The conception of this individuahty, as it takes itself as such to be all reahty, is in the first instance a mere result: its own movement and reality are not yet set forth; it is here in its immediacy as something purely and simply implicit. Negativity, however, which is the same as what appears as movement and process, is inherent in this implicit nature as a specific quality; and being, the simple implicit nature, comes to be a definite compass or range of being. Individuahty confronts us, therefore, as an original determinate nature: original, in virtue of its being imphcit: originally determinate, in virtue of the negative moment lying in that implicitness, which negative element is thereby a quality. This limitation cannot, however, limit the action of consciousness, for this consists at the present stage in thorough and complete self-reference: relation to what is other than 388 Phenomenology of Mind itself, which would be a limitation, is now overcome. The character inherent originally by nature is thus merely an undefined (simple) principle, a transparent universal element in which individuahty finds itself free and at one with itself, as well as unfolds its diversity without restraint, and in reahsing itself is simply in reciprocal relation with itself. We have here something similar to what we find in the case of indeterminate animal hfe: this breathes the breath of hfe, let us say, in water as its element, or air or earth, and within these again in still more determinate conditions: every aspect of its life is affected by the specific element, and yet animal life still keeps these aspects within its power and itself a unity in spite of the limitations of the element, and remains qua the given particular organisation animal life throughout, the same general fact of animal life.
This determinate original nature of consciousness, in which it finds itself freely and wholly, appears as the immediate and only proper content of the piu-pose of the individual. That content is indeed a definite content, but is only content so far as we take the imphcit nature in isolation. In truth, however, it is reahty {Realitdt) permeated by individuahty: actuahty (Wirklichkeit) in the way consciousness qua individual contains this within itself, and is to begin with taken as existing, but not yet as acting. So far as action is concerned, however, that determinateness is, in one respect, not a hmitation it wants to overcome; for, looked at as an existent quality, that determinateness is simply the colour of the element where it moves: in another respect, however, the negativity is determinateness merely in the case of what " exists." But Society as a Herd of Individuals 389 acting is nothing else than this negativity. Hence when individuality acts, its specific determinateness is dissipated into the general process of negation, into the sum and substance of all determinateness.
The simple " original nature " now breaks up, in action and the consciousness of action, into the distinction which action implies. To begin with, action is here an object, an object, too, still belonging to consciousness; it is present as a purpose, and thus opposed to a given reality. The other moment is the process of this statically presented purpose, the process of actualisation of the purpose, bringing the purpose to bear on the entirely formal reality, and hence is the idea of the transition itself. In other words, this second moment is the " means." The third moment is, finally, the object, no longer as immediately and subjectively presented purpose, but as brought to light and established as something other than and external to the acting subject.
These various aspects must be viewed in the light of the general principle of this sphere of consciousness. The content throughout remains the same, without any difference, whether between individuahty and existence in general, or between purpose as against individuahty in the sense of an " original nature," or between purpose and the given reahty: or between the means and that reality as absolute purpose: or finally between the reahty moulded by the agent as against the purpose, the " original nature," or the means.
At the outset, then, the nature of individuahty in its original determinate form, its immediate essence, is not yet affirmed as active; and in this shape is called special 390 Phenomenology of Mind capacity, talent, character, and so on. This peculiar colouring of mind must be looked at as the only content of its purpose, and as the sole and only reality. If we thought of consciousness as going beyond that, as seeking to bring into reality another content, then we should think of it as a nothing working away towards nothing. This original nature is, moreover, not merely the substance of its purpose, but imphcitly the reality as well, which otherwise assumes the appearance of being a given material on which to act, of being found ready at hand for action to work up into some determinate form. That is to say, acting is simply transferring from a state not yet explicitly expressed to one fully expressed; the inherent being of that reality opposed to consciousness has sunk to the level of a mere empty appearance, a mere seeming. This mode of consciousness, by determining itself to act, thereby refuses to be led astray by the semblance of reality on the part of what is presented to it; and has likewise to abandon its dealings with idle thoughts and purposes, and keep its hold on the original content of its own nature. No doubt this content first exists as a fact for consciousness, when it has made that content actual; but the distinction between something which while for consciousness is only inside itself, and a reality outside consciousness existing in itself, has broken down.
