is this: in the former the particularization is only an abstract
particularization, for this reason that in the notion the determinate
relations are alone coherent in its transparent medium, that is to say,
in its unity and ideal universality. The notion, therefore, itself
remains subject to the one-sidedness of its particular material, and
is hampered with the defect that although in its own nature it is a
totality, yet it is only in the aspect of it as unity and universality
that it is entitled to free self-development. But inasmuch as this
defect in its completeness is foreign to its own essential form, the
process of its activity is to remove it. It negates itself as this very
ideal unity and universality and allows that which is enclosed in the
barren chamber of ideal subjectivity to flow forth freely into real and
substantive _objectivity._ In other words, the notion through its own
activity posits itself as objective reality.

(_b_) Objectivity is therefore, truly apprehended, the _real existence_
of the _notion._ It is, however, the notion under the mode of
self-substantive particularization and of a differentiation of all
_antithetical_ phases[191] of reality, whose ideal unity the notion in
its subjective capacity constituted.

But inasmuch as it is the _notion_, and only the notion, whose function
it is to endow objectivity with its determinate existence and reality,
so too it is only through objectivity that the _notion_ is unveiled in
its actuality. The notion is, however, the mediating and _ideal unity_
of all its particular antitheses. Within its differentiated reality
this ideal unity, effective throughout particularity in modes adequate
to the notion, has to establish itself in them, precisely in a way
similar to that in which the realized particularity of their unity, as
thus mediated to the point of ideality, has also to exist in them[192].
This is the might of the notion, which refuses to surrender or forfeit
its universality among the _disjecta membra_ of the objective world,
but rather reveals its essential unity through such reality and within
it. For it is nothing less than the very life of the notion to preserve
its unity in the material which is offered it. Only by so doing is it
real and veritable totality.

(_c_) This totality is the _Idea._ The Idea is not simply the ideal
unity and subjectivity of the notion. It is quite as much its true
and objective reality; it is, however, an objectivity which does not
confront the notion as an opposing factor, but is rather that in
which the notion itself is self-determined. In whichever aspect we
contemplate the notion, whether as subjective to our apprehension, or
as objectively real, the Idea it manifests is a totality. But it is
more than this. It is the unity which for ever is mediating between and
bringing into more perfected harmony the two totalities. Only as thus
apprehended is the Idea truth and indeed all truth.

2. All that exists, then, has only truth in so far as it is a definite
existence of the Idea. For the Idea is alone the truly real. The truth
of the phenomenal is not derived from the fact that its particular
existence is of an inward or external character, and as such is in
a general sense reality; it is so wholly in virtue of the fact that
such reality is adequate to the notion. Then alone is determinate
existence real and true. And the truth, to which we here refer, is
not a _subjective_ interpretation of it, namely, that a particular
existence is accordant with my own conception of it. It is truth in the
objective sense that the reality of the Ego, or of any external object,
action, or circumstance actually contributes to the realization of
the notion. If this identity is not established the existence remains
purely phenomenal. Instead of the objectification of the notion in its
completeness what obtains is purely a detached aspect of it; and with
regard to this, whatever self-subsistence it may appear to have in
opposition to the unity and universality of the notion, such can only
work to its final confusion by setting it in hostility to the true
notion itself. Our conclusion, therefore, is that only the reality
which adequately expresses the notion is truly reality, and the reason
it is so is that therein the Idea manifests itself as existence.

3. We have maintained that beauty is _Idea_. It follows that
_beauty_ and _truth_ are, in one aspect of them, _identical_. In
other words, beauty must itself in its intrinsic being be true. A
closer investigation will further show to us that truth must be
_distinguished_ from beauty.

The idea is true in the sense that it is so by virtue of its essential
being and according to its fundamental principle[193], and as such
truth it is thought[194]. It is not its sensuous and external
existence, but the _universal_ Idea of thought as present in this. At
the same time the Idea is driven to seek its realization in external
and objectively determined existence, both in the sphere of Nature
and that of Mind. The true, in the absolute sense, also exists. And
in so far as, in this its external existence, it is immediately
apprehended by consciousness, and the notion rests in immediate unity
with its external appearance, the Idea is not only true, but is also
_beautiful._ The _beautiful_ may therefore be defined as the _sensuous
semblance_[195] of the Idea. For the sensuous condition and the
objective world generally maintain no real self-subsistence in beauty,
but have merely to surrender the immediacy of their _being._ In beauty
such are posited simply as the determinate existence and externality
of the notion, and as a form of reality, which itself manifests the
_notion_ in unity with its external appearance in this its particular
objective existence. For this reason it can only pass as the semblance
of the notion.

(_a_) Accordantly with this it is impossible for the understanding[196]
alone to grasp the significance of beauty. For inasmuch as objective
reality is apprehended by this faculty as something at least quite
other than ideality, sensuous perception, as something very different
from the notion, the external object as something that is anywhere
rather than within world of the conscious self, to that extent it
cannot fail to emphasize the contradictions implied in such separation,
rather than penetrate to the ideal unity we have above described. The
understanding remains rooted in the finite, the incomplete and untrue
abstraction. The beautiful is on the contrary itself essentially
_infinite_ and free.

For although the content of beauty is stamped with particularity and
to that extent limited, such content is essentially in its mode of
environment a totality that is infinite[197] and a free existence; and
it is both for the reason that it is the notion, which does not pass
beyond this its objective semblance, and so fall into finite and one
sided abstraction with it, but rather is immersed as a blossom with
this its objectification and through the imminent unity and perfection
of such inclusion is revealed as essentially infinite. With equal
truth we may affirm that the notion in sealing, as it were, with a
soul the real existence, in which it is part of the objective world,
is itself by itself freely manifest in that world. For the notion will
not suffer that external existence in the sphere of beauty to follow,
as it would otherwise, the laws that therein are paramount: rather
it determines out of its own riches the articulation and form of its
appearance therein; and it is precisely this harmony of the notion with
the mode of its external existence which constitutes the essential
life of beauty. And the bond which braces all together, no less than
the power behind it, is self-conscious life, unity, soul, and artistic
personality.

(_b_) We conclude, then, that if we consider beauty in its relation to
conscious life, on the _subjective_ side that is, it is neither to be
adequately apprehended by an intelligence that persists in the unfree
medium of purely finite existence, nor is it the object of the finite
Will. We will enlarge a little on both points.

As finite intelligence we are aware in feeling of the inner no less
than the outer objects of consciousness; we observe them, perceive
them to be true to our senses, allow them to form part of the content
of our perceptions, concepts, and finally, no doubt, to become the
abstractions which our understanding presents to us, reflecting
on their appearance, and endowing them with the abstract form of
universality.

Now the finiteness and absence of freedom inseparable from this mental
attitude consists in the assumption that the things perceived are
self-subsistent. We direct our attention to these objects, suffer them
to impress us, form our ideas of them, possessed with the faith in
their material existence as objects, and convinced that all we have
to do is to perceive them as they appear to our passive reception,
to preserve, in short, the formal side of our attention intact,
holding such unfettered by our fancies, opinions, and prejudices.
In thus accepting this one-sided freedom of objects we posit at
the same time the want of freedom in their mental apprehension. To
such the content is one wholly _given_ from outside; and instead of
a true self-determination through difference we have nothing but
the reception and acceptance of what is presented as a part of the
objective thing. We would arrive at truth by the suppression of all
that belongs to ourselves[198].

A criticism of like nature, though the defect is here just at the
other extreme, may be applied to the finite _Will._ In this theory
interests, objects, intentions, and conclusions are all relegated to
the subject, whose will it is to enforce them as against the existence
and properties of the material thing. This it can only do by the
annihilation of the object itself, or at least, in so far as it can
modify or change its form and energies, by transmuting its qualities,
or permitting them to exercise such a change on each other, as water
may exercise on fire, fire on iron, iron on wood, and so forth. We now
find that it is the particular things, which the subject has enrolled
in its service, as things to be regarded and treated as _useful_,
which in their turn have been deprived of their self-subsistence.
In other words, they have come to be regarded as objects, whose
notion and meaning is not their own, but derived from the reflecting
consciousness, so that what is most essential to them is precisely this
relation of service in which they stand to the subjective purpose, that
is, our own intelligence. The values of either side of the relation
are thus completely reversed. The objective thing has lost freedom and
the conscious subject secured it. As a matter of fact, the freedom
on _both_ aspects of the relation is, owing to the finitude and
abstraction it implies under such a view, a purely supposititious one.

In the sphere of _theory_ here it is the assumed independence of the
objective world which creates the finitude and bondage of the conscious
Ego. In that of the practical world this dependence is due to its
one-sidedness, the conflict and contradiction of its aims within and
the impulses and passions which press from without, no less than to
the unreconciled opposition of a world of objects. For the separation
and opposition of these two aspects of one whole, that is, objects
and relating self-conscious life, is presupposed in, and indeed is an
accurate definition of, this point of view.

And, similarly, with reference to the lack of freedom in the object.
Here, too, in the sphere of intelligible conception, the independence
of the object is assumed, but the freedom assumed is only apparent. For
it is only posited as bare objectivity without securing the presence
of its notion, as the unity and universality of the conscious subject,
within such objectivity. It still remains outside it. Every object thus
placed external to the notion merely exists as particularity, which
comes back to us in external guise together with its manifold, and
is, in all the unlimited scope of its relations, through its contact
with other objects, subject to the conditions of its origin, change,
opposing force and final overthrow. In the _practical_ world the
dependence of the object is expressly, in this view, assumed, and the
opposition of the thing is posited in definite relation to volition
without possessing in itself the power of ultimate self-subsistency
permitted to the latter.

(_c_) The apprehension of the object as _beautiful_ unites these two
abstract points of view. It in fact annuls the one-sidedness of both
whether relatively to the subject of consciousness or its object, and
by doing so cancels the finitude and lack of freedom which characterize
them.

Philosophically regarded[199], the reason is this, that the object is
not apprehended in its existence as an isolated thing whose notion
as the object of human thought is removed from the objectivity which
belongs to it as something outside it, and which in its particular
reality extends and is dissipated in every conceivable direction
as a manifold content of intelligible relations. An object which
is beautiful suffers its own notion to appear as realized in its
objective presence, and reveals in that appearance the unity and life
inseparable from the conscious subject. For this reason the object may
be conceived as sweeping back into the curve of its unity that impulse
of continuous externality, cancelling its dependence on other objects,
and transmuting to our vision its unfree finitude into free infinity.

Furthermore, the Ego in its relation to the object of beauty ceases
to be merely the abstract attention or sensuous perception, and the
floating away of such perceptions into equally abstract reflections.
Rather, it is itself concretely realized in this object, being at once
the unity and reality of its notional idea, and uniting for itself
in its rounded concreteness that which has hitherto remained, as
abstractly perceived, apart in the Ego of the subject of perception and
the thing perceived.

Coming now to the practical import of this relation as it applies to
the object of beauty, we have already drawn attention to the fact at
some length, that in the contemplation of it the element of sensuous
passion drops away. All personal impulse that the individual may
feel toward the object is done away with through that very aesthetic
contemplation, which regards it as self-subsistent in itself, in other
words, its own object. For this reason, the purely finite relation
of the object also disappears, the relation, that is, in which it
subserved, as a means for their realization, aims which were foreign
to it, and towards the fulfilment of which it was either presented
as unfree or was compelled to take up, however strange, into its
own existence. At the same time that relation of the Ego in the
practical world which we found to be unfree disappears, inasmuch as it
differentiates itself no longer in subjective motives and their means
or material, remaining fixed in the finite relation of the formal
"ought" for the carrying out of its subjective ends in the object, but
is here confronted with the notion and its aim completely realized.

