Chapter II: The Beauty of Nature (2)

Uniformity is, speaking generally, equality in external presentment, or, more specifically, the unbroken repetition of one and the same definite form, supplied by the determining unity to the form of objects. Such a unity, in virtue of its initial abstraction, is at the furthest extreme removed from the rational totality of the concrete notion. Its beauty is therefore a beauty which is referable to the faculty of the analytical understanding. The fundamental process of that faculty is to perceive objects in their abstraction, not in their self-determined completeness and identity. For example, among all lines the straight line is that which is most uniform, because it alone manifests one abstract and undeviating direction. For the same reason the cube is a figure dominated by regularity of content. All its sides are of the same size, the same length of line and the same angles, which, on account of their being rectangular, however much their size is changed, manifest no change in the form of their angles as is the case with angles which are obtuse or acute.

With this characteristic of uniformity we must closely connect that of _symmetry._ Form is unable long to rest in that barest abstraction of its determination, namely, undifferentiated equality. A diverse relation is sure to assert itself, breaking into the empty form of identity. In this way we obtain _symmetry_, which consists in no mere identical repetition of one form, but in a combination with some such form analogous to it, identical, that is to say, in its self-determination, and yet manifesting a distinct contrast with it. Through such a combination we obtain another kind of equality and unity, whose determination is more extensive and more varied. If, for example, on one side of a house we meet with three windows of the same size separated at equal intervals of distance, then three or four more of loftier size than the first-mentioned standing at more extended or closer intervals in relation to them, and again three more precisely similar in size and distance to our original ones, we have then before us a symmetrical arrangement. Mere uniformity and repetition of the same distinctions will never produce this result. We may find such distinguishing features in size, position, form, colour, tones, and many others like them, which, however, to produce symmetry must be harmoniously related to similar forms of construction. When we find a combination which presents to us an arrangement of such distinguishing characteristics according to some clearly uniform principle that then is symmetry.

Both these attributes, uniformity and symmetry, being the determinations of the form and unity of external appearance, are mainly applicable to _distinctions in size._ For it stands to reason that what is expressly posited as external rather than truly immanent determination is generally a quantitative[242] determination, whereas the qualitative fixes the inherent character of anything. Consequently that which is assumed only to affect the external appearance cannot be concerned with the changes which are found in the qualitative aspect. Size, on the other hand, and its alteration regarded merely as size, is for the qualitative determination, when it is unable to assert itself in terms of measure, an indifferent determination. That is to say, measure is quantity, precisely in so far as it can give to itself an aspect which qualifies it, and thereby a qualitative determination is united to the purely quantitative one. As thus explained[243] uniformity and symmetry are merely restricted to the determinations of size and their uniform appearance or arrangement of differences in symmetrical order. Further inquiry will show us that this due co-ordination of size is as applicable to the forms of organic life as it is to those of inorganic Nature. The human organism is, for example, at least in a certain degree both uniform and symmetrical. We have two eyes, two arms, two legs, similar hip-joints, shoulder-blades, and so on. Of other portions of the body the reverse is the case. We find no conspicuous uniformity in the heart, lungs, bowels, or liver. The question arises what precisely constitutes the difference here. The side on which uniformity, whether of size, form, or position mainly asserts itself, is obviously the aspect of the organism viewed from the outside. The uniform and symmetrical determination, in complete conformity with what we should expect, is most apparent where the fact as objectively determined is itself the external envisagement itself, and carries with it the least impression of inherent life. The reality, which is most constant to this pure externality, rests satisfied with the abstract unity congenial to it. Within the organism, on the contrary, where we find the heart of the life-process, and still more openly in the medium of untrammelled reason uniformity gives way before the subjective unity of life. Nature is, no doubt, in its opposition to mind, a determinate existence external and independent; but even in her we find that uniformity only pre-eminently asserts itself where externality is the predominant principle.

(_α_) Reviewing, then, shortly the _prominent classifications_ of natural objects, we observe, in the first place, that minerals, taking the crystal for an example, as structures destitute of the principle of life, are characterized in their fundamental form by uniformity and symmetry. As already remarked, their form, it is true, is one appropriate to themselves, is not merely the determination of external forces. Through an unseen energy the form that makes them what they are as products of Nature creates their configuration both within and without. This activity, however, is not yet the completed energy of the concrete notion as an ideal principle, which directs the independent consistency of the positive reality, subsuming them under an ideal totality such as is present in animal life. The unity and definition of their form persists in purely abstract one-sidedness, and we have as the characteristics of a unity which is wholly on the outside the bare forms of uniformity and symmetry, the determinating factor in each case being an abstraction.

