The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 4 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
is possible so to present the rightness or wrongness of the case under
discussion to the imagination that we are no longer bound to acquiesce
in the bare knowledge of the facts and a general conviction; on the
contrary, the case in its entirety is capable of becoming, by virtue of
the style adopted in its exposition, so marked with the characteristics
of personality to everyone who hears it, that no one can fail to
discover there a personal interest as of something which concerns
himself.
_Secondly_, in the oratorical art, artistic delivery and elaboration
is not that which constitutes the ultimate and highest interest of the
speaker; he possesses in addition and beyond his art an ulterior aim,
that the entire form and working out of his discourse should rather
be used exclusively as the most effective means to promote an interest
which is outside. From this point of view the audience too have to be
influenced not on their own independent account, but the effort is
rather to excite emotion and conviction exclusively as a means toward
the attainment of the purpose, the fulfilment whereof the orator has
proposed from the first. The mode of presentation, therefore, ceases
to be an end for itself even to the listener; its claim becomes
exclusively that of a means to some particular conviction, or an
incentive to definite conclusions or activities.
For these reasons from this point of view also the art loses its
freedom of form; it becomes a means to a purpose, to a further
demand[14], which, this is a _third_ point, in relation to the
_consequence_, is not satisfied in the actual speech itself and its
artistic handling. The composition of poetry on the contrary has no
other object than the manifestation and enjoyment of beauty. End
and accomplishment reposes here immediately and essentially in the
independent work, which for that reason is complete; artistic activity
is no means to an essentially ulterior result, but an end which at
once is rounded in itself by virtue of its own execution. In oratory
art receives merely a position of service to something collateral;
the genuine end is therefore not as such consonant with art, but of a
practical character, that is to say, instruction, edification, judgment
of legal matters or political affairs, and therewith a reference to
some matter which has first to happen, or to a decision not yet carried
out, but which, however, are in neither case terminated or completed
through the resultant effect of the art in question, but can only be
so in various ways after a contact with quite other activities. A
speech in fact may often conclude with a dissonance, which the hearer
has first to resolve as judge, and only then is able to act agreeably
with such a verdict. Just as, for example, the oratory of the pulpit
starts from the point of the unconverted soul, and in the result makes
the hearer pass judgment over his own self and his soul's condition.