It could ensure its self-renunciation and self-aban- donment solely by this real and vital sacrifice [of its self]. For only thereby is the deception got rid of, which Ues in inner acknowledgment of gratitude through heart, sentiment, and tongue — an acknowledg- ment which indeed disclaims all power of independent self-existence, and ascribes this power to a gift from above, but in this very disclaimer retains for itself its own proper and pecuhar hfe, outwardly in the possession it does not resign, inwardly in the consciousness of the decision which itself has resolved upon and in the con- sciousness of its own self-constituted content, which it has not exchanged for a content coming from without and filhng it with meaningless ideas and phrases.
But in the sacrifice actually accomplished, while con- sciousness has cancelled the action as its own act, it has also imphcitly demitted and put ofi its unhappy condition. Yet that this demission * has imphcitly taken place, is effected by the other term of the logical process (Schluss) here involved, the term which is the inherent and ultimate reahty. That sacrifice of the subordinate term, however, was at the same time not a onesided action; it involves the action of the other. For giving up one's own will is only in one aspect negative; in principle, or in itself, it is at * Absolution.
218 Phenomenology of Mind the same time positive, positing and affirming the will as an other, and, specifically, affirming the will as not a particular, but universal. This consciousness takes the positive significance of the negatively affirmed par- ticular will to be the will of the other extreme, the will, which, because it is simply an " other " for con- sciousness, assumes the form of advice or counsel, not through itself, but through the third term, the mediator. Hence its will certainly becomes, for consciousness, universal will, inherent and essential will, but is not itself in its own view this inherent reality. The giving up of its own will as particular is not taken by it to be in principle the positive element of universal will. Similarly its surrender of possession and en- joyment has merely the same negative significance, and the universal which it thereby comes to find is, in its view, not its own doing proper. This unity of objectivity and independent self-existence which hes in the notion of action, and which therefore comes for consciousness to be the essential reahty and object — as this is not taken by consciousness to be the principle of its action, neither does it become an object for consciousness directly and through itself. Rather, it makes the mediating minister express this still halting certainty, that its unhappy state is only im- flicitly the reverse, i.e. is only implicitly action bring- ing self-satisfaction in its act, or blessed enjoyment; that its pitiable action too is only imflicitly the reverse, namely, absolute action; that in principle action is only really action when it is the action of some particular individual. But for its self, action and its own concrete action remain something miserable and insignificant, its enjoyment pain, and the sublation of The Unhappy Consciousness 219 these, positively considered, remains a mere 'beyond.' But in this object, where it finds its own action and existence, qua this particular consciousness, to be in- herently existence and action as such, there has arisen the idea of Reason, of the certainty that consciousness is, in its particularity, inherently and essentially absolute, or is all reality.
c [FREE CONCRETE MIND*] (AA) REASON t [Reason is the first stage in the analysis of concrete mind — of universal self conscious of itself in its object and conscious of the object as universal. Keason is not a mere 'function' of mind, but a stage of mind. It therefore possesses its own peculiar content and operates in a process peculiar to itself. Its aim is to become completely conscious of its own nature; and to acquire this it must develop itself through its various phases. The process of development is from immediate to mediate, from what it is implicitly to what it is explicitly. The first step therefore is reason as immediate — where universal self is simply and directly aware of itself in a universal object. The operation of concrete mind at this stage is found where reason " observes." The analysis of observation as this operates in the various domains covered by the empirical sciences is thus the subject-matter of the following section. The processes of these various sciences are assumed in Hegel's analysis. Observation must change in character with the objects observed; hence the difference between observation of inorganic and organic nature, obser- vation of mind, and of the relation of mind and nature. The difficulties reason has to face in this operation, and the contradictions into which it falls in seeking to find laws, etc., to satisfy its aim, form the substance of the following analysis.
The nature of reason as here conceived is the source and origin of philosophical Idealism, whether the idealism be one-sided or absolute. Idealism is in fact the philosophical expression of the principle of reason, just as the various empirical sciences may be said to be the development, in the several ways which experience dictates, of the operation of rational observation. Hence the introductory pages of the following analysis are devoted to a statement of the character of true and false idealism.
