Chapter III: The Beauty of Art, or the Ideal (3)

(_γγ_) From considerations such as these we conclude that the ideal figures of art must be sought for in the age of mythos, that is to say, speaking generally, in past times, where we shall find the soil most congenial to their growth. If such material is taken from the age we live in, whose most native form, as we actually find it, is tightly shut off from the imagination, it matters not how we regard it, then the modifications which the poet can hardly avoid making in it will not readily escape the appearance of a purely artificial and intentional composition. The Past entirely belongs to memory, and memory perfects the infolding veil of character, events, and actions in the vesture of universality, through which the particular external or contingent detail is unable to penetrate. Many trifling circumstances and mediating conditions, many varied and isolated phases of activity, are inseparable from the actual existence of an action or a character: in the mirror of memory all these insignificant details are obliterated. In this liberation of his work from what is accidental in the external fact the artist has a freer hand for his artistic powers of composition, when dealing with that which is individual and particular in it, if the actions, histories, and characters are borrowed from ancient times. He has, it is true, also historical memories, out of which he must mould a content conformable to the universal; but the picture of the Past possesses, as already observed, an advantage, taken simply as a picture of greater universality, while the manifold texture of mediating condition and circumstance, interwoven as it is in the entire framework of finite existence which surrounds it, offers him material ample enough to prevent his hand obliterating the individuality, which is essential to his work of art. The more closely we consider it, the clearer will be our conclusion that a heroic age has the advantage over later and more civilized times in that the isolated character and personality generally in such an age does not as yet find what is substantive either in the sphere of ethical custom, or moral obligation opposed to itself in the necessary embodiment of legal institution, and thereby presents immediately to the poet all that the form of the Ideal requires. Shakespeare has, for example, selected much material for his tragedies from chronicles and earlier romances, framed upon a condition of life which has not as yet received the impression of a fully articulated social order, but in which the energy of individuals, as emphasized in personal resolve and achievement, is still the prevailing characteristic. His genuine historical dramas have, on the contrary, a vein of historical substance running through them in the strictest sense, and for this reason lean farther away from an ideal exposition, although here, too, both circumstances and actions are made to fall in with, or are removed to suit, the unyielding self-sufficiency and wilfulness of particular characters. No doubt this characteristic remains for the most part in their case a purely formal self-inclusion, whereas if we contrast it with the self-subsistency of heroic characters we find that here the essential _content_ of all such have proposed to accomplish is bound up therewith.

It is on account of this contrast that we should find a reason for repeating the general thesis in connection with the Ideal, to the effect that the _Idyllic_ is exceptionally adapted for its expression, inasmuch as where that is presented the cleavage between what is determined by legal necessity and the living person is wholly absent. To this we must reply that, however simple and original idyllic situations may be, however far removed they may be from the artificial prose-existence of society, such simplicity, if we consider the nature of its content, has, in fact, too insignificant an interest to satisfy the most substantial and essential requirements of the Ideal. Material of this sort fails entirely to include the most weighty motives of heroic character such as Fatherland, moral and family problems, and their development; it is a kind of treatment which is apt to select as the very core of its subject such a fact as the loss of a single sheep or the falling in love of a girl. In this way the Idyllic not unfrequently becomes merely the resource and recreation of our hearts, to which poets such as Gessner, for example, will add their dose of sickly sweetness and sentimentalism. The idyllic aspect of the days we live in have, further, this defect, that this _naïveté_, this domesticated or rural atmosphere in the emotional aspect of love or the enjoyment of a good cup of coffee in the open and things of that sort are not likely to awake much interest, when we find in them nothing but the country parson flavour--find them cut off, that is to say, from all wider relations with the outside world, and not a trace of the profounder web of purposes with which that world is interwoven. It is precisely here that we have reason to admire the genius of Goethe, when he concentrated his poetic talent on material of this kind in his poem of "Hermann and Dorothea." It is true that he selects from the life of the Present a particular theme of very limited extension, but at the same time he unfolds before us as the background and atmosphere of the picture in which his characters are portrayed the great interests of the revolution and his own native country, and, in short, associates with a subject-matter necessarily narrow in its range facts of world-history of the widest and most potent significance.

Generally speaking, we shall find that the ills of life and its evil, war, battles, and revenge, are not excluded from the subject-matter of the Ideal, but are frequently the very source and substance of the heroic age and its myths, whose form grows all the wilder and sterner in proportion to the remoteness of such a period from a fully developed society of law and moral order. In the chivalrous adventures of knight-errantry we find the heroes of such tales themselves often enough sharing the savage and dissolute characteristics of the times, and in much the same way the martyrdom of the heroes of the Church presupposes a condition of ferocious cruelty around them. At bottom, however, the Christian ideal, which is based on the depth and inwardness of man's spiritual nature, stands in a relation of entire indifference to the external world.

