The World As Will and Representation, by Arthur Schopenhauer

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Part 1 of 2

CHAPTER XXXI: On Genius [1]

What is properly denoted by the name genius is the predominant capacity for the kind of knowledge described in the two previous chapters, from which all genuine works of the arts, of poetry, and even of philosophy, spring. Accordingly, as this has for its object the (Platonic) Ideas, these being apprehended, however, not in the abstract but only in perception, the true nature of genius must lie in the completeness and energy of the knowledge of perception. In accordance with this, we hear described most decidedly as works of genius those which start from, and appeal to, perception, hence those of the plastic and pictorial arts, and then those of poetry which brings about its perceptions through the imagination. Here too the difference between genius and mere talent becomes marked. Talent is a merit to be found in the greater versatility and acuteness of discursive rather than of intuitive knowledge. The person endowed with talent thinks more rapidly and accurately than do the rest; on the other hand, the genius perceives a world different from them all, though only by looking more deeply into the world that lies before them also, since it presents itself in his mind more objectively, consequently more purely and distinctly.

By its destiny, the intellect is merely the medium of motives; and so it apprehends originally in things nothing but their relations to the will, the direct, the indirect, the possible. In the case of the animals, where it remains almost entirely at the direct relations, the matter is on that account most apparent. That which has no reference to their will does not exist for them. For this reason we occasionally see with surprise that even clever animals do not at all notice something conspicuous in itself; for instance, they express no surprise at obvious alterations in our person or environment. In the case of the normal person, the indirect, in fact the possible, relations to the will are added, and the sum of these constitutes the whole of useful knowledge; but even here knowledge remains confined to relations. Therefore an entirely pure and objective picture of things is not reached in the normal mind, because its power of perception at once becomes tired and inactive, as soon as this is not spurred on and set in motion by the will. For it has not enough energy to apprehend the world purely objectively from its own elasticity and without a purpose. On the other hand, where this happens, where the brain's power of forming representations has such a surplus that a pure, distinct, objective picture of the external world exhibits itself without a purpose as something useless for the intentions of the will, which is even disturbing in the higher degrees, and can even become injurious to them -- then there already exists at least the natural disposition for that abnormality. This is denoted by the name of genius, which indicates that something foreign to the will, Le., to the I or ego proper, a genius added from outside so to speak, seems to become active here. To speak without metaphor, however, genius consists in the knowing faculty having received a considerably more powerful development than is required by the service of the will, for which alone it originally came into being. Therefore, strictly speaking, physiology could to a certain extent class such a surplus of brain-activity, and with this of the brain itself, among the monstra per excessum, which, as we know, are co-ordinated by it with the monstra per defectum and the monstra per situm mutatum. [2] Genius, therefore, consists in an abnormal excess of intellect which can find its use only by being employed on the universal of existence. In this way it then applies itself to the service of the whole human race, just as does the normal intellect to that of the individual. To make the matter really intelligible, we might say that, if the normal person consists of two-thirds will and one-third intellect, the genius, on the contrary, has two-thirds intellect and one-third will. This could again be illustrated by a chemical simile; the base and the acid of a neutral salt are distinguished by the fact that in each of the two the radical has a ratio to oxygen which is the inverse of that in the other. Thus the base or the alkali is what it is because in it the radical predominates with reference to the oxygen, and the acid is what it is because in it the oxygen predominates. Now in just the same way are the normal person and the genius related as regards will and intellect. From this arises a fundamental difference between them, visible already in their whole nature and activity, but which really comes to light in their achievements. We might still add as a distinction that, whereas that total contrast between the chemical materials establishes the strongest affinity and attraction to each other, in the case of the human race it is rather the opposite that I is usually seen.

The first manifestation occasioned by such a surplus of the power I of knowledge shows itself for the most part in the really original and fundamentally essential knowledge, i.e., knowledge of perception, and I brings about the repetition of this in a picture or image; hence arise the painter and the sculptor. Accordingly, with these the path from I the apprehension of genius to the artistic production is the shortest; therefore the form in which genius and its activity are exhibited in I them is the simplest, and its description the easiest. Yet it is just here that the source is seen from which all genuine productions in I every art, even poetry and philosophy, have their origin, though in these cases the process is not so simple.

Let us here recall the result obtained in the first book, that all perception is intellectual, and not merely of the senses. If we now add to this the explanation given here, and at the same time fairly take into consideration that the philosophy of the eighteenth century denoted the perceiving faculty of knowledge by the name "lower powers of the soul," we shall not find it so utterly absurd, or so worthy of the bitter scorn with which Jean-Paul mentions it in his Vorschule der Aesthetik, that Adelung, having to speak the language of his time, placed genius in "a marked strength of the lower powers of the soul." However great the merits possessed by this admirable man's above-mentioned work, I must nevertheless remark that, wherever a theoretical discussion and instruction in general are the end in view, the method of presentation which indulges in displays of wit and strides along in mere similes cannot be appropriate.

But it is perception above all to which the real and true nature of things discloses and reveals itself, although still in a limited way. All concepts, all things that are thought, are indeed only abstractions, and consequently partial representations from perception, and have arisen merely through our thinking something away. All profound knowledge, even wisdom proper, is rooted in the perceptive apprehension of things. We have considered this fully in the supplements to the first book. A perceptive apprehension has always been the process of generation in which every genuine work of art, every immortal idea, received the spark of life. All original and primary thinking takes place figuratively. On the other hand, from concepts arise the works of mere talent, merely rational ideas, imitations, and generally everything calculated only for the present need and for contemporary events.

But if our perception were always tied to the real presence of things, its material would be entirely under the dominion of chance, which rarely produces things at the right time, seldom arranges them appropriately, and often presents them to us in very defective copies. For this reason imagination is needed, in order to complete, arrange, amplify, fix, retain, and repeat at pleasure all the significant pictures of life, according as the aims of a profoundly penetrating knowledge and of the significant work by which it is to be communicated may require. On this rests the high value of imagination as an indispensable instrument of genius. For only by virtue of imagination can genius present to itself each object or event in a vivid image, according to the requirements of the connexion of its painting, poetry, or thinking, and thus always draw fresh nourishment from the primary source of all knowledge, perception. The man gifted with imagination is able, so to speak, to call up spirits revealing to him at the right time truths that the bare reality of things exhibits only feebly, rarely, and often at the wrong time. Therefore the man without imagination is related to him as the mussel fastened to its rock, compelled to wait for what chance brings it, is to the freely moving or even winged animal. For such a man knows no other perception than the actual perception of the senses; until it comes, he nibbles at concepts and abstractions which are nevertheless only shells and husks, not the kernel of knowledge. He will never achieve anything great, unless it be in arithmetic and mathematics. The works of the plastic and pictorial arts and of poetry, likewise the achievements of mimicry, can also be regarded as the means by which those who have no imagination may make up for this defect as far as possible, and those gifted with imagination may facilitate the use of it.

Accordingly, although the peculiar and essential kind of knowledge of genius is that of perception, particular things do not by any means constitute its real object; this is rather the (Platonic) Ideas expressing themselves therein, as the apprehension of them was analysed in chapter 29. Always to see the universal in the particular is precisely the fundamental characteristic of genius, whereas the normal man recognizes in the particular only the particular as such; for only as such does it belong to reality, which alone has interest for him, has reference to his will. The degree in which everyone not so much conceives as actually perceives in the particular thing only the particular, or something more or less universal up to the most universal of the species, is the measure of his approach to genius. In accordance with this, the real object of genius is only the essential nature of things in general, the universal in them, the totality. The investigation of individual phenomena is the field of the talents, in the modern sciences, whose object in reality is always only the relations of things to one another.

What was shown at length in the previous chapter, namely that the apprehension of the Ideas is conditioned by the fact that the knower is the pure subject of knowledge, and that the will vanishes entirely from consciousness, is here present to our minds. The pleasure we enjoy in many of Goethe's songs which bring the landscape before our eyes, or in Jean-Paul's descriptions of nature, rests on our thus participating in the objectivity of those minds, that is to say, in the purity with which in them the world as representation had been separated from the world as will, and had been as it were entirely detached therefrom. The kind of knowledge of the genius is essentially purified of all willing and of references to the will; and it also follows from this that the works of genius do not result from intention or arbitrary choice, but that genius is here guided by a kind of instinctive necessity. What is called the awakening of genius, the hour of inspiration, the moment of rapture or exaltation, is nothing but the intellect's becoming free, when, relieved for a while from its service under the will, it does not sink into inactivity or apathy, but is active for a short time, entirely alone and of its own accord. The intellect is then of the greatest purity, and becomes the clear mirror of the world; for, wholly separated from its origin, that is, from the will, it is now the world as representation itself concentrated in one consciousness. At such moments is the soul of immortal works, so to speak, begotten. On the other hand, in the case of all intentional reflection the intellect is not free, for the will in fact guides it, and prescribes its theme.

The stamp of commonness, the expression of vulgarity, impressed on the great majority of faces, really consists in this, that there becomes visible in them the strict subordination of their knowing to their willing, the firm chain linking the two together, and the impossibility that follows from this of apprehending things save in reference to the will and its aims. On the other hand, the expression of genius, which constitutes the evident family likeness of all highly gifted men, lies in our distinctly reading in it the intellect's liberation, manumission, from the service of the will, the predominance of knowing over willing. Because all suffering proceeds from willing, while knowing on the other hand is in and by itself painless and serene, this gives to their lofty brows and to their clear, perceptive glance, which are not subject to the service of the will and its needs, the appearance of great, as it were supernatural, unearthly serenity. At times this breaks through, and is quite consistent with the melancholy of the other features of the face, especially the mouth; in this connexion it can be aptly described by the motto of Giordano Bruno: In tristitia hilaris, in hilaritate tristis. [3]

The will that is the root of the intellect is opposed to every activity of the intellect which is directed to anything other than its own aims. Therefore the intellect is capable of a purely objective and profound apprehension of the external world only when it has detached itself, for a while at any rate, from this its root. So long as it still remains bound to the will, it is quite incapable of any activity from its own resources; it sleeps in stupor, whenever the will (the interest) does not awaken it and set it in motion. If this happens, however, it is then very suitable for recognizing the relations of things according to the interest of the will. This is done by the prudent mind that must also be always awakened, in other words, by a mind that is vividly aroused by willing; but, on this very account, it is incapable of comprehending the purely objective nature of things. For willing and aims make it so one-sided, that it sees in things only what refers to these, and the rest partly disappears, partly enters consciousness in an adulterated form. For example, a traveller who is anxious and in a hurry, will see the Rhine and its banks only as a dash or stroke, and the bridge over it only as a line intersecting that stroke. In the head of the man filled with his own aims, the world appears just as a beautiful landscape does on the plan of a battlefield. These, of course, are extremes taken for the sake of clarity; but even every slight excitement of the will will have as its consequence a slight, yet always analogous, falsification of knowledge. The world can appear in its true colour and form, in its complete and correct significance, only when the intellect, freed from willing, moves freely over objects, and yet is energetically active without being spurred on by the will. This is certainly contrary to the nature and destiny of the intellect; thus it is to a certain extent unnatural, and for this reason exceedingly rare. But it is precisely in this that the true nature of genius lies; and in this alone does that state occur in a high degree and for some time, whereas in the rest it appears only approximately and exceptionally. I take it in the sense here discussed, when Jean-Paul (Vorschule der Aesthetik, §12) puts the essence of genius in reflectiveness. Thus the normal person is immersed in the whirl and tumult of life, to which he belongs through his will; his intellect is filled with the things and events of life, but he does not in the least become aware of these things and of life in their objective significance; just as the merchant on the Amsterdam exchange hears and understands perfectly what his neighbour says, but does not hear at all the continual humming of the whole exchange, which is like the roaring of the sea, and which astonishes the distant observer. On the other hand, the intellect of the genius is detached from the will and so from the person, and what concerns these does not conceal from him the world and things themselves; on the contrary, he becomes distinctly conscious of them, and apprehends them in objective perception in and by themselves; in this sense he is reflective.

It is this reflectiveness that enables the painter to reproduce faithfully on canvas the nature he has before his eyes, and the poet accurately to call up again by means of abstract concepts the perceptive present by expressing it, and thus bringing it to distinct consciousness; likewise to express in words everything that others merely feel. The animal lives without any reflectiveness. It has consciousness, that is to say, it knows itself and its weal and woe, and in addition the objects that occasion these. Its knowledge, however, always remains subjective; it never becomes objective. Everything occurring therein seems to the animal to be a matter of course, and can therefore never become for it the matter to be dealt with (object of description) or the problem (object of meditation). Its consciousness is therefore entirely immanent. The consciousness of the common type of man is of course not of the same kind, but yet is of a kindred nature, since his apprehension of things and of the world is also chiefly subjective, and remains predominantly immanent. It apprehends the things in the world, but not the world; its own actions and sufferings, but not itself. Now as the distinctness of consciousness is enhanced in infinite gradations, reflectiveness appears more and more; in this way it gradually comes about that occasionally, though rarely and again with extremely different degrees of distinctness, the question passes through the mind like a flash: "What is all this?" or: "How is it really constituted?" If the first question attains to great distinctness and is continuously present, it will make the philosopher; and in just the same way the other question will make the artist or the poet. Therefore the high calling of these two has its root in the reflectiveness which springs primarily from the distinctness with which they are conscious of the world and of themselves, and thus come to reflect on these. But the whole process springs from the fact that, through its preponderance, the intellect frees itself for a time from the will to which it was originally subject.

These considerations concerning genius are connected as supplements to the exposition, contained in chapter 22, of the ever wider separation between the will and the intellect which is observable in the whole range of beings. This reaches its highest degree precisely in genius, where it attains to the complete detachment of the intellect from its root, the will, so that here the intellect becomes wholly free, whereby the world as representation first of all attains to complete objectification.

Now a few more remarks concerning the individuality of genius. According to Cicero (Tusc., I, 33), Aristotle already remarked omnes ingeniosos melancholicos esse; [4] this undoubtedly refers to the passage in Aristotle's Problemata, 30, 1. Goethe also says:

My poetic fire was very low
So long as I encountered good;
Whereas it was all aflame,
When I fled from imminent evil.
The delicate verse like a rainbow
Is drawn only on a dark ground,
Hence the poet's genius relishes
The element of melancholy.

This is explained by the fact that, as the will constantly reasserts its original mastery over the intellect, the latter withdraws more easily from such mastery in unfavourable personal circumstances, because it readily turns from adverse circumstances in order to divert itself to a certain extent. It then directs itself with all the greater energy to the foreign external world, and thus more easily becomes purely objective. Favourable personal circumstances have the opposite effect. On the whole, however, the melancholy accompanying genius rests on the fact that, the brighter the intellect enlightening the will-to-live, the more distinctly does it perceive the wretchedness of its condition. The gloomy disposition of highly gifted minds, so frequently observed, has its emblem in Mont Blanc, whose summit is often hidden in the clouds. But when on occasion, especially in the early morning, the veil of clouds is rent, and the mountain, red in the sunlight, looks down on Chamonix from its celestial height above the clouds, it is then a sight at which the heart of everyone is most deeply stirred. So also does the genius, who is often melancholy, display at times that characteristic serenity already described, which is possible in him alone, and springs from the most perfect objectivity of the mind. It floats like a radiant gleam of light on his lofty brow; in tristitia hilaris, in hilaritate tristis. [5]

All bunglers are what they are ultimately because their intellect, still too firmly tied to the will, becomes active only under the will's spur, and therefore remains entirely in its service. Accordingly they are capable of none other than personal aims. In keeping with this they produce bad paintings, dull and spiritless poems, shallow, absurd, and very often dishonest philosophemes, when, that is, it is of importance to them to recommend themselves to higher authorities through pious dishonesty. Thus all their thoughts and actions are personal; and so they succeed at most in appropriating as mannerisms what is external, accidental, and arbitrary in the genuine works of others. They seize the shell instead of the kernel, and yet imagine they have reached everything, indeed have surpassed those works. If the failure becomes obvious, many hope nevertheless to attain success in the end through their good will. But it is precisely this good will that makes it impossible, since this leads only to personal ends; with these, however, neither art, nor poetry, nor philosophy can ever be taken seriously. Therefore the expression that they stand in their own light is quite peculiarly applicable to such men. They have no idea that it is only the intellect, torn from the mastery of the will and from all its projects and thus freely active, that makes one capable of genuine productions, because it alone imparts true seriousness; and for them this is a good thing, otherwise they would jump into the water. In morality the good will is everything, but in art it is nothing; for, as the word (Kunst) already indicates, ability (Konnen) alone is of any consequence. Ultimately it is all a question of where the man's real seriousness is to be found. In the case of almost all, it is to be found exclusively in their own wellbeing and that of their families. They are therefore in a position to promote this and nothing else, since no resolution, no arbitrary and intentional effort, imparts, or makes up for, or more correctly furnishes, true, profound seriousness proper. For it always remains where nature has placed it; but without it everything can be only half performed. For the same reason, therefore, individuals of genius often give very little attention to their own welfare. Just as a leaden pendulum always brings a body back into the position required by the centre of gravity determined by such a pendulum, so man's true seriousness always draws the force and attention of his intellect back to where it lies; everything else is pursued by him without true seriousness. Therefore only extremely rare and abnormal men, whose true seriousness lies not in the personal and practical, but in the objective and theoretical, are in a position to apprehend the essential element of things and of the world, and hence the highest truths, and in some way to reproduce them. For such a seriousness of the individual, falling outside him in the objective, is something foreign to human nature, something unnatural, properly speaking supernatural. But only through it is a man great; and accordingly, what he produces or creates is then ascribed to a genius different from him, which takes possession of him. For such a man, his painting, poetry, or thinking is an end; for the other it is a means. These others look in it for their own interest and, as a rule, know quite well how to promote it, for they insinuate themselves into the favour of contemporaries, and are ready to serve their wants and whims. They therefore usually live in happy circumstances; whereas the genius often exists under very wretched conditions. For he sacrifices his personal welfare to the objective end; he simply cannot do otherwise, because there lies his seriousness. They act conversely; therefore they are small, but he is great. His work, accordingly, is for all times and ages, but its recognition usually begins only with posterity; they live and die with their time. In general, he alone is great who in his work, be it practical or theoretical, seeks not his own interest, but pursues only an objective end. However, he is such even when in the practical this aim or end is misunderstood, and even when, in consequence of this, it should be a crime. What makes him great in all circumstances is the fact that he does not seek himself and his own interest. On the other hand, all action or effort directed to personal ends or aims is small, since he who is moved to activity in this way knows and finds himself only in his own evanescent and trifling person. On the other hand, he who is great recognizes himself in all and thus in the whole; he does not live, like others, only in the microcosm, but still more in the macrocosm. For this reason, the whole concerns him, and he tries to grasp it, in order to present it, or explain it, or act on it in practice. For to him it is not strange; he feels that it concerns him. On account of this extension of his sphere, he is called great. Accordingly, that sublime predicate belongs by right only to the true hero in any sense and to the genius; it signifies that, contrary to human nature, they have not sought their own interest, and have lived not for themselves, but for all. Now just as the great majority must obviously be always small, and can never be great, the converse is not possible, namely that a person should be great in every way, that is to say, constantly and at every moment:

For man is made of common clay,
And custom he calls his nurse.

-- [Schiller]

Thus every great man must nevertheless often be only the individual, have in view only himself; and this means he must be small. On this rests the very true remark that no man is a hero to his valet, not on the fact that the valet does not know how to appreciate the hero; Goethe in the Elective Affinities (vol. II, chap. 5) serves this up as an idea that occurred to Ottilie.

