them. Sense facts are thus related now positively to the Absolute qua something ultimate (Ansich), and sense reality is itself ultimate per se; the Absolute makes them, fosters and cherishes them. Then, again, they are related to it as an opposite, that is to their own non-being; in this case they are not something ulti- mate, they have being only for an other. Whereas in the preceding mode of consciousness the conceptions involved in the opposition took shape as good and bad, in the case of pure insight they pass into the more The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 569 abstract forms of what is per se (Ansich) and what is for an other being.
Both ways of dealing with the positive as well as the negative relation of finitude to what is ultimate (Ansich) are, however, equally necessary as a matter of fact, and everything is thus as much something per se (an sick) as it is something for an other: in other words everything is " useful."
Everything is now at the mercy of other things, lets itself now be used by others, and exists for them; and then again it, so to say, gets up on its hind legs, fights shy of the other, exists for itself on its own account, and on its side uses the other too.
From this, as a result, man, being the thing conscious of this relation, derives his true nature and place. As he is immediately, man is good, qua natural conscious- ness per se, absolute qua individual, and all else exists for him: and further, — since the moments have the significance of universality for him qua self-conscious animal, — everything exists to pleasure and delight him, and, as he first comes from the hand of God, he walks the earth as in a garden planted for him. He is bound also to pluck the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; he claims to have a use for it which distinguishes him from every other being, for, as it happens, his inherently good nature is so constituted that the superfluity of delight does it harm, or rather his particularity contains as a factor in its constitution a principle that goes beyond it; his particularity can overreach itself and destroy itself. To prevent this, he finds reason a useful means for duly restraining this self-transcendence, or rather for pre- serving himself when he does go beyond determinate 570 Phenomenology of Mind limits: for such is the force of consciousness. The enjoyment of this conscious and essentially universal being must, in manifold variety and duration, be itself universal and not something determinate. The prin- ciple of measure or proportion has, therefore, the deter- minate function of preventing pleasure in its variety and duration from being quite broken off: i.e. the "measure" is determined with respect to immodera- tion.
As everything is useful for man, man is likewise useful too, and his characteristic determination con- sists in making himself a member of the human herd, of use for the common good, and serviceable to all. The extent to which he looks after his own interests is the measure with which he must also serve the purpose of others, and so far as he serves their turn, he is taking care of himself: the one hand washes the other. But wherever he finds himself there he is in his right: he makes use of others and is himself made use of.
Different things are serviceable to one another in different ways. All things, however, have this recipro- city of utility by their very nature, by being related to the Absolute in the twofold manner, the one positive, whereby they have a being all their own, the other negative, and thereby exist for others. The relation to Absolute Keality, or Keligion, is therefore of all forms of profitableness the most supremely profitable;* for it is profiting pure and simple; it is that by which all things stand — by which they have a being all their own — and that by which all things fall — have an existence for something else.
Belief, of course, finds this positive outcome of * Cp. 1 Timothy iv. 8: "Godliness is profitable unto all things."
The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 571 enlightenment as much an abomination as its negative attitude towards belief. This enlightened insight into absolute Reality, that sees nothing in it but just absolute Reality, the etre supreme, the great Void — this intention to find that everything in its imme- diate existence is inherently real (an sich) or good, and finally to find the relation of the particular con- scious entity to the Absolute Being, Religion, ex- haustively summed up in the conception of profitableness — all this is for belief utterly and simply revolting. This special and peculiar wisdom of enlightenment necessarily seems at the same time to the believing mind to be sheer insipidity and the confession of insipidity; because it consists in knowing nothing of absolute Being, or, what amounts to the same thing, in knowing this entirely accurate platitude regard- ing it, — that it is merely absolute Being, and, again, in knowing nothing but finitude, taking this, more- over, to be the truth, and thinking this knowledge about finitude qua truth to be the highest knowledge attainable.
