VI.C. Spirit Certain of Itself: Morality

The ethical order of the community found its consummation and its truth in the type of spirit existing in mere solitude and separation within it—the individual self. This legal person, however, has its substance and its fulfilment outside that ethical order. The process of the world of culture and belief does away with this abstraction of a mere person; and by the completion of the process of estrangement, by reaching the extremity of abstraction, the self of spirit finds the substance become first the universal will, and finally its own possession. Here, then, knowledge seems at last to have become entirely at one with the truth at which it aims; for its truth is this knowledge itself. All opposition between the two sides has vanished, and that, too, not for us (who are tracing the process), not merely implicitly, but actually for self-consciousness itself. That is to say, knowledge has itself got the mastery over the opposition which consciousness had to face. This rests on the opposition between certainty of self and the object. Now, however, the object for it is the certainty of self, knowledge: just as the certainty of itself as such has no longer ends of its own, is no longer conditioned and determinate, but is pure knowledge.

Self-consciousness thus now takes the knowledge of itself to be the substance itself. This substance is, for it, at once immediate and absolutely mediated in one indivisible unity. It is immediate—just in the way the “ethical” consciousness knows and itself does its duties, and is bound to the substance as to its own nature: but it is not character, just as that ethical consciousness, which in virtue of its immediacy is a determinate type of spirit, belongs merely to one of the essential features of ethical life, and has the peculiarity of not being conscious explicit knowledge. It is, again, absolute mediation, as involving the conscious processes of culture and belief; for it is essentially the movement of the life of self to transcend the abstract form of immediate existence, and become consciously universal—and yet to do so neither by simply estranging and rending itself as well as reality, nor by fleeing from it. Rather, it is directly and immediately present in its very substance; for this substance is its knowledge, it is the pure certainty of self become transparently visible. And just this very immediacy, which constitutes its actual reality, is the entire actuality; for the immediate is being, and qua pure immediacy, immediacy made transparent by thoroughgoing negation, this immediacy is pure being, is being in general, is all being.

Absolute essential Being is, therefore, not exhausted by the characteristic of being the simple essence of thought; it is all actuality, and this actuality exists merely as knowledge. What consciousness did not know would have no sense and can be no power in its life. Into its self-conscious knowing will, all objectivity, the whole world, has withdrawn. It is absolutely free in that it knows its freedom; and just this very knowledge of its freedom is its substance, its purpose, its sole and only content.

Self-consciousness knows and accepts duty as the Absolute. It is bound by that alone, and this substance is its own conscious life pure and simple; duty cannot, for it, take on the form of something alien and external. When thus shut up and confined within itself, however, moral self-consciousness is not yet affirmed and looked at as consciousness. The object is immediate knowledge, and, being thus permeated purely by the self, is not object. But, this knowledge being essentially mediation and negativity, there is implied in its very conception relation to some otherness; and thus it is consciousness. This other, because duty constitutes its sole essential purpose and objective content, is a reality completely devoid of significance for consciousness. But again because this consciousness is so entirely confined within itself, it takes up towards this otherness a perfectly free and detached attitude; and the existence of this other is, therefore, an existence completely set free from self-consciousness, and in like manner relating itself merely to itself. The freer self-consciousness becomes, the freer also is the negative object of its consciousness. The object is thus a complete world within itself, with an individuality of its own, an independent whole of laws peculiar to itself, as well as an independent procedure and an unfettered active realisation of those laws. It is altogether a nature, a nature whose laws and also whose action belong to itself as a being which is not disturbed about the moral self-consciousness, just as the latter is not troubled about it.

Starting with a specific character of this sort, there is formed and established a moral outlook or point of view which consists in a process of relating the implicit aspect of morality (moralisches Ansichseyn) and the explicit aspect (moralisches Fürsichseyn). This relation presupposes both thorough reciprocal indifference and specific independence as between nature and moral purposes and activity; and also, on the other side, a conscious sense of duty as the sole essential fact, and of nature as entirely devoid of independence and essential significance of its own. The point of view or attitude of the moral life consists in the development of these moments, which are involved in this relation of such entirely antithetic and contradictory presuppositions.

To begin with, then, the moral consciousness in general is presupposed. It takes duty to be the essential reality: itself is actual and active, and in its actuality and action fulfils duty. But this moral consciousness, at the same time, finds before it the assumed freedom of nature: it learns by experience that nature is not concerned about giving consciousness a sense of the unity of its reality with that of nature, and hence discovers that nature may let it become happy, but perhaps also may not. The non-moral consciousness on the other hand finds, by chance perhaps, its realisation where the moral consciousness sees merely an occasion for acting, but does not see itself enjoying through its action the success of performance and the satisfaction of achievement. It therefore finds reason for bewailing a situation where there is no correspondence between itself and existence, and lamenting the injustice which confines it to having its object merely in the form of pure duty but refuses to let it see this object and itself actually realised.

