Chapter 39 Part III The World as Representation Revisited §39

All these considerations are aimed at highlighting the subjective aspect of aesthetic pleasure, that is to say, that pleasure, as opposed to the will, is the joy of simple, intuitive knowledge itself. —To now follow these considerations, and directly related to them, is the following account of that mood which is called the sense of sublime. It has already been pointed out above that the transition into a state of pure intuition is easiest when the object caters to it.The so-called object caters to pure intuition, that is to say, because the complex and at the same time fixed and clear form of these objects can easily become the representative of their ideas, and in the objective sense, beauty exists in these ideas.More than anything else, good nature [landscape] has this property by which it compels at least a little erratic aesthetic pleasure in even the most insensitive people.The world of plants is especially noticeable, and plants provoke [people to make] aesthetic appreciation, as if they are forced to be admired, so that one has to say that this invitation to come has to do with the fact that These organic beings, unlike the animal body, are not themselves immediate objects of knowledge, and therefore they need the assistance of other enlightened individuals in order to pass from the world of blind desire into the world of representation, so they seem to long for this In order to be able to obtain at least indirectly what they cannot directly "get". This bold, perhaps almost parsimonious thought of mine can be left alone, because it can only be aroused by the most intimate and passionate observation of nature. Only then can we justify this kind of thinking. Therefore, when we are transferred from the knowledge of relations in the service of will to the perception of aesthetics, so as to elevate us to the subject of knowledge without will, if it is the welcome of nature If the invitation to come up is the significance and clarity of those forms in nature—and in these forms the individualized ideas are easily greeted to us—then it is only the beauty that is thrown at us, and the beauty that is rejected It is the sense of beauty that arouses. But now, if it is these objects that, with their significant shapes, invite us to pure contemplation, [yet] for the will of man, for the self-manifestation in its objectivity - also That is to say, the will in the human body has at all a hostile relation, is opposed to the will, or is threatened by the superiority of those objects over all obstacles, or is compressed to nothing before the infinity of those objects; But [at this time] the observer does not focus his attention on this striking and hostile relationship to his will, but although he is aware of and acknowledges this relationship, he deliberately avoids it, For he has now forcibly freed himself from his own will and its relations, and has only devoted himself to knowing, as a pure willless subject of knowing, quietly contemplating those objects that are [very] terrible to will, grasping only what is in them. The idea, which has nothing to do with any relation, is therefore happy to linger in the contemplation of the object, so that the observer is thereby detached from himself, from himself, from his desire and all desires,—thus, He is full of the sense of grandeur, he is already in a state of detachment, and therefore the object that brings about this state is also called sublime. So the difference between the sense of grandeur and the sense of beauty is this difference: if it is beautiful, pure knowledge has no need. The struggle prevails when the beauty of the object, i.e. the very nature of the object which facilitates the knowledge of the Idea, pushes the will and the knowledge of the relation which is at the service of it, out of the Consciousness is left behind, leaving consciousness as the pure subject of "knowledge", so that no memory of will is left. If it is sublime, it is the opposite. The state of pure cognition must first be achieved through intentional, forceful Freedom from the object's supposedly unfavorable relations to the will is achieved through a free, conscious concomitant detachment from the will and the knowledge that is at stake with it.Detachment must not only be attained by consciousness, but must also be preserved by consciousness, so it is often accompanied by the memory of the will, but not of a single, individual desire, such as a fear or a wish, but of the human being as a whole. The memory of desire, insofar as this desire is generally expressed by its objectivity—personality.If, due to the real, personal persecution and danger of the object, there is an actual individual volitional activity that enters consciousness, then this really agitated individual will immediately wins the upper hand, and the tranquility of observation is the result. Impossible, the impression of grandeur disappears, for it gives way to worry, in which the individual struggles to save himself, crowding out any other thought. —A few examples will help to clarify and bring into question the aesthetic theory of the sublime, and at the same time they will point out the differences in degree of the sense of sublime.For the sense of the sublime, as well as the sense of the graceful, in the main determinant, in the pure, willless cognition, at the same time, in the idea, which is not in all relations determined by the principle of sufficient reason, In cognition, it is the same; but it is only different from the sense of beauty by virtue of an additional [determination], that is, detachment from the fundamental antagonism of the known object under consideration to the will; then, respectively, according to This supplement [determination] is either strong and distinct, imminent, or only weak, remote, and only suggestive, and produces the degrees of sublime, the transition from the beautiful to the sublime.I think it would be more proper in illustration to first show by example this transition and the lesser degree of sublime impression; Examples of higher, clearer sublime impressions.They might have attended to the latter examples only, and left the first ones here to be given, concerning the slightest impression of grandeur.

