ty, can become visible.

Not only, however, as active principle, but as spirit and effective
science, must the essence appear to us in the form, in order that we
may truly apprehend it. For all unity must be spiritual in nature and
origin; and what is the aim of all investigation of Nature but to find
science therein? For that wherein there is no Understanding cannot
be the object of Understanding; the Unknowing cannot be known. The
science by which Nature works is not, however, like human science,
connected with reflection upon itself; in it, the conception is not
separate from the act, nor the design from the execution. Therefore,
rude matter strives, as it were, blindly, after regular shape,
and unknowingly assumes pure stereometric forms, which belong,
nevertheless, to the realm of ideas, and are something spiritual in
the material.

The sublimest arithmetic and geometry are innate in the stars, and
unconsciously displayed by them in their motions. More distinctly, but
still beyond their grasp, the living cognition appears in animals;
and thus we see them, though wandering about without reflection, bring
about innumerable results far more excellent than themselves: the bird
that, intoxicated with music, transcends itself in soul-like tones;
the little artistic creature, that, without practise or instruction,
accomplishes light works of architecture; but all directed by an
overpowering spirit, that lightens in them already with single flashes
of knowledge, but as yet appears nowhere as the full sun, as in Man.

This formative science in Nature and Art is the link that connects
idea and form, body and soul. Before everything stands an eternal
idea, formed in the Infinite Understanding; but by what means does
this idea pass into actuality and embodiment? Only through the
creative science that is as necessarily connected with the Infinite
Understanding, as in the artist the principle that seizes the idea
of unsensuous Beauty is linked with that which sets it forth to the
senses.

If that artist be called happy and praiseworthy before all to whom
the gods have granted this creative spirit, then that work of art will
appear excellent which shows to us, as in outline, this unadulterated
energy of creation and activity of Nature.

It was long ago perceived that, in Art, not everything is performed
with consciousness; that, with the conscious activity, an unconscious
action must combine; and that it is of the perfect u