philosophy of Schelling bears a close resemblance to that of Spinoza. What Spinoza dissected in dry mathematical formulas, Schelling gave forth a living soul. But, though they agree in substance, they differ in spirit. With Schelling, the spirit predominates; with Spinoza, the substance. Spinoza saw God immanent in Nature; Schelling sees Nature dissolved in God.

"By far the most important result of Schelling's philosophy," says Menzel, "seems to be the impartial epical view of the world which it imparts. In the system of Schelling, every party finds its place opposite another; the separation is shown to be a natural one; their contradictions are referred to an original and necessary opposition. This system throughout tolerates nothing exclusive, no unconditional persecution of another. It endeavors to secure

to every spiritual existence, be it an opinion, a character or an event, the same right in a natural philosophy of mind and history which every material existence has in common science. It considers the historical periods as seasons of the year, nationalities as zones, temperaments as the elements, characters as creatures, and their manifestations in thought and action as necessarily founded in Nature, and as diverse as the instincts. According to this system, there is a growth and a progress, a multiplicity and an order, in the intellectual world, as in the natural. In it alone the endless war of opinion is hushed, and every contradiction finds its simplest and most natural solution."*

* Menzel's "German Literature." Translated by C. C. Felton.

ON THE RELATION OF THE PLASTIC ARTS TO NATURE.

A SPEECH ON THE CELEBRATION OF THE 12TH OCTOBER, 1807, AS THE NAME-DAY OF HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF BAVARIA.

Delivered before the Public Assembly of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Munich, by F. W. J. Schelling.*

PLASTIC ART, according to the most ancient expression, is silent Poetry. The inventor of this definition no doubt meant thereby that the former, like the latter, is to express spiritual thoughts-conceptions whose source is the soul; only not by speech, but like silent Nature by shape, by form, by corporeal, independent works.

Plastic Art, therefore, evidently stands as a uniting link between the soul and Nature, and can be apprehended only in the living centre of both. Indeed, since Plastic Art has its relation to the soul in common with every other art, and particularly with Poetry, that by which it is connected with Nature, and, like Nature, a productive force, remains as its sole peculiarity. So that to this alone can a theory relate which shall be satisfactory to the understanding, and helpful and profitable to Art itself.

We hope, therefore, in considering Plastic Art in relation to its true prototype and original source, Nature, to be able to contribute something new to its theory-to give some additional exactness or clearness to the conceptions of it; but, above all, to set forth the coherence of the whole structure of Art in the light of a higher necessity.

But has not Science always recognised this relation? Has not indeed every theory of mod

Translated by J. Elliot Cabot, Esq.

ern times taken its departure from this very position, that Art should be the imitator of Nature? Such has indeed been the case. But what should this broad general proposition profit the artist, when the notion of Nature is of so various interpretation, and when there are almost as many differing views of it, as various modes of life? Thus, to one, Nature is nothing more than the lifeless aggregate of an indeterminable crowd of objects, or the space in which, as in a vessel, he imagines things placed ;-to another, only the soil from which he draws his nourishment and support; -to the inspired seeker alone, the holy, ever-creative original energy of the world, which generates and busily evolves all things out of itself.

The proposition would indeed have a high significance, if it taught Art to emulate this creative force; but the sense in which it was meant can scarcely be doubtful to one acquainted with the universal condition of Science at the time when it was first brought forward. Singular enough that the very persons who denied all life to Nature, should set it up for imitation in Art! To them might be applied the words of a profound writer: "Your lying philosophy has put Nature out of the way; and why do you call upon us to imitate her? Is it that you may renew the pleasure by perpetrating the same violence on the disciples of Nature?"

Nature was to them not merely a dumb, but an altogether lifeless image, in whose inmost being even no living word dwelt; a hollow scaffolding of forms, of which as hollow an image was to be transferred to the canvass, or hewn out in stone.

*J. G. Hamann,

This was the proper doctrine of those more ancient and savage nations, who, as they saw in Nature nothing divine, fetched idols out of her; whilst, to the susceptive Greeks, who everywhere felt the presence of a vitally efficient principle, genuine gods arose out of Nature.

But is, then, the disciple of Nature to copy everything in Nature without distinction? and of everything, every part? Only beautiful objects should be represented; and, even in these, only the Beautiful and Perfect.

