By which we can also see incidentally what we must think of grace, either imitated or learned (I would willingly call it theatrical grace, or the grace of the dancing-master). It is the pendant of that sort of beauty which a woman seeks from her toilet-table, reinforced with rouge, white paint, false ringlets, pads, and whalebone. Imittativegrace is to true grace what beauty of toilet is to architectonic beauty. One and the other could act in absolutely the same manner upon the senses badly exercised, as the original of which they wish to be the imitation; and at times even, if much art is put into it, they might create an illusion to theconnoisseur. But there will be always some indication through which the intention and constraint will betray it in the end, and this discovery will lead inevitably to indifference, if not even to contempt and disgust. If we are warned that the architectonic beauty is factitious, at once, the more it has borrowed from a nature which is not its own, the more it loses in our eyes of that which belongs to humanity (so far as it is phenomenal), and then we, who forbid the renunciation lightly of an accidental advantage, how can we see with pleasure or even with indifference an exchange through which man sacrifices a part of his proper nature in order to substitute elements taken from inferior nature? How, even supposing we could forgive the illusion produced, how could we avoid despising the deception? If we are told thatgraceis artificial, our heart at once closes; our soul, which at first advanced with so much vivacity to meet the graceful object, shrinks back. That which was mind has suddenly become matter. Juno and her celestial beauty has vanished, and in her place there is nothing but a phantom of vapor.
Although grace ought to be, or at least ought to appear, something involuntary, still we seek it only in the movements that depend more or less on the will. I know also that grace is attributed to a certain mimic language, and we say a pleasing smile, a charming blush, though the smile and the blush are sympathetic movements, not determined by the will, but by moral sensibility. But besides that, the first of these movements is, after all, in our power, and that it is not shown that in the second there is, properly speaking, any grace, it is right to say, in general, that most frequently when grace appears it is on the occasion of a voluntary movement. Grace is desired both in language and in song; it is asked for in the play of the eyes and of the mouth, in the movements of the hands and the arms whenever these movements are free and voluntary;it is required in the walk, in the bearing, and attitude, in a word, in all exterior demonstrations of man, so far as they depend on his will. As to the movements which the instinct of nature produces in us, or which an overpowering affection excites, or, so to speak, is lord over; that which we ask of these movements, in origin purely physical, is, as we shall see presently, quite another thing than grace. These kinds of movements belong tonature, and not to theperson; but it is from the person alone, as we have seen, that all grace issues.
If, then, grace is a property that we demand only from voluntary movements, and if, on the other hand, all voluntary element should be rigorously excluded from grace, we have no longer to seek it but in that portion of the intentional movements to which the intention of the subject is unknown, but which, however, does not cease to answer in the soul to a moral cause.
We now know in what kind of movements he must ask for grace; but we know nothing more, and a movement can have these different characters, without on that account being graceful; it is as yet only speaking (or mimic).
I callspeaking(in the widest sense of the word) every physical phenomenon which accompanies and expresses a certain state of the soul; thus, in this acceptation, all the sympathetic movements are speaking, including those which accompany the simple affections of the animal sensibility.
The aspect, even, under which the animals present themselves, can be speaking, as soon as they outwardly show their inward dispositions. But, with them, it is nature alone which speaks, andNOT LIBERTY. By the permanent configuration of animals through their fixed and architectonic features, nature expresses the aim she proposed in creating them; by their mimic traits she expresses the want awakened and the want satisfied. Necessity reigns in the animal as well as in the plant, without meeting the obstacle of a person. The animals have no individuality farther than each of them is a specimen by itself of a general type of nature, and the aspect under which they present themselves at such or such an instant of theirduration is only a particular example of the accomplishment of the views of nature under determined natural conditions.
To take the word in a morerestrictedsense, the configuration of man alone is speaking, and it is itself so only in those of the phenomena that accompany and express the state of its moral sensibility.
I say it is only in this sort of phenomena; for, in all the others, man is in the same rank as the rest of sensible beings. By the permanent configuration of man, by his architectonic features, nature only expresses, just as in the animals and other organic beings, her own intention. It is true the intention of nature may go here much further, and the means she employs to reach her end may offer in their combination more of art and complication; but all that ought to be placed solely to the account of nature, and can confer no advantage on man himself.
In the animal, and in the plant, nature gives not only the destination; sheacts herself and acts alone in the accomplishment of her ends. In man, nature limits herself in marking her views; she leaves to himself their accomplishment, it is this alone that makes of him a man.
Alone of all known beings—man, in his quality of person, has the privilege to break the chain of necessity by his will, and to determine in himself an entire series of fresh spontaneous phenomena. The act by which he thus determines himself is properly that which we call an action, and the things that result from this sort of action are what we exclusively name his acts. Thus man can only show his personality by his own acts.
The configuration of the animal not only expresses the idea of his destination, but also the relation of his present state with this destination. And as in the animal it is nature which determines and at the same time accomplishes its destiny, the configuration of the animal can never express anything else than the work of nature.
If then nature, whilst determining the destiny of man, abandons to the will of man himself the care to accomplish it, the relation of his present state with his destiny cannot be a work of nature, but ought to be the work ofthe person; it follows, that all in the configuration which expresses this relation will belong, not to nature, but to the person, that is to say, will be considered as a personal expression; if then, the architectonic part of his configuration tells us the views that nature proposed to herself in creating him, the mimic part of his face reveals what he has himself done for the accomplishment of these views.
It is not then enough for us, when there is question of the form of man, to find in it the expression of humanity in general, or even of that which nature has herself contributed to the individual in particular, in order to realize the human type in it; for he would have that in common with every kind of technical configuration. We expect something more of his face; we desire that it reveal to us at the same time, up to what point man himself, in his liberty, has contributed towards the aim of nature; in other words, we desire that his face bear witness to his character. In the first case we see that nature proposed to create in him a man; but it is in the second case only that we can judge if he has become so in reality.
Thus, the face of a man is truly his own only inasmuch as his face is mimic; but also all that is mimic in his face is entirely his own. For, if we suppose the case in which the greatest part, and even the totality, of these mimic features express nothing more than animal sensations or instincts, and, in consequence, would show nothing more than the animal in him, it would still remain that it was in his destiny and in his power to limit, by his liberty, his sensuous nature. The presence of these kinds of traits clearly witness that he has not made use of this faculty. We see by that he has not accomplished his destiny, and in this sense his face is speaking; it is still a moral expression, the same as the non-accomplishment of an act commanded by duty is likewise a sort of action.
We must distinguish from these speaking features which, are always an expression of the soul, the features nonspeaking or dumb, which are exclusively the work of plastic nature, and which it impresses on the human face when it acts independently of all influence of the soul. I call them dumb, because, like incomprehensible figuresput there by nature, they are silent upon the character. They mark only distinctive properties attributed by nature to all the kind; and if at times they are sufficient to distinguish the individual, they at least never express anything of the person.
