UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PARALLEL THEMES AND THEIR TREATMENT IN SCHILLER AND SHAFTESBURY BY ALLAN L. CARTER A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PHILADELPHIA, PA. 1919 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PARALLEL THEMES AND THEIR TREATMENT IN SCHILLER AND SHAFTESBURY BY ALLAN L. CARTER A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PHILADELPHIA, PA. 1919 i ' . PRESS OF STEINMAN & FOLTZ Lancaster, Pa. TO MY MOTHER WHOSE DELIGHTFUL COMPANIONSHIP AND VALUABLE COUNSEL MEAN A VERY GREAT DEAL TO ME V 420204 FOREWORD This study is the development of an investigation undertaken at the instance of Doctor Clement Vollmer for his seminary in "The Relations of Eighteenth Century Thought to Litera- ture." I am indebted to Doctor Vollmer not only for suggest- ing the subject, but also for much incisive comment in the field and for many helpful suggestions about my work. My thanks are also due Doctor Daniel Bussier Shumway for helpful guid- ance and his unfailing interest during all stages of my study. I am greatly obliged to the members of the Germanic Associa- tion whose lively discussion of my paper proved as helpful as it was delightful. I wish also to thank Doctor Josiah H. Penni- man for my use of his fine editions of Shaftesbury's "Char- acteristics" and of related critical material. A. L. C. PARALLEL THEMES AND THEIR TREATMENT IN SCHILLER AND SHAFTESBURY INTRODUCTION My aim in this study is chiefly expositional ; I seek to present the essential similarities in the central themes of Schiller and of Shaftesbury and to describe the manner in which these themes are treated, hence no attempt is made to take up the writings chronologically, or to determine the validity of any theme for the complete structure of either writer. It is not my purpose to attempt to prove that Schiller borrowed, or did not borrow, his doctrines from Shaftesbury; moreover, I believe that one's attitude on such questions, where the evidence is so obviously conjectural and slight, is at most matter for personal preference, certainly it does not permit of scientific establishment. Real justification for a work of this kind is to be sought less in the challenging statements 1 about the historical relations of Schiller and Shaftesbury, although these necessarily have their place, than in the need for a succinct account of their simi- larities in belief and of the intellectual and emotional processes by which these beliefs are bodied out. To anyone attempting to write about the philosophical views of Schiller there are at once presented numerous difficulties ; these exist both in the very inconsequential manner in which the material is brought to paper as well as in the more funda- mental matter of terminology. 2 It is open to question whether 1 At the present there exists the most oppositeness in view about the rela- tions of Schiller and Shaftesbury: Schiller has been made to appear in all degrees of intellectual kinship with Shaftesbury, varying from a direct dis- ciple to an absolute antithesis. In reviewing the statements made apropos of Schiller and Shaftesbury up to the present, one cannot but be convinced that a good deal of the critical work which has been offered is so general that it can have no specific reference, and that the broad assumptions of bond between the two authors are as applicable to the relations of other writers who have been interested in similar themes. 2 The following works deal with the problems presented in Schiller's ter- mini: Prolegomena zu einem Lexikon der aesthetisch-ethischen Terminologie Friedrich Schillers, Julia Wernly, Leipzig, 1909. Schillers aesthetisch- sittliche Weltanschauung, Dr. Paul Geyer, Berlin, 1896. 8 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury Schiller is saying anything new in these somewhat remarkable terms, and what Carlyle remarks rather facetiously on the Kantian philosophy in general may be here not without appli- cation to Schiller. 3 Schiller is not fundamentally a philosopher, and although he establishes an exceedingly close articulation in much of his writing between his freer poetical bent and his formal interests in philosophy, yet he never achieves the con- sciously crisp sequence and the orderliness of thought which are so desirable in philosophical studies, and into some of his articles he brings a baffling poetic fancifulness of term which leaves the real thought content vague. Furthermore, there is in no strict sense of the term a regular philosophical system in Schiller, and while he does not share Shaftesbury's attitude toward one, 4 his poetic drift always bears him outside any purposive cata- loguing of ideas, and consequently what is subsidiary in one essay often assumes prime importance in another work. This shifting of emphasis presents a peculiar problem in Schiller; and it has undoubtedly contributed much to the anti- podal views which obtain of his relations to Kant. To the student of Schiller's incomposite philosophical studies, then, the essential difficulty is to know where to take him, what essay or group of letters to accept as the true norm of his think- ing, and what opinion to relegate into the background as beside the main drift of his thought, or as irrelevant and even as anti- thetical to it. Manifestly, there is much to the credit of the attitude which seeks to obtain a broad reading of his philos- 3 Life of Friedrich Schiller, Thomas Carlyle, London, 1825 (reprint 1875), Part Three, p. 98. "To an exoteric reader the philosophy of Kant almost appears to invert the common maxim; its end and aim seem not to be 'to make abstruse things simple,' but to make simple things abstruse. Often a proposition of inscrutable and dread aspect when resolutely grappled with and torn from its shady den, and its bristling entrenchments of uncouth terminology, and dragged forth into the light of day, to be seen of the natural eye, and tried by merely human understanding, proves to be a very harmless truth, familiar to us from old, sometimes so familiar as to be a truism." 4 Characteristics, fifth edition, I: 290. "But for the philosopher who pre- tends to be wholly taken up in considering the higher faculties, and exam- ining the powers and principles of his understanding: if in reality his phil- osophy be sovereign to the matter professed; if it go beside the mark, and reaches nothing we can truly call our interest or concern; it must be somewhat worse than mere ignorance or idiotism. The most ingenious way of becoming foolish is by a system." Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 9 ophy, 5 if actually to the exclusion of certain of the minutiae, and it has important advantages on the side of conservatism. On the whole, it is probably true that few poets have striven more earnestly than Schiller to make their intellectual judg- ments the children of uncontaminated reason, for he lived at a time when reason not only reigned supreme as the trusted arbiter in all disputes, but was confidently looked to as the interpreter of all the hidden things of life. But take Schiller where you will, there is always the potential emotional element lurking in the background, ready at a moment's notice to spring forward and save a too finely spun intellectual fabric by sub- stituting a cloth of commoner pattern. For the sake of completeness and truth it is necessary to add that Schiller is frequently the mere rhetorician and, occasionally, perilously close to the pedant, his curious fondness for the intel- lectual jugglery of the paradox being, perhaps, his worst failing. Again, there is an added difficulty in the distance in time from the present. Even under favorable circumstances it is hard to reconstruct the intellectual trend of former periods sufficiently well to furnish their accurate and well regulated picture in entirety. This is especially true of the eighteenth century which, intellectually, at least, seems so incompatible with the present. This difficulty of remoteness in time is equally applicable to Shaftesbury, whose work even beyond its stylistic difficulties of archaism and classicism presents peculiar problems. In England, on the whole, Shaftesbury has not been taken very seriously, being frequently dismissed as a charlatan, or what is worse, "an intellectual coxcomb"; al- though unquestionably of influence, he has never been read in England with the indulgence that he has received from the Germans. 