Action, then, qua realisation, is in this way the pure form of will — the bare conversion of reality, in the sense of a given case, into a reality that is performed and done, the conversion of the bare state of objective knowledge into one of knowledge about reality as some- thing produced and brought about by consciousness. Just as sensuous certainty is directly taken up, or rather converted, into the essential life and substance of spirit, this other transformation is also simple and unmediated, a transition made through pure conception without changing the content, the content being con- ditioned by some interest on the part of the conscious- ness knowing it.
Further, conscience does not break up the circum- stances of the case into a variety of duties. It does not operate as the positive general medium, in which the manifold duties, each for itself, would keep their substan- tial existence undisturbed. If it did so, either no action could take place at all, because of each concrete case in general containing opposition, and, in the specific case of morality, opposition of duties, — and hence there would 646 Phenomenology of Mind, always be one side injured, one duty violated, when the act took definite shape: or else, if action did take place, the violation of one of the conflicting duties would be the actual result brought about. Conscience is rather the negative single unity, it is the absolute self, which does away with this variety of substantial moral constituents. It is simple action in accordance with duty, action which does not fulfil this or that duty, but knows and does what is concretely right. It is, therefore, in general, and for the first time in moral experience, moral action as action, and into this the previous stage of mere consciousness of morality with- out action has passed.
The concrete shape which the act takes may be analysed by a conscious process of distinction into a variety of properties, i.e. in this case into a variety of moral relationships; and these may either be each expressly held to be absolute (as each must be if it is to be duty) or, again, subjected to comparison and criticism. In the simple moral action arising from conscience, duties are shed so promiscuously that the isolated independence of all these separate entities is immediately destroyed, and the process of critically considering and worrying about what our duty is finds no place at all in the unshaken certainty of conscience.
Just as little, again, do we find in conscience that fluctuating uncertainty of mind, which puts now so- called " pure " morality away from itself, assigning it to some other holy being, and takes itself to be unholy, and then again, on the other hand, puts this moral purity within itself, and places in that other the con- nexion of the sensuous with the moral element.
It renounces all these semblances and dissem- Conscience 647 blances (Stellungen und Verstellungeri) characteristic of the moral point of view, when it gives up think- ing that there is a contradiction between duty and actual reality. According to this latter state of mind, I act morally when I am conscious of performing merely pure duty and nothing else but that: i.e. in fact, when I do not act. When, however, I really act, I am conscious of an " other," of a reality which is there before me, and one which I want to bring about; I have a definite end and fulfil a definite duty. There is some- thing else therein than the pure duty, which alone was supposed to be kept in view.
Conscience, on the other hand, is the sense that, when the moral consciousness declares pure duty to be the essence of its action, this bare purpose is a dissemblance of the actual fact. For the real fact is that bare duty consists in the empty abstraction of pure thought, and finds its reality and content solely in some definite actual existence, an actuality which is actuality of consciousness itself — not of consciousness in the sense of a thought-entity, but as an individual. Conscience, for its own part, finds its truth to lie in the direct cer- tainty regarding itself. This immediate concrete cer- tainty of itself is true reality. Looking at this certainty from the point of view of the opposition which con- sciousness involves, its own immediate particularity constitutes the content of moral action; and the form of moral action is just this very self as a pure process, viz. as the process of knowing, in other words, is private individual conviction.
Looking more closely at the unity and the significance of the moments of this stage, we find that moral consciousness conceived itself merely in the form of 648 Phenomenology of Mind the inherent principle, or as ultimate essence; qua conscience, however, it lays hold of its explicit indi- vidual self-existence (Fursichseyri), or its self. The contradiction involved in the moral point of view is resolved, i.e. the distinction, which lay at the basis of its peculiar attitude, proves to be no distinction, and melts into the process of pure negativity. This process of negativity is, however, just the self: a single simple self which is at once pure knowledge and knowledge of itself as this individual conscious life. This self constitutes, therefore, the content of what formerly was the empty essence; for it is something actual and concrete, which no longer has the significance of being a nature alien to the ultimate essence, a nature inde- pendent and with laws of its own. As the negative element, it introduces distinction into the pure essence, a definite content, and one, too, which has a value in its own right as it stands.
Further, this self is, qua pure self-identical knowledge, the universal without qualification, so that just this knowledge, being its very own knowledge, being con- viction, constitutes duty. Duty is no longer the uni- versal appearing over against and opposed to the self; duty is known to have in this condition of separation and opposition no validity. It is now the law, which exists for the sake of the self, and not the self for the sake of the law. The law and duty, however, have for that reason not only the significance of existing on their own account, but also of being inherent and essential; for this knowledge is, in virtue of its identity with itself, just what is inherently essen- tial. This inherent being gets also separated in con- sciousness from that direct and immediate unity with Conscience 649 self-existence: so contrasted and opposed, it is objective being, it is being for something else.
