natures are united, and by this is proved the capacity of the infinite to
be developed in the finite, and accordingly the possibility of the
sublimest humanity.

The free play of the faculty of cognition which had been determined by
Kant is also developed by Schiller. His representation of this matter is
this: Man, as a spirit, is reason and will, self-active, determining,
form-giving; this is described by Schiller as the form-instinct; man, as
a sensuous being, is determinable, receptive, termed to matter; Schiller
describes this as the material instinct, "Stofftrieb." In the midst
between these two is situated the beautiful, in which reason and the
sensuous penetrate each other, and their enjoyable product is designated
by Schiller the play instinct. This expression is not happily chosen.
Schiller means to describe by it the free play of the forces, activity
according to nature, which is at once a joy and a happiness; he reminds
us of the life of Olympus, and adds: "Man is only quite a man when he
plays." Personality is that which lasts, the state of feeling is the
changeable in man; he is the fixed unity remaining eternally himself in
the floods of change. Man in contact with the world is to take it up in
himself, but to unite with it the highest freedom and independence, and,
instead of being lost in the world, to subject it to his reason. It is
only by his being independent that there is reality out of him; only by
being susceptible of feeling that there is reality in him. The object of
sensuous instinct is life; that of the purer instinct figure; living
figure or beauty is the object of the play instinct.

Only inasmuch as life is formed in the understanding and form in feeling
does life win a form and form win life, and only thus does beauty arise.
By beauty the sensuous man is led up to reason, the one-sided tension of
special force is strung to harmony, and man made a complete whole.