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From this point of transition, I will briefly summarize the historical subject-matter that I have in my mind's eye, partly on account of the historical importance itself, and in part because thereby the points of view are more clearly indicated to which importance is attached, and upon the basis of which we propose to continue the superstructure. In its most general definition that basis consists in this, that the beauty of art has become recognized as one of the means which resolve and bring back to unity that antithesis and contradiction between the mind and Nature as they repose in abstract alienation from each other in themselves, whether this latter is regarded as external phenomena or the inward world of individual feeling and emotion111.

1. It was the philosophy of Kant which, in the first instance, not merely experienced the want of such a point of union, but secured definite knowledge of it and brought it clearly before the mind. Speaking generally, Kant accepted as his basis for intelligence no less than for the will the rationality which relates itself to itself or freedom, the self-consciousness that discovers and knows itself essentially as infinite. This knowledge of the absoluteness of reason in its essential substance, which has proved in more modern times the turning-point of philosophy, this absolute point of departure deserves recognition, and does not admit of refutation, even though in other respects the Kantian philosophy is inadequate. But at the same time it was Kant who through falling back upon the fixed opposition between subjective thought and objective things, between abstract universality and the sensuous individuality of the will, in a pre-eminent degree strained to the extremest limit the very antithesis of morality we have previously adverted to, inasmuch as over and above this he emphasized the practical operation of mind to the disadvantage of the contemplative. In virtue of this fixity of the antithesis as cognized by the faculty of the understanding he had no other alternative than to express the unity exclusively in the form of subjective ideas for which no adequate reality could be demonstrated as correspondent; or, on its practical side, as postulates, which it was no doubt possible to deduce from the practical reason, but whose essential being was not within the cognition of thought, and the practical fulfilment of which remained throughout a mere "ought" deferred to infinity. And for this reason, though Kant did actually bring the reconciled opposition within the compass of intelligible ideas, he was neither able to develop its essential truth scientifically, nor to assert the same as actual and exclusive reality. Unquestionably Kant did press beyond this point, in the sense, that is to say, that he discovered the unity demanded in what he called the intuitive understanding; but in this respect too he is held up by the opposition of subjectivity and objectivity, so that, while he no doubt offers us a resolution in an abstract sense of the antithesis between conception and reality, universality and particularity, understanding and sense-perception, and suggests the Idea, yet he once more conceives this resolution and reconciliation itself in a wholly subjective sense, not as being true and real both essentially and on its own independent account. In this respect the Critique of the power of the judgment, in which he investigates the aesthetic and teleological power of the judgment is both instructive and remarkable. The beautiful objects of Nature and art, the products of Nature with their adaptations to ends, by means of which he approaches more closely the notion of the organic and the living, he considers wholly from the point of view of the reflection which judges them subjectively. And indeed Kant himself generally defines the power of judgment as "the capacity to think the particular as comprised under the universal," and calls the power of judgment reflective "when it has only the particular submitted to it, and has to discover the universal under which it is subsumed." To this end it requires a law, a principle, which it has to contribute to itself; and Kant affirms teleology to be this law. With regard to the conception of freedom which belongs to the practical reason the achievement of end or purpose gets no further than a mere "ought"; and in the teleological judgment, however, relatively to the living thing, Kant does manage to regard the living organism in such a way that the notional concept, the universal, succeeds in also including the particular, and as end does not determine the particular and external, the structure of the members from outside, but as an inward principle, and under the mode, that the particular conforms to the end spontaneously. Yet with such a judgment once more it is assumed that the objective nature of the thing is not known, but that it is only a mode of subjective reflection which is thereby expressed. In a similar way Kant so conceives the aesthetic judgment that it neither proceeds from the understanding, as such, in other words as the faculty of ideas, nor yet from the sensuous perception as such, and its varied manifold, but from the free play of the understanding and the imagination. In this common agreement of the faculties of knowledge the object finds its relation to the individual consciousness, and its feeling of pleasure and contentment.

