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 realised in humanity.
For example, the intellectual man has the idea 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 aesthetic 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 course nature participates in an
increase of force that ought only to tun? 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 isi 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 matter 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 aesthetic 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 sesthetics, 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.