The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
And further, the subjective no less than substantive unity of soul
within the body is presented us and exemplified in Feeling. The feeling
of a living organism is, that is to say, not merely an independent
product of a particular member, but it is also this ideal and simple
unity of the entire organism. It is carried through every member of
the body is felt throughout in more than a hundred places at once; and
indeed, to put it shortly, rather than saying there are many thousand
sensitive points[209] in a single organism we should more justly say
there is but one, namely, the subject of consciousness. And inasmuch
as the animating principle of organic Nature includes in itself this
distinction between the real existence of the organic members, and the
abstract or simple self-coherence within such parts, which we call the
growing soul, mediating between them both by virtue of its inherent
unity, such a principle of Life stands on a higher plane than that of
inorganic Nature. Only with Life is the Idea existent, and only thus is
the Idea truth. No doubt even in the organic world this truth can be
extinguished. We find the body unable to perfect its essential ideality
and animating energy. Such is the case in disease. Here we find the
notion deprived of its controlling sovereignty, and other powers are
potent with it. Such a life is, however, defective and crippled: it
merely continues, because the inadequacy of reality to the notion has
not reached the point of absolute contradiction; it is still only
relatively valid. Once assume that all harmony between the two sides is
broken, that all genuine articulation of the members of the body and
their true identity has dropped away, and life is dissolved in death.
The several members are now mere appendages to each other, with no
principle of Life to hold them in unsevered unity.