(a) Now this general feeling of contentment is, in the first place, without any interest, that is to say, it is devoid of relation to our appetitive faculty. If we have an interest of curiosity, shall we say, or a sensuous interest excited for a physical want, a desire for possession and use, then the objects are not important for their own sake, but in virtue of our need of them. In a case such as this what exists merely possesses a value in relation to such a need, and the relation is of the kind, that the object is on the one side and on the other is an attribute distinct from the object to which we relate it none the less. As an illustration if I consume the object in order to nourish myself therewith, this interest rests exclusively in me, and remains alien to the object. Now, in Kant's view, our position relatively to the beautiful is not of this description. The aesthetic judgment suffers that which is externally presented to subsist in free independence, proceeding as it does from the desire to permit the object to persist on its own account and to retain its end unimpaired within itself. This is, as we have already observed, an important observation.

(b) In the second place, Kant maintains that the beautiful is definable as that which without a conception, i.e., without a category of the understanding, is placed before us as the object of a universal satisfaction. To estimate the beautiful an educated mind is indispensable. The man in the street112 has no judgment about the beautiful; this judgment, in fact, claims universal validity. The universal is no doubt in the first instance simply, as such, an abstraction, one which, however, is in its essential and on its independent account, true; and consequently carries essentially the property and demand to pass also as universally valid. In this sense, too, the beautiful ought to be universally recognized, although the mere concepts of the understanding are compatible with no judgment thereupon. The good—the right which enters into particular actions, for example—is subsumed under universal concepts, and the action is accepted as good, if it is conformable to such concepts. The beautiful, on the contrary, ought, according to this view, to arouse a universal satisfaction without any such mediation of concept. This simply means that in the contemplation of the beautiful we are not conscious of the notional concept or any subsumption under it, and do not permit the independent passage of the separation between the particular object and the universal concept, which is present in all other cases of the judgment.

(c) Thirdly, in this view of Kant, the beautiful ought to have the teleological form to the extent that the teleological relation is apprehended in the object without the idea of an end. This is substantially a mere repetition of the view just discussed. Any natural product—take, for instance, a plant or an animal—is organized as adapted to an end, and is so immediately to us in this its teleological purpose, that we have no conception of the end on its own account as separate and distinct from the actual presence of the object. It is in this way that the beautiful also is presented us teleologically. In finite teleology end and means remain external to each other; the end stands in no essential inner relation to the material means of its execution113. In this case the idea of the end as recognized in apartness114 is distinguishable from the object in which the end appears as realized. The beautiful, on the contrary, exists as teleological in the essential sense, without means and end appearing as disparate in aspects distinct from each other. For example, the purpose of the members of the organism is the principle of life which exists in the members as actual therein. In their separation115 the parts cease to be members of a whole. For in the living thing the end and material medium of the end are so immediately united, that the existing being only exists in so far as the end remains indwelling. The beautiful, as thus regarded and in Kant's view, does not carry its teleological purpose as an external form attached to it: but the teleological correspondence of the inner and outer is to be regarded as the immanent nature of the beautiful object.

(d) Fourthly and finally the view of Kant posits the beautiful under the mode that it is recognized without a universal concept as object of a necessary feeling of satisfaction. Necessity is an abstract category, and indicates an ideal and essential relation between two aspects or sides: if the one is, and because the one is, then, and for that reason, the other is also. The one likewise includes the other within its determinate nature. Cause is meaningless without effect. The pleasure which we obtain from beauty is necessary in this sense, and it is so wholly without a relation to conceptions, that is to say the categories of the understanding. Thus, no doubt, we derive pleasure from what is symmetrical, for this is constructed in accord with an idea of the understanding. Kant, however, demands more as a definition of delight in art than the unity and uniformity of such an idea as this.