The moral consciousness cannot renounce happiness and drop this element out of its absolute purpose. The purpose, which is expressed as duty pure and simple, essentially implies retention of individual self-consciousness and maintenance of its claims. Individual conviction and knowledge thereof constituted a fundamental element in morality. This element in the objectified purpose, in duty fulfilled, is the particular consciousness seeing itself as actually realised. In other words, this moment is that of enjoyment, which thus lies in the very principle of morality, not indeed of morality in the sense of immediate feeling and sentiment, but in the principle of the actualisation of morality. Owing to this, however, enjoyment is also involved in moral sentiment, for morality seeks, not to remain sentiment as opposed to action, but to act or realise itself. Thus the purpose, expressed as a whole along with the consciousness of its elements or moments, is that duty fulfilled shall be both a purely moral act and a realised individuality, and that nature, the aspect of particularity in contrast with abstract purpose, shall be one with this purpose.

While experience must necessarily bring to light the disharmony between the two aspects, seeing that nature is detached and apart, nevertheless duty is alone the essential fact and nature by contrast is devoid of self-hood. That purpose in its entirety, which the harmony of the two constitutes, contains within it actuality itself. It is, at the same time, the thought of actuality. The harmony of morality and nature, or—seeing that nature is taken account of merely so far as consciousness finds out nature’s unity with it—the harmony of morality and happiness, is thought of as necessarily existing; it is postulated. For to postulate or demand means that something is thought to be which is not yet actual,—a necessity affecting, not the conception qua conception, but existence. But the requirement or necessity is at the same time essentially a relation through the conception. The existence demanded thus belongs, not to something present in the mind of some chance individual consciousness, but is implied in the very notion of morality itself, whose true content is the unity of pure with individual consciousness. It falls to the individual consciousness to see that this unity is, for it, an actuality:—happiness as regards the content of the purpose, and existence in general as regards its form. The existence thus demanded—the unity of both—is therefore not a wish, nor, looked at qua purpose, is it of such a kind as to be still uncertain of attainment; the purpose is rather a demand of reason, or an immediate certainty and presupposition of reason.

The first experience above referred to and this postulate are not the only experience and postulate; a whole round of postulates comes to light. For nature is not merely this completely detached external mode in which, as a bare pure object, consciousness has to realise its purpose. Consciousness is per se essentially something for which this other detached reality exists, i.e. it is itself something contingent and natural. This nature, which is properly its own, is sensibility, which, taking the form of volition, in the shape of Impulses and Inclinations, has by itself a determinate essential being of its own, i.e. has specific particular purposes, and thus is opposed to abstract will with its pure purpose. In contrast with this opposition, however, pure consciousness rather takes the relation of sensibility to it, the absolute unity of sensibility with it, to be the essential fact. Both of these, pure thought and sensibility, are essentially and inherently one consciousness, and pure thought is just that for which and in which this pure unity exists; but for it qua consciousness the opposition between itself and its impulses holds. In this conflict between reason and sensibility, the essential thing for reason is that the conflict should be resolved, and that the unity of both should come out as a result: not the original unity which consisted in both the opposites being in one individual, but a unity which arises out of the known opposition of the two. So attained, such a unity is then the actual morality; for in it is contained the opposition through which the self is a consciousness, or first becomes concrete and in actual fact self, and at the same time universal. In other words, we find there expressed that process of mediation which, as we see, is essential to morality.

Since, of the two factors in opposition, sensibility is otherness out and out, is the negative, while, on the other hand, pure thought of duty is the ultimate essence which cannot possibly be surrendered in any respect, it seems as if the unity produced can be brought about only by doing away with sensibility. But since sensibility is itself a moment of this process of producing the unity, is the aspect of actuality, we have, in the first instance, to be content to express the unity in this form—sensibility should be in conformity with morality.

This unity is likewise a postulated existence; it is not there as a fact; for what is there is consciousness, or the opposition of sensibility and pure consciousness. All the same, the unity is not a something per se like the first postulate, in which free external nature constitutes an aspect and the harmony of nature with moral consciousness in consequence falls outside the latter. Rather, nature is here that which lies within consciousness; and we have here to deal with morality (Moralität) as such, with a harmony which is the active self’s very own. Consciousness has, therefore, of itself to bring about this harmonious unity, and “to be always making progress in morality.” The completion of this result, however, is pushed away into the remote infinite, because if it actually entered the life of consciousness as an actual fact, the moral consciousness would be done away with. For morality is only moral consciousness qua negative force; sensibility has merely a negative significance for the consciousness of pure duty, it is something merely “not in conformity with” duty. By attaining that harmony, however, morality qua consciousness, i.e. its actuality, passes away, just as in the moral consciousness or actuality its harmony vanishes. The completion is, therefore, not to be reached as an actual fact; it is to be thought of merely as an absolute task or problem, i.e. one which remains a problem pure and simple. Nevertheless, its content has to be thought as something which unquestionably has to be, and must not remain a problem: whether we imagine the moral consciousness quite cancelled in the attainment of this goal, or not. Which of these exactly is the case, cannot very well be clearly distinguished in the dim distance of infinitude, to which the attainment of the end has to be postponed, just because we cannot decide the point. We shall be, strictly speaking, bound to say that a definite idea on the matter ought to be of no interest and ought not to be sought for, because this leads to contradictions—the contradiction in speaking of an undertaking that at once ought to remain an undertaking and yet ought to be carried out, and the contradiction in speaking of a morality which is not consciousness, i.e. which is no longer actual. By adopting the view, however, that morality when completed would contain a contradiction, the sacredness of moral truth would be seriously affected, and an unconditional duty would appear something unreal.

