This result has now a twofold significance: one is its true meaning, in so far as the result is a completion of the outcome of the preceding movement of self- consciousness. The unhappy self-consciousness re- nounced its self-sufficiency, its independence, and wrung out its distinctive self- existence into the shape of a thing. By doing so, it left the level of self- consciousness and reverted to the condition of mere con- sciousness, i.e. to that phase of conscious life for which the object is an existent, a thing. But what is " thing " in this case is self-consciousness; "thing" here is the 334 Phenomenology of Mind unity of ego and being — -the Category. Wlien tlie object before consciousness is determined thus, con- sciousness possesses reason. Consciousness, as well as self-consciousness, is in itself properly reason in an implicit form; but only that consciousness can be said to liave reason whose object has the character of being the category. From this, however, the knowledge of what is reason is still distinct.
The category, which is the immediate unity of being and self {Seyn und Seinen), must traverse both forms, and the conscious attitude of observation is just where the category is set forth in the form of being. In its result, consciousness expresses that, whose unconscious implicit certainty it is, in the shape of a proposition — ■ the proposition which lies in the very notion of reason. This proposition is the infinite judgment that the self is a thing — a judgment that cancels and transcends itself.
Through this result, then, the category gets the added characteristic of being this self-cancelhng opposition. The "pure" category, which is present to consciousness in the form of being or immediacy, is still an unmediated, a merely given object, and the attitude of consciousness is also direct, has no mediation in it. That infinite judgment is the moment which brings about the tran- sition of immediacy into mediation or negativity. The given present object is therefore characterised as a negative object, while consciousness in its relation towards it assumes the form of se?/-consciousness; or the category, which traversed the form of being in the process of observation, is now set up in the form of self-existence, has now a distinctive being for its own sake. Consciousness no longer seeks to find itself Phrenology 335 immediately, but to produce itself by its own activity. Consciousness itself is the purpose and end of its own action, as in the process of observation it has to do merely with things.
The other meaning of the result is the one already considered, that of unsystematic (begrifflos) observation. This has no other way of understanding and expressing what it is about than by declaring the reahty of self- consciousness to consist in the skull-bone, just as it appears in the form of a thing of sense, stiU retaining its character as an object for consciousness. In stating this, however, it has no clear consciousness as to what the statement involves, and does not grasp the de- terminate character of the subject and predicate in the proposition and of their relation to one another, still less does it grasp the proposition in the sense of a self- resolving infinite judgment and a notion. Rather, in virtue of a deeper lying self-consciousness of mind, which has the appearance here of being an innate sincerity and honesty of nature, the ignominiousness of such an irrational crude thought as that of taking a bone for the reahty of self-consciousness, is concealed; and the very senselessness of introducing all sorts of relations of cause and effect, "symbol,"' "organ," etc., which are perfectly meaningless here, and of hiding away the glaring folly of the proposition behind distinc- tions derived from them — all this puts a gloss on that thought and whitewashes its naked absurdity.
Brain-fibres and the hke, looked at as forms of the being of mind, are from the first an imagined, a merely hjrpothetical actuahty — not an existent reahty, not felt, seen, in short not true reality. If they do exist, if they are seen, they are hfeless objects, and then nq 336 Phenomenology of Mind, longer pass for the being of mind. But objectivity proper must take an immediate, a sensuous form, so that in this objectivity qua hfeless — for the bone is Kfeless so far as it is in the hving being itself — mind is definitely established as real, as actual.
The principle involved in this idea is that reason claims to be all thinghood, even thinghood of a purely objective kind. It is this, however, in conceptu: only the notion is its truth; and the purer the notion itself is, the more silly an idea does it become, if its content does not take the shape of a notion (Begriff), but of a mere presentation or idea {Vorstellung) — if the self- superseding judgment is not taken with the conscious- ness of its infinity, but is taken as a stable and perma- nent proposition, the subject and predicate of which hold good each on its own account, self fixed as self, thing as thing, while one has to be the other all the same.
Reason, essentially the notion, is immediately parted asunder into itself and its opposite, an opposition which just for that reason is immediately again superseded. But by presenting itself in this way as both itself and its opposite, and when held fast in the entirely particular moment of this disintegration, reason is apprehended in an irrational form; and the purer the moments of this opposition are, the more glaring is the appearance of this content, which is either solely a con- tent for consciousness, or solely expressed by conscious- ness in a naive form.
The " depth " which mind brings out from within, but carries no further than to make it a presentation (Vorstellung), and let it remain at this level — and the " ignorance " on the part of this consciousness as to what it really says, are the same kind of connection of higher and lower which, in the case of the hving being, nature naively expresses when it combines the organ of its highest fulfilment, the organ of generation, with the organ of urination. The infinite judgment qua infinite would correspond to the fulfilment of hfe that com- prehends itself, while the consciousness of life that remains at the level of presentation would correspond to urination.
