The Philosophy of Hegel as a Doctrine of the Concreteness of God and Humanity: The Doctrine of Humanity [2]

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL AS A DOCTRINE OF THE CONCRETENESS OF GOD AND HUMANITY

Topics in Historical Philosophy General Editors

David Kolb John McCumber

Associate Editor

Anthony J. Steinbock

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL AS A DOCTRINE OF THE CONCRETENESS OF GOD AND HUMANITY Volume Two: The Doctrine of Humanity

I. A. Il’in

Translated from the Russian and edited by Philip T. Grier

Northwestern University Press Evanston, Illinois

Northwestern University Press www.nupress.northwestern.edu Copyright © 2011 by Northwestern University Press. Published 2011. All rights reserved. The Philosophy of Hegel as a Doctrine of the Concreteness of God and Humanity is a translation of Filosofiia Gegelia kak uchenie o konkretnosti Boga i cheloveka (1918). Printed in the United States of America 10

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Il’in, I. A. (Ivan Aleksandrovich), 1883–1954. [Filosofiia Gegelia kak uchenie o konkretnosti Boga i cheloveka. English] The philosophy of Hegel as a doctrine of the concreteness of God and humanity / I. A. Il’in ; translated from the Russian and edited by Philip T. Grier. v. cm. — (Topics in historical philosophy) Includes bibliographical references. Contents: v. 2. The doctrine of humanity ISBN 978-0-8101-2610-7 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770–1831—Religion. 2. God—History of doctrines—19th century. I. Grier, Philip T., 1942– II. Title. III. Series: Northwestern University topics in historical philosophy. B2949.G63I4513 2010 193—dc22 2010008160 o The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Dedicated to Ella Fedorovna, my wife, without whom it truly would not have been possible

A Brief Introduction to Volume Two Philip T. Grier

Most of the contents of this second volume of I. A. Il’in’s commentary on the philosophy of Hegel will be unknown even to those who have read his 1946 German version of the text, because in that version he omitted eight of the original ten chapters of this volume. These omitted chapters provide an extended reflection on the central categories of Hegel’s moral, legal, and political philosophies, as well as of the philosophy of history. The topics examined in this volume are, in order: freedom, humanity, will, right, morality, ethical life, personhood and its virtue, and the state. Contained within these chapters are some notably insightful expositions of core doctrines in Hegel’s philosophy. The main critical conclusions derived from these first eight chapters are presented in the ninth chapter on “The Limits of the Human” (chapter 21, which appeared as chapter 13 in the German edition). Il’in’s conclusions on Hegel’s philosophical project as a whole are contained in the tenth chapter on “The Crisis of Theodicy” (chapter 22, which appeared as chapter 14 in the German edition). Il’in tells us that his most intense study of Hegel, and the writing of this commentary, stretched over a period of eight years, from 1908 to 1916, at which point, he said, the manuscript was essentially complete. We know that volume 1 had basically been completed by 1914; the years 1914–16 were therefore presumably devoted to the completion of volume 2 (contemporaneous with the beginning of the First World War and the growing instability of the tsarist state). The timing of Il’in’s research on Hegel was such that he was able to take account of Nohl’s and Lasson’s publications of various early works of Hegel which had previously been difficult of access. His reference in the preface of volume 1 to a “renaissance” of Hegelianism occurring in Germany was doubtless intended to include both Georg Lasson’s revised and enhanced edition of Hegel’s collected works, the Sämtliche Werke (Leipzig: Felix Meiner), which began appearing in 1905, and Hermann Nohl’s edition of the early theological writings, Hegels Theologische Jugendschriften (Tübingen: Mohr), which appeared in 1907. Like other Hegel scholars of the early twentieth century, Il’in was fascinated by the ix

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possibility of tracing the evolution of Hegel’s mature philosophical views from the newly accessible evidence of his early philosophical writings. He paid particular attention to Hegel’s depiction of the gospel doctrine of love in the early theological writings and its subsequent fate in Hegel’s thought. He was also particularly struck by the appearance in 1913 of Lasson’s volume 7, Schriften zur Politik und Rechtsphilosophie, which included Hegel’s System der Sittlichkeit (System of Ethical Life), the earliest (though incomplete) systematic statement of Hegel’s moral and political philosophy.1 Il’in’s summary of the moral and political philosophy appears to be influenced by that earliest text in several respects. For example, Il’in presents Hegel’s account of the state as an attempt to explicate the doctrine of “absolute ethical life” (absolute Sittlichkeit), a phrase that occurs at the very beginning of the System of Ethical Life (as the topic of section 1), and in other Jena period writings, but not in the mature works such as the Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 1820). Il’in tends to associate “absolute ethical life” with “divine life” in a rather strong and direct sense which may not be as clearly supported in Hegel’s later works. He also places heavy emphasis upon the doctrine of individual virtue as an essential component of the rational state. Equally significantly, he tends to deemphasize the role of civil society as an integral component of the fully developed state, emphasizing instead the doctrines of the family and of the strictly political state. In all of these respects, Il’in appears to be influenced as much by the System of Ethical Life, a text dating from 1802 or 1803, as by the relevant later texts. Il’in explicitly criticizes Hegel’s “last and most mature treatise on the philosophy of right” (the Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts of 1820) as admitting “a whole series of compromises which were grasped, pointed out, and in part more deeply illuminated in his early works.”2 The issue of Il’in’s judgments concerning the significance of the earlier versus the more mature texts is a particularly sensitive one because of the emphasis he places upon the conclusion that Hegel was forced to “compromise” the original intentions behind his project. The validity of Il’in’s claims concerning Hegel’s alleged “compromises” depends, of course, upon the validity of his reading of Hegel’s original intentions. And this raises the possibility that Il’in may have mischaracterized some of these “original” intentions as a result of weighting some of the earlier texts more heavily than is justified. (On the other hand, it is possible that Il’in may have accurately discerned some “drift” in the intentions behind Hegel’s philosophical project from early to late which was not fully acknowledged or justified by Hegel himself.) While I do

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not intend to venture a conclusion on this large and complex issue here, I do wish to alert the reader to the importance of the question. Il’in himself at one point raises the question of the development of Hegel’s political philosophy from earlier to later texts, thus tacitly acknowledging the possibility that his own summary of it might have dwelled excessively on the earlier formulations. However, on the whole he seems to downplay the significance of the issue. In the “Bibliographic Appendix” for chapter 16, he remarks: In the examination of Hegel’s philosophy of right I consider it possible to concentrate on the general and fundamental essence of the idea of right, independently of those inessential changes which can be ascertained in various treatises and in various periods of creativity. P. I. Novgorodtsev attentively follows the course of these changes and comes to the conclusion that there were no radical breaks or “sharp distinctions,” but rather an organic development toward ever greater breadth, political maturity, and clarity.3

Il’in’s (and Novgorodtsev’s) judgment can be supported to some extent by reference to H. S. Harris. In the introduction to his translation of the System of Ethical Life he observes that we must be careful not to exaggerate the difference between Hegel’s enterprise in the System of Ethical Life and that of his mature Philosophy of Right. Philosophical comprehension always continued to be in Hegel’s view an activity of critical reconstruction, not just a matter of descriptive analysis. And the Greek ideal always retained in his mind much of the authority that it has here as a criterion for use in political criticism. The general outlines of his mature political theory can be clearly descried already in the System of Ethical Life.4

Whatever conclusion one may reach on this question of Il’in’s weighting of earlier versus later texts, the fact remains that he did declare the outcome of the Philosophy of Right to be a significant “compromise” of Hegel’s “original intentions” in multiple respects: Such is the explanation of the “imperfect” and “spurious” state. It is clear that in the idea of the “perfected” or “absolute” state the empirical element is fully overcome both in terms of the compass of the human constitution and in terms of the rhythm of speculative life, and also, finally, in terms of the level of spiritual development. It is necessary to establish directly that a state lacking one of these conditions is,

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in one way or another, an imperfect state, i.e., not “absolute,” but relative; not “infinite,” but “worldly and finite”; not a “realized shape,” but an “existing appearance.” And thus, if we turn with these criteria to that “state” the characteristics of which Hegel strove repeatedly to depict correctly, we discover that it conceals within itself a whole series of “contradictions” and “unsatisfactory” aspects; moreover, aspects that are not accidental for it, but follow from its very nature. It turns out that the essence of the state consists in being limited in all three relations: as by the compass of the human constitution, so also by the rhythm of speculative life, and, finally, by the level of spiritual development. An “absolute” state remains within these limitations despite the fact that it is “absolute,” but precisely because it is a “state.” And if so, then the “idea” of the state is a mark signifying not the “victory” of Spirit in the human, but a limit of the human spirit.5

Il’in extends this conclusion in a quite significant way in the following chapter: The “limit of the human” is the limit of its possible speculative ascent and liberation, i.e., that boundary up to which humanity is permitted to approach the Divine state and realize in itself the absolute freedom of the Divinity. But the “path of the human in the world” is not simply an “anthropogony,” and the “meaning of human life” is not simply the realization and development of anthropomorphic powers: human reason is Divine Reason and the essence of the human spirit is the divine Spirit. Therefore the limit of the human coincides with the limit of God in the world, and the crisis of the human points to the objektive collapse of theodicy.6

This claimed “limit of God in the world,” or the impossibility of fully overcoming the empirical element, is in Il’in’s view the outcome of the philosophical examination of nature, or of the human psyche, or of the state, or of history. Il’in views this repeated outcome as spelling the end of Hegel’s “original intention” of achieving a “theodicy.” (It is clear that Hegel did indeed think of his philosophy of history as a kind of theodicy, but the issue of whether Hegel actually intended to achieve a theodicy in the sense Il’in attributed to him requires further examination.) Il’in’s conclusion concerning the inevitability of this “collapse of theodicy” rests upon two premises: that a reconciliation of the divine and the empirical element, or of Reason and the World, requires that the empirical element be fully overcome, and that such a complete over-

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coming, in each of the “concrete” sciences (of nature, of the psyche, of the state, etc.) proves to be impossible. Since this is the case, according to Il’in, the question arises of why this repeated “collapse” of Hegel’s project is not more apparent. Il’in’s explanation for the apparent success of the project draws upon the idea that Hegel’s philosophical analysis simultaneously takes two paths which are in reality distinct, but may appear to belong to a single great movement of thought. The fundamental fault line in Hegel’s project, according to Il’in, can be traced by reference to the “Logic of the beginning” and the “Logic of the end.”7 The former path allegedly leads from the “Logic of the beginning” to the Philosophy of Nature to the Philosophy of Spirit to the “Logic of the end,” thus completing the conceptual circle of speculative science. However, the other path leads from the “Logic of the beginning” to empirically real nature, to living, human consciousness and, finally, to its speculative dissolution in the Concept. Nature does not coincide with the Philosophy of Nature since the life of the Divine before the creation of the world was exhausted by the categorial process of the Logic; in just the same way the psychic life of people on earth doesn’t coincide with the Philosophy of Spirit; the swarms of “appearances” and the “images” of beauty are not identical with the Philosophy of Art; the living ethical life of the nations doesn’t coincide with the Philosophy of Right; the historical process as such cannot be called the Philosophy of History.8

In short, “speculative philosophy poses for itself an unsolvable task: to reveal that all is the Concept, implying from the very beginning that if the given object is not the Concept, then it cannot be recognized as real.”9 Still more strongly in a sense, Il’in asserts that “for such an outcome Hegel lacked the religious-philosophical self-evidence and the certainty that any being and any existence is truly and in its entirety good.”10 In another terminology introduced by Il’in, Hegel finds that the Concept cannot accommodate the “concrete” sciences (i.e., of nature, of psychology, of politics, of history, or of art), thus confronting Hegel with a difficult choice between either admitting that the original intentions (attributed to him by Il’in) of a panlogism, a pantheism, and a theodicy were impossible of realization, or of finding some way (possibly unconsciously) of disguising the threatened rupture between Reason and the world. At this point we are close to the ultimate root of Il’in’s conclusion that Hegel was forced to “compromise” the original intentions behind his project in order to forestall the threat of an overt breakdown of the project.

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Il’in claims that Hegel appeared to succeed in containing the threatened rupture by tacitly introducing two distinct versions of the Concept, “the Concept-Logos and the Concept-Telos,” without ever explicitly acknowledging having done so. In the explication of this claim we find what is probably Il’in’s deepest and most systematic criticism of Hegel’s philosophy. The first meaning of the Concept (the Concept-Logos) is developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit, which moves toward the highest level of “absolute knowing,” and is formed in the Logic, revealing the very essence of the Idea. There the Concept has the significance of “dialectically organic self-thinking”: it is the living meaning which is self-thinking, dialectically breaking up into oppositions and organically growing together into a higher concrete synthesis.11

The second meaning (the Concept-Telos), on the other hand, is formed in the “concrete” sciences, uncovering the essence of the universe. Here the Concept receives the meaning of “organic self-creation”; it is a power hidden in the world which creates itself in the struggle of disparate principles, striving to realize an organic unification or at least its likeness. Here is revealed the essential distinction: the Concept in the world does not think; it is no longer a “self-thinking” principle; it creates itself without thought, at least up to the very awakening of human consciousness, and perhaps even after it; this is already not logically manifest meaning, but a natural, hidden power; the dialectical divergence loses its sharpness and its rhythm, often spreading out into simple empirical difference; organic unification all too often remains an unrealized task.12

Il’in further claims that these two versions of the Concept are related to one another as specific to generic: “the ‘thinking’ Concept is a variety of ‘organic self-creation,’ but the ‘organically developing’ world Concept is not a variety of ‘speculative thinking’; given this, the ‘Concept-Logos’ is formed through the ‘enrichment’ of the Concept-Telos by the attribute of thought.”13 Therefore the “root essence” of the Concept, that which is common to both forms, is simply organic self-creation. This is the essentiale of Divinity; “its presence is the sign of the substantial presence of God.” This characteristic (of organic self-creation) is inherent not only in the logic, but in the being of the world, “determining not only the life of God

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before the creation of the world, but constituting that basic and substantial, common and unified nature of the Divinity in which Hegel vainly tried to include the principle of thinking.”14 In Il’in’s view, the impossibility of attributing thought to all phases of the process of organic self-creation means that “even if the law of speculative concreteness is realized in everything, the self-thinking of the Concept is not,”15 and it is this that ultimately entails the entire series of alleged “compromises.” According to Il’in, the (unconscious?) conflation of the two senses of “Concept” (the Concept-Logos and the Concept-Telos) enables Hegel to present what is in reality a “pan-teleologism” (“all is purposive”) under the guise of a “panlogism” (“all is the Concept”). His philosophy lives in the element of organic concreteness, which acquires the character of thought only on the highest level. Everywhere that this element and its structure are discovered Hegel speaks of “rationality” and “divinity”; the sole stable criterion of it is precisely the growing-together of opposing elements into an organic synthesis. The secret of Hegelian philosophy lies deeper than its widely known surface appearance: its final word is not “Concept” but “organism.”16

Il’in argues that “Hegel was forced, without noticing it, to be satisfied that ‘logical rationality’ is not the essentiale of the Concept and of Reason.” With this pronouncement, Il’in begins to develop an argument that Hegel’s notion of the rational was also permeated by the irrational: The “logos” was from the very beginning penetrated by “telos,” and by this means, to a certain extent, delogicized. Reason concealed within itself the deepest identification with the non-rational element, which crept into its content, satiated reason with itself, modified its nature, and forced the entire doctrine to take on the character of “irrationalistic panlogism.” Reason remained militant reason, affirming itself as all and everything, as the Concept. But the Concept itself turned out to be saturated with the depth of the irrational, its substantive nature and its mode of life. . . . . This plan of his already concealed within itself a certain reconciliation between “rationalism” and “irrationalism”; and it is remarkable that Hegel saw in this reconciliation not a concession of pure reason, but on the contrary, the affirmation and disclosure of a higher Rationality.17

In short:

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Hegel’s Concept is distinguished from the “formal” concept precisely by the fact that it is at its root significantly delogicized, that it is burdened with characteristics which are inherent in the essentially non-logical spheres: living nature, the living soul, realized beauty, real ethical life. The speculative Concept is made alive, ensouled, inspirited; it is reality, a real factor, a creative power; it lives according to the law of its inner purposiveness; it is an organism.18

Two observations seem worth making at this point: first, a sympathetic reader of Hegel may be wondering why any of this should be viewed as the source of a “failure” of his philosophical system; Hegel would indeed, as Il’in intimates, not object to most of these formulations concerning the inner purposiveness, the organic character, of the Concept. Why should the fact that the “logos” was penetrated by “telos” entail that the logos was “delogicized”? Second, what is the source of Il’in’s evident conviction that the Concept has been “delogicized”? This query leads to two subordinate ones: What is Il’in’s implicit standard of the logical, or of the “formal ” concept? And why does he reject out of hand the possibility that nature, the state, or history could be shown to exhibit the kind of rationality that Hegel claims to have demonstrated in the Philosophy of Nature, the Philosophy of Right, and the Philosophy of History? The answer to this last question seems clear. Il’in recognizes that neither nature, nor the psyche, nor politics, nor history could be shown to be entirely amenable to reason, and failing that, according to Il’in, Hegel’s claim to have demonstrated the continuing “triumph” of the Concept (the Concept-Logos) in the materials of the Realphilosophie (the “concrete” sciences) must be considered a failure. At the same time, Il’in seems fully prepared to acknowledge that the ultimate power of the Concept-Telos as the principle of organic self-creation has been demonstrated; yet he insists that the latter cannot be characterized as rational in the sense of the “Logos.” Il’in’s critique of Hegel may thus be seen to stand or fall with this claim that there are two distinct conceptions of the Concept operative in Hegel’s philosophy, and that the Concept-Logos (the logical-rational) cannot be conceived to overlap with the Concept-Telos (the rational-organic). One way to frame the problem would be to ask why Il’in should insist upon holding them apart in the manner of the abstract understanding, rather than acknowledging an overlap in the manner of speculative reason. An exhaustive consideration of this problem would take much more space than is available here, but it is possible to venture some suggestions that may at least point toward an answer. Clearly, one element of the puzzle involves Il’in’s oft-repeated claim

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that the empirical element must be fully overcome before the Divine can be reconciled with the world: Rationality is inherent in the Divinity to the very depth of its being, and that “releasing itself ” into the world is on the part of Divinity an act of free and generous, rational celebration. According to Hegel’s idea everything is actually rational, i.e., all is Reason, or, what is the same thing, all is God; in other words, everything is the system of the Concepts, or speculative Science. Science is the sole reality, and this logical reality is the realized Good itself.19

However, Il’in insists that “for such an outcome Hegel lacked the religious-philosophical self-evidence and the certainty that any being and any existence is truly and in its entirety good.”20 And again, “strictly speaking, Hegel did not show that the telos of the world is nothing other than the divine Logos; therefore, speaking of ‘the Concept in nature,’ he pronounced no more than the result of a romantic ‘intuition’ and led himself into error relative to the ‘rationalism’ and ‘panlogism’ realized by him.”21 According to Il’in, “It is characteristic of God to live in the form of a single, all-embracing Substance, which is wholly rational, speculatively concrete, and organically purposive.”22 However, God in choosing to enter the world “creates his path in the world itself” and makes the world “a constitutive part of Divine being.” “And if the world with all of its makeup enters into the authentic tissue of Divine life, then it discovers in this tissue the presence of chaos, evil, and suffering.”23 Evil, according to Il’in, “is nothing other than the element of the concrete-empirical in its fundamental properties and specific traits; however, this element is the source of evil only to the extent that it separates itself from the divine element, and in its manifestations opposes or doesn’t subordinate itself to the divine element.”24 It is the presence of evil in the form of the concrete-empirical that spells the end of the project of theodicy, because “the realization of a theodicy would have required proof that all in the world is good.”25 At this point we may well wonder why Il’in insists upon such a strict requirement for a successful theodicy (“proof that all in the world is good ”). Why wouldn’t the purposes of a theodicy be fulfilled simply by a demonstration that evil is not ultimately real? In these same pages Il’in goes on to supply just such a demonstration himself in Hegel’s name, yet continues to insist that Hegel’s project of a theodicy “collapsed.” One possible response to Il’in’s objection was offered by Errol Harris:

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The mistake clearly is to undervalue the importance of difference in unity (and/or identity). These critics all forget Hegel’s protest against “the night in which all cows are black.” His absolute is never a bland (abstract) unity. So how can Il’in, after so admirably grasping the nature of speculative concreteness, complain that the Absolute fails to abolish the reality (not ultimate) of tragedy, death, etc.? The Absolute just would not be concrete if the Other were lost in it without trace. Surely the whole point of Hegel’s argument is that the Self, God, the Idea is at home with itself in its Other. The identity of the One and the Other in the Absolute preserves death, and neither is totally submerged even if and when transcended (übergriffen or aufgehoben).26

If this does represent an appropriate objection to Il’in’s argument, it would signal a certain irony in the fact that Il’in, as Harris suggested, “so admirably grasped the nature of speculative concreteness” and yet possibly failed to fully digest this final, crucial implication of the doctrine. Yet one does not have to seek very far to find what appears to be Il’in’s governing consideration: the encounter of the Divine with the empirical element necessarily distorts the essence of Divinity. “The divinity of God leads him to a non-divine state, and further to a long and suffering-filled restoration of his divinity.”27 Even if the Divinity continuously triumphs over this senseless element, its existence always signifies God’s incomplete being. This ingredient must be “sublated” and is actually “sublated” in the highest state of the world; but nevertheless its existence in the world doesn’t cease, and this witnesses to the fact that “pantheism” remains the task of Divinity, and “monism” remains the task of philosophy. Hegel didn’t show and couldn’t show that any empirical fragment of the world is a necessary state of the Divine; and the gap between “the world” and “God” is shifted into the depth of the world’s appearances.28 This understanding of evil reveals that ultimate depth in the essence of the Divinity of which Hegel usually avoids speaking. This depth is defined by the term suffering.29

Moreover, according to Il’in, the empirical element as the potentiality for evil is immanent in the world and in God, and is the living source of Divine suffering. And if the world before its creation is preformed and potentially pre-sketched in the “Logic of the beginning,” it is necessary to recognize that the potentiality

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of potentiality for evil is already concealed in the pure nature of the Divinity prior to creation”30

Il’in describes this “ancient conception of Divinity” containing the potential for evil within itself as one “revived by Fichte within subjectively anthropomorphic limits, and disclosed by Schelling in objektively cosmic and teleological terms.”31 He complains that Hegel “says nothing of that spectre of evil in the Divinity that Schelling accepted under the influence of Jacob Böhme and called ‘fundamental’ or ‘natural’ in God,”32 but simply adopts it without adequately examining its theological implications. (Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Hegel did reveal an awareness of the implications, but was prepared to accept some of them that Il’in found unacceptable.) By now we may have reached the ultimate root of Il’in’s critique of Hegel: Il’in’s refusal to countenance Hegel’s conception of a suffering God. In one of the very last sentences of the final chapter, Il’in observes, “But if theodicy has the task of showing the complete divinity of the Divine, not diminished by the existence of the world, then Hegel’s pantheism doesn’t achieve it: a suffering Absolute is not Absolute, and a struggling Divinity is not God.”33 It would be appropriate at this point to work back through each separate stage of Il’in’s critique of Hegel, and consider whether or to what extent the argument for each stage of that critique ultimately depends upon this premise of the impassibility of the Divine. This is not the occasion to undertake such an inquiry in detail, but if it should turn out to be the case that this assumption of the impassibility of the Divine is necessarily presupposed in each stage, then it would also be true that the apparently multiple forms of Il’in’s critique of Hegel all have a single common root. And if that premise of the impassibility of the Divine were itself to be called into question, one would have in one’s possession the means for a subtle but systematic transformation of the apparent results of Il’in’s entire commentary. His conclusions concerning the multiple “compromises” inherent in Hegel’s philosophy would have to be read under the shadow of the “if ” in a highly significant conditional. And in that case it would be entirely appropriate to apply to Il’in’s own efforts the pronouncement he made concerning Hegel’s successes and failures: In actuality any philosophical doctrine is to a greater or lesser degree inadequate to the existing object, and from the side of intuition this can be expressed either in the fact that it doesn’t see the present, objektive content, or in the fact that it sees in the object some characteristic not

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inherent in it. However, the power of a philosophical doctrine lies not only in an adequate seeing of the object, but also in the classical sweep, in the astonishing depth, in the passionate consistency with which the doctrine is professed and developed in its untrue part. Such a philosophy has the miraculous gift “to reveal” even where it itself does not “see,” and “to give” even where it itself has not “received”; to teach by means of its distortions, to educate by means of its mistakes. For, even distorting the object, it still opens up access to it, it “sees” more than it itself knows, it thinks through and exhausts its deviation to the end. Such a philosophy is wiser than itself.34

Notes 1. According to H. S. Harris, this manuscript is also the earliest of any of Hegel’s systematic manuscripts (on any portion of his philosophical system) to have survived, though strictly speaking, it belonged to a four-part division of the project that Hegel soon discarded in favor of the familiar three-part division into Logic, Nature, and Spirit. See Harris on “Hegel’s System of Ethical Life: An Interpretation” in G. W. F. Hegel, System of Ethical Life (1802/03) and First Philosophy of Spirit (Part III of the System of Speculative Philosophy 1803/04), ed. and trans. H. S. Harris and T. M. Knox (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1979), 3. 2. See chapter 20 below. 3. See the bibliographic appendix for chapter 16 at the end of this volume. 4. Hegel, System of Ethical Life (1802/03), 86. 5. See chapter 20 below. 6. See chapter 21 below. 7. For an explanation of these terms, see endnote x for chapter 9 in volume 1 (p. 203). 8. See chapter 22 below. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. Il’in phrases this same objection very succinctly in another way at a different point in the same chapter: Having posed “panlogism” before himself as a task, Hegel naturally did not encounter any substantive difficulties so long as he was moving along the line of speculative catharsis in The Phenomenology of Spirit, or remained within the limits of the Logic. But with the transition to “nature” and “the human” everything changed. Between thinking and the new “object” no “elective affinity” and “preestablished harmony” was discovered; a joyous encounter, dissolving the soul, turns out to be unrealizable; the speculative fusing of subject and object didn’t take place.

The thought behind this cryptic but intriguing reference to “a joyous encounter, dissolving the soul” is rather unclear in this context, but is more clearly explained in chapter 3 of volume 1, 48–52. (The second phrase, “dissolving the

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soul,” is dropped in Il’in’s later German edition; see Iwan Iljin, Die Philosophie Hegels als kontemplative Gotteslehre [Bern: A. Francke, 1946], 368). 11. See chapter 22 below. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. Errol Harris, personal communication. Quoted with permission. 27. See chapter 22 below. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL AS A DOCTRINE OF THE CONCRETENESS OF GOD AND HUMANITY

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Freedom

Hegel’s philosophical doctrine, taken as a whole, can be depicted as a doctrine of Divine freedom, since everything that he saw and taught really reduces to that content. His philosophy attempts to reveal adequately the essence of the Divinity, and establishes that this essence lies in freedom; it attempts to depict the path of Divine life, and discovers that this path is a self-liberation. It strives to grasp the meaning of human life, and affirms that man and his spirit, his concerns, his ethical life, his history and his death—all this forms the highest stage of the self-liberation of the Divine. Freedom is the first and the last, the outcome, and the crowning of all. Freedom is the essentiale of the Divinity and the criterion of the real; everything is through it and for the sake of it. What is its nature? The slightest lack of clarity and lack of explicitness in the definition of “freedom” proves to be fatal for a correct understanding of Hegel’s philosophy. The term “freedom” has been so often used and abused in the history of thought—so many varied meanings have been attributed to it, it has so many times been made a slogan in the practical struggle— that the rational content concealed behind it seems to have completely disappeared and to have yielded its place to an affectively experienced indeterminacy. This was already the case in Hegel’s time; and it required all the power of his intuitive vision to revive the positive, rational content of this term. The essence of the Divine is in freedom; for freedom is selfdetermination. God is substance, the one and only reality. If, apart from God, there were still another substance, then each of the two substances would limit and determine the other by its being alone; that means each would be determined by the other and therefore would not be substance; for substance is being which is determined or conditioned by nothing other than itself. Substance is reality having no other-being whatsoever, and therefore wholly directed upon itself and determining itself on its own. Centripetal self-activity and self-sufficiency, creative solitude—this is the fundamental mark of substance.1 But this very fact means that freedom is the essence of substance. Substance is free, first of all, in a negative sense. For it is limited and 1. See chapter 4. 5

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determined by nothing other; it has no end or boundary; it is all, and in that respect it is similar to the “unbounded” of Anaximander.1 It possesses “negative infinity.” Substance is free, second, in a positive sense. For it is creativity; it is life, activity, action directed wholly upon itself; what it creates is not something “other,” but it itself. It is itself the subject and itself its own objekt; its “beginning” coincides with its “end.” It is a creative, “positive” infinity. Thus, the freedom of substance lies in the fact that it is creative self-determination. In that self-activity, directed wholly upon itself, it freely realizes its essence, upon inner paths and according to inner ends. Its path leads it through dialectical disintegration and organic reintegration, to a grown-together, concrete wealth of determinations. Its rational essence is realized according to this law and in this form. Substance is the rational element, the element of thought; it is the objektive Concept dialectically-organically thinking itself.2 Each of its acts is an act of free self-determination, an act of freedom. The Concept freely divides its content and freely grows it together again, enriching itself. The Concept is an organism a of meaning, creating itself by thought. Precisely in this sense it is the Divinity: an organism of thought free from other-being, or, what is the same, objektive meaning as free subject.3 It is natural that freedom, as the law of Divine life, should be the inner necessity for the Concept: it is characteristic of the Concept to develop itself by the law of the absolute organism, which is distinguished from the relative, finite organism precisely in that it has no other-being whatsoever. For that reason Divine freedom can be adequately expressed as absolute organicity. It is clear that any limitation or diminution transforms substance into an unfree principle. The appearance of other-being, even though created by the Concept itself, puts it in a conditioned and finite position. Divine freedom cannot be “counterposed to”4 anything whatever, nor “conditioned,”5 nor “limited”;6 if that happens, the Concept loses the absoluteness of its freedom and the absoluteness of its organic development. That means that the Divine loses its freedom. And thus the Concept, having achieved the state of “absolute Idea” in the “Logic of the beginning,”b freely releases itself into an unfree state. This does not mean that it totally distorts its inner nature; no, but the mode of its existence is distorted at its root. The Concept loses the purity and the rationality of its atmosphere; the “objektive,” availing itself of the license,c rises up, prevails, begins to live at its own risk and celebrates the begin1. Comp.: Log. I 148; Enc. I 14; Enc. III 291. 2. Comp.: Log. III 318. See chapters 4, 7, and 8. 3. Comp.: Log. II 243. See chapter 8. 4. Diff. 221. 5. Diff. 22l. 6. W. Beh. 367.

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ning of its distinct existence; the “subjective” lowers itself to the state of a weak, “inner” glimmer in the depth of things and fully accepts the consequences of its free fall. A difficulty arises: on the one hand, limited freedom is not freedom, and unfree substance is not substance; on the other hand, substance cannot cease to be substance, and consequently, limited freedom must remain freedom. This difficulty is resolved by distinguishing between “negative” freedom and “positive” freedom. The Concept lost the former but retained the latter and set for itself the task of restoring the former through the uncovering and realization of the latter. In this lies the concise schema of Hegel’s entire philosophy. Thus the Concept lost negative freedom: its speculative impotence revealed clearly that it is not all, that it is involved in other-being. In the genuine sluggishness of the sensuous element, in the unambiguous counteraction of the irrational principle, in the distinctive resistance of the concrete-empirical, the concept encountered other-being that enveloped it, as the “outer” envelops the “inner.” From this stems its limitedness, finitude, conditionedness, and oppositional character. However, the Concept preserved positive freedom: the power of creative self-determination, opening before it the prospect of ascent. This power, insofar as it is shackled to other-being, is not capable even of a likeness of organic life on the lowest levels of the world; but it retains within itself, in hidden form, all of its higher capabilities; it is potentially organism, soul, consciousness, will, intuition, and thought. The potential might of the speculative element is expressed in the fact that it continues its dialectical-organic “speculative metamorphosis” of self-enrichment in the world, despite the burden of other-being, and moreover it does so to the extent to which the speculative element succeeds in prevailing over the irrational self-existence of the “enemy.” It is this speculative metamorphosis that transforms the world into a creative self-liberation, brought about by the Divine. All of this means that substance is not free in the world, but retains the power to free itself. It cannot be otherwise, for substance is spiritual, and spirit is nothing other than “absolute freedom.”1 And if it casts itself into a limited state, this is done precisely for the sake of a higher selfliberation. Therefore “unfreedom in the world” is only a manifestation of the most profound freedom of the Divine, of that freedom that is not afraid of the “unfree” state, but rather accepts and overcomes it, affirming thereby the depth of its freedom and acquiring in this a greater completeness of liberation. 1. Phän. 442. Comp.: Enc. III 427; Ph. G. 20, 21.

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One may say that freedom is process in God. Each shape of the world is already free, and still not free; it is a greater freedom by comparison with the lower level, and a lesser freedom by comparison with the higher level. Each shape of the world, taken statically by itself, has no absolute freedom; but in the ordering of the world’s shapes it is absolute freedom in the process of becoming. The entire ordering of the world’s formations is created by substance, which is restoring its own substantial significance. Freedom is as it were a paradise being lost and recovered; though this paradise was lost freely, that is, according to a purely inner necessity, and is recovered in a free struggle, that is, according to an inner law of selfdetermination and organic growth. Thus all “shapes of actuality,” not to mention “appearances,” are deprived of speculative freedom and manifest only the struggle of the Concept for self-liberation. This is what determines the meaning of human life. Each separate state of humanity, taken by itself, is a fragment of actuality, being a more or less elevated “shape of the world.” The height of this shape is determined by that degree of liberatedness which is revealed in it, or, rather, which spirit realizes in itself and by means of itself. The meaning of human life lies in freedom and in self-liberation. Of course, this meaning of life must not be viewed as a kind of external task, or norm, or unrealizable ideal. One may indeed consider freedom as an ideal, but as an already real and still self-realizing ideal. Freedom is a potentially perfected power, bringing about the actual disclosure of its perfection. One may say that the meaning of human life is hidden in the depth of the human spirit as a real spiritual principle working toward its realization. What is “assigned” to humanity, what constitutes its purpose and destiny, is “assigned” to it by its genuine, inner essence, is “destined” for it by its true, spiritual nature. Self-liberation is “assigned” to it, but not in the sense that its “essence” is bogged down in unfreedom; rather, in the sense that its real essence is nothing other than self-liberating power. Absolute freedom is “destined” for it; and that should be understood to mean that its true spiritual essence is nothing other than substance itself, absolute freedom itself, restoring itself in creative struggle. Here as nowhere else Hegel can and must be understood from within the heart of Fichte’s doctrine. According to Hegel, spirit, bringing about its liberation in humanity, is similar to that “absolute I” which according to Fichte’s doctrine guarantees victory, by its own power, to the “relative, lesser I” of humanity over the “not-I,” over other-being. Together with Fichte, Hegel sees the destiny of humanity in the creative

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identification of oneself with one’s absolute spiritual focal point (substance) and in the ascent to absolute freedom. Fichte does not immediately renounce an anthropocentric conception of substance; he speaks of freedom as of an ideal endlessly being realized; he knows not the exhaustive speculative series of shapes, the doctrine of the supremacy of the self-thinking concept and of the dialectical-organic ascent to concrete richness. But Fichte and Hegel understand the ontological root of human being identically: as spiritual self-liberation. Thus the meaning of human life is hidden, according to Hegel, in the real, proper depth of the soul. That which creates itself is substance, i.e., absolute freedom in potentiality; the way it creates itself is organic selfassertion, i.e., free creativity; that to which it ascends is the actual being of absolute freedom, i.e., the life of objektive meaning not constrained by other-being (the Concept). And if one takes into consideration that substance, creating its own freedom, is nothing other than the Concept itself, then one can say that the Concept is the meaning of human life. The highest achievement of humanity, the meaning of its life, is that it should begin to live the life of divine Meaning; and when that is achieved, humanity becomes convinced that none other than Meaning is the meaning of its existence.1 Humanity lives for the sake of what lives in it; and it lives by that power for which it lives. This means that the creative basis of its life is itself the highest goal of its existence; or, in other words, the goal of human existence itself realizes itself in human life. The causa efficiens coincides with the causa finalis; the ultima ratio is none other than the primum movens. The Absolute liberates itself in the process of the psychic and spiritual life of humanity. This process breaks up into a whole series of stages and in general terms reproduces the following schema. The “inner” runs up against something “outer,” given from without as if imposed upon it, and in appearance something “alien,” against a certain “other-being.” This other-being possesses an evident independent existence and limits the inner force that has “found” it. However, in reality (an sich)2 this “other-being” is not at all alien to the inner, self-liberating principle; rather, it is an objektive modification of that absolute Idea in relation to which the “inner” is a subjective modification. The objektive and the subjective, or what is the same, “object” and “selfhood,” “appearance” 1. Hegel himself provides such an interpretation of freedom; for example, Enc. III 374, 355, 292(Z). 2. Such is the first meaning of this term, so often employed by Hegel: “an sich” means “in actual fact,” “in essence,” “truly.” This meaning was retained from Kant.

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and “essence,” “other” and “subject,” “outer” and “inner”1—are in fact modes of a single essence, though not modes with equal rights. However, the “subject” does not know this yet, either about the objekt or about itself; the objekt similarly does not know this, either about itself or about the subject. Therefore the true nature of the objekt remains concealed; it does not comprehend the rational root of its own nature; the objekt is rational only “in itself ” (nur an sich),2 but not “for itself” ( für sich). It languishes as though in the captivity of its own lack of reason. The “subject” that found it also stands in confusion. However “we,” philosophizing about the “subject” and the “objekt,” know the true situation and do not succumb to deceit: “for us” (an sich oder für uns)3 the objekt retains its hidden “objektive” rationality behind the outward appearance of other-being. Thus “liberation” consists in the fact that this truth visible to us must be exposed: that which exists “in itself ” must come to exist also “for itself,” so that the true essence of things might come to be recognized by the subject, adequately cognized by it. “That which exists in itself” will become “that which exists for itself,” and a way will open into the final sphere of “that which exists in-itself-and-for-itself” (an und für sich): into the sphere of speculative identity of the subject and the objekt, reason and freedom. This rapprochement between the subject and the objekt ought to be pictured with complete clarity, for in it lies the essence of liberation. To “liberate” oneself means to renew the conditions of one’s existence so that all other-being disappears from them. However, the “disappearance” of all “otherness” is unattainable either by way of blind negation or by way of annihilation without a trace.4 Liberation is conceivable only in this way: other-being is accepted as other-being, then assimilated and, finally, exposed as sham other-being. Reason prevails over the irrational appearance of the objekt. Thus the subject “accepts” other-being, not renouncing it and not coercing it;5 it takes it in the same aspect in which it “finds” or “receives” it, but takes it “in order to oppose” it to itself and then “bring it into a mediated unity with itself.”6 Thus does “soul” accept its “body,” “external things,” its own unconscious “attractions,” “the existence of other people,” “household economics,” and so forth. It opposes all that to itself

1. In the Philosophy of Spirit Hegel often uses this term “promiscue,” and occasionally in other writings. 2. Such is the second meaning of this term: “an sich” means “unmediated,” “unrealized,” and “not revealed for cognition.” 3. Such is the third meaning of this term: “an sich” means “in accordance with the essence of things as evident for us,” or, simply, “for us.” 4. See chapters 10 and 11. 5. Comp.: condemnation: “Entsagung” and “Gewaltsamkeit”: Enc. III 231; comp.: 236(Z), 237(Z). 6. Enc. III 236(Z).

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(“in turn,” at various levels of ascent) as something alien, limiting, as a “limit,”1 and enters into a struggle with this limit for the sake of overcoming.2 The subject lets the objekt enter into its realm; it puts itself as it were in a passive position, permits itself to be limited and determined, suffers influence. By doing so it introduces into itself the content of the objekt, works it into itself, absorbs it3 into itself and assimilates it.4 The subject translates the objective content given to it into the flexible and powerful language of its “ideal nature”; it “idealizes” it,5 i.e., negates6 its distinctly existing reality,7 in order to preserve its power and its richness on a higher level.8 Because of this it takes possession9 of it and subordinates it to itself as a “moment.”10 The creative penetration of the subject into the object corresponds to this acceptance of the objekt and introduction of it into itself. Spirit not only is enriched by the content of the “body,” “external things,” “household economics,” and so forth, but actually addresses itself to them and transforms11 their existence. The subject takes possession of the objekt itself,12 turns it into its property,13 uses it.14 It overpowers it, subjugates it to itself,15 and compels it to endure its influence, and bear its power.d, 16 Moreover, spirit transforms the objekt into its “pliant and conforming implement,”17 into its tool.18 It succeeds in making the objekt “fully pervious,”19 “fluid” to it;20 so that it offers no resistance21 to its free flight; so that it is permeated22 with its life. Finally, it converts it into its “faithful expression,”23 into its “immediacy.”24 Then the objekt is conquered and the subject acquires a solid basis to say to it: “you are I, and I am you”; or “you and I are one and the same.” The objekt is thus unmasked, and the subject freed from “other-being.” But precisely because of this freedom the subject has the possibility once again to “release” the objekt into other-being and let it conduct its “external” existence.25 Now “other-being” is no longer frightening to spirit; at least in the variety of it that it has overcome. Spirit turns out to be 1. “Schranke”: Enc. III 150, 293(Z). 2. “Ringen,” “überwinden”: Enc. III 293(Z). 3. Comp.: concerning “sich einbilden” of the objekt: Enc. III 230. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 230, 322(Z). 5. See Enc. III 149, 199, 232. 6. Comp.: Enc. III 24, 47, 231, 234(Z), 251(Z), 273, 294–95, 295(Z), 371–72. 7. Enc. III 150. 8. Enc. III 149. 9. Comp.: “in Besitz haben”: Enc. III 229. 10. “Als Moment unterordnen”: Enc. III 231. 11. “Umgestalten”: Enc. III 237(Z), 248(Z). 12. Comp.: Enc. III 237(Z). 13. Enc. III 232. 14. “Aufzehren”: Enc. III 273. 15. “Unterwerfen”: Enc. III 231. 16. Comp.: Enc. III 26(Z), 61(Z), 62(Z), 288, 333, 350. 17. “Gefügiges und geschicktes Werkzeug”: Enc. III 237(Z). 18. Enc. III 232. 19. “Durchgängig”: Enc. III 232. 20. “Flüssig”: Enc. III 232. 21. “Widerstandslos”: Enc. III 232; “ungehindert”: Enc. III 232. 22. “Durchdrungen”: Enc. III 232. 23. “Richtig äussert”: Enc. III 232. 24. “Zu einer Unmittelbarkeit”: Enc. III 233. 25. Comp.: Enc. III 258, 294(Z).

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“hardened”1 against the danger of “external” influence. It feels itself the master of the object and adopts an “indifferent” attitude to it.2 It is no longer attached to it,3 not preoccupied by it,4 not interested in it,5 for the object has changed into its submissive state. The objekt does not limit the subject6 and doesn’t determine it.7 The subject is no longer passive8 and knows no dependence.9 Spirit, remaining in the form of other-being, maintains its freedom and follows its inner law. It found itself in the objekt and posited (gesetzt) the objekt in itself. It is able to preserve its robing in other-being, but can also break away from these irrational roots of existence10 that it defeated, for it established its power11 over them and freed itself from them. Thus freedom of spirit consists in its imparting to itself the significance and power of substance12 in relation to the objekt. It entered into an “identity” with other-being,13 but converted it into its “accident,” coordinated with the substantial principle.14 The subject became essence, and the objekt, an adequate manifestation of that essence.15 The freedom of spirit is expressed in the fact that it has the possibility, while not transcending the limits of other-being, to remain in “abstraction” from it;16 to create its inner life, not needing external activity,17 and to follow independently18 its own law.19 This state of liberation naturally leads to the subject attending to itself 20 rather than to the objekt. It returns to itself, as it were, from the journey to other-being21 and, moreover, returns the victor. However, in this free reflection into itself,22 spirit discovers anew, this time within its own proper limits, a certain passivity, immediacy, and limitation, a certain “other-being.” It turns out that within its own self not everything “belongs” to it, not everything is subordinate to it, not everything is identical with it, not everything is its sign; its self-determination is not yet “absolute” and spirit itself is not entirely free. And now begins the process of inner selfliberation, of the struggle with inner other-being: with passive sensations, with sensuous attractions, affects, and passions. The subject must “sublate” all unmediatedness,23 gain power over every present content.24 This power is acquired, as before, through a doubled process: on one side, by 1. “Abhärtung gegen”: Enc. III 231. 2. “Gleichgültig”: Enc. III 231, 231. 3. “Gebunden”: Enc. III 119(Z); “verwickelt”: Enc. III 231, 288. 4. “Beschäftigt”: Enc. III 229, 230. 5. Enc. III 229, 230. 6. Enc. III 150, 293(Z). 7. Enc. III 119(Z). 8. Comp.: Enc. III 152. 9. Enc. III 25(Z), 119(Z), 230, 297(Z), 367(Z). 10. Comp.: Enc. III 117–18. 11. “Stärke”: Enc. III 231. 12. Comp.: Enc. III 232. 13. Comp.: Enc. III 237(Z), 254, 285(Z), 292–93(Z), 296. 14. Comp.: Enc. III 237(Z). 15. Comp.: Enc. III 254. 16. Comp.: Enc. III 231, 237(Z), 239, 350, 370. 17. Comp.: Enc. III 327–28. 18. Enc. III 149, 337(Z). 19. Enc. III 119(Z). 20. “Sich auf sich selbst beziehen”: Enc. III 25(Z), 201(Z). 21. Enc. III 305(Z), 350. 22. Comp.: Enc. III 152. 23. Enc. III 148(Z), 201(Z), 288. 24. Enc. III 26(Z).

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accepting the given content into itself and becoming consciously aware of it;1 on the other side, by a creative penetration into and transformation of it.2 As a result of such a dual “in-growing,” the content, revealed in “its being,” becomes the subject’s content;3 it is transformed into a genuine possession of the subject. Spirit sublates that aspect of the “alien” and “external” that hung over the content, and brings it into the ordering of inner determinations. This means that it inculcates the content in itself, and itself in the content, or, what is the same thing, it retreats into itself, inculcates itself in itself (sich er-innern).4 In this movement spirit gradually takes possession of itself and achieves self-possession.5 It gains power6 over itself and enters into identity with itself.7 Realizing its purpose, or, as Hegel habitually expresses himself, its “concept,” spirit strives to become master of its possession, so as to be “with itself”8 and “for itself.”9 “To be with itself means to be free,”10 and “the essence of spirit consists” precisely “in being with itself.”11 This signifies that the subject must have to do only with itself and with its determinations.12 It is proper for spirit to be absolute self-determination13 and perfected self-consciousness.14 And this means to be “with itself” and “for itself,” or, what is the same thing, “to be ideality relating to itself.”15 When this is achieved then spirit is free. Freedom presupposes therefore that the subject should have “dealt with” its content;16 that it have carried out to the end the “appropriation” and “mastering”;17 that it have finished the unmasking of other-being,18 worked through it,19 and have sublated the “difference”20 between it and itself; that it have converted “other-being” into its sign21 and reflection.22 Then spirit, eradicating23 everything that does not proceed from itself, liberates itself from every kind of “relation” to other-being24 and from every limitation.25 It “sublates” the false presupposition of knowledge, according to which the subject stands opposed to the objekt or remains in abstraction from it;26 it refutes the false presupposition with the fact that there actually takes 1. Comp., e.g., Enc. III 314(Z). 2. Comp., e.g., Enc. III 329, 337(Z), 339. 3. Comp.: Enc. III 233, 246, 253, 254–55, 296, 339, 371. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 297(Z), 305(Z), 311, 322(Z), 346, 349(Z), 359–60(Z), and others. 5. “Sich erfassen”: Enc. III 69(Z); “sich in Besitz nehmen”: Enc. III 149. 6. Enc. III 149. 7. Enc. III 24. 8. “Bei sich sein”: Enc. III 33, 232, 300(Z), 351. 9. Enc. III 23(Z), 41, 69(Z), 234(Z), 236(Z), 291(Z), 296, 301, 373, and others. 10. Enc. III 33. 11. Enc. III 351. 12. See chapter 8. 13. Comp.: Enc. III 119(Z), 295(Z), and others. See chapter 8. 14. Comp.: Enc. III 201(Z). 15. Comp.: Enc. III 237(Z), 251(Z), 295(Z). 16. “Fertig geworden mit dem Inhalte”: Enc. III 338(Z). 17. “Durchgeführtes Aneignen”: Enc. III 350. Comp.: 239; “vollendete Besitznahme”: Enc. III 358. 18. Comp.: Enc. III 295(Z), 311(Z). 19. “Durchgebildet”: Enc. III 239. 20. “Differenz”: Enc. III 230. 21. “Zeichen”: Enc. III 239, 240, 339. 22. “Abbild”: Enc. III 248(Z). 23. “Tilgen”; comp.: Enc. III 339. 24. Comp.: Enc. III 254. 25. Comp.: Enc. III 292–93(Z). 26. Comp.: Enc. III 296, 298(Z).

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place a penetration of the thinking “subject” into the rational “objekt” and conversely.1 It is clear that this penetration is possible only in speculative thinking or “rational cognition”; therefore freedom is impossible outside of reason. Only in rational thinking is the great convergence and growing together, i.e., the identity of “subject” and “objekt,” realized. Reason is free because it cognizes all as “its”2 own modification; it is free because it knows and intuits “itself in the other, as itself”:3 even in the distinction it preserves the identity with itself, and in this lies its infinity and eternity.4 That same thing that the subject cognized as its essence (reason) is the same thing that it affirms as the essence of the objekt.5 No matter where it has penetrated, it everywhere becomes convinced that the objekt is a member of that system of spirit and reason in which the subject itself abides;6 the subject everywhere merges with itself,7 and in that lies its freedom. Knowing the object, spirit in that way knows itself in the object; to become conscious of the objekt means for it to become conscious of itself; and in this lies the reconciliation of spirit with itself,8 and freedom.9 The subject seeks and finds in the object only itself,10 for all content of thought is thought itself.11 In thinking the objekt is completely created by the subject,12 and for that reason thinking is the principle of freedom. Cognition of the object is no longer an encounter with other-being, but a self-cognizing of the truth; if an individual has grasped that, then he is a “free spirit.”13 Then he knows of the identity of subject and objekt14 and dwells in the “pure element of self-active thinking.”15 Only through this is “full freedom”16 realized. Thus spirit is free when it knows that it is absolute self-determination. Then it is holy, for the holy is that which “is rational and knows of the rational.”e, 17 Then it thinks all content concerning itself and creates itself, developing the content independently from its own depths.18 It knows that besides itself there is nothing, and knows that freedom is its own proper essence.19 Then it is its own divine end,20 the Idea, acquiring actuality in the life of humanity.21 For the Idea consists in the fact that people know freedom as their essence, as their end and their object.22 1. “Gegenseitiges Sichdurchdringen der denkenden Subjektivität und der objektiven Vernunft”: Enc. III 358(Z). 2. Comp.: Enc. III 267(Z). Compare also: “alles Fremdsein im Wissen aufgehoben”: Prop. 205. 3. “Mich im Andern, als mich selbst wissen”: Enc. III 275; comp.: 284(Z). 4. Comp.: Enc. III 292(Z). 5. Comp.: Enc. III 257(Z), 267(Z). 6. Comp.: Enc. III 267(Z). 7. Enc. III 370, 376. 8. Enc. III 300(Z). 9. Comp.: Enc. III 266. 10. Enc. III 357(Z). 11. Ibidem. 12. Comp.: Enc. III 300(Z). 13. Comp.: Enc. III 290(Z). 14. Enc. III 291 (Z). 15. Enc. III 232. 16. “Das ganz Freie”: Enc. III 232. 17. “Heilig”: Enc. III 292(Z). 18. Comp.: Enc. III 294, 295(Z), 296, 298(Z), 329, 339, 359, and others. 19. Enc. III 374. 20. Comp.: Enc. III 300(Z). 21. Enc. III 375. 22. Enc. III 375.

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Such is the path of self-liberation being accomplished by the Concept in the actual world. It is understood, however, that side by side with this world, compounded of “essence” and “existence,” the life of God flows uninterruptedly and on the highest absolute plane of philosophical thinking. Ever since the first rational cognition took place in the world, absolute freedom has been reinstated in the element of “objektive consciousness”; and since then thought, in its true significance, remains always undiminished. Therefore it is necessary to intuit Divine freedom in two orders at once: it is absolute in philosophical thinking,1 where the Concept has freed itself entirely from the odious companion, the sensuous element; and at the same time it is limited in the actual world where the Concept must overcome the resistance of the irrational and in the best case express itself in its limited language. Only the speculative absorption of subjective consciousness by objektive meaning returns to Spirit its absolute freedom and infinity; but that is possible only in speculative-philosophical thinking. To say: “God is Spirit” means to say: “God is God only insofar as he knows himself.”2 But the knowledge of self realized by God is “his self-consciousness in humanity,” such that “humanity’s knowledge of God ascends to humanity’s knowledge of itself in God,”3 and further to God’s knowledge of himself in humanity. This signifies that God is “the true God”4 only in philosophical selfcognition, where he is indeed “free Spirit.”5 At other stages, particularly in nature, where he still retains an element of indeterminate immediacy, he is not “the true God.”6 One should name as God “only that which is truly true, i.e., that where the free Concept no longer has in its objektivity any unresolved opposition, i.e., where it is in no way connected with the finite,”7 and is not limited by this connection. The entire process of self-liberation can be characterized as a distinctive deepening of spirit. Spirit moves deeply into the objekt and at the same time into itself. The deepening of spirit into the objekt is necessary in order for its true self-deepening to take place. Each step taking the subject into the objekt advances the cause of its self-liberation. However, these two movements are not distinct and not separate, but are one and the same movement. The point is that each new conquest in the objekt does not destroy it entirely, but rather discloses a new, more subtle aspect of “other-being” and “objektivity,” the overcoming of which is attainable only for more subtle and deepened subjective activity. In order to master the “affect” 1. Comp.: Enc. I 20, 44; Enc. III 232, 377, and others. 2. Enc. III 448. 3. Enc. III 448. Hegel’s italics. 4. Log. II 182. 5. Enc. III 428. 6. Log. II 182. This terminological limitation doesn’t prevent Hegel himself from insisting on the divinity of “the shapes of the world,” on pantheism and acosmism. 7. Briefe II 79.

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or “representation” the subject must raise itself to a higher level of spirituality, or what is the same thing, lower itself to a deeper level of inner creativity, than that on which it deals with “external things” or with its own body (for example, during a walk). This means that the deepening of the subject into the objekt requires a continuous, parallel deepening of it into itself. From each new victory over the object, the subject returns matured and deepened, inspired and liberated. It drew nearer to the essence of the object (to “objektive” reason), and in that approach carved for itself a new form of life, nearer to its proper essence (to “subjective” reason). And every time, the subject tears itself away from vanquished other-being, sets it at liberty and returns to itself, enriched by a new objective content and a new mode of spiritual existence. Each new, more refined object leads the subject to a new double victory: over the assimilated objekt and over the previous, more immediate mode of its own life. The objekt frees itself from the captivity of its own irrationality, and the subject frees itself from the captivity of its own elementariness and immediacy. And when the subject, having freed itself, “releases” the content assimilated by it and lets it keep its old form, in this generosity it displays true freedom: spirit not only doesn’t yield to limitation from its freely released objekt, but it is aware of its own unboundedness, or infinitude, knows with the strength of its past suffering and the revelation that has taken place. Thus the struggle with the objekt is essential to spirit for its liberation, and in consequence the entire process of the subject with other-being is, as it was for Fichte, a condition for the realization of freedom. In such a situation, the entire life of spirit proves to be a creation of freedom coinciding with necessity, or of necessity which is nothing other than freedom. Engagement with other-being is a necessity that the Idea freely created for itself in falling away; and at the same time it is a process of spirit in its limitation, internally necessary for it and for that reason manifesting its self-imposed lawfulness,f i.e., freedom. The overcoming and sublation of the objekt is a necessity for spirit liberating, and finally having liberated, itself; and at the same time it is a triumph of its self-determination, i.e., of its deepest inner necessity. The lack of the objekt means a triumph of absolute freedom and the affirmation of absolute necessity. The freer the life of spirit, the more faithful that life is to spirit’s inner nature, the more true, speculative-organic necessity there is in that life. Unfreedom itself is necessary to spirit for the realization of freedom, and its task at the lower levels consists of accepting its necessary limitation and diminished freedom, for only through this can it raise itself to its necessary infinitude and undiminished, absolute freedom. Liberation requires that spirit should have begun with little, because the path to freedom leads only through humility. And imposing upon itself this humility, the subject may and must maintain an

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unshakable certitude that not only victory over the objekt awaits it, but also the highest of liberations: the overcoming of subjective limitation. Such is Hegel’s doctrine of freedom. Following it, one can establish that “freedom” is the criterion of reality and at the same time the standard of objektive value for all “appearances” and “shapes” of the world: the freer the shape of the world, the higher is its place in the ascending ordering of spiritual life, the closer it is to reality of the supreme level. However, a shape of the world is the more free the less it is involved in the form of other-being. Freedom consists first of all in the overcoming of the sensuous element, in victory over the concrete-empirical. This means that the Concept must at first defeat the distinctly existent rhythm of the concrete-empirical, and then extinguish its involvement and exit from the sphere of “actuality.” The irrational element and freedom remain to the end in a relation of opposition; and that is Hegel’s final word on the concrete-empirical. In the deepest essence of the world and of the soul is displayed the metaphysical “fact” of the struggle of the Concept with its “limit” (“Schranke”). This limit is created by Spirit precisely to be overcome;1 it “is accepted” only to the extent that its life is a self-negation. In this lies its sole purpose: to abolish its distinct existence and submit to the law of the Concept, to cancel itself in the name of freedom. The finite must discover within itself “the Infinite” as its own essence;2 “the singular,” carrying out its purpose, must reject itself and find its basis in the “Universal”;3 “the outer” must find its true nature in “the Inner”;4 “the sensuous” must be rejected by “the supersensuous” emerging from behind it;5 “the contingent” must change into its “truth,” into absolute “necessity.”6 The vocation of the concrete-empirical consists in hurrying to meet its doom7 in the name of freedom; for the negative process in the sensuous element is a positive, creative process in God. The liberation of God in the world consists in gradually casting off the scales of concrete experienceg and finally “absorbing” it entirely, returning out of the world to absolute freedom. Empirical existence is that cross on which Divine reason8 is crucified, and from this cross there is only one path of resurrection: in speculative thought. Accordingly, a shape of the world is the more free the less of the “external” there is in it and the closer it is to the “purely inner” element. In the 1. “Die Schranke ist also nicht in Gott und im Geiste, sondern sie wird vom Geiste nur gesetzt, um aufgehoben zu werden”: Enc. III 39(Z), 293(Z). 2. Comp.: Enc. III 37; Beweise 388, 389, 390, 431, 433; Beweise B 469. 3. See chapter 5. 4. Comp.: Log. II 230; Enc. II 482–83; Enc. III 18(Z); Beweise 344, and others. 5. See chapters 1, 2, and 3. 6. Comp.: Log. III 241; Enc. III 22(Z); Beweise 367, 429, 434, 437, 438. 7. “Zu Grunde geht”; Beweise 445; “Untergang”: Log. III 241; “sich auflösen”: Beweise 434; “vernichtet”: Glaub. 67. 8. Comp.: “die Vernunft, als die Rose im Kreuze der Gegenwart”: Recht 19.

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process of liberation other-being gradually loses the character of rough, inert, tangible matter and turns into “sensuous feeling,” “sensuous passion,” “sensuous image.” The objekt is dematerialized, moves into soul, acquires a “psychic” and eventually a “spiritual nature.” Even while remaining a sensuous thing, it can as it were change its homeland and become “born of spirit”: such is material being in art and religion. And nevertheless each form of art and religion is imperfect to the extent it is lacking in inner-sensuous, or still more outer-sensuous, being. That is why Hegel considers architecture with its extended, frozen masses the lowest of the arts, and poetry with its tissue of imaginative spiritual states the highest kind of aesthetic creativity. That is why he considers religious faith with its yearnings and presentiments, with its emotional subjectivism, to be a variety of empirical captivity.1 Further, a shape of the world is the more free, the more fully it realizes the centripetency and self-activity of the Concept. Even simple directedness to oneself and in oneself is not attainable for all appearances in the world. The natural organism is the first manifestation of self-activity, and consequently, of freedom; everything lower than it is unfree.2 True “reflection” is available only to the human soul, as the beginning of “self-consciousness” and self-deepening. True self-activity (the identity of subject and objekt) is realized only in thought. With that in mind, Hegel did insist that not every content3 can be revealed in sensuous form and that the “more profound” nature of the truth can be expressed only in the free element of thinking.4 Thus is accomplished the liberation of spirit: from the deaf selfsensing and blind self-activity of an organism to the consciousness and self-consciousness of the soul, to the rational cognition and speculative self-cognition of spirit. Scientific philosophy is the actualization of the highest freedom.5 It is clear that precisely philosophy is at the same time the realization of the highest organic necessity. A shape of the world is the more free the more deeply it is penetrated by inner organic necessity. Everything contingent, coercive, arbitrary witnesses to the fact that true freedom remained unattained.6 Everything which in its life gives rise to arbitrariness, yields to coercion, or responds to chance influences and voices, all of this is found in captivity to an alien principle; all of this has still not found the one and only freedom—in the one and only necessity. 1. Comp.: Nohl 313. See chapters 3 and 12. 2. Comp.: Enc. II 28; Recht 87; Ph. G. 58; compare with this Diff. 265, 265–66, where freedom is ascribed to nature. This contradiction is explained in the tenth chapter. 3. Aesth. I 14, 102. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 442; Aesth. I 14, and others. 5. Comp.: Diff. 206; Glaub. 113, 157; Log. III 318; 3 Lat. 315. 6. Comp., e.g., Enc. II 30; Enc. III 407; Recht 50, and elsewhere.

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Life is free only when it has organically merged with the divine element; though then it is free not by the freedom of arbitrary choice, but rather by the necessity of inner self-determination. Freedom excludes subjective unification, contingent judgment, the self-existence of the singular which broke away from Universality. On the contrary, freedom is a triumph of the Universal, of organic growing-together, of speculative concreteness. It demands self-renunciation from the “singular.” Such is freedom; such is its fate: its loss and its rebirth. “Actuality” as represented by the shapes of the world restores it ever more fully and more completely; but alongside them remain the “appearances,” forming a net of empirical contingency and empirical necessity. So long as the world remains, unliberated things, appearances, and states are retained in it; and in this lies the tragedy of spirit. Spirit forever remains under the threat that forces of the world “unresponsive to reason” will defect and rise up, and perhaps involve it in new degradations and ordeals. True, freedom is a real force purposively creating itself; but do not sensuous elements which are still not fully illuminated stand opposed to it? True, the history of humanity is internally filled with Spirit and Reason;1 it is, along with nature, the “vessel” of Spirit;2 it crowns the world process with actualized and organized freedom, for in freedom lies “the sole end of spirit” and of the world.3 And yet history remains at the same time a great “slaughterhouse”4 in which “the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals are sacrificed.”5 The life of the world flows not only in a conjunction of two mutually exclusive elemental forces, but also in the impossibility of reducing itself as a whole to absolute freedom, for the world cannot be converted without remainder into pure thought; and if it were to be converted into thought, it would cease to be the world. Absolute freedom is reborn in the world, but does not absorb it totally. That is why the path of God in the world forms not an epic poem, as is often attributed to Hegel, but a tragedy. This tragedy of freedom is nowhere revealed more clearly than in the life of the human soul, will, and concrete ethical life.

Translator’s Notes a. As George Kline has pointed out, “In Hegel’s speculative system an Organismus is not a living being but something like ‘an organized, self-constituting, inwardly articulated whole.’ It is in this speculative sense . . . that Hegel calls 1. Comp.: Ph. G. 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 21, 22, 29, 33, 51, 52, 53, 73, and others. 2. Enc. III 427. 3. Comp.: Recht 172; Ph. G. 23, 23. 4. “Schlachtbank”: Ph. G. 25. 5. Ph. G. 25.

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the state an Organismus.” See his helpful discussion in “The Religious Roots of S. L. Frank’s Ethics and Social Philosophy,” in Russian Religious Thought, ed. Judith Deutsch Kornblatt and Richard F. Gustafson (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 219–20. Il’in properly describes Substance, or the Objective Concept, as an organism here in that it is a dialectically self-developing whole. b. Логика на чала. For an explanation of Il’in’s distinction between the “Logic of the beginning” and the “Logic of the end,” see endnote x following chapter 9, 203. c. “License” for попущение. d. Or authority (власть). e. The German phrase is “was vernünftig ist und vom Vernünftigen weiss,” Encyclopedia Logic, §441, Zusatz. f. The Russian term is самозаконность; Il’in translates that term into German variously as Eigengesetzlichkeit or as Autonomie in different contexts. There is no German translation by Il’in of this or of the next seven chapters, and thus no means of verifying his intention here. The phrase “self-imposed lawfulness” (selflawfulness) might equally well be replaced by “autonomy.” g. The Russian term translated as “experience” here is эмпирия (a foreign borrowing arbitrarily assigned feminine gender). For a similar use by Husserl of the same unusual term (Empirie) in German, see Husserliana, vol. 8, Erste Philosophie (1923–1924), Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion, ed. R. Boehm (1959), 360–61. Noted in J. N. Mohanty, “The Development of Husserl’s Thought,” in The Cambridge Companion to Husserl, ed. Barry Smith and David Woodruff Smith (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 68. The term is contained in Ushakov and defined there as “human experience in general, as opposed to scientifically organized experience, [or] to an experiment.”

14

Humanity

For one who strives to comprehend the philosophy of Hegel in its fundamental essence, it is necessary to uncover his conception of “humanity” with special, intuitively concentrated attention, for here lies the key to understanding the whole of the “philosophy of spirit.” All higher shapes of the world are formed in the element of “the human”; each stage in the life of spirit is subject above all to those laws and forms in which the human being lives with its “soul” and “body.” Law, ethical life, the state, history, art, religion may be understood only as particular modifications of that which forms the true substance of the human. The human is a necessary modus essendi of Spirit, arisen from nature, but not having yet realized its absolute freedom. The true, substantial essence of the human is his “soul,” or, as Hegel usually expresses it, “spirit.” The human “spirit”1 is the highest outcome of nature, its creation, its crown. It is the goal of nature,2 for the sake of which all natural processes are realized; it is the truth of nature,3 which truth, having been suffered through by all the lower stages of the world, anda finally having rejected those stages, has emerged from them into freedom. Nature “immolates itself like a phoenix”4 and the soul emerges from this fire, entering into life; the absolute, final goal of nature lies well beyond its boundaries.5 The human soul is a new mode of being; it is the true and miraculous appearance of Spirit in nature,6 like a bolt of lightning,7 an awakening from sleep.8 The light illuminating the world of things flares up from within,9 and the Deity renews its own mode of life.10 “Spirituality” is the highest mode of life, more worthy11 of the Idea, for Spirit surpasses nature in all respects: the soul, though lost and descended to evil and degradation, is still higher than the life of a plant, or the movement 1. One must not confuse “spirit” (with a small letter) as “the spirit of a human being,” which is a second, higher stage of the Divine path in the world, and “Spirit” (with a capital letter) as “Divine Spirit,” a synonym of the Deity. Compare, for example: Log. III 328; Phän. 531; Aesth. I 40; Rel. II 50, and others. 2. Enc. II 695(Z). 3. Enc. III 46. 4. Enc. II 695(Z). 5. Enc. II 9. 6. Comp.: Rel. II 50. 7. Diff. 268. 8. Enc. III 46, 47. 9. “Das Innerlich-werden des Lichts der Natur”: Diff. 268. 10. Comp.: Aesth. I 40. 11. Comp.: Enc. II 29.

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of the planets;1 moreover, among “the shapes of the world” the human shape is the highest and most true, because only in it does Spirit receive “corporeality and visible expression.”2 This preeminence of “spirit” over “nature” consists precisely in the fact that soul is an inner principle in opposition to everything external. The soul in itself is not corporeal,b not sensuous,3 not material.4 It is impossible to see, to hear, or to touch it. It is a living force hidden from the eye, ideal 5 through that highest spiritual ideality that is intrinsic to the Concept. The human soul should be seen in precisely this way: it is the “existing Concept,” or, what is the same thing, “the existence of the speculative.”6 “That which we call soul is the Concept,”7 bringing about its liberation in the body; the Concept is realized in the body 8 and overcomes it by its power. It is natural that soul as the Concept possess its power and its dignity, but as the existing Concept it participates in empirical existence c and limitation. The human is a “shape of the world”; it is actual, and for that reason its essence has a dual makeup. On one side “soul” lives in the closest connection with the body, receiving its content from it; on the other side it is able to free itself from the body and acquire another “language” for its expression. On one side it is limited, finite, and individual; on the other it is infinite, supra-individual, and objektive. The soul is a kind of middle term between the sensible and the speculative; it is a kind of compromise and “symbiosis” of the two elements. Practically speaking, it eternally stands at a crossroads, having before it two paths: to the body and to Spirit. In this eternal two-sidedness of human existence Hegel sees its fate. The purpose of humanity is to reduce this duality to a unity. The task of philosophy, interpreting humanity, is to comprehend its life as a unified streaming toward freedom. Thus humanity possesses a dual nature. “On one side we see humanity . . . as a prisoner of earthly temporality”: it is “oppressed by its requirements and needs, it is repressed by nature, it is entangled by matter, by sensual aims and delights, it is subjugated to natural impulses and passions and captivated by them; from the other side it rises to eternal ideas, to the realm of thought and freedom, gives itself, in the capacity of will, universal laws and determinations”9 and affirms thereby its spirituality. On one side “the human is an animal,” but even 1. Comp.: Enc. II 30. 2. Enc. III 442. 3. Enc. II 475(Z). [Actually, at the top of 476. —ptg] 4. Enc. III 166–67. 5. Comp.: Enc. II 552; Enc. III 43(Z), 47, 237(Z). 6. “Die Seele ist der existirende Begriff, die Existenz des Spekulativen”: Enc. III 150. 7. Beweise B. 475; comp.: Enc. II 693; Log. III 250; Aesth. I 141, 155, 157, 158, and others. 8. Enc. I 391. 9. Aesth. I 72.

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in his animal functions he does not dwell on them as on something essential1 (as does an animal), “but becomes aware of them, cognizes them,” and ascends to self-consciousness.2 “In this way the human sublates the limit of his . . . immediacy and ceases to be an animal precisely because he knows that he is an animal; and thus he cognizes himself as spirit.”3 The human is limited in space and in time: he is no more than a tiny particle, and outside of him lies the whole of infinite space; his life lasts for a short interval of time which is an instant by comparison with the infinity of time.4 He is on all sides entangled in finitude.5 And he himself is a finite spirit to the extent that the content by means of which he lives is an “immediately given” content.6 Since “imperfection” (Mangelhaftigkeit) is intrinsic to his corporeal and spiritual existence,7 the human being is compelled to revert to that imperfection while he leads an earthly life. A human being “cannot endure” life “within the inner as such, in pure thinking, in the world of laws and universality”: he “requires sensual existence, feeling, stirrings of the heart, moods of the soul, and so forth.”8 The human being must experience all the “contradictions” of earthly existence—“hunger, thirst and weariness, eating and drinking, satiety and sleep, and so forth.”9 For through this he becomes “actual.” “Spirit acquires its actuality only by dividing itself into two within itself, imparting to itself limit and finitude in the form of natural needs” and external necessity, and then “overcomes them, penetrating into them and developing itself in them”; by this means it imparts objektive existence to itself.10 The sensuous-empirical makeup—outer (the body as a thing among things) and inner (the “soul” as a system of irrational states)—is essential to the human being in order that he be an actual and self-liberating shape of the world. The fate of the human being in the world is determined by the fact that he consists of feeling and reason, body and soul.11 This means that the human being in his life, like all “shapes of the world,” is already free and still not free. Spirit and reason comprise his essence; accordingly, he fundamentally participates in absolute freedom. But his reason is connected with sensuousness, and perhaps its power only potentially shines from the depth; and spirit is connected with the body, and perhaps it has not yet succeeded in subordinating the sluggishness of body to itself. The purpose of the human is to fan his spark of absolute freedom into a continuous, bright, and all-engulfing flame. And this liberation is sooner 1. “Als in einem An-sich”: Aesth. I 104. 2. Comp.: Aesth. I 104. 3. Aesth. I. 104. Hegel’s italics. 4. Beweise 424. 5. Aesth. I 130. 6. Log. III 272. Comp.: Enc. III 291. 7. Aesth. I 195. 8. Aesth. I 127. 9. Aesth. I 127. 10. Recht 252. 11. Aesth. I 140.

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or later guaranteed to him, because the spirit of the human is a mode of the Concept itself. Precisely in its capacity as the Concept is the human soul “simple spiritual substance,”1 the “foundation” of humanity and its life.2 It is “simple universality,” the concrete totality of all its states and determinations.3 All particularization carried out by Spirit, all of its descent to individual determinations4 grows out of soul, as from an “absolute foundation,” and remains in the element of soul as in its absolute level. The shape of the human combines the natural “materiatur ”5 with the divine depth of Spirit. The root of the human soul is divine; and not only and insofar as God is revealed to humanity in intuition and thought, but because God really acts in humanity and realizes himself through humanity; 6 humanity is genuinely the “medium” of God,7 hiding within itself his powerful and creative presence;8 the deepest nature of the human participates, in-itself and primordially, in divinity,9 and the task of humanity is to free this nature from external and internal other-being.10 The human being, having come to know God, understands that the divinity cognized by him is “his own nature,”11 and to him it is revealed that it is not he who cognized God, but God who cognized Himself in him.12 Hegel’s entire doctrine of the meaning of human life, of the ethical, the state, art, religion, and philosophy is uncovered only through this fundamental conception. All these spheres of being, all of these states of the world are modifications of the psychic element, and accordingly they are at once both human and divine. This doesn’t mean that they are free from “the natural,” “the sensuous,” “existence”: their “actuality” already includes in itself an element of other-being.13 But this means that Hegel sees in them genuine stages in the life of the Divinity. Everything that Hegel says about the highest shapes of the world is determined by his fundamental search for God in humanity. His doctrine of the soul does not constitute an empirical psychology, though it frequently draws on material from empirical observations. And even when he speaks about “the soul,” he means by that the fundamental substantial, spiritual force of the soul. Speaking of psychophysiological phenomena penetrating into the life of the unconscious, examining the immediate interactions of people and their instinctive unity, Hegel has in mind not the empirical fullness and diversity of the object, but rather only the “main thing”: the 1. Enc. III 46, 175(Z), 289(Z). 2. “Grundlage”: Enc. III 43(Z). 3. Comp.: Enc. III 46. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 46. 5. “Materiatur”: Log. III 271. 6. “Im Menschen und durch den Menschen”: Aesth. I 40. 7. Aesth. I 40. 8. “Gegenwart”: Beweise 426. 9. Comp.: Nohl 313; Beweise 294. 10. See chapter 13. 11. Nohl 313. 12. Beweise 330, 428, 428; Enc. III 292. See chapter 12. 13. See chapter 11.

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speculative character and speculative purposefulness of what is being investigated. If in the life of the “soul” is revealed this “main thing,” then Hegel finds his object and affirms the presence of the Concept; if that “main thing” is not discovered, then philosophy doesn’t find its object, and in its assertions simply doesn’t have in mind that “purely empirical” material. Speaking of “the soul” in its individual and social life, Hegel has in mind only the “rational” and the divine: his philosophy understands only the “rose” blooming in the “cross of the actual”; it speaks only of the victory of spirit, of the conditions of that victory, of its process and of its results. Hegel’s entire passion is dedicated to the Spirit-Victor; he doesn’t philosophize about its defeats, touching on them only in passing and only to the extent of their rectifiability. In every subject Hegel seeks only what is given to him to see, and sees only what he sought. And that which he discovers—the victory and freedom of Spirit—he affirms as primary, essential, as the ultimate reality. Hegel is an optimist in his most fundamental vision. However, his optimism is rooted not in a subjective psychic equilibrium and not in a naive or limited beautiful soul syndrome, but in a conscious and principled view of the essence of philosophy. Hegel doesn’t become blind when looking upon evil, and doesn’t assert that it “doesn’t exist” at all; he doesn’t “idealize” the object being investigated, and doesn’t strive to “depict” it as better than it is in fact. But in the multiplicity of the empirically given, he doesn’t recognize everything as the object of philosophy. To reason belongs the task of uncovering and cognizing only what is rational; that is his fundamental conviction. Not everything is worthy of reason and its powers of thought, for to think means to liberate, to uncover the rationality of what is being thought, to restore the identity of subject and objekt; but such an identity can occur only between the Concept (the objekt) and the Concept (the subject). Hegel refuses on principle to examine what is not the speculative element of thought: he negates “other-being,” though not ontologically, but cognitively.1 The concrete-empirical as such is not an object worthy of philosophy; the sensuous element can be examined only to the extent of its submissiveness to the Concept, i.e., to the extent to which it “has responded to reason.” It is just this cognitive aristocratism that leads Hegel to his conscious and principled optimism. This principled optimism of objective vision contains two dangers. The first danger has an objective character; it consists in the fact that philosophy, recognizing only the rational, may underestimate the specific gravity—the real power and spiritual significance—of the irrational element. This danger can lead to a declaration of the complete 1. See chapters 1, 10, and 11.

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inessentiality of the concrete empirical, and accordingly, to the theoretical and practical ignoring of its distinct being and its influence. The second danger has a terminological character; it consists in the fact that the philosopher, employing ordinary and widely used terms to designate particular, distinctive subject matters, risks leading, if not himself, then in any event others, into misunderstanding. Here arises the possibility of a continual quaternio terminorum; it occurs every time, just as soon as the thinker studying Hegel forgets about the completely distinctive meaning which is hidden behind the familiar terms. What Hegel calls by the names of “human being,” “soul,” “right,” “ethical life,” “state,” does not at all coincide with what people dealing with these terms normally understand. One has only to let this slip from view, and misunderstanding upon misunderstanding begins to pile up. Naturally this danger can threaten even a philosopher, and then it runs together with the first danger. The underestimation or ignoring of the concrete empirical can lead him to speak of “Right,” “Ethical Life,” and “The State,” in the particular meaning where only “right,” “ethical life,” and “the state” in the ordinary, lesser meaning and scale is intended. Such a possibility comes to light particularly when the philosopher is dealing with the individual, the singular, or perhaps, with historical data, or with appearances of the world, the “rationality” of which is evident to him, but the “anti-rationality” of which remains in the shadows for him. This can be expressed in the following way: the cognitive aristocratism and optimism of Hegel can always lead him to take the singular “appearance” of the world for a realized “shape” of the world. In that case speculative clairvoyance and philosophical farsightedness would take the form of empirical nearsightedness, and would lead philosophy into helplessness and confusion. It is well known that Hegel, as also Plato, did not avoid this danger in matters of politics. The essence of Hegel’s fundamental approach to the subject can be formulated as follows: he studies reality only to the extent of its rationality and affirms the rational element as the essence of reality. That is why he does not like to speak of the “imperfect,” of “evil,” of the “vicious,” in a word, of what distorts the countenance of God on earth. That is why he touches only in passing on what is “weak,” “diseased,” “unfortunate,” on whatever yielded to the chaos of the concrete-empirical and became helplessly entangled in “circumstances.” Hegel studies the paths of absolute good (reason) and sees in it absolute power. “Humanity” and “the state” are for him shapes taking form in this process of the self-liberation of the Divine. Depicting how humanity, captivated by the divine force hidden within, ascends to absolute freedom, Hegel distinguishes three great stages in this process: the stage of “subjective spirit,” the stage of “objektive spirit,” and

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the stage of “absolute spirit.” All of these levels abide in the element of the “human soul”: they constitute states of the inner, immaterial energy of the human—divine-meaningful d in its essence, and finite-empirical in its appearing. Each of these stages realizes a certain degree of spiritual freedom that, according to the speculative law, not only does not disappear subsequently, but constitutes a necessary “element” for further development. The content of the succeeding stage can only be revealed at the level suffered through and matured in the preceding phase: the mature result of “subjective spirit” is the existenz-minimum of “objektive spirit,” and the highest achievement of the latter is the atmosphere of life necessary for “absolute” spirit. This fundamental division of the path of spirit takes shape in the following way. In the first phase spirit is “subjective.” This means that spirit has the form of the singular soul, locked within its states and chained to that content which is immediately “given” or which is imposed upon it. In this state the “soul” has as yet no notion whatever of its spiritual nature or of the rationality of the contents—“alien” in appearance—given to it. It remains for it, from its own experience, to become convinced both of the one and of the other, i.e., to master the entire compass of its passively perceived contents and to liberate itself in them, and them in itself. It remains for it, therefore, to open its eyes to what spirit is in general, and to recognize its own spirituality and rationality. In this speculative ontogenesis of Spirit, the soul says of itself: “I am the substance of my body and of my inner contents”; and brings about in fact what has been said. Its liberation consists in establishing an organic identity, first, between itself and its body, and second, among its various capabilities and states. The outcome which takes shape at the end of this struggle gives to the soul the possibility of saying of itself: “I am spirit, rational will, already free within my subjective limits, but still not free in relation to other corporeal things and spiritual beings”; and following that, to turn to the disclosure of that highest objektive freedom. This means that only the rational will is the mature outcome of subjective spirit, and that it alone is capable of creating “right” and “morality,” “ethical life” and the “state.” On the second level spirit is “objektive.” This should be understood to mean that soul, having conquered within itself its “states” and having freed itself inwardly, turns to the external conditions of its existence in the world and engages them in the process of struggle for freedom. It is no longer confined within its limits, but develops a centrifugal activity. It already has a concept of what spirit is, and intensively seeks spirituality in “other-being”: in other people and in the natural conditions of its life. It remains for it to become convinced that everything “given” to it is spiritual: either in the sense that the given is spirit in itself, or in the sense that it can be subordinated to

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the summons and behest of spirit. In this speculative philogenesis of Spirit, soul sees itself in connection, first, with the lowest, natural levels of the Idea; conquering them scientifically, technically, and economically, it liberates itself from their supposed distinct being; second, from the indeterminate multitude of people: overcoming ethically and politically its visible isolation from them, it eliminates its supposed separation. This forces it at the same time to rework again its inner content, to overcome its isolation and release itself into the depths—to the level of supra-individual, generic, and substantial Universality. Its liberation consists in grasping and affirming an organic identity, first, between itself and other people, joined together in the unity of national spirit, and, second, between the national spirit and the natural conditions of its life, transformed into the obedient sign of spirit, into its instrument, into its “body.” Entering upon this level, spirit can say to itself: “I am the sole spiritual substance, organic Universality, will, strong and good, having power over the world and over all my inner and outer contents”; and following that, to turn to the disclosure, the affirmation and depiction of that highest revelation. This means that only that spirit of the “nation” that has matured within the “state” can create “fine art,” bring forth “absolute religion,” and discover “true philosophy”; for the spirit of the nation, politically welded together,e is the highest achievement of “objektive spirit”: and also the existenz-minimum of “absolute spirit.” The stage of “absolute spirit” is the third and highest stage. This should be understood as follows: to humanity was revealed the final, absolute knowing: the knowing of Truth itself, of the Idea itself, of the divine meaning substance as the one and only speculative reality. Humanity sees God and sees itself in God, and God in itself. It remains for it now to see adequately the revelation given to it, i.e., to find within itself the true organ for the perception of this revelation and the true path for its expression and depiction. The life of “absolute spirit” is passed in the search for this adequacy. In this speculative gnosis of Spirit, the soul turns at first to imagistic intuition and sensuous-external depictions of Divinity and creates “fine art”; then to affective-emotional experience and realizations of Divinity in feeling and creates a “religion of revelation”; finally it comprehends that thought alone is the organ adequate to the life of Meaning, and extinguishes itself in “true philosophy.” In speculative knowing humanity no longer sees God and does not see itself in God, and doesn’t see God in itself; humanity fades out and falls silent, its soul is taken up and “absorbed,” and there where by empirical appearances the “human soul” still remains, in actual fact the divine Concept thinks itself by itself, affirming its absolute freedom. Such is the essence of humanity and such is its path in the world,

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beginning from the first gleam of soul and giving it in the end the joy of consummation. Plato’s doctrine that earthly life for the wise is a creative dying to the “world” finds for itself in the person of Hegel a profound interpreter; with the difference, however, that the center of gravity is supposed to be not so much in the culminating act of personal, natural death, as in the creative extinction of “self ” in the “object” during life. The growth of spirit is a liberation from “other-being,” and this liberation is fully realizable by living individuality, psychophysiological in appearance. Hegel more than once interprets the natural death of the individual as an exit to the freedom of substantial life, but he doesn’t consider this exit to be the highest of the possibilities. Natural death would be the highest outcome only for the individual who is incapable of raising himself to adequate knowing and to speculative-gnostic liberation; for the individual not living in the sphere of absolute spirit; for the individual remaining within the limits of the human. Precisely such is the individual in the sphere of “objektive spirit,” to the extent that he doesn’t go further and doesn’t ascend to a higher phase. “Subjective spirit” is the stage in which the human spirit first grows and takes shape, throwing off the chains of natural, animal existence. The sphere of “objektive spirit” envelops the entire life of the human as such, accepting one’s human nature and realizing one’s human freedom. The human soul seeks and realizes here the meaning of its human life, putting in it essence and meaning. Within the limits of “absolute spirit” the individual already knows that what is substantial in his life is not human but Divine; that he is only a mode of God and medium of his absolute power; that in the human what is important is not the human but the Divine-human; that his vocation is to extinguish all that is purely human and to open a free path to divine revelation. That is why in the doctrine of the meaning of human life the central place must be assigned to the sphere of “objektive spirit.” Here humanity, first having created its spiritual face and having received the first notion of its destiny, finds in struggle and suffering the true meaning of its life, overcoming the dividedness of its natural and social existence, and growing together the disjecta membra of the Idea in one all-embracing Substance. If “subjective spirit” discovers the true meaning of nature, and “absolute spirit” reveals the true meaning of Divinity, then “objektive spirit” brings forth the true meaning of human life, the intermediate condition between the life of God in nature and in itself. The problem of “humanity” is as it were a concentrated problem of the “actual world,” because humanity is the Divine in empirical, finite form. All the threads and knots of the world’s tragedy come together in it and find their solution. Humanity is that central point of the world where

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the suffering of the divine principle achieves its apex and finds the exit to absolute freedom.

