With this adumbration of the difference between the spheres of art, religion, and philosophy we must on the present occasion rest content.
The sensuous mode of consciousness is that which first appears in the history of mankind. The earliest stages of religion are for this reason indistinguishable from a religion of art and its sensuous manner of presentation. In the religion of Spirit for the first time is God as Spirit cognized also on a higher plane, and one more adequate to thought, wherein it likewise follows as a corollary, that the presentation of truth in sensuous shape is not truly adequate to Spirit.
Now that we know something of the position which art occupies in the field of spiritual activity, and that which belongs to the philosophy of art among the several philosophical sciences, we will proceed in this introductory portion of our work in the first place to investigate the general idea of the beauty of art.
IDEA OF THE BEAUTY OF ART, OTHERWISE, FINE ART
To arrive at the Idea of Fine Art in all its concreteness it will be necessary for us to consider it under three phases.
1. The _first_ is concerned with the _notion_ of the beautiful generally.
2. The _second_ is that of _natural_ beauty, the defects of which will demonstrate the necessity of the _Ideal_ as _Fine Art._
3. In the _third_ of these aspects the subject of our investigation will be the _Ideal_ in its _positive realization_, in other words as the artistic display of this Ideal in particular _works of art._
[Footnote 175: The German word here is _Geist._ I have translated it as best seems to suit the particular context in which the German word occurs.]
[Footnote 176: _Unendliche Negativität._]
[Footnote 177: This is the "Ought" of practical feeling. As such just as in the case of the analytical sciences, what it lacks is objective determination (see "Phil. of Mind," trans. of W. Wallace, p. 94).]
[Footnote 178: _In seiner Gemeinde._ We should rather expect _in seiner Gebiete._]
[Footnote 179: The reference here appears to be to the three attitudes of thought to the objective world which may be generally indicated as that of ordinary consciousness, that of empiricism and that of speculative Philosophy. In the paragraph which follows, however, Hegel mainly refers to the logical process of dialectic and the Idea of Nature (_die natürliche Idee._) The latter may, however, refer to both the previous divisions, _i.e._, the commonsense point of view and the scientific.]