The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 3 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
can only be modifications, which the indwelling Spirit of one living
body attaches to this corporeal form. As a manifestation of Spirit
consequently the human shape is distinct from the animal by virtue of
these modifications, albeit the distinctions of the human organism
from the animal are as much the result of the unconscious creation
of spiritual activities, as the soul of the animal kingdom is the
informing though unconscious activity of the body that belongs to it.
We have thus reached the precise point of our present departure. In
other words, the human body is present to the artist as Spirit's
expression. What is more, he discovers it as such not merely in a
general way, but also in particular characteristics it is presupposed
to be the type which, in its form, its specific traits, its position
and general habit, reflects the ideality of Spirit.
We shall find it a difficult matter to fix in clear terms of thought
the precise nature of the association between spirit and body in
their relation respectively to feeling, passion, and other spiritual
conditions. It has, no doubt, been attempted to develop the same
scientifically both from the _pathognomical_[144] point of view and
the _physiognomical._ Such attempts have hitherto not met with much
success. For ourselves the science of physiognomy can only be of
importance in so far as that of pathognomy is exclusively concerned
with the mode under which definite feelings and passions are physically
located in particular organs. It has been stated, for example, that
the seat of anger is in the gall, of courage in the blood. Such
statements, we may remark incidentally, are erroneous in their manner
of expression. For even assuming the activity of particular organs
corresponds to specific passions, we cannot say that anger, for
instance, has its local position in the gall bladder, but, in so far
as anger is corporeally related, the gall is pre-eminently that in
which its active appearance asserts itself. In our present inquiry
this pathognomical aspect does not, as already stated, concern us,
because sculpture has merely to deal with that which passes over from
the ideal side of Spirit into the external aspect of _form_ permitting
Spirit thus to be visible in the physical environment. The sympathetic
interaction between the internal organism and the feeling soul is no
object of sculpture; indeed, we may add, it is unable to accept much
which appears on the external surface itself, such as the tremble of
the hand and the entire body in an outburst of anger, the movement of
the lips, and others of like nature.