The historical material behind the abstract argument elaborated here is provided by the awakened scientific spirit that appeared after the * Cp. Hegel's Hist, of Philos., pt. 2, § 3^ Introd. and C: pt. 3, Introd. Philos. of Hist., pt. 4, § 3j c. 3 arf fin.
220 Reason 221 Reformation, and the methods and results of the empirical sciences at the time Hegel wrote. In particular the physiological conceptions of " irrit- ability," " sensibility " and " reproduction," discussed on p. 256 ff. were first formulated by Haller, Elementa Physiologiae (1757-66). For a list of the chief scientific works which appeared shortly before or about the time the following analysis was written, and which doubtless provided part of the material for the analysis, see Merz, History of European Thought, Vol. I, pp. 82-83.
The polemical criticism which runs through this as through almost every section of the work is directed against the one-sided idealism of Hegel's predecessors and the imperfect conception of scientific method displayed by the current science of nature.]
V REASON'S CERTAINTY AND REASON'S TRUTH WITH the thought which consciousness has laid hold of, that the individual consciousness is ta- herently absolute reaHty, consciousness turns back into itself. In the case of the unhappy consciousness, the inherent and essential reality is a "beyond" remote from itself. But the process of its own activity has in its case brought out the truth that individuality, when completely developed, individuality which is a concrete actual mode- of consciousness, is made the negative of itself, i.e. the objective extreme; — in other words, has forced it to make explicit its self-existence, and turned this into an objective fact. In this process it has itself become aware, too, of its xmity with the imiversal, a unity which, seeing that the individual when sub- lated is the miiversal, is no longer looked on hy us as falling outside it, and which, since consciousness maintains itself in this its negative condition, is in- herently in it as such its very essence. Its truth is what appears in the process of synthesis — where the extremes were seen to be absolutely held apart — as the middle term, proclaiming to the unchangeable con- sciousness that the isolated individual has renounced itself, and to the individual consciousness that the unchangeable consciousness is no longer for it an extreme, but is one with it and reconciled to it. This mediating Reasons Certainty and Reason's Truth 223 term is the unity directly aware of both, and relating them to one another; and the consciousness of their unity, which it proclaims to consciousness and thereby to itself, is the certainty and assurance of being all truth.
From the fact that self-consciousness is Reason, its hitherto negative attitude towards otherness turns round into a positive attitude. So far it has been concerned merely with its independence and freedom; it has sought to save and keep itself for itself at the expense of the world or its own actuahty, both of which appeared to it to involve the denial of its own essential nature. But qua reason, assured of itself, it is at peace so far as they are concerned, and is able to endure them; for it is certain its self is reahty, certain that all concrete actuahty is nothing else but it. Its thought is itself eo ipso concrete reahty; its attitude towards the latter is thus that of Idealism. To_it, looking at itself ia this way, it- seems as if how, for the.. first time, the world had come into being. Formerly, it did not imderstand the world, it desired the world and worked upon it; then withdrew itself from it and retired into itself, abohshed the world s6~"faf 'as itself was concerned, and abohshed itself qua consciousness — both the consciousness of that world as essentially real, as well as the consciousness of its nothingness and,, unreahty. Here, for the first time, after the grave of its truth is lost, after the annihilation of its concrete actuahty is itself done away with, and the individuahty 3f consciousness is seen to be in itself absolute reahty, .t discovers the world as its own new and real world, svhich in its permanence possesses an interest for it, just is previously the interest lay only in its transitoriness,,.
224 Phenomenology of Mind The subsistence of the world is taken to mean the actual presence of its own truth; it is certain of finding only itself there...