6 Shaftesbury, unlike Schiller, does not invent terms 6 This Professor E. C. Wilm has striven to do in his valuable book, "The Philosophy of Schiller in its Historical Relations," Boston, 1912. 6 It is illuminating and interesting in this connection to make a comparison of the attitude toward Shaftesbury as represented in the English works of Saintsbury, Leslie Stephen, and Bosanquet with the discussion on Shaftes- bury in Hettner which may be taken as normative for the Germans. Bosan- quet, for instance, says: "Shaftesbury is far from being a great philosopher, and does little more than reproduce in terms of the individual's sensibility the current ideas of the age"; and Hettner: "We have every reason to return to his writings, for in them we may learn not only the truth, but also the beauty of speculative thinking." io Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury as he goes along, nor does he ever engage, wilfully at least, in metaphysical obscurity; the real difficulty in arriving at a suit- able interpretation of his work lies in the spirit with which he treats his subject, whether it be his jest or his earnest. Various degrees of influence of Shaftesbury upon the writings of Schiller have been assumed in all the more thoroughgoing investigations of Schiller's philosophical thought. In general there have been two ways of looking at the question, both of which have in turn been the result of the decision regarding Schiller's relations to Kant. 7 The first and older view is held by those who believe that Schiller became essentially Kantian following his intensive study of Kant's philosophy during which period Schiller was supposed to go over to the Kantian prin- ciples definitively. These writers, then, place whatever influ- ence is traceable to Shaftesbury in the earliest philosophical writings of Schiller, and they assume a repudiation of Shaftes- bury when Schiller takes up the study of Kant. The later view which has for its sponsor no less than the able writer Windelband has been elaborated by Professor Oskar F. Wal- zel; 8 it has not, however, remained unchallenged. 9 This view undertakes to derive the closeness of opinion between Shaftes- bury and Schiller from Schiller's contact with Herder 10 and Wieland, 11 both of whom have been known as ardent champions of Shaftesbury in Germany. Such a conception tends to dis- regard any possibility of influence from Shaftesbury which may have resulted through Schiller's early study of Fergusson, and Professor Walzel in his discussion seems to distinguish 7 As is well known, the relations of Schiller to Kant have been the sub- ject of the most opposite views. That Schiller's work is not only the logical complement, but that it represents a further development of the Kantian ethics is the opinion advanced in a fairly recent book on the subject by Leon- ard Nelson: Die kritische Ethik bei Kant, Schiller und Fries, Goettingen, 19 14. See, also, Professor Anton Applemann's: Der Unterschied in der Auffassung der Ethik bei Kant und Schiller. New York, 1917. 8 See especially his introduction to the eleventh volume of the Saekular Cotta edition of Schiller's works, Stuttgart, 1904. 9 Schiller als Denker, B. K. Engel, p. 7; 15. 10 Der Einfluss Shaftesburys auf Herder, Stanford University Disserta- tion. Irvin C. Hatch. 11 Wieland and Shaftesbury, Charles Elson, Columbia University Press, 1913. Shaftesburys Einfluss auf Ch. M. Wieland, Herbert Grudzinski, Stuttgart, 19 ft. Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 1 1 between Shaftesbury's indirect influence through Fergusson in the Garve translation and Shaftesbury's more direct influence through Herder and Wieland which came later, what this dis- tinction is, however, remains unsaid. Such an interpretation very naturally finds its culmination in Schiller's elaboration of the "beautiful soul" as brought out in his essay on "Grace and Dignity." This conception, therefore, is taken as evi- dence of the denial of Kant and the enthronement of Shaftes- bury in a point which contains the crux of the whole question. Those who hold to the opinion that Schiller is definitely Kantian quite conceivably are less apt to bring forward the essay on "Grace and Dignity" and accord it the position of the keystone in Schiller's thought, as many writers incline to do, but they insist rather upon the importance of such later work as "On the Service to Morals of Aesthetic Habits," in which it is not impossible to see an expansion of the Kantian doctrine and a limitation of Shaftesbury's theme. As matter of fact, however, all these views may be well substantiated from the evidence assembled from Schiller's essays, although too frequently one of the other of these opinions has been supported merely through exclusion of part of the work. In fine, the assumptions on Schiller's kinship, or on his endebtedness, as some would have it, to Shaftesbury up to this time amount to this: (i) that Schiller borrowed the idea of practising virtue out of pure in- clination from Shaftesbury; (2) that the conception of the "beautiful soul" is a sort of rehabilitation of Shaftesbury's "virtuoso"; (3) that the principle of the advancement of moral ends through aesthetic means is the same in both authors; (4) that Schiller develops his early pantheism in the Shaftes- burian vein; (5) that Schiller's notion of world harmony is as referable to Shaftesbury as to Leibnitz. Hence it follows, if the assumptions of those who see essential closeness in thought between Shaftesbury and Schiller are taken at their full significance, that Shaftesbury's work is entirely prelusive to Schiller, Schiller doing little more than to comment upon the operation of the earlier ideas and adding simply what might be termed the natural accretion to Shaftesbury's system during the eighteenth century. Obviously the difficulty in the way of these theories about the influence of Shaftesbury upon Schiller is the fact that these 12 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury writers who support them are attempting to assume specific reference for what is nothing more than a broad principle, or even a generalization. It cannot be said that any of the ideas mentioned are in a strict sense the exclusive property of Shaftes- bury; in fact, they are such as might easily suggest themselves to any mind strongly bent by an interest in aesthetics and ethics. 12 Moreover, the external evidence that Schiller knew Shaftesbury at first hand is insufficient; and there is no reason to suppose that Schiller would bridle any enthusiasm for Shaftes- bury in his letters where he is particularly open and full. If any explanation why Schiller wrote as he did in the Shaftes- burian or Platonic vein is necessary, it is much more likely to be found in a study of his personality and temperament 13 than in his relations to earlier thinkers. n As an illuminating fact for these theories of influence it may be men- tioned that in Dr. Rand's recently published "Second Characters" of Shaftes- bury, which Schiller could not possibly have known, there is, perhaps, the closest approach to Schiller's ideal of aesthetic training and the value of such training for the individual and for the state. 13 A study of this kind for Shaftesbury has already been made by M. F. Libby : Influence of the Idea of Aesthetic Proportion on the Ethics of Shaftes- bury. American Journal of Psychology, XII. More technical still is the work of Georg Kilian: Psychologisch-statistische Untersuchungen ueber die Darstellung der Gemuetsbewegungen in Schillers Lyrik, 19 10. PARALLEL THEMES AND THEIR TREATMENT IN SCHILLER AND SHAFTESBURY General Characterization of Their Ethics Schiller and Shaftesbury show greatest kinship in their con- ception and treatment of ethics. 1 The quintessence of both is essentially Greek and is derivable particularly from the ideas of Plato 2 and Socrates which, as is well known, remained uncul- tivated throughout the middle ages only to blossom forth with freshness at the end of the seventeenth century under the influ- ence of the Cambridge Platonists. In seeking to characterize somewhat generally, by way of introduction, the main trend in these ethical principles it is enough to point out that their main bent is on the side of intuitive goodness and the perfec- tional possibilities of mankind, both Schiller and Shaftesbury being, as matter of fact, broadly classifiable as aesthetical intu- itionalists in their ethics. 