RELIGION AND ART
Eucken has written less on this subject than on any of those which
constitute the headings of the chapters of this book. But he has treated
art in precisely the same manner as he has treated all other important
problems: he has shown that no great art is possible unless it is rooted
in a creativeness which is _spiritual_. In his _Main Currents of Modern
Thought_ we get an instructive account of art and its relation to
morality. His account of the development of art in modern times, from
the Renaissance to the present day, shows the ebb and flow of the
conception of the Beautiful. The check which the Renaissance received
through the Reformation in relation to art had its good as well as its
evil side. Intense scorn arose in the Protestant world for every kind of
image and decoration, because these were supposed to posit life on what
was purely sensuous and natural, and so bar the way to the Divine.
Still, the obstruction [p.120] created by Protestantism in this
direction opened a door in quite another direction. Art of a higher kind
than picture or statue arose, which was far removed from the sensuous
level and which emerged from a deeper soil within the soul. The whole
series of musical composers produced by Germany is a proof of this. The
period of the _Aufklärung_ viewed art with scant favour, but with the
rise of the New Humanism a change in favour of art took place.
The origin of this change is to be found where one might least expect
it--in the soul of the sage of Königsberg. Kant's _Critique of Judgment_
is unanimously allowed to be the greatest book ever produced on the
subject. Goethe and Schiller were influenced by it--the latter in a
remarkable manner. We find in these writers an effort to unite the Good
and the Beautiful. It is impossible to read the poetry of Goethe without
finding that great moral problems are imbedded in his conceptions of the
Beautiful. His poetry is an attempt to bridge the chasm between the
external world and the soul. His nature was too deep to remain satisfied
with the mere impressions of the senses. The union of the world
_without_ with the world _within_ gave him a view of the universe and of
human life full of originality and suggestiveness.
Schiller worked in practically the same direction. A moral standpoint of
a high order [p.121] is to be discovered in his writings, and he
believed this standard to be possible of preservation alongside of a
legitimate "freedom granted in the phenomenon." "Then the two tendencies
again became divided. Romanticism gave a peculiar definite and
self-conscious expression to the priority of art and the aesthetical
view of life, while Fichte and the other leaders of the national
movement exerted a powerful influence in the direction of strengthening
morality. The social and industrial type of civilisation, which became
more and more powerful during the course of the nineteenth century, was
inclined, with its tendency towards social welfare and utility, to
assign a subordinate part to art. Modern art arises in protest against
this and is ambitious to influence the whole of life; in opposition to
morality it holds up an aesthetic view of life as being alone
justifiable. Hence at the present time the two spheres stand wide
apart."[39]
Eucken shows how such an antithesis between morality and art has
partially existed for thousands of years. But whenever a cleavage takes
place both morality and art suffer. On the one hand, morality tends to
become a system of rules for the performance of which a reward is
promised either in this world or in the world to come. On the other
hand, art is stripped of the distinction between the values of sensuous
things as these express [p.122] themselves in their relation to human
life. In the former case, insistence on morality (even on morality
alone) has deepened human life; it has given it a more strenuous tone;
and it has created a scale of values which alters the whole meaning of
life. But morality conceived as a system of regulations and laws has
always the tendency to harden and narrow the life, and to posit the
individual too much upon himself. Any justification from without--from
the physical side--consequently fails to give any help or satisfaction.
And man needs this help. As it is impossible for him to fly out of the
world to some region where mind or spirit alone reigns, he has to do the
best he can with the physical world in the midst of which he exists. It
is within such a world that he has to cultivate the spiritual potencies
of his own being. It is true that the spiritual potencies of his own
being are higher and of more value than anything in Nature. Still, that
does not mean that Nature has to be discarded or condemned before the
potencies of his own being can develop. Nature is not a mere blind
machine; it has produced all--including man and his potencies--that is
to be found on the face of it. It is therefore not entirely meaningless,
and the meaning it possesses is a necessary element in the evolution of
personal spiritual life. Man must enter into some relation with Nature.
But such a relation produces even more than all this. When viewed in a
friendly mood, [p.123] Nature herself wears an aspect higher than a
materialistic or intellectual one. It calls forth the best in
imagination; it enables us to feel that something of the power that
dwells within the soul dwells also in all the manifestations of
phenomena.[40] This fact is evident in all the poetry of the world, and
without the perpetual presence of Nature to the soul in the form of
wonder, reverence, and admiration, no poetry worthy of the name is
possible. Nature thus is of value in the fact that when its phenomena
present themselves to a consciousness aware not only of its _knowing_
aspect but also of its _feeling_ aspect, the union of Nature and soul
produces a feeling of reality which creates an ideal nature. "The light
that never was on sea or land" becomes now on sea and land; it
illuminates the whole scene with a "halo and glory" which was concealed
before. But there must be present "an eye of the soul" united with the
physical impressions before all this is possible. Indeed, the effect of
all this is nothing less than an ideal creation of a world consisting of
Nature and the spiritual potencies of man. It is evident that if the
_internal_ [p.124] factor, which represents itself in the form of
morality or value, is absent, the picture of Nature is quite different.
