DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61022#0035
PERUGIA
sympathetic reading than a tale of peace and conformity. The
power and the opportunity to rebel come so seldom and figure
so largely in the ordinary man’s mind that all his desire for it can
only express itself in sympathy with the heroes who have done
what he would do. But conformity also has its merits, if they
are less exciting to describe. All conflict and rebellion with the
powers that are in force have their source in weakness as well as
strength, arise as much from incapacity to enjoy the good of
existing institutions as from vehement desire to introduce newer
and apparently better. Conformity, if it is not merely weak
acquiescence but springs from a definite resolve to succeed in a
beaten path and from a conviction that what other men do is
necessarily not worthless, is a method of advancing towards an
ideal not less noble than rebellion. It has, moreover, the greater
advantage that every step taken in conformity is a discipline, and
that success when achieved is not only due to the efforts and
character of the one personality, but also to the acquisition and
exercise of the virtues of all those predecessors whose efforts
have formed a tradition. The man who has achieved once,
through his own value in rebellion, has little impulse to advance
farther; the man who succeeds in conformity may, by the
exercise of the same virtues, proceed and develop until he absorbs
all that is within his power and reaches such perfection as human
nature is capable of achieving. Both temperaments have their
dangers,—in the rebellious the success of opposition may breed
mannerism and failure to appreciate the efforts of others; in the
conforming the influence of others, mere convention, may choke
with idleness the instincts and ideals of the self. Each therefore
must be corrected by an infusion of the other so great that only
the habit of characterising according to degree enables any really
successful genius to be placed in either class.
The astounding development of Raphael’s art in the remainder
of his short life proves how ready he was to accept and invent
new ideas. Such broad-mindedness, unlike the limitation either
13
sympathetic reading than a tale of peace and conformity. The
power and the opportunity to rebel come so seldom and figure
so largely in the ordinary man’s mind that all his desire for it can
only express itself in sympathy with the heroes who have done
what he would do. But conformity also has its merits, if they
are less exciting to describe. All conflict and rebellion with the
powers that are in force have their source in weakness as well as
strength, arise as much from incapacity to enjoy the good of
existing institutions as from vehement desire to introduce newer
and apparently better. Conformity, if it is not merely weak
acquiescence but springs from a definite resolve to succeed in a
beaten path and from a conviction that what other men do is
necessarily not worthless, is a method of advancing towards an
ideal not less noble than rebellion. It has, moreover, the greater
advantage that every step taken in conformity is a discipline, and
that success when achieved is not only due to the efforts and
character of the one personality, but also to the acquisition and
exercise of the virtues of all those predecessors whose efforts
have formed a tradition. The man who has achieved once,
through his own value in rebellion, has little impulse to advance
farther; the man who succeeds in conformity may, by the
exercise of the same virtues, proceed and develop until he absorbs
all that is within his power and reaches such perfection as human
nature is capable of achieving. Both temperaments have their
dangers,—in the rebellious the success of opposition may breed
mannerism and failure to appreciate the efforts of others; in the
conforming the influence of others, mere convention, may choke
with idleness the instincts and ideals of the self. Each therefore
must be corrected by an infusion of the other so great that only
the habit of characterising according to degree enables any really
successful genius to be placed in either class.
The astounding development of Raphael’s art in the remainder
of his short life proves how ready he was to accept and invent
new ideas. Such broad-mindedness, unlike the limitation either
13