In the first instance, however, the withdrawal of the emotional hfe into itself is to be taken in such a way that this hfe of feehng, in its own regard, has actuahty qua particular existence. It is pure emotion which, for us or per se has found itself and satiated itself, for although it is, no doubt, aware in feehng that the ultimate reahty is cut off from it, yet in itself this feehng is self -feeling; it has felt the object of its own pure feehng, and this object is its own self. It thus com.es forward here as self-feehng, or as something actual on its own account. In this return into self, we find appearing its second attitude, the condition of desire and labour, which ensures for consciousness the inner certainty of its own self (which, as we saw, it has obtained,) by the process of cancelhng and enjoying the ahen external reahty, — existence in the form of independent things. The unhappy consciousness, however, finds itself merely desiring and toiling; it is not consciously and directly aware that so to find itself rests upon the inner certainty of its self, and that its feehng of real being is this self-feehng. Since it does not in its own view have that certainty, its inner hfe really remains still a shattered certainty of itself; that confirmation of its own existence which it would receive through work and enjoyment, is, therefore, just as tottering and insecure; in other words, it must consciously nulhfy this certification of its own being, so as VOL. I.— P VOL. I.— P 210 Phenomenology of Mind to find therein confiimation indeed, but confirmation only of what it is for itself, viz. of its disunion.
The actual reahty, on which desire and work are directed, is, from the point of view of this consciousness, no longer something in itself null and void, something merely to be destroyed and consumed; but rather something hke that consciousness itself, a reahty broken in sunder, which is only in one respect essentially null, but in another sense also a consecrated world. This reahty is a form and embodiment of the unchangeable, for the latter has conserved in itself particularity; and because, qua unchangeable, it is a imiversal, its particularity as a whole has the significance of all actuahty.
If consciousness were, for itself, an independent consciousness, and reahty were taken to be in and for itself of no account, then consciousness would attain, in work and enjoyment, the feehng of its own independence, by the fact that its consciousness would be that which cancels reahty. But since this reahty is taken to be the form and shape of the unchangeable, consciousness is unable of itself to cancel that reahty. On the contrary, seeing that consciousness manages to nulhfy reahty and to obtain enjoyment, this must come about through the unchangeable itseK when it disposes of its own form and shape and dehvers this up for consciousness to enjoy.
Consciousness, on its part, appears here hkewise as actual, though, at the same time, as internally shattered; and this diremption shows itself in the course of toil and enjoyment, to break up into a relation to reahty, or existence for itself, and into an existence in itself. That relation to actuahty is the process of alteration, or acting, the existence for itself, which belongs The Unhappy Consciousness 211 to tlie particular consciousness as such. But therein it is also in itself; this aspect belongs to the unchangeable ' beyond/ This aspect consists in faculties and powers: an external gift, which the unchangeable here hands over for consciousness to make use of.
In its action, accordingly, consciousness, in the first instance, has its being in the relation of two extremes. On one side it takes its stand as the active present (Diesseits), and opposed to it stands passive reahty: both in relation to each other, but also both withdrawn into the unchangeable, and firmly estabhshed in themselves. From both sides, therefore, there is detached merely a superficial element to constitute their opposition; they are only opposed at the surface, and the play of opposition, the one to the other, takes place there.
The extreme of passive reahty is sublated by the active extreme. Actuality can, however, on its own side, be sublated only because its own changeless essence sublates it, repels itself from itself, and hands over to the mercy of the active extreme what is thus repelled. Active force appears as the power wherein actual reahty is dissolved. For that reason, however, this consciousness, to which the inherent reahty, or ultimate essence, is an " other," regards this power (which is the way it appears when active), as " the beyond," that which hes remote from its self. Instead, therefore, of returning out of its activity into itself, and instead of having confirmed itself as a fact for its self, consciousness reflects back this process of action into the other extreme, which is thereby represented as purely universal, as absolute might, from which the movement in every direction started, and which is the essential hfe 212 Phenomenology of Mind of the self-disintegrating extremes, as they at first appeared, and of the process of change as well.
