The Philosophy of Fine Art. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

aspects which we are compelled to consider separately. By virtue of this fact, which we may either regard as a division of the material of sense or as a review of certain facts taken in abstraction, the inward unity, which is one aspect of the external reality, itself falls outside it; that is to say, it is not itself asserted in that rational reality as the wholly immanent form of the entire notion which constitutes it, but rather as an Ideality and determinacy imposed externally.

      Such are the points of view thus presented us which we will now consider more closely.

      First, then, we have to discuss

      1. THE BEAUTY OF ABSTRACT FORM

The form of natural beauty in its abstraction is a form which is determinate and thus of limited range; in a further aspect of it it is focussed in a unity of abstract relation to itself241. On closer inspection we shall, however, find that the external manifold controls this form of abstract beauty by reason of its own determinacy and unity. We must not, however, imply in these latter any immanent inwardness or form of vital ideality, but regard them as purely material definitions and unity of the external medium. Forms of such a character are uniformity, symmetry, or conformity to rule, and finally harmony.

      (a) Uniformity

      Uniformity is, speaking generally, equality in external presentment, or, more specifically, the unbroken repetition of one and the same definite form, supplied by the determining unity to the form of objects. Such a unity, in virtue of its initial abstraction, is at the furthest extreme removed from the rational totality of the concrete notion. Its beauty is therefore a beauty which is referable to the faculty of the analytical understanding. The fundamental process of that faculty is to perceive objects in their abstraction, not in their self-determined completeness and identity. For example, among all lines the straight line is that which is most uniform, because it alone manifests one abstract and undeviating direction. For the same reason the cube is a figure dominated by regularity of content. All its sides are of the same size, the same length of line and the same angles, which, on account of their being rectangular, however much their size is changed, manifest no change in the form of their angles as is the case with angles which are obtuse or acute.

      With this characteristic of uniformity we must closely connect that of symmetry. Form is unable long to rest in that barest abstraction of its determination, namely, undifferentiated equality. A diverse relation is sure to assert itself, breaking into the empty form of identity. In this way we obtain symmetry, which consists in no mere identical repetition of one form, but in a combination with some such form analogous to it, identical, that is to say, in its self-determination, and yet manifesting a distinct contrast with it. Through such a combination we obtain another kind of equality and unity, whose determination is more extensive and more varied. If, for example, on one side of a house we meet with three windows of the same size separated at equal intervals of distance, then three or four more of loftier size than the first-mentioned standing at more extended or closer intervals in relation to them, and again three more precisely similar in size and distance to our original ones, we have then before us a symmetrical arrangement. Mere uniformity and repetition of the same distinctions will never produce this result. We may find such distinguishing features in size, position, form, colour, tones, and many others like them, which, however, to produce symmetry must be harmoniously related to similar forms of construction. When we find a combination which presents to us an arrangement of such distinguishing characteristics according to some clearly uniform principle that then is symmetry.

Both these attributes, uniformity and symmetry, being the determinations of the form and unity of external appearance, are mainly applicable to distinctions in size. For it stands to reason that what is expressly posited as external rather than truly immanent determination is generally a quantitative242 determination, whereas the qualitative fixes the inherent character of anything. Consequently that which is assumed only to affect the external appearance cannot be concerned with the changes which are found in the qualitative aspect. Size, on the other hand, and its alteration regarded merely as size, is for the qualitative determination, when it is unable to assert itself in terms of measure, an indifferent determination. That is to say, measure is quantity, precisely in so far as it can give to itself an aspect which qualifies it, and thereby a qualitative determination is united to the purely quantitative one. As thus explained243 uniformity and symmetry are merely restricted to the determinations of size and their uniform appearance or arrangement of differences in symmetrical order. Further inquiry will show us that this due co-ordination of size is as applicable to the forms of organic life as it is to those of inorganic Nature. The human organism is, for example, at least in a certain degree both uniform and symmetrical. We have two eyes, two arms, two legs, similar hip-joints, shoulder-blades, and so on. Of other portions of the body the reverse is the case. We find no conspicuous uniformity in the heart, lungs, bowels, or liver. The question arises what precisely constitutes the difference here. The side on which uniformity, whether of size, form, or position mainly asserts itself, is obviously the aspect of the organism viewed from the outside. The uniform and symmetrical determination, in complete conformity with what we should expect, is most apparent where the fact as objectively determined is itself the external envisagement itself, and carries with it the least impression of inherent life. The reality, which is most constant to this pure externality, rests satisfied with the abstract unity congenial to it. Within the organism, on the contrary, where we find the heart of the life-process, and still more openly in the medium of untrammelled reason uniformity gives way before the subjective unity of life. Nature is, no doubt, in its opposition to mind, a determinate existence external and independent; but even in her we find that uniformity only pre-eminently asserts itself where externality is the predominant principle.

      (α) Reviewing, then, shortly the prominent classifications of natural objects, we observe, in the first place, that minerals, taking the crystal for an example, as structures destitute of the principle of life, are characterized in their fundamental form by uniformity and symmetry. As already remarked, their form, it is true, is one appropriate to themselves, is not merely the determination of external forces. Through an unseen energy the form that makes them what they are as products of Nature creates their configuration both within and without. This activity, however, is not yet the completed energy of the concrete notion as an ideal principle, which directs the independent consistency of the positive reality, subsuming them under an ideal totality such as is present in animal life. The unity and definition of their form persists in purely abstract one-sidedness, and we have as the characteristics of a unity which is wholly on the outside the bare forms of uniformity and symmetry, the determinating factor in each case being an abstraction.

(β) Plant life is, of course, many degrees above the order of crystals. From the very commencement its evolution is marked by a harmonious articulation, and consumes material in a constantly active process of self-nourishment. But plant-life also is not yet really the living whole244. Although organically divided into parts, its activity is still one that consists wholly in assimilation245. It is rooted in the earth with no independent power of motion from place to place; its growth is continuous, and such energy of assimilation and self-nourishment as it possesses is not the tranquil self-subsistence of a completely individualized organic existence, but rather a continuous extension of its growth as an external object. An animal grows just as a plant grows, but at a determinate point that growth in its external size ceases, and that which reproduces itself in self-subsistence is one and the same individual. Plant-life, however, enlarges without intermission, and only its decease renders the further increase of its boughs and leaves impossible. And, moreover, all that it separately produces in this process is for ever the repeated pattern of the same organism in its entirety. For every bough is a new plant, and not, as in the case with the animal organism, only an isolated member. On account of this persistent enlargement of itself through all the separate plant formations whereof it consists plant-life is without the subjective animation peculiar to sensation