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12/4/13 4:03 PMOn the Prospects for a Folk Religion by Hegel

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On the Prospects for a Folk Religion

Hegel, Tubingen (1793)

Source: Three Essays, 1793-1795. The Tübingen Essay, Berne Fragments, The Life ofJesus, by G.W.F. Hegel, edited and translated with Introduction and Notes by Peter Fussand John Dobbins. University of Notre Dame Press. Notre Dame, Indiana, 186pp., 1984.pp. 30-58 reproduced here, omitting footnotes, under the “Fair Use” provisions;Copyright: remains with University of Notre Dame Press.Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

Religion is one of our greatest concerns in life. Even as children we were taught to stammer prayers tothe deity, with our little hands folded for us so as to point up toward the supreme being. Ourmemories were laden with a mass of doctrines, incomprehensible at the time, designed for our futureuse and comfort in life. As we grow older, religious matters still fill up a good deal of our lives;indeed for some the whole circuit of their thoughts and aspirations is unified by religion in the waythat a wheel’s outer rim is linked to the hub. And we dedicate to our religion, in addition to other feastdays, the first day of each week, which from earliest youth appears to us in a fairer and more festivelight than all the other days. Moreover, we see in our midst a special class of people chosenexclusively for religious service; and all the more important events and undertakings in the lives ofpeople, those on which their private happiness depends – birth, marriage, death and burial – havesomething religious mixed in with them.

But do people reflect as they become older on the nature and attributes of the being toward whomtheir sentiments are directed – or in particular on the relation of the world to that being? Humannature is so constituted that the practical element in sacred teaching, that in it which can motivate usto act and which becomes a source of consolation for us as well as the source of our knowledge ofduty, is readily manifest to the uncorrupted human sensibility. On the other hand, the instruction (i.e.the concepts as well as everything only externally connected with [the practical]) that we receive fromchildhood on, and which accordingly makes such an impression on us, is something that is, as it were,grafted onto the natural need of the human spirit. Although this relation is frequently immediateenough, it is, alas, all too often capricious, grounded neither in bonds indigenous to the nature of thesoul nor in truths created and developed out of the concepts ...

We should not be so enthralled by the sublime demand of reason on mankind (the legitimacy of whichwe wholeheartedly acknowledge whenever our hearts happen to be filled with reason), or by alluringdescriptions (the products of pure and lovely fantasy) of wise or innocent men, as to ever hope to findvery many such people in the real world, or to imagine that we might possess or behold this etherealapparition here or anywhere else. [Were we not in fact so easily enthralled,] our sensibility would beless often clouded by a peevish disposition, by dissatisfaction with what we in fact encounter; norwould we be so terrified when we believe ourselves obliged to conclude that sensuality is the

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predominating element in all human action and striving. It is no easy matter to tell whether mereprudence or actual morality is the will’s determining ground. Granted that the satisfaction of theinstinct for happiness is the highest goal of life, if we but know how to calculate well enough, theresults will outwardly appear the same as when the law of reason determines our will. Howeverscrupulously a system of morality may require us to separate in abstracto pure morality fromsensuality and make the latter more subservient to the former, when we consider man’s life as a wholewe must make equally full allowance for his sensuality, for his dependence on external and internalnature (i.e. both on the surroundings in which he lives and on his sensual inclinations and blindinstinct). – But human nature is quickened, so to speak, solely by virtue of its rational ideas. just as adish well prepared is permeated by salt, which must impart its flavor to the whole without showing upin lumps – or even as light, which cannot be exhibited as a substance, nonetheless suffuseseverything, showing its influence throughout all nature (e.g. breaking upon objects in various ways,thus giving them their shape, and generating wholesome air via plants, etc.) – so likewise do the ideasof reason animate the entire fabric of our sensual life and by their influence show forth our activity inits distinctive light. Indeed reason as such seldom reveals itself in its essence; and its effect pervadeseverything like fine sand, giving each and every inclination and drive a coloring of its own.

By its very nature, religion is not merely a systematic investigation of God, his attributes, the relationof the world and ourselves to him, and the permanence of our souls; we could learn all this by reasonalone, or be aware of it by other means. Nor is religious knowledge merely a matter of history orargumentation. Rather, religion engages the heart. It influences our feelings and the determination ofour will; and this is so in part because our duties and our laws obtain powerful reinforcement by beingrepresented to us as laws of God, and in part because our notion of the exaltedness and goodness ofGod fills our hearts with admiration as well as with feelings of humility and gratitude. And so religionprovides morality and the well-springs of its activity with a new and nobler impetus – it sets up a newand stronger dam against the pressure of sensual impulses. But if religious motives are to have aneffect on sensuality, they too must be sensual; hence among sensual people religion itself is sensual.Of course such motives, insofar as they are at all moral, lose a bit of their majesty. But they havethereby acquired such a human aspect, and have so perfectly adapted themselves to our feelings that,led by our hearts and lured on by the beauteous images of our fancy, we readily forget that coolreason disapproves of such images or indeed even forbids so much as comment on this sort of thing.

When we go on to speak of religion as public, we still of course take it to include the concepts of Godand immortality as well as everything connected with them, but specifically insofar as these constitutethe conviction of a whole people, influencing their actions and way of thinking. Moreover, we includethe means whereby these ideas are both taught to the people and made to penetrate their hearts – ameans concerned not only with the immediate (e.g. I refrain from stealing because God has forbiddenit), but directed more especially to ends that, while removed from the immediate, must by and large bereckoned as more important. Among these we include the uplifting and ennobling of the spirit of anation so as to awaken in its soul the so often dormant sense of its true worth, and to encourage a self-image colored with the gentler hues of goodness and humanity; for not only should it resist debasingitself or allowing itself to be degraded, but it should refuse to settle for being “merely” human.

Now although the main doctrines of the Christian religion have remained essentially the same sincetheir inception, one doctrine or another has been, depending on the times and circumstances, leftaltogether in the dark, while some other doctrine has been given the limelight and, unduly emphasized



at the expense of the one obscured, stretched much too far or interpreted much too narrowly. Yet it isthe entire body of religious principles and the feelings flowing from them – above all the degree ofstrength with which these are able to influence modes of action – that is decisive in a folk religion.Upon an oppressed spirit, one which, under the burden of its chains, has lost its youthful vigor andbegun to age, such religious ideas can have little impact. At the beginning of maturation the youthfulspirit of a people feels its power and exults in its strength; it seizes hungrily upon any novelty (albeitnever upon anything that would put fetters on its proud and free neck), and then typically tosses itaside in favor of something else. By contrast, an aging spirit is characterized by its firm attachment totradition in every respect. It bears its fetters as an old man endures the gout, grumbling but unable todo more. It lets itself be pushed and shoved at its master’s whim, and it is only half conscious when itenjoys itself – not free, open, and bright with the appealing gaiety that invites camaraderie. Moreover,its festivals are but occasions for chatter, since old folk prefer gossip to everything else. Here there isno boisterousness, no full-blooded enjoyment.

Exposition of the difference between objective and subjective religion; the importance of thisexposition in view of the entire question

Objective religion is fides quae creditur [the faith with which one believes]; understanding andmemory are the powers that do the work, investigating facts, thinking them through, retaining andeven believing them. Objective religion can also possess practical knowledge, but only as a sort offrozen capital. It is susceptible to organizational schemes: it can be systematized, set forth in books,and expounded discursively. Subjective religion on the other hand expresses itself only in feelings andactions. If I say of someone that he has religion, this does not mean that he is well schooled in it, butrather that his heart feels the active presence, the wonder, the closeness of the deity, that his heartknows or sees God in nature and in the destinies of men, that he prostrates himself before God,thanking him and glorifying him in all that he does. The actions of such an individual are notperformed merely with an eye to whether they are good or prudent, but are motivated also by thethought: This is pleasing to God – which is often the strongest motive. When something pleases himor when he has good fortune he directs a glance at God, thanking him for it. Subjective religion is thusalive, having an efficacy that, while abiding within one’s being, is actively directed outward.Subjective religion is something individual, objective religion a matter of abstraction. The former isthe living book of nature, of plants, insects, birds and beasts living with and surviving off each other –each responsive to the joys of living, all of them intermingled, their various species everywheretogether. The latter is the cabinet of the naturalist, full of insects he has killed, plants that aredesiccated, animals stuffed or preserved in alcohol; what nature had kept totally apart is here lined upside by side; and whereas nature had joined an infinite variety of purposes in a convivial bond, hereeverything is ordered to but a single purpose.

The entire body of religious knowledge belonging to objective religion, then, can be the same for alarge mass of people, and in principle could be so across the face of the earth. But having been woveninto the fabric of subjective religion, it comprises only a small and relatively ineffectual part of it, andin fact varies within each individual. For subjective religion the chief question is whether and to whatextent our sensibility is inclined to let itself be determined by religious impulses, i.e. how susceptibleare we to religion sensually; then further, what makes an especially strong impression upon the heart,what kinds of feelings are most cultivated in the soul and hence most readily elicited. Some people



have no feeling whatever for the more tender representations of love, so that impulses derived fromthe love of God simply do not affect their hearts; the organs with which they feel are rather moreblunt, being roused only by the stimulus of fear (thunder, lightning, etc.). The chords of their heartssimply do not resonate to the gentle stroke of love. Other people are deaf to the voice of duty; it isquite useless to try to call their attention to the inner judge of actions which supposedly presides inman’s own heart, i.e. to conscience itself. In them no such voice is ever heard; rather, self-interest isthe pendulum whose swinging keeps their machine running. It is this disposition, this receptivity thatdetermines how in each individual subjective religion is to be constituted. – We are schooled inobjective religion from childhood, and our memory is laden with it all too soon, so that the as yetsupple understanding, the fine and delicate plant of an open and free sensibility, is often crushed bythe burden. As the roots of the plant work their way through loose soil, they absorb what they can,sucking nourishment as they go; but when diverted by a stone they seek another path. So here, too,when the burden heaped on memory cannot be dissolved, the now sturdier powers of the soul eithershake loose of it altogether or simply bypass it without drinking in any nourishment. – Yet in eachperson nature has planted at least the seed of finer sentiments, whose source is morality itself, she hasimplanted in everyone a feeling for what is moral, for ends beyond those attaching to mere sensuality.It is the task of education, of culture, to see to it that this precious seed is not choked out and isallowed to sprout into a genuine receptivity for moral ideas and feelings. And religion, preciselybecause it cannot be the first to take root in our sensibility, needs to find this already cultivated soilbefore it can flourish.

Everything depends on subjective religion; this is what has inherent and true worth. Let thetheologians squabble all they like over what belongs to objective religion, over its dogmas and theirprecise determination: the fact is that every religion is based on a few fundamental principles which,although set forth in the different religions in varying degrees of purity, however modified oradulterated, are nonetheless the basis of all the faith and hope that religion is capable of offering us.When I speak of religion here, I am abstracting completely from all scientific (or rather metaphysical)knowledge of God, as well as from the relationship of the world and ourselves to him, etc; suchknowledge, the province of discursive understanding, is theology and no longer religion. And Iclassify as religious only such knowledge of God and immortality as is responsive to the demands ofpractical reason and connected with it in a readily discernible way. (This does not preclude moredetailed disclosures of special divine arrangements on man’s behalf.) Further, I here discuss objectivereligion only insofar as it is a component of subjective religion. But I do not intend to investigatewhich religious teachings are of the greatest interest to the heart or can give the soul the most comfortand encouragement; nor how the doctrines of any particular religion must be constituted if they are tomake a people better and happier. Rather my concern is with what needs to be done so that religionwith all the force of its teaching might be blended into the fabric of human feelings, bonded with whatmoves us to act, and shown to be efficacious, thus enabling religion to become entirely subjective.

When it actually is so, it reveals its presence not merely by hands clasped together, knees bent, andheart humbled before the holy, but by the way it suffuses the entire scope of human inclination(without the soul being directly conscious of it) and makes its presence felt everywhere – althoughonly mediately or, if I may so express it, negatively, in and through the cheerful enjoyment of humansatisfactions. Subjective religion’s role in the performance of the nobler deeds and the exercise of thefiner, philanthropic virtues is not, to be sure, a direct one; its influence is discreet, it lets the soul carryon these tasks freely and openly without inhibiting the spontaneity of its actions. Any expression of



human powers, whether of courage or considerateness, cheerfulness or delight in life itself, requiresfreedom from an ill-natured tendency toward envy along with a conscience that is clear and not guilt-ridden; and religion helps foster both of these qualities. Furthermore, its influence is also felt insofaras innocence, when combined with it, is able to find the exact point at which delight in extravagance,high-spiritedness, and firmness of resolve would degenerate into assaults upon the rights of others.

Subjective Religion

Inasmuch as theology (whatever its source, even if in religion) is a matter of understanding andmemory, while religion is a concern of the heart stemming from a need of practical reason, it is clearthat the powers of the soul activated in each of them differ considerably, and that our sensibility has tobe made receptive in a different way for each. For our hope to be vindicated that the highest good –one dimension of which we are duty-bound to actualize – will become actual in its totality, ourpractical reason demands belief in a divinity, in immortality. – This, at any rate, is the seed fromwhich religion springs. But when religion is thus derived, it is in fact conscience (the inner sense ofright and wrong, as well as the feeling that wrongdoing must incur punishment and well-doing merithappiness) whose elements are being analyzed and articulated in clear concepts. Now, it may well bethat the idea of a mighty and invisible being first took root in the human soul on the occasion of somefearful natural phenomenon; God may first have revealed himself through weather that madeeveryone feel his presence more closely – if only in the gentle rustling of the evening breeze. Be thatas it may, the human soul eventually experienced a moral feeling such that it found in the idea ofreligion something that answered to its need.

Religion is sheer superstition whenever I seek to derive from it specific grounds for action insituations where mere prudence is sufficient, or when fear of divinity makes me perform certainactions by means of which I imagine that it might be placated. No doubt this is how religion isconstituted among many a sensual people. Their representation of God and how he deals with men isbound to the idea that he acts in accordance with the laws of human sensibility and acts upon theirsensuality. There is little of the truly moral in this notion. However, the concept of God and myrecourse to him (worship) is already more moral – hinting at consciousness of a higher order,determined by non-sensual ends (even though superstitions like the above may still be involved) –when my feeling that everything depends on God’s decision leads me to beseech his supportconcerning the eventual outcome of an undertaking, when my belief in God’s dispensing good fortuneonly to the just and inflicting misfortune on the unjust and presumptuous becomes at least aspervasive as belief in fate or in natural necessity, and when religion at last gives rise to principles ofmoral conduct.

While objective religion can take on most any color, subjective religion among good people isbasically the same: what makes me a Christian in your eyes makes you a Jew in mine, Nathan says.For religion is a matter of the heart, which often deals inconsistently with the dogmas congenial tounderstanding and memory. Surely the worthiest people are not always those who have done the mostspeculating about religion, who are given to transforming their religion into theology, and who are inthe habit of replacing the fullness and warmth of faith with cold cognitions and deft displays of verbaldexterity. Religion in fact acquires very little through the understanding, whose operations andskeptical tendencies are more likely to chill than warm the heart. And whoever finds that other



peoples’ modes of representation – heathens, as they are called – contain so much absurdity that theycause him to delight in his own higher insights, his own understanding, which convinces him that hesees further than the greatest of men saw, does not comprehend the essence of religion. Someone whocalls his Jehovah Jupiter or Brahma and is truly pious offers his gratitude or his sacrifice in just aschildlike a manner as does the true Christian. Who is not moved by the splendid simplicity andguilelessness of someone who, when nature has bestowed its goods on him, thinks at once of hisgreatest benefactor and offers him the best, the most flawless, the first-born of his grain and sheep?Who does not admire Coriolanus who, at the apex of his good fortune, was mindful of Nemesis, andasked the gods (much as Gustavus Adolphus humbled himself before God during the battle ofLuetzen) not to glorify the spirit of Roman greatness but rather to make him more humble?

Such dispositions are for the heart and are meant to be enjoyed by it with simplicity of spirit andfeeling, rather than be criticized by the cold understanding. Only an arrogant sectarian, fancyinghimself wiser than all men of other parties, could fail to appreciate the guileless last wish of Socratesto have a rooster delivered to the god of health, could remain unmoved by the beauty of his feeling inthanking the gods for death, which he regarded as a kind of convalescence, or could bring himself tomake the malicious remark offered by Tertullian.

A heart that does not speak louder than the understanding (unlike that of the friar in the scene fromNathan above), or that just keeps silent, allowing the understanding all the time it needs to rationalizesome course of action – a heart like that isn’t worth much to begin with: there is no love in it.Nowhere do we find a finer contrast between the voice of uncorrupted feeling, i.e. a pure heart, andthe obstinacy of the understanding than in the Gospels. With what warmth and affection Jesus allowsa woman of former ill-repute to anoint his body, accepting this spontaneous outpouring of a beautifulsoul which, filled with remorse, trust, and love, refuses to be inhibited by the rabble around her. Andthis even as several apostles who are too cold of heart to empathize with her deepest feeling, herbeautiful gift of trust, belie their pretensions to charitableness by indulging in cutting side-remarks.

What a sterile and unnatural observation it is that good old Gellert makes someplace (much likeTertullian, Apologia, ch. 46: deum quilibet opifex) to the effect that a small child nowadays knowsmore about God than the wisest heathen. This is as if the treatise on morality I have sitting in mycloset – which I can use to wrap up a stinking cheese if I see fit – were of greater value than theperhaps at times unjust heart of a Frederick the Second. For in this respect the difference betweenTertullian’s opifex, or Gellert’s child who has had the theological leaven beaten into him along withthe catechism, and the paper containing moral pronouncements is on the whole not very great. Agenuine consciousness acquired through experience is lacking in them to nearly the same degree ...

Enlightenment: the will to actualize by means of the understanding

The understanding serves only objective religion. In clarifying fundamental Principles and exhibitingthem in their purity, the understanding has brought forth splendid fruit (Lessing’s Nathan) anddeserves the eulogies with which it is forever being extolled. But such principles are never madepractical by means of the understanding alone.

The understanding is a courtier who is ruled complaisantly by the moods of his master. It knows how



to hunt up rationalizations for every passion, every venture; and it is first and foremost a servant ofself-love, which is always very clever at putting blunders committed or about to be committed in afavorable light. Self-love likes to sing its own praises for this, i.e. for having found such a goodexcuse for itself.

Having my understanding enlightened does make me smarter, but not better. If I reduce virtue itself toShrewdness, and calculate that no one can become happy without it, such a calculation is much toosophisticated and cold to be effective in the moment of action, indeed to have any influence on mylife at all.

Were one to adopt the very best of moral codes, inform oneself most exactly both about its universalprinciples and its derivative duties and virtues, and keep in mind this mountain of rules andexceptions at the moment of action, the result would be a mode of conduct so involuted that onewould be eternally hesitant and at odds with oneself Not even the authors of moral codes go so far asto expect that somebody would actually commit their books to memory or, upon the slightest impulseto action, consult them before doing anything in order to ensure that this is all quite ethical and hencepermissible. And yet this is in fact what one demands of a person when one insists on a moral code.No printed code or manner of enlightening the understanding could ever prevent evil impulses fromtaking root or even flourishing. In view of this, Campe’s Theophron is designed to have only anegative effect – a person ought to act on his own, work things out for himself, make his owndecisions, not let anybody else do this for him – although in his hands this approach turns out to benothing more than a mechanical contrivance.

When one speaks of enlightening a people, this presupposes that errors and vulgar prejudicesassociated with religion are rampant. And by and large religions do consist of such things, based asthey are on sensuousness – on the blind expectation that a certain effect will be brought about by analleged cause that has nothing to do with it. Among a people full of prejudices the concept of causeseems largely based on the notion of mere succession, as evidenced by its not infrequent tendency,when speaking of causes, to leave out and indeed fail to observe the intermediate members of a seriesof effects. Hence sensuousness and fantasy are and remain the sources of prejudice. And even validpropositions that have stood up to investigation by the understanding are still prejudices when peoplesimply adopt and give credence to them without having any rational grounds for them.

Prejudices, therefore, can be of two kinds:

a) notions that are actually erroneous,

b) notions that, while in actuality true, are not apprehended as truths ought to be (i.e. by means ofreason), being acknowledged only on the basis of trust or faith, and thus doing little credit to theperson who accepts them. To enlighten a people, to rid it of its intellectual prejudices (practicalprejudices, i.e. those that affect the determining process of the will, have entirely different sources andconsequences and are thus of no concern here) involves improving its understanding in certainrespects so that it may free itself of the thrall of error and attain the certainty of actual truths onrational grounds. Yet to begin with, who is the mortal willing to decide what truth is? Still, we canhere assume – as we must when we speak of human knowledge in concreto and (from a politicalperspective) in view of the fact that human societies do exist – that surely there are some universallyvalid principles which are not only evident to common sense but form the basis of any religion



deserving of the name, however deformed it may be.

a) Certainly there are only a few such principles; and they are all quite general and abstract. Thuswhen set forth in their purity as reason demands, they “contradict” ordinary experience as well aseverything that seems so apparent to the senses. These they could never influence anyhow, since theyare fit only for an order of things antithetic to sense. Little wonder, then, that they do not readilyqualify for whole-hearted acceptance on the part of the people. And even if they are preserved inmemory, they still constitute no part of man’s system of spiritual desires.

b) Now a religion that is supposed to be generally accessible cannot consist just of some universaltruths embraced lovingly and wholeheartedly only by the handful of outstanding individuals whorediscovered them for their era. Hence there are always added ingredients which must be taken merelyon faith; and the purer tenets must be coarsened and given a more sensual exterior if they are to beunderstood and made accessible to a sensual disposition. Moreover, customs must be introduced thatrequire., if one is to be aware of their necessity and utility, either trusting belief or habituation fromchildhood on. Thus it is evident that a folk religion, if as its very concept implies its teaching is to beefficacious in active life, cannot possibly be constructed out of sheer reason. Positive religionnecessarily rests on faith in the tradition by which it is handed down to us. Our commitment toreligious customs stems likewise from their binding force, i.e. from our belief that God demands themof us as being appropriate and obligatory. But when they are taken merely by themselves andregarded rationally, all that can be claimed for them is that they serve to edify, to awaken pioussentiments; and their suitability for this purpose is always open to critical inspection. Yet as soon as Ihave persuaded myself that such customs and forms of worship do no real honor to God – that rightconduct is the form of service most pleasing to him – they have, despite their edifying effect, therebyalready lost a good deal of their potential impact on me.

Since religion is inherently a matter of the heart, one might well ask how much ratiocination it cantolerate without ceasing to be religion. If we do a lot of reflecting on the formation of our sentimentson the customs in which we are made to participate and which are supposed to awaken pious feelings,on their historical origin, on their utility, and so forth – they surely lose some of the aura of sanctitywith which we had always been accustomed to regard them. No less do the dogmas of theology losesome of their dignity when we look at them in the light of ecclesiastical history. Yet how little lastingeffect such cool reflections have can be seen when we find ourselves in straitened circumstances,when a troubled heart seeks a sturdier staff, when in desperation we reach out – deaf to the sophistriesof the understanding – for anything that once gave comfort, clutching at it all the more tightly andfearfully now lest it slip away again.

Wisdom is something quite different from enlightenment, from ratiocination. But wisdom is notscience. Wisdom is the soul’s elevation, through experience deepened by reflection, over itsdependence on opinion and the impressions of sense. And if it is to be practical and not merely acomplacent and boastful intellectualism, wisdom must be attended by the steady warmth of a gentleflame. It does little rationalizing; and it does not proceed methodo mathematica from concepts and,by way of a series of inferences in the mode of Barbara and Barocco, arrive at what it takes to betruth. Nor does it purchase its conviction at the common marketplace, where knowledge is handed outto anybody who pays the right price; indeed it wouldn’t know what denomination to put on thecounter for such a deal. – And when it speaks, it does so only from the depths of its heart.



Now the cultivation of the understanding and its application to matters that elicit our interest may verywell be promoted by enlightenment – along with a firm grasp of our obligations and a clear head inpractical matters. But none of these are such that they could endow mankind with morality. They areinfinitely inferior in worth to goodness and purity of heart, with which they are not reallycommensurable in the first place.

A happy disposition is a major part of the character of a well-constituted youth. But now suppose thatcircumstances compel this youth to become increasingly self-absorbed, and he resolves to cultivatehimself into a virtuous person. Lacking the experience to realize that books cannot make him one, hemay perhaps pick up Campe’s Theophron in order to make its lessons in wisdom and prudence theguiding principles of his life. Each morning and evening he reads an excerpt, and all day he thinksabout it. What will be the result? True self-perfection, perhaps? Knowledge of human nature?Practical good sense? All this requires years of experience and practice – yet meditation on Campeand the Campian rule will cure him in a week! Gloomily and apprehensively he enters into a societywhere only those are welcome who know how to be amusing. Timidly he indulges in this or thatpleasure which is a real treat only for him who partakes of it cheerfully. Overcome by feelings ofinferiority, he defers to everyone. The company of women gives him no joy, for he fears that even theslightest contact with some girl might cause a raging fire to course through his veins. His appearanceis awkward, his demeanor rigid. But he won’t be able to stand this for long; soon he will reject hispeevish mentor’s outlook on life, and feel all the better for it.

If enlightenment is to accomplish what its eulogists claim for it, if it is to earn its accolades, it mustbecome true wisdom. Short of this it tends to remain a kind of snobbish sophistry that fancies itselfsuperior to its many weaker brethren. Such arrogance is typical of adolescents, and indeed of theirelders; having got a couple of insights out of books, they begin scoffing at beliefs they had up to now,like everyone else, unquestioningly accepted. In this process vanity of course plays a major role. Sowhenever someone has a great deal to say about the incomprehensible stupidity of the masses, seeksto show at great length that some popular prejudice is the most unbelievable folly, and is given tobandying about terms like ‘enlightenment’, ‘the knowledge of human nature,’ ‘the history ofmankind’, ‘happiness’ and ‘perfection’, we know we are in the presence of one of enlightenment’sbabbling quacks peddling shop-worn panaceas. These types stuff each other with empty words,oblivious to the sacred and delicate web of human feeling. Everyone is likely to hear examples ofsuch idle chatter; no doubt some have experienced it firsthand already, for in our wordy age this formof culture is quite prevalent. Even if life itself gives one or another of us a better understanding ofwhat had previously been stashed away in our soul as unused capital, we still have to deal with abelly-full. of book learning which, undigested, keeps the stomach hard at work, precluding healthiernourishment and preventing the flow of nutrients to the rest of the body. Our corpulence may give theappearance of health, but in every joint our free movement is inhibited by dried-out phlegm.

Part of the business of enlightened understanding is to refine objective religion. But when it comes tothe improvement of mankind (the cultivation of strong and great dispositions, of noble feelings, andof a decisive sense of independence), the powers of the understanding are of little moment; and theproduct, objective religion, doesn’t carry much weight either. Human understanding is nonethelessrather flattered when it contemplates its work: a grand and lofty edifice of knowledge divine, moral,and natural. And true enough, it has provided out of its own resources the building materials for thisedifice which it is making ever more elaborate. But as this building, which engages the efforts of



humanity as a whole, becomes gradually more extensive and complex, it becomes less and less theproperty of any one individual. Anybody who simply copies this universal structure or appropriates itpiecemeal – anybody who does not build within (and indeed from inside) himself a little residence ofhis own, roofed and framed so that he feels at home in it, with every stone if not hewn then at leastlaid by his own hands – anybody who neglects to do this becomes a person who can only rigidlyadhere to the letter, who has never really lived.

And were the individual to have this great house rebuilt for him as a palace, and inhabit it as Louis xivdid Versailles, he would have only the barest acquaintance with its many chambers and wouldactually occupy a mere cubicle. By contrast, a family man is far more familiar with the details of hisancestral home, and can give an account of every bolt and every little cabinet, telling what they areused for now as well as their history (Lessing’s Nathan: “For the most part I can still tell how, where,and why I learned it.”). – This little house, which he can indeed call his own, requires the help ofreligion to build; but how much can religion help in all this?

The difference between a pure religion of reason, which worships God in spirit and in truth, affirmingthat he is served through virtue alone, and an idolatrous faith, which imagines it can curry God’s favorby some means other than a will that is in itself good, is so great that in comparison the latter is utterlyworthless. In fact the two are completely different in kind. It is nonetheless of the utmost importancefor us to discourage any fetishistic mode of belief, to make it more and more like a rational religion.Yet a universal church of the spirit remains a mere ideal of reason; and it is hardly possible toestablish a public religion that would really do everything it could to rid itself of fetishistic belief. Sothe question naturally arises: How would a folk religion have to be constituted so that a) negatively,the opportunity for people to become fixated on the letter and the conventions of religion would beminimized, and b) positively, the people would be guided toward a religion of reason and becomereceptive to it?

Whenever moral philosophy posits the idea of saintliness as consisting of moral conduct at its highest,of moral exertion to the fullest, the objection will be raised that such an idea is beyond humanattainment (which the moral philosophers themselves concede) because man needs motives other thanpure respect for the moral law, motives more closely bound up with his sensuality. Such an objectiondoes not prove that man ought not to strive, for all eternity if need be, to approximate to this idea, butmerely that, given our crudeness and our powerful propensity toward the sensual, one ought to becontent to elicit from most people a mere legality that does not demand the kind of purely moralmotives for which they feel little or no affinity. Nor does such an objection deny that much hasalready been gained if crude sensuality is at least in some way refined and some interest in higherthings is aroused – if propensities are awakened other than sheer animal drives, ones more amenableto the influence of reason and approximating to morality a little more closely. For in this way it is atleast possible that, whenever the clamor of the senses dies down a little, moral dispositions mightbegin to make their presence known. In fact it is generally conceded that cultivation of any kindwould already be a gain. Hence what this objection really comes down to is that it is altogetherunlikely that humankind, or even a single individual, will ever in this world be able to dispenseentirely with non-moral promptings.

Now we do in fact have a number of feelings, woven into our very nature, which do not arise out ofrespect for the law and hence are not moral, which are inconstant and unstable and do not deserve



respect because of any inherent worth, but which are nevertheless to be cherished because they serveto inhibit evil dispositions and even help bring out the best in us. All the benign inclinations(sympathy, benevolence, friendliness, etc.) are of this sort. But this empirical aspect of our character,confined as it is to the arena of the inclinations, does contain a moral sentiment bent on weaving itsdelicate thread throughout the entire fabric. Indeed the fundamental principle of our empiricalcharacter is love, which is somewhat analogous to reason in that it finds itself in other people.Forgetting about itself, love is able to step outside of a given individual’s existence and live, feel, andact no less fully in others – just as reason, the principle of universally valid laws, recognizes its ownself in the shared citizenship each rational being has in an intelligible world. The empirical characterof human beings is still of course affected by desire and aversion; but love, even though as a principleof action it is sub-rational, is not self-serving. It does not do the right thing merely because it hascalculated that the satisfactions resulting from its course of action are purer and longer lasting thanthose resulting from sensuality or the gratification of some passion. This principle, then, is not refinedself-love, in which the ego is in the end always the highest goal.

Empiricism is of course absolutely useless in the establishment of foundational principles. But when itcomes to having an effect on people, we must take them as they are, seeking out every decent driveand sentiment through which, albeit without directly enhancing their freedom, their nature can beennobled. In a folk religion in particular it is of the utmost importance that the imagination and theheart not be left unsatisfied: the imagination must be filled with large and pure images, and the heartroused to feelings of benevolence. Setting these on a sound course is all the more crucial in thecontext of religion, whose object is so great and sublime; for both the heart and the imagination all tooeasily strike out on paths of their own or let themselves be led astray. The heart is seduced by falsenotions and by its own indolence; it becomes attached to externals, or finds sustenance in feelings offalse modesty, thinking that with these it serves God. And the imagination, taking to be cause andeffect what is merely accidental, comes to expect the most extraordinary and unnatural results. Man issuch a many-sided creature that anything can be made of him; the intricately woven fabric of hisfeelings has so many strands that there is nothing that cannot be attached to it at some point. This iswhy he has been capable of the silliest superstitions, and of the greatest ecclesiastical and politicalslavery. Folk religion’s primary task is to weave these fine strands into a noble union suitable to hisnature.

The main difference between folk religion and private religion is one of aim. Through the mightyinfluence it exerts on the imagination and the heart, folk religion imbues the soul with power andenthusiasm, with a spirit indispensable for the noble exercise of virtue. On the other hand, the trainingof individuals in keeping with their character, counsel in situations where duties conflict, specialinducements to virtue, comfort and care in the face of personal suffering and misfortune – all suchthings must be left to private religion. That this is not the concern of a public folk religion is evidentfrom the following considerations:

a) Situations that involve a conflict of duties are so complex that I can satisfy my conscience only byfalling back on the counsel of upright and experienced men or by recourse to the conviction that[come what may] duty and virtue constitute the highest principle of conduct – assuming of course thatthis conviction has been in some way established by public religion and so become available to me asa maxim of action. But public instruction, like the moral training mentioned above, is too tedious; andnot even this conviction is in the least capable of making us amenable in the moment of action to hair-



splitting casuistical rules. If it were, the result would be a perpetual scrupulosity quite contrary to theresoluteness and strength requisite for virtuous action.

b) If virtue is not the product of indoctrination and empty rhetoric but is rather a plant which, albeitwith proper tending, grows out of one’s own driving force and power, then the various arts inventedallegedly to produce virtue as though in a hothouse (where it would be incapable of failure) actuallydo more damage to people than just letting them grow wild. By its very nature public religiousinstruction involves not only an attempt to enlighten the understanding concerning the idea of Godand our relation to him, but also an effort to make our obligations to God the ground of all otherduties, whereby the latter become at once more urgent and more binding. But there is somethingstrained and farfetched about this derivation. It involves a relationship whose connection only theunderstanding comprehends, one that tends to be rather forced and is not at all evident, at least tocommon sense. Ordinarily, the more inducements we are offered for doing our duty, the cooler webecome toward it.

c) The only true comfort in suffering (for pain [Schmerzen] there is no comfort; strength of soul is allthat can be pitted against it) is trust in divine providence. Everything else is idle talk which the heartdoes not heed.

How is a folk religion to be constituted? (Here folk religion is understood in an objective sense.)

a) With respect to objective religion.

b) With respect to ceremonies.

A. I. Its teachings must be founded on universal reason.

II. Imagination, the heart, and the senses must not go away empty-handed in the process.

III. It must be so constituted that all of life’s needs, including public and official transactions, arebound up with it.

B. What must it avoid?

Fetishistic beliefs, including one that is especially common in our prolix age, namely the belief thatthe demands of reason are satisfied by means of tirades against enlightenment and the like. As aresult, people are endlessly at loggerheads over points of dogma without doing anything constructiveeither for themselves or for anyone else.

IIThe doctrines [of a folk religion], even if resting on the authority of some divine revelation, must ofnecessity be constituted so that they are actually authorized by the universal reason of mankind,whereby one is no sooner made aware of them than he perceives and recognizes their binding force.For even if such doctrines either claim to furnish special means of obtaining God’s favor or promiseall sorts of privileged insights and detailed information concerning otherwise inaccessible matters, thedisclosures they provide are intended to serve one’s rational intellect, not just one’s fantasy.



Moreover, since doctrines such as these sooner or later come under fire from thinking men and end upas objects of controversy, our practical interest in them invariably gets misdirected as the endlessbickering of various factions issues in rigid symbols expressive of little but their own intolerance. Andsince these doctrines remain unnatural in their link to the true needs and demands of rationality, theylend themselves to abuses, especially as they become engrained and hardened through habit. Surelythey could never of themselves gain sufficient weight in human feeling to be a pure and genuine forcein direct alignment with morality.

But the doctrines must also be simple; and indeed they are simple, if only they be truths of reason,because as such they require neither the machinery of erudition nor a display of laboriousdemonstrations. By virtue of such simplicity, they would exert all the more power and impact on oursensibility, on the determination of our will to act; thus concentrated, they would have a far greaterinfluence and play a much bigger part in cultivating a people’s spirit than is the case whencommandments are piled up and ordered artificially so as always to be in need of many exceptions.

At the same time, these universal doctrines must be designed for humans, i.e. must be in keeping withthe level of morality and spiritual cultivation attainable by a given people – which is no easy task todetermine. Some of the noblest – and for mankind most interesting ideas are scarcely suited foradoption as universal maxims. They appear to be appropriate only for a handful of ripened individualswho, having endured many trials, have already succeeded in attaining wisdom. In such individualsthey have become sure beliefs, and in situations where such beliefs are truly supportive they havebecome matters of unshakable conviction. Thus, for instance, the belief in a wise and benevolentprovidence: when it is alive and of the right sort, it goes hand in hand with the complete acceptance ofGod’s will.

Now this tenet and everything connected with it is also undeniably the main doctrine of the wholeChristian community, whose teachings in general reduce to the all-transcending love of God towardwhich everything moves. Day in and day out God is represented to us as being ever present and closeby, as bringing about everything that goes on around us. And this is not just represented as beingsomehow necessarily linked with our morality and everything we hold sacred, it is even given out as amatter of complete certainty on the basis of the abundant assurances God provides us and through allthe deeds he performs to convince us of it incontrovertibly. And yet as experience teaches, a merethunderclap or a cold night can cause the masses to become very faint-hearted in their trust in divineprovidence and in their patient submission to God’s will, it evidently being only within the capabilityof the wise man to quell impatience and anger over frustrated hopes, and to overcome despair overmisfortunes. Such abrupt abandonment of trust in God, this sudden changeover to dissatisfaction withhim, is facilitated not only by accustoming the Christian populace from childhood on to prayincessantly, but even more by forever seeking to persuade it of the most urgent necessity for doing sothrough promises that such prayers will surely to some degree be answered.

Moreover, suffering mankind has been furnished with such a motley assortment of reasons forproffering solace in misfortunes that in the end one might well come to regret not having a father ormother to lose once a week, or not being struck blind. With incredible acuity, this way of thinking hastaken to pursuing and pondering over the widest range of physical and moral effects. And since thesewere alleged to be the designs of Providence, it was supposed that one had herewith attained keenerinsight into its plans for humankind, both in the broad perspective and in detail. – But no sooner do



we lose patience with this, unwilling to merely lay our finger across our lips and lapse into awe-stricken silence, than we tend to find ourselves prey to an arrogant inquisitiveness that presumes tonothing short of mastery of the ways of Providence – a propensity reinforced (though not among thecommon people) by the many idealistic notions currently in vogue. All of which contributes littleindeed to the furthering of contentment with life in general and acquiescence in God’s will.