We may say, then, that the aesthetic contemplation of the beautiful is
a liberal education, a portrayal of the object in its free and infinite
being, with no detracting consideration of its use or employment
for finite wants and purposes. Further, the _object_ as a _thing of
beauty_ is neither under force or compulsion at our hands, nor is it
in conflict with and overcome by other things outside it. It is of the
essence of beauty that the notion, end and soul thereof, no less than
its existent form, and variety generally, manifest themselves out of
their own intrinsic wealth rather than through the energy of something
outside them. The reason of this lies in the fact, already insisted
upon, that their truth consists solely in the unity and harmony of
their notion with their objective existence. And inasmuch as the notion
is itself concrete totality, its objective reality also appears as
a manifestation of the same, homogeneous in all its parts, which,
as thus imbedded in the notion, appear to fall into such ideal unity
and animation. For this harmony of the notion and its envisagement is
nothing less than perfected suffusion[200]. Accordingly the exterior
form and shape is manifested, not as such by its separation from other
material, or as an impression mechanically related to aims which
are foreign to it, but as the form of reality wherein the notion
accommodates itself out of its own stuff and substance. Finally,
however much the particular aspects, parts or articulations of the
beautiful object are presented in the ideal unity of the notion and
its unified envisagement, that harmony must be so rendered visible to
sense, that in relation to one another they preserve the semblance of
self-subsistent freedom; in other words they must not only possess the
ideal unity of the _notion as such_, but must reflect back the side
of a reality which is substantially objective also. Both aspects, in
short, must be present in beautiful objects; for these are, on the
one hand, the _necessity_ posited through the notion and discovered
in the harmonious conclusion of these particular aspects, and on the
other, the envisagement of their freedom as essentially one with the
whole, and _not merely_ that of the _unity_ which exists between the
parts. Necessity in its full definition means the just relation of
the two aspects, which coalesce so completely that to posit one is to
posit the other. Such a necessity must unquestionably be present in
beautiful objects. It is not, however, under the mode of necessity that
it appears; rather it should conceal itself beneath the semblance of
unintentional accident. Otherwise the particular parts of such a real
presence lose the position they should occupy according to their own
real existence, and only appear in the service of their ideal unity, to
which they therefore remain in abstract subordination.

In virtue of the freedom and infinitude above analysed, which is
inherent in the notion of beauty, whether we view it in its objective
presence as a thing of beauty, or under its aesthetic contemplation, we
disengage the province of the beautiful from the relations of finite
condition, to exalt it into that of the Idea and its truth.

[Footnote 188: This is, of course, a note of Hegel himself.]

[Footnote 189: This, of course, has reference to Hegel's unfortunate
belief in Goethe's theory of colour.]

[Footnote 190: Mediated (_vermittelt_), because the concrete is first
apprehended through its differences, and only after reflection do we
arrive at the notional unity which transcends and unites them.]

[Footnote 191: _Momente._ Phases asserted and reconciled in the evolved
notional unity, organic or otherwise. The notion is subjective because
it is an ideal unity.]

[Footnote 192: The text is clearly corrupt. The full-stop after
_herzustellen_ should be a comma, and _auch_ would be preferably
changed to _als die._]

[Footnote 193: As essentially reason.]

[Footnote 194: Not the substantive, but past participle.]

[Footnote 195: _Das sinnliche Scheinen._]

[Footnote 196: _Verstand_ in the technical sense of Kant's philosophy;
that is, the faculty of scientific observation or ordinary
perception--analytical, in contrast to reason (_Vernunft_), the
synthetic faculty.]

[Footnote 197: Infinite, that is to say, as human freedom is infinite,
as mind is infinite, an ideal totality, a whole complete in itself, not
an endless progress, which is a contradiction.]

[Footnote 198: Or, as Hegel says, "by suppressing the subjective
principle altogether."]

[Footnote 199: _Theoretischen_ here used in sense of true philosophical
theory, not one-sided views as above.]

[Footnote 200: _Vollendete Durchdringung_, _i.e._, a penetration
through all parts.]

CHAPTER II

THE BEAUTY OF NATURE

Beauty is the Idea as the immediate unity of the notion and its
objective reality, yet is only the Idea in so far as its unity is
immediately present in shape apprehensible to the senses and as
semblance of the real. The most elementary form of existence, which the
Idea take to itself is _Nature_, and the first form of beauty is that
of _Nature._

A. THE BEAUTY OF NATURE AS SUCH

1. In the world of Nature we must distinguish between the modes
according to which the notion becomes existent reality in order to be
part of the Idea.

(_a_) In the _first_ place the notion is absorbed so immediately in
pure objectivity, that, in its character of subjective and ideal
unity, it wholly fails to assert itself, and passes over instead as a
thing without a soul into the raw _materia_ presented to sense. The
purely mechanical or physical bodies in their isolated singularity
are of this order. A particular metal is, for example, essentially no
doubt a manifold of mechanical and physical qualities; every part of
it, however, has such qualities equally in itself. Such a body not
merely fails to possess any entire articulation of its parts in the
sense that every one of its different parts receives for itself a
particular material existence, but even the negative ideal unity of
such differentiation is absent, which might assert itself as animating
principle[201]. The difference here is a purely abstract multiplicity,
and the unity posited the indifferent equilibrium of identical
qualities.

This is the first mode of the existence of the notion. The differences
here receive no independent existence, and the ideal unity is not found
as ideality. For this reason such isolated bodies are essentially
defective and abstract existences.

(_b_) Natural objects of a higher order suffer the differences asserted
by the notion to appear as free, so that each one as external to
another is itself independently existent. Here we have for the first
time the true character of objectivity. Objectivity is just this
independent assertion of the segregated differences determined by the
notion. On this plane of existence the notion asserts itself in such a
way that it is at least a totality of its differences, which is truly
realized, in so far as the particular bodies, while they each severally
possess independent existence for themselves, are at the same time
members of _one inclusive system._ Of such a character is the solar
system. In one aspect of them the sun, comets, moon, and planets appear
as independent heavenly bodies apart from one another; in another,
however, they derive their definite character from being parts of
one system of such material bodies. Not only their specific modes of
motion, but also their physical qualities, are only to be deduced from
their relation to this system. This nexus which binds them together
constitutes that inward unity which relates these particular existences
together in one whole.

But further than this, in this conception of system the operation of
the notion is not exhausted in the _existent unity_ of independent
bodies as essential parts of it. For just as the differences are real
the unity which relates them to the totality has to assert itself
as real. This unity, in other words, differentiates itself from
the multifold particularity of those objective bodies of which it
is the integrating principle. And on this plane of existence it is
differentiated therefore itself against such a particularity as real,
independent and objective existence. In the solar system the sun exists
over against all particularity related to that system, as such a unity
of the system.

Such a material existence of the ideal unity of the notion is still
very defective; for whereas on the one hand we have this unity posited
in its reality only as the relation or material connection between the
severally independent bodies, on the other we have it posited as a
body which belongs to that system, whose unity, in opposition to its
real differences, it essentially represents. The sun, in short, which
we take to be[202] the soul of the system, has itself an independent
entity apart from the members which form the explicit content of this
soul. It is itself only _one_ particular mode or phase of the notion,
that, namely, of unity in its _difference_ from the actual separation
of the several parts, a unity which remains outside itself, and is
consequently abstract. For however much the sun by virtue of its
physical quality is plainly a principle of unity, the illuminating
body as such, this is after all merely an abstract identity. For light
is simple, undifferentiated appearance and nothing more. We find
therefore in the solar system the unity of the notion indeed objective,
and the totality of its differences explicitly realized, each body
making visible _one_ particular phase[203] of the notion; but here,
too, it lies absorbed in its objective reality, and it fails to assert
itself in such material as is truly inherent and explicit ideality.
The form of its existence which here prevails remains the independent
segregation of its particular phasal units[204].

It is, however, essential to the true existence of the notion, that the
_differences_ of the objectively real, the reality, that is to say, of
the separate independent parts and the equally independent unity that
is therein objectively realized, should as such be together brought
back into unity. Only thus such a totality of innate differences can
make wholly explicit either the notion as the realized differentiation
of its characteristics, or at the same time release each particular
that belongs to it from the element of isolated independence which it
cancels by enabling the ideality, in which these differences recover
their subjective unity, to assert itself fully as the universal
principle of their animated being. In that case they become no longer
_parts_ hanging loosely to one another by a bond that still leaves
their particularity unaffected, but genuine _members_ of one body.
They no longer possess an existence in their isolated singularity,
but retain such truly in the ideal unity which binds them together.
Only in such an organic articulation the ideal unity of the notion is
present to the parts thus integrated. It is at once their support and
immanent soul; here for the first time the notion is not overwhelmed in
objective reality, but passes over into actual existence as the inward
identity and universality, which it essentially is.

(_c_) But this _third_ mode of Nature's manifestation is a determinate
existence of the _Idea_, and the Idea as thus manifested in Nature
is _Life._ Dead or inorganic nature is not adequate to express the
Idea; only the organic life of Nature unfolds its reality. For in life
we shall find, _first_, that the objective reality of the notion as
differentiated is presented as such reality; _secondly_, however, that
the negation of such differences is entirely one of distinction in that
reality[205], the ideal subjectivity of the notion overcoming to itself
this very reality; _thirdly_, the unifying principle of animation is
now the positive appearance of the notion in the form of its bodily
substance, that is to say, the form of infinity, which is sufficiently
powerful to assert itself thus formally in its content.

(_α_) If we ask ordinary consciousness[206] for a definition of Life,
we have two determinations presented, either the imaginative conception
of it as bodily life, or as soul-life. In the same view we distinguish
these two determinations with qualities peculiarly belonging to each.
This _contrast_ we set up between soul and body is also of great
importance in the more philosophical consideration of our subject. And
it is no less part of our inquiry to investigate it. At the same time
we would point out that the philosophical interest concentrates itself
quite as much on the _unity_ which exists between soul and body, a part
of this inquiry which a really adequate survey of the subject has at
all times found beset with the greatest difficulties. It is, however,
precisely in virtue of this unity that Life is the first genuine
appearance of the Idea in Nature. We must consequently apprehend the
identity of soul and body as no fortuitous connection[207], but a
union of profounder significance. In other words, we must recognize
the body and its members as the objective existence of the notion
itself in systematic articulation, which in the members of the living
organism, secures an objective existence for its determinate features,
analogously no doubt, if on a higher plane, to the facts presented
by the solar system. Within this real existence the notion asserts
itself in like manner as the ideal unity of all these determinate
parts. This ideal unity is the soul. The soul is the substantive unity
and interfused universality which is no less a simple relation of
self-determining than it is ideal Being-for-itself or self-coherent
totality. This is the higher view of the union between soul and body.
To put it in other words both are not merely distinct aspects set side
by side; they are one and the same totality of identical determinants.
Just as the Idea generally can only be grasped in its explicit reality
as the notion evolving itself as such[208], in which conception the
differentiation and unity of both sides, that is both the notion and
its objective reality, are inseparably present, in the same way Life
must be conceived as the unity of both soul and body.

And further, the subjective no less than substantive unity of soul
within the body is presented us and exemplified in Feeling. The feeling
of a living organism is, that is to say, not merely an independent
product of a particular member, but it is also this ideal and simple
unity of the entire organism. It is carried through every member of
the body is felt throughout in more than a hundred places at once; and
indeed, to put it shortly, rather than saying there are many thousand
sensitive points[209] in a single organism we should more justly say
there is but one, namely, the subject of consciousness. And inasmuch
as the animating principle of organic Nature includes in itself this
distinction between the real existence of the organic members, and the
abstract or simple self-coherence within such parts, which we call the
growing soul, mediating between them both by virtue of its inherent
unity, such a principle of Life stands on a higher plane than that of
inorganic Nature. Only with Life is the Idea existent, and only thus is
the Idea truth. No doubt even in the organic world this truth can be
extinguished. We find the body unable to perfect its essential ideality
and animating energy. Such is the case in disease. Here we find the
notion deprived of its controlling sovereignty, and other powers are
potent with it. Such a life is, however, defective and crippled: it
merely continues, because the inadequacy of reality to the notion has
not reached the point of absolute contradiction; it is still only
relatively valid. Once assume that all harmony between the two sides is
broken, that all genuine articulation of the members of the body and
their true identity has dropped away, and life is dissolved in death.
The several members are now mere appendages to each other, with no
principle of Life to hold them in unsevered unity.

