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

secundum naturam, but added to his pain the useless constraint of suppressing all utterance of it. Winckelmann therefore sees in him " the tried spirit of a great man, who writhes in agonj;, and jet seeks to suppress the utterance of to feeling, and to lock it up in himself. He does not break forth into loud cries, as in Virgil, but only anxious sighs escape him,” &c. (Works, vol. vii. pT^^'ah'd' af' greater length in vol. vi, p. 104).

Now Lessing criticised this opinion of Winckelmann’s in his Laocoon, and improved it in the way mentioned above. In place of the psychological he gave the purely aesthetic reason that beauty, the principle of ancient art, does not admit of the expression of crying out.

Another argument which he added to this, that a merely passing state incapable of duration ought not to be represented in motionless works of art, has a hundred examples of most excellent figures against it, which are fixed in merely transitory movements, dancing, wrestling, catching, &c.

Indeed Goethe, in the essay on the Laocoon, which opens the Propylaen (p. 8), holds that the choice, of such a merely fleeting movement is a,hspiutely.iie,c§s.^ry, In bur bwii day Hirt (Horen, 1797, tenth St.) finally decided the point, deducing everything from the highest truth of expression, that Laocoon does not cry out, because he can no longer do so, as he is at the point of death from choking.

Lastly, Fernow (“ Bomische Studieh,” vol. i. p. 246) expounded and weighed all these opinions; he added, however, no new one of his own, but combined these three eclectically.

I cannot but wonder that such thoughtful and acute men should laboriously bring far-fetched and insufficient reasons, should resort to psycliological and physiological arguments, to explain a matter the reason of which lies so near at hand, and is obvious at once to the unprejudiced ; and especially I won(^r that Lessing, who jcaafte so near the “trae explanationj, should yet have entirely missed the real point. .

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THE WORLD AS IDEA.

BK. III.

Before all psychological and physiological inquiries as to whether Laocoon would cry out in his position or not (and I certainly afiSrm that he would), it must be decided as regards the group in question, that crying out ought not to be expressed in it, for the simple reason that its expression lies quite outside the province of sculpture.

A shrieking Laocoon could not be produced in marble, but only a figure with the mouth open vainly endeavouring to shriek ; a Laocoon whose voice has stuck in his throat, vox famihus haesit. The essence of shrieking, and consequently its effect upon the onlookerTlTes entirely in sound; not in the distortion of the mouth.

Tliis phehbmenbh, which * necessaffly ^accbmpmnes^slmeking, derives motive and justification only from the sound produced by means of it; then it is permissible and indeed necessary, as characteristic of the action, even though it interferes with beauty.

But in plastic art, to which the representation of shrieking is quite foreign and impossible, it would be actual folly to represent the mediuhr oT'idolent shrieking, the distorted mouth, which would disturb air the features and the remainder of the expression ; for thus at the sacrifice of many other things the means would be represented, while its end, the shrieking itself, and its effect upon our feelings, would be left out.

Nay more, there would be produced the spectacle of a coj^tinuous effort witlmut effect, which fs always ridiculous, and may really be compared to what happened when some one for a joke stopped the horn ^ a night watchman with wax while he was asleep, and awoke him with the cry of fire, and amused himself by watching his vain endea,vours to blow the horn.

When, on the other hand, the expression of shrieking lies in the province of poetic or histrionic art, it is quite admissible, because it helps to express the truth, i.e., the complete expression of the Idea. Thus it is with poetry, which claims the assistance of the imagination of the reader, in order to enable it to represent things percepTHE PLATONIC IDEA: THE OBJECT OF ART. 295