It might be interesting to compare all this with what the Greeks believed. On the one hand, their faith– that the gods favor those who are good, and leave evildoers to the tender mercies of a frightfulNemesis – was based on a profoundly moral demand of reason and lovingly animated by the warmbreath of their feelings, rather than on the cold conviction, deduced from single instances, thateverything turns out for the best (a conviction that can never come truly alive). On the other hand,among them misfortune was misfortune, pain was pain. What had happened could not be altered.There was no point in brooding over whatever such things might mean, since their moira, theiranangkaia tyche, was blind. But then they submitted to this necessity willingly and with all possibleresignation. And at least this much can be said in their favor: one endures more easily what one hasbeen accustomed from childhood on to regard as necessary, and that the pain and suffering to whichmisfortune naturally gives birth did not occasion in them the much more burdensome and unbearableanger, the despondency and discontent we feel. This faith, since it embraced not only respect for thecourse of natural necessity but also the conviction that men are governed by the gods in accordancewith moral laws, seems humanly in keeping with the exaltedness of the divine and the frailty of manin his limited perspective and dependence on nature.

Doctrines that are simple and founded upon universal reason are compatible with every stage ofpopular education. And the latter comes gradually to modify the former in accordance with its owntransformations, albeit more with respect to its external effects, i.e. those having to do with what thesensuous imagination depicts.

In keeping with how they are constituted, these doctrines, if they are founded on universal humanreason, can have no other purpose than to influence the spirit of a people in but a general way – and todo so partly in and of themselves and partly through the closely connected magic of powerfullyimpressive ceremonies. They have no business interfering in the execution of civil justice or usurpingthe role of one’s private conscience. Nor, since the way in which they are formulated is simple aswell, will they easily give rise to squabbles over their meaning. And, since they demand and stipulatevery little that is positive (reason’s legislation being in any event merely formal), the lust for power onthe part of the priests of such a religion remains circumscribed.

IIIIAny religion purporting to be a folk religion must be so constituted 4 that it engages the heart andimagination. Even the purest religion of reason must become incarnate in the souls of individuals, andall the more so in the people as a whole. In order that our fantasy be given a proper outlet, oneorienting it onto a path it can decorate with its beautiful flowers without drifting off into romanticextravagances, it would be best to tie myths to the religion itself from the very outset. Now thedoctrines of the Christian religion are for the most part tied to history and represented historically.The stage, even if other than mere humans acted on it, is set here in this mundane realm. Thus our



imagination is provided with a readily discernible goal. To be sure, our imagination is still given someroom to rove: if colored with black bile it can paint a frightful world for itself, or – since the spirit ofour religion has banished all the beautiful colorations of sense as well as everything that has charm,even while we have become far too much men of words and reason to take much delight in beautifulimages – it may well lapse into childishness.

With regard to ceremonies, on the one hand no folk religion is conceivable without them; on theother, nothing is harder to prevent than their being taken by the populace at large for the essence ofreligion itself. Now religion consists of three things: a) concepts, b) essential customs, and c)ceremonies. Thus if we regard baptism and the eucharist as rites involving certain extraordinarybenefits and indulgences which we as Christians are duty-bound to perform so as to become moreperfect, more moral, then they belong to the second class. But if we look upon them as mere meansintended and able only to arouse pious sentiments, then they belong to the third class. – Sacrificesbelong here too; but they cannot properly be called ceremonies, for they are essential to the religionwith which they are connected. They are part of its structure, whereas ceremonies are mereembellishments, the formal aspect of this structure.

Sacrifices themselves can be looked at from two perspectives:

a) In part they were brought to the altars of the gods as propitiation, as atonement, as an attempt eitherto commute a much-feared physical or moral punishment into a fine or to ingratiate oneself into thelost favor of the supreme lord. the dispenser of rewards and punishments. Such practices are of coursedeemed unworthy and rightly censured on grounds of their irrationality and their adulteration of thewhole concept of morality. But we have to keep in mind that an idea of sacrifice as crass as this hasnever really gained ascendancy anywhere (except perhaps in the Christian church), and we have toappreciate the value of the feelings activated in the process, even if they were not pure: a solemn aweof the holy being. a contrite heart humbly prostrated before him, and the deep trust that drove atroubled soul crying out for peace to this anchor. Think of a pilgrim burdened by the weight of hissins. He has left behind the comforts of home, his wife and children, his native soil, to wander throughthe world barefoot and clad in a hair-shirt. He hunts for impassable tracts to torment his feet. Hesprinkles the holy places with his tears. Seeking repose for his ravaged spirit, he finds relief in everytear shed, in every mortification. He is urged on by the thought “Here Christ walked, here he wascrucified for me,” a thought from which he gains renewed strength, renewed self-confidence. – But isit really for us, incapable of such a state of mind merely because of other notions prevalent in ourtime, to react to such a pilgrim and such simplicity of heart with the Pharisaic sentiment “Well, I ammore sensible than people like that"? Is it for us to heap ridicule upon his pious sentiments? Thenagain, expiatory pilgrimages like this do form a subspecies of precisely the sort of sacrifice I wasspeaking of above, being offered up in the very same spirit as those penances.

b) But there is another, milder spirit of sacrifice, one germinating in a gentler latitude, that wasprobably the more original and universal. It was based on gratitude and benevolence. Filled with thesense of a being higher than man, and aware of its indebtedness to him for everything, it wasconfident that he would not scorn what was offered him in all innocence. It was disposed to implorehis help at the outset of every undertaking, and to sense his presence in every joyous experience,every good fortune attained. Thinking of Nemesis before partaking of any pleasure, it offered to itsgod the first fruits, the flower of every possession, inviting him into its home confident that he would



abide there willingly. The frame of mind that offered such a sacrifice was far removed from anynotion of having hereby atoned for its sins or expiated some portion of their justly deservedpunishment. Nor did its conscience persuade it that in this manner Nemesis might be appeased andinduced to give up not only her claims on it but her laws governing the restoration of moralequilibrium as well.

Essential practices like these need not be bound more closely to religion than to the spirit of thepeople; it is preferable that they actually spring from the latter. Otherwise their exercise is withoutlife, cold and powerless, and the attendant feelings artificial and forced. On the other hand it may bethat these are practices that are not essential to folk religion anyway, although they may be to privatereligion. Thus for instance we have the eucharist as it exists in its present form throughoutChristendom, although originally it was intended as a meal for communal enjoyment.

The indispensable characteristics of ceremonies designed for a folk religion are:

a) First and foremost, that they contain little or no inducement to fetishistic worship – that they notconsist of a mere mechanical operation devoid of spirit. Their sole aim must be to intensify devotionand pious sentiments. Perhaps the only pure means for eliciting such an effect, the one leastsusceptible to misuse, is sacred music and the song of an entire people – perhaps also folk festivals, inwhich religion is inevitably involved.

IIIIIIAs soon as any sort of wall is put between doctrine and life – as soon as they become in any wayseparated or lose touch with each other – we begin suspecting that there is something wrong with thevery form of this religion. Perhaps it is too preoccupied with empty verbiage. Perhaps excessive andhypocritical demands are being made on the people, demands repugnant to their natural needs, to theimpulses of a well-ordered sensibility (tes sophrosynes). Or possibly both at once. If a religion makespeople feel shame over their moments of joy and merriment, if someone has to slink into the templebecause he has made a spectacle of himself at a public festival, then its outer form is too forbiddingfor it to expect anyone to give up life’s pleasures in favor of its demands.

A folk religion must be a friend to all life’s feelings; it should never intrude, but should seek to be awelcome guest everywhere. And if it is to have real effect on a people, it must also be theircompanion supportive of their undertakings and the more serious concerns of their lives as well as oftheir festivals and times of fun. It must not appear obtrusive, must not become a nagging schoolmarm,but rather initiate and encourage. The folk festivals of the Greeks were all religious festivals, and wereheld either in honor of a god or of a man deified because of his exemplary service to his country.They consecrated everything, even their bacchantic excesses, to some deity; and the dramas theystaged in the public theater had a religious origin which they never disavowed, even as they becamemore cultivated. Thus, for instance, Agathon did not forget the gods when he carried off a prize forhis tragedy; the very next day he arranged a feast for them.

A folk religion – engendering and nurturing, as it does, great and noble sentiments – goes hand inhand with freedom. But our religion would train people to be citizens of heaven, gazing ever upward,making our most human feelings seem alien. Indeed at the greatest of our public feasts we proceed to



the enjoyment of the holy eucharist dressed in the colors of mourning and with eyes downcast; evenhere, at what is supposed to be a celebration of human brotherhood, we fear we might contractvenereal disease from the brother who drank out of the communal chalice before. And lest any of usremain attentive to the ceremony, filled with a sense of the sacred, we are nudged to fetch a donationfrom our pocket and plop it on a tray. How different were the Greeks! They approached the altars oftheir friendly gods clad in the colors of joy, their faces, open invitations to friendship and love,beaming with good cheer.

The spirit of a nation is reflected in its history, its religion, and the degree of its political freedom; andthese cannot be taken in isolation when considering either their individual character or their influenceon each other. They are bound together as one, like three companions none of whom can do anythingwithout the others even as each benefits from all. The improvement of individual morality is a matterinvolving one’s private religion, one’s parents, one’s personal efforts, and one’s individual situation.The cultivation of the spirit of the people as a whole requires in addition the respective contributionsof folk religion and political institutions.

Ah, to the soul that retains a feeling for human splendor, for greatness in great things, there radiatesfrom distant bygone days an unforgettable image. It is the picture of the spirit of nations, son offortune and freedom, pupil of a fine imagination. He too was tied to mother earth by the brazen fettersof basic need. But by means of his sensibility and imagination he cultivated, refined, and beautifiedthem to such an extent that, garlanded with roses given by the Graces, he was able in the midst ofthese chains to take delight in them as his own handiwork, as part of his own self. His servants werejoy, gaiety, and poise, and his soul was suffused with the consciousness of its power and freedom. Buthis more intimate playmates were friendship and love – not the wood faun but sensitive, soulfulAmor, adorned with all the allurements of the heart and of sweet dreams.

Thanks to his father, himself a favorite of Fortune and a son of Force, he had ample trust in his owndestiny and took pride in his deeds. His warm-hearted mother, never harsh or reproachful, left her sonto nature’s nurturing; good mother that she was, she refused to cramp his delicate limbs in tightswaddling. She would rather play along with the moods and inspirations of her darling than think tocurb them; in harmony with these, his nurse [i.e. religion] reared this child without fear of the rod orghosts in the dark, without the bittersweet honey bread of mysticism or the fetters of words whichwould keep him perpetually immature. Instead she had him drink the clear and healthful milk of puresensations. With the flowers of her fine and free imagination she adorned the impenetrable veil thatremoves the deity from our gaze, conjuring up behind it a realm inhabited by living images ontowhich he projected the great ideas his heart brings forth in all the fullness of its noble and beautifulsentiments. just as the nanny in ancient Greece was a friend of the family and remained a friend of hercharge the rest of her life, so his nurse [again, religion] remains his friend even while he, unspoiled ashe is, freely expresses his gratitude and returns her love. A good companion, she shares in hispleasures and takes part in his games; and he in turn never finds her a bother. Yet she alwaysmaintains her dignity; and his conscience rebels whenever he slights it. Her dominion holds swayforever, for it is based on the love, the gratitude, the noblest feelings of her ward. She has coaxed theirrefinement along, she has obeyed his imagination’s every whim – yet she has taught him to respectiron necessity, she has taught him to conform to this unalterable destiny without murmur.

We know this spirit only by hearsay. We have only a few traces on a handful of surviving



reproductions that enable us to contemplate and lovingly admire his likeness; and these can butawaken a painful longing for the original. He – the fair youth we love even in his more light-heartedmoments, when among the whole retinue of the Graces he inhales from every flower the balsambreath of nature, the soul that they had breathed into it – has fled from the earth.

Religion within the limits of Reason Alone, Kant 1793

Positivity of the Christian Religion, Hegel 1795

Hegel-by-HyperText Home Page @ marxists.org

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/kant/religion/religion-within-reason.htm

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pc/index.htm

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/index.htm

12/4/13 3:23 PMJena Lectures 1805-6 by Hegel

Page 1 of 7http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/jl/ch01a.htm

The Philosophy of Spirit (Jena Lectures 1805-6)PART I. Spirit according to its Concept

A. IntelligenceIn Spirit, the subsistence of an object – its space – is Being. Being is the abstract, pure concept ofsubsistence. I and the thing are in space. Space is posited as essentially distinct from its content. It isnot the essence of its fulfilment itself. It is only a formal universal which is separate from itsparticular. The subsistence of Spirit, however, is truly universal; it contains the particular itself. Thething is. It is not in Being [as content is in space]; rather it itself is.

That, in immediate form, is the essence of intuition (Anschauung): knowing some being (Seyenden).Spirit, however, is this mediated with itself. Spirit is what it is only in transcending what it isimmediately, stepping back from it. In other words, we are to consider the movement in Spirit, i.e.,how a being becomes universal for it, or how it makes a being universal, positing it as what it is.Being is the form of immediacy, but Being should be posited in its truth.

(a) Spirit is immediate, as generally intuiting, so that a being is for it. But it comes back out of thisimmediacy, returns into itself, is for itself. It posits itself [as] free of this immediacy, distancing itselffrom it at first; it is like an animal, it is time, which is for itself, and [it is] the freedom of time as well– this pure subject that is free of its content but also master of it, unlike space and time which areselfless.

Spirit (Geist) [i.e., mind] starts from this Being and [then] posits it within itself as something that is anot-being, as something in general sublated (aufgehobnes). In so doing, Spirit [mind] is therepresentational power of imagination (vorstellende Einbildungskraft) as such. It is the Self againstitself. At first, Spirit itself is intuition; it places itself in opposition to this Self. The object [i.e. theexternal thing] is not its object now, but rather its own intuition, i.e., the content of the perception asits own [content]. When I look at something (Im Anschauen), what I look at is in me – for it is I, afterall, who look at it; it is my looking. Spirit steps out of this looking, and looks at its looking – i.e., itlooks at the object as its own, at the object [now] cancelled as a being [and taken as] image. In thelooking, Spirit is the image. For it, insofar as it is consciousness, [the object] is a being that is severedfrom the I. For us, however, it is the unity of both [i.e., its independent being and the I]. It becomesclear to Spirit that it [i.e., Spirit itself] is in and for itself (an und fur sich) – but to begin with, in thelooking, Spirit is only in itself. It complements this [being-in-itself] with the for-itself, with negativity,separation from the in-itself, and goes back into itself. It takes its first self as an object, i.e., the image,Being as mine, as negated (als aufgehobnes).

This image belongs to Spirit. Spirit is in possession of the image, is master of it. It is stored in theSpirit’s treasury, in its Night. The image is unconscious, i.e., it is not displayed as an object forrepresentation. The human being is this Night, this empty nothing which contains everything in itssimplicity – a wealth of infinitely many representations, images, none of which occur to it directly,and none of which are not present. This [is] the Night, the interior of [human] nature, existing here –pure Self – [and] in phantasmagoric representations it is night everywhere: here a bloody headsuddenly shoots up and there another white shape, only to disappear as suddenly. We see this Nightwhen we look a human being in the eye, looking into a Night which turns terrifying. [For from his



eyes] the night of the world hangs out toward us.

Into this Night the being has returned. Yet the movement of this power is posited likewise.

The image is many-sided, its form as its determinacy – and this leads to other determinations and tomultiplicity in general. The I is the form, not only as simple self but also as movement, the relation ofparts of the image – positing the form, the relation, as its own. Insofar as it comprises a part of thecontent it transforms it. [The I] for itself is here free arbitrariness – [able] to dismember images and toreconnect them in the most dissociated manner. If the self, in its drawing forth of images, allows itselfto go nearer the passive relation, then it is under the domination of the so-called association of ideas– an English phrase referring, even today, to the mere image (e.g., of a dog), an idea. The laws ofthis association of ideas refer to nothing more than the passive ordering of representation (e.g., if twothings are usually seen together they tend to be reproduced together, and so on). This arbitrariness isempty freedom, for its content is [merely] sequential, merely formal, and concerns form alone.

(b) The object has thereby received form in general, the determination of being mine. And in beinglooked at again, its being no longer has this pure signification of being [as such], but of [being] mine:e.g., it is familiar to me, or I remind myself of it, or immediately in it I have the consciousness ofmyself. In the immediate intuition [I had] only the consciousness of it; but if it is familiar it takes onfor me this express determination. We are also reminded of something through something else;merely the image of the object is brought in upon us; remembering adds the element of being-for-self(Fürsichseyn). I have already seen or heard it; I remind myself of it; I do not merely see or hear theobject, but I thereby go into my inner self – I remind [erinnere: literally, “re-internalize”] myself,taking myself out of the mere image, and placing myself into myself. I then “place” [or: posit] myselfvis-à-vis the object in a special way.

(c) This being-for-me, which I add to the object, is that Night, that Self, in which I immersed theobject – the object which is now brought forth and is an object for me. And what is before me [now]is a synthesis of both content and I. Yet the external object itself was negated (aufgehoben) in thatvery synthesis, and has become something other than it is. It has come under the domination of theSelf, and has lost the significance of being immediate and independent. Not only has a synthesisoccurred, but the being of the object has been negated (aufgehoben).

The point, therefore, is that the object is not what it is. Its content is not free of its being; its being isSelf. Its content is its simple essence as such, [but] this is something other than its being. As atotality, it counts as different, has a different essence; the Self has a different meaning, or counts as asign. In the sign, it is the being-for-self (as the essence of the object) that is the object, and it isnegated according to its totality, its content. Its content no longer has its own free value. Its being isthe I itself – Idealism, become its own object. [According to this view:] the thing is not what it is. Itsbeing is the Self. My being-for-self is [now] the object as the essence of the thing, connected inmemory only synthetically, externally. Here the I, as the inner [aspect] of the thing, is itself the object.As yet this inwardness of the thing is separated from its being; the universal [i.e., the thing quathing], is not yet posited.

This fact – that I look at the thing as a mere sign, yet at its essence as I, as meaning, as reflection initself – this itself is [my] object. Only then is it merely immediate inwardness; it must also enter intoexistence (Daseyn), become an object, so that on the contrary this inwardness is made external – a



return to being (Seyn).

This is language, as the name-giving power. The power of imagination provides only the emptyform; [it is] the designative power positing the form as internal. Language, on the other hand, positsthe internal as being (seyendes). This, then, is the true being of spirit as that of spirit as such. It isthere as the unity of two free Selves [i.e., imagination and language] and [as] an entity (Daseyn) thatis adequate to its concept. At the same time it immediately negates itself – fading, yet perceived.Above all, language speaks only with this Self, with the meaning of the thing; it gives it a name andexpresses this as the being of the object.

[We might ask, for example,] What is this? We answer, It is a lion, a donkey, etc. – [namely] it is.Thus it is not merely something yellow, having feet, etc., something on its own, [existing]independently. Rather, it is a name, a sound made by my voice, something entirely different fromwhat it is in being looked at – and this [as named] is its true being. [We might say:] This is only itsname, the thing itself is something different; but then we fall back onto the sensory representation. Or[we might say:] It is only a name, in a higher sense, since to begin with, the name is itself only thevery superficial spiritual being. By means of the name, however, the object has been born out of the I[and has emerged] as being (seyend). This is the primal creativity exercised by Spirit. Adam gave aname to all things. This is the sovereign right [of Spirit], its primal taking-possession of all nature – orthe creation of nature out of Spirit [itself].

[Consider] Logos, reason, the essence of the thing and of speech, of object (Sache) and talk (Sage),the category – [in respect to all of these,] man speaks to the thing as his. And this is the being of theobject. Spirit relates itself to itself: it says to the donkey, You are an inner [subjective] entity, and thatInner is I; your being is a sound which I have arbitrarily invented. The sound, “donkey,” is altogetherdifferent from the sensate entity. Insofar as we see it, and also feel or hear it, we are that entity itself,immediately one with it and fulfilled. Coming back as a name, however, it is something spiritual,altogether different.

[In this light] the world, nature, is no longer a realm of images internally suspended (aufgehoben),having no being. Rather, it is a realm of names. The realm of images is the dreaming spirit, concernedwith a content lacking all reality, all existence. Its awakening is the realm of names. Here we have adivision: Spirit is [only] as consciousness; only now do its images have truth. The dreamer believesthis as well, but it is not true – the dreamer cannot distinguish himself from the one awake, while theone awake can distinguish himself from the one who is dreaming, in that what is so for him is true. “Itis true” [means] it is no longer merely one’s being-for-self that is there, the object [as] images. Rather,the enclosed being-for-self at the same time has the form of being: it is.

In names, we actually first overcome the looking (An schauen), the animal [physiological] aspect, aswell as space and time. The looked-at [object] is evanescent; its totality is like a simple atmosphere,an aroma, simple individuality, raised out of feeling into a higher spiritual sense. Individuality,actuality as such – but it is as yet primal, without its own content, immediate. The name has yetanother meaning than what it is. The object, in the sign, has another meaning than what it is – theinner. The meaning of a name, on the other hand, is the sensate being. Its content must become equalto its simple existent spirituality.

The Spirit goes back into itself from this being of the name – that is, its name-giving is an object for



it as a realm, a multitude of names. They are simple, enclosed in themselves. The many-sidedness ofthe image is enveloped and suppressed in this Self. The power of imagination takes the object (withits many-sidedness) out of its immediate environment. Yet the name is solitary, without relation or tie.[Names comprise] a series which is not self-supporting, since the name has no determinacy in it, nointrinsic relation to something else.

The I is all alone the bearer, the space and substance of these names. It is their order, theirinterrelation of complete mutual indifference. In themselves they have no rank or relation. Thus the Imust now look at itself as ordering this, or look at them as ordered and maintaining this order, so thatit is permanent.

The I is first of all in possession of names; it must preserve them in its Night – as serviceable,obedient to the I. Not only must it regard names in general, it must also look. at them in its space as afixed order – for this is their interrelation and necessity, the intrinsic relation of many different names.It is up to the I to create their content out of itself. Its content consists of undifferentiated(gleichgultigen) names; but in their indifference as a multitude, the Self, as something negative, is notas it truly is. The negative element, in the multitude of names, is the independent relation of each tothe other. This relation is ascribed to the names as such; the I holds them fixed in necessity – anecessity not yet ascribed to them but only that of a fixed order.

Or it is actual memory, having itself still in its object, as understanding which has an object. Memorypreserves the name in general, the free and arbitrary connection of this image (or meaning) and aname, so that the image evokes the name, and the name the image. But on a higher level the relation isfreed of this inequality, so that a name is related only to another name [or sound] – e.g., the words“lightning,” “thunder” (Blitz, Donner), in their [phonetic] similarity to the empirical phenomenon –but free names are not interrelated. The I is the force of this free order – an order not yet posited asnecessary, although it is an order [nevertheless].

The I is the free bearer, the free non-objective order – it is the first I to grasp itself as force. It itself isnecessity, free of representation, the fixing and fixed order. The exercise of memory is therefore thefirst work of the awakened spirit qua spirit. The inventing and bestowing of names is a creativearbitrariness. In memory this arbitrariness is what disappears first – the I has come into being. Thename is [now] a fixed sign, a permanent relation, universal. The I has [thus] surrendered itsarbitrariness in its being, positing itself as universal. Therefore order, here, is necessary relation assuch. Yet this itself is as yet an inner or contingent order – an arbitrary necessity [as it were] – for itsaspects are not yet posited, are not yet in themselves. It is merely a necessity in general, i.e.,contingent.

Now this holding on to such a relation of the name or names is the immaterial movement andoccupation of Spirit with itself. It no longer connects sensory existing representations togetherarbitrarily, merely reproducing them as they are. Rather, it is a free force and maintains itself as thisfree force. At the same time, its work is such that the I makes itself into what it is in name-giving,namely a thing, a being (seyendes); it is of the names, and it is a thing. The I makes itself into a thing,in that it fixes the order of names within itself. It fixes them within itself, i.e., it makes itself into thisunthinking order, which has the mere appearance of order. In the appearance of order there lies the I –necessity, the Self with its aspects. But these aspects are as yet purely indifferent. Only as memory



can the I make itself into a thing, because the thing into which it makes itself is in itself I. It is nowthe active I, the movement making itself into that object which (in naming) it immediately is. The for-itself of recollection is here its activity [turned] to itself – bringing forth itself, negating (negiren)itself. If the name is seen as the object about which the I is active, then the I annuls itself (hebt sichauf).

This work is therefore the primary inner effect upon itself, an altogether unsensory occupation and thebeginning of the free elevation of the Spirit, for here it has itself as object – a far higher work than thechildish occupation with external, sensory or painted pictures (plants, animals with a big snout,yellow mane, long tail, etc.). This [concern with] seeing, attention, is the primary necessary activity –[ concern with] seeing precisely, with the activity of Spirit, fixing, abstracting, extracting, exertion,and overcoming of what is indeterminate in sensation. Yet this activity is not directed at itself.

[In] this concern with itself, [the I has the aim of] producing itself (sich hervorzubringen) – thereverse of that [process] which makes a thing into the I. Holding to an order is the I’s thinking its owncontent. The content is not due to the name which the I sees as its own. Rather, it is due to the form,order – but as a fixed, arbitrary, contingent [order], it is externality, thingness. I know something byheart – [this means that] I have made myself into an indifferent order. I am order, relation, activity –but this order is arbitrary. The I is thereby made into a thing.

This directedness to the name thus has the opposite significance: namely, that the directedness to theI, with the negation of the name as a being-for-itself, is posited as arbitrary, active. What is posited isthe universality – with equal value and equal elevation (aufgehobenseyn) given to the active I and theobject: namely, the I has become the object. In the name it has only become a being, as opposed tobeing-for-itself; so that the name is as yet arbitrary, particular.

Thing, understanding, necessity: the thing as simple universality, necessity as self-movement. Thething has a necessity to it, since it has the I’s selfhood to it. A difference in the thing is a difference inthe Self; i.e., it is a negative relation to itself. Understanding, insight is the difference, not in the thingbut rather of the thing vis-à-vis the understanding. Actually it is not the understanding which belongshere, but rather the experience of consciousness [i.e., a phenomenology of spirit].

Thus the I is active in connection with the thing or with universality as such, i.e., the movement of theuniversal is posited. The difference between the two [I and the thing] is that the I is differentiatedfrom itself – it is the universal to which it is opposed as the negativity which it itself contains. Thisnegativity itself, in the form of universality, is particularity. Both [subject and object] are completelyindifferent to one another, since each is the universal, i.e., each is the relation of itself to itself.

These extreme [poles], however, are at the same time simply related to one another: identical to oneanother in their indifference or universality, each related to itself but also for the other – since eachitself is what it is only in opposition to the other. The ground [of everything] has come to be throughthis movement, enveloping the universal within it in its simplicity – only as negativity – andconcealing it. The particular, on the other hand, as the negative, is negative in excluding the other, thenot-negative, the universal. Both relate to themselves and are thus universal, yet at the same time onlyone of them is the Universal. Each is the negative of the other, yet only one of them is the Negative.The one (the particular) is inwardly universal in its relation to itself – to itself, since it excludes theother and its external being, and is negative toward this other. The other (the universal), however, is



internally negative; it contains the negativity in itself but is universal outwardly.

Each thereby has externally what it is internally, as has the other. In other words, the in-itself of each,that which it is not for the other, this is the other; it is that which is for it. Each is its own contrary,both are themselves this movement: this being-other, yet being self-related; relation, too, is thecontrary of their equivalence (Gleichgültigkeit) which they have in judgment.

The inward being of each is differentiated from its outward being. They are thus divided inthemselves, self-negating (sich aufhebende). That inward being is in and for itself. But this too (e.g.,negativity, universality) is its other. Thus the universal is self-identical. Thus it is negativity, sincethis is its inner. Just as it is particularity, it is also universality, the contrary, non-identity. Its truebeing is its outward being, i.e., only in its relation, not in and for itself. At the same time, theuniversality of either side [outer and inner] thereby has the significance of being. The two sides are soidentical to one another that here too what they are in themselves falls apart into two equivalentaspects. The universality as such is only the one; being, however, is the reality itself, subsistence asmultiplicity.

Both are therefore universal, and only one is the Universal. They are beings (seyende), and yet theyare not identical in this being (Seyn): the one sort of being is the inner, the in-itself of the other, andthey are negative. Their unity is itself something other than both extremities, since they are opposed toone another; yet their juxtaposition is such that precisely in that respect wherein they are juxtaposedthey are identical – and again, in such a way that their juxtaposition is something other than their self-identity. Yet precisely in their unity and their mutual opposition they are related to one another; and inthat both are other than this unity, this otherness is their middle term which relates them. Theconclusion is therefore posited: insofar as the two extremes are opposed they are one in some thirdelement; and insofar as they are identical, it is precisely their opposition, that which divides them (dassie dirimirende), that is the [unifying] third element.

This third element, however, is such that it is everything the other two are. It is universality,negativity – and since there is more than one universal, it is their being. Universality is such that it isimmediately identical with itself and is opposed to itself, divided into itself and its contrary. The sameis true for negativity. And simple being is immediate multiplicity. It is the unity of contraries – theself-moving universal that divides itself into beings which are that unifying third – and is thereby thepure negativity. The understanding is reason, and its object is the I itself.

The main point is that the thinghood, insofar as it is universality, at the same time presents itselfimmediately as being, and the negativity or unity is thereby posited. Thinghood, represented as being,comes to its conclusion by way of judgment. Their relation, by means of the contrary, is somethingother, the third element. Yet each is mediated with the other by means of this third element: theparticular, in its self-relation according to its Self, is in itself not there; the understanding is its in-itself. Likewise, the universal is not there as negativity. This is its in-itself – and the same goes for theunderstanding, since this is the in-itself (das Ansich).

The understanding is (a) the inner side of each; but likewise it is (b) the outer side of each, since asnegativity it is the external, the existence (Daseyn) of the particular; and as universal it is the external,the existence of the universal. It is likewise (c) the being (Seyn) of many, containing all that is[multifarious and mutually] indifferent. Thus it is this pure movement of universality, which is the in-



itself and the existence that is differentiated from it. The understanding is reason which is its ownobject. Reason is the inferred conclusion in its infinitude, dividing itself into extremes – each ofwhich, insofar as it exists, immediately has its other as its in-itself.

In this light, intelligence has no other object for its content, but having grasped itself it is its ownobject. The thing, the universal, is for intelligence as the thing is in itself: sublated [negated] being, aspositive, as I. Intelligence is actual (wirklich) the possibility of an effect (Wirken). The object is initself what intelligence is, and this is why the object can be sublated (aufgehoben) – but intelligencehas not yet been active for itself (“for itself” in the sense that the intelligence has looked upon thetransformation as its own, upon activity as the Self – i.e., the change, its objective minus, as it itself).

This intelligence is free, yet its freedom is, on the other hand, without content, at whose cost and lossit has freed itself. Its movement is the opposite: to fulfill itself – not through passive absorption, butthrough the creation of a content wherein the intelligence has the consciousness of its own activity,i.e., as its own positing of content or making itself its own content. In theoretical knowing, theintelligence can as well know in terms of imagery, in memory, knowing itself, not as content but asform. Thus the I itself is not the ground [the basis], the universal, upon which the determinations anddifferentiations of intelligence are presented.

B. Will


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B. WillVolition [simply] wills, i.e., it wants to posit itself [assert itself], make itself, as itself, its own object.It is free, but this freedom is the empty, the formal – the evil. It is in itself determined (beschlossen) –it is the termination [Schluss: literally, “conclusion”] in itself. [It has these aspects:] (a) it is theuniversal, purpose; (b) it is the particular, the Self, activity, actuality; (c) it is the middle [term] ofboth these, the drive. The drive is two-sided: [there is] the side that has the content, the universal,which is purpose; and the side that is the active Self [that achieves it]. The one side is the ground, theother the form.

(a) Exactly which of these is the determinate content of the drive cannot be specified as yet, since thishas not yet been determined. So far, it has none, since we have only got so far as positing the [mere]concept of the will. What impulses the I may have are first revealed in the content of its world; theseare its drives.

(b) The determinate manner in which that termination [or “conclusion”] is posited in the I is such thatall elements of it are enclosed in the Self as the universal, as global, [so that] it is now the totality, andits opposite is merely an empty form for self-consciousness. This also comprises the force of its“conclusion,” of its will – so that the will, insofar as it expresses an external aspect, is in this takenback into itself without exhibiting a determinate aspect by which it can be grasped: thus, what arevelvet paws for one are claws for another; but no matter how we try to grasp the will we feel onlysmooth satin which we cannot hold on to. The will is thus a totality and therefore unassailable.

(c) This global termination, rounded in itself, is at the same time turned outward – it is actualconsciousness, although it is here regarded as enclosed within the I. Namely, the will is being-for-selfwhich has extinguished all foreign content within itself. But thus it is left without an other, withoutcontent – and it feels this lack. Nevertheless, it is a lack which is likewise positive. (It is purpose – theform by which it is mere purpose is the incomplete being. Being as such has thereby become form.)

The negative, exclusive [element] is thus in the will itself – so that it is therein concerned only withitself, and is thus that which is excluded from itself. [In this way] purpose stands juxtaposed to theSelf; [it is] particularity, actuality for the universal. The feeling of lack is the above mentioned unityof both in the drive [uniting purpose (universal) and activity (particular)] as feeling, as lack ofopposition. This “conclusion” is merely the first: the universal and the particular are locked togetherin the drive. The extremes have the form of equivalent being for one another – thus positing theprimary reality, which is incomplete.

The second “conclusion” is the satisfaction of the drive. This is not the same as the satisfaction of adesire – which is animal, i.e., its object has the abstract form of actual being, externality. Only in thisway is it for the Self. Thus the union is likewise the pure disappearance. But here, being is mere form:thus what is I in its totality is the drive. This the I separates [from itself] and makes its own object.This object is not empty satiety, the simple feeling of Self, which is lost in desire and restored in itssatisfaction. Rather, what disappears is the pure form of equivalence of the drive’s extremes – the



purpose, content, juxtaposed to particularity. And the disappearance of this equivalence is thedisappearance of the contrast – [thus it is] being, but a fulfilled being.

It [the I] becomes regardful (anschauend), through immediacy, the overcoming (Aufheben) ofcontrast. (In general, the I always goes over into looking and feeling, in this way.) The main point isthe content of the object. The object separates itself from its drive, thereby acquiring a different form– the quiescent drive, become itself, fulfilled in itself. The lack was in the looking of the empty I – forthis was object to itself. It held the differences of the “conclusion” together; it comprised theirequivalence, their subsistence, not being as such; it was the primary immediate I, but I as such. Thedrive having been separated from the I, it is released from the Self – the bare content held together byits being.

The work of the I: it knows its activity in this, i.e., knows itself as the I, heretofore [hidden] in theinterior of being. [It knows itself] as activity (not as in memory), but rather so that the content as suchis [revealed] through it; this is because the distinction as such was its own. The distinction makes upthe content, and that alone is what is important here – that the I has posited the distinction out of itselfand knows it as its own. (Name and thing are the former distinction – not the distinction, as such, ofthe I; the latter is simple.)

Determination of the object: it is thus the content, the distinction of the “conclusion”; it isparticularity and universality, and their mediation. But [as] a being, immediate, its mediation is deaduniversality, thinghood, otherness; and its extremes are particularity, determinacy, and individuality.Insofar as it is the other, its activity is that of the I; it has no activity of its own; this extreme fallsoutside it. As thinghood, it is passivity, the [mere] communication of this activity – as fluid, but ashaving something alien in it. Its other extreme is the opposite: the particularity of its being and of itsactivity. It is passive, it is for another, touches it, something that can be worn away [in]communication with the other. This is its being, but it is at the same time the active form set against it.Converse relation: in one sense, the activity is merely something communicated, communicationitself, purely receptive; in another sense, it is activity directed at another.

The gratified impulse is [thus] the transformed labor (aufgehobene Arbeit) of the I; this is the objectworking in its stead. Labor is one’s making oneself into a thing (sich zum Dinge machen). Thedivision of the I beset by drives is this very same self-objectification (sich zum Gegenstandemachen). Desire must always begin anew, never succeeding in ridding itself of its labor. The drive,however, is the unity of the I as objectified (als zum Dinge gemachten).

The bare activity is pure mediation, movement; the bare satisfaction of desire is the pure extinction ofthe object. The labor itself as such is not only activity – the acid [which dissolves passivity] – but it isalso reflected in itself, a bringing forth: the one-sided form of the content [as] particular element. Buthere the drive brings itself forth; it brings forth the labor itself – [so that] the drive satisfies itself,[while] the other elements fall into external consciousness.

The bringing forth is the content also insofar as it is what is willed, and the means of [fulfilling]desire, its determinate possibility. In the tool and in the ploughed and cultivated field, I possess apossibility, a content as something universal. Thus the tool [as] means is of greater value than thegoal of desire, which goal is particular; the tool encompasses all such particularities.



But a tool does not yet have the activity within it. It is an inert thing; it does not turn back into itself. Istill must work with it. Between myself and the external [world of] thinghood, I have inserted mycunning – in order to spare myself, to hide my determinacy and allow it to be made use of. What Ispare myself is merely quantitative; I still get calluses. My being made a thing is yet a necessaryelement – [since] the drive’s own activity is not yet in the thing. The tool’s activity must be placed inthe tool itself, so that it is made self-acting. This happens (a) in such a way that its [own] thread isinterlaced with it and its two-sidedness is utilized, in order to make it go back on itself in thisopposition. In general, its passivity is transformed into activity, in persistent collaboration. Above all,it happens also (b) in order that nature’s own activity be employed – the elasticity of the watchspring,[the power of] water, wind – so that, in their sensory existence, these do something other than whatthey [ordinarily] would do. Their blind doing is made purposeful, in opposition to themselves. [This isthe] rational control of natural laws in their external existence. Nothing happens to nature itself; theparticular purposes of natural being become a universal purpose. The bird flies thither....

Here the drive withdraws entirely from labor. The drive lets nature consume itself, watches quietlyand guides it all with only the slightest effort. [This is] cunning. [Consider] the honor of cunningagainst power – to grasp blind power from one side so that it turns against itself; to comprehend it, tograsp it as something determinate, to be active against it – to make it return into itself as movement,so that it negates itself.