_(β) Plant life_ is, of course, many degrees above the order of crystals. From the very commencement its evolution is marked by a harmonious articulation, and consumes material in a constantly active process of self-nourishment. But plant-life also is not yet really the living whole[244]. Although organically divided into parts, its activity is still one that consists wholly in assimilation[245]. It is rooted in the earth with no independent power of motion from place to place; its growth is continuous, and such energy of assimilation and self-nourishment as it possesses is not the tranquil self-subsistence of a completely individualized organic existence, but rather a continuous extension of its growth as an external object. An animal grows just as a plant grows, but at a determinate point that growth in its external size ceases, and that which reproduces itself in self-subsistence is one and the same individual. Plant-life, however, enlarges without intermission, and only its decease renders the further increase of its boughs and leaves impossible. And, moreover, all that it separately produces in this process is for ever the repeated pattern of the same organism in its entirety. For every bough is a new plant, and not, as in the case with the animal organism, only an isolated member. On account of this persistent enlargement of itself through all the separate plant formations whereof it consists plant-life is without the subjective animation peculiar to sensation and the ideal unity which belongs to it. And, generally speaking, we may say that plant-life, however much the digestive process is an inward one, in which we find nourishment is assimilated and the organism determines the form which is impressed on its substance out of itself by virtue of the increasing freedom of the notional type working through that substance, nevertheless substantially, through the entire process of its life, it remains rooted to externality without either a true independence or unity, and such self-subsistence as it possesses is continuous without a break. And it is on account of this characteristic of plant-growth, namely, that it is for ever asserted on the side of externality, that we find uniformity and symmetry to be the fundamental unity of its self-expression as it is a predominant principle of its structure. No doubt uniformity is not so regnant here as we observed it to be in the formation of minerals, and it is not expressed in the same extreme degree through the abstract straight line and right angle: but it prevails here notwithstanding. The stem for the most part runs on a straight line; the rings of plants of higher type form themselves in circles; leaves closely approach the configuration of crystals; and, at least as the basis of their type, we find that the blossoms themselves in the number of their leaves, their position and form are determined with uniformity and symmetry.

(_γ_) Finally, in the living organism of _animals_ a difference is asserted in the reduplicated structure of the members. In the bodies of animals, more particularly if we examine the higher species, the organism is a more inward, self-contained and self-determined totality; like a sphere, it returns, so to speak, on itself, while still remaining an external organism. It is an external process, and yet, as a process, asserted against externality. The more important organs are those within, such as heart, lungs, and liver, and in these the life is bound up. Such are not determined under the simple characteristics of uniformity. In those members, however, even of the animal organism, which are fixed in direct relation to the outside world, symmetrical arrangement prevails. Among such must be reckoned the members and organs which assert the subjective principle externally no less than those which are the instruments of the active life. The sense-organs, such as sight and hearing, belong to the former; all that we see and hear is left as we found it. The organs of smell and taste already mark the point of union with an activity exercised externally. We only smell that which is already assimilated[246] by the organ of sense, and we only exercise our taste through an act of destruction. We have, it is true, but one nose, but it is subdivided into two sections, each of which is uniform in structure. The same description is applicable to the lips and teeth and other organs like them. Further than this the eyes and ears, and the limbs employed in motion from place to place, or for direct control over external objects, in other words, legs and arms, are entirely uniform in position, form, and other qualities. We find, therefore, that in the organic world no less than in the inorganic uniformity asserts a very real predominance, qualified, however, by the fact that its presence is limited to those members which are the instruments of the organism in its direct relation to the external world. On those through which the life-process returns on itself by virtue of its own subjective principle there is no such impression of uniformity.

Such, then, are the leading characteristics of the forms of uniformity and symmetry, and the manner in which they are asserted in the configuration of natural phenomena.

_(b) Conformity to Rule_

We now propose to distinguish the more generic conception of conformity to law[247], so far as it appears on a higher plane of organic evolution than that already adverted to, and marks the passage of the same to the freedom of natural no less than spiritual life, from the more abstract forms discussed above. Taken by itself, no doubt, conformity to rule is not alone sufficient to give us the subjective unity and freedom of _totality_; but we do find in the configuration to which it corresponds a totality of essentially _distinguished characteristics_, such as do not merely emerge in _difference_ and opposition, but betray both _unity_ and determinate connection in such totality. A unity thus controlled, albeit still only positively asserted in quantitative substance, is no longer referable to essentially exterior distinctions of mere size numerically ascertainable, but already introduces to our notice a qualitative relation of consistency between these contrasted determinations. In other words we have here neither the abstract repetition of one and the same determinant[248], nor a uniform interchange of similarity and dissimilarity[249], but the contemporaneous association of aspects essentially distinct from one another. We find, in fact, our sense of sight gratified by the association of these distinguishing features in their completeness. And it is the principle of reason which affords us such satisfaction, gratifying our sense only through the totality, or rather through the very totality of differences the nature of the fact requires. Such a connection, however, still remains an unexplained nexus, which sense-perception arrives at partly on account of its persistent repetition, and in part through an intuition of deeper source.

A few examples will make clear the process of definition from uniformity to conformity with law. Parallel lines of equal length are abstractly uniform. A further step is taken when we compare geometrical figures of the same form, triangles, for example, but assume their size to be unequal. Here the angles subtended by the corners of each and the relation of line to line is the same, but we find such similarity in different _quanta._ Take again the circle, it does not possess the uniformity of the straight line, but at the same time the determination of abstract equality strictly applies to it, for all its radii are of equal length. The circle is consequently still but a curved line that awakes no particular interest[250].

