It did not escape our theorist that his hard-won criterion of beauty was after all, apparently, an idea of the reason. He was however prepared to meet this difficulty and promised to do so in a future letter. But the aesthetic correspondence with Körner was not continued beyond February. The project of the 'Kallias' continued for some time longer to occupy Schiller's mind, but a fresh attack of illness intervened, and when he was again able to work he turned his mind to an essay upon 'Winsomeness and Dignity' (Anmut und Würde). It was written in May and June, 1793, and printed soon afterwards in the New Thalia. In this essay we can observe a growing independence of thought and an amazing gift for the analysis of subtle impressions. In the main it is lucid enough, especially when one calls in the aid of the preceding letters to Körner; but portions are hard reading. To give the gist of it in a few words is next to impossible, because it is so largely taken up with superfine distinctions in the meaning of words for which our language has at best but rough equivalents.
It will be recalled that Kant had denied pure beauty to the human form, on the ground that the human form expresses the moral dignity of human nature, which is an idea of the reason. Schiller was piqued by this dictum to test his theory of beauty on the human form. He begins, in a manner fitted to make old Homer smile, with a rationalizing account of the girdle of Venus,—the girdle which Venus lends to Juno when the latter wishes to excite the amorous desire of Jove. Venus, we are told, is pure beauty as it comes from the hand of nature. Her girdle makes her 'winsome'. So winsomeness is something distinct from beauty; something transferable, movable. It is then further defined as beauty of motion; as the special prerogative of man; as the element of beauty which is not given by nature but is produced by the object. The essay then goes on to make a distinction between architectonic and technical beauty. The former is defined as a beautiful presentation of the aims of nature, the latter as referring to the aims themselves. The aesthetic faculty is concerned with architectonic beauty. In contemplation of an object it isolates the appearance and is affected by that alone, irrespective of any ideas of purpose or adaptation. At the same time the reason imputes freedom to the object, and when the object is a human form, this imputed freedom, whereby the object seems to assert its own autonomous personality, this which is superadded to the beauty that nature creates by the law-governed adaptation of means to ends, is winsomeness.—All of which seems to mean substantially this: That while Pygmalion's statue was still ivory it was beautiful; but when it became a woman with winsome ways she was winsome.
Having demonstrated to his satisfaction that beauty is really compounded of two elements, first the sensuous pleasure caused by the play of personality, and secondly the rational gratification caused by the idea of adaptation to an end, Schiller takes up the questions of moral beauty and of the ideal of character. He deprecates Kant's strenuous insistence upon the categorical imperative of duty. A man, he urges, must be free; and the slavery of duty is no better than any other slavery. Virtue is inclination to duty, and the ideal is to be found in the perfect equipoise of the sensuous and the rational nature; in other words, when 'thou shalt' and 'I would' pull steadily and harmoniously in the same direction. So he defines 'dignity' (Würde) as the expression of a lofty mind, just as winsomeness is the expression of a beautiful soul. Control of impulses by moral strength is intellectual freedom, and dignity is the visible expression of this freedom. Dignity is manifested rather in suffering ([Greek: pathos]), winsomeness in behavior ([Greek: ethos]). Each acts as a check upon the other. We demand that virtue be winsome and that inclination be dignified, and where winsomeness and dignity are present in harmonious equipoise in the same person, there the expression of humanity is complete.
In the essay just spoken of reference is made more than once to a contemplated 'Analytic of the Beautiful', which was to clear up this and that. Instead of attempting a treatise, however, Schiller chose to go on settling his account with Kant through the medium of contributions to the New Thalia. Those published immediately (1793-4) were the essay 'On the Sublime', which included a special chapter 'On the Pathetic'; and 'Scattered Reflections on Various Aesthetic Subjects'. Two other papers of kindred import, dating from this period, were not published until 1801. These were: 'On the Artistic Use of the Vulgar and the Low', and a second disquisition 'On the Sublime'.
Following Kant Schiller defines the sublime as the impression produced by an object which excites in man's sensuous nature a feeling of weakness and dependence, and at the same time in his rational nature a feeling of freedom and superiority. He objects, however, to the Kantian nomenclature. For the two kinds of sublime which Kant called the mathematical and the dynamic, he proposes the names of the theoretical and the practical; meaning by the former that which tends to overawe the mind, by the latter that which tends to overawe the feeling. Then follows a long and juiceless Begriffszergliederung, which may be passed over as containing little that is of importance for the understanding of Schiller's individuality. At last he comes to the subject of tragic pathos, as the most important phase of the practical-sublime. Here he lays down the dogma that the final aim of art is the representation of the supersensuous. The essence of tragic pathos is declared to be the representation of moral superiority under the stress of suffering. The hero's sufferings must seem to be real that he may obtain due credit for his moral triumph. In connection with this thought Schiller takes occasion to deride the genteel sufferers of the French classic tragedy and to commend the Greeks for their fidelity to nature. At the same time he utters his word of warning to those poets who think to gain their end merely by the spectacle of great suffering. The sensuous, he Insists, has in itself no aesthetic value; it is the moral resistance that counts, and the suffering is needed only to show that there really was something to resist. The latter part of the essay is directed against those who would try the creations of the poet by the standards of the moral judgment. It is argued that the moral and the aesthetic spheres of interest are separate and distinct. The poet is concerned with the latter. What he needs for his purpose is the manifestation of strength; whether the strength is put forth to a good or an evil purpose is, in itself, a matter of indifference. The poet cannot serve two masters.