In that the unchangeable consciousness contemns its specific shape and form, and abandons it entirely, while, on the other hand, the individual consciousness " gives thanks," i.e. denies itself the satisfaction of being conscious of its independence, and refers the essential substance of its action to the " beyond " and not to itself: by these two moments, in which both parts give themselves up the one to the other, there certainly arises in consciousness a sense of its own unity with the unchangeable. But, at the same time, this unity is affected with division, is again broken within itself, and out of this unity there once more comes the opposition of universal and particular. For consciousness, no doubt, in appearance renounces the satisfaction of its self-feehng, but it gets the actual satisfaction of that feeling; for it has been desire, work, and enjoyment; qua consciousness it has willed, has acted, has enjoyed. Its thanks similarly, in which it recognises the other extreme as its true reahty, and cancels itself, is its own very act, which counterbalances the action of the other extreme, and meets with a hke act the benefit handed over. If the former yields to consciousness merely its superficial content, consciousness expresses thanks all the same, and when it gives up its own action, i.e. its very essence, it, properly speaking, does more thereby than the other, which only renounces an outer surface. The entire process, therefore, is reflected into the extreme of particularity, not merely in actual desire, labour, and enjoyment, but even in the expression of thanks, where the reverse seems to take place. Consciousness feels itself therein as this The Unhappy Consciousness 213 particular individual, and does not let itself be deceived by the semblance of its renunciation; for the real truth of that procedure is that it has not given itself up. "What has come about is merely the double reflection into both extremes; and the result is to repeat the cleavage into the opposed consciousness of the unchangeable and the consciousness of a contrasted opposite in the shape of willing, performing, enjoying, and of seK-renunciation itself, or, in general, of seLfexistent particularity.
With this has come to light the third attitude in the movement of this consciousness, an attitude which follows from the second and is such as in truth has proved itself independent by its wilHng and by its performance. In the first situation we had only a " notion " of actual consciousness, the inward emotion, which is not yet real in action and enjoyment. The second is this actuahsation, as an external express action and enjoyment. With the return out of this stage, however, it is that which has got to know itself as a real and efiective consciousness, or that whose truth consists in being in or for itself. But herein the enemy is discovered in its special and most pecuhar form. In the battle of emotion this individual consciousness has the sense of being merely a tune, an abstract moment. In work and enjoyment, which are the reaUsation of this unsubstantial existence, it can readily forget itself, and the consciousness of its own proper hfe found in this reahsation is overborne by grateful recognition. But this overthrow of its proper distinctiveness is in truth a return of consciousness into itself, and moreover into itself as the genuine reahty.
This third attitude, wherein this genuine reahty is 214 Phenomenology of Mind one term, consists in so relating this reality to absolute universal Being, as to show it to be mere nothingness.* The course of this relation we have still to consider.
To begin with, as regards the contrasted relation of consciousness, in which its reahty is taken to be immediately naught, its actual performance thus becomes a doing of nothing at all; its enjoyment becomes a feehng of its own unhappiness. In consequence, activity and enjoyment lose aU universal content and significance; for in that case they would have a substantiahty of their own: and both withdraw into the state of particularity, to which consciousness is directed in order to cancel them. Consciousness discovers itself as this concrete particular in the functions of animal hfe. These latter, instead of being performed unconsciously and naturally as something which, fer se, is of no significance, and can acquire no importance and essential value for spirit, — these latter, since it is in them that the enemy is seen in his proper and pecuUar shape, are rather an object of strenuous concern and serious occupation, and become precisely the most important consideration, t Since, however, this enemy creates itself in its very defeat, consciousness, by giving the enemy a fixedness of being and of meaning, instead of getting rid of him really never gets away from him, and finds itself constantly defiled. And since, at the same time, this object of its exertions, instead of being something essential, is the very meanest, instead of being a universal, is the merest particular — we have here * The conception of the nothingness of the individual in the sight of God.
t Asceticism.
The UnJmfpy Consciousness 21 5 before us merely a personality confined witliin its narrow self and its petty activity, a personality brooding over itself, as -unfortunate as it is pitiably destitute.
