To sum up, then, in a word, this relation of content and form in the romantic type, where it remains true to its distinctive character, we may affirm that the fundamental note of the same, for this very reason that its principle constitutes an ever expanding universality and the restlessly active depths of heart and mind, is that of _music_, and when combined with the definite content of imagination, lyrical. This _lyrical_ aspect is likewise the primary characteristic of romantic art, a tone which gives the key-note also to the epic poem and drama, and which is wafted as a breath of soul even around the works of the plastic arts, since here, too, spirit and soul are desirous of speaking by means of the plastic shape to soul and mind.
As regards the _division_ of our subject, which we must now in conclusion determine for the examination of this our third extensive domain of artistic production on the lines of its development, we shall find that the basic notion of the romantic relatively to its substantive and progressive articulation is comprised most conveniently in three branches of division we may define as follows.
The _first_ sphere is the province of _religion_ strictly, in which the redemption history, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ constitute the central interest. The principle which is emphasized as all-important here is that self-involution which mind accomplishes by negating its immediacy and finitude, overcoming the same, and by means of this liberation secures its own self-possessed infinity and absolute self-subsistence in its own kingdom.
This self-subsistence passes, then, in the _second_ place from the Divine dwelling of essential Spirit, surrenders its pure exaltation of finite man to God, in order to enter the _temporal world._ Here it is, in the first instance, the subject of consciousness simply, which has become self-affirmative, and which possesses as the substantive material of its content, no less than as the interest of its existence, the virtues of this positive subjectivity, such as honour, love, fidelity, and bravery, the aims and obligations, in short, of romantic chivalry.
The content and form of the _third_ chapter may be generally indicated as the _formal consistency of character._ In other words, if the subjective life has been so far concentrated, that spiritual independence is its essential characteristic, it follows also that the _particular_ content, with which such independence is associated as with what is strictly its own, will also partake of such a character; this self-subsistence, however, inasmuch as it does not, as was the case in the sphere appertinent to essential and explicit religious truth, repose in the substantive core of its life, is only able to reach a formal type. Conversely the configuration of external conditions, situations, and events is now also independently free, and is involved consequently in every sort of capricious adventure. For this reason we find, to put it in general terms, as the termination of the romantic, the contingency of the exterior condition and internal life, and a falling asunder of the two aspects, by reason of which Art commits an act of suicide, and betrays the fact that conscious life must now secure forms of loftier significance, than Art alone is able to offer, in which to grasp and retain truth.