Chapter III: The Beauty of Art, or the Ideal (4)

(_ββ_) In the _second_ of our examples in the type of collision[320] we are now discussing we find the reverse situation to that just discussed, and it consists in this that difference of birth, which carries within itself a _wrongs_ is moreover, through ethical _custom_ or _law_, held within the chains of an insuperable _barrier_, so that it receives at the same time the appearance of an innate wrong, and consequently is the cause of collisions. Slavery, serfdom, differences of caste, the position of Jews in many states and, with certain qualifications, even the contrast between an aristocratical and citizen class are all of them cases for consideration under this head. The conflict here consists in this, that on the one hand humanity has rights, relations, desires, aims and requirements which belong to it essentially in virtue of its fundamental idea, which nevertheless in each one of the above mentioned examples meet with dangerous restriction and obstruction owing to the compulsive necessity of natural birth. On this type of collision we have the following remarks to offer.

The differences which obtain between classes, such as the ruled and the rulers, are, no doubt, essential to the notion of state-life, and are founded on reason, for they are caused by the inevitable articulation of the organic community, and assert themselves as such through the specific forms of occupation, disposition, modes of life, and general levels of education in all their branches. It is another matter, however, when these differences as they affect individuals are determined absolutely by the accident of birth, so that the individual man from the very start is not on account of any quality in himself, but solely through the accident of Nature, irrevocably relegated to a particular class or caste. In such a case it is obvious these differences appear as innate and are, moreover, though purely external, girt with force in its highest and most aggressive mode. We are not bound to ask ourselves how this fixity and compulsive restraint came originally into existence. For the nation may originally have been united, and the natural distinction between freeman and serf been only evolved at a later time, or the difference between castes, classes, and privileged persons may have grown out of earlier distinctions of nations and races, as many are inclined to think is the explanation of the caste distinctions of India. All this is a matter of no moment to us here. The main point simply consists in this, that vital relations of this kind, which regulate the entire course of human existence, have their source in natural conditions. On general principles, no doubt, distinctions of class can be justified, but at the same time no individual should be wholly robbed of his right to determine as his choice may direct to which particular class he shall belong. Natural capacity, talents, adaptability, and education are the only right means to direct the way and decide in this respect. When, however, the right of choice is debarred from birth onwards and a man is made thereby dependent on Nature and its contingency, there is always the possibility of conflict within the sphere of this necessity between the states thus enforced on the individual by natural conditions and the measure of spiritual education which he may acquire and the higher demand which it may justly make. This is a pathetic and unfortunate type of collision which has its source in an essential _wrong_ which the freedom of art is quite unable to respect. In the social condition of our own days distinctions of class, with a few exceptions, are not determined by birth. The ruling dynasty and the peerage are the only exceptions, and these depend on a higher conception of the State altogether. For the rest, the mere fact of birth creates no essential distinction that can ultimately determine the class to which a man may belong if he is otherwise competent to join it. For this reason, however, we must condition the demand for entire liberty of choice with the requirement that in education, knowledge, ability, and general tastes the individual is equal to the particular society with which he may desire to associate. If, on the contrary, the fact of a man's birth presents an insuperable obstacle to such claims, which he would otherwise be quite competent to satisfy by virtue of his own vigorous activity, then such a situation must appear to us not merely a misfortune, but essentially a wrong under which he is compelled to suffer injury. He is thus separated by a purely natural partition wall which is essentially unjust, that is to say, one beyond which his talents, sentiments, and general education have already raised him, from that which he was competent to reach, and a purely natural condition whose legalized fixity has been determined wholly by caprice presumes to oppose insuperable barriers to the freedom rightly demanded by all spiritual life.

To examine more closely the nature of this type of collision we shall do well to look at it from three different points of view, each of which are of essential importance.

In the _first_ place, it is necessary that the individual should, in the strength of his own spiritual resources, already really have passed beyond the natural barriers whose opposition is to give way before his aims and desires, otherwise the demand is simply an act of folly. If, for example, a domestic servant, whose education and ability is merely that of a menial, falls in love with a princess or a lady of high society, or, inversely, either of these with him, such a love affair is both absurd and devoid of all taste, and this is so even if the artistic representation of this passion display all the depth and interest of which an ardent heart is capable. In such a case it is not so much the difference of birth which creates the obstacle; this is rather to be found in the entire content of interests, education, aims of life, requirements, and mode of sentiment which distinguish in status, material resources, and social qualifications a lady in high position from a domestic servant. If love is, as in the case assumed, the one and only bond of a union, and is associated with nothing else throughout the entire sphere of all that men and women have to live through in just accordance with that which a particular status requires from their intelligence and experience, it must necessarily remain devoid of content and is simply a union of the senses. Love, to be wholly complete, is nothing less than a real harmony of the entire conscious life, in which the full nobility of sentiment can be shared and appreciated.

