Essays Aesthetical and Philosophical Author:Friedrich Schiller Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: V .ESTHETICAL ESSAYS. THE MOEAL UTILITY OF AESTHETIC MANNERS. The author of the article which appeared in the eleventh number of ' The Hours,' of 1795,... more » upon "The Danger of Esthetic Manners," was right to hold as doubtful a morality founded only on a feeling for the beautiful, and which has no other warrant than taste; but it is evident that a strong and pure feeling for the beautiful ought to - exercise a salutary influence upon the moral life; and this is the question of which I am about to treat. When I attribute to taste the merit of contributing to moral progress, it is not in the least my intention to pretend that the interest that good taste takes in an action suffices to make an action moral; morality could never have any other foundation than her own. Taste can be favourable to morality in the conduct, as I hope to point out in the present essay ; but alone and by its unaided influence, it could never produce anything moral. It is absolutely the same with respect to internal liberty as with external physical liberty. I act freely in a physical sense only when, independently of all external influence, I simply obey my will. But, for the possibility of thus obeying without hindrance my own will, it is probable ultimately, that I am indebted to a principle beyond or distinct from myself, immediately it is admitted that this principle would hamper my will. The same also with regard to the possibility of accomplishing such action in conformity with duty—it may be that I owe it, ultimately, to a principle distinct from my reason; that is possible, the moment the idea of this principle is recognised as a force which could have constrained my independence. Thusthe same as we can say of a man, that he holds his liberty from another man, although liberty in its prop...« less