Thus the destiny of the individual thing is [in the hands of] Man. Through cunning, the will becomesfeminine. – The outgoing drive, as cunning, is a theoretical contemplation, the unknowing a drive toknowing. There are two powers, two characters, here. This contemplation – of how the being, in itself,negates itself (sich aufhebt) – is different from the drive; it is the I that has left it and gone back intoitself, the I that knows the nullity (Nichtigkeit) of this being, while the drive is tensed within it.

The will has [thereby] become doubled, split in two. It is determined, it is character. One sort ofcharacter involves this tension, the power in the confrontation of beings. This power, however, isblind, has no consciousness of the nature of this being. It is fully open, straightforward, driving andbeing driven. The other sort of character is evil, [enclosed] in itself, subterranean, knowing what isthere in the light of day, and watching something accomplish its own destruction by its own efforts, orelse turning actively against the thing, thereby introducing a negative element into its being, indeedinto its self-preservation.

The first of these [operates] as a being confronting another being. The second [operates] by usingreason, as a being [against] something it does not take with full seriousness – as when a cape isoffered to the bull which runs against it and, hitting nothing, is hit nonetheless. The will has divideditself into these two extremes, in one of which it is whole and universal, while in the other it isparticular.

These extremes are to posit themselves in one, the knowledge of the latter going over into cognition(Erkennen). This movement of the “conclusion” is thereby posited, so that each is in itself what theother is. The one, the universal, is particularity, the knowing Self. Concomitantly, the particular is theuniversal, since it is self-relatedness. But this must become something for them [something they areaware of], so that this equality becomes a knowledge of this equality.

(a) The drive comes to look at itself – it returns to itself in that satisfaction. In the same manner, it has



become knowledge of what it is. The simple return to itself, the knowledge, is likewise the mediationfor the division of the “conclusion.” The drive is outside itself, in the other simple Self, and knows theSelf as an independent extreme. At the same time this knowledge knows its essence in the other.There is tension in the drive, the independence of both extremes.

(b) In itself there is the supersession (Aufheben) of both: each [of the two “selves”] is identical to theother precisely in that wherein it opposes it; the other, that whereby it is the “other” to it, is it itself. Inthe very fact that each knows itself in the other, each has renounced itself – love.

Knowledge is precisely this ambiguity: each is identical to the other in that wherein it has opposeditself to the other. The self-differentiation of each from the other is therefore a self-positing of each asthe other’s equal. And this knowledge is cognition in the very fact that it is itself this knowledge ofthe fact that for it itself its opposition goes over into identity; or this, that it knows itself as it looksupon itself in the other. Cognition means one’s knowing what is objective, in its objectivity, asknowledge of one’s Self: i.e., a [subjectively] conceptualized content, in the sense of a concept that isobject.

This cognition is merely a cognition of characters – since neither one has as yet determined itself as aSelf vis-à-vis the other. Only the one is knowledge in itself, the other is knowledge as outwardactivity; and the one is the universal substance directed outward, the rounded substance, [while] theother [is] directed inward. Thus they are only opposed characters, not knowing themselves – buteither knowing themselves in one another, or else knowing themselves only in themselves.

The movement of knowing is thus in the inner realm itself, not in the objective realm. In their firstinterrelation, the two poles of the tension already fall asunder. To be sure, they approach one anotherwith uncertainty and timidity, yet with trust, for each knows itself immediately in the other, and themovement is merely the inversion whereby each realizes that the other knows itself likewise in itsother. This reversal also rests in the fact that each gives up its independence. The stimulus is itself anexcitation, i.e., it is the condition of not being satisfied in oneself, but rather having one’s essence inanother – because one knows oneself in the other, negating oneself as being-for-oneself, as different.This self-negation is one’s being for another, into which one’s immediate being is transformed. Eachone’s self-negation becomes, for each, the other’s being for the other. Thus the other is for me, i.e., itknows itself in me. There is only being for another, i.e., the other is outside itself.

This cognition is love. It is the movement of the “conclusion”, so that each pole, fulfilled by the I, isthus immediately in the other, and only this being in the other separates itself from the I and becomesits object. It is the element of [custom or morality], the totality of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) – thoughnot yet it itself, but only the suggestion of it. Each one [here exists] only as determinate will,character, as the natural individual whose uncultivated natural Self is recognized.

High chivalric love falls within mystic consciousness, which lives in a spiritual world regarded as thetrue one, a world which now approaches its actuality, and in this world such consciousness glimpsesthe other world as present. Friendship is only in shared work, and [the emphasis on it] occurs in theperiod of moral development: e.g., the moderation of Herculean virtue, Theseus and Pirithous, Orestesand Pylades.

Love thereby becomes immediately objective for itself. Movement enters into it. Satisfied, it is the



unity of poles, the unity which had previously been the drive – this satisfied love. Distinct from the[two] characters is the third, the engendered. The unity divides itself into poles which are equivalenttoward the middle. They are different beings.

The satisfied love at first becomes so objective for itself that this third is something other than the twopoles [i.e., other than the two individuals involved]; this is the love that is a being-other (Andersseyn),immediate thinghood, wherein the love does not know itself immediately, but rather exists for thesake of an other (just as the tool does not have its activity [inhering] in it itself). Thus both partiesrealize their mutual love through their mutual service, mediated in a third which is a thing. It is themean and the means of love. And indeed, just as the tool is the ongoing [objectified] labor, so thisthird element is a universal as well; it is the permanent, ongoing possibility of their existence. Asequivalent poles, they are, This being, since it is a being of the polar extremes, is transitory. Asmiddle, as unity, it is universal. It is a family possession – as movement [it is] acquisition.

It is from here onward that there is the interest in acquisition and permanent possession, and in thegeneral possibility of existence. It is from here onward, actually, that the desire itself enters in as such,namely, as rational, sanctified (if one so wishes). The desire is satisfied in shared labor. The labordoes not occur to satisfy desires as individual but as general. The one who works on a given objectdoes not necessarily consume it. Rather, it becomes a part of the common store, and all are supportedby it. Like the tool, it [constitutes] the general possibility of enjoyment and also the general actualityof it. It is an immediate [non-mediated] spiritual possession.

Family property has in it the element of activity, higher than the element of instrumentality – so thatboth the polar parties are self-consciously active. But this object does not yet have the element of lovein it. Rather, the love is in the polar parties. The cognition on the part of both characters is itself notyet a [fully] cognizant cognition (erkennendes Erkennen). The love itself is not yet the object. The Iof love, however, withdraws from love, pushes itself away from itself and becomes its own object.The unity of both characters is only the love, but it does not know itself as the love. It knows itself inthe child, in whom the two see their love – their self-conscious unity as self-conscious.

The unity is the immediate object, a particular entity – and the unity of love is at the same time amovement to transcend (aufzuheben) this particularity. On one side this movement means thetranscendence of immediate existence: e.g., the death of parents; they are a disappearing process, theself-annulling (sich aufhebend) source. Against the [concept of the] procreated individual there is thismovement, as conscious, the becoming of his being-for-himself, education. According to his essence,however, there is the transcendence of love as such.

The [idea of the] family is decided in these elements: (a) love, as natural, begetting children; (b) self-conscious love, conscious feeling, sentiment and language of the same; (e) shared labor andacquisition, mutual service and care; (d) education [of offspring]. No single function can be made theentire purpose [of the family].

Love has become its own object, and this a being-for-itself. It is no longer [a function of] character,but has the whole simple essence in it itself. Each [member] is the spiritual recognition itself, whichknows itself. The family, as a totality, has confronted another self-enclosed totality, comprisingindividuals who are complete, free individualities for one another. Only here, then, do we find theactual being for the Spirit, in that it is a self-conscious being-for-itself.



At the same time they are related to one another and are in a state of tension in regard to one another.Their immediate existence is exclusive. One [family member] has, say, taken possession of a piece ofland – not of a particular thing, e.g., a tool, but [a part] of the permanent general existence [freelyavailable]. Through his labor he has designated it [as his], giving to the sign his own content asexistent: a negative and exclusive significance. Another party is thereby excluded from somethingwhich he is. Thus the existence is no longer “general” [i.e., things are now defined as “belonging” toindividuals].

Conclusion


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ConclusionThis relation is usually what is referred to as the state of nature, the free, indifferent being ofindividuals toward one another. And the [concept of] natural right should answer the question as towhat rights and obligations the individuals have toward one another according to this relation, whichis the element of necessity in their behavior as independent self-consciousnesses according to theirconception. Their only interrelation, however, lies in overcoming (aufzuheben) their presentinterrelation: to leave the state of nature. In this interrelation they have no rights, no obligationstowards one another, but acquire them only in leaving that situation.

What is posited thereby is the concept of freely interrelated self-consciousnesses – but only theconcept itself. Since it is only a concept, it is still to be realized; i.e., it is to transcend (aufzuheben)itself in the form of a concept and approach reality, in actuality, it itself occurs unconsciously in thedissolution of the problem and in the problem itself – unconsciously, i.e., so that the concept does notintrude into the [realm of the] object.

The problem is this: What is right and obligation for the individual in the state of nature? The conceptof this individual is taken as the basis; out of this concept the full notion is to be developed. I bring toit the definition of right. I show the individual to be a bearer of rights, a person. But thisdemonstration occurs within me; it is the movement of my thought, although the content is the freeSelf. This [conceptual] movement, however, does not leave this demonstration as it is; i.e., it is [itself]the movement of this concept.

Right is the relation of persons, in their behavior, to others. It is the universal element of their freebeing – the determination, the limitation of their empty freedom. I need not spell out this relation orlimitation for myself and produce it; rather, the object, in general, is itself this creation of right, i.e.,the relation of recognition. In recognition (Anerkennen), the Self ceases to be this individual; it existsby right in recognition, i.e., no longer [immersed] in its immediate existence. The one who isrecognized is recognized as immediately counting as such (geltend), through his being — but thisbeing is itself generated from the concept; it is recognized being (anerkanntes Seyn).

Man is necessarily recognized and necessarily gives recognition. This necessity is his own, not that ofour thinking in contrast to the content. As recognizing, man is himself the movement [of recognition],and this movement itself is what negates (hebt auf) his natural state: he is recognition; the naturalaspect merely is, it is not the spiritual aspect.

The individuals, as they are toward one another [in the state of nature], do not yet recognize oneanother; rather, their being is disturbed. One individual, say, has disturbed the situation through his[taking] possession [as just described], although this is not yet property. The right of possessionimmediately concerns things, not a third party. Man has the right [in the state of nature] to takepossession of as much as he can, as an individual. He has the right – this is implicit in his concept ofwhat it is to be a Self, by which he is the power over all things. But his taking possession alsoacquires the significance of excluding a third party. What is it in this significance that binds the other



person? What may I take possession of, without violating the rights of the third party? Such questions,as well, cannot be answered. Taking possession is the empirical [act of] seizure, and this is to bejustified through recognition. It is not justified merely by virtue of its having occurred.

[It is as] in-himself that the immediate person takes possession. There is this contradiction, that theimmediate comprises the content, the subject, whose predicate is [presumably] to be its right. A thingis my property because it is recognized [to be such] by others. But what is it, exactly, that othersrecognize? It is that which I have, which I possess. The content [of “property”] therefore emanatesfrom my possession. Can I therefore have whatever and as much as I want? I cannot take it from athird party and expect recognition [as owner], because what he has is already recognized [as his]. Yetin that I take possession of something immediately – i.e., as something belonging to no ones – Iexclude him, in himself. And thus, in taking possession, the question of recognition comes up again: Itake that which could have become his. It merely could become his possession, but it is mine inactuality. His possibility comes after my actuality. He must recognize me as actual.

What do I possess, however? (a) My body; (b) the thing I already have, in my mouth or in my hand.Yet I possess not only this, but also that which I have marked with my desiring, my glance, assomething wanted, grasped for. Children maintain they have a right to something because they saw itfirst, or wanted it first. Adults, although they can do nothing else, become angry because someoneelse got there first.

Besides my having grasped something immediately, however, an existent thing is shown to be mineby means of some sign, e.g., my very working on it. Whatever is designated as mine the other personmust not do damage to. The designation, however, is at the same time contingent: e.g., an enclosedplot of ground with, [as] a boundary, nothing more than a furrow drawn around it, is designated asmine – and yet not [i.e., “mine” is not a predicate intrinsic to that sign]. The sign has an unlimitedrange: putting up a stake on an island signifies that I wish to take possession of it; likewise, inworking on a metal cup I cannot separate from it the form I have given it. But in the case of acultivated field or tree I have worked on, where does the imposed form begin and where does it end?The inner side of each clod of earth is left untouched, or moved very slightly, and similarly with theunderside, [it is] not moved much, etc.

The sensory immediate, to which the universal is applied, does not correspond to this universal, is notencompassed by it. It is a “bad infinite” division.

The sensory immediate is not in itself universal; there is always a contradiction in regard to thiscontent. [Example:] the conformity to the needs of a family, or of an individual, contradicts theconcept of pure Self, or of equality, which is the basis of right. There is nothing in itself to bedetermined here; related to individuality, however, it is the aspect which belongs to chance. There isno reason in it; reason is yet to be introduced in such a way that nothing belongs to someone as theresult of direct taking, but only through a contract; i.e., this direct taking of possession does not occur,and is not excluded in itself, but is recognized. The exclusion, in itself, is rather what is not right, andwhat should not occur, since the excluded is thereby not present as actual consciousness, nor do Ithereby relate myself to such a one.

Thus what must happen first is recognition: the individuals are love, this being-recognized, withoutthe opposition of the will – (i.e., wherein each would be the entire “conclusion,” [and] wherein they



enter only as characters, not as free wills). Such recognition is to come about. There must become forthem what they [already] are in themselves. Their being for one another is the beginning of it.

They are therefore such individuals, the one having excluded from his possession, and the other, theexcluded, having become so for himself. They themselves are thus immediate for one another. Theconclusion is that each does not know his own essence in the other, as character, but knows his ownessence in himself; he is for himself – the one, however, as excluded from being, the other asexcluding. They are thus juxtaposed and for one another, so that the one finds himself much morenegated (negirt) by the other as an essence, a being. If, however, he is not for the other, he is on theother hand for himself.

The movement thus begins, here, not with the positive aspect of knowing oneself in another andthereby seeing the self-negation of the other; but on the contrary, with not knowing oneself in theother, and rather seeing his, the other’s, being-for-self in the other. The conclusion therefore beginswith the independence of the polar parties in their being-for-themselves, so that the independence ofeach is [established] for the other. And indeed [it happens] first on the side of the excluded party,since he is a being-for-himself, because he is not for the other – since through the other’s [action] heis excluded from being. The other, however – the family – is quietly and impartially for itself.

The excluded party spoils the other’s possession, by introducing his excluded being-for-himself intoit, his [sense of] “mine.” He ruins something in it, annihilating [i.e., negating] it as desire, in order togive himself his self-feeling (Selbstgefühl) – yet not his empty self-feeling, but rather positing his ownSelf in another, in the knowing of another. The activity does not concern the negative aspect, thething, but rather the self-knowledge of the other. A distinction in the knowledge of the other isthereby posited, which only puts one in the existence of the other. He [the excluded] is also angeredthereby; he is divided in himself, and his exclusion from being is turned into an exclusion ofknowledge. He becomes aware that he has done something altogether different from what heintended. His intention (Meynen) was the pure relating of his being to itself, his impartial being-for-himself.

Thus angered, the two parties stand opposed to one another – the one as the insulter, the other as theinsulted. The insulter did not intend insult to the other in taking possession, but the insulted did relatehimself to the insulter: what the insulter annihilated was not the intrinsic form of the thing, but theform of the other’s labor or activity. Thus the fact that the excluded party has restored himself doesnot produce the equality of the two, but rather a new inequality. Equality [demanded] that bothparties posit themselves in the thing, [asserting themselves with respect to it]. But [here we have] thehigher inequality of the positing of the one in the being-for-himself of the other. The first posited [i.e.,asserted] himself in the unowned thing, the other in the thing already possessed.

This inequality is to be overcome, negated (aufzuheben). It must already be overcome in itself,however – and the activity of both is only so that this may become [true] for both. The overcoming(Aufheben) of the exclusion has already occurred; both parties are outside themselves, both are aknowledge, are objects for themselves. Each is conscious of himself in the other – as one who isnegated (aufgehobenes), to be sure – but in the same way the positive aspect is on the side of each.Each one wants to count as something for the other. It is the aim of each to look upon himself in theother – each is outside himself. Each one is the conclusion, one pole of which is outside him –



superseded (aufgehoben) in the other – and each is in himself. But both egos, the one in me and theone superseded in the other party, are the same. I provide content for myself as end; i.e., I am positiveto myself. My ego is likewise to be positive; i.e., my positive aspect is now enclosed in myself, andhas only now become my end.

Thus the inequality has the form that (a) the one party has only overcome (aufhob) the being of theother, while the other has negated the being-for-himself of the first; and that (b) each knows himselfoutside himself: the one (namely the insulted) has lost [something of] his existence, the other hasrestored his existence to himself – but this restoration occurred at the expense of the other, [and] isconditioned thereby: it is not an immediate, free acquisition.

Their roles are thus exchanged: for himself, the insulter is satisfied (not in himself, since his being-in-himself is conditioned); the second party is now the annoyed one, in a state of tension – an alienbeing-for-himself has intruded itself into his being-for-self. He resolves not to expose his existenceany further, but rather to arrive at a knowledge of himself, i.e., to become recognized . The actualbeing-for-himself as such is to be posited, not as a [mere] form of the thing (since this form hasnothing permanent in it), nor by means of language (since the knowledge is [to be] actual). It is will,the being-for-himself as such. Its actuality has the significance of being recognized by the other, tocount as absolute for him. In order to count as absolute, however, it must present itself as absolute, aswill, i.e., as someone for whom his existence (which he had as property) no longer counts, but ratherthis: as his known being-for-himself, that has the pure significance of self-knowledge, and in this waycomes into existence.

Such presentation, however, is the self-executed negation of the existence that “belongs” to him. It isthe directedness of the will to itself, to the extreme of its individuality. (Character is only directed toitself as universal.) To him as consciousness it appears that in this he must intend the death of theother, although it is his own death that is at issue – suicide, in that he exposes himself to danger.

Thus he looks upon his negated external existence. This existence is most his own, converting thebeing-negated (Aufgehobenseyn) of that alien element into his own being-for-himself that is most hisown, because it is reason. This restoration is the reception of his existence in the abstraction ofknowing. The [element of] cunning is the knowing, the being-in-himself, self-knowledge, as theknowledge of will [as] mere drive. In the drive the extreme poles have the form of equivalence,indifference, the form of being, not yet a knowing.

The knowing will is to be fulfilled (a) as the will of love, with the knowledge of the immediate unityof both poles, of their unity as selfless; (b) in recognition, with the polar extremes as free Selves. Theformer is the fulfilment of the universal extreme, the latter of the particular, i.e., making this the totalconclusion. This conclusion has in it the extremes in the form of being-for-themselves. The previouscognition [now] becomes recognition. The two know themselves as being-for-themselves – they areseparated in this way [by what they have in common]. The movement is the life-and-death struggle.From this, each proceeds in such a way that he sees the other as pure Self, and it is a knowledge ofthe will; and so that the will of each is cognizant, i.e., reflected completely in itself in its pure unity.The driveless will, the determination enveloped in itself to know being as something not alien.

This knowing will is now universal. it is the state of being recognized; juxtaposed to itself in the formof universality, it is being, actuality in general – and the individual, the subject, is the person. The will



of the individual is the universal will — and the universal is the individual. It is the totality of ethicallife (Sittlichkeit) in general, immediate, yet [as] Right.

Part II.


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The Philosophy of Spirit (Jena Lectures 1805-6)(Also known as “Realphilosophie” II)

PART IIActual Spirit

Spirit is actual neither as intelligence nor as will, but as will which is intelligence. That is, in theintelligence there is the unity of two universalities, and in the universal will these are complete Selves.They are a knowing of their own being, and their being is this spiritual [element:] the universal will.In this element, the foregoing has now to exhibit itself. In it, the abstract will has now to transcend orsupersede itself (sich aufzuheben) — just as the abstract intelligence has transcended itself in the will,the objects of that intelligence fulfilling themselves on their own. As thus transcended, the will mustproduce itself in the element of universal recognition, in this spiritual actuality. Possession therebytransforms itself into [property] right, just as [individual] labor was transformed, previously, intouniversal labor. What was family property, wherein the marriage partners knew themselves, nowbecomes the generalized [sphere of] the work and enjoyment of everyone. And the difference betweenindividuals now becomes a knowledge of good and evil, of personal right and wrong.

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The Philosophy of Spirit (Jena Lectures 1805-6)PART II. Actual Spirit

A. Recognitioni. Immediate Recognition Being-recognized (Anerkanntseyn) is immediate actuality. And in thiselement [there is] the person, at first as being-for-himself in general, working and enjoying [the fruitsof labor]. Only here does desire have the right to make its appearance – for [here] it is actual; i.e.,desire itself has universal, spiritual being. Labor is of all and for all, and the enjoyment [of its fruits] isenjoyment by all. Each [one] serves the other and provides help. Only here does the individual haveexistence, as individual. Prior to this, the individual is merely something abstract, untrue [as aconcept]. Spirit can indeed posit itself in an abstraction, analyze itself and give an existence to it (asthe animal cannot), where the Self, placing itself in a system, becomes disease. But [then the self] hasa merely momentary, evanescent existence. Here [in contrast] desire is. Over against the I as abstractbeing-for-itself, there stands likewise its inorganic nature, as being (seyend). The I relates itselfnegatively to it [its inorganic nature], and annuls it as the unity of both – but in such a way that the Ifirst shapes that abstract being-for-itself as its Self, sees its own form [in it] and thus consumes itselfas well.

In the element of being as such, the existence and range of natural needs is a multitude of needs. Thethings serving to satisfy those needs are worked up (verarbeitet), their universal inner possibilityposited [expressed] as outer possibility, as form. This processing (Verarbeiten) of things is itselfmanysided, however; it is consciousness making itself into a thing. But in the element of universality,it is such that it becomes an abstract labor. The needs are many. The incorporation of theirmultiplicity in the I, i.e., labor, is an abstraction of universal models (Bilder), yet [it is] a self-propelling process of formation (Bilden). The I, which is for-itself, is abstract I; but it does labor,hence its labor is abstract as well. The need in general is analyzed into its many aspects – what isabstract in its movement is the being-for-itself, activity, labor.

Since work is performed only [to satisfy] the need as abstract being-for-itself, the working becomesabstract as well. This is the concept, the truth of the desire existing here. Each individual, because heis an individual here, thus labors for a need. [Yet] the content of his labor goes beyond his need; helabors for the needs of many, and so does everyone. Each satisfies the needs of many, and thesatisfaction of one’s own many particular needs is the labor of many others. Since his labor is abstractin this way, he behaves as an abstract I – according to the mode of thinghood – not as an all-encompassing Spirit, rich in content, ruling a broad range and being master of it; but rather, having noconcrete labor, his power consists in analyzing, in abstracting, dissecting the concrete world into itsmany abstract aspects.

Man’s labor itself becomes entirely mechanical, belonging to a many-sided determinacy. But themore abstract [his labor] becomes, the more he himself is mere abstract activity. And consequently heis in a position to withdraw himself from labor and to substitute for his own activity that of externalnature. He needs mere motion, and this he finds in external nature. In other words, pure motion isprecisely the relation of the abstract forms of space and time – the abstract external activity, themachine.



Among these diverse, abstract, processed needs, a certain movement must now take place, wherebythey once again become concrete need[s], i.e., become the needs of an individual, who in turnbecomes a subject comprising many needs. The judgment which analyzed them, placed them againstitself as determinate abstractions. Their universality to which this judgment rises is [that of] theequality of these needs, or value. In this they are the same. This value itself, as a thing, is money. Thereturn to concretion, to possession, is exchange.

In exchange, the abstract thing presents itself [as] what it is, namely, as being this transformation,returning to thinghood in the I, and indeed in such a way that its thinghood consists in being thepossession of another. Each one gives his own possession, negating (hebt auf) its existence [as his]and in such a way that that existence is recognized therein; the other receives it with the consent of thefirst. Both parties are recognized; each receives from the other the possession of the other, in such away that he receives it only insofar as the other is himself this negative of himself, [consents to thisnegation of what is his, i.e., receives it] as property, through mediation. Each is the negating (dasnegirende) of his own being, his property – and this is mediated through the negating of the other.Only because the other releases his possession do I do the same; and this equality in the thing, as itsinner aspect, constitutes its value, in regard to which I concur entirely with the opinion of the other –[a concurrence of] that which is positively mine and likewise his, the unity of my will and his.

And my will counts as actual, existing, [for] to be recognized is to exist (das Anerkanntseyn ist dasDaseyn). Thereby my will counts, I possess, the possession is transformed into property. In thepossession, being has the unspiritual significance of my having, as this individual having. Here,however, the being-recognized [enters] – the being of the possession, such that the thing is and I am,and the thing is grasped as in the Self. Here, being is the universal Self, and the having is themediation through another, i.e., it is universal. Value is what is universal [here]; the movement, asperceptible, is the exchange. This same universality is mediation as conscious movement. Property isthus an immediate having, mediated through being-recognized. That is, its existence is [shaping,recollection, value] – it is the spiritual essence.

Here the contingency in taking possession is overcome (aufgehoben). All that I have, I have throughwork and exchange, i.e., in being recognized. (By the same token, I am a universal person, not thisparticular person, but at the same time family. That is to say, property is the movement of a thing inexchange. Afterward, inheritance [involves] the change of individuals, wherein the family is constant– but this does not yet come up here.)

The source, the origin of property here is that of labor, my activity itself – immediate Self and beingrecognized [is the] basis. I am the cause, equally because I have willed [the] purpose in the exchange:the cause, the ground, is the universal. I have willed in the exchange, have posited my thing as avalue, i.e., internal movement, internal activity, just as [is] labor, sunk in being – the sameexternalization (Entäusserung).

(a) In laboring, I make myself immediately into the thing, a form which is Being.

(b) At the same time I externalize this existence of mine, making it something alien to myself, andpreserve myself therein. In the very same thing I see my being-recognized, being as knowing. In theformer I see my immediate Self, in the latter my being-for-myself, my personhood. I therefore see mybeing-recognized as [my] existence, and my will is this counting-for-something (diss Gelten).



ii. Contract In the exchange, this being-recognized has become object; my will is [recognized as] anexistence, as is the will of the other party. The immediacy of being-recognized has [now] come apart.My will is presented as more valid (geltender), not only for myself but also for the other – and itamounts to as much as existence itself. The value is my opinion of the thing. This opinion of mine,and my will, has counted (hat gegolten) in the eyes of the other person (mediated through his opinionand will). I have accomplished something, [and] have [thereby] alienated it from myself (habe michdessen entäussert). This negative [element] is positive; this alienation is an acquiring.

My opinion of a thing’s value counted (galt) for the other person, and my wanting something he has.The two parties regard one another as [individuals] whose opinion and will have actuality. There is aconsciousness, a distinction of the concept of being-recognized: the will of the individual is a sharedwill (or statement or judgement), and his will is his actuality as [the] externalization of himself whichis my will.

This knowing is expressed in the contract. It is the same as exchange, but it is an ideal exchange (anoffer).

(a) [In it] I give nothing away, I externalize nothing, I give nothing but my word, language, [to theeffect that] I wish to externalize myself.

(b) The other party does the same. This externalizing/alienating (Entäussern) of mine is at the sametime his will. He is satisfied that I grant him this.

(c) It is also his externalizing, it is [our] will in common – my externalization (Entäusserung) ismediated through his. I want to externalize myself only because he (for his part) wants to externalizehimself also, and because his negating is my positing. It is an exchange of declarations, no longer anexchange of objects – but it counts as much as the object itself. For both parties, the will of the othercounts as such. Will has [thus] gone back into its concept (Willen ist in seinen Begriffzurückgegangen).

Here, however, this division appears, that can as readily change into its opposite: the going back intoitself [as individual will opposed to the will that is shared]. The will as such has validity; it is set freeof actuality. But in that very fact there is the opposite: individual and shared wills are separated; theindividual will [appears] as the negative of the universal will. [Thus] there is crime only insofar as Iam recognized [as an individual, and] my will is taken as universal, counting as will in itself. Prior torecognition there is no insult, no injury.

In other words, in the contract the shared will has only a positive significance for my will, just as mywill has for the other: they are in agreement. But it is also possible for them not to agree. I canunilaterally break the contract, since my individual will counts as such – not merely insofar as it isshared, but rather the shared will is shared only insofar as my individual will counts. They are equallyessential: my individual will is as essential as is the equality [of wills]. My individual will is [the]cause, and the individual and universal here appear so far apart that my will counts insofar as it ismere will, before I have performed anything. But the performance is [something] existent, i.e., it is theexisting universal will. Thus the division appears in the presentation of the wills as counting foruniversal will [as shared] and yet as existing [as individual]. The universal counts for the individualwill, yet it is not the same.



In order really to assert the difference, I break the contract. The other party recognized my nonexistentwill and was satisfied with it. The fact that it did not exist, that nothing was done [by me], shouldindeed have been overcome (aufgehoben) – an ought, but he recognized the ought as such. Preciselyin the fact that the will counts as such, there lies the indifference to existence and to time. This is onesense [of the autonomy of the will], but the opposite sense is the essentiality of what exists, asexisting, and indeed [as existing] against the essentiality of the will as such – i.e., against theindividual will, there exists the entity that has the significance of the shared will, against theindividuality of the will; and this [individual will] is rather to be asserted as prior to [the shared oruniversal will].

This assertion [of the will as individual] is the overcoming of that existence [i.e., of the will as shared,as universal – and with it the overcoming of the] compulsion [that says:] the other must perform; hiswill (even though it is indeed will) is not [to be] respected, because [in his participation in a] sharedwill he is opposed to himself. My individual will is essential, but at the same time it is only anelement; and in that I have already posited my individual will as a shared will, I have posited myselfin the same terms. My word must count – not on the moral grounds that I ought to be at one withmyself, and not change my inner sentiment or conviction (for I can change these) – but [that] my willexists only as recognized. [In going back on my word] I not only contradict myself, but also the factthat my will is recognized; my word cannot be relied upon, i.e., my will is merely mine (mein), mereopinion (Meinung). The person, the pure being-for-himself, thus is not respected as an individual willseparating itself from the shared will, but only as that shared will. I become compelled to be a person.

(a) The contract comprises the determinate particular will as a universal will; (b) hence its content –the thing, which is the medium of the relation – is a particular thing, a particular existence from whichI can abstract. My contingent will concerns contingent things, as in exchange. The existent thing,which belongs to the medium [of the relation], is something particular. And I appear as a particularwill against the other particular will – not as person against person. My will is not [directed] to theperson, nor is it the person, the universal as such, that makes its appearance. Rather, the universal willis hidden under the determinate thing. The universal will, as shared – and as my pure will orpersonhood – is presented in the particular [will]. And my pure will as such is in the language of mydeclaration. My pure will has therein taken itself back, out of the immediacy of the exchange. But itmerely signifies the particular performance; and the shared will [signifies] merely the dissolution, notof the person as such, but of the person as particular existent. The [element of] compulsion [in thecontract] does not touch personhood but only its determinacy, its existence [in its particularity].

But according to the concept, the [particular] existence is dissolved in [the concept of] the person, andin the universal will. in other words, that existence is only as pure person and as pure universal will,as pure negativity. This is the force of the contract. just as, in performing [in fulfillment of thecontract], I placed my will in a particular existent, but could do this only as a person (i.e., because thewill counts as being in general), so in the same way I was compelled as person – for in this negationof my [particular] existence, my [universal] being in general was negated (negirt) as well, since theseare indivisible.

I am reflected in myself. In compulsion, too, this comes to light. [In the contract, it is] not thisparticularity that is compelled; rather, it is I. The concept is therefore posited, set up, that the universalwill absorbs the individual I into itself – as an existent which is juxtaposed to it – [absorbs] the entire



individual I, and that I am [eo ipso] recognized for myself as person. Not merely my possession andmy property are posited here, but also my personhood – i.e., this insofar as my existence includes myall, my honor and life.

iii. Crime and Punishment Concerning my honor and life there can be no contract: such a contractis nullified in its very conception, not [merely] as an individual case. The contract placed my will in aseparable particularity. This I have given away, as in an exchange, and what has emerged is myexistence as pure person. And this is as I now appear, as recognized for my pure will. In the contract[the element of] existence has receded to a mere effect. But in the contract as such the matter issettled. Here the necessary movement appears to be nullified – the injury to my honor and life appearsas something fortuitous, contingent.

Yet this injury is necessary. I was compelled – not merely in regard to [the particulars of] myexistence, but also in regard to my ego, as reflected in me in my existence. The recognition of mypersonhood, in the contract, allows me to count as existing, my word to count for the performance.That is: I, my bare will, is not separated from my existence; they are equal. This very will iscontradicted by compulsion and force, for these injure me in my existence. I am insulted, as in themovement of recognition (Anerkennen). The other person has damaged my property, not merely in theform which is immediate to me. Rather, he has injured my recognized will as such, which herecognized as existing and as inseparably bound up with my existence.

I consider myself injured – and indeed as a person, according to that concept. There is an oscillationbetween my existence as external and as internal (into which I placed my I). The contradiction strikesme as an inequality between my first and second word – but it is the same contradiction as thatbetween the I as universal and as particular. In other words: inasmuch as the other party concluded adeterminate deal with me he took my pure will as something unequal to itself, as the universal willwhich has a determinate existence.

Against coercion I therefore present my being-for-myself – not (as in the movement of recognition)my generally injured self, but rather my injured self [as] recognized. I wish to show the other partythat he ought not to be able to compel me; i.e., that my ego, bound to a determinate performance(along with the compulsion which I suffered therein), was an injury to my pure Self. I find my honoraggrieved, my will negated (aufgehoben) only in the respect of this determinate existence, but throughthis my putative pure will [as well]. I appear as a person against the person of another; I negate hisbeing as universal, the security of his personhood. I show him that in this existence, this determinacy,he has injured me as universal, and thus has conducted himself inequitably, since the matter at issuewas only concerning a particular thing.

Thus I, in turn, stand up against him. In his performance toward me, his will was not injured; rather,he has had his way and has only alienated [i.e., divested himself of, given up] a specific thing. Hiscompulsion [of me], however, is an alienation of my will. I overcome this inequality, [I regard] him aswill, just as he does me. I avenge myself on him – not as in the state of nature [where I direct myself]merely as toward self-conscious activity for itself, but as toward a will, i.e., a will that here is likewiseintelligence, that thinks of itself, knows itself as universal, a universal knowing, which is my knowingas well – in other words, [I avenge myself on him] as on someone who is recognized.

In coercion, the other party produced the shared will as something existent – and overcame my



individual will, which I alone recognize. My will as such is for me the equal of the universal will. Andsince it is injured, deprived of existence, I now produce it [i.e., re-assert it] – so that I negate theother’s being which had posited his will as universal, opposed to my will which did not prevail.

I thereby commit crime, acts of violence, theft, injury, etc. The verbal injury transcends all this as auniversal crime. [In committing it,] I do not say [about someone] that he has done me this or anotherevil, but that he is this. The verbal insult places him in the universal, as negated. A judgment posits[e.g.] the tree to be green, [that] it is green – i.e., the judgment is not [intended as] subjective but [as]universal. Similarly, the verbal insult transforms the victim’s totality into something that is in itself anullity. [On the other hand,] the real injury negates him as a will – whether it be that I steal from him[by stealth or] rob him [in a hold-up]: in the former, attacking his unknowing existence, and altogetherignoring his being and will, but acting against it; in the latter, openly acting against his existing self-expressive will. The one works underhandedly, the other [is openly] injurious. Open murder (notthrough deception) is finite, is generally the least underhanded, yet is the greatest injury. Forunderhandedness consists in relating to another person as nonexistent, [while] I retain the form ofinwardness, so that my deed does not come to light, cannot be grasped for what it truly is, but remainscunningly reflected in itself.

The inner [subjective] source of crime is the coercive force of the law. Exigency and so forth are[merely] external causes, belonging to [one’s] animal needs. But crime as such is directed at theperson as such and his knowing of it, for the criminal is intelligence: his inner justification is thiscoercion, the reinstatement of his individual will to power, [his wish] to count for something, to berecognized. He wants to be something (like Herostratus), not necessarily to be famous but only tohave his will prevail, in opposition to the universal will.

The consummated crime is [a function of] the will that knows itself as individual, as being-for-itself,having come into existence despite the power of the other will that knows itself as universal will. Butthis crime is the animation, the activation, the arousal (to activity) of the universal will. The universalwill is active. The recognized activity is universal, not individual – that is to say, it is a transcendence(Aufheben) of the individual will.

Punishment is this overturn, it is retribution as [that] of the universal will. The essence of punishmentdoes not rest on a contract [that has presumably been broken], nor [on the aim of] deterring others, nor[on] rehabilitating the criminal. Rather, the essence of punishment, its concept, is this transition, theinversion of the injured universal recognition (Anerkanntseyn). It is revenge, but as justice. That is tosay, the recognition which is in itself and was damaged externally is to be restored.

The criminal is done by as he has done, inasmuch as he had constituted himself as a power againstanother, [taking] the universal as his power, and indeed the universal as such – not the individual, asin [personal] vengeance. Revenge can be just, but here it is justice.

(a) The injured party is recognized in himself; everything proceeds in the element of recognition, ofRight. Dolus, the crime, has this significance: that the one doing the injury has previously recognizedthe injured; that the criminal (usually the thief) knew what he did, not [necessarily] its determinatescope, but its general determinacy; that he knew it to be prohibited, and knew that in this act he doesinjury to a person, such as is recognized in himself; that he [the criminal] lives in the element ofrecognition; [and] that whatever exists derives its meaning in such recognition.



(b) It thereby happens that the injured party suffers no injury to his honor. The honor of the one whois robbed or murdered is not aggrieved, for he is recognized in himself. In other words, his being-recognized exists – not as in the state of nature, [where] honor was attacked through injury done topossessions, i.e., a being-recognized that is as yet only in thought. The verbal injury injures one’shonor, but not absolutely; the injured party is not without rights. In himself, the one without honor isalso without rights.

Through this movement, the being-recognized has been realized, presented as:

(a) comprising in itself the determinate existence and the particular will; in the surrender of itself tomaintain itself in its expression, retaining its will;

(b) this will as such, as the individual will, as the will existing in the contract; return into particularity,crime as though this [individual will] were [the will] as such, crime [as] loss of the particularity ofbeing through the universal will; the reconciled universal will, counting absolutely as such [this is the]deterrent to crime: looking upon the law as the absolute power, not the power of the individual.