Belief has a divine right as against enlightenment, the right of absolute self-identity or of pure thought; and it finds itself utterly wronged by enlighten- ment; for enlightenment distorts all its moments, and makes them something quite different from what they are in it. Enlightenment, on the other hand, has merely a human right as against belief, and can only put in a human claim for its own truth; for the wrong it commits is the right of disunion, of discordance, and consists in perverting and altering, a right that belongs to the nature of self-consciousness in opposi- tion to the simple ultimate essence or thought. But 572 Phenomenology of Mind since the right of enlightenment is the right of self- consciousness, it will not merely retain its own right, too, in such a way that two equally valid rights of spirit would be left standing in opposition to one another without either satisfying the claims of the other; it will maintain the absolute right, because self-conscious- ness is the negative function of the notion (Begriff), a function which does not merely operate on its own account, but also gets control over its opposite. And because belief is a mode of consciousness, it will not be able to balk enlightenment of that right.
For enlightenment does not operate against the believing mind with special principles of its own, but with those which belief itself implies and contains. Enlightenment merely brings together and presents to belief its own thoughts, the thoughts that lie scattered and apart within belief, all unknown to it. Enlighten- ment merely reminds belief, when one of its own forms is present, of others it also has, but which it is always forgetting when the one is there. Enlightenment shows itself to belief to be pure insight, by the fact that it, in a given determinate moment, sees the whole, brings forward the opposite element standing in direct rela- tion to that moment and, converting the one into the other, brings out the principle operating negatively on both thoughts — the notion. It appears, therefore, to belief to be distortion and lies, because it shows up the other side in the moments of belief. Enlightenment seems, in consequence, directly to make something else out of them than they are in their own particu- larity; but this other is equally essential, and in reality is to be found in the believing mind itself, only the latter does not think about it, but keeps it some- The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 573 where else. Hence neither is the result foreign to belief nor can belief reject its truth.
Enlightenment itself, however, which reminds belief of the opposite of its various separate moments, is just as little enlightened regarding its own nature. It takes up a purely negative attitude to belief, so far as it excludes its own content from its own pure activity and takes that content to be negative of itself. Consequently, neither in this negative, in the content of belief, does it recognise itself, nor, for this reason, does it bring to- gether the two thoughts, the one which it contributes and the one against which it brings the first. Since it does not know that what it condemns in the case of belief is directly its very own thought, it has its own being in the opposition of both moments, only one of which, — viz. in every case the one opposed to belief — it acknowledges, but cuts off the other from the first, just as belief does. Enlightenment, consequently, does not bring out the unity of both as their unity, i.e. the notion; but the notion arises before it and comes to light of its own accord, in other words, enlightenment finds the notion merely as something lying ready at hand. For in itself the process of realising pure insight is just this, that insight, whose essential nature is the notion, comes before itself to begin with in the shape of an absolute other, and repudiates itself (for the opposite of the notion is an absolute opposite), and then out of this otherness comes to itself or comes to its notion.
Enlightenment, however, is merely this process, it is the activity of the notion in still unconscious form, an activity which no doubt comes to itself qua object, but takes this object for an external other, and does not even know the nature of the notion, i.e. does not know 574 Phenomenology of Mind that it is the undifferentiated element which absolutely divides itself.
As against belief, then, insight is the power of the notion in so far as this is the active process of relating the moments lying apart from one another in belief; a way of relating them in which the contradiction in them comes to light. Herein lies the absolute right of the power which insight exercises over belief; but the actuality which it gives this power lies just in the fact that the believing state of consciousness is itself the notion and thus itself recognises and accepts the opposite which insight produces and presents before it. Insight, therefore, has and retains right against belief, because it makes valid in belief what is necessary to belief itself, and what belief contains within it.