These features are by no means devoid of signification for the physiognomist, because the physiognomist not only studies that which man has made of his being, but also that which nature has done for him and against him.
It is not also easy to determine with precision where the dumb traits or features end, where the speaking traits commence. The plastic forces on one side, with their uniform action, and, on the other, the affections which depend on no law, dispute incessantly the ground; and that which nature, in its dumb and indefatigable activity, has succeeded in raising up, often is overturned by liberty, as a river that overflows and spreads over its banks: the mind when it is gifted with vivacity acquires influence over all the movements of the body, and arrives at last indirectly to modify by force the sympathetic play as far as the architectonic and fixed forms of nature, upon which the will has no hold. In a man thus constituted it becomes at last characteristic; and it is that which we can often observe upon certain heads which a long life, strange accidents, and an active mind have moulded and worked. In these kinds of faces there is only the generic character which belongs to plastic nature; all which here forms individuality is the act of thepersonhimself, and it is this which causes it to be said, with much reason, that those faces are all soul.
Look at that man, on the contrary, who has made for himself a mechanical existence, those disciples of the rule. The rule can well calm the sensuous nature, but not awaken human nature, the superior faculties: look at those flat and inexpressive physiognomies; the finger of nature has alone left there its impression; a soul inhabits these bodies, but it is a sluggish soul, a discreet guest, and, as a peaceful and silent neighbor who does not disturb the plastic force at its work, left to itself. Never a thought which requires an effort, never a movement ofpassion, hurries the calm cadence of physical life. There is no danger that the architectonic features ever become changed by the play of voluntary movements, and never would liberty trouble the functions of vegetative life. As the profound calm of the mind does not bring about a notable degeneracy of forces, the expense would never surpass the receipts; it is rather the animal economy which would always be in excess. In exchange for a certain sum of well-being which it throws as bait, the mind makes itself the servant, the punctual major-domo of physical nature, and places all his glory in keeping his books in order. Thus will be accomplished that which organic nature can accomplish; thus will the work of nutrition and of reproduction prosper. So happy a concord between animal nature and the will cannot but be favorable to architectonic beauty, and it is there that we can observe this beauty in all its purity. But the general forces of nature, as every one knows, are eternally at warfare with the particular or organic forces, and, however cleverly balanced is the technique of a body, the cohesion and the weight end always by getting the upper hand. Also architectonic beauty, so far as it is a simple production of nature, has its fixed periods, its blossoming, its maturity, and its decline—periods the revolution of which can easily be accelerated, but not retarded in any case, by the play of the will, and this is the way in which it most frequently finishes; little by little matter takes the upper hand over form, and the plastic principle, which vivified the being, prepares for itself its tomb under the accumulation of matter.
However, although no dumb trait, considered in an isolated point of view, can be an expression of the mind, a face composed entirely of these kinds of features can be characterized in its entireness by precisely the same reason as a face which is speaking only as an expression of sensuous nature can be nevertheless characteristic. I mean to say that the mind is obliged to exercise its activity and to feel conformably to its moral nature, and it accuses itself and betrays its fault when the face which it animates shows no trace of this moral activity. If, therefore, the pure and beautiful expression of the destinationof man, which is marked in his architectonic structure, penetrates us with satisfaction and respect for the sovereign, reason, who is the author of it, at all events these two sentiments will not be for us without mixture but in as far as we see in man a simple creation of nature. But if we consider in him the moral person, we have a right to demand of his face an expression of the person, and if this expectation is deceived contempt will infallibly follow. Simply organic beings have a right to our respect as creatures; man cannot pretend to it but in the capacity of creator, that is to say, as being himself the determiner of his own condition. He ought not only, as the other sensuous creatures, to reflect the rays of a foreign intelligence, were it even the divine intelligence; man ought, as a sun, to shine by his own light.
Thus we require of man a speaking expression as soon as he becomesconsciousof his moral destiny; but we desire at the same time that this expression speak to his advantage, that is to say, it marks in him sentiments conformable to his moral destiny, and a superior moral aptitude. This is what reason requires in the human face.
But, on the other side, man, as far as he is a phenomenon, is an object of sense; there, where themoralsentiment is satisfied, the æsthetic sentiment does not understand its being made a sacrifice, and the concomity with an idea ought not to lessen the beauty of the phenomenon. Thus, as much as reason requires an expression of the morality of the subject in the human face, so much, and with no less rigor, does the eye demand beauty. As these two requirements, although coming from the principles of the appreciation of different degrees, address themselves to the same object, also both one and the other must be given satisfaction by one and the same cause. The disposition of the soul which places man in the best state for accomplishing his moral destiny ought to give place to an expression that will be at the same time the most advantageous to his beauty as phenomenon; in other terms, his moral exercise ought to be revealed bygrace.
But a great difficulty now presents itself from the idea alone of the expressive movements which bear witness to the morality of the subject: it appears that the cause ofthese movements is necessarily a moral cause, a principle which resides beyond the world of sense; and from the sole idea of beauty it is not less evident that its principle is purely sensuous, and that it ought to be a simple effect of nature, or at the least appear to be such. But if the ultimate reason of the movements which offer a moral expression is necessarilywithout, and the ultimate reason of the beautiful necessarilywithin, the sensuous world, it appears thatgrace, which ought to unite both of them, contains a manifest contradiction.
To avoid this contradiction we must admit that the moral cause, which in our soul is the foundation of grace, brings, in a necessary manner, in the sensibility which depends on that cause, precisely that state which contains in itself the natural conditions of beauty. I will explain. The beautiful, as each sensuous phenomenon, supposes certain conditions, and, in as far as it is beautiful, these are purely conditions of the senses; well, then, in that the mind (in virtue of a law that we cannot fathom), from the state in which it is, itself prescribes to physical nature which accompanies it, its own state, and in that the state of moral perfection is precisely in it the most favorable for the accomplishment of the physical conditions of beauty, it follows that it is the mind which renders beauty possible; and there its action ends. But whether real beauty comes forth from it, that depends upon the physical conditions alluded to, and is consequently a free effect of nature. Therefore, as it cannot be said that nature is properly free in the voluntary movements, in which it is employed but as a means to attain an end, and as, on the other side, it cannot be said that it is free in its involuntary movements, which express the moral, the liberty with which it manifests itself, dependent as it is on the will of the subject, must be a concession that the mind makes to nature; and, consequently, it can be said thatgraceis afavorin which the moral has desired to gratify the sensuous element; the same as the architectonic beauty may be considered as nature acquiescing to the technical form.
May I be permitted a comparison to clear up this point? Let us suppose a monarchical state administered in such a way that, although all goes on according to the will of oneperson, each citizen could persuade himself that he governs and obeys only his own inclination, we should call that government a liberal government.
But we should look twice before we should thus qualify a government in which the chief makes his will outweigh the wishes of the citizens, or a government in which the will of the citizens outweighs that of the chief. In the first case, the government would be no more liberal; in the second, it would not be a government at all.
