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.

phenomenon of ■will; for no motion, and consequently no relation to time (regarded apart from its development), belongs to the expression Of its nature ; its mere form expresses its "whole being and displays it openly. But brutes and men require, further, for the full revelation of the will which is manifested in them, a series of actions, and thus the manifestation in them takes on a direct relation to time.

All this has already been explained in the preceding book ; it is related to what we are considering at present in the following way.

As the merely spatial manifestation of will can objectify it fully or defectively at each definite grade, — and it is this which constitutes beauty or uglines.s, — so the temporal objectification of will, i.e., the action, and indeed the direct action, the movement, may correspond to the will, which objectifies itself in it, purely and fully without foreign admixture, without superfluity, without defect, only expressing exactly the act of will determined in each case; — or the converse of all this may occur.

In the first case the movement is made with grace, in the second case without it. Thus as beauty is the adequate representation of will generally, through its merely spatial manifestation ; grace is the adequate representation of will through its temporal manifestation, that is to say, the perfectly accurate and fitting expression of each act of will, through the movement and position which objectify it.

Since movement and position presuppose the body, Winckelmann’s expression is very true and suitable, when he says, “ Grace is the proper relation of the acting person to the action” (Works, vol. i. p. 258). It is thus evident that beauty may be attributed to a plant, but no grace, unless in a figurative sense ; but to brutes and men, both beauty and grace.

Grace consists, according to what has been said, in every movement being performed, and every position assumed, in the easiest, most appropriate and convenient way, and therefore being the pure, adequate expression of its intention, or of

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the act of will, without any superfluity, which exhibits itself as aimless, meaningless bustle, or as wooden stiffness. Grace presupposes as its condition a true proportion "dT air WeTimBs, and a symmetrical', harmonious figureyTor complete ease and evident appropriajten^^^f air positions and movements are only possible by means of these. Grace is therefore never withput a certem degree of beaury~brpers6u. The two, complete and unitej, aretEe ihdst distinct manifestetion of wiU at the highest gmde of ite pbjectificatipn.

It was mentioned above that in order rightly to portray man, it is necessary to separate the character of the species from that of the individual, so that to a certain extent every man expresses an Idea peculiar to himself, as was said in the last book. Therefore the arts whose aim is the representation of the Idea of man, have as their pivbJem, not only beauty, the character of the species, but also the character of the individual, which is called, par eoccdlence, character. But this is only the case in so far as tliis character is to be regarded, not as something accidental and quite peculiar to the man as a single individual, but as a side of the Idea of humanity which is specially apparent in this individual, and the representation of which is therefore of assistance in revealing this Idea. 'J'hus the character, although as such it is individual, must yet be Ideal, that is, its significance in relation to the Idea of humanity generally (the objectifying of which it assists in its own way) must be comprehended and expressed with special prominence. Apart from this the representation is a portrait, a copy of the individual as such, with all his accidental qualities. And even the portrait ought to be, as Winckelmann says, the ideal of the individual.

That charcuiter which is to be ideally comprehended, as the prominence of a special side of the Idea of humanity, expresses itself visibly, partly through permanent physiognomy and bodily form, partly through passing

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