We have demonstrated that the condition of particular centuries is more applicable to the Ideal; in the same way Art selects pre-eminently a particular class of society for the form under which the Ideal shall appear, the order, that is to say, of _princes._ And the selection is made not because art is necessarily aristocratic, or has any predilection for gentility[308], but simply on account of the perfection in which free will and its products may be exemplified imaginatively through the highly placed class. We have in the chorus of ancient tragedy the characteristics and universal background of general maxims, modes of imaginative thought, and emotion, before which the definite movements of the action proceed. In contrast to this appear the more clearly defined individualities of the personages immediately concerned in the action, men and women of authority, and belonging for the most part to royal families. On the other hand, the main impression forced upon us, when seeing representatives of a lower class carrying on pursuits which are of a narrower range, is one of subjection; and, indeed, in an artificial[309] state of society the freedom of action of such a class is fettered in every direction, and is necessarily involved with all its passions and interests in all the medley and despotic forces of external circumstance. It is, in fact, held closely behind the invincible power of the social order, which it is unable to come out of, and is an alien from the authority of the dominant order, even when that is asserted in accordance with just principle. In this limitation of outlook through the hard conditions of life all real independence is wrecked. For this reason both the circumstances and characters which we find in such a sphere of life are more appropriate to the treatment of comedy, everybody being permitted in comedy to rate themselves as they please, and to lay claims to a self-sufficiency in all that they will and think, which is none the less immediately negatived by the spiritual no less than the external dependence of their lives. As a rule, such a false and second-hand self-subsistency must inevitably fall to pieces when confronted with the actual conditions of life and the distorted view which is formed of them. The force of circumstances is presented to the lower orders of society on a totally different level from that in which it acts upon rulers and princes. In Schiller's "Braut von Messina" Don Caesar is able to exclaim, and justly: "there stands no higher judge than myself!" And when he has to be punished he must himself give judgment and execute it. He is, in fact, subject to no external necessity of right and law, and even when punishment is the question is wholly dependent on himself. The characters in the Shakespearean drama do not entirely belong to the princely order and only partially are taken from mythical sources, but they are placed in the era of civil wars, in which the ties of social order and legislative enactment are either weakened or shattered, and they secure from such a condition the exceptional independence and self-sufficiency we are looking for.

(_b_) If we transfer our attention now from the characteristic conditions of society we have hitherto mainly considered to the actual state of the world around us and its carefully articulated scheme of ethical, judicial, and political institutions, we shall not fail to observe that the material we have here offered us for figures of truly ideal type is of a very restricted character. The province here in which an entirely open field is presented for the display of independent purpose in its fullest individuality is limited both in its range and the measure of opportunity. The qualities that make a man thorough in his relations to his own family and his business, the ideals, in short, of honest citizens and excellent wives, in so far as will and activity are concentrated on the field in which it is still possible for a man to exercise his free personality, to carry out, in short, all that he has a mind to do, this is the prevailing feature of our modern society. Such ideals inevitably lack the depth of a fuller content, and the most significant feature of them is that of the attitude of the individual mind to their realization; for we find here the content is already presented by existing social institutions, and consequently the essential interest we take in it depends on the particular way in which that content is realized and appears in the _personal life_, its moral and inward significance. For this reason it is not possible, as in the case of former times, to create ideals from the positions of judgeship and kingship. If a man carries out his judicial functions nowadays in accordance with duty and the requirements of his office, he merely is acting within the bounds already marked out for him by legislative enactments in the social order as the sphere of his responsibilities. All that may characterize his tenure of office beyond this, as proceeding from personal qualities, such as suavity of demeanour or acuteness of judgment, is not the main point or the substantial content, but rather an aspect of it which it is possible to dispense with as something accidental. In the same way the monarchs of our own day are no longer, as was the case with the heroes of mythical times, in themselves the embodying and culminating unity of society itself, but rather a more or less unsubstantial _centrum_ around which all legal and social institutions, however moulded in the course of time, group themselves in independent relations. All the most important functions of the executive have nowadays been separated from the royal prerogative. Kings do not lay down the law, control finance; the preservation of social order is not one of their most characteristic functions. Peace and war are determined through the particular circumstances of international politics, which it is not within their power exclusively either to direct or control; and, if it happens that any important decision with regard to either depends in the last resort on their judgment, such a decision is not generally so much in the nature of its substance the result of any personal preference, as it is the formal seal of monarchical authority on what is already determined on public grounds, the mere imposition of that which is strictly official rather than personal in its character. In the same way, a general or field-marshal of our times has unquestionably great authority; objects and interests of profound importance are under his control and his circumspection; his courage, his determination, and his intelligence are involved in the weightiest decisions; nevertheless, whatever may be definitely traced to the essentially personal characteristics of the man has little opportunity for display in such a result. For, in the first place, the objects upon which his decisions turn are not of his own selection, and arise out of circumstances which lie beyond the sphere of his influence rather than are spontaneously fixed by himself; secondly, the means adopted to carry out such objects are not the sole result of his initiative. On the contrary, they are supplied him from sources which are not immediately under his authority or personal influence, but stand rather quite apart from the sphere of his individual powers as a general.