(_β_) We must add that when we stated the soul is the totality of the
notion regarded as the subjective and ideal unity, the body on the
other hand, as distinguished by its members, is the same totality
but rather in its material aspect as the juxtaposition and sensuous
accretion of all the several parts, affirming at the same time that
both soul and body are posited as _one_ in the living organism, there
is no doubt something contradictory in the statement. For the ideal
unity, so far from being this material juxtaposition of parts, in which
each particularity possesses its independent consistency and exclusive
character, is rather in direct antithesis to such external reality.
That what is diametrically opposed should nevertheless be identical is
obviously a contradiction in terms. The man, however, who declares the
non-existence of anything from the fact that it carries in our notion
of it a contradiction which implies the identity of opposed antitheses,
simply excludes Life itself from the idea of existence. For the force
of Life and still more the power of Spirit (mind) consists in this
very movement, namely, to assert the law of contradiction inherent
within them, to bear the burden thereof and to overcome it. This
affirmation and resolution of the contradiction which obtains between
the ideal unity and material juxtaposition of the members, constitutes
the appointed _process_ of life itself. And Life is simply _process._
And this process of life includes an activity which has two distinct
functions. On the one hand it has continually to affirm the material
existence of the physical distinctions[210] among the members of the
organism thus determined; on the other, just in proportion as such
distinctions grow obdurate in their independent particularity, and tend
to remain fixed in absolute separation from each other, it has to make
good once more that universal ideality, which is the principle of their
life. This is the idealism of Life's process. Philosophy is not the
only idealism; far from it. Nature herself in her domain of actuality
creates in the life-process just that which the philosophy of idealism
completes in the world of contemplative thought. Only where we have
these two aspects of one activity, that is, the constant realization
of the corporeal definition of the organism no less than the synthetic
affirmation of such material presentment in the ideal unity, which
it is as one with the notion[211], then and only then we have the
completed process of Life, whose more primitive forms[212], however,
this is not the place to discuss. Through this unity of Life's energy
in both its branches all the members of the organism are up held in
their integrity, and continually flushed anew with the ideality of
their life. This ideality is furthermore declared by the organic parts
in the fundamental law of their being, that this unity of Life is not
so much an accidental quality as, on the contrary, the substance of it.
In this alone they are able to preserve their specific character. This
it is which precisely constitutes the difference between the part of a
mere conglomerate and the member of an organism. The particular parts
of a house, for example, the stones, windows, and so forth, remain just
what they are, whether they form part of the structure of a house,
or whether they do not. Their relationship to one another is quite
indifferent, and the conceptual notion remains in their case a purely
external form, which possesses no life in these parts raising them to
the ideality of a subjective unity.

The members of an organism have, it is true, an external reality, but
for all that it is the notion of Life which constitutes the inward,
nay, the characteristic being of such reality, a reality which is not
expressed through one external form uniting them, but in the ideal
coherence of their parts in one living whole. For this reason the limbs
have no such reality as belongs to the stones of a building, or the
planets, moon, and comets in the solar system. Their reality is one
wholly within the content of the organism, and all appearance to the
contrary is, as such, ideally imposed on them. Dissever the hand from
the body and it loses its independent existence as a member of the
organism which made it what it was. Its activity, form, and colour,
all that constitutes it, is at once changed; it enters the process of
corruption, and ultimately ceases to exist[213]. Consistent character
it only possesses as a limb of organic life, reality only in constant
reunion with that ideal unity which sustains it. And that is just the
superior mode of reality which the living organism possesses in itself.
The real or positive is for ever being set up as both the negation
of itself and withal the ideal resumption of itself, such ideality
constituting, in fact, both the maintenance and specific character of
the mode under which each of the separate parts of the bodily presence
are associated together.

(_γ_) The reality, then, which the Idea wins for itself in the life
of Nature is reality as a phenomenal process. Such an _appearance_
stated in its simplest terms is this, that a reality exists, but its
potential being[214] is not immediately in its possession, rather it is
at the same time negatively affirmed[215] in the particular form that
belongs to it. The negation of the immediately external and particular
members of a body is not only a negative relative relation as the
activity of the inherent idealization[216], but is as such a positive
realization[217].

Hitherto we have considered the particular objects of the real as
positive in their self-exclusive particularity. This independence,
however, is negated in the living object, and the ideal unity asserted
within the bodily organism is alone found to assert over itself the
full force of positive determination. Such a positive ideality in
the principle of negation it asserts is the soul. On the appearance
of the soul in the body we have at once such an affirmative presence
as the one indicated. The soul not merely asserts itself as a power
against the subdivision of the bodily members, it is their plastic
creator[218], which preserves as inward and ideal that which is
externally minted in the shape of physical members. And consequently
it is this very positive and ideal inward[219] which appears in the
outer structure; in other words, the external, so far as it is a mere
external, is a mere abstraction, a mere aspect that is untrue for
the whole. In organic life the external we are confronted with is an
externality through which the inward is made visible. The outward, that
is to say, declares itself in its potential nature as that inward,
which is its notion. Further to this notion appertains the reality
in which it as notion is made visible. Inasmuch, however, as in the
objective world the notion, strictly as such, is the principle of
subjective life and self-determined life becoming _explicit_ in its
own objective reality[220], life exists only as a _living thing_, an
individual subject. It is only with life thus concentrated to a point
that we find this negating _centrum_ of unity. And it is negative in
this sense that the ideal explicitly self-unified totality[221] can
only now stand forth in its reality by virtue of this principle of
ideality being asserted through the differentiation of its positive
presence, together with which the ideal unity of such totality is at
the same time incorporated. It is of the greatest importance to make
clear this aspect of the principle of subjectivity. It is only as the
single living thing thus unified by such a principle that life is
actually present.

If we inquire further in what manner the Idea is manifested within the
actual life of such living individuals our survey will be as follows:
_first_, this principle of Life will be realized as the totality of an
organism possessing bodily shape; _secondly_, this physical shape is
not presented as a rigid product[222], but as a continous process of
ideal generation, in which a living soul asserts itself. _Thirdly_,
the changes and determinations through which this totality passes
are not imposed externally to it, but are changes of form which are
evolved from its inherent nature, imposed on itself and for itself, in
a process wherein it stands self-determined as the subjective unity no
less than the ultimate end of its being.

This free self-subsistence of the subjective principle of life is
especially exemplified in the spontaneous motion of a living organism.
The inanimate bodies of inorganic Nature are fettered to the conditions
of Space, which limits them to one place, or they are only moved from
it by external forces. The motion, in short, does not originate in
themselves; and, when it is visible upon them, it appears as an energy
which is foreign to them, to remove which the only force they exert
is that of reaction. And if the motion of the planets with similar
phenomena appear to be otherwise produced, such are at least wholly
fettered by natural laws and their abstract necessity. The living
animal, on the contrary, in its freedom of motion, negatives this
enforced limitation to one spot by virtue of its own activity. It is
through such self-determination the continuous liberation of itself
from the material isolation. And for the same reason it is in this
freedom of motion, if only in a subordinate degree, the release of
itself from the former abstractness referable to the particular modes
of motion, their direction and their speed. Under a yet closer view,
moreover, the animal, regarded by itself in its organism, presents the
same sensuous matter that is moved; and here, too, life is as before a
freedom of motion within this organic reality, evidenced in the flow of
blood and the movement of the limbs.

Motion, however, is not the only expression of animated life. The free
tones of the voice of animals, which are unknown in the inorganic
world, where bodies merely roar and clatter through the blow of objects
external to them, these already present to us the higher expression
of animated subjectivity. The most intimate and vital expression of
such ideal activity is, however, brought before us when we find the
living individual able to concentrate itself as individuality over
against the objective world, while at the same time it appropriates
and transfigures that world _for its own._ And this is accomplished in
part through observation by means of vision, and partly for practical
purposes, in so far as such an individual brings the outer world
into subjection to himself, utilizes the same, assimilates it as a
means of nourishment, and in this manner continually reproduces his
individuality in that objective _alterum._ Such a process, of course,
as it ascends through stronger organisms, assumes more and more
emphatic degrees of unsatisfied desire, assimilation, satisfaction, or
satiety.

Such, then, are the activities, in which the notion of animated life
makes itself apparent. Moreover, the principle of Ideality thus
rendered visible is not merely the result of _our_ reflection; it
is _objectively_ real itself in the living subject, whose existence
consequently we may go so far as to call an objective idealism. And
it is the soul, as before stated, which, as this ideal energy, brings
about its own manifestation[223], always reducing the _purely_ external
reality of the body to an appearance, and thereby affirming itself as
objective totality in that very bodily shape.

2. Now it is as the Idea made objectively visible to the senses that
the animated life of Nature is _beautiful_; in so far, that is to
say, as the truth or the Idea, presented in the form of Nature, where
under it first appears, in other words life, is immediately given in
the particular shape of reality adequate to it. Owing, however, to its
sensuous immediacy the living beauty of Nature is neither beautiful
_for itself_ nor is the beauty strictly that which is _the outcome_ of
itself, a product, that is, of its purely objective appearance. The
beauty of Nature is only beautiful for another, that is _for us_, the
consciousness that apprehends its beauty. The question therefore arises
in what way and by virtue of what characteristics the principle of life
appears to us beautiful in its _immediate_ existence.

(_a_) If we look at the practical way in which a living object
becomes visible and preserves itself, the first thing which rivets
our attention is _spontaneous motion._ This motion, regarded simply
as motion, is nothing more than the entirely abstract freedom of
motion from place to place and from time to time, which we find
exemplified in the spontaneous, but entirely haphazard movements of
animal life. In music and the dance we have, it is true, motion in
its generic significance; but here motion is not merely a matter of
chance and impulse, but it exhibits the laws which regulate it; it
is defined, complete in itself and subject to measure; and it is all
this, though we still abstract from it the significance whereof it is
the beautiful expression. If we again interpret the motion of animals
as the realization of an aim originating within themselves, this
excited impulse is still entirely accidental, an end of most restricted
import. If we further extend our survey and conceive such motion as
the activity and working together of all parts of the animal organism
towards a definite purpose, we shall merely find that such a conception
is rendered possible by our own effort of imagination[224]. The case is
just the same if we reflect upon the way in which an animal gratifies
its physical wants, obtains nourishment through the organs which
grasp it, consume it, digest it, and generally is a subject of the
process which preserves its life. For in this case also we have either
only before us single desires and their spontaneous and haphazard
gratification, in which the inward activity[225] of the organism is not
present at all, or at least all these activities and their means of
expression have become the subject of our imaginative reflection, which
is at pains to understand such a process by relating it to definite
ends, and to establish a harmony between aims assumed to belong to the
animal itself and the organs which fulfill them.

We shall rather find that neither the sensuous perception of single
haphazard appetites, arbitrary movements and efforts towards
self-satisfaction, nor the fanciful consideration of the animal
organism as one directed by purpose will present to us purely animal
life as a part of the beauty of Nature. The beauty consists in the
appearance of individual form, both in repose and motion, quite apart
from the relation of its self-gratification to any purpose thus
subserved, as it is apart from the entirely isolated contingency of
self-imposed movement[226]. Such beauty is related to the _form_ alone,
because it is only as such that it is the external appearance, in which
the objective idealism of the principle of life makes itself known
to us as a thing perceived and contemplated upon through the senses.
Thought apprehends this "objective idealism" in the medium of its
notion, appropriating the same in the element of _universality_ which
belongs to it, albeit the contemplation of its beauty is inseparably
bound with its _phenomenal reality._ And this reality is the external
form of the articulated organism, which is, in our view of it, quite
as much determinate particularity as it is a semblance, namely, that
of the physical manifold of the separate members, which can only form
part of the concrete totality of the _living form_ under the guise of
phenomenal appearance.

(_b_) From the explanation of the notion of life already given we
may deduce more narrowly the form of this appearance as follows. The
form is one of spatial extension, limitation, and configuration,
distinguished through its various shape, colour, and motion, being, in
fact, a manifold of such distinctions. If, however, the organism which
manifests these differences is a living organism, it will inevitably
appear that the organism does not derive its true existence from such
a _manifold_ and its physical configurations. This is brought about by
the fact that the different parts, which are apprehended by us through
the senses, are at the same time conjoined together in one totality;
they appear consequently as the _members_ of one individual existence,
which is a unity of such differences, and which not merely possesses
them in their difference, but as parts of one homogeneous whole.

