But the spherical surface, the world for the individual, carries on the face of it this double meaning: it is in and for itself the actual world and situation, and it is the world of the individual. It is the world of the individual either in so far as this individual could be merely fused and blended with it, had let that world, just as it is, pass into its own nature, and had taken up towards it merely the attitude of a formal consciousness; or, on the other hand, it is the world of the individual in the sense in which the given has been transformed and transmuted by that individual.
Since reahty is capable of haviag this twofold meaning on account of this freedom of the individual, the world of the individual is only to be understood from the individual himself; and the influence of reahty upon the individual, a reality which is represented as having a being all its own {an und fiir sich), receives through this individual absolutely the opposite significance — the individual either lets the stream of reahty flowing in upon it have its way, or breaks off and diverts the current of its influence. In consequence of this, however, " psychological necessity "' becomes an empty phrase, so empty that there is the absolute possibihty that what should have had this influence could equally well not have had it.
Herewith drops out of account that existence which was to be something aU by itself, and was meant to con- Observation of Self-consciousness ^95 Stitute one aspect, and that the universal aspect, of a law. Individuality is what its world, in the sense of its own world, is. Individuality itself is the cycle of its own action, in which it has presented and estabhshed itself as reahty, and is simply and solely a unity of what is given and what is constructed — a unity whose aspects do not fall apart, as in the idea of psychological law, into a world given per se and an individuahty existing for itself. Or if those aspects are thus considered each by itself, there is no necessity to be found between them, and no law of their relation to one another.
Obseevation of the relation oe Sele-Consciousness TO ITS immediate ACTUALITY — PHYSIOGNOMY AND Phrenology.
[In the previous section observation was directed upon the relation of mind to external reality — the natural environment of individuality. The relation of mind to its own physical embodiment furnishes a further object for observation to take up. How observation operates in dealing with this relation forms the subject of the analysis in the present section.
Up to and at the time at which Hegel wrote, the discussion of this relation took the form of what are now looked upon either as spurious sciences or at best as falling within the scope of physiology or psychophysics. Those pseudo-sciences were Physiognomy and Phrenology or Cranioscopy. Both had in one form or another engaged the attention of reflective minds from the earliest times. But about the latter half of the eighteenth century, they gained unusual public prominence, in Germany, France and England, through the eloquence and conviction of their exponents; so much so that in Germany a law was passed forbidding the promulgation of phrenology as being dangerous to religion, and in England a law of George II re-enacted a statute of Elizabeth imposing the severest penalties on physiognomists. The chief exponents and propagandists of these studies of the human individual were Lavater (1741-1801), in physiognomy, and Gall (1758-1828) along with his pupil Spurzheim, in phrenology. The personal character and influence of the first, combined with his rhetorical eloquence, compelled the attention not only of the popular mind but of men of outstanding intelligence; while Gall lectured publicly and went from one University to another expounding the generalisations discovered or made.
It was impossible therefore for any philosopher who attempted to discuss comprehensively the methods and procedure of observational science to ignore the claims made by these pseudo-sciences or to refuse to examine the validity of the laws they proposed to formulate. This was all the more necessary because the object they dealt with — the relation of mind to its physical embodiment — was and is unquestionably an important fact of experience and presents a serious problem to philo- Physiognomy and Phrenology 297 sopty, especially to idealism. Hence we have in tlie following section an elaborate analysis of the observational " sciences " of physiognomy and phrenology — an analysis the length of which can only be explained and justified by the historical circumstances above indicated. The ruthless criticism, the bitterness of the attack upon and the contempt for the claims of these sciences, displayed throughout Hegel's analysis are only explicable in view of the scientific and philosophical pretentions of the expounders of these sciences.]
Observation op the relation of Self-Consciousness to its immediate actuality — physiognomy and Phrenology * Psychological observation discovers no law for the relation of self-consciousness to actuality or the world over against it; and owing to their mutual indifference and independence it is forced to fall back on the peculiar determinate characteristic of real individuality, which has a being in and for itself or contains the opposition of subjective self-existence {Filrsicliseyn) and objective inherent existence (Ansichseyn) dissolved and extinguished within its own process of absolute mediation. Individuahty alone is now the object for observation, or the object to which observation now passes.