The first postulate was the harmony of morality and objective nature—the final purpose of the world: the other was the harmony of morality and will in its sensuous form, in the form of impulse, etc.—the final purpose of self-consciousness as such. The former is the harmony in the form of implicit immanent existence; the latter, the harmony in the form of explicit self-existence. That, however, which connects these two extreme final purposes which are thought, and operates as their mediating ground, is the process of concrete action itself. They are harmonies whose moments in their abstract distinctiveness from each other have not yet become definitely objective: this takes place in concrete actuality, in which the aspects appear in consciousness proper, each as the other of the other. The postulates arising by this means contain harmonies which are now completely realised and objective, whereas formerly they were merely separated into implicit and explicit, immanent and self-existent.

The moral consciousness, qua bare and simple knowledge and willing of pure duty, is brought, by the process of acting upon an object opposed to that abstract simplicity, into relation with the manifold actuality which various cases present, and thereby assumes a moral attitude varied and manifold in character. Hence arise, on the side of content, the plurality of laws generally, and, on the side of form, the contradictory powers of intelligent knowing consciousness and of a being devoid of consciousness.

To begin with, as regards the plurality of duties, it is merely the aspect of pure or bare duty in them which in general appeals to the moral consciousness as being of significance: the many duties qua many are determinate and, therefore, are not, as such, anything sacred for the moral consciousness. At the same time, however, being necessary, in virtue of the very nature of action which implicates a manifold actuality, and hence manifold types of moral attitude, those many duties must be looked on as having a substantial existence and value. Furthermore, since they can only exist in a moral consciousness, they exist at the same time in another consciousness than that for which only pure duty qua bare duty is sacred and self-sufficient.

It is thus postulated that there is another consciousness which renders them sacred, or which knows them as duties and wills them so. The first maintains pure duty indifferent towards all specific content, and duty consists merely in being thus indifferent towards it. The other, however, contains the equally essential relation to the process of action, and the necessity, therefore, of determinate content: since duties for this other mean determinate duties, the content is thus, for it, just as essential as the form in virtue of which the content is a duty at all. This consciousness is, consequently, such that in it the universal and the particular are, through and through, one; its essential principle is thus the same as that of the harmony of morality and happiness. For this opposition between morality and happiness expresses in like manner the separation of the self-identical moral consciousness from that actuality which, qua manifold existence, opposes and conflicts with the simple nature of duty. While, however, the first postulate expresses merely the objective existential harmony between morality and nature, because nature is therein the negative of self-consciousness, is the aspect of existence, this inherent harmony, on the other hand, is now affirmed essentially as a mode of consciousness. For existence now appears as the content of duty, as that in the determinate duty which gives it specific determinateness. The immanent harmony is thus the unity of elements which, qua simple ultimate elements, are essentially thought-created, and hence cannot exist except in a consciousness. This latter becomes now a master and ruler of the world, who brings about the harmony of morality and happiness, and at the same time sanctifies duties in their multiplicity. To sanctify these duties means this much, that the consciousness of pure duty cannot straightway and directly accept the determinate or specific duty as sacred; but because a specific duty, owing to the nature of concrete action which is something specific and definite, is all the same necessary, its necessity falls outside that consciousness and holds inside another consciousness, which thus mediates or connects determinate and pure duty, and is the reason why that specific duty also has validity.

In the concrete act, however, consciousness proceeds to work as this particular self, as completely individual: it directs its activity on actual reality as such, and takes this as its purpose, for it wants to perform something definite. “Duty in general” thus falls outside it and within another being, which is the consciousness and sacred lawgiver of pure duty. The consciousness which acts, just because it acts, accepts the other consciousness, that of bare duty, and admits its validity immediately; this pure duty is thus a content of another consciousness, and is only indirectly or in a mediate way sacred for the active consciousness, viz. in virtue of this other consciousness.