Duty itself now, qua duty deserted by the self, is known and thought to be merely a moment; it has ceased to mean absolute being, it has become de- graded to something which is not a self, does not exist on its own account, and is thus what exists for some- thing else. But this existing-for-something-else remains just for that reason an essential moment, because self, qua consciousness, constitutes and establishes the opposition between existence-for-self and existence- for-another; and now duty essentially means some- thing immediately actual, and is no longer a mere abstract consciousness of duty.
This existence for something else is, then, the in- herently essential substance distinguished from the self. Conscience has not given up pure duty, the abstract implicit essence: pure duty is the essential moment of relating itself, qua universality, to others. Conscience is the common element of distinct self-con- sciousnesses; and this is the substance in which the act secures subsistence and reality, the moment enabling recognition by others to take place. The moral self- consciousness does not possess this moment of recog- nition, of pure consciousness which has definite exist- ence; and on that account really does not "act" at all, does not effectually actualise anything. Its inher- ent nature is for it either the abstract unreal essence, or else existence in the form of a reality which has no spiritual character. The actual reality of conscience, however, is one which is a self, i.e. an existence conscious of itself, the spiritual element of being recognised. Doing something is, therefore, merely the translation 650 Phenomenology of Mind of its particular content into that objective element where it is universal and is recognised, and this very fact, that the content is recognised, makes the deed an actuality. The action is recognised and thereby real, because the actual reality is immediately bound up with conviction or knowledge; or, in other words, knowledge of its purpose is immediately and at once the element of existence, universal recognition. For the essence of the act, duty, consists in the conviction conscience has about it. This conviction is just the inherent principle itself; it is inherently universal self- consciousness — in other words, is recognition and hence reality. The result achieved under conviction of duty is therefore directly one which has substantial solid ex- istence. Thus, we hear nothing more there about good intention not coming to anything definite, or about the good man faring badly. What is known as duty is carried out completely and becomes an actual fact, just because what is dutiful is the universal for all self- consciousnesses, that which is recognised, acknow- ledged, and thus objectively is. Taken separately and alone, however, without the content of self, this duty is existence-for-another, the transparent element, which has merely the significance of an unsubstantial ultimate factor in general.
If we look back on the sphere where in general spiritual reality made its appearance, we find that the principle involved was that the utterance of individuality is the absolutely real, the ultimately self-sufficing. But the shape which, in the first in- stance, gave expression to this notion, was the " honest consciousness " * which was occupied and Conscience 651 Conscience 651 concerned with abstract " fact itself." This " fact itself " was there a predicate. In conscience, however, it is for the first time a Subject, which has put all aspects of consciousness in it, and for which all these moments, substantiality in general, external existence, and essence of thought, are contained in this cer- tainty of itself. The " fact itself " has substantiality in general in the ethical order (Sittlichkeit), external existence in culture, self-knowing essence of thought in morality; and in conscience it is the Subject, which knows these moments within itself. While the " honest consciousness " is for ever grasping merely the bare and empty " fact itself/' conscience, on the other hand, secures the " fact itself "in its fullness, a fullness which conscience of itself supplies. Conscience has this power through its knowing the moments of con- sciousness as moments, and controlling them because it is their negative essential principle.
When conscience is considered in relation to the particular features of the opposition which appears in action, and when we consider its consciousness regard- ing the nature of those features, its attitude towards the reality of the particular case where action takes effect is, in the first instance, that of knowledge. So far as the aspect of universality is present in such knowledge, it is the business of conscientious action, qua knowledge, to compass the reality before it in an unrestricted exhaustive manner, and thus get to know exactly the circumstances of the case, and give them due consideration. This knowledge, however, since it is aware of universality as a moment, is in consequence a kind of knowledge of these circum- stances which is conscious all the while of not embracing 652 Phenomenology of Mind them, is conscious of not being conscientious in its pro- cedure. The genuinely universal and pure relation of knowledge would be one towards something not op- posed, a relation to itself. But action through the oppo- sition essentially implied in action is related to what negates consciousness, to a reality existing per se. Con- trasted with the simple nature of pure consciousness, the absolute other, externality, multiplicity per se, is a sheer plurality of circumstances which breaks up in- definitely and spreads in all directions — backwards in their conditions, sidewards in their associations, for- wards in their consequences.
The conscientious mind is aware of this state of affairs and of its relation thereto, and knows it is not acquainted to the full and complete extent required with the case in which its action takes effect, and knows that its pretence of conscientiously weighing and considering all the circumstances is futile. This acquaintance with and consideration of all the circumstances, however, are not entirely absent: but they are merely present as a moment, as something which is only for others: and the conscientious mind holds its incomplete know- ledge to be sufficient and complete, merely because it is its own knowledge.
