on the score of the falsez but also of the frank appearance.  And even the exceptions they admit in favour of the beautiful have for their object less the independent appearance than the needy appearance.  Not only do they attack the artificial colouring that hides truth and replaces reality, but also the beneficent appearance that fills a vacuum and clothes poverty; and they even attack the ideal appearance that ennobles a vulgar reality.  Their strict sense of truth is rightlyl offended by the falsity of manners; unfortunately, they class politeness in this category.  It displeases them that the noisy and showy so often eclipse true merit, but they are no less shocked that appearance is also demanded from merit, and that a real substance does not dispense with an agreeable form.  They regret the cordiality, the energy, and solidity of ancient times; they would restore with them ancient coarseness, heaviness, and the old Gothic profusion.  By judgments of this kind they show an esteem for the matter itself unworthy of humanity, which ought only to value tne matter inasmuch as it can receive a form and enlarge the empire of ideas.  Accordingly, the taste of the age need not much fear these criticisms, if it can clear itself before better judges.  Our defect is not to grant a value to aesthetic appearance (we do not do this enough):  a severe judge of the beautiful might rather reproach us with not having arrived at pure appearance, with not having separated clearly enough existence from the phaenomenon, and thus established their limits.  We shall deserve this reproach so long as we cannot enjoy the beautiful in living nature without desiring it; as long as we cannot admire the beautiful in the imitative arts without having an end in view; as long as we do not grant to imagination an absolute legislation of its own; and as long as we do not inspire it with care for its dignity by the esteem we testify for its works.

LETTER XXVII.

Do not fear for reality and truth.  Even if the elevated idea of aesthetic appearance became general, it would not become so, as long as man remains so little cultivated as to abuse it; and if it became general, this would result from a culture that would prevent all abuse of it.  The pursuit of independent appearance requires more power of abstraction, freedom of heart, and energy of will than man requires to shut himself up in reality; and he must have left the latter behind him if he wishes to attain to aesthetic appearance.  Therefore a man would calculate very badly who took the road of the ideal to save himself that of reality.  Thus reality would not have much to fear from appearance, as we understand it; but, on the other hand, appearance would have more to fear from reality.  Chained to matter, man uses appearance for his purposes before he allows it a proper personality in the art of the ideal:  to come to that point a complete revolution must take