Genius is its own reward; for the best that one is, one must necessarily be for oneself. "Whoever is born with a talent, to a talent, finds his fairest existence therein," says Goethe. When we look back at a great man of former times, we do not think, "How lucky he is to be still admired by us all!" but, "How lucky he must have been in the immediate enjoyment of a mind, with the remaining traces of which centuries regale themselves!" Not in fame, but in that by which it is attained, lies the value, and in the production of immortal children lies the pleasure. Therefore those who attempt to demonstrate the vanity of posthumous fame from the fact that he who acquires it has no experience of it, is to be compared to the wiseacre who very sagely tried to demonstrate the utter uselessness of a heap of oyster-shells to a man casting envious glances at one in his neighbour's yard.

In accordance with the description we have given of the true nature of genius, it is contrary to nature in so far as it consists in the intellect, whose real destiny is the service of the will, emancipating itself from that service in order to be active on its own account. Accordingly, genius is an intellect that has become unfaithful to its destiny; on this rest the disadvantages connected with it. We now prepare the way for a consideration of these by comparing genius with the less decided preponderance of the intellect.

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Part 2 of 2

The intellect of the normal man, strictly bound to the service of his will, and thus in reality occupied only with the reception and taking up of motives, may be regarded as the complex system of wires with which each of these puppets is set in motion on the stage of the world-theatre. From this springs the dry, grave seriousness of most people, which is surpassed only by that of the animals, which never laugh. On the other hand, the genius, with his unfettered intellect, could be compared to a living person playing among the large puppets of the famous Milan puppet-show. This person would be the only one among them who would perceive everything, and would therefore gladly quit the stage for a while in order to enjoy the play from the boxes; this is the reflectiveness of genius. But I even the extremely intelligent and rational man, whom we might almost call wise, is very different from the genius; and indeed he is so because his intellect retains a practical tendency. It is concerned with the choice of the best of all ends and means; it therefore remains in the service of the will, and accordingly is occupied really and truly in conformity with nature. The firm, practical seriousness of life, described by the Romans as gravitas, presupposes that the intellect does not forsake the service of the will, in order to wander away after what does not concern this. It therefore does not admit of that separation of the will and the intellect which is the condition of genius. The able, indeed the eminent man, fitted for great achievements in the practical sphere, is as he is precisely through objects that keenly rouse his will, and spur it on to the restless investigation of their connexions and relations. Thus his intellect has grown up firmly connected with his will. On the other hand, there floats before the mind of the genius, in its objective apprehension, the phenomenon of the world as something foreign to him, as an object of contemplation, expelling his willing from consciousness. On this point hinges the difference between the capacity for deeds and that for works. The latter demands an objectivity and depth of knowledge that presuppose the complete separation of the intellect from the will. The former, on the other hand, demands the application of knowledge, presence of mind, and resoluteness, and these require that the intellect shall constantly carry out the service of the will. Where the bond between intellect and will is loosened, the intellect, diverted from its natural destiny, will neglect the service of the will. For example, even in the emergency of the moment, it will still maintain its emancipation, and possibly will have no choice but to apprehend the environment, according to the picturesque impression thereof, from which the present danger threatens the individual. On the other hand, the intellect of the man of reason and understanding is always at its post, is directed to the circumstances and their requirements. Therefore such a man will in all cases determine and carry out what is appropriate to the matter. Consequently he will certainly not run into those eccentricities, personal slips, and even follies, to which the genius is exposed. The genius does this because his intellect does not remain exclusively the guide and guardian of his will, but is engrossed more or less in what is purely objective. In the contrast between Tasso and Antonio, Goethe has given us an illustration of the opposition in which the two entirely different kinds of capacity, here described in the abstract, stand to each other. The frequently observed kinship of genius with madness rests chiefly on that very separation of the intellect from the will, essential to genius yet contrary to nature. But this separation itself is not in any way to be ascribed to the fact that genius is accompanied by less intensity of the will, for it is rather conditioned by a vehement and passionate character; on the contrary, it is to be explained from the fact that the practically eminent man, the man of deeds, has merely the whole, full measure of intellect required for an energetic will, whereas most men lack even this. Genius, however, consists in a wholly abnormal, actual excess of intellect, such as is not required for the service of any will. For this reason, the men of genuine works are a thousand times rarer than the men of deeds. It is just that abnormal excess of intellect, by virtue of which it obtains the decided preponderance, emancipates itself from the will, and, forgetful of its origin, is freely active from its own force and elasticity. It is from this that the creations of genius result.

Further, genius consists in the working of the free intellect, that is, of the intellect emancipated from the service of the will; and a consequence of this very fact is that the productions of genius serve no useful purpose. The work of genius may be music, philosophy, painting, or poetry; it is nothing for use or profit. To be useless and unprofitable is one of the characteristics of the works of genius; it is their patent of nobility. All other human works exist only for the maintenance or relief of our existence; only those here discussed do not; they alone exist for their own sake, and are to be regarded in this sense as the flower or the net profit of existence. Our heart is therefore gladdened at the enjoyment of them, for we rise out of the heavy earthly atmosphere of need and want. Moreover, analogous to this, we rarely see the beautiful united with the useful. Tall and fine trees bear no fruit; fruit trees are small, ugly, and stunted. The double garden rose is not fruitful, but the small, wild, almost scentless rose is. The most beautiful buildings are not the useful ones; a temple is not a dwelling-house. A person of high, rare mental gifts, compelled to attend to a merely useful piece of business for which the most ordinary person would be fitted, is like a valuable vase decorated with the most beautiful painting, which is used as a kitchen-pot; and to compare useful men with men of genius is like comparing bricks with diamonds.

The merely practical man, therefore, uses his intellect for that for which nature destined it, namely for comprehending the relations of things partly to one another, partly to the will of the knowing individual. The genius, on the other hand, uses his intellect contrary to its destiny, for comprehending the objective nature of things. His mind therefore belongs not to himself, but to the world, to the elucidation of which it will in some sense contribute. From this, disadvantages of many kinds are bound to arise to the individual favoured with genius. For in general, his intellect will show the faults that are usually bound to appear in the case of every tool that is used for a purpose for which it is not made. In the first place, it will be, so to speak, the servant of two masters, since at every opportunity it emancipates itself from the service in keeping with its destiny, in order to follow its own ends. In this way it often leaves the will very inopportunely in the lurch; and accordingly, the individual so gifted becomes more or less useless for life; in fact, by his conduct we are sometimes reminded of madness. Then, by virtue of its enhanced power of knowledge, it will see in things more of the universal than of the particular, whereas the service of the will mainly requires knowledge of the particular. And again, when that entire, abnormally enhanced power of knowledge occasionally directs itself suddenly with all its energy to the affairs and miseries of the will, it will readily apprehend these too vividly, will view everything in too glaring colours, in too bright a light, and in a monstrously exaggerated form; and in this way the individual falls into mere extremes. The following may help to explain this in even greater detail. All great theoretical achievements, be they of what kind they may, are brought about by their author directing all the forces of his mind to one point. He causes them to be united at this point and concentrates them so vigorously, firmly, and exclusively, that all the rest of the world vanishes for him, and his object for him fills all reality. It is just this great and powerful concentration, forming one of the privileges of genius, which sometimes appears for it, even in the case of objects of reality and of the events of everyday life. Brought under such a focus, these are then magnified to such monstrous proportions that they appear like the flea that under the solar microscope assumes the stature of an elephant. The result of this is that, by trifles, highly gifted individuals are sometimes thrown into emotions of the most varied kind. To others such emotions are incomprehensible, for they see these individuals reduced to grief, joy, care, fear, anger, and so on by things that would leave the ordinary man quite unruffled. Therefore the genius lacks coolness or soberness, which consists simply in our seeing in things nothing more than actually belongs to them, especially in respect of our possible aims; hence no cool or sober man can be a genius. With the disadvantages just mentioned is also associated an excessive sensibility entailed by an abnormally enhanced nervous and cerebral life; we see it, in fact, associated with the vehemence and passionateness of willing, which is likewise a condition of genius, and which manifests itself physically as energy of the heart's pulsation. From all this very readily arise that extravagance of disposition, that vehemence of the emotions, that quick change of mood under prevailing melancholy, which Goethe has presented to us in Tasso. What reasonableness, quiet composure, comprehensive survey, complete certainty and regularity of conduct are shown by the well-equipped normal man in comparison with the now dreamy and brooding absorption and now passionate excitement of the genius, whose inner affliction is the womb of immortal works! With all this there is also the fact that the genius lives essentially alone. He is too rare to be capable of easily coming across his like, and too different from the rest to be their companion. With them it is willing, with him it is knowing, that prevails; hence their joys and pleasures are not his, nor his theirs. They are only moral beings, and have merely personal relations; he is at the same time a pure intellect that as such belongs to the whole of mankind. The train of thought of the intellect which is detached from its maternal soil, the will, and which only periodically returns thereto, will soon differ in every way from that of the normal intellect which still cleaves to its stem. For this reason, and on account of the inequality of the pace, the detached intellect is not adapted to thinking in common, that is to say, to conversation with others; they will have as little pleasure in him and his oppressive superiority as he will have in them. They will therefore feel more at ease with their equals, and he will prefer conversation with his equals, although as a rule this is possible only through the works they have left behind. Therefore Chamfort says very rightly: Il y a peu de vices qui empechent un homme d'avoir beaucoup d'amis, autant que peuvent le faire de trop grandes qualites. [6] The happiest lot that can befall the genius is to be released from action, which is not his element, and to have leisure for production. From all this it follows that, although genius may highly favour the person gifted with it in the hours in which, devoted to it, he revels unhindered in its enjoyment, yet it is by no means calculated to procure for him a happy course of life; rather the contrary. This is also confirmed by the experience recorded in biographies. In addition there is an external incongruity, since in his efforts and achievements themselves, the genius is often in contradiction and conflict with his times. Mere men of talent always come at the right time; for, as they are roused by the spirit of their age and are called into being by its needs, they are only just capable of satisfying them. They therefore go hand in hand with the advancing culture of their contemporaries, or with the gradual advancement of a special science; for this they reap reward and approbation. But to the next generation their works are no longer enjoyable; they must be replaced by others; and these do not fail to appear. The genius, on the other hand, lights on his age like a comet into the paths of the planets, to whose well-regulated and comprehensible arrangement its wholly eccentric course is foreign. Accordingly, he cannot go hand in hand with the regular course of the culture of the times as found; on the contrary, he casts his works far out on to the path in front (just as the emperor, giving himself up to death, flings his spear among the enemy), on which time has first to overtake them. His relation to the culminating men of talent during his time might be expressed in the words of the Evangelist: [x] (John vii, 6). [7] Talent is able to achieve what is beyond other people's capacity to achieve, yet not what is beyond their capacity of apprehension; therefore it at once finds its appreciators. The achievement of genius, on the other hand, transcends not only others' capacity of achievement, but also their capacity of apprehension; therefore they do not become immediately aware of it. Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see. Therefore these others obtain information about genius only indirectly, and thus tardily, and even this they accept only on trust and faith. Accordingly, Goethe says in a didactic epistle: "Imitation is inborn in us; what is to be imitated is not easily recognized. Rarely is the excellent found, more rarely is it appreciated." And Chamfort says: Il en est de la valeur des hommes comme de celie des diamans, qui, a une certaine mesure de grosseur, de purete, de perfection, ont un prix fixe et marque, mais qui, par-dela cette mesure, restent sans prix, et ne trouvent point d'acheteurs. [8] Bacon has also expressed it: Infimarum virtutum, apud vulgus, laus est, mediarum admiratio, supremarum sensus nullus (De Augm. Sc., L. vi., c. 3). [9] Indeed, one would perhaps like to retort, apud vulgus! However, I must come to his assistance with Machiavelli's assurance: Nel mondo non e se non volgo. [10] Thilo (Uber den Ruhm) also observes that usually there belongs to the vulgar herd one more than each of us believes. It is a consequence of this late recognition of the works of genius that they are rarely enjoyed by their contemporaries, and accordingly in the freshness of colour imparted by contemporaneousness and presence; on the contrary, like figs and dates, they are enjoyed much more in the dry state than in the fresh.

Finally, if we now consider genius from the somatic angle, we find it conditioned by several anatomical and physiological qualities, which individually are rarely present in perfection, and even more rarely complete together, but all of which are nevertheless indispensably required; and this explains why genius occurs only as a wholly isolated and almost portentous exception. The fundamental condition is an abnormal preponderance of sensibility over irritability and reproductive power; in fact, what makes the matter more difficult is that this must occur in a male body. (Women can have remarkable talent, but not genius, for they always remain subjective.) Similarly, the cerebral system must be clearly separated from the ganglionic by total isolation, so that it stands in complete opposition thereto, whereby the brain leads its parasitic life on the organism in a very decided, isolated, powerful, and independent manner. Naturally, it will thus have a hostile effect on the rest of the organism, and by its enhanced life and restless activity will prematurely exhaust it, unless it is also of energetic vital force and of good constitution; this latter, therefore, is also one of the conditions. In fact, even a good stomach is a condition, on account of the special and close agreement of this part with the brain. Mainly the brain, however, must be of unusual development and size, especially broad and lofty; on the other hand, its dimension in depth will be inferior, and the cerebrum will preponderate abnormally in proportion to the cerebellum. Very much depends undoubtedly on the shape and formation of the brain as a whole and in its parts, but our knowledge is not yet sufficient to determine this accurately, although we easily recognize the form of a skull that proclaims a noble and exalted intelligence. The texture of the mass of the brain must be of extreme fineness and perfection, and must consist of the purest, most clarified, delicate, and sensitive nerve-substance. The quantitative proportion of white to grey matter certainly has a decided influence; and this we are likewise still unable to measure. The report of the postmortem examination on the body of Byron, [11] however, states that in his case the white matter was in unusually large proportion to the grey, and that his brain weighed six pounds. Cuvier's brain weighed five pounds; the normal weight is three. In contrast to the preponderance of the brain, the spinal cord and nerves must be unusually slender. A finely arched, lofty, and broad skull of thin bone must protect the brain without in any way cramping it. The whole of this quality of the brain and nervous system is the inheritance from the mother; we shall return to this in the following book. But this is quite inadequate for producing the phenomenon of genius, unless there is added as the inheritance from the father a lively, passionate temperament, manifesting itself somatically as unusual energy of the heart, and consequently of the blood circulation, especially towards the head. For in the first place, that turgescence peculiar to the brain is increased in this way, and by virtue of it the brain presses against its walls. Therefore the brain oozes out of every opening in these which has been caused by injury. In the second place, the brain receives through the requisite strength of the heart that inner movement which is different from its constant rising and sinking at every breath, consisting in an agitation of the whole mass of the brain at every pulsation of the four cerebral arteries, and the energy of which must correspond to the quantity of the brain increased here, just as this movement in general is an indispensable condition of the brain's activity. For this reason a small stature and especially a short neck are also favourable to such activity, because on the shorter path the blood reaches the brain with more energy; therefore great minds seldom have a large body. This shortness of the path, however, is not indispensable; Goethe, for example, was of more than average height. But if the whole condition, affecting the blood circulation and thus coming from the father, is lacking, the favourable quality of the brain originating from the mother will at most produce a talent, a fine understanding, supported by the phlegmatic temperament that then appears; but a phlegmatic genius is impossible. This condition of genius coming from the father explains many of the temperamental defects of genius previously described. On the other hand, if this condition is present without the former, and so with an ordinarily or even badly constituted brain, it gives vivacity without mind, heat without light; it produces madcaps, persons of insufferable restlessness and petulance. Of two brothers only one has genius, and then often the elder, as was the case, for example, with Kant. This can be explained above all from the fact that only when he was begotten was his father at the age of strength and ardour, although the other condition also originating from the mother can be ruined by unfavourable circumstances.

I have still to add here a special remark on the childlike character of genius, on a certain resemblance between genius and the age of childhood. Thus in childhood, as in the case of genius, the cerebral and nervous systems are decidedly predominant, for their development hurries far in advance of that of the rest of the organism, so that even by the seventh year the brain has attained its full extension and mass. Therefore Bichat says: Dans l'enfance le systeme nerveux, compare au musculaire, est proportionnellement plus considerable que dans tous les ages suivans, tandis que, par la suite, la pluspart des autres systemes predominent sur celui-ci. On sait que, pour bien voir les nerfs, on choisit toujours les enfans. [12] (De la vie et de la mort, Art. 8, § 6.) On the other hand, the development of the genital system begins last, and only at the age of manhood are irritability, reproduction, and the genital function in full force; then, as a rule, they have the ascendancy over the brain-function. From this it can be explained why children in general are so sensible, reasonable, eager to learn, and easy to teach, in fact are on the whole more disposed to and suitable for all theoretical occupations than are grown-up people. Thus in consequence of that process of development they have more intellect than will, in other words than inclination, craving, and passion. For intellect and brain are one; and in just the same way, the genital system is one with the most vehement of all desires. I have therefore called this the focus of the will. Just because the terrible activity of this system still slumbers, while that of the brain already has full briskness, childhood is the time of innocence and happiness, the paradise of life, the lost Eden, on which we look back longingly through the whole remaining course of our life. But the basis of that happiness is that in childhood our whole existence lies much more in knowing than in willing. This state or condition is also supported from outside by the novelty of all objects. Thus in the morning sunshine of life, the world lies before us so fresh, so magically gleaming, so attractive. The little desires, the uncertain inclinations, and the trifling cares of childhood are only a feeble counterpoise to that predominance of the activity of knowledge. The innocent and clear glance of children, at which we revive ourselves, and which sometimes in particular cases reaches the sublime, contemplative expression with which Raphael has adorned his cherubs, is to be explained from what we have said. Accordingly, mental powers develop much earlier than the needs they are destined to serve, and here, as everywhere, nature proceeds very appropriately. For in this period of predominant intelligence, man gathers a great store of knowledge for future needs that at the time are still foreign to him. Now incessantly active, his intellect therefore eagerly apprehends all phenomena, broods over them, and carefully stores them up for the coming time, like the bee which gathers far more honey than it can consume, in anticipation of future needs. It is certain that what man gains in insight and knowledge up to the age of puberty is, taken as a whole, more than all that he learns subsequently, however learned he may become; for it is the foundation of all human knowledge. Up till the same time, plasticity predominates in the child's body, and after this plasticity has completed its work, its forces later apply themselves through a metastasis to the system of generation. In this way the sexual impulse appears with puberty, and the will gradually gains the upper hand. Childhood, which is predominantly theoretical and eager to learn, is then followed by the restless age of youth, now boisterous and impetuous, now dejected and melancholy, and this passes subsequently into the vigorous and earnest age of manhood. Just because that impulse, pregnant with evil, is lacking in the child, its willing is so moderate and is subordinated to knowing; and from this arises that character of innocence, intelligence, and reasonableness which is peculiar to the age of childhood. I need hardly state further on what the resemblance of childhood to genius depends; it is to be found in the surplus of the powers of knowledge over the needs of the will, and in the predominance of the activity of pure knowledge that springs therefrom. In fact, every child is to a certain extent a genius, and every genius to a certain extent a child. The relationship between the two shows itself primarily in the naivety and sublime ingenuousness that are a fundamental characteristic of true genius. Moreover it comes to light in several features, so that a certain childlike nature does indeed form part of the character of genius. In Riemer's Mitteilungen uber Goethe (Vol. I, p. 184) it is related that Herder and others found fault with Goethe, saying that he was always like a big child; they were certainly right in what they said, only they were not right in finding fault. It was also said of Mozart that he remained a child all his life. (Nissen's Biography of Mozart, pp. 2 and 529.) Schlichtegroll's Necrology (for 1791, Vol. II, p. 109) says of him: "In his art he early became a man, but in all other respects he invariably remained a child." Therefore every genius is already a big child, since he looks out into the world as into something strange and foreign, a drama, and thus with purely objective interest. Accordingly, just like the child, he does not have the dull gravity and earnestness of ordinary men, who, being capable of nothing but subjective interests, always see in things merely motives for their actions. He who throughout his life does not, to a certain extent, remain a big child, but becomes an earnest, sober, thoroughly composed and rational man, can be a very useful and capable citizen of this world; but he will never be a genius. In fact, the genius is such through that preponderance of the sensible system and of the activity of knowledge, natural to the age of childhood, maintaining itself in him in an abnormal manner throughout his whole life, and so becoming perennial. A trace of this certainly continues in many an ordinary person right into the age of youth; thus, for example, a purely intellectual tendency and an eccentricity suggestive of genius are still unmistakable in many a student. But nature returns to her track; these assume the chrysalis form, and reappear at the age of manhood as Philistines incarnate, at whom we are horrified when we meet them again in later years. Goethe's fine remark depends on all that has been discussed here. He says: "Children do not keep their promise; young people very seldom, and if they do keep their word, the world does not keep its word with them." (Elective Affinities, I, chap. 10.) Thus he means the world that afterwards bestows the crowns, which it holds aloft for merit, on those who become the instruments of its low aims, or who know how to dupe it. In accordance with what we have said, just as there is a mere beauty of youth, possessed at some time by almost everyone (beaute du diable), [13] so is there also a mere intellectuality of youth, a certain mental nature disposed and adapted to apprehending, understanding, and learning, which everyone has in childhood, and some still have in youth, but which is subsequently lost, just as that beauty is. Only with extremely few, with the elect, does the one, like the other, last throughout life, so that even in old age a trace of it still remains visible; these are the truly beautiful and the men of true genius.