B. The Coercive Law







B. The Coercive LawThe law is the substance of the person, and has these aspects to it:

(a) That this substance is the mediation of the person with himself in his immediate existence – thesubstance of his existence, resting entirely on [his being in] community with others, hence theabsolute necessity of the same. At the same time, the totality is nothing more than this universalsubsistence, in which the individual person is transcended, negated (aufgehoben). That is to say, thetotality alone is provided for, not the individual as such, who is rather sacrificed to the universal.

(b) The individual counts as possessing property. The universal [element] is the substance of thecontract, i.e., this very existence, this validation of the shared will. The individual is person, hissecurity – [is] justice, the power which sustains him as pure being, the power of his life, the powerover his life, as over the maintenance of his subsisting existence.

(c) The individual’s existence, within that power, is now his own process of becoming the universal,education. That is, this empowered law has two sides: the individual subsisting in it, and his becomingindividual. The subsisting [of the individual], however, is in general his own self-movement.

The force of the law is in itself, or the Substance. It is this for the individual – an object [for him]which is his essence, his in-itself (sein Ansich) – and he himself is the life of that substance. First hebecomes, in himself, the universal consciousness, the dead dull consciousness, then a cultivatedconsciousness, maintaining itself in its own pure abstraction.

i. [Law and Marriage] The law as the subsistence of the individual’s immediate existence: he isimmediately in it, as a natural totality; he exists [as it were] as family. He counts as this natural whole,not as a person (this he has yet to become). He is, first, [in a situation of] immediate being-recognized; he is someone bound through [the ties of] love. This tie is a totality of many relations[i.e., functions]: natural procreation, a shared life together, care, acquisition, childraising. The tie[makes up] this whole; the individual is absorbed in it. It is as this totality that he exists for the law,for the universal – thus it is [in] marriage, not for this or another purpose, but as the universal. This[is] a total movement in itself – being-recognized, love, regard in care, activity, work, recapitulationin the child, procreation – yet just therein a dissolution [of individuality], a grasp of the totality.

This self-enclosed totality is not a contractual tie; the parties contract their property, certainly, but nottheir bodies. It is a barbaric view on the part of Kant [to regard marriage as a contract] for the use ofone’s sexual organs, with the rest of the body included in the bargain. (Soldiers could also force themarriage partners together in this fashion.)

So that there be no marriage between those too closely related, there is a positive law governingmarriage – set in opposition to the concept of love. [The partners] are to find each other asindependent, naturally free [individuals], not as immersed in immediate [familial] recognition. Thoserelated are of the same blood, the same recognition (Anerkanntseyn). Already in this degree of kinship



the indeterminacy begins, more so in regard to further aspects. Concurrence of both persons: for thelaw, marriage is will, insofar as both parties are persons. Both parties [must] concur as to whetherthey want to marry, whether they want this totality called marriage in the universal sense (not in theindividual sense as in the contract); and, since each is to count not as an [isolated] individual but as afamily member, the families of both [must also] concur.

Marriage is this very mixture of the personality with the impersonality of the natural – whichdetermines the divine as something natural (that is the spiritual [element] in this naturalness) and notonly determines the will. Accordingly, marriage is a religious act – yet as far as the will is concernedit is a civil matter to be brought before the law.

The religious and the civil coincide, as in the concurrence of persons and of families. The law, as purewill, is freedom from particularity – [ the freedom] of persons, of their natural character, as well as[their freedom from] the particular elements into which the marriage-relation can be analyzed. Thisfree vitality and the pure law are in mutual interplay with one another. The pure volition is the resultof the living movement, which has as its being that abstractness, pure thought – and the law enters inonly from the side of pure volition, the wish to declare oneself.

The law is that which has encompassed nothing of the many aspects of individuality; it is not yet theliving spirit – hence this empirical opposition [between free vitality and purely formal, empty law].According to the empty law, marriage is indissoluble because the parties have declared their will. Butthis view is entirely one-sided. The law, as fulfilled, must take account of the vitality that is free of thelaw: withdrawal from the shared unity of persons in themselves (adultery, wilful desertion,temperamental incompatibility) [can be grounds for dissolution] – determinations which affect thelaw’s content. Whether the [higher] purpose of marriage is fulfilled positively is no concern of thelaw. A marriage has been established: [as to the] possibility of marriage – [questions of whether thereis] not too great a difference in age, and [of] the possibility of supporting oneself – laws remainindeterminate regarding this content. The break-up of marriage reflects the positive will of someonewho wishes to be separated.

In the eyes of the law, or in itself, marriage is not enacted by the [mere] promise of marriage, nor bycohabitation, but through the declared will – the expression is what counts. Similarly, marriage is initself not dissolved by adultery, wilful desertion, incompatibility, bad economic management – but[only] if both parties see these as grounds and want the dissolution. The question is, however, whetherwhat the parties see is [truly] so in itself – and conversely, whether what is [truly] so in itself is whatthe parties want to see. Their prior will to marry is changed, but their subsequent will to separate canchange as well. The rigid law could fix itself on the first will and declare the marriage indissoluble, orconsider the natural factor, the in-itself, and dissolve the marriage. The natural factor – e.g., theimpossibility of marriage because of too great a difference in age; dissolution because of adultery;positive injury which is in itself wilful (not an empty “in-itself” [such as] infertility) – is the mostdeterminate, i.e., the form of universality but no [final] determination. Legislation must see how thisis to be resolved, to settle on this or another determining factor – [the] determination, [the] being [ofthe marriage] concerning other vital purposes [and factors]: military service, depopulation, thecharacter of social classes, etc.

In regard to marriage, the individual is seen in the light of his volition; but as living, [he is seen] only



as being at one with the family – he has renounced his natural isolation. It is in this regard that thefamily has property: it is the property not of the individual but of the family. If a member dies, thisaccident does not touch the family, and it remains – hence inheritance. It is not the first one whocomes along who takes possession; the state of nature does not enter here. [There is the] ground ofinheritance. Yet the individual is likewise pure person; it is his property, and as such he is universal:[the pure person, as testator] does not die; it is his declared will which counts in the disposition of hisproperty, not his being alive or dead – just as a contract is not annulled by the death of one of thecontracting parties, if his will can be fulfilled without his being alive.

The dead cannot marry one another, any more than a living person can marry a heavenly spouse. Butin order for one person to receive the property of another, the recipient need not [yet] be among theliving. Yet this disposition of property by the individual contradicts [the concept of linear]inheritance. This cannot be mediated in any absolute manner, but the one [approach] is to be limitedby the other in a determinate way. There are bizarre whims in regard to wills – as in the will ofThellusson – fortuitousness, but even here one must see how this is to be made right in a reasonablemanner, and there must be [some] compromise. The rigidity of the law is to be applied as much aspossible, as long as it is not excessively so. The will [of the testator] is to be respected above all.

The law is likewise indeterminate with regard to children as such – a mixture of their own and yetalien wills. Hence contracts involving minors are not binding before the law. The determining factorsare maturity (which becomes less of a determining factor in time), and guardianship. Next the familyenters in; but the supervision on the part of the law supplements the family’s incompleteness [byserving] as the pure will of immediate parents.

ii. [Law and Property] This law [relating to] the individual’s immediate existence is, as law, thewill of the parents, or sustains their will as such. In the disappearance of the contingent being (deathof the parents), the law becomes positive, taking over the existence which they previously were: thestate [takes charge]. Law is the actual validation of property, the element of actual existence throughthe will of all. The law protects the family, leaves it in its being – but like the family, the law is thesubstance and the necessity of the individual. It is the unconscious guardianship over the individualwhose family has “died out” – i.e., insofar as he appears as individual. It is the substance andnecessity – the rigid aspect in which the law presented itself.

Law is the universal right, property in general, protecting each one in his immediate possession,inheritance and exchange. But this is merely formal right, which remains quite free in regard tocontent (the element of chance in inheritance). The individual presents himself as earning by means oflabor. Here, his law is only that whatever he works upon or exchanges belongs to him. But theuniversal is at the same time his necessity, a necessity which sacrifices him in his legal freedom (dieihn bey seiner Rechtsfreiheit aufopfert).

(a) The universal [i.e., the social substance] is pure necessity for the individual worker. He has hisunconscious existence in the universal. Society is his “nature,” upon whose elementary, blindmovement he depends, and which sustains him or negates him spiritually as well as physically. Theindividual exists through immediate property or inheritance, completely by chance. He works at anabstract labor; he wins much from nature. But this merely transforms itself into another form ofcontingency. He can produce more, but this reduces the value of his labor; and in this he does not



emerge from universal [i.e., abstract] relations.

(b) Needs are thereby diversified; each individual need is subdivided into several; taste becomesrefined, leading to further distinctions. [In the production of goods a degree of] preparation isdemanded which makes the consumable thing ever easier to use. And so that all of the individual’sincongruous aspects are provided for (e.g., cork, corkscrew, candlesnuffer), he is cultivated asnaturally enjoying [them] (er wird gebildet als naturlich geniessendes).

(c) By the same token, however, he becomes – through the abstractness of labor – more mechanical,duller, spiritless. The spiritual element, this fulfilled self-conscious life, becomes an empty doing(leeres Thun). The power of the Self consists in a rich [all-embracing] comprehension; this power islost. He can leave some work to the machine, but his own activity thereby becomes more formalized.His dull work constricts him to a single point, and his work becomes more consummate the more one-sided it becomes.

Yet this multiplicity creates fashion, mutability, freedom in the use of forms. These things – the cut ofclothing, style of furniture – are not permanent. Their change is essential and rational, far morerational than staying with one fashion and wanting to assert something as fixed in such individualforms. The beautiful is subject to no fashion; but here there is no free beauty, only a charming beauty(eine reitzende Schonheit) which is the adornment of another person and relates itself to [yet]another, a beauty aimed at arousing drive, desire, and which thus has a contingency to it.

Similarly incessant is the search for ways of simplifying labor, inventing other machines, etc. In theindividual’s skill is the possibility of sustaining his existence. This is subject to all the tangled andcomplex contingency in the [social] whole. Thus a vast number of people are condemned to a laborthat is totally stupefying, unhealthy and unsafe – in workshops, factories, mines, etc. – shrinking theirskills. And entire branches of industry, which supported a large class of people, go dry all at oncebecause of [changes in] fashion or a fall in prices due to inventions in other countries, etc – and thishuge population is thrown into helpless poverty.

The contrast [between] great wealth and great poverty appears: the poverty for which it becomesimpossible to do anything; [the] wealth [which], like any mass, makes itself into a force. Theamassing of wealth [occurs] partly by chance, partly through universality, through distribution. [It is]a point of attraction, of a sort which casts its glance far over the universal, drawing [everything]around it to itself – just as a greater mass attracts the smaller ones to itself. To him who hath, to him isgiven. Acquisition becomes a many-sided system, profiting by means or ways that a smaller businesscannot employ. In other words, the highest abstraction of labor pervades that many more individualmodes and thereby takes on an ever-widening scope. This inequality between wealth and poverty, thisneed and necessity, lead to the utmost dismemberment of the will, to inner indignation and hatred.This necessity, which is the complete contingency of individual existence, is at the same time itssustaining substance. State power enters and must see to it that each sphere is supported. It goes into[various] means and remedies, seeking new markets abroad, etc., [but] thereby making things all themore difficult for one sphere, to the extent that state power encroaches to the disadvantage of others.

Freedom of commerce: interference must be as inconspicuous as possible, since commerce is thefield of arbitrariness. The appearance of force must be avoided; and one must not attempt to salvagewhat cannot be saved, but rather employ the suffering classes in other ways. [The state power] is the



universal overseer; the individual is merely entrenched in individuality. Commerce is certainly left toits own devices – but with the sacrifice of this generation and the proliferation of poverty, poor-taxesand institutions.

Yet the [social] substance is not only this regulatory law, as the power that sustains individuals.Rather, it is itself productive [of a] general benefit, the benefit of the whole (Gut des Ganzen).

Taxes [are of two types:] direct taxes on fixed property, and indirect taxes. Only the former type is inaccordance with the physiocratic system. Raw materials alone are the abstract base, but [this is] itselfa distinct particular that appears too limited; it is abandoned. This branch is missing in the totality,and then incomes are lessened. The tax system must establish itself everywhere, make its appearanceinconspicuously, taking a little from everyone, but everywhere. If it is disproportionate on one branch,it is abandoned. Less wine is consumed if heavy taxes are imposed on it. For everything there is asubstitute that can be found, or one does without. But even so, this necessity turns against itself. Thecosts of detection become more considerable, the discontent ever greater, since the enjoyment ofeverything is spoiled and is entangled with complicated details. State wealth must be based as little aspossible on the landed estates (Domänen), but rather on taxes. The former are private property andcontingent, exposed to waste, since no one seems to lose thereby but either gains or hopes to gain.Taxes are felt by all, and everyone wants to see them used well.

iii. [Judicial Force] This elementary necessity or contingency of the individual touches uponjudicial force. The individual is contingent in his actual property, ability, and understanding (e.g., thata contract is to be kept); but [seen in] more universal terms, he is essential as possessing property ingeneral, i.e., the abstract right. The state is the existence (Daseyn), the power of right; the keeping of acontract (and of the permanence in its unutilized property); it is the existent unity of the word, of idealexistence and of actuality, as well as the immediate unity of possession and right: property asuniversal substance, permanence; the being-recognized as what counts. To count is the mediation ofthe immediate, which has thereby become immediate.

Just as it is immediate subsistence, the [social] substance here is also the universal law – and themaintenance of this abstraction vis-à-vis the individual, his known and wanted necessity for him, andthe attempted balance of this empty necessity with his existence.

(a) This substance is the subsistence and protection of immediate property, the universal will and itspower, the power of all individuals.

(b) It is the protection of the contract, of the declared common will, the bond of the word and itsexecution. And if the word is not acted upon, [the social substance provides] the movement producingthe action [by enforcing it]. Judicial force: it insists that the contract be fulfilled. What is [a datum] forit is the shared will, which counts as essential.

The ambiguity of the ought, an ambiguity embedded in the very concept of contract, has disappeared[in favor of the must]. Posited in it, as what counts, is the will which is distinct from the immediacy ofthe performance. The will is there (ist da), the other party is satisfied with this. But this being-there(Daseyn) is merely that of the particular – something immediate, not mediated. At the moment ofagreement it is thus present (vorhanden) – yet this same unmediated being-present (Vorhandenseyn)no longer counts, but only a being-present as shared will, as mediated. The meaning (Bedeutung)



counts. The other party has, to be sure, recognized me as not yet performing [what is specified in thecontract], but within the meaning of the shared will. This meaning is what counts in the law. Themeaning is the inner, the pure person – the law is this meaning.

In the death penalty [for example], all ambiguity of meaning or existence is overcome (aufgehoben). Iam there as I am in myself, according to the meaning – not the meaning I particularly introduce butrather according to the meaning of the common will. The law therefore compels here. Against myparticular meaning, the law carries out the common meaning; [carries it out] against my [particular]existence, my in-itself – in other words, against my particular Self, [there is posited] my universal Self(gegen mein besonderes Selbst, mein allgemeines).

Through this [legal] compulsion, my honor is no longer injured – (cultivation) – since [external]compulsion does not comprise my [internal] subjection; the disappearance of my selfhood vis-à-visanother Self. Rather, [what is at issue is] my selfhood with respect to myself, my selfhood asparticular with respect to myself as universal – and indeed this universal not as [mere] power but asthe power of the law, which I recognize. That is, my negative meaning has equally a positivemeaning; I am equally sustained in it. This is likewise all to the good for me: I am sustained not onlyin my thoughts, [or sense of] honor, but also in my being.

However, the contingency enters here in other ways. In the concept, this was the contingency in theperformance [i.e., fulfilling a contract]. Here, [contingency is in] the determining of the abstract lawin its content, generally many-sided, in the manifold determinations of the individual [case]. Thesimpler the laws, the more indeterminate; the more determinate the laws, the more manifold they areand the further our differentiations are driven. And the concrete individual case is thereby dissected(zerlegt) all the more, and relates itself to that many more laws. Since the universal is here applieddirectly to the particular (in order that the particular may subsist), there arises the “bad infinity.” [Toaim at] a complete legislation in all its fullness is to set out on the same sort of thing as, for example,wanting to specify all colors. Unending process of legislation.

The greater this multiplicity of laws becomes, the more contingent our knowledge of them becomes.Citizens are supposed to know the laws even if they do not understand them, i.e., do not knowthemselves in the laws [that is, how the laws apply in their particular cases]. But – to say nothing ofthe citizens knowing them – it also becomes more difficult for judges to know the laws – and even ifthey do, it is increasingly difficult for them to have the laws in memory in every case. [There is] nocollection of laws, [but at best] a mass of contradictory laws, since we do not know what has been“bidden” or “forbidden.” The contingency becomes all the greater in regard to the perspicacity of thejudge in applying the law skilfully to the case at hand – [his] presence of mind.

The administration of justice and legal process is thus the carrying out of right. It is the properprotection for carrying out the right of both parties before the law, sustaining their means of defensefor them. The legal process is almost more essential than the laws themselves. Here the same contrastenters: to the extent that legal costs are greater, it becomes less possible for the one most in need oflegal protection to cover the cost. The more admirable the trial proceedings, the longer they take; inshort, it is a great evil to all concerned. Compensation for damages is not completely fortuitous –there is an element of time involved.

The law must soften its strictness: (a) by seeking accommodation rather than promoting the strict



[application of the] law, [by establishing] committees of arbitration (with which [as it happens] thejurists are dissatisfied);(b) by the imposition of penalties on parties seeking litigation [for its ownsake], and on pettifogging counsel; (c) by increasing the legal costs and, particularly in higher cases,etc., making the laws more difficult, so that people will seek easier ways out. Yet at the same timecare must be taken to insure that whoever has the desire can go into a matter in its length and breadth.It is a delusion to want to find an absolute determination in such temporally determinate, concretelysensory things and relations as such.[A]

iv. [Law, Life, and Death] The administration of penal justice is the force of the law over the lifeof the individual. The law is his absolute power itself over his life, since the law is his essence as pureuniversal will, i.e., as the disappearance of his will as a particular being, a particular life. In the samemanner, the law is the release from [the guilt of] crime, and the pardon. It is as much the lord over theevil life as over the pure life. For the law, [which speaks in universal terms], it is as though the[particular] deed had not happened; the existent (das daseyende) as such has no truth for it.[B]

This power over all existence, all property and life, and likewise over thought – the right and goodand evil – this is the shared life of the community (Gemeinwesen), the living nation. The law is alive,a complete and self-conscious life. As the universal will, which is the substance of all actuality, [it is]the knowledge of itself as the universal power [over] all that lives, over every determination of theconcept and over all essential being.

(a) It is universal wealth and universal necessity – which comes to be known as such, knowinglyrecognized as such [and] comes to be sacrificed to this evil; and it thereby allows all individuals ingeneral and their [particular] existence to become a part [of it], so that it can use them. It [i.e., thesystem of universal wealth and necessity] condemns a multitude of people to a raw life, tostultification in labor and to poverty – in order to let others amass wealth and [then] to take it fromthem. The inequality of wealth is accepted if heavy taxes are levied; this lessens envy and averts thefear of distress and robbery. Aristocrats, who pay no taxes, stand in the greatest danger of losing theirwealth through violence, since they cannot find reconciliation by sacrificing it. State power [extendsover] the individual’s existence and subsistence, his necessity and freedom – [all of] which he buys bybecoming reconciled to that power. The government wastes its wealth, saves nothing.

(b) In the law, the government is regarded as the supposed essence, and gains respect for itself.Likewise it leaves individuals with the delusion that they will attain their rights, and gives them thisconfused opinion of themselves whereby they see themselves as persons, citizens, as abstractuniversals worthy of respect at home; respect sustains the abstract universal. The government therebyhas the goodness to correct its [system of] right by means of arbitration and reasonableness. It is asmuch the master of the one as of the other-[over] abstract universality or [particular] existence.

(c) Finally, government is the power over life and death, the [element that instils] fear in theindividual. But it is the master over pure evil. It is the divine spirit, which knows the absolute other,the evil, the simple other (in thought as such) as itself.

These are its forces or abstract elements. It has as yet no existence in which these elements arereflected in themselves.

Penal jurisdiction is based on two things: (a) that the universal is the substance of the individual, and

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(b) that it is the substance as known and wanted. He who has given up his right has externalized(entäussert) himself as an abstract universal, i.e.: (i) as positive, he counts as someone living, and aspure will against force, and is protected; (ii) as living and as will, he has given himself over into thepower of the state. Through the renunciation (Entäusserung) of my supposed right I am a pure person,but I am so only insofar as I am law. My existence is the law, i.e., I am utterly dependent upon it.

Notes to this section







Notes to previous section(A) The individual is by legal right (rechtlich) a person, and juridical force is the movement that is theexternalization (Entäusserung) of his legal right – of his supposed essence. In regard to his existence,he counts as someone having his will in his existence, and his quiescent particular will is respected.Yet inasmuch as he has surrendered, to the universal, his opinion of right (Meynen von Recht), hecounts as pure person; and to the extent that (as pure person, as pure will) he separates himself formthe universal, he is accounted as the evil. In civil conflict he counts not as pure will but rather aspresumed (gemeyntes) right, against the universal, such that this presumed right ought to count – i.e.,[as] right, against the particularity of others. Deceit, fraud surrounds his will, yet is directed to hisknowledge.

(B) By the very fact of having given up his presumed right, the individual presents himself as purebeing-recognized (reines Anerkanntseyn), [and] he counts as such. Just as, earlier, his will [hadcounted] within the common will concerning specific things, so his pure will now counts as such. Thispure being-recognized has immediately in itself these two aspects: that of being pure being-recognized (reines Anerkanntseyn) and [that of] being pure Being reines Seyn zu seyn).

(a) As pure being-recognized, as will, the individual is juxtaposed to force, to the alien will which isnot the will in common. He is protected against force in connection with his property, his activity, andhis life in general. His life is immediately his pure will. Moreover, as pure will he is the abstraction ofpure Being; i.e., he is no longer an opinion of his right, as though he existed only through his opinion[as individual]. This he is no longer. [Now] he has no life of his own; i.e., the law has complete powerover his life. In his life he stands over against the universal, wherein he is pure abstraction – and thisis his essence as he recognizes it. [In accepting this] he has renounced [all claim to] his life asopposed to the universal. Just as it is a judge over his presumed right, so it is over his pure being. Thisis the absolute power over life. The individual knows himself positively in it.

(b) The individual standing opposed to this, however, as absolute power for himself, is for himselfabsolutely infinite will – and absolute power – i.e., that which is the negating (das Aufhebende) ofanother absolute individual. This other he can negate because [the other] is being, quantitative,determinable through another, unknowing. He [the first individual] grasps the other in this way andthus has subjugated [him] – [as in] murder, crime – he is the evil, [but] only against the will, force, orcunning.

(c) The law is the actual punishment, this substance which is the inversion of the concept – so that, inpunishment, the individual has punished himself. The other is his equal, thus [it is] he himself, notsomething alien. Punishment qua punishment, not as revenge. It is turned against the evil, as evil: e.g.,against fraud [a specific crime], not guilt in general. This satisfies the concept, and the law [is]pacified; the law carries out the right.

But this pure right is likewise laid open to contingency. In other words, as pure right it is theabstraction that cannot remain with itself absolutely.



(i) It has to protect the will as such, and to deflect the other’s force and damage back upon him. But inthe individual, it is difficult to say where force and nonforce apply; it can begin in the actual contract.Willing is specific will: it has purpose, is an object for the individual, thus a relation of knowing. Itthereby impinges on otherness, the quantitative, the contingent. The object of his knowing can bealtered for him, hidden. The link between his ends and his acts or means is a matter of judgment. Hecan be made to believe that he has achieved his purpose by a certain means, whereby he ruins it[although] no actual force was used against him. [Suppose] he has knowingly and willingly sufferedan enormous loss in a contract: the law, for which it is only the declared common will that counts,here has the actual aim (as its inner meaning) of protecting [the individual] against an extraordinaryinjury – [i.e.,] the individual will against the common will which is essentially declared. Here we areto ascertain (uncertainly) where the actual deception as force that is to be punished begins.

(ii) Theft, robbery – they are just such confusions. They affect a particular existence: the formerinjuring the will unbeknownst, the latter injuring both will and knowing. Yet they do not injure theabsolute will but only [the will in regard to] something determinate; i.e., the will in a particularexistent not as pure being, not as life. And the reaction therefore cannot be the absolute one, death. Ittouches only [the perpetrator’s] freedom, e.g., the thrashing of this particular being. On the otherhand, the apparent security may be too far compromised, so that the pure will is injured therein aswell: the thief or robber, in doing injury to the [particular] will, injures the pure will – indeed, in aparticular being – but the will is only as pure will. Thus the criminal can also get the death penalty –but contingent circumstances [enter:] the severity of the crime, approximate, many-sideddeterminations.

(iii) Actual murder: the primary thing that is essential is the evil [intent], the imputation [that it is] notaccidental killing; but there too the motive is difficult to ascertain; it flies back out of the simpleexistence of action into the Night of Inwardness. The criminal’s confession is needed – since wemistrust the inference from external circumstances to inner motive. This inner must express itself; it isindependent of all circumstances. The law should know that obstinacy against such expression is notto be overcome.

(iv) Evil is that which is nothingness in itself, pure self-knowledge; this human darkness in itself(through this itself the absolute will) is not something alien to the law. It must recognize this evil asitself, to pardon it – or, as deed, undo it. For even this individual deed is a drop which does not touchthe absolute but is [rather] absorbed by it. [The law is] Spirit, and treats the person as Spirit. Adeathstroke – what does it matter to the whole? And therein, again, it is undone (Ungeschehenes).

Part III


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The Philosophy of Spirit (Jena Lectures 1805-6)(Also known as “Realphilosophie” II)

PART IIIConstitution

The state as [common] wealth is as much the being-negated (Aufgehobenseyn) of individualizedexistence as it is [the negation] of the in-itself in existence and of the pure being-in-itself of theperson. In the law alone does the human being have his existence, his being, and thinking. The lawknows itself as the absolute force – which is wealth, even as it sacrifices the general wealth; whichsafeguards right [i.e., principle], as much as reasonableness and adjustment [i.e., utility]; whichsafeguards life, and punishes with life, as it pardons evil and grants life where it is forfeit.

Thus this Spirit is the absolute power everywhere, which lives in itself and now must give itself thisview of itself as such, i.e., to make itself its own end (Zweck). As force it is only the individual who isthe end, i.e., the abstraction of the individual. The Spirit’s self-preservation, however, is theorganization of its life, the spirit of a people, a spirit that intends itself. The concept of Spirit:universality in the complete freedom and independence of the individual.

Spirit is the “nature” of individuals, their immediate substance, and its movement and necessity; it isas much the personal consciousness in their existence as it is their pure consciousness, their life, theiractuality. They know the universal will as their particular will, and in such a way that it is their ownexternalized particular will; and at the same time they know it as their objective [impersonal] essence,their pure power which is their essence, in itself as well as in their knowing [of it].

In the movement of forces there are three aspects to be differentiated: (a) these forces themselves, ashaving developed through externalization; (b) as the knowledge of them on the part of individuals;and (c) as universal knowing.

The development of the forces is the externalization (Entäusserung), but not of necessity; rather, theforce of the universal becomes known as the [objective] essence. For the sake of this knowledge, eachone alienates (entäussert) himself [i.e., divests himself of his own forces] – not as opposed to somemaster, but rather as opposed to the forces [i.e., the universal power of enforcement], here taken in theform of his pure knowing, i.e., knowing of himself as externalized, in other words as universal.

The general form is this development of the individual to the universal, and the becoming of theuniversal. This is not a process of blind [i.e., unknowing] necessity, however, but is rather one that ismediated through knowing. Thus each one is thereby his own end, i.e., the end is already the source ofmovement. Each individual is his own immediate cause; his [individual] interest drives him. Yet atthe same time it is the universal that counts for him, the medium, which ties him to his particular[end] and to his actuality.

In order that I may have my positive Self in the common will, the being-recognized (as intelligence) isknown by me, so that the will is posited by me, so that I therein have it negatively, as my power, asthe universal, which is the negative of my own will, through the intuition of its necessity, i.e., throughthe externalization. On its side, the universal presents itself in such a way that the latter aspect [i.e.,



the common will] is my necessity, the former aspect [i.e., my positive self] sacrificing itself, and thusletting me approach my own [universality]. In this I gain [my] consciousness as consciousness ofmyself.

Right was the immediate concept of the spirit – the force, the necessity of its movement, theexternalizing (das Entäussern), becoming other. (The universal, in that it safeguards my life and ispower over my life, is this immediate unity – i.e., of pure will and existence – of pure consciousnessand my consciousness of myself. Relating myself to the universal as this immediate unity, I haveconfidence in it – in it, but as my negative essence, fear – confidence in the universal that isimmediately my will. Not only am I in agreement with it, but in that it is my real self, it is I who rule.It is lord, public force, and ruler – in these three aspects it is [directed] toward me.)

It [the universal] is a people, a group of individuals in general, an existent whole, the universal force.It is of insurmountable strength against the individual, and is his necessity and the power oppressinghim. And the strength that each one has in his being-recognized is that of a people. This strength,however, is effective only insofar as it is united into a unity, only as will. The universal will (derallgemeine Willen) is the will as that of all and each, but as will it is simply this Self alone. Theactivity of the universal is a unity (em Eins). The universal will has to gather itself into this unity. Ithas first to constitute itself as a universal will, out of the will of individuals, so that this appears as theprinciple and element. Yet on the other hand the universal will is primary and the essence – andindividuals have to make themselves into the universal will through the negation of their own will,[in] externalization and cultivation. The universal will is prior to them, it is absolutely there for them– they [the two wills] are in no way immediately the same.

One imagines for oneself the constituting of the universal will as follows: all citizens come together,they deliberate, give their vote; and thus the majority comprises the universal will. Thus we posit whatwas said: that the individual must make himself into this [i.e., a partner in the universal will] throughnegation, self-surrender. The communal entity (Gemeinwesen), the civil union (Staatsverein), [is thusseen to] rest on a primordial contract, to which each individual is presumed to have given his tacitagreement – actually, however, in express terms – and this determines every subsequent action of thecommunity. And this is the principle of the genuine state, the free state.

More realistically, [however,] the group is presented thus: as constituting the community [prior to theconstituting of the universal will] – whether from the beginning (inasmuch as the community does notyet exist), or that in some way a revolution has dissolved the previous constitution. Here theindividuals appear as actual individuals, each one wanting to know his positive will in the universalwill. But their positive individuality, since it is not yet externalized, or does not have negativity to it initself, is a contingency for the universal and this [is] something actually different from these[individuals]. It is not a necessity that everyone want the same; [there is] no [necess]ity. Rather, eachone – since he is posited and recognized as an individual positive will – has the right to leave and tocome to terms with others over something else.

At the same time, however, it is presupposed that they are a universal will in itself. This “in-itself”(Ansich) is something other than their actual will, and they have not yet externalized their will, do notyet recognize the universal will. Rather, it is only their individuality that counts in it. Yet their will isan “in-itself,” it is there, it is their “in-itself” – i.e., it is their external force, which compels them.



In this way all states were established, through the noble force of great men. It is not [a matter of]physical strength, since many are physically stronger than one. Rather, the great man has something inhim by [virtue of] which others may call him their lord. They obey him against their will. Againsttheir will, his will is their will. Their immediate pure will is his, but their conscious will is different.The great man has the former [i.e., their pure will] on his side, and they must obey, even if they do notwant to. This is what is preeminent in the great man – to know the absolute will [and] to express it –so that all flock to his banner [and] he is their god. In this way Theseus established the Athenian state.And thus, in the French Revolution, it was a fearful force that sustained the state [and] the totality, ingeneral. This force is not despotism but tyranny, pure frightening domination. Yet it is necessary andjust, insofar as it constitutes and sustains the state as this actual individual.

This state is the simple absolute spirit, certain of itself, and for which nothing determinate countsexcept itself. No concepts of good and bad, shameful and vile, malicious cunning and deceit [can beapplied to it]. The state is elevated above all this – for in it, evil is reconciled with itself. It is in thisgreat sense that Machiavelli’s The Prince is written, [saying] that in the constituting of the state, ingeneral, what is called assassination, fraud, cruelty, etc., carries no sense of evil but rather a sense ofthat which is reconciled with itself. His book has indeed been taken as irony. Yet what deep feelingfor the misery of his fatherland, what patriotic inspiration underlies his cold and prudent teaching –[all this] he expresses in the preface and conclusion. His fatherland, invaded and ravaged byforeigners, and being without independence – every nobleman, every leader, every town regardeditself as sovereign. The only means for establishing the state was the suppression of these“sovereignties.” And indeed, since each, as immediate individual, wanted to count as “sovereign,” theonly means against the brutality of the leaders was death for them and the fear of death for the rest.

Germans, most of all, have abhorred such teachings, and [the term] “Machiavellianism” expresseswhat is most evil – because they have suffered from the very disease [he speaks of], and have died ofit. The indifference of subjects toward their princes, however, and the [reluctance] on the part ofprinces to be princes, i.e., to behave as princes, makes that tyranny [which Machiavelli speaks of]superfluous, since the stubbornness of the [German] princes has thereby become powerless.

Thus the universal is against individuals as such, who want to know their immediate positive willasserted as absolute – [as] lord, tyrant, pure force – for the universal is something alien to them; andthe state power which knows what power is must have the courage, in every case of need where theexistence of the totality is compromised, to take completely tyrannous action. Through tyranny wehave the immediate alienation (Entäusserung) of the individual’s actual will – transcended, immediate– this is education toward obedience. Through this education – rather knowing the universal as theactual wills – tyranny has become superfluous, replaced by the rule of law. The force exercised by thetyrant is the force of law, in itself. Through obedience, the law itself is no longer an alien force, butrather the known universal will.

Tyranny is overthrown by the people because it is abhorrent, vile, etc – but in actuality it isoverthrown only because it is superfluous. The memory of the tyrant is abhorred. Yet in that very fact,he is also this spirit certain of itself – who, like God, acts only in and for himself, and expects onlyingratitude from his people. If he were wise, however, he would himself cast off his tyranny when it issuperfluous. In this way, however, his divinity is nothing more than the divinity of the animal, theblind necessity, which thus deserves to be abhorred as evil. Robespierre acted in this way – his power



left him because necessity had left him, and thus he was overthrown by force. The necessary happens– but every portion of necessity is usually allotted only to individuals. The one is accuser anddefender, the other a judge, the third a hangman – but all are necessary.

The rule of law is now not this legislation, as though there were no [prior] laws. Rather, there are lawsthere – and the relation is the movement of [the individual] educated to obedience toward thecommunity (Gemeinwesen); underlying all is this existent essence. A second [element] is trust, whichenters here, i.e., that the individual likewise knows his Self therein, as his essence. He finds himselfsustained in it. Indeed, he may not conceive and understand how he is sustained in it, through whatconnections and arrangements. Thus the universal has a negative and a positive significancesimultaneously: the negative as tyranny, the positive in the substenance of the individual, i.e., throughthe externalization (Entäusserung) of the universal.

This unity of individuality and the universal is now present in a twofold way, [as] extreme poles ofthe universal, which is itself individuality (i.e., of state government, [itself] not an abstraction): theindividuality of the state, whose end is the universal as such, and the other pole of the same, whichhas the individual as its end. The two individualities [are] the same – [e.g.,] the same individual whoprovides for himself and his family, who works, enters into contracts, etc., likewise works for theuniversal as well, and has it as his end. In the first sense he is called bourgeois, in the second sense heis citoyen.

The universal will is obeyed as that of the majority, and is constituted through the determinateexpression of, and election by, individuals. And those who do not share the opinion of the majorityobey as well, even if measures or laws go against their convictions. It is their right to protest, i.e., toretain their convictions, to declare emphatically that they indeed obey, but not from conviction. It isparticularly German to attach this tenacity to convictions, this obstinacy of abstract will, of emptyright – without regard to the matter at hand. In this democracy, the will of the individual is as yetcontingent: (a) as opinion in general, he must give it up when opposed to the majority; (b) as actualwill – as self, or action – the will [of the majority] is itself individual, and each individual is subject toit; its implementation posits a genuinely willess obedience, [in which] each surrenders his opinionabout the implementation; (c) resolutions, laws, here concern only particular circumstances; thecomprehension of the connection between these particular circumstances and the universal – thiscomprehension is the insight of all; but because of their particularity, it is itself contingent.

The election of officials, military leaders, belongs to the community, as an [expression of] trust inthem, but which is first to be vindicated by success. The circumstances are always different. This isthe beautiful [and] happy freedom of the Greeks, which is and has been so envied.

The people [as a totality] is comprised of [individual] citizens, and it is at the same time the Oneindividual, the government – this One Individual standing only in a reciprocal relation to itself. Theexternalization of the individuality of the will [i.e., of the citizens] is the immediate support of thatwill [i.e., of the government].

Yet a higher level of abstraction is needed, a greater [degree of] contrast and cultivation, a deeperspirit. It is the [entire] realm of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) – each [individual] is custom (Sitte), [andthus is] immediately one with the universal. No protest takes place here, each knows himselfimmediately as universal – i.e., he gives up his particularity, without knowing it as such, as this Self,



as the essence. The higher distinction, therefore, is that each individual goes back into himselfcompletely, knows his own Self as such, as the essence, [yet] comes to this sense of self (Eigensinn)of being absolute although separated from the existing universal, possessing his absolute immediately,in his knowing. As an individual, he leaves the universal free, he has complete independence inhimself. He gives up his actuality [in the immediate], is significant to himself (gilt sich) only in hisknowing.

The free universal is the point of individuality. This individuality, free of the knowledge shared byall, is not constituted through them. As the extreme pole of government – thus as an immediate,natural individuality – there is the hereditary monarch. He is the firm immediate knot [tying together]the totality. The spiritual tie is public opinion; this is the genuine legislative body, [the real] nationalassemblage. [This requires] general cultivation. [And what must be avoided is] needless elaborationof committees to improve laws. [The primary aim is the] declaration of the universal will which livesin the execution of all commands – government officials belong to this spirit.

