* It will be observed that "culture" embraces all means of self- development, "ideas" as well as material factors such as "wealth," Culture and its Sphere of Reality 495 its having made itself, by that mediating process of self- alienation, conform to what is universal. The spiritless formal universality which characterises the sphere of right takes up every natural form of character as well as of existence, and sanctions and establishes them. The universality which holds good here, however, is one that has undergone development, and for that reason it is concrete and actual.
The means, then, whereby an individual gets objec- tive validity and concrete actuality here is the forma- tive process of Culture. The alienation on the part of spirit from its natural existence is here the indi- vidual's true and original nature, his very sub- stance. The relinquishment of this natural state is, therefore, both his purpose and his mode of existence; it is at the same time the mediating process, the transi- tion of the thought-constituted substance to concrete actuality, as well as, conversely, the transition of deter- minate individuality to its essential constitution. This individuality moulds itself by culture to what it inherently is, and only by so doing is it then something per se and possessed of concrete existence. The extent* of its culture is the measure of its reality and its power. Although the self, qua this particular self, knows itself here to be real, yet its concrete realisation consists solely in cancelling and transcending the natural self. The original determinateness of its nature is, therefore, reduced to a matter of quantity, to a greater or less energy of will, a ' non-essential principle of distinc- tion. But purpose and content of the self belong to the universal substance alone, and can only be something universal. The specific particularity of * Bacon's phrase, " Knowledge is power," 496 Phenomenology of Mind a given nature, which becomes purpose and content, is something powerless and unreal: it is a "kind of being " which exerts itself foolishly and in vain to attain embodiment: it is the contradiction of giving reality to the bare particular, while reality is, ipso facto, something universal. If, therefore, individuality is falsely held to consist in particularity of nature and character, then the real world contains no individualities and characters; individuals are all alike for one another; the pretence (vermeint) of individuality in that case is precisely the mere presumptive (gemeint) existence which has no permanent place in this world where only renunciation of self and, therefore, only universality get actual reality. What is presumed or conjectured to be (Das Gemeinte) passes, therefore, simply for what it is, for a kind of being. "Kind" is not quite the same as Espece* "the most horrible of all nicknames, for it signifies mediocrity, and denotes the highest degree of contempt, "f "A kind" and "to be good of its kind " are German expressions, which add an air of honesty to this meaning, as if it were not so badly meant and intended after all; or which, indeed, do not yet involve a clear consciousness of what " kind " and what culture and reality are.
That which, in reference to the particular individual, appears as his culture, is the essential moment of spiritual substance as such, viz.: the direct transition of its ideal, thought-constituted, universality into actual reality; or otherwise put, culture is the single soul of this substance, in virtue of which the essen- * " Espece se dit de personues auxquelles on ne trouve ni qualite ni merite. " — Littre.
Culture and its Sphere of Reality 497 tially inherent (Ansich) becomes something explicitly acknowledged, and assumes definite objective exist- ence. The process in which an individuality cultivates itself is, therefore, ipso facto, the development of individuality qua universal objective being; that is to say, it is the development of the actual world. This world, although it has come into being by means of individuality, is in the eyes of self-con- sciousness something that is directly alienated and estranged, and, for self-consciousness, takes on the form of a fixed, undisturbed reality. But at the same time self-consciousness is sure this is its own substance, and proceeds to take it under control. This power over its substance it acquires by culture, which, looked at from this aspect, appears as self-consciousness making itself conform to reality, and doing so to the extent permitted by the energy of its original character and talents. What seems here to be the individual's power and force, bringing the substance under it, and thereby doing away with that substance, is the same thing as the actualisation of the substance. For the power of the individual consists in conforming itself to that substance, i.e. in emptying itself of its own self, and thus estab- lishing itself as the objectively existing substance. Its culture and its own reality are, therefore, the process of making the substance itself actual and concrete.
