under sensuous impulsion that which he
ought to have determined merely by the motive of duty, as it is noble and
honorable for him to incline towards conformity with laws, harmony,
independence; there even where the vulgar man only satisfies a legitimate
want. In a word, in the domain of truth and morality, sensuousness must
have nothing to determine; but in the sphere of happiness, form may find
a place, and the instinct of play prevail.

Thus then, in the indifferent sphere of physical life, man ought to
already commence his moral life; his own proper activity ought already to
make way in passivity, and his rational liberty beyond the limits of
sense; he ought already to impose the law of his will upon his
inclinations; he ought--if you will permit me the expression--to carry
into the domain of matter the war against matter, in order to be
dispensed from combating this redoubtable enemy upon the sacred field of
liberty; he ought to learn to have nobler desires, not to be forced to
have sublime volitions. This is the fruit of aesthetic culture, which
submits to the laws of the beautiful, in which neither the laws of nature
nor those of reason suffer, which does not force the will of man, and
which by the form it gives to exterior life already opens internal life.

LETTER XXIV.

Accordingly three different moments or stages of development can be
distinguished, which the individual man, as well as the whole race, must
of necessity traverse in a determinate order if they are to fulfil the
circle of their determination. No doubt, the separate periods can be
lengthened or shortened, through accidental causes which are inherent
either in the influence of external things or under the free caprice of
men: but neither of them can be overstepped, and the order of their
sequence cannot be inverted either by nature or by the will. Man, in his
physical condition, suffers only the power of nature; he gets rid of this
power in the aesthetical condition, and he rules them in the moral state.

What is man before beauty liberates him from free pleasure, and the
serenity of form tames down the savageness of life? Eternally uniform in
his aims, eternally changing in his judgments, self-seeking without being
himself, unfettered without being free, a slave without serving any rule.
At this period, the world is to him only destiny, not yet an object; all
has existence for him only in as far as it procures existence to him; a
thin