Convinced by my preceding letters, you agree with me on this point, that
man can depart from his destination by two opposite roads, that our epoch
is actually moving on these two false roads, and that it has become the
prey, in one case, of coarseness, and elsewhere of exhaustion and
depravity. It is the beautiful that must bring it back from this twofold
departure. But how can the cultivation of the fine arts remedy, at the
same time, these opposite defects, and unite in itself two contradictory
qualities? Can it bind nature in the savage, and set it free in the
barbarian? Can it at once tighten a spring and loose it; and if it
cannot produce this double effect, how will it be reasonable to expect
from it so important a result as the education of man?
It may be urged that it is almost a proverbial adage that the feeling
developed by the beautiful refines manners, and any new proof offered on
the subject would appear superfluous. Men base this maxim on daily
experience, which shows us almost always clearness of intellect, delicacy
of feeling, liberality and even dignity of conduct, associated with a
cultivated taste, while an uncultivated taste is almost always
accompanied by the opposite qualities. With considerable assurance, the
most civilized nation of antiquity is cited as an evidence of this, the
Greeks, among whom the perception of the beautiful attained its highest
development, and, as a contrast, it is usual to point to nations in a
partial savage state, and partly barbarous, who expiate their
insensibility to the beautiful by a coarse, or, at all events, a hard,
austere character. Nevertheless, some thinkers are tempted occasionally
to deny either the fact itself or to dispute the legitimacy of the
consequences that are derived from it. They do not entertain so
unfavorable an opinion of that savage coarseness which is made a reproach
in the case of certain nations; nor do they form so advantageous an
opinion of the refinement so highly lauded in the case of cultivated
nations. Even as far back as in antiquity there were men who by no means
regarded the culture of the liberal arts as a benefit, and who were
consequently led to forbid the entrance of their republic to imagination.
I do not speak of those who calumniate art because they have never been
favored by it. These persons only appreciate a possession by the trouble
it takes to acquire it, and by the profit it brings: and how could they
properly appreciate the silent labor of taste in the exterior and
interior man? How evident it is that the accidental disadvantages
attending liberal culture would make them lose sight of its essential
advantages? The man deficient in form despises the grace of diction as a
means of corruption, courtesy in the social relations as dissimulation,
delicacy and generosity in conduct as an affected exaggeration. He
cannot forgive the favorite of the Graces for having enlivened all
assemblies as a man of the world, of having directed all men to his views
like a statesman, and of giving his impress to the whole century as a
writer: while he, the victim of labor, can only obtain with all his
learning, the least attention or overcome the least difficulty. As he
cannot learn from his fortunate rival the secret of pleasing, the only
course open to him is to deplore the corruption of human nature, which
adores rather the appearance than the reality.
But there are also opinions deserving respect, that pronounce themselves
adverse to the effects of the beautiful, and find formidable arms in
experience, with which to wage war against it. "We are free to admit"--
such is their language--"that the charms of the beautiful can further
honorable ends in pure hands; but it is not repugnant to its nature to
produce, in impure hands, a directly contrary effect, and to employ in
the service of injustice and error the power that throws the soul of man
into chains. It is exactly because taste only attends to the form and
never to the substance; it ends by placing the soul on the dangerous
incline, leading it to neglect all reality and to sacrifice truth and
morality to an attractive envelope. All the real difference of things
vanishes, and it is only the appearance that determines the value! How
many men of talent"--thus these arguers proceed--"have been turned aside
from all effort by the seductive power of the beautiful, or have been led
away from all serious exercise of their activity, or have been induced to
use it very feebly? How many weak minds have been impelled to quarrel
with the organizations of society, simply because it has pleased the
imagination of poets to present the image of a world constituted
differently, where no propriety chains down opinion and no artifice holds
nature in thraldom? What a dangerous logic of the passions they have
learned since the poets have painted them in their pictures in the most
brilliant colors, and since, in the contest with law and duty, they have
commonly remained masters of the battle-field. What has society gained
by the relations of society, formerly under the sway of truth, being now
subject to the laws of the beautiful, or by the external impression
deciding the estimation in which merit is to be held? We admit that all
virtues whose appearance produces an agreeable effect are now seen to
flourish, and those which, in society, give a value to the man who
possesses them. But, as a compensation, all kinds of excesses are seen
to prevail, and all vices are in vogue that can be reconciled with a
graceful exterior." It is certainly a matter entitled to reflection
that, at almost all the periods of history when art flourished and taste
held sway, humanity is found in a state of decline; nor can a single
instance be cited of the union of a large diffusion of aesthetic culture
with political liberty and social virtue, of fine manners associated with
good morals, and of politeness fraternizing with truth and loyalty of
character and life.
