The Philosophy of Fine Art. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
has "What surmounts the reach of human sense," and no doubt both are employed very similarly in many writers.
234. Bleibt bei der Ahnung.
235. Naiver Weise, a common epithet of Hegel to denote freedom from all philosophical prepossessions, a frank and simple attitude of reception.
236. Betrachtung appears to imply in its contrast with Anschauung the presence of that intuitive sense or imaginative co-ordination above discussed.
237. Gestaltende Macht, i.e., plastic force.
238. This account of the criterium to be adopted in determining beauty in the animal creation is open to some criticism. Mobility is no doubt one element of beauty, but it is only one. Professor Bosanquet points out in his criticism of the passage ("Hist, of Aesthetik," p. 338) that it amounts to the assertion that ugliness is purely relative. The defect is not only due, it seems to me, to Hegel's insufficient regard for Nature as a modern painter would so regard it, but it may be traced also to his manifest preference for motion in all the manifestations of Nature.
239. Schnabelthier, otherwise called the duck-billed platyptis, a mammal found in Australia, much the size of an otter, with the horny beak of a duck and paws formed for swimming.
240. Getrübt, we have the word trüben above, translated there "troubled," life merely seen through the thick veil of instinctive sense.
241. That is, the unity manifested is as abstract from all concrete totality as the form itself.
242. This shows clearly that symmetry is only in an analogous way applicable to musical tones.
243. In other words, uniformity is outside the purely qualitative relation, whereas symmetry is not so.
244. Beseelte Lebendigkeit, lit., the insouled life-principle.
245. Lit., "Is continually thrust out into the external." Its activity as life is directed outward.
246. Was schon im Sichverzehren begriffen ist. I think the distinction implied is that in smell we are in actual contact with a part of the object. The same thing would, however, be true of sight according to former theory exploded by Newton's hypothesis.
247. Gesetzmässigkeit. I cannot think of an English word that quite reproduces it. I am not sure that either conformity to rule or law singly quite expresses it. It implies both.
248. As in uniformity.
249. As in symmetry.
250. That is to say, apart from symbolical meaning, it possesses no hidden law to be discovered in the relation of part to part.
251. The words are die grosse und kleine Axe von wesentlichem Unterschiede. These refer primarily, it appears, to the axes of an ellipse, but the expression may possibly include the axes of a parabola parallel to the sides of a cone. However I admit frankly I find the words von wesentlichem Unterschiede difficult to interpret closely.
252. In the text grossen, obviously a misprint.
253. The incorrectness of this statement according to more recent analysis does not, of course, affect the argument.
254. Nicht einseitig. I think the meaning here is that colour is not an abstract idea for independent qualities, but is the generic notion of a really existing totality.
255. Alles melodische, primarily, organic, of course.
256. Namely, that of abstract unity.
257. Hegel expresses this rather differently by saying that they tend to pass over into pink (röthliche) or orange (gelbliche) and green. I have put the same statement rather more directly.
258. I think this is the meaning of the words aber nur äusserlich, d.h., nicht beschmützt. Violet, however, is now regarded as a cardinal colour. It may also be doubted whether the difficulty of harmonizing pure colour is as Hegel states it.
259. This of course is a very questionable position from the point of view of aesthetic taste no less than the conformity of our sight to natural objects. The obvious retort is, it all depends what the nature of the green is. Why is there such a preponderance of green in Nature as we find it?
260. That is to say, under the Platonic view of universal.
261. So I have interpreted the words, Die Subjectivität nun aber liegt in der Negativen Einheit als Ideellsetzen der Unterschiede und ihres realen Bestehens.
262. Das Insichseyn, i.e., the incipient singularity of a feeling subject.
263. I have translated the words bleibt nur die innre Macht "merely a reflex of the inherent energy," etc. I do not pretend thereby to clear up all the difficulties of this paragraph. I would rather remind the general reader that in this entire discussion of the principle of individuality and its modes of real existence we are face to face with one the fundamental difficulties of the Hegelian philosophy, the passage of the Idea to Nature. Readers who wish to see difficulties more fully developed on this aspect of Hegel's thought should read Professor Seth's interesting and on the whole moderately worded criticism contained in his little book "Hegelianism and Personality" (Blackwood and Sons; see particularly Lecture IV, Thought and Reality).
264. Aus Anderem, e.g., the not-self of experience.