The predominance of the cerebral nervous system and of the intelligence in childhood, which we are considering, together with its decline in mature age, finds an important illustration and confirmation in the fact that in the species of animals closest to man, the apes, the same relation occurs in a striking degree. Gradually, it has become certain that the extremely intelligent orang-utan is a young pongo. When it is grown up, it loses the marked human resemblance of the countenance, and at the same time its astonishing intelligence, for the lower, animal part of the face increases in size, the forehead recedes, large cristae for muscular development give the skull an animal form; the activity of the nervous system diminishes, and in its place is developed an extraordinary muscular strength. As this strength is sufficient for the animal's preservation, it renders any great intelligence superfluous. Of special importance is what F. Cuvier has said in this respect, and Flourens has explained in a review of the former's Histoire naturelle. It is to be found in the September, 1839, issue of the Journal des Savans, and also separately printed with a few additions under the title: Resume analytique des observations de Fr. Cuvier sur l'instinct et l'intelligence des animaux, p. Flourens, 1841. On page 50 it is said: L'intelligence de l'orangoutang, cette intelligence si developpee, et developpee de si bonne heure, decroit avec l'age. L'orang-outang, lorsqu'il est jeune, nous etonne par sa penetration, par sa ruse, par son adresse; l'orangoutang, devenu adulte, n'est plus qu'un animal grossier, brutal, intraitable. Et il en est de tous les singes comme de l'orang-outang. Dans tous, l'intelligence decroit a mesure que les forces s'accroissent. L'animal qui a le plus d'intelligence, n'a toute cette intelligence que dans le jeune age. Further, on p. 87: Les singes de tous les genres offrent ce rapport inverse de l'age et de l'intelligence. Ainsi, par exemple, l'Entelle (espece de guenon du sous-genre des Semnopitheques et l'un des singes veneres dans la religion des Brames) a, dans le jeune age, le front large, le museau peu saillant, le crane eleve, arrondi, etc. Avec l'age le front disparait, recule, le museau proemine; et le moral ne change pas moins que le physique: l'apathie, la violence, le besoin de solitude, remplacent la penetration, la docilite, la confiance. Ces differences sont si grandes, dit Mr. Fred. Cuvier, que dans l'habitude ou nous sommes de juger des actions des animaux par les notres, nous prendrions le jeune animal pour un individu de l'age, ou toutes les qualites morales de l'espece sont acquises, et l'Entelle adulte pour un individu qui n'aurait encore que ses forces physiques. Mais la nature n'en agit pas ainsi avec ces animaux, qui ne doivent pas sortir de la sphere etroite, qui leur est fixee, et a qui il suffit en quelque sorte de pouvoir veiller a leur conservation. Pour cela l'intelligence etait necessaire, quand la force n'existait pas, et quand celle-ci est acquise, toute autre puissance perd de son utilite. And on p. 118: La conservation des especes ne repose pas moins sur les qualites intellectuelles des animaux, que sur leurs qualites organiques. [14] This last confirms my principle that the intellect, like the claws and teeth, is nothing but a tool for the service of the will.

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Notes:

1. This chapter refers to § 36 of volume 1.

2. "Deformities through excess, through defect, and through wrong position." [Tr.]

3. ''Cheerful in sadness, sad in cheerfulness." [Tr.]

4. "All men of genius are melancholy." [Tr.]

5. "Cheerful in sadness, sad in cheerfulness." [Tr.]

6. "Few vices are as capable of preventing a man from having many friends as is the possession of qualities that are too great." [Tr.]

7. "My time is not yet come: but your time is always ready." [Tr.]

8. "It is the same with the value of men as it is with that of diamonds, which, up to a certain degree of size, purity, and perfection, have a fixed and definite price, but beyond that degree remain without price and find no buyers at all." [Tr.]

9. "The lowest virtues meet with applause from the people, the intermediate admiration, and the highest no appreciation," [Tr.]

10. "There is nothing else in the world but the vulgar." [Tr.]

11. In Medwin's Conversations of Lord Byron, p. 333.

12. "In childhood the nervous system, compared with the muscular, is proportionately more considerable than in all the ages that follow, whilst later on most of the other systems predominate over this. It is well known that, for a thorough study of the nerves, one always chooses children." [Tr.]

13. "Beauty of the devil." [Tr.]

14. "The intelligence of the orangoutan, which is highly developed at such an early age, declines as he grows older. The orangoutan when young astonishes us with his mental acuteness, his wiliness, and his cleverness; but when he is grown up, he is nothing but a coarse, brutal, and intractable animal. And it is just the same with all the apes as with the orangoutan. In all of them the intelligence declines in proportion as their strength increases. The animal that has the highest intelligence has the whole of this intelligence only in his youth. . . . Apes of all species show us this inverse ratio of age and intelligence. For example, the entellus (a monkey of the sub-genus Semnopithecus and one of the apes worshipped in the religion of the Brahmans as Hanuman) has in its youth a broad forehead, a not very prominent muzzle, and a lofty round skull. With advancing age the forehead disappears and recedes, the muzzle becomes more prominent, and the moral qualities change like the physical. Apathy, violence, and the need for solitude replace mental acuteness, docility, and trust. These differences are so great, says Cuvier, that, according to our habit of judging the actions of animals by our own, we should regard the young animal as an individual at the age when all the moral qualities of the species have been acquired, and the adult entellus as an individual who still has only its physical strength. But nature does not act in this way with these animals; they cannot go outside the narrow sphere which is fixed for them and is just sufficient in some way for looking after their preservation. For this purpose the intelligence was necessary when the strength did not exist; and when this is acquired, every other faculty loses its use.... The preservation of the species is conditioned just as much by the intellectual qualities of animals as by their organic qualities." [Tr.]

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CHAPTER XXXII: On Madness [1]

Real soundness of mind consists in perfect recollection. Naturally this is not to be understood as meaning that our memory preserves everything. For the past course of our life shrinks up in time just as that of the wanderer who looks back shrinks up in space. Sometimes it is difficult for us to distinguish particular years; the days often become indistinguishable. But really only exactly similar events, recurring innumerable times, whose images are, so to speak, identical in all respects, are supposed to run together in the memory, so that individually they become indistinguishable. On the other hand, if the intellect is normal, powerful, and quite healthy, it must be possible to find again in memory any event that is characteristic or significant. In the text I have described madness as the broken thread of this memory which nevertheless continues to run uniformly, although with constantly decreasing fulness and distinctness. The following consideration may help to confirm this.

The memory of a healthy person affords certainty as to an event of which he was a witness; and this certainty is regarded as just as firm and sure as is his actual apprehension of a thing. Therefore, when the event is confirmed by him on oath, it is thereby established before a court of law. On the other hand, the mere suspicion of madness will at once weaken a witness's statement. Here, then, is to be found the criterion between soundness of mind and insanity. The moment I doubt whether an event, which I recollect, actually took place, I bring on myself the suspicion of madness, unless it is that I am uncertain whether it was not a mere dream. If another person doubts the reality of an event recounted by me as an eyewitness, and does not distrust my honesty, he regards me as insane. Whoever, through frequently recounting an event that he originally fabricated, comes at last to believe in it himself, is really already insane on this one point. We can credit an insane person with flashes of wit, isolated shrewd ideas, even correct judgements, but we shall not attach any validity to his testimony as to past events. In the Lalita-Vistara, well known as the life story of the Buddha Sakyamuni, it is related that, at the moment of his birth, all the sick throughout the world became well, all the blind saw, all the deaf heard, and all the insane "recovered their memory." This last is even mentioned in two passages. [2]

My own experience of many years has led me to the conjecture that madness occurs in most frequent proportion among actors. But what an abuse these men make of their memory! Every day they have to learn a new part by heart, or brush up an old one; but these parts are entirely without connexion; in fact, they are in contradiction and contrast with one another, and every evening the actor strives to forget himself entirely, in order to be quite a different person. Things like this pave the way to madness.

The description of the origin of madness given in the text will become easier to understand, if we remember how reluctantly we think of things that powerfully prejudice our interests, wound our pride, or interfere with our wishes; with what difficulty we decide to lay such things before our own intellect for accurate and serious investigation; how easily, on the other hand, we unconsciously break away or sneak off from them again; how, on the contrary, pleasant affairs come into our minds entirely of their own accord, and, if driven away, always creep on us once more, so that we dwell on them for hours. In this resistance on the part of the will to allow what is contrary to it to come under the examination of the intellect is to be found the place where madness can break in on the mind. Every new adverse event must be assimilated by the intellect, in other words, must receive a place in the system of truths connected with our will and its interests, whatever it may have to displace that is more satisfactory. As soon as this is done, it pains us much less; but this operation itself is often very painful, and in most cases takes place only slowly and with reluctance. But soundness of mind can continue only in so far as this operation has been correctly carried out each time. On the other hand, if, in a particular case, the resistance and opposition of the will to the assimilation of some knowledge reaches such a degree that that operation is not clearly carried through; accordingly, if certain events or circumstances are wholly suppressed for the intellect, because the will cannot bear the sight of them; and then, if the resultant gaps are arbitrarily filled up for the sake of the necessary connexion; we then have madness. For the intellect has given up its nature to please the will; the person then imagines what does not exist. But the resultant madness then becomes the Lethe of unbearable sufferings; it was the last resource of worried and tormented nature, i.e., of the will.

I may here mention incidentally a proof of my view which is worthy of notice. Carlo Gozzi in the Mastro turchino, Act I, Scene 2, presents us with a person who has drunk a magic potion that produces forgetfulness; this person appears to be exactly like a madman.

In accordance with the above discussion, we can regard the origin of madness as a violent "casting out of one's mind" of something; yet this is possible only by a "putting into the head" of something else. The reverse process is rarer, namely that the "putting into the head" is the first thing, and the "casting out of the mind" the second. It takes place, however, in cases where a person keeps constantly present to his mind, and cannot get rid of, the cause of his insanity; thus, for example, in the case of many who have gone mad from love, erotomaniacs, where the cause is constantly longed for; also in the case of madness that has resulted from horror at a sudden, frightful occurrence. Such patients cling convulsively, so to speak, to the conceived idea, so that no other, at any rate none that opposes it, can arise. But in the two processes, what is essential to madness remains the same, namely the impossibility of a uniformly coherent recollection, such as is the basis of our healthy and rational reflection. Perhaps the contrast, here described, in the manner of origin might, if applied with judgement, afford a sharp and fundamental principle of division of delusion proper.

But I have taken into consideration only the psychic origin of madness, that is, of madness produced by external, objective occasions. Yet it depends more often on purely somatic causes, on malformations or partial disorganizations of the brain or its membranes, also on the influence exercised on the brain by other parts affected with disease. Mainly in the last kind of madness, false sense-perceptions, hallucinations, may arise. Each of the two causes of madness, however, will often have some of the characteristics of the other, particularly the psychic of the somatic. It is the same as with suicide; rarely can this be brought about by the external occasion alone, but a certain bodily discomfort underlies it, and according to the degree reached by this discomfort a greater or smaller external occasion is required. Only in the case of the highest degree of discomfort is no external occasion required at all. Therefore no misfortune is so great that it would induce everyone to commit suicide; and none so small that one like it may not already have led to suicide. I have discussed the psychic origin of madness, as brought about, at least according to all appearance, in the sound mind by a great misfortune. In the case of the person already strongly disposed to it somatically, a very trifling vexation will be sufficient to induce it. For example, I remember a man in a lunatic asylum who had been a soldier and had gone out of his mind because his officer had addressed him as Er. [3] In the case of marked bodily disposition, no occasion is required at all, when such a disposition has reached maturity. The madness that has sprung from merely psychic causes can possibly bring about, through the violent inversion of the course of thought that produces it, even a kind of paralysis or other depravation of some parts of the brain; and if this is not soon removed, it becomes permanent. Therefore madness is curable only at its beginning, not after a long time.

Pinel taught that there is a mania sine delirio, a frenzy without insanity; Esquirol disputed this, and since then much has been said both for and against it. The question can be decided only empirically. However, if such a state actually occurs, it is to be explained by the fact that the will periodically withdraws itself entirely from the government and guidance of the intellect, and consequently of the motives. In this way it then appears as a blind, impetuous, destructive force of nature, and accordingly manifests itself as the mania to annihilate everything that comes in its way. The will thus let loose is then like the river that has broken through the dam, the horse that has thrown its rider, the clock from which the checking screws are taken out. But only the faculty of reason, or reflective knowledge, is affected by this suspension, not intuitive knowledge, otherwise the will would remain entirely without guidance, and consequently the person would remain immovable. On the contrary, the man in a frenzy perceives objects, for he breaks loose on them; he is also conscious of his present action and remembers it afterwards. He is, however, entirely without reflection, and hence without any guidance through his faculty of reason. Consequently he is quite incapable of any consideration or regard for the absent, the past, and the future. When the attack is over, and his faculty of reason has regained its command, its functioning is correct and methodical, for its own activity is not deranged or damaged, only the will has found the means for withdrawing itself entirely from it for a while.

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Notes:

1. This chapter refers to the second half of § 36 of volume 1.

2. Rgya Tcher Rol Pa, Hist. de Bouddha Chakya Mouni, translated from the Tibetan by Foucaux, 1848, pp. 91 and 99.

3. Er was formerly used as a form of address to subordinates. [Tr.]

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CHAPTER XXXIII: Isolated Remarks on Natural Beauty [1]

What contributes among other things to make the sight of a beautiful landscape so exceedingly delightful, is the universal truth and consistency of nature. Here, of course, nature does not follow the guiding line of logic in the sequence and connexions of the grounds of knowledge, of antecedent and consequent clauses, of premisses and conclusions; yet she follows the analogous line of the law of causality in the visible connexion of causes and effects. Every modification, even the slightest, which an object receives through its position, foreshortening, concealment, distance, distribution of light and shade, linear and atmospheric perspective, and so on, is unerringly given through its effect on the eye, and is accurately taken into account. Here the Indian proverb "Every grain of rice casts its shadow" finds its confirmation. Therefore everything here shows itself so universally consistent and logical, exactly correct and methodical, coherent and connected, and scrupulously right; there are no shifts or subterfuges here. Now if we take into consideration the sight of a beautiful view merely as brain-phenomenon, then it is the only one of the complicated brain-phenomena which is always quite regular, methodical, faultless, unexceptionable, and perfect. For all the rest, especially our own operations of thought, are in the formal or material more or less affected with defects or inaccuracies. From this excellent quality of the sight of the beauties of nature is to be explained first the harmonious and thoroughly satisfying character of its impression, and then the favourable effect it has on the whole of our thinking. In this way our thinking becomes in its formal part more accurately disposed, and to a certain extent is purified, since that brain-phenomenon which alone is entirely faultless puts the brain generally into a wholly normal action, and the thinking now attempts to follow in the consistency, connexion, regularity, and harmony of all its processes that method of nature, after it has been brought thereby into the right inspiration. A beautiful view is therefore a cathartic of the mind, just as music is of one's feelings, according to Aristotle; and in its presence a person will think most correctly.

That the sight of a mountain range suddenly appearing before us so easily puts us into a serious, and even sublime, mood, may be due partly to the fact that the form of the mountains, and the outline of the range that results therefrom, are the only permanent line of the landscape; for the mountains alone defy the deterioration and dissolution that rapidly sweep away everything else, especially our own ephemeral person. Not that all this would appear in our clear consciousness at the sight of the mountain range, but an obscure feeling of it becomes the fundamental note of our mood.

I should like to know why it is that, whereas for the human form and countenance illumination from above is absolutely the most advantageous and that from below the most unfavourable, the very opposite holds good in respect of landscape nature.

Yet how aesthetic nature is! Every little spot entirely uncultivated and wild, in other words, left free to nature herself, however small it may be, if only man's paws leave it alone, is at once decorated by her in the most tasteful manner, is draped with plants, flowers, and shrubs, whose easy unforced manner, natural grace, and delightful grouping testify that they have not grown up under the rod of correction of the great egoist, but that nature has here been freely active. Every neglected little place at once becomes beautiful. On this rests the principle of English gardens, which is to conceal art as much as possible, so that it may look as if nature had been freely active. For only then is nature perfectly beautiful, in other words, shows in the greatest distinctness the objectification of the will-to-live that is still without knowledge. This will unfolds itself here in the greatest naivety, since the forms are not determined, as in the animal world, by external aims and ends, but only immediately by soil, climate, and a mysterious third something, by virtue of which so many plants that have sprung originally from the same soil and climate nevertheless show such varied forms and characters.

The immense difference between English, or more correctly Chinese, gardens and old French gardens, which are now becoming more and more rare, but still exist in a few splendid specimens, ultimately rests on the fact that the former are laid out in an objective, the latter in a subjective spirit. Thus, in the former the will of nature, as it objectifies itself in tree, shrub, mountain, and stretch of water, is brought to the purest possible expression of these its Ideas, and thus of its own inner being. In French gardens, on the other hand, only the will of the possessor is mirrored. It has subdued nature, so that, instead of her Ideas, she bears, as tokens of her slavery, forms in keeping with it, and forcibly imposed on her, such as clipped hedges, trees cut into all kinds of shapes, straight avenues, arcades, arches, and the like.

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Notes:

1. This chapter refers to § 38 of volume 1.

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CHAPTER XXXIV: On the Inner Nature of Art [1]

Not merely philosophy but also the fine arts work at bottom towards the solution of the problem of existence. For in every mind which once gives itself up to the purely objective contemplation of the world, a desire has been awakened, however concealed and unconscious, to comprehend the true nature of things, of life, and of existence. For this alone is of interest to the intellect as such, in other words, to the subject of knowing which has become free from the aims of the will and is therefore pure; just as for the subject, knowing as mere individual, only the aims and ends of the will have interest. For this reason the result of every purely objective, and so of every artistic, apprehension of things is an expression more of the true nature of life and of existence, more an answer to the question, "What is life?" Every genuine and successful work of art answers this question in its own way quite calmly and serenely. But all the arts speak only the naive and childlike language of perception, not the abstract and serious language of reflection; their answer is thus a fleeting image, not a permanent universal knowledge. Thus for perception, every work of art answers that question, every painting, every statue, every poem, every scene on the stage. Music also answers it, more profoundly indeed than do all the others, since in a language intelligible with absolute directness, yet not capable of translation into that of our faculty of reason, it expresses the innermost nature of all life and existence. Thus all the other arts together hold before the questioner an image or picture of perception and say: "Look here; this is life!" However correct their answer may be, it will yet always afford only a temporary, not a complete and final satisfaction. For they always give only a fragment, an example instead of the rule, not the whole which can be given only in the universality of the concept. Therefore it is the task of philosophy to give for the concept, and hence for reflection and in the abstract, a reply to that question, which on that very account is permanent and satisfactory for all time. Moreover we see here on what the relationship between philosophy and the fine arts rests, and can conclude from this to what extent the capacity for the two, though very different in its tendency and in secondary matters, is yet radically the same.

