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
But this act of taking previously the advice of reason is already an
attempt against nature, who is a competent judge in her own cause, and
who will not allow her sentences to be submitted to a new and strange
jurisdiction; this act of the will which thus brings the appetitive
faculty before the tribunal of reason is then, in the proper acceptation
of the word, an _act against nature_, in that it renders accidental that
which is necessary, in that it attributes to the laws of reason the
right to decide in a cause where the laws of nature can alone pronounce,
and where they have pronounced effectively. Just, in fact, as the reason
in the exercise of its moral jurisdiction is little troubled to know if
the decisions it can come to will satisfy or not the sensuous nature, so
the sensuous in the exercise of the right which is proper to it does not
trouble itself whether its decisions would satisfy pure reason or not.
Each is equally necessary, though different in necessity, and this
character of necessity would be destroyed if it were permitted for one
to modify arbitrarily the decisions of the other. This is why the man
who has the most moral energy cannot, whatever resistance he opposes to
instinct, free himself from sensuousness, or stifle desire, but can only
deny it an influence upon the decisions of his will; he can disarm
instinct by moral means, but he cannot appease it but by natural means.
By his independent force he may prevent the laws of nature from
exercising any constraint over his will, but he can absolutely change
nothing of the laws themselves.
Thus in the affective movements in which nature (instinct) acts the
_first_ and seeks to do without the will, or to draw it violently to its
side, the morality of character cannot manifest itself but by its
resistance, and there is but one means of preventing the instinct from
restraining the liberty of the will: it is to restrain the instinct
itself. Thus we can only have agreement between the law of reason and
the affective phenomena, under the condition of putting both in discord
with the exigencies of instinct. And as nature never gives way to moral
reasons, and recalls her claims, and as on her side, consequently, all
remains in the same state, in whatever manner the will acts towards her,
it results that there is no possible accord between the inclination and
duty, between reason and sense; and that here man cannot act at the same
time with all his being and with all the harmony of his nature, but
exclusive with his reasonable nature. Thus in these sorts of actions we
could not find moral beauty, because an action is morally good only as
far as inclination has taken part in it, and here the inclination
protests against much more than it concurs with it. But these actions
have moral grandeur, because all that testifies to a preponderating
authority exercised over the sensuous nature has grandeur, and grandeur
is found only there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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