Aesthetical Essays of Friedrich Schiller
on the affection experienced by the faculty of sense, are never sublime,
whatever energy they may display, for everything sublime proceeds
exclusively from the reason.
I imply by passion the affections of pleasure as well as the painful
affections, and to represent passion only, without coupling with it the
expression of the super-sensuous faculty which resists it, is to fall
into what is properly called vulgarity; and the opposite is called
nobility. Vulgarity and nobility are two ideas which, wherever they are
applied, have more or less relation with the super-sensuous share a man
takes in a work. There is nothing noble but what has its source in the
reason; all that issues from sensuousness alone is vulgar or common. We
say of a man that he acts in a vulgar manner when he is satisfied with
obeying the suggestions of his sensuous instinct; that he acts suitably
when he only obeys his instinct in conformity with the laws; that he acts
nobly when he obeys reason only, without having regard to his instincts.
We say of a physiognomy that it is common when it does not show any trace
of the spiritual man, the intelligence; we say it has expression when it
is the mind which has determined its features: and that it is noble when
a pure spirit has determined them. If an architectural work is in
question we qualify it as common if it aims at nothing but a physical
end; we name it noble if, independently of all physical aim, we find in
it at the same time the expression of a conception.
Accordingly, I repeat it, correct taste disallows all painting of the
affections, however energetic, which rests satisfied with expressing
physical suffering and the physical resistance opposed to it by the
subject, without making visible at the same time the superior principle
of the nature of man, the presence of a super-sensuous faculty. It does
this in virtue of the principle developed farther back, namely, that it
is not suffering in itself, but only the resistance opposed to suffering,
that is pathetic and deserving of being represented. It is for this
reason that all the absolutely extreme degrees of the affections are
forbidden to the artist as well as to the poet. All of these, in fact,
oppress the force that resists from within or rather, all betray of
themselves, and without any necessity of other symptoms, the oppression
of this force, because no affection can reach this last degree of
intensity as long as the intelligence in man makes any resistance.
Then another question presents itself. How is this principle of
resistance, this super-sensuous force, manifested in the phenomenon of
the affections? Only in one way, by mastering or, more commonly, by
combating affection. I say affection, for sensuousness can also fight,
but this combat of sensuousness is not carried on with the affection, but
with the cause that produces it; a contest which has no moral character,
but is all physical, the same combat that the earthworm, trodden under
foot, and the wounded bull engage in, without thereby exciting the
pathetic. When suffering man seeks to give an expression to his
feelings, to remove his enemy, to shelter the suffering limb, he does all
this in common with the animals, and instinct alone takes the initiative
here, without the will being applied to. Therefore, this is not an act
that emanates from the man himself, nor does it show him as an
intelligence. Sensuous nature will always fight the enemy that makes it
suffer, but it will never fight against itself.
On the other hand, the contest with affection is a contest with
sensuousness, and consequently presupposes something that is distinct
from sensuous nature. Man can defend himself with the help of common
sense and his muscular strength against the object that makes him suffer;
against suffering itself he has no other arms than those of reason.
These ideas must present themselves to the eye in the portraiture of the
affections, or be awakened by this portraiture in order that the pathetic
may exist. But it is impossible to represent ideas, in the proper sense
of the word, and positively, as nothing corresponds to pure ideas in the
world of sense. But they can be always represented negatively and in an
indirect way if the sensuous phenomenon by which they are manifested
has some character of which you would seek in vain the conditions in
physical nature. All phenomena of which the ultimate principle cannot
be derived from the world of sense are an indirect representation of
the upper-sensuous element.
And how does one succeed in representing something that is above nature
without having recourse to supernatural means? What can this phenomenon
be which is accomplished by natural forces--otherwise it would not be a
phenomenon--and yet which cannot be derived from physical causes without
a contradiction? This is the problem; how can the artist solve it?
It must be remembered that the phenomena observable in a man in a state
of passion are of two kinds. They are either phenomena connected simply
with animal nature, and which, therefore, only obey the physical law,
without the will being able to master them, or the independent force in
him being able to exercise an immediate influence over them. It is the
instinct which immediately produces these phenomena, and they obey
blindly the laws of instinct. To this kind belong, for example, the
organs of the circulation of the blood, of respiration, and all the
surface of the skin. But, moreover, the other organs, and those subject
to the will, do not always await the decision of the will; and often
instinct itself sets them immediately in play, especially when the
physical state is threatened with pain or with danger. Thus, the
movements of my arm depend, it is true, on my will; but if I place my
hand, without knowing it, on a burning body, the movement by which I draw
it back is certainly not a voluntary act, but a purely instinctive
phenomenon. Nay more, speech is assuredly subject to the empire of the
will, and yet instinct can also dispose of this organ according to its
whim, and even of this and of the mind, without consulting beforehand the
will, directly a sharp pain, or even an energetic affection, takes us by
surprise. Take the most impassible stoic and make him see suddenly
something very wonderful, or a terrible and unexpected object. Fancy
him, for example, present when a man slips and falls to the bottom of an
abyss. A shout, a resounding cry, and not only inarticulate, but a
distinct word will escape his lips, and nature will have acted in him
before the will: a certain proof that there are in man phenomena which
cannot be referred to his person as an intelligence, but only to his
instinct as a natural force.