Now what we find in all these theses of Kant is the non-severation of that which otherwise is assumed to be distinct in consciousness. In the beautiful this separation is found to be abolished. The universal and particular, purpose and means, idea and object completely interpenetrate each other. Thus, too, Kant sees the beauty of art as a concurrence, in which the particular itself is conformable to the conception. Particulars, taken alone, are primarily, both as against each other and the universal, of a contingent nature; and this very contingent element, whether we find it in sense, feeling, susceptibility, or impulse, is now in the beauty of art not merely subsumed under the categories of the understanding, and dominated by the notion of freedom in its abstract universality, but united to the universal in such a way that it appears inwardly and on its own merits as realized fact adequate thereto. By this means thought is incorporated in fine art, and the material is not externally defined by such thought, but continues to exist in its own freedom. In other words, what is natural—the senses, emotional temperament, and so forth—possess in themselves measure, end, and agreement. Perception and feeling, too, in the same way are raised to a power of spiritual universality; and thought no less not merely renounces its hostility to Nature, but is made blithe therein. Feeling, pleasure, and enjoyment are thereby justified and sanctified, and thus it is that Nature and freedom, sense and idea in one presence discover their just place and their satisfaction. Yet even this apparently complete reconciliation is ultimately still assumed to be116 merely subjective in respect to our judgment no less than our productive activity, and not to be essentially and on its own account either the true or real.

These may, I think, be taken to be the main results of the Critique of Kant so far as they affect our present inquiry. It constitutes the starting-point for the true conception of the beauty of art. Such a conception could, however, only make itself effective as the higher comprehension of the true union of necessity and freedom, particular and universal, sensuous and rational, by its overcoming the defects still latent in the previous standpoint.

It must in fact be admitted that the artistic sense of a profound and, at the same time, philosophical spirit anticipated philosophy in the stricter sense by its demand for and expression of the principle of totality and reconciliation in its opposition to that abstract finiteness of thought, that duty for duty's sake, that understanding faculty devoid of any substantive content, which one and all apprehend nature and reality, sense and feeling, merely as a limits something downright alien or hostile. It is Schiller who must be credited with the important service of having broken through the Kantian subjectivity and abstractness of thought, and of having ventured the attempt to pass beyond the same by comprehending in thought the principles of unity and reconciliation as the truth, and giving artistic realization to that truth. For Schiller, in his aesthetic investigations, did not merely adhere to art and its interest unaffected by their relation to philosophy proper, but he compared his own interest in the beauty of art in their due relation to philosophical principles; and it is only from the starting-point of these latter and by their aid that he penetrated the profounder nature and notional concept of Beauty. Thus we are conscious that it was a feature of a certain period of his productive activity that he was actively engaged with reflective thought, more perhaps than was wholly favourable to the simple and direct beauty of his work as an art product. The deliberate character of abstract reflections, and even the interest of the philosophical notion, arrest the attention in several of his poems. He has, in fact, been made the subject of stricture on this account; and especially his work has been blamed and depreciated in its contrast with the equable serenity and straightforward simplicity of Goethe's ideas and more objective naturalism. But in this respect Schiller as poet did but pay the debt of his century. A real ideal evolution117 was responsible, the recognition of which only redounds to the honour of this sublime soul and profound genius, as it has been no less of signal profit to science and knowledge. This stimulating movement of science during the same epoch also diverted Goethe from the sphere, most distinctively his own, as poet. But just as Schiller was absorbed in the study of the ideal depths of the mind, so the characteristic predilection of Goethe inclined to the physical aspect of art, to external nature, such as animal and vegetable organization, crystals, cloud-formation and colours. To such scientific inquiry Goethe applied his extraordinary powers of intuition, which in these provinces have driven off the field the theories of the mere understanding and their errors, just as Schiller, on the other side, succeeded in demonstrating the Idea of the free totality of Beauty as against the theory of the analytical understanding relative to volition and thinking. An entire series of Schiller's productions is devoted to this insight into the nature of art. Above all in importance come the "Letters upon aesthetic education." In these letters the main point of departure is that every individual man contains within himself the natural capacity of an ideal humanity. This genuine human being is represented by the State, which, in his view, is the objective, universal, and, in short, normal form, in which the separate individuals or subjects of such human consciousness aim at making all coalesce and concentrate in unity. There were then, in his view, two imaginable ways in which man in the temporal process could thus coalesce with the human being in the notional Idea118. On the one hand this could be effected in the suppression of individuality by the State under its generic idea of morality, law, and intelligence119: while, on the other, a similar result could be effected by the individual himself raising himself to the level of such a generic conception, in other words, by the man of the particular temporal condition ennobling himself to the level of the essential man of the Idea. Now, in this view, reason demands unity as such, the generic attribution; Nature, however, asks for variety and individuality, and both these legislatures make a simultaneous claim upon man. Confronted with the conflict of these antagonistic rivals, aesthetic education simply consists in giving actual effect to the demand for their mediation and reconcilement. The aim of such an education is, according to Schiller, to give vital form to inclination, the senses, impulse and emotional life in such a way that they become essentially permeated with mind; and, from the reverse point of view, that reason, freedom, and spirituality come forth from the grave-clothes of their abstractedness, are mated in union with the natural element thus essentially rationalized, and thus receive the substance of flesh and blood. Beauty is therefore affirmed to be the conformative unification120 of the rational and the sensuous, and this union is pronounced the truly real.

