In the first mode of active reason, self-consciousness felt it was pure individuality; and over agaiast this stood empty -universality. In the second the two factors in the antithesis had each both the moments within them, both law and individuahty; the one factor, the " heart," was their immediate unity, the other their opposition. Here, in the relation of virtue and the course of the world, both members are each severally unity and antithesis of the moments, are each a process, but in an opposite direction, of law and individuahty inter se. For the virtuous consciousness law is the essential element, and individuality the one to be superseded and cancelled both in the case of its own conscious hfe, as well as in that of the course of the world. In the former case the private individuality claimed by any one has to be brought under the discipline and control of the universal, the inherently good and true. It remains there, however, still a personal consciousness. True cultivation and discipline consist solely in the surrender of the entire personahty, as a way of making sure that in point of fact iudividual pecuharities are no longer asserted and insisted on. In this individual surrender, individuahty, as it is found in the world's process, is at the same time annihilated; for individuahty is also a simple moment couamon to both.
In the world's process individuality adopts a position VOL. I, — 2 B 369 370 Plienmnenology of Mind the reverse of what it is in the case of the virtuous consciousness, viz. that of making itself the essential factor, and subordinating to its own ends the inherentlygood and true. Further, the course of the world, too, does not, as regards virtue, mean merely a universal thus overturned and perverted through individuahty; absolute law and order form likewise a common moment consciously found to be in the world's process, not, however, in the sense of an existing actual fact, but as the inmost essence of the process. That regulative order, therefore, has not, properly speaking, to be first produced by virtue, for the production of it means qua action, a consciousness of individuahty, and consists rather in superseding the latter. By thus cancelling indi\"iduahty, however, the inherent nature of the world's process merely gets room, as it were, to enter real existence independently on its own account {an und fur sich selhst).
The general content of the actual course of the world has already made itself known. Looked at more closely, it is again nothing else than the two preceding movements of self-consciousness. From them has come virtue's shape and mould, for since they originate it, virtue has them before it; its aim, however, is to supersede its source and origin, and realise itself, or be "for itself," become objectively expHcit. The way of the world is thus, from one point of view, particular individuahty seeking its pleasure and enjoyment, finding itself overthrown in doing so, and as a result satisfying the demands of the universal. But this satisfaction, hke the rest of the moments of this relationship, is a perverted state and process of the universal. The real fact is merely the particular pleasure and enjoyment, while the universal Virtue and the Course of the World 371 is opposed to it — a necessity whicli is only the empty shape of iiniversality, a merely negative reaction, the form of an act without any content.
The other moment of the world's process is individuality, which wants to be a law independently and on its own account, and under the influence of this conceit upsets the estabhshed regular order. The universal law no doubt manages to hold its own against this sort of conceit, and no longer appears in the form of an empty opposite over against consciousness, does not play the role of a lifeless necessity, but is a necessity operating within the conscious life itself. But in the sense in which it is a reality existing in a conscious state of absolute contradiction, it is madness; while in the sense in which it is an objective reality it is simply utter perversion. The universal, then, in both aspects proves to be the might that moves them; but the existential form this force assumes is merely that of general perversion.
It is from virtue that the universal is now to receive its true reahty, by cancelling individuahty, the principle of perversion. Virtue's purpose is by this', means to transmute again the perverted world's process, ■ and bring out its true inner nature. This true being is, in the world-process merely in the form of its imphcit inherent nature; it is not yet actual; and hence virtue merely believes it. Virtue proceeds to raise this faith to sight, without, however, enjoying the fruit of its labour and sacrifice. For so far as it is individuahty, it is the active carrying-on of the contest which it wages with the world's process. Its purpose and true nature, however, he in conquering the reahty of the world's process; and the existence of the good thereby effec- 372 Phenomenology of Mind tuated carries with it the cessation of its action, i.e. of the consciousness of individuaUty.
How this struggle itself will come off, what virtue finds out in the course of it, whether, by the sacrifice which virtue takes upon itself to undergo, the world's process succumbs while virtue triumphs — all this must be decided from the nature of the hving weapons the combatants carry. For the weapons are nothing else than the essential being of the combatants themselves, a being which only makes its appearance for them both reciprocally. What their weapons are is in this way aheady evident from what is inherently impHed in this struggle.