It is not difficult to make application of these examples to what the human face could be under the government of the mind. If the mind is manifested in such a way through the sensuous nature subject to its empire that it executes its behests with the most faithful exactitude, or expresses its sentiments in the most perfectly speaking manner, without going in the least against that which the æsthetic sense demands from it as a phenomenon, then we shall see produced that which we callgrace. But this is far from being grace, if mind is manifested in a constrained manner by the sensuous nature, or if sensuous nature acting alone in all liberty the expression of moral nature was absent. In the first case there would not be beauty; in the second the beauty would be devoid ofplay.
The super-sensuous cause, therefore, the cause of which the principle is in the soul, can alone render grace speaking, and it is the purely sensuous cause having its principle in nature which alone can render it beautiful. We are not more authorized in asserting that mind engenders beauty than we should be, in the former example, in maintaining that the chief of the state produces liberty; because we can indeed leave a man in his liberty, but not give it to him.
But just as when a people feels itself free under the constraint of a foreign will, it is in a great degree due to the sentiments animating the prince; and as this liberty would run great risks if the prince took opposite sentiments, so also it is in the moral dispositions of the mind which suggests them that we must seek the beauty of free movements. And now the question which is presented is this one: What then are the conditions of personal morality which assure the utmost amount of liberty to the sensuousinstruments of the will? and what are the moral sentiments which agree the best in their expression with the beautiful?
That which is evident is that neither the will, in the intentional movement, nor the passion, in the sympathetic movement, ought to act as a force with regard to the physical nature which is subject to it, in order that this, in obeying it, may have beauty. In truth, without going further, common sense considerseaseto be the first requisite of grace. It is not less evident that, on another side, nature ought not to act as a force with regard to mind, in order to give occasion for a fine moral expression; for there, where physical nature commands alone, it is absolutely necessary that the character of the man should vanish.
We can conceive three sorts of relation of man with himself: I mean the sensuous part of man with the reasonable part. From these three relations we have to seek which is that one which best suits him in the sensuous world, and the expression of which constitutes the beautiful. Either man enforces silence upon the exigencies of his sensuous nature, to govern himself conformably with the superior exigencies of his reasonable nature; or else, on the contrary, he subjects the reasonable portion of his being to the sensuous part, reducing himself thus to obey only the impulses which the necessity of nature imprints upon him, as well as upon the other phenomena; or lastly, harmony is established between the impulsions of the one and the laws of the other, and man is in perfect accord with himself.
If he has the consciousness of his spiritual person, of his pure autonomy, man rejects all that is sensuous, and it is only when thus isolated from matter that he feels to the full his moral liberty. But for that, as his sensuous nature opposes an obstinate and vigorous resistance to him, he must, on his side, exercise upon it a notable pressure and a strong effort, without which he could neither put aside the appetites nor reduce to silence the energetic voice of instinct. A mind of this quality makes the physical nature which depends on him feel that it has a master in him, whether it fulfils the orders of the will or endeavors to anticipate them. Under its stern disciplinesensuousness appears then repressed, and interior resistance will betray itself exteriorly by the constraint. This moral state cannot, then, be favorable to beauty, because nature cannot produce the beautiful but as far as it is free, and consequently that which betrays to us the struggles of moral liberty against matter cannot either be grace.
If, on the contrary, subdued by its wants, man allows himself to be governed without reserve by the instinct of nature, it is his interior autonomy that vanishes, and with it all trace of this autonomy is exteriorly effaced. The animal nature is alone visible upon his visage; the eye is watery and languishing, the mouth rapaciously open, the voice trembling and muffled, the breathing short and rapid, the limbs trembling with nervous agitation: the whole body by its languor betrays its moral degradation. Moral force has renounced all resistance, and physical nature, with such a man, is placed in full liberty. But precisely this complete abandonment of moral independence, which occurs ordinarily at the moment of sensuous desire, and more still at the moment of enjoyment, sets suddenly brute matter at liberty which until then had been kept in equilibrium by the active and passive forces. The inert forces of nature commence from thence to gain the upper hand over the living forces of the organism; the form is oppressed by matter, humanity by common nature. The eye, in which the soul shone forth, becomes dull, or it protrudes from its socket with I know not what glassy haggardness; the delicate pink of the cheeks thickens, and spreads as a coarse pigment in uniform layers. The mouth is no longer anything but a simple opening, because its form no longer depends upon the action of forces, but on their non-resistance; the gasping voice and breathing are no more than an effort to ease the laborious and oppressed lungs, and which show a simple mechanical want, with nothing that reveals a soul. In a word, in that state of liberty which physical nature arrogates to itself from its chief, we must not think of beauty. Under the empire of the moral agent, the liberty of form was only restrained, here it is crushed by brutal matter, which gains as much ground as is abstracted fromthe will. Man in this state not only revolts the moral sense, which incessantly claims of the face an expression of human dignity, but theæstheticsense, which is not content with simple matter, and which finds in the form an unfettered pleasure—the æsthetic sense will turn away with disgust from such a spectacle, whereconcupiscencecould alone find its gratification.
Of these two relations between the moral nature of man and his physical nature, the first makes us think of a monarchy, where strictsurveillanceof the prince holds in hand all free movement; the second is an ochlocracy, where the citizen, in refusing to obey his legitimate sovereign, finds he has liberty quite as little as the human face has beauty when the moral autonomy is oppressed; nay, on the contrary, just as the citizens are given over to the brutal despotism of the lowest classes, so the form is given over here to the despotism of matter. Just as liberty finds itself between the two extremes of legal oppression and anarchy, so also we shall find the beautiful between two extremes, between the expression of dignity which bears witness to the domination exercised by the mind, and the voluptuous expression which reveals the domination exercised by instinct.
In other terms, if the beauty of expression is incompatible with the absolute government of reason over sensuous nature, and with the government of sensuous nature over the reason, it follows that the third state (for one could not conceive a fourth)—that in which the reason and the senses, duty and inclination, are in harmony—will be that in which the beauty of play is produced. In order that obedience to reason may become an object of inclination, it must represent for us the principle of pleasure; for pleasure and pain are the only springs which set the instincts in motion. It is true that in life it is the reverse that takes place, and pleasure is ordinarily the motive for which we act according to reason. If morality itself has at last ceased to hold this language, it is to the immortal author of the “Critique” to whom we must offer our thanks; it is to him to whom the glory is due of having restored the healthy reason in separating it from all systems. But in the manner in which the principles of thisphilosopher are ordinarily expressed by himself and also by others, it appears that the inclination can never be for the moral sense otherwise than a very suspicious companion, and pleasure a dangerous auxiliary for moral determinations. In admitting that the instinct of happiness does not exercise a blind domination over man, it does not the less desire to interfere in the moral actions which depend on free arbitration, and by that it changes the pure action of the will, which ought always to obey the law alone, never theinstinct. Thus, to be altogether sure that the inclination has not interfered with the demonstrations of the will, we prefer to see it in opposition rather than in accord with the law of reason; because it may happen too easily, when the inclination speaks in favor of duty, that duty draws from the recommendation all its credit over the will. And in fact, as in practical morals, it is not the conformity of the acts with the law, but only the conformity of the sentiments with duty, which is important. We do not attach, and with reason, any value to this consideration, that it is ordinarily more favorable to the conformity of acts with the law that inclination is on the side of duty. As a consequence, this much appears evident: that the assent of sense, if it does not render suspicious the conformity of the will with duty, at least does not guarantee it. Thus the sensuous expression of this assent, expression that grace offers to us, could never bear a sufficient available witness to the morality of the act in which it is met; and it is not from that which an action or a sentiment manifests to the eyes by graceful expression that we must judge of the moral merit of that sentiment or of that action.
