h Observation of Selp-Consciousness in its pure FORM AND IN ITS RELATION TO EXTERNAL EeALITY — Logical and Psychological Laws [Observation can be directed upon the self-conscious process ot mind in two waj'S: it may consider tbe mind's thinking relation to reality, and it may consider the mind's active or biotic relation to reality. The result of observation here, as in the foregoing cases, finds expression in a number of laws, which it " frames." The " laws " in the first case are " laws of thought" or connected logical laws: in the latter case we have laws of psychic events, " psychological " laws.
The analysis in this section shows the inadequacy of observation as such to deal with its material in both cases. It fails in the first case because (1) "laws of thought" have no meaning apart from the reality with which thought is necessarily concerned; laws of thought are laws of " thinking," and thinking is both form and content: (2) observation gives each law an absolute being of its own, as if it were detached from the unity of self-consciousness, whereas this unity is the fundamental prin- ciple of each and all the laws, which only exist in and by the single process of that unity. Hence a type of logic confined to "observing" laws of thought is necessarily untrue. Observation again fails in the second case because it is impossible to separate mind from its total environment. Observational or empirical psychology therefore is incapable of giving an adequate account of mind: the constitution of the environment enters into and in part determines the constitution of the psychic events, and the latter cannot be explained even as events without interpreting the former at the same time.]
386 Observation op Self-Consciousness in its pure form and in its relation to external reality — Logical and Psychological Laws Observation of nature finds the notion realised in inorganic nature; laws whose moments are things, which at the same time are in the position of ab- stractions. But this notion is not a unity reflected into self. The hfe of organic nature, on the other hand, is just this condition of self -reflected simpHcity. The opposition within itself, in the sense of the opposition of universal and individual, does not make its appearance in the essential nature of hfe itself with one factor apart from the other; the essential reahty is not the genus, self-sundered and self-moved in its undifierentiated element, and remaining at the same time for itself undifierentiated in its opposition. Observation finds this free notion, whose universahty has just as absolutely within it developed individuahty, only in the notion which itself exists as notion, i.e. in self-consciousness.
Since observation now turns in upon itself and directs itself on the concrete notion as a free notion, it finds, to begin with, the Laws of Thought. This kind of individuahty, which thought is in itself, is the abstract movement of the negative, a movement returned en- tirely to the* condition of abstract simpHcity; and the laws are outside reahty.
To say "they have no reality" means ordinarily nothing else than that they are without any truth, 287 288 Phenomenology of Mind They are intended to be, too, not indeed entire truth, but still formal truth. But what is purely formal without reahty is an ens intellectus, or empty abstrac- tion without the internal distinction which would be nothing else but the content.
On the other hand, however, since they are laws of pure thought, while the latter is the inherently univer- sal, and thus a kind of knowledge, which immediately contains being and therein all reahty, these laws are absolute notions and are in one and the same sense the essential principles of form as well as of things. Since self-directing, self-moving universahty is the simple notion in a state of diremption, this notion has in this manner a content in itself, and one which is all content, though not sensuous, not a being of sense. It is a con- tent, which is neither in contradiction with the form nor altogether separated from it; rather it is essentially the form itself; for the latter is nothing but the universal dividing itself into its pure moments.
In the way in which this form or content, however, comes before observation qua observation, it gets the character of a content that is found, given, i.e. one which merely is. It becomes a passively existing centre of relations, a multitude of detached necessities, which as a definitely fixed content are to have truth just as they stand with their specific characteristic, and thus, ia point of fact, are withdrawn from the form.