Man is, on the one hand, the violent and blind impulse of desire (marked by the "pole" of the genitals as its focus), and at the same time the eternal, free, open-minded subject of pure knowledge (by the brain, the pole). Marked out), then, like the opposition between these two aspects of human existence, and corresponding to this opposition, the sun is at the same time the source of light, the source of the conditions for the most perfect mode of knowing, and therefore the most lovable thing in things. - at the same time the source of warmth, that is, the source of life, the first condition of the phenomenon of will on a higher level.Warmth, therefore, is to the will what light is to knowledge.So light is the biggest diamond in the crown of "beauty", and it has the most decisive influence on the recognition of every object of beauty.Light is fundamentally an indispensable condition for [beauty], and light can make even the most beautiful things more beautiful at a favorable angle.But it is especially remarkable that, unlike all other art of architecture, the beauty of architecture can be enhanced by the aid of light, and even the most insignificant objects can thereby be made the most beautiful objects. ——In the severe winter, nature is generally frozen. At this time, we take a look at the setting sun reflected by the piled bricks and stones. The pure mode of knowing is good rather than the will, and so beholding the beautification of light on masonry, like all beauty, leads us into a state of pure knowing.Here, however, from the slight thought that the ray lacks a warming effect, a life-enhancing principle, the situation already demands an interest beyond the will, and contains a slight incentive to persist in pure knowledge, avoiding everything. Desire; it is for this reason that the state is already a transition from the beautiful to the sublime.There is a touch of grandeur in grace, the faintest hint, and here the beauty itself is present only in a lesser degree.Here's another example of [sublime], almost as slight [in the sense of grandeur].

Suppose we enter a very lonely country, stretching as far as the eye can see; under a completely cloudless sky, trees and plants in motionless air, no animals, no people, no running water, [just] the most solitary solemnity;—then, this Such a setting would amount to a call to seriousness, to viewing, freed from all desires and needs; but this alone lends some splendor to what is merely solitary and solitary.This is because the environment offers no object, be it favorable or unfavorable, to this constant need to pursue [what] and to achieve [what], so that a purely spectacle situation remains.Whoever cannot do this contemplation will sink into the emptiness of the will and the pain of idleness through shameful inferiority.As such, the environment affords an opportunity to test the value of our own intellect, and the degree to which our capacity to endure or love solitude is no good criterion at all.So the environment described here provides an example of sublime sublime, because in this environment, the state of pure knowledge, in its tranquility and all-encompassing [mood], as a contrast to [this mood], [still] Mixed with it was a recollection of the dependence and the pitiful aspect of the will that must be pursued incessantly. ——This is a type of magnificence, and the scenery of the boundless prairie in the interior of North America is known as this type [the magnificence].

Let us now devegetate such an area too; see only bare rocks, and the will, then, is almost threatened by the utter lack of organic matter necessary for our existence; The mood also became more tragic.The ascension to pure cognition here comes through more resolutely breaking free from the interests that the will cares about. When we insist on staying in the state of pure cognition, a sense of magnificence obviously appears. The following environment can also cause a higher [sense of grandeur]: nature in the wind-like movement; Floods blocking the view ahead; raging, foaming torrents; all solitude and desolation; the howl of air currents through cracks in rocky valleys.At this time, we see our own dependence intuitively and visually, we see our struggle with hostile nature, and we see our will being destroyed in the struggle.But as long as the individual's critical anxiety does not prevail, but we continue to contemplate beauty, the gaze of the pure subject of knowing [can still] see through the struggle of nature, through the image of the destroyed will. Quietly, indifferently, without being shocked (indifferently) grasping ideas on those objects that threaten the will and are feared by the will.The sense of grandeur lies in this contrast [between the horrific surroundings and the serene state of mind].

But [sometimes] the impression is stronger when [that is] when we see enraged forces of nature waging large-scale struggles before our eyes, such as in the environment The roar of the water was so loud and deafening that it was impossible for us to hear ourselves,—or when we were in the vast, hurricane-laden ocean, [seeing] billows a few houses high rising and falling violently Hitting the rocky shore, the water splashes high above the clouds; sees the howling wind, the sea roaring, the lightning flashes in the dark clouds and the thunder is louder than the storm and the waves [voice].Therefore, for those who observe this scene without being moved, his double consciousness has reached an obvious peak.He feels himself on the one hand an individual, an accidental phenomenon of the will; those [nature] forces can destroy this phenomenon with a single blow, he is helpless and involuntary before the mighty nature, [life] depends entirely on accident, and He is the near-disappearing zero in the face of terrible violence, and at the same time he is the ever-quiet subject of knowledge; as this subject, it is the condition of the object and precisely the bearer of the whole world; nature The terrible struggle in it is only its appearance, and it itself holds the idea quietly, free without any desire or any need.That's the complete grandeur.Here the impression arises from the sight of an incomparable, greater than individual power that threatens existence.