Up to the present time I believe I have been in perfect accord with the rigorists in morals. I shall not become, I hope, a relaxed moralist in endeavoring to maintain in the world of phenomena and in the real fulfilment of the law of duty those rights of sensuous nature which, upon the ground of pure reason and in the jurisdiction of the moral law, are completely set aside and excluded.
I will explain. Convinced as I am, and precisely because I am convinced, that the inclination in associating itself to an act of the will offers no witness to the pureconformity of this act with the duty, I believe that we are able to infer from this that the moral perfection of man cannot shine forth except from this very association of his inclination with his moral conduct. In fact, the destiny of man is not to accomplish isolated moral acts, but to be a moral being. That which is prescribed to him does not consist of virtues, but of virtue, and virtue is not anything else “than an inclination for duty.” Whatever, then, in the objective sense, may be the opposition which separates the acts suggested by the inclination from those which duty determines, we cannot say it is the same in the subjective sense; and not only is it permitted to man to accord duty with pleasure, but he ought to establish between them this accord, he ought to obey his reason with a sentiment of joy. It is not to throw it off as a burden, nor to cast it off as a too coarse skin. No, it is to unite it, by a union the most intimate, with his Ego, with the most noble part of his being, that a sensuous nature has been associated in him to his purely spiritual nature. By the fact that nature has made of him a being both at once reasonable and sensuous, that is to say, a man, it has prescribed to him the obligation not to separate that which she has united; not to sacrifice in him the sensuous being, were it in the most pure manifestations of the divine part; and never to found the triumph of one over the oppression and the ruin of the other. It is only when he gathers, so to speak, his entirehumanitytogether, and his way of thinking in morals becomes the result of the united action of the two principles, when morality has become to him a second nature, it is then only that it is secure; for, as far as the mind and the duty are obliged to employ violence, it is necessary that the instinct shall have force to resist them. The enemy which only is overturned can rise up again, but the enemy reconciled is truly vanquished. In the moral philosophy of Kant the idea of duty is proposed with a harshness enough to ruffle the Graces, and one which could easily tempt a feeble mind to seek for moral perfection in the sombre paths of an ascetic and monastic life. Whatever precautions the great philosopher has been able to take in order to shelter himself against this false interpretation, which must be repugnant more than all elseto the serenity of the free mind, he has lent it a strong impulse, it seems to me, in opposing to each other by a harsh contrast the two principles which act upon the human will. Perhaps it was hardly possible, from the point of view in which he was placed, to avoid this mistake; but he has exposed himself seriously to it. Upon the basis of the question there is no longer, after the demonstration he has given, any discussion possible, at least for the heads which think and which are quitewilling to be persuaded; and I am not at all sure if it would not be better to renounce at once all the attributes of the human being than to be willing to reach on this point, by reason, a different result. But although he began to work without any prejudice when he searched for the truth, and though all is here explained by purely objective reasons, it appears that when he put forward the truth once found he had been guided by a more subjective maxim, which is not difficult, I believe, to be accounted for by the time and circumstances.
What, in fact, was the moral of his time, either in theory or in its application? On one side, a gross materialism, of which the shameless maxims would revolt his soul; impure resting-places offered to the bastard characters of a century by the unworthy complacency of philosophers; on the other side, a pretended system of perfectibility, not less suspicious, which, to realize the chimera of a general perfection common to the whole universe, would not be embarrassed for a choice of means. This is what would meet his attention. So he carried there, where the most pressing danger lay and reform was the most urgent, the strongest forces of his principles, and made it a law to pursue sensualism without pity, whether it walks with a bold face, impudently insulting morality, or dissimulates under the imposing veil of a moral, praiseworthy end, under which a certain fanatical kind of order know how to disguise it. He had not to disguiseignorance, but to reformperversion; for such a cure a violent blow, and not persuasion or flattery, was necessary; and the more the contrast would be violent between the true principles and the dominant maxims, the more he would hope to provoke reflection upon this point. He was the Draco of his time, because his time seemed to him as yet unworthy to possessa Solon, neither capable of receiving him. From the sanctuary of pure reason he drew forth the moral law, unknown then, and yet, in another way, so known; he made it appear in all its saintliness before a degraded century, and troubled himself little to know whether there were eyes too enfeebled to bear the brightness.
But what had thechildren of the housedone for him to have occupied himself only with thevalets? Because strongly impure inclinations often usurp the name of virtue, was it a reason for disinterested inclinations in the noblest heart to be also rendered suspicious? Because the moral epicurean had willingly relaxed the law of reason, in order to fit it as a plaything to his customs, was it a reason to thus exaggerate harshness, and to make the fulfilment of duty, which is the most powerful manifestation of moral freedom, another kind of decorated servitude of a more specious name? And, in fact, between the esteem and the contempt of himself has the truly moral man a more free choice than the slave of sense between pleasure and pain? Is there less of constraint there for a pure will than here for a depraved will? Must one, by this imperative form given to the moral law, accuse man and humble him, and make of this law, which is the most sublime witness of our grandeur, the most crushing argument for our fragility? Was it possible with this imperative force to avoid that a prescription which man imposes on himself, as a reasonable being, and which is obligatory only for him on that account, and which is conciliatory with the sentiment of his liberty only—that this prescription, say I, took the appearance of a foreign law, a positive law, an appearance which could hardly lessen the radical tendency which we impute to man to react against the law?
It is certainly not an advantage for moral truth to have against itself sentiments which man can avow without shame. Thus, how can the sentiment of the beautiful, the sentiment of liberty, accord with the austere mind of a legislation which governs man rather through fear than trust, which tends constantly to separate that which nature has united, and which is reduced to hold us in defiance against a part of our being, to assure its empire over the rest? Human nature forms a whole more united in realitythan it is permitted to the philosopher, who can only analyze, to allow it to appear. The reason can never reject as unworthy of it the affections which the heart recognizes with joy; and there, where man would be morally fallen, he can hardly rise in his own esteem. If in the moral order the sensuous nature were only the oppressed party and not an ally, how could it associate with all the ardor of its sentiments in a triumph which would be celebrated only over itself? how could it be so keen a participator in the satisfaction of a pure spirit having consciousness of itself, if in the end it could not attach itself to the pure spirit with such closeness that it is not possible even to intellectual analysis to separate it without violence.