Governing is carried on differently now, and life is now lived differently, in states whose constitutionis yet the same, changing little by little in the course of time. Government must not come out on theside of the past and stubbornly defend it. But at the same time it ought to be the last to be convincedto change. Genuine activity, genuine will, through the election of officials – every sphere, city, guild[is to be] represented in the administration of their particular affairs. It is bad for a people when it[itself] is the government, as bad as it is irrational. The totality, however, is the medium, the free spirit– supporting itself, free of these completely fixed extremities. The totality, however, is independent ofthe knowledge [on the part of] individuals, just as it is independent of the characters of rulers, [whoare] empty knots.

This is the higher principle of the modern era, a principle unknown to Plato and the ancients. Inancient times, the common morality consisted of the beautiful public life – beauty [as the] immediateunity of the universal and the individual, [the polis as] a work of art wherein no part separates itselffrom the whole, but is rather this genial unity of the self-knowing Self and its [outer] presentation. Yetindividuality’s knowledge of itself as absolute – this absolute being-within-itself (Insichseyn) – wasnot there. The Platonic Republic is, like Sparta, [characterized by] this disappearance of the self-knowing individuality. Under that principle, the outer actual freedom of individuals, in theirimmediate existence, is lost. Yet their inner freedom, the freedom of thought, is sustained. Spirit iscleansed of the [elements of] immediate existence; it has entered into its pure element of knowing andis indifferent to existing individuality. Here the spirit begins to be knowledge; i.e., its formal existenceis that of self-knowing. Spirit is this Nordic essence that is in itself, although it has its existence in theselfhood of all.

(a) According to this principle, the multitude of individuals is a folkgroup (Volksmenge) juxtaposed toone of its individuals who is the monarch. They are many – movement, fluidity – while he is theimmediate, the natural. He alone is the natural element, i.e., the point to which nature has fled, its lastresidue as positive. The royal family is the one positive element, the others are to be abandoned. Theother individual [i.e., the citizen] counts only as externalized, cultivated, as that which he has made ofhimself. The totality, the communal entity (Gemeinwesen), is as little tied to the one as to the other. itis the self-sustaining, indestructible body. Regardless of the prince’s or the citizens’ characteristics,the communal entity is self-enclosed and self-sustaining.



(b) Just as free as each individual is in his knowing, in his outlook (as varied as it is) – so [likewise]free are the forces, the individual aspects of the totality, [its] abstract elements, [e.g.,] labor,production, the legal climate, administration, the military; each develops itself entirely according to itsone-sided principle. The organic whole has many internal parts which [are complete in themselvesand] develop in their abstractness [contributing to the totality]. Not every individual is a manufacturer,peasant, manual laborer, soldier, judge, etc.; rather, [the roles] are divided, each individual belongs toan abstraction, and he is a totality for himself in his thinking [although the totality exists only in thecombination].

There are thus three sorts [of aspects] to be developed here: first, the elements of the totality, the firmouter organization and its internal parts, [and] the forces associated with them; second, the outlook(Gesinnung) of each class, its self-consciousness – its being as in itself purely knowing, torn loosefrom its [immediate] existence; [third,] spirit’s knowing its member, as such, and [his] elevationabove [that immediacy]. The first comprises social mores (Sittlichkeit); the second is morality(Moralität); the third [aspect] is Religion. The first is the freely released spiritual nature; the second isits knowing of itself, as knowing of that knowing; the third is spirit knowing itself as absolute spirit,[e.g.,] religion.

A. Classes: The Nature of Self-Ordering Spirit


http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/jl/ch03a.htm




The Philosophy of Spirit (Jena Lectures 1805-6)PART III. Constitution

A. Classes: The Nature of Self-Ordering SpiritThe spirit – knowing itself to be all actuality and all essentiality – looks at itself, is its own object; i.e.,it is for itself an existing organism. It constructs its consciousness – only then is it true spirit, in itself.In each class (Stand), the spirit has (a) a distinct task: to know its own existence and activity in thatclass; and (b) a particular concept: knowing [its] essentiality. These two are partly to be divided,partly united. The first element is trust; the second is the division of trust in the abstraction of right;the third is absolute mistrust – i.e., when what counts as absolute are things, money, representatives,the universal. With this there enters the object that is in itself the universal object: the state as end.[There is a] knowledge of duty, morality – but this universal knowing [takes place] in its particularbranches, [as in] the business class. Then, [to know] the universal qua universal – [this is] the scholar(for whom the most important thing is a certain vanity about his own Self). Finally, to know thenegated actual individual, the danger of death – [this is] the military class. [All this, in combination,comprises the] absolute individuality of a people.

i. The Lower Classes and Their Outlooks (a) The peasant class – the class of immediate trustand of crude concrete labor. Absolute trust is the basis and element of the state. In the developed state,however, the trust returns to one class, to the elementary point of departure and to the general elementthat remains in all, but which takes on its more conscious form. Thus the peasant class is thisunindividualized trust, having its individuality in the unconscious individual, the earth. just as, in hismode of work, the peasant is not the laborer of the abstract [i.e., industrial] form, but rather providesapproximately for most or all of his needs, so only in his inner life is his work connected to hisactivity. The connection between his end and its actualization is the unconscious aspect: nature, theseasons, and the trust that what he has put into the ground will come up of itself. He tills the soil,sows, but it is God who makes things grow, the activity being subterranean.

He pays taxes and duties because that is how things are – these fields and houses have always hadthese burdens on them – it is so, nothing more. [He has] age-old rights – and if new taxes areimposed, he does not understand why, but sees this as [the will of] an individual master, sees that thearistocrats need much, and that in general the state has need of [the money].

Yet he does not understand this immediately. He sees only that money is extracted from him, thatbusinessmen must live also, and that the distinguished lord, the prince, is just that – the lord, theprince. The peasant therefore allows more than one demand to be imposed upon [his age-old] right;and he asks not that he understand the thing, but only that he be spoken to, that he be told what heshould do and for what purpose he is being commanded. [It is] a sharp suggestion [he receives], sothat he notices a certain force present here: he must provide, and in this form. For his part, he bringshis peasant understanding into play, to show that he is not that dumb, [that he is capable of] sayingsomething at the harvest festivities – certain maxims – and in response to the force used against him,he says he will do what is asked of him. And insofar as he retains the right of his understanding andhis will, to that extent he obeys. It is the formal [aspect] of speaking and comprehending. Thisformalism of knowing passes over into abstract knowing, just as concrete labor passes over into theabstract.



Concrete labor is the elementary labor, the substantial sustenance, the crude basis of the whole, liketrust. In war, this class comprises the raw mass. [It is] a crude, blind animal, self-satisfied in itsinsensibility. If its right is denied, it is reflected back into its individuality, and becomes spiteful. Andwhen it strikes out, it rages like a blind mad element, like a deluge which only destroys, or at bestleaves a fertile mud and then is spent, having produced no [meaningful] work.

(b) This substantiality passes over into the abstraction of labor and the knowledge of the universal:the class of business and of law (Recht). The labor of the Bürger class is the abstract labor ofindividual handicrafts. Its outlook is that of uprightness (Rechtschaffenheit). It has taken labor out ofnature’s hands and has elevated the process of giving shape (das Formiren) above the unconsciouslevel. The Self has [thus] gained independence from the earth (ist über die Erdeherausgetreten). Theform, the self of the work produced is the human Self; the natural self has died; [now the self is] to beconsidered only in its capacity for use and work.

Trust is a closer, more determinate element in consciousness. The Bürger class oversees thelivelihood of the city, the number of fellow workers, [etc.]. Its activity and skill are [those of]contingency, reverting from the contingency of nature [to the work of this class] and [the products]falling to its share [as its right]. The Bürger certainly thinks of himself as a proprietor – and not onlybecause he possesses property, but, because it is his right to do so, he asserts that right. He knowshimself as recognized in his individuality, and he stamps this on everything. Unlike the crude peasant,he does not enjoy his glass of beer or wine in order to rise above his usual numbness, partly to enlivenhis prattling gossip and wit – but rather to prove to himself, in his fine coat and in the grooming of hiswife and children, that he is as good as another and that he has achieved all this. What he enjoysthereby is himself, his worth and uprightness; this he has earned through his work, and it stands to hiscredit. It is not the pleasure itself he enjoys, as much as the fact that he enjoys it, his self-image (dieEinbildung von sich selbst).

(c) This imagination of his own worth, and of his universal selfhood in his particularity, becomes animmediate unity, in that the possessing and counting-for-something become synonymous. Theimagination ceases to fill up his [sense of] class, [i.e.,] ceases to have elevated his particularity to thisuniversality. What counts is no longer the class as such, but rather the reality of the possession assuch. The abstraction of right and class is fulfilled, and it counts only insofar as it is fulfilled.

The mercantile class: the merchant’s work is pure exchange, neither the natural nor the artificialproduction and forming [of goods]. Exchange is movement, spiritual, the medium that is freed of usesand needs, as it is freed of work and immediacy [e.g., the stock exchange]. This pure movement andactivity is the object here. The object itself is divided into two elements: the particular (trade goods)and the abstract (money). [This is] a great invention – the thing that is needed has become somethingmerely represented, not something to be enjoyed itself.

Thus the object, here, is such that it counts only according to the meaning [placed upon it], no longerin itself – i.e., [as fulfilling] the need. It is simply something internal. The outlook of the mercantileclass is therefore this understanding of the unity of a thing with its essence: a person is as real as themoney he has. The self-image is gone. The [inner] significance has an immediate existence [of itsown]. The essence of the thing is the thing itself. Value is hard cash [klingende Muntze: literally,“ringing coin”]. The formal principle of reason is there. (But this money, which signifies all needs, is



itself merely an immediate thing.) It is the abstraction from all individuality, character, skills of theindividual, etc. This outlook is that harshness of spirit, wherein the individual, altogether alienated, nolonger counts. It is strict [adherence to] law: the deal must be honored, no matter what suffers for it –family, one’s welfare, life, etc. Complete mercilessness. Factories, manufacturing, base theirsubsistence on the misery of one class.

Spirit, in its abstraction, has thus become an object for itself – as the selfless inner. Yet this inner isthe I itself, and this I is its existence itself. The form of the inner is not that dead thing, money, but isin any case the I. In other words, for the spirit, the state in general is the object of its activity, its effortand end.

ii. The Universal Class (a) The public class is immediately this involvement of the universalelement in everything individual – the blood vessels and nerves that weave through every part, givingit life and sustenance, and bringing it back into the universal. This class is necessity; and its lifedischarges the particular into the universal. it is the administration and development of public wealth,as well as the exercise of law – and then the [executive powers of the] police.

The power of government consists in the fact that each system (as though it were alone) developsitself freely and independently according to its concept. And the wisdom of government consists inmodifying each system according to its class; i.e., to let go of the strictness of the abstract concept for[the sake of] its living parts, just as the arteries and nerves serve the various parts, developingthemselves and accommodating themselves to them. The stiffly abstract allocation of powers for allclasses in the same manner makes for the severity of government. If, however, this abstract[approach] is modified, although not surrendered, the result is the satisfaction of the classes with theirgovernment. [Thus] taxes, duties, tithes are cruder for the peasant, without great formality. He neednot be subjected to the far-reaching formalities that occur in regard to customs duties for mercantilegoods. Indirect taxes ought to rest with their entire weight on the Bürger class and merchant class,primarily. The peasant becomes more observant and educated in these formalities, but his insensibilitymust be taken into consideration.

Likewise in regard to the judicial aspect: there must be an easier, coarser justice for the peasant class;for the Bürger class a more detailed form of justice, so that the Bürger may secure his right in allaspects; for the merchant there must be the hard, strict justice of business law.

Marriage laws [are to be] varied according to the character of the classes. [Among the] peasantry andBürger class, [the parties] get along more easily with one another – they fight and make up again. Inthe upper classes, however, [there is] a deeper sense, angrier, that is introspective (geht in sich),[that] cannot forget or be reconciled.

In regard to penal law as well, there can be differences and modifications in regard to punishment.The stiffly formal equality [of law] does not spare character [differences]. One and the same thingdoes injury in one class more deeply and irreparably, while doing no disgrace in the other.

Punishment is the reconciliation of the law with itself. If there is no death penalty involved, then thepunishment ought not to kill a person’s civil status. When an offender has served his full time, nofurther reproach can [justifiably] be made to him about his crime. He is [to be] reintegrated into hisclass. There is no absolute disgrace. There is injury to feeling in the fact that he cannot return [to



society], is rejected by his class, his reputation ruined. In his punishment, [his place in] his class muststill be secured. (Upper-class offenders [are to be confined in] a fortress, not in prison amongcriminals of other classes.)

As there is a particular administration of justice [for each class], so there is a particular science[governing it] – [and a particular] religion – [but] our states have not yet got that far.

(Free disposition over one’s property. Here the [concept of] police enters. [The term comes] frompoliteia, the public life [of the polis] and the governing and action of the totality itself. This [sense]is now degraded to [mean] the action of the totality regarding public security of all sorts: supervisionof business to prevent fraud, realization of general trust, trust in the exchange of goods. Eachindividual is concerned only for himself, not for the general [interest]. The quiet exercise of hisproperty rights and free disposition of his property involves possible injury to others. [The police areto see to] the limitation, prevention of injury, as well as to [the situation in which everything] iscarried on only on the basis of trust. The police are to watch over domestic servants, [to see to it] thata contract is drawn up. Guilds determine the specific rights of masters over apprentices andjourneymen, regarding wages and the like.)

The public class works for the state. Spirit has [thus] elevated itself to the universal object. Thebusinessman: his work is itself very divided, abstract, [akin to] machine-work. It certainly[contributes] directly to the universal, yet according to a limited and at the same time a fixed aspectwhereby the businessman can change nothing. His outlook (Gesinnung) is that he is fulfilling hisduty. He elevates his specific generality to the knowing of the universal. In his specific activity hesees the absolute moral outlook – spirit has [thus] raised itself above character – he performs auniversal [task].

(b) The actual businessman is also part scholar. He knows [that he is] to fulfil his duty (Pflicht). Thisknowing is empty, general. That is, in [fulfilling] the particular duty, it is only the universal elementthat counts. This empty thinking of his – as duty – this pure knowing is to be fulfilled, is to give itselfcontent in itself – a free content which is at the same time a disinterested object, a content wherein Ihave my thinking as well as my duty, but so that this thinking of mine is at the same time independentof me.

This is science in general. Here the spirit has some object or other, which it treats without relation todesire and need. It is intelligence which knows itself. The object is the concept of any determinatething at all, ascending from the thing’s sensual characteristics to its essence. It is an object whichappears alien, however, [and] an activity that treats the thought as such, [that] externalizes(entäussert) itself as intelligence, not as absolute actual self. The concept does not become its ownobject [as yet]. It elevates its thinking to universality, suppressing its arbitrariness, all of which is initself and necessary.

This missing element is supplied by the military class. That is, the [state as a] totality is anindividuality: the activity of this class is for the existing whole; its thought of this whole goes backinto the selfhood [of the state as individual]. The totality is an individual, a people, turned againstothers. [In war there is] the re-creation of the undifferentiated [social] situation (Stand) of individualstoward one another; [it is the] state of nature, [but] here it is real for the first time. The relation



[between nations] is partly the placid subsistence of individuals independent of one another – [i.e.,]sovereignty – [and] partly [their] connection through agreements. These agreements do not, however,have the actuality of a true contract. There is no existent power in them, but rather the “individual”that is the nation (Volksindividuum) is likewise the universal as existing power. [Internationalagreements] must not be regarded, therefore, in the way that civil contracts are. They have no bindingforce as soon as one of the parties annuls them. This is the eternal deception, in concluding treaties, toobligate oneself and then to let that obligation evaporate. A general confederation of nations(Volkerverein) for permanent peace would mean the supremacy of one nation, or it would mean thereis only one nation (the individuality of nations suppressed), a universal monarchy.

Morality has no part in these relations, since it is the unfulfilled, unindividualized knowing of duty assuch. Insecurity, uncertainty – yet security in the absolute certainty of itself.

The military class and war are the actual sacrifice of the self – the danger of death for the individual,his looking at his abstract immediate negativity, just as he is his immediately positive self. Crime is anecessary element in the concept of right and coercive law: [namely, that] each one, as this individual,makes himself into an absolute power, sees himself as absolutely free, for himself, and real againstanother as universal negativity. In war this is allowed him – it is crime for [i.e., on behalf of] theuniversal. The end is the maintenance of the totality, against the enemy who is out to destroy it. Thisexternalization must have this same abstract form, must be without individuality – death, coldlyreceived and given, not in ongoing battle where the individual has his eye on his opponent and killshim with direct hatred; rather, death emptily given and received, impersonal in the gunsmoke.

B. Government: The Self-Certain Spirit of Nature






B. Government: The Self-Certain Spirit of NatureIn this individuality, as [an] absolute self and [as the] negativity of the individual person, thegovernment is fulfilled as the peak of the totality. In war, the government, as self-subsisting, shakesup the organization of its classes – as well as the all-embracing systems of right, of personal securityand property. It becomes apparent that all this vanishes in the power of the universal. What thistransition involves in its concept is now at hand: the unsettling [of the entire system], its subjugationand coercion under pure power. No longer are work and advancement, property right and personalsecurity, granted their absolute status; rather, [what we see is] injury done them. The individual’srootedness in his own existence [to the exclusion of the public interest), this sundering of the totalityinto atoms, here suppresses itself. The individual has his absolute freedom [in his submission to thetotality], and this itself is the strength of the government.

This immediate pure will is likewise self-conscious will. Government is this willing, the abstractuniversal willing of right, etc.; it is the resolution, the single will. The wisdom of government,primarily, is to suit these abstract elements to the classes in general, and in individual cases to makeexceptions to the law. The implementation, as such, is not this lifeless doing. Rather, theindividualization of the universal is at the same time the supersession (aufheben) of the universal, and,in individual cases, acting against it. Government is the spirit that is certain of itself, doing the right[although] independently of spirit, acting in immediacy.

Thus spirit is freedom fulfilled. Class, determinate character [now serve] as reality – and through it[an] all-embracing abstract system of individual subsistence. [There are] branches of powers – yetlikewise the freedom of the subsistent as such [i.e., of the individual], and of his immediatelyconscious spirit.

C. Art, Religion, and Science






The Philosophy of Spirit (Jena Lectures 1805-6)PART III. Constitution

C. Art, Religion, and ScienceThe absolutely free spirit, having taken its determinations back into itself, now generates anotherworld. It is a world which has the form of spirit itself, where spirit’s work is completed in itself andthe spirit attains a view (Anschauung) of what is spirit itself, as itself. As intelligence, the existent(das seyende) has the form (Gestalt) of something other; as will it has the form of itself.

Being-recognized (Anerkanntseyn) is the spiritual element, but it is as yet indeterminate in itself and istherefore [to be] filled out with manifold content. The coercive law is the movement of this content,i.e., the universal seeing itself as mediation. The constitution is its [i.e., the free spirit’s] creation ofthe content out of itself – constituting itself, but in the form of object. [The spirit] makes itself into[its] content, and as government it is the self-certain spirit: it knows that this is its content and that it[i.e., spirit] is the power over it [this content] – [it is] spiritual content. Accordingly, it must nowcreate this content as such, as self-knowing.

Thus, at the immediate [level], spirit is art: the infinite knowledge, which, immediately alive, is itsown fulfilment – the knowledge which has taken back into itself all the exigency of nature, of outernecessity, and [has bridged] the division between self-knowledge and its truth. Immediately, art isform, indifferent to the content – form which could cast itself into any content [and] bring that contentto view as something infinite, allowing its inner life, its spirit, to come out, [and] making it its objectas spirit. Art sways between form and the pure self of form – and thus between plastic and musicalart.

Music is the pure [experience of] hearing, wherein the formative element brings nothing into beingbut the transitory sound, and the melody of harmonic motion moves itself to the triad turned back intoitself. It is formless motion – the dance of this motion itself as the invisible presentation, belonging totime.

[At] the other extreme, sculpture is the quiescent presentation of the divine. Between these two[poles] there are painting (the plasticity that takes color [all] to itself, the selfish [medium] in the formof pure sensation in itself); and poetry (plasticity as representation of form in the musical, whosesound, extended to language, has content in itself).

Absolute art is that whose content is equal to its form. Everything can be elevated into art. Yet thiselevation is an alien fancy: as existing content, seen prosaically, it must itself be equal to the form.This is spirit itself. Hence nature poetry is the worst – landscape art, etc. – since that which gives itlife contradicts the form in which it immediately is. [This is the] modern formalism in art. [There is, itsays,] poetry in all things, a yearning for all, not an external force; things are that way in themselves(an sich), in God’s view – yet this “in themselves” (dieses Ansich) is abstract, not equal to theirexistence. This purely intellectual beauty – this music of things – has the Homeric plasticity as itsopposite. The former is unsensory, the latter a sensory viewing (Anschauung). Here we do not havethe form of the symbol, of [figurative] meaning – this is touched upon quietly, from a distance. Herethe meaning itself is to come forward, but the form is lost. Art is in this contradiction with itself: that



if it is independent it must be extended to allegory, and then it has vanished as individuality; and withthe [figurative] meaning demoted to individuality, [meaning] is not expressed.

Art creates the world as spiritual and as open to view. It is the Indian Bacchus – not the clear self-knowing spirit but the inspired spirit (begeisterte Geist) which envelops itself in sensation and image,wherein the fearful is hidden. Its element is vision (Anschauung) – but vision is the immediacy, whichis not mediated. This element is therefore not adequate to the spirit. Art can therefore give its formsonly a limited spirit.

Beauty is form; it is the illusion of absolute vitality, sufficient to itself, self-enclosed and complete initself – this medium of finitude. Vision cannot grasp the infinite – it is merely an intended infinitude.This god as statue, this world of song encompassing heaven and earth, the universal essences inindividual mythic form, the particular essences, and self-consciousness – all this is [merely] intended,not true representation (Vorstellung); it has no necessity to it [which is] the form of thinking. Beautyis much more the veil covering the truth than the presentation (Darstellung) of it. Thus, as the form oflife, the content is not adequate to it, is limited.

The artist therefore often demands that the relation to art be only a relation to form, and that oneshould abstract from content. Yet people will not let this content be taken from them. They demandessence [i.e., meaning], not bare form. The connoisseur, [however,] is the one who contemplates purepoetry and the artist’s understanding [in a work of art]the motifs, the detail which is determined by thewhole and brings it out, selected with understanding, the parts being kept well distinct from oneanother, etc.

Art, in its truth, is closer to religion – the elevation of the world of art into the unity of the AbsoluteSpirit. In the world of art each individual [entity], through beauty, gains a free life of its own. Yet thetruth of individual spirits is in their being an element in the movement of the whole. Absolute spiritknowing itself as absolute spirit: [this absolute spirit] itself is the content of art, which is only the self-production of itself, as self-conscious life reflected in itself, in general.

In art, (a) this individual self, this one, is only a particular self, the artist – the enjoyment on the partof others is the selfless universal intuition (Anschauung) of beauty; (b) the determinacy is individualcontent – hence its immediacy as existent, like that of the self [when] separated from beauty, from theunity of individuality and universality, i.e., [the unity] of the self and its universal existence. Inreligion, however, the spirit becomes its own object, as absolutely universal, or as the essence of allnature , of being and doing – and [yet] in the form of the immediate self.

The Self is universal knowing, and through this the return into itself. Absolute religion is thisknowledge – that God is the depth of self-certain Spirit – thereby the Self of all. This knowledge is theessence, pure thought – yet, alienated (entäussert) from this abstraction, He is actual selfhood. He is aPerson, having a common spatial and temporal existence – and this individual is what all individualsare. The divine nature is not other than the human. All other religions are incomplete [in this regard:]either [religions of] essence alone, the fearful essence of natural power wherein the self is nugatory;or the beautiful religion, the mythic, a game not worthy of the essence, without profundity and depth,where depth is [nothing more than] unknown destiny. The absolute religion, however, is the depthbrought to daylight – this depth is the I, as the concept, the absolute pure power.



In it [i.e., the absolute religion], therefore, the spirit is reconciled with its world. Spirit, as existent, isits organization and progress through the social classes, distinct character and distinct duty, each selfhaving a limited purpose and likewise a limited activity. The knowing of itself as essence – in rightand duty – is empty as pure essence and pure knowing; [but] as fulfilled [it is] a limited many-sidedness, and the immediate actuality [is] an equally individual [knowing]. Morality, in its activity, isthe elevation beyond class, advancing itself and the activity of its class – doing something for theuniversal.)

But the government stands over all – the spirit that knows itself as universal essence and universalactuality, the absolute Self. In religion, everyone elevates himself to this view of his own self as auniversal Self. His nature, his class, fade like a mirage, like an island appearing as a fragrant cloud farat the edge of the horizon – [and] he is the equal of the prince; it is his knowing of himself asknowledge of spirit, [so that] for God he is worth as much as any other. it is the alienation of his entiresphere, his entire existing world. It is not that alienation which is only form, cultivation, and whosecontent is the [world of] sensory existence again – but rather the universal [alienation] of the entireactuality. This alienation restores the actual world to itself once again as complete.

The two realms – actuality and heaven – thereby come to be still far apart, however. Only beyond thisworld is the spirit reconciled with itself, not in its present. If it is satisfied with this world, then it isnot the spirit elevating itself above its [immediate] existence. Spirit is to be shaken in this world, andin war and trouble it is shaken, and flees from this existence into thought. Yet there is a longing forheaven, and likewise a longing for earth – the former is for want of something better. By means ofreligion, the spirit has satisfied the trust that the events of this world and nature are reconciled withthe spirit – and [that] no dissonance, no unreconciled selfless necessity rules in it.

Religion, however, is the represented spirit, the Self which does not bring together its pureconsciousness with its actual consciousness, [and for which] the content of the former passes over intothe latter as something different.

The thought – the inner idea – of absolute religion is this speculative idea that the Self is the actual, isthinking (Denken). Essence (Wesen) and being (Seyn) are [thus] the same. This is posited [in the idealthat God (the other worldly absolute essence) has become man, this actual man. But at the same timethis actuality has annulled (aufgehoben) itself, become a thing of the past – and this God who isactuality and is [yet] an annulled actuality (i.e., a universal actuality) is the spirit of the community.

[The idea] that God is spirit – this is the content of this religion and the object of this consciousness:

(a) [as object] of pure consciousness, [as] the Eternal Being (Wesen), Son and Spirit; here these are allthe same Being, [and] what is posited is not the distinction [between them, but] the indifference ofimmediate being;

(b) God, the essence of pure consciousness, becomes an “other” to itself: [this other is] the world. Butthis existence is [as] concept, being-in-itself, evil. And nature, the immediate, must be represented asevil, [the counterpart of God,] each of us coming to an insight into his own evil nature – i.e., so thatthe nature becomes the concept, the evil essence, being-for-itself (against the essence that is in itself)but at the same time the contrary, the essence that is in itself. [Thus, nature is evil in being God’s“other,” yet is like God in being self-sufficient.]



That is to say, God appears as actual in nature. [Yet with God immanent in nature,] everything“beyond” has fled. That this opposition [between the here and the beyond] is itself now void – that theevil, the actuality that is for itself is not in itself but is universal – this presents itself as well in thesacrifice of the God – man: (a) the sacrifice of divinity, i.e., of the abstract Being (Wesen) from“beyond,” has already occurred in his becoming actual; (b) [the sacrifice is also in] the elevation(Aufheben) of actuality, its becoming universality ([as] universal spirit – but this is [merely] arepresentation for consciousness); likewise [it has become:] (c) the universality of the Self in itself;i.e., the community must renounce its being-for-self and [the world of] immediate nature. That is, itmust also view [the world] as evil, and this view of the evil is overcome (hebt sich auf) in the graspof that representation [of a universal spirit]. Presentation in worship, wherein that self [i.e. thecommunity] gives itself the consciousness of unity with the [supreme] Being (Wesen). Devotionknows itself in him: worship (Kultus).

This universal spirit (i.e., the spirit of the community) is [that of] the state, of the church, the existentactual spirit, which has become its own object as spirit – but as representation and faith. It is the spiritof the community, but in its representation it flees beyond its own self, far remote from it. Thatimmediate knowing is not united with this otherness. Everything [in this religious expression] has theform of representation, of the beyond – without concept, without necessity, [but as mere] occurrence,contingency. Indeed, the word [is] the eternal resolution and will of God – yet [it is] only said, notcomprehended, not concept, not Self.

The church has its opposite in the state, i.e., in the existent spirit. The church is the state elevated(erhoben) in thoughts – i.e., man lives in two worlds. In the one, he has his actuality that vanishes, hisnatural aspect, his sacrifice, his transitoriness; in the other, [he has] his absolute preservation, knowshimself as absolute essence. He dies away from the actual world, knowingly and intentionally, inorder to gain the eternal, the unactual life in thought, [as] universal Self.

Yet this eternal has its existence in the [cultural] spirit of a people (Volksgeist). It is the [cultural]spirit which itself is but spirit [as actually existent, in the state], through this movement – [although]opposed to it in form, [yet] identical to it in essence. The government knows this, the cultural spiritknows – that it itself is the actual spirit, containing itself and the thought of itself.

It is the fanaticism of the church to wish to establish the eternal, the heavenly kingdom as such, onearth – i.e., against the actuality of the state, [like] keeping fire in water. [Yet] the actuality of theheavenly kingdom is the state itself: reconciliation, in thinking, of the essences of both, through thechurch.

If they are unreconciled, then state and church are incomplete.

The state is the spirit of actuality. What reveals itself in it [i.e., the state], must be commensurate to it[i.e., to the spirit of actuality]. The state need not respect conscience – this is the inner, [and] whetherit is to count as action or as principle of action must be revealed in those [elements] themselves.

The church is the spirit that knows itself as universal: the internal, absolute security of the state. Theindividual counts as individual; everything external is in itself insecure and unstable. In the state is[the individual’s] complete guarantee [of security]. What a person does [on the basis of] religion hedoes from his thought of himself, insofar as [that self-conception] is not a [broader] insight [of]



universal thoughts, without ignoring the varying many-sided aspects of the individual. This is duty(Pflicht); i.e., to this I must yield. It is – is justified in the absolute essence. Morality [is grounded] inthe absolute essence, insofar as it is my knowing – [but] there, [as universal, it is] absolute essence ingeneral.

Religion as such is in need of the existent world, of the immediate actuality. It is the universal,therefore under the dominance of the state, is used by it, serves it. Used – because religion is whatlacks actuality (das Wirklichkeitslose), having its selfhood in the actual spirit, [and] thus is as negated(als aufgehobenes). On the other hand, religion is [rather] the thinking which elevates itself above itsactuality: this inner stubbornness that [leads one to] give up one’s own existence and be ready to diefor one’s thought; it is the unconquerable [in the individual], who dies for the [sake of] the thought,for whom the pure thought is everything; [religion is] his inner thinking as such, having the meaningof action which otherwise appears as something contingent. So high has thinking as such been raised– [in the individual] going to death happily for the sake of faith. The state that subordinates itself tothe church, however, has either surrendered to fanaticism and is lost; or else a priestly regime hasbeen established, demanding not the alienation (Entäusserung) of action and existence and specificthoughts, but of the will as such and indeed of the will in existence as such – and certainly not towardthe universal, the being-recognized, but rather toward a single will, as such.

Heaven flees from religion in the actual consciousness – man falls to earth and finds the religious[aspect] only in the imagination. That is, religion is so intrinsically selfless that it is the spirit merelyrepresenting itself – i.e., so that its elements have, for it, the form of immediacy and occurrence,without being conceived or comprehended. The content of religion is probably true – but this being-true (Wahrseyn) is an assurance without insight.

This insight is philosophy – the absolute science. Its content is the same as that of religion, but itsform is conceptual. [It can be divided into:] (a) speculative philosophy – [concerning] absolute beingwhich becomes “other” to itself, becomes relation to itself [in] life and knowledge, and a knowingknowledge, spirit, spirit knowing itself; (b) natural philosophy – [concerning the] expression of theIdea in the forms of immediate being. It is the going into itself, evil, becoming spirit, [becoming] theconcept existing as concept. This pure intelligence, however, is likewise the opposite, the universal,indeed sacrificing itself and thereby becoming the actual universal – and the universal actuality that isa people; [it is] created nature, the reconciled essence in which each one takes his being-for-himself,through his own alienation and [self-]sacrifice.

In philosophy it is the I as such that is universal – the I that, in the concept, is the knowing of theabsolute spirit, in itself, as this. There is no other nature here, not the non-present unity, nor areconciliation that is to exist and to be enjoyed in the beyond, in the future. Rather, it is here, here theI knows the absolute. It knows, it comprehends, it is no other, [it is] immediate, it is the Self. The I isthis indissoluble connection of the individual with the universal – of individuality as the universalityof all nature, and the universality of all essentiality, all thinking.

The immediacy of spirit is the [cultural] spirit of a people (Volksgeist) – i.e., as existent absolutespirit. Religion [is] the thinking spirit, but which does not itself think, not about itself. Therefore lithas] no identity with itself, no immediacy. This knowledge on the part of philosophy is the restoredimmediacy. Philosophy itself is the form of mediation, i.e., of the concept. As immediacy, the self-



knowing spirit in general is what is disunited in nature – and [in] the knowledge of itself. And thisspirit is consciousness, immediate sensory consciousness which is something “other” to itself in theform of something existent. Spirit is its [own] quiescent work of art, the existing universe, and worldhistory.

Philosophy alienates itself from itself – at its beginning it arrives at the immediate consciousnesswhich is that same disunited consciousness. Thus philosophy is man in general. And as [it is] the[ultimate significance] of man, so it is for the world; and as with the world, so with man. One strokecreates them both.

What was there before this time? – [in] the other of time (not another time, but eternity, the thought oftime)? In this, the question [itself] is suspended (aufgehoben), since it refers to another time. But inthis way, eternity itself is in time, it is a “before” of time. Thus it is itself a past, it was, wasabsolutely, is no longer. Time is the pure concept – the intuited (angeschaute) empty self in itsmovement, like space in its rest. Before there is a filled time, time is nothing. Its fulfilment is thatwhich is actual, returned into itself out of empty time. Its view of itself is what time is – thenonobjective. But if we speak of [a time] “before” the world, of time without something to fill it, [wealready have] the thought of time, thinking itself, reflected in itself. It is necessary to go beyond thistime, every period – but into the thought of time. The former [i.e., speaking about what was “before”the world] is the bad infinity, that never arrives at the thought from which it goes forward.

This division is the eternal creation, i.e., the creation of the concept of spirit – this substance of theconcept, which supports itself and its opposite. The universe [is] thus immediately free of spirit, butmust nonetheless revert to it – or, rather, [in] spirit’s own activity, its movement. Spirit is to producethe [final] unity for itself – likewise, in the form of immediacy it is world history. In it, this[antithesis] is overcome – namely, that only in themselves are nature and spirit one being (Wesen).Spirit becomes the knowing of them [and thereby unites them].



12/4/13 3:08 PMWho Thinks Abstractly?

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Hegel-by-HyperText

Who Thinks Abstractly?

Written: by Hegel c. 1808;Source: Kaufmann, Walter. Hegel: Texts and Commentary;Published: Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1966, pp. 113-118.

Think? Abstractly? — Sauve qui peut! Let those who can save themselves! Even now I can hear atraitor, bought by the enemy, exclaim these words, denouncing this essay because it will plainly dealwith metaphysics. For metaphysics is a word, no less than abstract, and almost thinking as well,from which everybody more or less runs away as from a man who has caught the plague.

But the intention here really is not so wicked, as if the meaning of thinking and of abstract were to beexplained here. There is nothing the beautiful world finds as intolerable as explanations. I, too, find itterrible when somebody begins to explain, for when worst comes to worst I understand everythingmyself. Here the explanation of thinking and abstract would in any case be entirely superfluous; for itis only because the beautiful world knows what it means to be abstract that it runs away. Just as onedoes not desire what one does not know, one also cannot hate it. Nor is it my intent to try craftily toreconcile the beautiful world with thinking or with the abstract as if, under the semblance of smalltalk, thinking and the abstract were to be put over till in the end they had found their way into societyincognito, without having aroused any disgust; even as if they were to be adopted imperceptibly bysociety, or, as the Swabians say, hereingezäunselt, before the author of this complication suddenlyexposed this strange guest, namely the abstract, whom the whole party had long treated andrecognized under a different title as if he were a good old acquaintance. Such scenes of recognitionwhich are meant to instruct the world against its will have the inexcusable fault that theysimultaneously humiliate, and the wirepuller tries with his artifice to gain a little fame; but thishumiliation and this vanity destroy the effect, for they push away again an instruction gained at such aprice.

In any case, such a plan would be ruined from the start, for it would require that the crucial word ofthe riddle is not spoken at the outset. But this has already happened in the title. If this essay toyed withsuch craftiness, these words should not have been allowed to enter right in the beginning; but like thecabinet member in a comedy, they should have been required to walk around during the entire play intheir overcoat, unbuttoning it only in the last scene, disclosing the flashing star of wisdom. Theunbuttoning of the metaphysical overcoat would be less effective, to be sure, than the unbuttoning ofthe minister's: it would bring to light no more than a couple of words, and the best part of the jokeought to be that it is shown that society has long been in possession of the matter itself; so what theywould gain in the end would be the mere name, while the minister's star signifies something real — abag of money.

That everybody present should know what thinking is and what is abstract is presupposed in good



society, and we certainly are in good society. The question is merely who thinks abstractly. Theintent, as already mentioned, is not to reconcile society with these things, to expect it to deal withsomething difficult, to appeal to its conscience not frivolously to neglect such a matter that befits therank and status of beings gifted with reason. Rather it is my intent to reconcile the beautiful worldwith itself, although it does not seem to have a bad conscience about this neglect; still, at least deepdown, it has a certain respect for abstract thinking as something exalted, and it looks the other way notbecause it seems too lowly but because it appears too exalted, not because it seems too mean butrather too noble, or conversely because it seems an Espèce, something special; it seems somethingthat does not lend one distinction in general society, like new clothes, but rather something that —like wretched clothes, or rich ones if they are decorated with precious stones in ancient mounts orembroidery that, be it ever so rich, has long become quasi-Chinese — excludes one from society ormakes one ridiculous in it.

Who thinks abstractly? The uneducated, not the educated. Good society does not think abstractlybecause it is too easy, because it is too lowly (not referring to the external status) — not from anempty affectation of nobility that would place itself above that of which it is not capable, but onaccount of the inward inferiority of the matter.

The prejudice and respect for abstract thinking are so great that sensitive nostrils will begin to smellsome satire or irony at this point; but since they read the morning paper they know that there is a prizeto be had for satires and that I should therefore sooner earn it by competing for it than give up herewithout further ado.

