Chapter 6

[30]Das Wahre.

[31]Den denkenden Begriff.It is possible that the "notion of thought" would express Hegel's meaning, as it would be a less strange expression. But I have retained the more literal translation as the reference may be to the self-evolution of Thought in its own dialectical process, thought or the Idea thinking out itself in the Hegelian sense. Professor Bosanquet seems to assume this, as he translates "the thinking Idea."

[32]Kunstschönen.I have translated this by the expression "fine art" because Hegel in the opening of the introduction makes the expression interchangeable withschöne kunst.At the same time it must be recollected that the emphasis here is even more on "beauty" than the fact that it is the beauty of human art. And it is for this reason, I presume, that Professor Bosanquet translates it here "artistic beauty." The only objection I have to make to this, apart from Hegel's words I have referred to, is that the expression "artistic beauty" is sometimes used to signify beauty that is capable of being expressed by art. Of course that is excluded from Hegel's use of the term; he means the beauty of artistic work.

[33]Subjektiven.

[34]Independent, that is, of the consciousness of any particular individual. Hegel does not necessarily mean independent of consciousness altogether. He has, no doubt, generally in his mind the kind of scepticism which received its most logical exposition in Hume.

[35]This appears to me the meaning ofzufälliger Sinn.Professor Bosanquet translates it "accidental sense." By that I presume he understands the meaning to be "a sense of beauty that is entirely personal to the recipient," it may be possessed by one man, but not by another. Hegel's illustration hardly supports this, so it seems to me.

[36]I do not know the exact translation oflemmatisch, and by a curious slip the sentence is omitted from Professor Bosanquet's translation. The general sense is plain enough. Every particular science accepts its subject-matter as adatum. It starts from the empirical fact. Whether it admits the assumption or not, it does assume such facts. It is obvious that Hegel's adoption of this standpoint is only relatively true.

[37]Hegel means, I presume, mainly in the introduction. After that he does in a qualified degree discuss the profounder import of the Idea of Fine Art. His statements are not perhaps wholly free from inconsistency, because he has previously said that apart from an encyclopaedic consideration of all the sciences, it was not possible to do so, and also some of His statements seem to imply that he does not intend to do so.

[38]That is, in the first Part of the entire treatise.

[39]What Hegel means by thedie letzte einleitende BetrachtungI am not quite sure. I presume he means the introduction to the first Part. The whole of this paragraph is not very clear.

[40]By man's sensitive life in its widest sense is, I think, intended.

[41]The German words aremachenandnachmachen.We have no exact equivalents.

[42]Lit., "to fill out (ausfüllen) in complete equipment."

[43]Individuelle.

[44]The German will admit of the interpretation that the reference is merely to genius, but I think Hegel clearly means that neither one nor the other can be thus conjured up.

[45]At the end of the first main division of the work.

[46]One of Meredith's correspondents has put the question with all gravity whether he considered inspiration could be assisted by wine drinking. With equal gravity our humourist replied that though wine might be something of a restorative after mental effort it was not his experience that it contributed to first-rate artistic work. He actually mentions the case of Schiller. Though I have read somewhere that this poet used to be inspired by the smell of rotten apples I do not recollect reading that he favoured the champagne bottle. Meredith also mentions the case of Hoffmann, and adds that the type of his work does not increase our respect for the precedent.

[47]Eine äusserliche Arbeit.A craftsmanship which has to deal with the outside surface. We may translate "external craftsmanship"; but the translation in the text gives the meaning best, I think.

[48]Keinen geistigen Stoff.Professor Bosanquet translates "spiritual content." I imagine the emphasis to be mainly on the absence of positive ideas available to knowledge. In any case Hegel appears to press his point of contrast too far. Men of genius such as Mozart (who was probably in his mind) and Schubert may bear him out. But on the other hand we have a Keats, Shelley, and Raphael. Genius matures rapidly, but the greatest works of musical art no less than any other imply a real maturity of mind at least, and more than is here assumed of, I should say, a rich experience. Mozart, of course, upsets any theory, and it is questionable even whether Mozart is really an exception. It depends on the point of view from which we are estimating the intelligible content of music as an expression of soul-life.