Consciousness must act only that what it inherently and implicity is, may be for it explicitly; or, acting is just the process of mind coming to be qua consciousness. What it is imphcity, therefore, it knows from its actual reality. Hence it is that an individual cannot know what he is till he has made himself real by action.
Society as a Herd of Individuals 391 Consciousness, however, seems on this view to be tmable to determine the purpose of its action before action has taken place; but before action occurs it must, in virtue of being consciousness, have the act in front of itself as entirely its own, i.e. as a purpose. The individual, therefore, who is going to act seems to find himself in a circle, where each moment already presupposes the others, and hence seems unable to find a beginning, because it only gets to know its own original nature, the nature which is to be its purpose, by first acting, while in order to act it must have that purpose beforehand. But just for that reason it has to start straight away and, whatever the circumstances are, without troubling further about begmning, means, or end, proceed to action at once. For its essential and impHcit {ansicliseynde) nature is beginning, means, and end all in one. As beginning, it is found in the circumstances of the action; and the interest which the individual finds in something is just the answer to the question, "whether he should act and what is to be done in a given case. " For what seems to be a reahty confronting him is implicitly his own original fundamental nature, which has merely the appearance of an objective being — an appearance which hes in the notion of action, involving as this does self-diremption, but which expressly shows itself to be his own original nature by the interest the individual finds therein.
Similarly the how, the means, is determined as it stands {an und fiir sich). Talent is likewise nothing but individuality with a definite original constitution, looked at as the subjective internal means, or transition of purpose into actuality. The actual means, however, and the real transition are the miity of talent with the 392 Phenomenology of Mind nature of the fact as present in the interest felt. The former [talent] expresses that aspect of the means which concerns action, the latter [the fact found of interest] that which concerns content: both are individuahty itself, as a fused whole of acting and existing. "What we find, then, is first circumstances given ready to hand, which are impUcitly the original nature of the individual; next the interest which afnrms them as its own or as its purpose; and -finally the connection and sublation of these opposite elements in the means. This connexion itself still falls within consciousness, and the whole just considered is one side of an opposition. This appearance of opposition which still remains is removed by the transition, i.e. by the means. For the means is a unity of inner and outer, the antithesis of the determinate character it has qua inner means (viz. talent): it therefore abohshes this character, and makes itself — this unity of action and existence — equally an outer, viz.: the actually realised individuality, i.e. individuahty which is established for individuahty itself as the objectively existent. The entire act in this way does not go beyond itself, either as circumstances, or as purpose, or means, or as work performed.
In this notion of work, however, the distinction which lay within the original nature seems to enter. The work done is something determinate, hke the original nature it expresses, because being cut loose by the process of acting and become an existing reality, the negation impHed in this process remains in it as a quality. Consciousness, however, as against the work, is specifically that in which this quality as a general process of negation, as acting, is to be found. It is Society as a Herd of Individuals 393 thus the universal as opposed to the specific determinateness of the work performed; it can therefore compare one kind of work with another, and thence apprehend individuahties themselves as different. An individual who is of wider compass in his work has either stronger energy of will or a richer nature, i.e. a nature whose original constitution {Bestimmtheit) is less limited; while another has a weaker and a poorer nature.
*In contrast with this purely quantitative difference, which is not an essential difference, "good" and " bad" would express an absolute difference; but this is not in place here. Whether taken in one way or another, action is equally carried on; there is a process of displaying and expressing an individuahty, and for that reason it is all good: it would, properly speaking, be impossible to say what "bad" is to be here. What would be called a bad work is the individual life of a certain specific nature, which is therein realised. It would only be degraded into a bad work by a reflective comparison, which, however, is quite empty and futile, since this goes beyond the essential meaning and nature of work (which is a self-expression of individuality), and then seeks to find and demand from it heaven knows what else. The comparison could have to do only with the distinction above mentioned. But this, being a distinction of quantity, is in itself not an essential one, and is only made here because of differences in works and individualities which might be compared with one another. But these do not affect one another; each is concerned simply with itself.
The original nature is alone the essential fact, or * The following paragraph is somewhat parenthetical.
394 Phenomenology of Mind what could be "used as an ultimate standard of judgment regarding the work; and conversely. Both, however, correspond to each other: there is nothing for individuahty which is not obtained through it: or there is no reality which is not its nature and its action, and no action nor inherent substance of individuahty which is not real. And only these moments are to be compared.