(_α_) In the first place, however, this unity will assert itself as
the _purposeless_ identity of such differences, that is to say with
no abstract relation to any causal end whatever. The parts in such
a case are not rendered visible to sense merely as a means to or in
the service of some defined purpose, nor are they able to fix the
determinate relation of form and structure which they occupy one over
against the other.

(_β_) Rather the contrary is the case, for, in the _second_ place, the
bodily members have for our sense-perception the appearance of being
quite _accidental_ in their form; in other words the determination of
one appears to be quite indifferent to that of another. In other words,
we can never conclude because one has a certain form another will have
the same, as would be the case if a material uniformity was clear
between them. Where uniformity is the rule an abstract determination
of some kind of form, size, or whatever it may be, is the property
of all parts. The windows of a building, for example, are all of one
size, or at least are placed together in one row. Or we may illustrate
the same similarity with the uniform worn by all soldiers belonging
to one regiment. We have various parts of such clothing differing in
colour, texture and the rest, but their formal opposition is no matter
of chance; each has its causal connection with some other; it is
there because the other is there. Neither is there here any complete
distinction of form, nor any unique independence wholly asserted. With
the individual organism of life the case is entirely otherwise. Here
every part is absolutely distinguished; the nose from the forehead, the
mouth from the cheek, the breast from the neck, the arms from the legs,
and so on. Inasmuch as for our sense-perception every member possesses
its unique form rather than one which belongs to another, or one which
is determined by that of another, the members appear as self-subsistent
parts, and for this reason free and spontaneous[227]. For the material
juxtaposition of the parts alone throws no light upon their particular
form.

(_γ_) _Thirdly_, it is obvious there must be for our imaginative
perception a more inward bond of connection present in the
self-subsistence of the organism, if the unity is not offered us in
its rational, spatial, temporal, or quantitative relations such as
are presented in the examples of uniformity referred to, which, as we
have seen, the unique particularity of the parts can extinguish. This
identity is not sensuous and immediately present to perception in the
way the distinction between the members is presented; it is rather a
secret and _inward_ bond of necessity and harmonious relation between
the members and their form. If it were only inward, quite out of
reach of our vision, such a necessary unity would be apprehended only
in thought, removed from our sense-perception altogether. In such a
case, however, it would fail to enter into the beautiful object of our
vision, and what we found as such in the living, object would cease to
be the Idea in its own objective and phenomenal reality. Such a unity
must consequently enter into what is externally perceived, although it
is, as the ideal principle of life within it, not entirely apparent
to sense or confined in spatial dimensions. It appears in fact in
the individual totality as the universal ideality of its members,
constituting thus the fundamental basis which supports and holds them
together, the subject of the living subject. And this subjective unity
in organic life finds its first direct expression in feeling. In the
emotional life the Soul finds its true expression as _Soul._ For
soul the mere juxtaposition of limbs have no real truth, and in the
presence of its subjective ideality the purely spatial multiplicity
of external configuration ceases to exist. Such a manifold, with its
unique differentiations, its organic articulation of parts[228] is
no doubt presupposed; but when and in so far as the soul expresses
itself through such in feeling the more inward unity ever-present
to life asserts itself equally as the dissolution of all absolute
independence between the physical parts, which reveal now not merely
their _materia_, but also that wave of animation which fuses all in
their soul.

(_c_) To start with, however, we must observe that the emotional
expression of soul-life neither offers us the visual impression of any
necessary inter-dependence between the separate members, nor indeed the
perception of an identity which is necessary between such _physical_
articulation and the _subjective_ unity conferred on it by simple
feeling. We will investigate this more narrowly.

(_α_) If indeed the form and only the form renders in some way visible
this inward harmony and its necessity, it may be because we look
upon this juxtaposition as the _habitual_ relation of such members,
a connection which brings to our view some specific type and the
oft-repeated formal exemplifications of such a type. But the necessity
of custom is after all only a _subjective necessity._[229] According
to such a principle we may find certain animals ugly for no other
reason than that we find in them an organism which differs from our
ordinary experience, or runs contrary to it. For this reason we call
the organisms of certain animals bizarre in so far as the way in which
their organs are related together is foreign to what is more common to
our experience or entirely contradicts it. Fishes whose bodies are in
size out of all proportion to their length of tail, or those in which
we find eyes together on one side of the head only, are an example. In
the world of plants we are already prepared to find many such strange
departures from type, although the cactus with its spines, and the more
rectilinear shaping of its angular junctures[230] may still arouse our
wonder. The more a man is educated, however, in all branches of natural
history, the more able he will be to recognize in their truth the
subordination of all parts of organic life, and carry in the memory the
greatest variety of types in their proper classification, and the less
anything he may observe will surprise him.

(_β_) A profounder penetration into this correlation of the parts will,
however, in the _second_ place, tend to give us that truer insight
competent to determine from one of the parts the entire form to which
it must belong. Cuvier is a famous example of such aptitude: a man
of science, who by the examination of a single bone, whether fossil
or otherwise, was able to specify at once by its characteristics the
kind of animal to which it belonged. An excellent illustration this of
_ex ungue leonem._ So from a claw or a thigh bone we may discover the
conformation of the teeth, or _vice versa_ from the teeth that of the
hip-bone, or that of the vertebral column. Such a profound synthesis
of the type and the knowledge it implies carries us, however, beyond
habitual experience only. We must assume, to render it possible,
previous thought and the systematic arrangement of the isolated facts
of science. Our example Cuvier had no doubt secured from previous
experience a determinate content and some specific quality which
prevailed in each generic conception, and asserted itself as a unity
of principle in all particulars however distinct, and so enabled
him to recognize their affinity. Such a specific quality is that of
flesh-eating, which is then the determinating principle of the form of
the other members of the organism to which it belongs. A flesh-eating
animal requires teeth and jaws of exceptional vigour; when hunting it
will require claws to seize its prey, mere hoofs are insufficient. Here
in short is a quality which necessarily determines for us the form and
principle of affinity among all the organic members. A conception of
such a typical character is the ordinary one we form of the strength
of an eagle or a lion. We may no doubt find something both beautiful
and instructive[231] in this way of regarding the animal world, in so
far as we derive from it some unified idea of its configuration, which
is not a mere repetition of that unity in all the parts, but gives
full value to the distinctions they possess. For all that it must be
remembered the dominant factor of this survey is not the _perception
of our senses_, but the generic _thought_ of our minds with which it
is made to conform. Reviewed in this light we ought not to say that we
find the object as such _beautiful_, but rather attribute that beauty
to the _reflection_ of our own minds upon it. And if we examine these
reflections more closely we shall find they are after all a deduction
of our principle of unity from a limited aspect of the organic whole.
We concentrate our attention, for example, on the mode in which
it is nourished, _i.e._, whether such an animal is carnivorous or
herbivorous. Through such a limited determination we are still removed
from a vision of the coalescent unity of the whole we identified with
the notion, the soul itself.

(_γ_) The truth is we can only, in this sphere, bring before our
consciousness the entire unity of life by means of our thought and
grasp of reason. In the natural world the _soul_, in its full activity,
is not found; that is to say, the subjective unity, in its pure
ideality, does not exist there for a self-consciousness.

If, however, by means of thought, we endeavour to grasp the nature of
soul-life according to its essential notion we shall find two aspects
under which we may regard it; first, as the form subject to such a
principle of animation; secondly, as the notion of soul for thought
in all that the conception implies. Such a complete grasp of its true
nature is not possible in the sensuous perception of the objects of
beauty. Such must neither pass before us as thought, nor must we
allow the interest of Thought as such to form a barrier of difference
or opposition between itself and the vision revealed to us. We are
left, then, with no alternative but to consider, under this point of
view, the object as wholly presented to sense; we must assume that in
the sphere of Nature a _sensuous_ perception of the natural form is
our genuine mode of contemplating the beautiful. "Sense," that is the
master-key[232] to the position; a word which in itself is interpreted
in two opposed senses. In the first place we may indicate thereby the
organs of immediate[233] perception, secondly, by the "sense of a
thing" we may refer to the significance, or the element of thought and
the universal within it. In this way "Sense" is related on one side to
the immediate externality of existence, and on the other to its inward
or essential nature. A sensuous perception of that existence in fact
preserves both sides in unity, or rather in one direction so presents
the aspect that is opposed to it in the immediate sense vision as to
include therein both the essence and notion of the object. But for the
reason that it combines these opposed determinations in unfractured
unity, the notion is not presented as such to consciousness, but is
rather to be dimly foreshadowed there[234]. We accept, for example,
as a determinate fact the existence of three realms of Nature, which
we define as that of the mineral world, that of plants, and finally
that of animals; we can conclude from this, as already foreshadowed
by its truth regarded as a process rising from plane to plane, that
there is an inward necessity inherent in the notional articulation
of its divisions, and do not confine ourselves only to the purely
imaginative conception of it as a world conforming on its exterior
side only to a final end. In the same way when confronted with the
variety of the external presentment in each of these realms, the
sense-perception surmises a controlling unity intelligible to mind, a
progress subject to laws of thought, visible no less in the formation
of mountain ranges than in the orderly succession of plant-life and
of the animal races. The same tendency is presupposed when, after an
examination of the form of any particular animal organism, an insect's,
for example, as subdivided into head, body, abdomen, and extremities,
we conclude the correlation of such parts to be based on a rational
principle, and are confident that though, at first blush, it may appear
quite accidental that we are in possession of five senses, we shall
discover a true bond of relation between that number and the notion
therein asserted. Of just this type is Goethe's method of observing
and accounting for the innate reason of Nature and her phenomena. With
an extraordinary intuitive sense he directed his attention directly
to[235] the objects of experience, entirely convinced of the ideal bond
of unity which explained their interconnection. History may be written
with a like object. The narration of facts and individual lives is
given in such a way as indirectly to throw a light on the essential
significance which such events or persons contributed to the period in
which they are necessarily bound together in one organic whole.

3. Consequently we may affirm that Nature generally, regarded as the
sensuous manifestation of the concrete notion and the Idea, is to
be considered an object of beauty in so far as by such a sensuous
perception of natural forms some kind of foreshadowing of the notional
unity consonant to them is surmised, and we are able through the
channels of sense to discover not merely their form, but somewhat of
the inner necessity which binds together all their parts. Further than
this incomplete surmise of the notion the sensuous contemplation of
Nature as beautiful is not carried. This way of comprehending things,
for which the separate parts, despite their appearance of independent
freedom among themselves, nevertheless reveal to the sight the harmony
that exists there either in the characteristics of _their form_, or
detached portions of it or their motion and so forth, remains for
all that _indefinite_ and _abstract._ The inward unity is not open
to external sense, nor can it appear in its ideal and concrete form
to such perception[236], whether imaginative or no; such at most
acquiesces generally in the universality of a law of connection
inherent in every living thing.

(_a_) It is, then, in the first instance only in this bond of union
which reveals itself as a necessary adjunct of vitality from the
objectivity of Nature, in so far as the same is presented in forms
adequate to the notion, that we have before us the beauty of Nature.
With this coalescence the _materia_ is wholly identical; the form
is immediately at home in the matter, as its true essence and its
conforming energy[237]. This description may in fact stand for us, so
far as beauty at this stage is concerned, as a general definition of
it. We admire, for example, the natural form of a crystal on account of
the law of uniformity it manifests, a law which through no mere action
of forces external to it, but by virtue of its own specific definition
and free activity, free in all its aspects as itself an object, is
manifested there. For although an activity external to it could as
such equally be free, yet in crystals the conformative activity is not
extraneous to the object; rather it is a form operative as belonging
to the mineral's innate character. We may define it as the free force
of its substance, which out of its own resources informs itself and
is not merely passively receptive of its environment. Consequently
we find here the constituent material in its realized form as a free
and independent creation. In still higher and more concrete mode the
immanent form projects itself through the living organism and all its
parts, in the articulate form and, above all, in its motion and its
vital expression as feeling. For in this last case we have the inward
vitality pregnant itself as living.