Reason is the conscious certamty of being all reaUty. This is how Ideahsm announces its principle.* Just as consciousness assuming the form of reason immediately and inherently contains that certainty within it, in the same way ideahsm also directly proclaims and expresses that certainty. I am I in the sense that the I which is object for me is sole and only object, is all reahty and all that is present. The I which is object to me here is not what we have in self-consciousness in general, nor again what we have in free independent self-conscious- ness; in the former it is merely empty object in general, in the latter, it is merely an object that withdraws itself from other objects that still hold their own alongside it. In the present instance, the object-ego is object which is consciously known to exclude the existence of any other whatsoever. Self-consciousness, however, is not merely from its own point of view {fiir sich) but also in its very self [an sich) all reahty, primarily by the fact that it becomes this reahty, or rather demonstrates itself to be such. It demonstrates itself to be this by the way in which otherness as inherently real {an sich) first dis- appears in the course of the dialectic movement of " meaning " {Meinen),-\ perceiving, and understanding, and afterwards in the movement through the independence of consciousness in Lordship and Servi- tude, through the idea of freedom, sceptical detachment, and the struggle for absolute hberation on the part of the self-divided consciousness, where otherness, so far as being stUl for consciousness, vanishes for the latter Reason's Certainty and Reason's Truth 225 itself. There appeared two aspects, one after the other; the one where the essential reahty or the truly real present to consciousness had the characteristic of existence, the other where it had the character of only being an object for consciousness. But both lead back to one single truth, that what is or the real per se only is so far as it is an object for consciousness, and that what is for consciousness is also inherently real. The mode of consciousness which this truth constitutes has forgotten the process by which this result has been reached; the pathway to it lies away behind. This consciousness comes on the scene directly in the form of reason; in other words, this reason, appearing thus immediately, comes before us merely as the certainty of that truth. It is merely assured of being all reality; it does not, however, itself com- prehend this fact; for that forgotten pathway by which it arrives at this position, is the process of compre- hending what is involved in this mere assertion which it makes. And just on that account any one who has not taken this route finds the assertion uninteUigible, when he hears it expressed in this abstract form — although as a matter of concrete experience he makes the same assertion himself.
The kind of Ideahsm which does not trace the path to that result, but starts off with the bare assertion of this truth, is consequently a mere assurance, which does not understand its own nature, and cannot make itself intelHgible to any one else. It announces an intuitive certainty, to which there stand in contrast other equally intuitive certainties that have been lost along that very pathway. Hence the claims and assurances made by these other certainties are equally VOL. I.—Q 226 Phenomenology of Mind entitled to a place alongside the assurance of that certainty. Reason takes its stand on the self-conscious- ness of each individual consciousness: I am I, my object and my essential reahty is ego; and no one will deny reason this truth. But since it rests on this appeal, it sanctions the truth of the other certainty, viz. there is for me an other; an other qua ego is to me object and true reality: or since I am object and reality to myself, I am only so by my withdrawing myself from the other altogether and appearing alongside it as an actuality.
Only when reason comes forward as a reflexion from this opposite certainty, does its assertion regarding itself appear in the form not merely of a certainty and an assurance, but of a truth — and a truth not alongside others, but the only truth. Its appearing directly and immediately is the abstract form of its actual presence, the essential nature and inherent reality of which is an absolute notion, i.e. the process of its own development.
Consciousness will determine its relation to otherness or its object in various ways, according as it is at one or other stage in the development of the world- spirit into self-consciousness. How the world-spirit immediately finds and determines itself and its object at any given time, or how it appears to itself, depends on what it has come to be, on what it has come from, or on what it already imphcitly and inherently is.
Reason is the certainty of being all reahty. This its inherent nature, this reality, is still, however, through and through a imiversal, the pure abstraction of reahty. It is the first positive character which self- consciousness fer se is aware of being, and ego is, there- fore, merely the pure, inner essence of existence, in other words, is the. Category bare and simple. The category, which usually had the significance of being the inmost essence of existence — leaving existence quite undeter- mined, or without determination by contrast to con- sciousness— is here the essential natm'e or simple imity of existence merely in the sense of a reaUty that thinks. To put it otherwise, the category means this, that exist- ence and self-consciousness are the same being, the same not as a matter of comparison, but really and truly in and for themselves. It is onlj'' a onesided, unsound ideahsm which lets this imity again appear on one side as consciousness, with a reahty fcr se over against it on the other.
But now this category'-, or simple imity of self-con- sciousness and being, has difference within it; for its verv natiu'e consists just in this — in being immediately one and identical with itself in otherness or in absolute ditTerence. Difference therefore is, but completely transparent, a difference that is at the same time none. It appears in the form of a plurality of categories. Since ideahsm declares the miity of self-consciousness to be all reahty, and at once takes it for the essentially real without fii'st having comprehended its absolutely negative natiu:e, — only an absolutely negative reahty contains within its very being negation, determinate- ness, or difference, — still more incomprehensible than the former is this. auz. that in the category there are differences, kinds or species of categories. This assur- ance in general, as also the assurance as to any determinate nimiber of kinds of categories, is a new form of assiu-ance, which, however, itself implies that we are no longer to accept it as an assurance. For since differ- ence starts in the pure ego, in pure understanding itself.
