You may recede with ages, you do not
recede in art. The Pyramids and the Iliad stand on a fore plan.
Masterpieces have the same level--the Absolute. Once the Absolute is
reached, all is reached." And Schopenhauer says, "Only true works of
art have eternal youth and enduring power like nature and life
themselves. For they belong to no age, but to humanity--they cannot
grow old, but appear to us ever fresh and new, down to the latest
ages." Let us disclaim then any such word as Modern in relation to
art, particularly in relation to a philosophy which has to do with the
principle and essence of art. Is a Philosophy of Art possible? There
must be some who will think it is impossible. Have we a philosophy
that explains such an apparently simple thing as how one knows
anything--or of simple consciousness? Every philosopher that has
attempted to explain consciousness or how we know, takes refuge in
assumptions. At any Philosophical Society, if you ask for the
explanation of simple Consciousness, the avalanche of answers, each
differing from the other, will bewilder you. We know the outward
appearance of an object, of which we say that we know it, but what is
it _in itself_? Of that we are as much in the dark as we are of the
mind that knows.
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