To sum up, then, though it is true that under the present condition of the civilized world a man may act independently for himself in many directions, the fact remains that in whatever direction he may turn he is still only a member of a fixed order of society and appears as such limited in his range rather than the vital representative and individual embodiment of society itself. He acts necessarily under such a condition of restriction, and our interest in such a personality, no less than in the content of his aims and activity, is entirely devoid of completeness. In the end we are invariably driven to concentrate our attention on the purely personal interest, how far, that is to say, he attained success, what was the nature of the obstacles and complications which, in either, through untoward chance or necessity, confronted or distracted his progress. And if it is, moreover, true that our modern personality is of infinite significance when we estimate the character thus manifested as a spiritual product, in its actions, sufferings, moral opinions, and conduct that is to say, it is also true that the moral content which is realized in such an individual is of a restricted character, rather than, as is the case in the heroic times, the realization of universal right, custom, and legality. The individual is no longer the exclusive vehicle and actual embodiment of these powers as in the previous times.

(_c_) Our interest, however, in and need to have presented us such a completely realized individuality and living self-dependence will always persist, however strongly we may recognize the worth and reasonable nature of the more developed condition of an organized and trained civic society. It is this necessity which makes us regard with astonishment the youthful spirit of Schiller and Goethe when they sought to discover that lost self-sufficiency in the prevailing conditions of modern times. How do we find in particular this attempt is made by Schiller in his earliest works? Simply by a rebellion directed against the whole organic framework of civil society. Karl Moor, suffering injury from the existing order at the hands of those who abuse the power entrusted them, has the courage to break the bonds which bind him to law and order altogether, cuts himself adrift and creates for himself a heroic situation, in which he appears as the champion of right, and the self-constituted avenger of wrong, injustice, and oppression. None the less, how insignificant and isolated must a private revenge of this kind appear, if we estimate it from the practical point of view, according to the probability of its success; and, in fact, in one aspect of it, it already contains the germ of wrong which can only lead to the criminal act on which it will fall to pieces. No doubt, as personal to Karl Moor himself, this is a misfortune, a fatality, however, which, despite the tragical element in it, can only engraft on mere boys the blight of such a "robber-ideal." In much the same way the characters depicted in "Kabale und Liebe" suffer wrong under prevailing conditions of life, absorbed in the trivial facts and passions wholly personal to themselves. It is not until we come to the dramas of "Fiesco" and "Don Carlos" that we find characters of nobler significance and more substantive content, heroes, for example, resolved to liberate their country, or assert the liberty of religious conviction. With a nobility still more striking Wallenstein places himself at the head of his army that the crisis in the political situation may come to a focus. He is fully cognisant of the nature of the political forces upon which his only means of control, his army, is dependent; consequently he hesitates for long whether to follow his private inclination or his duty. He has barely arrived at a decision when he finds the instrument on which he most depended slip from his grasp; his means of action is gone. For that which in the last instance unites the leading officers and generals is no gratitude for anything that may be due to him on the ground of past services rendered; his fame as a general has nothing to do with it, but rather the duty they owe to the universally recognized seat of government, the oath they have sworn to the head of the State, the emperor of the Austrian monarchy. He finds himself consequently in the end isolated, and is not so much fought with and overcome by an external foe as he is stripped of all means of executing his purpose. He is deserted by his army and from that moment is a lost man. The "Götz"[310] of Goethe starts from a dramatic situation of an analogous though somewhat inverse type. The times of Götz and Franz von Sickingen belong to the interesting epoch in which knight-errantry and the self-reliant individuality of the class of nobility is being superseded by the new creation of an external and legally constituted social order. To have selected precisely this critical time where we find the heroic characteristics of the Middle Ages and the legalized fabric of modern society meet and collide for the subject of his first artistic production shows much penetration on the part of Goethe. For Götz and Sickingen are still heroes in the genuine sense, who are resolved to exercise their influence over circumstances, whether immediately affecting them or of wider range, out of the resources of their own personalities, their courage, and their private sense of right. The new order of things involves Götz in acts of illegality and brings about the catastrophe of his life. It is only in the Middle Ages that knight-errantry and the relations of feudalism will supply a field entirely open to this type of self-reliant manhood. When we find, moreover, the legalized order co-ordinated more completely in its prosaic form, the predominant authority in fact, the adventurous self-dependence of knighthood is left outside it as an unrelated excrescence; and if an attempt is made to assert it as though it were still a valid means of attacking wrong, and assisting the oppressed, it becomes simply an object of ridicule, such as Cervantes illustrates for us in his "Don Quixote."

In this allusion to the opposition which exists between two differently constituted _régimes_ of society and the collision which results from action in defiance of their particular character we have already indicated what we have above defined generally as the closer determination and differentiation of the universal state of the world, that is to say, the _situation_ as generally expressed.