The will, besides, is in more immediate relation with the faculty of feeling than with the cognitive faculties, and it would be regrettable in many circumstances if it were obliged, in order to guide itself, to take advice of pure reason. I prejudge nothing good of a man who dares so little trust to the voice of instinct that he is obliged each time to make it appear first before the moral law; he is much more estimable who abandons himself with a certain security to inclination, without having to fear being led astray by her. That proves in fact that with him the two principles are already in harmony—in that harmony which places a seat upon the perfection of the human being, and which constitutes that which we understand by a noble soul.
It is said of a man that he has a great soul when the moral sense has finished assuring itself of all the affections, to the extent of abandoning without fear the direction of the senses to the will, and never incurring the risk of finding himself in discord with its decisions. It follows that in a noble soul it is not this or that particular action, it is the entire character which is moral. Thus we can make a merit of none of its actions because the satisfaction of an instinct could not be meritorious. A noble soul has no other merit than to be a noble soul. With as great a facility as if the instinct alone were acting, it accomplishes the most painful duties of humanity, and the most heroic sacrifice that she obtains over the instinct of nature seemsthe effect of the free action of the instinct itself. Also, it has no idea of the beauty of its act, and it never occurs to it that any other way of acting could be possible; on the contrary, the moralist formed by the school and by rule, is always ready at the first question of the master to give an account with the most rigorous precision of the conformity of its acts with the moral law. The life of this one is like a drawing where the pencil has indicated by harsh and stiff lines all that the rule demands, and which could, if necessary, serve for a student to learn the elements of art. The life of a noble soul, on the contrary, is like a painting of Titian; all the harsh outlines are effaced, which does not prevent the whole face being more true, lifelike and harmonious.
It is then in a noble soul that is found the true harmony between reason and sense, between inclination and duty, and grace is the expression of this harmony in the sensuous world. It is only in the service of a noble soul that nature can at the same time be in possession of its liberty, and preserve from all alteration the beauty of its forms; for the one, its liberty would be compromised under the tyranny of an austere soul, the other, under the anarchical regimen of sensuousness. A noble soul spreads even over a face in which the architectonic beauty is wanting an irresistible grace, and often even triumphs over the natural disfavor. All the movements which proceed from a noble soul are easy, sweet, and yet animated. The eye beams with serenity as with liberty, and with the brightness of sentiment; gentleness of heart would naturally give to the mouth a grace that no affectation, no art, could attain. You trace there no effort in the varied play of the physiognomy, no constraint in the voluntary movements—a noble soul knows not constraint; the voice becomes music, and the limpid stream of its modulations touches the heart. The beauty of structure can excite pleasure, admiration, astonishment; grace alone can charm. Beauty has its adorers; grace alone has its lovers: for we pay our homage to the Creator, and we love man. As a whole, grace would be met with especially amongst women; beauty, on the contrary, is met with more frequently in man, and we need not go far without finding the reason. For gracewe require the union of bodily structure, as well as that of character: the body, by its suppleness, by its promptitude to receive impressions and to bring them into action; the character, by the moral harmony of the sentiments. Upon these two points nature has been more favorable to the woman than to man.
The more delicate structure of the woman receives more rapid each impression and allows it to escape as rapidly. It requires a storm to shake a strong constitution, and when vigorous muscles begin to move we should not find the ease which is one of the conditions of grace. That which upon the face of woman is still a beautiful sensation would express suffering already upon the face of man. Woman has the more tender nerves; it is a reed which bends under the gentlest breath of passion. The soul glides in soft and amiable ripples upon her expressive face, which soon regains the calm and smooth surface of the mirror.
The same also for the character: for that necessary union of the soul with grace the woman is more happily gifted than man. The character of woman rises rarely to the supreme ideal of moral purity, and would rarely go beyond acts of affection; her character would often resist sensuousness with heroic force. Precisely because the moral nature of woman is generally on the side of inclination, the effect becomes the same, in that which touches the sensuous expression of this moral state, as if the inclination were on the side of duty. Thus grace would be the expression of feminine virtue, and this expression would often be wanting in manly virtue.
As grace is the expression of a noble soul, so is dignity the expression of elevated feeling.
It has been prescribed to man, it is true, to establish between his two natures a unison, to form always an harmonious whole, and to act as in union with his entire humanity. But this beauty of character, this last fruit of human maturity, is but an ideal to which he ought toforce his conformity with a constant vigilance, but to which, with all his efforts, he can never attain.
He cannot attain to it because his nature is thus made and it will not change; the physical conditions of his existence themselves are opposed to it.
In fact, his existence, so far as he is a sensuous creature, depends on certain physical conditions; and in order to insure this existence man ought—because, in his quality of a free being, capable of determining his modifications by his own will—to watch over his own preservation himself. Man ought to be made capable of certain acts in order to fulfil these physical conditions of his existence, and when these conditions are out of order to re-establish them.
But although nature had to give up to him this care which she reserves exclusively to herself in those creatures which have only a vegetative life, still it was necessary that the satisfaction of so essential a want, in which even the existence of the individual and of the species is interested, should not be absolutely left to the discretion of man, and his doubtful foresight. It has then provided for this interest, which in the foundation concerns it, and it has also interfered with regard to the form in placing in the determination of free arbitration a principle of necessity. From that arises natural instinct, which is nothing else than a principle of physical necessity which acts upon free arbitration by the means of sensation.
The natural instinct solicits the sensuous faculty through the combined force of pain and of pleasure: by pain when it asks satisfaction, and by pleasure when it has found what it asks.
As there is no bargaining possible with physical necessity, man must also, in spite of his liberty, feel what nature desires him to feel. According as it awakens in him a painful or an agreeable sensation, there will infallibly result in him either aversion or desire. Upon this point man quite resembles the brute; and the stoic, whatever his power of soul, is not less sensible of hunger, and has no less aversion to it, than the worm that crawls at his feet.
But here begins the great difference: with the lower creature action succeeds to desire or aversion quite as of necessity, as the desire to the sensation, and the expressionto the external impression. It is here a perpetual circle, a chain, the links of which necessarily join one to the other. With man there is one more force—the will, which, as a super-sensuous faculty, is not so subject to the law of nature, nor that of reason, that he remains without freedom to choose, and to guide himself according to this or to that. The animal cannot do otherwise than seek to free itself from pain; man can decide to suffer.
The will of man is a privilege, a sublime idea, even when we do not consider the moral use that he can make of it. But firstly, the animal nature must be in abeyance before approaching the other, and from that cause it is always a considerable step towards reaching the moral emancipation of the will to have conquered in us the necessity of nature, even in indifferent things, by the exercise in us of the simple will.