The individual exists in himself and for himself. He is for himself, or is a free activity; he is, however, also in hunself, or has himself an original determinate being of his own — a characteristic which is in principle the same as what psychology sought to find outside him. Opposition thus breaks out in his own self; it has this twofold nature, it is a process or movement of consciousness, and it is the fixed being of a reality with a phenomenal character, a reality which in it is directly its own. This being, the " body " of the determinate individuahty, is its ultimate and original source or condition, that in the making of which it has had nothing to do. But since the individual at the same time merely * Cp. with Hegel's analysis Erdmann's Psychologische Briefe, Br. 9.
Self-consciousness in relation with, its Actuality 299 is what he has done, his body is also an " expression " of himself which he has brought about; a sign and indication as well, which has not remained a bare immediate fact, but only points to and lets us see what is meant by his setting his original nature to work.
If we consider the moments we have here in relation to the view previously indicated, we find a general human shape and form, or at least the general character of a chmate, of a portion of the world, of a people, just as formerly we found in the same way general customs and culture. In addition, too, the particular circumstances and situation come within the universal reahty; here this particular reahty is a particular formation of the shape and mould of the individual. On the other side, just as the free activity of the individual and reahty in the sense of his own reahty were formerly placed in contrast and opposition to reahty as given, here the shape assumed by the individual stands as an expression of his own actuahsation estabhshed by the individual himself, it bears the hneaments and forms of his spontaneously active being. But the universal as well as particular reality, which observation formerly met with outside the individual, is here the reahty of the individual, his co-nate body, and within this very body the expression due to his own action appears. From the psychological point of view objective reahty in and for itself and determinate individuahty had to be brought into relation to one another; here, however, it is the whole determinate individuahty that is the object for observation, and each aspect of the opposition it entails is itself this whole. ThuSj to the outer whole belongs not merely 300 Phenomenology of Mind the original primordial being, the co-nate body, but the formation of the body as well, which is due to activity from the iimer side; the body is a unity of unformed and formed existence, and is the reahty of the individual pervaded and permeated by his reference to self. This whole embraces the definite and specific parts fixed originally and from the first, and also the lines or lineaments which only arise as the result of action; this whole so formed is, and this being is an expression of what is inner and within, of the individual constituted as a consciousness and as a process.
This inner is, too, no longer formal, spontaneous activity without any content or determinateness of its own, an activity with its content and specific nature, as in the former case, lying in external circumstances; it is an origiaal inherently determinate Character, whose form is just the activity. What, then, we have to consider here is the relation subsisting between the two sides; the point to observe is how this relation is determined, and what is to be understood by the inner finding expression in the outer.
This outer, in the first place, does not act as an organ making the inner visible, or, in general terms, a being for another; for the inner, so far as it is in the organ, is the activity itself. The mouth that speaks, the hand that works, with the bones too, if we care to add them, are the operative organs effecting the actual reahsation, and they contain the action qua action, or the inner as such; the externality, however, which the inner obtains by their means is the deed, the act, in the sense of a reality separated and cut off from the individual. Language and labour are outer expressions in which the individual no longer retains Self-consciousness in relation with its Actuality 301 possession of himself fer se, but lets the inner get right outside him, and puts it in the hands of another. For that reason we might just as truly say that these outer expressions express the irmer too much as that they do so too httle: too much — because the iuner itself breaks out in them, and there remains no opposition between them and it; they not merely give an expression of the inner, they give the inner itself directly and immediately: too httle — because in speech and action the inner turns itself into something else, into an other, and thereby puts itself at the mercy of change and alteration, which transmute and distort the spoken word and the accomphshed act, and make something else out of them than they are in and for themselves as actions of a particular determinate individual. Not only do the products of actions, owing to this externahty, lose by the influence of others the character of being something constant as regards other individuahties; but by their assuming towards the inner which they contain, the attitude of something external, separate, independent, and indifferent, they can, through the individual himself, be qua inner something other than they seem. Either the individual intentionally makes them to all appearance something else than they are in truth, or he is too incompetent to give himself the outer aspect he really wanted, and to give them such fixity and permanence that the product of his action cannot become transformed and distorted by others.
The action, then, in the form of a completed product has the double and opposite significance of being either the inner individuaUty and not its expression, or qua external a reality detached from the inner, a reahty which is something quite different from the former.
302 Phenomenology of Mind On account of this twofold meaning, we must look about for the inner as it still is within the individual himself, but in a visible or external form. In the organ, however, it exists merely as immediate activity as such, which attains its externalisation in the act or deed, that either does or again does not represent the inner. The organ, in the light of this opposition, thus does not afiord the expression which is sought.