I have only to adduce examples for my proposition: everybody will grant that they confirm it. Amurderer is led to the place of execution. For the common populace he is nothing but a murderer.Ladies perhaps remark that he is a strong, handsome, interesting man. The populace finds this remarkterrible: What? A murderer handsome? How can one think so wickedly and call a murdererhandsome; no doubt, you yourselves are something not much better! This is the corruption of moralsthat is prevalent in the upper classes, a priest may add, knowing the bottom of things and humanhearts.

One who knows men traces the development of the criminal's mind: he finds in his history, in hiseducation, a bad family relationship between his father and mother, some tremendous harshness afterthis human being had done some minor wrong, so he became embittered against the social order — afirst reaction to this that in effect expelled him and henceforth did not make it possible for him topreserve himself except through crime. — There may be people who will say when they hear suchthings: he wants to excuse this murderer! After all I remember how in my youth I heard a mayorlament that writers of books were going too far and sought to extirpate Christianity and righteousnessaltogether; somebody had written a defense of suicide; terrible, really too terrible! — Furtherquestions revealed that The Sufferings of Werther [by Goethe, 1774] were meant.

This is abstract thinking: to see nothing in the murderer except the abstract fact that he is a murderer,and to annul all other human essence in him with this simple quality.

It is quite different in refined, sentimental circles — in Leipzig. There they strewed and bound flowerson the wheel and on the criminal who was tied to it. — But this again is the opposite abstraction. TheChristians may indeed trifle with Rosicrucianism, or rather cross-rosism, and wreathe roses around



the cross. The cross is the gallows and wheel that have long been hallowed. It has lost its one-sidedsignificance of being the instrument of dishonorable punishment and, on the contrary, suggests thenotion of the highest pain and the deepest rejection together with the most joyous rapture and divinehonor. The wheel in Leipzig, on the other hand, wreathed with violets and poppies, is a reconciliationà la Kotzebue, a kind of slovenly sociability between sentimentality and badness.

In quite a different manner I once heard a common old woman who worked in a hospital kill theabstraction of the murderer and bring him to life for honor. The severed head had been placed on thescaffold, and the sun was shining. How beautifully, she said, the sun of God's grace shines on Binder'shead! — You are not worthy of having the sun shine on you, one says to a rascal with whom one isangry. This woman saw that the murderer's head was struck by the sunshine and thus was still worthyof it. She raised it from the punishment of the scaffold into the sunny grace of God, and instead ofaccomplishing the reconciliation with violets and sentimental vanity, saw him accepted in grace in thehigher sun.

Old woman, your eggs are rotten! the maid says to the market woman. What? she replies, my eggsrotten? You may be rotten! You say that about my eggs? You? Did not lice eat your father on thehighways? Didn't your mother run away with the French, and didn't your grandmother die in a publichospital? Let her get a whole shirt instead of that flimsy scarf; we know well where she got that scarfand her hats: if it were not for those officers, many wouldn't be decked out like that these days, and iftheir ladyships paid more attention to their households, many would be in jail right now. Let her mendthe holes in her stockings! — In brief, she does not leave one whole thread on her. She thinksabstractly and subsumes the other woman — scarf, hat, shirt, etc., as well as her fingers and otherparts of her, and her father and whole family, too — solely under the crime that she has found theeggs rotten. Everything about her is colored through and through by these rotten eggs, while thoseofficers of which the market woman spoke — if, as one may seriously doubt, there is anything to that— may have got to see very different things.

To move from the maid to a servant, no servant is worse off than one who works for a man of lowclass and low income; and he is better off the nobler his master is. The common man again thinksmore abstractly, he gives himself noble airs vis-à-vis the servant and relates himself to the other manmerely as to a servant; he clings to this one predicate. The servant is best off among the French. Thenobleman is familiar with his servant, the Frenchman is his friend. When they are alone, the servantdoes the talking: see Diderot's Jacques et son maître; the master does nothing but take snuff and seewhat time it is and lets the servant take care of everything else. The nobleman knows that the servantis not merely a servant, but also knows the latest city news, the girls, and harbors good suggestions;he asks him about these matters, and the servant may say what he knows about these questions. Witha French master, the servant may not only do this; he may also broach a subject, have his ownopinions and insist on them; and when the master wants something, it is not done with an order but hehas to argue and convince the servant of his opinion and add a good word to make sure that thisopinion retains the upper hand.

In the army we encounter the same difference. Among the Austrians a soldier may be beaten, he iscanaille; for whatever has the passive right to be beaten is canaille. Thus the common soldier is for theofficer this abstractum of a beatable subject with whom a gentleman who has a uniform and portd'epée must trouble himself — and that could drive one to make a pact with the devil.



Note by Walter Kaufman:

In the nineteenth-century edition of Hegel's Werke, this article (Wer denkt abstrakt?)appears in volume XVII, 400-5. Rosenkranz discusses it briefly (355 f.) and says that itshows "how much Hegel ... entered into the Berlin manner.

Glockner reprints it in his edition of the Werke in vol. XX (1930), which is entitled:Vermischte Schriften aus der Berliner Zeit. He includes it among "four feuilletons thatHegel wrote for local papers during the later years of his Berlin period. But Glockneradmits: “The exact place of publication is unfortunately unknown to me.”

Hoffmeister, whose critical edition of Hegel's Berliner Schriften: 1818-1831 (1956) ismuch more comprehensive than Glockner's (800 pages versus 550), does not include thisarticle. In a footnote he says that it belongs to Hegel's “Jena period (1807/08)”. This is anuncharacteristic slip: at the beginning of 1807 Hegel went to Bamberg, in 1808 toNürnberg; and in the first weeks of 1807, before he left Jena, he certainly lacked the timeand peace of mind to write this article.

Of Glockner's "four feuilletons" Hoffmeister retains only one, and that is really a letter toa newspaper, protesting their review of a new play. Hoffmeister gives no reasons fordating this article so much earlier than Rosenkranz and Glockner did. Possibly, thedisparaging remark about Kotzebue (a German playwright, 1761-1819) suggests a datebefore Kotzebue was stabbed to death by a German theology student. That the piece waswritten in Jena seems most unlikely: it is so very different from the articles — and thePhenomenology — that Hegel wrote during his harassed and unhappy years in that city.But Hoffmeister could be right that it was written in 1807 or 1808.



12/4/13 3:43 PMThe Philosophical Propadeutic by Hegel 1808-1811

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Hegel 1808-1811

The Philosophical Propadeutic

Written: by Hegel as notes for his lectures, 1808-1811;Translated: partially by W. T. Harris in 1860 and published in the Journal ofSpeculative Philosophy, revised by A.V. Miller, edited by Michael George and AndrewVincent and published by Basil Blackwell in 1986;CopyLeft: Reproduced in part with permission of the copyright holder, under “FairUse” provisions; all rights remain with the editors;Transcribed: for marxists.org by J. L. Wilm;HTML Mark-up: by Andy Blunden.

Hegel was editor of the Bamberger Zeitung from March 1807 to 1808, during whichtime “The Phenomenology of Spirit” was published. From November 1808 until 1815,Hegel was Rector of the Gymnasium in Nuremberg. In 1812, the first volume of the“Science of Logic” was published.

Table of Contents

First Course. Lower Class. The Science of Laws, Morals and Religion

Introduction

Elucidation of the Introduction. Outlines of the Science of Laws, Morals and Religion

First Part. Science of Law

Chapter 1. LawChapter 2. Political Society

Second Part. Science of Duties or Morals

Duties to HimselfDuties to the FamilyDuties to the StateDuties toward Others

Third Part. The Science of Religion

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Second Course. Middle Class. Phenomenology of Spirit and Logic

Introduction. Phenomenology.

First Part. Phenomenology of Spirit

First Stage. Consciousness in General

PerceptionThe Understanding

Second Stage. Self-Consciousness

DesireThe Relation of Master and SlaveUniversality of Self-Consciousness

Third Stage. Reason

Second Part Logic.

First Section. BeingSecond Section. EssenceRemark on the AntimoniesThird Section. The Notion.

Third Course. Upper Class. The Doctrine of the Notion and the Philosophical Encyclopaedia

First Part. Doctrine of the Notion (See Shorter Logic for this)

First Section. The NotionSecond Section. The Realisation of the NotionThird Section. The Idea.

Second Part. Philosophical Encyclopaedia

First Section. Logic. (See Shorter Logic for this)Second Section. Science of Nature. (See Philosophy of Nature for this)Third Section. Science of Spirit. (See Philosophy of Spirit for this)










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Hegel. The Philosophical Propadeutic. 1808-1811

11The Science of Laws, Morals and ReligionThe Science of Laws, Morals and Religion[For the Lower Class][For the Lower Class]

Introduction

1. The object of this science is the Human Will in its relations as the Particular Will to the UniversalWill: to the Will which is Lawful and Just or in accordance with Reason. As Will the Mind stands in apractical relation to itself. The practical way of acting [Verhalten], through which it bringsdetermination into its determinateness or opposes other determinations of its own in the place of thosealready existing in it without its cooperation, is to be distinguished from its theoretical way of acting.

2. Consciousness, as such, is the relation of the Ego to an object; this object may be internal orexternal. Our Knowing contains objects, some of which we obtain a knowledge of through SensuousPerception; others, however, have their origin in the Mind itself. The former, taken together,constitute the Sensuous World; the latter, the Intelligible World. Judicial [rechtlichen = legal], ethicaland religious conceptions belong to the latter.

3. In the relation of the Ego and object to each other the Ego is (a) passive; in which case the objectis regarded as the cause of the determinations in the Ego and the particular ideas [Vorstellungen]which the Ego has are attributed to the impression made upon it by the immediate objects before it.This is the Theoretical Consciousness. Whether it be in the form of perception or of imagination orof the thinking activity its content is always a given and extant something, a content having existenceindependent of the Ego.

On the contrary, (b) the Ego manifests itself as Practical Consciousness when its determinations arenot mere ‘ideas’ and thoughts, but issue forth into external existence. In this process the Egodetermines the given things or objects, so that the former is active and the latter are passive, i.e. theEgo is the cause of changes in the given objects.

4. Practical Ability [Vermögen] as such determines itself from within, i.e. through itself. The contentof its determinations belongs to it and it recognizes that content for its own. These determinations,however, are at first only internal and, for this reason, separated from the external reality, but they areto become external and be realized. This is done through the [conscious] Act. By such an Act internalpractical determinations receive externality: i.e. external Being. Conversely, this process may beregarded as the cancelling of an extant externality and the bringing of the same into harmony with theinternal determination.

5. The internal determination of the Practical Consciousness is either Impulse [Trieb] or Will Proper[eigentlicher Wille]. Impulse is a natural self-determination which rests upon circumscribed feelingsand has a limited finite end in view which it cannot transcend. In other words, it is the unfree,immediately determined. Lower Appetite [niedere Begehrungsvermögen] according to which man



ranks as a creature of nature. Through Reflection he transcends Impulse and its limitations, and notonly compares it with the means of its gratification but also compares these means one with anotherand the impulses one with another, and both of these with the object and end of his own existence. Hethen yields to the decision of Reflection and gratifies the Impulse or else represses it and renounces it.

6. The Will Proper, or the Higher Appetite, is (a) pure indeterminateness of the Ego, which as suchhas no limitation or a content which is immediately extant through nature but is indifferent towardsany and every determinateness. (b) The Ego can, at the same time, pass over to a determinateness andmake a choice of some one or other and then actualize it.

7. The Abstract Freedom of the Will consists in this very indeterminateness, or identity of the Egowith itself, wherein a determination occurs only in so far as the Ego makes it its own [assimilates it]or posits it within itself. And yet in this act it remains self-identical and retains the power to abstractagain from each and every determination. There may be presented to the Will, from without, a greatvariety of incitements, motives and laws but man, in following the same, does this only in so far as theWill itself makes these its own determinations and resolves to actualize them. This, too, is the casewith the determinations of the Lower Appetites, or with what proceeds from natural Impulses andInclinations.

8. The Will has Moral Responsibility [Schuld] in so far as (a) its determination is made its own solelyfrom its own self, or by its resolve: i.e. [in so far as] the Ego wills it, and (b) it is conscious of thedeterminations which are produced through its act as they lie in its resolve or are necessarily andimmediately involved in its consequences.

9. A Deed [Tat] is, as such, the produced change and determination of a Being. To an Act[Handlung], however, belongs only what lay in the resolve or was in the consciousness [and] hencewhat the Will acknowledges as its own.

10. The free Will, as free, is moreover not limited to the determinateness and individuality throughwhich one individual is distinguished from another but is Universal Will and the individual is, asregards his Pure Will, a Universal Being.

11. The Will can, in various ways, take up into itself external content, that is, a content which doesnot proceed from its own nature and make this content its own. In this the Will remains self-identicalonly in form. It is, namely, conscious of its power to abstract from each and every content and recoverits pure form but it does not remain self-identical as regards its content and essence. In so far as it issuch a Will it is really only the Will-of-Choice [Willkür] [or Arbitrariness].

12. But that the Will may be truly and absolutely free it is requisite that what it wills, or its content,be naught else than the Will itself i.e. the pure self-determination, or the act that is in harmony withitself. It is requisite that it wills only in-itself and has itself for its object. The Pure Will, therefore,does not will some special content or other on account of its speciality but in order that the Will assuch may in its deed be free and be freely actualized; in other words, that the Universal Will may bedone.

The more precise determination and development of these universal maxims of the [rational] Willbelong to the Science of Laws, Morals and Religion.



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Elucidation of the Introduction

1. Objects are particular somethings through their determinations as sensuous objects, for example,through their shape, size, weight, colour, through the more or less firm combination of its parts,through the purpose for which they are used, etc. If one, in his conception of it, takes away thedeterminations of an object, this process is called Abstraction. There remains after the process a lessdetermined object: i.e. an Abstract Object. If, however, I conceive of only one of thesedeterminations, this is called an Abstract Representation [or Abstract Idea]. The object left in itscompleteness of determination is called a Concrete Object. When I abstract all the determinations Ihave left only the conception of the absolutely Abstract Object. When one says ‘Thing’, though hemay mean something quite definite, he says only something quite indefinite since our thought reducesan actual something to this abstraction of mere ‘Thing’.

Sensuous Perception is in part external, in part internal. Through external [Sensuous Perception] weperceive things which are outside us in time and space, things which we distinguish from ourselves.Through the internal Sensuous Perception we take note of the states and conditions which belong inpart to our bodies and in part to our souls. One part of the Sensuous World contains such objects andtheir determinations, as, for example, colours, that is, objects that have a sensuous basis and havereceived a mental form. If I say, ‘This table is black’, I speak in the first place of this single concreteobject but, secondly, the predicate ‘black’ which I affirm of it is a general [quality] which belongs notmerely to this single object but to several objects. ‘Black’ is a simple idea. We cognize a realconcrete object immediately. This act of immediate apprehension is called Intuition.

A general Abstract Idea is therefore a mediated Idea for the reason that I know it by means of another,i.e. by means of abstraction or the omission of other determinations which are found united in theConcrete Object. A Concrete Idea is said to be analysed when the determinations which are united init as concrete are separated. The intelligible world receives its content from Spirit [i.e. from theactivity of the Mind], and this content consists of pure universal Ideas such, for example, as Being,Nothing, Attribute, Essence, etc.

2. The first source of our knowledge is called Experience. To Experience belongs this importantfeature: that we ourselves have perceived it. A distinction must however, be drawn betweenPerception and Experience. Perception has for its object only a single something which is determinedin one way this moment and in another way the next moment. If I repeat the Perception, and in therepeated perceptions take note of what remains the same and hold it fast, this operation is properlytermed Experience. Experience contains, for the most part, laws: i.e. [just] such a connection of twophenomena that if one is extant, the other one must result from it in all cases. The Experiencecontains, however, only the mere generality of such a phenomenon and not the necessity of theconnection. Experience teaches only that things are or happen thus and so but not the reasons, not the‘why’ thereof.

Since there are a multitude of objects concerning which we can have no Experience, for example thepast, we are obliged to have recourse to the Authority of others. Moreover, these objects which we



hold for true upon the Authority of others are objects of Experience (i.e. empirical objects). Webelieve them upon the Authority of others which is probable. We often hold as probable that which isreally improbable and what is improbable often turns out to be the truth. (An event receives itsconfirmation chiefly through its results and through the manifold circumstances connected with ourexperience of it. Those who narrate to us an event must be trustworthy, that is, they must have beenin a position where it was possible for them to have knowledge of it. We draw conclusions from thetone and manner in which they relate the event, in regard to their degree of earnestness or the selfishpurpose subserved by it. When writers, under the reign of a tyrant, are lavish in his praises, we at oncepronounce them to be flatterers. But if one makes special mention of a good quality or deed of hisenemy we are the more ready to believe his statements.)

Experience, therefore, teaches only how objects are constituted and not how they must be or howthey ought to be. This latter knowledge comes only from a concept of the Essence or Idea of theobject, a knowledge of it as a whole. And this latter knowledge alone is true knowledge. Since wemust learn the grounds of an object from its Concept, a knowledge of it in its entire compass, so too,if we would learn the character of the Lawful, Moral and Religious, we must have recourse to theConcepts thereof.

In determining what is right and good we may at first hold to Experience and that too of the mostexternal kind, namely, the way of the world. We can see there what passes for right and good or whatproves itself to be right and good. Upon this phase it is to be remarked (a) that in order to know whatdeeds are right or good and what are wrong or wicked, one presupposes himself to be in possession ofthe Concept of the Right [Lawful] and Good and (b) if anyone chose to hold to that which the way ofthe world showed to be current as right and good he would not arrive at anything definite. All woulddepend upon the view with which he undertook the investigation. In the course of the world, whereinthere occurs such a variety of events, each one can find his own particular view justified be it ever sopeculiar.

But there is, secondly, an internal experience concerning the Right [Legal], Good and Religious. Wejudge upon our Sentiment [Gemüt] or Feeling [Gefühl] that a deed of this or that character is good orbad. Moreover, we have a Feeling of Religion; we are affected religiously. What Feeling says of thedeed by way of approval or disapproval contains merely the immediate expression, or the mereassurance, that something is so or is not so. Feeling gives no reasons for its decision, nor does itdecide with reference to reasons. What kind of Feeling we have, of approval or of disapproval, is themere experience of a Sentiment. Feeling is, however, inconstant and changeable. It is at one time inone state and at another in a different one. Feeling is, in short, something subjective. An object ofFeeling is my object as a particular individual. If I say: ‘I feel thus about it’ or ‘It is my sentimenttoward it’, I then say only what belongs to me as an individual. I leave undecided whether it is alsothe same in other persons. When I, upon any occasion, appeal simply to my Feeling, I do not desire toenter upon the reasons [and] consequently upon universal relations. I withdraw myself within myselfand express only what concerns me and not what is in-and-for-itself objective and universal. TheObjective, or the universal, is the Intelligible, or the Concept [Notion].

If anyone wishes to know truly what a rose or a pink or an oak is, that is, if he wishes to grasp it in itsConcept [or Idea], he must first grasp the higher Concept which lies at its base, namely that of Plant;and further, in order to grasp the Concept of the ‘plant’, one must again grasp the higher Concept



whereupon the Concept of the ‘plant’ depends, and this is the Concept of an Organic Body. In orderto have the representation [idea] of bodies, surfaces, lines, and points, one must have recourse to theConcept of Space, since Space is the generic thereof; hence bodies, surfaces, etc. are only particulardeterminations of Space. In the same manner the present, past and future presuppose Time as theirgeneric ground. And so it is with Laws, Duties and Religion; they are merely particulardeterminations of Consciousness, which is their generic ground.

3. In the first stage of Consciousness we are usually aware of the object before us, that is, we areaware only of the object not of ourselves. But it is essentially in these things that the ‘I’ [Ego] exists.In so far as we think simply of an object we have a Consciousness, that is, a consciousness of theobject. In so far as we think of Consciousness we are conscious of Consciousness, that is, we have aconsciousness of Consciousness. In our ordinary life we have consciousness but we are not consciousthat we are a Consciousness; there is much in use that is even corporeal of which we are unconscious;for example, the vital functions which minister to our self-preservation we possess without beingconscious of their precise constitution, this we only acquire through Science. Also, from a spiritualstandpoint, we are much more than we know. The external objects of our Consciousness are thosewhich we distinguish from ourselves and to which we ascribe an independent existence. The innerobjects, on the other hand, are determinations or faculties, [i.e.] powers of the Ego. They do notsubsist in separation from one another but only in the Ego. Consciousness functions theoretically orpractically.

4. Theoretical Consciousness considers that which is and leaves it as it is. Practical [Consciousness],on the other hand, is the active consciousness which does not leave what is as it is but produceschanges therein and produces from itself determinations and objects. In Consciousness, therefore, twothings are present: myself and the object; I am determined by the object or the object is determined byme. In the former case my relationship is theoretical [and in the latter case practical]. [In TheoreticalConsciousness] I take up the determinations of the object as they are. I leave the object as it is andseek to make my ideas conform to it. I have determinations in myself and the object also hasdeterminations within it. The content of the Idea about the object should conform to what the objectis. The determinations of the object in-itself are rules for me. The truth of my Ideas consists in theircorrespondence with the constitution and the determinations of the object. The law for ourConsciousness, in so far as it is theoretical, is that it must not be completely passive but must directits activity to receiving the object. Something can be an object for our perception without our havingon that account a consciousness of it when we do not direct our activity to it. This activity in receptionis called Attention.

5. The Ideas which we acquire through Attention we excite in ourselves through the power ofImagination, whose activity consists in this: that it calls up in connection with the intuition of oneobject the image of another in some way or other linked with it. It is not necessary that the object, towhich the Imagination links the image of another, be present; it may be present only in an idea of it.The most extensive work of the Imagination is Language. Language consists in external signs andsounds through which one makes known what he thinks, feels or senses. Language consists in Words,which are nothing else than signs of thoughts. For these signs there are again found in writing othersigns called letters. They make known our thoughts without our having to speak them. Hieroglyphicwriting is distinguished from the Alphabetic by its direct presentation of entire thoughts.[Translator’s Note: Though this passage was written before the Rosetta Stone was discovered and is



therefore no longer valid in respect of Egyptian hieroglyphs, Hegel’s comments are still valid forother Asiatic forms of hieroglyphic writing.] In Speech a certain sound is sensuously present andtherein we have the intuition of a sound. But we do not stop at this because our Imagination links to itthe idea of an absent object. Here then we have two different objects, a sensuous determination andanother idea linked to it. Here the idea counts solely as the essence and as the meaning of what issensuously present which is thus a mere sign. The given content confronts a content which we haveproduced.

6. In ordinary life, the expressions to have an Idea and to Think [vorstellen as opposed to denken]are used interchangeably and we thus dignify with the name of thought what is only the product ofimagination. In ‘Ideas’ of this sort we have an object before us in its external and unessentialexistence. In Thinking, on the contrary, we separate from the object its external, merely unessentialside, and consider the object merely in its essence. Thinking penetrates through the externalphenomenon to the internal nature of the thing and makes it its object. It leaves the contingent side ofthe thing out of consideration. It takes up a subject not as it is in immediate appearance, but severs theunessential from the essential and thus abstracts from it. In Intuition we have single objects before us.Thinking brings them into relation with each other or compares them. In Comparison it singles outwhat they have in common with each other and omits that by which they differ and thus it retains onlyuniversal ideas. The universal Idea contains less determinateness than the single object which belongsunder this universal, since one arrives at the universal only by leaving out something from the singlething; on the other hand, the universal includes more under it or has a much greater extension. In sofar as Thinking produces a universal object, the activity of abstracting belongs to it and hence it hasthe Form of the universal (as, for example, in the universal object ‘Man’.) But the content of theuniversal object does not belong to it as an activity of abstracting but is given to Thinking and isindependent of it and present on its own account.

To Thinking there belong manifold determinations which express a connection between the manifoldphenomena that is universal and necessary. The connection as it exists in Sensuous Intuition ismerely an external or contingent one, which may or may not be in any particular form. A stone, forexample, makes by its fall an impression upon a yielding mass. In the Sensuous Intuition is containedthe fact of the falling of the stone and the fact of an impression made in the yielding mass where thestone touched it. These two phenomena, the falling of the stone and the impression on the yieldingmass, have a succession in time. But this connection contains, as yet, no necessity: on the contrary itis possible, for all that is therein stated, that the one might have happened under the same conditionswithout the other following it. When, on the contrary, the relation of these two phenomena to eachother is determined as cause and effect, or as the relation of Causality, then this connection is anecessary one or a connection of the Understanding. This entails that under the same conditions, ifone happens, the other is contained in it.

These determinations are the forms of Thinking. The Mind posits them solely through its ownactivity but they are at the same time determinations of existing things [zugleich Bestimmungen desSeienden]. We come first by Reflection to distinguish what is Ground and Consequent, Internal andExternal, Essential and Unessential. The Mind is not at first conscious that it posits thesedeterminations by its own free will, but thinks that it [Mind] expresses in them [these determinations]something which is present without its assistance.



7. Whenever we speak of the Ego or the Mind as receiving determinations we presuppose its previousindeterminateness. The determinations of the Mind always belong to the Mind even though it hasreceived them from other objects. Although something may be in the Mind which came from withoutas a content not dependent upon the Mind, yet the form always belongs to the latter; e.g. although inthe Imagination the material may be derived from Sensuous Intuition, the form consists in themethod in which this material is combined in a different manner from that present in the originalintuition. In a pure Concept, e.g. that of animal, the specific content belongs to Experience but theuniversal element in it is the form which comes from the Mind.

This form is thus of the Mind’s own determining. The essential difference between the theoreticaland the practical functions of the Mind consists in this: that in the theoretical the form alone isdetermined by the Mind while, on the other hand, in the practical function the content also proceedsfrom the Mind. In Right, for example, the content is personal freedom. This belongs to the Mind. Thepractical function recognizes determinations as its own in so far as it wills them. Even if they are aliendeterminations, or given from without, they must cease to be alien in so far as I will them: I changethe content into mine and posit it through myself.

Theoretical Activity starts from something externally present and converts it into an Idea. PracticalActivity, on the other hand, starts from an internal determination. This is called resolve, intention, ordirection and makes the internal actually external and gives to it existence. This transition from aninternal determination to externality is called Act.

9. The Act is, in general terms, a union of the internal and external. The internal determination, fromwhich it begins, has to be cancelled and made external as far as its form is concerned, which form isthat of a mere internal. The content of this determination is still to remain [after negation of the form];e.g. the intention to build a house is an internal determination whose form consists in this: that it isonly an intention at first; the content includes the plan of the house. If the form now is here cancelled,the content will still remain. The house which is to be built according to the intention and that whichis built according to the plan are the same house.

Conversely, the Act is likewise a sublation of externality as it is immediately present; e.g. the buildingof a house necessitates a change in a variety of ways, of the ground, the building-stone, the wood, andthe other materials. The shape of the external is changed; it is brought into quite other combinationsthan existed before. These changes happen in conformity to a purpose, to wit, the plan of the housewith which internal something the external is to be made to harmonize.

10. Animals, too, stand in a practical relation to that which is external to them. They act from instinct,with designs and purposes to realize, and thus rationally. Since they do this unconsciously, however,we cannot properly speak of them as authors of Voluntary Acts. They have Desires and Impulses, butno Rational Will. In speaking of man’s impulses and desires, it is usual to include the Will. But, moreaccurately speaking, the Will is to be distinguished from Desire. The Will, in distinction from Desire,is called the Higher Appetite. With animals even Instinct is to be distinguished from their impulsesand desires, for though Instinct is an acting from Impulse and Desire it, however, does not terminatewith its immediate externalization but has a further, and for the animal likewise necessary, result. It isan acting in which there is involved also a relation to something else; e.g. the hoarding up of grain bymany animals. This is not yet quite properly to be called an Act, but it contains a design in it, namely,



provision for the future.

Impulse is, in the first place, something internal, something which begins a movement from itself, orproduces a change by its own power. Impulse proceeds from itself. Although it may be awakened byexternal circumstances, yet it existed already without regard to them; it is not produced by them.Mechanical causes produce mere external or mechanical effects which are completely determined bytheir causes, in which therefore nothing is contained which is not already present in the cause; e.g. if Igive motion to a body, the motion imparted to it is all that it has, or if I paint a body, it has nothingelse than the colour imparted to it. On the contrary, if I act upon a living creature my influence upon itbecomes something quite different from what it was in me. The activity of the living creature isaroused by my act and it exhibits its own peculiarity in reacting against it.

In the second place. Impulse is (a) limited in respect to content [and] (b) is contingent as regards theaspect of its gratification, since it is dependent upon external circumstances. Impulse does nottranscend its purpose [end] and is therefore spoken of as blind. It gratifies itself, let the consequencesbe what they may.

Man does not make his own Impulses, he simply has them; in other words, they belong to his nature.Nature is, however, under the rule of necessity because everything in Nature is limited, relative orexists only in relation to something else. But what exists only in relation to something else is not for-itself but dependent upon others. It has its ground in that [something else] and is a necessitated being.In so far as man has immediately determined Impulses he is subjected to Nature, and conducts himselfas a necessitated and unfree being.

11. But man can, as a thinking being, reflect upon his impulses which have in themselves necessityfor him. Reflection signifies, in general, the cutting off from or reduction [Abkürzung] of theimmediate. Reflection (in respect of light) consists in this, that the rays [of light] which, in-themselves, beam forth in straight lines are bent back from this direction. Mind has Reflection. It isnot confined to the immediate but may transcend it and proceed to something else; e.g. from the eventbefore it, it may proceed to form an idea of its consequences or of a similar event or also of its causes.When the Mind goes out to something immediate it has removed the same from itself. It has reflecteditself into itself. It has gone into itself. It has recognized the immediate as a conditioned, or limited,in as much as it opposes to it another. It is, therefore, a very great difference whether one is or hassomething and whether he knows that he is or has it; for example, ignorance or rudeness of thesentiments or of behaviour are limitations which one may have without knowing it. In so far as onereflects or knows of them he must know of their opposite. Reflection upon them is already a first stepbeyond them.

Impulses, as natural determinations, are limitations. Through reflection upon them man begins totranscend them. The first Reflection concerns the means, whether they are commensurate with theimpulse, whether the impulse will be gratified through the means; whether, in the second place, themeans are not too important to be sacrificed for this impulse. Reflection compares the differentimpulses and their purposes with the fundamental end and purpose of Being. The purposes of thespecial impulses are limited but they contribute, each in its own way, to the attainment of thefundamental purpose. One, however, is better adapted for this than another. Hence Reflection has tocompare impulses and ascertain which are more closely allied to the fundamental purpose and are best



adapted to aid its realization by their gratification. In Reflection begins the transition from lowerforms of appetite to the higher. Man is, in Reflection, no longer a mere natural being and stands nolonger in the sphere of necessity. Something is necessary when only this and not something else canhappen. Reflection has before it not only the one immediate object but also another or its opposite.

12. This Reflection just described is, however, a merely relative affair. Although it transcends thefinite, yet it always arrives again at the finite; e.g. when we exceed the limits of one place in spacethere rises before us another portion of space, greater than before, but it is always only a finite spacethat thus arises, ad infinitum. Likewise, when we go back in time beyond the present into the past wecan imagine a period often thousand or thirty thousand years. Though such reflection proceeds fromone particular point in space or time to another, yet it never gets beyond space or time. Such is alsothe case in the Reflection which is both practical and relational. It leaves some one immediateinclination, desire or impulse and proceeds to another one, and in the end abandons this one also. Inso far as it is relative it only falls again into another impulse, moves round and round in a circle ofappetites and does not elevate itself above the sphere of impulses as a whole.

The practical Absolute Reflection, however, does elevate itself above this entire sphere of the finite;in other words, it abandons the sphere of the lower appetites, in which man is determined by natureand dependent on the outside world. Finitude consists, on the whole, in this: that something has alimit, i.e., that here its non-being is posited or that here it stops, that through this limit it is related toan ‘other’. Infinite Reflection, however, consists, in this: that the Ego is no longer related to another,but is related to itself; in other words is its own object. This pure relation to myself is the Ego, the rootof the Infinite Being itself. It is the perfect abstraction from all that is finite.

The Ego as such has no content which is immediate, i.e. given to it by nature, but its sole content isitself. This pure Form is, at the same time, its content: (a) every content given by nature issomething limited: but the Ego is unlimited; (b) the content given by nature is immediate: the pureEgo, however, has no immediate content for the reason that the pure Ego only is by means of thecomplete abstraction from everything else.

13. In the first place the Ego is the purely indeterminate. It is able, however, by means of reflection,to pass over from indeterminateness to determinateness, e.g. to seeing, hearing, etc. In thisdeterminateness it has become non-self-identical, but it has still remained in its indeterminateness;i.e. it is able, at will, to withdraw into itself again. At this place enters the Act of Resolving [Volition]for Reflection precedes it and consists in this; that the Ego has before it several determinationsindefinite as to number and yet each of these must be in one of two predicaments: it necessarily is oris not a determination of the something under consideration. The Act of Resolution cancels that ofReflection, the process to and fro from one to the other, and fixes on a determinateness and makes itits own. The fundamental condition necessary to the Act of Resolving, the possibility of making upone’s mind to do something or even of reflecting prior to the act, is the absolute indeterminateness ofthe Ego.

14. The Freedom of the Will is freedom in general, and all other freedoms are mere species thereof.When the expression ‘Freedom of the Will’ is used, it is not meant that apart from the Will there is aforce or property or faculty which possesses freedom. Just as when the omnipotence of God is spokenof it is not understood that there are still other beings besides him who possess omnipotence. There is



also civil freedom, freedom of the press, political and religious freedom. These species of freedombelong to the universal concept of Freedom in so far as it applies to special objects. ReligiousFreedom consists in this: that religious ideas, religious deeds, are not forced upon me, that is, thatthere are in them only such determinations as I recognize as my own and make my own. A religionwhich is forced upon me, or in relation to which I cannot act as a free being, is not my own, butremains alien to me. The Political Freedom of a people consists in this: that they form for themselvestheir own State and decide what is to be valid as the national will, and that this be done either by thewhole people themselves or by those who belong to the people, and who, since every other citizen hasthe same rights as themselves, can be acknowledged by the people as their own [i.e. as theirrepresentatives].

15. Such expressions as these are often used: ‘My will has been determined by these motives,circumstances, incitements, or inducements.’ This expression implies that I have stood in a passiverelation [to these motives, etc.]. In truth, however, the Ego did not stand in a merely passive relationbut was essentially active therein. The Will, that is, accepted these circumstances as motives andallowed them validity as motives. The causal relation here does not apply. The circumstances do notstand in the relation of cause nor my Will in that of effect. In the causal relation the effect followsnecessarily when the cause is given. As reflection, however, I can transcend each and everydetermination which is posited by the circumstances. In so far as a man pleads in his defence that hewas led astray through circumstances, incitements, etc. and, by this plea, [hopes] to rid himself of theconsequences of his deed, he lowers himself to the state of an unfree, natural being; while, in truth, hisdeed is always his own and not that of another or the effect of something outside himself.Circumstances or motives have only so much control over man as he himself gives to them.

The determinations of the Lower Appetites are natural determinations. In so far, it seems to be neithernecessary nor possible for man to make them his own. Simply as natural determinations they do notbelong to his Will or to his freedom, for the essence of his Will is that nothing be in it which he hasnot made his own. He, therefore, is able to regard what belongs to his nature as something alien, sothat, consequently, it is only in him, only belongs to him in so far as he makes it his own or followswith his volition his natural impulses.

16. To hold a man responsible for an Act means to impute or attribute to him guilt or innocence.Children who are still in a state of nature cannot be held responsible for their deeds, nor can crazypeople or idiots.

17. In the distinction of Deed from Act [Tat and Handlung] lies the distinction between the ideas ofmoral responsibility as they are presented in the tragedies of the ancients and those current in our owntime. In the former, among the ancients, Deed was attributed in its entire extent to man. He had to dopenance for the entire compass of his actions and no distinction was made if he was conscious ofonly one aspect of his act and unconscious of the others. He was considered as having an absoluteknowledge and not [merely] a relative and contingent knowledge, [in that] whatever he did wasconsidered as his own Deed. Part of him was referred to another Being; e.g. Ajax, when he slew theoxen and sheep of the Greeks in a state of insanity and rage caused by his not receiving the arms ofAchilles, did not attribute his crime to his madness, as though he were another being while insane, buthe took the whole deed upon himself as its author and slew himself from shame.



18. If the Will were not universal there could be, properly speaking, no actual statutes and nothingwhich could be imposed as obligatory upon all. Each one could act according to his own pleasure andwould not respect the pleasure of others. That the Will is universal flows from the concept of itsfreedom. Men, considered as they are in the world, show themselves very different in character,customs, inclinations and particular sentiments that is, they differ in their Will. They are by thisdifferent individuals and differ by nature from each other. Each one has natural abilities anddeterminations which others lack. These differences between individuals do not concern the Will initself, for it is free. Freedom consists precisely in the indeterminate-ness of the Will or in the fact thatit has no determined nature in it. The Will by itself is thus a Universal Will. The particularity orindividuality of man does not stand in the way of the universality of the Will but is subordinated to it.An Act which is good legally or morally, although done by some one individual, is assented to by allothers. They thus recognize themselves, or their own wills, in it. It is the same case here as with worksof art. Even those who could never produce such a work find expressed in it their own nature. Such awork shows itself, therefore, as truly universal. It receives the greater applause the less it exhibits theidiosyncrasy of its author.

It can be the case that one is unconscious of his Universal Will. He may believe, indeed, that it isdirectly opposed to his Will, even though it is his [true] Will. The criminal who is punished may wish,of course, that the punishment be warded off but the Universal Will brings with it the decree that thecriminal shall be punished. It must be assumed that the Absolute Will of the criminal demands that heshall be punished. In so far as he is punished the demand is made that he shall see that he is punishedjustly and, if he sees this, although he may wish to be freed from the punishment as an externalsuffering yet, in so far as he concedes that he is justly punished, his Universal Will approves of thepunishment.

19. The Will-of-Choice [Arbitrariness] is freedom, but only formal freedom or freedom in so far asone’s Will relates to something limited. Two aspects must here be distinguished: (a) in how far theWill does not remain identical with itself in it and (b) in how far it does remain so.

(a) In so far as the Will wills something it has a determined, limited content. It is, in so far, non-identical with itself because it is here actually determined, although in-and-for-itself it isundetermined. The limited content which it has taken up is therefore something else than it itself; e.g.if I will to go or to see, I become a going or a seeing one. I thus enter a relation not identical tomyself, since the going and seeing is something limited and not identical with the Ego.