(_b_) It is moreover through this indeterminacy of the beauty of
Nature, originating in its inward principle of animation that (_α_)
both in virtue of the conception of life and the intuition of its true
notion no less than of the habitual types conformable to its adequate
presentment, we are able to distinguish between animals which are
beautiful and those which are ugly. Animals incapable of vitality,
such as the sloth, which creeps about with difficulty, and whose entire
mode of life is suggestive of incapacity for motion or activity, offend
our aesthetic sense for this very reason[238]. Activity and mobility
are precisely the qualities which assert the higher ideality of life.
For the same reason we condemn forms of amphibious life, certain
species of fishes, crocodiles, toads, and many kinds of insects;
an additional reason will influence our similar attitude to hybrid
species, where confusion of form marks the passage from one determinate
type to another; the ornithorhyncus is an example[239], an animal which
with its mixture of bird and four-footed beast may indeed astonish
us, but at the same time is repulsive to our sense of beauty. Such
feelings of repulsion can no doubt be traced entirely to our habitual
prepossessions which have moulded for the imagination a fixed type of
animal species consonant to experience. But even so there is already
actively present the intuitive surmise that the configuration of a
bird, for example, is related in its parts by a necessary principle
of unity, and cannot as such graft upon itself forms which belong
to other species without being thereby transformed into a hybrid
variety. Such abnormal deviations from type appear to us both strange
and contradictory. Neither the one sided narrowness of organization,
which is so defective and mean in its manifestation, that it exercises
no activity over the straitened conditions of its environment, nor
confusions and passages of type, which, albeit they are not so enclosed
within themselves, are unable to hold fast the distinctive features of
their type, belong strictly to the sphere of natural beauty.

(_β_) There is another sense in which we attribute beauty to Nature,
namely, when we have the collective picture of a landscape before us
rather than observe the living form of a simple object. Here we have
no organic articulation of parts such as is derived from their notion
and is presented to us as such ideal unity in spontaneous life. We have
instead a rich variety of objects both organic and inorganic, which are
united together on one or more planes of vision in their distinctive
features, contour of mountains, winding outlines of rivers, groups
of trees, huts, dwellings, palaces, and cities of mankind, ships,
roadways, heaven and sea, valley and rock-cleft. We find, in addition
to this variety and proceeding therefrom, a delightful or imposing
harmony which appeals to our sense and interests us.

It is lastly a peculiar characteristic of the beauty of Nature that it
should excite or exercise a harmonious influence over our emotional
life. A mood of this kind is aroused by the stillness of moonlight,
the peace of a valley, through which some brook or other meanders, the
sublimity of the immeasurable storm-tossed sea, the tranquil depth of
the star-strewn heavens. But the significant factor in this case is not
so much to be found in the objects as in the peculiar moods they arouse
in our feelings and affections. On analogous grounds we attribute
beauty to animals, when the expression of their life directly suggests
human qualities, such as courage, strength, cunning, good nature, and
the rest. Such, no doubt, in one aspect of it, truly expresses the
nature of the animals themselves; but there is also our own conception
of its affinity to ourselves, and the mood in which we receive it.

(_c_) However much animal life, as the culminating point of natural
beauty, unfolds its freest expression as a living principle, it
is comparatively narrow in its range and subject to very limited
qualities. The circle of such existence is a strait one; and in this
the predominant interests are those of the satisfaction of natural
instincts such as hunger and sex-attraction. Soul-life, regarded as
the inward principle expressed through external figure, is poor,
abstract, and empty of content. Add to this the consideration that
this inward is not manifested at all as _inward._ The soul in its
essential substance is not revealed by the life of Nature; it is, in
fact, the determining characteristic of Nature that its soul remains
shut in itself, does not, in other words, proclaim itself in its
ideality. As already pointed out, the soul of an animal is not this
ideal unity _self-acknowledged._ If it were otherwise we should have
the manifestation of such personality brought home to others. Only in
the self-conscious Ego do we find the ideal in its simplest terms,
which is itself an ideal medium to itself, knows itself as this simple
unity, and thereby endows itself with a reality, which is not limited
to bodily and sensuous form, but is itself of an ideal character. Here,
for the first time, reality is in possession of a form adequate to
the notion; or rather the notion sets itself up as its own opposite,
makes itself objectively real and finds its own realization in that
objectivity. The animal life, on the contrary, is only _potentially_
such a unity as that in which reality as bodily form is other than the
ideal unity of soul. In self-consciousness we have this unity realized,
whose opposing factors are constituent elements of one transparent
ideality. And it is as this concrete totality of self-consciousness
that the Ego is manifested to others. The forms of animal life
merely enable us through imaginative perception to divine the soul's
existence. Such only possess the troubled semblance of a soul,
betrayed to us through the breath or exhalement which permeates the
whole, gives some unity to all the members, and reveals in the entire
instinctive life the first germs of an independent character. Herein
lies the primary defect of the beauty of Nature, even when taken at its
point of culminating form: and it is precisely this defect which will
introduce us to the necessity of _the Ideal_ as the beauty of art. But
before we consider at length the nature of this Ideal, there are two
determinations involved as the most immediate result of this inherent
defect in natural beauty, which invite our attention.

We have stated that in the animal form the soul appears as the bond of
connection within the organism and the unified point of animation only
under a cloud[240] and destitute of any fully realized content. We only
find there a quite indeterminate and restricted mode of soul-life. We
will now consider the abstract limitations of this mode more closely.

B. THE EXTERNAL BEAUTY OF ABSTRACT FORM REGARDED AS UNIFORMITY,
SYMMETRY, CONFORMITY TO RULE AND HARMONY AND REALITY IN THE SENSE OF
ABSTRACT UNITY OF THE PHYSICAL MATERIAL.

There is in Nature an external reality which is, of course, visible
and definitely objective, but the inward unity of which, instead of
presenting itself in the concrete inwardness referable to the unity of
soul-life, only goes to the point of indeterminacy and abstraction. In
other words, it stops short of the inwardness self-actualized in an
ideal form and as the particular existence conformable to its ideal
content. Its appearance is that of the defining principle on the face
of external reality. Now the specific characteristics of inwardness in
all its concreteness should be these. First, the principle of soul-life
is asserted for itself no less than is potentially replete with
content. Secondly, external reality interpenetrates this ideal arcanum,
and by so doing fully reveals its true form as such external reality.
A concrete unity of this nature is not reached by mere natural beauty:
it lies beyond as the Ideal. On this plane of existence we cannot say
that such a concrete unity enters into the manifestation of form. We
have to deduce it through analysis, examining in their separation and
singularity the _distinguishing features_ which the unity supports. The
form that informs here and the sensuous external reality _fall apart_
from one another; or rather we have _two_ distinct aspects which we are
compelled to consider separately. By virtue of this fact, which we may
either regard as a division of the material of sense or as a review
of certain facts taken in abstraction, the inward unity, which is one
aspect of the external reality, itself falls outside it; that is to
say, it is not itself asserted in that rational reality as the wholly
immanent form of the entire notion which constitutes it, but rather as
an Ideality and determinacy imposed externally.

Such are the points of view thus presented us which we will now
consider more closely.

First, then, we have to discuss

1. THE BEAUTY OF ABSTRACT FORM

The form of natural beauty in its abstraction is a form which is
determinate and thus of limited range; in a further aspect of it
it is focussed in a unity of abstract relation to itself[241]. On
closer inspection we shall, however, find that the external manifold
controls this form of abstract beauty by reason of its own determinacy
and unity. We must not, however, imply in these latter any immanent
inwardness or form of vital ideality, but regard them as purely
material definitions and unity of the external medium. Forms of such a
character are uniformity, symmetry, or conformity to rule, and finally
harmony.

_(a) Uniformity_

Uniformity is, speaking generally, equality in external presentment,
or, more specifically, the unbroken repetition of one and the same
definite form, supplied by the determining unity to the form of
objects. Such a unity, in virtue of its initial abstraction, is at the
furthest extreme removed from the rational totality of the concrete
notion. Its beauty is therefore a beauty which is referable to the
faculty of the analytical understanding. The fundamental process of
that faculty is to perceive objects in their abstraction, not in their
self-determined completeness and identity. For example, among all lines
the straight line is that which is most uniform, because it alone
manifests one abstract and undeviating direction. For the same reason
the cube is a figure dominated by regularity of content. All its sides
are of the same size, the same length of line and the same angles,
which, on account of their being rectangular, however much their size
is changed, manifest no change in the form of their angles as is the
case with angles which are obtuse or acute.

With this characteristic of uniformity we must closely connect that
of _symmetry._ Form is unable long to rest in that barest abstraction
of its determination, namely, undifferentiated equality. A diverse
relation is sure to assert itself, breaking into the empty form of
identity. In this way we obtain _symmetry_, which consists in no
mere identical repetition of one form, but in a combination with
some such form analogous to it, identical, that is to say, in its
self-determination, and yet manifesting a distinct contrast with it.
Through such a combination we obtain another kind of equality and
unity, whose determination is more extensive and more varied. If, for
example, on one side of a house we meet with three windows of the same
size separated at equal intervals of distance, then three or four more
of loftier size than the first-mentioned standing at more extended or
closer intervals in relation to them, and again three more precisely
similar in size and distance to our original ones, we have then before
us a symmetrical arrangement. Mere uniformity and repetition of the
same distinctions will never produce this result. We may find such
distinguishing features in size, position, form, colour, tones, and
many others like them, which, however, to produce symmetry must be
harmoniously related to similar forms of construction. When we find a
combination which presents to us an arrangement of such distinguishing
characteristics according to some clearly uniform principle that then
is symmetry.

Both these attributes, uniformity and symmetry, being the
determinations of the form and unity of external appearance, are
mainly applicable to _distinctions in size._ For it stands to reason
that what is expressly posited as external rather than truly immanent
determination is generally a quantitative[242] determination, whereas
the qualitative fixes the inherent character of anything. Consequently
that which is assumed only to affect the external appearance cannot be
concerned with the changes which are found in the qualitative aspect.
Size, on the other hand, and its alteration regarded merely as size,
is for the qualitative determination, when it is unable to assert
itself in terms of measure, an indifferent determination. That is to
say, measure is quantity, precisely in so far as it can give to itself
an aspect which qualifies it, and thereby a qualitative determination
is united to the purely quantitative one. As thus explained[243]
uniformity and symmetry are merely restricted to the determinations
of size and their uniform appearance or arrangement of differences
in symmetrical order. Further inquiry will show us that this due
co-ordination of size is as applicable to the forms of organic life as
it is to those of inorganic Nature. The human organism is, for example,
at least in a certain degree both uniform and symmetrical. We have two
eyes, two arms, two legs, similar hip-joints, shoulder-blades, and so
on. Of other portions of the body the reverse is the case. We find
no conspicuous uniformity in the heart, lungs, bowels, or liver. The
question arises what precisely constitutes the difference here. The
side on which uniformity, whether of size, form, or position mainly
asserts itself, is obviously the aspect of the organism viewed from
the outside. The uniform and symmetrical determination, in complete
conformity with what we should expect, is most apparent where the fact
as objectively determined is itself the external envisagement itself,
and carries with it the least impression of inherent life. The reality,
which is most constant to this pure externality, rests satisfied
with the abstract unity congenial to it. Within the organism, on the
contrary, where we find the heart of the life-process, and still more
openly in the medium of untrammelled reason uniformity gives way before
the subjective unity of life. Nature is, no doubt, in its opposition
to mind, a determinate existence external and independent; but even in
her we find that uniformity only pre-eminently asserts itself where
externality is the predominant principle.

(_α_) Reviewing, then, shortly the _prominent classifications_ of
natural objects, we observe, in the first place, that minerals, taking
the crystal for an example, as structures destitute of the principle
of life, are characterized in their fundamental form by uniformity
and symmetry. As already remarked, their form, it is true, is one
appropriate to themselves, is not merely the determination of external
forces. Through an unseen energy the form that makes them what they
are as products of Nature creates their configuration both within and
without. This activity, however, is not yet the completed energy of the
concrete notion as an ideal principle, which directs the independent
consistency of the positive reality, subsuming them under an ideal
totality such as is present in animal life. The unity and definition of
their form persists in purely abstract one-sidedness, and we have as
the characteristics of a unity which is wholly on the outside the bare
forms of uniformity and symmetry, the determinating factor in each case
being an abstraction.

_(β) Plant life_ is, of course, many degrees above the order of
crystals. From the very commencement its evolution is marked by a
harmonious articulation, and consumes material in a constantly active
process of self-nourishment. But plant-life also is not yet really
the living whole[244]. Although organically divided into parts, its
activity is still one that consists wholly in assimilation[245]. It is
rooted in the earth with no independent power of motion from place to
place; its growth is continuous, and such energy of assimilation and
self-nourishment as it possesses is not the tranquil self-subsistence
of a completely individualized organic existence, but rather a
continuous extension of its growth as an external object. An animal
grows just as a plant grows, but at a determinate point that growth
in its external size ceases, and that which reproduces itself in
self-subsistence is one and the same individual. Plant-life, however,
enlarges without intermission, and only its decease renders the further
increase of its boughs and leaves impossible. And, moreover, all
that it separately produces in this process is for ever the repeated
pattern of the same organism in its entirety. For every bough is a
new plant, and not, as in the case with the animal organism, only
an isolated member. On account of this persistent enlargement of
itself through all the separate plant formations whereof it consists
plant-life is without the subjective animation peculiar to sensation
and the ideal unity which belongs to it. And, generally speaking,
we may say that plant-life, however much the digestive process is
an inward one, in which we find nourishment is assimilated and the
organism determines the form which is impressed on its substance out
of itself by virtue of the increasing freedom of the notional type
working through that substance, nevertheless substantially, through the
entire process of its life, it remains rooted to externality without
either a true independence or unity, and such self-subsistence as it
possesses is continuous without a break. And it is on account of this
characteristic of plant-growth, namely, that it is for ever asserted
on the side of externality, that we find uniformity and symmetry to be
the fundamental unity of its self-expression as it is a predominant
principle of its structure. No doubt uniformity is not so regnant here
as we observed it to be in the formation of minerals, and it is not
expressed in the same extreme degree through the abstract straight line
and right angle: but it prevails here notwithstanding. The stem for the
most part runs on a straight line; the rings of plants of higher type
form themselves in circles; leaves closely approach the configuration
of crystals; and, at least as the basis of their type, we find that the
blossoms themselves in the number of their leaves, their position and
form are determined with uniformity and symmetry.

(_γ_) Finally, in the living organism of _animals_ a difference is
asserted in the reduplicated structure of the members. In the bodies
of animals, more particularly if we examine the higher species, the
organism is a more inward, self-contained and self-determined totality;
like a sphere, it returns, so to speak, on itself, while still
remaining an external organism. It is an external process, and yet, as
a process, asserted against externality. The more important organs are
those within, such as heart, lungs, and liver, and in these the life
is bound up. Such are not determined under the simple characteristics
of uniformity. In those members, however, even of the animal organism,
which are fixed in direct relation to the outside world, symmetrical
arrangement prevails. Among such must be reckoned the members and
organs which assert the subjective principle externally no less than
those which are the instruments of the active life. The sense-organs,
such as sight and hearing, belong to the former; all that we see and
hear is left as we found it. The organs of smell and taste already mark
the point of union with an activity exercised externally. We only smell
that which is already assimilated[246] by the organ of sense, and we
only exercise our taste through an act of destruction. We have, it is
true, but one nose, but it is subdivided into two sections, each of
which is uniform in structure. The same description is applicable to
the lips and teeth and other organs like them. Further than this the
eyes and ears, and the limbs employed in motion from place to place,
or for direct control over external objects, in other words, legs and
arms, are entirely uniform in position, form, and other qualities.
We find, therefore, that in the organic world no less than in the
inorganic uniformity asserts a very real predominance, qualified,
however, by the fact that its presence is limited to those members
which are the instruments of the organism in its direct relation to
the external world. On those through which the life-process returns
on itself by virtue of its own subjective principle there is no such
impression of uniformity.

Such, then, are the leading characteristics of the forms of uniformity
and symmetry, and the manner in which they are asserted in the
configuration of natural phenomena.

_(b) Conformity to Rule_

We now propose to distinguish the more generic conception of conformity
to law[247], so far as it appears on a higher plane of organic
evolution than that already adverted to, and marks the passage of
the same to the freedom of natural no less than spiritual life,
from the more abstract forms discussed above. Taken by itself, no
doubt, conformity to rule is not alone sufficient to give us the
subjective unity and freedom of _totality_; but we do find in the
configuration to which it corresponds a totality of essentially
_distinguished characteristics_, such as do not merely emerge in
_difference_ and opposition, but betray both _unity_ and determinate
connection in such totality. A unity thus controlled, albeit still
only positively asserted in quantitative substance, is no longer
referable to essentially exterior distinctions of mere size numerically
ascertainable, but already introduces to our notice a qualitative
relation of consistency between these contrasted determinations. In
other words we have here neither the abstract repetition of one and
the same determinant[248], nor a uniform interchange of similarity
and dissimilarity[249], but the contemporaneous association of aspects
essentially distinct from one another. We find, in fact, our sense of
sight gratified by the association of these distinguishing features in
their completeness. And it is the principle of reason which affords
us such satisfaction, gratifying our sense only through the totality,
or rather through the very totality of differences the nature of the
fact requires. Such a connection, however, still remains an unexplained
nexus, which sense-perception arrives at partly on account of its
persistent repetition, and in part through an intuition of deeper
source.

A few examples will make clear the process of definition from
uniformity to conformity with law. Parallel lines of equal length are
abstractly uniform. A further step is taken when we compare geometrical
figures of the same form, triangles, for example, but assume their size
to be unequal. Here the angles subtended by the corners of each and
the relation of line to line is the same, but we find such similarity
in different _quanta._ Take again the circle, it does not possess the
uniformity of the straight line, but at the same time the determination
of abstract equality strictly applies to it, for all its radii are of
equal length. The circle is consequently still but a curved line that
awakes no particular interest[250].

On the other hand, there is still less uniformity in the _ellipse_ and
the _parabola_, and they are only understood through the law of their
form. In other words the _radii vectores_ of the ellipse are both
unequal and in conformity with rule, and the same qualification applies
to the greater and lesser axis of their lines of differentiation[251];
moreover, their foci are not central as is the case with the circle. We
find in these examples, therefore, a qualitative relation of difference
assert itself in the law applicable to such lines and constructive of
their interconnection. If, however, we divide the ellipse by means of
its greater and lesser axes we obtain four equal sections; regarded as
a whole, therefore, we still find the principle of uniformity paramount
in this figure. Of a higher degree of freedom in its conformity to law
is the _oval._ We know there is such a law, though mathematicians have
been unable to express its formula. This figure is not an ellipse, but
the higher curve differs from that below it. Still we find that even in
this example of freer eccentricity in Nature, if we divide it through
its greater axis, we have still two equal halves. The final expression
of mere uniformity in conformity to law is shown in lines, which, as in
the example of the oval, when divided through the smaller[252] axis,
give us unequal sections, neither section being a mere repetition of
the other. The so-called undulatory line is an example of this, in the
sense Hogarth describes it as the line of beauty. Thus the inclination
of the arms as they fall on either side of the human body is opposed.
Here we have conformity to rule without uniformity pure and simple.
Such a kind of conformity especially characterises with its variety the
conformation of the nobler living organisms.

Conformity to law is, then, an attribute of substantiality, binding
together both its differences and its unity; but it remains still
abstract on the side of its controlling form, unable to supply
individuality with the freedom of motion, or rather by virtue of that
form is entirely without the higher freedom of subjectivity, and quite
incapable of revealing the vitality and ideality proper to it.

_(c) Harmony_

On a higher plane in the sphere of abstract beauty must be placed
_harmony._ In harmony we find qualitative distinctions are held
together, and further held together in a totality of differentiation,
such as is based on the essential nature of the fact itself. This
consistency of support is derived from conformity to law, in so far
as that form unfolds what is essentially uniformity, and thereby
passes beyond the mere characteristics of equality and repetition.
But in doing this the distinctions of quality assert themselves not
only in their difference of opposition and contradiction, but in
aspects of a unity that rivets them together, a unity in which all
distinguishing features, it is true, are maintained in their proper
place, but still only as belonging to one single whole. This unity of
accordance is what constitutes harmony. We may either regard it as a
totality of aspects essentially distinct, or as the resolution of the
element of mere contradiction asserted by them, revealing their more
vital interconnection and ideal solidarity. In this sense we refer
to the harmony of form, or colour, or musical tone. As an example,
we have blue, yellow, green, and red as the fundamentally necessary
differentiation of colour[253].

In these irresolvable data of the spectrum we have not merely the
inequality we found in symmetry, but contradictory opposites, such as
yellow and blue, their neutralization and withal concrete identity.
The beauty of their harmony is revealed in the avoidance of their
crude opposition, which is softened thereby in such a way as to put
before us the concordance hidden beneath their difference. They do,
in fact, emanate from one source, namely colour, which is not an
abstract conception[254], but an essential totality. So far, indeed,
can the compulsive force of such totality carry us, that we can, as
Goethe has pointed out, when we have but one colour presented to us,
still subjectively recognize another at the same time. In the same
way the tonic, mediant, and dominant are essential distinctions among
musical tones, which the unity of harmony associates through their
difference in one whole. We may submit the harmony of form, which is
differentiated through the varied aspects of position, repose, and
motion to a similar analysis. If we suffer any one of the subordinate
distinctions to assume an exclusive predominance the unity which
relates them will be destroyed.

Harmony, however, is not to be confused with free ideal subjectivity
and soul-life. In the latter the unity manifested is not merely an
interconnection and concordance, but a positive negation of difference,
which, for the first time, reveals their concrete and ideal unity. A
concrete unity such as this is not the result of harmony. Such concrete
unity is, for example, that which we find in the actually melodious
thing[255], which no doubt possesses harmony as its fundamental form,
but at the same time possesses the higher characteristic of free
subjectivity, and by means of song gives expression to that. Harmony
alone has nothing to do with the appearance of subjective life, as
such, nor of that of mind, although it is the highest manifestation of
abstract form, and stands in close affinity to free subjectivity. Such,
then, is our determination of abstract unity as we find it brought
before us in the specific modes of abstract form.

2. BEAUTY AS ABSTRACT UNITY OF THE MATERIAL MEDIUM

The side of abstract unity which we have now to consider is not that
directly related to form, but to the sensuous material simply in which
it is asserted. The unity is manifested on this side as the entirely
undifferentiated concordance of the particular sensuous material. It
is the one form of unity, which the material of sense, in its purely
objective aspect, is capable of receiving. On this plane and under the
above noted relation[256] the abstract _purity_ of the _materia_ in
its form, colour, or tone constitutes what is most essential to it.
Entirely straight drawn lines, which run without a shadow of difference
in their straightness or strength, bare superficies and similar
examples please us by virtue of their persistent regularity and their
uniform homogeneousness. The purity of the heavens, the translucence
of the atmosphere, a mirror-like lake the smoothness of the ocean's
face, all give pleasure by virtue of this unity. We find the same
truth brought home to us by purity of tone. The voice when purely
produced, though taken quite by itself, possesses an attraction for us
inexpressibly delightful; vocal notes which are not thus pure on the
contrary, by permitting us to hear the organ of production along with
them, disturb or weaken the pure resonance and definition of their
music. In much the same way human speech possesses pure tones in its
vowels, a, e, i, o, u, and its compound vowels, ae, ü, and ö. Popular
dialects are particularly characterized by impurity of vocalization
and mediate tones such as oa. Purity of tones consists further in this
that the vowels are associated with consonants, whose sound does not
tend to blurr the sonority of the vowel tones, as is too frequently the
case with our northern languages, when contrasted with the way in which
their purity is preserved by the Italian, a characteristic which makes
that language so adaptable to singing. We experience an enjoyment of
similar nature through the sight of colour in its simplest purity of
tint, an absolutely pure red or blue for example, not by any means a
common occurrence, such pristine colours being often weakened through
the addition to them of yellow or tints of each other[257]. Violet can
no doubt appear to us as a pure colour, but only in an external object,
not, that is to say, as a compounded colour[258], for it is not itself
an elementary colour belonging to colour's essential differentiation.
It is these elementary or cardinal colours, easily recognized by sense
in their purity, which, on account of their crude opposition, are most
difficult to unite together in harmony. Colours, on the contrary,
which are blurred in their transparency by many other tints, although
not so antagonistic to general harmony, fail to give us such direct
enjoyment from the very fact that the energy of opposition in them is
weakened. Green, for instance, is a compound of blue and yellow, but it
is the neutralization of these cardinal colours, and for that reason
less attractive to us in its own purity than blue and yellow in their
secure[259] opposition. Such are the points of most importance we have
to remark upon in dealing with the abstract unity of form no less than
the simplicity and purity of the sensuous material. In whichever aspect
we regard our subject-matter we have to review that which is by virtue
of its abstract character destitute of life, and a unity with no true
actuality. Ideal subjectivity is inseparable from this, and such is
entirely absent from the beauty of Nature even at the highest potency
of its manifestation. This essential defect points us imperatively
forward to the Ideal, which Nature is unable to reveal to us, and in
contrast with which the beauty of Nature appears as a subordinate mode.

