all to the inner nature of man. A good 
 number of our romances and of our tragedies, particularl}- 
 those that bear the name of dramas — a sort of com- 
 promise between tragedy and comedy — -a good number 
 also of those highly-appreciated family portraits, belong 
 to this class. The only effect of these works is to empty 
 the lachrymal duct, and soothe the overflowing feelings ; 
 but the mind comes back from them empty, and the moral 
 being, the noblest part of our nature, gathers no new 
 strength whatever from them, " It is thus," says Kant, 
 "that many persons feel themselves ec?{/fe(/ bj' a sermon 
 that has nothing edifying in it." It seems also that mod- 
 ern music onlj' aims at interesting the sensuous, and in 
 this it flatters the taste of the day, which seeks to be 
 agreeably tickled, but not to be startled, nor strongly 
 moved and elevated. Accordinglj- we see music prefer all 
 that is tender; and whatever be the noise in a concert- 
 room, silence is immediately restored, and every one is all 
 ears directly a sentimental passage is performed. Then 
 an expression of sensibility common to animalism shows 
 itself commonly on all faces ; the eyes are swimming with 
 intoxication, the open mouth is all desire, a voluptuous 
 trembling takes hold of the entire bod3% the breath is 
 quick and full, in short, all the sj'mptoms of intoxication 
 appear. This is an evident proof that the senses swim in 
 delight, but that the mind or the principle of freedom in 
 man has become a prey to the violence of the sensuous 
 impression. Eeal taste, that of noble and manly minds, 
 rejects all these emotions as unworthy of art, because 
 they only please the senses, with which art has nothing in 
 common. 
 
 But, on the other hand, real taste excludes all extreme 
 
l54 JiSTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 affections, which only put sensuousness to the torture^ 
 without giving the mind any compensation. These affee 
 tions oppress moral libertj- hy pain, as the others by volup- 
 tuousness ; consequently they can excite aversion, and 
 not the emotion that would alone be worthj' of art. 
 Art ought to charm the mind and give satisfaction to the 
 feeling of moral freedom. This man who is a prey to his 
 pain is to me simply a tortured animate being, and not 
 a man tried hy suffering. For a moral resistance to pain- 
 ful affections is already required of man — a resistance 
 which can alone allow the principle of moral freedom, the 
 intelligence, to make itself known in it. 
 
 If it is so, the poets and the artists are poor adepts in 
 their art when they seek to reach the pathetic only bj' the 
 sensuous force of affection and by representing suffering 
 in the most vivid manner. They forget that suffering in 
 itself can never be the last end of imitation, nor the 
 immediate source of the pleasure we experience in traged}'. 
 The pathetic only has sesthetic Aalue in as far as it is 
 subhme. Now, effects that only allow us to infer apurely 
 sensuous cause, and that are founded only on the affection 
 experienced by the faculty' of sense, are never sublime, 
 whatever energy they may display, for everytliing sublime 
 proceeds exclusively from the reason. 
 
 I imply by passion the affections of pleasure as well as 
 the painful affections, and to represent passion onlj-, with- 
 out coupling with it the expression of the super-sensuous 
 faculty which resists it, is to fall into W'hat is properly 
 called vulgarity; and the opposite is called nobility. 
 Vulgarity a,nd nobility are two ideas which, wherever thej' 
 are applied, have more or less relation with the super- 
 sensuous share a man takes in a work. There is noth- 
 ing noble but what has its source in the reason ; all that 
 issues from sensuousness alone is mdgar or common. We 
 saj- of a man that he acts in a vulgar manner when he is 
 satisfied with obej'ing the suggestions of his sensuous 
 instinct ; that he acts suitably when he onlj' obeys his 
 instinct in conformity with the laws ; that he acts nobly 
 when he obeys reason onlj^ without ha\'ing regard to his 
 instincts. We say of a physiognomy that it is commoji 
 when it does not show anj' trace of the spiritual man, 
 
^STIIETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 155 
 
 the intelligence ; we say it has expression when it is the 
 mind which has determined its features : and that it is 
 noble when a pure spirit has determined them. If an 
 architectural work is in question we qualify it as common 
 if it aims at nothing but a ph3-siealend ; we name it noble 
 if, independently of all physical aim, we find in it at the 
 same time the expression of a conception. 
 
 Accordingly, I repeat -it, correct taste disallows all 
 painting of the affections, however energetic, which rests 
 satisfied with expressing physical suffering and the physi- 
 cal resistance opposed to it hj the subject, without making 
 visible at the same time the superior principle of the 
 nature of man, the presence of a super-sensuous faculty. 
 It does this in virtue of the principle developed farther 
 back, namel}', that it is not suffering in itself, but only the 
 resistance opposed to suffering, that is pathetic and de- 
 serving of being represented. It is for this reason that 
 all the absolutely extreme degrees of the affections are 
 forbidden to the artist as well as to the poet. All of 
 these, in fact, oppress the force that resists from within : 
 or rather, all betray of themselves, and without any neces- 
 sit}' of other symptoms, the oppression of this force, 
 because no affection can reach this last degree of intensity 
 as long as the intelligence in man makes any resist- 
 ance. 
 
 Then another question presents itself. How is this 
 principle of resistance, tMs super-sensuous force, mani- 
 fested in the phenomenon of the affections? Only in one 
 way, by mastering or, more commonly, by combating affec- 
 tion. I saj' affection, for sensuousness can also fight, but 
 this combat of sensuousness is not carried on with 'the 
 affection, but with the cause that produces it ; a contest 
 which has no moral character, but is all phj'sical, the same 
 combat that the earthworm, trodden under foot, and the 
 wounded bull engage in, without thereby exciting the pa- 
 thetic. When suffering man seeks to give an expression 
 to his feelings, to remove his enemy, to shelter the suffer- 
 ing limb, he does all this in common with the animals, and 
 instinct alone takes the initiative here, without the will 
 being applied to. Therefore, this is not an act that ema- 
 nates from the man himself, nor does it show him as an 
 
156 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 intelligence. Sensuous nature will always fight the 
 enemy that makes it suffer, but it will never fight against 
 itself. 
 
 On the other hand, the contest with affection is a con- 
 test with sensuousness, and consequently presupposes 
 something that is distinct from sensuous nature. Man 
 can defend himself with the help of common sense and his 
 muscular strength against the object that makes him suffer ; 
 against suffering itself he has no other arms than those of 
 reason. 
 
 These ideas must present themselves to the eye in the 
 portraiture of the affections, or be awakened by this por- 
 traiture in order that the pathetic may exist. But it is 
 impossible to represent ideas, in the proper sense of the 
 word, and positively, as nothing corresponds to pure ideas 
 in the world of sense. But thej- can be alwaj's represented 
 negatively and in an indirect way if the sensuous phenom- 
 enon by which they are manifested has some character of 
 which you would seek in vain the conditions in physical 
 nature. All phenomena of which the ultimate principle 
 cannot be derived from the world of sense are an indirect 
 representation of the upper-sensuous element. 
 
 And how does one succeed in representing something 
 that is above nature without having recourse to super- 
 natural means ? What can this phenomenon be which is 
 accomplished by natural forces — otherwise it would not be 
 a phenomenon — and j^et which cannot be derived from 
 physical causes without a contradiction? This is the 
 problem ; how can the artist solve it ? 
 
 It must be remembered that the phenomena observable 
 in a man in a state of passion are of two kinds. They are 
 either phenomena connected simply with animal nature, 
 and which, therefore, only obey the physical law, without 
 the will being able to master them, or the independent 
 force in him being able to exercise an immediate influence 
 over them. It is the instinct which immediately produces 
 these phenomena, and they obey blindly the laws of in- 
 stinct. To this kind belong, for example, the organs of 
 the circulation of the blood, of respiration, and all the sur- 
 face of the skin. But, moreover, the other organs, and 
 those subject to the will, do not always await the decision 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 157 
 
 of the will ; and often instinct itself sets them immediate!}- 
 in play, especiallj- when the physical state is threatened 
 with pain or with danger Thus, the movements of m\- 
 arm depend, it is true, on my will ; but if I place my hand, 
 without knowing it, on a burning bodj', the movement by 
 which I draw it back is certainly not a voluntarj- act, but 
 a purely instinctive phenomenon. Nay more, speech is 
 assuredly subject to the empire of tlie will, and yet instinct 
 can also dispose of this organ according to its whim, and 
 even of this and of the mind, without cunsulting before- 
 hand the will, directly a sharp pain, or even an energetic 
 affection, takes us bj- surprise. Take the most impassil le 
 stoic and make him see suddenly' something ver^- wonder- 
 ful, or a terrible and unexpected object. Fanc}- him, for 
 example, present when a man .slips and falls to the bottom 
 of an abyss. A shout, a resounding crj-, and not only 
 inarticulate, but a distinct word will escape his lips, and 
 nature will have acted in him before the will : a certain 
 proof that there arc in man phenomena which cannot be 
 referred to his person as an intelligence, but only to his 
 instinct as a natural force. 
 
 But there is also in man a second order of phenomena, 
 which are subject to the influence and empire of the will, 
 or which may be considered at all events as being of such 
 a kind that will might always have prevented tbem, conse- 
 quentl}' phenomena for which the person, and not instinct 
 is responsible. It is the office of instinct to watch with a 
 blind zeal over the interests of the senses ; but it is the 
 office of the person to hold instinct in proper bounds, out 
 of respect for the moral law. Instinct in itself does not 
 hold account of any law ; but the person ought to watch 
 that instinct may not infringe in an}' way on the decrees 
 of reason. It is therefore evident that it is not for instinct 
 alone to determine unconditionall}- all the phenomena that 
 take place in man in the state of affection, and that on 
 the contrary the will of man can place limits to instinct. 
 When instinct onlj' determines all phenomena in man, 
 there is nothing more that can recall the person; there is 
 onh' a phj'sical creature before you, and consequentlj' an 
 animal ; for every physical creature subject to the sway of 
 instinct is nothing else. Therefore, if you wish to repre- 
 
158 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 sent the person itself, you must propose to yourself in man 
 certain phenomena that have been determined in oppo- 
 sition to instinct, or at least that have not been determined 
 by instinct. That they have not been determined by in- 
 stinct is sufficient to refer them to a higher source, the 
 moment we see that instinct would no doubt have deter- 
 mined them in another way if its force had not been broken 
 by some obstacle. 
 
 We are now in a position to point out in what way the 
 super-sensuous element, the moral and independent force 
 of man, his Ego in short, can be represented in the phe- 
 nomena of the affections. I understand that this is 
 possible if the parts which only obey physical nature, 
 tliose where will either disposes nothing at all, or only 
 under certain circumstances, betray the presence of suffer- 
 ing ; and if those, on the contrary, that escape the blind 
 swiiy of instinct, that only obey physical nature, show 
 no trace, or only a very feeble trace, of suffering, and con- 
 sequenth' appear to have a certain degree of freedom. 
 Now this want of harmony between the features imprinted 
 on animal nature in virtue of the laws of phj-sical necessity, 
 and those determined with the spiritual and independent 
 faculty of man, is precisely tlae point bv which that super- 
 sensuous principle is discovered in man capable of placing 
 limits to the effects produced by physical nature, and 
 therefore distinct from the latter. The purelj- animal part 
 of man obeys the physical law, and consequent!}' ma}' 
 show itself oppressed by the affection. It is, therefore, 
 in this part that all the strength of passion shows itself, 
 and it answers in some degree as a measure to estimate 
 the resistance — that is to sa}^ of the energ}- of the moral 
 faculty in man — which can only be judged according to 
 the force of the attack. Thus in proportion as the affec- 
 tion manifests itself with decision and violence in the field 
 of animal iMtare, without being able to exercise the 
 same power in the field of human nature, so in proportion 
 tlie latter makes itself manifestly known — in the same 
 proportion the moral independence of man shows itself 
 gloi-iously : the portraiture becomes pathetic tind the pa- 
 thetic sublime. 
 
 The statues of the ancients miike this principle of 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 159 
 
 sesyietics sensible to us ; but it is difficult to reduce to 
 conceptions and express in words what the ver\- inspection 
 of ancient statues makes the senses feel in so lively a 
 manner. The group of Laocoon and his children can give 
 • to a great extent the measure of what the plastic art of 
 the ancients was capable of producing in the matter of pa- 
 thos. Winckelmann, in his "History of Art," saj-s : 
 " Laocoon is nature seized in the highest degree of suffer- 
 ing, under the features of a man who seeks to gather up 
 against pain all the strength of which the mind is con- 
 scious. Hence while his suffering swells his muscles and 
 stretches his nerves, the mind, armed with an interior 
 force shows itself on his contracted brow, and the breast 
 rises, because the breathing is broken, and because there 
 is an internal struggle to keep in the expression of pain, 
 and press it back into his heart. The sigh of anguish he 
 wishes to keep in, his very breath which he smothers, ex- 
 haust the lower ^ part of his trunk, and works into his 
 flanks, which make us judge in some degree of the palpi- 
 tations of his visceral organs. But his own suffering 
 appears to occasion less anguish than the pain of his 
 children, who turn their faces toward their father, and 
 implore him, crying for help. His father's heart shows 
 itself in his e3'es, full of sadness, and where pitj' seems to 
 swim in a troubled cloud. His face expresses lament, but 
 he does not cry ; his e3'es are turned to heaven, and implore 
 help from on high. Hi^mouth also marks a supreme sad- 
 ness, which depresses the lower lip and seems to weigh 
 upon it, while the upper lip, contracted from the top to the 
 bottom, expresses at once both physical suffering and that 
 of the soul. Under the mouth there is an expression of 
 indignation that seems to protest against an undeserved 
 suffering, and is revealed in the nostrils, which swell out 
 and enlarge and draw upwards. Under the forehead, the 
 struggle between pain and moral strength, united as it 
 were in a single point, is represented with great truth, for, 
 while pain contracts and raises the eyebrows, the effort op- 
 posed to it by the will draws down towards the upper eye- 
 lid all the nu5scles above it, so that the eyelid is almo=<- 
 covered by them. The artist, not being able to embellisli 
 nature, has sought at least to develop its means, to increase 
 
160 JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 its effect and power. Where is the greatest amount of 
 pain is also the highest beauty. The left side, which 
 the serpent besets with liis furious bites, and where he in- 
 stils his poison, is that which appears to suffer the most 
 intensel}-, because sensation is there nearest to the heart. 
 The legs strive to raise themselves as if to shun the evil ; 
 the whole bod3- is nothing but movement, and even the 
 traces of the chisel contribute to the illusion ; we seem to 
 see the shuddering and icj'-cold skin." 
 
 How great is the truth and acuteness of this analysis ! 
 In what a superior stj'le is this struggle between spirit and 
 the suffering of nature developed ! How correctly the 
 author has seized each of the phenomena in which the 
 animal element and the human element manifest them- 
 selves, the constraint of nature and the independence of 
 reason ! It is well known that Virgil has described this 
 same scene in his "^neid," but it did not enter into the 
 plan of the epic poet to pause as the sculptor did, and 
 describe the moral nature of Laocoon ; for this recital is 
 in Virgil onl}' an episode ; and the object he proposes is 
 sufflcientlj' attained bj' the simple description of the phy- 
 sical phenomenon, without the necessity on his part of 
 looking into the soul of the unhappj- sufferer, as his aim 
 is less to inspire us with pity than to fill us with terror. 
 The dutj- of the poet from this point of view was purelj- 
 negative ; I mean he had only to avoid carrying the pic- 
 ture of phj-sical suffering to such a degree that all expres- 
 sion of human dignitj' or of moral resistance would cease, 
 for if he had done this indignation and disgust would 
 certainly be felt. He, therefore, preferred to confine him- 
 self to the representation of the least of the suffering, and 
 he found it advisable to dwell at length on the formida- 
 ble nature of the two serpents, and on the rage with 
 which thej- attack their victims, rather than on the 
 feelings of Laocoon. He only skims over those feelings, 
 because his first object was to represent a chastise- 
 ment sent by the gods, and to produce an impres- 
 sion of terror that nothing could diminish. If he had, 
 on the contrary, detained our looks on the person of 
 Laocoon himself with as much perseverance as the statu- 
 ary-, instead of on the chastizing deity, the suffering man 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 161 
 
 would have become the hero of the scene, and the episode 
 would have lost its propriety in connection with the whole 
 piece. 
 
 The narrative of Virgil is well known through the ex- 
 cellent commentarj' of Lessing. But Lessing only pro- 
 posed to make evident by this example the limits that 
 separate partial description from painting, and not to 
 make the notion of the pathetic issue from it. Yet the 
 passage of Virgil does not appear to me less valuable for 
 this latter object, and I crave permission to bring it for- 
 ward again under this point of view : — 
 
 Ecce autem "femini Tenedo tranquilla per alta 
 (Hoi'i'esco referens) immensis orbibus angues 
 Incumbunt pelago, pariterque ad litora tendunt; 
 Pectora quoi'um inter tiuctus arrecta juba^que 
 Sanjruinse exsuperaiit undas ; pars esetera pontum 
 Pone legit, sinuatque immensa volumine terga. 
 Fit sonitus spumaute salo, jamque arva tenebant, 
 Ardentes oculos suffecti sanguine et i^ni, 
 Sibila lambebant Unguis vibrantibus ora ! 
 
 ^neid, ii. 203-211. 
 
 We find here realized the fi.rstof the three conditions of 
 the sublime that have been mentioned further back, — a 
 very powerful natural force, armed for destruction, and 
 ridiculing all resistance. But that this strong element 
 may at the same time be terrible, and thereby sahlime, 
 two distinct operations of the miud are wanted ; I mean 
 two representations that we produce in ourselves by our 
 own activitj'. First, we recognize this irresistible natural 
 force as terrible by comparing it with the weakness of the 
 faculty of resistance that the physical man can oppose to 
 it; and, secondly, it is by referring it to our will, and 
 recalHng to our consciousness that the will is abso- 
 lutely independent of all influence of physical nature, that 
 this force iDCComes to us a sublime object. But it is we 
 ourselves who represent these two relations ; the poet has 
 onlj' given us an object armed with a great force seeking 
 to manifest itself. If this object makes us tremble, it is 
 onl}- because we in thought suppose ourselves, or some one 
 Mke us, engaged with this force. And if trembling in this 
 way, we experience the feeling of the sublime, it is 
 because our consciousness tells us that, if we are the vie- 
 
162 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 tims of this force, we should have nothing to fear, from 
 the freedom of our Ego, .for the autonomy of the deter- 
 minations of our will. In short the description up to here 
 is subhme, but quite a contemplative, intuitive sublimity : — 
 
 Diffugimus visu exsangues, illi agmine certo 
 Laocoonta petunt ... — ^neid, ii. 212-213. 
 
 Here the force is presented to us as terrible also ; and 
 contemplative sublimity passes into the pathetic. We see 
 that force enter really into strife with man's impotence. 
 Whether it concerns Laocooh or ourselves is only a ques- 
 tion of degree. The instinct of sympatliy excites and 
 frightens in us the instinct of preservation : there are the 
 monsters, they are darting — on ourselves ; there is no 
 more safety, flight is vain. 
 
 It is no more in our power to measure this force with 
 ours, and to refer it or not to our own existence. This 
 happens without our co-operation, and is given us by the 
 object itself. Accordingly our fear has not, as in the 
 preceding moment, a purely subjective ground, residing 
 in our soul ; it has an objective ground, residing in 
 the object. For, even if we recognize in this entire scene 
 a simple Action of the imagination, we nevertheless distin- 
 guish in this fiction a conception communicated to us from 
 without, from another conception that we produce spon- 
 taneously in ourselves. 
 
 Thus the mind loses a part of her freedom, inasmuch as 
 she receives now from without that which she produced 
 before her own activitj'. The idea of danger puts on an 
 appearance of objective reality, and affection becomes now 
 a serious affair. 
 
 If we were only sensuous creatures, obeying no other 
 instinct than that of self-preservation, we should stop here, 
 and we should remain in a state of mere and pure affec- 
 tion. But there is something in us which takes no part in 
 the affections of sensuous nature, and whose activity is not 
 directed according to physical conditions. According, 
 then, as this independently acting principle (the disposi- 
 tion, the moral faculty) has become to a degree developed 
 in the soul, there is left more or less space for passive 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 163 
 
 nature, and there remains more or less of the independent 
 principle in the affection. 
 
 In the truly moral soul the terrible trial (of the 
 imagination) passes quickly and readily into the sub- 
 lime. In proportion as imagination loses its liberty, rea- 
 son makes its own prevail, and the soul ceases not to 
 enlarge within when it thus finds outward limits. Driven 
 from all tlie intrenchments which would give phjsical pro- 
 tection to sensuous creatures, we seek refuge in the 
 stronghold of our moral liberty, and we arrive b}- that 
 means at an absolute and unlimited safety-, at the very 
 moment when we seem to be deprived in the world of 
 phenomena of 'a relative and precarious rampart. But 
 precisely because it was necessarj' to ha\e arrived at tlie 
 physical oppression before having recourse to the assist- 
 ance of our moral nature, we can only buj' this high senti- 
 ment of our liberty through suffering. An ordinary soul 
 confines itself entirely to this suffering, and never com- 
 prehends in the sublime or the pathetic anything beyond 
 the terrible. An independent soul, on the contrar}-, pre- 
 cisely- seizes this occasion to rise to the feeling of his 
 moral force, in all that is most magnificent in this force, 
 and from everj- terrible object knows how to draw out 
 the sublime. 
 
 The moral man (the father*) is here attacked before the 
 physical man, and that has a grand effect. All the affec- 
 tions become more aesthetic when we receive them second- 
 hand ; there is no stronger sj-mpath^' than that we feel for 
 sympathy-. 
 
 t The moment had arrived when the hero himself had 
 to be recommended to our respect as a moral personage, 
 and the poet seized upon that moment. We alread3- know- 
 by his description all the force, all the rsge of the two 
 monsters'who menace Laocoon, and we know how all re- 
 sistance would be in vain. If Laocoon were oiily a com- 
 mon man he would better understand his own interests, 
 and, like the rest of the Trojans, he would find safet}' in 
 rapid flight. But there is a heart in that breast ; the 
 danger to his children holds him back, and decides him to 
 meet his fate. This trait alone renders him worthj' of our 
 * See ".^Eneid, ' ii. 213-215. t Ibid, 216-217. 
 
164 ^.STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 pity. A.t whatever moment the serpents had assailed him, 
 we should have always been touched and troubled. But 
 because it happens just at the moment when as father he 
 shows himself so worthj' of respect, his fate appears to us 
 as the result of having fulfilled his duty as parent, of his 
 tender disquietude for his children. It is ths which calls 
 forth our sympathj' in the highest degree. It appears, in 
 fact, as if he deliberatel}- devoted himself to destruction, 
 and his death becomes an act of the will. 
 
 Thus there are two conditions in everj' kind of the 
 pathetic : 1st. Suffering, to interest our sensuous nature ; 
 2d. Moral liberty, to interest our spiritual nature. All 
 l)(>rtr:iitMre in which the expression of suffering nature is 
 wanting remains without aesthetic action, and our heart is 
 untouclied. AIJ. portraiture in which the expression of 
 moral aptitude is wanting, even did it possess all the sen- 
 suoui force possible, could not attain to the pathetic, and 
 would infallibly revolt our feelings. Throughout moral 
 liberty we require the human being who suffers ; through- 
 out all tlie sufferings of human nature we alwaj'S desire to 
 perceive the independent spirit, or the capacity for inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 But the independence of the spiritual being in the state 
 of suffering can manifest itself in two ways. JCither neg- 
 atively, when the moral man does not receive the law from 
 the phj'sical man, and his state exercises no influence over 
 l>is manner of feeling ; or positivelj", when the moral man 
 is a ruler over the physical being, and his manner of feel- 
 ing exercises an influence upon his state. In the first 
 case, it is the sublime of disposition ; in the second, it is 
 the sublime of action. 
 
 The sublime of disposition is seen in all character inde- 
 pendent of the accidents of fate. " A noble heart strug- 
 gling against adversity," says Seneca, " is a spectacle full 
 of attraction even for the gods." Such for example is that 
 which the Roman Senate ofi'ered after the disaster of 
 Cannas. Lucifer even, in Milton, when for the first time 
 he contemplates hell — which is to be his future abode — 
 penetrates us with a sentiment of admiration by the force 
 of soul he displays : — 
 
JESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 165 
 
 " Hail, horrors, hail . 
 Infernal world, and thou, profoundest Hell; 
 Eeceive thy new possessor! — one who brings 
 A mind not to be clianged by place or time; 
 The mind is its own place, and in itself 
 
 Can make a Heaven of Plell 
 
 Here at least 
 We shall be free,'' &c. 
 
 The repl}' of Medea in the tragedy belongs also to this 
 order of the sublime. 
 
 The sublime of disposition makes itself seen, it is visible 
 to the spectator, because it rests upon co-existence, the. 
 simultaneous ; the sublime action, on the contrary, is 
 conceived only bij the thought, because the impression and 
 the act are successive, and the intervention of the mind is 
 necessary to. infer from a free determination the idea of 
 previous suffering. 
 
 It follows that the first alone can be expressed by the 
 plastic arts, because these arts give but that which is 
 simultaneous ; but the poet can extend his domain over 
 one and the other. Even more ; when the plastic art has 
 to represent a sublime action, it must necessaril}' bring it 
 bade to sublimitj'. 
 
 In order that the sublimity of action should take place, 
 not only must the suffering of man have no influence upon 
 the moral constitution, but rather the opposite must be the 
 case. The affection is the work of his moral character. 
 This can happen in two wajs : either mediatelj', or ac- 
 cording to the law of nbertj-, when out of respect for such 
 and such a duty it decides from free choice to suffer — in 
 this case, the idea of duty determines as a motive, and its 
 suffering is a voluntarj^ act — or immediately', and accord- 
 ing to the necessity of nature, when he expiates by a 
 moral suffering the violation of dutj- ; in this second case, 
 the idea of duty determines him as a force, and his suffer- 
 ing is no longer an effect. Regiilus offers us an example 
 of the first kind, when, to keep his word, he gives himself 
 up to the vengeance of the Carthaginians ; and he would 
 serve as an example of the second class, if, having betrayed 
 his trust, the consciousness of this crime would have made 
 him miserable. In both cases suffering has amoral course, 
 but with this difference, that on the one part Eegulus shows 
 
166 JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 US its moral cluxracter, and that, on the other, he onl}', 
 shows us that he was made to have such a character. In 
 the first case he is in our eyes a morall\- great person ; in 
 the second he is onlj- ajstlietically great. 
 
 Tliis last distinction is important for the tragic art ; it 
 consequently deserves to be examined uiore closely. 
 
 Man is alread}- a sublime object, but onlj- in the aes- 
 thetic sense, when the utate in which he is gives us an idea 
 of his human destination, even though we might not find 
 this destination realized in his person. He onl}' becomes 
 sublime to us in a moral point of view, when he -acts, 
 moreover, as a person, in a manner conformable with this 
 destination ; if our respect bears not onl}- on his moral 
 faculty, but on the use he makes of this faculty ; if dig- 
 nity, in his case, is due, not onlj' to his moral aptitude, 
 but to the real morality of his conduct. It is quite a dif- 
 ferent thing to direct our judgment and attention to the 
 moral faculty generally, and to the possibilitj' of a will 
 absolutely free, and to be directing it to the use of this 
 facultv, and to the realit}' of this absolute freedom of 
 willing. 
 
 It is, I repeat, quite a difl!erent thing ; and this difl'er- 
 ence is connected not onh- with the olijects to which we 
 maj' have to direct our judgment, but to the very criterion 
 of our judgment. The same object can displease us if we 
 appreciate it in a moral point of view, and be very attract- 
 ive to us in the sesthetical point of view. But even if the 
 moral judgment and the sesthetical judgment were both 
 satisfied, this object would produce this effect on one and 
 the other in quite a different way. It is not morallj- satis- 
 factory because it has an sesthetical value, nor has it an 
 cesthetical value because it satisfies us morally. Let us 
 take, as example, Leonidas and his devotion at Therm.op- 
 j'lse. Judged from the moral point of view, this action 
 represents to me the moral law carried out notwithstanding 
 all the repugnance of instinct. Judged from the testhetic 
 point of view, it gives me the idea of the moral facultv, 
 independent of every constraint of instinct. The act of 
 Leonidas satinfen the moral sense, the reason ; it enrap' 
 tures the sesthetical sense, the imagination. 
 
iESTHETICAL I-ETTEItS AND ESSAYS. 167 
 
 Whence comes this difference in tlie feelings in connec- 
 tion witli the same object? I account for it thus : — 
 
 In tlie sjime way that our being consists of two princi- 
 ples and natures, so also and consequently our feelings 
 are divided into two kinds, entirely different. As reason- 
 able beings we experience a feeling of approbation or of 
 disapprobation ; as sensuous creatures we experience 
 pleasure or displeasure. The two feelings, approbation 
 and pleasure, repose on satisfaction : one on a satisfaction 
 given to a requirement of reason — reason has onlj' re- 
 quirements, and not wants. The other depends on a sat- 
 isfaction given to a sensuous want — sense only knows of 
 wants, and cannot prescribe anjthing Tliese two terms 
 — requirements of reason, wants of the senses — are 
 mutually related, as absolute necessity and the necessity 
 of nature. Accordingly', both are included in the idea of 
 necessity, but with this difference, that the necessity of 
 reason is unconditional, and the necessity of sense only 
 takes place under conditions. But, for both, satisfaction 
 is a purely contingent thing. Accordingl}- every feeling, 
 whether of pleasure or approbation, rests definitivel3' on an 
 agreement between the contingent and the necessary. If 
 the necessary has thus an imperative character, the feeling 
 experienced will be that of approbation. If necessity has 
 the character of a want, the feeling experienced will be 
 that of pleasure, and both will be strong in proportion as 
 the satisfaction will be cjpntingent. Now, underlying every 
 moral judgment there is a requirement of reason which 
 requires us to act conforma"bly with the moral law, and it 
 is an absolute necessity that we should wish what is good. 
 But as the will is free, it is physical!}' an accidental thing 
 that we should do in fact what is g'ood. If we actually 
 do it, this agreement between the contingent in tlie use of 
 free will and the imperative demand of reason gives rise 
 to our assent or approbation, which will be greater in pro- 
 portion as the resistance of the inclinations made this use 
 that we make of our free will more accidental and more 
 doubtful. Every gesthetic judgment, on the contrary, 
 refers the object to the necessit}' which cannot help will- 
 ing imperatively, but only desires that there should be an 
 agreement between the accidental and its own interest. 
 
168 jESThexioal letters and essays. 
 
 Now what is the interest of imagination? It is to 
 emancipate itself (Voui all laws, and to play its part freely. 
 The obligation imposed on the will by the moral law, 
 which prescribes it.s object in the strictest manner, is by 
 no means favorable to this need of independence. And 
 as the moral obligation of the will is the object of the 
 moral judgment, it is clear that in this mode of judging, 
 the imagination could not find its interest. But a moral 
 obligation imposed on the will cannot be conceived, ex- 
 cept by supposing this same will absolutely independent 
 of the moral instincts and from their constraint. Accord- 
 ingly the possihilitij of the moral act requires liberty, and 
 therefore agrees here in the most perfect manner with the 
 interest of imagination. But as invagination, through the 
 medium of its wants, cannot give orders to the will of the 
 individual, as reason does by its imperative character, it 
 follows that the faculty of freedom, in relation to imagi- 
 nation, is something accidental, and consequently that the 
 agreement between the accidental and the necessary (con- 
 ditionally necessary) must excite pleasure. Therefore, if 
 we bring to bear a moral judgment on this act of Leoni- 
 das, we shall consider it from a point of view where its 
 accidental character strikes the eye less than its necessary 
 side. If, on the other hand, we apply the cesthetical judg- 
 ment to it, this is another point of view, where its charac- 
 ter of necessity strikes us less forcibly than its accidental 
 character. It is a duty for every will to act thus, directly 
 it is a free will ; but the fact that there is a free will that 
 makes this act possible is a favor of nature in regard to 
 this faculty, to which freedom is a necessity. Thus an 
 act of virtue judged by the moral sense — by reason — will 
 give us as its onlj- satisfaction the feeling of approbation, 
 because reason can never find iixjre, and seldom finds as 
 much as it requires. This same act, judged, on the con- 
 trary, by the »sthetic sense — by imagination — will give 
 us a positive pleasure, because the imagination, never re- 
 quiring the end to agree with the demand, must be sur- 
 prised, enraptured, at the real satisfaction of this demand 
 as at a happj' chance. Our reason will merely approve, 
 and only approve, of Leonidas actually taking this heroic 
 resolution; but that he cr^^A? take this resolution is what 
 delights and enraptures iis. 
 
iKSTHETIOAL LETXEKB AND ESSAYS, 169 
 
 This distinction between the two sorts of jurlgments 
 becomes more evident still, if we take an example where 
 the moral sense and the aesthetic sense pronounce a differ- 
 ent verdict. Suppose we take the act of Perigrinus Pro- 
 teus burning himself at Olympia. Judging this act 
 morally, I cannot give it mj- approbation, inasmuch as I 
 see it determined by impure motives, to which Proteus 
 sacrifices the duty of respecting his own existence. But 
 in the aesthetic judgment this same act delights me ; it 
 delights me precisely because it testifies to a power of 
 will capable of resisting even the most potent of instincts, 
 that of self-preservation. "Was it a moral feeling, or only 
 a more powerful sensuous attraction, that silenced the 
 instinct of self-preservation in this enthusiast. It matters 
 little, when I appreciate the act from an aesthetic point of 
 view. I then drop the individual, I take awa}- the relation 
 of his will to the law that ought to govern him ; I think of 
 human will in general, considered as a common faculty of 
 the race, and I regard it in connection with all the forces 
 of nature. We have seen that in a moral point of view, 
 the preservation of our being seemed to us a duty, and 
 therefore we were ofl'ended at seeing Proteus violate this 
 duty. In an aesthetic point of view the self-preservation 
 only appears as an interest, and therefore the sacrifice 
 of this interest pleases us. Thus the operation that we 
 perform in the judgments of the second kind is precisel3' 
 the inverse of that whicU we perform in those of the first. 
 In the former we oppose the individual, a sensuous and 
 limited being, and his personal will, which can be effected 
 pathologicall}', to the absolute law of the will in general, 
 and of unconditional dut}- which binds every spiritual 
 being ; in the second case, on the contrary, we oppose the 
 faculty of willing, absolute volition, and the spiritual force 
 as an infinite thing, to the solicitations of nature and the 
 impediments of sense. This is the reason why the aes- 
 thetical judgment leaves us free, and delights and enrap- 
 tures us. It is because the mere conception of this faculty 
 of willing in an absolute manner, the mere idea of this 
 moral aptitude, gives us in itself a consciousness of a 
 manifest advantage over the sensuous. It is because the 
 mere possibility of emancipating ourselves from the imped- 
 
170 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 iments of nature is in itself a satisfaction tliat flatters our 
 thirst for freedom. Tliis is tiie reason wiiy moral judgment, 
 on the contrary, makes us experience a feeling of constraint 
 that humbles ns. It is because in connection with each 
 voluntarj' act we appreciate in this manner, we feel, as 
 regards the absolute law that ought to rule the will in gen- 
 eral, in a position of inferiority more or less decided, and 
 because the constraint of the will thus limited to a single 
 determination, which duty requires of it at all costs, con- 
 tradicts the instinct of freedom which is the property of 
 imagination. In the former case we soared from the real 
 to the possible, and from the individual to the species ; in 
 the latter, on the contrary, we descend from the possible 
 to the real, and we shut up the species in the narrow limits 
 of the individual. We cannot therefore be surprised if 
 the sesthetical judgment enlarges the heart, while the moral 
 judgment constrains and straitens it. 
 
 It results, therefore, from all that which precedes, that 
 the moral judgment and the aesthetic, far from mutlially 
 corroborating each other, impede and hinder each other, 
 because they impress on the soul two directions entirely 
 opposite. In fact, this observance of rule which reason 
 requires of us as moral judge is incompatible with the 
 independence which the imagination calls for as aesthetic 
 judge. It follows that an object will have so much the 
 less aesthetic value the more it has the character of a 
 moral object, and if the poet were obliged notwithstanding 
 that to choose it, he would do well in treating of it, not to 
 call the attention of our reason to the rule of the will, but 
 that of our imagination to the power of the will. In his 
 own interest it is necessar3' for the poet to enter on this 
 path, for with our liberty- his empire finishes. We belong 
 to him only inasmuch as we look beyond ourselves ; we 
 escape from him the moment we re-enter into our inner- 
 most selves, and that is what infallibly takes place 
 the moment an object ceases to be a phenomenon in our 
 consideration, and takes the character of a law which 
 judges us. 
 
 • Even in the manifestation of the most sublime virtue, 
 the poet can onl}^ emploj' for his own views that which in 
 those acts belongs to force. As to the direction of the 
 
JESTHKTICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 171 
 
 force, he has no reason to be anxious. The poet, even 
 when he places before our e3'es the most perfect models of 
 morality, has not, and ought not to have, any other end 
 than that of rejoicing our soul bj' the contemplation of 
 this spectacle. • Moreover, nothing can rejoice our soul 
 except that which improves our personality, and nothing 
 can give us a spiritual joy except that which elevates the 
 spiritual faculty. But in what way can the morality of 
 another improve our own personality-, and raise our spir- 
 itual force? That this other one accomplishes really his 
 duty results from an accidental use which he makes of his 
 liberty, and which for that ver}' reason can prove nothing 
 to us. We onlj' have in common with him the facult}' to 
 conform ourselves equally to duty ; the moral power which 
 he exhibits reminds us also of our own, and that is why 
 we then feel something which upraises our spiritual force. 
 Thus it is onl}' the idea of the possibility of an absolutely 
 free will which makes the real exercise of this will in us 
 charming to the aesthetic feeling. 
 
 We shall be still more convinced when we think how 
 little the poetic force of impression which is awakened in 
 us by an act or a moral character is dependent on their 
 historic realitj'. The pleasure which we take in consid- 
 ering an ideal character will in no way be lessened when 
 we come to think that this character is nothing more than 
 a poetic fiction ; for it is on the poetic truth, and not on 
 historic truth, that everj- Aesthetic impression of the feel- 
 ings rest. Moreover, poetic truth does not consist in that 
 this or that thing has effectuallj' taken place, but in that it 
 may have happened, that is to say, that the thing is in 
 itself possible. Thus the aesthetic force is necessarily 
 obliged to rest in the first place in the idea of possibilit3-. 
 
 Even in real subjects, for which the actors are borrowed 
 from hlstorj-, it is not the realitj- of the simple possibility 
 of the fact, but that which is guaranteed to us by its very 
 reality which constitutes the poetic element. That these 
 personages have indeed existed, and that these events have 
 in truth taken place, is a circumstance which can, it is true, 
 in many cases add to our pleasure, but that which it adds 
 to it is like a foreign addition, much rather unfavorable than 
 advantageous to the poetical impression. 
 
172 ^STHETIOAL LETTEBS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 It was long thought that a great service was rendered 
 to German poetry by recommending German poets to treat 
 of national themes. Why, it was asked, did Greek poetry 
 have so much power over the mind ? Because it brought 
 forward national events and immortalized domestic ex- 
 ploits. No doubt the poetry of the ancients may have 
 been in<lebted to this circumstance for certain effects of 
 which modern poetry cannot boast ; but do these effects 
 belong to art and the poet? It is small glory for the 
 Greek genius if it had only this accidental advantage over 
 modern genius ; still more if it were necessary for the 
 poets, in order to gain this advantage, to obtain it by this 
 conformity of their invention with real history ! It is only 
 a barbarous taste that requires this stimulant of a national 
 interest to be captivated by beautiful things ; and it is only 
 a scribbler who borrows from matter a force to which he 
 despairs of giving a form. 
 
 Poetrj- ought not to take its course through the frigid 
 region of memorj' ; it ought never to convert learning into 
 its interpreter, nor private interest its advocate with the 
 popular mind. It ought to go straight to the heart, because 
 it has come from the heart ; and aim at the man in the citi- 
 zen, not the citizen in the man. 
 
 Happily, true genius does not make much account of 
 all these counsels that people are so anxious to give her 
 with better intentions than competence. Otherwise, Sulzer 
 and his school might have made German poetry adopt a 
 very equivocal style. It is no donbt a verj- honorable aim 
 in a poet to moralize the man, and excite the patriotism 
 of the citizen, and the Muses know better than an\' one 
 how well the arts of the sublime and of the beautiful are 
 adapted to exercise this influence. But that which poetrj' 
 obtains excellentlj' bj' indirect means it would accomplish 
 very badly as an immediate end. Poetrj- is not made to 
 serve in man for the accomplishment of a particular mat- 
 ter, nor could anj- instrument be selected less fitted to 
 cause a particular object to succeed, or to carrj- out spe- 
 cial projects and details. Poetrj- acts on the whole of 
 human nature, and it is onlj'bj' its general influence on the 
 character of a man that it can influence particular acts. 
 Poetry can be for man what love is for the hero. It can 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 173 
 
 neither counsel him, nor strike for him, nor do anything 
 for him in short ; but it can form a hero in him, call him 
 to great deeds, and arm him with a strength to be all that 
 he ought to be. 
 
 Thus tlie degree of sesthetical energy with which sublime 
 feelings and sublime acts talie possession of our souls, 
 does not rest at all on the interest of reason, which requires 
 every action to be realli/ conformable with the idea of 
 good. But it rests on the interest of the imagination, 
 which requires conformity with good should be possible, 
 or, in other terms, tliat no feeling, however strong, should 
 oppress the freedom of the soul. No w this possibility is 
 found in every act that testifies with energ\- to liberty, and 
 to the force of the will ; and if the poet meets with an ac- 
 tion of this kind, it matters little where, he has a subject 
 suitable for his art. To him, and to the interest we have 
 in him, it is quite the same, to take his hero in one class 
 of characters or in another, among the good or the wicked, 
 as it often requires as much strength of character to do 
 evil conscientiously and persistently' as to do good. If a 
 proof be required that in our eesthetic judgments we attend 
 more to the force than to its direction, to its freedom than 
 to its lawfulness, this is sufficient for our evidence. We 
 prefer to see force and freedom manifest themselves at the 
 cost of moral regularity', rather than regularity at the cost 
 of freedom and strength. For directly one of those cases 
 offers itself, in which tag general law agrees with the 
 instincts which by their strength threaten to crrry away 
 the will, the aesthetic value of the character is increased, 
 if he be capable of resisting these instincts. A vicious 
 person begins to interest us as soon as he must risk his 
 happiness and life to carrv out his perverse designs ; on 
 the contrary, a virtuous person loses in proportion as he 
 finds it useful to be virtuous. Vengeance, for instance, is 
 certainly an ignoble and a vile affection, but this does not 
 prevent it from becoming sesthetical, if to satisfy' it we 
 must endure painful sacrifice. Medea slaj'ing her children 
 aims at the heart of Jason, but at the same time she strikes 
 a heav3' blow at her own heart, and her vengeance sesthet- 
 ically becomes sublime directly we see in her a tender 
 mother. 
 
174 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 In this sense the aesthetic judgment has more of truth 
 than Is orclinarilj believed. The vices which show a 
 great force of will evidently announce a greater aptitude 
 for real moral iibertj' than do virtues which borrow sup- 
 port from inclination ; seeing that it onlj' requires of the 
 man who persistentl}' does evil to gain a single victory 
 over himself, one simple upset of his maxims, to gain 
 ever after to the service of virtue his vi^hole plan of life, 
 and all the force of will which he lavished on evil. And 
 why is it we receive with dislike medium characters, 
 whilst we at times follow with trembling admiration one 
 which is altogether wicked ? It is evident, that with re- 
 gard to the former, we renounce all hope, we cannot even 
 conceive the possibility- of finding absolute libert}' of the 
 will ; whilst with the other, on the contrary, each time he 
 displays his faculties, we feel that one single act of the 
 will would suffice to raise him up to the fullest height of 
 human dignitj-. 
 
 Thus, in the aesthetic judgment, that which excites our 
 interest is not morality itself, but liberty alone ; and moral 
 puritj- can onlj' please our imagination when it places in 
 relief the forces of the will. It is then manifestly to con- 
 found two xevy distinct orders of ideas, to require in 
 aesthetic things so exact a morality, and, in order to 
 stretch the domain of reason, to exclude the imagination 
 from its own legitimate sphere. 
 
 Either it would be necessary to subject it entireh", then 
 there would be an end to all aesthetic effect ; or it would 
 share the realm of reason, then morality would not gain 
 much. For if we pretend to pursue at the same time two 
 different ends, there would be risk of missing both one 
 and the other. The liberty of the imagination would be 
 fettered by too great respect for the moral law ; and vio- 
 lence would be done to the character of necessity which is 
 in the reason, in missing the liberty which belongs to the 
 imagination. 
 
GRACE AND DIGNITY. 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 175 
 
 ON GRACE AND DIGNITY. 
 
 The Greek fable attributes to the goddess of beauty a 
 wonderful girdle which has the quality of lending grace 
 and of gaining hearts in all who wear it. Tliis same 
 divinity is accompanied bj' the Graces, or goddesses of 
 grace. From this we see that the Greeks distinguished 
 from beauty grace and the divinities styled the Graces, as 
 the}' expressed the ideas by proper attiibutes, separable 
 from the goddess of beauty. All that is graceful is beau- 
 tiful, for the girdle of love vi^inning attractions is the 
 property of the goddess of Cnidus ; but all beauty is not 
 of necessit}- grace, for Venus, e^'en without this girdle, 
 does not cease to be what she is. 
 
 However, according to this allegory, the goddess of 
 beauty is the onhj one who wears and who lends to others 
 the girdle of attractions. Juno, the powerful queen of 
 Olympus, must begin by borrov:ing this girdle from 
 Venus, when she. seeks to charm Jupiter on Mount Ida.* 
 Thus greatness, even clothed with a certain degree of 
 beautj', which is bj' no means disputed in the spouse of 
 Jupiter, is never sure of pleasing without the grace, since 
 the august queen of the gods, to subdue the heart of her 
 consort, expects the victory not from her own charms but 
 from the girdle of Venus^ 
 
 But we see, moreover, that the goddess of beauty can 
 part with this girdle, and grant it, with its quality and 
 effects, to a being less endowed with beauty. Thus 
 grace is not the exclusive privilege of the beautiful ; it 
 can also be handed over, but only bj' beaut}', to an 
 object less beautiful, or even to an object deprived of 
 beauty. 
 
 If these same Greeks saw a man gifted in other re- 
 spects with all the advantages of mind, but lacking grace, 
 they advised him to sacrifice to the Graces. If, therefore, 
 they conceived these deities as forming an escort to the 
 beauty of the other sex, they also thought that they would 
 
 * Pope's " Iliad," Book XIV. v. 22S. 
 
176 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 be favorable to man, and that to please he absolutely re- 
 quired their help. 
 
 But what then is grace, if it be true that it prefers to 
 unite with beauty, yet not in an exclusive manner? "What 
 is grace if it proceeds from beauty, but yet produces the' 
 effects of beauty, even when beauty is absent. What is 
 it, if beaut3' can exist indeed vnthout it, and yet has no 
 attraction except with it? The delicate feeling of the 
 Greek people had marked at an early date this distinction 
 between grace and beauty, whereof the reason was not 
 then able to give an account ; and, seeking the means to 
 express it, it borrowed images from the imagination, 
 because the understanding could not offer notions to this 
 end. On this score, the myth of the girdle deserves to 
 fix the attention of the philosopher, who, however, ought 
 to be satisfied to seek ideas corresponding with these pic- 
 tures when the pure instinctive feeling throws out its 
 discoveries, or, in other words, with explaining the hiero- 
 glyphs of sensation. If we strip oflT its allegorical veil 
 from this conception of the Greeks, the following appears 
 the only meaning it admits. 
 
 Grace is a kind of m,ovable beauty, I mean a beauty 
 which does not belong essentially to its subject, but 
 which maj' be produced accidentally in it, as it ma^' 
 also disappear from it. It is in this that grace is 
 distinguished from beauty properly so called, or fixed 
 beaut}', which is necessarily^ inherent in the subject itself. 
 Venus can no doubt take off her girdle and give it up for 
 the moment to Juno, but she could onlj' give up her beautj' 
 with her very person. Venus, without a girdle, is no 
 longer the charming Venus, without beautj' she is no longer 
 Venus. 
 
 But tliis girdle as a sj'mbol of movable beautj' has this 
 particular feature, that the person adorned with it not only 
 appears more graceful, but actually becomes so. The 
 girdle communicates objectively this property of grace, in 
 this contrasting with other articles of dress, which have 
 only subjective effects, and without modifying the person 
 herself, only modif^y the impression produced on the 
 imagination of others. Such is the express meaning of 
 the Greek myth ; grace becomes the property of the per- 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 177 
 
 son who puts on this girdle ; she does more than appear 
 amiable, it is so in fact. ! 
 
 No doubt it may be thought that a girdle, which after all 
 is onl^- an outward, artificial ornament, does not prove a 
 perfectlj' correct emblem to express grace as a personal 
 qualitj-. But a personal quality that is conceived at the 
 same time as separable from the subject, could only be 
 represented to the senses b3- an accidental ornament which 
 can be detached from the person, without the essence of 
 the latter being affected by it. 
 
 Thus the girdle of charms operates not b}- a natural 
 effect (for then it would not change anything in the per- 
 son itself) but by a magical effect ; that is to sa3', its virtue 
 extends beyond all natural conditions. Jiy this means, 
 which is nothing more, I admit, than an expedient, it has 
 been attempted to avoid the contradiction to which the 
 mind, as regards its representative facultj', is unavoidablj- 
 reduced, everj- time it asks an expression from nature her- 
 self, for an object foreign to nature and which belongs to 
 the free field of the ideal. If this magic girdle is the sym- 
 bol of an objective propertj^ which can be separated from 
 its subject without modif^'ing in anj^ degree its nature, 
 this mj'th can only express one thing — the beauty of 
 movement, because movement is the onlj- modification 
 that can affect an object without changing its identity. 
 
 The beautj- of movement is an idea that satisfies the 
 two conditions contained"in the myth which now occupies 
 us. In the first place, it is an objective beautj-, not en- 
 tirely depending upon the impression that we receive from 
 the object, but belonging to the object itself. 1 n the second 
 place, this beauty has in itself something accidental, and 
 the object remains identical even when we conceive it 
 to be deprived of this property. The girdle of attrac- 
 tions does not lose its ni;igic virtue in passing to an object 
 of less beauty, or even to that which is without beauty ; 
 that is to say, that a being less beautiful, or even one 
 which is not beautiful, may also lay claim to the beautj- of 
 movement. The m_yth tells us that grace is something 
 accidental in the subject in which we suppose it to be. 
 It follows that we can attribute this property only to 
 accidental movements. In an ideal of beauty the neces- 
 
178 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 sar}' movements must be beautiful, because inasmuch as 
 necessary the3' form an integral part of its nature ; the 
 idea of Venus once gi\'en, the idea of this beauty of neces- 
 sar3' movements is tiiat implicitlj- comprised in it ; but 
 it is not the same with the beauty of accidental move- 
 ments ; this is an extension of the former ; there can be 
 a grace in the voice, there is none in respiration. 
 
 But all this beauty in accidental movements — is it 
 necessarilj- grace ? It is scarcely necessary to notice that 
 the Greek fable attributes grace exclusively to humanity. 
 It goes still further, for even the beautj' of form it re- 
 stricts within the limits of the human species, in which, as 
 we know, the Greeks included also their gods. But if 
 grace is the exclusive privilege of the human form, none 
 of the movements which are common to man with the rest 
 of nature can evidentlj^ pretend to it. Thus, for example, 
 if it were admitted that the ringlets of hair on a beautiful 
 head undulate with grace, there would also be no reason 
 to den}' a grace of movement to the branches of trees, to 
 the waves of the stream, to the ears of a field of corn, or 
 to the limbs of animals. No, the goddess of Cnidus rep- 
 resents exclusive!}' the human species ; therefore, as soon 
 as you see only a physical creature in man, a purely sen- 
 suous object, she is no longer concerned with him. Thus, 
 grace can only be met with in voluntary movements, and 
 then in those only which express some sentiment of the 
 moral order. Those which have as principle onl}" animal 
 sensuousness belong only, however voluntary we va&j sup- 
 pose them to be, to physical nature, which never reaches 
 of itself to grace. If it were possible to have grace in 
 the manifestations of the physical appetites and instincts, 
 grace would no longer be either capable or worthy to serve 
 as the expression of humanit}'. Yet it is humanity alone 
 which to the Greek contains all the idea of beauty and of 
 perfection. He never consents to see separated from the 
 soul the pureljr sensuous part, and such is with him that 
 which might be called man's sensuous nature, which it is 
 equally impossible for him to isolate either from his lower 
 nature or from his intelligence. In the same way that no 
 idea presents itself to his mind without taking at once a 
 visible form, and without his endeavoring to give a bodily 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS, 179 
 
 envelope even to his intellectual conceptions, so he desires 
 in man that all his instinctive acts should express at the 
 same time his moral destination. Never for the Greek is 
 nature purely' physical nature, and for that reason he does 
 not blush to honor it ; never for him is reason purelj' rea- 
 son, and for that reason he has not to tremble in submit- 
 ting to its rule. The phj'sical nature and moral sentiments, 
 matter and mind, earth and heaven, melt together with a 
 marvellous beaut}- in his poetrj'. Free activity, which is 
 truly at home onlj' in Olympus, was introduced by him 
 even into the domain of sense, aud it is a further reason 
 for not attaching blame to him if recipi'ocally he trans- 
 ported the afiections of the sense into Olympus. Thus, 
 this delicate sense of the Greeks, which never suffered the 
 material element unless accompanied by the spiritual priu- 
 ciple, recognizes in man no voluntar}- movement belonging 
 only to sense which did not at the same time manifest the 
 moral sentiment of the soul. It follows that for them 
 grace is one of the manifestations of the soul, revealed 
 through beauty in voluntary movements ; therefore, wher- 
 ever theTe is grace, it is the soul which is the mobile, and 
 it is in her that beauty of movement has its principle. The 
 mythological allegorj" thus expresses the thought, " Grace 
 is a beauty not given b}' nature, but produced by the sub- 
 ject itself." 
 
 Up to the present time I have confined myself to un- 
 folding the idea of graee*from the Greek mj'th, and I hope 
 I have not forced the sense : may I now be permitted to 
 trjf to what result a philosophical investigation on this 
 point will lead us, and to see if this subject, as so many 
 others, will confirm this truth, that the spirit of philosophy 
 can hardly flatter itself that it can discover anything which 
 has not already been vaguely perceived by sentiment and 
 revealed in poetry ? 
 
 "Without her girdle, and without the Graces, Venus rep- 
 resents the ideal of beaut}', such as she could have come 
 forth fiom the hands of nature, and such as she is made 
 without the intervention of mind endowed with sentiment 
 and by the virtue alone of plastic forces. It is not with- 
 out reason that the fable created a particular divinity to 
 represent this sort of beauty, because it suffices to see and 
 
180 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 to feel in order to distinguish it very distinct! j- from the 
 other, from that which derives its origin from the influence 
 of a mind endowed with sentiments. 
 
 This first beauty, thus formed by nature solely and in 
 virtue of the laws of necessity', I shall distinguish from 
 that which is regulated upon conditions of liberty, in call- 
 ing it, if allowed, beauty of structure (architectonic 
 beauty). It is agreed, therefore, to designate under this 
 name that portion of human beauty which not only has as 
 efficient principle the forces and agents of physical nature 
 (for we can sa}' as much for every phenomenon), but which 
 also is determined, so far as it is beauty solelj-, by the 
 forces of this nature. 
 
 Well-proportioned limbs, rounded contours, an agree- 
 able complexion, delicacy of skin, an easy and graceful 
 figure, a harmonious tone of voice, etc., are advantages 
 which are gifts of nature and fortune : of nature, which 
 predisposed to this, and developed it herself; of fortune, 
 which protects against all influence adverse to the work of 
 nature. 
 
 Venus came forth perfect and complete from the foam 
 of the sea. "Why perfect? because she is the finished and 
 exactly determined work of necessity, and on that account 
 she is neither susceptible of variety nor of progress. In 
 other terms, as she is oulj' a beautiful representation of 
 the various ends which nature had in view in forming man, 
 and thence each of hei' properties is perfectly determined 
 by the idea that she realizes ; hence it follows that we can 
 consider her as definitive and determined (with regard to 
 its connection with the first conception) although this 
 conception is subject, in its develo^jment, to the conditions 
 of time. 
 
 The architectonic beauty of the human form and its 
 technical perfection are two ideas, which we must take 
 good care not to confound. By the latter, the ensemble of 
 particular ends must be understood, such as they co-ordi- 
 nate between themselves towards a general and higher 
 end ; by the other, on the contrary, a character suited to 
 the representation of these ends, as far as these are re- 
 vealed, under a visible form, to our faculty of seeing and 
 observing. When, then, wc speak of beauty, we neither 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 181 
 
 take into consideration the justness of the aims of nature 
 in themselves, nor formallj-, the degree of adaptation to the 
 principles of art which their combination could offer. Our 
 contemplative faculties hold to the manner in which the 
 object appears to them, without taking heed to its logical 
 constitution. Thus, although the arcliitectonic beautj-, in 
 the structure of man, be determined b}- the idea which 
 lias presided at this structure, and hy the ends that nature 
 proposes for it, the sesthetic judgment, making abstraction 
 of these ends, considers this beauty in itself; and in the 
 idea which we form of it, nothing enters which does not 
 immediately and properly belong to the exterior appear- 
 ance. 
 
 We are, then, not obliged to saj' that the dignity of man 
 and of his condition heightens the beauty of his structure. 
 The idea we have of his dignit}' maj- influence, it is true, 
 the judgment that we form on the beauty of his structure ; 
 but then this judgment ceases to be purely- sestlietic. 
 Doubtless, the technical constitution of the human form is 
 an expression of its destiny, and, as such, it ought to ex- 
 cite our admiration ; but this technical constitution is rep- 
 resented to the understanding and not to sense : it is a 
 conception and not a phenomenon. The architectonic 
 beauty, on the contrary, could never be an expression of 
 the destinj' of man, because it addresses itself to quite a 
 different faculty from that to which it belongs to pronounce 
 upon his destinj-. • 
 
 If, then, man is, amongst all the technical forces created 
 by nature, that to whom more especially' we attribute 
 beauty, this is exact and true only under one condition, 
 which is, that at once and upon the simple appearance he 
 justifies this superiority, without the necessit}-, in order to 
 appreciate it, that we iDring to mind his humanity. For, 
 to recall this, we must pass through a conception ; and 
 then it would no longer be the sense, but the understand- 
 ing, that would become the judge of beauty, which would 
 imply contradiction. Man, therefore, cannot put forward 
 the dignity of his moral destiny, nor give prominence to 
 his superiority as inteUigence, to increase the price of his 
 beauty. Man, here, is but a being thrown like others into 
 space — a phenomenon amongst other phenomena. In the 
 
182 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 world of sense no account is made of the rank he holds in 
 the world of ideas ; and if he desires in that to hold the 
 first lilace, he can only owe it to that in him which belongs 
 to the physical order. 
 
 But his physical nature is determined, we know, by the 
 idea of his humanity ; from which it follows that his 
 architectonic beauty is so also mediatelj^ If, then he is 
 distinguished by superior beauty from all other creatures 
 of the sensuous world, it is incontestable that he owes this 
 advantage to his destiny as man, because it is in it that 
 the reason is of the differences which in general separate 
 him from the rest of the sensuous world. But the beautj' 
 of the human form is not due to its being the expression 
 of this superior destiny, for if it were so, this form would 
 necessarily cease to be beautiful, from the moment it began 
 to express a less high destiny, and the contrary to this 
 -form would be beautiful as soon as it could be admitted 
 that it expresses this higher destination. However, sup- 
 pose that at the sight of a fine human face we could com- 
 pletely forget that which it expresses, and put in its place, 
 without changuig anj'thing of its outside, the savage 
 instincts of the tiger, the judgment of the ej-esight would 
 remain absolutely the same, and the tiger would be for it 
 the chef-cV mimre of the Creator. 
 
 The destiny of man as intelligence contributes, then, to 
 the beauty of his stru cture only so far as the form that 
 represents this destiny, the expression that makes it felt, 
 satisfies at the same time the conditions which are pre- 
 scribed in the world of sense to the manifestations of the 
 beautiful ; which signifies that beautj- ought always to 
 remain a pure effect of physical nature, and that the 
 rational conception which had determined the technical 
 ■itility of the human structure cannot confer beauty, but 
 simplj' be compatible with beauty. 
 
 It could be objected, it is true, that in general all which 
 is manifested by a sensuous representation is produced by 
 the forces of natui'e, and that consequently this charac- 
 ter cannot be exclusively an indication of the beautiful. 
 Certainly, and without doubt, all technical creations are 
 the work of nature ; but it is not by the fact of nature 
 that they are technical, or at least that they are so judged 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 183 
 
 to be. They are technical only through the understanding, 
 and thus their technical perfection has alreadj' its existence 
 in the understanding, before passing into the world of sense, 
 and becoming a sensible plienomenon. Beautj', on the 
 contrary, has the peculiarity, that the sensuous world is 
 not only its theatre, but the first source from whence it 
 derives its birth, and that it owes to nature not onlj^ its 
 expression, but also its creation. Beauty is absolutely- but 
 a property of the world of sense ; and the artist, who has 
 the beautiful in view, would not attain to it but inasmuch 
 as he entertains this illusion, that his work is the work of 
 nature. 
 
 In order to appreciate the technical perfection of the 
 human bodj-, we must bear in mind the ends to which it is 
 appropriated ; this being quite unnecessarj- for the appre- 
 ciation of its beauty. Here the senses require no aid, and 
 of themselves judge with full competence ; however they 
 would not be competent judges of the beautiful, if the 
 world of sense (the senses have no other object) did not 
 contain all the conditions of beautj- and was therefore 
 competent to produce it. The beauty of man, it is true, 
 has for mediate reason the idea of his humanity, because 
 all his physical nature is founded on this idea ; but the 
 senses, we know, hold to immediate phenomena, and for 
 them it is exactlj' the same as if this beautj- were a simple 
 effect of nature, perfectly independent. 
 
 From what we have said, up to the present time, it 
 would appear that th# beautiful can offer absolutely no 
 interest to the understanding, because its principle belongs 
 solely to the world of sense, and amongst all our faculties 
 of knowledge it addresses itself only to our senses. And 
 in fact, the moment that we sever from the idea of the 
 beautiful, as a foreign element, all that is mixed with the 
 idea of technical perfection, almost inevitably, in the 
 judgment of beautj', it appears that nothing remains to it 
 bj- which it can become the object of an intellectual 
 pleasure. And nevertheless, it is quite as incontestable 
 that the beautiful pleases the understanding, as it is beyond 
 doubt that the beautiful rests upon no propertj' of the 
 object that could not be discovered but by the under- 
 standing. 
 
184 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 To solve this apparent contradiction, it must be remem- 
 bered that the phenomena can in two different ways pass 
 to the state of objects of the understanding and express 
 ideas. It is not alwajs necessar}' that the understanding 
 draws these ideas from phenomena ; it can also put them 
 into them. In the two cases, the phenomena will be ade- 
 quate to a rational conception, with this simple difference, 
 that, in the first case, the understanding finds it objectively 
 gi\'en, and to a certain extent onlj- receives it from the 
 object because it is necessary that the idea should be given 
 to explain the nature and often even the possibility of the 
 object ; whilst in the second case, on the contrary, it is the 
 understanding which of itself interprets, in a manner to 
 make of it the expression of its idea, that which the phe- 
 nomenon offers us, without anj- connection with this idea, 
 and thus treats bj- a metaph3'sical process that which in 
 reality- is purely physical. There, then, in the association 
 of the idea with the object there is an objective necessitj- ; 
 here, on the contrary, a subjective necessitj' at the utmost. 
 It is unnecessary to say that, in my mind, the first of these 
 two connections ought to be understood of technical per- 
 fection, the second, of the beautiful. 
 
 As then in the second case it is a thing quite contingent 
 for the sensuous object that there should or should not be 
 outside of it an object which perceives it — an under- 
 standing that associates one of its own ideas with it, 
 consequently, the ensemhle of these objective properties 
 ought to be considered as fully independent of this idea ; 
 we have perfectl}- the right to reduce the beautiful, 
 objectively, to the simple conditions of physical nature, 
 and to see nothing more in beauty than effect belonging 
 purely to the world of sense. But as, on the other side, 
 the understanding makes of this simple fact of the world 
 of sense a transcendent usage, and in lending it a higher 
 signification inasmuch as he marks it, as it were, with 
 his image, we have equally- the right to transport the 
 beautiful, subjectively, into the world of iiitelligence. It 
 is in this manner that beauty belongs at the same time to 
 the two worlds — to one by the right of birth, to the other 
 by adoption ; it takes its being in the world of sense, it 
 acquires the rights of citizenship in the world of under- 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 185 
 
 standing. It is that which explains how it can be tliat 
 taste, as the faculty for appreciating the beautiful, holds 
 at once the spiritual element and that of sense ; and that 
 these two natures, incompatible one with the other, ap- 
 proach in order to form in it a happy union. It is this 
 that explains how taste can conciliate respect for the under- 
 standing with the material element, and with the rational 
 principle the favor and the sympathy of the senses, how 
 it can ennoble the perceptions of the senses so as to make 
 ideas of them, and, in a certain measure, transform the 
 physical world itself into a domain of tlie ideal. 
 
 At all events, if it is accidental with regard to the object,, 
 that the understanding associates, at the representation 
 of this object, one of its own ideas with it, it is not the 
 less necessary for the subject which represents it to attach 
 to such a representation such an idea. This idea, and tlie 
 sensuous indication which corresponds to it in the object, 
 ought to be one with the other in such relation, that the 
 undei'standing be forced to this association by its own 
 immutable laws ; the understanding then must have in 
 itself the reason which leads it to associate exclusivel3' a 
 certain phenomenon with a certain determined idea, and, 
 reciprocallj', the object should have in itself the reason for 
 which it exclusively provokes that idea and not another. 
 As to knowing what the idea can be which the understand- 
 ing carries into the beautiful, and b}' what objective prop- 
 erty the object gifted with^beautj- can be capable of serv- 
 ing as symbol to this idea, is then a question much too 
 grave to be solved here in passing, and I reserve this 
 examination for an analytical theorj' of the beautiful. 
 
 The architectonic beauty of man is then, in the waj* I 
 have explained it, the visible expression of a rational con- 
 ception, but it is so only in the same sense and the same 
 title as are in general all the beautiful creations of nature. 
 As to the degree, I agree that it surpasses all the other 
 beauties ; but with regard to kind, it is upon the same rank 
 as thej' are, because it also manifests that which alone is 
 perceptible of its subject, and it is onlj' when we represent 
 it to ourselves that it receives a super-sensuous value. 
 
 If the ends of creation are marked in man with more 
 of success and of beautj' than in the organic beings, it is 
 
186 jEsthetical letters and essays. 
 
 to some extent a fa^or which the intelligence, inasmuch 
 as it dictated the laws of the human structure, has shown 
 to nature charged to execute those laws. The intelligence, 
 it is true, pursues its end in the technique of man with a 
 rigorous necessity, but happily its exigencies meet and 
 accord with the necessary laws of nature so well, that one 
 executes the order of the other whilst acting according to 
 its own inclination. 
 
 But this can only be true respecting the architectonic 
 beauty of man, where the necessary laws of physical 
 nature are sustained by another necessity, that of the 
 teleological principle which determines them. It is here 
 only that the beautiful could be calculated by relation to 
 the technique of the structure, which can no longer take 
 place when the necessity is on one side alone, and the 
 super-sensuous cause which determines the phenomenon 
 takes a contingent character. Thus, it is nature alone who 
 takes upon herself the architectonic beauty of man, be- 
 cause here, from the first design, she had been charged 
 once for all b^- the creating intelligence with the execution 
 of all, that man needs in order to arrive at the ends for 
 which he is destined, and she has in consequence no change 
 to fear in this organic work which she accomplishes. 
 
 But man is moreover a person — that is to say, a being 
 whose different states can have their cause in himself, and 
 absolutely their last cause ; a being who can be modified 
 by reason that be draws fi'om himself. The manner in 
 which he appears in the world of sense depends upon the 
 manner in which he feels and wills, and, consequently, upon 
 certain states which are freely determined by himself, and 
 not fatall3f by nature. 
 
 If man were onlj' a physical creature, nature, at the 
 same time that she establishes the general laws of his 
 being, would determine also the various cases of applica- 
 tion. But here she divides her empire with free arbitra- 
 tion ; and, although its laws are fixed, it is the mind that 
 pronounces upon particular cases. 
 
 The domain of mind extends as far as living nature 
 goes, and it finishes onl\- at the point at which organic life 
 loses itself in unformed matter, at the point at which the 
 animal forces cease to act. It is known that all the motive 
 
^STHETICAIi LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 187 
 
 forces in man are connected one with the other, and this 
 makes us understand how the mind, even considered as 
 principle of voluntaiy movement, can propagate its action 
 through all organisms. It is not only the instruments of 
 the will, but the organs themselves upon which the will 
 does not immediately- exercise its empire, that undergo, 
 indirectl}' at least, the influence of mind ; the mind deter- 
 mines them, not only designedly when it acts, but again, 
 without design, when it feels. 
 
 From nature in herself (this result is clearl}- perceived 
 from what precedes) we must ask nothing but a fixed 
 beauty, that of the phenomena that she alone has deter- 
 mined according to the law of neeessitj-. But with free 
 arbitration, chance (the accidental), interferes in the work 
 of nature, and the modifications that affect it thus under 
 the empire of free will are no longer, although all behave 
 according to its own laws, determined b}' these laws. 
 From thence it is to the mind to decide the use it will make 
 of its instruments, and with regard to that part of beauty 
 which depends on this use, nature has nothing further 
 to command, nor, consequently, to incur any responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 And thus man bj' reason that, making use of his libertj', 
 he raises himself into the sphere of pure intelligences, 
 would find himself in danger of sinking, inasmuch as he 
 is a creature of sense, and of losing in the judgment of 
 taste that which he gains ait the tribunal of reason. This 
 moral destiny, therefore, accomplished by the moral action 
 of man, would cost bim a privilege which was assured to 
 him b}' this same moral destinj- vihen only indicated in 
 his structure ; a purelj* sensuous privilege, it is true, but 
 one which receives, as we have seen, a signification and a 
 higher value from the understanding. No ; nature is too 
 much enamored with harmonj- to be guilty of so gross a 
 contradiction, and that which is harmonious in the world 
 of the understanding could not be rendered by a discord 
 in the world of sense. 
 
 As soon, then, as in man the person, the moral and 
 free agent, takes upon himself to determine the play of 
 phenomena, and by his intervention takes from nature 
 the power to protect the beauty of her work, he then, as it 
 
188 ^STHETICAL LETTEES AND ESSAYS. 
 
 were, substitutes himself for nature, and assumes in a 
 certain measure, with tlie rights of nature, a part of the 
 obligations incumbent on her. When the mind, taking 
 possession of tlie sensuous matter subservient to it, impli- 
 cates it in his destiny and makes it depend on its own 
 modifications, it transforms itself to a certain point into a 
 sensuous phenomenon, and, as such, is obliged to recog- 
 nize the law which regulates in general all the phenomena. 
 In its own interest it engages to permit that nature in its 
 service, placed under its dependence, shall still preserve 
 its character of nature, and never act in a manner contrar}- 
 to its anterior obligations. I call the beautiful an obliga- 
 tion of phenomena, because the want which corresponds 
 to it in the subject has its reason in the understanding 
 itself, and thus it is consequently universal and necessary. 
 I call it an anterior obligation because the senses, in the 
 matter of beauty, have given their judgment before the 
 understanding commences to perform its office. 
 
 Thus it is now free arbitration which rules the beautiful. 
 If nature has furnislied the architectonic beauty, the soul 
 in its turn determines the heauty of the play, and now also 
 we know what we must understand by charm and grace. 
 Grace is the beauty of the form under the influence of free 
 will ; it is the beautj- of this kind of phenomena that the 
 person himself determines. The architectonic beautj^ does 
 honor to the author of nature ; grace does honor to him 
 who possesses it. That is a gift, this is a personal 
 merit. 
 
 Grace can be found onl^^ in inovement, for a modification 
 which takes place in the soul can only be manifested in 
 the sensuous world as movement. But this does not pre- 
 vent features fixed and in repose also from possessing 
 grace. There immobility is, in its origin, movement which, 
 from being frequently repeated, at length becomes habitual, 
 leaving durable traces. 
 
 But all the movements of man are not capable of grace. 
 Grace is never otherwise than beauty of form animated 
 into movement by free will: and the movements which 
 belong onlj' to physical -nature could not merit the name. 
 It is true that an intellectual' man, if he be keen, ends by 
 rendering himself master of almost all the moA-ements of 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 189 
 
 the body ; but when the chain which links a fine lineament 
 to a moral sentiment lengthens much, this lineament be- 
 comes the property of the structure, and can no longer be 
 counted as a grace. It happens, ultimately, that the mind 
 moulds the body, and that the structure is forced to mod- 
 ify itself according to the play that the soul imprints upon 
 the organs, so entirely, that grace finally is transformed 
 — and the examples are not rare — into architectonic beautj-. 
 As at one time an antagonistic mind which is ill at ease 
 with itself alters and destroys the most perfect beauty 
 of structure, until at last it becomes impossible to recog- 
 nize this magnificent chef-(T (x/w^re of nature in the state 
 to which it is reduced under the unworthy hands of free 
 will, so at other times the serenity and perfect harmon}' 
 of the soul come to the aid of the hampered technique, 
 unloose nature and develop with divine splendor the 
 beauty of form, enveloped until tlien, and oppressed. 
 