2. THE SITUATION

The ideal world-condition which it is the function of art to present in contrast to prosaic reality we may conclude from our previous discussion to be merely a general background of society of a specific kind; it is merely the _possible_ condition necessary for the particular presentation, not the presentation itself. What we have hitherto directed attention to is, in fact, the general background upon which the living figures of art may appear. It is undoubtedly fructified with individuality and is supported by its self-subsistency; but as a _general_ condition it is not yet the active movement of particular individuals in the very form of life, just as we may say that the temple which Art erects is not as yet the representation of the personal godhead, but only encloses the germ of the same. For this reason we must in the first instance regard this world-condition as a kind of medium in repose, a harmony, so to speak, of forces which are operative in it, and to this extent it possesses a substantial consistency of uniform worth, which, however, must not be accepted as identical with what has been called "the age of innocence." For it is a condition in the fulness and sovereignty of whose ethical atmosphere the terrors of division only are slumbering because, in our contemplation of it, we have before us, for the first time, the aspect of its substantial unity, and consequently are only presented with individuality in its most universal terms, a mode of viewing it which makes it fade away as though without definition or any essential disturbance of its unity, instead of giving to it the full value of definite characteristics. But such characterization is essential to individuality. And if the Ideal is to appear as _definite form_ it is necessary for it to escape from such pure universality, or in other words for it to give the universal a particular expression, and by so doing impart to it both existence and appearance. Art consequently has in this connection not only to translate into its medium a _universal_ world-condition, but must proceed beyond this quite indefinite conception to the composition of pictures of _definite_ character and action.

Regarded from the aspect under which it affects _individual_ character this general condition is the environment of circumstance which, according to its specifically detached form, tends to excite both collisions and development, forcing thereby the individuals thus affected to express their _nature_ and exhibit such expression in a definite form. From the point of view of the world-condition this self-revelation of particular individuals appears as the passing of its universality into the distinct embodiments of living individuality, an aggregate over which _universal forces_ still assert the _mastery._[311] For the eternal powers operative in the world-process constitute the substantive content of the Ideal as specifically defined in what it essentially is. The mode of existence, however, which is realized through the bare form of external condition is unworthy of this content. For in the first place such a condition is associated with habit, and the habitual is no adequate determination of those profounder interests which are active in _self-conscious mind._ Furthermore, as we have observed, it was the _contingency_ and _caprice_ of individuality, by virtue of whose spontaneous activity these very interests are permitted to appear in life; but this unessential contingency and caprice is again quite as little adequate to the substantive universality, which constitutes the notion of essential actuality. On these grounds respectively we are therefore compelled to seek an art-envisagement more worthy and better defined for the concrete content[312] of the Ideal.

This new configuration the universal powers can only retain in its _determinate existence_ in virtue of the fact that they are manifested in their essential modes of difference and movement, or, to put the matter more specifically, through their assertion of the contradictions which they relatively unfold. Two aspects of the process of individualization into which the universal thus passes must be here emphasized. In the first place, there is the _substance_ as an embracing sphere of universal forces through the differentiation indicated, which is broken from its substantive unity into its component parts; secondly, there are the _individuals_, which spring forth as the active completion of these forces and give to them a specific objectification.

Now what we have characterized as the difference and opposition in which the world-condition, hitherto harmonious with the individuals conditioned by it, is involved, if we consider it from the point of view of universal condition, is the manifestation of the _essential content_ which it carries in itself. On the other hand we observe that the substantive universal in that condition is articulated through particular units in such a way that this very universal procures for itself determinate existence, albeit it is thus immersed in the appearance of chance, disunion, and division, an appearance, which, however, is rendered nugatory by the fact that it is the universal which thus appears.

The separation of these forces and their objectification[313] in individuals can, however, further take place under definite conditions and circumstances, under which and as a constituent aspect of which the entire objective appearance receives a determinate form, or as the stimulative impulse of this very realization. By themselves such circumstances are without interest[314], and it is only through their relation to mankind that they receive such a significance, through whose self-consciousness the content of these spiritual forces is carried actively into objective appearance. The external circumstances are consequently only to be regarded of significance in so far as they supply an essential relation to Spirit, in so far, that is to say, as they are comprehended by those individual units and afford them a stimulus to actualize their inward _spiritual_ needs, the aims, ideas, the determinate substance, in short, of all that requires an individual embodiment. Regarded as a stimulating influence of this kind particular circumstances and conditions create what we have called the _situation_, which is specifically presupposed in the actual self-expansion and activity of all that still lies undeveloped in the universal world-condition; it is for this reason we have considered the previous determination of the notion of the situation as necessary to any inquiry into the true constituents of _action._

The situation expressed in general terms is in one aspect of it the circumstance _particularized_ to the point of _definite character_, and under this characterization it is, to put it another way, the stimulating impulse to a particular expression of content, which it is the function of artistic presentation to transmute into a specific form of existence. Looked at from this latter point of view especially the situation offers a wide field for contemplation, inasmuch as it has ever been one of the most essential objects of art to discover situations of real interest, that is to say, of such a kind as will present to us the profound and weighty interest, the truest content of spiritual life. The requirements of the several arts in this respect no doubt differ. Sculpture, for example, is pre-eminently limited in its reference to the inwardly detailed variety of situations. Painting and music are already operative in a freer and more comprehensive medium. Finally, we are least able among them all to exhaust the possibilities of poetry in this respect.

