Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/523

 ABSOLUTE SPIRIT. Sot most lasting achievement. His view of the state as the absolute end, the complete realization of the good, is dominated, no doubt, by the antique ideal, which cannot take root again in the humanity of modern times. But his splendid endeavor to " comprehend " history, to bring to light the laws of historical development and the interaction between the different spheres of national life, will remain an example for all time. The leading ideas of his philoso- phy of history have so rapidly found their way into the general scientific consciousness that the view of history which obtained in the period of the Illumination is well nigh incomprehensible to the investigator of to-day. (e) Absolute Spirit is the unity of subjective and object->, iye spirit. As such, spirit becomes perfectly free (from all' contradictions) and reconciled with itself. The break be- tween subject and object, representation and thing, thought and being, infinite and finite is done away with, and the infinite recognized as the essence of the finite. The knowledge of the reconciliation of the highest opposites or of the infinite /« the finite presents itself in three forms: in the form of intuition (art), of feeling and representa- tion (religion), of thought (philosophy). (i) Esthetics. — The beautiful is the absolute (the infinite in the finite) in sensuous existence, the Idea in limited rnanifestation. According to the relation of these mo- ments, according as the outer form or the inner content predominates, or a balance of the two occurs, we have the symbolic form of art, in which the phenomenon predomi- nates and the Idea is merely suggested ; or the classical form, in which Idea and intuition, or spiritual content and sensuous form, completely balance and pervade each other, in which the former of them is ceaselessly taken up into the latter; or the romantic form, in which the phe- nomenon retires, and the Idea, the inwardness of the spirit predominates. Classical art, in which form and content are perfectly conformed to each other, is the most beautiful, but romantic art is, nevertheless, higher and more significant. Oriental, including Egyptian and Hebrew, art was sym- bolic ; Greek art, classical ; Christian art is romantic, bringing into art entirely new sentiments of a knightly