m of humanity that
they have in view.

Consequently in the sequel of my researches I shall adopt the course that
nature herself follows with man considered from the point of view of
aesthetics, and setting out from the two kinds of beauty, I shall rise to
the idea of the genus. I shall examine the effects produced on man by
the gentle and graceful beauty when its springs of action are in full
play, and also those produced by energetic beauty when they are relaxed.
I shall do this to confound these two sorts of beauty in the unity of the
beau-ideal, in the same way that the two opposite forms and modes of
being of humanity are absorbed in the unity of the ideal man.

LETTER XVII.

While we were only engaged in deducing the universal idea of beauty from
the conception of human nature in general, we had only to consider in the
latter the limits established essentially in itself, and inseparable from
the notion of the finite. Without attending to the contingent
restrictions that human nature may undergo in the real world of
phenomena, we have drawn the conception of this nature directly from
reason, as a source of every necessity, and the ideal of beauty has been
given us at the same time with the ideal of humanity.

But now we are coming down from the region of ideas to the scene of
reality, to find man in a determinate state, and consequently in limits
which are not derived from the pure conception of humanity, but from
external circumstances and from an accidental use of his freedom. But,
although the limitation of the idea of humanity may be very manifold in
the individual, the contents of this idea suffice to teach us that we can
only depart from it by two opposite roads. For if the perfection of man
consist in the harmonious energy of his sensuous and spiritual forces, he
can only lack this perfection through the want of harmony and the want of
energy. Thus, then, before having received on this point the testimony
of experience, reason suffices to assure us that we shall find the real
and consequently limited man in a state of tension or relaxation,
according as the exclusive activity of isolated forces troubles the
harmony of his being, or as the unity of his nature is based on the
uniform relaxation of his physical and spiritual forces. These opposite
limits are, as we have now to prove, suppressed by the beautiful, which
re-establishes harmony in man when excited, and energy in man when
relaxed; and whi