3 Both systems are supported further by the fact that the perfectional possibilities of mankind are aided in their development by the addition of happiness. Al- though both these ethical systems are fundamentally intuitive and perfectional, they are rarely ever purely so. Both authors proceed occasionally from and toward hedonistic principles, and they substance out their systems by them. Jural ethics, whether the result of religion or of severely rationalistic precepts, are distasteful to both writers. 1 Hettner's remark in his History of English Literature, p. 175, that the German phrase "Trachtet zuerst nach dem Schoenen, und das Gute wird Euch von selbst zufallen" is referable to Shaftesbury's doctrine is inter- esting. 2 See Leslie Stephen : History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. 2, p. 24; and Hettner, History of English Literature, p. 174. 3 The mooted question whether Schiller in the final analysis, particularly of his later works, is to be accounted moralist or aesthete seems to be wholly a matter of emphasis; while on the whole, the earliest penchant discernible in his writings lies clearly towards an interest in morals, what is basic in his later writings is not so clear. Similarly, Shaftesbury proceeds from his interest in morals, though not towards aesthetics, since with him the aesthetical judgment is coextensive with the ethical judgment, and the per- ception of the good follows in the same way as the perception of the beau- tiful. 13 14 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury Intuition; the Moral Sense; Aesthetic Education That man is by nature good is one of the keynotes of Shaftes- bury and this idea is so thoroughgoing that he holds it is only by some violent perversion of his nature that man is capable of anything bad. 4 Schiller supports the same view, although, curiously enough, he finds Kant's arguments correct in which he establishes a basic propensity in man toward evil; such an interpretation of human nature, however, is revolting to Schiller. 5 In this fundamental conception lienotabledifferences. Shaftes- bury invariably exaggerates the inherent moral sense of man, while Schiller prefers to treat it as a subjective tendency which needs much care and especial training. It is in the fuller devel- opment of the ineradicable good that Shaftesbury goes beyond what Schiller would be likely to subscribe to, although Schiller is content to be less explicit upon this point in his formal utter- ances. Goodness with Shaftesbury, almost uniformly, results from conformity with an external and hence objective thing — something to be recognized as freely and as unerringly as the excellence of a work of art. Schiller takes the more conven- tional view of goodness, that it is the spiritual part of man which expresses itself from within outwards towards ideal con- duct, but which corresponds with the symmetry and perfection of the universe. The real divergence, however, is that good- ness, according to Shaftesbury, is something full-fledged, and that whatever modifications it suffers are pretty sure to be on the detrimental side, while with Schiller the process of education is again and again referred to as absolutely necessary before the supreme achievement of a beautiful morality can be approxi- mated. Schiller's chief contention in the moral education of mankind, the insistence upon the necessity of preliminary training in 4 Shaftesbury even prescribes the development of the sensuous nature within proper limits. Characteristics: 1:259-260. Proper self-love is cited as the highest form of wisdom. 6 One cannot escape the feeling that Schiller would be much more willing to subscribe to the doctrine of ineradicable goodness to the extent of Shaftes- bury were he not so much bound by his logic and, more especially, by the fear of "the incisive Kantian question," as he puts it. Compare his essay on "The Service to Morals of Aesthetic Habits." Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 15 aesthetics as an absolute basis for moral conduct, 6 has, broadly- speaking, in its elaborate transcendental psychology nothing with which Shaftesbury's main contention that the study of art helps to form a just taste which becomes of value in sensing harmony may be compared. In Shaftesbury there is matter of fact, if not altogether com- monplace, reasoning upon the value of training for the moral nature of man. Proceeding, here as elsewhere, to draw example from the physical side of man as well as from the animal king- dom, he starts with the thesis that unused parts become impaired and finally diseased, and that animals who do not fulfill the tasks that nature has set them become unnatural, "lose their instinct and ingenuity of their kind, whilst they continue in the pampered state." 7 So with man, also, it has been arranged that most are kept busy; some men, however, are provided with all things by the labors of others and are apt to remain inactive if they do not devote themselves "to letters, sciences, arts, husbandry and public offices, and they accordingly sink into settled idleness, supineness, and inactivity." Shaftesbury con- cludes: Such a life "must produce a total disorder of the passions, and break out in the strangest irregularities imaginable." 8 At bottom, Shaftesbury's discussion on this point is merely a plea for legitimate exercise; he is not narrowly concerned with the particular kind of exercise taken, unless it be for the fine gentlemen where he undoubtedly recommends a certain amount of activity with the arts. Schiller, on the other hand, intends his system to be more embracive and more broadly applicable. Laboriously in his "Letters on Aesthetic Education" with in many places a disconcerting wealth of paradoxical statement and even of fanciful treatment, Schiller evolves much fine-spun theory, and , while he never once comes firmly to grips with his formal subject, the cornerstone of his faith, the essential close- ness of virtue and beauty, is clear and it is placed conspicuously at the beginning of the work. 9 6 Twenty-third Letter: "In a word, there is no other way of making the sensual man reasonable but by first making him aesthetic." 7 Characteristics: II: 132. 8 Characteristics: 11:133. 9 First Letter. (Goedeke's Schiller, X: 276.) 1 6 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury The chief principles elaborated in this discussion (we have Schiller's word for it) are Kantian; certain it is that they bear little resemblance in their treatment to Shaftesbury's ideas. There is much circumventive logic about the intellectual and the emotional impulses, masquerading as the "matter-bent" and the "form-bent," really the earlier contentions in new guise. Schiller finally presses on to an abstraction of beauty, the main principles established on the way being that melting beauty relaxes the tense man, makes the sensual man thought- ful and the intellectual man susceptible to the world of senti- ment, while energetic beauty imparts vigor to the relaxed man. 10 The central point of the treatise, however, is reached where the aesthetic condition by eliminating the conflicting elements in man's nature clears the way for the natural impulses to func- tion unobstructed. In the idea that only out of the aesthetic condition can the moral properly develop Schiller in a sense inverts Shaftesbury's contention, since Shaftesbury holds that there must first be inner harmony, meaning a moral state, before the outward beauties can be observed. But Schiller's whole description here goes far beyond anything Shaftesbury suggests, although it is unquestionably in this parallelism, if not identification of ethical with the aesthetical judgment in Shaftesbury and in the aesthetical phase of the double standard in Schiller that simi- larities are involved. These similarities verge chiefly on the function of taste as an ethical determinant. Taste in morals is cultivated, accord- ing to Shaftesbury, precisely as taste in art, that is, by observing the best examples and studying them; but this moral taste for the harmony of "inward numbers" is a fundamental thing and it must come before the recognition of the outward har- monies, hence Shaftesbury conceives the success of the "deserv- ing artist" as conditioned by his understanding for moral beauty. 