Since we have not yet arrived at that portion of our subject where we deal directly with the specific arts, it will be sufficient here to draw attention to a few of the most general aspects of that inquiry, which we may subdivide in the following manner.

_First_, we would observe that the situation still retains the form of _universality_ and thereby of _indeterminacy_, so long as it is undeveloped and without definite characterization; we have, consequently, at first present before us a situation which is without situation. For the form of indeterminacy is itself only _one_ form as opposed to its contradiction of determinacy, and is shown to be, by virtue of this very contrast, a one-sided aspect which as such possesses a determinate relation.

_Secondly_, however, the situation passes in separation away from this universality, and becomes certainly determinate to that extent, but at first with a determinacy which produces no destructive consequences, that is to say, it is one which offers no stimulus to _active opposition_ and its necessary resolution.

_Thirdly_, we find the element of _disunion_ in all its vigour creating by the definition of its opposed characteristics the essence of the situation, which thereby is carried into a _collision_, which again proceeds to reactions, and, as such, forms the point of departure to the conception of artistic action properly so called.

We may, in fact, characterize the situation generally as the _intermediate plane_ between the universal world-condition still in a state of equilibrium, and the concrete action unfolded in all its tendency to movement and reaction, a position which gives to it the characteristics of both extremes, and enables us to pass over from the one to the other.

_(a) The Absence of Situation_[315]

We passed from the notion of the universal world-condition in presenting to ourselves the form of it as essentially individual self-subsistency. Self-subsistency, however, regarded simply in its essential form, presents to us in the first instance merely the secure repose upon its own resources in its bare tranquillity. The form as thus defined is carried into no relation with another, but remains at one with itself in inclusion with its unity both, within and without. This presents us with the situation which is without situation, an illustration of which we may take those ancient types of temple-building dating from the earliest days of art, whose character of profound immutable seriousness, of tranquil, nay even of austere and grandiose, dignity has been the object of imitation even in more recent times proceeding on lines of a similar type. The Egyptian and most ancient Greek sculptures will further illustrate for us the same kind of indeterminate situation. In the plastic art of Christianity, especially if we consider particular examples of early bust-sculpture, we shall find both God the Father and Christ are presented in a similar spirit. Indeed, such a mode of delineation is peculiarly adapted to present us with the secure substantiality of the Divine, whether such be apprehended as a definite and particular Godhead, or is grasped as essentially absolute personality; and this is so in virtue of the very defect of such a representation, that it gives us portraits of persons of middle-age which are without any trace of definite situations, in which the character of the individual as such can reveal itself, and only the attempt is made to express the entirety of determinate character in its quality of stability[316].

_(b) The Situation defined in its Harmlessness_[317]

The second point to emphasize is, inasmuch as the situation generally is reached in the _definition_ of form, the passage from this tranquillity and blessed repose, or from the unbroken severity and force of self-consistency, forms which subsist in unfeatured equilibrium, that is to say, immutable both within and without, have to be set in motion and surrender their undressed simplicity. This bare progression to a more specific manifestation in some particular mode of expression is what we may describe certainly as definite situation, but a situation which has not yet asserted conflicting elements in itself, and is fully ripe for collision.

This first step in the process of individualized expression is consequently of a kind that carries with it no further result; it is set in no antagonistic opposition to something else, in a relation which evokes both collision and reaction; it is already in its character of unconstrainedness finished and complete in itself. With such a type of situation we may associate those which are mainly to be regarded as a kind of play, in so far as all that proceeds or is carried out in them indicates no real seriousness of purpose. For all earnestness in any kind of activity is generally the result of oppositions and contradictions, which drive on their way to the final removal or victory of one side or the other. For this reason situations of this kind cannot themselves be identified with actions, nor are they the stimulative impulse of actions; they are indeed, in a certain aspect, of determinate character, but they are either circumstances of the most trivial significance, or a form of action which is without an essentially serious object, which either is the result of conflicts, or is able to carry the action yet further into conflicts.