Translator’s Notes a. Both modern Russian editions omit this “and,” which is found in the original 1918 edition. b. One must be careful not to introduce a fundamental dualism into one’s interpretation of Hegel’s account of the relation of mind and body. For an excellent discussion of this point, see Richard Dien Winfield, “Identity, Difference, and the Unity of Mind: Reflections on Hegel’s Determination of Psyche, Consciousness, and Intelligence,” in Identity and Difference: Studies in Hegel’s Logic, Philosophy of Spirit, and Politics, ed. Philip T. Grier (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2007), 103–27. See esp. 107. c. The term translated here as “existence” is бывание, which usually translates Dasein (there-being). d. Смысловой—i.e., pertaining to realized meaning (though considerations of syntax prevent the use of that more precise phrase). e. The Russian phrase is “государствунно-спаянный дух наций”; more literally: “the spirit of the nation welded [knitted] together within the state.”

15

Will

The meaning of human life consists in the realization of freedom, or, what is the same thing, in the holistic disclosure of the rational and good will. This is accomplished by the human soul gradually overcoming the empirical and finite form of existence, grasping its own universality, and committing itself to the life of the one Substance. However, speculative power and substantial life don’t come to the human from without; they are present within it from the very beginning, from time immemorial constituting its deepest essence. The path to the rational will and further, to non-substantial freedom is a path of self-deepening, accomplished by the human soul. This path of “speculative metamorphosis” originates, as always, from a poverty of content, from an immediate simplicity and abstract singularity, ascending to a wealth of content, to a simplicity which is mediated and rendered complex, and a concrete universality. None of the lower states of soul disappears without a trace, or is left behind, but is rather preserved as a moment at a higher phase of development.1 The rational will as a higher phase of subjective spirit is a deepened state, concrete and at the same time holistically simple: the lower states are collected, concentrated in it and form not a patchwork aggregate of empirical determinations, but a classically simple modus vivendi of spirit. Soul, in the aspect of will, is rational and whole, and with all its infinite power is directed to a single object—God, or absolute freedom. It matures in the form of subjective spirit and gradually forms that level at which its states— termed “right,” “morality,” “ethical life,” and “state”—are revealed. Thus the sphere of objektive spirit is revealed in the element of human will, saturated by reason and having developed to the state of free selfdetermination. Such a will is the result of a previous speculative process, the outcome of which coincides with the commencement of psychic life, ignited in the depth of the “natural organism.” This is how Hegel sees the process of the development of subjective will. The “natural soul,” immediately immersed in the simple processes of its natural existence,2 is the lowest phase of subjective spirit. It lives dissolved in those contents which nature forces upon it and is subjected to nature’s influences and determinations: soul is determined by climate,3 1. Enc. III 12–13.

2. Comp.: Enc. III 54–55.

3. Enc. III 57. 31

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age,1 race,2 heredity, temperament,3 sexual attraction,4 and the power of sleep.5 It gives itself over to “simple pulsation,”6 to a “confused weaving,”7 to unconscious and unthinking life.8 It does not transcend its fully personal and subjective distinctiveness9 and doesn’t even distinguish the subjective from the objektive;10 the most of which it is capable is sensation (Empfindung) of that which forces its way into it from without, and of that which discharges itself within it. This sensation forces it to attribute some contents to “its own body,” others, conversely, to the interior, “to itself,” and to experience itself as a “totality of its sensations.”11 In this experience is already the beginning of reflection into itself, the return to itself: the soul becomes sentient soul.12 In feeling (Fühlen) the soul found itself as the subject of its sensations.13 Its sensations are its sensations, and it is their “inner individuality”;14 the soul is “particular,”15 an enclosed world of its “inner determinations”16—a monad.17 Sensations of feeling don’t hold it a prisoner;18 on the contrary, the soul distinguishes them19 and isolates itself from them.20 At the beginning it is still passive, dissolved in the process of sensation, and doesn’t identify itself with the “genius” concealed within it, its selfhood; 21 feeling, not restrained by thought and will,22 leads it along its obscure23 paths, transforming it into a somnambulist.24 Then it wakes up, separates itself from its feelings, passing in turn from one affect to another, affirms its subjective unity: the soul becomes self-feeling.25 However, it still does not possess power over its contents; the affects lead a psychophysiological existence, escape from subordination, lose their fluidity, and entice the soul to all kinds of psychic disease.26 Only gradually, by strength of habit, does the soul regain control of its affects, mechanize their flow, and move among them with unconscious purposiveness.27 Taking possession of its sensations proceeding from the body, and of feelings gravitating toward the category of body, the soul thus takes possession of the body itself and becomes actual soul.28 It achieves identity between itself and its “exterior” and subordinates it to itself;29 the body is reworked by soul and appropriated by it; the body portrays the soul and becomes its sign, its first manifestation, its creation.30 This means that the soul liberates itself from the body, while remaining in the body; and having been 1. Enc. III 57, 87. 2. Enc. III 64, 72–73. 3. Enc. III 81–82. 4. Enc. III 103. 5. Enc. III 103–5. 6. “Einfaches Pulsiren”: Enc. III 54(Z). 7. “Dumpfes Weben”: Enc. III 116–17. 8. Ibidem. 9. Enc. III 117, 119(Z), 120(Z). 10. Enc. III 56, 120(Z). 11. Enc. III 120, 142. 12. Enc. III 142. 13. Enc. III 151. 14. Enc. III 149, 151. 15. Enc. III 151. 16. Enc. III 147(Z). 17. Enc. III 151. 18. Enc. III 144(Z). 19. Enc. III 151. 20. Enc. III 54. 21. Enc. III 151, 152. 22. Enc. III 166. 23. “Dumpf ”: Enc. III 164. 24. Enc. III 162– 98. 25. Enc. III 198. 26. Enc. III 198–201, 202–28. 27. Enc. III 229–39. 28. Enc. III 239, 241(Z). 29. Enc. III 239–40, 54. 30. Enc. III 239, 240, 241(Z), 246Z.

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liberated, “opposes” the body to itself, separates itself from the body, “negates” it and turns to itself.1 The soul becomes con-sciousness.a Consciousness is soul which has lost its immediacy;2 it lives not “in the objekt” and not “by means of the objekt” but “about the objekt.” This means that the soul opposes “itself in general” as something “inner,” “ideal,” “an I,” “to the objekt in general,” whatever it may be.3 The soul affirms itself as abstract universality, and the objekt as “a natural totality of its determinations”;4 it is related to the objekt and at the same time effects a reflection into itself, manifesting for the first time the “infinity” of spirit.5 In this reflection it returns to itself as to its definitive focal point, to an authentic,6 ideal identity.7 The “I” is the subject of consciousness and knowing, the beginning of “thought”8 and therefore the beginning of the world9 and certainty. Realizing its “I,” the soul attains its identical center, that certainty (Gewissheit) which constitutes its essence.10 This support gives it the possibility of entering into a struggle with the objekt. Turning to the objekt, consciousness first of all liberates itself from an immediate-sensuous relation to it11 and strives to perceive it in its true properties (wahrnehmen).12 By means of perception and imagination it enters into an identity with it and begins to divide up and determine what was procured on this path;13 it becomes knowing consciousness. Determining and cognizing, it subsumes the singular, content-filled material under universal concepts and abstract categories; consciousness becomes abstract reasonb and in this fashion constructs the “laws of nature.”14 These universal laws grasp and hold fast the very essence of the appearances: a law is the essence of the objekt. But the law is created not by the objekt: it is recognized, disclosed, and sketched by the power of subjective consciousness; it is a product of the “universal.”15 Thus the soul becomes convinced that the essence of the objekt is begotten by the subject; that in the object the subject finds itself and that consciousness of the “other” is in essence self-consciousness.16 However, abstractly rational self-consciousness remains detached from the objekt; it is abstract, subjective, and singular. It sees objects around it and approaches them initially with thirst and hunger;17 it consumes them selfishly and destructively,18 dissolving itself in this consumption; it does not recognize their selfhood and, losing its self-consciousness in the selfless (selbstlos)19 objekt, returns to itself with a new hunger. 1. Enc. III 246, 43(Z). 2. Enc. III 40, 249. 3. Enc. III 43(Z), 44(Z), 246–47. 4. Enc. III 247. 5. Enc. III 40, 246, 249. 6. “Gewissheit seiner selbst”: Enc. III 249. 7. Ibidem. 8. Enc. III 253, 249. 9. Enc. III 249. 10. Enc. III 250(Z). 11. Enc. III 255–58. 12. Enc. III 260–61. 13. Enc. III 261. 14. Enc. III 262–63. 15. Enc. III 262–65. 16. Enc. III 265– 68. 17. “Begierde”: Enc. III 270. 18. Enc. III 273. 19. Enc. III 274(Z).

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This experience teaches the soul a different attitude to the objekt: selfconsciousness learns to see in the object the beginning of free selfhood and becomes “recognitive self-consciousness.”1 Such is the encounter of two individual self-consciousnesses, striving to show one another their own freedom and, by their mere existences, limiting one another. From this arises a life-and-death struggle between them; it ends in the victory of one and its mastery (Herrschaft) over the other.2 The struggle, and life in subjugation, force the submissive servant (Knecht) to overcome disinterestedness in himself and thus open access for himself to the disinterested, objective, and rational intuition of things and relations. Compulsory self-renunciation is for him the beginning of inner freedom: he learns to see his essence beyond the limits of external compulsion and to recognize in the master the same free depth. An “objective elevation”3 of the immediate and singular soul takes place; and this elevation, with its power and truth, inevitably also infects the master.4 Thus self-consciousness learns not only to “recognize the objekt,” but to recognize it as a particular self-consciousness, an “other” by empirical appearance, but just as rational and spiritual: the objekt becomes for the subject an organ of a common and unitary element. This means that the subject learns to see in the objekt an appearance of that Reason which constitutes the essence of the subject itself; 5 it sees “itself” in the object, and in “itself,” a rational being;6 it enters into the sphere of reason, i.e., of the identity of subject and objekt,7 and into the sphere of spirit, i.e., of pure rational self-determination.8 Spirit is the “truth” of soul and consciousness,9 i.e., it encompasses soul and consciousness, but only on the highest level. The state of the subject is spiritual when it does not see in its object a limiting other-being,10 but brings about a knowing of substance which is neither “merely subjective” nor “merely objektive.”11 Spirit deals only with its own proper determinations; 12 it begins with unshakable certainty that the world is the rational Concept and that the Concept possesses objective reality.13 However, this conception remains for it merely a task,14 while spirit itself, professing it as truth, remains subjective and finite.15 It strives toward knowledge, toward a theoretical justification of such a worldview, and proves to be intelligence. The task of intelligence is to find a true and adequate modus cogno1. See: Enc. III 274. 2. Comp. esp.: Lass. II 445–47. 3. Enc. III 283. 4. See: Enc. III 274–83. 5. Comp.: Enc. III 283–86. 6. Enc. III 255. 7. Enc. III 286. 8. Enc. III 286–87, 40. 9. Enc. III 287. 10. Comp.: Enc. III 288. 11. Enc. III 288. 12. Enc. III 288. 13. Comp.: Enc. III 289(Z). 14. Comp.: Enc. III 291, 296, 297(Z), 293(Z). 15. Enc. III 291, 293(Z), 45(Z), 298.

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scendi, i.e., such a mode of knowing that would give to the life of spirit the character of actual and true self-determination. The human soul must suffer in itself that depth at which it genuinely discovers that any movement of spiritual life is self-determination, and thus spirit is creative energy revealing itself from within itself. Then intelligence becomes will.1 Thus spirit as intelligence works on its inner “ideal” world, forging for itself a self-determining life;2 it is necessary for spirit to overcome those modes of cognition that are content with the “given” or the passively “found” objekt;3 it seeks a knowing that would be equally a creation of the object—it seeks an intuitive thinking. Rational self-consciousness turns for the last time to the lowest stage of psychic life, but with a firm belief now in its spirituality; it “sublates” them and cultivates speculative thought from them. Sense experience mobilizes for spirit all the unmediated material of knowing;4 attention registers the object,5 collects and unifies the inner energy of spirit,6 suppresses the encroaching arbitrary willc of the subject7 and forces it to give itself to the object;8 intuition attentively experiences the object, penetrating from the rational depth of the subject into the rational depth of the objekt,9 and grasps the developed substance of the object.10 Further, imagination takes the prize of intuition away into the inner world of spirit and masters it11 in three stages: assimilation (Erinnerung, strictly speaking recollection) immerses the image seen (Bild) of the object in the “nocturnal mine pit” of the unconscious, preserves it, subsumes it under its representations, and identifies it as its own property;12 the power of imagination extracts the appropriated content from the subjective depths,13 reproduces it in the form of a newly created image,14 establishes associative links between it and other images15 and, saturating its creation with universal meaning, transforms it into a speculative symbol of spirit, maintaining in itself the genuine presence of the content being expressed;16 the image as a symbol of spiritual content, i.e., of the object,17 receives a particular designation18 and becomes an intermediary between the object and the name; finally, memory strengthens the connection between the object and the name, discards the mediation of the sensuous image, and reproduces the content of the object by a name alone; 19 when memory masters the material completely, it achieves a mechanical 1. Comp.: Enc. III 296. 2. Enc. III 298. 3. Enc. III 305(Z), 301. 4. Enc. III 308– ll. 5. Enc. III 308(Z). 6. Enc. III 311, 312(Z). 7. “Das eigene Sichgeltendmachen”: Enc. III 313(Z). 8. “Sich-hingeben an die Sache”: Enc. III 313(Z). 9. Comp.: Enc. III 318, 319(Z). 10. Enc. III 319(Z). 11. Enc. III 307(Z), 321, 322(Z), 322. 12. Enc. III 323(Z), 328. 13. Enc. III 329. 14. Enc. III 328(Z), 331(Z), 329. 15. Enc. III 329, 331(Z), 332(Z), 333. 16. Comp.: Enc. III 331(Z), 346. 17. “Bedeutung,” “Sache”: Enc. III 346, 347, 351. 18. Enc. III 346. 19. Enc. III 347, 348.

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supremacy over the stable, and for that reason universal,1 objective contents: the inner power of the subject completely assimilates the sensuous-imageless object, and the imageless object is penetrated by the movement of subjective spirit. The soul has matured to thinking.2 Intelligence thinks. This means that its fundamental power deals with its own proper product—the stable, imageless, universal object, i.e., with thought. “To think” means “to have thoughts,” i.e., to have them as its content and object.3 The element of spirit is universal, because it is one, stable, substantial, and all-penetrating; its object is likewise universal, because stable, essential, and abstracted from a multiplicity of images. The subject created the object for itself, fully immanent, and in the cognition of it the subject recognizes itself as the true essence of things.4 It remains for thinking to elevate itself from the formally abstract rationalistic state to the speculatively rational,5 and the theoretical liberation of subjective spirit will be completed. From dwelling in identity with abstract concepts, thought moves to the “original divisions”d of judgments and completes its ascent to concrete “confluences” of syllogisms.6, e Subjective thinking gives itself over to the power of the living, objektive Concept7 and becomes the element of rational self-determination. It is will that is the element of rational self-determination. But before all else, will is the element of subjective spirit, and therefore it arises initially in the form of individual, immediate self-determination of feeling that may also be rational, but may bear an accidental and subjective character.8 Willing, based upon feeling, may be “one-sided, inessential, and bad”;9, f it may not correspond to the rational, essential10 path of spirit: joy and satisfaction, shame and fear11 possess an accidental content, not immanently growing out of them, as is required by the nature of reason,12 but arriving from without. And meanwhile rational self-determination must proceed from the will itself. Striving to approach that, the will focuses upon some single content and affirms itself as a passional impulse, striving to create satisfaction for itself.13 It sets a goal for itself and connects its interest with it;14 but it seeks complete satisfaction and, not finding it, strives to govern itself by means of thinking reflection and choosing volition.15 In this struggle among various impulses, interests, and inclinations it grasps, finally, that completeness of satisfaction, bliss,16 will be achieved only when 1. Enc. III 346, 352, 353. 2. Enc. III 352, 353. 3. “Das Denken der Intelligenz ist Gedanken haben; sie sind als ihr Inhalt und Gegenstand”: Enc. III 353. Hegel’s emphasis. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 353, 353(Z), 354(Z), 357(Z). 5. Enc. III 354(Z). See chapters 1, 2, and 3. 6. Enc. III 355. 7. Enc. III 358. 8. Enc. III 361, 362. 9. Enc. III 362. 10. “Selbstbestimmung, als an sich seiend”: Enc. III 363. Hegel’s emphasis. 11. Enc. III 364, 365(Z), 366(Z). 12. Comp.: Enc. III 363, 366(Z). 13. Enc. III 367, 367–68(Z). 14. Enc. III 370, 371. 15. Enc. III 371, 372. 16. Enc. III 372, 373. “Die Glückseligkeit.”

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the goal fully corresponds to the fundamental and universal rational essence of the will. Complete satisfaction is satisfaction of spirit as a whole, taken in the form of totality and universality; in order to achieve bliss, will must descend to that ultimate depth of spirit which envelops the entire soul precisely because it possesses its ultimate, absolute roots. Only the will having descended to that level and identified itself with the all-penetrating essence of spirit can extract the fullness of satisfaction: for only it can immanently create its object, essential to it for satisfaction; it alone is the universal substance of the soul; it alone is free; for it alone is absolute and free selfdetermination achievable. It alone is genuine Will. In this way, Will is the concrete outcome of the entire path1 traveled by subjective spirit. On Hegel’s lips this is not a sketch and not a phrase, but a thesis filled with the most substantial significance. Similarly to the way in which it is impossible to penetrate his doctrine at all not having mastered through imaginative thinking the nature of the speculative Concept, it is likewise impossible to understand anything in his philosophy of right and ethics without having mastered the concrete nature of Will. It is essential to take into account fully and seriously all of his fundamental indications; whereupon the following is revealed. Will is the human soul as a whole, having achieved the level of free selfdetermination. The human being, in all its essential traits and properties, turns out to be reduced to harmonious unity and subordinated to the deepest, elemental power of the soul. That power is reason as the absolutely good and creatively self-determining energy of spirit. In these definitions, each term must be saturated with living, intuitive understanding. Will is the organic totality of all essential properties and activities of the individual; but all these properties of the human being are subordinated to the dominion of its spiritual depth, transformed by it and converted into its obedient sign. “The natural soul” with its determinations and body form the extreme limit of the external manifestation of will; the will assumes a material-physiological aspect and forges out of spatial, temporal, and organic conditions its true instrument, its sign—the bodily organism. Will is “actual” soul: the spiritual “genius of selfhood,” free in its bodily organism. Further, will is “consciousness,” but no longer cut off from its objekt; it is the “inner ideal I,” but not in the sense of empirical consciousness, rather in the sense of metaphysical self-thinking; it is the “infinite reflection”—the creative return of the Concept to itself. Will is “the identical center of the soul ” in its “absolute authenticity”; it creates the law of the objekt, and even more: it creates the objekt itself; for that reason it “recognizes itself ” in the 1. Comp., e.g., Recht 60–61, 365.

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objekt and knows the objekt as its state. Will is, further, that “disinterested, objectively living” power that knows that the subject and objekt are only modes of a single substance, universal Will. It is spirit “free from other-being,” i.e., Reason, i.e., “intuitive thinking,” for which to cognize means to create. Will is “intelligence,” carrying every kind of object into its depths and creating it from itself in a new, essential radiance; it is the energy of the Concept itself, actively and freely thinking itself; it is the selfdetermination of reason as the deepest and free element of spirit. Will is the sole and entire passion of spirit, finding its fitting level and seeking now the full satisfaction of its rational and good nature. The path to this satisfaction is already the path of objektive, and further, absolute spirit. Such is will as the mature outcome of subjective spirit. It is “true” intelligence, i.e., the highest degree of the rational-cognitive state of the human.1 This means that will is a particular state of thinking spirit, one in which the subjective human soul is matured to activity, to creativity, realizing its fundamental and holistic impulse. Will is spirit 2 in its practical3 impulse, disclosing itself and creating its goal. From this it follows that all those who separate or counterpose thought and will are confused.4 In actual fact will is a species g of thought: thought imparts to itself the significance of will and remains its basis and substance.5 “Without thinking will is impossible, and the most uneducated individual is a will only insofar as he has thought; the animal on the other hand cannot have a will precisely because it doesn’t think.”6 Will is “thinking reason,” 7 and only in this form can it secure its freedom8 and convey to itself a true and fitting content.9 For the true state of the will is self-determination; but true and absolute self-determination is given only to thought. Self-determination is the essence of will, its life, its element, its essentiale. Self-determination and will simply coincide in Hegel’s understanding. A will which is incapable of determining itself to something is to that extent a weak will, absence of will, a type of “weak force”: a will that determines not itself but something else, has already determined itself to determine something else. Self-determination is that fundamental function of the will without which there is no will, and in the presence of which, will has being. Volition consists in the fact that the will determines itself:10 “encloses itself in itself,”11 “fills itself from itself,”12 “itself gives content to 1. Comp.: Enc. III 373; Enc. I 397. 2. Comp.: Niet. 340; Enc. III 359, and others. 3. Comp.: Niet. 340; Enc. I 397; Enc. III 373. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 359; Recht 38. 5. “In Wahrheit ist das Denken das sich selbst zum Willen bestimmende und das Erstere bleibt die Substanz des Letzteren”: Enc. III 358(Z). Comp.: Recht 49, 314; Ph. G. 11. 6. Enc. III 358(Z). 7. Recht 49. 8. Recht 57. 9. Enc. III 359; Recht 49. 10. Comp.: Enc. III 359; Recht 149; Rel. I 77. 11. “Sich in sich beschliessend”: Enc. III 359. 12. “Sich aus sich erfüllend”: Enc. III 359.

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itself”1 and becomes “reflected in itself”2 and “identical with itself.”3 The essence of will lies in that it answers only to itself4 and, merging with itself,5 remains “with itself.”6 This means that will is free:7 for self-determination is nothing other than freedom itself. Will not determining itself through self-activity, and self-sufficiently, is not “will” but realized “bondage.” This is how the antinomy of freedom and necessity is resolved for Hegel. Will in its true and full meaning—rational will—is free because freedom constitutes its nature,8 “its concept or substantiality”;9 freedom is the essence of will,10 just as gravity is the essence of body,11 and “certainty” is the essence of self-consciousness.12 Will is free because it is intrinsic to it to be related only to itself and to nothing more; 13 it is free because independence from any and all other-being14 constitutes its nature. Will living on the level of reason is directed wholly to its own depths, and therefore it possesses true infinity: “it is itself its own object”;15 and this means that it has no other-being limiting it, but in its own creative activity it returns to itself.16 This directedness of will to its own essence can be expressed thus: that it is the object of its own willing, realized by means of the rational and systematic disclosure of its own essence. That which rational will desires is its own proper essence; i.e., it desires full self-determination and absolute freedom. It is characteristic of rational will that its “determination,” its “content,” its “goal,” and its “existence” be freedom.17 Will itself posits its own goal,18 and its goal is itself, i.e., its freedom. This presupposes that will has recognized its true essence; that it possesses being not only “in itself ” but also “for itself.”19 Such a will is subjectively matured will: it emanates from itself, becomes objektive spirit, and creates for itself “a world of freedom”20 in organized society, in right, ethical life, and the state. Such is the “concept” of will: it is the speculatively liberated rational thinking of the human, a thinking creatively striving toward completeness of satisfaction, i.e., toward absolute freedom. Will is the self-determining of reason, itself determining itself to the realization of absolute self-determination. In this lies the essence of mature will, or its “concept.” However, along with the mature state of the will, immature, lower states are obviously also possible. It is essential to bear in mind that “will” is the human will, a

1. “Sich selbst den Inhalt gebend”: Enc. III 359, 385; Recht 48, 49. 2. Recht 153. 3. Recht 1 52, 153. 4. Comp.: Ph. G. 46. 5. Recht 42. 6. Enc. III 359. 7. Enc. III 359; Recht 56; Ph. G. 46; Rel. I 77. See chapter 13. 8. Enc. III 250(Z). 9. Recht 42. 10. Comp.: Recht 56, 61, 148, and others. 11. Recht 42. 12. Enc. III 250(Z). 13. Recht 58. 14. Recht 58. 15. Recht 57–58. 16. “Nur in sich zurückgekert ist”: Recht 58. 17. Enc. III 359, 360(Z); Recht 62. 18. Recht 45. 19. Recht 46, 58. 20. Enc. III 360(Z).

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certain holistic state of the human essence. This means that mature will is an actual “shape of the world,” admitting along with itself immature “appearances” and combining in itself a twofold nature: the speculative or infinite, and the empirical or finite. Will, like every other modification of Divinity, can be present and act either in a non-manifest, hidden form, remaining in the depth of human being and asserting its nature only “in itself ” (an sich); or in an open, realized form on the level of consciousness and self-consciousness—“in and for itself ” (an und für sich). However, in its hidden, non-manifest, “undetermined” form it doesn’t cease to be will: it remains as though a “neutral” but “infinitely fecund” power, a “primary seed,”1 containing in itself and producing out of itself “all determinations and goals.” In order to uncover and identify its essence, in order to realize itself as free self-determination, will must take up and work through its empirical essence, attach itself to “there-being,” become an existing will and conquer the element of its existence. Only then does will receive the significance of an “actual form,” consisting of “essence,” vanquishing its “existence”; only then does it become, in Hegel’s expression, “idea”;2 for the “concept” of will and the “object” of will coincide and are converted to identity.3 Hegel often expresses this process of the maturation of the will as its “universal essence” taking the form of “singular appearance,” and the “singular will, descending into itself, establishing its speculative identity with “universal will.” This process already extends beyond the limits of subjective spirit, though it originates in its depth. In order to understand correctly the nature of “universal will,” it is necessary to bear in mind Hegel’s fundamental point of view on the life of God and of the world. According to that point of view, the Divinity is the one “universal” substance of any and all being, and the appearances of the world—things and souls, plants, animals, and people—are subordinate “singularities,” “accidents,” or, more correctly, living “modes” of this substance. Thus the universal enters into the singular as its living essence, and the singular enters into the universal as its living part; 4 the “universal” is the absolutely real, creative element, permeating all “singularity” whatever, but hidden in it and made individual by its limits; these limits do not permit free substance to come out into freedom and appear in the world in a manner that corresponds to its nature. Free universality remains “only essence” until it succeeds in overcoming the inert element of other-being, or, what is the same thing, until “singularity” recognizes in itself the universal essence and surrenders to its spiritual and absolute 1. Comp.: Recht 48. 2. Comp., e.g., Recht 132, 149, 171; comp.: Recht 48, 145, 148, and others. 3. Enc. III 373; comp.: Recht 62, 149, 210. 4. See chapter 5.

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power.1 Then universality ceases to be “merely essence” and becomes “manifest essence”—the identity of “essence” and “existence,” “concept” and “reality,” i.e., an actual “shape of the world” or thrice real “idea.”2 This order is realized in the world on various levels, or what is the same thing, in various “elements.” However, it unfolds with a particular harmoniousness in concrete ethical life, where the “singular will” merges with “universal will,” and in absolute religion, where the “believing soul” receives into itself “life and the love of the one God.” Hegel succeeded in giving a well thought-out and mature expression only to the doctrine of human ethical life, and left the systematic doctrine of religion in the form of rough sketches. The doctrine of the “universal” as a living, concrete totality remains therefore, strictly speaking, an achievement of his Logic and Philosophy of Right: there it is disclosed in the element of reality—of pure, divine thought; here—in the element of the “actual” human will. Universal will is a particular state of the Divine3 element in the world and, moreover, precisely in the human. This is a modification of the Concept itself, Reason or speculative thought. Will as the substantial root of the human soul is universal precisely for the reason that it is a modification of self-thinking Meaning;4 for thinking is, both according to its activity and according to its object, universal. For that reason, universal will lives with the rhythm and goal of the Concept: it creates singular wills from itself by way of “specification”; it enters them as their hidden, living essence and includes them in itself as its living parts; it has a universal goal and universal object—itself and its freedom; and, realizing it, will achieves an identity between itself and its appearances, i.e., the individualh wills of persons. This means, first of all, that it is necessary to distinguish between the universal will as “substance existing in itself” and the singular will as “an appearance existing for itself.” Only their concrete identity gives “the truth,” i.e., the coincidence of “universal substance” with “singular appearance,” true “universal will” existing “in and for itself ” (an und für sich). The growing together or identification between “universal will” and “individual will” is accomplished twice: the first time within the limits of “subjective spirit” and the second time within the limits of “objektive spirit.” The human being finds within himself the divinely rational element of will two times: first in its self-enclosed life, leading him to the recognition of himself as individually free will, and then in social life and

1. See chapter 13. 2. See chapter 12. 3. Comp., e.g., Recht 334; Ph. G. 40. Enc. III 359, 359; Recht 49; Ph. G. 38; Rel. I 77.

4. Comp.:

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intercourse leading all people to a recognition of themselves as the common speculative element of “the spirit of the nation.” At first will is the “in itself existing substance” of subjective spirit. It is hidden in its depths as the “genius of its selfhood,” as its true “concept.”1 The human being often doesn’t know this, doesn’t see and doesn’t recognize his true, rational-volitional nature; then he determines himself by feeling and passion and sets out on a path of confused wondering. However, this confusion is not capable of changing the essence of the matter: the universality of rational self-determination remains its true, unliberated nature, or formally speaking, its predestined obligation.2 Without thought there is no human being; it forces its way into him already at the stage of perception (Wahrnehmen) and consciousness. And thought is already the state of universality. The element of spirit as self-determining thinking remains “universal” even in the immediately personal life of a human being. But precisely in such a life is discovered for the first time the distinction between universal will as “in itself existing substance” and singular will as “for itself existing appearance.” In itself will remains rational, universal, and free;3 but in its appearance it turns out to be cut off from substance by singularity—“by immediate or natural will.”4 On its innermost paths will lives as an “infinite power”; but on the paths of external appearance it remains “finite”5 and “formal”6 will, filled with a multiplicity of empirical contents.7 This rupture between two wills is healed, further, within the limits of “subjective spirit” by the fact that finite will in searching for complete satisfaction turns into itself and recognizes its infinite rational essence. It becomes free both “in itself” and “for itself”; that which was hidden in it in terms of essence becomes the recognized wealth and mode of life of subjective spirit. Will wholly determines itself to freedom and passes over to the sphere of “objektive spirit.” This transition to “objektivity” means that the rational and universal essence of spirit must become an objekt for it itself. Soul grasps that it, as a human monad, is inwardly free, and following that proceeds beyond the limits of its enclosed existence. Will has already recognized its subjective universality and sees itself in a distinctive, contradictory state: it, as an inwardly universal substantial power, itself opposes an entire multiplicity of “external” existences and is itself bounded by the limits of the subjective monad. Other-being, evidently defeated entirely by subjective spirit, once again rises before it, and this requires from it a further self-liberation. 1. Comp., e.g., Enc. III 373; Recht 46, 139, 173, and others. 2. Comp.: Enc. III 361. 3. Comp.: Recht 46, 47. 4. Recht 47, 252. 5. Recht 47. 6. Recht 48–49. 7. Recht 48.

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Will, subjectively “free” and “universal,” must become objektively “free” and objektively “universal.” Objektivity, to which the will turns, has a threefold character: first, it is a multiplicity of singular, individual wills, i.e., “other” people; second, it is a multiplicity of “natural things,” appearing to consciousness, i.e., an aggregate of those natural conditions in which the person lives; third, it is a multiplicity of personal, human needs and impulses blazing up in subjective will itself from interaction with other people and things. All this forms the “external material” for the existence of subjectively mature will, and foreordains for it the path to further ascent. This path consists in that will must discover rational and universal nature in its new “objektive” objects and recognize in itself that still deeper universality that is common for all people standing in social cohabitation. To achieve that means to sublate the “contradiction” between the subject, already rational and universal, and the object, appearing in the form of an irrational multiplicity of singular existences; this means also to sublate the “contradiction” between the universal, substantial content, having matured in the subject, and the external form of its life—personal, finite, and limited. Individual will knows that in itself (i.e., in separation from other people and things) it is universal and rational, and moreover not only “in itself” (i.e., in its innermost, substantial being), but also “for itself” (i.e., in its empirical self-consciousness); now it remains for it to find that same universality in other people, to cognize in them what it has cognized in itself, and acknowledge that that same common element of rational self-determination, which also composes its own being, lives and creatively unfolds itself in them. Subjective will must cognize its speculative identity with other subjective wills. It must convince itself and acknowledge that the multiplicity of individual wills is a “multiplicity” only in its external manifestation, in its appearance; in essence this multiplicity is not separated in reality, but forms one unified Universality, a unified universal will, a national spirit (Volksgeist). This single universal will is precisely that spiritual substance which enters into each singular will as its living essence and includes in itself all singular wills as its living organs. Accordingly, universal will triply justifies its name. It is universal first of all because it is the one substance of any and all being, Substance itself, the Concept itself. It is divine Meaning itself. It is universal, second, because it is the all-penetrating essence of subjective spirit, of all its inner states and determinations. It is universal, third, because it is the common rational-volitional, spiritual element of the multiplicity of persons, the multiplicity of individual wills. It is the power of rational volition common to all people: “common,” however, not in the sense that each individual has “his own will,” while many people have an “identical psychic

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capability”; but in the sense that Will is really one, and individual wills are its specific modifications. These specific “isolates” of the one universal will can express its divine nature with greater or lesser fidelity. The individual will may not know, not be aware, and even not suppose that it is an “appearance” and an “organ” of the one substance. However, this confusion is incapable of changing the fact of the matter: the universal will of the national spirit remains always the substance of the singular will, but it can be a hidden substance, existing only “in itself.” The task of individual will lies in realizing this and recognizing itself as an organ of national spirit: then the will will grasp its identity with universal will and with “other” people; then it will understand that it is free from “other-being” not only within its own limits, but also within the “objektive” order, for other people are its “coorgans,” united with it by the one substantial essence. Then subjective spirit becomes objektively free both “in itself” and “for itself.” Thus is justified here the fundamental correlation of the speculative phases: the next stage is always the actual essence of the preceding stage, its substantial kernel, hidden in it and coming to light from it, as from its shell. Accordingly, the universal will of national spirit lies in the foundation of subjective will, but subjective will doesn’t know that and finds out about it only when it matures inwardly to the state of rational will and enters the sphere of “objektivity.” This can be expressed by saying that subjective spirit became aware of itself as subjectively universal will, i.e., acquired within itself that same unified rational element of thought which is free from its objekt because it creates it itself (meaning is immanent within thought), and which is universal, because it substantially permeates the entire inner world of the monad (will is the rational universality of the psychic monad). However, now it remains for subjective spirit to recognize something more: not the “ontogenetic” but the “philogenetic” universality of will. This means that the subjective universality of the will is an individual expression of the objektive (i.e., of the socially spiritual) universality, having been realized in the individual as in an organ of national spirit. In other words, the rational spirit of each separate person is a “singular mode,” a specific modification of the “universal will” of its people. It is clear that in actual fact “universal will” in no way opposes the singular will. Taken abstractly, universal will is an abstraction, a pure, indifferent indeterminateness;1 in precisely the same way singular will in itself is an abstraction, a senseless, separated, immediately personal limitedness. The truth lies in their unity. Universal will is formed from and consists of singular wills, just as the absolute first principle is formed 1. Recht 38, 40, 41.

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from its living parts.1 Singular will conceals within itself that universal spiritual element which lives “in all and in each.”2 The truth lies, as always, in the concrete identity of three moments: the universal as the principle, raising itself above every given content, resolving all within itself and infinitely reflective;3 the particular as the distinguishing, determining, and limiting principle;4 and the singular, as the principle combining in itself content-filled determination with the power of infinite reflection.5 These three moments grown together form the system of singular human wills, living by one elevated and assimilated universal content; or, what is the same thing, they form one substance of national spirit, having differentiated itself and distributed itself in the system of singular human wills. The universal enters into the singular as into its living part, and the singular contains in itself the universal as its living essence. The task of subjective spirit must be clear by now: it has to recognize and assimilate this true position of things. Subjectively mature will must “accept” the being of a multiplicity of other people and things just as it already accepted once the multiplicity of its psychic and bodily states; it must enter into a creative—perceptual, sensuous, desiring, recognizing, and overcoming—relation to them, in so doing eliminate its impulses, and lay a path to rational identity with its objekts; it must achieve through suffering its identity with other people through cognition and will, in order to recognize itself in them and them in itself, and all together as one national spirit; 6 and finally, it must, through creative7 life in the one spirit of the nation, genuinely inculcate its universal will and its universal goal8 and transform the material situation of the nation’s life into the obedient body of national spirit. That is the path to the objektive freedom of spirit; this freedom is achieved only through the recognition and realization of universal will as “the source of all singular wills.”9 Thus arises Hegel’s doctrine of right, morality, and ethical life. All of these phases of objektive spirit are, above all else, states or modifications of subjectively mature will, i.e., rational, free and subjectively universal. By this is determined their generic essence.

Translator’s Notes a. The Russian is со-знание, in hyphenated form literally a “co-knowing” or “knowing-with.” Unhyphenated, it is the term for “consciousness.” See also chapter 9 of volume 1, 200.

1. Comp.: Mollat I 54. 2. Phän. 442, 443. 3. Recht 38. See chapter 5. 4. Recht 40. 5. Recht 42. 6. See chapters 18 and 20. 7. Enc. III 373–74. 8. Enc. III 359; Recht 313. 9. “Quelle aller Einzelner ”: Ph. G. 44.

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b. “Abstract reason” or the understanding (Verstand). c. Произвол: arbitrary will, or caprice. d. A reference to Hegel’s “Ur-teil.” e. The Russian phrase is в конкретных “слияниях” умозаключений. The last term means “inference” or “conclusion,” but, analogously to the German term Schluß, is also used to mean “syllogism.” Interestingly, the term слияние means a “flowing together” or “confluence,” but it is still more often used as an equivalent of the same German term Schluß to mean “syllogism.” Here it would have to have its primary meaning. See also “Notes on the Translation” in the translator’s introduction to volume 1. (The allusion is, of course, to the doctrine of the Subjective Concept in Hegel’s Logic.) f. “Bad” translate’s Il’in’s “дурный,” (Hegel’s schlecht). “Spurious” would be another possibility. g. Il’in used the Latin term “species” (form) here. h. In this chapter Il’in intermixes the terms “singular” (единичный) and “individual” (индивидуальный) fairly freely. For example, in this short paragraph the phrases “singular wills” and “individual wills” both occur.

16

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It can be established in theoretical work as a general rule that the essence of a question and the way in which it is framed predetermine the content of the theory answering that question, and moreover, the stronger and more mature the thought of the theorist, the tighter and deeper this connection between the question and the answer turns out to be. Hegel’s philosophy of right a is an instructive example of that. The commentator and the critic will risk misunderstanding it so long as they fail to uncover with complete clarity the very problem posed by Hegel. And his problem grows from the deep roots of his general metaphysical viewpoint. Hegel’s philosophy of right is the mature and natural fruit of his metaphysics. All the complexity, all the gravity, and all the distinctive depth of his philosophy are carried over by him into this sphere as well, and as a result one of the most complicated objects of theoretical knowledge received the most extraordinary and conspicuously heavily freighted interpretation. This extraordinariness is already manifest in the fact that Hegel uses the fundamental terms of jurisprudence in a completely distinctive sense which is difficult to catch, so that to the theorist/legal expert, demanding of his constructions above all the clarity of cut stones and strict determinateness, this entire doctrine can seem at first a fruitless and non-scientific fantasy. The intuitive approach, undertaken from the logical and metaphysical foundations of his doctrine, can, however, pour much light on this distinctive theory and reveal its fruitful depth. This depth is determined by the fact that Hegel treats right and ethical life starting from a particular objective experience, but, in doing this, he concentrates not on the facts of generally accessible everyday legal experience familiar to the jurist, but on the “spiritual” essence and on the “spiritual” significance of statesb defined in terms of right and ethical life. As a genuine philosopher Hegel sees in right, ethical life, and the state, as in all else, that which provides to him his objective experience. This means that “deduction” and “construction,” in the sense of a logical deducing from a priori definitions, constitute only the external methodical appearance of his philosophy of right. All the fundamental content of his theory is obtained by means of experiential investigation, and in this he

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remains true to himself as in logic, psychology, aesthetics, so too in the science of right. However, misunderstandings are possible here. The experience by means of which Hegel’s philosophy moves, and on the basis of which it is created, is not experience in the usual sense of that word. He is himself aware of the “non-empirical” character of his philosophy of right and insists on it openly and on principle. If one were to put in the foundation of the science of right empirical observation1 and abstract rational thinking 2 about the material obtained, then what would result is not genuine, not philosophical science. That kind of observation would inevitably start out from the empirical multiplicity of legal and ethical appearances,3 recording them and then submitting their content to a formal treatment. Hegel considers historical induction to be the prototype of such a path; but it is precisely such an induction that is unacceptable to him for reasons both general and of principle. Empirical observation atomizes all the events of the world, regarding them as contingent aggregates of random, individual details.4 But this means that it is blinded by the external, illusory outward appearance of divine life and chases after a mirage. Empirical history attempts to establish a causal connection among these events. But this means that it subsumes the visible surface of appearances under abstractly rational categories, as that is explained by Kant, and comforts itself with a sham necessity of contingent connections. Empirical science culminates in a system of abstract concepts, and its concepts lose the living, objective content in absolute fragments and oppositions.5 In a word, here as everywhere, Hegel’s “experience” is not empirical experience, and Hegel’s “thinking” is not abstractly rational thinking. Nevertheless his philosophy of right is the result of experience, revealed by means of thought. This experience is self-active, inner experience, speculatively purified, borne and suffered through by Hegel himself, and afterward disclosed by him, but of course not in the form of psychological description or subjective outpouring, but in the form of philosophical analysis-synthesis, carried out on the objective content of the experience. Hegel himself tells of this method of cognition in the Philosophy of Mind, in the chapter devoted to “The Intellect,”6 and his method can be characterized as a method of “creative thinking,” or rather “thinking intuition,” or as a method of “objective assimilation,” or finally, as a method 1. Comp.: W. Beh. 323, 328, 331, 337; Enc. I 84. 2. W. Beh. 328, 359, 360, 397, 417; Ph. G. 50. 3. W. Beh. 331. 4. Comp.: Recht 18. 5. See chapters 1 and 2. 6. See chapter 15. [Chapter 15 is the immediately preceding one in this volume. The reference to Hegel’s Philosopohy of Mind is to part three of his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. —ptg]

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of philosophical experience.1 Following this method, Hegel gathers all the energy of his thought, imbued with imagination and purified of “subjective reflection,”2 and devotes it to an intuitive “identification” with the content of the object that presents itself to him and, accordingly, to the “assimilation” of it. This is essential to him in order to master the content being cognized and to reveal the genuine spiritual meaning behind its irrational aspect. Each object, if it has some value and is to any degree objektive, possesses its spiritual significance and purpose; this means that its essential makeup occupies a determinate and necessary place in the unitary speculative ordering of divine ascent. Human thought, philosophizing, has a task: to show to each object, by means of intuitive and thinking disclosure, its rational essence and its place in the unitary ordering of divine life. The philosophy of right must fulfill that same task in its sphere. It must “objectively assimilate” the essence of right, morality, ethical life, virtue, and the state, reveal their spiritual significance and purpose, and indicate to them their place in the ordering of the self-liberation of spirit. Their rational essence, which must be revealed by philosophy, is not thought up a priori, is not obtained by abstraction and not inserted in it from without; on the contrary, it is already intrinsic to them, it is concealed in them, it is their “in-itself-existing” (an sich seiend) rationality. The philosophy of right must make it an open, consciously grasped, “foritself-existing” rationality; it must understand their meaning, “express” their Concept, establish and affirm their Logos. And for this it is necessary to grant the power of its own soul to the reason of the object, so that that reason can be revealed in them. In just such fashion Hegel formulates the task of the philosophy of right: one must pay heed to the reason of the object and allow it to develop its own content itself; the philosopher will be only “observing”3 the immanent development of the object.4 That would be, if you will, a “deduction”; but not historical,5 as for the empiricists, nor abstractly rational, as for Kant6 and for Fichte,7 and not geometric,8 as for Spinoza, but speculative: the Concept, i.e., the rational content of the object, having formed itself in the soul of the philosopher, will develop its own content from itself.9 This will be, if you will, an “intuitive” construction; but not the fruit of heartfelt desires, or starry-eyed idealism, or inspiration,10 or 1. Comp., e.g., “Naturbeschreibung der Tugenden”: W. Beh. 399. 2. See chapter 3. 3. Comp.: “betrachten”: Recht 9 note; “Zusehen”: Recht 23. 4. Recht 23, 65. 5. Recht 27, 314, 365. 6. Comp., e.g., Glaub. 117; W. Beh. 344. 7. Comp., e.g., Diff. 242, 247, 248; W. Beh. 344, 362, 363. 8. Recht 290. 9. See also Recht 28, 28; in particular Recht 69. 10. Comp.: “Herz,” “Gemüth,” “Begeisterung”: Recht 9 note, 10, 11, 23, 352; Enc. III 117, 118, 119; see chapter 3.

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subjective “discretion,” but a work of objective intuition, or speculatively speaking, a product of thinking self-intuition accomplished by the Concept itself.1 In the Philosophy of Right this will be the self-intuition and selfrevelation of the free will. This doesn’t mean that Hegel entirely rejects empirical and abstractly rational cognition of right; no, he merely deems them to have a secondary, subordinate significance. The philosophical examination and the historical explication of right have different objectives, and each of them has its own “sphere” of activity.2 This is why they can maintain a mutually indifferent relation.3 The historical study of right has its own merits and is subject to independent verification; philosophy may be uninvolved, since historical explanation does not pretend that its “explanations” are spiritual justifications or unconditional groundings.4 Empirical experiencec and abstract reason must not exceed their competence; otherwise philosophy must point out to them their objectives. However, historical examination undoubtedly profits if it is guided in its judgments by a philosophical point of view:5 the eye of the historian gains access to the genuine rationality of right and political existence.6 Naturally, the essence of this philosophical method is defined by the doctrine of “rational actuality,” i.e., of the fact that divine reason is the genuine essence of all actual “appearances” and “shapes” of the world. For this reason, to depict right, ethical life, and the state as “actual” and therefore “rational” shapes of the world, as necessary modifications of Divinity liberating itself in the world, as states of “freedom,” i.e., of the selfdetermining human will, means to solve the problem of the philosophy of right and to indicate to the empirical study of right the basis for a deeper understanding of the object. This task defines the fundamental features of Hegel’s philosophy of right. He devotes his investigation to “actual” and at the same time “rational” right and designates it “natural right” (Naturrecht). This designation doesn’t refer to a “natural”d origin of right, or to any connection with an imagined7 “state of nature”; such a state, if it had existed at some point, would have manifested an order of violence and lawlessness, and the truest thing one could say of it was already said by Hobbes: it is necessary to put an end to it.8 “Natural right” as right is a creation of humanity,9 and 1. “Eigene Arbeit der Vernunft der Sache”: Recht 66. 2. “In verschiedenen Sphären zu Hause sind ”: Recht 29. 3. “Gleichgültige Stellung gegen einander behalten”: Recht 29. 4. “Eine an und für sich gültige Rechtfertigung”: Recht 27; comp.: Recht 314. 5. Comp.: Recht 30. 6. Comp.: the praise of Montesquieu, Recht 27. 7. “Ein Naturzustand erdichtet worden ist”: Enc. III 384. 8. Enc. III 385. 9. Comp.: Recht 8 note.

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not of nature: it is “natural” because it is determined “by the nature of the object itself,” i.e., by the Concept,1 and moreover, to be exact, by free will. Natural right is “the right of reason” or “rational right,”2 and since reason is the property of philosophy, it can be called “philosophical right.”3 This does not at all mean that it is “right which ought to be” as opposed to “positive” right. Philosophy does not concern itself with deductions of “what ought to be,” with the construction of “norms” or with the outlining of ideals.4 It understands the existing, genuinely real object. For this reason it is incorrect to contrast natural right as “ideal” to the positive, as the “real.”5 What is real is precisely not right “which ought to be” and not historically established and applied right, but natural right. It is real because it is a particular state of divine substance—Spirit ascending to freedom, in the guise of human will. It would be insufficient to say that natural right is the unconditional essence of positive right; it is above all else a modification of the absolute essence of the world in general. Spirit, determining itself to freedom and having reached a subjectively mature state of rational will, imparts to itself the character of right. This signifies that right is one of the essential stages of Spirit in its metamorphosis. “Right” is the first determination of subjective spirit, having entered into the objektive sphere; it is “spirit in the guise of right” or “the state of spirit as the right.” Therefore natural right is not only real, but essentially absolute reality. What Hegel has in mind, speaking of natural right, should be considered above all as the inner,6 meaning-exhibiting7 essence8 of positive right; it is the universal logical basis as it were, the categorial or principled framework of any and all right as such. From this it follows that any “positive right” contains in itself “natural right” as its generic essence, and is its specific species definition; the universal, the generic is always present in all of its particular and singular modifications. However, this “presence” of natural right within positive right must not be understood according to the abstract, rationalist scheme of ordinary logic. If in some places Hegel puts forward such a correlation, that is for him an inconsistency and a lapse. The relation of natural right to positive right must be understood speculatively: natural right is universality creatively realizing itself in singular, positive orders of right and including them in itself as its living modifications. It is self-evident that 1. “Durch die Natur der Sache, d.i. den Begriff ”: Enc. III 384; comp.: Würt. 233. 2. Comp.: Enc. III 397, 416, 430; Recht 9 note, 16, 18, 23, 27, 28, 290. 3. Recht 26. 4. Recht 9 note, 18, 19, 20. See chapter 17. 5. Recht 26, 27. 6. “Das Inwendige”: Recht 314. 7. “Begriff des Rechts”: Recht 22; “der Begriff der Sache”: Recht 28; “der gedachte Begriff ”: Recht 314, and others. 8. “Das wahrhaft Wesentliche”: Recht 28.

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“singular” orders of right enter into natural right only in the measure of their spiritual truth. Thus, natural right is the universal, living essence of right, realizing itself in positive orders of right. It is the real Logos of right. It is the Right which is everywhere that right appears. But that which is, is Reason.1 Therefore natural right is rational. Realizing itself in singular, national orders of right, it as essence joins in existence and becomes actual. Therefore natural right is rational and actual. It is Reason in a state of realization in the world, or the universal meaning of right, creating for itself more or less successfully a system of singular appearances. This is why Hegel says that “natural right” is something “actual and present,” and not “otherworldly”;2 it is not only real as something “absolute,”3 as the “divine” in the history4 of humanity; but it is actual as manifesting essence, as the existing singular order of right, as the positive right of a certain epoch and nation. It is clear that “right” turns out to be a participant of all three aspects of “being”:5 reality, i.e., the Concept, Reason, or the Logos; actuality, i.e., the singular, in this case sociohistorical, an appearance of Reason; and finally, existence as the necessary irrational form of historical being. This means that “right,” like everything else in the world, has a double makeup: the speculative-rational and the empirical-irrational. The combination of the “speculative” and the “empirical” forms that level of actuality in which humanity lives, creating right. Therefore, when Hegel speaks of natural right, he understands certain states of divine Spirit, living in the form of human will; these states are speculatively necessary and therefore rationally grounded, actual, and, accordingly, realized in the world of empirical existence. Expressing this in ordinary terms, one can say that each natural-right institution examined by Hegel is a state of the human soul, through which it, i.e., soul, must pass, and actually passes, in order to experience itself as a living part of a national spirit; such a state in its essence is presented by Hegel as a speculatively imagined reality, the fundamental features of which are present in all appearances of sociohistorical “actuality” having the same name; these features can be present in them either wholly or in part, and each time, an appearance of the same name is understood by Hegel to be such only insofar as it possesses these features, only insofar as it is “rational.” This can also be expressed by saying that “natural right” is something subject to realization in each soul and in each human society, and therefore it is something “which ought to be.” However, in the same sense one should recognize as “that which ought to be” every 1. Recht 19.

2. Recht 16.

3. Recht 28.

4. Ph. G. 40.

5. See chapter 11.

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necessary state of spirit being liberated: both consciousness and selfconsciousness, both intellect and will, and so forth. But the category of “that which ought to be” in general obtains its real meaning only in opposition to a real process; but precisely in this sort of opposition the thought of Hegel does not move and does not determine concepts. Therefore “natural right,” as well as all other states of spirit, is not only “subject to” realization, but is actually realized. And the world of sociohistorical actuality is always intended by the Philosophy of Right only to the degree to which it has realized in itself the “appropriate” objektive freedom. In this consists the realism of the philosophy of right. It is clear that this realism has an optimistic coloration, a metaphysical significance, and a psychological interpretation.1 The optimism or cognitive aristocraticism of Hegel consists in the fact that he examines and has in mind not so much the “appearances” of right as the “shapes” of right. Whenever he says “right,” “state,” “government,” and so forth, he means not degenerated right, not a disintegrated state and not a corrupt government, but an appearance standing “on the height,” i.e., already not an “appearance” but a “shape.” Incidentally he touches on “appearances” as well, both in order to establish the presence in them of essential rationality, as well as to note their imperfection. But his object proper always remains the “shape.” This means that every institution of right examined is understood by him as a mature realization of natural-right rationality in the form of positive right and an order of right. Right, property, contract, family, party, state are for him not detached, metaphysical ideas (similar to the “ideas” of Plato), and not supra-temporal schemas; no, in the “concrete” sciences Hegel is closer to Aristotle: he doesn’t detach the “idea” from the “appearance,” and he thinks the “universal” in its temporal worldly realization. The “shape” is the realized triumph of the idea, i.e., of natural right; but such a realization presupposes that the empirical, temporal conditions have absorbed and entirely reproduced the rational, speculative essence of the idea: the shape is the mature realization of natural right, taking the form of a living order of right. One can conditionally acknowledge that the natural-right shape is an “ideal,” imagined by thinking imagination—however, with the proviso that this ideal is also metaphysically real in itself, and further, imagined in its empirical realization. This does not mean that Hegel always has in mind a definite singular order of rights, historically realized by some particular nation. Obviously, such a concrete-historical orientation was not alien to him; moreover, his thought gravitated initially to the Greek 1. See chapters 12, 13, 14, and 15.

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polis,1 and then to the state of the post-revolutionary period contemporary to him;2 however, speaking of principle, his natural-right “shapes” retain the character of the “ideally typical.” He speaks of the ideal “shape” which imagines and thinks, as realized in general, typical conditions of empirical existence; and in this he remains true to the fundamental method of his “concrete” sciences. This also gives him the possibility to use his “shapes” as criteria of value, as the defining perfection of the appearances; to see in them the measure of metaphysical reality and to put them forward as categories for the empirical study of history. At the same time one should keep in mind that these “shapes” retain, through all the turns of investigation, first, their self-sufficient meaning of “speculatively necessary stages of Spirit,” and second, their creative actuality in the world, for they remain invisible and weightless agents, unconsciously communicating with people’s souls and guiding them to freedom.3 Hegel’s natural right as a generic, universal essence of right turns out to be one for all times and peoples, just as the world Spirit is one and the Divinity is one. But in its revealed, cosmically “actual” form natural right is an organic system of many varied and distinctive “singular” orders of right, matured and realized by various nations. Such is the classic “aristocraticism” inherent in Hegel’s philosophy of right. It is dedicated to the “shape” of God in the world: to the perfected, ideal condition, realized in the general conditions of concrete empirical experiencee and to the revealed, authentic nature of those metaphysical forces that move the history of humanity. Hegel also remains in the philosophy of right a singer of the spirit-conqueror: God triumphantly liberating himself in the world. From this arises that metaphysical significance that is inherent in all concepts of right in his doctrine. All the usual complexity of the phenomenon of right as an object of scientific knowledge appears in Hegel not only not dispersed, but even saturated with metaphysical significance. What he terms a “right” is impossible to subsume either under the concept of right in an objektive sense (a norm of right) or under the concept of right in a subjective sense (authority, obligation, prohibition); it is a state of right: initially it is a subjective status,f subsequently a relation of right, in the sense of an encounter of subjective wills. Right is for Hegel a particular state of the human spirit, the significance of which is always determined by the fact that it is a state of divine Spirit. Thanks to this treatment, every institution of right receives its place in an ascending order, 1. In the article “Über die wissenschaftlichen Behandlungsarten des Naturrechts” (1802–03) and in part in the Phenomenology of Spirit. 2. This was the case in the period of writing his main work on the philosophy of right, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1820), and later. 3. Comp.: Log. III 187. See chapters 5, 9, and 11.

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the lowest member of which is “empty space” and the highest, “absolute philosophy.” The sole and common principle for the entire order remains “the Absolute in the process of self-liberation from other-being”; from it every institution of right obtains its supra-juridical significance and appears as a necessary status of Spirit, creating its own freedom. Precisely in this absolute content of right Hegel sees its essence and therefore reduces the specific object of jurisprudence to a simple “sign,” to an empirical “symbol” of Spirit. Right as a “sign” of Spirit is unarguably a necessary and rational, actual and non-distorting modus essendi; however, the jurist, naturally enough, only recognizes his object in this metaphysically heavily saturated treatment with difficulty. Every institution of right turns out to be connected with God and “chaos”; it is a modification of “freedom”; it is conceived by the laws of speculative development: reality, universality, dialectic, and concreteness, and at the same time it is imagined within the conditions of empirical human life. It is clear that Hegel’s Philosophy of Right continually faces two dangers: to simplify and depotentiate the “Idea,” and to lose the specificum of the juridical object. The latter danger is exacerbated particularly because the metaphysical content of right and the state are interpreted by Hegel psychologically. Every institution of right is examined by him as a particular state of will,1 i.e., of the fundamental rational and creative force of the human spirit. Each “shape” of his philosophy of right can be correctly understood only if its volitional nature is revealed. All stages of “objektive spirit” are composed in the element of subjectively mature will,2 leaving its subjective insularity and exiting into the sphere of “the social encounter.”3 However, just for this reason it is inappropriate to interpret the psychologism of Hegel either “empirically” or “subjectivistically.” True, will is the energy or power of the soul in its deepened and undivided form (i.e., having overcome its fragmentation). But if one concludes from this that right in Hegel’s understanding turns out to be a power, then this power is the metaphysical power of spirit. In just the same way, in appearance will is a state of the singular human soul; however, in essence it is universal will, retaining its universal nature also in the singular, subjective will of the individual person. And if right in Hegel’s understanding turns out to be will, then it is the universal will of the national spirit. The psychologism of his philosophy of right is a distinctive metaphysical psychologism, and moreover a psychologism not of method (the method remains intuitively dialectical-speculative) but of the object. Such are the fundamental characteristics of his “natural right.” It is 1. Comp., e.g., Recht 68, 69, 76, 83, 85, 103, 105, 113, 125, 131, 145, and others. chapter 15. 3. Comp. on the social nature of right: Enc. III 385; Recht 113.

2. See

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clear by now that he uses the term “right” in a broader sense than do the jurists; in his definitions he consciously moves far beyond the boundaries of “limited juridical right,”1 characterizing it as “formal.” In this way what is usually called “right” is only the first and lowest stage in a system of “natural-right” definitions. The system of objektive spirit encompasses three stages: first, so-called abstract right; second, the sphere of morality; and third, the entire sphere of ethical life, which in turn includes within itself the structure of the family, civil society, and the state. In such a broad meaning “right” turns out to be as though a common generic concept for “abstract right,” “morality,” and “ethical life”; and naturally, the question arises of what Hegel considers to be the fundamental essence of “right in general,” obviously coinciding with natural right. “The science of right is a part of philosophy.”2 Therefore it has a “definite starting point which is the result and the truth of what precedes and constitutes the so-called proof ” of the starting point.3 This means that the first and fundamental “concept of right lies, according to its development (Werden), outside the science of right,” that “its deduction is presupposed” as completed and “must be taken as given.”4 The philosophy of right begins with that with which the philosophy of “subjective spirit” ended, so that the last link of the preceding development coincides with the first link of the new series. Accordingly, right is nothing other than the existence (properly speaking, the there-being)g of the free will.5 Wherever the free will lives, even in its primordial, subjective form, there is right; and in precisely the same way, there-being (Dasein) can be right only “on the basis of the free substantial will.”6 This means that right is not a “norm,” but rather “the normal being of the human spirit”; right is the existence of will as right, the proper mode of its life, or the proper state of the human soul. Right is not an “authoritative power,” but well-founded claims of right are inherent in the state of the will which is the right. Hegel calls right everything that conceals in itself the “mature” state of the human spirit. From this it is clear that in “right” Hegel sees above all a certain asserted “value,” or, if you will, a certain objektively significant worth. But he considers this value not in the form of obligation but in the form of being, and moreover, precisely as a living creative principle. Right is for him not “what is valuable” but “value,” i.e., living, objektively worthy reality: 1. Enc. III 377; Recht 70(Z). 2. Recht 23. Hegel’s emphasis. 3. Ibidem. Hegel’s emphasis. 4. Recht 23. Hegel’s emphasis. 5. “Dasein des freien Willens”: Enc. III 377, 377; Recht 63. 6. “Dasein ist ein Recht nur auf den Grund des freien substantiellen Willens”: Enc. III 377.

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the will of the individual human or the will of a people. At the same time, the objektive worth of will is grounded not upon its correspondence with the content of an externally established norm, and not upon a foreseen or assumed act of subjective volition, as is usually considered to be the case in jurisprudence; but exclusively upon the spiritual properties which it itself acquires in its inner self-determination. In order for a state of the human spirit to become “a state of right” or “right,” it is necessary that spirit determine itself as “free will” and actually mature to a state of freedom. This means that the human soul must determine itself as a unified and holistic rational passion seeking complete satisfaction of its rational and good nature, i.e., striving to create complete freedom from other-being and irrationality.1 Such a state of the soul, termed “free will,” is always a state of right or “right”; and the claims of “free will” are rightful claims, or its “rights.”2 But since free will in its self-determination and disclosure takes itself through an entire series of ever freer states, for which the starting point of “subjectively mature will” constitutes only the existenz minimum, “right” is as though the common, generic essence of all natural-right states, because each stage of “objektive spirit” is a modification of free will, a modification of its essence. From this it is clear on what a spiritually advanced level Hegel’s philosophy of right unfolds. If one takes into account in its entirety his indications of the nature of “subjectively free will,” then “right” proves to be a result of actual psychic-spiritual, intellectual-volitional maturity. Right in general is formed on the ground of the spiritual, and freedom comprises its substance.3 The entire series of natural-right determinations is created by rational will, i.e., “by self-consciousness, which grasped itself as essence through thought and thereby purged itself of the contingent and the false.”4 It is “freedom” which recognized its nature5 and realizes itself objektively; it is the existence of the “absolute concept,”6 the actuality of the “truly infinite”7—the imminent Idea.8 Such a will is the subjectively matured “truth,”9 self-determining reason, or the good, as the innermost essence of will.10 Such a will is also “the right.”11 This does not mean that all those living in communities of right are aware of their elevated nature or are able to consistently realize it. However, on one side, a realized “shape of right” requires just such a maturity of spirit. On the other side, every individual in the depth of his soul, internally and covertly, is always rational and free, even when he in 1. See chapter 15. 2. Comp., e.g., Recht 68, 69. 3. “Der Boden des Rechts ist überhaupt das Geistige”: Recht 36. 4. Recht 57. 5. Recht 64. 6. “Das Dasein des absoluten Begriffes”: Recht 64. 7. Recht 58. 8. Recht 58, 132, 149. 9. Recht 58–59. 10. Comp.: Recht 171, 73(Z), 172. 11. Recht 63.

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his deeds loses his way and falls. Together with Shaftesbury, Leibniz, and Rousseau, Hegel sets out from the fact that the root of the human spirit from the very beginning strives toward the good; the human being, by his very nature, seeks the good through reason and is determined by it. In Hegel’s eyes, this is guaranteed by the fundamental metaphysical revelation according to which only Divinity is real and the world is created from within by means of His rational power—the Concept freeing itself. Therefore the human will in its source is also rational and free power; this cannot be otherwise because its essence is not singular but universal: the subjective soul of the human being is an appearance of universal Will, of universal, substantial, spiritual energy—of the world’s,1 and of the nation’s, Spirit. Could a singular modification of the Divinity not want the good in the depth of its being? The answer is clear. The human soul may not know the truth about itself; it may, being confused, take a finite and limited good for the absolute good; it may get bogged down in the whirlwinds and deceptions of the concrete empirical; but it cannot pervert its essence, the root of its being.2 The more so if it has already achieved a “subjective” maturity of thinking and will. Therefore, whatever a person must accomplish and endure on his further paths to absolute spirit, in the depth of his will a rational volition of freedom continues to live, which Hegel calls “right in itself” (Recht an sich). This condition is the existenz-minimum of objektive spirit; outside of it not a single stage of objective spirit is realizable. And when people speak of right, of ethical life, and of the state in the absence of this level, there remains only illusion or distortion, degradation and misfortune, “ethical depravity and barbarism.”3 This can be expressed by saying that right is given to the consciousness of the human from within, as its own rational-volitional state; the “free will” of a human is the living being of right and at the same time the standard and criterion of singular alterations of right.4, h In the order of subjective spirit, free will is not yet revealed and not realized: however, “in itself” it is already universal will. And this free, rational, and universal essence of will is “right in itself.”5 That is why Hegel says that right is given to the human internally; it is given to him not as an ideal, but as a real state, realizing itself and having the ability to realize itself fully. It remains something fitting or “which ought to be,”6 to the extent that the process of realization is not yet completed 1. Comp., e.g., on the “Weltgeist”: Recht 65. 2. Comp., concerning the good as the substance of will: Recht 172. 3. Enc. III 431; comp.: W. Beh. 383, and others. 4. Comp.: Recht 8 note. 5. Comp.: Recht 125. 6. Comp.: “was sein soll ”: Recht 8–9 note; “ein gefordertes”: Recht 130.

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and to the extent that “right in itself” is still opposed to “existing” right; however, precisely to that extent it is converted into an unreal postulate,1 and the shape of right degenerates into an “appearance.” “Right in itself” is neither an ideal, nor a subjective invention,2 but something “essential”3 and “substantial” for the whole of human life4 and therefore “immutable,”5 incapable of distortion and “indestructible.”6 It can be “limited” or “unlimited,”7 more “abstract” or more “concrete,”8 less developed or more developed; but all of this within the confines of a single, unified, “simple” and “universal”9 state: the free will of a human. What is just,10 what is rational and leads to freedom, what creates the actual good of the nation,11 forms the object of this will. Hegel expresses this as follows: “the ethical constitutes the subjective disposition of right in itself,”12 but objektive spirit (i.e., the free spirit of the nation) constitutes its content.13 This is the reason right is something “sacred.”14 Thus “right in itself ” is the sacred essence of any and all right, which abides, however, in an undisclosed, “immediate” state. It remains for this essence to complete the path to appearance, recognition, and realization. Right must become “that which exists in itself and for itself”; this means that it must uncover in itself the “ethical” that forms its foundation15 and its immediate “disposition,” and be transformed into the conscious and organized ethical life of the nation.16 But since right is the there-being of free will, the entire path of objektive spirit can be described thus: will discloses its rational and beneficent nature and cognizes its supra-individual universality. Hegel’s philosophy of right sets forth “the justification of will” in its fundamental passions and impulses;17 these impulses are realized in the living and essential18 relations19 of humanity and arise in the harmonious system20 of its “objektive” life. In its immediate, undisclosed state the free will of the human being lives by beneficent “mores” (Sitten) and “customs” (Gewohnheit); they form the deepest and most authentic element of right. All fundamental determinations of right and also of religion are properly speaking internal, immanent states of the human spirit, or, if you will, of the “heart” and “feelings.”21 These determinations live in the subjective will as the usual states characteristic of it, as its “temper” (Sinnesart), as its “disposition.”22 It is 1. Comp.: Recht 130. 2. Recht 14. 3. Recht 130. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 101; Recht 293, 323; Ph. G. 40, 58. 5. “Unverändert”: Recht 8–9 note; comp.: Enc. I 36. 6. “Unverletzbar”: Recht 137; “unaufhebar”: Recht 136; comp.: Recht 134. 7. Comp., e.g., Recht 64, 65. 8. Comp., e.g., Enc. III 211; Recht 64, 169, 169(Z), 365–66. 9. Recht 127. 10. “Gerecht”: Recht 139. 11. Comp.: Würt. 288. 12. “Das Sittliche ist subjektive Gesinnung, aber des an sich seienden Rechtes”: Recht 208. Hegel’s emphasis. 13. Recht 96. 14. Recht 64. 15. Recht 209(Z). 16. Comp.: W. Beh. 378; Phän. 326; Enc. III 430; Recht 208. 17. Comp.: Recht 55. 18. Comp.: Recht 65. 19. Recht 394. 20. Recht 55. 21. Enc. III 362. 22. Enc. III 377.

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natural that its disposition, by its content, be determined as a striving toward freedom; 1 and this makes it possible to say that “right in itself” is a will to freedom, living in the form of beneficent and just “true” mores.2 From this point of view, at the basis of all national life and the whole of right lie living3 mores i and custom j as the first unconscious and immediate disclosure of objektive freedom. If one attends to them cognitively, thinks them and brings them to the form of recognized universality, expresses perfectly their reality and proclaims it for universal notice, then “right in itself” acquires the aspect of law.4 This means to recognize “right in itself,” to posit (Setzen) it, to ascribe to it the form of there-being (Dasein) and the significance of “for-itself-existing right.”5 Thus law in its content is a nation’s custom presented in thought. It secures the real modus vivendi of custom, “stipulating what every individual human being is and what he does.”6 Laws are mores in the form of universality,7 and a nation that does not know how to impart this form to its mores, or fears to think them, is in a state of barbarism.8 Every law was earlier a living more9 and under normal conditions still remains a national custom after being written down.10 This means that laws arise from “the living individuality of a nation”11 and once having arisen, support and constitute it, such that each nation is a certain “whole of mores and laws.”12 Such a correlation of law and custom leads to the conclusion that law turns out to be the realization of true freedom. In actual fact it sustains for the citizen his own good custom, only expressed in a universal form; it formulates the content of “in-itself-existing will”;13 it affirms “the right in itself”;14 it formulates “the substance of free will.”15 True law adequately expresses the deepest self-determination of free will. Therefore each individual finds in it the will of his own heart, and each heart finds itself in it.16 The citizen sees in the law the formula of his true objective essence,17 for laws actually, by the power of thought, by the power of the Concept, reveal and communicate to him what he hitherto only dimly sensed in the depth of his existence, to wit: that his subjective-universal will possesses genuinely objektive universality, that it is the “spiritual universality and substance”18 of the entire nation. Citizens in fact live by this will, as by their substance, and even when they are dissatisfied and condemn the laws of their country, the laws all the same, unconsciously, lie close to their hearts.19 1. Comp.: Enc. III 231. 2. W. Beh. 400. 3. W. Beh. 400. 4. Comp.: W. Beh. 400; Recht 272. 5. Comp.: Recht 274, 275, 282(Z), 285, 309. 6. Phän. 266. Hegel’s emphasis. 7. W. Beh. 400, 418. 8. W. Beh. 400. 9. W. Beh. 419. 10. Recht 272. 11. W. Beh. 417. 12. W. Beh. 415. 13. Comp.: Enc. III 278(Z); Recht 137. 14. Comp.: Recht 271. 15. Enc. III 405. 16. Phän. 279. 17. “Gegenständliche Dingheit”: Phän. 266. 18. Phän. 283. 19. Phän. 283.

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But precisely for this reason obedience to true laws cannot constrain their freedom. “Every true law is freedom,” i.e., a “rational determination”1 of spirit; it is the stated essence of free will,2 and will recognizes itself in it. Will, by knowing the law, knows itself; and if only will actually knows the law,3 then the will, obeying it, obeys only itself and remains free.4 In such a state of affairs obedience to the law not only doesn’t “enslave the conscience” of a person,5 but doesn’t even put him in a position of dependence.6 True laws participate in “the absolute truth” and flow from it; recognition of the absolute truth is religion.7 Therefore true laws are something sacred,8 and obedience to them can only be a free response of the soul to the summons of its own divine depth. Obeying true laws, will discovers the “highest energy of ethical freedom,”9 it asserts its true self-determination,10 it witnesses to the fact that it is “true will.”11 Its freedom coincides with its necessity,12 “laws” turn out to be its laws and don’t remain empty obligations.13 The “greatness and divinity” of the true state of right is realized in the world.14 Thus Hegel sees in laws and mores the living substantial states and powers of the national spirit: they are particular “communicating” agents and movers of life which “penetrate” into people “in unconscious fashion” and realize in them their power and their significance.15 These are creative “categories” of national life; their rationality assures them victory in the world. But if true laws are only universal expressions of “rational” mores, then formulating or positing them (Setzen) signifies the transition from “right in itself ” to the sphere of appearance,16 its emergence into objektive actuality,17 its transformation into positive law.18, k The objektive actuality of lawl consists, first, in that the law is recognized, cognized, and promulgated; second, that it receives the force of actuality, “universal significance,”19 observance, and application. Positive right is lawm established in some state and subject to application;20 what is recognized in it as “law-governed” is the source of knowledge of “what is rightful” and of “the right.”21 But just here begin dangers and complications leading often to degradation. Above all, an established law may falsely 22 formulate “the right as it is in itself.” Then a divergence is discovered between “the law” and

1. Enc. III 407. 2. Comp.: Enc. III 404, 429; Recht 312; Ph. G. 46. 3. Comp.: Recht 271, 278, 279(Z); Enc. III 397, esp.: 398, 400. 4. Ph. G. 46. 5. Enc. III 433. 6. Glaub. 107– 8. 7. Enc. III 429, 434; comp.: W. Beh. 400. 8. Glaub. 107. 9. Glaub. 107–8. 10. Comp.: Enc. III 432–33. 11. Comp.: Ph. G. 46. 12. Ph. G. 46. 13. Phän. 318. 14. W. Beh. 438. 15. “Sich in ihnen geltend machen”: Log. III 187. 16. See concerning the appearance of right, e.g., in Enc. I 35–36. 17. W. Beh. 400; Recht 271. 18. Recht 271. 19. Recht 271. 20. Comp.: Recht 26, 277. 21. Recht 275. 22. Enc. III 397.

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“the right” in its eternal and rational essence.1 Positive law may be the product of “arbitrary will”;2 it may conceal in itself principles of “violence and tyranny”;3 it may consist simply of senseless laws leading not to the unity and concreteness of national life, but to ruptures and distintegration.4 Then arises the unworthy spectacle of law contradicting its essence—unrightful right. Philosophy cannot cognitively take account of this and must not include an indication of qualitative imperfection in the concept of “positive law”:5 it leaves such law to be studied by history and empirical jurisprudence.6 However, an established law, even if it is correctly formulated, even if it precisely expresses the content of “objektive-universal” will, may encounter great difficulty. The problem is that a law as a general rule enters the sphere of concrete experience with its “finite material”7 and false infinity,8 with its contingent multiplicity9 and details submitting to no foresight whatever.10 Thus, among the people arises an unhealthy11 prejudice, according to which positive law must have the character of “perfected legislation,”12 i.e., exhausting every detail and foreseeing all possible cases of the code of regulations. Then begins a hopeless chase for elusive and ever-multiplying empirical materials; abstract reason is exhausted in searches for new “principles” and “rational” standards, but legislation, failing to perfect itself in the content, expands monstrously.13 Then it becomes inaccessible to knowledge and mastery; the citizens cease to know their right, and “the law” ceases to be their own law: the freedom of obedience perishes. Creating such laws, one may as well write the code in a foreign language, or, like the tyrant Dionysius, hang the laws so high that not a single citizen can read them; the result is just the same: the loss of freedom, “absolute tyranny”14 and injustice (Unrecht).15 Citizens turn out to be in a kind of serfdom (Leibeigenschaft).16 The search for such an utterly exhaustive code is absurd and pernicious. Law cannot obtain an all-sided rational “determination,”17 and inevitably remains on the level of abstraction and universality. All the same it strives pedantically to foresee and regulate every manifestation of life and creates an unendurable “dominion of abstract reason.”18 There arises a police state in which everything is subordinated to the law and to “surveillance,”19 in which the law opposes the living subjective spirit, as an 1. Comp.: Recht 275. 2. “Eigenwillen”: Recht 275. 3. Recht 26. 4. Comp.: W. Beh. 419, 420. 5. Recht 26. 6. Recht 275. 7. Comp.: Enc. III 397, 399; W. Beh. 387; Recht 280. 8. Recht 275, 276, 279, 280; Enc. III 397. 9. Comp.: Recht 86; W. Beh. 375, 377. 10. Comp., e.g., Enc. III 398. 11. “Krankheit”: Recht 280. 12. “Vollkommen”: W. Beh. 377; Enc. III 398; Recht 280; “vollständig”: Recht 280(Z); comp.: Lass. II 500. 13. W. Beh. 377–78. 14. Glaub. 149. 15. Comp.: Recht 278. 16. Recht 293. 17. Enc. III 398. 18. Diff. 239. 19. Comp. with the critique of the structure of the state, outlined by Fichte in the treatise of 1797: Lass. II 486; Diff. 239–40, and others.

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alien, external, all-leveling1 force, oppressing2 and victimizing human beings. Right turns out to be distorted at its root, for the law degenerates into empty thought, deprived of “absolute essence.”3 The problem is formed as it were antinomially: on one hand, laws must be something accessible and comprehensible, a certain mature whole,4 otherwise freedom perishes; but on the other hand, a need for new laws and legislative definitions continuously arises. Hegel sees the solution of this problem as being that laws must contain only “universal foundations,” solid and stable,5 adequately formulating “right in itself ” in its sacred content; these foundations are subject to further “specialization”6 within the limits of actual necessity; but the center of gravity must be transferred from an “abstract rule” to the living efficacy of law in the human soul, i.e., to legal consciousness.n Initially Hegel dreamed that in an “ideal community”7 good and rational mores can make law unnecessary.8 However, he soon recognized that in practice it is important and spiritually necessary to think the essence of universal will and its rational usages.9 Whereupon he transferred the center of gravity to a mature legal consciousness of humanity, living rightfully and applying the right. What is important is not that people continuously deal with abstract rules and reduce their lives to a mechanical subsuming of their actions under the letter of the laws. What does matter is that “the right in itself ” be vital and effective in the souls of the people and that the laws accurately and correctly convey the content of “universal will”: then positive right will coincide with natural right and “free will” will preserve its freedom. The people must not “fear” the law o and not become slaves to it; but live rightly and in the right, knowing its rational essence and their own rational nature. The law must be for the individual that “objekt” which only apparently “comes from without,” but in reality reveals the inner essence of the soul—rational and free will. The encounter of subjective will with the law must have not an enslaving but a liberating significance, for reason always liberates itself through a recognition of its identity with “the objektive.” But for this recognition a person must not only know the law, but also have free access to his inner nature, which is the same in all people. “Right in itself” is given to every individual in the form of his rational and free will, and the judge can find it in himself just as the citizen standing before the court. That is why Hegel ascribes such great significance to the intuition of right in the process of applying the law.p 1. W. Beh. 375. 2. Glaub. 149. 3. Phän. 268. 4. Recht 279. 5. Recht 279. 6. Ibidem. 7. “Wahre Unendlichkeit einer schönen Gemeinschaft”: Diff. 239. 8. “Entbehrlich”: Diff. 239. 9. Comp.: W. Beh. 400, 416; Phän. 330.

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In actual fact the judge must not apply the law following its letter, for “true justice”1 cannot be found on that path of pedantic accommodation. Between the “general rule” given in the law and the singular case there always remains an “incommensurability” (Incommensurabilität) requiring that the law be “modified” and accordingly in part “sublated and not respected in its absoluteness.”2 This modification must, however, be accomplished in the spirit of genuine right, in accordance with the indications of universal will, or, as Hegel states himself, it must be determined by “an intuition of the whole.”3 But such a determination the judge can find only within himself:4 in him must develop “subjective conviction”5 and “certainty,”6 founded on the testimony of “conscience,”7 a kind of “animi sententia.”8, q Here it is possible, of course, that the subjective certainty of the judge will be merely his subjective certainty, nothing more. But the proper organization of the jury trial provides some guarantee against such judgments. The significance of this legal proceeding Hegel sees in the fact that it is best able to reconcile the judge’s intuition of right with the defendant’s intuition of right; and this is unquestionably necessary if the citizen is actually to preserve his freedom. In order to be free, it is not enough to know the law, it is not enough to be personally present at the trial (in judicio stare);9, r the public nature of the proceedings alone is not enough;10 it is necessary for the one being judged to participate “spiritually” in the decision itself, for him to participate in it with his “knowledge”11 and, if possible, with his “consciousness” (i.e., with the acknowledgment of his wrong or guilt).12 A jury trial (Geschwornengericht) has here an advantage over every other organization of the court proceedings; and it would retain it even if the superiority of a “purely juridical court”13, s in all other respects14 were assured. For only a jury trial satisfies the requirements of a free trial. In fact, freedom requires that the defendant have trust in the one judging, in his neutrality, his impartiality and perspicacity;15 that the judge pronounce his verdict as though “from the soul of the criminal himself,”16 seeking and finding “identity” with his consciousness of right;t and that the personal acknowledgment of the defendant always retain final and absolute significance,17 for one must not take away from a human being the “absolute right”18 to self-determination, proceeding from the depth.

1. W. Beh. 377. 2. “Nicht respektirt werde”: W. Beh. 378; comp.: Lass. II 500. 3. W. Beh. 376, 378; comp.: Lass. II 500. 4. “Das Innere des Richters”: W. Beh. 378. 5. “Subjektive Überzeugung”: Recht 290, 291(Z). 6. “Gewissheit”: Recht 291(Z). 7. “Gewissen”: Recht 290. 8. Ibidem. 9. Recht 293. 10. Recht 288, 292. 11. Recht 293. 12. Enc. III 400, 401. 13. “Rein juristische Gerichte”: Recht 292. 14. Recht 292–93; Enc. III 400, 401. 15. Comp.: Recht 292, 292(Z). 16. Recht 292(Z). 17. Enc. III 401. 18. Ibidem.

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The jurymen must be limited by the confession of the defendant because the criminal remains a human being, i.e., a rational and free will; that he, despite the crime, remains as before identical with the general will, and as before has the right to preserve freedom in submission to the law. The verdict of the court must not be for the criminal an “external fate,”1 and his confession (Eingeständiss) must be regarded as the voice of his undying right of the will, as the voice of “right in itself ” sounding in him,2 as a manifestation of his self-determination and free consciousness of right. In this way the actuality of the “shape” of the right presupposes that right remain in all respects the self-determination of the rational human will: the true realization of the right is the realization of freedom. However, its freedom in right is by no means revealed immediately to the will; it has yet to gain this knowledge in the process of struggle with other-being. The will, having achieved the spiritual state of right in inner life, became the right subjectively. It remains for it to affirm its freedom and its right in a real encounter with external and alien existence. The “objektive” development of the human soul begins when it turns from its own states, already subordinated and mastered by it, to the external surroundings, to objektively existing things and people. Up to now (within the limits of subjective spirit) it dealt with them only insofar as they roused in it some states or other, and strictly speaking, it dealt only with its own states, with its own psychic and psycho-corporeal experiences; now it must deal with the objektively existing objects themselves. If one observes from the outside, then everything remains as it was; however, the object-directedness of the soul changes radically, and its self-determination develops in completely new acts and terms. Again the soul has before it “other-being” and the process of its self-liberation must be resumed. Of course, in the innermost essence of the matter “other-being” is not substantially “other,” but rather merely an irrational mode of life taken upon itself by Reason; the encounter of will with things and other people is an encounter of several “modes” of the one great “substance”; and this encounter must lead to the discovering of the mistake: belonging to the same womb, these sides became separated and lost one another, and meeting again, don’t immediately recognize one another. The great world “comedy of errors” gradually draws closer to the all-unmasking conclusion: Reason receives all in its primordial womb. However, the path of these errors remains as before one of suffering. The point is that the new encounter with other-being disrupts the will, creating in it two sides: the substantial, universal and the empirical, particular. Will in its substantial state is directed within itself; it observes its 1. Recht 293.

2. Comp.: Recht 136, 137, 139.

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own inner freedom and “infinity” of self-determination: it remains free, rightful will or the right. However, will in its empirical state is directed to the new objekt; will is limited and determined by the object and is finite, particular will: it turns out to be will in an unfree, wrongful state and its fate lies in suffering this wrongfulness to the end. All the essentiality of will is concentrated in the first aspect, and all the richness of content, proceeding from “other-being,” is in the second. In such a state the human is a “person” or a “personality” (Person, Persönlichkeit). The person is a free, infinite, and at the same time limited and finite human monad. On one hand personality is self-determining spiritual singularity, conscious of itself as an “infinite, universal, and free” principle.1 Personality begins where self-consciousness takes possession of all its inner determinations and where will asserts itself as the pure thinking of its identity.2 Such a will has developed to the state of right, i.e., to the right: personality is capable of living in the right, or has the “capacity for right.”3 But it is precisely a person who has the “capacity for right” who turns out to be the abstract state of will. In fact, the noumenal depth of will is “abstract” because it is insufficiently rich in content: the “inner” content has already been assimilated by it and is not distinguishable from the will itself, while it has not yet acquired the new “external” content; it is still abstract also because its phenomenal, “particular” side is abstracted from it and directed to the newly arrived other-being. On the other hand, the phenomenal exterior surface of will is “abstract” because it is abstracted both from its own noumenal, free roots and from the external objekt with which it must enter into a creative process.4 That is why the “person with the capacity for right” is abstract. Such a person is something higher5 and absolute, but is existing in an imperfect and inadequate state.6 This is a spiritual monad living in the form of “exclusive singularity” and having before itself a “given” external world.7 Such a monad is “immediate,”8 because it has still not ascended into freedom through the mediation of the new objekt; it is indeterminate,9 because it has not yet “determined” itself by the entire wealth of the new arrival. Such a monad appears as “the right,” but only the “abstract” state of will. For this reason Hegel calls this sort of will “abstract right.”10 By “abstract right,” comprising the first stage of objektive spirit, 1. Comp.: Recht 73, 74, 75; comp.: Lass. II 444–45. 2. Recht 73–74. 3. Recht 74– 75. 4. Comp. on the abstractness of the “person”: Recht 72, 72(Z), 73, 73(Z), 74, 74(Z), 125, 133, 146; Enc. III 379. 5. Recht 74(Z). 6. Recht 74(Z), 146. 7. “Ausschliessende Einzelnheit”; “vorgefundene Welt”: Recht 72. 8. Recht 73. 9. Comp.: Recht 72, 72(Z). 10. Comp.: Recht 75.