This absolute truth of fixed characteristics, or of a plurahty of different laws, contradicts, however, the unity of self-consciousness, contradicts the unity of thought and form in general. What is declared to be a fixed and inherently constant law can be merely a Observation of Self-cmisciousness 289 moment of the self-referring, self-reflecting unity, can come on the scene merely as a vanishing element. When rescued, however, by the process of considering them, from the movement imposing this continuous connection, and when reinstated individually and separately, it is not the content that they lack, for they have a specific content; they lack rather the form, which is their essential nature. In point of fact it is not for the reason that they have to be merely formal and are not to have any content, that these laws are not the truth of thought; it is rather for the opposite reason. It is because in their specific condition, simply as a content with the form removed, they want to pass for something absolute. In their true nature, as vanishing moments in the unity of thought, they would have to be taken as knowledge or as thinking process, but not as laws of knowledge. Observing, however, neither is nor knows that knowledge itself; observation transforms its nature into the shape of an objective being, i.e. apprehends its negative character merely as laws of knowledge.
It is sufficient for our purpose here to have demon- strated the invahdity of the so-called laws of thought from the general nature of the case. It falls to specu- lative philosophy to go more intimately and fully into the matter, and there they show themselves to be what in truth they are, single vanishing moments, whose truth is simply the whole oiE the thinking process, the process of knowledge itself.
This negative unity of thought exists for its own sake, or rather it is just that condition of being for itself and on its own account, the principle of individuahty, and in its reality it is an acting function of consciousness.
VOL. I.— U 290 Phenomenology of Mind Consequently the mental attitude of observation will by the nature of the case be led on towards this as being the reahty of those laws of thought. Since this connection is not a fact for observation, the latter supposes that thought with its laws remains standing separately on one side, and that, on the other side, it obtains another objective being in what is now the object observed, viz. that acting consciousness, which exists for itself in such a way as to cancel other- ness and find its reahty in this direct awareness of itself as the negative.
In the active practical reahty of consciousness, observation thus finds opened up before it a new field. Psychology contams the collection of laws in virtue of which the mind takes up different attitudes towards the different forms of its reality given and presented to it in a condition of otherness. The mind adopts these various attitudes partly with a view to receiving these modes of its reahty into itself, and conforming to the habits, customs, and ways of thinking it thus comes across, as being that wherein mind is reahty and as such object to itself; partly with a view to knowing its own spontaneous activity in opposition to them, to follow the bent of its own inclinations, affections, and emotions, and carry off thence what is merely of par- ticular and special moment for itself, and thus make what is objective conform to itself. In the former it behaves negatively towards itself as single and in- dividual mind, in the latter negatively towards itself as the universal being.
In the former a,spect independence [or self-depend- ence] gives what is met with merely the form of conscious tadividuahty in general, and as regards Observation of Self-consciousness 291 the content remains within the general reality given; in the second aspect, however, it gives the reahty at least a certain special modification, which does not contradict its essential content, or even a modification by which the individual qua particular reahty and pecuhar content sets itself against the general reahty. This opposition becomes a form of wrongdoing when the individual cancels that reality in a merely par- ticular manner, or when it does so in a manner that is general and thus for all, when it puts another world, another right, law, and custom in place of those aheady there.
Observational psychology, which in the first instance states what observation finds regarding the general forms brought to its notice in the active functioning con- sciousness, discovers all sorts of faculties, inclinations, and passions; and since, while narrating what this collection contains, the remembrance of the unity of self-consciousness is not to be suppressed, observational psychology is bound to get the length at least of wonder- ment that such a lot and such a miscellany of things can happen to be somehow alongside one another in the mind as in a kind of bag, more especially when they are seen to be not hfeless inert things, but restless active processes.
In telling over these various faculties observation keeps to the universal aspect: the unity of these multifarious capacities is the opposite aspect to this universahty, is the actual concrete individuahty.
To take up again the different concrete individuahties, and to describe how one man has more inclination for this, the other for that, how one has more intelhgence than the other— all this is, however, something much 292 Phenomenology of Mhid more uninteresting than even to reckon up the species of insects, mosses, and so on. For these latter give observation the right to take them thus individually and disconnectedly (begrifflos), because they belong essentially to the sphere of fortuitous detailed particu- lars. To take conscious individuahty, on the other hand, as a particular phenomenal entity, and treat it in so wooden a fashion, is self-contradictory, because the essential nature of individuality Ues in the universal element of mind. Since, however, the process of apprehending it causes it at the same time to pass into the form of universahty, to apprehend it is to find its law, and seems in this way to have a rational purpose in view, and a necessary function to fulfil.
