onception like Kant, nor the historical like Herder, who strove thus
to account for the genesis of our ideas of beauty and art. He struck out
a middle path, which presents certain deficiencies to the advocates of
either of these two systems. He leans upon Kantian ideas, but without
scholastic constraint. Pure speculation, which seeks to set free the
form from all contents and matter, was remote from his creative genius,
to which the world of matter and sense was no hinderance, but a necessary
envelop for his forms.

His removal to Jena in 1791, and acquaintance with Reinhold, familiarized
him with the Kantian philosophy, but he only appreciated it by halves.
The bare and bald dealing with fundamental principles was at this time
equally repulsive to Goethe and Schiller, the man of the world and the
man of life. But Schiller did not find anywhere at that time justice
done to the dignity of art, or honor to the substantial value of beauty.

The Aesthetical Essays in this volume appeared for the most part since
1792, in the "Thalia" and the "Hours" periodicals. The first "On the
Ground of our Pleasure in Tragic Subjects" (1792), applies Kantian
principles of the sublime to tragedy, and shows Schiller's lofty estimate
of this class of poetry. With Kant he shows that the source of all
pleasure is suitableness; the touching and sublime elicit this feeling,
implying the existence of unsuitableness. In this article he makes the
aim and source of art to consist in giving enjoyment, in pleasing. To
nature pleasure is a mediate object, to art its main object. The same
proposition appears in Schiller's paper on Tragic Art (1792), closely
connected with the former. This article contains views of the affection
of pity that seem to approximate the Aristotelian propositions about
tragedy.

His views on the sublime are expressed in two papers, "The Sublime" and
"The Pathetic," in which we trace considerable influence of Lessing and
Winckelmann. He is led especially to strong antagonism against the
French tragedy, and he indulges in a lengthy consideration of the passage
of Virgil on Laocoon, showing the necessity of suffering and the pathetic
in connection with moral adaptations to interest us deeply.

All these essays bespeak the poet who has tried his hand at tragedy, but
in his next paper, "On Grace and Dignity," we trace more of the moralist.
Those passages where he takes up a medium position between sense and
reason, between Goet