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
highly expedient to examine very closely the bounds that have been
assigned to the use of beautiful forms. These limits are embodied in the
very nature of the beautiful, and we have only to call to mind how taste
expresses its influence to be able to determine _how far_ it ought to
extend it.
The following are the principal operations of taste; to bring the
sensuous and spiritual powers of man into harmony, and to unite them in
a close alliance. Consequently, whenever such an intimate 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 purely creatures of
reason, whether it be to attain an end or to perform a duty. Cases of
this kind do really 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 abstracted from
knowledge, and passion or desire from every moral act of the will.
When we _know_, we take up an active attitude, and our attention is
directed to an _object_, to a relation between different
representations. When we _feel_, we have a _passive_ 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 know the
beautiful, we do not distinguish any relation between it and other
objects, we do not refer its representation to other representations,
but to ourselves who have 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 by
judgments of taste, and no knowledge, not even that of beauty, is
obtained by the feeling of beauty. Therefore, when knowledge is the
object, taste can give us no help, at least directly and immediately; on
the contrary, knowledge is shut out as long as we are occupied with
beauty.
But it may be objected, What is the use then of a graceful embodiment of
conceptions, if the object of the discussion 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 beautiful 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 souls to its reception, and the obstacles are
removed from our minds which would have otherwise opposed the difficult
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 innocent subserviency
to the senses, which is only allowed in the _form_, without changing
anything in the substance. Great moderation must be always used, and
sometimes the end in view may be completely defeated according to 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 _popular_ knowledge, which
is founded on feelings more or less developed. What may be very useful
to the latter is quite possibly adverse to the former.
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 reasonings of the understanding; the stability
of the representation must guarantee that of the ideas. But the strict
necessity with which the understanding links together reasonings and
conclusions, is quite antagonistic to the freedom granted to imagination
in matters of knowledge. By its very nature, the imagination strives
after perceptions, that is, after complete and completely determinate
representations, and is indefatigably active to represent the universal
in one single case, to limit it in time and space, to make of every
conception an individual, and to give a body to abstractions. 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 only connection that remains to our representations, 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
representations or conceptions, and its effort is directed to
distinguish 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 _separate_ them; for it only unites,
_according to their inner relations_, things that first disclosed
themselves in their separation.
The understanding observes a strict necessity and conformity with laws
in its combinations, and it is only the consistent connection of ideas
that satisfies it. But this connection is destroyed as often as the
imagination insinuates _entire_ representations (individual cases) in
this chain of abstractions, and mixes up the accidents of time with the
strict necessity of a chain of circumstances. Accordingly, 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 sacrificed 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 by distinctness of
expression, 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 yoke 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
insufficient 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 contents or subject, recommends itself by its very appearance. 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 term popular
speakers or popular writers I imply all those who do not direct their
remarks exclusively to the learned. Now, as these persons do not address
any carefully trained body of hearers or readers, but take them as they
find them, they must only assume the existence of the general conditions
of thought, only the universal impulses that call attention, but no
special _gift of thinking_, no acquaintance 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 by
their imagination a proper meaning to their abstractions, or whether
they 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 understanding of the reader to form a proper conception
impromptu. Accordingly, the faculty of imagination is much more mixed up
with a popular 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 perceptions are much too
certainly calculated for the object on hand, and much too closely
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 become 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 may be called free when the
understanding, while determining the connection of ideas, does so with
so little prominence that the imagination 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
_whole_ representation), where attention is merely concerned with the
conception (the part representation). Accordingly, sensuous presentation
is viewed in one aspect, _rich_, for in cases where only _one_ condition
is desired, a 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 proportion 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 material part, a
_body_; and these are formed by the perceptions, from which the
understanding separates distinct features or conceptions. For though we
may attempt to obtain the highest pitch of abstraction, something
sensuous always lies at the ground of the thought. But imagination
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 appear rather to
stand apart as independent limbs and separate unities, when they betray
the utter disorder of a sportive imagination, obedient to itself alone,
then the clothing has æsthetic freedom and the wants of the fancy are
satisfied. A mode of presentation such as this might be styled 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_ work, when the parts, lifeless in themselves, impart by
their connection an artificial life to the whole.