[49]The "Iphigenie" was completed in Goethe's thirty-eighth year, fourteen years later than "Götz." The bulk of his more important works are of the same date or later. Schiller's "Wallenstein" was completed after his thirty-fifth year.

[50]This is surely not quite accurate. The medium of painting in the sense that speech or writing is the medium of poetry is not canvas or panel but oil or other colour. Canvas would correspond with the blank pages of a book.

[51]Free, that is, from accidental and irrelevant matter.

[52]Professor Bosanquet translatessinnlichehere as "sensitive." I am inclined to think that Hegel here rather leaves out of sight the fact that in the process of Nature we have sensitive organic life no less than unconscious inorganic. His contrast is rather between the conscious life of man and unconscious nature, the conscious life that is not self-conscious being for the object of the contrast treated as equivalent to unconscious. He would also apparently ignore the fact that man himself and the higher beauty which attaches to him is also from ope point of view a part of the natural process.

[53]That is, apart from purely personal ends in its pursuit, which are accidental to its essential notion.

[54]That is, in the medium of conscious life.

[55]Einmal.They are there, but they do not know they are there.

[56]Aus geistiger Bildung, i.e., a high level of mental culture is necessary before the advent of civilized manners and customs in which spiritual life is reflected with real refinement and directness.

[57]Bedürfniss zur Kunst.

[58]Lit., "In the form of the most abstract single subjectivity." That is to say, that the main fact about it is that it is felt; but, except in respect to intensity, it cannot be described as an object of thought with defining attributes, It is abstract individual sensation.

[59]By the expressionKreisHegel would mean rather an indefinite sphere than a definite circle. The simile is perhaps not very apt. The idea, apparently, is of a sphere of feeling, that is, such as being self-complete, but is so abstract or indefinable that the introduction into it of positive ideas such as justice, etc., are the mere entrance of spectral forms which vanish in such an indefinable medium, without disclosing their nature. They are felt but not cognized for what they really are.

[60]Blinder, blind in the sense that it is not guided by deliberate and self-conscious reason,i.e., mere animal instinct.

[61]A difficult sentence to translate. I have followed Professor Bosanquet in assuming that the substantive with whichmangelhaftagrees must be borrowed from the following sentence, though it seems also to be carried on in a loose kind of way from the previous sentence (Gesckmacksinn.) The entire sentence is built, as we have it, on the further confusion that there are two parallels which before the sentence ends are regarded as one! That is to say, the general critical sense is contrasted with the critique of particular works of art and further the defect of that general sense in its neglect ofuniversalprinciples is further contrasted with the way the specific critique deals withparticularworks. I hardly think, however, that my admirable predecessor is justified in ignoring the comparative degree ofbestimmteres, or in his translation ofZeugas "power." I take it to mean the material of actual works of art. The sentence is a good example of, some of the difficulties of Hegel translation.

[62]Die Sache.The subject-matter in its most real sense as "content."

[63]That is, the so-called "good taste."

[64]Begriff.Concrete notional Idea.

[65]That is, in his physical form.

[66]Hegel is here considering desire abstractedly, that is, on its own account (als solche.) It may of course in its turn subserve a rational purpose, such as the preservation of health or life. But the contrast here is between the relation of appetite, and that of the theoretic faculty to objects.

[67]Sein Objekt.The object in which he finds himself; rather this, I think, than that which he has created.

[68]Innerlich,i.e., in the world of mind as contrasted with that of the sensuousvorhandene.

[69]Hegel or his editors have "in a converse way." This is obviously a mistake. In both examples the point is that the object ispreservedas againstdesirewith its destruction, and thecontemplative intelligencewith its ideal transformation.

[70]Ein ideelles.The meaning is, I think, that themateriais stamped with the hall-mark of deliberate artistic purpose. The ideality, though relatively jejune on such a work as the pyramids, in the higher reaches of art such as poetry and music affects of course the medium itself, the musical chord being pure ideality. Professor Bosanquet's translation omits this and the previous sentence, probably by an oversight. But it is also possible that this thinker conceived the statementas here expressedto be misleading, or at least open to misconception. In architecture and even painting it is obvious, from a certain point of view, the sensuousmateria, if directed to an artistic end, remains none the less the material borrowed from natural fact though the fact as natural may be modified in its form. Painting mayrepresentthe semblance, but it employs a medium simply sensuous. Hegel has mainly before his attention here obviously the arts of painting, poetry, and music.

