Now, I say, the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good, and only in this light (a point of view natural to every one, and one which every one exacts from others as a duty) does it give us pleasure with an attendant claim to the agreement of every one else, whereupon the mind becomes conscious of a certain ennoblement and elevation above mere sensibility to pleasure from impressions of sense, and also appraises the worth of others on the score of a like maxim of their judgement.This is that intelligible to which taste, as noticed in the preceding paragraph, extends its view.It is, that is to say, what brings even our higher cognitive faculties into common accord, and is that apart from which sheer contradiction would arise between their nature and the claims put forward by taste.In this faculty, judgement does not find itself subjected to a heteronomy of laws of experience as it does in the empirical estimate of things-in respect of the objects of such a pure delight it gives the law to itself, just as reason does in respect of the faculty of desire.Here, too, both on account of this inner possibility in the subject, and on account of the external possibility of a nature harmonizing therewith, it finds a reference in itself to something in the subject itself and outside it, and which is not nature, nor yet freedom, but still is connected with the ground of the latter, i.e., the supersensible-a something in which the theoretical faculty gets bound up into unity with the practical in an intimate and obscure manner.We shall bring out a few points of this analogy, while taking care, at the same time, not to let the points of difference escape us.
(1) The beautiful pleases immediately (but only in reflective intuition, not, like morality, in its concept).(2) It pleases apart from all interest (pleasure in the morally good is no doubt necessarily bound up with an interest, but not with one of the kind that are antecedent to the judgement upon the delight, but with one that judgement itself for the first time calls into existence).(3)The freedom of the imagination (consequently of our faculty in respect of its sensibility) is, in estimating the beautiful, represented as in accord with the understanding's conformity to law (in moral judgements the freedom of the will is thought as the harmony of the latter with itself according to universal laws of Reason).(4) The subjective principles of the estimate of the beautiful is represented as universal, i.e., valid for every man, but as incognizable by means of any universal concept (the objective principle of morality is set forth as also universal, i.e., for all individuals, and, at the same time, for all actions of the same individual, and, besides, as cognizable by means of a universal concept).For this reason the moral judgement not alone admits of definite constitutive principles, but is only possible by adopting these principles and their universality as the ground of its maxims.
Even common understanding is wont to pay regard to this analogy; and we frequently apply to beautiful objects of nature or of art names that seem to rely upon the basis of a moral estimate.We call buildings or trees majestic and stately, or plains laughing and gay;even colours are called innocent, modest, soft, because they excite sensations containing something analogous to the consciousness of the state of mind produced by moral judgements.Taste makes, as it were, the transition from the charm of sense to habitual moral interest possible without too violent a leap, for it represents the imagination, even in its freedom, as amenable to a final determination for understanding, and teaches us to find, even in sensuous objects, a free delight apart from any charm of sense.
SS 60.APPENDIX.The methodology of taste.