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one should understand not at all an aggregation of “abstract norms” or “right-based authorities.” No, this is a classical state of the human will, subjectively free but limited by external other-being, arousing in it a phenomenal, unfree, “particular” direction of the will. Abstract right is a living status of the human spirit. A human in this state is termed “a person with the capacity for right.” It is understood that the person as an “inner-spiritual-rightful” principle is the existenz minimum of objektive spirit and the basis of its entire first stage: “abstract right.” All further development takes its beginning from “personality,” is created by it and in it. A human being, if he is not a “personality,” does not have the capacity for “right,” cannot deepen himself to the moral state and raise himself to ethical life; for him, consequently, there is no path to fine art, genuine religion, and absolute philosophy. Therefore the voice of the universal, substantial human will, i.e., “right in itself,” calls the human being to become “personality.” The imperative of right declares: “be a person and respect others as persons.”1 This is necessary because otherwise there is no path to spirit. It is included already in the subjectively mature modus vivendi because self-consciousness, having tasted the entire bitterness of “natural subordination,” has already learned to create its inner freedom through recognition of the self-consciousness of the other:2 for the person not acknowledging “personality” in the other it would be necessary to endure the life-and-death struggle again and pass through the school of slavery. It is from this that the fundamental prohibition of natural right against injuring3 personality, its life, its activity, and the sphere of its freedom flows. Hegel considers this prohibition to lie directly at the foundation of all commands of right.4 The freedom of the “person” requires that he move beyond the limits of “abstract personality” and transform it into concrete, content-filled5 subjectivity free from other-being.6 For this the person must accept the encounter with the external objekt, enter with it into a speculative symbiosis, and assimilate its content.7 The emptied universality of the noumenal will must grow together with new particular contents,8 work through them, and return to itself with the burden of a new freedom. Then the inner rightness of will (universal will, “right in itself”) will find for itself “an adequate appearance” in external existence, yet external existence will be ignited by a fire of inner, spiritual significance; then “right in itself ” turns out to be identical with “positive right”; the “shape” of actuality exhibiting the right arises, i.e., a holistic appearing of freedom, or, what is the same 1. Recht 75. 2. See chapter 15. 3. “Verletzen”: Recht 76. 4. Recht 76. 5. Comp.: Recht 135. 6. Recht 146. 7. See chapter 13. 8. Comp.: Recht 75, 75(Z).

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thing, the “idea” of right will be realized.1 Up to this point the inner rightness of will remains “merely a possibility” in relation to external objekts,2 a “permission or a warrant” for the right.3 It is necessary for the singular will as the decisive4 force to exercise this warrant: to take the “particular” content of other-being and carry it into the depth of “the universal” womb. Thus will be realized the common speculative law in the sphere of right. Abstract will develops in just the same way that the soul developed and consciousness grew. It accepts the objekt, posits itself in it, affirms itself in it, obtains through it external existence, uses and masters it, then abandons it and finally, laden with mastery and content, returns into itself freely. It overcomes in the objekt its spurious distinct being, isolation, aimlessness, contingency, and absence of spirituality; to the overcoming of these attributes in the objekt corresponds the overcoming by the subject in itself of immediacy, abstractness, arbitrariness, external directedness, and internal division: the external process of liberation is as always eo ipso a process of inner self-deepening. Describing in this series the acts of the rightful will, Hegel continues to insert new particular meaning into juridical terms. All the categories of jurisprudence, of which some, for example, those having to do with private right, possessed at that time as well a mature content, received from him a purely speculative interpretation. In Hegel’s philosophy of right one must never suppose that ordinary meaning stands behind the ordinary names: the naive scholar, forgetting this rule, will not escape from a state of confusion. For Hegel always means not “right” but “a state of the will as right”; and not an “institution of right,” but “an act and state of the will liberating itself from external life and inwardly deepening itself.” Hegel puts one and the same question as it applies to every state of right: is this status of will one of right? Its rightness is determined by whether this status realizes the essence of freedom and will in a new way; if it does, it is spiritually necessary and therefore spiritually grounded, or, what is the same thing, it is a statusu of the right: then it remains to explain how it arises (its “place” in the speculative order) and in what way precisely it advances the cause of the self-liberation of will. That is why Hegel insists on the systematicity and the “necessary” character of the order of natural right5 and at the same time never tires of emphasizing that he investigates all categories from the point of view of their “significance for right” or “rightfulness.”6 Obviously this rightfulness stems from jus naturale. 1. Comp.: Recht 78, 135. 2. Recht 75. 3. Recht 76. 4. “Beschliessend”: Recht 76. 5. Comp.: Recht 55, 394. 6. Comp., e.g., Recht 27, 28, 30, 107(Z), 113(Z), 121, 141, and others.

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Turning to external objekts and taking them as alien arrivals, the will encounters above all and immediately the inanimate thing 1 and enters into a “process” with it. This thing2 is a fragment of purely external3 existence: it is immediate,4 not substantial5 and not self-sufficient;6 it is separated and distinguished from spirit7 and opposes it as something “without volition,” “unfree, without personhood and without right,”8 as something not having its own end.9 These things are by no means “things in themselves,”10 and the human will possesses power over them because it is their “idealism” and their “truth.”11 The entire sphere of things has the function of creating for humanity a new “sphere of freedom,” 12 and this is expressed in the fact that the human being has an “absolute right of appropriation in relation to all things.”13 The human being has a right to a thing; it belongs to him as a person, and therefore it is his personal right; therefore it is absurd and false to distinguish these two aspects of right.14 A human being realizes his right of personhood/thinghoodv to be the free possessor of things by investing his will15 in any16 thing and imparting to it thus his own end, his own determination, and his own soul.17 His will obtains a new mode of existence—external, and the thing is “sublated,” transformed, and takes a place in the order of spiritual life,18 because it serves the ends of spirit. Obviously, for this the thing must be spiritless and without personhood: the individual is not a thing and does not have his “truth” in another individual: slavery of the person is excluded by natural right.19 The external power of the person over the thing gives the will possession20 (Be-sitz). However, possession presupposes that the free will extends beyond its limits, penetrates into the thing,21 asserts itself in it, and masters it. The possessing will overcame the resistance of the thing and inspirited it; as a result, the spirit of the human finds in the thing its own self,22 its ends and its determinations: it becomes for itself its own proper object. Precisely to that extent the possessing state of the will is truly and rightly property.23 Property constitutes thus a new actuality;24 it gives a new being 1. In the process of “possessing” the relation to other persons is absent: Recht 89. 2. “Sache,” “Ding.” Comp.: Recht 79, 80, 81, 82, and others. 3. Recht 79, 82. 4. Recht 78–79. 5. Recht 79. 6. Recht 82, 83(Z). 7. Recht 81. 8. Recht 79, 81; comp.: Enc. III 379. 9. Recht 82(Z), 99. 10. Recht 82, 82(Z). 11. Recht 82. See chapters 4, 11, and 13. 12. Recht 78; comp.: Enc. III 380. 13. Recht 81. 14. Recht 77. 15. Recht 81, 89(Z), 131; Enc. III 380. 16. Recht 81. 17. Recht 81. 18. Comp.: Recht 82(Z). 19. Recht 81, 96. 20. Comp.: Recht 83; Enc. III 380. 21. “Durchdringung”: Recht 90. 22. Comp.: “mit sich selbst zusammengeschlossen”: Enc. III 380. 23. “Die Seite aber, dass Ich, als freier Wille mir im Besitze gegenständlich und hiermit auch erst wirklicher Wille bin, macht das Wahrhafte und Rechtliche darin, die Bestimmung des Eigenthums aus”: Recht 83. 24. Ibidem.

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to will, a new existence to the person.1 Every person should have personal, private property:2 his freedom requires this, it is necessary for his actuality. Neither property nor communism can fetter or crowd out this right.3 The highest state of will (the state) can limit the arbitrariness of the private property-owner,4 but justice (Gerechtigkeit) requires that every individual have property,5 because each one is a person. This doesn’t mean that equality of possessions is necessary and rational: people are not equal either by nature or by spirit;6 they are “equal” only as “personalities with the capacity for rights,”7 and to that extent it is identically necessary for them all to have private property; the amount of it is not determined by natural right and remains a contingency from the point of view of right.8 The corporeal state is comprehended as the first “property” of the human being: the body is the soul in its external existence; the soul possesses its body, “elevates” it, and asserts itself in it:9 the soul lives in the body only to the degree it desires;10 it has the power to abstract itself from the body and retire into its own innermost depth.11 In this lies its freedom. But as a holistic “shape,” the soul is identified with its body and affirms in it the external being of its personality and its freedom.12 In similar fashion the will is also related to things. Property, according to Hegel, arises in the presence, first, of “corpus,” i.e., of a real encounter of penetrating and transforming spirit13 with matter which is resisting it,14 and, second, “animus,” i.e., an inner, volitional act,15 directed toward appropriation.16 However, completeness of liberation is achieved by passing through three stages: taking possession, use, and alienation. Taking possession (Besitznahme) is the going out of will from itself and the passing into the thing. It is realized either by bodily taking (the means most evident to the senses, but speculatively spiritless),17 or by forming (the most speculative means, because it grows together the inner and the outer into an identity, into an idea),18 or by a designation (the most powerful means, converting a thing into my property on the strength of a single sign).19 1. Comp.: Recht 83, 84(Z), 88, 88(Z). 2. Recht 83, 87(Z), 88(Z); esp. 84. It is interesting that in his earlier treatise “Über die wissenschaftlichen Behandlungsarten des Naturrechts” from 1802 Hegel, apparently under the influence of Plato, considered it necessary to liberate the higher estates from possession, property, and labor, as not absolute conditions. Comp.: W. Beh. 380, 381, 384, 385, 398, 410. 3. Comp.: Recht 83, 84, 85(Z); comp.: W. Beh. 355. 4. Recht 84; comp.: W. Beh. 374, 410. 5. Recht 88(Z). 6. Recht 86, 87. 7. Ibidem. 8. Recht 86, 87, 87(Z), 88(Z). 9. Recht 85, 90, 94, 95. See chapter 15. 10. Recht 85. 11. Comp.: W. Beh. 369, 370; Recht 86, 131. 12. Recht 76, 85, 86; Enc. III 379. 13. Recht 90. 14. Recht 89. 15. “Willensaktus”: Recht 89(Z). 16. “Dass etwas mein sein soll ”: Recht 88. 17. Comp.: Recht 92, 93. 18. Comp.: Recht 93–96. 19. Recht 96–97, 97(Z).

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Use (Gebrauch) is the indwelling of the will in a thing. This indwelling realizes the fundamental meaning of property: an identity1 of the subject (person) and objekt (thing). In order for the will and the thing to become identical, one of them must lose its quality; and thus the substantial will asserts itself while the unsubstantial2 thing perishes.3 It perishes because will alters, destroys, consumes it,4 and in this way discovers the lack of distinct being5 in its nature. The entire destiny6 of the thing consists in being wholly penetrated7 and inspirited by my will. For only the holistic use of the thing8 encompasses its “totality” and realizes the “property” (i.e., the objektivity of my will in things)9 as an idea.10 The property-owner has at his disposal not only the value of the thing (Wert), i.e., the universal basis11 of its specific usefulness,12 but also the whole totality of its external utility;13 otherwise he is not a property-owner. That is why property is unquestionably complete and free property,14 and limitation of it in principle signifies its end.15 Freedom of property must be placed along with the freedom of personality proclaimed by Christianity.16 Alienation (Entäusserung) is the return of will to itself.17 This consists in the will abandoning the external makeup of the thing (derelinquiren),18 ceasing to invest its will19 in it, and returning to itself with a consciousness of its mediatedness by things and of its authority. Obviously will can “discard” and make alien to itself only what is actually external for it (entäussern), what does not constitute the will’s substantial essence.20 For that reason my personality is inalienable, the freedom of my will, my rationality, the self-sufficiency of my ethical and religious convictions:21 natural right does not permit slavery, serfdom, a prohibition against owning property, constraints of conscience, superstitions,22 in a word, anything that distorts or enslaves the universal and infinite essence of my rational self-consciousness.23 No alienation of this sort has any meaning, for by right it is impossible to alienate what is not external. Therefore the slave has an absolute right to return freedom to himself;24 therefore a person cannot alienate all his strength, or all his time,25 or his very life.26 That would mean renouncing the entire “totality” of one’s manifestations and accidental characteristics, i.e., renouncing spirit itself and substance itself, for 1. Recht 98(Z), 100. 2. Recht 99. 3. Recht 98(Z). 4. Recht 97. 5. “Selbstlose Natur ”: Recht 97. 6. “Bestimmung”: Recht 97. 7. “Gänzlich durchdrungen”: Recht 99. 8. “Ganzer Umfang des Gebrauchs”: Recht 99. 9. “Ich mir in der Sache, als positiver Wille objektiv”: Recht 99. 10. Recht 100. 11. “Allgemeinheit”: Recht 102 12. “Specifische Brauchbarkeit”: Recht 101; Enc. III 381. 13. Recht 102. 14. Recht 99. 15. Comp.: “proprietas semper abscendente usufructu” and “dominium utile”: Recht 100, 101. 16. Recht 101. 17. Recht 91, 106; Enc. III 380. 18. Recht 105. 19. Recht 105; Enc. III 380. 20. Recht 105. 21. Recht 105, 106. 22. Recht 106. 23. Recht 105, 106. 24. Comp.: Recht 106, 107, 107(Z). 25. Recht 107. 26. Recht 112, 112(Z), 113(Z).

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as a general rule the totality of “what is isolated” is equal to the universal substance itself.1 From this follow the natural limitations for an author’s rights (the inalienability of spiritual originality)2 and the inadmissibility of suicide.3 Will, subordinating the thing to itself and mastering it, necessarily encounters, in this process of the external liberation of a thing, another will which is striving to liberate itself in that same thing; it sees other-being in the other will and enters into a new process of social selfliberation with it. It strives to possess property not only through the mediation of the thing and itself, but also through the mediation of the other will; it strives to find and assert its desire in the other will and obtains this by means of a contract.4 The contract establishes a unity of diverse wills, preserving their self-sufficiency and distinctiveness.5 Each of the agreeing parties becomes, remains a property-owner, and loses property only according to his own and the other’s will,6 the decision of one arises only in the presence of a decision by the other,7 and both decide one and the same thing. An “identical” will of the two property-owners is formed, based on their arbitrary decision.8 But since the parties meet only superficially, through their “particular” wills, and remain therefore substantially isolated; since they themselves arbitrarily establish the limits of their relative identity and don’t yet ascend to the one, absolutely identical, universal spirit, then the identical will created by them remains only a common will (gemeinsamer Wille) and doesn’t coincide with the true, universal will of reason.9 The fusion of the contracting wills remains “objektively” and “subjectively” limited: only what can be external and other to the will (the singular thing)10 serves as the object of the contract, and the parties exist for each other only as property-owners.11 The superficiality of this volitional identity makes the contract an inappropriate form for any higher ethical state: to reduce the concrete depth of marriage to a contract, as Kant for example did, or the state, as Rousseau for example did, means to introduce into the understanding of them the greatest confusion and degradation.12 However, contracts can be more or less appropriate to a speculative symbiosis. Depending on this they are divisible into the real, in which an actual exchange of values takes place (although not of “speculative con1. Recht 107, 108. See chapter 5. 2. Recht 107–12. 3. Recht 112, 113. 4. Recht 113, 114; comp.: Enc. III 380. 5. Recht 115. 6. Recht 115. 7. Recht 115. 8. Recht 115; Enc. III 381. 9. Comp.: Recht 115, 116, 125(Z); Lass. II 443–44. 10. Recht 116. 11. Recht 76; Enc. III 380. 12. “Grösste Verwirrungen,” “Schändlichkeit”: Recht 116; comp.: W. Beh. 411; Würt. 263, 264; comp.: Lass. II 448–49: “höchste Vernunftwidrigkeit und Infamie.”

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tent”),1 and the formal, in which only one side alienates and the other only receives.2 A “real” contract is higher than a “formal” one because it has a hidden likeness of organic unity: each party is the “totality” of functions.3 All juridical divisions of contracts (for example, into “one-sided” and “two-sided,”4 “real” and “consensual”5) turn out to be inessential in the face of this distinction.6 Every contract, regardless of whether it is real or formal, is an actuality of volitional freedom and therefore possesses a dual makeup: inner, substantial, and external, actualizing. The volitional side in the contract is the substantial: two expressions of will in agreement,7 revealing a spiritual coincidence of wills, i.e., two stipulations.8 Stipulation is not a simple promise (Versprechen), subjective and changeable,9 but a completed and constitutive decision:10 it has already accomplished the alienation, established a “common” will, and annulled the arbitrariness.11 Therefore it is the substantial in the contract; it forms its structure of right.12 The fulfillment of the stipulation is only the natural, juridically mandated, external actualization of the contract.13 But precisely the fulfillment of the contract reveals a new, higher unfreedom in the human will: the fulfillment can be incorrect and even contrary to right: moreover, it can be intended and stipulated in the form of a fraud, and finally, it may not happen at all, and may yield its place to violence and crime. Will turns out to be capable of “falsehood” and of a state antithetical to the right. Will is capable of wrong and crime because it is abstract, i.e., abstracted or detached from its universal depth, and consequently, also from “right in itself,” and filled with contingent and external content.14 In contract will still has not overcome its “particular” and “arbitrary” state as such, but limited it in application merely to the singular thing, to the objekt of the contract.15 Thus enters into life the arbitrariness of the interested person. The essence of wrong and crime consists in will in its existence plunging itself into a state of wrong. This means that “right in itself” (i.e., the rightful status of the will) remains a hidden, empirically ineffective, merely “in itself ” existing state of will. Right does not “manifest itself,” i.e., is not realized; what is not right manifests itself and is realized. The rational 1. See chapter 7. 2. Recht 117, 118. 3. Recht 117. 4. Recht 118–19. 5. Recht 121. 6. Hegel also gives a more detailed division of contracts coinciding with the division suggested by Kant and not without purely juridical interest. Recht 122–25. 7. Recht 117, 117(Z), 119. 8. Recht 119, 120. 9. Recht 120. 10. “Vollbrachte Abschliessung”: Recht 119. 11. Recht 121; Enc. III. 381. 12. Recht 120. 13. Recht 119, 120, 121; Enc. III 381, 381. 14. Recht 76, 125, 125(Z), 126; comp.: “accidenteller Willen”: Enc. III 382. 15. Recht 125.

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and free essence of the will which can possess existence (Existenz) only as a particular, individual will,1 turns out to be pushed aside by the individual will and replaced by individual caprice. As a result the appearance of Right (Erscheinung) is converted into a show (Schein):2 arbitrary caprice asserts some sort of “particular right”3 of its own, not corresponding to the essence, i.e., to “the right in itself.”4 And thus the fate of this show is stored in the show itself: the apparition, attempting to become established self-sufficiently,5 is nullified,6 and the hidden essence unmasks and annuls it, just as all the concretely empirical is annulled.7 “Right in itself ” arises and negates arbitrary right (the negation of a negation);8 this is how it establishes a new identity between itself and the externally isolated will and restores its own meaning; in this way it also creates its own actuality, since what acts and asserts itself in its other-being is actual.9 There are three fundamental types of “wrong”: error, fraud, and crime. Error is that show of right which a person mistakes without malice (unbefangen) for the actual, genuine right, for “right in itself.”10 Dwelling as an appearance in the sphere of empirically finite circumstances, will becomes entangled in contractual misunderstandings and unforeseen events and enters into a conflict of rights with another will.11 It asserts its rightfulness and adduces grounds of right (Rechtsgründe);12 it recognizes and honors “the right in itself ” as genuine and universal and expects a judgment from it;13 it does not wish for anything contrary to right and is not subject to punishment;14 on the contrary, it seeks the right, strives to comprehend it, demands it as an ought-to-be;15 the will rejects only the basis in right of the encountered will and insists on its own opposed, particular interest.16 Such is a civil dispute.17 And if the will by assumption turns out to be in a state of error and “wrong,” it submits to the judgment of the right and remains free, for what triumphs is what the will itself sought and desired—“the right in itself.” Its wrong consisted in that it insisted on its particular interest, not coinciding with universal will; in this way it degraded “the right in itself,” because it placed the right in a position of something unreal, of an “ought-to-be,” of something demanded and only subjectively imagined,18 whereas its true significance lies in being the always living, real power of the individual soul. 1. Recht 125. 2. Recht 126. 3. Recht 126; comp.: Enc. III 383. 4. Recht 127(Z), 76, 125. 5. Recht 127(Z). 6. Recht 126. 7. See chapters 1, 2, 11, and 12. 8. Recht 126. 9. Recht 126, 127(Z). 10. Recht 128(Z), 129, 129(Z), 130(Z). 11. Recht 128, 129(Z); Enc. III 382. 12. Recht 128; Enc. III 382. 13. Recht 129, 129(Z). 14. Recht 131(Z). 15. Recht 129, 130; Enc. III 382. 16. Recht 129. 17. Recht 129; Enc. III 382. 18. Recht 129, 130.

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Fraud is that sort of show of right which an individual arbitrarily creates in order to pass it off to another individual as the true essence of right.1 The pursuit of his own particular interest, in separation from universal will, brings the individual to the point where the content of “right in itself ” becomes insignificant for him.2 He, however, doesn’t openly acknowledge this, but pretends to honor and observe it.3 In actual fact he works at substituting a false apparition4 for the right. Entering into a contract, he concentrates his efforts on arousing trust in this apparition in the other soul; he honors the other “particular will” and deliberately distorts the universal and substantial.5 His will enters a state of evil6 and hypocrisy, and engages in cupidity and arbitrariness; it is directed against the right and by its own existence alone gives rise to the restoration of right.7 It is a state of wrong, and punishment cancels this wrong.8 This canceling power of punishment is revealed with particular clarity when the will falls into the state of crime. Crime is that sort of a show of right, which an individual forcibly9 and openly puts in place of the “right in itself,” in patent contradiction to it and in abrogation of it.10 Any crime is a violation, committed against free will in its external existence.11 Free will in itself cannot be subjected to violence and compulsion, for it is an inner spiritual might and possesses the power to disengage from contact with the one employing violence and withdraw into its free depths; it has the power to detach itself from every representation12 and in the worst case resort to death as the highest abstraction from the external.13 Therefore compulsion and violence are nullified14 in the face of the free will: only one who wishes to submit to compulsion submits to it, and doesn’t exit in a timely manner from external existence, beyond reach.15 However, the external existence of will as such makes it reachable and can subject it to violence and compulsion.16 In property (body and thing), the will robed itself precisely in external existence17 and thereby subjected itself to danger. And thus crime can disrupt the bodily and material existence of the rightful will, although crime is not in a condition to trample upon, abrogate, or degrade “the right in itself,” i.e., the inner life of the free will.18

1. Recht 128(Z), 130. 2. Enc. III 383. 3. Recht 128(Z). 4. Recht 128(Z), 130. 5. Recht 130(Z), 130; Enc. III 383. 6. Enc. III 382–83. 7. Recht 131. 8. Recht 131(Z). 9. Comp.: “gewalttätig böser Wille”: Enc. III 382. 10. Recht 133. 11. Recht 131. 12. W. Beh. 367, 370, 405; Recht 131. 13. W. Beh. 370, 392. 14. W. Beh. 341, 366–68, 405; Enc. III 383. 15. W. Beh. 362–63; Enc. III 384; Recht 131. 16. Recht 131; Enc. III 384. 17. Recht 131. 18. Recht 134, 136(Z), 136–37; Enc. III 382.

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The essence of crime lies in that the will of one individual, having separated from the universal roots, violates and tramples by its external manifestation the external being of another will.1 This state in its essence contradicts the right.2 Moreover, this is an internally contradictory state: for the violating will and the violated will are in essence individual modes of the one universal, substantial will of the nation. Hegel sees in crime not merely the action of a single individual trampling on the external freedom of another, but above all a state of the single universal will. The violating will and the violated will constitute a spiritual identity, i.e., a concrete, speculative identity, hidden from them, existing only “in itself.” The universal will has twice split itself: first, “quantitatively,” into a multitude of individual wills, and second, “qualitatively,” into the individual-universal free will and the individual-particular, selfliberating, and encroaching will. Crime consists in will, needing external existence (in order to become “idea”),3 and having already achieved “material” and “contractual” freedom in that existence, itself transgressing and trampling upon its own freedom (in the individual-particular state), in its external being.4 In crime the will lays hands on itself, and it is necessary that it make the effort and restore its own state of freedom, i.e., a state of the right. This is achieved in punishment. Therefore, if crime is the first act of violence, contrary to right, transgressing freedom, then punishment is the second act of violence, in accordance with right, restoring it.5 The “criminally transgressing” will negates openly both “right in itself” and the external freedom of the aggrieved individual;6 it coerces the other will and thereby negates its capacity for a free rightful life, i.e., its capacity for right.7 The criminal will desires the “wrong” and no longer dissembles:8 it openly leads an existence contrary to right. In this way it doesn’t abrogate or distort “the right in itself” but merely ignores its substantiality and might. It acts as if its own rational and universal nature, which is “identical” with the rational and universal nature of the aggrieved one and of all others,9 ceased its being and lost its substantial significance. And thus the essence of punishment lies in universal will (i.e., the right in itself) carrying out an effort directed to the restoration of the lost, individually particular will. This restoration in its external aspect is a coercive, compulsory measure applied by one individual to another: 1. Recht 132. 2. Recht 132. 3. See chapters 12 and 15. 4. Comp.: Recht 132. 5. Recht 132, 133; comp.: Lass. II 457–58. 6. Recht 133–34, 131(Z), 283; Log. III 90; comp.: Lass. II 456–57. 7. Recht 134. 8. Recht 128(Z). 9. Recht 136–37, 283; comp.: Lass. II 453; see chapters 5, 7, 15, and 18.

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punishment. But in essence it is an act of self-liberation: the criminal, submitting to retribution, accepts only what his proper, individually universal will desires and enters once again into unity with it. In reality, retribution as a restorative effort is essential to spirit; accordingly, it is well-founded and just.1 But this means that the rational, individually universal will of the criminal himself desires retribution:2 it cannot fail to desire it, for it always desires what is just and leads to freedom. Therefore the punished soul preserves its freedom. The punishment itself is a recognition of the soul’s rationality and its freedom: an action produced by will, even if errant, brought about by force, is at bottom rational. Punishment is a high honor, which must never be denied to an individual:3 performing his action as a rational individual, he has already given his consent to the retribution,4 i.e., to the substantial effort leading to reason. Returning to itself the isolated will, defeating the transgression itself,5 negating the negation of right,6 the “right in itself ” performs the essential work of the Eumenides, awakened by the crime.7 It is necessary to extinguish the existence of the crime,8 eliminate,9 annihilate10 the evil that has occurred,11 realize and restore the order of right,12 to revive and affirm the freedom of will from arbitrary deviations and particular aims. In this lies the purpose of retribution:13 not to answer evil with evil;14 not to frighten an individual with threats, equating him to an animal, without the capacity for freedom,15 but to restore the freedom of his will,16 i.e., his noumenal17 universality and rightness. For the will is free only when it lives in unity with the right. Rightful retribution—not in the form of arbitrarily or subjectively determined revenge,18 but in the form of “the justice of punishment,” free from subjective interest and contingency19—presupposes the true will of the judge, directed to the universal, to “right in itself ”; it leads to the creation of the same sort of will in the criminal. This true will is free in the right and right in its freedom. It draws its true determination in its rightness and in its intuition; it doesn’t submit to contingency and 1. Recht 138, 139. 2. Recht 139, 140. 3. Comp.: Recht 139, 140, 175. 4. Recht 140. 5. “Verletzung der Verletzung”: Recht 140, 137, 139. 6. “Negation der Negation”: Recht 136(Z); comp.: Lass. II 453, 501. 7. Recht 143(Z). 8. Comp.: Recht 137, 138. 9. “Wegräumen”: Recht 138. 10. “Vernichtung”: Recht 135; comp.: 294–95. 11. “Übel ”: Recht 138. 12. “Wiederherstellung des Rechtes”: 137; comp.: 286; Phän. 124. 13. “Wiedervergeltung”: Recht 140, 143(Z); W. Beh. 370–71. 14. Recht 137; Hegel doesn’t contradict himself in speaking of “rächende Gerechtigkeit”: Lass. II 453. This is clear from the context. 15. “Wie ein Hund behandelt”: Recht 139(Z). 16. W. Beh. 371; comp.: Lass. II 452, 501. 17. Phän. 122. 18. Recht 144, 145(Z), 146(Z), 286; Enc. III 383, 400. 19. Recht 145; Enc. III 383; comp.: Lass. II 461–62.

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arbitrariness and is not directed to external other-being; but it lives as inner self-determination, as “infinite” subjectivity.1 Such a state of will is already a moral state. The soul of the individual, having found the path to freedom in a thing and in another will, has learned justice through injustice.2 It has learned that even the extremity3 of crime cannot separate the particular will from the universal; that the right is not established arbitrarily; that the one rightness grows and is preserved in the depth of the human soul; and that any “right” not in agreement with this spiritual rightness carries in itself the seed of its own destruction. The soul is free if it lives by the one right. However, up to now the soul has learned to live by it only in its external concerns.

Translator’s Notes a. The Russian term is право, meaning both “right” and “law” (law in general). It forms a pair with закон (“law” in the sense of a statute). Thus the Russian pair право/закон is analogous to the German pair Recht/Gesetz, the French pair droit/loi, etc. More importantly, the first member of each of these pairs can mean either “right” or “law” or, in effect, both (law as an expression of the right). Unfortunately for those writing on jurisprudence in English, we lack an analogous pairing, and hence lack the equivalent of the first member of these pairs. We are thus always forced to choose between “right” and “law,” even in contexts where both would be appropriate. Since this chapter is primarily an account of the section on “Abstract Right” in Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right, I will translate право by “right” except where the context seems specifically to require the narrower meaning of “law.” The reader must remember, however, that “right” may well also include an implicit reference to law in a generalized or ideal sense, and “law” in some contexts may include an implicit reference to “right.” b. These states are in effect ethico-legal statuses. Later in this chapter Il’in employs the term “status” (every occurrence but one spelled in the Roman alphabet) to express this notion. c. Il’in here uses the very unusual term эмпирия, perhaps suggested by the equally unusual empirie found in contemporary German philosophical discourse (e.g., Husserl). See endnote g inchapter 13 of this volume.

1. Recht 146, 146(Z), 147(Z); comp.: Enc. III 384–85. 2. The inclusion of “crime” and “punishment” in the speculative order of the path of Divinity does not at all signify that each individual inevitably becomes a criminal and receives retribution. Madness and crime are extremes which must be overcome “by the human spirit in general”; they may also be present in individual persons in an attenuated form, in the form of “limitation, error, absurd behavior, and non-criminal fault”: Enc. III 201–2. 3. “Extrem”: Enc. III 201.

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d. Il’in here employs a disjunction of two terms, естественное or природное, both of which mean “natural.” e. Again, “experience” here is эмпирия. f. Il’in uses the Roman alphabet here for status. g. The phrase employed by Il’in here is наличное бытие (literally, “present being”), a phrase that he uses repeatedly in this chapter and explicitly connects with Dasein; hence I have translated it as “there-being.” In earlier chapters he used бывание for this purpose. Shpet would later select наличное бытие as his preferred translation of Dasein in his translation of the Phenomenology of Spirit. h. Obviously it is not the Right itself which is subject to change, but positive laws purporting to define the right; these are enacted by humans and are subject to contestation and change. See the addition to the preface of Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen W. Wood., trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 13. i. Нравы: “mores” or “customs.” j. Обычай: “custom.” k. The Russian term is право, which can mean either “right” or “law.” “Positive right” would seem to involve an essential reference to enacted law; therefore I use the term “law” here. Nevertheless, “positive right” could be viewed as an equally valid translation. l. In this and the next sentence there are six occurrences of право; from the context it appears that some of them are best translated as “law”; e.g., there is a reference to “promulgation”; while others are arguably best translated as “right.” However, the difficulty of a definitive resolution of the issue may be illustrated by comparison of two different translations of the same passage to which Il’in is referring, from the beginning of the zusatz to §212 of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (first, the German text): Im positiven Rechte ist daher das, was gesetzmäßig ist, die Quelle der Erkenntnis desssen, was Recht ist, oder eigentlich, was Rechtens ist;—die positive Rechtswissenschaft ist insofern eine historische Wissenschaft, welche die Autorität zu ihrem Prinzip hat. In positive law, therefore, it is the legal which is the source of our knowledge of what is right, or, more exactly, of our legal rights (Rechtens). Thus the science of positive law is to that extent an historical science with authority as its guiding principle. [Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1952, 1967), 136] In positive right, what is legal (gesetzmäßig) is therefore the source of cognition of what is right (Recht), or more precisely, of what is lawful (Rechtens); the positive science of right is to that extent a historical science whose principle is that of authority. (Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. Wood, trans. Nisbet, 244)

m. The Russian phrase is “Положительное право есть право. . .” Since Il’in’s reference here is to §3 of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, it would appear that

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the point being made is that right is made positive by being promulgated as the law in some particular nation. Hence, “positive right is law. . . .” n. The phrase Il’in uses here is a very significant one in the history of Russian jurisprudence: правосознание, which can (only very inadequately) be translated as “legal consciousness.” (See the section “Il’in’s Educational Background and Early Career” in the translator’s introduction to volume 1.) Immediately following the completion of his commentary on Hegel, Il’in produced (in 1919) a substantial manuscript entitled О сущности правосознания (On the Essence of Legal Consciousness). It was not published until 1956, two years after his death. That book is now widely regarded as one of the most important and original contributions to Russian jurisprudence of the twentieth century. In this passage he connects the doctrine of “legal consciousness” with Hegel’s conception of right. See William E. Butler, Russian Law, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 73–75. o. Право, i.e., “right” and/or “law.” p. Право. q. A deep conviction. r. Present in the court. s. A court in which all functions are performed by professionals, with no involvement by ordinary citizen-jurors. t. Again, the phrase is правосознание: “legal consciousness,” or “consciousness of right.” u. Il’in’s phrase is правый status (the latter term in the Roman alphabet); hence, a “rightful status” or a “status of the right.” v. In Roman law rights were divided into rights of persons, things, and actions. In §40 of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel argues that “personal right is in essence a right of things,” and hence these are not two distinct types of rights, but one.

17

Morality

Morality is the truth of abstract right, i.e., a higher, more free, and more concrete stage in the ordering of rightful states of the will. Morality is a higher stage because the human will enters onto this level only after having passed through the mediation of “abstract right” and having overcome its determinations. The moral state of the will, in distinction from the state of abstract right, is no longer primitive: the will has experienced the encounter with the thing (property) and with another will invested in the thing (contract), and through this involvement “in the thing” realized its internal division to the end (crime). It asserted its identity with the thing and separated itself from it; it established its community with the will of another property owner and strengthened itself with his agreement; it came to know the inclination to untruth and unjust action, and became convinced that right is an unbreakable, unwritten law hiding in the will’s own depth. Mediated by all these exertions and sufferings, having overcome the bitterness of the first, abstract, and external self-determination, the will enters into the moral state. Morality is a freer stage because the human will, entering on the moral level, is no longer directed to the external, not to the thing, nor to a being invested in the thing, but to the inner. In the moral state the will is directed to itself; it is “reflected into itself”1 and seeks identity no longer with the thing but with itself.2 As before, it remains a self-determination, but it no longer defines itself through the medium of external other-being; its objekt is its own self: it is an “infinite” or centripetal creativity and knows of this itself ( für sich). To that extent the will turns out no longer to be simply an “abstract person,” i.e., an “externally bounded infinity,”3 but a subject,4 i.e., the inwardly creative infinity of spirit. The will is free because it liberated itself in external other-being and in the same way from external other-being. It learned that rightful law is not alien to it, for it forms the will’s own free nature, customary for it—its own spiritual more; it learned thanks to this to seek in its own self the source of its rightness and to create its own rightful status self-sufficiently. It became freer because its self-activity increased and its selfconsciousness deepened. 1. Recht 148; Enc. III 385.

2. Comp.: Recht 148.

3. See chapter 16.

4. Recht 148. 81

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Morality is a more concrete stage because the human will located at the moral level disposes of a richer content and lives in a closer unity or “grown-togetherness” with itself. The entire content gained by the will in its “abstract rightness” does not disappear, but is preserved at the moral level: the exertion and suffering of the individual soul in the process of its self-identification with the thing and in its encounter with the judging law, tells it that the sphere of its freedom has been enlarged with new determinations and conditions, and that now it is necessary for it to heal its inner rift. The “particular” will withdraws from external attraction and, having accepted the idea of inner self-determination, seeks concrete identity with the eternally right and eternally free deep roots of universal will. The moral will doesn’t lose the relations to material nature and other persons; it also preserves the possibility of degradation and the capacity for guilt; but its creativity is concentrated on developing for itself an inner perfection, a free and holistically concrete state grounded in the right. From this it is obvious that perfection is only what is sought in morality and that the term “moral will” expresses not approval or a positive evaluation (as opposed to an evil, immoral state), but signifies a particular structure of the human soul, a particular mode of living, acting, and relating characteristic of the will in its incompletely free state. “Morality” is a spiritually necessary stage of human life and to that extent it is a rightful state of the will, or the right; 1 precisely for that reason Hegel regards “morality” as a form of “the right”: in the speculative growth of the will the moral state is a status bene fundatus.a However, this doesn’t mean that “morality” is the highest and freest state of the will; on the contrary, analysis of morality shows its imperfection, its limitations, and its insufficiency. On Hegel’s lips “morality” is not only not a synonym of “virtue” and not only doesn’t express approval, but on the contrary is not seldom a critical and negative characterization of the soul. Like all transitional and less-thanhighest stages, the “moral” state of spirit is at one and the same time a “right” and a “wrong,” a “free” and an “unfree,” an admissible and an unacceptable, state. And perhaps no one has revealed the weak aspects of morality with such indignation and mercilessness as Hegel. The essence of the moral state is determined by its origin. The “particular” will, lost in its abstract self-determination (“wrong”), heeds the summoning voice of its rational depth and grasps that “right in itself ” is inviolable and universal and that it is to be found in inner, subjective selfdetermination. The moral state of the will is defined as a seeking: the particular will seeks the inviolable and universal good. 1. Comp.: “der moralische Standpunkt ist daher in seiner Gestalt das Recht des subjektiven Willens”: Recht 149. Hegel’s emphasis.

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However, precisely because it seeks it, it doesn’t yet know it and doesn’t possess it. The moral will knows the true path, which is self-activity, and moves in a true direction: i.e., centripetally. But it doesn’t know the fundamental secret of its being: it doesn’t know that the good is its own universal essence of will, immanent in it. In the depth, concealed within, the “particular” will in itself (an sich) is identical with the universal,1 with the divine fire of its nature; but it doesn’t know it: for it ( für sich) this identity doesn’t exist. And by this is determined the essence and fate of the moral soul. Knowing that the good can be found through self-activity, the subjective soul asserts in morality its right to full and holistic self-determination: the will recognizes (anerkennt) only that which, and itself is only that which, is accepted by it,2 that which it affirms as “its own,” in which it sees no limitation for its infinitude.3 In this lies the “moral freedom” of the will: each state, each of its determinations it recognizes as its own only to the extent that it knew of it and desired it.4 For that reason it seeks the good, as something internal to itself recognized and affirmed by itself: it has the right to make the good the object of its knowledge and volition. And at the same time it doesn’t see its own deep, innermost identity with it. The good is for it a certain other-being, from which it is separated and which stands opposed to it. The moral will supposes itself not to be in identity with the good, but to be related to it.5 It is itself separated from the good, counterposed to it and limited6 by this counterposition. This signifies that it is abstract and formal,7 for it is abstracted from the absolutely real roots, rich in content, of its life. Thus is revealed also in morality this fundamental division of the will into a deep “universality” and a superficial “particularity.” The particular will is the “moral subject” itself or the specifically “moral” will; it forms the aspect of appearance or existence (Existenz,8 Dasein9) and takes the form of its own substantial10 universal will.11 Moral subjectivity is the visible way of life, taken upon itself “by freedom,” or, what is the same thing, “the in-itself-existing will.”12 But the volitional substance, having wrapped itself in “the moral subject,” obtains actuality through this and is the idea.13 However, the particular will, not knowing of this, lives and acts as though it were self-sufficient; it is aware only of its superficial subjective freedom, treasures it, and remains finite, singular, and limited. Precisely as finite and limited, the moral will sees its imperfection and constructs the perfected, inviolable, and universal good as “the highest,” 1. Recht 149, 150, 151. 2. Recht 149–50. 3. “Insofern es das Seinige, er darin sich als Subjektives ist”: Recht 150. Hegel’s emphasis. 4. Enc. III 385–86. 5. Recht 151, 151(Z). 6. Recht 150. 7. Recht 149, 150. 8. Recht 148. 9. Recht 149. 10. Comp.: Recht 151(Z). 11. Recht 149. 12. Recht 148, 150. 13. Recht 148, 149.

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as subject to being realized, demanded, as that which ought to be.1 In the best case the will recognizes it,2 but does not assert itself in it; rather, it asserts it in itself. And on the basis of this ignorance, of this speculative blindness, is laid down the distinctive moral worldview which is more than once characterized by Hegel in its foundations. The moral subject as a subject is an acting being, and moreover, one determining itself to action. This self-determination consists in the subjective will consciously imparting to itself a certain content and then striving by its action to transform it into “objektivity,” i.e., to give to it immediate existence; the content, living in the subjective will, and then realized by it in the world, is its purpose.3 Remaining singular, finite, and limited will, it is at once opposed to: first, the external world of things and persons in which it realizes its purposes; and second, the inwardly presented idea of the good, the realization of which it imposes upon itself as a duty. The moral will sets for itself a task: to find that content and that purpose which would possess actual goodness and could be recognized as universally obligatory. This purpose must indicate to the will a single, objektively true and universally significant direction, or, approaching the moral state from within, a single universally significant stimulus, the one always true motive of action. All singular situations and states of a human being are different, distinctive, and unreproducible. The only one which is present always and in every case is the very relation of the acting will to the highest good, i.e., its obligation, its being bound by duty. The human will in all the situations of life remains in the presence of the good an obligated will, and moreover it remains so independently of its individual intentions, particularities, and impulses. The good is the obligatory for every rational being as such (the categorical imperative); the human being seeking the good seeks what is obligatory, and one can say, he who finds the objektively true object, the good itself has found his duty. Duty is the necessary and pure form of the good in its relation to the human will; all stimuli and motives have an empirical, contingent, transient, and sensuous nature; duty is the sole stimulus having a non-sensuous but formal, necessary, and non-empirical, but intellectually graspable character. Therefore the will to the good, or the will to the right, is the will to duty; the sole rightful purpose is the realization of duty; the sole rightful motive is respect for duty. Duty is the sole and the necessary law of morality, and for that reason the moral will determines itself to carry out duty for the sake of duty. This was precisely the classical foundation of morality, given by Kant.4 1. Recht 151. 2. Recht 151. 3. Recht 152. 4. Hegel does not expound this deduction in full, though he constantly refers to it and cites it in parts.

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It is on this basis that the moral worldview is constructed.1 The moral soul, determining itself by duty and discovering through it its rationality, encounters in itself a resistance, proceeding from sensuous stimuli and impulses in all their multiplicity and variety; opposition, a lack of agreement, is discovered in the soul.2 The rational soul doesn’t submit, however, to these impulses, and asserts its own law (autonomy), striving to limit the sensuous and to subordinate it to itself.3 It strives to be free and pure will, not constrained and not mixed with empirical contents.4 But for that it is necessary for it to defeat them, to reduce their multiplicity to a single motive and law, and to create in this way a harmony and a wholeness within its bounds. The moral worldview is the view of a being who recognizes duty and is seeking spiritual harmony, or, what is the same thing, the concreteness of spiritual life. The moral soul strives, first, toward harmony between pure will, true duty, and the irrational, sensuous impulses of the soul. Its activity 5 is precisely in this direction, taking the form of incessant struggle. Scarcely are they subjugated and reduced to silence than sensuous impulses raise their head anew, and heroic exertions of pure will are powerless to eradicate them. No matter how complete the victory of duty, moral consciousness sees itself as before—incomplete and overcome by a sense of its own imperfection. Strict self-constraint and forced obedience don’t permit spiritual harmony to flourish. This difficulty is complicated by the fact that the many-sidedness of empirical situations places before moral consciousness an entire series of obligations or “duties,” varied in content, but categorically summoning and demanding, which must be reduced, just as in principle so also in realization, to a single, complete, sacred duty.6 And thus moral consciousness, knowing that the good is inviolable and whole, and at the same time seeing it violated and fragmented within itself, postulates the being of another, perfected consciousness, i.e., of a higher being, in the activity of which the sensuous is reconciled with duty, and the particular will, with the universal.7 The power of this divine perfection guarantees to humanity the realizability of duty, the triumph of the pure will and the attainability of freedom and spiritual harmony.8 It strengthens humanity’s faith in reason and in the rationality of duty, faith that humanity can accomplish what it must accomplish; by this means it imparts to duty its true, unshakable significance.9 1. “Moralische Weltanschauung”: Phän. 453. 2. W. Beh. 348; comp.: Glaub. 153. 3. W. Beh. 348; comp.: Glaub. 153. 4. Comp.: Glaub. 149–50. 5. Phän. 458. 6. Phän. 458– 59. 7. Phän. 459. 8. Comp.: Phän. 459–60. 9. Comp.: Phän. 460.

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Moral consciousness strives, second, for harmony between the activity of the pure will and its results. These results must stand in an actual and just conformity with the creative efforts of the moral soul. On one hand, the external world, taking shape according to its own independent and objektive laws (“the laws of nature”),1 must not subject any conquest of the pure will to distortion and futility. From this arises the postulate of harmonious coordination between the “kingdom of nature” and the “kingdom of moral freedom.”2 On the other hand, the efforts of the moral soul, advancing its perfection, must give it a corresponding satisfaction: the higher the “virtue” of the soul, the more it is deserving of happiness.3 From this follows the postulate of higher justice in the world and recompense to each according to his deeds.4 All of these postulates are combined in one: the existence of the Divinity is assumed, i.e., of an absolute, morally perfect being, wisely constructing the world and caring for justice and for the merited happiness of people. Opposite this being stands a multitude of people, of limited, finite noumenal spirits, of an imperfect, a struggling and yearning harmony of souls, subordinated to duty and subject, on the empirical side, to external and internal laws of nature. Their creativity has its limit and its fate in the dual makeup of their being: on one hand, to them is given the pure will, and the law of duty is revealed; on the other hand, to them is given a sensuous nature, and complete perfection is unattainable. Therefore the good as a holistic, harmonious, and perfect condition remains for human beings a regulative idea, an infinitely resolvable and yet not resolved task.5 Such is the “moral worldview.” Hegel sees in it “an entire nest of senseless contradictions”6 and subjects it to severe and consistent, though not always impartial, criticism. The moral worldview is, first, internally contradictory; second, without content; third, mistaken about its own sources and roots. It not only does not reveal the essence of the good and does not lead to perfection, but directly and in all respects contradicts true virtue and ethical life: “moralitas omnibus numeris absolute virtuti repugnat.”7, b Thus, first, the moral worldview is internally contradictory, and moreover, not in the sense of genuine, dialectical “contradictoriness” arising immanently and ascending to a concrete synthesis, but in the sense of an ugly confusion, leading the soul to a helpless frenzy 8 and futile, demoralizing contrivances. Moreover, moral consciousness knows of its contradic1. Comp.: Phän. 453. 2. Comp.: Phän. 455. 3. Phän. 454–55. 4. Comp.: Phän. 460– 61. 5. Phän. 457–58. 6. Phän. 464. 7. Ros. 159. 8. Comp.: “Verstellung,” “schwindelnde Bewegung,” etc.: Phän. 463, 464, and following.

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tions, tries to conceal them, and thereby proves that it doesn’t take seriously its own claims.1 Thus, above all, the doctrine of morality concerning duty and sensuousness is contradictory. On one hand, the moral soul excludes sensuous aims and impulses to such an extent that it repudiates, in Kant’s words, even altruistic stimuli as false; on the other hand, it attains harmony between duty and the sensuous.2 It strives to act in the empirical world and throws out all empirical content, which remains the necessary internal (inclination, impulse) and external (organs of the body) means for empirical action in the name of the ideal.3 Morality has to do with the singular, empirical soul, and the actions of this soul are possible only with the involvement4 (moreover with the creative tensions) of its irrational aspects. Therefore the “pure will” can neither accept nor reject the sensuous impulses, and remains in a state of vacillating struggle with itself and with them. Precisely the struggle with the sensuous 5 comprises the essence of morality. But this means that the state of harmony, if it were realized, would put an end to the moral feat, overcoming the sensuous: it would turn out that there is nothing to overcome, that moral exertions, victories, and deserts are no longer needed.6 Therefore, if moral consciousness is consistent, it must recognize that it dedicates its energies to the elimination of morality, the overcoming of it.7 There, where the struggle with “sensuousness” has ended, morality has nothing to do. And thus, frightened by the prospect of self-annihilation, the moral consciousness hurries to put off this achievement into the empirical infinite,8 into a “nebulous distant prospect” where it is impossible to distinguish anything with precision,9 into an absolutely unattainable beyond.10 However, in this way morality affirms itself as incomplete, imperfect, unattained: it turns out to be “an interim state of incompleteness,” ascending to completion.11 This ascent is expressed in the gradual weakening of the moral struggle, in the gradual disappearance of “feats” of the pure will12—the more perfect is the soul, the less it is moral. Such are its first, fundamental contradictions. They are connected further with a multitude of other difficulties. That gradualness with which morality cedes its place to “non-morality” presupposes a fragmentability, a quantitative and qualitative divisibility of realized virtue; however, such a presupposition is unacceptable for 1. “Es bekennt damit, dass es ihm in der Tat mit keinem derselben Ernst ist”: Phän. 464; comp.: 465–76. 2. Phän. 468. 3. Phän. 468. 4. Comp.: Phän. 468. 5. Phän. 469. 6. Phän. 469. 7. Phän. 469. 8. Comp.: Phän. 457. 9. “Neblichte Ferne,” “nichts genau zu unterscheiden”: Phän. 469. 10. Log. I 271. 11. “Zwischenzustand der Nichtvollendung,” “Fortschreiten zur Vollendung”: Phän. 469. 12. Phän. 469, 470.

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morality, taking into account the non-empirical nature and strict unity of “the moral quality”: duty as the sole motive, and being true to it as the sole dignity.1 But if so, if virtue is actually an integral whole and absolute, then in the human soul it is either present or absent; tertium non datur.c And the moral soul is characterized precisely by the absence of virtue: morality is a struggle, i.e., a state of disharmony, a discrepancy between the recognition of duty and its realization;2 morality is an upsurge toward the ideal as to something that has not been attained, and therefore the good remains an unreal fiction:3 it is a “rational idea,” transformed into a mere task4 and “utterly absent” in actuality.5 There is no moral actuality.6 But in that case, if the essence of morality lies in its unrealizability, if it is nothing more than a remote ideal, then what is the “worth” and “merit” of the moral soul about which it calls for itself, demanding for itself a “justified” happiness?7 How dare the individual grumble that “in this world virtue remains without reward,” if he himself is not virtuous and deserves no reward whatsoever?8 He demands and “postulates,” while having no merit. But this means that he is counting on “grace,” i.e., on the arbitrary leniency of another being.9 Why does he, secretly trusting in “undeserved grace,” put his supposed virtue on display? Why does he speak of the unjust arrangement of the world, if he in conformity with justice doesn’t deserve “happiness”? Perhaps he simply envies the happy and pleads on behalf of himself and his friends?10 Here it is discovered that the aim of the moral individual is not so much virtue as it is happiness: for “virtue, deprived of happiness” seems to him unacceptable, and “undeserved happiness” seems to him desirable.11 He even demands special guarantees that happiness will not pass him by, if only in a “future” life. True, moral consciousness is inclined to think that the best “reward” for it would be “the feeling of fulfilled duty”: but then why does it cry out about more, and about the injustice of the world order? If the reward is concealed in morally true activity itself, then whence the joylessness of duty?12 And if being true to duty is joyful in itself, then why is the harmony between “reason” and “happiness” unrealized?13 But if it is realizable, then why the complaints and the remote “postulates”? Perhaps the moral human being, rejecting empirical and sensuous happiness, now seeks compensation for his loss? He should understand that he himself secretly dreams of freeing himself from “mo-

1. Phän. 470; comp.: W.Beh. 349–50; Log. I 272. 2. Phän. 463, 479. 3. “Unwirkliches Gedankending”: Phän. 474. 4. “Bloss Vorgegebenes”: Glaub. 153. 5. “Durchgehends abwesend ”: Glaub. 153. 6. “Dass es kein moralisch Wirkliches giebt”: Phän. 463. 7. Phän. 470. 8. Phän 470–71. 9. Phän. 470. 10. Phän. 471. 11. Phän. 470. 12. Phän. 465, 467. 13. Phän. 465.

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rality” and that his ideal lies in making moral activity superfluous and abolished.1 The moral soul is drawn to happiness because the fulfillment of duty in parts, even if one calls it fulfillment of duty, cannot give full satisfaction. But “Duty” as a single great whole is impossible to fulfill: this would be that realization of the ideal which from the very beginning was recognized as impossible. But if in actual fact the realization of the ideal is put off to infinity2 and Duty is impossible to fulfill, then why does morality call on one to believe in the rationality and performability of duty? Kant says, “You can, because you must”; he supposes that the source of duty is reason, but reason would have ceased to be reason if it prescribed something unperformable. However, strictly speaking, Kant ought to have said the reverse: “You cannot, precisely because you must.”3 A piece of duty is not duty, but it is not given to humans to perform more than a “piece of duty.” For that reason “duty” forever remains “merely duty”:4 this is a sign of the fact that the individual did not do what ought to have been done and cannot carry out everything to the end. What does a person speaking about duty have in mind? He represents to himself a certain object or content which exists only in thought and imagination.5 This content is the good itself, i.e., the most absolute and real6 of everything that has existence. And morality converts this absolute reality into an unreal7 and unrealizable “idea.” The good is present in the moral soul, for the human being has a “consciousness of the ideal,” but the good is not present in the moral soul, for the subjective will is separated from the universal. The good is both accessible to the human, and not accessible to him;8 consciousness of duty lifts the soul beyond all limits, and at the same time, as consciousness of duty it sets for him an unapproachable boundary.9 Duty formulates a task which will forever remain a task,10 and the theorizing moralist, knowing this, calls for faith in the performability of duty. . . . It is natural that all these contradictions call forth doubts about duty, doubts about its rationality and its absolute significance: for what is the sense of an unresolvable task, in the resolvability of which it is all the same better to believe? The rationality of duty itself stands in need of grounding. This grounding consists in the fact that the morally obligatory is realized by the Divine. However, the sacredness of duty cannot be made stronger by this reference: first, duty is sacred in itself, otherwise it is not duty; second, if the sacredness of the Divinity is determined by its being true 1. “Gar nicht vorhanden,” “überflüssig”: Phän. 467, 468. 2. Comp.: Log. I 271–72. 3. Log. I 143. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 428; Recht 96, 129, 207. 5. Comp.: Phän. 462. 6. Enc. III 389. 7. Enc. III 389. 8. Phän. 463. 9. Log. I 142. 10. Comp.: Phän. 458.

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to duty, then the significance of duty cannot rest upon the sacredness of the Divinity. The religious grounding of duty plunges the moral soul into a false circle and deprives it of autonomous self-determination.1 In precisely the same way the realizability of duty cannot be proven by a reference to Divinity: that which is realizable for God can turn out to be unrealizable for a human.2 In the end, what the Divinity realizes is precisely not morality with all of its vacillations and exertions, but a holistic harmony,3 the unattainability of which, for humans, morality continues to confess even after its reference to the Divinity.4 If the human soul really is virtuous, then having seen all these contradictions in morality, it will immediately understand that it has set out on a false path, and, quitting it, retire into itself: its pure conscience will not be in a condition to support such a worldview. It will begin to act in simplicity, with unmediated conscientiousness and will be right.5 But if in this it should not wish to confess the contradictoriness and non-benign nature of the abandoned worldview and continues to maintain it “for others,” then its way of life will remain hypocritical.6 Such is the contradictory nature of the moral worldview. However, the moral doctrine not only confuses the individual human with contradictions; it deceives his expectations, promising him firm and determinate guidance on the path to the good, and leaving him in the face of indeterminateness and emptiness. Morality is the abstractly rational doctrine of the good and virtue;7 therefore it combines in itself all the defects and confusions of abstract reason.8 This is expressed first in that the moralist thinks virtue, not intuiting it, and thereby converts it into the abstract concept of “the good”; further, in that it tears away the generic essence from the content-filled singularity and leaves both sides in absolute opposition; finally, in that it is satisfied by a formal resolution of the problem and fails to notice that the ill-fated emptiness of its formulae throws the soul guided by it into a chaos of empirical experienced and arbitrariness. The separation of thought from intuition is that foundation on which grows the abstractly rational misadventure of morality. The problem of ethics is impossible to solve either by intuitive vision alone, outside of thought, or by thought alone without intuition. On one hand the very object of ethics—the virtuous state of spirit—conceals within itself the principle of thought, for virtue is a state of will, and will is the creative power of self-consciousness and reason;9 on the other hand, the method 1. Phän. 472. 2. Comp.: Phän. 472–74. 3. Comp.: Phän. 472, 473, 474. 4. Phän. 474. 5. Phän. 475. 6. Phän. 475–76. 7. Comp.: Glaub. 153–54; W. Beh. 397–98; Phän. 451 and others. 8. See chapter 2. 9. Enc. I 5; Recht 57, 173; see chapter 15.

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of ethics as such is a scientific method and flows in the element of speculative thinking. The virtuous will is the thinking will, for it ascends to true universality,1 and the thinkable will, for it is part of the speculative order. To leave to ordinary subjective intuition—to the “heart,” to “mood,” to “inspiration,” and so forth—to decide the question of what is “right, rational, and excellent” means to tolerate the dominance of “the most trivial and empty fancies and the most foolish opinions” in the most important attitudes of life.2 However, if the doctrine of the good cannot be constructed outside of thought, then it is also impossible outside of intuition. Thought, left to itself, not saturated with living creative imagination, is incapable of mastering the content of the object and withdraws into the sphere of contentless abstraction.3 It, of necessity, abstracts the bare form and converts the living power of the good into a dead schema, an “infinite idea,” and so forth. One who strives toward a true knowledge of the good must understand that the entire question of the ethical is the question of content,4 and not of form, and that the content is comprehended only through intuitive thought. The philosopher investigating virtue must above all secure “the complete adequacy of intuition to the concept,”5 and only then will he be in a condition to overcome those temptations of abstract reason which Kant failed to master. The moral doctrine in its ordinary form remains abstractly rational and converts the good into an abstract concept. It considers the “universal” in separation from the “singular”6 and the “abstract” in opposition to the “concrete”; and in this way it ruins its entire cause. The “universal” turns out to be a spurious and empty abstraction, and the “singular,” a spurious, empirical concreteness. As a result of this, the living, creatively whole fabric of the virtuous spirit is torn7 into isolated and opposing aspects, and the organic wholeness of the universal and good will is converted into the disjecta membra of the incomplete and languishing individual soul. The pure will hopelessly opposes empirical sensuousness;8 the abstract law opposes the desired content;9 the unity of the abstract good opposes the multiplicity of singular deeds and subjects;10 unreal duty opposes the real life of a human being.11 The life of the soul proceeds in a collision between duty and passion12 and in comical clashes of one duty with another.13 Abstract reason becomes entangled in mutually opposed abstract demands and singular empirical causes and

1. Recht 161, 173. 2. Recht 169, 197; see chapter 3. 3. See chapter 3. 4. W. Beh. 351. 5. Lass. II 419. 6. Comp.: Phän. 502. 7. “Zerrissenheit”: Nohl 266. 8. Glaub. 137, 153; comp.: Diff. 246. 9. Comp.: W. Beh. 350, 351. 10. Comp.: W. Beh. 360, 361. 11. Comp.: Nohl 267; Glaub. 135, 140; Phän. 481; Enc. I 117 and others. 12. Phän. 347. 13. Phän. 347.

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situations. An absolute duty admitting of no compromises is that “universality” which cannot stand in concrete identity with the “singularity” of the human deed: living activity remains in the sphere of senseless empirical experience,e and the dead duty remains in the sphere of the celebrated unrealizable ideal.1 The abyss between them is filled willy-nilly by an endless vague approximation2 and accordingly, strictly speaking, remains unfilled. Human activity and the ideal remain heterogeneous, answering to different laws, opposed and not unifiable. The mature fruit of this abstractly rational approach is the complete emptiness of the supreme moral principle: duty. Morality understands the problem of ethics as finding a single rule and criterion for all life events. But that which is conceived as one in relation to a subordinated multiplicity will inevitably be a formal abstraction:3 it will be counterposed to everything having content and will turn out to be in itself free of any and all content.4 Every moral deed is distinct, but all have something in common. What is common is the creative principle itself, the human will, and accordingly its formal law, i.e., its means of relating itself to the good and motivating its decision. And that is duty. But since the content arrives at rationalistic abstraction from without, from empirical sensuousness, then the moral will sees in any content an alien interloper, violating its formal autonomy. Therefore it abstracts from everything “material.”5 To indicate to duty some sort of permanent content, as absolute as its form, means to recognize that duty must be desired not for the sake of duty,6 i.e., not because the soul strives for virtue, but because the individual likes that particular empirical content. And meanwhile the essence of the righteous will consists above all in that it desires to be virtuous not for the sake of something else, but exclusively because it desires the good. And thus the moralist, having established the self-worth of virtue, turns out to be powerless to fill the good with any sort of content: for all content degrades the autonomy of the moral will in the eyes of the moralist, and all content has an empirically sensuous character. He is doomed to insist on the “empty feeling of duty.”7 And meanwhile the soul desiring “good for the sake of good” expects with full justification that the moralist will show the soul precisely what it desires as the highest and ultimate value. It expects in vain: it will not hear anything from the moralist other than an “empty declamation”8 on the theme of “the good is the good,” and “duty is duty.” 1. Comp.: Glaub. 152–53. 2. Glaub. 152–53; Log. I 153–54. 3. See chapters 2 and 5. Comp.: W. Beh. 351. 4. Comp.: W. Beh. 349–50; and esp. 351. 5. W. Beh. 351. 6. Glaub. 150. 7. Glaub. 150. 8. “Hohle Declamation”: Glaub. 140.

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Obviously such a tautology1 cannot lead to the knowledge of the good. The abstract rationality of the moralist, once having set out on the path of “analytic unity,”2 on the path of abstract “indifference”3 and fixed, empty concepts,4 cannot pronounce anything other than superfluous,5 morally false6 and empty7 identities. These tautologies remain cut off from life and truth8 and leave the searching consciousness faced with abstractions and fabrications, deprived of any substance.9 Kant attempts to escape from this circle, establishing the first formula of the categorical imperative: “act so that the maxim of your action could be made a principle of universal legislation.” However, here is revealed his circling in emptiness. The maxim of any action10 can be made a principle of universal legislation: confronted with formal duty, human thought retains an unbounded arbitrariness in the affirmation and negation of various contents. Why then does formal duty not permit fraud, theft, murder? Kant supposes that if fraud, theft, and murder were to become principles of general behavior and everyone were to commence committing fraud, theft, and murder, then there would be an internal contradiction:11 trust, peaceful cohabitation of people, and finally the human clan itself would disappear. This supposition does not convince Hegel.12 What internal content of formal duty would the disappearance of trust, peace, and humanity contradict, he asks Kant; how would a human being, desiring duty for the sake of duty, learn that the good consists in trust, peace, and the existence of rational beings? One of two things: either these contents must be explicitly included in the formal principle of morality, but then it would cease to be formal and the entire doctrine would turn out to be bankrupt; or the moralist must not refer to them in order to not to receive reproach for an inadmissible “sleight of hand.”13 The principle of formal duty does not stipulate and cannot stipulate any content whatsoever; it is indifferent14 to any and all “matter”f and can accommodate within itself any at all.15 But since the acting soul is above all a choosing and deciding soul, and morality leaves it before the empirical multiplicity of possibilities16 without instructions, it inevitably turns to arbitrariness.17 If it is a good and noble soul, then it is caught in a principle-less choice, falls into indecision, and, choosing under the 1. Comp.: W. Beh. 350, 353, 354, 398; Phän. 319; comp.: on “the law of contradiction”: W. Beh. 350. 2. W. Beh. 350, 398. 3. Comp.: W. Beh. 398. 4. Comp.: W. Beh. 354, 398. 5. W. Beh. 353, 354. 6. W. Beh. 353. 7. Glaub. 105; W. Beh. 357. 8. Glaub. 117. 9. W. Beh. 401; Phän. 290, 291. 10. W. Beh. 351. 11. W. Beh. 350. 12. Comp.: W. Beh. 352–53; Recht 178–79. 13. Comp.: “Verkehrung,” “Taschenspielerei ”: W. Beh. 354. 14. “Gleichgültig”: Phän. 485. 15. W. Beh. 353, 354. 16. Comp.: Glaub. 150, 151; W. Beh. 353–54; Recht 193–94. 17. Glaub. 151; W. Beh. 350, 352.

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influence of chance, becomes aware of acting irrationally.1 If the soul is corrupt, then it follows its personal interest with the certainty that later it will be possible to justify anything in terms of duty and pacify its conscience.2 And, actually, only a very artless or uneducated individual would have difficulty picking a pretended justification for his pretended innocence.3 Such is the enormous danger that the doctrine of morality conceals within itself: it proposes a secure asylum for the most repulsive4 hypocrisy,5 imperceptibly corrupting the moral life. Self-interested people hiding behind empty declamations on the theme of duty, putting on airs and dignifying themselves with an empty and false bombast,6 can successfully simulate virtue and justify their baseness with moral arguments.7 The Kantian morality, springing from a pure and elevated8 disposition, can easily degenerate in people’s hands in a whole series of imaginary and false forms of virtue, starting from ordinary hypocrisy, which knows in what the good consists, carrying out evil and donning the mask of righteousness before others,9 and finishing with the “moral skill of the Jesuits”10 with their flagrantly artful “probabilism,” replacing trustworthiness with probability, and justification with arbitrary and illusory argumentation.11 As a counterweight to this, it should be recognized that it is impossible to construct a doctrine of the good and virtue paying no attention to content. A contentless good and an empty virtue are injurious phantoms. But in such a case two ways out open up before a formal doctrine of morality. Either introduce the content from empirical experience,g more or less openly accepting and somehow “pushing” it into the formal categories of abstract rationality; or seek out more lively, rich, and concrete sources of virtue in relation to which the moral will turns out to be only an imperfect modification. Kant openly exercised the first way out and failed to notice that secretly he made use also of the second. In his conception, duty, in order to obtain some sort of content, must be “employed on” or “applied to” the empirical situation or action; but empirical action, in order to obtain moral qualification and evaluation, must be “subsumed,” “placed under” the abstract idea of duty. Obviously such a subsumption

1. Comp.: Glaub. 151. 2. Comp.: Glaub. 151; W. Beh. 355. 3. W. Beh. 355; Recht 194. 4. Comp.: “mit Abscheu”: Phän. 475; “verschmäht”: Phän. 475, 476. 5. “Heuchelei”: Phän. 475, 476. 6. Comp.: “Declamationen,” “Aufschwellung,” “gross von einer leeren Aufgeblasenheit”: Phän. 291. 7. “Niederträchtigkeit als Moralität gerechtfertigt”: Glaub. 152; comp.: Recht 191. 8. “Erhaben”: Recht 179(Z); “hoch”: Recht 177(Z). 9. Recht 189–91. 10. Comp.: W. Beh. 355. 11. Recht 191, 205(Z).

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makes sense only on the condition that between the “form” and the “content” a genuine unification is possible: the form, without losing its absolute significance, must appear in the aspect of a realized act, and the content, without losing its actuality and vital fullness, must appear in the aspect of absolute value. However, such a unification is unrealizable for abstractly rational morality. If duty were to obtain the shape of a realized act, then the entire doctrine of morality would turn out to be refuted, for it rests on the purely normative, purely formal, regulatively infinite understanding of duty. In just the same way, if a realized act were to obtain the significance of absolute value, then nothing would remain of the doctrine of morality, for it rests on the assertion of the empirical-sensuous, corrupt character of all real human conduct. But justice requires the recognition that the moralists are not striving for such an adequate filling-in of the idea of the good; on the contrary, they maintain separation in principle of absolute form and empirical content. Duty remains a pure and empty norm; human action remains a sensuous-empirical, finite, singular, and imperfect deed. Obviously, in such a case the unification of the formal abstraction with the concrete-empirical singularity remains ephemeral and futile. The content is joined to duty contingently and hypothetically;1 the form is applied to the content as though to something external and inessential. And if anyone were to attempt to pass off this connection as con-crete and holistic, he would become convinced of the “illegality,” “the irrationality and immorality”2 of his attempt; it is impossible by means of a simple subsumption of an empirical singularity under a formal-abstract concept to elevate its finite and conditional content to the sphere of absolute achievement:3 this would mean to place the content of the good into dependence on the arbitrariness of the individual, for each “subsumes” under the concept of the good and pronounces “ideal” that content in the idealization of which he is interested. It is remarkable that Kant himself does not fall into such a degradation,4 and this is explained by the fact that in his individual soul there was a mysterious foundation from which he drew the resolution of all concrete questions. This foundation was his good will, filled with living moral content, which indicated to him that for human beings as spiritual, noumenal monads, it is essential to live, to trust one another, and to create peace on earth. However, his moral doctrine doesn’t disclose the spiritual content of this absolute foundation of spirit; it speaks only of the empty form, insisting that all content is given empirically and doesn’t 1. Comp.: W. Beh. 354. gradation”: Recht 196.

2. W. Beh. 354.

3. Comp.: W. Beh. 353, 354, 355, 356.

4. “De-

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enter into the essence of virtue. Therefore Kant’s philosophical position must be recognized as bifurcated and bankrupt: he himself decides the question of good and evil not along those paths to which he directs others in his basic presuppositions, the most essential of which he doesn’t reveal. Because the content of the good always remains the most essential question in ethics. Such is the lack of content of the doctrine of morality. It is natural that at the foundation of such contradictoriness and emptiness must lie a deeply mistaken assumption. And in actual fact the doctrine of morality is mistaken in its very sources and roots. The fundamental and original defect of morality, from which flow all the other confusions and misfortunes, consists in the fact that it develops the point of view of a particular, subjective individual human will, searching for the good, but cut off from its true, substantial, and universal essence. Dwelling in this isolation, it cannot see the true position of things and takes the good to be not a content-filled fundamental reality, but a formal finite ideal. The will asserts itself as individual-subjective, and the good as an abstract norm opposed to it. Its fundamental mistake reduces to this. First, the essence of the good is impossible to uncover in terms of the individual-subjective human will.1 The good in its true metaphysical significance is “the final end and power of the world,” and not at all merely “our” human good, or “the moral law of our practical reason.”2 Hegel decisively protests against the “humanization” of the idea of the good, against a purely anthropological understanding of ethics: humanity is merely a necessary stage of the Divine path and therefore every doctrine of “humanity” and of “the human” must be erected on a cosmological, i.e., a teleological, foundation:3 the good must be understood as Divinity itself, and virtue as a divine state of the human spirit. In opposition to this, morality converts the good into a human ideal, and virtue into a proper state of the singular human soul; by this means it reduces ethics to the limits of human self-feeling and self-consciousness, and is itself converted into an ideology of “the excessively human.” Every individual is for it a self-enclosed, isolated singularity; every deed is a single, finite act. The entire question of good and evil is reduced to that of what was the motive of a given individual in the given case and whether he succeeded in enjoying the feeling of duty fulfilled. The whole of morality can be reduced to the desire of the individual to fulfill his duty, and to his recognition that “duty has been fulfilled.”4 Everything is re1. Comp.: Glaub. 153; W. Beh. 396, 411; Phän. 502; Log. III 323; Recht 148, 149, 188–209, 210–11, and others. See chapter 18. 2. Enc. I 119. Hegel’s emphasis. 3. See chapter 8. 4. Comp.: Nohl 272; Phän. 486; Würt. 317.

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duced to personal psychic feeling and, in the end, it turns out that for the virtuous individual what is characteristic is not modesty1 and not selfforgetting,2 but a proud self-praising3 and pleasure in his imaginary virtue.4 From here it is not far to the “hardened conceit”5 of the Pharisees,6 to unloving and scornful condemnation of others,7 having the misfortune not to have performed their duty, and to the hypocritical presentation of oneself as a completely virtuous being.8 Such a soul creates its own misfortune: it establishes and “consolidates” those rules and standards to which it tries to hold others, not noticing that it itself found its own limit in them, that it is becoming blind to its own errors, that it lives, unreconciled, exhausted by the burden of its hateful severity.9 For such a soul there is only one outcome: to bury its guilt and its suffering in its heart, to forget about this grave10 and itself and strive to enter into the sphere of self-forgetful, pure ethical life.11 Second, it is impossible to discover the essence of the good in the terms of abstract-normative morality, for the good is above all freedom, but morality does not know genuine freedom. Indisputably the moralist stands on the true path, supposing that virtue is in the autonomy of will.12 But the true path doesn’t bring him to the true goal: his autonomy doesn’t save the soul from an unfree state. It is not enough to know one’s law and not have any connection other than independently established13 norms; it is necessary also that that law be comprehended, i.e., “com-prehended” in its actuality,14 so that it not stand opposed to the subject as a kind of ideal other-being,15 so that the human being sees himself in this law,16 and does not consider it merely as an unrealized task. The law must be a faithful reflection of my actuality; otherwise I am not free in it, but subordinated to it. If the “universal” hangs over the soul,17 then it oppresses the soul. If duty remains a “requirement,”18 an “objektive”19 ideal, then it dominates, and the soul of the individual stands under its dominance.20 Then the soul is “oppressed.”21 It splits into “master” and “slave,”22 it compels and coerces itself;23 it subjugates24 and obeys;25 it represses itself with its own law.26 And in a strange way it imagines itself, despite everything, as free. 1. Comp.: Würt. 317. 2. Glaub. 150. 3. Nohl 272. 4. Comp.: Würt. 317. 5. “Hartsinniger Dünkel ”: Nohl 266. 6. Glaub. 150. 7. Nohl 272, 273. 8. “Sich zum Ganzen heucheln”: Nohl. 273. 9. Comp.: Nohl 287. 10. Comp.: Aphor. I 551. 11. Comp.: Glaub. 151. 12. Comp.: Phän. 453. 13. Comp.: Phän. 453. 14. Comp.: Phän. 461. 15. Ibidem. 16. Ibidem. 17. Comp.: Nohl 265–66. 18. “Forderung”: Phän. 455; Recht 151, 153; “Postulat”: Log. III 323; Enc. III 428. 19. Nohl 263, 265–66, 288. 20. Comp.: Nohl 268. 21. “Unterdrückt”: Nohl 266. 22. “Knechtschaft”: Nohl 263, 266, 293. 23. “Selbstzwang der kantischen Tugend ”: Nohl 293. 24. “Unterwerfung”: Nohl 293. 25. “Gehorsam”: Nohl 266. 26. Comp.: Nohl 293.

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The moral soul is a soul entangled in contradictions, wandering in a void and having lost its foundation. It seeks the good but doesn’t know how to recognize it; it strives for virtue and wholeness but remains split; it aims at freedom and creates for itself a voluntary oppression. And nonetheless the moral state is a necessary stage in the speculative ordering of spiritual liberation. The moral soul is an intermediate stage between abstract right and ethical life. It is higher than the first, for it lives by an inner, centripetal attraction and is oriented toward the universal. But it is lower than the ethical soul, for it doesn’t attain true wholeness, true freedom, or true universality. Morality cannot be rejected entirely. First, because it is a form of life appropriate to ordinary, banal consciousness, not rising to the level of speculative intuition. It preserves “its place and its significance in the sphere of the finite, where it supports” the absolute1 “in contrast to the limited and affirms it as a principle and as the essential in opposition to the insignificant”2 and corrupt. Morality, it is true, is powerless to raise itself to the absolute unity of the infinite and the finite and asserts their “relative identity”:3 the idea of the good is only “recognized by the finite soul”; and nevertheless morality remains a “reflection” of absolute ethical life,4 and in its authentic, noble sense it is its worthy threshold. Second, morality cannot be entirely rejected because even with its one-sidedness and limitation it develops a series of determinations organically entering into the higher, ethical state. The moral will is not as a whole a will contrary to right, as it might seem after the severe critique of Hegel himself; on the contrary, it realizes an entire series of necessary and therefore “rightful ” states, outside of which the life of spirit on earth is impossible. All these states of right are necessary because in them and through them the will continues to affirm and to disclose its selfdetermination, i.e., its freedom. They are necessary for freedom of the will just as air is necessary for human life, and therefore the will lays claim to their being and observance with full justification: it is the will’s rights of freedom, just as sacred in the internally moral sphere as were the abstract-material rights of freedom sacred in the sphere of external right. Neither of them can be either lost or left out or flouted, for only the totality of them can bring about the transition to the higher. The moral will is above all an active will: creative activity is part of its very essence as will. But to act means to manifest itself in the external world (Äußerung),5 it means to leave the state of inner, self-sufficing 1. “Das Ansichsein”: Log. I 146. 2. Log. I 146. 4. “Reflex”: W. Beh. 397. 5. Recht 154, 155.

3. “Relative Identität”: W. Beh. 348–49.

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self-enclosure and step into the sphere of empirical and finite being. In this sense the structure of moral action is present both now and previously, within the limits of right, as every right action and manifestion also possesses in itself a moral aspect, but only in a potential form, not manifest for consciousness. Whoever acts “produces changes” in the present, given existence1 of the world; he is associated with external empirical there-being,2, h and accordingly subjects himself to the laws of empirical contingency-necessity.3 Therefore, for an infinite will to act means to subject itself to a state of finitude and diremption:4 to give one aspect of one’s essence up to the spurious laws of the concrete-empirical world and thus take guilt upon oneself.5 Whoever acts accepts guilt and suffering,6 like the Divinity, taking upon itself the guilt and torment of world-creation; and the guilt of moral action is, in the hidden essence of things, the guilt not of the singular individual, but of the substantial universality itself.7 True, the moral will does not yet know this, and cognizes it only at a higher stage; but in essence its ignorance changes nothing and guilt follows on its heels. “Innocent” is “only inaction, like the being of a stone.”8 But neither does inaction give innocence to humans. On the contrary, he who seeks salvation in passivity ruins himself: for he shuns the paths of Spirit, acting and suffering, and not fearing guilt, ascending to freedom.9 And even the being of a child includes guilt in itself.10 From this follows the necessity of guilt for the virtuous will: for the will is activity itself, action itself, and to act means to be guilty.11 That is why Hegel utters the paradoxical-sounding assertion that “virtue excludes innocence.”12 However, entering the external world and intertwining its creative influence in the complicated tangles of empirical circumstances, the will acknowledges by its creation only what it foresaw in advance and included in its aim.13 Will has the right to know14 what it does; it has the right to act with consciousness and to accept guilt only for what was included in its design.15 This signifies that not all consequences of the human deed (Tat) are included in the “action of the will” (Handlung), but only those begotten by its creative aim, for which its aim was the creative “soul.”16 Everything “intruding from without” and “introduced by chance”17 is 1. Recht 157. 2. “Denn der Mensch muss sich handelnd mit der Äußerlichkeit abgeben”: Recht 162(Z). 3. “Handeln heisst . . . sich diesem Gesetze preis geben”: Recht 160; comp.: 159. 4. “Entzweiung”: Phän. 350. 5. Phän. 350. 6. Comp.: “nie hat die Unschuld gelitten, jedes Leiden ist Schuld”: Nohl 284. 7. Phän. 351; comp.: Recht 186(Z). 8. Phän. 350; comp.: Aphor. I 545. 9. Comp.: Nohl 286. 10. Phän. 350. 11. Comp.: die Schuld “kann das Bewusstsein, weil es handelte, nicht verläugnen”: Phän. 556. 12. “Virtus innocentiam tum agendi tum patiendi excludit”: Ros. 159. 13. Recht 156–58. 14. “Recht des Wissens”: Recht 158; comp.: Phän. 349. 15. “Vorsatz”: Recht 156–60. 16. Recht 159–60. 17. Recht 159.

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connected with the deed by empirical connections, but is not included in the spiritual and essential makeup of the action; therefore the will possesses the right to recognize all this as alien, not the “immanent” “proper” nature of the action performed by it.1 Given this, it is necessary that the consciousness of the one acting not only foresee its aim in imagination as a kind of single future event, but that it be aware of its universal properties and of its spiritual significance, so that the soul should know its action through thought and desire it through knowledge.2 Only then does the design become an intention,3 subject to imputation, and the acting will stand on the spiritual height. Along with the necessity of guilt and intention, affirming the “objektive” freedom of the moral will, stands the necessity of subjective satisfaction of the will, derived by it from its action. The moral will possesses the right to realize its own, particular aim, which is affirmed by its desire and moves it to action;4 then its action receives for it “subjective value” and fastens the will’s interest to itself.5 The will has a sacred right to connect its interest with what it does in life, such that the achievement of the aim should give it satisfaction.6 This does not at all mean that the will has a right to act self-interestedly;7 no, selfinterestedness consists in the preference for the particular, personally singular content over the “objektive” universal aim spiritually grounded in the right, whereas the moral will realizes precisely the “inviolable and universal” good. However, the human will is first of all the sole and entire passion of spirit seeking complete satisfaction of its rational and beneficent nature.8 The moral will is, accordingly, a subjective craving for spiritual satisfaction: this means that it strives toward an absolutely rightful aim9 and in attaining it sees its subjective satisfaction. Its intention is essentially riveted to the “rational,” is moved and determined by it;10 but will recognizes this intention as its own and connects its individual interest with it. This right of subjective freedom11 was first articulated by Christianity in the doctrine of love,12 and abstractly rational morality wrongly rejects the human soul in it, excluding all motives of personal interest.13 When personal interest is saturated by the substantial aim of reason,14 when it has found itself in that aim, then it is right and free, and only a spiritual plebeian,15 who judges every thing by the standard of himself, will be able to howl about the self-interestedness of the hero. 1. Recht 159. 2. Recht 161–63, 173. 3. “Absicht”: Recht 161, 162. 4. “Mein Zweck,” “Beweggrund”: Recht 164(Z). 5. Recht 164. 6. “Befriedigung,” “Genüge tun”: Recht 164(Z). 7. “Selbstsucht”: Enc. III 371; comp.: Recht 165. 8. See chapter 13. 9. “An und für sich geltender Zweck”: Recht 166. 10. Recht 166. 11. Recht 166. 12. Comp.: Recht 166–67. 13. Recht 167. 14. Comp.: Recht 167. 15. “Kammerdiener ”: Recht 169.

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Understood in this way, moral action begins to form itself into a certain living wholeness, and the entire series of subjective interests and actions constitutes a living individual.1 And thus, taken as a whole, the moral freedom of the will can be expressed as the right to independently know the good, to desire it from personal interest, and to realize it through personal action. This indicates that freedom of conscience lies at the very foundation of the moral will and its life. Conscience is knowledge of the good. The relation of the human soul to the good must be precisely a knowing one, i.e., a thinking one,2 and moreover a speculatively thinking one. The good is something substantial and universal; it is essence. Therefore it can be perceived by a human being only by means of that organ which is itself essential, substantial, and universal; such is rational thinking.3 And thus the absolute inalienable right of every human soul is the independent knowledge of the good4 through the means of conscience. This right is freedom of conscience. Each individual is free, first, not to recognize anything other than what he himself “in himself and from himself” cognized as the Good, and, second, to acknowledge that which he knows and desires as the Good to be true right and true obligation.5 However, whether he is correct in his profession, that will be found out only from the content of what he gives out as the absolute good.6 The subjective, free finding and profession doesn’t distort the objektively existing good and doesn’t diminish its significance.7 The profession must be true and therefore subject to critical examination in which a reference to “my own conviction” possesses as little significance8 as a reference to my “opinion” in the face of a court, state, and science.9 Freedom of conscience must not be understood as an “abolition” of true knowledge or a rejection of absolute being. The emergence of true conscience already goes beyond the limits of morality. For true conscience discovers substantive reality,10 but moral conscience speaks only of duty and knows no absolute content.11 The conscience of the moral individual is a formal knowing;12 it is not immediately concerned with the substantive depths of universal will and therefore easily leads to “opinions and errors.”13 The absolute self-sufficiency

1. Comp.: Recht 166, 170. 2. Recht 173, 174. 3. Comp.: Recht 173–74. 4. “Recht der Einsicht in das Gute”: Recht 174; comp.: 180. 5. Recht 180–81. 6. “Aus dem Inhalt dieses Gutseinsollenden”: Recht 181. 7. “Tut keinen Eintrag,” “bleibt fest stehen”: Recht 174; comp.: 190. 8. Comp.: Recht 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197. 9. Comp.: Recht 175, 181. 10. Comp.: Recht 171, 172, 172(Z), 181. 11. Recht 177–79, 180, 182(Z). 12. “Einsicht,” “formell ”: Recht 174, 180, 182. 13. Recht 174.