On the other hand, there is still less uniformity in the _ellipse_ and the _parabola_, and they are only understood through the law of their form. In other words the _radii vectores_ of the ellipse are both unequal and in conformity with rule, and the same qualification applies to the greater and lesser axis of their lines of differentiation[251]; moreover, their foci are not central as is the case with the circle. We find in these examples, therefore, a qualitative relation of difference assert itself in the law applicable to such lines and constructive of their interconnection. If, however, we divide the ellipse by means of its greater and lesser axes we obtain four equal sections; regarded as a whole, therefore, we still find the principle of uniformity paramount in this figure. Of a higher degree of freedom in its conformity to law is the _oval._ We know there is such a law, though mathematicians have been unable to express its formula. This figure is not an ellipse, but the higher curve differs from that below it. Still we find that even in this example of freer eccentricity in Nature, if we divide it through its greater axis, we have still two equal halves. The final expression of mere uniformity in conformity to law is shown in lines, which, as in the example of the oval, when divided through the smaller[252] axis, give us unequal sections, neither section being a mere repetition of the other. The so-called undulatory line is an example of this, in the sense Hogarth describes it as the line of beauty. Thus the inclination of the arms as they fall on either side of the human body is opposed. Here we have conformity to rule without uniformity pure and simple. Such a kind of conformity especially characterises with its variety the conformation of the nobler living organisms.

Conformity to law is, then, an attribute of substantiality, binding together both its differences and its unity; but it remains still abstract on the side of its controlling form, unable to supply individuality with the freedom of motion, or rather by virtue of that form is entirely without the higher freedom of subjectivity, and quite incapable of revealing the vitality and ideality proper to it.

_(c) Harmony_

On a higher plane in the sphere of abstract beauty must be placed _harmony._ In harmony we find qualitative distinctions are held together, and further held together in a totality of differentiation, such as is based on the essential nature of the fact itself. This consistency of support is derived from conformity to law, in so far as that form unfolds what is essentially uniformity, and thereby passes beyond the mere characteristics of equality and repetition. But in doing this the distinctions of quality assert themselves not only in their difference of opposition and contradiction, but in aspects of a unity that rivets them together, a unity in which all distinguishing features, it is true, are maintained in their proper place, but still only as belonging to one single whole. This unity of accordance is what constitutes harmony. We may either regard it as a totality of aspects essentially distinct, or as the resolution of the element of mere contradiction asserted by them, revealing their more vital interconnection and ideal solidarity. In this sense we refer to the harmony of form, or colour, or musical tone. As an example, we have blue, yellow, green, and red as the fundamentally necessary differentiation of colour[253].

In these irresolvable data of the spectrum we have not merely the inequality we found in symmetry, but contradictory opposites, such as yellow and blue, their neutralization and withal concrete identity. The beauty of their harmony is revealed in the avoidance of their crude opposition, which is softened thereby in such a way as to put before us the concordance hidden beneath their difference. They do, in fact, emanate from one source, namely colour, which is not an abstract conception[254], but an essential totality. So far, indeed, can the compulsive force of such totality carry us, that we can, as Goethe has pointed out, when we have but one colour presented to us, still subjectively recognize another at the same time. In the same way the tonic, mediant, and dominant are essential distinctions among musical tones, which the unity of harmony associates through their difference in one whole. We may submit the harmony of form, which is differentiated through the varied aspects of position, repose, and motion to a similar analysis. If we suffer any one of the subordinate distinctions to assume an exclusive predominance the unity which relates them will be destroyed.

Harmony, however, is not to be confused with free ideal subjectivity and soul-life. In the latter the unity manifested is not merely an interconnection and concordance, but a positive negation of difference, which, for the first time, reveals their concrete and ideal unity. A concrete unity such as this is not the result of harmony. Such concrete unity is, for example, that which we find in the actually melodious thing[255], which no doubt possesses harmony as its fundamental form, but at the same time possesses the higher characteristic of free subjectivity, and by means of song gives expression to that. Harmony alone has nothing to do with the appearance of subjective life, as such, nor of that of mind, although it is the highest manifestation of abstract form, and stands in close affinity to free subjectivity. Such, then, is our determination of abstract unity as we find it brought before us in the specific modes of abstract form.

