that to consciousness, whicli is our object here, the determinations above indicated appear in the unchange- able.
For this reason, then, the unchangeable consciousness also preserves, in its very form and bearing, the character and fundamental features of diremption and separate self-existence, as against the particular consciousness. For the latter it is thus altogether a contingency, a mere chance event, that the unchangeable receives the form of particularity; just as the particular consciousness merely happens to find itself opposed to the unchange- able, and therefore has this relation fer naturam. Finally that it finds itself in the unchangeable appears to the particular consciousness to be brought about partly, no doubt, by itself, or to take place for the reason that itsel is particular; but this union, both as regards its origin as well as in its being, appears partly also due to the unchangeable; and the opposition remains within this unity itself. In point of fact, through the unchangeable assuming a definite form, the ' beyond,' as a moment, has not only remained, but really is more securely estabhshed. For if the remote ' beyond ' seems indeed brought closer to the individual by this particular form of realisation, on the other hand, it is henceforward fixedly opposed to the in- dividual, a sensuous, impervious unit, with all the hard resistance of what is actual. The hope of be- coming one therewith must remain a hope, i.e. without fulfilment, without present fruition; for between the hope and fulfilment there stands precisely the absolute contingency, or immovable indifference, which is in- volved in the very assumption of determinate shape and form, the basis and foundation of the hope. By The Unhappy Consciousness 205 the nature of this existent unit, through, the particular reahty it has assumed and adopted, it comes about of necessity that in course of time it becomes a thing of the past, something that has been somewhere far away, and absolutely remote it remains.
If, at the beginning, the bare notion of the sundered consciousness involved the characteristic of seeking to cancel it, qua particular consciousness, and become the unchangeable consciousness, the direction its effort henceforth takes is rather that of cancelHng its relation to the pure unchangeable, without shape or embodied form, and of adopting only the relation to the un- changeable which has form and shape.* For the oneness of the partictdar consciousness with the unchangeable is henceforth its object and the essential reahty for it, just as in the mere notion of it the es;ntial object was merely the formless abstract unchangeable: and the relation found in this absolute disruption, characteristic of its notion, is now what it has to turn away from. The external relation, however, primarily adopted to the formed and embodied imchangeable, as being an ahen extraneous reahty, must be transmuted and raised to that of complete and thoroughgoing fusion and identifi- cation.
The process through which the unessential conscious- ness strives to attain this oneness, is itself a triple process, in accordance with the threefold character of the relation which this consciousness takes up to its transcendent and remote reahty embodied in specific form. In one it is a pure consciousness; at another time a particular individual who takes up towards actuahty the attitude characteristic of desire and * The historic Christ as worshipped, e.g. in the mediaev-l church.
206 Phenomenology of Mind labour; and in the third place it is a consciousness of its self-existence, its existence for itself. We have now to see how these three modes of its being are found and are constituted in that general relation.
In the first place, then, regarded as pure consciousness, the unchangeable embodied in definite historical form, seems, since it is an object for pure consciousness, to be established as it is in its self-subsistent reality But this, its reahty in and for itself, has not yet come to light, as we already remarked. Were it to be in consciousness as it is in itself and for itself, this would certainly have to come about not from the side of consciousness, but from the unchangeable. But, this being so, its presence here is brought about through consciousness only in a onesided way to begin with, and just for that reason is not found in a perfect and genuine form, but constantly weighted and en- cumbered with imperfection, with an opposite.
But although the " unhappy consciousness " does not possess this actual presence, it has, at the same time, transcended pure thought, so far as this is the abstract thought of Stoicism, Avhich turns away from particulars altogether, and again the merely restless thought of Scepticism — so far, in fact, as this is merely particu- larity in the sense of aimless contradiction and the restless process of contradictory thought. It has gone beyond both of these; it brings and keeps together pure thought and particular existence, but has not yet risen to that level of thinking where the particularity of consciousness is harmoniously reconciled with pure thought itself. It rather stands midway, at the point where abstract thought comes in contact with the particularity of consciousness qua The Unhappy Consciousness 207 particularity. Itself is this act of contact; it is the union of pure thought and particularity. Moreover, this thinking individuahty, or pure thought, exists for it, and for it too the unchangeable is essentially a particular existence. But that this its object, the unchangeable, which assumes essentially the form of particularity, is its own self, the self which is particu- larity of consciousness — this is not established for it.