Accordingly, every work of art really endeavours to show us life and things as they are in reality; but these cannot be grasped directly by everyone through the mist of objective and subjective contingencies. Art takes away this mist.

The works of poets, sculptors, and pictorial or graphic artists generally contain an acknowledged treasure of profound wisdom, just because the wisdom of the nature of things themselves speaks from them. They interpret the utterances of things merely by elucidation and purer repetition. Therefore everyone who reads the poem or contemplates the work of art must of course contribute from his own resources towards bringing that wisdom to light. Consequently, he grasps only so much of the work as his capacity and culture allow, just as every sailor in a deep sea lets down the sounding-lead as far as the length of its line will reach. Everyone has to stand before a picture as before a prince, waiting to see whether it will speak and what it will say to him; and, as with the prince, so he himself must not address it, for then he would hear only himself. It follows from all this that all wisdom is certainly contained in the works of the pictorial or graphic arts, yet only virtualiter or implicite. Philosophy, on the other hand, endeavours to furnish the same wisdom actualiter and explicite; in this sense philosophy is related to these arts as wine is to grapes. What it promises to supply would be, so to speak, a clear gain already realized, a firm and abiding possession, whereas that which comes from the achievements and works of art is only one that is always to be produced afresh. But for this it makes discouraging demands, hard to fulfil not merely for those who are to produce its works, but also for those who are to enjoy them. Therefore its public remains small, while that of the arts is large.

The above-mentioned co-operation of the beholder, required for the enjoyment of a work of art, rests partly on the fact that every work of art can act only through the medium of the imagination. It must therefore excite the imagination, which can never be left out of the question and remain inactive. This is a condition of aesthetic effect, and therefore a fundamental law of all the fine arts. But it follows from this that not everything can be given directly to the senses through the work of art, but only as much as is required to lead the imagination on to the right path. Something, and indeed the final thing, must always be left over for it to do. Even the author must always leave something over for the reader to think; for Voltaire has very rightly said: Le secret d'etre ennuyeux, c'est de tout dire. [2] But in addition to this, the very best in art is too spiritual to be given directly to the senses; it must be born in the beholder's imagination, though it must be begotten by the work of art. It is due to this that the sketches of great masters are often more effective than their finished paintings. Of course another advantage contributes to this, namely that they are completed at one stroke in the moment of conception, whereas the finished painting is brought about only through continued effort by means of clever deliberation and persistent premeditation, for the inspiration cannot last until the painting is completed. From the fundamental aesthetic law we are considering, it can also be explained why wax figures can never produce an aesthetic effect, and are therefore not real works of fine art, although it is precisely in them that the imitation of nature can reach the highest degree. For they leave nothing over for the imagination. Thus sculpture gives the mere form without the colour; painting gives the colour, but the mere appearance of the form; therefore both appeal to the imagination of the beholder. The wax figure, on the contrary, gives everything, form and colour at the same time; from this arises the appearance of reality, and the imagination is left out of account. On the other hand, poetry appeals indeed to the imagination alone, and makes it active by means of mere words.

An arbitrary playing with the means of art without proper knowledge of the end is in every art the fundamental characteristic of bungling. Such bungling shows itself in the supports that carry nothing, in the purposeless volutes, prominences, and projections of bad architecture, in the meaningless runs and figures together with the aimless noise of bad music, in the jingling rhymes of verses with little or no meaning, and so on.

It follows from the previous chapter and from my whole view of art that its object is to facilitate knowledge of the Ideas of the world (in the Platonic sense, the only one which I recognize for the word Idea). But the Ideas are essentially something of perception, and therefore, in its fuller determinations, something inexhaustible. The communication of such a thing can therefore take place only on the path of perception, which is that of art. Therefore, whoever is imbued with the apprehension of an Idea is justified when he chooses art as the medium of his communication. The mere concept, on the other hand, is something completely determinable, hence something to be exhausted, something distinctly thought, which can be, according to its whole content, communicated coldly and dispassionately by words. Now to wish to communicate such a thing through a work of art is a very useless indirect course; in fact, it belongs to that playing with the means of art without knowledge of the end which I have just censured. Therefore, a work of art, the conception of which has resulted from mere, distinct concepts, is always ungenuine. If, when considering a work of plastic art, or reading a poem, or listening to a piece of music (which aims at describing something definite), we see the distinct, limited, cold, dispassionate concept glimmer and finally appear through all the rich resources of art, the concept which was the kernel of this work, the whole conception of the work having therefore consisted only in clearly thinking this concept, and accordingly being completely exhausted by its communication, then we feel disgust and indignation, for we see ourselves deceived and cheated of our interest and attention. We are entirely satisfied by the impression of a work of art only when it leaves behind something that, in spite of all our reflection on it, we cannot bring down to the distinctness of a concept. The mark of that hybrid origin from mere concepts is that the author of a work of art should have been able, before setting about it, to state in distinct words what he intended to present; for then it would have been possible to attain his whole end through these words themselves. It is therefore an undertaking as unworthy as it is absurd when, as has often been attempted at the present day, one tries to reduce a poem of Shakespeare or Goethe to an abstract truth, the communication whereof would have been the aim of the poem. Naturally the artist should think when arranging his work, but only that idea which was perceived before it was thought has suggestive and stimulating force when it is communicated, and thereby becomes immortal and imperishable. Hence we will not refrain from remarking that the work done at one stroke, like the previously mentioned sketches of painters, perfected in the inspiration of the first conception and drawn unconsciously as it were; likewise the melody that comes entirely without reflection and wholly as if by inspiration; finally also the lyrical poem proper, the mere song, in which the deeply felt mood of the present and the impression of the surroundings flow forth as if involuntarily in words, whose metre and rhyme are realized automatically -- that all these, I say, have the great merit of being the pure work of the rapture of the moment, of the inspiration, of the free impulse of genius, without any admixture of deliberation and reflection. They are therefore delightful and enjoyable through and through, without shell and kernel, and their effect is much more infallible than is that of the greatest works of art of slow and deliberate execution. In all these, e.g., in great historical paintings, long epic poems, great operas, and so on, reflection, intention, and deliberate selection play an important part. Understanding, technical skill, and routine must fill up here the gaps left by the conception and inspiration of genius, and all kinds of necessary subsidiary work must run through the really only genuine and brilliant parts as their cement. This explains why all such works, with the sole exception of the most perfect masterpieces of the very greatest masters (such as Hamlet, Faust, the opera Don Juan for example), inevitably contain an admixture of something insipid and tedious that restricts the enjoyment of them to some extent. Proofs of this are the Messiad, Gerusalemme Liberata, even Paradise Lost and the Aeneid; and Horace makes the bold remark: Quandoque dormitat bonus Homerus. [3] But that this is the case is a consequence of the limitation of human powers in general.

The mother of the useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts superfluity and abundance. As their father, the former have understanding, the latter genius, which is itself a kind of superfluity, that of the power of knowledge beyond the measure required for the service of the will.

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Notes:

1. This chapter refers to § 49 of volume 1.

2. "The secret of being dull and tedious consists in our saying everything." [Tr.]

3. "[I am mortified] whenever the great Homer sleeps." (Ars Poetica, 359.) [Tr.]

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CHAPTER XXXV: On the Aesthetics of Architecture [1]

In accordance with the derivation, given in the text, of the pure aesthetics of architecture from the lowest grades of the will's objectification, or of nature, whose Ideas it attempts to bring to distinct perceptibility, its sole and constant theme is support and load. Its fundamental law is that no load may be without sufficient support, and no support without a suitable load; consequently, that the relation between these two may be the exactly appropriate one. The purest execution of this theme is column and entablature; hence the order of columns has become, so to speak, the thorough-bass of the whole of architecture. In column and entablature, support and load are completely separated, and in this way the reciprocal effect of the two and their relation to each other become apparent. For even every plain and simple wall certainly contains support and load, but there the two are still amalgamated. Everything is support and everything load; and so there is no aesthetic effect. This first appears through separation, and turns out according to the degree of such separation. For there are many intermediate stages between the row of columns and the plain wall. In breaking through the wall of a house merely for windows and doors, we attempt at least to indicate that separation by flat projecting pilasters (antae) with capitals, which are substituted for the moulding, and are, if need be, represented by mere painting, in order to express somehow the entablature and an order of columns. Actual pillars, as well as consoles and supports of various kinds, further realize that pure separation of support and load to which architecture in general aspires. In this respect the vault with the pillar stands nearest to the column with the entablature, but as a characteristic construction that does not imitate them. The former, of course, are far from attaining the aesthetic effect of the latter, because in them support and load are not yet clearly separated, but pass over and merge into each other. In the vault itself, every stone is simultaneously load and support, and even the pillars, especially in the groined vault, are maintained in their position, apparently at least, by the pressure of opposite arches; and also, just on account of this lateral pressure, not only vaults, but even mere arches should not rest on columns; rather they require the more massive, four-cornered pillars. Only in the row of columns is the separation complete, since the entablature appears here as pure load, and the column as pure support. Accordingly, the relation of the colonnade to the plain wall is comparable to that which would exist between a scale ascending at regular intervals, and a tone ascending little by little and without gradations from the same depth to the same height, which would produce a mere howl. For in the one as in the other the material is the same, and the immense difference results only from the pure separation.

Moreover, the support is not adequate to the load when it is only just sufficient to carry it, but when it is able to do this so comfortably and abundantly that at the first glance we are perfectly at ease about it. Even this excess of support, however, may not surpass a certain degree, otherwise we perceive support without load, and this is opposed to the aesthetic aim. For determining that degree, the ancients devised as a rule the line of equilibrium. This is obtained by continuing the gradual diminution of the thickness of the column as we go from the bottom to the top, until it runs out into an acute angle. In this way the column becomes a cone; any cross-section will now leave the lower part so strong that it is sufficient to carry the upper part cut off. But buildings are constructed with a stability factor of twenty, that is to say, on every support is laid only one-twentieth of what it could carry as a maximum. A glaring example of load without support is presented to the eye by the balconies that stick out at the corners of many houses built in the "elegant" style of today. We do not see what carries them; they appear suspended, and disturb the mind.

In Italy even the simplest and plainest buildings make an aesthetic impression, but in Germany they do not; this is due mainly to the fact that in Italy the roofs are very flat. A high roof is neither support nor load, for its two halves mutually support each other, but the whole has no weight corresponding to its extension. It therefore presents to the eye an extended mass; this is wholly foreign to the aesthetic end, serves a merely useful purpose, and consequently disturbs the aesthetic, the theme of which is always support and load alone.

The form of the column has its basis solely in that it affords the simplest and most suitable support. In the twisted column unsuitability appears as if intentionally defiant, and thus shamelessly; therefore at the first glance good taste condemns it. The four-cornered pillar has unequal dimensions of thickness, as the diagonal exceeds the sides. These dimensions have no aim or end as their motive, but are occasioned by a feasibility that happens to be easier; and on this very account, the four-cornered pillar pleases us very much less than the column does. Even the hexagonal or octagonal pillar is more agreeable, because it approximates more closely to the round column; for the form of the column alone is determined exclusively by the aim or end. But it is so determined in all its other proportions, above all in the relation of its thickness to its height, within the limits allowed by the difference of the three orders of columns. Then its tapering off from the first third of its height upwards, and also a slight swelling at this very spot (entasis Vitr.) rest on the pressure of the load being greatest there. Formerly it was thought that this swelling was peculiar to Ionic and Corinthian columns, but recent measurements have shown it also in Doric, even at Paestum. Thus everything in the column, its quite definite form, the proportion of its height to its thickness, of both to the intervals between the columns, and that of the whole row to the entablature and the load resting on it, all are the accurately calculated result from the ratio of the necessary support to the given load. Because the load is uniformly distributed, so must the supports be; for this reason, groups of columns are in bad taste. On the other hand, in the best Doric temples the corner column comes somewhat nearer to the next one, because the meeting of the entablatures at the corner increases the load. But in this way the principle of architecture clearly expresses itself, namely that the structural proportions, i.e., those between support and load, are the essentials, to which those of symmetry, as being subordinate, must at once give way. According to the weight of the whole load generally, the Doric or the two lighter orders of columns will be chosen, for the first order is calculated for heavier loads, not only through its greater thickness, but also through the closer arrangement of the columns essential to it, and even the almost crude simplicity of its capital is suitable for this purpose. The capitals generally are intended to show visibly that the columns carry the entablature, and are not stuck in like pins; at the same time they increase the bearing surface by means of their abacus. Now all the laws of columnar arrangement, and consequently the form and proportion of the column in all its parts and dimensions down to the smallest detail, follow from the conception of the adequately appropriate support to a given load, a conception well understood and consistently followed out; therefore to this extent they are determined a priori. It is then clear how absurd is the idea, so often repeated, that the trunks of trees or even the human form (as unfortunately stated even by Vitruvius, iv, 1) were the prototype of the column. The form of the column would then be for architecture a purely accidental one taken from outside; but such a form could not appeal to us so harmoniously and satisfactorily, whenever we behold it in its proper symmetry; nor, on the other hand, could even every slight disproportion in it be felt at once by the fine and cultivated sense. as disagreeable and disturbing, like a false note in music. On the contrary, this is possible only by all the rest being determined essentially a priori, according to the given end and means, just as in music the whole harmony is essentially determined according to the given melody and key. And, like music, architecture generally is also not an imitative art, although both have often been falsely regarded as such.

As was fully discussed in the text, aesthetic satisfaction everywhere rests on the apprehension of a (Platonic) Idea. For architecture, considered only as fine art, the Ideas of the lowest grades of nature, that is, gravity, rigidity, and cohesion, are the proper theme, but not, as has been assumed hitherto, merely regular form, proportion, and symmetry. These are something purely geometrical, properties of space, not Ideas; therefore they cannot be the theme of a fine art. Thus they are also in architecture of only secondary origin, and have a subordinate significance that I shall now bring out. If it were the task of architecture as a fine art simply to exhibit these, the model would of necessity produce the same effect as the finished work. But this is by no means the case; on the contrary, to have an aesthetic effect, works of architecture must throughout be of considerable size; indeed, they can never be too large, but they can easily be too small. In fact, ceteris paribus, the aesthetic effect is in direct proportion to the size of the buildings, because only great masses make the effectiveness of gravitation apparent and impressive in a high degree. This once more confirms my view that the tendency and antagonism of those fundamental forces of nature constitute the proper aesthetic material of architecture; and by its nature, such material requires large masses, in order to become visible, and indeed to be capable of being felt. As was shown above in the case of the column, the forms in architecture are primarily determined by the immediate structural purpose of each part. But in so far as this leaves anything undetermined, the law of the most perfect perceptibility, hence of the easiest comprehensibility, comes in; for architecture has its existence primarily in our spatial perception, and accordingly appeals to our a priori faculty for this. This comprehensibility, however, always results from the greatest regularity of the forms and the rationality of their proportions. Accordingly, beautiful architecture selects nothing but regular figures, made from straight lines or regular curves, and likewise the bodies that result from these, such as cubes, parallelepipeds, cylinders, spheres, pyramids, and cones; as openings, however, sometimes circles or ellipses, yet as a rule squares, and even more often rectangles, the latter of extremely rational and quite easily intelligible proportion of their sides (not, for instance, as 6:7, but as 1:2, 2:3); finally also recesses or niches of regular and intelligible proportion. For the same reason, it will readily give to the buildings themselves and their large parts a rational and easily intelligible relation of height to width. For example, it will let the height of a fa9ade be half the width, and place the columns so that every three or four of them with their intervals will measure a line equal to the height, and thus form a square. The same principle of perceptibility and ready comprehensibility also requires that a building should be easily visible at a glance. This produces symmetry which is also necessary to mark out the work as a whole, and to distinguish its essential from its accidental limitation. For example, sometimes it is only under the guidance of symmetry that we know whether we have before us three buildings standing side by side or only one. Thus only by means of symmetry does a work of architecture announce itself at once as an individual unity, and as the development of a main idea.

Now although, as was shown above in passing, architecture has not by any means to imitate the forms of nature, such as tree-trunks or even human figures and forms, it should nevertheless create in the spirit of nature, especially by making its own the law that natura nihil agit frustra, nihilque supervacaneum, et quod commodissimum in omnibus suis operationibus sequitur. [2] Accordingly it avoids everything purposeless, even when it is only apparently so, and it attains the end in view, whether this be purely architectural, i.e., structural, or one that concerns usefulness, always by the shortest and most natural path; thus it openly exhibits this end or aim through the work itself. In this way it attains a certain grace, analogous to that which in living creatures consists in the nimbleness and suitability of every movement and position to its purpose. Accordingly, we see in the good antique style of architecture every part, whether pillar, column, arch, entablature, or door, window, staircase, or balcony, attain its end in the simplest and most direct way, at the same time openly and naively displaying it, just as is done by organic nature in its works. On the other hand, the tasteless style of architecture looks in everything for useless roundabout ways, and delights in arbitrary methods. In this way it hits upon aimlessly broken entablatures running in and out, grouped columns, fragmentary cornices on door arches and gables, senseless volutes, spirals, and the like. It plays with the means of art without understanding the ends, just as children play with the implements of adults; and this was described above as the characteristic of bungling. Of this kind is every interruption of a straight line, every alteration in the sweep of a curve, without apparent purpose. On the other hand, it is just that naive simplicity in the presentation and attainment of the end in view, corresponding to the spirit in which nature creates and fashions, which imparts to ancient earthenware vessels such beauty and grace of form that we are always astonished at them afresh. This is because it contrasts so nobly in original taste with our modern vessels which bear the stamp of vulgarity, it matters not whether they are formed from porcelain or from coarse potter's clay. When looking at the vessels and implements of the ancients we feel that, if nature had wanted to fashion such things, she would have done so in these forms. Therefore, as we see the beauty of architecture arise from the undisguised presentation of the ends and from their attainment in the shortest and most natural way, my theory here comes into direct contradiction with Kant's. His theory places the essence of everything beautiful in an apparent appropriateness without purpose.

The sole theme of architecture here stated, namely support and load, is so very simple that, on this very account, this art, in so far as it is a fine art (but not in so far as it serves useful ends), has been perfect and complete in essential matters since the best Greek period; at any rate, it has no longer been capable of any important enrichment. On the other hand, the modern architect cannot noticeably depart from the rules and models of the ancients without being on the path of degeneration. Therefore there is nothing left for him to do but to apply the art handed down by the ancients, and to carry out its rules in so far as this is possible under the limitations inevitably imposed on him by want, need, climate, age, and his country. For in this art, as in sculpture, to aspire to the ideal is identical with imitating the ancients.