In a similar way is constituted the process in connection with the universality of the essential principle, the universality by which the content is characterised when determined through pure con- sciousness. Conscience, when it goes on to act, takes up a relation to the various sides of the case. The case breaks up into separate elements, and the relation of pure consciousness towards it does the same: whereby the multiplicity characteristic of the case Conscience 653 Conscience 653 becomes a multiplicity of duties. Conscience knows that it has to select and decide amongst them; for none of them specifically, in its content, is an absolute duty; only duty pure and simple is so. But this abstract entity has, in its realisation, come to denote self-conscious ego. Spirit certain of itself is at rest within itself in the form of conscience, and its real universality, its duty, lies in its bare conviction con- cerning duty. This bare conviction as such is as empty as pure duty, pure in the sense that nothing within it, no definite content, is duty. Action, however, has to take place, the individual must determine to do some- thing or other; and spirit which is certain of itself, in which the inherent principle has attained the sig- nificance of self-conscious ego, knows it has this deter- mination, this specific content, within the immediate certainty of its own self. This certainty, being a determination and a content, is " natural " conscious- ness, i.e. the various impulses and inclinations.
Conscience admits no content as absolute for it, be- cause it is absolute negativity of all that is definite. It determines from itself alone. The circle of the self, however, within which determinateness as such falls, is so-called " sensibility ": in order to get a content out of the immediate certainty of self, there is no other means to be found except sensibility.
Everything that in previous modes of experience was presented as good or bad, law and right, is something other than immediate certainty of self; it is a uni- versal, which is now a relative entity, an existence-for- another. Or, looked at otherwise, it is an object which, while connecting and relating consciousness with itself, comes between consciousness and its own proper truth, 654 Phenomenology of Mind and instead of that object being the immediacy of con- sciousness, it rather cuts consciousness off from itself.
For conscience, however, certainty of self is the pure, direct, and immediate truth: and this truth is thus its immediate certainty of self presented as content; i.e. its truth is altogether the caprice of the individual, and the accidental content of his uncon- scious natural existence [his sensibility].
This content at the same time passes for essential moral reality, for duty. For pure duty, as was found when testing and examining laws,* is utterly indifferent to every content, and gets along with any. Here it has at the same time the essential form of self-existence, of existing on its own account: and this form of individual conviction is nothing else than the sense of the empti- ness of pure duty, and the consciousness that this is merely a moment, that its substantial independence is a predicate which finds its subject in the individual, whose caprice gives pure duty content, can connect every content with this form, and attach its feeling of conscientiousness to any content.
An individual increases his property in a certain way. It is a duty that each should see to the maintenance of himself and family, and no less ensure the possibility of his being serviceable to his neighbours and of doing good to those standing in need. The individual is aware that this is a duty, for this content is directly contained in the certainty he has of himself. He perceives, further, that he fulfils this particular duty in this par- ticular case. Other people possibly consider the specific way he adopts as fraud: they hold by other sides of the concrete case presented, while he holds firmly to Conscience 655 this particular side of it by the fact of his being conscious that the increase of property is a pure and' absolute duty.
In the same way there is fulfilled by the individual, as a duty, what other people call violence and wrong- doing— the duty of asserting one's independence against others: and, again, the duty of preserving one's life, and maintaining the possibility of being useful to one's neighbours. Others call this cowardice, but what they call courage really violates both these duties. But cowardice cannot be so stupid and thoughtless as not to know that the maintenance of life and the possibility of being useful to others are duties — so inept as not to be convinced of the dutifulness of its action, and not to know that dutifulness consists in knowledge. Otherwise it would commit the absurdity of being without morality. Since morality lies in the consciousness of having fulfilled one's duty, this will not be lacking when the action is what is called cowardice any more than when it is what is called courage. As the abstraction called " duty " is capable of every content, it is quite equal to this latter content. The agent acting knows what he does to be duty, and since he knows this, and conviction as to duty is just dutifulness, he is thus recognised and acknowledged by others. The act thereby becomes accepted as valid and has actual existence.
It is of no avail to object to this freedom — which puts one kind of content as well as any other into this uni- versal inert receptacle of pure duty and pure know- ledge— by asserting that another content ought to have been put there. For whatever the content be, each content has upon it the stain of determinateness from 656 Phenomenology oj Mind which pure knowledge is free, which pure knowledge can disregard just as readily as it can take up every determinateness in turn. Every content, through its being determinate, stands on the same footing with every other, even though it seems to have precisely the character that the particularity in the content is cancelled. It may well seem — since in concrete cases duty breaks regularly into opposition, and, by doing so, sunders the opposites particularity and univer- sality— that the duty, whose content is the universal as such, contains on that account, ipso facto, the nature of pure duty, and that thus form and content are here entirely in accord. On this view, it might seem that, e.g., acting for the universal good, for what is the best for all, is to be preferred to acting for what is the best for the individual. But this universal duty is in its entirety what is present as self-contained actual sub- stance, in the form of [established] law and right, and holds good independently of the individual's knowledge and conviction and immediate interest. It is thus precisely that against the form of which morality as a whole is directed. As regards its content, however, even this is determinate in character, in so far as the " universally best " is opposed to the " individual best."