11 Schiller's description of the function of taste in ethical judgment is treated in his essay "On the Service to Morals of Aesthetic Habits." Here Schiller asserts as axiomatic that the moral may never seek its justification outside of itself, and that while taste may favor moral conduct, it can never by 10 Fifteenth Letter. (Goedeke's Schiller, X: 331.) 11 Characteristics: I: 338. Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 17 itself achieve absolute morality. 12 He thinks of taste as of true religion as a valuable aid toward moral conduct; but not that the aesthetic sense is the analogue for the ethical, and it should be regarded rather as a supplement to it instead of a substitute for it. The transition from the ethical to the aesthetical is much more immediate in Shaftesbury, and while Schiller brings his ethics and aesthetics into closer relations by his suggested edu- cative process, Shaftesbury is content to see but slight inde- pendent existence of these principles, and he either merges them or maintains the completest parallelism throughout their functioning, regarding them coexistent and coextensive. Just as the moral sense apprehends what is good, so the aesthetic sense selects what is proportionable. It is only in his more poetic and idealistic conceptions that Schiller approaches Shaftes- bury's trust in the emotional and aesthetical operation of ethics. For reality, however, they do not overlap, nor in their practical workings do they permit, strictly speaking, of parallelism. A striking similarity on the intuitional side of ethics, one which throws considerable light upon the basic views of both authors, is the immediacy with which the recognition of the proper kind of ethical response takes place. 13 In the story of the man who had fallen among thieves, 14 lost his clothes, and was forced to stay by the roadside in cold weather awaiting help, Schiller has five travelers pass by all of whom wish to help, but only one of whom is capable of performing an ideal moral act. This man, without reasoning and without calling up possible kinds of conduct before the bar of stern justice, simply acts with absolute directness. The reason for the in- hibition of the proper response from the other characters is interesting and closely in accord with the favorite views of Shaftesbury. The first man is unable to look upon any human suffering, and he absolves his obligation by leaving his purse — almost the precise illustration that Shaftesbury uses to show that an over-development of sympathy is harmful since it interferes with the proper functioning of the social affections. The second traveler requires pay for his services. The third n Goedeke's Schiller: X: 415. 13 Schiller admits of several degrees of moral action, as does Shaftesbury. 14 Schiller to Koerner, February 18, 1793. (Jonas III: 261-263.) 1 8 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury reluctantly consents to the use of his horse and his cloak, fear- ing that he himself may suffer from exposure. The next who chances to pass by is an enemy of the wounded man, but from sheer pity he consents to help, though not to forgive. Acting from mere impulse, the last man sets down his bundle to take up and carry the wounded man. Schiller's real quarrel with the first four men is that they remain too conscious of "them- selves and their belongings," while the act of the last man is spontaneous, unasked and undebated. Schiller dilates especially upon what he calls an autonomy of result, which, however, may follow from a diversity of means. Shaftesbury, also, in his discussion of temperance requires an absolute autonomy in morals. 15 Furthermore, Shaftesbury expressly declares that the good man is led by some "immediate affection, directly and not accidentally to good and against evil," 16 and there is not a better illustration of an act being done, as Shaftesbury puts it, "through insufficient and unequal affection" 17 than the very cases Schiller has here adduced. In another place Shaftesbury, in speaking about the immediacy of the recognition of the ethical, says: "A man of thorough good breeding . . . never deliberates in this case, or considers of the matter by prudential rules of self-interest and advantage. He acts from his nature, in a manner necessarily and without reflection: and if he did not, it were impossible for him to answer his character." 18 Both Shaftesbury and Schiller, therefore, tend to throw out reflection and debate, not only on the ground of being unnec- essary, but that they tend to subvert the moral purpose and end, since in Schiller's mind they invite a diversity apparent in the result, and to Shaftesbury reflection and debate in such principles are proof of an insufficient affection, hence they destroy the moral value of an act, and, indeed, make it "in- iquous and wrong." 19 Hedonism It is particularly in those early works of Schiller which re- sulted from the impetus afforded him in the personality and "Characteristics: II: 251. 16 Shaftesbury would not admit that the action of the first four men in Schiller's example were moral. 17 Characteristics : 1 1 : 3 1 . 18 Characteristics : 1:129. 19 Characteristics : II : 3 1. Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 19 the intellectual bent of his beloved teacher Abel 20 that the hedonistic side of his thought becomes defined; and, in fact, the bulk of his thinking on this side may be somewhat sharply demarcated as occurring before the period in which his thought is modified and constrained from its contact with the thought of Kant. In Schiller's ecstatic school-boy writings, and particularly in "Gehoert allzuviel Guete, Leutseligkeit und Freygebigkeit im engen Verstande zur Tugend" and in "Die Tugend in ihren Folgen betrachtet," which are definitely known to be his, 21 there is the same conception of happiness which is familiar from Shaftesbury, who writes: "That to have the natural affections is to have the chief means and power of self enjoy- ment, the highest possession and happiness of life." 22 Happiness is thus made the reward of the virtuous life ; 23 but neither author in this connection is sufficiently hedonistic to explain all the motives in a moral act upon the basis of their bringing happi- ness, rather do they regard it as a fortunate coincidence that the virtuous life leads to happiness. Schiller avoids the difficulty of confusing an intuitional with a hedonistic ethics by having man omit consciously to formu- late ideas on the motives toward virtue, either as to his own inclination or as to nature's purpose; in fact, Schiller clearly calls into prominence the idea that man may not be conscious of nature's purpose to achieve his happiness. 24 Shaftesbury, 20 Abel, as is well known, drew up his doctrines according to Fergusson, but any external evidence as to how far Shaftesbury through Fergusson came into relief is not clearly established. Abel's spirit and interests were essentially those of the moralist. 21 The earlier work, "Whether the Friendship of a Prince is the same as that of an ordinary man," which may or may not be Schiller's, has another theme which Shaftesbury used and which appealed strongly to Fergusson, notably the insistence upon the social basis for happiness. 22 Characteristics: II: 126. 23 Curiously dissonant with the general earlier trend of his beliefs is Schiller's poem "Resignation," dating from the Mannheim period, though not printed until much later. Virtue and happiness are in this poem set at odds. It has been suggested that this poem is not intended to represent its author's views; one does not like to beg the question, however, and the poem should have its place in the creed of negation which is not large in Schiller. 24 Barring an earlier statement that the way of happiness is none other than the love of happiness. 20 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury likewise, calls nature to the support of his hedonistic conten- tions; and in turning abruptly as he does in the second volume of the Characteristics from the idea that the mere recognition of virtue is the reason for embracing it to descant on the motive for the virtuous act, Shaftesbury invites an element of serious inconsistency into his system. 