On the other 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 conformity with
law, while the imagination is flattered by being set free from
restrictions, is solved thus: by obtaining the closest connection
between the conceptions forming 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 necessity. The principal features
that contribute to this freedom of the imagination are the
_individualizing_ of objects 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 express 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 liberty,
by 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 eloquent writer knows how to
extract the most splendid order from the very centre of anarchy, and
that he succeeds in erecting a solid structure on a constantly moving
ground, on the very torrent of imagination.
If we compare together scientific statement or address, popular address,
and fine language, it is seen directly that all three express the idea
with an equal faithfulness as regards the matter, and consequently that
all three help us to acquire knowledge, but that as regards the mode and
degree of this knowledge a very 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 convince us of its reality, and still less of its necessity.
His thought does in fact only present itself as an arbitrary creation of
the imagination, which is never qualified, in itself, to guarantee the
reality of what it represents. No doubt the popular writer leads us to
believe that the matter _really_ is as he describes it, but does not
require anything more firm; for, though he may make the truth of a
proposition credible to our feelings, he does not make it absolutely
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 by undeniable reasons that the matter is _necessarily_ 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 may be laid down as a rule that
preference ought to be given to the scientific style whenever the chief
consideration is not only the result, but also the proofs. But when the
result merely is of the most essential importance the advantage must be
given to popular elocution and fine language. But it may be asked in
_what cases_ ought popular elocution to rise to a fine, a noble style?
This depends on the degree of interest in the reader, or which you wish
to excite in his mind.
The purely scientific statement may incline either to popular discourse
or to philosophic language, and according 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 comparison, 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 gathering its flowers and fruits, but the tree that bore
them does not become our property, and when once the flowers are faded
and the fruit is consumed our riches depart. It would therefore be
equally unreasonable to give only 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 only 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 _full and
entire property_ 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 dispositions 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 any 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 _subjects_
on which he turns his discourse. The hearers of the professor have
already attended his lectures, and will attend them again; they 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 every
address the orator must _finish_ what he wishes to do; each of his
harangues must form a whole and contain expressly and entirely his
conclusion.
It is not therefore surprising that a dogmatic composition or address,
however solid, should not have any success either in conversation or in
the pulpit, nor that a fine diction, whatever wit it may 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
may be entitled to admiration in the circle to which it belongs; and
more than this, both, fundamentally, may be quite of equal value; but it
would be requiring an impossibility to expect that the work which
demands all the application of the thinker should at the same time offer
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 scientific matters are clothed in an
attractive style. I do not speak here of those in which the substance is
_sacrificed_ to the form, but of certain writings really excellent,
which are sufficiently well digested to stand the strictest examination,
but which do not offer their proofs by their very form. No doubt books
of this kind attain their end, they are read; but this is always at the
cost of a more important 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 agrees with the fancy; 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 youth; and very often the exercise
itself of thought is much more important than the object on which it is
exercised. If you wish for a matter to be done seriously, be very
careful not to announce it as a diversion. It is preferable, on the
contrary, to secure attention and effort by the very form that is
employed, 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 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 æsthetic address it
is wished to interest them. What is the result? A writing or
conversation of the æsthetic class is devoured with interest; but
questions 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 beauty reposes on the
strictest limitation, on the most exact definition, on the highest and
most intimate necessity. Only this limitation ought rather to let itself
be sought for than be imposed violently. It requires the most perfect
conformity to law, but this must appear quite natural. A product that
unites these conditions will fully satisfy the understanding as soon as
study is made of it. But exactly because this result is really
beautiful, its conformity is not expressed; it does not take the
understanding apart to address it exclusively; it is a harmonious unity
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 knowledge 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 unity where the
parts are blended in a pure entirety. No doubt it is necessary, in a
philosophical discourse, that the understanding, as a faculty of
analysis, find what will satisfy it; it must obtain single concrete
results; this is the essential that must not by any means be lost sight
of. But if the writer, while giving all possible precision to the
substance of his conceptions, has taken the necessary measures to enable
the understanding, as soon as it will take the 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 harmonious unity, and when she loses this in her efforts after
abstraction, nothing appears more urgent to her than to re-establish it,
and the writer we are speaking of is not less commendable if he obeys
nature by attaching to the understanding what had been separated by
abstraction, and when, by 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 this writer for
having given him a double task. For vulgar criticism has not the feeling
for this harmony, it only runs after details, and even in the Basilica
