I have shown in the previous letters that it is only the aesthetic
disposition of the soul that gives birth to liberty, it cannot
therefore be derived from liberty nor have a moral origin. It must
be a gift of nature; the favour of chance alone can break the bonds
of the physical state and bring the savage to duty. The germ of the
beautiful will find an equal difficulty in developing itself in
countries where a severe nature forbids man to enjoy himself, and in
those where a prodigal nature dispenses him from all effort; where
the blunted senses experience no want, and where violent desire can
never be satisfied. The delightful flower of the beautiful will
never unfold itself in the case of the Troglodyte hid in his cavern
always alone, and never finding humanity outside himself; nor among
nomads, who, travelling in great troops, only consist of a
multitude, and have no individual humanity. It will only flourish in
places where man converses peacefully with himself in his cottage,
and with the whole race when he issues from it. In those climates
where a limpid ether opens the senses to the lightest impression,
whilst a life-giving warmth developes a luxuriant nature, where even
in the inanimate creation the sway of inert matter is overthrown,
and the victorious form ennobles even the most abject natures; in
this joyful state and fortunate zone, where activity alone leads to
enjoyment, and enjoyment to activity, from life itself issues a holy
harmony, and the laws of order develope life, a different result
takes place. When imagination incessantly escapes from reality, and
does not abandon the simplicity of nature in its wanderings: then
and there only the mind and the senses, the receptive force and the
plastic force, are developed in that happy equilibrium which is the
soul of the beautiful and the condition of humanity.
What phaenomenon accompanies the initiation of the savage into
humanity? However far we look back into history the phaenomenon is
identical among all people who have shaken off the slavery of the
animal state, the love of appearance, the inclination for dress and
for games.
Extreme stupidity and extreme intelligence have a certain affinity
in only seeking the real and being completely insensible to mere
appearance. The former is only drawn forth by the immediate presence
of an object in the senses, and the second is reduced to a quiescent
state only by referring conceptions to the facts of experience. In
short, stupidity cannot rise above reality, nor the intelligence
descend below truth. Thus, in as far as the want of reality and
attachment to the real are only the consequence of a want and a
defect, indifference to the real and an interest taken in
appearances are a real enlargement of humanity and a decisive step
towards culture. In the first place it is the proof of an exterior
liberty, for as long as necessity commands and want solicits, the
fancy is strictly chained down to the real; it is only when want is
satisfied that it developes without hindrance. But it is also the
proof of an internal liberty, because it reveals to us a force
which, independent of an external substratum, sets itself in motion,
and has sufficient energy to remove from itself the solicitations of
nature. The reality of things is effected by things, the appearance
of things is the work of man, and a soul that takes pleasure in
appearance does not take pleasure in what it receives but in what it
makes.
It is self-evident that I am speaking of aesthetical evidence
different from reality and truth, and not of logical appearance
identical with them. Therefore if it is liked it is because it is an
appearance, and not because it is held to be something better than
it is: the first principle alone is a play whilst the second is a
deception. To give a value to the appearance of the first kind can
never injure truth, because it is never to be feared that it will
supplant it--the only way in which truth can be injured. To despise
this appearance is to despise in general all the fine arts of which
it is the essence. Nevertheless, it happens sometimes that the
understanding carries its zeal for reality as far as this
intolerance, and strikes with a sentence of ostracism all the arts
relating to beauty in appearance, because it is only an appearance.
However, the intelligence only shows this vigorous spirit when it
calls to mind the affinity pointed out further back. I shall find
some day the occasion to treat specially of the limits of beauty in
its appearance.
It is nature herself which raises man from reality to appearance by
endowing him with two senses which only lead him to the knowledge of
the real through appearance. In the eye and the ear the organs of
the senses are already freed from the persecutions of nature, and
the object with which we are immediately in contact through the
animal senses is remoter from us. What we see by the eye differs
from what we feel; for the understanding to reach objects overleaps
the light which separates us from them. In truth, we are passive to
an object; in sight and hearing the object is a form we create.
While still a savage, man only enjoys through touch merely aided by
sight and sound. He either does not rise to perception through
sight, or does not rest there. As soon as he begins to enjoy through
sight, vision has an independent value, he is aesthetically free,
and the instinct of play is developed.
The instinct of play likes appearance, and directly it is awakened
it is followed by the formal imitative instinct which treats
appearance as an independent thing. Directly man has come to
distinguish the appearance from the reality, the form from the body,
he can separate, in fact he has already done so. Thus the faculty of
the art of imitation is given with the faculty of form in general.
The inclination that draws us to it reposes on another tendency I
have not to notice here. The exact period when the aesthetic
instinct, or that of art, developes, depends entirely on the
attraction that mere appearance has for men.
As every real existence proceeds from nature as a foreign power,
whilst every appearance comes in the first place from man as a
percipient subject, he only uses his absolute sight in separating
semblance from essence, and arranging according to subjective law.