 The plastic nature of man has in it an infinit}' of re- 
 sources to retrieve the negligencies and repair the faults 
 that she maj- have committed. To this end it is sufficient 
 that the mind, the moral agent, sustain it, or even witli- 
 hold from troubling it in the labor of rebuilding. 
 
 Since the movements become fixed (gestures pass to 
 a state of lineament), are themseh'es capable of grace, it 
 would perhaps appear to be rational to comprehend equall}' 
 under this idea of beautj- some apparent or imitative 
 movements (the flamboyaj^t lines for example, undulations) . 
 It is this which Mendelssohn upholds. But then the 
 idea of grace would be confounded with the ideal 
 of beauty in general, for all beautj' is definitivelj- but a 
 property of true or apparent movement (olijective or 
 subjective), as I hope to demonstrate in an analj^sis of 
 beauty-. With regard to grace, the onlj^ movements which 
 can offer anj- are those which respond at the same time to 
 a sentiment. ' 
 
 The person (it is known wliat I mean by the expression) 
 prescribes the movements of the body, either through ihe 
 will, when he desires to realize in the world of sense an 
 effect of which he has proposed the idea, and in that case 
 the movements are said to be voluntary or intentional ; or. 
 on the other hand, they take place without its will taking 
 
190 ^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 an}' part in it — in virtue of a fatal law of the organism — 
 but on the occasion of a sentiment, in the latter case, I 
 say that the movements are s3-mpathetic. The sj^mpathetic 
 movement, though it maj- be involuntary and provoked by 
 a sentiment, ought not to be confounded with those purely 
 instinctive movements that proceed from physical sensi- 
 bilitj-. Phj'sical instinct is not a free agent, and that 
 which it executes is not an act of the person ; I understand 
 then here exclusively, by sj'mpalhetic movements, those 
 which accompanj' a sentiment, a disposition of the moral 
 order. 
 
 The question that now presents itself is this : Of these 
 two kinds of movement, having their principle in the per- 
 son, which is capable of grace? 
 
 That which we are rigorouslj' forced to distinguish in 
 philosophic analysis is not always separated also in the 
 real. Thus it is rare that we meet intentional movements 
 without S3-mpathetic movements, because the will deter- 
 mines the intentional movements only after being decided 
 itself by the moral sentiments which are the principle of 
 the sympathetic movements. When a person speaks, we 
 see his looks, his lineaments, his hands, often the whole 
 person all together speaks to us ; and it is not rare that 
 this mimic part of the discourse is the most eloquent. 
 Still more there are cases where an intentional movement 
 can be considered at the same time as sympathetic ; and 
 it is that which happens when something involuntary 
 mingles with the voluntary act which determines this 
 movement. 
 
 I will explain : the mode, the manner in which a volun- 
 tary movement is executed, is not a thing so exactly de- 
 termined by the intention which is proposed bj^ it that it 
 cannot be executed in several different ways. Well, then, 
 that which the will or intention leaves undetermined can 
 be sympathetically- determined by the state of moral sen- 
 sibilit}' in which the person is found to be, and conse- 
 quently can express this state. When I extend the arm 
 to seize an object, I execute, in truth, an intention, and 
 the movement I make is determined in general by the end 
 that I have in view ; but in what way does my arm ap- 
 proach the object? how far do the other parts of my body 
 
^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 191 
 
 follow this impulsion ? What will be the degree of slow- 
 ness or of the rapidity of the movement? What amount 
 of force shall I employ- ? This is a calculation of which 
 my will, at the instant, taljes no account, and in conse- 
 quence there is a something left to the discretion of nature. 
 
 But nevertheless, though that part of the movement is 
 not determined by the intention itself, it must be decided 
 at length in one way or the other, and the reason is that 
 the manner in which my moral sensibility is affected can 
 have here decisive influence : it is this which will give the 
 tone, and which thus determines the mode and the manner 
 of the movement. Therefore this influence, which exercises 
 upon the voluntary movement the state of moral sensibility 
 in which the subject is found, represents precisel}' the invol- 
 untary' part of this movement, and it is there then that we 
 must seek for grace. 
 
 A voluntary movement, if it is not linked to any sym- 
 pathetic movement — or that which comes to the same 
 thing, if there is nothuig involuntary mixed up with it 
 having for principle the moral state of sensibility in which 
 the subject happens to be — could not in any manner 
 present grace, for grace alwaj's supposes as a cause a dis- 
 position of the soul. Voluntary movement is produced 
 after an operation of the soul, which in consequence is 
 already completed at the moment in which the movement 
 takes place. 
 
 The sympathetic movement, on the contrary, accompa- 
 nies this operation of the soul, and the moral state of sen- 
 sibility which decides it to this operation. So that this 
 movement ought to be considered as simultaneous with re- 
 gard to both one and the other. 
 
 From that alone it results that voluntar}- movement not 
 proceeding immediately from the disposition of the subject 
 could not be an expression of this disposition also. For 
 between the disposition and the movement itself the voli- 
 tion has intervened, which, considered in itself, is some- 
 thing perfectlj' indifferent. This movement is the work 
 of the volition, it is determined b}- the aim that is pro- 
 posed ; it is not the work of the person, nor the product 
 of the sentiments that affect it. 
 
 The \'oluntary movement is united but accidentallj' with 
 
192 ESTHETIC AL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 the' disposition which precedes it ; tlie concomitant move= 
 ment, on the contrarj', is necessarily- linked to it. The 
 first is to the soul that which the conventional signs of 
 speech are to the thoughts which tho^' express. The sec- 
 ond, on the contrary, the sj-mpathetic movement or con- 
 comitant, is to the soul that which the cry of passion is to 
 the passion itself. The involuntary movement is, then, an 
 expression of the mind, not by its nature, but onl3- by its 
 use. And in consequence we are not authorized to say 
 that the mind is revealed in a voluntary movement ; this 
 movement never expresses more than the substance of the 
 will (the aim), and not the form of the will (the disposition). 
 The disposition can only manifest itself to us by concomi- 
 tant movements. 
 
 It follows that we can infer from the words of a man 
 the kind of character he desires to have attributed to him ; 
 but if we desire to know what is in realitj' his character 
 we must seek to divine it in the mimic expression which 
 accompanies his words, and in his gestures, that is to say, 
 in the movements which he did not desire. If we perceive 
 that this man icills even the expression of his features, 
 from the instant we have made this discoverj- we cease to 
 believe in his physiognomy and to see in it an indication 
 of his sentiments. 
 
 It is true that a man, b}- dint of art and of study, can at 
 last arrive at this result, to subdue to his will even the 
 concomitant movements ; and, like a clever juggler, to 
 shape according to his pleasure such or such a physiog- 
 nomj' upon the mirror from which his soul is reflected 
 through mimic action. But then, with such a man all is 
 dissembling, and art entirelj^ absorbs nature. The true 
 grace, on the contrary, ought always to be pure nature, 
 that is to say, involuntary (or at least appear to be so), to 
 be graceful. The subject even ought not to appear to 
 knov} that it possesses grace. 
 
 By which we can also see incidentally what we must 
 think of grace, either imitated or learned (I would willingl}' 
 call it theatrical grace, or the grace of the dancing-mas- 
 ter). It is the pendant of that sort of beauty which a' 
 woman seeks from her toilet-table, reinforced with rouge, 
 white paint, false ringlets, pads, and whalebone. Imita- 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 193 
 
 tative grace is to true grace what beautj- of toilet is to 
 architectonic beautj-. One and the other could act in ab- 
 solutely the same manner upon the senses badlj' exercised, 
 'as the original of which thej- wish to be the imitation ; 
 and at times even, if much art is put into it, thej- might 
 create an illusion to the connoisseur. But there will be 
 always some indication through which the intention and 
 constraint will betray it in the end, and this discover}- will 
 lead inevitably to indifference, if not e\ en to contempt and 
 disgust. If we are warned that the architectonic beautj' 
 is factitious, at once, the more it has borrowed from a 
 nature which is not its own, the more it loses in our ej-es 
 of that which belongs to humanity (so far as it is phenom- 
 enal), and then we, who forbid the renunciation lightly of 
 an accidental advantage, how can we see with pleasure or 
 even with indifference an exchange through which man 
 sacrifices a part of his proper nature in order to substitute 
 elements taken from inferior nature ? How, even suppos- 
 ing we could forgive the illusion produced, how could we 
 avoid despising the deception ? If we are told that grace 
 is artificial, our heart at once closes ; our soul, which at 
 first advanced with so much vivacity to meet the graceful 
 object, shrinks back. That which was mind has suddenly 
 become matter. Juno and her celestial beautj^ has van- 
 ished, and in her place there is nothing but a phantom of 
 vapor. 
 
 Although grace ought tg be, or at least ought to appear, 
 something involuntary, still we seek it only in the move- 
 ments that depend more or less on the will. I know also 
 that grace is attributed to a certain mimic language, and 
 we say a pleasing smile, a charming blush, though the 
 smile and the blush are sj'mpathetic movements, not de- 
 termined by the will, but by moral sensibility. But besides 
 ^that, the first of these movements is, after all, in our 
 power, and that it is not shown that in the second there is, 
 properl}' speaking, any grace, it is right to say, in general, 
 that most frequentl}' when grace appears it is on the occa- 
 sion of a volnntarj- movement. Grace is desired both in 
 language and in song ; it is asked for in the plaj' of the 
 eyes and of the mouth, in the movements of the hands and 
 the arms whenever these movements are free and volun- 
 
194 ;esthetical letters and essays. 
 
 tarj- ; it is required in the walk, in the bearing, and attitude, 
 in a word. In all exterior demonstrations of man, so fai 
 as they depend on his will. As to the movements which 
 the instinct of nature produces in us, or which an over-' 
 powering affection excites, or, so to speak, is lord over ; 
 that which we ask of these movements, in origin purely 
 physical, is, as we shall see presently, quite another thing 
 than grace. These kinds of movements belong to nature, 
 and not to x!a& person; but it is from the person alone, as 
 we have seen, that all grace issues. 
 
 If, then, grace is a property that we demand only from 
 voluntary movements, and if, on the other hand, all volun- 
 tary element should be rigorously excluded from grace, 
 we have no longer to seek it but in that portion of the 
 intentional movements to which the intention of the 
 subject is nnknown, but which, however, does not cease to 
 answer in the soul to a moral cause. 
 
 We now know in what kind of movements he must ask 
 for grace ; but we know nothing more, and a movement 
 can have these different characters, without on that ac- 
 count being graceful ; it is as yet only speaking (or 
 mimic). 
 
 I call speaking (in the widest sense of the word) every 
 physical phenomenon which accompanies and expresses a 
 certain state of the soul ; thus, in this acceptation, all the 
 sympathetic movements are speaking, including those 
 which accompany the simple affections of the animal sen- 
 sibilitj^ 
 
 The aspect, even, under which the animals present them- 
 selves, can be speaking, as soon as they outwardly show 
 their inward dispositions. But, with them, it is nature 
 alone which speaks, and not liberty. By the permanent 
 configuration of animals through their fixed and archi- 
 tectonic features, nature expresses the aim she proposed 
 in creating them ; by their mimic traits she expresses the 
 want awakened and the want satisfied. Necessity reigns 
 in the animal as well as in tlie plant, without meeting 
 the obstacle of a person. The animals have no individu- 
 ality farther than each of them is a specimen by itself 
 of a general type of nature, and the aspect under which 
 they present themselves at such or such an instant of their 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 195 
 
 duration is only a particular example of the accomplish- 
 ment of the views of nature under determined natural 
 conditions. 
 
 To take the word in a more restricted sense, the config- 
 uration of man alone is spealiing, and it is itself so only 
 in those of the phenomena that accompany and express 
 the slate of its moral sensibihty. 
 
 I sa}' it is only in this sort of phenomena ; for, in all 
 the others, man is in the same rank as the rest of sensible 
 beings. By the permanent configuration of man, hy his 
 architectonic features, nature only expresses, just as in the 
 animals and other organic beings, her own intention. It 
 is true the intention of nature maj' go here much further, 
 and the means she employs to reach her end may offer in 
 their combination more of art and complication ; but all 
 that ought to be placed solely to the account of nature, 
 and can confer no advantage on man himself. 
 
 In the animal, and in the plant, nature gives not only 
 the destination ; she acts herself and acts alone in tlte 
 accomplishment of her ends. In man, nature limits her- 
 self in marking her views ; she leaves to himself their 
 accomplishment, it is this alone that makes of him a 
 man. 
 
 Alone of all known beings — man, in his quality of per- 
 son, has the privilege to break the chain of necessity by 
 his will, and to determine in himself an entire series of 
 fresh spontaneous phenomena. The act by which he thus 
 determines himself is properly that which we call an 
 action, and the things that result from this sort of action 
 are what we exclusivelj' name his acts. Thus man can 
 only show his personalitj' bj' his own acts. 
 
 The configuration of the animal not only expresses the 
 idea of his destination, but also the relation of his present 
 state with this destination. And as in the animal it is 
 nature which determines and at the same time accomplishes 
 its destin3', the configuration of the animal can nev jr ex- 
 press anything else than the work of nature. 
 
 If then nature, whilst determining the destiny of man, 
 abandons to the will of man himself the care to ac(jom- 
 plish it, the relation of his present state with his destinv 
 cannot be a work of nature, but ought to be the work of 
 
196 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 the person ; it follows, that all in the configuration which 
 expresses this relation will belong, not to nature, but to 
 the person, that is to saj', will be considered as a personal 
 expression ; if then, the architectonic part of his configu- 
 ration tells us the views that nature proposed to herself in 
 creating him, the mimic part of his face reveals what he 
 has himself done for the accomplishment of these 
 views. 
 
 It is not then enough for us, when there is question 
 of the form of man, to find in it the expression of human- 
 itj' in general, or even of that which nature has herself 
 contributed to the individual in particular, in order to 
 realize the human t^^pe in it ; for he would have that in 
 common with every kind of technical configuration. We 
 expect something more of his face ; we desire that it re- 
 veal to us at the same time, up to what point man himself, 
 in his libertj', has contributed towards the aim of nature; 
 in other words, we desire that his face bear witness to his 
 character. In the first case we see that nature proposed 
 to create in him a man ; but it is in the second case onlj' 
 that we can judge if he has become so in reality. 
 
 Thus, the face of a man is truly his own onlj- inasmuch 
 as his face is mimic ; but also all that is mimic in his face 
 is entirely his own. For, if we suppose the ease in which 
 the greatest part, and even the totality, of these mimic 
 features express nothing more than animal sensations or 
 instincts, and, in consequence, would show nothing more 
 than the animal in him, it would still remain that it was in 
 his destiny and in his power to limit, by his liberty, his 
 sensuous nature. The presence of these kinds of traits 
 clearly witness that he has not ma de use of this facultj'. 
 We see by that he has not accomplished his destiny, and 
 in this sense his face is speaking ; it is still a moral ex- 
 pression, the same as the non-accomplishment of an act 
 commanded by duty is likewise a sort of action. 
 
 We must distinguish from these speaking features which, 
 are alwaj's an expression of the soul, the features non- 
 speaking or dumb, which are exclusively the work of 
 plastic nature, and which it impresses on the human face 
 when it acts independently of all influence of the soul. 
 I call them dumb, because, like incomprehensible figures 
 
JESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 197 
 
 put there by nature, they are silent upon the character. 
 They mark only distinctive properties attributed by nature 
 to all the kind ; and if at times the}' are sufficient to dis- 
 tinguish the individual, they at least never express any- 
 tliing of the person. 
 
 These features arc by no means devoid of signification 
 for the physiognomist, because the physiognomist not 
 onl}' studies that which man has made of his being, 
 liut also that which nature has done for him and against 
 liim. 
 
 It is not also easy to determine with precision where 
 the dumb traits or features end, where the speaking traits 
 commence. The plastic forces on one side, with their 
 uniform action, and, on the other, the affections which 
 depend on no law, dispute incessantly the ground ; and 
 that which nature, in its dumb and indefatigable activity, 
 has succeeded in raising up, often is overturned by liberty, 
 as a river that overflows and spreads over its banks : the 
 mind when it is gifted with vivacitj' acquires influence over 
 all the movements of the bod^', and arrives at last indi- 
 rectl}' to modify by force the sympathetic plaj- as far as 
 the architectonic and fixed forms of nature, upon which 
 the will has no hold. In a man thus constituted it becomes 
 at last characteristic ; and it is that which we can often 
 observe upon certain heads which a long life, strange acci- 
 dents, and an active mind have moulded and worlied. In 
 these kinds of faces th^e is onh'' the generic character 
 wliich belongs to plastic nature ; all which here forms in- 
 dividuality is the act of the person himself, and it is this 
 which causes it to be said, with much reason, that those 
 faces are all soul. 
 
 Look at that man, on the contrary, who has made for 
 himself a mechanical existence, those disciples of the rule. 
 The rule can well calm the sensuous nature, but not 
 awaken human nature, the superior faculties : look at 
 those flat and inexpressive physiognomies ; the finger of 
 nature has alone left there its impression ; a soul inhabits 
 these bodies, but it is a sluggish soul, a discreet guest, 
 and, as a peaceful and silent neighbor who does not dis- 
 turb the plastic force at its work, left to itself. Never a 
 thought which requires an effort, never a movement of 
 
198 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 passion, hurries tlie calm cadence of pb3sical life. There 
 is no clanger that the architectonic features ever become 
 changed bj- the plaj' of voluntary movements, and never 
 would liberty trouble the functions of vegetative life. As 
 the profound calm of the mind does not bring about a 
 notable degenerac}' of forces, the expense would never 
 surpass the receipts ; it is rather the animal economj- which 
 would always be in excess. In exchange for a certain sum 
 of well-being which it throws as bait, the mind makes 
 itself the servant, the punctual major-domo of phj'sical 
 nature, and places all his glorj' in keeping his books in 
 order. Thus will be accomplished that which organic 
 nature can accomplish ; thus will the work of nutrition and 
 of reproduction prosper. So happy a concord between 
 animal nature and the will cannot but be favorable to 
 architectonic beauty, and it is there that we can observe 
 this beauty iu all its puritj'. But the general forces of 
 nature, as ever}- one knows, are eternally at warfare witn 
 the particular or organic forces, and, however cleverly bal- 
 anced is the te :hnique of a body, the cohesion and the 
 weight end always by getting the upper hand. Also archi- 
 tectonic beauty, so far as it is a simple production of 
 nature, has its fixed periods, its blossoming, its maturity, 
 and its decline — periods the revolution of which can easily 
 be accelerated, but not retarded in anj- case, by the pla}'' 
 of the will, and this is the waj- in which it most frequently 
 finishes ; little by little matter takes the upper hand over 
 form, and the plastic principle, which vivified the being, 
 prepares for itself its tomb under the accumulation of 
 matter. 
 
 However, although no dumb trait, considered in an 
 isolated point of view, can be an expression of the mind, 
 a face composed entirely of these kinds of features can be 
 characterized in its entireness bj' precisely the same rea- 
 son as a face which is speaking only as an expression of 
 sensuous nature can be nevertheless characteristic. I 
 .nean to saj^ that the mind is obliged to exercise its activ- 
 ity and to feel conformably to its moral nature, and it ac- 
 cuses itself and betrays its fault when the face which it 
 animates shows no trace of this moral activity. If, there- 
 fore, the pure and beautiful expression of the destination 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 199 
 
 of man, which is marked in his architectonic structure, 
 penetrates us witli satisfaction and respect for the sover- 
 eign, reason, who is the author of it, at all events these 
 two sentiments will not be for us without mixture but in as 
 far as we see in man a simple creation of nature. But if 
 we consider in him the moral person, we have a right to 
 demand of his face an expression of the person, and if 
 this expectation is deceived contempt will infallibl}- follow. 
 Simply organic beings have a right to our respect as crea- 
 tures ; man cannot pretend to it but in the capacity of 
 creator, that is to sa^-, as being himself the determiner of 
 his own condition. He ought not onlj-, as the other sen- 
 suous creatures, to reflect the rays of a foreign intelli- 
 gence, were it even the divine intelligence ; man ought, as 
 a sun, to shine by his own light. 
 
 Thus we require of man a speaking expression as soon 
 as he becomes conscious of his moral destiny ; but we de- 
 sire at the same time that this expression speak to his ad- 
 vantage, that is to say, it marks in him sentiments con- 
 formable to his moral destiny, and a superior moral apti- 
 tude. This is what reason requires in the human face. 
 
 But, on the other side, man, as far as he is a phenome- 
 non, is an object of sense ; there, where the moral senti- 
 • ment is satisfied, the aesthetic sentiment does not under- 
 stand its being made a sacrifice, and the concomitj- with 
 an idea ought not to lessen the beautj' of the phenomenon. 
 Thus, as much as reason requires an expression of the 
 moralitj' of the subject in the human face, so much, and 
 with no less rigor, does the eye demand beautj'. As these 
 two requirements, although coming from the principles of 
 the appreciation of different degrees, address themselves 
 to the same object, also both one and the other must be 
 given satisfaction by one and the same cause. The dispo- 
 sition of the soul which places man in the best state for 
 accomplishing his moral destiny ought to give place to an 
 expression that will be at the same time the most advan- 
 tageous to his beauty as phenomenon ; in other terms, his 
 moral exercise ought to be- revealed \>j grace. 
 
 But a great difficulty now presents itself from the idea 
 alone of the expressive movements which bear witness to 
 the morality of the subject : it appears that the cause of 
 
anO ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 these uiovemetits is necessarih' a moral cause, a principle 
 which resides bej'oiid the world of sense ; and from the 
 sole idea of beauty it is not less c\ident that its principle 
 is piirel}' sensuous, and that it ought to be a simple effect 
 of natui-e, or at the least appear to be such. But if the 
 ultimate reason of the movements which offer a moral ex- 
 pression is necessarily without, and the ultimate reason of 
 the beautiful necessarily witldii, the sensuous world, it ap- 
 pears that f/race, which ought to unite both of them, con- 
 tains a manifest contradiction. 
 
 To avoid this contradiction we must admit that the 
 moral cause, which in our soul is the foundation of grace, 
 brings, in a necessarj- manner, in the sensibilit}' which de- 
 pends on that cause, preciselj' that state which contains in 
 itself the natural conditions of beaut}'. I will explain. 
 The beautiful, as each sensuous phenomenon, supposes 
 certain conditions, and, in as far as it is beautiful, these 
 are purely- conditions of the senses ; well, then, in that 
 the mind (in virtue of a law that we cannot fathom) , from 
 the state in which it is, itself prescribes to physical nature 
 which accompanies it, its own state, and in that the state 
 of moral perfection is precisely in it the most favorable 
 for the accomplishment of the physical conditions of 
 beautj', it follows that it is the mind which renders beauty 
 possible ; and there its action ends. But whether real 
 beauty comes forth from it, that depends upon the phj'sical 
 conditions alluded to, and is consequently a free effect of 
 nature. Therefore, as it cannot be said that nature is 
 properly free in the voluntary movements, in which it is 
 emploj-ed but as a means to attain an end, and as, on the 
 other side, it cannot be said that it is free in its involun- 
 tary movements, which express the moral, the liberty with 
 which it manifests itself, dependent as it is on the will of 
 the subject, must be a concession that the mind makes to 
 nature ; and, consequently, it can be said that grace is a 
 favor in which the moral has desired to gratify the sen- 
 suous element ; the same as the architectonic beautj' maj' 
 be considered as nature acquiescing to the technical form. 
 
 Maj' I be permitted a comparison to clear up this point? 
 Let us suppose a monarchical state administered in such a 
 way that, although all goes on according to the will of one 
 
iESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAY8. 201 
 
 person, each citizen could persuade himself that he governs 
 and obe3S onlj- his own inclination, we should call that 
 government a liberal government. 
 
 But we should look twice before we should thus qualify 
 a government in which the cliief makes his will outweigh 
 the wishes of the citizens, or a government in which the 
 will of the citizens outweighs that of the chief. In the 
 first case, the government would be no more liberal ; in 
 the second, it would not be a government at all. 
 
 It is not difficult to make application of these examples 
 to what the human face could be under the government of 
 the mind. If the mind is manifested in such a way 
 through the sensuous nature subject to its empire that it 
 executes its behests with the most faithful exactitude, or 
 expresses its sentiments in the most perfectly speaking 
 manner, without going in the least against that which the 
 aesthetic sense demands from it as a phenomenon, then we 
 shall see produced that which we call grace. But this is 
 far from being grace, if mind is manifested in a con- 
 strained manner hy the sensuous nature, or if sensuous 
 nature acting alone in all liberty the expression of moral 
 nature was absent. In the first case there would not be 
 beauty ; in the second the beautj' would be devoid oiplatj. 
 
 The super-sensuous cause, therefore, the cause of which 
 the principle is in the soul, can alone render grace speak- 
 ing, and it is the purely sensuous cause having its princi- 
 ple in nature which along can render it beautiful. We 
 are not more authorized in asserting that mind engenders 
 beauty than we should be, in the foi-mer example, in main- 
 taining that the chief of the state produces liberty ; be- 
 cause we can indeed leave a man in his libertj-, but not 
 give it to him. 
 
 But just as when a people feels itself free under the 
 constraint of a foreign will. It is in a great degree due to 
 the sentiments animating the prince ; and as this liberty 
 would run great risks if the prince took opposite senti- 
 ments, so also it is in the moral dispositions of the mind 
 which suggests them that we must seek the beaut}- of free 
 movements. And now the question which is presented is 
 this one : What then are the conditions of personal morality 
 which assure the utmost amount of liberty to the sensuous 
 
202 jESthetical letters and essays. 
 
 instruments of the will? and what are the moral senti- 
 ments which agree the best in their expression with the 
 beautiful? 
 
 That which is evident is that neither the will, in the 
 intentional movement, nor the passion, in the sympathetic 
 movement, ought to act as a force with regard to the 
 physical nature which is subject to it, in order that this, 
 in obeying it, may have beautj'. In truth, without going 
 further, common seuse considers ease to be the first requisite 
 of grace. It is not less evident that, on another side, nature 
 ought not to act as a force with regard to mind, m order 
 to give occasion for a fine moral expression ; for there, 
 where physical nature commands alone, it is absolutely 
 necessar}- that the character of the man should vanish. 
 
 We can conceive three sorts of relation of man with 
 himself: I mean the sensuous part of man with the rea- 
 sonable part. From these three relations we have to seek 
 which is that one which best suits him in the sensuous 
 world, and the expression of which constitutes the beau- 
 tiful. Either man enforces silence upon the exigencies of 
 his sensuous nature, to govern himself conformably with 
 the superior exigencies of his reasonable nature ; or else, 
 on the contrary, he subjects the reasonable portion of his 
 being to the sensuous part, reducing himself thus to obey 
 only the impulses which the necessity of nature imprints 
 upon him, as well as upon the other phenomena ; or lastly, 
 harmony is established between the impulsions of the one 
 and the laws of the other, and man is in perfect accord 
 with himself. 
 
 If he has the consciousness of his spiritual person, of his 
 pure autonony, man rejects all that is sensuous, and it 
 is only when thus isolated from matter that he feels to 
 the full his moral libert}-. But for that, as his sensuous 
 nature opposes an obstinate and vigorous resistance to 
 him, he must, on his side, exercise upon it a notable 
 pressure and a strong effort, without which he could 
 neither put aside the appetites nor reduce to silence the 
 enegetic voice of instinct. A mind of this quality makes 
 the phj-sical nature which depends on him feel that it has 
 a master in him, whether it fulfils the orders of the will 
 or endeavors to anticipate them. Under its stern dis- 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 20& 
 
 cipline sensuousness appears then repressed, and interior 
 resistance will betra}' itself exteriorly by the constraint. 
 This moral state cannot, then, be favorable to beauty', 
 because nature cannot produce the beautiful but as far as 
 it is free, and cousequentlj' that which betrays to us the 
 struggles of moral liberty against matter cannot either be 
 grace. 
 
 If, on the contrary, subdued bj' its wants, man allows 
 himself to be governed without reserve by the instinct of 
 nature, it is his interior autonomy that vanishes, and with 
 it all trace of this autonomy is exteriorl}- effaced. The 
 animal nature is alone visible upon his visage ; the e^'e 
 is watery and languishing, the mouth rapaciously open, 
 the voice trembling and muffled, the breathing short and 
 rapid, the limbs trembling with nervous agitation : the 
 whole bodj' b^- its languor betra3-s its moral degradation. 
 Moral force has renounced all resistance, and physical 
 nature, with such a man, is placed in full liberty. But 
 precisely this complete abandonment of moral independ- 
 ence, which occurs ordinaril3' at the moment of sensuous 
 desiie, and more still at the moment of enjoyment, sets sud- 
 denly brute matter at liberty which until then had been 
 kept in equilibrium b}' the active and passive forces. 
 The inert forces of nature commence from thence to gain 
 the upper hand over the living forces of the organism ; 
 the form is oppressed by matter, humanity by common 
 nature. The e^-e, in whi<fc the soul shone forth, becomes 
 dull, or it protrudes from its socket with I know not what 
 glassy haggard ness ; the delicate pink of the cheeks 
 thickens, and spreads as a coarse pigment in uniform 
 layers. The mouth is no longer anything but a simple 
 opening, because its form no longer depends upon the 
 action of forces, but on their non-resistance ; the gasping 
 voice and breathing are no more than an effort to ease 
 the laborious and oppressed lungs, and which show a 
 simple mechanical want, with nothing that reveals a soul. 
 In a word, in that state of libert3' whicli phj-sical nature 
 arrogates to itself from its chief, we must not think of 
 beauty-. Under the empire of the moral agent, the liberty 
 of form was only restrained, here it is crushed bj- brutal 
 matter, which gains as much ground as is abstracted from 
 
204 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 the will. Man in this state not onlj- revolts the moral 
 sense, which incessantly' claims of the face an expression of 
 human dignity, but the wstlu'tic sense, which is not con- 
 tent with simple matter, and which finds in the form an 
 unfettered pleasure — the aesthetic sense will turn away 
 with disgust from such a spectacle, where coucupisce?ice 
 could alone find its gratification. 
 
 Of these two relations between the moral nature of man 
 and his phj'sical nature, the first makes us think of a mon- 
 archy, where strict surveillance of the prince holds in hand 
 all free movement ; the second is an ochlocracy, where the 
 citizen, in refusing to obey his legitimate sovereign, finds 
 he has liberty quite as little as the human face has beauty 
 when the moral autononi}' is oppressed ; nay, on the con- 
 trary, just as the citizens are given over to the brutal des- 
 potism of the lowest classes, so the form is given over 
 here to the despotism of matter. Just as libertj- finds 
 itself between the two extremes of legal oppression and 
 anarchy, so also we shall find the beautiful between two ex- 
 tremes, between the expression of dignity- which bears 
 witness to the domination exercised by the mind, and the 
 voluptuous expression which reveals the domination exer- 
 cised by instinct. 
 
 In other terms, if the beauty of expression is incompat- 
 ible with the absolute government of reason over sensuous 
 nature, and with the government of sensuous nature over 
 the reason, it follows that the third state (for one could 
 not conceive a fourth) — that in which the reason and the 
 senses, dutj'and inclination, are in harmon}' — will be that 
 in which the beauty of play is produced. In order that 
 obedience to reason may become an object of inclination, 
 it must represent for us the principle of pleasure ; for 
 pleasure and pain are the onlj- springs which set the in- 
 stincts in motion. It is true that in life it is the reverse 
 that takes place, and pleasure is ordinarily the motive for 
 which we act according to reason. If morality itself has 
 at last ceased to hold this language, it is to the immortal 
 author of the "Critique" to whom we must offer our 
 thanks ; it is to him to whom the glory is due of having 
 restored the healthy reason in separating it from all sys- 
 tems. But in the manner in which the principles of this 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 205 
 
 philosopher are ordinarilj* expressed by himself and also 
 b}' others, it appears that the inclination can never be for 
 the moral sense otherwise than a ver3- suspicious compan- 
 ion, and pleasure a dangerous auxiliarj' for moral deter- 
 minations. In admitting that the instinct of happiness 
 does not exercise a blind domination over man, it does not 
 the less desire to interfere in the moral actions which de- 
 pend on free arbitration, and by that it changes the pure 
 action of the will, which ought always to obej' the law 
 alone, never the instinct. Thus, to be altogether sure that 
 the inclination has not interfered with the demonstrations 
 of the will, we prefer to see it in opposition rather than in 
 accord with the law of reason ; because it may happen too 
 easily, when the inclination speaks in favor of duty, that 
 duty draws from the recommendation all its credit over the 
 will. And in fact, as in practical morals, it is not the con- 
 formity of the acts with the law, but only the conformity 
 of the sentiments with duty, which is important. We do 
 not attach, and with reason, any value to this considera- 
 tion, that it is ordinarilj- more favorable to the conformity 
 of acts with the law that inclination is on the side of dutj\ 
 As a consequence, this much appears evident : that the 
 assent of sense, if it does not render suspicious the con- 
 formity of the will with duty, at least does not guarantee 
 it. Thus the sensuous expression of this assent, expres- 
 sion that grace offers to us, could never bear a sufficient 
 a\-ailable witness to the in»rality of the act in which it is 
 met ; and it is not from tliat which an action or a senti- 
 ment manifests to the eyes by graceful expression that we 
 must judge of the moral merit of that sentiment or of that 
 action. 
 
 Up to the present time I believe I have been in perfect 
 accord witii the rigorists in morals. I shall not become, I 
 hope, a relaxed moralist in endeavoring to maintain in the 
 world of phenomena and in the real fulfilment of the law 
 of duty those rights of sensuous nature which, upon the 
 ground of pure reason and in the jurisdiction of the moral 
 law, are completelj' set aside and excluded. 
 
 I will explain. Convinced as I am, and precisel}' be- 
 cause I am convinced, that the inclination in associating 
 itself to an act of the will offers no witness to the pure 
 
206 iBSTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 conformity of this act with the duty, I believe that we are 
 able to infer from this that the moral perfection of man 
 cannot shine forth except from this verj' association of his 
 inclination with his moral conduct. In fact, the destiny 
 of man is not to accomplish isolated moral acts, but to be 
 a moral being. That which is prescribed to him does not 
 consist of virtues, but of virtue, and virtue is not anj'thing 
 else "than an inclination for duty." Whatever, then, in 
 the objective sense, maj- be the opposition which separates 
 the acts suggested by the inclination from those which 
 dutj' determines, we cannot saj' it is the same in the sub- 
 jective sense ; and not only is it permitted to man to ac- 
 cord duty with pleasure, but he ought to establish between 
 them this accord, he ought to obey his reason with a sen- 
 timent of joy. It !S not to throw it off as a burden, nor 
 to cast it off as a too coarse skin. No, it is to unite it, by 
 a union the most intimate, with his Ego, with the most 
 noble part of his being, that a sensuous nature has been 
 associated in him to his purely spiritual nature. By the 
 fact that nature has made of him a being both at once rea- 
 sonable and sensuous, that is to say, a man, it has pre- 
 scribed to him the obligation not to separate that which she 
 has united ; not to sacrifice in him the sensuous being, were 
 it in the most pure manifestations of the divine part ; and 
 never to found the triumph of one over the oppression and 
 the ruin of the other. It is onl}' when he gathers, so to 
 speak, his entire humanity together, and his way of thhik- 
 ing in morals becomes the result of the united action of 
 the two principles, when morality has become to him a 
 second nature, it is then only that it is secure ; for, as far 
 as the mind and the duty are obliged to employ violence, 
 it is necessary that the instinct shall have force to resist 
 them. The enemy which only is overturned can rise up 
 again, but the enemy reconciled is truly vanquished. In 
 the moral philosophy of Kant the idea of duty is proposed 
 with a harshness enough to ruffle the Graces, and one 
 which could easily tempt a feeble mind to seek for moral 
 perfection in the sombre paths of an ascetic aaid monastic 
 life. Whatever precautions the great philosopher has been 
 able to take in order to shelter himself against this false 
 interpretation, which must be repugnant more than all else 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTEES AND ESSAYS. 207 
 
 to the serenity of the free mind, he has lent it a strong im- 
 pulse, it seems to' me, in opjjosing to each other by a harsh 
 contrast the two principles which act upon the human will. 
 Perhaps it was hardl}- possible, from the point of view in 
 which he was placed, to avoid this mistake ; but he has 
 exposed himself seriouslj' to it. Upon the basis of the 
 question there is no longer, after the demonstration he has 
 given, anj' discussion possible, at least for the he^ds which 
 think and which are quite willing to be persuaded ; and I 
 am not at all sure if it would not be better to renounce at 
 once all the attributes of the human being than to be 
 willing to reach on this point, by reason, a different result. 
 But although he began to work without any prejudice when 
 he searched for the truth, and though all is here explained 
 by purely objective reasons, it appears that when he put 
 forward the truth once found he had been guided by a 
 more subjective tnaxim, which is not difficult, I believe, to 
 be accounted for by the time and circumstances. 
 
 What, in fact, was the moral of his time, either in tlieory 
 or in its application? On one side, a gross materialism, 
 of which the shameless maxims would revolt his soul ; im- 
 pure resting-places offered to the bastard characters of a 
 century by the unworthy complacency of philosophers ; on 
 the other side, a pretended system of perfectibility, not 
 less suspicious, which, to realize the chimera of a general 
 perfection common to the whole universe, would not be 
 embarrassed for a choice *of means. This is what would 
 meet his attention. So he carried there, where the most 
 pressing danger lay and reform was the most urgent, the 
 strongest forces of his principles, and made it a law to 
 pursue sensualism without pitj', whether it walks with a 
 bold face, impudently insulting moralit\', or dissimulates 
 under the imposing veil of a moral, praiseworthy end, 
 under which a certain fanatical kind of order know how to 
 disguise it. He had not to disguise ignorance, but to re- 
 form perversion ; for such a cure a violent blow, and not 
 persuasion or flattery, was necessary ; and the more the 
 contrast would be violent between the true principles and 
 the dominant maxims, the more he would hope to provoke 
 reflection upon this point. He was the Draco of his time, 
 because his time seemed to him as yet unworth}' to pos- 
 
208 iKSXHKTlCAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 sess a Solon, neither capable of receiving him. From the 
 sanctuary of pure reason he drew forth the moral law, un- 
 known then, and j-et, in another wa}-, so known ; he made 
 it appear in all its saintliness before a degraded century, 
 and troubled himself little to know whether there were eyes 
 too enfeebled to bear the brightness. 
 
 But what had tlie children of the house done for him 
 to have occupied himself only with the valets? Because 
 strongly impure inclinations often usurp the name of virtue, 
 was it a reason for disinterested inclinations in the noblest 
 heart to he also rendered suspicious ? Because the moral 
 epicurean had willingly relaxed the law of reason, in order 
 to fit it as a plaything to his customs, was it a reason to 
 thus exaggerate harshness, and to make the fulfilment of 
 duty, which is the most powerful manifestation of moral 
 freedom, another kind of decorated servitude of a more 
 specious name? And, in fact, between the esteem and the 
 contempt of himself has the truly moral man a more free 
 choice than the slave of sense between pleasure and pain? 
 Is there less of constraint there for a pure will than here 
 for a depraved will ? Must one, by this imperative form 
 given to the moral law, accuse man and humble him, and 
 make of this law, which is the most sublime witness of 
 our grandeur, the most crushing argument for our fragilitj- ? 
 Was it possible with this imperative force to avoid that a 
 prescription which man imposes on himself, as a reasonable 
 being, and which is obligatory only for him on that account, 
 and which is conciliator}' with the sentiment of his libertj' 
 only — that this prescription, say I, took the appearance 
 of a foreign law, a positive law, an appearance which could 
 hardly lessen the radical tendency which we impute to man 
 to react against the law ? 
 
 It is certainly not an advantage for moral truth to 
 have against itself sentiments which man can avow with- 
 out shame. Thus, how can the sentiment of the beautiful, 
 the sentiment of libertj-, accord with the austere mind of 
 a legislation which governs man rather through fear than 
 trust, which tends constantly to separate that which nature 
 has united, and which is reduced to hold us in defiance 
 against a part of our being, to assure its empire over the 
 rest? Human nature forms a whole more united in real- 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 209 
 
 ity than it is permitted to the philosopher, who can only 
 analyze, to allow it to appear. The reason can never 
 reject as unworthy of it the affections which the heart rec- 
 ognizes with J03' ; and there, where man would be morallj' 
 fallen, he can hardly rise in his own esteem. If in the 
 moral order the sensuous nature were only the oppressed 
 party and not an ally, how could it associate with all the 
 ardor of its sentiments in a triumph which would be cele- 
 brated only over itself? how could it be so keen a partici- 
 pator in the satisfaction of a pure spirit having conscious- 
 ness of itself, if in the end it could not attach itself to 
 the pure spirit with such closeness that it is not possible 
 even to intellectual anal3sis to separate it without vio- 
 lence. 
 
 The will, besides, is in more immediate relation with the 
 faculty of feeling than with the cognitive faculties, and it 
 would be regrettable in many circumstances if it were 
 obliged, in order to guide itself, to take advice of pure 
 reason. I prejudge nothing good of a man who dares so 
 little trust to the voice of instinct that he is obliged each 
 time to make it appear first before the moral law ; "he is 
 much more estimable who abandons himself with a certain 
 security to inclination, without having to fear being led 
 astra}^ by her. That proves in fact that with him the 
 two principles are already in harmony — in that harmony 
 which places a seat upon the perfection of the human 
 being, and which constitute that which we understand bj- 
 a noble soul. 
 
 It is said of a man that he has a great soul when the 
 moral sense has finished assuring itself of all the affections, 
 to the extent of abandoning without fear the direction of 
 the senses to the will, ami never incurring the risk of find- 
 ing himself in discord with its decisions. It follows that 
 in a noble soul it is not this ov that particular action, it is 
 the entire character which is moral. Thus we can make 
 a merit of none of its actions because the satisfaction of an 
 instinct could not be meritorious. A noble soul has no 
 other merit than to be a noble soul. ^Vith as great a facilitj- 
 as if the instinct alone were acting, it accomplishes the 
 most painful duties of humanity, and the most heroic 
 sacrifice that she obtains over the instinct of nature seems 
 
210 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 the effect of the free action of the instinct itself. Also, it 
 has no idea of the beauty' of its act, and it never occurs to 
 it that anj' other way of acting could be possible ; on 
 the contrary-, the moralist formed b}- the school and bj- rule, 
 is always ready at the first question of the master to give 
 an account with the most rigorous precision of the con- 
 formity of its acts with the moral law. The life of this 
 one is like a drawing where the pencil has indicated by 
 harsh and stiff lines all that the rule demands, and which 
 could, if necessary, serve for a student to learn the elements 
 of art. The life of a noble soul, on the contrary, is lilie 
 a painting of Titian ; all the harsh outlines are effaced, 
 which does not prevent the whole face being more true, 
 lifeHke and harmonious. 
 
 It is then in a noble soul that is found the true harmony 
 between reason and sense, between inclination and duty, 
 and grace is the expression of this harmonj' in the sensuous 
 world. It is only in the service of a noble soul that nature 
 can at the same time be in possession of its liberty, and 
 preserve from all alteration the beauty of its forms ; for the 
 one, its liberty would be compromised .under the tyranny 
 of an austere soul, the other, under the anarchical regimen 
 of sensuousness. A noble soul spreads even over a face in 
 which the architectonic beauty is wanting an irresistible 
 grace, and often even triumphs over the natural disfavor. 
 All the movements which proceed from a noble soul are 
 easy, sweet, and yet animated. The ej'e beams wiih 
 serenity as with liberty, and with the brightness of senti- 
 ment ; gentleness of heart would naturally give to the mouth 
 a grace that no affectation, no art, could attain. You 
 trace there no effort in the varied play of the physiog- 
 nomy, no constraint in the voluntary movements — a noble 
 soul knows not constraint ; the voice becomes music, and 
 the limpid stream of its modulations touches the heart. 
 The beauty of structure can excite pleasure, admiration, 
 astonishment ; grace alone can charm. Beauty has its 
 adorers ; grace alone has its lovers : for we paj- our homage 
 to the Creator, and we love man. As a whole, grace 
 would be met with especially amongst women ; beauty, 
 on the contrary, is met with more frequently in man, and 
 we need not go far without finding the reason. For grace 
 
^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 211 
 
 we require the union of bodily structure, as well as that of 
 character : the bodj', by its suppleness, by its prompti- 
 tude to receive impressions and to bring them into action ; 
 the character, by the moral harmon}' of the sentiments. 
 Upon these two points nature has been more favorable 
 to the woman than to man. 
 
 The more delicate structure of the woman receives more 
 rapidlj- each impression and allows it to escape as rapidlj^ It 
 requires a storm to shake a strong constitution, and when 
 vigorous muscles begin to move we should not find the 
 ease which is one of the conditions of grace. That which 
 upon the face of woman is still a beautiful sensation would 
 express suffering alreadj' upon the face of man. Woman 
 has the more tender uer\es ; it is a reed which bends 
 under the gentlest breath of passion. The soul glides in 
 soft and amiable ripples upon her expressive face, which 
 soon regains the calm and smooth surface of the mirror. 
 
 The same also for the character : for that necessary union 
 of the soul with grace the woman is more happily gifted 
 than man. The character of woman rises rarely to the 
 supreme ideal of moral purity, and would rarelj- go beyond 
 acts of affection ; her chai-acter would often resist sen- 
 suousness with heroic force. Precisely- because the moral 
 nature of woman is general!}- on the side of inclination, 
 the effect becomes the same, in that which touches the 
 sensuous expression of this moral state, as if the inclination 
 were on the side of dutj-^ Thus grace would be the ex- 
 pression of feminine virtue, and this expression would often 
 be wanting in manlj- virtue. 
 
 ON DIGNITY. 
 
 As grace is the expression of a noble soul, so is dignity 
 the expression of elevated feeling. 
 
 It has been prescribed to man, it is true, to establish 
 between his two natures a unison, to form alwaj's an 
 harmonious whole, and to act as in union with his entire 
 humanity. But this beauty of character, this last fruit of 
 human maturity', is but an ideal to which he ought to 
 
212 jESthetical letters and essays. 
 
 force his conformity with a constant vigilance, but to 
 which, with all his efforts, he can never attain. 
 
 He cannot attain to it because his nature is thus made 
 and it will not change ; the phj'sical conditions of his 
 existence themselves are opposed to it. 
 
 In fact, his existence, so far as he is a sensuous creature, 
 depends on certain phjsical conditions ; and in order to 
 insure this existence man ought — because, in his quality of 
 a free being, capable of determining his modifications by 
 his own will — to watch over his own preservation himself. 
 Man ought to be made capable of certain acts in order to 
 fulfil these physical conditions of his existence, and when 
 these conditions are out of order to re-establish them. 
 
 But although nature had to give up to him this care 
 which she reserves exclusivelj' to herself in those creatures 
 which have only a vegetative life, still it was necessary 
 that the satisfaction of so essential a want, in which 
 even the existence of the individual and of the species 
 is interested, should not be absolutely left to the dis- 
 cretion of man, and his doubtful foresight. It has then 
 provided for this interest, which in the foundation con- 
 cerns it, and it has also interfered with regard to the form 
 in placing in the determination of free arbitration a 
 principle of necessity. From that arises natural instinct, 
 which is nothing else than a principle of physical necessity 
 which acts upon free arbitration by the means of sensation. 
 
 The natural instinct solicits the sensuous faculty 
 through tlie combined force of pain and of pleasure : by 
 pain when it asks satisfaction, and by pleasure when it 
 has found what it asks. 
 
 As there is no bargaining possible with physical ne- 
 cessity, man must also, in spite of his liberty, feel what 
 nature desires him to feel. According as it awakens in him 
 a painful or an agreeable sensation, there will infallibly 
 result in him either aversion or desii'e. Upon this poiiit 
 man quite resembles the brute ; and the stoic, whatever his 
 power of soul, is not less sensible of hunger, and has no 
 less aversion to it, than the worm that crawls at his feet. 
 
 But here begins the great difl'erence : with the lower 
 creature action succeeds to desire or aversion quite as of 
 necessity, as the desire to the sensation, and the expression 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTEKS AND ESSAYS. 213 
 
 to the external impression. It is here a perpetual circle, a 
 chain, the links of which necessarily join one to the other. 
 With man there is one more force — the will, which, as a 
 super-sensuous facult}', is not so subject to the law of 
 nature, nor that of reason, that he remains without free- 
 dom to choose, and to guide himself according to this or to 
 that. The animal cannot do otherwise than seek to free 
 itself from pain ; man can decide to suffer. 
 
 The will of man is a privilege, a sublime idea, even 
 when we do not consider the moral use that he can make 
 of it. But flrstlj-, the animal nature must be in abeyance 
 before approaching the other, and from that cause it is 
 always a considerable step towards reaching the moral 
 emancipation of the will to have conquered in us the 
 necessity of nature, even in indifferent things, by the 
 exercise in us of the simple will. 
 
 The jurisdiction of nature extends as far as the will, 
 but there it stops, and the empire of reason commences. 
 Placed between these two jurisdictions, the will is abso- 
 lutely free to receive the law from one and the other ; but 
 it is not in the same relation with one and the other. In- 
 asmuch as it is a natural force it is equally free with re- 
 gard to nature and with respect to reason ; I mean to say 
 it is not forced to pass either on the side of one or of the 
 other : but as far as it is a moral faculty it is not free ; I 
 mean that it ought to choose the law of reason. It is not 
 chained to one or the c^her, but it is obliged towards the 
 law of reason. The will reall}' then makes use of its lib- 
 erty even whilst it acts contrary to reason : but it makes 
 use of it unworthily, because, notwithstanding its liberty, 
 it is no less under the jurisdiction of nature, and adds no 
 real action to the operation of pure instinct ; for to will by 
 virtue of desire is onlj' to desire in a different waj'. 
 
 There may be conflict between the law of nature, which 
 works in us through the instinct, and the law of reason, 
 which comes out of principles, when the instinct, to satisfj' 
 itself, demands of us an action which disgusts our moral 
 sense. It is, then, the dut}- of the will to make the exi- 
 gencies of the instinct give way to reason. Whilst the 
 laws of nature oblige the will only conditionalh', the laws 
 of reason oblige absolutely and without conditions. 
 
214 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 But nature obstinatelj' maintains her rights, and as it is 
 never by the result of free choice that she solicits us, she 
 also does not withdraw any of her exigencies as long as 
 she has not been satisfied. Since, from the first cause 
 which gave the impulsion to the thi'eshold of the will 
 where its jurisdiction ends, all in her is rigorously neces- 
 sarj-, consequently she can neither give way nor go back, 
 but must always go forward and press more and more the 
 will on which depends the satisfaction of her wants. 
 Sometimes, it is true, we could say that nature shortens 
 her road and acts immediately as a cause for the satisfac- 
 tion of her needs without having in the first instance car- 
 ried her request before the will. In such a case, that is to 
 say, if man not simply allowed instinct to follow a free 
 course, but if instinct took this course of itself, man 
 would be no more than the brute. But it is ver}- doubtful 
 whether this case would ever present itself, and if ever it 
 were really- presented it would remain to be seen whether 
 we should not blame the will itself for this blind power 
 which the instinct would have usurped. 
 
 Thus the appetitive faculty claims with persistence the 
 satisfaction of its wants, and the will is solicited to pro- 
 cure it ; but the will should receive from the reason the 
 motives by which she determines. What does the I'eason 
 permit ? What does she prescribe ? This is what the will 
 should decide upon. Well, then, if the will turns towards 
 the reason before consenting to the request of the instinct, 
 it is properly a moral act ; but if it immediately decides, 
 without consulting the reason, it is a physical act. 
 
 Every time, then, that nature manifests an exigence and 
 seeks to draw the will along with it b}- the blind violence 
 of affective movement, it is the duty of the will to order 
 nature to halt until reason has pronounced. The sentence 
 which reason pronounces, will it be favorable or the con- 
 trary to the interest of sensuousness ? This is, up to the 
 present time, what the will does not know. Also it should 
 observe this conduct for all the affective movements with- 
 out exception, and when it is nature which has spoken the 
 first, never allow it to act as an immediate cause. Man 
 would testify only by that to his independence. It is 
 when, by an act of his will, he breaks the violence of his 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 216 
 
 desires, which hasten towards the object which should sat- 
 isfy them, and would dispense entirely with the co-opera- 
 tion of the will, — ■ it is only then that he reveals himself 
 in quality of a moral being, that is to say, as a free agent, 
 which does not only allow itself to experience either aver- 
 sion or desire, but which at all times must will his aversions 
 and his desires. 
 
 But this act of taking previously the advice of reason is 
 already an attempt against nature, who is a competent 
 judge in her own cause, and who will not allow her sen- 
 tences to be submitted to a new and strange jurisdiction ; 
 this act of the will which thus brings the appetitive faculty 
 before the tribunal of reason is then, in the proper accept- 
 ation of the word, an act against nature, in that it renders 
 accidental that which is necessary, in that it attributes to 
 the laws of reason the right to decide in a cause where the 
 laws of nature can alone pronounce, and where they have 
 pronounced effectively. Just, in fact, as the reason in the 
 exercise of its moral jurisdiction is little troubled to know 
 if the decisions it can come to will satisfj' or not the sen- 
 suous nature, so the sensuous in the exercise of the right 
 which is proper to it does not trouble itself whether its de- 
 cisions would satisfy pure reason or not. Each is equally 
 necessary, though different in necessity, and this character 
 of necessity would be destroj'ed if it were permitted for 
 one to modify arbitrarily the decisions of the other. This 
 is why the man who ha^ the most moral energy cannot, 
 whatever resistance he opposes to instinct, free himself 
 from sensuousness, or stifle desire, but can only deny it an 
 influence upon the decisions of his will ; he can disarm 
 instinct by moral means, but he cannot appease it but by 
 natural means. By his independent force he may prevent 
 the laws of nature from exercising any constraint over his 
 will, but he can absolutely change nothing of the laws 
 themselves. 
 
 Thus in the aflfective movements in which nature (in- 
 stinct) acts Vae first and seeks to do without the will, or to 
 draw it violently to its side, the morality of character can- 
 not manifest itself but by its resistance, and there is but 
 one means of preventing the instinct from restraining the 
 liberty of the will : it is to restrain the instinct itself. 
 
316 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESS ATS. 
 
 Thus we can only have agreement between the law of rea- 
 son and the affective phenomena, under the condition of 
 putting both in discord with the exigencies of instinct. 
 And as nature never gives way to moral reasons, and re- 
 calls her claims, and as on her side, consequently, all re- 
 mains in the same state, in whatever manner the will acts 
 towards her, it results that there is no possible accord be- 
 tween theinchnation and duty, between reason and sense ; 
 and that here man cannot act at the same time with all his 
 being and with all the harmony of his nature, but exclu- 
 sively- with his reasonable nature. Thus in these sorts of 
 actions we could not find moral beauty, because an action 
 is morally good only as far as inclination has taken part 
 in it, and here the inclination protests against much more 
 than it concurs with it. But these actions have moral 
 grandeur, because all that testifies to a preponderating au- 
 thority exercised over the sensuous nature has grandeur, 
 and grandeur is found onl}^ there. 
 
 It is, then, in the aflFective movements that this great 
 soul of which we speak transforms itself and becomes sub- 
 lime ; and it is the touchstone to distinguish the soul truly 
 great from what is called a good heart, or from the virtue 
 of temperament. When in man the inclination is ranged 
 on the side of morality only because moralit3- itself is hap- 
 pily on the side of inclination, it will happen that the in- 
 stinct of nature in the affective movements will exercise 
 upon the will a full empire, and if a sacrifice is necessary 
 it is the moral nature, and not the sensuous nature, that 
 will make it. If, on the contrary, it is reason itself which 
 has made the inclination pass to the side of duty (which is 
 the case in the fine character), and which has onl}' con- 
 fided the rudder to the sensuous nature, it will be always 
 able to retake it as soon as the instinct should misuse its 
 full powers. Thus the virtue of temperament in the af- 
 fective movem,ents falls back to the state of simple pro- 
 duction of nature, whilst the noble soul passes to heroism 
 and rises to the rank of pure intelligence. 
 
 The rule over the instincts by moral force is the eman- 
 cipation of mind, and tlie expression bj- which this inde- 
 pendence presents itself to the eyes in the world of phe- 
 nomena is what is ualled dignity. 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 217 
 
 To consider this rigorouslj' : the moral force in man is 
 susceptible of no representation, for the super-sensuous 
 could not explain itself by a phenomenon that falls under 
 the sense ; but it can be represented indirectly to the mind 
 by sensuous signs, and this is actually the case with dig- 
 nity in the configuration of man. 
 
 When the mstinct of nature is excited, it is accompa- 
 nied just as the heart in its moral emotions is, by certain 
 movements of the body, which sometimes go before the 
 will, sometimes, even as movements purely S3'mpathetic, 
 escape altogether its empire. In fact, as neither sensation, 
 nor the desire, nor aversion, are subject to the free arbi- 
 tration of man, man has no right over the physical move- 
 ments which immediately depend on it. But the instinct 
 does not confine itself to simple desire ; it presses, it ad- 
 vances, it endeavors to realize its object-; and if. it does 
 not meet in the autonomy' of the mind an energetic resist- 
 ance, it will even anticipate it, it will itself take the initia- 
 tive of those sorts of acts over which the will alone has 
 the right to pronounce. For the instinct of conservation 
 tends without ceasing to usurp the legislative powers in 
 the domain of the will, and its efforts go to exercise over 
 man a domination as absolute as over the beast. There 
 are, then, two sorts of distinct movements, which, in them- 
 selves and by their origin, in each affective phenomenon, 
 arise in man by the instinct of conservation : those firstlj' 
 which immediately pro(*ed from sensation, and which, 
 consequently, are quite involuntary ; then those which in 
 principle could and would be voluntary, but from which 
 the blind instinct of nature takes all freedom. The first 
 refer to the affection itself, and are united necessarily with 
 it ; the others respond rather to the cause and to the ob- 
 ject of the affections, and are thus accidental and suscepti- 
 ble of modification, and cannot be mistaken for infallible 
 signs of the affective phenomena. But as both one and 
 the other, when once the object is determined, are equally 
 necessarj' to the instinct of nature, so they assist, both 
 one and the other, the expression of affective phenomena ; 
 a necessary competition, in order that the expression 
 should be complete and form a harmonious whole. 
 
 Ifj then, the will is sufficiently independent to repress 
 
218 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 the aggressions of instinct and to maintain its rights 
 against this blind force, all the phenomena which the 
 instinct of nature, once excited, produce, in its proper 
 domain, will preserve, it is true, their force ; but those 
 of the second kind, those which came out of a foreign 
 jurisdiction, and which it pretended to subject arbitrarity 
 to its power, these phenomena would not take place. 
 Thus the phenomena are no longer in harmony ; but it is 
 precisely in their opposition that consists the expression 
 of the moral force. Suppose that we see a man a prey to 
 the most poignant affection, manifested by movements of 
 the first kind, by quite involuntary movements. His veins 
 swell, his muscles contract convulsively, his voice is stifled, 
 his chest is raised and projects, whilst the lower portion 
 of the torso is sunken and compressed ; but at the same 
 time the voluntary movements are soft, the features of the 
 face free, and serenity beams forth from the brow and in 
 the look. If man were only a physical being, all his traits, 
 being determined only by one and the same principle, 
 would be in unison one with the other, and would have a 
 similar expic-ssion. Here, for example, they would unite 
 in expressing exclusively suffering ; but as those traits 
 which express calmness are mixed up with those which 
 express suffering, and as similar causes do not produce 
 opposite effects, we must recognize in this contrast the 
 presence and the action of a moral force, independent of 
 the passive affections, and superior to the impressions be- 
 neath which we see sensuous nature give way. And this 
 is why calmness under suffering, in which properly consists 
 dignit}', becomes ^indirectly, it is true, and by means of 
 reasoning — a representation of the pure intelligence which 
 is in man, and an expression of his moral liberty. But it 
 is not only under suffering, in the restricted sense of the 
 word, in the sense in which it marks only the painful 
 affections, but generallj- in all the eases :n which the appe- 
 titive faculty is strongly interested, that mind ought to 
 show its liberty, and that dignity ought to be the dominant 
 expression. Dignity is not less required in t!?e agreeable 
 affections than in the painful affections, because in both 
 cases nature would willingl3' play the part of master, and 
 has to be held in check by the will. Dignity relates to the 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 219 
 
 form and not to the nature of the affection, and this is 
 why it can be possible that often an affection, praiseworthj- 
 in the main, but one to which we blindly commit ourselves, 
 degenerates, from the want of dignit}-, into vulgarity and 
 baseness ; and, on the contrary, a condemnable affection, 
 as soon as it testifies by its form to the empire of the mind 
 over the senses, changes often its character and approaches 
 even towards the sublime. 
 
 Thus in dignity the mind reigns over the body and bears 
 itself as ruler : here it has its independence to defend 
 against imperious impulse, always ready to do without it, 
 to act and shake off its yoke. But in grace, on the con- 
 trary, the mind governs with a liberal government, for 
 here the mind itself causes sensuous nature to act, and it 
 finds no resistance to overcome. Hut obedience only mer- 
 its forbearance, and severity is only justifiable when pro- 
 voked bjf opposition. 
 
 Thus grace is nothing else than the libert}- of voluntary 
 movements, and dignitj' consists in mastering involuntary 
 movements. Grace leaves to sensuous nature, where it 
 obejs the orders of the mind, a certain air of independ- 
 ence ; dignity, on the contrary, submits the sensuous nature 
 to mind where it would make the pretensions to rule ; 
 wherever instinct takes the initiative and allows itself to 
 trespass upon the attributes of the will, the will must show 
 it no indulgence, but it must testify to its own independ- 
 ence (autonomj'), in opposing to it the most energetic 
 resistance. If, on the contrary, it is the will that com- 
 mences, and if instinct does but follow it, the free arbi- 
 tration has no longer to display any rigor, now it must 
 show indulgence. Such is in a few words the law which 
 ought to regulate the relation of the two natures of man in 
 what regards the expression of this relation in the world 
 of phenomena. 
 
 It follows that dignity is required, and is seen particu- 
 larly in passive affection, whilst grace is shown in the con- 
 duct, for it is onlj' in suffering that the libertj' of the soul 
 can be manifested, and only in action that the liberty of 
 the body can be displaj-ed. 
 
 If dignity is an expression of resistance opposed to 
 instinct by moral liberty, and if the instinct consequently 
 
220 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 ought to be considered as a force tliat renders resistance 
 necessary, it follows that dignit}' is ridiculous where 
 you have no force of this kind to resist, and contemptible 
 where there ought not to be any such force to combat. 
 We laugh at a comedian, whatever rank or condition he 
 maj' occupy, who even in indifferent actions affects 
 dignitj-. We despise those small souls who, for having 
 accomplished an ordinary action, and often for having 
 simply abstained from a base one, plume themselves on 
 their dignity. 
 
 Generally, what is demanded of virtue is not properlj' 
 speaking dignity, but grace. Dignity is implicitly con- 
 tained in the idea of virtue, which even by its nature 
 supposes alreadj- the rule of man over his instincts. It 
 is rather sensuous nature that, in the fulfilment of moral 
 duties, is found in a state of oppression and constraint, 
 particularly when it consummates in a painful sacrifice. 
 But as the ideal of perfection in man does not require a 
 struggle, but harmony between the moral and physical 
 nature, this ideal is little compatible with dignitj-, which is 
 onlj' the expression of a struggle between the two natures, 
 and as such renders visible either the particular impotence 
 of the individual, or the impotence common to the species. 
 In the first case, when the want of harmony between in- 
 clination and duty, with regard to a moral act, belongs to 
 the particular powerlessness of the subject, the act would 
 always lose its moral value, in as far as that combat is 
 necessarj-, and, in consequence, proportionally as there 
 would be dignity in the exterior expression of this act ; 
 for our moral judgment connects each individual with the 
 common measure of the species, and we do not allow man 
 to be stopped by other limits than those of human 
 nature. 
 
 In the second case, when the action commanded by 
 dut3' cannot be placed in harmony with the exigencies 
 of instinct without going against the idea of human 
 nature, the resistance of the inclination is necessarj', and 
 then only the sight of the combat can convince us 
 of the possibility of victory. Thus we ask here of the 
 features and attitudes an expression of this interior 
 struggle, not being able to take upon ourselves to 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 221 
 
 believe in virtue where there is no trace of hu- 
 manity. Where then the moral law commands of us 
 au action which necessarily makes the sensuous nature 
 suffer, there the matter is serious, and ought nol to 
 be treated as play ; ease and lightness in accomplishing 
 this act would be much more likelj- to revolt us than to 
 satisfy us ; and thus, in consequence, expression is no 
 longer grace, but dignitJ^ In general, the law which 
 prevails here is, that man ought to accomplish with 
 grace all the acts that he can execute in the sphere of /I 
 human nature ; and with dignity all those for the ac- M 
 complishment of which he is obliged to go beyond his'j 
 nature. 
 
 In like manner as we ask of virtue to have grace, we 
 ask of inclination to have dignity. Grace is not less nat- 
 ural to inclination than dignity to virtue, and that is 
 evident from the idea of grace, which is all sensuous and 
 favorable to the liberty of physical nature, and which is 
 repugnant to all idea of constraint. The man without 
 cultivation lacks not by himself a certain degree of grace, 
 when love or any other affection of this kind animates 
 him ; and where do we find more grace than in children, 
 who are nevertheless entirely under the direction of 
 instinct. The danger is rather that inclination should end 
 by making the state of passion the dominant one, stifling 
 the independence of mind, and bringing about a general 
 relaxation. Therefore i* order to conciliate the esteem of 
 a noble sentiment — esteem can only be inspired by that 
 which proceeds from a moral source — the inclination must 
 always be accompanied b^- dignity. It is for that reason 
 a person in love desires to find dignity in the object of 
 this passion. Dignity alone is the warrant that it is 
 not need which has forced, but free choice which has 
 chosen, that he is not desired as a thing, but esteemed as 
 a person. 
 
 We require grace of him who obliges, dignity of the 
 person obliged : the first, to set aside an advantage which 
 he has over the other, and which might wound, ought 
 to give to his actions, though his decision maj- have been 
 disinterested, the character of an affective movement, 
 that thus, from the part which he allows inclination to 
 
222 ^STHETICAI. LETTERS A'ND ESSAYS. 
 
 take, he may have the appearance of being the one who 
 gains the most : the second, not to compromise by the 
 dependence in which he put himself the honor of hu- 
 manity, of which liberty is the saintly palladium, ought 
 to raise what is only a pure movement of instinct to the 
 height of an act of the will, and in this manner, at the 
 moment when he receives a favor, return in a certain 
 sense another favor. 
 
 We must censure with grace, and own our faults with 
 dignit}': to put dignity into our remonstrances is to have 
 the air of a man too penetrated by his own advantage : to 
 put grace into our confessions is to forget the inferiority 
 in which our fault has placed us. Do the powerful desire 
 to conciliate affection? Their superiority must be tem- 
 pered by grace. The feeble, do they desire to conciliate 
 esteem? Thej' must through dignity rise above their 
 powerlessness. Generall}' it is thought that dignity is 
 suitable to the throne, and everj' one knows that those 
 seated upon it desire to find in their councillors, thoir 
 confessors, and in their parliaments — grace. But that 
 which may be good and praiseworthy in a kingdom is 
 not so always in the domain of taste. The prince himself 
 enters into this domain as soon as he descends from his 
 throne (for thrones have their privileges), and the crouch- 
 ing courtier places himself under the saintly and free 
 probation of this law as soon as he stands erect and 
 becomes again a man. The first we would counsel to 
 supplement from the superfluity of the second that which 
 he himself needs, and to give him as much of his dignity 
 as he requires to borrow grace from him. 
 
 Although dignity and grace have each their proper 
 domain in which they are manifest, thej' do not exclude each 
 other. They can be met with in the same person, and 
 even in the same state of that person. Further, it is 
 grace alone which guarantees and accredits dignitj', and 
 dignity alone can give value to grace. 
 
 Dignity alone, wherever met with, testifies that the de- 
 sires and inclinations are restrained within certain limits. 
 But what we take for a force which moderates and rules, 
 may it not be rather an obliteration of the faculty of 
 feeling (hardness) ? Is it really the moral autonomy, and 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 223 
 
 inay it not be rather the preponderance of another affec- 
 tion, and in consequence a voluntary interested effort that 
 restrains the outburst of the present affection? This is 
 what grace alone can put out of doubt in joining itself to 
 dignitJ^ It is grace, I mean to say, that testifies to a 
 peaceful soul in harmony with itself and a feeling heart. 
 
 In like manner grace by itself shows a certain suscepti- 
 bility of the feeling faculty, and a certain harmony of 
 sentiment. But may this no' be a certain relaxation of 
 the mind which allows so much liberty to sensuous nature 
 and which opens the heart to all impressions? Is it 
 indeed the moral which has established this harmony 
 between the sentiments? It is dignity alone which can 
 in its turn guarantee this to us in joining itself to giace ; 
 I mean it is dignity alone which attests in the subject 
 an independent force, and at the moment when the will 
 represses the license of involuntary movement, it is b^' 
 dignity that it makes known that the liberty of voluntary 
 movements is a simple concession on its part. 
 
 If grace and dignity, still supported, the one by archi- 
 tectonic beauty and the other by force, were united in the 
 same person, the expression of human nature would be 
 accomplished in him : such a person would be justified 
 in the spiritual world and set at libertj- in the sensuous 
 world. Here the two domains touch so closely that their 
 -imits are indistinguishable. The smile that plajs on 
 the lips ; this sweetlj' anifnated look ; that serenity spread 
 over the brow — it is the liberty of the reason which 
 gleams forth in a softened light. This noble majesty 
 impressed on the face is the sublime adieu of the necessity 
 of nature, which disappears before the mind. Such is the 
 ideal of human beauty- according to which the antique 
 conceptions were formed, and we see it in the divine forms 
 of a Niobe, of the Apollo Belvedere, m the winged Genius 
 of the Borghese, and m the Muse of the Barberini palace. 
 There, where grace and dignity are united, we experience 
 bj' turns attraction and repulsion ; attraction as spiritual 
 creatures, and repulsion as being sensuous creatures. 
 
 Dignitj- offers to us an example of subordination of 
 sensuous nature to moral nature — an example which we are 
 bound to imitate, but which at the sarne time goes beyond 
 
224 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AM iSbSaW, 
 
 the measure of our sensuous faculty. This o^jposLvi^i 
 between the instincts of nature and the exigei.cics oi' ^ue 
 moral law, exigencies, however, that we recognize ab legiti- 
 mate, brings our feelings into play and awakens a seiitiment 
 that we name esteem, which is inseparable from dignit3'. 
 
 With grace, on the contrary, as with beauty in general, 
 reason finds its demands satisfied in the world of sense, 
 and sees with surprise one of its own ideas presented to it, 
 realized in the world of phenomena. This unexpected 
 encounter between the accident of nature and the necessity 
 of reason awakens in us a sentiment of joyous approval 
 (contentment) which calms the senses, but which animates 
 and occupies the mind, and it results necessarily that we 
 are attracted by a charm towards the sensuous object. It 
 is this attraction which we call kindliness, or love — a 
 sentiment inseparable from grace and beaut3^ 
 
 The attraction — I mean the attraction {stimulus) not 
 of love but of voluptuousness — proposes to the senses a 
 sensuous object that promises to these the satisfaction of 
 a want, that is to sa}' a pleasure ; the senses are con- 
 sequently solicited towards this sensuous object, and from 
 that springs desire, a sentiment which increases and excites 
 the sensuous nature, but which, on the contrary, relaxes 
 the spiritual nature. 
 
 We can say of esteem that it inclines towards its object ; 
 of love, that it approaches with inclination towards its 
 object ; of desire, that it precipitates itself upon its object ; 
 with esteem, the object is reason, and the subject is 
 sensuous nature ; with love, the object is sensuous, and the 
 subject is moral nature ; with desire, the object and the 
 subject are purely sensuous. 
 
 With love alone is sentiment free, because it is pure in its 
 principle, and because it draws its source from the seat of 
 liberty, from the breast of our divine nature. Here, it is not 
 the weak and base part of our nature that rneasures itself 
 with the greater and more noble part ; it is not the sen- 
 sibility, a prey to vertigo, which gazes up at the law of 
 reason. It is absolute greatness which is reflected in beauty 
 and in grace, and satisfied in morality ; it becomes the 
 legislator even, the god in us who plays with his own 
 image in the world of sense. Thus love consoles and 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 22B 
 
 dilates the heart, whilst esteem strains it ; because here 
 there is nothing which could limit the heart and compress 
 its impulses, there being nothing higher than absolute 
 greatness ; and sensibilitj'', from which alone fainderance 
 could come, is reconciled, in the breast of beauty and of 
 grace, with the ideas even of the mind. Love has but to 
 descend ; esteem aspires with effort towards an object 
 placed above it. This is the reason that the wicked love 
 nothing, though they are obliged to esteem many things. 
 This is why the well-disposed man can hardly esteem 
 without at once feeling love for the object. Pure spirit 
 can only love, but not esteem ; the senses know only 
 esteem, but not love. 
 