(_α_) The first thing to arrest us in this process is the passage generally from the repose of the unfeatured situation to a condition of emotion and expression: this is asserted partly as purely mechanical motion, in part also as the first impulse and satisfaction of any internal want. The Egyptians, for example, represented the gods in their sculpture with closely locked limbs. The Greeks, on the contrary, released both arms and legs, and endowed the bodily form with all that is appropriate to the advance and general variety of movement. Permanent repose, a seated attitude, a tranquil gaze, are all of them simple conditions under which the Greeks apprehended their gods; they are modes which unquestionably gave to the self-subsistent figure of Godhead a certain characterization, but one nevertheless which is not carried forward into other relations and oppositions, but rather remains enclosed within itself, and permanently significant as such. Situations of this simple kind attach in a particular way to sculpture, and the ancients, above all others, were inexhaustible in discovering fit subjects for such a condition of unconstrained freedom. In this respect they showed an extraordinary insight; for it is precisely through contrast with the insignificance of the particular situation that the majesty and self-subsistency of the ideal types of the Greek Pantheon were made to appear so striking. It was, in fact, through the harmlessness and insignificance of what appeared to be done or left undone that the blessed peaceful tranquillity and immutability of the immortal gods was brought most clearly to consciousness. The situation merely indicates the particular character of either god or hero in quite a general way, such as brings them into no relation with other gods, or at least into no relation suggestive of hostility or division.

(_β_) It is a further step in the direction of more defined situation, when we find in such any particular purpose already represented in it, an activity which stands in definite relation to something external, and the self-subsistent figure itself expressed as within the sphere of such purpose or activity. Even objectification such as these, however, which have no real disturbing influence upon the tranquillity and cheerful blessedness of the figures represented, are rather to be regarded as particular modes of presentation incidental to this very quality of cheerful contentment. The invention of the Greeks was here, too, exceptionally thoughtful and fruitful. It is essential to the unconstrainedness of such situations that the activity here presented should merely indicate an action in its initial stage in such a way that no further developments or oppositions are likely to proceed from it, but that all that appears necessary to complete it should be found enclosed in the action depicted.

As an illustration of this the situation of the Belvedere Apollo is seized at the moment when he moves forward in wrathful majesty after slaying the Python with his arrow. A situation of this kind has not the grandiose simplicity of the earlier Greek sculpture, which asserts for our intelligence the repose and open clarity of the gods by means of expressed actions of less significance. Take the case of Aphrodite peacefully gazing at herself while emerging from her bath in full possession of her charms; or of fauns and satyrs at play, play that is wholly absorbed in itself; or of that famous satyr who dandled the young Bacchus in his arms, while he looks down upon him with infinite tenderness and grace; to say nothing of the endless variety of unconstrained activities in which Eros is depicted. Such are a few examples of this type of situation. If the action is of more concrete character we are confronted with a more involved situation, which, at least for the artistic presentment of the Greek gods as self-substantive powers, is less appropriate. In a case of this kind the pure universality of the individual god is less able to transpierce the accumulated detail of the particular action which he expresses. The Mercury of Pigalli, which is a present of Louis XV to the exposition of statuary in Sanssouci, is fastening on his winged sandals. This is a perfectly harmonious action. The Mercury of Thorwaldsen, on the contrary, is depicted under a situation which is almost too complicated for sculpture. He listens attentively to the flute of Marsyas. At the same time he is craftily spying him to see how he may slay him while his hand grasps maliciously for the dagger he has concealed. In opposition to this, if we may add one more illustration from a more modern work of art, is that representation by Rudolf Schadow, of a maiden binding her sandals in much the same simple manner as we find in the case of Mercury. In this example the naïveté of the situation does not contain the interest we experience when it is a god who exhibits such unconstrained action. When it is only a maiden who fastens her sandals or spins, there is little else to engage our attention but the simple action, which is by itself of little significance or importance.

(_γ_) We shall find further, if we follow up the above train of thought, that the more closely defined situation can be treated more generally, as merely a more or less definite stimulus presenting the _opportunity_ for further development of expressed action of wider range related to the primary subject with varying degrees of affinity. Many lyrical poems have what we may call an occasional situation of this kind. A particular mood or a certain atmosphere of emotion is a situation which can be arrested poetically for consciousness, and, furthermore, in particular relation to external circumstances, festivals, or public victories, is able to carry us forward to this or that artistic expression, either of more comprehensive or restricted range, and in every kind of embodiment of feeling and idea. Pindar's odes of victory are supreme examples of this type of occasional poetry. Goethe, too, has selected as the subject-matter of his muse many lyrical situations of a similar character; and, in fact, if we look closely into the matter, we shall hardly be wrong in calling his "Werther" a poem of occasion. It is through the medium of "Werther" that Goethe has elaborated the convulsions and anguish of his own heart, incorporated, in short, the facts of his own experience in a work of art. This, after all, is true of every lyrical poet; he gives poetical expression to that which nearly affects him, and thereby throws the windows of his heart open to the fresh air. That which has hitherto been sealed up within is released in the external object, from which our humanity has freed itself, just as we are the lighter for the rain of tears, in which the sorrow is wept away. So Goethe, as in fact he has told us himself, by his composition of Werther, liberated himself from the mastery and pressure of his heart troubles. At the same time we must point out that this last-mentioned situation is not really appropriate to the type with which we are now dealing; it obviously presents the profoundest contradiction in itself which calls for resolution. No doubt in the kind of lyrical situation we have identified with "the occasional" we may have declared a circumstance objectively determined, in other words, an activity in close relation to the external world; but, on the other hand, we find the poetic temperament equally able to withdraw itself within the atmosphere it creates wholly free from its external environment, and to make that inward world which is the combined product of circumstance and emotion its true point of departure.