The jurisdiction of nature extends as far as the will, but there it stops, and the empire of reason commences. Placed between these two jurisdictions, the will is absolutely free to receive the law from one and the other; but it is not in the same relation with one and the other. Inasmuch as it is a natural force it is equally free with regard to nature and with respect to reason; I mean to say it is not forced to pass either on the side of one or of the other: but as far as it is a moral faculty it is not free; I mean that it ought to choose the law of reason. It is not chained to one or the other, but it isobligedtowards the law of reason. The will really then makes use of its liberty even whilst it acts contrary to reason: but it makes use of it unworthily, because, notwithstanding its liberty, it is no less under the jurisdiction of nature, and adds no real action to the operation of pure instinct; for to will by virtue ofdesireis only to desire in a different way.
There may be conflict between the law of nature, which works in us through the instinct, and the law of reason, which comes out of principles, when the instinct, to satisfy itself, demands of us an action which disgusts our moral sense. It is, then, the duty of the will to make the exigencies of the instinct give way to reason. Whilst the laws of nature oblige the will only conditionally, the laws of reason oblige absolutely and without conditions.
But nature obstinately maintains her rights, and as it is never by the result of free choice that she solicits us, she also does not withdraw any of her exigencies as long as she has not been satisfied. Since, from the first cause which gave the impulsion to the threshold of the will where its jurisdiction ends, all in her is rigorously necessary, consequently she can neither give way nor go back, but must always go forward and press more and more the will on which depends the satisfaction of her wants. Sometimes, it is true, we could say that nature shortens her road and acts immediately as a cause for the satisfaction of her needs without having in the first instance carried her request before the will. In such a case, that is to say, if man not simply allowed instinct to follow a free course, but if instinct took this course of itself, man would be no more than the brute. But it is very doubtful whether this case would ever present itself, and if ever it were really presented it would remain to be seen whether we should not blame the will itself for this blind power which the instinct would have usurped.
Thus the appetitive faculty claims with persistence the satisfaction of its wants, and the will is solicited to procure it; but the will should receive from the reason the motives by which she determines. What does the reason permit? What does she prescribe? This is what the will should decide upon. Well, then, if the will turns towards the reason before consenting to the request of the instinct, it is properly a moral act; but if it immediately decides, without consulting the reason, it is a physical act.
Every time, then, that nature manifests an exigence and seeks to draw the will along with it by the blind violence of affective movement, it is the duty of the will to order nature to halt until reason has pronounced. The sentence which reason pronounces, will it be favorable or the contrary to the interest of sensuousness? This is, up to the present time, what the will does not know. Also it should observe this conduct for all the affective movements without exception, and when it is nature which has spoken the first, never allow it to act as an immediate cause. Man would testify only by that to his independence. It is when, by an act of his will, he breaks the violence of hisdesires, which hasten towards the object which should satisfy them, and would dispense entirely with the co-operation of the will,—it is only then that he reveals himself in quality of a moral being, that is to say, as a free agent, which does not only allow itself to experience either aversion or desire, out which at all times mustwillhis aversions and his desires.
But this act of taking previously the advice of reason is already an attempt against nature, who is a competent judge in her own cause, and who will not allow her sentences to be submitted to a new and strange jurisdiction; this act of the will which thus brings the appetitive faculty before the tribunal of reason is then, in the proper acceptation of the word, anact against nature, in that it renders accidental that which is necessary, in that it attributes to the laws of reason the right to decide in a cause where the laws of nature can alone pronounce, and where they have pronounced effectively. Just, in fact, as the reason in the exercise of its moral jurisdiction is little troubled to know if the decisions it can come to will satisfy or not the sensuous nature, so the sensuous in the exercise of the right which is proper to it does not trouble itself whether its decisions would satisfy pure reason or not. Each is equally necessary, though different in necessity, and this character of necessity would be destroyed if it were permitted for one to modify arbitrarily the decisions of the other. This is why the man who has the most moral energy cannot, whatever resistance he opposes to instinct, free himself from sensuousness, or stifle desire, but can only deny it an influence upon the decisions of his will; he can disarm instinct by moral means, but he cannot appease it but by natural means. By his independent force he may prevent the laws of nature from exercising any constraint over his will, but he can absolutely change nothing of the laws themselves.
Thus in the affective movements in which nature (instinct) acts thefirstand seeks to do without the will, or to draw it violently to its side, the morality of character cannot manifest itself but by its resistance, and there is but one means of preventing the instinct from restraining the liberty of the will: it is to restrain the instinct itself.Thus we can only have agreement between the law of reason and the affective phenomena, under the condition of putting both in discord with the exigencies of instinct. And as nature never gives way to moral reasons, and recalls her claims, and as on her side, consequently, all remains in the same state, in whatever manner the will acts towards her, it results that there is no possible accord between the inclination and duty, between reason and sense; and that here man cannot act at the same time with all his being and with all the harmony of his nature, but exclusive with his reasonable nature. Thus in these sorts of actions we could not find moral beauty, because an action is morally good only as far as inclination has taken part in it, and here the inclination protests against much more than it concurs with it. But these actions have moral grandeur, because all that testifies to a preponderating authority exercised over the sensuous nature has grandeur, and grandeur is found only there.
It is, then, in the affective movements that this great soul of which we speak transforms itself and becomes sublime; and it is the touchstone to distinguish the soul truly great from what is called agoodheart, or from the virtue oftemperament. When in man the inclination is ranged on the side of morality only because moral itself is happily on the side of inclination, it will happen that the instinct of nature in the affective movements will exercise upon the will a full empire, and if a sacrifice is necessary it is the moral nature, and not the sensuous nature, that will make it. If, on the contrary, it is reason itself which has made the inclination pass to the side of duty (which is the case in the fine character), and which has only confided the rudder to the sensuous nature, it will be always able to retake it as soon as the instinct should misuse its full powers. Thus the virtue of temperament in the affective movements falls back to the state of simple production of nature, whilst the noble soul passes to heroism and rises to the rank of pure intelligence.
The rule over the instincts by moral force is the emancipation of mind, and the expression by which this independence presents itself to the eyes in the world of phenomena is what is calleddignity.
To consider this rigorously: the moral force in man is susceptible of no representation, for the super-sensuous could not explain itself by a phenomenon that falls under the sense; but it can be represented indirectly to the mind by sensuous signs, and this is actually the case with dignity in the configuration of man.