At first enlightenment asserts the moment of the notion to be an act of consciousness; it maintains in the face of belief that the absolute Keality belief accepts is a Reality of the believer's consciousness qua a self, or that this absolute Reality is produced through consciousness. To the believing mind its absolute Being is just as it is in itself for the believer, at the same time not as a foreign thing, standing there no one knows how or whence it came there. The trust and confidence of belief con- sists just in finding itself in absolute Reality as a par- ticular personal consciousness, and its obedience and service consist in acting so as to bring out that Reality as its own Absolute. Enlightenment, strictly speaking, only reminds belief of this, if belief goes beyond the action of consciousness and gives expression to the ulti- mate nature (Ansicli) of absolute Being in abstracto.
But while enlightenment no doubt puts alongside the one-sidedness of belief the opposite moment, viz.: — the The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 575 action of belief in contrast to being — and being is all belief thinks about here, — and yet does not itself in doing so bring those opposite thoughts together, en- lightenment isolates the pure moment of action, and declares that what belief takes to be per se ultimate (Ansich) is merely a product of consciousness. The isolated separate act opposed to this ultimate Being (Ansich) is, however, a contingent action, and, qua pre- sentative activity, is a creating of fictions, — presented figurative ideas that have no being in themselves. And this is how enlightenment regards the content of belief.
Conversely, however, pure insight equally says the very opposite. Since insight lays stress on the moment of otherness which the notion contains, it declares the essential Reality for belief to be one which is not in any way due to consciousness, is away beyond consciousness, foreign to it, and un- known. To belief, too, that Reality has the same character. On one side belief trusts in it, and gets, in doing so, the assurance of its own self, on the other side it is unsearchable in all its ways and unattainable in its being.
Further, enlightenment maintains against the be- lieving mind a right which the latter concedes, when enlightenment treats the object of the believer's veneration as stone and wood, or, in short, some finite anthropomorphic feature. For, since this conscious- ness is divided within itself in having a ' beyond' remote from actuality and an immediate present embodiment of that remote beyond, there is also found in it, as a matter of fact, the view that sense-things have a value and significance in and for themselves (an und fur sich). But belief does not bring together these two ideas of 576 Phenomenology of Mind what is " in and for itself," viz. that at one time what is " in and for itself " is for belief pure essential Reality and at another time is an ordinary thing of sense. Even its own pure consciousness is affected by this last view; for the distinctions of its supersensuous world, because dispensing with the notion, are a series of inde- pendent shapes and forms, and their activity is a happening, i.e. they exist merely in idea, merely as presentations, and have the characteristic of sense- existence.
Enlightenment on its side isolates actuality in the same way, treating it as a reality abandoned by spirit; isolates specific determinateness as some fixed im- movable finite element, as if it were not a moment in the spiritual process of the real itself, were neither nothing, nor something with a being all its own, but something evanescent and transitory.
It is clear that the same is the case with regard to the ground of knowledge. The believing mind recognises itself to be an accidental knowledge; for in belief the mind adopts an attitude towards contingen- cies, and absolute Reality itself comes before belief in the form of a presented idea of ordinary actual fact. Consequently belief is also a kind of certainty which does not carry the truth within it, and it con- fesses itself to be an unsubstantial consciousness of this kind, far short of being well assured of itself and authentically secure. This moment, however, belief forgets in its immediate spiritual knowledge of absolute Reality.
Enlightenment, however, which reminds belief of all this, thinks again merely of the contingency of the knowledge and forgets the other — thinks only The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 577 of the mediating process which takes effect through an alien third term, and does not think on that pro- cess wherein the immediate is itself the third term, through which it mediates itself with the other, viz. with itself.
Finally, on the view enlightenment takes of the action of belief, the rejection of enjoyment and posses- sions is looked upon as wrong and purposeless.
As to the wrong thus done, enlightenment preserves the harmony of the believing attitude in this that belief acknowledges the actual reality of possessing property, keeping hold of it, and enjoying it. In in- sisting on its property, it behaves with all the more stubborn independence and exclusiveness, and in its enjoyment with all the more frank self-abandonment, since its religious act of giving up pleasure and property takes effect beyond the region of this actuality, and purchases for it freedom to do as it likes so far as that other sphere is concerned. This service, that consists in sacrificing natural impulses and enjoyments, in point of fact has no truth, owing to this opposition. The retention and the sacrifice subsist together side by side. The sacrifice is merely a "sign" which performs real sacrifice only as regards a small part, and hence in point of fact only representatively suggests sacri- fice.