 The culpable man is perpetually a prey to fear, that he 
 may meet in the world of sense the legislator within 
 himself ; and sees an enemy in all that bears the stamp of 
 greatness, of beauty, and of perfection ; the man, on the 
 contrary, in whom a noble soul breathes, knows no greater 
 pleasure than to meet out of himself the image or reali- 
 zation of the divine that is in him ; and to embrace in the 
 world of sense a sjmibol of the immortal friend he loves. 
 Love is at the same time the most generous and the most 
 egotistical thing in nature ; the most generous, because it 
 receives nothing and gives all — pure mind being only 
 able to give and not receive ; the most egotistical, for 
 that whch he seeks in the subject, that which he enjo3'S 
 in it, is himself and ne^^r anj'fthing else. 
 
 But preciselj' because he who loves receives from the 
 beloved object nothing but that which he has himself 
 given, it often happens that he gives more than he has 
 received. 
 
 The exterior senses believe to have discovered in the 
 object that which the internal sense alone contemplates in 
 it, in the end believing what is desired with ardor, and 
 the riches belonging to the one who loves hide the poverty 
 of the object loved. This is the reason why love is subject 
 to illusion, vrhilst esteem and desire are never decei\ed. 
 As long as the super-excitement of the internal senses 
 overcomes the internal senses, the soul remains under the 
 charm of this Platonic love, which gives place only in dura- 
 tion to the delights enjoyed by the immortals. But as 
 
226 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 soon as internal sense ceases to share its \isions with the 
 exterior sense, these take possession of their rights and 
 imperiously demand that which is its due — matter. It is 
 the terrestrial Venus who profits bj- the fire kindled bj- the 
 celestial Venus, and it is not rare to find the phj'sical in- 
 stinct, so long sacrificed, revenge itself by a rule all the 
 more absolute. As external sense is never a dupe to illu- 
 sion, it makes this advantage felt with a brutal insolence 
 over its noble rival ; and it possesses audacity to the point 
 of asserting that it has settled an account that the spiritual 
 nature had left under sufferance. 
 
 Dignity prevents lo^■e from degenerating into desire, and 
 grace, from esteem turning into fear. True beautj', true 
 grace, ought never to cause desire. Where desire is min- 
 gled, either the object wants dignitj', or he who considers 
 it wants moralitj' in hia sentiments. True greatness ought 
 never to cause fear. If fear finds a place, j^ou may hold 
 for certain either that the object is wanting in taste and 
 grace, or that he who considers it is not at peace with his 
 conscience. 
 
 Attraction, charm, grace : words commonly- employed as 
 synon3'ms, but which are not, or ought not to be so, the 
 idea they express being capable of many determinations, 
 requiring difi'erent designations. 
 
 There is a kind of grace which animates, and another 
 which calms the heart. One touches -nearly the sphere of 
 the senses, and .the pleasure which is found in these, if not 
 restrained by dignitj', would easily degenerate into concu- 
 piscence ; we maj- use the word attraction \_Iieiz] to desig- 
 nate this grace. A man with whom the feelings have little 
 elasticitj' does not find in himself the necessary force to 
 awaken his affections : he needs to borrow it from without 
 and to seek from impressions which easily exercise the 
 phantasj^ bj' rapid transition from sentiment to action, in 
 order to establish in himself the elasticity he had lost. It 
 is the advantage that he will find in the society of an at- 
 tractive person, who by conversation and look would stir 
 his imagination and agitate this stagnant water. 
 
 The calming grace approaches more nearly to dignitj-, 
 inasmuch as it manifests itself through the moderation 
 which it imposes upon the impetuositj' of the movements. 
 
JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 227 
 
 It is to this the man addresses himself whose imagination 
 is over-excited ; it is in this peaceful atmosphere that the 
 heart seeks repose after the violence of the storm. It is 
 to this that I reser^'e especiall}- the appellation of grace. 
 Attraction is not incompatible with laughter, jest, or the 
 sting of raillery ; grace agrees only with sj'mpathj- and love. 
 
 Dignity has also its degrees and its shades. If it ap- 
 proaches grace and beauty, it takes the name of nobleness ; 
 if, on the contrarj', it inclines towards the side of fear, it 
 becomes haughtiness. 
 
 The utmost degree of grace is ravishing charm. Dig- 
 nitj', in its highest form, is called majesty. In the ravish- 
 ing we love our Ego, and we feel our being fused with the 
 object. Liberty in its plenitude and in its highest enjoy- 
 ment tends to the complete destruction of liberty, and the 
 excitement of the mind to the delirium of the voluptuous- 
 ness of the senses. Majest}', on the contrarj-, proposes to 
 us a law, a moral ideal, which constrains us to turn back 
 our looks upon ourselves. God is there, and the senti- 
 ment we have of His presence makes us bend our eyes 
 upon the ground. We forget all that is without ourselves, 
 and we feel but the heavy burden of our own existence. 
 
 Majestj' belongs to what is holy. A man capable of 
 giving us an idea of holiness possesses majestj-, and if we 
 do not go so far as to kneel, our mind at least prostrates 
 itself before him. But the mind recoils at once upon the 
 slightest trace of hummii imperfection which he discovers 
 in the object of his adoration, because that which is only 
 comparativelj- great cannot subdue the heart. 
 
 Power alone, however terrible or without limit we may 
 suppose it to be, can never confer majestj'. Power im- 
 poses only upon the sensuous being ; majesty should act 
 upon the mind itself, and rob it of its libertj-. A man 
 who can pronounce upon me a sentence of death has nei- 
 ther more nor less of majesty for me the moment I am 
 what I ought to be His .nil vantage over me ceases as 
 soon as I insist on it. But lie who offers to me in his per- 
 son the image of pure will, before him I would prostrate 
 mj'self, if it is possible, for all eternitj'. 
 
 Grace and dignity are too high in value for vanitj' and 
 stupidity not to be excited to appropriate them by imita- 
 
228 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 tion. There is only one means of attaining this : it is to 
 imitate the moral state of which they are the expression. 
 All other imitation is but to ape them, and would be recog- 
 nized directly through exaggeration. 
 
 Just as exaggeration of the sublime leads to inflation, 
 and affectation of nobleness to preciosity, in the same man- 
 ner affectation of grace ends in coquetry, and that of dig- 
 nity to stiff solemnity, false gravity. 
 
 Tliere where true grace simply used ease and jyrevenance, 
 affected grace becomes effeminacy. One is content to use 
 discreetly the ^■oluntar3^ movements, and not thwart unne- 
 cessarily' the liberty of nature ; the other has not even the 
 heart to use properly the organs of will, and, not to fall 
 into hardness and heaviness, it prefers to sacrifice some- 
 thing of the aim of movement, or else it seeks to reach it 
 by cross waj's and indirect means. An awkward and stiff 
 dancer expends as much force as if he ha'^ to work a 
 windmill ; with his feet and arms he describes lines as an- 
 gular as if he were tracing figures with geometrical pre- 
 cision ; the affected dancer, on tlie other hand, glides with 
 an excess of delicacy, as if he feared to injure himself on 
 coming in contact with the ground, and his feet and hands 
 describe only lines in sinuous curves. The other sex, 
 which is essentially in possession of true grace, is also that 
 one which is more frequently culpable of affected grace, 
 but this affectation is never more distasteful than when 
 used as a bait to desire. The smile of true grace thus 
 gives place to the most repulsive grimace ; the fine play 
 of look, so ravishing when it displays a true sentiment, is 
 only contortion ; tlie melodious inflections of the voice, an 
 irresistible attraction from candid lips, are onlj* a vain ca- 
 dence, a tremulousness which savors of study : in a word, 
 all the harmonious charms of woman become onl}- decep- 
 tion, an artifice of the toilet. 
 
 If we have many occasions to observe the affected grace 
 in the theatre and in the ball-room, there is also often oc- 
 casion of studying the affected dignity in the cabinet of 
 ministers and in the study-rooms of men of science (nota- 
 ably at universities). True dignity is content to prevent 
 the domination of the affections, to keep the instinct within 
 just limits, but there only where it pretends to be rnaster 
 
iESXHETIOAL LETTKKS ANP ES8AV8. 229 
 
 in the involuntary movements ; false dignity regulates 
 with an iron sceptre even the voluntary movements, it op- 
 IH'esses the moral movements, which were sacred to true 
 dignitj', as well as the sensual movements, and destroys 
 all the mimic play of the features by which the soul gleams 
 forth upon the face. It arms itself not only against rebel 
 nature, but against submissive nature, and ridiculously 
 seeks its greatness in subjecting nature to its yoke, or, if 
 this does not succeed, in hiding it. As if it had vowed 
 hatred to all that is called nature, it swathes the body in 
 long, heav3'-plaited garments, which hide the human struc- 
 ture ; it paralyzes the limbs in surcharging them with vain- 
 ornaments, and goes even the length of cutting the hair to 
 replace this gift of nature by an artificial production. True 
 dignitj- does not blush for nature, but only for brute na- 
 ture ; it alwa3's has an open and frank air ; feeling gleams 
 in its look ; calm and serenitj' of mind is legible upon the 
 brow in eloquent traits. False gravity, on the contrarj', 
 places its dignitj' in the lines of its visage ; it is close, 
 mj'sterious, and guards its features with the care of an 
 actor; all the muscles of its face are tormented, all natural 
 and true expression disappears, and the entire man is like 
 a sealed letter. 
 
 But false dignitj' is not always wrong to keep the mimic 
 play of its features under sharp disciphne, because it 
 might betray more than would be desired, a precaution 
 true dignity has not to jjpnsider. True dignity wishes onlj' 
 to rule, not to conceal nature ; in false dignitj-, en the con- 
 trary, nature rules the more powerfully within because it 
 is controlled outwardly. * 
 
 * Avt can make use of a proper solemnity. Its object is only to prepare 
 the mind for something important. When the poet is anxious to produce 
 a great impression he tunes the mind to receive it. 
 
230 ^STHBTIOAL LBTTEHa AND EtiSAVH. 
 
 ON THE NECESSARY LIMITATIONS IN THE 
 USE OF BEAUTY OF FORM. 
 
 The abuse of the beautiful and the encroachments of 
 imagination, when, having only the casting vote, it seeks 
 to grasp the law-giving sceptre, has done great injury 
 alike in life and in science. It is therefore liighly expe- 
 dient to examine very closely the bounds that have been 
 assigned to the use of beautiful forms. These limits are 
 embodied in tlie very nature of the beautiful, and we have 
 only to call to mind how taste expresses its influence to be 
 able to determine ho u) far it ought to extend it. 
 
 The following are the principal operations of taste ; to 
 bring the sensuous and spiritual powers of man into har- 
 mony, and to unite them in a close aUiance. Consequently, 
 whenever suuh an intim ite alliance between reason and 
 the senses is suitable and legitimate, taste may be allowed 
 influence. But taste reaches the bounds which it is not 
 permitted to pass without defeating its end or removing 
 us from our duty, in all cases where the bond between 
 mind and matter is given up for a time, where we must act 
 for the time as purelj' creatures of reason, whether it be to 
 attain an end or to perform a duty. Cases of this kind do 
 reallj' occur, and they are even incumbent on us in carrying 
 out our destiny. 
 
 For we are destined to obtain knowledge and to act 
 from knowledge. In both cases a certain readiness is 
 required to exclude the senses from that which the spirit 
 does, because feelings must be alistracted from knowl- 
 edge, and passion or desire from ever^- moral act of the 
 will. 
 
 When we know, we take up an active attitude, and our 
 attention is directed to an ohject, to a relation between 
 different representations. When vi&feel, we have a,paf<sioe 
 attitude, and our attention — if we may call that so, which 
 is no conscious operation of the mind — is only directed 
 to our own condition, as far as it is modified by the 
 impression received. Now, as we only feel and do not 
 
iESTHETJCAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS, 231 
 
 know the beautiful, we do not distinguish any relation 
 between it and other objects, we do not refer its represen- 
 tation to other representations, but to ourselves who liave 
 experienced the impression. We learn or experience 
 nothing in the beautiful object, but we perceive a change 
 occasioned by it in our own condition, of which the 
 impression produced is the expression. Accordingly our 
 knowledge is not enlarged b^- judgments of taste, and no 
 knowledge, not even that of beaut}-, is obtained by the 
 feeling of beaut}'. Therefore, when knowledge is the 
 object, taste can give us no help, at least directlj' and 
 immediately ; on the contrary, knowledge is shut out as 
 long as we are occupied with beaut}'. 
 
 But it may be objected, What is the use then of a grace- 
 ful embodiment of conceptions, if the object of the dis- 
 cussion or treatise, which is simply and solely to produce 
 knowledge, is rather hindered than benefited by ornament? 
 To convince the understanding this gracefulness of clothing 
 can certainly avail as little as the tasteful arrangement of 
 a banquet can satisfy the appetite of the guests, or the 
 outward elegance of a person can give a clue to his intrinsic 
 worth. But just as the appetite is excited by the beauti- 
 ful arrangement of the table, and attention is directed to 
 the elegant person in question, by the attractiveness of the 
 exterior, so also we are placed in a favorable attitude to 
 receive truth by the charming representation given of it ; 
 we are led to open our^ouls to its reception, and the 
 obstacles are removed from our minds which would have 
 otherwise opposed the diflBcult pursuit of a long and strict 
 concatenation of thought. It is never the contents, the 
 substance, that gains by the beauty Of form ; nor is it the 
 understanding that is helped by taste in the act of 
 knowing. The substance, the contents, must commend 
 themselves to the understanding directly, of themselves ; 
 whilst the beautiful form speaks to the imagination, and 
 flatters it with an appearance of freedom. 
 
 But even further limitations are necessary in this inno- 
 cent subserviency to the senses, which is only allowed in 
 the form, without changing an}'thing in the substance. 
 Great moderation must be always used, and sometimes 
 the end in view may be completely defeated according to 
 
232 iESTHKTIOAL LETTKKS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 the kind of knowledge and degree of conviction aimed at 
 in imparting our views to others. There is a scientific 
 knowledge, which is based on clear conceptions and known 
 principles ; and a,])opular knowledge, which is founded on 
 feelings more or less developed. What may be very useful 
 to the latter is quite possibly adverse to the forrrier. 
 
 When the object in view is to produce a strict conviction 
 on principles, it is not sufficient to present the truth only 
 in respect to its contents or subject ; the test of the truth 
 must at the same time be contained in the manner of its 
 presentation. But this can mean nothing else than that 
 not only the contents, but also the mode of stating them, 
 must be according to the laws of thought. They must be 
 connected in the presentation with the same strict logical 
 sequence with which they are chained together in the rea- 
 sonings of the understanding ; the stability of the repre- 
 sentation must guarantee that of the ideas. But the strict 
 necessitj;^ with which the understanding links together rea- 
 sonings and conclusions, is quite antagonistic to the free- 
 dom granted to imagination in matters of knowledge. By 
 its verj- nature, the imagination strives after perceptions, 
 that is, after complete and completely- determinate repre- 
 sentations, and is indefatigablj' active to represent the 
 universal in one single case, to limit it in time and space, 
 to make of e^ery conception an individual, and to give a 
 body to absti actions. Moreover, the imagination likes 
 freedom in its combinations, and admits no other law in 
 them than the accidental connection with time and space ; 
 for this is the onl3- connection that remains to our repre- 
 sentations, if we separate from them in thought all that is 
 conception, all that binds them internally and substantially 
 together. The understanding, following a diametrically 
 opposite course, only occupies itself with part represen- 
 tations or conceptions, and its effort is directed to distin- 
 guish features in the living unity of a perception. The 
 understanding proceeds on the same principles in putting 
 together and taking to pieces, but it can only combine 
 things by part-representations, just as it can separafe them ; 
 for it onty unites, accordvKj to their inner relations, 
 things that first disclosed themselves in their sepa- 
 ration. 
 
^BTHETIOAIi liKTTERS AND ESSAYS. 'Z6'6 
 
 The understanding observes a strict necessity- and con- 
 formity' with laws in its combinations, and it is only the 
 consistent connection of ideas tliat satisfies it. But this 
 connection is destroyed as often as the imagination insin- 
 uates entire representations (individual cases) in this chain 
 of abstractions, and mixes up the accidents of time with 
 the strict necessity of a chain of circnmstances. Accord- 
 ingly, in every case where it is essential to carry out a 
 rigidly accurate sequence of reasoning, imagination must 
 forego its capricious character ; and its endeavor to obtain 
 all possible sensuousness in conceptions, and all freedom 
 in their combination, must be made subordinate and sacri- 
 ficed to the necessity of the understanding. From this it 
 follows that the exposition must be so fashioned as to 
 overthrow this effort of the imagination by the exclusion 
 of all that is individual and sensuous. The poetic impulse 
 of imagination must be curbed hy distinctness of expres- 
 sion, and its capricious tendency to combine must be 
 limited by a strictly legitimate course of procedure. I 
 grant that it will not bend to this j'oke without resistance ; 
 but in this matter reliance is properly- placed on a certain 
 amount of self-denial, and on an earnest determination of 
 the hearer or reader not to be deterred by the difficulties 
 accompanying the form, for the sake of the subject-matter. 
 But in all cases where no sufficient dependence can be 
 placed on this self-denial, or where the interest felt in the 
 subject-matter is insufficiaat to inspire courage for such an 
 amount of exertion, it is necessary to resign the idea of 
 imparting strictly scientific knowledge ; and to gain instead 
 greater latitude in the form of its presentation. In such 
 a case it is expedient to abandon the form of science, 
 which exercises too great violence over the imagination, 
 and can only be made acceptable through the importance 
 of the object in view. Instead of this, it is proper to 
 choose the form of beauty, which, independent of the con- 
 tents or subject, recommends itself bj' its verj' appear- 
 ance. As the matter cannot excuse the form in this case, 
 the form must trespass on the matter. 
 
 Popular instruction is compatible with this freedom. By 
 the terra popular speakers or popular writers I imply all 
 those who do not direct their remarks exclusivelj- to the 
 
2o4 ^STHETIOAI. LKTTEES AND ESSAViS. 
 
 learned. Now, as these persons do not address any care- 
 fully trained bod3' of hearers or readers, but take them as 
 they find them, they must only assume the existence of the 
 general conditions of thought, onl^- the universal impulses 
 that call attention, but no special gift of thinking^ no ac- 
 quaintance with distinct conceptions, nor any interest in 
 special subjects. These lecturers and authors must not 
 be too particular as to whether their audience or readers 
 assign bj' their imagination a proper meaning to their ab- 
 stractions, or whether thej- will furnish a proper subject- 
 matter for the universal conceptions to which the scientific 
 discourse is limited. In order to pursue a safer, easier 
 course, these persons will present along with their ideas 
 the perceptions and separate cases to which they relate, 
 and they leave it to the uuderstanding of the reader to 
 form a proper conception impromptu. Accordingly, the 
 faculty of imagination is much more mixed up with a pop- 
 ular discourse, but only to reproduce, to renew previously 
 received representations, and not to produce, to express its 
 own self-creating power. Those special cases or percep- 
 tions are much too certainly calculated for the object on 
 hand, and much too closelj- applied to the use that is to be 
 made of them, to allow the imagination ever to forget that 
 it only acts in the service of the understanding. It is 
 true that a discourse of this popular kind holds somewhat 
 closer to life and the world of sense, but it does not be- 
 come lost in it. The mode of presenting the subject is still 
 didactic ; for in order to be beautiful it is still wanting in 
 the two most distinguished features of beauty, sensuousness 
 of expression and freedom of movement. 
 
 The mode of presenting a theme m&y be called free when 
 the understanding, while determining the connection of 
 ideas, does so with so little prominence that the imagina- 
 tion appears to act quite capriciously in the matter, and to 
 follow only the accident of time. The presentation of a 
 subject becomes sensuous when it conceals the general in 
 the particular, and when the fancy gives the living image 
 (the vjhole representation), where attention is merely con- 
 cerned with the conception (the part representation). Ac- 
 cordingly, sensuous presentation is, viewed in one aspect, 
 rich, for in cases where only one condition is desired, a 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 235 
 
 complete picture, an entirety of conditions, an individual 
 is offered. But viewed in another aspect it is limited and 
 poor, because it only confines to a single individual and a 
 single case what ought to be understood of a whole sphere. 
 It therefore curtails the understanding in the same propor- 
 tion that it grants preponderance to the imagination ; for 
 the completer a representation is in substance, the smaller 
 it is in compass. 
 
 It is the interest of the imagination to change objects 
 according to its caprice ; the interest of the understanding 
 is to unite its representations with strict logical necessity. 
 To satisfy the imagination, a discourse must have a ma- 
 terial part, a body ; and these are formed bj' the percep- 
 tions, from which the understanding separates distinct 
 features or conceptions. For though we may attempt to 
 obtain the highest pitch of abstraction, something sensu- 
 ous always lies at the ground of the thought. But imagi- 
 nation strives to pass unfettered and lawless from one 
 conception to another conception, and seeks not to be 
 bound by any other connection than that of time. So 
 when the perceptions that constitute the bodily part of a 
 discourse have no concatenation as things, when they ap- 
 pear rather to stand apart as independent limbs and sepa- 
 rate unities, when they betray the utter disorder of a 
 sportive imagination, obedient to itself alone, then the 
 clothing has aesthetic freedom and the wants of the fancy 
 are satisfied. A mode of presentation such as this might 
 be stjled an organic product, in which not only the whole 
 lives, but also each part has its individual life. A merely 
 scientific presentation is a mechanical worlc, when the 
 parts, lifeless in themselves, impart by their connection an 
 artificial life to the whole. 
 
 On the otlier hand, a discourse. In order to satisfy the 
 understanding and to produce knowledge, must have a 
 spiritual part, it must have significance, and it receives 
 this through the conceptions, by means of which those 
 perceptions are referred to one another and united into a 
 whole. The problem of satisfying the understanding by 
 conformitj' with law, while the imagination is flattered by 
 being set free from restrictions, is solved thus : \>\ obtain- 
 ing the closest connection between the conceptions forming 
 
236 ^SXHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 the spiritual part of the discourse, while the perceptions, 
 corresponding to them and forming the sensuous part of 
 the discourse, appear to cohere merely through an arbitrary 
 play of the fancy. 
 
 If an inquiry be instituted into the magic influence of a 
 beautiful diction, it will always be found that it consists in 
 this happy relation between external freedom and internal 
 uecessit3'. The principal features that contribute to this 
 freedom of the imagination are the individualizing of ob- 
 jects and the figurative or inexact expression of a thing; 
 the former employed to give force to its sensuousness, the 
 latter to produce it where it does not exist. When we ex- 
 press a species or kind by an individual, and portray a 
 conception in a single case, we remove from fancy the 
 chains which the understanding has placed upon her and 
 give her the power to act as a creator. Always grasping 
 at completely' determinate images, the imagination obtains 
 and exercises the right to complete according to her wish 
 the image afforded to her, to animate it, to fashion it, to 
 follow it in all the associations and transformations of 
 which it is capable. She may forget for a moment her 
 subordinate position, and act as an independent power, 
 only self-directing, because the strictness of the inner 
 concatenation has sufficiently guarded against her breaking 
 loose from the control of the understanding. An inexact 
 or figurative expression adds to the libertj', hy associating 
 ideas which in their nature differ essentially from one 
 another, but which unite in subordination to the higher 
 idea. The imagination adheres to the concrete object, the 
 understanding to this higher idea, and thus the former 
 finds movement and variety even where the other verifies 
 a most perfect continuity. The conceptions are developed 
 according to the law of necessity, but they pass before the 
 imagination according to the law of liberty. 
 
 Thought remains the same ; the medium that represents 
 it is the only thing that changes. It is thus that an elo- 
 quent writer knows how to extract the most splendid order 
 from the verj' centre of anarch3', and that he succeeds in 
 erecting a solid structure on a constantly moving ground, 
 on the verj' torrent of imagination. 
 
 If we compare together scientific statement or address, 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 237 
 
 popular address, and fine language, it is seen directly that 
 all three express the idea with an equal faithfulness as re- 
 gards the matter, and consequently that all three help us 
 to acquire knowledge, but that as regards the mode and 
 degree of this knowledge a ver3- marked difference exists 
 between them. The writer who uses the language of the 
 beautiful rather represents the matter of which he treats 
 as possible and desirable than indulges in attempts to con- 
 vince us of its reality, and still less of its necessity. His 
 thought does in fact onl}- present itself as an arbitrary 
 creation of the imagination, which is never qualified, in it- 
 self, to guarantee the reality of what it represents. No 
 doubt the popular writer leads us to believe that the matter 
 realli/ is as he describes it, but does not require anything 
 more firm ; for, thougli. he may make the truth of a propo- 
 sition credible to our feelings, he does not make it abso- 
 lutely certain. Now, feeling may always teach us what is, 
 but not what must be. The philosophical writer raises 
 this belief to a conviction, for he proves b}' undeniable 
 reasons that the matter is necessdrily so. 
 
 Starting from the principle that we have just established, 
 it will not be difficult to assign its proper part and sphere 
 to each of the three forms of diction. Generally it ma}' 
 be laid down as a rule that preference ought to be given 
 to the scientific stjle whenever the chief consideration is 
 not only the result, but also the proofs. But when the re- 
 sult merely is of the most essential importance the advan- 
 tage must be given to popular elocution and fine language. 
 But it may be aslied in ^chat cases ought popular elocution 
 to rise to a fine, a noble style ? This depends on the de- 
 gree of interest in the reader, or which j^ou wish to excite 
 in his mind. 
 
 The purely scientific statement may incline either to 
 popular discourse or to philosophic language, and accord- 
 ing to this bias it places us more or less in possession of 
 some branch of knowledge. All that popular elocution 
 does is to lend us this knowledge for a momentary pleasure 
 or enjoyment. The first, if I may be allowed the com- 
 parison, gives us a tree with its roots, though with the 
 condition that we wait patiently for it to blossom and bear 
 fruit- The other, or fine diction, is satisfied with gather- 
 
238 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 ing its flowers and fruits, but the tree that bore them does 
 not become our propertj-, and when once the flowers are 
 faded and the fruit is consumed our riches depart. It 
 would therefore be equally unreasonable to give onlj- the 
 flower and fruit to a man who wishes the whole tree to be 
 transplanted into his garden, and to offer the whole tree 
 with its fruit in the germ to a man who onlj' looks for the 
 ripe fruit. The application of the comparison is self- 
 evident, and I now only remark that a fine ornate style is 
 as little suited to the professor's chair as the scholastic 
 style to a drawing-room, the pulpit, or the bar. 
 
 The student accumulates in view of an ulterior end 
 and for a future use ; accordingly the professor ought to 
 endeavor to transmit the/wW and entire propert'^ of the 
 knowledge that he communicates to him. Now, nothing 
 belongs to us as our own but what has been communicated 
 to the understanding. The orator, on the other hand, has 
 in view an immediate end, and his voice must correspond 
 with an immediate want of the public. His interest is 
 to make his knowledge practically available as soon as 
 possible ; and the surest way is to hand it over to the 
 senses, and to prepare it for the use of sensation. The 
 professor, who only admits hearers on certain conditions, 
 and who is entitled to suppose in his hearers the dis- 
 positions of mind in which a man ought to be to receive 
 the truth, has only in view in his lecture the object of 
 which he is treating ; while the orator, who cannot make 
 anj' conditions with his audience, and who needs above 
 everything sympathy, to secure it on his side, must 
 regulate his action and treatment according to the sitbjects 
 on which he turns his discourse. The hearers of the 
 professor have already attended his lectures, and will 
 attend them again ; thej' only want fragments that will 
 form a whole after having been linked to the preceding 
 lectures. The audience of the orator is continually 
 renewed ; it comes unprepared, and perhaps will not return ; 
 accordingly in everj- address the orator must finish what 
 he wishes to do ; each of his harangues must form a whole 
 and contain expressly and entirelj' his conclusion. 
 
 It is not therefore surprising that a dogmatic compo- 
 sition or address, however solid, should not have any 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 239 
 
 success either in conversation or in the pulpit, nor that 
 a fine diction, whatever wit it ma^- contain, should not bear 
 fruit in a professor's chair. It is not surprising that the 
 fashionable world should not read writings that stand out 
 in relief in the scientific world, and that the scholar and 
 the man of science are ignorant of works belonging to 
 the school of worldly people that are devoured greedily 
 by all lovers of the beautiful. Each of these works ma}' 
 be entitled to admiration in the circle to which it be- 
 longs ; and more than this, both, fundamentally, may be 
 quite of equal value ; but it would be requiring an im- 
 possibility to expect that the work which demands all 
 the application of the thinker should at the same time 
 ofllfer an easy recreation to the man who is only a fine 
 wit. 
 
 For the same reason I consider that it is hurtful to 
 choose for the instruction of youth books in which scien- 
 tific matters are clothed in an attractive stj'le. I do not 
 speak here of those in which the substance is sacrificed to 
 the form, but of certain writings realh' excellent, which are 
 sufficiently well digested to- stand the strictest examina- 
 tion, but which do not offer their proofs by their ver^^ 
 form. No doubt books of this kind attain their end, thej' 
 are read ; but this is alwa3's at the cost of a more impor- 
 tant end, the end for which they ought to be read. In 
 this sort of reading the understanding is never exercised 
 save in as far as it agref s with the fancj' ; it does not 
 learn to distinguish the form from the substance, nor to 
 act alone as pure understanding. And yet the exercise of 
 the pure understanding is in itself an essential and capital 
 point in the instruction of jouth ; and verj' often the ex- 
 ercise itself of thought is much more important than 
 the object on which it is exercised. If j'ou wish for a 
 matter to be done seriously, be very careful not to an- 
 nounce it as a diversion. It is preferable, on the contrary, 
 to secure attention and eflfort bj' the very form that is em- 
 ployed, and to use a kind of violence to draw minds over 
 from the passive to an active state. The professor ought 
 never to hide from his pupil the exact regularity of the 
 method ; he ought rather to fix his attention on it, and if 
 possible to make him desire this strictness. The student 
 
240 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 ought to learn to pursue an end, and in the interest of that 
 end to put up with a difficult process. He ought early to 
 aspire to that loftier satisfaction which is the reward of 
 exertion. In a scientific lecture the senses are altogether 
 set aside ; in an aesthetic address it is wished to interest 
 them. What is the result? A writing or conversation 
 of the aesthetic class is devoured with interest ; but ques- 
 tions are put as to its conclusions ; the hearer is scarcely 
 able to give an answer. And this is quite natural, as here 
 the conceptions reach the mind only in entire masses, and 
 the understanding only knows what it analyzes. The 
 mind during a lecture of this kind is more passive than 
 active, and the intellect only possesses what it has produced 
 by its own activity. 
 
 However, all this applies only to the vulgarly beautiful, 
 and to a vulgar fashion of perceiving beauty. True beautj' 
 reposes on the strictest limitation, on the most exact defini- 
 tion, on the highest and most intimate necessitJ^ Only 
 this limitation ought rather to let itself be sought for 
 than be imposed violently. It requires the most perfect 
 conformity to law, but tiiis must appear quite natural. 
 A product that unites these conditions will fully satisf}' 
 the understanding as soon as study is made of it. But 
 exactly because this result is really beautiful, its con- 
 formity is not expressed ; it does not take the understand- 
 ing apart to address it exclusiveh' ; it is a harmonious 
 unitj- which addresses the entire man — all his faculties 
 together ; it is nature speaking to nature. 
 
 A vulgar criticism may perhaps find it empty, paltry, 
 and too little determined. He who has no other knowl- 
 edge than that of distinguishing, and no other sense than 
 that for the particular, is actually pained by what is 
 precisely the triumph of art, this harmonious unit}' where 
 the parts are blended in a pure entirety'. No doubt it is 
 necessary, in a philosophical discourse, that the under- 
 standing, as a faculty of analysis, find what will satisfy' it ; 
 it must obtain single concrete results ; this is the essential 
 that must not bj- anj- means be lost sight of. But if the 
 writer, while giving all possible precision to the substance 
 of his conceptions, has taken the necessarj^ measures to 
 suable the understanding, as soon as it will take the 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 241 
 
 trouble, to find of necessity these truths, I do not see that 
 he is a less good writer because he has approached more 
 to the highest perfection. Nature always acts as a har- 
 monious unitj', and when she loses this in her efforts after 
 abstraction, nothing appears more urgent to her than to 
 re-establisli it, and tlie writer we are speaking of is not 
 less commendable if he obeys nature bj' attaching to the 
 understanding what had been separated by abstraction, 
 and when, bj' appealing at the same time to the sensuous 
 and to the spiritual faculties, he addresses altogether the 
 entire man. No doubt the vulgar critic will give very 
 scant thanks to tliis writer for having given him a double 
 task. For vulgar criticism has not the feeling for this 
 harmonj', it only runs after details, and even in the Ba- 
 silica of St. Peter would exclusively attend to the pillars 
 on which the ethereal edifice reposes. The fact is that 
 this critic must begin by translating it to understand 
 it — in the same waj- that the pure understanding, left to 
 itself, if it meets beauty and harmonj', either in nature 
 or in art, must begin bj' transferring them into its own 
 language — and b3- decomposing it, by doing in fact what 
 the pupil does who spells before reading. But it is not 
 from the narrow mind of his readers that the writer who 
 express his conceptions in the language of the beautiful 
 receives his laws. The ideal which he carries in himself 
 is the goal at which he aims without troubling himself as 
 to who follows and who remains behind. Manj- will staj- 
 behind ; for if it be a rare thing to find readers simple- 
 capable of thinking, it is inflnitel}' more rare to meet anj- 
 who can think with imagination. Thus our writer, by the 
 force of circumstances, will fall out, on the one hand, with 
 those who have only intuitive ideas and feelings, for he 
 imposes on them a painful task by forcing them to think ; 
 and, on the other hand, he aggravates those who only 
 know how to think, for lie asks of them what is absolutely 
 impossible — to give a living, aniniateil form to conception. 
 But as both only represent true humanity very imper- 
 fectly — that normal humanit3' which requires the absolute 
 harmony of these two operations — their contradictorj- 
 objections have no weight, and if their judgments prove 
 anything, it is rather that the author has succeeded in 
 
242 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 attaining his end. The abstract thinker finds that the 
 substance of the worlf is solidly thought ; the reader of 
 intuitive ideas finds his style lively- and animated ; both 
 consequently find and approve in him what they are able 
 to understand, and that alone is wanting which exceeds 
 their capacity. 
 
 But precisely for this very reason a writer of this class 
 is not adapted to make known to an ignorant reader the 
 object of what he treats, or, in the most proper sense of 
 the word, to teach. Happil}' also, be is not required for 
 that, for means will not be wanting for the teaching of 
 scholars. The professor in the strictest acceptation is 
 obliged to bind himself to the needs of his scholars ; the 
 first thing he has to presuppose is the ignorance of those 
 who listen to him ; the other, on the other hand, demands 
 a certain maturity and culture in his reader or audience. 
 Nor is his oflSce confined to impart to them dead ideas ; he 
 grasps the living object with a living energy, and seizes at 
 once on the entire man — his understanding, his heart, ana 
 his will. 
 
 "We have found that it is dangerous for the soundness- 
 of knowledge to give free scope to the exigencies of taste 
 in teaching, properly so called. But this does not mean by 
 any means that the culture of this facultj^ in the student is 
 a premature thing. He must, on the contrary, be encour- 
 aged to apply the knowledge that he has appropriated in 
 the school to the field of living development. When once 
 the first point has been observed, and the knowledge ac- 
 quired, the other point, the exercise of taste, can only have 
 useful results. It is certain that it is necessary to be 
 quite the master of a truth to abandon without danger the 
 form in which it has been found ; a great strength of un- 
 derstanding is required not to lose sight of your object 
 while giving free play to the imagination. He who trans- 
 mits his knowledge under a scholastic form persuades me, 
 I admit, that he has grasped these truths properly and that 
 he knows how to support them. But he who besides this 
 is in a condition to communicate them to me in a beautiful 
 form not only proves that he is adapted to promulgate 
 them, he shows moreover that he has assimilated them and 
 that he is able to make their image pass into his produc- 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 243 
 
 tions and into his acts. There is for the results of thought 
 only one waj' by which they can penetrate into the will and 
 pass into life ; that is, by spontaneous imagination, only 
 what in ourselves was already a livin^ act can become so 
 out of us ; and the same thing happens with the creations 
 of the mind as with those of organic nature, that the fruit 
 issues only from the flower. If we consider how many 
 truths were living and active as interior intuitions before 
 philosophy showed their existence, and hOw many truths 
 most firmly secured by proofs often remain inactive on the 
 will and the feelings, it will be seen how important it is for 
 practical life to follow in this the indications of nature, 
 and when we have acquired a knowledge scientifically to 
 bring it back again to the state of a living intuition. It 
 is the only way to enable those whose nature has forbidden 
 tliem to follow the artificial path of science to share in the 
 treasures of wisdom. The beautiful renders us here in 
 relation with knowledge what, in morals, it does in rela- 
 tion with conduct ; it places men in harmony on results, 
 and on the substance of things, who would never have 
 agreed on the form and principles. 
 
 The other sex, by its very nature and fair destin}', can- 
 not and ought not to rival ours in scientific knowledge ; 
 but it can share truth with us bj- the reproduction of 
 tilings. Man agrees to have his taste ofiended, provided 
 compensation be given to his understanding b}- the in- 
 creased value of its possessions. But women do not for- 
 give negligence in form, whatever be the nature of the con- 
 ception ; and the inner structure of all their being gives 
 them the right to show a strict severity on this point. The 
 fair sex, even if it did not rule bj- beautv, would still be 
 entitled to its name because it is ruled bj- beauty, and 
 makes all objects presented to it appear before the tribunal 
 of feeling, and all that does not speak to feeling or belies 
 it is lost in the opinion of women. No doubt through this 
 medium nothing can be made to reach the mind of woman 
 save the matter of truth, and not truth itself, which is in- 
 separable from its proofs. But happily woman only needs 
 the matter of truth to reach her highest perfection, and 
 the few exceptions hitherto seen are not of a nature to 
 make us wish that the exception should become the rule. 
 
244 ^STIIETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 As, therefore, nature has not ouh* dispensed but cut off 
 the other sex from this task, man must give a double at- 
 tention to it if he wishes to vie with woman and be equal 
 to her in what is of great interest in human life. Conse- 
 quently- he will tr\' to transfer all that he can from the field 
 of abstraction, where he is master, to that of imagination, 
 of feeling, where woman is at once a model and a judge. 
 The mind of woman being a ground that does not admit 
 of durable cultivation, he will tr}' to make his own ground 
 yield as manj' flowers and as much fruit as possible, so as 
 to renew as often as possible the quickly-fading produce 
 on the other ground, and to keep up a sort of artificial 
 harvest where natural harvests could not ripen. Taste 
 corrects or hides the natural differences of the two sexes. 
 It nourishes and adorns the mind of woman with the pro- 
 ductions of that of man, and allows the fair sex to feel 
 without being previousl3' fatigued by thought, and to enjoy 
 pleasures without having bought them with labors. Thus, 
 save the restrictions I have named, it is to the taste that 
 is intrusted the care of form in every statement by which 
 knowledge is communicated, but under the express condi- 
 tion that it will not encroach on the substance of things. 
 Taste must never forget that it carries out an order ema- 
 nating elsewhere, and that it is not its own affairs it is 
 treating of All its parts must be limited to place our 
 minds in a condition favorable to knowledge; over all that 
 concerns knowledge itself it has no right to anj" autliority. 
 For it exceeds its mission, it betrays it, it disfigures the 
 object that it ought faithfully' to transmit, it laj's claim .to 
 authority out of its proper province ; if it tries to carry 
 out there, too, its own law, which is nothing but that of 
 pleasing the imagination and making itself agreeable to 
 the Intuitive faculties ; if it applies this law not only to the 
 operation^ but also to the matter itself; if it follows this 
 rule not only to arrange the materials, but also to choose 
 them. When this is the case the first consideration is not the 
 things themselves, but the best mode of presenting them 
 so as to recommend them to the senses. The logical se- 
 quence of conceptions of whicli only the strictness should 
 have been hidden from us is rejected as a disagreeable im- 
 pediment. Perfection is sacrificed to ornament, the truth 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 245 
 
 of the parts to the beauty of the whole, the Inmost nature 
 of things to the exterior impression. Now, directly the 
 substance is subordinated to form, properly speaking it 
 ceases to exist ; the statement is empty, and instead of 
 having extended our knowledge we have onlj' indulged in 
 an amusing game. 
 
 The writers who have more wit than understanding and 
 more taste than science, are too often guilty of this decep- 
 tion-; and readers more accustomed to feel than to think 
 are only too inclined to forgive them. In general it is un- 
 safe to give to the sesthetical sense all its culture before 
 having exercised the understanding as the pure thinking 
 faculty, and before having enriched the head with concep- 
 tions ; for as taste always looks at the carr3'ing out and 
 not at the basis of things, wherever it becomes the onl3' 
 arbiter, there is an end of the essential difference between 
 things. Men become indifferent to reality, and thej' finish 
 b^' givmg value to form and appearance only. 
 
 Hence arises tliat superficial and frivolous bel-esprit that 
 we often see hold swa}' in social conditions and in circles 
 where men pride themselves, and not unreasonabl3-, on the 
 finest culture. It is a fatal thing to introduce a .young 
 man into assemblies where the Graces hold sway before 
 the Muses have dismissed him and owned his m."ijority. 
 Moreover, it can hardly be prevented that what completes 
 the external education of a young man whose mind is ripe 
 turns liim who is not ripened by study into a fool. I ad- 
 mit that to have a fund of conceptions, and not form, is 
 only a half possession. For the most splendid knowledge 
 in a head incapable of giving them form is like a treasure 
 buried in the earth. But form without substance is a 
 shadow of riches, and all possible cleverness m expression 
 is of no use to him who has nothing to express. 
 
 Thus, to avoid the graces of education leading us in a 
 wrong road, taste must be confined to regulating the 
 external form, while reason and experience determine the 
 substance and the essence of conceptions. If the impres- 
 sion made on the senses is converted into a supreme 
 criterion, and if things are exclusively referred to sensa- 
 tion, man will never cease to be in the service of matter; 
 he will never clear a way for his intelligerce ; in short, 
 
246 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 reason will lose in freedom in proportion as it allows 
 imagination to usurp undue influence. 
 
 Tlie beautiful produces its effect by mere intuition ; the 
 truth demands study. Accordingly, the man who among 
 all his faculties has only exercised the sense of the beauti- 
 ful is satisfied even when study is absolutely required, 
 with a superficial view of things ; and he fancies he can 
 make a mere play of wit of that which demands a serious 
 effort. But mere intuition cannot give any result. To 
 produce something great it is necessary to enter into the 
 fundamental nature of things, to distinguish them strictly, 
 to associate them in different manners, and study them 
 with a steady attention. Even the artist and the poet, 
 though both of them labor to procure us only the pleasure 
 of intuition, can only by most laborious and engrossing 
 study succeed in giving us a delightful recreation by their 
 works. 
 
 I believe this to be the test to distinguish the mere 
 dilettante from the artist of real genius. The seductive 
 cliarm exercised by the sublime and the beautiful, the fire 
 which they kindle in the young imagination, the apparent 
 ease with which they place the senses under an illusion, 
 have often persuaded inexperienced minds to take ni hand 
 the palette or the harp, and to transform into figures or to 
 pour out in melody what they felt living in their heart. 
 Misty ideas circulate in their heads, like a world in forma- 
 tion, and make them believe that they are inspired. They 
 take obscurit}' for depth, savage vehemence for strength, 
 the undetermined for the infinite, what has not senses for 
 the super-sensuous. And how they revel in these creations 
 of their brain ! But the judgment of the connoisseur does 
 not confirm this testimony of an excited self-love. With 
 his pitiless criticism he dissipates all the prestige of the 
 imagination and of its dreams, and carrying the torch 
 before these novices he leads them into the mysterious 
 depths of science and life, where, far from profane eyes, 
 the source of all true beautj' flows ever towards him who 
 is initiated. If now a true genius slumbers in the j'oung 
 aspirant, no doubt his modesty will at first receive a shock ; 
 iiut soon the consciousness of real talent will embolden 
 Jiim for the trial. If nature has endowed him with gifts 
 
ESTHETIC AL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 247 
 
 for plastic art, he will study the structure of man with the 
 scalpel of the anatomist ; he will descend into the lowest 
 depths to be true in representing surfaces, and he will 
 question the whole race in order to be just to the indi- 
 vidual. If he is born to be a poet, he examines humanity 
 in his own heart to understand the infinite variety of scenes 
 in which it acts on the vast theatre of the world. He 
 subjects imagination and its exuberant fruitfulness to the 
 discipline of taste, and charges the understanding to mark 
 out in its cool wisdom the banks that should confine the 
 raging waters of inspiration. He knows full well that the 
 great is onlj' formed of the little — from the imperceptible. 
 He piles up, grain by grain, the materials of the wonder- 
 ful structure, which, suddenly disclosed to our eyes, pro- 
 duces a startling effect and turns our head. But if nature 
 has only intended him for a dilettante, difficulties damp 
 his impotent zeal, and one of two things happens : either 
 he abandons, if he is modest, that to which he was diverted 
 by a mistaken notion of his vocation ; or, if he has no 
 modesty, he brings back the ideal to the narrow limits of 
 his faculties, for want of being able to enlarge his faculties 
 to the vast proportions of the ideal. Thus the true genius 
 of the artist will be always recognized by this sign — that 
 when most enthusiastic for the whole, he preserves a cool- 
 ness, a patience defying all obstacles, as regards details. 
 Moreover, in order not to do any injury to perfection, he 
 would rather renounce the enjoyment given bj'the comple- 
 tion. For the simple amateur, it is the difficult}' of means 
 that disgusts him and turns him from his aim ; his dreams 
 would be to have no more trouble in producing than he had 
 in conception and intuition. 
 
 I have spoken hitherto of the dangers to which we are 
 exposed by an exaggerated sensuousness and susceptibility 
 to the beautiful in the form, and from too extensive ses- 
 thetical requirements ; and I have considered these dangers 
 in relation to the faculty of thinking and knowing. What, 
 then, will be the result when these pretensions of the ses- 
 thetical taste bear on the loill? It is one thing to be 
 stopped in your scientific progress by too great a love of 
 the beautiful, another to see this inclination become a cause 
 of degeneracy in character itself, and make us violate the 
 
248 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 law of duty. In matters of thought the caprices of 
 " taste" are no doubt an evil, and they must of necessity 
 darken the intelligence ; but these same caprices applied to 
 the maxims of the will become really pernicious and infal- 
 libly deprave the heart. Yet this is the dangerous extreme 
 to which too refined an aesthetic culture brings us directly 
 we abandon oursehes exclusively to the feelings for the 
 beautiful, and directly we raise taste to the part of abso- 
 lute lawgiver over our will. 
 
 The moral destination of man requires that the will 
 should be completely independent of all influence of sen- 
 suous instincts, and we know that taste labors incessantly 
 at making the link between reason and the senses contin- 
 ually closer. Now this effort has certainly as its result 
 the ennobling of the appetites, and to make them more 
 conformable with the requirements of reason ; but this very 
 point ma}- be a serious danger for moralit}*. 
 
 I proceed to explain m^- meaning. A verj- refined ees- 
 thetical education accustoms the imagination to direct 
 itself according to laws, even in its free exercise, and leads 
 the sensuous not to have any enjoyments without the 
 concurrence of reason ; but it soon follows that reason, in 
 its turn, is required to be directed, even in the most seri- 
 ous operations of its legislative poioer, according to the 
 interests of imagination, and to give no more orders to 
 the will without the consent of the sensuous instincts. 
 The moral obligation of the will, which is, however, an 
 absolute and unconditional law, takes unperceived the 
 character of a simple contract, which onlj- binds each of 
 the contracting parties when the other fulfils its engage- 
 ment. The purely' accidental agreement of duty with 
 inclination ends b}' being considered a ??ece«sar(/ condition, 
 and thus the principle of all morality is quenched in its 
 source. 
 
 How does the character become thus gradually depraved? 
 The process ma}' be explained thus : So long as man is 
 only a savage, and his insiincts cily bear on material 
 things and a coarse egotism (u'termincs his actions, sensu- 
 ousness can only become a <l:inger to moralit}- bj' its blind 
 strength, and does not oppose reason except as a force. 
 The voice of justice, moderation, and humanitj' is stifled 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 249 
 
 by the appetites, which make a stronger appeal. Man is 
 then terrible in his vengeance, because he is terribly sensi- 
 tive to insults. He robs, he Icills, because his desires are 
 still too powerful for the feeble guidance of reason. He is 
 towards others like a wild beast, because the instinct of 
 nature still rules him after the fashion of animals. 
 
 But when to the savage state, to that of nature, succeeds 
 civilization ; when taste ennobles the instincts, and holds 
 out to them more worthy objects taken from the moral 
 order ; when culture moderates the brutal outbursts of the 
 appetites and brings them back under the discipline of 
 the beautiful, it may happen that these same instincts, 
 which were onl3' dangerous before b}- their blind power, 
 coming to assume an air of dignity and a certain assumed 
 authority, may become more dangerous than before to the 
 morality of the character ; and that, under the guise of 
 innocence, nobleness, and purity, they maj- exercise 
 over the will a t3'ranny a hundred times worse than the 
 other. 
 
 The man of taste willingly escapes the gross thraldom 
 of the appetites. He submits to reason the instinct which 
 impels him to pleasure, and he is willing to take counsel 
 from his spiritual and thinking nature for the choice of 
 the objects he ought to desire. Novr, reason is verj'aptto 
 mistake a spiritualized instinct for one of its own instincts, 
 and at length to give up Xq it the guidance of the will, and 
 this in proportion as moral judgment and aesthetic judg- 
 ment, the sense of the good and the sense of the 
 beautiful, meet in the same object and in the same 
 decision. 
 
 So long as it remains possible for inclination and dutj^ 
 to meet in the same object and in a common desire, this 
 representation of the moral sense b}' the aesthetic sense 
 may not draw after it positively evil consequences, though, 
 if the matter be strictly considered, the morality of par- 
 ticular actions does not gain by this agreement. But the 
 consequences will be quite different when sensuousness 
 and reason have each of them a different interest. If, for 
 example, duty commands us to perform an action that 
 revolts our taste, or if taste feels itself drawn towards an 
 object which reason as a moral judge is obliged to con- 
 
250 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 demn, then, in fact, we suddenly encounter the necessity 
 of distinguishing between the requirements of the moral 
 sense and those of the aesthetic sense, which so long an 
 agreement had almost confounded to such a degree that 
 they could not be distinguished. We must now determine 
 their reciprocal rights, and find which of them is the real 
 master in our soul. But such a long representation of the 
 moral sense by the sense of the beautiful has made us 
 forget this master. When we have so long practised this 
 rule of obeying at once the suggestions of taste, and when 
 we have found the result alwa3-s satisfactorj-, taste ends 
 by assuming a kind of appearance of right. As taste has 
 shown itself irreproachable in the vigilant watch it has 
 kept over the will, we necessarily come to grant a certain 
 esteem to its decisions ; and it is preciseh" to this esteem 
 that inclination, with captious logic, gives weight against 
 the duties of conscience. 
 
 Esteem is a feeling that can only be felt for law^ and 
 what corresponds to it. Whatever is entitled to esteem 
 lays claim to an unconditional homage. The ennobled 
 inclination which has succeeded in captivating our esteem 
 will, therefore, no longer be satisfied with being sub- 
 ordinate to reason ; it aspires to rank alongside it. It does 
 not wish to be taken for a faithless subject in revolt 
 against his sovereign ; it wishes to be regarded as a queen ; 
 and, treating reason as its peer, to dictate, like reason, 
 laws to the conscience. Thus, if we listen to her, she 
 would weigh by right equally in the scale ; and then have 
 we not good reason to fear that interest will decide? 
 
 Of all the inclinations that are decided fi'om the feeling 
 for the beautiful and that are special to refined minds, none 
 commends itself so much to the moral sense as the ennobled 
 instinct of love; none is so fruitful in impressions which 
 correspond to the true dignity of man. To what an eleva- 
 tion does it raise human nature ! and often what divine 
 sparks does it kindle in tie common soul ! It is a sacred 
 fire that consumes every egotistical inclination, and the verj' 
 principles of morality are scarcely a greater safeguard of 
 the soul's chastity than love is for the nobilitj" of the heart. 
 How often it happens while the moral principles are still 
 struggling that love prevails in their favor, and hastens by 
 
^STHETICAL LETTBKS AND ESSAYS. 251 
 
 its irresistible power the resolutions that dutj"^ alone would 
 have vainly demanded from weak human nature ! "Who, 
 then, would distrust an affection that protects so powerfully 
 what ismost excellent in human nature, and which fights 
 so victoriously against the moral foe of all morality, 
 egotism ? 
 
 But do not follow this guide till you have secured a 
 better. Suppose a loved object be met that is unhappy, 
 and unhappy because of j'ou, and that it depends only on 
 3'ou to make it happy by^ sacrificing a few moral scruples. 
 You may be disposed to say, " Shall I let this loved being 
 suffer for the pleasure of keeping our conscience pure? Is 
 this resistance required by this generous, devoted affection, 
 always ready to forget itself for its object? I grant it is 
 going against conscience to have recourse to this immoral 
 means to solace the being we love ; but can we be said to 
 love if iu presence of this being and of its sorrow we 
 continue to think of ourselves ? Are we not more taken up 
 with ourselves than with it, since we prefer to see it unhappj' 
 rather than consent to be so ourselves by the reproaches 
 of our conscience ? " These are the sophisms that the 
 passion of love sets against conscience (whose voice thwarts 
 its interests), making its utterances despicable as suggest- 
 ions of selfishness, and representing our moral dignitj' as one 
 of the compo'ients of our happiness that we are free to 
 alienate. Then, if the morality of our character is not 
 strongly backed by good principles, we shall surrender, 
 whatever may be the impe tus of our exalted imagination, 
 to disgraceful acts ; and we shall think that we gain a 
 glorious victory over our self-love, while we are only the 
 despicable victims of this instinct. A well-known French 
 romance, " ies Liaisons Dangereuses" gives us a striking 
 example of this delusion, by which love betra3's a soul 
 otherwise pure and beautiful. The Presidente de Tourvel 
 errs by surprise, and seeks to calm her remorse by the 
 idea that she has sacrificed her virtue to her generosity. 
 
 Secondary and imperfect duties, as they are styled, are 
 those that the feeling for the beautiful takes most willingly 
 under its patronage, and which it allows to prevail on many 
 occasions over perfect duties. As thej- assign a much 
 !^rger place to the arbitray option of the subject, and at 
 
252 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 the same time as they have the appearance of merit, which 
 gives them lustre, the}' commend themselves far more 
 to the aesthetic taste than perfect or necessarj' duties, 
 which oblige us strictly and unconditionally. How many 
 people allow themselves to be unjust that thej' may be 
 generous ! How many fail in their duties to societj' that 
 they may do good to an individual, and reciprocally ! 
 How many people forgive a lie sooner than a rudeness, a 
 crime against humanitj- rather than an insult to honor ! 
 How many debase their bodies to hasten the perfection of 
 their minds, and degrade their character to adorn their 
 understanding ! How many do not scruple to commit a 
 crime when thej- have a laudable end in view, pursue an 
 ideal of political happiness through all the terrors of 
 anarch}', tread under foot existing laws to make way for 
 better ones, and do not scruple to devote the present 
 generation to misery to secure at this cost the happiness 
 of future generations ! The apparent unselfishness of 
 certain virtues gives them a varnish of purity, which 
 makes them rash enough to break and run counter to the 
 moral law ; and many people are the dupes of this strange 
 illusion, to rise higher than morality and to endeavor to 
 be more reasonable than reason. 
 
 The man of a refined taste is susceptible, in this respect, 
 of a moral corruption, from which the rude child of ng,ture 
 is preserved b}- his very coarseness. In the latter, the 
 opposite of the demands of sense and the decrees of the 
 moral law is so strongl}' marked and so manifest, and 
 the spiritual element has so small a share in his desires, 
 that although the appetites exercise a despotic sway over 
 him, they cannot wrest his esteem from him. Thus, when 
 the savage, j'ielding to the superior attraction of sense, 
 gives waj- to the committal of an unjust action, he may 
 yield to temptation, but he will not hide from himself that 
 he is committing & fault, and he will do homage to reason 
 even while he violates its mandates. The child of civili- 
 zation, on the contrary, the man of refinement, will not 
 admit that he commits a fault, and to soothe his conscience 
 he prefers to impose on it b}' a sophism. No doubt he 
 wishes to obej' his appetite, but at the same time without 
 falling in his own esteem. How does he manage this? 
 
JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 253 
 
 He begins bj' overthrowing the superior authorit3- that 
 thwarts his inclination, and before transgressing the law 
 he calls in question the competence of the lawgiver. 
 Could it be expected that a corrupt will should so corrupt 
 the intelligence ? The onlj' dignitj- that an inclination can 
 assume accrues to it from its agreement with reason ; yet 
 we find that inclination, independent as well as blind, 
 aspires, at the verj' moment she enters into contest with 
 reason, to keep this dignit}- which she owes to reason 
 alone. Nay, inclination even aspires to use this dignit}' 
 she owes to reason against reason itself. 
 
 These are the dangers that threaten the moralitj' of the 
 character when too intimate an association is attempted 
 between sensuous instincts and moral instincts, which can 
 never perfectlj' agree in real life, but only in the ideal. ' I 
 admit that the sensuous rislcs nothing in this association, 
 because it possesses nothing except what it must give up 
 directly duty speaks and reason demands the sacrifice. 
 But reason, as the arbiter of the moral law, will run the 
 more risk from this union if it receives as a gift from 
 inclination what it might enforce ; for, under the appearance 
 of freedom, the feeling of obligation may be easily lost, and 
 what reason accepts as a favor maj' quite well be refused 
 it when tlie sensuous finds it painful to grant it. It is, 
 therefore, ifinnitely safer for the moralit}' of the char- 
 acter to suspend, at least for a time, this misrepresenta- 
 tion of the moral sense b^- the sense of the beautiful. It is 
 best of all that reason should command by itself without 
 mediation, and that it should show to the will its true 
 master. The remark is, therefore, quite justified, that 
 true morality onl}- knows itself in the school of adversity, 
 and that a continual prosperity becomes easily a rock of 
 offence to virtue. I mean here by prosperity the state 
 of a man who, to enjoy the goods of life, need not commit 
 injustice, and who to conform to justice need not renounce 
 any of the goods of life. The man who enjoj's a continual 
 prosperit}- never sees moral duty face to face, because his 
 inclinations, naturally regular and moderate, always anti- 
 cipate the mandate of reason, and because no temptation 
 to violate the law recalls to his mind the idea of law. 
 Entirely guided bj- the sense of the beautiful, which 
 
254 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 represents reason in the world of sense, lie will reach the 
 tomb without having known by experience the dignity of 
 his destiny. On the other hand, the unfortunate man, if he 
 be at the same time a virtuous man, enjoys the sublime 
 privilege of being in immediate intercourse with the 
 divine majesty of the moral law ; and as his virtue is not 
 seconded by "any inclination, he bears witness in this 
 lower world, and as a human being, of the freedom of 
 pure spirits ! 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON THE USE OF THE VULGAR 
 AND LOW ELEMENTS IN WORKS OF ART. 
 
 I CALL vulgar (common) all that does not speak to the 
 mind, of which all the interest is addressed only to the 
 senses. There are, no doubt, an infinite number of things 
 vulgar in themselves from their material and subject. But 
 as the vulgarity of the material can always be ennobled by 
 the treatment, in respect of art the only question is that 
 relating to the vulgarity in form. A vulgar mind will 
 dishonor the most noble matter by treating it in a common 
 manner. A great and noble mind, on the contrary, will 
 ennoble even a common matter, and it will do so by super- 
 adding to it something spiritual and discovering in it some 
 aspect in which this matter has greatness. Thus, for ex- 
 ample, a vulgar historian will relate to us the most insig- 
 nificant actions of a hero with a scrupulousness as great 
 as that bestowed on his sublimest exploit, and will dwell 
 as lengthily on his pedigree, liis costume, and his house- 
 hold as on his projects and his enterprises. He will re- 
 late those of his actions that have the most grandeur in 
 such wise that no one will perceive that character in them. 
 On the contrary, a historian of genius, himself endowed 
 with nobleness of mind, will give even to the private life 
 and the least considerable actions of his hero an interest 
 and a value that will make them considerable. Thus, 
 again, in the matter of the plastic arts, the Dutch and 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 255 
 
 Flemish painters have given proof of a vulgar taste ; the 
 Italians, and still more the ancient Greeks, of a grand 
 and noble taste. The Greeks always went to the ideal ; 
 thej- rejected every vulgar feature, and chose no common 
 subject. 
 
 A portrait painter can represent his model in a common 
 manner or with grandeur ; in a common manner if he re- 
 produce the merely accidental details with the same care 
 as the essential features, if he neglect the great to carry 
 out the minutiae curiouslj-. He does it grandly if he 
 know how to find out and place in relief what is most 
 interesting ^ and distinguish the accidental from the neces- 
 sary ; if he be satisfied with indicating what is paltrj^, 
 reserving all the finish of Ihe execution for what is great. 
 And the only thing that is great is the expression of the 
 sou! itself, manifesting itself by actions, gestures, or 
 attitudes. 
 
 The poet treats his subject in a common manner when in 
 the execution of his theme he dwells on valueless facts 
 and only skims rapidly over those that are important. He 
 treats his theme with grandeur when he associates with it 
 what is great. For example. Homer treated the shield of 
 Achilles grandly, though the making of a shield, looking 
 merely at the matter, is a very commonplace affair. 
 
 One degree below the common or the vulgar is the ele- 
 ment of the base or gross, which differs from the common 
 in being not only someAiug negative^ a simple lack of in- 
 spiration or nobleness, but something positive, marking 
 coarse feelings, bad morals, and contemptible manners. 
 Vulgaritj' only testifies that an advantage is wanting, 
 whereof the absence is a matter of regret ; baseness indi- 
 cates the want of a qualit}' which we are authorized to re- 
 quire in all. Thus, for example, revenge, considered in 
 itself, in whatever place or way it manifests itself, is some- 
 thing vulgar, because it is the proof of a lack of generos- 
 ity. But there is, moreover, a base vengeance, when the 
 man, to satisf)' it, employs means exposed to contempt. 
 The base always implies something gross, or reminds one 
 of the mob, wliile the common can be found in a well-born 
 and well-bred man, who may think and act in a common 
 manner if he has onty mediocre faculties. A man acts in 
 
256 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 a common manner when he is only taken up with Ms own 
 interest, and it is in this that he is in opposition with the 
 really nohle man, who, when necessar}', knows how to for 
 get himself to procure some enjoj'ment for others. But 
 the same man would act in a base manner if he consulted 
 his interests at the cost of his honor, and if in such a case 
 he did not even take upon himself to respect the laws of 
 decency. Thus the common is only the contrarj* of the 
 noble ; the base is the contrary both of the noble and the 
 seemly. To give yourself up, unresisting, to all ^our 
 passions, to satisfy all j'our impulses, without being 
 checked even by the rules of propriety, still less ly those 
 of morality, is to conduct yourself basely, and to betray 
 baseness of the soul. 
 
 The artist also maj' fall into a low st3-le, not only by 
 choosing ignoble subjects, offensive to decency and good 
 taste, but moreover hy treating them in a base manner. 
 It is to treat a subject in a base manner if those sides are 
 made prominent which propriety directs us to conceal, or 
 if it is expressed in a manner that incidentally awakens 
 low ideas. The lives of the greater part of men can pre- 
 sent particulars of a low kind, but it is only a low imagi- 
 nation that will pick out these for representation. 
 
 There are pictures describing sacred history in which 
 the Apostles, the Virgin, and even the Christ, are depicted 
 in such wise that tliej' might be supposed to be taken 
 from the dregs of the populace. This style of execution 
 alwaj's betra3's a low taste, and might justly lead to the 
 inference that the artist himself thinks coarsely and like 
 the mob. 
 
 No doubt there are cases where art itself ma3' be allowed 
 to produce base images : for example, when the aim is to 
 provoke laughter. A man of polished manners may also 
 sometimes, and without betraying a corrupt taste, be 
 amused by certain features when nature expresses herself 
 crudely but with truth, and he may enjoj^ the contrast be- 
 tween the manners of polished society and those of the 
 lower orders. A man of position appearing intoxicated 
 will alwaj-s make a disagreeable impression on us-; but a 
 drunken driver, sailor, or carter will only be a risible ob- 
 ject. Jests that would be insufferable in a man of educa- 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 257 
 
 tion amuse us in the mouth of the people. Of this kind 
 are many of the scenes of Aristophanes, who unhappily 
 sometimes exceeds this limit, and becomes absolutely con- 
 demnable. This is, moreover, the source of the pleasure 
 we take in parodies, when the feelings, the language, and 
 the mode of action of the common people are fictitiously 
 lent to the same personages whom the poet has treated 
 ■with all possible dignity- and decency. As soon as the 
 poet means onlj' to jest, and seeks onlj- to amuse, we can 
 overlook traits of a low kind, provided he never stirs up 
 indignation or disgust. 
 
 He stirs up indignation when he places baseness where it 
 is quite unpardonable, that is in the case of men who are 
 expected to show fine moral sense. In attributing base- 
 ness to them he will either outrage truth, for we prefer to 
 think him a liar than to believe that well-trained men can 
 act in a base manner ; or his personages will offend our 
 moral sense, and, what is worse, excite our imagination. 
 I do not mean by this to condemn farces ; a farce implies 
 between the poet and the spectator a tacit consent that no 
 truth is to be expected in the piece. In a farce we exempt 
 the poet from all faithfulness in his pictures ; he has a 
 kind of privilege to tell us untruths. Here, in fact, all the 
 comic consists exactly in its contrast with the truth, and 
 so it cannot possibly be true. 
 
 This is not all : even in the serious and the tragic there 
 are certain places where ^he low element can be brought 
 into play. But in this case the affair must pass into the 
 terrible, and the momentary violation of our good taste 
 must be masked \)j a strong impression, which brings our 
 passion into play. In other words, the low impression 
 must be absorbed by a superior tragic impression. Theft, 
 for example, is a thing absolutely base, and whatever ar- 
 guments our heart maj' suggest to excuse the thief, what- 
 ever the pressure of circumstances that led him to the 
 theft, it is always an indelible brand stamped upon him, 
 and, aesthetically speaking, he will always remain a base 
 object. On this point taste is even less forgiving than 
 morality, and its tribunal is more severe ; because an 
 ffisthetical object is responsible even for the accessor}' ideas 
 that are awakened in us by such an object, while moral 
 
258 aiSTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 judgment eliminates all that is merely accidental. Ac- 
 cording to this view a man who robs would always be an 
 object to be rejected by the poet who wishes to present 
 serious pictures. But suppose this man is at the same 
 time a murderer, he is even more to be condemned than 
 before by the moral law. But in the aesthetic judgment 
 he is raised one degree higher and made better adapted to 
 figure in a work of art. Continuing to judge him from the 
 aesthetic point of view, it may be added that he who abases 
 himself b}' a vile action can to a certain extent be raised 
 by a crime, and can be thus reinstated in our CBSthetic esti- 
 mation. This contradiction between the moral judgment 
 and the sesthetical judgment is a fact entitled to attention 
 and consideration. It may be explained in different ways. 
 First, I have already said that, as the aesthetic judgment 
 depends on the imagination, all the accessory ideas 
 awakened in us by an object and naturally associated with 
 it, must themselves influence this judgment. Now, if these 
 accessory ideas are base, they infallibly stamp this char- 
 acter on the principal object. 
 
 In the second place, what we look for in the aesthetic 
 judgment is strength; whilst in a judgment pronounced in 
 the name of the moral sense we consider lavjfulness. The 
 lack of strength is something contemptible, and every 
 action from which it may be inferred that the agent lacks 
 strength is, by that very fact, a contemptible action. 
 Everj- cowardly and underhand action is repugnant to us, 
 because it is a proof of impotence ; and, on the contrary, 
 a devilish wickedness can, aesthetically speaking, flatter our 
 taste, as soon as it marks strength. Now, a theft testifies 
 to a Yi\e and grovelling mind : a murder has at least on its 
 side the appearance of strength ; the interest we take in 
 it aesthetically is in proportion to the strength that is man- 
 ifested in it. 
 
 A third reason is, because in presence of a deep and 
 horrible crime we no longer think of the quality but the 
 awful consequences of the action. The stronger emotion 
 covers and stifles the weaker one. We do not look back 
 into the mind of the agent ; we look onward into his des- 
 tinj', we think of the eflTects of his action. Now, directly 
 we begin to tremble all the delicacies of taste are reduced 
 
^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 259 
 
 to silence. The principal impression entirely fills our 
 mind : the accessory and accidental ideas, in which chiefly 
 dwell all impressions of baseness, are effaced from it. It 
 is for this reason that tlie theft committed by young Ruh- 
 berg, in the " Crime through Ambition,"* far from dis- 
 pleasing on the stage, is a real tragic effect. The poet 
 with great skill has managed the circumstances in such 
 wise that we are carried away ; we are left almost breath- 
 less. The frightful misery' of the family, and especiallj' 
 the grief of the father, are objects that attract our atten- 
 tion, turn it aside, from the person of the agent, towards 
 the consequences of his act. We are too much moved to 
 tarrj' long in representing to our minds the stamp of infamj- 
 with which the theft is marked. In a word, the base ele- 
 ment disappears in the terrible. It is singular that this 
 theft, really accomplished by young Euhberg, inspires us 
 with less repugnance than, in another piece, the mere sus- 
 picion of a theft, a suspicion which is actually without 
 foundation. In the latter case it is a young officer who is 
 accused without grounds of having abstracted a silver 
 spoon, which is recovered later on. Thus the base element 
 is reduced in this case to a purely imaginary thing, a mere 
 suspicion, and this suffices nevertheless to do an irrepar- 
 able injur}-, in our sesthetical appreciation, to the hero of 
 the piece, in spite of his innocence. This is because a man 
 who is supposed capable of a base action did not appar- 
 ently' enjoj' a verj' solid leputation for moralitj-, for the 
 laws of propriety require that a man should be held to be 
 a man of honor as long as he does not shovi the opposite. 
 If therefore anything contemptible is imputed to him, it 
 seems tliat by some part of his past conduct he has given 
 rise to a suspicion of this kind, and this does him injur}-, 
 tiiough all the odious and the base in an undeserved sus- 
 jiicion are on the side of him who accuses. A point that 
 does still greater injury to the hero of the piece of which 
 I am speaking is the fact that he is an officer., and the 
 lover of a lady of condition brought up in a manner suit- 
 able to her rank. With these two titles, that of thief 
 makes quite a revolting contrast, and it is impossible for 
 us, when- we see him near his lady, not to think that per- 
 
 * A play of Iffland. 
 
260 iESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 haps at that very moment he had the silver spoon in his 
 pocket. Lastly, the most unfortunate part of the business 
 is, that he has no idea of the suspicion weighing over him, 
 for if he had a knowledge of it, in his character of officer, 
 he would exact a sanguinarj^ reparation. In this case the 
 consequences of the suspicion would change to the 
 terrible, and all that is base in the situation would disap- 
 pear. 
 
 We~ must distinguish, moreover, between the baseness 
 of feeling and that which is connected with the mode of 
 treatment and circumstance. The former in all respects is 
 below aesthetic dignity ; the second in many cases may per- 
 fectly agree with it. Slavery^ for example, is a base thing ; 
 but a servile mind in a free man is contemptible. The 
 labors of the slave, on the contrary', are not so when his 
 feelings are not servile. Far from this, a base condition, 
 when joined to elevated feelings, can become a source of 
 the sublime. The master of Epictetus, who beat him, 
 acted basely, and the slave beaten by him showed a sub- 
 lime soul. True greatness, when it is met in a base con- 
 dition, is only the more brilliant and splendid on that 
 account : and the artist must not fear to show us his heroes 
 even under a contemptible exterior as soon as he is sure 
 of being able to give them, when he wishes, the expression 
 of moral dignity. 
 
 But what can be granted to the poet is not always 
 allowed in the artist. The poet only addresses the imag- 
 ination ; the painter addresses the senses directly. It fol- 
 lows not only that the impression of the picture is more 
 lively than that of the pioem, but also that the painter, if 
 he employ onl}' his natural signs, cannot make the minds 
 of his personages as visible as the poet can with the arbi- 
 trary signs at his command : yet it is onlj"^ the sight of the 
 mind that can reconcile us to certain exteriors. When 
 Homer causes his Ulysses to appear in the rags of a 
 beggar,* we are at liberty to represent his image to our 
 mind more or less fully, and to dwell on it as long as we 
 like. But in no case will it be sufficiently vivid to excite 
 our repugnance or disgust. But if a painter, or even a 
 tragedian, try to reproduce faithfully the Ulj^sses of Homer, 
 
 * " Odyssey," book xiii. v. 39f. 
 
JESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 2(51 
 
 we turn away from the picture with repugnance. It is 
 because in this case the greater or less vividness of the 
 impression no longer depends on our will : we cannot helj) 
 seeing what the painter places under our eyes ; and it is 
 not easy for us to remove the accessory repugnant ideas 
 which the picture recalls to our mind. 
 
 DETACHED EEFLECTIONS ON DIFFERENT 
 QUESTIONS OF ESTHETICS. 
 
 All the properties by which an object can become aesthetic, 
 can be referred to four classes, which, as well according to 
 their objecti\e differences as according to their different 
 relation with the subject, produce on our passive and 
 active faculties pleasures unequal not onlj- in intensity but 
 also in worth ; classes which also are of an Unequal use for 
 the end of the fine arts : they are the agreeable, the good, 
 the sublime, and the beautiful. 
 