With an unbridled liberty he can unite what nature has severed,
provided he can imagine his union, and he can separate what nature
has united, provided this separation can take place in his
intelligence. Here nothing can be sacred to him but his own law: the
only condition imposed upon him is to respect the border which
separates his own sphere from the existence of things or from the
realm of nature.
This human right of ruling is exercised by man in the art of
appearance; and his success in extending the empire of the
beautiful, and guarding the frontiers of truth, will be in
proportion with the strictness with which he separates form from
substance: for if he frees appearance from reality he must also do
the converse.
But man possesses sovereign power only in the world of appearance,
in the unstibstantial realm of imagination, only by abstaining from
giving being to appearance in theory, and by giving it being in
practice. It follows that the poet transgresses his proper limits
when he attributes being to his ideal, and when he gives this ideal
aim as a determined existence. For he can only reach this result by
exceeding his right as a poet, that of encroaching by the ideal on
the field of experience, and by pretending to determine real
existence in virtue of a simple possibility, or else he renounces
his right as poet by letting experience encroach on the sphere of
the ideal, and by restricting possibility to the conditions of
reality.
It is only by being frank or disclaiming all reality, and by being
independent or doing without reality, that the appearance is
aesthetical. Directly it apes reality or needs reality for effect it
is nothing more than a vile instrument for material ends, and can
prove nothing for the freedom of the mind. Moreover, the object in
which we find beauty need not be unreal if pur judgment disregards
this reality; nor if it regards this the judgment is no longer
aesthetical. A beautiful woman if living would no doubt please us as
much and rather more than an equally beautiful woman seen in
painting; but what makes the former please men is not her being an
independent appearance; she no longer pleases the pure aesthetic
feeling. In the painting, life must only attract as an appearance,
and reality as an idea. But it is certain that to feel in a living
object only the pure appearance, requires a greatly higher aesthetic
culture than to do without life in the appearance.
When the frank and independent appearance is found in man
separately, or in a whole people, it may be inferred they have mind,
taste, and all prerogatives connected with them. In this case, the
ideal will be seen to govern real life, honour triumphing over
fortune, thought over enjoyment, the dream of immortality over a
transitory existence.
In this case public opinion will no longer be feared and an olive
crown will be more valued than a purple mantle. Impotence and
perversity alone have recourse to false and paltry semblance, and
individuals as well as nations who lend to reality the support of
appearance, or to the aesthetical appearance the support of reality,
show their moral unworthiness and their aesthetical impotence.
Therefore, a short and conclusive answer can be given to this
question--How far will appearance be permitted in the moral world?
It will run thus in proportion as this appearance will be
sesthetical, that is, an appearance that does not try to make up for
reality, nor requires to be made up for by it. The aesthetical
appearance can never endanger the truth of morals: wherever it seems
to do so the appearance is not aesthetical. Only a stranger to the
fashionable world can take the polite assurances, which are only a
form, for proofs of affection, and say he has been deceived; but
only a clumsy fellow in good society calls in the aid of duplicity
and flatters to become amiable. The former lacks the pure sense for
independent appearance; therefore he can only give a value to
appearance by truth. The second lacks reality, and wishes to replace
it by appearance. Nothing is more common than to hear depreciators
of the times utter these paltry complaints--that all solidity has
disappeared from the world, and that essence is neglected for
semblance. Though I feel by no means called upon to defend this age
against these reproaches, I must say that the wide application of
these criticisms shows that they attach blame to the age, not only
on the score of the falsez but also of the frank appearance. And
even the exceptions they admit in favour of the beautiful have for
their object less the independent appearance than the needy
appearance. Not only do they attack the artificial colouring that
hides truth and replaces reality, but also the beneficent appearance
that fills a vacuum and clothes poverty; and they even attack the
ideal appearance that ennobles a vulgar reality. Their strict sense
of truth is rightlyl offended by the falsity of manners;
unfortunately, they class politeness in this category. It displeases
them that the noisy and showy so often eclipse true merit, but they
are no less shocked that appearance is also demanded from merit, and
that a real substance does not dispense with an agreeable form. They
regret the cordiality, the energy, and solidity of ancient times;
they would restore with them ancient coarseness, heaviness, and the
old Gothic profusion. By judgments of this kind they show an esteem
for the matter itself unworthy of humanity, which ought only to
value tne matter inasmuch as it can receive a form and enlarge the
empire of ideas. Accordingly, the taste of the age need not much
fear these criticisms, if it can clear itself before better judges.
Our defect is not to grant a value to aesthetic appearance (we do
not do this enough): a severe judge of the beautiful might rather
reproach us with not having arrived at pure appearance, with not
having separated clearly enough existence from the phaenomenon, and
thus established their limits. We shall deserve this reproach so
long as we cannot enjoy the beautiful in living nature without
desiring it; as long as we cannot admire the beautiful in the
imitative arts without having an end in view; as long as we do not
grant to imagination an absolute legislation of its own; and as long
as we do not inspire it with care for its dignity by the esteem we
testify for its works.