I scarcely need remind the reader that, in all these discussions on architecture, I have had only the architectural style of the ancients in view, and not the so-called Gothic style, which is of Saracen origin, and was introduced to the rest of Europe by the Goths in Spain. Perhaps a certain beauty of its kind is not to be totally denied even to this style; for it to undertake to set itself up, however, as the equal in status of the ancient style, is a barbarous presumption that must not for one moment be allowed. After we have contemplated such Gothic magnificence, how wholesome is the effect on the mind of looking at a building correctly carried out in the style of the ancients! We at once feel that this alone is right and true. If we could bring an ancient Greek before our most famous Gothic cathedrals, what would he say to them? [x]! Our pleasure in Gothic works certainly rests for the most part on the association of ideas and on historical reminiscences, and hence on a feeling foreign to art. All that I have said about the really aesthetic aim, about the meaning and theme of architecture, loses its validity in the case of these works. For the freely lying entablature has vanished, and the column with it; support and load, arranged and distributed in order to make clear the conflict between rigidity and gravity, are no longer the theme. Moreover, the universal, pure rationality, by virtue of which everything admits of strict account, in fact already presents it to the thoughtful beholder as a matter of course, and which belongs to the character of the ancient style of architecture, is no longer to be found here. We soon become conscious that, instead of it, an arbitrary will has ruled, guided by extraneous concepts; and so much remains unexplained to us. For only the ancient style of architecture is conceived in a purely objective sense; the Gothic is more in the subjective. We have recognized the real, aesthetic, fundamental idea of ancient architecture to be the unfolding of the conflict between rigidity and gravity; but if we try to discover an analogous fundamental idea in Gothic architecture, it will have to be that the entire subjugation and conquest of gravity by rigidity are there to be exhibited. For according to this the horizontal line, which is that of the load, has almost entirely vanished, and the action of gravity appears only indirectly, disguised in arches and vaults; whereas the vertical line, which is that of the support, alone prevails, and renders palpable to the senses the victorious action of rigidity in excessively high buttresses, towers, turrets, and spires without number, rising unencumbered. Whereas in ancient architecture the tendency and pressure from above downwards are represented and exhibited just as well as those from below upwards, in Gothic architecture the latter decidedly predominate. From this arises that often-observed analogy with the crystal, whose formation also takes place with the overcoming of gravity. Now if we attributed this meaning and fundamental idea to Gothic architecture, and thereby tried to set it up as the equally justified antithesis to ancient architecture, it would have to be remembered that the conflict between rigidity and gravity, so openly and naively displayed by ancient architecture, is an actual and true one established in nature. On the other hand, the entire subjugation of gravity by rigidity remains a mere pretence, a fiction testified by illusion. Everyone will easily be able to see clearly how the mysterious and hyperphysical character attributed to Gothic architecture arises from the fundamental idea here expressed, and from the above-mentioned peculiarities of this architecture. As already mentioned, it arises mainly from the fact that the arbitrary has here taken the place of the purely rational, proclaiming itself as the thorough appropriateness of the means to the end. The many really purposeless things that are nevertheless so carefully perfected give rise to the assumption of unknown, inscrutable, secret ends, i.e., of the appearance of mystery. On the other hand, the brilliant side of Gothic churches is the interior, because there the effect of the groined vault impresses the mind. This vault is borne by slender, crystalline, aspiring pillars, and, with the disappearance of the load, promises eternal security. But most of the drawbacks mentioned are to be found on the outside. In ancient buildings the external side is the more advantageous, because support and load are seen better there; in the interior, on the other hand, the flat ceiling always retains something depressing and prosaic. In spite of many large outworks, the actual interior in the temples of the ancients was for the most part small. A more sublime touch was obtained by the spherical vault of a cupola, as in the Pantheon. The Italians, building in this style, have therefore made the most extensive use of this. In agreement with this is the fact that the ancients, as southern races, lived more in the open than the northern nations, who preferred Gothic architecture. But he who wishes to admit Gothic architecture as an essential and justified form may, if he is at the same time fond of analogies, call it the negative pole of architecture, or even its minor key. In the interest of good taste, I am bound to wish that great wealth be devoted to what is objectively, i.e., actually, good and right, to what in itself is beautiful, not to that whose value rests merely on the association of ideas. Now when I see how this unbelieving age so diligently finishes the Gothic churches left uncompleted by the believing Middle Ages, it seems to me as if it were desired to embalm a Christianity that has expired.

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Notes:

1. This chapter refers to § 43 of volume 1.

2. "Nature does nothing in vain and nothing superfluous, and in all her operations she follows the most convenient path." [Tr.]

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CHAPTER XXXVI: Isolated Remarks on the Aesthetics of the Plastic and Pictorial Arts [1]

In sculpture beauty and grace are the main thing; but in painting expression, passion, and character predominate; therefore just so much of the claims of beauty must be given up. For a universal beauty of all forms, such as sculpture demands, would detract from the characteristic, and would also weary through monotony. Accordingly painting may depict even ugly faces and emaciated figures; sculpture, on the contrary, demands beauty, though not always perfect, but in every way strength and fulness of the figures. Consequently, an emaciated Christ on the cross, a dying St. Jerome wasted through age and disease, like the masterpiece of Domenichino, is a suitable subject for painting. But Donatello's marble figure of John the Baptist reduced to skin and bone through fasting, which is in the gallery at Florence, has a repulsive effect, in spite of its masterly execution. From this point of view, sculpture appears to be suitable for the affirmation of the will-to-live, painting for its denial; and we might explain from this why sculpture was the art of the ancients, painting that of Christian times.

In connexion with the explanation given in § 45 of volume one, that discovering, recognizing, and fixing the type of human beauty rest on a certain anticipation of it, and are therefore established partly a priori, I find I have still to emphasize the fact that this anticipation nevertheless requires experience, in order to be roused by it. This is analogous to the instinct of animals, which, although guiding the action a priori, nevertheless requires in its particulars the determination through motives. Experience and reality thus present human forms to the artist's intellect, and in these forms nature has been more or less successful in one part or another. He is asked, as it were, for his judgement of them, and experience and reality, according to the Socratic method, call forth the distinct and definite knowledge of the ideal from that obscure anticipation. Therefore it was certainly of great assistance to the Greek sculptors that the climate and custom of the country gave them throughout the day an opportunity to see half-nude forms, and in the gymnasia even completely nude ones. In this way, every limb invited their plastic sense to a criticism and comparison of it with the ideal that lay undeveloped in their consciousness. Thus they constantly exercised their judgement in all forms and limbs down to their finest shades of difference. In this way, their anticipation of the ideal of human beauty, originally only a dull one, could gradually be raised to such distinct consciousness that they become capable of objectifying it in the work of art. In an entirely analogous way the poet's own experiellce is useful and necessary to him for the presentation of characters. For although he does not work according to experience and empirical notes, but according to the clear consciousness of the true nature of mankind, as he finds this within himself, experience nevertheless serves this consciousness as the pattern, and gives it stimulation and practice. Therefore his knowledge of human nature and of its varieties, although proceeding mainly a priori and by anticipation, nevertheless first obtains life, precision, and range through experience. But taking our stand on the previous book and on chapter 44 of the following, we can go still more to the root of that marvellous sense of beauty of the Greeks, which enabled them alone of all nations on earth to discover the true normal type of the human form, and accordingly to set up for the imitation of all ages the standards of beauty and grace; and we can say that that which, if it remains unseparated from the will, gives sexual impulse with its discriminating selection, i.e., sexual love (which, as we know, was subject to great aberrations among the Greeks), becomes the objective sense of beauty for the human form, when, by reason of the presence of an abnormally preponderating intellect, it detaches itself from the will, and yet remains active. This sense shows itself primarily as a critical sense of art, but it can rise to the discovery and presentation of the pattern of all parts and proportions, as was the case in Phidias, Praxiteles, Scopas, and others. Then is fulfilled what Goethe represents the artist as saying:

That I with mind divine
And human hand
May be able to form
What with my wife
As animal I can and must.

And once again, analogous to this, just that which, if it remained unseparated from the will, would in the poet give mere worldly prudence, becomes, when it separates itself from the will through abnormal preponderance of the intellect, the capacity for objective, dramatic presentation.

Whatever modern sculpture may achieve, it is yet analogous to modern Latin poetry, and like this it is a child of imitation, sprung from reminiscences. If it presumes to try to be original, it at once goes astray, especially on the fatal path of forming in accordance with nature as it is found, instead of in accordance with the proportions of the ancients. Canova, Thorwaldsen, and many others are to be compared with Johannes Secundus and Owenus. It is just the same with architecture, but there it is founded in the art itself, whose purely aesthetic part is of small extent, and was already exhausted by the ancients. Therefore the modern architect can distinguish himself only in its wise application; and he ought to know that he always departs from good taste, inasmuch as he removes himself from the style and standard of the Greeks.

Considered only in so far as it aims at producing the appearance of reality, the art of the painter is ultimately reducible to the fact that he knows how to separate clearly what in vision or seeing is the mere sensation, that is, the affection of the retina, i.e., the only directly given effect, from its cause, i.e., from the objects of the external world, the perception whereof first of all originates in the understanding from this effect. If there is technical skill in addition, he is then in a position to produce the same effect in the eye through an entirely different cause, by laying on patches of colour. The same perception then arises again from this in the understanding of the beholder through the inevitable reference to the ordinary cause.

When we consider how something so entirely primary, so thoroughly original, is to be found in every human countenance, and how this reveals an entirety that can belong only to a unity consisting of nothing but necessary parts, by virtue of which we again recognize a known individual out of so many thousands, even after many years, although the possible varieties of human facial features, especially of one race, lie within extremely narrow limits, we cannot help doubting whether anything of such essential unity and of such great originality could ever arise from any other source than the mysterious depths of the inner being of nature. But it would follow from this that no artist would be capable of actually devising the original peculiarity of a human countenance, or even putting it together from reminiscences in accordance with nature. Accordingly, what he brought about in this way would always be only a half true, perhaps indeed an impossible, combination; for how could he put together an actual physiognomical unity, when the principle of that unity is really unknown to him? Accordingly, in the case of every face that is merely devised by an artist, we must doubt whether it is in fact a possible face, and whether nature, as the master of all masters, would not declare it to be a piece of bungling by demonstrating absolute contradictions in it. This would certainly lead to the principle that in historical pictures only portraits should always figure; these would then have to be selected with the greatest care, and would have to some extent to be idealized. It is well known that great artists have always gladly painted from living models, and have made many portraits.

Although, as stated in the text, the real purpose of painting, as of art generally, is to facilitate for us the comprehension of the (Platonic) Ideas of the nature of this world, whereby we are at the same time put into the state of pure, i.e., will-less, knowing, there yet belongs to it in addition a separate beauty independent of this. That beauty is produced by the mere harmony of the colours, the agreeable aspect of the grouping, the favourable distribution of light and shade, and the tone of the whole picture. This accompanying and subordinate kind of beauty promotes the condition of pure knowing, and is in painting what diction, metre, and rhyme are in poetry; thus both are not what is essential, but what acts first and immediately.

I produce a few more proofs in support of my judgement, given in § 50 of volume one, concerning the inadmissibility of allegory in painting. In the Palazzo Borghese in Rome, we find this picture by Michelangelo Caravaggio. Jesus, as a child of about ten, treads on the head of a snake, but entirely without fear and with the greatest calmness; and his mother who accompanies him remains equally unconcerned. Close by stands St. Elizabeth, solemnly and tragically looking up to heaven. Now what could be thought of this kyriological hieroglyphic by a person who had never heard anything about the seed of the woman that was to bruise the serpent's head? In Florence, in the library of the Palazzo Riccardi, we find an allegory painted on the ceiling by Luca Giordano. It is supposed to signify Science freeing the understanding from the bonds of ignorance. The understanding is a strong man bound with cords that are just falling off; one nymph holds a mirror in front of him, and another offers him a large detached wing. Above them Science sits on a globe, and beside her the naked Truth with a globe in her hand. At Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart, a picture shows us Time, as Saturn, cutting off Cupid's wings with a pair of shears. If this is supposed to signify that, when we grow old, instability in love declares itself, then this no doubt is quite true.

The following may serve to strengthen my solution of the problem why Laocoon does not cry out. As a matter of fact, we can convince ourselves of the unsuitable effect of representing shrieking in the works of plastic and pictorial art, which are essentially mute, in the Massacre of the Innocents by Guido Reni, which is to be found in the Academy of Arts in Bologna, where this great artist has made the mistake of painting six shrieking gaping mouths. Let anyone who wishes to have this even more distinct, think of a pantomimic performance on the stage, with an urgent occasion in one of the scenes for one of the players to shriek. Now if the dancer representing this part wished to express the shriek by standing for a while with his mouth wide open, the loud laughter of the whole house would testify to the thing's absurdity. As Laocoon's shrieking had to be omitted, for reasons to be found not in the object to be presented, but in the nature of the art presenting it, the problem accordingly arose how the artist could present the motive of this not-shrieking in such a way as to make it plausible to us that a person in such a position would not shriek. He solved this problem by representing the bite of the snake not as having already taken place, or even as still threatening, but as happening just at the moment, and in fact in the side. For in this way the abdomen is drawn in, and shrieking is therefore made impossible. This first, but really only secondary and subordinate, reason was correctly discovered by Goethe, and explained by him at the end of the eleventh book of his autobiography, as well as in the essay on Laocoon in the first part of the Propylaea; but the more distant and primary reason that conditions this one is that which I expound. I cannot refrain from remarking that here again I stand in the same relation to Goethe as I did with regard to the theory of colour. In the collection of the Duke of Aremberg in Brussels there is an antique head of Laocoon which was discovered later. But the head in the world-famous group is not a restored one, as may be concluded from Goethe's special table of all the restorations of this group, which is found at the end of volume one of the Propylaea; moreover, this is confirmed by the fact that the head found later is very much like the head of the group. We must therefore assume that yet another antique repetition of the group existed, to which the Aremberg head belonged. In my opinion this head surpasses that of the group in both beauty and expression. It has the mouth considerably more wide open than has the head in the group, yet not to the extent of really shrieking.

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Notes:

1. This chapter refers to §§ 44-50 of volume 1.

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CHAPTER XXXVII: On the Aesthetics of Poetry [1]

I would like to lay down, as the simplest and most correct definition of poetry, that it is the art of bringing into play the power of imagination through words. I have stated in § 51 of volume one how it brings this about. A special confirmation of what is there said is afforded by the following passage from a letter which Wieland wrote to Merck, and which has since been published: "I have spent two and a half days on a single stanza, where at bottom the whole thing rested on a single word that I needed and could not find. I turned and twisted the thing and my brain in all directions, because, where it is a question of graphic description, I should naturally like to bring the same definite vision that floated before my mind, before the mind of my readers also, and for this, ut nosti, [2] everything often depends on a single touch, or relief, or reflex." (Briefe an Merck, ed. Wagner, 1835, p. 193.) As the reader's imagination is the material in which poetry presents its pictures, this has the advantage that the more detailed development and finer touches take place in the imagination of everyone as is most appropriate to his individuality, his sphere of knowledge, and his frame of mind; and so it moves him most vividly. Instead of this, the plastic and pictorial arts cannot adapt themselves in this way, but here one picture or one form is to satisfy all. But this will always bear in some respect the stamp of the individuality of the artist or his model, as a subjective or accidental, yet not effective, addition; though this will be less the case, the more objective, in other words the more of a genius, the artist is. This partly explains why the works of poetry exercise a much stronger, deeper, and more universal effect than pictures and statues do. These often leave ordinary people quite cold, and in general it is the plastic arts that have the weakest effect. A curious proof of this is afforded by the frequent discovery of pictures by great masters in private houses and in all kinds of localities, where they have been hanging for many generations, not exactly buried and concealed, but merely unheeded, and so without effect. In my own time in Florence (1823), even a Madonna by Raphael was discovered which had hung for a great number of years on the wall of the servants' hall of a palace (in the Quartiere di S. Spirito); and this happens among Italians, who beyond all other nations are gifted with a sense of the beautiful. It shows how little direct and sudden effect the works of the plastic and pictorial arts have, and that an appreciation of them requires far more culture and knowledge than is required for all the other arts. On the other hand, how unfailingly a beautiful melody, which touches the heart, makes its journey round the world, and how an excellent poem travels from one nation to another! The great and the wealthy devote their most powerful support to the plastic and pictorial arts, and spend considerable sums only on their works; indeed, at the present day, an idolatry in the proper sense sacrifices the value of a large estate for a picture of a celebrated old master. This rests mainly on the rarity of the masterpieces, the possession of which therefore gratifies pride; and on the fact that their enjoyment demands very little time and effort, and is ready at any moment for a moment; whereas poetry and even music lay down incomparably more onerous conditions. Accordingly, the plastic and pictorial arts may be dispensed with; whole peoples, for example the Mohammedans, are without them; but no people is without music and poetry.

But the intention with which the poet sets our imagination in motion is to reveal to us the Ideas, in other words, to show in an example what life is, what the world is. For this the first condition is that he himself should have known it; according as this has been the case profoundly or superficially, so will his poem turn out. Therefore, just as there are innumerable degrees of depth and clearness in the comprehension of things, so are there of poets. Yet each of these must regard himself as excellent in so far as he has correctly presented what he knew, and his picture corresponds to his original. He must put himself on a level with the best, since in the picture of the best he does not recognize more than in his own, namely as much as in nature herself; for his glance does not now penetrate more deeply. But the best person recognizes himself as such in the fact that he sees how shallow was the glance of others, how much still lay behind this which they were unable to reproduce, because they did not see it, and how much farther his glance and picture reach. If he understood the shallow and superficial as little as they understand him, he would of necessity despair; for just because it requires an extraordinary man to do him justice, but inferior poets are as little able to appreciate him as he them, he too has to live for a long time on his own approbation, before that of the world follows. However, he is deprived even of his own approbation, since he is expected to be pleasantly modest. But it is just as impossible for a man who has merits, and knows what they cost, to be himself blind to them, as it is for a man six feet tall not to notice that he towers above others. If it is three hundred feet from the base of a tower to its summit, then it is certainly just as much from the summit to the base. Horace, Lucretius, Ovid, and almost all the ancients spoke of themselves with pride, and so did Dante, Shakespeare, Bacon, and many others. That a man can have a great mind without his noticing something of it is an absurdity of which only hopeless incompetence can persuade itself, in order that it may also regard as modesty the feeling of its own insignificance. An Englishman has wittily and correctly observed that merit and modesty have nothing in common but the initial letter. [*] I always suspect modest celebrities that they may well be right; and Corneille says plainly:

La fausse humilite ne met plus en credit:
Je scais ce que je vaux, et crois ce qu'on m'en dit. [3]

Finally, Goethe has frankly said that "only knaves and wretches are modest." But even more unerring would have been the assertion that those who so eagerly demand modesty from others, insist on modesty, and are for ever exclaiming "Only be modest, for God's sake, only be modest!" are certainly knaves and wretches. In other words, they are creatures wholly without merit, nature's manufactured articles, ordinary members of the rabble of humanity. For he who has merits himself does not question merits -- genuine and real ones of course. But he who himself lacks all merits and points of excellence, wishes there were none. The sight of them in others racks and torments him; pale, green, yellow envy consumes his heart; he would like to annihilate and exterminate all who are personally favoured. But if, alas!, he must let them live, it must be only on condition that they conceal, wholly deny, and even renounce their merits. This, then, is the root of the frequent eulogizing of modesty. And if those who deliver such eulogies have the opportunity to stifle merit at birth, or at any rate to prevent it from showing itself, from becoming known, who will doubt that they will do it? For this is their theory in practice.

Now, although the poet, like every artist, always presents us only with the particular, the individual, yet what he knew and wants through his work to let us know is the (Platonic) Idea, the whole species. Therefore in his pictures or images, as it were, the type of human characters and situations will be strongly marked. The narrative as well as the dramatic poet takes from life that which is quite particular and individual, and describes it accurately in its individuality; but in this way he reveals the whole of human existence, since, though he appears to be concerned with the particular, he is actually concerned with that which is everywhere and at all times. From this it arises that sentences, especially of the dramatic poets, even without being general apophthegms, find frequent application in real life. Poetry is related to philosophy as experience is to empirical science. Thus experience makes us acquainted with the phenomenon in the particular and by way of example; science embraces the totality of the phenomenon by means of universal concepts. Thus poetry tries to make us acquainted with the (Platonic) Ideas of beings by means of the particular and by way of example. Philosophy aims at making us acquainted with the inner nature of things that expresses itself in these. Here we see that poetry bears more the character of youth, philosophy that of age. In fact, the gift of poetry really flourishes only in youth; also in youth susceptibility to poetry is often passionate. The young man delights in verses as such, and is often satisfied with modest wares. This tendency gradually diminishes with the years, and in old age prose is preferred. Through this poetical tendency of youth the sense for reality is then easily impaired. For poetry differs from reality by the fact that in it life flows by interesting and yet painless; in reality, on the contrary, life is uninteresting so long as it is painless; but as soon as it becomes interesting, it does not remain without pain. The youth who has been initiated into poetry before being initiated into reality, now demands from the latter that which only the former can achieve. This is a principal source of the discontent that oppresses the most gifted youths.

