OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 59 



thought of the artist is distinguished from the thought 

 of the philosopher, — it is practical, not theoretical. 

 The latter has to do with the appearances of common- 

 sense, which it has to dissolve or resolve ; the thought of 

 the artist performs the wonder of creating an appearance 

 which resolves itself. The thought of art, accordingly, 

 is not theoretical but practical thought, but it is dis- 

 tinguished from the ethical or the idea of the Good inas- 

 much as the latter never is, but always is to be, realised : 

 Art alone realises its ideal completely and perfectly. In 

 this conception of the freedom of art and the perfect 

 realisation of its ideal, Solger comes in contact with the 

 theory of artistic Irony developed by Friedrich Schlegel 

 and Ludwig Tieck, and adopted also by Novalis. This 

 idea was not derived from Schelling, but was a sort of 

 caricature of the subjectivism of Fichte. According to an 

 extreme interpretation of the latter, — an interpretation 

 which Fichte himself never intended, — the mind, the 

 subject, creates the world, its object ; if it does so, it can 

 also annul it. The mind can, as it were, rise above its 

 own creation and smile at it ; it can remain in its divine 

 serenity above its own creations which it does not regard 

 au s4rieux. Following up this view, Schlegel called art 

 a perpetual parody of itself, a transcendental farce ; 

 Tieck defined irony as a force which permits the poet to 

 dominate the matter which he treats ; and Novalis raved 

 of a magic idealism which realises its dreams. 



It is needless to say that the seriousness which 

 pervades the whole of Hegel's philosophy does not 

 permit him to fall in with the arbitrariness and 

 flippancy which characterised many of the writings of 



