erfect
exist; but when it is rigorously required that that which exists should
be good, beautiful and perfect, this character of mind is called sublime,
because it contains in it positively all the characteristics of a fine
mind without sharing its negative features. A sign by which beautiful
and good minds, but having weaknesses, are recognized, is the aspiring
always to find their moral ideal realized in the world of facts, and
their being painfully affected by all that places an obstacle to it. A
mind thus constituted is reduced to a sad state of dependence in relation
to chance, and it may always be predicted of it, without fear of
deception, that it will give too large a share to the matter in moral and
aesthetical things, and that it will not sustain the more critical trials
of character and taste. Moral imperfections ought not to be to us a
cause of suffering and of pain: suffering and pain bespeak rather an
ungratified wish than an unsatisfied moral want. An unsatisfied moral
want ought to be accompanied by a more manly feeling, and fortify our
mind and confirm it in its energy rather than make us unhappy and
pusillanimous.

Nature has given to us two genii as companions in our life in this lower
world. The one, amiable and of good companionship, shortens the troubles
of the journey by the gayety of its plays. It makes the chains of
necessity light to us, and leads us amidst joy and laughter, to the most
perilous spots, where we must act as pure spirits and strip ourselves of
all that is body, on the knowledge of the true and the practice of duty.
Once when we are there, it abandons us, for its realm is limited to the
world of sense; its earthly wings could not carry it beyond. But at this
moment the other companion steps upon the stage, silent and grave, and
with his powerful arm carries us beyond the precipice that made us giddy.

In the former of these genii we recognize the feeling of the beautiful,
in the other the feeling of the sublime. No doubt the beautiful itself
is already an expression of liberty. This liberty is not the kind that
raises us above the power of nature, and that sets us free from all
bodily influence, but it is only the liberty which we enjoy as men,
without issuing from the limits of nature. In the presence of beauty we
feel ourselves free, because the sensuous instincts are in harmony with
the laws of reason. In presence of the sublime we feel ourselves
sublime, because the sensuous