VOL, II. — F IUL UB.
482 Phenomenology of Mind subsistence. Just as was the case in Scepticism, the formalism of "right" is, thus, by its very conception, without special content; it finds at its hand the fact of " possession," a fact subsisting in multiplicity, and im- prints thereon the abstract universality, by which it is called " property," — the same sort of abstraction as Scepticism made use of. But while the reality so deter- mined is in Scepticism called a mere appearance, a mere semblance, and has merely a negative value, in the case of right it has a positive significance. The negative value in the former case consists in the real having the meaning of self qua thought, qua inherent universal; the positive significance in the latter case, however, consists in its being mine in the sense of the category, as something whose validity is admitted, re- cognised, and actual. Both are the same abstract uni- versal. The actual content, the proper value of what is " mine " — whether it be an external possession, or again inner riches or poverty of mind and character — is not contained in this empty form and does not concern it. The content belongs, therefore, to a peculiar specific power, which is something different from the formal universal, is chance and caprice. Consciousness of right, therefore, in the course of the very process of making its claim good, finds that it loses its own reality, discovers its complete lack of inherent substantiality, and that to describe an individual as a " person " is to use an expression of contempt.
The free and unchecked power possessed by the content takes determinate shape in this way. The absolute plurality of dispersed atomic personalities is, by the nature of this characteristic feature gathered at the same time into a single centre, alien t<?
Legal Status 483 them and just as devoid of the life of spirit (geistlos). That central point is, in one respect, like the atomic rigidity of their personality, a merely particular reality; but in contrast to their empty particularity, it has the significance of the entire content, and hence is taken to be the essential element; while again, in contrast to their pretended absolute, but inherently insubstantial, reality, it is the universal power, and absolute actuality. This " lord and master of the world " takes himself in this way to be the absolute person, comprising at the same time all existence within himself, for whom there exists no higher type of spirit. He is a person: but the sole and single person who has chal- lenged, confronted, and conquered all. These all constitute and establish the triumphant universality of the one person; for this particular, as such, is truly what it is only qua universal plurality of particular units: cut off from this plurality, the solitary and single self is, in fact, a powerless and unreal self. At the same time, it is the consciousness of the con- tent which is antithetically opposed to that universal personality. This content, however, when liberated from its negative power, means chaos of spiritual powers, which, when let loose as elemental independent agencies, break out into wild extravagances and excesses, and fall on one another in mad destruction. Their help- less self-consciousness is the powerless inoperative en- closure and the arena of their chaotic tumult. But this master and lord of the world, aware of his being the sum and substance of all actual powers, is the titanic self-consciousness, which takes itself to be the living God. Since, however, he exists merely qua formal self, which is unable to tame and subdue those powers, his 484 Phenomenology of Mind procedure and his self-enjoyment are equally gigantic extravagance.* The lord of the world becomes really conscious of what he is, — viz. the universal might of actuality, — by that power of destruction which he exercises against the contrasted selfhood of his subjects. For his power is not the spiritual union and concord in which the various persons might get to know their own self- consciousness. Rather they exist as persons separately for themselves, and all continuity with others is ex- cluded from the absolute punctual atomicity of their nature. They are, therefore, in a merely negative relation, a relation of exclusion both to one another and to him, who is their principle of connection or continuity. Qua this continuity, he is the essential being and content of their formal nature, — a content, however, foreign to them, and a being hostile in character, which abolishes just what they take to be their very essence, viz. bare subjectivity without any content, mere empty independent existence each on its own account. And, again, qua the continuity of their personality, he destroys this very personality itself. Juridical personality thus finds itself, rather, without any substance of its own, since content alien to it is imposed on it and holds good within it, — and does so there, because such content is the reality of that type of personality. On the other hand the passion for destroying and turning over everything on this unreal field gains for itself the consciousness of its complete supremacy. But this self is barren desolation, and * Cp. with the above Hobbes' Leviathan. The historical reference here is to the "apotheosis" of the Roman Emperors.