2. BEAUTY AS ABSTRACT UNITY OF THE MATERIAL MEDIUM

The side of abstract unity which we have now to consider is not that directly related to form, but to the sensuous material simply in which it is asserted. The unity is manifested on this side as the entirely undifferentiated concordance of the particular sensuous material. It is the one form of unity, which the material of sense, in its purely objective aspect, is capable of receiving. On this plane and under the above noted relation[256] the abstract _purity_ of the _materia_ in its form, colour, or tone constitutes what is most essential to it. Entirely straight drawn lines, which run without a shadow of difference in their straightness or strength, bare superficies and similar examples please us by virtue of their persistent regularity and their uniform homogeneousness. The purity of the heavens, the translucence of the atmosphere, a mirror-like lake the smoothness of the ocean's face, all give pleasure by virtue of this unity. We find the same truth brought home to us by purity of tone. The voice when purely produced, though taken quite by itself, possesses an attraction for us inexpressibly delightful; vocal notes which are not thus pure on the contrary, by permitting us to hear the organ of production along with them, disturb or weaken the pure resonance and definition of their music. In much the same way human speech possesses pure tones in its vowels, a, e, i, o, u, and its compound vowels, ae, ü, and ö. Popular dialects are particularly characterized by impurity of vocalization and mediate tones such as oa. Purity of tones consists further in this that the vowels are associated with consonants, whose sound does not tend to blurr the sonority of the vowel tones, as is too frequently the case with our northern languages, when contrasted with the way in which their purity is preserved by the Italian, a characteristic which makes that language so adaptable to singing. We experience an enjoyment of similar nature through the sight of colour in its simplest purity of tint, an absolutely pure red or blue for example, not by any means a common occurrence, such pristine colours being often weakened through the addition to them of yellow or tints of each other[257]. Violet can no doubt appear to us as a pure colour, but only in an external object, not, that is to say, as a compounded colour[258], for it is not itself an elementary colour belonging to colour's essential differentiation. It is these elementary or cardinal colours, easily recognized by sense in their purity, which, on account of their crude opposition, are most difficult to unite together in harmony. Colours, on the contrary, which are blurred in their transparency by many other tints, although not so antagonistic to general harmony, fail to give us such direct enjoyment from the very fact that the energy of opposition in them is weakened. Green, for instance, is a compound of blue and yellow, but it is the neutralization of these cardinal colours, and for that reason less attractive to us in its own purity than blue and yellow in their secure[259] opposition. Such are the points of most importance we have to remark upon in dealing with the abstract unity of form no less than the simplicity and purity of the sensuous material. In whichever aspect we regard our subject-matter we have to review that which is by virtue of its abstract character destitute of life, and a unity with no true actuality. Ideal subjectivity is inseparable from this, and such is entirely absent from the beauty of Nature even at the highest potency of its manifestation. This essential defect points us imperatively forward to the Ideal, which Nature is unable to reveal to us, and in contrast with which the beauty of Nature appears as a subordinate mode.

C. DEFECTIVE ASPECTS OF THE BEAUTY OF NATURE

The true object of our inquiry is the beauty of art viewed as the only reality adequate to the Idea of beauty. We have hitherto treated the beauty of Nature as the first mode of the existence of the beautiful. We have now to inquire more closely into that which distinguishes natural beauty from that of art.

As an abstract proposition we may affirm that the Ideal is beauty in its rounded completeness. Nature, on the contrary, brings before us beauty in its incompleteness. Such abstract predicates do not, however, help us much, for our real problem is rather to explain exactly what it is which makes the difference between the completeness of the one from the incompleteness of the other. Our inquiry therefore hinges on the question how it comes about that Nature is necessarily incomplete as a mode of beauty and how this incompleteness is asserted. When we have answered that we shall be in a better position to deduce both the necessity and essential significance of the Ideal.

We have already in following the process of Nature up to its culminating manifestation in animal life drawn attention to the modes of beauty revealed in that process. It is now of the first importance that we fix our attention more definitely on the culminating phase of that evolution where we find subjectivity and individuality presented to us in the living organism.

We have already referred to the beautiful as the Idea in a manner identical to that we employ when we speak of the good and true as the Idea, in the sense, that is to say, where we characterize the Idea as the wholly substantial and universal, the absolute substance--with no sensuous material therewith--of reality, in short, the consistency of the world. Determined more strictly, however, as already pointed out, the Idea is not merely substantiality and _universality_, but the unity of the _notion_ and its _reality_, just that, the notion revealed to us as notion in its coincident objectivity. It was Plato who, as we have remarked in our introduction, posited the Idea as that which was alone true and universal, and, indeed, as the one _concrete_ Universal. The Platonic _Idea_ is, however, not itself as yet the concrete _real_, for apprehended under the _notion_ and its _universality_ it is already coincident with the real. Apprehended, however, only in its _universality_[260], it is not _realized_, realized, that is to say, as Truth in its self-determinate realization. It is still only the _potency_ of such self-realization. But just as the notion is not the notion of real existence without its full objectivity, in the same way the Idea without its realization in the objective world is not the Idea in its Truth as existent reality. The Idea must proceed to such realization, which is only present itself for the first time in a really existent subjectivity adequate to the notion, and its ideal unity and self-determination. In the generic species we find its reality first manifested as free and concrete individuality. Life only exists as a _living thing_; goodness is only realized in _particular_ men; and all truth is simply the consciousness of _knowledge_--Spirit which has come to its own vital inheritance. Only the concrete singularity is both true and really existent, mere abstract universality and particularity is not so. This self-subsistent actuality, this subjectivity is the point on which everything turns, and which we must fully grasp in its significance. Subjectivity may be defined as ideal determination by virtue of a principle of ideal unity which asserts itself through _negation_ of the differences presented to it as consistent parts of one objective reality[261]. The unity of the Idea and its realization is the _negative_ unity of the _Idea_ as such and its _reality_; it is at once and at the same time the _subsumption_ and _deposition_ in a unified content of the difference asserted on either side. Only in this active process is the unity of the Idea affirmatively determined in its full activity, a unity and subjectivity whose process of self-determination is infinite. We have consequently to apprehend the Idea of the beautiful in its realized mode of existence as essentially concrete subjectivity and, moreover, as individual substantiality, by virtue of which it is the Idea really existent, possessing the form of its reality in concrete and individual singularity.