There is, therefore, in general, no ground for feeling elevated or for lamenting or repenting: all that sort of thing arises from a reflection which imagines another content and another inner nature than is to be found in the original nature of the individual and the actual carrying of it out into reality. Whatever it is that the individual does, and whatever happens to him, that the individual has done, and is that himself. He can only have the consciousness of the mere transference of his self from the darkness of possibihty to the dayhght of the present, from a state abstract and impHcit to the significance of actual being, and can have only the certainty that what seems to him in the second state is nothing else than what lay dormant in the former. The consciousness of this imity is no doubt likewise a comparison, but what is compared is just a mere appearance of opposition, a formal appearance which for reason, qua self-conscious and aware that individuality is inherently actuahty, is nothing more than seeming. The individual, therefore, knowing that he can find in his objective actuahty nothing but its unity with himself or can find only the certainty of himself in its very truth, and knowing that he thus always attains his purpose — can experience only a sense of joy in himself.
Society as a Herd of Individuals 395 "That, then, is the conception consciousness has of itself when it is sure of its being an absolute identification, a complete permeation, of individuahty and existence. Let us see whether this notion is confirmed and supported by its experience, and whether its reality agrees with this notion.
The work produced is the reahty which consciousness gives itself. It is there that the individual becomes consciously what he is implicitly, and in such wise that the consciousness which becomes aware of the individual in the work performed is not the particular consciousness but universal consciousness. He has placed himself by his work quite outside in the element of universality, in the characterless, qualityless region of existence. The consciousness which withdraws from its work is in point of fact universal, — because it becomes, in this opposition between work and consciousness, absolute negativity, the process of action — and stands over against its work, which is determinate and particular. It thus goes beyond itself qtca work, and is itself the indeterminate region which its work still leaves void and unfilled. If their unity was in the above notion still preserved, this took place just through the work being cancelled qua objectively existing product. But it has to be, and we have to see how individuahty will retain its universahty in the existence of the work, and will know how to get satisfaction.
To begin with we have to consider by itself the work which has come into being. It has carried with it the entire nature of the individual. Its existence is therefore itself an action, in which all distinctions interpenetrate and are resolved. The work is thus thrown out into a subsisting form where the specific character S96 Phenomenology of Mind of the original nature does in fact come out as against other determinate natures, encroaches on them, just as these do in their turn, and is lost as a vanishing moment in this general process. Although in the conception of individuality as here dealt with, the various moments (circumstances, purpose, means, and realisation,) are all alike, and the original specific nature stands for no more than a universal element, on the other hand, when this element takes on an objective existence, its determinate character as such comes to light in the work done, and preserves its truth in its dissolution. Looked at more closely, this dissolution is such that in this specific character the individual, as a particular individual, has become consciously real; but the specific character is not merely the content of reality, but form as well; or reality as such is as a whole just this determinateness of being opposed to self-consciousness. On this view it is seen to be an alien reality Avhich has disappeared out of the notion, and is merely found given. The work is, i.e. it is for other individuals, and for them it is an external, an alien reality, in whose place they have to put their own, in order to get by their action consciousness of their unity with reality.
In other words, the interest which they take in that work owing to their original constitution is other than the peculiar interest of this work, which thereby is turned into something different. The work is, thus, in general something transitory, which is extinguished by the counter-action of other powers and interests, and displays the reality of individuality in a transitory form rather than as fulfilled and accompHshed.
Consciousness, then, by doing work becomes aware of that contrast between being and acting, which in the Society as a Herd of Individuals 397 earlier forms of consciousness was at the same time the beginning of action, and is here merely a result. This contrast, however, was in fact likewise the ultimate principle involved when consciousness proceeded to act as an implicitly real individuality; for action presupposed the determinate original nature as the ultimate implicit element, and the mere process of performing the act for the sake of this performance took that nature as its content. Mere action is, however, the self-identical form, with which, consequently, the specific determinateness of the original nature does not agree. It is matter of indifference here, as elsewhere, which of the two is called notion and which reality. The original nature is the thought element, the implicit factor as against the action, in which it first gets its reahty; or, again, the original nature is the existence both of individuahty as such and of individuahty in the form of work; while action is the original notion as pure and simple transition, as the process of becoming. This lack of correspondence between idea and reahty, which lies in its essence, consciousness learns in its work; in work consciousness becomes aware of itself as it in truth is, and its empty notion of itself disappears.
