First, there are those collisions which proceed from purely natural, that is to say, physical conditions, in so far as these are characterized with qualities which are negative or evil and consequently discordant.
Secondly, we have collisions which are of a spiritual nature, but which depend on natural conditions, conditions which may in themselves have a positive[319] character yet for the spirit contain within themselves the seeds of difference and contradiction.
Thirdly, there are divisions which are caused entirely by disruption in the Spirit alone; to these alone we are justified in attaching the peculiar interest of contradiction which is bound up with genuine human activity.
(α) Now with reference to the first type of conflicting forces—for the reason that here it is only external Nature, through the maladies and other evils and infirmities which are incidental to her creating, conditions which destroy the pre-existent harmony of life, replacing such with a state of antagonism—such can at most merely serve as a stimulus for something outside them. Regarded wholly by themselves such collisions are of no interest; they are the subject-matter of art simply for the sake of the disruption which may follow as a consequence of some natural misfortune. The "Alcestis" of Euripides, we may add, too, that of Gluck, the subject of whose opera is practically the same, are examples of this; in both the sickness of Admetus is necessarily presupposed. That sickness merely by itself could not fitly supply a subject for artistic treatment. It only becomes, even in the handling of Euripides, associated with it by virtue of the individual characters, who, on account of such misfortune, are compelled to face a further collision. It is the word of the oracle that Admetus must die unless another will pass to the underworld for his sake. Alcestis, out of love for her husband, devotes herself to such a sacrifice, resolves to die, in order to restrain Death from touching her beloved, the father of her children, the king. In the Philoctetes of Sophocles a physical malady is also the cause of the collision. Here the Greeks during their voyage to Troy place the man who is suffering from a wounded foot, caused by the serpent's bite in Chrysas, on the island of Lemnos. In this case, too, the physical mishap is merely the extreme meeting point and incentive of a further collision. For, according to the prophecy, Troy can only fall when the arrows of Hercules are in the hands of the storming army. Philoctetes refuses to give them up because he has been compelled for nine years to suffer the martyrdom of his banishment. This refusal, no less than the fact of his unrighteous desertion from which it springs, could have been followed by every variety of result other than that which took place; the real interest accordingly does not centre in the malady and its physical necessity, but in the opposition which arises from the refusal of Philoctetes to surrender the arrows. The case of the plague in the Greek camp before Troy is very similar; although this is already represented entirely as the consequence of former transgression, as a punishment, in short, a mode of statement more adapted to epic than dramatic poetry, nevertheless it is closely associated with evils incidental to natural misfortune such as storm, shipwreck, and drought. As a rule, however, art will not represent such mischance as mere accident, but rather as an obstruction and misfortune whose necessity simply consists in assuming precisely this particular form rather than another.
(β) But, to turn now to our second type of the collision, inasmuch as the external powers of Nature are not that which is most essential to the interests and contradictions of human life, in cases where they are found closely associated with such spiritual relations, they will present themselves merely as the ground from which the collision breaks forth in its true character. This is the point of view from which we must regard all situations, where we trace the original source of conflict in the facts of natural birth. We will shortly distinguish between three particular cases of this.
(αα) In the first place we have the right that is bound up with natural condition, that which constitutes relationship and inheritance for example, which for the very reason that it stands in close connection with Nature carries with it a number of relations that are bound up with her, and this though the right, the fact is one and only one. The most important example of this is the right of succession to the throne. It is important to observe that this right must not as yet, in relation to the collisions which spring from it, be absolutely fixed by rule, otherwise the resultant conflict will be of quite another character. If, that is to say, the right of succession is not as yet entirely controlled by legislation and the social order which it implies, no wrong will necessarily attach to any one of the alternatives, namely, whether it be an older or younger brother, or any other relative of the royal household who obtains the sovereignty. But inasmuch as sovereignty is a qualitative rather than a quantitative possession, which cannot like gold and other material goods be divided up according to a just principle, dispute and contention is inevitably the result of such a form of succession. When Œdipus, for example, leaves the throne of Thebes without a ruler, he leaves his two sons confronting each other with a right and claim of equal strength. The brothers arrange to occupy the throne alternately from year to year. Eteocles, however, breaks the compact and Polynices brings an army against Thebes to enforce his right. The antagonism of brothers has always been in the history of art a fruitful source of collision; it commences indeed with the story of Cain who slew his brother Abel. In the tale of Shah-Rameh, the earliest example we have of a Persian book of heroic legend, it is a contention of throne succession which is the source of the most varied conflicts. In this Feridu divided the Earth among his three brothers. Selm receives as his portion Rum and Chawer; Turan and Osin are given to Thur, and Fredysh becomes lord of the Earth from Iran. All three, however, claim the land which belongs to his brothers, and endless quarrels and wars are the result. In the Middle Ages we find just the same countless examples of family and dynastic broils. Such dissensions, however, appear in themselves to be due to accidental circumstance. It is not necessary that brothers should be at enmity; particular circumstances and more important causes must be attached, such as the in itself tragic birth of the sons of Œdipus, or, as we find in "the Bride of Messina," the author is at pains to shift the quarrel of the brothers on to still more fateful circumstances. In Shakespeare's "Macbeth" a similar collision is the foundation of the tragic dénouement. Duncan is king and Macbeth, as his nearest and oldest relation, is consequently heir to the throne with a right precedent even to Duncan's sons. The primary incentive of Macbeth's crime is the wrong which the king has done him in naming his own son as heir to the throne. This justification of Macbeth, which is supported by the chronicles of the time, Shakespeare has entirely passed over, because, it was solely his object to bring into startling relief the repulsive aspect of Macbeth's ambitious passion, in order thereby to make his work agreeable to King James, who would be naturally interested in finding the crime of Macbeth depicted without extenuating circumstances. As a consequence we can find no sufficient reason why, under Shakespeare's handling of the subject, Macbeth fails to murder the sons of Duncan no less than their father, lets them escape in fact; nor can we understand why they are wholly overlooked by the nobles. However, the entire collision upon which, the drama of Macbeth turns carries us beyond the particular type which we are now mainly considering.