 Of these four categories, the sublime and the beautiful 
 only belong properly to art. The agreeable is not worthy 
 of art, and the good is at least not its end ; for the aim of 
 art is to please, and the^ood, whether we consider it in 
 theorj' or in practice, neither can nor ought to serve as a 
 means^pf satisfying the wants of sensuousness. The 
 ( (^greeable)only satisfies, the senses, and is distinguished 
 ilTSi'ebvtrom the .good, which only pleases the reason. 
 The (SgreeabTei only pleases hy its matter, for it is onl}' 
 matteTthatrCan affect the senses, and all that is form can 
 only please the reason. It is true that the beautiful only 
 pleases through the medium of the senses, by which it is 
 distinguished from the good ; but it pleases reason, on 
 account of its form, by which it is essentially distinguished 
 from the agreeable. It might be said that th^ good Jjleases 
 onl}' by its form being in harmom' with reason ; the 
 beautiful by its form having some^relation of resemblance 
 with reason, and that the agreeable absolutely does not 
 
262 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 please l)^- its form. The good is pcrcfiLved by thought, 
 tlie beautiful by intuition, IiikI the ^igreeable)only bj' the 
 senses. The first pleases by the conceptiTSn, the second by 
 the idea, and the third bj" material sensation. 
 
 The distance between the good and the agreeable is that 
 which strikes the eyes the most. The good widens our 
 understanding, because it procures and supposes an idea of 
 its object ; the pleasure which it makes us perceive rests 
 on an objective foundation, even when this pleasure itself 
 is but a certain state in which we are situated. The 
 agreeable, on the contrarj-, produces no notion of its object, 
 and, indeed, reposes on no objective foundation. It is 
 agreeable only inasmuch as it is felt by the subject, and the 
 idea of it completely vanishes the moment an obstruction 
 is placed on the atfectibility of the senses, or only when it 
 is modified. For a man who feels the cold the agreeable 
 would be a warm air; but this same man, in the heat of 
 summer, would seek the shade and coolness ; but we must 
 agree that in both cases he has judged well. 
 
 On the other hand, that which is objective is altogether 
 independent of us, and that which to-day appears to us 
 true, useful, reasonable, ought yet (if this judgment of 
 to-day be admitted as just) to seem to us the same twenty 
 years hence. But our judgment of the agreeable changes 
 as soon as our state, with regard to its object, has changed. 
 The agreeable is therefore not a propert}- of the object ; it 
 springs entirely- from the relations of such an object with 
 our senses, for the constitution of our senses is a necessary 
 condition thereof. 
 
 The good, on the contrary. Is good in itself, before being 
 represented to us, and before being felt. The property by 
 which it pleases exists fully in itself without being in 
 want of our subject, although the pleasure which we take 
 in it rests on an aptitude for feehng that which is in us. 
 Thus we can say that the agreeable exists only because 
 it is experienced, and that the good, on the contrary, is 
 experienced because it exists. 
 
 The distinction between the beautiful and the agreeable, 
 great as it is, moreover, strikes the eye less. The beautiful 
 approaches the agreeable in this — that it must always be 
 proposed to the senses, inasmuch as it pleases only as a 
 
JESTIIETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 263 
 
 phenomenon. It comes near to it again in as far as it 
 neither procures nor supposes anj' notion of its object. But, 
 on the other hand, it is widely separated from the agree- 
 able, because it pleases by the form under which it is 
 produced, and not by the fact of the material sensation. 
 No doubt it onl}^ pleases the reasonable subject in so far as 
 it is also a sensuous subject ; but also it pleases the sensuous 
 subject onl}^ inasmuch as it is at the same time a reasonable 
 subject. The beautiful is not onl}- pleasing to the indi- 
 vidual but to the whole species ; and although it draws its 
 existence but from its relation with ci-eatures at the same 
 time reasonable and sensuous, it is not less independent 
 of all empirical limitations of sensuousness, and it remains 
 identical even when the particular constitution of the 
 individual is modified. The beautiful has exactly in 
 common with the good that by which it differs from the 
 agreeable, and it differs from the good exactly in that in 
 which it approximates to the agreeable. 
 
 B}- the good we must understand that in which reason 
 recognizes a conformity with her theoretical and practical 
 laws. But the same object can be perfectly conformable 
 to the theoretical reason, and not be the less in contradiction 
 in the highest degree with the practical reason. We can 
 disapprove of the end of an enterprise, and j'et admire the 
 skill of the means and their relation with the end in view. 
 We can despise the pleasures which the voluptuous man 
 makes the end of his lift, and nevertheless praise the skill 
 which he exhibits in tlie choice of his means, and the logical 
 result with which he carries out his principles. That 
 which pleases us only by its form is good, absolutely good, 
 and without any conditions, when its form is at the same 
 time its matter. The goodis also an object of sensuousness, 
 but not of an immediate sensuousness, as the agreeable, 
 nor moreover of a mixed sensuousness, as the beautiful. 
 It does not excite desire as the first, nor inclination as the 
 second. The simple idea of the good inspires only 
 esteem. 
 
 The difference separating the agreeable, the good, and 
 the beautiful being thus established, it is evident that the 
 same object can be ugly, defective, even to be morally 
 rejected, and nevertheless be agreeable and pleasing to the 
 
264 iESTHETICAIv LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 senses ; that an object can revolt the senses, and yet be 
 good, /.e., please the reason; that an object can from its 
 inmost nature revolt the moral senses, and yet please the 
 imagination which contemplates it, and still be beautiful. 
 It is because each one of these ideas interests different 
 faculties, and interests differently. 
 
 But have we exhausted the classification of the aesthetic 
 attributes ? No, there are objects at the same time uglj-, 
 revolting, and horrifying to the senses, which do not please 
 the understanding, and of no account to the moral 
 judgment, and these objects do not fail to please ; certainlj- 
 to please to such a degree, that we would willingly sacrifice 
 the pleasure of these senses and that of the understanding 
 to procure for us the enjoyment of these objects. There is 
 nothing more attractive in nature than a beautiful land- 
 scape, illuminated by the purple light of evening. The 
 rich variety of the objects, the mellow outlines, the play 
 of lights infinitely varying the aspect, the light vapors 
 which envelop distant objects, — all combine in charming 
 the senses ; and add to it, to increase our pleasure, the 
 soft murmur of a cascade, the song of the nightingales, an 
 agreeable music. We give ourselves up to a soft sensation 
 of repose, and whilst our senses, touched by the harmony 
 of the colors, the forms, and the sounds, experience the 
 agreeable in the highest, the mind is rejoiced by the 
 easy and rich flow of the ideas, the heart by the senti- 
 ments which overflow in it like a torrent. AH at once 
 a storm springs up, darkening the sky and all the land- 
 scape, surpassing and silencing all other noises, and 
 suddenly taking from us all our pleasures. Black clouds 
 encircle the horizon ; the thunder falls with a deafening 
 noise. Flash succeeds flash. Our sight and hearing is 
 affected in the most revolting manner. The lightning 
 only appears to render to us more visible the horrors 
 of the night : we see the electric fluid strike, nay, we 
 begin to fear lest it may strike us. Well, that does not 
 prevent us from believing that we have gained more than 
 lost by the change ; I except, of course, those whom fear 
 has bereft of all liberty of judgment. We are, on the one 
 hand, forcibly drawn towards this terrible spectacle, which 
 on the other wounds and repulses our senses, and we pause 
 
vESTHETIOAI/ LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 265 
 
 before it with a feeling which we cannot propfirii- call a 
 pleasure, but one which we often like much more than 
 pleasure. But still, the spectacle that nature then offers to 
 us is in itself rather destructive than good (at all events we 
 in no waj' need to think of the utility of a storm to take 
 pleasure in this phenomenon), is in itself rather ugly than 
 beautiful, for the darkness, hiding from us all the images 
 which light affords, cannot be in itself a pleasant thing ; 
 and those sudden crashes with which the thunder shalies 
 the atmosphere, those sudden flashes when the lightning 
 rends the cloud — all is contrary to one of the essential 
 conditions of the beautiful, which carries with it nothing 
 abrupt, nothing violent. And moreover this phenomenon, 
 if we consider only our senses, is rather painful than 
 agreeable, for the nerves of our sight and those of our 
 hearing are each in their turn painfullj' strained, then not 
 less violently relaxed, by the alternations of light and 
 darkness, of the explosion of the thunder, and silence. 
 And in spite of all these causes of displeasure, a storm is 
 an attractive phenomenon for whomsoever is not afraid 
 of it. 
 
 Another example. In the midst of a green and smiling 
 plain there rises a naked and barren hillock, which hides 
 from the sight a part of the view. Each one would wish 
 that this hillock were removed which disfigures the beauty 
 of all the landscape. Well, let us imagine this hillock 
 rising, rising still, without indeed changing at all its shape, 
 and preserving, although on a greater scale, the same pro- 
 portions between its width and height. To begin with, 
 our impression of displeasure will but increase with the 
 hillock itself, which will the more strike the sight, and 
 which will be the more repulsive. But continue ; raise it 
 up twice as high as a tower, and insensiblj- the displeasure 
 will efface itself to make way for quite another feeling 
 The hill has at last become a mountain, so high a moun- 
 tain that it is quite impossible for our ej-es to take it in at 
 one look. There is an object more precocious than all this 
 smiling plain which surrounds it, and the impression that 
 it makes on us is of such a nature that we should regret to 
 exchange it for any other impression, however beautiful it 
 might be. Now, suppose this mountain to be leaning, and 
 
266 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 of such an inclination tiiat we could expect it every minute 
 to crash down, the previous impression will be complicated 
 with another impression : terror will be joined to it : the 
 object itself will be but still more attractive. But suppose 
 it were possible to prop up this leaning mountain with 
 another mountain, the terror would disappear, and with it 
 a good part of the pleasure we experienced. Suppose that 
 there were beside this mountain four or five other inoun- 
 tains, of which each one was a fourth or a fifth part lower 
 than the one which came immediately after ; the first im- 
 pression with which the height of one mountain inspired 
 us will be notably weakened. Something somewhat anal- 
 ogous would take place if the mountain itself vrere cut into 
 ten or twelve terraces, uniformly diminishing ; or again if 
 it were artificially decorated with plantations. We have 
 at first subjected one mountain to no other operation than 
 that of increasing its size, leaving it otherwise just 
 as it was, and without altering its form ; and this simple 
 circumstance has sufficed to make an indifferent or even 
 disagreeable object satisfying to the ej-es. By the second 
 operation, this enlarged object has become at the same 
 time an object of terror ; and the pleasure which we have 
 found in contemplating it has but been the greater. Fin- 
 ally, by the last operation which we have made, we have 
 diminished the terror which its sight occasioned, and the 
 pleasure has diminished as much. We have diminished 
 subjectioely the idea of its height, whether by dividing the 
 attention of the spectator between several objects, or in 
 giving to the ej-es, by means of these smaller mountains, 
 placed near to the large one, a measure bj' which to master 
 the height of the mountain all the more easily. The great 
 and the terrible can therefore be of themselves in certain 
 cases a source of aesthetic pleasure. > 
 
 There is not in the Greek mythology a more terrible, 
 and at the same time more hideous, picture than the Furies, 
 or Erinj'es, quitting the infernal regions to throw them- 
 selves in the pursuit of a criminal. Their faces frightfully 
 contracted and grimacing, their fleshless bodies, their 
 heads covered with serpents in the place of hair — revolt 
 our senses as much as the}' offend our taste. However, 
 when these monsters are represented to us in the pursuit 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 267 
 
 of Orestes, the murderer of his mother, when tliey are 
 shown to us brandishing the torches in their hands, and 
 chasing their pre}', witliout peace or truce, from country to 
 country', until at last, the anger of justice being appeased, 
 they engulf themselves in the abj-ss of the infernal regions ; 
 then we pause before the picture with a horror mixed with 
 pleasure. But not only the remorse of a criminal which 
 is personified bj' the Furies, even his unrighteous acts : 
 nay, the real perpetration of a crime, are able to please us 
 in a work of art. Medea, in the Greek traged}' ; Clytem- 
 nestra, who takes the life of her husband ; Orestes, who 
 kills his mother, fill our soul with horror and with pleasure. 
 Even ifl real life, indifferent and even repulsive or fright- 
 ful objects begin to interest us the moment that they 
 approach the monstrous or the terrible. An altogether 
 vulgar and insignificant man will begin to please us the 
 moment that a violent passion, which indeed in no way 
 upraises his personal value, makes him an object of fear 
 a.id terror, in the same way that a vulgar, meaningless 
 object becomes to us the source of aesthetic pleasure the 
 instant we have enlarged it to the point where it threat- 
 ens to overstep our comprehension. An ugly man is 
 made still more ugly by passion, and nevertheless it is in 
 bursts of this passion, provided that it turns to the terrible 
 and not to the ridiculous, that this man will be to us of 
 the most interest. This remark extends even to animals. 
 An ox at the plow, a h(*se before a carriage, a dog, are 
 common objects ; but excite this bull to the combat, enrage 
 this horse who is so peaceable, or represent to yourself 
 this dog a prey to madness ; instantly these animals are 
 raised to the rank of sesthetic objects, and we begin to 
 regard them with a feeling which borders on pleasure and 
 esteem. The inclination to the pathetic^ an inclination 
 common to all men — the strength of the sympathetic sen- 
 timent — this force which in nature makes us wish to see 
 suffering, terror, dismay, which has so many attractions 
 for us in art, which makes us hurry to the theatre, which 
 makes us take so much pleasure in the picturing of great 
 misfortune, — all this bears testimony to a fourth source 
 of £esthetic pleasure, which neither the agreeable, nor 
 the good, nor the beautiful are in a state to produce. 
 
268 jESTHETICAt, LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 All the examples that I have alleged up to the present 
 have this in common — that the feeling thej- excite in us 
 rests on something objective. In all these phenomena we 
 receive the idea of something " which oversteps, or which 
 threatens to overstep, the power of comprehension of our 
 senses, or their power of resistance " ; but not, however, 
 going so far as to paralyze these two powers, or so far as 
 to render us incapable of striving, either to know the 
 object, or to resist the impression it makes on us. There 
 is in the phenomena a complexity which we cannot retrace 
 to unitj' without driving the intuitive faculty to its furthest 
 limits. 
 
 We have the idea of a force in comparison witlj which 
 our own vanishes, and which we are nevertheless compelled 
 to compare with our own. Either it is an object which at 
 the same time presents and hides itself from our facultj- 
 of intuition, and which urges us to strive to represent it 
 to ourselves, without leaving room to hope that this aspir- 
 ation will be satisfied ; or else it is an object wliich appears 
 to upraise itself as an enemy, even against our existence 
 — which provokes us, so to say, to combat, and makes us 
 anxious as to the issue. In all the alleged examples there 
 is visible in the same way the same action on the faculty 
 of feeling. All throw our souls into an anxious agitation 
 and strain its springs. A certain gravity which can even 
 raise itself to a solemn rejoicing takes possession of our 
 soul, and whilst our organs betray evident signs of internal 
 anxiety, our mind falls back on itself by reflection, and 
 appears to find a support in a higher consciousness of its 
 independent strength and dignity. This consciousness 
 of ourselves must always dominate in order that the great 
 and the horrible may have for us an aesthetic value. It is 
 because the soul before such sights as these feels itself 
 inspired and lifted above itself that they are designated 
 under the name of sublime, although the things themselves 
 are objectively in no way sublime ; and consequently it 
 would be more just to say that they are elevating than to 
 call them in themselves elevated or sublime. 
 
 For an object to be called sublime it must be in oppo- 
 sition with our sensuousness. In general it is possible to 
 conceive but two different relations between the objects 
 
.BSTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 269 
 
 and our sensuousness, and consequently there ought to be 
 two kinds of resistance. They ought either to be consid- 
 ered as objects from which we wish to draw a knowledge, 
 or else thej' should he regarded as a force with which we 
 compare our own. According to this division there are 
 two kinds of the sublime, the sublime of knowledge and 
 the sublime of force. Moreover, the sensuous faculties 
 contribute to knowledge only in grasping a given matter, 
 and putting one by the other its complexity in time and in 
 space. 
 
 As to dissecting this complex property and assorting it, 
 it is the business of the understanding and not of tlie 
 imagination. It is for the understanding alone that the 
 diversity exists : for the imagination (considered simply as 
 a sensuous facult}') there is but an uniformity, and conse- 
 quently it is but the number of the uniform things (tiie 
 quantit3- and not the quality) which can give origin to any 
 difference between the sensuous perception of plienomena. 
 Thus, in order that the faculty of picturing things sensu- 
 ouslj' maybe reduced to impotence before an object, nec- 
 essarily it is imperative that this object exceeds in its 
 quantity the capacity of our imagination. 
 
 ON SIMPLE AND •SENTIMENTAL POETEY. 
 
 There are moments in life when nature inspires us with 
 a sort of love and respectful emotion, not because she is 
 pleasing to our senses, or because she satisfies our mind or 
 our taste (it is often the very opposite that happens), but 
 merelj' because she is natui'e. This feeling is often elicited 
 when nature is considered in her plants, in her minerab 
 kingdom, in rural districts ; also in the case of human 
 nature, in the case of children, and in the manners of 
 country people and of the primitive races. Every man of 
 refiued feeling, provided he has a soul, experiences this 
 feeling when he walks out under the open sky, when he 
 lives in the country, or wlien he stops to contemplate the 
 monuments of early ages ; in short, when escaping from 
 
 \ 
 
270 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 factitious situations and relations, he finds himself sud- 
 denly face to face with nature. This interest, vvliich is 
 often exalted in us so as to become a want, is the expla- 
 nation of many of our fancies for flowers and for animals, 
 our preference for gardens laid out in the natural style, 
 our love of walks, of the country and those who live there, 
 of a great number of objects proceeding from a remote an- 
 tiquity, etc. It is taken for granted that no affectation 
 exists in the matter, and moreover that no ' accidental 
 
 i interest comes into play. But this sort of interest which 
 we take in nature is onlj- possible under two conditions. 
 First the object that inspires us with this feehng must be 
 really nature, or something we take for nature ; secondlj^ 
 this object must be in the full sense of the word simple, 
 that is, presenting the entire contrast of nature with art, 
 all the advantage remaining on the side of nature. 
 Directly this second condition is united to the first, but no 
 sooner, nature assumes the character of simplicity. 
 
 Considered thus, nature is for us nothing but existence 
 in all its freedom ; it is the constitution of things taken in 
 themselves ; it is existence itself according to its proper 
 and immutable laws. 
 
 It is strictly necessarj' that we should have this idea of 
 nature to take an interest in phenomena of this kind. If 
 
 , we conceive an artificial flower so perfectly imitated that 
 it has all the appearance of nature and would produce the 
 most complete illusion, or if we imagine the imitation of 
 simplicity carried out to the extremest degree, the instant 
 we discover it is only an imitation, the feeling of which I 
 
 — -have been speaking is completely destroyed. It is, there- 
 fore, quite evident that this kind of satisfaction which 
 nature causes us to feel is not a satisfaction of the aesthet- 
 ical taste, but a satisfaction of the moral sense ; for it is 
 produced by means of a conception and not immediately 
 by the single fact of intuition : accordingly it is by no 
 means determined by the different degrees of beauty in 
 forms. For, after all, is there anything so specially 
 charming in a flower of common appearance, in a spring, 
 a moss-covered stone, the warbling of birds, or the buzzing 
 of bees, etc. ? What is that can give these objects a claim 
 
 i '; to our love ? It is not these objects in themselves ; it is 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 27J 
 
 an idea represented bj- them that we love in them. W« 
 love in them life and its latent action, the effects peaeefnllj / 
 produced b}' beings of themselves, existence under its ( 
 proper laws, the inmost necessity of things, the eternal 
 unity of their nature. 
 
 These objects which captivate us are what we were, \, 
 what we must be again some daj'. We were nature as they ! 
 are ; and culture, following the way of reason and of 
 libertj-, must bring us back to nature. Accordingly, these 
 objects are an image of our infancj' irrevocably past — of 
 our infancy which (Vill remain eternallj- very dear to us, 
 and thus they infuse a certain melancholj- into us ; they 
 are also the image of our highest perfection in the ideal 
 world, whence thej' excite a sublime emotion in us. 
 
 But the perfection of these objects is not a merit that 
 belongs to them, because it is not the effect of their free 
 choice. Accordingly they procure quite a peculiar pleasure 
 for us, by being our models without having anything 
 humiliating for us. It is like a constant manifestation of 
 the divinity surroujiding us, which refreshes without 
 dazzling us. The very feature that constitutes their 
 character is precisely' what is lacking in ours to make it 
 complete ; and what distinguishes us from them is precise!}' I 
 what they lack to be divine. "We are free and they are ' 
 necessar}- ; we change and thej' remain identical. Now it . 
 IS only when these two conditions are united, when the 
 will submits freelj- to the^aws of necessitj', and when, in 
 the midst of all the changes of which the imagination is 
 susceptible, reason maintains its rule- — it is onlj- then that 
 the divine or the ideal is manifested. Thus we perceive 
 eternall}' in them that which we have not, but which we are 
 continually forced to strive after ; that which we can never 
 reach, but which we can hope to approach hj continual 
 progress. And we perceive in ourselves an advantage 
 which thejr lack, but in which some of them — the beings 
 deprived of reason — cannot absolutely share, and in which 
 the others, such as children, can only one day have a share 
 by following our way. According!}^, they procure us the 
 most delicious feeling of our human nature, as an idea, 
 though in relation to each determinate state of our nature 
 they cannot fail to humble us. 
 
272 JSSTHETICAIi LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 As this interest in nature is based on an idea, it can 
 only manifest itself in a soul capable of ideas, that is, in a 
 moral soul For the immense majority it is nothing more 
 than pure affectation ; and this taste of sentimentality so 
 widely diffused in our day, manifesting itself, especially 
 since the appearance of certain books, by sentimental 
 excursions and journej'S, hy sentimental gardens, and other 
 fancies akin to these — this taste by no means proves that 
 true refinement of sense has become general . Nevertheless, 
 it is certain that nature will always produce something of 
 this impression, even on the most insensible hearts, be- 
 cause all that is required for this is the moral disposition 
 or aptitude, which is common to all men. For all men, 
 liowever contrary' their acts maj- be to simplicity and to 
 the truth of nature, are brought back to it in their ideas. 
 This sensibilitj' in connection with nature is specially and 
 most strongly manifested, in the greater part of persons, 
 in connection with those sorts of objects which are closely 
 related to us, and which, causing us to look closer into 
 ourselves, show us more clearlj- what in us departs from 
 nature ; for example, in connection with children, or with 
 nations in a state of infancj. It is an error to suppose 
 that it is only the idea of their weakness that, in certain 
 moments, makes us dwell with our eyes on children with 
 so much emotion. This maj' be true with those who, in 
 the presence of a feeble being, are used to feel nothing but 
 their own superioritj'. But the feeling of which I speak 
 is only experienced in a veiy peculiar moral disposition, 
 nor must it be confounded with the feeling awakened in us 
 1)}- the joyous activity of children. The feeling of which 
 I speak is calculated rather to humble than to flatter our 
 self-love ; and if it gives us the idea of some advantage, 
 this advantage is at all events not on our side. 
 
 We are moved in the presence of childhood, but it is 
 not because from the height of our -strength and of our 
 perfection we drop a look of pity on it ; it is, on the con- 
 trary, because from the depths of our impotence, of which 
 the feeling is inseparable from that of the real and deter- 
 minate state to which we have arrived, we raise our eyes 
 to the child's determinableness and pure innocence. The 
 feeling we then experience is too evidently mingled with 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 273 
 
 sadness for us to mistake its source. In the child, all is / 
 disposition and destination ; in us, all is in the state of a 
 completed, ^finished thing, and the completion always re- 
 mains infinitely below the destina'tion. It follows that the 
 child is to us like the representation of the ideal ; not, ) 
 indeed, of the ideal as we have realized it, but such as our ' 
 destination admitted; and, consequently, it is not at all 
 the idea of its indigence, of its hinderances, that makes us 
 experience emotion in the child's presence ; it is, on the / 
 contrarj-, the idea of its pure and free force, of the integ- 
 rity, the infinity of its being. This is the reason why, in j 
 the sight of every moral and sensible man, the child will 
 always be a sacred thing ; I mean an object which, by the 
 grandeur of an idea, reduces to nothingness all grandeur 
 realized by experience ; an object which, in spite of all it ; 
 may lose in the judgment of the understanding, re- 
 gains largely the advantage before the judgment of 
 reason. 
 
 Now it is precisely this contradiction between the judg- 
 ment of reason and that of the understanding which pro- 
 duces in us this quite special phenomenon, this mixed 
 feeling, called forth in us by the sight of the simple — I 
 mean the simple in the manner of thinking. It is at once 
 the idea of a childlike simplicit}' and of a childish simplic- 
 ity. By what it has of childish simplicity it exposes a 
 weak side to the understanding, and provokes in us that , 
 smile by which we testify ©ur superiority (an entirely spec- 
 ulative superiorit}') . But directly' we have reason to think 
 that childish simplicity is at the same time a childlike 
 simplicity — that it is not consequently a want of intelli- 
 gence, an infirmity- in a theoretical point of view, but a 
 superior force (practically), a heart-full of truth and inno- 
 cence, which is its source, a lieart that has despised the 
 help of art because it was conscious of its real and inter- 
 nal greatness — directly this is understood, the under- 
 standing no longer seeks to triumph. Then raillery, 
 which was directed against sinipleness, makes way for the 
 admiration inspired by noble simplicity. We feel ourselves 
 obliged to esteem this object, which at first made us smile, 
 and directing our eyes to ourselves, to feel ourselves ■ 
 unhappy in EOt resembling it. Thus is produced that very 
 
274 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 special phenomenon of a feeling in whicli good-natured 
 raillery, respect, and sadness are confounded. It is the 
 condition of the simple that nature should triumph over 
 art, either unconsciously to the individual and against his 
 inclination, or with his full and entire cognizance. In the 
 former case it is simplicity as a surprise^ and the impres- 
 sion resulting from it is one of gayety ; in the second casC;. 
 it is simplicity oi feeling, and we are moved. 
 
 With regard to simplicit}' as a surprise, the person must 
 be morally capable of denying nature. In simplicity of 
 feeling the person ma^' be morally incapable of this, but 
 we must not think him physically incapable,, in order that 
 it may make upon us the impression of the simple. This 
 is the reason whj' the acts and words of children only 
 produce the impression of simplicity upon us when we for- 
 get that they are physicallj' incapable of artifice, and in 
 general only when we are exclusively impressed by the 
 contrast between their natural c haracter and what is arti- 
 ficial in us. Simplicity is a childlike ingemiousness which 
 is encountered when it is not expected; and it is for this 
 very reason that, taking the word in its strictest sense, 
 simplicity could not be attributed to childhood properly 
 speaking. 
 
 But in both cases, in simplicity as a surprise and sim- 
 plicity as a feeling, nature must always have the upper 
 hand, and art succumb to her. 
 
 Until we have established this distinction we can only form 
 an incomplete idea of simplicity. The affections are also 
 something natural, and the rules of decencj' are artificial ; 
 yet the triumph of the affections over decencj- is anything 
 but simple. But when affection triumphs over artifice, 
 over false decencj', over dissimulation, we shall have no 
 diflSculty in applying the word simple to this. Nature 
 must therefore triumph over art, not by its blind and bru^ 
 tal force as a dynamical power, but in virtue of its form 
 as a moral m,agnitude; in a word, not as a want, but as 
 an internal necessity. It must not be insufficiency, but 
 the inopportune character of the latter that gives nature 
 her victory ; for insufficiency is only a want and a defect, 
 and nothing that results from a want or defect could pro- 
 duce esteem. No doubt in the simplicity resulting from 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 275 
 
 surprise, it is always the predominance of affection and a\ 
 want of reflection that causes us to appear natural. But 
 this want and this predominance do not by any means 
 sufHoe to constitute simplicity ; thej' merely give occasion 
 to nature to obey without let or hinderance her moral con- 
 stitution, that is, the law of harmony. __,y 
 
 The simplicity resulting from surprise can onlj' be en- 
 countered in man and that onlj- in as far as at the moment 
 he ceases to be a pure and innocent nature. This sort of 
 simplicity implies a will that is not in harmony with that 
 which nature does of her own accord. A person simple 
 after this fashion, when recalled to himself, will be the first 
 to be alarmed at what he is ; on the other hand, a person 
 in whom simplicity is found as a, feeling, will only wonder 
 at one thing, that is, at the way in which men feel aston- 
 ishment. As it is not the moral subject as a person, but 
 only his natural character set free by affection, that con- 
 fesses the truth, it follows from this that we shall not 
 attribute this sincerity to man as a merit, and that we shall 
 be entitled to laugh at it, our raillery not being held in 
 check by any personal esteem for his character. Never- 
 theless, as it is still the sincerity of nature which, even in 
 the simplicity caused by surprise, pierces suddenly through 
 the veil of dissimulation, a satisfaction of a superior order 
 is mixed with the mischievous jo3' we feel in having caught 
 any one in the act. This is because nature, opposed to 
 affectation, and truth, opoosed to deception, mustineveiy 
 case inspire us with esteem. Thus we experience, even in 
 the presence of simplicity originating in surprise, a really 
 moral pleasure, though it be not in connection with a moral 
 object. ^~- 
 
 I admit that in simplicity proceeding from surprise we 
 always experience a feeling of esteem for nature, because 
 we must esteem truth ; whereas in the simplicity of 
 feeling we esteem the person himself, enjoying in this 
 way not only a moral satisfaction, but also a satisfaction 
 of which the object is moral. In both cases nature is 
 right, since she speaks the truth ; but in the second case 
 not only is nature right, but there is also an act that does 
 honor to the person. In the first case the sinceritj' of^ 
 nature always puts the person to the blush, because it is 
 
276 .ESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 involuntary; in the second it is alwaj's a merit which 
 must be placed to the credit of the person, even when 
 what he confesses is of a nature to cause a blush. 
 
 We attribute simplicity of feeling to a man, when, in 
 the judgments he pronounces on things, he passes, without 
 seeing them, over all the factitious and artificial sides of 
 an object, to keep exclusively to simple nature. We 
 require of him all the judgments that can be formed of 
 things without departing from a sound nature ; and we 
 only hold him entirely free in what presupposes a departure 
 from nature in his mode of thinking or feeling. 
 
 If a father relates to his son that such and such a person 
 is djing of hunger, and if the child goes and carries the 
 purse of his father to this unfortunate being, this is a 
 simple action. It is in fact a health^" nature that acts in 
 the child ; and in a world where healthy nature would be 
 the law, he would be perfectly right to act so. He only 
 sees the misery of his neighbor and the speediest mean's 
 of relieving bim. The extension given to the right of 
 property, in consequence of which part of the human race 
 might perish, is not based on mere nature. Thus the act 
 of this child puts to shame real society, and this is ac- 
 knowledged by our heart m the pleasure it experiences 
 from this action. 
 
 If a good-hearted man, inexperienced in the ways of the 
 world, confides his secrets to another, who deceives him, 
 but who is skilful in disguising his perfidy, and if by his 
 very sincerity he furnishes him with the means of doing 
 him injury, we find his conduct simple. We laugh at 
 him, j'et we cannot avoid esteeming him, precisely on 
 account of his simplicity. This is because his trust in 
 others proceeds from the rectitude of his ow^n heart ; at 
 all events, there is simplicity here only as far as this is 
 the case. 
 
 Simplicit}' in the mode of thinking cannot then ever be 
 the act of a depraved man ; this quality only belongs to 
 children, and to men who are children in heart. It often 
 happens to these in the midst of the artificial relations of 
 the great world to act or to think in a simple manner. 
 Being themselves of a truly good and humane nature, 
 they forget that they have to do with a depraved world ; 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 277' 
 
 and tUey act, even in the courts of kings, with an ingenu- 
 ousness and an innocence that are onlj' found in the world 
 of pastoral idyls. , 
 
 Nor is it alwaj'S such an easy matter to distingiiisli 
 exactly childish candor from childlike candor, for tlierc 
 are actions that are on the skirts of both. Is a certain act 
 foohshly simple, and must we laugh at it? or is it nobl^- 
 simple, and must we esteem the actors the higher on that 
 account? It is difficult to know which side to take in 
 some cases. A ver}- remarkable example of this is found 
 in the histor3' of the government of Pope Adrian VI., 
 related by Mr. Schrockh with all the soliditj- and the 
 spirit of practical truth which distinguish him. Adrian, 
 a Netherlander by birth, exerted the pontifical swaj' at 
 one of the most critical moments for the hierarchj' — at a 
 time when an exasperated party laid bare without anj- 
 scruple all the weak sides of the Roman Church, while the 
 opposite party was interested in the highest degree in 
 covering them over. I do not entertain the question how 
 a man of a trulj' simple character ought to act in such 
 a case, if such a character were placed in the papal 
 chair, But, we ask, how could this simplicity of feehng 
 be compatible with tlie part of a pope? This question 
 gave indeed very little embarrassment to the predecessors 
 and successors of Adrian. Thej- followed uniformly the 
 system adopted once for all by the court of Eome, not to 
 make any concessions afij-where. But Adrian had pre- 
 served the upright charater of his nation and the inno- 
 cence of his previous condition. Issuing from the humble 
 sphere of literary men to rise to this eminent position, he 
 did not belie at that elevation the primitive simplicity of 
 his character. He was moved by the abuses of the Roman 
 Church, and he was much too sincere to dissimulate pub- 
 licly what he confessed privatel3r. It was in consequence 
 of this manner of thinking that, in his instruction to his 
 legate in Germany, he allowed himself to be drawn into 
 avowals hitherto unheard of- in a sovereign pontiff, and 
 diametricallj' contrary to the principles of that court : 
 "We know well," he said, among other things, " that for 
 many years many abominable things have taken place in 
 this hoi}' chair ; it is not therefore astonishing that the 
 
278 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 evil has been propagated from the head to the members, 
 from the pope to the prelates. We have all gone astray 
 from the good road, and for a long time there is none of 
 us, not one, who has done anything good." Elsewhere he 
 orders his legate to declare in his name " that he, Adrian, 
 cannot be blamed for what other popes have done before 
 him ; that he himself, when he occupied a comparatively 
 mediocre position, had alwaj's condemned these excesses." 
 It may easily be conceived how such simplicity in a pope 
 must have been received by the Roman clergy. The 
 smallest crime of which he was accused was that of be- 
 traying the church and delivering it over to heretics. 
 Now this proceeding, supremely imprudent in a pope, 
 would j'et deserve our esteem and admiration if we could 
 believe it was real simplicity ; that is, that Adrian, without 
 fear of consequences, had made such an avowal, moved by 
 his natural sincerity, and that he would have persisted in 
 acting thus, though he had understood all the drift of his 
 clumsiness. Unhappily we have some reason to beheve 
 that he did not consider his conduct as altogether im- 
 politic, and that in his candor he went so far as to flatter 
 - himself that he had served verj' usefully the interests of 
 his cliurch by his indulgence to his adversaries. He did 
 not even imagine that he' ought to act thus in his quality 
 as an honest man ; he thought also as a pope to be able to 
 justify himself, and forgetting that the most artificial of 
 structures could only be supported by continuing to deny 
 the truth, he committed the unpardonable fault of having 
 recourse to means of safetj-, excellent perhaps, in a natural 
 situation, but here applied to entirely contrary circum- 
 stances. This necessarily modifies our judgment very 
 much, and although we cannot refuse our esteem for the 
 honesty of heart in which the act originates, this esteem 
 is greatly lessened when we reflect that nature on this 
 occasion was too easily mistress of art, and that the heart 
 too easil}' overruled the head. 
 
 True genius is of necessity simple, or it is not genius. 
 Simplicity alone gives it this character, and it cannot 
 behe in the moral order what it is in the intellectual 
 and fflsthetical order. It does not know those rules, the 
 crutches of feebleness, those pedagogues which prop up 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 279 
 
 slippery spirits ; it is only guided b^' nature and instinct, 
 its guardian angel ; it walks with a Arm, calm step across 
 all the snares of false taste, snares in which the man 
 without genius, if he have not the prudence to avoid them 
 the moment he detects them, remains infallibly imbedded. 
 It is therefore the part onlj' of genius to issue from the^ 
 known without ceasing to be at home, or to enlarge the ; 
 circle of nature without overstepping it. It does indeed I 
 sometimes happen that a great genius oversteps it ; but 
 only because geniuses have their moments of frenzy, when 
 nature, their protector, abandons them, because the force 
 of example impels them, or because the corrupt taste of 
 their age leads them astraj*. 
 
 The most intricate problems must be solved by genius 
 with simplicitj', without pretension, with ease ; the egg of 
 Christopher Columbus is the emblem of all the discoveries - 
 of genius. It only justifies its character as genius by 
 triumphing through simphcity over all the complications 
 of art. It does not proceed according to known principles, 
 but b^' feelings and inspiration ; the sallies of genius 
 are the inspirations of a God (all that health^' nature pro- 
 duces is divine) ; its feelings are laws for all time, for all 
 human generations. 
 
 Tins childlike character imprinted by genius on its 
 works is also shown by it in its private life and manners. 
 It is modest, because nature is always so ;, but it is not 
 decent, because corruption alone is decent. It is intelligent^ 
 because nature cannot lack intelligence ; but it is not 
 cunning, because art only can be cunning. It is faithful 
 to its character and inclinations, but this is not so much 
 because it has principles as because nature, notwith- 
 standing all its oscillations, alwaj's returns to its equili- 
 brium, and brings back the same wants. It is modest 
 and even timid, because genius remains always a secret 
 to itself; but it is not anxious, because it does not know 
 the dangers of the road in which it walks. We know 
 little of the private life of the greatest geniuses ; but 
 the little that we know of it — what tradition has pre- 
 served, for example, of Sophocles, of Archimedes, of 
 Hippocrates, and in modern times of Ariosto, of Dante, 
 of Tasso, of Raphael, of Albert Dilrer, of Cervantes, of 
 
280 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 Shakespeare, of Fielding, of Sterne, etc. — confirms this 
 assertion. 
 
 Nay, more ; though this admission seems more difficult 
 to support, even the greatest pliilosophers and great com- 
 manders, if great by their genius, have simplicity in their 
 character. Among the ancients I need onl}^ name Julius 
 Caesar and Epaminondas ; among the moderns Henry IV. 
 in France, Gustavus Adolphus in Sweden, and the Czar 
 Peter the Great. The Duke of Marlborough, Turenne, 
 /'and Vendome all present this character. With regard to 
 the other sex, nature proposes to it simplicity of character 
 
 ' as the supreme perfection to which it should reach. Ac- 
 cordingly, the love of pleasing in women strives after 
 nothing so much as the appearance of simplicity ; a suf- 
 ficient proof, if it were the only one, that the greatest 
 power of the sex reposes in this qualit^^ But, as the 
 principles that prevail in the education of women are 
 perpetually struggling with this charactei*, it is as diffi- 
 cult for them in the moral order to reconcile this mag- 
 nificent gift of nature with the ad\'antages of a good 
 education as it is difficult for men to preserve them 
 unchanged in the intellectual order : and the woman who 
 knows how to join a knowledge of the world to this sort 
 of simplicity in manners is as deserving of respect as a 
 scholar who joins to the strictness of scholastic rules the 
 freedom and originalitj' of thought. 
 
 Simplicity in our mode of thinking brings with it of 
 necessit}' simplicity in our mode of expression, simplicity 
 in terms as well as movement ; and it is in this that grace 
 especially consists. Genius expresses its most sublime and 
 its deepest thoughts with this simple grace ; the}' are the 
 divine oracles that issue from the lips of a child ; while 
 the scholastic spirit, always anxious to avoid error, tor- 
 tures all its words, all its ideas, and makes them pass 
 through the crucible of grammar and logic, hard and rigid, 
 in order to keep from vagueness, and uses few words in 
 order not to say too much, enervates and blunts thought 
 in order not to wound the reader who is not on his guard — 
 
 ^ genius gives to its expression, with a single and happj"^ 
 stroke of the brush, a piecisc, firm, and yet perfectly free 
 form. In the case of grammar and logic, the sign and the 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 281 
 
 thing signified are always heterogenous and strangers to 
 each other : with genius, on the contrary, the expression 
 gushes forth spontaneously from the idea, the language 
 and the thought are one and the same ; so that even 
 though the expresssion thus gives it a body the spirit 
 appears as if disclosed in a nude state. This fashion of 
 expression, when the sign disappears entirely in the thing 
 signified, when the tongue, so to speak, leaves the thought 
 it translates naked, whilst the other mode of expression 
 cannot represent thought without veiling it at the same 
 time : this is what is called originality and inspiration in 
 style. 
 
 This freedom, this natural mode by which genius ex- 
 presses itself in works of intellect, is also the expression 
 of the innocence of heart in the intercourse of life. Every 
 one knows that in the world men have departed from 
 simplicity, from the rigorous veracity of language, in 
 the same proportion as they have lost the simplicity of 
 feelings. The guilty conscience easily wounded, the 
 imagination easily* seduced, made an anxious decency 
 necessary. Without telling what is false, people often 
 speak differentlj' from what they think ; we are obliged 
 to make circumlocutions to say certain things, which 
 however, can never aflSict any but a sickly self-love, and 
 that have no danger except for a depraved imagination. 
 The ignorance of these laws of propriety (conventional" 
 laws), coupled with a natural sincerity which despises all 
 kinds of bias and all appearance of falsitj' (sincerity I 
 mean, not coarseness, for coarseness dispenses with forms 
 because it is hampered), gives rise in the intercourse of life 
 to a simplicity of expression that consists in naming things 
 by their proper name without circumlocution. This is 
 done because we do not venture to designate them as thej' 
 are, or only to do so by artificial means. The ordinary 
 expressions of children are of this kind. They make us 
 smile because they are in opposition to received manners ; 
 but men would always agree in the bottom of their hearts 
 that the child is right. 
 
 It is true that simplicity of feeling cannot properly be 
 attributed to the child any more than to the man, — that 
 is, to a being not absolutely subject to nature, though there 
 
282 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 is still no simplicity, except on the condition that it is pure 
 nature that acts through him. But b^- an effort of the 
 imagination, which likes to poetise things, we often carry 
 over these attributes of a rational being to beings destitute 
 of reason. It is thus that, on seeing an animal, a land- 
 scape, a building, and nature in general, from opposition 
 to what is arbitrarj' and fantastic in the conceptions of 
 man, we often attribute to them a simple character. But 
 that implies always that in our thought we attribute a 
 will to these things that have none, and that we are 
 struck to see it directed rigorously accordmg to the laws 
 of necessity. Discontented as we are that we have ill em- 
 ployed our own moral freedom, and that we no longer And 
 moral harmony in our conduct, we are e&sily led to a 
 certain disposition of mind, in which we willingly address 
 ourselves to a being destitute of reason, as if it were a 
 person. And we readil}' view it as if it had reallj- had to 
 struggle against the temptation of acting otherwise, and 
 proceed to make a merit of its eternal uniformity, and to 
 env3' its peaceable constancy. We are quite disposed tc 
 consider in those moments reason, this prerogative of the 
 human race, as a pernicious gift and as an evil ; we feel so 
 vividly all that is imperfect in our conduct that we forget 
 tg^be just to our destinj' and to our aptitudes. 
 
 We see, then, in nature, destitute of reason, only a sister 
 who, more fortunate than ourselves, has remained under 
 the maternal roof, while in the intoxication of our free- 
 dom we have fled from it to throw ourselves into a stranger 
 world. We regret this place of safetj', we earnestlj' long to 
 come back to it as soon as we have begun to feel the bitter 
 side of civilization, and in the totally artificial life in which 
 we are exiled we hear in deep emotion the voice of our 
 mother. While we were still only children of nature we 
 were happj', we were perfect : we ha\'e become free, and 
 we have lost both advantages. Hence a twofold and verj' 
 unequal longing for nature : the longing for happiness and 
 the longing for the perfection that prevails there. Man, 
 as a sensuous being, deplores sensibly the loss of the 
 former of these goods ; it is onl}- the moral man who can 
 be afflicted at the loss of the other. 
 
 Therefore, let the man with a sensible heart and a loving 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 283 
 
 nature question himself closely. Is it your indolence that 
 longs for its repose, or your wounded moral sense that longs 
 for its harmonj'? Ask yourself well, when, disgusted 
 with the artifices, offended by the abuses that j'ou discover 
 in social life, you feel yourself attracted towards inanimate 
 nature, in the midst of solitude ask 3'ourself what impels 
 you to fly the world. Is it tlie privation from which you 
 suffer, its loads, its troubles 'i or is it the moral anarchy, 
 the caprice, the disorder that prevail there? Your heart 
 ought to plunge into these troubles with joj-, and to find 
 in them the compensation in the liberty of which thej' are 
 the consequence. You can, I admit, propose as j'our aim, 
 in a distant future, the calm and the happiness of nature ; 
 but only that sort of happiness which is the reward of 
 your dignitj-. Thus, then, let there be no more complaint 
 about the loads of life, the inequalit}' of conditions, or 
 the hampering of social relations, or the uncertainty of 
 possession, ingratitude, oppression, and persecution. You 
 must submit to all these evils of civilization with a free 
 resignation ; it is the natural condition of good, jo«r excel- 
 lence, of the only good, and you ought to respect it under 
 this head. In all these evils j-ou ought onl}' to deplore 
 what is morally evil in them, and you must do so not 
 with cowardl}' tears onlj-. Eather watch to remain pure 
 j-ourself in the midst of these impurities, free amidst this 
 slavery, constant with yqjirself in the midst of these capri- 
 cious changes, a faithful observer of the law amidst this_ 
 anarchy. Be not frightened at the disorder that is with- 
 out jou, but at the disorder which is within ; aspire after 
 unity, but seek it not in uniformity ; aspire after repose, 
 but through equilibrium, and not by suspending the 
 action of your faculties. This nature which you envj- in 
 the being destitute of reason deserves no esteem : it is not 
 worth a wish. You have passed beyond it ; it ought to 
 ••smain for ever behind you. The ladder that carried you 
 having given wa}- under your foot, the only thing for you 
 to do is to seize again on the moral law freelj', with a free 
 consciousness, a free will, or else to roll down, hopeless of 
 safety, into a bottomless abyss. _^ 
 
 But when you have consoled 50urself for having lostThe "^ 
 happiness of nature, let its perfection be a model to your ! 
 
284 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 heart. If 3- ou can issue from the circle in which art keeps 
 you enclosed and find nature again, if it shows itself to you 
 in its greatness and in its calm, in its simple beauty, in its 
 childlike innocence and simplicity, oh ! then pause before 
 its image, cultivate this feeling lovingly. It is worthy of 
 you, and of what is noblest in man. Let it no more come 
 into 3'our mind to change with it ; rather embrace it, 
 absorb it into your being, and tr}' to associate the infinite 
 advantage it has over you with that infinite prerogati^-e 
 that is peculiar to you, and let the divine issue from this 
 sublime union. Let nature breathe around j'ou like a 
 lovel}' idyl, where far from artifice and its wanderings you 
 may alwaj'S find j'ourself again, where j'ou maj- go to draw 
 fresh courage, a new confidence, to resume j-our course, 
 and kindle again in j^our heart the flame of the ideal, so 
 readil}^ extinguished amidst the tempests of life. 
 
 If we think of that beautiful nature which surrounded 
 the ancient Greeks, if we remember hoTV intimately that 
 
 jieople, under its blessed skj-, could live with that free 
 nature ; how their mode of imagining, and of feeling, and 
 their manners, approached far nearer than ours to the sim- 
 plicity of nature, how faithfully the works of their poets 
 express this ; we must necessarily remark, as a strange 
 fact, that so few traces are met among them of that senti- 
 mental interest that we moderns ever take in the scenes of 
 
 jaature and in natural characters. I admit that the Greeks 
 are superiorly exact and faithful in their descriptions of 
 nature. They reproduce then- details with care, but we 
 see that they take no more interest in them and more heart 
 in them than in describing a vestment, a shield, armor, 
 & piece of furniture, or any production of the mechanical 
 arts. In their love for the object it seems that thej' make 
 no diflference between what exists in itself and what 
 owes its existence to art, to the human will. It seems that 
 nature interests their minds and their curiosity more than 
 moral feeling. They do not attach themselves to it with 
 "that depth of feeling, with that gentle melancholj', that 
 characterize the moderns. Naj-, more, hy personifying 
 nature in its particular phenomena, b}- deifying it, by 
 representing its effects as the acts of free being, they take 
 from it that character of calm necessity which is pre- 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 285 
 
 cisely what makes it so attractive to us. Their impatient 
 imagination only traverses nature to pass beyond it to 
 the drama of human life. It only takes pleasure in the 
 spectacle of what is living and free ; it requires characters, 
 acts, the accidents of fortune and of manners ; and whilst 
 it happens with us, at least in certain moral dispositions, 
 to curse our prerogative, this free will, which exposes us 
 to so many combats with ourselves, to so manj- anxieties 
 and errors, and to wish to exchange it for the condition of 
 beings destitute of reason, for that fatal existence that no 
 longer admits of anj- choice, but which is so calm in its 
 uniformity ; — while we do this, the Greeks, on the con- 
 trarj', onlj' have their imagination occupied in retracing 
 human nature in the inanimate world, and in giving to 
 the will an influence where blind necessity rnles. 
 
 Whence can arise this diflJ'erence between the spirit of 
 the ancients and the modern spirit? How comes it that, 
 being, for all that relates to nature, incomparably below 
 the ancients, we are superior to them preciselj- on this 
 point, that we render a more complete homage to nature ; 
 that we have a closer attachment to it ; and that we are 
 capable of embracing even the inanimate world with 
 the most ardent sensibilit}'. It is because nature, in our 
 time, is no longer in man, and that we no longer en- 
 counter it in its primitive truth, except out of humanity, in 
 the inanimate world. It is not because we are more con- 
 formable to nature — qui^ the contrarj- ; it is because in our 
 social relations, in our mode of existence, in our manners, 
 we are in opposition with nativre. This is what leads us, 
 when the instinct of truth and of simplicity is awakened 
 — this instinct which, like the moral aptitude from which it 
 proceeds, lives incorruptible and indelible in everj' human 
 heart — to procure for it in the physical world the satis- 
 faction which there is no hope of finding in the moral 
 order. This is the reason why the feeling that attaches 
 us "to nature is connected so closely with that which makes 
 us regret our infancy, forever flown, and our primitive 
 innocence. Our childhood is all that remains of nature in 
 humanity, such as civilization has made it, of untouched, 
 unmutilated nature. It is, therefore, not wonderful, when 
 we meet out of us the impress of nature, that we are 
 always brought back to- the idea of our childhood. 
 
286 ^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 It was quite different with the Greeks in antiquity. 
 Civilization with them did not degenerate, nor was it 
 carried to such an excess that it was necessary to break 
 with nature. The entire structure of their social life re- 
 posed on feelings, and not on a factitious conception, on a 
 work of art. Their very theology was the inspiration of 
 a simple spirit, the fruit of a joyous imagination, and not, 
 like the ecclesiastical dogmas of modern nations, subtle 
 combinations of the understanding. Since, therefore, the 
 
 ^Greeks had not lost sight of nature in humanity, they had 
 no reason, when meeting it out of man, to be surprised at 
 their discovery, and they would not feel verj' imperiously 
 the need of objects in which nature could be retraced. In 
 accord with themselves, happy in feeling themselves men, 
 they would of necessity keep to humanity as to what 
 Tvas greatest to them, and they must needs tay to make all 
 the rest approach it ; while we, who are not in accord with 
 ourselves — we who are discon tented with the experience 
 we have made of our humanitj' - — have no more pressing 
 interest than to fly out of it and to remove from our 
 sight a so ill-fashioned form. The feeling of which we 
 are treating here is, therefore, not that which was known 
 by the ancients ; it approaches far more nearlj- that which 
 we ourselves experience for the ancients. The ancients felt 
 naturally ; we, on our part, feel what is natural. It was 
 certainly a verj- different inspiration that filled the soul 
 of Homer, when he depicted his divine cowherd * giving 
 hospitality to Ulysses, from that which agitated the soul 
 of the young Werther at the moment when he read the 
 " Odyssey " f on issuing from an assembly in which he had 
 only found tedium. The feeling we experience for nature 
 resembles that of a sick man for health. 
 
 ~~ As soon as nature gradually vanishes from human life — 
 that is, in proportion as it ceases to be experienced as a 
 subject (active and passive) — we see it dawn and increase 
 in the poetical world in the guise of an idea and as an 
 object. The people who have carried farthest the want 
 
 'of nature, and at the same time the reflections on that 
 matter, must needs have been the people who at the 
 
 * ATof h((iopPdi, "Odj^ssey," xiv. 413, etc. 
 
 t Werther, May 26, June 21, August 28, May 9, etc. 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 287 
 
 same time were most struck with this phenomenon of the 
 simple^ and gave it a name. If I am not mistaken, this 
 people was the French. But the feeling of the simple, 
 and the interest we take in it, must naturally go much 
 farther back, and it dates from the time when the moral 
 sense and the sesthetical sense began to be corrupt. This 
 modification in the manner of feeling is exceedingly^ 
 striking in Euripides, for example, if compared with his 
 predecessors, especiallj' ^schj'lus ; and yet Euripides was 
 the favorite poet of his time. The same revolution is 
 perceptible in the ancient historians. Horace, the poet of 
 a cultivated and corrupt epoch, praises, under the shady- 
 groves of Tibur, the calm and happiness of the countr^^, 
 and he might be termed the true founder of this senti- 
 mental poetry, of which he has remained the unsurpassed 
 model. In Propertius, Virgil, and others, we find also 
 traces of this mode of feeling ; less of it is found in Ovid, 
 who would have required for that more abundance of 
 heart, and who in his exile at Tomes sorrowfully regrets 
 the happiness that Horace so readily dispensed with in his 
 villa at Tibur. 
 
 It is in the fundamental idea of poetry that the poet 
 is everywhere the guardian of nature. When he can no 
 longer entirely fill this part, and has alread3- in himself 
 suffered the deleterious influence of arbitrary and facti- 
 tious forms, or has had to struggle against this influence, 
 he presents himself as the witness of nature and as its 
 avenger. The poet will, therefore, be the expression of 
 nature itself, or his part will be to seek it, if men have 
 lost sight of it. Hence arise two kinds of poetry, which 
 embrace and exhaust the entire field of poetry. All poets 
 — I mean those who are really so — will belong, according 
 to the time when they flourish, according to the accidental 
 circumstances that have influenced their education gene- 
 rall}', and the different dispositions of mind through 
 which they pass, will belong, I say, to the order of the 
 sentimental poetry or to simple poetrj-. 
 
 The poet of a 3'oung world, simple and inspired, as also 
 the poet who at an epoch of artificial civilization approaches 
 nearest to the primitive bards, is austere and prudish, like 
 the virginal Diana in her forests. Wholly unconfiding, he 
 
288 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS 
 
 hides himself from the heart that seeks him, from the 
 desire that wishes to embrace him. It is not rare for the 
 dry truth with which he treats his subject to resemble 
 insensibilitjr. The whole object possesses him, and to 
 reach his heart it does not suffice, as with metals of little 
 value, to stir up the surface ; as with pure gold, you must 
 go down to the lowest depths. Like the Deit3' behind this 
 Universe, the simple poet hides himself behind his work ; he 
 is himself his work, and his work is himself. A man must 
 be no longer worthy of the work, nor understand it, 
 or be tired of it, to be even anxious to learn who is its 
 author. 
 
 Such appears to us, for instance. Homer in antiquity, 
 and Shakespeare among moderns : two natures infinitely 
 different and separated in time by an abyss, but perfectly 
 identical as to this trait of character. When, at a very 
 youthful age, I became first acquainted with Shakespeare, 
 I was displeased with his coldness, with his insensibilitj-, 
 which allows him to jest even in the most pathetic mo- 
 ments, to disturb the impression of the most harrowing 
 scenes in " Hamlet," in " King Lear," and in '' Macbeth," 
 etc., by mixing with them the buffooneries of a madman. 
 I was revolted by his insensibility, which allowed him to 
 pause sometimes at places where my sensibility would bid 
 me hasten and bear me along, and which sometimes carried 
 him away with indifference when my heart would be so 
 happy to pause. Though I was accustomed, by the prac- 
 tice of modern poets, to seek at once the poet in his works, 
 to meet his heart, to reflect with him in his theme — in a 
 word, to see the object in the subject — I could not bear 
 that the poet could in Shakespeare never be seized, that he 
 would never give me an account of himself. For some 
 years Shakespeare had been the object of my studj' and of 
 all my respect before I had learned to love his personality'. 
 I was not yet able to comprehend nature at first hand. 
 All that my ej'es could bear was its image only, reflected 
 bj' the understanding and arranged bj' rules : and on this 
 score the sentimental poetry of the French, or that of the 
 Germans of 1750 to 1780, was what suited me best. For 
 the rest, I do not blush at this childish judgment : adult 
 critics pronounced in that day in the same way, and car- 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 289 
 
 ried their simplicity so far as to publish their decisions to 
 the world. 
 
 The same thing happened to me in the ease of Homer, 
 with whom I made acquaintance at a later date. I re- 
 member now that remarkable passage of the sixth book 
 of the " Iliad," where Glaucus and Diomed meet each 
 other in the strife, and then, recognizing each other as host 
 and guest, exchange presents. With this touching picture 
 of the piety with which the laws of hospituUiy were ob- 
 served even in war, maj"^ be compared a picture of chival- 
 rous generosity in Ariosto. The knights, rivals in love, 
 Ferragus and Einaldo — the former a Saracen, the latter a 
 Christian — after having fought to extremity, all covered 
 with wounds, make peace together, and mount the same 
 horse to go and seek the fugitive Angelica. These two 
 examples, however different in other respects, are very 
 similar with regard to the impression produced on our 
 heart : both represent the noble victory of moral feeling 
 over passion, and touch us bj' the simphcity of feeling dis- 
 plajed in them. But what a difference in the wa}- in which 
 the two poets go to work to describe two such analogous 
 scenes ! Ariosto, who belongs to an advanced epoch, to a 
 world where simplicitj' of manners no longer existed, in 
 relating this trait, cannot conceal the astonishment, the 
 admiration, he feels at it. He measures the distance from 
 those manners to the manners of his own age, and this 
 feeling of astonishment is too strong for him . He abandons 
 suddenly the painting of the object, and comes himself on 
 the scene in person. ' This beautiful stanza is well known, 
 and has been always speciallj- admired at all times : — 
 
 "Oh nobleness, oh generosity- of the ancient manners 
 of chivalry ! These were rivals, separated b}- their faith, 
 suffering bitter pain throughout their fi-ames in consequence 
 of a desperate combat ; and, without any suspicion, behold 
 them riding in company along dark and winding paths. 
 Stimulated by four spurs, the horse hastens his pace till 
 they arrive at the place where the road divides." * 
 
 Now let us turn to old Homer. Scarcely has Diomed 
 
 learned b}' the story of Glaucus, his adversary, that the 
 
 latter has been, from the time of their fathers, the host 
 
 and friend of his family, when he drives his lance-,into the 
 
 * " Orlando Furioso," canto i., stanza 32. 
 
290 ^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 and friend of his familj^ when he drives his lance into the 
 ground, converses familiarly with him, and both agree 
 henceforth to avoid each other in the strife. But let us 
 hear Homer himself : — 
 
 " Thus, then, I am for thee a faithful host in Argos, and 
 thou to me in Lycia, when I shall visit that country'. "We 
 shall, therefore, avoid our lances meeting in the strife. 
 Are there not for me other Trojans or brave allies to kill 
 when a god shall offer them to me and my steps shall 
 reach them ? And for thee, Glaucus, are there not enough 
 Achseans, that thou ma3'est immolate whom thou wishest? 
 But let us exchange our arms, in order that others may 
 also see that we boast of having been hosts and guests at 
 the time of our fathers." Thus they spoke, and, rushing 
 from their chariots, they seized each other's hands, and 
 swore friendship the one to the other." * 
 
 It would have been difficult for a modern poet (at least 
 to one who would be modern in the moral sense of the 
 term) even to wait as long as this before expressing his 
 joy in the presence of such an action. We should pardon 
 this in him the more easily, because we also, in reading it, 
 feel that our heart makes a pause here, and readily turns 
 aside from the object to bring back its thoughts on itself. 
 But there is not the least trace of this in Homer. As if 
 he had been relating something that is seen everj' day — 
 nay, more, as if he had no heart beating in bis breast — 
 he continues, with his dry truthfulness : — • 
 
 " Then the son of Satu'rn blinded Glaucus, who, ex- 
 changing his armor with Diomed, gave him golden arms 
 of the value of one hecatomb, for brass arms only worth 
 nine beeves." f 
 
 The poets of this order, — the genuinely simple poets, 
 are scarcely any longer in their place in this artificial age. 
 Accordingly they are scarcely possible in it, or at least 
 they are only possible on the condition of traversing their 
 age, like scared per sojis, at a running pace, and of being 
 preserved by a happy star from the influence of their age, 
 which would mutilate their genius. Never, for a,j and 
 forever, will society produce these poets ; but out of 
 society they still appear sometimes at intervals, rather, I 
 * Pope's " Iliad," vi. 264-287. t " Iliad," vi. 234-236. 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 291 
 
 admit, as strangers, who excite wonder, or as ill-trained 
 children of nature, who give offence. These apparitions, 
 so very comforting for the artist who studies them, and 
 for the real connoisseur, who knows how to appreciate 
 them, are, as a general conclusion, in the age when they 
 are begotten, to a very small degree preposterous. The 
 seal of empire is stamped on their brow, and we, — we ask 
 the Muses to cradle us, to carry us in their arms. The 
 critics, as regular constables of art, detest these poets as 
 disturbers of rules or of limits. Homer himself maj' 
 have been onlj' indebted to the testimony of ten centuries - 
 for the reward these arista rchs are kindlj' willing to concede 
 him. Moreover, they find it a hard matter to maintain 
 their rules against his example, or his authority against 
 their rules. 
 
 Sentimental Poetry. 
 
 I have previously remarked that the poet is nature, or 
 he seeks nature. In the former case, he is a simple poet, 
 in the second case, a sentimental poet. 
 
 The poetic spirit is immortal, nor can it disappear from 
 humanity ; it can only disappear with humanity itself, or 
 with the aptitude to be a man, a human being. And 
 actually, though man by the freedom of his imagination 
 and of his understanding departs from simplicitj', from 
 truth, from the necessitj' of*nature, not only a road always 
 remains open to him to return to it, but, moreover, a 
 powerful and indestructible instinct, the moral instinct, 
 brings him incessantly back to nature ; and it is precisel}- 
 the poetical faculty that is united to this instinct by the 
 ties of the closest relationship. Thus man does not lose 
 the poetic faculty- directl.y he parts with the simplicity 
 of nature ; only this faculty acts out of him in another 
 direction. 
 
 Even at present nature is the only flame that kindles 
 and warms the poetic soul. From nature alone it obtains 
 all its force ; to nature alone it speaks in the artificial cul- 
 ture-seeking man. Any other form of displaying its activ- 
 ity is remote from the poetic spirit. Accordingly it may 
 be remarked that it is incorrect to apply the expression 
 
292 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 poetic to any of the so-styled productions of wit, thougli 
 the hiigh credit given to French literature ' has led people 
 for a long period to class them in that categor3-. I repeat 
 that at present, even in the existing phase of culture, it is 
 still nature that powerfully stirs up the poetic spirit, only 
 its present relation to nature is of a diflferent order from 
 formerly'. 
 
 ~ As long as man dwells in a state of pure nature (I mean 
 pure and not coarse nature), all his being acts at once like 
 a simple sensuous unit}-, hke a harmonious whole. The 
 senses and reason, the receptive faculty and the spontan- 
 eously active faculty, have not been as yet separated in 
 their respective functions : a fortiori they are not yet in 
 
 'contradiction with each other. Then the feelings of man 
 are not the formless plaj- of chance ; nor are his thoughts 
 an empt}' play of the imagination, without any value. 
 His feelings proceed from the law of necessity ; his thoughts 
 from reality. But when man enters the state of civiliza- 
 tion, and art has fashioned him, this sensuous harmony 
 which was in him disappears, and henceforth he can only 
 manifest himself as a ii.ond unity., that is, as aspiring to 
 unity. The harmony tiiat existed as a fact in the former 
 state, the harmony of feeling and thought, onl^- exists now 
 in an ideal state. It is no longer in him, but out of him ; 
 it is a conception of thought which he must begin hj real- 
 izing in himself ; it is no longer a fact, a reality of his life. 
 Well, now let us take the idea of poetry, which is nothmg 
 else than expressing humanity as completely us possible, 
 and let us applj- this idea to these two states. We shall 
 be brought to infer that, on the one hand, in the state of 
 natural simplicity, when all the faculties of man are exert- 
 ed together, his being still manifests itself in a harmonious 
 unity, where, consequently, the totality of his nature ex- 
 presses itself in reality itself, the part of the fioet is neces- 
 sarily to imitate the real as completely as is possible. In 
 the state of civilization, on the contrarj-, when this harmo- 
 nious competition of the whole of human nature is no 
 longer anything but an idea, the part of the poet is 
 necessarily to raise reality to the ideal, or, what amounts 
 to the same thing, to represent the ideal. And, actually, 
 these are the only two ways in which, in general, the 
 
iESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 203 
 
 poetic genius can manifest itself. Their great fiifference 
 is quite evident, but though there be great opposition be- 
 tween tliem, a higher idea exists that embraces both, and 
 there is no cause to be astonished if this idea coincides 
 with tlie very idea of humanity. 
 
 This is not the place to pursue this thought anj^ further, 
 as it would require a separate discussion to place it in its 
 full light. But if we only compare the modern and ancient 
 ^Joets together, not according to the accidental forms which 
 they maj- have emploj'ed, but according to their spirit, we 
 shall be easily convinced of the truth of this thought. 
 The thing that touches us in the ancient poets is nature ; 
 it is the truth of sense, it is a present and a living reality : 
 modern poets touch us through the medium of ideas. 
 
 The path followed b}- modern poets is moreover that 
 necessarily followed by man generall}-, individuals as well 
 as the species. Nature reconciles man with himself; art 
 divides and disunites him ; the ideal brings him back to 
 unit}-. Now, the ideal bemg an infinite that he never 
 succeeds in reaching, it follows that civilized man can 
 never become perfect in his kind, while the man of nature 
 can become so in his. Accordinglj' in relation to perfec- 
 tion one would be infinitely below the other, if we onl}' 
 considered the relation in which the}' are both to their 
 own kind and to their maximum. If, on the other hand, 
 it is the kinds that are compared together, it is ascertamed 
 that the end to which man tends b}- civilization is infiniteh" 
 superior to that which h? reaches through nature. Thus 
 one has his reward, because having forobject a finite mag- 
 nitude, he completel}' reaches this object ; the merit of the 
 other is to approach an object that is of infinite magni- 
 tude. Now, as there are only degrees, and as there is 
 only progress in the second of these evolutions, it follows 
 that the relative merit of the man engaged in the w&js of 
 civilization is never determinable in general, though this 
 man, taking the individuals separateh', is necessarily at a 
 disadvantage, compared with the man in whom nature acts 
 in all its perfection. But we know also that humanitj* can- 
 not reach its final end except by j^roffress, and that the 
 man of nature cannot make progress save through culture, 
 and consequently bj- passing himself through the way of 
 
294 iESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 ci^■ilization. Accordingly there is no occasion to ask with 
 whicli of the two the advantage must remain, considering 
 this last end. 
 
 All that we say here of the different forms of humanitj- 
 ma^' be applied equally to the two orders of poets who 
 correspond to them. 
 
 Accordingly it would have been desirable not to com- 
 pare at all the ancient and the modern poets, the simple 
 and the sentimental poets, or onl}' to compare them by re- 
 ferring them to a higher idea y_ since there is reallj- onh' 
 one) which embraces both. For, sooth to say, if we begin 
 b}' forming a specific idea of poetr}-, merelj' from the 
 ancient poets, nothing is easier, but also nothing is more 
 vulgar, than to depreciate the moderns b^' this comparison. 
 If persons wish to confine the name of poetry to that 
 which has in all times produced the same impression in 
 simple nature, this places them in the necessitj- of con- 
 testing the title of poet in the moderns precise!}' in that 
 which constitutes their highest beauties, their greatest 
 originality and sublimit}' ; for precisel}' in the points where 
 they excel the most, it is the child of civilization whom 
 they address, and thej have nothing to say to the simple 
 child of nature. 
 
 To the man who is not disposed beforehand to issue 
 from reality in order to enter the field of the ideal, the 
 richest and most substantial poetry is an empty appear- 
 ance, and the sublimest flights of poetic inspiration are an 
 exaggeration. Never will a reasonable man think of 
 placing alongside Homer, in his grandest episodes, anj' of 
 our modern poets ; and it has a discordant and ridiculous 
 effect to hear Milton or Klopstock honored with the name 
 of a "new Homer." But take in modern poets what 
 characterizes them, what makes their special merit, and 
 try to compare any ancient poet with them iu-this point, 
 the}' will not be able to support the comparison any bet- 
 ter, and Homer less than any other. I should express it 
 thus : the power of the ancients consists in compressing 
 objects into the finite, and the moderns excel in the art of 
 the infinite. 
 
 What we have said here may be extended to the fine 
 arts in general, except certain restrictions that are self- 
 
^STHETXOAL LETTEliS AND ESSAYS. 295 
 
 evident. If, then, the strength of the artists of antiquity' 
 consists in determining and limiting objects, we must no 
 longer wonder that in the iield of the plastic arts the 
 ancients remain so far superior to the moderns, nor espe- 
 cially that poetry and the plastic arts with the moderns, 
 compared respectively with what they were among the 
 ancients, do not offer the same relative value. This is be- 
 cause an object that addresses itself to the ej-es is only 
 perfect in proportion as the object is clearly limited in it ; 
 whilst a work that is addressed to the imagination can also 
 reach the perfection which is proper to it by means of the 
 ideal and the infinite. This is whj- the superiority of the 
 moderns in what relates to ideas is not of great aid to 
 them in the plastic arts, where it is necessarj- for them to 
 determine in space^ with the greatest precision, the image 
 which their imagination has conceived, and where they 
 must therefore measure themselves with the ancient artist 
 just on a point where his superiority cannot be contested. 
 In the matter of poetry it is another affair, and if the ad- 
 vantage is still with the ancients on that ground, as re- 
 spects the simplicit}' of forms — all that can be represented 
 by sensuous features, all that is something bodily — yet, 
 on the other hand, the moderns have the advantage over 
 the ancients as regards fundamental wealth, and all that 
 can neither be represented nor translated by sensuous 
 signs, in short, for all that is called mind and idea in the 
 works of art. - 
 
 From the moment that the simple poet is content to fol- 
 low simple nature and feeling, that he is contented with 
 the imitation of the real world, he can only be placed, 
 with regard to his subject, in a single relation. And in 
 this respect he has no choice as to the manner of treating 
 it. If simple poetry produces different impressions — I 
 do not, of course, speak of the impressions that are con- 
 nected with the nature of the subject, but only of those 
 that are dependent on poetic execution — the whole differ- 
 ence is in the degree ; there is onlj' one waj' of feeling, 
 which varies from more to less ; even the diversity of ex- 
 ternal forms changes nothing in the qualitj* of esthetic 
 impressions. Whether the form be Ij-ric or epic, dramatic 
 or descriptive, we can receive an impression either stronger 
 
296 iESTHETIOAt, LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 or weaker, but if we remove what is connected with the 
 ■nature of the subject, we shall always be affected in the 
 same way. The feeling we experience is absolutely iden- 
 tical ; it proceeds entirely' from one single and the same 
 element to such a degree that we are unable to make any 
 distinction. The very difference of tongues and that of 
 times does not here occasion anj- diversity, for their strict 
 unity of origin and of effect is precisely a characteristic 
 of simple poetry. 
 
 It is quite different with sentimental poetry. The sen- 
 timental poet reflects on the impression produced on him 
 by objects ; and it is only on this reflection that his poetic 
 force is based. It follows that the sentimental poet is 
 always concerned with two opposite forces, has two modes 
 of representing objects to himself, and of feeling them ; 
 these are, the real or limited, and the ideal or infinite ; and 
 the mixed feeling that he will awaken will alwa3's testify' 
 to this dualit}- of origin. Sentimental poetry thus admit- 
 ting more than one principle, it remains to know which of 
 the two will be predominant in the poet, both in his fash- 
 ion of feeling and in that of representing the object ; and 
 consequently a difference in the mode of treating it is pos- 
 sible. Here, then, a new subject is presented : shall thO' 
 poet attach himself to the real or the ideal? to the real as 
 an object of aversion and of disgust, or to the ideal as an 
 object of inclination? The poet will therefore be able to 
 treat the same subject either in its satirical aspect or in its 
 elegiac aspect, — taking these words in a larger sense, 
 which will be explained in the sequel : everj- sentimental 
 poet will of necessity become attached to one or the other 
 of these two modes of feeling. 
 
 Satirical Poetet. 
 
 The poet is a satirist when he takes as subject the dis- 
 tance at which things are from nature, and the contrast 
 between realitj^ and the ideal : as regards the impression 
 received bj' the soul, these two subjects blend into the 
 same. In the execution, he may place earnestness and 
 passion, or jests and levity, according as he takes pleasure 
 
^STHBTIOAL LETTEKa AND ESSAYS, 291 
 
 in the domain of the will or in that of the understanding. 
 In the former case it is avenging and pathetic satire ; in 
 the second case it is sportive, humorous, and mirthful 
 satire. 
 
