OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 29 



A further very important view regarding the nature 

 of the beautiful referred to in the passage quoted 

 above is its supposed casual and accidental nature. 

 When Kant found himself unable to establish a clear 

 connection between the intelligible and the phenomenal 

 worlds, either in his intellectual or in his practical 

 philosophy, the fact did not escape him that, in 

 single though isolated instances both in nature and in 

 human life, the distance by which substance and form 

 were usually kept apart appeared to be annulled ; the 

 form appearing expressive of definite meaning, and the 

 substance or content revealing itself almost perfectly 

 in its formal representation ; both form and substance, 

 in fact, appearing completely adequate and mutually 

 exhaustive. Such instances, which are rare and isolated, 

 and, as it were, fortunate coincidences, come to us as 

 surprises, as glimpses into the hidden harmony of things, 

 and fill us with that peculiar joy and satisfaction which 

 constitute the real nature of sesthetical pleasure. The 

 artist himself, who is able to create such instances and 

 afford this insight or revelation, does so by the force 

 of his genius, in an unexplained and unaccountable 

 manner working within him. This view led Schiller, 

 in the second period of his aesthetical speculations, to 

 a celebrated theory which has, in more recent times, 

 been independently revived in this country by Herbert 

 Spencer. 



This theory was worked out in a series of letters 

 which Schiller wrote to the Duke of Augustenburg, and 

 which were afterwards published in the periodical named 

 ' The Hours.' In it Schiller finds the origin of art in 



