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

emotion and passion, the reciprocal modification of knowing and willing by each other, which is all exhibited in the mien and movements. Since the individual always belongs to humanity, and, on the other hand, humanity always reveals itself in the individual with what is indeed peculiar ideal significance, beauty must not he destroyed by character nor character by beauty.

For if the character "oTlEHe species is annulled by that of the individual, the result is caricature ; and if the character of the individual is annulled by that of the species, the result is an absence of meaning.

Therefore the representation which aims at beauty, as sculpture principally does, will yet always modify this (the character of the species), in some respect, by the individual character, and will always express the Idea of man in a definite individual manner, giving prominence to a special side of it.

For the human individual as such has to a certain extent the dignity of a special Idea, and it is essential to the Idea of man that it should express itself in individuals of special significance. Therefore we find in the works of the ancients, that the beauty distinctly comprehended by them, is not expressed in one form, but in many forms of different character.

It is always apprehended, as it were, from a different sideband expressed in one way in Apollo, in' another way in Bacchii^ in another in^ flercules, in another in Antinous ; indeed the characteristic may limit the heautifuT, and finally extend even to Kidebusnessj in the drunken Silenus, in the Faun, &c. If the characteristic goes so far as actually to annul the character of the species, if it extends to the unnatural, it becomes caricuture.

But we can far less afford to allow grace to be interfered with by what is characteristic than even beauty, for graceful position and movement are demanded for the expression of the character also ; but yet it must be achieved in the way which is most fitting, appropriate, and easy for the person. This will be observed, not only by the sculptor and the painter, but

292 THE WORLD AS IDEA. BK. ill.

also by every good actor ; otherwise caricature will appear here also as grimace or distortion.

In sculpture, beauty and grace are the principal concern. The special character of the mind, appearing in emotion, passion, alternations of knowing and willing, which can only be represented by the expression of the countenance and the gestures, is the peculiar sphere of painting. For although eyes and colour, which lie outside the province of sculpture, contribute much to beauty, they are yet far more essential to character. Further, beauty unfolds itself more completely when it is contemplated from various points of view ; but the expression, the character, can only be completely comprehended from one point of view.

Because beauty is obviously the chief aim of sculpture, Lessing tried to explain the fact that the Laocoon does not <yry_ out, by saying that crying out is incompatible with beauty. The Laocoon formed for Lessing the theme, or at least the text of a work of his owm, and both before and after him a great deal has been written on the subject. I may therefore be allowed to express my views about it in passing, although so special a discpssion does not properly belong to the scheme of this work, which is throughout concerned with what is general

§ 4^. That Laocoon, in the celebrated group, does not cry out is obvious, and the universal and ever-renewed surprise at this must be occasioned by the fact that any of us would cry out if we were in his place. And nature demands that it shpuld be so; for in the case of the acutest physical pain, and the sudden seizure by the greatest bodily fear, all reflection, that might have incuTcafed silent endurance, is entirely expelled from cgHBeiousness,. and nature relieves itself by crying out^ thus expressing both tihe pain and the fear, suniip,ppii}g the" deliverer and terrifying the assailer. Thus Winckelthahn missed the expression of crying out; but as he wished to justify the artist he turned Laocoon into a Stoic, who considered it beneath his dignity to cry out

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