The universal is an authentic element for the virtuous consciousness as a matter of belief; it is "impKcitly" or " inherently " true; not yet an actual, but an abstract universahty. It plays the part of purpose in the case of this consciousness, and of inner principle in that of the world's process. Precisely by having this character the universal also manifests itself in the relation of virtue to the world's process; for virtue first " wills " to carry out the good, and does not in the first instance claim reahty for it. This characteristic can also be looked at in this way: the good, in that it comes on the scene in the struggle with the world's process, thereby manifests itself in the form of what is for another, as something which is not self-contained {an und fur sich selbst), for otherwise it would not want to get at its own truth by vanquishing its opposite. By having its being only when it is for another, is meant the same as was shown in the opposite way of looking at it, viz: that it is to begin with an abstraction which only attains reahty in a relation, and has no reality of itself as it stands.
Virtue and the Course of the World 373 The good or universal, as it appears here, is, then, what is called Gifts, Capacities, Powers. It is a mode or form of spiritual hfe, where it is presented as a universal, which requires the principle of individuahty to give it hfe and movement, and in individuahty finds its reahsation. This universal is afplied well by the principle of individuahty so far as this principle dwells in the consciousness of virtue, and misused by it so far as it is in the world's process — a passive instrument, which can be regulated and directed by the hand of free individuahty quite irrespective of the use it is put to, and can be misused for the production of a reahty which means its ruin: a lifeless material deprived of its own independence — a material that can be formed in this way or that, or even to its own destruction.
Since this universal is at the beck and call equally of the virtuous consciousness as well as of the course of the world, it is not apparent whether with this equipment virtue wUl get the better of vice. The weapons are the same— these capacities and powers. Virtue has, it is true, carefully ensconced its belief in the original unity of its purpose and the essential nature of the world's process, and the reserve thus placed in ambush is intended to fall on the rear of the enemy during the fight, and per se accomplish its own purpose: so that thereby the knight of virtue finds as a matter of fact that his part in waging this warfare is, properly speaking, a mere sham-fight, which he cannot take seriously because he puts all his strength and confidence in the good being self-sufficient and real per se, i.e. in the good bringing about its own fulfilment — a sham-fight which he dare not even allow to become serious. For what he turns against the enemy, and finds turned against himself, and what.
374 Phenomenology of Mind both, in his own case and as regards his enemy as well, he runs the risk of getting wasted and damaged in the struggle, is not the good itself; he fights to keep and carry that out: what is exposed to the hazard of the contest is merely gifts and capacities that are indifferent to the issue. But these, in point of fact, are nothing else than just that universal from which individuahty has been eliminated, and which is to be conserved and actualised by the struggle.
This universal, however, is at the same time directly realised and if so facto made actual by the very notion of the contest; it is the inherent essential nature, the "universal," and its actualisation means merely that it is at the same time for an other. The two aspects mentioned above, in each of which it became an abstraction, are no longer separated; it is in and through the struggle that the good is primarily affirmed and established in both forms.
The virtuous consciousness, however, enters into conflict with the way of the world as if this were a factor opposed to the good. What the conflict brings to light is the universal, not merely as an abstract universal, but as one animated by individuality, and existing for an other, in other words the universal in the sense of»the actually real good. Wherever virtue comes to grips with the world's process, it always hits upon places where goodness is found to exist; the good, as the inherent nature of the world's process, is inseparably interwoven with all the manifestations of it, with all the ways in which the world's process makes its appearance, and where it is real the good has its own existence too. Virtue thus finds the world's process invulnerable. All the moments which virtue was to jeopardise in itself Virtue and the Course of the World 375 when dealing with the world's process, all the moments which it was to sacrifice — these are just so many ways in which goodness exists, and consequently are inviolable relations. The conflict can, therefore, only be an oscillation between conserving and sacrificing; or rather there can be no place for either sacrificing one's own or doing harm to what comes from elsewhere. Virtue is not merely hke the combatant whose sole concern in the fight is to keep his sword weU-burnished; but it has even started the fight simply to preserve its weapons. And not merely is it unable to use its own weapons, but it must also preserve intact those of its enemy, and protect them against its own attack, seeing they are aU noble parts of the good, on behalf of which it enters the field of battle.
This enemy, on the other hand, has as its essential element not the inherent universal, but individuahty. Its force is thus the negative principle before which nothing stands, nothing is absolutely sacred, but which can risk and endure the loss of everything and anything. In so doing it feels victory to be assured, as much from its very nature as by the contradiction in which its opponent gets entangled. What is to virtue imphcit and inherent is taken merely as an exphcit objective fact in the case of the world's process. The latter is detached from every moment which virtue finds fixed and to which it is fast secured. The worldprocess has such a moment under its power and has consequently in its control the tethered knight of virtue bound thereto, by the fact that this moment is held to be merely one which the world's process can as readily cancel as let be. This knight of valour cannot work himself loose from it as he might from a cloak thrown 376 Phenomenology of Mind round him, and get free by leaving it behind; for it is to him the essential element which there is no getting rid of.