But here we must distinguish between _two_ distinct modes of singularity or individuality, namely, that which is immediately presented us by _Nature_ and that which is predicated of _mind_ (spirit). In both forms it is given determinate existence, and consequently is in both substantive content, the Idea in short, and in the particular sphere of our inquiry for both forms the Idea as beauty. Viewed in this way we may affirm if we please that the beautiful of Nature has a _similar_ content with that of the Ideal. In contradistinction, however, to such a point of view we must not fail to observe that the difference of form, in which the Idea herein attains reality, that is to say the difference between the individuality which prevails in the spheres of Nature and Spirit, the difference asserted in its respective appearance, this it is which constitutes an _essential distinction._ As we shall see, the real point of our inquiry is this, namely, which of these two forms is really the one most adequate to the Idea, for it is obvious that it is only in the entirely adequate form that the totality of the Idea is _in its full content_ explicitly realized. This is the more immediate point we have now to examine in so far as the difference between natural beauty and the Ideal falls into line with the formal differentiation of singularity.

_Immediate_ singularity is no doubt primarily found in the domain of Spirit no less than in Nature as such. For, in the first place, Spirit is possessed of an external existence in bodily form; secondly, even in spiritual relations, Spirit, in the first instance, only exists in its union with immediate reality. Subdividing our inquiry in conformity with such facts, we will consider the nature of immediate singularity from _three_ different points of view.

1. (_a_) We have already seen that the animal organism preserves its determinate existence through a persistent evolutionary process of its own in opposition to an environing inorganic Nature, which it assimilates by means of consumption and digestion, compelling thereby what is external to submit to that process, and asserting its own independent existence by so doing. We found at the same time that this living process is a system of activities, which is realized in a system of organs, whose functional action consists in those very activities. The one and single aim of this homogeneous system is the self-preservation of the living totality thereof through such a process. The animal life consists, therefore, in a life of sensuous impulses, whose general course and satisfaction is realized in the above-mentioned organic system. The living organism is for this reason articulated in its parts under a _teleological principle_, and the principle or end subserved is self-preservation. Life is immanent in every member; they are united to life, and life is one with them. And the net result of this animate process is that the animal is maintained as a thing conscious of itself as an individual subject of feeling, life and the self-enjoyment its singularity procures for it. We have only to compare animal life with plant life to see the difference implied in the absence of such a sense-consciousness. The plant simply brings to the birth new specimens of its species, without even being able to concentrate any single one on that point of negation, which constitutes self-singularity. We must, however, add that even in the animal organism and its life we never have actually before our eyes the true manifestation of this _centre of unity_, but rather simply the _manifold_ of its members. Life is still too deficient on the side of freedom and in opposition to the mere caprice of sense-life to manifest such a subjective individuality as is capable of breaking through the external envisagement of its organic parts. The vital centre of such activities in the animal organism still remains veiled from vision, and all that we see are the mere outlines of the figure, and this for the most part concealed from our view by feathers, scales, hair, fur, or spines. There can be no question that coverings of this nature, though characteristic of the animal world, are coverings which partake of the form of the vegetable world. And it is precisely at this point that the beauty of animal life declares its essential insufficiency. That which the organism makes most visible to us is not the soul-principle. That which is directed outward and throughout appears is not the life within, but rather formations accepted from a lower plane of existence than the essential embodiment of life. The animal is _only_ fully alive beneath that outer crust, and consequently for this very reason that its _inwardness_[262] is not wholly made real in a form adequate to reveal it, we are unable to see the principle of Life everywhere shine freely through it; it remains _only_ an _inwardness_, and the shell is _external only_ unpermeated by the vital principle.

(_b_) The _human_ body, in virtue of its more exalted station, presents us with a striking contrast. In this we are everywhere reminded that man is in possession of a unity of feeling, a soul. The human skin is not covered over plant-like with an apparently lifeless sheath; the pulsation of the blood is visible throughout the entire surface; the beating heart of life is everywhere at the same time apparent; and we have in this outward manifestation, as it were, the real fount Of life made visible, the _turgor vitae_ as it streams from its centre. In the same way the human skin, sensitive throughout in its minutest parts, reveals to us the _morbidezza_ of its colouring, those tints of flesh-colour and vein-colour which are the despair of an artist. On the other hand, however much the human body presents, as the apparent mirror of Life, a contrast with that of animals, it undoubtedly expresses also the natural process of self-preservation in the subdivision of the skin, and the indentations, wrinkles, pores, small hairs and veins which we find attach thereto. In fact the skin itself, though permitting the inner life to shine through it, is none the less an external protection of that life, a means obviously intended for such self-preservation. The supreme significance, however, of the contrast here presented is traceable in this extraordinary sensitiveness of the human cuticle, which, although not absolutely the seat of feeling itself, alone renders such feeling possible. But at the same time even in this direction we are made conscious of the defect, that this sensitiveness does not penetrate as a vital impulse of concentrated emphasis equally through all the members. We find in the human body itself certain organs whose form is entirely appropriate to mere animal functions, while others give a more adequate expression to the entire soul-life, its feelings and passions. Regarded in this way it is obvious that even in the human body the inner life of soul has not found its complete reflection in all parts of its external realization.