The _second_ case we wish to examine is that in which the dependence of birth surrounds an essentially free human life and the objects it may rightly set before itself with legalized fetters of obstruction. This collision also presents an element unadapted for artistic treatment, opposed, that is to say, to the notion of the Ideal, despite its love to make use of it and the facility with which it may attempt to do so. If distinctions of birth through positive laws and the powers which support them create a persistent wrong, as doubtless may be the case where a man is born an outcast or a Jew, he obviously, from one point of view, is entirely right in holding with all the strength of his inward life, which rebels before such a barrier, that the same is dissolvable, that he, in fact, recognizes his individuality as apart from it. To oppose such restraint appears to be wholly justifiable. But in so far as it becomes impossible through the force of existing circumstances to overcome such a barrier, which is consequently converted into an irrevocable necessity, a situation of this kind can only be regarded as a misfortune which itself is not without an element of falsity. For the rational man is inevitably forced, in so far as he is unable to subjugate the opposing necessity, to submit to the same: it is not in reason to continue to fight against the inevitable, but rather quietly to let it pass over him. He must, in fact, abandon the sense of interest in and need of that which is, by virtue of this barrier, swept from his reach, and suffer what he fails to overcome with the quiet courage of passive endurance. Where a struggle is of no avail it is the part of wisdom to be quit of it in order at the least to retire into the _formal_ independence of personal liberty. By doing so the forces of wrong have no longer power over him; if, on the contrary, he battles against them he must necessarily experience his dependence in its fullest extent. At the same time it remains unquestionable that neither this abstraction of formal independence any more than that content which can lead to no result are truly beautiful when artistically considered.

There is a _third_ type of collision which, while being immediately connected with that we have just considered, is equally removed from the genuine Ideal. It is to be found affecting that class of persons who attempt to assert some privilege which the mere fact of birth concedes them and supports with the full weight of a religious title, positive enactments, and the prevailing conditions of society. In such a case, it is true, we have an independent position in harmonious relation with what is externally realized in positive institutions, but when considered as the mere consistency of that which is in itself unjust and irrational it is quite as much as in our former example a purely formal independence, and the notion of the Ideal disappears. We may, no doubt, very possibly persuade ourselves that the Ideal is retained because we have here an appearance as though the personal life is in full union with the universal and its legalized constitution, remaining consistently in such unity; but it will be observed that here the universal does not assert its dominating power in the _particular person_, as we found the heroic Ideal demanded, but only in and through the public authority of positive laws and their administration; moreover, what the individual here asserts is assumed to be essentially wrong, and he loses in consequence the substantive significance which we have seen to be also essential to the Ideal. An affair in which the ideal subject of art is concerned must itself be at bottom true and justifiable. To this type belong the legalized lordship exercised over slaves or serfs, the right to rob a foreigner of his liberty, or to sacrifice the same to the gods. No doubt it is quite possible that such a right may be sustained by individuals with unquestioning belief that they are justified in so doing, as in India, for example, the higher castes make use of their privileges, or as Thoas ordered the sacrifice of Orestes, or in Russia the lords are wont to flout their serfs. In fact, those who are in authority are very likely to execute such rights as legalized rights on account of the interest they may have in preserving them. But in a case of this kind their right will be merely the unrighteous right of the barbarian, and they must themselves appear to us in the category of barbarians, at least, who resolve to carry out and perfect what is essentially injustice. The legalized form, under which the individual shelters himself, is, for the time to which it belongs, and its spirit and the educational standard adapted to it, no doubt to be respected and justified. But if we reflect upon it rationally and apart from that, it is wholly positive[321], containing no intrinsic claims or authority. Moreover, if the individual makes use of his privileges for purely personal objects, under the mastery of particular passions and the aims of mere selfishness, in addition to our barbarian we get a bad character to boot.

Poets have frequently sought to arouse our pity, and it may be our fear as well, through the presentation of conflicts of this kind, following the rule of Aristotle, who lays it down that fear and compassion are objects of tragedy. Strictly speaking we experience neither fear nor reverence when confronted with rights which only exist among barbarians and are the misfortune of uncivilized times. Any compassion which such situations are likely to arouse is almost immediately converted into a spirit of indignant hostility. The only true artistic _dénouement_ of such a conflict is one where we find such illegitimate rights are not carried into execution, as, for example, neither Iphigenia nor Orestes are respectively sacrificed in Aulis and Tauris.