VOL. I.—Z B VOL. I.—Z B The Realisation of Eational Self-Consciousness Through Its Own Activity [In this section we have the second form in which rational experience is realised. In " observation " mind is directly aware of itself aa in con- scious unity with its object: it makes no effort of its own to realise this unity: it finds the unity by looking on, so to say. But it may have the same experience by creating through its own effort an object constituted and determined solely by its self. Here it does not find the unitj' of itself and its object; it makes the object at one with itself by moulding the character and content of the object after its own nature. As contrasted with observation, which may be called the operation of " theoretical " reason, this new way of having a rational experience may be called the operation of " practical " reason. In the first we have reason in the form of rational knowledge and science, in the second, reason is the sense of rational action and practice.
It is this second way of establishing the experience of reason which is analysed in the following sections. The immediately succeeding section describes the experience in its general features. We have here the sphere of conscious purpose and the foundation of moral and social life.]
338 The EEAiiisATioN of Rational Self-conscious- ness THROUGH ITS OWN ACTIVITY Self-consciousness found the " thing " in the form of itself, and itself in the form of a thing; that is to say, self-consciousness is exphcitly aware of being in itself the objective realitj^. It is no longer the immediate certainty of being all reality; it is rather that certainty for which the immediate in general assumes the form of something sublated, so that the objectivity of the imme- diate is regarded now as merely something superficial, whose inner core and essence is self-consciousness.
The object, therefore, to which seK-consciousness is positively related, is a self-consciousness. The object has the form and character of a thing, i.e. is indepen- dent: but self-consciousness has the conviction that this independent object is not ahen to itself; it knows straightway that itself is inherently and essen- tially recognised by the object. Self-consciousness is mind, which has the assm-ance of having, in the duplication of its self-consciousness and in the inde- pendence of both, its unity with its own self. This certainty has to be brought out now in all its truth; what self-consciousness holds as a fact, viz. that im- plicitly in itself and in its inner certainty it is, has to enter into full consciousness and become explicit for it.
What the general stages of this actuaHsation will be can be indicated in a general way by reference to the road thus far traversed. Just as reason, when exercised 3.3?
340 Phenomenology of Mind in observation, repeated in the medium of categories tKe movement of " consciousness " as such, namely, sense- certainty,* perception,! and understanding,]; the course of reason here, too, will again traverse the double move- ment of " self-consciousness," and from independence pass over into its freedom. To begin with this active reason is aware of itself merely as "an individual,'' and must, being such, demand and bring forth its reahty in an " other. " Thereupon, however, its consciousness being hfted into universahty, it becomes universal reason, and is consciously aware of itself as reason, as something already recognised in and for itself, which within its mere consciousness unites all self-consciousness. It is, again, the simple ultimate spiritual reality (Wesen), which, by coming at the same time to consciousness, is the real substance, into which preceding forms return and in wliich they find their ground, so that they are, with reference to the latter, merely particular moments of its process of coming into being, moments which indeed break loose and appear as forms on their own account, but have in fact only existence and actuahty when borne and supported by it, and only retain their truth in so far as they are and remain in it.
If we take this final result of the process as it is when really accomplished — this end, which is the notion that has just come before us, viz. recognised self-conscious- ness, which has the certainty of itself in the other free self-consciousness, and finds its truth precisely there; in other words, if we bring this merely inward and un- evolved mind to light as the substance that has de- * viz: in descriptive observation of nature as such.
t viz: in observation of living nature.
I viz; in observation of nature as the external reality of mind, Realisation of Rational Self-Consciousness 341 veloped into its concrete existence, — we shall find that in this notion there is opened up before us the realm of the Social Order, the Ethical World (SittlichJceit). For this latter is nothing else than the absolute spiritual unity of the essential substance (Wesen) of individuals in their independent realisation of themselves as indi- viduals; it is an inherently universal self-consciousness, which is aware of being so concrete and real in an other consciousness, that this latter has complete independ- ence, is looked on as a " thing," and the universal self- consciousness is aware precisely therein of its unity with that " thing,'" and is only then self-consciousness, when thus in unity with this objective being (Wesen). This ethical substance when taken in its abstract univer- sality is only the conception of law, thought-constituted law; but even so it is immediately actual self-conscious- ness, it is Custom (Sitte). The single individual, con- versely, is only a " this," a given existent unit, since he is aware of the universal consciousness as his own being in his own particular individuahty, seeing that his action and existence are the universal custom.