Because it is established in this manner that the validity, the bindingness, of duty as something wholly and absolutely sacred, falls outside the actual consciousness, this latter thereby stands altogether on one side as the incomplete moral consciousness. Just as, in regard to its knowledge, it is aware of itself as that whose knowledge and conviction are incomplete and contingent; in the same way, as regards its willing, it feels itself to be that whose purposes are affected with sensibility. On account of its “unworthiness,” therefore, it cannot look on happiness as something necessary, but as a something contingent, and can only expect happiness as the result of “grace.”

But though its actuality is incomplete, duty is still, so far as its pure will and knowledge are concerned, held to be the essential truth. In principle, therefore, so far as the notion is opposed to actual reality, in other words, in thought, it is perfect. The absolute truth [duty] is, however, just this object of thought, and is something postulated beyond the actual. It is therefore the thought in which the morally imperfect knowledge and will are held to be perfect, and—since it takes this imperfection to have full weight—in which, consequently, happiness is meted out according to “worthiness,” i.e. according to the “merit” ascribed.

This completes the meaning of the moral attitude. For in the conception of moral self-consciousness the two aspects, pure duty and actual reality, are affirmed of a single unity, and thereby the one, like the other, is put forward, not as something self-complete, but as a moment, or as cancelled and transcended. This becomes consciously explicit in the last phase of the moral attitude or point of view. Consciousness, we there saw, places pure duty in another form of being than its own consciousness, i.e. it regards pure duty partly as something ideally presented, partly as what does not by itself hold good—indeed, the non-moral is rather what is held to be perfect. In the same way it affirms itself to be that whose actuality, not being in conformity with duty, is transcended, and, qua transcended, or in the presented idea of what is absolute [pure duty], no longer contradicts morality.

For the moral consciousness itself, however, its moral attitude does not mean that consciousness therein develops its own proper notion and makes this its object. It has no consciousness of this opposition either as regards the form or the content thereof; the elements composing this opposition it does not relate and compare with one another, but goes forward on its own course of development, without being the connecting principle of those moments. For it is only aware of the essence pure and simple, i.e. the object so far as this is duty, so far as this is an abstract object of its pure consciousness qua pure knowledge—in other words, it is only aware of this object as itself. Its procedure is thus merely that of thinking, not conceiving, is by way of thoughts not notions. Consequently it does not yet find the object of its actual consciousness transparently clear to itself; it is not the absolute notion, which alone grasps otherness as such, its absolute opposite, as its very self. Its own reality, as well as all objective reality, no doubt is held to be something unessential; but its freedom is that of pure thought, in opposition to which, therefore, nature has likewise arisen as something equally free. Because both are found in like manner within it—both the freedom which belongs to [external] being and the inclusion of this existence within consciousness—its object comes to be an existing object, which is at the same time merely a thought-product. In the last phase of its attitude or point of view, the content is essentially so constituted that its being has the character of something presented, an idea, and this union of being and thinking is expressed as what in fact it is, viz.—Presentation.

When we look at the moral view of the world in such a way that this objective result is nothing else than the very principle or notion of moral self-consciousness which it makes objective to itself, there arises through this consciousness concerning the form of its origin another mode of exhibiting this view of the world.

The first stage, which forms the starting point, is the actual moral self-consciousness, or is the fact that there is such a self-consciousness at all. For the notion establishes moral self-consciousness in the form that, for it, all reality in general has essential being only so far as such reality is in conformity with duty; and that notion establishes this essential element as knowledge, i.e. in immediate unity with the actual self. This unity is thus itself actual, is a moral actual consciousness. The latter, now, qua consciousness, presents its content to itself as an object, viz. as the final purpose of the world, as the harmony of morality with all reality. Since, however, it represents this unity as object and is not yet the complete notion, which has the object as such in its grasp, this unity is taken to be something negative of or opposed to self-consciousness, i.e. the unity falls outside it, as something beyond its actual reality, but at the same time of such a nature as to be also existent, though merely thought of.

This self-consciousness, which, qua self-consciousness, is something other than the object, thus finds itself left with the want of harmony between the consciousness of duty and actual reality, a reality, too, which is its own. The proposition consequently now runs thus: “there is no morally complete actual self-consciousness”; and, since what is moral only is in the long run so far as it is complete,—for duty is the pure unadulterated ultimate element (Ansich), and morality consists merely in conformity to this pure principle—the second proposition runs: “there is no morally actual existence at all.”

Since, however, in the third place, it is a self, it is inherently the unity of duty and actual reality. This unity thus becomes its object, as completed morality—but as something beyond its actual reality, and yet a “beyond” which still ought to be real.

