Aesthetical Essays of Friedrich Schiller

The writers who have more wit than understanding and more taste than science, are too often guilty of this deception; and readers more accustomed to feel than to think are only too inclined to forgive them. In general it is unsafe to give to the aesthetical sense all its culture before having exercised the understanding as the pure thinking faculty, and before having enriched the head with conceptions; for as taste always looks at the carrying out and not at the basis of things, wherever it becomes the only arbiter, there is an end of the essential difference between things. Men become indifferent to reality, and they finish by giving value to form and appearance only.

Hence arises that superficial and frivolous bel-esprit that we often see hold sway in social conditions and in circles where men pride themselves, and not unreasonably, on the finest culture. It is a fatal thing to introduce a young man into assemblies where the Graces hold sway before the Muses have dismissed him and owned his majority. Moreover, it can hardly be prevented that what completes the external education of a young man whose mind is ripe turns him who is not ripened by study into a fool. I admit that to have a fund of conceptions, and not form, is only a half possession. For the most splendid knowledge in a head incapable of giving them form is like a treasure buried in the earth. But form without substance is a shadow of riches, and all possible cleverness in expression is of no use to him who has nothing to express.

Thus, to avoid the graces of education leading us in a wrong road, taste must be confined to regulating the external form, while reason and experience determine the substance and the essence of conceptions. If the impression made on the senses is converted into a supreme criterion, and if things are exclusively referred to sensation, man will never cease to be in the service of matter; he will never clear a way for his intelligence; in short, reason will lose in freedom in proportion as it allows imagination to usurp undue influence.

The beautiful produces its effect by mere intuition; the truth demands study. Accordingly, the man who among all his faculties has only exercised the sense of the beautiful is satisfied even when study is absolutely required, with a superficial view of things; and he fancies he can make a mere play of wit of that which demands a serious effort. But mere intuition cannot give any result. To produce something great it is necessary to enter into the fundamental nature of things, to distinguish them strictly, to associate them in different manners, and study them with a steady attention. Even the artist and the poet, though both of them labor to procure us only the pleasure of intuition, can only by most laborious and engrossing study succeed in giving us a delightful recreation by their works.

I believe this to be the test to distinguish the mere dilettante from the artist of real genius. The seductive charm exercised by the sublime and the beautiful, the fire which they kindle in the young imagination, the apparent ease with which they place the senses under an illusion, have often persuaded inexperienced minds to take in hand the palette or the harp, and to transform into figures or to pour out in melody what they felt living in their heart. Misty ideas circulate in their heads, like a world in formation, and make them believe that they are inspired. They take obscurity for depth, savage vehemence for strength, the undetermined for the infinite, what has not senses for the super-sensuous. And how they revel in these creations of their brain! But the judgment of the connoisseur does not confirm this testimony of an excited self-love. With his pitiless criticism he dissipates all the prestige of the imagination and of its dreams, and carrying the torch before these novices he leads them into the mysterious depths of science and life, where, far from profane eyes, the source of all true beauty flows ever towards him who is initiated. If now a true genius slumbers in the young aspirant, no doubt his modesty will at first receive a shock; but soon the consciousness of real talent will embolden him for the trial. If nature has endowed him with gifts for plastic art, he will study the structure of man with the scalpel of the anatomist; he will descend into the lowest depths to be true in representing surfaces, and he will question the whole race in order to be just to the individual. If he is born to be a poet, he examines humanity in his own heart to understand the infinite variety of scenes in which it acts on the vast theatre of the world. He subjects imagination and its exuberant fruitfulness to the discipline of taste, and charges the understanding to mark out in its cool wisdom the banks that should confine the raging waters of inspiration. He knows full well that the great is only formed of the little – from the imperceptible. He piles up, grain by grain, the materials of the wonderful structure, which, suddenly disclosed to our eyes, produces a startling effect and turns our head. But if nature has only intended him for a dilettante, difficulties damp his impotent zeal, and one of two things happens: either he abandons, if he is modest, that to which he was diverted by a mistaken notion of his vocation; or, if he has no modesty, he brings back the ideal to the narrow limits of his faculties, for want of being able to enlarge his faculties to the vast proportions of the ideal. Thus the true genius of the artist will be always recognized by this sign – that when most enthusiastic for the whole, he preserves a coolness, a patience defying all obstacles, as regards details. Moreover, in order not to do any injury to perfection, he would rather renounce the enjoyment given by the completion. For the simple amateur, it is the difficulty of means that disgusts him and turns him from his aim; his dreams would be to have no more trouble in producing than he had in conception and intuition.

I have spoken hitherto of the dangers to which we are exposed by an exaggerated sensuousness and susceptibility to the beautiful in the form, and from too extensive aesthetical requirements; and I have considered these dangers in relation to the faculty of thinking and knowing. What, then, will be the result when these pretensions of the aesthetical taste bear on the will? It is one thing to be stopped in your scientific progress by too great a love of the beautiful, another to see this inclination become a cause of degeneracy in character itself, and make us violate the law of duty. In matters of thought the caprices of "taste" are no doubt an evil, and they must of necessity darken the intelligence; but these same caprices applied to the maxims of the will become really pernicious and infallibly deprave the heart. Yet this is the dangerous extreme to which too refined an aesthetic culture brings us directly we abandon ourselves exclusively to the feelings for the beautiful, and directly we raise taste to the part of absolute lawgiver over our will.

The moral destination of man requires that the will should be completely independent of all influence of sensuous instincts, and we know that taste labors incessantly at making the link between reason and the senses continually closer. Now this effort has certainly as its result the ennobling of the appetites, and to make them more conformable with the requirements of reason; but this very point may be a serious danger for morality.

I proceed to explain my meaning. A very refined aesthetical education accustoms the imagination to direct itself according to laws, even in its free exercise, and leads the sensuous not to have any enjoyments without the concurrence of reason; but it soon follows that reason, in its turn, is required to be directed, even in the most serious operations of its legislative power, according to the interests of imagination, and to give no more orders to the will without the consent of the sensuous instincts. The moral obligation of the will, which is, however, an absolute and unconditional law, takes unperceived the character of a simple contract, which only binds each of the contracting parties when the other fulfils its engagement. The purely accidental agreement of duty with inclination ends by being considered a necessary condition, and thus the principle of all morality is quenched in its source.

How does the character become thus gradually depraved? The process may be explained thus: So long as man is only a savage, and his instincts' only bear on material things and a coarse egotism determines his actions, sensuousness can only become a danger to morality by its blind strength, and does not oppose reason except as a force. The voice of justice, moderation, and humanity is stifled by the appetites, which make a stronger appeal. Man is then terrible in his vengeance, because he is terribly sensitive to insults. He robs, he kills, because his desires are still too powerful for the feeble guidance of reason. He is towards others like a wild beast, because the instinct of nature still rules him after the fashion of animals.

But when to the savage state, to that of nature, succeeds civilization; when taste ennobles the instincts, and holds out to them more worthy objects taken from the moral order; when culture moderates the brutal outbursts of the appetites and brings them back under the discipline of the beautiful, it may happen that these same instincts, which were only dangerous before by their blind power, coming to assume an air of dignity and a certain assumed authority, may become more dangerous than before to the morality of the character; and that, under the guise of innocence, nobleness, and purity, they may exercise over the will a tyranny a hundred times worse than the other.

The man of taste willingly escapes the gross thraldom of the appetites. He submits to reason the instinct which impels him to pleasure, and he is willing to take counsel from his spiritual and thinking nature for the choice of the objects he ought to desire. Now, reason is very apt to mistake a spiritualized instinct for one of its own instincts, and at length to give up to it the guidance of the will, and this in proportion as moral judgment and aesthetic judgment, the sense of the good and the sense of the beautiful, meet in the same object and in the same decision.