Finally, as to the ambush out of which the inherent good is cunningly and craftily to fall on the rear of the world's process, this hope is vain and foohsh from its very nature. The world's process is the mind sure of itself and ever on the alert, that can never be got at from behind, but fronts breast- forward every quarter; for it consists in this that everything is an objective element for it, everything stands before it. But when the iaherent goodness is for its enemy, then it finds itself in the struggle we have seen; so far, however, as it is not for its enemy, but subsists in itself, it is the passive instrument of gifts and capacities, material without reality. If represented as object, it would be a dormant consciousness, remaining in the background, no one knows where.
Virtue will thus be overpowered by the world's process, because the abstract unreal essence is in fact virtue's own purpose, and because its action as regards reahty rests on distinctions that are solely a matter of words. Virtue wanted to consist in the fact of bringing about the reahsation of goodness through sacrificing individuahty; but the aspect of reality is itself nothing else than the aspect of individuality. The good was meant to be what is implicit and inherent, and opposed to what is; but the imphcit and inherent, taken in its real truth, is simply heing itself. The implicitly inherent element is primarily the abstraction of essence as against actual reahty: but the abstraction is just what is not true, but a distinction merely for consciousness; this means, however, it is itself what is called actual, for the actual Virtue and the Course of the World 377 is wtat essentially is for an other — or it is being. But the consciousness of virtue rests on this distinction of implicitness and exphcit being, a distraction without any true vahdity.
The world's process was to be the perversion of the good, because it took individuality for its principle. But this latter is the principle of actual reality, for it is just that mode of consciousness by which what is impKcit and inherent is for an other as well. The world's process transmutes and perverts the imchangeable, but does so in fact by transmuting it out of the nothingness of abstraction into the being of reahty.
The way of the world is, then, victorious over what, in opposition to it, constitutes virtue; it is victorious over that whose nature is an unreal abstraction. But it is not victorious over something real, but over the production of distiactions that are no distinctions, over this pompous talk about the best for mankind and the oppression of humanity, about sacrifice for goodness' sake and the misuse of gifts. Imaginaryidealities and purposes of that sort faU on the ear as idle phrases, which exalt the heart and leave the reason a blank, which edify but build up nothing that endures: declamations whose only definite announcement is that the individual who professes to act for such high ends and indulges in such fijie phrases holds himself for a fine creature: a swollen enlargement which gives itself and others a mighty size of a head, but big from inflation with emptiness.
Virtue in the olden time had its secure and determinate significance, for it found the fullness of its content and its soHd basis in the substantial life of the nation, and had for its purpose and end a concrete good that 378 Phenomenology of Mind existed and lay at its hand: it was also for that reason not directed against actual reality as a general perversity, and not turned against a world-process. The virtue above considered, however, is removed from that substantial life, and is outside it, a virtue with no essential being, a virtue merely in idea and in words, and one that is deprived of all that content.
The vacuousness of this rhetorical eloquence in conflict with the world's process would be at once discovered if it could be stated what all its eloquent phrases amount to. They are therefore assumed to be familiar and wellunderstood. The request to say what, then, this " wellknown " is would be either met by a new swell of phrases, or in reply there would be an appeal to the " heart " which " inwardly " tells what they mean — which is tantamount to an admission of inability to say what the meaning is.
The fatuousness of that style of eloquence seems, too, in a quasi-unconscious manner to have got the length of being an acknowledged certainty for the cultivated minds of our time, since all interest in the whole mass of those rhetorical spread-eagle phrases has disappeared — a loss of interest which is betrayed in the sheer wearisomeness they produce.
The result, then, arising from this opposition, consists in the fact that consciousness lets the idea of an inherent good, which yet has no actual reahty, slip from it like a mere cloak. Consciousness has learned in the course of its struggle that the world's process is not so bad as it looked; for the reality of the world's process is that of the universal. With the discovery of this it is seen that there is no way of producing the good through the sacrifice of individuality, the means for doing so Virtue and the Course of the World 379 have gone; for individuality is precisely the explicit actualisation of what is implicitly and inherently real (i.e. the universal); and the perversion ceases to be looked at as a perversion of goodness, for it is just the transmuting of the good, qua bare purpose, into actual reality. The moving process of individuality is the realising of the universal.