228 Phenomenology of Mind it is thereby affirmed that here immediacy, making assurances, finding something given, must be abandoned, and reflective comprehension begin. But to pick up the various categories again in any sort of way as a kind of happy find, hit upon, e.g. in the difierent judgments, and then to be content so to accept them, must really be regarded as an outrage on scientific thinking.* Where is understanding to be able to demonstrate necessity, if it is incapable of doing so in its own case, itself being pure necessity?
Now because, in this way, the pure essential being of things as well as their aspect of difference, belongs to reason, we can, strictly speaking, no longer talk of things at all, i.e. of something which would only be present to consciousness by negatively opposing it. For the many categories are species of the pure cate- gory, which means that the pure category is still their genus or essential nature, and not opposed to them. But they contain and imply the ambiguity which other- ness too, in its aspect of plurality, involves as against the pure category. They, in point of fact, contra- dict the pure category by this plurality, and the pure category must sublate them in itself, a process by which it constitutes itself the negative unity of the different elements. Qua negative unity, however, it puts away from itself and excludes both the diverse elements as such, and that previous immediate imity as such; it is then individual singleness — a new category, which is an exclusive form of consciousness, i.e. stands in relation to something else, an other. This individuality is its transition from its notion to an external reality, the pure "schema," which is at once a consciousness, and * This refers to Kant's discovery of his "table of categories."
Reason's Certainty and Reason's Truth 229 in consequence of its being a single individual and an excluding unit, points to the presence of an external other. But the " other " of this category is merely the "other" categories iirst mentioned, viz. pure essential reahty and pure difference; and in this category, i.e. just in affirming the other, or in this other itseK, con- sciousness is hkewise the other too. Each of these various moments points and refers to an other; at the same time, however, they do not involve any absolute otherness. The pure category refers to the species, which pass over into the negative category, the cate- gory of excluision, individuahty; this latter, however, points back to them, it is itself pure consciousness, which is aware in each of them of being always this clear unity with itself — a unity, however, that in the same way is referred to an other, which in being disappears, and in disappearing is once again brought into being.
We see pure consciousness here affirmed in a twofold form. In one case it is the restless activity which passes hither and thither through all its moments, seeing in them that otherness which is sublated in the process of grasping it; in the other case it is the imperturbable miity certain of its own truth. That restless activity constitutes the " other" for this unity, while this unity is the "other" for that activity; and within these reciprocally determining opposites con- sciousness and object alternate. Consciousness thus at one time finds itself seeking about hither and thither, and its object is what absolutely exists per se, and is the essentially real; at another time, consciousness is aware of being the category bare and simple, and the object is the movement of the different elements. Con- 230 Phenomenology of Mind sciousness, however, qua essential reality is the whole of this process of passing out of itself qua simple category into individuahty and the object, and of view- ing this process in the object, cancelling it as distinct, appropriating it as its own, and declaring itself as this certainty of being all reality, of being both itself and its object.
Its first declaration is merely this abstract, empty phrase that everything is its own. For the certainty of being all reahty is to begin with the pure category. Reason knowing itself in this sense in its object is what finds expression in abstract empty ideahsm ] * it merely takes reason as reason appears at first, and by its pointing out that in all being there is this bare con- sciousness of a " mine," and by expressing things as sensations or ideas, it fancies it has shown that abstract " mine " of consciousness to be complete reality. It is bound, therefore, to be at the same time absolute Empiricism, because, for the filling of this empty " mine," i.e. for the element of distinction and all the further development and embodiment of it, its reason needs an impact {Anstoss) operating from without, in which lies the fons ei origo of the multiplicity of sensations or ideas. This kind of idealism is thus jiist such a self- contradictory equivocation as scepticism; only, while the latter expresses itself negatively, the former does so in a positive way. But it fails just as completely as scepticism to hnk up its contradictory statements about pure consciousness being all reality, while all the time the ahen impact, or sense-impressions and ideas, are equally reality. It oscillates hither and thither from one to the other and tumbles into the false, or the * Kiclite, Berkeley.
Reason s Certainty and Reason's Truth 231