25 EUDAEMONISM Further, though less striking, inconsistencies exist in the eudaemonistic 26 tendencies which occur in the work of both authors, chiefly, however, in Shaftesbury, since it is quite con- ceivable that the idealistic Schiller is less ready to align himself with any belief which includes the possibility of utility, 27 and he is also usually less concerned with the social aspects of virtue. But with Shaftesbury, on the other hand, the principle that virtue is the real good of the individual as well as of the species is voiced consistently throughout, 28 the natural variant being, since virtue and beauty are the same, that beauty is the real good. 29 In the belief that virtue is for the individual's good, Shaftes- bury undertakes to support his convictions from his notion of the psychology of ethics, inquiring about the reaction of beliefs upon the men who hold them; and it is thus that virtue and interest coincide, since the proper opinion of the good makes for the individual's good. 30 And according to the doc- trine of the affections whatever is good for the individual is 25 Characteristics: II: 67. "Whoever, therefore, by any strong persuasion or settled judgment, thinks in the main that virtue causes happiness and vice misery, carries with him that security and assistance to virtue which is required." 26 The word eudaemonism is here used in its accepted, narrower meaning of welfare, implying the welfare either of the individual or of the race, hence it remains distinct from hedonism for pleasure and the good do not of nec- essity agree. 27 Third Letter. Schiller, in objecting vigorously to the utilitarianism of his day, demands in the place of the narrower conception of utility a com- plete conformity to higher intellectual purposes. 28 Characteristics: II: 226-239; III: 223. 29 Characteristics: II: 339. 30 Characteristics: III: 200. Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 21 also good for the public, and the two are brought by Shaftes- bury into an almost complete identity. 31 Mildness versus Rigorism Leaving aside for the nonce these somewhat general classi- fications into the various categories of belief and turning for a while to consider the temperaments of these authors, it is clear that the ineluctable penchant in both Schiller and Shaftes- bury toward refinement, 32 suavity and mildness is unques- tionably an important item in determining the basic elements of their ethics. Schiller pronounces with nowhere greater emphasis, perhaps, upon the need of refinement than in his surprising review of Buerger's poetry, 33 and there can be no doubt that at that time he had recovered fully from his youth- ful extravagances and had become what he afterwards remained. In a letter to Goethe 34 Schiller praises the Christian religion since it does away with the necessity for the stern Kantian imperative, and in its place it puts a free inclination : as a mani- festation of aesthetical principles Schiller regards the Christian religion the highest. Schiller's very definition of virtue is significant, virtue being an inclination toward duty. 35 Else- where, Schiller arraigns Kantian rigorism 36 since it makes pro- vision for the servants and slaves, not for the children of the household. Furthermore, he questions whether mere force is ever satisfactory in ethics and impugns the whole system of force and coercion in a famous passage by saying that the beaten enemy may rise again and only the reconciled foe is truly over- come. 37 Coercion to do good either by hope of reward or by 31 Very erroneously has Walter Mohns, in his monograph on Herbart's Relation to the English Moral Philosophy, Langensalza, 19 14, dilated upon the "gulf which exists between the self and the social affections" in Shaftes- bury. He seems on this point totally to misapprehend Shaftesbury. 32 Excepting, of course, some of the earliest poetic and dramatic effusions of Schiller, such as a few poems from the Anthology and "The Robbers." 33 Goedeke's Schiller: VI : 314. 34 August 17, 1795. 36 Goedeke's Schiller: X: 99. 36 Goedeke's Schiller: X: 10 1. Shaftesbury also speaks contemptuously of coercion as suitable only for the vulgar. Characteristics: III: 177; also, I: 127. 37 Goedeke's Schiller: X: 100. 22 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury fear of punishment is especially treated by Shaftesbury; 38 and he concludes that any moral act which is produced under re- straint is no more to be accounted truly moral than a wild beast in chains is to be accounted gentle. Both authors partake of the generous attitude which accords even villains and thieves 39 elementary virtue, chivalry and honor; and they prefer to con- template those moral acts which proceed in all freedom and joy of the spirit, without conflicting divisions of the emotions, and, especially, with no trace of compulsion, coercion or mas- tery. Closely allied with these inclinations is Shaftesbury's con- ception of the roles that good breeding and education 40 play in the moral life. It seems, however, that Shaftesbury requires what might be styled gentlemanliness rather than vigor of mind. The narrow and the foppish distinction that he makes between the vulgar and the well-bred man has brought him much deserved criticism. Similarly, in Schiller's essay on "Grace and Dignity," particularly in the conception of the "beautiful soul," it is impossible to believe that the serene, untroubled countenance and the gentle, flowing movements are masculine attributes. 41 38 Characteristics: 11:55. 39 Characteristics: II: 39; compare for Schiller the Philosophical Letters (Julius to Raphael). "Characteristics: II: 38; also, I: 129 41 Such a caricature of life as Schiller elaborates in the first part of this essay cannot but lay its author open to serious question, both as an artist and, more particularly, as a thinker. If the discussion is, as I am half in- clined to take it, a subtle tribute to a beautiful woman, it seems excusable; but if not, then Schiller, like Shaftesbury, must be convicted of deliberately closing his eyes to some of the noblest and best elements in human char- acter. The contrast with modern thought is, perhaps, clear enough without a definite background, but when compared with Hardy's description in "The Return of the Native" of Clym Yeobright's face after thought had had its way with it, the difference is striking. Schiller (in Hempel's trans- lation): "In a beautiful soul, sensuality and reason, duty and inclination, exist in harmony, which is made manifest to the eye by lovely forms. It is only when subserving the behests of a beautiful soul that nature can be free and yet preserve her forms; for the former is lost under the tyranny of a rigid mind, and the latter under the anarchy of sensual excesses. A beauti- ful soul spreads an irresistible loveliness even over a person without natural beauty; it may even triumph over natural defects. Every motion emanating from such a soul will seem easy, gentle, and yet animated. The eye will Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 23 Harmony The doctrine of harmony is at once the most durable and the most conspicuous link between Schiller and Shaftesbury. Of the two writers it is, perhaps, the more conclusive and funda- mental with Shaftesbury, while with Schiller it represents a port, as it were, towards which he is ever sailing, but in which actually, though not in his fancy, he never drops anchor. This dominant search for harmony in the universe and in an under- standing of life begins in the earliest metaphysical speculations of Schiller, where he is seeking a real basis for harmony amid the seemingly conflicting themes of matter and spirit. 