In this fundamental contradiction characteristic of work — which contains the truth of this individuahty that takes itself to be inherently real — all the aspects of individuality thus appear again as contradictory. In other words, work, being the content of the entire individuality put forth by action, which is the negative unity and holds in its grasp all the elements, now sets them free, when it is given existence. As subsisting, they stand indifferently over against each other. The notion and its 398 Phenomenology of Mind reality are thus separated into purpose and the original essential nature (Wesenheit). It is an accident that the purpose should have a true being, or that the implicit inherent nature should be made a purpose. Similarly, again, notion and reality fall apart as transition to actuaUty and as purpose; in other words, it is an accident that the means expressing the purpose should actually be chosen. While, finally, should these inner moments taken together have some intrinsic unity or not, the action of the individual is once more an accident so far as actuahty in general is concerned: fortune decides in favour of a badly determined purpose, and badly selected means, just as much as against them.
If, now, consciousness hereby becomes aware in its work of the opposition between willing and performance, between purpose and means, and again between this inward nature, taken all together, and actual reality — an opposition which as a whole shows the fortuitous character of the action of consciousness — still the unity and the necessity of this action are just as much present too. This latter aspect transcends the former, and experience of the fortuitousness of the action is itself only a fortuitous kind of experience. The necessity of the action consists in this, that purpose is directly related to actuality, and the unity of these is the very notion of action: the act takes place because action is fer se and of itself the essence of actuality. In work there no doubt comes out the fortuitousness which characterises accomplishment when contrasted with willing and the process of performing; and this experience, which seems as if it must be the truth, contradicts that notion of the act. Still if we look Society as a Herd of Individuals 399 at the content of this experience taken in its completeness, that content is seen to be the transitory work. What persists is not the transitoriness; rather this is itself actual and is bound up with the work, and vanishes with it; the negative falls away along with the positive whose negation it is.
The very notion of substantially and inherently real individuality contains within it this transience of transitoriness {Verschwinden des V erschwindens). For that wherein the work disappears, or what disappears in the work, is the objective reality; and this was to give experience, as it was called, its supremacy over the notion which individuality has about itself. Objective reality, however, is a moment which itself has no longer independent truth in this mode of consciousness; it consists solely in the unity of this consciousness with action, and the real work is only that unity of action and existence, of willing and performance. On account of the certainty fundamental to its action, consciousness takes the actual reahty contrasted with that conscious certainty, to be something which is only jor consciousness. The opposition cannot any longer stand before consciousness where this is for itself and independent as against the actual reality; for consciousness here is self-consciousness returned into itself and with all opposition gone. On the contrary, the opposition and the negativity manifested in the case of work, thus affect not only the content of the work, or, again, the content of consciousness, but actual reahty as such, and hence affect both the opposition present merely in virtue of that reality and in it, and the disappearance of the work. In this way consciousness turns from its transient work 400 Phenomenology of Mind back upon itself, and asserts its own notion and its certainty to be the permanent and abiding fact as against the experience of the fortuitousness of action. In point of fact it comes to know its essential principle or notion, in which actuality is only a moment, something for consciousness, not something in and for itself; it finds that reality to be a passing moment, of significance therefore merely as being in general, whose universality is one and the same as action. This unity, this identity is the true work; it is the " real fact," the " actual fact " itself {die Sache selbst), which absolutely asserts itself, and is experienced as the lasting element, independent of that " fact " which is the accident of individual action as such, the accident of circumstances, means, and actuality.
The "real fact "itself stands opposed to these moments only so far as they claim to have a value in isolation, but is essentially their unity, because identifying, fusing, actuaUty with individuality. It is, too, an action, and, qua doing, pure action in general, and thereby just as much action of this particular individual; and this action, because still appertaining to the individual in opposition to actuality, has the sense of a purpose. Similarly it is the transition from this specific character to the opposite: and finally it is a reality which is present objectively for consciousness. The "actual fact" thus expresses the essential spiritual substance in which all these moments as independently valid are cancelled and transcended, and so hold good only as universal, and in which the certainty consciousness has regarding itself is a " fact," a real object before consciousness, an object born of self-consciousness as its own, without ceasing to be a free Society as a Herd of Individuals 401 independent object in the proper sense. Tlie " thing," found at the stage of sense-certainty and perception, now gets its significance through self-consciousness, and through it alone. On this rests the distinction between a thing {Ding) and a fact (Sache). A process is gone through here corresponding to what we find in the case of sense-experience and perception.