In this final stage and last expression of the synthetic unity of the two first propositions, the self-conscious reality, as well as duty, is only affirmed as a transcended or superseded moment. For neither of them is alone, neither is isolated; on the contrary, these factors, whose essential characteristic lies in being free from one another, are thus each in that unity no longer free from the other; each is transcended. Hence, as regards content, they become, as such, object, each of them holds good for the other; and, as regards form, they become such that this interchange on their part is, at the same time, merely in idea, is merely ideally presented. Or, again, the actually non-moral, because it is, at the same time, pure thought and elevated above its own actual reality, is in idea still moral, and is taken to be entirely sufficing. In this way the first proposition, that there is a moral self-consciousness, is reinstated, but bound up with the second that there is none; that is to say, there is one, but merely in idea. In other words, there is indeed none, but it is all the same allowed by some other consciousness to pass for one.

In the moral attitude of experience we see, on one side, consciousness itself produce its object in a conscious way. We find that neither does it pick up the object as something external, nor does the object come before it in an unconscious manner. Rather, consciousness throughout proceeds on a certain basis, and from this establishes the objective reality. It thus knows this objective element to be itself, for it is aware of itself as the active agent producing this object. It seems, in consequence, to attain here its peace and satisfaction, for this can only be found where it does not need to go any more beyond its object, because this object no longer goes beyond it. On the other side, however, it really puts the object away outside itself, as something beyond itself. But this latter self-contained entity is at the same time put there as something that is not detached from self-consciousness, but really there on behalf of and by means of it.

The moral attitude is, therefore, in fact nothing else than the developed expression of this fundamental contradiction in its various aspects. It is—to use a Kantian phrase which is here most appropriate—a “perfect nest” of inconsistencies and contradictions. Consciousness, in developing this situation, proceeds by fixing definitely one moment, passing thence immediately over to another and doing away with the first. But, in the way it has now set up this second moment, it also “shifts” (verstellt) this again, and really makes the opposite the essential element. At the same time, it is conscious of its contradiction and of this displacement, for it passes from one moment, immediately in its relation to this very moment, right over to the opposite. Because a moment has for it no reality at all, it affirms that very moment as real: or, what comes to the same thing, in order to assert one moment as per se existent, it asserts the opposite as the per se existent. It thereby confesses that, as a matter of fact, it is in earnest about neither of them. The various moments of this fraudulent process we must look at more closely.

Let us allow the assumption, that there is an actual moral consciousness, to rest on its own basis in the first instance, because the assumption is not directly made with reference to something preceding; and let us turn to the harmony of morality and nature—the first postulate. It is to be immanent, not explicitly for actual conscious life, not really present; the present is rather simply the contradiction between the two. In the present, morality is taken to be something at hand, and actual reality to be so situated or “placed” that it is not in harmony with morality. The concrete moral consciousness, however, is active, consists in acting; that is what constitutes the actuality of its morality. In the very process of acting, however, that “place” or semblance is immediately “displaced,” is dissembled; for action is nothing else than the actualisation of the inner moral purpose, nothing but the production of an actuality constituted and determined by purpose; in other words, the production of the harmony of moral purpose and reality itself. At the same time the performance of the action is a conscious fact, it is the “presence” of this unity of reality and purpose; and because in the completed act consciousness realises itself as a given particular consciousness, or sees existence return into itself qua particular—and in this consists the nature of enjoyment—there is, eo ipso, also contained in the realisation of moral purpose that form of its realisation which is called enjoyment and happiness.

Action thus, as a fact, fulfils directly what it was asserted could not take place at all, fulfils what was to be merely a postulate, was to lie merely “beyond.” Consciousness, therefore, expresses through its deed that it is not in earnest in making the postulate, since the meaning of acting is really that it makes a present fact of what was not to be in the present. And, since the harmony is postulated for the sake of the action—for what is to become actual through action must be implicit, otherwise the actuality would not be possible—the connexion of action with the postulate is so constituted that, for the sake of the action, i.e. for the sake of the actual harmony of purpose and reality, this harmony is put forward as not actual, as far away, as “beyond.”

Since action does take place, the want of adaptation between purpose and reality is thus in general not taken seriously. Action itself, on the other hand, does seem to be taken seriously. But, as a matter of fact, the actual deed done is the action of a particular consciousness, and so is itself merely something particular, and the result contingent. The end of reason, however, being the all-comprehensive universal end, is nothing short of the entire world—a final purpose which goes far beyond the content of this particular act, and therefore is to be placed altogether above anything actually done. Because the universal best ought to be carried out, nothing good is done. In point of fact, however, the nothingness of actual action and the reality of the entire purpose alone, which are here upheld—these are on all hands again “shifted” or dissembled. The moral act is not something contingent and restricted; its essential nature lies in pure duty. This pure duty constitutes the sole entire purpose; and the act, whatever may be the limitation of the content, being the actualisation of that purpose, is the accomplishment of the entire absolute purpose. Or, if again we take the reality in the sense of nature, which has laws of its own and stands over against pure duty, and take it in such a way that duty cannot realise its law within nature, then, since duty as such is the essential element, we are, when acting, not in fact concerned about the accomplishment of pure duty which is the whole purpose; for the accomplishment would then rather have as its end not pure duty, but the opposite, viz. reality. But there is again a “shifting” from the position that it is not reality with which we have to do. For, by the very notion of moral action, pure duty is essentially an active consciousness. Action thus ought certainly to take place, absolute duty ought to be expressed in the whole of nature, and “moral law” to become “natural law.”