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of objective knowing is easily transformed here into an arbitrary and aimless discretion, into an empty appearance of autonomy;1 then the authenticity of knowing degenerates into subjective certainty,2 the moral subject turns out to be an abstract power, which judges and decides as it suits it, and according to desire “dissolves into itself”3 all determinations and properties of the good. This power can by accident recognize the absolute good as well, but can also make its principle its personal, particular content, place it higher than the universal, and set about its realization. The formal, subjective “conscience” is always prepared to direct itself to evil.4 Precisely on this path arise such “worldly appearances”5 as “the impure conscience”: it knows the true good, compares it with its particular aims, and chooses precisely these latter;6 if it tries to justify its choice, then it turns to the frauds of hypocrisy7 or to the “probabilism” of the Jesuits.8 Along just such a slippery path lead the doctrines asserting that the good in general is not cognizable9 or that it doesn’t possess a single, absolute content10 and so forth. However, the irony of the romantics conceals within itself a particular malignancy, proclaiming the superiority of the empirical personality.11 The follower of the “ironic” worldview knows what objektive ethical life is, but asserts in contrast to it his personal arbitrariness;12 he sees in himself a master standing above the law and the object,13 and smugly delights in the vanity of his vain desires and displays.14 Such is the final danger of the moral worldview, a danger growing out of its true depth. Conscience is that act of spirit from which the paths diverge: one leads to the extreme of evil and banality,i the other to the overcoming of morality and the healing of the soul’s schism. This healing takes its principle j from a new understanding of the substantiality of the good, coming to light for true conscientious insight. If morality asserted that the good is essential for the soul in the form of the good, then true conscience asserts that the good is the real essence of spirit. It is the essence of spirit not because only the soul, true to duty, possesses “value and dignity,”15 but because it is the authentic, deepest reality, concealed in spirit from moral consciousness, but revealed to ethical consciousness. “The good is the essence of will in its substantiality and universality”; it is the will itself in its true essence.16 The good is not an ideal, toward which 1. Comp.: Recht 180. 2. Ibidem. 3. “Verflüchtigt in sich”: 184. 5. Not “shapes of the world.” See chapter 12. 6. Recht 189. 191. 9. Comp.: Recht 196. 10. Comp.: Recht 196, 197, 198, note. 12. Recht 203. 13. Recht 203, 206(Z). 14. Comp.: Recht Würde”: Recht 172. 16. Recht 173; comp.: 176, 193.

Recht 182. 4. Recht 7. Recht 191. 8. Recht 199. 11. Recht 201 203. 15. “Werth und

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the will must strive, but a primal reality of which it can become aware in its own self and with which it can consciously merge, since it has already grown together and merged with it unconsciously. The good is the universal will concealed in each of us and moving us. In this Hegel always remains near to the doctrine of Rousseau. Naturally, moral consciousness, having grasped this truth, ceases to be moral consciousness.

Translator’s Notes a. A well-founded state. b. “Morality absolute in all respects opposes virtue,” i.e., a pure morality (of the Kantian type) renders impossible the realization of virtue (in Hegel’s sense). See the twelfth thesis appended to Hegel’s Habilitationschrift. c. There is no third possibility. d. Эмпирия. (See endnote g for chapter 13.) e. Эмпирия. f. Материя; presumably in the sense of “subject matter” or “content.” g. Эмпирия. h. Бывание, which might also be translated as “existence” in this context. i. Пошлость. (See endnote letter l for chapter 1 in volume 1.) j. Начало, which could also mean “beginning.”

18

Ethical Life

In Hegel’s philosophy there is no problem more complex and difficult to understand than the problem of speculative ethical life (Sittlichkeit). The very level on which this new “shape of the world” unfolds and lives occupies what amounts to a central position in the entire ascending order of stages. All the wealth of the preceding determinations is collected here in a concentrated, focused form, in order to turn into a kind of classical simplicity of the ethical life of a nation and subsequently to bring forth from itself “fine art,” “absolute religion,” and finally the highest of the possibilities, “true philosophy.” The general law of speculative life, in accordance with which the higher stage is realized only as a function of the lower stages, leads to the result that the shape of “ethical life” somehow subsumes the result of all the lower states, including them in itself and, so to speak, “articulating” itself in their terms. In doing so, remaining in the sphere of “actuality,” condemned to a dual structure, the shape of ethical life is formed as a result of the victory of the “concrete-speculative” over the “concrete-empirical” in that domain in which outward sensuous appearance manifestly does not yield to the conquering power of spirit: the philosophy of ethical life teaches of the speculative growing-together a of corporeally distinct persons. Precisely this impossibility of adequately apprehending the shape of ethical life in the element of sensuous existence, the difficulty of seeing with corporeal eyes what presents itself to the inner eye, the impossibility of subordinating the material to the order of concrete ethical life being realized—all this comprises, objektively speaking, a fundamental defect of this shape of the world, and subjectively speaking, a fundamental difficulty in the project of understanding it. In all the subsequent stages of the ascent of the world, sensuous material either openly follows the summons and law of the speculative element, as in art and religion, or is entirely “sublated” by it, as in speculative philosophy. But in ethical life the state of invisible substance and the state of the visible, material appearance have not yet merged into a single mode of being, and this requires a particular cognitive effort from the investigator. The philosopher, studying the essence of speculative ethical life, must not trust the appearance, not accept its obtruding properties, and must incessantly expose the “concreteness” concealed behind them. The philosopher must 105

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confidently intuit the “invisible” concealed behind the outward appearance of that material state, which urgently and obstinately insists on its distinct being: the philosopher must here trust in spiritual experience despite the sensuous experience, and strive for his “spiritual eyes and corporeal eyes to completely coincide with one another.”1 In this trust in the testimony of objective introspection is the key to the understanding of Hegel’s entire philosophy and particularly of his ethics. And thus the first thing that objective introspection in the sphere of ethical life teaches is the inevitability of the healing of the human being from that inner division to which he was brought in the process of selfliberation through abstract right and morality. In the struggle with its body and with its natural and immediate states the human soul has already raised itself to the level of intelligent spirit2 and asserted itself as subjectively free and subjectively universal will, i.e., as the sole and entire passion of spirit, having found for itself a worthy level of life, and seeking the complete satisfaction of its rational and beneficent nature.3 However, the first attempt to create for itself such a free and worthy satisfaction turned the will to material other-being and compelled it to concentrate on its centrifugal tendency. The energy of spiritual life was called aside from the center and engaged in a complicated peripheral process of struggle for freedom (“right”).4 In this distraction and departure to the surface of life the single and whole will, seemingly, has divided itself into two aspects, as though into two separate wills: first, the particular, subjective, and personal will, living consciously and therefore “existing for itself,” and second, the universal, substantial will, living in the unconscious depth and therefore existing only “in itself.” The ordinary—empirical and abstractly rational—consciousness of the human being dwells in such a state of division; it remains in it even when, having gained “material”b and “contractual” liberation for itself through suffering, and having carried out to the end the “wrong” of its particularization,5 sets about the task of inner self-determination (“morality”).6 The moral will as such stands on the true path (of centripetal selfactivity), but lives in separation from its universal and substantial depth; it remains an individual, particular will, a subjective quest for what is in its essence supra-subjective. As already explained, the moral will does not know the fundamental secret of its being: precisely the fact that the good is its own universal essence of the will, immanent in it. And not knowing this secret, it expends its energy in futile fits, in living contradictions, and incessant self-reproach. These wanderings bring it to the point 1. Lass. II 465. 2. See chapter 15. 3. See chapter 15. 4. See chapter 16. 5. See chapter 16. 6. See chapter 17.

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that it drags out its days in unhappiness and spiritual ruin: a life deprived of satisfaction, love, and happiness, having lost all harmony, all genuine, excellent content, filled with distrust in itself and spasmodic violence against itself—this is the result of moral blindness and fragmentation.1 This calamitous and tormenting state awaits its healing, and healing can come only from the depth of the suffering will itself. Moral searching finds in this depth the voice of conscience and in it—its own terminus. Conscience is the adequate knowing of the absolute good.2 What is known by conscience is the good itself, i.e., the Divine essence of the world. In accordance with the fundamental revelation comprising the entire content of philosophy, the good is not an abstract ideal,3 but the genuine, although innermost, essence of the world. Wherever the eye glances with speculatively renewed vision, it sees signs of this good essence; it sees the presence of the good, “indissolubly” grown together with the world and “absorbed by the appearances of the world’s development,” forming their “in-itself” existing nucleus and participating in their actuality.4 The good is the “universal”5 element, creating and realizing itself in the world and ascending by its stages to itself as the “universal and final end of the world”6 (Aristotle). This can be expressed thus: that “the true” and “the good” are “one and the same; the first in the sphere of knowledge, the second in the sphere of will”;7 that the entire cosmos is joined in the grace of God; that it is supported by its good and all-penetrating power; that it is created immanently, from within, by the rational element of divine Meaning, taking upon itself the burden of empirical existence and empirical fragmentation. Therefore one who cognizes the actual order of the world cognizes it as a manifestation of Divine power and grace, and, conversely, one who cognizes the idea of grace-bearing power itself, i.e., the idea of absolute good, penetrates to the immanent essence of actuality.8 This “rational” essence of the world is revealed to the philosopher as a power which has overcome the empirical material, has subjugated it to itself and identified itself with it: it has entered into it, pierced its murky tissue with its light, and transformed it into its true “shape.” Conscience is the adequate cognizing of this “shape,” appearing in the form of human will. Conscience cognizes the good as a beneficent, universal power, hiding up to now in the depth of the soul, in “separation” from “the particular,” subjective human will. It learns that “the particular” will, imagining 1. See chapter 17. 2. See chapter 17. 3. Comp.: e.g., Log. III 323; Recht 194, 195, 200. 4. Comp.: Phän. 289. 5. Comp.: e.g., Enc. III 388; Recht 179, 207; Rel. I 199. See chapter 5. 6. Beweise A 464. Author’s emphasis. 7. Rel. I 336. 8. See chapter 11.

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itself to be a self-sufficient value and asserting itself in “separation” from the “universal,” was never able to carry out this separation to the end. It always remained a real modification of universal will, even when it was rebelling against it (“crime”), even when it converted its content into its “unrealizable ideal” (“morality”). The very “separation” which put it in a difficult and false position never had the character of a real schism, cleavage, separation; it was a state of ignorance, non-recognition, confusion—an averting of the gaze, a fading of vision, a failing of memory. A human being lived, immersed in his “particular” interests, despite the beneficent roots of his existence, fixing his gaze and desire on what is not essential, is not substantial, but rather chasing after imaginary values and taking pleasure in his contingent impulses. And all the same, the fire of life burning in him remained a divine fire: the Divine “mode,” forgetting its “attributive” makeup, remained a living modification of the Divinity (Spinoza). By this means its rebirth was ensured. And conscience remained the source of this rebirth. Conscience reveals to human consciousness that the true position of things doesn’t correspond to the imagined one, i.e., that the particular will remains always a modification of the universal will, and that, consequently, the good is hidden not in the “ideal distant prospect,” but in the nature of the will itself. “The good is in general the essence of the will (das Wesen des Willens) in its substantiality and universality—will in its truth.”1 “The essential and good (wesentlich und gut) are, apart from everything else, equivalent (terms)”;2 “the good (gut) is that which is essential in relation to the will.”3 “The good is the in-itself-determined” Universality “of will,” which, precisely due to this, “includes within itself ” its “particularity.”4 The good is “the substance” of will5 which necessarily enters into reality “through the means of the particular will,”6 and this entry imparts to the good the realized fullness of being; it makes it an actual “shape of the world.” Therefore it can be said that the good in its mature and holistic form is “the idea as a unity of the concept of will and the particular will,”7 or, what is the same thing, the speculative identity of volitional substance and volitional existence. In order to comprehend “the good” it is necessary to imagine an approach, a coincidence, and finally, a concrete identification taking place between the universal (right) and the particular (subjective) will. In this growing-together the two sides, upon the separation of which is constructed the entire doctrine of morality, enter into each other, mutually accept each other, and in accordance with the fundamental law of specu1. Recht 173. 2. Recht 193. 3. Recht 193. 4. Enc. III 388. comp.: Recht 176. 7. Recht 171. Hegel’s emphasis.

5. Recht 172.

6. Recht 172;

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lative concreteness1 creatively work into each other, each expressing itself in the tissue of its “other.” The subjective, particular will, realizing its subjectivity in cognition of the good, i.e., realizing its self-sufficiency and distinct being in its finding and professing, naturally comes to understand that it must direct its gaze toward the substantial depths of its essence and by that means restore its “vision” and its “memory.” Exhausted by the lack of content and the unreality of the moral ideal, it was compelled to turn to the content-filled reality of its own “universal” root as the focal point of “absolute certainty.”2 But since the “universal-real” is perceived and grasped only by the power of speculative thinking,3 and speculative thought establishes the identity of subject and objekt, then true conscience inevitably leads to the real growing-together of the particular will and the universal will.c So that this growing-together may take place, the spirit of the human being must venture the most extreme sinking into self;4 it must bring about “the deepest inner solitude with itself, in which everything external and every kind of limitedness disappear”5 and the individual turns out to be unconstrained by his personal, particular ends. In such a holistic speculative concentration spurious subjectivity dies down6 and the particular will “is filled” with the good essence of the Universal. This “filling-in” is not an act of abstractly rational cognition, the result of which is acquired “information.” No; speculative cognition remains also in ethics a metaphysical event of real convergence, of creative interpenetration and renewal of sides. The subject and the objekt are creatively renewed and begin to live in a new way: a new “shape of the world” is formed—the shape of ethical life. According to the general law of speculative thinking, intuiting consciousness gives itself up to the object, and the object takes possession of subjective thought: a new being arises. That which exists “in itself ”— innermost, rightful universality—is made the property of a particular consciousness and becomes recognized; but, since subjective consciousness is nothing other than a state of this same substantial will, then its awareness is an awareness achieved by it itself: the universal will has entered the sphere of self-consciousness. This can be expressed by saying that “the good enters into actuality and appears in the form of existing selfconsciousness.”7 The universal, beneficent element of the subjective soul takes the form of the particular will and intrudes in the form of absolute power in the conscious life of the individual, purifies it with its fire, and 1. See chapter 7. 2. Recht 179. 3. Recht 173. See chapters 3 and 5. 4. “Untergang in sich”: Recht 180(Z). 5. Comp.: “durchgängige Zurückgezogenheit in sich”: Recht 180(Z). 6. Comp., e.g., Rel. I 199; see chapter 3. 7. “Daseiendes Selbstbewusstsein”: Phän. 582.

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appears in the form of holistic individuality. The good acquires existence in the person of the particular human will, becomes actuality, an actual shape of the world; the thrice real idea of will, the shape of ethical life.1 Correspondingly, the life of the “particular” will is also renewed. Its consciousness, having entrusted itself to the object, is not subordinated to it and not enslaved by it; on the contrary, the object of conscientious knowing is the genuine essence of the cognizing subject itself—and cognition fuses the subject with its own roots.d This means that conscience preserves for the individual his freedom.2 Moreover, it first frees him from moral oppression and violence, brought about in the name of a “distant” ideal; it gives him for the first time an understanding that the “particular” will is in its own essence a living modification of subjective-universal will, and that therefore it in its person possesses no other-being whatever. The “particular” will gains its sight in relation to its own self: it becomes conscious of and recognizes what was present even without its awareness, but the ignorance of which had plunged it into helplessness and confusion. It accepts its own beneficent nature, being revealed to it as its own; it flows togethere with it, fills itself with its spirit and its content, purifies by means of its fire all its own desires and ends, and blesses by means of its sanctity its own interests, rights, and activities. The particular will cognizes itself as a living manifestation of subjective-universal will, and cognizes subjective-universal will as its living essence.3 Thus arises a new actuality called the ethical will. An act of conscience as a genuinely speculative act is at once an act of cognizing and an act of creation: the one cognizing, in the process of cognizing, develops itself toward a new life, and the one being created is created as a result of speculative cognition. This can be expressed by saying that the universal beneficent nature of the will becomes aware of itself in the act of conscience; or by saying that the conscientious self-awareness of the individual is the cognizing by him of his divine essence; or, yet again, by saying that God’s beneficent power, hidden in the depth of subjective spirit (“subjectiveuniversal will”), cognizes itself through human conscience as a realized and actual shape of ethical life. All of these descriptions are related objectively to the one event. Therefore the thesis that “conscience is knowledge of the good” can be explicated thus: conscience is the speculative intuition of the human spirit, bringing into being the concrete identity of the subjectively particular and subjectively universal will. In this identity, that which intuits and that which is intuited are one: “subjective knowing and willing” are the same as “the genuine good,”4 and conversely. “The good” is no longer an abstract 1. Recht 207, 208.

2. See chapter 13.

3. See chapters 5 and 15.

4. Recht 181–82.

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ideal but a living1 creative power which has asserted itself as the nature of subjective self-consciousness.2 Subjective “knowing and willing” don’t submit themselves to arbitrary vacillation, but move in a single absolutely true channel of speculative self-determination. It is understood that the identity of the two volitions obtained earlier as well, but it remained, up to the present, something “natural,” “inner,”3 unconscious. The act of conscience merely introduces it into consciousness and reveals it. A human being is always substantial, but erroneously takes himself to be an empirical appearance. He always conceals within himself the principle of universal will, but, becoming confused, takes himself for an abstract singular. In the depth of spirit he is always free, but often knows himself only as a soul, subject to the laws of spurious necessity. Conscience introduces the human being to a new mode of life: he begins to live in conscious identity with subjective-universal will, not distinguishing himself from it or it from himself. Such an identification has double consequences: first, it renews the inner structure of psychic life, and second, it reveals to him a new relationf to other persons, both the one and the other through fusing with subjective-universal will. The inner structure of the life of the soul is renewed in the sense that the human being achieves genuine rightness, freedom, and wholeness. Rightness of spiritual life arises in the soul in consequence of the fact that the particular will accepts its hidden, beneficent essence and is penetrated by its content. The subject no longer seeks the good outside itself, for it has found it within itself. That deepest root of the subjective soul, which from time immemorial is good and rational, is invariably directed toward freedom and doesn’t yield either to distortion or corruption4—it is henceforth identical with the flow of subjective, personal life. The good and rightness took the form of subjective will,5 and subjective will merged its life with the life of its substantial essence. There arises “concrete moral spirit,”6 or the shape of personal ethical life. The human being lives, as before, through a subjective disposition, but it is a disposition “of the right in itself.”7 The particular will doesn’t distinguish itself from the universal, knowing that its own power lives by the deep and true breath of essential life. “The universal will” is not pushed aside and not forced out into the unconscious underworlds of personal life, but possesses an open, creative outcome and determining significance. The freedom of spiritual life arises from this grown-together unity of two wills. Thanks to this unity the particular will does not experience 1. Recht 210. 2. Recht 210. 3. Comp.: Lass. II 466. 4. See chapters 16 and 17. 5. Comp.: Recht 207. 6. Phän. 477. 7. Recht 208. See chapter 16.

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any sort of “subordination,”1 or “oppression,”2 from the side of universal will; it does not occupy an “enslaved” position in relation to it.3 All these determinations are completely inapplicable here, for they presuppose the separateness and opposition of the two sides. But meanwhile in ethical life all separateness was decisively extinguished. It is not enough to say that subjective inclination and the law of obligation stand in “coordination”;4 the very term “coordination” is inappropriate here,5 for it permits the presence of “duality” and the possibility of “disagreement.” The ethical law and the “actual life of self-consciousness” stand in identity, excluding the very possibility of “relation”:6 they are one. Therefore in ethical life the subject does not know that sort of obligation which would remain only an obligation,7 and could not be at the same time “being,”8 “objektive being,”9 “actuality”10 being realized. All self-constraint falls away; all “obedience”11 to an alien “law”12 disappears. Subjective inclination13 and law in their content are no longer distinct.14 Duty and impulse coincide.15 The subject “immediately knows”16 that same thing, and desires unmediatedly, in himself and from himself, the same thing that the law “would prescribe” to him,17 if consciousness were able to deal with it. But for him there is no need to deal with the prescriptions of law and duty: he carries in himself the “rich, living content”18 of rightful will, and his “inclination” has its root in his own universal and unchangeable rightness.19 And as a result of this, the “law” as an abstract rule and motive of will loses its former significance: the motive is renewed and carried into the depth of individual spirit. The “element” of rational rightness20 is immanent in the subject and his activity: the determination of himself to the right becomes in the full sense of the term his self-determination, and his life manifests in itself “the actuality of freedom.”21 The “concept of freedom” becomes “the nature of self-consciousness,”22 and the selfconsciousness of the subject is “the adequate existence of freedom”23 as absolute creative self-determination. Precisely the free growing-together of unconscious goodness and rightness with subjective self-consciousness transforms “the substantial determinations of reason” into a holistic “ethical disposition.”24 1. “Unterwerfung”: Nohl 293. 2. “Unterdrückung”: Nohl 301, 311. 3. “Unterjochung”: Nohl 268 note. 4. “Übereinstimmung”: Nohl 268. 5. “Nicht passend”: Nohl 268. 6. “Verhältnisslose Identität”: Recht 212. 7. “Nur sein sollen”: Log. I 146; comp.: Nohl 267; Enc. III 390, 391; Ph. G. 12. 8. “Sein”: Enc. III 391. 9. “Objektiv seiend ”: Recht 87. 10. “Wirklich zu sein”: Enc. I 11; Ph. G. 12. 11. “Gehorsam”: Nohl 266. 12. Comp.: Nohl 266, 269, 269, 277. 13. “Geneigtheit,” “Neigung”: Nohl 268, 271–72, 277, 388. 14. Comp.: Nohl 268, 277, 388. 15. Nohl 277. 16. Phän. 316. 17. Nohl 268, 271–72. 18. Comp.: Nohl 269. 19. Comp.: Nohl 388. 20. Comp.: Enc. III 376–77. 21. Enc. III 376–77. 22. Recht 210. 23. Recht 219. 24. “Sittliche Gesinnung”: Ph. G. 72. See chapter 19.

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The wholeness of spiritual life, unattainable by the moral will, turns out to be the natural result of “rightness” and “freedom.” In the soul of the human was realized a great shift of powers and there took place the desired reconciliation of opposed impulses. As if following its own “instinct”1 and not becoming torn between various temptations, the will as a “holistic”2 passion of spirit surely and harmoniously3 realizes “the right” and “the obligatory,” seeing in it its own natural and desired end. Conscience as a certain “higher reconciling genius”4 brought about in the soul of the human being a harmonious disposition5 of preparedness and of a willing6 urge, free from all struggle with itself,7 from sacrifice8 and violence to itself. “The ethical disposition consists precisely in steadfastly dwelling within the right and abstaining from any alterations, shocks,”9 or corrupting criticism.10 “The realm of ethical life, if it is present, is an unsullied world and not darkened by any schism” or diremption (Zwiespalt).11 In such a state the soul already knows no unrealized obligation and doesn’t bring about uncalled-for accomplishments. It knows no powerless, futile dispositions and doesn’t perform soulless, “mechanical” deeds: its dispositions, wholly good and right, are at the same time its actions, realized from without;12 and conversely. From the conscious counterposing of “reason” and “the sensuous” (Kant) has arisen their grown-together unity,13 and the soul has closed up into an organically living and creating totality.14 The individual reconciles with virtue,15 for his virtue is himself. He lives by it as by his natural and immanent rhythm, for ethical life has become his “second nature,”16 his “absolute essence and at the same time absolute power, not tolerating any sort of distortion in its content.”17 Thus does ethical life renew the inner structure of the human soul. This renewal can be characterized as the soul’s return from the periphery to the center: the energy of spiritual life, which used to be involved in the complex peripheral process, is finally concentrated in a centripetal direction and is returned to the womb of absolute rightness, which has been anticipating it in its own depths. The subjectively personal will lives henceforth in this undistortable and inviolable rightness, experiencing it and knowing it as its own, most real and intimate essence. This means that that “deep inner solitude with itself,” which was realized by the soul in

1. “Gleichsam aus Instinkt”: Ph. G. 46. 2. “Ganzheit des Gemüths”: Diff. 246. 3. “Harmonie”: Diff. 244; Phän. 457, 463. 4. “Höherer Genius der Versöhnlichkeit”: Nohl 269. 5. “Gesinnung”: Nohl 268 note, 399. 6. “Gerne tun”: Nohl 267. 7. “Ohne Kampf ”: Nohl 268 note. 8. Ibidem. 9. Phän. 325. 10. “Zurückführen”: Phän. 325; “prüfen”: Phän. 326; comp.: “reflektiren”: Ph. G. 46. 11. Phän. 345. 12. Comp.: Ham. 82. 13. Comp.: Phän. 456. 14. Comp., e.g., Glaub. 119; Nohl 266. 15. Nohl 293. 16. Ph. G. 47. 17. Phän. 349.

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the act of conscience and which led it to a great ethical renewal, led it to a new sphere, plunged it into the element of speculative Substance itself, restored its identity with objektive-universal will. Conscience is an act of speculative cognition; therefore that to which it leads and actually brings the soul is the genuine element of Divine Meaning. The spirit of the human, giving itself over to conscience, not only receives the “news” of “the essence of the good,” not only widens its “knowledge,” but really, to the depths of the soul, renews its life. For that which is revealed “to absolute intuition”1 in the act of conscience, that which enters into the sphere of the particular will and satiates it with itself, this “subjective-universal will,”2 “unalterable in its rightness and goodness,”3 is in its essence not personal, not subjective, but supra-personal and objektive Universality,4 cognized by the subject through sinking into self, but actually leading him beyond the limits of all finitude. This is the very “absolute” and “eternal”5 content, the very cosmic, beneficent, divine Substance, the sole source and sole focal point of genuine reality.6 That is why liberation from moral fragmentation leads immediately to a higher “realization” of the subject.7 Conscience introduces the individual—both cognitively and actually—to “the absolute Object” (die absolute Sache)8 and moreover, in such a way that any opposition between “certainty” and “truth,” between “the universal and the singular, between the end and its reality” disappears:9 the existence of the Object constitutes “the actuality and the activity of self-consciousness.”10 And this Object is “ethical Substance,” and “its consciousness is ethical consciousness.”11 The soul of the human has raised itself to “absolute real oneness with the Absolute.”12 Each individual can realize such a growing-together with the Absolute only independently, in the greatest “solitude” and absorption in himself. But this doesn’t mean that the “separateness” of people is the mature outcome of their speculative solitude. On the contrary, the natural and inevitable result of conscientious “absorption in oneself ” is a genuine going out into the “Absolute”13 and a joining with the order of life immanently inherent in Substance. The soul of the human enters through “conscience” into this sphere where all live and are formed in accordance with the law of organic concreteness.14 The “singular” soul with its “particular” will, giving itself over to the living rhythm of substantial Universality, turns out to be imbued with and permeated by its power, saturated 1. Lass. II 467. 2. See chapter 15. 3. See chapter 16. 4. See chapter 5. 5. Lass. II 467. 6. See chapter 4. 7. “Realisirt zu werden”: Enc. III 369. 8. Phän. 314. 9. Phän. 314. 10. Ibidem. 11. Ibidem. Hegel’s emphasis. 12. “Das absolute reale Einssein des Einzelnen mit dem Absoluten”: W. Beh. 393. 13. See chapters 3 and 5. 14. See chapter 7.

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by its content, and drawn into the assimilative, organic process binding and ingrafting it with other co-subordinated and co-included singulars.1 The human being discovers that the Universal in which he recognized his authentic, vital essence is not his exclusive possession; that precisely as Universality it is broader than its singular organ; that it is an organic totality, freely and unimpededly penetrating all of its parts, organs, and singulars, and in this way supporting them in itself and itself in them.2 The consciousness of the subjective soul, drawn in to the speculative process of cognizing (id est creating) ethical life, gradually discovers a situation of the deepest and the ultimate significance: one human is to another not an other-being, but an organically grown-together unitary being. The immersion of the soul in Substance leads it to concrete life, realizing itself at once in three planes: first, in the subjective-internal, second, in the objektive-substantial, and, third, in the objektive-social. All of these three planes are no more than various aspects of one and the same state of Spirit—the highest state of Universal Will, living in the form of the ethically organized nation. This can be expressed by saying that the actual shape of ethical life presupposes the existence of many individual human souls who have renounced their distinct empirical being and have realized a triple growing-together: in each soul the particular will grows together with its universal, rightful, and beneficent element: this leads to holistic, rightful, and free subjective will cognizing its identity with objektive substance, with divine Universality itself; and this can be brought about only on the condition that all the holistic subjective wills should grow together one with the other into a unitary being. In order to truly understand this fundamental point of Hegelian doctrine, revealing one of the most cardinal of his insights and pointing to the source of all his philosophy, it is necessary once more to relinquish the usual intuition of objects and to renew in oneself the specific character of his vision. In the present moment, one must carry this out in relation to the object termed the human psyche. The empiricist view became accustomed to apprehend and investigate “the psychic” in the form of a multitude of separate, temporally processual, subjectively distinctive living unities “functionally” or “causally” connected with separate bodies. To the properties of the object apprehended in just this way are adapted both ordinary everyday practice and the method of inductive investigation, as well as the means of understanding and resolving the moral problem. It can be said that the “monadology” of Leibniz is the most consistent metaphysical realization of this conception, and the empiricist egocentrism of Max Stirner, the most consistent 1. See chapter 7. 2. See chapter 7.

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moral-practical abuse of it. Under such an apprehension it is impossible to speak of “the soul ” as a single real object, for in reality only “souls,” separate and plural, are given; in just the same way it is impossible to know anything of these objects directly, for to each person only one of them is directly accessible—his own, “subjective” soul. The separateness of bodies materially secures and confirms the separateness of souls, and a society of persons appears in the form of a system of isolated mine shafts. This comparison acquires particular significance in view of the fact that out of the total content hidden in each mine shaft, only a comparatively small amount is extracted into the light of consciousness, and each of them invariably conceals in its dark depth some sort of unexpected, mysteriously original, and distinctive contents and possibilities.g This picture of essential separateness is completed in ethical formations independently of whether they proceed from the principle of duty (Kant) or from the principle of “the absolute I” (Fichte), or from the principle of distinct empirical being (the romantics, Stirner): ethics is construed as a doctrine of a multiplicity of subjective, personal processes possessing, perhaps, traits of similarity, but essentially distinct in terms of content and separate in terms of being. The social “abstractness” of the human monad remains the final word of this understanding even in the case where the person finds in himself “noumenal” depth, uniting him with an “otherworldly” order of things and with the Divinity. From this system of psychic and moral “monadism” Hegel broke as radically as from the system of material “atomism.” All of his doctrine proceeds from the fact that the “psychic” and the “spiritual” object is above all one and concrete, and moreover “concrete” not in the sense that it is “composed” of or “grown together” from a multiplicity of independent individualities, as from primary monads, but in the sense that its real tissue is primordially continuous and grown-together everywhere, and only later, already in its internal development, it as it were breaks into a multiplicity of singular and apparently self-sufficient individual “souls.” The science of spirit intuits its object adequately precisely when it has before it a concrete unity, having internally differentiated itself into a discrete multitude. Accordingly, the Concept as an essence immanent to the world retains its character of speculative Universality both when it possesses the elementary shape of “natural soul” and when it ascends to the stage of “spiritual” maturity. The “natural soul” of the individual, despite its speculative blindness and ignorance, remains an individual particularizationh of the universally human psychic substance. This “substance,” this “universal soul” (allgemeine Seele)1 remains at all stages of world development 1. Enc. III 56; comp.: “allgemeine Naturseele”: Enc. III 202(Z).

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the sole and common basis, as though the primordial womb from which all individual “particularizations” have their “origin” (Anaximander). The “soul,” similarly to the “world” and “God,” is in its essence a “totality,” a “concrete universality,” grasped by thinking;1 and in this its own “concreteness and totality” it is “not yet mind,”i but only the “universal immateriality of nature”—it is “substance, the absolute foundation of all particularizing and singularizing of mind.”2, j Therefore it “doesn’t exist only in one particular individual,”3 but is the “all-penetrating,” “fully universal” 4 principle, “objektive”5 and as “absolute indifference”6 containing in itself all distinctions in their “ideal” form.7 Thus it, perhaps, in secret from its individual particularizations, dwells with them in identity and, as befits speculative Universality, is present in every personal soul with all its content, such that each human soul can be characterized as “an individually determined” soul of the world.8 With the entry into the sphere of spirit the position of things doesn’t change in essence, but gradually the self-consciousness of the individual soul is raised in consciousness. Spirit remains the primordial “ineradicable substance, the fluid self-identical essence”9 which breaks up (zerspringt) into “a multiplicity of completely independent beings, just as light breaks up into a numberless multiplicity of independent ( für sich) luminous points—stars”;10 however, human “self-consciousnesses,”11 for all their independence and “freedom,”12 are “dissolved” (aufgelöst sind) in the spiritual “substance not only in themselves (an sich), but also for themselves ( für sich selbst),” i.e., they know, or at least are capable of knowing, of their dissolution.13 A substance such as spirit “sunders” itself (Diremtion)14 in the process of particularization15 into a multiplicity of singular persons, but leaves behind itself the significance of their “inner power and necessity,”16 and singular beings in the final analysis cannot resist17 this inner power, hiding by means of its roots in the “underworld” of the soul.18 And thus if ethical life consists above all in the fact that the soul of the human, suffering through to the act of “conscience,” comes to cognize itself and consciously accept itself as a living modification of spiritual substance, and to accept substance as its living and essential Universality, then this means that it comes to know itself as one of the living singularities of the one spiritual Universality. This means that the human being 1. Enc. I 66. 2. Enc. III 46. 3. Enc. III 175(Z). 4. Enc. III 175(Z). Hegel’s emphasis. 5. Comp.: W. Beh. 394; Enc. II 693. 6. W. Beh. 394. 7. Comp.: Enc. III 175(Z). 8. Enc. III 146(Z). 9. Phän. 139. 10. Phän. 265. 11. Phän. 139. 12. Phän. 139. 13. Phän. 265. 14. Enc. III 391. 15. “Die Substanz, als Geist sich . . . besondernd”: Enc. III 394. 16. Enc. III 391. 17. “Keinen Widerstand leisten kann”: Log. III 187. 18. “Unterwelt”: Phän. 356.

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recognizes himself as a participant in speculative life, as a part of the spiritual totality, as an organ of the spiritual organism.1 In other words, he sees and is convinced that he lives not in separation from other people, but in fusion with them, and that, consequently, despite the apparent discreteness of human souls they in actuality stand in organically concrete connection. This profound and distinctive doctrine can be formulated thus: people are grown together with one another as organs of the one Divine organism; and ethical life consists in consciously and creatively living by means of this concrete life. People are grown-together with one another really, in actual fact, despite the external empirical appearances insistently testifying that they are “in essence” separate. In this consists the “improbable contradiction”2 of social being; and philosophy must resolve it. On one hand, spirit turns out to be in a state of “forced division into a series of distinct egoistic beings,”3 fully free, self-sufficient, absolutely standoffish, and resisting4 one another; these beings are not only “distinct,”5 but also “unyielding”6 and “impenetrable” to one another.7 However, on the other hand, the element of “soul,” even in its individual form, remains “immaterial” and therefore8 retains the capacity for speculative “identity,” despite any and all separation. This is explained by the fact that the element of spirit is organically one in its universal metaphysical essence and at the same time mechanically plural in its singular empirical appearances. Consciousness, not having begun to see with speculative clarity, comprehending only the empirical surface of being, registers the discrete multiplicity of people and becomes accustomed to the structure of external separation and internal solitariness; it lives as though there were no other, concrete order at all, and is even inclined to insist on its impossibility. Gaining speculative vision and acceptance convince it that the grown-togetherness of individual souls was never broken and could not be broken, but that it was put aside, as though displaced into the depth of being, and remained in an unrecognized, undiscovered, undeveloped, unactualized form, allowing separation to reign on the surface of relations. Life, cultivating this superficial separation, giving itself up to it in feeling, consciousness, and will, is a substantially unethical life. The tragicomedy of the human consists in the fact that, contemplating only this surface, not seeing anything deeper, he becomes con1. See chapters 5 and 7. 2. “Der ungeheure Widerspruch”: Enc. III 275(Z). 3. “Gewaltige Diremtion des Geistes in verschiedene Selbste”: Enc. III 284(Z). 4. Enc. III 284(Z). 5. “Unterschieden”: Enc. III 275(Z). 6. Comp.: “starr”: Enc. III 275(Z). 7. Comp.: “undurchbrechbar”: Enc. III 275(Z). 8. Enc. III 166–67.

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vinced of his own limitedness, finitude, and unfreedom and enters into a struggle with the other-being limiting it, never suspecting that this is a struggle with a ghost. The speculatively blind soul does not know that the human is spirit and that spirit is absolutely free; such a soul doesn’t understand that the struggle with social other-being inevitably fixates its other-being, and, arousing a passion of negation, converts this passion into a tendentious blindness. And thus, gaining speculative vision reveals to him his freedom, delivering to him gradually the keys to any and all “otherbeing”1 and leading him step by step away from the limits of empirical self-feeling, to the depth and concentration of substantial life. Each of the conquests along this path is accomplished in such a way that the individual renews the conditions of his life, escaping from that mode of existence which was forcing him to focus on “other-being” and to oppose it to himself. Spirit, unmasking the objekt, becomes absorbed in it, accepts it within itself, and dissolves in it; it is absorbed in the objekt and for that is inevitably absorbed in itself, for the movement toward the essence of the objekt (objektive reason) is eo ipso a movement toward the essence of the subject (subjective reason).2 Each new “shape of the world” expresses by itself a new liberation of spirit, realizable only through the concrete acceptance of the objekt and through a new sinking into self of the soul. In just this way also stands the situation with ethical life. The turning of the individual soul from a spurious empirical discreteness toward the divine-concrete order consists in the acceptance of social concretization, i.e., in the genuine recognition, discovery, and realization of it by the powers of the individual soul, while remaining, to all appearances, in the conditions of empirical separation: living human individualities as though for the first time enter into concrete association with one another and bring about a speculative fusion. This growing-together arises as a result of the fact that a human being observes in another human that same spiritual element the subjective modification of which he recognized as himself. Such a recognition leads him to a liberation of himself in the other and to an assertion of his organic identity with him; mutual insight and liberation establish the speculative union of souls. So long as the individual human soul sees in the other human other-being, the speculative growing-together seems to it unacceptable and unrealizable: it sees in the neighbor something alien and strange, a restricting and limiting objekt, and takes up a negative and defensive position in relation to it. The existence of the other “I” means for the soul the loss of freedom. From this arises, still at the stage of natural consciousness,3 a life and death struggle for freedom; and even there 1. See chapter 13.

2. See chapter 13.

3. See chapter 15.

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this struggle concludes not with a simple dominance of the strong and subordination of the weak, but a break-through to a “disinterested and rational” understanding of relations. The objective “self-deepening” affirms in the subordinated one the uncoerced depth of freedom, and this development sooner or later infects the master as well. As a result of this struggle self-consciousness learns to see in the other self-consciousness not simply a recalcitrant objekt, but an independent and spiritual being— its “co-subject ”—and becomes “recognizing self-consciousness.”1 Both the will “controlling the thing,” and the will striving for freedom through “contract”2 then turn to this their own “co-subject,” seeking recognition. True, in a contract people encounter one another only as “particular” wills and establish a superficial coincidence of wills founded upon an arbitrary decision. True, the confluence of particular wills remains limited here in terms of the objekt and in terms of the subject. Nevertheless the starting-point for speculative growing-together turns out to be already indicated: the human being, striving for freedom, became “spirit recognizing and seeking a reciprocal recognition.” He learned to seek in another a likeness of himself, and this search obtains its true character precisely in ethical life. Turning to “the other” from the depths of ethical insight, the spirit of the human being as before seeks in it a “likeness of itself,”3 but to “itself ” deepened, regenerated, and healed: the human seeks in another that same depth of Universality which he discovered in himself. He seeks it because he understood himself as a true manifestation of Substance, but Substance as a power absolutely free from other-being. Therefore he with full justification distrusts his unfreedom, rooted in the visible separation of people, and cannot reconcile himself to the idea that the individual human in any sort of relation to another human remains a “dead”4 objekt. It is understood that to the human seeking in other people the divine depth, it remains to find what is sought, for he seeks in them that which actually comprises their authentic essence. This search is carried out by means of a speculative acceptance of the alien life and an organic accustomationk to its contents. In accordance with the general law of “concrete confluence,”5, l souls growing together do not remain “external to each other,” but each accepts in itself the “alien” content and gives up its content to the other soul. There arises a speculative “exchange of gifts” in which the parties are preserved in “form,” but in terms of “content” are assimilated; each expresses itself “in the function” of the other and works at the creation of 1. See chapter 15. 2. See chapter 16. 3. Comp.: “das Gleiche”: Nohl 377. 4. Comp.: Nohl 379. 5. See chapter 7.

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“a mutual penetration” and concrete identity with the “other-being.” The exchange of speculative gifts assumes the character of “a stable continuity,”1 and the parties are bound together by a mutually purposive connection: they vitally grow into one another, and the support of “oneself” is converted for each into service to the other party. There arises an organic mutual belongingness of souls united in what is for them a new, but essentially primordial, highest, or deepest organic formation.2 However, in distinction from lower organic unities, the social fusion, being formed in the element of psychic-spiritual life, is brought about by the power of feeling, consciousness, and will, and therefore attains a greater refinement, fidelity, and freedom. Souls growing together begin with the discovery that they are “not alien”3 one to the other and advance to the point of recognizing their organic connectedness and belonging to a single totality. To the extent that the consciously “given” and “received”4 content is assimilated, the evident empirical distinction of souls ceases to blind consciousness and to burden the self-feeling of each, and behind the visible “particularities” is discovered the substantial Universality creatively supporting them. And then the human being begins to see in the other human a modification of the one essence, individually and “particularly” having shaped its own content, but giving over this its particularity to speculative assimilation. The individual recognizes himself in the other and the other in himself; and in this way finds the path to freedom. Speculative liberation consists in the individual bringing about in himself “a positive knowing of himself within the selfhood of another.”5 Then he intuits in the objekt “the same”6 that he intuits in himself, “absolutely the same,” that forms the nature of the subject himself.7 Then he “finds himself in the other”8 and brings about a “complete,” “real,” and “objektive” “being and intuition of himself” in the alien individuality of the other human being.9 Thus he gradually learns to see himself “in each,”10 and, “relating to the other,” he “relates directly to himself.”11 “This free objektivity of the other, encountered by me, which is the negation of my self,” obtains for me the significance of my own “being for self,”12 so that in the end I live with the certainty that I will find in all 1. See chapter 7. 2. See chapters 7 and 12. 3. Nohl 379. 4. Comp.: “gegenseitiges Nehmen und Geben”: Nohl 380. 5. “Das affirmative Wissen seiner selbst im andern Selbst”: Enc. III 283. 6. “Es schaut die Dieselbigkeit an”: Lass. II 467. 7. “Absolut dasselbe, was das Subjekt ist”: Lass. II 467. 8. “Sich selbst in einem Andern wiedergefunden”: Nohl 322; comp.: Recht 222(Z). 9. Comp.: “Das sich reell objektiv Anweisen des Individuums in dem Andern”: Lass. II 464; “ein vollkommenes sich Objektivsein und Anschauen des Individuums in dem Fremden”: Lass. II 464–65. 10. “Schaut das Individuum sich in jedem als sich selbst an”: Lass. II 466. 11. “Beziehe ich mich, indem ich mich auf den Anderen beziehe, unmittelbar auf mich selber”: Enc. III 284(Z). 12. Phän. 265.

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social actuality “only my self ”:1 the being of others bears for me that same trustworthiness as my own being,2 for they are the “spirit of my spirit.”3 To this “doubling”4 and multiplication of the subject in other persons corresponds the same “doubling,” brought about by himself, of each of those others grown-together with him: gifts of living content are given and received mutually, and each of the parties receives a new life in the soul of his “co-subject.” Having recognized himself in the other soul, he himself offers his own soul, so that the other can recognize himself in the soul of the first; and conversely. Each affirms “his” reality both in himself and in the others, and all affirm their reality in all; so that each, carrying out a “reflection” in himself, reflects himself in the other5 and in all others, for each is present in all and all in each. And moreover, in such a way that each recognizes the freedom of the other and knows that he recognizes it, and knows that his freedom is recognized as well by the other and that the other knows of his own recognition and of himself being recognized.6 And not only does each recognize his freedom and receive recognition by others in his freedom, but given the full realization of the shape each knows also of his identity with the others. “I see in all that they themselves for themselves are the same independent beings as I am myself; I intuit in the others (my) free unity with them such that it is real, just as through me, so also through them. (I intuit) them, just as myself, and myself, just as them.”7 In other words, each not only brings about his own “unity” with the others (just as in himself, so also in the others), but, moreover, knows that such unity obtains, and that he brings it about. And thus each knows that both he himself and others recognize that both he and others are free through identity, and identical through freedom, and moreover, through identity and freedom, which are real both in himself and in others. There arises a deep and distinctive relation which Hegel terms the identity of subjective souls. Each individual can be considered to be a concrete fusion of “the generic-essential” and “the species-particular.” The “generic-essential” is one and the same for all people, with all people, in all people: it is the substantial Universality, the beneficent spiritual element, actually immanent in each being; it is the metaphysical essentiale of the human, the right and free, universal and incorruptible depth of the human soul. On the contrary, the “species-particular” is different in all people: it is their exist1. Phän. 266. 2. Phän. 266. 3. “Geist von seinem Geist”: Lass. II 465. 4. “Verdoppelung seiner selbst”: Nohl 379. 5. Enc. III 284(Z). 6. “Im freien Andern sich anerkannt weiss, und dies weiss, insofern es das Andere anerkennt und dasselbe frei weiss”: Enc. III 283. 7. “Sie als Mich, Mich als Sie”: Phän. 266.

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ing Particularity, the presence of which makes each of them individual, i.e., separate and self-sufficient, and the content of which differentiates people, making each of them dissimilar to the others and distinctive. And thus, a speculative living-intom assimilates the “species-particular” in the process of interchange and by this means discloses the “genericessential” concealed behind the visible particulars: each recognizes himself (i.e., his universal and particular content) in each, and every other (i.e., the universal and particular content of the other) in himself. This doesn’t mean that the individual form of existence disappears from the life of human beings; no, people retain the empirical separateness and independence of life (in this consists the fundamental difficulty for the understanding). Moreover, according to the law of organic growing-together,1 each party sets out from its content-filled particularities and, livingn the alien content into itself, inevitably retains the other primordial tissue, as it were, another receiving vessel. Each individual, entering into a content-filled assimilation with another, in the end carries away the same, but in his own way, so that no assimilation whatever can deprive either of the parties of originality and distinctiveness: the common content circulates in each of those grown-together individuals, but the primordial particularity leads each to the creation of his own, of something new, providing the possibility of an endless exchange of gifts.2 But despite this empirical separateness and this particular distinctiveness, speculative living-intoo creates a single particular content, common to all those grown together, and reveals a single universal spiritual root of their being. Each person sees in himself and in the others the life of a single spiritual substance and affirms himself and all others in an identity with it and, thanks to all of that, in an identity with one another. No one any longer sees in the other “an alien objekt,” but each sees in each the spiritually kindred subject, the subjectivity of which is borne by that same objektive substance, moved by that same objektive power, and saturated with that same objektive content, as his own. A “higher subject-objektivity is realized,”3 in which each “objekt” is intuited as a subject metaphysically kindred “to me,” and each subject is inspirited by the higher “objektivity” of spirit. In the social interchange of people is revealed a “complete freedom from the objekt,”4 for the parties enter into a “substantial”5 “identity with one another,”6 into that “substantial”7 “completed unity”8 in which they form something “unitary.”9 People 1. See chapter 7. 2. See chapter 7. 3. Comp.: the individual “gelangt zur höchsten Subjekt-objektivität”: Lass. II 466. 4. “Völlige Objektlosigkeit”: Nohl 379. 5. Comp.: on “somnambulism”: “substantielle Identität”: Enc. III 166. 6. “Identität mit einander ”: Enc. III 284(Z), 284(Z). 7. “Substantielle Einheit”: Enc. III 393. 8. “Vollendete Einigkeit”: Nohl 379. 9. “Eins”: Nohl 379 note.

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having entered into such a speculative unity1 turn out to be spiritually grown-together, “as though fused,”2 raising from themselves a new spiritual unity. The question of by which powers or resources of the soul this speculative flowing-together (Schluss)3 or growing-together (Concretion)4 of people is brought about was resolved differently by Hegel in various periods of his life. The very possibility of spiritual growing-together came to him under the influence of the Gospel’s doctrine of love,5 as of a religious and divine state of universal acceptance and reconciliation. Little by little a deep metaphysical need to find not a “possible” and a “wished for” status of spiritual grown-togetherness of a people, but an ever-present and in every way real element immanent in all, bringing about in the required way a speculative flowing-together in all, forced him to turn to the element of the objektive Concept and, correspondingly, within the human, to the element of speculative thinking. However, the widening subject matter of his philosophy forced him later to acknowledge crucial limitations for this “logical” conception6 and make significant emendations in favor of will and the unconscious (in ethics),7 imagination (in art),8 and feeling (in religion).9 It is clear that the actual fullness of spiritual unity presupposes the participation of all the powers of the soul. And thus, when among people there is realized a kind of speculative growing-together such that each “accepts” all and all “accept” each, then the appearance of a living human society becomes adequate to its metaphysical substratum: the speculative concreteness of the many fusing into a Unity becomes the constitutive law of human existence, just as the speculative differentiation of Unity, dividing itself into a many, is the law of divine being. Then the shared life of people is formed into a distinctive, holistic picture, being the “actual form of ethical life.” This picture has the following characteristics. In the deepest foundation of “the ethical shape” lies the “genuine,” “truly absolute”10 element of the Spirit of God, one in essence and socially multiple in appearance; the social whole—both as a whole and in parts, and in individual formations—lives by its rhythm and its content, forming a mature realization of the good. This means above all that the form of ethical life is a state of Divine substance, lying at the foundation of all social and personal virtue, as of any—not only social and personal—being. “Ethical life” is one of the 1. “Dies Verhältnis ist durchaus spekulativer Natur ”: Enc. III 284(Z). 2. “Gleichsam zusammengeflossen sind”: Enc. III 284(Z). 3. See chapter 7. 4. See chapters 1 and 7. 5. See chapter 20. 6. See chapters 10, 11, 12, and 21. 7. See chapters 15, 16, and 17. 8. See chapters 12 and 21. 9. See chapters 3, 12, and 21. 10. Lass. II 474.

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stages, one of the states of the Divinity itself, forging for itself a “true” appearance in the world; that is, accordingly, the Divinity itself in one of its “true” shapes. Therefore ethical life is a manifestation of Substance: “Substance at the stage of ethical life,” or more simply “ethical Substance” (sittliche Substanz).1 As in all other parts and appearances of the world, so too in ethical life, substance is immanent in all “accidents” or “appearances,” so that it must be equated with the “totality of its particularizations.”2 This means that here too it is not “abstract,” not “empty,” not “dead,” and not “distant” from the real process, but dwells in it as its genuine creative essence. Therefore ethical substance is a living unity:3 “ethical life,”4 “a living ethical world.”5 It should be considered as the life of God in the souls of human beings, devoting their powers to the overcoming of their “material” and “social” unfreedom. One can say that the life of ethical substance is the life of human souls, and the maturity of its being is determined by the level of their existence. Owing precisely to the fact that it is dissolved (aufgelöst) in the multiplicity of beings “possessing selfhood” (im Selbst), it is “not dead, but an actual and living essence.”6 And as living essence, having achieved in them consciousness and self-consciousness, it is already not only substance but spirit. “Ethical spirit” is nothing other than an “unmediated unity of substance with self-consciousness.”7 When substance exists in such a way that it recognizes in the souls of others its unity and its authentic nature, when people live in recognition of themselves as a single substance, then ethical life becomes realized, and the ethical world becomes thereby the spiritual world. Ethical life is, in essence, not only the substantial world, but precisely the world of spirit: 8 not only “belonging” to spirit or “created” by it, but woven from spirit and spiritual states, spirit itself in its true form.9 “Ethical life is spirit in its immediate truth.”10 It is “spirit at the stage of ethical life,” or “the ethical spirit” (der sittliche Geist).11 This spirit is, consequently, itself “absolute spirit,”12 “realized in a multiplicity” of existing human consciousnesses,13 having resolved or 1. Comp., e.g., Phän. 268, 268, 269, 270, 314, 332, 338, 552; Enc. III 393, 403; Recht 68–69, 220, 428, and others. 2. See chapters 5 and 7. 3. Comp.: W. Beh. 401, 413; Phän. 328–29; Enc. III 396; Ph. G. 44. 4. Phän. 330. Hegel’s emphasis. 5. Phän. 330. Hegel’s emphasis. 6. Phän. 328–29. Hegel’s emphasis. 7. “Weil der sittliche Geist die unmittelbare Einheit der Substanz mit dem Selbstbewusstsein ist”: Phän. 342; comp.: 415. 8. Comp.: Phän. 268, 283, 328, 330, 332, 333, 342, 527–28, 552; Enc. II 29; Enc. III 391, 394, 442; Recht 220, 220, 221, 340, 341, 342. 9. “Die lebendige sittliche Welt ist der Geist in seiner Wahrheit”: Phän. 330; “der sittliche oder der wahre Geist”: Phän. 527, 563. 10. Phän. 336. 11. Comp., e.g., Phän. 342, 527, 527–528, 563, and others. 12. Phän. 332. 13. Ibidem.

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“particularized” itself 1 into a multiplicity of independent persons and constituting their living essence,2 their real Universality.3 The universal spiritual substance, including in itself all its “particular” parts and “singular” formations, is their ensemble, their “totality,”4 immanent in them, composed of them in terms of compass, constituting them in terms of content. It enters into them as their living essence, and they enter into it as its living parts.5 From this it is already clear that the real “element” of ethical life is not the subjective, individual soul, but the social whole, the “totality” of human souls. Ethical life is not a state of singular souls; it is a particular “system”6 of states and relations, a new “nature,”7 raised to a higher level. This “system” or “nature” cannot be turned into a mature shape nor divide itself completely into all of its potencies8 in the soul of a single human being: “the singularity of the individual is not the first thing; (the first thing is) the life of ethical nature, Divinity, and for its essence the singular individual is too meagre to embrace its nature in all its reality.”9 Therefore absolute ethical life is a state of many persons, and the “reality of the universal consists” here in that it exists “in the form of a multitude of individuals.”10 This multiplicity, of course, doesn’t lead a divided and particularized life, but nevertheless it remains a multiplicity even when the speculative unity becomes the law of its existence. This multiplicity forms an “ethical system” precisely because it is internally borne by “substance or real spiritual essence.”11 Ethical substance is the living ground12 of this multiplicity. It is a certain “ethereality,” a certain “elementary” and “pure”13 “essence of all essences,”14 as it were a “universal blood,”15 circulating in all and creating all by its movement. It is the “soul”16 and “objective essence”17 of any human self-consciousness—a true “infinity,”18 forming in its “powerful”19 and “majestic”20 flow the “objektive”21 and “content-filled ground” of any personal virtue.22 It is “the universal medium, supporting”23 the life of 1. “Sich abstrakt in viele Personen . . . besondernd ”: Enc. III 394. 2. Comp.: Phän. 313, 323, 349; Ph. G. 36 and others. 3. Comp.: W. Beh. 327, 396, 397; Phän. 334, 341, 392, 563; Recht 221. 4. Comp.: W. Beh. 415, 416, 416–17, 421; Phän. 344 and others. 5. See chapter 5. 6. Comp.: Lass. II 474. 7. Comp.: Lass. II 475, 475. 8. “Als ausgebildetes, in seinen Potenzen sich vollständig verteilendes”: Lass. II 474. 9. Lass. II 474–75. 10. Lass. II 481. 11. “Substanz oder reales geistiges Wesen”: Phän. 323. 12. Comp.: “Grund ”: Lass. II 465–66; “Grundlage”: Phän. 291. 13. “Ätherizität, das Elementarische, Reine”: Lass. II 474. 14. “Das Wesen aller Wesen”: Phän. 313; comp.: Phän. 349; Enc. II. 529; Ph. G. 36. 15. Comp.: chapters 5 and 7. 16. Comp.: “Seele und Wesen”: Phän. 265. 17. “Gegenständliches Wesen”: Phän. 265. 18. W. Beh. 338. 19. Comp.: “absolute Macht”: Phän. 349; Enc. II 529. 20. Comp.: “absolute sittliche Majestät”: W. Beh. 338. 21. Comp.: Log. III 187; Recht 268. 22. Comp.: “inhatlsvolle Grundlage”: Phän. 291. 23. Comp.: “das allgemeine erhaltende Medium”: Phän. 265.

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the singular human being, conditioning his activity,1 and making him in general for the first time possible.2 It is natural that ethical spirit should acquire the significance of universal absolute power, to resist which is impossible for an individual.3 Spirit itself subdivides itself into individual persons,4 dwells in them, lives by them and in their person and remains their “inner power and necessity,”5 their determining fate.6 Consciously or unconsciously, secretly or overtly, “the ethical” turns out to be “the motive force of all human activities,”7 and this is expressed, by the way, also in the fact that laws and mores possess the significance of “essential”8 “agents”9 “unconsciously penetrating” people’s souls and being revealed in their actions.10 The ethical Spirit actually possesses the character of a powerful unity, maintaining and affirming itself in the visible plurality of souls and strivings. But this selfassertion obtains the true height and victory only when the personal life of people achieves ethical maturity. Then the life of social substance grows into an organic form. A society of people, having developed into an ethical system, is a speculative organism: “a living shape or an organic totality.”11 It conforms in this to the one, general law of spirit, and it can be said that “the universal substance” “exists as living only to the extent that it gives itself over to organic particularization.”12 “Absolute ethical life” as a “shape of the world” must without fail “organize itself perfectly,”13 i.e., develop itself into a harmonious unity of mutually integrated organs, assimilated in terms of content and formally unified.14 This means that ethical substance, following its inner necessity, “branches out”15 and internally “divides”16 itself into parts, or “potencies,”17 which in their turn are particular “subordinate systems.”18 All of these parts or systems stand in “immediate contact”19 and “immediate interaction with one another,”20 each maintaining “its own living aspect,”21 but nourishing each other22 and conjointly forming a living and harmonious “order”23 under the direction of a central “organic power.”24 1. “Bedingt”: Enc. III 392. 2. “In dessen Zusammenhang allein vorhanden”: Enc. III 392. 3. Log. III 187. 4. Enc. III 391. 5. “Die abstrakte Diremtion dieses Geistes ist die Vereinzelung in Personen, von deren Selbständigkeit er die innere Macht und Notwendigkeit ist”: Enc. III 391. 6. “Die Macht, als die objektive Allgemeinheit und als Gewalt gegen das Objekt, ist, was Schicksal gennant wird ”: Log. III 192. 7. “Das Sittliche, der Beweger aller menschlichen Dinge”: W. Beh. 327. 8. Comp.: “Wesenheiten”: Ph. G. 36. 9. “Agentien”: Log. III 187. 10. Log. III 187. See chapter 16. 11. “Lebendige Gestalt oder organische Totalität der Sittlichkeit”: W. Beh. 391. 12. Enc. III 396. 13. “Muss sich vollkommen organisiren”: W. Beh. 378–79. 14. See chapter 7. 15. “Verzweigung”: Lass. II 485. 16. “Trennung”: Lass. II 481; “Auseinandertreten”: Lass. II 485; “sich gliedert”: Phän. 443. 17. Comp., e.g., Lass. II 475; W. Beh. 412. 18. Lass. II 481, 485, 487. 19. “Die Unmittelbarkeit der Berührung”: W. Beh. 364. 20. “Unmittelbar . . . rückwirken”: W. Beh. 364. 21. “Jede in ihrer lebendigen Gestalt”: Lass. II 475. 22. Comp.: Phän. 374. 23. Comp.: Phän. 280; Recht 11. 24. “Organische Zentralgewalt”: Lass. II 486.

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This power is the living power of the whole itself, living in its parts and creating itself in them.1 The “totality” creates in itself its parts, “penetrates into them and revitalizes them”;2 it “resolves” their being into “absolute tenderness”3 and flexibility and thereby imparts to itself the character of a “fluid” and all-penetrating essence.4 It “assimilates” and “renders indifferent” every particular content5 and imparts “entirely all the moments of its own” assimilated content6 to each of its own potencies; it observes the “measure” of each7 and supports “a harmony of the parts,”8 affirming in their “tranquil equilibrium”9 its power10 and their capacity for life. The spirit of the whole reigns over11 the life of the parts and imparts to that life “absolute transparency,” “unity,”12 and power. Thanks to this, “neither the individual potency nor the existence of all potencies in general can become fixed”: the spirit of the whole “perpetually unfolds them” and “just as absolutely folds them up, and raises them” and again “enjoys itself in undeveloped unity and clarity”:13 its relation to the potencies is internally purposive and creatively authoritative; “certain and indivisible in its own inner life, it now reduces one by means of the other, now wholly passes over into the other and annihilates all the others” and “withdraws into absolute rest, in which all potencies are sublated.”14 “The ethical totality,” pursuing the single end of being spiritually selfsustaining, always “limits” its own parts and deprives them of independent reality,15 and thus composes its “historical”16 process in time:17 it oscillates between its “opposing” potencies—now reminding (mahnt) one of them of its purpose, now giving it predominance and thereby producing an “intrusion” and causing a “breach” in another,18 now infusing new life in it by its “intensive presence”19 and a little bit later20 reminding all together of their impermanence and dependence.21 And again it “destroys their profuse expansion and self-organization, suddenly fusing them all into singular moments and reducing them to itself,” in order to once

1. Comp.: “in und durch alle seine Teile”: Lass. II 483. 2. “Sie durchdringt und belebt”: W. Beh. 414; comp.: Lass. II 485. 3. “In die absolute Weichheit aufgelöst”: Lass. II 474. 4. Comp.: “die Substanz selbst dies flüssige Wesen geworden ist”: Phän. 529. 5. “Indifferentiirt, assimilirt”: W. Beh. 414. 6. “Ganz und alle Momente ihres Inhalts”: Phän. 333. 7. “Die Strenge des Maasses”: Recht 11. 8. “Die Stärke des Ganzen aus der Harmonie seiner Glieder”: Recht 11. 9. “Ruhiges Gleichgewicht aller Teile”: Phän. 344; comp.: Lass. II 494. 10. Recht 11. 11. Comp.: “schwebt”: W. Beh. 415. 12. “Absolute klare Einheit”: W. Beh. 409. 13. W. Beh. 409. 14. W. Beh. 409–10. 15. “Einschränken und Ideellsetzen”: W. Beh. 412. 16. “Die Geschichte der sittlichen Totalität”: W. Beh. 412. 17. “In der Zeit”: W. Beh. 412. 18. “Einbrüche und Risse”: W. Beh. 412. 19. “Kräftiges Inwohnen”: W. Beh. 412. 20. Comp.: “für eine Zeit”: W. Beh. 412. 21. “An ihre Zeitlichkeit und Abhängigkeit erinnert”: W. Beh. 412; comp.: Lass. II 485, 486; W. Beh. 349, 354, 410.

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again “revivify” them from the simple “unity” and “release them, having reminded them of this dependence” and having imparted to them the certainty “that they will be weak, whenever they should want to become independent.”1 The ethical totality subjects them to speculative “negation,”2 and coercing them, “forces”3 them to create the life and law of the whole; it creates by this means its mature, developed existence and, having gathered its scattered rays into a single focus, “intuits and cognizes”4 its own shape from it. It realizes in this way the laws of speculative universality and concreteness and thereby discloses its divinity: it is an organism, living within its organs, and at the same time a totality of organs, living in organic unity. Absolute ethical life “has in the individuals its distinctive organic body, and its movement and life both as universal and as particulars are absolutely identical in the combined being and activity of all” people.5 The universal ethical spirit “subsumes under itself ” or “absorbs,” includes within itself, all:6 it constitutes the “reality” of the individual creations and affirms—“in friendly or hostile fashion”—its identity with them.7 Spiritual substance is “dissolved”8 in the individual souls and is in turn “penetrated”9 by them: it stands with them in “immediate,”10 “unconditional, holistic, simple,”11 “absolute”12 unity13 and identity,14 such that a relation15 between the two sides is extinguished, and it cannot even be said that “absolute ethical life is reflected”16 in the individual soul. The whole is simply “equal” to its parts and the living individuals are “equal”17 to their Universality: they live in it18 and the existence of ethical substance consists in their “actuality and activity.”19 “In each and for each of them, even to the extent that they are singular,”20 the spirit of the whole lives and creates itself, merging with them and merging them with itself;21 such that a kind of classical simplicity and a living unity is actually revealed. “This ethical life” as “a living independent spirit” “appears like Briareus with myriads of eyes, arms, and other members, each of which is an absolute individual,”22 and in this its form it constitutes a single spiritual organism, living with a single universal self-consciousness. 1. W. Beh. 412; comp.: Phän. 363. 2. Comp.: Lass. II 485, 486. 3. Comp.: bezwingen”: W. Beh. 372. 4. Comp.: “wiederstrahlt und sich darin anschaut und erkennt”: W. Beh. 415. 5. W. Beh. 400; comp.: Lass. II 485. 6. “Die Subsumtion aller unter ein allgemeines”: Lass. II 466; Phän. 230. 7. “Freundlich oder feindlich identisch mit ihnen”: Lass. II 466. 8. “Aufgelöst”: Phän. 328–29. 9. “Durchdrungen”: Phän. 313. 10. Phän. 279, 342, 353. 11. “Schlechthin Eins”: comp. Lass. II 465; Glaub. 148; W. Beh. 338; Recht 217. 12. W. Beh. 323; Enc. III 392. 13. W. Beh. 362; Phän. 264–65. 14. Lass. II 452; W. Beh. 367, 400; Enc. III 390–91, 438; Recht 212–20. 15. Recht 212. 16. “Sich abspiegle”: W. Beh. 396. 17. “Gleich”: Lass. II 465, 466–67. 18. Lass. II 481. 19. Phän. 314. 20. Lass. II 466. 21. “Zusammenfliessen”: Phän. 229–30. 22. Lass. II 464.

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The spiritual unity of the people is by no means a “norm” or “requirement,” or an “ideal”; neither must it be understood in the sense of some sort of “abstraction,” or the result of cognitive “combinations,” or an empirical “coexistence.” This unity, a unity of will and self-consciousness at the highest level, is an absolute and objektive reality: the ethical collective actually possesses a single self-consciousness1 and a single will. Given this, “the universal self-consciousness” lives in singular consciousnesses—in each and in all, in all separately and in all together; and in just the same way “the universal will” lives in singular wills—in each and in all, in all separately and in all together. Universal self-consciousness triply justifies its name: it is, first, the selfconsciousness of the individual, having permeated the entire structure of his subjective spirit right down to its substantial depths. It is, second, the self-consciousness of the collective, borne by each, aware of himself in all and all in himself, and by all, aware of themselves in it and it in themselves. It is, third, the self-consciousness of Substance, realized in the self-consciousness of the individual, recognizing it in himself, and himself in it, and in the self-consciousness of the collective, each member of which knows all in it and it in all. Seemingly, universal self-consciousness does not possess a particular external bearer and lives entirely in singular souls; nevertheless, only superficial and abstractly rational thought can detect in such a conception some sort of “social nominalism.” For the reality of universal self-consciousness is an actual, objektive reality, living, true, in individual souls, but in its realization regenerating both the content and the rhythm of their individual life: both by what means the soul lives, and how it lives, are actually changed and renewed. Universal consciousness is the state of universal substance, winning back for itself the sphere of personal-particular consciousness. Therefore it is essential to recognize that universal self-consciousness having been realized in individual souls, lives not in them, but through them, or as if it were them, such that “there remains only the movement of universal self-consciousness in itself in terms of its interaction in the form of universality and (in the form) of personal consciousness.”2 In similar fashion Universal will also triply justifies its name: it is, first, a single and rational passion of the individual spirit, having restored its wholeness and its rightness and realizing its freedom from all material, social, and substantive other-being. It is, second, the will of the collective, endured by all such that the volitional activity of each coincides by content, by purpose, and by results with the volitional activity of each other person 1. Comp.: Phän. 264–65, 307, 403.

2. Phän. 444.

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and of all others—separately and collectively, for each strives and works, realizing such a “self-sustaining,” which is eo ipso a “self-sustaining” of each other and of all together (an organic mutual nourishing of parts). It is, third, the Universal will of Substance itself, manifesting itself in the will of the individual, the particular will of which entrusted itself to the subjectively universal, id est the objektively universal element of spirit, as well as in the will of the collective, each member of which bears in himself the substantial will and is borne by the substantial will, as his living essence. Seemingly, the universal will also possesses no particular external bearer and lives exclusively in individual souls; nevertheless thought, having realized in itself the speculative vision of Hegel, cannot detect “nominalism” in his doctrine of universal will. The reality of universal will is a genuine, objektive reality; true, it lives in singular souls, but in its disclosure it regenerates the volitional activity of each in its content, and purpose, and results. The universal will as it were overflowed, unimpededly spread itself in the souls of people to such an extent that each individual will drowned itself and, actually, sank in the rushing element of Substance, and all of them, having a single, common content, a single common purpose, and a single common result, and knowing their organic assimilatedness, concreteness, and identity, form a powerful, functional unity of Universal will.1 Therefore it can be said that the Universal will lives not in individual souls, but through them, or as if it were them, such that there remains only its “movement” in itself: it takes the form of individual-particular will2 in order to unfold itself into the “system of ethical life,” and returns anew to itself 3 in the act of conscience, having realized itself in other-being and having affirmed its substantial freedom. And thus, “this Universality, unconditionally and simply having united particularity with itself, is the Divinity of the nation,”4 comprising the essence of ethical life and the deepest nature of the individual soul. “The national spirit is the Divine knowing itself and desiring itself.”5 This means that within the limits of ethical philosophy, by “universal” must be understood the spirit of a distinct, singular nation; by “particular,” the spirit of a separate estate; and by “singular,” the spirit of a separate, singular person (a family, comprising a single person,6 or a human subject).7 The ethical substance, having brought about for itself an adequate actuality, is the Divine Spirit, which realized itself in the form of a nation 1. See chapter 15. 2. Comp.: Phän. 444, 445; Ph. G. 44; Mollat 54. 3. Comp.: Mollat 54; Recht 42. 4. “Göttlichkeit des Volkes”: Lass. II 467. 5. “Das sich wissende und wollende Göttliche”: Recht 312. 6. Comp.: “die Familie ist nur eine Person”: Enc. III 394. 7. See chapter 20.

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leading a concretely ethical life.1 A nation, having brought about all three great concretizations, is a triply concrete shape of ethical life—an authentic manifestation of Divinity, a type of “mystical unity”2 of the people and God. For “the action of Divinity” leads everywhere to the identical result: to speculative concreteness3—to the growing-together of the spiritual in spirit.4 Given such an understanding, ethical life appears at once as a current of Divine Spirit in the personal soul—“virtue”; as the life of a collective “individual,”5 developed into an independent, organized “world,”6 a “state”; and finally, as “the substantial in the actuality of the world,”7 or “the Divine in the external object of history.”8 Above all, ethical life must be examined as the virtue of the individual.

Translator’s Notes a. That is, the “concretion” or “concretization” into a holistic form of ethical life. b. Вещное: literally, “pertaining to things,” i.e., a reference to investing one’s will in a thing as a step toward actualization of the will as free. c. Here, as in numerous places throughout this chapter, the significance of the second part of Il’in’s title becomes particularly clear. The “concreteness of humanity” is ultimately a reference to the doctrine of ethical life (in contrast to morality) as explicated in this chapter. d. More literally, “grows the subject together with its own roots.” e. Сливается (“flows together”): another of Il’in’s key terms, which could be translated as “concretizes.” f. Alternatively: a new attitude toward other persons. g. This conception of the unconscious could be drawn from Kant alone; however, one should also remember that by the time of writing this second volume of his commentary, Il’in was not only thoroughly familiar with Freud’s work but had undertaken an abbreviated course of psychoanalysis with Freud himself in Vienna (in 1914). h. The Russian term is обособлением (the instrumental case of обособле-

1. Comp.: “der Geist ist das sittliche Leben eines Volkes”: Phän. 330; “als die wirkliche Substanz ist er ein Volk”: Phän. 333; “die wirkliche ihrer bewusste sittliche Substanz, das ganze Volk”: Phän. 338; “der sittliche oder der wahre Geist . . . ist das freie Volk”: Phän. 527; comp. Enc. III 391, 403; Recht 68–69, 220; W. Beh. 413, 414, and others. 2. Comp.: “unio mystica”: Nohl 67. The original meaning of the term “unio” is not “a joining of the distinct” but “an individual,” “a unity.” 3. Comp.: “alles Wahre ist konkret”: Recht 43; “Versöhnung ist der Gehalt der spekulativen Idee”: Enc. I xviii, note, and others. 4. Comp.: Nohl 305. 5. Comp. W. Beh. 413; Phän. 330. 6. “Das Individuum, das eine Welt ist”: Phän. 330. 7. Rel. I 173. 8. Ph. G. 40.

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ние), which would normally be translated as “isolation.” Il’in is here using it to translate the German Besonderung: “particularization.” (See endnote j below.) i. The Russian is дух, normally translated as “spirit,” but in the context of Hegel’s section on “Anthropology” it should be translated by “mind,” which is also one of the dictionary meanings of дух. j. Il’in translated Hegel’s phrase “aller Besonderung und Vereinzelung des Geistes” (Hegel, Encyclopedia, §389) as “всякого обособления [particularizing] и единичного формирования [singular-forming] духа.” Hence: “all particularizing and singularizing of mind.” k. The Russian term is вживание, literally a “living into” (or “getting used to” in the reflexive form of the verb). The non-reflexive verb form used by Il’in is found in Dal’ but not in Ushakov. The noun form (as here) is either exceedingly rare or coined by Il’in. “Living-into” appears to serve for Il’in as a counterpart to “grown-together,” related as process to result. l. Согласно общему закону “конкретного слияния”: the last term in this phrase (“confluence,” “flowing together”) refers to a process whose result would be something with a higher degree of concreteness. See also note c above. m. Again вживание: see endnote k above. n. Вживая. o. Вживание.

19

On Personhood and Its Virtue

The shape of ethical life, despite all its complexity, displays a certain holistic and classic simplicity, maintaining itself on the path of continuous speculative growing-together. The concreteness of this “shape” consists, first, in the fact that it always conceals within itself a multiplicity of elements and states, non-coincident both formally and in terms of content, and forming together the great richness of content of the whole; second, in the fact that these non-coinciding elements and parts stand among themselves in a relation of assimilative exchange, mutually nourishing and supportive, i.e., in a relation of organic grown-togetherness. This means that all the elements of the whole are connected by the one absolute foundation and the one purposive mutual belonging such that they are all possible only in the womb of substance and are actual only through its purposive pulsation: the multiplicity is grasped within the single compass (“по- ятии,” понятии)a from which it arose and into which it returned, and a variety of contents are grown together into a single simple, everywhere-present universality, from the primordial determination of which the multiplicity issued forth, and into the concentrated richness of which it is now enclosed.1, b Therefore the shape of ethical life is in its essence not “a multiplicity, joined into wholeness,” but a substantial “unity, which has internally differentiated itself into a multiplicity of organs.” All of the properties and all of the characteristics of ethical life are in essence properties and characteristics of substance; all of its determinations receive their meaning and their significance precisely as determinations of the one spirit. In ethical life, the one divine spirit is primordial, and only on the secondary plane is ethical life manifest as a human collective—a society or “nation.” Those who fail to understand this and consent to recognize substance only as a product of singular acts performed by detached individuals are, according to Hegel, blinded by the external aspect of the empirical appearance and mistake it for the primary, absolute, and primordial. If ethical life is spiritual, then its spirituality is first of all unitary, only subsequently multiple, and finally once again unitary. If ethical life 1. Comp.: the comparison of “the ethical system” with the system of heavenly lights. W. Beh. 395. [Beginning on 394. —ptg] 135

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is concrete, then it is first of all concrete because of a primordial undissolvability,1 only subsequently discrete in appearance, and finally, once again concrete in the sense of a growing-together of “discrete” parts. If ethical life is free, then it is first of all free in its absolute essence as infinite Substance, only subsequently “half-free” under the conditions of concrete empirical existence, and, finally, it is again free as substance, having broken through empirical necessity, having overcome its inner multiplicity and its fragmentation and having converted an “aggregation” into “Universality.”2 The ethical shape is in the beginning3 “substance” and only subsequently a “totality.” It is above all “divine meaning” and “spirit” and only after that “human spirits” and “souls”; it is primordially an undisclosed “indifference” and only subsequently a plurality of “differences” and their “indifferent” grown-togetherness.4 “Universal will” is prior to “the will of the singular human,”5 just as the world is prior to its parts, and the Divinity is more real and more primordial than the world. This priority of “substance” over the “individual human being” possesses, as is already evident, not a “logical,” or “cognitive,” or merely “valuational” or “empirical-temporal” character, but a metaphysical-ontological significance. The substance of the national spirit is an absolute and selfsufficient reality, growing from itself and within itself its singular appearances—individual souls. Universal will is not only the “source” (Quelle) of all individual wills,6 but is the essential and sole absolute foundation of their being and their life: “The Universal, Spirit, is in each and for each even insofar as they are singulars.”7 The individual is a “modus” of the universal essence, standing in “absolute indifference” with it.8 He consists primordially in the universal essence 9 and is conditioned by it;10 moreover, he simply coincides with it in its essence and actuality, in his will, his activities,11 and the product of his activities.12 The singular possesses only the external aspect of opposition,13 but in actual fact it is “universal consciousness and will.”14 The human being possesses “objektivity, truth, and ethical life only as a participating member of objektive spirit,”15 and only the “totality” carries the justification for the individual in his being.16 Spirit 1. See chapter 18. Comp.: Recht 220(Z). 2. Comp.: “Allheit” and “Allgemeinheit”: Lass. II 466; W. Beh. 347, 395, and others. 3. This “сначала” has the meaning of “real existence” and can only to an extent take on the nuance of “timelike” or simply “temporal” succession. 4. Comp., e.g., W. Beh. 36, 378, 394. 5. Comp.: Mollat Anhang 54: “das Erste und das Wesen”; “früher”; “absolut da für sie.” 6. Ph. G. 44. 7. Lass. II 466. Author’s emphasis. 8. W. Beh. 394. 9. Comp.: “in dessen Zusammenhang allein vorhanden”: Enc. III 392. 10. Comp.: “durch das vorausgesetzte Ganze bedingt”: Enc. III 392. 11. Comp.: Lass. II 465; Phän. 527–28; Recht 210, 217. 12. Comp.: Phän. 328. 13. “Nur den Schein des Gegensatzes”: Phän. 443. Hegel’s emphasis. 14. Phän. 443. 15. Recht 313. 16. Comp.: “Rechtfertigung des Einzelnen”: W. Beh. 415.

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“as substance and as the universal, self-identical, and abiding essence is the incorruptible and indestructiblec ground and starting point for the activity of all (people), and as the conjectural essence in itself of all selfconsciousnesses expressed in thought; (it is) their goal and task.”1 “This substance is equally the universal work (Werk), which produces itself through the activity of all and each as their unity and identity (Gleichheit), for it is being-for-self, selfhood, activity.”2 “As substance Spirit is unshakable, rightful (gerecht) equality-with-itself; however, as existing-for-self (this equality) is the resolved, self-sacrificing benevolent essence, in working on which each accomplishes his own aims, breaks apart the universal being, and takes from it his own share.3 This resolution of the essence and its disintegration into singularities is precisely the moment of the activity and the selfhood of all; it is the movement and the soul of substance and the resultant universal essence. Precisely thanks to the fact that it is being, resolved into selfhood, it is not dead essence, but actual and living.”4 And thus, if one takes into account this inclusion of the parts into the whole, this absorption of each individual by the life of substance and at the same time the metaphysical priority of Spirit over “souls” and of Will over every individual will, then the impression can arise that the being of personhood d is according to Hegel a simple external aspect, not only an inessential and secondary moment but, perhaps, a direct illusion. In actual fact, in describing the role and position of the individual in the system of ethical life, Hegel occasionally expresses himself in such a way that one might think that the “singular” is completely “absorbed” or even annihilated by the universal and that “ethical substance” excludes even the form of personal existence. Given such an understanding, the very problem of the individual might turn out, or at least seem to be, an imaginary problem, and independent consideration of the essence of individual virtue would be deprived of any basis.e However, the categorical and radical character of all these definitions, capable of leading to such a universalistic interpretation, should be entertained with caution. The point is that according to the repeated indications of Hegel himself, Spirit must necessarily reduce itself to an “individual-multiple” state, particularly in order to develop itself fully in the world of “appearances” and become “a shape of the world.” The purest ethical will requires the form of “singularity,”5 requires individualization, bearing in 1. “Und ihr Zweck und Ziel, als das gedachte Ansich aller Selbstbewusstsein”: Phän. 328. Hegel’s emphasis. 2. Phän. 328. Hegel’s emphasis. 3. Phän. 328. Hegel’s emphasis. 4. Phän. 328–29. Hegel’s emphasis. 5. Comp.: Enc. III 371; Lass. II 474.

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itself “living life.”1 The singular soul is not that element in which the system of ethical life can be realized,2 because ethical life is a state of many singular spirits, speculatively grown together: “the organic body of absolute ethical life” consists of a multiplicity of individual souls,3 turning their numerical multiplicity into “a pure unity.”4 In the words of Plato, “the many” affirms itself as “a one,” just as “the one” affirmed itself in the form of “the many.” Individualization is necessary for ethical substance because it imparts to it a new mode of being, outside of which it could not develop itself into a mature “shape of the world.” This mode of being is defined as a living knowledge of itself and a free willing of itself; the ethical shape is possible only in the presence of these traits. Individualization is necessary in order that within the element of “soul” the great cosmic process of divine self-liberation should take place and be concluded. This process inevitably leads to the existence of the empirical, self-sufficient, singular human being. Substance must accept the mode of concrete-empirical life, for freedom consists in the overcoming of the sensuous element, and the overcoming of any and all “otherbeing” is achieved only through an actual entering into it and an actual acceptance of it in itself;5 for this reason, substance must “break apart,” “disjoin itself ” into a multiplicity of singular empirical beings, subject to the law of spurious necessity and leading a discretely selfsufficient existence. Each of these beings acquires a dual nature: a substantial-universal one and an empirical-particular one, and it depends on each individual whether to concentrate the energy of its life on the first or on the second. And whichever life the individual leads, a life dissolving “particularity” in “universality,” or a life subordinating the “universal” to the “particular,” Substance continues to be present in it, imparting to it “formal ” freedom, i.e., the capability to determine oneself empirically-centrifugally or metaphysically-centripetally. Substance is so true to itself, and its nature so undistortable and incorruptible, that it imparts its fundamental character of “self-sufficient self-creation”6 even to the singularity of the empirical human being. This is inevitable because even an empirical being remains a “mode” of substance: it is necessary in order that the self-liberation of the individual should remain an act of substance. The freedom of substance must be restored, and is restored in a process of its own self-determination, proceeding from it and returning 1. “Das lebendige Leben”: Lass. II 474. 2. Comp.: Lass. II 474, 475. 3. Comp.: W. Beh. 400. 4. “Die Zahl zur reinen Einheit und zur Unendlichkeit geläutert”: W. Beh. 393. 5. See chapter 13. 6. See chapter 4.

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to it, i.e., in a process of its free creativity. It accomplishes this restitution not because any sort of “other,” “external” to it, or some external “fate” or factor spurs it to do so, but rather because its own fully self-sufficient, divine nature requires it. Its self-liberation is, in a certain sense, a manifestation of “necessity,” but namely of speculative, i.e., internal, organic necessity coinciding with true freedom.1 The progression of Divinity toward freedom is a manifestation of divine good will. And thus the goodness of this divine will must absolutely be present in the singular will so that it, attending as a mode of substance to its “universal” depth and merging its “particular” will with the primordial sources of its being, should be a worthy bearer of Divine work. An act of conscience as a cognitive impulse and a creative achievement is not only a “universal” act of substance, but also a “singular” act of the person, and not only an achievement of the individual, but also an achievement of Spirit itself. Therefore this act must preserve the goodness of divine will also in the individual person’s soul, i.e., of speculative, organic-inner necessity, coinciding with true freedom. And for this, substance must determine itself to empirical particularity and individual self-sufficiency; it must release itself in the form of “the person” and “a multitude of persons” to the free expanse of metaphysically empirical self-determination, to the freedom of singular spirit in a singular soul and a singular body. The freedom of substance must find for itself a focal point and dwelling in the self-sufficiency of the individual, and only then will the self-liberation of the individual be the self-liberation of substance. For this reason substance must accept the conditions of the concrete-empirical world to the end, including the plural discreteness of events, and the corporeal-sensuous form of existence, and the distinctness of individual beings; it must fragment itself, disperse itself into a multiplicity of corporeally and psychically disconnected, singular persons in order—in them and through them, respecting their self-sufficiency, or, more accurately, respecting in them their “particular” self-sufficiency—to conquer the element of empirical existence and bring about the actual shape of ethical life. The universal will moves toward freedom and achieves it precisely in the form of the singular will; however, in such a way that the individual remains a self-sufficient being, “completely self-sufficient,”2 for whom it is as admissible to “flow together”3 with the Universal as it is to be indifferent to it, not submitting to its influence and even opposing it to itself and distorting it.4 1. See chapter 13. 2. “Volkommene Selbständigkeit”: Phän. 264. 3. “Zusammen zu fliessen”: Phän. 230. 4. “Ganz gleichgültig sich zu verhalten,” “nicht auf sich einwirken zu lassen,” “sich entgegengesetzt zu verhalten,” “zu verkehren”: Phän. 230.

