At first enlightenment asserts the moment of the notion to be an act of consciousness; it maintains in the face of belief that the absolute Keality belief accepts is a Reality of the believer's consciousness qua a self, or that this absolute Reality is produced through consciousness. To the believing mind its absolute Being is just as it is in itself for the believer, at the same time not as a foreign thing, standing there no one knows how or whence it came there. The trust and confidence of belief consists just in finding itself in absolute Reality as a particular personal consciousness, and its obedience and service consist in acting so as to bring out that Reality as its own Absolute. Enlightenment, strictly speaking, only reminds belief of this, if belief goes beyond the action of consciousness and gives expression to the ultimate nature (Ansicli) of absolute Being in abstracto.
But while enlightenment no doubt puts alongside the one-sidedness of belief the opposite moment, viz.: — the The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 575 action of belief in contrast to being — and being is all belief thinks about here, — and yet does not itself in doing so bring those opposite thoughts together, enlightenment isolates the pure moment of action, and declares that what belief takes to be per se ultimate (Ansich) is merely a product of consciousness. The isolated separate act opposed to this ultimate Being (Ansich) is, however, a contingent action, and, qua presentative activity, is a creating of fictions, — presented figurative ideas that have no being in themselves. And this is how enlightenment regards the content of belief.
Conversely, however, pure insight equally says the very opposite. Since insight lays stress on the moment of otherness which the notion contains, it declares the essential Reality for belief to be one which is not in any way due to consciousness, is away beyond consciousness, foreign to it, and unknown. To belief, too, that Reality has the same character. On one side belief trusts in it, and gets, in doing so, the assurance of its own self, on the other side it is unsearchable in all its ways and unattainable in its being.
Further, enlightenment maintains against the believing mind a right which the latter concedes, when enlightenment treats the object of the believer's veneration as stone and wood, or, in short, some finite anthropomorphic feature. For, since this consciousness is divided within itself in having a ' beyond' remote from actuality and an immediate present embodiment of that remote beyond, there is also found in it, as a matter of fact, the view that sense-things have a value and significance in and for themselves (an und fur sich). But belief does not bring together these two ideas of 576 Phenomenology of Mind what is " in and for itself," viz. that at one time what is " in and for itself " is for belief pure essential Reality and at another time is an ordinary thing of sense. Even its own pure consciousness is affected by this last view; for the distinctions of its supersensuous world, because dispensing with the notion, are a series of independent shapes and forms, and their activity is a happening, i.e. they exist merely in idea, merely as presentations, and have the characteristic of senseexistence.
Enlightenment on its side isolates actuality in the same way, treating it as a reality abandoned by spirit; isolates specific determinateness as some fixed immovable finite element, as if it were not a moment in the spiritual process of the real itself, were neither nothing, nor something with a being all its own, but something evanescent and transitory.
It is clear that the same is the case with regard to the ground of knowledge. The believing mind recognises itself to be an accidental knowledge; for in belief the mind adopts an attitude towards contingencies, and absolute Reality itself comes before belief in the form of a presented idea of ordinary actual fact. Consequently belief is also a kind of certainty which does not carry the truth within it, and it confesses itself to be an unsubstantial consciousness of this kind, far short of being well assured of itself and authentically secure. This moment, however, belief forgets in its immediate spiritual knowledge of absolute Reality.
Enlightenment, however, which reminds belief of all this, thinks again merely of the contingency of the knowledge and forgets the other — thinks only The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 577 of the mediating process which takes effect through an alien third term, and does not think on that process wherein the immediate is itself the third term, through which it mediates itself with the other, viz. with itself.
Finally, on the view enlightenment takes of the action of belief, the rejection of enjoyment and possessions is looked upon as wrong and purposeless.
As to the wrong thus done, enlightenment preserves the harmony of the believing attitude in this that belief acknowledges the actual reality of possessing property, keeping hold of it, and enjoying it. In insisting on its property, it behaves with all the more stubborn independence and exclusiveness, and in its enjoyment with all the more frank self-abandonment, since its religious act of giving up pleasure and property takes effect beyond the region of this actuality, and purchases for it freedom to do as it likes so far as that other sphere is concerned. This service, that consists in sacrificing natural impulses and enjoyments, in point of fact has no truth, owing to this opposition. The retention and the sacrifice subsist together side by side. The sacrifice is merely a "sign" which performs real sacrifice only as regards a small part, and hence in point of fact only representatively suggests sacrifice.