The moments constituting the content of the law are on the one hand individuality itself, on the other its universal inorganic nature, viz. the given circumstances, situation, habits, customs, rehgion, and so forth; from these the determinate individuahty is to be under- stood and comprehended. They contain something specific, determinate, as well as universal, and are at the same time something lying at hand, which furnishes material for observation and on the other side ex- presses itself in the form of individuahty.
The law of this relation of the two sides has now to contain and express the sort of effect and influence these determinate circumstances exert on individuahty. This individuahty, however, just consists both in being the universal, and hence in passively and directly assimilating and blending with the given universals, the customs, habits, etc., thus becoming conformed to them, as also in taking up an attitude of opposition towards them and thus transforming and transmuting Observation of Self-consciousness 293 them; and again in behaving towards them in its in- dividual character with complete indifference, neither allowing them to exert an influence over it, nor setting itself actively against them. On that account what is to have an influence on individuahty, the sort of influence it is to have — which, properly speaking, means the same thing — depends entirely on individuahty itself. Consequently, to say that this individuahty has become this specifically determinate individuahty means no- thing else than saying it has been this all along. Cir- cumstances, situation, customs, and so on, which show themselves on one side as something given, and on the other as within this specific individuahty, reveal merely their own indeterminate nature, which is not the point under consideration. If these circumstances, style of thought, customs, the whole state of the world, in short, had not been, then assuredly the individual would not be what he is; for all the individuals that find a place in this state of the world go to constitute this universal substance what it is.
The way in which the condition of the world becomes particularised in any given individual, however — and such an individual has to be understood and compre- hended— could have been no other than the way in which it particularises itself as a determinate universal, and in this determinate form alone could it have operated on the individual as it does. Only so could it have made the individual the specific particular individual he is. If the external element is so constituted in and for itself as it appears in individuahty, the latter would be comprehended from the nature of the former. We should have a double gallery of pictures, one of which would be the reflection of the other: the one 294 Pfienonienotogy of Mind the gallery of external circumstance completely en' compassing, circumscribing, and determining the indi- vidual, the other the same gallery translated into the form in which those circumstances are in the conscious individual: the former the spherical surface, the latter the centre reflectively representing that surface within it.
But the spherical surface, the world for the individual, carries on the face of it this double meaning: it is in and for itself the actual world and situation, and it is the world of the individual. It is the world of the individual either in so far as this individual could be merely fused and blended with it, had let that world, just as it is, pass into its own nature, and had taken up towards it merely the attitude of a formal consciousness; or, on the other hand, it is the world of the individual in the sense in which the given has been transformed and transmuted by that individual.
Since reahty is capable of haviag this twofold mean- ing on account of this freedom of the individual, the world of the individual is only to be understood from the individual himself; and the influence of reahty upon the individual, a reality which is represented as having a being all its own {an und fiir sich), receives through this individual absolutely the opposite significance — the individual either lets the stream of reahty flowing in upon it have its way, or breaks off and diverts the current of its influence. In consequence of this, how- ever, " psychological necessity "' becomes an empty phrase, so empty that there is the absolute possibihty that what should have had this influence could equally well not have had it.
Herewith drops out of account that existence which was to be something aU by itself, and was meant to con- Observation of Self-consciousness ^95 Stitute one aspect, and that the universal aspect, of a law. Individuality is what its world, in the sense of its own world, is. Individuality itself is the cycle of its own action, in which it has presented and estabhshed itself as reahty, and is simply and solely a unity of what is given and what is constructed — a unity whose aspects do not fall apart, as in the idea of psychological law, into a world given per se and an individuahty ex- isting for itself. Or if those aspects are thus considered each by itself, there is no necessity to be found between them, and no law of their relation to one another.