(_c_) The same defect is apparent on the higher plane of the _spiritual_ world and its organizations, if we consider such under the aspect of life as immediately presented. The more extensive and the richer their configurations are, the more we shall find that the fundamental object of the inner life of such totalities requires other means co-operative with such externality for its adequate expression. Such organizations no doubt appear in immediate reality as organic wholes in which definite purpose is realized, and the realization of such purpose is manifested by the mediation of voluntary effort. Every centre of such a spiritual organism, such as the State or the family, that is to say each individual organic totality, is in possession of a _will_ capable of such exercise, and appears in unity with the other members of the same organism; but the _one_ inner soul of this nexus, the freedom and reason of the aim of all is not visible in external reality as such in the absolute freedom of its subjective and universal principle of life, nor is it thus manifested in every part.

The same thing may be observed in particular actions and events, where we find a similar organic totality present. The inner motive from which they proceed is not wholly made visible upon the external surface of their actual presence. What we do find is a total presentment of _fact_, whose most fundamental ground of unity and vitality still remains _hidden from sight._

Finally, when we consider from the same point of view any single individual we are confronted with the same truth. Every human person is a self-rounded totality, held together by the central unity of life. In the immediate envisagement of reality, that is in his life, action, avoidance of action, desires and impulses, he only appears in a fragmentary way; none the less it is only from a general survey of all his actions or sufferings that we are able to form an estimate of character. The centre of unity which thus concentrates to a point the entire subject-matter of our extended survey is not as such either visible or directly apprehended.

2. The second point of importance to which we would draw attention is this. With the immediate appearance of individuality the Idea, as we have already indicated, receives determinate existence. Through this very immediacy however it becomes interwoven with the complexity of the external world, is conditioned by the limitations of external circumstance and the relative character of means and ends which are found there, in one word is carried into the finitude of external Nature. For though immediate singularity is in the first place a fully rounded off unity, it is for the same reason only self-exclusive as a centre of negation opposed to _others_, and is, by virtue of its immediate singularity, influenced by, no less than related to, a totality of real existence other than its own, upon which it is dependent in a thousand different ways. The Idea, in short, is in this very immediacy realized in every direction as _individual distinction._ It is consequently now merely a reflex of the inherent energy of the notion which binds all individual existence, that of Nature no less than mind in reciprocal correlation[263]. Such a relation to the existences themselves is a purely external one, and appears also to them as a single _external necessity_ uniting each part of the manifold in one shifting complexus of interrelated reciprocity. The immediacy of determinate existence is therefore, as thus regarded, a system of necessary relations between apparently self-subsistent individual things and forces, in which each singular entity is committed as a means to the service of ends foreign to it, or itself is compelled to utilize that which is external to itself as such a means. And inasmuch as the Idea is under this aspect wholly realized on the ground of externality, there appears at the same time the unrestrained play of every caprice and accident, no less than the uncontrolled discharge of the burden of indigence. Singularity as immediate appearance lives and moves in the realm of unfreedom.

(_a_) The individual _animal_ is, for example, fettered wholly within the bounds of its natural environment of air, water and land. Its entire way of living, the mode of its self-nourishment, everything that concerns it, is thereby determined. It is this which differentiates with such variety the species of animal life. We find, moreover, intermediate strains, such as swimming birds and suckling animals, which live in the water, amphibious species and others which still further mediate between the more obviously generic. These are, however, mere confusions of race, and indicate no higher mediation of considerable range. Throughout we find the animal subject in its self-preservation to the absolute necessities of external nature, cold, drought, or insufficient supply of the means of nourishment. Under this despotic dominion it is liable through the parsimony of circumstance to lose the fulness of external form, the blossom of its beauty, in short to become as it were the reflex of starving Nature herself. External conditions fix imperatively the measure of beauty it either preserves or forfeits.

(_b_) The human organism, in its particular bodily existence is subject, if not in the same measure, to external forces of Nature, and is compelled to face the same contingencies, deficient livelihoods, and every kind of harassing disease and misery.

