In the midst of the formidable realm of forces,and of the sacred empire of laws,the aesthetic impulse of form creates by degrees a third and a joyous realm,that of play and of the appearance,where she emancipates man from fetters,in all his relations,an from all that is named constraint,whether physical or moral.
If in the dynamic state of rights men mutually move and come into collision as forces,in the moral (ethical)state of duties,man opposes to man the majesty of the laws,and chains down his will.In this realm of the beautiful or the aesthetic state,man ought to appear to man only as a form,and an object of free play.To give freedom through freedom is the fundamental law of this realm.
The dynamic state can only make society simply possible by subduing nature through nature;the moral (ethical)state can only make it morally necessary by submitting the will of the individual to the general will.
The aesthetic state alone can make it real,because it carries out the will of all through the nature of the individual.If necessity alone forces man to enter into society,and if this reason engraves on his soul social principles,it is beauty only that can give him a social character;taste alone brings harmony into society,because it creates harmony in the individual.
All other forms of perception divide the man,because they are based exclusively either in the sensuous or in the spiritual part of his being.It is only the perception of beauty that makes of him an entirety,because it demands the co-operation of his two natures.All other forms of communication divide society,because they apply exclusively either to the receptivity or to the private activity of its members,and therefore to what distinguishes men one from the other.The aesthetic communication alone unites society,because it applies to what is common to all its members.We only enjoy the pleasures of sense as individuals,without the nature of the race in us sharing in it;accordingly,we cannot generalise our individual pleasures,because we cannot generalise our individuality.We enjoy the pleasures of knowledge as a race,dropping the individual in our judgment;but we cannot generalise the pleasures of the understanding,because we cannot eliminate individuality from the judgments of others as we do from our own.Beauty alone can we enjoy both as individuals and as a race,that is,as representing a race.Good appertaining to sense can only make one person happy,because it is founded on inclination,which is always exclusive;and it can only make a man partially happy,because his real personality does not share in it.Absolute good can only render a man happy conditionally,for truth is only the reward of abnegation,and a pure heart alone has faith in a pure will.Beauty alone confers happiness on all,and under its influence every being forgets that he is limited.
Taste does not suffer any superior or absolute authority,and the sway of beauty is extended over appearance.It extends up to the seat of reason's supremacy,suppressing all that is material.It extends down to where sensuous impulse rules with blind compulsion,and form is undeveloped.Taste ever maintains its power on these remote borders,where legislation is taken from it.Particular desires must renounce their egotism,and the agreeable,otherwise tempting the senses,must in matters of taste adorn the mind with the attractions of grace.
Duty and stern necessity must change their forbidding tone,only excused by resistance,and do homage to nature by a nobler trust in her.Taste leads our knowledge from the mysteries of science into the open expanse of common sense,and changes a narrow scholasticism into the common property of the human race.Here the highest genius must leave its particular elevation,and make itself familiar to the comprehension even of a child.Strength must let the Graces bind it,and the arbitrary lion must yield to the reins of love.For this purpose taste throws a veil over physical necessity,offending a free mind by its coarse nudity,and dissimulating our degrading parentage with matter by a delightful illusion of freedom.Mercenary art itself rises from the dust;and the bondage of the bodily,in its magic touch,falls off from the inanimate and animate.In the aesthetic state the most slavish tool is a free citizen,having the same rights as the noblest;and the intellect which shapes the mass to its intent must consult it concerning its destination.Consequently in the realm of aesthetic appearance,the idea of equality is realised,which the political zealot would gladly see carried out socially.It has often been said that perfect politeness is only found near a throne.If thus restricted in the material,man has,as elsewhere appears,to find compensation in the ideal world.
Does such a state of beauty in appearance exist,and where?It must be in every finely harmonised soul;but as a fact,only in select circles,like the pure ideal of the church and state -in circles where manners are not formed by the empty imitations of the foreign,but by the very beauty of nature;where man passes through all sorts of complications in all simplicity and innocence,neither forced to trench on another's freedom to preserve his own,nor to show grace at the cost of dignity.