If, then, we allow this highest good to stand for the essentially real, consciousness is not altogether in earnest with morality. For, in this highest good, nature has not a different law from what morality has. Moral action itself, in consequence, drops, for action takes place only under the assumption of a negative or opposing element which is to be cancelled by means of the act. But if nature conforms to the moral law, then undoubtedly this moral law would be violated by acting, by cancelling what already exists.

On that mode of interpretation, then, there has arisen as the essential situation one which renders moral action superfluous and in which moral action does not take place at all. Hence the postulate of the harmony between morality and reality—a harmony involved in the very notion of moral action, which means bringing the two into agreement—finds on this view, too, an expression which takes the form:—“because moral action is the absolute purpose, the absolute purpose is—that moral action do not take place at all.”

If we put these moments together, through which consciousness has gone on presenting its ideas of its moral life, we see that it cancels each one again in its opposite. It starts from the position that, for it, morality and reality do not make a harmony; but it is not in earnest with that, for in the moral act it is conscious of the presence of this harmony. But neither is it in earnest with this action, since the action is something particular; while it has such a high purpose, the highest good. This, however, is once more merely a dissemblance of the actual fact, for thereby all action and all morality would fall to the ground. In other words, it is not strictly in earnest with moral action; on the contrary, it really feels that, what is most to be wished for, the absolutely desirable, is that the highest good were carried out and moral action superfluous.

From this result consciousness must go on still further in its contradictory procedure, and must of necessity again dissemble the abolition of moral action. Morality is the inherently essential (Ansich); in order that it may have place, the final end of the world cannot be carried out; rather, the moral consciousness must exist for itself, and must find lying before it a nature opposing it. But it must per se be completed. This leads to the second postulate of the harmony of itself and sensibility, the “nature” immediately within it. Moral self-consciousness sets up its purpose as pure purpose, as independent of inclinations and impulses, so that this bare purpose has abolished within itself the ends of sensibility. But this cancelling of the element of sense is no sooner set up than it is again dissembled. The moral consciousness acts, it brings its purpose into reality; and self-conscious sensibility, which should be done away with, is precisely the mediating element between pure consciousness and reality—is the instrument used by the former for the realisation of itself, or is the organ of what is called impulse, inclination. It is thus not really in earnest in cancelling inclinations and impulses, for these are just self-consciousness making itself actual. Moreover, they ought not to be suppressed, but merely to be in conformity with reason. They, are, too, in conformity with it; for moral action is nothing else than self-realising consciousness—consciousness taking on the form of an impulse, i.e. it is immediately the realised, actually present harmony of impulse and morality. But, in point of fact, the impulse is not only this empty conscious form, which might possibly have within itself a spring of action other than the impulse in question, and be driven on by that. For sensibility is a kind of nature, which contains within itself its own laws and springs of action: consequently, morality cannot seriously mean to be the inciting motive (Triebfeder) for impulses (Triebe), the angle of inclination for inclinations. For, since these latter have their own fixed character and peculiar content, the consciousness, to which they were to conform, would rather be in conformity with them—a conformity which moral self-consciousness declines to adopt. The harmony between the two is thus merely implicit and postulated.

In moral action the realised or present harmony of morality and sensibility was set up at one moment, and at the next is “displaced.” The harmony is in a misty distance beyond consciousness, where there is nothing more to be accurately distinguished or grasped; for, to grasp this unity, which we have just tried to do, has proved impossible.

In this merely immanent or implicit harmony, however, consciousness gives up itself altogether. This immanent state is its moral completion, where the struggle of morality and sensibility has ceased, and the latter is in conformity to the former in a way which cannot be made out. On that account, this completion is again merely a dissemblance of the actual case; for in point of fact morality would be really giving up itself in that completion, because it is only consciousness of absolute purpose qua pure and simple purpose, i.e. in opposition to all other purposes. Morality is both the activity of this pure purpose, and at the same time the consciousness of rising above sensibility, of being mixed up with sensibility and of opposing and struggling with it. That this moral completion is not taken seriously is directly expressed by consciousness in the fact that it shifts this completion away into infinity, i.e. asserts that the completion is never completed.

Thus it is really only the middle state of being incomplete that is admitted to have any value: a state nevertheless which at least ought to be one of progress towards completion. Yet it cannot be so; for advancing in morality would mean approaching its annihilation and disappearance. For the goal would be the nothingness above mentioned, the abolition of morality and consciousness itself: but to come ever nearer and nearer to nothing means to decrease. Besides, “advancing” would, in general, in the same way as “decreasing,” introduce distinctions of quantity into morality: but these are quite inadmissible in such a sphere. In morality qua mode of consciousness which takes the ethical end to be pure duty, we cannot think at all of difference, least of all of the superficial difference of quantity: there is only one virtue, only one pure duty, only one morality.