(b) But in relation to the Form I stand in identity with myself or am free still, since I, all the while,distinguish this state of determination from myself as something alien, for the acts of going andseeing are not posited in me by nature but by myself in my own will. In so far as this is the case it isevidently no alien affair because it is made my own and I have my own will in it.

This freedom is only formal freedom because, together with my self-identity, there is present also, atthe same time, non-identity with myself or, in other words, there is a limited content in the Ego.When in common life we speak of freedom, we ordinarily understand, under the expression caprice orrelative freedom, the liberty to do or to refrain from doing something or other. In the limited Will wecan have formal freedom in so far as we distinguish the particular content of our Will from ourselvesor reflect upon it, that is, in so far as we are also beyond and above it. If we are in a passion or if we



act through a natural impulse we have no formal freedom. Since our Ego, in this emotion, gives itselfup wholly it seems to us to be something unlimited [or infinite]. Our Ego is not out[side] of it anddoes not separate itself from it.

20. The Absolute Free Will distinguishes itself from the Relatively Free Will or Will-of-Choice[Arbitrariness] through this: the Absolute Will has only itself for object, while the Relative Will hassomething limited. With the Relative Will, with, for example, the appetite, the object of that Will [itscontent] is all that concerns it. But the Absolute [Will] must be carefully distinguished fromWilfulness. The latter has this in common with the Absolute Will: that it concerns itself not merelywith the object but also with the will as Will, insisting that its will as such shall be respected. Adistinction is here to be made. The stubborn [wilful] man insists on his will simply because it is hiswill, without offering a rational ground for it, i.e. without showing his will to have general validity.While strength of will is necessary, such as holds unwaveringly by a rational purpose, on the otherhand mere stubbornness, such as arises from idiosyncrasy and is repulsive toward others, is to bedetested. The true Free Will has no contingent content. It alone is not contingent.

21. The Pure Will has nothing to do with particularity. In so far as particularity comes into the Will itis Arbitrariness, for Arbitrariness has a limited interest and takes its determinations from naturalimpulses and inclinations. Such a content is a given one and is not posited absolutely through the will.The fundamental principle of the Will is, therefore, that its freedom be established and preserved.Besides this it has indeed many different kinds of determinations: it has a variety of definite purposes,regulations, conditions, etc., but these are not purposes of the Will in-and-for-itself. Still they arepurposes for the reason that they are means and conditions for the realization of the freedom of theWill, which [realization] demands regulations and laws for the purpose of restraining caprice andinclination or mere ‘good pleasure’. In a word, the impulses and appetites which relate to mere naturalends, e.g. Education, has for its end the elevation of man to an independent state of existence: i.e. tothat existence wherein he is a Free Will. On this view many restraints are imposed upon the desiresand likings of children. They must learn to obey and consequently to annul their mere individual orparticular wills and, moreover, [to annul also] to this end their sensuous inclinations and appetitesthat, by this means, their Will may become free.

22. Firstly, Man is a free being. This constitutes the fundamental characteristic of his nature.Nevertheless, besides freedom he has other necessary wants, special purposes and impulses, e.g. theimpulse for knowledge, for the preservation of his life, health, etc. In these special determinationsLaw has not man as such for its object. It has not the design to further him in the pursuit of the sameor to afford him special help therein.

Secondly, Law does not depend upon one’s motives. One may do something with the best ofintentions and yet the deed be not lawful and just for all this but wrong. On the other hand an act, forexample the maintenance of my property, may be perfectly lawful and yet I have a bad motive since Imay have sought not what was just and lawful but the injury of another. Upon Law as such theintention or motive has no influence.

Thirdly, it is not a matter of conviction as to whether that which I perform is right or wrong. Thisholds particularly with regard to punishment. Although an effort is made to convince the criminal thathe has violated what is Law, yet his conviction or non-conviction has no influence on the justice that



is meted out to him.

Finally, Law pays no regard to the disposition or sentiment under whose influence anything is done.It very often happens that one does what is right merely through fear of punishment or fear ofunpleasant consequences, such, for instance, as the loss of reputation or credit. Or it happens that onedoes right from the conviction that he will be rewarded in another life. Law, however, as such, isindependent of these sentiments and convictions.

23. Law must be distinguished from Morality. Something may be well enough from a legal point ofview which is not allowable from a moral point of view. The Law grants me the disposition of myproperty without determining how I shall dispose of it, but Morality contains determinations whichrestrain me in this respect. It may seem as though Morality permitted many things which the Lawdoes not, but Morality demands not merely the observance of Justice towards others but requires alsothat the disposition to do right shall be present, that the law shall be respected as Law. Moralitydemands first that the legal right shall be obeyed and where it ceases enters moral determination.

In order that an act may have moral value Insight is necessary into its nature [as to] whether it beright or wrong, good or evil. What one terms the innocence of children or of uncivilized nations is notyet Morality. Children or such uncivilized nations escape the commission of a multitude of bad actsbecause they have no ideas of them: i.e. because the essential relations are not yet extant under whichalone such deeds are possible. Such non-committal of evil acts has no moral value. But they doperform acts which are not in accordance with Morality and yet, for the reason that no insight existsinto their nature [as to] whether they are good or bad, they are not strictly Moral acts.

Private conviction stands opposed to the mere faith in the authority of another. If my act is to havemoral value my conviction must enter into the act. The act must be mine in a whole sense. If I act onthe authority of another my act is not fully my own; it is the act of an alien conviction in me.

There are, however, relations in which the moral aspect consists precisely in being obedient andacting according to the authority of another. Originally man followed his natural inclinations withoutreflection or else with reflections that were one-sided, wrong, unjust and under the dominion of thesenses. In this condition the best thing for him was to learn to obey, for the reason that his will wasnot yet a rational one. Through this obedience the negative advantage is gained that he learns torenounce his sensuous appetites and only through such obedience can man attain to independence andfreedom. In this sphere he always follows another, whether it be his own will, still immersed in thesenses, or whether it be the will of another. As a natural creature he stands under the dominion ofexternal things and his inclinations and appetites are something immediate [and] not free or somethingalien to his true will. The one who is obedient to the Law of Reason is obedient from the point of viewof his unessential nature only, which stands under the dominion of that which is alien to him. On theother hand he is independent self-determination, for this Law has its root in his essence.

The Disposition [Gesinnung] is thus in the moral realm an essential element. It consists in this: thatone does his duty for its own sake. It is, therefore, an immoral motive to do anything out of fear ofpunishment or in order to preserve another’s good opinion. This is a heterogeneous motive, for it isnot from the nature of the thing itself. In such a case one does not consider the Law as something in-and-for-itself but as dependent upon external determinations.



Yet the consideration whether an action is to be punished or rewarded, although the consequences donot constitute the value of a deed, is of importance. The consequences of a good act may sometimesinvolve much that is evil and, on the contrary, an evil act involve much good. The thinking upon theconsequences of an act is important, for the reason that one does not remain standing by an immediatepoint of view but proceeds beyond it. Through its manifold consideration one is led to the nature ofActs.

According to the standpoint of Law man is his own object as an absolutely free existence; accordingto the moral standpoint on the contrary he is self-object, an individual in his special existence, amember of the family, a friend, a particular character, etc. If the external circumstances in which oneman stands with another are so situated that he fulfils his vocation, that is his Fortune. This well-beingdepends partly on his own will and partly upon external circumstances and other men. Morality has,also, the particular existence or well-being of man for its object and demands not only that man be leftin his abstract freedom but that his happiness be promoted. Well-being, as the adaptation of theexternal to our internal being, we call Pleasure. Happiness is not a mere individual pleasure but anenduring condition [which is] in part the actual Pleasure itself [and], in part also, the circumstancesand means through which one always has, at will, the ability to create a state of comfort and pleasurefor himself. The latter form is the pleasure of the mind. In Happiness, however, as in Pleasure, therelies the idea of good fortune [good luck]: that it is an accidental matter whether or no the externalcircumstances agree with the internal determinations of the desires. Blessedness, on the contrary,consists in this: that no fortune [luck] pertains to it: i.e. that in it the agreement of the externalexistence with the internal desire is not accidental. Blessedness can be predicated only of God, inwhom willing and accomplishment of his absolute power is the same. For man, however, the harmonyof the external with his internal is limited and contingent. In this he is dependent.

24. The Moral Will, in regard to its disposition and conviction, is imperfect. It is a Will which aimsat perfection but (a) is driven towards the attainment of the same through the impulses ofsensuousness and individuality and (b) has not the adequate means in its power and is, therefore,limited to bringing about the good of others.

In Religion, on the contrary, we consider the Divine Being the perfection of the Will, according to itstwo aspects, namely [a] the perfection of the disposition which no longer has any alien impulseswithin and [b] the perfection of the power to attain holy ends [or purposes].








Outlines of the Science of Laws, Morals and Religion

First Part. Science of LawFirst Part. Science of Law

1. Law must be considered:

(1) in its Essence,(2) in its Actual Existence in Political Society.

Chapter 1Law

2. According to Law the Universal Will should have full sway without regard to what may be theintention or conviction of the individual. Law applies to man only in so far as he is a wholly freebeing.

3. Law consists in this; that each individual be respected and treated by the other as a free being; foronly under this condition can the free Will have itself as object and content in the other.

Explanatory: The freedom of the individual lies at the basis of Law and the Law consists in this:that I treat the other as a free being. Reason demands lawful behaviour. Essentially, every man is afree being. Men differ from each other in their special conditions and peculiarities but thisdifference does not concern the Abstract Will as such. In the Abstract Will all are the same andwhen a man respects another he respects himself. It follows that by the violation of the rights of oneindividual the rights of all are violated. This sympathy with others is quite a different thing fromthe sympathy which one feels at another’s misfortune. For, although the injury or loss which a mansuffers in gifts of fortune (which gifts though desirable are not in themselves essential) concernsme, yet I cannot say that it absolutely ought not to have happened. Such misfortunes belong to theparticularity of man. In all our sympathy we separate misfortunes from ourselves and look uponthem as something apart from us. On the other hand, at the infringement of another’s rights eachone feels himself attacked, because Law is something universal. Hence a violation of the Lawcannot be looked upon as something foreign [fremdes]. We ourselves feel such an infringement allthe more, for the Law is necessary.

4. In so far as each man is recognized and acknowledged as a free being, he is a Person. Theproposition of the Law is therefore to be expressed thus: Each should be treated by the other as aPerson.

Explanatory: The concept of Personality includes in itself selfhood or individuality which is freeor universal. People have Personality through their spiritual nature.

5. It follows, hence, that no man can justly be compelled except for the purpose of annulling theconstraint which he has placed upon others.



Explanatory: There are limitations of freedom and law which permit people to be treated not aspersons but as chattels, e.g. the laws which permit slavery. These are, however, only positive lawsor rights, which are opposed to Reason or Absolute Right.

6. That action which limits the freedom of another or does not acknowledge and treat him as a freewill is illegal.

Explanatory: In an absolute sense no constraint is possible against man because he is a freebeing and can assert his will against necessity and can give up all that belongs to his existence.Constraint takes place when some condition is attached to a man’s existence in such a way that, ifhe would maintain his existence, he must submit to the condition. Since man’s existence isdependent upon external objects, in that respect, he is liable to alien interferences. Man is externallyconstrained only when he wills something which involves another; it depends upon his will whetherhe will have one and with it the other or neither of them. The external constraint, of course,depends upon his will, that is, in how far he places himself under it. Hence the external constraint isonly relative. It is legal constraint when it is exercised for the purpose of enforcing justice againstthe individual. This species of constraint has an aspect according to which it is not a constraint anddoes not contradict the dignity of a free being, for the reason that the Will in-and-for-itself is alsothe Absolute Will of each individual. Freedom is not found where the arbitrary will or caprice of theindividual [dominates] but where Law prevails.

7. Permitted, but not for this reason commanded, is the legal aspect of all actions that do not limit thefreedom of another or annul another’s act.

Explanatory: The Law contains properly only prohibitions and no commandments. What is notexpressly forbidden is allowed. Of course legal prohibitions can be positively expressed ascommands, as for instance: ‘Thou shalt keep thy contract.’ The general legal principle, of which allothers are only special applications, reads thus: ‘Thou shalt leave undisturbed the property ofanother.’ This does not require anything positive to be done or a change of circumstances to beproduced but requires only the abstention from the violation of property. When, therefore, the Lawis expressed as a positive command, this is only a form of expression, the content of which isalways based on a prohibition.

8. The Will, when it subsumes a thing under itself, makes it its own. Possession is the subsumption ofa thing under my will.

Explanatory: To the subsumption of something there belong two parts: one universal and theother individual. I subsume something individual when I attribute to it a universal determination.This subsumption occurs in the Act of Judgment. In the Judgment that which subsumes is thePredicate and that which is subsumed is the Subject. The ‘act of taking possession’ is the expressionof the Judgment that a thing becomes mine. Here my will is that which subsumes. I give to the thingthe predicate that it is mine. The will is the subsuming activity for all external things, since it is initself the universal essence. All things which are however, not self-related are only necessitated andnot free. This fact gives man the right to take possession of all external things and to make of themsomething different from what they are. In doing so he treats them only in conformity with theiressence.

9. (1) The thing which one takes possession of for the first time must be res nullius, i.e. not already



subsumed under another will.

Explanatory: A thing which already belongs to another cannot be taken possession of by me, notbecause it is a chattel, but because it is his chattel. For were I to take possession of the chattel Iwould then annul its predicate to be his and thereby negate his will. The Will is something absoluteand I cannot make it something negative.

10. (2) Property must be openly taken possession of [ergiffen], that is, it must be made known toothers that I will to subsume this object under my will, be it through physical seizure [korperlicheErgreifung] or through transformation [Formierung] or at least by designation of the object.

Explanatory: The external seizure must be preceded by the internal act of the will whichexpresses that the thing is to be mine. The first kind of appropriation is that of Physical Seizure. Ithas this defect, that the objects to be seized must be so constituted that I can take hold of them withthe hand or cover them with my body and, furthermore, that the appropriation is not [a] permanent[one]. The second, more complete kind of appropriation, is that of Transforming [Formierung] athing, as for example cultivating a field [and] making gold into a cup. In this case the form of whatis mine is directly connected with the object and is, therefore, in and for itself a sign that thematerial also belongs to me. To this kind [of taking possession] belongs, among other things, theplanting of trees [and the] taming and feeding of animals. An imperfect form of property in land isthe use of a territory without its cultivation; e.g. when nomadic peoples use territory for pasturage,hunters for hunting grounds [and] fishermen the sea coast or river bank for their purposes. Such anappropriation is still superficial because the actual use is only a temporary one [and] not apermanent form of possession closely attached to the object. Appropriation by merely Designationof the object is imperfect. That designation which does not, as in an improvement, constitute theessential nature of the thing is a mere external affair; what meaning it has is more or less foreign toits own essence but it also has, as well, a meaning peculiarly it own which is not connected with thenature of the thing designated. The designation is thus arbitrary. It is more or less a matter ofconvenience what the designation of a thing shall be.

11. A Possession becomes Property or a Legal [Possession] when it is acknowledged by everyoneelse that the thing which I have made mine is mine, just as I acknowledge the Property of others astheirs. My possession is acknowledged for the reason that it is an act of the free will, which issomething absolute in itself [and] in which lies the universal [condition] that I regard the will ofothers as something absolute.

Explanatory: Possession and Property are two different determinations. It is not necessary thatPossession and Property be always connected. It is possible for me to have Property without beingin Possession of it. When, for example, I lend something to another the property still remains minethough I part with the possession of it. Possession and Property are implied in the concept that Ihave Dominium [i.e. control or dominion] over something. Property is the legal side of theDominium and Possession is only the external side, namely that something is in my power. Thelegal right is the side of my absolute free will which has declared something to be someone else’s.This will must be acknowledged by others because it is in-and-for-itself and, in so far as the alreadystated conditions have been observed. Property has, therefore, an internal and an external side. Thelatter, by itself, is the Appropriation, the former is the Act of Will which must be acknowledged assuch. It seems contingent or arbitrary whether the acknowledgement of others should be added tothe fact of taking possession. This is necessary, however, for it lies in the nature of the transaction.



Acknowledgement is not based on reciprocity. I do not acknowledge your right because youacknowledge mine, nor vice versa, but the ground of this reciprocal acknowledgement is the natureof the transaction itself. I acknowledge the will of others because the will is to be acknowledgedabsolutely.

12. I can Dispose of [or Alienate] [entaussern] my property, and it can become the property ofanother, through an act of my free will.

Explanatory: My Powers and Skills are my property in the most peculiar sense, but they havealso an external aspect. Abstractly considered they are external, [that is] in so far as I candistinguish them from myself, the simple Ego. But also in themselves Powers and Skills are singleand limited and they do not constitute my essence. My essence, the intrinsic universal, is distinctfrom these particular determinations. Finally, they are external in their use. In the very act of usingthem I convert them to an external form and the product is some external existence. Power, as such,does not lie in the use thereof but preserves itself notwithstanding that it is externalized and thatthis, its externalization, has made it a separate existence. This expression of Power is also anexternality in so far as it is something limited and finite. In so far as something is my property Ihave connected it with my will but this connection is not absolute. For if it were my will wouldnecessarily be involved. But I have, in this case, only particularized my will and, because it is free,can overcome this particularity.

13. Those possessions are inalienable which are not so much my property as they are constituentelements of my innermost person or essence; such, for example, as the freedom of the will, ethicallaw, religion, etc.

Explanatory: Only those possessions are alienable which already, by their nature, are of anexternal character. Personality, for example, cannot be viewed as external to me, for in so far as aman has given up his personality he has reduced himself to a thing. But such an alienation wouldbe null and void. For instance, a man would alienate his ethical nature [Sittlichkeit] were he to bindhimself to another to perform all manner of acts, crimes as well as [morally] indifferent acts. Butsuch a bond would have no binding force because it alienates the freedom of the will and, in thelatter, each one must stand for himself. Right or wrong acts belong to him who commits them and,because they are so constituted, I cannot alienate them. Nor can I alienate my religion. If a religiouscommunity, or even an individual, leaves it for a third party to determine what shall constitute itsfaith, such an obligation could be set aside by either party. No wrong at least could be done to theparty with whom the agreement had been made because what I have given over to him could neverbecome his property.

14. On the other hand, I can alienate the specific use of my mental and bodily energies as well as thechattel which I may possess.

Explanatory: One can alienate only a limited use of his powers, since this use, or thecircumscribed effect, is distinct from the Power itself. But the permanent use, or the effect in itsentire extent, cannot be distinguished from the Power in-itself. The Power is the inner or universal,as opposed to its expression. The expressions are an existence in time and space. The Power in-itself is not exhausted in such a single existence and is, moreover, not tied to one of its contingenteffects. But, secondly, the Power must act and express itself, otherwise it is not a power. Thirdly,the entire extent of its effects is again, itself, the universal which the Power is. For this reason man



cannot alienate the entire use of his powers; he would, in so doing, alienate his personality.

15. An alienation to another involves my consent to resign the property to him, and his consent toaccept it. This twofold consent, in so far as it is reciprocally declared and expressed as valid, is calledContract (Pactum).

Explanatory: Contract is a special mode by which one becomes the owner of property whichalready belongs to another. The mode, already explained, of becoming an owner was that ofimmediate appropriation of some thing that was res nullius.

(1) The simplest form of contract is the Gift-Contract: in this only one of the parties gives and anotherreceives, no equivalent being returned. A valid donation is a Contract because the wills of both partiesmust be involved: the one willing to resign the property to the other without receiving an equivalentthereof and the other being willing to receive the property.

(2) The Exchange-Contract, [or] Barter, consists in this: I give something to another on condition thathe gives something of equivalent value [to me]. To this belongs the twofold consent on the part ofeach: to give something to and to receive something from the other.

(3) Buying and Selling is a particular kind of exchange, that of goods for money. Money is theuniversal form of goods; hence, as abstract value, it cannot itself be used for the purpose of satisfyinga particular want. It is only the universal means by which to satisfy particular needs. The use ofmoney is only a mediated one. A material is not in-and-for-itself Money because it possesses such andsuch qualities but it becomes Money only by general agreement.

(4) Rent consists in this: that I grant to someone my possession or the use of my property while Ireserve the ownership to myself. There are two cases: it may happen that the one to whom I haveleased something is bound to return the same identical thing or that I have reserved the right toproperty the same in kind and amount or of equal value.

16. The declaration of will contained in the contract is not sufficient to complete the transfer of myproperty or labour to another. This transfer, on the basis of the contract, is Performance.

Explanatory: My promise in the contract contains the acknowledgement on my part that I haveparted with the title to the property and that the other party has acquired title to the same. The pieceof property becomes immediately the property of another through the contract in so far as it had itsground in my will. But, if I do not also place the other party in possession in accordance with thecontract, to that extent I despoil him of his property. I am therefore bound by the contract to givepossession. (Treat here of acquisition by Testament.)

17. An Encroachment [Trespass] upon the sphere of my freedom by another may occur (a) throughhis having my property in his possession as his own; i.e. through his claiming it on the ground thathe has the right to it and acknowledging, at the same time, that if I, instead of himself, had the right toit he would surrender it to me. In this he respects Law as such and only asserts that in this instance itis on his side, (b) His action may imply that he does not recognize my will at all and consequentlyviolates the law as Law.

Explanatory: The ideas which we have been considering contain the nature of legality, its laws,



and its necessity. But Law is not ‘necessary’ in the sense that necessity is used when speaking ofphysical nature, e.g. the necessity which holds the sun in its place. A flower must wholly conformto its nature. If it, for example, does not complete its growth this comes from the intervention ofsome external influence, not from itself. Spirit, on the contrary, by reason of its freedom, can act incontravention of the laws. Thus there can be contravention of Law itself. A distinction must here bemade between (a) Universal Law, Law qua Law, and (b) Particular Law as it relates to the rights ofan individual person in a particular matter.

The Universal Law is that [concept] through which everybody, independent of his or her property, is alegal person. A contravention of the law may take the shape of a mere refusal to concede to anindividual some particular right, or some particular piece of property. In this case, the Universal Lawis not violated. One stands in relation to his opponent as a legal person. Such a Judgment can beregarded as a merely negative one in which the particular is denied in the predicate, as for example,when I assert ‘This stove is not green’, I negate merely the predicate of greenness but not thereby allpredicates. In the second case of a contravention of the law I assert not only that a particular thing isthe property of another but I deny also that he is a legal person. I do not treat him as a person. I do notlay claim to something on the ground that I have a right to it or believe that I have; I violate the law asLaw. Such a Judgment belongs to the kind of Judgment called ‘infinite’. The infinite Judgmentnegates not only the particular but also the universal of the predicate; e.g. ‘This stove is not a whale’or ‘it is not memory.’ Since not only the particular but also the universal of the predicate is negatednothing remains for the subject. Such Judgments are therefore absurd, though correct in form. So,likewise, the violation of law as Law is something possible, and indeed also happens, but it is absurdand self-contradictory. Cases of the first kind come under the Civil Law, those of the second kindunder the Criminal Law.

18. In the first case [Civil Law] the mere explication of the legal grounds is all that is necessary toshow to whom the contested particular right belongs. But for the decision of the case between the twocontending parties a third party is necessary, one who is free from all interest in the matter, in order tosee that the Law as such is carried out.

Explanatory: Under the first case come, therefore, civil disputes. In these the right of another iscalled into question but on the basis of Law. The two contending parties agree in this, that theyrecognize the law as Law. The possession is to be given only to him who has the lawful right andnot to the one who has influence, power, or is more deserving. The parties differ only in regard tothe subsumption of the particular or of the universal. Hence it follows that there is no personal ill-will between the judge and the parties in dispute, either towards the judge by the dissatisfied partyor on the part of the judge towards the party whose legal right he has denied. Since no attack is heremade against the person, it follows that the party who has illegally seized the property of the otheris not punished.

19. The second case [Criminal Law], on the other hand, concerns the violation of my personalexternal freedom, of my life and limb or even of my property, by violence.

Explanatory: The second case concerns the illegal deprivation of my freedom by imprisonmentor slavery. I am deprived of natural external freedom when I cannot go where I want to go and [by]similar restrictions. [This case] also includes injury to my life and limb. This is much moreimportant than robbing me of my property. Although life and limb, like property, is something



external, my personality is also injured, since in my body is my immediate feeling of self.

20. The constraint which is effected by such an act must not only be removed, i.e. the internalnugatoriness of such an act be exhibited only negatively, but there must be a positive restitution made.(The form of rationality in general must be made valid against it, the universality or equality restored.)Since the perpetrator is a rational being his action implies that it is something universal. ‘If youdespoil another, you despoil yourself: if you kill anyone then you kill all and yourself. The action is alaw which you set up and, in your deed, you have fully recognized its validity.’ The perpetrator maytherefore himself be subjected to the same form of treatment as that which he has meted out and, in sofar, the equality that he has violated may again be restored (Jus talionis).

Explanatory. Retaliation is based on the rational nature of the wrong-doer [and] it consists inthis: that the unlawful act must be converted into a lawful one. The unlawful action is indeed asingle irrational action. But, since it is performed by a rational being, it is, according to form thoughnot according to content, rational and universal. Furthermore, it is to be considered as a principle oras Law. But, as such, it is valid only for the one who committed it because he alone recognizes it byhis action and no one else. He himself, therefore, is essentially subject to this principle or ‘Law’ andit must be carried out upon him. The injustice which he has done is lawful when visited [back] uponhim because through this second action, which he has recognized, equality is restored. This ismerely formal justice.

21. The Retaliation, however, ought not to be meted out by the injured party or by his relatives,because with them the general regard for Law is bound up at the same time with the contingency ofthe passions. Retaliation must be lawfully administered by a third party who merely makes valid andexecutes the universal. In so far it is Punishment.

Explanatory: The difference between Revenge and Punishment is that Revenge is Retaliation inso far as it is carried out by the injured party; Punishment is administered by the judge. Retaliationmust be carried out in the form of Punishment because, in the case of revenge, passion has aninfluence and justice is spoilt by it. Moreover, revenge has the form not of Law but of caprice, sincethe injured party always acts under the impulse of feeling or of subjective motives. On this accountjustice, administered as revenge, constitutes a new offence and is felt only as an individual deed andperpetuates itself unreconciled ad infinitum.

Chapter 2 Political Society

22. The concept of Law, as the power which holds sway independently of the motives of theindividual, has its actualization only in Political Society.

23. The Family is the natural society whose members are united through love, trust and naturalobedience (pietas).

Explanatory: The Family is a natural society, firstly, because one does not belong to the familythrough his free act but through nature, and secondly, because the relations and the behaviour of themembers of a family toward each other rest not so much upon reflection and deliberate choice butupon feeling and impulse. The relations are necessary and rational but there is lacking the form of



conscious deliberation. It is more akin to instinct. The love of the family circle rests upon the factthat each Ego constitutes a unity with the other Egos. They do not regard each other as independentindividuals. The family is an organic whole. The parts are, properly speaking, not parts butmembers which have their substance only in the whole and which lack independence whenseparated from the whole. The confidence which the different members of the family repose in eachother consists in this: that each does not seek his own interest apart from the rest but only thecommon interest of the whole. The natural obedience within the family rests upon the circumstancethat in this whole there is only one will: that, namely, of the head of the family. In so far the familyconstitutes only one person. (Nation)

24. The State is human society governed by legal relationships in which all count as persons and noton the basis of particular natural relations which arise from natural inclinations and feelings. Thepersonality of each is respected as a matter of course. If a family has expanded into a nation, and theState and the nation coincide, this is a great good fortune.

Explanatory: A people is knit together by language, manners, customs and culture. Thisconnection, however, is not sufficient to form a State. Besides these the morality, religion,prosperity and wealth of all its citizens are very important things for the State. It must care for thepromotion of these conditions but even they do not constitute for it the immediate object of itsexistence, which is to secure the actualization of Law.

25. The natural condition is the condition of barbarism, of violence and injustice. Man must issueforth from such condition into that of political society because in the latter alone the legal relation hasactuality.

Explanatory: The State of Nature is frequently depicted as the perfect state of man both as tohappiness and ethical development. In the first place it is to be remarked that innocence, as such,has no moral value, in so far as it consists in mere unconsciousness of evil and rests upon theabsence of those needs and wants which promote the existence of evil. Secondly, this state of natureis rather one of violence and injustice, for the precise reason that men in this state act towards eachother according to their natures. But in this they are unequal, both in regard to bodily power and inmental endowments, and they make these differences felt, one against the other, through bruteviolence and cunning. Although reason exists in the state of nature it is there subordinate to nature.Man must, therefore, pass over from this state to one in which the rational will has sway.

26. Law is the abstract expression of the Universal Will that exists in-and-for-itself.

Explanatory: Law is the General Will in so far as it accords with Reason. This does not meanthat each individual shall have found this will in himself or be conscious of it. Moreover, it is notnecessary that each individual shall have declared his will and from this a universal result has beenobtained. That is why in actual history it has not happened that each individual citizen of a peoplehas proposed a law and then that all have agreed to it by a common vote. Law contains the necessityof mutual legal relationships. The legislators have not given arbitrary prescriptions. They haveprescribed not the product of their particular likes and dislikes but what they have recognizedthrough their incisive minds as the truth and essence of what is just and right.

27. Government is the individuality of Will that is rationally determined. It is the power to make thelaws and to administer or execute them.



Explanatory: The State has laws. These are the Will in its general abstract essence which is, assuch, inactive; just as principles and maxims express or contain at first only the general nature ofthe will and not an actual will. To these generalities only the Government is the active andactualizing will. Law has indeed an existence as manners and customs but Government is theconscious power of unconscious custom.

28. The general power of the State contains sundry particular powers subsumed under it:

1. The Legislative as such;

2. The Administrative and Financial, the power of creating the means for theactualization of its freedom;

3. The [independent] Judiciary and Police [or the Public Authority];

4. The Military, and the power to Wage War and Make Peace.

Explanatory: The form of the constitution is determined principally by the question whetherthese particular powers are exercised directly by the central government and, moreover, whetherseveral of them are united in one authority or are separated: i.e. whether the prince or regent himselfadministers the laws or whether particular, special courts are established for this purpose andwhether the regency also exercises the ecclesiastical power, etc. It is also an important distinction tonote whether in a constitution the highest central power of the government has the financial powerin its hands without restriction, so that it can levy taxes and spend them quite arbitrarily andwhether several authorities are combined in one, e.g. whether the judicial and the military power areunited in one official. The form of a constitution is, furthermore, essentially determined through thecircumstance whether or not all citizens, in so far as they are citizens, have a part in thegovernment. Such a constitution as permits this general participation is called a Democracy. Thedegenerate form of a Democracy is called an Ochlocracy or mob rule, when, namely, that part ofthe people who have no property and are not disposed to deal justly prevent, by violent means, thelaw-abiding citizens from carrying out the business of the State. Only in the case of simple,uncorrupted ethical principles, and in states of small territorial extent, can a Democracy exist andflourish. Aristocracy is the constitution in which only certain privileged families have the exclusiveright to rule. The degenerate form thereof is an Oligarchy, when, namely, the number of familieswho belong to the governing class is small. Such a condition of affairs is dangerous because in anOligarchy all particular powers are directly exercised by a council. Monarchy is the constitution inwhich the government is in the hands of one individual and remains hereditary in his family. In aHereditary Monarchy conflicts and civil wars, such as are liable to happen in an elective kingdomwhen a change of the occupancy of the throne takes place, vanish because the ambition of powerfulindividuals cannot, in that case, lead them to aspire to the throne. Moreover, the entire power of thegovernment is not vested immediately in the Monarch but a portion of it is vested in the specialMinistries (Bureaus) [and/]or also in the Estates which, in the name of the king and under hissupervision and direction, exercise the power entrusted to them by law. In a Monarchy civilfreedom is protected to a greater degree than under other constitutions. The degenerate form of aMonarchy is Despotism, wherein, namely, the ruler directly governs according to his caprice. It isessential in a Monarchy that the government have appropriate powers to hold in check the privateinterests of the individual but, on the other hand, the rights of the citizens must be protected by law.A Despotic government has indeed absolute power but in such a constitution the rights of the



citizen are sacrificed. The Despot has indeed supreme power and can use the forces of his realmarbitrarily; herein lies the greatest danger. The form of government of a people is not merely anexternal affair. A people can have one form just as well as another. It depends essentially upon thecharacter, manners and customs, degree of culture, its way of life, and the territorial extent [of thenation].

29. The citizens, as individuals, are subordinated to the power of the State and must obey the same.The content and object of the political power is the actualization of the natural, that is, absolute, rightsof the citizens. None of these rights is renounced or given up to the State but they are rather onlyenjoyed in their full employment and cultivation in the State.

30. The constitution of the State defined as the Internal Political Law is the relationship of theparticular powers not only to the central administration, their highest unity, but to each other, as wellas the relation of the citizens to them or their participation therein.

International Law concerns the relation of independent peoples to each other through theirgovernments and rests principally upon special Treaties (Jus Gentium).

Explanatory: States are found rather in a natural than in a legal relation towards each other.There is, therefore, a continual state of strife between them until they conclude Treaties with eachother and thereby enter into a legal relation towards each other. On the other hand, however, theyare quite absolute and independent of each other. The law is, therefore, not actually in forcebetween them. They can, therefore, break treaties in an arbitrary manner and, on this account, therealways remains a certain degree of distrust between them. As natural entities they behave towardseach other as external forces and, in order to maintain their rights, must, if needs be, wage war forthe purpose.






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Second Part. Science of Duties or Morals

32. Whatever can be demanded on the ground of Law is a Civil Obligation [Schuldigkeit] but, in sofar as moral grounds are to be observed, it is a Duty [Plicht].

Explanatory: The word Duty is frequently used of legal relationships. Legal Duties are definedas perfect and Moral Duties as imperfect because the former must be done, and have an externalnecessity, while the latter depend on a subjective will. But one might, with good reason, invert thisclassification in as much as the Legal Duty as such demands only an external necessity, in whichthe disposition is not taken into account, or in which I may even have a bad motive. On thecontrary, for a Moral Duty both are demanded, the right deed as regards its content and, likewiseaccording to form, the subjective side, the Good Intention.

33. Law, in general, leaves the disposition out of consideration. Morality, on the other hand, isconcerned essentially with the intention and demands that the deed should be done out of simpleregard [Achtung] for Duty. So too the legally right conduct is moral in so far as its moving principleis the regard for the right.

34. The Disposition is the subjective side of the moral deed or the form of the same. There is in it asyet no content present but the content is as essential as the actual performance.

Explanatory: With legally right conduct the moral aspect should also be essentially connected. Itmay, however, be the case that with legally right action there is no sentiment of Law present; nay,more, that an immoral intent may accompany it. The legally right act, in so far as it is done out ofregard for the Law, is, at the same time, also moral. The legally right action, associated at the sametime with a moral disposition, is to be carried out unconditionally before there can be room for themoral action in which there is no legal command, that is, legal obligation. Men are very ready to actfrom a merely moral ground, for example, to give away with an air of generosity rather than paytheir honest debts; for in a generous action they congratulate themselves on account of a specialperfection, while, on the contrary, in the performance of just action they would only perform thecompletely universal act which makes them equal with all.

Everything Actual contains two aspects: the true Concept and the Reality of this Concept: forexample, the concept of the State is the guarantee and actualization of justice. To the reality belongthe special regulations of the constitution, the relation of the individual powers to each other, etc. Tothe actual man belong also, even on his practical side, the concept and the reality of the concept. Tothe former belongs pure personality, or abstract freedom, to the latter, the particular determination ofexistence and existence itself. Although there is in this something more than is contained in theconcept, yet this must also be in conformity to the concept and determined by it. The pure concept ofpractical existence, the Ego, is the object of Law.

35. Moral action refers to man not as an abstract person but according to the universal and necessary



determinations of his particular determinate existence [Daseins]. The moral code therefore is notmerely prohibitory, as with the legal code, which only ordains that the freedom of another must be leftinviolate, but it ordains a positive course of action towards another. The prescriptions of Moralityrefer to individual actuality [i.e. to the concrete situations in which the individual may be placed].

36. Human impulse in respect of man’s particular determinate existence as considered by morality isdirected towards the harmony of the outer world with his internal determinations, to the production ofPleasure and Happiness.

Explanatory: Man has impulses, i.e. he has internal determinations in his nature or in that respectaccording to which he is simply an actual being. These determinations are therefore defective[imperfect] in as much as they are merely internal. They are impulses in so far as they are directedto the overcoming of this defect or want: i.e. they demand their realization, which is the harmony ofthe outer and inner. This harmony is Pleasure. It is preceded, therefore, by a reflection: acomparison between the inner and the outer, whether this proceeds from me or from good luck.Pleasure may spring from the most varied sources. It does not depend upon the content but concernsonly the form. In other words, it is the feeling of something merely formal, namely, of the givenharmony. The doctrine which makes Pleasure, or rather Happiness, its aim, has been calledEudaemonism. But that doctrine does not decide in what Pleasure or Happiness consists. Hence,there can be a coarse, crude Eudaemonism and a refined one, that is, both good and bad actions canbe based on this principle.

37. This harmony is, as Pleasure, a subjective feeling and something contingent, which can be linkedwith this or that impulse and its object and in which I regard myself only as a natural being and am anend only as a single individual.

Explanatory: Pleasure is something subjective and relates to me as a particular individual. Thereis in it nothing of an objective, universal, intelligible nature. On this account it is not a standard orrule whereby a thing is to be decided or judged. If I say that a thing pleases me, or if I appeal to mypleasure, I only express the relation of the thing to me and thereby ignore the relation I have toothers as a rational being. It is contingent as regards its content because it may attach to this or thatobject and, since it does not concern the content, it is something purely formal. Moreover,according to its external being. Pleasure is contingent, dependent upon circumstances. The meanswhich I use to attain it are external and do not depend upon me. But the thing that I have obtainedthrough the use of means, in so far as it is to add to my pleasure, must become for me, come to me.But this is a contingent affair. The consequences of what I do therefore, do not return to me. I havenot the enjoyment of them as a necessary consequence. Pleasure thus arises from two differentkinds of circumstances: firstly, from an existence which must be sought after and which dependsentirely upon good fortune, and secondly, upon a condition of being which I myself produce.Though this condition of things depends, as effect of my action, upon my will, yet only the act assuch belongs to me, hence the result does not necessarily return to me and, accordingly, theenjoyment of the act is contingent. In such an act as that of Decius Mus for his native country theeffect of the same could not come back to him as enjoyment. Results cannot be made the principleof action. The results of an action are contingent for the reason that they are an externality whichdepends upon other circumstances or may be annulled altogether.

