V.C. Individuality Which Takes Itself to Be Real in and for Itself

Self-consciousness has now grasped its own principle, which at first sight was only our notion of it, viz. the notion that, when consciously certain of itself, it is all reality. Its purpose and nature henceforward consist in the interpenetration of the universal elements (its “gifts” and “capacities”) and individual existence. The particular moments of this process of complete concrete permeation preceding the unity in which they now combine in a single fused whole, were found in the purposes hitherto considered. These have now ceased to be the abstractions and chimeras, belonging to those earlier empty modes of the self-consciousness of mind, modes whose true nature lies simply in the would-be life of “the heart,” fancy and mere rhetoric, and not in reason, which is now sure of its own reality as it stands (an und für sich), and no longer seeks to take up the position of being only a purpose in opposition to immediately existent (sensible) reality, but, on the contrary, has the category as such as the object of its consciousness. This means that the character of being for itself on its own account (für sich), or of negative self-consciousness, with which reason started, is cancelled. This self-consciousness at that stage fell in with a reality which would be its own negative, and by cancelling which it would consciously realise its purpose. Now that purpose and inherent nature (Ansichseyn) have proved to be the same as objective existence for another and the given reality, [objective] truth is no longer divided from [subjective] certainty. The purpose set up may now be taken for certainty of self, and the realisation of that purpose for truth; or, again, purpose may be taken for the truth, and reality for certainty. The essential nature and purpose as it stands (an und für sich) constitute the certainty of immediate reality itself, the interpenetration of the inherent implicit nature (ansich), and the explicit distinctive nature (fürsich), of the universal and individuality. Action is per se its truth and reality, and the manifestation or expression of individuality is its purpose taken just as it stands.

With the attainment of such a conception, therefore, self-consciousness has returned into itself and passed from those opposite characteristics which the category presented, and which its relation to the category had, when it was “observing” and when it was “active.” Its object is now the category pure and simple; in other words, it is itself the category become conscious of itself. Its account with its previous forms is now closed; they lie behind it in the past; they do not come forward as a world found ready to hand, but are developed solely within itself as transparent moments. Yet they still fall apart at this stage as a movement of distinct moments, which has not yet got combined into its own substantial unity. But throughout all these moments self-consciousness holds firmly to that simple unity of self with objective existence which is its constitutive nature or generic attribute.

Consciousness has in this way cast free from all opposition and from every condition limiting its activity. It starts anew from itself, and is occupied not with something external, but with itself. Since individuality is in itself actuality, the material of operation and the purpose of action lie in the action itself. Action consequently has the appearance of a circular process, which moves freely in vacuo within itself, which, unimpeded, now enlarges and then contracts, and is quite content to play simply within itself and with itself. When individuality manifests and displays its form and shape, this means that it simply assumes and receives this form; that is its element: it is just the light of day, to which consciousness wants to show itself here. Action alters nothing, opposes nothing; it is the mere form of transition from a condition of being invisible to one of being visible, and the content, brought thus to daylight, and laid bare, is nothing else than what this action already is implicitly (an sich). It is implicit—that is its form as unity in thought: and it is actual—that is its form as unity in existence: while it is itself content merely in virtue of its maintaining this character of simplicity in spite of the aspect of change process and transition.

The above substantial individuality, to begin with, is again particular and determinate. Absolute reality, which it knows itself to be, is thus, in the way it is consciously aware of that reality, abstract and universal, without filling and content, merely the empty thought of this category. We have to see how this conception of substantial individuality is made explicit in its various moments, and how it gets to be conscious of its true nature.

The conception of this individuality, as it takes itself as such to be all reality, is in the first instance a mere result: its own movement and reality are not yet set forth; it is here in its immediacy as something purely and simply implicit. Negativity, however, which is the same as what appears as movement and process, is inherent in this implicit nature as a specific quality; and being, the simple implicit nature, comes to be a definite compass or range of being. Individuality confronts us, therefore, as an original determinate nature: original, in virtue of its being implicit: originally determinate, in virtue of the negative moment lying in that implicitness, which negative element is thereby a quality. This limitation cannot, however, limit the action of consciousness, for this consists at the present stage in thorough and complete self-reference: relation to what is other than itself, which would be a limitation, is now overcome. The character inherent originally by nature is thus merely an undefined (simple) principle, a transparent universal element in which individuality finds itself free and at one with itself, as well as unfolds its diversity without restraint, and in realising itself is simply in reciprocal relation with itself. We have here something similar to what we find in the case of indeterminate animal life: this breathes the breath of life, let us say, in water as its element, or air or earth, and within these again in still more determinate conditions: every aspect of its life is affected by the specific element, and yet animal life still keeps these aspects within its power and itself a unity in spite of the limitations of the element, and remains qua the given particular organisation animal life throughout, the same general fact of animal life.

This determinate original nature of consciousness, in which it finds itself freely and wholly, appears as the immediate and only proper content of the purpose of the individual. That content is indeed a definite content, but is only content so far as we take the implicit nature in isolation. In truth, however, it is reality (Realität) permeated by individuality: actuality (Wirklichkeit) in the way consciousness qua individual contains this within itself, and is to begin with taken as existing, but not yet as acting. So far as action is concerned, however, that determinateness is, in one respect, not a limitation it wants to overcome; for, looked at as an existent quality, that determinateness is simply the colour of the element where it moves: in another respect, however, the negativity is determinateness merely in the case of what “exists.” But acting is nothing else than this negativity. Hence when individuality acts, its specific determinateness is dissipated into the general process of negation, into the sum and substance of all determinateness.

The simple “original nature” now breaks up, in action and the consciousness of action, into the distinction which action implies. To begin with, action is here an object, an object, too, still belonging to consciousness; it is present as a purpose, and thus opposed to a given reality. The other moment is the process of this statically presented purpose, the process of actualisation of the purpose, bringing the purpose to bear on the entirely formal reality, and hence is the idea of the transition itself. In other words, this second moment is the “means.” The third moment is, finally, the object, no longer as immediately and subjectively presented purpose, but as brought to light and established as something other than and external to the acting subject.