In point of fact, however, what as world-process stood opposed to the consciousness of the inherently and impHcitly real, has hkewise been vanquished and has disappeared with the attainment of the above result. The self-existence of individuahty was there in opposition to the inner essential nature, the universal, and made its appearance as a reahty cut off from the inherent imphcit nature. Since, however, it has come out that reahty is in undivided 'unity with the universal, the self-existence of the world's process proves to have no longer a being, just as the inherent nature [Ansich) of virtue is merely an aspect too {Ansicht). The individuahty of the world's process may doubtless think it acts merely for itself or selfishly; it is better than it thinks; its action is at the same time one that is imiversal and with an inherent being of its own. If it acts selfishly, it does not know what it is doing; and if it insists that aU men act selfishly, it merely asserts that all men are unaware as to what action is. If it acts for itself, this is just the explicit bringing into reality of what is at first imphcit and inherent. The purpose of its self-existence, of its " being for itself," which it fancies opposed to the inherent nature — its futile ingenuity and cunning, as also its fine-spun explanations which so knowingly demonstrate the existence of selfishness everywhere — all these 380 Phenomenology of Mind have as much vanished as the purpose of the inherent element and its rhetorical eloquence.
Thus, then, the effort, the struggle, the activity of individuahty is inherently an end in itself; the use of powers, the play of their outward manifestations — that is what gives them life: otherwise they would be hfeless, potential, and merely imphcit {Ansich). The inherent imphcit nature is not an abstract universal without existence and never carried into effect; it is itself immediately this actual present and this hving actuality of the process of individuality.
Individuality, which takes Itself to be Eeal IN AND FOR Itself [The following section gives a general description of individuality which seeks to realise itself, not in the one-sided ways analysed in the three preceding sections, but as a complete concrete whole. Here individuality does not regard itself abstractlj', and hence does not treat the sphere of its realisation as in any way alien to itself. It is completely one with the objective world where it carries out its ends, and finds both itself adequate to its own realisation, and the world sufficient and all-sufficient for the embodiment of its ends. In this sphere we have, as it were, the very antithesis of the preceding state of mind. There the good was opposed to the course of the " world," the latter being dependent for its goodness on individual effort. Here it is as if the " world " were made up of the activity of individuals and were wholly adequate to satisfy and embody all their ends. Naturally therefore individuals take themselves here to be " real just as they are," and have merely to express or develop their own content in order to objectify their ends. The objective world is their activity realised, is themselves " externalised."
This condition of individuality is the immediate preparation for the social order of the life of a free spiritual community, and is the anticipation of that community — a community where the individual is universalised through union with the whole, and the whole particularised in the individual.]
Individuality, which takes Itself to be Real IN AND FOR Itself Self-consciousness lias now grasped its own principle, which at first sight was only our notion of it, viz. the notion that, when consciously certain of itself, it is all reaUty. Its purpose and nature henceforward consist in the interpenetration of the universal elements (its " gifts " and " capacities") and individual existence. The particular moments of this process of complete concrete permeation preceding the unity in which they now combine in a single fused whole, were found in the purposes hitherto considered. These have now ceased to be the abstractions and chimeras, belonging to those earlier empty modes of the self-consciousness of mind, modes whose true nature hes simply in the would-be hfe of " the heart," fancy and mere rhetoric, and not in reason, which is now sure of its own reality as it stands {an und fur sich), and no longer seeks to take up the position of being only a purpose in opposition to immediately existent (sensible) reality, but, on the contrary, has the category as such as the object of its consciousness. ., This means that the character of being for itself on its own account {fur sich), or of negative self-consciousness, with which reason started, is cancelled. This self-consciousness at that stage fell in with a reality which would be its own negative, and by cancelling which it would consciously reahse its purpose. Now that purpose and inherent nature {Ansicliseyn) have Concrete Individuality 383 proved to be the same as objective existence for another and the given reality, [objective] truth is no longer divided from [subjective]' certainty. The purpose set up may now be taken for certainty of self, and the reahsation of that purpose for truth; or, again, purpose may be taken for the truth, and reahty for certainty. The essential nature and purpose as it stands {an und fur sich) constitute the certainty of immediate reahty itself, the interpenetration of the inherent imphcit nature (ansich), and the exphcit distinctive nature {fur sich), of the universal and individuahty. Action is fer se its truth and reahty, and the manifestation or expression of individuahty is its purpose taken just as: it stands.