 Properly speaking, the object of poetry is not compat- 
 ible either with the tone of punishment or that of amuse- 
 ment. The former is too grave for play, which should be 
 the main feature of poetry ; the latter is too trifling for 
 seriousness, which should form the basis of all poetic 
 play. Our mind is necessarily interested in moral con- 
 tradictions, and these deprive the mind of its liberty. 
 Nevertheless, all personal interest, and reference to a per- 
 sonal necessity, should be banished from poetic feeling. 
 But mental contradictions do not touch the heart, never- 
 theless the poet deals with the highest interests of the 
 heart — nature and the ideal. Accordingly it is a hard 
 matter for him not to violate the poetic form in pathetic 
 satire, because this form consists in the liberty of move- 
 ment ; and in sportive satire he is ver}- apt to miss the 
 true spirit of poetry, which ought to be the infinite. The 
 problem can only be solved in one way : by the pathetic ; 
 satire assuming the character of the sublime, and the 
 playful satire acquiring poetic substance by enveloping the i 
 theme in beaut3^ — 
 
 In satire, the real as imperfection is opposed to the 
 ideal, considered as the highest reality. In other respects 
 it is by no means esseiftial that the ideal should be ex- 
 pressly represented, provided the poet knows how to 
 awaken it in our souls, but he must in all cases awaken it, 
 otherwise he will exert absolutely no poetic action. Thus 
 reality is here a necessary object of aversion ; but it is 
 also necessary, for the whole question centres here, that 
 this aversion should come necessarily from the ideal, which 
 is opposed to reality. To make this clear — this aversion 
 might proceed from a purely sensuous source, and repose 
 onl3' on a want of which the satisfaction finds obstacles in 
 the real. How often, in fact, we think we feel against 
 society a moral discontent, while we are simply soured by 
 the obstacles that it opposes to our inclination. It is this 
 entirely material interest that the vulgar satirist brings 
 into play ; and as by this road he never fails to call forth 
 
298 jJiSTHETICAL LETTERS AKC ESSAYS. 
 
 in US movements connected with tlie affections, he fancies 
 that he holds our heart in his hand, and thinks he has 
 graduated in the pathetic. But all pathos derived from 
 this source is unworthy of poetry, which ought only to 
 move us through the medium of ideas, and reach our heart 
 onlj' bj- passing through the reason. Moreover, this im- 
 pure and material pathos will never have its effect on 
 minds, except by over-exciting the affective faculties and 
 „ by occupying our hearts with painful feelings ; in this it 
 / differs entirely from the trulj' poetic pathos, which raises 
 I in us the feeling of moral independence, and which is rec- 
 ' ognized by the freedom of our mind persisting in it even 
 while it is in the state of affection. And, in fact, when 
 the emotion emanates from the ideal opposed to the real, 
 the sublime beauty of the ideal corrects all impression of 
 restraint ; and the grandeur of the idea with which we are 
 imbued raises us above all the limits of experience. Thus 
 in the representation of some revolting realitj, the essen- 
 tial thing is that the necessary be the foundation on which 
 the poet or the narrator places the real : that he know how 
 to dispose our mind for ideas. Provided the point from 
 which we see and judge be elevated, it matters little if the 
 object be low and far beneath us. When the historian 
 Tacitus depicts the profound decadence of the Romans of 
 the first century, it is a great soul which from a loftier po- 
 sition lets his looks drop down on a low object ; and the 
 disposition in which he places us is truly poetic, because 
 it is the height where he is himself placed, and where he 
 has succeeded in raising us, which alone renders so per- 
 ceptible the baseness of the object. 
 
 Accordingly the satire of pathos must always issue from 
 a mind deeply imbued with the ideal. It is nothing but 
 an impulsion towards harmonj' that can give rise to 
 that deep feeling of moral opposition and that ardent 
 indignation against moral obliquitj^ which amounted to 
 the fulness of enthusiasm in Juvenal, Swift, Eousseau, 
 Haller, and others. These same poets would have suc- 
 ceeded equally well in forms of poetry relating to all that 
 is tender and touching in feeling, and it was only the 
 accidents of life in their early days that diverted their 
 minds into other walks. Nay, some amongst them actually 
 
^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 299 
 
 tried their hand successfully in these other branches of 
 poetry. The poets whose names have been just mentioned 
 lived either at a period of degeneracy, and had scenes of 
 painful moral obliquity presented to their view, or personal 
 troubles had combined to fill their souls with bitter feelings. 
 The strictly austere spirit in which Rousseau, Haller, and 
 others paint reality is a natural result, moreover, of the 
 philosophical mind, when with rigid adherence to laws of 
 thought it separates the mere phenomenon from the sub- 
 stance of things. Yet these outer and contingent influences, 
 which alwa3's put restraint on the mind, should never be 
 allowed to do more than decide the direction taken by 
 enthusiasm, nor should they ever give the material for 
 it. The substance ought always to remain unchanged, 
 emancipated from all external motion or stimulus, and 
 it ought to issue from an ardent impulsion towards the 
 ideal, which forms the only true motive that can be put 
 forth for satirical poetry, and indeed for all sentimental 
 poetry. 
 
 While the satire of pathos is only adapted to elevated 
 minds, playful satire can only be adequately represented 
 b}' a heart imbued with beauty. The former is preserved 
 from triviality by the serious nature of the theme ; but the 
 latter, whose proper sphere is confined to the treatment of 
 subjects of morally unimportant nature, would infallibly 
 adopt the form of frivolitj^ and be deprived of all poetic 
 dignity, were it not th»t the substance is ennobled by the 
 form, and did not the personal dignity of the poet com- 
 pensate for the insignificance of the subject. Now, it is 
 only given to mind imbued with beauty to impress its 
 character, its entire image, on each of its manifestations, 
 independently of the object of its manifestations. A sub- 
 lime soul can onlj- make itself known as such by single 
 victories over the rebellion of the senses, only in certain 
 moments of exaltation, and by efforts of short duration. 
 In a mind imbued with beauty., on the contrary, the ideal 
 acts in the same manner as nature, and therefore contin- 
 uously ; accordingly it can manifest itself in it in a state 
 of repose. The deep sea never appears more sublime 
 than when it is agitated ; the true beauty of a clear stream 
 is in its peaceful course. 
 
300 iESTHETICAL LETTER8 AND ESSAYS. 
 
 The question has often been raised as to the comparative 
 
 preference to be awarded to tragedy or comedy. If the 
 
 question is confined merely to their respective themes, it is 
 
 certain tiiat tragedy has the advantage. But if our inquiry 
 
 be directed to ascertain which has the more important 
 
 ^ - personality-, it is probable that a decision may be given in 
 
 ' favor of corned}'. In tragedy the theme in itself does 
 
 ; great things ; in comedy the object does nothing and 
 
 1 the poet all. Now, as in the judgments of taste no 
 
 \ account must be kept of the matter treated of, it follows 
 
 naturally that the aesthetic value of these two kinds will 
 
 be in an inverse ratio to the proper importance of their 
 
 themes. 
 
 The tragic poet is supported by the theme, while the 
 comic poet, on the contrary, has to keep up the aesthetic 
 character of his theme by his own individual influence. 
 The former may soar, which is not a very difficult matter, 
 but the latter has to remain one and the same in tone ; he 
 has to be in the elevated region of art, where he must be 
 at home, but where the tragic poet has to be projected and 
 elevated by a bound. And this is precisel}' what distin- 
 guishes a soul of beauty from a sublime soul. A soul of 
 beauty bears in itself by anticipation all great ideas ; they 
 flow without constraint and without difficulty from its 
 very nature — an infinite nature, at least in potency, at 
 \ whatever point of its career you seize it. A sublime soul 
 ', can rise to all kinds of greatness, but by an effort ; it can 
 I tear itself from all bondage, to all that limits and constrains 
 ; it, but only by strength of will. Consequently the sublime 
 ! soul is only free by broken efforts ; the other with ease 
 and always. 
 
 The noble task of comedy is to produce and keep up 
 in us this freedom of mind, just as the end of tragedj^ is 
 to re-establish in us this freedom of mind by aesthetic 
 ways, when it has been violently suspended bj- passion. 
 Consequently it is necessary that in tragedy the poet, as 
 if he made an experiment, should artificially suspend our 
 freedom of mind, since tragedy shows its poetic virtue by 
 re-establishing it ; in comedj-, on the other hand, care 
 must be taken that things never reach this suspension of 
 freedom. 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 301 
 
 It is for this reason that the tragic poet invariablj' treats 
 his theme in a practical manner, and the comic poet in a 
 theoretic manner, even when the former, as happened with 
 Lessing in his "Nathan," should have the curious fancy 
 to select a tlieoretical, and the latter should have that 
 of choosing a practical subject. A piece is constituted a 
 tragedy or a comedy not by the sphere from which the 
 theme is taken, but by the tribunal before which it is 
 judged. A tragic poet ought never to indulge in tranquil 
 reasoning, and ought always to gain the interest of the 
 heart ; but the comic poet ought to shun the pathetic and 
 bring into plaj' the understanding. The former displays 
 his art bj" creating continual excitement, the latter by 
 perpetually subduing his passion ; and it is natural that 
 the art in both cases should acquire magnitude and strength 
 in proportion as the theme of one poet is abstract and that 
 of the other pathetic in character. Accordingly, if tragedy 
 sets out from a more exalted place, it must be allowed, on 
 the other hand, that comedy aims at a more important 
 end ; and if this end could be actually attained it would 
 make all tragedy not only nnnecessary, but impossible. 
 The aim that comedy has in view is the same as that of 
 the highest destiny of man, and this consists in liberating 
 himself from the influence of violent passions, and taking 
 a calm and lucid survey of all that surrounds him, and 
 also of his own being, and of seeing everywhere occurrence 
 rather than fate or hsfzard, and ultimately rather smiling 
 at the absurdities than shedding tears and feeling anger 
 at sight of the wickedness of man. 
 
 It frequently happens in human life that facility of 
 imagination, agreeable talents, a good-natured mirthful- 
 ness are taken for ornaments of the mind. The same 
 fact is discerned in the case of poetical displays. 
 
 Now, public taste scarcely if ever soars above the sphere 
 of the agreeable, and authors gifted with this sort of ele- 
 gance of mind and style do not find it a difficult matter to 
 usurp a glorj- which is or ought to be the reward of so 
 much real labor. Nevertheless, an infallible text exists 
 to enable us to discriminate a natural facihty of manner 
 from ideal gentleness, and qualities that consist in notlung 
 more than natural virtue from genuine moral worth of 
 
302 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 character. This test is presented by trials such as those 
 presented by difficulty and events offering great oppor- 
 tunities. Placed in positions of this liind, the genius 
 whose essence is elegance is sure infallibly to fall into 
 platitudes, and that virtue which only results from natural 
 causes drops down to a material sphere. But a mind 
 imbued with true and spiritual beautj' is in cases of the 
 kind we have supposed sure to be elevated to the highest 
 sphere of character and of feeling. So long as Lucian 
 merely furnishes absurdity, as in his "Wishes," in the 
 "Lapithas," in "Jupiter Tragoedus," etc., he is onlj' a 
 humorist, and gratifies us by his sportive humor ; but he 
 changes character in many passages in his "Nigrinus," 
 his " Timon," and his " Alexander," when his satire 
 directs its shafts against moral depravity. Thus he begins 
 in his " Nigrinus" his picture of the degraded corruption 
 of Rome at that time in this way : " Wretch, why didst 
 thou quit Greece, the sunlight, and that free and happy 
 life? Why didst thou come here into this turmoil of 
 splendid slavery, of service and festivals, of sycophants, 
 flatterers, poisoners, orphan-robbers, and false friends?" 
 It is on such occasions that the poet ought to show the 
 lofty earnestness of soul which has to form the basis of all 
 plays, if a poetical character is to be obtained by them. 
 A serious intention may even be detected under the malic- 
 ious jests with which Lucian and Aristophanes pursue Soc- 
 rates. Their purpose is to avenge truth against sophistry, 
 and to do combat for an ideal which is not always promi- 
 nently put forward. There can be no doubt that Lucian 
 has justified this character in his Diogenes and Demonax. 
 Again, among modern writers, how gra,ve and beautiful is 
 the character depicted on all occasions by Cervantes in 
 his Eton Quixote ! How splendid must have been the ideal 
 tiiat filled the mind of a. poet who created a Tom .Tones and 
 a Sophonisba 1 How deeply and strongly our hearts are 
 moved by the jests of Yorick when he pleases ! I detect 
 this seriousness also in our own Wieland : even the wanton 
 sportiveness of his humor is elevated and impeded by the 
 goodness of his heart; it has an influence even on his 
 rhythm ; nor does he ever lack elastic power, when it is his 
 wish, to raise us up to the most elevated planes of beauty 
 and of thought. 
 
^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 303 
 
 The same judgment cannot be pronounced on the satire 
 of Voltaire. No doubt, also, in his case, it is the truth 
 and simplicity of nature which here and there makes us 
 experience poetic emotions, whether he really encounters 
 nature and depicts it in a simple character, as manj' times 
 in his " Ingenu ; " or whether he seeks it and avenges it as 
 in his " Candide" and elsewhere. But when neither one 
 nor the other takes place, he can doubtless amuse us with 
 his fine wit, but he assuredly never touches us as a poet. 
 There is always rather too little of the serious under his 
 raillerj-, and this is what makes his vocation as poet justly 
 suspicious. You alwa3'S meet his intelligence only ; never 
 his feelings. No ideal can be detected under this light 
 gauze envelope ; scarcely can anj'thing absolutely fixed be 
 found under this perpetual movement. His prodigious 
 diversit3' of externals and forms, far from proving anj'thing 
 in favor of the inner fulness of his inspiration, rather 
 testifies to the contrarj' ; for he has exhausted all forms 
 without finding a single one on which he has succeeded in 
 impressing his heart. We are almost driven to fear that 
 in the case of his rich talent the povertj' of lieart alone 
 determined his choice of satire. And how could we other- 
 wise explain the fact that he could pursue so long a road 
 without ever issuing from its narrow rut ? Whatever maj' 
 be the variety of matter and of external forms, we see 
 the inner form return everjwhere with its sterile and eter- 
 nal uniformity, and in Sipite of his so productive career, 
 he never accomplished in himself the circle of humanity, 
 that circle which we see joyfully traversed throughout by 
 the satirists previously named. 
 
 Elegiac Poetry. 
 
 When the poet opposes nature to art , and the ideal to 
 the real, so that nature and the ideal form the principal 
 object of his pictures, and that the pleasure we take in 
 them is the dominant impression, I call him an elegiac 
 poet. In this kind, as well as in satire, I distinguish two 
 classes. Either nature and the ideal are objects of sadness, 
 when one is represented as lost to man and the other as 
 
304 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 unattalned ; or both are objects of joj', being represented 
 to us as reality. In the first case it is elegy in the narrow- 
 er sense of the term ; in the second case it is the idj'l in 
 its most extended acceptation. 
 
 Indignation in the pathetic and ridicule in mirthful satire 
 are occasioned by an enthusiasm which the ideal has 
 excited ; and thus also sadness should issue from the same 
 source in elegy. It is this, and this only, that gives poetic 
 value to elegy, and any other origin for this description 
 of poetical effusion is entirely beneath the dignity of 
 poetry. The elegiac poet seeks after nature, but he strives 
 to find her in her beauty, and not only in her mirth ; in her 
 agreement with conception, and not merely in her 
 facile disposition towards the requirements and demands 
 of sense. Melancholy at the privation of joys, complaints 
 at the disappearance of the world's golden age, or at the 
 vanished happiness of youth, affection, etc., can only 
 become the proper themes for elegiac poetry if those con- 
 ditions implying peace and calm in the sphere of the senses 
 can moreover be portrayed as states of moral harmony, 
 ~0n this account I cannot bring myself to regard as poetry 
 the complaints of Ovid, which he transmitted from his place 
 of exile by the Black Sea ; nor would they appear so tome 
 however touching and however full of passages of the 
 highest poetry they might be. His sufi'ering is too devoid 
 of spirit, and nobleness. His lamentations display a want 
 of strength and enthusiasm ; though they may not reflect 
 the traces of a vulgar soul, they display a low and sensu- 
 ous condition of a noble spirit that has been trampled into 
 the dust by its hard destiny. If, indeed, we call to mind 
 that his regrets are directed to Rome, in the Augustan age, 
 we forgive him the pain he sufi'ers ; but even Borne in all 
 its splendor, except it be transfigured by the imagination, 
 is a limited greatness, and therefore a subject unworthy 
 of poetry, which, raised above every trace of the actual, 
 ought only to mourn over what is infinite. 
 
 Thus the object of poetic complaint ought never to be 
 an external object, but only an internal and ideal object ; 
 even when it deplores a real loss, it must begin by making 
 it an ideal loss. The proper work of the poet consists in 
 bringing back the finite object to the proportions of the 
 
iESTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 305 
 
 (nflnite. Consequently the external matter of elegj-, con- 
 sidered in itself, is always indifferent, since poetry can 
 never employ it as it finds it, and because it is onlj- by 
 what it makes of it that it confers on it a poetic dignity, i 
 The elegiac poet seeks nature, but nature as an idea, and; 
 in a degree of perfection that it has never reached in real-j 
 ity, although he weeps over this perfection as something! 
 that has existed and is now lost. When Ossian speaks to 
 us of the days that are no more, and of the heroes that 
 have disappeared, his imagination has long since trans- 
 formed these pictures represented to him by his memory 
 into a pure ideal, and changed these heroes into gods. 
 The different experiences of such or such a life in particu- 
 lar have become extended and confounded in the universal 
 idea of transitoriness, and the bard, deeply moved, pursued 
 by the increase of ruin everywhere present, takes his flight 
 towards heaven, to find there in the course of the sun an 
 emblem of what does not pass away. 
 
 I turn now to the elegiac poets of modern times. 
 Rousseau, whether considered as a poet or a philosopher, 
 always obeys the same tendency ; to seek nature or to 
 avenge it by art. According to the state of his heart, 
 whether he prefers to seek nature or to avenge it, we see 
 him at one time roused by elegiac feelings, at others show- 
 ing the tone of the satire of Juneval ; and again, as in his 
 Julia, delighting in the sphere of the idyl. His composi- 
 tions have undoubtedly • poetic value, since their object 
 is ideal ; onl^' he does not know liow to treat it in a poetic 
 fashion. No doubt his serious character prevents him 
 from falling into frivolity ; but this seriousness also does 
 not allow him to rise to poetic plaj'. Sometimes absorbed 
 by passion, at others by abstractions, he seldom if ever 
 reaches sesthetic freedom, which the poet ought to maintain ' 
 in spite of his material before his object, and in which he / 
 ought to make tlie reader share. Either he is governed by ' 
 his sickly sensibility and liis impressions become a torture, '■ 
 or the force of thought ciiaiiis down his imagination and I 
 destroys by its strictness of reasoning all the grace of his • 
 pictures. These two faculties, whose reciprocal influence ; 
 and intimate union are what properly make the poet, are j 
 found in this writer in an uncommon degree, and he only 
 
306 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 lacks one thing — it is that the two qualities should mani- 
 ifest themselves actually united ; it is that the proper activ- 
 ity of thought should show itself mixed more vsrith feeling, 
 and the sensuous more with thought. Accordingly, even 
 in the ideal which he has made of human nature, he is too 
 much taken up with the limits of this nature, and not 
 enough with its capabilities ; he always betraj^s a want of 
 phj'sical repose rather than want of moral harmony. His 
 passionate sensuousness must be blamed when, to finish as 
 quickly as possible that struggle in humanity' which offends 
 him, he prefers to carry man back to the unintelligent uni- 
 formity of his primitive condition, rather than see that 
 struggle carried out in the intellectual harmony of perfect 
 cultivation, when, rather than await the fulfilment of art 
 he prefers not to let it begin ; in short, when he prefers to 
 place the aim nearer the earth, and to lower the ideal in 
 order to reach it the sooner and the safer. 
 
 Among the poets of Germany who belong to this class, 
 I shall only mention here Haller, Kleist, and Klopstock. 
 The character of their poetrj' is sentimental ; it is by the 
 ideal that they touch us, not bj' sensuous reality ; and that 
 not so much because they are themselves nature, as because 
 the}' know how to fill us with enthusiasm for nature. 
 However, what is true in general., as well of these three 
 poets as of every sentimental poet, does not evidently ex- 
 clude the facultj!^ of moving us, in particular y by beauties 
 of the simple genus ; without this they would not be poets. 
 I only mean that it is not their proper and dominant char- 
 acteristic to receive the impression of objects with a calm 
 feeling, simple, easy, and to give forth in like manner the 
 impression received. Involuntarily the imagination in them 
 anticipates intuition, and reflection is in play before the 
 sensuous nature has done its function ; they shut their eyes 
 and stop their ears to plunge into internal meditations. 
 Their souls could not be touched by any impression with- 
 out observing immediately their own movements, without 
 placing before their eyes and outside themselves what 
 takes place in them. It follows from this that we never 
 see the object itself, but what the intelligence and reflection 
 of the poet have made of the object ; and even if this 
 object be the person itself of the poet, even when he wishes 
 
ESTHETIC AL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 307 
 
 to represent to us his own feelings, we are not informed 
 of his state immediately' or at first hand ; we onlj- see how 
 this state is reflected in his mind and what he has thought 
 of it in the capacity of spectator of himself. When Haller 
 deplores the death of his wife — every one knows this 
 beautiful elegy — and begins in the following manner : — 
 
 ** If I must needs sing of thy death, 
 O Marian, what a song it would be ! 
 When sighs strive against words, 
 And idea follows fast on idea, " etc., 
 
 we feel that this description is strictly true, but we feel 
 also that the poet does not communicate to us, properly- 
 speaking, his feelings, but the thoughts that they suggest 
 to him. Accordingly, the emotion we feel on hearing liim 
 is much less vivid ! people remark that the poet's mind 
 must have been singularlj- cooled down to become thus a 
 spectator of his own emotion. 
 
 Haller scarcely treated any subjects but the super- 
 sensuous, and part of the poems of Klopstock are also of 
 this nature : this choice itself excludes them from the 
 simple kind. Accordingly, in order to treat these super- 
 sensuous themes in a poetic fashion, as no body could be 
 given to tliem, and thej- could not be made the objects of 
 sensuous intuition, it was necessarj- to make them pass 
 from the finite to the infinite, and raise them to the state 
 of objects of spiritual intuition. In general, it may be 
 said, that it is only in thig sense that a didactic poetrj^ can 
 be conceived without involving contradiction ; for, repeat-^ 
 ing again what has been so often said, poetrj' has only two 
 fields, the world of sense and the ideal world, since in the 
 sphere of conceptions, in the world of the understandings 
 it cannot absolutel}' thrive. I confess that I do not know 
 as j-et anj- didactic poem, either among the ancients or "^ 
 among the moderns, where the subject is completel3' brought 
 down to the individual, or purely and completelj- raised to — , 
 the ideal. The most common case, in tlie most happy 
 essays, is where the two principles are used together ; the 
 abstract idea predominates, and the imagination, which 
 ought to reign over the whole domain of poetry, has 
 merely the permission to serve the understanding. A 
 didactic poem in which thought itself would be poetic,' ' 
 
308 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 and would remain so, is a thing whicli we must still wait 
 to see. 
 
 What we say here of didactic poems in general is true 
 in particular of the poems of Haller. The thought itself 
 of these poems is not poetical, but the execution becomes 
 so sometimes, occasionally by the use of images, at other 
 times by a flight towards the ideal. It is from this last 
 quality only that the poems of Haller belong to this class. 
 Energ3S depth, a pathetic earnestness — these are the 
 traits that distinguish this poet. He has in his soul an 
 ideal that enkindles it, and his ardent love of truth seeks 
 in the peaceful valle3's of the Alps that innocence of the 
 first ages that the world no longer knows. His complaint 
 is deepljf touching ; he retraces in an energetic and almost 
 bitter satire the wanderings of the mind and of the heart, 
 and he loviuglj' portrays the beautiful simplicity of na- 
 ture. Only, in his pictures as well as in his soul, ab- 
 straction prevails too much, and the sensuous is over- 
 weighted 1)3' the intellectual. He constantl3' teaches 
 rather than paints ; and even in his paintings his brush 
 is more energetic than lovable. He is great, bold, full 
 of Are, sublime ; but he rarely and perhaps never attains 
 to beauty-. 
 
 For the solidit3' and depth of ideas, Kleist is far inferior 
 to Haller ; in point of grace, perhaps, he would have the 
 advantage — if, as happens occasionall3', we did not im- 
 pute to him as a merit, on the one side, that which really 
 is a want on the other. The sensuous soul of Kleist takes 
 especial delight at the sight of country scenes and man- 
 ners ; he withdraws gladly from the vain jingle and rattle 
 of society, and finds in the heart of inanimate nature the 
 harmony and peace that are not offered to him by the 
 moral world. How touching is his " Aspiration after 
 Repose " ! how much truth and feeling there is in these 
 verses I — 
 
 " O world, thou art the tomb of true life ! 
 Often a generous instinct attracts me to vii-tue; 
 My heart is siid, a torrent of tears bathes my cheeks 
 But example conquers, and thou, fire of youth! 
 Soon you dry these noble tears. 
 A time man must live far from men ! " 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 309 
 
 But if the poetic instinct of Kleist leads him thus far 
 away from the narrow circle of social relations, in solitude 
 and among the fruitful inspirations of nature, the image 
 of social life and of its anguish pursues him, and also, 
 alas ! its chains. What he flees from he carries in him- 
 self, and what he seeks remains entirely outside him : never 
 can he triumph over the fatal influence of his time. In 
 vain does he find suflScient flame in his heart and enough 
 energy in his imagination to animate by painting the cold 
 conceptions of the understanding ; cold thought each time 
 kills the living creations of fancj-, and reflection destroj-s 
 the secret work of the sensuous nature. His poetry, it 
 must be admitted, is of as brilliant color and as variegated 
 as the spring he celebrated in verse ; his imagination is 
 vivid and active ; but it might be said that it is more 
 variable than rich, that it sports rather than creates, that 
 it always goes forward with a changeful gait, rather than 
 stops to accumulate and mould things into shape. Traits 
 succeed each other rapidly, with exuberance, but without 
 concentrating to form an individual, without completing 
 each other to make a living whole, without rounding to a 
 form, a figure. Whilst he remains in purely- lyrical 
 poetry, and pauses amidst his landscapes of country life, 
 on the one hand the greater freedom of the Ij'rical form, 
 and on the other the more arbitrary' nature of the subject, 
 prevent us from being struck with this defect ; in these 
 sorts of works it is in general rather the feelings of the 
 poet, than the object in itself, of which we expect the 
 portraiture. But this defect becomes too apparent when 
 he undertakes, as in Cisseis and Paches, or in his Seneca, 
 to represent men and human actions ; because liere the 
 imagination sees itself kept in within certain fixed and 
 necessary Hmits, and because here the efl'ect can only be 
 dei-ived from the object itself. Kleist becomes poor, tire- 
 some, jejune, and insupportably frigid ; an example ful'.. 
 of lessons for those who, without having an inner vocation, 
 aspire to issue from musical poetry, to rise to the regions 
 of plastic poetry. A spirit of this family, Thomson, has 
 paid the same penalty to human infirmity. 
 
 In the sentimental kind, and especially in that part of 
 the sentimental kind which we name elegiac, there are but 
 
310 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 few modern poets, and still fewer ancient ones, who can 
 be compared to our Klopstock. Musical poetry has pro- 
 duced in this poet all that can be attained out of the limits 
 of the living form, and out of the sphere of individualitj', 
 in the region of ideas. It would, no doubt, be doing him 
 a great injustice to dispute entirelj' in his case that indi- 
 vidual truth and that feeling of life with which the simple 
 poet describes his pictures. Many of his odes, manj- sep- 
 arate traits in his dramas, and in his " Messiah," repre- 
 sent the object with a striking truth, and mark the outhne 
 admirably ; especially, when the object is his own heart, 
 he has given evidence on manj' occasions of a great 
 natural disposition and of a charming simplicity. I mean 
 only that it is not in this that the proper force of Klop- 
 stock consists, and that it would not perhaps be right to 
 seek for this throughout his work. Viewed as a produc- 
 tion of musical poetry, the "Messiah" is a magnificent 
 work ; but in the light of plastic poetrj-, where we look 
 for determined forms and forms determined for the intui- 
 tion, the "Messiah" leaves much to be desired. Perhaps 
 in this poem the figures are sufficiently determined, but 
 the}' are not so with intuition in view. It is abstraction 
 alone that created them,' and abstraction alone can discern 
 them. The}' are excellent types to express ideas, but they 
 are not individuals nor living figures. With regard to the 
 imagination, which the poet ought to address, and which 
 lie ought to command by putting before it alwajs perfectly' 
 determinate forms, it is left here much too free to repre- 
 sent as it wishes these men and these angels, these divini- 
 ties and demons, this paradise and this hell. We see 
 quite well the vague outlines in which the understanding 
 must be kept to conceive these personages ; but we do not 
 find the limit clearly traced in which the imagination must 
 be enclosed to represent them. And what I saj- here of 
 characters must applj- to all that in this poem is, or ought 
 to be, action and life, and not onl^'' in this epopceia, but 
 also in the dramatic poetrj' of Klopstock. For the under- 
 standing all is perfectly determined and bounded in them 
 — I need only here recall his Judas, his Pilate, his Philo, 
 his Solomon in the tragedy that bears that name — but for 
 the imagination all this wants form too much, and I must 
 
^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 311 
 
 readily confess I do not find that our poet is at all in his 
 sphere here. His sphere is alwa3's the realm of ideas ; 
 and he knows how to raise all he touches to the infinite. 
 It might be said that he strips away their bodilj' envelope, 
 to spiritualize them from all the objects with which he is 
 occupied, in the same way that other poets clothe all that 
 is spiritual with a body. The pleasure occasioned by his 
 poems must almost always be obtained by an exercise of the 
 faculty of reflection ; the feelings he awakens in us, and that 
 so deeply and energetically, flow always from super-sen- 
 suous sources. Hence the earnestness, the strength, the 
 elasticity, the depth, that characterize all that comes from 
 him ; but from that also issues that perpetual tension of 
 mind in which we are kept when reading him. No poet 
 — except perhaps Young, who in this respect exacts even 
 more than Klopstock, without giving us so much compen- 
 sation — no poet could be less adapted than Klopstock to 
 play the part of favorite author and guide in life, because 
 he never does anything else than lead us out of life, because 
 he never calls to arms anything save spirit, without giving 
 recreation and refreshment to sensuous nature by the calm 
 presence of an^^ object. His muse is chaste, it has nothing 
 of the earthl}', it is immaterial and holy as his religion ; 
 and we are forced to admit with admiration that if he 
 wanders sometimes on these high places, it never hap- 
 pened to him to fall from them. But precisety for this 
 reason, I confess in alWngenuousness, that I am not free 
 from anxiety' for the common sense of those who quite 
 seriously and unaflTectedly make Klopstock the favorite 
 book, the book in which we find sentiments fitting all situ- 
 ations, or to which we may revert at all times : perhaps 
 even — and I suspect it — Germany has seen enough results 
 of his dangerous influence. It is only in certain dispositions 
 of the mind, and in hours of exaltation, that recourse can 
 be had to Klopstock, and that he can be felt. It is for 
 this reason that he is the idol of youth, without, however, 
 being by any means the happiest choice that they could 
 make. Youth, which always aspires to something beyond 
 real life, which avoids all stiffness of form, and finds all 
 limits too narrow, lets itself be carried away with love, 
 with delight, into the infinite spaces opened up to them by 
 
312 jestHetical letters and essays. 
 
 this poet. But wait till the youth has become a man, and 
 till, from the domain of ideas, he comes back to the world 
 of experience, then you will see this enthusiastic love of 
 Klopstock decrease greatly, without, however, a riper age 
 changing at all the esteem due to this unique phenomenon, 
 to this so extraordinary genius, to these noble sentiments 
 — ^^the esteem that Germany in particular owes to Ms high 
 merit. 
 
 I have said that this poet was great specialty in the 
 elegiac style, and it is scarcely necessary to confirm this 
 judgment by entering into particulars. Capable of 
 exercising all kinds of action on the heart, and having 
 graduated as master in all that relates to sentimental 
 poetr}', he can sometimes shake the soul by the most sub- 
 lime pathos, at others cradle it with sweet and heavenlj' 
 sensations. Yet his heart prefers to follow the direction 
 of a lofty spiritual melancholy ; and, however sublime be 
 the tones of his harp and of his lyre, they are always 
 the tender notes of his lute that resound with most truth 
 and the deepest emotion. I take as witnesses all those 
 whose nature is pure and sensuous : would they not be 
 ready to give all the passages where Klopstock is strong, 
 and bold ; all those fictions, all the magnificent descrip- 
 tions, all the models of eloquence which abound in the 
 "Messiah," all those dazzling comparisons in which our 
 poet excels, — would they not exchange them for the 
 pages breathing tenderness, the "Elegy to Ebert" for 
 example, or that admirable poem entitled"" Bardalus, " or 
 again, the "Tombs Opened before the Hour, " the " Sum- 
 mer's Night," the "Lake of Zurich," and many other 
 pieces of this kind? In the same way the " Messiah" is 
 dear to me as a treasure of elegiac feelings and of ideal 
 paintings, though I am not much satisfied with it as the 
 recital of an action and as an epic. 
 
 I ought, perhaps, before quitting this department, to 
 recall the merits in this style of Uz, Denis, Gessner — 
 in the " Death of Abel " — jacobi. Gerstenberg, Holty, De 
 Gockingk, and several others, who M knew how to touch 
 by ideas, and whose poems Ix'long to the sentimental kind 
 in the sense in which we liave agreed to understand the 
 word. But my object is not he^-e to write a history of 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 313 
 
 G-erman poetry ; I onty wished to clear up what I said 
 further back bj' some examples from our literature. I 
 wished to show that the ancient and the modern poets, 
 the authors of simple poetrj- aud of sentimental poetry, 
 follow essentially different paths to arrive at the same 
 end : that the former move by nature, individuality, a very 
 vivid sensuous element ; while the latter do it by means 
 of ideas and a high spirituality, exercising over our minds 
 an equally powerful though less extensive influence. 
 
 It has been seen, by the examples which precede, how 
 sentimental poetry conceives and treats subjects taken 
 from nature ; perhaps the reader ma}' be curious to know 
 how also simple poetry treats a subject of the sentimental 
 order. This is, as it seems, an entirely new question, and 
 one of special difficulty ; for, in the first place, has a subject 
 of the sentimental order ever been presented in primitive 
 and simple periods? And in modern times, where is the 
 simple poet with whom we could make this experiment? 
 This has not, however, prevented genius from setting this 
 problem, and solving it in a wonderfijlly happy way. A 
 poet in whose mind nature works with a purer and more 
 faithful activity than in any other, and who is perhaps of 
 all modern poets the one who departs the least from the 
 sensuous truth of things, has proposed this problem to 
 himself in his conception of a mind, and of the dangerous 
 extreme of the sentimental character. This mind and this 
 character have been porttayed by the modern poet we 
 speak of, a character which with a burning sensuousness 
 embraces the ideal and flies the real, to soar up to an infinite 
 devoid of being, alwaj's occupied in seeking out of himself 
 what he incessantly destroys in himself ; a mind that only 
 finds reality in his dreams, and to whom the realities of 
 life are only limits and obstacles ; in short, a mind that 
 sees only in its own existence a barrier, and goes on, as 
 it were, logically to break down this barrier in order to 
 penetrate to true reality. 
 
 It is interesting to see with what a happy instinct all 
 that is of a nature to feed the sentimental mind is gathered 
 together in Werther : a dream}' and unhappy love, a verj' 
 vivid feeling for nature, the religious sense coupled with 
 the spirit of philosophic contemplation, and lastly, to omit 
 
314 JESTHETICAL LETTEliS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 nothing, the world of Ossian, dark, formless, melancholy. 
 Add to this the aspect under which reality is presented,- 
 all is depicted which is least adapted to make it lovable, 
 or rather all that is most fit to make it hated ; see how all 
 external circumstances unite to drive back the unhappy 
 man into his ideal world ; and now we understand that it 
 was quite impossible for a character thus constituted to 
 save itself, and issue from the circle in which it was 
 enclosed. The same contrast reappears in the " Torquato 
 Tasso " of the same poet, though the characters are very- 
 different. Even his last romance presents, like his first, 
 this opposition between the poetic mind and the common 
 sense of practical men, between the ideal and the real, 
 between the subjective mode and the objective mode of 
 seeing and representing things ; it is the same opposition, 
 I say, but with what a diversity ! Even in "Faust" we 
 still find this contrast, rendered, I admit — as the subject 
 required — much more coarsely on both hands, and mate- 
 rialized. It would be quite worthwhile if a psychological 
 explanation were attempted of this character, personified 
 and specified in four such diflferent ways. 
 
 It has been observed further back that a mere dispo- 
 sition to frivolity of mind, to a merr}' humor, if a certain 
 fund of the ideal is not joined to it, does not suffice to 
 constitute the vocation of a satirical poet, though this 
 mistake is frequently made. In the same way a mere 
 disposition for tender sentiments, softness of heart, and 
 melancholy do not suffice to constitute a vocation for 
 elegy. I cannot detect the true poetical talent, either 
 on one side or the other ; it wants the essential, I mean 
 the energetic and fruitful principle that ought to enliven 
 the subject, and produce true beauty. Accordinglj- the 
 productions of this latter nature, of the tender nature, do 
 nothing but ener-sate us ; and without refreshing the 
 heart, without occupying the mind, they are only able 
 to flatter in us the sensuous nature. A constant dispo- 
 sition to this mode (3f feeling ends necessarily, in the long 
 run, by weakening the character, and makes it fall into a 
 state of passivit3' from which nothing real can issue, either 
 for external or for internal life. People have, therefore, 
 ■been quite right to persecute by pitiless raillerj' this fatal 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 315 
 
 mania of sentimentality and of tearful melancholy which 
 possessed Germany eighteen years since, in consequence 
 of certain excellent worlis that were ill understood and 
 indiscreetly imitated. People have been right, I say, to 
 combat this perversitj', though the indulgence with which 
 men are disposed to receive the parodies of these elegiac 
 caricatures — that are very little better themselves — the 
 complaisance shown to bad wit, to heartless satire and 
 spiritless mirth, show clearly enough that this zeal against 
 false sentimentalism does not issue from quite a pure 
 source. In the balance of true taste one cannot weigh 
 more than the other, considering' that both here and there 
 is wanting that which forms the aesthetic value of a work 
 of art, the intimate union of spirit with matter, and the 
 twofold relation of the work with the faculty of perception 
 as well as with the faculty of the ideal. 
 
 People have turned Siegwart * and his convent story 
 into ridicule, and yet the "Travels into the South of 
 France " are admired ; yet both works have an equal claim 
 to be esteemed in certain respects, and as little to be 
 unreservedly praised in others. A true, though excessive, 
 sensuousness gives value to the former of these two 
 romances ; a livel}' and sportive humor, a fine wit, recom- 
 mends the other : but one totally lacks all sobriety of 
 mind that would befit it, the other lacks all sesthetic dignit}'. 
 If you consult experience, one Is rather ridiculous ; if 
 you think of the ideal, the other is almost contemptible. 
 Now, as true beauty must of necessity accord both with 
 nature and with the ideal, it is clear that neither the one 
 nor the other of these two romances could pretend to pass 
 for a fine work. And notwithstanding all this, it is 
 natural, as I know it bj' mj' own experience, that the 
 romance of Thummel should be read with much pleasure. 
 As a fact it onlj- wounds those requirements which have 
 their principle in the ideal, and which consequently do not 
 exist for the greater part of readers ; requirements that, 
 even in persons of most delicate feeling, do not make 
 themselves felt at the moments when we read romances. 
 With regard to the other needs of the mind, and especially 
 to those of the senses, this book, on the other hand, affords 
 * " Siegwart, " a novel by J. MuUer, published at Ulm, 1776. 
 
31G ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 unusual satisfaction. Accordingly, it must be, and will 
 be so, that this book will remain justly one of the favor 
 ite works of our age, and of all epochs when men only 
 write aesthetic works to please, and people only read to get 
 pleasure. 
 
 But does not poetical literature also offer, even in its 
 classical monuments, some analogous examples of injuries 
 inflicted or attempted against the ideal and its superior 
 purity? Are there not some who, by the gross, sensuous 
 nature of their subject, seem to depart strangely from the 
 spiritualism I here demand of all works of art? If this is 
 permitted to the poet, the chaste nurseling of the muses, 
 ought it not to be conceded to the novelist, who is only 
 the half-brother of the poet, and who still touches by so 
 many points ? I can the less avoid this question because 
 tliere are masterpieces, both in the elegiac and in the 
 satirical kind, where the authors seek and preach up a 
 nature quite different from that I am discussing in this 
 essay, and where they seem to defend it, not so much 
 against bad as against good morals. The natural conclu- 
 sion would be either that this sort of poem ought to be 
 rejected, or that, in tracing here the idea of elegiac 
 poetry, we have granted far too much to what is 
 arbitrary. 
 
 The question I asked was, whether what was permitted 
 bj- the poet might not be tolerated in a prose narrator too? 
 The answer is contained in the question. What is allowed 
 in the poet proves nothing about what must be allowed in 
 one who is not a poet. This tolerancy in fact reposes on 
 the very idea which we ought to make to ourselves of the 
 poet, and only on this idea ; what in his case is legitimate 
 freedom, is only a license worthy of contempt as soon as it 
 no longer takes its source in the ideal, in those high and 
 noble inspirations which make the poet. 
 
 The laws of decencj' are strangers to innocenl nature ; 
 the experience of corruption alone has given birth to 
 them. But when once this experience has been made, and 
 natural innocence has disappeared from manners, these 
 laws are henceforth sacred laws that man, who has a 
 moral sense, ought not to infringe upon. The^- reign in 
 an artificial world with the same right that the laws of 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 317 
 
 nature reign in the innocence of primitive ages. But b3' 
 wiiat characteristic is the poet recognized ? Precisely b}- 
 his silencing in his soul all that recalls an artificial world, 
 and by causing nature herself to revive in him with her 
 primitive simplicity. The moment he has done this he is 
 emancipated by this alone from all the laws by which a 
 depraved heart secures itself against itself. He is pure, 
 he is innocent, and all that is permitted to innocent nature 
 is equally permitted to him. But you vrho read him or 
 listen to him, if you have lost j'our innocence, and if you 
 are incapable of finding it again, even for a moment, in a 
 purifying contact with the poet, it is your oion fault, and 
 not his : why do not you leave him alone ? it is not for you 
 that he has sung ! 
 
 Here follows, therefore, in what relates to these kinds 
 of freedoms, the rules that we can lay down. 
 
 Let us remark in the first place that natui'e only can 
 justify these licenses ; whence it follows that you could 
 not legitimately take them up of your own choice, nor 
 with a determination of imitating them ; the will, in fact, 
 ought always to be directed according to the laws of 
 morahty, and on its part all condescending to the sensuous 
 is absolutely unpardonable. These licenses must, there- 
 fore, above all, be simplicity. But how can we be con 
 vinced that the}' are actually simple? We shall hold their- 1 
 to be so if we see them accompanied and supported by all i 
 the otlier circumstances^hich also have their spring of | 
 action in nature ; for nature can only be recognized In' the 
 close and strict consistency, by the unit}' and uniformit}' | 
 of its effects. It is only a soul that has on all occasions I 
 a horror of all kinds of artifice, and which consequently / 
 rejects them even where they would be useful — it is only 
 that soul which we permit to be emancipated from ihem 
 when the artificial conventionalities hamper and hinder it. 
 A heart that submits to all the obligations of nature has \ 
 alone the right to profit also by the liberties which it au- 
 thorizes. Alt the other feelings of that heart ought con- 
 sequently to bear the stamp of nature : it will be true, 
 simple, free, frank, sensible, and straightforward ; all dis- 
 guise, all cunning, all arbitrar}' fancj-, all egotistical petti- 
 ness, will be banished from his character, and 30U will see 
 no trace of them in his writings. 
 
318 iESTHBTIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 Second rule : beautiful nature alone can justify freedoms 
 of this kind ; whence it follows that they ought not to be 
 a mere outbreak of the appetites ; for all that proceeds 
 exclusively from the wants of sensuous nature is con- 
 temptible. It is, therefore, from the totality and the full- 
 ness of human nature that these vivid manifestations must 
 also issue. We must find humanity in them. But how 
 can we judge that thej"^ proceed in fact from our whole 
 nature, and not only from an exclusive and vulgar want 
 of the sensuous nature ? For this purpose it is necessary 
 that we should see — that they should represent to us — 
 this whole of which they form a particular feature. This 
 disposition of the mind to experience the impressions of 
 the sensuous is in itself an innocent and an indifferent 
 thing. It does not sit well on a man onlj' because of its 
 being common to animals with him ; it augurs in him the 
 lack of true and perfect humanitj'. It only shocks us m 
 the poem because sucli a work having the pretension to 
 please us, the author consequent!}- seems to think us capa- 
 ble, ns also, of this moral infirmitj'. But when we see in 
 the man who has let himself be drawn into it by surprise 
 all the other characteristics that human nature in general 
 embraces ; when we find in the work where these liberties 
 have been taken the expression of all the realities of human 
 nature, this motive of discontent disappears, and we can 
 enjoj', without anj'thing changing our joy, this simple ex- 
 pression of a true and beautiful nature. Consequently 
 this same poet who ventures to allow himself to associate 
 us with feelings so basely human, ought to know, on the 
 other hand, how to raise us to all that is grand, beautiful, 
 and sublime in our nature. 
 
 We should, therefore, have found there a measure to 
 which we could subject the poet with confidence, when he 
 trespasses on the ground of decenc}', and when he does 
 not fear to penetrate as far as that in order freely to paint 
 nature. His work is common, base, absolutely inex- 
 cusable, from the moment it is frigid, and from the 
 moment it is empty, because that shows a prejudice, a 
 vulgar necessity, an unhealth}' appeal to our appetites. 
 His work, on the other hand, is beautiful and noble, and 
 we ought to applaud it without any consideration for all 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 319 
 
 the objections of frigid decencj', as soon as we recognize 
 in it simplicity, the alliance of spiritual nature and of the 
 heart. 
 
 Perhaps I shall be told that if we adopt this criterion, 
 most of the recitals of this kind composed b^' the French, 
 and the best imitations made of them in German}', would 
 not perhaps find their interest in it ; and that it might be 
 the same, at least in part, with many of the productions 
 of our most intellectual and amiable poets, without even 
 excepting his masterpieces. I should have nothing to 
 reply to this. The sentence after all is anj'thing but new, 
 and I am only justifj-ing the judgment pronounced long 
 since on this matter by all men of delicate perceptions. 
 But these same principles which, applied to the works of 
 which I have just spoken, seem perhaps in too strict a 
 spirit, might also be found too indulgent when applied to 
 some other works. I do not deny, in fact, that the same 
 reasons which make me hold to be quite inexcusable the 
 dangerous pictures drawn by the Roman Ovid and the 
 German Ovid, those of Crebillon, of Voltaire, of Mar- 
 montel, who pretends to write moral tales ! — of Lacroix, 
 and of many others — that these same reasons, I say, rec- 
 oncile me with the elegies of the Roman Propertius and 
 of the German Propertius, and even with some of the 
 decried productions of Diderot. This is because the for- 
 mer of those works are only witty, prosaic, and volup- 
 tuous, while the others arg poetic, human, and simple. 
 
 Idyl. 
 
 It remains for me to say a few words about this third 
 kind of sentimental poetry — some few words and no 
 more, for I propose to speak of it at another time with 
 the developments particularly' demanded by the theme. 
 
 This kind of poetrj- general^ presents the idea and ^^ 
 description of an innocent and happj- humanity. This 
 innocence and bliss seeming remote from the artificial i 
 refinements of fashionable society, poets have removed 
 the scene of the idjl from crowds of worldly life to the 
 simple shepherd's cot, and have given it a place in the 
 
320 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 infancy of humanity before the beginning of culture. 
 These limitations are evidently accidental ; they do not 
 form the object of the idyl, but are only to be regarded as 
 the most natural means to attain this end. The end is 
 everjwhere to portray man in a state of innocence : which 
 means a state of harmony and peace with himself and the 
 external world. 
 
 But a state such as this is not merelj' met with before 
 the dawn of civilization ; it is also the state to which civili- 
 zation aspires, as to its last end, if only it obeys a deter- 
 mined tendencj' in its progress. The idea of a similar 
 state, and the belief of the possible reality of this state, is 
 the onlj' thing that can reconcile man with all the evils to 
 which he is exposed in the path of civilization ; and if this 
 — idea were only a chimera, the complaints of those who 
 accuse civil life and the culture of the intelligence as an 
 evil for which there is no compensation, and who represent 
 this primitive state of nature that we have renounced as 
 the real end of humanity — their complaints, I say, would 
 have a perfectly' jiist foundation. It is, therefore, of in- 
 : finite importance for the man engaged in the path of 
 I civilization to see confirmed in a sensuous manner the 
 ! l>elief that this idea can be accomplished in the world of 
 I sense, that this state of innocence can be realized in it ; 
 and as real experience, far from keeping up this belief, is 
 rather made incessantly to contradict it, poetrj- comes here, 
 as in manj' other cases, in aid of reason, to cause this idea 
 to pass into the condition of an intuitive idea, and to 
 realize it in a particular fact. No doubt this innocence 
 of pastoral life is also a poetic idea, and the imagination 
 must already have shown its creative power in that. 
 But the problem, with this datum, becomes infinitely 
 simpler and easier to solve ; and we must not forget that 
 the elements of these pictures already existed in real life, 
 jind that it was only requisite to gather up the separate 
 traits to form a whole. Under a fine sky, in a primitive 
 society, when all the relations are still simple, when 
 science is limited to so little, nature is easily satisfied, and 
 man only turns to savagery when he is tortured by want. 
 All nations that have a history have a paradise, an age of 
 innocence, a golden age. Nay, more than this, every man 
 
iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 321 
 
 has his paradise, his golden age, which he remembers with 
 more or less enthusiasm, according as he is more or less 
 poetical. Thus experience itself furnishes sufficient traits/ 
 to this picture which the pastoral id^yl executes. But 
 tliis does not prevent the pastoral idyl from remaining 
 alwaj's a beautiful and an encouraging fiction ; and poetic 
 genius, in retracing these pictures, has really worked in 
 favor of the ideal. For, to the man who has once de- 
 parted from simple nature, and who has been abandoned 
 to the dangerous guidance of his reason, it is of the greatest 
 importance to find the laws of nature expressed in a faith- 
 ful copj% to see their image in a clear mirror, and to reject 
 all the stains of artificial life. There is, however, a cir- 
 cumstance which remarkablj' lessens the aesthetic value of 
 these sorts of poetry-. By the very fact that the idyl is / 
 transported to the time that precedes civilization, it also 
 loses the advantages thereof ; and bj' its nature finds itself 
 in opposition to itself. Thus, in a theoretical sense, it takes ^ 
 us back at the same time that in a practical sense it leads us / 
 on and ennobles us. Unhappil}' it places behind us the end / 
 towards which it ought to lead us, and consequently it can \ 
 only inspire us with the sad feeling of a loss, and not the j 
 joyous feeling of a hope. As these poems can only attain ; 
 their end bj' dispensing with all art, and by simplifying 
 human nature, they have the highest value for the heart, r 
 but they are also far too poor for what concerns the mind, 
 and their uniform circle is too quickly traversed. Accord- 
 ingly we can only seek them and love them in moments 
 in which we need calm, and not when our faculties aspire 
 after movement and exercise. A morbid mind will find 
 its cure in them, asound soul will not find its foodra them. 
 They cannot vivif^', they can only soften. This defect, i 
 grounded in the essence of the pastoral id^'ll, has not 
 been remedied by the whole art of poets. I know that ^ 
 this kind of poem is not without admirers, and that there 
 are readers enough who prefer an Amyntus and a Daphnis 
 to the most splendid masterpieces of the epic or the 
 dramatic muse ; but in them it is less the sesthetical taste 
 than the feeling of an individual want that pronounces 
 on works of art ; and their judgment, by that verj^ fact, 
 could not be taken into consideration here. The I'eader 
 
822 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 who judges with his mind, and whose heart is sensuous, 
 without being blind to the merit of these poems, will 
 confess that he is rarely affected bj- them, and that thej* 
 tire him most quickly. But they act with so much the 
 more effect in the exact moment of need. But must the 
 truly beautiful be reduced to await our hours of need ? and 
 is it not rather its office to awaken in our soul the want 
 that it is going to satisfy' ? 
 
 The reproaches I here level against the bucolic idjl 
 cannot be understood of the sentimental. The simple 
 pastoral, in fact, cannot be deprived pf aesthetic value, 
 since this value is already found in the mere form. To 
 explain myself: every kind of poetry is bound to possess 
 an infinite ideal value, which alone constitutes it a true 
 poetry ; but it can satisfj" this condition in two dif- 
 ferent ways. It can give us the feeling of the infinite 
 as to form, by representing the object altogether limited 
 and individualizing it ; it can awaken in us the feeling of 
 the infinite as to matter, in freeing its object from all limits 
 in which it is enclosed, by idealizing this object ; therefore 
 it can have an ideal value either by an absolute repre- 
 sentation or by the representation of an absolute. Simple 
 poetry takes the former road, the other is that of senti- 
 mental poetrj'. Accordingly the simple poet is not ex- 
 posed to failure in value so long as he keeps faithfully to 
 nature, which is always completely circumscribed, that is, 
 is infinite as regards form. The sentimental poet, on the 
 contrarj', b}' that ver^- fact, that nature only offers him 
 completely circumscribed objects, finds in it an obstruction 
 when he wishes to give an absolute value to a particular 
 object. Thus the sentimental poet understands his in- 
 terests badly when he goes along the trail of the simple 
 poet, and borrows his objects from him — objects which by 
 themselves are perfectly indifferent, and which onl^' be- 
 come poetical by the way in which they are treated. By 
 this he imposes on himself without any necessit}- the same 
 limits that confine the field of the simple poet, without, 
 however, being able to carry out the limitation properly, 
 or to vie with his rival in absolute definiteness of rep- 
 resentation. He ought rather, therefore, to depart from 
 the simple poet, just in the choice of object ; because, 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 323 
 
 the latter having the advantage of him on the score of 
 form, it is only by the nature of the objects that he can 
 resume the upper hand. 
 
 Applying this to the pastoral id3'ls of the sentimental 
 poet, we see wly these poems, whatever amount of art and 
 genius be displayed in them, do not fully satisfy- the heart 
 or the mind. An ideal is proposed in it, and, at the same 
 time, the writer keeps to this narrow and poor medium 
 of pastoral life. Would it not have been better, on the 
 contrary, to choose for the ideal another frame, or for the 
 pastoral world another kind of picture? These pictures 
 are just ideal enough for painting to lose its individual 
 truth in them, and, again, just individual enough for the 
 ideal in them to suffer therefrom. For example, a shepherd 
 of Gessner can neither charm by the illusion of nature 
 nor by the beauty of imitation ; he is too ideal a being 
 for that, but he does not satisf}^ us any more as an ideal 
 by the infinity of the thought : he is a far too limited 
 creature to give us this satisfaction. He will, therefore, 
 please up to a certain point all classes of readers, without 
 exception, because he seeks to unite the simple with the 
 sentimental, and he thus gives a commencement of satis- 
 faction to the two opposite exigencies that raay be brought 
 to bear on anj' particular part of a poem ; but the author, 
 in tr^-ing to unite the two points, does not fully satisfy 
 either one or the other exigency, as you do not find in him 
 either pure nature or She pure ideal ; he cannot rank 
 himself as entirelj' up to the mark of a stringent critical 
 taste, for taste does not accept anytliing equivocal or 
 incomplete in sesthetical matters. It is a strange thing 
 that, in the poet whom I have named, this equivocal 
 character extends to the language, which floats undecided 
 between poetry and prose, as if he feared either to depart 
 too far from nature, by speaking rh^'thmical language, or if 
 he completelj' freed himself from rhythm, to lose all poetic 
 fligiit. Milton gives a higher satisfaction to the mind, in 
 the magnificent picture of the first human pair, and of the 
 state of innocence in paradise ; — -the most beautiful idyl I 
 know of the sentimental kind. Here nature is noble, 
 inspired, simple, full of breadth, and, at the same time, of 
 depth ; it is humanity in its highest moral value, clothed 
 in the most graceful form. 
 
324 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 Thus, even in respect to the idyl, as well as to all 
 kinds of poetrj^ we must once for all declare either for 
 individuality or ideality ; for to aspire to give satisfaction 
 to both exigencies is the surest means, unless j'ou have 
 reached the terminus of perfection, to miss both ends. If 
 the modern poet thinks he feels enougli of the Greeks' 
 mind to vie with them, notwithstanding all. the indocility 
 of his matter, on their own ground, namel}- that of simple 
 poetry', let him do it exclusivel}', and place himself apart 
 from all the requirements of the sentimental taste of his 
 age. No doubt it is ver^' doubtful if he come up to his 
 models ; between the original and the happiest imitation 
 there will always remain a notable distance ; but, by 
 taking this road, he is at all events secure of producing a 
 reallj' poetic work. If, on the other hand, he feels him- 
 self carried to the ideal b3' the instinct of sentimental 
 poetry, let him decide to pursue this end fully ; let him 
 seek the ideal in its puritj-, and let him not pause till lie 
 has readied the highest regions without looking behind 
 him to know if the real follows him, and does not leave 
 him by the wa^-. Let him not lower himself to tiiis 
 wretcljed expedient of spoihng the ideal to accommodate 
 himself to the wants of human weakness, and to turn out 
 mind in order to play more easily' with the heart. Let 
 him not take us back to our infancy', to make us buj', at 
 the cost of the most precious acquisitions of the under- 
 standing, a repose that can only last as long as the slum- 
 ber of our spiritual faculties ; but let him lead us on to 
 emancipation, and give us this feeling of higher harmony 
 which compensates for all his troubles and secures the hap- 
 piness of the victor ! Let him jirepare as his task an idyl 
 that realizes the pastoral innocence, even in the children 
 of civihzation, and in all the conditions of the most mili- 
 tant and excited life ; of thought enlarged by culture ; of 
 the most refined art ; of the most delicate social conven- 
 tionahties — an idyl, in short, that is made, not to bring 
 back man to Arcadia^ but to lead liim to Elysium. 
 
 This idyl, as I conceive it, is the idea of humanity 
 definitely reconciled with itself, in the individual as well as 
 in the whole of society ; it is union freely re-established 
 between inclination and duty ; it is nature purified, raised 
 
^STHETIOAL LETTBKS AND ESSAYS . 825 
 
 to its highest moral dignit}' ; in short, it is no less than 
 the ideal of beautj' applied to real life. Thus, the char- 
 acter of this idyl is to reconcile perfectly all the contradic- 
 tions between the real and the ideal, which formed the 
 matter of satirical and elegiac poetry, and, setting aside 
 their contradictions, to put an end to all conflict between 
 the feelings of the soul. Thus, the dominant expression 
 of this kind of poetry would be calm ; but the calm that 
 follows the accomplishment, and not that of indolence — 
 the calm that comes from the equilibrium re-established 
 between the faculties, and not from the suspending of their 
 exercise ; from the fulness of our strength, and not from 
 our infirmity ; the calm, in short, which is accompanied in 
 the soul by the feeling of an infinite power. But precisely 
 because idyl thus conceived removes all idea of struggle, 
 it will be infinitely more difficult than it was in two 
 previously -named kinds of poetry to express movement ; 
 yet this is an indispensable condition, without which 
 poetry can never act on men's souls. The most perfect 
 unity is required, but unit}' ought not to wrong variet}' ; 
 the heart must be satisfied, but without the inspiration 
 ceasing on that account. The solution of this problem 
 is properly what ought to be given us by the theory of 
 the idyl. 
 
 Now, what are the relations of the two poetries to one 
 another, and their relations to the poetic ideal? Here are 
 the principles we have established. 
 
 Nature has granted this favor to the simple poet, to act 
 always as an indivisible unity, to be at all times identical 
 and perfect, and to represent, in the real world, humanitj' / 
 at its highest value. In opposition, it has given a power- ( 
 ful facultj' to the sentimental poet, or, rather, it has im- 
 piinted an ardent feeling on him ; this is to replace out of 
 himself this first unity that abstraction has destroj'ed in 
 him, to complete humanity in his person, and to pass from 
 a limited state to an infinite state. They both propose to 
 represent human nature full}-, or they would not be poets ; 
 but the simple poet has always the advantage of sensuous 
 reality over the sentimental poet, by setting forth as a 
 real fact what the other aspires only to reach. Every one 
 experiences this in tlie pleasure he takes in simple poetry. 
 
326 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 We there feel that the human faculties are brought into 
 play ; no vacuum is felt ; we have the feeling of unity, 
 without distinguishing anything of what we experience ; 
 we enjoy both our spiritual activity and also the fulness 
 of physical life. Ver^' different is the disposition of mind 
 elicited by the sentimental poet. Here we feel only a 
 vivid aspiration to produce in us this harmonj' of which 
 we had in the other case the consciousness and reality ; to 
 make of ourselves a single and same totality ; to realize 
 in ourselves the idea of humanity as a complete expression. 
 Hence it comes that the mind is here all in movement, 
 stretched, hesitating between contrar}- feelings ; whereas 
 it was before calm and at rest, in harmonj' with itself, and 
 fully satisfied. 
 
 But if the simple poet has the advantage over the senti- 
 mental poet on the score of realitj- ; if he causes reall^' to 
 live that of which the other can only elicit a vivid instinct, 
 the sentimental poet, in compensation, has this great ad- 
 vantage over the simple poet : to be in a position to offer 
 to this instinct a greater object than that given bj- his 
 ri\'al, and the onl3' one he could give. All reality, we 
 know, is below the ideal ; all that exists has limits, but 
 thought is infinite. This limitation, to which everything is 
 subject in sensuous reality, is, therefore, a disadvantage 
 for the simple poet, while the absolute, unconditional free- 
 dom of the ideal profits the sentimental poet. No doubt 
 the former accomplishes his object, but this object is lim- 
 ited ; the second, I admit, does not entirely accomplish 
 his, but his object is infinite. Here I appeal to experi- 
 _eiice. We pass pleasantl}' to real life and things from the 
 frame of mind in which the simple poet, has placed iis. 
 On the other hand, the sentimental poet will always dis- 
 gust us, for a time, w^ith real life. This is because the in- 
 finite character has, in a manner, enlarged our mind be- 
 yond its natural measure, so that nothing it finds in the 
 world of sense can fill its capacit}-. We prefer to fall 
 back in contemplation on ourselves, where we find food 
 for this awakened impulse towards the ideal world ; while, 
 in the simple poet, we only strive to issue out of our- 
 selves, in search of sensuous objects. Sentimental poetry 
 is the ofljspring of retirement and science, and invites to 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 327 
 
 It ; simple poetry is inspired by the spectacle of life, and 
 brings back life. 
 
 I have styled simple poetry a gift of nature to show 
 that thought has no share in it. It is a first jet, a happy 
 inspiration, that needs no correction, when it turns out 
 well, and which cannot be rectified if ill turned out. The 
 entire work of the simple genius is accomplished by feel- 
 ing ; in that is its strength, and in it are its limits. If, I 
 then, he has not felt at once in a poetic manner — that is, 
 in a perfectly human manner — no art in the world can 
 remed}' this defect. Criticism may help him him to see 
 the defect, but can place no beauty in its stead. Simple 
 genius must draw all from nature ; it can do nothing, or 
 almost nothing, b}' its will ; and it will fulfil the idea of 
 this kind of poetry provided nature acts in it bj' an inner 
 necessity. Now, it is true that all which happens by na- 
 ture is necessarj', and all the productions, happ^' or not, ' 
 of the simple genius, which is disassociated from nothing 
 80 much as from arbitrary will, are also imprinted with 
 this character of necessity- ; momentary constraint is one 
 thing, and the internal necessity dependent on the totality 
 of things another. Considered as a whole, nature is in- 
 dependent and infinite ; in isolated operations it is poor 
 and limited. The same distinction holds good in respect 
 to the nature of the poet. The very moment when he is 
 most happil3' inspired depends on a preceding instant, and 
 consequenth' only a conditional necessity can be attributed 
 to him. But now the problem that the poet ought to 
 solve is to make an individual state similar to the human 
 whole, and consequently to base it in an absolute and 
 necessary manner on itself. It is therefore necessar}' that 
 at the moment of inspiration every trace of a temporal I 
 need should be banished, and that the object itself, how-- \ 
 ever limited, should not limit the fiight of the poet. But i 
 ■it may be conceived that this is only possible in so far as ■ 
 the poet brings to the object an absolute freedom, an ab- * 
 solute fulness of faculties, and in so far as he is prepared \ 
 by an anterior exercise to embrace all things with all his' 
 humanity. Now he cannot acquire this exercise except by 
 the world in which he lives, and of which he receives the 
 impressions immediately. Thus simple genius is, in a 
 
fi28 iESTHETIOAL LETTBliS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 state of dependence with regard to experience, while the 
 sentimental genius is forced from it. We know that the 
 sentimental genius begins its operation at the place where 
 the other finishes its own : its virtue is to complete by the 
 elements which it derives from itself a defective object, 
 and to transport itself by its own strength from a limited 
 state to one of absolute freedom Thus the simple poet 
 needs a help from without, while the sentimental poet 
 feeds his genius from his own fund, and purifies himself 
 by himself. The former requirc^s a picturesque nature, a 
 poetical world, a simple humauitj- which casts its eyes 
 around ; for he ought to do his work without issuing from 
 the sensuous sphere. If external aid fails him, if he be 
 surrounded by matter not speaking to mind, one of two 
 things will happen : either, if the general character of the 
 poet-race is what prevails in him, he issues from the 
 particular class to which he belongs as a poet, and be- 
 comes sentimental to be at any rate poetic ; or, if his par- 
 ticular character as simple poet has the upper hand, he 
 leaves his species and becomes a common nature, in order 
 to remain at any rate natural. The former of these two 
 alternatives might represent the case of the principal 
 poets of the sentimental kind in Roman antiquitj' and in 
 modern times. Born at another period of the world, 
 transplanted under another skj-, these poets who stir us 
 now by ideas, would have charmed us bj- individual truth 
 and simple beautj'. The other alternative is the almost un- 
 avoidable quicksand for a poet who, thrown into a vulgar 
 world, cannot resolve to lose sight of nature. 
 
 I mean, to lose sight of actual nature ; but the greatest 
 care must be given to distinguish actual nature from true 
 nature, which is the subject of simple poetry. Actual 
 nature exists ever^'where ; but ti'ue nature is so much the 
 more rare because it requires an internal necessity that 
 determines its existence. Ever}- eruption of passion, how- 
 ever vulgar, is real — it maj' be even true nature ; but it 
 is not true himrcai nature, for true human nature requires 
 that the self-directing faculty in us should have a share 
 in the manifestation, and the expression of this faculty is 
 always dignified. All moral baseness is an actual human 
 phenomenon, but I hope not real human nature, which 
 
iESTHETIOAL LETTBIiS AND ESSAYS. 329 
 
 is always noble. All the faults of taste cannot be surveyed 
 that have begn occasioned in criticism or the practice of art 
 by this confusion between actual human nature and true 
 human nature. The greatest trivialities are tolerated and 
 applauded under the pretext that the}- are real nature. 
 Caricatures not to be tolerated in the real world are care- 
 fully preserved in the poetic world and .reproduced accord- 
 ing to nature ! The poet can certainly imitate a lower 
 nature, and it enters into the verj- definition of a satirical 
 poet : but then a beautj' by its own nature must sustain and 
 raise the object, and the vulgaritj' of the subject must 
 not lower the imitator too much. If at the moment he 
 paints he is true human nature himself, the object of bis 
 paintings is indifferent ; but it is only on this condition we 
 can tolerate a faithful reproduction of reality. Unhappj' 
 for us readers when the rod of satire falls into hands that 
 nature meant to handle another instrument, and when, 
 devoid of all poetic talent, with nothing but the ape's 
 mimicry, they exercise it brutallj' at the expense of our 
 taste ! 
 
 But vulgar nature has even its dangers for the simple 
 poet ; for the simple poet is formed by this fine harmon}^ 
 of the feeling and thinking faculty, which ^et is only an 
 idea, never actually realized. Even in the happiest geni-/ 
 uses of this class, receptivitj- will alwaj's more or less 
 carry the day over spontaneous activity. But receptivltj' 
 is always more or less sujjordinate to external ilnpressions, 
 and nothing but a perpetual activitj' of the creative fac- 
 ulty could prevent matter from exercising a blind violence 
 over this qualitj-. Now, every time this happens the feel- 
 ing becomes \ulgar instead of poetical. ---' 
 
 No genius of the simple class, from Homer down to Bod- 
 mer, has entirely steered clear of this quicksand. It is 
 evident that it is most perilous to those who have to strug- 
 gle against external vulgaritj', or who have parted with 
 their refinement owing to a want of proper restraint. The 
 first-named difHcultj'^ is the reason why even authors of 
 high cultivation are not always emancipated from plati- 
 tudes — a fact which has prevented many splendid talents 
 from occupying the place to which they were summoned 
 by nature. For this reason, a comic poet whose genius 
 
330 JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 has chiefly to deal with scenes of real life, is more liable 
 to the danger of acquiring vulgar habits of stj-le and ex- 
 pression — a fact evidenced in the case of Aristophanes, 
 Plautus, and all the poets who have followed in their track. 
 Even Shakspeare, with all his sublimit}', suffers us to fall 
 very low now and then. Again, Lope De Vega, Moli^re, 
 Regnard, Goldoni worry us with frequent trifling. Hol- 
 berg drags us down into the mire. Schlegel, a German 
 poet, among the most remarkable for intellectual talent, 
 ' with genius to raise him to a place among poets of the 
 first order ; Gellert, a truly simple poet, Rabener, and 
 Lessing himself, if I am warranted to introduce his name 
 in this categor}- — this highly-cultivated scholar of criti- 
 cism and vigilant examiner of his own genius — all these 
 suffer in different degrees from the platitudes and unin- 
 spired movements of the natures they chose as the tlieme 
 of tiieir satire. With regard to more recent authors of 
 this class, I avoid naming any of them, as I can make no 
 exceptions in their case. 
 
 But not onlj' is simple genius exposed to the danger of 
 coming too near to vulgar reality ; the ease of expression, 
 even this too close approximation to reality, encourages 
 vulgar imitators to trj^ their hand in poetry. Sentimental 
 poetr}-, though offering danger enough, has this advantage, 
 to keep this crowd at a distance, for it is not for the first 
 comer to rise to the ideal ; but simple poetrj- makes them 
 believe that, with feeling and humor, you need only imi- 
 tate real nature to claim the title of poet. Now nothing 
 is more revolting than platitude when it tries to be simple 
 and amiable, instead of hiding its repulsive nature under 
 the veil of art. This occasions the incredible trivialities 
 loved by the Germans under the name of simple and face- 
 tious songs, and which give them endless amusement round 
 a well-garnished table. Under the pretext of good humor 
 and of sentiment people tolerate these poverties : but this 
 good humor and this sentiment ought to be carefull}' pro- 
 scribed. The Muses of the Pleisse, in particular, are 
 singularl}- pitiful ; and other Muses respond to them, from 
 the banks of the Seine, and the Elbe. If these pleasant- 
 ries are flat, the passion heard on our tragic stage is equallj' 
 pitiful, for, instead of imitating true nature, it is only an 
 
^STHBTICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 831 
 
 insipid and ignoble expression of the actual. Thus, after 
 shedding torrents of tears, you feel as you would after 
 visiting a hospital or reading the "Human Misery" of 
 Saltzmann. But the evil is worse in satirical poetry and 
 comic romance, kinds which touch closely on evei'y-day 
 life, and which consequentlj', as all frontier posts, ought 
 to be in safer hands. In truth, he less than any other is 
 called on to become the painter, of his century, who is 
 himself the child and caricature of his centur}-. But as, 
 after all, nothing is easier than to take in liand, among our 
 acquaintances, a comic character — a big, fat man — and 
 draw a coarse likeness of him on paper, the sworn enemies 
 of poetic inspiration are often led to blot some paper in 
 this way to amuse a circle of friends. It is true that a 
 pure heart, a well-made mind, will never confound these 
 vulgar productions with the inspirations of simple genius. 
 But purity of feeling is the very thing that is wanting, and 
 m most cases nothing is thought of but satisfying a want 
 of sense, without spiritual nature having any share. A 
 fundamentally- just idea, ill understood, that works of hel 
 esprit serve to recreate the mind, contributes to keep up 
 this indulgence, if indulgence it may be called, when noth- 
 ing higher occupies the mind, and reader as well as writer 
 find their chief interest therein. This is because vulgar 
 natures, if overstrained, can only be refreshed bj- vacuity ; 
 and even a higher intelligence, when not sustained by a 
 proportional culture, can «nly rest from its work amidst 
 sensuous enjojmeijts, from which spiritual nature is ab- 
 sent. ■^- 
 Poetic genius ought to have strength enough to rise 
 with a free and innate activity above all the accidental hin- 
 derances which are inseparable from every confined condi- 
 tion, to arrive at a representation of humanity in the 
 absolute plenitude of its powers ; it is not, however, per- 
 mitted, on the other hand, to emancipate itself from the 
 necessar}- limits implied bj' the very idea of human nature ; 
 for the absolute only in the circle of humanity is its true 
 problem. Simple genius is not exposed to overstep this 
 sphere, but rather not to Jill it entirely., giving too much 
 scope to external necessity, to accidental wants, at the 
 expense of the inner necessitj-. The danger for thesenti- 
 
332 iESTHEXrCAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 mental genius is, on tlie otlier liand, by trj-ing to remove 
 all limits, of nullifj'ing human nature absolutel}-, and not 
 onlj' rising, as is its right and dut}-, beyond finite and 
 determinate reality, as far as absolute possibility, or in 
 other terms to idealize ; but of passing even beyond possi- 
 bilit}', or, in other words, dreaming. This fault — over- 
 straining — is precisely dependent on the specific property 
 of the sentimental process, as the opposite defect, inertia, 
 depends on the peculiar operation of the simple genius. 
 The simple genius lets nature dominate, without restrict- 
 ing it ; and as nature in her particular phenomena is alwaj's 
 subject to some want, it follows that the simple sentiment 
 will not be always exalted enough to resist the accidental 
 limitations of the present hour. The sentimental genius, 
 on the contrarj-, leaves aside the real world, to rise to the 
 ideal and to command its matter with free spontaneity. 
 But while reason, according to law, aspires always to the 
 unconditional, so the sentimental genius will not alwavs 
 remain calm enough to restrain itself uniformly and without 
 interruption within the conditions implied by the idea of 
 human nature, and to which reason must always, even in 
 its freest acts, remain attached. He could only confine 
 himself in these conditions by help of a receptivity pro- 
 portioned to his free activity ; but most commonly the activ- 
 ity predominates over receptivity in the sentimental poet, 
 as much as receptivity over activit}- in the simple poet. 
 Hence, in the productions of simple genius, if sometimes 
 inspiration is wanting, so also in works of sentimental 
 poetry the object is often missed. Thus, though they pro- 
 ceed in opposite ways, they will both fall into a vacuum, 
 for before the aesthetic judgment an object without inspir- 
 ation, and inspiration without an object, are both nega- 
 tions. 
 