(_γγ_) The _third_ and last class of that type of collision which is based on purely natural condition is that which is duetto personal passion caused by natural peculiarities of temperament and character. The jealousy of Othello is a supreme example of this. Ambition, avarice, nay, even love itself in certain aspects, will furnish other illustrations. Collision of this kind is only properly referred to such passions in so far as individuals, seized and dominated exclusively by the power of such emotions, are thereby forced into antagonism with the truly ethical constitution and inherently justifiable course of human existence, and consequently are plunged into a still more serious conflict.

This carries our inquiry into the consideration of that third subdivision of our original classification of general types of collision, the type of which is based exclusively upon the conflict of spiritual forces, in so far as such opposition is the result of human activity.

(_γ_) We have already observed when dealing with purely natural collisions that they only form the starting-point as it were for further states of contradiction. And the same is more or less true of the second type of conflict already adverted to. All these, in artistic compositions of really profound significance, are unable to remain in such forms of opposition as we have hitherto discussed. Such disturbances and conflicting elements merely substantiate the opportune moment, out of which the true and essential forces of spiritual life will clash together in opposition and contend for the mastery. That which is spiritual can only be set in activity by virtue of spirit. Consequently the oppositions of Spirit can only win reality in actual human deed, can only thus manifest themselves in their true character.

The position we have arrived at, then, is this. We have on one hand a difficulty, an obstacle, a violation effected through something human life has carried out in action. We have on the other a violation of interests and forces intrinsically just and right. By treating these two forms of determination in close juxtaposition we, for the first time, are able to gauge the full depth of this last type of collision.

We may distinguish between the prominent examples which fall within the consideration of this class of cases as follows:

(_αα_) In passing from the sphere of that type of conflict which we have pointed out rests for its primary basis on what is entirely due to Nature we observe that the first class of cases which confronts us on crossing the boundary to the consideration of a new type is closely related to that we have just left behind us. If, then, human action is assumed to be responsible for the collision, it will follow that what is carried out as natural through human action, that is to say, in so far as humanity is not entirely _spiritual_, will consist in this that a particular action is performed _unconsciously_ and without purpose, which will be found afterwards to be a positive infraction of the forces of self-respecting and civilized society. The consciousness which any man latterly acquires of the injurious nature of an action, of which he was previously unaware, will drive him who still accepts the responsibility of such an action into division and conflict. The ground of such a conflict, in fact, consists in the opposition with which the mind is confronted between that which was actually before it _when the action took place_, and the subsequent discovery of all that was really _implied_ in the act itself. The cases of Œdipus and Ajax will at once suggest themselves as examples. The action of Œdipus, if viewed simply with reference to his will and knowledge, amounted merely to the fact that he killed a perfect stranger in a quarrel. The unconscious act was the reality in its full significance, that is to say, the murder of his own father. Ajax, in a fit of frenzy, slaughtered the cattle of the Greeks believing them to be the Greek chieftains. On regaining his senses and discovering what he really did he is seized with a sense of shame which drives him into collision with himself. We must, however, observe that what has been unconsciously violated by a man in the type of collision we are now examining ought to be something which he himself, when fully in a position to judge, would both honour and revere. If such a reverential attitude has its roots merely in personal idiosyncrasy or superstition, such a collision can arouse, to say the least, no really profound interest.

(_ββ_) Further, inasmuch as in the cases we are now discussing the conflict arises from a _spiritual_ violation of spiritual forces through human action, the collision more generally appropriate to the type will consist in a violation which is perpetrated with full consciousness _proceeding out of such_ and the intention it implies. The point of departure here may centre again in passion, violence, folly, and other similar qualities. The Trojan war, for example, originates in the rape of Helen. Agamemnon afterwards sacrifices Iphigenia, and so violates the feelings of her mother, slaying thus the darling of her womb. Clytemnestra, in consequence, murders her spouse. Orestes avenges the murder of his father and king by assassinating his mother. In a similar way in "Hamlet" the father is sent to his grave by a stratagem, and the mother of Hamlet insults the _manes_ of the dead man by a precipitate marriage with his murderer.

In the case of these collisions as in those already considered, the main point is this, that humanity is engaged in a self-imposed conflict with what is intrinsically moral, true, and worthy of reverence. If this is not so, then, for all who are really conscious of what is moral and right, such a conflict can only appear without worth or material significance, as is the case, for example, in the famous episode of the Mahâ-Bhârata, with reference to Nalas and Damayanti. King Nalas marries the princess Damayanti, who is allowed the privilege of making a free choice among her sisters. All the other suitors are genii floating in the air; Nalas stands on the Earth alone as a man, and she has the good sense to select him. The genii are consequently much enraged, and watch for the moment when they may find King Nalas tripping. For many years they can bring to his charge no offence, as he is capable of none. At last, however, they obtain power over him, for he commits a great crime; the crime is this, namely, that after making water, he treads with his foot upon the earth thus watered. According to Indian ideas this is a severe offence which cannot escape punishment. From that moment the genii have him in their power; one renders all his amatory desires abortive, another excites his brother against him, and finally poor Nalas, after forfeiting his throne and being reduced to beggary, is driven forth a wanderer in wretchedness with Damayanti. At length he is even compelled to part with her, until, as the tale will have it, after many adventures, he is once more set on the throne of his original happiness. The real conflict upon which for the Indians of old days the whole of this story was supported was an essential desecration of a sacred thing: according to our notions the tale is absurd from beginning to end.