42 To establish harmony here the problem, quite obviously, is to span the gulf between the material and the spiritual. In this attempt, of course, Schiller has not been successful, and out- side of a certain fanciful imagery the work is little interesting; but the attempt thus early to formulate one of the problems which never lost its appeal for his mind is sufficiently striking-. The subsequent forms that this question took were to establish a basis upon which could be founded the proper balance between duty and inclination, whereby these two elements, usually so prone to conflict, are capable of correlation, between the emo- tional and the intellectual impulses, and, finally, between the moral and the aesthetic side of man. With Shaftesbury there is no conscious striving to attain harmony out of conflicting elements; 43 rather does Shaftesbury assume that harmony exists beam with brightness and a perfect absence of restraint; the light of emotion will radiate from its center. The gentleness of heart will impart a loveliness to the mouth which no dissimulation could feign. There will be no rigidity to the features, no restraint in the voluntary motions, for the soul is uncon- scious of either. The musical voice will move the heart with the pure stream of modulations." Hardy: "The view of life as a thing to be put up with, replacing that zest for existence which was so intense in early civilization, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into the constitution of the advanced races that its facial expression will become accepted as the new artistic depar- ture. People already feel that a man who without disturbing a curve of feature, or setting a mark of mental concern anywhere upon himself, is too far removed from modern perceptiveness to be a modern type." 42 Goedeke's Schiller: I: 142. "Characteristics: II: 365. "If there be two principles in nature either they must agree, or not." 24 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury and is everywhere fundamental. 44 This broad and deliberate assumption, taken as a point of departure, makes plain a host of differing relations in the universe, since in the fashion also of Leibnitz evil is recognized but interpreted as good in disguise, and it affords an answer to the most irrelevant and diverse questions. If one were to assemble into a single group all the passages in which Schiller and Shaftesbury sing the praises of harmony, of whatever sort, and mention it as an ultimate, or as a basic principle, their number would be very considerable and would represent the utmost chronological difference in the writings. A common point of view from which both Schiller and Shaftes- bury review harmony is that it is the natural and the healthful state. Shaftesbury, with his predilection for examples out of the animal world, shows how the vicious animal is actually ill, unnatural, and not "at one with himself," while Schiller seek- ing added light from the field of anatomy, comes to similar conclusions. 45 It is noteworthy in this connection that Schiller in his insistence upon the correlation of the animal nature of man with his spiritual nature does not require checking of the animal side; in fact, this early essay lay considerable stress upon the equal claims of both parts of man. 46 Shaftesbury likewise does not underrate the claims of the body, but wishes it to assert its proper rights along with the higher intellectual pleasures; it is only when it crowds out the better things of life, by becoming over developed, that he rebukes it. Exceedingly close is Schiller to the Shaftesburian concep- tion 47 when he describes body and soul as two vibrant strings, 48 44 Compare the tart humor of Leslie Stephen: " Freethinking and Plain- speaking," p. 273. "Standing amidst the relics of the desperate struggle of this life, amongst the carnage and shrieks of the wounded and the brutal triumph of the conquerors, Shaftesbury finds a solace in his elegant smelling bottle, skillfully compounded of the best philosophical essences." 45 Goedeke's Schiller: I: 163. "The movement of the brain is no longer harmony, it is convulsion." 46 It is quite natural that Schiller fresh from his medical studies should in the early part of his ethical discussions grant physiological claims a readier hearing than in his later essays, where he considers the other side, showing how the spirit fashions the body. Compare, also, Goedeke's Schiller: X: 70. 47 Goedeke's Schiller: I: 165. 48 Characteristics: II: 94. "It may be said properly to be the same with the affections in the animal constitution as with the cords of strings of a musical instrument. If these, though in ever so just proportion one to an- Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 25 the striking of one of which sets up a sympathetic vibration in the other. This is in Schiller's thought the wonderful, pre- determined sympathy which makes the heterogeneous prin- ciples in the nature of man into a single thing, hence Schiller does not think of an independent existence of body and soul, but rather of their most intimate mixture in the alembic of humanity. Removing the conception of harmony from the realm of physiology and of metaphysics and bringing it over into ethics, it is apparent that there is much less straight thinking than before. Shaftesbury's realism and Schiller's idealism, it is true, explain divergency in accent and in emphasis, and, if rightly understood, they go far towards explaining what at first sight might seem sheer inconsequence and inconsistency of thought. The premises, as shown, of Shaftesbury are reasonable enough: "It is as hard to find an altogether good man as an altogether bad man"; 49 and "it is usual to praise a man who goes through a struggle to overcome evil more than one who needs no struggle, yet the propensity to sin is not an ingredient of virtue." So Once he is taken up with the discussion of virtue, however, he sees it only on the brightest side, and all jarring elements, struggles, and imperatives are waived. In this way Shaftesbury engages in the difficulty of recognizing a variety of elements in the beginning, only to choose those which are relevant to his main assumptions of harmony and beauty. Schiller, too, although perhaps more excusably, clearly recognizes at first a jarring discord, but it is his chief concern to resolve these dissonant elements in man's nature, or in the universe, into a complete harmony. This realization of complete harmony tends with Schiller to become a wholly ideal achievement, not one towards which the human race can proceed with hope of immediate, but only in the hope of ultimate success. It is true that his poetic imag- ination frequently gets the better of his judgment so that he other, are strained beyond a certain degree, 'tis more than the instrument will bear. On the other hand, if while some of the strings are duly strained, others are not wound up to their due proportion, then is the instrument still in disorder, and its part ill performed." 49 Characteristics: II: 39. 60 Ibid. 26 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury speaks of this state as though it were reached, 61 and his enthusi- asm for Greek civilization at least lends color to his belief that attainment of harmony in life and in the state is possible, yet, when he is frank with himself, he is unable to shut out the appalling pictures of his time, or to find any explanation of them which is agreeable to his mind. Hand in hand with this striving for harmony goes the dislike for disharmony and confusion, whether, as with Shaftesbury, this feeling becomes thoroughgoing enough to throw out any decision which involves it, where the motives are at variance, or whether, as with Schiller's view of less positiveness, con- flicting motives are at the most, admissible only in the means never in the end and result in the ideal act. Both writers firmly hold to the ideal conception that the whole character must be moral, so that it may broadly evidence itself in the moral life, not in individual acts. This, in Shaftesbury's par- lance, is the "intire affection." 52 Schiller, also, speaks of totality of character, 53 and he is explicit that "man is not intended to perform isolated moral acts, but to be a moral being; not vir- tues but morality is the requirement." And this is precisely the point upon which Schiller attacks Kant, for if the person must summon before his nicely poised ethical concepts every new situation which involves various possibilities of moral response, it is conceivable that the element of confusion which Schiller is at such pains to escape is not only made possible but it is actually invited. Manifestly, however, the problem of totality in moral character exists more for Schiller than for Shaftesbury, because Schiller's mind was at times largely ob- sessed with the magnitude of the conflicting elements in human character, and who sought shelter from stern reality by postu- lating ideal conditions. 