This view of Schiller will in its general terms be all the more readily recognized in "Anmuth und Würde121," as also in his poems for the reason that the praise of women is in such works more particularly the theme. It was pre-eminently in their character that he recognized and emphasized the spontaneously present conjunction of the spiritual and natural.

This unity of the universal and particular, of freedom and necessity, of spirituality and the natural element, which Schiller conceived with scientific thoroughness as the principle and essence of art, and endeavoured indefatigably to call into actual life by means of art and aesthetic education, has received yet further recognition in the Idea itself, cognized as the supreme principle of knowledge and of existence, the Idea in this sense being apprehended as sole truth and reality. By means of this acknowledgment science, in the philosophy of Schelling, attained its absolute standpoint; and although art had already begun to assert its peculiar rights and dignity in their relation to the highest interests of man, it was only now that the notion itself and the scientific position of art were discovered. It was then that art was—even if, from a certain point of view, with a measure of perversity, which this is not the proper place to discuss—accepted with due reference to its exalted and true vocation. Even before this time and independently Winckelmann had been inspired by his observation of the ideals of the ancients in a way which prompted the creation of a new sense of artistic contemplation, the disengagement of it from the association of vulgar aims and mere imitation of Nature, and exercised a mighty influence in the discovery of the idea of art in works of art and in its history. Winckelmann ought, in fact, to be regarded as belonging to the type of men who have been able in the field of art to supply the mind with a new organ and wholly new methods of observation His views have, however, exercised less influence on the theory and the scientific knowledge of art.

To summarize these historical antecedents further yet more briefly, in association with the renaissance of our modern philosophy, A. W. and Friedrich von Schlegel, impelled by their zest for novelty and all that was either distinctive or arresting, assimilated just so much of the philosophical ideas as was compatible with minds essentially critical, though by no means really philosophical in any strict sense of the term. Neither of these writers in fact can claim the reputation of being speculative thinkers. They did, however, in virtue of their critical sagacity, at least approach the standpoint of the Idea; and with the aid of remarkable boldness of speech and audacity of innovation—to which, however, but very few ingredients of genuine philosophy contributed—directed a brilliant polemic against views hitherto received, and by this means unquestionably introduced a novel standard of criticism and new ways of looking at things which were of superior value to those they attacked. For the reason, however, that their criticism was not accompanied with a knowledge of the nature of such a standard based on philosophical principles, a lack of definition and continuity was inseparable from this standard; and they at one time attempted too much and again at another too little. Despite, therefore, of the fact that it may be reckoned to their credit that they have once more drawn attention to and emphasized with genuine enthusiasm much hitherto regarded as obsolete and too little appreciated by their times, the works of the older Italian masters, for example, and certain Flemish paintings, as also the "Niebelungen Lied" among other things; despite the fact that they even endeavoured with zeal to acquire knowledge of matter barely known at all, such as the poetry and mythology of India, nevertheless they not only attached too high an importance to the works of such a period, but also themselves committed the mistake of admiring works of very average merit, such as the comedies of Holberg, or of attaching an absolute value to what possessed a purely relative worth, or even of boldly proving themselves the enthusiasts of a perverse tendency and a subordinate standpoint as though one of first-rate importance.

