OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 



67 



the Good], does indeed neither solve the theoretical nor 

 the practical problem, but receives through a beholding 

 of the Beautiful an immediate assurance of the possibility 

 of its desired solution — i.e., of the reconciliation of the 

 existing contradictions." ^ 



A complete solution, either theoretical or practical, is 

 indeed not conceivable except in the whole of the 

 world— i.e., for a spirit which should comprehend and 

 control everything. In us human beings, who com- 

 prehend and control only a very limited region, and 

 can therefore not expect to meet with the desired 

 reconciliation, the latter, if it does appear accidentally 

 and casually, comes as a surprise, and this surprise 

 creates in us a feeling of pleasure, of joy, or, in its 

 highest form, of bliss, inasmuch as we see the idea 

 of beauty — i.e., the complete harmony of those three 

 supreme principles or powers — concentrated as it were 

 in a small compass, in a visible image.^ 



As stated by Lotze himself, this way of looking at 



1 'Gruudziige der Aesthetik,' p. 

 10 sqq. 



- In the Tract of the year 1845 

 Lotze traces this idea back to 

 Kant. "Kant, to whom the 

 thoughtful analysis of the Beauti- 

 ful is more indebted than is now 

 generally admitted, found that 

 beauty consists in this, that the 

 features of an object lend them- 

 selves to the play of our intel- 

 lectual powers. Whereas what 

 falls merely into the necessary 

 forms of our understanding does 

 not merit our special thank.«, we 

 must, on the other side, consider it 

 to be a free favour of fortune if 

 what is given to us contains, in 

 addition, features which meet our 

 desire for comprehension under a 



few leading thoughts. A world 

 would be thinkable in which no 

 species governed the manifoldness 

 of existing things, but where the 

 latter were mutually incomparable. 

 That, instead of this refractory 

 world, the actual world exists 

 which gathers itself together in 

 higher aspects, this in itself is a 

 subject of disinterested pleasure 

 which in its beai-ing upon the 

 single and the manifold leads to 

 the sensation of beauty. Accord- 

 ing to Kant, therefore, the Beauti- 

 ful does not consist merely in the 

 agi'eement of the impression with 

 the ways of our intellect, but in 

 the harmony with a striving and 

 purposeful endeavour" ('Kleine 

 Schriften,' vol. i. p. 295). 



