We will summarize the proceeding argument. Our point of departure was the universal and substantive powers which are the original stimulus to action. Such require as the medium of their active realization human individuality, in which they then appear as affecting pathos[355]. But, furthermore, the universal inherent in these powers must in particular individuals acquire the concentrated unity and concreteness of a whole, and a single whole. This totality is man apprehended in his fulfilled spiritual content and the subjectivity therein comprised, in one word the entire self-contained human individuality which we designate as character. The gods are born into the pathos of men, and pathos in its more concrete form of activity is human character.
In character, then, we find the real focus[356] of the ideal exposition of art, that is to say in so far as the embodiment unites in itself the separate aspects of it already developed as consistent phases, in the construction of its own totality. For the Idea as Ideal, by which we mean as clothed in a form within the grasp of sensuous imagination and perception, and in its activity as action and accomplishment, is, if we define it strictly, just this self-relation of the subjective individuality. The individuality, however, which is truly free, and nothing short of this will satisfy the Ideal, has not merely to declare itself as universality, but at the same time, to assert its nature as concrete singularity, as the mediating bond which unites and transpierces both sides thus related, which in their self-related actuality subsist as unity. And this is precisely what we understand by character, the ideal form of which consists in the wealth of energy with which all the constituent aspects of the subjective life are welded in one whole.
We will now inquire rather more closely into the nature of this conception of character viewed under three distinct aspects.
First, as co-extensive[357] individuality, that is to say, with, our attention directed to the wealth of substance contained in it.
Secondly, with direct reference to its particularity, the form in which it is bound to appear, albeit still a totality, as one that is more defined or specific.
Thirdly, in our final apprehension of it as a unity which is fully identified with its own determinate form, that is, which is throughout fused with the same by virtue of its own principle of subjective self-identity, and thereby attaches to the whole the significance of an essentially assured character.
We will now develop and elucidate more fully what we conceive to be implied in the above general propositions.
(α) And first we would draw attention to the fact that this pathos, though an essential feature in the development of completed individuality, is not, in the specific form of its appearance, the sole or exclusive interest of the individuality portrayed. It is, in fact, merely one aspect of the efficient[358] character, if one of paramount importance. To put it in rather a strong way, the human soul does not merely carry within it one god as the original of its pathos; on the contrary, the spiritual scope of humanity has wider borders, and we may affirm that many gods make their dwelling in one true man, or, rather, all the powers which are scattered throughout the heaven of the gods are enclosed within that one breast. It is co-extensive with the entire field of Olympus. In this sense one of old has said: "Out of thine own passions, O man, hast thou created the gods." And, as a matter of fact, in proportion as the intelligence of the Hellenic folk quickened, the number of their gods increased; and, furthermore, the gods of their earliest days were less intelligent, that is to say, they were god-like figures deficient both in individuality and determinate character.
In this wealth of content, accordingly, it is necessary that the character adequate to ideal art should display itself. And this is just that which creates the interest we feel in a character, namely, that a totality such as that we have above described emerges from it, and the character, while reposing on its abundance, nevertheless persists in perfect equality with itself, as one secure and self-excluding subject. If the character, however, be not conceived and depicted as this rounded and subjective unity, is abstract in the sense that it is entirely the sport of one passion, such must then appear as self-destructive[359], or at least cracked, weak, and without real fibre. For the weakness and inertness of individuals is just this very thing, that the eternal forces of which we have spoken never assert themselves in them as a real part of their most essential substance, as, to put it logically, predicates which adhere to them as the subjects of such.