As long as Athens and Sparta preserved their independence, and as long as
their institutions were based on respect for the laws, taste did not
reach its maturity, art remained in its infancy, and beauty was far from
exercising her empire over minds. No doubt, poetry had already taken a
sublime flight, but it was on the wings of genius, and we know that
genius borders very closely on savage coarseness, that it is a light
which shines readily in the midst of darkness, and which therefore often
argues against rather than in favor of the taste of time. When the
golden age of art appears under Pericles and Alexander, and the sway of
taste becomes more general, strength and liberty have abandoned Greece;
eloquence corrupts the truth, wisdom offends it on the lips of Socrates,
and virtue in the life of Phocion. It is well known that the Romans had
to exhaust their energies in civil wars, and, corrupted by Oriental
luxury, to bow their heads under the yoke of a fortunate despot, before
Grecian art triumphed over the stiffness of their character. The same
was the case with the Arabs: civilization only dawned upon them when the
vigor of their military spirit became softened under the sceptre of the
Abbassides. Art did not appear in modern Italy till the glorious Lombard
League was dissolved, Florence submitting to the Medici; and all those
brave cities gave up the spirit of independence for an inglorious
resignation. It is almost superfluous to call to mind the example of
modern nations, with whom refinement has increased in direct proportion
to the decline of their liberties. Wherever we direct our eyes in past
times, we see taste and freedom mutually avoiding each other. Everywhere
we see that the beautiful only founds its sway on the ruins of heroic
virtues.
And yet this strength of character, which is commonly sacrificed to
establish aesthetic culture, is the most powerful spring of all that is
great and excellent in man, and no other advantage, however great, can
make up for it. Accordingly, if we only keep to the experiments hitherto
made, as to the influence of the beautiful, we cannot certainly be much
encouraged in developing feelings so dangerous to the real culture of
man. At the risk of being hard and coarse, it will seem preferable to
dispense with this dissolving force of the beautiful rather than see
human nature a prey to its enervating influence, notwithstanding all its
refining advantages. However, experience is perhaps not the proper
tribunal at which to decide such a question; before giving so much weight
to its testimony, it would be well to inquire if the beauty we have been
discussing is the power that is condemned by the previous examples. And
the beauty we are discussing seems to assume an idea of the beautiful
derived from a source different from experience, for it is this higher
notion of the beautiful which has to decide if what is called beauty by
experience is entitled to the name.
This pure and rational idea of the beautiful--supposing it can be placed
in evidence--cannot be taken from any real and special case, and must, on
the contrary, direct and give sanction to our judgment in each special
case. It must therefore be sought for by a process of abstraction, and
it ought to be deduced from the simple possibility of a nature both
sensuous and rational; in short, beauty ought to present itself as a
necessary condition of humanity. It is therefore essential that we
should rise to the pure idea of humanity, and as experience shows us
nothing but individuals, in particular cases, and never humanity at
large, we must endeavor to find in their individual and variable mode of
being the absolute and the permanent, and to grasp the necessary
conditions of their existence, suppressing all accidental limits. No
doubt this transcendental procedure will remove us for some time from the
familiar circle of phenomena, and the living presence of objects, to keep
us on the unproductive ground of abstract idea; but we are engaged in the
search after a principle of knowledge solid enough not to be shaken by
anything, and the man who does not dare to rise above reality will never
conquer this truth.