 The poets who borrow their matter too much from 
 thought, and rather conceive poetic pictures by the internal 
 abundance of ideas than bj- the suggestions of feeling, are 
 more or less likelj- to be addicted to go thus astra3\ In 
 their creations reason makes too little of the limits of the 
 sensuous world, and thought is always carried too far for 
 experience to follow it. Now, when the idea is carried so 
 far that not only no experience corresponds to it — as is 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 333 
 
 the case in the heau ideal — but also that it is repugnant 
 to the conditions of all possible experience, so that, in 
 order to realize it, one must leave human nature altogether, 
 it is no longer a poetic but an exaggerated thought ; that 
 is, supposing it claims to be representable and poetical, 
 for otherwise it is enough if it is not self-contradictor3-. 
 If thought is contradictory it is not exaggeration, but 
 nonsense ; for what does not exist cannot exceed. But 
 when the thought is not an object proposed to the fancj', 
 we are just as little justified in calling it exaggerated. 
 For simple thought is infinite, and what is limitless also 
 cannot exceed. Exaggeration, therefore, is onlj' that 
 which wounds, not logical truth, but sensuous truth, and 
 what pretends to be sensuous truth. Consequent!}-, if a 
 poet has the unhappy chance to choose for his picture cer- 
 tain natures that are merely superhuman and cannot pos- 
 sibly be represented, he can onl}' avoid exaggeration by 
 ceasing to be a poet, and not trusting the theme to his 
 imagination. Otherwise one of two things would happen : 
 either imagination, applying its limits to the object, would 
 make a limited and merely human object of an absolute 
 object — which happened with the gods of Greece — or the 
 object would take away limits from fancy, that is, would 
 render it null and void, and this is precisely exaggera- 
 tion. 
 
 Extravagance of feeling should be distinguished from 
 extravagance of portraiture ; we are speaking of the 
 former. The object of the feeling maj- be unnatural, but 
 the feeling itself is natural, and ought accordingly to be 
 shadowed forth in the language of nature. While extrav- 
 agant feelings maj' issue from a warm heart and a really 
 poetic nature, extravagance of portraiture alwaj's displays 
 a cold heart, and very often a want of poetic capacity. 
 Therefore this is not a danger for the sentimental poet, 
 but onl}- for the imitator, who has no vocation ; it is there- 
 fore often found with platitude, insipidity, and even base- 
 ness. Exaggeration of sentiment is not without truth, 
 and must have a real object ; as nature inspires it, it admits 
 of simplicity of expression and coming from the heart it 
 goes to the heart. As its object, however, is not in 
 nature, but artificially produced by the understanding, it 
 
334 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 has only a logical reality-, and the feeling is not purely 
 human. It was not an illusion that Heloise had for 
 Abelard, Petrarch for Laura, Saint Preux for his .Tulia, 
 Werther for his Charlotte ; Agathon, Phanias, and Pere- 
 grinus — in Wieland — for the object of their dreams : the 
 feeling is true, only the object is factitious and outside 
 nature. If their thought had kept to simple sensuous 
 tTuth, it could not have taken this flight ; but on the other 
 hand a mere play of fancy, without inner value, could not 
 have stirred the heart: this is only stirred by reason. 
 Thus this sort of exaggeration must be called to order, 
 but it is not contemptible : and those who ridicule it would 
 do well to find out if the wisdom on which they pride them- 
 selves is not want of heart, and if it is not through want 
 of reason that they are so acute. The exaggerated deli- 
 cacy in gallantry and honor which cliai'acterizes the chival- 
 rous romances, especiall}- bf Spain, is of this kind; also 
 the refined and even ridiculous tenderness of French and 
 English sentimental romances of the best kind. These 
 sentiments are not only subjectively true, but also object- 
 ivel}' thej' are not without value ; thej- are sound senti- 
 ments issuing from a moral source, only reprehensible as 
 overstepping the limits of human truth. Without this 
 moral realitj- how could they stir and touch so powerfully ? 
 The same remark applies to moral and religious fanaticism, 
 patriotism, and the love of freedom when carried up to 
 exaltation. As the object of these sentiments is alway; 
 a pure idea, and not an external experience, imagination 
 with its proper activity has here a dangerous libertj', and 
 -Xjannot, as elsewhere, be called back to bounds by the 
 presence of a visible object. But neither the man nor the 
 poet can withdraw from the law of nature, except to sud- 
 mit to that of reason. He can onlj^ abandon reality for the 
 ideal ; for liberty must hold to one or the other of these 
 anchors. But it is far from the real to the ideal ; and be- 
 tween the two is found fanc^', with its arbitrary conceits 
 and its unbridled freedom. It must needs be, therefore, 
 that man in general, and the poet in particular, when he 
 withdraws bj- liberty of his understanding from the domin- 
 ion of feeling, without being moved to it bj- the larws of 
 reason — that is, when he abandons nature through pure 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 335 
 
 libertj- — he finds himself freed Jrom all law, and therefore 
 a prey to the illusions of phantasy. ' 
 
 It is testified by experience that entire nations, as well 
 as individual men, who ha^e parted with the safe direction 
 
 of nature, are aotuallj' in this condition ; and poets have^ 
 
 gone astray in the same manner. The true genius of sen- 
 timental poetrj', if its aim is to raise itself to the rank of 
 the ideal, must overstep the limits of the existing nature ; 
 but false genius oversteps all boundaries without any dis- \ 
 crimination, flattering itself with the belief that the wikl i 
 sport of the imagination is poetic inspiration. A true j 
 poetical genius can never fall into this error, bccr.use it 
 only abandons the real for the sake of the ideal, or, at all 
 events, it can onl}' do so at certain moments when the poet 
 forgets himself; but his main tendencies may dispose him 
 to extravagance within the sphere of the senses. His 
 example maj- also drive others into a chase of wild con- 
 ceptions, because readers of livel}' fanc^' and weak under- 
 standing onl}' remark the freedom which he takes with 
 existing nature, and are unable to follow him in copying 
 the elevated necessities of his inner being. The same 
 difficulties beset the path of the sentimental genius in this 
 respect, as tiiose which afflict the career of a genius of the 
 simple order. If a genius of this class carries out everj- 
 work, obedient to the free and spontaneous impulses of 
 his nature, the man devoid of genius who seeks to imitate 
 him is not willing to cansider his own nature a worse 
 guide than that of the great poet. This accounts for the 
 fact that masterpieces of simple poetry are commonly 
 followed by a host of stale and nnprofitable woi'ks in print, 
 and masterpieces of the sentimental class by wild and 
 fanciful effusions, — a fact that may be easily- verified on 
 questioning the history of literature. 
 
 Two maxims are pre\alent in relation to poetrj-, both of 
 them quite correct in themselves, but mutually destructive 
 in the way in which thej- are generally conceived. The 
 first is, that " poetry serves as a means of amusement and 
 recreation," and we have [)re\iously observed that this 
 maxim is highly favorable to aridity and platitudes in 
 poetical fictions. The other maxim, that " poetry is con- 
 ducive to the moral progress of humanity," takes under 
 
836 ^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSATS. 
 
 its shelter theories and views of the most wild and extrav- 
 agant character. It may be profitable to examine more 
 attentively these two maxims, of which so much is heard, 
 and which are so often imperfectly understood and falsely 
 applied. 
 
 We say that a thing amuses us when it makes us pass 
 from a forced state to the state that is natural to us. The 
 whole question here is to know in what our natural state 
 ought to consist, and what a forced state means. If our 
 natural state is made to consist merely in the free develop- 
 ment of all our physical powers, in emancipation from all 
 constraint, it follows that every act of reason by resisting 
 what is sensuous, is a violence we undergo, and rest of 
 mind combined with physical movement will be a recreation 
 par excellence. But if we make our natural state consist 
 in a limitless power of human expression and of freely dis- 
 posing of all our strength, all that divides these forces will 
 be a forced state, and recreation will be what brings all our 
 nature to harmony. Thus, the first of these ideal recrea- 
 tions is simply determined by the wants of our sensuous 
 nature; the second, by the autonomous activity of human 
 nature. Which of these two kinds of recreation can be 
 demanded of the poet? Theoretical^, the question is 
 inadmissible, as no one would put the human ideal beneath 
 the brutal. But in practice the requirements of a poet 
 have been especially directed to the sensuous ideal, and 
 for the most part favor, though not the esteem, for these 
 sorts of works is regulated thereby. Men's ipinds are 
 mostly engaged in a labor that exhausts them, or an 
 enjoyment that sets them asleep. Now labor makes rest 
 a sensible want, much more imperious than that of the 
 moral nature ; for physical nature must be satisfied before 
 the mind can show its requirements. On the other hand, 
 enjoyment paralyzes the moral instinct. Hence these two 
 dispositions common in men are very injurious to the 
 -^feeling for true beauty, and thus very few even of the best 
 judge soundlj' in aesthetics. Beauty results from the 
 harmon}^ between spirit and sense ; it addresses all the 
 faculties of man, and can onlj' be appreciated if a man 
 employs fully all his strength. He must bring to it an 
 open sense, a broad heart, a spirit full of freshness. All 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 337 
 
 a man's nature must be on the alert, and this is not the 
 case with those divided by abstraction, narrowed by for- 
 mulas, enervated by application, Thej* demand, no doubt, 
 a material for the senses ; but not to quicken, only to 
 suspend, thought. Thej' ask to be freed from what? 
 From a load that oppressed their indolence, and not a rein 
 that curbed their activitj-. 
 
 After this can one wonder at the success of mediocre 
 talents in esthetics ? or at the bitter anger of small minds 
 against true energetic beautj- ? Thej- reckon on finding 
 therein a congenial recreation, and regret to discover that 
 a display of strength is required to which thej'are unequal. 
 With mediocrity' thej' are alwajs welcome ; however 
 little mind thej' bring, they want still less to exhaust the 
 author's inspiration. They are relieved of the load of 
 thought; and their nature can lull itself in beatific nothings 
 on the soft pillow of platitude. In the temple of Thalia 
 and Melpomene — at least, so it is with us — the stupid 
 savant and the exhausted man of business are received 
 on the broad bosom of the goddess, where their intelligence 
 is wrapped in a magnetic sleep, while their sluggish senses 
 are warmed, and their imagination with gentle motions 
 rocked. 
 
 Vulgar people ma3- be excused what happens to the best 
 capacities. Those moments of repose demanded hj nature 
 after lengthy labor are not favorable to aesthetic judg- 
 ment, and hence in the Jpusy classes few can pronounce 
 safely on matters of taste. Nothing is more common than 
 for scholars to make a ridiculous figure, in regard to a 
 question of beauty, besides cultured men of the world ; 
 and technical critics are especially the laughing-stock of 
 connoisseurs. Their opinion, from exaggeration, crude- 
 ness, or carelessness guides them generally quite awrj', 
 and they can only devise a technical judgment, and not an 
 (esthetical one, embracing tlie whole work, in which feeling 
 should decide. If they would kindly keep to techni- 
 calities the}' might still be useful, for the poet in moments 
 of inspiration and readers under his si)ell are little inclined 
 to consider details. But the spectacle which they afford 
 us is only the more ridiculous inasmuch as we see these 
 crude natures — with whom all labor and trouble only 
 
338 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 develop at the most a particular aptitude, — when we see 
 tUem set up their paltry individualities as the representation 
 of universal and complete feeling, and in the sweat of 
 their brow pronounce judgment on beauty. 
 
 We have just seen that the kind of recreation poetr}' 
 ought to afford is generally conceived in too restricted a 
 manner, and only referred to a simple sensuous want. 
 Too much scope, however, is also given to the other idea, 
 the moral ennobling the poet should have in view, inas- 
 much as too purely an ideal aim is assigned. 
 
 In fact, according to the pure ideal, the ennobling goes 
 on to infinity, because reason is not restricted to anj- 
 sensuous limits, and only finds rest in absolute perfection. 
 Nothing can satisfy whilst a superior thing can be con- 
 ceived ; it judges strictly and admits no excuses of infirmity 
 and finite nature. It only admits for limits those of 
 thought, which transcends time and space. Hence the 
 poet could no more propose to himself such an ideal of 
 ennobling (traced for him by pure (didactic) reason) any 
 more than the coarse ideal of recreation of sensuous 
 nature. The aim is to free human nature from accidental 
 hinderances, without destroying the essential ideal of ciur 
 humanity, or displacing its limits. All bej^ond this is 
 exaggeration, and a quicksand in which the poet too easily 
 suffers shipwreck if he mistakes the idea of nobleness. 
 But, unfortunately, he cannot rise to the true ideal of 
 ennobled human nature without going some steps bej'ond 
 it. To rise so high he must abandon the world of reality, 
 for, like every ideal, it is onlj- to be drawn from its inner 
 moral source. He does not find it in the turmoil of 
 worldly life, but only in his heart, and that onh' in calm 
 meditation. But in this separation from real life he is 
 likely' to lose sight of all the limits of human nature, and 
 seeking pure form he may easily- lose himself in arbitrary 
 and baseless conceptions. Reason will abstract itself too 
 much from experience, and the practical man will not be 
 able to carry out, in the crush of real life, what the con- 
 templative mind has discovered on the peaceful path of 
 thought. Thus, what makes a dreamy man is the verj' 
 thing that alone could have made him a sage ; and the 
 advantage for the latter is not that he has never been a 
 dreamer, but rather that he has not remained one. 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 339 
 
 We must not, then, allow the workers to determine 
 recreation according to their wants, nor thinkers that 
 of nobleness according to their speculations, for fear of 
 either a too low phj-sical poetry, or a poetry too given 
 to hj-perphj'sical exaggeration. And as these two ideas 
 direct most men's judgments on poetrj', we must seek a 
 class of mind at once active, but not slavishly so, and 
 idealizing, but not dreamy ; uniting the realit}' of life within 
 as few limits as possible, obe3ing the current of human 
 affairs, but not enslaved by them. Such a class of men 
 can alone preserve the beautiful unit}' of human nature, 
 that harmonj' which all work for a moment disturbs, and 
 a life of work destroys ; such alone can, in all that is purely 
 human, give hy its feelings universal rules of judgment. 
 Whether such a class exists, or whether the class now 
 existing in like conditions answers to this ideal conception, 
 I am not concerned to inquire. If it does not respond to 
 the ideal it has only itself to blame. In such a class — 
 here regarded as a mere ideal — the simple and sentimental 
 would keep each other from extremes of extravagance and 
 relaxation. For the idea of a beautiful humanity is not 
 exhausted by either, but can only be presented in the 
 union of both. 
 
 THE STAGE AS A MORAL INSTITUTION. 
 
 SuLZER has remarked that the stage has arisen from an 
 irresistible longing for the new and extraordinary. Man, 
 oppressed by divided cares, and satiated with sensual 
 pleasure, felt an emptiness or want. Man, neither alto- 
 gether satisfied with tlie_senses,_ nor forever capable of 
 thought, wanted a middTeTtatfi^_a bridge between the two 
 states, bringing them into harmony. Beauty and aesthet- 
 ics supplied that for him. But a good law^giver is not sat- 
 isfied with discovering the bent of his people — he turns 
 it to account as an instrument for higher use ; and hence 
 he chose the stage, as giving nourishment to the soul, 
 without straining it, and uniting the noblest education of 
 the head and heart. 
 
340 JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 The man who first pronounced religion to be the strong- 
 est pillar of the state, unconsciouslj- defended the stage, 
 when he said so, in its noblest aspect. The uncertain 
 nature of political events, rendering religion a necessitj-, 
 also demands the stage as a moral force. Laws only jpre- 
 vent disturbances of social life ; religion prescribes posi- 
 five orders sustaining social order. Law only governs ac- 
 tions ; religion controls the heart and follows thought to 
 the source. 
 
 Laws are flexible and capricious ; religion binds for- 
 ever. If religion has this great swaj' over man's heart, 
 can it also complete his culture ? Separating the political 
 from tlie divine element in it, religion acts mostly on the 
 senses ; she loses her sway if the senses are gone. By 
 what channel does the stage operate? To most men re- 
 ligion vanishes with the loss of her symbols, images, and 
 problems ; and yet the}' are oulj' pictures of the imagina- 
 tion, and insolvable problems. Both laws and religion 
 are strengthened by a union with the stage, where virtue 
 and vice, joy and sorrow, are thoroughly displayed in a 
 truthful and popular way ; where a variet}- of providential 
 problems are solved ; where all secrets are unmasked, all 
 artifice ends, and truth alone is the judge, as incorruptible 
 as Khadamanthus. 
 
 Where the influence of civil laws ends that of the stage 
 begins. Where ^•enality and corruption blind and bias 
 justice and judgment, and intimidation perverts its ends, 
 the stage seizes the sword and scales and pronounces a 
 terrible verdict on vice. The fields of fancy and of his- 
 tory are open to the stage ; great criminals of the past 
 live over again in the drama, and thus benefit an indig- 
 nant posterit3^ They pass before us as empty shadows 
 of their age, and we heap curses on their memory while 
 we enjo}- on the stage the very horror of their crimes. 
 When moralitj' is no more taught, religion no longer re- 
 ceived, or laws exist, Medea would still terrify us with 
 her infanticide. The sight of Lady Macbeth, while it 
 makes us shudder, will also make us rejoice in a good con- 
 science, when we see her, the sleep-walker, washing her 
 hands and seeking to destroy the awful smell of murder. 
 Sight is always more powerful to man than description ; 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 341 
 
 hence the stage acts more powerfully than morahty or 
 law. 
 
 But in this the stage onlj' aids justice. A far wider 
 field is really open to it. There are a thousand vices un- 
 noticed by human justice, but condemned 53- the stage ; 
 so, also, a thousand virtues overlooked b}- man's laws are 
 honored on the stage. It is thus the handmaid of reli- 
 gion and philosophy. From these pure sources it draws 
 its high principles and the exalted teachings, and presents 
 them in a lovelj' form. The soul swells with noblest emo- 
 tions when a divine ideal is placed before it. When 
 Augustus offers his forgiving hand to Cinna, the conspira- 
 tor, and sa3'^s to him : '• Let us be friends, Cinna ! " what 
 man at the moment does not feel that he could do the 
 same. Again, when Francis von Sickingen, proceeding 
 to punish a prince and redress a stranger, on turning sees 
 the house, where his wife and children are, in flames, and 
 3-et goes on for the sake of his word — how great humanity' 
 appears, how small the stern povver of fate ! 
 
 Vice is portrayed on the stage in an equall}^ telling 
 manner. Thus, when old Lear, blind, helpless, childless, 
 is seen knocking in vain at his daughters' doors, and in 
 tempest and night he recounts by telling his woes to the 
 elements, and ends bj- sa3'ing : "I have given you all," 
 — how strongly impressed we feel at the value of filial 
 piety, and how hateful ingratitude seems to us ! 
 
 The stage does even more than this. It cultivates the 
 ground where religion and law do not think it dignified to 
 stop. Folly often troubles the world as much as crime ; 
 and it has been justly said that the heaviest loads often 
 hang suspended by the slightest threads. Tracing actions 
 to their sources, the list of criminals diminish, and we 
 laugh at the long catalogue of fools. In our sex all forms 
 of evil emanate almost entirel3'' from one source, and all 
 our excesses are only varied and higher forms of one 
 qualit3', and that a quality which in the end we smile at 
 and love ; and whj' should not nature have followed this 
 course in the opposite sex too ? In man there is only one 
 secret to guard against depravity ; that is, to protect his 
 heart against wickedness. 
 
 Much of all this is shown up on the stage. It is a 
 
342 jESThetical letters and essays. 
 
 mirror to reflect fools and their thousand forms of folly, 
 which are there turned to ridicule. It curbs vice by ter- 
 ror, and folly still more effectually by satire and jest. If 
 a comparison be made between tragedy and comedy, 
 guided by experience, we should probably give the palm 
 to the latter as to efl"ects produced. Hatred does not 
 wound the conscience so much as mockery does the pride 
 of man. We are exposed specially to the sting of satire 
 by the very cowardice that shuns terrors. P'rom sins we 
 are guarded by law and conscience, but the ludicrous is 
 specially punished on the stage. Where we allow a friend 
 to correct our morals, we rarely forgive a laugh. We 
 may bear heavy judgment on our transgressions, but our 
 weaknesses and vulgarities must not be criticised by a 
 witness. 
 
 The stage alone can do this with impunity, chastising 
 us as the anonymous fool. We can bear this rebuke with- 
 out a blush, and even gratcfull3'. 
 
 But the stage does even more than this. It is a great 
 school of practical wisdom, a guide for civil life, and a key 
 to the mind in all its sinuosities. It does not, of course, 
 remove egoism and stubbornness in evil waj's ; for a 
 thousand vices hold up their heads in spite of the stage, 
 and a tliousand virtues make no impression on cold- 
 hearted spectators. Thus, probably, Moliere's Harpagon 
 never altered a usurer's heart, nor did the suicide in Bev- 
 i erley save any one from the gaming-table. Nor, again, is 
 ! it likely that the high roads will be safer through Karl 
 I Moor's untimely end. But, admitting this, and more than 
 this, still how great is the influence of the stage! It has 
 shown us the vices and virtues of men with whom we have 
 to live. We are not surprised at their weaknesses, we are 
 prepared for them. The stage points them out to us, and 
 their remedy. It drags off" the mask from the hypocrite, 
 and betrays the meshes of intrigue. Duplicity and cun- 
 ning have been forced by it to show their hideous features 
 in the light of day. Perhaps the dying Sarah may not 
 deter a single debauchee, nor all the pictures of avenged 
 seduction stop the evil ; yet unguarded innocence has-been 
 shown the snares of the corrupter, and taught to distrust 
 his oaths. 
 
^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 343 
 
 The stage also teaches men to bear the strokes of for- 
 tune. Chance and design have equal swaj- over life. We 
 have to bow to the former, but we control the latter. It 
 is a great advantage if inexorable facts do not find us un- 
 prepared and unexercised, and if our breast has been 
 steeled to bear adversity. Much human woe is placed be- 
 fore us on the stage. It gives us momentarj' pain in the 
 tears we shed for strangers' troubles, but as a compensa- 
 tion it fills us with a grand new stock of courage and en- 
 durance. We are led by it, with the abandoned Ariadne, 
 ttirough the Isle of Naxos, and we descend the Tower of 
 Starvation in Ugolino ; we ascend the terrible scaffold, 
 and we are present at the awful moment of execution. 
 Things remotely present in thought become palpable real- ' 
 ities now. We see the deceived favorite abandoned by 
 the queen. When about to die, the perfidious Moor is 
 abandoned by his own sophistry. Eternity reveals the 
 secrets of the unknown through the dead, and the hateftd 
 wretch loses all screen of guilt when the tomb opens to 
 condemn him. 
 
 Then the stage teaches us to be more considerate to the 
 unfortunate, and to judge gently. We can only pro- 
 nounce on a man when we know his whole being and cir- 
 cumstances. Theft is a base crime, but tears mingle with 
 our condemnation, when we read what obliged Edward 
 Ruhberg to do the horrid deed. Suicide is shocking ; but 
 the condemnation of an»enraged father, her love, and the 
 fear of a convent, lead Marianne to drink the cup, and 
 few would dare to condemn the victim of a dreadful 
 tyranny. Humanitj' and tolerance have begun to prevail 
 in our time at courts of princes and in courts of law. A 
 large share of this maj- be due to the influence of the stage 
 in showing man and his secret motives. 
 
 The great of the world ought to "be especially grate- 
 ful to the stage, for it is here alone that they hear the truth. 
 
 Not only man's mind, but also his intellectual culture, 
 has been promoted by the higher drama. The lofty mind 
 and the ardent patriot have often used the stage to spread 
 enlightenment. 
 
 Considering nations and ages, the thinker sees the 
 masses enchamed by opinion and cut off by adver- 
 
344 ^STHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 sity from happiness ; truth onlj' lighis up a few minds, 
 who perhaps have to acquire it b}- the trials of a lifetime. 
 How can the wise ruler put these within the reach of 
 his nation. 
 
 The thoughtful and the worthier section of the people 
 diffuse the light of wisdom over the masses through the 
 stage. Purer and better principles and motives issue from 
 the stage and circulate through society ; the night of bar- 
 barism and superstition vanishes. T would mention two 
 glorious fruits of the higher class of dramas. Religious 
 toleration has latterly become universal. Before Nathan 
 the Jew and Saladin the Saracen put us to shame, and 
 showed that resignation to God's will did not depend on a 
 fancied belief of His nature — even before Joseph II. 
 contended with the hatred of a narrow piety — the stage 
 had sown seeds of humanity and gentleness : pictures of 
 fanaticism had taught a hatred of intolerance, and Chris- 
 tianitj-, seeing itself in this awful mirror, washed off its 
 stains. It is to be hoped that the stage will equally com- 
 bat mistaken systems of educa tion. This is a subject of 
 the first political importance, and yet none is so left to 
 private whims and caprice. The stage might give stirring 
 examples of mistaken education, and lead parents to 
 juster, better views of the subject. Many teachers are led 
 astray b}- false views, and methods are often artificial and 
 fatal. 
 
 Opinions about governments and classes might be re- 
 formed by the stage. Legislation could thus justifj^ itself 
 by foreign symbols, and silence doubtful aspersions without 
 offence. 
 
 Now, if poets would be patriotic the}- could do much on 
 the stage to forward invention and industry. A standing 
 theatre would be a material advantage to a nation. It 
 would have a great influence on the national temper and 
 mind by helping the nation to agree in opinions and incli- 
 nations. The stage alone can do (his, because it commands 
 all human knowledge, exhausts all positions, illumines all 
 hearts, unites all classes, and nmkes its way to the heart 
 and understanding by the most |)opular channels. 
 
 If one feature characterized all dramas ; if the poets 
 were allied in aim — that is, if they selected well and from 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 845 
 
 national topics — there would be a national stage, and we 
 should become a nation. It was this that knit the 
 Greeks so strongly together, and this gave to them the 
 all-absorbing interest in the republic and the advancement 
 of humanity. 
 
 Another advantage belongs to the stage ; one which 
 seems to have become acknowledged even by its censurers. 
 Its influence on intellectual and moral culture, which we 
 have till now been advocating, may be doubted ; but its 
 very enemies have admitted that it has gained the palm 
 over all other means of amusement. It has been of much 
 higher service here than people are often readj- to allow. 
 
 Human nature cannot bear to be always on the rack of 
 business, and the charms of sense die out with their grat- 
 ification. Man, oppressed by appetites, wearj' of long 
 exertion, thirsts for r efined pleasur e, or rushes into dissi- 
 pations that hasten his fall and ruin, and disturb social 
 order. Bacchanal J03S, gambling, follies of all sorts to 
 disturb ennui, are unavoidable if the lawgiver produces 
 nothing better. A man of public business, who has made 
 noble sacrifices to the state, is apt to pay for them with 
 melancholy, the scholar to become a pedant, and the peo- 
 ple brutish, without the stage. The stage is an institution . 
 combining amusement with instruction, rest with exertion, 
 where no faculty of the mind is overstrained, no pleasure 
 enjoyed at the cost of the whole. When melancholy gnaws 
 the heart, when trouble prisons our solitude, when we are 
 disgusted with the world, and a thousand worries oppress 
 us, or when our energies are destroj'ed by over-exercise, 
 the stage revives us, we dream of another sphere, we re- 
 cover ourselves, our torpid nature is roused % noble pas- 
 sions, our blood circulates more healthil}-. The unhappj^ 
 man forgets his tears in weeping for another. The happy^ 
 man is calmed, the secure made provident. Effeminate 
 natures are steeled, savages made man, and, as the supreme 
 triumph of nature, men of all ranks, zones, and conditions, 
 emancipated from the chains of conventionality and fash- 
 ion, fraternize here in a universal sympathy, forget the 
 world, and come nearer to their heavenly destination. The 
 individual shares in the general ecstacy, and his breast has 
 now only space for an emotion : he is a vfian. 
 
346 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 ON THE TRAGIC AET. 
 
 The state of passion in itself, independenth' of the good 
 or bad influence of its object on oui' moralitj-, has some- 
 thing in it that charms us. We aspire to transport our- 
 selves into that state, even if it costs ns some sacrifices. 
 You will find this instinct at the bottom of all our most 
 habitual pleasures. As to the nature itself of the affection, 
 whether it be one of aversion or desire, agreeable or pain- 
 ful, this is what we take little into consideration. Expe- 
 rience teaches us that painful affections are those which 
 have the most attraction for us, and thus that the pleasure 
 we take in an affection is preciselj- in an inverse ratio to 
 its nature. It is a phenomenon common to all men, that 
 sad, frightful things, even the horrible, exercise over us 
 an irrisistible seduction, and that in presence of a scene 
 of desolation and of terror we feel at once repelled and 
 attracted b}' two equal forces. Suppose the case be an 
 assassination. Then eveiy one crowds round the narrator 
 and shows a marked attention. Anj' ghost story, however 
 embellished by romantic circumstances, is greedil}' de- 
 ^•oured by us, and the more readilj- in proportion as the 
 story is calculated to make our hair stand on end. 
 
 This disposition is developed in a more livel3' manner 
 when the objects themselves are placed before our eyes. 
 A tempest that would swallow up an entire fleet would be, 
 seen from shore, a spectacle as attractive to our imagina- 
 tion as it would be shocking to our heart. It would be 
 difficult to believe with Lucretius that this natural pleasure 
 results from a comparison between our own safet}- and the 
 danger of which we are witnesses. See what a crowd 
 accompanies a criminal to the scene of his punishment ! 
 This phenomenon cannot be explained either by the pleas- 
 ure of satisfj'ing our love of justice, nor the ignoble joy 
 of vengeance. Perhaps the unhappy man may find excuses 
 in the hearts of those present ; perhaps the sincerest pity 
 takes an interest in his reprieve : this does not prevent a 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 347 
 
 lively curiosity in tbe spectators to watch his expressions 
 of pain with eye and ear. If an exception seems to exist 
 here in the case of a well-bred man, endowed with a 
 delicate sense, this does not imply that he is a complete 
 stranger to this instinct ; but in his case the painful 
 strength of compassion carries the day over this instinct, 
 or it is kept under bj' the laws of decenej'. The man of 
 nature, who is not chained down by any feeling of human 
 delicacj', abandons himself without anj' sense of shame to 
 this powerful instinct. This attraction must, therefore, 
 have its spring of action in an original disposition, and it 
 must be explained by a psychological law common to the 
 whole species. 
 
 But if it seems to us that these brutal instincts of nature 
 are incompatible with the dignitj' of man, and if we hesi- 
 tate, for this reason, to establish on this fact a law common 
 to the whole species, yet no experiences are required to 
 prove, with the comjjletest evidence, that the pleasure we 
 take in painful emotions is real, and that it is general. 
 The painful struggle of a lieart drawn asunder between its 
 inclinations or contrary' duties, a struggle which is a cause 
 of misery to him who experiences it, delights the person 
 wiio is a mere spectator. We follow with always height- 
 ening pleasure the progress of a passion to the abj-ss into 
 which it hurries its unhappy victim. The same delicate 
 feeling that makes us turn our ej'es aside from the sight 
 of physical suffering, or e^»sn from the physical expression 
 of a purely moral pain, makes us experience a pleasure 
 heightened in sweetness, in the sympathy- for a purely moral 
 pain. The interest with which we stop to look at the 
 painting of these kinds of objects is a general phenome- 
 non. 
 
 Of course this can onl}- be understood of sympathetic 
 affections, or those felt as a secondary effect after their 
 first impression; for commonlj- direct and personal affec- 
 tions immediately call into life in us the instinct of our 
 own happiness, they take up all our thoughts, and seize 
 hold of us too powerfully to allow any room for the feeling 
 of pleasure that accompanies them, when the affection is 
 freed from all personal relation. Thus, in the mind that 
 is really' a prey to painful passion, the feeling of pain 
 
348 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 commands all others notwithstanding all the charm that 
 the painting of its moral state may offer to the hearers 
 and the spectators. And yet the painful affection is not 
 deprived of all pleasure, even for him who experiences it 
 directly ; only this pleasure differs in degree according to 
 the nature of each person's mind. The sports of chance 
 would not have half so much attraction for us were tliere 
 not a kind of enjoyment in anxiety, m doubt, and in fear; 
 danger would not be encountered from mere foolhardiness ; 
 and the very sj-mpathy which interests us in the trouble of 
 another would not be to us that pleasure which is never 
 more lively than at the verj- moment when the illusion is 
 strongest, and when we substitute ourselves most entirely 
 in the place of the person who suffers. But this does not 
 imply that disagreeable affections cause pleasure of them- 
 selves, nor do I think an3' one will uphold this view ; it 
 suffices that these states of the mind are the conditions 
 that alone make possible for us certain kinds of pleasure. 
 Thus the hearts particularly sensitive to this kind of 
 pleasure, and most greedy of them, will be more easily led 
 to share these disagreeable affections, which are the con- 
 dition of the former ; and even in the most violent storms 
 of passion they will always preserve some remains of 
 their freedom. 
 
 The displeasure we feel in disagreeable affections comes 
 from the relation of our sensuous faculty or of our moral 
 faculty with their object. In like manner, the pleasure 
 we experience in agreeable affections proceeds from the 
 very same source. The degree of libertj- that may prevail 
 in the affections depends on the proportion between the 
 moral nature and the sensuous nature of a man. Now it 
 is well known that in the moral order there is nothing 
 arbitrary for us, that, on the contrarj^ the sensuous instinct 
 is subject to the laws of reason and consequentlj- depends 
 more or less on our will. Hence it is evident that we can 
 keep our liberty full and entire in all those affections that 
 are concerned with the instinct of self-love, and that we 
 are the masters to determine the degree which the}'' ought 
 to attain. This degree will be less in proportion as the 
 moral sense in a man will prevail over the instinct of 
 happiness, and as by obeying the universal laws of reason 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 349 
 
 he will have freed himself from the selfish requirements 
 of his individualit}', his Ego. A man of this kind must 
 tlierefore, in a state of passion, feel much less vividh' the 
 relation of an object with his own instinct of happiness, 
 and consequently he will be much less sensible of the 
 displeasure that arises from this relation. On the other 
 hand, he will be perpetually more attentive to the relation 
 of this same object with his moral nature, and for this 
 very reason he will be more sensible to the pleasure which 
 the relation of the object with moralitj- often mingles 
 with the most painful affections A mind thus constituted 
 is better fitted than all others to enjoy the pleasure 
 attaching to compassion, and even to regard a personal 
 affection as an object of simple compassion. Hence the 
 inestimable value of amoral philosophy, which, bj' raising 
 our e3'es constantly towards general laws, weakens in us 
 the feeling of our individuality, teaches us to plunge our 
 paltr^' personalitj- in something great, and enables us 
 thus to act to ourselves as to strangers. This sublime 
 state of the mind is the lot of strong philosophic minds, 
 which by working assiduously on themselves ha^e learned 
 to bridle the egotistical instinct. E\ en the most cruel 
 loss does not drive them beyond a certain degree of 
 sadness, with which an appreciable sum of pleasure can 
 alwa3-s be reconciled. These souls, which are alone 
 capable of separating themselves from themselves, alone 
 eujo3- the privilege of sj^ipathizing with themselves and 
 of receiving of their own sufferings onlv a reflex, softened 
 by sympathy. 
 
 The indications contained in what precedes will suffice 
 to direct our attention to the sources of the pleasure that 
 the affection in itself causes, more particularly the sad 
 affection. We have seen that this pleasure is more ener- 
 getic in moral souls, and it acts with greater freedom in 
 proportion as the soul is more independent of the ego- 
 tistical instinct. This pleasure is, moreover, more vivid 
 and stronger in sad affections, when self-love is painfull3' 
 disquieted, than in ga3' affections, wliich impl3' a satisfac- 
 tion of self-love. Accordingly this pleasure increases 
 when the egotistical instinct is wounded, and diminishes 
 M'hen that instinct is flattered. Now we onl3' know of 
 
350 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 two sources of pleasure — the satisfaction of the instinct 
 of happiness, and the accomplishment of the moral laws. 
 Therefore, when it is shown that a particular pleasure 
 does not emanate from the former source, it must of 
 necessity issue from the second. It is therefore from our 
 moral nature that issues the charm of the painful affec- 
 tions shared by sympathj', and the pleasure that we some- 
 times feel even where the painful affection directly affects 
 ourselves. 
 
 Many attempts have been made to account for the 
 pleasure of pity, but most of these solutions had little 
 chance of meeting the problem, because the principle of 
 this phenomenon was sought for rather in the accompany- 
 ing circumstances than in the nature of the affection 
 itself. To many persons the pleasure of pity is simpl}- 
 the pleasure taken by the mind in exercising its own 
 sensibility. To others it is the pleasure of occupj-ing 
 their forces energetically, of exercising the social faculty 
 vividly — in short, of satisfying the instinct of restlessness. 
 Others again make it derived from the discovery of 
 morally fine features of character, placed in a clear light 
 by the struggle against adversity or against the passions. 
 But there is still the difficulty to explain why it should be 
 exactly the very feeling of pain, — suffering properly so 
 called, — that in objects of pity attracts us with the 
 greatest force, while, according to those elucidations, a 
 less degree of suffering ought evidently to be more favoi-- 
 able to those causes to which the source of the emotion is 
 traced. Various matters maj-, no doubt, increase the 
 pleasure of the emotion without occasioning it. Of this 
 nature are : the vividness and force of the ideas awakened 
 in our imagination, the moral excellence of the suffering 
 persons, the reference to himself of the person feeling pity. 
 I admit that the suffering of a weak soul, and the pain 
 of a wicked character, do not procure us this enjoy- 
 ment. But this is because they do not excite our pity 
 to the same degree as the hero who suffers, or the virtuous 
 man who struggles. Thus we are constantly brought 
 back to the first question : why is it precisely- tlie degree- 
 of suffering that determines the degree of sympathetic 
 pleasure which we take in an emotion? and one answer 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 351 
 
 only is possible ; it is because the attack made on our 
 sensibility is precisely the condition necessary to set in 
 motion that quality of mind of which the activity produces 
 the pleasure we feel in sympathetic affections. 
 
 Now this faculty is no other than the reason ; and 
 because the free exercise of reason, as an absolutely inde- 
 pendent activitj', deserves par excellence the name of 
 activity ; as, moreover, the heart of man only feels itself 
 perfectly free and independent in its moral acts, it follows 
 that the charm of tragic emotions is reall3- dependent on 
 the fact that this instinct of actixitj- finds its gratification 
 in them. But, even admitting this, it is neither the great 
 number nor the vivacity of the ideas that are awakened 
 then in our imagination, nor in general the exercise of the 
 social faculty, but a certain kind of ideas and a certain 
 activity of the social faculty brought into play bj- reason, 
 which is the foundation of this pleasure. 
 
 Thus the sj'mpathetic affections in general are for us 
 a source of pleasure because the}' give satisfaction to our 
 instinct of activity, and the sad affections produce this 
 effect with more vividness because the}' give more satis- 
 faction to this instinct. The mind only reveals all its 
 activity when it is in full possession of its liberty, when it 
 has a perfect consciousness of its rational nature, because 
 it is only then that it displays a force superior to all 
 resistance. 
 
 Hence the state of mind which allows most eflfectuallj- 
 the manifestation of this force, and awakens most success- 
 fully its activity, is that state which is most suitable to a 
 rational being, and which best satisfies our instincts of 
 activity : whence it follows that a greater amount of 
 pleasure must be attached necessarily to this state. Now 
 it is the tragic states that place our soul in this state, and 
 the pleasure found in them is necessarily higher than the 
 charm produced bj' gay affections, in thQ same degree that 
 moral power in us is superior to the power of the senses. 
 
 Points that are only subordinate and partial in a S3Stem 
 of final causes maj' be considered by art independently of 
 that relation with the rest, and may be converted into 
 principal objects. It is right that in the designs of 
 nature pleasure should only be a mediate end, or a 
 
352 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 means ; but for art it is the highest end. It is therefore 
 essentiall}- important for art not to neglect this high enjoy- 
 ment attaching to the tragic emotion. Now, tragic art, 
 taking this term in its widest acceptation, is that among 
 tlie fine arts which proposes as its principal object the 
 pleasure of pitj'. 
 
 Art attains its end bj- the imitation of nature^ by satis- 
 fj'ing the conditions which make pleasure possible in 
 reality, and hy combining, according to a plan traced b3' 
 the intelligence, the scattered elements furnished b}' na- 
 ture, so as to attain as a principal end to that which, for 
 nature, was only an accessor}- end. Thus tragic art ought 
 to imitate nature in those kinds of actions that are spe- 
 cially adapted to awaken [jit}-. 
 
 It follows that, in order to determine generall}- the S3S- 
 tem to be followed by tragic art, it is necessary bef(;re all 
 things to know on what conditions in real life the pleasure 
 of the emotion is commonl}- produced in the surest and 
 the strongest manner ; but it is necessary at the same time 
 to pay attention to the circumstances that restrict or abso- 
 lutely extinguish this pleasure. 
 
 After what we have established in our essaj' "On the 
 Cause of the Pleasure we derive from Tragic Objects," it 
 IS known that in e\'ery tragic emotion there is an idea of 
 incongruity, which, though the emotion may be attended 
 with charm, must alwaj-s lead on to the conception of a 
 higher consistency. Now it is the relation that these two 
 opposite conceptions mutuall}' bear which determines in 
 an emotion if the prevaiUng impression shall be pleas- 
 urable or the reverse If the conception of incongruity 
 be more vivid than that of the contrary', or if tlie end sac- 
 rificed is more important than the end gained, the prevail- 
 ing impression will alwaj-s be displeasure, whether this be 
 understood objectiveU/ of the human race in general, or 
 only subjectively of certian individuals. 
 
 If the cause that has produced a misfortune gives us too 
 much displeasure, our compassion for the victim is dimin- 
 ished thereby. The heart cannot feel simultaneously', in a 
 high degree, two absolutely contrary atfections. Indigna- 
 tion against the person who is the primary cause of the 
 suffering becomes the prevailing affection, and all other 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 353 
 
 feeling has to yield to it. Thus our interest is always en- 
 feebled when the unhappy man whom it would be desirable 
 to pity had cast himself into ruin by a personal and an 
 inexcusable fault ; or if, being able to save himself, he did 
 not do so, either through feebleness of mind or pusillan- 
 imity The interest we take in unhappj' King Lear, ill- 
 treated by two ungrateful daughters, is sensibly lessened 
 by the circumstance that this aged man, in his second 
 childhood, so weakly gave up his crown, and divided his 
 love among his daughters with so little discernment. In 
 the tragedy of Kronegk, " Olinda and Sophronia," the 
 most terrible suffering to which we see these martyrs to 
 their faith exposed onl^' excites our pit}' feebly, and all 
 their heroism only stirs our admiration moderately, be- 
 cause madness alone can suggest the act b}- which Olinda 
 has placed himself and all his people on the brink of the . 
 precipice. 
 
 Our pity is equally lessened when the primary' cause of 
 a misfortune, whose innocent victim ought to inspire us 
 with compassion, fills our mind with horror. When the 
 tragic poet cannot clear himself of his plot without intro- 
 ducing a wretch, and when he is reduced to derive the 
 greatness of suffermg from the greatness of wickedness, 
 the supreme beauty of his work must always be seriously 
 injured. lago and Lady Macbeth in Shakspeare, Cleo- 
 patra in the tragedy of " Rodogune," or Franz Moor in 
 " The Robbers," are so manj- proofs in support of this as- 
 sertion. A poet who understands his real interest will not 
 bring about the catastrophe through a malicious will which 
 proposes misfortune as its end ; nor, and still less, bj' 
 want of understanding : but rather through the imperious 
 force of circumstances. If this catastrophe does not 
 come from moral sources, but from outward things, which 
 have no volition and are not subject to any will, the pity 
 we experience is more pure, or at all events it is not weak- 
 ened by any idea of moral incongruity. But then the 
 spectator cannot be spared the disagreeable feeling of an 
 incongruit}' in the order of nature, which can alone save 
 in such a case moral propriety. Pity is far more excited 
 when it has for its object both him who suffers and him 
 who is the primary cause of the suffering. This can only 
 
354 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 happen when the latter has neither elicited our contempt 
 nor our hatred, but when he has been brought against his 
 inclination to become the cause of this misfortune. It is 
 a singular beauty of the German play of "Iphigenia" 
 that the King of Tauris, .the only obstacle who thwarts 
 the wishes of Orestes and of his sister, never loses our 
 esteem, and that we love him to the end. 
 
 There is something superior even to this kind of emo- 
 tion ; this is the case when the cause of the misfortune 
 not only is in no wa^' repugnant to moralit3', but only be- 
 comes possible through moralitj', and when the reciprocal 
 suffering comes simply from the idea that a fellow-creature 
 has been made to suffer. This is the situation of Chimene 
 and Rodrigue in " The Cid " of Pierre Corneille, which is 
 undeniabl}' in point of intrigue the masterpiece of the 
 tragic stage. Honor and filial love arm the hand of Eod- 
 rigue against the father of her whom he loves, and his 
 valor gives him the victory. Honor and filial love rouse 
 up against him, in the person of Chimene, the daughter 
 of his victim, an accuser and a formidable persecutor. 
 Both act in opposition to their inclination, and they trem- 
 ble with anguish at the thought of the misfortune of the 
 object against which they arm themselves, in proportion 
 as zeal inspires them foi- their duty to inflict this misfor- 
 time. Accordingly both conciliate our esteem in the high- 
 est sense, as they accomplish a moral duty at the cost of 
 inclination ; both inflame our pity in the highest degree, 
 because they suffer spontaneously for a motive that ren- 
 ders them in the highest degree to be respected. It re- 
 sults from this that our pity is in this case so little modi- 
 fied by any opposite feeling that it burns rather with a 
 double flame ; only the impossibility of reconciling the 
 idea of misfortune with the idea of a morality so deserving 
 of happiness might still disturb our sympathetic pleasure, 
 and spread a shade of sadness over it. It is besides a 
 great point, no doubt, that the discontent given us by this 
 contradiction does not bear upon our moral being, but is 
 turned aside to a harmless place, to necessity only ; but 
 this blind subjection to destiny is always afflicting and 
 humiliating for free beings, who determine themselves. 
 This is the cause that always leaves something to be 
 
jESthetical letters and essays. 355 
 
 wished for even in the best Greek pieces. In all these 
 pieces, at the bottom of the plot it is always fatality that 
 is appealed to, and in this there is a knot that cannot be 
 unravelled by our reason, which wishes to solve everj- 
 thing. 
 
 But even this knot is untied, and with it vanishes ever}' 
 shade of displeasure, at the highest and last step to which 
 man perfected by moralit}' rises, and at the highest point 
 which is attained by the art which moves the feelings. 
 This happens when the very discontent with destiny be- 
 comes effaced, and is resolved in a presentiment or rather 
 a clear consciousness of a teleological concatenation of 
 things, of a sublime order, of a beneficent will. Then, 
 to the pleasure occasioned in us bj- moral consistenc}' is 
 joined the invigorating idea of the most perfect .suitability 
 in the great whole of nature. In this case the thing that 
 seemed to militate against this order, and that caused us 
 pain, in a particular case, is only a spur that stimulates 
 our reason to seek in general laws for the justification of 
 this particular case, and to solve the problem of this sepa- 
 rate discord in the centre of the general harmony. Greek 
 art never rose to this supreme -serenity of tragic emotion, 
 because neither the national religion, nor even the philos- 
 ophy of the Greeks, lighted their step on this advanced I'oad. 
 It was reserved for modern art, which enjojs the pri\ilege 
 of finding a purer matter in a purer philosophj', to satisf}' 
 also this exalted want, apd thus to display all the moral 
 dignity of art. 
 
 If we moderns must resign ourselves never to re- 
 produce Greek art because the philosophic genms of our 
 age, and modern civilization ni general are not favorable 
 to poetry, these influences are at all events less hurtful to 
 tragic art, which is based rather on the moral element. 
 Perhaps it is in the ease of this art only that our civiliza- 
 tion repairs the injury that it has caused to art in general. 
 
 Ill the same manner as the tragic emotion is weakened 
 by the admixture of conflicting ideas and feelings, and the 
 charm attaching to it is thus diminished, so this emotion 
 can also, on the contrary, by approaching the excess of 
 direct and personal affection, become exaggerated to the 
 point where pain carries the daj- over pleasure. It has 
 
356 JESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS, 
 
 been remarked that displeasure, in the affections, comes 
 from the relation of their object with our senses, in the 
 same wa\- as the pleasui'e felt in them comes from the rela- 
 tion of the affection itself to our moral facultj-. This 
 implies, then, between our senses and our moral faculty a 
 determined relation, which decides as regards the relation 
 bcitween pleasure and displeasure in tragic emotions. Nor 
 could this relation be modified or overthrown without 
 overthrowing at the same time the feelings of pleasure and 
 displeasure which we find in the emotions, or even without 
 changing them into their opposites. In the same ratio 
 that the senses are vividly roused in us, the influence of 
 inoralit}- will be proportionately diminished ; and recipro- 
 cnllj, as the sensuous loses, morality gains ground. There- 
 fore that which in our hearts gives a preponderance to the 
 sensuous faculty, must of necessity, by placing restrictions 
 on the moral faculty', diminish the pleasure that we take in 
 tragic emotions, a pleasure which emanates exclusively 
 from this moral faculty*. In like manner, all that in our 
 heart impresses an impetus on this latter faculty, must 
 blunt the stimulus of pain even in direct and personal 
 affections. Now our sensuous nature actually acquires 
 this preponderance, when the ideas of suffering rise to a 
 degree of vividness that no longer allows us to distinguish 
 a sympathetic affection from a personal affection, or our 
 (jwn proper Ego from the subject that suffers, — reality, in 
 short, from poetry. The sensuous also gains the upper 
 liand when it finds an aliment in the great number of its 
 objects, and in that dazzling light which an over-excited 
 imagination diffuses over it. On the contrary, nothing is 
 more fit to reduce the sensuous to its proper bounds than 
 to place alongside it super-sensuoiis ideas, moral ideas, to 
 which reason, oppressed just before, clings as to a kind of 
 spiritual props, to right and raise itself above the fogs of 
 the sensuous to a serener atmosphere. Hence the great 
 charm which general truths or moral sentences, scattered 
 opportunely over dramatic dialogue, have for all cultivated 
 jiations, and the almost excessive use that the Greeks made 
 of them. Nothing is more agreeable to a moral soul than 
 to have the power, after a purely passive state that has 
 lasted too long, of escaping from the subjection of the 
 
-fflSTHETIOAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 357 
 
 senses, and of being recalled to its spontaneous activity, 
 and restored to the possession of its liberty. 
 
 These are the remarks I had to make respecting the 
 causes that restrict our pity and place an obstacle to our 
 pleasure in tragic emotions. I have next to show on what 
 conditions pity is solicited and the pleasure of the emotion 
 excited in the most infallible and energetic manner. 
 
 Every feeling of pity implies the idea of suffering, and 
 the degree of pity is regulated according to the degree 
 more or less of vividness, of truth, of intensitj', and of 
 duration of this idea. 
 
 1st. The moral faculty' is provoked to reaction in pro- 
 portion to the vividness of ideas in the soul, which incites 
 it to activity and solicits its sensuous faculty. Now the 
 ideas of suffering are conceived in two different manners, 
 which are not equallj^ favorable to the vividness of the 
 impression. The sufferings that we witness affect us 
 nicomparably more than those that we have through a 
 description or a narrative. The former suspend in us the 
 free plaj- of the fancy, and striking our senses immediately 
 penetrate b^- the shortest road to our heart. In the nar- 
 rative, on the contrary, the particular is first raised to the 
 general, and it is from this that the knowledge of the 
 special case is afterwards deri-\'ed ; accordingl}', merely- bj' 
 this necessary operation of the understanding, the impres- 
 sion already loses greatly in strength. Now a weak im- 
 pression cannot take complete possession of our mind, 
 and it will allow other iffeas to disturb its action and to 
 dissipate the attention. Verj' frequently, moreover, the 
 narrative account transports us from the moral disposition, 
 in wiiich the acting person is placed, to the state of mind 
 of the narrator himself, which breaks up tlie illusion so 
 necessary for pity. Iif ever}- case, when the narrator in 
 person puts himself forward, a certain stoppage takes 
 place in the action, and, as an unavoidable result, in our 
 sympathetic affection. This is what happens even when 
 the dramatic poet forgets himself in tlie dialogue, and 
 puts in the mouth of his dramatic persons reflections that 
 could only enter the mind of a disinterested spectator. 
 It would be difficult to mention a single one of our modern 
 tragedies quite free from this defect ; but the French alone 
 
S58 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 have made a rule of it. Let us infer, then, that the imme- 
 diate vivid and sensuous presence of the object is necessary 
 to give to the ideas impressed on us by suffering that strength 
 without which the emotion could not rise to a high degree. 
 
 2d. But we can receive the most vivid impressions of 
 the idea of suffering without, however, being led to a 
 remarkable degree of pity, if these impressions lack truth. 
 It is necessary that we should form of suffering an idea 
 of such a nature that we are obliged to share and take 
 part in it. To this end there must be a certain agreement 
 between this suffering and something that we have alreadj' 
 in us. In other words, pity is only possible inasmuch as 
 we can prove or suppose a resemblance between ourselves 
 and the subject that suffers. Everywhere where this 
 resemblance makes itself known, pity is necessar}- ; where 
 this resemblance is lacking, pitj' is impossible. The more 
 visible and the greater is the resemblance, the more vivid 
 is our pity ; and they mutually slacken in dependence on 
 each other. In order that we maj' feel the affections of 
 another after him, all the internal conditions demandedby 
 this affection must be found beforehand in us, in order 
 that the external cause which, bj' meeting with the inter- 
 nal conditions, has given birth to the afiection, may ajso 
 produce on us a like effect. It is necessary that, without 
 doing violence to ourselves, we should be able to exchange 
 persons with another, and transport our Ego by an instan- 
 taneous substitution in the state of the subject. Now, how 
 is it possible to feel in us the state of another, if we have 
 not beforehand recognized ourselves in this other. 
 
 This resemblance bears on the totalitj' of the constitu- 
 tion of the mind, in as far as that is necessar3- and uni- 
 versal. Now, this character of necessity' and of univer- 
 sality belongs especially to our moral nature. The faculty 
 of feeling can be determined differentl}' by accidental 
 causes : our cognitive faculties themselves depend on va- 
 riable conditions : the moral facultj- only has its principle 
 in itself, and by that ver^-fact it can best give us a general 
 measure and a certain criterion of this resemblance. 
 Thus an idea which we find in accord with our mode of 
 thinking and of feeling, which offers at once a certain rela- 
 tionship with the train of our own ideas, which is easily 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 359 
 
 grasped by our heart and our mind, we call a true idea. 
 If this relationship bears on what is peculiar to our heart, 
 on the private determinations that modify in us the common 
 fundamentals of humanity, and which maj' be withdrawn 
 without altering this general character, this idea is then 
 simply true/ci;- us. If it bears on the general and neces- 
 sary form that we suppose in the whole species, the truth 
 of this idea ought to be held to be equal to objective truth. 
 For the Roman, the sentence of the first Brutus and the 
 suicide of Cato are of subjective truth. The ideas and 
 the feelings that ha^-e inspired the actions of these two 
 men are not an immediate consequence of human nature 
 in general, but the mediate consequence of a human nature 
 determined by particular modifications. To share with 
 them these feelings we must have a Roman soul, or at 
 least be capable of assuming for a moment a Roman soul. 
 It suffices, on the other hand, to be a num in general, to 
 be viviiU}' touched by the heroic sacrifice of Leonidas, bj- 
 the quiet resignation of Aristides, "by the voluntar3' death 
 of Socrates, and to be moved to tears b3' the terrible 
 changes in the fortunes of Darius. We attribute to tliese 
 kind's of ideas, in opposition to the preceding ones, an 
 objective truth because they agree with the nature of all 
 human subjects, which gives them a character of univer- 
 salitj' and of necessity as strict as if they were independ- 
 ent of every subjective condition. 
 
 Moreover, although^he subjectively true description is 
 based on accidental determinations, this is no reason for 
 confounding it with an arbitrarj' description. After all, 
 the subjectivel}- true emanates also from the general consti- 
 tution of the human soul, modified only in particular 
 directions by special circumstances ; and the two kinds of 
 truth are equally necessary conditions of the human mind. 
 If the resolution of Cato were in contradiction with the 
 general laws of human nature, it could not be true, even 
 subjectively. The only difference is that the ideas of the 
 second kind are enclosed in a narrower sphere of action ; 
 because the}^ implVj besides the general modes of the 
 human mind, other special determinations. Tragedy can 
 make use of it with a very Intense effect, if it will renounce 
 the extensive effect ; still the unconditionally true, what 
 
360 it;STHETICAL LETTEKS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 is purely human in human relations, will be always the 
 richest matter for the tragic poet, because this ground is 
 the onlj' one on which tragedy, without ceasing to aspire 
 to strength of expression can be certain of the generality 
 of this impressioii. 
 
 3d. Besides the vividness and the truth of tragic 
 pictures, there must also be completeness. None of the 
 external data that are necessary to give to the soul the 
 desired movement ought to be omitted in the representation. 
 In order that the spectator, liowe\'er Roman his sentiments 
 may be, may understand the moral state of Cato — that he 
 may make his own the high resolution of the republican, 
 this resolution must have its' principle, not onlj' in the 
 mind of the Roman, but also in the circumstances of the 
 action. His external situation as well as his internal 
 situation must be before our cj-es in all their consequences 
 and extent : and we must, lastlj', have unrolled before us, 
 without omitting a single link, the whole chain of deter- 
 minations to which are attached the high resolution of the 
 Roman as a necessary consequence. It maj- be said in 
 general that without this third condition, even the truth 
 of a painting cannot be recognized ; for the similarity of 
 circumstances, which ought to be fully evident, can alone 
 justify our judgment on the similarity of the feelings, 
 since it is only from the competition of external conditions 
 and of internal conditions that the aflfectiA-e phenomenon 
 results. To decide if we should have acted like Cato, we 
 must before all tilings transport ourselves in thought to 
 the external situation in which Cato was placed, and then 
 onlj' we are entitled to place our feelings alongside his, 
 to pronounce if there is or is not likeness, and to give a 
 verdict on the truth of these feelings. 
 
 A complete picture, as I understand it, is onlj' possible 
 by the concatenation of several separate ideas, and of 
 several separate feelings, which are connected together as 
 cause and effect, and which, in their sum total, form one 
 single whole for our cognitive faculty. All these ideas, in 
 order to affect us closely, must make an immediate impres- 
 sion on our senses ; and, as the narrative form alwaj'S 
 weakens this impression, thej' must be produced hy a 
 present action. Thus, lu t)rder that a tragic picture maj' 
 
;ejsthetical letxehw and essays. 361 
 
 be complete, a whole series is required of particular 
 actions, rendered sensuous and connected with the tragic 
 action as to one whole. 
 
 4th. it is necessary-, lastl}-, that the ideas we receive of 
 suffering should act on us in a durable manner, to excite 
 in us a high degree of emotion. The affection created in 
 us b}' the suffering of another is to us a constrained state, 
 from whicli we hasten to get free ; and the illusion so neces- 
 saiy for pit}- easily disappears in this case. It is, therefore, 
 a necessity to fasten the mind closely to these ideas, and 
 not to leave it the freedom to get rid too soon of the 
 illusion. The vividness of sudden ideas and the energy 
 of sudden impressions, which in rapid succession affect our 
 senses, would not suffice for this end. For the power of 
 reaction in the mind is manifested in direct proportion to 
 tlie force with which the receptive facultj* is solicited, and 
 it is manifested to triumph over this impression. Now, 
 the poet who wishes to move us ought not to weaken this 
 independent power in us, for it is exactly in the struggle 
 between it and the suffering of our sensuous nature that 
 the higher charm of tragic emotions lies. In order that 
 the heart, in spite of that spontaneous force which reacts 
 against sensuous affections, may remain attached to the 
 impressions of sufferings, it is, therefore, necessary that 
 these impressions should be cleverlj' suspended at intervals, 
 or even interrupted and intercepted by contrary im- 
 pressions, to return a^in with twofold energy and renew 
 more frequently the vividness of the first impression. 
 Against the exhaustion and languor that result from habit, 
 the most effectual remedj' is to propose new objects to the 
 senses ; this varietj' retempers them, and the gradation 
 of impressions calls forth the innate facultj', and makes it 
 employ a proportionatelj- stronger resistance. This facultj- 
 ought to be incessantlj' occupied in maintaining its inde- 
 pendence against the attacks of the senses, but it must 
 not triumph before the end, still less must it succumb in 
 the struggle. Otherwise, in the former case, suffering, 
 and, in the latter, moral activity is set aside ; while it is 
 the union of these two that can alone elicit emotion. The 
 great secret of the tragic art consists preciselj' in manag- 
 ing this struggle well ; it is in this that it shows itself iu 
 the most brilliant light. 
 
362 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 For this, a succession of alternate ideas is required ; 
 therefore a suitable combination is wanted of several par- 
 ticular actions corresponding with these different ideas ; 
 actions round which th« principal action and the tragic 
 impression which it is wished to produce through it unroll 
 themselves like the yarn from the distaff', and end by 
 enlacing our souls in nets, through which they cannot 
 break. Let me be permitted to make use of a simile, by 
 saying that the artist ought to begin b3' gathering up with 
 parsimonious care all the separate rays that issue from 
 the object by aid of which he seeks to produce the tragic 
 effect that he has in view, and these raj-s, in his hands, 
 become a lightning flash, setting the hearts of all on fire. 
 The tyro casts suddenl3- and vainly all the thunderbolts 
 of horror and fear into the soul ; the artist, on the contrary, 
 advances step bj' step to his end ; he onh* strikes with 
 measured strokes, but he penetrates to the depth of our 
 soul, precisely- because he has only stirred it bj' degrees. 
 
 If we now form the proper deductions from the previous 
 investigation, the following will be the conditions that 
 form bases of the tragic art. It is necessary, in the first 
 place, that the object of our pit}' should belong to our own 
 species — I mean belong in the full sense of the term — 
 and that the action in which it.is sought to interest us be 
 a moral action ; that is, an action comprehended in the 
 field of free-will. It is necessar}-, in the second place, 
 that suffering, its sources, its degrees, should be completely 
 communicated by a series of events chained together. It 
 is necessary-, in the third place, that the object of the 
 passion be rendered present to our senses, not in a mediate 
 wa}' and by description, but immediatelj' and inaction. 
 In tragedy art unites all these conditions and satisfies 
 them. 
 
 According to these principles tragedy might be defined 
 as the poetic imitation of a coherent series of particular 
 events (forming a complete action) : an imitation which 
 shows us man in a state of sutfering, and which has for its 
 end to excite our pity. 
 
 I say first that it is the imitation of an action ; and this 
 idea of imitation already distinguishes tragedj- from the 
 other kinds of poetry-, which only narrate or describe. In 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 363 
 
 tragedy particular events are presented to our imagination 
 or to our senses at the verj- time of ttieir accomplishment ; 
 they are present, we see them immediately-, without the 
 intervention of a third person. The epos, the romance, 
 simple narrative, even in their form, withdraw action to a 
 distance, causing the narrator to come between the acting 
 person and the reader. Now what is distant and past 
 always weakens, as we know, the impressions and the 
 sj'mpathetic affection ; what is present makes them 
 stronger. All narrative forms make of the present some- 
 thing past ; all dramatic form makes of the past a present. 
 
 Secondly, I say that tragedy is the imitation of a suc- 
 cession of events, of an action. Tragedj- has not onl^' 
 to represent bj- imitation the feelings and the affections of 
 tragic persons, but also the events that have produced 
 these feelings, and the occasion on which these affections 
 are manifested. This distinguishes it from lyric poetry, 
 and from its different forms, which no doubt offer, like 
 tragedy, the poetic imitation of certain states of the mind, 
 but not the poetic imitation of certain actions. An elegy, 
 a song, an ode, can place before our eyes, by imitation, 
 the moral state in which the poet actuall3' is — whether he 
 speaks in his own name. Or in that of an ideal person — a 
 state determined bj' particular circumstances ; and up to 
 this point these lyric forms seem certainly to be incorpo- 
 rated in the idea of tragedy ; but they do not complete that 
 idea, because they are confined to representing our 
 feelings. There are still more essential differences, if the 
 end of these lyrical forms and that of tragedy are kept in 
 view. 
 
 I say, in the third place, that tragedy is the imitation of 
 a complete action. A separate event, though it be ever so 
 tragic, does not in itself constitute a tragedi'. To do this, 
 several events are required, based one on the other, like 
 cause and effect, and suitabl}' connected so as to form a 
 whole ; without which the truth of the feeling represented, 
 of the character, etc. -j- that is, their conformit}' with the 
 nature of our mind, a conformity which alone determines 
 our sj-mpathy — will not be recognized. If we do not feel 
 that we ourselves in similar circumstances should have 
 experienced the same feelings and acted in the same 
 
364 jTISTHETrCAIi LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 waj', our pit}- would not be awakened. It is, therefore, 
 important that we should he able to follow in all its 
 concatenation the action that is represented to us, that 
 we should see it issue from the mind of the agent by a 
 natural gradation, under the influence and with the 
 concurrence of external circumstances. It is thus that we 
 see spring up, grow, and come to maturity under our 63-68, 
 the curiosity of OEdipus and the jealous^' of lago. It is 
 also the onlj' way to fill up the great gap that exists 
 between the joy of an innoceijt soul and the torments of 
 a guilty conscience, between the proud serenitj- of the 
 happy man and his terrible catastrophe ; in sliort, between 
 the state of calm, in which the reader is at the beginning, 
 and the violent agitation he ought to experience at the end. 
 
 A series of several connected incidents is required to 
 produce in our souls a succession of different movements 
 which arrest the attention, which, appealing to all the 
 faculties of our minds, enliven our instinct of activity 
 when it is exhausted, and which, by delaying the satis- 
 faction of this instinct, do not kindle it the less. Against 
 the suflfering of sensuous nature the human heart has 
 onl}' recourse to its moral nature as counterpoise. It is, 
 therefore, necessary, in order to stimulate this in a more 
 pressing manner, for the tragic poet to prolong the torments 
 of sense, but he must also give a glimpse to the latter of 
 the satisfaction of its wants, so as to render the victory of 
 the moral sense so much the more difficult and glorious. 
 This twofold end can onlj- be attained by a succession of 
 actions judiciousl}' chosen and combined to this end. 
 
 In the fourth place, I say that tragedy is the poetic 
 imitation of an action deserving of pit}', and, therefore, 
 tragic imitation is opposed to historic imitation. It would 
 only be a historic imitation if it proposed a historic end, 
 if its principal object were to teach us that a thing has 
 taken place, and how it took place. On this hypothesis it 
 ought to keep rigorously to historic accuracy, for it "would 
 only attain its end by representii;g faithfully that which 
 really took place. But tragedy has a. poetic end, that is to 
 say, it represents an action to move us, and to charm our 
 souls by the medium of this emotion. If, therefore, a 
 matter being given, tragedy treats it conformably with 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 365 
 
 this poetic end, which is proper to it. it becomes, by 
 that ver^- thing, free in its imitation. It is a right — naj-, 
 more, it is an obligation — for tragedy to subject historic 
 truth to the laws of poetry ; and to treat its matter in 
 conformity with requirements of this art. But as it 
 cannot attain its end, which is emotion, except on the 
 condition of a perfect conformity with the laws of nature, 
 tragedy is, notwithstanding its freedom in regard to 
 history, strictly- subject to the laws of natural truth, 
 which, in opposition to the truth of histor}-, takes the 
 name of poetic truth. It may thus be understood how 
 much poetic truth maj' lose, in many cases by a strict 
 observance of historic truth, and, reciprocallj', how much 
 it maj"^ gain by even a very serious alteration of truth 
 according to historj-. As the tragic poet, like poets in 
 general, is only subject to the laws of poetic truth, the 
 most conscientious observance of historic truth could 
 never dispense him from his duties as poet, and could 
 never excuse in him any infraction of poetic truth or lack 
 of interest. It is, therefore, betraying verj- narrow ideas 
 on tragic art, or rather on poetry in general, to drag the 
 tragic poet before the tribunal of history, and to require 
 instruction of the man who by his ver}' title is onl}' bound 
 to move and charm you. Even supposing the poet, bj^ a 
 scrupulous submission to historic truth, had stripped 
 himself of his privilege of artist, and that he had tacitlj' 
 acknowledged in histwry a jurisdiction o^'er his work, art 
 retains all her rights to summon him before its bar ; and 
 pieces such as "The Death of Hermann," " Minona," 
 " Fust of Stromberg," if they could not stand the test on 
 this side, would only be tragedies of mediocre value, 
 notwithstanding all the minuteness of costume — of na- 
 tional costume — - and of the manners of the lime. 
 
 Fifthly, tragedy is the imitation of an action that lets 
 us see man suffering. The word tnan is essential to mark 
 the limits of tragedy. Only the suffering of a being like 
 ourselves can move out pit}'. Thus, evil genii, demons — - 
 or even men like them, without morals — and again pure 
 spirits, without our weaknesses, are unfit for tragedy. 
 The very idea of suffering implies a man in the full sense 
 of the term. A pure spirit cannot suffer, and a man 
 
366 ESTHETIC AL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 approaching one will never awaken a high degree oi 
 sj-mpathy. A purely sensuous being can indeed have 
 terrible suffering ; but without moral sense it is a prey to 
 it, and a suffering with reason inactive is a disgusting 
 spectacle. The tragedian is right to prefer mixed charac- 
 ters, and to place the ideal of his hero half way between 
 utter perversity and entire perfection. 
 
 Lastly, tragedy unites all these requisites to excite pity. 
 Many means the tragic poet takes might serve another 
 object ; but he frees himself from all requirements not 
 relating to this end, and is thereby obliged to direct 
 himself with a view to this supreme object. 
 
 The final aim to which all the laws tend is called the end 
 of any style of poetry. The means by which it attains 
 this are its form. The end and form are, therefore, 
 closely related. The form is determined by the end, and 
 when the form is well observed the end is generally 
 attained. Each kind of poetry having a special end must 
 have a distinguishing form. What it exclusivel3' produces 
 it does in virtue of this special nature it possesses. The 
 end of tragedj' is emotion ; its form is the imitation of an 
 action that leads to suffering. Many kinds may have the 
 same object as tragedy, oi emotion, though it be not their 
 principal end. Therefore, what distinguishes tragedj' is 
 the relation of its form to its end, the way in which it 
 attains its end by means of its subject. 
 
 If the end of tragedj' is to awaken sympathy^, and its 
 form is the means of attaining it, the imitation of an action 
 fit to move must have all that favors syuipathy. Such is 
 the form of tragedy. 
 
 The production of a kind of poetry is perfect when the 
 form peculiar to its kind has been used in the best waj'. 
 Tlius, a perfect tragedy is that where the form is best 
 used to awaken sympathj\ Thus, the best tragedy is that 
 where the pity excited results more from the treatment of 
 the poet than the theme. ■ Such is the ideal of a tragedj'. 
 
 A good number of tragedies, though fine as poems, are 
 bad as dramas, because thej' do not seek their end by 
 the best use of tragic form. Others, because they use 
 the form to attain an end different from traged}-. Some 
 very popular ones only touch us on account of the subject, 
 
-ffiSTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 367 
 
 and we are blind enough to make this a merit in the poet. 
 There are others in which we seem to have quite forgotten 
 the object of the poet, and, contented withprettj- pla3s of 
 fancy and wit, we issue with our hearts cold from the 
 theatre. Must art, so holy and venerable, defend its cause 
 by such champions before such judges ? The indulgence 
 of the public only emboldens mediocrity : it causes genius 
 to blush, and discourac^es it. 
 
 OF THE CAUSE OF THE PLEASURE WE 
 DERIVE FROM TRAGIC OBJECTS. 
 