In point of fact the notion of the realisation of self-conscious reason — of having a sense of complete unity with another in his independence: of having for my object an other in the form of a " thing," found detached and apart from me, and the negative of myself, and of taking this as my self-existence {Fur michseyn) — finds its actual fulfilment in the Hfe of a nation^ Reason appears here as the fluent universal substance, as unchangeable simple " thingness," which at the same time breaks up into many entirely inde- pendent beings, just as hght bursts asunder into stars as innumerable luminous points, each giving light on its 342 Phenomenology of Mind own account, and whose absolute self-existence {Fiir- sichseyn) is dissolved, not merely implicitly {an sich), but explicitly for themselves {fiir sich), within the simple independent substance. They are conscious within themselves of being these individual independent beings through the fact that they surrender and sacrifice their particular individuality, and that this universal sub- stance is their soul and essence: — as this universal again is the action of themselves as individuals, and is the work and product of their own activity.
The purely particular activity and business of the individual refer to needs and wants, which he has as a part of nature, i.e. as a mere existent particular. That even these, its commonest functions, do not come to nothing, but have reality, is brought about by the universal sustaining medium, the might of the entire nation.
It is not merely, however, this form of subsistence for his activity in general that the individual gets in the universal substance, but likewise also his content; what he does is what all are capable of doing, is the custom all follow. This content, in so far as it is com- pletely particiiiarised, is, in its concrete reahty, not confined to the single individual, but involves and embraces the activity of all. The labour of the indi- vidual for his own wants and necessities is just as much a satisfaction of those of others as of himself, and the satisfaction of his own he attains only by the labour of others.
As the individual in his own. particular work if so facto accomplishes unconsciously a universal work so again he also performs the universal task as his conscious object. The whole becomes in its entirety his work, for Realisation of Rational Self-Consciousness 34S which he sacrifices himself, and precisely by that means receives back his own self from it.
There is nothing here which could not be reciprocal, nothing in regard to which the independence of the individual might not, in dissipating its existence on its own account {Fursicliseyn), in negating itself, give itself its positive significance of existing for itself. This unity of existing for another, or making self a " thing," and of existence for self, this universal substance, utters its universal language in the customs and laws of a nation. But this existent unchangeable nature (Wesen) is nothing else than the expression of the particular in- dividuality which seems opposed to it: the laws give expression to that which each individual is and does; the individual knows them not merely to be what con- stitutes his universal objective nature as a " thing," but knows himself, too, in that form, or knows it to be particularised in his own individuahty and in each of his feUow-citizens. In the universal mind, there-. fore, each is certain of himself only because he finds in the actual reaUty nothing but himself; he is as certain of the others as of himself. I apprehend and see in all of, them that they are in their own eyes (filr sick sdhst) only these independent beings just as I am. I see in their case the free unity with others in such wise that just as this unity exists through me, so it exists through the others too — I see them as myself, myself as them.
In a free nation, therefore, reason is in truth reahsed. ] It is a present hving mind, where the individual not only finds his determinate nature, i.e. his universal and particular being, expressed and given to him in the form; of a " thing," but himself is this real being, and has; also attained his constitutive character and position.
344 Phenomenology of Mind The wisest men of antiquity for that reason declared that wisdom and virtue consist in living in accordance with the customs of one's own nation.
From this happy state, however, of having attained its determinate nature, and of living in it, the self- consciousness, which in the first instance is only imme- diately and in principle mind, has broken away; or perhaps it has not yet attained it: for both can be said with equal truth.
Reason must pass out of and leave this happy con- dition. For only imphcitly or immediately is the hfe of a free nation real ob j ective ethical order {SittUchJceit). In other words, the latter is a merely existent social order, and in consequence this universal mind is also some- thing particular. The totality of customs and laws is a specifically determinate ethical substance, which casts off this restricted Limitation only when it reaches the higher moment, namely, when it becomes conscious regarding its own nature; only with this knowledge does it get its absolute truth, and not as it is immediately in its bare existence. In this latter form it is partly restricted and circumscribed, partly the absolute limita- tion consists just in this that mind is there in the form of existence.
Hence, further, the individual, as he immediately finds his existence in the actual objective social order, in the life of his nation, has a soKd imperturbable confi- dence; the universal mind has not here resolved itself into its abstract moments, and thus, too, he does not think of himself as existing in singleness and independ- ence. When however he has once arrived at this know- ledge, as indeed he must, this immediate unity with mind, this undifferentiated existence in the substance Realisation of Rational Self-Consciousness 345 of mind, his sense of naive confidence, is lost. Isolated by himself he is himself now the central essential reality — no longer universal mind. The element of this single- ness of self-consciousness is no doubt in universal mind itself, but merely as a vanishing quantity, which, as it appears with an existence of its own, is straight- way resolved within the universal, and only becomes consciously felt in the form of that sense of confidence. When the individual gets fixity in the form of single- ness (and every moment, being a moment of the essential reality, must manage to reveal itself as essen- tial), the individual has thereby set himself in opposition to the laws and customs. These latter are looked on as merely a thought without absolutely essential signifi- cance, an abstract theory without reality; while he qua this particular ego is in his own view the Hving truth.