(_c_) If we carry investigation further to that still higher plane of immediate reality where _spiritual_ interests are predominant we shall find this dependence on external condition for the first time emphasized in its full relativity. Here we are face to face with the prose of human existence in its entire length and breadth. The contrast already noticed between ends subservient to purely physical wants, and those profounder aims of spiritual life, and the conflict which tends to inflict a loss on one side or the other, already opens our view of it. Add to this every individual man, in order to preserve himself as such, is compelled to make himself in many ways subservient to others, and the limited aims of others, and on the other hand, in order to satisfy his own narrow interests, to accept the service of others as a mere means for their fulfilment. The individual, then, as he appears in the prose-life of everyday existence, is not therefore active out of his own particular totality, nor is he intelligible so much in virtue of himself as in virtue of that which he is not[264]. For individual man stands in a relation of dependence to the influences, laws, organizations and other social relations of civic life which he finds already existing around him, and to which he must submit whether he forfeit his own independent soul-life thereby or not. And more than this, each separate individual is not presented to others as such totality, but is only reflected in whatever isolated interest they may happen at the time to possess in his actions, desires, and opinions. And what interests mankind mainly is some relation to their own particular thoughts and aims. Even historically important actions and events, with which the community is expressly associated, appear in this field of relative appearances merely as a manifold of isolated efforts. It is a varied collection to which each contributes as he may, with aims by no means identical, some of which meet with success while others miscarry, and indeed, be they ever so fortunate, are significant in a very subordinate degree if we consider them as contributions to the wellbeing of all. What the majority may carry through, in contrast with the entire aggregate of events and the end applicable to all[265], to which it furnishes its quota, is after all a mere patch; nay, even men of eminent standing, who feel and are fully conscious of the universal passage of events[266], as their own world, are for all that clearly immeshed in the same net of particular circumstances, conditions, and a thousand other hindrances involved in their relative position. On all these grounds it is plain that in this sphere of exterior life the individual world is unable to offer us the vision of that independent and complete freedom of the living principle, such as is essential to the true notion of beauty. It is, of course, true that the immediate appearance of human reality and its events and organizations is not without system, and as such is a totality of activities; but this whole is rather in its appearance a mere mass of isolated fragments. Moreover the practical concerns of such activities are divided and subdivided into countless parts, and in such a way that each single part is in touch with the merest fraction of all; and, in short, however much individuals may remain steadfast to their own purposes, and only bring forth to the light that which their own interest has employed as a means, the self-subsistence and freedom of their will remains more or less of a formal character, determined by external circumstance or accident, and constantly thwarted by natural causes[267].

This is the prose of the world, as presented to our own consciousness no less than to that of others; a world of finitude and change, a world immeshed in relation and submerged beneath the pressure of necessity, a world from which no individual can extricate himself. The central paradox of life confronts every unit of the living whole. On the one hand there is the impulse of individuality to perfect its isolated unity in self-exclusion; on the other there is the necessary condition of dependence on others from which none may claim immunity. However prolonged the struggle to overcome this contradiction may be the effort of that interminable battle only terminates with life itself.

3. Thirdly, the immediate singularity of the worlds of Nature and Mind is not merely conditioned by dependence on others, but is deficient in any complete self-subsistency owing to its _confined_ nature, or with more accuracy, because it is particularized in its own specific mode of manifestation.

(_a_) We will explain our meaning further. Every single specimen of life in the animal world is from the first fettered by a definite, that is to say, a restricted and constant species, beyond the limits of which it cannot pass. There is in the spiritual world, no doubt, a general picture of life and its organization, which floats vaguely before our vision; but in the real world, which is one with Nature, this universal organism breaks up into a multitude of particulars, each of which possesses the determinate type of form and grade of cultivation in which it is related to a definite portion of the social organism. In addition to this and within these insuperable limits, we find the pressure of that element of contingency, as regards general condition or external environment, predominantly asserted both uniquely and in haphazard fashion throughout every one of those individual units. Such a state of things disturbs our vision of the self-subsistency and freedom, which the idea of true beauty imperatively requires.

(_b_) As already observed, it is unquestionably true that Spirit discovers in its own bodily organism the notion of life completely realized. This is so much the case that, in contrast with it, the forms of the animal world appear not only as incomplete, but in inferior species as even pitiable objects. The human organism is also, however, broken up, if to a less, degree, in racial subdivisions and the ascending grades of beauty which distinguish such races. Moreover, in addition to this obviously very general line of demarcation, we have presented to us all the accidental variety of qualities, peculiar to distinct families and their interfusion with one another, such as modes of life, facial expression, and general demeanour. We must further associate with such characteristic traits, which all of them emphasize a condition of essentially unfree particularity, those peculiarities which are inseparable from activity employed in the endless round of commercial life or professional career; qualities which find their ultimate expression in the specific habits or idiosyncracies of any exceptionally marked character or temperament, or, as the reverse side of the picture, in the various confusions of arrested development. Poverty, care, anger, coldness, and indifference, the rage of passion, the obstinate retention of narrow purposes, indications of change and division in the spiritual world, entire dependence on that of Nature--in one word all that is implied in the transitory condition of human life--leaves its indelible, if quite incalculable, expression on the varied surface of the faces of mankind. Who has not crossed weather-beaten types of such, on which the storm of all the passions has imprinted its disturbing wave; or others, where the coldness and superficiality of the soul within is all the impression we receive; or, lastly, as the final verdict of self-absorbed particularity[268], cases in which the general type seems almost totally to have disappeared. There is no end to the caprice of the human features. Speaking generally, we would associate with this ground the fact that the beauty of children most arrests us. In their faces we find all pronounced idiosyncracies slumber as it were beneath a quiet veil; no dominating passion as yet ravages their soul; not one of the thousand interests of the grown man has engraved for ever the expression of its necessity on these mobile features. This envisaged innocence of the child, however, though we may discover in its flexible animation the possibility of Life's completed fulness, obviously fails to reveal those profounder indications of a spirit which has been carried forward to explore the range of its own recesses and to make its life one with rational purpose.