Obseevation of the relation oe Sele-Consciousness TO ITS immediate ACTUALITY — PHYSIOGNOMY AND Phrenology.
[In the previous section observation was directed upon the relation of mind to external reality — the natural environment of individuality. The relation of mind to its own physical embodiment furnishes a further object for observation to take up. How observation operates in dealing with this relation forms the subject of the analysis in the present section.
Up to and at the time at which Hegel wrote, the discussion of this relation took the form of what are now looked upon either as spurious sciences or at best as falling within the scope of physiology or psycho- physics. Those pseudo-sciences were Physiognomy and Phrenology or Cranioscopy. Both had in one form or another engaged the attention of reflective minds from the earliest times. But about the latter half of the eighteenth century, they gained unusual public prominence, in Germany, France and England, through the eloquence and conviction of their exponents; so much so that in Germany a law was passed forbidding the promulgation of phrenology as being dangerous to religion, and in England a law of George II re-enacted a statute of Elizabeth imposing the severest penalties on physiognomists. The chief exponents and propa- gandists of these studies of the human individual were Lavater (1741- 1801), in physiognomy, and Gall (1758-1828) along with his pupil Spurzheim, in phrenology. The personal character and influence of the first, combined with his rhetorical eloquence, compelled the attention not only of the popular mind but of men of outstanding intelligence; while Gall lectured publicly and went from one University to another expounding the generalisations discovered or made.
It was impossible therefore for any philosopher who attempted to discuss comprehensively the methods and procedure of observational science to ignore the claims made by these pseudo-sciences or to refuse to examine the validity of the laws they proposed to formulate. This was all the more necessary because the object they dealt with — the relation of mind to its physical embodiment — was and is unquestionably an important fact of experience and presents a serious problem to philo- 296 Physiognomy and Phrenology 297 sopty, especially to idealism. Hence we have in tlie following section an elaborate analysis of the observational " sciences " of physiognomy and phrenology — an analysis the length of which can only be explained and justified by the historical circumstances above indicated. The ruthless criticism, the bitterness of the attack upon and the contempt for the claims of these sciences, displayed throughout Hegel's analysis are only explicable in view of the scientific and philosophical pretentions of the expounders of these sciences.]
Observation op the relation of Self-Consciousness to its immediate actuality — physiognomy and Phrenology * Psychological observation discovers no law for the relation of self-consciousness to actuality or the world over against it; and owing to their mutual indifference and independence it is forced to fall back on the peculiar determinate characteristic of real individuality, which has a being in and for itself or contains the oppo- sition of subjective self-existence {Filrsicliseyn) and objective inherent existence (Ansichseyn) dissolved and extinguished within its own process of absolute media- tion. Individuahty alone is now the object for observa- tion, or the object to which observation now passes.
The individual exists in himself and for himself. He is for himself, or is a free activity; he is, however, also in hunself, or has himself an original determinate being of his own — a characteristic which is in principle the same as what psychology sought to find outside him. Opposition thus breaks out in his own self; it has this twofold nature, it is a process or movement of consciousness, and it is the fixed being of a reality with a phenomenal character, a reality which in it is directly its own. This being, the " body " of the determinate in- dividuahty, is its ultimate and original source or con- dition, that in the making of which it has had nothing to do. But since the individual at the same time merely * Cp. with Hegel's analysis Erdmann's Psychologische Briefe, Br. 9.
298 Self-consciousness in relation with, its Actuality 299 is what he has done, his body is also an " expression " of himself which he has brought about; a sign and indication as well, which has not remained a bare immediate fact, but only points to and lets us see what is meant by his setting his original nature to work.