Consequently, its law is one from which conscience knows itself to be absolutely free, and it gives itself the absolute privilege to add and pare, to neglect as well as fulfil it.
Then, again, the above distinction of duty towards the individual and duty towards the universal is not something fixed and final, when we look at the nature of the opposition in question. On the contrary, what the individual does for himself is to the advantage of the Conscience 657 universal as well. The more he looks after his own good, not only is there the greater possibility of his use- fulness to others: his very reality consists merely in his living and existing in connection with others. His individual enjoyment means ultimately and essentially putting what is his own at the disposal of others, and helping them to secure their enjoyment. In ful- filling duty to individuals, and hence duty to self, duty to the general thus also gets fulfilled. Weighing, con- sidering, comparing duties, should this appear here, would take the line of calculating the advantage which the general would get from any given action. But there can be no such process; partly because morality would thereby be handed over to the inevitable contingency characteristic of mere " insight "; partly because it is precisely the nature of conscience to have done with all this calculating and weighing of duties, and to decide directly from itself without reasons of any kind.
In this way, then, conscience acts and maintains itself in the unity of its essential being and its objective existence for itself, in the unity of pure thought and individuality: it is spirit certain of itself, which inherently possesses its own truth, within itself, in its knowledge, a knowledge in the sense of know- ledge of its duty. It maintains its being therein by the fact that the positive element in the act, the content as well as form of duty and the knowledge of duty, belong to the self, to the certainty of itself. What, however, seeks to come before the self with an inherent being of its own is held to be not truly real, merely a transcended element, only a moment. Consequently, it is not universal knowledge in general VOL. II.— R 658 Phenomenology of Mind that has a value, but what is known of the circum- stances. It puts into duty, which is the universal im- manent essence, the content which it derives from its natural individuality; for the content is one that is present in its own being. This content, in virtue of the universal medium wherein it exists, becomes the duty which it carries out, and empty bare duty is, through this very fact, affirmed to be something tran- scended, a moment. This content is its emptiness, transcended and cancelled, i.e. is the fulfilling of pure duty.
But at the same time conscience is detached from every possible content. It absolves itself from every specific duty, which would try to pass for a law. In the strength of its certainty of itself, it has the majesty of absolute self-sufficiency, of absolute avrdpKeia, to bind or to loose. This self-determination is at once, therefore, absolute conformity to duty. Duty is the knowledge itself; this pure and simple selfhood, how- ever, is the immanent principle and essence; for this inherent principle is pure self -identity, and self-identity lies in this consciousness.
This pure knowledge is immediately objective, is existence-for-another; for, qua pure self -identity, it is immediacy, it is objective being. This being, however, is at the same time pure universality, the selfhood of all: in other words, action is acknowledged, and hence actual. This being forms the element by which con- science directly stands on a footing of equality with every self-consciousness; and this relation means not an abstract impersonal law, but the self of conscience.
In that this right which conscience does is at the same time, however, a fact for others, a disparity seems Conscience 659 to affect conscience. The duty which it fulfils is a determinate content; that content is, no doubt, the self of consciousness, and so its knowledge of itself, its identity with its self. But when fulfilled, when planted in the general element of existence, this identity is no longer knowledge, no longer this process of dis- tinction which directly and at the same time does away with its distinctions. Rather, in the sphere of exist- ence, distinction is set up as subsistent, and the act is a determinate specific one, not identical with the element of everybody's self-consciousness, and hence not neces- sarily acknowledged and recognised. Both aspects, conscience qua acting, and the general consciousness acknowledging this act to be duty, stand equally loose from the specific character belonging to this deed. On account of this freedom and detachment, the relation of the two within the common medium of their connec- tion is rather a relationship of complete disparity — as a result of which, the consciousness doing and owning the act finds itself in complete uncertainty regarding the spirit which does the act and is " certain of itself." This spirit acts and places in existence a particular determinate characteristic; others hold to this existence, as its truth, and are therein certain of this spirit; it has therein expressed what it takes to be its duty. But it is detached and free from any specific duty; it has, therefore, left the point where other people think it actually to be; and this very medium of existence and duty as inherently existing are held by it to be merely transitory moments. What it thus places before them, it also " displaces " again, or rather has, eo ipso, immediately " displaced." For its reality is, for it, not the duty and determinate content thus