(ββ) In the second of our examples in the type of collision[320] we are now discussing we find the reverse situation to that just discussed, and it consists in this that difference of birth, which carries within itself a wrongs is moreover, through ethical custom or law, held within the chains of an insuperable barrier, so that it receives at the same time the appearance of an innate wrong, and consequently is the cause of collisions. Slavery, serfdom, differences of caste, the position of Jews in many states and, with certain qualifications, even the contrast between an aristocratical and citizen class are all of them cases for consideration under this head. The conflict here consists in this, that on the one hand humanity has rights, relations, desires, aims and requirements which belong to it essentially in virtue of its fundamental idea, which nevertheless in each one of the above mentioned examples meet with dangerous restriction and obstruction owing to the compulsive necessity of natural birth. On this type of collision we have the following remarks to offer.
The differences which obtain between classes, such as the ruled and the rulers, are, no doubt, essential to the notion of state-life, and are founded on reason, for they are caused by the inevitable articulation of the organic community, and assert themselves as such through the specific forms of occupation, disposition, modes of life, and general levels of education in all their branches. It is another matter, however, when these differences as they affect individuals are determined absolutely by the accident of birth, so that the individual man from the very start is not on account of any quality in himself, but solely through the accident of Nature, irrevocably relegated to a particular class or caste. In such a case it is obvious these differences appear as innate and are, moreover, though purely external, girt with force in its highest and most aggressive mode. We are not bound to ask ourselves how this fixity and compulsive restraint came originally into existence. For the nation may originally have been united, and the natural distinction between freeman and serf been only evolved at a later time, or the difference between castes, classes, and privileged persons may have grown out of earlier distinctions of nations and races, as many are inclined to think is the explanation of the caste distinctions of India. All this is a matter of no moment to us here. The main point simply consists in this, that vital relations of this kind, which regulate the entire course of human existence, have their source in natural conditions. On general principles, no doubt, distinctions of class can be justified, but at the same time no individual should be wholly robbed of his right to determine as his choice may direct to which particular class he shall belong. Natural capacity, talents, adaptability, and education are the only right means to direct the way and decide in this respect. When, however, the right of choice is debarred from birth onwards and a man is made thereby dependent on Nature and its contingency, there is always the possibility of conflict within the sphere of this necessity between the states thus enforced on the individual by natural conditions and the measure of spiritual education which he may acquire and the higher demand which it may justly make. This is a pathetic and unfortunate type of collision which has its source in an essential wrong which the freedom of art is quite unable to respect. In the social condition of our own days distinctions of class, with a few exceptions, are not determined by birth. The ruling dynasty and the peerage are the only exceptions, and these depend on a higher conception of the State altogether. For the rest, the mere fact of birth creates no essential distinction that can ultimately determine the class to which a man may belong if he is otherwise competent to join it. For this reason, however, we must condition the demand for entire liberty of choice with the requirement that in education, knowledge, ability, and general tastes the individual is equal to the particular society with which he may desire to associate. If, on the contrary, the fact of a man's birth presents an insuperable obstacle to such claims, which he would otherwise be quite competent to satisfy by virtue of his own vigorous activity, then such a situation must appear to us not merely a misfortune, but essentially a wrong under which he is compelled to suffer injury. He is thus separated by a purely natural partition wall which is essentially unjust, that is to say, one beyond which his talents, sentiments, and general education have already raised him, from that which he was competent to reach, and a purely natural condition whose legalized fixity has been determined wholly by caprice presumes to oppose insuperable barriers to the freedom rightly demanded by all spiritual life.
To examine more closely the nature of this type of collision we shall do well to look at it from three different points of view, each of which are of essential importance.
In the first place, it is necessary that the individual should, in the strength of his own spiritual resources, already really have passed beyond the natural barriers whose opposition is to give way before his aims and desires, otherwise the demand is simply an act of folly. If, for example, a domestic servant, whose education and ability is merely that of a menial, falls in love with a princess or a lady of high society, or, inversely, either of these with him, such a love affair is both absurd and devoid of all taste, and this is so even if the artistic representation of this passion display all the depth and interest of which an ardent heart is capable. In such a case it is not so much the difference of birth which creates the obstacle; this is rather to be found in the entire content of interests, education, aims of life, requirements, and mode of sentiment which distinguish in status, material resources, and social qualifications a lady in high position from a domestic servant. If love is, as in the case assumed, the one and only bond of a union, and is associated with nothing else throughout the entire sphere of all that men and women have to live through in just accordance with that which a particular status requires from their intelligence and experience, it must necessarily remain devoid of content and is simply a union of the senses. Love, to be wholly complete, is nothing less than a real harmony of the entire conscious life, in which the full nobility of sentiment can be shared and appreciated.