VOL. II.— X 722 Phenomenology of Mind itself in its essential nature, pure thought or devotion, whose inwardness gets at the same time express ex- istence in the Hymn. The hymn keeps within it the individuality of self-consciousness, and this in- dividual character is at the same time perceived to be there universal. Devotion, kindled in every one, is a spiritual stream which in all the manifold self-con- scious units is conscious of itself as one and the same function in all alike and a simple state of being. Spirit, being this universal self-consciousness of every one, holds in a single unity its pure inwardness as well as its objective existence for others and the independent self-existence of the individual units.
This kind of language is distinct from another way God speaks, which is not that of universal self- consciousness. The Oracle, both in the case of the god of the religions of art as well as of the pre- ceding religions, is the necessary and the first form of divine utterance. For its very principle implies that God is at once the essence of nature and of spirit, and hence has not merely natural but spiritual existence as well. In so far as this moment is implied primarily in its principle and is not yet realised in religion, the language used is, for the religious self- consciousness, the speech of an alien and external self-consciousness. The self-consciousness which re- mains alien and foreign to its religious communion, is not yet there in the way its essential principle re- quires it should be. The self is simple self-existence, and thereby is altogether universal self-existence; that self, however, which is cut off from the self-con- sciousness of the communion, is primarily a mere par- ticular self.
The Abstract Work of Art 723 The content of this its own peculiar and individual form of speech is supplied from the general determinate character which the Absolute Spirit as such adopts in its religion. Thus the universal spirit of the East, which has not yet particularised its existence, utters about the Absolute equally simple, abstract, and universal statements, whose substantial content is sublime in the simplicity of its truth, but at the same time appears, because of this universality, trivial to the self-consciousness developing further.
The further developed self, which advances to being distinctively for itself, rises above the pure " pathos " of [unconscious] substance, gets the mastery over the objectivity of the principle of Light in Eastern religion, and knows that simplicity of abstract truth to be the inherent reality (das Ansichseyende) which does not possess the form of contingent existence through an utterance of an alien self, but is the sure and unwritten law of the gods, a law that " lives for ever, and no man knows what time it came."
As the universal truth, revealed by the " Light " of the world, has here returned into what is within or what is beneath, and has thus got rid of the form of contingent appearance; so too, on the other hand, in the religion of art, because God's form or shape has taken on consciousness and hence particularity in general, the peculiar utterance of God, who is the spirit of an ethically constituted nation, is the Oracle, which knows its special circumstances and situation, and announces what is serviceable to its interests. Reflective thought, however, satisfies itself as to the universal truths enunciated, because these are known as the essential implicit reality of the nation's life; 724 Phenomenology of Mind and the utterance of them is thus for such reflection no longer a strange and alien speech, but is its very own. Just as that wise man of old * searched in his own thought for what was worthy and good, but left it to his " Daimon " to find out and decide the petty contingent content of what he wanted to know— whether it was good for him to keep company with this or that person, or good for one of his friends to go on a journey, and such like unimportant things; in the same way the universal consciousness draws the knowledge about the contingent from birds, or trees, or fermenting earth, the steam from which deprives the self-conscious mind of its powers of discrimination. For what is accidental is something undiscerned, un- discriminated, and extraneous; and hence the ethical consciousness lets itself, as if by a throw of the dice, settle the matter in a manner that is similarly undis- criminating and extraneous. If the individual, by his understanding, determines on a certain course, and selects, after consideration, what is useful for him, it is the specific nature of his particular character which is the ground of this self-determination. This basis is just what is contingent; and that knowledge which his understanding supplies as to what is useful for the individual, is hence just such a knowledge as that of " oracles " or of the " lot "; only that he who questions the oracle or lot, thereby shows the ethical sentiment of indifference to what is accidental, while the former, on the contrary, treats the inherently contingent as an essential concern of his thought and knowledge. Higher than both, however, is to make careful reflection the oracle for contingent action, but yet to recognise that * Socrates.