Legal Status 485 hence is merely beside itself, and is indeed the very abandonment and rejection of its own self-consciousness. Such, then, is the constitution of that aspect in which self-consciousness qua absolute being is actual. The consciousness, however, that is driven back into itself out of this actuality, thinks this its insub- stantiality, makes it an object of thought. Formerly we saw the stoical independence of pure thought pass through Scepticism and find its true issue in the "unhappy consciousness/' — the truth about what constitutes its inherent and explicit nature, its final reality. If this knowledge appeared at that stage merely as the one-sided view of a consciousness qua consciousness, here the actual truth of that view has made its appearance. The truth consists in the fact that this universal accepted objectivity of self -consciousness is reality estranged from it. This objectivity is the universal actuality of the self; but this actuality is directly the perversion of the self as well — it is the loss of its essential being. The reality of the self that was not found in the ethical world, has been gained by its reverting into the " person." What in the case of the former was all harmony and union, comes now on the scene, no doubt in developed form, but self- estranged.
B B SPIRIT IN SELF-ESTRANGEMENT — THE DISCIPLINE OF CULTURE [The life of spirit as found in the social self-consciousness has two fundamental factors, the universal spirit or social whole as such, and the individual member as such. The interrelation of these constitutes the spiritual existence of society. Each by itself is abstract, but the realisa- tion of complete spiritual life through and in each is absolutely essential for spiritual fulfilment. In the preceding analysis of spirit, one form of this process has been considered, the realisation of the objective social order in and through individuals. In the succeeding section, with its various subsections, the other process of securing the same general result is analysed: we have the movement by which, starting from the in- dividual spirit, the realisation of complete spiritual existence is established. The former starts from the compact solidarity of the social substance, and results in the establishment of separate and individually complete legal personalities. The latter process starts from the rigidly exclusive unity of the individual self and issues in the establishment of a social order of absolutely universal and therefore absolutely free wills. Both processes are per se abstract, necessary though they are: hence, as we shall find, a further stage in the evolution of spirit has still to appear.
The process of spirit in this second stage assumes from the start a conscious contrast between the individual spirit and a universal spiritual whole, a contrast, which, while profound, the individual seeks to remove, because the universality of spiritual existence which he seeks to attain is implicitly involved in his very being as a spiritual entity. His spiritual life seems, to begin with, rent in twain, so complete is the sense of the opposition of these factors constituting his life. His true life, his objective embodiment, seems outside him altogether and yet is felt to be his own self. He seems " estranged " from his complete self, and the estrangement seems his own doing, because the substance from which he is cut off is felt to be his own. The contrast is the deepest that spirit can possibly experience, just because spirit is and knows itself to be self-contained and self -complete, "the only reality." The contrast can only be removed by effort and struggle, for the individual spirit has to create or recreate for itself and by its own activity a universal objective spiritual realm, which Spirit in Self-estrangement 487 it implies and in which alone it can be free and feel itself at home. The struggle spirit goes through is thus the greatest in the whole range of its experience, for the opposition to be overcome is the profoundest that exists. Since its aim is to achieve the highest for itself, nothing sacred can be allowed to stand in its way. It will make any sacrifice, and, if necessary, produce the direst spiritual disaster, a spiritual "reign of terror," to accomplish its result.
The movement of spirit here analysed covers every form of the in- dividual's "struggle for a substantial spiritual life." It embraces the " intellectual," " economic," " religious," and the " ethical " in the narrower sense of these terms; it embraces all that we mean by " culture " and " civilisation." Hence the various parts of the argument: — spiritual " dis- cipline," "enlightenment," the pursuit of "wealth," "belief" and "super- stition," " absolute freedom."
The process of spiritual life passed under critical review here is familiar to a greater or less extent in every age and every society. But the actual historical material present to the mind of the writer is derived from (1) the period of European history embracing the entrance of Christianity and Christian philosophy into European civilisation after the fall of the Roman Empire, and the intellectual, " humanistic," awakening of the Renaissance which led on to the ecclesiastical revolution known as the Reformation: (2) the rationalistic movement of the eighteenth century, the so-called "Enlightenment" which preceded and culminated in the French Revolution, the supreme outburst of spiritual emancipation known in European history. These two periods, far removed as they are in time, have much in common. They embody principles of spiritual develop- ment fundamentally alike, and are therefore freely drawn upon in the analysis, regardless of historicity.