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Dispersing itself into a multiplicity of such independent individuals, substance creates for itself in their person an organic periphery, to each member of which is given both possibilities: to fall away, enclosing itself in its own “particularity,” or, on the contrary, to turn to its universal metaphysical roots, affirming its own essence in them. In the first case victory goes to the concrete-empirical, and ethical life does not acquire the character of a mature “shape of the world.” In the second case the person voluntarily and freely turns away from the empirical element of his existence and that element submissively “conforms” its pulse to the rhythm of substantial life; then Universality acquires its “actuality,”1 i.e., its adequate “existence,”2 the fullness of its “realization.”3 Then is affirmed4 that “freedom” of the individual spirit from empirical lawfulness which is at the same time the freedom of the individual in substance and the freedom of substance in the individual. Ethical life appears in the form of a mature “shape of the world,”5 of a new structure and order, in the form of a second “nature.”6 In such fashion, “individuality” is that mode of life in which substance, through self-consciousness and will, asserts its freedom: the subject is “the ground for the adequate existence of freedom.”7 The life of ethical substance is always in the final analysis the life of its singular participants. Their “souls”8 weave out of themselves its spiritual level,9 their activity10 forms out of itself its purposive creativity; their living pulsation11 constitutes its proper life;12 their obedient service13 imparts to it an organic “fluidity.”14 It is precisely the singular soul which bears within itself that capacity for consciousness15 and will 16 which is needed in order for substance to become spirit. Self-consciousness is a function of individual “selfhood,” and only through it, through its thinking and cognition,17 can substance obtain its highest level: to become through an act of conscience a subject, which has cognized its essence,18 or, what is the same thing, as subjective self-consciousness to see in itself the crowning moment of substantial being.19 1. Comp.: Phän. 326, 328–29, 332; Enc. III 391; Recht 207, 210, 211, 218–19. 2. “Dasein”: Phän. 326, 332; “Existenz”: Recht 219, 312. 3. “In der Vielheit des daseienden Bewusstseins realisirt ”: Phän. 332. Hegel’s emphasis. 4. Comp.: W. Beh. 414. 5. Comp.: “erscheinende Gestalt”: Recht 211. 6. “Die selbstbewusste Freiheit zur Natur geworden”: Enc. III 391. 7. “Die Subjektivität, welche den Boden der Existenz für den Freiheitsbegriff ausmacht . . . ist im Sittlichen die ihm adäquate Existenz desselben”: Recht 219. 8. “Seele”: Phän. 328–29. 9. Comp.: “durch das Princip der Individualität zur eignen Geistigkeit gelangt”: Recht 392. 10. “Tun”: Phän. 265, 328; “bewirkt”: Phän. 328; “Bethäftigung”: Enc. III 391; “Handeln”: Recht 210; “Tätigkeit”: Recht 312. 11. “Pulsschlag”: W. Beh. 396. 12. Comp.: Phän. 328–29, 353; Recht 268. 13. “Gehorsam und Dienst”: Phän. 529. 14. “Dies flüssige Wesen”: Phän. 529. 15. Comp., e.g., Phän. 332, 333. 16. Comp.: Phän. 326, 444; “der allgemeine Willen geht in sich und ist einzelner Willen.” See chapter 15. 17. Comp.: Phän. 326; Enc. III 391; Recht 268, 312. 18. Comp.: Phän. 483. 19. “Das Selbstbewusstsein sieh als Moment des Fürsichseins dieser Substanz weiss”: Phän. 315.

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Such is the meaning and purpose of the singular human being in the life of substance: to freely desire freedom and to acquire it in a fusing with substance, in an identification of its freedom with the freedom of the Universal.1 The individual mode of being is necessary to spirit, and “subjective particularity” is indeed an “essential moment”2 in the process of divine life: human life is that external form, in which ethical life appears in the world.3 The individual is the “pure form of substance,” and substance “constitutes the content” of the individual.4 It is obvious that Hegel, in speaking of the “sublation” or “raising up” of human “singularity,” cannot mean the complete annihilation of individuality, proceeding as far as the disappearance of personal being. That which is “sublated,” or, more accurately, that from which the individual frees himself, is a spurious empirical autonomy and distinct being, degrading the life of the subject as much as the life of substance: it is an element of other-being in the actuality of the world. In actual fact, an objective and adequate perception of the good and a fusing with it are possible only on the condition of such a personal catharsis. In order for the soul of the human being to get seriously involved in the essence of ethical objektivity and begin to act from its depth,5 it is necessary for it to have accomplished “a rigorous labor directed against pure subjectivity in conduct, against the immediacy of desire, and also against the subjective vanity of feeling and arbitrary judgment.”6 It must “forget about itself and renounce itself.”7 It must understand that in questions of the good, ethical life, and religion, contingent and subjective opinion8 is dead and powerless; that in the face of revelation any self-clinging,9 any self-seeking,10 “conceitedness,”11 and “self-will”12 must fall away, and any reference to “a distinctive worldview”13 and to “private conviction”14 must cease. This doesn’t mean that the personal conviction of the individual becomes unimportant; but it does mean that it by itself proves nothing and establishes nothing. The human being must reject empirical egocentrism in all relations and cease to value “the formal side”15 of his “particular” existence. In actual fact, how will the soul perceive the 1. Comp.: W. Beh. 362, 367; Phän. 283; Enc. III 392, 433; Recht 68. 2. Recht 268. 3. Comp.: Lass. II 469, 474. 4. “Ist die Individualität reine Form der Substanz, die der Inhalt ist”: Phän. 349. 5. “In den Ernst desselben (des sittlich Objektiven) sich zu vertiefen und aus ihm zu handeln”: Recht 203. 6. “Harte Arbeit gegen die blosse Subjektivität des Benehmens, gegen die Unmittelbarkeit der Begierde, sowie gegen die subjektive Eitelkeit der Empfindung und die Willkür des Beliebens”: Recht 253. 7. “Sich selbst vergessend und auf sich Verzicht tuend”: Recht 203. See chapter 3. 8. Comp.: against “Meinung”: Enc. III 428; Recht 11, 14, 337, 374. 9. “Die an sich selbst festhängende Subjektivität”: Glaub. 108. 10. “Selbstsucht:” Enc. III 428; Rel. I 163; “Eigensucht”: Rel. I 75–76; “Uneigennützigkeit”: Lass. II 469. 11. “Eigendünkel ”: Recht 337. 12. “Eigenwilligkeit”: Recht 218. 13. “Eigentümliche Weltansicht des Individuums”: Recht 196. 14. Comp.: Recht 16, 196–97. 15. “Formelle Seite”: Recht 175.

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new divine content if it is submerged in that perpetual contemplation of self 1 which oppresses the sinners of Dante’s inferno;2 if it is accustomed to deciding all higher questions according to its own discretion;3 if it, heeding the call of the Most High, doesn’t recognize in him the one sought for, but trembles from wounded self-regard? One can say straight away that those who don’t work on the purification4 of their soul from the evil fruits of empirical subjectivity, those who evade the labor of elevating “subjectivity to the cognition of truth,”5 and its suffering to the highest Objektivity and Necessity,6 bring to ethical life only “destruction, foolishness, and abominable distortion,”7 and themselves drag out their days in “unethical slackness.”8 All that is inherent in the individual as a separate and detached existence; all that characterizes the human being as fallen away from the sole authentic, divine focal point of the entire world; all that entices him, having cut himself off and “declared self-will”;9 all this must be swept away and eliminated in order for the soul of the human, having “freed itself from everything”10 that is empirically subjective, having become disenchanted with its own senseless “singularity,”11 to be able to unimpededly “elevate” itself 12 to an “absolute real oneness of being with the Absolute”;13 and to be able to freely, contentedly, and joyously enter the womb of divine substance. The human being must understand that what is most important and essential is hidden not in what makes people particular and unlike one another, but in what is unified and common for all; he must understand that only through what is unified and common does the individual distinctiveness of the individual acquire its meaning and its significance. Therefore there is no point in each one insisting on his own “distinctness,”14 on the distinct being15 of his character, on the “pure subjectivity” of his conduct:16 the human being as an organ of substance has no grounds for prizing his own “soul” in terms of its fixed determinations17 and its empirical limitations,18 for a higher purpose awaits him. However, this does not at all mean that any subjective particularity, 1. “Diese ewig auf das Subjekt zurückgehende Betrachtung”: Glaub. 108. 2. Comp.: on Dante and Goethe: Glaub. 108–9. 3. Comp.: Recht 192, 197–99, 374. 4. “Reinigung”: Enc. III 428. See chapter 3. 5. Recht 336. 6. W. Beh. 358. 7. “Zertrümmerung,” “Albernheit und Abscheulichkeit”: Recht 336. 8. Comp.: “Unsittlichkeit der Ohnmacht”: W. Beh. 358. 9. See chapter 1. 10. “Von allem Subjektiven befreit ist”: Lass. II 467. 11. “Einzelnsein vertilgt”: Lass. II 467; “Vernichten der Subjektivität”: Glaub. 150 and others. 12. “In der wahren Sittlichkeit die Subjektivität aufgehoben ist”: Glaub. 150; “nicht als Subjektives zu sein, sondern durch die Tätigkeit des Subjekts selbst die Subjektivität aufzuheben”: Enc. III 369. 13. W. Beh. 393. 14. “Differenz”: Lass II 469. 15. Comp.: “Eigenes”: Lass. II 469; “eigene Wesenheit”: Phän. 349; “eigentümlich”: Recht 196. 16. Recht 253. 17. “Feste Bestimmung”: Phän. 529. 18. Comp.: “beschränktes Leben”: Phän. 444.

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any right to freedom and to satisfaction actually perishes or disappears without a trace in this “sublation” and “elevation.” On the contrary, in accordance with the general law, all that is sublated or elevated is preserved in the measure of its truth and is organically included in the higher formation; but it is only preserved and included in a renewed, consecrated, and regenerated form. This means that “ethical substance,” which is the truth of “rational self-knowledge,”1 seemingly returns to the individual all that was seemingly lost by him. Ethical substance above all doesn’t abolish the subject in his essence; on the contrary, it “unconditionally and simply leaves (subjectivity) within the makeup of the existing, and gives it stability and reality precisely by allowing its essence to be what it is; in ethical life intelligence remains as such.”2 Entering the state of ethical life, the human being as a singular, subjective soul doesn’t cease to exist, though elements of spurious subjectivity and empirical singularity are reconciled in him. The human being remains a singular subject, but his singularity is saturated with substantial Universality, while his subjectivity is penetrated by a true, divine Objektivity. “The good” and “subjectivity” are identically necessary ingredients of ethical life and are in concrete identity.3 This means that the self-sufficient and free, solitary labor of the person’s soul on its own purification is accomplished and that that speculative identity of it with the Universal which comprises the fundamental nature of personal virtue has been realized. Personal virtue (Tugend) is “the true ethical life of the singular” human being,4 i.e., “its true, living, unsubjugated oneness of being.”5 The virtuous human is an “ethical person, i.e., a subjectivity permeated with substantial life.”6 The virtuous human being knows and really experiences his own person, his proper essence, the primary and authentic essence of his personality, not as singular and not as particular, but as universal.7 He experiences himself as an authentic state of divine substance;8 and feeling, being conscious of this, he is not deceived and not mistaken, but adequately experiences the actual situation: his “empirical being and activity” is in actual fact “unconditionally universal,” for when he acts then “what acts is not what is individual, but the universal, absolute Spirit in him.”9 The spirit of the individual 1. Phän. 268. 2. Lass. II 452. Author’s emphasis. 3. Recht 207, 208. 4. Comp.: Lass. II 469, 470; W. Beh. 338; Phän. 563. 5. Das “wahrhafte lebendige nicht unterwürfige Einssein” “mit der absoluten sittlichen Majestät”: W. Beh. 338. 6. “Sittliche Persönlichkeit, d.i. die Subjektivität, die von dem substantiellen Leben durchdrungen ist”: Enc. III 392. 7. Comp.: “die Individualität sich als Allgemeines zum Gegenstande wird”: Phän. 280. 8. “Und das sittliche Selbstbewusstsein ist das Bewusstsein der Substanz”: Phän. 348–49. 9. “Sein empirisches Sein und Tun ist ein schlechthin allgemeines; denn es ist nicht das Individuelle, welches handelt, sondern der allgemeine absolute Geist in ihm”: Lass. II 465.

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enters here into a new “eternal”1 life, and his “particular” soul has cognized itself finally as a living mode of the Universal. This means that the singular human being has found “his own,”2 the genuine essence, his “inner universality, which he” now “actually” possesses.3 The soul which has ceased to experience its concrete-empirical, “particular” distinctiveness as important, primary, and central not only has not lost his primary center entirely, but on the contrary, acquired it for the first time: it has ceased to distinguish itself from substance and affirmed the center of its personality as universal. The “ethical infinite, or the Concept, and the ethical finite, or individuality, have become an unconditional and simple unity.”4 It is obvious that each action of the virtuous human is neither the self-sufficient doing of his empirical subjectivity, nor a performance of Substance trampling upon subjective freedom, but rather a confident and free act of individual “character,” coinciding with the manifestation of the “absolute essence” identical with the subject.5 The virtuous human being lives in such a way that his self-consciousness is the self-consciousness of substance, realized by the powers of his soul; he lives in such a way that his personal and subjective will, while remaining free, coincides in terms of content and in terms of real activity with the supra-personal and objektive will of absolute Spirit. The “singularity” of the soul doesn’t disappear but becomes a genuine, speculative singularity, while the empirical singularity of the human being turns out to be “inessential.”6 However, this inessentiality is voluntarily accepted by the virtuous human being and is freely affirmed by him, for he in actual fact perceived and acknowledged that the universal Substance is not a power alien to him, but his own authentic essence. “The glory of absolute ethical life” lives in the human being and is cognized by him as a power immanent in him. But in this apparent “glorification” there is no basis or cause for pride or exaltation, because it is disclosed only through the rejection of the personal, empirical sense of self, and the metaphysical sense of self of the individual is already the sense of self of Substance itself, possessing no basis or cause for feeling oneself exalted. “Substance manifests itself” in the human being as that “passion” which fills and moves him; but this “passion” comprises at the same time the “character” of this human being.7 Thus is formed that remarkable position of two-sidedness in which 1. “In der Sittlichkeit ist also das Individuum auf eine ewige Weise”: Lass. II 465. 2. Comp.: “ihr eigenes Wesen”: Recht 219. Hegel’s emphasis. 3. Comp.: die Individuen “ihre innere Allgemeinheit wirklich besitzen”: Recht 219. Hegel’s emphasis. 4. “Schlechthin Eins sind ”: Glaub. 148; comp.: Glaub. 106; W. Beh. 361; Enc. III 285(Z). 5. Comp.: Phän. 552. 6. “Ein Unwesentliches”: Log. III 187. 7. “Ein Pathos, das zugleich sein Charakter ist”: Phän. 353; comp.: 354.

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the virtuous soul always dwells: on one side its peculiarity and its original distinct being are “sublated” by the soul itself and “elevated” by Spirit; on the other side they are preserved in it and sustained by the life of absolute Substance. In this there is hidden no internal contradiction whatsoever, for the content of “subjective particularity” was reborn after it wholly accepted and realized its speculative identity with the Universal. This regeneration of content consists, first, in the fact that it ceased to be the isolated, hardened separate property of the individual soul, but rather entered into the process of organic assimilation. However, the assimilative process is unable to eradicate the individual distinctiveness of the human being: a different primordial tissue1 of each individual soul leads to a continuous “re-forming” of content, and the speculative symbiosis presupposes the possibility of an endless exchange through gifts.2 Each soul, both after the assimilation and during it, preserves its distinctiveness (not isolation), and the process of spiritual catharsis is not directed to entirely putting an end to this “assimilated distinctiveness.” The rebirth of content consists, second, in that the “distinctiveness” of the individual loses its empirical insignificance and its natural determinateness and is imbued with metaphysical significance and spiritual freedom. As a result of the identification of the particular will with Universal will, the soul of the human has already acquired rightness, freedom, and harmonious wholeness.3 These very traits are the ones that characterize the structure and life of the virtuous soul. The holistic rightness of the soul leads to the fact that all the properties (Eigenshaften) of personal character become ethical properties,4 and the ethical properties in turn are formed into the holistic shape of personal virtue.5 The distinctive character of the person, his inclinations, his temperament, his attitude to the world and to people and to his own body6— all this is imbued with the breath of ethical rightness and freedom; all this becomes a “reflection” of absolute ethical life in the individual;7 all this enters organically into the structure of personal and collective spirit. Virtue appears in its mature form as victorious spiritual “energy,”8 holistically realizing itself in the self-activity9 of the individual. This self-activity is born of the voluntary inclination of the soul and proceeds freely; precisely due to this, the “substantial determinations of reason” turn out to be not imposed on the human being from without, but born through his will, having been born in his own soul and having been formed within it 1. See chapters 7 and 18. 2. See chapters 7 and 18. 3. See chapters 17 and 18. 4. Comp.: W. Beh. 398–99. 5. Comp.: W. Beh. 399. 6. Comp.: Enc. III 392; Ph. G. 27, 28. 7. Comp.: Recht 214. 8. Comp.: “Energien”: W. Beh. 399. 9. Comp.: Phän. 529, 552; Recht 253.

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into a holistic “ethical disposition” (sittliche Gesinnung).1 Virtue is above all a personal disposition, just as ethical life is above all a state of substance. At the same time virtue is impossible without ethical life, and ethical life is unrealizable without virtue. This connection can be expressed as follows: personal virtue is the substantial state of the subjective soul, and the ethical life of the nation is the systematic, i.e., the organized unity of such substantial states realized by individual souls. Therefore one may say that “ethical life is a subjective disposition,”2 but understanding by “disposition” a state of the soul “internally imbued”3 with the life of Spirit and “elevated”4 to the height of its life; it is a disposition at once “personal-intimate”5 and substantial; a disposition of “essentially rightful” will,6 joining together and fusing with the “subjective” periphery of the soul. The organic identity of the personal and the substantial is the same one that “preserves” the particularity of the individual and includes it in a higher level of life. The real, objektive indistinguishability of the human soul and the divinity of national spirit constitute that basis upon which the rights of personality are asserted. In this way, according to Hegel, the rights of personality are not negated and not flouted, but recognized, asserted in the principle of personal virtue. Thus the individual, participating in ethical life, preserves freedom and his right to it.7 This is expressed first in that the virtuous human possesses the right not to subordinate himself to anything alien and in actuality is not subordinated. His “heart” has found its own proper content in “the law”;8 his consciousness is convinced of its identity with reason and rational determinations;9 his will has recognized itself in the Universal; his spirit has flowed together with the Spirit of the nation. Therefore the virtuous soul, knowing that “reason” and “ethical content” are immanent within it,10 lives exclusively by what is “acknowledged” by it;11 it does not know the “deformity” of obligation,12, f or, what is the same thing: its “obedience is true freedom”;13 it knows that there cannot be “dependence” on such living and “sacred” entities as “fatherland, nation, and laws”14 and that to live “according to the laws” of its nation means to realize the “higher energy of ethical freedom”;15 the soul creates its life, not betraying the “ethical disposition,” i.e., “incorruptibly and solidly dwelling in what is right, and 1. Ph. G. 72. 2. “Das Sittliche ist subjektive Gesinnung”: Recht 208. 3. “Innere Durchdringung”: Recht 339. 4. “Erhebung der Gesinnung”: Recht 339. 5. Comp.: “Innigkeit”: Recht 235. 6. “Des ansich seienden Rechts”: Recht 208. See chapter 16. 7. Comp.: Recht 219; W. Beh. 338 and others. 8. Comp.: Phän. 279, 280, 283. See chapter 16. 9. Ph. G. 72. 10. Comp.: Enc. III 432; Recht 63. 11. “Das Anerkanntsein”: Recht 376. 12. Comp.: Diff. 248. 13. “Welcher Gehorsam selbst die wahrhafte Freiheit ist”: Enc. III 432–33. 14. Glaub. 107. 15. Glaub. 107–8.

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refraining from all alteration, shock, and reduction of it”1 to something supposedly “primordial.” The virtuous human is not enticed by the idea of “unbounded” freedom2 and takes his limitation3 as a sham appearance: for he continuously experiences the identity of his “singular will” with “rational will,” i.e., “the simple actuality of freedom.”4 The “ethical disposition” is inherent in him and therefore he is “actually free.”5 The freedom of the virtuous human is expressed, second, in the fact that he maintains “the right to his own” individual “particularity” 6 and to the realization of his own “particular” interest. In the ethical life of the nation, matters stand in such a way that the virtuous person sees his personal, distinctive interest in the maintenance of the entire social organism—in its entirety and in its parts, and as a consequence of this the virtuous person acquires the right to maintain himself as a necessary member of the organism: every mode of substance is his organ, and every organ is a distinctive and organically indispensable modification of universal essence. From this follows his right to satisfaction. “The goal for which I must act must be in one way or another my goal as well,”7 such that I could invest in it my conviction, my participation, my interest, such that it absorbs all the powers of my will and the whole personal passion of my particular spirit; for “nothing great in the world has been realized without passion.”8 Carrying out his service, the individual finds in it “his own interest, his satisfaction, or the settlement of his own account,”9 and “from his relation” to the state there “springs up a certain right” for him, and through this “the universal concern becomes his own, particular concern.”10 “Such is the infinite right of the subject to find his satisfaction in his activity and work.”11 In this way each virtuous human being knows that the actuality of substance is a concern of his own will and his creativity,12 and sees himself free, organically included and satisfied. Each preserves an inalienable right to participation in the “universal freedom of individuals,”13 and as a result of this “absolute freedom” nothing is lost,14 because whatever is lessened in the “natural” unruliness of people—present in them perhaps “by nature”—cannot be called “freedom” and has no ethical significance.15 The freedom of the virtuous soul naturally coincides with the highest organic necessity of ethical life. This is expressed with particular force in the fact that the ethical 1. Phän. 325. 2. Comp.: Phän. 528. 3. Ibidem. 4. Enc. III 376–77. 5. Enc. III 375. Hegel’s emphasis. 6. “Das Recht der Individuen an ihre Besonderheit ist ebenso in der sittlichen Substanzialität enthalten”: Recht 219–20; comp.: 268. 7. Ph. G. 26. 8. Ph. G. 28; comp.: 26, 27. 9. “Rechnung”: Recht 324. 10. Recht 324–25. 11. Ph. G. 27; comp.: Recht 163, 166, 167. 12. Comp.: Phän. 528. 13. “Die allgemeine Freiheit der Individuen”: Phän. 527. 14. W. Beh. 338. 15. Comp.: “das Natürliche . . . als ein Aufzugebendes . . . würde selbst nichts Sittliches sein”: W. Beh. 338.

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human being lives by the aims of his nation, as by his own. He not only doesn’t subordinate ethical life to his own “particular” aims,1 but begins by freeing himself from such “particular” aims and interests which are not at the same time “universal.” It is vain to think that “objektive” and “subjective” aims inevitably exclude one another;2 on the contrary, given a correct understanding, they in necessary fashion coincide in the virtuous human in the idea of the absolute good. The aim of the ethical nation and the aim of the virtuous soul are one and the same aim and moreover it is the causa finalis, coinciding with the causa efficiens. “The living good” finds in the “selfconsciousness” of the human being “its knowledge and will,” and in its “activity,” “its own actuality”;3 and at the same time the individual soul finds in the national ethical life its absolute “basis” and “driving aim.”4 “Ancient virtue” was of just this sort: it had “its basis for content in the substance of the nation” and its aim was therefore the “actual, already existing good.”5 The individual person did not separate out his aim from the common aim, and his life was filled with “the feeling, consciousness, and desires” not of individual interests, but of “universal ones, common to all members”6 of the whole. The virtuous human being lives in such a way as to see his “driving aim,”7 i.e., his “object,” “his power,”8 and his motive within the Universal element: “his aim is the universal aim, his language is the universal law, his concern is the universal concern.”9 He knows that “substance is his own essence”;10 moreover, he knows himself as “universal ethical essence”; he knows that substance took in him the form of “singular consciousness”;11 and as a result of this the ethical disposition leads to him ceasing to be a simple “accident”: he intuits substance as his “absolute final aim” and as his “achieved present world” and at the same time he “creates it by his own activity, but sooner as something” already “having unconditional being.”12 He in actual fact dwells “in the Universal”13 and “does not know how to be a pure and self-sufficient singularity”;14 he knows and accepts and brings about in life that which corresponds to the authentic metaphysical situation: his organic growth into the whole. Therefore he seeks and finds his “justification,”15 his “objektivity, truth, and ethical life,”16 his aim and “his dignity”17 only as a participant in the “totality,”18 “the universality,”19 as a citizen of the state 20 and member of an estate.21 Simi1. Comp.: Lass. II 469. 2. Recht 166. 3. Comp.: Recht 210. 4. Comp.: Recht 210. 5. Phän. 291. 6. Ph. G. 43. 7. Recht 218. 8. Recht 219. 9. Phän. 443. 10. “Die Person aber weiss . . . jene Substanz als ihr eigenes Wesen”: Enc. III 391. 11. Comp.: “Die Allgemeinen sittlichen Wesen sind also die Substanz als Allgemeines und sie, als einzelnes Bewusstsein”: Phän. 343. 12. Comp.: Enc. III 391–92. 13. “Im Allgemeinen”: Lass. II 481. 14. Phän. 267. 15. “Rechtfertigung”: W. Beh. 415. 16. Recht 313. 17. “Würde”: Recht 218. 18. W. Beh. 415. 19. Comp.: Recht 218. 20. Recht 313. 21. Comp.: Enc. III 396; Recht 268, 269, 308, 309.

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larly to a plant which is becoming stronger, blossoming and becoming fragrant in the rays of the sun, the human being acquires self-sufficiency, maturity, and significance in the rays of his own political substance.1 Taken by itself, the virtue of the singular human being remains an empty possibility and only belongs to the particular estate, formed in the universality of the state,2 giving to him actual “recognition,”3 “rectitude,”4 “merit,”5 and “honor.”6 By this the destiny of the individual human is also determined. It consists in voluntarily and freely living by the content and aims of Substance. “The destiny of individuals is to lead a universal life,”7 dissolved in the living national spirit,8 and the human being is prepared for this destiny by upbringing. For “pedagogy is the art of making the human being ethical.”9 Genuine upbringing teaches the human being not simply “to love” his fatherland, his nation, and its laws, but “to lead an absolute life in the fatherland and for the sake of the nation.”10 The child, as “the possibility of an ethical individual,” grows up in a gradual liberation from all that is purely subjective and therefore “negative”;11 the child continuously grows accustomed to “universal interests, views, and tasks”12 and isn’t drawn to the unrealizable ideal of “a distinctive and separate” virtue.13 The child “is nursed at the bosom of universal ethical life” and at first lives “intuiting it as some alien essence,”14 but gradually the child more and more learns to “understand” it and “thus crosses over into universal Spirit.”15 The best upbringing is that which makes the human “a citizen of a wellordered nation,”16 or, what is the same thing, “a citizen of a state with good laws.”17 It is obvious that the life of the virtuous human is by external appearance one of continuous self-renunciation and that it can even be depicted as a life fi lled with obligations. The individual “surrenders himself,”18 “sacrifices himself,”19 brings about in relation to the nation and the state a systematic “unselfishness.”20 He discovers in this way that he is faithful to his “obligations,”21 that he knows and fulfills what is “prescribed”22 as obligatory and “necessary.”23 And if one understands all of these terms rationalisticallyg or in the usual 1. Enc. II 529(Z). 2. Comp.: W. Beh. 399. See chapter 5. 3. “Anerkannt sein”: Enc. III 396; Recht 309. 4. “Rechtschaffenheit”: Enc. III 396; Recht 309 and others. 5. “Verdienst”: Recht 268. 6. “Ehre”: Enc. III 396; Recht 308, 309. 7. Recht 313. 8. Phän. 267. 9. Recht 218(Z). 10. Lass. II 469. Author’s emphasis. Comp.: Recht 233. 11. W. Beh. 399. 12. Recht 387. 13. W. Beh. 399–400. 14. W. Beh. 399. 15. W. Beh. 399. 16. “Zum Bürger eines wohleingerichteten Volkes”: W. Beh. 400. There is a reference in Hegel to Diogenes Laertius. VIII, §16. 17. Recht 219. 18. “Hingeben”: Recht 422. 19. “Sich aufopfern”: Phän. 265; Enc. III 392; Recht 420, 422. 20. “Uneigennützigkeit”: Lass. II 469. 21. Comp.: Ph. G. 46. 22. “Vorgezeichnet”: Recht 215. 23. “Notwendig”: Recht 213, 213–14.

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sense, then the state of the virtuous soul begins to resemble the moral state.h Such an understanding of virtue would be completely false, however. The soul of the human, ascending to virtue, does “renounce” and “sacrifice” something; but what it renounces and what it sacrifices is by no means itself. Because its authentic, essential selfhood is substantial and universal, and not accidental and not singular: it is no longer a collection of contingent empirical properties and states; it is spiritual and absolute. The soul of the human, ascending to virtue, “renounces” the fettering and burdening elements of other-being, and doesn’t at all renounce itself; on the contrary, it for the first time finds itself. But it also doesn’t lose what it has renounced; on the contrary, it for the first time acquires what has been “rejected” in its true, inspirited form, answering to spirit. This renunciation of the “not-I” is an ascent to the “absolute I” and at the same time a mastering of the unsubmissive “objekt” (Fichte). This renunciation possesses the character of a “sacrifice” only for one who has still not been liberated from the oppression of the objekt, who has not yet understood that there is no objekt, and that there is only free, substantial Spirit.1 The one sacrificing is chained to that which he is sacrificing, and, renouncing it, experiences a loss. The virtuous human being does not know this feeling: he really experienced at the beginning the extraction of himself from the empirical, contingent-necessary realm of the objekt, and then the transference of his personal center into Substance and the dissolution of the personal soul in Universality. For this reason, he knows that his “renunciation” was neither a “loss” nor a “self-renunciation” and that henceforth his “self-sacrifice” can be only an affirmation of himself in a new, higher form of supra-personal being: for the substantial does not perish and does not diminish, but surmounts and ascends to a new flourishing. “Ethical consciousness has drunk from the chalice of absolute substance to obliviousness of all the one-sidedness of being-for-self, of its aims and peculiar notions” and “has drowned in these Stygian waters all of its own essentiality”2 and all separate existence. “In ethical life (human) selfhood is submerged in the spirit of its nation”3 and the virtuous soul “has its existence only in its Universality.”4 The personal spirit and the national spirit are one 5 and only through the affirmation of this unity, only through this “immersion” and “identification” does the individual acquire his true self-sufficiency.6 And this self-sufficiency is such that it is the self-sufficiency of Substance itself, existing in the form of the 1. See chapters 4, 12, 13, and 18. 2. Phän. 349. sein”: W. Beh. 372. 6. Comp.: Phän. 265.

3. Phän. 563.

4. Phän. 353.

5. “Eins-

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individual soul: the distinction of “subject” from “Substance” formally continues to exist, but essentially turns out to be vanishing.1 Such a speculative identity of the ethical human being with his nation is expressed in the two basic virtues inherent in him: trust and courage. These two virtues together lie at the foundation of what Hegel calls “the political disposition” or “patriotism.”2 Trust3 is the “awareness that my substantial and particular interest is preserved and contained in the interest and aim of another (here, the state)” and that such is “its relation to me as to the singular”; from this it follows that “this other is for me immediately not other and I am free in this consciousness.”4 In the mature and pure life of the nation, trust is the stable mode of relation connecting people with one another: “the true ethical disposition” consists in the certainty that the other individuals are also mutually aware of their identity with Substance and actually dwell in this identity5 and in a coincidence of interests: I trust all to have merged their “particularity” with “Universality,” and know that they know of my trust; and all trust me to have merged my life with Substance, and they know that I know of their trust. As a result each knows that his genuine substantiality is recognized by all, and each lives with all in speculative concreteness. In this all-permeating trust lies the deepest and truest of the political “guarantees”: “citizens,” “communities,” “rulers” connected by a single spirit, a substantial interest, and mutual trust, lead an “organic political and national life” and are in possession of the true sense of “government and subordination.”6 And this connection attains its highest level when a “more or less intelligent understanding of it”7 turns into an “adequate cognizing,”8 in which the “ethical powers”9 give to the subject “the spiritual sign”10 of their identity with him: then the ethical concreteness is consolidated by “conceptual thought,”11, i and the virtuous soul is connected to the substance of the state by a relation “still more identical than faith and trust itself”;12 the entire order of life is intuited “in God” and acquires its true philosophically sanctified significance. Virtue as a conscious identification of oneself with substance 13 obtains its definitive expression and consolidation in bravery.14 Bravery is the “highest abstraction” of the free spirit “from all 1. “Die subjektivität ist selbst die absolute Form und die existirende Wirklichkeit der Substanz, und der Unterschied des Subjekts von ihr also seinem Gegenstande, Zwecke and Macht ist nur zugleich ebenso unmittelbar verschwundene Unterschied der Form”: Recht 218–19. 2. “Die politische Gesinnung,” “der Patriotismus”: Recht 329. 3. “Zutrauen,” “Vertrauen”: Enc. III 392; Würt. 243; Recht 212, 329. 4. Recht 329. 5. Enc. III 392. 6. Comp.: Würt. 243. 7. Recht 329. 8. Recht 213. 9. “Die sittlichen Mächte”: Recht 211. 10. “Das Zeugniss des Geistes”: Recht 212. 11. Recht 213. 12. Recht 212. 13. Comp.: Enc. III 392. 14. “Tapferkeit”: Lass. II 470; W. Beh. 372, 373; Enc. III 419; Recht 421, 423, and others.

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particular aims, possessions, enjoyments, and life,”1 accomplished by the human being for the sake of his nation, for the sake of “the true absolutely final goal—the sovereignty of the State.”2 This “negative”3 relation of the individual to his external existence4 is important, of course, not in itself, but namely for that “aim” and for that “content”5 with which the “inner disposition”6 is filled and from which alone this “courage”7 acquires its significance. The nation as a whole lives in the form of a selfsufficient organism, and the virtuous human being recognizes himself as a living modification of this nation-state substance: “ethical individuality is immediately and essentially one with this its Universality and cannot experience that death which would threaten its ethical Substance from the opposite side.”8 And thus he “unambiguously” proves his unity with it in that he accepts “the danger of death,”9 “giving up” his “personal actuality”10 and affirming by that the “vanity” of what is in actual fact “empty and vain”11 by comparison with the highest aim of the “preservation of universal substance.”12 In this way is defined the significance of bravery as “virtue in itself,” containing within itself the “indifferent” basis of all remaining virtues and at the same time retaining a “formal” character,13 for the fundamental nature of all virtue consists, negatively speaking, in the freedom of the personal spirit from concrete-empirical singularity, and positively speaking, in the conscious identification of itself with Substance. For this reason bravery as a capacity for higher “alienation”14 from personal other-being is the actual “existence of freedom”;15 as a capacity for mechanical subordination to external (military) order 16 bravery is the highest substantial and conscious independence;17 as the “fullest elimination of one’s own opinion and judgment,” i.e., as an “absence of one’s own spirit,”18 it is the “most intensive” “presence of Spirit,”19 such that the most “hostile” personal struggle with individual enemies is fed not by personal hatred, but by supra-personal courage.20 In such an understanding, bravery is the foundation of individual 1. Recht 421. 2. Recht 422. See chapter 20. 3. Comp.: Lass. II 470; W. Beh. 372; Enc. III 419; Recht 421. 4. Recht 421. 5. “Der Zweck und Inhalt giebt diesem Muthe erst die Bedeutung”: Recht 422–23. 6. “Innere Gesinnung”: Recht 421. 7. Recht 422. 8. Phän. 353. 9. W. Beh. 372; comp.: Lass. II 470. 10. Recht 422. 11. “Die Vereitlung des dagegen Eiteln”: Enc. III 420. 12. “Die Erhaltung der allgemeinen Substanz”: Enc. III 420. 13. “Die Tugend an sich, aber die formale,” “die Indifferenz der Tugenden”: Lass. II 470; comp.: W. Beh. 381. 14. “Entäusserung”: Recht 422. 15. “Existenz der Freiheit”: Recht 422. 16. “In dem Mechanischen einer äussern Ordnung,” “Gehorsam”: Recht 422. Hegel’s emphasis. 17. Comp.: höchste Selbständigkeit des Fürsichseins”: Recht 422. Hegel’s emphasis. 18. “Abtun des eigenen Meinens und Raisonnierens, so Abwesenheit des eigenen Geistes”: Recht 422. Hegel’s emphasis. 19. “Gegenwart des Geistes”: Recht 422. Hegel’s emphasis. 20. “Das feindseligste und dabei persönlichste Handeln gegen Individuen”. . . , etc.: Recht 422; “der persönliche Mut als ein nicht persönlicher erscheint”: Recht 423.

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ethical life and potentially the crown of all virtues.1 And if the human being, performing this his highest work2 in defense of ethical substance, accepts personal death, then such an end of his empirical singularity is the highest flight of his self-sufficient spirit.j Only one who leads a concrete-empirical existence is subject to death, for this mode of “being” bears within itself the laws of processuality and ephemerality.3 But the true meaning of death is not at all determined by the disintegration of the empirical aspect of the living being. Life in its very essence is not singular but universal,4 and therefore it is wider and deeper than any singular individuality:5 life as a metaphysical element is the Concept itself,6 the absolute Idea,7 and to that extent it is “non-transient”8 and remains the sole focal point of being.9 Life in its essence does not perish and cannot perish. But as speculative Universality, it can recall its singularity from immediate existence and resolve, dissolve it in its “indifferent” atmosphere.10 What is termed the “death” of a human being is in actual fact his liberation from all empirical-singular determinations and his return to “pure freedom,”11 to pure substantial being. The singularity “disappearing” in death is not “true singularity,”12 for true singularity is infinite and universal,13 as is the very Substance absorbing it. That is why one may say that “pure singularity, abiding in death, is its own opposition, i.e., Universality,”14 and that the empirical death of a human being is the “exodus of spirit” to a new life.15 Therefore the soul of the virtuous human being, accepting empirical death in a fight for his nation, affirms his true freedom16 and realizes his true identity with Substance. Ascending “from the agitation of contingent life”17 to “pure being,”18 to the “peace of simple Universality,”19 liberating “his being” from its singular, limited activity,20 the ethical human freely and voluntarily lives in the rhythm of Substance, fusing himself with it to the end: the act of Substance recalling the hero from empirical life is the act of the hero himself, rushing into battle for his nation to meet his empirical death. The “negation” of the singular soul is an “affirmation” of the singular spirit and a return of it to the womb of universal Spirit. In other words: 1. “Der ganze Kranz der Tugenden”: Lass. II 470. 2. “Die Tod ist die Vollendung und höchste Arbeit”: Phän. 396. 3. See chapter 1. 4. Comp.: Log. III 247; Enc. I. 121; Enc. II 617. 5. “Über das einzelne hinaus ist”: Enc. I 121. Hegel’s emphasis. 6. See chapter 8. 7. Comp.: Log. III 328; Enc. I 389, 391, 408, and others. 8. “Unvergängliches Leben”: Log. III 328. 9. “Die absolute Idee ist allein Sein”: Log. III 328. 10. See chapter 18. 11. W. Beh. 370. 12. Phän. 165. 13. “Die Einzelnheit als wahre, oder als Allgemeine”: Phän. 165. 14. W. Beh. 370; comp.: Phän. 336. 15. “Das Hervorgehen des Geistes”: Enc. I 395–96; Enc. II 642(Z). 16. W. Beh. 370. 17. Phän. 335. 18. “Das reine Sein”: Phän. 336. 19. “Die Ruhe der einfachen Allgemeinheit”: Phän. 336. 20. “Der Todte, da er sein Sein von seinem Tun oder negativen Eins frei gelassen”: Phän. 337.

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the empirical “self-renunciation” of the virtuous human being is not “his renunciation from himself ” but his spiritual self-affirmation on a higher level of universal life. Given such an absolute coincidence of personal virtue with suprapersonal, substantial necessity, it would be incorrect to ascribe to the “speculative obligations” of the human being the significance of “moral duty.” Such an understanding of virtue would be completely false, because it would oppose the “subjective soul” to the “objektive good,” whereas ethical life established an identity between them. For the virtuous soul, ethical obligations coincide with its actual states and at the same time with its substantial and inalienable rights. In this is found the highest integrity of the “ethical” life of Spirit. Within the limits of this life one can speak of “obligations” only to the extent that the individual, noting his insufficient determinateness, or his “particular” determinations, “distinguishes” himself 1 from the substantial “powers”2 or functions of ethical life. To the degree that he intuits himself not as living within them and by means of them but as standing “in relation to them”;3 to the degree that he doesn’t swim in the stream of universal life, but “reflects” on it and sees the threads of his living relations as “substantial”4 “bindings”5 or as “obligations,” binding his will.6, k However, this falling away of the individual from the one, universal stream, imparting to his creative powers the significance of “demands,”7 is not characteristic and not essential for the virtuous soul. On the contrary, it is characteristic of the soul to assert itself within these powers and laws8 and to live according to them, as by its very own; it is characteristic of it to cultivate them by means of the good and free will and not convert them into clanging chains of unfulfilled obligations. Therefore, within the limits of ethical being “obligation” is a spiritually necessary9 living relation within which the individual soul lives10 in fact because its substantial life inevitably leads it to this. This means that ethical obligations coincide with the actual states of the virtuous soul.11 For that reason it doesn’t see in them any sort of “limitation”;12 on the contrary, it creates in them its “liberation”13 from obedience to 1. “Für das Individuum, welches sich . . . als das Subjektive und in sich Unbestimmte, oder als besonders Bestimmte unterscheidet”: Recht 213. 2. “Die sittlichen Mächte”: Recht 211; “Gewalten”: Recht 212. 3. “Im Verhältnisse zu ihnen”: Recht 213. Hegel’s emphasis. 4. Comp.: “als zu seinem Substantielen”: Recht 213; comp.: 384, 420. 5. “Bindend ”: Recht 213, 214. Author’s emphasis. 6. “Pflichten, für seinen Willen bindend ”: Recht 213. 7. Comp.: “gefordert”: Recht 215. 8. Recht 13. 9. “Kreis der sittlichen Nothwendigkeit”: Recht 213; “die notwendigen Verhältnisse”: Recht 213. 10. Comp.: “notwendig und daher wirklich”: Recht 213– 14. 11. See chapter 18. 12. Comp.: on “Beschränkung”: Recht 214. 13. “Befreiung”: Recht 214. See chapter 13.

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natural impulses, from moral oppression, and from the arbitrariness of a personal lack of determinacy.1 Obligation is not a “fettering”2 of the soul, but an active “self-loosing” of it from all other-being and limitation, and an ascent to “substantial freedom.”3 That same content by which the “natural soul” lives in the form of an “impulse” (Trieb),l while the “moral will” lives in the form of “duty” (Pflicht)—this same content fills out the “ethical will” in the form of “virtue,”4 i.e., a harmoniously holistic and substantially rightful passion of spirit, creating its own freedom. Giving itself over to this passion of spirit, the virtuous soul brings about that same thing for which its own universal and rightful will 5 thirsts and which the organism of Substance “requires” from its members; “the existence of my particular freedom” as a “substantial rightness”6 coincides with “service to the Universal” and with life in it; in other words, “the right” coincides with “obligation.” This coincidence of the right with obligation forms a specific characteristic of the ethical order and uncovers one of its deepest roots. The substantial and inalienable right of the individual, i.e., the being of his personal will as rightful and free, is founded and justified (Rechtfertigung)7 precisely by the fact that the individual is virtuous, i.e., that he lives by the contents, interests, and aims of substance, as by his own; and his “obligations” are reduced precisely to this, i.e., his necessary and actual relations in life. In precisely the same way, the “obligations” of the individual8 consist in cultivating by means of good will the “substantial makeup”9 of his relations in life,10 within which he creates his freedom: to live in a state of speculative concreteness, sustaining his substantial “self-sufficiency”11 and “benevolent”12 exchange of speculative gifts with “other people”13 engaged in all significant forms: marital, familial,14 civil-legal,15 and political interactions;16 and to this reduce “the rights” of the virtuous human, i.e., the rightful inclinations of his good and free will. Therefore, if the virtuous human being “rationally” heads his 1. Comp.: “Abhängigkeit . . . in dem blossen Naturtriebe,” “Gedrücktheit . . . in den moralischen Reflexionen,” “unbestimmte Subjektivität”: Recht 214. 2. Comp.: “Fessel ”: Recht 13. 3. “In der Pflicht befreit das Individuum sich zur substantiellen Freiheit”: Recht 214. 4. Comp.: “Derselbe Inhalt”. . . : Recht 216. 5. See chapters 15 and 16. 6. Comp.: Recht 323, and also 220, 324, 325. 7. W. Beh. 415; comp.: Lass. II 465–66; Recht 218, 269, 313. 8. “Vitae humanae officia”: 3 Lat. 325. 9. Comp.: “das Substantielle seines Verhältnisses”: Recht 384. 10. “Es ist nichts Anderes von ihm zu tun, als was ihm in seinen Verhältnissen vorgezeichnet, ausgesprochen und bekannt ist”: Recht 215. 11. Comp.: Rel. I 173. 12. Comp.: “wohlwollende Neigung”: Enc. III 392; “benevolentia”: 3 Lat. 325. 13. Comp.: “erga alios homines”: 3 Lat. 325. 14. Comp.: Rel. I 173; 3 Lat 325, 325–27. 15. Comp.: Enc. III 392; Recht 386–87; 3 Lat. 325, 325–27. 16. Recht 313; Rel. I 174; 3 Lat. 325. See chapter 20.

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family, justly1 realizes his property rights, “dispassionately”2 and “unselfishly”3 dwells in his substantial relations, and courageously gives his life for the defense of his nation and state, then all of this is for him just as much “obligation” as “right,” and no less “right” than “obligation.” He does all of this from “obedience,”4 which he accepts entirely freely,5 and at the same time from “instinct,”6 which is substantially true and justified. The consciousness of his “substantiality” developed and strengthened in him feelings of “shame and honor, these subjective bases of society,”7 and taught him to “recognize himself”8 in the injunctions of the right. That is why the virtuous human is free precisely in his obligations and through his obligations. Such a human being gleans “in himself ” the motives of his actions and the laws of his life: he bears them in his spiritually justified inclination, which is not only his inclination but also the tendency of Substance itself. This stable life of Substance in the person’s soul constitutes the “beneficent more” (Sitte)m of the human, holistically penetrating into all his activities and intentions, and determining the line of his conduct. And since Substance is an organic-concrete unity of assimilated content living in each individual, the “beneficent more” represents not a “distinctive” and “particular” ethical life9 of the individual, but a modification of the ethical life of the nation as a whole: the virtue of the “singular human being is the pulse of the entire system and even the entire system as a whole.”10 One can say that it is characteristic of “the nature of absolute ethical life” to consist of “mores,”11 i.e., that it is characteristically realized in all the people, appearing in them in the form of “a mode of action”12 common to them all. In such an understanding Substance is presented in the form of universal and objektive spiritual “agents” or powers which communicate themselves to people, “unconsciously penetrate” their individual souls, and reveal in them their power and significance;13 these spiritual powers are the universal “mores” of a nation. This means that “the good” becomes a “universal habit and custom,”14 a stable mode of existence, a determining living power. At first “the foundations and modes of action” “are communicated to spirit not in the form of a conscious reflection, but rather, form something like a substantial element within which the human being lives, to which he accommodates himself, and by which he 1. “Gerechtigkeit”: Enc. III 392; comp.: “iustitia, aequitas”: 3 Lat. 325. 2. “Leidenschaftslosigkeit”: Recht 386. 3. Lass. II 469. 4. “Gehorsam”: Recht 337; “Obedienz”: Rel. I 174. 5. Recht 337 and others. 6. Ph. G. 46. 7. Recht 304. 8. Recht 13. 9. W. Beh. 399, 400. 10. W. Beh. 396. 11. W. Beh. 396. 12. “Ersheint das Sittliche, als die allgemeine Handlungsweise derselben, als Sitte”: Recht 217. 13. Comp.: Log. III 187. See chapters 5 and 16. 14. Gymn. 195.

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directs his spiritual organization”:1 he lives by an “unconscious disposition,”2, n in all of its “limitation”3 and “immediacy,”4 by beneficent impulse, which, however, is not yet penetrated by the light of conscientious knowing5 and not freed from the influence of empirical contingency.6 On a higher level, “unconscious disposition” becomes an object of reflection and self-consciousness7 and passes through a formulation in terms of right8 and ethical acceptance. “The wisest people” “from time immemorial” aspired to a knowledge and a “regulating” of what remained in the “unconscious” sphere of “impulse, habits, and mores,”9 and tried to establish a harmony between their content and the content of the laws, so that a beneficent disposition recognized itself in the injunctions of the law,10 and “the laws and obligations appeared in the living shape of mores and virtues.”11 The highest level of ethical life consists in the fact that the individual beneficent dispositiono makes up the phenomenon of “universal mores”p and “universal laws,” mutually coinciding in terms of content. In ethical life “a more constitutes the substance of all,” such that “everyone, and each separately, knows its actuality and its existence as their will and their concern.”12, q That is why one can say that “wisdom and virtue consist in living according to the mores of one’s nation”13 or of “one’s country.”14 The ethical human being consciously and unconsciously lives according to the mores of his nation: they have “worked themselves into” his subjective will,15 they have become his “second nature,” his “penetrating soul,”16 his “habit, way of thinking, and character.”17 The singular “consciousness” knows that “universal consciousness” constitutes his “being” and that, conversely, his individual “activity and his existence” coincide with the “universal mores.”18 And since the content of a more in the true sense of that word19 is always freedom,20 the virtuous human being is the human being living by the beneficent and free mores of his nation. Such is the essence of personal virtue in its developed and mature form: the disposition of the virtuous human being consists “in a knowledge of substance” and in the knowledge that all personal interests of the human being “are identical with the whole.”21 For him and his “empirical consciousness is fully realized” “the view of philosophy,” “according to which all things are in God and there is no singularity”:22 every “singular action, 1. Gymn. 168. 2. Enc. III 427; Recht 211(Z). 3. Comp.: Enc. III 427. 4. Enc. III 442. 5. Enc. III 442. 6. Enc. III 427. 7. Comp.: Phän. 265; Gymn. 168. 8. See chapter 16. 9. Jac. 21–22. 10. See chapter 16. 11. Gymn. 189. 12. Phän. 527–28. 13. Phän. 267. Hegel’s emphasis. 14. W. Beh. 400. 15. Enc. III 377. 16. Recht 217. 17. Enc. III 377. 18. Phän. 265. 19. Comp.: in chapter 14, concerning the “optimism” and “aristocratism” of Hegel’s philosophy. 20. Comp.: Enc. III 231, 377. 21. Enc. III 392. Hegel’s emphasis. 22. Lass. II 465.

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or intention, or being, has its essence and significance exclusively in the Whole, and to the extent that the foundation of singularity is thought, to that extent this latter is thought exclusively; the individual knows and imagines no other foundation.”1 Everything that the virtuous human being does, all arises from the genuine substantial-divine depth of Spirit; any thought, any feeling, any creation of his whatever brings about and portrays that depth. The essence of virtue is divine in terms of origin and in terms of content. From this derives its religious and philosophical nature. The spirit of the virtuous human being apprehended and assimilated the Divine “omnipresence” immanent in the world. He understood and became convinced that the Good is not only “the absolutely final end of the world,”2 but its immanent essence,3 creatively revealing itself in the cosmos; he understood and recognized that this Divine “omnipresence” is spread out not only in nature, but in human activities, that “the history of humanity” is the history of the Divine life in the human: for the Divine Spirit4 creates history, moves it; in its foundation lies “the plan of Providence,”5 and the “result” of it can only be that great “end,” which is mysteriously placed in the very “origin.”6 This comprehension, achieved through painful experience which is personal by form but metaphysically authentic, reveals to the virtuous human being the possibility of a religious acceptance of his fate. One must not understand that as if he “prudently” bows before blind predestination, as if he simply submits to something external and alien,7 gazing with horror into the impenetrable obscurity of fate.8 No, he consciously, voluntarily, and creatively accepts his identity with Substance, which is immanent to his spirit, and unhesitatingly commits himself to its power, from which he no longer distinguishes himself. Thus, fate doesn’t come “from without,” but is hidden within the bounds of life itself,9 in the human being himself,10 in his “primordial” and “in-itself existing” “inner” determination.11 The acceptance of fate is accomplished by his own will12 and consists in the fact that he freely turns to “his very own self,”13 to the substantial roots of his own existence, and considers the center of his life to be in them: then his intuition, directed to the depth of spirit, discovers the reality of the “abso1. Lass. II 465–66. 2. Enc. III 388; Recht 171–72; comp.: Beweise A 464. 3. Comp.: Phän. 289. See chapters 10, 11, and 12. 4. Enc. III 426. 5. Enc. III 421. 6. Comp.: Phän. 17– 18. 7. Nohl 282. 8. Comp.: “furchtbare unbekannte Nacht des Schicksals”: Phän. 510. 9. “Innerhalb des Gebietes des Lebens”: Nohl 281. 10. Nohl 288. 11. Comp.: Phän. 236. 12. “Mit eignem Willen”: Nohl 285. 13. Comp.: Nohl 282.

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lutely pure Concept,”1 i.e., the universal2 divine Meaning, the creative path of which determines the fate of all that is living. The virtuous human being considers himself in identity with generic Universality and merges his life with its life; this introduces his absolute freedom from the objekt, and proves to him that Being is truly absolute, divine, and beneficent and therefore predestined to cosmic victory. Thus from here arises within the virtuous soul that confident, concentrated calmness 3 which places on his life the stamp of a higher conciliation: it knows of its own identity with “ethical Substance,” with this “all-powerful and righteous fate”4 of the individual; it knows that the “divine spirit” immanently penetrates into all human activities5 and governs each “truly free,” “infinite,” and “excellent” relation of life;6 it knows that the human being, voluntarily or involuntarily, brings about on earth “absolute ethical life” in all its “excellence,” “freedom,” “blessedness,” and “divinity,”7 that individuals and nations ascend through misfortunes and suffering to the “absolute lightness of the ethical spirit,” to “the unlimited joy” and “most free enjoyment.”8 It knows this and joyfully gives itself over to its fate, i.e., to the summons of the Divine. Thus does Hegel justify the wisdom of the ancients, who supposed that “virtue” is the source of “happiness.” To live in the ethical substance of one’s nation means to actually join in the highest happiness,9 for speculative concreteness delivers the soul from all “separateness”10 and discreteness, from solitariness, brokenness, feelings of helplessness and fear, i.e., from every kind of “suffering”;11 it establishes in the soul a higher wholeness and harmony and joins it to the highest and absolute satisfaction—to creative participation in the life of victorious Divinity. On that level of spiritual life unfolds the form of the “state.” It rests entirely on the ethical disposition, and that in turn is rooted in the religious disposition,12 accepting through the act of conscience the immanent being of the Divinity, for the religious conscience and the ethical conscience are in the final analysis one and the same thing:13 “free spirit, knowing itself in its rationality and truth.”14 At the foundation of the being of the state lies, consequently, a certain absolute-authentic comprehension, i.e., essentially speaking, a philosophical cognizing, which deepens and renews by 1. Comp.: “das Schicksal . . . , der absolute, als Sein angeschaute, reine Begriff selbst”: Phän. 273–74. 2. Comp.: “so ist das Schicksal des Lebendigen überhaupt die Gattung”: Log. III 192. 3. Comp.: “ruhiges Beruhen in sich selbst”: Enc. III 392. 4. Phän. 354. 5. Enc. III 429, 433. 6. Comp.: Diff. 237, 239. 7. Comp.: Lass. II 469. 8. Phän. 528. 9. “Glück”: Phän. 268, 269. 10. “Differenz”: Lass. II 469. 11. “Schmerz”: Lass. II 469. 12. Enc. III 429. 13. “Zuletzt . . . ein und das selbe”: Enc. III 439. 14. “Der freie Geist in seiner Vernünftigkeit und Wahrheit sich wissend ”: Enc. III 439.

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its speculative authenticity and actuality the whole of life, both personal and national. That is why Hegel, following Plato and Aristotle, exposits the term “political” in such a way that in it are revealed ethical and ´ ειν,” to create the political, religious and philosophical depth: “πολιτε υ means “to live with one’s nation and for the sake of one’s nation”; it means “to lead a universal life completely belonging to public” being;1 and this means to fuse one’s life with Substance, to create one’s identity with it, to penetrate into its essence by will and knowledge, or, what is the same thing, “to philosophize.”2 Such is Hegel’s doctrine of personal virtue.

Translator’s Notes a. The root of the verb “to grasp” here (ять) is an Old Church Slavonic term to which Il’in has (artificially) attached the prefix по, thus turning it into a perfective verb, here treated as a gerund: по-ятии, “a grasping,” i.e., a collecting of a many within a single compass, which is to say, within the Concept (Понятии). (Both Russian terms are here given in the prepositional form.) b. Il’in takes this comparison of the “ethical system” to the system of heavenly lights from Hegel’s essay on natural law (W. Beh. in Il’in’s system of abbreviations). See G. W. F. Hegel, Natural Law: The Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, trans. T. M. Knox (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975), 111. c. There is almost certainly a typo affecting this word in the original 1918 Russian text (and all subsequent Russian editions). The German phrase in question is “der unverrückte und unaufgelöste Grund und Ausgangspunkt” from the second paragraph of (BB) Der Geist, VI. Der Geist, of the Phänomenologie. See G. W. F. Hegel, Werke, ed. Moldenhauer and Michel, volume 3, Phänomenologie des Geistes (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970), 325. Miller translates this as “the unmoved solid ground and starting-point.” See G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 264. The original Russian text reads (in modernized orthography): “несовратимая и неразрешающаяся основа и исходный пункт,” which would be literally “the incorruptible and unresolvable [?] ground and starting point.” Неразрешающаяся should presumably be неразрущающаяся, i.e., “indestructible,” “indissoluble.” d. This term is личность, meaning “personhood” or “personality.” In this chapter Il’in employed a considerable number of variant terms all related to the notion of “the person,” “the individual,” or “individuality”: душа soul лицо person личный personal личность personhood or personality 1. Comp.: W. Beh. 381.

2. “Oder das Philosophien”: W. Beh. 381.

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человек human (being) индивид individual индивидуум individual (from the Latin) индивидуальный individual (adj.) индивидуальность individuality единичноть singularity единичный singular e. This chapter can be read as Il’in’s response to the extremely common but nevertheless egregious misinterpretations of Hegel’s political philosophy as hostile to individual right, anti-liberal, an apology for the Prussian state, reactionary, etc., which were all but dominant through the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, not only in Russia but particularly in Germany, as also elsewhere. In the “Bibliographic Appendix” for this chapter at the end of this volume, Il’in discusses the provenance of such misreadings. There would have been no shortage of Russian authors as well as German authors to criticize, but here he contents himself with just a small sampling of the former (Korkunov and S. N. Trubetskoi), and, perhaps surprisingly, enlists Chicherin as a supporter of his own interpretation. The deeper point that he makes at the outset of the appendix for this chapter is that “everything fundamental in the ethics of Hegel is predestined and predetermined by his logico-metaphysical constructions.” He continues, “In particular, the position of the individual in the state is determined by the fact that the state is Universality, and the individual, Singularity.” f. Повиновение: “obligation” (obsolete), or “obedience.” g. The Russian term is рассудочно, i.e., in accordance with abstract reason, or with the understanding. h. The moral as opposed to the ethical state would of course refer to Kant’s moral theory in contrast to Hegel’s. i. Hegel’s phrase is “dem denkenden Begriffe.” j. It should be remembered that Il’in was writing this volume of his commentary between the years 1914 and 1916, as his nation was involved in World War I, with armies of millions committed to the battlefield, and the tsarist state in an increasingly precarious condition. He found Hegel’s treatment of the concept of patriotism and its connection with courage highly congenial as well as topical, and elaborated on it in ways that seemed to underscore its contemporary relevance. k. This is not, strictly speaking, a complete sentence, but it gains its meaning as an elaboration of the preceding one. l. Trieb is sometimes also translated as “drive.” m. The Russian term consistently used by Il’in as the equivalent of the German Sitte is нрав. As he has done elsewhere (e.g., вид/видимость for Schein/ Erscheinung), Il’in apparently wishes to exploit the parallel between нрав/нравственность and Sitte/Sittlichkeit (нравственность being the accepted translation for Sittlichkeit). It would be most natural to translate нрав as “custom,” but that is blocked by the fact that Il’in also employs another Russian term, обычай, which has a still stronger claim to being translated as “custom”; hence the resort to translating нрав and нравы as “more” and “mores.” This results in one final prob-

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lem: the singular and plural forms of this Russian term have somewhat different dictionary meanings: the singular (нрав) would normally be understood by a Russian speaker to mean “disposition” or “temperament” rather than “more”; while “mores” would be a natural translation of the plural form. A few times Il’in does seem to employ the singular form to mean “disposition,” but in the majority of cases, he seems to intend it as the translation of Sitte, which returns us to the original problem. n. The Russian is “бессознательным нравом.” o. Нрав: “disposition” or “more.” p. Нравов: “mores” (genitive plural). q. Il’in is here quoting the end of the second paragraph of “B. Religion in the Form of Art” from the Phenomenology: “On the contrary, this Spirit is the free nation in which hallowed custom [die Sitte] constitutes the substance of all, whose actuality and existence each and everyone knows to be his own will and deed” (Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977], 425).

20

On the State

One of the boldest and most original of Hegel’s conceptions in his philosophy of right is the conception of the state as the mature realization of ethical life. In contrast to the usual understanding, inclined to see in the state the organization of a socio-ethical minimum, Hegel holds the political cohesiveness of a people to be the organization of a kind of socio-ethical maximum that in its turn is only possible in the presence of the highest individual-ethical flight. If, as is already clear, ethical substance is unthinkable without the socially grown-together life of people, and if such a life requires that personal virtue become a universal law of human existence, then it is understandable that the level on which the state is realized as the mature and highest form of ethical substance is exceptionally high. The politico-philosophical tradition of Plato and Aristotle, having faded and been partly lost in the severe prose of medieval disorder, arises again in this construction with new force. The state once again receives maximal tasks and an absolute sanction. But this is no longer the empirical absolutism of Machiavelli, ethically indifferent for the sake of temporary national-political tasks; and not the empirical-rationalistic absolutism of Hobbes, subordinating the moral to an ethically unjustified state. Nor is it the sentimental-rationalistic absolutism of Rousseau, basing a sought-for perfection of the political order on an undiscovered good will of the individual, and conversely. No, the state absolutism professed by Hegel takes its origina from the ideal of Greek “autarchy” and is determined in its significance by the metaphysical doctrine of ethical substance: the reality of personal virtue is the reality of “concrete” life, and, for that reason, it is the reality of national spirit1 as speculative Universality,2 inevitably taking shape in the form of the state. However, in such an understanding, the state is not an ideal but an actual shape of the world.3 Its essence is in the identity of the social-universal and the individual-singular.4 Its life is a life of organic totality.5 Its power is the power of the Divine Spirit, living in it and creating itself through it.6 Its right is the rightness of universal will.7 The level of its being is concrete ethical life, woven through the 1. See chapters 18 and 19. 2. See chapter 5. 3. See chapters 11 and 12. 4. See chapters 5 and 18. 5. See chapters 7 and 18. 6. See chapters 8, 11, and 12. 7. See chapters 15, 16, and 18. 163

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fusing of virtuous souls.1 Its aim is the aim of Divine Spirit on earth— freedom.2 The general, schematically taken look of this project is in many ways similar to the political doctrine of Aristotle. However, the scheme of execution brings Hegel significantly closer to the difficulties of Platonic dualism, both the former and the latter of course preserving all the profound originality of his independent socio-philosophical insights. The fundamental nature of the state in Hegel’s understanding can be defined thus: it is the metaphysically concrete unity of the empirically discrete multitude of persons. Thus the first condition for the presence of the state is the existence of a multitude of human individuals.3 Outside of this generally accessible outward appearance, naively characterized in terms of “many different, separate people,” the state is impossible. People belonging to it lead a concrete-empirical existence;4 they are subject to the laws of spatial separation, temporal changeability, and external, natural necessity.5 They live on the earth, in this world, i.e., in the world of appearances,6 in terms of an earthly life, with temporal and subjective interests, among disconnected, finite, and discrete material things. They live in the form of a multitude of scattered individual self-consciousnesses, like a manifold of points,7 and each of these points bears in itself its particular sensations, its singular needs,8 making use, in imitation of substance, of negative freedom and self-sufficiency.9 All together they compose as it were the body10 of the nation, and this body, dwelling in geographic and climatic conditions,11 not only turns out to be subject to natural influences and causes of an inorganic character, but itself forms the external,12 negative, and inorganic13 existence of the state. This entire stream of “different”14 instincts, mistakes,15 arbitrary decisions,16 and contingent needs,17 this entire struggle of scattered interests, individual-economic enterprises,18 mutual encroachments, claims, and passions—all this constitutes as it were an inorganic “underground” power19 of the being of nation and state, the “concrete-empirical” element the overcoming of which is necessary for the rise of the state as a shape of the world. From this it is already clear that the multiplicity of people partici1. See chapters 18 and 19. 2. See chapter 13. 3. Comp.: “Menge von Individuen”: Lass. II 466; “das Viele”: W. Beh. 379. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 429; Recht 315, 202, 312, 342. 5. Comp.: Enc. III 427; Recht 323. 6. Comp.: W. Beh. 379; Recht 315, 328; Ph. G. 40. 7. Comp.: Phän. 532. 8. Comp.: W. Beh. 380. 9. “Nachgeahmte negative Selbständigkeit”: W. Beh. 391. 10. “Leib”: W. Beh. 391, 392; Log. III 240. 11. Comp.: Enc. III 420; Ph. G. 44, 75– 101. 12. Comp.: “äusserliche Existenz des Staates”: Ph. G. 60. 13. “Das Unorganische”: Lass. II 480, 482; W. Beh. 386; “unorganische Natur ”: W. Beh. 379, 387, 388. 14. “Different”: W. Beh. 379, 379. 15. Recht 320. 16. Recht 320. 17. Recht 315. 18. Comp.: “das reelle Praktische”: W. Beh. 380. 19. “Unterirdische Mächte”: W. Beh. 386.

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pating in the state is not a “simple multiplicity,”1 i.e., a crowd, deprived of connection and unity,2 or an “aggregate of private persons,”3 dwelling in a state of atomistic dispersion.4 Such a condition of the nation would be “a condition of lawlessness, the absence of the ethical, unreason.”5 Like a “stormy, elemental sea,”6 the nation as a “shapeless mass” would be “elementary, irrational, and frightful” in its motions and activities;7 that would be not a nation but a dark rabble, not a populus but a vulgus, “a wild, blind force,”8 always ready for self-destruction. The element of the concrete-empirical here, as everywhere, turns out to be, on one hand, necessary and ineliminable, and on the other hand, fraught with chaos and ruin. On one hand it is “absolute necessity,”9 following “on the heels”10 of the human being and his life: without it the Idea would not become a thrice real and victorious power in the world.11 The freedom of the Divine Spirit on earth can be realized only as freedom in the concrete-empirical, and not outside it.12 On the other hand, the spurious lawfulness of the empirical order cannot be left to itself and must be accepted, overcome, and subordinated to the speculative order: without this the State cannot become a shape of the world. Thus Hegel’s entire doctrine of the state is a doctrine concerning the speculative-political structure and order in the conditions of the concrete-empirical—in what it consists and how it is realized. This is a sort of “speculative politics,” tracking down and describing those subjective (i.e., identical in all) and objektive (i.e., common for all) connections, the presence of which unites people into a single national-state organism. In order for this unification to take place, the multiplicity of people leading independent and discrete existences must form a single substance of national spirit, the living content of which is defined by the term “ethical life,” and the living shape, by the term “state.” Thus at the foundation of the state lies the presence of a determinate national spirit. The being of national spirit is by no means a fiction; its essential nature by no means dwells in the sphere of foggy understatement; its characteristics and properties are not at all indistinct; its concept suffers not at all from indeterminateness. If anyone in the history of thought has the right to operate with this category as the property of reason and cognition, 1. “Blosse Mehrheit”: Lass. II 466; “nur Menge”: Recht 397. 2. “Beziehungslos”: Lass. II 466; “Haufen”: Würt. 240. 3. “Aggregat der Privaten”: Enc. III 415; comp.: Würt. 240. 4. Diff. 242. 5. Enc. III 415. 6. Enc. III 415. 7. Recht 397. 8. Enc. III 418. 9. Comp., e.g., Lass. II 476. 10. “An die Ferse hängt”: Lass. II 476. 11. See chapter 12. 12. See chapter 13.

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it is Hegel; and it is not his fault if entire generations of his supposed followers, having overlooked the inner essence of this idea, converted its content into a vanishing, empty sound, or an easily misinterpreted fogginess. National spirit in its mature form is an identity of universal selfconsciousness and universal will. It is spirit precisely because and to the degree that self-consciousness and will in general constitute the fundamental nature of spirit. It is national spirit precisely because and to the degree that its self-consciousness is thrice universal self-consciousness,1 and its will is thrice universal will.2 The national spirit is a universal self-consciousness, as an organic concreteness of a multitude of individual consciousnesses and self-consciousnesses. The essence of “any spirituality,” its “substance,”3 is precisely “universal self-consciousness,” i.e., not only the holistic self-consciousness of the individual (subjective spirit), but also the “positive knowledge of one’s own self in the selfhood of another,” “the non-distinction of oneself from the other,” and the knowledge that the very one recognizing is “recognized” by the free soul of another human being4 (objektive spirit). In a word, the mature universal self-consciousness consists in each knowing that both he himself and others recognize both himself and others to be free through identity and identical through freedom, and moreover, through identity and freedom, real, both in himself and in others.5 Similarly, the national spirit is universal will, as the organic concreteness of a multiplicity of singular strivings and wills. This will is universal not only in the sense that it is the rational, whole, rightful, and free passion of the individual spirit,6 but in the sense that it is the unified will of the social collective, in which the will of each coincides—by content, by aims, and by results—with the wills of each and of all.7 This unity of many wills is not simply their “co-uniting,” but an essential, real unity—spirit as the “unconcealed, substantial will, clear to itself, thinking and knowing itself and bringing into being what it knows, and (moreover) insofar as it knows it.”8 Such a speculative growing-together of many singular selfconsciousnesses and wills is not, as has already been explained,9 a combination of singularities created for the first time, hitherto nonexistent, but a primordial unity of substance, secondarily (strictly speaking, “tertiarily”)10 entering into realization only on a higher level. National spirit as a mani1. See chapter 18. 2. See chapters 15 and 18. 3. Comp.: “Substanz jeder wesentlichen Geistigkeit”: Enc. III 283. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 283; comp.: Phän. 265–66. 5. See chapter 18. 6. See chapter 15. 7. See chapter 18. 8. Recht 312. 9. See chapter 18. 10. See in chapter 12 the doctrine of the thrice real idea.

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festation of Divine Spirit is the primordial, “in-itself” unified and whole substance, even “before” it enters into realization on the level of mature self-consciousness (already “in-itself-and-for-itself ”). It is the proto-real sheer Universality, disjoining (dirimiren)1 itself into empirically separate and independent Singularities and, finally, restoring itself in them and through them at a higher level.2 And insofar as one speaks precisely of the nation as of a social Universality, this restoration of substantial unity, this growing-together of persons is accomplished through personal virtue, and has the form of ethical life. Socially-con-crete life is ethical life; and conversely. If people in their shared existence create a speculative order, then they dwell in an ethical condition; and conversely. For the essence of ethical life lies in people experiencing, recognizing, and bringing about their “identity” with one another, and through it, their “identity” with Substance; and in precisely the same way, their “identity” with Substance, and through it, their identity with one another. Therefore a nation leading a spiritually mature life is nothing other than a unified “ethical substance.” On the lips of Hegel “the spirit of the nation” and “ethical substance” are synonyms.3 “Spirit is the ethical life of the nation,”4 or, otherwise, “spirit as actual substance is the nation.”5 But since Substance is always “the totality of its members,” then the nation can be defined as an “absolute ethical totality,”6 or as an “ethical organization.”7 It is precisely “the ethical” which constitutes “the absolute bond of the nation,”8 and the falling away of this “element” undoes the concreteness, dispersing it into “abstract” singularities. The “spirit of the nation” is the spirit of all its members, permeating their souls and spirits, in the same way that Life permeates all living creatures, and that a Vine lives in all of its branches and leaves.b “Spirit is this absolute Substance, which in the perfect freedom and self-sufficiency of its opposition, namely (in the opposition) of various self-consciousnesses existing for themselves, exists through their unity.”9, c It is “the essence of all beings,”10, d for each member participates in its life and activity, just as it participates in the life and activity of each one of its members.11 It is that Universality into which the singular soul enters as its living part and which itself enters into all singular souls as their living essence.12 Or, in other words, the spirit of the nation is the “living indifference,”13 the

1. Comp.: Enc. III 391. 2. See chapters 5, 12, and 18. 3. Comp., e.g., Phän. 268, 338; Enc. III 391; Recht 220, 434. 4. Comp.: Phän. 330. 5. Phän. 333. 6. W. Beh. 372; comp.: Lass. II 419, 466; W. Beh. 411. 7. W. Beh. 387. 8. “Das absolute Band des Volks—das Sittliche”: Lass. II 496; comp.: “das Geistige überhaupt und damit auch das sittliche Element”: Recht 340. 9. Phän. 139. 10. Phän. 313. 11. Comp.: “Alle”: Phän. 313, 527–28, 545–46; Recht 9; Ph. G. 43. 12. See chapter 5. 13. Lass. II 466, 468.

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living speculative “identity of all,”1 present2 in each singular empirical consciousness. In this “indifference” of the national spirit each individual spirit is “raised” and consequently “maintained,” as in a sort of “eternal”3 womb or storehouse, each singular spirit woven into it by its primordial roots (an sich) and by its speculative assimilatedness (an und für sich). It is understandable that the mature shape of national spirit presupposes the voluntary and conscious, i.e., entirely free “conversion” and “self-immersion” accomplished by each in the depth and on the surface of his own soul. Each participant in the national spirit is an individual consciousness gaining for itself a higher and final comprehension of his own essence, of the nature of the good, and of the creative paths of the Divine. A living member of the national spirit as such leads a speculative-concrete life, i.e., a life grown together with the lives of other persons and with the unified life of the Absolute. And this means that the shape of national spirit presupposes that personal virtue has been realized in all its members. The national spirit is an organic fusion of individual spirits; its reality is woven from their realities; its essence is plaited from their essences; its level is the level of their community. And if the “ethical” constitutes “the absolute bond of the nation” and the level of its life, then this bond and this level are formed and maintained precisely by the virtuous “disposition” of all the individual participants. If the individual is nothing other than a mode of life taken by Substance upon itself,4 then it is understandable that substantial ethical life can only be woven from the “ethical lives” of individuals, i.e., from the organically flourishing virtues of all and each. The national spirit as the mature and (in its element) the perfected shape of the world can only be a holistic victory over the element of empirical chaos and disunity, for every lack of wholeness, every falling away, every incompleteness would inevitably turn it into an unsuccessful “appearance,” i.e., into a partial defeat of self-liberating Divinity.5 Therefore the shape of national spirit is the authentic actuality of the Idea, “the most perfect organization of reason”6 in the form of human society; “in a free nation” “reason is genuinely realized”: it has become “the present, living spirit, in which the individual not only finds his destiny, i.e., his universal and singular essence, articulated and objectively (als Dingheit) present, but the individual himself is this essence.”7 And this means that the virtuous individual is the real existenz-minimum of the ethical substance of the nation. In such a condition national spirit really is an organic totality,8 and 1. Lass. II 466. 2. “Sich darstellend”: Lass. II 466. 3. Lass. II 469. 4. See chapter 19. 5. See chapters 11 and 12. 6. Diff. 242. 7. Phän. 267. 8. Lass. II 468, 489, 491; W. Beh. 387; Würt. 243 and others.

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the nation is “an organic body with a shared and rich life,”1 a creation of Divine art.2 Its ethical life, resting on the faith of the individuals in the whole and on the participation of all in the life, will, and deeds of Substance,3 constitutes its most true, holistic essence and imparts to it a sacred significance.4 Then it is discovered that “ethical life is the Divine Spirit,” living in the actual self-consciousness of the nation and its individuals;5 that the Divinity, constituting one of the elements of natural being, is “a self-conscious actuality” in the person of “the singular national spirit”;6 or, otherwise, that “the national spirit is the Divine knowing and desiring itself.”7 If, in such fashion, the national spirit as substance—a one in the many of its organs—is an organic whole or “totality,” then it is natural that this organicity presuppose a constant and stable organization. The “grown-togetherness of the multiplicity into a unity” is already in itself a structure and an order; “organic co-belonging” expresses the quality and character of this order. If “organic nature” constitutes the most fundamental essence of speculative Substance, then this means that the “form” establishes or “constitutes” the being and the life of national spirit. One can say that the national spirit as such is an organic national spirit, i.e., constructed, constituted, or organized. It is not the case that the “ethical content” is one reality, counted as “one,” while the “organic form” is another reality attending it, counting as “two.” No, the “organic form” constructing or constituting the life of national spirit is its own inner structure, its own inner power, and, further, its manifestation and result. The ethical content itself lives in the organic form; the organic form is a mode of life intrinsic to the ethical content itself. And if from the ordinary viewpoint one can say that the “state” is the form of national life, then, according to Hegel, one should recognize that the State is the organized life of the nation. It is not a schematic image, or a conceptual abstraction, or a juridical form; it is the immanently structured content, or, if you prefer, the form filled with content, created by the form itself. And in this conception Hegel discloses anew his proximity to Aristotle. The existence of a nation not organized into the unity of a state is empirically possible: “at the beginning a nation is not yet a state”;8 but of course it is also empirically possible for a nation to be living outside the condition of mature ethical life. However, “the formal realization of the Idea” in the life of a nation consists precisely in that “the family, the clan, the tribe, the multitude of people, etc., pass over to the condition of a 1. Diff. 242. 2. Glaub. 115. 3. Comp.: Phän. 545–46, 527–28. 4. “Heilige Dinge”: Glaub. 107. 5. Comp.: Enc. III 429; “Die Sittlichkeit ist der göttliche Geist als inwohnend dem Selbstbewusstsein in dessen wirklicher Gegenwart als eines Volkes und der Individuen desselben.” 6. Phän. 531. 7. Recht 312. 8. Recht 434.

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state.”1 “Without that form” the nation remains an ethical substance only “in itself”;2 it doesn’t have a mature “objectivity” of life.3 Such a nation, not having developed itself into the shape of a state and remaining in the aspect of “a nation as such,”4 does not have, strictly speaking, a history;5 it lives in a primitive condition,6 and its destiny remains “on one hand, deprived of interests, an unthinking innocence; on the other hand, bravery in the formal struggle for recognition and revenge.”7 If the essence of the world shape consists in general in the content receiving a formal perfection, and the form being completely unfolded in that content in which it is immanent,8 then the maturity of national spirit is measured precisely by the perfection of its state organization, and the state organization is determined precisely by the properties of the national spirit. On one hand, “the substantial aim” of national life consists in “being a state and maintaining itself” in the character of a state.9 Everything that “happens” with a nation and takes place within it gains its “essential significance” through a relation to its state structure; for statehood as the true, speculative form is “law penetrating into all relations within the nation,” into its customs and into “the consciousness of its individuals,”10 so that the “content” is actually founded upon, constructed, and constituted by the “form.” On the other hand, it is impossible to separate the conception of state organization from the conception of the national spirit,11 for “in the state everything arises” out of the national spirit.12 An ethically vital nation “knows its state and its deeds as its own will and accomplishment”;13 it is not separable from its state “form,” for the nation lives by means of it, and the nation is its mode of life. It is impossible to live outside of one’s “mode” of life; and there is no “mode” of life outside of that life which brings it about. Therefore the state organization of the nation depends on the character and development of its self-consciousness,14 and each nation possesses that organization which is “commensurate” with and “corresponds”15 to its spirit. In the mature shape the form is nothing other than the living content, and the content is nothing other than the unfolded form coming to light. Therefore, in the shape of the “nation” the state is nothing other than its living spiritual substance,16 and the na-

1. Recht 434. 2. Ibidem. 3. Ibidem. 4. “Ein Volk ohne Staatsbildung (eine Nation als solche)”: Enc. III 423. Hegel’s emphasis. 5. Ibidem. See below in this chapter. 6. “Wilde Nationen”: Enc. III 423. 7. Recht 434, 96. See chapter 15. 8. See chapter 12. 9. Enc. III 423. 10. Recht 360. 11. Enc. III 410. 12. Ph. G. 50. 13. Phän. 540. 14. “Von der Weise und Bildung des Selbstbewusstseins”: Recht 360. 15. “Angemessen,” “Gehört”: Recht 360. 16. Comp.: Recht 69, 360, 425, and others.

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tional spirit is nothing other than the state brought to actuality. The state is the very organic life of national spirit. Hegel occasionally expresses this identity as follows: the state organization enters as a necessary element in the “systematic totality of the actuality of the nation,”1 or, still more determinately: the state is “the actual and organic spirit of the nation.”2 If the spirit of the nation itself accepts the form of the state, then this means that it develops into the state, becomes the state, that it itself is the state; and therefore all that essentially characterizes the national spirit, also characterizes the state. The state is the living speculative Universality; 3 a unity which “is not borne above the multiplicity,” and is not “something external for the many, united” people, and doesn’t stand “in relation” to them,4 but penetrates into them, permeates them,5 and develops into the absolute unity of the one and the many. In this speculative identity, the state represents a certain wholeness or “totality,”6 dissolved into its parts and dissolving them in itself. In other words: the state is an organism. This definition should not be interpreted to mean that the state “in all respects is like” a natural organism. In general, it is appropriate to compare not the higher to the lower, but the reverse: the level of the lower is determined and measured by the perfection of the higher; not to mention that among living beings themselves in nature, organic life stands on various levels of perfection, and that therefore the tertium comparationis e turns out, from the empirical point of view, vague and elusive. Therefore, according to Hegel, it is not appropriate to liken the “state” to “an animal,” but on the contrary, an “animal” should be considered as an imperfect— by virtue of its limitations—likeness of the “state.” For the state is a higher organism by comparison with the organisms of nature, and moreover higher thanks to the fact that it is realized in the flexible, fluid, and free element of the “spiritual.” In essence the state is a spiritual organism. Every conception of a mechanism, a machine-likeness, of a rationalistic-quantitative comparison, of a mob, or of an arbitrarily united aggregate of atoms must be excluded from one’s thinking of the state.7 And to the extent that this or that empirical manifestation of the “state” is similar to such a mechanistic aggregate, to that extent it remains merely an empirical appearance. The state is not a sum arising through addition, and not a union founded on a contract of private parties,8 but 1. Enc. III 445. 2. Recht 69. 3. Comp.: Enc. III 404; Recht 230, 398, and others. 4. W. Beh. 337. 5. Enc. III 404; Recht 360. 6. Comp.: Recht 366, 424(Z); Ph. G. 50. 7. Comp.: Diff. 242; W. Beh. 337; Enc. III 413, 417, 419; Würt. 240–41; Recht 340, 359, 363, 383(Z), 397. 8. Comp.: W. Beh 410–11, 411; Enc. I 11; Enc. III 419; Würt. 232, 263–64; Recht 116, 139.

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the concrete life of the One in the many, irreducible to a “formless” and “external harmony”;1 its organization is an “organic state,” the “ordered life of the nation.”2 From this it is clear that the element of multiplicity is not only not excluded by the state, but is created by the state itself within itself, in an order of inner organic self-partitioning: as an actual, living organism it possesses members constituting its wholeness and maintaining it in their existence. The state as the living substance of the nation, as the living spirit, “exists only insofar as it organically particularizes itself,”3 i.e., insofar as it is “an organized whole, divided into separate activities”;4 it organizes itself, internally dividing or “partitioning,” or “branching,” or “differentiating” itself into particular organic moments, functions, “subordinate” circles (Kreise), and powers,5 and further, distributing among them the entire mass of individuals entering into it.6 Arising in such a manner, the “parts” of the state are, however, not “parts” but members of the single organism (Glieder): they are determined by the aim of the whole and depend upon it.7 They are “self-active” but “subordinate systems” of the organism.8 They are themselves not formless, but are constructed organically9 and are related to the state as “particular” to the “universal”; they are its “organic moments,”10 its “fluid members,”11 which cannot “break off”12 or “become isolated”13 without subjecting the state to disease,14 and themselves to a mortal condition.15 All of these activities,16 circles, powers, and institutions17 mutually limit and condition each other18 such that each of them, maintaining itself, maintains other members in their distinctiveness, and all together coalesce in an organic unity. The state is the substantial unity of its moments and members, or, if you like, their “ideality,”19 and they in their turn possess in its unity the “ultimate root” of their being.20 As such an “articulated organism”21 the state is a living chain of its organs, their creatively harmonized system, their identity. They are not separate from it, but constitute its living political tissue; it is not separate from them, but lives through them and in them, just as the “universal” lives in the “particular,” and the particular in the “singular.” In the state “there is only one life, and it is in each point and in all points, and there is no resistance against this.”22 “The life of all the parts” is nothing other 1. W. Beh. 337. 2. Würt. 290. 3. Enc. III 396. 4. Enc. III 405. 5. Lass. II 485; Enc. III 405, 417; Würt. 241; Recht 350, 356, 379, 396, 397. 6. Comp.: Recht 263, 326. 7. Recht 364. 8. Lass. II 481, 485. 9. Enc. III 417; Recht 397. 10. Recht 363. 11. Recht 362. 12. “Getrennt”: Recht 362(Z). 13. Recht 363. 14. Ibidem. 15. Recht 362(Z); see chapters 5 and 8. 16. “Wirksamkeiten”: Enc. III 405; “Geschäfte”: Recht 362. 17. “Institutionen”: Recht 379. 18. Recht 379. 19. Recht 362. 20. “Letzte Wurzel ”: Recht 363. 21. “Gegliederter Organismus”: Enc. III 71(Z); comp.: Würt. 241; Recht 358. 22. Recht 362(Z).

