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
As soon, then, as in man the _person_, the moral and free agent, takes
upon himself to determine the play of phenomena, and by his intervention
takes from nature the power to protect the beauty of _her_ work, he
then, as it were, substitutes himself for nature, and assumes in a
certain measure, with the rights of nature, a part of the obligations
incumbent on her. When the mind, taking possession of the sensuous
matter subservient to it, implicates it in his destiny and makes it
depend on its own modifications, it transforms itself to a certain point
into a sensuous phenomenon, and, as such, is obliged to recognize the
law which regulates in general all the phenomena. In its own interest it
engages to permit that nature in its service, placed under its
dependence, shall still preserve its character of nature, and never act
in a manner contrary to its anterior obligations. I call the beautiful
an obligation of phenomena, because the want which corresponds to it in
the subject has its reason in the understanding itself, and thus it is
consequently universal and necessary. I call it an anterior obligation
because the senses, in the matter of beauty, have given their judgment
before the understanding commences to perform its office.
Thus it is now free arbitration which rules the beautiful. If nature has
furnished the architectonic beauty, the soul in its turn determines the
_beauty of the play_, and now also we know what we must understand by
charm and grace. Grace is the beauty of the form under the influence of
free will; it is the beauty of this kind of phenomena that the person
himself determines. The architectonic beauty does honor to the author of
nature; grace does honor to him who possesses it. That is a _gift_, this
is a _personal merit_.
Grace can be found only in _movement_, for a modification which takes
place in the soul can only be manifested in the sensuous world as
movement. But this does not prevent features fixed and in repose also
from possessing grace. There immobility is, in its origin, movement
which, from being frequently repeated, at length becomes habitual,
leaving durable traces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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