[71]They aretheoreticalbecause as applied to a work of art they imply the presence of the contemplative faculty. In a later section of the work Hegel makes a more complete analysis of what is implied in the sense of hearing as applied to musical composition and in the colour sense. In both cases it is obvious the mind contributes to the facts cognized. Hearing is, however, from Hegel's point of view the mostidealof the two, and he conceives the position of the ears itself points to this distinction.

[72]It may at least be questioned whether the ground given here of this distinction, or part of it, is strictly accurate. It may be said that our sense of sight and hearing are both in contact with the waves of the medium, the vibration of which produces the impression we call sound or light. The most obvious distinction then appears to be that the natural object is left as it is by hearing and sight. This at least holds good as against taste. But at least it may be questioned, I think, whether the sense of touch may not be the source of artistic enjoyment, certainly in the case of the blind. And the sense of smell at least leaves objects as they are, and some may contend that it is a source of enjoyment of the beauty of Nature. Hegel would reply, of course, that no works of human art are enjoyed by such means. The main ground is, however, that sight and hearing are the senses closest to intelligence.

[73]ByAnschauungenHegel apparently has in mind all the ideas of poetry. We should certainly rather have expected the wordVorstellungen, the word used being rather "visible perceptions." But the three words here seem generally to denote the subject-matter of painting, music, and poetry.

[74]Lit., "Operative in the artist viewed (i.e., the artist) as the personal energy (Subjektivität) which creates." Professor Bosanquet's translation "as a productive state of the person" would appear to make "the sensuous side" a subjective state of the artist. But apart from construction, can we speak of this as a "state"? It is modified by his energy—but it can hardly be regarded as a part of it.

[75]I find it impossible to fix any one English equivalent to Hegel's use of the wordsEinbildungskraft,Phantasie, orVorstellung, in the sense at least that fancy, imagination, or phantasy have been used and defined by famous English writers. Generally speaking, I should say thatPhantasie, or as it is called sometimes "artistic" or "creative"Phantasie, stands for the most intellectual faculty, thoughVorstellungis also used in much the same sense. But it is impossible to arrive at any clear distinction such as was originally made so profoundly by Ruskin between fancy, the instrument of poetical talent, the surface gift, and imagination or, as he called it,penetrativeimagination, which summarizes all the powers of a genius and personality and enters into the heart of the subject-matter by an illuminating flash whichrevealsreality rather than illustrates by means of image. The present passage appears to me even more unsatisfactory than the more carefully digested analysis at the end of Part I, when Hegel discusses the artist. It not merely ignores the indispensable presence of imagination in the pioneers of science, but appears to myself to confuse talent as the natural gift of a man with the mode in which it is exercised in presenting ideas in sensuous imagery, or at least makes the former depend on the latter. Professor Bosanquet translatesPhantasiehere by "fancy." But "fancy" is, in our way of looking at it, precisely not the faculty whichdistinctivelybelongs to "the great mind and the big heart or soul," though other parts of the description are more applicable. And in short, as I say, to fix definite English equivalents to Hegel's phraseology appears to me impossible.

[76]Die Phantasie.

[77]This is, I presume, Hegel's way of putting the simple fact, that much of the process of artistic production is unconscious. One man instinctively draws, or picks up his notes on the piano, another cannot. I think Hegel rather refers to thisoriginaltalent than the much more important one in which genius, right into maturity, rides over difficulties without knowing how it does so. Such happy or even miraculous effects—such as artists sometimes playfully call them—are obviously in part, if only in part, the result of profound artistic experience. He is dealing almost exclusively with the natural bias, which makes one man naturally an artist, whether creative or executant, and is absent from another. He hardly approaches the question what constitutes the artist of genius as contrasted with the man of natural talent.

[78]This confirms the conclusion above.

[79]Für sich.If merely admired as imitation and nothing more.

[80]Zur Ekelhaftigkeit."Sickeningly like" is Professor Bosanquet's closer translation. The expression "damnably like" is not unknown.

[81]I think with Professor Bosanquet thatphantastischenis here not "fantastic" but strictly derived fromPhantasiein its sense of imagination. "Completely," of course, as involving no direct imitation of Nature.

