I approach continually nearer to the end to which I lead you, by a path
offering few attractions. Be pleased to follow me a few steps further,
and a large horizon will open up to you, and a delightful prospect will
reward you for the labor of the way.
The object of the sensuous instinct, expressed in a universal conception,
is named Life in the widest acceptation; a conception that expresses all
material existence and all that is immediately present in the senses.
The object of the formal instinct, expressed in a universal conception,
is called shape or form, as well in an exact as in an inexact
acceptation; a conception that embraces all formal qualities of things
and all relations of the same to the thinking powers. The object of the
play instinct, represented in a general statement, may therefore bear the
name of living form; a term that serves to describe all aesthetic
qualities of phenomena, and what people style, in the widest sense,
beauty.
Beauty is neither extended to the whole field of all living things nor
merely enclosed in this field. A marble block, though it is and remains
lifeless, can nevertheless become a living form by the architect and
sculptor; a man, though he lives and has a form, is far from being a
living form on that account. For this to be the case, it is necessary
that his form should be life, and that his life should be a form. As
long as we only think of his form, it is lifeless, a mere abstraction; as
long as we only feel his life, it is without form, a mere impression. It
is only when his form lives in our feeling, and his life in our
understanding, he is the living form, and this will everywhere be the
case where we judge him to be beautiful.
But the genesis of beauty is by no means declared because we know how to
point out the component parts, which in their combination produce beauty.
For to this end it would be necessary to comprehend that combination
itself, which continues to defy our exploration, as well as all mutual
operation between the finite and the infinite. The reason, on
transcendental grounds, makes the following demand: There shall be a
communion between the formal impulse and the material impulse--that is,
there shall be a play instinct--because it is only the unity of reality
with the form, of the accidental with the necessary, of the passive state
with freedom, that the conception of humanity is completed. Reason is
obliged to make this demand, because her nature impels her to
completeness and to the removal of all bounds; while every exclusive
activity of one or the other impulse leaves human nature incomplete and
places a limit in it. Accordingly, as soon as reason issues the mandate,
"a humanity shall exist," it proclaims at the same time the law, "there
shall be a beauty." Experience can answer us if there is a beauty, and
we shall know it as soon as she has taught us if a humanity can exist.
But neither reason nor experience can tell us how beauty can be and how a
humanity is possible.
We know that man is neither exclusively matter nor exclusively spirit.
Accordingly, beauty as the consummation of humanity, can neither be
exclusively mere life, as has been asserted by sharp-sighted observers,
who kept too close to the testimony of experience, and to which the taste
of the time would gladly degrade it; Nor can beauty be merely form, as
has been judged by speculative sophists, who departed too far from
experience, and by philosophic artists, who were led too much by the
necessity of art in explaining beauty; it is rather the common object of
both impulses, that is of the play instinct. The use of language
completely justifies this name, as it is wont to qualify with the word
play what is neither subjectively nor objectively accidental, and yet
does not impose necessity either externally or internally. As the mind
in the intuition of the beautiful finds itself in a happy medium between
law and necessity, it is, because it divides itself between both,
emancipated from the pressure of both. The formal impulse and the
material impulse are equally earnest in their demands, because one
relates in its cognition to things in their reality and the other to
their necessity; because in action the first is directed to the
preservation of life, the second to the preservation of dignity, and
therefore both to truth and perfection. But life becomes more
indifferent when dignity is mixed up with it, and duty no longer coerces
when inclination attracts. In like manner the mind takes in the reality
of things, material truth, more freely and tranquilly as soon as it
encounters formal truth, the law of necessity; nor does the mind find
itself strung by abstraction as soon as immediate intuition can accompany
it. In one word, when the mind comes into communion with ideas, all
reality loses its serious value because it becomes small; and as it comes
in contact with feeling, necessity parts also with its serious value
because it is easy.
But perhaps the objection has for some time occurred to you, Is not the
beautiful degraded by this, that it is made a mere play? and is it not
reduced to the level of frivolous objects which have for ages passed
under that name? Does it not contradict the conception of the reason and
the dignity of beauty, which is nevertheless regarded as an instrument of
culture, to confine it to the work of being a mere play? and does it not
contradict the empirical conception of play, which can coexist with the
exclusion of all taste, to confine it merely to beauty?
But what is meant by a mere play, when we know that in all conditions of
humanity that very thing is play, and only that is play which makes man
complete and develops simultaneously his twofold nature? What you style
limitation, according to your representation of the matter, according to
my views, which I have justified by proofs, I name enlargement.
Consequently I should have said exactly the reverse: man is serious only
with the agreeable, with the good, and with the perfect, but he plays
with beauty. In saying this we must not indeed think of the plays that
are in vogue in real life, and which commonly refer only to his material
state. But in real life we should also seek in vain for the beauty of
which we are here speaking. The actually present beauty is worthy of the
really, of the actually present play-impulse; but by the ideal of beauty,
which is set up by the reason, an ideal of the play-instinct is also
presented, which man ought to have before his eyes in all his plays.
Therefore, no error will ever be incurred if we seek the ideal of beauty
on the same road on which we satisfy our play-impulse. We can
immediately understand why the ideal form of a Venus, of a Juno, and of
an Apollo, is to be sought not at Rome, but in Greece, if we contrast the
Greek population, delighting in the bloodless athletic contests of
boxing, racing, and intellectual rivalry at Olympia, with the Roman
people gloating over the agony of a gladiator. Now the reason pronounces
that the beautiful must not only be life and form, but a living form,
that is, beauty, inasmuch as it dictates to man the twofold law of
absolute formality and absolute reality. Reason also utters the decision
that man shall only play with beauty, and he shall only play with beauty.
For, to speak out once for all, man only plays when in the full meaning
of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.
This proposition, which at this moment perhaps appears paradoxical, will
receive a great and deep meaning if we have advanced far enough to apply
it to the twofold seriousness of duty and of destiny. I promise you that
the whole edifice of aesthetic art and the still more difficult art of
life will be supported by this principle. But this proposition is only
unexpected in science; long ago it lived and worked in art and in the
feeling of the Greeks, her most accomplished masters; only they removed
to Olympus what ought to have been preserved on earth. Influenced by the
truth of this principle, they effaced from the brow of their gods the
earnestness and labor which furrow the cheeks of mortals, and also the
hollow lust that smoothes the empty face. They set free the ever serene
from the chains of every purpose, of every duty, of every care, and they
made indolence and indifference the envied condition of the godlike race;
merely human appellations for the freest and highest mind. As well the
material pressure of natural laws as the spiritual pressure of moral laws
lost itself in its higher idea of necessity, which embraced at the same
time both worlds, and out of the union of these two necessities issued
true freedom. Inspired by this spirit the Greeks also effaced from the
features of their ideal, together with desire or inclination, all traces
of volition, or, better still, they made both unrecognizable, because
they knew how to wed them both in the closest alliance. It is neither
charm, nor is it dignity, which speaks from the glorious face of Juno
Ludovici; it is neither of these, for it is both at once. While the
female god challenges our veneration, the godlike woman at the same time
kindles our love. But while in ecstacy we give ourselves up to the
heavenly beauty, the heavenly self-repose awes us back. The whole form
rests and dwells in itself--a fully complete creation in itself--and as
if she were out of space, without advance or resistance; it shows no
force contending with force, no opening through which time could break
in. Irresistibly carried away and attracted by her womanly charm, kept
off at a distance by her godly dignity, we also find ourselves at length
in the state of the greatest repose, and the result is a wonderful
impression for which the understanding has no idea and language no name.