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 way that the pure
understanding, left to itself, if it meets beauty and harmony, either in
nature or in art, must begin by transferring them into its own
language—and by 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. Many will stay behind; for if it be a rare thing
to find readers simply capable of thinking, it is infinitely more rare
to meet any 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 he asks of them what is absolutely
impossible—to give a living, animated form to conception. But as both
only represent true humanity very imperfectly—that normal humanity which
requires the absolute harmony of these two operations—their
contradictory objections have no weight, and if their judgments prove
anything, it is rather that the author has succeeded in attaining his
end. The abstract thinker finds that the substance of the work 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_. Happily also, he 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 office 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, and 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
faculty in the student is a premature thing. He must, on the contrary,
be encouraged 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 acquired, 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 understanding
is required not to lose sight of your object while giving free play to
the imagination. He who transmits 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
productions and into his acts. There is for the results of thought only
one way by which they can penetrate into the will and pass into life;
that is, by spontaneous imagination, only what in _ourselves_ was
already a living _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
them 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 relation 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 destiny, cannot and ought not
to rival ours in scientific knowledge; but it can share _truth_ with us
by the reproduction of things. Man agrees to have his taste offended,
provided compensation be given to his understanding by the increased
value of its possessions. But women do not forgive negligence in form,
whatever be the nature of the conception; 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 by beauty, would still be
entitled to its name because it is ruled by 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
inseparable 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. As, therefore, nature has not only dispensed but cut
off the other sex from this task, man must give a double attention to it
if he wishes to vie with woman and be equal to her in what is of great
interest in human life. Consequently he will try 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 try to make his own ground yield as many flowers and as much
fruit as possible, so as to renew as often as possible the quick-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 productions of that of man, and allows the fair sex to
feel without being previously 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 condition that it will not encroach on the substance of
things. Taste must never forget that it carries out an order emanating
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
any authority. For it exceeds its mission, it betrays it, it disfigures
the object that it ought faithfully to transmit, it lays 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
sequence of conceptions of which only the strictness should have been
hidden from us is rejected as a disagreeable impediment. Perfection is
sacrificed to ornament, the truth 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 only indulged in an amusing game.
The writers who have more wit than understanding and more taste than
science, are too often guilty of this deception; and readers more
accustomed to feel than to think are only too inclined to forgive them.
In general it is unsafe to give to the æsthetical sense all its culture
before having exercised the understanding as the pure thinking faculty,
and before having enriched the head with conceptions; for as taste
always looks at the carrying out and not at the basis of things,
wherever it becomes the only arbiter, there is an end of the essential
difference between things. Men become indifferent to reality, and they
finish by giving value to form and appearance only.
Hence arises that superficial and frivolous _bel esprit_ that we often
see hold sway in social conditions and in circles where men pride
themselves, and not unreasonably, 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 majority.
Moreover, it can hardly be prevented that what completes the external
education of a young man whose mind is ripe turns him who is not ripened
by study into a fool. I admit 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 in 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 impression made on the senses is converted into a supreme
_criterion_, and if things are exclusively referred to sensation, man
will never cease to be in the service of matter; he will never clear a
way for his intelligence; in short, reason will lose in freedom in
proportion as it allows imagination to usurp undue influence.
The 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 beautiful 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 charm 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 in 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 formation, and make them believe that they are inspired.
They take obscurity 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 beauty
flows ever towards him who is initiated. If now a true genius slumbers
in the young aspirant, no doubt his modesty will at first receive a
shock; but soon the consciousness of real talent will embolden him for
the trial. If nature has endowed him with gifts 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
individual. 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 only formed
of the little—from the imperceptible. He piles up, grain by grain, the
materials of the wonderful structure, which, suddenly disclosed to our
eyes, produces 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 coolness, 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 by
the completion. For the simple amateur, it is the difficulty 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 æsthetical 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
æsthetical taste bear on the _will_? 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 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 infallibly deprave the heart.
Yet this is the dangerous extreme to which too refined an æsthetic
culture brings us directly we abandon ourselves exclusively to the
feelings for the beautiful, and directly we raise taste to the part of
absolute lawgiver over our will.