As for purposiveness, enlightenment finds it pointless and stupid to throw away a possession in order to feel and to prove oneself to be free from all possession, to renounce an enjoyment in order to think and demonstrate that one is rid of all enjoyment. The believing mind itself takes the absolute act for a universal one. Not only does the action of its absolute Reality VOL. II. — M 578 Phenomenology of Mind as its object appear something universal, but the individual consciousness, too, has to prove itself detached entirely and altogether from its sensuous nature. But throwing away a particular possession, giving up and disclaiming a particular enjoyment, is not acting universally in this way. And since in the action it is essentially the purpose, which is a universal, and the performance, which is a particular process, that had to stand in all their incompatibility before consciousness, that action shows itself to be of a kind in which consciousness has no share, and consequently this way of acting is seen to be too naive to be an action at all. It is too naive to fast in order to prove oneself quite indifferent to the pleasures of the table; too naive to rid oneself, like Origen, of other bodily pleasure in order to show that pleasure is finished and done with. The act itself proves to be an external and a particular function. But desire' is deeply rooted within the inner life, and is a universal element; its pleasure neither disappears with the instrument for getting pleasure nor by abstention from particular pleasures.
But enlightenment on its side here isolates the unrealised inwardness as against the concrete actuality; just as in the case of the devotion and direct intuition of belief, enlightenment holds fast to the externality of things of sense as against the inward attitude of belief. Enlightenment finds the main point in the intention, in the thought, and thereby finds no need for actually bringing about the liberation from natural ends. On the contrary, this inner sphere is itself the formal element that has its concrete fulfilment in natural impulses, which are justified simply by the The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 579 fact that they fall within, that they belong to universal being, to nature.
Enlightenment, then, holds irresistible sway over belief by the fact that the latter finds in its own constitution the very moments to which enlightenment gives significance and validity. Looking more closely at the action exerted by this force, its operation on belief seems to rend asunder the unity and happy harmony of trustfulness and immediate confidence, to pollute its spiritual life with lower thoughts drawn from the sphere of sense, to destroy the feeling of calm security in its attitude of submission by introducing the vanity of understanding, of self-will, and self-fulfilment. But in point of fact, enlightenment really brings to pass the abolition of that state of unthinking, or rather uncomprehended (begrifflos) cleavage, which finds a place in the nature of belief. The believing mood weighs and measures by a twofold standard, it has two sorts of eyes and ears, uses two voices to express its meaning, it duplicates all ideas, without comparing and squaring the sense and meaning in the two forms used. Or we may say belief lives its life amidst two sorts of perceptions, the one the perceptions of thought which is asleep, purely uncritical and uncomprehending, the other those of waking consciousness living solely and simply in the world of sense; and in each of them it manages to carry on a household all its own.
Enlightenment illuminates that world of heaven with ideas drawn from the world of sense, pointing out there this element of finitude which belief cannot deny or repudiate, because it is self-consciousness, and in being so is the unity to which both kinds of ideas 580 Phenomenology of Mind belong, and in which they do not fall apart from one another; for they belong to the same indivisible simple self into which belief has passed, and which constitutes its life.
Belief has by this means lost the content which furnished its rilling, and collapses into an inarticulate state where the spirit works and weaves within itself.* Belief is banished from its own kingdom; this kingdom is sacked and plundered, since every distinction and expansion of it has rent the waking consciousness in its innermost nature, and claimed every one of its parts for earth, and returned them to the earth that owns them. Yet belief is not on that account satisfied, for this illumination has everywhere brought to light only what is individual, with the result that only insubstantial realities and finitude forsaken of spirit make any appeal to spirit.
Since belief is without content and cannot continue in this barren condition, or since, in getting beyond finitude, which is the sole content, it finds merely the empty void, it is a sheer longing: its truth is an empty beyond, for which there is no longer any appropriate content to be found, for everything is appropriated and connected in other ways.
Belief in this manner has in fact become the same as enlightenment — the conscious attitude of relating a finite that inherently exists to an unknown and unknowable Absolute without predicates; the difference is merely that the one is enlightenment satisfied, while belief is enlightenment unsatisfied, f It will yet be * i.e. the life of feeling.
t i.e. the contrast between belief and enlightenment becomes a contrast inside enlightenment itself.