From this tendency, and particularly from the opinions122 and doctrines of Friedrich von Schlegel, issued in all its manifold forms the so-called Irony. The idea had its profounder root, as to one of its aspects, in the philosophy of Fichte, in so far as the principles of that philosophy were applied to art. Friedrich von Schlegel, as also Schelling, made the standpoint of Fichte their point of departure. Schelling passed wholly beyond it; Fried, von Schlegel elaborated it in his own peculiar fashion, and then flung himself free of it. With reference to the more intimate connection of the doctrines of Fichte with one tendency of this irony, it is only necessary to emphasize the following point in our present context, namely this, that Fichte posits the Ego as the absolute principle of all knowledge, reason, and cognition, and in fact posits it as the Ego which persists throughout in its abstraction of pure form. For this reason this Ego is, in the second place, wholly and essentially simple, and, on the one hand, it is the negation of every particularity, attribute—in short, every content—for every positive subject-matter123 is overwhelmed in this abstract freedom and unity. On the other hand, every content, which is to pass muster for the Ego, is posited and recognized as exclusively so in virtue of the activity of the Ego. Whatever is, is only in virtue of the Ego; whatever is through me (that is, my Ego) I am in turn able to annihilate.

Now if we abide in these entirely vacant forms, which originate in the absoluteness of the abstract Ego, nothing can then be regarded as of value in itself, that is, essentially and on its own account124. It is exclusively produced by the subjectivity of the Ego. But this being so, it follows that the Ego remains lord and master over everything. In no sphere of morals or law, of all that is human or divine, profane or sacred, is there anything at all which would not in the first instance have to be posited by the Ego, and which consequently could not equally be nullified by the same agency. This is nothing less than making all that exists on its own actual and independent warranty a mere semblance, not true and a part of reality on account of itself and by its own instrumentality, but a mere show in virtue of the Ego, within whose power and caprice it remains at the free disposition of such. To suffer its presence and to destroy it stands purely in the favour of the Ego, which has attained the absolute standpoint as essentially the Ego, that and nothing more than that.

Thirdly, the Ego is a living, active individual, and its life consists in bringing home its individuality to itself no less than to others, in giving expression to itself and revealing itself among phenomena125. For every man during his life endeavours to realize himself and does realize himself. In relation to the beautiful and art this means that he lives the life of an artist, and shapes his life artistically. But, according to the principle now discussed, I live as artist when all my action and expression whatever, in so far as it has to do with a content, is for myself on the plane of mere semblance, and assumes a formal content which is wholly at my disposal. So I am not truly serious either about this content or, speaking generally, about its expression and realization. Genuine seriousness only issues from a substantive interest, a subject-matter which itself possesses a rich content, such as truth, morality, and so on—in other words, from a content which as it stands I regard as essential, so that I only become essential on my own account, in so far as I have absorbed myself in such a content, and have come to conform myself to it in the entire range of my thought and action. At the standpoint at which the artist is the Ego, which both posits and resolves everything through its own essential fiat126, for which no content of consciousness appears as absolute and essentially independent, but only as itself a semblance created and destroyable, such seriousness can find no place, nothing here receiving a right to be save the formalism of the Ego.