In all these discussions of the sublime and the pathetic, et cetera, Schiller exhibits a pathetically sublime faith in the possibility of settling the questions at issue by the analytic method. He writes as if the human mind were composed of air-tight compartments, wherein the various operations of reason, understanding, taste, feeling and what not, are carried on under immutable laws growing out of the nature of man. His philosophy is also dualistic. He regards 'man' as consisting of two parts joined like the Siamese twins. The one part, sensuous man, which is like unto the animals, is a part of 'nature'; the other part, the rational man, which is dowered with the birth-right of 'freedom', is outside of nature and above it. The untenableness of this conception has become since Schiller's time increasingly evident. Moreover, we have learned to look upon all things under the aspect of development and to know that man's reason, like the rest of him, is very much the creature of time and place. This being so, one finds it difficult, nowadays, to read the philosophic lucubrations of Schiller with that patience which their well-meant seriousness really deserves. Indeed he himself seems to have felt all along that there was some danger of his being carried too far away into the region of barren speculation; wherefore it was necessary, as he thought, not only to present his ideas in a popular form, but also to prove their relevancy to the practical concerns of human life.
It was with this thought in mind that he finally began, instead of the 'Kallias', a series of letters to his benefactor, the Prince of Augustenburg. In a long letter of July 13, 1793, he explained his point of view. The political dream of the century, he declared, that is, the dream of recreating society upon a foundation of pure reason, had come to naught. 'Man' had shown himself unfit for freedom. His chains removed, he stood revealed as a barbarian and a slave,—the slave of unruly passion. And this notwithstanding all that the century had done for the enlightenment of his mind! Evidently the need of the hour and of the future was not so much enlightenment of the mind as discipline of the feelings. In a number of subsequent letters, admirable in style and spirit, Schiller set forth his theory of aesthetic education and his vision of the great good to be accomplished by it in the redemption of mankind from the dominion of the grosser passions. Objections were duly considered, especially the discouraging fact that, historically, aesthetic refinement has too often coincided with supineness of character and moral degeneracy. This consideration made it an important part of the problem to show how the dangers of aesthetic culture could best be counteracted.
The letters to the Danish prince formed the basis of the 'Letters on Aesthetic Education', which were published in 1795 in the Horen, and constitute the ripest and most pleasing expression of Schiller's aesthetic philosophy. In the first ten of the 'Letters' he discusses the spirit of the age, for the purpose of showing that some sort of educational process is needed in order to fit mankind for the high calling of the freeman. The problem is to transform the state-ruled-by-force into a state-ruled-by-reason. To this end man must learn to resist and subdue the two inveterate enemies of his nobility, namely, the tyranny of sense which leads to savagery, and the inertness of mind which leads to barbarism, Schiller defines the savage as a man whose feelings control his principles, the barbarian as a man whose principles destroy his feelings. At present, he declares, the mass of men still oscillate between savagery and barbarism, but the man comme il faut must establish and preserve a perfect equipoise between his sensuous and his rational nature. Whither shall he look for help? The state cannot aid him, for it treats him as if he had no reason; nor can philosophy save him through the mere cultivation of the reason, for it treats him as if he had no feelings. His only redeemer is the aesthetic sense, the love of beauty.
The 'Letters' then take up the desperate task of showing how the aesthetic sense can do this wonderful work. Descending to the lowest nadir of abstraction,—Schiller calls it rising to the highest heights,—he brings up two ultimate instincts or bents of mankind, to which he gives the appalling names of the 'thing-bent' and the 'form-bent' (Sachtrieb and Formtrieb). The former impels to a change of status, the latter to the preservation of personality. The one is satisfied with what is mutable and finite, the other demands the immutable and the rational. To harmonize these two instincts, to take care that neither gets the better of the other or invades the other's territory, is the problem of culture. For a driver of the ill-matched team Schiller calls in the Spieltrieb, or play-bent, which is only a new name for the aesthetic faculty. His idea is that in the moment of aesthetic contemplation the sensuous and the rational instinct both find their account. In the act of escaping from the serious pull of thought and feeling to a mental state which satisfies both without succumbing completely to either, he finds an analogy to the act of playing. At the same time he is careful to point out that this kind of play is different from the sports of common life. As he uses the word, it means surrender to the illusion of art. Play is thus the symbol of the highest self-realization. Only in playing is man completely man.
The last ten letters are devoted to what Schiller, following Kant, calls 'melting beauty' (_schmelzende Schönheit), which is opposed to 'energizing beauty' (energische Schönheit). The former is the natural corrective to the emotional excess which leads to savagery, while the latter (the sublime, the stirring,) is the antidote to the mental inertness which leads to barbarism. It is admitted that the aesthetic state is perfectly neutral so far as concerns the influencing of the will. A good work of art should leave us in a state of lofty serenity and freedom of mind. If we find ourselves influenced to a particular course of action, that is a sure sign that the art was bad. Nevertheless,—and here lies the kernel of the whole discussion, so far as it bears upon education,—the aesthetic state is a necessary stage in the restoration of imperilled freedom. It is valuable morally simply because it is neutral ground. When a man is under the too exclusive domination of either principles or feelings, he is in danger of becoming a slave, and needs to be pulled back to the neutral belt of freedom, in order that he may start afresh. 'In a word', says Schiller, 'there is no other way of making the sensuous man rational except by first making him aesthetic.' Finally the 'Letters' take up the evolution of man from the state of savagery and attempt to show argumentatively and in detail how his progress has been determined by the development of his aesthetic sense.