And this is Eucken's complaint in regard to much of the art of the
present day: the internal factor is absent. Seriousness is not blended
with freedom in it; or, in other words, the _inward_ has no power to
pass its quality into the _outward_. But when the _inward_ is present in
the form of morality or value, then art becomes joyous, serious,
helpful, and disinterested. This last aspect of the disinterestedness of
art was perceived clearly by Kant, and has formed an important
contribution to the philosophy and even to the religion of the
nineteenth century. When a potency of the soul, gained in a province
outside art (as is the case with morality or value), operates, there is
no danger of art degenerating into mere subjectivism; otherwise there is
a very grave danger. Loosened from morality it becomes a mere play of
decoration and fancy--a mere superficial embroidery of an empty life; it
can look on the human world and all its struggles with an indifferent
and often cynical mood. Why has all this happened? Because the inward
factor of the "strenuous mood" has been replaced by a sentimental factor
based on nothing deeper than the satisfaction of the senses; and the
result of this is found in feelings which are more psychical than
spiritual in their nature.
But that art is necessary for any completion [p.125] of life is seen by
the fact that its contribution to the soul is more than a _thought_
contribution. For the deeper life of the spirit of man is more than
thought, although thought forms an essential element of it; this deeper
life has wider demands than can be expressed in the form of logical
propositions. Eucken shows how true art is therefore indissolubly
connected with spiritual life. "Without the presence of a spiritual
world [the resultant of the union of the spiritual potencies and
external objects], art has no soul and no secure fundamental
relationship to reality, and in no way can it develop a fixed style.
We hear to-day of a 'new style,' and are in the saddle after such a
conception. But shall we find it so long as the whole of life does not
fasten itself upon simple fundamental lines and does not follow the main
path in the midst of all the tangle of effort? How is it possible to
attain to a unity of interpretation where our life itself fails in the
possession of a governing unity? We discover ourselves in the midst of
the most fundamental transformations of life; old ideals are vanishing,
and new ones are dawning on the horizon. But as yet they are all full of
unrest and unreadiness; and the situation of man in the All of things is
so full of uncertainty that he has to struggle anew for the meaning and
value of his life. If art has nothing to say to him and no help to
offer--if it relegates these questions far from itself--then art itself
must sink to the level of a [p.126] subsidiary play the more these
problems win the mind and spirit of man. But if art is capable of
bringing a furtherance of values to man in his needs and sorrows, it
will have to recognise and acknowledge the problems of spiritual life as
well as participate in the struggle for the vindication and formation of
a spiritual world. When art does this, these questions which engage our
attention are also its questions."[41]
In spite of the contradictions of life, in spite of much which seems
indifferent to human weal and woe within the physical universe, the
contradictions may be surmounted by the union of man's spirit with other
aspects of existence which look in an opposite direction. The ideal
world of art is not to be discovered by ignoring these contradictions,
but by acknowledging them to the full, and by seeing that Nature is
supplemented by man and his soul. Such a union, as has already been
pointed out, will create an earnestness and joyousness of life; it will
enable man, when any teleology of Nature herself fails to give him
satisfaction, to realise a teleology within the _substance_ of his own
life--spiritual in its essence, infinite in its duration, and the
flowering of a bud which has grown with the help of the natural cosmos.
When Nature is thus viewed as a preparatory stage for spirit, it will
wear an aspect very different from the mechanical one. Its real
teleology [p.127] will be seen: there can be no dispute about it; it has
actually produced man, and man has now to carry farther the evolutionary
process. Eucken has presented this aspect in a fine manner in his
article on Schiller in _Kantstudien_[42] (Band X., Heft 3), _Festschrift
zu Schillers hundertstem Todestage_. No one in modern times discovered
the contradictions of the world in regard to the needs of man more than
Schiller. And yet no one led a more joyous life than this "half-poet,
half-thinker." Pressed from within and without by many alien elements,
he overcame them all and found, despite his physical weakness, what a
gift life is. It is in the direction of a great synthesis of spiritual
life and natural phenomena that true art will discover the qualities for
a permanent duration. Such a synthesis will enrich the spiritual life,
and will grant it something of higher construction concerning the
meaning and value of the union of Nature and Man. So Eucken has once
more landed us into the spiritual life as the source and goal of all
true Art.
"Only the rooted knowledge to high sense
Of heavenly can mount, and feel the spur
For fruitfullest achievement, eye a mark
Beyond the path with grain on either hand,
Help to the steering of our social Ark
Over the barbarous waters unto land."[43]
* * * * *