In this first condition, consequently, in which we treat it as piue consciousness, it takes up towards its object an attitude which is not that of thought; but rather (since it is indeed in itself pure thinking particu- larity and its object is just this pure thought, but pure thought is not their relation to one another as such), it, so to say, merely gives itself up to thought, devotes itself to thinking {geht an das Denken hin), and is the state of Devotion (Andacht). Its thinking as such is no more than the passing clang of ringing bells, or a cloud of warm incense, a kind of thinking in terms of music, that does not get the length of notions, which would be the sole, immanent objective mode of thought. This boundless pure inward feel- ing comes to have indeed its object; but this object does not make its appearance in conceptual form, and therefore comes on the scene as something external and foreign. Hence we have here the inward move- ment of pure emotion {Gemuth) which feels itself, but feels itself in the bitterness of soul-diremption. It is the movement of an infinite Yearning, which is assured that its nature is a pure emotion of this kind, a pure thought which thinks itself as particularity — a yearning that is certain of being known and recognised by this object, for the very reason that this object thinks 208 Phenomenology of Mind itself as particularity. At the same time, however, this nature is the miattainable ' beyond ' which, in being seized, escapes or rather has already escaped. The ' beyond ' has aheady escaped, for it is in part the un- changeable, thinking itself as particularity, and con- sciousness, therefore, attains itself therein immediately, — attains itself, but as something opposed to the un- changeable; instead of grasping the real nature, consciousness merely feels, and has fallen back upon itself. Since, in thus attaining itself, consciousness cannot prevent itself from being this opposite, it has merely laid hold of what is unessential instead of having seized true reahty. Thus, just as, on one side, when striving to find itself in the essentially real, it only lays hold of its own divided state of existence, so, too, on the other side, it cannot grasp that other [the essence] as particular or as concrete. That " other " cannot be foimd where it is sought; for it is meant to be just a " beyond," that which can not be found. When looked for as particular it is not a universal, a thought-constituted particularity, not notion, but particular in the sense of an object, or a concrete actual, an object of immediate sense-consciousness, of sense certainty; and for that reason it is one which has disappeared^ Consciousness, therefore, can only come upon the grave of its own hfe. But since this is itself an actuahty, and since it is contrary to the nature of actuahty to afford a lasting possession, the presence even of that tomb is merely the source of trouble, toil, and struggle, a fight which must be lost.* But since con- sciousness has found out by experience that the grave of its actual imchangeable Being has no concrete * Cp. The Crusades.
The Unhappy Consciousness 209 actuality, that the vanished particularity qua vanished is not true particularity, it will give up looking for the unchangeable particular existence as something actual, or will cease trying to hold on to what has thus van- ished. Only so is it capable of finding particularity in a true form, a form that is imiversal.
In the first instance, however, the withdrawal of the emotional hfe into itself is to be taken in such a way that this hfe of feehng, in its own regard, has actuahty qua particular existence. It is pure emotion which, for us or per se has found itself and satiated itself, for although it is, no doubt, aware in feehng that the ultimate reahty is cut off from it, yet in itself this feehng is self -feeling; it has felt the object of its own pure feehng, and this object is its own self. It thus com.es forward here as self-feehng, or as something actual on its own account. In this return into self, we find appearing its second attitude, the condition of desire and labour, which ensures for consciousness the inner certainty of its own self (which, as we saw, it has obtained,) by the process of cancelhng and enjoying the ahen external reahty, — existence in the form of independent things. The unhappy con- sciousness, however, finds itself merely desiring and toil- ing; it is not consciously and directly aware that so to find itself rests upon the inner certainty of its self, and that its feehng of real being is this self-feehng. Since it does not in its own view have that certainty, its inner hfe really remains still a shattered certainty of itself; that confirmation of its own existence which it would receive through work and enjoyment, is, therefore, just as tottering and insecure; in other words, it must con- sciously nulhfy this certification of its own being, so as VOL. I.— P 210 Phenomenology of Mind to find therein confiimation indeed, but confirmation only of what it is for itself, viz. of its disunion.
The actual reahty, on which desire and work are directed, is, from the point of view of this consciousness, no longer something in itself null and void, something merely to be destroyed and consumed; but rather something hke that consciousness itself, a reahty broken in sunder, which is only in one respect essentially null, but in another sense also a consecrated world. This reahty is a form and embodiment of the unchangeable, for the latter has conserved in itself particularity; and because, qua unchangeable, it is a imiversal, its particu- larity as a whole has the significance of all actuahty.