 Whatever pains some modern aesthetics give themselves 
 to establish, contrary to general belief, that the arts of 
 imagination and of feeling have not pleasui'e for their 
 object, and to defend them against this degrading accu- 
 sation, this belief will not cease : it reposes upon a solid 
 foundation, and the fine arts would renounce with a bad 
 grace the beneficent mission which has in all times been 
 assigned to them, to accept the new employment to 
 which it is generoTJslj'' proposed to raise them. Without 
 troubling themselves whether they lower themselves in 
 proposing our pleasure as object, they become rather 
 proud of the advantages^ of reaching immediately as aim 
 never attained except mediately in other routes followed 
 by the activity of the human mind. That the aim of 
 nature, with relation to man, is the happiness of man, 
 — although he ought of himself, in his moral conduct, 
 to take no notice of this aim, ■ — is what, I think, cannot 
 be doubted in general by any one who admits that nature 
 has an aim. Thus the fine arts have the same aim as 
 nature, or rather as the Author of nature, namely, to 
 spread pleasure and render people happy. It procures 
 for us in play what at other more austere sources of good 
 to man we extract onlj^ with difficulty. It lavishes as a 
 pure gift that which elsewhere is the price of many hard 
 efforts. With what labo'-, what application, do we not 
 pay for the pleasures ot the understanding; with what 
 
368 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 painful sacrifices tlie approbation of reason ; with what 
 hard privations the jo}-s of sense ! And if we abuse these 
 pleasures, with what a succession of evils do we expiate 
 excess ! Art alone supplies an enjoj-ment which requires 
 no appreciable effort, which costs no sacrifice, and which 
 we need not repay with repentance. But who could class 
 the merit of charming in this manner with the poor merit 
 of amusing? who would venture to denj- the former of 
 these two aims of the fine arts solely because they have a 
 tendency higher than the latter. 
 
 The praiseworthy object of pursuing everywhere moral 
 good as the supreme aim, which has already brought forth 
 in art so much mediocrity', has caused also in theory a 
 similar prejudice. To assign to tlie fine arts a really ele- 
 vated position, to conciliate for them the favor of the 
 State, the veneration of all men, thej' are pushed be^'ond 
 their true domain, and a vocation is imposed upon them 
 contrary to their nature. It is supposed that a great ser- 
 vice is awarded them by substituting for a frivolous aim 
 — that of charming — a moral aim; and their influence 
 upon morality, which is so apparent, necessarily mditates 
 in favor of this pretension. It is found illogical that the 
 art which contributes in so great a measure to the devel- 
 opment of all that is most elevated in man, should pro- 
 duce but aceessorily this effect, and make its chief object 
 an aim so vulgar as we imagine pleasure to be. But this 
 apparent contradiction it would be verj' easj' to conciliate 
 if we had a good theorj^ of pleasure, and a complete sys- 
 tem of ffisthetic philosoph}'. 
 
 It would result from this theor}- that a free pleasure, as 
 that which the fine arts procure for us, rests whoUj' upon 
 moral conditions, and all the moral faculties of man are 
 exercised in it. It would further result that this pleasure 
 is an aim which can never be attained but by moral means, 
 and consequently that art, to tend and perfectly attain to 
 pleasure, as to a real aim, must follow the road of healtliy 
 morals. Thus it is perfectly indifferent for the dignity of 
 art whether its aim should be a moral aim, or whether it 
 .should reach only through moral means ; for in both eases 
 it has always to do with the morality, and must be rigor- 
 ously in unison with the sentiment of duty ; but for the 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 369 
 
 perfection of art, it is by no means indiiferent which of 
 the two should be the aim and which the means. If it is 
 the aim that is moral, art loses all that by which it is pow- 
 erful, — I mean its freedom, and that which gives it so 
 much influence over us — the charm of pleasure. The 
 plaj' which recreates is changed into serious occupation, 
 and yet it is precisely in recreating us that art can the 
 better complete the great affair — the moral work. It 
 cannot have a salutary influence upon the morals but in 
 exercising its highest aesthetic action, and it can only pro- 
 duce the aesthetic eflfect in its highest degree in fully exer- 
 cising its liberty. 
 
 It is certain, besides, that all pleasure, the moment it 
 flows from a moral source, renders man morally better, 
 and then the effect in its turn becomes cause. The pleas- 
 ure we find in what is beautiful, or touching, or sublime, 
 strengthens our moral sentiments, as the pleasure we find 
 m kindness, in love, etc., strengthens these inclinations. 
 And just as contentment of mind is the sure lot of the 
 morally excellent man, so moral excellence willingly ac- 
 companies satisfaction of heart. Thus the moral efficacy 
 of art is, not only because it employs moral means in order 
 to charm us, but also because even the pleasure which it 
 procures us is a means of moralitj'. 
 
 There are as many means by which art can attain its 
 aim as there are in general sources from which a free 
 pleasure for the mind ca^ flow. I call a free pleasure that 
 which brings into play the spiritual forces — reason and 
 imagination — and which awakens in us a sentiment by 
 the representation of an idea, in contradistinction to phy- 
 sical or sensuous-pleasure, which places our soul under 
 the dependence of the blind forces of nature, and where 
 sensation is immediately awakened in us by a physical 
 cause. Sensual pleasure is the only one excluded from 
 the domain of the fine arts ; and the talent of exciting 
 this kind of pleasure could never raise itself to the dig- 
 nitj' of an art, except in the case where the sensual im- 
 pressions are ordered, reinforced or moderated, after a 
 plan which is the production of art, and which is recog- 
 nized bj- representation. But, in this case even, that 
 alone here can merit the name of art which is the object 
 
370 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 of a free pleasure — I mean good taste in the regulation, 
 which pleases our understanding, and not phjsical ehanas 
 themselves, which alone flatter our sensibilit}'. 
 
 The general source of all pleasure, even of sensual 
 pleasure, is proprietj", the conformit}' with the aim. 
 Pleasure is sensual when this propriet3' is manifested by 
 means of some necessar}- law of nature which has for 
 physical result the sensation of pleasure. Thus the move- 
 ment of the blood, and of the animal life, when in coo- 
 formity with the aim of nature, produces in certain 
 organs, or in the entire organism, corporeal pleasure with 
 all its varieties and all its modes. We feel this conformitj' 
 by the means of agreeable sensation, but we arrive at no 
 representation of it, either clear or confused. 
 
 Pleasure is free when we represent to ourselves the con- 
 formabilitj', and when the sensation that accompanies this 
 representation is agreeable. Thus all the representations 
 bj' which we have notice that there is propriety and har- 
 mony between the end and the means, are for us the 
 sources of free pleasure, and consequent^ can be em- 
 ployed to this end by the fine arts. Thus, all the repre- 
 sentations can be placed under one of these heads : the 
 good, the true, the perfect, the beautiful, the touching, the 
 sublime. The good especially occupies our reason ; the 
 true and perfect, our intelligence ; the beautiful interests 
 both the intelligence and the imagination ; the touching 
 and the sublime, the reason and the imagination. It is 
 true that we also take pleasure in the charm (Heiz) or the 
 power called out by action from play, but art uses charm 
 only to accompany the higher enjoyments which the idea 
 of propriety gives to us. Considered in itself the charm 
 or attraction is lost amid the sensations of life, and art 
 disdains it together with all mereh' sensual pleasures. 
 
 We could not establish a classification of the fine arts 
 only upon the difference of the sources from which each 
 of them draws the pleasure which it affords us ; for in the 
 same class of the fine arts many sorts of pleasures may 
 enter, and often all together. But in as far as a certain 
 sort of pleasure is pursued as a principal aim, we can 
 make of it, if not a specific character of a class properly 
 60 called, at least the principle and the tendency of a class 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 37] 
 
 in the works of art. Thus, for example, we could take 
 the arts which, above all, satisfy the intelligence and im- 
 agination — consequently those which have as chief object 
 the true, the perfect, and the beautiful — and unite them 
 under the name of fine arts (arts of taste, arts of intelli- 
 gence) ; those, on the other hand, which especially occupy 
 the imagination and the reason, and which, in conse- 
 quence, have for principal object the good, the sublime, 
 and the touching, could be limited in a particular class 
 under the denomination of touching arts (arts of senti- 
 ment, arts of the heart). Without doubt it is impossible 
 to separate absolutely the toucliing from the beautiful, but 
 the beautiful can perfectly subsist without the touching. 
 Thus, although we are not authorized to base upon this 
 difference of principle a rigorous classification of the lib- 
 eral arts, it can at least serve to determine with more 
 of precision the criterion, and prevent the confusion in 
 which we are inevitablj- involved, when, drawing up 
 laws of aesthetic things, we confound two absolutely 
 different domains, as that of the touching and that of the 
 beautiful. 
 
 The touching and the sublime resemble in this point, 
 that both one and the other produce a pleasure b\- a feeling 
 at first of displeasure, and that consequently' (pleasure 
 proceeding from suitability, and displeasure from the 
 contrary) they give us a feeling of suitabilitj' which pre- 
 supposes an unsuitabilitpr. 
 
 The feeling of the sublime is composed in part of the 
 feeling of our feebleness, of our impotence to embrace 
 an object ; and, on the other side, of the feeling of our 
 moral power — of this superior facultj' which fears no ob- 
 stacle, no limit, and which subdues spiritually that even 
 to which our ph^'sical forces give way. The object of 
 the sublime thvrarts, then, our phj-sical power ; and this 
 contrariety (impropriety) must necessarily excite a dis- 
 pleasure in us. But it is, at the same time, an occasion to 
 recall to our conscience another faculty which is in us — 
 a faculty which is even superior to the objects before which 
 our imagination yields. In consequence, a sublime object, 
 precisely because it thwarts the senses, is suitable with 
 relation to reason, and it gives to us a joy by means of a 
 
372 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 higher faculty, at the same time that it wounds us in an 
 inferior one. 
 
 The touching, in its proper sense, designates this mixed 
 sensation, into which enters at the same time suffering 
 and the pleasure that we find in suffering. Thus we can 
 only feel this kind of emotion in the case of a persona! 
 misfortune, onl^' when the grief that we feel is suffi- 
 ciently tempered to leave some place for that impression 
 of pleasure that would be felt by a compassionate spectator. 
 The loss of a great good prostrates for the time, and the 
 remembrance itself of the grief will make us experience 
 emotion after a year. The feeble man is always the prey 
 of his grief; the hero and the sage, whatever the misfortune 
 that strikes them, never experience more than emotion. 
 
 Emotion, like the sentiment of the sublime, is composed 
 of two affections — grief and pleasure. There is. then, at 
 the bottom a propriet}*, here as well as there, and under 
 this proprietj' a contradiction. Thus it seems that it is a 
 contradiction in nature that man, who is not born to suffer, 
 is nevertheless a prey to suffering, and this contradiction 
 hurts us. But the evil which this contradiction does us is 
 a propriety with regard to our reasonable nature in general, 
 insomuch as this evil solicits us to act : it is a propriety 
 also with regard to human societj' ; consequentlj-, even 
 displeasure, which excites in us this contradiction, ought 
 necessarily to make us experience a sentiment of pleasure, 
 because this displeasure is a proprietj-. To determine in 
 an emotion if it is pleasure or diaj^leasure which triumphs, 
 we must ask ourselves if it is the idea of impropriety or 
 that of propriety which affects us the more deeply. That 
 can depend either on the number of the aims reached or 
 abortive, or on their connection with the final aim of all. 
 
 The suffering of the virtuous man moves us more pain- 
 fully than that of the i)erverse man, because in the first 
 case there is contradiction not only to the general destinj' 
 of man, which is happiness, but also to this other particular 
 principle, viz., that virtue renders happy; whilst in the 
 second case there is contradiction onlj' with regard to 
 the end of man in general. Reciprocally-, the happiness of 
 the wicked also offends uf much more than the misfortune 
 of the good man, because we find in it a double contradic- 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 373 
 
 tion : in the first place vice itself, and, intlie second place, 
 tlie recompense of vice. 
 
 Thiere is also this other consideration, that virtue is 
 much more able to recompense itself than vice, when it 
 triumphs, is to punish itself; and it is preciselj' for this 
 that the virtuous man in misfortune would much more 
 remain faithful to the cultus of virtue than the perverse 
 man would dream of converting himself in prosperitj-. 
 
 But what is above all important in determining in the 
 emotions the relation of pleasure and displeasure, is to 
 compare the two ends — that which has been fulfilled and 
 that which has been ignored — and to see which is the 
 most considerable. There is no proprietj- which touches 
 us so nearly as moral proprietj-, and no superior pleasure 
 to that which we feel from it. Physical proprietj- could 
 well be a problem, and a problem forever unsolvable. 
 Moral propriety is already demonstrated. It alone is 
 founded upon our reasonable nature and upon internal 
 necessity. It is our. nearest interest, the most consider- 
 able, and, at the same time, the most easilj- recognized, 
 because it is not determined bj' anj' external element but 
 by an internal principle of our reason : it is the palladium 
 of our liberty. 
 
 This moral propriety is never more vividly recognized 
 than when it is found in conflict with another propriety, 
 and still keeps the upper hand ; then only the moral law 
 awakens in full power, ^hen we find it struggling against 
 all the other forces of nature, and when all those forces 
 lose in its presence their empire over a human soul. By 
 these words, "the other forces of nature," we must 
 understand all that is not moral force, all that is not 
 subject to the supreme legislation of reason : that is to say, 
 feelings, aflTections, instincts, passions, as well as physical 
 necessity and destiny. The more redoubtable the adver- 
 sary, the more glorious the victoiy ; resistance alone brings 
 out the strength of the force and renders it visible. It 
 follows that the highest degree of moral consciousness can 
 only exist in strife, and the highest moral pleasure is 
 always accompanied bj- pain. 
 
 Consequently', the kind of poetry which secures us a 
 high degree of moral pleasure, must emploj' mixed feelings, 
 
374 ^STI-IF/nOAL LKTTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 and please us through pain or distress, — this is what 
 tragedy does specially ; and her realm embraces all that 
 sacrifices a physical propriety to a moral one ; or one 
 moral propriety to a higher one. It might be possible, 
 perhaps, to form a measure of moral pleasure, from the 
 lowest to the highest degree, and to determine by this 
 principle of propriety the degree of pain or pleasure ex- 
 perienced. Different orders of tragedy might be classified 
 on the same principle, so as to form a complete exhaustive 
 tabulation of them. Thus, a tragedy being given, its place 
 could be fixed, and its genus determined. Of this subject 
 more will be said separately in its proper place. 
 
 A few examples will show how far moral propriety com- 
 mands physical propriety ni our souls. 
 
 Theron and Amanda are both tied to the stake as martyrs, 
 and free to choose life or death by the terrible ordeal of 
 fire — the3' select, the latter. What is it which gives such 
 pleasure to us in this scene? Their position so conflicting 
 with the smiling destiny they reject, the reward of misery 
 given to virtue — all here awakens in us the feeling of 
 impropriety : it ought to fill us with great distress. What 
 is nature, and what are her ends and laws, if all this 
 impropriety shows us moral propriety in its full light. 
 We here see the triumph of the moral law, so sublime an 
 experience for us that we might even hail the calamity 
 which elicits it. For harmony in the world of moral 
 freeilom gives us infinitely more pleasure than all the 
 discords in nature give us pain. 
 
 WheuCoriolanus, obedient to duty as husband, son, and 
 citizen, raises the siege of Rome, them almost conquered, 
 withdrawing his army, and silencing his vengeance, he 
 commits a very contradictory act evidentlj'. He loses all 
 tiie fruit of previous victories, he runs spontaneously to 
 his ruin : yet what moral excellence and grandeur he offers ! 
 How noble to prefer any impropriety rather than wound 
 moral sense ; to violate natural interests and prudence in 
 order to be in harmony with the higher moral law ! Every 
 sacrifice of a life is a contradiction, for life is the condition 
 of all good ; but in the light of morality the sacrifice of 
 life is in a high degree proper, because life is not great 
 m itself, but only as a means of accomplishing the moral 
 
^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 375 
 
 law. If then the sacrifice of life be the way to do this, 
 life must go. "It is not necessaiy for me to live, but 
 it is necessary for Eome to be saved from famine," said 
 Pompej', when the Romans embarked for Africa, and his 
 friends begged him to defer his departure till the gale 
 was over. 
 
 But the sufferings of a criminal are as charming to us 
 tragically as those of a virtuous man ; yet here is the idea 
 of moral improprietj'. The antagonism of his conduct to 
 moral law, and the moral imperfection which such conduct 
 presupposes, ought to fill us with pain. Here there is no 
 satisfaction in the morality of his person, nothing to com- 
 pensate for his misconduct. Yet both supply a valuable 
 object for art ; this phenomenon can easily be made to agree 
 with what has been said. 
 
 We find pleasure not only in obedience to morality, but 
 m the punishment given to its infraction. The pain 
 resulting from moral imperfection agrees with its opposite, 
 the satisfaction at conformitj' with the law. Repentance, 
 even despair, have nobleness morally, and can onl}' exist 
 if an incorruptible sense of justice exists at the bottom of 
 the criminal heart, and if conscience maintains its ground 
 against self-love. Repentance comes bj- comparing our 
 acts with the moral law, hence in the moment of repenting 
 the moral law speaks loudly in man. Its power must be 
 greater than the gain resulting from the crime as the 
 infraction poisons the gnjo3'ment. Now, a state of mind 
 where duty is sovereign is morallj' proper, and therefore a 
 source of moral pleasure. What, then, sublimer than the 
 heroic despair that tramples even life underfoot, because it 
 cannot bear the judgment within ? A good man sacrificing 
 his life to conform to the moral law, or a criminal taking 
 his own life because of the morality he has violated : in 
 both cases our respect for the moral law is raised to the 
 highest power. If there be any advantage it is in the case 
 of the latter ; for the good man may have been encouraged 
 in his sacrifice by an approving conscience, thus detracting 
 from his merit. Repentance and regret at past crimes 
 show us some of the sublimest pictures of morality in 
 active condition. A man who violates morality comes 
 back to the moral law by repentance. 
 
376 iESTHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 But moral pleasure is sometimes obtained only at the 
 cost of moral pain. Thus one dutj- may clash with another. 
 Let us suppose Coriolanus encamped with a Koman armj- 
 before Antium or Corioli, and his mother a Volscian ; if 
 her prayers move him to desist, we now no longer admire 
 him. His obedience to his mother would be at strife with 
 a higher duty, that of a citizen. The governor to whom 
 the alternative is proposed , either of giving up the town 
 or of seeing his son stabbed, decides at once on the latter, 
 his duty as father being beneath that of citizen. At first 
 our heart revolts at this conduct in a father, but we soon 
 pass to admiration that moral instinct, even combined with 
 inclination, could not lead reason astraj- in the empire 
 where it commands. When Timoleon of Corinth puts to 
 death his beloved but ambitious brother, Timophanes, he 
 does it because his idea of duty to his country bids him 
 to do so. The act here inspires horror and repulsion as 
 against nature and the moral sense, but this feeling is 
 soon succeeded by the highest admiration for his heroic 
 virtue, pronouncing, in a tumultuous conflict of emotions, 
 freely and calmly, with perfect rectitude. If we differ 
 with Timoleon about his duty as a republican, this does 
 not change our view. Nay, in those cases, where our 
 understanding judges differently, we see all the more 
 clearly how high we put moral proprietj' above all other. 
 
 But the judgments of men on this moral phenomenon are 
 exceedingly various, and the reason of it is clear. Moral 
 sense is common to all men, but differs in strength. To 
 most men it suffices that an act be partially conformable 
 with the moral law to make them obey it ; and to make 
 them condemn an action it must glaringlj' violate the law. 
 But to determine the relation of moral duties with the 
 highest principle of morals requires an enlightened in- 
 telligence and an emancipated reason. Thus an action 
 which to a few will be a supreme propriety, will seem to 
 the crowd a revolting improprietj-, though both judge 
 morallj' ; an hence the emotion felt at such actions is by 
 no means uniform. To the mass the sublimest and highest 
 is only exaggeration, because sublimity is perceived by 
 reason, and all men have not the same share of it. A 
 vulgar soul is oppressed or overstretched by those sublimo 
 
^STHKTICAli LETTERS AND E.S.SAVS. 377 
 
 ideas, and the crowd sees dreadful disorder where a thinking 
 mind sees the highest order. 
 
 This is enough about moral proprietj' as a principle of 
 tragic emotion, and the pleasure it elicits. It must be 
 added that there are cases where natural propriety also 
 seems to charm our mind even at the cost of moralitj'. 
 Thus we are alwa3-s pleased by the sequence of machina- 
 tions of a perverse man, though his means and end are 
 immoral. Such a man deeply interests us, and we tremble 
 lest his plan fail, though we ought to wish it to do so. 
 But this fact does not contradict what has been advanced 
 about moral propriety, and the pleasure resulting from it. 
 
 Propriety, the reference of means to an end, is to us, 
 in all cases, a source of pleasure ; even disconnected with 
 morality. We experience this pleasure unmixed, so long 
 as we do not think of any moral end which disallows 
 action before us. Animal instincts give us pleasure — as 
 the industry of bees — without reference to morals ; and 
 in like manner human actions are a pleasure to us when 
 we consider in them onlj'' the relation of means to ends. 
 But if a moral principle be added to these, and impropriety 
 be discovered, if the idea of moral agent comes in, a deep 
 indignation succeeds our pleasure, which no intellectual 
 propriety can remedy. We mujt not call to mind too 
 vividlj"^ that Richard III., lago, and Lovelace are men / 
 otherwise our sympatly' for them infallibly turns into an 
 opposite feeling. But^^as daily experience teaches, we 
 have the power to direct our attention to different sides 
 of things ; and pleasure, only possible through this abstrac- 
 tion, invites us to exercise it, and to prolong its exercise. 
 
 Yet it is not rare for intelligent perversity to secure our 
 favor by being the means of procuring us the pleasure 
 of moral propriety. The triumph of moral propriety will 
 be great in proportion as the snares set by Lovelace for 
 the virtue of Clarissa are formidable, and as the trials of 
 an innocent victim by a cruel tyrant are severe. It is a 
 pleasure to see the craft of a seducer foiled b}- the omni- 
 potence of the moral sense. On the other hand, we reckon 
 as a sort of merit the victory of a malefactor over his 
 moral sense, because it is the proof of a certain strength 
 of mistd and intellectual propriety. 
 
378 ^STHETICAL LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 Yet this propriety in vice can never be tiie source of a 
 perfect pleasure, except when it is humiliated bj' morality. 
 In that case it is an essential part of our pleasure, because 
 it brings moral sense into stronger relief. The last 
 impression left on us bj' the author of Clarissa is a proof 
 of this. The intellectual propriety in the plan of Lovelace 
 is greatly surpassed bj- the rational propriety of Clarissa. 
 This allows us to feel in full the satisfaction caused by both. 
 
 "When the tragic poet has for object to awaken in us the 
 feeling of moral propriety, and chooses his means skilfully 
 for that end, he is sure to charm doubly the connoisseur, 
 by moral and by natural propriety. The first satisfies the 
 heart, the second the mind. The crowd is impressed 
 through the heart without knowing the cause of the magic 
 impression. But, on the other hand, there is a class of 
 connoisseurs on whom that which affects the heart is 
 entirely lost, and who can only be gained by the appro- 
 priateness of the means ; a strange contradiction resulting 
 from over-refined taste, especially when moral culture 
 remains behind intellectual. This class of connoisseurs 
 seek only the intellectual side in touching and sublime 
 themes. The}' appreciate this in the justest manner, but 
 you must beware how j'ou appeal to their heart ! The 
 over-culture of the age leads to this shoal, and nothing 
 becomes the cultivated man so much as to escape b}- a 
 happy victory this twofold and pernicious influence. Of 
 all other European nations, our neighbors, the French, 
 lean most to this extreme, and we, as in all things, strain 
 every nerve to imitate this model. 
 
SCHILLEll^: iHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS. 
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 The reason passes, like the heart, through certain epochs 
 and transitions, but its development is not so often por- 
 traj'ed. Men seem to have been satisfied with unfolding 
 the passions in their extremes, their aberration, and their 
 results, without considering how closelj' they are bound 
 up with the intelleetual constitution of the individual. 
 Degeneracy in morals roots in a one-sided and wavering 
 philosophy, doul)ly dangerous, because it blinds the be- 
 clouded intellect with an appearance of correctness, truth, 
 and conviction, which places it less under the restraining 
 influence of man's instinctive moral sense. On the other 
 hand, an enlightened understanding ennobles the feelings, 
 — the heart must be formed by the head. 
 
 The present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase 
 of a thinking public, by the facilities afforded to the dif- 
 fusion of reading ; the former happy resignation to ignor- 
 ance begins to make waj^ for a state of half-enlightenment, 
 and few persons are willing to remain in the condition in 
 which their birth has placed them. Under these circum- 
 stan(;es it may not be unprofitable to call attention to cer- 
 tain periods of the awakening and progress of the reason, 
 to place in their proper light certain truths and errors, 
 closely connected with morals, and calculated to be a 
 source of happiness or misery, and, at all events, to 
 point out the hidden shoals on which the reason of man 
 has so often suffered shipwreck. Earely do we arrive at 
 the summit of truth without running into extremes ; we 
 have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of 
 folly, before we work our waj^ up to the noble goal of 
 tranquil wisdom. 
 
 Some friends, inspired by an equal love of truth and 
 
 379 
 
380 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 moral beantj', who have arrived at tlie same conviction by 
 different roads, and who view with serener eye the ground 
 over which thej- have travelled, have thought that it might 
 be profitable to present a few of these resolutions and 
 epochs of thought. They propose to represent these and 
 certain excesses of the inquiring reason in the form of two 
 3'Oinig men, of unequal character, engaged in epistolary 
 correspondence. The following letters are the beginning 
 of this essaj-. 
 
 The opinions that are offered in these letters can only 
 be true and false relativelj^ and in the form in which the 
 world is mirrored in the soul of the correspondent, and 
 of him only. But the course of the correspondence will 
 show that the one-sided, often exaggerated and contradic- 
 tory opinions at length issue in a general, purified, and 
 well-established truth. 
 
 Scepticism and free-thinking are the feverish paroxj'sms 
 of the human mind, and must needs at length confirm the 
 health of well-organized souls by the unnatural convul- 
 sion which they occasion. In proportion to the dazzling 
 and seducing nature of eri-or will be the greatness of the 
 triumphs of truth : the demand for conviction and firm 
 belief will be strong and pressing in proportion to the 
 torment occasioned by the pangs of doubt. But doubt 
 was necessary to elicit these errors ; the knowledge of the 
 disease had to precede its cure. Truth suffers no loss if a 
 vehement youth fails in finding it, in the same way that 
 virtue and religion suffer no detriment if a criminal denies 
 them. 
 
 It was necessary to offer these prefatory remarks to 
 throw a proper light on the point of view from which the 
 following correspondence has to be read and judged. 
 
 Letter 1. 
 
 Julius to Raphael. 
 
 October. 
 You are gone, Raphael, — and the beauty of nature de- 
 parts : the sere and yellow leaves fall from the trees, while 
 a thick autumn fog hangs suspended like a bier over the 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 381 
 
 lifeless fields. Solitary-, I wander through the melancholy- 
 country. I call aloud jour name, and am irritated that 
 ray Raphael does not answer me. 
 
 I had received your last embrace. The mournful sound 
 of the carriage wheels that bore you away had at length 
 died upon my ear. In happier moments I had just suc- 
 ceeded in raising a tumulus over the joys of the past, but 
 now again j'ou stand up before me, as j'our departed 
 spirit, in these regions, and yon accompanj' me to each 
 favorite haunt and pleasant walk. These rocks I have 
 climbed by your side : bj- your side have my ej'es wan- 
 dered over this immense landscape. In the dark sanctuarj' 
 of this beeeh-gro\e we first conceived the bold ideal of our 
 friendship. It was here that we unfolded the genealogical 
 tree of the soul, and that we found that Julius was so 
 closel3' related to Raphael. Not a spring, not a thicket, 
 or a hill exists in this region where some memory of de- 
 parted happiness does not come to destro}- my repose. All 
 things combine to prevent my recovery. Wherever I go, 
 I repeat the painful scene of our separation. 
 
 What have j'ou done to me, Rapliael ? What am I be- 
 come ? Man of dangerous power ! would that I had never 
 known or never lost you ! Hasten back ; come on the 
 wings of friendship, or the tender plant, 50ur nursling, 
 shall have perished. How could you, endowed with such 
 tender feelings, venture to leave the work you had begun, 
 but still so incomplete* The foundations that your proud 
 wisdom tried to establish in my brain and heart are totter- 
 ing ; all the splendid palaces which 30U erected are crum- 
 bling, and the worm crushed to earth is writhing under the 
 ruins. 
 
 Happy, heavenly time, when I groped through life, with 
 bandaged eyes, like a drunken man, — when all my knowl- 
 edge and my wishes were confined to the narrow horizon 
 of my childhood's teachings ! Blessed time, when a cheer- 
 ful sunset raised no higher aspiration in my soul than the 
 wish of a fine day on the morrow ; when nothing reminded 
 me of the world save the newspaper ; nothing spoke of 
 eternit)' save the passing bell ; onh* ghost-stories brought 
 to mind the thought of death and judgment ; when I 
 trembled at the thought of the devil, and was proportion- 
 
382 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 ately drawn to the Godhead! I felt and was happy. 
 Raphael has taught me to think I am on the way to regret 
 that I was ever created. 
 
 Creation ? No, that is only a sound lacking all mean- 
 ing, which my reason cannot receive. There was a time 
 when I knew nothing, when no one knew me : accordingl}', 
 it is usual to sa3', I was not. That time is past : there- 
 fore it is usual to say that I was created. But also of the 
 millions who existed centuries ago nothing more is now 
 known, and yet men are wont to say, they are. On what 
 do we found the right to grant the beginning and to deny 
 the end? It is assumed that the cessation of thinking 
 beings contradicts Infinite Goodness. Did, then, Infinite 
 Goodness come first into being at the creation of the 
 world? If there was a period when there were no spirits. 
 Infinite Goodness must have been imperative for a whole 
 eternity. If the fabric of tlie universe is a perfection of 
 the Creator, He, therefore, lacked a perfection before the 
 creation of the world. But an assumption like this con- 
 tradicts the idea of perfect goodness, therefore there is no 
 creation. To what have I arrived, Eaphael? Terrible 
 fallacj' of my conclusions ! I give up the Creator as soon 
 as I believe in a God. Wherefore do I require a God, if 
 I suffice without the Creator? 
 
 You have robbed me of the thought that gave me peace. 
 You have taught me to despise where I praj-ed before. A 
 tlioiisand things were venerable in my sight till 30ur dis- 
 mal wisdom stripped off the veil from them. I saw a 
 crowd of people streaming to church, I heard their enthu- 
 siastic devotion poured forth in a common act of prayer 
 and praise ; twice did I stand beside a deathbed, and saw 
 — wonderful power of religion ! — the hope of heaven 
 triumphant over the terror of annihilation, and the serene 
 light of joy beaming from the ej-es of those departing. 
 
 "Surely that doctrine must be divine," I exclaimed, 
 " which is acknowledged bj' the best among men, which 
 triumphs and comforts so wondrously ! " Your cold- 
 blooded wisdom extinguished my enthusiasm. You 
 affirmed that an equal number of devotees streamed for- 
 merly round the IrmensUule and to Jupiter's temple ; an 
 equal number of votaries, with like exultation, ascended 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 38S 
 
 the stake kindled in honor of Brahma. "Can the very 
 feeling," you added, "which you found so detestable in 
 heathenism prove the truth of your doctrine ? " 
 
 You proceeded to say: " Trust nothing bat j'our own 
 reason. There is nothing holy, save truth." I have 
 obeyed you : I have sacrificed all my opinions, 1 have set 
 Are to all my ships when I landed on this island, and 
 I have destroyed all my hopes of return. Never can 1 
 become reconciled to a doctrine which I joyfully' wel- 
 comed once. My reason is now all to me — my only 
 warrant for God, virtue, and immortality. Woe to me if 
 I catch this, my only witness, in a contradiction ! if my 
 esteem for its conclusions diminishes ! if a broken vessel 
 in my brain diverts its action ! My happiness is henceforth 
 intrusted to the harmonious action of my sensorium : woe 
 to me if the strings of this instrument give a false note in 
 the critical moments of my life — if my convictions vary 
 with my pulsations ! 
 
 Letter II. 
 
 Julius to Raphael. 
 
 Your doctrine has flattered my pride. I was a prisoner : 
 you have led me out into the daylight ; the golden 
 shimmer and the measureless vault have enraptured my 
 eye. Formerl^^ I was#atisfied with the modest reputation 
 of being a good son of my father's house, a friend of my 
 friends, a useful member of societj'. You have changed 
 me into a citizen of the universe. At that time my wishes 
 had not aspired to infringe on the rights of the great : I 
 tolerated these fortunate people because beggars tolerated 
 me. I did not blush to envj- a part of the human race, 
 because there was a still larger part of humanity that 
 I was obliged to pity. Meeting j'ou, I learned for the first 
 time that mj' claims on enjoj'ment were as well founded 
 as those of my brethren. Now, for the first time, I learned 
 that, raised one stratum above this atmosphere, I weighed 
 just as much and as little as the rulers of this world. 
 Raphael severed all bonds of agreement and of opinion. 
 I felt myself quite free ; for reason, as Raphael declared. 
 
384 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 is the only monarchy in the world of spirits, and I carried 
 mj' imperial throne in my brain. All things in heaven and 
 earth have no value, no estimation, except that which my 
 reason grants them. The whole creation is mine, for I 
 possess an irresistible omnipotence, and am empowered to 
 enjoy it fully. All spirits — one degree below the most 
 perfect Spirit — are my brethren, because we all obey one 
 rule, and do homage to one supremacy. 
 
 How magnificent and sublime this announcement sounds ! 
 What a field for my thirst of iinowledge ! But — unlucky 
 contradiction of nature — this free and soaring spirit is 
 woven together with the rigid, immovable clockwork of a 
 mortal body, mixed up with its little necessities, and 
 yoked to its fate — this god is banished into a world of 
 worms. The immense space of nature is opened to his 
 research, but he cannot think two ideas at the same time. 
 With his eyes he reaches up to the sunnj' focus of the 
 Godhead, but he himself is obliged to creep after Him 
 slowly and wearily through the elements of time. To 
 absorb one enjoyment he must give up all others : two 
 unlimited desires are too great for his little heart. Ever^"^ 
 fresh joj' costs him the sum of all previous joys. The 
 present moment is the sepulchre of all that went before it. 
 An idyllic hour of love is an intermittent pulsation of 
 friendship. 
 
 Wherever I look, Raphael, how limited man appears ! 
 How great the distance between his aims and their fulfil- 
 ment ! — yet do not begrudge him his soothing slumber. 
 Wake him not ! He was so happj' before he began to 
 inquire whither he was to go and whence he came ! 
 Reason is a torch in a prison. The prisoner knew nothing 
 of the light, but a dream of freedom appeared over him 
 like a flash in the night which leaves the darkness deeper 
 than before. Our philosophy is the unhappy curiosity of 
 CEdipus, who did not cease to inquire till the dreadful 
 oracle was unravelled. Mayest thou never learn who thou 
 art! 
 
 Does your wisdom replace what it has set aside ? If ji^ou 
 had no ke}^ to open heaven, why did you lead me away 
 from earth ? If you knew beforehand that the way to 
 wisdom leads through the frightful abj'ss of doubt, why 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 385 
 
 did you venture the innocence of j-our friend Julius on 
 this desperate throw ? — 
 
 If to the good, which I propose to do, 
 Something very bad borders far too near, 
 I prefer not to do this good. 
 
 You have pulled down a shelter that was inhabited, and 
 founded a splendid but lifeless palace on the spot. 
 
 Raphael, I claim my soul from you ! I am unhappy. 
 My courage is gone. I despair of my own strength. 
 Write to me soon! — your healing hand alone can pour 
 balm on my burning wounds. 
 
 Letter III. 
 
 Raphael to Julius. 
 
 Julius, happiness such as ours, if unbroken, would be 
 too much for human lot. This thought often haunted me 
 even in the full enjoyment of our friendship. This 
 thought, then darkening our happiness, was a salutary 
 foretaste, intended to mitigate the pain of mj- present 
 position. Hardened in the stern school of resignation, I 
 am still more susceptible of the comfort of seeing in our 
 separation a slight sacrifice whose merit ma}- win from 
 fate the reward of our future reunion. You did not yet 
 know what privation was. You suffer for the first time. 
 
 And yet it is perhaps ^n advantage for you that I have 
 been torn from you exactly at this tim.e. You have to 
 endure a malady, from which you can only perfectly recover 
 by your own energy, so as not to suffer a relapse. Tlie 
 more deserted you feel, the more jou will stir up all 
 healing power in yourself, and in proportion as jou deri\'e 
 little or no benefit from temporary and deceptive pallia- 
 tives, the more certainly will you succeed in eradicating 
 the evil fundamentally. 
 
 I do not repent that I roused j'ou from your dream, 
 though your present position is painful. I have done 
 nothing more than hasten a crisis, which every soul like 
 yours has sooner or later to pass through, and where the 
 essential thing is, at what time of life it is endured. 
 
38 G Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 There are times and seasons when it is terrible to doubt 
 truth and virtue. Woe to the man who has to flglit 
 through the quibbles of a self-sufficient reason while he is 
 immersed in the storms of the passions. I have felt in its 
 fulness all that is expressed by this, and, to preserve you 
 from similar troubles I could devise no means but to ward 
 off the pestilence by timelj' inoculation. 
 
 Nor could I, mj' dear Julius, choose a more propitious 
 time? I met you in the full and glorious bloom of 
 youthful intelligence and bodily vigor, before you had 
 been oppressed by care or enchained by passion ; full}' 
 prepared, in j-our freedom and strength, to stand the greait 
 fight, of whicli a sublime tranquillity, proHuced b}- convic- 
 tion, is the prize. Truth and error had not j-et been 
 interwoven with your interests. Your enjoyments and 
 virtues were independent of both. You required no images 
 of terror to tear j-ou from low dissipation. The feeling 
 for nobler joys had made these odious to 30U. You were 
 good from instinct and from unconsecrated moral grace. 
 I had nothiiig to fear for j'our moralitj', if a building 
 crumbled down on which it was not founded. Nor do 
 your anxieties alarm me, though you ma}' conjure up manj- 
 dark anticipations in your melancholy mood. I know you 
 better, Julius I 
 
 You are ungrateful, too ! You despise the reason, and 
 forget what joys it has procured ^'ou. Though you might 
 have escaped the dangers of doubt all j'our life, still it 
 was my duty not to deprive you of the pleasures which 
 you were capable of enjoj'ing. The height at which 3-ou 
 were was not worthy of jou. The way up which you 
 climbed gave you compensation for all of which I deprived 
 you. I still recall the deliglit — with what delight j-ou 
 blessed the moment when the bandage dropped from j'our 
 eyes ! The warmth with which j-ou grasped the truth 
 possibly may have led your all-devouring imagination to 
 an abj'ss at sight of which you draw back shuddering. 
 
 I must follow the course of j'our inquiries to discover the 
 sources of your complaints. You have written down the 
 results of 3-our thoughts : send me these papers and then 
 I will answer you. 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 387 
 
 Letter IV. 
 
 Julius to Raphael. 
 
 I HAVE been looking over vsrj papers this morning. 
 Among them I have found a lost memorandum written 
 down in those happj' hours when I was inspired with a 
 proud enthusiasm. But on looking over it how different 
 seem all the things treated of ! My former views look like 
 the gloomy boarding of a plajhouse vvlien the lights have 
 been removed. My heart sought a philosophy, and ima- 
 gination substituted her dreams. I took the warmest for 
 the truest coloring. 
 
 I seek for the laws of spirits — I soar up to the inQnite, 
 but I forget to pro^'C that they really exist. A bold attack 
 of materialism overthrows my creation. 
 
 You will read through this fragment, my dear Raphael. 
 Would that you could succeed in kindling once again the 
 extinct flames of my enthusiasm, to reconcile me again to 
 my genius ! but my pride has sunk so low that even 
 Raphael's friendly hand can hardly raise me up again. 
 
 THEOSOPHY OF JULIUS. 
 
 The 'VYorld 4ND the Thinking Being. 
 
 The universe is a thought of God. After this ideal 
 thought-fabric passed out into reality, and the new-born 
 world fulfilled the plan of its Creator — permit me to use 
 this human simile — the first duty of all thinking beings 
 has been to retrace the orighial design in this great 
 reality ; to find the principle in the mechanism, tlie unity 
 in the compound, the law in the phenomenon, and to pass 
 back from tlie structure to its primitive foundation. 
 Accordinglj- to me there is only one appearance in nature 
 — the thinking being. The great compound called the 
 world is only remarkable to me because it is present to 
 shadow forth symbolically the manifold expressions of that 
 being. All in me and out of me is only the hieroglj'ph of 
 
388 Schiller's philosophtcal letters. 
 
 a power which is like to me. The laws of nature are the 
 cyphers which the thinking mind adds on to make itself 
 understandable to intelligence — the alphabet by means of 
 which all spirits communicate with the most perfect Spirit 
 and with one another. Harmon}-, truth, order, beauty, 
 excellence, give me joj-, because they transport me into 
 the active state of their author, of their possessor, because- 
 the}' betra}' the presence of a rational and feeling Being, 
 and let me perceive my relationship with that Being. A 
 new experience in this kingdom of truth : gravitation, the 
 circulation of the blood, the natural s^'stem of Linnaeus, 
 correspond essentially in my mind to the discovery of an 
 antique dug up at Herculaneum — they are both only the 
 leflections of one spirit, a renewed acquaintance with a 
 being like myself. I speak with the Eternal through the 
 instrument of nature, — through the world's historj- : I 
 read the soul of the artist in his Apollo. 
 
 If you wish to be convinced, mv dear Raphael, look 
 back. Each state of the human mind has sorne parable 
 in the phj'sical creation bj- which it is shadowed forth; 
 nor is it only artists and poets, but even the most abstract 
 thinkers that have drawn from this source. Lively activity 
 we name fire ; time is a stream that rolls on, sweeping all 
 before it ; eternitj' is a circle ; a myster\- is hid in midnight 
 gloom, and truth dwells in the sun. Naj-, I begin to 
 believe that even the future destiny of the human race is 
 prefigured in the dark oracular utterances of bodily creation. 
 Each coming spring, forcing the sprouts of plants out of 
 the earth, gives me explanations of the awful riddle of 
 death, and contradicts m}- anxious fears about an ever- 
 lasting sleep. The swallow that we find stiffened in winter, 
 and see waking up to life after ; the dead grub coming to 
 life again as the I)utterfly and rising into the air, — all 
 these give excellent pictures of our immortality. 
 
 How strange all seems to me now, Eaphael ! Now all 
 seems peopled round about me. To me there is no solitude 
 in nature. Wherever I see a body I anticipate a spirit. 
 Wherever I trace movement I infer thought. 
 
 Where no dead lie buried, where no resurrection will be. 
 Omnipotence speaks to me this through His works, and 
 thus I understand the doctrine of the omnipresence of God. 
 
schillee's philosophical letters 389 
 
 Idea. 
 
 All spirit^ are attracted by perfection. There may be 
 deviations, but there is no exception to this, for all strive 
 after the condition of tlie highest and freest exercise of 
 their powers ; all possess the common instinct of extending ^ 
 their sphere of action ; of drawing all, and centring all 
 in themselves ; of appropriating all that is good, all that 
 is acknowledged as charming and excellent. When the 
 beautiful, the true, and the excellent are once seen, they 
 are immediately grasped at. A condition once perceived 
 by us, we enter into it immediately. At the moment when 
 we think of them, we become possessors of a virtue, 
 authors of an action, discoverers of a truth, possessors 
 of a happiness. We ourselves become the object perceived. 
 Let.no ambiguous smile from you, dear Raphael, discon- 
 cert me here, — this assumption is the basis on which I 
 found all that follovrs, and we must be agreed before I 
 take courage to complete the structure. 
 
 His inner feeling or innate consciousness tells every man 
 almost the same thing. For example, when we admire an 
 act of magnanimitj', of bravery and wisdom, does not a 
 secret feeling spring up in our heart that we are capable 
 of doing tlie same ? Does not the rush of blood coloring 
 our cheeks on hearing narratives of this kind proclaim 
 that our modesty tremfeles at the admiration called forth 
 by such acts ? that we are confused at the praise which 
 this ennobling of our nature must call down upon us? 
 Even our body at such moments agrees with the attitude 
 of the man, and shows clearlj' that our soul has passed into 
 tlie state we admire. If j'ou were ever present, Raphael, 
 when a great event was related to a large assembly, did 3'ou 
 not see how the relater waited for the incense of praise, 
 how he devoured it, though it was given to the hero of his 
 storj', — and if j^ou were ever a relater did 3'ou not trace 
 how 3"our heart was subject to this pleasing deception? 
 You have had examples, my dear Raphae.\ of how easily 
 I can wrangle with my best friend respecting the reading 
 aloud of a pleasing anecdote or of a beautiful poem, and 
 my heart told me truly on these occasions that I was only 
 
390 Schiller's PHrLosoriiirAL Mrrn-.i;>>. 
 
 (lispliwscil III voiir I'jirniiii;- oil' llio Isimvls ln'i'Miiso tliosp 
 IKisscil rroui (ho lii-ail «{' aiiUior to that of the reader. A 
 quick anil dcoi) artistie apiHvi'iatioii of virtue is justly 
 held to lie a ^ real aptiliule lor virtue, iu the saiiu' way as 
 it. is usual to have no seruplo in distrustiuu' the iieart. of a 
 man whose intelliiience is slow to take iu moral beauty. 
 
 You need n<il advauee as an ohjeetion that, lVe(iucntly, 
 coupled with a lively poreeption of a perCeetiou, the 
 opposite tailing is I'onnd to eoexist, that, evil-doei's are 
 ol'ten possessed with strong' enthusiasni for what is excel- 
 lent, and that e\en the weak llauie up into entluisiasni of 
 hercTiloau growth. 1 know, for exani|)le, thatour admiivd 
 llaller, who unmasked iu so manly a spirit the sickly 
 nothingness of \!un honors : a man wliose philoso|)hical 
 greatness 1 so highly ;ipprecialed, that lie was not great 
 enough to despise the still gi-c.alcr vanity of an order of 
 knighthood, which conferred ••in injury on his greatness. 
 I am convinced that in the ha|)py moment of Ihoir idoat 
 conceptions, the artist, tlio philosopher, and the |)oet ari' 
 really the great and good man whose iui:ige they lliruw 
 out; but with many lliis cnncjbliug of the mind is only 
 an nmiatural condition occasioned by a more active stirring 
 of the blood, or a. nunc rnpiil vibintiou of the fancy ■ it is 
 accordingly vei'y transient, like every othci- eui'hnutmeul, 
 disappearing rapidly and leaving tlie heart, more exhinisted 
 than before, and delivered over to the despotic, caprice of 
 low [lassions. I ex|iressly said more exliansted than 
 before, for universal cxpci'ii'uce teaelu's that .a rel.apsiug 
 criminal is always the most, fniious, and that the rcuegailes 
 of virtue seek additional sweets iu the arms of crime to 
 compensate for the hea\y pressui'c of re|)entance. 
 
 1 wished to est.nblish, my lva[ihacl, th.at it. is our ow.i 
 condition, when we feel that of iiuother, that perfeelio.i 
 becomes onrs for the moment, during which we raise in 
 onrsches the representation of it ; that, the delight we take 
 in truth, beauty, and virtue shows itself when elosch 
 ana.lyzed to ln' tlie consciousness of oni' individual en- 
 nobling and eni'iching; and I think I have proved this. 
 
 \Ve ha\e ideas of the wisdoui of the highest Ueiug, ot" 
 His gotxlness, of His justice, l)ut none of His onniipot.euce. 
 To descrilie His omnipotence, wc help ourselves by the 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 391 
 
 graduated repicsentaUon of three successions : Nothing, 
 His Will, and Something. It is waste and empty ; God 
 calls on liglit ; and there is light. If we had a real idea 
 of His operative omnipotence we should be creators, as He. 
 Accordingly, ever^' perfection which I perceive becomes 
 my own ; it gives me joy, because it is my own ; I desire 
 it, because 1 love myself. Perfection in nature is no 
 property of matter, but of spirits. All spirits are happy 
 through their perfection. I desire the happiness of all 
 souls, because I love myself. The happiness which I rep- 
 resent to myself becomes my happiness ; accordinglj- I 
 am interested in awakening these representations, to 
 realize them, to exalt them ; "I am interested in diffusing 
 happiness around me. Whenever I produce beauty, ex- 
 cellence, or enjoyment beyond myself, I produce myself; 
 when I neglect or destroy anything, I neglect, I destroy 
 myself. 1 desire the happiness of others, because I de- 
 sire my own ; and the desire of the happiness of others 
 we call benevolence and love. 
 
 Love. 
 
 Now, my most worthy Raphael, let me look round. 
 The height has been ascended, the mist is dissipated ; I 
 stand in tiie midst of immensitj', as in the middle of a 
 glowing landscape. A*i3urer ray of sunlight has clarified 
 all ray thoughts. Love is the nobk'st phenomenon in the 
 world of souls, the all-powerful magnet in the spiritual 
 sphere, the source of devotion and of the sublimest virtue. 
 Yet love is only the reflection of this single original 
 power, an attraction of the excellent, based upon an in- 
 stantaneous permutation of individuality, an interchange 
 of being. 
 
 When I hate, I take something from myself; when I 
 love, I become richer bj- what I love. To pardon is to 
 recovei' a property that has been lost. Misanthropy is a 
 protracted suicide : egotism is the supremest povert}' of a 
 created being. 
 
 When Raphael tore himself from m}' embrace my soul 
 was rent in twain, and I weep over the loss of mj* noblej- 
 
392 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 half. On that holy evening — jou must remember it — 
 when our souls first communed together in ardent sym- 
 pathy, all your great emotions became my own, and I only 
 entered into my unvarying right of property over your 
 excellence ; I was prouder to love you than to be loved by 
 you, for my own affection had changed me into Raphael. 
 
 Was it not this almightj' instinct 
 
 That forced our hearts to meet 
 
 In the eternal bond of love ? 
 
 Raphael ! enraptured, resting on your arm, 
 
 I yenture, joyful, the march towards perfection, 
 
 That leadeth to the spiritual sun. 
 
 Happy ! happy ! I hare found thee, 
 
 Have secured thee 'midst millions, 
 
 And of all this multitude thou art mine ! 
 
 Let the wild cliaos return ; 
 
 Let it cast adrift tlie atoms ! 
 
 Forever our hearts fly to meet each other. 
 
 Must I not draw reflections of my ecstasy 
 
 From thy radiant, ardent eyes ? 
 
 In thee alone do I wonder at myself. 
 
 The earth in brijjhter tints appears. 
 
 Heaven itself shines in more glowing light, 
 
 Seen thi'ough the soul and action of my friend. 
 
 Sorrow drops the load of tears; 
 Soothed, it rests from passion's storms, 
 Nursed upon the breast of love. 
 Nay, delight grows torment, and seeks 
 My Raphael, basking in thy soul, 
 Sweetest sepulchre ! impatiently. 
 
 If I alone stood in the great All of things, 
 
 Dreamed I of souls iu the very rocks. 
 
 And, embracing, I would have kissed them. 
 
 I would have sighed my complaints into the air; 
 
 The chasms would have answered me. 
 
 O fool ! sweet sympathy was every joy to me. 
 
 Love does not exist between monotonous souls, giving 
 out the same tone ; it is found between harmonious souls. 
 With pleasure I find again my feelings in the mirror of 
 yours, but with more ardent longing I devour the higher 
 emotions that are wanting in me Friendship and love 
 are led by one common rule. The gentle Desdemona loves 
 Othello for the dangers through which he has passed ; the 
 manly Othello loves her for the tears that she shed hearing 
 of his troubles. 
 
schillek's philosophical letteks. 393 
 
 There are moments in life wlien we are impelled to press 
 to our heart every flower, e\ery remote star, each worm, 
 and the sublimest spirit we can think of. We are im- 
 pelled to embrace them, and all nature, in the arms of our 
 affection, as things most loved. You understand me, 
 Raphael. A man who has advanced so far as to read off 
 all the beaut}', greatness, and excellence in the great and 
 small of nature, and to find the great unity for this mani- 
 fold variety, has advanced much nearer to the Divinity. 
 The great creation flows into his personality. If each 
 man loved all men, each individual would possess the 
 whole world. 
 
 I fear that the philosophy of our time contradicts this 
 doctrine. Many of our thinking brains have undertaken 
 to drive out by mockery this heavenly instinct from the 
 human soul, to efface the effigy of Deity in the soul, and 
 to dissolve this energj', this noble enthusiasm, in the 
 cold, killing breath of a pusillanimous indifference. Under 
 the slavish influence of their own unworthiness thej' have 
 entered into terms with self-interest, the dangerous foe of 
 benevolence ; they have done this to explain a phenomenon 
 which was too godlike for their narrow hearts. They have 
 spun their comfortless doctrine out of a miserable egotism, 
 and they have made their own limits the measure of the 
 Creator ; degenerate slaves decrj-ing freedom amidst the 
 rattle of their own chains. Swift, who exaggerated the 
 follies of men till he covered the whole race with infamj-, 
 and wrote at length his own name on the gallows which 
 he had erected for it — even Swift could not inflict such 
 deadly wounds on human nature as these dangerous 
 thinkers, who, laying great claim to penetration, adorn 
 their s^-stem with all the specious appearance of art, and 
 strengthen it with all the arguments of self-interest. 
 
 Why should the whole species suflfer for the shortcomings 
 of a few members ? 
 
 I admit freely that I believe in the existence of a disin- 
 terested love. 1 am lost if I do not exist ; I give up the 
 Deity, immortality, and virtue. I have no remaining proof 
 of these hopes if I cease to believe in love. A spirit that 
 loves itself alone is an atom giving out a spark in the 
 immeasurable waste of space. 
 
394 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 Sacrifice. 
 
 But love has produced effects that seem to contradict 
 its nature. 
 
 It can be conceived that I increase m3' own happiness 
 bj- a sacrifice which I offer for the happiness of others ; 
 but suppose this sacrifice is ni}- life? Histor}' has exam- 
 ples of this kind of sacrifice, and I feel most vividly that 
 it would cost me nothing to die in order to save Raphael. 
 How is it possible that we can hold death to be a means 
 of increasing the sum of our enjoyments ? How can the 
 cessation of my being be reconciled with the enriching of 
 m}- being? 
 
 The assumption of immortality removes this contradic- 
 tion ; but it also displaces the supreme gracefulness of this 
 act of sacrifice. The consideration of a future reward 
 excludes love. There must be a virtue which even with- 
 out the belief in immortality, even at the peril of annihila- 
 tion, suffices to cany out this sacrifice. 
 
 I grant it is ennobhng to the human soul to sacrifice 
 present enjoyment for a future eternal good ; it is the 
 noblest degree of egotism ; but egotism and love separate 
 humanit3' into two verj- unlike races, whose limits are 
 never confounded. 
 
 Egotism erects its centre in itself; love places it out of 
 itself in the axis of the universal whole. Love aims at 
 unity, egotism at solitude. Love is the citizen ruler of a 
 flourishing republic, egotism is a despot in a devastated 
 creation. Egotism sows for gratitude, love for the un- 
 grateful. Love gives, egotism lends ; and love does this 
 before the throno of judicial truth, indifferent if for the 
 enjoyment of the following moment, or with the view to a 
 martyr's crown — indifferent whether the reward is in this 
 life or in the next. 
 
 Think, O Eaphael, of a truth that benefits the whole 
 human race to remote ages ; add that this truth condemns 
 its confessor to death ; that this truth can only be proved 
 and believed if he dies. Concei\e this man'^ gifted with 
 the clear all-embracing and illumining eye of geniu^, with 
 the flaming torch of enthusiiism, witli all the sublime 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 395 
 
 adaptations for love ; let the grand ideal of this great ef- 
 fect be presented to his soul ; let him have only an obscure 
 anticipation of all the happ3' beings he will make ; let the 
 present and future crowd at the same time into his soul ; 
 and then answer me, — does this man require to be referred 
 to a future life ? 
 
 The sum of all these emotions will become confounded 
 with his personalitj- ; will flow together in his personal 
 identit}', his I or Ego. The human race he is thinking of 
 is himself. It is a bod^-, in which his life swims forgotten 
 like a blood-drop, forgotten, but essential to the welfare 
 of the economy ; and how quickly and readily he will shed 
 it to secure his health. 
 
 God. 
 
 All perfections in the universe are united in God. God 
 and nature are two magnitudes which are quite alike. The 
 wliole sum of harmonic activity which exists together in 
 the divine substance, is in nature the antitype of this sub- 
 stance, united to incalculable degrees, and measures, and 
 steps. If I ma}' be allowed this- expressive imagery, 
 nature is an infinitely divided God. 
 
 Just as in the prism a white ray of light is split up into 
 seven darker shades of color, so the divine personalitj' or 
 Ego has been broken into countless susceptible substances. 
 As seven darker shades melt together in one clear pencil 
 of light, out of the union of all these substances a divine 
 being would issue. The existing form of nature's fabric 
 is the optical glass, and all the activities of spirits are onlj- 
 an endless play of colors of that simple divine ray. If it 
 pleased Omnipotence some day to break up this prism, the 
 barrier between it and the world would fall down, all spirits 
 would be absorbed in one infinite spirit, all accords would 
 flow together in one common harmony, all streams would 
 find their end in the ocean. 
 
 The bodily form of nature came to pass through the 
 attractive force of the elements. The attraction of spirits, 
 varied and developed infinitely, would at length lead to 
 the cessation of that separation (or maj- I venture the ex- 
 pression) would produce God. An attraction of this kind 
 is love. 
 
39(J SCHILLEIi'S PHILOSOPHICAL LETTEIIS. 
 
 Accordingly, my dear Raphael, love is the ladder by 
 which we climb up to likeness to God. Unconsciously to 
 ourselves, without laying claim to it, we aim at this. 
 
 Lifeless masses are we, when we hate ; 
 Gods, when we cling in love to one another, 
 Rejoicing" in the gentle bond of love. 
 Upwards this divincst impulse holdeth sway 
 Through the thousandfold degrees of creation 
 Of countless spirits who did not create. 
 
 Arm-in-arm, higher and still higher, 
 
 From the savage to the Grecian seer. 
 
 Who is linlced to the last seraph of the ring, 
 
 We turn, of one mind, in the same magic dance, 
 
 Till measure, and e'en time itself. 
 
 Sink at death in the boundless, glowing sea. 
 
 Friendless was the great world's Master; 
 And feeling this, he made the spirit world 
 Blessed mirrors of his own blessedness! 
 And though the Highest found no equal. 
 Yet infinitude foams upward unto Him 
 From the vast basin of creation's realm. 
 
 Love is, Raphael, the great secret that can restore the 
 dishonored king of gold from the flat, unprofitable chalk ; 
 that can save the eternal from the temporal and transient, 
 and the great oracle of duration from the consuming con- 
 flagration of time. 
 
 What does all that has been said amount to ? 
 
 If we perceive excellence, it is ours. Let us become 
 intimate with the high ideal unit}-, and we shall be drawn 
 to one another in brotherlj- love. If we plant beauty and 
 joy we shall reap beautj* and joy. If we think clearl}' we 
 shall love ardently. "Be ye perfect, as your Father in 
 heaven is perfect," says the Founder of our Faith. Weak 
 human nature turned pale at tliis command, therefore He 
 explained himself in clearer terms : " Love one another ! '' 
 
 Wisdom, with thy sunlike look. 
 Awful goddess ! turn thee back. 
 
 And give way to Ijove ; 
 Who before thee went, with hero heart, 
 Up the steep and stormy path 
 To the Godhead's very throne ; 
 Who, unveiling the Holiest, 
 Showed to thee Elysium 
 Thi'ough the vaulted sepulchre. 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 397 
 
 Did it not invito vis in ? * 
 
 Could we reach immortality — 
 Or could wc seek the spirit 
 Without Love, the spirit's master ? 
 Love, Love leadeth only to Nature's Father, 
 
 Only love the spirits. 
 
 I have now given j'on, Raphael, my spirit's confession 
 of faith — a fl.ying outline of the creation I have under- 
 taken. As 3'ou may perceive, the seed which you scattered 
 in my soul took root. Mock, or rejoice, or blush at jour 
 scholar, as you please. Certain it is this philosophj' has 
 ennobled ray heart, and extended and beautified the per- 
 spective of my life. It is possible, my excellent friend, 
 that the entire structure of my conclusions may have been 
 a baseless and visionary edifice. Perhaps the world, as I 
 depicted it, nowhere exists, save in the brain of jour 
 Julius. Perhaps, after the lapse of thousands on thousands 
 of years, when the wiser Judge promised in the future, 
 sits on the judgment-seat, at the sight of the true original, 
 filled with confusion, I should tear in pieces my schoolboy's 
 design. All this may happen — I expect it ; and even if 
 not a vestige of reality is found in my dream, the reality 
 will fill me with proportionately greater delight and wonder. 
 Ought mj- ideas to be more beautiful than those of the 
 Creator? How so? Could we tolerate that His exalted 
 artistic structure should fall beneath the expectations of a 
 mortal connoisseur? This is exactlj- the fierj- probation 
 of His great perfection, ^nd the sweetest triumph for the 
 Exalted Spirit, that false conclusions and deception do not 
 injure His acknowledgment ; that all tortuous deviations 
 of the wandering reason at length strike into the straight 
 road of everlasting truth ; that all diverging arms and 
 currents ultimately meet in the main stream. What an 
 idea, Raphael, I form of-the Great Artist, who, differently 
 travestied in a thousand copies, still retains identical fea- 
 tures in all this diversity, from which even the depreciating 
 hand of a blunderer cannot remove admiration. 
 
 Moreover, my representation may certainly be fallacious, 
 wholly an invention, — naj-, I am persuaded that it must 
 necessarily be so ; and yet it is possible that all results of 
 this may come to pass. All great sages are agreed that 
 our whole knowledge moves on ultimatelj- to a conven- 
 
398 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 tional' deception, with which, however, the strictest truth 
 can co-exist. Our purest ideas are by no means images 
 of things, but onlj' their signs or sj'mbols determined by 
 necessity, and co-existing with them. 
 
 Neither God, nor the human soul, nor the world, are 
 really- what we consider them . Our thoughts of these are 
 only the endemic forms in which the planet we inhabit 
 hands them to us. Our brain belongs to this planet; 
 accordingly, also, the idioms of our ideas, which are 
 treasured up in it. But the power of the soul is peculiar, 
 necessary, and always consistent : the capricious nature 
 of the materials through which it finds expression changes 
 nothing in the eternal laws, as long as this capriciousness 
 does not stand in contradiction with itself, and so long as 
 the sign remains true to the thing it designates. As the 
 thinking power develops the relations of the idioms, 
 these relations of things must also reall}- be present in 
 them. Therefore, truth is no property of the idioms, 
 but of the conclusion ; it is not the likeness of the sign 
 with the thing signified, of the conception with the object ; 
 but the agreement of this conception with the laws of 
 thought. In a similar manner, the doctrine of quantitj' 
 makes use of cyphers which are nowhere present, except 
 upon paper, and yet it finds with them what is present in 
 the world of reality. For example, what resemblance is 
 there between the letters A and B, the signs: and =, 
 + , and — , and the fact that has to be ascertained? Yet 
 the comet, foretold centuries before, advances from a 
 remote corner of the heavens, and the expected planet 
 eclipses the disk at the proper time. Trusting to the in- 
 fallibilitv of his calculation, the discoverer Columbus 
 plunges into unknown regions of the sea to seek the 
 missing other half of the known hemisphere — the great 
 island of Atlantis — to fill up a blank in his geographical 
 map. He found this island of his paper calculation, and 
 his calculation was right. Would it have been less great 
 if a hostile storm had shattered his fleet or driven it back ? 
 The human mind makes a similar calculation when it 
 measures the supersensual bj- means of the sensible, and 
 when mathematics applies its conclusions to the hidden 
 phjrsics of the superhuman. But the last test of its calcu- 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 399 
 
 lations is still wanting, for no traveller has come back 
 from that land to relate his discover^-. Human nature has 
 its proper bounds, and so also has the individual. We 
 will give each other mutual comfort respecting the former : 
 Raphael will concede this to the bo3ish age of his Julius. 
 I am poor in conceptions, a stranger in man}' branches of 
 knowledge which are thought to be essential in inquiries 
 of this nature. I have not belonged to an}- philosophical 
 school, nor have I read many printed books. It may quite 
 well be that I occasionally substitute my fancies in the 
 place of stricter logical proofs, that I mistake the rush of 
 mj' blood or the hopes of mj- heart for sound wisdom ; yet, 
 my dear friend, 3fOu must not grudge me the moments I 
 have thus lost. It is a real gain for universal perfection : 
 it was the provision of the Wisest Spirit that the erring 
 rfeason should also people the chaotic world of dreams, 
 and make fruitful even the barren ground of contradiction. 
 It is not only the mechanical artist who polishes the rough 
 diamond into a brilliant whom we ought to value, but also 
 that one who ennobles mere ordinary stones by giving 
 them the apparent dignity of the diamond. The industry 
 displayed in the forms may sometimes make us forget the 
 massive truth of the substance. Is not everj' exercise of 
 the thinking power, everj- sharpening of the edge of the 
 spirit; a little step towards its perfection ; and ever}' per- 
 fection has to obtain a being and substantial existence in 
 a complete and perfect world. Reality is not confined to 
 the absolutely necessary ; it also embraces the conditionally 
 necessary : every offspring of the brain, every work elabo- 
 rated by the wit, has an irresistible right of citizenship 
 in this wider acceptation of creation. In the measureless 
 plan of nature no activity was to be left out, no degree 
 of enjoyment was to be wanting in universal happiness. 
 The great Inventive Spirit would not even permit error to 
 be wasted, nor allow this wide world of thought to remain 
 empty and chaotic in the mind of man. For the Great 
 Ruler of His world does not even allow a straw to fall 
 without use, leaves no space uninhabited where life may 
 be enjoyed ; for He converts the very poison of man into 
 the food of vipers ; He even raises plants from the realm 
 of corruption, and hospitabl}' grants the little glimmer of 
 
400 schillek's philosophical letters. 
 
 pleasure that can co-exist with madness. He turns crime 
 and folly into excellence, and weaves out of the very vices 
 of a Tarquin the great idea of the universal monarchy of 
 Rome. Every facility of the reason, even in error, 
 increases its readiness to accept truth. 
 
 Dear friend of mj- soul, suffer me to add m}"^ contribu- 
 tion to the great woof of human wisdom. The image of 
 the sun is reflected differently- in the dewdrop and in the 
 majestic mirror of the wide-stretching ocean. Shame to 
 the turbid, murky swamp, which never receives and never 
 reflects this image ! Millions of plants drink from the 
 four elements of nature ; a magazine of supplies is open 
 for all : but the}- mix their sap in a thousand different 
 waj's, and return it in a thousand new forms. The most 
 beautiful variety- proclaims a rich Lord of this house. 
 There are four elements from which all spirits draw their 
 supplies : their Ego or individualit}'. Nature, God, and 
 the Future All intermingle in millions of ways and offer 
 themselves in a million differences of result : but one truth 
 remains which, like a firm axis, goes through all religions 
 and systems — draw nigh to the Godhead of whom 3-ou 
 think ! 
 
 Letter V. 
 
 Raphael to Julius. 
 
 It would be il'ery unfortunate, my dear Julius, if there 
 were no other way of quieting j'ou than by restoring the 
 first-fruits of j-our belief in you. I found with delight 
 these ideas, which I saw gaining in 3-ou, written down in 
 your papers. The}' are worthy of a soul like 3-ours, but 
 3-0U could not remain stationary in them. There are joys 
 for every age and enjoyments for each degree of spirits. 
 It must have been a difficult thing for 3-0U to sever your- 
 self from a system that was entirely made to meet the 
 wants of 3-our heart. I would wager that no other system 
 will strike such deep roots in you, and, possibl}-, if left 
 quite to your own direction, you would sooner or later 
 become reconciled to your favorite ideas. You would 
 soon remark the weakness of the opposite system, and 
 
schillee's philosophical letters. 401 
 
 then, if both systems appeared equally deficient in proof, 
 you would prefer the most desirable one, or, perhaps, you 
 would find new arguments to preserve at least the essential 
 features of your former theorj-, even if a few more 
 doubtful points had to be given up. 
 
 But all this is remote from my plan. You must arrive 
 at a hyghev freedom of mind, where j'ou no longer require 
 support. I grant that this is not the affair of a moment. 
 The first aim of the earliest teaching is comrnonlj' the 
 subjugation of the mind, and among all the artifices of the 
 art of education this generally succeeds the first. Even 
 you, though endowed with great elasticity of character, 
 )-et appear destined to submit readilj' to the sway of 
 opinions, and even more inclined to this than thousands ; 
 and this state of infancy might last verj' long with you, as 
 you do not readily feel the oppression of it. Your head 
 and heart are in verj- close connection. A doctrine is 
 sweet to you on account of the teacher. You soon suc- 
 ceeded in finding an interesting side in this doctrine, you 
 ennobled it according to the wants of jour heart, and you 
 suffered your mind to be resigned to other points that 
 must needs appear strange to j'ou. You regarded attacks 
 on this doctrine as bojnsh revenge taken by a slavish soul 
 against the rod of its tutor. You played with your 
 chains, which jou thought j'ou carried by jour own free 
 will. 
 
 I found you in this Situation, and the sight gave me 
 pain — how, in the midst of the enjoj'ment of your glowing- 
 life, and while giving expression to j-our noblest powers, 
 you were hemmed in bj- narrow considerations. The verj' 
 logical consistency with which j'ou acted according to j'our 
 convictions, and the strength of soul that made everj- sac- 
 rifice light to you, were twofold hinderances to j'our activity 
 and to j'our joj"s. I then resolved to set aside these 
 clumsy efforts bj- wliieh it had been endeavored to cramp 
 a soul like j^ours in the measure of ordinary natures. The 
 result of j'our first exertions favored mj- intentions. I 
 admit that j-our imagination was more actively emplojed 
 upon the work th^n was j-our penetration. The loss of 
 j'our fondest convictions was more than atoned for by j'Our 
 presentiments, which gathered results much more rapidly 
 
402 Schiller's PHiLosoriiicAL letters. 
 
 than the tortoise pace of cold scientific inquiiy, passing 
 from the known to the unknown, Your kind of inspired 
 system gave j'ou 3'our first enjojment in this new field of 
 activity, and I was very careful not to destroy a welcome 
 enthusiasm which was ver}' favorable to the development 
 of your excellent disposition. The scene is now changed. 
 A return into the restrictions of infancj' is closed forever. 
 Your way leads onwards, and you require no further 
 precautions. 
 
 You must not be surprised to find that a sj-stem such as 
 yours cannot resist the searching of a severe criticism. 
 All essays of this kind, equal in breadth and boldness to 
 yours, have had no other fate. It was also most natural 
 that your philosophical progress began with you individ- 
 ually, as with the human race in general. The Jirst object 
 on which man's spirit of inquiry first attempted its strength 
 was, at all times, the universe. Hj-potheses relating to 
 the origin of the world, and the combination of its parts, 
 had occupied the greatest thinkers for ages, when Socrates 
 called down the philoso[)hy of his day from heaven to 
 earth. But the limits of human wisdom were too narrow 
 for the proud intellect of his followers. New sj'stems 
 arose on the ruins of the former ones. The penetrating 
 mind of subsequent ages explored the immeasurable field 
 of possible answers to those ever-recurring questions, 
 bearing on the mysterious interior of nature, which could 
 not be disclosed by any human intellect. Some, indeed, 
 succeeded in giving a certain coloring of distinctness, 
 completeness, and evidence to their views. There are 
 many conjuring tricks by which the pride of reason seeks 
 to avoid the disgrace of not being able to exceed the 
 bounds of human nature in extending the circle of its 
 knowledge. It is a frequent conceit with men to believe 
 that thej' have discovered new truths, when thej- have dis- 
 sected a conception into the separate elements out of which 
 it was first compounded by an act of caprice. Not unfre- 
 quently an imperceptible assumption lies at the basis of a 
 chain of consequences, whose breaks and deficiencies are 
 cunningly concealed, while the false conclusions are ad- 
 mired as sublime wisdom. In other cases, partial expe- 
 riences are accumulated to found a hypothesis, and all 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 403 
 
 contradicton- phenomena are eithef gnored, or the mean- 
 ing of words is changed according to the requirements of 
 the reasoning. Nor is it only the pliilosophical quacli who 
 employs these conjuring tricks to deceive the public ; 
 without being conscious of it, the most upright and the 
 least prejudiced thinker uses analogous means to satisfy 
 his thirst for knowledge directh- that he issues from the 
 only sphere where reason can legitimatel}' enjo3' the fruit 
 of its activity. 
 
 After what you have heard me saj- on former occasions, 
 Julius, these expressions must cause j'ou no little aston- 
 ishment ; yet they are not the product of a sceptical 
 caprice. 1 could la^- before j-ou the foundations on which 
 they rest, but this would require, as prelude, a somewhat 
 dr}' examination into the natm-e of human knowledge, — 
 and I prefer to reserve this for a time when you will feel 
 the want of it. You have not jet arrived at that state of 
 mind when humiliating truths on the limits of human 
 knowledge can have any interest for you. Make a first 
 essaj- with the system which has supplanted j-our own in 
 j-our mind. Examine it with the same impartiality as 
 severity. Proceed in the same manner with other theories 
 with which j-ou have recently become acquainted ; and if 
 none of them can fully satisfy your requirements, 30U will 
 ask yourself if, after all, these requirements are reason- 
 able. 
 