But there is also in man a second order of phenomena, which are subject
to the influence and empire of the will, or which may be considered at
all events as being of such a kind that will might always have prevented
them, consequently phenomena for which the person and not instinct is
responsible. It is the office of instinct to watch with a blind zeal
over the interests of the senses; but it is the office of the person to
hold instinct in proper bounds, out of respect for the moral law.
Instinct in itself does not hold account of any law; but the person ought
to watch that instinct may not infringe in any way on the decrees of
reason. It is therefore evident that it is not for instinct alone to
determine unconditionally all the phenomena that take place in man in the
state of affection, and that on the contrary the will of man can place
limits to instinct. When instinct only determines all phenomena in man,
there is nothing more that can recall the person; there is only a
physical creature before you, and consequently an animal; for every
physical creature subject to the sway of instinct is nothing else.
Therefore, if you wish to represent the person itself, you must propose
to yourself in man certain phenomena that have been determined in
opposition to instinct, or at least that have not been determined by
instinct. That they have not been determined by instinct is sufficient
to refer them to a higher source, the moment we see that instinct would
no doubt have determined them in another way if its force had not been
broken by some obstacle.
We are now in a position to point out in what way the super-sensuous
element, the moral and independent force of man, his Ego in short, can be
represented in the phenomena of the affections. I understand that this
is possible if the parts which only obey physical nature, those where
will either disposes nothing at all, or only under certain circumstances,
betray the presence of suffering; and if those, on the contrary, that
escape the blind sway of instinct, that only obey physical nature, show
no trace, or only a very feeble trace, of suffering, and consequently
appear to have a certain degree of freedom. Now this want of harmony
between the features imprinted on animal nature in virtue of the laws of
physical necessity, and those determined with the spiritual and
independent faculty of man, is precisely the point by which that
super-sensuous principle is discovered in man capable of placing limits
to the effects produced by physical nature, and therefore distinct from
the latter. The purely animal part of man obeys the physical law, and
consequently may show itself oppressed by the affection. It is,
therefore, in this part that all the strength of passion shows itself,
and it answers in some degree as a measure to estimate the resistance--
that is to say, of the energy of the moral faculty in man--which can only
be judged according to the force of the attack. Thus in proportion as
the affection manifests itself with decision and violence in the field of
animal nature, without being able to exercise the same power in the field
of human nature, so in proportion the latter makes itself manifestly
known--in the same proportion the moral independence of man shows itself
gloriously: the portraiture becomes pathetic and the pathetic sublime.
The statues of the ancients make this principle of aesthetics sensible to
us; but it is difficult to reduce to conceptions and express in words
what the very inspection of ancient statues makes the senses feel in so
lively a manner. The group of Laocoon and his children can give to a
great extent the measure of what the plastic art of the ancients was
capable of producing in the matter of pathos. Winckelmann, in his
"History of Art,", says: "Laocoon is nature seized in the highest degree
of suffering, under the features of a man who seeks to gather up against
pain all the strength of which the mind is conscious. Hence while his
suffering swells his muscles and stretches his nerves, the mind, armed
with an interior force shows itself on his contracted brow, and the
breast rises, because the breathing is broken, and because there is an
internal struggle to keep in the expression of pain, and press it back
into his heart. The sigh of anguish he wishes to keep in, his very
breath which he smothers, exhaust the lower part of his trunk, and works
into his flanks, which make us judge in some degree of the palpitations
of his visceral organs. But his own suffering appears to occasion less
anguish than the pain of his children, who turn their faces toward their
father, and implore him, crying for help. His father's heart shows
itself in his eyes, full of sadness, and where pity seems to swim in a
troubled cloud. His face expresses lament, but he does not cry; his eyes
are turned to heaven, and implore help from on high. His mouth also
marks a supreme sadness, which depresses the lower lip and seems to weigh
upon it, while the upper lip, contracted from the top to the bottom,