_(c) The Collision_

All the situations to which we have hitherto directed attention are, as already observed, neither true actions in themselves nor indeed the stimulative source of such action. Their determination was to a greater or less degree the purely occasional circumstance or condition, or an action in itself of no significance, in which a substantive content was expressed in such a way that its specific character appeared as a mere harmless play, in which nothing of a truly serious nature was implied. The full seriousness and weighty import of a situation can only begin when we find in it the element of disruption, where the determination itself exposes an essential aspect of difference, and by its opposition to something else becomes the source of a collision.

The _collision_ arises, as we are now considering it, in an act of _violation_, which is unable to retain its character as such, but is compelled to find a new principle of unity; it is a change in the previously existent condition of harmony, a change which is still in process. The collision is, however, not an _action_, and is to be taken simply as stimulus to action to all that characterizes the situation. And this is true, although the contradiction in which the collision is enclosed may be the result of previous action. As an example of this we may cite the trilogies of the ancients, which carry forward the main theme by presenting at the close of one drama the collision which forms the stimulative impulse of the next, which, in its return, renders necessary the resolution which is carried out by the third. And, moreover, for this very reason that the collision always requires some resolution attendant on this conflict of opposing elements, the more a situation is full of it the more it is peculiarly adapted to the subject-matter of dramatic art, it being the especial claim of that art to present beauty in its completest and profoundest development. Sculpture, on the contrary, is not wholly suited to give embodiment to any action, through which the great spiritual forces are manifested either in their division or reconciliation, and indeed the art of painting, despite its more extended spatial significance, is only able to objectify a single moment of action.

These situations of tragic significance introduce a peculiar difficulty in dealing with them which is inherent in their very conception. For inasmuch as they obviously arise from violations of the world-condition they offer to our consideration circumstances which are unable to continue as they are, which render necessary something of a remedial nature to reclothe them. But the beauty of the Ideal consists precisely in its undisturbed unity, repose, and consummation with itself. The collision, on the other hand, disturbs this harmony of what is truly real and ethical, and drives this unity of the Ideal into discord and opposition. Through the representation of such disruption the Ideal itself suffers violation. The function of art will undoubtedly consist partly in preventing the entire destruction of free beauty in this difference, and partly in only carrying this breach of unity and the conflict it occasions to a point in which harmony may again be recovered as the result of such a conflict and its resolution, and in this way become manifest for the first time in its essential perfection. It is, however, impossible to determine on a general principle the precise limit to which such discordance may be carried inasmuch as the several arts in this respect preserve their independent character. The medium of the subjective idea can support a far intenser disruption than that of the plastic arts[318]. In other words, poetry is quite within its right when it breaks up the unity of the world of the imagination even to the point of the extremest form of desperation, and in its delineation of external objects to that of absolute ugliness. In the case of the plastic arts, on the contrary, in painting, that is to say, and even more so in sculpture, the external form remains in unalterable fixity; it can neither be removed nor lightly passed over in such a way that it again disappears. Under such conditions it would be a serious defect to represent once and for all an ugliness, which could not possibly be transmuted. Consequently all that would be quite compatible in dramatic poetry, which is able to represent a momentary appearance that again vanishes, is not within the province of the plastic arts.

In discussing the more obvious types of collision we can only in this portion of our inquiry indicate the most general points of view. We would particularly draw attention to three fundamental aspects under which they may be co-ordinated.

_First_, there are those collisions which proceed from purely _natural_, that is to say, physical conditions, in so far as these are characterized with qualities which are negative or evil and consequently discordant.

_Secondly_, we have collisions which are of a _spiritual_ nature, but which depend on _natural_ conditions, conditions which may in themselves have a positive[319] character yet for the spirit contain within themselves the seeds of difference and contradiction.

_Thirdly_, there are divisions which are caused entirely by disruption in the Spirit alone; to these alone we are justified in attaching the peculiar interest of contradiction which is bound up with genuine _human activity_.