Since, then, it is not moral completion that is taken seriously, but rather the middle state, i.e., as just explained, the condition of no morality, we thus come by another way back to the content of the first postulate. For we cannot perceive how happiness is to be demanded for this moral consciousness on the ground of its worthiness to be happy. It is well aware of its not being complete, and cannot, therefore, in point of fact, demand happiness as a desert, as something of which it is worthy. It can ask happiness to be given merely as an act of free grace, i.e. it can only ask for happiness as such, and as a substantive element by itself; it cannot expect it except as the result of chance and caprice, not because there is any absolute reason of the above sort. The condition of non-morality herein expresses just what it is—that it is concerned, not about morality, but about happiness alone, without reference to morality.

By this second aspect of the moral point of view, the assertion of the first aspect, wherein disharmony between morality and happiness is presupposed, is also cancelled. One may pretend to have found by experience that in the actual present the man who is moral often fares badly, while the man who is not, often comes off happily. Yet the middle state of incomplete morality, the condition which has proved to be the essential one, shows clearly that this perception that morality fares badly, this experience which ought to be but is not, is merely a dissemblance of the real facts of the case. For, since morality is not completed, i.e. since morality in point of fact is not, what can there be in experience that morality should fare badly?

Since, at the same time, it has come out that the point at issue concerns happiness alone, it is manifest that, in making the judgment, “the man who has no morality comes off well,” there was no intention to convey thereby that there is something wrong in such a case. The designation of an individual as one devoid of morality necessarily falls to the ground, when morality in general is incomplete; such a characterisation rests, indeed, on pure caprice. Hence the sense and content of that judgment of experience is simply this, that happiness as such should not have fallen to some who got it, i.e. the judgment is an expression of envy, which is assuming the covering cloak of morality. The reason, however, why we think good luck, as we call it, should fall to the lot of others is good friendship, which ungrudgingly grants and wishes them, and wishes itself too, this favour, this accident of good fortune.

Morality, then, in the moral consciousness, is not completed. This is what is now established. But its essence consists in being merely what is complete, and so pure morality: incomplete morality is, therefore, impure, in other words, is Immorality. Morality itself thus exists in another being than the actual concrete consciousness. This other is a holy moral legislator.

Morality which is not completed in consciousness, the morality which is the reason for making those postulates, means, in the first instance, that morality, when it is set up as actual in consciousness, stands in relation to something else, to an existence, and thus itself preserves and implies otherness or distinction, whence arises a manifold plurality of moral commands. The moral self-consciousness at the same time, however, looks on these many duties as unessential; for it is concerned with merely the one pure duty, and this plurality of duties, so far as they are determinate duties, have no true reality for self-consciousness. They can thus have their real truth accepted only in another consciousness, and are (what they are not for the actual moral self-consciousness) sacred through a holy lawgiver.

But this, too, is again merely a dissembling of the actual fact. For moral self-consciousness is to itself the absolute, and duty is simply and solely what it knows to be duty. It, however, recognises only pure duty as duty: what is not sacred in its view is not in itself sacred at all, and what is not per se sacred cannot be rendered so by some being that is sacred. Moral consciousness, further, is not really serious in allowing something to be made sacred by another consciousness than its own. For, only that is without qualification sacred in its eyes which is made sacred through its own action, and is sacred within it. It is thus just as little in earnest in treating this other being as a holy being; for this would mean that, within it, something was to attain an essential significance, which, for the moral consciousness, i.e. in itself, has none.

If the sacred being was postulated, in order that duty might have binding validity within the moral consciousness, not qua pure duty, but as a plurality of specific duties, then this must again be dissembled and the other being must be solely sacred in so far as only pure duty has binding validity within the moral consciousness. Pure duty has also, in point of fact, validity and bindingness only in another being, not in the moral consciousness. Although, within the latter, pure morality seems alone to hold good, still this must be put right in another form, for it is, at the same time, a natural consciousness. Morality is, in it, affected and conditioned by sensibility, and thus is not by itself self-contained, but a contingent result of free will; in it, however, qua pure will, morality is a contingency of knowledge. Taken by itself, therefore, morality is in another being, is self-complete only in another reality than the actual moral consciousness.

