y by
referring conceptions to the facts of experience. In short, stupidity
cannot rise above reality, nor the intelligence descend below truth.
Thus, in as far as the want of reality and attachment to the real are
only the consequence of a want and a defect, indifference to the real and
an interest taken in appearances are a real enlargement of humanity and a
decisive step towards culture. In the first place it is the proof of an
exterior liberty, for as long as necessity commands and want solicits,
the fancy is strictly chained down to the real: it is only when want is
satisfied that it develops without hinderance. But it is also the proof
of an internal liberty, because it reveals to us a force which,
independent of an external substratum, sets itself in motion, and has
sufficient energy to remove from itself the solicitations of nature. The
reality of things is effected by things, the appearance of things is the
work of man, and a soul that takes pleasure in appearance does not take
pleasure in what it receives but in what it makes.

It is self-evident that I am speaking of aesthetical evidence different
from reality and truth, and not of logical appearance identical with
them. Therefore if it is liked it is because it is an appearance, and
not because it is held to be something better than it is: the first
principle alone is a play, whilst the second is a deception. To give a
value to the appearance of the first kind can never injure truth, because
it is never to be feared that it will supplant it--the only way in which
truth can be injured. To despise this appearance is to despise in
general all the fine arts of which it is the essence. Nevertheless, it
happens sometimes that the understanding carries its zeal for reality as
far as this intolerance, and strikes with a sentence of ostracism all the
arts relating to beauty in appearance, because it is only an appearance.
However, the intelligence only shows this vigorous spirit when it calls
to mind the affinity pointed out further back. I shall find some day the
occasion to treat specially of the limits of beauty in its appearance.

It is nature herself which raises man from reality to appearance by
endowing him with two senses which only lead him to the knowledge of the
real through appearance. In the eye and the ear the organs of the senses
are already freed from the persecutions of nature, and the object with
which we are immediately in contact through the animal