If now the external shape and form were able to express the inner individuahty only in so far as that shape is neither an organ nor action, hence only in so far as it is an inert passive whole, it would then play the role of a persisting or subsistent thing, which received undisturbed the inner as an alien element into its own passive being, and thereby became the sign and symbol of it — an external contingent expression, whose actual concrete aspect has no meaning of its own — ■ a language whose accents and combinations are not the real fact itself, but are arbitrarily and capriciously connected with it and a mere accident so far as it is concerned.
Such a capricious association of factors that are external for one another does not give a law. Physiognomy, however, would claim distinction from other spurious arts and unwholesome studies on the ground that in dealing with determinate individuality it considers the necessary opposition of an inner and an outer, of character as a conscious nature and character as a definitely embodied organic shape, and relates these moments to one another in the way they are related to one another by their very conception, and hence must constitute the content of a law. In astrology, on the other hand, in palmistry and such like kinds of knowledge, there Physiognomy 303 appears merely external element related to external element, anything whatsoever to an element alien to it. A given constellation at birth, and, when the external element is brought closer to the body itself, certaia given lines on the hand, are external factors making for long or short hfe, and the fate in general of the particular person. Being externalities they are indifferent towards one another, and have none of the necessity for one another which ought to he in the relation of what is outer to what is inner.
The hand, to be sure, does not seem to be such a very external thing for fate; it seems rather to stand to it as something inner. For fate again is also merely the phenomenal manifestation of what the specifically determinate individuahty inherently is as having an inner determinate constitution originally and from the start. Now to find out what this individuality is in itself, the palmist, as well as the physiognomist, takes a shorter cut than, e.g., Solon, who thought he could only know this from and after the course of the whole hfe: the latter looked at the phenomenal exphcit reahty, while the former considers the imphcit nature {das Ansich). That the hand, however, must exhibit and reveal the inherent nature of individuahty as regards its fate, is easily seen from the fact that after the organ of speech it is the hand most of all by which a man actuahses and manifests himself. It is the hvely artificer of his fortune: we may say of the hand it is what a man does, for in it as the effective organ of his self-fulfilment he is there present as the animating soul; and since he is ultimately and originally his own fate, the hand will thus express this innate inherent nature.
304 Phenomenology of Mind From this peculiarity, that the organ of activity is at once a form of being and the operation effected within it, or again that the inner inherent being is itself exphcitly present in it and has a being for others, we come upon a further aspect of it different from the preceding. For if the organs in general proved to be incapable of being taken as expressions of the inner for the reason that in them the operation is present as a process, while the operation as a deed or act is merely external, and inner and outer in this way fall apart and are or can be alien to one another, the organ must, in view of the pecuharity now considered, be again taken as also a middle term for both, since this very fact, that the operation takes place and is present in it, constitutes eo ipso an external attribute of it, and indeed one that is different from the deed or act; for the former holds by the individual and remains with him.
This mediating term uniting inner and outer is in the first place itseK external too. But then this externahty is at the same time taken up into the inner; it stands in the form of simple unbroken externaUty opposed to dispersed and disintegrated externality, which either is a single performance or condition contingent for the individuality as a whole, or else, in the form of a total externality, is fate or destiny, split up into a plurality of performances and conditions. The mere lines of the hand, then, the ring and compass of the voice, as also the individual pecuharity of the language used: or again this idiosyncracy of language, as expressed where the hand gives it more durable existence than the voice can do, viz.: in writing, especially in the particular style of " handwriting " — all this is an expression of the inner, Physiognomy 305 Physiognomy 305 so that, as against tlie multifarious externality of action and fate, this expression again stands in the position of simple mere externahty, plays the part of an inner in relation to the externahty of action and fate. Thus, then, if at first the specific nature and innate peculiarity of the iadividual along with what these become as the result of cultivation and development, are regarded as the inner reahty, as the essence of action and of fate, this inner being gets its appearance in external fashion to begin with from the mouth, hand, voice, handwriting, and the other organs and their permanent characteristics. Thereafter and not till then does it give itself further outward expression, when reahsed in the world.
Now because this middle term assumes the nature of an outer expression, which is at the same time taken back into the inner, its existence is not confined to the immediate organ carrying out the action; this middle term is rather the movement and form of countenance and figure in general which perform no outward act. These lineaments and their movements on this principle are the checked and restrained action that stops at the individual and, as regards his relation to what he actually does, constitute his own personal inspection and observation of the action — expression in the sense of reflection upon the actual expression.
