Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian — Kant — John Shaqi
Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian
Kant · en
But man possesses sovereign power only in the world of appearance,
in the unstibstantial realm of imagination, only by abstaining from
giving being to appearance in theory, and by giving it being in
practice. It follows that the poet transgresses his proper limits
when he attributes being to his ideal, and when he gives this ideal
aim as a determined existence. For he can only reach this result by
exceeding his right as a poet, that of encroaching by the ideal on
the field of experience, and by pretending to determine real
existence in virtue of a simple possibility, or else he renounces
his right as poet by letting experience encroach on the sphere of
the ideal, and by restricting possibility to the conditions of
reality.
It is only by being frank or disclaiming all reality, and by being
independent or doing without reality, that the appearance is
aesthetical. Directly it apes reality or needs reality for effect it
is nothing more than a vile instrument for material ends, and can
prove nothing for the freedom of the mind. Moreover, the object in
which we find beauty need not be unreal if pur judgment disregards
this reality; nor if it regards this the judgment is no longer
aesthetical. A beautiful woman if living would no doubt please us as
much and rather more than an equally beautiful woman seen in
painting; but what makes the former please men is not her being an
independent appearance; she no longer pleases the pure aesthetic
feeling. In the painting, life must only attract as an appearance,
and reality as an idea. But it is certain that to feel in a living
object only the pure appearance, requires a greatly higher aesthetic
culture than to do without life in the appearance.
When the frank and independent appearance is found in man
separately, or in a whole people, it may be inferred they have mind,
taste, and all prerogatives connected with them. In this case, the
ideal will be seen to govern real life, honour triumphing over
fortune, thought over enjoyment, the dream of immortality over a
transitory existence.