[82]Formal,i.e., implying no creative supplement from the artist, purely mechanical.

[83]It would be both instructive and interesting to discuss if, and how far, and by virtue of what, that distinct type of modern art known as "still life," such as a few objects of the library, or even a shell or two and so on up to more important organic life was excluded from this condemnation. It is quite clear that Ruskin would have a good deal to say that would imply important qualification.

[84]Begeisterung.I think this must be the meaning. Inspiration hardly makes sense. It is art that is inspired, not those who attend the celebration.

[85]Im Innerstenis I think here obviously to be taken with the verb, not with the substantives.

[86]Ueberhaupt.

[87]The meaning ofin diesem Gebieteis, I presume, the actual world. But if so it is simply otiose, and I have left it out.

[88]Bestimmung.The translation given appears to be the sense, though we should rather say weaken amanfrom the pursuit of a definite course. Professor Bosanquet, who translates the word "aim" a little lower down, evades the word here.

[89]Raisonnirendehere andraissonnementbelow have a depreciatory sense—and signify ordinary reasoning in the first instance and the methods of the popular secularist in the second.

[90]A sentence omitted by Professor Bosanquet, and it seems to amount to little more than a more generalized statement of what has gone before. The end of art both directly and indirectly concerns its subject-matter, or rather, as Hegel puts it, the need of the notion or Idea of it carries us to a further end beyond the end shared in common by its particular content.

[91]I follow Professor Bosanquet in his translation of the wordsals Allgemeines für sich zu zuerden; but I am not sure that the more literal translation is not simply as the words stand, the sense being not to be self-conscious of himself (für sich) as the universal principle, to be aware of this property, but rather as universal principle to becomeforhimself,i.e."independent of desire."

[92]Einheit—unity to the point of fusion, identity.

[93]Unmittelbaren Befangenheit."Sunkenness" is Professor Bosanquet's translation.

[94]Theoreticas a direct transcript ofθεώρια, θεωρειν.

[95]Gesichtspunkte.The various points of view necessary to arrive at such a general conclusion.

[96]Though not entirely confident I am right in accepting the wordszu bringenas a repetition of thehervorzubringenjust before, the alternative of Professor Bosanquet which takes the wordswird zu bringen seynas equivalent togebracht seyn solltecertainly appears to me no direct translation.

[97]"Poets aim at utility and entertainment alike."

[98]I think that Hegel in his use oferstehere rather refers to the fact of past history than a fact in the individual history of nations. "Art is, in the early days of history, the instructress of nations," gives, I think, his meaning. It is the first instructress in the history of nations.

[99]I venture to think if Professor Bosanquet's translation were the right one the German would beein in sich selbst gebrochenes.I do not thinkin ihm selbstcan be a German rendering of "in itself." But I admit the translation is tempting whether Hegel had in his mind the "house divided against itself" or not.

[100]Lit., "the spiritual universal,"i.e., the universal substance of its ideal content.

[101]Precisely as Ruskin, for example, in his "Modern Painters" condemns both Titian and Tintoret, not because they painted theParadiseor theAssunta, to produce fine paintings, or even because they did not or did themselves believe in the truth of their subject-matter, but because they did not paintin order to make converts, an extraordinary lapse of judgment.

[102]Im besten Sinne des Wortes.

[103]Professor Bosanquet points out in a note on this passage (p. 101) thatSittlichkeithere, which he translates, as I have done, "respectability," is thehabitof virtue, without the reflective aspiration after goodness as an ideal. Of course there is no depreciation in the use of the term. It is simply the morality of ordinary people, who do generally what their neighbours think the right thing. The wordmoralitätandmoralisch, which I have only been able to translate by a paraphrase, is the morality of the standpoint discussed, which is very much that of Kant or "Duty for duty's sake" in Bradley's "Ethical Studies."

[104]That is the contingency of the world of Nature as contrasted with the essential stability of mind or spirit.

[105]Lit., "To satisfy itself in itsrealor independent self (für sich)." It cannot identify itself with either side as its wholly real self made therein explicit. It is neither fish nor fowl.

[106]Bestimmüngenmay here be a reference to man's broadest spiritual characterizations as one of the human family, the race, the nation, and so forth, or, as I think, a reference to his vocation, future destiny, general welfare.

