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PARTISAN REVIEW
of life and organic development. 3. The
French Revolution,
that is to
say, the spiritual fight against it, and the need for a new, counter–
revolutionary philosophy of history as a weapon in that fight.
The discovery of historical time as a medium of organic, that is,
highly purposeful development is, at the same time, the expression of
the disillusioned romantic mood of the post-revolutionary generation.
History becomes the refuge of the elements whose intellectual and
material existence is threatened by the outcome of the Revolution–
the refuge, above all, of the intelligentsia, which now feels homeless
and takes shelter in a past which, in contrast to the present, seems a
place of safety and stability. The historical past is, to the romantic
mind, the storehouse of mankind's great spiritual achievements, and
time itself is the medium in which it moves most freely and safely.
Time now enters the realm of art and literature as an independent
spiritual power. Romanticism not only brings into existence the his–
torical novel and modern history painting, it also introduces time as
a fundamental factor in every form of artistic expression.
It
not only
destroys the "unity of time" in the drama and assures to the epical
forms, above all the novel, an unrivaled prominence in literature,
but also introduces time, as the element of action and drama, into
painting. The dynamism that distinguishes the works of a Gericault
or a Delacroix from those of pre-romantic painting is mainly the re–
sult of the attention given by these masters to temporal phenomena.
Classicism corresponds to a philosophy of life in which changes
and individual differences are of no account; romanticism, on the
other hand, to a historical conception of human life which, being
the product of its history, cannot but be individual. Individualism,
emotionalism, irrationalism, all can be derived from the historically
determined, organically developing constitution of the human mind.
If
organic constitution, that is to say, indivisible unity, is the most
essential characteristic of human nature, then the emotions, passions,
instincts, irrational drives of a man are elements in his spiritual
make-up as inevitable and significant as his intelligence, will-power,
and scheme of life-according to romantic views, of course, even
more significant.
Scientific thought, about the middle of the century, comes into
opposition to the mysticism of the organic view of history, above all,
to the belief in a higher superpersonal intelligence governing the des–
tiny of the individual and compelling him, at the same time, to serve
