The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
3. Thirdly, the immediate singularity of the worlds of Nature and Mind
is not merely conditioned by dependence on others, but is deficient in
any complete self-subsistency owing to its _confined_ nature, or with
more accuracy, because it is particularized in its own specific mode of
manifestation.
(_a_) We will explain our meaning further. Every single specimen of
life in the animal world is from the first fettered by a definite,
that is to say, a restricted and constant species, beyond the limits
of which it cannot pass. There is in the spiritual world, no doubt, a
general picture of life and its organization, which floats vaguely
before our vision; but in the real world, which is one with Nature,
this universal organism breaks up into a multitude of particulars,
each of which possesses the determinate type of form and grade of
cultivation in which it is related to a definite portion of the
social organism. In addition to this and within these insuperable
limits, we find the pressure of that element of contingency, as
regards general condition or external environment, predominantly
asserted both uniquely and in haphazard fashion throughout every one
of those individual units. Such a state of things disturbs our vision
of the self-subsistency and freedom, which the idea of true beauty
imperatively requires.
(_b_) As already observed, it is unquestionably true that Spirit
discovers in its own bodily organism the notion of life completely
realized. This is so much the case that, in contrast with it, the forms
of the animal world appear not only as incomplete, but in inferior
species as even pitiable objects. The human organism is also, however,
broken up, if to a less, degree, in racial subdivisions and the
ascending grades of beauty which distinguish such races. Moreover, in
addition to this obviously very general line of demarcation, we have
presented to us all the accidental variety of qualities, peculiar to
distinct families and their interfusion with one another, such as modes
of life, facial expression, and general demeanour. We must further
associate with such characteristic traits, which all of them emphasize
a condition of essentially unfree particularity, those peculiarities
which are inseparable from activity employed in the endless round of
commercial life or professional career; qualities which find their
ultimate expression in the specific habits or idiosyncracies of any
exceptionally marked character or temperament, or, as the reverse side
of the picture, in the various confusions of arrested development.
Poverty, care, anger, coldness, and indifference, the rage of passion,
the obstinate retention of narrow purposes, indications of change
and division in the spiritual world, entire dependence on that of
Nature--in one word all that is implied in the transitory condition of
human life--leaves its indelible, if quite incalculable, expression
on the varied surface of the faces of mankind. Who has not crossed