These various aspects must be viewed in the light of the general principle of this sphere of consciousness. The content throughout remains the same, without any difference, whether between individuality and existence in general, or between purpose as against individuality in the sense of an “original nature,” or between purpose and the given reality: or between the means and that reality as absolute purpose: or finally between the reality moulded by the agent as against the purpose, the “original nature,” or the means.

At the outset, then, the nature of individuality in its original determinate form, its immediate essence, is not yet affirmed as active; and in this shape is called special capacity, talent, character, and so on. This peculiar colouring of mind must be looked at as the only content of its purpose, and as the sole and only reality. If we thought of consciousness as going beyond that, as seeking to bring into reality another content, then we should think of it as a nothing working away towards nothing.

This original nature is, moreover, not merely the substance of its purpose, but implicitly the reality as well, which otherwise assumes the appearance of being a given material on which to act, of being found ready at hand for action to work up into some determinate form. That is to say, acting is simply transferring from a state not yet explicitly expressed to one fully expressed; the inherent being of that reality opposed to consciousness has sunk to the level of a mere empty appearance, a mere seeming. This mode of consciousness, by determining itself to act, thereby refuses to be led astray by the semblance of reality on the part of what is presented to it; and has likewise to abandon its dealings with idle thoughts and purposes, and keep its hold on the original content of its own nature. No doubt this content first exists as a fact for consciousness, when it has made that content actual; but the distinction between something which while for consciousness is only inside itself, and a reality outside consciousness existing in itself, has broken down. Consciousness must act only that what it inherently and implicitly is, may be for it explicitly; or, acting is just the process of mind coming to be qua consciousness. What it is implicitly, therefore, it knows from its actual reality. Hence it is that an individual cannot know what he is till he has made himself real by action.

Consciousness, however, seems on this view to be unable to determine the purpose of its action before action has taken place; but before action occurs it must, in virtue of being consciousness, have the act in front of itself as entirely its own, i.e. as a purpose. The individual, therefore, who is going to act seems to find himself in a circle, where each moment already presupposes the others, and hence seems unable to find a beginning, because it only gets to know its own original nature, the nature which is to be its purpose, by first acting, while in order to act it must have that purpose beforehand. But just for that reason it has to start straight away and, whatever the circumstances are, without troubling further about beginning, means, or end, proceed to action at once. For its essential and implicit (ansichseyende) nature is beginning, means, and end all in one. As beginning, it is found in the circumstances of the action; and the interest which the individual finds in something is just the answer to the question, “whether he should act and what is to be done in a given case.” For what seems to be a reality confronting him is implicitly his own original fundamental nature, which has merely the appearance of an objective being—an appearance which lies in the notion of action, involving as this does self-diremption, but which expressly shows itself to be his own original nature by the interest the individual finds therein. Similarly the how, the means, is determined as it stands (an und für sich). Talent is likewise nothing but individuality with a definite original constitution, looked at as the subjective internal means, or transition of purpose into actuality. The actual means, however, and the real transition are the unity of talent with the nature of the fact as present in the interest felt. The former [talent] expresses that aspect of the means which concerns action, the latter [the fact found of interest] that which concerns content: both are individuality itself, as a fused whole of acting and existing. What we find, then, is first circumstances given ready to hand, which are implicitly the original nature of the individual; next the interest which affirms them as its own or as its purpose; and -finally the connection and sublation of these opposite elements in the means. This connexion itself still falls within consciousness, and the whole just considered is one side of an opposition. This appearance of opposition which still remains is removed by the transition, i.e. by the means. For the means is a unity of inner and outer, the antithesis of the determinate character it has qua inner means (viz. talent): it therefore abolishes this character, and makes itself—this unity of action and existence—equally an outer, viz.: the actually realised individuality, i.e. individuality which is established for individuality itself as the objectively existent. The entire act in this way does not go beyond itself, either as circumstances, or as purpose, or means, or as work performed.

In this notion of work, however, the distinction which lay within the original nature seems to enter. The work done is something determinate, like the original nature it expresses, because being cut loose by the process of acting and become an existing reality, the negation implied in this process remains in it as a quality. Consciousness, however, as against the work, is specifically that in which this quality as a general process of negation, as acting, is to be found. It is thus the universal as opposed to the specific determinateness of the work performed; it can therefore compare one kind of work with another, and thence apprehend individualities themselves as different. An individual who is of wider compass in his work has either stronger energy of will or a richer nature, i.e. a nature whose original constitution (Bestimmtheit) is less limited; while another has a weaker and a poorer nature.

In contrast with this purely quantitative difference, which is not an essential difference, “good” and “bad” would express an absolute difference; but this is not in place here. Whether taken in one way or another, action is equally carried on; there is a process of displaying and expressing an individuality, and for that reason it is all good: it would, properly speaking, be impossible to say what “bad” is to be here. What would be called a bad work is the individual life of a certain specific nature, which is therein realised. It would only be degraded into a bad work by a reflective comparison, which, however, is quite empty and futile, since this goes beyond the essential meaning and nature of work (which is a self-expression of individuality), and then seeks to find and demand from it heaven knows what else. The comparison could have to do only with the distinction above mentioned. But this, being a distinction of quantity, is in itself not an essential one, and is only made here because of differences in works and individualities which might be compared with one another. But these do not affect one another; each is concerned simply with itself.

The original nature is alone the essential fact, or what could be used as an ultimate standard of judgment regarding the work; and conversely. Both, however, correspond to each other: there is nothing for individuality which is not obtained through it: or there is no reality which is not its nature and its action, and no action nor inherent substance of individuality which is not real. And only these moments are to be compared.

There is, therefore, in general, no ground for feeling elevated or for lamenting or repenting: all that sort of thing arises from a reflection which imagines another content and another inner nature than is to be found in the original nature of the individual and the actual carrying of it out into reality. Whatever it is that the individual does, and whatever happens to him, that the individual has done, and is that himself. He can only have the consciousness of the mere transference of his self from the darkness of possibility to the daylight of the present, from a state abstract and implicit to the significance of actual being, and can have only the certainty that what seems to him in the second state is nothing else than what lay dormant in the former. The consciousness of this unity is no doubt likewise a comparison, but what is compared is just a mere appearance of opposition, a formal appearance which for reason, qua self-conscious and aware that individuality is inherently actuality, is nothing more than seeming. The individual, therefore, knowing that he can find in his objective actuality nothing but its unity with himself or can find only the certainty of himself in its very truth, and knowing that he thus always attains his purpose—can experience only a sense of joy in himself.

That, then, is the conception consciousness has of itself when it is sure of its being an absolute identification, a complete permeation, of individuality and existence. Let us see whether this notion is confirmed and supported by its experience, and whether its reality agrees with this notion.

The work produced is the reality which consciousness gives itself. It is there that the individual becomes consciously what he is implicitly, and in such wise that the consciousness which becomes aware of the individual in the work performed is not the particular consciousness but universal consciousness. He has placed himself by his work quite outside in the element of universality, in the characterless, qualityless region of existence. The consciousness which withdraws from its work is in point of fact universal,—because it becomes, in this opposition between work and consciousness, absolute negativity, the process of action—and stands over against its work, which is determinate and particular. It thus goes beyond itself qua work, and is itself the indeterminate region which its work still leaves void and unfilled. If their unity was in the above notion still preserved, this took place just through the work being cancelled qua objectively existing product. But it has to be, and we have to see how individuality will retain its universality in the existence of the work, and will know how to get satisfaction.

To begin with we have to consider by itself the work which has come into being. It has carried with it the entire nature of the individual. Its existence is therefore itself an action, in which all distinctions interpenetrate and are resolved. The work is thus thrown out into a subsisting form where the specific character of the original nature does in fact come out as against other determinate natures, encroaches on them, just as these do in their turn, and is lost as a vanishing moment in this general process. Although in the conception of individuality as here dealt with, the various moments (circumstances, purpose, means, and realisation,) are all alike, and the original specific nature stands for no more than a universal element, on the other hand, when this element takes on an objective existence, its determinate character as such comes to light in the work done, and preserves its truth in its dissolution. Looked at more closely, this dissolution is such that in this specific character the individual, as a particular individual, has become consciously real; but the specific character is not merely the content of reality, but form as well; or reality as such is as a whole just this determinateness of being opposed to self-consciousness. On this view it is seen to be an alien reality which has disappeared out of the notion, and is merely found given. The work is, i.e. it is for other individuals, and for them it is an external, an alien reality, in whose place they have to put their own, in order to get by their action consciousness of their unity with reality. In other words, the interest which they take in that work owing to their original constitution is other than the peculiar interest of this work, which thereby is turned into something different. The work is, thus, in general something transitory, which is extinguished by the counter-action of other powers and interests, and displays the reality of individuality in a transitory form rather than as fulfilled and accomplished.

Consciousness, then, by doing work becomes aware of that contrast between being and acting, which in the earlier forms of consciousness was at the same time the beginning of action, and is here merely a result. This contrast, however, was in fact likewise the ultimate principle involved when consciousness proceeded to act as an implicitly real individuality; for action presupposed the determinate original nature as the ultimate implicit element, and the mere process of performing the act for the sake of this performance took that nature as its content. Mere action is, however, the self-identical form, with which, consequently, the specific determinateness of the original nature does not agree. It is matter of indifference here, as elsewhere, which of the two is called notion and which reality. The original nature is the thought element, the implicit factor as against the action, in which it first gets its reality; or, again, the original nature is the existence both of individuality as such and of individuality in the form of work; while action is the original notion as pure and simple transition, as the process of becoming. This lack of correspondence between idea and reality, which lies in its essence, consciousness learns in its work; in work consciousness becomes aware of itself as it in truth is, and its empty notion of itself disappears.

In this fundamental contradiction characteristic of work—which contains the truth of this individuality that takes itself to be inherently real—all the aspects of individuality thus appear again as contradictory. In other words, work, being the content of the entire individuality put forth by action, which is the negative unity and holds in its grasp all the elements, now sets them free, when it is given existence. As subsisting, they stand indifferently over against each other. The notion and its reality are thus separated into purpose and the original essential nature (Wesenheit). It is an accident that the purpose should have a true being, or that the implicit inherent nature should be made a purpose. Similarly, again, notion and reality fall apart as transition to actuality and as purpose; in other words, it is an accident that the means expressing the purpose should actually be chosen. While, finally, should these inner moments taken together have some intrinsic unity or not, the action of the individual is once more an accident so far as actuality in general is concerned: fortune decides in favour of a badly determined purpose, and badly selected means, just as much as against them.

If, now, consciousness hereby becomes aware in its work of the opposition between willing and performance, between purpose and means, and again between this inward nature, taken all together, and actual reality—an opposition which as a whole shows the fortuitous character of the action of consciousness—still the unity and the necessity of this action are just as much present too. This latter aspect transcends the former, and experience of the fortuitousness of the action is itself only a fortuitous kind of experience. The necessity of the action consists in this, that purpose is directly related to actuality, and the unity of these is the very notion of action: the act takes place because action is per se and of itself the essence of actuality. In work there no doubt comes out the fortuitousness which characterises accomplishment when contrasted with willing and the process of performing; and this experience, which seems as if it must be the truth, contradicts that notion of the act. Still if we look at the content of this experience taken in its completeness, that content is seen to be the transitory work. What persists is not the transitoriness; rather this is itself actual and is bound up with the work, and vanishes with it; the negative falls away along with the positive whose negation it is.

The very notion of substantially and inherently real individuality contains within it this transience of transitoriness (Verschwinden des Verschwindens). For that wherein the work disappears, or what disappears in the work, is the objective reality; and this was to give experience, as it was called, its supremacy over the notion which individuality has about itself. Objective reality, however, is a moment which itself has no longer independent truth in this mode of consciousness; it consists solely in the unity of this consciousness with action, and the real work is only that unity of action and existence, of willing and performance. On account of the certainty fundamental to its action, consciousness takes the actual reality contrasted with that conscious certainty, to be something which is only for consciousness. The opposition cannot any longer stand before consciousness where this is for itself and independent as against the actual reality; for consciousness here is self-consciousness returned into itself and with all opposition gone. On the contrary, the opposition and the negativity manifested in the case of work, thus affect not only the content of the work, or, again, the content of consciousness, but actual reality as such, and hence affect both the opposition present merely in virtue of that reality and in it, and the disappearance of the work. In this way consciousness turns from its transient work back upon itself, and asserts its own notion and its certainty to be the permanent and abiding fact as against the experience of the fortuitousness of action. In point of fact it comes to know its essential principle or notion, in which actuality is only a moment, something for consciousness, not something in and for itself; it finds that reality to be a passing moment, of significance therefore merely as being in general, whose universality is one and the same as action. This unity, this identity is the true work; it is the “real fact,” the “actual fact” itself (die Sache selbst), which absolutely asserts itself, and is experienced as the lasting element, independent of that “ fact” which is the accident of individual action as such, the accident of circumstances, means, and actuality.

The “real fact”itself stands opposed to these moments only so far as they claim to have a value in isolation, but is essentially their unity, because identifying, fusing, actuality with individuality. It is, too, an action, and, qua doing, pure action in general, and thereby just as much action of this particular individual; and this action, because still appertaining to the individual in opposition to actuality, has the sense of a purpose. Similarly it is the transition from this specific character to the opposite: and finally it is a reality which is present objectively for consciousness. The “actual fact” thus expresses the essential spiritual substance in which all these moments as independently valid are cancelled and transcended, and so hold good only as universal, and in which the certainty consciousness has regarding itself is a “fact,” a real object before consciousness, an object born of self-consciousness as its own, without ceasing to be a free independent object in the proper sense. The “thing,” found at the stage of sense-certainty and perception, now gets its significance through self-consciousness, and through it alone. On this rests the distinction between a thing (Ding) and a fact (Sache). A process is gone through here corresponding to what we find in the case of sense-experience and perception.

Self-consciousness, then, has attained its true conception of itself when this stage of “real fact” is reached; fact is the interpenetration of individuality and objectivity. In it self-consciousness has arrived at a consciousness of its own substance. At the same time, as we find self-consciousness here, it is a consciousness which has just arisen, and hence is immediate; and this is the specific way in which we find spirit at the present stage: it has not yet reached its truly real substance. The “fact itself” takes in this immediate consciousness the form of bare and simple essence (einfachen Wesens), which, being universal, contains all its various moments in itself and belongs to them, but, again, is also indifferent towards them taken as specific moments, and is independent by itself; and, as this free and independent simple abstract “fact,” passes for the essentially real (Wesen). The various moments of the original determinateness, the moments of the “fact” of this particular individual, his purpose, means, action, and actual reality, are, on the one hand, particular moments for this consciousness, which it can abandon and give up for the “fact itself”; on the other hand, however, they all have the “fact itself” as their essential nature, but only in such a way that it, being their abstract universal, can find itself in each of them and be their predicate. The “fact itself” is not yet subject; but those moments stand for subject, because they belong to the aspect of particularity, while “fact itself” is only at this stage bare universality. “Fact” is the genus which finds all these moments to be species of itself, and in that way is independent of them.

Consciousness is called “honest,” when it has on the one hand attained this idealisation (Idealismus), which “fact” expresses, and on the other possesses the truth in the “fact” qua this formal universality. Consciousness when so characterised takes to do solely with “fact,” and hence occupies itself with its various moments or species. And when it does not reach the “fact” in one of these moments, does not find the “real fact” in one meaning, it just on that account lays hold of the “fact” in another; and consequently always really secures that satisfaction which should belong to this mode of consciousness by its very nature (seinem Begriffe nach). However things turn out, it achieves and secures the “fact itself,” for the latter, being this universal genus of those moments, is the predicate of all.

Should it not bring a purpose into reality, it may have at least willed the purpose, i.e. may turn purpose qua purpose, mere doing which does nothing, into the “fact itself,” and can therefore maintain and feel satisfied that at least there has always been something attempted, something done. Since the universal contains within it even the negative or the transitoriness, this too, the nothingness of work, is itself its doing. It has stimulated others towards this, and still finds satisfaction in the disappearance of its reality, just as bad boys enjoy a personal pleasure in getting their ears boxed because they are the cause of its being done. Or, again, suppose it has not so much as tried to carry out the “fact itself,” and done nothing at all, then it has not even cared; the “fact itself” is for it just the unity of its decision with reality; it asserts that the reality was nothing else than its own wish in the matter (sein Mögen). Finally, suppose something of interest has come its way entirely without its help, then for it this reality is the “fact itself” just by the interest which it finds in the “fact,” although that reality was not brought about by its doing. If it is a piece of luck, which has befallen the individual personally, he reckons it his own act and his own desert; if it is, on the other hand, a mere event, which does not concern him further, he makes it likewise his own, and an interest where he has done nothing, is held as a party interest which he has taken up and defended or maintained, for or against.

The “Honesty,” or “Honourableness” of this mode of consciousness, as well as the satisfaction which it meets with at every point, really consists, as the above makes clear, in this, that it does not bring together its ideas regarding the “fact itself.” “Fact itself” is just as much its own affair (seine Sache) as no work at all, or mere action and bare purpose, or again a reality involving no action at all: it makes one meaning after another the subject of this predicate, and forgets one after the other. By its having merely “willed” or, again, in not having “wanted,” “fact itself” has now the meaning of empty purpose, and of the merely ideal thought-unity of willing and performance. The consolation for the annihilation of the purpose, which was at all events “willed” or at all events simply done, as well as the satisfaction of having given others something to do, makes the simple doing, or the entirely bad work, the essential reality; for that must be called a bad work which is no work at all. Finally, in the case of finding through good luck the reality at hand, this existence without any act becomes the “fact itself.”

The true meaning of this “Honesty,” however, lies in not being so honest as it seems. For it cannot be so unintelligent as to let these various moments fall apart in that way; it must have an immediate consciousness regarding their opposition, because they are absolutely related to one another. Bare action is essentially action of this individual, and this action is likewise essentially an actuality or a “fact.” Conversely, actuality essentially is only as his own action, and as action in general as well; and just as his own action is action in general, so it is only reality in general. While, then, he thinks he has only to do with the “fact itself” as abstract reality, there is also present this idea that he has to do with it as his own doing. But precisely so far as it is only a matter of being busy about doing something, he is not really in earnest on the point, but rather is dealing with a “fact,” and with “fact” as his own. Since finally, he seems to will merely his own “fact” and his own action, it is again a matter of dealing with “fact” in general or actuality substantial and abiding (an und für sich bleibende).

Just as “fact” and its moments appear at this stage as content, they are likewise necessary also as forms in consciousness. They come forward as content merely to pass away again, each making room for the other. They have therefore to be present in the determinate result as cancelled and sublated forms: so taken, however, they are aspects of consciousness. “ Fact itself” is present as the inherent nature or its reflection into self; the ousting of the moments by each other there finds expression, however, in their being established in consciousness, not per se, but only for another consciousness. One of the moments of the content is exposed by it to the light, and presented as an object for others. Consciousness, however, is at the same time reflected therefrom back upon itself, and the opposite is thus equally present within it, is retained for itself as its own. There is, too, not one of them which could be merely and solely put outside, and another merely retained within; rather, consciousness operates alternately with them, for it has to make one as well as another essential for itself and for others. The whole is the moving process of permeating individuality with the universal. In that this consciousness finds this whole, however, to be merely the simple ultimate nature (Wesen) and thus the abstraction of “fact itself,” the moments of this whole appear as distinct outside the “fact” and outside one another. As a single whole it is only exhaustively exhibited by the process of alternately exposing its elements to view and keeping them within itself. Since in this alternation consciousness has in its process of reflection one moment for itself and keeps it as essential, while another is merely externally implied or is for others, there thus enters a play of individualities with one another, where they both deceive and find deceived themselves and one another reciprocally.

An individuality, then, sets to work to carry out something; by so doing it seems to have made something into an “actual fact.” It acts; by so doing it comes out before others, and thinks it is occupied with reality. Others, therefore, take its action to be an interest in the “fact” as such, and take the end of the act to be the carrying out of the “fact” per se, regardless of whether this is done by the former individuality or by them. When on this account they point out that this “fact” has been already brought about by themselves, or, if not, offer and actually furnish their assistance, then they see that consciousness has rather left the position where they think it to be; it is its own action and effort, which arouses its interest in the “fact,” and when they come to know that this was the “fact itself” they feel themselves deceived. In reality, however, their haste to render assistance was itself nothing else than their desire to see and manifest their own action and not the “fact itself,” i.e. they wanted to deceive the other individual just in the way they complain of having been deceived. Since there has now been brought to light that its own action and effort, the play of its powers, is taken for the “fact itself,” consciousness seems to be occupied in its own way on its own account and not on that of others, and only troubles about action qua its own action, and not about action qua an action of others, and hence seems to let the others in their turn keep to their own “fact.” But they go wrong again; that consciousness has already left the point where they thought it was. It does not take the matter in hand to be “fact” in the sense of this its own particular fact, but fact qua fact, qua something universal, which is for all. Hence it interferes in the action and work of others; and if consciousness can no longer take their work out of their hands, it is at least interested in the matter, and shows this by its concern to pass judgment. When it stamps the result with the mark of its approval and praise, this is meant to imply that in the case of work it does not merely praise the work itself, but at the same time its own generosity and moderation in not having destroyed the work as work nor spoiled it by finding fault. Since it shows an interest in the work, it enjoys its own self therein; and in the same way the work which it found fault with, is welcomed for just this enjoyment of its own action which is thereby procured. Those, however, who regard themselves as, or profess to be, deceived by this interference with others wanted really themselves to deceive in the same way. They give out their efforts and doings as something only for themselves, in which they merely have themselves and their own nature in view. But since they do something, and thus express their nature, bring themselves to the light of day, they directly contradict by their deed the pretext of wanting to exclude the daylight, i.e. to exclude the publicity of universal consciousness, and participation by every one. Actualisation is, on the contrary, an exposing of what is one’s own in a universal element, where it comes to be and has to be “fact” for every one.

Consciousness, then, is as much deception of itself as of others, if it is pretended that the “bare fact” is its sole concern. A consciousness that lays open a “fact” soon learns that others want to hurry to the spot and make themselves busy there, like flies to new milk; and they in their turn find out in its case that it is not dealing with “fact” qua object, but with its “own” fact. On the other hand, if only action itself, the use of powers and capacities, or the expression of a given individuality, is to be the essential thing, they reciprocally learn that all are affected, and consider themselves invited to deal with the matter, and that instead of a mere abstract action, or a particular peculiar action, something has been elicited and exposed which was likewise for others or is a “fact itself.” In both cases the same thing happens; and only appears to be different by contrast with that which was accepted and assumed to hold on the matter. Consciousness finds both sides to be equally essential moments, and thereby learns what the nature of the “fact itself” is, viz. that it is neither merely “fact” which is opposed to action in general and to the particular action, nor action which is opposed to permanence, and which might be the genus independent of these moments as its species: but rather that “fact itself” is an essential reality whose existence means the action of the particular individual, and of all individuals, and whose action is immediately for others, or is a “fact,” and is only “fact” in the sense of an action of each and all—the essential reality which is the essence of all beings, (Wesen), which is spiritual essence. Consciousness learns that no one of these moments is subject, but rather gets dissolved in the universal “fact itself.” The moments of individuality, which were taken as subject one after another by this unreflective incoherent stage of consciousness, coalesce and concentrate into simple individuality, which while a this, a particular, is likewise directly universal. “Fact itself” thereby ceases to stand in the relation of a predicate, loses the characteristic of lifeless abstract universality: it is substance permeated by individuality: subject, wherein individuality is just as much individual, or this particular individuality, as all individuals: and the universal, which has an existence only as being this action of each and all, gets an actual reality in that this particular consciousness knows it to be its own individual reality, and the reality of all. “Pure fact itself” is what was characterised above as the “category,”—being which is the ego, or ego which is being, but in the sense of thought, which is still distinguished from actual self-consciousness. Here, however, the moments of actual self-consciousness, being-for-self and being-for-another—so far as we call them its content, purpose, action, and reality, and also in so far as we call them its form—are made identical with the bare and simple category itself, and the category is thereby at the same time the entire content.

Spiritual essential reality is, in its bare existence, pure consciousness, and also a particular self-consciousness. The originally determinate nature of the individual has lost its positive significance of being inherently the element and purpose of his activity; it is merely a superseded moment, while the individual is a self in the sense of a universal self. Conversely, the formal “fact itself” gets its content and filling in active individuality with the distinctions it draws within itself; for these distinctions compose the content of that universal. The category is implicit (an sich) as the universal of pure consciousness; it is also explicit (für sich), for the self of consciousness is likewise its moment. It is absolute being, for that universality is the bare self-identity of being.

Thus the significance of what is object for consciousness lies in its being the truth; it is and it holds good, in the sense of being and holding good by itself as an independent entity (an und für sich selbst). It is the “absolute fact,” which no longer suffers from the opposition between what is certain and what is true, between universal and particular, between purpose and its reality, but whose existence is the reality and action of self-consciousness. This “fact” is therefore the ethical substance; and consciousness of it is ethical consciousness. Its object is likewise taken to be the truth, for it combines self-consciousness and being in a single unity. It stands for what is absolute, for self-consciousness cannot and will not again go beyond this object because it is there at home with itself: it cannot, for the object is all its power, and all its being: it will not, because the object is its self, or the will of this particular self. It is the real object inherently as object, for it contains and involves the distinction which consciousness implies. It divides itself into areas or spheres (Massen) which are the determinate laws of the absolute reality [viz. the ethical substance]. These spheres, however, do not obscure the notion, for the moments, (being, bare consciousness and self), are kept contained within it—a unity which constitutes the inner nature of these spheres, and no longer lets these moments in this distinction fall apart from one another.

These laws or groups (Massen) of the substance of ethical life are directly recognised and acknowledged. We cannot ask for their origin and justification, nor is there something else to search for as their warrant; for something other than this independent self-subsistent reality (an und für sich seyendes Wesen) could only be self-consciousness itself. But self-consciousness is nothing else than this reality, for itself is the self-existence of this reality, which is the truth just because it is as much the self of consciousness as its inherent nature (sein Ansich), or pure consciousness.

Since self-consciousness knows itself to be a moment of this substance, the moment of self-existence, of independence and self-determination, it expresses the existence of the law within itself, in the form: “the healthy natural reason knows immediately what is right and good.” As healthy reason knows the law immediately, so the law is valid for it also immediately, and it says directly: “this is right and good”: “this,” a particular, for there are determinate specific laws, the “this” is “fact itself” with a concrete filling and content.

What is thus given immediately must likewise be accepted and regarded as immediate. As in the case of the immediacy of sense-experience, so here we have also to consider the nature of the existence to which this immediate certainty in ethical experience gives expression—to analyse the constitution of the immediately existing areas (Massen) of ethical reality. Examples of some such laws will show what we want to know, and since we take them in the form of declarations of the healthy reason knowing them, we have not, in this connection, first to bring to notice the moment which has to be made good in their case when looked at as immediate ethical laws.

“Every one ought to speak the truth.” In this duty, as expressed unconditionally, the condition will at once be granted, viz. if he knows the truth. The command will therefore now run: every one should speak the truth, at all times according to his knowledge and conviction about it. The healthy reason, this very ethical consciousness which knows immediately what is right and good, will explain that this condition had all the while been so bound up with that universal maxim that it meant the command to be taken in that sense. It thereby admits, however, in point of fact, that in the very expression of the maxim it eo ipso really violated it. The healthy reason said: “each should speak the truth”; it intended, however: “he must speak the truth according to his knowledge and conviction.” That is to say, it spoke otherwise than it intended, and to speak otherwise than one intends means not speaking the truth. The improved untruth, or inaptitude now takes the form: “each must speak the truth according to his knowledge and conviction about it on each occasion.” Thereby, however, what was universally necessary and absolutely valid (and this the proposition wanted to express) has turned round into what is really a complete contingency. For speaking the truth is left to the chance whether I know it and can convince myself of it; and there is nothing more in the statement than that truth and falsehood are to be spoken as they come, just as any one happens to know, intend, and understand. This contingency in the content has universality merely in the propositional form of the expression; but as an ethical maxim, the proposition promises a universal and necessary content, and thus contradicts itself by the content being contingent. Finally, if the maxim were to be improved by saying that the contingency of the knowledge and the conviction as to the truth should be dropped, and that the truth, too, “ought” to be known, then this would be a command which contradicts straightway what we started from. Healthy reason was at first assumed to have the immediate capacity of expressing the truth; now, however, we are saying that it “ought” to know the truth, i.e. that it does not immediately know how to express the truth. Looking at the content, this has dropped out in the demand that we “should” know the truth; for this demand refers to knowing in general—“we ought to know.” What is demanded is, therefore, strictly speaking, something independent of every specific content, But, here, the whole point of the statement concerned a definite content, a distinction involved in the substance of the ethical life. Yet this inherent determination of that substance is a content of such a kind as turned out really to be a complete contingency, and when we try to get the required universality and necessity by making the law refer to the knowledge [instead of to the content], then the content really disappears altogether.

Another celebrated command runs: “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” It is directed to an individual standing in relation to another individual, and asserts this law as a relation of a particular individual to a particular individual, i.e. a relation of sentiment or feeling (Empfindung). Active love—for an inactive love has of course no existence, and is therefore doubtless not intended here—aims at removing evil from some one and bringing him good. To do this we have to distinguish what the evil is, what is the appropriate good to meet this evil, and what in general his well-being consists in; i.e. we have to love him intelligently. Unintelligent love will do him harm perhaps more than hatred. Intelligent, veritable (wesentlich) well-doing is, however, in its richest and most important form, the intelligent universal action of the state—an action compared with which the action of a particular individual as such is something altogether so trifling that it is hardly worth talking about. The action of the state is in this connection of such great weight and strength, that if the action of the individual were to oppose it, and either sought to be straightway and deliberately (für sich) criminal, or out of love for another wanted to cheat the universal out of the right and claim which it has upon him, such action would be useless and would inevitably be annihilated. Hence all that well-doing, which lies in sentiment and feeling, can mean, is something wholly and solely particular; it amounts to merely a temporary relief, which is as contingent as it is momentary. Chance determines not merely its occasion, but also whether it is a “work” at all, whether it is not at once dissipated again, and whether it does not itself really turn to evil. Thus, this sort of action for the good of others, which is given out as necessary, is so constituted that it may just as likely not exist as exist; is such that, if the occasion by chance arises, it may possibly turn out a “work,” may possibly be good, but just as likely may not. This law, therefore, has as little of a universal content as the first above considered, and fails to express anything substantial, something objectively real per se (an und für sich), which it should do if it is to be an absolute ethical law. In other words, such laws never get further than the “ought to be,” they have no actual reality; they are not laws, but merely commands.

It is, however, in point of fact, clear from the very nature of the case that we must renounce all claim to an absolute universal content. For every specific determination which the bare and simple substance (and its very nature consists in being simple) might get, is inadequate to its nature. The command itself in its simple absoluteness expresses immediate ethical existence; the distinction appearing in it is a specific determinate element, and thus a content standing under the absolute universality of this simple existence. Since, then, an absolute content must thus be renounced, formal universality is the only kind that is possible and suitable, and this means merely that it is not to contradict itself. For universality devoid of content is formal; and an absolute content amounts to a distinction which is no distinction, i.e. means absence of content.

In default of all content, there is thus nothing left with which to make a law but the bare form of universality, in fact, the mere tautology of consciousness, a tautology which stands over against the content, and consists in a knowledge, not of the content actually existing, the content proper, but of its ultimate essence only, a knowledge of its self-consistency. The ethical being is consequently not itself ipso facto a content, but only a standard for deciding whether a content is capable of being a law or not, when the content does not contradict itself. Reason as lawgiver is reduced to being reason as criterion; instead of laying down laws reason now only tests what is laid down.

A difference within the bare and simple ethical substance is for it an accident, which, in the case of determinate commands, as we saw, appeared as contingency in the knowledge of the circumstances and contingency in action. The comparison of that simple existence with the determinateness which was inadequate to its nature, took place in us; and the simple substance was then seen to be formal universality or pure consciousness, which holds itself free from and in opposition to content, and is a knowledge of that content as something that is specific and determinate. The universality in this way remains the same as what “fact itself” was. But in consciousness this universality is an “other”; it is no longer the genus, inert and void of thought, but is related to the particular and valid as its force and truth.

This consciousness at first seems the same process of testing which formerly we carried on, and its action seems unable to be anything else than has already taken place—a comparison of the universal with the determinate particular which would yield as formerly their mutual incongruity. But the relation of content to universal is different here, since this universal has got another significance. It is formal universality of which the specific content is capable; for in that universality the content is considered merely in relation to itself. When we were applying the test, the universal solid substance stood over against that specificity, which proved to be a contingent element of the consciousness into which the substance entered. Here one term of the comparison has vanished; the universal is no longer the existing substance with a value all its own, is no longer substantive right per se, but simple knowledge or form, which compares a content merely with itself, and looks at it to see if it is a tautology. Laws are no longer given, but examined and tested; and the laws, for that consciousness which applies the test, are already given. It picks up and accepts their content as simply there, without going into the consideration (as was done before) of the particularity and contingency attaching to its reality; instead of this it takes its stand by the command as command, and takes up an attitude towards this command just as direct and simple as [the fact of] its being a standard and criterion for criticizing it.

For that reason, however, this process of testing does not get very far. Just because the standard is a tautology and indifferent to the content, it accepts one content just as readily as the opposite. Suppose the question is:—ought it to be a law without qualification (an und für sich) that there should be property:—without qualification, and not because of utility for other ends. The essential ethical truth there consists just in the fact that the law should be merely a self-consistent whole (sich selbst gleiche), and through being identical with itself, have its ground in its own essential nature, and not be something conditioned. Property per se does not contradict itself. It is a specifically determinate isolated element, or merely self-consistent and self-identical (sich selbst gleich). Absence of property, absence of ownership of things or, again, community of goods, contradicts itself just as little. That something belong to nobody at all, or to the first best man who puts himself in possession, or, again, to all together, and to each according to his need or in equal portions—that is a simple characteristic, a formal thought, like its opposite, property.

If no one is master of a thing and it is looked at as a necessary object for human requirement, then it necessarily becomes the possession of some particular individual; and the contradiction would rather lie in making a law out of the freedom of the thing. By the thing being without an owner is meant, however, not absolute freedom from ownership, but that it shall come into some one’s possession according to the need of the individual, and, moreover, not in order to be kept but directly to be used. But to make provision for need in such an entirely casual haphazard manner is contradictory to the nature of the conscious being, with whom alone we have here to do. For such a being has to think of his need in a universal way, to look to his existence in its entirety, and procure himself a permanent lasting good. This being so, the idea that a thing is to become by chance the possession of the first self-conscious individual (Leben) who happens to need it, is inconsistent with itself.

In a communistic society, where provision would be made in a way which is universal and permanent, either each comes to have as much as he requires—in which case there is a contradiction between this inequality and the essential nature of consciousness, whose principle is the equality of individuals—or, acting on this last principle, there is an equal division of goods, and in this case the share each gets has no relation to his needs, and yet this is solely what “share,” i.e. fair share, really means.

But if when taken in this way absence of property seems contradictory, this is only because it has not been left in the form of a simple determinate characteristic. The same result is found in the case of property if this is resolved into separate moments. The particular thing which is my property has by being so the value of something universal, established, and permanent. This, however, contradicts its nature, which consists in its being used and passing away. At the same time its value lies in being mine, which all others acknowledge and keep themselves away from. But just in my being acknowledged lies rather my equality, my identity, with every one—the opposite of exclusion. Again, what I possess is a thing, i.e. an existence, which is there for others in general, quite universally and without any condition that it is for me alone. That I possess it contradicts the general nature of its thinghood. Property therefore contradicts itself on all hands just as much as absence of property; each has within it both these opposite and self-contradictory moments, universality and particularity.

But each of these determinate characteristics, presented simply as property or absence of property without further developing its implications, is as simple in the one case as the other, i.e. is not self-contradictory. The standard of law which reason has within itself therefore fits every case in the same way, and is in point of fact on standard at all. It would, too, turn out rather strange, if tautology, the principle of contradiction, which is allowed to be merely a formal criterion for knowledge of theoretical truth, i.e. something which is quite indifferent to truth and untruth alike, were to be more than this for knowledge of practical truth.

In both the above moments of what fills up the previous emptiness of spiritual reality (geistigen Wesens), the attempt to establish immediate determinate characteristics within the substance of the ethical life, and then to know whether these determinations are laws, has cancelled itself. The outcome, then, seems to be that neither determinate laws nor a knowledge of these can be effectively obtained. But the substance in question is the consciousness of itself as absolute essentiality (Wesenheit), a consciousness therefore which can give up neither the difference falling within that substance, nor the knowledge of this difference. That giving laws and testing laws have turned out futile indicates that both, taken individually and in isolation, are merely unstable moments of the ethical consciousness; and the process in which they appear has the formal significance, that the substance of ethical life is thereby shown to be consciousness.

So far as both these moments are more precise determinations of the consciousness of “fact as such” (Sache selbst) they can be looked on as forms of that honesty of nature (Ehrlichkeit) which now, as was the case with its formal moments, is much occupied with a content which “ought to be” good and right, and with testing definite fixed truth of this sort, and supposes itself to possess in healthy reason and intelligent insight the force and validity of ethical commands.

Without this honesty of nature, however, laws do not have validity as essential realities of consciousness, and the process of testing likewise does not hold good as an activity inside consciousness. Rather, these moments, when they appear directly as a reality each by itself, express in the one case the illegitimate establishment and mere de facto existence of actual laws, and in the other an equally illegitimate independence and detachment from them. The law as determinate has an accidental content: this means here that it is a law made by a particular individual conscious of an arbitrary content. To legislate immediately in that way is thus tyrannical insolence and wickedness, which makes caprice into a law, and morality into obedience to such caprice—obedience to laws which are merely laws and not at the same time commands. So, too, the second process, testing the laws, so far as it is taken by itself, means moving the immovable, and the insolence of knowledge, which treats absolute laws in a spirit of intellectual detachment, and takes them for a caprice that is alien and external to it.

In both forms these moments are negative in relation to the substance of the moral life, to the real spiritual nature. In other words, the substance does not find in them its reality: but instead consciousness contains the substance still in the form of its own immediacy; and the substance is, as yet, only a process of willing and knowing on the part of a given particular individual, i.e. the “ought” of an unreal command and a knowledge of formal universality. But since these modes were cancelled, consciousness has passed back into the universal and those oppositions have vanished. The spiritual reality is actual substance precisely through these modes not holding good individually, but merely as cancelled and transcended; and the unity where they are merely moments is the self of consciousness which is henceforth affirmed and established within the spiritual reality, and makes that spirit concrete, actual, and self-conscious.

Spiritual reality (das geistige Wesen) is thus, in the first place, for self-consciousness in the shape of a law implicitly existing. The universality present in the process of testing, which was of a formal kind and not inherently existent, is transcended. The law is, too, an eternal law, which does not have its ground in the will of a given individual, but has a being all its own (an und für sich), the pure and absolute will of all which takes the form of immediate existence. This will is, again, not a command which merely ought to be; it is and has validity; it is the universal ego of the category, ego which is immediately reality, and the world is only this reality. Since, however, this existing law is absolutely valid, the obedience given by self-consciousness is not service rendered to a master, whose orders might be mere caprice and in which it might not recognise its own nature. On the contrary, the laws are thoughts of its own absolute consciousness, thoughts which are its own immediate possession. Moreover, it does not believe in them, for belief, while it no doubt sees the essential nature, still gazes at an alien essence—not its own. The ethical self-consciousness is directly at one with the essential reality, in virtue of the universality of its own self. Belief, on the other hand, begins with a particular consciousness; it is a process in which this consciousness is always approaching this unity, without ever being able to find itself at home with its real nature, its true essence. The above consciousness, on the other hand, has transcended itself as particular, this mediating process is completed, and only because of this, is it immediate self-consciousness of ethical substance.

The distinction, then, of self-consciousness from the essential nature (Wesen) is completely transparent. Because of this the distinctions found within that nature itself are not accidental characteristics. On the contrary, because of the unity of the essence with self-consciousness (from which alone discordance, incongruity, might have come), they are articulated groups (Massen) of the unity permeated by its own life, unsundered spirits transparent to each other, stainless forms and shapes of heaven, that preserve amidst their differences the untarnished innocence and concord of their essential nature.

Self-consciousness, again, stands likewise in a simple and clear relation to those different laws. They are and nothing more—this is what constitutes the consciousness of its relation to them. Thus, Antigone takes them for the unwritten and unerring law of the gods—

“Not now, indeed, nor yesterday, but for aye / It lives, and no man knows what time it came.”

They are. When I ask for their origin, and confine them to the point whence they arose, that puts me beyond them, for it is I who am now the universal, while they are the conditioned and limited. If they are to get the approval and sanction of my insight, I have already shaken their immovable nature, their inherent constancy, and regarded them as something which is perhaps true, but possibly may also be not true, so far as I am concerned. True ethical sentiment consists just in holding fast and unshaken by what is right, and abstaining altogether from what would move or shake it or derive it. Suppose a deposit has been made over to me on trust, it is the property of another, and I recognise it because it is so, and remain immovable in this relation towards it. But if I keep the deposit for myself, then, according to the principle I use in testing laws—tautology—I undoubtedly do not commit a contradiction; for in that case I do not regard it any longer as the property of another. To keep anything which I do not look on as the property of some one else is perfectly consistent. Changing the point of view is not contradiction; for what we have to do with is not the point of view, but the object and content, which is not to contradict itself. Just as I can—as I do, when I give something away in a present—alter the view that something is mine into the view that it is the property of another, without being thereby guilty of a contradiction, so too I can proceed the other way about. It is not, then, because I find something not contradicting itself that it is right; but it is right because it is the right. That something is the property of another, this lies at the basis of what I do. I have not to “reason why,” nor to seek out or hit upon thoughts of all kinds, connections, aspects; I have to think neither of giving laws nor of testing them. By all such thought-processes on my part I should stultify that relation, since in point of fact I could, if I liked, make the opposite suit my indeterminate tautological knowledge just as well, and make that the law. But whether this or the opposite determination is the right, that is settled just as it stands (an und für sich). I might, for my own part, have made the law whichever I wanted, and neither of them just as well, and am, by my beginning to test them, thereby already on an immoral track. That the right is there for me just as it stands—this places me within the substance of ethical reality: and in this way that substance is the essence of self-consciousness. But self-consciousness, again, is its actualisation and its existence, its self and its will.