Section LXXVIII. The Inner Revelation and the Conscience. (Concl'd) · SECTION CXXI.

(b) The body is to be formed into an image or symbol of the rational spirit,—to become a revelation of the spirit in the external world; that is, it is to be shaped into an object of beauty, into a spiritualized expression of the moral personality. This takes place: (1) immediately,—in that the body, without the express and conscious activity of the person, is formed into a true expression of the morally-cultured spirit; (2) mediately,—in that the body, which though per se possessing the highest nature-beauty, is yet not to remain in simply that state, is formed by means of a spiritually-expressive characterizing adornment into an expression of artistic beauty,—into a symbolical expression not merely of the spiritual in general, but also of the personally-moral character in particular,—and in that, with moral carefulness, it is kept free from whatever would present it in the light of an object that is disesteemed or given over to natural unfreedom, and cast off by the spirit,—the virtue of cleanliness. Adornment, both under its positive and its negative phase, is a moral duty, not merely out of regard to others, as the true moral presentation and revelation of self to others, but also out of regard to the moral person himself.

The natural perfection of the body is not yet the true,—is to be exalted from natural beauty to spiritual. As the spirit (exists primarily only in a germinal form, hence the body cannot, from the very beginning, bear the full impress of the same; the spiritual expression of the body is at first not that of the personally-formed, but only of the as yet impersonal, spirit in general. The expression of the countenance becomes really spiritual, truly beautiful, only by and through a personal character-development, which is, in turn, reflected back from this personal peculiarity. The spirit must already have behind it a moral history, before it comes to expression in the features. A general beauty without character, is meaningless; a personally-spiritual beauty is winning and magnetic. The body becomes truly beautiful only through the complete appropriating of the same by, and for, the spirit; and the true secret of beauty consists in a genuine spiritual and moral culture. Where falseness has not yet gained firm foothold, there the countenance is the mirror of the soul; and, for the skilled look, even disguising falseness is transparent. There lies at the basis of “physiognomics” a deep truth; but this truth is not expressible in definite words and lines. It is not by mere chance that for certain historic personalities, such as those of Christ and the more prominent of the apostles, certain very definite forms and casts of countenance have found their place in Christian art, and by which every one recognizes them at first glance. The true character-expression of the cultured body is, in some sense, spirit-imbued,—is sensuous and supersensuous at the same time; neither words, nor outlines, nor even the photographic pencil of nature, is capable of reproducing it, but only the spirit-guided hand of the artist; spirit is recognized and grasped only by spirit; no photograph of a spiritual, character-imbued face attains to the fidelity of an artistic portrait. In a sinless state, the beauty of the spirit would necessarily reveal itself in beauty of body. So also must it have been in the case of Christ,—and the erroneous notion that for a time prevailed in the early church, to the effect that in Christ there had been no physical comeliness, was soon dissipated by the correct consciousness of Christian art. The heavenly soul of Christ must have depicted itself in his countenance [comp. Psa. xlv, 3]; and the reason why the children approached Him with glad confidence and shouted: “Hosanna!” is doubtless because of a direct impression which Christ’s person made upon them; children have a wonderful capacity for reading character in the external appearance. Female , in laying such great stress on corporeal beauty, is guilty simply of applying to sinfully-perverted reality, the thought, that is correct for the unfallen state of humanity, namely, that beauty of body is evidence of a beautiful soul. The moral task in relation to this culture of bodily expression, is, happily, not an immediate intentional forming of the body, but rather the moral forming of the soul, which then, in turn, of itself impresses itself on the body.

The ornamentation of the body, including the exclusion of all uncleanliness, is a very important moral duty, and one that is very definitely emphasized in the Scriptures. On the subject of nudity and clothing, there has been, both from the moral and from the artistic stand-point, much disputing. Greek art, in its golden age, represented some of the gods nude; at a later period, when it had stooped to the service of rather than of religion, it expressed itself predominantly in the nude. Still, however, only such gods appear nude as represent a certain degree of moral and spiritual unripeness or sensuousness; Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, appear almost always draped; for spiritually-developed and historical characters, also among human beings, nudity was an artistic impossibility. This suggests the true law in the case. Nudity represents merely the naturally-beautiful, not the spiritually-beautiful, merely the human in general, not the personal in particular,—is that which is alike in all persons, not that in which they spiritually differ. That portion of the body which does not express the merely general, that is, the countenance, is, in fact, uniformly left free of clothing. The very sense for the morally-spiritual gives even a stronger expression to the personal through the medium itself of clothing. Who could bear the thought of a nude Caesar or Homer! Christian art rejected the nude, for the good reason that it had spiritual characters to represent. Moreover, mere nudity is artistically beautiful only in the form of lust-repellent, colorless sculpture; in painting it becomes licentious and, therefore, un-beautiful. It is a very false opinion, that clothing really conceals beauty; clothing, as an expression of the spiritual, as a free artistic creation, is in fact the higher beauty. This appears very clearly when man is represented not as an individual, but in groups; a bathing-place, swarming with nude figures, presents assuredly no beautiful spectacle, even if they were so many Apollos; precisely where man appears in his higher truth, namely, in society, there a beautiful scene is presented only by the help of diversified, character-expressive clothing. It is true, clothing is beautiful only where it is really expressive of a character, whether of the nation or of the person. The slavish copying after journals of fashion, is evidence of a want of sense and of character, and of a lack of esthetic perception.