No doubt for others my self-revealment, in which I appear to them, may be taken seriously, inasmuch as they interpret me as though in reality I was in earnest about the business; but therein they are deluded, poor, borné creatures, without the faculty or the power to comprehend and attain to the height of my argument. And by this it is brought home to me that everyone is not so free (e.g., that is formally free) as to see in all which is usually of value, dignity and sanctity to mankind, merely a product of each man's own possibilities of inclination, which is operative in permitting him to determine and make rich the course of his life, or the reverse. It is thus that this virtuosity of your ironical artist's life comes to be credited as some god-like geniality, for which every conceivable thing is a purely spectral creature, to which the free creator, knowing himself to be absolutely unattached, does not yoke himself, for he can ever annihilate the same no less than create it. Whoever has reached such a standpoint of god-like geniality consequently looks down in his superior fashion on all other mortals. They are ruled out as narrow and dull, in so far, that is, as law, morals, and the rest retain for them a validity that is assured, obligatory, and essential. And the individual who thus lives this artist life, which he does no doubt associate with others, whether friends or mistresses or I know not what, yet as man of genius sets no real stock on such relations as they stand to his individual personality and particular actions. All these are as nothing in their contrast to the universal which is his in its own and independent warranty, namely that genius which faces all such with irony. This is the universal import of the genial god-like irony as this concentration of the Ego in itself, for which all bands are broken, and which can only live in the bliss of self-enjoyment. This irony was the discovery of Herr Fried, von Schlegel, and many have chattered about it after him, or it may be are giving us a fresh sample of such chatter.

The proximate form of this negativity which has been called irony is, then, on the one hand, the illusory nature127 of all that is matter of fact, or moral, or of substantive content, the nothingness of all that is objective and of essential and independent worth. So long as the Ego adheres to such, a standpoint as this, everything appears to be null and void, the personal subjectivity alone excepted, which thereby becomes hollow and empty, and nothing but conceit itself. Conversely, however, from the opposite point of view, the Ego may also fail to find satisfaction in this self-delight; it may prove an insufficient supply to its craving, so that it now feels a thirst for what is secure and substantive, definite and essential interests. From a situation such as this there arises unhappiness and the contradiction, that whereas, on the one hand, the individual seeks to penetrate into truth and longs after objectivity, yet on the other he is unable to divest himself of this isolation and self-seclusion, is unable to overcome this unsatisfied and abstract soul-inwardness, and consequently is seized with a fit of sentimental yearning, which we have also marked as one of the emanations of the philosophy of Fichte. The discontent of this quiescence and impotence, which is unable either to act or set its hands to anything, lest it have to surrender the harmony within, and which remains unreal and empty, even though it may be essentially unflecked, despite all its craving for reality and the absolute—is the source of morbid saintliness128 and yearning. A soul that is fair or saintly in a true sense acts and is a reality. But all that yearning and heart burning is merely the feeling of the nothingness of the empty and vain personage, who has it, and yet has not the power to cast himself adrift of this empty void, and fill himself with that which is solid and substantive. In so far, however, as the irony is made an art type it did not restrict itself in giving artistic shape to the life and particular individuality of the man who appropriated the irony. Over and beyond the artistic content of his own actions, etc., the artist had also to produce objective works of art as the creations of his imagination. The principle of such productions, which mainly are confined to the domain of poetry, is once more the display of the god-like as Irony. The ironical here, however, as genial individuality, consists in the self-annihilation of what is noble, great, and excellent. Consequently the independent figures of art will also have to illustrate the principle of absolute subjectivity, and to do so by exhibiting all that is of human worth and dignity as a mere naught in this process of self-annihilation. This implies not merely that we are not to take seriously justice, morality and truth, but that there is really nothing in what is highest and best. In short it amounts to this, that irony contradicts and annihilates itself as manifested in individuals, characters and actions, and consequently is an irony which overreaches itself129. This mode or art-type, abstractly considered, approaches closely to the principle of comedy. At the same time we ought fundamentally to distinguish the comic from the ironical as thus associated. For the comic must be limited to the making null what is essentially itself of no worth, that is to say, a false and contradictory appearance, a whim, for instance, a piece of egotism, a particular caprice, as set over against a mighty passion; or even some principle, assumed to be efficacious, or rigid maxims may be thus exposed in their nullity. But it is wholly a different matter, when what is in fact moral and true, generally something with really substantive core, is asserted in an individual and through the same as essentially of no account. Such an individual is then nugatory and despicable in his character, and the weakness and absence of character are thus introduced into the representation. In this distinction, therefore, between the ironical and the comic the point of real importance is what is the nature of the content which is destroyed. They are in the case of irony evil, good for nothing subjects, persons unable to hold staunchly to their fixed and important purposes, only too ready to give it up and to permit its destruction within them. Your "Irony" loves this irony of the characterless. For true character implies on the one hand an essential substance in its purpose, and on the other adherence to such a purpose, so that individuality would be rifled of its veritable existence, if it was compelled to let it drop and give it up. This doggedness and stability constitutes the keynote of character. Cato can only live as Roman and republican. Now if irony is made the keynote of the representation, we have the extreme antithesis to art accepted as the true principle of the work of art. For what we have here is in part insipid figures, in part figures that have neither content nor defined position130. Seeing that what is of substance in them is proved to be an illusion. And, last of all, we have into the bargain those yearning floods and unresolved contradictions of the soul. Compositions of this kind are not likely to arouse real interest. And for this very reason it is precisely from the advocates of this Irony that we have the continuous round of lament over the public's want of critical sense, artistic insight and genius, which of course cannot appreciate the lofty ways of such an Irony; in other words what the public does not like is this very mediocrity, which is the half of it mere trifling131, and the other half without distinctive character. And it is right that these spectre-like, moon-shine gazing natures are no favourites; it is a comfort to think that this insincerity and hypocrisy is not in fashion, and that what men, on the contrary, demand imperatively are full and veritable interests, and no less so characters which remain true to the weighty substance at their core. We may add as a matter of historical interest that it was Solger and Ludwig Tieck who above all accepted irony as the highest principle of art.