Metre and rhyme are a fetter, but also a veil which the poet casts round himself, and under which he is permitted to speak as otherwise he would not dare to do; and this is what delights us. Thus he is only half responsible for all that he says; metre and rhyme must answer for the other half. Metre or measure, as mere rhythm, has its essence only in time, which is a pure intuition a priori; hence, in the language of Kant, it belongs merely to pure sensibility. Rhyme, on the other hand, is a matter of sensation in the organ of hearing, and thus of empirical sensibility. Therefore rhythm is a much nobler and worthier expedient than rhyme, which the ancients accordingly despised, and which found its origin in the imperfect languages resulting from the corruption of the earlier languages of barbarous times. The poorness of French poetry is due mainly to its being restricted to rhyme alone without metre; and it is increased by the fact that, in order to conceal its want of means, it has made rhyming more difficult through a number of pedantic regulations. For example, there is the rule that only syllables written in the same way rhyme, as if it were for the eye and not for the ear; that hiatus is forbidden; that a large number of words may not be used, and many others, to all of which the modern school of French poetry is trying to put a stop. But in no language, at any rate for me, does rhyme make so pleasant and powerful an impression as in Latin; the rhymed Latin poems of the Middle Ages have a peculiar charm. This is to be explained from the fact that the Latin language is incomparably more perfect, more beautiful, and more noble than any modern language, and that it moves along so gracefully in the ornaments and spangles which really belong to the latter, and it itself originally disdained.

To serious reflection, it might appear to be almost high treason against our faculty of reason, when even the smallest violence is done to an idea or to its correct and pure expression, with the childish intention that, after a few syllables, the same word-sound may again be heard, or even that these syllables themselves may present a certain hop and jump. But without such violence, very few verses would result, for to this it must be ascribed that in foreign languages verses are very much harder to understand than prose. If we could see into the secret workshop of the poets, we should find that the idea is sought for the rhyme ten times more often than the rhyme for the idea; and even in the latter case, it does not come off easily without flexibility on the part of the idea. But the art of verse bids defiance to these considerations; moreover, it has on its side all ages and nations, so great is the power that metre and rhyme exercise on the feelings, and so effective the mysterious lenocinium [4] peculiar to them. I might explain this from the fact that a happily rhymed verse, through its indescribably emphatic effect, excites the feeling as if the idea expressed in it already lay predestined, or even preformed, in the language, and the poet had only to discover it. Even trivial flashes of thought obtain through rhythm and rhyme a touch of importance, and cut a figure in these flourishes, just as among girls plain faces attract the eye through elegant attire. In fact, even distorted and false ideas gain an appearance of truth through versification. On the other hand, even famous passages from famous poets shrink up again and become insignificant when they are faithfully reproduced in prose. If only the true is beautiful, and the most cherished adornment of truth is nakedness, then an idea which appears great and beautiful in prose will have more true worth than one that has the same effect in verse. It is very surprising and well worth investigation that such trifling, and indeed apparently childish, means as metre and rhyme produce so powerful an effect. I explain it in the following way: that which is immediately given to the sense of hearing, the mere word-sound, obtains through rhythm and rhyme a certain completeness and significance in itself, since thereby it becomes a kind of music. It therefore appears now to exist for its own sake, and no longer as a mere means, a mere sign of something signified, namely the meaning of the words. To please the ear by its sound seems to be its whole destiny, and therefore with this everything seems to be attained, and all claims appear to be satisfied. But at the same time it contains a meaning, expresses an idea, presents itself as an unexpected extra, like the words to music, as an unexpected gift that agreeably surprises us, and therefore, since we made no demands of this kind at all, it very easily satisfies us. Now if this idea is such that, in itself, and so in prose, it would be significant, then we are delighted. I remember from early childhood that I was delighted by the melodious sound of verses long before I made the discovery that generally they also contained meaning and ideas. Accordingly, there is indeed in all languages a mere doggerel poetry, almost entirely devoid of meaning. Davis, the sinologist, observes in the preface to his translation of the Laou-sang-urh or An Heir in Old Age (London, 1817) that Chinese dramas consist partly of verses that are sung, and he adds: "The meaning of them is often obscure, and according to the statements of the Chinese themselves, the end of these verses is especially to flatter the ear, and the sense is neglected, and even entirely sacrificed to the harmony." Who is not reminded here of the choruses of many Greek tragedies which are often so hard to make out?

The sign by which we recognize most immediately the genuine poet, of the higher as well as of the lower species, is the easy and unforced nature of his rhymes. They have occurred automatically as if by divine decree; his ideas come to him already in rhyme. On the other hand, the homely, prosaic person seeks the rhyme for the idea; the bungler seeks the idea for the rhyme. We can very often find out from a couple of rhymed verses which of the two has the idea as its father, and which the rhyme. The art consists in concealing the latter, so that such verses do not appear almost as mere stuffed-out bouts-rimes. [5]

According to my feeling (proofs are not possible here) rhyme is, by its nature, merely binary; its effectiveness is limited to one single recurrence of the same sound, and is not strengthened by more frequent repetition. Therefore, as soon as a final syllable has received the one that rhymes with it, its effect is exhausted. The third occurrence of the sound acts merely as a repeated rhyme that accidentally hits on the same note, without enhancing the effect. It links itself on to the present rhyme, yet without combining with it to produce a stronger impression. For the first note does not sound through the second on to the third; and so this is an aesthetic pleonasm, a double courage, that does not help. Least of all, therefore, do such accumulations of rhymes merit the heavy sacrifices that they cost in the octave rhyme, the terza rima, and sonnet. Such accumulations are the cause of the spiritual and mental torture with which we sometimes read these productions; for under such severe mental effort poetical pleasure is impossible. That the great poetic mind can sometimes overcome even those forms and their difficulties, and move about in them with ease and grace, does not conduce to a recommendation of the forms themselves; for in themselves they are just as ineffective as they are tedious. And even when good poets make use of these forms, we frequently see in them the conflict between the rhyme and the idea, in which now the one and then the other gains the victory. Thus either the idea is stunted for the sake of the rhyme, or else the rhyme has to be satisfied with a feeble a peu pres. [6] This being so, I do not regard it as a proof of ignorance, but of good taste, that Shakespeare in his sonnets has provided different rhymes in each of the quatrains. In any case their acoustic effect is not in the least diminished in this way, and the idea comes much more into its own right than it could have done if it had had to be laced up in the conventional Spanish boots.

For the poetry of a language, it is a disadvantage if it has many words that are not commonly used in prose, and, on the other hand, if it dare not use certain words of prose. The former is often the case in Latin and Italian, and the latter in French, where it was recently very aptly called la begueulerie de la langue francaise; [7] both are to be found less in English, and least in German. Thus, the words that belong exclusively to poetry remain foreign to our heart, do not speak directly to us, and therefore leave us cold. They are a poetical language of convention, and are, so to speak, merely painted instead of real sensations; they exclude warmth and genuine feeling.

The distinction, so often discussed in our day, between classic and romantic poetry seems to me to rest ultimately on the fact that the former knows none but purely human, actual, and natural motives; the latter, on the other hand, maintains as effective also motives that are pretended, conventional, and imaginary. Among such motives are those springing from the Christian myth, then those of the chivalrous, exaggerated, extravagant, and fantastic principle of honour, and further those of the absurd and ridiculous Christian-Germanic veneration of women, and finally those of doting and moonstruck hyperphysical amorousness. But even in the best poets of the romantic sort, e.g., Calderon, we can see to what ridiculous distortion of human relations and human nature these motives lead. Not to speak at all of the Autos, I refer merely to pieces like No siempre el peor es cierto (The Worst is not always Certain) and El postrero duelo en Espana (The Last Duel in Spain), and similar comedies en capa y espada. [7a] Associated with these elements is the scholastic subtlety that often appears in the conversation which at that time was part of the mental culture of the upper classes. On the other hand, how decidedly advantageous is the position of the poetry of the ancients, which always remains true to nature! The result of this is that classical poetry has an unconditional truth and exactness, romantic poetry only a conditional, analogous to Greek and Gothic architecture. On the other hand, it is to be noted that all dramatic or narrative poems which transfer their scene of action to ancient Greece or Rome suffer a disadvantage through the fact that our knowledge of antiquity, especially as regards the details of life, is inadequate, fragmentary, and not drawn from perception. This therefore forces the poet to avoid a great deal and to be content with generalities; in this way he falls into the abstract, and his work loses that perceptibility and individualization that are absolutely essential to poetry. It is this that gives all such works their characteristic appearance of emptiness and tediousness. Only Shakespeare's presentations of this kind are free from it, since he without hesitation under the names of Greeks and Romans presented Englishmen of his own time.

It has been objected to many masterpieces of lyrical poetry, especially to a few Odes of Horace (see, for example, the second ode of the third book), and to several of Goethe's songs (e.g., the Shepherd's Lament), that they lack proper sequence and connexion, and are full of gaps in the thought. But here the logical sequence is intentionally neglected, in order that the unity of the fundamental sensation and mood expressed in them may take its place; and precisely in this way does this unity stand out more clearly, since it runs like a thread through the separate pearls, and brings about the rapid change of the objects of contemplation, just as in music the transition from one key to another is brought about by the chord of the seventh, through which the fundamental note still sounding in it becomes the dominant of the new key. The quality here described is found most distinctly, even to the point of exaggeration, in the Canzone of Petrarch which begins: Mai non vo' piu cantar, com' io soleva. [8]

Accordingly, just as in lyrical poetry the subjective element predominates, so in the drama, on the other hand, the objective element is solely and exclusively present. Between the two, epic poetry in all its forms and modifications, from narrative romance to epic proper, has a broad middle path. For although it is mainly objective, it yet contains a subjective element, standing out more or less, which finds its expression in the tone and form of the delivery, as well as in reflections interspersed in it. We do not lose sight of the poet so entirely as we do in the drama.

The purpose of the drama generally is to show us in an example what are the nature and existence of man. Here the sad or bright side of these, or even their transitions, can be turned to us. But the expression, "nature and existence of man" already contains the germ of the controversy as to whether the nature, i.e., the characters, or the existence, i.e., the fate, the event, the action, is the main thing. Moreover, the two have grown together so firmly that they can certainly be separated in conception, but not in their presentation. For only the circumstances, fates, and events make the characters manifest their true nature, and only from the characters does the action arise from which the events proceed. Of course, in the presentation the one or the other can be rendered more prominent, and in this respect the two extremes are formed by the play of the characters and by that of the plot.

The purpose common to the drama and to the epic, namely to present in significant characters placed in significant situations the extraordinary actions brought about by both, will be most completely attained by the poet if he first introduces the characters to us in a state of calm. In this state only their general tone or complexion becomes visible, but it then introduces a motive producing an action from which a new and stronger motive arises. This again brings about a more significant action that again gives birth to new and ever more powerful motives. Then, at the point of time appropriate to the form, passionate excitement takes the place of the original calm, and in this excitement significant actions occur in which the qualities that previously slumbered in the characters together with the course of the world appear in a bright light.

Great poets transform themselves entirely into each of the persons to be presented, and speak out of each of them like ventriloquists; now out of the hero, and immediately afterwards out of the young innocent girl, with equal truth and naturalness; thus Shakespeare and Goethe. Poets of the second rank transform into themselves the principal person to be presented; thus Byron. In this case the other persons often remain without life, as even the principal person does in the works of mediocre poets.

Our pleasure in the tragedy belongs not to the feeling of the beautiful, but to that of the sublime; it is, in fact, the highest degree of this feeling. For, just as at the sight of the sublime in nature we turn away from the interest of the will, in order to behave in a purely perceptive way, so in the tragic catastrophe we turn away from the will-to-live itself. Thus in the tragedy the terrible side of life is presented to us, the wailing and lamentation of mankind, the dominion of chance and error, the fall of the righteous, the triumph of the wicked; and so that aspect of the world is brought before our eyes which directly opposes our will. At this sight we feel ourselves urged to turn our will away from life, to give up willing and loving life. But precisely in this way we become aware that there is still left in us something different that we cannot possibly know positively, but only negatively, as that which does not will life. Just as the chord of the seventh demands the fundamental chord; just as a red colour demands green, and even produces it in the eye; so every tragedy demands an existence of an entirely different kind, a different world, the knowledge of which can always be given to us only indirectly, as here by such a demand. At the moment of the tragic catastrophe, we become convinced more clearly than ever that life is a bad dream from which we have to awake. To this extent, the effect of the tragedy is analogous to that of the dynamically sublime, since, like this, it raises us above the will and its interest, and puts us in such a mood that we find pleasure in the sight of what directly opposes the will. What gives to everything tragic, whatever the form in which it appears, the characteristic tendency to the sublime, is the dawning of the knowledge that the world and life can afford us no true satisfaction, and are therefore not worth our attachment to them. In this the tragic spirit consists; accordingly, it leads to resignation.

I admit that rarely in the tragedy of the ancients is this spirit of resignation seen and directly expressed. Oedipus Colonus certainly dies resigned and docile; yet he is comforted by the revenge on his native land. Iphigenia at Aulis is quite ready to die, yet it is the thought of the welfare of Greece that consoles her and brings about her change of mind. By virtue of this change she readily takes upon herself the death she at first sought by every means to avoid. Cassandra, in the Agamemnon of the great Aeschylus (1306), willingly dies, [x]; [9] but she too is comforted by the thought of revenge. Hercules in the Trachiniae yields to necessity, and dies composed, but not resigned. Likewise the Hippolytus of Euripides, in whose case it surprises us that Artemis, appearing to comfort him, promises him temples and fame, but certainly does not point to an existence beyond life, and abandons him in death, just as all the gods forsake the dying; in Christianity they come to him, and likewise in Brahmanism and Buddhism, though in the latter the gods are really exotic. Thus Hippolytus, like almost all the tragic heroes of the ancients, displays submission to inevitable fate and the inflexible will of the gods, but no surrender of the will-to-live itself. Stoic equanimity is fundamentally distinguished from Christian resignation by the fact that it teaches only calm endurance and unruffled expectation of unalterably necessary evils, but Christianity teaches renunciation, the giving up of willing. In just the same way the tragic heroes of the ancients show resolute and stoical subjection under the unavoidable blows of fate; the Christian tragedy, on the other hand, shows the giving up of the whole will-to-live, cheerful abandonment of the world in the consciousness of its worthlessness and vanity. But I am fully of opinion that the tragedy of the moderns is at a higher level than that of the ancients. Shakespeare is much greater than Sophocles; compared with Goethe's Iphigenia, that of Euripides might be found almost crude and vulgar. The Bacchae of Euripides is a revolting piece of work in favour of the heathen priests. Many ancient pieces have no tragic tendency at all, like Alcestis and Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides; some have unpleasant, or even disgusting, motives, like Antigone and Philoctetes. Almost all show the human race under the dreadful dominion of chance and error, but not the resignation these bring about which redeems us from them. All this was because the ancients had not yet reached the summit and goal of tragedy, or indeed of the view of life generally.

Therefore, if the ancients displayed little of the spirit of resignation, little of the turning away of the will from life, in their tragic heroes themselves as their frame of mind, the characteristic tendency and effect of the tragedy nevertheless continue to be the awakening of that spirit in the spectator, the calling up, although only temporarily, of that frame of mind. The horrors on the stage hold up to him the bitterness and worthlessness of life, and so the vanity of all its efforts and endeavours. The effect of this impression must be that he becomes aware, although only in an obscure feeling, that it is better to tear his heart away from life, to turn his willing away from it, not to love the world and life. Thus in the depth of his being the consciousness is then stirred that for a different kind of willing there must be a different kind of existence also. For if this were not so, if this rising above all the aims and good things of life, this turning away from life and its temptations, and the turning, already to be found here, to an existence of a different kind, although wholly inconceivable to us, were not the tendency of tragedy, then how would it be possible generally for the presentation of the terrible side of life, brought before our eyes in the most glaring light, to be capable of affecting us so beneficially, and of affording us an exalted pleasure? Fear and sympathy, in the stimulation of which Aristotle puts the ultimate aim of tragedy, certainly do not in themselves belong to the agreeable sensations; therefore they cannot be the end, but only the means. Thus the summons to turn away the will from life remains the true tendency of tragedy, the ultimate purpose of the intentional presentation of the sufferings of mankind; consequently it exists even where this resigned exaltation of the mind is not shown in the hero himself, but is only stimulated in the spectator at the sight of great unmerited, or indeed even merited, suffering. Like the ancients, many of the moderns are also content to put the spectator into the mood just described by the objective presentation of human misfortune on a large scale, whereas others exhibit this through the change of mind in the hero himself, effected by suffering. The former give, so to speak, only the premisses, and leave the conclusion to the spectator; while the latter give the conclusion, or the moral of the fable, as the conversion of the hero's frame of mind, also as an observation in the mouth of the chorus, for example, in Schiller's The Bride of Messina: "Life is not the greatest good." It should here be mentioned that the genuinely tragic effect of the catastrophe, the hero's resignation and spiritual exaltation produced by it, seldom appear so purely motivated and distinctly expressed as in the opera Norma, where it comes in the duet Qual cor tradisti, qual cor perdesti. [10] Here the conversion of the will is clearly indicated by the quietness suddenly introduced into the music. Quite apart from its excellent music, and from the diction that can only be that of a libretto, and considered only according to its motives and to its interior economy, this piece is in general a tragedy of extreme perfection, a true model of the tragic disposition of the motives, of the tragic progress of the action, and of tragic development, together with the effect of these on the frame of mind of the heroes, which surmounts the world. This effect then passes on to the spectator; in fact, the effect here reached is the more natural and simple and the more characteristic of the true nature of tragedy, as no Christians or even Christian sentiments appear in it.

The neglect of the unity of time and place, with which the modems are so often reproached, becomes a fault only when it goes so far as to abolish the unity of action, where only the unity of the principal character then remains, as, for example, in Shakespeare's Henry VIII. But the unity of action need not go so far that the same thing is spoken of throughout, as in French tragedies. These, in general, observe it so strictly, that the course of the drama is like a geometrical line without breadth. There the order is always to "Get on! Pensez a votre affaire?" [11] and the affair is expedited and despatched in a thoroughly business-like manner, without anyone stopping over trivialities that do not belong to it, or looking to the right or left. On the other hand, the Shakespearian tragedy is like a line that has breadth; it gives itself sufficient time, exspatiatur; speeches and even whole scenes occur which do not advance the action and do not even really concern it. But through these we get to know the characters or their circumstances more fully; and accordingly we then more thoroughly understand the action. This, of course, remains the principal thing, yet not so exclusively as for us to forget that, in the last instance, the presentation of human nature and existence in general is intended.

