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"Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man," Literary and Philosophical Essays, French, German and Italian, the Harvard Classics
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General SummaryAn outline of the life of Schiller will be found prefixed to the translation of "Wilhelm Tell" in the volume of Continental Dramas in The Harvard Classics.Schiller’s importance in the intellectual history of Germany is by no means confined to his poetry and dramas. He did notable work in history and philosophy, and in the department of esthetics especially, he made significant contributions, modifying and developing in important respects the doctrines of Kant. In the letters on "Esthetic Education" which are here printed, he gives the philosophic basis for his doctrine of art, and indicates clearly and persuasively his view of the place of beauty in human life.
Letter I.
By your permission I lay before you, in a series of letters, the results of my researches upon beauty and art. I am keenly sensible of the importance as well as of the charm and dignity of this undertaking. I shall treat a subject which is closely connected with the better portion of our happiness and not far removed from the moral nobility of human nature. I shall plead this cause of the Beautiful before a heart by which her whole power is felt and exercised, and which will take upon itself the most difficult part of my task in an investigation where one is compelled to appeal as frequently to feelings as to principles.
That which I would beg of you as a favour, you generously impose upon me as a duty; and, when I solely consult my inclination, you impute to me a service. The liberty of action you prescribe is rather a necessity for me than a constraint little exercised in formal rules, I shall scarcely incur the risk of sinning against good taste by any undue use of them; my ideas, drawn rather from within than from reading or from an intimate experience with the world, will not disown their origin; they would rather incur any reproach than that of a sectarian bias, and would prefer to succumb by their innate feebleness than sustain themselves by borrowed authority and foreign support.
In truth, I will not keep back from you that the assertions which follow rest chiefly upon Kantian principles; but if in the course of these researches you should be reminded of any special school of philosophy, ascribe it to my incapacity, not to those principles. No; your liberty of mind shall be sacred to me; and the facts upon which I build will be furnished by your own sentiments; your own unfettered thought will dictate the laws according to which we to proceed.
With regard to the ideas which predominate in the practical part of Kant’s system, philosophers only disagree, whilst mankind, I am confident of proving, have never done so. If stripped of their technical shape, they will appear as the verdict of reason pronounced from time immemorial by common consent, and as facts of the moral instinct which nature, in her wisdom, has given to man in order to serve as guide and teacher until his enlightened intelligence gives him maturity. But this very technical shape which renders truth visible to the understanding conceals it from the feelings; for, unhappily, understanding begins by destroying the object of the inner sense before it can appropriate the object. Like the chemist, the philosopher finds synthesis only by analysis, or the spontaneous work of nature only through the torture of art. Thus, in order to detain the fleeting apparition, he must enchain it in the fetters of rule, dissect its fair proportions into abstract notions, and preserve its living spirit in a fleshless skeleton of words. Is it surprising that natural feeling should not recognise itself in such a copy, and if in the report of the analyst the truth appears as paradox?
Permit me therefore to crave your indulgence if the following researches should remove their object from the sphere of sense while endeavouring to draw it towards the understanding. That which I before said of moral experience can be applied with greater truth to the manifestation of "the beautiful." It is the mystery which enchants, and its being is extinguished with the extinction of the necessary combination of its elements.
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Chicago: Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, "Letter I.," "Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man," Literary and Philosophical Essays, French, German and Italian, the Harvard Classics, ed. Eliot, Charles W. in "Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man," Literary and Philosophical Essays, French, German and Italian, the Harvard Classics (New York: P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1910), Original Sources, accessed November 23, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=S44GALGUFRCXDZP.
MLA: von Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich. "Letter I." "Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man," Literary and Philosophical Essays, French, German and Italian, the Harvard Classics, edited by Eliot, Charles W., in "Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man," Literary and Philosophical Essays, French, German and Italian, the Harvard Classics, Vol. 32, New York, P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1910, Original Sources. 23 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=S44GALGUFRCXDZP.
Harvard: von Schiller, JC, 'Letter I.' in "Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man," Literary and Philosophical Essays, French, German and Italian, the Harvard Classics, ed. . cited in 1910, "Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man," Literary and Philosophical Essays, French, German and Italian, the Harvard Classics, P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, New York. Original Sources, retrieved 23 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=S44GALGUFRCXDZP.
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