This is not the place to speak of Solger at the length he really merits; and I must content myself with a few general remarks. Solger was not, as the others were, satisfied with a superficial philosophical culture. A truly speculative impulse of his innermost nature made him probe the very depths of the philosophical idea. And in doing so he came upon the dialectical phase of the Idea, that transition point which I call the infinite absolute negativity, the activity of the idea in its negation of itself as infinite and universal, in order to pass into finiteness and particularity, and with no less truth once more in order to annul this negation, and in so doing to establish again the universal and infinite within the finite and particular. Solger did not get beyond this negativity; and unquestionably it is a phase132 in the speculative idea; but nevertheless, as exclusively conceived in this dialectic unrest and dissolution of the infinite no less than the finite, it is only such a phase contributory, and not, as Solger imagined, the Entire Idea. Unfortunately Solger's life was too early broken off to permit him to grasp the concrete evolvement of the philosophical Idea in all it implies. And so he never got beyond this aspect of negativity, which possesses an affinity with the dissolution by irony of all that is determinate no less than essentially substantive, a negative movement which he identified with the principle of artistic activity. Yet in the actual conditions of his life, and with due reference to the stability, seriousness, and sterling qualities of his character, he was neither himself an ironic artist in the sense we have previously described, nor was his really profound instinct for true works of art, a sense which a long course of study of art had developed greatly, either of such an ironical character. So much we will venture in the vindication of Solger, whose life, philosophy, and actual contributions to art merit being wholly kept separate from the apostles of irony previously named.

With regard to Ludwig Tieck, his culture, too, dates from that period in which Jena was the literary centre. Tieck and others who belonged to these superior people are on excellent terms with such modes of expression, without being able to tell us much what they mean. Thus Tieck always insists on the importance of Irony. But when it comes to delivering judgment on great works of art, though his recognition and description of their greatness is no doubt beyond reproach, yet if one imagines that in any particular example—let us say "Romeo and Juliet"—we have the opportunity put for an explanation of that in which here the irony consists, we are wide of the mark. We hear nothing more whatever about Irony.