Aesthetical and philosophical essays : $b introducing the dissertation on the "connection between the animal and spiritual man"Schiller, Friedrich
Philosophy
Aesthetical and philosophical essays : $b introducing the dissertation on the "connection between the animal and spiritual man"
Schiller, Friedrich
Aesthetics; Philosophy
imagination, through the medium of its wants, cannot give orders to the
will of the individual, as reason does by its imperative character, it
follows that the faculty of freedom, in relation to imagination, is
something accidental, and consequently that the agreement between the
accidental and the necessary (conditionally necessary) must excite
pleasure. Therefore, if we bring to bear a _moral_ judgment on this act
of Leonidas, we shall consider it from a point of view where its
accidental character strikes the eye less than its necessary side. If,
on the other hand, we apply the _æsthetical_ judgment to it, this is
another point of view, where its character of necessity strikes us less
forcibly than its accidental character. It is a duty for every will to
act thus, directly it is a free will; but the fact that there is a free
will that makes this act possible is a favor of nature in regard to this
faculty, to which freedom is a necessity. Thus an act of virtue judged
by the moral sense—by reason—will give us as its only satisfaction the
feeling of approbation, because reason can never find _more_, and seldom
finds _as much_ as it requires. This same act, judged, on the contrary,
by the æsthetic sense—by imagination—will give us a positive pleasure,
because the imagination, never requiring the end to agree with the
demand, must be surprised, enraptured, at the real satisfaction of this
demand as at a happy chance. Our reason will merely approve, and only
approve, of Leonidas actually taking this heroic resolution; but that he
_could_ take this resolution is what delights and enraptures us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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