If consciousness were, for itself, an independent consciousness, and reahty were taken to be in and for itself of no account, then consciousness would attain, in work and enjoyment, the feehng of its own independence, by the fact that its consciousness would be that which cancels reahty. But since this reahty is taken to be the form and shape of the unchangeable, consciousness is unable of itself to cancel that reahty. On the con- trary, seeing that consciousness manages to nulhfy reahty and to obtain enjoyment, this must come about through the unchangeable itseK when it disposes of its own form and shape and dehvers this up for consciousness to enjoy.
Consciousness, on its part, appears here hkewise as actual, though, at the same time, as internally shattered; and this diremption shows itself in the course of toil and enjoyment, to break up into a relation to reahty, or existence for itself, and into an existence in itself. That relation to actuahty is the process of alteration, or acting, the existence for itself, which belongs The Unhappy Consciousness 211 to tlie particular consciousness as such. But therein it is also in itself; this aspect belongs to the unchange- able ' beyond/ This aspect consists in faculties and powers: an external gift, which the unchangeable here hands over for consciousness to make use of.
In its action, accordingly, consciousness, in the first instance, has its being in the relation of two extremes. On one side it takes its stand as the active present (Diesseits), and opposed to it stands passive reahty: both in relation to each other, but also both withdrawn into the unchangeable, and firmly estabhshed in them- selves. From both sides, therefore, there is detached merely a superficial element to constitute their opposi- tion; they are only opposed at the surface, and the play of opposition, the one to the other, takes place there.
The extreme of passive reahty is sublated by the active extreme. Actuality can, however, on its own side, be sublated only because its own changeless essence sublates it, repels itself from itself, and hands over to the mercy of the active extreme what is thus repelled. Active force appears as the power wherein actual reahty is dissolved. For that reason, however, this consciousness, to which the inherent reahty, or ultimate essence, is an " other," regards this power (which is the way it appears when active), as " the beyond," that which hes remote from its self. Instead, therefore, of returning out of its activity into itself, and instead of having confirmed itself as a fact for its self, conscious- ness reflects back this process of action into the other extreme, which is thereby represented as purely univer- sal, as absolute might, from which the movement in every direction started, and which is the essential hfe 212 Phenomenology of Mind of the self-disintegrating extremes, as they at first appeared, and of the process of change as well.
In that the unchangeable consciousness contemns its specific shape and form, and abandons it entirely, while, on the other hand, the individual consciousness " gives thanks," i.e. denies itself the satisfaction of being conscious of its independence, and refers the essential substance of its action to the " beyond " and not to itself: by these two moments, in which both parts give themselves up the one to the other, there certainly arises in consciousness a sense of its own unity with the unchangeable. But, at the same time, this unity is affected with division, is again broken within itself, and out of this unity there once more comes the opposition of universal and particular. For conscious- ness, no doubt, in appearance renounces the satisfac- tion of its self-feehng, but it gets the actual satisfac- tion of that feeling; for it has been desire, work, and enjoyment; qua consciousness it has willed, has acted, has enjoyed. Its thanks similarly, in which it recog- nises the other extreme as its true reahty, and cancels itself, is its own very act, which counterbalances the action of the other extreme, and meets with a hke act the benefit handed over. If the former yields to con- sciousness merely its superficial content, consciousness expresses thanks all the same, and when it gives up its own action, i.e. its very essence, it, properly speaking, does more thereby than the other, which only renounces an outer surface. The entire process, therefore, is reflected into the extreme of particularity, not merely in actual desire, labour, and enjoyment, but even in the expression of thanks, where the reverse seems to take place. Consciousness feels itself therein as this The Unhappy Consciousness 213 particular individual, and does not let itself be deceived by the semblance of its renunciation; for the real truth of that procedure is that it has not given itself up. "What has come about is merely the double reflection into both extremes; and the result is to repeat the cleavage into the opposed consciousness of the un- changeable and the consciousness of a contrasted opposite in the shape of willing, performing, enjoying, and of seK-renunciation itself, or, in general, of seLf- existent particularity.
With this has come to light the third attitude in the movement of this consciousness, an attitude which follows from the second and is such as in truth has proved itself independent by its wilHng and by its per- formance. In the first situation we had only a " notion " of actual consciousness, the inward emotion, which is not yet real in action and enjoyment. The second is this actuahsation, as an external express action and enjoyment. With the return out of this stage, however, it is that which has got to know itself as a real and efiective consciousness, or that whose truth consists in being in or for itself. But herein the enemy is discovered in its special and most pecuhar form. In the battle of emotion this individual consciousness has the sense of being merely a tune, an abstract moment. In work and enjoyment, which are the reaUsation of this unsubstantial existence, it can readily forget itself, and the consciousness of its own proper hfe found in this reahsation is overborne by grateful recognition. But this overthrow of its proper distinctiveness is in truth a return of consciousness into itself, and moreover into itself as the genuine reahty.