The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 581 seen whether enlightenment can continue in its state of satisfaction; that longing of the troubled, beshadowed spirit, mourning over the loss of its spiritual world, lies in the background. Enlightenment has on it this stain of unsatisfied longing: — in its empty Absolute Being we find this in the form of the pure object; in passing beyond its individual nature to an unfulfilled beyond, the fleck appears as an act and a process; in the selflessness of what is "useful" it is seen in the form of an object fulfilled. Enlightenment will remove this stain: by considering more closely the positive result which constitutes the truth in its case, we shall find that the stain is implicitly removed already.
THE TRUE RESULT OF ENLIGHTENMENT* The spirit that sullenly works and weaves without further distinctions within itself has thus passed into itself away beyond consciousness, which, again, has arrived at clearness as to itself. The first moment of this clearness of mind is determined, in regard to its necessity and constitution, by the fact that pure insight, or insight that is implicitly and per se notion, actualises itself; it does so when it gives otherness or determinateness a place in its own nature. In this manner it is negative pure insight, i.e. the negation of the notion; this negation is equally pure; and herewith has arisen the pure and simple " thing/' the Absolute Being, that has no further determination of any sort. If we define this more precisely, insight in the sense of absolute notion is a distinguishing of distinctions that are not so any longer, of abstractions or pure notions that no longer support themselves but find a fixed hold and a distinction only by means of the whole life of the process. This distinguishing of what is not distinguished consists just in the fact that the absolute notion makes itself its object, and as against that process asserts itself to be the essence. The essence hereby dispenses with the aspect wherein abstrac- * The outcome is at once positive and negative — materialism and agnosticism: on the secular side, it is pure utilitarianism.
The Result of Enlightenment 583 tions or distinctions are kept apart, and hence becomes pure thought in the sense of a pure thing.
This, now, is just the dull, silent, unconscious working and weaving of the spirit at the loom of its own being, to which belief, as we saw, sank back when it lost all distinction in its content. And this is at the same time that movement of pure self-consciousness, in regard to which the essence is intended to be the absolutely external beyond. For, because this pure self-consciousness is a movement working with pure notions, with distinctions that are no distinctions, pure self-consciousness collapses in fact into that unconscious working and weaving of spirit, i.e. into pure feeling, or pure thinghood.
The self-alienated notion — for the notion still stands here at the level of such alienation — does not, however, know this identical nature constituting both sides, — the movement of self-consciousness and its absolute Reality, — does not know the identity of their nature, which, in point of fact gives them their very substance and subsistence. Since the notion is not aware of this insight, absolute Reality has significance and value merely in the form of an objective beyond, while the consciousness making these distinctions, and in this way keeping the ultimate reality outside itself, is treated as a finite consciousness.
Regarding that Absolute Being, enlightenment itself falls out with itself in the same way as it did formerly with belief, and is divided between the views of two parties. One party proves itself to be victorious by the fact that it breaks up into two parties; for in that fact it shows it possesses within it the principle it combats, and consequently shows it has abolished 584 Phenomenology of Mind the one-sidedness with which it formerly made its appearance. The interest which was divided between it and the other, now falls entirely within it, and forgets the other, because that interest finds lying in it alone the opposition on which attention is directed. At the same time, however, the opposition has been lifted into the higher victorious element, where it is cleared up and set forth. So that the schism that arises in one party, and seems a misfortune, demonstrates rather its good fortune.
The pure essence itself has in it no distinction; consequently distinction is reached by two such pure essences being put forward for consciousness to be aware of, or by a twofold consciousness of the pure reality. The pure absolute essence is only in pure thought, or rather it is pure thought itself, and thus absolutely beyond the finite, beyond self-consciousness, and is merely the ultimate essence in a negative sense. But in this way it is just being, the negative of selfconsciousness. Being negative of self-consciousness, it is also related to self-consciousness. It is external being, which, placed in relation to self-consciousness within which distinctions and determinations fall, preserves within it the distinctions, of being tasted, seen, and so on; and the relationship is that of senseexperience and perception.
