appearance. Therefore, a man would
calculate very badly who took the road of the ideal to save himself that
of reality. Thus, reality would not have much to fear from appearance,
as we understand it; but, on the other hand, appearance would have more
to fear from reality. Chained to matter, man uses appearance for his
purposes before he allows it a proper personality in the art of the
ideal: to come to that point a complete revolution must take place in his
mode of feeling, otherwise, he would not be even on the way to the ideal.
Consequently, when we find in man the signs of a pure and disinterested
esteem, we can infer that this revolution has taken place in his nature,
and that humanity has really begun in him. Signs of this kind are found
even in the first and rude attempts that he makes to embellish his
existence, even at the risk of making it worse in its material
conditions. As soon as he begins to prefer form to substance and to risk
reality for appearance (known by him to be such), the barriers of animal
life fall, and he finds himself on a track that has no end.

Not satisfied with the needs of nature, he demands the superfluous.
First, only the superfluous of matter, to secure his enjoyment beyond the
present necessity; but afterward; he wishes a superabundance in matter,
an aesthetical supplement to satisfy the impulse for the formal, to
extend enjoyment beyond necessity. By piling up provisions simply for a
future use, and anticipating their enjoyment in the imagination, he
outsteps the limits of the present moment, but not those of time in
general. He enjoys more; he does not enjoy differently. But as soon as
he makes form enter into his enjoyment, and he keeps in view the forms of
the objects which satisfy his desires, he has not only increased his
pleasure in extent and intensity, but he has also ennobled it in mode and
species.

No doubt nature has given more than is necessary to unreasoning beings;
she has caused a gleam of freedom to shine even in the darkness of animal
life. When the lion is not tormented by hunger, and when no wild beast
challenges him to fight, his unemployed energy creates an object for
himself; full of ardor, he fills the re-echoing desert with his terrible
roars, and his exuberant force rejoices in itself, showing itself without
an object. The insect flits about rejoicing in life in the sunlight, and
it is certainly not the cry of want that makes itself heard in the
melodious s