Or, again [we can say, as above stated, that] self- ' consciousness has not yet attained this happy state of being ethical substance, the mind of a nation. For, ' after leaving the process of rational Observation, mind, at first, is not yet as such actually realised through itself; it is merely afiirmed as inner nature and essence, or as abstraction. In other words, mind is first immed- iate. As immediately existing, however, it is par- ticular. It is practical consciousness, which steps into the world it finds lying ready-made with the intention of duplicating itself in the determinate form of an in- dividual, of producing itself as this particular individual, and creating this its own existential counterpart, and thus becoming conscious of this unity of its own actual reahty with the objective world. Self-con- sciousness possesses the certainty of this unity; it holds that the unity is implicitly {an sich) already 346 Phenomenology of Mind present, or that this union and agreement between itself and " thinghood" (objective existence) is akeady a fait accom'pli, and has only to become expressly so through its own agency; or that its making that unity is at the same time and as much its finding the unity. Since this unity means happiness, the individual is thus sent forth into the world by his own spirit to seek his happiness.
If, then, we for our part find the truth of this rational self-consciousness to be ethical substance, that self- consciousness on its part finds here the beginning of its moral experience of the world. Looking at it as not having yet had such experience, this process drives it in that direction, and what is cancelled in the process are the particular moments which self-consciousness takes as valid in isolation. They have the form of an immediate will-process, or impulse of nature, which attains its satisfaction, this satisfaction itself being the content of a new impulse. Looking at self-consciousness, however, as having lost the happiness of being in the substance, these natural impulses are bound up with a conscious- ness that their purpose is the true vocation and essential nature of self-consciousness. Ethical substance has sunk to the level of a floating selfless adjective, whose hving subjects are individuals, which have to fill up their universality through themselves, and to provide for their vocation out of the same source.
Taken in the former sense, then, those forms and modes are the process by which the ethical substance comes to be, and precede this substance: in the latter they succeed it, and disclose for self-consciousness what its vocation is. In the former aspect the im- mediacy or raw brute impulses get lost in the process of finding out what their truth is, and their content Realisation of Rational Self-Consciousness 347 passes over to a higher. In the latter aspect, however, the false idea of consciousness, which puts its vocation in that immediacy, passes to a higher idea. In the former case the goal which they attain is the im- mediate ethical substance; while, in the latter, the end is the consciousness of that substance, such a con- sciousness as knows the substance to be its own essential being; and to that extent this process would be the development of morahty {Moralitdt), a higher state or attitude than the former (SittlichJceit). But these modes at the same time constitute only one side of the develop- ment of morality, that, namely, which belongs to self- existence, or in which consciousness cancels its pur- poses; they do not constitute the side where morahty arises out of the substance itself. Since these moments cannot yet have the signification of being made into purposes in opposition to the lost social order {Sittlich- heit), they hold here no doubt in their simple un- criticised content, and the end towards which they work is the ethical substance: but since with our time is more directly associated that form of these moments in which they appear after consciousness has lost its ethical custom-constituted {sittliches) hfe, and in the search for it repeats those forms, they may be repre- sented more after this latter manner of expression. • >,,] Self-consciousness, which is merely at first the notion of mind, takes this path with the specific characteristic of being to itself the essential reahty qua individual mind, and its purpose, therefore, is to give itself actualisation as individual, and to enjoy itself, qua individual, in so doing.
In existing for itself it is aware of itself as the essen- tially real. In this character it is the negativity of the 348 Phenomenology of Mind other. There arises, therefore, within its conscious- ness an opposition between itself qua positive and something which no doubt exists, but for it not in the sense of existing substantially. Consciousness appears sundered into this objective reality found lying at its hand, and the purpose, which it carries out by the process of cancelling that objectivity, and which it makes the actual fact instead of the given object. Its primary purpose, however, is its immediate abstract existence for itself, its seeing itself as this particular individual in another, or in looking upon another self- consciousness as itself. The experience of what the truth of this purpose is, places self-consciousness on a higher plane, and henceforth it is to itself purpose, in so far as it is at once universal, and has the law immediately within it. In carrying out this law of its heart, however, it learns that here the individual can- not preserve himself, but rather the good can only be performed through the sacrifice of the individual: and so it passes into Virtue. The experience which virtue goes through can be no other than that of finding that its purpose is already implicitly {an sicli) carried out, that happiness Ues immediately in action itself, and