Beauty and truth are at the same time one yet distinct. "Truth is Idea as Idea, according to its being-in-itself and its universal principle, and so far as it is thought as such. There is no sensible or material existence in Truth; thought contemplates therein nothing but universal idea. But the Idea must also realize itself externally and attain an actual and determinate existence. Truth also as such has existence; but when in its determinate external existence it is immediately for consciousness, and the concept remains immediately one with the external appearance, the Idea is not only true but beautiful. In this way Beauty may be defined as the sensible appearance of the Idea."[39] The Idea is the content of art: its sensible and imaginative configuration; its form: two elements which must interpenetrate and form a whole, hence the necessity that a content destined to become a work of art should show itself capable of such transformation; otherwise we have but an imperfect union of poetic form with prosaic and incongruous content.[40] An ideal content must gleam through the sensible form; the form is spiritualized by this ideal light;[41] artistic imagination does not work in the same way as the passive or receptive fancy, it does not stop at the appearances of sensible reality but searches for the internal truth and rationality of the real. "The rationality of the object selected by him should not be alone in awakening the consciousness of the artist: he should have well meditated upon the essential and the true in all their extension and profundity, for without reflexion a man cannot become conscious of that which is within himself, and all great works of art show that their material has been thought again and again from every side. No successful work of art can issue from light and careless imagination."[42] It is a delusion to fancy that poet and painter need nothing beyond intuitions: "a true poet must reflect and meditate before and during the execution of his poem."[43] But it is always understood that the thought of the poet does not take the form of abstraction. [Sidenote: _Æsthetic in metaphysical idealism and Baumgartenism._]