t of reason by resisting what is
sensuous, is a violence we undergo, and rest of mind combined with
physical movement will be a recreation par excellence. But if we make
our natural state consist in a limitless power of human expression and of
freely disposing of all our strength, all that divides these forces will
be a forced state, and recreation will be what brings all our nature to
harmony. Thus, the first of these ideal recreations is simply determined
by the wants of our sensuous nature; the second, by the autonomous
activity of human nature. Which of these two kinds of recreation can be
demanded of the poet? Theoretically, the question is inadmissible, as no
one would put the human ideal beneath the brutal. But in practice the
requirements of a poet have been especially directed to the sensuous
ideal, and for the most part favor, though not the esteem, for these
sorts of works is regulated thereby. Men's minds are mostly engaged in a
labor that exhausts them, or an enjoyment that sets them asleep. Now
labor makes rest a sensible want, much more imperious than that of the
moral nature; for physical nature must be satisfied before the mind can
show its requirements. On the other hand, enjoyment paralyzes the moral
instinct. Hence these two dispositions common in men are very injurious
to the feeling for true beauty, and thus very few even of the best judge
soundly in aesthetics. Beauty results from the harmony between spirit
and sense; it addresses all the faculties of man, and can only be
appreciated if a man employs fully all his strength. He must bring to it
an open sense, a broad heart, a spirit full of freshness. All a man's
nature must be on the alert, and this is not the case with those divided
by abstraction, narrowed by formulas, enervated by application. They
demand, no doubt, a material for the senses; but not to quicken, only to
suspend, thought. They ask to be freed from what? From a load that
oppressed their indolence, and not a rein that curbed their activity.

After this can one wonder at the success of mediocre talents in
aesthetics? or at the bitter anger of small minds against true energetic
beauty? They reckon on finding therein a congenial recreation, and
regret to discover that a display of strength is required to which they
are unequal. With mediocrity they are always welcome; however little
mind they bring, they want still less to exhaust the author's
inspiration. They are relieved of the loa