 Perhaps you will teB me this is a poor consolation. 
 You will infer that resignation is your onlv refuge after 
 so many brilliant hopes had been raised. " Was it worth 
 while," you will say, " to challenge me to a full exercise 
 of raj- reason in order to set bounds to it at the verj 
 moment when it was beginning to bear the noblest fruit r 
 Was I only to become acquainted with a higher enjoyment 
 in order to feel with a double keenness how painful it is to 
 ^e thus bounded ? " 
 
 Nevertheless, it is this very feeling of discouragement 
 that I expresslj' wish to banish from your soul. Mj* aim 
 .s this : to remove all that places an obstacle to the free 
 t.njoyment of j'our being, to bring to life in you the germ 
 of all lofty inspiration — the consciousness of the nobilitj- 
 of Jour soul. You have been awakened from the slumber 
 
404 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 in which j-ou were i-ocked bj' the slaver}- of others' opin 
 ions ; but 3-ou would never reach the degree of grandeur 
 to which j-ou are called if you dissipated j'our strength in 
 the pursuit of an unattainable end. This course was a)' 
 proper up to the present time ; it was the natural conse- 
 quence of your recently acquired freedom. It was neces- 
 sary that the ideas which had most engaged you previously 
 should give the first impulse to the activity of your mind. 
 Among all possible directions that your mind could take, 
 is its present course the most fertile in results? The 
 answer would be given, sooner or later, by your own ex- 
 perience. My part was confined to hastening, if possible, 
 this crisis. 
 
 It is a common prejudice to take as a measure of the 
 greatness of man that matter on which he works, and not 
 the manner of his work. But it is certain that a superior 
 Being honors the stamp of perfection- even in the most 
 limited sphere, whilst He casts an eye of pity on the vain 
 attempts of the insect which seeks to overlook the universe. 
 It follows from this that I am especially unwilling to agree 
 to the proposition in jom papers, which assumes that the 
 higli destiny of man is to detect the spirit of the Divine 
 Artist in the work of creation. To express the activity 
 of infinite perfection, I admit that I do not know any sub- 
 limer image than art ; but you appear to have overlooked 
 an important distinction. The universe is not the pure 
 expression of an ideal, like the accomplished work of a 
 human artist. The latter governs despotically the inani- 
 mate matter which he uses to give a body to his ideas. 
 But in the divine work the proper value of each one of its 
 pa~ts is respected, and this conservative respect with which 
 the Great Architect honors every germ of activity, even 
 in the lowliest creature, glorifies it as much as the harmony 
 of the immeasurable whole. Life and liberty to all pos- 
 sible extent are the seal of divine creation ; nowhere is it 
 more sublime than where it seems to have departed most 
 widely from its ideal. But it is precisely this highest per- 
 fection that prevents us from grasping the limits in which 
 we are at present confined. We embrace only too small a 
 part of the universe, and the explanation of most of its 
 discords is inaccessible to our faculties. Each step we 
 
SCHILLER'S PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS. 405 
 
 climb in tlie scale of being will malie us more susceptible 
 of these enjoj'ments of art ; but even then their onlj' 
 value will be that of means, and to excite us to an analo- 
 gous exercise of our activity. The idle admiration of a 
 greatness foreign to ourselves can never be a great merit. 
 A superior man is never wanting in matter for his activity, 
 nor in the forces necessar3- to become himself a creator in 
 his sphere. This vocation is yours also, Julius ; when jou 
 have recognized this you will never have a thought of com- 
 plaining of the limits that your desire of knowledge can- 
 not overstep. 
 
 When you have arrived at this conviction I expect to find 
 you wholly reconciled to me. You must first know fully 
 •^he extent of your strength before you can appreciate the 
 ,-alue of its freest manifestation. Till then, continue to 
 be dissatisfied with me, but do not despair of yourself. 
 
ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ANIMAI 
 AND THE SPIRITUAL NATURE IN MAN. 
 
 " It behooves us to clearly realize, as tjie broad facts which have 
 most wide-reaching consequences in mental physiology and patliol- 
 ogy, that all parts of the body, the highest and the lowest, liave a 
 sympathy witli one another more intelligent than conscious intelli- 
 . gence can yet, or perhaps ever will, conceive; that there is not an 
 organic motion, visible or invisible, sensible or insensible, ministrant 
 to the noblest oc to the most humble purposes, which does not work 
 its appointed effect in the complex recesses of the mind, and that 
 llie mliid, as the croioning achievement of organization, and the 
 consaiiiination and outcome of all its energies, really conqjrehends 
 the bodily life." — JVIawdeslbt, Body and Mind. 
 
 " It is an indisputable truth that what we call the material world 
 is only known to us under the forms of the ideal world, and, as 
 Descartes tells us, our knowledge of the soul is more intimate and 
 certain than our knowledge of the body." — Huxley. 
 
 Introduction. 
 §1. 
 
 Many philosophers Lave asserted that the bodj' is, as it 
 were, the prison-house of the spirit, holding it onlj- too 
 firmlj' to what is earthly, and checking its so-called flight 
 towards perfection. On the other hand, it has been held 
 by another philosophic school that knowledge and virtue 
 are not so much an end as a means towards happiness, 
 and that the whole perfection of man culminates in the 
 amelioration of his body. 
 
 Both opinions,* methinks, are one-sided. The latter 
 sj'stem has almost entirely disappeared from our schemes 
 
 *■ Huxley, speaking of psychology and physiology (idealism and ma- 
 terialism), says : " Our stem divides into two main branches, which grow 
 in opposite ways, and bear flowers which look as ilifferent as they can well 
 be. But eacli branch is sound and licallliy, and has as much life and 
 vigor as tlie otlicr. If a botanist found tbi« state of tbings in a new plant, 
 T imagine lie might be inclined to think that his tree was monoecious, that 
 the flowers were of different sexes, and that, so far ii'om setting up a 
 
 406 
 
SCHILLER'S PHILOSOPHtCAL LETTEES. 407 
 
 of ethics and philosophy, and is, I am inclined to think, 
 not seldom cast out with over-fanatical zeal — (nothing 
 assuredly is so dangerous to truth as when one-sided 
 opinions meet with one-sided opponents). The former 
 system has on the whole been more patiently endured, since 
 it has the greatest capacity for warming the heart towards 
 virtue, and has alread3' justified its value in the case of 
 truly great souls. Who is there that does not admire the 
 strength of mind of a Cato, the lofty virtue of a Brutus 
 and Aurelius, theequanimity of an Epictetus and a Seneca ? 
 But, in .spite of all this, the system in question is nothing 
 more than a beautiful aberration of the understanding, a 
 real extreme, which in its wild enthusiasm underrates one 
 part of our human nature, and desires to raise us into the 
 order of ideal beings without at the same time relieving 
 us of our humanity, — a system which runs directly- con- 
 trary to all that we historically know or philosophically 
 can explain either of the evolution of the single man or 
 of that of the entirer ace, and can in no way be reconciled 
 with the limitations of our human soul. It is therefore 
 here, as ever, the wisest plan to hold the balance between 
 the two opinions, and thus reach with greater certainty 
 the middle line of truth. But, inasmuch as a mistake has 
 very often been committed by treating the mental powers 
 
 banier between the branches of the tree, the only hope of fertility lay in 
 bringing them together. ' Xjiis is my notion of what is to be done with 
 physics and metaphysics, ^eir differences are complementary, not antag- 
 onistic, and thought will never be completely fruitful until the one unites 
 with the other." — HtJXLET, Macmillan's Mag., May 1870. 
 
 Descartes' method (according to Huxley) leads straight up to the critical 
 idealism of his great successor, Kant, in declaring that the ultimate fact of 
 all knowledge is a consciousness — and therefore affirming that the 
 highest of all certainties, and indeed the only absolute certainty, is the 
 existence of mind. But it stops short of Berkeley in declaring that matter 
 does not exist : his arguments against its existence would equally tend to 
 prove the non-existence of soul. In Descartes' system, the body is simply 
 a machine, in the midst of which the rational soul (peculiar to man) is 
 lodged, and which it directs at its will, as a skilful engineer familiar with 
 its working might do — through will and tlirough affection he can "in- 
 crease, slacken, and alter their movements at his pleasure." At the same 
 time, he admits, in all that regards its mere animal life — in active 
 fuuctions, such as those connected with hunger, respiration, sleep, diges- 
 tion; in many passive ones, such as we are accustomed to call mental, as 
 in memory, the perception of color, sound — a purely automatic action 
 of the body, which it pursues simply by following out its own laws, 
 independent of the soul's direction or interference. 
 
408 sohillek's philosophical letters. 
 
 in an exclusive way, that is, in so far as they can be con- 
 sidered in independence of the body, and through an 
 intentional subordhiation of this same body, the aim of 
 this present essay will -be to bring into a clearer light the 
 remarkable contributions mode by the body to the workings 
 of the soul, and the great and real influence of the animal 
 system of sensations upon the spiritual. But this is as 
 like the philosophy of Epicurus as the holding of virtue 
 to be the summuni bonum is stoicism. 
 
 Before we seek to discover those higher moral ends 
 which the animal nature assists us in attaining to, we 
 must establish their physical necessity, and come to an 
 agreement as to some fundamental conceptions. 
 
 PHYSICAL CONNECTION. 
 
 The Animal Nature Strengthens the Action op the 
 Spirit. 
 
 § 2. — Organism of the Operations of the Soul — of its 
 Maintenance and Support — of Generation. 
 
 All those conditions which we accept as requisite to the 
 perfection of man in the moral and material world may be 
 included in one fundamental sentence : The perfection of 
 man consists in his ability to exercise his powers in the 
 observation of the plan of the world ; and since between 
 the measure of the power and the end towards which it 
 works there must exist the completest harmony, perfection 
 will consist in the highest possible activity of his powers, 
 and, at the same time, in their mutual subordination. 
 But the action of the human soul is — from a necessity 
 which I do not understand — bound fast to the action of 
 matter. The changes in the world of matter must be 
 modified and, so to speak, refined hy a peculiar class of 
 secondary powers — I mean the senses — before they can 
 produce in me any correspouduig ideas ; while, on the 
 other hand, a fresh set of organic powers, the agents of 
 voluntary movements, must come into play between the 
 
bchillek's philosophical letters. 409 
 
 inner spirit and the outward world in order to make the 
 changes of the former tell upon the latter ; thus must the 
 operations of thinking and sensation alike correspond to 
 certain movements of the internal sensorium. All this 
 goes to make up the organism of the soul's activities. 
 
 But matter is spoil stolen from the eternal change, and 
 wears itself awa^', even as it works ; in its movement its 
 very element is driven from its grooves, chased awaj- and 
 lost. Because now, on the contrarj', that simple essence, 
 the soul, possesses in itself permanence and stabilitj-, and 
 in its essence neither gains nor loses aught, — matter can- 
 not keep step with the activity of the spirit, and there 
 would thus soon be an end of the organism of spiritual 
 life, and therewith of all action of the soul. To prevent 
 which there must be added to the first system of organic 
 powers a second one, which shall make good the losses sus- 
 tained, and sustain the decay by a chain of new creations 
 ready to take the place of those that have gone. This is 
 the organism of maintenance. 
 
 Still further. After a short period of activity, when the 
 equal balance of loss and reparation is once removed, man 
 quits the stage of life, and the law of mortality depopu- 
 lates the earth. There is not room enough for the multi- 
 tude of sentient beings, whom eternal love and wisdom 
 seemed to have called t<? a happy existence, to live side by 
 side within the narrow boundaries of our world, and the 
 life of one generation shuts out the life of another. There- 
 fore was it necessary that new men should appear, to take 
 the place of those who had departed, and that life should 
 be kept up in unbroken succession. But of creation there 
 is no longer any trace ; what now becomes new becomes 
 so only by development. The development of man must 
 come to pass through man, if it is to bear a proportion to 
 the original number, if man is to be cultivated into man. 
 On this account a new sj'stem of organic powers was 
 added to the two that had preceded it, which had for its 
 object to quicken and to develop the seed of humanity. 
 This is the organism of generation. 
 
 These three organisms, brought into the most thorough 
 connection, local and real, go to form the human body. 
 
410 schillee's philosophical letters. 
 
 § Z.— The Body. 
 
 The organic powers of the human body naturally divide 
 themselves into two principal classes. The first class em- 
 braces those which no known laws and phenomena of the 
 physical world enable us to comprehend ; and to these be- 
 long the sensibility of tke nerves and the irritabilit}' of the 
 muscles. Inasmuch as it has hitherto been impossible to 
 penetrate the economy of the invisible, men have sought 
 to interpret this unknown mechanism through that with 
 which they were already familiar, and have considered the 
 nerves as a canal conducting an excessively fine, volatile, 
 and aclive fluid, which in rapidit3' of motion and fineness 
 was held to excel ether and the electric spark. This fluid 
 was held to be the principle and author of our sensibilitj' 
 and power of motion, and hence received the name of the 
 spirit of life. Further, the irritability of the muscles was 
 held to consist in a certain effort to contract themselves 
 on the touch of some external provocation. These two 
 principles go to form the specific character of animal 
 organism. 
 
 The second class of powers embraces those which we 
 can account for by the universallj--known laws of physics. 
 Among these I reckon the mechanism of motion, and the 
 chemistry of the human bod}', the source of vegetable 
 life. Vegetation, then, and animal mechanism, thoroughly 
 mingled, form the proper ph3'sical life of the human body. 
 
 § 4. — Animal Life. 
 
 This is not yet all. Since loss or misfortune, when it 
 occurs, falls more or less within the will-power of the 
 spirit, the spirit must be able to make some compensation 
 for it. Further, since the bod^- is subjected to all the 
 consequences of this connection, and in the circle of cir- 
 cumstances is exposed to countless hostile forces, it must 
 be within the power of the soul to protect the bodj' against 
 these harmful influences, and to bring it into such rela- 
 tions with the physical world as shall tend most to its 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 411 
 
 preservation. The soul must therefore be conscious of the 
 present evil or good state of its organs ; from a bad state 
 it must draw dissatisfaction, from a good state satisfaction, 
 so that it ma}- either retain or remove the condition, seek 
 it or flj' from it. Here then we have the organism at once 
 and closely linked to the sensational capacity, and the 
 soul drawn into the service of the body. We have now 
 something more than vegetation, something more than a 
 dead model and the mechanism of nerves and muscles. 
 Now we have animal life.* 
 
 A health}- condition of our animal life is, as we know, 
 most important for the heaJth}- condition of our spiritual 
 life ; and we dare never ignore the animal life so long as 
 we are not quit of it. It must therefore possess a firm 
 foundation, not easily moved ; that is, the soul must be 
 fitted and prepared for the actions of our bodily life by an 
 irresistible power. Were then the sensations of our ani- 
 mal loss or well-being to become spiritual perceptions, and 
 had they to be created b}" thought, how often would the 
 soul be obscured by the overwhelming blaze of passion ; 
 how often stifled %• laziness and stupidity ; how often 
 overlooked in the absorptions and distractions of business ! 
 Further, would not, in this case, the most perfect knowl- 
 edge of his economy be demanded of the animal man — 
 would not the child need to be a master in a branch of 
 knowledge in which, after fiftj' 3'ears of investigation, 
 Harvey, Boerhaave, and Haller were only beginners ? The 
 soul could thus have positively no idea of the condition 
 she was called upon to alter. How shall she become ac- 
 quainted with it ? how shall she begin to act at all ? 
 
 * But we have something move than the animal life of the animal 
 '^beast). A beast lives an animal life in order that it may experience 
 oleasaiit sensations. It experiences pleasant sensations that it inay preserve 
 the animal life. It lives now, therefore, in order that it may live again to- 
 morrow. It is happy now that it may be happy to-morrow. But it is a 
 simple, an uncertain happiness, which depentls upon the action of the or 
 ' ganism, it is a slave to luck and blind chance ; because it consists in sensa- 
 tion only. Man, too, lives an animal life, — is sensible of its pleasures aun 
 suffers its pains. But why ? He feels and suffers that he may preserve 
 his animal life. He preserves his animal life that he may longer have the 
 power to live a spiritual one. Here, then, the means differ from the end ; 
 there, end and means seem to coincide. This is one of the lines of separa- 
 tion between man and the animal. 
 
412 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 § 5. — Animal Sensations. 
 
 So far we have met with such sensations only as they 
 take their rise in an antecedent operation of the under- 
 standing ; but we have now to deal with sensations in 
 which the understanding bears no part. These sensations, 
 if the^- are not exactly the expression of the present state 
 of our organs, mark it out specifically, or, better, accom- 
 pany it. These sensations have quickly and forcibly to 
 determine the will to aversion or desire ; but, on the other 
 hand, they are ever to float on the surface of the soul, and 
 never to extend to the province of the reason. The part, 
 aecordinglj', played by thought, in the case of a mental 
 perception, is here taken up by that modification in the 
 animal parts of us which either threatens the destruction 
 of the sensation or insures its duration : that is, an eter- 
 nal law of wisdom has combined with that condition of the 
 machine which confirms its welfare, a pleasant emotion of 
 the soul; and, on the other hand, with that condition 
 which undermines it and threatens ruin, an unpleasant 
 emotion is connected ; and this in such a manner that the 
 sensation itself has not the faintest resemblance to the 
 state of the organs of which it is the mark. Animal sen- 
 sations have, on this showing, a double origin : (1) in the 
 present state of the machine ; (2) in the capacity or fac- 
 ulty (of sensation). 
 
 We are now able to understand how it is that the ani- 
 mal sensations have the power to drive the soul with an 
 irresistible tyrannj' in the direction of passionate action, 
 and not seldom gain the upper hand in a struggle with 
 those sensations which are most purely intellectual. For 
 these last the soul has produced by means of thought, and 
 therefore they can by thought be solved or even destroyed. 
 Abstraction and philosophy have this power over the pas- 
 sions, over opinions — in short, over all the situations of 
 life ; but the animal sensations are forced upon the soul 
 by a blind necessity, by a stern mechanical law. The 
 understanding, which did not create them, likewise cannot 
 dissolve them and make them as if they were not, though 
 by giving an opposite direction to our attention it can rlo 
 
SCHrLLEE'S PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS. 413 
 
 much to weaken their power and obscure their pretensions. 
 The most stubborn stoic, lying in the agony of the stone, 
 will never be able to boast that he did pot feel its pain ; 
 but, lost in the consideration of the end of his existence, 
 he will be able to divide his whole power of sensation and 
 perception, and the preponderating pleasure of a great 
 achievement, which can subordinate even pain to the gen- 
 eral welfare, will be victorious over the present discomfort. 
 It was neither absence of nor annihilation of sensation 
 that enabled Mucins, while he was roasting his hand in the 
 fire, to gaze upon the foe with the Roman look of proud 
 repose, but the thought of great Rome in admiration of 
 his deed. This it was that ruled in his soul, and kept it 
 grandly self-possessed, so that the terrible provocation of 
 the animal pain was too slight to disturb the equal balance 
 of his nature. But not on this account was the pain the 
 Roman suffered less than it would have been in the case 
 of the most effeminate voluptuary. True enough, the 
 I'an who is accustomed to pass his days in a state of con- 
 fused ideas will be less capable of manly action, in the 
 critical moment of scijsuous pain, than he who lives per- 
 sistently among ideas distinct and clear ; but, for all that, 
 neither the loftiest virtue, nor the profoundest philosophy, 
 nor even divine religion, can save a man from the result 
 of a necessary lay,, though religion can bless her servants 
 even at the stake, and make them happy as the pile gives 
 way. ^ 
 
 The wisest purpose is served by the power which the 
 animal sensations possess over the perceptive faculty of 
 the soul. The spirit once initiated in the rajsteries of a 
 higher pleasure would look with disdain upon the motions 
 of its companion, and would pay no heed to the poor ne- 
 cessities of physical life, were it not that the animal 
 feeling compelled it to do so. The mathematician, soaring 
 in the region of the infinite, and dreaming away realit}" in 
 a world of abstractions, is roused by the pang of hunger 
 from his intellectual slumber ; the natural philosopher, 
 dismembering the solar system, accompanying through 
 immeasurable space the wanderings of the planets, is 
 restored by the prick of a needle to his mother earth ; the 
 philosopher who unfolds the nature of the Deity, and 
 
414 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 fancies himself to have broken through the fetters of mor- 
 tality, returns to himself and everyday life when the bleak 
 north wind whistles through his crazy hut, and teaches 
 him that he stands midway between the beast and the angel. 
 Against an excess of the animal sensations the severest 
 mental exertion in the end possesses no influence ; as they 
 continue to grow stronger, reason closes her ears, and the 
 fettered soul moves but to subserve the purposes of the 
 bodily cirganization. To satisfy hunger or to quench thirst 
 man will do deeds at which humanity will shudder : against 
 his will he turns traitor or murderer — even cannibal : — 
 
 Tiger ! in tlie bosom of tiiy motliei- wilt thou set thy teeth ? 
 
 — so violent is the influence of the animal sensation over 
 the mind. Such watchful care has the Creator shown for 
 the preservation of the machine that the pillars on which 
 it rests are the firmest, and experience has taught us that 
 it is rather the over-abundance than the want of animal 
 sensations that has carried destruction with it. 
 
 The animal sensations therefore maj- be said to further 
 the welfare of the animal nature, just as the moral and 
 intellectual perceptions promote spiritual progress or per- 
 fection. The system of animal sensations and motions, 
 then, comprises the conception of the animal nature. 
 This is the ground on which all the activities of the soul 
 depend, and the conformation of this fabric determines the 
 duration of tlie spiritual activity itself, and the degree of 
 ease with which it works. Here, then, we find ourselves 
 in possession of the first member of the connection between 
 the two natures. 
 
 § 6. — Objections against the Connection of the Two 
 Natures, drawn from Ideas of Morality. 
 
 There is no doubt that thus much will.be conceded ; but 
 the next remark will be : "Here ends, too, any determining 
 influence the body maj* possess ; bej-ond this point the 
 body is but the soul's inert companion, with whom she must 
 sustain a constant battle, attendance on whose necessities 
 tobs her of all leisure, whose attacks and interruptions 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 415 
 
 break the thread of the most intricate speculation, and 
 drive the spirit from the clearest and plainest conceptions 
 into a choatic complexity of the senses, whose pleasures 
 remove the greatest part of our fellow-creatnres far from 
 their high original, and reduce them to the level of the 
 beasts, which, in a word, entangles them in a slavery- 
 from which death onl}' can deliver them. Is it not senseless 
 and injust," our complainer might go on to sa}-, " to mix 
 up a being, simple, necesssarj-, that has its subsistence in 
 itself, with another being that moves in an eternal whirl, 
 exposed to every chance and change, and becomes the 
 victim of everj^ external necessitj' ? " On cooler after- 
 thought we shall perhaps see a great beauty take its rise 
 out of this apparent confusion and want of plan. 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL CONNECTION. 
 
 Animal Impulses Avfaken and Develop the Impulses 
 OF THE Soul. 
 
 § 7. — The Metho 
 
 The surest way, perhaps, to throw some light upon this 
 matter is the following : Let us detach from man all idea 
 of what can be called organization, — that is, let the bodj' 
 be separated from the sgirit, without, however, depriving 
 the latter of the power to attain to representations of, 
 and to produce actions in, the corporeal world ; and let us 
 then inquire how the spirit would set to work, would 
 develop its powers, what steps it would take towards its 
 perfection : the result of this investigation must be founded 
 upon facts. The actual culture of the individual man is 
 thus survej-ed, while we at the same time obtain a view of 
 the development of the whole race. In the first place, 
 then, we have this abstract case : the power of representa- 
 tion and will are present, a sphere of action is present, 
 and a free way opened from tlie soul to the world, from 
 the world to the soul. The question then is, How will the 
 spirit act ? 
 
416 SCHILLBB'g PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS. 
 
 § 8. — The Soul viewed as out of connection with the Body. 
 
 "We can form no conception without the antecedent 
 will to form it ; no will, unless hy experience of a better 
 condition thereby induced, without [some] sensation ; no 
 sensation without an antecedent idea (for along with the 
 body we excluded bodily sensations), therefore no idea 
 without an idea. 
 
 Let us consider now the case of a child ; that is, 
 according to our hypothesis, a spirit conscious in itself of 
 the power to form ideas, but which for the first time is 
 about to exercise this power. What will determine him 
 to think, unless it be the pleasant sensation thereby arising, 
 and what can have procured for him the experience of 
 this pleasurable sensation ? We have just seen that this, 
 again, could be nothing but thinking, and he is now for 
 the first time to think. Further, what shall invite him to 
 a consideration of the [external] world ? Nothing but the 
 experience of its perfection in so far as it satisfies his 
 instinct of activity, and as this satisfaction affords him 
 pleasure. What, then, can determine him to an exercise 
 of his powers? Nothing but the experience of their 
 existence ; and all these experiences are now to be made 
 for the first time. He must therefore have been active 
 from all eternity — which is contrary to the case as stated 
 — or he will to all eternity be inactive, just as the machine 
 without a touch from without remains idle and motionless. 
 
 § 9. — The Soul viewed in connection with the Body. 
 
 Now let the animal be added to the spirit. Weave these 
 two natures so closely together as they reallj' are closely 
 woven, and cause an unknown something, born of the 
 economj- of the animal body, to be assailed by the power 
 of sensation, — let the soul be placed in the condition of 
 physical pain. That was the first touch, the first raj- to 
 light up the night of slumbering powers, a touch as from a 
 golden finger upon nature's lute. Now is sensation there, 
 and sensation only was it that before we missed. This 
 
SCHILLEE'S PHILOSOPHICAL LETTEES. 417 
 
 kind of sensation seems to have been made on purpose to 
 remove all these difficulties. In the first case none could 
 be produced because we were not allowed to presuppose 
 an idea ; here a modification of the bodil}' organs becomes 
 a substitute for the ideas that were lacking, and thus does 
 animal sensation come to the help of the sisirits inward 
 mechanism, if I maj- so call it, and puts the same in 
 motion. The will is active, and the action of a single 
 power is sufficient to set all the rest to work. The 
 following operations are self-developed and do not belong 
 to this chapter. 
 
 § 10. — Out of the History of the Individiial. 
 
 Let us follow now the growth of the soul in the indi- 
 vidual man in relation to what I am trying to demonstrate, 
 and let us observe how all his spiritual capacities grow out 
 of motive powers of sense. 
 
 a. The child. Still quite animal ; or, rather more and 
 at the same time less than animal — human animal (for 
 that being which at some time shall be called man can at 
 no time have been onlj- animal) . More wretched than an 
 animal, because he has not even instinct — the animal- 
 mother may with less danger leave her j'oung than the 
 mother abandon her child. Pain may force from him a 
 cry, but will never direcLhim to the source from which it 
 comes. The milk may give him pleasure, but he does not 
 seek it. He is altogether passive. 
 
 His thinking rises only to sensation. 
 
 His Icnowledge is but pain, hunger — ^and what binds these together. 
 
 h. The boy. Here we have already reflection, but onlj- 
 in so far as it bears upon the satisfaction of the animal 
 impulse. "He learns to value," says Garve, * ' ' the things 
 of others, and his actions in respect of others, first of all 
 through the factof their affording him [sensuous] pleasure." 
 
 A love of work, the love to his parents, to friends, yeii 
 even love to God, must go along the pathway of physical 
 sense [Sinnlichkeit] to reach his soul '• That onl}- is the 
 
 * Observations on Ferguson's "Moral Philosophy," p. 319. 
 
418 Schiller's philowophical letters. 
 
 sun," as Gai've elsewhere observes, " which in itself 
 enlightens and warms : all other objects are dark and cold ; 
 but they too can be warmed and illumined when they enter 
 into such a connection with the same as to become par- 
 takers of its rays." * The good things of the spirit 
 possess a value with the boy oul3- by transferrence — they 
 are the spiritual means to an animal end. 
 
 c. Youth and rnan. The frequent repetition of this 
 process of induction at last brings about a readiness, and 
 the transferrence begins to discover a beaut}' in what at 
 first was regarded simplj^ as a means. The youth begins 
 to linger in the process without knowing why. Without 
 observing it, he is often attracted to think about this 
 means. Now is the time when the beams of spiritual 
 beauty in itself begin to fall upon his open soul ; the feeling 
 of exercising his powers delights him, and infuses an 
 inclination to the object which, up to this time, was a 
 means onl}' : the first end is forgotten. His enlightened 
 mind and the richer store of his ideas at last reveal to him 
 the whole worth of spiritual pleasures — the means lias 
 become the highest end. 
 
 Such is the teaching more or less of the history- of each 
 individual man — whose means of education have been 
 fairly good ; and wisdom could hardl}' choose a better 
 road along which to lead mankind. Is not the mass of 
 the people even to this da^- in leading-strings ? — much like 
 our boy. And has not the prophet from Medina left us an 
 example of striking plainness how to bridle the rude nature 
 of the Saracens ? 
 
 On this subject nothing more excellent can be said than 
 what Garve remarked in his translation of Ferguson's 
 "Moral Philosophy," in the chapter upon the Natural 
 Impulses, and has developed as follows : " The impulse 
 of self-preservation and the attraction of sensual pleasure 
 first bring both man and beast to the point of action : he 
 first comes to value the things of otheis and his own 
 actions in reference to them according as they procure him 
 pleasure. In proportion as the number of things under 
 whose influence he comes increases do his desires cover a 
 wider circle ; as the road by wliich he reaches the objects 
 
 * Observatious uu i''i;ryuduu's " Moral Philosophy," p. 393. 
 
schillek's philosophical letters. 419 
 
 of bis wishes lengthens, so do his desires become more 
 artificial. Here we come to the first line of separation 
 between man and the mere animal, and herein we may even 
 discover a difference between one species of animal and 
 another. With few animals does the act of feeding follow 
 immediately upon the sensation of hunger ; the heat of the 
 chase, or the industry of collection must come first. But 
 in the case of no animal does the satisfaction of this want 
 follow so late upon the preparations made in reference 
 thereto as in the case of man ; with no animal does the 
 endeavor wind through so long a chain of means and inten- 
 tions before it arrives at the last link. How far removed 
 from this end, though in reality they have no other, are 
 the labors of the artisan or the ploughman. But even this 
 is not all. When the means of human subsistence have 
 become richer and more various through the institutions 
 of society' ; when man begins to discover that without a 
 full expenditure of time and labor a surplus remains to 
 him ; when at tlie same time by the communication of 
 ideas he becomes more enlightened ; then he begins to find 
 a last end for all his actions in himself; he then remarks 
 that, even when his hunger is thoroughly satisfied, a good 
 supply of raiment, a roof above him, and a sufficiency of 
 furniture within doors, there still remains something o^er 
 and above for him to do. He goes a step further, he 
 becomes conscious that in tliose very actions by which he 
 has procured for himsetf food and comfort — in so far as 
 they liave their origin in certain powers of a spirit, and in 
 so far as they exercise these powers — there lies a higher 
 good than in the external ends which thereby are attained. 
 From this moment on he works, indeed — in company 
 with the rest of the human race, and along with the whole 
 animal kingdom — to keep himself alive, and to provide 
 for himself and his friends the necessaries of pliysical 
 existence ; — • for what else could he do ? What other 
 sphere of action could he create for himself, if he were to 
 leave th[s ? But he knows now that nature has not so much 
 awakened in him these various impulses and desires for the 
 purpose of affording so many particular pleasures, — but, 
 and far more, places before him the attraction of those 
 pleasures and advantages, in order that these impulses uuiy 
 
420 Schiller's philosophical lbtteks. 
 
 be j»ut in motion — and with this end, that to a thinking 
 being there maj' be given matter for thought, to a sensitive 
 spirit matter for sensations, to the benevolent means of 
 beneficence, and to the active opportunity for work. 
 Thus does everything, living or lifeless, assume to him a 
 new form. All the facts and changes of life were formerly 
 estimated by him only in so far as the}- caused him; 
 pleasui-e or pain : ;io?o, in so far as they offer occasion for 
 expression of his desire of perfection. In the first case, 
 events are now good, now bad ; in the latter, all are 
 equally good. For there is no chance or accident which 
 doesj noG give scope for the exercise of some virtue, or for 
 the employment of a special facultj-. At first he loved 
 his .ellovfs because he believed that they could be of use 
 to h.m ; he loves them now far more — because he looks 
 upon beirevolence as the condition of the perfect mind." 
 
 § 11. — From the History of Humanity. 
 
 Yet once more, a glance at the universal historj' of the 
 whole human race — from its cradle to the maturity of 
 full-grown man — and the truth of what has been said up 
 to this point will stand forth in clearest relief. 
 
 Hunger and nakedness first made of man a hunter, a 
 fisher, a cowherd, a husbandman, and a builder. Sensual 
 pleasure founded families, and the defencelessness of single 
 men was the origin of the tribe. Here already may the 
 first roots of the social duties be discovered. The soil 
 would soon become too poor for the increasing multitude 
 of men ; hunger would drive them to other climates and 
 countries that would discover their wealth to the necessity 
 that forced men to seek it ; in the process they would 
 learn many improvements in the cultivation of the soil, 
 and perhaps some means to escape the hurtful influence 
 of manj- things they would necessarily encounter. These 
 separate experiences passed from grandfather to grandson, 
 and their number was always on the increase. Man learned 
 to use the powers of nature against herself; these powers 
 were brought into new relations and the first invention was 
 made. Here we have the first roots of the simple and 
 
SCHILLER'S PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS. 421 
 
 iiealing arts — always, we admit, art and invention for the 
 behoof of the animal, but still an exercise of power, an 
 addition to knowledge ; und at the very fire in whose embers 
 the savage roasted his fish, Boerhaave afterwards made his 
 inquiries into the composition of bodies ; through the very 
 knife which this wild man used to cut up his game. Lionet 
 invented what led to his discovery of the nerves of insects ; 
 with the ver}- circle wherewith at first hoofs were meas- 
 ured, Newton measures heaven and earth. Thus did the 
 body force the mind to pay attention to the phenomena 
 around it ; thus was the world made interesting and impor- 
 tant, through being made indispensable. The inward 
 activity of their nature, and the barrenness of their native 
 soil, combined in teaching our forefathers to form bolder 
 plans, and invented for them a house wherein, under con- 
 duct of the stars, they could safelj' move upon rivers and 
 seas, and sail toward regions new : — 
 
 Fluctibus ignotis insultavere carince. 
 (Theii' keels danced upon waves unknown.) 
 
 Here again thej' met with new productions of nature, new 
 dangers, new needs that called for new exertions. The 
 collision of animal instincts drives liordes against hordes, 
 forges a sword out of the raw metal, begets adventurers, 
 heroes, and despots. Towns are fortified, states are 
 founded : with the states arise civic duties and rights, arts, 
 figures, codes of law, subtle priests — and gods. 
 
 And now, when necessities have degenerated into luxurj', 
 what a boundless field is opened to our ejes ! Now are 
 the veins of the earth burrowed through, the foot of man 
 is planted on the bottom of the sea, commerce and travel 
 flourish : — 
 
 Latet sub classibus aequor. 
 (The sea is hid beneath tlie iieets.) 
 
 The West wonders at the East, the East at the West ; the 
 productions of foreign countries accustom themselves to 
 grow under other skies, and the art of gardening shows 
 the products of three-quarters of the world in one garden. 
 Artists learn her works from nature, music soothes the 
 savage breast, beauty and harmony ennoble taste and 
 manners, and art leads the way to science and virtue. 
 
422 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 "Man," says Schlozer,* "this might3- demigod, clears 
 rocks from his path, digs out lakes, and drives his plough 
 where once the sail was seen. Bj- canals he separates 
 quarters of the globe and provinces from one another ; 
 leads one stream to another and discharges them upon a 
 sandy desert, changed therebj' into smiling meadow ; three- 
 quarters of the globe he plunders and transplants them 
 into a fourth. Even climate, air, and weather acknowledge 
 his sway. While he roots out forests and drains the 
 swamp, the heaven grows clear above his head, moisture 
 and mist are lost, winter becomes milder and shorter, 
 because rivers are no longer frozen over." And the mind 
 of man is refined with the refining of his clime. 
 
 The state occupies the citizen in the necessities and 
 comforts of life. Industry- gives the state security and 
 rest from witliout ; from within, granting to thinker and 
 artist that fruitful leisure through which the age of 
 Augustus came to be called the Golden Age. Tlie arts 
 now take a more daring and untrammelled flight, science 
 wins a light pure and dry, natural history and physical 
 science shatter superstition, history extends a mirror of 
 the times that were, and philosophy' laughs at the follies 
 of mankind. But when luxury grows into effeminacj' and 
 excess, when the bones begin to ache, and the pestilence 
 to spread and the air becomes infected, man hastens in 
 his distress from one realm of nature to another, that he 
 may at least find means for lessening his pains. Then he 
 finds the divine plant of China ; from the bowels of the 
 earth he digs out the mightily-working mercury, and from 
 the poppj' of the East learns to distil its precious juice. 
 The most hidden corners of nature are investigated ; 
 chemistry separates material objects into their ultimate 
 elements, and creates worlds of her own ; alchemists enrich 
 the province of physical science ; the microscopic glance 
 of a Schwammerdam surprises nature in her most secret 
 operations. Man goes still further ; necessity' or curiosity 
 transcends the boundaries set bj- superstition : he seizes the 
 knife, takes courage, and the masterpiece of nature is 
 discovered, even man. Thus did it behoove the least, the 
 poorest, to help us to reach the highest ; disease and death 
 
 * See Schlozer's Plan of his Universal- Histoiy, J 6. 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 423 
 
 must lend their aid to man in teaching him /'fiodi aeavjov 
 ('•Know thyself!"). The plague produced and formed 
 our Hippocrates, our Sjdenhains, as war is the mother of 
 generals ; and y^e owe to the most devastating disease 
 that ever visited humanity an entire reformation of our 
 medical system. 
 
 Our intention was to show the influence upon the per- 
 fecting of the soul through the temperate enjoyment of the 
 pleasures held out b}' the senses ; and how marvellously 
 has the matter changed, even while under our hands ! We 
 found that even excess and abuse in this direction have 
 furthered the real demands of humanity ; the deflections 
 from the primitive end of nature — merchants, conquerors, 
 and luxury — have, undoubtedly, tended to hasten a pro- 
 gress which had otherwise been more regular, but very 
 slow. Let us compare the old world with the new ! In 
 the first, desire was simple, its satisfaction easy ; but how 
 mistaken, how painful was the judgment passed on nature 
 and her laws ! Now, the road is made more difflcult by a 
 thousand windings, but how full the light that has been 
 shed upon all our conceptions ! 
 
 We may, then, repeat: Man needed to be an animal 
 before he knew that he was a spirit ; he needed to crawl 
 in the dust before he ventured on a Newtonian flight 
 through the universe. The bod}-, therefore, is the first 
 spur to action ; sense the first step on the ladder to 
 perfection. « 
 
 Animal Sensations accompany Mental Sensations. 
 
 § \'2.—Law. 
 
 The understanding of man is extremely limited, and, 
 therefore, all sensations resulting from its action must of 
 necessity be also limited. In order, therefore, to give 
 these sensations greater impulse, and with redoubled force 
 to attract the will to good and restrain it from evil, both 
 natures, the spiritual and the animal, are so intimately 
 connected with each other that their modifications, being 
 mutuall}' interchanged, impart strength to one another. 
 
424 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 Hence arises a fundamental law of mixed natures, which, 
 being reduced to its primary- divisions, runs thus : the 
 activities of the both' correspond to the activities of the 
 mind ; that is, any overstraining of a mental activitj- is 
 necessarilj- followed b^- an overstraining of certain bodily 
 actions, -— just as the equilibrium, or harmonious action, 
 of the mental powers is associated with that of tlie bodilj' 
 powers in perfect accord. Further: mental indolence 
 induces indolence in the bodily actions ; mental inaction 
 causes them to cease altogether. Thus, &s perfection is 
 ever accompanied bj' pleasure, imperfection b}- the absence 
 of pleasure, this law may be thus expressed : Mental 
 pleasure is invariably attended by animal pleasure, mental 
 pain bj' animal pain.* 
 
 §13. — Mental Pleasure furthers the Welfare of the 
 Human Frame. 
 
 Thus, a sensation which embraces within its range the 
 whole spiritual being agitates in the same measure the 
 whole framework of the organic bod}', — heart, veins and 
 blood, muscles and nerves, all, from those mighty nerves 
 that give to the heart its living impulse of motion down 
 to the tinj' and unimportant nerves bj' which hairs are 
 attached to the skin, share equally its influence. Ever}'- 
 thing tends to a more violent motion. If the sensation be 
 an agreeable one, all these parts will acquire a higher 
 degree of harmonious activitj' ; the heart's beat will be 
 free, livelj', uniform, the blood will flow unchecked, gently 
 or with flerj' speed, according as the affection is of a gentle 
 or violent description ; digestion, secretion, and excretion 
 will follow their natural course ; the excitable membranes 
 will pliantly play in a gentle vapor-bath, and excitability 
 as well as sensitiveness will increase. Therefore the con- 
 dition of the greatest momentarj- mental pleasure is at the 
 same time the condition of the greatest bodil}' well-being. 
 
 As many as there may be of these partial activities (and 
 is not every beat of the pulse the result perhaps of tliou- 
 
 * Complacency and THsplaoency perhaps more aptly express the meaning 
 of Lust and Unlust, which we translate by pleasure and pain. 
 
Schiller's philosophical Letters 425 
 
 sands?) so many will be the obscure sensations crowding 
 upon the soul, each one of which indicates perfection. 
 Out of this confused complexity arises entire sensation of 
 the animal harmonies, that is, the highest possible combined . 
 sensation of animal pleasure, which ranges itself, as it 
 were, alongside of the original intellectual or moral sensa- 
 tion, which this addition inflnitel}' increases. Thus is every 
 agreeable affection the source of countless bodily pleasures. 
 This is most evidently confirmed bj- the examples of 
 sick persons who have been cured b}- joj-. Let one whom 
 a terrible home-sickness has wasted to a skeleton be brought 
 back to his native land, and the bloom of health will soon 
 be his again ; or let us enter a prison in which miserable 
 men have for ten or twenty years inhabited filthy dungeons 
 and possess at last barely strength to move, — -and let us 
 tell them suddenly they are free ; the single word of free- 
 dom will endow their limbs with the strength of j'outh, 
 and cause dead eyes to sparkle with life. Sailors, whom 
 thirst and famine have made their prey during a long voy- 
 age, are half cured by the steersman's crj' of " Land ! " 
 and he would certainlj- greatly err who ascribed the whole 
 result to a prospect of fresh food. The sight of a dear 
 one, whom the sufferer has long desired to see, sustains 
 the life that was about to go, and imparts strength and 
 health. It is a fact, that joy can quicken the nervous 
 system more effectually than all the cordials of the apoth- 
 cary, and can do wonders in the case of inveterate internal 
 disorders denied to the a^lion of rhubarb and even mercur3^ 
 Who then does not perceive that the constitution of the 
 soul which knows how to derive pleasure from every event 
 and can dissipate everj- ache in the perfection of the uni- 
 verse, must be the most beneficial to the whole organism ? 
 and this constitution of the soul is — virtue. 
 
 § 14. — Mental pain undermines the Welfare of the Whole 
 Organisms. 
 
 In the very same waj-, the opposite result is brought 
 about by a disagreeable affection of the mind. The ideas 
 which rule so intensely the angry or terrified man maj, as 
 
426 Schiller's philosopfiical letters. 
 
 rightly as Plato called the passions a fever of the soul, be 
 regarded as convulsions of tiie organ of thought. These 
 convulsions quickly extend through the nervous system, 
 and so disturb the \ital powers that they lose their per- 
 fection, and all organic actions lose their equilibrium. The 
 heart beats violently and irregularl}^ ; the blood is so 
 confined to the lungs that the failing pulse has barely 
 enough to sustain it. The internal chemical processes are 
 at cross-purposes ; beneficent juices lose their way and 
 work harm in other provinces, while what is malignant 
 may attack the very core of our organism. In a word, 
 the condition of the greatest mental distress becomes the 
 condition of the greatest bodily sickness. 
 
 The soul is informed of the threatened ruin of the organs 
 that should have been her good and willing servants by a 
 thousand obscure sensations, and is filled with an entire 
 sensation of pain, associating itself to the primary mental 
 suffering, and giving to this a sharper sting. 
 
 § 15. — Examples. 
 
 Deep, chronic pains of the soul, especially if accom- 
 panied by a strong exertion of thought — among which I 
 would give a prominent place to that lingering anger 
 which men call indignation — gnaw the verj- foundations 
 of phj'sical life, and dr}- up the sap that nourish It. 
 Sufferers of this kind have a worn and pale appearance, 
 and the inward grief betra^'S Itself by the hollow, sunken 
 ej-es. " Let me," saj's Caesar, " have men about me that 
 are fat " : — 
 
 Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights; 
 Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; 
 He thinks too much — such men are dangerous. 
 
 Fear, trouble, distress of conscience, despair, are little 
 less powerful in their effects than the most violent fevers 
 Richard, when in deepest anxietj-, finds his former cheer- 
 fulness is gone, and thinks to bring it back with a glass of 
 wine. But it is not mental sorrow only that has banishod 
 comfort, it is a sensation of discomfort proceeding from 
 the very root of his physical organism, the ver}' same 
 
SCHILLERS PHILOSOFHICAL LETTEIi.-. 427 
 
 sensation that announces a malignant fever. The Moor, 
 heavilj- burdened with crimes, and once craftj- enough in 
 absolving all the sensations of humanity — bj' his siveletoii 
 process — into nothing, now rises from a dreadful dream, 
 pale and breathless, with a cold sweat upon his brow. 
 All the images of a future judgment which he had perhaps 
 believed in as a boj', and blotted out from his remembrance 
 as a man, assail his dream-bewildered brain. The sensa- 
 tions are far too confused for the slower march of reason 
 to overtake and unravel them. Reason is still struggling 
 with fancy, the spirit with the horrors of the corporeal 
 frame. * 
 
 Moor. — No! lam not shaking. It was but a dream. The deaJ are 
 not beginning to rise. Who says I tremble and turn pale? I am quite 
 well, quite well. 
 
 Bed.—Yoa are pale as death ; your voice is frightened and hesi- 
 tating. 
 
 Moor. — I am feverish. I will be bled to-morrow. Say only, when the 
 priest comes, that I have fever. 
 
 Bed. — But you are very ill. 
 
 Moor. — Yes truly; that is all. And sickness disturbs the brain and 
 breeds strange mad dreams. Dreams mean nothing. Fie on womanish 
 cowardice! Dreams mean nothing. 1 have just had a pleasant dream. 
 
 [He falls down in a faint. 
 
 Here we have the whole image of the dream suddenlj' 
 forcing itself upon a man, and setting in motion the entire 
 system of obscure ideas, stirring up from the foundation 
 the organ of thought. From all these causes arises an 
 intense sensation of pain'fn its utmost concentration, which 
 shatters the soul from its depth, and lames per consensum 
 the whole structure of the nerves. 
 
 The cold horror that seizes on the man who is about to 
 commit some crime, or who has just committed one, is 
 nothing else than the horror which agitates the feverish 
 man, and which is felt on taking nauseous medicines. The 
 nightly tossings of those vrho are troubled b}- remorse, 
 always accompanied by a high pulse, are veritable fevers, 
 induced by the connection between the physical organism 
 with the soul ; and Lady Macbeth, walking in her sleep, is 
 an instance of brain delirium. Even the imitation of a 
 passion makes the actor for the moment ill ; and after 
 
 * " Life of Moor," tragedy of Krake. Act. v. sc. 1. 
 
428 schillee's philosophical letters. 
 
 Garrick had placed Lear or Othello he spent. some hours 
 in convulsions on his bed. Even the illusion of the spec- 
 tator, through sympathj' with acted passion, has brought 
 on shivering, gout, and fits of fainting. 
 
 Is not he, then, who is plagued with an evil temper, and 
 draws gall and bitterness from every situation in life : is 
 not the vicious man, who lives in a chronic state of hatred 
 and malevolence ; is not the envious man, who finds torture 
 in every excellence of his neighbor, — are not these, all of 
 them, the greatest foes to their own health? Has vice not 
 enough of the horrible in it, when it destroys not only 
 happiness but health. 
 
 § 16. — Exceptions. 
 
 But a pleasant affection has sometimes been a fatal one, 
 and an unpleasant one has sometimes worked a marvellous 
 cure. Both facts rest upon experience : should they remove 
 the limits of the law we have expounded? 
 
 Joy is fatal when it rises into ecstacy : nature cannot 
 support the strain which in one moment is thrown upon 
 the whole nervous sj'stem. The motion of the brain is no 
 longer harmony, but convulsion, an extremely sudden and 
 momentary force which soon changes into the ruin of the 
 organism, since it has transgressed the boundary line of 
 health(for into the verj' idea of health there enters aud is 
 essentially interwoven the idea of a certain moderation of 
 all natural motions). The joy as well as the grief of 
 finite beings is limited, and dare not pass bej'ond a certain 
 point without ruin. 
 
 As far as the second part is concerned, we have many 
 examples of cure, through a moderate fit of anger, of in- 
 veterate d3-spepsia ; and through fright — as in the case of 
 a fire — of rheumatic pains and lameness apparently incur- 
 able. But even d^'sentery has sometimes resolved an in- 
 ternal stoppage, and the itch has been a cure for melancholy 
 madness and insanity : is the itch, for this, less a disease ? 
 — is dj'sentery therefore health. 
 
Schiller's piulosopiiical letters. 429 
 
 § 17. — Indolence of Mind bringn about greater Indolence 
 in the Organic Movements. 
 
 As, according to the testimonj' of Herr von Haller, ac- 
 tivity of mind during the day tends to quicken the pulse 
 towards evening, will not indolence of mind make it more 
 sluggish, and absolute inactivit}- completely stop it? For, 
 although the circulation of the blood does not seem to be 
 so very dependent on the mind, is it altogether unreason- 
 able to suppose that the heart, which, in any case, l)orrows 
 from the brain the larger portion of its strength, must 
 wec&ss&nXy ,v)hen the sold ceases to maintain the action of 
 the brain, suffer thereby a great loss of power? A con- 
 dition of phlegm is accompanied b}" a sluggish pulse, the 
 blood is thin and watery, and the circulation defective in 
 the abdomen. The idiots, whom Muzell has described 
 for us,* breathed slowly and with difflcultj-, had no incli- 
 nation to eat and drink, nor to the natural functions ; the 
 pulse was slow, all bodily movements slumberous and in- 
 dicative of weariness. The mental numbness which is 
 the result of terror or wonder is sometimes accompanied 
 bj- a general suspension of all natural physical activitj-. 
 Was the mind the origin of this condition, or was it the 
 body which brought about this torpid state of mind ? But 
 these considerations lead to subtleties and intricate ques- 
 tions, and, besides, must not be discussed in this. place. 
 
 § 18. — Second Law. 
 
 All that has been said of the transferrence of the mental 
 sensations to the animal holds true of the transferrence of 
 animal affections to the mental. Bodily sickness — for the 
 most part the natural result of intemperance — brings its 
 punishment in the form of bodily pain ; but the mind also 
 cannot escape a radical attack, in order that a twofold 
 pain maj- more powerfull3- impress upon it the necessit^- 
 of restraint in the desires. In like manner the feeling of 
 bodilj- health is accompanied by a more livelj' conscious- 
 
 * Muzell's " Medical and Surgical Consiilevations.'' 
 
430 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 ness of mental Improvement, and man is thus the more 
 spurred on to maintain his bod3' in good condition. We 
 arrive thus at a second law of mixed natures — tliat, with 
 the free action of the bodily organism, the sensations and 
 ideas gain a freer flow ; and learn that, with a corrupted 
 organism, corruption of the thinking faculty and of the 
 sensations inevitably' follows. Or, more shortly, that the 
 general sensation of a harmonious animal life is the fount- 
 ain of mental pleasure, and that animal pain and sickness 
 is the fountain of mental pain. 
 
 In these different respects, or from their consideration, 
 soul and body may not unaptly be compared with two 
 stringed instruments tuned bj' the same hand, and placed 
 alongside of one another. When a string of one of them 
 is touched and a certain tone goes forth, the corresponding 
 string of the other will sound of itself ai,d give the same 
 tone, only somewhat weaker. And, using Vhis comparison, 
 we maj^ say that the string of gladness in the body wakes 
 the glad string in the soul, and the sad siring the string 
 of sadness. This is that wonderful and nov-eworthy sym- 
 pathy which unites the heterogeneous principles in man so 
 as to form one being. Man is not soul and body — but 
 the most inward and essential blending of the two. 
 
 § 19. — Moods of Mind result from Moods of Body. 
 
 Hence the heaviness, the incapacity of thought, the dis- 
 contented temper, which are the consequence of excess in 
 physical indulgence ; hence the wonderful effects of wine 
 upon those who alwaj's drink in moderation. "Wlienj'ou 
 have drunk wine," says Brother Martin, " 30U see every- 
 thing double, you think doubly easily, you are doubly 
 ready for any undertaking, and twice as quickly bring it 
 to a conclusion." Hence the comfort and good-humor ex- 
 perienced in fine weather, proceeding partly from associa- 
 tion of ideas, but mostly from the increased feeling of 
 bodily health that goes along with it, extending over all 
 the functions of our organism. Then it is that people use 
 such expressions as, '• I feel that I am well," and at such 
 a season they are more disposed towards all manner of 
 
Schiller's philosophical letters. 431 
 
 mental labor, and have a heart more open to the humaner 
 feelings, and more prompt to the practice of moral duties. 
 The same ma}- be seen in the national character of differ- 
 ent peoples. Those who dwell in gloom}- regions mourn 
 along with the dismal scenery- : in wild and stormj- zones 
 man grows wild : where his lot is cast in friendly climates 
 he laughs with the sky that is bright above him. Only 
 under the clear heaven of Greece lived a Homer, a Plato, 
 a Phidias ; there were born the Muses and the Graces, 
 while the Lapland mists can hardly bring forth men, and 
 never a genius. While our Germany was jet a wild forest 
 or morass, the German was a hunter as wild as the beast 
 whose skin he slung about his shoulders. As soon as in- 
 dustry had changed the aspect of his countrj- began the 
 epoch of moral progress. I will not maintain that char- 
 acter takes its rise in climate only, but it is certain that 
 towards the civilization of a people one main means is the 
 improvement of their skies. 
 
 The disorders of the body may disorder the whole range 
 of our moral perceptions, and prepare the way for an out- 
 burst of the most evil passions. A man whose constitu- 
 tion is ruined by a course of dissipation is more easih' led 
 to extremes than one who has kept his body as it should 
 be kept. This is, indeed, the horrible plan of those who 
 destroy our youths, and that father of robbers must have 
 known man well, who said, " "We must destroy both body 
 and soul." Catiline was a profligate before he became a 
 conspirator, and Doriatigreatlj' erred when he thought he 
 had no cause to fear a voluptuary like P^iesco. On the 
 whole, it is very often remarked that an evil spirit dwells 
 in a sick body. 
 
 In diseases this sympathy is still more striking. All 
 severe illnesses, especially those of malignant nature and 
 arising from the economj- of the abdominal regions, an- 
 nounce themselves, more or less, by a strange revolution 
 in the character. Even while the disease is still silently 
 stealing through the hidden corners of our mechanism, and 
 undermining the strength of nerve, the mind begins to an- 
 ticipate by dark forebodings the fall of her companion. 
 This is a main element in that condition which a great 
 physician described in a masterlj' manner under the name 
 
432 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 of " Horrores." Hence their moroseness of disposition, 
 which none can account for, their wavering fancies and 
 inclinations, their disgust at what used to give them 
 pleasure. The amiable man grows quarrelsome, the merry 
 man cross, and he who used to lose himself, and gladly, in 
 the bustle of the world, flies the face of man and retires 
 into a gloomy melancholy'. But underneatli this treacher- 
 ous repose the enemy is making readj' for a deadly on- 
 slaught. The universal disturbance of the entire mechan- 
 ism, when the disease once breaks forth, is the most 
 speaking proof of the wonderful dependence of the soul 
 on the boily. The feeling, springing from a thousand 
 painful sensations, of the utter ruin of the organism, 
 brings about a frightful mental confusion. The most hor- 
 rible ideas and fancies rise from their graves. The villain 
 whom nothing could move yields under the dominant power 
 of mere animal terror. Winchester, in dving, yells in the 
 anguish of despair. The soul is under a terrible necessits', 
 it would seem, of snatching at whatever will drag it deeper 
 into darkness, and rejects with obstinate madness every 
 ray of comfort. The string, the tone of pain is in the 
 ascendant, and just as the spiritual misery rose in the 
 bodily disorder, so now it turns and renders the disorder 
 more universal and more intense. 
 
 § 20. — Limitations of the foregoing. 
 
 But there are daily examples of sufferers who courage- 
 ously lift themselves above bodily- ills : of dj'ing men who, 
 amidst the distressful struggles of the frame, ask, " Where 
 is thy sting, death?" Should not wisdom, one might 
 urge, avail to combat the blind terrors of tlie organic 
 nature? Nay, much more than wisdom, should religion 
 have so little power to protect her friends against the as- 
 saults springing from the dust? Or, what is the same 
 thing, does it not depend upon the preceding condition 
 of the soul, as to how she accepts the alterations of the- 
 processes of hfe ? 
 
 Now, this is an irrefragable truth. Piiilosophy, and 
 still more a mind courageous and elevated bv religion, are 
 
schillee's philosophical letters. 433 
 
 capable of completely weakening the inflnence of the 
 animal sensations which assault the soul of one in pain, 
 and able, as it were, to withdraw it from all coherence 
 with the material. The thought of God, which is inter- 
 woven with death, as with all the universe, the harmonj' 
 of past life, the anticipation of an ever-happj- future, 
 spread a bright light over all its ideas ; while night is 
 drawn round the soul of him who departs in foil}- and in 
 unbelief If even involuntary pangs force themselves upon 
 the Christian and wise man (for is he less a human being?), 
 yet will he resolve the sensations of his dissolving frame 
 into happiness : — 
 
 The soul, seuiired in her existence, smiles 
 At the drawn dagger and defies its point. 
 The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
 Grow dim with ag'e, and nature sink in years ; 
 But thou Shalt Hourish in immoi'tal youth, 
 Unhurt amidst the war of elements, 
 The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds. 
 
 It is precisely this unwonted cheerfulness on the part 
 of those who are moi'tallj' sick which has often a physical 
 reason at the basis, and which has the most express sig- 
 nificance for the practical physician. _ It is often found in 
 conjunction with the most fatal sj-mptoms of Hippocrates, 
 and without being attributable to any bygone crisis. Such 
 a cheerfulness is of bad import. The nerves, which during 
 the height of the fever have been most sharply assailed, 
 have now lost sensation^ the inflamed members, it is well 
 known, cease to smart as soon as they are destroj'cd ; but 
 it would be a hapless thought to rejoice that the time of 
 burning pain were passed and gone. Stimulus fails before 
 the dead nerves, and a deathly indolence belies future 
 healing. The soul finds herself under the illusion of a 
 pleasant sensation, because she is free from a long-enduring 
 painful one. She is free from pain, not because the tone 
 of her instrument is restored, but because she no more 
 experiences the discord. Sympathy ceases as soon as the 
 connection is lost. 
 
434 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 § 21. — Further Aspects of the Connection. 
 
 If I might now begin to go d-eeper — if I might speak 
 of delirium, of slumber, of stupor, of epilepsy and cata- 
 lepsy, and such like, wlierein the free and rational spirit is 
 subjected to the despotism of the body — if I might enlarge 
 especially on the wide field of hysteria and hjpochondria 
 — if it were allowed me to speak of temperaments, idio- 
 syncrasies, and constitutions, whicli for physicians and 
 philosophers are an abj'ss — in one word, should I attempt 
 to demonstrate truth of the foregoing from the bed of 
 sickness, wiiich is ever a chief school of psychology — mj- 
 matter would be extended to an endless length. We have, 
 it seems to me, enough to prove that the animal nature is 
 throughout mingled with the spiritual, and that this com- 
 bination is perfection. 
 
 Physical Phenomena express the Emotions op the Mind. 
 
 § 22. — Physiogtiomy of Sensations. 
 
 It is just this close correspondence between the two 
 natures which is the basis of the whole science of phys- 
 iognomy. By means of this nervous connection (which, 
 as we have seen, lies at the bottom of the communication 
 of feelings) the most secret movements of the soul are 
 revealed on the exterior of the body, and passion pene- 
 trates even through the veil of the hypocrite. Each 
 passion has its specific expressions, its peculiar dialect, 
 so to speak, by which one knows it. And, indeed, it is 
 an admirable law of Supreme Wisdom, that every passion 
 which is noble and generous beautifies 'the body, while 
 those that are mean and hateful distort it into animal 
 forms. _ The more the mind departs from the likeness of 
 the Deity, the nearer does the outward form seem to 
 approach the animal, and always that animal which has a 
 kindred proclivity. Thus, the mild expression of the 
 l)hilanthropist attracts the needy, wliom the insolent look 
 of the angry man repels. This" is an indispensable guide 
 
SCHILLElfs I^HILOSOPHICAL LETTERS. 435 
 
 in social life. It is astonishing what an accordance boclil}' 
 appearance has with the passions ; heroism and fearless- 
 ness pour life and strength tliroiigh the veins and muscles, 
 the e3'es sparkle, the breast heaves, all the limbs arm 
 themselves alike for coml)at — the man has the appearance 
 of a war-horse. Fright and fear extinguish the Are in the 
 eyes, the limbs sink powerless and heavy, the marrow in 
 the bones seems frozen, the blood falls back on the heart 
 hke a stone, a general weakness cripples the powers of 
 life. 
 
 A great, bold, loftj' thought compels us to stand on tip- 
 toe, to hold up the head, to expand the mouth and nose. 
 The feeling of eternity, the outlook on a wide open hori- 
 zon, the sea, etc., make us stretch out our arms — ire 
 would merge ourselves into the eternal : with the moun- 
 tains, vpe would grow towards the heavens, rush thither on 
 storms and waves : yawning abysses throw us down in 
 giddiness. In like manner, hate is expressed in the body- 
 by a repelling force ; while, on the contrary-, in every 
 pressure of the hand, in every embrace, our body will 
 merge into that of our friend, in the same manner as the 
 souls are in harmonious combination. Pride makes the 
 body erect as the soul rises ; pettiness bends the head, the 
 limbs hang down ; servile fear is expressed in the cringing 
 walk ; the thought of pain distorts our face, if pleasurable 
 aspects spread a grace over the whole bod.y ; anger, on the 
 other hand, will bre^Ji through e\-ery strong opposing 
 cord, and need will almost overcome the impossible. I 
 would now ask through what mechanism it happens that 
 exactly these movements result from these feelings, that 
 just these organs are affected hy these passions? Might I 
 not just as well want to know whj- a certain wounding of 
 the ligament should stiffen the lower jaw? 
 
 If the passion which sj-mpathetically awakened these 
 movements of the frame be often renewed, if this sensa- 
 tion of soul become habitual, then these movements of the 
 body will become so also. If this matured passion be 
 of a lasting character, then these constitutional features 
 of the frame become deeply eugraved : they become, if I 
 ma}- borrow the pathologist's word, " deuteropathetie," 
 and are at last organic. Thus, at last, the firm perennial 
 
436 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 physiognomy of man is formed, so that it is almost easier 
 iifterwarcls to change the soul than the form. In this 
 sense, one may also say, without being a " Stahlian," that 
 the soul forms the bod}' ; and perhaps the earliest j'ears 
 of youth decide the features of a man for life, as they cer- 
 tainly- are the fountlation of his moral character. An inert 
 and weak soul, which never overflows in passions, has no 
 physiognomy at all ; and want of expression is the leading 
 characteristic of the countenance of the imbecile. The 
 original features which nature gave him continue unal- 
 tered ; the face is smooth, for no soul has played upon it ; 
 the eyebrows retain a perfect arch, for no wild passion has 
 distorted them ; the whole form retains its roundness, for 
 the fat reposes in its cells ; the face is regular, perhaps 
 even beautiful, but I pity the soul of it ! 
 
 A ph^'siognomy of (perfect) organic parts, e.g., as to 
 the form and size of the nose, e_yes, mouth, ears, etc., the 
 color of the hair, the height of the neck, and such like, 
 may perhaps possibly be found, but certainly not very 
 easily, however much Lavater should continue to rave 
 about it through ten quarto volumes. He who would re- 
 duce to order the capricious plaj' of nature, and classifj'' 
 the forms which she has punished like a stepmother, or 
 endowed as a mother, would venture more than Linnaeus, 
 and should be very careful lest he become one with the 
 original presented to him, through its monstrous sportive 
 variety. 
 
 Yet one more kind of sympathy deserves to be noticed, 
 since it is of great importance in physiology. I mean the 
 sympathy of certain sensations for the organs from which 
 they sprang. A certain cramp in the stomach causes a 
 feeling of disgust ; the reproduction of this sensation 
 brings back the cramp. How is this ? 
 
 § 23. — The Memains of the Animal Nature is also a 
 /Source of Perfection. 
 
 Although the animal part of man preserves for him the 
 many great advantages of which we have alread}- spoken, 
 still, one maj- sa^' that, in another aspect, it remains always 
 
SCHILLEK'S philosophical LETTEK8. 437 
 
 despicable; viz., tlie soul tlms depends, slave-like, on the 
 activity of its tools ; the periodical relaxation of these pre- 
 scribes to the soul an inactive pause and annihilation at 
 periods. I mean sleep, which, one cannot deny, robs us 
 at least of the third part of our life. Further, our mind 
 is completel}- dependent on the laws of the body, so that 
 the cessation of the latter puts a sudden stop to the con- 
 tinuance of thoughts, even though we be on the straight, 
 open path towards truth. If the reason have ever so 
 little fixed upon an idea, when the laz3' matter refuses to 
 carry it out, the strings of the thinking organs grow 
 weary, if they have been but slightly strained ; the bod}' 
 fails us where we need it most. What astonishing steps, 
 one may infer, would man make in the use of his powers 
 if he could continue to think in a state of unbroken inten- 
 sity ! How he would unravel ever}' idea to its final ele- 
 ments ; how he would trace every appearance to its most 
 hidden sources, if he could keep them uninterruptedly be- 
 fore his mind ! But, alas ! it is not thus. Why is it not so ? 
 
 § 24. — Necessity for Relaxation. 
 
 The following will lead us on the track of truth : — 
 
 1. Pleasant sensation was necessary to lead man to 
 perfection, and he can only be perfect when he feels 
 comfortable. 
 
 2. The nature of a mortal being makes unpleasant feel- 
 ing unavoidable. Evil does not shut man out from the 
 best world, and the worldly-wise find their perfection 
 therein. 
 
 3. Thus pain and pleasure are necessary. It seems 
 harder, but it is no less true. 
 
 4. Every pain, as every pleasure, grows according to its 
 nature, and would continue to do so. 
 
 5. Every pain and every pleasure of a mixed being tend 
 to their own dissolution. 
 
438 Schiller's philosophical letters 
 
 § 26. — Explanation. 
 
 It is a well-known law of the connection between ideas 
 that every sensation, of whatever kind, immediately seizes 
 another of its kind, and enlarges itself through this addi- 
 tion. The larger and more manifold it becomes, so much 
 the more does it awaken similar sensations in all directions 
 through the organs of thought, until, by degrees, it becomes 
 universally predominant, and occupies the whole soul. 
 Consequently, every sensation grows through itself; every 
 present condition of the feeling power contains the root 
 of a feeling to follow, similar, but more intense. This is 
 evident. Now, ever^- mental sensation is, as we know, 
 allied to a similar animal one ; in other words, each one 
 is connected with more or less movement of the nerves, 
 which take a direction according to the measure of their 
 strength and extension. Thus, as mental sensations grow, 
 must the movements in the nervous system increase also. 
 This is no less clear. Now, pathology teaches us that a 
 nerve never suffers alone : and to say, " Here is a super- 
 fluity of strength," is as much as to say, " There is want 
 of strength." Thus, every nervous movement grows 
 through itself. Now, we have remarked that the move- 
 ments of the nervous system react upon the mind, and 
 strengthen the mental sensations ; * vice versa, the strength- 
 ened sensation of the mind increase and strengthen the 
 motions of the nerves. Thus we have a circle, in which 
 sensation must always increase, and nervous movements 
 everj- moment become more powerful and uni\ ersal. 
 
 Now, we know that the movements of the bodily frame 
 which cause the feeling of pain run counter to the har- 
 mony bj' which it would exist in well-being ; that is, that 
 they are diseased. But disease cannot grow unceasingly, 
 
 * Why, how one weeps 
 When one's too weary ! 
 
 Tears, tears ! why we weep, 
 'Tis worth inquiry ; — that we've shamed a life, 
 Or lost a love, or missed a world, perhaps ? 
 By no means. Simply, that we've walked too far, 
 Or talked too much, or felt the wind in the east, etc. 
 
 — Aurora Leigh. 
 
schillee's philosophical letteks. 439 
 
 therefore they end in the total destruction of the frame. 
 In relation to pain, it is thus proved that it aims at the 
 death of the subject. 
 
 But, the motions of the nerves under pleasant sensa- 
 tions being so harmonious to the continuance of the 
 machinery that the condition of mind which constitutes 
 pleasure is that of the greatest bodilj- well-being, should 
 Qot rather, then, pleasant sensation prolong the bloom of 
 the body eternally ? This inference is too hasty. In a 
 certain stage of moderation, these nervous motions are 
 wholesome, and really a sign of health. But if they 
 outgrow this stage, they may be the highest activity, the 
 highest momentary- perfection ; but, thus, they are excess 
 of health, no longer health itself. 
 
 We only call that condition of the natural motions 
 health in which the root of similar ones for the future lies, 
 viz., those which confirm the perfection of succeeding 
 motions ; thus, the destinj- of continuance is essentially 
 contained in the idea of health. Thus, for example, the 
 body of the most debilitated profligate attains to its 
 gre.atest harmonj- at the moment of excess ; but it is only 
 momentarily, and a so much deeper abatement shows suffi- 
 ciently that overstraining was not health. Therefore one 
 may justly- accept that an overstrained vigor of physical 
 action hastens death as much as the greatest disorder or 
 the worst illness. Both pain and pleasure draw us towards 
 an unavoidable death, unless something be present which 
 limits their advance. • 
 
 § 26. — Mccellence of this Abatement. 
 
 It is just this (the limit to their growth ) which the abate- 
 ment of the animal nature causes. It must be no other 
 than this limitation of our fragile frame (that appeared to 
 have lent to our opponents so strong a proof against its 
 perfection) which ameliorates all the evil consequences 
 that the mechanism otherwise makes unavoidable. It is 
 exactly this sinking, this lassitude of the organs, over 
 which tinkers complain so much, that prevents our own 
 strength destroying us in a short time ; that does not 
 
440 Schiller's philosophical letters. 
 
 permit our positions to be alwa3-s increasing towards oui 
 destruction. This limitation shows each passion the period 
 of its growth, its height and decline (if indeed the passion 
 does not die out in a total relaxation of the body), which 
 leaves the excited spirits time to resume their harmonj', 
 and the organs to recover. Hence, the highest pitch of 
 rapture, of fear, and of anger, are the same as weariness, 
 weakness, or fainting. But sleep vouchsafes more, for 
 as Shakspeare sajs : — 
 
 Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, 
 The death of each day's life, sore labor's batli, 
 Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's sweet restorer. 
 
 — Macbeth, 
 
 During sleep, the vital forces restore themselves to that 
 healthy balance which the continuance of our being so 
 much requires ; all the cramped ideas and feelings, the 
 overstrained actions which have troubled us through the 
 day, are solved in the entire relaxation of the sensorium ; 
 the harmonj- of the motions of the mind are resumed, and 
 the newly-awakened man greets the coming daj- more' 
 calmlj'. 
 
 In relation to the arrangement of the whole, also, we 
 cannot sufficiently admire the worth and importance of this 
 limitation. The arrangement necessarily- causes many, 
 who should be no less happy, to be sacrificed to the general 
 order and to bear the lot of oppression. Likewise, manj-, 
 whom we perhaps unjustly env^', must expend their mental 
 and bodily strength in restless exertion, so that the repose 
 of the whole be preserved. The same with sick persons, 
 the same with unreasoning anim-Mls. Sleep seals the eye 
 of care, takes from the pnnce and statesman the heavy 
 weight of governing ; pours new force into the veins of 
 the sick man, and rest into his harassed soul ; the daj- 
 laborer no longer hears the voice of the oppressor, and 
 the ill-used beast escapes from the tj'rann}- of man. Sleep 
 buries all cares and troubles, balances everything, equips 
 everjf one with new-born powers to bear the joys and 
 sorrows of the next day. 
 
schillee's philosophical letters. 441 
 § 27. — Severing of the Connection. 
 
 At length arrived at the point in the circle where the 
 mind has fulfilled the aim of its being, an internal, unac- 
 countable mechanism has, at the same time, made the hoAs 
 incapable of being any longer its instrument. All care for 
 the well-being of the bodilj' state seems to reach but to 
 this epoch. It appears to me that, in the formation of 
 our physical nature, wisdom has shown such parsimony, 
 that notwithstanding constant compensations, decline must 
 alwaj'S keep in the ascendancy, so that freedom misuses 
 the mechanism, and death is germinated in life as out of 
 its seed. Matter dissolves again into its last elements, 
 which travel through the kingdom of nature in other forms 
 and relations, to serve other purposes. The mind contin- 
 ues to practise its thinking powers in other circles, and 
 to observe the universe from other sides. 
 
 We may trulj' saj' that it has not by any means ex- 
 hausted this actual sphere, that it might have left this 
 sphere itself more perfect ; but do we know that this 
 sphere is lost to it ? "We lay manjr a book aside which we 
 do not understand, but perhaps in a few years we shall 
 understand it better. 
 
 ■THE END