The Abstract Work of Art 725 this very act reflected on is something contingent, be- cause it refers to what is opportune and has a relation to what is particular.
The true self-conscious existence, which spirit receives in the form of speech, which is not the utterance of extraneous and so accidental, i.e. not universal, self- consciousness, is the work of art which we met with before. It stands in contrast to the statue, which has the character of a " thing." As the statue is ex- istence in a state of rest, the other is existence in a state of transience. In the case of the former, objectivity is set free and dispenses with the immediate presence of the self proper; in the latter, on the other hand, objectivity is too much bound up with the self, attains insufficiently to definite embodiment, and is, like time, no longer there just as soon as it is there.
The religious Cult constitutes the process of the two sides — a process in which the divine embodiment in motion within the pure feeling-element of self-con- sciousness and its embodiment at rest in the element of thinghood, reciprocally abandon the different character each possesses, and the unity, which is the underlying principle of their being, becomes an existing fact. Here in the Cult, the self gives itself a consciousness of the Divine Being descending from its remoteness into it, and this Divine Being, which was formerly the unreal and merely objective, thereby receives the proper actuality of self-consciousness.
This principle of the Cult is essentially contained and present already in the flow of the melody of the Hymn. These hymns of devotion are the way the self obtains immediate pure satisfaction through and within itself. It is the soul purified, which, in the 726 Phenomenology of Mind purity it thus attains, is immediately and only absolute Being, and is one with absolute Being. The soul, because of its abstract character, is not consciousness distinguishing its object from itself, and is thus merely the night of its existence and the place prepared for its form. The abstract Cult, therefore, raises the self into being this pure divine element. The soul brings about the attainment of this purity in a conscious way. Still it is not yet the self, which has descended to the depths of its being, and knows itself as evil. It is something that merely is, a soul, which cleanses its exterior with the washing of water, and robes it in white, while its innermost traverses the path set before itself of labour, punishment, and reward, the way of spiritual discipline, of altogether relinquishing its par- ticularity— the road by which it reaches the mansions and the fellowship of the blest.
This ceremonial cult is, in its first form, merely in secret, i.e. is merely a performance accomplished sub- jectively in idea, and unrealised. It has to become a real act, for an unreal act is a contradiction in terms. Consciousness proper, thereby, rises to the level of its pure self-consciousness. The essential Being has in it the significance of a free object; through the actual cult this object turns back to the self; and in so far as, in pure consciousness, it has the significance of absolute Being dwelling in its purity beyond actual reality, this Being descends, through this mediating process of the cult, from its universality into individual form, and thus combines and unites with actual reality.
The way the two sides make their appearance in the act is of such a character that the self-conscious aspect, so far as it is actual consciousness, finds the absolute The Abstract Work of Art 727 Being manifesting itself as actual nature. On the one hand, nature belongs to self - consciousness as its possession and property, and stands for what has no existence per se. On the other hand, nature is its proper immediate reality and particularity, which is equally regarded as not truly real and essential, and is abrogated. At the same time, that external nature has the opposite significance for its pure consciousness — viz. the significance of being the in- herently real, for which the self sacrifices its own [relative] unreality, just as, conversely, the self sacrifices the unessential aspect of nature to itself. The act is thereby a spiritual movement, because it is this double- sided process of cancelling the abstraction of absolute Being (in the way devotion determines the object), and making it something concrete and actual, and, on the other hand, of cancelling the actual (in the way the agent determines the object and the self acting), and raising it into universality.
The practice of the religious Cult begins, therefore, with the pure and simple " offering up " or " sur- render " of a possession, which the owner apparently considers quite useless for himself and spills on the ground or lets rise up in smoke. By so doing he re- nounces before the ultimate Being of his pure conscious- ness all possession and right of property and enjoyment thereof; renounces personality and the reversion of his action to his self; and instead, reflects the act into the universal, into the absolute Being rather than into himself. Conversely, however, the objective ultimate Being too is annihilated in that very pro- cess. The animal offered up is the symbol of a god; the fruits consumed are the actual living Ceres and 728 Phenomenology of Mind Bacchus. In the former die the powers of the upper law [the Olympians] which has blood and actual life, in the latter the powers of the lower law [the Furies] which possesses in bloodless form secret and crafty power.