61 Especially is this true of the first part of the essay on "Grace and Dig- nity." For doubts about the immediate or even of the remote attainment of the ideal state: Goedeke's Schiller: X: 105. "But this beauty of char- acter, the ultimate product of his humanity, is merely an idea, to achieve which he may strive, but which, however, he can never quite attain." Com- pare, also, the Fourteenth Letter: "It is in the real sense of the word the idea of his humanity, an infinite thing, to which as he goes on he can approach more closely, but never exactly attain." 62 Characteristics: 11:113-114. 63 Sixth Letter. For Schiller's whole discussion on the point see Goedeke's edition : X : 99 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 27 "Beautiful Soul" — "Virtuoso" Working from the kind of emotional perceptionalism that is at the basis of the thinking of both authors, it is logical that the culmination of ethical creed should be comparable in each. It is Schiller, however, who has been able to bring to bear the full weight of his poetic imagination and depict an ideal with attractiveness. Schiller's long intellectual and emotional ap- prenticeship in the service of the ideas of harmony, correlation, and regulation has in its natural course led up to the preparation of a highly specialized thing. The most conspicuous service rendered by the conception of harmony is the ideal of the "beau- tiful soul." As far as the merely outward facts are concerned, there are few intimate bonds 54 between the "beautiful soul" and the "virtuoso." Shaftesbury's ideal is the man of the world, "the refined wit of the age," 55 a well-bred gentleman, one who has traveled abroad and who knows the political life of the principal nations of Europe. This "virtuoso" has much in common with the philosophers who in their inquiries simply "carry good breeding a step higher." 56 The sum of philosophy, according to Shaftesbury's mind, or of "virtuosoship," is to learn what is just in society, and beautiful in nature, and in the order of the world. But the "virtuoso" is not primarily an ethical ideal, and Shaftesbury merely contends that "virtuosoship" is a closer approach to becoming virtuous and sensible, than being a scholar. 57 64 That Schiller's conception of the "beautiful soul" is consciously pat- terned after Shaftesbury's "virtuoso" is the belief of Windleband in his History of Philosophy, in English translation, p. 602; and of Walzel in his prefatory remarks to the eleventh volume of the Cotta, Saekular edition of Schiller's works. "Characteristics: III: 156. 56 Characteristics: III: 161. 67 It is interesting in his demands for "virtuosoship" and good-breeding that Shaftesbury requires the polished gentleman in his researches to rest content with the more general studies, with those in which the beauty and harmony of life are most apparent, for if the student so far forgets the gentle- man as to proceed into the niceties of "insect and shell-fish life," he becomes quite fitly subject for ridicule. This word of caution from Shaftesbury is enlightening and of intrinsic worth since it suggests the extent to which Shaftesbury inclines to go in the admission of the formative value of external things; and Shaftesbury does not hesitate to condemn the education in his time since it tended to make scholarship, on the whole, less compatible with virtue than "virtuosoship." 28 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury The real rapprochement between Schiller and Shaftesbury does not, however, rest wholly upon inference, for in the latter part of his extended treatment of "virtuosi" and philosophers 58 Shaftesbury distinctly requires "a heart and resolution" 59 to complete the character. Schiller really regards the "heart and resolution" to be the all-important part of the "beautiful soul," and his almost com- plete absorption in the discussion of the subjective conditions which explain it form the most striking element in his treat- ment. The "beautiful soul" is a highly particularized ideal, and Schiller goes so far as to say it has no other merit than that it exists. 60 The "virtuoso" patterns his life according to the external harmonies present in the fine arts, while the "beautiful soul," in so far as it assumes the proportions of a reality, is a beauti- ful, essentially feminine manifestation of nature, in which all the varied and elsewhere conflicting elements of feeling have achieved absolute consonance, and of which the outward move- ments are but the measured symbols of an inner, well nigh oriental spiritual tranquility. Moral Grace Most thoroughly in accord with ideal harmony is the con- ception of moral grace and beauty, which stands for both authors as the supreme achievement of art and ethics. This tendency to award moral beauty the highest place is implicit in Schiller's whole system (his flattering remarks upon Corneille's Cid as the acme of art because the plot demands no evil have not been sufficiently quoted), and this inclination is traceable to his earliest writings. In the Kallias Letters Schiller is amazed that Kant can put the beauty of a fanciful, oriental scroll-work over that of the highest beauty of humanity. 61 Here again Schiller thinks of such beauty of character as an ideal to be striven toward. That Buerger did not strive towards such beauty, and that he felt no moral answerableness to his readers, 68 Characteristics: 111:156-163. 69 Ibid. 60 Shaftesbury has a similar idea: Characteristics: II: 292. "Man may be virtuous; and in being so is happy. His merit is his reward." 61 Schiller to Koerner, Jena, 25 January, 1793. Jonas: III: 238. Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 29 or to himself, caused Schiller to speak so harshly about his work. Imperfection in form Schiller could forgive, but not indifference toward what he considered the poet's exalted pre- rogative and duty, the cultivation of a beautiful morality. At the very end of his career in the lyrical intermezzo entitled "Homage to the Arts" Schiller is still interested in perfect morality as the ultimate beauty. 62 Shaftesbury, also, declares that the inward beauties are the most real and essential, and the most naturally affecting; but in his declaration of the "profit and advantage" to be derived from such beauties Schiller would be little likely to concur. 63 Elsewhere, Shaftesbury conceives the study of the inward perfection and the moral grace to be the highest; and he believes that an appreciation of this "moral grace and Venus" forms the proper criterion for distinguishing between merit and blemish, virtue and deformity. In the discussion of the "better self" 64 Shaftesbury gives an almost precise analogue of Schiller's idea, expressed in his letters on aesthetics, 65 that every one carries within himself a purely ideal personality, and that it is his task to correlate all the tendencies of his nature with the unswerving unity of this ideal character. It is through this ideal of absolute morality that aesthetics and ethics again meet in the beliefs of both authors, and just as the ethical judgment in Shaftesbury's scheme is made to depend upon a feeling for the symmetrical in conduct, and in Schiller to depend upon a cultivated taste, so in the completest beauty there is a reversion to the basic ethical element. God and the Universe There are several similarities 66 between Shaftesbury's "Phil- osophical Rhapsody" 67 and Schiller's "Philosophical Letters, 62 " Doch Schoenres find ich nichts, wie lang ich waehle, Als in der schoenen Form — die schoene Seele." 63 Characteristics : III: 185. 64 Characteristics : 1 : 28 1 . 66 Fourth Letter: "Every individual, we may say, because of his position and destiny in the world, bears a purely ideal man within himself, and it is the great task of his existence to bring all the varying tendencies of his na- ture into unison with the absolute unity of this ideal." 66 The general similarity between Schiller and Shaftesbury Dilthey men- tions: Works: II: 342. "Then it will be shown further that Shaftesbury has been of equal influence with Spinoza for the German Pantheism of Schiller in his early works and of Goethe and Herder." 