So long as it remains possible for inclination and duty to meet in the same object and in a common desire, this representation of the moral sense by the aesthetic sense may not draw after it positively evil consequences, though, if the matter be strictly considered, the morality of particular actions does not gain by this agreement. But the consequences will be quite different when sensuousness and reason have each of them a different interest. If, for example, duty commands us to perform an action that revolts our taste, or if taste feels itself drawn towards an object which reason as a moral judge is obliged to condemn, then, in fact, we suddenly encounter the necessity of distinguishing between the requirements of the moral sense and those of the aesthetic sense, which so long an agreement had almost confounded to such a degree that they could not be distinguished. We must now determine their reciprocal rights, and find which of them is the real master in our soul. But such a long representation of the moral sense by the sense of the beautiful has made us forget this master. When we have so long practised this rule of obeying at once the suggestions of taste, and when we have found the result always satisfactory, taste ends by assuming a kind of appearance of right. As taste has shown itself irreproachable in the vigilant watch it has kept over the will, we necessarily come to grant a certain esteem to its decisions; and it is precisely to this esteem that inclination, with captious logic, gives weight against the duties of conscience.

Esteem is a feeling that can only be felt for law, and what corresponds to it. Whatever is entitled to esteem lays claim to an unconditional homage. The ennobled inclination which has succeeded in captivating our esteem will, therefore, no longer be satisfied with being subordinate to reason; it aspires to rank alongside it. It does not wish to be taken for a faithless subject in revolt against his sovereign; it wishes to be regarded as a queen; and, treating reason as its peer, to dictate, like reason, laws to the conscience. Thus, if we listen to her, she would weigh by right equally in the scale; and then have we not good reason to fear that interest will decide?

Of all the inclinations that are decided from the feeling for the beautiful and that are special to refined minds, none commends itself so much to the moral sense as the ennobled instinct of love; none is so fruitful in impressions which correspond to the true dignity of man. To what an elevation does it raise human nature! and often what divine sparks does it kindle in the common soul! It is a sacred fire that consumes every egotistical inclination, and the very principles of morality are scarcely a greater safeguard of the soul's chastity than love is for the nobility of the heart. How often it happens while the moral principles are still struggling that love prevails in their favor, and hastens by its irresistible power the resolutions that duty alone would have vainly demanded from weak human nature! Who, then, would distrust an affection that protects so powerfully what is most excellent in human nature, and which fights so victoriously against the moral foe of all morality, egotism?

But do not follow this guide till you have secured a better. Suppose a loved object be met that is unhappy, and unhappy because of you, and that it depends only on you to make it happy by sacrificing a few moral scruples. You may be disposed to say, "Shall I let this loved being suffer for the pleasure of keeping our conscience pure? Is this resistance required by this generous, devoted affection, always ready to forget itself for its object? I grant it is going against conscience to have recourse to this immoral means to solace the being we love; but can we be said to love if in presence of this being and of its sorrow we continue to think of ourselves? Are we not more taken up with ourselves than with it, since we prefer to see it unhappy rather than consent to be so ourselves by the reproaches of our conscience?" These are the sophisms that the passion of love sets against conscience (whose voice thwarts its interests), making its utterances despicable as suggestions of selfishness, and representing our moral dignity as one of the components of our happiness that we are free to alienate. Then, if the morality of our character is not strongly backed by good principles, we shall surrender, whatever may be the impetus of our exalted imagination, to disgraceful acts; and we shall think that we gain a glorious victory over our self-love, while we are only the despicable victims of this instinct. A well-known French romance, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," gives us a striking example of this delusion, by which love betrays a soul otherwise pure and beautiful. The Presidente de Tourvel errs by surprise, and seeks to calm her remorse by the idea that she has sacrificed her virtue to her generosity.