(_γγ_) Thirdly, it is not necessary that the disruption should be direct, or, in other words, that the action taken solely by itself should be an act of collision; the fact of collision may well appear out of relations and circumstances of opposition and antagonism which are forced upon the mind during the process of that action's execution. Juliet and Romeo are in love with one another. In the mere fact of their love there is nothing to suggest disunion. But they are aware that their families are living in mutual hate and hostility, that their parents will never consent to the marriage, and they are carried into collision by virtue of this preassumed situation of antagonistic forces.

We must content ourselves here with these very general remarks upon the relation which the determinate situation occupies in its opposition to the universal world-condition. Were we to extend our inquiry into all the divergent aspects, modifications, and nuances of the subject, attempting thereby to express an opinion upon every possible form of situation, this chapter would alone present us with sufficient matter for discussions of endless prolixity and diffuseness. The discovery of different situations implies a content of exhaustless possibilities; and in every particular example the essential question involved is how such may be adapted to the treatment of any specific art, in true subordination to the principles and character of such an art. To the fairy story much is permitted which is forbidden to a more stringent mode of artistic representation. And we may say that generally the discovery[322] of the situation is a critical point in the process of art-production which often presents great difficulty to artists. In our own days the difficulty of obtaining a suitable subject-matter as a source for the circumstances and situations which the artist requires is a common complaint. At first sight it may appear to us more in keeping with our notion of poet if he borrow from his own resources, and invent situations himself; but such independence does little to increase his claims as a creative artist. For the situation does not directly constitute the spirituality of his work nor indeed give us its true artistic form: all that it does is to supply the external material in which as its appropriate medium a character or temperament is unfolded before us. It is only after working into this external material in which actions and characters find their starting-point that the true genius of the artist is actively displayed. The poet consequently has little or no claim to our thanks for merely having himself invented this least of all poetical aspects of his production. He is, in fact, fully entitled to draw as much and as frequently as he pleases from anything that comes to his hand, whether it be history, saga, mythos, or chronicle, nay, even from material and situations which have already been artistically treated. Just as we find in the art of painting the external matter of the situation is borrowed from legends of saints, and the process has been repeated on similar lines over and over again. To discover the real artistic significance of such artistic work we must penetrate far beyond the mere invention of particular situations. The same remarks will apply in full force to the entire wealth of the circumstances and developments artistically handled. In reference to this it is frequently claimed as a virtue of modern art in contrast with that of the ancients that we find in it an infinitely more exuberant imagination. As a matter of fact, we do find in the artistic creations of the Middle Ages and our modern world the most extraordinary variety and interfusion of situations, events, and occurrences, whether tragic or otherwise. This fulness of detail, however, does not take us far. In spite of it all we have very few dramas or epics of the first excellence. For the main point is not the external course and interchange of a variety of events, when we find such events and histories merely complete the entire content of our work of art; rather it is the ethical and spiritual form which embodies them, and the masterful movements of temperament and character which are exposed and unveiled during the entire process of this artistic embodiment.

Glancing now at the main position we have arrived at, and from which our inquiry will proceed, we have found that circumstances, conditions, and relations, whether determined with a reference to the external world or the subjective consciousness, only create the situation by virtue of the _temperament_ or passion which experiences them and derives its nutriment through them. We have further seen that the situation breaks up this determinate form in opposition, obstruction, development, and disruption, so that the _emotional_ life feels itself compelled by the force of the affecting circumstances to _react with energy against_ this disturbing and restraining influence, which stands in the way of its objects and passions. It is here, in truth, that the action, strictly speaking, commences, when, that is to say, the contradiction has fully asserted itself, which was already implied in the fully defined situation. Inasmuch as, however, the action which is based on this collision disturbs the unity of that which is opposed to it, it calls into being by its antagonism the opposing force of that which it confronts, and consequently the _action_ is immediately associated with the _reaction._ With this analysis of the forces rendered necessary by dramatic action, we have at length arrived at the notion of the Ideal as a fully defined process. For we are here presented with two distinct spheres of interest, both of which have been rent, as it were, from the harmony they originally possessed, and confront each other in conflict. Such, by the contradiction which is involved in them, make a _resolution_ of the discord necessary. This movement, regarded as a homogeneous whole, belongs no more to the province of the mere situation and its conflicts; we are carried now into that portion of our inquiry to which we have already given the name of the genuine action.