Thus is the proposition farther determined; but, at the same time, this asserted, that, in Nature, the perfect is mingled with the imperfect -the beautiful with the unbeautiful. Now, how should he who stands in no other relation to Nature than that of servile imitation, distinguish the one from the other? It is the way of imitators to appropriate the faults of their model sooner and easier than its excellences, since the former offer handles and tokens more easily grasped; and thus we see that imitators of Nature in this sense have imitated oftener, and even more affectionately, the ugly than the beautiful.

No

If we regard in things, not their principle, but the empty abstract form, neither will they say anything to our soul; our own heart, our own spirit we must put to it, that they answer us. But what is the perfection of a thing? thing else than the creative life in it, its power to exist. Never, therefore, will he, who fancies that Nature is altogether dead, be successful in that profound process (analogous to the chemical) whence proceeds, purified as by fire, the pure gold of Beauty and Truth.

Nor was there any change in the main view of the relation of Art to Nature, even when the unsatisfactoriness of the principle began to be more generally felt; no change, even by the new views and new knowledge so nobly established by John Winkelmann. He indeed restored to the soul its full efficiency in Art, and raised it from its unworthy dependence into the realm of spiritual freedom. Powerfully moved by the beauty of form in the works of antiquity, he taught that the production of ideal Nature, of Nature elevated above the Actual, together with the expression of spiritual conceptions, is the highest aim of Art.

But if we examine in what sense this surpassing of the Actual by Art has been understood by the most, it turns out that, with this view also, the notion of Nature as mere product; of things as a lifeless result, still continued; and the idea of a living creative Nature was in no wise awakened by it. So that these ideal forms also could be animated by no positive insight into their nature; and if the forms of the Actual were dead for the dead beholder, these were not less so. Was no independent production of the Actual possible, neither was it of the Ideal. The object of the imitation was changed, the imitation remained. In the place of Nature were substituted the sublime works

of Antiquity, whose outward forms the pupils busied themselves in taking down, but without the spirit that fills them. These, however, are as unapproachable, nay, more so, than the works of Nature; and leave us yet colder, if we bring not to them the spiritual eye to penetrate through the veil, and feel the stirring energy within.

On the other hand, artists, since that time, have indeed received a certain ideal bias, and notions of a beauty superior to matter; but these notions were like fair words, to which the deeds do not correspond. While the previous method in Art produced bodies without soul, this view taught only the secret of the soul, but not that of the body. The theory had, as usual, passed with one hasty stride to the opposite extreme; but the vital mean it had not yet found.

Who can say that Winkelmann had not an insight into the highest beauty? But with him it appeared in its dissevered elements: on one side as beauty in idea, and flowing ont from the soul; on the other, as beauty of forms.

But what is the efficient link that connects the two? or by what power is the soul created together with the body, at once and as if with one breath? If this lies not within the power of Art, as of Nature, then it can create nothing whatever. This vital connecting link, Winkelmann did not determine; he did not teach how, from the idea, forms can be produced. Thus Art went over to that method which we would call the retrograde, since it strives from the form to come at the essence. But not thus is the Unlimited reached; it is not attainable by mere enhancement of the Limited. Hence, such works as have had their beginning in form, with all elaborateness on that side, show, in token of their origin, an incurable want at the very point where we expect the consummate, the essential, the final. The miracle by which the Limited should be raised to the Unlimited, the human become divine, is wanting: the magic circle is drawn, but the spirit that it should enclose, appears not, disobedient to the call of him who thought a creation possible through mere form.

*

Nature meets us everywhere, at first with reserve, and in form more or less severe. She is like that quiet and serious beauty, that excites not attention by noisy advertisement, nor attracts the vulgar gaze.

How can we, as it were, spiritually melt this apparently rigid form, so that the pure energy of things may flow together with the force of our spirit, and pour forth in one united gush? We must transcend Form, in order to gain it again as intelligible, living, and truly felt. Consider the most beautiful forms: what remains behind after you have abstracted from them the efficient principle within? Nothing but mere unessential qualities, such as extension and the relations of space. Does the fact that one portion of matter exists near another, and distinct

from it, contribute anything to its inner essence? or does it not rather contribute nothing? Evidently the latter. It is not mere contiguous existence, but the manner of it, that makes form; and this can be determined only by a positive force, which is even opposed to separateness, and subordinates the manifoldness of the parts to the unity of one idea-from the force that works in the crystal, to that which, as a gentle magnetic current, gives to the particles of matter in the human form a position and arrangement among themselves, through which the idea, the essential unity and beauty, can become visible.