Much of Hegel's analysis of the first stage of this spiritual move- ment has also directly in view the character of Rameau in Diderot's dialogue Le neveu de Rameau. This remarkable work was written in 1760, but was first brought to the notice of the literary public by Goethe, who translated and published the work in 1805. It thus came into Hegel's hands while he was writing the Phenomenology: and this perhaps accounts for the repeated references to it in the argument. The term " self -estranged spirit" with which he heads this section occurs in Goethe's translation. Rameau is an extreme type of such a spirit.
With this section should be read Hegel's Philosophy of History, Pt. Ill, § 3, c. 2; Pt. IV, § 2, c. 1, § 3, c. 1, 3: the History of Philosophy, Pt. 3, Introduction, and c. 2, " The French Philosophy and the German En- lightenment."]
SPIRIT IN SELF-ESTRANGEMENT — THE DISCIPLINE OF CULTURE The ethical substance preserved and kept opposition enclosed within its simple conscious life; and this con- sciousness was in immediate unity with its own essential nature. That nature has therefore the simple characteristic of something merely existing for the consciousness which is directed immediately upon it, and whose "custom" (Sitte) it is. Con- sciousness does not stand for a particular excluding self, nor does the substance mean for it an existence shut out from it, with which it would have to establish its identity only through estranging itself, and yet at the same time have to produce that estrangement. But that mind, whose self is absolutely insular, absolutely discrete, finds its content over against itself in the form of a reality that is just as impenetrable as itself, and the world here gets the characteristic of being some- thing external, negative to self-consciousness. Yet this world is a spiritual reality, it is essentially the fusion of individuality with being. This its existence is the work of self-consciousness, but likewise an actuality immediately present and alien to it, which has a peculiar being of its own, and in which it does not know itself. This reality is the external element and the free content * of the sphere of legal right. But this external reality, which the master of the world Spirit in Self-estrangement 489 of legal right takes control of, is not merely this ele- mentary irreducible entity casually lying before the self; it is his work, but not in a positive sense, rather negatively so. It preserves its existence by self-con- sciousness of its own accord relinquishing itself and giving up its essentiality, the condition which, in that waste and ruin which prevail in the sphere of right, the external force of the elements let loose seems to bring upon self-consciousness. These elements by themselves are sheer ruin and destruction, and cause their own over- throw. This overthrow, however, this their negative nature, is just the self; it is their subject, their action, and their process. Such process and activity again, through which the substance becomes actual, are the alienation of personality, for the immediate self, i.e. the self without estrangement and holding good as it stands, is without substantial content, and the sport of these raging elements. Its substance is thus just its re- linquishment, and the relinquishment is the substance, i.e. the spiritual powers forming themselves into a coherent world, and thereby securing their subsistence.
The substance in this way is spirit, self-conscious unity of the self and the essential nature; but both also take each other to mean and to imply alienation. Spirit is consciousness of an objective reality which exists independently on its own account. Over against this consciousness stands, however, that unity of the self with the essential nature, consciousness pure and simple over against actual consciousness. On the one side actual self-consciousness by its self-relinquishment passes over into the real world, and the latter back again into the former. On the other side, however, this very actuality, both person and objectivity, is can- 490 Phenomenology of Mind celled and superseded; they are purely universal. This its alienation is pure consciousness, or the essential nature. The present has at once its opposite in its beyond, which consists in its thinking and its being thought; just as this again has its opposite in what is here in the present, which is its actuality alienated from it.
