In relation to morality the matter is not much different. A foundation of morality in the necessity of its own nature is lacking in this system. What motive could move a man who whole-heartedly accepted Æsthetic Individualism to acknowledge something external to the subject as a standard, and in accordance with this standard to put a check upon his natural impulses? Indeed, with the denial of spiritual activity and the division of the world into for and against, the entire antithesis of good and evil loses its meaning and its justification. Reality appears from the point of view of this system to be rent in twain in an unwarrantable manner at the command of a human authority. What is usually called morality is considered to be only a statute of the community, a means by which it seeks to rob the individual of his independence and to subordinate him to itself.
All this reasoning presents itself as an offspring of our own time, and wishes to establish the correctness of its claims on its own ground through its results. Yet it by no means lacks historical relations: often in the course of the centuries the subject has shaken off every constraint and sought a solution to life’s problems in its own realm. This happened, first among the Sophists; then in a form less marked and with more direct attention to happiness in Epicureanism; later, in proud exaltation and in a titanic struggle with the world, in the Renaissance; and again in a more delicate and more contemplative manner in the Romantic period. Tendencies from all these operate in the Æsthetic Individualism of the present time and enrich it in many ways, though their contributions are not always free from contradiction. But, even with these historical elements, Æsthetic Individualism is essentially a modern product; and it cannot be denied that it has won a great power in the present; a movement of culture in this direction is unmistakeable. It is the very nature of this scheme of life not to hasten to a definite form, and for this reason it does not manifest itself with very definite features; but, with invisible power, it is everywhere present and creates a spiritual atmosphere from which it is difficult to withdraw ourselves. Notwithstanding all the attacks it is subjected to and the doubts as to its validity, it draws power continually from both the main tendencies which it unites; from the evolution of the subject and from the growth of art. Thus, here again we are concerned not with mere subjective willing and wishing, but with an actual movement in universal history.
Whether this movement be the primary and the all-dominant remains to be examined by consideration of the total possessions of humanity. Such an examination is in this case peculiarly difficult, because in Individualism and Subjectivism diverse forms mingle together and give to the movement very different levels. There is, therefore, an obvious danger that, viewing these forms from the position of an average level, at which we may attempt to arrive, we may judge one too severely and another too leniently. And yet we cannot dispense with the assumption of such an average level; only, it must not be applied mechanically to the individual forms which are so numerous.
In forming our judgment in this matter, it is necessary in the first place to distinguish the aims and the methods of the scheme of life. There can hardly be any doubt or dispute concerning the aims. For, if we are called to give to life an independence, a content and a value; to raise it to complete power; to press forward from anxious negation to joyful affirmation; to reduce the monotony of existence; to organise the whole realm of individuality so that it shall be fully clear; and if, at the same time, the fact of the degeneration of the inner life through a culture of work lends to such demands the impressiveness and the voice of a present need, it is difficult to see how this system is to be effectively opposed. Æsthetic Individualism here appears as the champion of truths which may be obscured for a time, but which, nevertheless, continually gain in significance in human evolution as a whole. A further question is whether its aims, which cannot be rejected, are attainable along the ways which Individualism follows and beyond which it is not able to go; whether the means suffice for the attainment of the end. If this should not be the case, we are in presence of a great difficulty, in that something, in itself of the highest necessity, is desired, but is desired in a way which not only is inadequate to the aim, but directly contradicts it.
And yet that is how the matter really stands. It is essential to Individualism—with this it stands or falls—that it lead to an independent life, to a self-consciousness; that it transform our whole condition into something of positive value on the basis of sense experience. That the actual condition of human reality, the nature of human experience, inexorably resists such a transformation, and that on this account the individualistic scheme of life is contradictory, we intend to indicate more in detail.
Man desires a self-conscious life, a deliverance from all external ties, a removal of all oppressions. This desire is a lofty one, but one which, as things are, is very difficult of attainment. For not only in what happens to us, but also in the innermost depths of the soul—in our spiritual constitution—we are bound up with an overwhelming and impenetrable world. The mechanism of nature as well as the organisation of society surrounds and visibly and invisibly coerces us. At first sight we are no more than parts of an immense whole, and appear to be completely determined by that which happens in this whole; we come from it and sink back into it, and every moment we are dependent upon that which takes place around us. What is Individualism able to do against such forces, and what does it succeed in achieving towards life’s attainment of independence? The means it employs are the arousing of an unrestrained mood, and the withdrawal of life to the greatest possible concentration in its own passive states of consciousness. Because by these means man is in some measure relieved from the oppression of things, he imagines himself to be fully free. But is he free simply because he appears to himself to be so; free, to take the example of Spinoza, in the way in which the stone thrown up into the air might during its motion suppose itself to be free? As a matter of fact, as everyday experience shows us, it is just in his moods that man is least stable and least lord of his own soul, and that the most diverse circumstances, physical and psychical, visible and invisible, great and small, influence and compel him. The transitoriness of appearances, which form the matter of fact as far as moods are concerned, is lacking in all firm relation, all inner construction of life; for nothing is more mobile, nothing more subject to sudden changes, than mood—nothing except the surface of the rolling sea, or a reed shaking in the wind. The life of mood is, in reality, a purely superficial life; a projection of the psychical nature on to the surface of the immediate passive states of consciousness. Life in this case attains no depth, content, or independence, but only subjective opinion, the mere semblance of independence. We shall see that Individualism so persistently offers the semblance instead of the real thing that it has come to believe that with the production of the semblance it has acquired the reality. Life can only attain a real independence when it has been widened to a realm in itself, when inner relations, antitheses, problems thus become evident; and when, through the exercise of activity upon these, an inner world is raised up, which confidently places itself in opposition to the endlessness of the soulless world and is able to take up the struggle with it. We must show unrelenting hostility to any attempt to identify mood with inner spirituality, with the soul’s self-consciousness; for, really, there is no greater contrast than that between simple disposition and spiritual depth, between the man of mere sentiment, with his dependence and vacillation, and the personality rooted in an inner infinity.