The moral destination of man requires that the will should be completely
independent of all influence of sensuous instincts, and we know that
taste labors incessantly at making the link between reason and the
senses continually 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 may be a serious danger
for morality.
I proceed to explain my meaning. A very refined æsthetical 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 _serious
operations of its legislative power, 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 only binds each of the contracting
parties when the other fulfils its engagement. The purely _accidental_
agreement of duty with inclination ends by being considered a
_necessary_ condition, and thus the principle of all morality is
quenched in its source.
How does the character become thus gradually depraved? The process may
be explained thus: So long as man is only a savage, and his instincts
only bear on material things and a coarse egotism determines his
actions, sensuousness can only become a danger to morality by its _blind
strength_, and does not oppose reason except as a _force_. The voice of
justice, moderation, and humanity is stifled by the appetites, which
make a stronger appeal. Man is then terrible in his vengeance, because
he is terribly sensitive to insults. He robs, he kills, 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 only
dangerous before by 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 may exercise over the will a
tyranny 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. Now, reason is very apt to
mistake a _spiritualized_ instinct for one of its _own_ instincts, and
at length to give up to it the guidance of the will, and this in
proportion as moral judgment and æsthetic judgment, 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 duty to meet in the
same object and in a common desire, this _representation_ of the moral
sense by the æsthetic sense may not draw after it positively evil
consequences, though, if the matter be strictly considered, the morality
of particular 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 condemn,
then, in fact, we suddenly encounter the necessity of distinguishing
between the requirements of the moral sense and those of the æsthetic
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 always satisfactory, 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
precisely 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 subordinate 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 from 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 elevation does it raise human nature! and often what divine
sparks does it kindle in the common soul! It is a sacred fire that
consumes every egotistical inclination, and the very principles of
morality are scarcely a greater safeguard of the soul’s chastity than
love is for the nobility of the heart. How often it happens while the
moral principles are still struggling that love prevails in their favor,
and hastens by its irresistible power the resolutions that duty alone
would have vainly demanded from weak human nature! Who, then, would
distrust an affection that protects so powerfully what is most 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 you, and
that it depends only on you 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 in 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 unhappy 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 _suggestions
of selfishness_, and representing our moral dignity as _one of the
components 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 impetus 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, “_Les Liaisons Dangereuses_,”
gives us a striking example of this delusion, by which love betrays 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
they assign a much larger place to the arbitrary option of the subject,
and at the same time as they have the appearance of merit, which gives
them lustre, they commend themselves far more to the æsthetic taste than
perfect or necessary duties, which oblige us strictly and
unconditionally. How many people allow themselves to be unjust that they
may be generous! How many fail in their duties to society that they may
do good to an individual, and reciprocally! How many people forgive a
lie sooner than a rudeness, a crime against humanity 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 they have
a laudable end in view, pursue an ideal of political happiness through
all the terrors of anarchy, 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 nature is preserved by his very
coarseness. In the latter, the opposite of the demands of sense and the
decrees of the moral law is so strongly 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, yielding to the superior
attraction of sense, gives way to the committal of an unjust action, he
may yield to temptation, but he will not hide from himself that he is
committing a _fault_, and he will do homage to reason even while he
violates its mandates. The child of civilization, 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 by a sophism. No doubt he
wishes to obey his appetite, but at the same time without falling in his
own esteem. How does he manage this? He begins by overthrowing the
superior authority 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 only dignity 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 very moment she enters
into contest with reason, to keep this dignity which she owes to reason
alone. Nay, inclination even aspires to use this dignity she owes to
reason against reason itself.
These are the dangers that threaten the morality of the character when
too intimate an association is attempted between sensuous instincts and
moral instincts, which can never perfectly agree in real life, but only
in the ideal. I admit that the sensuous risks 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 may quite well be
refused it when the sensuous finds it painful to grant it. It is,
therefore, infinitely safer for the morality of the character to
suspend, at least for a time, this misrepresentation of the moral sense
by 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 only 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 enjoys a continual
prosperity never sees moral duty face to face, because his inclinations,
naturally regular and moderate, always _anticipate_ the mandate of
reason, and because no temptation to violate the law recalls to his mind
the idea of law. Entirely guided by the sense of the beautiful, which
represents reason in the world of sense, he 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!