Clothing did not first become necessary because of sin. The Biblical account implies only, that it became necessary prematurely, and for another than its normal reason,—namely, before the development of personal character had led to its invention as an adornment. The sin of the first pair effected only that the -innocent consorts felt, now, shame in each other’s presence, and that clothing, the proper object of which is ornamentation, was turned into a garb of penance. Clothing was not the very first want of persons living as yet in the most primitive simplicity; nor was yet its lack the characteristic trait of the Paradisaical state; clothing would have become a moral requirement also in the unfallen state so soon as man had grown into families, and the riper character of parents appeared in the presence of children [comp. Gen. ix, 21 sqq.] The nudity of savages is not innocence, but shameless rudeness.

Animals do not decorate themselves, they are decorated already; man exalts himself above the animal by ingenious decoration. The tawdry ornamentation of savages exemplifies this, under a rude form; with them, the mere changing of the natural form is regarded as a beautifying; the notion of ornamentation is conceived under an essentially negative form; the unnatural itself is regarded as beautiful. There is a higher significance in the hunter’s hanging about himself the skins of the bear or lion;—this is to him essentially a decoration of honor, a sign of his courage. Thus also, in the simpler forms of civilized life, it is an honor for a woman personally to weave and to prepare her own clothing and that of the family; it is natural for man to display his work, the fruit of his skill; but he also loves to manifest his spiritual idiosyncrasy under an esthetic form in the ornamentation of the body. Clothing and ornamentation in general, when of a normal character, manifest, in part, the general element, the natural peculiarity, and, in part, the personal peculiarity; hence in the style of the clothing we can to a certain extent recognize the personal character; the distinction between male and female clothing among all civilized nations has a deep moral ground [comp. Deut. xxii, 5]; and just as, on the one hand, it is usually foolish and vain for an individual to break entirely with a general national custom, so, on the other, it is evidence of spiritual imbecility to make one’s entire outward appearance a piece of mere imitation, without personal peculiarity.

The Scriptures attach some importance to a befitting adornment, especially in its moral significancy. Jehovah himself prescribes a worthy garb for those who officiate in his worship [Exod. xxviii and xxxix; Num. xv, 38 sqq.]; a holy adornment becomes those who offer worship to the Lord [Psa. xxix, 2; comp. Exod. xix, 10; Ezek. xxiv, 17]. When Christ in his parable [Matt. xxii, 2 sqq.] characterizes the not putting on of the wedding-garment as a serious fault, he manifestly does more than allude to a mere worthless custom [comp. Gen. xli, 14]; and the apostle does not consider it unimportant to commend to the societies a becoming adornment [1 Tim. ii, 9, 10].

That cleanliness of body and of clothing is regarded not only in the Old Testament [Exod. xix, 10; xxix, 4; Lev. viii, 66; Num. viii, 6 sqq.; xxxi, 21 sqq.; comp. Prov. xxxi, 25], but also in all the higher religions and in Islamism, as an important moral and religious duty, so that in fact a large part of the worship consists in washings, with direct symbolical reference to moral purification,—is a plain indication of the deep moral significancy of bodily purity. The sanitary interest is here merely incidental; the essential point is the outward expressing of the spiritual. Man is to bear, in his entire inner nature, as well as in his outward manifestation, a spiritually-moral impress,—is to be, in all respects, an expression of free self-determination, is to have upon himself nothing which has attached itself to him merely outwardly or fortuitously, as something belonging not to him, but to an extraneous nature-body,—is to be a purely spiritual creation. Uncleanliness is the expression of unfree nature,—of a dependent, passive belonging to mere outward nature, an evidence of self-abandonment, self-disesteem and dishonor, and is regarded among all cultivated nations as a symbol and actual indication of sin; it has never been any thing other than isolated spiritual perversions of humanity who have found an especial wisdom and greatness of soul in an open display of uncleanliness. Sensual pleasure-seeking, riotousness and moral degradation usually lead to corporeal filthiness; and it is a very wise principle of education in the case of the morally abandoned, and in missions among rude tribes, to place a very high value on bodily cleanliness. The precepts as to cleansing, in the Old Testament, are based on this ground; Christianity expressly declares carefulness about outward cleanliness as a virtue intimately connected with religion [Matt. vi, 17; comp. John xiii, 4 sqq.].

To the gracefulness and beauty of the physique, belongs also that manner of movement or bearing which answers to the spiritual character, to beauty of soul; the cultivation of skillfulness of movement leads directly to the culture of esthetical motion. The beauty of movement consists in the fact that it expresses the perfect mastery of the soul over the body, and thus presents, in the body, not merely the organ of the will, but also, through the element of the beautiful, an image of the self-harmonious spirit,—in youth an expression of heart-gladness, in age that of earnest dignity. The dance is esthetic only in youth, in the mature it is repulsive.