of God to the mind through the senses; it is the appearance of the idea.
In the beautiful spirit reveals itself to spirit through matter and the
senses; thus the entire man feels himself raised and satisfied by it. By
the unity of the beautiful with us we experience with delight that
thought and the material world are present for our individuality, that
they utter tones and shine forth in it, that both penetrate each other
and blend in it and thus become one with it. We feel one with them and
one in them.

This later view was to a great extent expressed by Schiller in his
"Aesthetical Letters."

But art and aesthetics, in the sense in which these terms are used and
understood by German philosophical writers, such as Schiller, embrace a
wider field than the fine arts. Lessing, in his "Laocoon," had already
shown the point of contrast between painting and poetry; and aesthetics,
being defined as the science of the beautiful, must of necessity embrace
poetry. Accordingly Schiller's essays on tragic art, pathos, and
sentimental poetry, contained in this volume, are justly classed under
his aesthetical writings.

This being so, it is important to estimate briefly the transitions of
German poetry before Schiller, and the position that he occupied in its
historic development.

The first classical period of German poetry and literature was contained
between A. D. 1190 and 1300. It exhibits the intimate blending of the
German and Christian elements, and their full development in splendid
productions, for this was the period of the German national epos, the
"Nibelungenlied," and of the "Minnegesang."