The sacrifice of the divine substance, so far as it is active, belongs to the side of self-consciousness. That this concrete act may be possible, the absolute Being must have from the start implicitly sacrificed itself. This it has done in the fact that it has given itself definite existence, and made itself an individual animal and fruit of the earth. The self actively sacrificing demonstrates in actual existence, and sets before its own conscious- ness, this already implicitly completed self-renunciation on the part of absolute Being; and replaces that im- mediate reality, which absolute Being has, by the higher, viz. that of the self making the sacrifice. For the unity which has arisen, and which is the outcome of transcending the particularity and separation of the two sides, is not merely negative destructive fate, but has a positive significance. It is merely for the abstract Being of the netherworld that the sacrifice offered to it is wholly surrendered and devoted; and, in consequence, it is only for that Being that the reflection of personal possession and individual self-existence back into the Universal is marked distinct from the self as such. At the same time, however, this is only a trifling part; and the other act of sacrifice is merely the destruction of what cannot be used, and is really the preparation of the offered substance for a meal, the feast that cheats the act out of its negative significance. The person making the offering at that first sacrifice re- serves the greatest share for his own enjoyment; The Abstract Work of Art 729 and reserves from the latter sacrifice what is useful for the same purpose. This enjoyment is the negative power which supersedes the absolute Being as well as the unity; and this enjoyment is, at the same time, the positive actual reality in which the objective existence of absolute Being is transmuted into self-conscious existence, and the self has consciousness of its unity with its Absolute.
This cult, for the rest, is indeed an actual act, although its meaning lies for the most part only in devotion. What pertains to devotion is not objectively produced, just as the result when confined to the feeling of enjoy- ment* is robbed of its external existence. The Cult, therefore, goes further, and replaces this defect, in the first instance by giving its devotion an objective subsist- ence, since the cult is the common task — or the indi- vidual task for each and all to do — which produces for the honour and glory of God a House for Him to dwell in and adornment for His presence. By so doing the external objectivity of statuary is partly cancelled; for by thus dedicating his gifts and his labours the worker makes God well disposed to- wards him and looks on his self as attached and apper- taining to God. Furthermore, this course of action is not the individual labour of the artist; this particu- larity is dissolved in universality. But it is not only the honour of God which is brought about, and the blessing of His countenance and favour is not only shed in idea and imagination on the worker; the work has also a meaning the reverse of the first which was that of self-renunciation and of honour done to what is alien and external. The Halls and Dwellings * i.e. at the feast.
730 Phenomenology of Mind of God are for the use of man, the treasures preserved there are in time of need his own; the honour which God enjoys in his decorative adornment, is the honour and glory of a refined artistic and high-spirited nation. At the festival season, the people adorn their own dwellings, their own garments, and their establish- ments too with the furnishings of elegance and grace. In this manner they receive a return for their gifts from a responsive and grateful God; and receive the proofs of His favour — wherewith the nation became bound to the God because of the work done for Him — not as a hope and a deferred realisation, but rather, in testifying to His honour and in presenting gifts, the nation finds directly and at once the enjoyment of its own wealth and adornment.