As for purposiveness, enlightenment finds it point- less and stupid to throw away a possession in order to feel and to prove oneself to be free from all possession, to renounce an enjoyment in order to think and de- monstrate that one is rid of all enjoyment. The be- lieving mind itself takes the absolute act for a universal one. Not only does the action of its absolute Reality VOL. II. — M 578 Phenomenology of Mind as its object appear something universal, but the individual consciousness, too, has to prove itself de- tached entirely and altogether from its sensuous nature. But throwing away a particular possession, giving up and disclaiming a particular enjoyment, is not acting universally in this way. And since in the action it is essentially the purpose, which is a universal, and the performance, which is a particular process, that had to stand in all their incompatibility before consciousness, that action shows itself to be of a kind in which consciousness has no share, and consequently this way of acting is seen to be too naive to be an action at all. It is too naive to fast in order to prove one- self quite indifferent to the pleasures of the table; too naive to rid oneself, like Origen, of other bodily pleasure in order to show that pleasure is finished and done with. The act itself proves to be an external and a particular function. But desire' is deeply rooted within the inner life, and is a universal element; its pleasure neither disappears with the instrument for getting pleasure nor by abstention from particular pleasures.
But enlightenment on its side here isolates the un- realised inwardness as against the concrete actuality; just as in the case of the devotion and direct intuition of belief, enlightenment holds fast to the externality of things of sense as against the inward attitude of belief. Enlightenment finds the main point in the intention, in the thought, and thereby finds no need for actually bringing about the liberation from natural ends. On the contrary, this inner sphere is itself the formal element that has its concrete fulfilment in natural impulses, which are justified simply by the The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 579 fact that they fall within, that they belong to universal being, to nature.
Enlightenment, then, holds irresistible sway over belief by the fact that the latter finds in its own constitution the very moments to which enlightenment gives significance and validity. Looking more closely at the action exerted by this force, its operation on belief seems to rend asunder the unity and happy harmony of trustfulness and immediate confidence, to pollute its spiritual life with lower thoughts drawn from the sphere of sense, to destroy the feeling of calm security in its attitude of submission by introducing the vanity of understanding, of self-will, and self-fulfil- ment. But in point of fact, enlightenment really brings to pass the abolition of that state of unthinking, or rather uncomprehended (begrifflos) cleavage, which finds a place in the nature of belief. The believing mood weighs and measures by a twofold standard, it has two sorts of eyes and ears, uses two voices to express its meaning, it duplicates all ideas, without comparing and squaring the sense and meaning in the two forms used. Or we may say belief lives its life amidst two sorts of perceptions, the one the percep- tions of thought which is asleep, purely uncritical and uncomprehending, the other those of waking conscious- ness living solely and simply in the world of sense; and in each of them it manages to carry on a household all its own.
Enlightenment illuminates that world of heaven with ideas drawn from the world of sense, pointing out there this element of finitude which belief cannot deny or repudiate, because it is self-consciousness, and in being so is the unity to which both kinds of ideas 580 Phenomenology of Mind belong, and in which they do not fall apart from one another; for they belong to the same indivisible simple self into which belief has passed, and which constitutes its life.
Belief has by this means lost the content which furnished its rilling, and collapses into an inarticulate state where the spirit works and weaves within itself.* Belief is banished from its own kingdom; this kingdom is sacked and plundered, since every distinction and expansion of it has rent the waking consciousness in its innermost nature, and claimed every one of its parts for earth, and returned them to the earth that owns them. Yet belief is not on that account satisfied, for this illumination has everywhere brought to light only what is individual, with the result that only insubstantial realities and finitude forsaken of spirit make any appeal to spirit.