C. DEFECTIVE ASPECTS OF THE BEAUTY OF NATURE

The true object of our inquiry is the beauty of art viewed as the only
reality adequate to the Idea of beauty. We have hitherto treated the
beauty of Nature as the first mode of the existence of the beautiful.
We have now to inquire more closely into that which distinguishes
natural beauty from that of art.

As an abstract proposition we may affirm that the Ideal is beauty in
its rounded completeness. Nature, on the contrary, brings before us
beauty in its incompleteness. Such abstract predicates do not, however,
help us much, for our real problem is rather to explain exactly what
it is which makes the difference between the completeness of the one
from the incompleteness of the other. Our inquiry therefore hinges on
the question how it comes about that Nature is necessarily incomplete
as a mode of beauty and how this incompleteness is asserted. When we
have answered that we shall be in a better position to deduce both the
necessity and essential significance of the Ideal.

We have already in following the process of Nature up to its
culminating manifestation in animal life drawn attention to the modes
of beauty revealed in that process. It is now of the first importance
that we fix our attention more definitely on the culminating phase of
that evolution where we find subjectivity and individuality presented
to us in the living organism.

We have already referred to the beautiful as the Idea in a manner
identical to that we employ when we speak of the good and true as the
Idea, in the sense, that is to say, where we characterize the Idea as
the wholly substantial and universal, the absolute substance--with no
sensuous material therewith--of reality, in short, the consistency
of the world. Determined more strictly, however, as already pointed
out, the Idea is not merely substantiality and _universality_, but
the unity of the _notion_ and its _reality_, just that, the notion
revealed to us as notion in its coincident objectivity. It was Plato
who, as we have remarked in our introduction, posited the Idea as
that which was alone true and universal, and, indeed, as the one
_concrete_ Universal. The Platonic _Idea_ is, however, not itself as
yet the concrete _real_, for apprehended under the _notion_ and its
_universality_ it is already coincident with the real. Apprehended,
however, only in its _universality_[260], it is not _realized_,
realized, that is to say, as Truth in its self-determinate realization.
It is still only the _potency_ of such self-realization. But just
as the notion is not the notion of real existence without its full
objectivity, in the same way the Idea without its realization in the
objective world is not the Idea in its Truth as existent reality. The
Idea must proceed to such realization, which is only present itself
for the first time in a really existent subjectivity adequate to the
notion, and its ideal unity and self-determination. In the generic
species we find its reality first manifested as free and concrete
individuality. Life only exists as a _living thing_; goodness is only
realized in _particular_ men; and all truth is simply the consciousness
of _knowledge_--Spirit which has come to its own vital inheritance.
Only the concrete singularity is both true and really existent, mere
abstract universality and particularity is not so. This self-subsistent
actuality, this subjectivity is the point on which everything turns,
and which we must fully grasp in its significance. Subjectivity may be
defined as ideal determination by virtue of a principle of ideal unity
which asserts itself through _negation_ of the differences presented
to it as consistent parts of one objective reality[261]. The unity of
the Idea and its realization is the _negative_ unity of the _Idea_
as such and its _reality_; it is at once and at the same time the
_subsumption_ and _deposition_ in a unified content of the difference
asserted on either side. Only in this active process is the unity of
the Idea affirmatively determined in its full activity, a unity and
subjectivity whose process of self-determination is infinite. We have
consequently to apprehend the Idea of the beautiful in its realized
mode of existence as essentially concrete subjectivity and, moreover,
as individual substantiality, by virtue of which it is the Idea really
existent, possessing the form of its reality in concrete and individual
singularity.

But here we must distinguish between _two_ distinct modes of
singularity or individuality, namely, that which is immediately
presented us by _Nature_ and that which is predicated of _mind_
(spirit). In both forms it is given determinate existence, and
consequently is in both substantive content, the Idea in short, and
in the particular sphere of our inquiry for both forms the Idea
as beauty. Viewed in this way we may affirm if we please that the
beautiful of Nature has a _similar_ content with that of the Ideal. In
contradistinction, however, to such a point of view we must not fail to
observe that the difference of form, in which the Idea herein attains
reality, that is to say the difference between the individuality
which prevails in the spheres of Nature and Spirit, the difference
asserted in its respective appearance, this it is which constitutes an
_essential distinction._ As we shall see, the real point of our inquiry
is this, namely, which of these two forms is really the one most
adequate to the Idea, for it is obvious that it is only in the entirely
adequate form that the totality of the Idea is _in its full content_
explicitly realized. This is the more immediate point we have now to
examine in so far as the difference between natural beauty and the
Ideal falls into line with the formal differentiation of singularity.

_Immediate_ singularity is no doubt primarily found in the domain of
Spirit no less than in Nature as such. For, in the first place, Spirit
is possessed of an external existence in bodily form; secondly, even
in spiritual relations, Spirit, in the first instance, only exists in
its union with immediate reality. Subdividing our inquiry in conformity
with such facts, we will consider the nature of immediate singularity
from _three_ different points of view.

1. (_a_) We have already seen that the animal organism preserves its
determinate existence through a persistent evolutionary process of
its own in opposition to an environing inorganic Nature, which it
assimilates by means of consumption and digestion, compelling thereby
what is external to submit to that process, and asserting its own
independent existence by so doing. We found at the same time that
this living process is a system of activities, which is realized in
a system of organs, whose functional action consists in those very
activities. The one and single aim of this homogeneous system is
the self-preservation of the living totality thereof through such a
process. The animal life consists, therefore, in a life of sensuous
impulses, whose general course and satisfaction is realized in the
above-mentioned organic system. The living organism is for this reason
articulated in its parts under a _teleological principle_, and the
principle or end subserved is self-preservation. Life is immanent in
every member; they are united to life, and life is one with them. And
the net result of this animate process is that the animal is maintained
as a thing conscious of itself as an individual subject of feeling,
life and the self-enjoyment its singularity procures for it. We have
only to compare animal life with plant life to see the difference
implied in the absence of such a sense-consciousness. The plant simply
brings to the birth new specimens of its species, without even being
able to concentrate any single one on that point of negation, which
constitutes self-singularity. We must, however, add that even in the
animal organism and its life we never have actually before our eyes the
true manifestation of this _centre of unity_, but rather simply the
_manifold_ of its members. Life is still too deficient on the side of
freedom and in opposition to the mere caprice of sense-life to manifest
such a subjective individuality as is capable of breaking through the
external envisagement of its organic parts. The vital centre of such
activities in the animal organism still remains veiled from vision, and
all that we see are the mere outlines of the figure, and this for the
most part concealed from our view by feathers, scales, hair, fur, or
spines. There can be no question that coverings of this nature, though
characteristic of the animal world, are coverings which partake of the
form of the vegetable world. And it is precisely at this point that
the beauty of animal life declares its essential insufficiency. That
which the organism makes most visible to us is not the soul-principle.
That which is directed outward and throughout appears is not the life
within, but rather formations accepted from a lower plane of existence
than the essential embodiment of life. The animal is _only_ fully alive
beneath that outer crust, and consequently for this very reason that
its _inwardness_[262] is not wholly made real in a form adequate to
reveal it, we are unable to see the principle of Life everywhere shine
freely through it; it remains _only_ an _inwardness_, and the shell is
_external only_ unpermeated by the vital principle.

(_b_) The _human_ body, in virtue of its more exalted station, presents
us with a striking contrast. In this we are everywhere reminded that
man is in possession of a unity of feeling, a soul. The human skin
is not covered over plant-like with an apparently lifeless sheath;
the pulsation of the blood is visible throughout the entire surface;
the beating heart of life is everywhere at the same time apparent;
and we have in this outward manifestation, as it were, the real
fount Of life made visible, the _turgor vitae_ as it streams from
its centre. In the same way the human skin, sensitive throughout in
its minutest parts, reveals to us the _morbidezza_ of its colouring,
those tints of flesh-colour and vein-colour which are the despair of
an artist. On the other hand, however much the human body presents,
as the apparent mirror of Life, a contrast with that of animals, it
undoubtedly expresses also the natural process of self-preservation in
the subdivision of the skin, and the indentations, wrinkles, pores,
small hairs and veins which we find attach thereto. In fact the skin
itself, though permitting the inner life to shine through it, is
none the less an external protection of that life, a means obviously
intended for such self-preservation. The supreme significance, however,
of the contrast here presented is traceable in this extraordinary
sensitiveness of the human cuticle, which, although not absolutely
the seat of feeling itself, alone renders such feeling possible. But
at the same time even in this direction we are made conscious of the
defect, that this sensitiveness does not penetrate as a vital impulse
of concentrated emphasis equally through all the members. We find in
the human body itself certain organs whose form is entirely appropriate
to mere animal functions, while others give a more adequate expression
to the entire soul-life, its feelings and passions. Regarded in this
way it is obvious that even in the human body the inner life of soul
has not found its complete reflection in all parts of its external
realization.

(_c_) The same defect is apparent on the higher plane of the
_spiritual_ world and its organizations, if we consider such under
the aspect of life as immediately presented. The more extensive and
the richer their configurations are, the more we shall find that the
fundamental object of the inner life of such totalities requires other
means co-operative with such externality for its adequate expression.
Such organizations no doubt appear in immediate reality as organic
wholes in which definite purpose is realized, and the realization of
such purpose is manifested by the mediation of voluntary effort. Every
centre of such a spiritual organism, such as the State or the family,
that is to say each individual organic totality, is in possession of a
_will_ capable of such exercise, and appears in unity with the other
members of the same organism; but the _one_ inner soul of this nexus,
the freedom and reason of the aim of all is not visible in external
reality as such in the absolute freedom of its subjective and universal
principle of life, nor is it thus manifested in every part.

The same thing may be observed in particular actions and events, where
we find a similar organic totality present. The inner motive from which
they proceed is not wholly made visible upon the external surface
of their actual presence. What we do find is a total presentment of
_fact_, whose most fundamental ground of unity and vitality still
remains _hidden from sight._

Finally, when we consider from the same point of view any single
individual we are confronted with the same truth. Every human person
is a self-rounded totality, held together by the central unity of
life. In the immediate envisagement of reality, that is in his life,
action, avoidance of action, desires and impulses, he only appears in
a fragmentary way; none the less it is only from a general survey of
all his actions or sufferings that we are able to form an estimate
of character. The centre of unity which thus concentrates to a point
the entire subject-matter of our extended survey is not as such either
visible or directly apprehended.

2. The second point of importance to which we would draw attention
is this. With the immediate appearance of individuality the Idea, as
we have already indicated, receives determinate existence. Through
this very immediacy however it becomes interwoven with the complexity
of the external world, is conditioned by the limitations of external
circumstance and the relative character of means and ends which are
found there, in one word is carried into the finitude of external
Nature. For though immediate singularity is in the first place a fully
rounded off unity, it is for the same reason only self-exclusive
as a centre of negation opposed to _others_, and is, by virtue of
its immediate singularity, influenced by, no less than related to,
a totality of real existence other than its own, upon which it is
dependent in a thousand different ways. The Idea, in short, is in this
very immediacy realized in every direction as _individual distinction._
It is consequently now merely a reflex of the inherent energy of the
notion which binds all individual existence, that of Nature no less
than mind in reciprocal correlation[263]. Such a relation to the
existences themselves is a purely external one, and appears also to
them as a single _external necessity_ uniting each part of the manifold
in one shifting complexus of interrelated reciprocity. The immediacy
of determinate existence is therefore, as thus regarded, a system of
necessary relations between apparently self-subsistent individual
things and forces, in which each singular entity is committed as a
means to the service of ends foreign to it, or itself is compelled to
utilize that which is external to itself as such a means. And inasmuch
as the Idea is under this aspect wholly realized on the ground of
externality, there appears at the same time the unrestrained play of
every caprice and accident, no less than the uncontrolled discharge of
the burden of indigence. Singularity as immediate appearance lives and
moves in the realm of unfreedom.

