1. If, however, this ideal essence, as is already the case under the principle of painting, asserts itself in fact as _subjective soul-life_, in that case the truly adequate medium cannot remain of a type which possesses independent subsistency. And for this reason we get a mode of expression and communication, in the sensuous material of which we do not find objectivity disclosed as spatial configuration, in order that it may have consistency therein. We require a material which is without such stability in its relation to what is outside it, and which vanishes again in the very moment of its origin and presence. Now the art that finally annihilates not merely _one_ form of spatial dimension, but the conditions of Space entirely, which is completely withdrawn into the ideality of soul-life, both in its aspect of conscious life and in that of its external expression, is our second romantic art--_Music._ In this respect it constitutes the genuine centre of that kind of presentment which accepts the inner personal life as such, both for its content and form. It no doubt manifests as art this inner life, but in this very objectification retains its subjective character. In other words it does not, as plastic art, suffer the expression in which it is self-enclosed to be independently free or to attain an essentially tranquil self-subsistency, but cancels the same as objectivity, and will not suffer externality to secure for itself an inviolable presence[377] over against it. In so far, however, as this annihilation of spatial objectivity, regarded as a means of manifestation, is an abandonment of the same which is itself already in anticipation asserted of the sensuous spatiality of the plastic arts themselves[378], this principle of negation must also in a similar way have its activity conditioned by the _materiality_, which, up to this point, we have indicated as one of tranquil independent self-subsistency, just as the art of painting reduces in its province the spatial dimensions of sculpture to the simple surface. This cancelling of the spatial form therefore merely consists in this, that a specific sensuous material surrenders its tranquil relation of juxtaposition, is, in other words, placed in motion but is so essentially affected by that motion that every portion of the coherent bodily substance not merely changes its position, but also is reacted upon and reacts upon the previous condition[379]. The result of this oscillating vibration is _tone_, the medium of music.