But all tbe same both of these, both the feeling of its misfortune and the poverty of its own action, are points of connection to wbicb to attach the consciousness of its unity with the unchangeable. For the attempted immediate destruction of its actual existence is effected through the thought of the unchangeable and takes place in this relation to the unchangeable. The mediate relation constitutes the essence of the negative process, in which this consciousness directs itself against its particularity of being, which, however, qyui relation, is at the same time in itself positive, and wiU bring this its unity to hght as an objective fact for this consciousness itself.
This mediate relation is consequently a connected inferential process {Schluss), in which particularity, esua^blifihing itself at first in opposition to the inherent esseAce, is bound together and united with this other term, only through a third term. Through this middle!^ term the one extreme, unchangeable consciousnt^ssl has a being for the unessential consciousness, in which,!at the same time, is also involved that the latter hke-^nse has a being for the former, solely through that middle term; and this naiddle term is thus one which presents both extremes to one another, and acts as the minister of each in turn in deahng with the other. This medium is itself a conscious being, for it is an action mediating consciousness as such; the content 01 this action is the destruction and annihilation, which consciousness has in view in deahng with its particularity.
216 Phenomenology of Mind In the middle term, then, this consciousness gets freed from action and enjoyment, in the sense of its own action and enjoyment. It puts away from itself, qua self-existent extreme, the substance of its will, and throws on to the mediating term, or the ministering agency,* its own proper freedom of decision, and herewith the guilt of its own act. This mediator, being in direct communication with the unchangeable Being, renders service by advising what is just and right. The act, since this foUows upon obedience to a dehverance enunciated by another, ceases, as regards the performance or the wilhng of the act, to be the agent's own proper deed. There is still left, however, to the subordinate consciousness, its objective aspect, namely, the fruit of its labour, and enjoyment. These, therefore, it casts away as well, and just as it disclaimed its own will, so it contemns such reahty as it received in work and in enjoyment. It renounces these, partly as being the accomplished truth of its self-coiiseious independence, since it seeks to do something «quite foreign to itself, thinking and speaking what, for ^id, has no sense or meaning; f partly, too, as being e:f ternal property — siace it demits somewhat of the pojssession acquired through its toil. It also gives up the enjoyment it had — since with its fastings and its mortifications it once more absolutely denies itself that enjoyment.
Through these moments— the negative abandonment first of its own right and power of decision., then of its property and enjoyment, and finally the positive mo- * The Priesthood. f t Cp. the use in the Church services of Latin instead oi the vernacular: religious processions, etc.
The Unhappy Consciousness 217 ment of carrying on what it does not understand — it obtains, completely and in truth, the consciousness of inner and outer freedom, or reahty in the sense of its own existence for itself. It has the certainty of having in truth stripped itself of its Ego, and of having turned its immediate self-consciousness into a " thing," into an objective external existence.
It could ensure its self-renunciation and self-abandonment solely by this real and vital sacrifice [of its self]. For only thereby is the deception got rid of, which Ues in inner acknowledgment of gratitude through heart, sentiment, and tongue — an acknowledgment which indeed disclaims all power of independent self-existence, and ascribes this power to a gift from above, but in this very disclaimer retains for itself its own proper and pecuhar hfe, outwardly in the possession it does not resign, inwardly in the consciousness of the decision which itself has resolved upon and in the consciousness of its own self-constituted content, which it has not exchanged for a content coming from without and filhng it with meaningless ideas and phrases.
But in the sacrifice actually accomplished, while consciousness has cancelled the action as its own act, it has also imphcitly demitted and put ofi its unhappy condition. Yet that this demission * has imphcitly taken place, is effected by the other term of the logical process (Schluss) here involved, the term which is the inherent and ultimate reahty. That sacrifice of the subordinate term, however, was at the same time not a onesided action; it involves the action of the other. For giving up one's own will is only in one aspect negative; in principle, or in itself, it is at * Absolution.