Taking the point of departure from this senseexistence, into which that negative beyond necessarily passes, but abstracting from those various ways in which consciousness is related to sense-existence, there is left pure matter as that in which consciousness weaves and moves inarticulately within itself. In dealing with this, the essential point to note is that pure matter is The Result of Enlightenment 585 merely what remains over when we abstract from seeing, feeling, tasting, etc., i.e. it is not what is seen, tasted, felt, and so on; it is not matter that is seen, felt, or tasted, but colour, a stone, salt, and so on. Matter is really a pure abstraction; and, being so, we have here the pure essential nature of thought, or pure thought itself, as the Absolute without predicates, undetermined, having no distinctions within it.* The one kind of enlightenment calls absolute Being that predicateless Absolute, which exists in thought beyond the actual consciousness from which this enlightenment started; the other calls it matter. If they were distinguished as Nature and Spirit or God, the unconscious inner working and weaving would have nothing of the wealth of developed life required in order to be nature, while Spirit or God would have no self-distinguishing consciousness. Both, as we saw, are entirely the same notion; the distinction lies not in the objective fact, but purely in the diversity of starting-point adopted by the two thought-constructions, and in the fact that each keeps to a special point of view in the thought-process. If they rose above that, their thoughts would coincide, and they would find what to the one is, as it holds, a horror, and to the other a folly, is one and the same thing. For to the one, absolute Being, in its pure thought — or directly for pure consciousness — is outside finite consciousness, is the negative beyond of finite mind. If it would reflect that in part that simple immediacy of thought is nothing else than pure being, that in part, again, what is negative for consciousness is at the same * Cp. Schopenhauer: " The absolute without predicates is just matter."
586 Phenomenology of Mind time related to consciousness — that in the negative judgment the copula " is " also connects and holds together the two separated factors — it would come to see that this beyond, which the nature of an external existence implies, stands in a relation to consciousness, and that in so doing this means the same as what is called pure matter. The missing moment of the present would then be secured.
The other enlightenment starts from sense-existence; it then abstracts from the sensuous relation of tasting, seeing, etc., and turns sense-existence into purely inherent being (Ansich], absolute matter, something neither felt nor tasted. This being has in this way become the inner reality of pure consciousness, the ultimately simple without predicates; it is the pure notion, qua notion whose being is in itself, or it is pure thought within itself. This insight in its conscious activity does not go through the process of passing from being, which is purely being, to an opposite in thought, which is the same as mere being, or does not go from the pure positive to the opposite pure negative; since the positive is really pure simply and solely through negation, while the negative qua pure is selfidentical and one within itself, and precisely on that account positive.
Or again, these two have not come to the notion found in Descartes' metaphysics that in themselves being and thought are the same; they have not arrived at the thought that being, pure being, is not a concrete actual reality, but pure abstraction, and conversely that pure thought, self-identity or inner essence, is partly the negative of self-consciousness, and consequently is being, and partly, qua immediate simple entity, is The Result of Enlightenment 587 likewise nothing else than being. Thought is thinghood, or thinghood is thought.
The real essence is here divided asunder in such a way that, to begin with, it appertains to two specifically distinct modes of thinking. In part, the real must hold distinction in itself; in part, just by so doing, both ways of considering it merge into one; for then the abstract moments, of pure being and the negative, by which their distinction is expressed, are united in the object with which these modes of treatment deal.
The universal common to both is the abstraction of pure self-thinking, of pure quivering within the self. This simple motion of rotating on its own axis is bound to resolve itself into separate moments, because it is itself only motion by distinguishing its own moments. This distinguishing of the moments leaves the unmoved [unity] behind as the empty shell of pure being, that is no longer actual thought, has no more life within it; for qua distinction this process is all the content. The process, which thus puts itself outside that unity thereby constitutes, however, the shifting change — a change that does not return into itself — of the moments of being-in-itself, of beingfor-another, and of being-for-self — actual reality in the way this is object for the concrete consciousness of pure insight — constitutes Utility.
Bad as utility may look to belief or sentimentality or even to the abstraction that calls itself speculation, and takes to do with the ultimate, the inherent nature; yet it is that in which pure insight finds its realisation, and itself is the object for insight, an object which insight now no longer repudiates, and which, too, it does not put down as the void or the pure beyond. For 588 Phenomenology of Mind pure insight, as we saw, is the living notion itself, the self-same pure personality, distinguishing itself within itself in such a way that each of the distinguished elements is itself pure notion, i.e. is eo ipso not distinct; it is simple undifferentiated pure self-consciousness, which is for itself as well as in itself within an immediate unity. Its inherent being, its being in itself, is therefore not fixed and permanent, but at once ceases, in its distinction, to be something distinctive. A being of that kind, however, which is immediately without support and cannot stand of itself, has no being in itself, no inherent existence, it is essentially for something else, which is the power that consumes and absorbs it. But this second moment, opposed to that first one, disappears immediately too, like the first; or, rather, qua being merely for some other, it is the very process of disappearing, and is definitely affirmed as being that has turned back into itself, as being for itself. This simple being-f or-self, however, qua self-identity, is rather an objective being, or is thereby for an other.
