198 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



fid, in so far, and in so far ojily, as it fills ns ivith 

 joy ; and our joy is the sentiment of the beantifnl, 

 in so far, and in so far only, as it is joy in the 

 Ideal. 



Art, therefore, in order to fulfil its idea, must 

 put the Supreme Ideal before us as a reality. But 

 while the indispensable ground of art thus lies in 

 the ideal, the identity of its ideal with that of truth 

 and good requires that it found on fact, that it 

 follow the law of Nature, and that its works, while 

 genuine facts of Nature,- — -sensibly-objective unique 

 things, — be higher embodiments of the Creative 

 Idea that grounds the order in Nature and fore- 

 ordains its course. In art, then, the Universal Ideal 

 descends into sensible particularity — descends in 

 fuller self-realisation than in the merely natural 

 fact. Thus the work of art, to exist, must literally 

 be created; and in art man actually adds new and 

 genuine and higher forms to the system of Nature 

 itself. This is the sublime prerogative of human 

 nature. Man completes Nature, not as himself a 

 mere nature — a round of endowment passively re- 

 ceived — standing at the summit of the natural 

 system, but as a free creator, to whom God has 

 accorded the transcendent office of carrying out 

 the prophetic types of Nature into that higher 

 world which is Nature's end and true fulfilment, — a 

 world of new existences fit to be the expressions 