Not only, however, as active principle, but as spirit and effective science, must the essence appear to us in the form, in order that we may truly apprehend it. For all unity must be spiritual in nature and origin: and what is the aim of all investigation of Nature, but to find science therein? For that wherein there were no Understanding, could not be the object of Understanding the Unknowing could not be known. The science by which Nature works is not, indeed, like human science, connected with reflection upon itself: in it, the conception is not separate from the act, nor the design from the execution. Thus, rude matter strives, as it were, blindly, after regular shape, and unknowingly assumes pure stereometric forms, which belong, nevertheless, to the realm of ideas, and are something spiritual in the material.

The sublimest arithmetic and geometry are innate in the stars, and unconsciously displayed by them in their motions. More distinctly, but still beyond their grasp, the living cognition appears in animals; and thus we see them, though wandering about without reflection, bring about innumerable results far more excellent than themselves: the bird that, intoxicated with music, transcends itself in soul-like tones; the little artistic creature, that, without practice or instruction, accomplishes light works of architecture; but all directed by an overpowering spirit, that lightens in them already with single flashes of knowledge, but as yet appears nowhere as the full sun, as in Man.

This formative science in Nature and Art is the link that connects idea and form, body and soul. Before everything stands an eternal idea, formed in the Infinite Understanding; but by what means does this idea pass into actuality and embodiment? Only through the creative science that is as necessarily connected with the Infinite Understanding, as in the artist the principle that seizes the idea of unsensuous Beauty, with that which sets it forth to the

senses.

Is the artist to be called happy and praiseworthy before all, to whom the gods have granted this spirit; so the work of art will appear in that measure excellent in which it shows to us, as in outline, this unadulterated energy of creation and activity in Nature.

It was long ago perceived that, in Art, not

everything is performed with consciousness; that, with the conscious activity, an unconscious action must combine; and that it is of the perfect unity and mutual interpenetration of the two that the highest in Art is born.

Works that want this seal of unconscious science, are recognised by the evident absence of life self-supported and independent of the producer: as, on the contrary, where this acts, Art imparts to its work, together with the ut most clearness to the understanding, that unfathomable reality wherein it resembles a work of Nature.

It has often been attempted to make clear the position of the artist in regard to Nature, by saying that Art, in order to be such, must first withdraw itself from Nature, and return to it only in the last completeness. The true sense of this saying, it seems to us, can be no other than this: That in all things in Nature, the liv ing idea shows itself only blindly active: were it so also in the artist, he would be in nothing distinct from Nature. But, should he attempt consciously to subordinate himself altogether to the Actual, and give back with servile fidelity the already existing, he would produce larve, but no works of Art. He must therefore with draw himself from the product, from the crea ture; but only in order to raise himself to the creative energy, and spiritually to seize this. Thus be ascends into the realm of pure ideas; he forsakes the creature, to regain it with thou sand-fold interest, and in this sense certainly to return to Nature. This spirit of Nature working at the core of things, and speaking through form and shape as by symbols only, the artist must certainly follow with emulation; and only so far as he seizes this with genial imitation, has he himself produced anything genuine. For works produced by aggregation, even of forms beautiful in themselves, would still be destitute of all beauty, since that, through which the work on the whole is truly beautiful, cannot be form. It is above form-it is Essence; the Universal; the look and expression of the indwelling spirit of Nature.

Now it can scarcely be doubtful what is to be thought of the so-called idealising of Nature in Art, so universally demanded. This demand seems to arise from a way of thinking, according to which not Truth, Beauty, Goodness, but the contrary of all these is the Actual. Were the Actual indeed opposed to Truth and Beauty, it would be necessary for the artist, not to elevate or idealise it, but to get rid of and destroy it, in order to create anything true and beautiful. But how should it be possible for anything to be actual except the True; and what is Beauty, if not full complete Being?

What higher aim, therefore, could Art have, than to represent that which in Nature truly is! Or how should it undertake to excel so-called actual Nature, since it must always fall short of it?

For does Art impart to its works actual sen

suous life? This statue breathes not, is stirred by no pulsation, warmed by no blood.

But both the pretended excelling and the apparent falling short show themselves as the consequences of one and the same principle, so soon as we place the aim of Art in the exhibiting of that which truly is.

Only on the surface have its works the appearance of life; in Nature, life seems to reach deeper, and to be wedded entirely with the material. But does not the continual mutation of matter and the universal lot of final dissolution teach us the unessential character of this union, and that it is no intimate combination? Art, accordingly, in the merely superficial animation of its works, represents the unessential as not existing.

How comes it that to every tolerably cultivated taste, imitations of the so-called Actual, even though carried to deception, appear in the last degree untrue; nay, produce the impression of spectres; whilst a work in which the idea is predominant strikes us with the full force of truth, and alone places us in the genuine actual world? Whence comes it, if not from the more or less obscure feeling which tells us that the idea alone is the living principle in things, but all else unessential and vain shadow?

On the same ground may be explained all the opposite cases, which are brought up as instances of the surpassing of Nature by Art. In arresting the rapid course of human years; in uniting the energy of developed manhood with the soft charm of early youth; or exhibiting a mother of grown-up sons and daughters in the full possession of vigorous beauty, what does Art, except to strike out what is unessential, Time?

If, according to the remark of a discerning critic, every growth in Nature has but an instant of truly complete beauty, we may also say that it has too only an instant of full existence. In this instant it is what it is in all eternity: beside this, it has only a coming into and a passing out of existence. Art, in representing the thing at that instant, removes it out of Time, and sets it forth in its pure Being, in the eternity of its life.

After everything positive and essential had once been abstracted from Form, it necessarily appeared limiting, and, as it were, hostile, to the Essence; and the same theory that had called up the false and powerless Ideal, necessarily tended to the formless in Art. Form would indeed be a limitation to the Essence if it existed independent of it. But if it exists with and by means of the Essence, how could this feel itself limited by that which it has itself created? Violence would indeed be done it by a form forced upon it, but never by one proceeding from itself. In this, on the contrary, it must rest contented, and feel its own existence to be self-sustained and complete in itself.

Determinateness of form is in Nature never a

negation, but ever an affirmation. Commonly, indeed, the shape of a body seems a confinement; but could we behold the creative energy, it would reveal itself as the measure that this energy imposes upon itself, and in which it shows itself a truly intelligent force; for in everything is the power of self-rule allowed to be an excellence, and one of the highest.

In like manner most persons consider the particular in a negative manner; viz. as that which is not the whole or all. But no particular exists by means of its limitation, but through the indwelling force with which it maintains itself as a particular Whole, in distinction from the Universe.

This force of particularity, and thus also of individuality, showing itself as vital character, the negative conception of it is necessarily followed by an unsatisfying and false view of the characteristic in Art. Lifeless and of intolerable hardness would be the Art that should aim to exhibit the empty shell or limitation of the Individual. Certainly we desire to see not merely the individual, but more than this, its vital Idea. But if the artist have seized the inward creative spirit and essence of the Idea, and sets this forth, he makes the individual a world in itself, a class, an eternal prototype: and he who has grasped the essential character needs not to fear hardness and severity, for these are the conditions of life. Nature, who in her completeness appears as the utmost benignity, we see in each particular aiming even primarily and principally at severity, seclusion and reserve. As the whole creation is the work of the utmost externisation and renunciation [Entäusserung], so the artist must first deny himself and descend into the Particular, without shunning isolation, nor the pain, the anguish of Form.

Nature, from her first works, is throughout characteristic; the energy of fire, the splendor of light she shuts up in hard stone: the tender soul of melody in severe metal:- even on the threshold of Life, and already meditating organic shape, she sinks back overpowered by the might of Form, into petrifaction.

The life of the plant consists in still receptivity, but in what exact and severe outline is this passive life enclosed! In the animal kingdom the strife between Life and Form seems first properly to begin: her first works Nature hides in hard shells, and where these are laid aside, the animated world attaches itself again through its constructive impulse to the realm of crystallization. Finally she comes forward more boldly and freely, and vital, important characteristics show themselves, and are the same through whole classes. Art, indeed, cannot begin so far down as Nature. Though Beauty is spread everywhere, yet there are various grades in the appearance and unfolding of the Essence, and thus of Beauty. But Art demands a certain fulness, and desires not to strike a single note or tone, nor even a detach