The individual is therefore not a mute and silent spectator on the occasion of his external action, since he is there reflected into himself at the same time, and gives articulate expression to this selfreflection. This theoretical activity, the individual's conversing with himself on the matter, is also perceptible to others, for his speaking is itself an outer expression.
VOL. I.— X 306 Phenomenology of Mind la this inner, then, which, in being expressed remains an inner, observation finds the individual reflected out of Ms actual reality; and we have to see how the case stands with this necessity involved in the unity here.
His being thus reflected is to begin with different from the act itself, and therefore can he, and be taken for something other than tlie deed is. We look at a man's face and see whether he is in earnest with, what he says or does. Conversely, however, wkat is here intended to be an expression of the inner is at the same time an existent objective expression, and hence itself falls to the level of mere existence, which is absolutely contingent for the self-conscious individual. It is therefore no doubt an expression, but at tlie same time only in the sense of a sign or symbol, so that to the content expressed the peculiar nature of that by which it is expressed is completely indifferent. The inner in thus appearing is doubtless an invisible made visible, but without being itself attached to this appearance. It can just as weU make use of some other appearance as another inner can adopt the same kind of appearance. Lichtenberg,* therefore, is right in saying: " Suppose the physiognomist ever did have a man in his grasp, it would merely require a courageous resolution on the man's part to make himself again incomprehensible for centuries."
In the previous case f the immediately given circumstances formed a sphere of existence from which individuahty selected what it could or what it wanted, either submitting to or transmuting this given existence, * A critic of physiognomy in Uber Physiognomik, 2 Auf. Gdttingen, 1778, p. 35.
t i.e., the relation of self-consciousijess to external reality.
Physiognomy 307 for which reason this did not contain the necessity and inner nature of individuaUty. Similarly here the immediate being in which individuality clothes its appearance is one which either expresses the fact of its being reflected back out of reahty and existing within itself, or which is for it merely a sign indifferent to what is signified, and therefore signifying in reahty nothing; it is as much its countenance as its mask, which can be put off when it likes. Individuality permeates its own shape, moves, speaks in the shape assumed; but this entire mode of existence equally well passes over into a state of being indifferent to the will and the act. Individuahty effaces from it the significance it formerly had — of being that wherein individuahty is reflected into itself, or has its true nature — and instead puts its real nature rather in the will and the deed.
Individuahty abandons that condition of being reflected into self which finds expression in lines and lineaments, and places its real nature in the performance, the work done. Herein it contradicts the relationship which the instinct of reason, engaged in observing self-conscious individuahty, establishes in regard to what its inner and outer should be. This point of view brings us to the special idea at the basis of the science of physiognomy — if we care to call it so. The opposition this form of observation comes upon is in form the opposition of practical and theoretical, both falling inside the practical aspect itself — the opposition of individuahty, making itself real in action (in the most general sense of action), and individuahty as being in this action at the same time reflected thence into self, and taking the action for its object. Observation apprehends and accepts this opposition in the 308 Phenomenology of Mind same inverted form in whicb. it is when it makes its appearance. To observation, tlie deed itself and the performance, whether it be that of speech or a more sohd reahty, stand for the contingent, nonessential outer while the individuality's existence within itself passes for the essential inner. Of the two aspects which the practical mind involves, intention and act, (the pondering over the action and the action itself,) observation selects the former as the true inner; the latter is to have its more or less unessential esternahsation in the act, its true outer expression, however, is to be had in the form in which the individual is embodied. This latter expression is the sensuous immediate presence of the individual self-conscious agent: the inwardness which is to be the true and internal aspect, is the personal pecuharity of the intention, and the individual singleness of his self-existence— both together the mind as subjectively " meant." Thus, what observation takes for its object is an existence that is " meant "; and there it looks for laws.
The primary way of thinking about and giving the " meaning " of the '' presmnptive " presence of mind, is that of natural physiognomy, hasty judgment formed at a glance regarding the inner nature and the character of its form and shape. The object of this kind of guesswork thinking is so constituted that its very nature involves its being in truth something other than merely sensuous and immediate. Certainly what is really present is just this condition of being in sensuous form reflected out of sense into self; it is the visible as a sensuous presentment of the invisible, which constitutes the object of observation. But this very sensuous immediate presence is an actuality of mind only as it Physiognomy 309 is for subjective conjecture (Meinung); and observation from tbis point of view occupies itself with its " presumed " (gemeint) existence^ with physiognomy, handwriting, sound of voice, etc.
