From the antagonism of the two impulsions, and from the association of
two opposite principles, we have seen beauty to result, of which the
highest ideal must therefore be sought in the most perfect union and
equilibrium possible of the reality and of the form. But this
equilibrium remains always an idea that reality can never completely
reach. In reality, there will always remain a preponderance of one of
these elements over the other, and the highest point to which experience
can reach will consist in an oscillation between two principles, when
sometimes reality and at others form will have the advantage. Ideal
beauty is therefore eternally one and indivisible, because there can
only be one single equilibrium; on the contrary, experimental beauty
will be eternally double, because in the oscillation the equilibrium may
be destroyed in two ways—this side and that.
I have called attention in the foregoing letters to a fact that can also
be rigorously deduced, from the considerations that have engaged our
attention to the present point; this fact is that an exciting and also a
moderating action may be expected from the beautiful. The _tempering_
action is directed to keep within proper limits the sensuous and the
formal impulsions; the _exciting_, to maintain both of them in their
full force. But these two modes of action of beauty ought to be
completely identified in the idea. The beautiful ought to temper while
uniformly exciting the two natures, and it ought also to excite while
uniformly moderating them. This result flows at once from the idea of a
correlation, in virtue of which the two terms mutually imply each other,
and are the reciprocal condition one of the other, a correlation of
which the purest product is beauty. But experience does not offer an
example of so perfect a correlation. In the field of experience it will
always happen more or less that excess on the one side will give rise to
deficiency on the other, and deficiency will give birth to excess. It
results from this that what in the beau-ideal is only distinct in the
idea is different in reality in empirical beauty. The beau-ideal, though
simple and indivisible, discloses, when viewed in two different aspects,
on the one hand, a property of gentleness and grace, and on the other,
an energetic property; in experience there is a gentle and graceful
beauty and there is an energetic beauty. It is so, and it will be always
so, so long as the absolute is enclosed in the limits of time, and the
ideas of reason have to be realized in humanity. For example, the
intellectual man has the ideal of virtue, of truth, and of happiness;
but the active man will only practise _virtues_, will only grasp
_truths_, and enjoy _happy days_. The business of physical and moral
education is to bring back this multiplicity to unity, to put morality
in the place of manners, science in the place of knowledge; the business
of æsthetic education is to make out of beauties the beautiful.
Energetic beauty can no more preserve a man from a certain residue of
savage violence and harshness than graceful beauty can secure him
against a certain degree of effeminacy and weakness. As it is the effect
of the energetic beauty to elevate the mind in a physical and moral
point of view and to augment its momentum, it only too often happens
that the resistance of the temperament and of the character diminishes
the aptitude to receive impressions, that the delicate part of humanity
suffers an oppression which ought only to affect its grosser part, and
that this coarse nature participates in an increase of force that ought
only to turn to the account of free personality. It is for this reason
that, at the periods when we find much strength and abundant sap in
humanity, true greatness of thought is seen associated with what is
gigantic and extravagant, and the sublimest feeling is found coupled
with the most horrible excess of passion. It is also the reason why, in
the periods distinguished for regularity and form, nature is as often
oppressed as it is governed, as often outraged as it is surpassed. And
as the action of gentle and graceful beauty is to relax the mind in the
moral sphere as well as the physical, it happens quite as easily that
the energy of feelings is extinguished with the violence of desires, and
that character shares in the loss of strength which ought only to affect
the passions. This is the reason why, in ages assumed to be refined, it
is not a rare thing to see gentleness degenerate into effeminacy,
politeness into platitude, correctness into empty sterility, liberal
ways into arbitrary caprice, ease into frivolity, calm into apathy, and,
lastly, a most miserable caricature treads on the heels of the noblest,
the most beautiful type of humanity. Gentle and graceful beauty is
therefore a want to the man who suffers the constraint of manner and of
forms, for he is moved by grandeur and strength long before he becomes
sensible to harmony and grace. Energetic beauty is a necessity to the
man who is under the indulgent sway of taste, for in his state of
refinement he is only too much disposed to make light of the strength
that he retained in his state of rude savagism.
I think I have now answered and also cleared up the contradiction
commonly met in the judgments of men respecting the influence of the
beautiful, and the appreciation of æsthetic culture. This contradiction
is explained directly we remember that there are two sorts of
experimental beauty, and that on both hands an affirmation is extended
to the entire race, when it can only be proved of one of the species.
This contradiction disappears the moment we distinguish a twofold want
in humanity to which two kinds of beauty correspond. It is therefore
probable that both sides would make good their claims if they come to an
understanding respecting the kind of beauty and the form of humanity
that they have in view.
Consequently in the sequel of my researches I shall adopt the course
that nature herself follows with man considered from the point of view
of æsthetics, and setting out from the two kinds of beauty, I shall rise
to the idea of the genus. I shall examine the effects produced on man by
the gentle and graceful beauty when its springs of action are in full
play, and also those produced by energetic beauty when they are relaxed.
I shall do this to confound these two sorts of beauty in the unity of
the beau-ideal, in the same way that the two opposite forms and modes of
being of humanity are absorbed in the unity of the ideal man.