(_α_) Now with reference to the first type of conflicting forces--for the reason that here it is only external Nature, through the maladies and other evils and infirmities which are incidental to her creating, conditions which destroy the pre-existent harmony of life, replacing such with a state of antagonism--such can at most merely serve as a stimulus for something outside them. Regarded wholly by themselves such collisions are of no interest; they are the subject-matter of art simply for the sake of the disruption which may follow as a _consequence_ of some natural misfortune. The "Alcestis" of Euripides, we may add, too, that of Gluck, the subject of whose opera is practically the same, are examples of this; in both the sickness of Admetus is necessarily presupposed. That sickness merely by itself could not fitly supply a subject for artistic treatment. It only becomes, even in the handling of Euripides, associated with it by virtue of the individual characters, who, on account of such misfortune, are compelled to face a further collision. It is the word of the oracle that Admetus must die unless another will pass to the underworld for his sake. Alcestis, out of love for her husband, devotes herself to such a sacrifice, resolves to die, in order to restrain Death from touching her beloved, the father of her children, the king. In the Philoctetes of Sophocles a physical malady is also the cause of the collision. Here the Greeks during their voyage to Troy place the man who is suffering from a wounded foot, caused by the serpent's bite in Chrysas, on the island of Lemnos. In this case, too, the physical mishap is merely the extreme meeting point and incentive of a further collision. For, according to the prophecy, Troy can only fall when the arrows of Hercules are in the hands of the storming army. Philoctetes refuses to give them up because he has been compelled for nine years to suffer the martyrdom of his banishment. This refusal, no less than the fact of his unrighteous desertion from which it springs, could have been followed by every variety of result other than that which took place; the real interest accordingly does not centre in the malady and its physical necessity, but in the opposition which arises from the refusal of Philoctetes to surrender the arrows. The case of the plague in the Greek camp before Troy is very similar; although this is already represented entirely as the consequence of former transgression, as a punishment, in short, a mode of statement more adapted to epic than dramatic poetry, nevertheless it is closely associated with evils incidental to natural misfortune such as storm, shipwreck, and drought. As a rule, however, art will not represent such mischance as mere accident, but rather as an obstruction and misfortune whose necessity simply consists in assuming precisely this particular form rather than another.

(_β_) But, to turn now to our second type of the collision, inasmuch as the external powers of Nature are not that which is most essential to the interests and contradictions of human life, in cases where they are found closely associated with such spiritual relations, they will present themselves merely as the ground from which the collision breaks forth in its true character. This is the point of view from which we must regard all situations, where we trace the original source of conflict in the facts of natural _birth._ We will shortly distinguish between three particular cases of this.

(_αα_) In the first place we have the right that is bound up with natural condition, that which constitutes relationship and inheritance for example, which for the very reason that it stands in close connection with Nature carries with it a number of relations that are bound up with her, and this though the right, the fact is one and only one. The most important example of this is the right of succession to the throne. It is important to observe that this right must not as yet, in relation to the collisions which spring from it, be absolutely fixed by rule, otherwise the resultant conflict will be of quite another character. If, that is to say, the right of succession is not as yet entirely controlled by legislation and the social order which it implies, no wrong will necessarily attach to any one of the alternatives, namely, whether it be an older or younger brother, or any other relative of the royal household who obtains the sovereignty. But inasmuch as sovereignty is a qualitative rather than a quantitative possession, which cannot like gold and other material goods be divided up according to a just principle, dispute and contention is inevitably the result of such a form of succession. When Œdipus, for example, leaves the throne of Thebes without a ruler, he leaves his two sons confronting each other with a right and claim of equal strength. The brothers arrange to occupy the throne alternately from year to year. Eteocles, however, breaks the compact and Polynices brings an army against Thebes to enforce his right. The antagonism of brothers has always been in the history of art a fruitful source of collision; it commences indeed with the story of Cain who slew his brother Abel. In the tale of Shah-Rameh, the earliest example we have of a Persian book of heroic legend, it is a contention of throne succession which is the source of the most varied conflicts. In this Feridu divided the Earth among his three brothers. Selm receives as his portion Rum and Chawer; Turan and Osin are given to Thur, and Fredysh becomes lord of the Earth from Iran. All three, however, claim the land which belongs to his brothers, and endless quarrels and wars are the result. In the Middle Ages we find just the same countless examples of family and dynastic broils. Such dissensions, however, appear in themselves to be due to accidental circumstance. It is not necessary that brothers should be at enmity; particular circumstances and more important causes must be attached, such as the in itself tragic birth of the sons of Œdipus, or, as we find in "the Bride of Messina," the author is at pains to shift the quarrel of the brothers on to still more fateful circumstances. In Shakespeare's "Macbeth" a similar collision is the foundation of the tragic dénouement. Duncan is king and Macbeth, as his nearest and oldest relation, is consequently heir to the throne with a right precedent even to Duncan's sons. The primary incentive of Macbeth's crime is the wrong which the king has done him in naming his own son as heir to the throne. This justification of Macbeth, which is supported by the chronicles of the time, Shakespeare has entirely passed over, because, it was solely his object to bring into startling relief the repulsive aspect of Macbeth's ambitious passion, in order thereby to make his work agreeable to King James, who would be naturally interested in finding the crime of Macbeth depicted without extenuating circumstances. As a consequence we can find no sufficient reason why, under Shakespeare's handling of the subject, Macbeth fails to murder the sons of Duncan no less than their father, lets them escape in fact; nor can we understand why they are wholly overlooked by the nobles. However, the entire collision upon which, the drama of Macbeth turns carries us beyond the particular type which we are now mainly considering.