When the instinct of nature is excited, it is accompanied just as the heart in its moral emotions is, by certain movements of the body, which sometimes go before the will, sometimes, even as movements purely sympathetic, escape altogether its empire. In fact, as neither sensation, nor the desire, nor aversion, are subject to the free arbitration of man, man has no right over the physical movements which immediately depend on it. But the instinct does not confine itself to simple desire; it presses, it advances, it endeavors to realize its object; and if it does not meet in the autonomy of the mind an energetic resistance, it will even anticipate it, it will itself take the initiative of those sorts of acts over which the will alone has the right to pronounce. For the instinct of conservation tends without ceasing to usurp the legislative powers in the domain of the will, and its efforts go to exercise over man a domination as absolute as over the beast. There are, then, two sorts of distinct movements, which, in themselves and by their origin, in each affective phenomenon, arise in man by the instinct of conservation: those firstly which immediately proceed from sensation, and which, consequently, are quite involuntary; then those which in principle could and would be voluntary, but from which the blind instinct of nature takes all freedom. The first refer to the affection itself, and are united necessarily with it; the others respond rather to the cause and to the object of the affections, and are thus accidental and susceptible of modification, and cannot be mistaken for infallible signs of the affective phenomena. But as both one and the other, when once the object is determined, are equally necessary to the instinct of nature, so they assist, both one and the other, the expression of affective phenomena; a necessary competition, in order that the expression should be complete and form a harmonious whole.
If, then, the will is sufficiently independent to repressthe aggressions of instinct and to maintain its rights against this blind force, all the phenomena which the instinct of nature, once excited, produce, in its proper domain, will preserve, it is true, their force; but those of the second kind, those which came out of a foreign jurisdiction, and which it pretended to subject arbitrarily to its power, these phenomena would not take place. Thus the phenomena are no longer in harmony; but it is precisely in their opposition that consists the expression of the moral force. Suppose that we see a man a prey to the most poignant affection, manifested by movements of the first kind, by quite involuntary movements. His veins swell, his muscles contract convulsively, his voice is stifled, his chest is raised and projects, whilst the lower portion of the torso is sunken and compressed; but at the same time the voluntary movements are soft, the features of the face free, and serenity beams forth from the brow and in the look. If man were only a physical being, all his traits, being determined only by one and the same principle, would be in unison one with the other, and would have a similar expression. Here, for example, they would unite in expressing exclusively suffering; but as those traits which express calmness are mixed up with those which express suffering, and as similar causes do not produce opposite effects, we must recognize in this contrast the presence and the action of a moral force, independent of the passive affections, and superior to the impressions beneath which we see sensuous nature give way. And this is why calmness under suffering, in which properly consists dignity, becomes—indirectly, it is true, and by means of reasoning—a representation of the pure intelligence which is in man, and an expression of his moral liberty. But it is not only under suffering, in the restricted sense of the word, in the sense in which it marks only the painful affections, but generally in all the cases in which the appetitive faculty is strongly interested, that mind ought to show its liberty, and that dignity ought to be the dominant expression. Dignity is not less required in the agreeable affections than in the painful affections, because in both cases nature would willingly play the part of master, and has to be held in check by the will. Dignity relates to theform and not to the nature of the affection, and this is why it can be possible that often an affection, praiseworthy in the main, but one to which we blindly commit ourselves, degenerates, from the want of dignity, into vulgarity and baseness; and, on the contrary, a condemnable affection, as soon as it testifies by its form to the empire of the mind over the senses, changes often its character and approaches even towards the sublime.
Thus in dignity the mind reigns over the body and bears itself as ruler: here it has its independence to defend against imperious impulse, always ready to do without it, to act and shake off its yoke. But in grace, on the contrary, the mind governs with aliberalgovernment, for here the mind itself causes sensuous nature to act, and it finds no resistance to overcome. But obedience only merits forbearance, and severity is only justifiable when provoked by opposition.
Thus grace is nothing else than the liberty of voluntary movements, and dignity consists in mastering involuntary movements. Grace leaves to sensuous nature, where it obeys the orders of the mind, a certain air of independence: dignity, on the contrary, submits the sensuous nature to mind where it would make the pretensions to rule; wherever instinct takes the initiative and allows itself to trespass upon the attributes of the will, the will must show it no indulgence, but it must testify to its own independence (autonomy), in opposing to it the most energetic resistance. If, on the contrary, it is the will that commences, and if instinct does but follow it, the free arbitration has no longer to display any rigor, now it must show indulgence. Such is in a few words the law which ought to regulate the relation of the two natures of man in what regards the expression of this relation in the world of phenomena.
It follows that dignity is required, and is seen particularly in passive affection, whilst grace is shown in the conduct, for it is only in suffering that the liberty of the soul can be manifested, and only in action that the liberty of the body can be displayed.
If dignity is an expression of resistance opposed to instinct by moral liberty, and if the instinct consequentlyought to be considered as a force that renders resistance necessary, it follows that dignity is ridiculous where you have no force of this kind to resist, and contemptible where there ought not to be any such force to combat. We laugh at a comedian, whatever rank or condition he may occupy, who even in indifferent actions affects dignity. We despise those small souls who, for having accomplished an ordinary action, and often for having simply abstained from a base one, plume themselves on their dignity.
Generally, what is demanded of virtue is not properly speaking dignity, but grace. Dignity is implicitly contained in the idea of virtue, which even by its nature supposes already the rule of man over his instincts. It is rather sensuous nature that, in the fulfilment of moral duties, is found in a state of oppression and constraint, particularly when it consummates in a painful sacrifice. But as the ideal of perfection in man does not require a struggle, but harmony between the moral and physical nature, this ideal is little compatible with dignity, which is only the expression of a struggle between the two natures, and as such renders visible either the particular impotence of the individual, or the impotence common to the species. In the first case, when the want of harmony between inclination and duty, with regard to a moral act, belongs to the particular powerlessness of the subject, the act would always lose its moral value, in as far as that combat is necessary, and, in consequence, proportionally as there would be dignity in the exterior expression of this act; for our moral judgment connects each individual with the common measure of the species, and we do not allow man to be stopped by other limits than those of human nature.
In the second case, when the action commanded by duty cannot be placed in harmony with the exigencies of instinct without going against the idea of human nature, the resistance of the inclination is necessary, and then only the sight of the combat can convince us of the possibility of victory. Thus we ask here of the features and attitudes an expression of this interior struggle, not being able to take upon ourselves tobelieve in virtue where there is no trace of humanity. Where then the moral law commands of us an action which necessarily makes the sensuous nature suffer, there the matter is serious, and ought not to be treated as play; ease and lightness in accomplishing this act would be much more likely to revolt us than to satisfy us; and thus, in consequence, expression is no longer grace, but dignity. In general, the law which prevails here is, that man ought to accomplish with grace all the acts that he can execute in the sphere of human nature; and with dignity all those for the accomplishment of which he is obliged to go beyond his nature.
In like manner as we ask of virtue to have grace, we ask of inclination to have dignity. Grace is not less natural to inclination than dignity to virtue, and that is evident from the idea of grace, which is all sensuous and favorable to the liberty of physical nature, and which is repugnant to all idea of constraint. The man without cultivation lacks not by himself a certain degree of grace, when love or any other affection of this kind animates him; and where do we find more grace than in children, who are nevertheless entirely under the direction of instinct. The danger is rather that inclination should end by making the state of passion the dominant one, stifling the independence of mind, and bringing about a general relaxation. Therefore in order to conciliate the esteem of a noble sentiment—esteem can only be inspired by that which proceeds from a moral source—the inclination must always be accompanied by dignity. It is for that reason a person in love desires to find dignity in the object of this passion. Dignity alone is the warrant that it is not need which has forced, but free choice which has chosen, that he is not desired as a thing, but esteemed as a person.
