I approach continually nearer to the end to which I lead you, by a path
offering few attractions. Be pleased to follow me a few steps further,
and a large horizon will open up to you, and a delightful prospect will
reward you for the labor of the way.
The object of the sensuous instinct, expressed in a universal
conception, is named Life in the widest acceptation; a conception that
expresses all material existence and all that is immediately present in
the senses. The object of the formal instinct, expressed in a universal
conception, is called shape or form, as well in an exact as in an
inexact acceptation; a conception that embraces all formal qualities of
things and all relations of the same to the thinking powers. The object
of the play instinct, represented in a general statement, may therefore
bear the name of _living form_; a term that serves to describe all
æsthetic qualities of phenomena, and what people style, in the widest
sense, _beauty_.
Beauty is neither extended to the whole field of all living things nor
merely enclosed in this field. A marble block, though it is and remains
lifeless, can nevertheless become a living form by the architect and
sculptor; a man, though he lives and has a form, is far from being a
living form on that account. For this to be the case, it is necessary
that his form should be life, and that his life should be a form. As
long as we only think of his form, it is lifeless, a mere abstraction;
as long as we only feel his life, it is without form, a mere impression.
It is only when his form lives in our feeling, and his life in our
understanding, he is the living form, and this will everywhere be the
case where we judge him to be beautiful.
But the genesis of beauty is by no means declared because we know how to
point out the component parts, which in their combination produce
beauty. For to this end it would be necessary to comprehend that
_combination itself_, which continues to defy our exploration, as well
as all mutual operation between the finite and the infinite. The reason,
on transcendental grounds, makes the following demand: There shall be a
communion between the formal impulse and the material impulse—that is,
there shall be a play instinct—because it is only the unity of reality
with the form, of the accidental with the necessary, of the passive
state with freedom, that the conception of humanity is completed. Reason
is obliged to make this demand, because her nature impels her to
completeness and to the removal of all bounds; while every exclusive
activity of one or the other impulse leaves human nature incomplete and
places a limit in it. Accordingly, as soon as reason issues the mandate,
“a humanity shall exist,” it proclaims at the same time the law, “there
shall be a beauty.” Experience can answer us if there is a beauty, and
we shall know it as soon as she has taught us if a humanity can exist.
But neither reason nor experience can tell us how beauty can be and how
a humanity is possible.
We know that man is neither exclusively matter nor exclusively spirit.
Accordingly, beauty as the consummation of humanity, can neither be
exclusively mere life, as has been asserted by sharp-sighted observers,
who kept too close to the testimony of experience, and to which the
taste of the time would gladly degrade it; Nor can beauty be merely
form, as has been judged by speculative sophists, who departed too far
from experience, and by philosophic artists, who were led too much by
the necessity of art in explaining beauty; it is rather the common
object of both impulses, that is of the play instinct. The use of
language completely justifies this name, as it is wont to qualify with
the word play what is neither subjectively nor objectively accidental,
and yet does not impose necessity either externally or internally. As
the mind in the intuition of the beautiful finds itself in a happy
medium between law and necessity, it is, because it divides itself
between both, emancipated from the pressure of both. The formal impulse
and the material impulse are equally earnest in their demands, because
one relates in its cognition to things in their reality and the other to
their necessity; because in action the first is directed to the
preservation of life, the second to the preservation of dignity, and
therefore both to truth and perfection. But life becomes more
indifferent when dignity is mixed up with it, and duty no longer coerces
when inclination attracts. In like manner the mind takes in the reality
of things, material truth, more freely and tranquilly as soon as it
encounters formal truth, the law of necessity; nor does the mind find
itself strung by abstraction as soon as immediate intuition can
accompany it. In one word, when the mind comes into communion with
ideas, all reality loses its serious value because it becomes _small_;
and as it comes in contact with feeling, necessity parts also with its
serious value because it is _easy_.