This nature of pure insight in thus unfolding and making explicit its moments, in other words insight qua object, finds expression in the useful, the profitable. What is useful is a thing, something that subsists in itself; this being in itself is at the same time only a pure moment: it is in consequence absolutely for something else, but is equally for an other merely as it is in itself: these opposite moments return into the indivisible unity of being-for-self. While, however, the useful doubtless expresses the notion of pure insight, it is all the same not insight as such, but insight as conscious presentation, or as object for insight. It is merely the restless shifting change of those moments, of which The Result of Enlightenment 589 one is indeed being returned into itself, but merely as being for itself, i.e. as abstract moment, appearing on one side over against the others. The useful itself does not consist in the negative fact of having these moments in their opposition at the same time undivided in one and the same respect, of having them as a form of thought per se in the way they are qua pure insight. The moment of being-for-self is doubtless a phase of usef ulness, but not in the sense that it swamps the other moments, being-per-se and being-for-another; if so, it would be the whole self. In dealing with the useful, pure insight thus takes as object its own peculiar notion in the pure moments constituting its nature; it is the consciousness of this metaphysical principle, but not yet its conceptual comprehension, it has not yet itself got to the unity of being and notion. Because the useful still appears before insight in the form of an object, insight has a world, not indeed any longer a world all by itself and self-contained, but still a world all the same, which it distinguishes from itself. Only, since the opposites have come forth on the summit of the notion, the next step will be for them to collide with one another and for enlightenment to experience the fruits of their deeds.
When we look at the object reached in relation to this entire sphere of spiritual life, we found the actual world of culture summed up in the vanity of selfconsciousness — in independent self-existence, whose content is drawn from the confusion characteristic of culture, and which is still the individual notion, not yet the self-conscious (fur sich) universal notion. Returned into itself, however, that (individual) notion is pure insight — pure consciousness qua pure self or 590 Phenomenology of Mind negativity, just as belief, too, is pure consciousness, qua pure thought or positivity. Belief finds in that self the moment that makes it complete; — but, perishing through being thus completed, it is in pure insight that we now see both moments as absolute Being, which is purely thought-constituted or is a negative entity, and as matter, which is the positive entity.
This completion still lacks that actual reality of self-consciousness, which belongs to the vain and empty type of consciousness — the world out of which thought raised itself up to itself. What is thus wanting is reached in the aspect of utility so far as pure insight secures positive objectivity there; pure insight is thereby a concrete actual consciousness satisfied within itself. This objectivity now constitutes its world, and is become the final and true outcome of the entire previous world, ideal as well as real. The first world of spirit is the expansive realm of spirit's self-dispersed existence and of certainty of self in separate individual shapes and forms: just as nature disperses its life in an endless multiplicity of forms and shapes, without the generic principle of all the forms being present therein. The second world contains the generic principle, and is the realm of the ultimate inherent nature (Ansichseyns) or the essential truth, over against that individual certainty. The third world, however, that of the profitable or the useful, is the truth which is certainty of self as well. The realm of the truth of belief lacks the principle of concrete actuality, or of certainty of self in the sense of this individual self. But, again, concrete actuality, or certainty of self qua this individual, lacks the ultimate inherent nature (Ansich). In the obj ect of pure insight both worlds are united. The useful The Result of Enlightenment 591 is the object so far as self-consciousness sees through it and individual certainty of self finds its enjoyment (its self-existence) in it; self-consciousness sees into it in this manner, and this insight contains the true essence of the object (which consists in being something permeable to sight, something seen through, in other words, in being for an other). This insight is thus itself true knowledge; and self-consciousness directly finds in this attitude universal certainty of itself as well, has its pure consciousness in this attitude, in which truth as well as immediateness and actuality are united. Both worlds are reconciled and heaven is transplanted to the earth below.
