86 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



unconscious background of the phenomenal world finds 

 abundant confirmation in the existence of the Beautiful 

 both in nature and in art. 1 In the main, then, Hart- 

 mann agrees with the sesthetical view current in the 



1 Hartmann's difference from 

 Schopenhauer is nowhere better 

 seen than in his treatment of that 

 sesthetical problem which Schopen- 

 hauer claimed to have treated more 

 adequately than any other thinker, 

 the problem of music. In spite of 

 the favour which Schopenhauer's 

 theory met with on the part of 

 great composers, such as Wagner, 

 Hartmann maintains that its one- 

 sided emphasis of the unconscious, 

 but blind, Will or impulse without 

 regard for the unconscious intel- 

 lect, the region of thought and 

 feeling, had made it impossible for 

 him to understand fully the real 

 nature of musical beauty : " The 

 Will in itself, irrespective of its 

 object, can exhibit no other differ- 

 ences than those of intensity, and 

 can, therefore, at best only con- 

 tribute towards the explanation of 

 the sublime, whereas the whole 

 region of characteristic aud formal 

 beauty can only be explained 

 through an ideal content. Scho- 

 penhauer's peculiar theory of music 

 is therefore unable to introduce 

 any other aesthetical principle than 

 that of the sesthetical idea. . . . 

 The combination of the emotions 

 with the will has therefore borne 

 with Schopenhauer the wrong fruit ; 

 in order to produce the right fruit 

 it would have been necessary that 

 he should have admitted the uncon- 

 scious Thought together with the 

 unconscious Will, and that he 

 should have brought the emotions 

 as much into contact with the 

 former as with the latter. But as 

 his system knows nothing of un- 

 conscious thought, he was incapable 

 of taking this fundamental step, 



and it is a brilliant testimony to his 

 divinatory insight that he never- 

 theless suspected a connection of 

 musical feeling with unconscious 

 thought, and expressed it at least 

 in a simile, for he says that the com- 

 poser expresses the deepest wisdom 

 in a language which his intellect 

 does not understand, just as a 

 magnetic somnambulist tells about 

 things of which waking she has no 

 notion. . . . On this point Richard 

 Wagner has attained greater defin- 

 iteness than his philosophical leader. 

 According to his view the orchestra 

 expresses through its instruments 

 clearly and intelligibly what is 

 inexpressible through intellect and 

 language, and indeed not only as 

 something that is thought but as 

 something actual and sensuous, 

 &c., &c. . . . Whoever does not 

 admit the unconsciousness of the 

 intellectual content can neither 

 admit that the composer whose 

 objective creation is further re- 

 moved from conscious intentions 

 than that of any other artist desires 

 unconsciously to embody in tone- 

 images an unconscious content, 

 nor that his hearers unconsciously 

 comprehend it. Nothing remains, 

 then, but to deny to music all ideal 

 content, &c., &c." ('Deutsche 

 Aesthetik, ' p. 488 sqq.). It is also 

 suggested that through this one- 

 sided view Schopenhauer failed to 

 appreciate that combination of 

 instrumental with vocal music of 

 which Beethoven's ' Ninth Sym- 

 phony ' was the first brilliant 

 example, and which was carried to 

 such perfection especially in Wag- 

 ner's operas. 



