In the third part the naïve and sentimental poets are contrasted. The former, Schiller contends, is concerned with the definite, the latter with the infinite. From the realist we turn easily and with pleasure to actual life; the idealist puts us for the moment out of humor with it. The one follows the laws of nature, the other those of reason. The one asks what a thing is good for, the other whether it is good. Withal, however, Schiller is careful to insist that even the naïve poet, the realist, is properly concerned only with true nature, and not with actual nature. Everything that is,--for example, a violent outbreak of passion,--is actual nature; but this is not true human nature, because that implies free self-determination. True human nature can never be anything but noble. 'What disgusting absurdities', exclaims Schiller,--and the words might well be taken to heart by some of our modern naturalists--'have resulted both in criticism and in practice from this confusion of true with actual nature! What trivialities are permitted, yea even praised, because unfortunately they are actual nature!' It is a part of Schiller's theory that the true realist and the sane idealist must finally come together on common ground. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 92: Eckermanns "Gespräche", under date of November 14, 1823.] [Footnote 93: He also admitted that he himself had profited from the study of Kant; cf. Eckermann, under date of April 11, 1827.] [Footnote 94: Schiller's aesthetic writings, and especially his relation to Kant, have been much discussed in recent years. For a list of the more important works consult the Appendix.] [Footnote 95: An oft-repeated assertion to the contrary, which goes back to Karoline von Wolzogen, "Schillers Leben", Achter Abschnitt, is contradicted by a letter of Schiller to Goethe, written May 5, 1797.] [Footnote 96: They are reprinted in Sämmtliche Schriften. X, 41 ff.] [Footnote 97: Carlyle's "Life of Schiller", page 137 (edition of 1845).] CHAPTER XIV The Great Duumvirate Nun kann ich aber hoffen, dasz wir, so viel von dem Wege noch übrig sein mag, in Gemeinschaft durchwandeln werden, und mit um so gröszerem Gewinn, da die letzten Gefährten auf einer langen Reise sich immer am meisten zu sagen haben. _Letter of 1794_.