There are three points of essential importance necessary to grasp in connection with such action as is capable of artistic representation, and which we may emphasize as follows. The situation and the resulting conflict is that which generally stimulates it; the active movement, however, taken by itself, the element of difference, that is to say, of the Ideal in its activity, is made apparent first by virtue of the reaction. This movement may be resolved into the following component features:
First, we have the universal[326] forces, which constitute the essential content and object, for the sake of which the action takes place.
Secondly, we have the realization[327] of these forces in the individuals who act.
Thirdly, the two aspects above mentioned have to unite themselves in that which, in default of any better generic term, we will here call character.
(a) The Universal Forces of Action
(a) However much we have finally arrived in our consideration of the action at a point where the definition and differentiation of the Ideal is of the first importance, nevertheless the very notion of art renders it necessary that in the sphere of true beauty, be the aspect of it whatsoever it may, it must still have upon it the stamp of the Ideal; it cannot, that is to say, maintain itself without rationality and the justification it implies. Interests of an ideal character must inevitably be in conflict with another, so that might is opposed to might. These interests are, in fact, the eternal and universal forces of spiritual existence, the essential cravings of the human heart, the spontaneous and inevitable objects of human action, justifiable and rational in virtue of their own character, and consequently the very universal powers to which we have referred. They are indeed not the absolute Divine itself, but rather the sons of the one absolute Idea[328], and consequently dominant and valid. They are the children of the one universal truth, albeit only determinate, particular moments of the same. Through their very distinction, it is true, they can fall into contradiction or disunion, yet despite all the element of difference contained, they must possess the original essentiality within them in order to appear as the determinate Ideal. Such are the supreme motive forces of art. They are the eternal[329] religious and ethical modes of relationship, status, personal character[330], and in the world of romance, before everything else, honour and love. In the particular grade of their significance these powers differ, but all are essentially the product of reason. At the same time it is these powers in the human heart and mind, which man, by virtue of his humanity, is bound to recognize, to give free play to, and to actualize. At the same time they ought not directly to appear as rights in positive legislation. For, to take one reason, the form of positive legislation, as we have seen, is already in partial conflict with the notion and content of the Ideal; furthermore, it is quite possible that the content of positive rights may contribute to that which is essentially unjust, albeit entirely clothed in the attributes of law. The relations we have above referred to, however, are not merely the supreme stable embodiment of the external world[331], but the essentially substantive powers, which for the very reason that they contain in themselves the actual content of human existence, continue to be the stimulating source of its activity, and ultimately all that ever carried it forward to perfection.
Of this kind are the interests and objects which contend against each other in the "Antigone" of Sophocles. Creon, the king, as ruler of the state, by a decree couched in the severest terms, forbade the right of burial to the son of Œdipus, who had proved himself an enemy of his country by bringing an army against Thebes. This proclamation was so far justifiable that it expressed care for the weal of the entire city. Antigone, however, is animated by an ethical principle of equal authority, in other words by her love for her brother, whom she finds it impossible to leave unburied, the prey of carrion birds. To leave such a duty unfulfilled would be in direct opposition to the sacred instincts of her personal relationship. She consequently violates the decree of Creon.
(β) Collisions of the type with which we are now dealing may be introduced in every possible way; the necessity of the reaction, however, must not be occasioned by means of anything out of place or at cross purposes[332] with the main action, but through that which is in itself reasonable and justifiable. For example, in the well-known German poem of Hartmann von der Aue, "The Poor Henry," the collision is repulsive. The hero in this poem is visited by a fatality, that is to say, an incurable disease. He turns for assistance to the monks of Salermo. They state as the condition of his cure that a human being must willingly surrender his or her life, on the ground that the necessary salve can alone be forthcoming from a human heart. A poor maiden who is in love with the knight offers freely her own life and accompanies him into Italy. This is pure barbarism, and the silent love and pathetic devotion of the maiden are unable, consequently, to produce their full effect. It is true that we find the injustice of human sacrifice presented us by the ancients as the ground of the collision. The famous example is that of the story of Iphigenia, who is first offered as such a sacrifice, and afterwards is on the point of offering up her brother. But, in the first place, it is to be observed that in these examples the conflict is in close connection with other relations which are in themselves justifiable; secondly, the artistic principle is really satisfied, as we have already observed, by the fact that both Iphigenia and Orestes are finally delivered, and the power of a collision which is opposed to our notion of right is thus destroyed. And, indeed, this is also the case in the above mentioned poem of Hartmann, in so far as we may acknowledge the dénouement offered us in which, on Henry refusing to accept the sacrifice, God releases him from his malady, and the maiden is rewarded for her true love[333].
In apparent association with the positive powers we have enumerated must be added others set over against them, that is to say, the forces of that which is negative and bad, evil in short. That which is purely negative, however, ought not to be taken in the ideal representation of an action as the essential ground-motive for the necessary reaction. The reality of the purely negative case, it is true, corresponds to the negative and its appropriate character, but, if the implied[334] notion and object is already in itself rendered nugatory, it is even less possible that the ugliness which is exposed in the inward life should manifest any genuine beauty upon its external reality. The sophistry of passion can, indeed, by means of the capacity, strength, and energy of a character, make the attempt to graft positive characteristics upon the negative, but we only obtain thereby the vision of a whitewashed grave. For that which is purely negative is generally flat and stale and leaves us consequently either void or drives us back, whether it be used as the motive force of an action or merely as a means to promote a reaction in another. The horrible, unfortunate, the harshness of dominion, and the obduracy of superior power may form part of the content and burden of the imagination when such characteristics are exalted and carried by the abundant greatness of a particular character or object. Evil, however, taken simply for what it is, envy, cowardice, and meanness, is merely repulsive. The devil, if we take him for what he really ought to be, is consequently a bad subject, or rather a figure for which Art has no uses at all. He is just a falsehood and nothing more, and consequently an extremely prosaic personality. In the same way it is perfectly true that the Furies of hate and many other allegorical figures of later times are potencies of a kind, but they are without affirmative subsistency and holdfastness[335], unfavourable to ideal representation, although in this respect a wide margin of difference is permissible in the several arts respectively, and in the particular mode in which they may immediately visualize such objects. Evil is, to express it in most general terms, essentially cold and devoid of content, because as such it is merely the source of negation, discord, and misfortune. All art, however, which is true to its essential notion, should reflect on us the vision of a harmony. Meanness, above all, is despicable, for it is a quality which arises from the envy and hatred of all that is noble, and does not shrink from distorting even a power that is essentially based upon the good into a means conformable to its own perverse and shameless passion. The great poets and artists of the classical world have in consequence never presented us with the vision of absolute evil and depravity. Shakespeare, on the contrary, in his tragedy of "King Lear," unfolds before us the spectacle of wickedness in all its horrors. The old Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters, and, while doing so, is foolish enough to believe in their false and flattering speeches, and to misinterpret the silent and faithful Cordelia. There is already folly and madness in this, and it is followed by the most outrageous ingratitude and worthlessness of the elder daughters and their husbands to the point of absolute craze. As an antithesis of this the heroes of the French school of tragedy are stretched and puffed out with every sort of grandiose and sublime motive, and make a great parade of their honour and nobility, and yet despite of it all destroy the very meaning of such motives by the mere fact of what they really are and accomplish. But it is in modern times more especially that we find this unstable dissolution of everything spiritual[336], which forces its way through every dissonance, however repulsive, become quite à la mode; moreover, it has even given us what we may describe as the humour of the abominable thing, a kind of burlesque simulation of irony, an atmosphere in which a Theodor Hoffmann, for example, has found himself so much at home.