The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 · Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
B. THE DETERMINACY OF THE IDEAL
To comprehend the Ideal in its intrinsic significance, that is to say, according to its fundamental notion, was a comparatively easy task. But the beauty of art, in so far as it is the Idea, is not to be restricted to the purely universal standpoint of its notional concept; even as so comprehended it must necessarily include within it determination and particularity, and is compelled to take definite embodiment as external reality. The question consequently arises in what way is the Ideal able still to assert itself in this process of objectification in the medium of external things and their finitude, and despite all that is antagonistic to ideality; and as a corollary to this we have to inquire how finite and determinate existence is enabled to attach to itself the ideality of the beauty of all art. We propose to regulate this inquiry with the following division of our subject matter. _First_, the determination of the Ideal in its simplest terms. _Secondly_, the determination of it, in so far as it proceeds by virtue of its particularity to a condition of _discordant parts_ within itself and to their resolution, a condition we may generally, define as _action_[297]. _Thirdly_, the determination of the Ideal from the point of view of it as an _external object._
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