3. THE ACTION

In the development of the subject under consideration, the _action_ immediately follows after the universal _world-condition_ and the particular _situation._ In considering the action in its external relation to that portion of our inquiry we have just concluded it will be well to bear in mind the result we arrived at, that it presupposes circumstances which necessitate collisions, action, and reaction. It is impossible to determine at what point in the circumstances thus presupposed the action will _begin._ For that which in one aspect will appear as commencement will very possibly present itself in another as the result of earlier developments, and to that extent will postpone the real starting-point. And in like manner this, too, we may regard as a fact resulting from former collisions. To take an example; in the house of Agamemnon Iphigenia in Tauris expiates the guilt and misfortune of her family. The commencement here of this deliverance on the part of Iphigenia is the fact that Diana carries her to Tauris. This circumstance is, however, merely the result of earlier stages of the story, such as the sacrifice in Aulis, which is again conditioned by the injury done to Menelaus in the rape of Helen by Paris, and so on, ever backward, until we come to the famous egg of Leda. In the same way the events which are the subject-matter of the Iphigenia in Tauris presuppose the murder of Agamemnon, and all the crimes associated with the house of Tantalus. An analysis of much the same character might be applied to the Theban circle of mythos. If an action is to be represented with all the facts that condition it, poetry is the only real art that can attempt this. Such a complete exposition of historical fact has already become, as a certain proverb reminds us, rather a wearisome business; it is, in fact, more within the province of simple prose, and, in contrast with such completeness, poetry will rather consider its true function to be that of taking its audience at once into the heart of the matter. There is a further important reason why it should not be to the interest of art to make its commencement from that point where we find the action under consideration is in the first instance externally conditioned, and it is this: such a point of departure is, after all, only related to the process regarded as natural or historical fact[323]. The association of the action with this commencement merely concerns the empirical unity of its appearance; it may, however, in itself be of no significance at all to the real content of the action. This external unity of historical sequence remains just as it was, however it may chance that one particular person is affected by the involved threads of a varying series of fact. No doubt the entirety of the facts of life, its actions and fatalities, tends to make the individual what he is; but for all that his true nature, the real core of his thoughts and capacities, is manifested in _one_ great situation and action independently of them. It is the progress of these which reveals to us really what a character is made of, a character which previously to their occurrence had been known merely in a nominal way, that is the name of one more fact among the external facts of experience.

We must therefore not look for the commencement of the action in that _empirical_ source of it; we must rather centre the attention upon those circumstances which have taken a hold upon the particular nature with which we are dealing, and created or satisfied its needs; we must, in fact, reveal the particular collision in whose conflict and resolution the action in question consists. Homer, for example, in the "Iliad," makes a start at once with the particular fact on which his entire epic is founded, that is to say, with the wrath of Achilles. He tells us nothing of earlier history of the life of Achilles, but emphasizes at once the critical collision, and, moreover, does it in a way which unfolds a background of the greatest interest to his picture.

The representation, then, of the action as a process complete in itself, in which action, reaction, and resolution are constituent elements, is, above all, the function of the poetic art; all the other arts can at most only seize upon and secure in their presentation one moment of this process. It is quite true that if we direct our attention to that aspect of the medium they employ which is richest, they may appear to have an advantage over poetry; in painting especially[324] we find a control asserted not merely over the entire external form, but also over the expression of external demeanour and the play of such relatively to other objects grouped around it. Such a means of expression, however, cannot compare as an interpreter of truth with human speech. The action itself is the clearest means of unfolding to us individual character, whether we view it relatively to the entire emotional life[325] or the objects of mind. All that a man is at the very root of his nature is first revealed to us through his acts; and action, for the reason that it is an expression of spirit, finds its ultimate expression as such most clearly and concisely in speech alone. When we speak in general terms of human action we are apt to figure to ourselves an incalculable variety of mode. For Art, however, the sphere of action suitable to artistic representation is, generally speaking, limited. Her province is wholly restricted to the type of action which is conformable to the necessary configuration of the Idea.

There are three points of essential importance necessary to grasp in connection with such action as is capable of artistic representation, and which we may emphasize as follows. The situation and the resulting conflict is that which generally stimulates it; the active movement, however, taken by itself, the element of difference, that is to say, of the Ideal in its activity, is made apparent first by virtue of the reaction. This movement may be resolved into the following component features:

_First_, we have the _universal_[326] _forces_, which constitute the essential content and object, for the sake of which the action takes place.