The self is conscious of being actual only as trans- cended, as cancelled.* The self does not here constitute the unity of consciousness of self and object; rather this object is negative as regards the self. By means of the self qua inner soul of the process, the substance is so moulded and worked up in its various moments, * Cp. Hume's view of " personal identity," Treatise, pt. IV, c. 6, VOL. II.— G 498 Phenomenology of Mind that one opposite puts life into the other, each opposite, by its alienation from the other, gives the other stability, and similarly gets stability from the other. At the same time, each moment has its own definite nature, in the sense of having an insuperable worth and signifi- cance; and has a fixed reality as against the other. The process of thought fixes this distinction in the most general manner possible, by means of the absolute opposition of " good " and " bad," which are poles asunder, and can in no way become one and the same. But the very soul of what is thus fixed consists in its immediate transition to its opposite; its existence lies really in transmuting each determinate element into its opposite; and it is only this alienation that consti- tutes the essential nature and the preservation of the whole. We must now consider this process by which the moments are thus made actual and give each other life; the alienation will be found to alienate itself, and the whole thereby will take all its contents back into the ultimate principle it implies (seinen Begriff).
At the outset we must deal with the substance pure and simple in its immediate aspect as an organisa- tion of its moments; they exist there, but are inactive, their soul is wanting. We have here something like what we find in nature. Nature, we find, is resolved and spread out into separate and separable elements — air, water, fire, earth. Of these air is the unchanging factor, purely universal and transparent; water, the reality that is for ever being dissolved and given up; fire, its pervading active unity which is ever dissolving opposition into unity, as well as breaking up simple unity into opposite constituents: earth is the tightly compact knot of these separated factors, the subject Culture and its SpJiere of Reality 499 in which these realities are, where their processes take effect, that which they start from and to which they return. In the same way the inner essential nature, the simple life of spirit that pervades self-conscious reality, is resolved, spread out into similar general areas or masses, spiritual masses in this case, and appears as a whole organised world. In the first area or mass it is the inherently universal spiritual being, self-identical; in the second it is self-existent being, it has become inherently self-discordant, sacrificing itself, abandon- ing itself; the third which takes the form of self- consciousness is subject, and possesses in its very nature the fiery force of dissolution. In the first case it is conscious of itself, as immanent and implicit, as existing per se; in the second it finds independence, self-existence (Fursichseyri) developed and carried out by means of the sacrifice of what is universal. But spirit itself is the self - containedness and self -com- pleteness of the whole, which splits up into substance qua constantly enduring and substance engaged in self- sacrifice, and which at the same time resumes substance again into its own unity; a whole which is at once a flame of fire bursting out and consuming the substance, as well as the abiding form of the substance consumed. We can see that the areas of spiritual reality here referred to correspond to the Community and the Family in the ethical world, without, however, possess- ing the native familiarity of spirit which the latter have. On the other hand, if destiny is alien to this spirit, self-consciousness is and knows itself here to be the real power underlying them.
We have now to consider these separate members 500 PJienomenology of Mind of the whole, in the first instance as regards the way they are presented qua thoughts, qua essential inherent entities falling within pure consciousness, and also secondly as regards the way they appear as objective realities in concrete conscious life.
In the first form, the simplicity of content found in pure consciousness, the real is the Good, the self-identical, immediate, unchanging, and primal nature of every con- sciousness, the independent spiritual power inherent in its essence, alongside which the activity of the mere self-existent consciousness is only by-play. Its other is the passive spiritual being, the universal so far as it parts with its own claims, and lets individuals get in it the consciousness of their particular existence; it is a state of nothingness, a being that is null and void, the Bad. This absolute break-up of the real into these disjecta membra is itself a permanent condition; while the first member is the foundation, starting- point, and result of individuals, which are there purely universal, the second member, on the other hand, is a being partly sacrificing itself for another, and, on that very account, is partly their incessant return to self qua individual, and their constant development of a separate being of their own.