Spirit in this case, therefore, constructs not merely one world, but a twofold world, divided and self-opposed. The world of the ethical spirit is its own proper present; and hence every power it possesses is found in this unity of the present, and, so far as each separates itself from the other, each is still in equilibrium with the whole. Nothing has the significance of a negative of self-consciousness; even the spirit of the departed is in the life-blood of his relative, is present in the self of the family, and the universal power of government is the will, the self of the nation. Here, however, what is present means merely objective actuality, which has its consciousness in the beyond; each particular moment, as an essential entity, receives this, and thereby actuality from an other, and so far as it is actual, its essential being is something other than its own actuality. No- thing has a spirit self-established and indwelling within it; rather each is outside itself in what is alien to it. The equilibrium of the whole is not the unity which abides by itself, nor its inwardly secured tranquillity, but rests on the alienation of its opposite. The whole is, therefore, like each particular moment, a self- estranged reality. It breaks up into two spheres: in one kingdom self-consciousness is actually both the self and its object, and in another we have the kingdom of pure consciousness, which, being beyond the former, Spirit in Self-estrangement 491 has no actual present, but exists for Faith, is matter of Belief. Now just as the ethical world passes from the separation of divine and human law, with its various forms, and its consciousness gets away from the division into knowledge and the absence of knowledge, and re- turns into the principle which is its destiny, into the self which is the power to destroy and negate this oppo- sition, so, too, both these kingdoms of self-alienated spirit will return into the self. But while the former was the first self, holding good directly, the particular person, this second, which returns into itself from its self- relinquishment, will be the universal self, the conscious- ness grasping the conception; and these spiritual worlds, all of whose moments insist on being a fixed reality and an unspiritual subsistence, will be dissolved in the light of pure Insight. This insight, being the self grasping itself, completes the stage of culture. It takes up nothing but the self, and everything as the self, i.e. it comprehends everything, extinguishes all objectiveness, and converts everything implicit into something ex- plicit, everything which has a being in itself into what is for itself. When turned against belief, against faith, as the far-away region of inner being lying in the distant beyond, it is Enlightenment (Aufklarung). This en- lightenment also terminates self-estrangement in this region whither spirit in self-alienation turns to seek its safety as to a region where it becomes conscious of a peace adequate to itself. Enlightenment upsets the household arrangements, which spirit carries out in the house of faith, by bringing in the goods and furnishings belonging to the world of the Here and Now, a world which that spirit cannot refuse to accept as its own property, for its conscious life likewise belongs to that 492 Phenomenology of Mind world. In this negative task pure insight realises itself at the same time, and brings to light its own proper object, the ''unknowable absolute Being" and utility.* Since in this way actuality has lost all substantiality, and there is nothing more implicit in it, the kingdom of faith, as also that of the real world, is overthrown; and this revolution brings about absolute freedom, the stage at which the spirit formerly estranged has gone back completely into itself, leaves behind this sphere of culture, and passes over into another region, the land of the inner or subjective moral consciousness (moral- ischen Bewusstseiri).
* Cp. Eighteenth century Deism and utilitarianism.
THE WORLD OP SPIRIT IN SELF-ESTRANGEMENT The sphere of spirit at this stage breaks up into two regions. The one is its real world, its self-estrangement, the other is constructed and set up in the ether of pure consciousness, and is exalted above the first. This second world, being constructed in opposition and contrast to that estrangement, is just on that account not free from it; on the contrary, it is only another form of that very estrangement, which consists precisely in having a conscious existence in two sorts of worlds, and embraces both. Hence it is not self-consciousness of Absolute Being in and for itself, not Religion, which is here dealt with: it is Belief, Faith, in so far as faith is a flight from the actual world, and thus is not a self- complete experience (an und fiir sick). Such flight from the realm of the present is, therefore, directly in its very nature a dual state of mind. Pure consciousness is the sphere into which spirit rises: but it is not only the element of faith, but of the notion as well. Con- sequently both appear on the scene together at the same time, and the latter comes before us only in anti- thesis to the former.
CULTUEE AND ITS SPHERE OF OBJECTIVE REALITY* The spirit of this world is spiritual essence permeated by a self-consciousness which knows itself to be directly present as a self -existent particular, and has that essence as its objective actuality over against itself. But the existence of this world, as also the actuality of self- consciousness, depends on the process that self-con- sciousness divests itself of its personality, by so doing creates its world, and treats it as something alien and external, of which it must now take possession. But the renunciation of its self-existence is itself the production of objective actuality, and in doing so, therefore, self-consciousness ipso facto makes itself master of this world.
To put the matter otherwise, self-consciousness is only something definite, it only has real existence, so far as it alienates itself from itself. By doing so, it puts itself in the position of something universal, and this its universality actualises it, establishes it objectively, makes it valid. This equality of the self with all selves is, therefore, not the equality that was found in the case of right; self-consciousness does not here, as there, get immediate recognition and acknowledgment merely because it is; on the contrary, its claim to be rests on