If we consider the moments we have here in relation to the view previously indicated, we find a general human shape and form, or at least the general character of a chmate, of a portion of the world, of a people, just as formerly we found in the same way general customs and culture. In addition, too, the particular circum- stances and situation come within the universal reahty; here this particular reahty is a particular formation of the shape and mould of the individual. On the other side, just as the free activity of the individual and reahty in the sense of his own reahty were formerly placed in contrast and opposition to reahty as given, here the shape assumed by the individual stands as an expression of his own actuahsation estabhshed by the individual himself, it bears the hneaments and forms of his spontaneously active being. But the universal as well as particular reality, which observation formerly met with outside the individual, is here the reahty of the individual, his co-nate body, and within this very body the expression due to his own action appears. From the psychological point of view objective reahty in and for itself and determinate individuahty had to be brought into relation to one another; here, however, it is the whole determinate individuahty that is the object for observation, and each aspect of the opposition it entails is itself this whole. ThuSj to the outer whole belongs not merely 300 Phenomenology of Mind the original primordial being, the co-nate body, but the formation of the body as well, which is due to activity from the iimer side; the body is a unity of unformed and formed existence, and is the reahty of the individual pervaded and permeated by his reference to self. This whole embraces the definite and specific parts fixed originally and from the first, and also the lines or lineaments which only arise as the result of action; this whole so formed is, and this being is an expression of what is inner and within, of the individual constituted as a consciousness and as a process.
This inner is, too, no longer formal, spontaneous activity without any content or determinateness of its own, an activity with its content and specific nature, as in the former case, lying in external circumstances; it is an origiaal inherently determinate Character, whose form is just the activity. What, then, we have to con- sider here is the relation subsisting between the two sides; the point to observe is how this relation is determined, and what is to be understood by the inner finding expression in the outer.
This outer, in the first place, does not act as an organ making the inner visible, or, in general terms, a being for another; for the inner, so far as it is in the organ, is the activity itself. The mouth that speaks, the hand that works, with the bones too, if we care to add them, are the operative organs effecting the actual reahsation, and they contain the action qua action, or the inner as such; the externality, however, which the inner obtains by their means is the deed, the act, in the sense of a reality separated and cut off from the individual. Language and labour are outer ex- pressions in which the individual no longer retains Self-consciousness in relation with its Actuality 301 possession of himself fer se, but lets the inner get right outside him, and puts it in the hands of another. For that reason we might just as truly say that these outer expressions express the irmer too much as that they do so too httle: too much — because the iuner itself breaks out in them, and there remains no opposition between them and it; they not merely give an expression of the inner, they give the inner itself directly and im- mediately: too httle — because in speech and action the inner turns itself into something else, into an other, and thereby puts itself at the mercy of change and alteration, which transmute and distort the spoken word and the accomphshed act, and make something else out of them than they are in and for themselves as actions of a particular determinate individual. Not only do the products of actions, owing to this externahty, lose by the influence of others the character of being something constant as regards other individuahties; but by their assuming towards the inner which they con- tain, the attitude of something external, separate, in- dependent, and indifferent, they can, through the in- dividual himself, be qua inner something other than they seem. Either the individual intentionally makes them to all appearance something else than they are in truth, or he is too incompetent to give himself the outer aspect he really wanted, and to give them such fixity and permanence that the product of his action cannot become transformed and distorted by others. The action, then, in the form of a completed product has the double and opposite significance of being either the inner individuaUty and not its expression, or qua external a reality detached from the inner, a reahty which is something quite different from the former.
302 Phenomenology of Mind On account of this twofold meaning, we must look about for the inner as it still is within the individual himself, but in a visible or external form. In the organ, however, it exists merely as immediate activity as such, which attains its externalisation in the act or deed, that either does or again does not represent the inner. The organ, in the light of this opposition, thus does not afiord the expression which is sought.
If now the external shape and form were able to express the inner individuahty only in so far as that shape is neither an organ nor action, hence only in so far as it is an inert passive whole, it would then play the role of a persisting or subsistent thing, which received undisturbed the inner as an alien element into its own passive being, and thereby became the sign and symbol of it — an external contingent expression, whose actual concrete aspect has no meaning of its own — ■ a language whose accents and combinations are not the real fact itself, but are arbitrarily and capriciously connected with it and a mere accident so far as it is concerned.