218 Phenomenology of Mind the same time positive, positing and affirming the will as an other, and, specifically, affirming the will as not a particular, but universal. This consciousness takes the positive significance of the negatively affirmed particular will to be the will of the other extreme, the will, which, because it is simply an " other " for consciousness, assumes the form of advice or counsel, not through itself, but through the third term, the mediator. Hence its will certainly becomes, for consciousness, universal will, inherent and essential will, but is not itself in its own view this inherent reality. The giving up of its own will as particular is not taken by it to be in principle the positive element of universal will. Similarly its surrender of possession and enjoyment has merely the same negative significance, and the universal which it thereby comes to find is, in its view, not its own doing proper. This unity of objectivity and independent self-existence which hes in the notion of action, and which therefore comes for consciousness to be the essential reahty and object — as this is not taken by consciousness to be the principle of its action, neither does it become an object for consciousness directly and through itself. Rather, it makes the mediating minister express this still halting certainty, that its unhappy state is only imflicitly the reverse, i.e. is only implicitly action bringing self-satisfaction in its act, or blessed enjoyment; that its pitiable action too is only imflicitly the reverse, namely, absolute action; that in principle action is only really action when it is the action of some particular individual. But for its self, action and its own concrete action remain something miserable and insignificant, its enjoyment pain, and the sublation of The Unhappy Consciousness 219 these, positively considered, remains a mere 'beyond.' But in this object, where it finds its own action and existence, qua this particular consciousness, to be inherently existence and action as such, there has arisen the idea of Reason, of the certainty that consciousness is, in its particularity, inherently and essentially absolute, or is all reality.
c [FREE CONCRETE MIND*] (AA) REASON t [Reason is the first stage in the analysis of concrete mind — of universal self conscious of itself in its object and conscious of the object as universal. Keason is not a mere 'function' of mind, but a stage of mind. It therefore possesses its own peculiar content and operates in a process peculiar to itself. Its aim is to become completely conscious of its own nature; and to acquire this it must develop itself through its various phases. The process of development is from immediate to mediate, from what it is implicitly to what it is explicitly. The first step therefore is reason as immediate — where universal self is simply and directly aware of itself in a universal object. The operation of concrete mind at this stage is found where reason " observes." The analysis of observation as this operates in the various domains covered by the empirical sciences is thus the subject-matter of the following section. The processes of these various sciences are assumed in Hegel's analysis. Observation must change in character with the objects observed; hence the difference between observation of inorganic and organic nature, observation of mind, and of the relation of mind and nature. The difficulties reason has to face in this operation, and the contradictions into which it falls in seeking to find laws, etc., to satisfy its aim, form the substance of the following analysis.
The nature of reason as here conceived is the source and origin of philosophical Idealism, whether the idealism be one-sided or absolute. Idealism is in fact the philosophical expression of the principle of reason, just as the various empirical sciences may be said to be the development, in the several ways which experience dictates, of the operation of rational observation. Hence the introductory pages of the following analysis are devoted to a statement of the character of true and false idealism.
The historical material behind the abstract argument elaborated here is provided by the awakened scientific spirit that appeared after the * Cp. Hegel's Hist, of Philos., pt. 2, § 3^ Introd. and C: pt. 3, Introd. Philos. of Hist., pt. 4, § 3j c. 3 arf fin.
Reason 221 Reformation, and the methods and results of the empirical sciences at the time Hegel wrote. In particular the physiological conceptions of " irritability," " sensibility " and " reproduction," discussed on p. 256 ff. were first formulated by Haller, Elementa Physiologiae (1757-66). For a list of the chief scientific works which appeared shortly before or about the time the following analysis was written, and which doubtless provided part of the material for the analysis, see Merz, History of European Thought, Vol. I, pp. 82-83.
The polemical criticism which runs through this as through almost every section of the work is directed against the one-sided idealism of Hegel's predecessors and the imperfect conception of scientific method displayed by the current science of nature.]
V REASON'S CERTAINTY AND REASON'S TRUTH WITH the thought which consciousness has laid hold of, that the individual consciousness is taherently absolute reaHty, consciousness turns back into itself. In the case of the unhappy consciousness, the inherent and essential reality is a "beyond" remote from itself. But the process of its own activity has in its case brought out the truth that individuality, when completely developed, individuality which is a concrete actual mode- of consciousness, is made the negative of itself, i.e. the objective extreme; — in other words, has forced it to make explicit its self-existence, and turned this into an objective fact. In this process it has itself become aware, too, of its xmity with the imiversal, a unity which, seeing that the individual when sublated is the miiversal, is no longer looked on hy us as falling outside it, and which, since consciousness maintains itself in this its negative condition, is inherently in it as such its very essence. Its truth is what appears in the process of synthesis — where the extremes were seen to be absolutely held apart — as the middle term, proclaiming to the unchangeable consciousness that the isolated individual has renounced itself, and to the individual consciousness that the unchangeable consciousness is no longer for it an extreme, but is one with it and reconciled to it. This mediating Reasons Certainty and Reason's Truth 223 term is the unity directly aware of both, and relating them to one another; and the consciousness of their unity, which it proclaims to consciousness and thereby to itself, is the certainty and assurance of being all truth.