THE LIVING WORK OF ART That nation which approaches its god in the cult of the religion of art is an ethically constituted nation, knowing its State and the acts of the State to be the will and the achievement of its own activity. This universal spirit, confronting the self-conscious nation, is consequently not the " Light " of the world, which, being selfless, does not contain the certainty of the individual selves, but is only their universal ultimate Being and the dominating imperious power, wherein they disappear. The religious cult of this simple un- embodied ultimate Being gives back, therefore, to its votaries in the main merely this: that they are the nation of their god. It secures for them merely their stable subsistence, and their bare substance as a whole; it does not secure for them their actual self; this is indeed rejected. For they revere their god as the empty profound, not as spirit. The cult, however, of the religion of art, on the other hand, dispenses with that abstract simplicity of the absolute Being, and therefore with its ''' profundity." But that Being, which is directly at one with the self, is inherently spirit and comprehending truth, although not yet known explicitly, in other words it does not know the " depths " of its nature. Because this Absolute, then, implies self, consciousness finds itself at home with it 732 Phenomenology of Mind when it appears; and, in the cult, this consciousness receives not merely the general title to its own sub- sistence, but also its self-conscious existence within it: just as, conversely, in a despised and outcast nation whose mere substance is acknowledged, the absolute Being has not a selfless reality, but in the nation whose self is acknowledged as living in its substance.
From the ceremonial cult, then, self-consciousness that is at peace and satisfied in its ultimate Being turns away, as also does the god that has entered into self-consciousness as into its place of habitation. This place is, by itself, the night of mere " substance," or its pure individuality; but no longer the strained and striving individuality of the artist, which has not yet reconciled itself with its essential Being that gradually becomes objective; it is substance satisfied, having its "pathos" within it and in want of nothing, because it comes back from mere intuition, from objectivity which is overcome and superseded.
This " pathos " is, by itself, the Being of the Orient,* a Being, however, which has now " set" and disappeared within itself, and has its own "setting," self-consciousness, within it, and so contains existence and reality.
It has here traversed the process of its actualisation. Descending from its pure essentiality and becoming an objective force of nature and the expressions of this force, it is an existence relative to an other, an objective existence for the self by which it is consumed. The silent inner being of selfless nature attains in its fruits the stage where nature, duly prepared and digested, is offered as material for the life which has a self. In * The "Light" of the world.
The Living Work of Art 733 its being useful for food and drink it reaches its highest perfection. For therein it is the possibility of a higher existence, and comes in touch with spiritual existence. In its metamorphosis the spirit of the earth has de- veloped and become partly a silently energising sub- stance, partly spiritual ferment; in the first case it is the feminine principle, the nursing mother, in the other the masculine principle, the self-driving force of self- conscious existence.
In this enjoyment, then, that orient " Light " of the world is discovered for what it really is: Enjoyment is the Mystery of its being. For mysticism is not concealment of a secret, or ignorance; it consists in the self knowing itself to be one with absolute Being, and in this latter, therefore, becoming revealed. Only the self is revealed to itself; or what is manifest is so merely in the immediate certainty of itself. But it is just in such certainty that simple absolute Being has been placed by the cult. As a thing that can be used, it has not only existence which is seen, felt, smelt, tasted; it is also object of desire, and, by actually being enjoyed, it becomes one with the self, and thereby disclosed completely to this self, and made manifest.
When we say of anything, " it is manifest to reason, to the heart," it is in point of fact still secret, for it still lacks the actual certainty of immediate existence, both the certainty regarding what is objective, and the certainty of enjoyment, a certainty which in religion, however, is not only immediate and unreflecting, but at the same time fully cognitive certainty of self.
What has thus been, through the cult, revealed to self-conscious spirit within itself, is simple absolute 734 Phenomenology of Mind Being; and this has been revealed partly as the process of passing out of its dark night of concealment up to the level of consciousness, to be there its silently nurturing substance; partly, however, as the process of losing itself again in nether darkness, in the self, and of waiting above merely with the silent yearning of mother- hood. The more conspicuous moving impulse, however, is the variously named " Light " of the East and its tumult of heaving life, which, having likewise desisted from its abstract state of being, has first embodied itself in objective existence in the fruits of the earth,* and then, surrendering itself to self-consciousness,")" attained there to its proper realisation; and now it curvets and careers about in the guise of a crowd of excited, fervid women, the unrestrained revel of nature in self-conscious form.J Still, however, it is only Absolute Spirit in the sense of this simple abstract Being, not as spirit per se, that is discovered to consciousness: i.e. it is merely im- mediate spirit, the spirit of nature. Its self-conscious life is therefore merely the mystery of the Bread and the Wine, of Ceres and Bacchus, not of the other, the strictly higher, gods [of Olympus], whose individuality includes, as an essential moment, self-consciousness as such. Spirit has not yet qua self-conscious spirit offered itself up to it, and the mystery of bread and wine is not yet the mystery of flesh and blood.