_Secondly_, we have the _realization_[327] of these forces in the _individuals_ who act.

_Thirdly_, the two aspects above mentioned have to unite themselves in that which, in default of any better generic term, we will here call _character._

_(a) The Universal Forces of Action_

(_a_) However much we have finally arrived in our consideration of the action at a point where the definition and differentiation of the Ideal is of the first importance, nevertheless the very notion of art renders it necessary that in the sphere of true beauty, be the aspect of it whatsoever it may, it must still have upon it the stamp of the Ideal; it cannot, that is to say, maintain itself without rationality and the justification it implies. Interests of an ideal character must inevitably be in conflict with another, so that might is opposed to might. These interests are, in fact, the eternal and universal forces of spiritual existence, the essential cravings of the human heart, the spontaneous and inevitable objects of human action, justifiable and rational in virtue of their own character, and consequently the very universal powers to which we have referred. They are indeed not the absolute Divine itself, but rather the sons of the one absolute Idea[328], and consequently dominant and valid. They are the children of the one universal truth, albeit only determinate, particular moments of the same. Through their very distinction, it is true, they can fall into contradiction or disunion, yet despite all the element of difference contained, they must possess the original essentiality within them in order to appear as the determinate Ideal. Such are the supreme motive forces of art. They are the eternal[329] religious and ethical modes of relationship, status, personal character[330], and in the world of romance, before everything else, honour and love. In the particular grade of their significance these powers differ, but all are essentially the product of reason. At the same time it is these powers in the human heart and mind, which man, by virtue of his humanity, is bound to recognize, to give free play to, and to actualize. At the same time they ought not directly to appear as rights in positive legislation. For, to take one reason, the form of positive legislation, as we have seen, is already in partial conflict with the notion and content of the Ideal; furthermore, it is quite possible that the content of positive rights may contribute to that which is essentially unjust, albeit entirely clothed in the attributes of law. The relations we have above referred to, however, are not merely the supreme stable embodiment of the external world[331], but the essentially substantive powers, which for the very reason that they contain in themselves the actual content of human existence, continue to be the stimulating source of its activity, and ultimately all that ever carried it forward to perfection.

Of this kind are the interests and objects which contend against each other in the "Antigone" of Sophocles. Creon, the king, as ruler of the state, by a decree couched in the severest terms, forbade the right of burial to the son of Œdipus, who had proved himself an enemy of his country by bringing an army against Thebes. This proclamation was so far justifiable that it expressed care for the weal of the entire city. Antigone, however, is animated by an ethical principle of equal authority, in other words by her love for her brother, whom she finds it impossible to leave unburied, the prey of carrion birds. To leave such a duty unfulfilled would be in direct opposition to the sacred instincts of her personal relationship. She consequently violates the decree of Creon.

(_β_) Collisions of the type with which we are now dealing may be introduced in every possible way; the necessity of the reaction, however, must not be occasioned by means of anything out of place or at cross purposes[332] with the main action, but through that which is in itself reasonable and justifiable. For example, in the well-known German poem of Hartmann von der Aue, "The Poor Henry," the collision is repulsive. The hero in this poem is visited by a fatality, that is to say, an incurable disease. He turns for assistance to the monks of Salermo. They state as the condition of his cure that a human being must willingly surrender his or her life, on the ground that the necessary salve can alone be forthcoming from a human heart. A poor maiden who is in love with the knight offers freely her own life and accompanies him into Italy. This is pure barbarism, and the silent love and pathetic devotion of the maiden are unable, consequently, to produce their full effect. It is true that we find the injustice of human sacrifice presented us by the ancients as the ground of the collision. The famous example is that of the story of Iphigenia, who is first offered as such a sacrifice, and afterwards is on the point of offering up her brother. But, in the first place, it is to be observed that in these examples the conflict is in close connection with other relations which are in themselves justifiable; secondly, the artistic principle is really satisfied, as we have already observed, by the fact that both Iphigenia and Orestes are finally delivered, and the power of a collision which is opposed to our notion of right is thus destroyed. And, indeed, this is also the case in the above mentioned poem of Hartmann, in so far as we may acknowledge the _dénouement_ offered us in which, on Henry refusing to accept the sacrifice, God releases him from his malady, and the maiden is rewarded for her true love[333].