The dramatic or epic poet should know that he is fate, and therefore should be, like this, inexorable; likewise that he is the mirror of the human race, and ought therefore to represent very many bad and sometimes wicked characters, as well as many fools, eccentrics, and simpletons; now and again a person who is reasonable, prudent, honest, or good, and only as the rarest exception someone magnanimous. In my opinion, no really magnanimous character is presented in the whole of Homer, although many are good and honest. In the whole of Shakespeare it may be possible to find at most a couple of noble, though by no means exceedingly noble, characters; perhaps Cordelia, Coriolanus, hardly any more; on the other hand, his works abound with the species indicated above. Iffland's and Kotzebue's pieces, however, have many magnanimous characters, whereas Goldoni has done as I recommended above, thus showing that he stands at a higher level. On the other hand, Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm labours under too much and too universal magnanimity; but even so much magnanimity as is displayed by the one Marquis Posa is not to be found in the whole of Goethe's works. There is, however, a small German piece called Duty for Duty's Sake (a title that sounds as if it were taken from the Critique of Practical Reason), which has only three characters, yet all three of exceeding magnanimity.

For the heroes of their tragedies the Greeks generally took royal persons, and the moderns for the most part have done the same. This is certainly not because rank gives more dignity to the person who acts or suffers; and as it is merely a question of setting human passions in play, the relative worth of the objects by which this is done is a matter of indifference, and farms achieve as much as is achieved by kingdoms. Moreover, simple, civic tragedy is by no means to be unconditionally rejected. Persons of great power and prestige are nevertheless best adapted for tragedy, because the misfortune in which we should recognize the fate of human life must have sufficient magnitude, in order to appear terrible to the spectator, be he who he may. Euripides himself says: [x] (Stobaeus, Florilegium, Vol. II, p. 299). [12] But the circumstances that plunge a bourgeois family into want and despair are in the eyes of the great or wealthy often very insignificant, and can be removed by human aid, sometimes indeed by a trifle; therefore such spectators cannot be tragically shaken by them. On the other hand, the misfortunes of the great and powerful are unconditionally terrible, and are inaccessible even to help from outside; for kings must either help themselves through their own power, or be ruined. In addition to this is the fact that the fall is greatest from a height. Bourgeois characters -- lack the height from which to fall.

Now if we have found the tendency and ultimate intention of tragedy to be a turning towards resignation, to the denial of the will-to-live, we shall easily recognize in its opposite, comedy, an invitation to the continued affirmation of this will. It is true that even comedy must bring before our eyes sufferings and reverses of fortune, as every presentation of human life inevitably must; but it exhibits them to us as fleeting, resolving themselves into joy generally mingled with success, triumph, and hope that predominate in the end. Moreover, it brings out the inexhaustible material for laughter, with which life and even its very adversities are filled, and which should keep us in all circumstances in a good mood. In the result, it therefore declares that life on the whole is quite good, and in particular is generally amusing. But it must of course hasten to drop the curtain at the moment of delight, so that we do not see what follows, whereas the tragedy, as a rule, ends so that nothing can follow. Moreover, when once we contemplate somewhat seriously that burlesque side of life, as it shows itself in the naive utterances and gestures that petty embarrassment, personal fear, momentary anger, secret envy, and many similar emotions force on the forms of reality that here mirrors itself, forms that deviate considerably from the type of beauty, then even from this aspect, and thus in an unexpected way, the thoughtful contemplator may become convinced that the existence and action of such beings cannot themselves be an end; that, on the contrary, they could arrive at existence only by a wrong path, and that what exhibits itself thus is something that really had better not be.

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Notes:

1. This chapter refers to § 51 of volume l.

2. "As you know." [Tr.]

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CHAPTER XXXVIII: On History [1]

In the passage of the first volume referred to below I have shown in detail that more is achieved for knowledge of the true nature of mankind by poetry than by history, and I have shown why this is so, inasmuch as more real instruction is to be expected from the former than from the latter. Aristotle also has admitted this, for he says: [x] (et res magis philosophica et melior poesis est, quam historia. Poetics, c. 9). [2] But I will state my ideas on the value of history, so as to avoid causing any misunderstanding about it.

In every class and species of things the facts are innumerable, the individual beings infinite in number, and the multiplicity and variety of their differences beyond our reach. With one look at all this, the curious and inquisitive mind is in a whirl; however much it investigates, it sees itself condemned to ignorance. But then comes science; it separates out the innumerable many, collects them under generic concepts, and these in turn under specific concepts, and so opens the way to a knowledge of the general and the particular. This knowledge comprehends the innumerable individuals, since it holds good of all without our having to consider each one by itself. In this way it promises satisfaction to the inquiring mind. All the sciences then put themselves together and over the real world of individual things which they have parcelled out among themselves. But philosophy excels them all as the most universal, and thus the most important, knowledge, promising information for which the others have only prepared the way. History alone cannot properly enter into this series, since it cannot boast of the same advantage as the others, for it lacks the fundamental characteristic of science, the subordination of what is known; instead of this it boasts of the mere coordination of what is known. Therefore there is no system of history, as there is of every other branch of knowledge; accordingly, it is rational knowledge indeed, but, not a science. For nowhere does it know the particular by means of the universal, but it must comprehend the particular directly, and continue to creep along the ground of experience, so to speak. The real sciences, on the other hand, excel it, since they have attained to comprehensive concepts by means of which they command and control the particular, and, at any rate within certain limits, foresee the possibility of things within their province, so that they can be reassured even about what is still to come. As the sciences are systems of concepts, they always speak of species; history speaks of individuals. History would accordingly be a science of individual things, which implies a contradiction. It follows also from the first statement that the sciences all speak of that which always is; history, on the other hand, speaks of that which is only once, and then no more. Further, as history has to do with the absolutely particular and with individuals, which by their nature are inexhaustible, it knows everything only imperfectly and partially. At the same time, it must allow itself to be taught by the triviality of every new day that which as yet it did not know at all. If it should be objected that in history subordination of the particular under the universal also takes place, since the periods of time, the governments, and the other main and political changes, in short, everything to be found in historical tables, are the universal to which the special is subordinated, this would rest on a false understanding of the concept of the universal. For the universal here referred to is in history merely subjective, that is to say, its generality springs merely from the inadequacy of the individual knowledge of things; it is not objective, in other words, a concept in which the things would actually be thought together. Even the most universal in history is in itself only something individual and particular, namely a long epoch or a principal event. Hence the particular is related to this as the part to the whole, but not as the case to the rule, as occurs, on the other hand, in all the sciences proper, because they furnish concepts, not mere facts. Therefore, through correct knowledge of the universal, we can in these sciences determine with certainty the particular case that arises. For example, if I know the laws of the triangle in general, I can accordingly also state what must be the properties of the triangle before me. What holds good of all mammals, for example, that they have double ventricles of the heart, exactly seven cervical vertebrae, lungs, diaphragm, bladder, five senses, and so on, I can assert also of the strange bat that has just been caught, before it is dissected. But this is not the case in history, where the universal is not an objective universal of concepts, but merely a subjective universal of my knowledge, that can be called universal only in so far as it is superficial. Thus I may know in general about the Thirty Years' War, namely that it was a religious war waged in the seventeenth century; but this general knowledge does not enable me to state anything more detailed about its course. The same contrast also holds good in the fact that, in the actual sciences, it is the special and the individual that is the most certain, for it rests on immediate apprehension; universal truths, on the other hand, are first abstracted from it, and therefore something can more readily be erroneously assumed in these. Conversely, in history the most universal is the most certain; for example, the periods of time, the succession of kings, revolutions, wars, and treaties of peace; on the other hand, the particular of the events and of their connexion is more uncertain, and becomes always more so the deeper we go into details. History is therefore the more interesting the more special it is, but also the less trustworthy; and thus it approximates in all respects to a work of fiction. For the rest, he will best be able to judge what importance is to be attached to the boasted pragmatism of history, who remembers that at times it was only after twenty years that he understood the events of his own life in their true connexion, although the data for these were completely before him, so difficult is the combination of the action of motives under the constant interference of chance and the concealment of intentions. Now in so far as history always has for its object only the particular, the individual fact, and regards this as the exclusively real, it is the direct opposite and counterpart of philosophy, which considers things from the most universal point of view, and has the universal as its express object. In every particular this universal remains identical; thus in the former philosophy always sees only the latter, and recognizes as inessential the change in its phenomenal appearance: [x] (generalium amator philosophus). [3] Whereas history teaches us that at each time something different has been, philosophy endeavours to assist us to the insight that at all times exactly the same was, is, and will be. In truth, the essence of human life, as of nature everywhere, exists complete in every present time, and therefore requires only depth of comprehension in order to be exhaustively known. History, however, hopes to make up for depth by length and breadth; every present time is for it only a fragment that must be supplemented by the past. But the length of the past is infinite, and joined to it again is an infinite future. On this rests the opposition between philosophical and historical minds; the former want to fathom and find out, the latter try to narrate to the end. History shows on every side only the same thing under different forms; but he who does not recognize such a thing in one or a few forms, will hardly attain to a knowledge of it by running through all the forms. The chapters of the history of nations are at bottom different only through the names and dates; the really essential content is everywhere the same.

Therefore, in so far as the material of art is the Idea, and the material of science the concept, we see both occupied with that which always exists at all times in the same way, but not with something which now is and then is not, which now is thus and then otherwise. For this reason, both are concerned with what Plato posited exclusively as the object of actual rational knowledge. The material of history, on the other hand, is the individual thing in its individuality and contingency; this thing exists once, and then exists no more for ever. The material of history is the transient complexities of a human world moving like clouds in the wind, which are often entirely transformed by the most trifling accident. From this point of view, the material of history appears to us as scarcely an object worthy of the serious and arduous consideration of the human mind. Just because it is so transitory, the human mind should select for its consideration that which is destined never to pass away.

Finally, as regards the attempt specially introduced by the Hegelian pseudo-philosophy that is everywhere so pernicious and stupefying to the mind, the attempt, namely, to comprehend the history of the world as a planned whole, or, as they call it, "to construct it organically," a crude and shallow realism is actually at the root of this. Such realism regards the phenomenon as the being-in-itself of the world, and imagines that it is a question of this phenomenon and of its forms and events. It is still secretly supported in this by certain, mythological, fundamental views which it tacitly assumes; otherwise it might be asked for what spectator such a comedy was really being enacted. For since only the individual, not the human race, has actual, immediate unity of consciousness, the unity of this race's course of life is a mere fiction. Moreover, as in nature only the species are real and the genera mere abstractions, so in the human race only the individuals and their course of life are real, the nations and their lives being mere abstractions. Finally, constructive histories, guided by a shallow optimism, always ultimately end in a comfortable, substantial, fat State with a well-regulated constitution, good justice and police, useful arts and industries, and at most intellectual perfection, since this is in fact the only possible perfection, for that which is moral remains essentially unaltered. But according to the testimony of our innermost consciousness, it is the moral element on which everything depends; and this lies only in the individual as the tendency of his will. In reality, only the life-course of each individual has unity, connexion, and true significance; it is to be regarded as an instruction, and the significance of this is a moral one. Only the events of our inner life, in so far as they concern the will, have true reality and are actual occurrences, since the will alone is the thing-in-itself. In every microcosm lies the macrocosm, and the latter contains nothing more than is contained in the former. Plurality is phenomenon, and external events are mere configurations of the phenomenal world; they therefore have neither reality nor significance directly, but only indirectly, through their relation to the will of the individuals. Accordingly, the attempt to explain and expound them is like the attempt to see groups of persons and animals in the forms of clouds. What history relates is in fact only the long, heavy, and confused dream of mankind.

The Hegelians, who regard the philosophy of history as even the main purpose of all philosophy, should be referred to Plato, who untiringly repeats that the object of philosophy is the unchangeable and ever permanent, not that which now is thus and then otherwise. All who set up such constructions of the course of the world, or, as they call it, of history, have not grasped the principal truth of all philosophy, that that which is is at all times the same, that all becoming and arising are only apparent, that the Ideas alone are permanent, that time is ideal. This is what Plato means, this is what Kant means. Accordingly, we should try to understand what exists, what actually is, today and always, in other words, to know the Ideas (in Plato's sense). On the other hand, fools imagine that something is supposed to come into existence. They therefore concede to history a principal place in their philosophy, and construct this on an assumed plan of the world, according to which everything is managed for the best. This is then supposed to appear finaliter, and will be a great and glorious thing. Accordingly, they take the world to be perfectly real, and set its purpose in miserable earthly happiness. Even when it is greatly cherished by man and favoured by fate, such happiness is yet a hollow, deceptive, frail, and wretched thing, out of which neither constitutions, legal systems, steam-engines, nor telegraphs can ever make anything that is essentially better. Accordingly, the aforesaid philosophers and glorifiers of history are simple realists, and also optimists and eudaemonists, and consequently shallow fellows and Philistines incarnate. In addition, they are really bad Christians, for the true spirit and kernel of Christianity, as of Brahmanism and Buddhism also, is the knowledge of the vanity of all earthly happiness, complete contempt for it, and the turning away to an existence of quite a different, indeed an opposite, kind. This, I say, is the spirit and purpose of Christianity, the true "humour of the matter"; but it is not, as they imagine, monotheism. Therefore, atheistic Buddhism is much more closely akin to Christianity than are optimistic Judaism and its variety, Islam.

Therefore, a real philosophy of history should not consider, as do all these, that which is always becoming and never is (to use Plato's language), and regard this as the real nature of things. On the contrary, it should keep in view that which always is, and never becomes or passes away. Thus it does not consist in our raising the temporal aims of men to eternal and absolute aims, and then constructing with ingenuity and imagination their progress to these through every intricacy and perplexity. It consists in the insight that history is untruthful not only in its arrangement, but also in its very nature, since, speaking of mere individuals and particular events, it always pretends to relate something different, whereas from beginning to end it constantly repeats only the same thing under a different name and in a different cloak. The true philosophy of history thus consists in the insight that, in spite of all these endless changes and their chaos and confusion, we yet always have before us only the same, identical, unchangeable essence, acting in the same way today as it did yesterday and always. The true philosophy of history should therefore recognize the identical in all events, of ancient as of modem times, of the East as of the West, and should see everywhere the same humanity, in spite of all difference in the special circumstances, in costume and customs. This identical element, persisting under every change, consists in the fundamental qualities of the human heart and head, many bad, few good. The motto of history in general should run: Eadem, sed aliter. [4] If we have read Herodotus, we have already studied enough history from a philosophical point of view. For everything which constitutes the subsequent history of the world is already there, namely the efforts, actions, sufferings, and fate of the human race, as it results from the aforesaid qualities and from its physical earthly lot.

If, in what has been said so far, we have recognized that history, considered as a means of knowing the true nature of mankind, is inferior to poetry; and again, that it is not a science in the proper sense; and finally, that the attempt to construct it as a whole with beginning, middle, and end, together with a connexion fraught with meaning, is vain and is based on misunderstanding; then it would appear as though we wished to deny it all value, unless we showed in what its value consists. Actually, however, there remains for it, after this conquest of art and rejection by science, a province which is quite peculiar and different from both, and in which it exists most honourably.

What the faculty of reason is to the individual, history is to the human race. By virtue of this faculty, man is not, like the animal, restricted to the narrow present of perception, but knows also the incomparably more extended past with which it is connected, and out of which it has emerged. But only in this way does he have a proper understanding of the present itself, and can he also draw conclusions as to the future. On the other hand, the animal, whose knowledge, devoid of reflection, is restricted to perception, and therefore to the present, moves about among persons ignorant, dull, stupid, helpless, and dependent, even when tamed. Now analogous to this is a nation which does not know its own history, and is restricted to the present time of the generation now living. It therefore does not understand itself and its own present, because it is unable to refer this to a past, and to explain it from such a past; still less can it anticipate the future. Only through history does a nation become completely conscious of itself. Accordingly, history is to be regarded as the rational self-consciousness of the human race; it is to the race what the reflected and connected consciousness, conditioned by the faculty of reason, is to the individual. Through lack of such a consciousness, the animal remains confined to the narrow present of perception. Every gap in history is therefore like a gap in a person's recollecting self-consciousness; and before a monument of extreme antiquity that has outlived its own knowledge and information, as, for example, the Pyramids, the temples and palaces of Yucatan, we stand as senseless and stupid as an animal does in the presence of human actions in which it is involved as a servant, or as a man before an old cipher of his own to which he has forgotten the key; in fact, as a somnambulist does who in the morning finds in front of him what he did in his sleep. In this sense, therefore, history is to be regarded as the faculty of reason, or the reflected consciousness of the human race; and it takes the place of a self-consciousness directly common to the whole race; so that only by virtue of history does this actually become a whole, a humanity. This is the true value of history, and accordingly the universal and predominant interest in it rests mainly on its being a personal concern of the human race. Now what language is for the reasoning faculty of individuals, as an indispensable condition for its use, writing is for the reasoning faculty of the whole race which is indicated here; for only with writing does the actual existence of this faculty of reason begin, just as the existence of the individual's reason first begins with language. Thus writing serves to restore to unity the consciousness of the human race, which is incessantly interrupted by death, and is accordingly piecemeal and fragmentary; so that the idea that arose in the ancestor is thought out to the end by his remote descendant. Writing remedies the breaking up of the human race and its consciousness into an immense number of ephemeral individuals, and thus bids defiance to irresistibly hurrying time, in whose hands goes oblivion. Written as well as stone monuments are to be regarded as an attempt to achieve this; to some extent the latter are older than the former. For who will believe that those who, at incalculable cost, set in motion the human powers of many thousands throughout many years, in order to erect pyramids, monoliths, rock tombs, obelisks, temples, and palaces, which still stand after thousands of years, could have had in view only themselves, the short span of their own life, too short to enable them to see the end of the construction, or even the ostensible purpose which the uncultured state of the masses required them to use as a pretext? Obviously the real purpose was to speak to their latest descendants, to enter into relationship with these, and thus to restore to unity the consciousness of mankind. The buildings of the Hindus, Egyptians, even of the Greeks and Romans, were calculated to last for several thousand years, because, through higher culture, their horizon was broader. On the other hand, the buildings of the Middle Ages and of modern times were intended to last a few centuries at most. This is due also to the fact that more confidence was placed in writing, after its use had become more general, and even more after the art of printing had been born from its womb. Yet even in the buildings of more recent times we see the urge to speak to posterity; it is therefore scandalous when they are destroyed or disfigured, to let them serve base, utilitarian purposes. Written monuments have less to fear from the elements, but more from barbarians, than have stone monuments; they achieve much more. The Egyptians sought to unite both kinds by covering their stone monuments with hieroglyphs; indeed, they added paintings in case the hieroglyphs should no longer be understood.

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Notes:

1. This chapter refers to § 51 of volume 1.

2. "Poetry is more philosophical and valuable than history." [Tr.]

Incidentally, it should here be observed that from this contrast of [x] and [x] the origin, and thus the real meaning, of the former word appear with unusual distinctness. It signifies what is made, imagined, in contrast to what is found by enquiry.

3. "The philosopher is a friend of the universal." [Tr.]

4. "The same, but otherwise." [Tr.]

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CHAPTER XXXIX: On the Metaphysics of Music [1]

The outcome of my discussion of the real significance of this wonderful art, which is given in the passage of volume 1 referred to below, and is here present in the mind of the reader, was that there is indeed of necessity no resemblance between its productions and the world as representation, i.e., nature, but that there must be a distinct parallelism, which was then also demonstrated. I have still to add some fuller particulars of this parallelism which are worth noting. The four voices or parts of all harmony, that is, bass, tenor, alto, and soprano, or fundamental note, third, fifth, and octave, correspond to the four grades in the series of existences, hence to the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, and to man. This obtains an additional and striking confirmation in the fundamental rule of music, which states that the bass should remain at a much greater interval below the three upper voices or parts than these have between themselves, so that it may never approach nearer to them than an octave at most, but often remains even further below them. Accordingly, the correct triad has its place in the third octave from the fundamental note. In keeping with this, the effect of extended harmony, where the bass remains at a distance from the other parts, is much more powerful and beautiful than that of close harmony, where the bass is moved up nearer to them. Such close harmony is introduced only on account of the limited range of the instruments. This whole rule, however, is by no means arbitrary, but has its root in the natural origin of the tonal system, namely in so far as the shortest harmonic intervals, which sound in unison by means of the secondary vibrations, are the octave and its fifth. In this rule we recognize the musical analogue of the fundamental disposition of nature, by virtue of which organic beings are much more closely related among themselves than they are to the inanimate, inorganic mass of the mineral kingdom. Between this and them are placed the most decided boundary and the widest gulf in the whole of nature. The high voice, singing the melody, is of course at the same time an integral part of the harmony, and in this is connected even with the deepest ground-bass. This may be regarded as the analogue of the fact that the same matter that in a human organism is the supporter of the Idea of man must nevertheless at the same time manifest and support the Ideas of gravity and of chemical properties, hence the Ideas of the lowest grades of the will's objectification.