This sort of existence refers to just such a supposed or presumed (gemeintes) inner. It is not the murderer, the thief that is to be known; it is the capacity to be a murderer, a thief. The definitely marked abstract attribute is thereby lost in the particular individual's concrete infinite characteristic nature, which now demands more skilful delineations than the former qualifications supply. Such skilful dehneations no doubt say more than the qualification, "murderer,'' "thief," or "good-hearted," "unspoiled," and so on; but are a long way short of their aim, which is to express the existence that is " meant," the single individuahty, as far short as the dehneations of the form and shape, which go further than a ' ' flat brow, " a " long nose, " etc. For the individual shape and form, hke the individual self-consciousness, is, qua "presmned " existence, inexpressible. The " science of knowing men " * which takes to do with a supposititious human being, hke the science of physiognomy, which deals with its presumptive reahty and seeks to raise to the level of demonstrable knowledge those uncritical assertions of natural physiognomy, is therefore something with neither foundation nor finahty; it cannot manage to say what it "means" because it merely "means" or "presumes," and its content is merely what is " presumed " or " meant."
The so-called " laws," this kind of science sets out to * This refers to the claims put forward by Lavater, whose work was entitled Fhysiognomische Fragmente zur Bejorderung der Menschenkenntniss und Menschenliehe. Liepzig, 1776-8.
310 Phenomenology of Mind fizid, are relations holding between these two presumed or supposed aspects, and hence can amount to no more than an empty ''fancying." Again, too, since this pretence at knowledge, which takes upon itself to deal with the reahty of mind, finds its object to be just the fact that mind is reflected from sense existence back into self, and determinate existence is an indifferent accident for it, it is bound to be aware at once that by the so-called " laws " discovered it really means nothing at all, but that, strictly speaking, all this is mere chatter, or merely a " fancy " or " opinion " of its own, — an expression which brings out the truth that to state one's " opinion," one's " fancy," and not to convey thereby the fact itself, but merely a " fancy of one's own," are one and the same thing. In content, however, such observations cannot differ from these: "It always rains at our annual fair," says the dealer; "And every time, too," says the housewife, " when I am drying my washing."
Lichtenberg, who characterises physiognomic observation in this way, makes this remark: "If any one says, ' You act, certainly, like an honest man, but I can see from your figure you are forcing yourself to do so, and are a rogue at heart,' without a doubt every brave fellow to the end of time when accosted in that fashion will retort with a box in the ear."
This retort is very striking, for the reason that it refutes the fundamental assumption of such a guesswork method of " conjecture " {meinen), viz. that the reality of a man is his face, etc.
The true being of a man is rather his act; individuality is real ia the deed, and a deed it is which cancels both the aspects of what is "meant" or "pre- Physiognomy §ll sumed'^ to be. In tlie one aspect wiiere wliat is " presumed " or " imagined " takes the form of a passive bodily being, individuality puts itself forward in action as tlie negative essence whicb only is so far as it cancels being. Then furthermore the act does away with the inexpressibleness of what self-conscious individuality really " means "; in regard to such " meaning," this individuahty is endlessly determined and determinable. This false infinite, this endless determining, is abolished in the performance of the act. The act is something simply determinate, universal, to be grasped as an abstract, distinctive whole; it is murder, theft, a benefit, a deed of bravery, and so on, and what it is can be said of it. It is such and such, and its being is not merely a symbol, it is the fact itself.
It is this, and the individual human being is what the act is. In the bare simphcity of this being, the individual has for others a definite essential nature of a certain general kind, and ceases to be merely something that is " meant " or " presumed " to be this or that. No doubt he is not there put forward in the form of mind; but when it is a question of his being qua being, and the twofold being of bodily shape and act are pitted against one another, each claiming to be his true reahty, the deed alone is to be affirmed as his genuine being — not his figure or shape, which would express what he " means " to convey by his acts, or what any one might "conjecture" he merely could do. In the same way again when his performance and his inner possibfiity, capacity, or intention are opposed, the former alone is to be regarded as his true reahty, even if he finds things turn out different from what he expected, and " fancies," when