We require grace of him who obliges, dignity of the person obliged: the first, to set aside an advantage which he has over the other, and which might wound, ought to give to his actions, though his decision may have been disinterested, the character of an affective movement, that thus, from the part which he allows inclination totake, he may have the appearance of being the one who gains the most: the second, not to compromise by the dependence in which he put himself the honor of humanity, of which liberty is the saintly palladium, ought to raise what is only a pure movement of instinct to the height of an act of the will, and in this manner, at the moment when he receives a favor, return in a certain sense another favor.
We must censure with grace, and own our faults with dignity: to put dignity into our remonstrances is to have the air of a man too penetrated by his own advantage: to put grace into our confessions is to forget the inferiority in which our fault has placed us. Do the powerful desire to conciliate affection? Their superiority must be tempered by grace. The feeble, do they desire to conciliate esteem? They must through dignity rise above their powerlessness. Generally it is thought that dignity is suitable to the throne, and every one knows that those seated upon it desire to find in their councillors, their confessors, and in their parliaments—grace. But that which may be good and praiseworthy in a kingdom is not so always in the domain of taste. The prince himself enters into this domain as soon as he descends from his throne (for thrones have their privileges), and the crouching courtier places himself under the saintly and free probation of this law as soon as he stands erect and becomes again a man. The first we would counsel to supplement from the superfluity of the second that which he himself needs, and to give him as much of his dignity as he requires to borrow grace from him.
Although dignity and grace have each their proper domain in which they are manifest, they do not exclude each other. They can be met with in the same person, and even in the same state of that person. Further, it is grace alone which guarantees and accredits dignity, and dignity alone can give value to grace.
Dignity alone, wherever met with, testifies that the desires and inclinations are restrained within certain limits. But what we take for a force which moderates and rules, may it not be rather an obliteration of the faculty of feeling (hardness)? Is it really the moral autonomy, andmay it not be rather the preponderance of another affection, and in consequence a voluntary interested effort that restrains the outburst of the present affection? This is what grace alone can put out of doubt in joining itself to dignity. It is grace, I mean to say, that testifies to a peaceful soul in harmony with itself and a feeling heart.
In like manner grace by itself shows a certain susceptibility of the feeling faculty, and a certain harmony of sentiment. But may this not be a certain relaxation of the mind which allows so much liberty to sensuous nature and which opens the heart to all impressions? Is it indeed the moral which has established this harmony between the sentiments? It is dignity alone which can in its turn guarantee this to us in joining itself to grace; I mean it is dignity alone which attests in the subject an independent force, and at the moment when the will represses the license of involuntary movement, it is by dignity that it makes known that thelibertyof voluntary movements is a simple concession on its part.
If grace and dignity, still supported, the one by architectonic beauty and the other by force, were united in the same person, the expression of human nature would be accomplished in him: such a person would be justified in the spiritual world and set at liberty in the sensuous world. Here the two domains touch so closely that their units are indistinguishable. The smile that plays on the lips; this sweetly animated look; that serenity spread over the brow—it is the liberty of the reason which gleams forth in a softened light. This noble majesty impressed on the face is the sublime adieu of the necessity of nature, which disappears before the mind. Such is the ideal of human beauty according to which the antique conceptions were formed, and we see it in the divine forms of a Niobe, of the Apollo Belvedere, in the winged Genius of the Borghese, and in the Muse of the Barberini palace. There, where grace and dignity are united, we experience by turns attraction and repulsion; attraction as spiritual creatures, and repulsion as being sensuous creatures.
Dignity offers to us an example of subordination of sensuous nature to moral nature—an example which we are bound to imitate, but which at the same time goes beyondthe measure of our sensuous faculty. This opposition between the instincts of nature and the exigencies of the moral law, exigencies, however, that we recognize as legitimate, brings our feelings into play and awakens a sentiment that we nameesteem, which is inseparable from dignity.
With grace, on the contrary, as with beauty in general, reason finds its demands satisfied in the world of sense, and sees with surprise one of its own ideas presented to it, realized in the world of phenomena. This unexpected encounter between the accident of nature and the necessity of reason awakens in us a sentiment of joyous approval (contentment) which calms the senses, but which animates and occupies the mind, and it results necessarily that we are attracted by a charm towards the sensuous object. It is this attraction which we call kindliness, or love—a sentiment inseparable from grace and beauty.
The attraction—I mean the attraction (stimulus) not of love but of voluptuousness—proposes to the senses a sensuous object that promises to these the satisfaction of a want, that is to say a pleasure; the senses are consequently solicited towards this sensuous object, and from that springs desire, a sentiment which increases and excites the sensuous nature, but which, on the contrary, relaxes the spiritual nature.
We can say ofesteemthat it inclines towards its object; oflove, that it approaches with inclination towards its object; ofdesire, that it precipitates itself upon its object; with esteem, the object is reason, and the subject is sensuous nature; with love, the object is sensuous, and the subject is moral nature; with desire, the object and the subject are purely sensuous.
With love alone is sentiment free, because it is pure in its principle, and because it draws its source from the seat of liberty, from the breast of our divine nature. Here, it is not the weak and base part of our nature that measures itself with the greater and more noble part; it is not the sensibility, a prey to vertigo, which gazes up at the law of reason. It isabsolute greatnesswhich is reflected in beauty and in grace, and satisfied in morality; it becomes the legislator even, the god in us who plays with his own image in the world of sense. Thus love consoles anddilates the heart, whilst esteem strains it; because here there is nothing which could limit the heart and compress its impulses, there being nothing higher than absolute greatness; and sensibility, from which alone hinderance could come, is reconciled, in the breast of beauty and of grace, with the ideas even of the mind. Love has but to descend; esteem aspires with effort towards an object placed above it. This is the reason that the wicked love nothing, though they are obliged to esteem many things. This is why the well-disposed man can hardly esteem without at once feeling love for the object. Pure spirit can only love, but not esteem; the senses know only esteem, but not love.
The culpable man is perpetually a prey to fear, that he may meet in the world of sense the legislator within himself; and sees an enemy in all that bears the stamp of greatness, of beauty, and of perfection: the man, on the contrary, in whom a noble soul breathes, knows no greater pleasure than to meet out of himself the image or realization of the divine that is in him; and to embrace in the world of sense a symbol of the immortal friend he loves. Love is at the same time the most generous and the most egotistical thing in nature; the most generous, because it receives nothing and gives all—pure mind being only able to give and not receive; the most egotistical, for that which he seeks in the subject, that which he enjoys in it, is himself and never anything else.
But precisely because he who loves receives from the beloved object nothing but that which he has himself given, it often happens that he gives more than he has received.