But, secondly, these bare ideas of Good and Bad are similarly and immediately alienated from one another; they are actual, and in actual consciousness appear as moments that are objective. In this sense the first state of being is the Power of the State, the second its Resources or Wealth. The state-power is the simple spiritual substance, as well as the achievement of all, the absolutely accomplished fact, wherein individuals find their essential nature expressed, and where their Culture and its Sphere of Reality 501 particular existence is simply and solely a consciousness of their own universality. It is likewise the achieve- ment and simple result from which the sense of its having been their doing has vanished: it stands as the absolute basis of all their action, where all their action securely subsists. This simple pervading sub- stance of their life, owing to its thus determining their unalterable self-identity, has the nature of objective being, and hence only stands in relation to and exists for '* another. " It is thus, ipso facto, inherently the opposite of itself — Wealth or Eesources. Although wealth is something passive, is nothingness, it is likewise a universal spiritual entity, the continu- ously created result of the labour and action of all, just as it is again dissipated into the enjoyment of all. In enjoyment each individuality no doubt becomes aware of self-existence, aware of itself as particular; but this enjoyment is itself the result of universal action, just as, reciprocally, wealth calls forth universal labour, and produces enjoyment for all. The actual has through and through the spiritual significance of being directly universal. Each individual doubtless thinks he is acting in his own interests when getting this enjoy- ment; for this is the aspect in which he gets the sense of being something on his own account, and for that reason he does not take it to be something spiritual. Yet looked at even in external fashion, it becomes manifest that in his own enjoyment each gives enjoy- ment to all, in his own labour each works for all as well as for himself, and all for him. His self-existence is, therefore, inherently universal, and self-interest is merely a supposition that cannot get the length of making concrete and actual what it means or sup- 502 Phenomenology of Mind poses, viz. to do something that is not to further the good of all.
Thus, then, in these two spiritual potencies self- consciousness finds its own substance, content, and purpose; it has there a direct intuitive consciousness of its twofold nature; in one it sees what it is inherently in itself, in the other what it is explicitly for it- self. At the same time qua spirit, it is the negative unity, uniting the subsistence of these potencies with the separation of individuality from the universal, or that of reality from the self. Dominion and wealth are, therefore, before the individual as objects he is aware of, i.e. as objects from which he knows himself to be detached and between which he thinks he can choose, or even decline to choose altogether. In the form of this detached bare consciousness he stands over against the essential reality as one which is merely there for him. He then has the reality qua essential reality within itself. In this bare consciousness the moments of the substance are taken to be not state-power and wealth, but thoughts, the thoughts of Good and Bad. But further, self-consciousness is a relation of his pure consciousness to his actual consciousness, of what is thought to the objective being; it is essentially Judgment. What is Good and what is Bad has already been brought out in the case of the two aspects of actual reality by determin- ing what the aspects primarily are; the one is state- power, the other wealth. But this first judgment, this first distinction of content, cannot be looked at as a " spiritual " judgment; for in that first judgment the one side has been characterised as only the inherently existing or positive, and the other side as only the explicit self-existent and negative. But qua Culture and its Sphere of Reality 503 spiritual realities, each permeates both moments, per- vades both aspects; and thus their nature is not ex- hausted in those specific characteristics [positive and negative]. The self-consciousness that has to do with them is self-complete, is in itself and for itself. It must, therefore, relate itself to each in that twofold form in which they appear; and by so doing, this nature of theirs, which consists in being self-estranged determin- ations, will come to light.
Now self-consciousness takes that object to be good, and to exist per se, in which it finds itself; and that to be bad when it finds the opposite of itself there. Goodness means its identity with objective reality, badness their disparity. At the same time what is for it good and bad, is per se good and bad; because it is just that in which these two aspects — of being per se, and of being for it — are the same: it is the real indwelling soul of the objective facts, and the judgment is the evidence of its power within them, a power which makes them into what they are in themselves. What they are when spirit is actively related to them, their identity or non-identity with spirit, — that is their real nature and the test of their true meaning, and not how they are identical or diverse taken immediately in them- selves apart from spirit, i.e. not their inherent being and self-existence in abstracto. The active relation of spirit to these moments, — which are first put forward as objects to it and thereafter pass by its action into what is essential and inherent — becomes at the same time their reflection into themselves, in virtue of which they obtain actual spiritual existence, and their spiritual meaning comes to light. But as their first immediate characteristic is distinct from the relation of 504 Phenomenology of Mind spirit to them, the third determinate moment — their own proper spirit — is also distinguished from the second moment. Their second inherent nature (Das zweite Ansich derselben) — their essentiality which comes to light through the relation of spirit to them — must in the first instance turn out different from the immediate inherent nature; for indeed this mediating process of spiritual activity puts in motion the im- mediate characteristic, and turns it into something else.