In apparent association with the positive powers we have enumerated must be added others set over against them, that is to say, the forces of that which is negative and bad, evil in short. That which is purely negative, however, ought not to be taken in the ideal representation of an action as the essential ground-motive for the necessary reaction. The reality of the purely negative case, it is true, corresponds to the negative and its appropriate character, but, if the implied[334] notion and object is already in itself rendered nugatory, it is even less possible that the ugliness which is exposed in the inward life should manifest any genuine beauty upon its external reality. The sophistry of passion can, indeed, by means of the capacity, strength, and energy of a character, make the attempt to graft positive characteristics upon the negative, but we only obtain thereby the vision of a whitewashed grave. For that which is purely negative is generally flat and stale and leaves us consequently either void or drives us back, whether it be used as the motive force of an action or merely as a means to promote a reaction in another. The horrible, unfortunate, the harshness of dominion, and the obduracy of superior power may form part of the content and burden of the imagination when such characteristics are exalted and carried by the abundant greatness of a particular character or object. Evil, however, taken simply for what it is, envy, cowardice, and meanness, is merely repulsive. The devil, if we take him for what he really ought to be, is consequently a bad subject, or rather a figure for which Art has no uses at all. He is just a falsehood and nothing more, and consequently an extremely prosaic personality. In the same way it is perfectly true that the Furies of hate and many other allegorical figures of later times are potencies of a kind, but they are without affirmative subsistency and holdfastness[335], unfavourable to ideal representation, although in this respect a wide margin of difference is permissible in the several arts respectively, and in the particular mode in which they may immediately visualize such objects. Evil is, to express it in most general terms, essentially cold and devoid of content, because as such it is merely the source of negation, discord, and misfortune. All art, however, which is true to its essential notion, should reflect on us the vision of a harmony. Meanness, above all, is despicable, for it is a quality which arises from the envy and hatred of all that is noble, and does not shrink from distorting even a power that is essentially based upon the good into a means conformable to its own perverse and shameless passion. The great poets and artists of the classical world have in consequence never presented us with the vision of absolute evil and depravity. Shakespeare, on the contrary, in his tragedy of "King Lear," unfolds before us the spectacle of wickedness in all its horrors. The old Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters, and, while doing so, is foolish enough to believe in their false and flattering speeches, and to misinterpret the silent and faithful Cordelia. There is already folly and madness in this, and it is followed by the most outrageous ingratitude and worthlessness of the elder daughters and their husbands to the point of absolute craze. As an antithesis of this the heroes of the French school of tragedy are stretched and puffed out with every sort of grandiose and sublime motive, and make a great parade of their honour and nobility, and yet despite of it all destroy the very meaning of such motives by the mere fact of what they really are and accomplish. But it is in modern times more especially that we find this unstable dissolution of everything spiritual[336], which forces its way through every dissonance, however repulsive, become quite _à la mode_; moreover, it has even given us what we may describe as the humour of the abominable thing, a kind of burlesque simulation of irony, an atmosphere in which a Theodor Hoffmann, for example, has found himself so much at home.

(_γ_) We may conclude, then, that it is the essentially positive and substantive powers in the spiritual world which supply the real content of the ideal action. These sources of energy, however, in their artistic embodiment, must not appear in their inherent universality, albeit within the reality of the action they are essential phases of the Idea. Rather they must receive the form of independent individuals. If this were not so they would remain as merely the universals of thought or abstract conceptions which do not properly fall within the province of art. Though in their origin they should be held as intact as it is possible to hold them from mere caprices of the fancy, it is equally necessary that in their development they should acquire determinacy no less than self-consistency[337], and in this way appear as essentially particularized. Such definition as they possess ought not to be carried to the point of the particularity of external objects, nor should their concentration be carried to that of the subjective self-consciousness[338]. Otherwise the individuality of those universal powers is necessarily involved in all the developments of finite existence. In this respect we may say, then, that the determinacy of their individuality is not to be taken too seriously. The gods of the Greek Pantheon are the most conspicuous example of this manifestation and sway of the universal forces we have just discussed in their self-subsistent form. However they may be brought before us, their blessedness and cheerfulness remains unaffected. Regarded separately as particular gods no doubt they engage in conflict, but in all their battles we shall ultimately find they are not really serious in the sense that they concentrate themselves on any definite object with the entire consequential energy of their character and passion, fully prepared to stake their existence upon the result. They engage in this affair or that wherever it may take place, identify particular interests in concrete examples with their own; they are, however, equally ready to leave the matter at any point and wing their way back happily to Olympus. Such is the view we get of the gods when they engage in warfare on the pages of Homer. The determinacy of their characterization is capable of conflict, but they remain for all that the purely universal determinations which at bottom they are. A battle begins to rage; heroes advance singly one against another; then we lose sight of individuals altogether in the universal storm and crush; it is no longer the specific qualities of individuals which are now set in relief against each other--it is the universal rush of the fight, the daemon of war loosed and roaring, and now it is that the universal powers, the gods themselves, step forth on the scene of battle. From such a temporary display of the contrasts of their characterization they ever withdraw themselves into the solitude of their self-subsistency and repose. For though the individuality of their form carries them perforce into the region of time and contingency, nevertheless inasmuch as the universal they claim as gods is that which ultimately must prevail, the individual characteristic shrinks away into the determination of external form only; they are unable in their personality to penetrate the true arcana of conscious spirit[339].