Secondary and imperfect duties, as they are styled, are those that the feeling for the beautiful takes most willingly under its patronage, and which it allows to prevail on many occasions over perfect duties. As they assign a much larger place to the arbitrary option of the subject, and at the same time as they have the appearance of merit, which gives them lustre, they commend themselves far more to the aesthetic taste than perfect or necessary duties, which oblige us strictly and unconditionally. How many people allow themselves to be unjust that they may be generous! How many fail in their duties to society that they may do good to an individual, and reciprocally! How many people forgive a lie sooner than a rudeness, a crime against humanity rather than an insult to honor! How many debase their bodies to hasten the perfection of their minds, and degrade their character to adorn their understanding! How many do not scruple to commit a crime when they have a laudable end in view, pursue an ideal of political happiness through all the terrors of anarchy, tread under foot existing laws to make way for better ones, and do not scruple to devote the present generation to misery to secure at this cost the happiness of future generations! The apparent unselfishness of certain virtues gives them a varnish of purity, which makes them rash enough to break and run counter to the moral law; and many people are the dupes of this strange illusion, to rise higher than morality and to endeavor to be more reasonable than reason.

The man of a refined taste is susceptible, in this respect, of a moral corruption, from which the rude child of nature is preserved by his very coarseness. In the latter, the opposite of the demands of sense and the decrees of the moral law is so strongly marked and so manifest, and the spiritual element has so small a share in his desires, that although the appetites exercise a despotic sway over him, they cannot wrest his esteem from him. Thus, when the savage, yielding to the superior attraction of sense, gives way to the committal of an unjust action, he may yield to temptation, but he will not hide from himself that he is committing a fault, and he will do homage to reason even while he violates its mandates. The child of civilization, on the contrary, the man of refinement, will not admit that he commits a fault, and to soothe his conscience he prefers to impose on it by a sophism. No doubt he wishes to obey his appetite, but at the same time without falling in his own esteem. How does he manage this? He begins by overthrowing the superior authority that thwarts his inclination, and before transgressing the law he calls in question the competence of the lawgiver. Could it be expected that a corrupt will should so corrupt the intelligence? The only dignity that an inclination can assume accrues to it from its agreement with reason; yet we find that inclination, independent as well as blind, aspires, at the very moment she enters into contest with reason, to keep this dignity which she owes to reason alone. Nay, inclination even aspires to use this dignity she owes to reason against reason itself.

These are the dangers that threaten the morality of the character when too intimate an association is attempted between sensuous instincts and moral instincts, which can never perfectly agree in real life, but only in the ideal. I admit that the sensuous risks nothing in this association, because it possesses nothing except what it must give up directly duty speaks and reason demands the sacrifice. But reason, as the arbiter of the moral law, will run the more risk from this union if it receives as a gift from inclination what it might enforce; for, under the appearance of freedom, the feeling of obligation may be easily lost, and what reason accepts as a favor may quite well be refused it when the sensuous finds it painful to grant it. It is, therefore, infinitely safer for the morality of the character to suspend, at least for a time, this misrepresentation of the moral sense by the sense of the beautiful. It is best of all that reason should command by itself without mediation, and that it should show to the will its true master. The remark is, therefore, quite justified, that true morality only knows itself in the school of adversity, and that a continual prosperity becomes easily a rock of offence to virtue. I mean here by prosperity the state of a man who, to enjoy the goods of life, need not commit injustice, and who to conform to justice need not renounce any of the goods of life. The man who enjoys a continual prosperity never sees moral duty face to face, because his inclinations, naturally regular and moderate, always anticipate the mandate of reason, and because no temptation to violate the law recalls to his mind the idea of law. Entirely guided by the sense of the beautiful, which represents reason in the world of sense, he will reach the tomb without having known by experience the dignity of his destiny. On the other hand, the unfortunate man, if he be at the same time a virtuous man, enjoys the sublime privilege of being in immediate intercourse with the divine majesty of the moral law; and as his virtue is not seconded by any inclination, he bears witness in this lower world, and as a human being, of the freedom of pure spirits!