This third attitude, wherein this genuine reahty is 214 Phenomenology of Mind one term, consists in so relating this reality to absolute universal Being, as to show it to be mere nothingness.* The course of this relation we have still to consider. To begin with, as regards the contrasted relation of consciousness, in which its reahty is taken to be imme- diately naught, its actual performance thus becomes a doing of nothing at all; its enjoyment becomes a feehng of its own unhappiness. In consequence, activity and enjoyment lose aU universal content and significance; for in that case they would have a sub- stantiahty of their own: and both withdraw into the state of particularity, to which consciousness is directed in order to cancel them. Consciousness discovers itself as this concrete particular in the functions of animal hfe. These latter, instead of being performed unconsciously and naturally as something which, fer se, is of no significance, and can acquire no importance and essential value for spirit, — these latter, since it is in them that the enemy is seen in his proper and pecuUar shape, are rather an object of strenuous concern and serious occupation, and become precisely the most important consideration, t Since, however, this enemy creates itself in its very defeat, consciousness, by giving the enemy a fixedness of being and of meaning, instead of getting rid of him really never gets away from him, and finds itself constantly defiled. And since, at the same time, this object of its exertions, instead of being something essential, is the very meanest, instead of being a universal, is the merest particular — we have here * The conception of the nothingness of the individual in the sight of God.
t Asceticism.
The UnJmfpy Consciousness 21 5 before us merely a personality confined witliin its narrow self and its petty activity, a personality brood- ing over itself, as -unfortunate as it is pitiably destitute.
But all tbe same both of these, both the feeling of its misfortune and the poverty of its own action, are points of connection to wbicb to attach the consciousness of its unity with the unchangeable. For the attempted immediate destruction of its actual existence is effected through the thought of the unchangeable and takes place in this relation to the unchangeable. The mediate relation constitutes the essence of the negative process, in which this consciousness directs itself against its particularity of being, which, however, qyui relation, is at the same time in itself positive, and wiU bring this its unity to hght as an objective fact for this conscious- ness itself.
This mediate relation is consequently a connected inferential process {Schluss), in which particularity, esua^blifihing itself at first in opposition to the inherent esseAce, is bound together and united with this other term, only through a third term. Through this middle!^ term the one extreme, unchangeable con- sciousnt^ssl has a being for the unessential consciousness, in which,!at the same time, is also involved that the latter hke-^nse has a being for the former, solely through that middle term; and this naiddle term is thus one which presents both extremes to one another, and acts as the minister of each in turn in deahng with the other. This medium is itself a conscious being, for it is an action mediating consciousness as such; the con- tent 01 this action is the destruction and annihilation, which consciousness has in view in deahng with its particularity.
216 Phenomenology of Mind In the middle term, then, this consciousness gets freed from action and enjoyment, in the sense of its own action and enjoyment. It puts away from itself, qua self-existent extreme, the substance of its will, and throws on to the mediating term, or the ministering agency,* its own proper freedom of decision, and here- with the guilt of its own act. This mediator, being in direct communication with the unchangeable Being, renders service by advising what is just and right. The act, since this foUows upon obedience to a dehver- ance enunciated by another, ceases, as regards the per- formance or the wilhng of the act, to be the agent's own proper deed. There is still left, however, to the sub- ordinate consciousness, its objective aspect, namely, the fruit of its labour, and enjoyment. These, there- fore, it casts away as well, and just as it disclaimed its own will, so it contemns such reahty as it received in work and in enjoyment. It renounces these, partly as being the accomplished truth of its self-coiiseious independence, since it seeks to do something «quite foreign to itself, thinking and speaking what, for ^id, has no sense or meaning; f partly, too, as being e:f ternal property — siace it demits somewhat of the pojssession acquired through its toil. It also gives up the enjoy- ment it had — since with its fastings and its mortifica- tions it once more absolutely denies itself that enjoy- ment.
Through these moments— the negative abandonment first of its own right and power of decision., then of its property and enjoyment, and finally the positive mo- * The Priesthood. f t Cp. the use in the Church services of Latin instead oi the vernacular: religious processions, etc.
The Unhappy Consciousness 217 ment of carrying on what it does not understand — it obtains, completely and in truth, the consciousness of inner and outer freedom, or reahty in the sense of its own existence for itself. It has the certainty of having in truth stripped itself of its Ego, and of having turned its immediate self-consciousness into a " thing," into an objective external existence.