On the Aesthetic Education of Man by Friedrich Schiller

Author:Friedrich Schiller
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486117393
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

Seventeenth Letter

so long as we were merely engaged in deducing the universal idea of Beauty from the conception of human nature in general, we needed to consider no other boundaries to the latter than those which are directly established in its very being, and are inseparable from the conception of the finite. Unconcerned about the fortuitous limitations which it might suffer in the phenomenal world, we derived our conception of it directly from Reason, as the source of all necessity, and with the ideal of humanity we found at the same time the ideal of Beauty.

But we now descend from the realm of ideas into the arena of actuality, to meet Man in a particular condition, and consequently under limitations which do not originally derive from the mere conception of him, but from external circumstances and from a fortuitous exercise of his freedom. But in however many ways the idea of humanity may be limited in him, we learn from its simple content that in general only two opposite deviations from it can occur. That is to say, if his perfection lies in the harmonious energy of his sensuous and spiritual powers, he can only fall short of this perfection either through a lack of harmony or through a lack of energy. So before we have even heard the testimony of experience concerning it, we are already assured in advance, through sheer reason, that we shall find the actual and therefore limited man either in a condition of tension or in one of relaxation, according as the one-sided activity of isolated powers is disturbing the harmony of his being, or as the unity of his nature is based upon the uniform relaxation of his sensuous and spiritual powers. Both of these opposite limits are, as I shall now shew, removed by means of Beauty, which restores harmony in the tense man and energy in the languid man, and in this way, in accordance with its nature, brings back the condition of limitation to an absolute one and makes of Man a whole, complete in himself.

So Beauty by no means belies in actuality the conception which we formed of her in speculation—only that she has here an incomparably less free hand than when we were considering her in relation to the pure conception of humanity. In Man as experience reveals him she finds a material already vitiated and resistant, which robs her just as much of her ideal perfection as it blends with her by its individual quality. In actuality, therefore, she will everywhere appear only as a particular and limited species, never as a pure genus; she will in taut natures lay aside some of her freedom and diversity, and in relaxed ones some of her invigorating power; but we, who have by now grown more familiar with her true character, shall not be led astray by this contradictory phenomenon. So far from determining our conception of her from isolated experiences, as the great mass of critics do, and making

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