Self-consciousness, then, has attained its true conception of itself when this stage of " real fact " is reached; fact is the interpenetration of individuality and objectivity. In it self-consciousness has arrived at a consciousness of its own substance. At the same time, as we find self-consciousness here, it is a consciousness which has just arisen, and hence is immediate; and this is the specific way in which we find spirit at the present stage: it has not yet reached its truly real substance. The " fact itself " takes in this immediate consciousness the form of bare and simple essence {einfachen Wesens), which, being universal, contains all its various moments in itself and belongs to them, but, again, is also indifierent towards them taken as specific moments, and is independent by itself; and, as this free and independent simple abstract " fact," passes for the essentially real (Wesen). The various moments of the oric^inal determinateness, the moments of the " fact " of tJiis particular individual, his purpose, means, action, and actual reality, are, on the one hand, particular moments for this consciousness, which it can abandon and give up for the " fact itself "; on the other hand, however, they all have the " fact itself " as their essential nature, but only in such a way that it, being their abstract universal, can find itself in each of them and be their predicate. The " fact itself " is not yet subject; VOL. I. — 2 D 402 Phenomenology of Mind but those moments stand for subject, because they belong to the aspect of particularity, while " fact itself " is only at this stage bare universahty. "Fact" is the genus which finds all these moments to be species of itself, and in that way is independent of them.
Consciousness is called " honest," when it has on the one hand attained this idealisation (Idealismus), which " fact " expresses, and on the other possesses the truth in the " fact " qua this formal universality. Consciousness when so characterised takes to do solely with " fact," and hence occupies itself with its various moments or species. And when it does not reach, the '•■ fact " in one of these moments, does not find the " real fact " in one meaning, it just on that account lays hold of the " fact " in another; and consequently always really secures that satisfaction which should belong to this mode of consciousness by its very nature {seinem Begriffe nacli). However things turn out, it achieves and secures the " fact itself," for the latter, being this universal genus of those moments, is the predicate of all.
Should it not bring a purpose into reality, it may have at least willed the purpose, i.e. may turn purpose qua purpose, mere doing which does nothing, into the " fact itself," and can therefore maintain and feel satisfied that at least there has always been something attempted, something done. Since the universal contains within it even the negative or the transitoriness, this too, the nothingness of work, is itself its doing. It has stimulated others towards this, and still finds satisfaction in the disappearance of its reahty, just as bad boys enjoy a personal pleasure in getting their ears boxed because they are the cause of its being done. Or, again, Society as a Herd of Individuals 403 suppose it has not so much as tried to carry out the " fact itself," and done nothing at all, then it has not even cared; the "fact itself" is for it just the unity of its decision with reahty; it asserts that the reality was nothing else than its own wish in the matter {sein Mogen). Finally, suppose something of interest has come its way entirely without its help, then for it this reahty is the " fact itself " just by the interest which it finds in the "fact," although that reahty was not brought about by its doing. If it is a piece of luck, which has befallen the individual personally, he reckons it his own act and his own desert; if it is, on the other hand, a mere event, which does not concern him further, he makes it likewise his own, and an interest where he has done nothing, is held as a party interest which he has taken up and defended or maintained, for or against.
The "Honesty," or " Honour ableness " of this mode of consciousness, as well as the satisfaction which it meets with at every point, really consists, as the above makes clear, in this, that it does not bring together its ideas regarding the " fact itself." " Fact itself" is just as much its own affair {seine Sadie) as no work at all, or mere action and bare purpose, or again a reahty involving no action at all: it makes one meaning after another the subject of this predicate, and forgets one after the other. By its having merely " willed " or, again, in not having " wanted," " fact itself " has now the meaning of empty purpose, and of the merely ideal thought-imity of wilhng and performance. The consolation for the annihilation of the purpose, which was at all events ' ' willed " or at all events simply done, as well as the satisfaction of having given others something to 404 Phenomenology of Mind do, makes the simple doing, or the entirely bad work, the essential reality; for that must be called a bad work which is no work at all. Finally, in the case of finding through good luck the reahty at hand, this existence without any act becomes the " fact itself."