inasmuch as it is the source of one of the greatest and best known errors
of this great man, his depreciation and rejection of art, and especially
poetry; he directly connects his false judgment in reference to this with
the passage quoted.
§ 42. I return to the exposition of the æsthetic impression. The knowledge
of the beautiful always supposes at once and inseparably the pure knowing
subject and the known Idea as object. Yet the source of æsthetic
satisfaction will sometimes lie more in the comprehension of the known
Idea, sometimes more in the blessedness and spiritual peace of the pure
knowing subject freed from all willing, and therefore from all
individuality, and the pain that proceeds from it. And, indeed, this
predominance of one or the other constituent part of æsthetic feeling will
depend upon whether the intuitively grasped Idea is a higher or a lower
grade of the objectivity of will. Thus in æsthetic contemplation (in the
real, or through the medium of art) of the beauty of nature in the
inorganic and vegetable worlds, or in works of architecture, the pleasure
of pure will-less knowing will predominate, because the Ideas which are
here apprehended are only low grades of the objectivity of will, and are
therefore not manifestations of deep significance and rich content. On the
other hand, if animals and man are the objects of æsthetic contemplation
or representation, the pleasure will consist rather in the comprehension
of these Ideas, which are the most distinct revelation of will; for they
exhibit the greatest multiplicity of forms, the greatest richness and deep
significance of phenomena, and reveal to us most completely the nature of
will, whether in its violence, its terribleness, its satisfaction or its
aberration (the latter in tragic situations), or finally in its change and
self-surrender, which is the peculiar theme of christian painting; as the
Idea of the will enlightened by full knowledge is the object of historical
painting in general, and of the drama. We shall now go through the fine
arts one by one, and this will give completeness and distinctness to the
theory of the beautiful which we have advanced.