All spirits are attracted by perfection. There may be deviations, but
there is no exception to this, for all strive after the condition of the
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, disconcert me here,—this assumption is the basis on which
I found all that follows, 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 magnanimity, of
bravery and wisdom, does not a secret feeling spring up in our heart
that we are capable of doing the same? Does not the rush of blood
coloring our cheeks on hearing narratives of this kind proclaim that our
modesty trembles 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 clearly that our soul has passed into the state we
admire. If you were ever present, Raphael, when a great event was
related to a large assembly, did you not see how the relater waited for
the incense of praise, how he devoured it, though it was given to the
hero of his story,—and if you were ever a relater did you not trace how
your heart was subject to this pleasing deception? You have had
examples, my dear Raphael, 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 displeased at your carrying off the laurels because these passed
from the head of author to that of the reader. A quick and deep artistic
appreciation of virtue is justly held to be a great aptitude for virtue,
in the same way as it is usual to have no scruple in distrusting the
heart of a man whose intelligence is slow to take in moral beauty.
You need not advance as an objection that, frequently, coupled with a
lively perception of a perfection, the opposite failing is found to
co-exist, that evil-doers are often possessed with strong enthusiasm for
what is excellent, and that even the weak flame up into enthusiasm of
herculean growth. I know, for example, that our admired Haller, who
unmasked in so manly a spirit the sickly nothingness of vain honors; a
man whose philosophical greatness I so highly appreciated, that he was
not great enough to despise the still greater vanity of an order of
knighthood, which conferred an injury on his greatness. I am convinced
that in the happy moment of their ideal conceptions, the artist, the
philosopher, and the poet are really the great and good man whose image
they throw out; but with many this ennobling of the mind is only an
unnatural condition occasioned by a more active stirring of the blood,
or a more rapid vibration of the fancy: it is accordingly very
transient, like every other enchantment, disappearing rapidly and
leaving the heart more exhausted than before, and delivered over to the
despotic caprice of low passions. I expressly said more exhausted than
before, for universal experience teaches that a relapsing criminal is
always the most furious, and that the renegades of virtue seek
additional sweets in the arms of crime to compensate for the heavy
pressure of repentance.
I wished to establish, my Raphael, that it is our own condition, when we
feel that of another, that perfection becomes ours for the moment during
which we raise in ourselves the representation of it; that the delight
we take in truth, beauty, and virtue shows itself when closely analyzed
to be the consciousness of our individual ennobling and enriching; and I
think I have proved this.
We have ideas of the wisdom of the highest Being, of His goodness, of
His justice, but none of His omnipotence. To describe His omnipotence,
we help ourselves by the graduated representation of three successions:
Nothing, His Will, and Something. It is waste and empty; God calls on
light; and there is light. If we had a real idea of His operative
omnipotence we should be creators, as He.
Accordingly, every perfection which I perceive becomes my own; it gives
me joy, because it is my own; I desire it, because I 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 represent to
myself becomes my happiness; accordingly 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, excellence,
or enjoyment beyond myself, I produce myself; when I neglect or destroy
anything, I neglect, I destroy myself. I desire the happiness of others,
because I desire my own; and the desire of the happiness of others we
call benevolence and love.