Ill ABSOLUTE FREEDOM AND TERROR* Consciousness has found its notion in the principle of utility. But that notion is partly an object still, partly, for that very reason, still a purpose, of which consciousness does not yet find itself to be immediately possessed. Utility or profitableness is still a predicate of the object, not a subject, not its immediate and sole actuality. It is the same thing that appeared before when we found that self-existence (being-for-self) had not yet shown itself to be the substance of the remaining moments, a process by which the useful would be primarily nothing else than the self of consciousness and this latter thereby in its possession.
This resumption of the form of objectivity which characterises the useful has, however, already taken effect implicitly, and as the outcome of this immanent internal revolution there comes to light the actual revolution of concrete actuality, the new mode of conscious life — absolute freedom.
This is so because in point of fact there is here no more than an empty semblance of objectivity separating self-consciousness from actual possession. For, in part, all the worth and permanence of the various specific members of the organisation of the world of actuality and belief have as a whole returned into this simple * Refers primarily to the regime under the French revolutionaries.
Absolute Freedom and Terror 593 determination, which is their ground and their indwelling spirit: in part, however, this determinate element has nothing peculiarly its own left for itself, it is instead pure metaphysic, pure notion or knowledge of selfconsciousness. That is to say, from the inherent and specific nature of the useful qua object consciousness learns that its inherent nature, its being-in-itself, is essentially a being for another; mere being per se, since it is self-less, is ultimately and in truth a passive entity, or something that is for another self. The object, however, is present to consciousness in this abstract form of purely immanent being, of pure being-in-itself; for consciousness is the activity of pure insight, the separate moments of which take the pure form of notions.
Self-existence, being-for-self, however, into which being for another returns, in other words the self, is not a self of what is called object, a self all its own and different from the ego: for consciousness qua pure insight is not an individual self, over against which the object, in the sense of having a self all its own, could stand, but the pure notion, the gazing of the self into self, the literal and absolute seeing itself doubled. The certainty of itself is the universal subject, and its notion knowing itself is the essential being of all reality. If the useful was merely the shifting change of the moments, without returning into its own proper unity, and was hence still an object for knowledge to deal with, then it ceases to be this now. For knowing is itself the process and movement of those abstract moments; it is the universal self, the self of itself as well as of the object, and, being universal, is the unity of this process, a unity that returns into itself.
VOL. II. — N 594 Phenomenology of Mind This brings on the scene spirit in the form of absolute freedom. It is the mode of self-consciousness which clearly comprehends that in its certainty of self lies the essence of all the component spiritual parts of the concrete sensible as well as of the supersensible world, or, conversely, that essential being and concrete actuality consist in the knowledge consciousness has of itself.
It is conscious of its pure personality and with that of all spiritual reality; and all reality is solely spirituality; the world is for it absolutely its own will, and this will is universal will. And further, this will is not the empty thought of will, which is constituted by giving a silent assent, or an assent through a representative, a mere symbol of willing; it is a concretely embodied universal will, the will of all individuals as such. For will is in itself the consciousness of personality, of every single one; and it has to be as this true concrete actual will, as self-conscious essential being of each and every personality, so that each single and undivided does everything, and what appears as done by the whole is at once and consciously the deed of every single individual.
This undivided substance of absolute freedom puts itself on the throne of the world, without any power being able to offer effectual resistance. For since in very truth consciousness is alone the element which furnishes spiritual beings or powers with their substance, their entire system, which is organised and maintained through division into separate spheres and distinct wholes, has collapsed into a single whole, when once the individual consciousness conceives the object as having no other nature than that of self-conscious- Absolute Freedom and Terror 595 ness itself, or conceives it to be absolutely the notion. What made the notion an existential object was the distinguishing it into separate and separately subsisting areas or groups; when, however, the object becomes a notion there is nothing fixedly subsisting left in it; negativity permeates and pervades all its moments. It exists in such a way that each individual consciousness rises out of the sphere assigned to it, finds no longer its inmost nature and function in this isolated area, but grasps itself as the notion of will, grasps all the various groupings as the essential expression of this will, and is in consequence only able to realise itself in a work which is a work of the whole. In this absolute freedom all social ranks or classes, which are the component spiritual factors into which the whole is differentiated, are effaced and annulled; the individual consciousness that belonged to any such group and exercised its will and found its fulfilment there, has removed the barriers confining it; its purpose is the universal purpose, its language universal law, its work universal achievement.