Since belief is without content and cannot continue in this barren condition, or since, in getting beyond finitude, which is the sole content, it finds merely the empty void, it is a sheer longing: its truth is an empty beyond, for which there is no longer any appropriate content to be found, for everything is appropriated and connected in other ways.
Belief in this manner has in fact become the same as enlightenment — the conscious attitude of relating a finite that inherently exists to an unknown and un- knowable Absolute without predicates; the difference is merely that the one is enlightenment satisfied, while belief is enlightenment unsatisfied, f It will yet be * i.e. the life of feeling.
t i.e. the contrast between belief and enlightenment becomes a con- trast inside enlightenment itself.
The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 581 seen whether enlightenment can continue in its state of satisfaction; that longing of the troubled, be- shadowed spirit, mourning over the loss of its spiritual world, lies in the background. Enlightenment has on it this stain of unsatisfied longing: — in its empty Absolute Being we find this in the form of the pure object; in passing beyond its individual nature to an unfulfilled beyond, the fleck appears as an act and a process; in the selflessness of what is "useful" it is seen in the form of an object fulfilled. Enlightenment will remove this stain: by considering more closely the positive result which constitutes the truth in its case, we shall find that the stain is implicitly removed already.
THE TRUE RESULT OF ENLIGHTENMENT* The spirit that sullenly works and weaves without further distinctions within itself has thus passed into itself away beyond consciousness, which, again, has arrived at clearness as to itself. The first moment of this clearness of mind is determined, in regard to its necessity and constitution, by the fact that pure insight, or insight that is implicitly and per se notion, actualises itself; it does so when it gives otherness or determinateness a place in its own nature. In this manner it is negative pure insight, i.e. the negation of the notion; this negation is equally pure; and here- with has arisen the pure and simple " thing/' the Abso- lute Being, that has no further determination of any sort. If we define this more precisely, insight in the sense of absolute notion is a distinguishing of distinc- tions that are not so any longer, of abstractions or pure notions that no longer support themselves but find a fixed hold and a distinction only by means of the whole life of the process. This distinguishing of what is not distinguished consists just in the fact that the absolute notion makes itself its object, and as against that process asserts itself to be the essence. The essence hereby dispenses with the aspect wherein abstrac- * The outcome is at once positive and negative — materialism and agnosticism: on the secular side, it is pure utilitarianism.
The Result of Enlightenment 583 tions or distinctions are kept apart, and hence be- comes pure thought in the sense of a pure thing.
This, now, is just the dull, silent, unconscious working and weaving of the spirit at the loom of its own being, to which belief, as we saw, sank back when it lost all distinction in its content. And this is at the same time that movement of pure self-consciousness, in regard to which the essence is intended to be the absolutely exter- nal beyond. For, because this pure self-consciousness is a movement working with pure notions, with distinctions that are no distinctions, pure self-consciousness col- lapses in fact into that unconscious working and weaving of spirit, i.e. into pure feeling, or pure thing- hood.
The self-alienated notion — for the notion still stands here at the level of such alienation — does not, however, know this identical nature constituting both sides, — the movement of self-consciousness and its absolute Reality, — does not know the identity of their nature, which, in point of fact gives them their very substance and sub- sistence. Since the notion is not aware of this insight, absolute Reality has significance and value merely in the form of an objective beyond, while the consciousness making these distinctions, and in this way keeping the ultimate reality outside itself, is treated as a finite consciousness.
Regarding that Absolute Being, enlightenment itself falls out with itself in the same way as it did formerly with belief, and is divided between the views of two parties. One party proves itself to be victorious by the fact that it breaks up into two parties; for in that fact it shows it possesses within it the principle it combats, and consequently shows it has abolished 584 Phenomenology of Mind the one-sidedness with which it formerly made its appearance. The interest which was divided between it and the other, now falls entirely within it, and forgets the other, because that interest finds lying in it alone the opposition on which attention is directed. At the same time, however, the opposition has been lifted into the higher victorious element, where it is cleared up and set forth. So that the schism that arises in one party, and seems a misfortune, demonstrates rather its good fortune.