[107]An und für sich Wahre.

[108]Unbefangenen,i.e., the naïve outlook of ordinary life.

[109]Professor Bosanquet merely translatesare notandarein italic as in the text, which of course, except that he adds a comma afterare, is a literal translation. But the sense, as I understand it, is that the writer says it is not in the sense that these two contradictories do not existat all(i.e., as relative reality), but rather in the sense that inphilosophical thoughtwhich grasps their essence they are not only present but present as reconciled factors of one truth. Professor Bosanquet's translation appears to me to amount to this: that all Hegel maintains is that the sense he means is not that such contradictory elements arenotreconciled, but in the sense that theyarereconciled. Perhaps this is his view. But if so, I fail to see the importance of the antithesis, which appears to me betweengar nicht sindandin Versöhnung sind.Hegel before had expressly said that such contradictory sides were reconciled in philosophy, so I do not see why he should so emphatically repeat himself. The comma, of course, may be a misprint.

[110]Begriff.Notion, or concrete Idea of it.

[111]Of that world in its opposition to reason.

[112]Der Mensch als er geht und steht.The man in ordinary conditions—-theaverageman, however, rather than thenaturalman, which carries slightly different associations.

[113]The difference between a material instrument, which is a mere means to an end conceived by the craftsman, such as a plough for ploughing, a rake for raking, and a purpose inseparable from the organic whole as a mouth for eating, for without life the organism collapses.

[114]Für sich.

[115]In his history of Aesthetic in Germany Lötze disputes this. It seems to some extent a question of definition. In Hegel's view a dead body is not a human body in the full sense, but thecorpseof a man. A hand separated from the body, whether we call it a hand or not, is no longer, whatever it may be, a living member, its essential significance as a hand has disappeared. It was only a hand in its coherence as part of a larger whole. It may still for a time preserve the semblance of its life, but it is cut off as the withered leaf. These are facts at least that are undeniable, and the objection appears to me based on a misunderstanding. A hand is onlyan und für sichhuman when it is part of a living man. What is the organic reality in the complete sense is the man as awhole.The hand is merely the extremity of one of his arms. You may call a dead hand a hand if you like. The point is what was implied in the fact that you called it a hand at all whether alive or dead.

[116]That is, by Kant, of course.

[117]ByVerwicklungI understand the general evolution of ideal philosophy which the defects of the Kantian Critique stimulated. Professor Bosanquet apparently limits it to a perplexity personal to Schiller. I doubt whether the word will bear this.

[118]That is, the concrete idea of humanity as a collective aggregate.

[119]That is, intelligence as asserted by a society of human beings as public opinion, etc.

[120]Die Ineinsbildung.

[121]"Grace and Dignity."

[122]Gesinnungen."Sentimental views" is probably what is implied.

[123]Alle Sache.

[124]Professor Bosanquet is clearly right in his view that the order of the words here should be reversed. The wordsan und für sichare obviously the wider explication ofin sick selbst, the auxiliary, as not unfrequently in Hegel, being almost equivalent tonämlich.Whether a misprint or an oversight I have translated subject to this correction.

[125]I presume the revelation is not merely that of visible shape or even mainly.

[126]Das alles aus sich setzende und auflösende Ich.The three points emphasized by Hegel in Fichte's "Philosophy" are: (a) The Ego is abstract; (b) Everything is ashowfor it; (c) Its own acts are a semblance.

[127]Hegel uses the wordEitelkeitandeitlein their double sense of empty-nothingness—futility and vain or conceited. This cannot be readily reproduced in English.

[128]Schönseligkeit.Borrowed no doubt from Goethe's notion of a "fair soul."

[129]Like the "vaulting ambition" of Shakespeare which falls on the other side, isüber sich selbst.

[130]Haltung.Professor Bosanquet translates this "conduct." I rather think it refers to "bearing, demeanour." They are, as we say, "featureless, flaccid figures."

[131]Läppische.I am not quite sure what is exactly meant. Professor Bosanquet translates it "grotesque." But the word is a provincial form ofSchlaffapparently—loose, flaccid and so childish, trifling.

[132]Moment.A phase in an evolutionary, or, as it is here, a dialectical process. A momentary feature of it.

Back to Index Next