teful appreciation and remembrance
than was essentially their due. A phenomenon of a different sort, which is
also to be placed at the threshold between Kant and Fichte, but which forms
rather a supplement to the noetics and ethics of the latter than a link in
the transition to them, has, on the contrary, gained an honorable position
in the memory of the German people, viz., Schiller's aesthetics.[1] In
its center stand the Kantian antithesis of sensibility and reason and
the reconciliation of the two sides of human nature brought about by its
occupation with the beautiful. Artistic activity or the play-impulse
mediates between the lower, sensuous matter-impulse and the higher,
rational form-impulse, and unites the, two in harmonious co-operation.
Where appetite seeks after satisfaction, and where the strict idea of duty
rules, there only half the man is occupied; neither lust nor moral worth is
beautiful. In order that beauty and grace may arise, the matter-impulse
and the form-impulse, or sensibility and reason, must manifest themselves
uniformly and in harmony. Only when he "plays" is man wholly and entirely
man; only through art is the development of humanity possible. The
discernment of the fact that the beautiful brings into equilibrium the two
fundamental impulses, one or the other of which preponderates in sensuous
desire and in moral volition, does not of itself decide the relative rank
of artistic and moral activity. The recognition of this mediating position
of art may be connected with the view that it forms a transitional stage
toward and a means of education for morality, as well as with the other,
that in it human nature attains its completion. Evidence of both views can
be found in Schiller's writings. At first he favors the Kantian moralism,
which admits nothing higher than the good will, and sets art the task
of educating men up to morality by ennobling their natural impulses.
Gradually, however, aesthetic activity changes in his view from a
preparation for morality into the ultimate goal of human endeavor. Peaceful
reconciliation is of more worth than the spirit's hardly gained victory
in the conflict with the sensibility; fine feeling is more than rational
volition; the highest ideal is the beautiful soul, in which inclination not
merely obeys the command of duty, but anticipates it.

[Footnote 1: The most important of Schiller's aesthetic essays are those
_On Grace and Dignity_, 1793; _On Naive and Se