Unlike Hegel, Weisse does not end his aesthetics with art. Indeed, he says, just like the highest form of art or drama requires a living person to act the drama, artistic creations in general still require a living, conscious subject that organically unifies all products of art - as it were, this subject concentrates the whole of the realm of beauty into the shape of a person.
Weisse calls this subject of aesthetic experiences by the ambiguous name Gemüt, which could be translated as heart or soul - the innermost being of a person. Weisse says that Gemüt comes in many shapes, which reflect what a person is, when we ignore their external, bodily appearance: thus we could also translate it as a character or personality.
Specifically, Weisse notes that personalities can be divided into two opposite shapes, which he calls somewhat confusingly Seele and Geist - two words again meaning soul or spirit or in general the innermost being of a person. Weisse explains the division with a few analogies: Seele is more like music - the most abstract form of art - and found especially with women, while Geist is more like poetry - the most developed form of art - and found especially with men.
Knowing the usual gender stereotypes of the time suggests that the difference of Seele and Geist in Weisse’s system lies in the difference of passive and active personalities. Indeed, Weisse explicitly says that in the traditional fourfold classification of personalities, Seele corresponds to a melancholic or sensitive personality, while Geist corresponds to choleric or irritable personality. Of the remaining personality types, phlegmatic corresponds to a complete lack of Gemüt, while sanguine personality corresponds to a balanced Gemüt.
This basic personality, Weisse says, connects a finite human being to something infinite beyond it - the true source of beauty. Thus, personality also affects ordinary human life and gives it a purpose to fulfil. At the same time, the otherwise restful personality becomes active and tries to achieve something in the external world. Here, Weisse says, personality turns into talent.
Personalities were already manifold, Weisse says, and the same dividedness continues in an even more radical manner with talents. We can define a general purpose of having a talent - Weisse calls this purpose taste, implying especially a talent for appreciating and creating aesthetical things. Yet, he notes, not all talented activities are aesthetic in kind, but the very same process of personality becoming a talent can lead into scientific or political activities.
As a talent, a personality is engaged with achieving something beyond itself. Yet, the personality can also take as its purpose its own self-expression, forming an organic unity of all its activities. This development, Weisse says, heightens a simple talent into a genius. Genius is then, in a sense, a return to the personality from external activities of a talent. Yet, while mere personality is something passive - something a person just is - genius means precisely expressing oneself through one’s activities. Such a genius, Weisse concludes, links itself to the higher order of the world, being essentially a personification of the whole world order.
Although reflecting in itself the whole world, Weisse says, genius is always also an individual personification of the world. In this sense, he continues, we can differentiate genius in general from all individual geniuses and their individual genial works. Indeed, he says, an individual genius can correspond more or less well with the general ideal of a genius. Indeed, some genius can even go so far as to completely separate oneself from the universal background. Such a perverted genius can then use its capacity of creation for creating something evil or ugly.
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