114 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



increases. We have seen above how Kuno Fischer 

 pointed out the dilemma in which Schiller entangled 

 himself in his " Letters on the ^sthetical Education of 

 Humanity," inasmuch as he could not reconcile the 

 sternness of Kant's Ethics with his sesthetical view of 

 the Ideal of Humanity. This dilemma does not exist for 

 Guyau ; he has destroyed the rigour of morality ; its high- 

 est principle is not a command, it is merely the growth 

 and enlargement of life ; duty is an overflowing of life 

 which desires to be used and to give itself up, duty does 

 not arise through an external law of necessity, duty is 

 «» ' res. only the expression of superabundant power. The 



The BeautU -r» . . 



fui a larger Bcautiful is uot opposcd to reality, is not a matter of 

 play and fiction, but it is an enlargement of life. 

 Wherever, in nature or in the creations of art, we are 

 made to see this larger life, we have the sensation of 

 the Beautiful. Through this conception Guyau is 

 enabled to attach greater value to the beauty in nature 

 than to the beauty in art, whereas we saw that the ideal- 

 istic school awakened only tardily to an adequate 

 appreciation of natural beauty. 

 64- At the same time Guyau's conception of the Beautiful 



Comparison 



withLotze. reminds us of Lotze's views. Both Lotze and Guyau 

 have before their minds an ideal condition, both dream 

 of a harmony which does not exist in the actual state of 

 things and of life which surrounds us. For Lotze, the 

 ultimate harmony and solution of the world-problem 

 would consist in the unity of things, laws and values ; 

 for Guyau it would consist in the harmonious life of 

 human society, in the larger social life of the universe. 

 Both recognise that the Beautiful affords us a glimpse, 