But perhaps the objection has for some time occurred to you, Is not the
beautiful degraded by this, that it is made a mere play? and is it not
reduced to the level of frivolous objects which have for ages passed
under that name? Does it not contradict the conception of the reason and
the dignity of beauty, which is nevertheless regarded as an instrument
of culture, to confine it to the work of being a mere play? and does it
not contradict the empirical conception of play, which can co-exist with
the exclusion of all taste, to confine it merely to beauty?
But what is meant by a _mere play_, when we know that in all conditions
of humanity that very thing is play, and _only_ that is play which makes
man complete and develops simultaneously his twofold nature? What you
style _limitation_, according to your representation of the matter,
according to my views, which I have justified by proofs. I name
_enlargement_. Consequently I should have said exactly the reverse: man
is serious _only_ with the agreeable, with the good, and with the
perfect, but he _plays_ with beauty. In saying this we must not indeed
think of the plays that are in vogue in real life, and which commonly
refer only to his material state. But in real life we should also seek
in vain for the beauty of which we are here speaking. The actually
present beauty is worthy of the really, of the actually present
play-impulse; but by the ideal of beauty, which is set up by the reason,
an ideal of the play instinct is also presented, which man ought to have
before his eyes in all his plays.
Therefore, no error will ever be incurred if we seek the ideal of beauty
on the same road on which we satisfy our play-impulse. We can
immediately understand why the ideal form of a Venus, of a Juno, and of
an Apollo, is to be sought not at Rome, but in Greece, if we contrast
the Greek population, delighting in the bloodless athletic contests of
boxing, racing, and intellectual rivalry at Olympia, with the Roman
people gloating over the agony of a gladiator. Now the reason pronounces
that the beautiful must not only be life and form, but a living form,
that is, beauty, inasmuch as it dictates to man the twofold law of
absolute formality and absolute reality. Reason also utters the decision
that man shall only _play_ with beauty, and he _shall only play_ with
_beauty_.
For, to speak out once for all, man only plays when in the full meaning
of the word he is a man, and _he is only completely a man when he
plays_. This proposition, which at this moment perhaps appears
paradoxical, will receive a great and deep meaning if we have advanced
far enough to apply it to the twofold seriousness of duty and of
destiny. I promise you that the whole edifice of æsthetic art and the
still more difficult art of life will be supported by this principle.
But this proposition is only unexpected in science; long ago it lived
and worked in art and in the feeling of the Greeks, her most
accomplished masters; only they removed to Olympus what ought to have
been preserved on earth. Influenced by the truth of this principle, they
effaced from the brow of their gods the earnestness and labor which
furrow the cheeks of mortals, and also the hollow lust that smoothes the
empty face. They set free the ever serene from the chains of every
purpose, of every duty, of every care, and they made _indolence_ and
_indifference_ the envied condition of the godlike race; merely human
appellations for the freest and highest mind. As well the material
pressure of natural laws as the spiritual pressure of moral laws lost
itself in its higher idea of necessity, which embraced at the same time
both worlds, and out of the union of these two necessities issued true
freedom. Inspired by this spirit the Greeks also effaced from the
features of their ideal, together with _desire or inclination_, all
traces of _volition_, or, better still, they made both unrecognizable,
because they knew how to wed them both in the closest alliance. It is
neither charm, nor is it dignity, which speaks from the glorious face of
Juno Ludovici; it is neither of these, for it is both at once. While the
female god challenges our veneration, the godlike woman at the same time
kindles our love. But while in ecstacy we give ourselves up to the
heavenly beauty, the heavenly self-repose awes us back. The whole form
rests and dwells in itself—a fully complete creation in itself—and as if
she were out of space, without advance or resistance; it shows no force
contending with force, no opening through which time could break in.
Irresistibly carried away and attracted by her womanly charm, kept off
at a distance by her godly dignity, we also find ourselves at length in
the state of the greatest repose, and the result is a wonderful
impression for which the understanding has no idea and language no name.