[(_a_) The restriction of species in the animal world, and of the social condition as it affects human individuality (_b_) The limitation of racial division, or of particular families, or particular professions, and the effect of such upon the aspect of beauty (_c_) It is the very defects of this finite plane of reality, which stimulates man to recover the vision of his freedom in Art] CHAPTER III THE BEAUTY OF ART OR THE IDEAL A. The Ideal as such 1. Individuality which partakes of Beauty. [(_a_) The nature of the conditions under which Art can express a profound and infinite spiritual content (_b_) What Art rejects from natural embodiment in order to effect this revelation, which is also a purification (_c_) This "referring back" of external form to spirituality, or inwardness, issuing in harmonious individuality, is the very nature of the Ideal (_α_) The blythe serenity of antique art (_β_) The treatment of emotion by romantic art (_γ_) Irony] 2. The Ideal relatively to Nature [(_a_) The formal ideality of a work of art, _i.e._, the element of poetry therein (_b_) The creative faculty contrasted with Nature in its power to grasp ideal significance, with illustrations of this power (_c_) The nature of this spiritual recreation of natural fact by Art originating in the energy of mind. Illustration with the example of Dutch art in its genre painting, also with that of portraiture and classical art] B. The Determinate Character of the Ideal I. Ideal determinacy as such 1. Thought apart from the plastic material can only comprehend the Divine in its universality and unity. Mohammedan and Hebrew art 2. The polytheistic aspect of Hellenic art considered, as also Christian art 3. The relation of the arts of painting and sculpture to the latter. The transition from the principle of spiritual repose to that of development and conflict II. The Action 1. The universal World-condition [(_a_) (_α_) The self-subsistency of such a condition as a necessary _prius_ of the embodiment of the Ideal (_β_) The nature of the reality adapted to artistic treatment as contrasted with what is not so adapted. The fixed order of the State as contrasted with conditions most favourable to free individuality (_γ_) Further examination of contrast in relation to judicial functions and the ideas of punishment or revenge as we find it in the heroic age. The reappearance of an analogous condition in the Middle Ages (_b_) Modern prosaic life the condition most favourable to the private or personal life as an object of interest (_c_) Resistance by individual poets to this process of social change. The permanent demand for the heroic] 2. The Situation [(_a_) The situation that is devoid of situation (_b_) The situation as defined in its harmlessness or absence of further conflict (_α_) The movement from pure tranquillity to movement or expression. Illustrations from classical art