In a completely different way, the impression of "magnificence" can also be produced by imagining the vastness of space and the longness of time. The vastness and longness, the endlessness and infinity can shrink the individual to nothing.The above-mentioned one we may call dynamic grandeur, and this one may be called "mathematical grandeur", [which] retains Kant's nomenclature and his correct classification [method], but illustrates the impression We are quite different from him when it comes to the inner nature of the subject, and we admit neither moral introspection nor assumptions from scholasticism have any place here.

When we are obsessed with observing the infinite vastness and eternity of this world in space and time, when we ponder the past and future millennia, or when the night sky truly unfolds countless worlds before our eyes, so that the universe is boundless. When the immensity is imprinted directly into our consciousness—then we feel ourselves shrinking [several] to nothingness, feeling ourselves as an individual, as a living human body, as an impermanent phenomenon of will, disappearing like a drop in the ocean, is vanishing into nothingness.But at the same time there is an immediate consciousness rising up against this phantom [like idea] of our own smallness, against this false possibility, [which makes us aware] that all these worlds exist only in our representations, only as pure We exist in certain forms determined by the eternal subject of knowledge, and we have only to forget [our own] individuality to find that we are the eternal subject of pure knowledge, the necessary and presupposed condition of all worlds and all times. Shoulder people.The vastness of the world, which formerly troubled us, is now settled in us; our dependence on it is canceled out by its dependence on us. —However, all this does not immediately enter into reflective thinking, [at first] it only appears as a sense of consciousness, aware that in a sense (only philosophy has made this sense clear) man and the universe is one, so that man is not brought down by the immensity of the universe, but on the contrary is raised up.It is the "consciousness" that feels aware of what the Vedic Upani Shatan says repeatedly in various discourses, and especially of the line already quoted above: "Everything that is inanimate All in all, it is me, and nothing else exists outside of me.” This is the sense of sublime beauty that transcends one’s own individuality.

As long as there is [such] a space, it is small compared to the space of the universe, but since we are completely and directly aware of this space, it acts on us with the full volume of the three directions, which is enough to make us feel ourselves. The body is almost infinitely small, and then we can directly obtain the impression of mathematical magnificence. If what we perceive is an empty space, we can never do this; it must not be open-air, but only It is a space that is limited in three directions and can be directly perceived, so it can only be a very tall domed building such as St. Peter's Church in Rome or St. Paul's Church in London.The sense of grandeur here is due to the fact that [people] feel that their bodies are small and close to nothing in front of a vast space; It is the burden of this appearance.So here, as everywhere, the sense of grandeur arises from the contrast between our own importance and dependence as individuals, as phenomena of the will, and our perception of ourselves as pure subjects of knowledge. consciousness.Even the fornix full of stars, if we do not examine it with introspective thinking, will play the same role for us as the masonry dome. What works here is not the real sky, but only the sky. The envy shown on the surface. —Some objects of our intuition arouse sublime impressions both because of their vastness of space and because of their age, that is, of time; Yet we still have the pleasure of looking at such sights; among such objects are the mountains, the pyramids of Egypt, the colossal ruins of antiquity [etc.].

Yes, what we have said of the sublime applies also to ethical things, that is, to what is called the sublime.This kind of character is also produced because the object is originally suitable for exciting the will, but the will is not excited after all. Here too, knowledge has the upper hand.Such a character would then observe men purely objectively, and not see them in terms of their possible relation to his will.For instance, he perceives the errors of men, and even sees their hatred and injustice towards himself, but is not aroused to hatred on his part; he sees their happiness without envy; He would recognize their fine qualities, but wish no closer connection with them; he would see the beauty of women and not wish to possess them.His own misfortune [nor] would not affect him violently, but he could be said to be like Hornejue as described by Hammler:

"Because you went, such a person, Not feeling pain in savoring pain, such a person, Whether fate brings him blows or rewards, You always accept with equal thanks," etc. (Scene 3, Scene 2) This is because in his life and misfortunes a man of high morality pays more attention to the fate of mankind as a whole, and pays little attention to his own personal fate; [aspect] [often] more than feeling [aspect].