From the fact that self-consciousness is Reason, its hitherto negative attitude towards otherness turns round into a positive attitude. So far it has been concerned merely with its independence and freedom; it has sought to save and keep itself for itself at the expense of the world or its own actuahty, both of which appeared to it to involve the denial of its own essential nature. But qua reason, assured of itself, it is at peace so far as they are concerned, and is able to endure them; for it is certain its self is reahty, certain that all concrete actuahty is nothing else but it. Its thought is itself eo ipso concrete reahty; its attitude towards the latter is thus that of Idealism. To_it, looking at itself ia this way, it- seems as if how, for the..
first time, the world had come into being. Formerly, it did not imderstand the world, it desired the world and worked upon it; then withdrew itself from it and retired into itself, abohshed the world s6~"faf 'as itself was concerned, and abohshed itself qua consciousness — both the consciousness of that world as essentially real, as well as the consciousness of its nothingness and,, unreahty. Here, for the first time, after the grave of its truth is lost, after the annihilation of its concrete actuahty is itself done away with, and the individuahty 3f consciousness is seen to be in itself absolute reahty,.t discovers the world as its own new and real world, svhich in its permanence possesses an interest for it, just is previously the interest lay only in its transitoriness,,.
224 Phenomenology of Mind The subsistence of the world is taken to mean the actual presence of its own truth; it is certain of finding only itself there...
Reason is the conscious certamty of being all reaUty. This is how Ideahsm announces its principle.* Just as consciousness assuming the form of reason immediately and inherently contains that certainty within it, in the same way ideahsm also directly proclaims and expresses that certainty. I am I in the sense that the I which is object for me is sole and only object, is all reahty and all that is present. The I which is object to me here is not what we have in self-consciousness in general, nor again what we have in free independent self-consciousness; in the former it is merely empty object in general, in the latter, it is merely an object that withdraws itself from other objects that still hold their own alongside it.
In the present instance, the object-ego is object which is consciously known to exclude the existence of any other whatsoever. Self-consciousness, however, is not merely from its own point of view {fiir sich) but also in its very self [an sich) all reahty, primarily by the fact that it becomes this reahty, or rather demonstrates itself to be such. It demonstrates itself to be this by the way in which otherness as inherently real {an sich) first disappears in the course of the dialectic movement of " meaning " {Meinen),-\ perceiving, and understanding, and afterwards in the movement through the independence of consciousness in Lordship and Servitude, through the idea of freedom, sceptical detachment, and the struggle for absolute hberation on the part of the self-divided consciousness, where otherness, so far as being stUl for consciousness, vanishes for the latter Reason's Certainty and Reason's Truth 225 itself. There appeared two aspects, one after the other; the one where the essential reahty or the truly real present to consciousness had the characteristic of existence, the other where it had the character of only being an object for consciousness. But both lead back to one single truth, that what is or the real per se only is so far as it is an object for consciousness, and that what is for consciousness is also inherently real. The mode of consciousness which this truth constitutes has forgotten the process by which this result has been reached; the pathway to it lies away behind. This consciousness comes on the scene directly in the form of reason; in other words, this reason, appearing thus immediately, comes before us merely as the certainty of that truth. It is merely assured of being all reality; it does not, however, itself comprehend this fact; for that forgotten pathway by which it arrives at this position, is the process of comprehending what is involved in this mere assertion which it makes. And just on that account any one who has not taken this route finds the assertion uninteUigible, when he hears it expressed in this abstract form — although as a matter of concrete experience he makes the same assertion himself.