The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp
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The translator’s English as printed (R. B. Haldane & J. Kemp). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
Inferior buildings or ill-favoured localities, on the contrary, which nature has neglected or art has spoiled, perform this task in a very slight degree or not at all ; yet even from them these universal, fundamental Ideas of nature cannot altogether disappear.
To the careful observer they present themselves here also, and even barf buildings and the like are capable of being sestheticaUy considered ; the Ideas of the most universal properties of their materials are still recognisable in them, only the artificial form which has been given them does not assist but hinders aesthetic contemplation.
Manufactured articles also serve to express Ideas, only it is not the Idea of the manufactured article which speaks in them, but the Idea of the material to which this artificial form has been given.
This may be very conveniently expressed in two words, in the language of the schoolmen, thus, — the manufactured article expresses the Idea of its forma suistantialis, but not that of its forma acddentalis ; the latter leads to no Idea, but only to a human conception of which it is the result. It is needless to say that by manufactured article no work of plastic art is meant.
The schoolmen understand, in fact, by forma substantialis that which I call the grade of the objectification of will in a thing. We shall return immediately, when we treat of architecture, to the Idea of the material. Our view, then, cannot be reconciled with that of Plato if he is of opinion that a table or a chair express the Idea of a table or a chair (De Eep., x., pp. 284, 285, et Parmen., p. 79, ed.
Bip.), but we say that they express the Ideas which are already expressed in their mere material as such. According to Aristotle (Metap. xi., chap. 3), however, Plato himself only maintained Ideas of natural objects : 6 IlXaTWP on ei8rj eanv oiroira tpvaei {Plato dvcii, qytad, idece eorum mnt, gwe natwra sutW), and in chap. 5 he says that, according to the Platonists, there are no Ideas of house and ring. In any case, Plato’s earliest disciples, as Alcinous informs us (Intro274
THE WORLD AS IDEA.
BK. III.
ductio in Platonicam Fhiloso2^hiam, chap. 9), denied that there were any ideas of manufactured articles. He says : 'Opi^ovrai Be Ttjv iBeav, irapaBeiyfJ.a rwv Kara <f)vcnp auaviov. Ovre yap TOi? irkeicrToi^ rtuv airo IIXar(ovo<i apetTKei, rtov re^^viKtov eivat iBeaif, oiov a(nnBo<i rj \vpa<i, ovre p,r]v ra>v irapa ^vcriv, oiov Trvperov Kai ovre rwv kutu p.epo<;, oiov SioKparov} kul UXaron/o?, aW’ ovre todv evTeXtov riva, oiov pxmov xai Kap<f>ov'i, ovre Ttvv irpot ri, ciov pei^ovot Kai UTrepe^oi'TO?' eivai yap Ta<} iBea<: voi)aei<} deov aiioviovt re Kai avroreXei^ {Dejiniunt autem ideam exemplar ceternum eonini, quae secundum naturam existunt. Nam plurimis ex iis, qui Platonem secuti sunt, minime placuit, arte factorum ideas esse, ut clypei atque lyrce ; neque rursus eorum, quce prceter naturam, ut febris et cholerm, neque particularium, ceu Socratis et Platonis ; neque etiam rerum, mlium, veluti sordium et festucce ; neque relationum, ut majoris et excedentis : esse namque ideas intellectiones dei cetemas, ac seipsis perfectas). We may take this opportunity of mentioning another point in which our doctrine of Ideas differs very much from that of Plato. He teaches (De Rep., X., p. 288) that the object which art tries to express, the ideal of painting and poetry, is not the Idea but the particular thing. Our whole exposition hitherto has maintained exactly the opposite, and Plato’s opinion is the less likely to lead us astray, inasmuch as it is the source of one of the greatest and best known errors of this great man, his depreciation and rejection of art,_and especiaUy poetry : he directly connects his false judgment in reference to this with the passage quoted.
§ 42. I return to the exposition of the aesthetic impression. The knowledge of the beautiful always supposes at once and inseparably the pure knowing subject and the known Idea as object.
Yet the source of aesthetic satisfaction will sometimes lie more in the comprehension of the known Idea, sometimes more in the blessedness and spiritual peace of the pure knowing subTHE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OP ART. 275
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