This unstable divine revel must come to rest as an object, and the enthusiasm, which did not reach consciousness, must produce a work which confronts * As found in the mysteries of Demeter.
f As found in the mysteries of Bacchus and Dionysus.
J The Maenads; cp. Euripides, Bacchae.
The Living Work of Art 735 it as the statue stands over against the enthusiasm of the artist in the previous case, — a work too that is equally complete and finished, yet not as an inherently lifeless but as a living self. Such a cult is the Festival which man makes in his own honour, though not im- parting to a cult of that kind the significance of the Absolute Being; for it is the ultimate Being that is first revealed to him, not yet Spirit — not such a Being as essentially takes on human form. But this cult provides the basis for this revelation, and lays out its moments individually and separately. Thus we here get the abstract moment of the living em- bodiment of ultimate Being, just as formerly we had the unity of both in the state of unconstrained emo- tional fervency. In the place of the statue man thus puts himself as the form elaborated and moulded for perfectly free movement, just as the statue is the perfectly free state of quiescence. If every individual knows how to play the part at least of a torchbearer, one of them comes prominently forward who is the very embodiment of the movement, the smooth elabora- tion, the fluent energy and force of all the members. He is a lively and living work of art, which matches strength with its beauty; and to him is given, as a reward for his force and energy, the adornment, with which the statue was decorated [in the former type of religion], and the honour of being, amongst his own nation, instead of a god in stone, the highest bodily representation of what the essential Being of the nation is.
In both the representations, which have just come before us, there is present the unity of self-consciousness and spiritual Being; but they still lack their due balance 736 Phenomenology of Mind and equilibrium. In the case of the bacchic * revelling enthusiasm the self is beside itself; in bodily beauty of form it is spiritual Being that is outside itself. The gloominess of consciousness in the one case and its wild stammering utterance, must be taken up into the transparent existence of the latter; and the clear but spiritless form of the latter, into the emotional inward- ness of the former. The perfect element in which the inwardness is as external as the externality is inward, is once again Language. But it is neither the language of the oracle, entirely contingent in its content and alto- gether individual in character; nor is it the emotional hymn sung in praise of a merely individual god; nor is it the meaningless stammer of delirious bacchantic revelry. It has attained to its clear and universal content and meaning. Its content is clear, for the artificer has passed out of the previous state of entirely insubstantial enthusiasm, and worked himself into a definite shape, which is his own proper existence, per- meated through all its movements by self-conscious soul, and is that of his contemporaries. Its content is universal, for in this festival, which is to the honour of man, there vanishes the onesidedness peculiar to figures represented in statues, which merely contain a national spirit, a determinate character of the godhead. The finely built warrior is indeed the honour and glory of his particular nation; but he is a physical or cor- poreal individuality in which are sunk out of sight the expanse and depth of meaning, the seriousness of sig- nificance, and the inner character of the spirit which underlies the particular mode of life, the cravings, the needs and the customs of his nation. In re- * As distinct from the worship of Apollo.
The Living Work of Art 737 linquishing all this for complete corporeal embodi- ment, spirit has laid aside the particular impressions, the special tones and chords of that nature which it, as the actual spirit of the nation, includes. Its nation, therefore, is no longer conscious in this spirit of its special particular character, but rather of having laid this aside, and of the universality of its human existence.
YOL. II.— Y THE SPIRITUAL WORK OF ART