第20章 Letter XV(2)

But life becomes more indifferent when dignity is mixed up with it,and duty on longer coerces when inclination attracts.In like manner the mind takes in the reality of things,material truth,more freely and tranquilly as soon as it encounters formal truth,the law of necessity;nor does the mind find itself strung by abstraction as soon as immediate intuition can accompany it.In one word,when the mind comes into communion with ideas,all reality loses its serious value because it becomes small;and as it comes in contact with feeling,necessity parts also with its serious value because it is easy.

But perhaps the objection has for some time occurred to you,Is not the beautiful degraded by this,that it is made a mere play?and is it not reduced to the level of frivolous objects which have for ages passed under that name?Does it not contradict the conception of the reason and the dignity of beauty,which is nevertheless regarded as an instrument of culture,to confine it to the work of being a mere play?and does it not contradict the empirical conception of play,which can coexist with the exclusion of all taste,to confine it merely to beauty?

But what is meant by a mere play,when we know that in all conditions of humanity that very thing is play,and only that is play which makes man complete and develops simultaneously his twofold nature?What you style limitation,according to your representation of the matter,according to my views,which I have justified by proofs,I name enlargement.Consequently,I should have said exactly the reverse:man is serious only with the agreeable,with the good,and with the perfect,but he plays with beauty.In saying this we must not indeed think of the plays that are in vogue in real life,and which commonly refer only to his material state.But in real life we should also seek in vain for the beauty of which we are here speaking.

The actually present beauty is worthy of the really,of the actually,present playimpulse;but by the ideal of beauty,which is set up by the reason,an ideal of the play-instinct is also presented,which man ought to have before his eyes in all his plays.

Therefore,no error will ever be incurred if we seek the ideal of beauty on the same road on which we satisfy our play-impulse.We can immediately understand why the ideal form of a Venus,of a Juno,and of an Apollo,is to be sought not at Rome,but in Greece,if we contrast the Greek population,delighting in the bloodless athletic contests of boxing,racing,and intellectual rivalry at Olympia,with the Roman people gloating over the agony of a gladiator.Now the reason pronounces that the beautiful must not only be life and form,but a living form,that is,beauty,inasmuch as it dictates to man the twofold law of absolute formality and absolute reality.Reason also utters the decision that man shall only play with beauty,and he shall only play with beauty.

For,to speak out once for all,man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man,and he is only completely a man when he plays.

This proposition,which at this moment perhaps appears paradoxical,will receive a great and deep meaning if we have advanced far enough to apply it to the twofold seriousness of duty and of destiny.I promise you that the whole edifice of aesthetic art and the still more difficult art of life will be supported by this principle.But this proposition is only unexpected in science;long ago it lived and worked in art and in the feeling of the Greeks,her most accomplished masters;only they removed to Olympus what ought to have been preserved on earth.Influenced by the truth of this principle,they effaced from the brow of their gods the earnestness and labour which furrow the cheeks of mortals,and also the hollow lust that smoothes the empty face.They set free the ever serene from the chains of every purpose,of every duty,of every care,and they made indolence and indifference the envied condition of the godlike race;merely human appellations for the freest and highest mind.As well the material pressure of natural laws as the spiritual pressure of moral laws lost itself in its higher idea of necessity,which embraced at the same time both worlds,and out of the union of these two necessities issued true freedom.Inspired by this spirit,the Greeks also effaced from the features of their ideal,together with desire or inclination,all traces of volition,or,better still,they made both unrecognisable,because they knew how to wed them both in the closest alliance.It is neither charm nor is it dignity which speaks from the glorious face of the Juno Ludovici;it is neither of these,for it is both at once.While the female god challenges our veneration,the godlike woman at the same times kindles our love.But while in ecstasy we give ourselves up to the heavenly beauty,the heavenly self-repose awes us back.The whole form rests and dwells in itself -a fully complete creation in itself -and as if she were out of space,without advance or resistance;it shows no force contending with force,no opening through which time could break in.Irresistibly carried away and attracted by her womanly charm,kept off at a distance by her godly dignity,we also find ourselves at length in the state of the greatest repose,and the result is a wonderful impression,for which the understanding has no idea and language no name.