(_γ_) Regarded in a certain relation to this fundamental axiom of art we may find some justification for the principle of irony in its modern sense; but it must not be overlooked that irony is frequently destitute of all real seriousness, and is particularly prone to expatiate over bad subject-matter; and, in another aspect of it, it is apt to run to seed in the mere yearning of emotion rather than actively participate in practical life, as is proved by the case of Novalis, one of the finer temperaments who have made this point of view their own, and for lack of definite interest, or through shrinking from the real world, are driven up and down, and cajoled into this sort of spiritual consumption. This is the kind of yearning which will not descend to mere practical business and production, because it is afraid of soiling itself with the contact of finite things, although it already secretly feels the defects of such exclusion. No doubt we find in irony that absolute principle of negativity, in which the subject of consciousness becomes self-centred through the annihilation of definite relations and particulars; but in this case the act of annihilation of definite relations and particulars, as we have already pointed out when discussing the principle, is not, as in comedy, essentially in its right place, simply exposing its own want of substance, but is directed quite as often against everything else excellent in itself and of sterling worth. Whether we regard irony, then, as this art of universal destruction, or as the yearning of which we have spoken in contrast with the true Ideal, it betrays a secret lack of proportion and restraint which is detrimental to the artist. Substantive form is what the Ideal demands, which, owing to the fact that it is clothed in the form and figure of external things, is unquestionably qualified by particularity no less than limitation; but this limitation of its form is at the same time included in such a way that everything merely external in its appearance is annulled and abolished. Only through this negation of mere externality is the determinate form of the Ideal a real exposition of the substantive content which belongs to it in a mode of appearance susceptible to sense-perception and the imagination.