The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

’ Jakob Bohm in hia book, “de this is tho language of natuni wheo Signatura Rerum,’* ch. i., § 13-15, everything speaks out of its own says, “ There is nothing in nature property, and continually manifests that does not manifest its internal and declares itself, . . . for each form externally; for the internal thing reveals its mother, which thus continually labours to manifest it- gives the essence and the will to the self. . . . Everything has its language form, by which to reveal itself. . . . Andp. 285 and the subjective side has retired into the background. It is further to be observed that at the next grade below this, animal painting, the characteristic is entirely one with the beautiful; the most characteristic lion, wolf, horse, sheep, or ox, was always the most beautiful also. The reason of this is that animals have only the character of their species, no individual character. In the representation of men the character of the species is separated from that of the individual; the former is now called beauty (entirely in the objective sense), but the latter retains the name, character, or expression, and the new difficulty arises of representing both, at once and completely, in the same individual.

Human heauty is an objective expression, which means the fullest objectification of will at the highest grade at which it is knowable, the Idea of man in general, completely expressed in the sensible form. But however much the objective side of the beautiful appears here, the subjective side still always accompanies it. And just because no object transports us so quickly into pure {esthetic contemplation, as the most beautiful human countenance and form, at the sight of which we are instantly filled with unspeakable satisfaction, and raised above ourselves and all that troubles us ; this is only possible because this most distinct and purest knowledge of will raises us most easily and quickly to the state of pure knowing, in which our personality, our will with its constant pain, disappears, so long as the pure aesthetic pleasure lasts. Therefore it is that Goethe says : “ ^o evil can touch him who looks on human beauty ; he feels himself at one^^h himself and with th6..WOijld2!. That a beautiful human form is produced by nature must be explained in this way. At this its highest grade the will objectifies itself in an individual ; and therefore through circumstances and its own power it completely overcomes all the hindrances and opposition which the phenomena of the lower grades present to it. Such are the forces

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THE WORLD AS IDEA.

BK. III.

of nature, from which the will must always first extort and win back the matter that belongs to all its man! festations. Further, the phenomenon of will at its higher grades always has multiplicity in its form. Even the tree is only a systematic aggregate of innumerably repeated sprouting fibres.

This combination assumes greater complexity in higher forms, and the human body is an exceedingly complex system of different parts, each of which has a peculiar life of its own, vita propria, subordinate to the whole.

Now that all these parts are in the proper fashion subordinate to the whole, and coordinate to each other, that they all work together harmoniously for the expression of the whole, nothing superfiuous, nothing restricted; all these are the rare conditions, whose result is beauty, the completely expressed character of the species. So is it in nature. But how in art ? One would suppose that art achieved the beautiful by imitating nature.

But how is the artist to recognise the perfect work which is to be imitate^ and distinguish it from the failures, if he does not anticipate the beautiful before experience ? And besides this, has nature ever produced a human being perfectly beautiful in all his parts ?

It has accordingly been thought that the artist must seek out the beautiful parts, distributed among a number of different human beings, and out of them construct a beautiful whole ; a perverse and foolish opinion. For it will be asked, how is he to know that just these forms and not others are beautiful f We also see what kind of success attended the efforts of the old German painters to achieve the beautiful by imitating nature.

Observe their naked figures. No knowledge of the beautiful is possible purely a posteriori, and from mere experience ; it is always, at least in part, a priori, although quite different in kind, from the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, of which we are conscious a priori. These concern the universal form of phenomena as such, as it constitutes the possiTHE PLATONIC IDEA :p. 287