As a result of this process, the self-contained con- scious mind doubtless finds now in the Power of the State its reality pure and simple, and its subsistence; but it does not find its individuality as such; it finds its inherent and essential being, but not what it is for itself. Rather, it finds there its action qua individual action rejected and denied, and subdued into obedience. The individual thus recoils before this power and turns back into himself; it is the reality that suppresses him, and is the bad. For instead of being identical with him, that with which he is at one, it is something utterly in discordance with individuality. In contrast with this, Wealth and Riches are the good; they tend to the general enjoyment, they are there simply to be disposed of, and they ensure for every one the conscious- ness of his particular self. Riches means in its very nature universal beneficence: if it refuses any benefit in a given case, and does not gratify every need, this is merely an accident which does not detract from its universal and necessary nature of imparting to every individual his share and being a thousand-handed benefactor.
These two judgments provide the ideas of goodness Culture and its Sphere of Reality 505 and badness with a content which is the reverse of what they had for us. Self-consciousness has up till now, however, been related to its objects only incompletely, viz. only according to the criterion of the self-existent. But consciousness is also real in its inherent nature, and has likewise to take this aspect for its point of view and criterion, and by so doing round off completely the judgment of self-conscious spirit. According to this aspect state-power expresses its essential nature: the power of the state is in part the quiet insistence of law, in part government and prescription, which appoints and regulates the particular processes of universal action. The one is the substance pure and simple, the other its action which animates and sustains itself and all individuals. The individual thus finds therein his ground and nature expressed, organised, and exercised. As against this, the individual, by the enjoyment of riches, does not get to know his own universal nature: he only gets a transitory consciousness and enjoyment of himself qua particular and self-existing, and discovers his discordance, his want of harmony with his own essential nature. The conceptions good and bad thus receive here a content the opposite of which they had before.
These two ways of judging find each of them an identity and a disagreement. In the first case conscious- ness finds the power of the state out of agreement with it, and the enjoyment that came from wealth in accord with it; while in the second case the reverse holds good. There is a twofold attainment of identity and a twofold form of disagreement: there is an opposite relation established towards both the essential realities. We must pass judgment on these different 506 Phenomenology of Mind ways of judging as such; to this end we have to apply the criterion already brought forward. The conscious relation where identity or agreement is found, is, according to this standard, the good; that where want of agreement obtains, the bad. These two types of relation must henceforth be regarded as modes or forms of conscious existence. Conscious life, through taking up a different kind of relation, thereby becomes itself characterised as different, comes to be itself good or bad. It is not simply distinct in virtue of the fact that it took as its constitutive principle either existence for itself, or mere being in itself; for both are equally essential moments of its life: that dual way of judging, above discussed, presented those principles as separated, and contained, therefore, merely abstract ways of judging. Concrete actual conscious life has within it both principles, and the distinction between them falls solely within its own nature, viz. inside the relation of itself to the real.
This relation takes opposite forms; in the one there is an active attitude towards state-power and wealth as to something with which it is in accord, in the other it is related to these realities as to something with which it is at variance. A conscious life which finds itself at one with them has the attribute of Nobility. In the case of the public authority of the state, it beholds what is in accord with itself, and sees that it has there its own nature pure and simple and the region for the exercise of its own powers, and takes up the position of open willing and obedient service in its interests, as well as that of inner reverence towards it. In the same way in the sphere of wealth, it sees that wealth secures for it the consciousness of self-existence, of Culture and its Sphere of Reality 507 realising the other essential aspect of its nature: hence it looks upon wealth likewise as something essential in relation to itself, acknowledges him from whence the enjoyment comes as a benefactor, and considers itself under a debt of obligation.
The conscious life involved in the other relation, again, that of disagreement, has the attribute of Baseness. It remains at variance with both those essential elements. It looks upon the authoritative power of the state as a chain, as something suppressing its separate existence for its own sake, and hence hates the ruler, obeys only with secret malice, and stands ever ready to burst out in rebellion. It sees, too, in wealth, by which it attains to the enjoyment of its own independent existence, merely something discordant, or out of harmony with its permanent nature; since through wealth it only gets a sense of its particular isolated existence and a con- sciousness of passing enjoyment, this type of mind loves wealth, but despises it, and, with the disappearance of enjoyment, of what is inherently evanescent, regards its relation to the man of wealth as having ceased too.