(_a_) The individual _animal_ is, for example, fettered wholly within
the bounds of its natural environment of air, water and land. Its
entire way of living, the mode of its self-nourishment, everything that
concerns it, is thereby determined. It is this which differentiates
with such variety the species of animal life. We find, moreover,
intermediate strains, such as swimming birds and suckling animals,
which live in the water, amphibious species and others which still
further mediate between the more obviously generic. These are,
however, mere confusions of race, and indicate no higher mediation
of considerable range. Throughout we find the animal subject in its
self-preservation to the absolute necessities of external nature, cold,
drought, or insufficient supply of the means of nourishment. Under this
despotic dominion it is liable through the parsimony of circumstance to
lose the fulness of external form, the blossom of its beauty, in short
to become as it were the reflex of starving Nature herself. External
conditions fix imperatively the measure of beauty it either preserves
or forfeits.

(_b_) The human organism, in its particular bodily existence is
subject, if not in the same measure, to external forces of Nature, and
is compelled to face the same contingencies, deficient livelihoods, and
every kind of harassing disease and misery.

(_c_) If we carry investigation further to that still higher plane
of immediate reality where _spiritual_ interests are predominant we
shall find this dependence on external condition for the first time
emphasized in its full relativity. Here we are face to face with the
prose of human existence in its entire length and breadth. The contrast
already noticed between ends subservient to purely physical wants, and
those profounder aims of spiritual life, and the conflict which tends
to inflict a loss on one side or the other, already opens our view of
it. Add to this every individual man, in order to preserve himself as
such, is compelled to make himself in many ways subservient to others,
and the limited aims of others, and on the other hand, in order to
satisfy his own narrow interests, to accept the service of others as a
mere means for their fulfilment. The individual, then, as he appears
in the prose-life of everyday existence, is not therefore active
out of his own particular totality, nor is he intelligible so much
in virtue of himself as in virtue of that which he is not[264]. For
individual man stands in a relation of dependence to the influences,
laws, organizations and other social relations of civic life which
he finds already existing around him, and to which he must submit
whether he forfeit his own independent soul-life thereby or not. And
more than this, each separate individual is not presented to others
as such totality, but is only reflected in whatever isolated interest
they may happen at the time to possess in his actions, desires, and
opinions. And what interests mankind mainly is some relation to
their own particular thoughts and aims. Even historically important
actions and events, with which the community is expressly associated,
appear in this field of relative appearances merely as a manifold of
isolated efforts. It is a varied collection to which each contributes
as he may, with aims by no means identical, some of which meet with
success while others miscarry, and indeed, be they ever so fortunate,
are significant in a very subordinate degree if we consider them as
contributions to the wellbeing of all. What the majority may carry
through, in contrast with the entire aggregate of events and the end
applicable to all[265], to which it furnishes its quota, is after all
a mere patch; nay, even men of eminent standing, who feel and are
fully conscious of the universal passage of events[266], as their own
world, are for all that clearly immeshed in the same net of particular
circumstances, conditions, and a thousand other hindrances involved
in their relative position. On all these grounds it is plain that in
this sphere of exterior life the individual world is unable to offer
us the vision of that independent and complete freedom of the living
principle, such as is essential to the true notion of beauty. It is,
of course, true that the immediate appearance of human reality and
its events and organizations is not without system, and as such is a
totality of activities; but this whole is rather in its appearance a
mere mass of isolated fragments. Moreover the practical concerns of
such activities are divided and subdivided into countless parts, and in
such a way that each single part is in touch with the merest fraction
of all; and, in short, however much individuals may remain steadfast to
their own purposes, and only bring forth to the light that which their
own interest has employed as a means, the self-subsistence and freedom
of their will remains more or less of a formal character, determined by
external circumstance or accident, and constantly thwarted by natural
causes[267].

This is the prose of the world, as presented to our own consciousness
no less than to that of others; a world of finitude and change, a world
immeshed in relation and submerged beneath the pressure of necessity,
a world from which no individual can extricate himself. The central
paradox of life confronts every unit of the living whole. On the one
hand there is the impulse of individuality to perfect its isolated
unity in self-exclusion; on the other there is the necessary condition
of dependence on others from which none may claim immunity. However
prolonged the struggle to overcome this contradiction may be the effort
of that interminable battle only terminates with life itself.

3. Thirdly, the immediate singularity of the worlds of Nature and Mind
is not merely conditioned by dependence on others, but is deficient in
any complete self-subsistency owing to its _confined_ nature, or with
more accuracy, because it is particularized in its own specific mode of
manifestation.

(_a_) We will explain our meaning further. Every single specimen of
life in the animal world is from the first fettered by a definite,
that is to say, a restricted and constant species, beyond the limits
of which it cannot pass. There is in the spiritual world, no doubt, a
general picture of life and its organization, which floats vaguely
before our vision; but in the real world, which is one with Nature,
this universal organism breaks up into a multitude of particulars,
each of which possesses the determinate type of form and grade of
cultivation in which it is related to a definite portion of the
social organism. In addition to this and within these insuperable
limits, we find the pressure of that element of contingency, as
regards general condition or external environment, predominantly
asserted both uniquely and in haphazard fashion throughout every one
of those individual units. Such a state of things disturbs our vision
of the self-subsistency and freedom, which the idea of true beauty
imperatively requires.

(_b_) As already observed, it is unquestionably true that Spirit
discovers in its own bodily organism the notion of life completely
realized. This is so much the case that, in contrast with it, the forms
of the animal world appear not only as incomplete, but in inferior
species as even pitiable objects. The human organism is also, however,
broken up, if to a less, degree, in racial subdivisions and the
ascending grades of beauty which distinguish such races. Moreover, in
addition to this obviously very general line of demarcation, we have
presented to us all the accidental variety of qualities, peculiar to
distinct families and their interfusion with one another, such as modes
of life, facial expression, and general demeanour. We must further
associate with such characteristic traits, which all of them emphasize
a condition of essentially unfree particularity, those peculiarities
which are inseparable from activity employed in the endless round of
commercial life or professional career; qualities which find their
ultimate expression in the specific habits or idiosyncracies of any
exceptionally marked character or temperament, or, as the reverse side
of the picture, in the various confusions of arrested development.
Poverty, care, anger, coldness, and indifference, the rage of passion,
the obstinate retention of narrow purposes, indications of change
and division in the spiritual world, entire dependence on that of
Nature--in one word all that is implied in the transitory condition of
human life--leaves its indelible, if quite incalculable, expression
on the varied surface of the faces of mankind. Who has not crossed
weather-beaten types of such, on which the storm of all the passions
has imprinted its disturbing wave; or others, where the coldness and
superficiality of the soul within is all the impression we receive; or,
lastly, as the final verdict of self-absorbed particularity[268], cases
in which the general type seems almost totally to have disappeared.
There is no end to the caprice of the human features. Speaking
generally, we would associate with this ground the fact that the beauty
of children most arrests us. In their faces we find all pronounced
idiosyncracies slumber as it were beneath a quiet veil; no dominating
passion as yet ravages their soul; not one of the thousand interests of
the grown man has engraved for ever the expression of its necessity on
these mobile features. This envisaged innocence of the child, however,
though we may discover in its flexible animation the possibility of
Life's completed fulness, obviously fails to reveal those profounder
indications of a spirit which has been carried forward to explore
the range of its own recesses and to make its life one with rational
purpose.

We may regard, then, immediate existence, both in the purely physical
and spiritual sense of the term, as a _finitude_, or more justly as a
finitude which does not satisfy its notion and for this very reason
declares its finitude. For the notion, and more concretely still, the
Idea, is essentially _independent_ and _free._ Purely animal life,
although as Life it is the Idea, is no manifestation of infinity as
such or freedom. This is alone possible under conditions, where we find
the notion penetrate so completely the reality which is adequate to
it, that it finds itself entirely at home therein, with no extraneous
matter, to disturb its possession. Then alone do we find it a really
free and concrete individuality. The natural life, on the contrary,
is unable to overcome the element of feeling to which it is attached,
and which renders it incapable of penetrating the entire reality
which enrings it. It finds itself, moreover, immediately conditioned
in itself, restricted in its range and dependent, a result which is
due to the fact that its freedom is not truly self-determinate, but
conditioned by the external: object. And the same thing is true of the
immediate and finite reality of the spirit world in its knowledge,
volitional action, and fateful history. For although in this latter
case we find centres of unity expressed which have a real significance,
neither these any more than the particularities they unite have truth
as they stand by themselves; but only that truth which, in their
reciprocal relation to each other, they manifest as constituent
parts of a whole. And this whole, albeit in a sense adequate to its
notion, does not correspond to it in such a way as to manifest itself
in its full totality[269], which consequently still remains aloof
from such envisagement, or rather, is only apprehended in the ideal
world of thought. In other words, the notion finds no fully adequate
presentation in external reality, such as is powerful enough to marshal
homogeneously all the numberless fragments of particularity, and to
concentrate them into _one_ expression and _one_ single form.

(_c_) This, then, is the fundamental reason which prevents Spirit
itself, on the finite planes of determinate existence, and under
the restricting conditions of its externality and necessity, from
rediscovering the immediate vision and enjoyment of its freedom. It
is consequently driven by its absence to seek that vision in a higher
sphere. That sphere is art, and its realization is the Ideal.

We have thus seen that it is the defects of immediate reality which
drive us forward inevitably to the idea of the beauty of art. We are
further under an obligation to prove that its fundamental object[270]
is to manifest here on this very plane of rational reality and in its
freedom the envisagement of life, and, most important of all, the life
of Spirit. Here, then, we have at last the external revealed to us in a
form adequate to the notion. Here, for the first time, truth is lifted
up from its environment of temporal conditions, from its running to
and fro among the whirl of finite particularity, and attains repose;
nay, more than this, discovers an external form, from which the hunger
of Nature and the prose of life no longer stare at us. Here at last we
have a form worthy of substantial truth, which is wholly self-contained
and self-dependent, determining with freedom its own content, and not
driven from such self-assertion by the weight of that of others.

[Footnote 201: _Als Beseelung sich kund gäbe._ The reference is to
the second class which follows rather than truly animates life. The
sun is such an animating principle. How far modern physics with its
investigations of the laws of motion that obtain among the chemical
atoms of any specific form of matter and its denial of all dead matter
would have modified Hegel's view is an interesting question.]

[Footnote 202: _Wir wollen betrachten._ Hegel seems to be conscious
himself that there is something fanciful in this interpretation of the
significance of what is simply an arbitrary, if systematic, arrangement
of bodies according to natural laws.]

[Footnote 203: _Ein besonderes Moment._ See note [191] on p. 152. I
think what Hegel means here is that every body as a vehicle of light
reflects the mode in which the identity of the notion as system in the
different parts asserts itself.]

[Footnote 204: In other words what should be phasal elements
(_Momente_) of a whole integrated within that unity remain independent
units. They are not Momente in the full sense.]

[Footnote 205: _Als bloss real unterschiedener._ The meaning is that
the distinction is only in the totality, not as in the former case in a
body which though part of a system, could be viewed as an independent
body like the sun.]

[Footnote 206: _Gewöhnliches Bewustseyn_, _i.e._, the ordinary view of
understanding (_Verstand_) and sense-perception.]

[Footnote 207: _Blosser Zusammenhang._ Fortuitous is rather too strong.
He means a bond of union cemented by one principle without which either
side fails to possess its specific character, _e.g._, the human body
apart from the human soul its animate individuality, ceases to be
human.]

[Footnote 208: _Als Begriff seyende Begriff._ The reference I take to
be to the logical or dialectical movement of the Idea.]

[Footnote 209: _Viele tausend empfindende_, or centres of feeling.]

[Footnote 210: _Die realen Unterschiede_, _i. e._, the distinctions of