On the Aesthetic Education of Man (Penguin Classics) by Friedrich Schiller

Author:Friedrich Schiller [Schiller, Friedrich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141396972
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-09-28T22:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOURTH LETTER

Hence there are three different moments, or stages, of development to be distinguished through which both the individual man as well as the entire species must necessarily pass in a particular order if they are to fulfil the entire arc of their destiny. Chance causes, stemming from the influence of external circumstance or the whim of man, can either prolong or cut short particular periods; but none can be completely omitted, and the order in which they succeed one another cannot be reversed either by nature or by human will. In his physical condition man suffers merely the force of nature; he detaches himself from this power in the aesthetic condition, and prevails over it in the moral condition.

What is man before beauty coaxes from him unbridled pleasure for its own sake, and the serenity of form tempers his wild life? Eternally uniform in his aims, eternally capricious in his judgements, self-obsessed without ever being properly himself, footloose without being free, a slave without a rule to follow. During this era the world is for him mere fate, not yet an object for itself; everything exists for him only insofar as it lends him existence; what neither gives to him, nor takes from him, simply does not exist for him. Any phenomenon that he encounters is isolated and detached, as he is himself in the chain of being. Everything that exists for him is only by virtue of the passing moment, every change is for him an entirely novel creation, since with the lack of necessity in himself there is also a lack of any necessity beyond himself that could connect ever-changing shapes into a universe which, given that the individual is fleeting, could lock down these shifting features with unvarying law. In vain does nature’s rich variety pass before his senses; he sees in its wonderful profusion nothing but his own booty, in its power and greatness nothing but his foe. Either he hurls himself upon things to devour them greedily, or things threaten to destroy him and he bats them away in horror. In both cases his relation to the sensuous world is one of immediate contact; and forever distressed by the way that it presses upon him, unceasingly tortured by peremptory desire, he finds tranquillity only in fatigue, and no boundaries other than in exhausted desire.

The Titan’s mighty breast and nervous frame

Was his descendants’ certain heritage;

But round their brow Jove forg’d a band of brass.

Wisdom and patience, prudence and restraint,

He from their gloomy, fearful eye conceal’d;

In them each passion grew to savage rage,

And headlong rush’d uncheck’d.

Goethe, Iphigenia in Tauris1

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