This other being, then, is here absolutely complete morality, because in its case morality does not stand in relation to nature and sensibility. Yet the reality of pure duty lies in its actualisation in nature and sensibility. The moral consciousness accounts for its incompleteness by the fact that morality, in its case, has a positive relation to nature and sensibility, since it holds an essential moment of morality to be that morality should have simply and solely a negative relation towards nature and sensibility. The pure moral being, on the other hand, because far above the struggle with nature and sense, does not stand in a negative relation to them. Thus, in point of fact, the positive relation to them alone remains in its case, i.e. there remains just what a moment ago passed for the incomplete, for what was not moral. Pure morality, however, entirely cut off from actual reality so as likewise to be even without positive relation to reality, would be a blank unreal abstraction, where the very notion of morality, which consists in thinking of pure duty and in willing and doing, would be absolutely done away with. This other being, so purely and entirely moral, is again, therefore, a mere dissemblance of the actual fact, and has to be given up.

In this purely moral being, however, the moments of the contradiction, in which this synthetic ideational process is carried on, come closer together. So, likewise, do the opposites taken up alternately, now this and also that, and also the other, opposites which are allowed to follow one after the other, with one opposite constantly set aside by another, yet without these ideas ever being brought together. So close do they come, that consciousness here has to give up its moral view of the world and retreat within itself.

It knows its morality as incomplete because it is affected by an opposing sensibility and nature, which partly perturb morality as such, and partly give rise to a plurality of duties, by which, in concrete cases of real action, consciousness finds itself embarrassed. For each case is the concrete focus of many moral relations, just as an object of perception in general is a thing with many qualities. And since a determinate duty is a purpose, it has a content; its content is a part of the purpose, and so morality is not pure morality. This latter, then, has its real existence in some other being. But such reality means nothing else than that morality is here self-complete, in itself and for itself—for itself, i.e. is morality of a consciousness: in itself, i.e. has existence and actuality.

In that first incomplete consciousness, morality is not realised and carried out. It is there something immanent and implicit, in the sense of a mere thought-element; for it is associated with nature and sensibility, with the actuality of [external] existence and conscious life, which constitutes its content; and nature and sensibility are morally nothing. In the second, morality is present as completed, and not in the form of an unrealised thought-element. But this completion consists just in the fact that morality has reality in a consciousness, in the sense of free reality, objective existence in general, is not something empty, but filled out, full of content. That is to say, the completion of morality is placed in this, that what a moment ago was characterised as morally nothing is found present in morality and inherent in it. It is at one time to have validity simply and solely as the unrealised thought-element, a product of pure abstraction; but, on the other hand, is just as certainly to have in this form no validity at all: its true nature is to consist in being opposed to reality, detached altogether therefrom, and empty, and then again to consist in being actual reality.

The syncretism, or fusion, of these contradictions, which is expressed in extenso in the moral attitude of experience, collapses internally, since the distinction on which it rests—its distinction from something which must be thought and stated as a necessity, and is yet at the same time not essential—passes into one which does not any longer exist even in words. What, at the end, is affirmed to be something with different aspects, both to be nothing and also real, is one and the very same—existence and reality. And what is to be absolute only as something beyond actual existence and actual consciousness, and at the same time to be only in consciousness and so, qua beyond, nothing at all—this absolute is pure duty and the knowledge that pure duty is the essentially real. The consciousness, which makes this distinction that is no distinction, which announces actuality to be at once what is nothing and what is real, pronounces pure morality to be both the ultimate truth and also to be devoid of all true reality, and expresses together in one and the same breath ideas which it formerly separated—such a consciousness itself proclaims that it is not in earnest with this characterisation and separation of the moments of self and inherent reality. It shows, on the contrary, that, what it announces as absolute existence apart from consciousness, it really keeps enclosed within the self of self-consciousness; and that, what it gives out as something entirely in thought or absolutely inherent and implicit, it just for that reason takes to be something which has no truth at all.

It becomes clear to consciousness that placing these moments apart from each other is mentally “dis-placing” them, is a dissemblance, and it would be hypocrisy were it really to keep to this. But, being pure moral self-consciousness, it flees from this discordance between what it represents and what constitutes its essential nature, flees from this untruth, which gives out as true what it holds to be untrue, and, turning away with abhorrence, it hastens back into itself. The consciousness, which scorns such a moral idea of the world, is pure Conscience (Gewissen): it is, in its inmost being, simply spirit consciously assured or “certain” (gewiss) of itself, spirit which acts directly in the light of this assurance, which acts conscientiously (gewissenhaft), without the intervention of those ideas, and finds its true nature in this direct immediacy.

While, however, this sphere of dissemblance is nothing else than the development of moral self-consciousness in its various moments and is consequently its reality, so too this self-consciousness, by returning into itself, will become, in its inmost nature, nothing else. This returning into itself, indeed, simply means that it has come to be conscious that its truth is a pretended truth, a mere pretence. As returning into itself it had to be always giving out this pretended truth as its real truth, for it had to express and display itself as an objective idea; but it had to know all the same that this is merely a dissemblance. It would consequently be, in point of fact, hypocrisy all the while, and its abhorrence of such dissemblance would be itself the first expression of hypocrisy.