Their physical definition is, in fact, either more or less only the accommodating form of their divinity. But this self-subsistency and careless repose is precisely that which gives to them their plastic individuality, and relieves them of any anxiety and constraint[340] in relation to earthly objects and events[341]. For this reason we find in the gods of Homer no final result when actively occupied with the concrete facts of human life, although such activity is displayed for us in many and diverse directions. The material and interest of human events which happen in time is that which gives them something to do and nothing more. And in like manner we may remark other peculiar characteristics attached to the Greek gods, which we can only regard as essentially unrelated to the general notion of divinity which each god respectively connotes. Mercury is, for example, the slayer of Argus; Apollo that of the hydra; of the love affairs of Zeus we have countless tales, and, among other things, he hangs his wife on an anvil. These and many other stories like them are merely supplementary additions, which attach to the gods in their aspect of natural forces by virtue of symbol and allegory, the origin of which we propose to discuss more fully later on. In modern art we shall, it is true, find certain indications which point to a conception of definite and at the same time universal powers. These are, however, for the most part simply cold and frost-like allegories of hate, envy, hope, love, faithfulness, that is to say, generally of virtues and vices in the actual truth of which we can retain no belief. For with us moderns it is the concrete subjectivity alone, for which we, in the representations of art, feel that profounder interest, wherein abstractions such as these do not appear in their isolation, but are made to appear merely as phases or aspects of human character, whether we regard it in its particularity or as a concrete whole. In much the same way the angels possess no essential universality and self-subsistency such as characterize Mars, Venus, and Apollo, or even Oceanus and Helios. They are, it is true, objects of imaginative conception, but their specific character is that of vassals of the one Divine and essential substance, which is not in this case broken up into self-subsistent individualities, as we find it in the Greek Pantheon. For this reason we have here no imaginative vision of many objective powers dwelling in a state of tranquillity, which may be represented as essentially Divine personalities. We find, on the contrary, the essential content of such either as subsisting in the Godhead, or realized in a mode which is both particular and subjective in wholly human characters and actions. Nevertheless it was precisely in the conception[342] of self-subsistency and individualization that the ideal representation of the gods originated.

_(b) The Individuals in the Action_

In the cases we have just discussed of the ideal gods it is not a difficult matter for art to secure the ideality she requires. But in approaching the concrete action, ideal representation is confronted with a real difficulty. For though it is here that the gods and, in general terms, the universal powers may be identified with a principle which stimulates and compels activity, we are not therefore on the plane of reality entitled to find in them the source of genuine individual action. Action is rather essentially the manifestation of human life. Consequently there are in this connection two distinct aspects of the problem to be considered. On the one hand we have these universal forces in their self-subsistent repose and for that reason more abstract substantiality; on the other there is the individuality of men, in which we must seek the final spring and determinating impulse to action no less than its actual accomplishment. It is, of course, only the simple truth that these eternally dominant powers are immanent in the identical nature of mankind, constituting, in fact, the substantive core of its character; but in so far as they are comprehended in their Divine nature themselves as individuals[343], and thereby in an exclusive way, their relation to the subject of human consciousness must remain an external one. And this fact enables us to see the essential difficulty we noticed above. There is, in truth, a contradiction immediately involved in this relation between the gods and men. It is quite true that the content of the gods is that which belongs to humanity, and announces itself as his passion, resolve, and will. It is, however, equally true that the gods must not only be assumed to be and comprehended as independent from man individually considered in their actual existence, but, furthermore, as the forces at the root of all his activity and determination. And this, too, in such a way that we are forced to consider the same determinations at one time as personified in the self-subsistent and Divine personality, and at another that which appears most essentially to belong to the human heart. And it is for this reason that the free self-subsistency of the gods no less than the freedom of human individuals in their activity is seriously compromised if, to the detriment of human independence, which we have already stated to be of most essential importance to the Ideal of Art, we ascribe an exclusive power of command to the gods. And we may observe this is precisely the same kind of difficulty which confronts us in the form of the religious conceptions of Christianity. It is stated in terms that the spirit of God leads up to God. Taken strictly such a phrase can only imply that the inward life of man is regarded as a purely passive ground, upon which the spirit of God labours. In such a conception the human will disappears as a free will, and at the same time the Divine purpose which motives the "in working" above mentioned can only appear to man as a kind of Fate, under which he fails to come by his own true personality[344].