We may say, then, that the aesthetic contemplation of the beautiful is a liberal education, a portrayal of the object in its free and infinite being, with no detracting consideration of its use or employment for finite wants and purposes. Further, the object as a thing of beauty is neither under force or compulsion at our hands, nor is it in conflict with and overcome by other things outside it. It is of the essence of beauty that the notion, end and soul thereof, no less than its existent form, and variety generally, manifest themselves out of their own intrinsic wealth rather than through the energy of something outside them. The reason of this lies in the fact, already insisted upon, that their truth consists solely in the unity and harmony of their notion with their objective existence. And inasmuch as the notion is itself concrete totality, its objective reality also appears as a manifestation of the same, homogeneous in all its parts, which, as thus imbedded in the notion, appear to fall into such ideal unity and animation. For this harmony of the notion and its envisagement is nothing less than perfected suffusion[200]. Accordingly the exterior form and shape is manifested, not as such by its separation from other material, or as an impression mechanically related to aims which are foreign to it, but as the form of reality wherein the notion accommodates itself out of its own stuff and substance. Finally, however much the particular aspects, parts or articulations of the beautiful object are presented in the ideal unity of the notion and its unified envisagement, that harmony must be so rendered visible to sense, that in relation to one another they preserve the semblance of self-subsistent freedom; in other words they must not only possess the ideal unity of the notion as such, but must reflect back the side of a reality which is substantially objective also. Both aspects, in short, must be present in beautiful objects; for these are, on the one hand, the necessity posited through the notion and discovered in the harmonious conclusion of these particular aspects, and on the other, the envisagement of their freedom as essentially one with the whole, and not merely that of the unity which exists between the parts. Necessity in its full definition means the just relation of the two aspects, which coalesce so completely that to posit one is to posit the other. Such a necessity must unquestionably be present in beautiful objects. It is not, however, under the mode of necessity that it appears; rather it should conceal itself beneath the semblance of unintentional accident. Otherwise the particular parts of such a real presence lose the position they should occupy according to their own real existence, and only appear in the service of their ideal unity, to which they therefore remain in abstract subordination.
In virtue of the freedom and infinitude above analysed, which is inherent in the notion of beauty, whether we view it in its objective presence as a thing of beauty, or under its aesthetic contemplation, we disengage the province of the beautiful from the relations of finite condition, to exalt it into that of the Idea and its truth.
[188] This is, of course, a note of Hegel himself.
[189] This, of course, has reference to Hegel's unfortunate belief in Goethe's theory of colour.
[190] Mediated (vermittelt), because the concrete is first apprehended through its differences, and only after reflection do we arrive at the notional unity which transcends and unites them.
[191] Momente. Phases asserted and reconciled in the evolved notional unity, organic or otherwise. The notion is subjective because it is an ideal unity.
[192] The text is clearly corrupt. The full-stop after herzustellen should be a comma, and auch would be preferably changed to als die.
[193] As essentially reason.
[194] Not the substantive, but past participle.