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than “the life of the whole,”1 and conversely. The state as an organic totality possesses the power and capability to maintain its inner unity, establishing positive rights and negative boundaries for its subordinate spheres;2 and this its inner activity is its own self-organization: demarcating the life and creativity of its organs, it creates an “architectonic of its rationality,” guards the “strict proportionality,” the “harmony of the parts,” and the “power of the whole.”3 In this speculative identity of the “universal” (the state), the “particular” (its circles and institutions), and the “singular” (individuals) consists the very essence of the state, the power of its being, the “profundity” of its life, and the “concrete rationality” of its inner structure.4 Precisely owing to this identity the state is an “ethical relation,”5 or, more accurately, a spiritual-ethical organism. The state as a spiritual organism is possible only owing to the fact that the entire multitude of its individual participants has fused through a universal self-consciousness and universal will into a single national spirit; and this also means that the nation leads an ethical life. Therefore the state is not only not alien to ethical life, and is not indifferent to it, and doesn’t merely “facilitate its realization,” but is itself organized living ethical life. This connection between the state and ethical life can be characterized in such a way that ethical life is “the substantial inner” content of the state, and the state is the “development and realization” of ethical life.6 In other words, between the state and ethical life there is no real distinction, but a metaphysical identity. The mature state is realized and formalized ethical life; mature ethical life is the speculative unity of the people within the state. This identity gives Hegel the possibility of regarding the state as “the ethical whole,”7 “the ethical essence,”8 “the ethical substance,”9 “the ethical spirit”;10 the state is in his eyes “the actuality of the ethical idea,”11 “the rich articulation of the ethical in itself.”12 If ethical life achieves “real existence”13 and becomes “an ethical world”14 or “the system of the ethical world,”15 then this “ethical universe,”16 realized in the element and means of the concrete empirical, is precisely the state. Only persons united by the power of speculative growing-together, having identified with one another to the extent of ethical unification, can form a state. Hegel expresses this as follows: “the life of the state in individuals is called ethical life.”17 It is understood that this life of the state in individuals presupposes 1. Lass. II 485. 2. Comp.: Recht 358. 3. Recht 11. 4. Comp.: Recht 356. 5. Enc. III 279(Z). 6. Enc. III 429. 7. Recht 430, 317(Z). 8. Recht 418. 9. Recht 428. 10. Recht 312. 11. Recht 11. 12. Recht 312. 13. Recht 202 note. 14. Recht 8. 15. Recht 340. 16. Recht 19. 17. Ph. G. 44.

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from their side a corresponding participation and an appropriate spiritual level. Participation of individuals in the state is expressed by the term freedom; their spiritual level is characterized by the term virtue. In its deep spiritual essence the state is one of the shapes of freedom, realized in the world of appearances.1 Freedom, realized through the life of the state, is as always the freedom of spirit from other-being. This means that in the life of the state the national spirit fuses into an identity with the individual souls, and the individual souls cognize and bring about their identity with the national spirit. The two sides, overcoming in this way the empirical discontinuity of the social multiplicity, conquer by the power of their organized unity the alienation of nature and its things from self-consciousness and its higher aims. In the community of people organized as a state the national spirit has to do only with its own singular modifications and conditions (individuals); it does not have in them “alien” objekts or other-being, and therefore it is free. In exactly the same way singular citizens are concerned only with their own, absolute, and universal essence (national spirit), recognized by them both in themselves and in their fellow citizens; they have nothing to do with alien other-being, neither in the person of “Spirit” nor in the person of “spirits,” and therefore they are free. Finally, the life of this spiritual organism, one in many and free within its limitations, is the continual realization of natural and cosmic freedom, both in the lowest cultural-economic sphere and in the highest spheres—of national art, national religion, and national philosophy. Accordingly, the state as a spiritual-ethical organism by no means opposes the individual as an alien, constraining, or coercive power.2 Such an opposition would have reduced it to an “absolute tyranny,”3 and a universal “hierarchy of coercion”4 would have destroyed in it all organicity and have converted its life into a “perpetuum quietum.”5 Everywhere that such a correspondence arises, the state falls into the “deepest despotism” and the “greatest weakness.”6 It approaches the citizens from without, subjects them to an all-round, pedantic supervision, and gets carried away in an endless process of limiting their freedom.7 It converts itself into a police state, and the citizens into an oppressed rabble (Pöbel) without rights.8 A genuine state, on the contrary, dwells in an “identity” with its citizens; it is not above them, but in them, and in this way it realizes a concrete freedom.9 In accordance with the order of con-crete freedom, the 1. Comp.: Recht 64. 2. Comp.: Diff. 243; W. Beh. 338. 3. Diff. 149. 4. W. Beh. 364. 5. W. Beh. 364. 6. W. Beh. 411. 7. Comp.: Diff. 239, 241–42. 8. Comp.: W. Beh. 364, 366, 411. 9. Recht 321–22.

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singular individual with his “particular” interests receives full (vollständig) recognition, development, and satisfaction. His rights are not trampled, but affirmed and observed. The state (the “universal”) does not “become real” and “has no significance” outside of “particular interest, knowledge, and volition.”1 But then, conversely, the “particular” interests of the individual don’t stand opposed to the interests of the state, but fuse with them. This confluence in part takes place of itself, in consequence of the fact that what is necessary for the individual is the same as what is necessary for the state. In part it is realized through the “knowledge and will” of the citizens themselves, recognizing in the state “their own substantial spirit” and making of its interests their substantial end.2 Then individuals cease to be for the state “private persons”: their will lives within the universal and for the sake of the universal, and their deeds serve “the universal good, the good of the state.”3 The life of the state in the modern period reveals that “unusual power and depth” which permit the subject to make use of a complete and extreme self-sufficiency and at the same time reduce him to a “substantial unity.”4 This order of concrete freedom can be characterized by the fact that the individual leads in it not a “private” but a “public” life, i.e., a life “dedicated to substantial universality”5 and to its interests; then he becomes an actual citizen, i.e., organically entering into the state as its participant. The citizen, not distinguishing himself from his state and not opposing himself to it, accepts his obligations voluntarily and doesn’t lose his freedom in obeying the state and the law.6 His will brings about “true volition,” for he obeys, in the person of the law, only his own rational essence;7 “in this also consists that freedom in the state to which the activity of the citizen is devoted and which inspirits him.”8 The will of the citizen freely submits to the laws of his native land and by this means fuses necessity and freedom into one.9 The consciousness of the citizen relates with trust to its state10 and doesn’t lower itself to the perspective of the rabble, according to which “the interest of the government and the state” is opposed to “the interest of the people.”11 This means that the spirit of the citizen, true to the deepest essence of any spirit, dwells freely in the state, and that this subjective, personal freedom founds the “universal and objektive freedom”12 of the national spirit. The life of the state is formed outside of coercion and violence, and a government that turned to coercive measures, given a divergence from the people, 1. Ibidem. 2. Recht 322. 3. Recht 169. 4. Recht 322. 5. Recht 221. 6. See chapter 19. 7. Enc. III 432. See chapter 16. 8. Ph. G. 46. 9. Ph. G. 46; comp.: Recht 418. See chapter 19. 10. Comp.: Moll. I 61; Phän. 545–46; Recht 329. See chapter 19. 11. Würt. 235. 12. Recht 69.

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would create only “destruction and the disintegration of the state.”1 It would trample upon its true idea, i.e., the idea of that “substantial ethical life, with which the freedom of self-consciousness existing for itself is identical.”2 Given such an understanding, “state power ”3 receives an unusual, deepened interpretation. This is the “Good” itself transformed into the “unchangeable essence of all consciousnesses.”4 Its “law” is secured by its “rightness,” for this rightness is the power of the Good itself, the initself-existing “spiritual power”5 or “the simple substance itself ”6 of national spirit. It lives not over individuals but within them, and “remains the absolute basis and stability of all their activity.”7 State power lives, like the air, “as a simple ethereal substance,”8 a “transparent universal essence,”9 penetrating everything and guarding its own pure unity. It is that “absolute object,”10 or that “established law,”11 “in which for individuals their essence is articulated,” such that “their singularity remains only a consciousness of their universality.”12 And at the same time it is their “universal creation,” a product of their creative life, from which, however, disappear all traces of createdness.13 Everything which is individual dies out in this universal power ruling through immanent presence in all singular souls: it reigns in them, appearing in the guise of the breath of their own spirit. And its fundamental essence consists in “obtaining its actuality and its nourishment from the sacrifice of action and thought by the noble consciousness.”14 Accordingly, the government, guiding the life of the state, is for the nation not an external power but the nation’s own creative energy, the concentrated might of the whole.15 The government is the “simple selfhood of the entire ethical Substance,”16 expressing its individual being and creating its life.17 The government is the “soul” and the “will” of the national spirit,18 animating and maintaining itself and all.19 Therefore the government should be regarded as a universal power standing in “a primordial, substantial unity” with the nation20 and creating its rightful, “in-itself-existing” will.21 The government rules the whole not because it is set over it, but because it itself coincides with this whole:22 it itself is the “living,” “organic totality,”23 or, if you will, the system of energy immanently and “protractedly building up”24 the life of the state. “The ethical life of

1. “Zerrütung und Auflösung”: Enc. III 419. 2. Enc. III 438. 3. “Staatsmacht”: Phän. 372– 86. 4. Phän. 372–73. 5. Comp.: Phän. 372–73. 6. Comp.: Phän. 373, 376. 7. Phän. 373. 8. Phän. 373. 9. Phän. 372. 10. Phän. 373. 11. Phän. 376. 12. Phän. 373. 13. Phän. 373. 14. Phän. 386. 15. Comp.: Lass. II 481. 16. Phän. 338. 17. Comp.: Phän. 338, 446. 18. Comp.: Phän. 355, 366. 19. Phän. 376. 20. Würt. 264. 21. Comp.: Enc. III 432. 22. Comp.: Recht 212. 23. Comp.: Enc. III 410, 412. 24. Comp.: Enc. III 410.

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an actual national spirit” rests not only on the “trust” of the citizens in the whole, but also on that “immediate participation which all accept, without distinction of estates, in the decisions and actions of the government.”1 Therefore, in the mature and perfected life of the state each act of the government is experienced by all citizens as a manifestation or revelation of their own rational essence, and in its commands all see the proclamation of the “public meaning, universal and clear as the day.”2 It is obvious that obedience to such orders cannot violate or in any way diminish the freedom of the “obedient” citizens. That is why the state is the “realization of freedom”3 “in the world, in actuality”;4 or, otherwise: it is the “rational life of self-conscious freedom.”5 This can also be expressed as follows: “the idea of freedom possesses true (existence) only in the form of the state.”6 It is obvious that at the basis of such an order lies the virtue of the personal soul, permitting the state to become a power immanent in the subjective spirit. In order for the shape of the state to arise and form itself, it is necessary for the essential content of the state, i.e., “the greatness of absolute ethical life,” to become identical with the individual souls;7 the “ruling power”8 must be not external to them, but within them, such that the reality of the state should actually coincide with the tissue of individual self-consciousnesses,9 and the state should become their nature.10 Life in the state will not constrain the freedom of the individual only if he lives permeated by the substantial element, in a vital, non-subordinated oneness-of-being with it.11 Then the human being becomes aware of himself as a living modification of his native land, of his nation, and of his state: a citizen leading a life of speculative virtue doesn’t distinguish himself from his nation. Then it becomes apparent that “the state, its laws, its institutions are the right of the individuals comprising the state, their external possession, and its nature, its soil, its mountains, air, and water are their land, their fatherland”; “the history of this state” consists of “their doings,” and what “their ancestors created belongs to them and lives in their memory.”12 All of this forms “their possession and (in its turn) possesses them, for it constitutes their substance, their being.”13 The true citizen is the virtuous citizen; his obligations coincide with his actual, voluntarily realized, and necessary circumstances, and at the same time with his rights.14 In this coincidence of the obligations of citizens with their rights, in the satisfaction of the soul with which the 1. Phän. 545–46. 2. Phän. 348. 3. Ph. G. 40. 4. Rel. I 170. 5. Recht 340. 6. Recht 96. 7. Comp.: W. Beh. 338. 8. “Das Gebietende,” “Machthabende”: Diff. 243. 9. Comp.: Log. III 240; Ph. G. 47. 10. Comp.: Log. III 240. 11. See chapter 19. 12. Ph. G. 44. 13. Ibidem. 14. See chapter 19.

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individual voluntarily carries out his civic duty, in the coincidence brought about between “the universal ultimate aim” and “the particular interests” of people, in the “universal” or “public” life which citizens lead, in a word, in personal ethical life, in the virtuous disposition of the citizens1 lies the essence, the power, the stability, and the speculative maturity of the state.2 The genuine citizen doesn’t simply “love” his fatherland but lives in it and for the sake of it.3 He matures in the rays of his native state like a plant opens out and blossoms in the rays of the sun.4 Patriotism is not an accidental disposition of his, but the essential power of his soul, guiding his deeds and motivating his decisions. He knows that “objektivity, truth, ethical life” are present in him only as a member of a speculative-state union;5 that the end of the state is his own ultimate end; that the destiny of the citizen lies in the voluntary and joyful immersing of his life in the life of his state’s substance; he knows this and in his soul lives a supra-personal courage, that crown of all the virtues.6 In such a conception the state has two aspects, as it were: an “objektive-substantial” one to the extent that it is a system of institutions, the “existing world” of organized, political “circulation”;7 and a “subjective-substantial” one to the extent that it is a system of subjective consciousnesses and wills, the “nature of self-consciousness,” or “the political disposition” of the citizens.8 The first aspect rests upon the second, is secured by it, presupposes it, and in its turn, contributes to its maintenance and flourishing. The state trains the individual to a renunciation of spurious subjectivity, of “particularity” of spirit and personal self-seeking.9 By means of its institutions it fosters in him true patriotism and habituates him to the universal will.10 The second condition imparts to the first the living, creative basis, “the depth and strength”11 of the free disposition, and in turn receives from it a determinate content: “various sides of the state organism”12 suggest the true direction to the virtuous will and its patriotism. This means that the life of the state actually flows on the level of concrete ethical life and personal virtue, so that the state itself can be defined as an organic totality of virtuous spirits. And since the nature of virtue consists in “the creative apprehension of omnipresent Divinity immanent in the world,”13 then one may say that the final basis of the state lies in religion: “the state rests, in this connection, on the ethical disposition, 1. Comp.: Recht 381. 2. Comp.: Recht 313, 323, 324, 325, 385; Ph. G. 40. 3. See chapter 19. 4. Comp.: Enc. II 529. 5. Recht 313. 6. See chapter 19. 7. Comp.: Recht 68, 210, 329, 329(Z). 8. Comp.: Phän. 559; Recht 68, 210, 329, 329(Z). 9. Comp.: Recht 175, 387; Ph. G. 42. 10. Comp.: Recht 329. 11. Comp.: Recht 381. 12. Comp.: Recht 331. 13. See chapter 19.

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and the latter, on the religious.”1 Religion constitutes the substantiality of ethical life itself and of the state,2 so that all three aspects are inseparable.3 One should not interpret this to mean that the state must be subordinate to religion or, especially, to the church. The political philosophy of Hegel does not lead to theocracy, either in a religious or in an ecclesiastical sense. True, religion and the state realize one and the same thing, namely, the highest that humanity possesses and realizes; and one may say that religion simply coincides with “the foundation of the state.”4 Moreover, Hegel views as false that conception of the state in which it exists independently of religion, on its own, on the basis of some sort of self-sufficient power and force,5 while religion remains a subjective disposition of individuals.6 He directly identifies true religion as the criterion of political perfection. “Until true religion has entered the world and is made supreme in the state, the true principle of the state cannot be realized in actuality.”7 However, all of these indications do not lead to theocracy. The political form of life cannot be displaced or replaced by the religious; those who try to do so make the same mistake as thinkers who remain fixed in their cognition on “essence” and will not advance to “there-being”8 or “existence.” Religion, by its very nature, gravitates not to the world but to God, not to the affirmation of the concrete-empirical but to its rejection; conversely, the state accepts the element of secular, sensuous, material, earthly existence and overcomes it, while remaining in it.9 The “form of religion” also cannot be carried over to the state because it remains in the element of faithful “feeling and imagination,”10 incapable of raising itself to true, speculative universality and finding an adequate, organically binding connection for its parts.11 On the contrary, the state dwells in the element of thought and knowledge:12 it thinks its own essence in laws, in the right, and in institutions, it knows its aim and is held together by the power of “universal self-consciousness.” Therefore the “church” and the “state” are distinct and cannot be substituted for one another. But this distinction is not in the essence, but rather only in the form, of existence:13 the business of the church is to believe in the Essence; the business of the state is to think the Essence in its earthly existence and

1. Enc. III 429. 2. Enc. III 429. 3. Comp.: “untrennbar ”: Enc. III 429; comp.: Enc. III 439. 4. Comp.: Rel. I 170. 5. “Für sich selbst schon and aus irgend einer Macht und Gewalt”: Enc. III 430. 6. “Das Subjektive der Individuen”: Enc. III 430. 7. Enc. III 438. A paraphrase of the well-known Platonic formula. 8. Comp.: Recht 334–35: “Dasein.” 9. Comp.: Recht 333, 335. 10. Recht 335, 343. See chapters 3 and 19. 11. Ibidem. 12. Comp.: Enc. III 438; Recht 343, 344, 346. 13. Recht 342.

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through this bring about its realization. That is why the “state” stands closer to “science” than to “religion.” But, distinguishing itself from religion1 and separating itself from the church2 in order to fulfill its calling and to realize itself in the shared lives of the people in the form of “self-conscious rationality and ethical life,”3 the state maintains an affinity and a creative interaction with religion. Thus religion deepens and supports the subjective basis of the state. It remains that moment which confirms, sanctions, and in the most profound way justifies “ethical life, standing in empirical actuality,” and remains for it a “solid guarantee.”4 “Religion is the foundation, containing the ethical in general and, specifically, the fundamental nature of the state as Divine will.”5 Accordingly, the state nourishes, supports, and organizes the objektive basis of religion—the national spirit: for religion consists in the nation recognizing its own rationality—revealing itself in the ideal essence of the nation’s morals and laws—and prayerfully intuiting this specific modification of the idea of the good, in the “pure absolute shape” of their God.6 The national religious cult, created by the people, is a joyous development of this prayerful intuition.7 In this is discovered the metaphysical identity of religion and the state, coinciding with their empirical difference. Both the state and religion are shapes of the good in the world, or, what is the same thing, different forms of the existence of the truth. The right and the state possess significance only to the extent that they are “participants in the absolute truth,” subordinated to it and flowing from it. Religion is nothing other than consciousness of the absolute truth.8 Religion as an intuition of the idea of the good is genuinely realized only to the extent that it regenerates universal selfconsciousness and universal will and finds expression in the objektive structure of national life. The state is nothing other than the objektive, organized structure of national life. Religion and the right, the church and the state do not coincide. But no reform or revolution whatsoever is possible without a reformation,9 and the absence of religious freedom degrades the life of the state.10 Here is revealed that depth at which the state, religion, and philosophy can and do coincide: “Spirit, knowing its own essence, being in itself absolutely free and having its actuality in the activity of self-liberation”11— this is the principle in which all higher “shapes of the world,” including here also art, are united. This is expressed in the fact that the formations 1. Recht 346. 2. Recht 346. 3. Recht 346. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 429, 429, 439; Recht 334, 337, 343; 3 Lat. 327–29. 5. Recht 334. 6. Comp.: W. Beh. 400; Phän. 540; Enc. III 409. 7. Comp.: W. Beh. 400. 8. Comp.: Enc. III 434. 9. Enc. III 434. 10. Comp.: Enc. III 430, 431, 433–34; Recht 338. 11. Enc. III 438.

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(Gestaltungen) of art, religion, and philosophy created by a given nation stand “in indissoluble connection” with the spirit of its state, with the primordial identity of its substance, its content and object.1 The spirit of the nation lives a unified and whole life, creating its freedom from any and every form of other-being, and this unified life expresses itself in all that spirit creates. And what religion intuits in the shape of national divinity, what art depicts in the media of sensuous existence, what the state organizes and nourishes in the intercourse and cohesiveness of the people, philosophy as a higher power adequately cognizes by means of speculative thinking.2 All of these activities are manifestations of one and the same Subject; and all these objects are one and the same Object: it is Divinity, aware of its own proper freedom; the Divinity creates it, having the form of the human, true to the meaning of humanity’s own, and of the Divine, life. Thus is Hegel’s doctrine of the divinity of the state revealed. It is divine because it constitutes the real actuality of the Divinity in the world of human cohesion. In order to perceive this, one must have before one’s eyes not separate historical evidences of the appearance of the state, but the idea of it,3 i.e., the thrice real and holistic shape of the world in which, in Plato’s expression, “the soul and the body are eternally and primordially fused together.”4 Then it actually turns out that “the Divine spirit immanently penetrates into worldly”5 existence and “concretely” saturates it and lives in it;6 and this life of God in the earthly life of the people is revealed in the form of the “shapes of ethical life.”7 The state is divine as the mature shape of ethical life, because ethical life is the actual “Divine spirit, living” in the actual presence of self-consciousness, in “the nation and its individuals.”8 The national spirit is “the Divine knowing and willing itself,”9 and the state is its necessary and perfected form. That is why Hegel says that the State “is the divine will, as Spirit, present and unfolding itself as the actual shape and organization of a world.”10, f The state is “the world that Spirit created for itself,” and therefore it is appropriate to honor it as “the divine on earth,”11 and to comprehend its history as “the path of God in the world.”12 And since in the holistic “shape” each part and each detail is permeated by the Spirit of the whole and receives from it its content and significance, “speculative politics” develops into the doctrine of the divinity of all institutions 1. Comp.: Ph. G. 45. 2. Comp., e.g., Enc. III 438. 3. Comp.: Recht 320(Z). 4. Comp.: in Hegel, W. Beh. 392. 5. “Immanent durchdringen”: Enc. III 433. 6. “Jenes konkret Inwohnen”: Enc. III 433. 7. “Gestaltungen der Sittlichkeit”: Enc. III 433. 8. Enc. III 429. Comp.: 428. 9. Recht 312; comp.: Enc. III 441. 10. Recht 334. 11. “Wie ein Irdisch-Göttliches”: Recht 354(Z). 12. Recht 320(Z).

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necessary to the perfected state. This is where the possibility arises for Hegel to view the “supreme government” as “a manifestation of God,”1 the political order as the “Divine and abiding”2 right of the monarch as “founded on divine authority,”3 and so forth. Genuine philosophy, by its conviction, not only does not lead away from God and the state,4 but brings one to the recognition that the divine spirit is the substance of the state, and the state is the actuality of the spirit of God on earth. *** Such is Hegel’s general and fundamental scheme in the doctrine of the state. It is conceived as a mature and perfected shape of the world and accordingly must be sketched by the power of the speculatively thinking imagination on the level of “concrete ethical life” and “personal virtue.” However, this sketch naturally leads to a number of serious difficulties. The speculative philosopher, asserting that the state is a shape of “free ethical life,” of the “organic growing-together” of individual souls, of a universal “disinterestedness,” “trust,” and patriotism, cannot close his eyes to the fact that history all too often depicts the state with directly opposite features: how many times has the political cohesion of a people degenerated into a universal dispersion and demoralization, into a triumph of self-interestedness and a system of mutual suspicion. . . . Of course, speculative philosophy can deflect this objection, pointing out that precisely in all these “cases” the essence of the state was reduced to a minimum; perhaps there was no State, where instead of organic unity, chaos came to reign. This means that far from every “state” realized in history can be regarded as a State in the sense of the speculative shape, for history knows of “imperfect” and “spurious” states,5 in which “some sort of opposition has become fixed,”6 individual “aspects of existence” become unsatisfactory or completely degenerate.7 Such states are less than fully real, or have imperfect actuality.8 Although they are not alien to the “idea” (for in them “individuals obey a certain ruling concept”),9 the idea of the State remains in them still not unfolded10 and they lack genuine infinitude.11 Their essence should be understood as though Spirit didn’t succeed in developing the concrete-empirical element and subordinating it to itself in its entirety: in them there remains a sphere not absorbed by the structure of speculative ethical life and not fully “liber1. Lass. II 487; Mollat I 37. 2. Recht 359. 3. Recht 367. 4. Comp.: Recht 20. 5. Comp.: Diff. 241–42; Log. III 240, 295; Enc. III 5(Z); Recht 320(Z), 322(Z), 346–47(Z), 348(Z). 6. Diff. 241–42. 7. “Mangelhaft oder ganz obliterirt”: Log. III 295. 8. Recht 346–47(Z). 9. Log. III 240. 10. Recht 322(Z). 11. Recht 348(Z).

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ated.” The element of empirical discreteness, i.e., the power of sensuous disconnectedness which must be accepted and included in the very tissue of the State because it is, above all, an actual shape of the world, may not fully yield to the compass, rhythm, and level of speculative Substance, and then the State remains in the ranks of “appearances” and doesn’t become the realization of a “world shape.” Such is the explanation of the “imperfect” and “spurious” state. It is clear that in the idea of the “perfected” or “absolute” state the empirical element is fully overcome both in terms of the compass of the human constitution and in terms of the rhythm of speculative life, and also, finally, in terms of the level of spiritual development. It is necessary to establish directly that a state lacking one of these conditions is, in one way or another, an imperfect state, i.e., not “absolute,” but relative; not “infinite,” but “worldly and finite”:1 not a “realized shape,” but an “existing appearance.” And thus, if we turn with these criteria to that “state” the characteristics of which Hegel strove repeatedly to depict concretely, we discover that it conceals within itself a whole series of “contradictions” and “unsatisfactory” aspects; moreover, aspects that are not accidental for it, but follow from its very nature. It turns out that the essence of the state consists in being limited in all three relations: as by the compass of the human constitution, so also by the rhythm of speculative life, and, finally, by the level of spiritual development. An “absolute” state remains within these limitations despite the fact that it is “absolute,” but precisely because it is a “state.” And if so, then the “idea” of the state is a mark signifying not the “victory” of Spirit in the human, but a limit of the human spirit.g The fundamental characteristics of the state noted by Hegel in his last and most mature treatise on the philosophy of right2 admit a whole series of compromises which were grasped, pointed out, and in part more deeply illuminated in his early works. The presence of these compromises, however, doesn’t prevent Hegel from characterizing the state as the realization of “absolute ethical life” or from speaking of his general, fundamental project as if he in no way contradicted its fulfillment. The transition from the first parts of his Philosophy of Right, in which the level of personal life continually deepens, is purified and perfected,3 and finally expresses itself in a unified, combined life of “concrete ethical life,”4 to the final part, portraying the determinate characteristics of the structure of the state, arouses in the soul of one studying it a complex feeling of disappointing failure and internal contradiction; and only an 1. Recht 348(Z). 2. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse, 1820–1821. 3. See chapters 16 and 17. 4. See chapter 18.

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attentive analysis, disentangling the threads of hidden compromises, can clarify this painful impression. In general terms, Hegel sketches this defective structure in the following way. Within the limits of one and the same state community, ethical life occurs simultaneously in three different forms: the family, civil society, and the political union (the state proper). These three forms are intrinsic in every citizen, creating around him as it were concentric social circles of people and essential relationships-cum-obligations,1 such that participation in that circle which is the greater according to compass and the higher according to speculative development, presupposes participation in the lesser and lower: having merely been born and become a member of a family, a human being may turn out to be a member of an estate and a corporation; only as a member of an estate and a corporation does the human become a citizen and participate in the life of the state.2 In themselves these circles are related to one another as singular (family) to particular (civil society), and to the Universal (the state), so that the spirit of the Universal forms the living essence of the particular and of the individual; the spirit of the Universal and the particular form the living essence of the singular; and the singular and the particular enter into the Universal as its living parts. Thus the family is the living modification of the estate-corporate, and of the state spirit, and at the same time, a living cell of the tissue of the state. The family is the “natural” and the least form of “ethical substance.”3 Participants in the family realize the “concrete” life by means of the “sensation”4 and “feeling” of love (a deficiency of thought), and each of them, experiencing their individuality only through this connection, is an organic “co-member” of the family union.5 Due to love the members lead not an isolated life, but each finds himself and his significance in the spirit of each other member:6 the family is a grown-together unity, a “universal and enduring person.”7 The essence of the family is confirmed in marriage; its external existence, in family property; 8 its completion, in the birth and upbringing of children.9 Marriage is an immediate ethical relationship10 of a man and a woman, uniting themselves through an intimate, loving disposition to the “totality” of life.11 The essence of marriage is determined neither by instinctive attraction (that would be a triumph of the concrete-empirical) 1. Recht 213–14. See chapter 19. 2. Comp.: Enc. III 417; Recht 402, 404. 3. Comp.: Recht 220, 221; comp.: Enc. III 393; Ph. G. 58. 4. Comp.: Recht 221; Enc. III 393; Ph. G. 43. 5. Comp.: Recht 221; comp.: Gymn. 171; Ph. G. 43. 6. Comp.: Recht 222(Z). See chapter 18. 7. Recht 233; comp.: Enc. III 394. 8. Comp.: Recht 233. 9. Comp.: Recht 235, 235(Z), 238(Z). 10. Recht 223. 11. Comp.: Recht 223, 228, 235, 244.

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nor by contractual consent (that would be the triumph of the abstractformal);1 but by a creative, conscious inspiration of natural inclination and the external sexual union of people.2 The ethical nature of marriage consists in a consciousness of the concrete unity of husband and wife as life’s substantial end; 3 the natural attraction is destined to be diminished in its satisfaction, while the spiritual relation enters into its substantial rights.4 Then in marriage arises the “identification of personalities,”5 liberating themselves in substantial self-consciousness,6 and the ethical spirit of the family is realized, manifesting itself to its members in the religious shape of the “Penates.”7 In this holistic and indivisible mutual self-surrendering, presupposing a strict monogamy, lies the condition of an ethical acceptance and an inspirational subordination of the element of feeling, and correspondingly, the condition for a genuine “con-cretization” of the parties.8 Such a union, secured by the celebratory announcement of consent and recognized by the families and the community, remains spiritually indissoluble.9 However, the admixture of the concrete-empirical element—“natural contingency” and “internal caprice”10—leaves this indissolubility of marriage in the sphere of the “ought”11 and forces us to recognize the right of the “third ethical authority” to “declare” the “total alienation” of the parties and the collapse of the marital union.12 The “universal enduring person” of the family requires secure possessions and property, common to the entire family as a whole and excluding the singular property of separate members.13 In this communism is expressed the spiritual concreteness of the family, training the singular self-interest of its members to ethical life, to concern for the “common” and to labor for its sake.14 But since the property of the family belongs to each and every one of its members, but is managed and controlled by the father of the family,15 then the empirical immediacy of the “ethical disposition” and the possibility of arbitrariness make this relation a source of disagreement and discrete collisions;16 this relates particularly to the question of wills, where the “ethical moment” is “very indistinct.”17 In children the unity of the family receives independent and objective expression: it is secured materially, in the external world, and 1. Comp.: Recht 233(Z), 224(Z), 226. 2. Recht 223; comp.: Enc. III 103. 3. Recht 4. Comp.: Enc. III 393. 4. Recht 225–26. 5. Recht 226; comp.: Lass. II 448, 449. 6. Recht 224; comp.: Enc. III 283. 7. Comp.: Recht 228, 229, 231, 232; Ph. G. 43. 8. Recht 226. 9. Recht 226–27(Z), 239(Z); comp.: Lass. II 448. 10. Recht 223, 238, 242; comp.: Lass. II 449; Enc. III 394. 11. Recht 239(Z). 12. Recht 238, 239, 239(Z). 13. Recht 233, 234; comp.: Lass. II 448. 14. Recht 233, 234. 15. Recht 233, 234; comp.: Lass. II 448. 16. Recht 234. 17. Recht 240.

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spiritually, in the creation of new, free beings.1 The parents love in the children the adequate manifestation of their mutual love, having become the substance of their own lives,2 and bring them up them as a natural extension of the family spirit. This upbringing consists in the gradual elevation of the “universal” in the consciousness and will of the children; meanwhile, the “threatening”3 effect of punishments must break their natural self-will4 and train them to a primordial self-denial.5 The soul of the child is trained within the family for the immediate unity of ethical life free from opposition to the unity of ethical being, for a life of obedience, trust, and love.6 It gradually acquires self-sufficiency, the character of free personality,7 and the capacity to leave the unity of the family so as to begin a new family union.8 In this way the family is naturally “dispersed”9 into a multiplicity of families, i.e., into “self-sufficient concrete persons,” external and alien to one another.10 Through this, a condition of “differentiation”11 and dispersal is revealed in the state: a multiplicity of particularized groups, inwardly connected with the universal, but not connected among themselves, lead a life which is separated and not concrete, and therefore not ethical; the ethical as a holistic form of life is “lost”12 and becomes an unperfected “appearance,”13 in which the spiritual essence becomes barely visible, making up its formal basis,14 but not possessing it in its entirety. In the tissue of the life of the state flares up the principleh of empirical atomism and self-interested particularity, i.e., the element opposed to reason15 and the state. It becomes necessary to work uninterruptedly to reduce this dispersing mass of subjective needs, arbitrary acts, senseless contingencies, and personal discretion16 to a harmonious condition.17 This overcoming is brought about by way of a free rein: all “particulars” gain the freedom to scatter in every direction18 chasing after self-interested ends, and ethical life becomes lost in these extreme excesses.19 But each cell, each “private individual,” pursuing his own interest,20 turns out to be interwoven with the similar individual interests of other cells and “private persons.” These interests, colliding, are satis1. Comp.: Recht 235, 235(Z), 238(Z); comp.: Lass. II 449; Enc. III 394. 2. Recht 235; comp.: Enc. III 393. 3. Recht 236. 4. Recht 132, 236(Z); Enc. III 96(Z). 5. Comp.: “ausreuten”: Recht 236(Z); Gymn. 153–54; comp.: Niet. 344; Enc. III 82(Z), 282(Z). 6. Recht 237, 238; comp.: Gymn. 171; Ph. G. 42. 7. Recht 237; comp.: Enc. III 394; Gymn. 172–73. 8. Recht 237, 239; comp.: Enc. III 394. 9. Comp.: “tritt auseinander”: Recht 245. 10. Recht 245; comp.: Gymn. 147; Enc. III 394. 11. Recht 221, 245. 12. Recht 245. “Verlust der Sittlichkeit”; comp.: “verliert”: Enc. III 394. 13. “Erscheinungswelt der Sittlichkeit”: Recht 245; comp.: Recht 69. 14. Recht 245. 15. Recht 249. 16. Comp.: Recht 249, 250, 247(Z), 247. 17. Recht 251(Z). 18. Recht 247, 249, 247(Z). 19. Comp.: Recht 248; comp.: Enc. III 394–95. 20. Recht 251.

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fied through each other, require each other,1 and form a system of mutual “all-sided interdependence”2 subordinated to a spurious empirical necessity3 and arbitrary agreements. It happens that each, concerned only with himself, does what is needed also by the others, and in one way or another satisfies the other’s needs, unwittingly and unintendedly. In this is revealed an “inner necessity” realized by the universal, by the “idea,” in an external appearance:4 the disorder of singularities is, in order to exist, forced, volens nolens, to create the law of Universality, for universality is its hidden “basis,” “power,” and its “final end.”5 Self-interest leads people to begin to understand the presence of an interest common to them, and to unite for its realization: a service to the common arises and there begins a spiritualization of base interest.6 Suffering in the disorder forces them to recognize that universal basis, within the limits of which they scattered themselves, and to raise themselves to it, as to their “true and positive actuality.”7 The final word of civil society will be the organization of “formal freedom” and “formal universality,”8 i.e., a state order of right and a system of economic life.9 Thus the life of civil society is above all a “system of needs.”10 This living system develops, individualizes, and refines itself, filling up the horizon of the soul and transforming the human being into an “ensemble of needs.”11 This forces him to accomplish a liberating “reflection” into himself, to detach himself from his needs, and to counterpose to them the principle of inner volitioni and organizing labor.12 The life of civil society as a system of economic labor is dedicated not only to the “formation” of natural “material,”13 but also to the preparation of human skills and capabilities, i.e., to practical and theoretical education.14 There appears machinery,15 the specialization and division of labor, bringing about a mutual dependence and connection of people with one another;16 a system of mutual economic support is created, as well as an interest of each in the labor and the capital of all the others.17 The life of civil society as a system of capital resources leads to the creation of “universal capital”18 (the national wealth) being formed from “particular” “resources,” i.e., from capital and skills belonging to separate individuals.19 These personal “resources,” varied due to nature, birth,

1. Recht 247(Z), 247, 254. 2. Recht 247. 3. Comp.: Recht 249, 251. 4. Recht 248. 5. Recht 248; comp.: Enc. III 395. 6. Comp.: Recht 251, 263–64(Z). 7. Recht 251. 8. Recht 251. 9. Comp.: Recht 221. 10. Recht 254; Enc. III 395. 11. Recht 256. 12. Comp.: Recht 258, 259. 13. Comp.: Recht 260. 14. Recht 260–61; comp.: Enc. III 395. 15. Recht 261–62; Enc. III 396. 16. Recht 261, 262; comp.: Enc. III 395. 17. Recht 262. 18. Recht 262. 19. Recht 262, 263.

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and development, and liable to the influence of happenstance, make people necessarily unequal, and this inequality divides all of civil society into “systems” or “masses” gradually acquiring the character of distinct estates.1 Membership in one or another estate is determined not only by birth and circumstances, but in the final analysis by subjective opinion and arbitrary will, concealing behind itself, however, an inner necessity2 of life. It is necessary for the individual to belong to a certain estate, because only through this does he receive his “particular” actuality and ethical objektivity: he is led here not only by the satisfaction of needs but also by the necessity to join in the “organism of the whole,” “the honor of the estate,” and “decency,” the need to receive some sort of significance through the “recognition” of others and in the political life of the state.3 There are three such estates. The substantial or immediate estate lives as landowners and farmers;4 it is part of ethical life in its immediacy, resting on family relations and on trust,5 and forms therefore within its bounds a peaceful and balanced spirit of “concrete universality.”6 The formal, or industrial, estate lives by the “forming of natural products”;7 the basis of its existence is in its work, in reflection and intelligence, and also in exchange with other groups.8 This estate of craftsmen, manufacturers, and traders,9 accumulating wealth by their own efforts,10 harbors a sense of independence11 and arrives quickly at the development of corporate life,12 to the demand for freedom and order.13 Meanwhile, wealth gives rise to poverty and the impoverished, who are deprived of the honor of labor to earn their living.14 They harbor an inner protest against the rich, against society and the government, and turn into a rebellious mob15 (the beginning of an empirical dispersion). The universal estate lives by the “universal interests” of society,16 and its activity is devoted to the state.17 It represents the service class (bureaucrats and the military),18 and the “private interest” of its members finds its satisfaction in their work on behalf of the Universal.19 This class stands in dependency on the state,20 and must be relieved of lower forms of economic activity either through private property or a salary.21 1. Recht 263, 397; Enc. III 396. 2. Recht 267; comp.: Enc. III 396. 3. Comp.: Recht 268, 269, 269(Z), 308, 401, 402; Enc. III 396. 4. Recht 264, 265; Enc. III 396–97. 5. Recht 264; Enc. III 397. 6. Recht 307. 7. Recht 266. 8. Recht 266. 9. Recht 266. 10. Recht 266; Enc. III 397. 11. Recht 266(Z). 12. Recht 307. 13. Recht 266(Z). 14. Recht 303(Z). 15. Recht 302–3(Z). 16. Recht 267; Enc. III 397. 17. Recht 267. 18. Comp.: “Dienst der Regierung”: Recht 397; “Stand der Tapferkeit”: Recht 420; “Militairstand ”: Recht 421(Z). 19. Recht 267, 307. 20. Recht 399(Z). 21. Recht 267.

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The division of society into estates, resting on various “holdings” and “resources,” requires the organized protection of property, i.e., a juridical defense of the person and his rights.1 This defense takes shape such that “the right in itself” is formulated in thought and receives the form of law; 2 the laws, establishing the fundamental principles of “right” and accessible to everyone in the form of a code, come alive by way of application, and in particular, punishment of criminals who have trampled on the “universal cause”;3, j the application of general laws to singular cases is the business of the court, administering justice while observing the appropriate guarantees and searching out an identity among the principle of law, the mature legal consciousness of the judge, and the immature (possibly diseased) legal consciousness of the subject standing before him (litigant or criminal).4 By this means civil society realizes its highest calling—the abstract “administration of justice” (Rechtspflege), providing the police and the corporation with a full implementation of law for the broad and indefinite compass of the details of ordinary life.5 The police attend to the life of society from without and from the side, upholding a social order favorable for the law: they ward off harmcausing accidents, eliminating everything that seems to them dangerous and suspicious (a sphere of discretion, restrained by good mores);6 they uphold the inviolable security of persons and property,7 organize public works, provide support for the poor, maintain supervision over families’ moral upbringing, the corporations, and church organizations, organize charity, curb excessive enrichment and the appearance of a rabble, and concern themselves with the development of foreign trade and colonization.8 In this way they transform civil society into something like a “universal family”9 and introduce into its life the spirit of orderly unity.10 The business of the corporation is the rightful realization of particular interests through social initiative: the ethical powers of society are manifested here “immanently.”11 Corporate life is characteristic mainly of the industrial estate; it transforms the self-interested aims of its members, through association, into a social matter:12 the individual, entering into the corporation, comes to accept the spirit of concrete unity and becomes accustomed to a relatively selfless service;13 in this “right-minded” service he acquires for himself merit and “honor”14 and is educated to

1. Recht 269–70. 2. Recht 271–77; Enc. III 397–400. See chapter 16. 3. Recht 278– 84; Enc. III 400. See chapter 16. 4. Recht 285–93; comp.: Enc. III 400–402. See chapter 16. 5. Recht 293–94. 6. Recht 294, 295, 296. 7. Recht 294. Comp.: Enc. III 402. 8. Recht 295–305; comp.: Enc. III 402–3. 9. Recht 298, 299. 10. Comp.: “Ordnung”: Recht 295, 306. 11. Recht 307. 12. Recht 307, 309. 13. Recht 307, 309, 310(Z). Comp.: Enc. III 403. 14. Comp.: Recht 308, 309.

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the higher and genuine selflessness of political life. The family, cultivating “shame” in the soul, and the corporation, inculcating the feeling of “honor” in the soul, are two supports of the state’s existence;1 while the state remains their universal basis, aim, and actuality.2 The state is the mature crown of family and social life. Civil society adds to the principle of family concreteness the mature self-sufficiency of individual self-consciousness and the element of thinking in terms of right (the existence of laws and institutions) and in this way forms the atmosphere of the state’s existence:3 the state is a concrete unification of selfsufficient individuals, aware of their identity with the universal laws and institutions of the state, in other words, the identity of free singularity with the universal.4 The state is the individual political organism, possessing its internal structure, standing in relation to other political organisms (“the external laws of the state”), and rising through these inter-state relations to the universal “idea” of the state, in the court of “world history.”5 The internal structure of the state (Verfassung) as a political organism evolves into a system of institutions (Institutionen), i.e., the particular powers and authorities into which the life of the unified authority of the state totality6 divides itself. All these powers together and each separately realize the universal business, i.e., the interests and ends of the state as a whole, but in such a way that in them all the particular interests of the citizenry are taken into account and included;7 knowing this, the citizens know themselves in identity with the institutions of their state (“trust” and “patriotism”),8 and the institutions are as a result “pillars of public freedom.”9 The division of authorities in the state possesses not an abstractly rational, but rather a speculative character: each of them is an organic modification of the one state authority, its “current member,”10 and in each of them the state authority is present in all its “totality,”11 such that each authority contains in itself the “effective” power of all the others.12 They are all determined by the whole,13 deprived of independence in the face of it,14 not attached to the particular will of individuals,15 in the form of their private property,16 but they are authorized, developed, and contained within the “simple selfhood” of the “unity of the state,”17 as in 1. Comp.: Recht 304, 310. 2. Recht 311. 3. Comp.: Recht 245–48; Enc. III 403. 4. Comp.: Recht 311–13. 5. Comp.: Recht 320–21; Enc. III 404. 6. Comp.: Recht 326– 31; comp.: Enc. III 404–5. 7. Comp.: Recht 321, 322, 327, 328. 8. Recht 329. 9. Recht 328. 10. Recht 363. 11. Recht 351. 12. Recht 351. 13. Recht 362. 14. Recht 352, 353, 363. 15. Recht 363. 16. Recht 362. 17. Recht 362, 363.

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their absolute and “final root.”1 In this speculative non-independence of all the state’s authorities—in their “ideality”—consists the internal sovereignty of the state.2 This sovereignty is realized by means of princely authority. The state in its developed and perfected form, worked out through world history, is a constitutional monarchy 3 and knows three authorities: the princely, the executive, and the legislative.4 The princely power is realized in a monarch who is the subject personifying the sovereign subjectivity of the state and bearing in himself its highest manifestation, the power of the final decision.5 The personality of the state is actual only as an individual person,6 realizing the “ungrounded selfhood of the will,”7 on the basis of the right, received at birth and by inheritance.8 Receiving this by right, the monarch stands above all caprice9 and therefore above responsibility,10 above election and the struggle of parties,11 above contractual agreements and the obligations connected with them:12 in this lies his “majesty”13 and on this rests his right to initiate “from himself ”14 all kinds of life of the state by means of “absolute self-determination.”15 Thus the monarch is the empirical singularity16 speculatively uniting in himself and “idealizing” all the powers of the state; he creates the life of the “particular,” appointing and dismissing those who “subsume” the particular under the universal laws;17 finally, he creates the life of the universal, cognizing it subjectively from the depths of his conscience 18 and creating it objektively in the form of laws and institutions.19 Such is the princely authority in its state “totality.”20 The executive power implements the law and the decision of the monarch, “subsuming” under them all the particular content of life.21 Such is the power of the court and the police; 22 it is realized by the members of the universal estate,23 who, by sacrificing their own subjective aims and independent interests,24 invest their activity with “the principal interest of their spiritual and particular existence.”25 This state service, administering rights, obligations,26 and rewards,27 must be organized so that in the state there is “as little as possible” simple “obedience” of citizens and arbitrariness of bureaucrats;28 the official hierarchy, the responsibility of 1. Recht 363. 2. Recht 362–64; comp.: Enc. III 412–13. 3. Recht 355; comp.: Enc. III 412. 4. Recht 355. 5. Recht 365, 373; Enc. III 413. 6. Recht 366. 7. Recht 371, 373. 8. Recht 373, 374; Enc. III 413. 9. Recht 373. 10. Recht 377. 11. Recht 373, 374–75. 12. Recht 116, 375–76(Z). 13. Recht 373, 374; comp.: Würt. 226. 14. Recht 367. 15. Recht 361. 16. Recht 371–72. 17. Recht 377; comp.: Enc. III 413. 18. Recht 378. 19. Recht 361, 378. 20. Recht 361. 21. Recht 355, 379. 22. Recht 379. 23. Recht 383. 24. Recht 384, 385. 25. Recht 385. 26. Recht 384. 27. Recht 384. 28. Ph. G. 48.

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functionaries, and the control of communities and corporations—such are the objektive safeguards against the “abuse of power”;1 the predominance of good mores, the ethical and intellectual development of the population, and, most important, the habitual acceptance of “universal interests, views, and activities”—such are the subjective safeguards of lawfulness in governing.2 The legislative power is in charge of the creation of new laws and of the most general “internal circumstances” in the life of the state,3 defining what the state makes available to individuals (laws of private right, rights of the corporations, and the structure of the state as a whole), so also the obligations of subjects in relation to the state (monetary duties and personal services).4 The monarch, the executive, and the “estates” (die Stände, das ständische Element) participate in the realization of this power.5 The participation of the “estates” in legislative activity is necessary not because the nation supposedly knows its “good” “best of all” or desires it most of all.6 On the contrary, that part of the citizenry which is usually called “the people” is distinguished precisely in “not knowing what they want”7 and especially in not knowing what Reason wants: such knowledge is the “fruit of deep knowledge and insight which is precisely not the business of the people.”8 There is no doubt that the highest functionaries “necessarily possess a deeper and broader knowledge of the nature, institutions, and needs of the state, and also a greater capacity and familiarity in these matters and are able to perform them best without the estates”;9 in what concerns the “good will” it is forever characteristic of the rabble to presuppose that “the executive has a bad or less good will.”10 It is more appropriate to expect that the estates introduce into the business of the state their private and particular interest in opposition to the universal.11 The participation of the estates in the legislative process is necessary because the “subjective formal freedom”12 of the citizenry requires it: it is necessary for the citizenry itself to participate in the conduct of the state’s business, introducing its consciousness, conviction, and will13 in it, so that they live in the laws of the state by their own knowledge, advice, and decision,14 realizing in this way the “subjective moment of universal freedom.”15 To that is joined in the background, of course, the greater 1. Recht 385–86. 2. Recht 386, 387. 3. Recht 388. 4. Recht 389. 5. Recht 391–92, 393–408. 6. Recht 393. 7. Recht 393; Hegel’s emphasis; comp.: Enc. III 415–16. 8. Recht 393. 9. Recht 393; comp.: on guarantees of “the public good”: Recht 394. 10. Recht 394; comp.: Würt. 235. 11. Recht 394; comp.: Enc. III 415–16. 12. Recht 392. 13. Recht 394. 14. Recht 406–7. 15. Recht 394.

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insight of the deputies into the activities of the lesser functionaries, into special requirements and needs; and also the useful participation of the many in “public censorship,” raising the diligence and purifying the motives of political action.1 In the activity of the estates participates an empirical multitude of citizens; many (die Vielen, oi polloi) but not all, not to speak of women and children.2 This multitude of participants is attracted on various bases, depending on membership in an estate. Members of the universal estate perform governmentalk service, but do not participate in representation. Members of the industrial or “private”3 estate participate not by individual vote,4 but send deputies to the lower house,5 elected from “associations, communities, and corporations,”6 not bound by a specific mandate but organically representing in their persons the interest of their social group.7 Finally, members of the substantial estate participate in the upper house,8 which mediates between the lower house and the crown, since both houses mediate between the government and the mass of the population.9 Members of the landowning estate enter the upper house by right of birth,10 as owners of ancestral landed estates, by primogeniture, moreover;11 in this way is created their independence both from the capricious “gamble” of elections12 and from the “favor” of the crowd, and from the charity of the executive;13 in this they resemble the prince and are at the same time a “support for throne and society.”14 Concerning the participation of the farmers (Bauernstand)15 Hegel nowhere uttered a single word. The “liberating” significance of the representative body extends from the fact that in its public16 discussions a “public opinion” is formed openly, for the first time maturing into true judgments concerning the state and the government.17 Normally “social opinion” mixes in itself the “true” and the “substantial,”18 i.e., the eternal principles of good and justice,19 with the limitation and crooked judgment of “healthy common sense,”20 or, still worse, with the arbitrariness of subjective peculiarity.21 For that reason it deserves as much “respect” as “scorn,”22 for the “essential basis”23 of spirit only weakly and “dimly” “shines within”24 the empirical “prejudices”25 of the crowd. From this flows the necessity of 1. Recht 393–94. 2. Comp.: “so versteht es sich hiermit noch mehr von selbst”: Recht 392. 3. “Privatstand ”: Recht 397 and others. 4. Recht 397. 5. Recht 406. 6. Recht 397, 401, 402, 405. 7. Recht 404–5. 8. Recht 406. 9. Recht 398, 406; comp.: Würt. 294. 10. Recht 399, 400. 11. Recht 399, 400. 12. Recht 400, 404–5. 13. Recht 399. 14. Recht 400. 15. Recht 399(Z). 16. Recht 407. 17. Recht 407. 18. Recht 408. 19. Recht 408–9. 20. Recht 409; comp.: Würt. 294. 21. Recht 408, 409. 22. Recht 411. 23. Recht 411. 24. “Getrübt”: “scheint”: Recht 411. 25. “In Gestalt von Vorurteilen”: Recht 409.

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free speech and press as well as the necessity of limiting them by the police and the court.1 Such is the internal structure of the state as an individual political organism. Precisely this organic individuality imparts to the state the characteristics of “exclusiveness” and “independence” in relation to every other state;2 for the essence of every organism lies in its freedom from “other-being.”3 The “first freedom” and “highest honor” of any nation is to live in the form of an autonomous and independent state;4 and this leads to the circumstance that all political “other-being” appears to be a contingency5 coming from without and encounters an organized and internally united negation:6 the state as a single national substance struggles for self-assertion, and in this struggle is discovered the “ideality” of everything singular, i.e., the lives, property, and rights of its citizens.7 The speculative essence of the state necessarily leads it to war,8 and leads its citizens to the highest self-sacrifice in the name of the political Substance;9 the nation is united around its “substantial will,” and it stands in immediate “identity” with the will of the monarch, realizing the external sovereignty of the state in war and peace.10 The encounter of independent and autonomous states, laying the foundation for “the external law of the state,” remains an external “relation”11 and cannot be resolved into a speculative identity of the parties, for the very essence of the state lies in the fact that it possesses a particular “sovereign will” and is incapable of speculative self-renunciation:12 “the nation as the state is spirit in its substantial rationality and immediate actuality, and therefore it is an absolute ‘power on earth.’ ”13 Every state is the highest “spiritual rightfulness” and therefore it possesses an “absolute authority” for “recognition” on the part of other states;14 but to obtain that recognition is not easy: the parties remain in a mutual “state of nature”15 and each has to deal with the independent “particular” wills of the others.16 And if there is no mutual agreement, then the dispute, in the absence of a judge, is decided only through war.17 The independence of the states in their “spiritual rightfulness” brings them to the view that “their own good” is for each of them the highest law of conduct,18 and that each receives the right to defend it with weapons in hand.19 All international treaties, and the rights and 1. Recht 411, 415. 2. Recht 416; Enc. III 419. 3. See chapters 7 and 12. 4. Recht 416. 5. Recht 417. 6. Recht 417. 7. Recht 417, 419, 419(Z). 8. Recht 418–21, 423. 9. Recht 417, 420–23; Enc. III 419–20. 10. Recht 415, 416. 11. Recht 424. 12. Recht 424. 13. Recht 425. Hegel’s emphasis. 14. Recht 425. 15. Recht 426–27. 16. Recht 425, 426–27. 17. Recht 427; Enc. III 419. 18. Recht 428. 19. Recht 427.

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obligations flowing from them, cannot limit this principle of struggle for “their own good”;1 each government proceeds from its “particular” missions, particular “rightfulness,” and particular “wisdom,”2 and is not called upon to be a “universal providence” or to be guided by “philanthropic” and “moral” considerations.3 The concrete existence of the state and its particular good is the sole true principle of international conduct, and in the face of it all so-called “international law” remains in the sphere of abstract obligation.4 In this way the state remains a unity, exclusive and sovereign, but empirically limited both in terms of coexistence and in time: for the contingencies of war can destroy its independence and, consequently, its being.5 For that reason political history remains a “manifest dialectic” of these finite state spirits, through the struggle and destruction of which the “universal spirit” and the “spirit of the world” and “world history”6 direct their path. Such is the speculative essence and empirical fate of the state. Its “absolute” “shape” accepts and sanctions a defective level of life in at least (if we abstract from many details) three respects: first, the lack of a thinking participation in the Universal, i.e., a defect of the personal level of life and of the compass of the group in the family; second, a lack of concrete community spirit and ethical will, i.e., a defect of the group mode of life and of the personal level in civil society; and, third, a lack of civic self-consciousness and universal concreteness, i.e., a defect of the general political level of life and of the universal, general-human compass in the political community, in the state. And in consequence of this, the “idea” of the state actually turns out to be a sign signifying not the “triumph” but the “limit” of the human spirit.

Translator’s Notes a. The Russian term начало could equally mean “principle.” b. An implicit reference to the biblical image in John 15:5. The Russian word for “vine” is capitalized in the original text. c. In the Miller translation, this sentence reads: “[Spirit is] this absolute Substance which is the unity of the different independent self-consciousnesses which, in their opposition, enjoy perfect freedom and independence” (Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Miller [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977], 110). Il’in’s

1. Recht 426–28. 2. Recht 428. 3. Recht 428, 429. 4. Recht 424, 426, 427; Enc. III 420. 5. Recht 430; Enc. III 420. 6. Recht 430–36; Enc. III 420–27.

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rendering in Russian is a more literal one, though he added the parenthetical remark for clarification. d. The original German phrase is “das Wesen, welches das Wesen aller Wesen, das geistige Wesen ist.” Miller renders it as “the essence which is the essence of all beings, viz. spiritual essence” (Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Miller, 252). e. The third element, common to both terms of a comparison, which forms the basis for the comparison. In this case, “organic life” would be the common term for the comparison of “natural life,” or “an animal” on one hand, and the “state” on the other. However, since “organic life” itself “stands on various levels of perfection” there is no clear, determinate basis for the comparison. f. I have slightly modified Il’in’s wording in this last phrase to conform more closely to Hegel’s German. g. At this point Il’in provides an indication of the critique of Hegel’s political philosophy that he will lay out in the following chapter. The same indication is repeated in the final paragraph of this chapter. h. Начало, which could also mean “beginning.” i. Произведение, an archaic term, used especially in a theological context, referring to the will of God. j. Sache in Hegel’s German. k. Правительственный, a term I have elsewhere translated as “executive” in this chapter, as in “executive power.”

21

The Limit of the Human

According to Hegel’s general, fundamental project, philosophy is the thinking account of the ascending victories of Divinity in the realm of empirical existence. The power of imaginative thought reveals the systematic series of real “shapes” in the world; i.e., pure, typical spiritual modes completely penetrate the sensuous element and subordinate its distinct, senseless scattering-about to the free rhythm and speculative law of Reason. In this series the “human spirit” constitutes that “element” by the means or powers of which are realized all the higher achievements of Spirit: the “absolute political state” as a state of conscious will, “fine art” as a state of the sensuous imagination, creating for itself a sensuous shape, “absolute religion” as a state of emotive feeling, and finally, “true philosophy” as a state of speculatively selfless thought. Such was the fundamental project of Hegel. And yet it turns out that within the boundaries of “objektive spirit,” i.e., within the element of associating will, the complete penetration of Spirit into the sensuous element is impossible. The highest state in the sphere of ethics is not a “world shape” but an “appearance,”a possessing the character of a compromise: the state as the earthly life of a nation, limited in all respects. However, since the shapes of art, religion, and philosophy blossom only on the basis of the national spirit and its ethical level, then the crisis of the “absolute state” signifies not only the “ethical limit” of the human, but the general and absolute limit of the human spirit. The “limit of the human” is the limit of its possible speculative ascent and liberation, i.e., that boundary up to which the human is permitted to approach the Divine state and realize in itself the absolute freedom of the Divinity. But the “path of the human in the world” is not simply an “anthropogony,” and the “meaning of human life” is not simply the realization and development of anthropomorphic powers: human reason is Divine Reason, and the essence of the human spirit is the divine Spirit. Therefore the limit of the human coincides with the limit of God in the world, and the crisis of the human points to the objektive collapse of theodicy.1 Despite its intention, Hegel’s philosophy reveals the limit of 1. See the conclusion. 197

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God and the human in the doctrine of “the state” and in the doctrine of “the historical process,” acknowledging that the power of Spirit is not able to overcome completely the distinct lawfulness of the empirical element. Thus Hegel’s “absolute state” constitutes not a completed “shape” but an “appearance,” based on a compromise. In order to become convinced of this, it is sufficient to establish that the mature “shape of the state” must be a holistic realization of “concrete ethical life,” whereas the state outlined by Hegel doesn’t satisfy this requirement. In reality the fundamental essence of “concrete ethical life” consists in the human soul, having achieved absolute real oneness of being with the Absolute, cognizing itself in metaphysical identity with other people. For the ethically opened eye of the soul, behind the visible distinctions and particularities of persons is revealed the substantial Universality creatively supporting them, vitally uniting all people as its singular modifications. This ethical insight becomes the property of all people, so that each sees in each the life of the one and common Substance and affirms all in it and it in all. As a result, each one knows that both he himself and all others recognize him himself and all others to be free through identity and identical through freedom, and moreover, through identity and freedom, real in himself and in all others.1 It is obvious that such an order of life could be realized only by persons who have attained the level of speculative virtue, i.e., having freely sought freedom and having found it in a holistic flowing-together with Substance. Only one who actually experiences his own self, his authentic, proper essence as a state of divine Substance, can comprehend, seek, and really bring life into being—in thoughts, feelings, and deeds, in identity with the life of all others. Society as an ethical organism consists necessarily of ethical persons.2 All of this can be expressed as follows: a society of persons as a “shape” of the ethical organism is brought into being only through the complete overcoming of the empirical element of the sensuous fragmentation characteristic of the earthly existence of humans. Having all this in mind, it is not difficult to convince oneself that within the very problem of “the state as a shape of the world” are lodged profound and substantive difficulties. The level of speculative ethical life on which this shape must unfold turns out to be so high, in the ethical sense, that a political union in the usual understanding cannot be brought about in it: the function of authoritative command maintained by a possible and lawful compulsion or coercion must die away and disap1. See chapter 18.

2. See chapter 19.

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pear; and then the state will be transformed into a union of naturally forming solidarity, of a free and voluntary cooperation. The terms “authorities,” “governments,” “laws,” “courts,” “commands,” and so forth will acquire a new speculative meaning; the political structure and the social order will be raised to an exceptionally high and inviolable harmony, and the “shape of the state” will lose all traits of a historical and earthly character.b The rightful will be dissolved in the ethical and vanish. Ethical life as a qualitative and quantitative completeness will abolish all more meager and less “concrete” connections among people. And then it will become incomprehensible why one should call that which has so little in common with it, a “state.” In actual fact, if the centrifugal and differentiating tendencies of human nature were to be completely overcome, and a universal “voluntarism” and “grown-togetherness” realized, then the state would either cease to be a coercively ruling organization, or completely die away and disappear out of uselessness. In the first case it is transformed into something new and unprecedented, resembling an authorityless, anarchistic union in which ruling is replaced by the clarificatory teaching of the good, instantly perceived and voluntarily realized; more accurately, such a teaching would be superfluous. Hegel’s state by no means coincides with such an anarchistic structure as one might perhaps have reasonably expected;c it remains a construction based upon the principle of power. In the second case it would disappear altogether; Hegel does not foresee this possibility at all and doesn’t admit of it. And thus, a thinker attentively studying the philosophy of Hegel and expecting precisely one of those outcomes endures no little disappointment, having become convinced that his “State” in its concrete characteristics resembles the usual “state” a great deal more than one would have expected. This is essentially expressed in the fact that Hegel’s “State” does not represent a victory over the empirical element. The state is possible, in its being and its aim, only given the presence of an empirical multitude of separate individuals, while the very separateness of them—in needs and impulses, in consciousness and selfconsciousness, in their will and in their conscience—always remains an essential condition and source of their political unification and life together; but precisely this separateness also creates the incredible difficulty of the complete concretization of individual spirits. The necessity of this element and its presence in the “State” Hegel always openly acknowledged and specified. He never closed his eyes to the difficulties flowing from this: the stubbornly distinct being of this element and the exceptional difficulty of its complete sociopolitical overcoming.d One may say still more: through all the stages of his productive work (and he addressed

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himself four times to outlining the shape of the state)1 he strove to resolve the political problem by means of a certain inner compromise, more precisely, to assign within the limits of the state the lower, subordinate sphere, within the limits of which sphere the refractory powers of the empirical element could, up to a certain degree, unimpededly bring about a lawless scattering. This sphere, remaining within the limits of the state itself, needn’t have disturbed the general harmony of the whole and was thought of even as “submissive” to Substance. However, this external, formal submissiveness was purchased at the price of an internal concession, filled with content: no matter how tight the limits assigned to the senseless element of distinct being (and these limits always remained significant), this element always preserved its self-sufficiency within them; and the “all-penetrating” speculative law of Substance received a definite boundary. Hegel appraised the significance of this critical compromise, fraught with consequences, differently in different periods. In early investigations it seemed to him that this compromise possessed a tragic character, and he articulated this openly and unambiguously. In the very late works he circumvented in silence the tragic depth of this problem and didn’t dwell on its disclosure, as though it didn’t conceal within itself the greatest sharpness and difficulty precisely for his philosophy. But in this way he revealed just that contradiction which is hidden in the idea of the “absolute state.” Already in the early investigations he considered it essential to grant to the “non-organic,”2 or, what is the same thing, the “real”3 element (the concrete-empirical) the entire sphere of life of the second estate, so that this concentration and isolation could render the senseless element harmless for the lives of the remaining parts of the state. In accordance with this thought, the second estate, devoting its powers to economic work, to “particular” interests, to trade and moneymaking,4 remained in separation,5 led a private life,6 and, immersed in the singularity and contingency of empirical existence,7 turned out to be capable neither of virtue8 nor of freedom,9 nor, correspondingly, of political life.10 It was, however, capable of elementary honesty or “integrity”11 in 1. First, in the System der Sittlichkeit (written in approximately 1800); second, in Wissenschaftliche Behandlungsarten des Naturrechts (printed in 1802–03); third, in Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (appeared during Hegel’s life in three editions: 1817, 1827, and 1830); fourth, in Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (appeared in 1821). 2. Comp.: Lass. II 480, 482; W. Beh. 379, 386, 387–88, and others. 3. Comp.: W. Beh. 374, 379, 379, 380, and others. 4. Comp.: Lass. II 477, 478; W. Beh. 381, 385. 5. Lass. II 477; W. Beh. 38l, 383–84. 6. W. Beh. 383. 7. Comp.: Lass. II 477; W. Beh. 381, 383, 385, 387. 8. Lass. II 479. 9. W. Beh. 381. 10. “Politische Nullität”: W. Beh. 385. 11. Lass. II 472, 477, 478; W. Beh. 381, 385.

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the performance of contracts and in the cultivation of formal right.1 But genuine ethical life remained for it only an abstract idea, not being realized:2 the “bourgeoisie” is capable neither of “absolute indifference”3 nor of supra-individual courage,4 nor of public life.5 Even if the second estate intuits the ethical life, it is as something unattainable and alien, inherent only in the first estate;6 and its highest achievement remains the satisfaction of the economic needs of the ruling class and assistance to the poor.7 If the entire nation were to lead the life characteristic of the second estate, then this would mean that “depravity” and “general degradation”8 came to reign within the state. Therefore this shape of life must be actually “isolated in reality,” and in the person of the bourgeois classe must be opposed, first, to a higher, ruling estate leading a godly,9 consciously ethical life 10 and free even from property,11 and second, to an agricultural estate capable of an unconscious, naive ethical trust, obedience, and bravery.12 However, within the second estate, freed from military service and therefore continuously enjoying all the comforts of the world and security,13 this predominance of the empirical element becomes supreme,14 and naturally forms an unceasing deviation from ethical life. And thus this presence of an entire estate living by no means in the “absolute and eternal” and contemplating the ethical only in an implementation by others,15 inevitably draws the entire state into a process of tragic character. The Divine Spirit, creating its world “shapes,” possesses a dual nature, and its life consists in the unity of these two elements.16 But in order to create this unity, it is necessary for it to give over part of itself to the empirical element and, therefore, to “suffering and death.”17 This is the divine sacrifice (Opfer); it consists in the Absolute, or what is the same thing, Life itself, placing itself within the inorganic element, interweaving itself with it and in this way giving itself over in part to imperfection and dying; but at the same time, “objektifying” and “intuiting” this its own interweaving, it separates from itself its inorganic state, cognizes it, and having purified itself by means of this knowing fragment, ascends to a pure and free indifference.18 This tragic theogonic process forms the very essence of the organization of the state into estates. Thanks to the divine sacrifice, the second estate is not fully alien to ethical life: the cult of “decency” 1. Lass. II 477; W. Beh. 381, 383–84. 2. Lass. II 472–73; W. Beh. 398. 3. Comp.: Lass. II 477. 4. Lass. II 479; W. Beh. 381, 386. 5. Comp.: “allgemeines Privatleben”: W. Beh. 383. 6. W. Beh. 387, 391. 7. Lass. II 479; W. Beh. 381. 8. W. Beh. 384: “Verdorbenheit und universelle Erniedrigung.” 9. Lass. II 484. 10. Comp.: Lass. II 475–77, 482–87; W. Beh. 380–92. 11. Lass. II 497; W. Beh. 381. 12. Comp.: Lass. II 480; W. Beh. 381. 13. W. Beh. 381, 385, 386. 14. “Hier dann in seiner ganzen Länge und Breite sich ausdehnen können”: W. Beh. 384. 15. Hegel is ready in some moments to evaluate even this rather highly. W. Beh. 391. 16. W. Beh. 386. 17. W. Beh. 386. 18. W. Beh. 386, 387, 388.

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and formal right, economic service to the first estate, assistance to the poor, and contemplation of speculative virtue in the person of the ruling class—all of this testifies to the fact that it itself forms the lowest level of social being, as if it were the “reconciled, living body” of national spirit,1 or, in other words, the “corporeal and mortal soul” of absolute ethical life.2 On the contrary, the highest estate, having placed concern for the earthly on the shoulders of the bourgeoisie and the farmers, and having freed itself from immediate service to the “underground”3 inorganic powers, lives in a state of authentic concrete ethical life and virtue; this virtuous life also leads the members of the upper class to supra-personal courage, to empirical death for the motherland (military affairs), and for that reason to the final overcoming of the empirical element and a return to the pure freedom of substantive being.4 The upper estate, ruling and making war, acquires for itself ethical perfection, but goes to meet an early empirical death (war); while the bourgeois class purchases for itself empirical well-being at the price of speculative deadness. Comprising the organism of the state, all three estates together form a unity, which gains for itself the possibility of a partial perfection at the price of an equally partial immaturity and degradation.5 Thus did Hegel picture for himself the tragic nature of the state in his early investigations. Here there was no path out to the realization of universal concrete ethical life. The political organism remained qualitatively dissimilar and spiritually of unequal value in its parts; it remained, not only in terms of its element (“socio-psychic”), but also in terms of its internal structure, an imperfect unity, realizing not the victory of spirit, but its tragically accepted compromise. The “real,” i.e., the empirical, side of ethical life did not yield to a “complete inclusion of Divinity in it,”6 and the state remained in the rank of imperfect “appearances,” and not a “shape” of the world. Hegel saw that and spoke of it directly and unambiguously. In his later works the matter has changed very little in essence, but at the same time the “state” takes a place in the speculative order of world “shapes.”7 However, occupying this place, it discovers in itself such deviations—characteristic of any empirical state—from complete concreteness, organic ethical life, universal virtue, and freedom, that its “perfection” is lost. The speculative politics of Hegel turns out to be helpless to depict 1. Comp.: W. Beh. 387. 2. W. Beh. 391. 3. W. Beh. 386. 4. See chapter 19. 5. Comp., e.g., “verzogen”: W. Beh. 391. 6. W. Beh. 391. 7. Comp., e.g., “Im Staate muss man nichts haben wollen, als was ein Ausdruck der Vernünftigkeit ist”: Recht 353(Z); comp. on the “perfected” form of the state: Enc. III 412; comp. also: Recht 202 note, 285, 311, 316, 323, 334, 342, 346, 353, 418; especially Recht 440; Ph. G. 39, 40; 3 Lat. 313.

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the “absolute state,” and draw a picture mixed from spiritual freedom and chaotic necessity.1 Thus there is no doubt that if Hegel had remained true to his speculative understanding of state power,2 he would have had to remove from the state an entire range of functions which presume deficiencies of the concrete ethical life of the citizenry; such as, for example, all functions of police supervision,3 all functions subordinating parts to the whole,4 even regardless of their consent,5 all functions precluding an extreme of social inequality, of wealth and poverty,6 in a word, all functions in the realization of which the state approaches the person’s consciousness from without, not asking for his consent, and making its decisions and undertakings without dependence on it. Hegel openly admits that if the state begins to require the consent of all singular persons for everything, then it will disintegrate and perish.7 This possibility of political life and political administration independent of the creative consent and conscious participation of each and every one can be explained only by the immaturity of universal selfconsciousness and an insufficient manifestation of universal will in the life of the nation. Such immaturity was always admitted by Hegel, but as the lowest level of spiritual being: the national spirit does not always stand at the height of the true, “in-itself-and-for-itself existing” self-consciousness, as is true of the individual soul, if it has not yet reached a speculative comprehension of its own good and divine essence. The ethical life of the nation may remain an unconscious and hidden, and, possibly, also powerless, non-manifest, suppressed “good disposition.”8, f Then it turns out that “the life of a free nation is only in itself or an immediately real ethical life,”9 and on its surface it is liable to deviations, wanderings, “limitedness,”10 and blindness; then it turns out that “the publicly manifest spirit has the root of its power in the underworld”11 and that the concrete unity of the nation is concealed “within the unconscious and mute substance of all, in the waters of oblivion.”12 And thus, a “wise” government, firmly convinced of what truly constitutes “the right and the rational,”13 does not need the consent of “all on everything,” but carries out its business in the certainty that the rational will and the awakened good customs of the citizen will eventually recognize its own nature in the laws and 1. Contrary to Recht 316. 2. See above in chapter 20. 3. Comp., e.g., Recht 340. 4. Comp.: Enc. III 404. 5. Comp.: W. Beh. 374. 6. Comp.: also in Phän. 358: “das Gemeinwesen kann sich nur durch Unterdrückung dieses Geistes der Einzelnheit erhalten.” 7. Comp.: Ph. G. 44, 47. 8. See chapters 16, 18, and 19. 9. Phän. 267. Hegel’s emphasis. 10. Phän. 267. 11. Phän. 356. 12. Phän. 356. 13. Enc. III 432.

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directives of the state.1 Disagreement, discontent, and reprimand cannot trouble or halt it, for the government must be certain that in the deep, albeit innermost essence of things, “all citizens live in this actuality of the state and find in it satisfaction for their knowledge and will.”2 True, not everyone is conscious of this,3 but this happens precisely because the life of the nation doesn’t stand on the level of mature, universal selfconsciousness.4 In this way, Hegel constantly understands and justifies a coercively ruling organization in a detailed description of the State, openly allowing for an immature level of consciousness, a lack of “good will” among the citizenry, and a less than full ethical “concretization.” Thus, the immature level of speculative-political self-consciousness is affirmed in the “sensuous” spirit of the family and is concentrated particularly in the woman,5 removed from political life on principle;6 further, in civil society consciousness of the “universal” retreats to a secondary plane, and in the life of the second estate it displays a direct inclination toward degeneration; criminals display defective legal consciousness; the broad and indeterminate circles of “the people” are distinguished outright by the fact that they “don’t know what they want”; perhaps precisely because of this, “many” but “not all ” are admitted to participation in the representing of an estate: of the participation of the peasant estate Hegel says nothing at all, but then sets aside the lower chamber as a whole for the second estate, admitting it to participation in political life, despite its exclusive tendency to private, group interest,g and despite his previous decision to exclude it from political life; finally, the doctrine of “public opinion” directly recognizes the defective level of political selfconsciousness in the wider circles of the citizenry. Side by side with this there is also revealed in the state a defect of good will in the citizenry. Even if moral upbringing by means of “threatening” succeeds in “breaking” and “eradicating” an empirical willfulness in children, with the transition to civil society the family turns out to be a principle nourishing and promoting self-interest in souls, for one family is to another an “external” other-being. The entire life of civil society flows along in the absence or insufficiency of good will: mutual economic nourishing arises apart from the will of contending cells; each strives for the satisfaction of its own needs, and this leads to the rise of wealth and poverty, luxury and destitution, extravagance and a rabble; the very necessity of juridical protection of the person and his rights, the pres1. See above, in chapters 20 and 16. 2. Recht 9. Hegel’s emphasis. 3. Recht 10. 4. Comp.: a detailed description of this instinctiveness of the national life in Aesth. I 189–95. 5. Recht 230. 6. Recht 392.

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ence of crimes and the court, the necessity of police supervision and public philanthropy—all of this witnesses in any case to the unreliability and powerlessness of good will; it is true, the life of a corporation cultivates the will, but only up to a “relative” unselfishness, and even among the “bureaucrats,” experienced members of the universal estate, the possibility is foreseen of abuse and arbitrariness: for the elimination of this are instituted both the inspectorate and the service hierarchy, as well as “public censorship” of the representation of the estate. Naturally, all these defects of political self-consciousness and good will go hand in hand and form a defective concreteness in the state. A lack of concreteness may be expressed either in compass, i.e., in the number and composition of those persons who undergo a mutual speculative growing-together: such is the defect of familial, corporate, and estate life; or in the depth and quality of the growing-together itself: such are all those conditions in which the empirical element does not yield entirely to ethical inspiration. Thus, the empirical element of marriage forces one to allow for “divorce” despite the spiritual indissolubility of the union; the state of the family’s property leads to internal quarrels, to ethical indeterminacy and caprice in last will and testaments; thus the life of civil society flows along in the form of a systematic disintegration and license of personal particularity; thus the structure of political institutions is reconciled with a “minimum” of “simple” obedience, and the estates introduce into legislation their private interest; and even the “universal” estate turns out to be involved in property as a principle of disintegration. But if so, if the disintegrating, dispersing forces of human nature do not submit, do not fall silent in the state, and do not change into their opposites, then the state is not transformed from an “appearance” into a holistic “shape” of ethical concreteness. Evidently, in the very idea of an “absolute state” is revealed an inner contradiction: the speculative grown-togetherness of people turns out to be incompatible with coercive rule and the state must eliminate its public-legal character; if the state preserves this character, then it is precisely for the reason that, and because, the speculative grown-togetherness of the people turns out to be incomplete, i.e., it envelops not all people and includes not all of their experiences, interests, and impulses. And this means that the state is forced to reconcile itself with the empirical disunity of the population and that its essence does not permit it to achieve the mature perfection of a “shape” of the world. In outlining the state Hegel faced two possibilities: either affirm the level of speculative ethical life and dissolve in it the authoritativediscrete character of the usual state; or preserve this imperfect character of the state and reduce the level of speculative ethical life to a compromise. He chose the second path and himself gradually and imperceptibly

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“depotentialized” the essence of ethical life, similarly to the way he had already “depotentialized” the Idea in the philosophy of nature and psychology.h “Ethical life” is gradually replaced by “good mores”; “universal self-consciousness” by an unconscious substance having lost its roots in the underworld; “universal will” by moral upbringing to “relative unselfishness” and to the “lesser” universality of family and corporation; the “grown-togetherness” of all cedes its place to familial unity on the ground of blood relation or the organization of the estate on the ground of common interests and identical properties; speculative “freedom” is reduced to more or less participation of the “many” in the business of legislation and administration; “personal virtue” is turned into simple “decency.” In this gradual descent Substance becomes finally a synomym of exclusive national unity; its spiritual subjectivity is compressed into the sole individual head of state, into the monarch; its organic self-determination is concentrated into representation by estates, and as a result the divine life of “ethical totality” receives the fixed historical characteristics of an estate-based monarchy with feudal remnants, liberal finishing touches, and a militant tendency towards national exclusivity. This distinctive descent of the State from the heights of the ethical level to the level of the historical epoch is partly the result of the philosophical methodology assimilated by Hegel, namely his general attitude to the concrete-empirical material: speculative contempt of it winds up being, not for the first time, its concealed triumph. In the philosophy of right such a reversal must be recognized as particularly natural: the practical significance of its subject matter is capable of enticing the thinker onto the ground of empirical fact with particular ease and quickness. And in fact, the concrete outline of the “shape” of the state in Hegel is always converted into a distinctive political doctoring. He sketches not the shape of spiritual victory, but only the paths to the gradual overcoming of the empirical element; not the “perfected” state, but the “best” of the spurious; not the “absolute” category (which combines in itself the causa efficiens and the causa finalis of the political life of humanity), but a relative compromise, brought about perhaps by the powers of the epoch contemporary to him. A spirit of political tutorship and guidance weakens the spirit of speculative soaring, and as a result there is formed an unnoticed renunciation of a speculatively holistic understanding of the state. The fundamental thesis: “not all historical states realize themselves in the shape of the State” must be replaced by another: “no one state can be the realization of the shape of the State, because the state in general is not a shape of the world.” But Hegel doesn’t pronounce this second thesis; on the contrary, asserting the first, he as it were continues: “but the State outlined by me is an actual shape of the world,” not noticing that he out-

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lined a weak compromise and in this way gave cause to be reproached with the “idealization” of a spurious political contemporaneity. The significance of the state as a limit of the human spirit and a connection of its “speculative essence” with the condition of a given historical epoch is revealed perhaps in nothing else with such clarity as in his doctrine of the international situation. A nation organized in a politically sovereign union opposes another nation in the order of empirical coexistence. Each of them needs this confrontation and opposition in order to become a genuine individuality: “the nation as individuality” exists “for itself” only to the extent that “other individualities” exist “for it” and to the extent that it “excludes” them from itself and “knows itself to be independent of them.”1 Each nation sees “other-being” in the other nation and is doomed to enter into a “struggle for recognition” with it. Therefore each nation is something limited:2 something specifically determined, distinctive, and one-sided in terms of internal life, enclosed on all sides from without by the limits of other politically sovereign unions.3 Each nation possesses two “absolutely necessary”4 relations to every other: first, positive—“a tranquil, equal dwelling with one another in a state of peace,” and second, negative— “the exclusion of one by the others” in a state of war.5 Every nation possesses its “particular” good, its sovereign will, its “rightness,” and its particular “higher” law of conduct; no state is capable either of speculative self-renunciation, or of concrete identity with another, or of the highest philanthropic flight of life. It is a fact worthy of deep, thoughtful treatment that such a substantive limitation and discreteness of the national state, giving it the character of a senseless concrete-empirical fragment of the life of the world, necessarily follows from its speculative nature: the national spirit, organized in the form of a sovereign state, is a speculative Substance which by its very essence excludes any other-being and possesses its being “in itself and through itself.” Thus the Substance of divine Spirit, i.e., the Concept, as a creative force, excludes any other-being and is the sole reality: there is not and cannot be any other reality besides the all-penetrating and all-moving speculative power of divine Meaning. However, out of this comparison of the “substantiality” of the State with the “substantiality” of the Divinity their essential distinction becomes clear: divine Substance “excludes any other-being” in the sense that there is actually no other-being, for the empirical element itself is, according to the fundamental scheme, no 1. Comp.: Phän. 358. 2. Comp.: Phän. 359; Enc. III 421, 427; Recht 430; Ph. G. 45. 3. Comp.: W. Beh. 416, 417; Phän. 545; Recht 431; Ph. G. 63, 64. 4. Comp.: W. Beh. 372–73. 5. W. Beh. 372.

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more than the lowest state of that one Substance; the state “excludes any other-being” in the sense that it doesn’t want to and cannot limit its good and its aims by an alien good and alien tasks, and in this unwillingness it preserves its spiritual rightness. This means that in actual fact the singular state is not Substance, but merely encroaches on its properties and its dignity; it remains in the same situation as the singular family, entering with all of its self-seeking aims into the body of civil society and not willing to limit itself by the rightful interests of other families and of the highest Universality. But the “substance” of the nation and the “substance” of the family, in turn, are like the substance of the individual human soul, not willing to give up its particular interests, encroaching “on all,” and entering into a life-and-death struggle for “recognition.” And thus arises an instructive parallel. The “natural” struggle of the “individual,” having acquired “self-consciousness,” but not yet having learned to “acknowledge” such self-consciousness in “other-being” and to enter with this “other-being” into a speculative identity, reveals in the process a threefold anthropogony: the encounter of human being with human being in the natural state is the first spiritual lesson; the encounter of family with family in civil society is the second; the encounter of state with state is the third. The first lesson concludes with a spiritual victory: people learn to create their freedom through identity and their identity through freedom. The second lesson concludes in a covert failure: bourgeois society continues the life of self-interest and disunity, but organizes itself according to the principle of the “common interest” and is restrained to a unity by the power of a higher Universality—the state. The third lesson concludes in an open failure: states completely fail to find a way out to the creation of a higher, universal-human unity and remain empirically disunified speculative substances, realizing this “perpetual fraud” of the concluded and broken contract.1, i In this way the speculative law of “concreteness” is violated by the state both in internal and external life. It is true, the substances of the nations encountering one another in war find themselves to be in a relation comparable to “mutual dialectical negation”; the necessity of “dialectic” lies in the basis for the acceptance of war. But this dialectic of the nations and states does not conclude in an organic assimilation and a concrete condition: a “universal union of the nations” is impossible, because it would be reduced to the supremacy of a single nation, which would in addition lose its “individuality” due to the absence of “other-being”;2 a “state of the nations” or a “world republic” are in effect “empty” abstractions, deprived of any “ethical life” and leading to the “shapelessness of 1. Comp.: Mollat 67.

2. Mollat 67.

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cosmopolitanism.”1, j The nature of the state requires the violation of the law of speculative concreteness. In this way political life actually signifies the ethical and speculative limit of the human. All spiritual life turns out to be reduced and contained within the boundaries of national spirit, and national spirit itself lives limited by the refractory element of empirical existence. And if, as has already been demonstrated,2 the ethical life of the human is “the actual perception of the omnipresence of Divinity immanent in the world,” then it is understandable that the life of art, religion, and philosophy, growing on the ground of this “perception,” turns out to be subject to the same limit. Everything that these higher shapes of absolute Spirit express and “articulate” reduces to the revelation received by the human from “conscience.” But since this revelation is formed within the limits of national spirit, then it is inevitably conditioned and limited by its limitations: the “immanent limitation of national spirit”3 leaves its imprint on all of its creations and results. The “Divine Spirit,” before revealing itself to the artist, to the inspired priest, and to the philosopher, realizes itself in the form of limited “national spirit,” opposing other equally limited “national spirits.” And if each nation has its own particular “higher good” and its own particular law of conduct,4 then within it arise its own particular art, its separate Divinity, and its particular truth.k Thus, according to Hegel, “absolute Spirit cannot be revealed” directly in “singular” artistic images: “therefore the spirit of fine art” is above all “limited national spirit,” the “richness” of which develops as a consequence of this in a distinctive “indeterminate polytheism.”5 Similarly, religion consists in a nation becoming aware of its own rationality, revealed to it in the ideal essence of its mores and laws, and prayerfully intuiting this specifically modified idea of the good “in the pure absolute image” of its God; 6 religion and the state stand in a metaphysical identity and inevitably share the fate of the nation’s limitedness.7 Finally this relates in full measure also to philosophy: it turns out that its capacity to suppress the empirical element in the “subject” elevates its knowledge to “absolute spirit” only through the means of national limitedness. Philosophy not only arises within the limits of the state; and not only possesses in its foundation the realized “universal life with the nation and ´ ειν);8 it not only may “coincide” with for the sake of the nation” (πολιτε υ 1. W. Beh. 422. 2. See chapter 19. 3. Enc. III 427. 4. See chapter 20. 5. Enc. III 442–43. 6. Author’s emphasis. Comp.: W. Beh. 400; Phän. 540; Enc. III 409, 429; Rel. I 153, 179, and others. See chapter 20. 7. Comp.: Ph. G. 36. 8. W. Beh. 381. See chapter 19. 9. Enc. III 438.

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state power,9 but always remains “in indissoluble unity with the spirit of the state,”1 sharing in this the fate of art and religion.2, l The limitedness of a particular national spirit becomes a law of human life and its limit. The philosophy of Hegel arrives, evidently, at a distinctive nationalistic individualism and even atomism; moreover, in this doctrine of “polytheism” in art and religion3 and of the many nationally distinct “truths” and philosophies, the spectre of a distinctive relativism with all of its consequences arises before his philosophy. To overcome this atomism of many national substances and this relativism of many national truths became the task of the philosophy of history and the history of philosophy; the philosophy of art and the philosophy of religion each strive to solve this same problem in their own sphere and in their own way. At the foundation of all these structures, insofar as they solve the problem of “national polytheism,” lies the attempt to interpret the empirical succession and the empirical coexistence of historical appearancesm as the involuntary, unconscious, and mysterious realization of the speculative life of the world Spirit. Indeed, the philosophy of Hegel could not rest on this empirical division of Divine Spirit, to which the philosophy of ethical life led it: that would have been to admit that the power of Divine Meaning could not overcome the discreteness of the “isolation” of the nation-state and was compelled to subordinate itself to the lower element of its being. However, on the other hand, the obvious objective absence of genuine concreteness in the life of nations and states did not provide a basis for affirming the presence of a cosmically universal “self-consciousness” and a mature, cosmically universal “will”; if within the lesser limits of a singular state, Substance remained on the level of a concealed, unconscious power, then it would be natural to also expect the same outcome in the sphere of “cosmic” spirituality. The empirical influence of one nation upon another, cultural borrowing and interaction, even a certain ideological succession, could have been stated by means of simple historical observation. But it would be a long way to go from these empirical influences to a metaphysical unity, transforming the life of the human species into a speculatively necessary series of historical appearances. It remained for the philosophy of Hegel to demonstrate that the subject of history is one and that this subject is Divine Spirit. To demonstrate this as a truth meant to show that the history of the human species is formed according to those fundamental speculative “laws” by which absolute Spirit everywhere lives: according to the laws of universality, of dialectical development, and of organic concreteness. If 1. Ph. G. 45. 2. Enc. III 438; Ph. G. 45. genwart”: Ph. G. 202.

3. Comp., e.g., “In jeder Religion ist göttliche Ge-

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the historical process moves in the living rhythm of the Concept, which creatively penetrates it and raises it to the realization of the Concept’s aim, such that history realizes the system of Reason, then this means that the subject of history is indeed Divine Spirit. If, in addition, there is nothing in history alien to Spirit, if in history everything “arose” from Spirit and everything is invested with it, then Divine Spirit is truly the sole subject of the historical process. The realization of the law of universality presupposes that each historical appearance as such is a living and necessary ingredient of the entire process as a whole, such that the “world spirit” enters into it as its living essence and includes it in itself as its living part. Hegel’s project was precisely such. Thought out consistently to the end, this project confronted philosophy with a task exceptional in extent and difficulty: to recognize and demonstrate the rationality and necessity of each concrete-historical event and appearance in the life of humanity. In reality, the philosophy of history, by the assertion of Hegel himself, has to do above all with the empirically given1 flow of events in time,2 and in treating that flow, it must investigate “historically, empirically,”3 by no means resorting to “a priori flights of imagination”4 but “truly and precisely coming to grips with the historical” appearance.5 The “res gestae”6 unfold before the philosopher in the form of past events7 which were subject to empirical necessity,8 having already once happened the way they happened. As a whole these events comprise “world history,” possessing its inner meaning; the investigation of it provides the “historiam rerum gestarum.”9 The history of humanity as a flow of such temporal events is a single great empirical whole, internally connected and coupled by a continuous succession and causal influence such that every “separate” singular event or appearance turns out to be “isolated” only by the power of cognizing abstraction. History as a real process in time is, as a whole, one vast empirical singularity, woven from a multitude of small empirical singularities, and if some small “singularities” of history are accidental, irrational, or superfluous, then these defects participate inevitably in the tissue of the whole and make it only partially rational. Empirical history recognizes this from the very beginning, placing before itself the task of explaining each historical appearance as causally necessary. But for the philosophy of history the task of a holistic comprehension of the rerum gestarum acquires 1. Comp.: “in der Geschichte unmittelbar vor die Augen tritt und sich darstellt”: Ph. G. 24. 2. Comp.: Skept. 99; Phän. 604, 610–11; Enc. III 421; Recht 101, and others. 3. Ph. G. 13. 4. “Apriorische Erdichtungen”: Ph. G. 13. 5. “Das Historische getreu auffassen”: Ph. G. 14. 6. Ph. G. 59. 7. Comp.: “in Form des Geschehens”: Recht 433. 8. Comp.: Skept. 99; Ph. G. 36. 9. Ph. G. 59.

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particular significance, for all the “purely contingent,” “meaningless,” and “non-rational,” if such things have occurred in history, threaten to undermine the fundamental revelation of pantheism. The speculative philosopher is obligated, as no one else, to insist upon the hidden rationality of everything non-rational, upon the higher necessity of everything purely accidental, upon the secret meaningfulness of everything meaningless: all empirical appearances of history without exception must be liberated from this deceptive outward aspect and unmasked in order to reveal its concealed speculative necessity.1 Such was, evidently, Hegel’s project. At the foundation of “world history” lies a certain “finite end,” realizing itself according to the “plan of Providence.”2 Therefore the history of humanity is, strictly speaking, the history of Spirit3 or Reason4 “living” in it. Spirit does not float above “history” as above the waters, but creates itself “in it” and is the sole “driving” principle.5 Creative reason6 “works itself into” historical appearances, passing from an “inner” hidden state into an external one,7 and in this way “rules the world”8 and accomplishes its “revelation”9 within it. Reason is immanent10 in the history of humanity and penetrates it in such a way that the “Universal, existing in itself and for itself,” lives in speculative “unity” with “the singular, the subjective.”11 This is expressed in the fact that “in world history in general other things issue from people’s activities than what they are striving for, than what they achieve, than what they immediately know and want; they bring about their own interest, but in doing so they bring about something more that is hidden within it, but that did not lie in their consciousness or in their intentions.”12 “Reason achieves its existence in human knowledge and volition, as in (its) material,”13 but in such a way that “the activity of the subjects in which Reason is present as their in-itself existing substantial essence”14 preserves its formal freedom,15 and reason remains “at first their dark foundation, hidden from them.”16 The Divine end is acting in the soul of the human, and the human doesn’t know that his spirit is immanent in this end.17 In this consists the “cunning” of Divine Spirit.18 Given such an understanding, everything “individual” turns out to be included in the speculative tissue of the historical process, accepted

1. Comp.: “eine Philosophie der Geschichte hat in den verkümmertsten Gestalten ein Moment des Geistigen aufzusuchen”: Ph. G. 202; see chapter 11. 2. Enc. III 421; Ph. G. 16, 17, 24– 26. 3. Enc. III 410. 4. Enc. III 421. 5. Enc. III 426. 6. Ph. G. 18. 7. Comp.: Recht 336. 8. Ph. G. 12, 14, 29. 9. Ph. G. 12, 13. 10. Ph. G. 29–30. 11. Ph. G. 29–30. 12. Ph. G. 30. 13. Ph. G. 37. 14. Ph. G. 37. 15. Comp.: Ph. G. 27. 16. Ph. G. 37. 17. Ph. G. 38. 18. Comp., e.g., Ph. G. 32.

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and justified. The universal spirit forms the Substance of each individual,1 his living, hidden, determining power: world Spirit divides or “particularizes” itself into a series of national spirits,2 and each national spirit splits itself up into a mass of individual self-consciousnesses. The individual lives in terms of his “particular ends,”3 by his personal passion; he continuously gravitates toward “self-sufficiency” and realizes his interest. But this seeking for “self-sufficiency” is already a sign that Substance is creating in him its own life:4 there where, evidently, the singular soul seeks for itself “freedom” and “satisfaction,” in reality Substance is bringing about its own “liberation” in the world through the singular soul. The individual is only the subjectively formal side of the Universal energy, the energy of world Spirit;5 he is a divine instrument 6 and his “subjective distinctiveness” is only an “empty form of activity.”7 But precisely thanks to this saturation with “substantial content,”8 thanks to this immanent “participation in the end of Reason,” the individual is “himself an end”:9 “the human being is in himself an end only through that Divinity which is in him”—through Reason, Freedom, religiosity, ethical life, and so forth.10 The virtue of the individual consists, as has already been shown, in the conscious committing of himself to the cosmic power of Spirit, i.e., in the creative acceptance of his own fate11 as the fate of God, who is bringing about his own Freedom in the world. The “element” of universal Spirit in history is “spiritual actuality in its entire compass of the inner and the outer.”12 The singular human conquers his “outer” and subjugates it to the “inner”; the singular nation accomplishes this overcoming in its sphere; world Spirit liberates itself in them and through them, bringing their concerns together in the highest unity: it shakes off from itself all personal and national limitations and ascends to the highest state, to “knowledge of absolute Spirit as the eternally actual truth,”13 attesting that “necessity, nature, and history serve only its revelation and are vessels of its dignity.”14 It is natural that the process of history should acquire the character of a dialectical development, and its final outcome should bring about a holistic concreteness. History is a “rational, necessary progress of world Spirit,”15 its “organic systematization.”16 History begins not with a 1. Comp.: Phän. 23. See chapters 15, 16, 18, 19, 20. 2. Comp.: W. Beh. 415; Enc. III 426; Recht 69, 430, 432; Ph. G. 51, and others. 3. Comp.: Ph. G. 29, 30. 4. See chapter 19. 5. Comp.: Ph. G. 28. 6. “Werkzeug”: Enc. III 426; Ph. G. 29; “Mittel ”: Ph. G. 33. 7. Enc. III 426. See chapter 19. 8. Comp.: Enc. III 426. 9. Ph. G. 33. 10. Ph. G. 34. 11. See chapter 19. 12. Recht 430. [Extending to 431. —ptg] 13. Enc. III 427. Hegel’s emphasis. [Corrected in Il’in’s German edition from Recht 427 in the Russian original. —ptg] 14. Enc. III 427. Strictly speaking, “honor,” “Ehre.” [Same correction. —ptg] 15. Ph. G. 13. 16. Görr. 275.

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“conscious” end,1 but with a hidden, “inner, inmost, unconscious impulse”2 of Spirit to bring its absolute nature to absolute consciousness. In this development nothing disappears without a trace and everything is stored in the starting point; the first traces of Spirit already contain virtualiter all of history,”3 and henceforth it is only what it is creating and has created;4 each of its new states receives the entire legacy of the past, and “what has vanished” is preserved “in the night of selfconsciousness.”5 The universal spirit of the world arises in this way in the process of a speculative growth and enrichment in that dialectic of varied “forms” of existence6 and “finite, particular national spirits,”7 which despite the “contradictions” preserves a unity of content and subject. In this way is guaranteed the sole and complete result of the historical process. The end of the historical series is a “revelation of the depth,” i.e., of the “absolute Concept”:8 absolute “universal Spirit” brings about through human consciousness and self-consciousness the adequate knowledge of itself as such,9 i.e., its own freedom.10 It brings it about simultaneously in many “places” and “ways,” ascending to absolute ethical life and the constitutional-monarchical form of the state11 and further, to fine art, to revealed religion, and finally, to the highest form— speculative philosophy. This philosophy is one, as is the truth itself one and as the Divinity itself is one. It is concrete because it is the mature, creative result of all previous “philosophies,” from which each is “raised up” and “preserved” in speculative philosophy in the measure of its own truth.12 It is concrete, further, because it gathers and concentrates in itself the true content of all lower levels: ethical life, art, and religion. Finally, it is concrete because it arises in the speculative identity of the singular human subject and the universal divine Objekt. The end of history is the single, true concrete philosophy as the adequate self-cognizing of Divine Spirit. Thus the historical process, according to Hegel’s project, realizes the laws of universality, dialectic, and speculative concreteness, which demonstrates its speculative unity and its subordination to the beneficent plan of Providence: the philosophy of history unfolds as a theodicy.13 Such was the project. Its fulfillment turns out otherwise. The cognitive victory over the empirical material also presents 1. Ph. G. 28. 2. Ph. G. 29. 3. Ph. G. 21, 55. 4. Recht 431. 5. Phän. 611. 6. Comp.: Phän. 411; Log. I 5. 7. Recht 430. 8. Phän. 611. 9. Comp.: Phän. 612; Enc. III 421, 425–26, 427; Recht 431; Ph. G. 21, 29, 51, 52, 53, 55. 10. Enc. III 421, 426; Ph. G. 22, 53, 54. 11. Comp.: Recht 355. 12. The three volumes of the Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie are devoted to this disclosure. 13. Comp.: Ph. G. 18, 19, 446.

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Hegel here with no fewer complications than in the philosophy of nature. The improbable abundance and heterogeneity of historical material could have presented insuperable difficulties all by themselves, if only because for a “true and exact” knowledge of the factual makeup of events more time would be required than is at the disposition of a single individual. From this follows the necessity of judging materials at second, third, and fourth hand, satisfying oneself with the general outline of an event and epoch, substituting a schema for the “real process,” and a “construction” for its empirical investigation.n But to this empirical difficulty is joined a purely philosophical one. The historical material contains an enormous quantity of “events” and “appearances,” repeating and steadily enduring “circumstances” the speculative rationality of which is either subject to doubt or simply does not yield to cognition: bloody wars, the destruction of nations, the disintegration of states, great migrations of people, the invasion of the Mongols,o natural disasters, economic crises, brutal mores and customs, savage creeds, witch trials in the Middle Ages, slavery and prostitution and many others, witnessing to the triumph of the empirical element in human life; all this constitutes an enormous material, crying out its chaotic, uninspirited, discrete, and ill-fated nature. If in all this stream of events and appearances invariably accompanying humanity through the whole of its history one can ascertain some sort of lawfulness, then it is precisely not speculatively rational, but spurious, empirical. But this would have meant to reject the fundamental revelation and metaphysical project in the face of empirically given fact, i.e., to recognize that in human history in addition to “rationality” is revealed also an elemental non-rationality and anti-rationality, or, in the best case, that Reason leads an anti-rational life not only in “nature” but also in the life of humanity. Hegel understands and openly admits that the empirically given material of history possesses precisely such an ill-fated and tragic character: “when we contemplate this spectacle of passions and observe the consequences of their power and actions, the irrationality attaching itself not only to them, but even, and moreover principally, to good intentions and right aims; when we see that from this flow ugliness, evil, the ruin of flourishing states, created by the human spirit, then we can only experience a sadness over this passing vanity; and since this ruin is not only the doing of nature, but the doing of human will, in the end we arrive at a moral distress from this spectacle, at an indignation, seizing the good spirit, if it lives in us.”1 This “most awful picture” plunges the soul into the “deepest, most hopeless grief,”2 for history turns out to be a great, endless “slaughter-bench” on which “are sacrificed the happiness 1. Ph. G. 24–25.

2. Ph. G. 25.

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of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of the individual.”1 Fate hangs over humanity; suffering and death are its lot. Hegel’s philosophy once again stands before its greatest difficulty: the fundamental revelation of pantheism leads it to a metaphysical project which is not justified by the facts of the empirical world.2 And once again it becomes necessary for it to seek paths toward compromise, and to allow imperceptible concessions: a diminution of the spiritual compass and level serve that same aim, as does an intuitive selection of empirical material; retreats from the speculative law are combined with approximateness and summariness of the historical treatment; and only the metaphysical depth and far-sightedness of speculative vision at times save the riskiness of its representationalp characteristics. And given all this, the project is considered as fulfilled, and the fulfillment as coinciding with the project; the formulas establishing the problem announce that the problem is resolved and postulate the presence of maximal content in a minimal realization. Thus the philosophy of history, conceived in the form of a disclosure of the one Object, i.e., of the Divine Spirit as the subject of history, is realized in the form of an investigation of many objects, dispersed in time and space, i.e., of separate nations and states. It turns out that “world history” has to do “with individuals which are nations,” and “with wholes which are states”;3 its object is the highest achievements of national character and national spirit4 and, correspondingly, national states in their distinctiveness.5 The intellectual expecting that in the philosophy of history will be investigated “universal Substance,” which includes “everything found in the given state of the world,”6 will find something else: in history there were many substances and each was creating its own life and its own good. In this “particular” life of the nations, in their individual fates and original “legacies” only here and there “shines through” and registers the speculative lawfulness; but the life, fate, and unity of Divine Spirit withdraw into an undiscovered, problematic depth. And thus in the philosophy of history, insofar as Hegel strove to realize it in terms of its content, none of his fundamental speculative laws holds true. Thus the law of universality does not hold true in terms of compass, and it turns out that in terms of content it is inapplicable to the historical material. The renunciation of the fullness of compass is already contained in Hegel’s appeal not to examine the historical material in an inductive sequence, i.e., beginning from the individual, the “particular,” and 1. Comp.: Ph. G. 25. 2. See chapters 10, 11, and 12. 3. Ph. G. 17. 4. Enc. III 73(Z). 5. Comp.: Ph. G. 39, 63, 64, 69. 6. Phän. 230.

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ascending to the general, to the “universal.”1 It is appropriate to approach historical appearances setting out from “reason,” looking upon them “rationally,” so that they should turn their “rational” face2 to the investigator. Hegel proposes as it were to “call” to the spirituality and the rationality of the historical process, to issue a call to history, as it were, in order that everything meaningful in it answer back, and stepping forward, form cadres of appearances subject to philosophical treatment. This means that the philosophy of history accomplishes a particular speculative choice and selection within the historical material, singling out one and omitting another. The wholeness of the compass turns out to be violated, and a multitude of irrational, ill-fated, and tragic appearances of history are not discussed at all. Hegel’s philosophy of history demonstrates not the rationality of history, but the rationality of the rational in history; but this does mean recognizing an abundance of the non-rational in it. This violation of the compass of universality is revealed with particular clarity in the doctrine of “great individuals” and of “chosen nations.” It turns out that the philosophy of history, abstracting from the “superfluous mass of other singularities,” “overwhelming and obscuring the worthy objects and the great events,”3 dwells only on those “individuals” and nations which actually were “instruments of reason.”4 It doesn’t occupy itself with the collection of “particular” trifles, but keeps only the “substantial.”5 The “great individual” is one whose “own, private ends” “contain” the substantial will of world spirit,6 so that he “possesses the good fortune” to realize an end comprising a stage in the progress “of the universal spirit” of world history. Such an individual (e.g., Cyrus,q Moses, Alexander, Jesus)7 is truly “an individual of world history,” 8 showing to the people their “immanent end,” leading them behind him, and cosmically justified in his life independently of any moral evaluation.9 Such individuals lend themselves to speculative understanding10 as chosen and marked: they represent a “worthy object” for the philosophy of history. In this they are similar to “the chosen nations,” i.e., to those nations which are “bearers” of world spirit in a given moment of history and solvers of its next immediate task.11 In the life and activity of such a nation Spirit creates its “absolute will,” and in the face of this will all remaining nations are without rights (rechtlos): they concede to the “chosen” nation mastery over the world.12 Such are the four “realms of world history”: the Eastern, the Greek, the Roman, and the Germanic.13 Such nations also 1. Comp.: Ph. G. 24–26. 2. Ph. G. 14. 3. Enc. III 424. 4. Comp.: Ph. G. 32. 5. Enc. III 424. 6. Ph. G. 32. 7. Comp.: Krug 58. 8. “Welthistorisches Individuum”: Ph. G. 32, 68, and others. 9. Comp.: Ph. G. 32, 68. 10. Krug 58. 11. Enc. III 426. 12. Comp.: Enc. III 426; Recht 432, 433, 435–40. 13. Recht 435–40; Ph. G. 101–7.

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yield to a speculative understanding as chosen and marked: they are a “worthy object” for the philosophy of history. In this way the “philosophy of history” approximates the “phenomenology of spirit” in terms of object, and is distinguished from the empirical investigation of the rerum gestarum. Like the “phenomenology of spirit,” it has to do primarily with “shapes of the world,” only not in a “typical” understanding of them and not in “speculative” sequence: the philosophy of history treats individual shapes of the world and sorts through them in the order of their temporal beginning. This “temporal” order brings it closer to empirical history, but the “speculative” principle of selection which the philosophy of history uses sets the two forms of inquiry sharply apart. Empirical history on principle knows of no “speculatively unworthy” and therefore non-investigatible historical singularities; it stations itself before the factual makeup of history in order to see everything objektively and adequately, while the philosophy of history doesn’t trouble itself with fullness of compass and deals out its speculative judgment prior to empirical study. In consequence empirical history and the philosophy of history acquire distinct objects.1 But even having in mind this objective limitation of the philosophy of history, the law of universality all the same turns out to be inapplicable to its “individual shapes of chosen individuals and nations.” The temporal succession in which these shapes appear and disappear2 does not allow them to form a living totality; it would have been possible to say of them that the Universal was entering into them sequentially, and they one by one possessed through it their living essence, but all that was in the past. The scheme of time inevitably transforms them as individual shapes into a scattered multitude of appearances burning away at varied times; the empirical mode of life carries away the singular into the abyss of the past, and it turns out that the individual shapes constructed by the philosophy of history are incapable of living symbiosis; only the “universal essences” of phenomenology are capable. Similarly, Hegel in vain tries to speak of the dialectical character of the historical process and to insist on the concreteness of its general outcome: the temporal succession doesn’t coincide with the rhythm of the dialectic, and the “moments” of world spirit do not form into concreteness. The historical process, according to the philosophy of history, is in truth filled with struggle;3 but this struggle does not possess a dialectical nature either in origin, or in character, or in result. The struggling principles do not arise one from the other in a single series, but 1. Comp.: Phän. 32; Ph. G. 17, and others. 426, and others. 3. Comp.: Ph. G. 53.

2. Comp.: on this, e.g., Ph. G. 32; Enc. III

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approach one another from without (e.g., Persians and Greeks, Greeks and Romans, Romans and Germans). The transition from one principle to another is not a movement from one opposite to another: it is accomplished either through geographic proximity (e.g., Persia – Judea – Egypt),1 or through the collision of the interests of states and war (Persia – Greece),2 always in an order of the temporal, purely historical appearance of states (from China to contemporary Europe); and only in the best case is it possible to follow the movement according to the schema “an sich – für sich – an und für sich” (e.g., Egypt – Greece).3 The unity of the dialectical process is converted into an empirical multi-series; the exchange of speculative gifts remains undiscovered; instead of the growing-together of antagonistic sides and the preservation of everything achieved, there appear political subordination and a general “refinement” of human life; and the entire process of history with great difficulty is fitted into a fundamental socio-philosophical schema: from the “universalism” of Greece to the “individualism” of Rome and to the “individualistic universalism” of the Germanic spirit. Such an empirical degeneration of the “dialectic” stands in close connection with the absence of a concrete outcome. The multitude of empirically developed, spatially and temporally separated “national spirits,” “chosen” and “not chosen,” having reached the end of their span at different times, remains in a discrete, or, if you will, a “disparate”4 condition. The nations pass successively like a gallery of images5 before the world spirit, administering its own “court”6 over them, or gather in a circle7 around its throne,8 like a kind of pantheon.9 But this pantheon is no longer the concrete totality of organs assimilated in terms of content; it remains a simple “collection,”10 and its participants retain the character of “sovereign substances,” incapable of selfless spiritual growing-together.11 It is true, Hegel insists on principle, that the separate nations are only necessary “moments” or “links” in the development and realization of “world spirit,”12 they are only “means”13 or “states” of it, sacrificed by it;14 they are only “bearers of absolute will”15 and “those who realize its actuality,”16 without rights before its higher and absolute rightness.17 However, this subordinate status of national spirit doesn’t lead it to a free, creative renunciation of its proud, exclusive position either in relation to universalr

1. Comp.: Ph. G. 201, 205. 2. Ph. G. 230, 231. 3. Ph. G. 228–29. 4. “Disparat”: Ph. G. 231. 5. Comp.: Phän. 611. 6. Comp.: Enc. III 421, 426; Recht 430, 431. 7. Comp.: Phän. 546. 8. Comp.: Recht 435. 9. Recht 438; Ph. G. 289. 10. Comp.: W. Beh. 372; Phän. 546. 11. See chapter 20. 12. Comp.: Enc. III 404, 421, 421; Recht 430, 431, 432. 13. Ph. G. 29. 14. Ph. G. 25. 15. Enc. III 426. 16. Recht 431, 435. 17. Enc. III 426; Recht 69, 321, 420; Ph. G. 36.

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Spirit, or in relation to other nations, and the concreteness of the organs is replaced by the discreteness of encroaching and contending parties, not knowing even whose jurisdiction they are under and from whom they are seeking their rightness. This is how the project and its fulfillment in Hegel’s philosophy of history diverge: the speculative character of the historical process as such remains undemonstrated. The laws of universality, dialectic, and organic concreteness don’t control the historical process as a great empirical singularity, stretched out in time; only here and there does the life of humanity ignite with the flame of its unconscious, innermost essence, and the philosopher directs his path according to these scattered stars of divine revelation. It turns out that Reason can and must be, but in fact is not the sole content of history: the life of a human being and of humanity flows in a dual and fluctuating state, and the philosopher is forced to construct a history of Reason as a history of non-reason, and conversely. Let the rational multiply in the world and triumph, and the non-rational subside and be subjugated; nevertheless, history remains a great arena of two elements irreconcilably combining and living as a unity in struggle. And this process stretches out into a bad infinity. This can be expressed by saying that the unity of the historical Subject remains a religious postulate, deprived of empirical and philosophical justification. The substantial (national) and empirical separation of people, a lack of intra-state and general-human concreteness, the absence of a universalistic deepening of virtue—all this makes the spiritual unity of human kind unattainable and improbable in its final achievements. For humanity there is no escape from “national polytheism,” and its spiritual development is accomplished through a rivalry of relative accomplishments. Broken up into individual national states excluding one another, the human race passionately clings to this form of existence and in this way insists upon its own limitation. Pursuing this spurious necessity, or, what is the same thing, this speculative myopia of humanity, Hegel arrives at the monstrous doctrine of “national conscience” and allows the identical rightness of contradictory assertions concerning good and evil. This means that that “final” depth of spirit, to which conscience carries the soul of humanity, turns out to be by no means absolute, for it keeps the will on the level of discrete and abstract existence, on the level of national and political separation, on the level of the “private,” relative, national good. In vain does the philosophy of Hegel speak here of an absolute achievement: before the face of the Divinity, of this sole subject of history, before the face of the highest Universality, “national conscience” and its rightness are nothing more than blindness and degradation. In this way the heroic flight of thought and will, having brought

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Hegel to the doctrine “of concrete ethical life as the realization of Divinity,” suddenly stops short, not having reached the peak. There, where the life of humanity was to have appeared in the form of the universal grown-togetherness of truly thinking and willing spirits, Hegel draws an empirically truthful, but speculatively inadmissible picture of the multiplicity of disconnected states and nations, dwelling in the “natural” condition of international lawlessness and stubbornly supporting an atmosphere of spiritual relativism. Establishing the idea of “ethical” being, he notes not the maximal level of spiritual life, but the minimal, not the best of the best, but the best of the worst, and in this way he rivets the perspective of human ascent to the historically given content and reduces the metaphysical horizon and speculative vocation of Spirit. The metaphysical-religious character of the project, outlining the path for socalled “right” Hegelians, cedes its place to the empirically reduced and historically adapted fulfillment, the spirit of which was subsequently perceived and developed by Hegelians of the “left” persuasion. The element of the concrete-empirical in the end revenges itself for the last time; but Hegel doesn’t see this and up to the end considers his philosophical conception internally unified. That is why it is necessary to acknowledge that the doctrine of “the state” and of human “history” reveals, despite the wishes of Hegel himself, the limit of the human, i.e., that boundary up to which it is given to him to approach the divine state. This “limit” is established by the very form of human existence, by that mode of life which is intrinsic to the human as such: a multiplicity of spatially and temporally separated, corporeally psychic, empirical monads, secretly bearing in themselves a divine principle and not being able to liberate it in themselves and themselves in it to the end—this multiplicity truly possesses within itself the limit of its speculative ascension. To be human means to possess a limited spirit and a limited perspective of life; and humanity bears the burden of this limit just as does the individual human. To be human means to achieve in suffering and in suffering not to achieve. This limitation should not be interpreted in the sense that the “human” through its sinful nature places a limit on “divine” freedom. Such is merely the external aspect of the entire process. In reality the “limit of the human” is something greater than his limit or his “sin”: it is the limit of Divinity itself, giving to itself a human shape and an anthropomorphic mode of existence. Indeed, “the human,” according to Hegel’s fundamental vision, is only a “modus,” or more accurately, an “organ” of divine Substance: the meaning of human life is determined precisely by the fact that it is the meaning of the life of the Divine; the visible paths of humanity are directed by the mysterious fate of the Divinity; and

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therefore the deepest significance of the human limit consists in it being the immanent limit of God, ascending to absolute freedom. If humanity is destined to a tragic failure in the matter of self-liberation, then it is because a tragic failure enters organically into the fate of the Divinity. Absolute Substance takes on the shape of humanity because otherwise it could not free itself from an interweaving with the empirical element, or, more precisely, otherwise it could not extract itself from a concrete-empirical condition. But if it turns out that the Divinity can neither free itself in the form of humanity, nor cease to be a thousand-headed anthropomorphic creature, then its path turns out to be tragically refracted and doomed. Obviously, in the very essence of Divinity is hidden something such that it converts the Divine path into a trail of non-triumphant suffering and that places a stamp of hopelessness on human life and its meaning. To acknowledge this would have meant to establish a crisis of theodicy in Hegel’s philosophy.

Translator’s Notes a. The contrast between a “shape” and an “appearance” was thoroughly explored by Il’in in chapter 12 (vol. 1). b. At this point (if not before), Il’in introduces an extraordinarily demanding standard for judging the success or failure of Hegel’s political philosophy: it appears that the state will have been “justified” if and only if it essentially transcends any merely “historical and earthly character.” The organization of a fully rational state would thus seem to belong exclusively to the order of the Divine. c. The claim that one might have “reasonably expected” such an outcome of Hegel’s political philosophy is a revealing clue to Il’in’s presumptions concerning the enterprise. d. This is another particularly clear acknowledgment on Il’in’s part of the refractory nature of the empirical element as revealed in Hegel’s treatment of it (and hence of the impossibility of a “panlogicist” reading of Hegel’s philosophy). e. Precisely what significance Il’in read into the distinction between “class” and “estate” is not entirely clear based upon this text. He appears to use the terms almost interchangeably in some contexts. The Russian term which I here translate as “estate” is сословие, and that normally translates the German Stand. (The Russian term I have translated as “class” is simply класс.) Complications reside in the fact that Hegel’s use of Stand (or die Stände) is normally translated as “estate,” but occasionally in certain special contexts, also as “class.” f. The Russian phrase is “добрым нравом.” Нрав in the singular, as here, could also mean “more,” but that would not appear to fit the context. g. The “exclusive tendency” of members of the second estate toward “private, group interest” is of course tempered, according to Hegel, by the dy-

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namics of the market economy, which tend ultimately to shape the particular will in accord with the right, a point which Il’in tends not to stress. In the following paragraph he admits that “the life of a corporation cultivates the will, but only up to a ‘relative’ unselfishness.” h. This is another particularly clear assertion of Il’in’s thesis concerning Hegel’s “compromise.” i. Il’in’s claim here overlooks a dimension of Hegel’s argument that was well presented recently by Andrew Buchwalter in his essay “Hegel’s Conception of an International ‘We,’ ” in Identity and Difference: Studies in Hegel’s Logic, Philosophy of Spirit, and Politics, ed. Philip T. Grier (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2007), 155–76. j. An argument to the effect that Hegel’s political philosophy could have been developed beyond the sovereignty of the nation state, in the direction of an international order involving elements of world government, without violating its fundamental spirit, and that Hegel might have done so himself had he lived in the second half of the twentieth century, was advanced by Errol E. Harris in “Hegel on Sovereignty and International Relations,” in Hegel’s Social and Political Thought, ed. Don Verene (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities, 1980). k. Il’in appears to have shifted here from the perspective of objective spirit to that of absolute spirit without acknowledging all of the philosophical implications of that shift. If one addresses this issue primarily from the perspective of the culmination of the Philosophy of Right, or of the Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Il’in’s claim appears plausible. However, from the standpoint of Absolute Spirit at the culmination of the Philosophy of Mind, it appears to be somewhat less so. Thus Il’in’s claim that art, religion, and philosophy are exclusively national (and hence particular) in content remains debatable. l. Il’in here (perhaps prematurely) anticipates a criticism to which he will come later in the chapter. Stated abruptly at this point, Il’in’s claim appears to simply circumvent the standpoint of absolute knowing, and hence of the possibility of objectivity in knowing. Later in this chapter he affirms of speculative philosophy, in Hegel’s intent, that it is “one, as is the truth itself one, and as the Divinity itself is one,” and that “the end of history is the single, true concrete philosophy as the adequate self-cognizing of Divine Spirit.” m. Hegel’s “geschichtlichen Erscheinungen.” n. As a question of method, Il’in here seems to imply an exceptionally strict standard for the construction of a fully objective philosophical history: the philosophical historian would ideally, per impossibile, replace the “empirical” historians in the construction of the historical record itself. This appears to be at variance with Hegel’s own account of the appropriate intellectual procedure in the “Introduction” to the Lectures on the Philosophy of History. However, Il’in’s point can still be accepted as a reminder of an inherent limitation bound to affect the construction of any philosophy of history. o. If any more specific evidence be required, this phrase certainly seems to confirm that Il’in was also “testing” Hegel’s philosophy of history against Russian experience. p. The Russian term is образных, a genitive plural of the adjectival form

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of образ. The latter (the noun form) is normally used by Il’in for “shape,” as in “shapes of the world,” but may also mean “image,” “form,” “type,” etc. I take it that here Il’in is commenting on the “riskiness” of Hegel’s distinctive representations of world history. q. Presumably Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II), founder of the Persian Empire under the Achaemenid dynasty, who ruled from about 560 to 530 B.C. r. “Universal” here is not the usual всеобщий, i.e., “general,” but the very much less usual вселенский, which can mean “ecumenical” and (given in the feminine form of the adjective) “the universe.”

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Conclusion: The Crisis of Theodicy One of the greatest spiritual tasks of philosophy consists in cognizing, and revealing by the powers of reason, all that objective content which religion considers to be its exclusive domain. In this process of cognition, philosophy must separate the true from the false, affirming the true on the basis of unshakable self-evidence, and sweeping away the false as a delusion of blind faith. In order to resolve this task, rational thought must be combined in a certain way with intuitive contemplation, being penetrated by the power of its insight, and cleansing it in turn through the power of its purity and lucidity. For a free spirit it is worthy to believe only in what is revealed to its reason with self-evidence; it is impossible for a living spirit not to believe in what its reason recognizes as self-evident. Religious “truth” is only an obscure and inconsistent anticipation of philosophical truth, and it is necessary for reason to assert its rights. Throughout the entire history of philosophy, perhaps no one has felt this task with such force or been aware of it with such clarity as Hegel. Reason, he thought, must perceive and critically explicate all the fundamental content of religion, not because it is appropriate for the human being to measure everything by his own mind, but because Reason is not merely human: it is itself divine, and moreover it is more divine than religious feeling and a religion based on intuition.a Reason is not only not fruitless nor impoverished,1 but it is more fruitful and richer than the faith of feeling. It preserves all the true depth of religion, for it is saturated with living intuition; but beyond that it clarifies the obscure and purifies spirit of confusions. It grasps the many and holds together what is diverse, revealing it as a unity: it intuits and believes by the power of thought. Philosophy is the highest and worthiest form of the confident professionb of the truth. Accordingly, the fundamental and even perhaps the sole object of philosophy must be the Divinity in its properties, acts, and states. Philosophy cognizes and reveals the essence of the Divinity, its creative path and its victorious achievements. Moreover, it speaks only of this and of nothing else. The Divinity appeared in Hegel’s eyes to be the sole object of philosophy since that time it was revealed to the philosopher, in his 1. Comp.: Enc. III 310. 225

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silent and intense experience of the object, that God is the “totality of all realities,”1 that he is “that which is real in any reality,”2 “the most real of all,”3 “the most actual”4 and moreover the sole “truly actual.”5 Everything that lives, lives because it is brought to life by the power of the divine Life itself; everything that possesses meaning possesses it from the presence of the one divine Reason. For “God is the sole ground of all,”6 immanent in everything existing in such a way that “all things are in God and there is no” separate and independent “singularity”7 whatever. From the time this was revealed to the philosopher, his systematic project arose; he understood that philosophy must see in God “the sole principle of being and cognition”8 and that it cannot acknowledge “outside of God any sort of circumstance or thing whatsoever.”9 The finite, ordinary “reason” of the human found its “submerged downfall”10, c and its “abyss”11, d in “the Divine essence”: it fell silent in order to renew itself speculatively and to become an instrument and voice of revelation. This revelation announced that all is in essence divine (pantheism), all is one (monism), all is rational (panlogism), all is good (theodicy). The entire philosophy of Hegel is dedicated to this revelation, to its philosophical explication and grounding.e It grounds the revelation of pantheism through the acquisition of the fundamental laws of Divine life and through the discovery of them in any being and existence. If Divinity as the original reality lives according to the laws of universality, dialectic, and concreteness (this is disclosed in the Logic), then it is natural that the primordial being, present in all, introduces into any being and existence the power of its living, rhythmic regularity (this is disclosed in the “concrete” sciences and their subdivisions). This omnipresent Divine does not divide the divine being into many “parts”; on the contrary, it makes the apparent diversity of the world a substantial unity. The fundamental nature of the Divinity lies in wholeness, continuity, in comprehensive unity of being, in the primordial concreteness of life, permitting division itself only for the sake of the achievement of a more complete, unifying grown-togetherness. “Everything true is concrete,”12 for the Divinity itself is concrete; “unification” is the task of philosophy,13 for creative “reconciliation constitutes the content” of the “speculative Idea”14 itself. Thus organic concreteness is the highest law of Divine being and, correspondingly, the fundamental law of speculative Philosophy. “Dialectic” should be viewed only as a transitional stage of “concretization”; the law of “universality” formulates only the mature outcome of the 1. Enc. I 166. 2. Enc. I 166. 3. Enc. I 166. 4. Enc. I 10. 5. Enc. I 10. 6. Krug 57. 7. Lass. II 465. 8. Krug 57. 9. Glaub. 134. 10. Comp.: “Untergang”: Log. II 123. 11. Comp.: “Grund (Abgrund)”: Log. II 123. 12. Comp.: Enc. I 67; Recht 43. 13. Diff. 253. 14. Enc. I xviii note.

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speculative growing-together which took place between the whole and its parts. The final essence is expressed precisely by the term “concreteness”: it is inadmissible, ruinous, impossible, and moreover unrealizable that the singular should be isolated, and that multiplicity should be scattered about. There is none of this at the root of things; only the external empirical aspect endeavors to exist in such an order, but its fate too is to renounce it. Highest of all and deepest of all stands the power of concretizingf unification. The world of things and people is held together by it, for this omnipresent power is the power of divine Substance. This last basis of philosophy was apprehended by Hegel from the Gospels: the ethical and religious doctrine of love as a power uniting human with human in God revealed to Hegel that experience a harmonious penetration into which showed him the fundamental law of speculative philosophy. The early theological works of 1790–1800 first published in their entirety by Nohl1 show that Hegel’s metaphysical experience and project grew out of ethico-religious investigations. Hegel began his searching as a moralist, fully accepting2 the moral doctrine of Kant. In his first theological fragments3 he wrote down an entire series of propositions and formulas, leaving no doubt whatsoever4 there. Moreover, he tried to write a “Life of Jesus”5 so as to exclude everything mystical from an understanding of his personality, his deeds, and his teachings, and to reduce everything to the personal morality of the teacher and the theoretical morality in the doctrine.6 In the same spirit are also written his further theological fragments7 placing “faithfulness to duty” above all. However, in the following years and even months Hegel’s religioethical conceptions experienced a deep revolution. Deeper and more objective study of Kant and the Gospels revealed to him, above all, the distinction of principle between “morality” and “ethical life”; this forced him once and for all to break away from the idea of unrealizable duty and to concentrate on the idea of real perfection. The absence of his manuscript devoted to a critical analysis of Kantian ethics8 is compensated to a 1. Hegels theologische Jugendschriften, 1907. Excerpts placed in Rosenkranz. 2. Together with the very early Fichte. See: Nohl Anhang 404. 3. “Volksreligion und Christentum”: Nohl 3–71. Nohl relates these fragments to 1793. See Nohl Anhang 404. 4. Comp.: Nohl 31, 48, 49, 50, 52, 55, 58, 59, 61, 62. 5. “Das Leben Jesu”: Nohl 75–136. This work of Nohl’s relates to 1795. Nohl Anhang 402. Comp.: Ros. 51. 6. Comp.: Nohl 87, 89, 98, 111, 112, 119, 125. 7. “Die Positivität der Christlichen Religion.” Ursprungliche Fassung: Nohl 152–213. Nohl relates these fragments to the end of 1795 and the beginning of 1796. Nohl 139 note (there is a typo in Nohl here: “95” instead of “96”) and 402. 8. Written, apparently, in 1798. The content of it is briefly characterized in Ros. 86–90. It is possible that it perished during the earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco, where Arnold Genthe had taken it. See Nohl vi.

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significant degree by the exceptionally profound and mature content of his treatise on “The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate.”1 Its content permits one to establish unalterably that the deepest and most fundamental idea of Hegel—the spiritual grown-togetherness g of people in God, the immanence of the Divinity in humankind (“the world”), the reality of the Divinity as a concrete h whole, substantially nourishing its parts, and finally, the constitutive investigation of perfection—was evoked in him by the ethical and mystical spirit of Gospel doctrine. In this essay Hegel for the first time, with the power of a new revelation—laying out the teaching of Jesus—formulates those foundations whose logico-metaphysical transformation and more complex formulation comprise the deepest essence of his philosophy. This treatise points toward one of the main sources of his metaphysical experience and conceals in itself the authentic beginning of his doctrine. The Gospels showed Hegel the accepting, reconciling power of love that grows souls together; he repeated this spiritual experience, mastered it, and saw in love that primordial, sensuous power of the soul that overcomes the apparent “particularity” and “separation” of people. Love revealed itself to him as a power wholly enveloping the one who loves, and allowing him a complete penetration into the life of the loved one: it unites the subject and the objekt in a living unity;2 it forms the most intimate3 and joyous4 union of lives,5 the real creative presence of one spirit in another.6 Love is not a “counterposing” abstract reason,7 but a unifying feeling; it unites because it is itself “life entire,”8 one in all, absorbing the selfawareness of the singular subject and revealing to him his unity with all, his “doubling” in all, his full “objektlessness”9 and “freedom.”10 Therefore it fundamentally excludes every kind of opposition:11 both moral fragmentation in the person’s soul, and the social disunification of earthly life, and separation of the soul from the Heavenly Father. Love not only unifies one human being with another, but establishes at the same time the unity of the human with God. This unity is realized along the paths of inner acceptance and real saturation: Divinity itself is present in the soul which actively and fully accepts love, for it in this way receives God, believes12 in him and cognizes him; in such a soul Divinity is present in the same way as the Vinei is present in all of its branches,13

1. Published first in Nohl, 243–342. Nohl relates this work tentatively to 1798–99. See Nohl Anhang 405. 2. Comp.: “als Lebendige, sind die Liebenden Eins”: Nohl 379 note. 3. “Innigste”: Nohl 323. 4. “Freude”: Nohl 323. 5. “Vereinigung des Lebens”: Nohl 322. 6. “Wirkliches Einwohnen”: Nohl 391. 7. Nohl 379. 8. “Das ganze Leben”: Nohl 379. 9. Nohl 379; comp.: 322. 10. Nohl 328. 11. “Schliesst alle Entgegensetzungen aus”: Nohl 379. 12. Comp.: Nohl 391. 13. Comp.: Nohl 391. See chapters 5 and 12.

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or as the living essence is present in its living appearances.1 Such a soul enters into a new order of life and lives in a new relationship to everything. Love unites it with other people on the paths of full, living social intercourse; it forces people to engage in an exchange of all their “varying traits”; it seeks out endless connections and addresses “the whole diversity of nature,”2 in order to realize itself in every breath; the one who loves grows into the life of the beloved, accepting that life in its entirety, to the end,3 and in this way merges with the beloved, finds himself in the beloved,4 and becomes through this “most unquestioning love”5 a member of a new, organic unity.6 Finally, love unifies the soul of an individual ´ with the law, “not violating the law, but fulfilling it” (πληρωϕα, Komplement),7, j i.e., filling it with his living power and accepting it as the object of personal will. Individual spirit, suffering in its separation and opposition to the law and becoming embittered in “abstract” solitariness, sees itself reconciled through love and joyously received in the womb of the heavenly union of human beings in God. Love is that most profound and vital element of the world, immersion in which forms the principle of the great reconciliation of the soul with itself, with the law, with nature, with other living creatures, and with the Divinity. Love creates a living concrete totality of souls in Spirit. This fundamental transformation in Hegel’s metaphysical experience, brought about by the Gospels, by no means determined his metaphysical project in its entirety. However, it created that irrationalistic tissue of his intuiting of the world, which was destined subsequently to enter a confluence with the logico-rationalistic schema of his world-conception. The principle of love did not subsequently retain its religious-universal significance; obvious traces of it can be found only in the doctrine of the family. However, the concretizing power of growing-into-another through lovek taught Hegel the last and the most profound word of his philosophy: the empirical separatedness of singularities is false, not final, metaphysically not the true state of the world; it is at the root of things not authentic, and on the surface eliminable by means of a spiritual, deepened, personal turning to a new life. In the life of the world what is authentic is divine concreteness, forming the true order and structure of being; this concreteness sublates all separation and establishes a universal living unity of all in God. On many grounds Hegel could not retain the preeminent significance of the principle of love. For example, it did not resolve either the 1. See chapters 5 and 7. 2. Comp.: Nohl 380. 3. Comp.: “von keiner Seite gegeneinander Todte sind”: Nohl 379. 4. “In der Liebe hat der Mensch sich selbst in einem andern wiedergefunden”: Nohl 322. 5. “Rücksichtsloseste Liebe”: Nohl 328. 6. Comp.: in love “jedes Getrennte ein Organ eines Lebendigen ist”: Nohl 381. 7. Comp.: Nohl 270, 295, 302, 389, 395, 398.

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ethical or the general philosophical problem in terms of compass.l Love, as a state of complete acceptance and growing-together into identity, cannot unite each with all: it presupposes a closeness of life, a constancy of interaction, and a great degree of individualization in a relation—it requires choice and preference. It is impossible to nourish genuine love for all: the intimate, fervent power of feeling will degenerate into empty declamations and hypocrisy. Therefore love is not a world-encompassing “organ” of the soul; it rivets spirit to empirical singularity, and degenerates as soon as the community becomes too large.1 Love is not a path to the whole and the Universal; it is not adequate to God and remains an obscure source of cognition of God.2 The ethic of love is too sensuous-empirical and insufficiently universal. This principle is all the more powerless to solve other general-philosophical problems: the essence of cognition, the essence of beauty, the composition of elementary nature—what could the sensuous, loving disposition of a kind human being tell us adequately about these problems? The world posed before Hegel other objects requiring the strict and concentrated energy of thought, of a free and justified imagination, of an inductive, cognitively impartial interest. Love as a creative act of the soul is powerless to solve these problems because it does not possess a cognitive character. Cognition is realized through other acts of the soul—through thought and imagination—and “feeling” had to cede its preeminence to them. The religious-ethical state of the soul itself had to receive philosophical explication and grounding alongside other objects. Thought is primarily the organ of cognition and philosophical construction; but it also brings with it a series of specific, immanent contents (meanings), and naturally rivets the gaze of the philosopher on the distinct and self-lawful object: the concept. The influence of Gospel teaching, accessible only to living objective intuition, saved3 and protected Hegel from an abstractly rational, formal understanding of philosophical thought, while the powerful influence of Greek philosophy, above all of Plato, completed this attraction to imagistic m thinking. And thus, on one hand, the very process of philosophizing instilled in Hegel’s searching a powerful current of a logical character; on the other hand, the great tradition proceeding from Plato and Aristotle via the “realism” of the medieval scholastics to the distinctive “panlogism” of Spinoza suggested to Hegel his doctrine of the Idea as a certain kind of highest and absolute reality. The power of thinking was permeated by living intuition and fused with creative imagination; there arose a new, dis1. Comp.: Nohl 322. 2. Nohl 295. Comp.: Recht 321–22(Z). 3. In his first theological essays Hegel expressed himself as an adherent of abstract-formal thinking and the abstractly rational concept.

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tinctive act of the cognizing spirit—the act of speculative thought. There where formal thinking would halt at imageless abstraction and formal universality, subject to the laws of identity and contradiction, speculative thinking placed Hegel before the imagistic, intuited Concept which combines logical determinateness with the real tissue of the supra-sensuous image, and combines a universal meaningful essence with a living, lawful processuality. The law of identity received a speculative-organic interpretation; the law of contradiction was converted into a scheme of dialectical opposites; the universality of the concept acquired the character of a living, real, all-encompassing unity. The act of speculative thought became the universal organ of cognition and interaction, and revealed to Hegel that the speculative Concept is present everywhere and in all things.1 The principle of love became a modification of thought, and “thought” turned out to be “the principle and essence of the world.”2 Hegel understood that the “nature” of each “object” is the same as “its Concept,”3 and that the Concept everywhere lives by the law of concrete growing-together. Thus his “logic” arose as a result of the convergence of two laws: the Gospel law of love and the logical law of contradiction; 4 both laws were modified, the second submitted to the first, and the first relocated itself into the realm of the second. One may say that the Divine revealed itself to Hegel as the principle of Reason, living in the entire world according to the law of love, i.e., of speculative concreteness. God is the principle of objektive, absolute thought and is grasped adequately only by speculative thinking; he is the Concept, and the Concept is the sole reality and the sole object of philosophy. God is the concrete totality, immanent in all being and existence,n and transforming all into a unity by the power of its substantial oneness; it is absolute power, having no other-being and therefore absolutely free; this power makes all organically one, rational, and good. The fates of the world and humanity are blessed and victorious, for in them Divinity governs its path: Reason itself, Love itself, Good itself, Truth itself, Freedom itself, the sole reality and absolute power itself. Thus, according to Hegel’s project, speculative philosophy brings a new gospel to the world: the good news of the sole reality of the Divinity and of the ineffable beauty of that purpose which is being realized in the life of the world and humanity. Philosophy is the true knowledge of God as absolute creator of all, really present in all deeds and events;5 he is the sole Subject of life, self-creating Spirit and Reason; and from his creative 1. See chapters 3 and 4. 2. Log. I 36. 3. Ph. G. 41. 4. Comp.: the definition of the Universal as love. See chapter 5. 5. Comp.: W. Beh. 415; Phän. 45; Log. III 126; Enc. I 329; Recht 314; 3 Lat. 313.

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presence everything in the world is revealed as rational and good. For “everything is the Concept.”1 This course of development, which took into itself and organically transformed a multitude of secondary influences, led Hegel to that project of “a theodicy in the form of panlogism” which he communicated to Schelling in 1799–1800 in Jena. Schelling hurried to develop it and produced two heavy and rationalistic, unfinished sketches under the title “The System of Identity.” This project was not understood by him and not realized; it remained for Hegel to realize it independently and in doing so, imperceptibly to himself, to discover that the poem of God’s path is in essence the tragedy of God’s suffering. In accordance with what has already been shown throughout the course of the entire investigation, this religious-metaphysical project possessed a deeply optimistic character. Hegel says nothing of that spectre of evil in the Divinity that Schelling accepted under the influence of Jacob Böhme and called “fundamental” or “natural” in God. On the contrary, Hegel thinks that rationality is inherent in the Divinity to the very depth of its being, and that “releasing itself ” into the world is on the part of Divinity an act of free and generous, rational celebration.2 According to Hegel’s idea everything is actually rational, i.e., all is Reason, or, what is the same thing, all is God; in other words, everything is the system of Concepts, or speculative Science.3 Science is the sole reality, and this logical reality is the realized Good itself. And so the theodicy conceived in such a way was to undergo a profound crisis. Any philosophical doctrine has its fate embedded within itself, or, more accurately, predestined by its central idea. This internal fate, immanent in the doctrine itself, is determined by the relation between the negative and positive inspiration of the doctrine, on one hand, and the authentic, objective situation, on the other. A philosophy adequate to the object would be a true philosophy. In actuality any philosophical doctrine is to a greater or lesser degree inadequate to the existing object, and from the side of intuition this can be expressed either in the fact that it doesn’t see the present, objektive content, or in the fact that it sees in the object some characteristic not inherent in it. However, the power of a philosophical doctrine lies not only in an adequate seeing of the object, but also in the classical sweep, in the astonishing depth, in the passionate consistency with which the doctrine is professed and developed in its untrue part. Such a philosophy has the miraculous gift “to reveal” even 1. Comp.: Log. I 242; Log. III 330, 330–31, 339, 348; Enc. I 229, 319, 345; Enc. III 353; Recht 22, 314. 2. See chapters 8 and 9. 3. See chapters 9 and 10.

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where it itself does not “see,” and “to give” even where it itself has not “received”; to teach by means of its distortions, to educate by means of its mistakes. For even in distorting the object, it still opens up access to it, it “sees” more than it itself knows, it thinks through and exhausts its deviation to the end. Such a philosophy is wiser than itself.o The fate of Hegel’s philosophy is determined by its passionate desire to show that everything is rational.p What he saw in the object and fell in love with by the whole power of his spirit presented him with the theoretical problem of a theodicy, revealed in the form of a panlogical monism.1 This task could not fail to bring his doctrine into a serious conflict with the irrational ingredients of being, and this conflict posed the threat of unrealizability, both for the form of monism, and also for the panlogical content. The dualistic divergence of the Divine path was already apparent in the Logic. There it was discovered that in the relation of the “highest and primordial sphere” to the “subordinate spheres” the law of “speculative universality” is violated: the content of the Logic was thought to be included in the lower spheres, but the content of the lower spheres remained formally and processually isolated.2 Now the same violation is repeated in the relation of the so-called “concrete” sciences to the empirical world. The power of things compelled Hegel to recognize this world as possessing distinct being and autonomy;q and thus the speculative relation between science and nature recedes into the background, and a more usual understanding comes to the fore, in accordance with which the spatiotemporal series exists in its own right, in its own particular sequence, while the science “of it” retains its structure and order. This means that upon emerging from the Logic the Divine path splits, and there arise two parallel lines. One line leads, as was already indicated, from the “Logic of the beginning”r to the Philosophy of Nature, to the Philosophy of Spirit, and finally, to the “Logic of the end.” The other leads from the “Logic of the beginning” to empirically real nature, to living, human consciousness, and, finally, to its speculative dissolution in the Concept. Nature does not coincide with the Philosophy of Nature since the life of the Divine before the creation of the world was exhausted by the categorial process of the Logic; in just the same way the psychic life of people on earth doesn’t coincide with the Philosophy of Spirit; the swarms of “appearances” and the “images” of beauty are not identical with the Philosophy of Art; the living ethical life of the nations doesn’t coincide with the Philosophy of Right; the historical process as such cannot be called the Philosophy of History. Here are 1. See chapter 8.

2. See chapter 9.

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discovered two lines, each of which has a distinct nature and a distinct significance. The first is the systematic-scientific series; the whole of it, from beginning to end, remains in the element of the speculative Concept, of its living forms and its laws; in this series each ens is the dialectically organic outcome of preceding states, connected with them by the order of speculative necessity and occupying, among adjacent determinations of the Divinity, the place solely corresponding to it. In this series nothing is eliminated or “remains behind”; in it there are no collapses or failures, disorder or confusion. This is the path of Divinity as the completed system of the speculative ascent. The second line represents something completely different. It is the cosmic-historical series, containing in itself a deep falling-away of the Divinity from a purely speculative development. This falling-away leads to the emergence of finite, singular, and sensuous, empirical existence, in which causality and chance, discreteness and discord, multiplicity and chaos reign.1 The empirical world leads a non-rational, anti-rational, irrational existence: empirically external, material; and empirically internal, psychic. The distinction between these two series is so substantive and deep that between them one discovers not only non-coincidence, but outright mutual exclusion. Their essence and significance are such that the being of one series signifies the nonbeing of the other; and conversely. From a metaphysical and religious point of view this distinction must be articulated in such a way that the assertion of the empirical, sensuous world of singular and finite things and states is the negation of God; and conversely, to say “God is being” means to profess that the concrete-empirical world does not possess being. For the Divine substance of logical meaning cannot have alongside itself an other possessed of distinct being and self-lawfulness.s Hegel’s “Concept” has before itself its “double.” The “concreteempirical” is its odious alter ego, which can neither be accepted nor rejected and which transforms the monism of being into a philosophically unrealized task. The concrete-empirical must not be accepted in its distinct being and self-lawfulness:t in such a form it is a limitation and negation of the Divinity. To rest content with this splitting of substance means to acknowledge that substance is plunged into the deepest malady, which it is powerless to overcome; and this is tantamount not only to the rejection of a philosophical explication of theodicy, but a recognition that the 1. See chapters 1 and 10.

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Divinity is filled with an ill-fated helplessness into which it plunged by its own will. But in such a case the concrete-empirical series must be rejected. Hegel tried out this path too and . . . again didn’t find an objective and creative outcome. Let us allow that such a manifold, chaotically discrete, spatiotemporal world of things simply does not exist: it is an illusion of the confused human imagination, guided by the delusions of sensuousness. Let us allow that the human soul is blinded by these delusions and must forcibly overcome this blindness in itself. Let us allow that the appeal of human consciousness to the speculative Concept is possible only on the path of disavowal of everything sensuous, finite, subjective, personal, through the extinction of the last remnants of the “empirical” and the “objektification” of finite consciousness.1 And what would we have? The philosophical negation of the world does not affect the object, but only “judgments about it.”u Nature as an infinite multiplicity of spatiotemporal appearances and events continues to exist, regardless of this speculative ostracism. It continues to be in accordance with its own laws and its own order: sensuously perceived large and small material things of the empirical world—earth, and stars, and air, and mountains, and the sea, and stones, and plants, and animals, and people—none of this disappears at the beck of a “non-accepting” philosophy; all of this continues as before its infinitely complex, temporally real process, being carried along from an unknown past to an unknown future, carrying along with itself the real, biological makeup of the philosopher who is forgetting himself in the intuition of meaning. The empirical world remains as before the condition of his life and death; it conceals in itself, as before, living beauty and living chaos. And the proud speculative “no” is helpless to resolve this problem: fata nolentem trahunt.v The assertion that this “persistence” of the non-disappearing world is an illusion, a sham, a delusion, doesn’t satisfy and doesn’t reassure cognition. Even if the sensory capability of the human soul is blamed for this delusion, evoking “obscure representations” in people, as Leibniz already pointed out, this means only that the human being in any event is involved in the lower, non-speculative mode of being. The empirical makeup of humanity isn’t subject to doubt; but in that case, on what basis is it rejected in the world? And if the “sensuous mode of being” must be overcome in humanity, then that alone testifies to the fact that it remains for the Concept to enter into a creative (because overcoming) relation with the real, though not speculative, element of the world as a whole. 1. See chapters 3 and 4.

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The creative outcome necessary for Hegel cannot consist in the negation of the concrete-empirical. For the negation of the finite world means a rejection of the problem of the “great transition” being accomplished by the Absolute. To establish that there is no transition because the “relative” as such doesn’t exist, means not to resolve the problem but to suspendw it. But the problem precisely must be solved and moreover— for a pantheist—monistically. To resolve the problem of the transition monistically means to demonstrate that the concrete-empirical possesses distinct and self-lawfulx being; but that in this its distinct being it reveals only the being of the Concept; and that in this capacity for self-lawfulness it realizes in mysterious fashion only the one speculative law. This means demonstrating that the mutual exclusion of the Divinity and the world in reality does not obtain, that between the absolute and the relative there is no enmity or non-acceptance. This means to master the secret of enmity and to sublate it; for the secret of all enmity consists in the fact that the one negated is strengthened by the negation, and the rejection forges an enemy who lives by it and in his turn nourishes it. The double of the Concept will melt away only when the rejected and split-away principle, which has separated as the double, is accepted. Thus, the concrete-empirical must be accepted and included in the makeup of the Divine path. This acceptance may extend either to all its fragments and states, or not to all. The first would necessarily have led to the concrete-empirical world appearing as the system of speculative “singularities,” permeated and united by the universality present in them; fragments of “nature” and history would have turned out to be living parts of the scientific Concept, and the scientific Concept would have appeared as their living essence. Given the consistent carrying out of such a maximal conception, it would necessarily have been revealed that neither in nature, nor in the human, nor in the heavens, nor on earth would there be such a thing or such a state as one which would have been torn away from the one universaly center, from the “world or universalz will,” which would be contingent, defective, or solitary—in a word, which would not have been divine. Then it would have turned out that divine “substance” possesses “attributes” and “modes,” but that not one of these “modes” as such could be expelled from the life of the Divinity. Each singular and finite thing would have turned out then to be organically necessary in the life of the cosmos: it would have been the only one of its kind and the irreplaceable realization of the generic essence of the corresponding attribute. Each singular and finite thing would be an emanation or an organ of divine universality, realizing it in such a way and revealing in it that which no other thing whatsoever realizes or reveals in it. Then the entire world would actually have turned out

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to be included in the speculative series of the Divine path—accepted and justified. The Divine path would have exhausted, through its free necessity and its speculative organicity, everything existing: both nature and the entire life of humanity and the new “delight” of the soul in philosophy and in the “Logic of the end.” Then philosophy would actually have “seen” and “shown” the whole of existence, including the entire material world and the entire psychic world as the self-realization of God, i.e., as a state of absolutely real living meaning. Philosophy would be able to affirm unshakably that indeed “everything is the Concept”;1 that truly “outside of God there is no existence whatever,”2 for that which is not God, is an illusion.aa It is not subject to any doubt whatever that only given such an understanding of the world could it appear as that “organic cosmos,” in which “spirit doesn’t lose itself ” and which remains precisely for that reason a “blessed” and a “purposive system,” founding its “sacred” order and maintaining its “primordial beauty.” Harmony between “reason” and “the world” is possible only on the condition that both “sides” live by means of a pure speculative order, i.e., constantly and consistently realize the law of “universality” and the law of “speculative concreteness” as their necessary, immanent order of life. This condition presupposes not only the presence in the world of a qualitatively authentic order of life, but also a holistic fullness in the compass of the world. . . . It is difficult to say what Hegel’s system would have looked like, given a consistent carrying through and realization of this conception. It is beyond doubt only that he didn’t realize it in such a form;3 the empirical world was not included by him in the speculative series as an ingredient with full rights. Hegel never could deal with the easy and natural, naively realistic recognition that empirical things exist in actual fact;bb he would always have been glad of a new and reliable proof of their illusoriness and nonbeing. Still less could he assert with the power of conclusive self-evidence that these things and their states possess an utterly and entirely speculative nature. To allow such a “dissolution” of God in the finite world means, he thinks, to subordinate the Divine to the form of empirical being, to fragment it and convert pantheism into some sort of “all-divinity” (Allesgötterei).4 The world of the sensuous empirical cannot be justified and rendered meaningful as a whole, neither in terms of compass, nor in terms of its qualitative makeup. For such an outcome Hegel lacked the religious-philosophical 1. Comp.: Enc. I 345; Log. III 330, 348; Recht 22. 2. “Die Philosophie . . . ausser Gott gar kein Bestehen und Nichts anerkennt”: Glaub. 134. 3. Comp.: chapter 10. 4. Bhag. 422; comp.: Beweise 440, 441, 442.

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self-evidence and the certainty that any being and any existence is truly and in its entirety good.cc The absence of this self-evidence sprang, of course, from deep and quite objective bases. It is possible that a whole series of motives connected with the personal character of Hegel and with his epoch were joined with them. Thus, an easy and joyous love for immediate and unconscious natural life as such was alien to the entire structure of his soul. On the other hand, the incomplete scientific knowledge of the empirical world and the unrealizability of a completed cognition of it always testifies, for the intellectualist, to the real, objektive contingency and chaotic fragmentariness of the empirical world. Finally, the historical epoch being experienced by Europe at that time might have strengthened Hegel in this counterposing of the senseless contingency of the concrete empirical to the good speculative order of divine life. It was an epoch of internal political immaturity and breakdowns, an epoch of tremendous military and political dislocations, unforeseen events and sudden perturbations entangling to the point of indecipherability all the filaments of empirical influence, transforming the fate of the human into the plaything of “chance” and manifesting the apparent triumph of chaos.dd All of this led to the point that acceptance of the empirical world could receive from Hegel only a partial form—in terms of compass, or in terms of qualitative makeup, or in both. But in such a case, the “virtue of the world” could express on his lips the perfection of only the “rational” parts and conditions; and the “theodicy” had to lose its monistic character. One can say with certainty that a pantheism, accepting the world only partly, inevitably leads either to dualism or to violence to the object and its content. Dualism is the result when one recognizes that the empirical world possesses being, but is not included entirely or doesn’t enter in part into the makeup of the Divinity. Violence to the content of the object obtains in case it should be recognized that the empirical world does not possess being. In the first case pantheism loses its monistic character, i.e., will be realized only as a “partial pantheism,” or, strictly speaking, will not be realized at all. In the second case philosophy will apprehend in itself an element of objective violence, prejudice, and blindness, which element will take revenge by drawing behind itself a hidden form of dualism as well. And thus Hegel’s doctrine actually wavers constantly between a hidden form of dualism and an objectively violent, prejudiced negation of the concrete empirical. Speculative philosophy always faces a certain problematic residuum which can in no way find for itself an exhaustive explanation and a systematic localization. The concrete-empirical world as such, once excluded from the sphere of Divine being, turns out to be too little speculative to organically enter into the line of scientific being; but too in-

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tensively real to remain entirely beyond the limits of the Divine path and the philosophical speculation tracing its course. Once having rejected that conception of pantheism which accepts the entire empirical world, Hegel had to pose for himself the unresolvable question: “What is that being which is not God?” The empirical world in its external and internal makeup was to have been rendered meaningful and explained without fail. But to “render meaningful” signifies for Hegel to “render speculatively meaningful,” i.e., to show the absolute necessity of what is made meaningful as a definite rational and mature step in the Divine path. How is it possible to “render meaningful” something which excludes itself from the sphere of rational, Divine being? All of this can be expressed in the claim that the Divinity, releasing itself into the state of “other-being,” turns out to be drawn into a process that doesn’t submit to rational ordering: the law of speculative concretization (organic enrichment) led the Divinity to the creation of an element which cannot be accepted by it, but which it is powerless to reject. The concrete-empirical is necessary to God for his ascent, but it is precisely an obstacle,1 burdening and retarding God’s growth. How is the achievement of “unity in God” and “monism in philosophy” possible here? Hegel’s philosophical doctrine is profoundly dramatic in its construction and development. Objektively it is the drama of the world-creating Divinity. Subjectively it is the drama of a philosopher who doesn’t “accept” the world, and all the same does accept it. And the spirit of the philosopher follows after the Divine Spirit through all the great ordeals of world-creation: through the falling away from the “pure Concept,” which expresses itself subjectively as the necessity to “think the external”; through the confused self-loss of the Idea, experienced subjectively as the impossibility to accept the concrete-empirical and the necessity to sink wholly into the speculative intuition of the pure Concept; through the severe work of the Concept on the manifestation of itself in nature, perceived subjectively in the form of presentiments, gleams, and hints of the hidden speculativeness of things; through the emergence of a speculative order in the world and the arising in it of a spiritual principle, confirming the philosopher in the truth of a speculative vision of the essence of the world. All of this complex speculatively historical process is the drama of Divine life, a genuine theogony, and therefore its series develops naturally into the vital practical struggle of Spirit with other-being. This ascent achieves its qualitatively highest limit in speculative philosophy and particularly in the “Logic of the end,” inculcating in the human soul an 1. Ph. G. 53: “das Wahre feindselige Hinderniss.”

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authentic revelation. The limit of this consists in spirit, enriched in the human soul by self-consciousness, becoming convinced of the speculative identity of the subject (cognizing human reason) and the objekt (the cognizable world). Both sides are really “one,” i.e., states of a single rational substance. However, by this means are decided the fate and content of theogony, but neither the compass nor the process nor the content of the cosmogony is exhausted. In other words: the scientific series closes itself into a strict system, but the series of world events continues its flow and accomplishes its fate in the grip of a senseless necessity and evil chance. Indeed, “speculative philosophy” is only the beginning of spiritual liberation: qualitatively the liberation is whole and complete; but the compass of what is liberated is limited, for the world still remains unilluminated. Hegel hails speculative philosophy only as the sunrise; there remains still a long day of suffering and struggle. This is a given and accepted Divine revelation; it must still become the property of the whole world. The world, unilluminated, constrained by sensuous form, unfree and suffering, remains the creative task of Spirit, and “world history will finish” this liberation only over “millennia.”1 Hegel sets out naturally and imperceptibly on the path outlined by Fichte. Principled theoretical opposition is considered and reconciled not so much in a philosophical construction as in its profound, real makeup. The problem of “monism” is for Hegel in essence not a problem of doctrine, but a problem of the being of God; and not a question of “how to construct a doctrine” concerning God, but the real task of Divinity itself, creating “other-being” and overcoming it in the guise of a world. The relation of God and the world is a dynamically practical collision between the “Absolute” and the “relative other-being” created by it, a collision unfolding into a continuous struggle, and only slowly, gradually, in defections and sufferings, realizing the victory of the Absolute. The arena for this struggle and this victory is the world; and philosophy describes this process with the competence of clairvoyance, disclosing the theogonic sense of the infinitely drawn-out cosmogony. As a result of these complications, Hegel’s doctrine loses its character as a monism during its realization. The unity and exclusiveness of the supreme principle remain a constructive task for philosophy insofar as it remains a real task for Divinity itself. And it is natural to assume that philosophy, adequately describing the ascent of Divinity, will take on the traits of a monistic pantheism only when the process is completed in the Absolute. 1. Aesth. I 116; comp.: Ph. G. 30, 51. Specifically concerning the future of Russia, see the letter to Baron Üxküll: Ros. 304, 305.

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In profound, substantive connection with this “formal” crisis of pantheistic theodicy in Hegel stands a crisis of “panlogistic” content, arising in a systematic “acceptance of the world.” To accomplish this speculative acceptance of the world of empirical things and states was for Hegel a particularly difficult task, because his very fundamental approach to the object obstructed or in any event complicated his access to everything “non-logical.” Philosophy, in his understanding, links the “two” sides, the subjective and the objective, in such a way that between them arises a mutual absorption and dissolution: the “subject” becomes a state of the “object,” and the “object” realizes itself in the element of the “subject.”1 Such a concrete, i.e., grown-together confluence or “identity” presupposes a “selective affinity,” or a “preestablished harmony” between the two sides. But the act of the subject, giving itself over to speculative philosophy, is above all an act of thought, and therefore its content by necessity always turns out to be meaning, or, conditionally speaking, the “concept.” Speculative meaning is logically imagistic ee and logically living ff meaning, but still meaning; in order to see that, it is sufficient to try to replace “living, imagistic meaning” with “living image grasped in thought,” and the failure of this substitution will attest for itself. But Hegel means precisely not an image (das Bild ), although it was saturated with a profound, divine meaning; in such an “element” “fine art”gg is formed. He means the divine Concept, speculative meaning (das Logische), imagistic in a non-sensuous image and living not by earthly, i.e., not by empirical, life. Therefore his philosophy has to do only with what is immanent to the act of speculatively self-oblivious thinking; and in this is its limit. Hegel’s entire rationalism rests on this principled-haughty and at the same time helpless refusal to deal with anything that is not immanent to thought, that is not meaning, but some other sort of “object.” It is clear that the object assigned to cognition, as it becomes an objekt of thought, does not by itself turn into “meaning,” immanent to the intellectual act. It preserves its mode of “being” or “existing” and doesn’t disappear in the act of thinking. Thus, for example, a spatiotemporal, material thing, becoming an “objekt” of thought, remains a thing and preserves its mode of being even in the event that one succeeds in thinking “of it” adequately. Even the adequate thinking of its meaning cannot liquidate its character of “thinghood” and the fate of its “thinghood.” It remains that real substrate which “is meant” in the process of thinking and to which “is related” the meaning which is thought, ordinarily converted by the power of imagination into the real properties attributed to it. 1. See chapters 3 and 4.

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In this fashion, between the “object” (circa quod versatur)hh and the “concept,” i.e., the meaning (conceptus), there remains an essential categorial distinction, which is preserved to a certain degree also in the event that “objektive meaning” (conceptus objektivus, Begriff-an-sich, the idea of Plato) itself is the “object.” It is natural that this categorial specificity of the object requires each time another structure of the cognitive act. And thus, Hegel’s difficulty consists in the fact that he canonized a cognitive act of such structure as corresponds only to the “logically imagistic meaning”ii and to nothing more: “cognition” is reduced by him not even simply to “thinking,” but to “speculative thinking.” It would be vain to hope that the participation of “imagination,”jj organically included by Hegel in the process of thought, would help matters: what is imagined by the speculative imagination is not the sensuous image of an individual empirical thing. The speculative imagination imagines the “non-sensuous,” “abstract,” and “universal,” and by no means coincides with sensuous imagination, accommodated to empirical things. The act of speculative thought is not a sum, consisting of an “act of thought” and an “act of imagination,” but an organically unified act of “imaging thought.” Such an act can have to do only with “imaged meaning,” or, what is the same thing, only with meaning which in essence is an image. Cognition, driven by such an image, does not possess even the possibility of “ascribing” the imaginable-thinkable to something which is not “imagistic meaning,” or “to intend” this categorially other object; for the genuine, absolute essence of the one Objectkk itself is immanently “present” in this act. For Hegel the “object” is the Concept itself and only the Concept; nothing which is not the Concept can be cognized, for cognition is the self-cognition of the speculative Concept. In this fashion, for Hegel’s philosophy, access to any object not immanent in speculative thought turns out to be closed off. And each time that it must deal with such a distinctive non-logical object, in which speculative meaning may be hidden, but which in itself is not the Concept, it finds itself to be in significant difficulty. “The thing,” “the psychical,” “the aesthetic,” “the religious,” “the ethical,” “the historical”—all these are in essence the objects with which philosophy cannot fail to deal, but which at the same time exist not in the element of the logical. And thus Hegel is forced each time that his philosophy touches one of these areas, to accommodate, to reconstruct the act of cognition, and on the path of circumvention to assert the “rationality” of the objective sphere being investigated.1 Speculative philosophy poses for itself an unsolvable task: to reveal that 1. Comp.: chapter 16: the philosophy of right is constructed not by intuitive thinking, but by the thinking imagination.

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all is the Concept, implying from the very beginning that if the given object is not the Concept, then it cannot be recognized as real. It is understandable why the attempt to solve this problem leads to a profound conflict with the irrational element of being. Hegel’s project consisted in realizing a theodicy in the form of panlogism,ll and this laid upon him the task of showing that in actuality everything is the Concept, i.e., self-thinking meaning. “Everything is speculative self-thinking”: that is the thesis which he had to justify. And thus, in the face of “other-being” panlogism encounters an insuperable difficulty and collapses. This fundamental difficulty leads to Hegel having to abandon the conception of rationalism and replace it with a conception of teleology. In reality, that which he terms “reason” is something deeper and broader than “thinking” and speculative “self-thinking.” Hegel himself feels this, turning constantly to other terms; and his philosophy was destined to reveal that the terms Divinity and reason are not univocal. Divinity does not coincide with “reason” and doesn’t share the fate of “thinking.” It lives and creates there where the Concept “betrays itself,” “falls away from itself,” withdraws into the state of other-being, or even completely loses the character of thought and consciousness. Nature, soul, art, and ethical life live and create themselves in elements which are not thinking or meaning. And therefore, there where there is no thinking or consciousness, where “the mode of existence” is, for example, sensuous matter, in which a hidden “agent” struggles for an organically concrete form, there “rational thinking” is absent, and Divinity continues its business. It is remarkable that Hegel in these spheres as well continues to speak of the presence of the Concept as though “self-thinking” didn’t constitute its essential root and fundamental attribute. It stands to reason that if the “logical” is nothing other than the “speculatively concrete,” if the essence of the Concept is exhausted in the attribute of “the organic grown-togetherness of opposing forces,” then “panlogism” does not suffer any collapse. In other words, if organicity is the exhaustive essence of the Logos, then everything, concealing within itself a teleological symbiosis (or its like), is logical. But precisely in this is hidden the difficulty: the term “Concept” possesses on Hegel’s lips two different contents, related to each other as generic to specific, while the positions of the two in the system are not identical. The first meaning of “Concept” is prepared in the Phenomenology of Spirit, which moves toward the highest level of “absolute knowing,” and is formed in the Logic, revealing the very essence of the Idea. There the Concept has the significance of “dialectically organic self-thinking”: it is the living meaning which is self-thinking, dialectically breaking up into

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oppositions and organically growing together into a higher concrete synthesis. The second meaning is formed in the “concrete” sciences, uncovering the essence of the universe. Here the Concept receives the meaning of “organic self-creation”; it is a power hidden in the world which creates itself in the struggle of disparate principles, striving to realize an organic unification or at least its likeness. Here is revealed the essential distinction: the Concept in the world does not think; it is no longer a “self-thinking” principle; it creates itself without thought, at least up to the very awakening of human consciousness, and perhaps even after it; this is already not logically manifest meaning, but a natural, hidden power; the dialectical divergence loses its sharpness and its rhythm, often spreading out into simple empirical difference; organic unification all too often remains an unrealized task. Given all this, it is clear that only the first meaning of “Concept” can be placed in the foundation of panlogism. Only in the element of thought and thinking is it possible to be raised to meaning, to the “Logos,” and to panlogistic philosophy; there is no basis and it is not worth talking about the “Logos” where thought is not an essentially necessary attribute. Therefore one can say that the first meaning of the “Concept” could have led to panlogism, if it were justified in the sphere of other-being; but the empirical world itself doesn’t justify it, and at the same time panlogism must be considered an objectively incorrect conception. The second meaning of “the Concept,” if one assumes that this meaning is justified in the world of empirical existence, can lie in the foundation of theodicy; however, it is deprived of logical character and is incapable of grounding a panlogism. These two “Concepts”—the Concept-Logos and the ConceptTelos—relate to one another as specific to generic. Precisely the “thinking” Concept is a variety of “organic self-creation,” but the “organically developing” world Concept is not a variety of “speculative thinking”; given this, the “Concept-Logos” is formed through the “enrichment” of the Concept-Telos by the attribute of thought. Therefore, if one speaks of the fundamental element always present in the “Concept,” of its root essence, then it is exhausted by the characteristic of organic self-creation. Precisely this characteristic comprises the essentiale of Divinity, “the universal basis of the Divine nature,” that “pure ether in which God dwells”;1 its presence is the sign of the substantial presence of God. This characteristic is inherent in the Concept not only in the logic, but also in the being of the world. It is precisely this characteristic that makes the Concept something supra-logical, determining not only the life of God before the creation of the world, but constituting that basic and substantial, com1. Beweise 360.

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mon and unified nature of the Divinity in which Hegel vainly tried to include the principle of thinking.1 God is that essence which lives and creates itself in the form of an organic, self-enriching, self-acting power; in this form and in these properties it remains true to itself in the “Logic of the beginning” as well, where it is moreover rational through an unmediated rationality, and in “nature,” where it is not rational at all; and in the “soul of the human,” where it is rational only in part or in specific terms; and in the “Logic of the end,” where it is rational through the highest, mediated-unmediated rationality. This means that Hegel’s doctrine didn’t show and could not show as it were that everything existing is rational through a logical rationality; 2 it had to recognize, due to an objectively based necessity, that there are non-rational spheres, i.e., not living by the power of thought, consciousness, and self-consciousness; that even if the law of speculative concreteness is realized in everything, the self-thinking of the Concept is not. The rationalist, expecting that Hegel will demonstrate the innermost goodness of the actual world through the disclosure of its “logicality,” will see something unexpected. Speculative philosophy argues for something else, which may not satisfy every “rationalist”: the existing is substantially good because its life is the realization of speculative concreteness, of this most perfected, divine symbiosis in multiplicity. Hegel realizes a theodicy through the discovery that divine power is immanent in the existing, moving it to a higher form of life: organic totality or speculative universality. Speculative concreteness is the highest state of all that is real; this state is a real mode of life realizing itself in everything; this mode of life comprises the fundamental, deepest character of the Divinity. Therefore, the process of speculative concretization, no matter where it comes to light, is the clear and indubitable sign of the authentic, substantial presence and action of Divine power. Everything existing is the one movement of Divinity to this richest and organically holistic life; by means of this movement all is welded into a unity, into a necessarily shared ordering of levels. In this way, under the guise of “panlogism” (“all is the concept”), all the works of Hegel argue for “pan-teleologism” (“all is purposive”)mm or, if you will, a distinctive “pan-concretism.” His philosophy lives in the element of organic concreteness, which acquires the character of thought 1. Of this sought-for content of the Concept Hegel says: “ohne vom Begriffe des Begriffes etwas zu kennen, . . . kann vom Wesen Gottes, als Geistes überhaupt nichts verstanden werden”: Beweise 345. This is also that “was der spekulative Begriff des Begriffes selbst ist”: Beweise 342. 2. Comp.: “logische Natur des Begriffs”: Beweise 354; “der Begriff—das logisch Vernünftige”: Beweise 393; “das Logisch-Vernünftige”: Enc. III 412.

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only on the highest level. Everywhere that this element and its structure are discovered Hegel speaks of “rationality” and “divinity”; the sole stable criterion of it is precisely the growing-together of opposing elements into an organic synthesis. The secret of Hegelian philosophy lies deeper than its widely known surface appearance: its final word is not “concept” but “organism.” Having posed “panlogism” before himself as a task, Hegel naturally did not encounter any substantive difficulties so long as he was moving along the line of speculative catharsis in the Phenomenology of Spirit, or remained within the limits of the Logic. But with the transition to “nature” and “the human” everything changed. Between thinking and the new “object” no “elective affinity” and “preestablished harmony” was discovered; a joyous encounter, dissolving the soul,nn turns out to be unrealizable; the speculative fusing of subject and objekt didn’t take place. The element of the “thing” and the “unconscious psyche” turned out to be alien to the element of rationality, and the object did not become “immanent” in speculative thinking. Under the pressure of this circumstance, in the face of the “nonmeaning” and the “non-thinking,” something new was revealed: “not everything that is, is logically rational.” This meant that the theodicy could not be realized in the element of the “logical,” that some other criterion was necessary. It was necessary to ascribe to “reason” a narrower meaning, and in this way to widen the sphere of its application and supremacy. Hegel was forced, without noticing it, to be satisfied that “logical rationality” is not the essentiale of the Concept and of Reason. It is understandable that the “speculative” conception of thought made this concession easier. The elements of life and the imagistic, from the very beginning included in thought, imbued it with organic nature and gave it the character of “inner purposiveness.” The “logos” was from the very beginning penetrated by “telos,” and by this means, to a certain extent, delogicized. Reason concealed within itself the deepest identification with the non-rational element, which crept into its content, satiated reason with itself, modified its nature, and forced the entire doctrine to take on the character of “irrationalistic panlogism.” Reason remained militant reason, affirming itself as all and everything, as the Concept. But the Concept itself turned out to be saturated with the depth of the irrational, its substantive nature and its mode of life. “Meaning” was penetrated with the essence of “non-meaning”; the concept lost its pure, rationalistic character; the irrational restored its rights on the circuitous path. Evidently, this outcome, borne by Hegel over long years of teleological investigation and literary silence, was already found about that time when he began his lecturing activity in Jena and published his first

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articles. All of his subsequent philosophy reveals and realizes this form of “panlogism”; and its distinctiveness consists precisely in the attempt to organically fuse thought with meaning and to saturate reason itself with the depth of the irrational. This plan of his already concealed within itself a certain reconciliation between “rationalism” and “irrationalism”; and it is remarkable that Hegel saw in this reconciliation not a concession of pure reason, but on the contrary, the affirmation and disclosure of a higher Rationality. Hegel’s Concept is distinguished from the “formal” concept precisely by the fact that it is at its root significantly delogicized, that it is burdened with characteristics which are inherent in the essentially nonlogical spheres: living nature, the living soul, realized beauty, real ethical life. The speculative Concept is made alive, ensouled, inspirited; it is reality, a real factor, a creative power; it lives according to the law of its inner purposiveness; it is an organism. The speculative Concept was from the very beginning set above the usual, dry, and strict logic of nonimagistic meaning: meaning was saturated with life and organicity, and organic life was included in the essentialia of meaning. In this way was prepared a new compromise. There where it turned out that the object was not rational with logical rationality, i.e., with the rationality of meaning, thinking, and self-thinking, philosophy obtained the possibility of acknowledging that the element of thinking does not consist in a series of necessary attributes of the Concept. Facing the logically non-rational object, the Concept raised itself as it were to a higher level and affirmed itself in terms of non-thinking self-creation. It turned out that the Concept could fail to think itself, while yet remaining the Concept; it lives, of course, a more perfected life when it does think itself, and moreover think itself in the element of unmediated self-consciousness (speculative science and particularly the “Logic of the End”); but in nature it doesn’t cease to be the Concept, precisely because it retains its substantial attribute: an inwardly purposive self-activity. One can say that logical rationality is a higher level in terms of perfection, but in terms of content, it is a variety of teleological rationality. In the transition into the world and to the Philosophy of Nature, the Concept turns out to be powerless to retain in its makeup a speculatively logical, properly “rational,” nature and is concentrated on the speculatively teleological, properly “organic,” nature. Hegel’s concession consists, accordingly, in the transition from a panlogistic project to a pan-teleological realization of theodicy. In the idea of God “logical rationality” is an accidens, and “teleological speculation” is the essentiale. The Divinity is the Concept, i.e., the organically self-creating substantial subject, the essence of which is constituted by the speculative telos. As a result of this concession, Hegel’s

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philosophy turns out to be closer to the doctrines of Aristotle and Giordano Bruno than to the doctrine of Spinoza; the romantic content gains the upper hand over the rationalistic form. Thus, the form of “panlogism” chosen by Hegel for the disclosure of a theodicy was doomed to crisis and replacement. Of the two fundamental, historically inherited conceptions of reason—“thinking Reason” and “purposively creating Reason”—Hegel begins with the first, and finishes with the second. But since this transition from rationalism to teleologism is accomplished by him not in the form of a recognized break or a fundamental renewal, but in the form of a narrative of the impoverishment of content of “the Concept in other-being,” it turns out that the Concept remains the Concept even after it ceases to be the Concept. Hegel’s doctrine remains in external appearance a militant and encroaching rationalism even after the power of the summons by the object forced him to accept a less audacious character and turn to a more modest program. Hegel remains here true to his original inspiration, brilliantly visionary in the sphere of thought, and aristocratically far-sighted in the sphere of empirical existence; he repeats in himself the Platonic image of the philosopher, having returned from the world of pure ideas and languishing in the inadequacy of the “mixed world.” And he turns to this world of great mixing with a religious-sounding appeal to “manifest its true face” and disclose its “ideal” nature. He confidently, insistently demands that “things” and “circumstances” not hide behind their deceptive empirical shell and not lead the philosopher into temptation. And celebrating, he rejoices when in answer to this call things manifest to him . . . their partial and relative purposiveness. “Where there is telos there is also its creator, its sole author, the Concept; for genuine purposiveness is present only in the Concept”; thus argues Hegel, defending his right to speak of the “logos” there where, perhaps, are scarcely to be discovered weak hints of “telos.”1 The conception of a “speculatively genetic” series, in which the “lower” is a state of the very “highest,” creatively developing for itself a worthy existence, covers over the transition from the maximal project to the minimal fulfillment. Strictly speaking, Hegel did not show that the telos of the world is nothing other than the divine Logos; therefore, speaking of “the Concept in nature,” he pronounced no more than the result of a romantic “intuition” and led himself into error relative to the “rationalism” and “panlogism” realized by him. Can one be surprised that many writing on him could lapse into this same error, following him? In this transition from panlogism to pan-teleologism, the fundamental task—to outline a theodicy—retained all of its significance and forced 1. See chapters 10, 11, and 12.

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philosophical thought to accommodate itself to the empirical material. And in this accommodation the fundamental speculative laws were gradually losing their “logical” nature and their original rigor; moreover, sometimes in the accommodation they changed their very essence and retained only a semblance of their primordial structure. Finally, the law of universality revealed characteristics putting it in conflict with the law of organic concreteness. And despite all of this, the world of empirical existence was not exhausted by the criterion of purposiveness. Thus the rhythm of the dialectic, gradually softening and losing its regularity and its sharpness, was completely lost in the content of the concrete sciences. The second member of the opposition ceased to arise from the first (for example, in the philosophy of history); both members ceased to reveal a speculative equality of rights (for example, “will” and “thing” in right); their synthesis ceased to retain all the content of each side (for example, the disappearance of crime in ethical life, or the extinction of sensuous content in philosophy). The dialectical genesis came to be replaced on occasion by a simple differentiating contrast (for example, “error – fraud – crime”); or by the schema “universal – particular – singular” (for example, from “will” to “crime”; and conversely, from “morality” to “ethical life”); or by the schema “an sich – für sich – an und für sich” (for example, right – morality – ethical life); or in the philosophy of history.1 There appeared oppositions not grown together (for example, things in nature; people and states in ethics), and organic concreteness ceased to crown a “dialectical” divergence. Along with this, the unity of speculative development was lost and conceded its place to the parallel empirical series. The one series of theogony prior to the world was sundered into two great channels: speculative science and the empirical world;2 and the unified concreteness of the Idea crowning the entire progress in the Logic turned into a multiplicity of “concretenesses,” simultaneously and everywhere striving to make ends meet among uncoordinated empirical phenomena. Such a divergence of the Divine path was also expressed in a double violation of the law of Universality: first, the content of the Logic entered the world as its living essence, but the content of the world was not included in the Logic as its living part; second, the makeup of the world was not included in the concrete sciences as their living tissue. The universal essence could not absorb the empirical singularities in the way it included in itself the speculative singularities of the categories; and even singular world shapes remained, by the mode of their existence, beyond the limits of speculative science. 1. See chapter 21.

2. See chapters 9, 10, and 11.

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Finally, the law of universality being realized in the empirical sphere, diverged from the law of organic concreteness: there where empirical singularities (for example, things, persons) remained outside the organic growing-together of one with the other and continued to lead a dispersed existence (a violation of concreteness), they all the same retained their substantial essence and remained as modifications of the one, higher Universality. The principle of singularity remained a principle of opposition1 despite the fact that speculative unity subordinated to itself all its parts: thus, for example, people in the state, and states in history are included in the substantial Universality, but are not grown together with one another according to the law of speculative concreteness. All of these digressions, deviations, and conflicts were called forth, as is already clear, by the fact that the Divinity entered into cosmic existence and attached itself to an empirical mode of being. This violated the divine rhythm of its life, disrupted and divided the unity of its path, and plunged it into an entire series of such states as witness to the victory of spurious lawfulness. The immersion of the Divinity in empirical existence caused its life to lose its unity, its logical rationality, and its organic purposiveness. It is characteristic of God to live in the form of a single, allembracing Substance, which is wholly rational, speculatively concrete, and organically purposive. As opposite to that, it is characteristic of the world to scatter into a multiplicity of singular fragments and gravitate toward a non-rational, uncoordinated, and chaotically non-purposive life. But the world cannot be external to the Divinity, an alien and extraneous other-being. Therefore God creates his path in the world itself and the world is a constitutive part of Divine being. And if the world with all of its makeup enters into the authentic tissue of Divine life, then it discovers in this tissue the presence of chaos, evil, and suffering. Drawn by the inner, speculative lawfulness of its nature, the Divinity freely enters on to that path which inevitably distorts this speculative lawfulness. The blessed laws of the divine nature are destined to distort themselves in their development. The speculatively true path of the Divinity betrays and loses its speculative truth; and the essence of God leads him to states in which its laws are flouted and not observed. Precisely “being true to itself” brings Substance to non-substantial states; precisely “freedom,” equal to inner, speculative necessity, brings the Absolute to “unfreedom” and an “external,” senseless necessity. The Divine path, distorting the essence of the Divinity, is embedded and predestined in that same essence that it distorts. The divinity of God leads him to a non-divine state, and further to a long and suffering-filled restoration of his divinity. The fate 1. See chapter 5.

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of the Absolute from the very beginning is immanent in its essence and consists in the fact that it hides within itself the potential for a future relativity. Having arrived at this ancient conception of Divinity, revived by Fichte within subjectively anthropomorphic limits, and disclosed by Schelling in objektively cosmic and teleological terms, Hegel doesn’t dwell on it and doesn’t extend it. He describes the origin of the cosmogonic process in a few strokes1 and returns no more to this topic: the origin of the world was an act of divine generosity and freedom; what other than good could proceed from such an act? Therefore he avoids thinking and speaking of the ill-fated paths and destinies of the world, and, true to his metaphysical “aristocratism” and “optimism,”2 affirms the goodness of the Divine path in the empirical world. He remains true to the end to what was revealed to him and what he saw; and even when the empirical circumstances of the world force his philosophy to deviate from the original path and accept compromises, he appeals to the truth of the fundamental revelation with the power of a religious self-evidence. The realization of a theodicy would have required proof that all in the world is good. To that is opposed the presence of the senseless empirical element. To acknowledge that the empirical element is an other-being independent of the Divinity would have meant openly and from the very beginning rejecting monism, pantheism, and panlogism. But to hold that the element of the concrete-empirical, resisting the divine law and maintaining its senseless, distinct being, is a state of God himself, would have meant to introduce into his nature such a bifurcation as would have put an end to his divinity; a simultaneous elemental attraction to organic wholeness and to chaotic dispersion, to good and evil, would be characteristic only of a lesser being, and moreover precisely to the degree that it is not divine. Such a claim would perhaps have saved a formal monism, but would inevitably have converted the “saved” unity into an ill-fated anthropomorphic existence. To grant that both “lawfulnesses”—the speculative and the chaotic—were equally divine would have meant to renounce everything philosophically discovered and established. When Hegel speaks of the fact that the struggle between the speculative and the empirical elements is a struggle of Spirit with itself,3 he articulates more than he has indicated. He discovered that the world has a dual makeup—the divine and the non-divine, and that the essence of the world includes this second ingredient, a second element, into which the Divinity released itself and by which means it “fell away” from its own nature. Even if the Divinity continuously triumphs over this senseless 1. See chapters 9 and 10.

2. See chapters 11 and 12.

3. Comp., e.g., Ph. G. 53.

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element, its existence always signifies God’s incomplete being. This ingredient must be “sublated” and is actually “sublated” in the highest state of the world; but nevertheless its existence in the world doesn’t cease, and this witnesses to the fact that “pantheism” remains the task of Divinity, and “monism” remains the task of philosophy. Hegel didn’t show and couldn’t show that any empirical fragment of the world is a necessary state of the Divine; and the gap between “the world” and “God” is shifted into the depth of the world’s appearances. Hegel does’t establish openly that “pantheism” remains an “infinite” task of the Divinity. And there where, logically speaking, he deals with the religious postulate, his philosophy articulates a constitutive principle in the form of a universal affirmative judgment. The call, directed to the world: “Accept your innermost divinity and realize its law completely!”; and the prayer, directed to God: “Accept anew your freedom, dispel evil as a ghost, and convert other-being into non-being!”—these Hegel lays down as a law of present being and existence: “all is one, all is rational, all is purposeful, all is good.” It is natural that the problem of evil becomes for his philosophy the nexus of all difficulties. Evil, in his understanding, is nothing other than the element of the concrete-empirical in its fundamental properties and specific traits; however, this element is the source of evil only to the extent that it separates itself from the divine element, and in its manifestations opposes or doesn’t subordinate itself to the divine element. Precisely then it is discovered that evil is finite,1 non-organic nature,2 opposed to the Infinite3 and to Spirit;4 it dwells in difference,5 it remains “other-being,”6 estranged from Divinity7 and from the universal end,8 drawn along the path of contingency9 and arbitrariness.10 Such in particular is the subjective, singular will of the human being, if such a will, retreating into its natural singularity,11 recognizes singularity as a higher essence,12 insists on its own formal self-sufficiency,13 and, asserting itself in opposition to the good,14 negates the Universal,15 raises itself above it16 and creates a self-interestedly17 own,18 “particular”19 interest.20 It is obvious that the very possibility of distinguishing evil from good arises with the transition from the “Logic of the beginning” to the world, together with the beginning of the world and particularly of the human,21 1. Glaub. 146; Enc. III 398; 5 Rec. 204. 2. W. Beh. 386. 3. Rel. I 163. 4. Phän. 586. 5. Glaub. 148. 6. Phän. 584, 585. 7. W. Beh. 387; Phän. 582. 8. Phän. 358. 9. Comp.: Glaub. 146, 151. 10. Comp.: Glaub. 146; Recht 185. 11. Comp.: Phän. 582, 585, 587, 588; Enc. III 26(Z), 37, 390; Recht 185. 12. Phän. 506. 13. Log. I 192; Recht 184. 14. Log. II 65; Enc. III 382, 390; Recht 185. 15. Log. III 90; Enc. III 390. 16. Recht 184. 17. Recht 188; Rel. I 75–76; Enc. III 363. 18. Comp.: Glaub. 151; Enc. III 96(Z), 200. 19. Recht. 185, 409. 20. Enc. III 96(Z). 21. Rel. I 56.

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for in the speculative simplicity and pure unity of the Logic there is no finite element, separated and fallen away into a state of other-being. Evil is a state characteristic of the world. However, even in the world evil does not exist as an independent reality, wholly torn away from the good; the two elements are joined here in such a way that the one has no existence without the other: the “Concept” outside of the empirical element lives only in the “Logic of the beginning” and in the “Logic of the end,” but not in the cosmos; the empirical element exists only in connection with the “Concept” as its “shell,” or “crust,” or an additional, “purely negative power.”1 The base, senseless element everywhere limits Divine being 2 either in terms of the mode of existence (in the “shapes of the world”) or moreover also in the rhythm of life (in the “appearances of the world”). But it is entirely devoid of self-sufficient being; in itself, as a real principle of evil, or, what is the same thing, as evil, it doesn’t exist: evil as such is a “nullity”3 and “futile,”4 and even when it arises in the form of a ghost in an individual lost spirit,5 its fate is to be shattered and dissolved from within.6 Hegel expresses this either by saying that evil does not exist;7 or by saying that good and evil are “really” distinct only for human, “abstracting”8 consciousness, but not for God,9 or by saying that good and evil, without losing their qualitative distinction, consist in a unity10 and in this way form the tissue of the world. One can also say that the empirical element as the potentiality for evil is at once “necessary” and “ought not to have being.”11 This understanding of evil reveals that ultimate depth in the essence of the Divinity of which Hegel usually avoids speaking. This depth is defined by the term suffering. It is a characteristic of God to suffer because the essence of God in the world is bifurcated and remains in an inner struggle. The dual makeup of the world is in this way the dual makeup of the Divinity, and the misfortune of the world is the misfortune of its Creator. “Everything, even the very worst,” that exists in the cosmos at all was created by God,12 and his path in the world is the path of suffering that conquers. Precisely in the contradictions and in the pain, overcoming its “negative” double, Spirit holds itself on high13 and doesn’t allow evil to separate itself and triumph. The empirical element as the potentiality for evil is immanent in

1. Comp.: W. Beh. 380, 387, 388; comp.: Log. II 65. 2. Comp. esp.: Log. III 323. 3. “Nichtig.” Comp.: Phän. 50, 358; Enc. III 364, 389, 390, 450; Rel. I 56–57. 4. “Eitel.” Comp.: Enc. III 37, 364, 390; 5 Rec. 204; Recht 184. 5. Enc. II 30. 6. Comp.: Enc. III 390. 7. Comp.: Phän. 30, 584, 585. 8. Comp.: Phän. 586; Recht 216. 9. Rel. I 57. 10. Comp.: Phän. 585; Enc. I xv, xvii, xviii; less carefully: Enc. III 390–91. 11. Comp.: Recht 185; Rel. I 195. 12. Recht 375: “Gott hat alles, auch das Schlechteste gemacht.” 13. Comp.: Enc. III 26(Z).

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the world and in God, and is the living source of Divine suffering. And if the world before its creation is preformed and potentially pre-sketched in the “Logic of the beginning,”1 it is necessary to recognize that the potentiality of potentiality for evil is already concealed in the pure nature of the Divinity prior to creation. This possibility of possible evil can be designated as the “unmediatedness” or “pre-consciousness” of the primordial self-thinking of the Divinity. It is in this possibility that is placed the entire fate yet-tocome of the Divinity—the falling away from itself, the bifurcation, the long path of speculative suffering, the “cross of actuality,” and the new finding of itself in objektively conscious philosophy. The path of God in the world is the path of suffering that conquers: for even if everything in the world is God, not everything in the world and in God is divine; hence there is suffering in the world and the necessity of victory, for all suffering is the suffering of the Divinity itself, conquering through its own suffering. But this victory tragically stretches out and recedes into infinity. Thus the original metaphysical project doesn’t coincide with its fulfillment: the heroic poem of God’s path is transformed into the tragedy of God’s suffering. For the world, the ill-fatedly unfinished, inwardly bifurcating double of the Divine, thrashes about within the limits of sensuous existence and senseless, empirical lawfulness. And if this philosophemeoo does really carry with itself a new Gospel, then this news has, notwithstanding all its goodness, a tragic character: it affirms that all is God, but it is powerless to show that in God all is good and divine. This means that pantheism by itself still does not reveal a theodicy. For if everything existing is encompassed by God and beside God there is nothing, nevertheless within the limits of Substance itself there may not be a unity, a holistic “logicality,” an exhaustive purposiveness and freedom from evil possibilities. Suppose the Divine is all-encompassing Substance; but this Substance with all its greatness and heroism suffers from an internal bifurcation, and its very path, marvellous and triumphant, testifies to its lack of genuine Divinity. The comprehension of Divinity as a power ascending to absoluteness and freedom through struggle and suffering is a comprehension of it as not Divinity. If theodicy has the task of justifying Divinity before a suffering world, then pantheism realizes it, showing that the sufferings of the world are the sufferings of the Divine itself. But if theodicy has the task of showing the complete divinity of the Divine, not diminished by the existence of the world, then Hegel’s pantheism doesn’t achieve it: a suffering Absolute is not absolute, and a struggling Divinity is not God. 1. See chapter 9.

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The philosophy of Hegel, like every genuine philosophy, obtains its fate from its object: its task, drawn from the fundamental revelation, exceeds the realization of its doctrine as the essence of God exceeds the path and fate of Substance in the world.

Translator’s Notes a. Presumably “based on intuition” here would mean “based on intuition of something immediately given, such as a feeling,” hence falling short of the truth. b. Исповедание: alternatively, a confession of the truth in the sense of the affirmation of a creed. c. The Russian here is “углубленный конец,” a deepened, sunken, or submerged end or downfall. The reference is to the German Untergang: fall, ruin destruction, downfall, sinking. Hegel also plays on the more literal sense of “going under,” i.e., into the abyss. d. Il’in used “бездонную основу,” i.e., “bottomless ground,” or “abyss” (Abgrund). e. Il’in is here describing what he will characterize shortly as Hegel’s original philosophical project, a project that he would be subsequently forced to “compromise,” in Il’in’s interpretation, in such a way that none of the pantheism, the monism, the panlogism, or the theodicy was unambiguously achieved. Il’in appears to derive all four theses more or less directly from the claim that God is “the sole object of philosophy” for Hegel. f. “Concretizing” here translates the present participle of сращивать, to “grow together.” g. Сращенность, “grown-togetherness.” h. Конкретного: “concrete,” used here as a synonym for “grown-together.” i. A reference to the Gospel of St. John 15:5—the Russian word for “Vine” (Лоза) is capitalized in the original text. j. Πλ´ηρωµα, “fulfillment” (New Testament); Komplement, the “full number.” k. Любовного вживание, “growing together through love.” (The word вживание—a “growing-together”—as used here is either very rare, or coined by Il’in, though the sense is clear.) Il’in rendered this phrase into German in the following way: “Die zusammenschweißende Macht der Liebenden Einfühlung” (Iwan Iljin, Die Philosophie Hegels als kontemplative Gotteslehre [Bern: A. Francke, 1946], 345). l. “Compass” here apparently refers to the the range of individual things, persons, and events capable of being brought within the unity of the concrete universal, either at the level of Sittlichkeit or of the Divinity. The extent of what remains beyond the possibility of such unification determines the compass of Hegel’s philosophy, in Il’in’s terminology here. Il’in nowhere offers an explicit definition of “compass,” but within the current chapter an implicit definition can be discerned. (See also endnote aa just below.) Hence, if the project of a panlogism

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that Il’in attributes to Hegel proved possible to carry out completely, then presumably the “compass” would have been full in Il’in’s usage. m. From образ: “image,” “shape,” “form.” In his German translation Il’in added “anshaulichen, bildlichen Denken.” n. The Russian term is бывание (быванию here). This is one of two terms that Il’in uses to translate Dasein (the other being наличное бытие). However, the first term can apparently also mean simply “existence” in a less technical usage. Thus the current passage could read either “being and existence” or “being and there-being.” o. One might apply this same remark to Il’in’s interpretation of Hegel. Despite his questionable attribution of a fundamental “compromise” of Hegel’s original project, allegedly forced upon Hegel by the encounter with recalcitrant other-being, Il’in’s account of the presence of this “irrational” other-being among the contents of Hegel’s philosophical vision may lead to the recognition of a deeper truth than Il’in himself succeeds in articulating. Instead, his systematic listing of a specific set of Hegel’s alleged “failures” may point beyond Il’in’s interpretation to a more radical, deeper reading of Hegel’s achievement in terms of which these problems were recognized and possibly resolved. p. One is tempted to point out that Hegel didn’t declare that “everything is rational,” but rather that “everything actual is rational.” On the other hand, Il’in has already explicated this point with ample clarity himself, so one must seek elsewhere for an understanding of the source of Il’in’s objection. I suspect that it is to be found in the penultimate paragraph of the text: “But if theodicy has the task of showing the complete divinity of the Divine, not diminished by the existence of the world, then Hegel’s pantheism doesn’t achieve it: a suffering Absolute is not absolute; and a struggling Divinity is not God.” q. Самозаконность in the Russian; Selbständiges in the German edition (Iljin, Die Philosophie Hegels, 351). r. Логика начала: “Logic of the beginning.” This distinction between the “Logic of the beginning” and the “Logic of the end” figures prominently in several chapters. See endnote x for chapter 9 (vol. 1). s. Самозаконного in the Russian; eigengesetzliches in the German (Iljin, Die Philosophie Hegels, 352). t. Самозаконность in the Russian; eigengesetzlichkeit in the German (Iljin, Die Philosophie Hegels, 353). u. Il’in’s claim here could at most be true only at some “commonsense” level of discussion. Is he momentarily forgetting Hegel’s profound and systematic critique of the supposed “givenness” of the object conceived as independent of any judgment? This reminds one of some of the more strikingly “Trendelenburgian” passages of the original chapter 3, all of which were carefully softened or retracted in the German edition of the text. However, this particular claim was not retracted or softened in the German edition. v. Fate drags along the unwilling, from the saying “Fate leads the willing, and drags along the unwilling” (Fata volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt).

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w. The Russian term is снять, usually translated as “sublate.” x. Самозаконное in the Russian; eigengesetzliches in the German (Iljin, Die Philosophie Hegels, 355). y. Pertaining to the universe: вселенского. z. Вселенской, an adjectival form of “universe.” aa. In this case, I take it, Il’in would assert that the compass of Hegel’s system is full, i.e., encompasses all there is. See the concluding sentence of the following paragraph of the text. bb. One would think that Hegel’s distinction between mere existence and reality would go some way toward answering Il’in’s complaint here; but the latter’s objection may have a deeper root. cc. One is inclined to wonder whether it is Hegel or Il’in who requires this perfectibilist outcome. dd. It is perhaps worth noting that at the time of writing this commentary, his description of Hegel’s world would have applied in significant measure to Il’in’s own. ee. Образный (imagistic) in the Russian text; logisch-bildlich in Il’in’s German version. ff. Живое (living) in the Russian text; logisch-lebendig in Il’in’s German version. gg. In the Russian, прекрасное искусство, hence “beautiful art”; however, Il’in appears to model this phrase consistently upon the German die schönen Künste, and therefore “fine art” is more likely here and elsewhere. hh. Literally, “around which it turns”; here, that of which we are speaking, or that which we are contemplating. ii. Образному смыслу: here, a meaning expressed by means of a nonsensuous image. jj. Il’in here seems to be directing the reader’s attention to the use of nonsensuous images in speculative thinking, which he nevertheless terms “imagination.” kk. Предмет, capitalized in the text. ll. See the discussion of this point in the translator’s introduction to volume 1, the section “The Hegel Commentary and its Fate.” While Il’in (controversially) attributed to Hegel the original intention of achieving a panlogism that would simultaneously serve as a theodicy, he was one of the earliest systematic commentators to demonstrate that such a reading of the resulting philosophical system is not possible. mm. Все целесообразно. In the Geman version Il’in replaced this phrase with “alles ist organisch-zweckmäßig.” He translates целесообразно throughout as zweckmäßig, which term is usually translated as “purposive” in connection with Kant and Hegel. nn. Interestingly, this rather startling phrase, “a joyous encounter, dissolving the soul,” is not fully translated into the later German version of the text. There, the first part of the phrase, “a joyous encounter” reappears (“Es kam zu

258 T H E

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OF

T HE

ME ANI NG

O F

HUMAN

LIFE

keiner fredigen Begegnung”), but the latter phrase “dissolving the soul” has diasappeared (Iljin, Die Philosophie Hegels, 368). For a fuller explanation of the idea, see chapter 3, (vol. 1). ´ oo. Философема (Philosophem in German). From the Greek φιλοσοφημα , an apodictive syllogism in Aristotelian logic. The term has been used in Russian philosophical literature to designate the central idea or principle of a system or theory, or, sometimes, a particular philosophical concept or postulate. This usage has become much more frequent in recent years. (Information supplied by Prof. Marina Bykova.)

Bibliographic Appendix

Works by Hegel

The method of citation I have already explained in the bibliographic appendix to the first volume of the present work. Reference is to the only full collected works of Hegel, in 18 volumes, distributed over 21 books, with the addition of a nineteenth volume containing Hegel’s correspondence, divided into two books. The theological works of the youthful period are quoted from the full and excellent edition by Nohl. Two treatises, “Die Verfassung Deutschlands” and the “System der Sittlichkeit,” and also the excerpt “Ueber die neuesten innern Verhältnisse Württembergs” were impeccably published by Georg Lasson. From Mollat’s publication of the “System der Sittlichkeit” I quote only the appendix: “Anhang. Aus: Vorlesungen ueber die Philosophie des Geistes. Iena 1803–1806. Die Handschrift befindt sich auf der Königl. Bibliothek zu Berlin.” As far I am aware, this excerpt appeared nowhere else. Reference is also made to the excerpts, poems, and documents included in Rosenkranz. Other details I have already spoken of in the bibliographic appendix of the first volume. In the footnotes I retain the same notations. Works 1. All works published by Rosenkranz, except those specifically singled out 2. Theologische Jugendschriften herausgegeben von Nohl 3. System der Sittlichkeit herausgegeben von Lasson 4. Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems. Opera Bd. I 5. Dissertatio philosophica de Orbitis Planetarum Opera Bd. XVI 6. Über das Wesen der Philos. Kritik, etc. Opera Bd. XVI 7. Wie der gemeine Menschenverstand die Philosophie nehme, etc. Opera Bd. XVI

Year ——

Abbreviation Ros.

1790–1800

Nohl

about 1800

Lass. II

1801

Diff.

1801

Diss.

1802

Krit.

1802

Krug

261

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8. Verhältnis des Skepticismus zur Philosophie, etc. Opera Bd. XVI 9. Glauben und Wissen. Opera Bd. I 10. Über die wissenschaftlichen Behandlungsarten des Naturrechts. Opera Bd. I 11. Aphorismen aus der Jenenser Periode. Rosenkranz. S. 537–55 12. Aus: Vorlesungen über die Philosophie des Geistes, herausgegeben von Mollat 13. Die Verfassung Deutschlands herausgegeben von Lasson 14. Phänomenologie des Geistes. Opera Bd. II 15. Philosophische Propädeutik. Opera Bd. XVIII 16. Fünf Gymnasial-Reden, gehalten zu Nürnberg. Opera Bd. XVI 17. Aus einem Briefe Hegels an Niethammer. Opera Bd. XVII 18. Wissenschaft der Logik. Opera Bd. III 19. Wissenschaft der Logik. Opera Bd. IV 20. Wissenschaft der Logik. Opera Bd. V 21. An den königlich preussischen Regierungsrat und Prof. F. v. Raumer. Opera Bd. XVII 22. Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grudrisse. Die Logik. Opera Bd. VI 23. Encyklopädie, etc. Naturphilosophie. Opera Bd. VII. Erste Abteilung 24. Encyklopädie, etc. Die Philosophie des Geistes. Opera Bd. VII. Zweite Abteilung 25. Über Fr. Heinr. Jacobi’s Werke. Dritter Band. Opera Bd. XVII 26. Beurteilung der im Druck . . . Land stände . . . Würtemberg. Opera Bd. XVI 27. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie. Opera Bd. XIII 28. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie. Opera Bd. XIV 29. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie. Opera Bd. XV 30. Aphorismen aus der Berliner Periode. Rosenkranz. S. 555–60.

1802

Skept.

1802 1802–03

Glaub. W. Beh.

1801–06

Aphor. I

1803–06

Mollat

1806–08

Lass. I

1807

Phän.

1808–11

Prop.

1809–15

Gymn.

1812

Niet.

1812–16 1812–16 1812–16 1816

Log. I Log. II Log. III Raum.

1817–27–30

Enc. I

1817–27–30

Enc. II

1817–27–30

Enc. III

1817

Jac.

1817

Würt.

1805–31

Gesch. Ph. I

1805–31

Gesch. Ph. II

1805–31

Gesch. Ph. III Aphor. II

1818–31

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31. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, etc. Opera Bd. VIII 32. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion. Opera Bd. XI 33. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion. Opera Bd. XII 34. Vorrede zu Hinrich’s Religionsphilosophie. Opera Bd. XVII 35. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte. Opera Bd. IX 36. Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik. Opera Bd. X. Abt. 1 37. Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik. Opera Bd. X. Abt. 2 38. Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik. Opera Bd. X. Abt. 3 39. Wer denkt abstrakt? Opera Bd. XVII

40. Rezension der Schrift: Ueber die unter dem Namen Bhagavad-Gita, etc. Opera Bd. XVI 41. Über Solgers nachgelassene Schriften, etc. Opera Bd. XVI 42. Über Hamann’s Schriften. Opera Bd. XVII 43. Vorlesungen über die Beweise vom Dasein Gottes. Opera Bd. XII 44. Ausführung des teleologischen Beweises, etc. Opera Bd. XII 45. Ausführung des teleologischen und ontologischen Beweises, etc. Opera Bd. XII 46. Ausführung des ontologischen Beweises. Opera Bd. XII 47. Über Aphorismen über Nichtwissen . . . von K. F. G[ösche]l. Opera Bd. XVII 48. Rezension der Schriften: 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . 5 . . . , etc. Opera Bd. XVII 49. Drei lateinische Reden, etc. Opera Bd. XVII 50. Über: Der Idealrealismus . . . Ohlert. Opera Bd. XVII 51. Rezension der Schrift . . . von J. Görres. Opera Bd. XVII 52. Über die englische Reform-Bill. Opera Bd. XVII

1820–21

Recht

1821–31

Rel. I

1821–31

Rel. II

1822

Hinr.

1822–30

Ph. G.

1823–29

Aesth. I

1823–29

Aesth. II

1823–29

Aesth. III

between 1825 and 1831 1827

Abs.

1828

Solg.

1828

Ham.

1828–29

Beweise

1831

Beweise A

1827

Beweise B

1831

Beweise C

1829

Gösch.

1829

5 Rec.

1829–30

3 Lat.

1831

Ohl.

1831

Gör.

1831

Engl.

Bhag.

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53. Briefe von und an Hegel. Opera Bd. XIX. Abt. 1 54. Briefe von und an Hegel. Opera Bd. XIX, Abt. 2

——

Briefe I

——

Briefe II

Works of Hegel not included in this detailed list are not quoted by me.

Literature About Hegel

Ein grosser Mann verdammt die Menschen dazu, ihn zu explizieren. —Hegel, Aphor. II, p. 555

Chapter Thirteen In the intuition and interpretation of the idea of “freedom,” Hegel as always weaves into one all the problems and lines of examination: he proceeds from that depth in which the “psychological” and the “material,” the “personal” and the “social,” the “organic” and the “political,” the “aesthetic” and the “theoretical-cognitive” states are determined by a religious revelation of the nature of the Divinity. Freedom is above all a status Dei; and in this is concealed the root of all his philosophy. Therefore Gradovskii is entirely correct when he writes that according to Hegel, freedom “is an attribute not of personal will, but of absolute will” (“Политическая философия Гегеля,” Журн. Мин. нар. прос., 1870, p. 77).a V. I. Ger’e establishes a metaphysical understanding: “that which has a relation to nothing other, and is in-itself, is free” (Философия истории от Августина до Гегеля, p. 168).b A superlative formula was advanced in his day by Göschel, holding, together with Hegel, that dependence upon God is freedom in God (comp. K. Fischer, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, Mannheim, 1860, vol. 8, t. 1, p. 184). B. N. Chicherin (История политических учений, part 4, pp. 580–82)c and P. I. Novgorodtsev (Кант и Гегель, pp. 213–15),d pursuing special problems, dwell mainly on freedom of the will. Janet and Séailles provide a somewhat vague formula: “spirit is free when it recognizes that it has created everything” (Histoire de la philosophie, p. 771);e it is the very shakiness of the formulation that permits them immediately afterward to pen such an assertion: “The Divine spirit recovers itself and settles again in the spirit of Hegel and of his disciples” (ibidem).f Ott notes the identity of freedom and necessity, but doesn’t 265

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reveal its religious-metaphysical basis (Hegel et la philosophie allemande, p. 210).g The formula of Jodl, according to which Hegel calls “freedom” “the unity of will and thinking,” is also insufficiently determinate (История этики, vol. 2, p. 88).h A. Lasson defines “freedom of the will” purely anthropologically, in separation from the religious root (System der Rechtsphilosophie, p. 104).i It is interesting to note that Paul Barth, not going deeply into the analysis of the very foundations of Hegel’s philosophy, doesn’t find a unified principle of development in the “concrete sciences” (Die Geschichtsphilosophie Hegels und der Hegelianer, p. 120).j Meanwhile that principle is present in Hegel: “self-active concretion,” or what is the same thing, “the self-liberation of God in other-being.”

Chapter Fourteen In the relation of the “Divine” and the “human” there is concealed one of the greatest difficulties in all of Hegel’s philosophy. On one hand, the Divinity is not exhausted by the “human,” as witnessed by the “logic of the beginning” and the “philosophy of nature.” On the other hand, Hegel’s philosophy insists that the highest achievements of the Divinity are the states of the human spirit in fine art, in the religion of revelation, and in the “logic of the end.” The latter provides Windelband with the possibility of saying: “Hegel’s absolute spirit is in truth the human spirit” (Die Blütezeit der deutschen Philosophie, p. 136).a However, it is appropriate to add that “absolute Spirit” does not coincide in Hegel’s understanding with the Divinity in all its states, for in the “logic of the beginning” Divinity creates itself, not yet being “absolute Spirit.” From this it is already clear that in the treatment of this problem the most deliberate care is necessary. The vacillations that are observed in the literature on this question are understandable; it is sufficient to remember that the strife between the “right” and the “left” Hegelians proceeded from here. In essence the “Divine” does not reduce to the “human” in Hegel. Nevertheless V. I. Ger’e is entirely correct in noting that in Hegel there is a distinctive combination of “pantheism” and “anthropocentrism” (Философия истории, pp. 254–55).b Speculative philosophy is limited in the material for its judgments, for the highest that it knows is “the spiritual state of the earthly human being”; from this follows its “anthropocentrism,” which is still very distant from any sort of “pan-anthropism.” The Divine Subject does not at all coincide with the “human subject,” as Michelet insists (Entwicklungsgeschichte der neuesten Deutschen Philosophie, 1843, pp. 241–42, 249).c

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Willm is also wrong when he writes: “the human spirit, being itself the absolute” (Histoire de la philosophie allemande depuis Kant jusqu’a Hegel, vol. 3, p. 413).d Hermann also mistakenly ascribes to Hegel “the principal error: setting the human Spirit and human cognition without further ado as equal and adequate to the essence of being or of the world” (Hegel und die logische Frage, p. 219).e After everything that has been said, it remains incomprehensible how it was possible to overlook this “further ado” in Hegel. However, it is possible to note this vacillation also in such a profound historian of philosophy as Eduard Zeller, who doesn’t distinguish clearly between where Hegel speaks of “the personality of God” and where he speaks of the “human personality” (Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie, p. 834).f

Chapter Fifteen Hegel’s doctrine of “will” is determined by the fact that he intuits it as a genuine power of the Divine, one in all and for all, and only on a secondary plane as distinctively singular in human individuals. For that reason Ott is entirely right when he concludes that “the will . . . is a general reality, the absolute Idea itself, considered as activity” (Hegel et la philosophie allemande, p. 377).a Miraglia is equally correct: “the free will, conceived as activity of the absolute idea” (I principii fondamentali dei diversi sistemi di filosofia del diritto . . . , p. 86).b The will of which Hegel speaks is above all Divine will, living, creative, and therefore subjective. Stahl mistakenly defines this divine power of will as “subjectless, impersonal will,” the life of which is doomed to “mechanism” and “formalism”; as “the superhuman will, the purest abstraction, the mere negation of the human” (Geschichte der Rechtsphilosophie, pp. 434, 451).c Gradovskii’s expression “the impersonal will” must also be recognized as careless (“Политическая философия Гегеля,” p. 78).d The subjectivity of the empirical human will itself is already a manifestation of the absolute “Subjectivity” of the Divine Spirit; in this consists one of those legacies that Hegel accepted from Fichte. From this comes the victory in the liberation of the personal will of the human being. P. I. Novgorodtsev rightly observes that “the free will gradually grows out of natural inclinations and desires” (Кант и Гегель, p. 214).e It moves, in Jodl’s words, toward that “general satisfaction” which only the “thinking will” can give (История этики, vol. 2, p. 90).f Eduard von Hartmann concludes: “The will becomes free, when it sees through the illusion (as if it were something other than thought), and grasps itself as the self-activity of reason” (Geschichte der Metaphysik, part 2,

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p. 222).g Geyer mistakenly reduces “the concept of will” to “freedom in external objekts” (Краткий очерк истории философии права, p. 101).h B. N. Chicherin defines the will as “practical reason, i.e., reason, acting upon the world” (История политических у чений, vol. 4, p. 580);i this hardly exhausts the essence of the matter. Exner advances against Hegel and his followers—Rosenkranz, J. Erdmann, and Michelet—a series of weighty considerations of a purely psychological character; he asserts a distinction between thought and will, and also between “identity” and “necessary connection” (Die Psychologie der Hegelschen Schule, p. 46).j The doctrine of the “common will” is seldom dealt with in the literature. P. I. Novgorodtsev rightly points out that “the common element of the will . . . is not only an element identical in all,” and that Hegel’s idea of the common will should be oriented on Rousseau’s idea of “the general will” (Кант и Гегель, p. 215).k Gradovskii observes that “only the universal will is rational, free, and actual,” while the singular is such only insofar as it agrees with the universal will (“Политическая философия Гегеля,” p. 56).l It would have been more accurate to speak here not of agreement, but of identity in terms of being, of consciousness, and of object. Henri Michel places at the foundation of the Hegelian state not “individual” but “absolute” will, as though completely losing from view the “universal-social” will as such (Идея государства, St. Petersburg, 1903, pp. 137, 139).m Wundt with his usual philosophical inexactitude speaks of “joint will” (Ethik, vol. 2, p. 67).n

Chapter Sixteen In the examination of Hegel’s philosophy of right I consider it possible to concentrate on the general and fundamental essence of the idea of right, independently of those inessential changes which can be ascertained in various treatises and in various periods of creativity. P. I. Novgorodtsev attentively follows the course of these changes and comes to the conclusion that there were no radical breaks or “sharp distinctions,” but rather an organic development toward ever greater breadth, political maturity, and clarity (Кант и Гегель, pp. 162, 163, 164, 173–98, and others).a This acknowledgment can also be found in Feuerlein (“Über die kulturgeschichtliche Bedeutung Hegels,” Historische Zeitschrift, 1870, vol. 4, p. 338).b This provides a basis for separating out the fundamental and general nucleus of the conception. In the literature on the subject it is not easy to find a definition of

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“natural right” in Hegel. It is evidently especially difficult to point here to the genus proximum c and together with that the objective categories within which “natural right” is situated. The majority of scholars operate with this concept as though its content were self-evident. The comparison of “natural right” with “positive right” doesn’t resolve this problem, of course. Miraglia is correct when he writes that “positive law does not contradict rational law” (I principii . . . , p. 86);d but Korkunov is already exaggerating when he suggests that Hegel arrived “at a complete negation of any contradiction of natural law to positive law” (История философии права, p. 373).e Henri Michel entirely fails to see this fundamental problem, depicting Hegel’s philosophy as a reaction against natural right (Идея государства, p. 142).f Right, according to Hegel, is the normal spiritual-legal existence of the human will as a divine power, struggling within the human for its freedom; it is the speculatively true status of the human spirit in toto. Usually this religious-metaphysical depth in the idea of right is lost from view, and on the primary plane is advanced a psychological or an empirico-ontological illumination. Zeller writes: “This existence of the free will is the right” (Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie, p. 813);g B. N. Chicherin judges that “right in the broadest sense consists of the realization of this freedom” (История политических учений, vol. 4, p. 582).h In Kahle (Darstellung und Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie)i it is difficult in general to find a general definition of right. Gradovskii characterizes the right as “the sphere of the continuous realization of the free will in its absolute form” (“Политическая философия Гегеля,” pp. 56–57).j Korkunov defines the right as “a production of the free will” (История философского права, p. 372).k Geyer expresses himself broadly and indefinitely: “the right is the external being of the absolute concept” (Краткий очерк, etc., p. 102).l One can find very little in Henri Michel: “the right of the individual is the fulfillment of duty” (Идея государство, p. 143).m Wundt leaves out of view the most essential, trying to derive Hegel’s idea of right from a combination of the two principles “Will” and “Capability” (Einleitung in die Philosophie, p. 257).n Stahl mistakenly equates “abstract right” with “private right” (Geschichte der Rechtsphilosophie, p. 437).o Jodl is hardly correct when he writes: “Singularity, externality, and objektivity—these, consequently, are the categories under which Hegel subsumes the right” (История этики, vol. 2, p. 91).p In S. F. Kechek’ian (“О понятии ест. права у Канта и Гегеля,” Вопросы философии и психологии, no. 128, p. 452)q natural right as a separate topic gets lost altogether and is converted into a “philosophy” of concrete positive ethical life. I

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didn’t succeed in investing the words of Shershenevich, “Hegel cautions against a confusion of the idea of right with the concept of right as an ensemble of distinctive features” (История философского права, p. 571),r with any definite sense.

Chapter Seventeen Contrasting “morality” to “ethical life” constitutes a great and permanent service of Hegel in the history of ethical doctrines; a “moral” relation to the good is not the highest of the spiritual possibilities, and the transition to “ethical life” is itself not limited to a simple filling of the form by content. In P. I. Novgorodtsev’s exposition, the sharpness of this distinction is to a significant degree softened (Кант и Гегель, pp. 220–27 and others).a On the opposite side, J. E. Erdmann ascribes to Hegel more than is proper, asserting that both Spinoza and Hegel were “both deniers of all oughts” (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 2, p. 599).b Expounding this contrast, Hegel speaks of “conscience” in two tones: ironic-judgmental and spiritual-affirmative. This has given birth to a certain lack of clarity in the literature. Thus Höffding counterposes “ethical life” to “morality” with insufficient definiteness as “an expression of subjective conscience” (История новейшей философии, p. 155);c in actual fact, “conscience” in the true meaning of that word never loses the character of human “subjectivity,” notwithstanding all its metaphysical significance. An analogous lack of clarity also remains in Falckenberg (История новой философии, p. 414).d Similarly to this B. N. Chicherin writes: “conscience can be inclined to evil”; “conscience doesn’t fully correspond to the idea of the good” (История политических у чений, part 4, p. 585).e Jodl counterposes the “subjectivistic understanding” of conscience, supposedly given by Hegel in the Philosophy of Right, to the “objektive” and “universal” understanding realized in the Phenomenology of Spirit (История этики, vol. 2, p. 92);f there is hardly a sufficient basis for this. The assertion of S. F. Kechek’ian that “only the state overcomes the subjectivity of formal conscience” (“О понятии естественного права у Канта и Гегеля,” Вопросы философии и психологии, no. 128, p. 452)g corresponds only to the most superficial aspect of Hegel’s doctrine. It is difficult to understand what Wundt meant in reporting that “morality” according to Hegel is “individual and concrete” (Einleitung in die Philosophie, p. 257).h

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Chapter Eighteen The problem of “concrete ethical life” belongs undoubtedly among the most difficult in Hegel’s philosophy; this is explained not only by its multiplicity of terminological meanings and its objective complexity, but also by the fact that Hegel scattered its analysis across all of his works, treating it at the same time as supposedly already definitively explained somewhere. From this follow the extraordinary difficulty for the researcher and the custom of avoiding the entire problem through analysis. The essence of “concrete ethical life” remains undisclosed even in Kuno Fischer (Geschichte der neuren Philosophie, vol. 8, t. 2, pp. 710–20),a in Bluntschli (История общего государственного права и политики, pp. 493–94),b in Jodl (История этики, vol. 2, pp. 95–98),c in Stahl (Geschichte der Rechtsphilosophie, pp. 436–39),d in Korkunov (История фи лософии права, pp. 375–76),e in Kahle (Darstellung. . . , pp. 68–74),f and in Willm (Histoire de la philosophie allemande, vol. 4, p. 289).g Höffding comes closest of all to the essence of the subject: “in the world of ethical life there is something that transcends the limits of singular consciousness” (История новейшей философии, p. 155);h Miraglia: “Ethical life is the bearer of spirit” (I principii . . . , p. 121);i B. N. Chicherin: “In ethical life people are connected by their common ethical essence” (История политических учений, vol. 4, p. 586);j and P. I. Novgorodtsev, when he speaks of “the fusion of the individual person with society,” of “a harmonious combination with the common ethical substance,” of “the self-intuition of the individual in the other,” and of “the elimination of natural determinateness” (Кант и Гегель, pp. 226, 227, 176).k Haym mistakenly simplifies the problem of “ethical life,” reducing everything to an idealization of Greek sociality (Hegel und seine Zeit, pp. 160–61).l The attempt to convert Hegel into an amoralist is also the fruit of misunderstanding. For example, Ott writes that in Hegel there arises “the negation of morality itself,” and that in general the moral conclusions of his doctrine “are despair-inducing” (Hegel et la philosophie allemande, pp. 127, 129).m Similarly, Willm suggests that Hegel as a pantheist “does not accept morality as such,” i.e., “freedom and the real difference between good and evil” (Historie de la philosophie allemande, vol. 4, pp. 328–29);n Hegel actually did try to interpret the real distinction between good and evil in the sense of a “cognitive illusion,” but for him this was not at all connected with a negation of morality. However, he was also repeatedly compelled to ignore this interpretation. J. E. Erdmann tries to reduce the distinction between morality and ethical life in such a way that the former “is based only on a subjective obligation” (Grundriss . . . , vol. 2, p. 604);o that is both inexact and

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incomplete. Chlebik looks for an inner transition and loses the very root of the distinction when he says that freedom becomes ethical life “only through the ought of duty” (Die Philosophie des Bewussten . . . , p. 62).p Also, M. Rubenshtein is hardly correct in asserting that “ethical life presupposes the concept of duty” (“Логические основы системы Гегеля и конец истории,” Вопросы философии и психологии, no. 80, p. 764).q Geyer exceeds everything known in the literature in setting up the following equation for Hegel’s philosophy: “general usefulness = necessity = ethical life = rationality = actuality” (Краткий очерк, p. 101).r

Chapter Nineteen Everything fundamental in the ethics of Hegel is predestined and predetermined by his logico-metaphysical constructions. In particular, the position of the individual in the state is determined by the fact that the state is Universality and the individual, Singularity. From this follows the necessity of the individual modification of national spirit, its rightfulness, its virtue, and its speculative fate. For that reason Rosenkranz mistakenly writes: “Hegel conceives the individuality of the singular as a natural limit” (Hegels Leben, p. 174);a in actual fact the form of the individual is necessary for the Divinity, for the form not only limits, but liberates. Universalism is woven by Hegel in the most subtle fashion with metaphysical individualism; and conversely, Hegel devised here a holistic interpenetration of the two principles. Obviously, not everyone catches on to that synthesis. Thus, Henri Michel, deeming that Hegel “turned out to be in politics an opponent of individualism,” adds: “however . . . it is difficult to imagine anything that wouldn’t be found in the philosophy of Hegel; in it one finds even individualism along with the divinization of the state” (Идея государства, p. 137).b In the Russian literature there has already been established a tradition of an equitable attitude toward the anti-individualism of Hegel. Thus, B. N. Chicherin writes: “In the state the human finds the highest realization of his freedom and of his right. The subjective principle and the objektive arrive here at complete agreement” (История политических учений, vol. 4, p. 588).c V. I. Ger’e emphasizes the importance of the personal interest and human subjective passion in the history of spirit and right after locates the reconciliation of individualism and antiindividualism in the doctrine of the hero (Философия истории, pp. 171, 249–50).d P. I. Novgorodtsev singles out the most essential: the person is

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not only preserved in ethical life, but for the first time acquires his authentic and deepest essence (Кант и Гегель, p. 176).e Caird is also close to such an understanding when he says that the path to the self-realization of individual personality passes through its self-negation, and in this respect the doctrine of Hegel approaches the Gospels (Гегель, pp. 250, 252–56, 260; comp. pp. 50, 212).f On the contrary, Anton Springer doesn’t find in Hegel an answer to the question of how freedom is reconciled with passion (Die Hegelsche Geschichtsanschauung, pp. 42–43).g Gradovskii mistakenly defines freedom as “subordination” to absolute will (“Политическая философия Гегеля,” p. 79).h One can find a similar mistake in Geyer: “conscience must be subordinated . . . to the requirements . . . of the state” (Краткий очерк . . . , p. 106).i A whole series of writers characterize Hegel one-sidedly and falsely as a “universalist.” Jodl writes: “the aims of individuals are destroyed in the objektive state aim,” and further: only “the subjective form of the content is not destroyed” (История этики, vol. 2, pp. 97, 99).j Wundt characterizes Hegel’s doctrine as “an extreme universalism”; as a “one-sided universalism,” in accordance with which the “individual will” turns out to be “only an unconscious bearer and achiever of the general will” (Ethik, vol. 2, pp. 27–28, 67).k Especially definitive is Stahl. He considers that in the pantheism of Hegel “personality and freedom go under”; that in this doctrine there is neither God nor individual: “the mirror regards itself in humanity”; that all that can be found in Hegel’s ethics is “personality in abstrakto” (Geschichte der Rechtsphilosophie, pp. 458, 459, 461).l Rubenshtein repeats a very similar mistake: Hegel as it were “fully annihilates the value of personality” (“Das Wertsystem Hegels und die entwertete Persönlichkeit,” Kantstudien, 1910, pp. 265, 266, 267);m speaking of personality, the author has in mind, evidently, concrete-empirical individuality as an end in itself: the value of such a personality Hegel really isn’t inclined to exaggerate. In the question of the very essence of virtue it is necessary to note a few things. B. N. Chicherin finds for some reason that Hegel “scarcely touched on the concept of virtue” (История политических учений, vol. 4, p. 597).n Haym is not right when he asserts that Hegel knows virtue only in its relation to the state and the fatherland (Hegel und seine Zeit, p. 166).o Gradovskii inaccurately conveys the correlation between “ethical life” and “virtue”: “the ethical, reflected in individual character, becomes virtue” (“Политическая философия Гегеля,” p. 62);p in actual fact it is necessary here to speak not of a “reflection,” but rather of a metaphysico-ontological, speculative identity; otherwise the very essence of “concreteness” is lost.

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Chapter Twenty In Hegel’s doctrine of the state, the central point of contention in the literature is the one concerning Hegel’s political sympathies. From the unjust but easy hand of Haym it became usual to depict Hegel as a political reactionary and all but careerist-opportunist. Haym actually ascribes to Hegel an idealization of the contemporary, empirically given state structure unparalleled in the political literature, and proclaims Hobbes, Filmer, Haller, and Stahl to be liberals by comparison with those conclusions to which Hegel was drawn by the development of his thesis of the “rationality of the actual” (Haym, Hegel und seine Zeit, pp. 367, 386–87).a Haym’s exposition made of Hegel’s political philosophy a kind of “generally accessible” subject in the literature, serving as a demonstration a negando of his “own” liberalism or even radicalism. And even people with no scholarly acquaintance with Hegel, who did not trouble themselves to assimilate his structure of thought to some degree, consider it at times admissible to depict him as a servant of the Prussian reaction (comp.: Shershenevich, История политических учений, pp. 559–64 and others).b In the German literature one can trace the influence of Haym, beginning from the middle of the nineteenth century (e.g., in Noack: “Hegel’s restorationist-conservative Philosophy of Right,” Schelling und die philosophie der Romantik, p. 463)c and later (e.g., in Paul Barth: “in Germany, on the other hand, the true monarchy is actual,” Die Geschichtsphilosophie . . . , p. 17).d Barth’s vulgarizing interpretation of §552 of Hegel’s Encyclopedia is particularly instructive. Höffding calls Hegel “a reactionary speculative thinker” in История новейшей философии, p. 156.e There are echoes of this tendency in the Russian literature. Thus, for example, Korkunov writes that Hegel sees “in constitutional monarchy on the Prussian model” “something absolute, eternal, unchangeable” (История философии права, p. 374).f And even in Prince S. N. Trubetskoi one can find a similar assertion: “Hegel . . . gives philosophical justification for the existing order and pronounces the Prussian kingdom the realm of reason, the Vernunft-Staat” (Собр. соч., vol. 2, p. 344).g Such a political illumination of Hegel’s philosophy of right cannot be accepted as true either in terms of the content of the doctrine itself, or by comparison with the Prussian political order contemporary to him. The philosophical roots of this misunderstanding should be sought in a false interpretation of the idea of “actuality” (see the bibliographic appendix to chapter 11 of the first volume of my work). The state, in Hegel’s project, is a “shape of actuality” or, according to P. I. Novgorodtsev’s expression, “an unconditional shape sub specie aeternitatis” (Кант и Гегель, p. 178).h “Political relations are depicted here from the point of view of

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absolute idealism”; this is something “ideal, eternal, divine,” “a certain imperturbable divinity” (ibidem, pp. 179, 180). Such a project in itself should have protected Hegel’s philosophy from an extremely simplified, empirico-political interpretation. The usual measures of “reaction” and “liberalism” should not have been applied at all to such a doctrine. However, if one were to allow such a qualification, then it would be necessary to acknowledge that Hegel was all of his life an apologist for the true concept of political freedom. V. I. Ger’e is unquestionably right when he doesn’t conceive of the Hegelian state outside the idea of freedom—inner-spiritual and external-political; moreover, “in the exposition of Hegel all of history is a sermon on freedom” (Философия истории, pp. 246–47, 252).i In the affirmation of such an interpretation P. I. Novgorodtsev refers to the names of Zeller,j Windelband,k Ziegler,l Caird,m Wallace,n and Bosanqueto (Кант и Гегель, p. 42, note).p Actually, Zeller does consider it necessary to come forward in Hegel’s defense against accusations of anti-liberalism and lack of patriotism (Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie, pp. 824–26);q and Windelband protests against tying Hegel to “such narrow-minded conservatism” (Die Blütezeit, p. 329).r It is interesting to add to this the witness of Victor Cousin, who personally conversed with Hegel: “He was profoundly liberal without being in the least republican”; “he was thus sincerely a constitutionalist.” “I always found him of the same mind,” he added, comparing his impressions of 1817 and of 1831 (Victor Cousin, “Souvenirs d’un voyage en Allemagne,” Revue des deux mondes, August 1, 1866, pp. 616–17). It is interesting to note that a simple descriptive comparison of the political structure outlined by Hegel with the Prussian political order contemporary to him does not speak in favor of the rejected viewpoint. In vain does A. Lasson characterize the political ideal of Hegel with the words: “the slightly modified Prussian state” (System der Rechtsphilosophie, p. 18).s Rosenkranz had already pointed out that great historical care and learning are needed here: “However, Hegel could not have copied the Prussian state of the time, since he taught the necessity of constitutional monarchy, of popular representation, of the equality of all citizens before the law, the openness of the administration of the law, trial by jury, and the freedom of public opinion. Did these institutions exist in Prussia? No” (Apologie Hegels, p. 38).t In another place, Rosenkranz adds that Hegel advanced an opinion in favor of “nobility by birth and the right of primogeniture, which in Prussian law were already outdated” (Hegels Leben, p. 333).u Bluntschli, for his part, points to the fact that the Prussian state in Hegel’s time was not based on representation, which “contradicted Hegel’s ideal”; that the university and scholarship were repressed through prosecutions and censorship; that in Prussia there was

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no trial by jury and that the defense of it “required a certain audacity.” “Hegel recognizes unequivocally that the development of constitutional monarchy is a worldwide historical issue of modernity, and in this recognition comes out against the principle of absolute monarchy still operative then in Prussia” (История государственного права и политики, pp. 492, 495, 497).v Stahl notes that Hegel never expressed himself in favor of despotism: “he wants that . . . the practical and the necessary should take place”; he was not “ultra-royalist” and not “ultra-liberal,” but “ultragovernmental” (Geschichte der Rechtsphilosophie, p. 475).w One can add to this that Hegel saw no basis for trusting in universal suffrage; however, both in this attitude as well as in his trust in the principle of administration by the authorities, there is nothing specifically reactionary, if one examines the question not from the viewpoint of blind dogma, but in conformity with historical actuality. From among the other controversial points in the literature I will note only one. Hegel openly included religious faith within the very tissue of “the disposition of the state.” Springer writes: “he views religion as the basis of the ethical sense and of the state” (Die Hegelsche Geschichtsanschauung, pp. 27–28).x Jodl also notes that same connection (История этики, vol. 2, pp. 128–30).y Even Henri Michel recognizes that Hegel ascribed to the state “a mystical mission” (Идея государства, p. 145).z On the contrary, in Bluntschli we read that Hegel “energetically declared himself against the religious basis of the state” (История государственного права и политики, pp. 496–97).aa

Chapter Twenty-one In the evaluation of Hegel’s philosophy of history there are not a few divergences. V. I. Ger’e provides an exhaustive analysis of the problem of the non-acceptance of all of the concrete-empirical material. He recognizes that Hegel paid no attention to entire nations: “The philosophy of history has to do only with nations which knew what they were and what they wanted”; besides that, Hegel’s very schemas don’t cover everything: they cut off pre-historical periods, narrow the historical period, they pick out and selectively consider facts and succession, etc. (Философия истории, pp. 181, 255, 256).a The subtle and thoughtful investigation by Springer underscores that the concrete-empirical element is in history the immanent form of the spiritual process, and therefore for the historian its acceptance is unavoidable; however, Hegel didn’t do that openly, and in

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this consists the principal deficiency of his philosophy of history (Die Hegelscher Geschichtsanschauung, pp. 9, 10, 11, 21, 41, 86 and others).b Alongside this, Höffding writes: “Hegel made an attempt to show that in history no single value is wasted” (История нов. философии, p. 160).c On the question of the unity of the Subject of world history, V. I. Ger’e seems inclined to believe Hegel, that this unity was discovered by him: “all of this succession of historical nations is one subject, one life” (Философия истории, p. 177).d Against this, Paul Barth definitely commits himself to the view that the single subject of history in Hegel was dispersed into a multitude of state subjects (Die Geschichtsphilosophie . . . , p. 18).e The circumstance that history draws Hegel into an empirically incomplete infinity can be considered established in the literature. Already Haym noted that the Logic of Hegel is circular in form, whereas history is not (Hegel und seine Zeit, p. 445).f V. I. Ger’e stipulates this quite definitively: “the full realization of the principle of freedom constitutes a further task for humanity, which will require many demanding and positive labors”; and further: “Hegel did not at all see the history of humanity as having ended, and as limited to the circle of nations depicted by him” (Философия истории, pp. 168, 259, 260).g Hegel’s fundamental reticence on this problem was also correctly noted by M. Rubenshtein (“Логические основы системы Гегеля и конец истории,” Вопросы философии и психологии, no. 80).h The crisis of the dialectical method within the “concrete sciences” was already splendidly observed by Exner: the regress within empirical experience and the transition from “contradiction” to “genesis in time” can be established here as something indisputable; “the method which . . . draws on nothing from without, perpetually goes begging to experience” and so forth (Exner, Die Psychologie der Hegelschen Schule, pp. 59, 60, 81).i However, Shershenevich makes the opposite assertion: “with the greatest success, Hegel succeeded in applying the dialectical method in the historical sphere” (История политических учений, vol. 4, p. 566).j Encountering such a declaration, one is puzzled about precisely what escaped the notice of its author: Hegel’s philosophy of history, or all of his other works? In the evaluation of Hegel’s conception of history in terms of content, Rosenkranz and A. Lasson occupy extreme positions. The first greatly overestimates even Hegel’s historical erudition: an “almost immeasurable familiarity with the facts” (K. Rosenkranz, Kritische Erläuterungen des Hegelschen Systems, Königsberg, 1840, p. 159).k The second denies to Hegel any objective insight into the sphere of history and right: he lacked, in Lasson’s opinion, an “understanding of . . . the immanent

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rationality of the historical formations of right” (System der Rechtsphilosophie, p. 35).l Obviously, both are wrong.

Chapter Twenty-two The fate of Hegel’s philosophy lies in the fact that the project, “a theodicy in the form of a panlogism,” acquires in its realization a different aspect, for the first time revealing the objective depth of Hegel’s speculative vision, but also the falsity of panlogism and the secondary significance of the dialectical method. The project of outlining a “theodicy” is occasionally noted in the literature. Falckenberg ascribes to Hegel an “optimistic theory of development,” which, of course, still conveys too little (История новой философии, trans. and ed. D. V. Viktorov, p. 407).a Fester says more definitely that Hegel’s entire philosophy is “a justification of God, a theodicy” (Rousseau und die deutsche Geschichtsphilosophie, pp. 268–69).b V. I. Ger’e formulates the content of this project splendidly: “reason is both the creator and the creation, both the first principle and the final end, both the material and the transformative power—Spirit, or the Idea” (Философия истории, p. 169).c The panlogistic character of this doctrine is not recognized by everyone. Thus, Höffding supposes that to characterize this system as a panlogism “means to ascribe too great a significance to the form of the Hegelian system” (История нов. философии, p. 153).d The author is inclined sooner to recognize Hegel as a “pan-spiritualist”: “All is spirit and spirit is all” (ibidem). Evidently B. N. Chicherin is also inclined to this viewpoint (История политических учений, vol. 4, p. 574).e Noël writes: “Hegel’s system is not, as he says, a panlogism. If the Logic is a part of the system, and even in certain respects the main part, it is not the entire system” (La logique de Hegel, p. 120).f With the last argument, of course, it would be difficult to agree. Others, on the contrary, definitively perceive a panlogism in Hegel’s doctrine. Hermann is of course incorrect when he says: “generally Hegel gives to everything actual only a purely logical definition or conceptual explanation” (Hegel und die logische Frage, p. 37);g this would have been not a “panlogism” but a formalistic pan-schematism. Hegel is a panlogicist in the sense that the Absolute in his understanding is the “Logical Idea” (Falckenberg, История нов. философии, p. 466);h or, in the words of Prince S. N. Trubetskoi, in the sense that in the world, strictly speaking, there is nothing besides Logic (Собр. соч., vol. 2, p. 340).i Therefore everything existing (Hermann, Hegel und die logische Frage, p. 37),j

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or the entire structure of the world (Stahl, Geschichte der Rechtsphilosophie, p. 429),k receive from him a logical nature. “The world process is a logical process” (Trubetskoi, Собр. соч., vol. 2, p. 340).l Hegel establishes a “logical articulation of the connections of the world” (Windelband, Die Blütezeit, p. 312).m Hegel is viewed as a “pan-rationalist” or a “panlogicist” by Eduard von Hartmann (Geschichte der Metaphysik, vol. 2, pp. 212, 213, 214, 215, 217, 218;n Neukantianismus . . . , p. 259o); L. M. Lopatin (Положительные задачи философии, vol. 1, pp. 342–65),p and Jodl (История этики, vol. 2, p. 86).q Janet and Séailles superbly formulate: “destroy the rational element in the entire object, [and] nothing remains” (Histoire de la philosophie, p. 1058).r Lask asserts: “in the theory of the Concept, it appears to us, Hegel nevertheless implies a limit which one will never be able to get beyond” (Fichtes Idealismus, p. 56).s The unrealizability of such a project is recognized by many. Hartmann insists on the fact that for Hegel it was unavoidable to include in the Idea its “opposite, the unlogical” (Geschichte der Metaphysik, vol. 2, p. 214).t “The logical Idea in Hegel can make not even the slightest progress without the ferment of the unlogical, which not so much accompanies as produces its development from the absolute emptiness of its presuppositionless beginning to its fullest content.” Hegel had to find in the Logic “a relative unlogical,” and in the world, “an absolute unlogical” (Hartmann, Neukantianismus . . . , pp. 252, 255).u By this is explained the lack of success that befell Hegel in carrying out the speculative laws through the material of the “concrete” sciences. This lack of success was noted by Stahl (Geschichte der Rechtsphilosophie, pp. 443–56).v In the carrying out of the dialectical method Falckenberg notes in Hegel a “stubbornness bordering on obstinacy” (История нов. философии, p. 408).w This reproach can scarcely be viewed as just. In any event, the value of the Hegelian doctrine, according to the profound observation of Eduard von Hartmann, is not in “a one-sided panlogical principle,” and not in an “absurd dialectical method,” but in its “philosophy of spirit, the truth content of which is entirely independent of both the panlogistical principles and the dialectical method” (Geschichte der Metaphysik, vol. 2, p. 212).x

Translator’s Notes Note: All translations from Russian, and other languages as well, are mine. Where the phrase translated is from a language other than Russian, I supply the original in the endnotes. However, Il’in sometimes

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translated his own “quotations” from non-Russian sources into Russian without supplying the original language. Chapter Thirteen a. A. D. Gradovskii, “Политическая философия Гегеля” (“The Political Philosophy of Hegel”), Журнал министерства нар одного пр освещения ( Journal of the Ministry of Public Education), no. 7 (1870). b. Vladimir Johann Ger’e, Философия и стории о т Августи на д о Гегеля (The Philosophy of History from Augustine to Hegel) (Moscow: Pechatnia S.P. Oakovleva, 1915). c. B. N. Chicherin, История политических учений (A History of Political Doctrines), 5 vols. (Moscow: Grachev, 1869–1902), vol. 4. d. P. I. Novgorodtsev, Кант и Г егель в их у чениях о п раве и гос ударстве (Kant and Hegel in Their Doctrines of Right and the State) (Moscow: Universitetskaia Tipografiia, 1901). e. Paul Janet and Gabriel Séailles, Histoire de la philosophie: Les problèmes et les écoles (Paris: Ch. Delagrave, 1887). Translated phrase: “l’esprit est libre, quand il reconnait, qu’il crée tout.” f. “L’Esprit divin se retrouve et se repose enfin dans l’esprit de Hegel et de ses disciples.” g. Auguste Ott, Hegel et la philosophie allemande (Paris: Joubert, Libraire de la Cour de Cassation, 1844). h. Friedrich Jodl, История этики в новой философии (A History of Ethics in Modern Philosophy) (Moscow: K. T. Sodatenkov, 1896). A translation of Geschichte der Ethik in der neueren Philosophie, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1882–89). i. Adolf Lasson, System der Rechtsphilosophie (Berlin and Leipzig: Guttentag, 1882). j. Paul Barth, Die Geschichtesphilosophie Hegels und der Hegelianer, bis auf Marx und Hartmann (Leipzig, 1890).

Chapter Fourteen a. Wilhelm Windelband, Die Blütezeit der deutschen Philosophie (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1904). Translated phrase: “Hegels absoluter Geist ist in Wahrheit der menschliche Geist.” b. See endnote b for chapter 13. c. Karl Lugwig Michelet, Entwicklungsgeschichte der neuesten deutschen Philosophie (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1843). d. Joseph Willm, Histoire de la philosophie allemande depuis Kant jusqu’a Hegel, 4 vols. (Paris: Ladrange, 1846). Translated phrase: “l’esprit de l’homme, étant luiméme l’absolu.” e. Conrad Hermann, Hegel und die logische Frage der Philosophie in der Gegenwart (Leipzig: M. Schäfer, 1878). Translated phrase: “den Hauptirrthum: den menschlichen Geist und das menschliche Erkennen ohne Weiteres dem Wesen des Seins oder der Welt gleich und adäquat zu setzen.”

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f. Eduard Zeller, Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie seit Leibniz, vol. 13 in the series Geschichte der Wissenschaften in Deutschland (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1873). Translated phrases: “Personlichkeit Gottes”; “menschliche Personlichkeit.”

Chapter Fifteen a. See endnote g for chapter 13. Translated phrase: “la volonté . . . est une réalité génerale, l’Idee absolue même, considerée comme activité.” b. Luigi Miraglia, I principii fondamentali dei diversi sistemi di filosofia del diritto e la dottrina etico-giuidica di G. F. Hegel (Naples: Giannini, 1873). Translated phrase: “la libera volonta, concepita quale attivita dell’idea assoluta.” c. Friedrich Julius Stahl, Geschichte der Rechtsphilosophie (Heidelberg: J.C.B. Mohr, 1856). Translated phrases: “subjektloser, unpersönlicher Wille”; “der übermenschliche Wille, das reinste Abstraktum, die blosse Negation des Menschlichen.” d. See endnote a for chapter 13. e. See endnote d for chapter 13. f. See endnote h for chapter 13. g. Eduard von Hartmann, Geschichte der Metaphysik, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Haacke, 1899–1900). Translated phrase: “Der Wille wird frei, indem er den Schein durchschaut, als ob er etwas anderes wäre als Denken, und sich als Selbstbetätigung der Vernunft begreift.” h. August Geyer, Краткий очерк истории философии права (A Brief Outline of the History of the Philosophy of Right) (St. Petersburg: N. Tiblena, 1866), 149 pp. A translation of August Geyer, Geschichte und System der Rechtsphilosophie in Grundzügen (Innsbruck, 1863). i. See endnote c for chapter 13. j. Franz Exner, Die Psychologie der Hegelschen Schule (Leipzig: F. Fleischer, 1842). k. See endnote d for chapter 13. l. See endnote a for chapter 13. m. A translation of Henri Michel, L’idee de l’état: Essai critique sur l’historie des théories sociales et politiques en France depuis la révolution, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1896). Another Russian edition was published in Moscow: Sytin’, 1909. n. Wilhelm Wundt, Ethik: Eine Untersuchung der Tatsachen und Gesetze des sittlichen Lebens, 4th rev. ed. (Stuttgart: F. Enke, 1912). Wundt’s text on Ethics went through five editions: 1886, 1892, 1903, 1912, and 1923–24. There is no indication in Il’in’s text as to which one he used; the most recent one available to him would have been the fourth. A Russian translation of the first edition appeared in 1887–88 (St. Petersburg: Russkoe bogatsvo). Translated phrase: “Gesamtwillen.”

Chapter Sixteen a. See endnote d for chapter 13. b. Emil Feuerlein, “Über die kulturgeschichtliche Bedeutung Hegels,” Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 4, no. 24 (1870).

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c. That is, the proper genus under which Hegel’s specific conception of “natural right” falls. d. See endnote b for chapter 15. Translated phrase: “Il diritto positive non contraddice al diritto razionale.” e. Nikolai Mikhailovich Korkunov, История философии права: Пособие к лекциям (A History of the Philosophy of Right: Textbook for the Lectures), 6th ed. (St. Petersburg: M. M. Stasulevich, 1915). f. See endnote m for chapter 15. g. See endnote f for chapter 14. Translated phrase: “Dieses Dasein des freien Willens ist das Recht.” h. See endnote c for chapter 13. i. Carl Moritz Kahle, Darstellung und Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie (Berlin: Voss, 1845). j. See endnote a for chapter 13. k. See endnote e for this chapter. l. See endnote h for chapter 15. m. See endnote m for chapter 15. n. Wilhelm Wundt, Einleitung in die Philosophie (Leipzig: Englemann, 1901). Wundt’s Introduction to Philosophy went through at least nine editions through 1922, and was published in Russian translation in 1903. Il’in may have been using the sixth (1914) edition, since the seventh appeared only in 1918, the year of publication of his dissertation. o. See endnote c for chapter 15. p. See endnote h for chapter 13. q. S. F. Kechek’ian, “О понятии естественного права у Канта и Гегеля” (“On the Concept of Natural Right in Kant and Hegel”), Вопросы философии и психологии (Problems of Philosophy and Psychology), no. 128. r. G. F. Shershenevich, История ф илософского п рава (A History of Philosophical Right) (St. Petersburg: Bashmakovykh, 1907).

Chapter Seventeen a. See endnote d for chapter 13. b. Johann Eduard Erdmann, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, 2 vols. (Berlin: W. Hertz, 1866). Translated phrase: “beide Leugner alles Sollens.” c. Harald Höffding, История но вейшей фи лософии (A History of the Latest Philosophy) (St. Petersburg: Obrazovanie, 1900). Danish original, 1894. The Russian translation was of the German edition: Geschichte der neueren Philosophie (Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1895). d. Richard Falckenberg, История новой философии от Николая Кузанского до настоящаго времени (A History of Modern Philosophy from Nicholas Cusanus to the Present) (St. Petersburg: Skorokhodova, 1894). The same work was also published in Moscow: Moskovskoe knigoizdatel’stvo, 1910. Translated from the original German: Geschichte der neueren Philosophie von Nikolaus von Kues bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig: Veit, 1886).

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e. See endnote c for chapter 13. f. See endnote h for chapter 13. g. See endnote q for chapter 16. h. See endnote n for chapter 16.

Chapter Eighteen a. Kuno Fischer, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie (Mannheim, 1860). b. Johann Caspar Bluntschli, История о бщего гос ударственного п рава и политики (A History of the General Law of the State and Politics) (St. Petersburg: O. I. Baksta, 1874). A translation of Geschichte des allgemeinen Staatsrecht und der Politik (Munich: J. G. Cotta, 1864). c. See endnote h for chapter 13. d. See endnote c for chapter 15. e. See endnote e for chapter 16. f. See endnote i for chapter 16. g. See endnote d for chapter 14. h. See endnote c for chapter 17. i. See endnote b for chapter 15. Translated phrase: “L’ethos è communità de spiriti.” j. See endnote c for chapter 13. k. See endnote d for chapter 13. l. Rudolf Haym, Hegel und seine Zeit (Berlin: R. Gaertner, 1857). m. See endnote g for chapter 13. Translated phrases: “la négation de la morale même”; “sont désespérantes.” n. See endnote d for chapter 14. Translated phrases: “n’admet pas la moralité comme telle”; “la liberté et la difference reelle du bien et du mal.” o. See endnote b for chapter 17. Translated phrase: “nur auf einer subjektiven Verbindlichkeit beruhe.” p. Franz Chlebik, Die Philosophie des Bewussten und die Wahrheit des Unbewussten in den dialektischen Grundlinien des Freiheits- und Rechtsbegriffes nach Hegel und C. L. Michelet (Berlin: O. Löwenstein, 1870). Translated phrase: “erst durch das Sollen der Pflicht.” q. M. Rubenshtein, “Логические основы системы Гегеля и конец истории” (“The Logical Foundations of Hegel’s System and the End of History”), in Вопросы философии и психо логии (Problems of Philosophy and Psychology), no. 80, p. 764. r. See endnote h for chapter 15.

Chapter Nineteen a. Karl Rosenkranz, Hegels Leben (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1844). Translated phrase: “Hegel fasste die Individualität des Einzelnen, als eine natürliche Schranke.” b. See endnote m for chapter 15.

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c. See endnote c for chapter 13. d. See endnote b for chapter 13. e. See endnote d for chapter 13. f. E. Caird, Гегель, ed. S. N. Trubetskoi (Moscow: I. N. Kushnerev, 1898); a translation of Edward Caird, Hegel (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1883). g. Anton H. Springer, Die Hegelsche Geschichtsanschauung: Eine historische Denkschrift (Tübingen: Ludwig Friedrich Fues, 1848). h. See endnote a for chapter 13. i. See endnote h for chapter 15. j. See endnote h for chapter 13. k. See endnote n for chapter 15. Translated phrases: “extremer Universalismus”; “einseitiger Universalismus”; “Individualwillen”; “nur unbewusster Träger und Vollbringer des Gesamtwillens.” l. See endnote c for chapter 15. Translated phrases: “Persönlichkeit und Freiheit gehen unter”; “der Spiegel beschaut sich im Menschen”; “Persönlichkeit in abstrakto.” m. M. Rubenshtein, “Das Wertsystem Hegels und die entwertete Persönlichkeit” (“Hegel’s Value System and the Devalued Personality”), Kantstudien, 1910. Translated phrase: “vollständig vernichtet den Wert der Persönlichkeit.” n. See endnote c for chapter 13. o. See endnote l for chapter 18. p. See endnote a for chapter 13.

Chapter Twenty a. See endnote l for chapter 18. b. G. F. Shershenevich, История политических учений (A History of Political Doctrines) (St. Petersburg, 1907?). Information concerning this volume is elusive; the translator of the 2008 Czech edition of Il’in’s commentary, Alan Černohous, cites this volume as St. Petersburg: Tipografiia. M. M. Stasiulevich, 1887. c. Ludwig Noack, Schelling und die Philosophie der Romantik: Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Geistes, 2 vols. (Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1859). Translated phrase: “die restaurativ-conservative Rechtsphilosophie Hegels.” d. See endnote j for chapter 13. Translated phrase: “in Deutschland dagegen ist die wahre Monarchie verwirklicht.” e. See endnote c for chapter 17. f. See endnote e for chapter 16. g. S. N. Trubetskoi, Sobranie sochinenii (Collected Works), 6 vols. (Moscow: G. Lissner & D. Sobko, 1907–12). h. See endnote d for chapter 13. i. See endnote b for chapter 13. j. Eduard Zeller, Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1875), 664–65. k. Wilhelm Windelband, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1880), 323. l. Theobald Ziegler, Die geistigen und socialen Strömungen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1899), 146–48.

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m. Edward Caird, Гегель, 102–7. (See endnote f for chapter 19.) n. William Wallace, Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind (Oxford, 1894), clxxviii–ix. o. Bernard Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State (London, 1899), 247–52. p. See endnote d for chapter 13. q. See endnote f for chapter 14. r. See endnote a for chapter 14. Translated phrase: “solchen bornirten Conservatismus.” s. See endnote i for chapter 13. Translated phrase: “der leise modifizierte preussische Staat.” t. Karl Rosenkranz, Apologie Hegels gegen Dr. R. Haym (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1858). Translated phrase: “Aber den damaligen preussichen Staat kann Hegel nicht kopiert haben, denn er lehrte ja die Nothwendigkeit der constitutionellen Monarchie, der Volksvertretung, der Gleichheit aller Bürger vor dem Gesetz, der Oeffentlichkeit der Rechtspflege, des Geschwornengerichts und der Freiheit der öffentlichen Meinung. Bestanden dieses Institutionen in Preussen? Nein.” u. See endnote a for chapter 19. Translated phrase: “Geburts- und Majoratsadel, der für Preussen bereits gesetzlich antiquirt war.” v. See endnote b for chapter 18. w. See endnote c for chapter 15. Translated phrase: “er will, dass . . . das sächlich-notwendige geschehe.” x. See endnote g for chapter 19. “Geschichtsauffassung” in Il’in’s version of Springer’s title is here corrected to “Geschichtsanschauung.” Translated phrase: “er weist die Religion als die Basis der sittlichen Gesinnung und des Staates auf.” y. See endnote h for chapter 13. z. See endnote m for chapter 15. aa. See endnote b for chapter 18.

Chapter Twenty-one a. See endnote b for chapter 13. b. See endnote g for chapter 19 (again, correcting Geschichtsauffassung to Geschichtsanschauung). c. See endnote c for chapter 17. d. See endnote b for chapter 13. e. See endnote j for chapter 13. f. See endnote l for chapter 18. g. See endnote b for chapter 13. h. See endnote q for chapter 18. i. See endnote j for chapter 15. Translated phrase: “die Methode, welche . . . nichts von aussen nimmt, fortwährend zu der Erfahrung betteln geht.” j. See endnote b for chapter 20. k. K. Rosenkranz, Kritische Erläuterungen des Hegelschen Systems (Königsberg: Borntrager, 1840). Translated phrase: “fast unermessliche Vertrautheit mit dem Faktischen.” l. See endnote i for chapter 13. Translated phrase: “Verständnis für . . . die immanente Vernünftigkeit der historischen Rechtsbildungen.”

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Chapter Twenty-two a. See endnote d for chapter 17. b. A translation of Richard Fester, Rousseau und die deutsche Geschichtsphilosophie: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des deutschen Idealismus (Stuttgart: Göschen’sche Verlag, 1890). c. See endnote b for chapter 13. d. See endnote c for chapter 17. e. See endnote c for chapter 13. f. Georges Noël, La logique de Hegel (Paris: Alcan, 1897). Translated phrase: “Le système de Hegel n’est pas, comme on l’a dit, un panlogisme. Si la Logique est une partie du système, et même á certains égards la partie capitale, elle n’est pas le système tout entire.” g. See endnote e for chapter 14. Translated phrase: “Hegel gibt von allem Wirklichen überhaupt nur eine rein logische Definition oder Begriffserklärung.” h. See endnote d for chapter 17. i. See endnote g for chapter 20. j. See endnote e for chapter 14. k. See endnote c for chapter 15. l. See endnote g for chapter 20. m. See endnote a for chapter 14. Translated phrase: “logische Gliederung des Weltzusammenhanges.” n. See endnote g for chapter 15. o. Eduard von Hartmann, Neukantianismus, Schopenhauerianismus, und Hegelianismus (Berlin: C. Duncker, 1877). p. L. M. Lopatin, Положительные задачи философии (Positive Tasks of Philosophy), vol. 1. (Moscow: 1886–91). q. See endnote h for chapter 13. r. See endnote e for chapter 13. Translated phrase: “détruisez dans tout objet l’element rationnel, rien ne subsiste.” s. Emil Lask, Fichtes Idealismus und die Geschichte (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1902). Translated phrase: “in der Theorie des Begriffs scheint uns Hegel gleichwohl ein Ende zu bedeuten, über das man nie wird hinausgehen können.” t. See endnote g for chapter 15. Translated phrase: “Gegentheil, das Unlogische.” u. See endnote o for this chapter. Translated phrases: “Auch nicht den kleinsten Fortschritt kann die logische Idee bei Hegel machen ohne das Ferment des Unlogischen, das ihre Entwicklung von der absoluten Leere des voraussetzungslosen Anfangs bis zur höchsten Fülle nicht sowohl begleitet, als erzeugt”; “ein relativ Unlogisches”; “ein absolut Unlogisches.” v. See endnote c for chapter 15. w. See endnote d for chapter 17. x. See endnote g for chapter 15. Translated phrases: “einseitiges panlogistisches Princip”; “absurde dialektische Methode”; “Geistesphilosophie, deren Inhalt von der Wahrheit sowohl des panlogistischen Princips, als auch der dialektischen Methode ganz unabhängig ist.”

Table of Page Equivalents for the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion

As Il’in implied in the bibliographic appendix, he evidently used the original 1832 Werke edition of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, edited by Marheineke, as opposed to the 1840 Werke edition also issued under Marheineke’s name, but actually edited by Bruno Bauer. The former is commonly referred to as the W1 edition and the latter as the W2 edition. However, after 1840, the W2 edition became the standard one; consequently the original 1832 edition is now very much more difficult to obtain. For the reader’s convenience, I have supplied the page equivalents in the Suhrkamp edition for the W1 references that Il’in made, given that the Suhrkamp edition is the one most widely available. However, because the Suhrkamp edition, like the Glockner Jubiläumsausgabe, reproduces what is basically the W2 edition, there are occasional variations between the 1832 text and these modern ones, even where the page equivalents can be identified more or less accurately. Note: Given that the topic of theodicy is central to Il’in’s commentary, one might expect him to make extensive use of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. However, this is not the case; Il’in opines that “Hegel succeeded in giving a well thought-out and mature expression only to the doctrine of human ethical life, and left the systematic doctrine of religion in the form of rough sketches” (chapter 15 of volume 2). On the other hand, Il’in made very extensive use of Hegel’s sixteen “Lectures on the Proofs for the Existence of God” and the three separate essays from 1831 on the proofs (all of which were appended to the second volume of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion), as can be seen from the tables below. Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Volume One W1 edition (vol. 11) 56 57 75 76 125 153

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 16) 99–100 100–101 129 bot.–30 130–31 text altered 195–96 213–14

W1 edition (vol. 11) 163 170 173 174 175 176

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 16) 233–34 text altered 236–37 239 bot.–40 text altered 240–41 241–42 242–43 text altered 287

288 TA B L E

W1 edition (vol. 11) 177 179 183

O F

PAGE

E QUI VALE NT S

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 16) 243–44 text altered 246 text altered 251–52 text inserted

W1 edition (vol. 11) 195 199

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 16) 265–66 270–71

Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Volume Two W1 edition (vol. 12) 50

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 17) 63–64 text altered

Appendix Vorlesungen Über Die Beweise vom Dasein Gottes* (“Beweise”) W1 edition (vol. 12) 294 1st Lecture 296 297 300 301 2nd Lecture 306 307 309 311 3rd Lecture 312 313 314 315 316 317 4th Lecture 318 319 320 321 322 324 5th Lecture 328 329 330 335 6th Lecture 336 337 7th Lecture 339 341 342

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 17) 349–50 351–52 352–53 355–56 356–57 361–62 362–63 364–65 366–67 367–68 368–69 369–70 370–71 top 371–72 top 372 373 373 bot.–74 374–75 375–76 376–77 378–79 382–83 383–84 384–85 389–90 390–91 391–92 393–94 395–96 396–97

W1 edition (vol. 12) 343 344 345 8th Lecture 350 351 354 9th Lecture 356 359 10th Lecture 360 364 365 366 367 369 The Insertion 373 379 381 382 383 388 389 390 392 393 395 11th Lecture 396 397 398 399 400

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 17) 397–98 398–99 399–400 top 404 405–6 top 407–8 409 bot.–10 412 bot.–13 413 bot.–14 417–18 418–19 419–20 420–21 422–23 426–27 432–33 434–35 435–36 436–37 441–42 top 442–43 top 443–44 top 445 446 top–47 top 448 448 bot.–49 449 bot.–50 450 bot.–51 451 bot.–52 452 bot.–53

289 TA B L E

O F

W1 edition (vol. 12) 403 12th Lecture 404 410 13th Lecture 414 420 14th Lecture 421 424 426 428 15th Lecture 429

PAGE

E QUI VALE NT S

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 17) 455–56 456–57 462–63 466–67 472–73 473–74 top 476–77 top 478–79 top 480–81 481–82 top

W1 edition (vol. 12) 431 433 434 437 16th Lecture 438 441 442 447 448 449

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 17) 482–84 top 485 486 488 bot.–89 489 bot.–90 492–93 493–94 498–99 499–500 500–501

*[Note: The lecture numbers supplied indicate the first page to which Il’in referred within that lecture and may not indicate the text page on which that lecture begins.]

Ausführung des teleologischen Beweises (“Beweise A”) W1 edition (vol. 12) 457 458 459 461

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 17) 508 bot.–9 509 bot.–10 510–11 512–13

W1 edition (vol. 12) 462 463 464 465

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 17) 513–14 514–15 515–16 516–17 text altered

Ausführung des teleologischen und ontologischen Beweises (“Beweise B”) W1 edition (vol. 12) 468 469 470 473

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 17) 519 bot.–20 520–21 521–22 524–25

W1 edition (vol. 12) 474 475 476

Ausführung des ontologischen Beweises (“Beweise C”) W1 edition (vol. 12) 482 483

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 17) 533–34 534–35

Suhrkamp edition (vol. 17) 525–26 526–27 527–28