We may regard, then, immediate existence, both in the purely physical and spiritual sense of the term, as a _finitude_, or more justly as a finitude which does not satisfy its notion and for this very reason declares its finitude. For the notion, and more concretely still, the Idea, is essentially _independent_ and _free._ Purely animal life, although as Life it is the Idea, is no manifestation of infinity as such or freedom. This is alone possible under conditions, where we find the notion penetrate so completely the reality which is adequate to it, that it finds itself entirely at home therein, with no extraneous matter, to disturb its possession. Then alone do we find it a really free and concrete individuality. The natural life, on the contrary, is unable to overcome the element of feeling to which it is attached, and which renders it incapable of penetrating the entire reality which enrings it. It finds itself, moreover, immediately conditioned in itself, restricted in its range and dependent, a result which is due to the fact that its freedom is not truly self-determinate, but conditioned by the external: object. And the same thing is true of the immediate and finite reality of the spirit world in its knowledge, volitional action, and fateful history. For although in this latter case we find centres of unity expressed which have a real significance, neither these any more than the particularities they unite have truth as they stand by themselves; but only that truth which, in their reciprocal relation to each other, they manifest as constituent parts of a whole. And this whole, albeit in a sense adequate to its notion, does not correspond to it in such a way as to manifest itself in its full totality[269], which consequently still remains aloof from such envisagement, or rather, is only apprehended in the ideal world of thought. In other words, the notion finds no fully adequate presentation in external reality, such as is powerful enough to marshal homogeneously all the numberless fragments of particularity, and to concentrate them into _one_ expression and _one_ single form.

(_c_) This, then, is the fundamental reason which prevents Spirit itself, on the finite planes of determinate existence, and under the restricting conditions of its externality and necessity, from rediscovering the immediate vision and enjoyment of its freedom. It is consequently driven by its absence to seek that vision in a higher sphere. That sphere is art, and its realization is the Ideal.

We have thus seen that it is the defects of immediate reality which drive us forward inevitably to the idea of the beauty of art. We are further under an obligation to prove that its fundamental object[270] is to manifest here on this very plane of rational reality and in its freedom the envisagement of life, and, most important of all, the life of Spirit. Here, then, we have at last the external revealed to us in a form adequate to the notion. Here, for the first time, truth is lifted up from its environment of temporal conditions, from its running to and fro among the whirl of finite particularity, and attains repose; nay, more than this, discovers an external form, from which the hunger of Nature and the prose of life no longer stare at us. Here at last we have a form worthy of substantial truth, which is wholly self-contained and self-dependent, determining with freedom its own content, and not driven from such self-assertion by the weight of that of others.

[Footnote 201: _Als Beseelung sich kund gäbe._ The reference is to the second class which follows rather than truly animates life. The sun is such an animating principle. How far modern physics with its investigations of the laws of motion that obtain among the chemical atoms of any specific form of matter and its denial of all dead matter would have modified Hegel's view is an interesting question.]

[Footnote 202: _Wir wollen betrachten._ Hegel seems to be conscious himself that there is something fanciful in this interpretation of the significance of what is simply an arbitrary, if systematic, arrangement of bodies according to natural laws.]

[Footnote 203: _Ein besonderes Moment._ See note [191] on p. 152. I think what Hegel means here is that every body as a vehicle of light reflects the mode in which the identity of the notion as system in the different parts asserts itself.]

[Footnote 204: In other words what should be phasal elements (_Momente_) of a whole integrated within that unity remain independent units. They are not Momente in the full sense.]

[Footnote 205: _Als bloss real unterschiedener._ The meaning is that the distinction is only in the totality, not as in the former case in a body which though part of a system, could be viewed as an independent body like the sun.]

[Footnote 206: _Gewöhnliches Bewustseyn_, _i.e._, the ordinary view of understanding (_Verstand_) and sense-perception.]

[Footnote 207: _Blosser Zusammenhang._ Fortuitous is rather too strong. He means a bond of union cemented by one principle without which either side fails to possess its specific character, _e.g._, the human body apart from the human soul its animate individuality, ceases to be human.]

[Footnote 208: _Als Begriff seyende Begriff._ The reference I take to be to the logical or dialectical movement of the Idea.]

[Footnote 209: _Viele tausend empfindende_, or centres of feeling.]

[Footnote 210: _Die realen Unterschiede_, _i. e._, the distinctions of the body viewed as part of the physical process of Nature.]

[Footnote 211: _Zu ihrer subjektiven Einheit_, that is to say, their unity with the notion of Life as objectively realized in Nature, subjective only in the sense that it is ideal, not apprehended by sense-perception as such.]