Because music does not, like all the other arts, exhibit the Ideas or grades of the will's objectification, but directly the will itself, we can also explain that it acts directly on the will, i.e., the feelings, passions, and emotions of the hearer, so that it quickly raises these or even alters them.

Far from being a mere aid to poetry, music is certainly an independent art; in fact, it is the most powerful of all the arts, and therefore attains its ends entirely from its own resources. Just as certainly, it does not require the words of a song or the action of an opera. Music as such knows only the tones or notes, not the causes that produce them. Accordingly, even the vox humana is for it originally and essentially nothing but a modified tone, just like that of an instrument; and like every other tone, it has the characteristic advantages and disadvantages that are a consequence of the instrument producing it. Now in this case it is an accidental circumstance that this very instrument serves in a different way as the organ of speech for the communication of concepts, and incidentally, of course, music can make use of this circumstance in order to enter into a relationship with poetry. But it must never make this the main thing, and be entirely concerned only with the expression of what are often, indeed essentially, silly and insipid verses (as Diderot gives us to understand in Le Neveu de Rameau). The words are and remain for the music a foreign extra of secondary value, as the effect of the tones is incomparably more powerful, more infallible, and more rapid than that of the words. If these are incorporated in the music, therefore, they must of course occupy only an entirely subordinate position, and adapt themselves completely to it. But the relation assumes the opposite aspect in regard to the given poetry, and hence to the song or libretto of an opera, to which a piece of music is added. For in these the musical art at once shows its power and superior capacity, since it gives the most profound, ultimate, and secret information on the feeling expressed in the words, or the action presented in the opera. It expresses their real and tree nature, and makes us acquainted with the innermost soul of the events and occurrences, the mere cloak and body of which are presented on the stage. With regard to this superiority of music, and in so far as it stands to the text and the action in the relation of universal to particular, of rule to example, it might perhaps appear more suitable for the text to be written for the music than for the music to be composed for the text. With the usual method, however, the words and actions of the text lead the composer to the affections of the will that underlie them, and call up in him the feelings to be expressed; consequently they act as a means for exciting his musical imagination. Moreover, that the addition of poetry to music is so welcome, and a song with intelligible words gives such profound joy, is due to the fact that our most direct and most indirect methods of knowledge are here stimulated simultaneously and in union. Thus the most direct is that for which music expresses the stirrings of the will itself, but the most indirect that of the concepts denoted by words. With the language of the feelings, our faculty of reason does not willingly sit in complete idleness. From its own resources, music is certainly able to express every movement of the will, every feeling; but through the addition of the words, we receive also their objects, the motives that give rise to that feeling. The music of an opera, as presented in the score, has a wholly independent, separate, and as it were abstract existence by itself, to which the incidents and characters of the piece are foreign, and which follows its own unchangeable rules; it can therefore be completely effective even without the text. But as this music was composed with respect to the drama, it is, so to speak, the soul of this, since, in its connexion with the incidents, characters, and words, it becomes the expression of the inner significance of all those incidents, and of their ultimate and secret necessity that rests on this significance. Unless the spectator is a mere gaper, his pleasure really depends on an obscure feeling of this. Yet in opera, music shows its heterogeneous nature and its superior intrinsic virtue by its complete indifference to everything material in the incidents; and in consequence of this, it expresses the storm of the passions and the pathos of the feelings everywhere in the same way, and accompanies these with the same pomp of its tones, whether Agamemnon and Achilles or the dissensions of an ordinary family furnish the material of the piece. For only the passions, the movements of the will, exist for it, and, like God, it sees only the heart. It never assimilates the material, and therefore, when it accompanies even the most ludicrous and extravagant farces of comic opera, it still preserves its essential beauty, purity, and sublimity; and its fusion with those incidents cannot drag it down from its height to which everything ludicrous is really foreign. Thus the deep and serious significance of our existence hangs over the farce and the endless miseries of human life, and does not leave it for a moment.

Now if we cast a glance at purely instrumental music, a symphony of Beethoven presents us with the greatest confusion which yet has the most perfect order as its foundation; with the most vehement conflict which is transformed the next moment into the most beautiful harmony. It is rerum concordia discors, [2] a true and complete picture of the nature of the world, which rolls on in the boundless confusion of innumerable forms, and maintains itself by constant destruction. But at the same time, all the human passions and emotions speak from this symphony; joy, grief, love, hatred, terror, hope, and so on in innumerable shades, yet all, as it were, only in the abstract and without any particularization; it is their mere form without the material, like a mere spirit world without matter. We certainly have an inclination to realize it while we listen, to clothe it in the imagination with flesh and bone, and to see in it all the different scenes of life and nature. On the whole, however, this does not promote an understanding or enjoyment of it, but rather gives it a strange and arbitrary addition. It is therefore better to interpret it purely and in its immediacy.

After considering music, in the foregoing remarks as well as in the text, from the metaphysical aspect only, and thus with regard to the inner significance of its achievements, it is appropriate for me to subject to a general consideration the means by which, acting on our mind, it brings these about, and consequently to show the connexion of that metaphysical aspect of music with the physical, which has been adequately investigated and is well known. I start from the theory, generally known and by no means overthrown by recent objections, that all harmony of the tones rests on the coincidence of the vibrations. When two tones sound simultaneously, this coincidence occurs perhaps at every second, or third, or fourth vibration, according to which they are the octave, the fifth, or the fourth of one another, and so on. Thus, so long as the vibrations of two tones have a rational relation to one another, expressible in small numbers, they can be taken together in our apprehension through their constantly recurring coincidence; the tones are blended and are thus in harmony. On the other hand, if that relation is an irrational one, or one expressible only in large numbers, no intelligible coincidence of the vibrations occurs, but obstrepunt sibi perpetuo, [3] and in this way they resist being taken together in our apprehension, and accordingly are called a dissonance. As a result of this theory, music is a means of making intelligible rational and irrational numerical relations, not, like arithmetic, with the aid of the concept, but by bringing them to a knowledge that is quite direct and simultaneously affects the senses. The connexion of the metaphysical significance of music with this its physical and arithmetical basis rests on the fact that what resists our apprehension, namely the irrational relation or dissonance, becomes the natural image of what resists our will; and, conversely, the consonance or the rational relation, by easily adapting itself to our apprehension, becomes the image of the satisfaction of the will. Now as that rational and irrational element in the numerical relations of the vibrations admits of innumerable degrees, nuances, sequences, and variations, music by means of it becomes the material in which all movements of the human heart, i.e., of the will, movements whose essential nature is always satisfaction and dissatisfaction, although in innumerable degrees, can be faithfully portrayed and reproduced in all their finest shades and modifications; and this takes place by means of the invention of the melody. Thus we here see the movements of the will tinted with the province of the mere representation that is the exclusive scene of the achievements of all the fine arts. For these positively demand that the will itself be left out of account, and that we behave in every way as purely knowing beings. Therefore the affections of the will itself, and hence actual pain and actual pleasure, must not be excited, but only their substitutes, that which is in conformity with the intellect as a picture or image of the will's satisfaction, and that which more or less opposes it as a picture or image of greater or lesser pain. Only in this way does music never cause us actual suffering, but still remains pleasant even in its most painful chords; and we like to hear in its language the secret history of our will and of all its stirrings and strivings with their many different delays, postponements, hindrances, and afflictions, even in the most sorrowful melodies. On the other hand, where in real life and its terrors our will itself is that which is roused and tormented, we are then not concerned with tones and their numerical relations; on the contrary, we ourselves are now the vibrating string that is stretched and plucked.

Further, since, in consequence of the underlying physical theory, the really musical quality of the notes is to be found in the proportion of the rapidity of their vibrations, but not in their relative strength, the musical ear always prefers to follow in harmony the highest note, not the strongest. Therefore, even in the most powerful orchestral accompaniment, the soprano stands out, and thus obtains a natural right to deliver the melody. At the same time this is supported by the great flexibility of the soprano, which depends on the same rapidity of the vibrations, as is seen in the ornate passages and movements. In this way the soprano becomes the suitable representative of the enhanced sensibility that is susceptible to the slightest impression and determinable through this, and consequently of the most highly developed consciousness that stands at the highest stage of the scale of beings. From opposite causes, the contrast to the soprano is formed by the bass, which moves heavily, rises and falls only by large intervals, thirds, fourths, and fifths, and is guided here by fixed rules in each of its steps. It is therefore the natural representative of the inorganic kingdom of nature, which is devoid of feeling, is inaccessible to fine impressions, and is determinable only according to universal laws. It can never rise by one tone, e.g., from a fourth to a fifth, for this produces in the upper voices or parts the incorrect fifth or octave sequence. Therefore, originally and in its own nature, the bass can never present the melody. But if the melody is assigned to it, this is done by means of counterpoint, in other words, it is a bass transposed, that is to say, one of the upper voices or parts is lowered and disguised as a bass. It then really requires a second fundamental bass for its accompaniment. This unnaturalness of a melody in the bass is the reason why bass airs with full accompaniment never afford us the pure and perfect delight of the soprano air. In the connexion of the harmony, the soprano air alone is natural. Incidentally, such a melodious bass, forcibly obtained by transposition, might be compared, in the sense of our metaphysics of music, to a block of marble on which the human form has been impressed. For this reason it is wonderfully appropriate to the stone guest in Don Juan.

But we will now go somewhat nearer to the root of the genesis of melody. This can be effected by analysing melody into its constituent parts; and in any case, this will afford us the pleasure that arises from our once bringing to abstract and distinct consciousness things of which everyone is aware in the concrete, whereby they gain the appearance of novelty.

Melody consists of two elements, a rhythmical and a harmonious; the former can also be described as the quantitative element, the latter as the qualitative, since the first concerns the duration of the notes, the second their pitch and depth. In writing music, the former belongs to the perpendicular lines, the latter to the horizontal. Purely arithmetical relations, hence those of time, are the basis of both; in the one case, the relative duration of the notes, in the other, the relative rapidity of their vibrations. The rhythmical element is the most essential, for by itself alone and without the other element it can present a kind of melody, as is done, for example, on the drum; yet complete melody requires both elements. Thus it consists in an alternating discord and reconciliation of them, as I shall show in a moment; but as the harmonious element has been discussed in what has been said already, I will consider somewhat more closely the rhythmical element.

Rhythm is in time what symmetry is in space, namely division into equal parts corresponding to one another, and first into larger parts that are again divisible into smaller parts subordinate to the former. In the series of arts furnished by me, architecture and music form the two extremes. Moreover, they are the most heterogeneous, in fact the true antipodes, according to their inner nature, their power, the range of their spheres, and their significance. This contrast extends even to the form of their appearance, since architecture is in space alone, without any reference to time, and music is in time alone without any reference to space. [4] From this springs their sole analogy, namely that as in architecture it is symmetry that arranges and holds together, in music it is rhythm; and thus we also have confirmation here that les extremes se touchent. [5] As the ultimate constituent elements of a building are the exactly similar stones, so the ultimate constituent elements of a piece of music are the exactly similar measures of time. But through arsis and thesis, or in general through the numerical fraction denoting the time, these are divided into equal parts that may perhaps be compared to the dimensions of the stone. The musical period consists of several bars, and also has two equal halves, one rising, aspiring, often going to the dominant, and one sinking, calming, and finding again the fundamental note. Two or even several periods constitute a part that is often doubled, likewise symmetrically, by the sign of repetition. From two parts we get a smaller piece of music, or only a movement of a larger piece; and thus a concerto or sonata usually consists of three movements, a symphony of four, and a mass of five. We therefore see the piece of music combined and rounded off as a whole by symmetrical distribution and repeated division, down to the beats and their fractions with general subordination, superordination, and co-ordination of its members, exactly as a building is by its symmetry; only that what with the latter is exclusively in space is with the former exclusively in time. The mere feeling of this analogy has occasioned the bold witticism, often repeated in the last thirty years, that architecture is frozen music. The origin of this can be traced to Goethe, for, according to Eckermann's Conversations, Vol. II, p. 88, he said: "Among my papers I have found a sheet on which I call architecture a congealed music, and actually there is something in it; the mood arising from architecture approximates to the effect of music." He probably uttered that witticism much earlier in the conversation, and in that case we know quite well that there was never a lack of people to glean what he dropped, in order to go about subsequently dressed up in it. For the rest, whatever Goethe may have said, the analogy of music with architecture, which I refer to its sole ground, namely the analogy of rhythm with symmetry, accordingly extends only to the outer form, and by no means to the inner nature of the two arts, which is vastly different. Indeed, it would be ridiculous to try to put the most limited and feeble of all the arts on an equal footing in essential respects with the most extensive and effective. As an amplification of the analogy pointed out it might also be added that when music, in a sudden urge for independence, so to speak, seizes the opportunity of a pause, in order to free itself from the control of rhythm, to launch out into the free fancy of an ornate cadenza, such a piece of music, divested of rhythm, is analogous to the ruin divested of symmetry. Accordingly, in the daring language of that witticism, such a ruin may be called a frozen cadenza.

After this discussion of rhythm, I have now to show how the true nature of melody consists in the constantly renewed discord and reconciliation of its rhythmical with its harmonious element. Its harmonious element has as its assumption the fundamental note, just as the rhythmical element has the measure of time, and it consists in a deviation from this through all the notes of the scale, until, by longer or shorter detours, it reaches a harmonious stage, often the dominant or subdominant that affords it an incomplete satisfaction. But then there follows on an equally long path its return to the fundamental note, with which appears complete satisfaction. But the two must now take place in such a way that reaching the aforesaid stage and finding the fundamental note once more coincide with certain favourite points of time in the rhythm, as otherwise it does not work. Therefore, just as the harmonious sequence of sounds requires certain notes, first of all the tonic, then the dominant, and so on, so rhythm on its part requires certain points of time, certain numbered bars, and certain parts of these bars, which are called heavy or good beats, or the accented parts of the bar, as opposed to the light or bad beats, or unaccented parts of the bar. The discord of those two fundamental elements consists in the fact that, by the demand of the one being satisfied, that of the other is not. But reconciliation consists in the two being satisfied simultaneously and at once. Thus the wandering of the sequence of notes, until the attainment of a more or less harmonious stage, must hit upon this only after a definite number of bars, but then on a good part of the bar, whereby this becomes for it a certain point of rest. In just the same way, the return to the tonic must again find this after an equal number of bars, and likewise on a good part of the bar, whereby complete satisfaction then occurs. So long as this required coincidence of the satisfactions of the two elements is not attained, the rhythm, on the one hand, may follow its regular course, and on the other hand the required notes occur often enough; yet they will remain entirely without that effect through which the melody originates. The following extremely simple example may serve to illustrate this:



Here the harmonious sequence of notes strikes the tonic right at the end of the first bar, but does not thereby obtain any satisfaction, because the rhythm is conceived in the worst part of the bar. Immediately afterwards in the second bar, the rhythm has the good part of the bar, but the sequence of notes has arrived at the seventh. Here, therefore, the two elements of the melody are entirely disunited, and we feel disquieted. In the second half of the period everything is reversed, and in the last note they are reconciled. This kind of proceeding can be demonstrated in every melody, though generally in a much more extended form. Now the constant discord and reconciliation of its two elements which occurs here is, metaphysically considered, the copy of the origination of new desires, and then of their satisfaction. Precisely in this way, the music penetrates our hearts by flattery, so that it always holds out to us the complete satisfaction of our desires. More closely considered, we see in this procedure of the melody a condition to a certain extent inward (the harmonious) meet with an outward condition (the rhythmical) as if by an accident; which is of course produced by the composer, and to this extent may be compared to the rhyme in poetry. This, however, is just the copy of the meeting of our desires with the favourable external circumstances independent of them, and is thus the picture of happiness. The effect of the suspension also deserves to be considered here. It is a dissonance delaying the final consonance that is with certainty awaited; in this way the longing for it is strengthened, and its appearance affords the greater satisfaction. This is clearly an analogue of the satisfaction of the will which is enhanced through delay. The complete cadence requires the preceding chord of the seventh on the dominant, because the most deeply felt satisfaction and complete relief can follow only the most pressing desire. Therefore music consists generally in a constant succession of chords more or less disquieting, i.e., of chords exciting desire, with chords more or less quieting and satisfying; just as the life of the heart (the will) is a constant succession of greater or lesser disquietude through desire or fear with composure in degrees just as varied. Accordingly the harmonious progress of notes consists of the alternation of dissonance and consonance which conforms to the rules of art. A sequence of merely consonant chords would be satiating, tedious, and empty, like the languor produced by the satisfaction of all desires. Therefore, although dissonances are disquieting and have an almost painful effect, they must be introduced, but only in order to be resolved again into consonances with proper preparation. In fact, in the whole of music there are only two fundamental chords, the dissonant chord of the seventh and the harmonious triad, and all chords that are met with can be referred to these two. This is precisely in keeping with the fact that there are for the will at bottom only dissatisfaction and satisfaction, however many and varied the forms in which these are presented may be. And just as there are two universal and fundamental moods of the mind, serenity, or at any rate vigour, and sadness, or even anguish, so music has two general keys, the major and the minor, corresponding to those moods, and it must always be found in the one or in the other. But it is indeed amazing that there is a sign of pain, namely the minor, which is neither physically painful nor even conventional, yet is at once pleasing and unmistakable. From this we can estimate how deeply music is rooted in the real nature of things and of man. With northern nations, whose life is subject to hard conditions, especially with the Russians, the minor prevails, even in church music. Allegro in the minor is very frequent in French music, and is characteristic; it is as if a man danced while his shoe pinched him.

I add a couple of secondary observations. Under a change of the tonic or key-note, and with it of the value of all the intervals, in consequence of which the same note figures as the second, the third, the fourth, and so on, the notes of the scale are analogous to actors who have to assume now one role now another, while their person remains the same. The fact that this person is often not exactly suited to that role may be compared to the unavoidable impurity of every harmonic system (mentioned at the end of § 52 of volume 1) which has been produced by the equally hovering temperament.

Perhaps some might take umbrage at the fact that, according to the present metaphysics of music, whereas it so often exalts our minds and seems to speak of worlds different from and better than ours, it nevertheless flatters only the will-to-live, since it depicts the true nature of the will, gives it a glowing account of its success, and at the end expresses its satisfaction and contentment. The following passage from the Veda may serve to set at rest such doubts: Et Anand sroup, quod forma gaudii est, [x] pram Atma ex hoc dicunt, quod quocunque loco gaudium est, particula e gaudio ejus est (Oupnekhat, Vol. I, p. 405, and again Vol. II, p. 215). [6]

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Notes:

1. This chapter refers to § 52 of volume 1.

2. "The discordant concord of the world." [Tr.]

3. "They clamour incessantly against one another." [Tr.]

4. It would be a false objection to say that sculpture and painting are also merely in space; for their works are connected with time, not directly of course, but indirectly, since they depict life, movement, action. It would be just as false to say that poetry, as speech, belongs only to time. This is also true only indirectly of the words; its material is everything that exists, hence the spatial.

5. "Extremes meet." [Tr.]

6. "And that rapturous which is a kind of delight is called the highest Atman, because wherever there is a desire, this is a part of its delight." [Tr.]