cessary to infer from a free determination the idea of
previous suffering.

It follows that the first alone can be expressed by the plastic arts,
because these arts give but that which is simultaneous; but the poet can
extend his domain over one and the other. Even more; when the plastic
art has to represent a sublime action, it must necessarily bring it back
to sublimity.

In order that the sublimity of action should take place, not only must
the suffering of man have no influence upon the moral constitution, but
rather the opposite must be the case. The affection is the work of his
moral character. This can happen in two ways: either mediately, or
according to the law of liberty, when out of respect for such and such a
duty it decides from free choice to suffer--in this case, the idea of
duty determines as a motive, and its suffering is a voluntary act--or
immediately, and according to the necessity of nature, when he expiates
by a moral suffering the violation of duty; in this second case, the idea
of duty determines him as a force, and his suffering is no longer an
effect. Regulus offers us an example of the first kind, when, to keep
his word, he gives himself up to the vengeance of the Carthaginians; and
he would serve as an example of the second class, if, having betrayed his
trust, the consciousness of this crime would have made him miserable. In
both cases suffering has a moral course, but with this difference, that
on the one part Regulus shows us its moral character, and that, on the
other, he only shows us that he was made to have such a character. In
the first case he is in our eyes a morally great person; in the second he
is only aesthetically great.

This last distinction is important for the tragic art; it consequently
deserves to be examined more closely.

Man is already a sublime object, but only in the aesthetic sense, when
the state in which he is gives us an idea of his human destination, even
though we might not find this destination realized in his person. He
only becomes sublime to us in a moral point of view, when he acts,
moreover, as a person, in a manner conformable with this destination; if
our respect bears not only on his moral faculty, but on the use he makes
of this faculty; if dignity, in his case, is due, not only to his moral
aptitude; but to the real morality of his conduct. It is quite a
different thing to direct our judgment and attention to the moral faculty
generally, and to t