essity. The danger for the sentimental genius is, on the
other hand, by trying to remove all limits, of nullifying human nature
absolutely, and not only rising, as is its right and duty, beyond finite
and determinate reality, as far as absolute possibility, or in other
terms to idealize; but of passing even beyond possibility, or, in other
words, dreaming. This fault--overstraining--is precisely dependent on
the specific property of the sentimental process, as the opposite defect,
inertia, depends on the peculiar operation of the simple genius. The
simple genius lets nature dominate, without restricting it; and as nature
in her particular phenomena is always subject to some want, it follows
that the simple sentiment will not be always exalted enough to resist the
accidental limitations of the present hour. The sentimental genius, on
the contrary, leaves aside the real world, to rise to the ideal and to
command its matter with free spontaneity. But while reason, according to
law, aspires always to the unconditional, so the sentimental genius will
not always remain calm enough to restrain itself uniformly and without
interruption within the conditions implied by the idea of human nature,
and to which reason must always, even in its freest acts, remain
attached. He could only confine himself in these conditions by help of a
receptivity proportioned to his free activity; but most commonly the
activity predominates over receptivity in the sentimental poet, as much
as receptivity over activity in the simple poet. Hence, in the
productions of simple genius, if sometimes inspiration is wanting, so
also in works of sentimental poetry the object is often missed. Thus,
though they proceed in opposite ways, they will both fall into a vacuum,
for before the aesthetic judgment an object without inspiration, and
inspiration without an object, are both negations.

The poets who borrow their matter too much from thought, and rather
conceive poetic pictures by the internal abundance of ideas than by the
suggestions of feeling, are more or less likely to be addicted to go thus
astray. In their creations reason makes too little of the limits of the
sensuous world, and thought is always carried too far for experience to
follow it. Now, when the idea is carried so far that not only no
experience corresponds to it--as is the case in the beau ideal--but also
that it is repugnant to the conditions of all possible experience, so
that, in order to