O
This independence of external goals is the source of that holiness and purity
of art, which goes so far that it not only rules out relationship with all mere
sensory pleasure, to demand which of art is the true nature of barbarism;
or with the useful, to require which of art is possible only in an age which
supposes the highest efforts of the human spirit to consist in economic
discoveries. It actually excludes relation with everything pertaining to
morality, and even leaves far beneath it the sciences (which in point of
disinterestedness stand closest to art), simply because they are always
directed to a goal outside themselves, and must ultimately themselves
serve merely as a means for the highest (namely art).
F.W.J. Schelling
