I have remarked in the beginning of the foregoing letter that there is a
twofold condition of determinableness and a twofold condition of
determination. And now I can clear up this proposition.
The mind can be determined—is determinable—only in as far as it is not
determined; it is, however, determinable also, in as far as it is not
exclusively determined; that is, if it is not confined in its
determination. The former is only a want of determination—it is without
limits, because it is without reality; but the latter, the æsthetic
determinableness, has no limits, because it unites all reality.
The mind is determined, inasmuch as it is only limited; but it is also
determined because it limits itself of its own absolute capacity. It is
situated in the former position when it feels, in the second when it
thinks. Accordingly the æsthetic constitution is in relation to
determinableness what thought is in relation to determination. The
latter is a negative from internal and infinite completeness, the former
a limitation from internal infinite power. Feeling and thought come into
contact in one single point, the mind is determined in both conditions,
the man becomes something and exists—either as individual or person—by
exclusion; in other cases these two faculties stand infinitely apart.
Just in the same manner the æsthetic determinableness comes in contact
with the mere want of determination in a single point, by both excluding
every distinct determined existence, by thus being in all other points
nothing and all, and hence by being infinitely different. Therefore if
the latter, in the absence of determination from deficiency, is
represented as an _empty infiniteness_, the æsthetic freedom of
determination, which forms the proper counterpart to the former, can be
considered as a _completed infiniteness_; a representation which exactly
agrees with the teachings of the previous investigations.
Man is therefore _nothing_ in the æsthetic state, if attention is given
to the single result, and not to the whole faculty, and if we regard
only the absence or want of every special determination. We must
therefore do justice to those who pronounce the beautiful, and the
disposition in which it places the mind, as entirely indifferent and
unprofitable, in relation to _knowledge_ and _feeling_. They are
perfectly right; for it is certain that beauty gives no separate, single
result, either for the understanding or for the will; it does not carry
out a single intellectual or moral object; it discovers no truth, does
not help us to fulfil a single duty, and, in _one_ word, is equally
unfit to found the character or to clear the head. Accordingly, the
personal worth of a man, or his dignity, as far as this can only depend
on himself, remains entirety undetermined by æsthetic culture, and
nothing further is attained than that, on the _part_ of _nature_, it is
made profitable for him to make of himself what he will; that the
freedom to be what he ought to be is restored perfectly to him.
But by this something infinite is attained. But as soon as we remember
that freedom is taken from man by the one-sided compulsion of nature in
feeling, and by the exclusive legislation of the reason in thinking, we
must consider the capacity restored to him by the æsthetical
disposition, as the highest of all gifts, as the gift of humanity. I
admit that he possesses this capacity for humanity, before every
definite determination in which he may be placed. But, as a matter of
fact, he loses it with every determined condition into which he may
come; and if he is to pass over to an opposite condition, humanity must
be in every case restored to him by the æsthetic life.
It is therefore not only a poetical license, but also philosophically
correct, when beauty is named our second creator. Nor is this
inconsistent with the fact that she only makes it possible for us to
attain and realize humanity, leaving this to our free will. For in this
she acts in common with our original creator, nature, which has imparted
to us nothing further than this capacity for humanity, but leaves the
use of it to our own determination of will.