For although the content of beauty is stamped with particularity and to that extent limited, such content is essentially in its mode of environment a totality that is infinite[197] and a free existence; and it is both for the reason that it is the notion, which does not pass beyond this its objective semblance, and so fall into finite and one sided abstraction with it, but rather is immersed as a blossom with this its objectification and through the imminent unity and perfection of such inclusion is revealed as essentially infinite. With equal truth we may affirm that the notion in sealing, as it were, with a soul the real existence, in which it is part of the objective world, is itself by itself freely manifest in that world. For the notion will not suffer that external existence in the sphere of beauty to follow, as it would otherwise, the laws that therein are paramount: rather it determines out of its own riches the articulation and form of its appearance therein; and it is precisely this harmony of the notion with the mode of its external existence which constitutes the essential life of beauty. And the bond which braces all together, no less than the power behind it, is self-conscious life, unity, soul, and artistic personality.
(_b_) We conclude, then, that if we consider beauty in its relation to conscious life, on the _subjective_ side that is, it is neither to be adequately apprehended by an intelligence that persists in the unfree medium of purely finite existence, nor is it the object of the finite Will. We will enlarge a little on both points.
As finite intelligence we are aware in feeling of the inner no less than the outer objects of consciousness; we observe them, perceive them to be true to our senses, allow them to form part of the content of our perceptions, concepts, and finally, no doubt, to become the abstractions which our understanding presents to us, reflecting on their appearance, and endowing them with the abstract form of universality.
Now the finiteness and absence of freedom inseparable from this mental attitude consists in the assumption that the things perceived are self-subsistent. We direct our attention to these objects, suffer them to impress us, form our ideas of them, possessed with the faith in their material existence as objects, and convinced that all we have to do is to perceive them as they appear to our passive reception, to preserve, in short, the formal side of our attention intact, holding such unfettered by our fancies, opinions, and prejudices. In thus accepting this one-sided freedom of objects we posit at the same time the want of freedom in their mental apprehension. To such the content is one wholly _given_ from outside; and instead of a true self-determination through difference we have nothing but the reception and acceptance of what is presented as a part of the objective thing. We would arrive at truth by the suppression of all that belongs to ourselves[198].