supposed to be separated in consciousness. This distinction disappears
in the beautiful, because in it the general and the particular, the end
and the means, the idea and the object, mentally penetrate each other
completely. The particular in itself, whether it be opposed to itself or
to what is general, is something accidental. But here what may be
considered as an accidental form is so intimately connected with the
general that it is confounded and identified with it. By this means the
beautiful in art presents thought to us as incarnate. On the other hand,
matter, nature, the sensuous as themselves possessing measure, end, and
harmony, are raised to the dignity of spirit and share in its general
character. Thought not only abandons its hostility against nature, but
smiles in her. Sensation and enjoyment are justified and sanctified, so
that nature and liberty, sense and ideas, find their justification and
their sanctification in this union. Nevertheless this reconciliation,
though seemingly perfect, is stricken with the character of
subjectiveness. It cannot constitute the absolutely true and real.

Such is an outline of the principal results of Kant's criticism, and
Hegel passes high praise on the profoundly philosophic mind of Schiller,
who demanded the union and reconciliation of the two principles, and who
tried to give a scientific explanation of it before the problem had been
solved by philosophy. In his "Letters on Aesthetic Education," Schiller
admits that man carries in himself the germ of the ideal man which is
realized and represented by the state. There are two ways for the
individual man to approach the ideal man; first, when the state,
considered as morality, justice, and general reason, absorbs the
individualities in its unity; secondly, when the individual rises to the
ideal of his species by the perfecting of himself. Reason demands unity,
conformity to the species; nature, on the other hand, demands plurality
and individuality; and man is at once solicited by two contrary laws. In