With the attainment of such a conception, therefore, self-consciousness has returned into itself and passed from those opposite characteristics which the category presented, and which its relation to the category had, when it was " observing " and when it was " active." Its object is now the category pure and simple; in other words, it is itself the category become conscious of itself. Its account with its previous forms is now closed; they lie behind it in the past; they do not come forward as a world found ready to hand, but are developed solely within itself as transparent moments. Yet they still fall apart at this stage as a movement of distinct moments, which has not yet got combined into its own substantial unity. But throughout all these moments self- consciousness holds firmly to that simple unity of self with objective existence which is its constitutive nature or generic attribute.
Consciousness has in this way cast free from all opposition and from every condition limiting its activity.
384 Phenomenology of Mind It starts anew from itself, and is occupied not with something external, but with itself. Since individuahty is in itself actuahty, the material of operation and the purpose of action He in the action itself. Action consequently has the appearance of a circular process, which moves freely in vacuo within itself, which, unimpeded, now enlarges and then contracts, and is quite content to play simply within itself and with itself. When individuahty manifests and displays its form and shape, this means that it simply assumes and receives this form; that is its element: it is just the hght of day, to which consciousness wants to show itself here. Action alters nothing, opposes nothing; it is the mere form of transition from a condition of being invisible to one of being visible, and the content, brought thus to daylight, and laid bare, is nothing else than what this action already is imphcitly {an sich). It is implicit — that is its form as unity in thought: and it is actual — that is its form as imity in existence: while it is itself content merely in virtue of its maintaining this character of simpHcity in spite of the aspect of change process and transition.
Society as a Hekd of Individuals: Deceit: " Actual Fact " [This section seems at first sight a strained interpretation of the life of society. There seems at first glance nothing in a society corresponding to the view here put forward. But a little reflection will show that the conception of society here analysed is a necessary and universal element in every society. In order to form a free spiritual community, individuals must be each complete in himself, be real "just as they are" as concrete individuals. So conceived the component individuals of a society are separate cells of the organism of a society, all self -complete, all implicitly universal and capable of being universalised, but jun. individuals all distinct. Together they form the elements out of which the compact structure of a society is made: and without their being so together as they are thus constituted, that structure would be impossible. Their "togetherness" as individual units each self-contained is not merely the basis of complete social life, but the primd facie aspect of social life, and the original primitive condition of social individuality. Here each seeks to realise his own ends quite naturally and spontaneously, and is hardly aware and is almost indiflferent to the universal result which his implicitly universal nature must bring about. Each acts in his own interest, little knowing that his interest must lead to the universal good.
His attitude is not strictly selfishness; it is self-interest, and such an interest all his ends mist have, because they are the ends of his self. The reality he brings about has to be expressed. He never questions its right to be, just because he is self-complete: the reality is indeed a genuine reality, a reality with a universal character. It is so much "actual fact" for him, which he takes or makes, and accepts just because it has a universal significance. All the individuals are in the same position; each is in touch with and is only concerned about " actual fact." Each is thus equally "honest" with himself in seeking his own interest, in being concerned with his own "actual fact"; and each is equally "honourable" as regards others in so doing. But still each is throughout focussing the meaning of the whole exclusively in himself, and is not consciously going beyond himself, for in a sense he does not need or wish to do so. AU VOL. I.— 2 C 3S5 386 Phenomenology of Mind the same this very " fact " he deals with has a universal significance and holds for others, and can only be a " fact " if it does. Hence in so keeping up this individual interest in " actual fact " each is really " deceiving " himself as to its true meaning, and deceiving others at the same time. The situation is one of unconscious self-sophistication and unconscious deceiving of others as to their true inner spiritual affinity. This social attitude is thus bound to prove inadeqnate and give way to the fuller social consciousness of a concrete community.
Social life as here analysed may be said to be society as it is conceived by the abstract Political Economist. The economic order of society is a necessary moment in the life of society; but the " economic man " is little better than an anthropotherion. The section may be regarded as a satirical analysis of such an abstract entity; it is also an indirect criticism of the futility of opposing " egoism " and " altruism.''
The position in which individuals are, when acting in the manner above described, corresponds precisely to that of a herd of animals. Hence the title of the present section.]
Society as a Heed op Individuals: Deceit: " Actual Fact " The above substantial individuality, to begin with, is again particular and determinate. Absolute reality, which it knows itself to be, is thus, in the way it is consciously aware of that reality, abstract and universal, without filling and content, merely the empty thought of this category. We have to see how this conception of substantial individuality is made expHcit in its various moments, and how it gets to be conscious of its true nature.