And so the independence and the predominance of the individual over the social environment, which Individualism asserts, are nothing more than an appearance. For what is offered in this system is far less a self-conscious life and an undisturbed pursuance of our own course than the inclination to say and do the opposite of that which is said and done by the majority of those who surround us. It is easy to see that life, as a matter of fact, always remains related to its environment and to the standard of that environment; and that what is represented here as independence is nothing but a different kind of dependence, an indirect dependence. To the endeavour of Individualism to provide a free course for the individual with his particularity it is scarcely possible to offer any opposition. Unfortunately, however, intention and realisation are different things, and Individualism is apt to assume as something simple and self-evident that which of all things is the most difficult, that is, individuality itself. Just as Socialism promises a sure advance of life as a result of the removal of external hindrances, so Individualism expects a magnificent advance of an inexhaustible individualistic culture, if only the statutes by which the community oppresses and limits the individual are annulled. What, then, is the real state of the matter? Are men so full of spiritual impulse that it is only necessary to open up a course for it? And further, does that which is peculiar in a man signify, as a matter of course, that he is an individuality with some sort of value?—and is it at once capable of forming a centre of life? How indefinite and how lacking in consistency the psychical nature of man usually is! How much that is lofty and how much that is mean, how much that is noble and how much that is vulgar, is found here! Shall this chaos display itself and be extolled as an individuality? In truth, an inner unity appertains to a genuine individuality, and the ascertaining and realisation of this are not simply a gift from nature, but a result of spiritual endeavour. To attain to a genuine individuality requires an energetic concentration of life; an overcoming of the spirit of indifference; a unifying of the multiplicity of experience; often, also, a transcending of sharp contradictions. How difficult it has been for even the most prominent individualities—men such as Luther, Kant, Goethe—to find their true selves, that is, the essence of their being, the aspect in which their strength lay! How great a problem, and what an object of the keenest conflict, their genuine individuality formed to them! How could a task of such difficulty find fulfilment, and life a unification and elevation, in superficial and fleeting mood? If in order to make men independent individuals it sufficed to declare them so, we should indeed be much further advanced than unfortunately is the case.
The new life ought not to be simply autonomous, independent and individual, it should also be powerful and great. Is the mere evolution and cultivation of sentiment able to give such power and greatness to an unrestrained passivity? Of course, in its own estimation unrestrained mood can raise itself high above the whole world, and so magnify the supposed independence as to give rise to a feeling of supreme power; but again, it is only a representation of power, a semblance of power, and not a real power, that is reached. Mere mood and genuine power constitute an irreconcilable antithesis. Attention to and cultivation of sentiment may refine life; it will at the same time weaken and dissipate it. Power develops and grows only in grappling with resistances, whether they be outside or within one’s own soul. Life will acquire a powerful character only where an active spirituality is acknowledged, which, drawing from its own nature, holds up standards and aims to the actual condition of reality, especially to its own soul, and undertakes to change this condition in accordance with the requirements set by these standards and aims. Æsthetic Individualism, however, as we saw, conceives of the spiritual life as chiefly receptive and contemplative; as an appropriation, a mirroring and an enjoyment of an existent reality. Thus for it the spiritual life might be closely connected with this existent reality, indeed might be one with it; but at the same time the view robs that life of the power of arousing and elevating, of independent construction and secure advance.
An aristocratic character, the separation of an exoteric and an esoteric sphere, has been distinctive of an æsthetic conception of life from ancient times even until now. The fact appealed to in justification of its assumption of this character is beyond doubt: it is that, not only in art but in all spiritual creation, only few among those creating or reproducing stand high; that genuine creation always comes about in opposition to the mediocre; that if it identified itself with the interests and conditions of the majority it would be deeply degraded, indeed inwardly destroyed. But this is a contrast between spiritual creation and human circumstances, not a division of humanity according to two sets of circumstances; in truth, fewer of the really great than of those great in their own estimation have boasted of greatness. For the genuinely great have been occupied far too much by the demands of their task, and been too deeply conscious of the inadequacy of human capacity, to have been able to indulge in a reflection upon and a vain enjoyment of themselves. The infinity of the task by which, rather than by other men, they measured themselves made even the highest result appear inadequate to them. It is necessary to Individualism to represent the unmistakeable distinction between a culture that is genuinely spiritual and one that is merely human, as a difference between two classes of men; and it is only because it knows no objective restraint, no inner necessities, and can measure men only with men, that it is able to believe itself justified in looking down upon other men from its standpoint—as though the mere profession of faith in its programme at once effected an elevation of nature.