Pleasure is a secondary affair merely concomitant of an act. When substantial purposes are realized,pleasure accompanies them in so far as one recognizes in his work his own subjective self.



Whosoever seeks Pleasure merely seeks his own self according to its accidental side. Whosoever isbusied with great works and interests strives only to bring about the realization of the object itself.He directs his attention to the substantial and does not think of himself but forgets himself in theobject. Men who perform great services, and have charge of great interests, are often commiseratedwith by people for having little pleasure, that is, for living only in the object and not in their ownaccidentality.

38. Reason annuls that indeterminateness which feels pleasure in mere objects, purifies the content ofour propensities from what is subjective and contingent, and teaches how to recognize what isuniversal and essentially the solely desirable and rather inculcates the disposition to do worthyactions for their own sake.

Explanatory: The Intellect or Reflection transcends in its activity all immediate pleasures butdoes not, by this, change its aim or guiding principle. It transcends single pleasures only in so far asto compare the impulses one with another and to prefer one over another. Since it aims not atpleasure in detail, but only on the whole, it aims at happiness. This reflection holds fast to thesphere of subjectivity and has pleasure for its end and aim, though in a larger, more comprehensivesense. Since it makes distinctions in pleasures and seeks the agreeable on all its different sides, itrefines the grossness, the untamed and merely animal element of pleasure and softens the customsand dispositions. In so far therefore as the understanding busies itself with satisfying the means, theneeds generally of gratification, it facilitates this gratification and attains the possibility of devotingitself to higher ends. On the other hand, this refinement of pleasures weakens man in as much as hedissipates his powers upon so many things and gives himself so many different aims, and thesegrow more and more insignificant in so far as their different sides are discriminated. Thus his poweris weakened and he becomes less capable of the concentration of his mind wholly upon one object.When man makes pleasure his object he annuls with such a resolution his impulse to transcendpleasure and do something higher.

Pleasure is indefinite in regard to content for the reason that it can be found in the pursuit of allsorts of objects. Therefore, the difference between pleasures is no objective one, but only aquantitative one. The Understanding, which takes account of results only, prefers the greater to theless.

Reason, on the contrary, makes a qualitative distinction, i.e. a distinction in regard to content. Itprefers the worthy object of pleasure to the unworthy one. It therefore enters upon a comparison ofthe nature of objects. In so far it does not regard the subjective as such, i.e. the pleasant feeling,but rather the objective. It teaches, therefore, what kind of objects men should desiderate forthemselves. On account of the universality of his nature man has such an infinite variety of sourcesof pleasure open before him that the path to the agreeable is beset with illusions and he may beeasily led astray through this infinite variety itself: i.e. diverted from a purpose which he ought tomake his special object.

The urge for what is agreeable may harmonize with Reason, i.e. both may have the same content[and] reason may legitimate the content. The form of impulse is that of a subjective feeling or it hasfor its object the obtaining of what is pleasant for the subject. In dealing with a universal object theobject itself is the end and aim. On the other hand the desire for pleasure is always selfish.

39. Impulses and Inclinations are, considered by themselves, neither good nor bad; i.e. man has themdirectly from nature. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are moral predicates and pertain to the will. The Good is that



which corresponds to Reason. But Impulses and Inclinations cannot be considered apart from theirrelation to the will; this relation is not a contingent one and man is no indifferent twofold being.

Explanatory: Morality has for its object man in his particularity. This seems at first to containonly a multiplicity of peculiarities wherein men are unlike and differ from each other. Men differfrom each other in what is contingent or dependent on nature and external circumstances. In theparticular, however, there also dwells something universal. The particularity of a man consists in hisrelation to others. In this relation there are also essential and necessary determinations. Theseconstitute the content of Duty.

40. The first essential determination of man is his Individuality; [secondly], he belongs to a naturaltotality, the Family; [thirdly], he is a member of the State; [fourthly], he stands in relation to OtherMen in General. Consequently his duties are fourfold:

(1) Duties to Himself;(2) Duties to his Family;(3) Duties to the State;(4) Duties towards Other Men in General.

Duties of the Individual to Himself

41. Man, as an individual, stands in relation to himself. He has two aspects: his individuality and hisuniversal essence. His Duty to Himself consists partly in his duty to care for his physicalpreservation, partly in his duty to educate himself, to elevate his being as an individual intoconformity with his universal nature.

Explanatory: Man is, on the one hand, a natural being. As such he behaves according to capriceand accident as an inconstant, subjective being. He does not distinguish the essential from theunessential. Secondly, he is a spiritual, rational being and as such he is not by nature what heought to be. The animal stands in no need of education, for it is by nature what it ought to be. It isonly a natural being. But man has the task of bringing into harmony his two sides, of making hisindividuality conform to his rational side or of making the latter become his guiding principle. Forinstance, when man gives way to anger and acts blindly from passion he behaves in an uneducatedway because, in this, he takes an injury or affront for something of infinite importance and seeks tomake things even by injuring the transgressor in undue measure. It is a lack of education to attachoneself to an interest which does not concern him or in which he cannot accomplish anythingthrough his activity. For it is reasonable to engage one’s powers upon such an interest as is withinthe scope of one’s activity. Moreover, if a man becomes impatient under the regular course ofevents [Schicksals] and refuses to submit to the inevitable he elevates his particular interest to ahigher degree of importance than his relation to other men and the circumstances warrant.

42. To Theoretic Education there belong variety and definiteness of knowledge and the ability to seeobjects from points of view from which things are to be judged. In addition one should have a sensefor objects in their free independence without introducing a subjective interest.

Explanatory: Variety of knowledge in-and-for-itself belongs to education for the reason thatman, through this, elevates himself above the particular knowledge of insignificant things that



surround him to a universal knowledge through which he attains to a greater share in the commonstock of information valid for other men and comes into the possession of universally interestingobjects. When man goes out beyond his immediate knowledge and experience he learns that thereare better modes of behaviour and of treating things than his own and that his own are notnecessarily the only ones. He separates himself from himself and comes to distinguish the essentialfrom the unessential. Accuracy of information relates to essential distinctions, those distinctionswhich appertain to objects under all circumstances. Education implies the forming of an opinionregarding relations and objects of the actual world. For this it is requisite that one knows what thenature and the purpose of a thing is and what relations it has to other things. These points of vieware not immediately gained through sensuous intuition but through attentive study of the thing,through reflection on its purpose and essence, and of whether the means of realizing the same areadequate. The uneducated man remains in the state of simple sensuous intuition, his eyes are notopen and he does not see what lies at his very feet. With him it is all subjective seeing andapprehension. He does not see the essential thing. He knows only the nature of thingsapproximately and this never accurately, for it is only the knowledge of general points of view thatenables one to decide what is essential. They present the important aspects of things and contain theprincipal categories under which external existences are classified, and thus the work ofapprehending them is rendered easier and more accurate.

The opposite of not knowing how to judge is to make rash Judgments about everything withoutunderstanding them. Such rash judgments are based on partial views, in which one side is seizedand the others overlooked, so that the true concept of the thing is missed. An educated man knowsat once the limits of his capacity for Judgment. Moreover, there belongs to culture the sense forthe objective in its freedom. It consists in this: that I do not seek my special subjectivity in theobject but consider and treat the objects as they are in-and-for-themselves in their free idiosyncrasy:that I interest myself in them without seeking any gain for myself. Such an unselfish interest lies inthe study of the sciences when one cultivates them for themselves. The desire to make use ofnatural objects involves the destruction of those objects. The interest for the fine arts is also anunselfish one. Art exhibits things in their living independence and leaves out the imperfect and illformed and what has suffered from external circumstances. The objective treatment consists in this:that it has the form of the universal without caprice, whims or arbitrariness and is freed from whatis strange or peculiar, etc. and, if one’s aim is the genuine object itself and not a selfish interest, itmust be grasped in the inner essential nature.

43. Practical Education [Bildung] entails that man, in the gratification of his natural wants andimpulses, shall exhibit that prudence and temperance which lie in the limits of his necessity, namely,self-preservation. He must (a) stand away from and be free from the natural (b) on the other hand, beabsorbed in his avocation, in what is essential and therefore, (c) be able to confine his gratification ofthe natural wants not only within the limits of necessity but also to sacrifice the same for higherduties.

Explanatory: The freedom of man, as regards natural impulses, consists not in his being rid ofsuch impulses altogether and thus striving to escape from his nature but in his recognition of themas a necessity and as something rational; and in realizing them accordingly through his will, hefinds himself constrained only in so far as he creates for himself accidental and arbitraryimpressions and purposes in opposition to the Universal. The specific, accurate measure, to befollowed in the gratification of wants, and in the use of physical and spiritual powers, cannot beaccurately given but each can learn for himself what is useful or detrimental to him. Temperance in



the gratification of natural impulses and in the use of bodily powers is, as such, necessary to health.Health is an essential condition for the use of mental powers in fulfilling the higher vocation ofman. If the body is not preserved in its proper condition, if it is injured in any one of its functions,then it obliges its possessor to make of it a special object of his care and, by this means, it becomessomething dangerous, absorbing more than its due share of the attention of the mind.Furthermore, excess in the use or disuse of the physical or mental powers results in dullness anddebility.

Finally, moderation is closely connected with Prudence. The latter consists in reflecting on whatone is doing, so that in his enjoyment or work he is not wholly given up to this or that individualstate, but remains open to consider something else which may also be necessary. A prudent persondistinguishes himself mentally from his condition, his feeling, his occupation. This attitude of notbeing completely absorbed in one’s condition is on the whole requisite in the case of impulses andaims which though necessary are not essential. On the other hand, in the case of a genuine aim oroccupation, one’s mind must be present in all its earnestness and not at the same time be aloof fromit. Hence Prudence consists in being aware of all the details and aspects of the work.

44. As to what concerns one’s specific calling, which appears as Fate, this should not be thought ofin the form of an external necessity. It is to be taken up freely, and freely endured and pursued.

Explanatory: With regard to the external circumstances of his lot and all that he immediately is,a man must so conduct himself as to make it his own; he must deprive them of the form of externalexistence. It makes no difference in what external condition man finds himself through good or badfortune, provided that he is just and right in what he is and does, i.e. that he fulfils all sides of hiscalling. The Vocation of a man, whatever his condition in life may be, is a manifold substance. It is,as it were, a material or stuff which he must elaborate in every direction until it has nothing alien,brittle and refractory within it. In so far as he has made it perfectly his own for himself, he is freetherein. A man becomes the prey of discontentment chiefly through the circumstance that he doesnot fulfil his calling. He enters into a relation which he fails to assimilate thoroughly; at the sametime he belongs to this calling: he cannot free himself from it. He lives and acts, therefore, in anadverse relation to himself.

45. To be Faithful and Obedient in his vocation as well as submissive to his fate and self-denying inhis acts, these virtues have their ground in the giving up of vanity, self-conceit, and selfishness inregard to things that are in and for themselves necessary.

Explanatory: The Vocation is something universal and necessary, and constitutes a side of thesocial life of humanity. It is, therefore, one of the divisions of human labour. When a man has aVocation, he enters into cooperation and participation with the Whole. Through this he becomesobjective. The Vocation is a particular, limited sphere, yet it constitutes a necessary part of thewhole, and, besides this, is in-itself a whole. If a man is to become something he must know howto limit himself that is, make some speciality his Vocation. Then his work ceases to be an irksomerestraint to him. He then comes to be at unity with himself, with his externality, with his sphere. Heis a universal, a whole. Whenever a man makes something trifling, i.e. unessential or nugatory, hisobject and aim, then the interest lies not in an object as such, but in it as his object. The triflingobject is of no importance by itself, but has importance only to the person who busies himself withit. One sees in a trifling object only oneself; there can be, for example, a moral vanity, when a manthinks on the excellence of his acts and is more interested in himself than in the thing. The man who



does small things faithfully shows himself capable of greater ones, because he has shown hisobedience, his self-sacrifice in regard to his own wishes, inclinations and fancies.

46. Through intellectual and moral education a man receives the capacity for fulfilling duties towardothers, which duties may be called real duties since the duties which relate to his own education are,in comparison, of a more formal nature.

47. In so far as the performance of duties appears more as a subjective attribute of the individual, andto pertain chiefly to his natural character, it is properly called Virtue.

48. In as much as Virtue in part belongs to the natural character it appears as a peculiar species ofmorality and of greater vitality and intensity. It is at the same time not so closely connected with theconsciousness of duty as is Morality proper.

Duties to the Family

49. When a man is developed by education he has attained a capacity for practical action. In so far ashe does act he is necessarily brought into relation to others. The first necessary relation in which theindividual stands to others is that of the Family-relation. This indeed has a legal side but it issubordinated to the side of moral sentiment, that of love and confidence.

Explanatory: The Family constitutes essentially only one substance, only one person. Themembers of the family are not persons in their relation to each other. They enter such a relationfirst when by some calamity the moral bond is destroyed. Among the ancients, the sentiment offamily love and action based thereon was called pietas. ‘Piety’ has with us the sense of devoutnessor godliness, which it has in common with the ancient meaning of the word in that both presupposean absolute bond, the self-existent unity in a spiritual substance, a bond which is not formedthrough particular caprice or accident.

50. This sentiment, precisely stated, consists in this: that each member of the Family has his essencenot in his own person, but that only the whole of the Family constitutes his personality.

51. The union of persons of opposite sex which Marriage is, is not merely a natural, animal union,nor, at the other extreme, is it a mere civil contract, rather it is essentially a moral union of sentiment[Gesinnung] in reciprocal love and confidence which constitutes them one person.

52. The duty of parents towards children is to care for their support and education; that of thechildren to obey their parents until they grow up and become independent and to honour andrespect them through life; that of brothers and sisters, to treat each other with the utmostconsideration.

Duties to the State

53. The natural whole, which constitutes the family, expands into a whole of a People and a State inwhich the individuals have for themselves an independent will.



Explanatory: The State, in one respect, is able to dispense with the goodwill and consent ofcitizens, i.e. in so far as it must be independent of the will of the individual. It prescribes, therefore,to the individual his obligations, namely, the part which he must perform for the whole. It cannotleave this to his goodwill because he may be self-interested and oppose himself to the interest of theState. In this way the State becomes a machine, a system of external dependencies. But, on theother hand, it cannot dispense with the [good] disposition of its citizens. The order issued by thegovernment can contain only what is general. The actual deed, the fulfilment of the State’s aim,requires a special form of activity. This can come only from individual intelligence and from thegoodwill and consent of men.

54. The State holds society not only under legal relations but mediated as a true, higher, moralcommonwealth, the union in customs, education and general form of thinking and acting, since eachone views and recognizes in the other his universality in a spiritual manner.

55. In the Spirit of a People each individual citizen has his spiritual substance. Not only does thepreservation of the individual depend on the preservation of this living whole, but this living whole isthe universal spiritual nature or the essence of each one as opposed to his individuality. Thepreservation of the whole takes precedence, therefore, over the preservation of the individualand all citizens should act on this conviction.

56. Considered according to the merely legal side, in so far as the State protects the private rights ofthe individual and the individual looks after his own rights, there is indeed possible a sacrifice of apart of his property for the preservation of the rest. Patriotism, however, is not founded on thiscalculation, but on the consciousness of the absoluteness of the State. This disposition to offer upproperty and life for the whole is the greater in a people the more the individuals can act for the wholefrom their own will and self-activity and the greater the confidence they have in the whole. (Speakhere of the beautiful patriotism of the Greeks; also of the distinction between bourgeois and citoyen.)

57. The disposition to obey the commands of the government, attachment to princes and theconstitutional form of government, the feeling of national honour, all these are virtues of the citizenin every well-ordered State.

58. The State rests not upon an express contract of one with all or of all with one or between theindividual and the government. The Universal Will of the whole is not simply the expressed will ofthe individual but is the Absolute Universal Will which is in-and-for-itself binding on the individual.

Duties toward Others

59. The duties toward others are, first, the legal duties which must be linked with the disposition to dothe lawful for the sake of Law. The rest of these duties are founded on the disposition to regard othersnot merely as abstract persons but also, in their particularity, as possessing equal rights and to regardtheir welfare or bad fortune as one’s own concern and to manifest this feeling by active help.

60. This moral mode of thinking and acting goes further than is demanded by the mere legal right.But Integrity, the observance of the strict duties toward others, is the first duty and lies at the basis ofall others. There may be noble and generous actions which lack integrity. In that case they have their



ground in self-love and in the consciousness of having done something special, whereas that whichintegrity demands is valid for all and is no arbitrary duty.

61. Among the special duties to others, the first is Truthfulness in speech and action. It consists in theidentity of that which is and of which one is conscious, with what he expresses and shows to others.

Untruthfulness is the disagreement and contradiction between what one is in his own consciousnessand what he is for others, hence between his inner being and his actuality, and is therefore a nullity initself.

62. It is especially untruthful when what one imagines to be a good intention or disposition is in factbad and harmful. (This disagreement between the disposition and the action could at least be calledclumsiness but, in so far as the doer is responsible, if he does what is bad he must be regarded as alsomeaning his action to be bad.)

63. It implies the existence of a special relation between individuals to give one of them the right tospeak truthfully regarding the other’s behaviour. When one undertakes to do this without the right heis himself, in so far, untrue, since he assumes a relation to another which has no existence.

Explanatory: It is of the first importance to speak the truth in so far as one knows that it is thetruth. It is mean not to speak the truth when it is one’s duty to speak it, because thereby one isdemeaned in one’s own eyes and in the eyes of the other. But also one should not speak the truthwhere he is not called upon to do so or does not even have the right to do so. When one speaks thetruth merely for the sake of having his say and without following it up, this is at least superfluous,for what is important is not that I have spoken but that the matter in hand should be achieved.Speaking is not yet the deed or act; the latter is superior. The truth then is spoken in the right placeat the right time when it serves to bring about the matter in hand. Speech is an astonishingly greatmeans but to use it correctly demands great understanding.

64. Malicious Gossip is akin to Slander which is an actual lie. The former is the retailing of matterswhich compromise the honour of a third party and which are not absolutely evident to the narrator. Itusually happens out of a zealous disapproval of immoral actions, usually with the comment that thenarrator cannot vouch for the truth of the stories and wishes he had not said anything about them, butin this case there is associated the dishonesty of alleging that he does not want to spread the storiesand yet by his action actually does so. He is guilty of hypocrisy in pretending to speak in the interestof morality and at the same time behaving badly.

Explanatory: Hypocrisy consists in behaving badly while assuming the appearance of having agood intention, of wanting to do something good. The external deed is, however, not different fromthe internal one. In the case of a bad deed the intention was also essentially bad and not good. Itmay be the case that a man has accomplished something good or at least not improper but it is notpermissible to make of that which is in its own self evil a means with which to achieve a good end.The end or the intention does not sanctify the means. Moral principle concerns chiefly thedisposition or the intention. It is, however, just as essential that not only the intention but also theaction be good. Moreover, a man must not persuade himself that he has excellent and importantpurposes in the common acts of his individual life. In that case it frequently happens that while hebases his own deeds on good intentions and seeks to make his unimportant deeds great by hisreflections he is apt, on the other hand, to attribute a selfish or bad motive to the great or at least



good deeds of others.

65. The disposition to injure others, knowingly and willingly, is Evil. The disposition which permitsitself to violate duties to others and also to itself, and from weakness to resist its inclinations, is Bad.

Explanatory: Good stands opposed to Evil [bose] as also to Bad [schlecht]. To be Evil involvesan act of the will; it presupposes a strength of will which is also a condition of the Good, but theBad, on the contrary, is something devoid of will. The Bad individual follows his inclinations andneglects duties. It would be perfectly satisfactory to him to fulfil the duties if he could do so withouteffort but he has not the will to master his inclinations or habits.

66. The Services we are able to perform for others depend upon the contingent relations in which wehappen to stand with them and upon the special circumstances in which we are situated. When we arein a position to do another a Service we have only to consider two things: that he is a human beingand has a need.

Explanatory: The first condition precedent to rendering help to others consists in this: that wehave a right to regard them as in need and to act toward them as sufferers. Help must not be given,therefore, without their willingness to receive it. This presupposes a certain degree of acquaintanceor confidence. The needy are as such not on the same footing as regards equality with those not inneed. It is a matter for him to decide whether or not he wants to appear as one in need. Heconsents to this when he is convinced that I regard him as my equal, and treat him as such in spiteof this inequality of condition. In the second place, I must have in hand the means with which tohelp him. Finally, there may happen cases where his want is of so evident a character as to renderunnecessary an express consent on his part to receive assistance.

67. The duty of the Universal Love of Humanity also includes those cases wherein we love those withwhom we stand in relations of acquaintance and friendship. The original unity of mankind must be thebasis from which arise voluntarily, much closer, connections as involve more particular duties.(Friendship rests on likeness of character and especially of interest, engagement in a common work,rather than in liking for the person of another as such. One should cause his friends as little trouble aspossible. To require no services of friends is the most delicate way. One should spare no pains toavoid laying others under obligations to him.)

68. The duty of Prudence [Policy] appears, at first, in so far as the end is a selfish one, as a dutytoward oneself in his relations to others. True selfishness is, however, essentially attained throughmoral conduct and this, consequently, is the true Prudence. It is a principle of moral conduct thatprivate gain may be a result but must never constitute the motive.

69. In as much as private gain does not constitute the direct result of moral conduct but dependsrather upon the particular and, on the whole, accidental goodwill of others, there is to be found thesphere of mere inclination or favour, but Prudence consists in this: that one does not interfere with theinclinations of others but acts in their interest. But also, in this respect, that which proves politic isreally that which recommends itself for its own sake, namely, to leave others free where we haveneither duty nor right to disturb them and, through our correct conduct, to win their favour.

70. Courtesy [Politeness] is the mark of a well-wishing disposition and also of a readiness to do aservice to others, especially to those with whom we stand in a nearer relation of acquaintance or



friendship. It is false when it is connected with the opposite disposition. True Courtesy is, however, tobe regarded as a duty because we ought to have benevolent intentions toward each other in general inorder to open by means of polite actions the way to closer union. To do a service, an act of politeness,something pleasant to a stranger, is Courtesy. The same thing should, however, be done to anacquaintance or friend. Toward strangers and those with whom we stand in no nearer relations there isthe appearance of goodwill and this is all that is required. Refinement and Delicacy consist in doing orsaying no more than is allowed by the relation in which one stands to other parties. (Greek Humanityand Urbanity in the time of Socrates and Plato)






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Third Part.Third Part.The Science of ReligionThe Science of Religion

71. The Moral Law within us is the Eternal Law of Reason which we must respect without reserveand by which we must feel indissolubly bound. We see, however, the immediate incommensuratenessof our individuality with it and recognize it as higher than ourselves, as a Being independent from us,self-existent and absolute.

72. This Absolute Being is present in our pure consciousness and reveals Himself to us therein. Theknowing of Him is, as mediated through our pure consciousness, for us immediate and called Faith.

73. The elevation above the sensuous and finite constitutes in a negative form the mediation of thisknowing, but only in so far as having originated from a sensuous and finite. The latter is at the sametime abandoned and recognized in its nullity. But this knowing of the Absolute is itself an absoluteand immediate knowing and cannot have anything finite as its positive ground or be mediated throughanything that is not itself a proof.

74. This knowing must determine itself more closely and not remain a mere inner feeling, a faith inan undefined Being in general, but become a cognition of it. The cognition of God is not aboveReason, for Reason is only God’s image and reflection and is essentially the knowledge of theAbsolute. But such cognition is above the Understanding, the knowledge of what is finite and relative.

75. Religion itself consists in the employment or exercise of feeling and thought in forming an idea orrepresentation of the Absolute Being, wherewith is necessarily connected forgetfulness of one’s ownparticularity and actions from this disposition [Sinn] in regard to the absolute Being.

76. God is the Absolute Spirit, i.e. he is the pure Being that makes himself his own object and in thiscontemplates only himself, or who is, in his other-being, absolutely returned into himself and self-identical.

77. God is, according to the moments of his Being: (1) Absolutely Holy, in as much as he is inhimself the purely universal Being; (2) Absolute Power, in as much as he actualizes the universal andpreserves the individual in the universal or is the Eternal Creator of the Universe; (3) Wisdom, in sofar as his power is only holy power; (4) Goodness, in so far as he allows the individual in his actualexistence to be a free agent; and (5) Justice, in so far as he eternally brings the individual back to theuniversal.

78. Evil is alienation from God in so far as the individual, in his freedom, separates himself from theuniversal and strives by excluding himself from it to become absolute for himself. In so far as it is thenature of the finite free being to reflect itself into this individuality, this nature is to be regarded asEvil.


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79. But the freedom of the individual being is at the same time implicitly, or in-itself, an identity ofthe divine Being with himself or it is, in-itself, of divine nature. This knowledge, that human nature isnot truly alien to the divine nature, is assured to man by Divine Grace; which Grace allows him to layhold of this knowledge whereby through it the reconciliation of God with the world is achieved orman’s alienation from God disappears.

80. The Divine Service is the specific occupation of the thought and feelings with God whereby theindividual strives to bring about his union with God and to become conscious and assured of thisunion. The harmony of his will with the divine will should be demonstrated by the spirit in which heacts in his daily life.








2. Phenomenology [For the Middle Class]

Introduction

[1.] Our ordinary Knowing has before itself only the object which it knows, but does not at the sametime make an object of itself, i.e. of the Knowing. But the whole which is present in the act ofknowing is not the object alone but also the I [Ego] that knows and the relation of the Ego and theobject to each other, i.e. Consciousness.

2. In Philosophy the determinations of Knowing are not considered one-sidedly only asdeterminations of things but as, at the same time, determinations of the Knowing to which they belongin common at least with the things. In other words they are not taken merely as objective but also assubjective determinations or rather as specific kinds of the relation of the object and subject to eachother.

3. Since things and their determinations are in the Knowing it is possible, on the one hand, to think ofthem as in-and-for-themselves outside of Consciousness, as given to the latter in the shape of alienand already existing material for it. On the other hand, since Consciousness is equally essential to theKnowing of these [material things] it is also possible to think that Consciousness itself posits this, itsworld, and produces or modifies, either wholly or in part, the determinations of the same through itsbehaviour and its activity. The former point of view is called Realism the latter Idealism. Here we areto consider the universal determinations of things simply as the specific relation of the object to thesubject.

4. The subject, thought of more specifically, is Mind [or Spirit]. It is phenomenal [erscheinend] whenessentially relating to an existent object: i.e. in so far it is Consciousness. The Science ofConsciousness is, therefore, called The Phenomenology of Mind [or Spirit].

5. But Mind as spontaneously active within itself and as self-referential [Beziehung auf sich] andindependent of all reference to others is considered in the Doctrine of Mind or Psychology.

6. Consciousness is, in general, the knowing of an object, whether external or internal, without regardto whether it presents itself without the help of Mind or whether it be produced by it. Mind is to beconsidered in its activities in so far as the determinations of its Consciousness are ascribed to itself.

7. Consciousness is the specific relation of the Ego to an object. In so far as one starts from the object,consciousness can be said to vary according to the diversity of the objects which it has.

8. At the same time, however, the object is essentially determined in its relation to Consciousness. Itsdiversity is, therefore, to be considered conversely as dependent upon the further development ofConsciousness. This reciprocity proceeds in the phenomenal sphere of Consciousness itself andleaves the matters in paragraph 3 above undecided.



9. Consciousness has, in general, three stages [Stufen] according to the diversity of the object. It [theobject] is namely [a] either the object standing opposed to the Ego or [b] the Ego itself or [c]something objective which belongs likewise equally to the Ego, [e.g.] Thought. These determinationsare not empirically taken up from without but are moments of Consciousness itself. HenceConsciousness is:

(1) Consciousness in General;(2) Self-Consciousness;(3) Reason

First Stage. Consciousness in General

10. Consciousness in General is:

(a) Sensuous;(b) Perceiving;(c) Understanding.

The Sensuous Consciousness

11. The simple Sensuous Consciousness is the immediate certainty of an external object. Theexpression for the immediacy of such an object is that it is, and indeed is this object, a Nowaccording to time and a Here according to space, [and is] completely different from all other objectsand completely determined in-itself.

12. Both this Now and this Here are vanishing determinatenesses. Now is no more even while it isand another Now has taken its place, and this latter Now has likewise immediately vanished. But theNow abides all the same. This abiding Now is the universal Now which is both this and the otherNow, and also neither of them. This Here which I mean, and point out has a right and left, an aboveand a below, a behind and a before, etc. ad infinitum, i.e. the Here pointed out, is not a simple andhence specific Here but a totality of many Heres. Therefore what in truth is before us is not theabstract, sensuous determinateness but the universal.

Perception

13. Perception has no longer for [its] object the sensuous in so far as it is immediate but, in so far as itis also universal, it is a mingling of sensuous determinations with those of Reflection.

14. The object of this Consciousness is, therefore, the Thing with its Properties. The sensuousproperties (a) are for-themselves not only inmiediately in Feeling but also at the same timedetermined through the relation to others and mediated; (b) belong to a Thing and, in this respect, onthe one hand are included in the individuality of the same, [and] on the other hand have universalityin accordance with which they transcend this individual thing and are at the same time independent ofone another.



15. In so far as Properties are essentially mediated they have their subsistence in an Other and arealterable. They are only Accidents. Things, however, since they subsist in their properties, for thereason that they are distinguished by means of these, perish through the alteration of those propertiesand are an alternation of coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be.

16. In this alternation it is not merely the something that sublates itself and becomes an Other but theOther also ceases to be. But the Other of the Other, or the alteration of the alterable, is the Becomingof the enduring [Werden des Bleibenden], of that which subsists in-and-for-itself and is inner.

The Understanding

17. The object has now this determination: it has (a) a purely accidental side but (b) also an essentialand permanent side. Consciousness, in that the object has for it this character, is the Understanding inwhich the Things of perception pass for mere phenomena and it [the Understanding] contemplates theInner of Things.

18. On the one hand, the Inner of Things is that in them which is free from their appearances, namely,their Manifoldness which constitutes an outer in opposition to the inner, [and] on the other hand,however, the inner is that which is related to them through its concept. It is therefore:

(1) simple Force, which passes over in Determinate Being into its Expression [orManifestation].

(2) Force remains with this difference the same in all the sensuous variety ofAppearance. The law of Appearance is its quiescent, universal image. It is arelation of universal abiding determinations whose distinctions are external tothe law. The universality and persistence of this relation does indeed lead to itsnecessity but without the difference being one determined in-and-for-itself orinner, in which one of the determinations lies immediately in the concept of theother.

20. This concept, applied to Consciousness itself, gives another stage thereof. Hitherto it was inrelation to its object as something alien and indifferent. Since now the difference in general hasbecome a difference which at the same time is no difference, the previous mode of the difference ofConsciousness from its object falls away. It has an object and is related to an Other, which, however,is at the same time no ‘Other’; in fine, it has itself for object.

21. In other words, the Inner of Things is the Thought or Concept of them. While Consciousness hasthe Inner as object it has Thought or equally its own Reflection or Form and, [consequently], simplyhas itself for object.

Second Stage. Self-Consciousness

22. As Self-Consciousness the Ego intuits itself, and the expression of this in its purity is Ego = Ego,or: I am I.



23. This proposition of Self-Consciousness is devoid of all content. The urge of Self-Consciousnessconsists in this: to realize its concept and in everything to become conscious of itself. It is, therefore,active (a) in overcoming the otherness of objects and in positing them as the same as itself [and] (b)in externalizing itself and thereby giving itself objectivity and determinate being. These two are oneand the same activity. Self-Consciousness in becoming determined is at the same time a self-determining and, conversely, it produces itself as object.

24. Self-Consciousness has, in its formative development or movement, three stages:

(1) Of Desire in so far as it is directed to other things;(2) Of the relation of Master and Slave in so far as it is directed to another Self-Consciousness unlike itself;(3) Of the Universal Self-Consciousness which recognizes itself in other Self-Consciousnesses and is identical with them as they are identical with it.

Desire

25. Both sides of Self-Consciousness, the positing and the sublating, are thus united with each otherimmediately. Self-Consciousness posits itself through negation of otherness and is practicalConsciousness. If, therefore, in Consciousness proper, which also is called theoretical[Consciousness], the determinations of it and of the object altered themselves in-themselves, this nowhappens through the activity of Consciousness itself and/or it. It is aware that this sublating activitybelongs to it. In the concept of Self-Consciousness lies the determination of the as yet unrealizeddifference. In so far as this difference does make its appearance in it there arises a feeling of anotherness in consciousness itself, a feeling of a negation of itself or the feeling of a lack, a need.

26. This feeling of its otherness contradicts its identity with itself. The felt necessity to overcome thisopposition is Impulse, Negation or Otherness, [and] presents itself to consciousness as an externalthing different from it, but which is determined by Self-Consciousness, (a) as a something suited togratify the Impulse and (b) as something in-itself negative whose subsistence is to be sublated by theSelf and posited in identity with it.

27. The activity of Desire thus overcomes the otherness of the object and its subsistence and unites itwith the subject, whereupon the Desire is satisfied. This is accordingly conditioned, (a) by an objectexisting externally or indifferent to it, or through Consciousness; and (b) by its activity producing thegratification only through overcoming the object. Self-Consciousness comes therefore only to itsfeeling of Self.

28. In Desire, Consciousness stands in relation to itself as an individual. It is related to a selflessobject which is, in-and-for-itself, an other than the Self-Consciousness. The latter therefore onlyattains self-identity as regards the object by overcoming the latter. Desire is in general destructive[and], in its gratification therefore, it only gets as far as the self-feeling of the subject’s being-for-selfas an individual: [i.e.] to the indeterminate concept of the subject in its connection with objectivity.

The Relation of Master and Slave



29. The concept of Self-Consciousness as a Subject which is at the same time objective, yields therelation that another Self-Consciousness exists for Self-Consciousness.

30. A Self-Consciousness which is for another is not for it a mere object but is its other self. The Egois no abstract universality in which, as such, there is no distinction or determination. Since Ego is,therefore, object for the Ego the object is, in this relation, the same as that which the Ego is. It beholdsin the other its own self.

31. This beholding of oneself in another is the abstract moment of self-sameness. But each has alsothe determination of appearing to the other as an external object and, in so far, as an immediate,sensuous and concrete existence. Each exists absolutely for-itself as an individual opposed to theother and demands to be regarded and treated as such by the other and to behold in the other its ownfreedom as an independent being or to be acknowledged by it.

32. In order to make itself valid as a free being and to obtain recognition, Self-Consciousness mustexhibit itself to another as free from natural existence. This moment is as necessary as that of thefreedom of Self-Consciousness within itself. The absolute identity of the Ego with itself is essentiallynot an immediate identity but one which has been achieved by overcoming sensuous immediacy and,by so doing, has also made itself free and independent of the sensuous for another. It thus shows itselfto conform to its concept and must be recognized because it gives reality to the Ego.

33. But independence is freedom not so much outside of and [apart] from sensuous immediateexistence, as rather a freedom in it. The one moment is as necessary as the other but they are not ofthe same value, since inequality enters, namely, that to one of the two Self-Consciousness[es]freedom passes for the essential in opposition to sensuous existence, while with the other the oppositeoccurs. With the reciprocal demand for recognition there enters into determinate actuality the relationof master and slave between them or, in general terms, that of service and obedience, so far as thisdiversity of independence is present through the immediate agency of nature.

34. Since of the two Self-Consciousness[es] opposed to each other each must strive to prove andmaintain itself as an absolute being-for-self against and for the other, that one enters into a conditionof Slavery who prefers life to freedom and thereby shows that he is incapable of making abstractionfrom his sensuous existence by his own efforts in order to achieve his independence.

35. This purely negative freedom, which consists in the abstraction from natural existence, does not,however, correspond to the concept of Freedom, for this latter is self-sameness in otherness, that is, inpart the beholding of oneself in another self and in part freedom not from existence but in existence,a freedom which itself has an existence. The one who serves lacks a self and has another self in placeof his own; so that in the Master he has alienated and annulled himself as an individual Ego and nowviews another as his essential self. The Master, on the contrary, sees in the Servant the other Ego asannulled and his own individual will as preserved. (History of Robinson Crusoe and Friday.)

36. The Servant’s own individual will, considered more closely, is suppressed in the fear of theMaster, in the inner feeling of its own negativity. Its labour for the service of another is an alienationof its own will, partly in principle, partly at the same time, with the negation of its own desire, thepositive transformation of external things through labour; since through labour the self makes its owndeterminations into the forms of things and in its work views itself as an objective self. The



renunciation of the unessential arbitrary will constitutes the moment of true obedience. (Pisistratustaught the Athenians to obey. Through this he made the Code of Solon an actual power and, after theAthenians had learned this, the dominion of a Ruler over them was superfluous.)

37. This renunciation of Individuality as Self is the moment by which Self-Consciousness makes thetransition to being the Universal Will: [i.e.] the transition to Positive Freedom.

Universality of Self-Consciousness

38. The Universal Self-Consciousness is the intuition of itself not as a particular existence distinctfrom others but as the implicit universal self. Thus it recognizes itself and the other Self-Consciousnesses within it and is, in turn, recognized by them.

39. Self-Consciousness is, according to this its essential universality, only real to itself in so far as itknows its reflection in others. (I know that others know me as themselves.) And as pure spiritualuniversality, as belonging to the family, one’s native land, etc., [it] knows itself as an essential self.This Self-Consciousness is the basis of every virtue, of love, honour, friendship, bravery, all self-sacrifice, all fame, etc.

Third Stage. Reason

40. Reason is the highest union of consciousness and self-consciousness or of the knowing of anobject and of the knowing of itself. It is the certainty that its determinations are just as muchobjective, i.e. determinations of the essence of things, as they are our own thoughts. It is equally thecertainty of itself, subjectivity, as being or objectivity in one and the same thinking activity.

41. Or what we see through the insight of Reason is (a) a content which does not consist in our meresubjective ideas or thoughts which we make for ourselves but which contains the absolute essence ofobjects and possesses objective reality, and (b) a content which is, for the Ego, nothing alien, nothinggiven from without but is throughout penetrated and assimilated by the Ego and therefore, to allintents, produced by the Ego.

42. The knowing of Reason is therefore not mere subjective certainty but also Truth, because Truthconsists in the agreement, or rather unity, of certainty and being or of certainty and objectivity.





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