67 Characteristics: 11:181-443. 30 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury Julius to Raphael." The rhapsodical vein in which both essays are conceived is perhaps the most noticeable outward trait in common. Two friends in both cases are the chief figures, and the more important contributions are made in each work by the more effusive of the two, the second member acting as an intellectual check to the unbounded enthusiasm of his friend. Both works, also, deserve mention among the "theodicies" of the eighteenth century, since in function, if not in defined pur- pose, they serve to define and justify the place of God in the universe. Similarly, in each work there is much glorification of nature, and a pantheistic treatment of it is always consciously in the foreground. As is usual with Shaftesbury and in the more poetical and idealistic conceptions of Schiller, the unity and harmony of the universe are postulated as basic principles. "It is no hard thing," says Shaftesbury, 68 "to be persuaded that nature is a single thing." This is evidenced by the harmony of infinite parts which can mean a more embracive harmony of the whole. This grand conception of the all pervading harmony cannot but show the smallness of man. Schiller contrasts man with the hugeness of the universe^ and Shaftesbury calls attention to the prolonged, helpless infancy of man in comparison with the lower animals. From this it is only a step, however, to the glorification of the mind of man which is able to compass the universe with its understanding. Both Shaftesbury and Schiller have precisely the same method of reasoning from the fact that man, as he proceeds in his ability to understand the universe, comes more and more to assume the position of the creator, by approaching the greatness of his thoughts and views. 69 The mind, then, which is able to discern the harmony of the universe partakes of a supererogation of God, which is given in lieu of false and narrower conceptions in religion. 70 And this doc- 68 Characteristics : II: 347. 69 Shaftesbury in another place contends that ill-humor alone can cause disagreeable thoughts about God or about the universe. Characteristics: I: 23. 70 Compare Schiller's poem "Die Kuenstler." Doch hoeher stets, zu immer hoehern Hoehen Schwang sich der schaffende Genie. Schon sieht man Schoepfungen aus Schoepfungen erstehen, Aus Harmonien, Harmonie. Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 31 trine is, somewhat illogically, subsequently merged into a pan- theistic creed, since if the spirit of harmony is omnipresent in nature, it is taken to argue on all present God. 71 Conclusion and Summary of Results The most outstanding conclusion to be derived from a general survey of the parallel themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury is that their similarities lie more on the emotional than on the intellectual side. There are, for instance, several themes which are broadly comparable as general principles, or as doctrines, but in which the intellectual support is entirely different. In several of his contentions Schiller has a subject quite in the fashion of Shaftesbury, or of Plato, but which he dignifies by having recourse to an elaborate psychology, partly of his own invention and partly modeled upon the accepted views of his recognized contemporaries. It is generally true, therefore, that Shaftesbury's beliefs are in the nature of conclusions, while Schiller's, on the other hand, take the form of conclusions in- ferred from cautious premises. Furthermore, in Schiller there is at times a curious line of demarcation between what he liked to believe and what he was compelled to accept as true because of his respect for wholly intellectual judgments. The reason why Shaftesbury, the realist and the physicist of ethics, and Schiller, the idealist and the metaphysicist of ethics, come into such close touch in the chief of their cardinal doctrines is, then, actually not so hard to explain, for Shaftesbury was content to develop only those themes which were agreeable to his ideas of harmony and inherent goodness and Schiller, when too con- scious of the jarring inconsequencies of life, retreated from them into his realm of idealism, there to find the encouragement which his environment could not offer. There is also, in effect, a good deal in Shaftesbury which seems nothing more than a "retreat from reality," although this is not attained by postu- lating ideal circumstances, but merely by shutting out part of the facts of experience. The tendency to seek harmony in all the varied manifesta- tions of life and art is unquestionably the point at which there 71 Shaftesbury conceives the "antient cause" to be in every place and void. 32 Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury is the largest amount of convergence in both authors. From the doctrine of the harmony of the universe to that of the har- monized individual is but a step and both Shaftesbury and Schiller pass readily from one to the other. That moral beauty, meaning the perfection of the individual and the completest expression of humanity in him, stands highest in the scale of aesthetics is similarly held by both, and this principle is in the closest accord with the doctrine of har- mony, since absolute harmony is perfection and, on the aesthetic side, active, creative beauty is put highest. Perception of the moral, then, because the character under ideal conditions is thoroughly at one with itself, takes place without debate. It is immediate because it is unhampered. Schiller, it will be remembered from the Kallias Letters, gets at this question from his definition of beauty, "a freedom in the appearance," that is, an act is beautiful only when it seems to determine itself; it is hardly necessary, however, for Shaftes- bury to have recourse to such a roundabout approach since as he naively conceives it: merely seeing the beautiful and the good is sufficient reason for embracing them. Intellectual achievement, likewise, is accorded a place of honor by both writers. Shaftesbury requires, to be sure, a very modest kind of intellectual prowess, and he prescribes very definite limits within which it may be used and outside of which it becomes mere pedantry. Schiller praises it, though with less reservation, and, judging from his formal statements, he is willing to play the obscurantist in its favor. Moral education through art bulks large in the concern of both writers. Shaftesbury, of course, knows nothing of Schiller's elaborate excursions into metaphysics in search for reasons for the close relations between art and morality; but both Schiller and Shaftesbury stand upon a similar platform in maintaining that the artist is helped by his art and a proper understanding of its principles, and both desire a further appli- cation of art training towards morality. Conventional religion both authors dislike. It is Shaftes- bury, however, who dilates upon its evils more completely, while Schiller thinks true religion misunderstood and irrevelant aspects emphasized. Parallel Themes in Schiller and Shaftesbury 33 Similarly, all confusion, irregularity, disharmony, force, and coercion are utterly distasteful to their thought, and they take every means to avoid them. The chief divergence in the teachings of Schiller and Shaftes- bury centers around the doctrine of utility. Shaftesbury stands frankly for virtue because it is the good of the individual and of the race, while Schiller specifies that it is the higher spiritual good which virtue achieves. This division of doctrine may serve further to explain why the "virtuoso" and the "beautiful soul," considered merely in their outward manifestations, have so little in common; in fact, it is largely by inference that the one appears in a just sense to be the analogue of the other. In fine, here as elsewhere, it is in the spirit rather than in the letter that Schiller and Shaftesbury stand in substantial agreement. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. OCT »* IgffO ^° 160 5181771 DEC Tl967 RECEIVED NOV 18*67 •» AM LOAN DEPT. LD 21-100m-12,'46(A2012si6)4120 Makers Syracuse, N Y. PAT. J»». 2'. 1908 420204 C^e^L^LXJe^/v UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY