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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 9240290441 25 
 
THE 
 
 ETHICAL THEORY 
 
 OF HEGEL 
 
Oxford University Press 
 
 London Edinburgh Glasgow Copenhagen 
 
 New Tork Toronto Melbourne Cape Town 
 
 Bombay Calcutta Madras Shanghai 
 
 Humphrey Milford Publisher to the University 
 
The 
 
 ETHICAL THEORY 
 
 
 of 
 
 
 H 
 
 E G E 
 
 A Study of the 
 
 L 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT 
 
 By 
 
 HUGH A. REYBURN, M.A., 
 
 Professor of Logic and Psychology 
 at the University of Cape Town 
 
 D.Phil. 
 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 
 
 At the CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 
 I 9 2 I 
 
 Ho 
 
 
TO 
 
 SIR HENRY JONES, LL.D., F.B.A. 
 
 THE GREATEST TEACHER WHOM 
 I HAVE KNOWN 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This book was written for the most part before the war, 
 and, save for a slight revision in the early part of 1915, is 
 untouched by war influences. In spite of the long delay 
 which has ensued before publication, I have thought it better 
 to leave my work as it stands. No doubt a very much better 
 book could be written, but any alterations which I should be 
 inclined to make at present would alter the purpose which 
 the book is intended to serve. My intention was to write 
 not on ethical and political theory but on Hegel, and I have 
 made no attempt to recast the Hegelian doctrine in the light 
 of our present knowledge. A reconstruction of our modern 
 problems and outlook on the basis of Hegel's teaching would 
 be an exceedingly valuable contribution to knowledge, but 
 it is a larger task than is attempted here. The first step 
 toward it is a reasonable knowledge of the authentic Hegel 
 himself, and it is only this step that I have tried to take. 
 Much of the criticism of Hegel current to-day and in the 
 last few years appears to be vitiated by an unsympathetic 
 and somewhat inaccurate interpretation of Hegel, and my 
 endeavour has been to provide an account which will make 
 his view more intelligible. Accordingly criticism has been 
 reduced to a minimum, and has been undertaken only when 
 the comprehension of the theory itself seemed to demand it. 
 Nothing which I have seen since the book was first written 
 has led me to alter my view of Hegel's teaching. 
 
 My indebtedness in carrying out this work has been great. 
 What I owe to the literature will, I hope, be sufficiently 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 obvious from the text. My greatest debt, however, is to 
 Sir Henry Jones of Glasgow University, under whose influence 
 I began this study and from whom I obtained not only valu- 
 able detailed assistance in the study of Hegel but also the im- 
 pulse and encouragement which led me to attempt the work. 
 He has read through the manuscript and enabled me to make 
 it a better book than it could otherwise have been. Portions 
 of the manuscript have also been read by Professor J. W. Scott 
 of Cardiff, Professor A. R. Lord of Grahamstown, and Principal 
 Hetherington of Exeter University College. They are not 
 responsible for my views and mistakes, but they have given 
 me valuable advice. In the labour of preparing the book 
 I have been greatly helped by my wife. 
 
 HUGH A. REYBURN, 
 
 University of Cape Town, 
 August 1921. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction 
 
 PAGE 
 
 xi 
 
 Chapter^. The Logical Background . 
 
 I 
 
 --'II. Fundamental Logical Categories 
 
 17 
 
 ^III. The Real and the Rational 
 
 • 45 
 
 n\ Mind . ■ 
 
 76 
 
 V. Subjective Mind 
 
 90 
 
 VI. Abstract Right . . 
 
 115 
 
 VII. Wrong and Punishment . 
 
 143 
 
 VIII. The Principles of Morality 
 
 158 
 
 AX. Moral Teleology .... 
 
 185 
 
 X. The Ethical Order and the Family . 
 
 197 
 
 -^l. Civil Society or the External State . 
 
 214 
 
 --Jtll. The State 
 
 226 
 
 <XIII. The Limits of the State . . . . 
 
 253 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 One of the difficulties in the study of Hegel's philosophy 
 is that of finding a starting-point. The theory is a closed 
 circle and does not seem to contain any convenient means of 
 ingress. The approach which Hegel himself provides in the 
 Phenomenology may well seem as formidable a fastness as 
 the castle itself, and sometimes the method which recommends 
 itself most is simply to break in at any point where the wall 
 looks less forbidding than usual. To those who adopt this 
 course the Philosophy of Right has some attractions. For 
 one thing, the treatise is an elaborate re-mapping of ground 
 which Hegel has dealt with on more than one previous 
 occasion, and consequently the style is less burdened by the 
 task of expressing novel ideas. This does not mean, of course, 
 that the style is good, but it is not quite so cumbersome 
 and abstruse as in some of his other writings, and the plan 
 of thought is steadily worked out. Moreover, the work is 
 an expression of Hegel's mature thought and gives his final 
 views on ethical and political subjects. Behind it lies his 
 whole system, and difficult passages can be supplemented 
 from various sources ; on ethical points we can refer to his 
 other ethical writings, and on points of general importance 
 we have the Larger Logic, the Encyclopaedia, and, of course, 
 the Phenomenology to help us. The notes, too, which were 
 collected and added to the first edition of the Werke are very 
 useful, and throw brilliant side-lights on the main principles. 
 The language of these is freer and more vivid than that of the 
 text, though perhaps it is also less strict and reliable. 
 
 But the Philosophy of Right has another attraction ; for 
 the subject is one with which every reflecting man cannot 
 but be familiar. It is practically impossible in a civilized 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 community "to keep aloof from the earnest questioning con- 
 cerning moral conduct, the nature of the state, the rights of 
 laboiur and property, and in general the relation between the 
 individual and society. And in these days we are forced to 
 listen to some one, be he a newspaper editor, a street oratoi, 
 or a politically minded acquaintance, who is eager to add his 
 authority to that of the law and the prophets, and to instruct 
 us on all questions of right and justice. Everyday experience 
 often makes it possible for one to detect the general bearing 
 of Hegel's argument in this sphere, even when his expressions 
 are unusual ; for, after all, Hegel too was a good citizen and 
 lived in the common atmosphere. 
 
 At the same time there is much that may be strange to 
 us in Hegel's view. Judgements of his, with which the plain 
 man concurs, are linked up by Hegel with logical and meta- 
 physical doctrines which seem very remote from the point 
 at issue ; and as one reads one finds out gradually that the 
 short introduction to the Philosophy of Right is a substitute 
 for a very large scheme of thought in which there are examined 
 many important principles which one is apt to assume 
 uncritically from time to time as occasion arises. 
 
 This book is intended to help any one who chooses ethical 
 philosophy as his point of attack in the study of Hegel, and 
 feels the need of some extraneous aid, greater than that 
 which Hegel supplies in the introduction to the Philosophy 
 of Right. It does not profess to say all that can or should 
 be said on Hegel's ethics by way of exposition, but it endea- 
 vours to develop the main content of that section of the 
 philosophy in such a manner that its relation to the whole 
 and the principles on which it rests may become apparent. - 
 
 I do not intend to discuss the development of Hegel's 
 thought ; my desire is rather to present it in its mature form. 
 It will, be weU, therefore, to state here at the outset where 
 that mature view is to be found, and on what works and in 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 what degree reliance is to be placed. Hegel had a constant 
 interest in ethical and political subjects, and the first group 
 of writings which we may mention consists of minor treatises 
 on what is sometimes cilled ' practical politics '. He first 
 broke ground by a discussion of the conditions of the state 
 of Wiirtemberg in 1798, and this was followed in 1802 by 
 a severe criticism of the German confederation. In 1817 
 Hegel returned to the affairs of Wiirtemberg, and in 1831 he 
 wrote a trenchant review of English reform legislation. 
 These writings do not aU appear in the standard editions of 
 Hegel's works, and are most easily found in a volume entitled 
 Hegel's Schriften zur Politik u nd Rechts-phi loso-phie, edited by 
 LassoiT They are, however, only ot indirect philosophical 
 mferest, and we need not discuss them by themselves. 
 
 The second group of writings consists of two early treatises 
 on ethical subjects, both dating about 1802 ; the first of these 
 was published in the Critical Journal of Philosophy, edited by 
 Schelling and Hegel, and is entitled Concerning the Scientific 
 Modes of Treating Natural Right, and the second is a sketch 
 of the System of Ethics. Both are contained in the volume 
 of minor writings just mentioned. These works are to be 
 used with caution. They are of extreme importance for the 
 history of Hegel's thought, since they show his view in a stage 
 of germination. For his final standpoint, however, they are 
 not authoritative except in a negative sense. They were 
 written when Hegel was still under the influence of Schelling ; 
 and, while the criticism of previous thought which they con- 
 tain is not cancelled by the more mature view, they are 
 tinged not only in expression but also in principle with some 
 presuppositions which Hegel afterwards discarded. The 
 System of Ethics in particular is a difficult work to understand 
 fully, because in it the general attitude, which may be broadly 
 called Hegelian, is very imperfectly worked out, and is crossed 
 by other tendencies. Accordingly, in my exposition, I have 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 used these writings only to indicate how Hegel distinguished 
 himself from those prior thinkers of whose inadequacy he 
 had convinced himself at this date. 
 
 The third section of his ethical and political works consists 
 of one volume, the Phenomenology. This was published in 
 1807 and marks Hegel's breach with Schelling. It is thus the 
 first treatise which presents the special standpoint of Hegel's 
 own thought. The Phenomenology occupies a peculiar posi- 
 tion : it is both a part of philosophy, and an introduction 
 to it. It is an analysis of the various attitudes of thought 
 to the world and a review of the various phenomenal appear- 
 ances of mind. It exposes the way in which each tj^ical 
 form of mind organizes itself, the relations which it maintains 
 to its object, and the kind of object which it apprehends. 
 It begins with the simplest attitude to the world, and passes 
 stage by stage to the highest and most adequate. At each 
 step it has a twofold task : it explains the nature of the point 
 of view in question, and it does so in such a way that its 
 inadequacies become plain and force us to pass to a more 
 satisfactory standpoint. 
 
 At a certain point of this process Hegel reaches the ethical 
 consciousness, explains its structure and function, and 
 discusses its adequacy and validity. This examination, of 
 course, is important for our purpose, and I have made free 
 use of it. But there are two qualifications to be kept in mind 
 in this reference. The first of these is that the Phenomenology 
 is an analysis of actual phases of consciousness, or to put it 
 otherwise, it deals with types of facts ; and consequently 
 the correspondence is not absolute between it and the analysis 
 of the Philosophy of Right which considers the arrangement of 
 the principles of the ethical world, not in their definite embodi- 
 ment as phenomenal attitudes of mind, but in their inter- 
 relation as categories of the world. There is, of course, a very 
 considerable agreement, for, as we shall see, these categories 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 are themselves objective principles realized outwardly. But, 
 nevertheless, one must not conclude a priori that the stages 
 of the two treatments are necessarily the same. Assuming 
 that the two works are consistent, one is justified in supple- 
 menting the analysis of a principle in one from the analysis 
 of the other ; for example, one can use the discussion of the 
 moral consciousness in the Phenomenology to amplify the 
 discussion in the Philosophy of Right of the kind of realization 
 obtained by moral will which takes moral principles to be 
 supreme. But one must not assume that the phase of rnind 
 which succeeds the moral consciousness is simply the embodi- 
 ment of the next ethical category. The Phenomenology has to 
 take into account a further inter-play of subject and object 
 which is not necessary to the direct analysis of categories. 
 The other point is a qualification of this. When he wrote 
 the Phenomenology. Hegel had in the main reached his final 
 position, but the principles of his thought still required to 
 be worked out and were subject to revision. I doubt if the 
 division of the categories of mind which he finally adopted 
 was altogether clear to him at this time, and this is borne out 
 by certain changes of terminology. The word ' mind ' is 
 used in the Phenomenology to denote what is later called 
 objective mind, and the account of the development o f^ 
 practical mind into objective mind,, given with great care in 
 the Encyclopaedia, does not a.vpea x_ix3.Jiie-EJienomenology^ 
 The Phenomenology is a ' voyage of discovery ', and the first 
 survey of the country travelled is not quite accurate. I think 
 that if Hegel had written the Phenomenology when the plan 
 of the Encyclopaedia was clear in his mind, the correspondence 
 of the stages of the two works would have been closer at 
 certain points. 
 
 Another writing which stands by itself is the Propaedeutik, 
 a transcript of the lectures which Hegel dictated in philosophy 
 from 1808 to 1811 to the higher classes of the Gymnasium at 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 Niirnberg. The lectures are as simple as Hegel could make 
 them — ^though they must have been out of the reach of school- 
 boys — and it is significant that he himself used the ethical 
 approach to philosophy in this course as the most fitting for 
 junior students. The tripartite division of the philosophy of 
 mind, characteristic of his later work, appears here. But the 
 final titles are not yet reached. The stages are [a) mind in 
 its motion, {b) practical mind, and (c) mind in its pure exposiT 
 tion. The whole treatment of ethical mind is called practical 
 rather than objective. The framework, however, is laid down, 
 and the chief weakness is in the transitions. 
 
 In 1817 the first of the mature expositions of Hegel's 
 ethical philosophy appeared in the Encyclopaedia. This work 
 is a complete, but brief, statement of Hegel's philosophy as 
 a whole — slacking, however, the approach offered in the 
 Phenomenology — and his more specialized works are fuller 
 statements of various positions adopted in it. In 1821 Hegel 
 published the Outlines of the Philosophy of Right, in which the 
 ethical and political portions of the Encyclopaedia are handled 
 by themselves. Both of these works are authoritative. The 
 Encyclopaedia was enlarged and revised in 1827 and in 1830, 
 In it Hegel refers to the Philosophy of Right for details, and, 
 conversely, one has to turn to the former work for the context 
 in which the latter is set. From the nature of the case there 
 is a better balance in the Encyclopaedia. The Philosophy of 
 Right points out the- way in which the principles of right 
 realize mind and give it objectivity ; and it is more concerned i 
 to show how the infinite self-contained whole which mind 
 intrinsically is, comes to the light of day, than to display 
 the insufficiency of the whole field of right. In consequence, 
 the latter work speaks of the infinity of mind and the rationality/ 
 of the will without further qualification, whereas the former 
 is careful to note that this infinity is itself finite and the 
 rationality not final. I see no reason to suppose, however, 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 that there is more than a difference of emphasis, and I have 
 tried to read the two books together. 
 
 The Philosophy of Right ,is an expansion of a part of the 
 whole scheme ; the last portion of it itself is greatly expanded 
 by Hegel in his lectures on the Philosophy of History given 
 from 1822 to 1831. I have used this work to amplify certain 
 points. 
 
 The introduction to the Philosophy of Right presents con- 
 siderable difficulty. It is a brief attempt to place the reader 
 in a position to begin Hegel's philosophy in the middle. I have 
 chosen a somewhat different approach, and have drawn on 
 various writings from which his general doctrine is to be 
 gathered. The earlier portions of the Encyclopaedia, of course, 
 are relevant, and I have made some reference to the Larger 
 Logic which Hegel wrote during 1812-16. I have avoided 
 discussion of peculiar doctrines of his philosophy of nature 
 as far as possible, but I have introduced it wherever it seemed 
 necessary to understand the general position. 
 
 I am very conscious of the imperfection of the treatment 
 given here. The presuppositions of the ethical standpoint 
 are not sufficiently expounded, and I have had to be extremely 
 dogmatic in my references to Hegel's Logic. This I regret, 
 but it seems inevitable. The full exposition of the Logic 
 would occupy greater space than this book itself, and cannot 
 be given propaedeutically. I regret also that I have not been 
 able to carry forward my account into the region of what 
 Hegel calls absolute mind. But again the task is so involved 
 that I have had to content myself with little more than a bare 
 indication of the problem which has to be solved by succeeding 
 portions of philosophy. In reference to both these fields 
 I have tried to adopt Hegel's own point of view, and have not 
 developed any criticism. Throughout the exposition I have 
 not attempted to conceal the fact that I agree very sub- 
 stantially with Hegel's treatment ; and I have often ventured 
 
xviii INTRODUC TION 
 
 to put his argument in the terms which most naturally 
 express my own opinion. Nevertheless the absence of 
 criticism on any point is not to be taken as a sign that I regard 
 Hegel's view there as valid for all time. My first object 
 has been exposition, and the criticism in which I have indulged 
 has been subordinated to the purpose of making the develop- 
 ment of the argument clear. 
 
 Almost a century has passed since Hegel published the 
 Encyclopaedia, and the world has not stood still in the mean- 
 time. Some forms of social life which were present to Hegel 
 have decayed, and passed into the' keeping of history ; other 
 forms have developed since his time ; and our knowledge of 
 political life is both more accurate and more extensive than 
 his possibly could be. As he himself might say, the world 
 has become more mature and philosophy has now a more 
 complete construction over against it to be built into an 
 intellectual kingdom. But in spite of this undeniable im- 
 maturity of some parts of Hegel's view, I feel sure that what 
 is needed in social philosophy is development and not revolu-, 
 tion. One important step which must be taken if we are to 
 profit by the advance which has been made is to appropriate 
 the truth of the philosophy which has come down to us. 
 Hegel is the last great original thinker in the main line of the 
 evolution of philosophy, and I doubt whether the new philo- 
 sophic movements of our own day have mastered his thought. 
 These movements are not at all to be ignored or despised, 
 and they contain truth which Hegel did not reach. But at 
 the same time we must keep in touch with the main stream, 
 and we can find it nowhere more fully than in Hegel. 
 Whenever the limits of his social experience seemed to me to 
 obscure the rationale of his argument I have indicated my 
 criticism : but throughout I have put his view in the best 
 light I could and have tried to speak for him. % 
 
 It may be well to indicate in this introductory statement" 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 the divisions of my argument. I have tried to show at the 
 beginning the standpoint of Hegel's philosophy as a whole, 
 and the first chapter contains a brief account of his Logic 
 with special reference to the dialectic. The account, of course, 
 is purely introductory, and the conception of the dialectic 
 is expanded at various later stages of the discussion. The 
 second chapter considers certain topics of the Logic in order 
 to make clear the nature of the principles with which we have 
 to deal in ethical philosophy. The third chapter is occupied 
 with the philosophic attitude and has a special reference to 
 the standpoint of ethics. The fourth chapter is continuous 
 with this and sets forth Hegel's general conception of mind. 
 The fifth chapter considers the analysis of these categories 
 of mind which are dialectically prior to ethics and presupposed 
 in it. The next two chapters, the sixth and the seventh, 
 deal with abstract right, the first division of the world of 
 right ; in the succeeding two, eight and nine, the principles 
 of morality are expounded and examined. Chapters ten, 
 eleven, and twelve discuss the third main section of the 
 subject, the ethical world proper. And I have concluded 
 with a chapter which indicates very briefly the limits of the 
 ethical world. 
 
 With regard to Hegel's technical terms my procedure has 
 been as follows. The important phrases, an sich and fur sich, 
 I have rendered by implicit, inherent, or intrinsic in the one 
 case, and explicit, or very occasionally, independent, in the 
 other. To the phrase an undfur sich I have had to surrender, 
 and have usually substituted the word absolute. Dasein 
 is translated by definite mode or definite being. I find that 
 by many translators WirkUohkeit is usually rendered by 
 actuality, Realitat by reality ; but this use led me into 
 considerable difficulty. The significance of the word reality 
 in English philosophical writing is too profound to admit 
 of this use, and it is much nearer the term WirkUchkeit as 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 Hegel uses it. Accordingly I have translated Wirklichkeii 
 by reality and Realitat by reality. It should be noted that 
 the terms are not used indiscriminately. Bestimmung I have 
 allowed myself to render by determination, category, charac- 
 teristic, nature, or even principle as the context suggests, 
 There is no fixed equivalent in English, but the significance; 
 can generally be given fairly accurately. Begriff and Idee 
 are rendered respectively by notion and ' idea ' — the quota- 
 tion marks indicating that ' idea ' is not to be understood 
 in anjd;hing but Hegel's technical sense. Other words present 
 less difficulty. 
 
 I have usually taken advantage of Wallace's translations 
 from the Encyclopaedia and Professor Baillie's translation of 
 the Phenomenology. I have consulted versions of other parts 
 of Hegel whenever they were available, particularly that of 
 the Philosophy of Right by Dr. Dyde, but I have preferred 
 to make my own translation. Unless otherwise stated, the 
 references to Hegel's Werke are to the edition of 1832-40; 
 the exceptions being the early treatise of 1802 Concerning the 
 Scientific Modes of Treating Natural Right, for which refer- 
 ences are given to the edition in 1913 of Hegel's Schriften zur 
 Politik und Rechtsphilosophie by Georg Lassori as well as 
 to volume I of the Werke, and the Philosophy of History which 
 is quoted from the third edition of the Werke, dated 1848. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 
 
 The Outlines of the Philosophy of Right, with which we are 
 chiefly concerned in this book, is the last important systematic 
 work which Hegel himself pubUshed, and it has Hegel's 
 general system as a background. In order to understand it we 
 have to begin some distance off. I propose in this chapter to 
 discuss some important aspects of his logical theory, for in it 
 the roots of his ethical doctrines are to be found. In the next 
 chapter I shall explain in greater detail some of the principles 
 which his logic lays bare, and on the comprehension of which 
 the interpretation and judgement of his ethical philosophy 
 depends. 
 
 Philosophy for Hegel covers three main provinces, iegiCt. 
 nature , and mind ; and the sciences of these three realms 
 give lis progressiveT yet inter-related, analyses of reality and 
 experience. Hegel's view of logic is remote from that of the 
 ordinary text-book. What is usually called formal logic 
 occupies itself chiefly with an account of various processes 
 of thought whereby inferences can be consistently drawn from 
 assumed premises. This analysis is generally prefaced by 
 a statement, partly logical, partly grammatical, partly psycho- 
 logical, of the ' elements ' of thought — ^the pieces with which 
 the game is played. By logic Hegel means something more 
 important than this : he offers an analysis of the fundamental 
 constitutive principles of the content of all experience ; and 
 the specific forms of ' right reasoning ', as detailed in the 
 usual formal logic, occupy a subordinate place in the whole. 
 In order to see how he reaches this position we may look at 
 the matter from two points of view ; firstly, the necessity of 
 the case, and secondly, the historical development — ^mainly 
 with reference to Kant. 
 
 Logic in the narrower sense attempts to be a self-contained 
 body of doctrine with a recognized sphere and a special 
 method. It separates itself from the theory of knowledge 
 and from metaphysics, and it claims that its own province is 
 
 22II B 
 
2 THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND __ 
 
 capable of scientific treatment without reference to the wider 
 problems — e.g., the relation of knowledge to reality, and the 
 ultimate nature of things — ^which come within the scope of 
 the larger philosophical sciences. The claim is at first sight 
 supported by actual achievement : text-books are number- 
 less ; they are written by men of the most diverse views on 
 epistemology and metaphysics ; and yet there seems to be 
 established a certain consensus gentium regarding the sub- 
 stance of the science. Closer examination, however, disturbs 
 this superficial appearance. The average text-book professes 
 to be merely an introduction ; it repeats the traditional views 
 on the traditional topics with little attempt to weave the 
 material into a whole. A concluding chapter sometimes takes 
 up the problems which have been slurred over in the actual 
 exposition itself, and points to epistemology and metaphysics 
 as the proper field for their fuller treatment. The disagree- 
 ment between the writers becomes acute at this stage ; the 
 nature of the ' reference ' of thought to reality is variously 
 interpreted, the relation between the 'laws of thought'— 
 probably briefly mentioned at an early stage, and postponed 
 for discussion until the end— and the minor laws of inference 
 is treated in many mutually exclusive ways, and many solu- 
 tions are given of the problem of the meaning of the ' form of 
 thought '. The problems are not pressed home until the body 
 of logic has been laid forth, and yet it is the solution of these 
 and other similar questions which should mark off the subject- 
 matter and determine the treatment. The apparent unanimity 
 is due rather to vis inertiae, to the acceptance of a traditional 
 logical datum, than to a genuine harmony concerning the 
 nature of right reasoning. If a student seeks to go beyond 
 these mtroductions, he speedily discovers that the postponed 
 logical problems contain the very substance of logic, and that 
 the boundary wall between logic and metaphysics falls when 
 he approaches it._ 
 
 It may be taken for granted that logic deals with true 
 thought. If so, is it possible to analyse the nature of true 
 thinking without reference to the object of knowledge ' The 
 word, thought, is without doubt an ambiguous one, and covers 
 a fatal tendency to confuse the act of thinking, a psychological 
 subject-matter with the object or content known. Th#^ 
 question of a distinction between 'object' and 'content' 
 
THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 
 
 is passed over for the present : it seems clear that it is a dis- 
 tinction within a single point of view, both falling within the 
 vision of the thinker lumself and being distinct from that 
 which a spectator, occupying the psychological standpoint, 
 notes as the elements and laws of the temporal act of thinking. 
 The same ambiguity attaches to the word, experience, when 
 the act of experiencing is confused with what is experienced. 
 In both cases the two meanings are inseparable aspects of 
 a single process, and neither apart from the other is more 
 than a one-sided abstraction : ^ for the psychological stand- 
 point is that of an external spectator, and it is obvious that 
 a spectator does not see all that there is unless he apprehends % 
 the content present to the subject himself ; and, on the other 
 hand, the subject's own knowledge is limited if the psycho^ 
 logical aspect, the process of the content, is beyond his view. 
 At the same time the aspects are not to be identified in a crude 
 and inamediate fashion. Whether or not either attitude is 
 capable of including the other — a point we need not determine 
 at present — ^it is clear that in the ordinary case the process 
 apprehended by the psychologist and the content apprehended 
 by the subject are widely different ; and one must avoid 
 filling up gaps in the analysis of one side by material borrowed 
 from the other without a definite justification. In our ques- 
 tion the term, thought or thinking, refers to the content of 
 thought, to that which is apprehended ; and the problem 
 concerns the possibihty of stating the fundamental laws of 
 apprehending thought in complete isolation from that which 
 is apprehended ; in other words, the independence of logic. 
 
 The independence of logic may be maintained in two ways. 
 On the one hand the ambiguity of the term, thought, may be 
 exploited, and psychological laws of the order of thoughts in 
 time may be offered as logic. This device hardly needs 
 criticism. The other method is to draw a sharp line between 
 the content of thought and the ' real ' object, and to declare 
 that the content — ^aU thought-forms as such — ^is subjective. 
 This is, for example, Lotze's method in logic. The funda- 
 mental objection to the procedure is that it involves a dualism 
 between knowledge and reaUty, which ihakes knowledge 
 possible only by an unending miracle. If all the forms of 
 thought are subjective, if its modes of connexion answer to 
 1 Cf. below, chap. IV. p. 80. 
 B2 
 
THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 
 
 nothing in the real world, how can the result give us a_^ ^^^^^^ 
 in any way like the trans-subjective world of things . more- 
 )ver, how can the exponent of such a view know tnat tne 
 'jTXTc: r^f +>,i'nVino- a rp Riihiective and its results omectiver 
 
 laws of thinking are subjective and its results oDjective: 
 Such knowledge implies independent acquaintance with the 
 real world in order to compare it point for point with the 
 content of knowledge. The argument need not be elaborated 
 farther : it is clear that this view of logic is so far from being 
 free from epistemology and metaphysics that it is based on 
 a view of knowledge which separates knowledge from things, 
 and it has sufficient information about reality to distinguish 
 the laws of the latter from the modes and principles of the 
 content of thought.^ This contention, however, by no means 
 settles the question. Perhaps if we give up the untenable 
 dualism between the content of knowledge and the object 
 known, we may devise a distinction within the content of 
 knowledge between subjective modes of organizing the 
 material apprehended and objective principles of things. 
 But such a distinction, although a genuine one when regarded 
 in a certain way, is an abandonment of the original scope and 
 task of logic. It gives up the problem of analysing the forms 
 of knowing as a whole, and breaks up the total content into 
 two sections without exposing what they have in common. 
 If log'ic identifies its object with one' of these divisions there 
 remains room for another logic, more faithful to its primary 
 duty, which will lay bare the principles involved in any appre- 
 hended content, whether existing in external nature or not. 
 
 Hegel's logic claims this larger task. If logic is to maintain 
 itself as the science oi the principles of the content of know- 
 ledge', it must cease to diminish its stature to the measure of 
 the merely subjective, and must advance to an analysis of the 
 structural principles of a thought which can apprehend any 
 object. But it is obvious that such an analysis is meta- 
 physical as well as logical. It is conversant not only with 
 the principles of thinking, but also with those of that which 
 is thought ; and it cannot but seek to determine the con- 
 ditions of an intelligible world, the only world with whic| 
 we have any concern. Naturally, if reality is identified will 
 
 1 For an acute criticism on historical lines of the attemnt tn ..pnarate 
 logic from metaphysics v. Adamson, A Short i?«to« of S^t, ?"i6^ 
 reprinted, with additions, from the Encyclopaedia Britanmca 
 
THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 
 
 actual existence in space and time, and metaphysics identified 
 with the science of such a reaUty, then logic is wider than 
 metaphysics. But such is not the sense of metaphysics in 
 which Hegel's logic is metaphysical. Existence in space and 
 time is part of a wider whole ; and there are principles which 
 are operative in things, but which cannot be said to have 
 existence in this limited sense. This point may become 
 clearer at a later stage of the argument ; at present it is 
 enough to note that from the present point of view the object 
 of metaphysics is the entire scheme of things, the wholeness 
 of the world, of which existence in nature is but one mode. 
 Logic, as metaphysical, is the science of the principles of 
 a thought whose content is the whole, the absolute, the real, 
 or whatever else be its name. 
 
 Having found the standpoint of logic, we may refer briefly 
 to its Umitation. The known world, for Hegel, faUs into two 
 main divisions^ viz., nature and mind. These are part of one 
 world known by a single apprehending consciousness, and 
 therefore subject to the fundamental laws which make 
 knowledge and an object intelligible. But nevertheless each 
 realm has forms and laws of its own ; each has a character 
 which cannot be attributed to the other, and it works out the 
 basal principles of intelligible objects in its own way. For 
 our present purpose it is perhaps better not to regard the 
 special laws of these realms as new principles ; they are 
 rather more concrete developments of the fundamental forms 
 of all knowledge, fresh and separate ways of exemphf5dng 
 them, articulations of them, their expression in new media. 
 This throws into relief the conununity of spheres, and it is to 
 i these underl5dng principles of both realms that logic is limited. 
 I The philosophy of nature is the account of the principles as 
 they appear in the outward world ; the philosophy of mind 
 ;exposes them in the shapes which they take in conscious life ; 
 logic is the discussion of them by themselves, without reference 
 ito their higher special embodiments. 
 
 We may now consider briefly the historical development of 
 iHegel's position from that of Kant. Kant had inquired into 
 Ithe conditions of synthetic a -priori judgements. Mathematics 
 offered him a type of these judgements, and he raised the 
 'question. How is it possible for such knowledge to be universal 
 md necessary and yet to apply to objects ? Mere analysis 
 
THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 
 
 which keeps within the realm of mental concepts had, for 
 him, an obvious universality, but it could not add to our 
 knowledge of things, could not prophesy new conjections in 
 experience. Its breadth was due to its shallowness. On the 
 other hand, empirical knowledge provides a synthetic union 
 of diverse elements of experience, but it dare not transcend 
 the present moment and the actual synthesis given. But 
 these strange judgements of mathematics speak confidently, 
 not depending on experience, and yet giving us fresh know- 
 ledge of objective things ! In order to explain this kind of 
 knowledge Kant found it necessary to carry over that" activity 
 of knowledge, in accordance with which its decrees possess 
 universahty in the realm of mind, into the province of actual 
 experience. If the objects of experience, he argued, are 
 amenable to the universality which belongs of right to thought 
 and which cannot be obtained empirically, then thought must 
 have a share in the constitution of the objects of experience. 
 
 The problem soon broadened out from its original form. 
 Previous philosophy, Kant thought, had gone on the assump- 
 tion that the task of knowledge is to correspond to an inde- 
 pendent object out of essential relation to knowledge, and 
 scepticism had been the outcome. For if the object is ex vi 
 termini beyond knowledge and independent of it, there is no 
 guarantee that the content known stands in any relation to 
 the independent and unknown real. Taking his stand, there- 
 fore, on the validity of knowledge, Kant asks, What must be 
 true of the object in order that it may be known ? The 
 boasted independence of the object quickly disappears under 
 this treatment, and Kant discovers one condition of know- 
 ledge after another to which objects must conform if they 
 are to be intelligible. These conditions, Kant thought, do 
 'not hold of the independent object, the thing-in-itself, but 
 they govern the phenomenal object, that which can be known. 
 Kant, however, does not dismiss the conception of the inde- 
 pendent object, but continues to contrast it with the known 
 object ; and by virtue of the opposition condemns the latter 
 as subjective. 
 
 The extent to which Kant transcended this crude dualism 
 does not concern us here, because the thing-in-itself never 
 disappears from his argument. Even when other reasons are 
 offered for the subjectivity of the known object, e.g. in the 
 
THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 
 
 antinomies, the conflict within experience has ultimately no 
 other basis than the original dualism of mind and outward 
 reality. The various minor collisions, e.g., between sense and 
 understanding, understanding and reason, constitutive and 
 regulative principles, practical reason and theoretic reason, 
 and so forth, are all modifications of the primary uncritical 
 supposition ; and if it is withdrawn their substance has 
 vanished. So long as they remain unchecked, the influence of 
 the thing-in-itself persists. That is to say, Kant's inquiry 
 into the conditions of an intelligible world is conducted under 
 the guidance of a fiarm dualism of subject and object, in 
 accordance with which universahty and form are attributed 
 to the former, particularity and content to the latter. If 
 experience manifests universahty, he argues, it is mind-made 
 and subjective. From this Hegel dissents.^ Fgr Kant, in so 
 far as he is a duahst, the distinction between subjective and 
 objective coincides with that between knowledge and what is 
 beyond knowledge. And, although his main contribution to 
 epistemology is a new sense of objectivity which falls within 
 experience, yet there remains in the background the original 
 conception of the objective as independent and trans-sub- 
 jective. Such a distinction is, for Hegel, unmeaning. The 
 unknowable is the most absurd of all conceptions, and the 
 least interesting to rational beings ; it is a direct contradiction 
 in terms. The only significant distinction between subjective 
 and objective falls within the field of knowledge ; it marks 
 off various contents from one another, and does not separate 
 the knowable from the unknowable. When the trans- 
 subjective thing-in-itself vanishes, the contrast between it and 
 the phenomenal or subjective object loses all point ; and 
 hence the phenomenal objectivity which Kant had set up 
 within experience developed for Hegel into real objectivity. 
 With this change of attitude came a great change of content. 
 The fundamental principles which make experience possible 
 were, for Kant, few in number, and the principles of pure 
 thought involved amounted only to twelve. Hegel pushed the 
 analysis much further ; he found logical principles continuous 
 with the categories and principles of the understanding both 
 above and below them ; and thus in place of Kant's limited 
 list there arises the whole elaborate structure of Hegel's logic. 
 ' Cf. Encyclopaedia, § 41, Zusatz 2, WW. VI. pp. 87-y. 
 
8 THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 
 
 Before dealing with any of the detaUs of this scheme we 
 may summarize Hegel's position. Kant found an a prion 
 element in experience, a universaUty which transcended the 
 given ; but he wrongly identified it with the subjective, the 
 mind^made. Hegel swept this identification aside. These 
 principles, he argued, apply to the known as such, subject as 
 well as thing ; they are doubtless principles of thought, but 
 they are no less principles of the world ; they go beneath the 
 opposition of subjective and objective, they characterize all 
 experience, and are not more truly called mental than are 
 particular laws of nature — ^nor less so. Kant's Critique 
 professed to be epistemological, an inquiry into the nature 
 and limits of the knowing faculty ; Hegel's investigation is 
 frankly logical and metaphysical. It deals directly with the 
 known world, and investigates the knowing which apprehends 
 objects. 
 
 Hegel's objective standpoint has given rise to the charge 
 that he proposes to evolve the world out of his own inner 
 consciousness. The criticism may mean many things. It 
 may imply that Hegel sat down in the seclusion of his study, 
 shut out in so far as he could aU reference to common experi- 
 ence, and concocted an arbitrary scheme from the idios}^!- 
 cracies of his private fancies. This is a matter of evidence 
 and need not raise the general question of the ultimate relation 
 of reason and science ; for such capricious imaginings are 
 condemned as much by the sanity of thought as by experi- 
 mental knowledge of fact. Hegel must not be prejudged on 
 this point, for he claims that his method is not private and 
 fanciful but open and rational. On the other hand the 
 criticism may cut deeper. It may rest on the assumption 
 that reason and the truth fall apart, and that a theory may 
 be wholly rational and yet untrue. From this point of view, 
 to evolve the world out of one's inner consciousness means 
 simply to exercise a rational and critical activity. It is only 
 in this sense that Hegel would admit the truth of the state- 
 ment, and his whole theory is a denial of the accompanying 
 supposition that apart from and beyond reasonable knowledge 
 there is anything with which knowledge is in any way con- 
 cerned. It should be clear from what has been said that from 
 Hegel's standpoint the nature of the cognitive subject is 
 fundamentally one with that of his world. The constitutive 
 
THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 
 
 principles of his rational mind are also those of that which he 
 apprehends. Thus it is true that in unfolding the nature of 
 mind Hegel is analysing or remaking for knowledge the 
 principles of things ; but it is no less true that the evolution 
 of an arbitrary scheme in the mind is not the analysis of 
 reality — it is not the analysis of mind itself. By bringing 
 the world and mind into harmony Hegel has made meta- 
 physics possible, but at the same time he has made logic, 
 the key, more difficult by extending its content and forcing 
 it to wai* on the nature of things. Sometimes Hegel's argu- 
 ment seems capricious and fine-spun, but in general there is 
 no reasonable doubt of his conviction that, in the order of 
 learning, experience is prior to rational thought.^ We live 
 before we reflect on life, and a wide experience is necessary 
 for the ingathering of the meaning of experience. Indeed, 
 one of the more striking characteristics of Hegel's own thought 
 is its persistence and perseverance ; and his contempt for 
 fanciful speculation and for formaUsm is unbounded.^ Experi- 
 ence, or fact, is the basis of aU thought and all science ; and 
 a philosophy which cannot cover life and is built in abstraction 
 from the considerations of practice is a futility of the under- 
 standing. 
 
 But experience is only the beginning. What is given is not 
 
 the final truth, not the finished perfect work which alone 
 
 deserves the name of the real ; it is rather a problem, a vague 
 
 we-know-not-what. Thought has to interpret the datum, and 
 
 solve the problem ; and the succession of general principles 
 
 by means of which we attempt this interpretation is the 
 
 content of logic. One of the most fruitful ways of regarding 
 
 Hegel's Logic is to look upon it as a protracted and thorough 
 
 I study of the relations of unity and difference, or of universal 
 
 I and particular. Each category, or determination, is a general 
 
 i principle by which we seek to make experience a consistent 
 
 ! whole and render it a concrete universal ; and each has its own 
 
 1 way of relating the two root factors, viz., unity and difference. 
 
 j Before discussing any of the categories themselves, however, 
 
 J it is necessary to glance at three preliminary points ; the 
 
 ; connexion of the categories, the order of their exposition, and 
 
 s the motive power of the development. 
 
 1 • V. Encyclopaedia, §§ 6-9, and notes ; WW. VII. p. 18. 
 
 f ^ V. Phenomenology, WW. II, Vorrede, in particular pp. 55-6. 
 
10 THE LOGI CAL BACKGROUN D___^__ 
 
 In the first place, the principles of thought are inter- 
 connected. For a genuine empiricism the world is not a whole 
 but a series of numberless parts-parts m no wise connected 
 with one another. The series can be a unity for an appre- 
 hending consciousness only if it is thought under principles 
 which hold it together and connect its various portions. 
 Every principle of thought has this function, and the task 
 of knowledge is to discover them. Kant, as we have seen, 
 gave these principles a subjective turn, and supposed that 
 they were foisted upon the material of knowledge,* and that 
 the mind made its objects. . Hegel is quite aware of the 
 activity of thought here, but he recognizes the objective side 
 also. The laws and principles in question are those which 
 constitute the world ; they are those which things must 
 contain if they are to form an intelligible world at all— and 
 what is not intelligible is not a world. But it is not enough ; 
 that there should be a variety of laws discernible in the objects 
 of knowledge. A number of separate principles would give 
 us, not one world, but as many worlds as there are special; 
 forms of unity. Moreover these worlds would be absolutely 
 out of relation to one another, and could have no commerce. 
 Moreover, they could not be known to one and the same mind ; 
 indeed, to speak more accurately, we should have no right to 
 call them all worlds, for to be a world is to possess a special 
 type of unity, and ex hypothesi the types are all different. 
 Mind is a unity, intelligence is the same in principle in all its 
 activities, and all the objects it can know must belong inher- 
 ently to the one scheme of things. If the objective anarchy 
 which we have suggested were the case, we should need as 
 many minds as there were principles in order to apprehend 
 them, and the mind would be shattered into fragments. 
 If the mind is to be a unity, its object must also be a unity 
 and constitute one world. But the various portions of the 
 content of knowledge can form a whole only if unifyinf;: 
 principles themselves cohere ; for the principles are the unity 
 of the world. That is to say, what Kant calls the synthetic 
 a priori principles of knowledge, or what we may call the 
 constitutive principles of what is known, are linked together 
 and form a rational and coherent whole. Their own inter- 
 connexion is, on the one hand, the essence of the unity of the 
 intelligible world, and, on the other, of the rationality of the 
 
THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND ii 
 
 knowing mind. We are not dealing with two quite differently 
 organized things, a mind and a world ; we are dealing with 
 the fundamental principles of the intelligible content of 
 rational thought ; and the coherence of both aspects depends 
 on the coherence of the principles themselves. 
 
 The second point is the order of the philosophic exposition 
 of these principles. Hegel's view of this is somewhat complex, 
 and is to be fully understood only when the complete exposi- 
 tion is mastered. The peculiar method he adopts is called by 
 him the dialectic, and I shall have to recur to it at various 
 stages of the discussion. The point to be indicated here is 
 an obvious and somewhat superficial one. Hegel sets out 
 from the barest and emptiest of the principles of possible 
 thought ; he begins at the bottom and works upwards. The 
 main alternatives seem to be either that of beginning any- 
 where and working at random, or that of beginning at the top 
 and working downwards. The first of these alternatives is 
 plainly inadequate. It is not a method, but the failure of 
 one ; and it cannot exhibit the categories in their rational 
 inter-connexion. Lotze seems to think that it is the only 
 possible attitude for a modest mind ; but if this be so, then 
 it seems clear that the mind in question has not pushed its 
 investigation of experience far enough to reach the level of 
 philosophy. It is stiU preoccupied with the order of learning, 
 and has not attained to the order of explanation. Such 
 a process is preliminary to philosophy, and Hegel himself 
 went through it ^ ; but he did not put his results forward as 
 logic until he had emancipated himself from the adolescence 
 it implies. The other method is that expressly enunciated 
 by Spinoza, and Hegel rejects it. Spinoza begins with the 
 whole, with substance, the final reality. But the difficulty 
 immediately arises : If we start with the perfect principle 
 why do we go further ? Spinoza makes progress because 
 what he calls the whole is not really such, but has beyond it 
 another world of ' modes ' — in general, Natura naturata.^ 
 Hegel calls this method that of emanation. ' It is a series of 
 
 » For the history of the development of Hegel's logical theory 
 V. Baillie, Hegel's Logic- 
 
 ' In his Larger Logic Hegel points out the greater concreteness of 
 the mode when contrasted with the absolute or substance : WW. IV. 
 pp. 184-99. 
 
12 THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 
 
 deteriorating stages ', he says, ' which begin with the complete, 
 with the absolute totality, with God. God has created ; 
 and from Him have come forth radiations, reflections, and 
 likenesses, of which the first is most akin to Him. The first 
 production also shows activity, but less completely, and so 
 downwards ... to the negative, matter, the extreme of evil. 
 Thus the emanation ends with the lack of all form '} 
 
 There is a sense in which* we must begin with the whole. 
 Until we become aware of the wholeness of being we are not 
 on philosophic ground, and are unable to trace the inter- 
 relations of the principles of experience. The order of the 
 dialectic process is guided by an ever present consciousness 
 of the highest stages, and it is not until we reach the last of 
 the three main divisions that we see clearly by what path 
 we have come. At first it is not explicitly known to us that 
 the principle we use is that of single reality : we begin with 
 the poorest possible way of characterizing things and pass 
 upwards to more concrete attitudes of thought. This order 
 may be regarded in two ways ; it is a process from abstracl 
 to concrete, and it is a movement from the external to the 
 internal. The effort of thought at first is to take one thing 
 at a time ; the unities which thought imposes on things are 
 very loose, and express but few of their relations. As thought 
 rises in the scale its principles become more concrete, they gain 
 wealth and depth. That is to say, they express the object 
 more truly. They present more adequately its relations to its 
 context and to the whole system of which it forms a part ; and 
 that is why Hegel uses the word, concrete, in this connexion. 
 
 The other way of characterizing the movement gives us 
 a point of transition to the discussion of its motive power. 
 The lower categories are abstract because they are external. 
 Most of reality lies beyond their grasp ; things are presented 
 singly, and thought does not see how each determines the 
 nature of the others and enters into their being. In Hegel'l 
 view the Nemesis of such thought is that it turns into its 
 opposite. Take the simplest example. The first category of 
 the Logic is being. The simplest, barest, and least affirmation 
 we can make is that indicated by the word ' is '. But if we 
 say no more than this, what have we said ? We must strip 
 off the idea of a ' thing ' ; the assertion is not that such and 
 
 ' WW. VII. p. 35. 
 
THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 13 
 
 such a definite object is, for a ' definite object ' involves much 
 more than does mere ' being '. We are to say ' is ', and 
 nothing else. But when we have said this our meaning is 
 indistinguishable from ' nothing '. If we take away all the 
 particular qualities of things, we abstract from them every- 
 thing by means of which we distinguish what is from what 
 is not. Being which is not existence in some place and time, 
 and under some special circumstances, and so forth, is as 
 good as non-existence — ^it is the same as non-existence. 
 Hegel's contention is that if we are in earnest with our thought 
 and carry it as far as it will go, such a category changes in our 
 hands and shows a meaning which we try to exclude from it. 
 This state of things can be mended only when we adopt a more 
 concrete principle which includes both aspects as part of 
 itself. That is to say, the implication of the one aspect in 
 the other is at the first level a force compelling thought from 
 outside ; at the second level it is part of the content of thought 
 itself. When we force reality, as it were, into one of these 
 primitive categories and try to take it abstractly, it avenges 
 itself by turning into another form. The neglected aspects 
 appear in spite of us, and the despised unity of the system 
 as a whole reveals itself by forcing a half -idea to turn into its 
 opposite. This change, however, is not part of the category 
 itself. That is to say, the change is immediate for the thinker 
 who uses such principles ; he does not apprehend the inner 
 nexus which produces the conversion, and each term is, for 
 him, unmediated by. its opposite. Generally speaking, we 
 are offered the alternative of unity or difference by these bare 
 and elementary forms of thought ; and the abstractness of 
 our choice amends itself by the unforeseen passage of the one 
 element into the other. In the higher reaches of the dialectic 
 the various aspedts have been incorporated by thought to such 
 an extent that the process is not from one aspect to its com- 
 plementary by this primarily negative path, but is a more 
 straight-forward development ; and Hegel speaks of it as 
 mere play.'^ 
 
 This brings us to the third point, the power behind the 
 process. This has been said to be contradiction .^ But such 
 
 1 Encyclopaedia, WW. VI. § 161 and note. 
 
 2 For a discussion of this view v. McTaggart, Studies in Hegelian 
 Dialectic, p. 5 ff . 
 
14 THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 
 
 a view is shallow ; for one immediately asks, What is behind 
 the contradiction? Contradiction itself is the immediate 
 opposition of one phase of an object by another ; but at the 
 back of it is the power of the whole. We may use Hegel's 
 theory of tragedy to throw some light on his Logic at this 
 point. Qlegel finds the essence of tragedy to lie in a conflict 
 between spiritual forces which jhelong to one system and 
 which ought to be in harmonyA The^_caX s str o ph e-4S-4];g 
 ass ertion by_ _the_whQle-i:if its ccmiplexity agai nst the one- 
 sigedness of ' s ome.^np£rf ect ^aspect. When theconfEcf is 
 "between two individuals, each, from the tragic point of view, 
 is dominated by some aspect of the whole good, perhaps an 
 ethical claim such as the duty to one's kindred, perhaps 
 a wider end, such as natural justice, honour, or the ambition 
 of a strong man ; and this is followed to the exclusion of all 
 else. The devotion to this abstract ideal, good in itself but 
 imperfect when set against the rest of life, brings the agent 
 into collision with other factors and with the whole ; and in 
 the conflict the tragic hero is overthrown. The final note 
 of tragedy, however, isjiflUoss. Over and above the con- 
 fusion and destruction of that which is imperfect and by the 
 nature of things transitory there is the assertion of the full 
 and rounded characteivpf reality. The positive side, of course, 
 is not fully developed irrtragBli^, but if it be utterly lacking 
 the tragedy is imperfect and inartistic — it is merely a pitiful 
 tale. Behind the sympathy with the fallen there must be 
 a feeling of the greater good which the agent himself was 
 unable to grasp, and his fall is a vindication of the deeper 
 truth. We need not discuss any of the details of the exposi- 
 tion ; the only point of present importance is that the fate 
 which destroys a tragic hero is not a mere external force, 
 it is in him as well as about him. 
 
 Mr. A. C. Bradley gives excellent expression to the situation 
 thus. ' If . . . this necessity were merely infinite, character- 
 less, external force, the catastrophe would not only terrify 
 (as it should), it would also horrify, depress, or at best provoke 
 indignation or rebellion ; and these are not tragic feelings. 
 The catastrophe, then, must have a second and affirmative 
 aspect, which is the source of our feelings of reconciliation, 
 whatever form they may assume. And this will be taken 
 into account if we describe the catastrophe as a violent self- 
 
THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 15 
 
 restitution of the divided spiritual unity. The necessity 
 which acts and negates in it, that is to say, is yet of one 
 substance with both the agents. It is divided against itself 
 in them ; they are its conflicting forces ; and in restoring its 
 unity through negation it af&rms them, so far as they are 
 compatible with that unity. The qualification is essential, 
 since the hero, for all his affinity with that power, is, as the 
 living man we see before us, not so compatible. He must die, 
 and his union with ' eternal justice ' (which is more than 
 ' justice ') must itself be ' eternal ' or ideal. But the qualifica- 
 tion does not abolish what it qualifies. There is no occasion 
 to ask how in particular, and in what various ways in various 
 works, we feel the effect of this affirmative aspect in the 
 catastrophe. But it corresponds at least with that strange 
 double impression which is produced by the hero's death. He 
 dies, and our hearts die with him ; and yet his death matters 
 nothing to us, or we even exult. He is dead ; and he has no 
 more to do with death than the power which killed him and 
 with which he is one.' ^ 
 
 Now logic in principle is even more than tragedy ; for it 
 is the express reconciliation of the subordinated dements, and 
 the rational completion of lower principles in a whole into 
 which they are carried without remainder. Logic is not 
 encumbered by the actual living man, and the dialectic is not 
 a history of personal sufferings which cannot be made good. 
 Although at first dialectic changes are external and unintel- 
 ligible to the mind which uses elementary principles, yet these 
 changes themselves are seen by fuUer knowledge to be a self- 
 evolution of the complete truth. In its higher stages thought 
 has to include the lower categories, and the elements of 
 perfect knowledge are known by it as opposites.^ But 
 although tragedy and the dialectic differ in completeness, the 
 power is the same ; it is the whole. Thought is one system, 
 and lives in every member. When a part in its finitude is 
 taken as the whole, its truer nature breaks through in the form 
 of contradiction, and cannot be satisfied until it renders 
 explicit the fullness and truth against which the imperfect 
 assertion sinned. The imperfect aspects can collide only 
 because they have a proper relation and ought to be recon- 
 ciled. The dialectic thus is a development of reason from 
 
 ' Oxford Lectures on Poetry, p. 91. ' Cf. below, p. 40 ff. 
 
i6 THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 
 
 within, and its moving force is the implication of the whole 
 in every part and the systematic continuity of the knowable 
 world. 
 
 Such then is the general logical standpoint which Hegel 
 adopts, and we shall have to recur to it in our discussion of 
 the method of the other branches of philosophy. At present, 
 however, we must be content with this outline, meagre as it is, 
 and proceed to discuss some of the special principles which 
 the dialectic of logical thought contains. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 
 
 We have seen that the dialectic is the process by which 
 the principles of knowledge pass for thought from abstract- 
 ness to concreteness, and that the moving force of the develop- 
 ment is the logical compulsion exercised by the whole system 
 within each of its fragments. We must now look at some of 
 the special stages of this development in order to be able to 
 determine the logical nature and position of the main con- 
 ceptions which we must use in ethics. For this purpose it is 
 desirable to pay special attention to some of the categories 
 of the second division of the Logic, viz. the sphere of essence. 
 It is not possible, of course, to deal with them all in their 
 proper order and succession, but we may gain sufficient for 
 our purpose if we take a suitable selection. I propose to 
 indicate the general division of the Logic and to refer very 
 briefly to the general nature of the categories of the first 
 section. In connexion with the categories of essence I shall 
 begin with the conception of ' thinghood ' because it throws 
 some light on the relation of mind to nature, and is of impor- 
 tance in any discussion of the transparency or opaqueness 
 of nature to moral purposes. I shall then pass to the concep- 
 tion of substance, which has to be examined carefully for 
 two reasons ; firstly, because it, together with its subdivisions, 
 manifests the full nature of the non-spiritual world, and 
 contains within it the principle of necessity and external 
 determination, and secondly because it is the stepping stone 
 to the notion. The notion is itself the key to mind and the 
 spiritual world in general ; it is the logical principle of which 
 the free self is the concrete realization. We may, therefore, 
 consider somewhat closely the development of the dialectic 
 from substance through causality and reciprocity into the 
 notion. 
 
 Hegel's logic falls into three main divisions or stages : 
 first, the categories of being ; second, the categories of 
 
 2211 C 
 
i8 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 
 
 essence ; and third, the categories of the notion. Tj.«^ ^^^ 
 be regarded as three main ways in which unity and ditterence 
 may be presented in thought. Taking the matter m broad 
 outline, there are three modes in which we may apprehend 
 these two aspects. We may be offered any of three alter- 
 natives— («) unity or difference, or (6) unity and difference, 
 or (c) unity because of difference. Under the control of the 
 categories of being we may say simply that a content ' is ', 
 and the negative aspect (non-being) may for the moment be 
 entirely excluded from the explicit content of our thought. 
 Or again we may say that it is one, excluding multiphcity ; 
 or many, excluding unity. This is the poorest form of 
 thinking, and corresponds to the most superficial aspect of 
 objects. The inadequacy of such principles is obvious and 
 need not be laboured. In full truth every aspect of the 
 intelligible world is in profound harmony with every other, 
 and contains within it a reference to the whole. Hegel's 
 proof of this lies in the complete dialectic : the full implicatioi 
 of the whole in each aspect or fragment is not made full} 
 clear until the end, viz. the stage of the notion (in the widf 
 sense) ; the defects of the categories of being are, at theii 
 own proper stage, shown only externally, and fresh light is 
 shed on their true nature at each step in the argument. The 
 thinker who uses the categories of being, however, is far from 
 apprehending this truth. He tries to isolate each aspect and 
 to take it merely by itself. Each thing is itself, he says, and 
 not another ; and he is quite unaware of the deeper nature oi 
 each element whereby it has community with every othei 
 element and with the whole. We have seen the fate which 
 overtakes this kind of thought. If we try to grasp reality 
 under these categories it eludes us ; reality will not be 
 confined in these abstract forms, and the strange result which 
 greets us is that it is Protean and changes as we hold it.^ 
 
 In the categories of essence this false simplicity and 
 externality of thought begins to disappear. The thinker 
 notes a distinction between the aspects of appearance and 
 essence. The surface show of a thing is not its whole truth ; 
 behind that show there is a certain identity and permanence 
 — an essence. As we progress in this series of categories we 
 gradually discover that things are inter-connected ; and 
 " Cf. above, p. 12 f. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 19 
 
 we now see that we have not said the complete truth when 
 we affirm that a thing is itself — it is also bound up with the 
 rest of the universe and contains implications of the whole 
 within the four corners of its being. We may take ' thinghood ' 
 as our first example of these principles of essence. 
 
 This is a very common category of ordinary thought, but 
 it is not so simple as it may appear at first sight ; ^ and Hegel 
 identifies it with the principle of sensible perception. We 
 may note that a thing is not a simple quality, it is a totality 
 of some sort standing in relation to differences ; it is a thing 
 with many properties. Each of these properties is distinct 
 from the others, each has a being of its own and does not 
 modify the others. The properties he side by side, as it were, 
 untouched by one another, and their relation is that of 
 indifference. But at the same time they all come together ; 
 a thing is not a mere name given to a random collection of 
 entirely unrelated qualities. In the Phenomenology Hegel 
 points out that the unity in question is found chiefly in space 
 and time. The treatment of thinghood in the two Logics 
 is naturally more abstract, and Hegel speaks of the form of 
 unity without pointing to the mode of concrete experience 
 in which it is primarily manifested. Since we are not con- 
 cerned with logic purely on its own account, it seems per- 
 missible to introduce here the type of experience which 
 Hegel mentions in the Phenomenology, and has in mind in 
 his discussion in the purely logical analysis. ' This salt ', 
 he says, ' is a simple " Here " and at the same time manifold ; 
 it is white and also pungent, also cubical in shape, also of 
 a specific weight, and so on. All these many properties exist 
 in a simple " Here " where they inter-penetrate one another. 
 None of these has a different " Here " from the others ; 
 each is everywhere in the same " Here " where the others are. 
 At the same time, without being divided by different 
 " Heres ", they do not affect each other in their inter- 
 penetration ; its being white does not affect or alter the 
 cubical shape it has, and neither affects its sharp outline, and 
 so on. On the contrary each is simple relation-to-self, it 
 leaves the others alone and is related to these merely by 
 
 ' There are three accounts of the nature of thinghood ; Pheno- 
 menology, WW. II. pp. 84-99 ; Larger Logic, WW. IV. Abschnitt 2, 
 Kap. I ; Encyclopaedia, WW. VI. § 125 ff. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 
 
 being also along with them, a relation of mere indifference. 
 This " also " is thus the pure universal itself, the " medium ", 
 the " thinghood " keeping them together.' ^ But there is 
 more than this to be said about a thing. We have seen that 
 the properties are different from one another, and this 
 involves that they do stand in some relation to one another. 
 If they were utterly and merely indifferent they would not 
 even be distinguished, i.e. they would not be determinate 
 qualities. The attributes of a thing, then, involve in their 
 being a rudimentary opposition to one another. But in 
 holding its properties apart the thing develops a further 
 aspect in itself ; it becomes more than a mere togetherness 
 or inter-penetration of the properties. ' The process of 
 distinguishing them, so far as it does not leave them indifferent, 
 but effectually excludes, negates one from another, thus 
 falls outside the simple " medium ". And this, consequently, 
 is not a mere also, a unity which is indifferent to what is in 
 it, but a " one " as well, an excluding repelling unity.' ^ 
 Thinghood thus implies a certain activity ; the thing shuts 
 out other properties and holds its own together. It is more 
 than the sum, or the place, of its properties — ^it is something 
 behind them, something which has them and which refuses to 
 have others. It is an essence. 
 
 In this conception of thinghood we have the factors of 
 more developed thought, at least in germ ; but they are 
 confused and not set in their proper relations. A thing is 
 not a perfectly coherent object of thought. This does not 
 mean that ' things ' do not exist ; indeed the analysis of 
 thinghood is almost identical with the statement of the 
 meaning of existence for Hegel. To exist is to present oneself 
 thus in space and time ; and if this form of presentation 
 turns out to contain contradiction, the conclusion is not that 
 it does not exist, but that existence itself is an inadequate 
 and abstract mode of thought and reality. We may give 
 definite names, for the sake of convenience, to the aspect? 
 of thinghood ; the surface show, the attributes which when 
 regarded as belonging to the thing are called properties, 
 these are the immediate aspect, and the thing which has 
 the properties is the mediate aspect. Thinghood is one of 
 the many ways in which thought tries to relate these two 
 
 ' WW. II. pp. 86-7, BaiUie's trans. I, pp. 107-8. ^ Ibid. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 21 
 
 ides. In his Logic Hegel shows that this conception fails 
 a its task by noting how the essential, or mediate, aspect 
 3 upon closer scrutiny deposed from its proud position of 
 dentity with the real nature of the totality, and becomes 
 tself a surface show ; it ceases to be the principle of union 
 md becomes one term among others requiring relation and 
 )rganization. We may take a shorter route here. The 
 hing falls into two discordant aspects, unreconciled in 
 hought. On the one hand the thing is its properties ; if 
 ;hey are abstracted there is nothing left behind. On the 
 )ther hand the thing is other than its properties, it is that 
 which has them, their substrate or bearer. It is thus one 
 md many. But it provides no reconciliation of these two 
 aspects ; it contains both, but they are simply conjoined. 
 There is nothing in the positive aspect to explain the negative 
 power of the thing, its capacity for distinguishing its own 
 properties and refusing others. ' Togetherness ', in fact, is 
 the mere name of unity without the substance, an abstract 
 identity resting on differences which are at the same time 
 beyond and outside it. The thing is an effort to think the 
 surface show and apprehend its deeper self, but the attempt 
 is not fully successful. The whole sphere with which we are 
 dealing, viz. that of the categories of essence, is infected with 
 the flaw manifested here. In essence unity is taken along 
 with difference, but the inner nexus of the two is not apparent. 
 Before passing to our next category, the conception of 
 substance, and determining the advance made by it on 
 thinghood, we may note that when Kant endeavours to 
 distinguish sharply between the subject of knowledge and 
 the things of experience, he is, in effect, led to ascribe the 
 characteristics of thinghood to the subject. The weakness 
 Df the conception of the thing is that it is an abstract unity, 
 presupposing differences which it cannot supply. It involves 
 its properties and yet is distinct from them. This is also the 
 nature of the transcendental unity of apperception. The 
 ' I think ', according to Kant, gathers the manifold into 
 a synthetic unity, and is conscious of its own identity only 
 in the unity of its synthetic act. But at the same time Kant 
 assures us that the pure ego is an analytic unity or pure 
 self-identity, and that it does not include the concrete detail 
 which it implies. That is to say, it belongs to the realm of 
 
22 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 
 
 essence in Hegel's sense of the word ; for the defect of all 
 the categories of essence is that in their nature they involve 
 other factors which are also external to them. Indeed, tor 
 theoretic reason, the transcendental ego is m a more evil 
 plight than the thing, for the latter is at least present— at 
 the minimum it is the unity of the ' here ', and has spatial 
 identity — ^but the pure ego must be abstracted even from 
 space, it is pure identity as such and has no realiza,tion. 
 
 We may now come to the last main subdivision of the 
 realm of essence, viz. reality ; and in particular we may con- 
 sider the transition from the conception of substance to the 
 notion. As Hegel's analysis goes deeper it endeavours to 
 lose nothing that has been already gained ; the distinction 
 of mediate and immediate, or of essence and appearance, 
 must therefore remain in the higher categories, but it must 
 be thought in such a way that its incoherence disappears.' 
 Kant had already analysed substance in a somewhat one-sided 
 way. He began with the fact of change, and found that 
 change implies identity ; change is change of something. If 
 objects consisted of a mere succession in time we could not 
 be conscious of change ; each impression as it appeared 
 would be all, and the problem of permanence would not arise 
 for us. Change is essentially a principle of contrast, and has 
 meaning only by reference to an underlying substance which 
 has the change and remains one and the same throughout. 
 Kant's conception is very much that of an indestructible 
 matter 2 whose appearance alters and which takes different 
 shapes, but whose quantity is constant. Kant's analysis, 
 however, is incomplete and one-sided. Substance, like the 
 other categories of essence, is a correlative conception. Kant 
 presupposes the one aspect, viz. difference or change, and 
 deduces the other : Hegel tries to bring out the nature of 
 both ahke. Generally speaking, the elements of substance 
 are those of thinghood over again at a deeper level and more 
 closely bound together. Change, Kant has taught us, in 
 order to be perceived must be determinate and must proceed 
 in accordance with a rule. A mere flux would not be per- 
 
 > For a slightly different view of the progress of the Logic — particu- 
 larly in regard to causaUty — v. McTaggart's Commentary on Hegel's 
 Logic. 
 
 ' Energy is an equally good form of the principle. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 23 
 
 ceived as a unitary process at all, and hence not even as 
 a flux. This determinate character of change is brought to 
 the_ forefront by Hegel in his analysis of substance and 
 accident. Substance advances beyond thinghood in two 
 points. Firstly, the two aspects, essence and non-essential, 
 are brought closer together, they are even identified ; 
 secondly, the accidents are thus conceived as not merely 
 indifferent to one another, but as standing in a determinate 
 relation and as forming a totaHty. 
 
 I. The unity of the thing and its properties is a loose one.; 
 the thing is the medium of the properties, and can often be 
 deprived of one of them without loss of identity. A house 
 may be painted a different colour and yet be the same house.^ 
 Substance, however, is its accidents ; it appears in them 
 and exists only in appearing. The word, substance, is some- 
 times used in an abstract and one-sided way as referring to 
 a mere identity behind or beneath its attributes, a mere 
 substrate. This interpretation Hegel considers to be in- 
 adequate.^ He prefers to speak simply of essence when the 
 object is so conceived, and to retain the word substance for 
 the object, which is thought under the conception that is here 
 analysed. The sense he rejects can be found as the guiding 
 conception of certain would-be philosophical physicists. In 
 the effort to penetrate to the nature of ' matter ' the thinker 
 sometimes forgets that in the appropriate category, viz. that 
 of substance, the essence exists only in appearing. The 
 accidents of substance are, of course, the subordinate and 
 even the unessential aspects ; but this is falsely taken when 
 it is supposed that they can be brushed aside as non-existent 
 or as subjective. Sometimes in the effort to think matter the 
 investigator strips off each of its properties and functions as 
 unessential and superficial. But unluckily at the end, instead 
 of discovering what matter is, he finds in his hands a bare 
 identity with no intelligible content — the mere emptiness of 
 ultimate abstraction. Too often the thinker proclaims the 
 bankruptcy not only of his special category but of reason as 
 a whole. The inner nature of things, he says, is an inscrutable 
 mystery, and no human wit can read the riddle which has 
 baffled him. The mystery, however, is of his own making, 
 
 ' V. Encyclopaedia, § 125 note, last' sentejicc. 
 " V. Larger Logic, WW. IV. p. 221. 
 
24 FUNDAMENTAL LOGI CAL CATEG OBJES^___ 
 
 and he has failed to find the meaning of matter because it 
 has been identified with a substrate which has no attnDutes, 
 and is in truth nothing at all. 
 
 Substance exists only in appearing ; it is not the mere 
 togetherness of thinghood, but a more intense unity con- 
 stituted by the accidents in determinate relation to pne 
 another. How is this unity to be understood ? Perhaps the 
 physical eonception of energy is the clearest instance of it. 
 Energy remains constant in quantity through all its changes! 
 a,nd is a permanent amid variety. Yet it exists only in its 
 forms, it is not a colourless substrate of which the definite 
 forms are illusory appearances. The destruction of one of 
 the forms would destroy it itself. When we think by means 
 of the conception of substance we organize the material of 
 knowledge into a whole such that the details are set in their, 
 place by a necessity which flows through them. Theii 
 difference, thus, is not the last word about them, for each of 
 them is the embodiment of the one substance ; their nature 
 is to reveal the immanent whole.^ 
 
 2. Substance appears in its accidents as power or necessity, 
 Kant, approaching the question from one side, had asked thet 
 nature of the principle which made it possible for mind to 
 have duration or permanence presented to it in the object ; 
 and he found that there is required for that end the per- , 
 manence of the phenomenal substrate itself, an enduring:! 
 object which is the bearer of all change.^ Hegel, rejecting 
 the one-sided approach and bringing both aspects, change as 
 well as permanence, within the scope of the deduction, renders 
 the conception as that of substance appearing as power in 
 its modes. Substance gives itself actual shape by establishing 
 one form or accident, then passes into another, so that the 
 first accident is withdrawn by it and replaced by another. 
 Substance is thus a category of necessity. The full meaning, 
 of necessity is not yet reaHzed, and will appear only later; 
 but substance differs from thinghood in that its attributes;.: 
 are not indifferent to it but express it and constitute a deter- 
 minate order by virtue of this inner power which ' posits '| 
 
 ' ' Substance, as this identity of the appearing, is the totaUty of the 
 whole, and includes the accidents ; and the accidental is the whole : 
 substance itself ' {Larger Logic, II. p. 221). 
 
 = V. Critique of Pure Reason, First Analogy. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 25 
 
 them. Each is only what substance makes it, and cannot 
 
 stand when substance withdraws itself and takes another 
 
 shape. 
 
 ^The nature of substance, thus, may be summed up in three 
 
 phases : the self identity of substance and the variety of the 
 
 accidents ; the immanence of substance in the accidents ; 
 
 the power of substance over the accidents. 
 
 We may now look at the defects of this conception when 
 taken as a final category. Briefly, they spring from the fact 
 that the unity of substance is abstract. The two aspects, 
 universal and particular, have been brought within the 
 compass of one thought, but they are stUl external to one 
 another. Substance is the self-identity of the process, and 
 although it exists only in the variety of the accidents, yet it 
 does not include that variety as part of its own nature. The 
 explanation which uses substance as its highest principle 
 dissolves the particular in the universal ; it traces the uni- 
 iversal in the particular, but it does not take the universal 
 concretely. If the conception of physical energy is used in 
 5uch a way that it embodies this principle, then explanation 
 will consist in tracing the identity of the quantity of energy 
 in the consecutive forms ; potential energy will be resolved 
 into an equal quantity of kinetic energy, that into heat, and 
 50 on. The constant quantity of energy will be regarded as 
 l:he reality, and thought will be satisfied when the quantitative 
 identity is demonstrated. 
 
 -The defects of this method of thinking are obvious, for no 
 account is given of the transformation from the one mode to 
 the next. The change of the accidents faUs without sub- 
 stance ; and when the accidents are resolved into substance 
 their aspect of difference and variety is lost. The essence 
 3f the situation appears to be this. Substance is the all- 
 pervading power in each accident and is the reality of each ; 
 but in referring an accident to substance we do not organize 
 the accidents into a systematic whole, but merely dig within 
 gach for the hidden identity. We find, e.g., that the quantity 
 of energy in question is present in the kinetic form and are 
 satisfied ; we do not trace the peculiar nature of the kinetic 
 form back into potential energy and forward into heat. 
 That is to say, we do not regard the differences as fundamental 
 to substance, and so we explain each form not by its context 
 
26 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 
 
 but by its immanent principle. Substance thus is to be 
 identified with merely inner necessity, and has not yet 
 developed into a system of inter-acting parts. But substance 
 can have necessary power over its accidents only if its power 
 appear in the accident itself, for substance exists only m 
 appearing. The necessity of the whole ought to have an 
 adequate manifestation, and should appear in each accident 
 as the power modifying and determining the others. That 
 is to say, the inward necessity must also appear outwardly, 
 Since the accidents manifest substance they ought to show 
 in themselves the power of substance, i.e. they ought to 
 determine one another. -"Hegel puts the point thus: 'The 
 show, or accidentahty, is intrinsically substance through the 
 power ; but it is not posited as this self-identical show. 
 [The accidental is the evanescent.] Thus substance has as 
 its actual shape or positivity only the accidental, and not 
 itself ; it is not substance as substance. The relation oi 
 substantiality reduces itself to substance which reveals itseli 
 as formal power, but whose differences are not substantial^ 
 in fact, it is only the inward of the accidents, and the latter 
 are only in substance.' ^ 
 
 Hegel's general meaning may be expressed in another way 
 which will apply more directly to the ethical questions we 
 have to consider afterwards. Substance is conceived as the 
 underived and supreme, but the thought is one-sided. Sub- 
 stance is the ground of the accidents, and they receive their 
 justification and truth from it ; their immediate appearance 
 is traced back to substance and based on it. But, on the 
 other hand, substance does not ground itself in its accidentSi 
 it is prior to them and does not develop through their chang| 
 What is posited is the accident and not substance : substance: 
 is the original, the underived. Now this conception has, 
 perhaps unwittingly, been used by many thinkers who treat 
 of freedom. Freedom is represented by them as that whioli 
 is not bound, that which acts in the world but is not enthralled 
 by it. Time, change, and accident, they say, do not enter 
 into .freedom ; and the attempt to explain a man by his time, 
 his parentage, his training, and so forth, they regard as 
 a weak surrender to the forces of determinism. The inward 
 freedom of the will, on this view, cannot be bound by the 
 
 . ' Larger Logic, WW. IV. p. 223. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 27 
 
 acts in which it appears, and hence is untouched by any 
 ! actual consequences it may produce. Kant's teaching leads 
 ■ to something like this :— for him freedom is merely inward ; 
 ' we ought to act, he holds, as if -we were members of a kingdom 
 ' of ends. Libertarianism carries the conception to the extreme. 
 
 Naturally, too, the determinist accepts the same view of 
 ! freedom, and the rival schools strive within the unity of 
 'a common assumption. —The indeterminist accepts this 
 sunderived existence as a fact, while the determinist, on the 
 Mother hand, is unable to find room for it within the world of 
 f knowledge. Now, we must discern that the category of 
 
 substance is not adequate to freedom : the conception is in 
 1 truth self -contradictory . Substance makes the most important 
 ^of all assumptions — it assumes itself. This difficulty is 
 Joften felt in regard to freedom. One of the arguments for 
 ideterminism is that the will is bound by the character ; 
 ^actions spring of necessity from the nature of the agent, and 
 ihe has no control over his character. The utmost reply the 
 nindeterminist can make to this is that the agent is not 
 fedeteijnined by external circumstances, i.e. by environment. 
 
 But this reply, even supposing its truth, is not sufficient. 
 liFor the whole man is more than a bare character ; he is 
 sa living concrete agent, .with both structure and function, an 
 sindissoluble unity of inward and outward. And when 
 
 a separation is made between the two aspects, the character 
 is no more equivalent to the man as a whole than is environ- 
 cment ; it becomes a force working in him from behind, and 
 jits externality is as real as that of circumstances, although 
 ■that takes a temporal form while this is chiefly spatial.^ 
 IjThat is to say, for ethical purposes the alleged underived 
 ijcharacter of man's nature comes to the same thing as external 
 [derivation. The self has no power over itself, and the 
 (mysterious inborn nature of it is an alien force. 
 ! * This is the characteristic defect of the categories of essence. 
 IsSubstance must have accidents, it exists only in its accidents ; 
 [but yet it gains nothing by going out into them. It is in se 
 jand not in alio ; yet it is only in going forth into finitude. 
 ;The two aspects, mediate and immediate, universal and 
 jiparticular, unity and difference, infinite and finite, original 
 
 li ' Hegel indicates the sublation of the past in the identity of thing- 
 hood in the Encyclopaedia, § 125. 
 
28 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 
 
 and derivative, or however else one likes to name them, lie 
 side by side in the categories of essence. They are both 
 present, but they are not harmonized. The terms are corre- 
 lative, and each has a nature of its own. Substance is the 
 permanent and powerful, the accidental is the unstable and 
 impotent ; and their mutual impUcation is merely another 
 factor along side the others, on equal terms with them. 
 Each term, as it were, falls into two ; on one side it is private,- 
 on the other it has outward relations : but the two aspects 
 are not reconciled, they merely go together. 
 
 In the effort to find more adequate principles of though! 
 we have to do two things. Firstly, we have to incorporate 
 the element of difference more thoroughly within the positive 
 principle ; secondly, we have to regard the positive principle 
 not merely as underived, but as self-derived. Hegel begins 
 to perform the first of these tasks within the realm of essence 
 itself, and thereby provides the transition to the third and 
 last main section of the dialectic where the second task is also 
 accomplished. 
 
 Substance is present in each of its shapes ; in a jense, 
 then, each accident is substance. Hegel at this stage takes 
 the identity of substance with its accidents in full earnestness, 
 and treats it as something else than a mere phase added to 
 the others. Substance is inner necessity, the immanent 
 power over the accidents ; but if this inner necessity is to 
 be inteUigible it must come out, and the accidents must 
 become in their external character what they are inherently. 
 That is to say, we must surrender that aspect of the con- 
 ception of substance according to which the accidents do not 
 determine one another, and must grant to them as to substance 
 manifest, power over one another. This gives us the category 
 of causality. In pure substance the accidents merely pass 
 into one another ; i in causality they determine one another, 
 In the relation of substantiaUty A follows B because of the 
 
 > ' The accidents, as such, . . . have no power over one another. . , , 
 In so far as such an accident seems to exercise a power over anothefi 
 It is the power of substance which grasps both in itself, as negativily 
 [i.e. as negating power] posits an unequal value, and determines the 
 one as the passing, gives the other another content and determines 
 It as the subsisting, or, in other words, determines the former as lapsing 
 ™\° 1*? Possibihty and the latter as coming into reahty ' (Larger Logic, 
 
 WW. IV. p. 222). ^ ° " ,f 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 29 
 
 necessity of substance in each ; in the relation of causaHty 
 
 A, as the embodiment of substance, determines and produces 
 
 B. Substance in this conception has dirempted itself into 
 two shapes, each of which is itself substantial. Two points 
 require emphasis here. 
 
 The ordinary conception of causality is dogmatic and 
 rests on unexamined assumptions. It begins by assuming 
 separate things, finds that they follow one another in a 
 determinate order, but instead of thinking out what is 
 involved in this determinate order gives it a name, causality, 
 and passes to some easier problem. The main difficulties in 
 causality arise from the assumption that cans?" and effect 
 are purely separate facts, and that the relation between 
 them, viz. invariable sequence, is external to their nature. 
 Naturally, if we grant that in full truth A and B are merely 
 self-identical, any essential relation between them is unin- 
 telligible. Hume made this assumption, and in consequence 
 reduced causahty to mere sequence together with the 
 expectation engendered by the experience of that sequence 
 in the past. Kant saw that if causahty is to be intelligible 
 as an objective relation, the assumption of the absolute 
 lindependence and self-sufficiency of its factors must be given 
 up ; and in his view the relation is constitutive of the terms.^ 
 ; Causahty, the type of objective order, is an a priori principle 
 .for Kant, without which the unity of the subject and hence 
 (knowledge in general is impossible. In Kant's theory, how- 
 jever, there is a gap between this transcendental principle and 
 ithe concrete matter of sense by which it is filled ; and so far 
 1 as the empirical sequence of events is concerned, Kant stands 
 Jvery close to Hume's position, not discerning the imperative 
 gueed for the revision of the hard and fast boundaries between 
 jiperceived objects. Hegel brings out the identity of cause 
 ,.and effect in a way which Kant failed to do. Kant's view 
 i^is confined in effect to the necessity of the objective coherence 
 of events in time and space ; Hegel realizes that in order to 
 i«think this coherence we must be prepared to take the identity 
 Jof the factors seriously, and not be content with its mere 
 
 '^ ' For a brief account of Kant's view of causality v. Adamson, On 
 '^Jhe Philosophy of Kant, pp. 57-66 ; of. Macmillan, The Crowning Phase 
 "pf the Critical Philosophy, pp. 127-34, where stress is laid on th% am- 
 'tiguous position of inner sense in Kant's view. 
 
30 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAI^CATEGORIES '^ 
 
 assertion as a transcendental principle in conjunction with 
 an uncritical view of the phenomena of expenence. Ihe 
 cause, Hegel insists, is cause only in the effect, and the effect 
 is such only in relation to the cause ; the two aspects have 
 an identical content. This may be clearer if we discuss an 
 imaginary objection to it. It is admitted, it may be said, 
 that the real meaning of the conception is the transformation 
 of energy from one phase to another. The cause of the heat; 
 generated by the impact of a bullet on a target is the kinetic 
 energy of the moving bullet, but the previous shape of the 
 energy does not pass into the later one. The shapes alternate ; 
 the constant content is merely a constant quantity of energy. 
 Thus Hegel's statement seems to go too far, the truth being 
 that cause and effect have only in part a common content, 
 while in part each has also a private element, viz. the shape 
 or form of the energy.^ In reply to this statement it may be j 
 said that the conception embodied by it is not causality but i 
 substance. It was this omission of difference that set the 
 problem which Hegel is here trjdng to solve, and it is hardly 
 probable that he overlooked this. Hegel's illustrations ai 
 not always the truest index of his meaning,* but he does seer 
 to meet this difficulty. In the Encyclopaedia he says, ' Th 
 rain (the ca^se) and the wet (the effect) are the self-sam 
 existing water. In point of form the cause (rain) is dissipate 
 or lost in the effect (wet) : but in that case the result ca: 
 no longer be described as effect ; for without the cause it i 
 nothing, and we should have only the unrelated wet left.' 
 The cause involves its effect in its conception, and vice versa 
 ' Both cause and effect are thus one and the same content 
 and the distinction is primarily only that the one lays dowii 
 and the other is laid down.' * But if this be so, there is onl; 
 one substance present ; only in the effect does the cans 
 become cause. That is to say, the cause determines itseli 
 and in going into the effect it is really becoming itself. ' Tb 
 cause, consequently, is in its full truth causa sui.' ^ Tb 
 difficulty which ordinary thought has in grasping this con 
 
 '■ Cf. McTaggart, Commentary on Hegel's Logic, §§ 173-4. 
 ^ Cf. Bosanquet in Mind, January 1911, p. 82. 
 ' § 153, Wallace's trans, p. 277. 
 , ■■ Ibid. § 153 note, Wallace's trans, p. 278. 
 ' Ibid. § 153, Wallace's trans, p. 277. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 31 
 
 ception may be due to its inveterate habit of taking time 
 determinations as final.i When the effect is present, it says, 
 the cause is past, and surely the past cannot be present. 
 If we are to understand the conception of causahty, however, 
 we must rise above this naive view ; we must remember 
 that we are looking for a connexion that is not broken by 
 the passage of time, and that the externality of moments of 
 time to one another cannot be the last word on the subject. 
 If time enters at all its proper place is within the single 
 content, not between two isolated facts with separate contents 
 of their own. Further, one must rise above mere picture 
 thinking. A material effect does not have a material repro- 
 duction of its cause inside it ; we are dealing with conceptions, 
 not with images. If a material thing is conceived as cause, it 
 contains in its conception a reference to that which it pro- 
 duces ; and if the two are separated in time it is only by 
 thinking a unity which can transcend temporal distinctions 
 that we can think of causaUty at all.^ 
 
 Secondly, we must note the other aspect. Following 
 Hegel's view of causa sui, we have seen that he regards 
 cause and effect as one content. But this unity is not achieved 
 at the expense of difference : such a course would imply 
 
 ' ' There is at any rate a presumption against the truth of this 
 doctrine. It is against the ordinary usage of language. In ordinary 
 empirical propositions about finite things we never find ourselves 
 asserting that A is the cause of A, but always that A is the cause of B. 
 The Cause and Effect are always things which, irrespective of their 
 being Cause and EfEect, have different names. The presumption is that 
 there must be some difference between things to which different names 
 are generally given ' (McTaggart, Commentary on Hegel's Logic, p. 176). 
 For Hegel one of the disadvantages of the ordinary usage of language 
 is that it is quite unable to apprehend at once the mutual impHcations 
 of unity and difference, that in its clumsy analysis of itself it is content 
 to have things either the same or different, and that it is bewildered 
 when its attention is drawn to the concrete categories of the notion 
 towards which the dialectic is here tending and which it cannot avoid 
 embodjring in the concrete. He would probably be surprised, however, 
 to find a philosopher setting forth the inadequacies of ordinary speech 
 against the concreteness — the incipient unity of opposites — of the 
 higher categories of essence. Cf. Encyclopaedia, § 153 n. 
 
 * This does not mean that time is eUminated by causaUty, or that 
 the unity in question is an abstract strand indifferent to change. 
 Causa sui finds its full truth only in the notion, or ultimately the 
 ' idea ', which is a system containing all determinations within it as 
 content. 
 
32 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGOR IES 
 
 entire failure to cope with the problem which substance left 
 on Hegel's hands. Cause and effect must be two as weU as 
 one ; for if their difference were neglected the whole con- 
 ception of production would vanish, and, as Hegel says, we 
 should have only the unrelated wet left.' i Substance divides 
 itself into appearances which are themselves substantial: 
 that is to say, substance has not only to appear in each 
 factor but also as each, and in its conception it must include 
 the operation of the accidents on and in each other. 
 
 The conception of causahty, thus, involves two points of 
 view. Cause and effect are two substantial terms, and they 
 are one substance. Identity and difference are balanced 
 against one another, but they do not properly cohere. Perhaps 
 the general position is expressed most clearly when we say 
 that the nature of the cause is to pass into an effect which is 
 other than itself. In interpreting Hegel here we must not be 
 misled by the emphasis he lays on the conception of causa 
 sui : that is the point which is new to us, and we are apt to 
 lose sight of the other aspect. The precise way in which 
 causality unites unity and difference must be carefully noted, 
 because a failure to take it sufficiently concretely will give us 
 an abstract view of the higher category, the notion. Causality 
 is the embodiment of necessity : in a causal series nothing 
 can call itself its own ; everything has been made what it is 
 by forces which are other than it and which it regards as 
 alien. That is to say, in causality itself the inherent upity 
 is not yet in its own true form, it is not able to master and 
 possess the element of difference. To put it another way, 
 the aspects of the conception of causality, viz. identity and 
 difference, pass immediately into one another, and the rationale 
 of the movement is seen but imperfectly. This analysis may 
 be difficult to apprehend at first sight, but it is involved in 
 concrete shape in countless numbers of our ordinary judge- 
 ments. We do mean something when we say that one thing 
 becomes another, and we do not mean simply that one thing 
 always follows another. Common sense does not know that 
 Kant has shown that things are related in time only in virtue 
 of a further relation of the things themselves, and that points 
 of time are meaningless apart from a specific content within 
 them. But it does feel that when the empiricists reduce 
 1 V. Larger Logic, WW. IV. pp. 230-5 ; Encyclopaedia, § 154. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 33 
 
 causality to unconditional sequence (whatever unconditional 
 may mean), they have omitted an identity — connexion if you 
 will — that common sense asserts.^ When A becomes B, A does 
 not merely pass away and B arise ; A becomes that which it 
 is not : the cause becomes an effect, other than it, yet involving 
 it in its conception as effect. This is a contradiction, but it 
 is asserted by every judgement of causality ; and it is difficult 
 to see how it can be expressed otherwise than by saying that 
 in causality the identity of cause _and effect is immediately 
 one with their difference. The cause and the effect have 
 nothing in them that is not in the other also ; their being is 
 not their own. In the Larger Logic Hegel draws a careful 
 line between the categories of substance and the categories of 
 necessity, but the distinction is too minute to occupy us 
 here.2 Causahty is the embodiment of necessity ; and the 
 nature of both principles lies in the dissipation of a thing 
 into externaUty. A thing is compelled and does not act 
 freely when a process, which works in it, and as it, cancels it 
 and sets it up as something else. If one looks carefully, one 
 sees that an external force acts on a thing only because the 
 thing answers to it and that it is not merely external ; but 
 the relation is that of necessity when the very nature of the 
 thing, in virtue of which it might claim to be self-determining, 
 is not its own, but is constituted in it and as it from without. 
 Hegel insists that any natural object which is subject to neces- 
 sity is unable to sustain the contradiction within it. When 
 the externality of its content or substance becomes apparent 
 the thing is destroyed : only a higher principle than causality 
 can attain unity and selfhood in and through externality. 
 
 At first, however, the conception which we have stated is 
 not complete. The one factor is called cause or active, the 
 other effect or passive ; and only part of the full meaning of 
 substance is given in each element. The unity already found 
 
 ' Dr. McTaggart is not wrong in appealing to ordinary speech in this 
 connexion : his error, I think, is in naaking the appeal to one aspect 
 in order to exclude another. His argument in effect opposes one moment 
 of the conception to the other and attempts to exclude the aspect of 
 identity because o'f the presence of difference. Hegel admits both 
 and their inconsistency as they appear here : the dialectic would stop 
 at this point if the conception were genuinely self-consistent. 
 
 ' For Dr. McTaggart's view — a critical one — v. Commentary, 
 chap. VII. 
 
34 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 
 
 in causality demands more than this, and hence J" P^^e': ^ 
 realize itself the conception becomes that of reciprocity. 
 A preliminary effort to remove the difficulty may be made by 
 conceiving an endless chain of causes each of which is the 
 effect of a preceding cause and the cause of a subsequent 
 effect! This however, gives inadequate satisfaction to the 
 identity of causality stated in the doctrine of causa sui; 
 and we are forced to the conception of reciprocity. The nature 
 of the effect depends not only on the cause, but also on the 
 passive factor, i.e. that in which the effect is produced. The 
 cause does not act in the void, but presupposes something 
 else on which to operate. The so-called passive factor must 
 therefore be conceived as cause with reference to this event, 
 and not merely to a subsequent one ; for without it the 
 cause would not have its character as active. Further, the 
 form of activity exercised by the cause depends on and 
 varies with the other factor ; hence the result is the common 
 product of an interaction . Causality thus impUes an action and 
 reaction of elements in which each is both cause and effect 
 of the other ; each becomes itself in determining the other. 
 
 It is- through the conception of reciprocity that we pass 
 beyond the sphere of essence altogether ; and we must be 
 careful to note exactly where we stand. In tracing substance 
 into the truer category of reciprocity it is important that the 
 positive side of the former should not be lost. We have 
 seen substance sunder itself into individual factors which 
 were respectively cause and effect, and we insisted that it is 
 still one substance which appears thus. Cause and effect are 
 two and also one ; and we have refused to lighten the difficulty 
 by casting overboard the aspect of unity. For the position 
 does not become any easier in that way, and the case becomes 
 without remedy if we assume that we are dealing with 
 inherently indifferent and unrelated factors. This remains 
 true of reciprocity, and we are faced with the same problem 
 still. When the world is thought under the conception of 
 reciprocity it becomes a system of mutually determining parts, 
 
 ' ' Thus the cause has an effect, and is itself effect ; and the effect 
 not only has a cause but is itself cause. But the effect which the 
 cause has, and the effect which it is — ^like the cause which the effect 
 has, and the cause which it is — are distinct ' (Larger Logic, WW. IV. 
 PP- 234-5). 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 35 
 
 each of wJiich is substantial, and each of which is necessary 
 to make the others what they are. They interact, and achieve 
 their own being only in determining others and in being 
 determined by these others. Each thing is part of a system, 
 and has no character except in so far as it reacts on other 
 things and is in turn reacted on by them — only by going out 
 of itself and estabUshing other things has it a private or 
 inward nature of its own. This is the highest principle of 
 essence, and in it the difficulties come to a head. The con- 
 tradiction which infects the whole reahn is this : the factors 
 of its categories have a private independent nature, and at 
 the same time involve a reference to something other than 
 themselves. Thus the ' thing ' is the mere medium of its 
 attributes, but it involves a reference to these attributes and 
 to the concrete detaU which lies outside the mere unity of 
 ' togetherness '. Similarly, substance is the original, the 
 underived, that which is in itself ; but it involves a reference 
 to the particular differences of the attributes which inhere in 
 it. In reciprocity the contradiction is acute ; for the only 
 private being of each term is the reference beyond itself to 
 other factors of the system ; its nature is to establish them. 
 Consequently, it is always easy to attack any content of 
 knowledge whiich is erected on this plan and to dissipate its 
 structure to the winds by setting the aspects against one 
 another. There are no relations without terms, the criticism 
 says, and the only terms offered are nothing but relations.^ 
 
 This point of view may be clearer if we consider a concrete 
 instance "of it ; and we may take as an example Spencer's 
 criticism of altruistic Hedonism. ' The sympathetic nature 
 gets pleasure by giving pleasure ; and the proposition is that 
 if the general happiness is the object of pursuit, each will be 
 made happy by witnessing others' happiness. But what in 
 such case constitutes the happiness of others ? These others 
 are also by the hypothesis pursuers and receivers of altruistic 
 pleasure. The genesis of altruistic pleasure in each is to 
 depend on the display of pleasures by others ; which is again 
 to depend on the display of pleasures by others ; and so on 
 perpetually. Where, then, is the pleasure to begin ? Obviously 
 
 1 The Realist critics of so-called internal relations seem to have some 
 such reciprocal system as their target. In that cage they can find good 
 material for missiles in Hegel. 
 
 D2 
 
36 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 
 
 there must be egoistic pleasure somewhere before there can 
 be the altruistic pleasure caused by sympathy with it. 
 Obviously, therefore, each must be egoistic in due amount, 
 even if only with the view of giving others the possibility of 
 being altruistic. So far from the sum of happiness being made 
 greater if all make general happiness the exclusive end, the 
 sum disappears entirely.' ^ Spencer sees clearly enough that 
 in a reciprocal system the nature of each term forbids that 
 the other terms with which it co-operates should be self- 
 contained, and also that the other terms are not this one but 
 are definitely other than it. His point is that in the system 
 of altruistic pleasures each individual has no substantial 
 satisfaction and depends for his pleasures on others who have 
 none of their own to give. 
 
 Now, how is this difficulty to be surmounted ? Any solution 
 is to be rejected which simply drops out an element and falls 
 back on some conception already shown in the dialectic to be 
 imperfect. We must find some conception which will retain 
 all that this one has in it, and yet avoid its defect. This is, 
 in brief, what Hegel does. He brings us to see that in a 
 reciprocal system we have something which is inherently 
 more than a set of mutually determining parts. The paradox 
 which troubles us rests on an assumption, viz. that we have 
 to begin from the point of view of an isolated individual. 
 It is quite true, for example' that if we have to understand 
 the moral ideal by beginning with the pleasure of a private 
 individual and working over from that to the others, the 
 whole conception is self-contradictory. For in stating that 
 the pleasure of the individual comes only from that of others 
 we have robbed the individual of a substantiaHty which 
 cannot be restored to him from others which are in a like case. 
 The step we have to take is to recognize that there is more 
 present than one term and others, there is the whole. We 
 have assumed the substantial unity running through the 
 terms, but we have not thought of taking it as the main 
 feature and proper starting-point. We have tried to enter 
 the system at the side, as it were, and we failed ; we may now 
 try to enter into the spirit of the system as a whole and 
 recogpize that it is the true individual. 
 
 Before proceeding, we may gather together the main points 
 ' The Data of Ethics, 3rd. edit. pp. 227-8. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 37 
 
 ■ which have emerged. Substance, we saw, appeared in its 
 accidents and exercised power over them ; but it was faulty 
 because it could not give an adequate account of difference, 
 and because it did not really determine itself in its accidents. 
 It constituted or posited its accidents, but presupposed its 
 own nature. The first of these defects was partly removed 
 by causality and reciprocity, where substance divided itself 
 into manifestations which were themselves substantial. 
 Reciprocity, however, is an imperfect category, for it sets 
 the negative element on equal terms with the positive and 
 dissipates everything it touches. When thought leaves the 
 seemingly solid standing-ground of the particular, it demands 
 some support' on which it may stand and find rest. Reci- 
 procity has turned out to be a veritable flux, and endless 
 movement into externality. The step which thought now 
 takes brings it out of this infinite relativity. There is only 
 one thing stable, and that is the whole ; and whenever 
 thought lays hold of experience as a self-articulating principle, 
 the negative element — relativity — ^becomes subordinated to 
 the positive. This is the point of view of the notion. To 
 revert to our former terminology, experience has ceased to 
 be merely one and many, a one that is also many, and has 
 become one because of its multiplicity and difference. The 
 notion is a principle which owns its differences, and in 
 developing an opposite brings into explicit being a unity 
 strong enough to sustain and include the opposition within it. 
 By over-reaching the relativity of its content and including 
 difference and externality within itself, thought has tran- 
 scended the second flaw in the conception of substance, viz. 
 the mere presupposition of the essence. The system is an 
 organism. It appears in its members ; their acts are its 
 acts, and in their mutual determination of one another it 
 determines itself. If we regard the nature of the principle 
 and of each of its manifestations as private and self-centred, 
 as something which stays at home with itself and is purely 
 self-contained, then the notion is unintelligible. In order to 
 understand it we must see that the nature of each member 
 is found in an outgoing activity, and that what it establishes 
 is not merely alien but is also itself. The inward nature of 
 the thing and its outward reference are not merely conjoined, 
 as in essence ; they are identical. This is also true of the 
 
38 FUNDAMENTAL LOGI CAL CATEGORIE S 
 
 system as a whole. The principle — the notion — establishes 
 itself in its members, and the act whereby each posits itself 
 in its other is a process whereby the whole estabhshes itself. 
 Thus the one-sidedness of the relation of substance disappears 
 in the notion, for the latter posits itself in and as its accidents. 
 Substance is absolute merely because it is underived ; the 
 notion is absolute because it is self-determined. The move- 
 ment of the accidents has become a movement of substance 
 itself, and the outward reference falls now within the whole, 
 not merely as an additional factor, but as an integral element. 
 It is that through which the notion reaUzes itself. Thus the 
 notion is a category of activity ; its nature is to go out of 
 itself and find itself in this movement. 
 
 There is nothing mysterious in the statement that the 
 notion is absolute not because it is underived but because it 
 is self-determining. There is a dangerous tendency in thought 
 to revert to the principles of essence when dealing with the 
 notion, and to raise old problems which have really been 
 answered. In this mood it is urged that the self-determination 
 of the notion does not free it from the difficulties of substance ; 
 it, too, has a nature which it must presuppose. And this 
 logical problem is the basis of the charge that Hegel's con- 
 ception of freedom amounts merely to that of a so-called 
 spiritual mechanism, determinism in a subtler medium. 
 Now, in dealing with this difficulty it is important to see 
 clearly what is at issue. Doubtless the notion has a nature, 
 but that is not a defect — ^it is not the defect we urged against 
 substance. The question is. Must the notion presuppose its 
 nature in the same sense as that which was found to mar the 
 conception of substance ? We may therefore ask for a clearer 
 statement of the meaning of presupposition in this connexion. 
 We have seen that substance is in truth indeterminate. 
 Accidents, of course, appear on the surface, and substance 
 dwells in them and has power over them. But there are 
 within it no differences to account for the differences it 
 produces in its appearance ; it is indwelling and hidden. 
 When we force this point to the utmost it yields the con- 
 clusion that substance does nothing. Doubtless "it posits its 
 accidents and determines them ; but how can there be a 
 power that acts and is unaffected by its action ? Substance 
 is unmoved ; and the movement must therefore be in some 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 39 
 
 way illusion — if substance is the whole truth. But against 
 this we have to set the reality of the movement ; for to deny 
 the movement is to annihilate the accidents and substance 
 along with them. Substance, therefore, is noj indeterminate ; 
 since it acts it must have within it principles of action, means 
 for the production of differences. What are we to make of 
 this antinomy ? The first side, the indeterminate aspect, is 
 the outer show, the appearance which substance wears when 
 it is not taken with the light of the notion upon it ; and it 
 is the vacuity into which inadequate thought must retire. 
 The second aspect, the inward determinateness of substance, 
 is a statement of the nature of substance in the knowledge 
 of that which it becomes in the upward trend of thought. 
 Substance musi be determinate, but at its own proper level 
 this determinateness is hidden and not made open. Therein 
 lies the underived character. The charge, then, is no gratui- 
 tous one ; it voices the demand that substance should show 
 what shape it has, and insists that substance seems to be 
 a featureless abyss merely because it is in shadow. 
 
 The point may be put in other words. In any ordered 
 world of thought which has risen to the level of substance, 
 change and process find a place. And such change has an 
 explanation. But if the first principle, substance itself, 
 contain no such explanation, then beyond it there lie forces 
 and powers which it cannot control, and which are alien to it. 
 But the first principle, substance, at the same time claims 
 supremacy and completeness ; it itself is the sole truth : 
 and hence it falls into contradiction with itself. Substance 
 may reconcile the discrepancy only by genuinely accepting 
 the determinateness of its accidents as its own proper content. 
 It will then leave nothing standing beyond it to bind it, and 
 it wiU have a right to claim as its own those powers which it 
 asserts to be concealed within it. 
 
 It is this step that the notion has taken ; it has brought 
 into harmony the implicit nature and the overt appearance. 
 The first step appears to be one of renunciation ; the supreme 
 has limited itself in each of its members. But that step, 
 though essential, is only one side of a complete act ; for 
 the principle thereby gains the whole as its content, and all 
 that is faUs within its scope. Growth, we have been told, 
 is not mere aggregation, it is creation. And the nature of 
 
40 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 
 
 spirit, we are assured, is to pass for ever into forms which 
 are unique and new. Hegel might agree with this, but he 
 would certainly add that at the same time spirit was only 
 coming to its own full stature. The notion is a principle 
 whose nature is to elaborate itself from within and to become 
 a concrete system. The factors are embodiments of the whole, 
 they are organs in which the whole is present as such, and 
 each, when taken in its context and truth, has the power 
 and value of the whole. Thus the notion — unUke substance-:^ 
 expresses itself in a form which is worthy of it, and in going 
 into its opposite it is realizing what there is in it to be. Its 
 inherent nature is brought out in" its development ; and it is 
 — in Hegel's terminology — for itself what it is in itself, an 
 und fur sich, the absolute. 
 
 It may be useful to express this conception with reference 
 to the terms universal and particular. Previous to Hegel no 
 thinker succeeded in resolving the opposition between these 
 two. Aristotle's conception of the individual is ambiguous, 
 because at times he seems to regard it as the union of two 
 disparate elements, matter and form, while at others he 
 treats it as the infima species itself. It seems fair to suppose 
 that, on" the whole, Aristotle's thought was dualistic, and that 
 he regarded the universal as incapable in itself of giving the 
 concrete detail of life. Universal and particular do come 
 together for him, as in Hegel's categories of essence, but the 
 reason of their union is not present in their nature. Even 
 Spinoza failed to meet the difficulty. Unlike Aristotle he 
 refuses to give the particular any content that is beyond 
 the universal ; but in bringing the particular within the 
 universal he restricts the nature of the former and does not 
 do justice to its negative aspect. In Hegel's category of the 
 notion the universal is not merely an abstract principle which 
 is made concrete by being dipped in a foreign matter, such 
 as the matter of sense intuition ; it is a concrete whole having 
 internal differences, the equipoise of opposed yet united 
 aspects. On the other hand, the particular is not an exclusive 
 unit — it is a way in which the system appears ; its nature 
 is in no part merely private but is drawn from the whole. 
 The notion obliges us to affirm the identity of the universal 
 and the particular ; and in concrete thinking the two aspects 
 are at one with each other, and each is the other. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 41 
 
 This identity of opposites is, of course, the great stumbling- 
 block in Hegel's logic to many minds, and it has been the 
 butt of much mockery. But to reject this category is to deny 
 the validity of every step of the path to it. Hegel has already 
 shown the identity (not the sameness) of opposites. It is 
 there for the thinker who traces the dialectic. Being turned 
 in our hands into not-being or nothing ; that which merely is, 
 equally is not. The identity is there and is patent in the 
 dialectic, although it is not manifest to the mind limited to 
 such principles. If imperfect thoughts do imply their oppo- 
 sites, there must be some more perfect principle of thought 
 within which this implication falls as content. And such 
 thought is an identity of opposites. In this category of the 
 notion Hegel has brought within the content of thought the 
 power which gave the dialectic life ; the dialectic has now 
 become for itself what it is in itself. If we, in real earnest, 
 reject this position, it is difficult to see what shift thought 
 can make. There is no stable mean between the utter 
 nominalism of Antisthenes and the concrete logic which 
 treats the assertion of the identity of different things not as 
 a sign of the impotence of thought, but as a statement of 
 the nature of reason and of reality. When we think coherently, 
 so that the identity of the universal and particular is manifest, 
 the result is the concrete universal or true individual. The 
 unity lives only in the differences, and the latter have their 
 meaning and being only in the whole which they utter forth. 
 The universal which does not thus articulate itself is abstract ; 
 it is at most a common element — a glorified particular — and 
 hence not really a universal at all. Similarily, the particular 
 abstracted from its context loses all that makes it what it 
 is, it lapses into the pure being which is nothing. The con- 
 crete universal, thus, or the notion, is the truth both of the 
 universal and of the particular ; it is the category where they 
 are identical. 
 
 ; This analysis, however, must not be understood abstractly ; 
 the identity in question does not exclude difference. The 
 [fault of Spinoza's philosophy is that he achieves unity "at 
 the , expense of difference ; he files down the two aspects 
 until they have an indifferent shape and so can be mistaken 
 ^or one another. But for Hegel the negative aspect, difference, 
 ':ension, opposition, is a moment — though only a moment. 
 
42 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATE GOR IES 
 
 The universal must limit itself, must take on the forms o 
 finitude, and preserve that finitude even while going beyont 
 it. We shall see later how the self, which is the actual embodi- 
 ment of the notion, denies itself and goes forth into its other^ 
 into a world which is the not-self. The 'outgoing moment is 
 essential and in the spiritual life it involves strenuous effort 
 and bitter sacrifice ; indeed the concreteness of the identity 
 of the whole depends on the stress of the outward process.; 
 There is not full joy in the harmony of thought if in its nature 
 it has not gone info a far country. To minimize the reality 
 of the alienation is to diminish the fullness of the union, and 
 to translate an identity of opposites into a bare tautology.^ 
 
 We cannot trace in detail Hegel's analysis of the sphere of 
 the notion ; but it is necessary to note one distinction. The 
 description we have given is that of the character of the 
 whole of the third division of the logic, which is called in 
 general the doctrine of the notion. But the sphere comprises 
 a number of categories of differing grades. The name, 
 ' notion ', is given by Hegel to the first of these as well as to 
 the whole ; and the last one, the only adequate and complete 
 principle of thought, is called the ' idea '. It is perhapsi 
 enough for our purposes to say that the notion, in the narrow! 
 sense, is the principle of such a system capable of complete! 
 articulation but as yet undeveloped. The ' idea ' is thej 
 complete system actually seen to be the concretion of thej 
 simple immanent principle. The notion involves the ' idea 'iJ 
 and is the bud of which the latter is the fruit. The former is 
 inward, immanent, undeveloped : the latter is always an 
 inward principle which expresses itself outwardly and hasi 
 actually mastered the external. The ' idea ' is the truth m 
 the notion, the full self into which the notion develops itself.*] 
 In the sequel, unless the context forbids, it is to be assumed i 
 that the term, notion, is used to indicate the narrow catego|j 
 rather than the whole sphere, for the distinction between the 
 principle and the concrete achievement is of great impor- 
 tance. But we cannot dwell longer on the point in its bare 
 logical form, and can characterize it further only in more 
 concrete embodiments. 
 
 By way of transition to this more concrete realm we may 
 discuss a possible misconception of the meaning of Hegel's 
 ' Cf. Phenomenology, WW. II. pp. 15-16. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 43 
 
 lalysis. We have spoken of the identity of opposites, but 
 e are not thereby committed to the absurd statement that 
 .1 opposites are identical, and that it is a matter of indifference 
 hether we say yea or nay. The categories are not themselves 
 le world, they are at most the principles of it ; and, although 
 om a scientific point of view they are the more weighty 
 spect, yet in their abstractness they are a poor substitute 
 )r a world constituted by them. That is to say, when we 
 ave analysed a category we have only stated a demand ; 
 le task still remains of satisfying that demand, of finding or 
 rganizing an experience which manifests the form of unity 
 lat the category reveals. It is one thing, e.g., to determine 
 1 the abstract the nature of Substance, and another to 
 ossess a content of knowledge which in all its concreteness is ■ 
 self a substance. Similarly, in the notion the demand for 
 1 world or medium in which the unity of opposites is achieved 
 ; not lightly satisfied. Ignoring for the present the difficult 
 roblem of the ultimate relation of the various spheres to one 
 nother, we may represent the various categories as the 
 rinciples of various grades or realms of experience. Form 
 ad matter are inter-dependent, and each matter has a limit 
 i) its capacity of yielding forms. Some matter of experience 
 :, as it were, too coarse to take on the finer forms, and the 
 igher categories cannot be realized in it ; on the other hand, 
 erne matter is inherently too fine to be held by the rougher 
 jid less adequate forms. Hegel does not seek to find the 
 rjtion and the ' idea ' in their proper shapes in the purely 
 'lysical world of space and motion ; the lower categories in 
 rliich externality predominates are the appropriate form of 
 J;.ch stuff. Nor does he suppose that the categories of being, 
 ■: even of essence, can give us the truth of the moral and 
 ^tellectual hfe of mind. The proper field for the notion is 
 glf-conscious mind, and the ego is the reahzation of that 
 jiinciple.i If we are unable to think the nature of the notion 
 jj the abstract, and must have examples of it in the concrete 
 if, order that the ' identity of opposites ' be more than 
 
 ''' ' When the notion has developed into such existence as is free, it 
 
 nothing else than the ego or pure self-consciousness. Of course, 
 
 ifiave notions, i.e. determinate notions ; but the ego is the pure notion 
 
 (felf, which, as such, has become a definite fact ' (WW. VI. pp. 13-14)- 
 
 Macran, Hegel's Doctrine of Formal Logic, p. 123. 
 
44 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATE GORIES 
 
 a confused phrase, it is only in the life of self-conscifiji 
 rational mind that illustrations can be found. The opposite 
 of external nature are not identical for thought ; the sphen 
 is, therefore, in itself, confined to and governed by lowei 
 categories, and is not fully rational. Mind alone over-reaches 
 its other, denies itself in order to find itself, and brings the 
 notion into being. In discussing the Philosophy of Ri^U 
 itself we may see more closely the way in which logical 
 demands are met by the ethical life, and to what extent the 
 answers are adequate. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 In the previous chapter we discussed the meaning of the 
 rinciple of thought which Hegel calls the notion, and we sliall 
 id that this is the fundamental principle of which the ethical 
 orld in all its forms is the articulation. But before examining 
 le notion in its shape as an ethical system we have to deal 
 ith it in another of its forms. We have already briefly 
 dicated the attitude of Hegel's philosophy to things, but 
 e have confined our attention ahnost exclusively to his 
 gical standpoint. We must, therefore, determine more 
 recisely the view he takes of the special nature of ethical 
 lilosophy. In so doing we shall be elaborating the analysis 
 : the notion, for philosophy is a form of reflective thought, 
 id its moments are articulations of the basal principle of all 
 ental life. Hegel's adoption of a scientific attitude in ethics 
 is provoked severe criticism ; and in order to understand 
 recisely what Hegel means by science here we shall examine 
 s attitude in its general bearings. The main topic we have 
 I discuss in this chapter is the identity of and distinction 
 5tween the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of the 
 hical world. It seems advisable, therefore, to pursue our 
 quiry at first with special reference to Hegel's explicit 
 atements regarding the philosophy of nature. The identity 
 id difference which we seek will thereby become plainer 
 hen we analyse the specific nature of mind. 
 For Hegel philosophy is a concrete attitude of mind ; it is 
 Dt mere practice, nor yet is it what is usually called mere 
 leory. Both in his early voyage of discovery, the Pheno- 
 enology, and in his more mature Encyclopaedia he places 
 highest in the ranks of the concrete attitudes of mind, 
 f course philosophy is not itself the whole of being ; its 
 mtent is not the absolute in all its fullness, breadth, and 
 ;tail ; nor is it all knowledge, for it treats much that is known, 
 id which doubtless deserves to be known, as irrelevant, and 
 
46 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 confines itself to main principles. But philosophy in Hegel's 
 view is the notion of the whole, and its content is the prin-i 
 ciple of which nature and mind are the embodiment.^ Ther 
 are two attitudes to objects which Hegel definitely repudiate 
 as inadequate to philosophy.^ The first of these we may cal 
 intellectualism, the purely theoretical standpoint. From thii 
 point of view the task of knowledge is to conform to the real 
 we have to leave things unaltered, to refrain from imposing 
 our subjective ends upon them : we must simply accept them 
 as they are in themselves. This, of course, is the basis of all 
 empiricism ; and it is not without justice that empiricists, 
 such as the English school, are charged with intellectualism, 
 Hegel points out, however, that we cannot rest in this 
 attitude ; the passivity which it enjoins is incompatible witl 
 the proper activity of thought. Thought is essentially 
 universal ; it cannot accept a mere datum, but must think it 
 and^discover law and coherence in its object. We may seel 
 earnestly to examine things disinterestedly and try to-adopi 
 a purely objective attitude to them', but thought will nol 
 permit us. Thought itself has a determinate structure anJ 
 mode of functioning : we may intend to take each particulai 
 fact merely as it is and by itself, but thought insists on tak,iii| 
 its objects not as mere particulars but as instances, m 
 apprehends the minutest detail not merely as ' this ' ol 
 ' that ' but as ' such '.^ Whether we will or not, thought lead 
 us to centre our attention on the universal, on the law, w. 
 to put the bare fact into the background as the mere vehidi 
 of the law. Hegel does not need to be told that reahty (fli 
 experience) is richer than thought. ' The more thinkinf 
 enters into imagination ', he says, ' the more the particulaif| 
 and immediacy of things disappears from nature. By tl 
 mvasion of thought the wealth of the infinite variety of natuif 
 IS depleted, its vernal growth bhghted, and its colours blanchel 
 The sound of noisy life in nature is stilled in the silence ol 
 
 ' V. Phenomenology, WW. II. ' Das absolute Wissen ', pp. 6io-b! 
 trans, pp. 820-3. . ^'^ 
 
 ^ Of course the division may be carried much farther— the entJ 
 Phenomenology is an analysis of attitudes of which only the lasti^ 
 adequate But the division indicated in the text is also Hegel's ownj 
 and IS sufficiently representative for present purposes 
 _> V. Phenomenology WW. II, 'Die Sinnliche Gewissheit Oder dd 
 Dieses und das Meines ', p. 73 ff., trans, p. 90 If ■ 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 47 
 
 bought ; its warm profusion, which clothes itself in a thousand 
 vonderful shapes, withers into barren forms and universals 
 hapeless as murky northern clouds.' 1 By thinking it we have 
 iltered the given, and thereby set up a dualism. Things as given 
 us are detailed, concrete, individual — indeed particular ; 
 )ut the content of our thought is universal. Have we not 
 ;onverted real existences into contents of knowledge, into 
 ;omething which we have made ? In trying to grasp objects 
 ve have altered them, and we seem to have missed our hold. 
 We make the thing universal and our own, and yet qua 
 latural thing it ought to be free and independent.' ^ Intel- 
 ectualism thus has two sides. It puts forth ' realistic ' inten- 
 ;ions, and assumes that reality is the given, that which is 
 ndependent of the apprehending subject. But at the same 
 lime it is an attitude of thought, and all thought is a transform- 
 ng and appropriating principle ; thus it chooses the relevant 
 Tom the irrelevant, links up and interprets what is not given 
 n that fashion, and in general bullies experience into supply- 
 ng it with-contents marked by its own characteristics. On this 
 side it manifests an unconscious idealism, and presents another 
 nstance of inadequate thought turning into its opposite. 
 
 The assumption which intellectualism takes as its explicit 
 principle, and which its performance flouts, is that the object 
 Df knowledge is a hard and impenetrable reality, inherently 
 )ut of touch with the nature of apprehending knowledge, 
 rhis assumption the opposite abstraction to pure theory, 
 Az. the practical attitude, flatly denies. It assumes that 
 ;hings are utterly in relation to mind, and is a thorough-going 
 dealism. The satisfaction of any desire or impulse naively 
 crosses the gulf which intellectualism has declared to be 
 mpassable. ' The wit and need of man ', says Hegel, ' has 
 found endless ways of changing and mastering nature. . . . 
 Whatever powers nature evolves and looses against man, 
 :old, wild beasts, water, fire, he knows means against them, 
 md indeed he takes these means from nature and uses them 
 igainst itself. The craft of his reason enables him to set one 
 latural force against another, to destroy the one by the other, 
 md so preserve and maintain himself.' ^ In the practical 
 ittitude the- objective is subordinated to the subjective. 
 
 » Encyclopaedia, WW. VII a. pp. 12-13. 
 
 » Ibid. p. 14. " Ibid. p. 10. 
 
48 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 The end lies in the satisfaction of the self ; and so the objective 
 thing is regarded merely as a means whose end is the restora- 
 tion or fulfilment of the harmony of self-feeling — the removal 
 of discomforts and oppositions within the self. The task 
 which intellectualism regards as impossible is performed, 
 ikegel points out, by the animals, which, all unconscious of the 
 unattainable character of things, reach out to them and devour 
 them. This attitude gives us the point of view of finite tele- 
 ology. But when it is exalted to be the method of dealing 
 with things, and claims are made for it as for an ultimate 
 standpoint, it manifests as grave deficiencies as the opposite 
 abstraction, viz. intellectualism. It is true that things are 
 determined by us as relative to our purposes ; but this is not 
 the whole truth. The power of mind to bend things to its 
 designs is narrowly limited. Man may overcome this, that, 
 or the next thing, ' but he cannot master nature itself, the 
 universal, in this way, and trim it to his end '.^ We shall 
 see later ^ that a finite end is in the grasp of something greater 
 than itself, and how great a failure mind is when it erects its 
 private purpose — its subjectivity, as Hegel calls it — to the level 
 of omnipotence. Further, teleology of this kind can afford but 
 a spurious and external spirituality. Mind is interpreted as 
 finite, i.e. as having an independent nature of its own to which 
 things, indifferent in themselves, are arbitrarily subordinated. 
 This is not the teleology of Aristotle, fof whom the' end is 
 immanent in the thing as its own proper nature ; it is rather 
 that external form which reads its arbitrary satisfactions into 
 things as their inner meaning. It declares that ' the wool of 
 the sheep is there only to provide me with clothes ', and it 
 wonders at ' the wisdom of God in providing cork trees for 
 bottle stoppers, vegetables for weak stomachs, and cinnabar 
 for cosmetics '? 
 
 Mere objectivity and mere subjectivity are equally one- 
 sided ; if a genuine philosophic standpoint is to be reached 
 the receptive attitude of theory must be united with the 
 purposive character of practice. Philosophy is a practical 
 attitude, and involves the right to transform the given, 
 to think it, and to find law and order in it. But at the same ' 
 time it must not be arbitrary and subjective ; it must not 
 proceed from principles which are external to nature, private 
 
 » Encyclopaedia, WW .\H a. p. lo. = Chap. IX. ' Ihid. p. lo. 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 49 
 
 ends and the like, but must ascertain what the world itself is. 
 
 In thus combining the theoretical and practical in a fuller 
 
 and more adequate attitude we must alter each of them. 
 
 Practice must forego its subjective limitations, and theory 
 
 must renounce its intellectualism ; we must be realistic and 
 
 idealistic at once. We must, therefore, assume that in 
 
 thinking things we are not departing from their true nature, 
 
 but reaching forward to it ; the truth comes to us not as 
 
 datum but as result. By way of contrast we may indicate 
 
 a false method of uniting theory and practice — a method 
 
 which ignores the transformation required in each attitude. 
 
 The defects of the purely theoretic consciousness — its entire 
 
 : subversion of the realism it professes — are in this theory 
 
 : accepted as final, and the equally one-sided practical attitude 
 
 : may simply be added to it as a supplement. The two imper- 
 
 : feet aspects are not seen to be abstractions from a deeper 
 
 ! attitude, but are set forth as interacting functions or faculties 
 
 ! of mind. The result is, of course, a compromise. One shape 
 
 - this doctrine has taken in modern philosophy is the view 
 
 :l that the universals of knowledge are mental constructs, they 
 
 : are classifications and arrangements made only for the 
 
 ; convenience of thought and not because they are funda- 
 
 li mental determinations of reality. The deficiency thus ad- 
 
 s mitted may be filled up in more than one way. For example, 
 
 J the conception of a purely objective reality may be retained, 
 
 i and the task of reaching the unknowable may be handed over 
 
 f to the practical function of mind under the guise of faith or 
 
 i moral teleology. Another method, in which the practical 
 
 I side predominates, gives up the conception of the indepen- 
 
 j dence of the objective and makes finite purpose the motive 
 
 I and test of thought itself. Thought does not reach independent 
 
 reality, it admits, but there is no independent reahty to reach. 
 
 li We have been making a false demand on thought ; its real 
 
 J function is to satisfy our purposes. It is a means to our 
 
 ji satisfaction, and if it achieves that end no further claim should 
 
 j be made upon it. Satisfaction is thus put in place of reahty, 
 
 : and thought becomes a moment in a finite will. 
 
 J Hegel's attitude is thoroughly opposed to this compromise. 
 
 ^ He will not surrender any of the positive aspects of the 
 
 ^ inadequate powers of mind, and he beheves that the realism 
 
 ^ of naive theory has a certain truth. All his teaching is an 
 
50 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 effort to bring together the moments of reality and rationality, 
 and he denies that the idealism of true thought inhibits its 
 adoption of a realistic standpoint. He therefore questions 
 the assumption that the universals of thought are merely 
 mental. If universals were mere convenient marks of things 
 and aids to distinguishing them ' we might, e.g., take the lobe 
 of the ear as the sign of man, for no beast has it. But we feel 
 at once that such a determination does not succeed in knowing 
 the essence of man '.^ The first step in the solution of this 
 duahsm of mere thought and mere purpose is the denial of 
 the adequacy of the datum. ' The truth of things is that 
 qua immediate and particular they are only appearance and 
 show.' That is to say, the negative or destroying aspect 
 found in the attitude of desire and purpose to objects in 
 their immediate appearance is the first moment of philosophic 
 thought. ' Intelligence familiarizes itself with things not in 
 their sensible existence, but by thinking them and by setting 
 them as content in itself.' ^ But the universal which thought 
 finds is not arbitrary ; it is the law of the thing. From 
 Hegel's standpoint it is an unjustifiable assumption to hold 
 that the world is an aggregate of ^particulars ; in the last 
 resort it is a coherent system— and perhaps even system is 
 an inadequate expression. Law, universality, context, and 
 mediacy are constitutive of the barest fact ; and when we 
 must choose between the aspects, universaHty is the truer 
 and deeper side. We express more, and are nearer the heart 
 of things, when we know the law of an object, than when we 
 can merely look at it and point. ' The universal of the thing 
 is not something subjective, depending as it were on us. 
 Rather in opposition to the transitory phenomenon it is the 
 noumenon, the objective, the reality of the thing itself; 
 and It IS the Platonic " Idea ", existing not afar off, but in 
 the mdividual thing as its substantial genus. The inscription 
 on the veil of Isis, " I am that which was, is, and shaU be; 
 and no mortal hath Hfted my veil ", dissolves before thought. 
 Nature , says Hamann with justice, " is a Hebrew word 
 written only with consonants, and the understanding must 
 point it . Hegel does not suppose that the categories 
 
 • Encyclopaedia, WW. VII. p. 17. z ^j,-^^ jg 
 
 •■' Ibid. p. 17. ' 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 51 
 
 are the whole of the known world ; they are the ' diamond 
 net into which everything is' brought and thereby made 
 intelligible '. The universal is abstract apart from that 
 full realization of it which is reality in its entirety, the con- 
 crete existing worlds of nature and mind ; but, for knowledge, 
 it is the fundamental aspect, the outline and essential nature 
 of the whole, the notion of which the absolute itself is the 
 ' idea '. 
 
 Philosophy is thus both receptive and active. It transforms 
 the given, but at the behest of the deeper truth in the given. 
 The task of science is to make things intelligible and discover 
 rationality in them. It is active but not arbitrary. Discovery 
 is a process, and involves digging beneath the surface till the 
 gold is laid bare ; but the gold must be found in the rock 
 and not be put there from without. 
 
 In order to determine Hegel's view further we may look 
 at the distinction between philosophy and positive or induc- 
 tive science. The philosophy of nature — and the same thing 
 is true of the philosophy of mind — is not a substitute for the 
 sciences of nature ; it does not itself discover laws from the 
 actual facts and sift the phenomena of sense. It presupposes 
 inductive science. ' The philosophy of nature takes the 
 material which physics has prepared from experience, at 
 the point to which physics has brought it, and reconstructs it 
 in such a way that experience is not its final warrant and 
 base. Physics must work into the hands of philosophy , and 
 the latter translates the universal, which the understanding 
 has yielded, into the notion, and shows how as an intrinsically 
 necessary whole it proceeds from the notion.' ^ In the last 
 chapter we saw the nature of the notion, and indicated that 
 the dialectic itself is an illustration of it. The notion is 
 a principle which develops itself into a system ; and thus 
 the barest principle of pure thought, being, was forced by 
 the pressure of the whole within it to pass step by step into 
 the articulated body of logic. The same thing is to be 
 discovered in the philosophy of nature or of mind. The 
 universal aspects of the special subject-matters can no more 
 be left in a confused aggregate than can the categories of 
 pure reason. They have to be reduced to order and congru- 
 ence, their juxta-position must be resolved into mutual 
 » Ibid. p. 18. 
 E2 
 
52 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 implication, and the unity which the notion demands bestowed 
 upon them. But this unity must not be capricious. The 
 notion, we have seen, develops itself into the ' idea ' ; the 
 variety which it achieves is not attained simply by applying 
 a static principle in many directions, but is a genuine self- 
 evolution, a deepening and maturing of the principle itself. 
 To this end the philosophic science of nature must be dialectic. 
 Its goal is the entirety of the explanatory principles of its 
 object, and it must show them as interlocked and as mutually 
 supporting. Naturally, then, since the system is the goal or 
 result, we must begin at the other end from it, for we have 
 to meet and bring with us every aspect of the whole. The 
 simplest conception of the object, therefore, is the starting- 
 point. When the inadequacy and incompleteness of that 
 appears, we move to the next category, one stage more 
 concrete, and so on, until the notion becomes the ' idea '. 
 Only when we have brought the notion out into the ' idea ' is 
 the complete explanation, the rationale, of the object in our 
 hands. So long as we do not know the various aspects this 
 philosophic dialectic transcends our powers, and in this sense 
 experience and induction are the necessary preliminary- 
 foundation, if you will — of philosophy. But, on the other 
 hand, so long as we are acquiring information of, and seeking 
 acquaintance with new aspects, and passing haphazard, as 
 chance and imperfect knowledge lead us, from one point to 
 another, we cannot fully explain our objects. The middle 
 terms of all our arguments are still merely rationes cognoscendi 
 and are not yet rationes essendi. We note the appearances, 
 and can say why we are certain of their existence ; but what 
 it is in truth that is before us we cannot tell. Like Plato's 
 cave dwellers we see the shadows on the walls but not the 
 veritable things themselves. Now, since philosophic explana- 
 tion is a genuine system or organism, its parts are not to 
 be conceived as independent, self-subsisting factors. Each 
 law or universal aspect which falls within the compass of 
 the completed science has its meaning and verification from 
 the entirety of its context. Each is an abstraction which 
 breaks into contradiction when thought in isolation. It is 
 plain, therefore, that the metaphor of a ground or basis is 
 misleading. The full truth, the explication of the significance 
 of each element, comes to us only at the end. And philosophy 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 53 
 
 is not an edifice resting on those categories which come first 
 in the order of statement. It is rather a self-balancing 
 system no part of which will stay in place unless each of the 
 others is present. If we lay any stress on the order of the 
 exposition in time, the ' warrant and base ' of the whole is 
 in the last stage ; and although ordinary speech may resent 
 the inversion of its metaphors, yet it is reasonable to believe 
 that thinking is a movement towards knowledge and certainty 
 and not away from it. Now, although this is the fundamental 
 nature of thought, inductive science does not grasp it. It is 
 busy building up, or acquiring, and emphasis is laid on the 
 relations of points of importance in the acquisition of know- 
 ledge. The metaphors of foundations and grounds are 
 appropriate to it. Thus, a change of method marks the 
 transition from inductive science to philosophy, and this is 
 the meaning of Hegel's statement that the philosophy of 
 nature reconstructs the material of physics ' in such a way 
 that experience is not its final warrant and base '. Experience 
 is not to be despised — far from it. Until mind has wandered 
 over the whole of its field it cannot map the whole. The 
 philosophy of nature cannot make physical facts, nor dare 
 it really ignore them. But a fact by itself is nothing for 
 thought ; the true interpretation is the essential, and that, 
 as such, is not a datum of experience but the product of 
 universalizing and comprehending thought. Philosophic 
 knowledge, then, is knowledge in the notion. That is not 
 to say, of course, that a ready-made form is fitted to the 
 material ; as we have seen, the bare logical notion is a mere 
 demand. The actual notion of a science is a proper product 
 of the subject-matter, the principle of the things concerned, 
 and each step of the development is the natural and inevitable 
 consequence of the unfolding of the special nature of the 
 fundamental conception. The notion of nature is not the 
 notion of mind, and each develops into its ' idea ' by a path 
 determined by its own character and needs. But this they 
 have in common, that they are principles which develop 
 from within, and which pass into a concrete system in which 
 they are not lost but reaHzed. Hegel's conception of philo- 
 sophy thus is neither a priori nor a posteriori : it stands 
 above both. He admits the growth of knowledge, and the 
 dependence on experience and on a posteriori methods which 
 
54 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 that implies : but at the same time he insists that knowledge 
 in itself is otherwise constructed, and is its own guarantee. 
 The a priori and the a posteriori are both confused abstractions 
 from the full method. Both regard the approach to know- 
 ledge as if it were itself all knowledge ; the a posteriori taking 
 the faulty steps of the learner as the type of the march of 
 maturity, the a priori imagining that there is no need for 
 the learner to stumble and that he may march at once. 
 
 Such in brief outline is Hegel's conception of philosophy. 
 We may now proceed to determine more closely his attitude 
 with regard to the ethical world. In the preface to the 
 Philosophy of Right there occurs the following statement : 
 ' What is rational is real, and what is real is rational. Upon 
 this conviction stands not only philosophy, but also every 
 unsophisticated consciousness ; and from it proceeds the 
 view of the spiritual universe as the natural.' ^ The objections 
 which present themselves to this proposition are manifold. 
 Some spring from the claims of the subjective consciousness. 
 Freedom and spontaneity seem to be infringed by this objec- 
 tive doctrine, and it is complained that Hegel's view leaves 
 no room for sin and error. Hegel's own account of the claims 
 of subjectivity will be presented in due course, as will also 
 his view of evil from an ethical standpoint. We may confine 
 ourselves in this chapter to the way in which Hegel's ethical 
 theory attempts to unite the objectivity of science with 
 the freedom of the subject-matter. We must discover what 
 difference is made to the articulation of the underlying 
 conception of philosophy by the all-important consideration 
 that ethics deals not merely with facts but with the will 
 and with ideals. There is undoubtedly a grave difiEiculty 
 to be overcome by him, for he seeks to bring together the 
 aspects of reality and validity or worth, and it is commonly 
 alleged that from no standpoint can these be seen in ultimate 
 harmony. We may, therefore, look at his criticisms of two 
 rival methods of ethics, each of which Hegel regards as holding 
 fast to one side and omitting the other of the necessary 
 whole. 
 
 The first of these is ethical empiricism.^ Empiricism objects 
 
 ' WW. VIII. p. 17. 
 
 ■ \?^!''^'! ^**'*"f ^ to empiricism, as well as to the view which follows 
 111 the text, VIZ. formalism, is defined in his earliest ethical treatise. 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL - 55 
 
 to the ' high a priori road ', and rests its view on experience. 
 It is a form, as we have seen, of intellectualism. Experience 
 presents to us an endless series of determinations, each filling 
 out its own moment of time, and passing away again. In 
 a pure empiricism none of these has pre-eminence over the 
 others ; for all are facts, and it is only as facts that they are 
 interesting. This very infinity of material, however, is 
 embarrassing ; for empiricism calls itself science and wishes 
 to think ; it would be a theory and not a meaningless record 
 of details. Therefore this pure realism in ethics must follow 
 the appointed path of its downfall ; it becomes idealist and 
 transforms the given. Some one feature of experience, or 
 group of such features, is plucked forth from among the 
 undistinguished crowd, and regarded as the essence of the 
 matter. Other phases are subordinated to it and treated as 
 means. For example, in the theory of punishment, the aspect 
 of the reformation of the offender may be made the end, and 
 everything judged from that point of view. Or in the relation 
 of marriage and the family, the education of the children may 
 be set forth as the purpose of the whole, and the rest deter- 
 mined as relative to that end. But this procedure does 
 violence to the other determinations. There are many other 
 aspects of punishment than reformation ; why should these 
 be slurred over ? There is the protection of society, the 
 deterring of others, and so forth : are not these as valid ends 
 as the one chosen ? The privileged feature has no special 
 right to predominance ; for in the long run each is a fact, 
 and every fact is as good as its neighbour so long as it 
 lasts. 
 
 Having chosen a feature for chief place, empiricism makes 
 it absolute, putting it forth as a binding law of life. The 
 so-Ccdled law of self-preservation, or the hedonistic proof of 
 the happiness principle, may serve as examples of Hegel's 
 meaning. Some concealed criterion is adopted— physical 
 necessity, common practice, &c.— and the aspect of things 
 which fits this is- called a duty. But this is a mere tautology. 
 When we examine this so-called duty we find that it has its 
 place not because it is binding, but merely because it is. 
 If all men ought to seek happiness simply because in point 
 ' t)ber die Wissenschaftlichen Behandlungsarten des Naturrechts ', 
 WW. I. Lasson VII. 
 
56 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 of fact they do, then ' ought ' adds ^ nothing to the fact. 
 ' I ought ' is a disguised way of saying ' I do '. 
 
 Hegel continues the analysis. Ethical empiricism apes 
 science further. Science is a unity, a system ; and so em- 
 piricism must seek to reduce the complex field of appear- 
 ances to a single principle. The unity to which it reduces 
 the variety of its data, says Hegel, ' can signify only as simple 
 and poverty-stricken a group of qualities as possible, from 
 which it thinks it can extend to knowledge of the rest '} 
 Hegel is thinking of Hobbes. In the absence of a rational 
 method empiricism tends to throw its doctrine into a pictorial 
 form, and imagine (whether with historical accuracy or not^ 
 does not much matter) a ' state of nature ', a chaos from which 
 the ethical life springs. But a descriptive study of the transi- 
 tion from a state of nature to civilized society would be a mere 
 chronicle, and not an ethical or political philosophy. Empiri- 
 cism must pretend to make chaos account for society, and to 
 that end it imports into the state of nature the ' capacity ' 
 or ' possibility ' of all that comes out of it. 
 
 Empiricism thus drifts into arbitrariness and formalism 
 in its effort to become science, and Hegel reminds it of its 
 realistic basis. Pure empiricism is incoherent and unscientific, 
 but it has a relative truth against the one-sidedness of this 
 pseudo-philosophy. Life presents an infinite variety of cases, 
 and philosophy must be wide enough to cover them all, 
 It is a legitimate demand upon a formal view that it should 
 develop itself in experience. Naive empiricism ' rightly 
 insists on its resistance to such an artificial erection of 
 principles, and prefers its own empirical inconsistencies to 
 the consistencies of such philosophizing, and its own con- 
 fusion ... to the absolute exclusion by one another of these 
 different aspects of one and the same intuition, a.nd to the 
 determination of the whole itself through a single one of 
 these qualities. . . . Finally, empiricism justly charges such 
 philosophizing with -ingratitude, since it has given the latter 
 the content which its notions have, and has to see them become 
 spoiled and distorted '.^ 
 
 In this criticism we find reiterated in the sphere of ethical 
 science two points which we have already discerned in 
 
 1 WW. I. p. 333, Lasson VII. p. 338. 
 
 ' WW. I. pp. 341-2, Lasson VII. p. 345. 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 57 
 
 general ; the necessity for experience and the necessity for 
 its transformation. Ethical philosophy is not the whole of 
 the ethical world, but it is the principle of the whole ; and if 
 it is to be as comprehensive as experience it must be the 
 notion of which the empirical is the embodiment. Hegel 
 considers the failure of an ethical theory to cover social life 
 as a totality to be a radical defect, and he believes that the 
 true notion is the immanent principle of all ethical experience. 
 Secondly, the details of social experience cannot be worked 
 into a totality as they stand ; they must be recast and recon- 
 stituted. No one feature is to be picked out as the essence ; 
 for the essence is not one aspect but a principle — right in 
 general and not this or that right. His point of agreement 
 with empiricism is that the notion comes out of experience 
 and must be found in it ; the notion is not a fiction of the 
 mind but the nature of the facts. The point of disagreement 
 is that for Hegel the apprehension of this objective right is not 
 attained by simple inspection but by conceptual thinking, by 
 apprehending the rationality of the ethical world. 
 
 We may now consider the method most opposed to empiri- 
 cism, viz. the moral idealism of which Kant's theory is one of 
 the highest forms. Empiricism has treated the ethical as the 
 existent, Kant insists that the ethical is the rational. We 
 have seen that the existent as apprehended by empiricism falls 
 short of rationality, and Kant accepts the tacit dualism. The 
 i characteristic of Kant's ethics is the opposition of reason to 
 i experience and the emphasis laid on the primacy of practical 
 ; reason. Empiricism in its purer form lays hold of the real 
 s in its immediacy, in its definite temporary moments as facts. 
 ! The critical philosophy, on the other hand, recognizes that 
 i there is another aspect, universality or wholeness, and that 
 I the latter is the more fundamental for science and reason. 
 s Empiricism claims, as we have seen, to be science ; but it 
 8; fails to discern that scientific totality cannot be reached either 
 I, by the mere aggregation of particulars or by capricious selec- 
 If tion among them. The particular must be radically trans- 
 formed before it can become a member of an organic whole. 
 5 The compilation of separate parts can give only a mechanical 
 and superficial unity ; it cannot reach the entirety and con- 
 gruence which rationality or intelligibihty demands. The 
 critical philosophy begins with the perception of this failure. 
 
58 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 When thought has made this step, two paths open before it. 
 One is to maintain the dualism of matter and form, of experi- 
 ence and reason, and to preserve an apparently scientific 
 attitude by rejecting experience and the particular and by 
 holding fast to reason and the universal. The other course 
 is to revise the assumption which leads to the dualism, viz. the 
 impenetrability and atomic character of facts. At first sight 
 experience is not a rational system, it is a patch-work of 
 particular details : so much is common to empiricism, to 
 Kant, and to Hegel. Against empiricism Kant and Hegel 
 insist that the mere particular is not intelligible. Kant, 
 however, agrees with empiricism that the facts are in truth 
 as they appear, and assert that the incompleteness which he 
 sees in them is their final character. Therefore, he thinks, 
 in order to attain rationality in the moral world we must 
 forgo the facts and turn to the intelligible content of reason. 
 Hegel questions this. He allows to empiricism the truth of 
 its assumption that the rational is the real, but breaks both 
 with Kant and empiricism by denying that the immediate 
 object, the relatively uninterpreted datum, is what is truly 
 there. Kant, however, does not take this step. Recognizing 
 the universality and completeness which empiricism fails to 
 provide, he exalts it to the place of the whole, and isolates 
 it from the particular. The form, he thinks, must be coherent 
 and self-complete, or as Hegel phrases it, infinite and absolute ;' 
 and since the matter of experience yields nothing final, we 
 must obtain the form not from the matter but from another 
 source, viz. reason. Kant's ethical system is, therefore,: 
 a mode of the a priori and formal type of thought. 
 
 Pure practical reason, for Kant, is the essence of the moral 
 order, and the moral law is the result of its legislation. But 
 having made a cleavage between matter and form, and given 
 to reason control merely over the latter, Kant is unable 
 consistently to find any real content for the legislation of 
 pure practical reason. Its commands have no point of contact 
 with the world of actual practice, and Hegel insists that, if 
 thought clearly, it shows itself to be utterly empty. The 
 understanding which apprehends experience is, for Kant| 
 a faculty of parts which constitute no whole ; while practical:" 
 reason is a faculty of wholes which have no parts. Kant, of 
 course, could not afford to recognize the full force of this 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 59 
 
 lilemma, and he gradually fills the legislation of practical 
 eason with a foreign content to which it has no right. His 
 ;ask is difficult, and he adopts the expedient of appl3dng the 
 'ormal unity to various matters of experience and allowing 
 t to articulate itself in conjunction with but not by means 
 )f them. When a practical course of action is in question, 
 TO may bring it to the bar of reason. Reason, however, will 
 lot itself provide a deliverance, for such action would bring 
 t down from its lofty a priori status and stain it with the 
 nire of contingency and fact. The moral law is not deter- 
 nined by its instances, but is an authoritative standard to 
 ivhich they refer. Pure practical reason, thus, falls into the 
 ;ategory of substance in contrast with the notion. And Hegel's 
 node of attack is to point out that so long as Kant holds the 
 universal to be independent of the particular, so long is the 
 [after in its turn independent of the former. If the form is 
 not the form of the matter, the matter is untouched by it. 
 
 Kant tells us that the morality of a maxim of the will is 
 its pure universality, its self-consistency ; and he obtains an 
 apparent content for the moral law by laying hold of the 
 implications of universality. The moral maxim is the 
 universal ; hence that which can be universalized is moral, 
 and that which cannot is immoral. To this Hegel rejoins 
 that an illicit step has been taken. The essence of the ethical 
 ideal, on Kant's fundamental assumption, is not universality 
 in its concreteness as the principle of a system, but mere 
 universality, form without matter, self-consistency in the 
 narrow sense. ' When Kant recognized that a universal 
 criterion of truth would be that which was valid of all cases 
 of knowledge without distinction of their objects, and that, 
 since we thereby abstract from all content of knowledge — 
 and truth is concerned precisely with this content — it is quite 
 impossible and absurd to ask for a sign of the truth of this 
 content of cases of knowledge when the sign is not to penetrate 
 to the content, he pronounced judgement on the principle 
 of duty and right which is set up through practical reason. . . . 
 It is thus inherently self-contradictory to look within this 
 absolute practical reason for an ethical legislation which must 
 have a content ; for the essence of the former consists in 
 having no content.' ^ The moral law is an abstract principle 
 
 ' WW. I. p. 351, Lasson VII. p. 353 ; cf. Larger Logic, WW. V. p. 28. 
 
6o THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 of reason out of all relation to experience, and cannot pasi 
 criticism on any particular mode of action or life. Kan] 
 escapes the tautology which is his sole right by the illicil 
 introduction of experimental detail. 
 
 We may follow this in an example. ' The commonest 
 understanding ', he says, ' can distinguish without instructi<ai 
 what form of maxim is adapted for universal legislation, and 
 what is not. Suppose, for example, that I have made it my 
 maxim to increase my fortune by every safe means. Now, 
 I have a deposit in my hands, the owner of which is dead and 
 has left no writing about it. This is just the case for my 
 maxim. I desire then to know whether that maxim can also 
 hold good as a universal practical law. I apply it, therefore, 
 to the present case, and ask whether it could take the form 
 of a law, and consequently whether I can by my maxim at the 
 same time give such a law as this, that every one may deny 
 a deposit of which no one can produce a proof. I at once 
 become aware that such a principle, viewed as a law, would 
 annihilate itself, because the result would be that there 
 would be no deposits.' ^ But this application involves more 
 than Kant has any right to say in accordance with his dualistic i 
 assumption. The annihilation of deposits is quite a consisteni 
 action, if consistency means not coherence with a system but 
 abstract self-identity. Kant has tacitly introduced a refereni 
 to a systematic self-coherent life ; but that is more than mere 
 universality, it is the concrete whole. Taken in isolation the 
 premise that there should be no property is as self-consistent 
 as its opposite, and the law of formal practical reason cannot 
 decide between them. The assumption of property as the 
 positive content of the judgement is arbitrary, and prejudices 
 the point at issue. ' If the determination of property in 
 general is posited ', says Hegel, ' the tautology can be deduced 
 from It, property is property, but beyond that nothing else. 
 And the legislation of practical reason is this tautological 
 production : property if property is, must be property. But 
 if the opposite determination, the negation of property, is • 
 posited, then from the legislation of the very same practical: 
 reason comes forth the tautology: non-property is non-i ! 
 property; if there be no property, that which would be I , 
 
 ^Kritikderpractischen Vernunft. § 4 Anm.. Harteustein, V. pp. 28-9,! ! 
 Abbotts trans, p. 115. . • t-r 'm 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 6i 
 
 property is cancelled. But the very point we have to prove 
 is that property must be ; we are concerned only with that 
 which Ues outside the capacity of this practical legislation of 
 pure reason, viz. with the decision which of the opposed 
 determinations must be posited. But pure reason demands 
 that this is already performed, and that one of the opposed 
 determinations be previously posited ; then alone can it 
 bring forth its legislation as no longer redundant.' ^ At this 
 point Hegel strikes a note which resounds throughout his 
 thought. The formalism and subjectivity which Kant affirms 
 to be the principle of ethics is in truth the essence of the 
 unethical. According to Kant reason he^ no specific content, 
 its bare generality stands aloof from the passions and impulses, 
 the needs and satisfactions, of the sensuous life of man. But 
 the obverse side of this statement is that the particular 
 contents of will and desire are not conceived as transformed 
 and assimilated by the good will. They remain particular 
 and unregenerate, indifferent, if not actively hostile, to the 
 supersensible principle of reason. Thus when man acts, 
 even though it be in accordance with duty, his motive is 
 touched with self-interest : only a sensuous animal can act 
 in the sensible world ; pure reason lives, if at all, in another 
 and distant sphere. Therefore the moral agent, he who acts 
 as if he were a moral being, is really moved by natural and 
 mon-moral fact. At most he has thrown the cloak of the good- 
 iwill over unregenerate inclination. Thus to depose the 
 igoodwill, to put passion on the throne of life with the sceptre 
 iof sanctity in its hand, is treason to the ethical ideal. But 
 ;the only escape from this attitude is by the consistent denial 
 ito the pure but empty moral standard of any lot or part in 
 action, and by the pessimistic conclusion that morality in 
 ievery shape and form is an unattainable ideal, 
 i This subjectivity to which Kant's teaching, taking it on its 
 ilower side, inevitably leads, was regarded by Hegel as a special 
 danger of his time. Desiring to find a basis for the ethical'V'-" '" 
 ■life in reason, even fearing lest the objectivity of reason might -''' '"^'' 
 crush out the moral life altogether, thinkers of various schools 
 itended to despise scientific thought and to fall back on the 
 {inwardness and spontaneity of intuition and the convictions i 
 of the heart. Hegel himself in his earlier years dallied with 
 • WW. I. p. 353. Lasson VII. p. 355- 
 
62 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 the conception of intuition ; and in his earliest ethical 
 writings, in which the foregoing criticism of empiricism and 
 formalism is found, the term plays a not insignificant part. 
 But the word has even there a different meaning from that 
 given to it by the Romantic school — even by Schelling, with 
 whom Hegel was at the time associated. For Hegel intuition 
 was a prevision of the rational, an insight into the nature 
 of things, which could justify itself afterwards by criticism. 
 For others, however, intuition was a peculiar form of know- 
 ledge, a certainty which was immediate and self-contained, 
 standing in no need of mediation. The result was in some 
 cases a flouting of <Ehe rational altogether, and the absurd 
 assumption that the deepest things of the spirit are those 
 which require least toil of thought. ' The way of intuition ', 
 says Hegel in the Phenomenology, ' requires you to don the 
 vestments of the high-priest. Along that road stalks the 
 ennobling sentiment of the Eternal, the True, the Infinite. 
 But it is wrong to call this a road. These grand sentiments 
 find themselves, naturally and without taking a single step, 
 centred in the very sanctuary of truth. So mighty is genius, 
 with its deep original ideas and its high flashes of wit. But 
 a depth like this is not enough to lay bare the sources of true 
 being, and these rockets are not the empyrean. True thoughts 
 and scientific insights are only to be gained by the labour which 
 comprehends and grasps its objects.' i When intuition is put 
 in place of thought, the moral consciousness lacks objectivity 
 and reality. Intuition has no other standard — if thought is 
 shut out— than immediate certainty : individual man becomes 
 the measure, and philosophy lapses into the confusion of the 
 Sophists from which Socrates and Plato rescued it.' ^ 'The 
 words " God giveth it to His own in sleep " have been applied 
 to science ; and hence every sleeper has numbered himself ' 
 among the elect. The thoughts he has obtained in sleep are ■ 
 indeed products suited to it.' ^ The ethical life of man has 
 developed slowly in his history. It has gradually moulded 
 itself in habits, customs, and social institutions : it is slow of 
 growth and difficult of attainment, and it will not yield itself 
 to the first call of a fanciful mind. ' The notion of the thing , 
 does not come to us by nature. Every man has fingers, and 
 
 ' ^,^-}}- P- 56, translated by Wallace in Prolegomena, p. 53. 
 ^ Cf. Philosophy of Right, WW. VIII. p. 14. 3 Ibid. p. 10. 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 63 
 
 may have brush and colours ; but he is not thereby a painter. 
 Even so it is with thought. The notion of right is not 
 whatever each has first at hand ; to think rightly is rather 
 to know and to understand the thing, and our knowledge of 
 it must therefore be scientific' 1 
 
 It is time to gather together the points which have emerged. 
 Empiricism does not attain scientific rank ; it may describe 
 the outer appearance of many phases of life, but it cannot 
 tell us what is fundamental and universal ; it cannot depict 
 life as a whole. It holds to facts without their rationality. 
 Formalism, on the other hand, typified at its strongest by 
 Kant, rightly places the essence of the ethical life in reason ; 
 but it takes reason abstractly and as isolated from experience 
 and reality. The ethical, for Hegel, must be conceived both 
 as rational and as objective — objective not only in the sense 
 of possessing formal validity for thinking beings but in the 
 deeper sense of being the expression of the reality of human 
 life. What we have now to determine is the meaning of the 
 phrase ' the reality of human life '. How does Hegel escape 
 from a bondage to facts, from bowing the knee to the gods that 
 are — ^in short, from empiricism ? The criticism which he has 
 passed upon empiricism is that it lacks the notion and reason. 
 But in what way, it may be asked, wiU rationality bring 
 a system of right which is grounded in, and ultimately one 
 with, the objective world, above the level of the merely de 
 facto ? 2 Referring in the introduction of his Smaller Logic J-"' 
 to the criticism which has been aroused by his identification 
 of the real and the rational in the Philosophy of Right, Hegel 
 says somewhat sharply, ' We must presuppose intelligence 
 enough to know . . . that existence is in part mere appearance, 
 and only in part reality. In common life, any freak of fancy, 
 any error, evil and everything of the nature of evil, as well as 
 every degenerate and transitory existence whatever, gets in 
 ;a casuklway the name of reality. But even our ordinary 
 
 : ' Ibid, note to preface, p. 9. 
 
 ; " ' So far as I can see, all that Hobbes or Filmer, Haller or Stahl 
 • have taught, is relatively open minded in comparison with the famous 
 'phrase regarding the rationality of the real in the sense of Hegel's 
 Ipreface. The theory of divine free grace and the theory of absolute 
 jpbedience are blameless and innocuous in comparison with the frightful 
 doctrine which canonizes the subsisting as such ' (Haym, Hegel und 
 seine Zeit, p. 367). 
 
64 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 feelings are enough to forbid a casual (fortuitous) existence 
 getting the name of a real ; for by fortuitous we mean an 
 existence which has no greater value than that of something 
 possible, which may as well not be as be. As for the term 
 reality, these critics would have done well to consider the sense 
 in which I employ it. In a detailed logic I had treated 
 amongst other things of reality, a^fi accurately distinguished 
 it not only from the fortuitous, which, after all, has existence, 
 -but even from the cognate categories of existence and other 
 modifications of being '.^ That is to say, Hegel repudiates 
 the interpretation which sees in his statement the doctrine 
 that existence as such is right : he says not that the existent 
 but that the real is rational. We must, therefore, go back 
 to the logical distinction of categories, to which appeal is 
 thus made, and see what the difference amounts to.^ 
 
 Hegel means by existence something akin to what we call 
 fact ; it is this, here, and now. It is the transitory appearance 
 of the sensible world taken at a superficial valuation : its' 
 history and its future are left out of account ; the laws which 
 it exempHfies, and which in truth constitute it, are quietly 
 passed over ; and it is regarded as an immediate conjunction 
 of qualities interpenetrating one another in a limited unity 
 of time and space — in short, a thing. Such a fact is a common 
 object of knowledge, and it has its necessary part to play in 
 the true apprehension of the scheme of things ; but it is 
 
 1 Encyclopaedia, WW. VI. p. lo ; cf. Wallace, pp. lo-ii. 
 
 " The following difficult passage may provide a key. ' The essence, 
 gone forth into immediacy, is primarily existence, indeed an existent 
 or thing, the undifferentiated unity of essence with its immediacy. 
 The thing, it is true, contains reflection, but its negativity is directly 
 obhterated in its immediacy. But since its ground is essentially reflec- 
 tion, its immediacy sublates itself, and the thing turns itself into 
 a positivity. 
 
 ' Hence, secondly, it is appearance. The appearance is that whicl 
 the mherent thing is, its truth. This existence which is merely posited 
 and reflected in other-being is, however, equally a self-transcendence j 
 mto Its mfinity ; the world of appearance sets itself over against the ' 
 world which is reflected into self and inherent. i 
 
 ' But that which appears and that which is essential stand absolutely 
 m relation to one another. Hence, thirdly, existence is essentia 
 co-relation; the appearing manifests the essential, and the latter is 
 in Its appearance. The co-relation is the still imperfect reconciUation ' 
 of reflection mto other-being and reflexion into self; their complete ( 
 mter-penetration is reahty ' (Larger Logic, WW. IV. p. 120). ' 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 65 
 
 neither self-complete nor free from self-contradiction. By 
 itself it is an abstraction, the result of an imperfect and one- 
 sided principle of thought. When we think more deeply and 
 attain more concrete categories, the simple abstraction is 
 modified, and the ' thing ' is seen to belong to a deeper system 
 from which alone it has its being. When the neglected uni- 
 versals take their rightful position, the prima facie unities 
 of space and time do not indeed vanish, but they surrender 
 their false prominence and take a subordinate place in the 
 universe. In contrast with existence, reality is the highest 
 level to which the categories of essence can reach without 
 definitely passing into the notion ; its highest content is the 
 system of reciprocal substances which forms the point of 
 transition from substance to the notion. It is thus a much 
 deeper truth than mere existence, and the latter is indeed an 
 element within it. Substance exists, i.e. it appears in definite 
 shapes, and without these it would not be itself. But it is far 
 more than a mere congeries of facts ; and to throw its exis- 
 tential aspect into 'relief is to do injustice to its complex 
 nature. The real is not another object than the existent, it 
 is the same object more deeply understood. It is not an 
 essence afar off, it is the essence in the appearances — an 
 essence which is the appearances. Thus when Hegel says that 
 the real is rational, he does not speak of the world merely 
 as it unrolls itself to a recording chronicler, he presupposes 
 a mind with insight which can see what is hidden and beneath 
 — even see it coming to the surface. On one side of it, 
 therefore, Hegel's position is an attack on the insight of 
 his critics. There is more in the world of fact than they 
 have seen. In the nature and structure of man, in his 
 reality, there is something other than the natural ; his 
 character has a moral texture, it is a movement of ideal 
 forces, of principles, and is infused with rights and duties. 
 These are in man, they are that of which he is and by 
 ; which his life is nourished. 
 
 At this point the distinction between nature and mmd 
 appears. ' In the next two chapters will be found a fuller 
 -discussion of the will and of the nature of rational life in 
 general, but it is necessary to anticipate here sufficient of 
 that analysis to make the contrast of nature and mmd 
 intelligible. Mind and nature are sometimes said by common 
 
 2211 F 
 
66 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 sense to be respectively the intelligent and the unintelligent ; 
 but we must modify this statement a little. Reason is not 
 altogether absent from nature— else there were an end to 
 natural science and to the philosophy of nature ; nature is 
 intelhgible and is apprehended by thinking mind. Hegel is 
 not a subjective idealist, and he does not suppose that the 
 finite mind makes nature ; but he insists that the essence of 
 nature lies in the laws and principles which appear in their 
 fullness only to mind. As a whole, nature is characterized 
 by him as the external. That is to say, everything in nature 
 is an individual, one fact among others, interacting with other 
 individuals and on the same plane with them. Of course, the 
 universal is not absent, and Hegel detects in nature the 
 presence of the notion and even of the ' idea '. But these 
 principles appear there in crude.forms, and wear the shape of 
 individual facts. The living organism is an embodiment— 
 though an imperfect one — of the notion, and cannot be under- 
 stood by means of lower categories. The organism is not an 
 aggregate of parts but one living whole, in which the factors 
 are organs and modes of the single life. Nevertheless nature 
 contains only one side of the full being of reason. Reason 
 lies buried in it in the shape of intelligibility and does not 
 appear as active. Nature is capable of explanation, but of 
 itself it explains nothing. Mind, on the other hand, is the proper 
 shape of the notion. Reason is in it not merely as the know- 
 able, but as veritable knowledge ; as active, thinking, willing 
 consciousness. Hegel believes that mind in its full truth is 
 not merely another non-natural fact, formally distinguished, 
 indeed, from the natural by its specialized construction, but 
 to all intents and purposes on a level with the natural. The 
 significant consideration for him is that in mind the externality 
 of nature is overcome. 
 
 In order to see mind as it is in principle we must not merely 
 look at it from the outside, and regard it, as psychology 
 usually does, as a subjective object. We must take its own 
 standpoint and see it in its relation to its content. From this 
 point of view, mind is the unity of opposites. Over against 
 it lies an external world, an apparently independent and self- 
 contained world. But mind grasps that world ; and in feeling, 
 in thought, and in will it transcends the gulf that lies between 
 nature and itself. It takes the natural world as its own world. 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 67 
 
 and can find itself at home there. Later on we shall emphasize 
 the way in which this is performed by the will, and at present 
 we may consider it merely with reference to thought. To 
 know an object is to break down the barriers between mind 
 and things. All knowledge alters the first appearances of 
 things. The bare datum is interpreted, it is seen to be shot 
 through with universality and law, and it suffers mind to 
 place it within the context of an intelligible system. Thus 
 mind discovers that the reason which is in itself as thought, is 
 also in nature as law. Intelligibility and thought are not two 
 reasons but one ; the objective and the subjective, or the 
 passive and the active, aspects of the single whole. ' The 
 study of nature ', says Hegel, ' sets mind free in nature ; for 
 mind develops in so far as it relates itself not to another but 
 to itself. Similarly, it is the emancipation of nature. Nature 
 is intrinsically reason, but it first obtains existence as reason 
 through mind. Mind has the certainty which Adam had when 
 he looked on Eve : " This is flesh of my flesh, and bone of 
 my bone ". Thus nature is the bride which mind weds.' ^ 
 In this quotation the two-sided movement of the notion is 
 indicated. The externality of nature is robbed of its finality, 
 it is taken within mind and made a content of the latter. 
 And in the same act mind develops its own abstract principle 
 of thought into a world of outward parts, a concreted and 
 compacted system. In nature, then, rationality remains 
 implicit ; it is the essential feature, but it is not ' for itself '. 
 The inherent character of mind, on the other hand, is to drag 
 forth this rationality of its world, to make the implicit explicit, 
 and as active reason to find reason in the object.^ 
 
 If we are to understand this significant distinction between 
 mind and nature, we must take the conception of the implicit 
 seriously. In discussing ethical empiricism we saw that in its 
 effort to explain the ethical world it had recourse to this 
 conception — it had to import into the chaos from which it set 
 out capacities and possibilities of the developed whole. Now, 
 .the flaw in its procedure is not the adoption of this thought 
 of implicit being, but the use of it as an expedient in defiance 
 of its own fundamental principle, its abstract realism. If 
 existence is the whole truth, then the implicit is an illusory 
 makeshift, a device to hide ignorance and. failure. But 
 
 ' Encyclopaedia, WW. VII. p. 22. Ibid. § 376 note. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 existence is not all : the mind cannot be explained without 
 reference to the implicit .1 Mind is not an aggregate of its 
 parts ; and the mere juxtaposition in time of the events 
 of a man's life is not an adequate rendering of what he is 
 in truth. We speak without understanding if we say that 
 a child happens to become a man, or is forced to manhood by 
 outward compulsion. We have seen that the unity of causality 
 — much more then, that of the notion — compels us to think 
 principles which transcend time-differences ; and the implicit 
 manhood of the boy is the phrase by which we express the 
 presence of the organic whole in one of its members. What 
 Hegel calls the ' idea ', the completed system, is that in which 
 the implicit and the explicit are at one. In the idea the 
 principle is realized, and each member of the whole attains 
 substantiality and completeness by taking the principle of the 
 whole as its own. The conception of the implicit is fundamental 
 here ; it is constitutive not only of the ' idea ' in its full truth, 
 perfect thought and action, but even of the perversions of the 
 true form. In regarding the true shape of rational life it is 
 easy for thought to imagine that because implicit and explicit 
 are in harmony, the former is an otiose repetition of the latter. 
 But to think thus is to fail to see that in a rational whole the 
 particulars draw their character from the system and are not 
 parts but organs. To withdraw the immanence of the one 
 self in its phases is to reduce it to an external conjunction of 
 accidents, and to take it not as a satisfaction Of the logical 
 demand for a unity of opposites but as the embodiment of 
 some less adequate category of thought. Nor may the 
 copception of the immanence of the whole be withdrawn 
 from the faulty shapes of rational life. The bad life, for 
 Hegel, is inherently a contradiction by virtue of its failure 
 to render that which it ought to give : if we forget or ignore 
 the inherence of the higher, the principle of the whole, in the 
 lower, we see no contradiction, for we have lost one of the 
 
 ' Can nature ? In a sense it can. For although the reason implicit 
 in it is its true character, yet — apart from the contrast with mind— 
 the latency of reason need not be stated. It is enough to show what 
 forms of reason are hidden there for thought to find. Mind, on the other 
 hand, is the development of the impUcit into explicit being ; and the 
 term, imphcit, no longer concerns the relation of the content of the 
 science to the scientific thought, but falls within the scientific content 
 itself. 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 69 
 
 terms, and we are led to take evil action out of the category 
 of the ethical altogether .^ 
 
 Doubtless the philosophy of mind, and we shall have to 
 recur to the point, is abstract ; it is a statement of principles, 
 of essences, of implicit character.^ It does not tell us the 
 special history of any particular man ; its mission is to 
 proclaim what manhood is, and what it is to be a man. It 
 therefore confines itself to the analysis of his rational nature 
 as such, and deals with his failures only in so far as they 
 involve his rational nature within them. The errors and 
 gropings of man, the by-paths into which his feet stray, the 
 incoherencies of his early speech, the distortions of his growing 
 figure, these are not the fundamental side of him, they are not 
 that which he takes as his own when he is most completely 
 realized. ' Whatever lies between reason as self-conscious 
 mind and reason as present reality, what divides that reason 
 from this and hinders its satisfaction in it, is the fetter of 
 some abstraction which is not liberated into the notion.' ^ 
 The discordance between the truth of man, the wholeness 
 of the rational nature that is in him, and the present achieve- 
 ment is doubtless a fact, and Hegel has no intention of denyiiig 
 it. But fact is not reality, and Hegel's contention is that in 
 such a state man is not himself ; he is a contradictioii, both 
 a rational being and an irrational, both truth and falsity. 
 
 Thus we must take into account the contention made above, 
 that the categories of logic are not fixed forms of identical 
 nature in every instance. We have seen that they are demands 
 for the organization of a subject-matter, and that the precise 
 answer to the demand depends on the character of the 
 content. The reality of mind is other than the reality of 
 nature; and although history and necessity may exhaust 
 the latter, the former has to include the aspect of subjectivity. 
 We may anticipate a subsequent portion of the exposition 
 in illustration. In his theory of punishment Hegel insists 
 on the presence of the higher, that which ought to be, in the 
 
 ■ For Hegel's view of evil, v. chaps. VII and VIII. 
 
 = It is difficult to see what those who deny all validity to the concep- 
 tion of the intrinsic or implicit take their own philosophies to be 
 If philosophy is more than an arbitrary means to some alien end, if 
 it is an outline or account of the world, what is this itself but an essence, 
 an implicit being ? 
 
 ^ WW. VIII. p. 19, Lasson VII. p. 15- 
 
70 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 lower which defies and flouts it. C rime is nnt .mgr ^ unpr ofit- 
 able action, it is action against right ; yet rightis the true 
 nature of rational action, and cnme 2ir;v iolating n ^tt-violates 
 itielf. It is an act which by its sell-cohtradiction-eeBtains in 
 it the demand for its own removal. Crime is not a dispute as 
 to what is right ; it admits right, and infringes it. Thus the 
 actual presence of the ideal in the fact alters the character of 
 the latter. It would be a different act, not perhaps as regards 
 mere relations of time and place, but in its deeper truth as 
 a function of a moral self, if the right it denies were not in it. 
 It is possible to look at the act as a purely natural event, 
 a movement of physical parts ; but such inspection does 
 not see all that there is there, it does not comprehend the 
 reality of the object. 
 
 But it may be asked, why does Hegel identify rationality 
 with reality and not merely with the notion or the ' idea ', 
 if reality, a category of essence, is inadequate to mind ? 
 The reason is fairly obvious. He is protesting against the 
 dualism of formalism. ' The reality of the rational ', he says, 
 ' stands opposed by the popular fancy that ideas and ideals 
 are nothing but chimeras, and philosophy is a mere system 
 of such phantasms. It is .also opposed by the very different 
 fancy that ideas and ideals are something far too excellent 
 to have reality, or something too impotent to procure it for 
 themselves.' ^ What Hegel calls the real is the highest 
 category which Kant discovered in the sensible world of experi- 
 ence ; and Hegel had to combat the assumption that the deeper 
 laws of thought have no outward embodiment and application 
 in the world of things. The notion and the ' idea ' are, for 
 Kant, regulative ideas, subjective principles of procedure in 
 knowing, but not constitutive laws of the known world. 
 Hegel answers this view in its own terms. The rational 
 (i.e. notion and ' idea ') is the real ; it is the final truth, the 
 rose in the cross of the present. He has a right to his principle. 
 When a higher category of knowledge supersedes a lower one 
 the latter is sublated ; it is no longer the truth and is recognized 
 to be an imperfect and one-sided aspect of experience. But 
 it does not vanish. The lower is supplemented and modified, 
 it is given a new significance and function ; but nevertheless 
 it has its own specialized part to play within the higher 
 1 Encyclopaedia, WW. VI. p. lo-ii ; cf. Wallace's trans, p. ii. 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 71 
 
 principle. Being, for example, is preserved in substance. 
 When an object is taken in its essence as a substance, the 
 immediacy of the accidents is transcended, and they are seen 
 to be the vehicle of something deeper. But the immediate 
 aspect also remains. The surface qualities, the colours, weight, 
 shape, and so forth, of the outward embodiment of substance 
 still appear to the senses, although the mind penetrates 
 behind them ; and it was the failure of the category to bring 
 these diverse aspects into harmony that marked it as imperfect. 
 Similarly, in the notion reality is transcended but not lost. 
 ' In my view ', says Hegel in the preface to the Phenomenology, 
 ' everything depends upon grasping and expressing the ulti- 
 mate truth not as substance but as subject as well.' ^ The 
 truth is not subject only, but that which is subject as well 
 as substance ; and Hegel commonly uses the word substance, 
 even in connexion with the ethical order. When an object 
 such as a living thing or a finite mind requires us to employ 
 deeper categories than those of essence for its comprehension, 
 we do not leave the direct palpable world of experience behind 
 us and lose- contact with fact. Thought must carry that 
 world with it. To change the categories of knowledge is not 
 a process of reducing the known to an amorphous mass and 
 reshaping it so that no feature of the old material is recogniz- 
 able. The old aspects persist although in due subordination. 
 In Hegel's terminology they have passed from actuality ^— 
 i.e. isolated existence — to ideality — i.e. position in a system ; 
 but if the lower elements were not thus carried up and 
 preserved as well as held in subjection we should not have 
 transformed the old, but have destroyed it and created some- 
 thing entirely new. The higher contains and is the truth of the 
 lower, but the latter is an aspect of it. Now, mind can be 
 understood only from the point of view of the notion, and the 
 ethical world demands deeper categories than those of thmgs. 
 But the danger— to which Kant succumbed— is that in the 
 effort to think the ethical order in the notion we lose touch 
 with the real. The ever-present temptation of idealism is 
 towards a premature unity, a synthesis which makes its world 
 one by the simple expedient of denying that the awkward 
 
 ' ' nicht als Substanz, sondern eben so sehr als Subjekt '. 
 = Realim—a technical term, not to be identified with the English 
 word ' reality '. 
 
72 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 differences are relevant. And Hegel's identification of the 
 rational and the real is to be read as a warning against this 
 fallacious tendency. The rational is at least real ; it is the 
 truth of the facts, and it is not less present than is a bare 
 uninterpreted content of the perceptive consciousness. 
 
 We have already indicated that the facts of ethical life 
 are constituted by the ethical principles in them, and this 
 truth is part of a complex relation. The ethical is, for Hegel, 
 the notion of this sphere ; it must therefore not only determine 
 facts but also be determined by them. Or, in other words, 
 it establishes itself in things by bringing to light their intrinsic 
 substance. It is this negative side thiat Hegel thought his 
 time stood in danger of forgetting. And yet it should be 
 obvious that true ideals are not fictitious constructs, but are 
 born of facts. ' Every individual is the son of his time ', 
 and the flight of the strongest mind cannot carry it beyond its 
 atmosphere into the void. The ideal state of Plato is the 
 Greek city state at its highest and best, with the potentialities 
 which Plato saw in it developed to their fullness. The 
 political ideals of Hegel himself are circumscribed by the 
 insight he had into the possibihties of the hfe of the states 
 he knew. When a man's ideals are false, it is because he has 
 misinterpreted what is in his world ; he sees the potencies 
 of things amiss. In every case what we would see in the world 
 is inextricably bound up with what we do see there. It is 
 not pretended, of course, that the existent accounts for the 
 ideal ; that would be an interpretation of the notion in the 
 terms of thinghood. The point is that the ideal comes to 
 us out of the present and objective. 
 
 Moreover, while it is true that the ideal is the standard 
 of fact, there is another standpoint from which the ideal is 
 to be judged by fact. A merely fanciful wish is no true ideal. 
 When a man frames to himself an image of a life in which all 
 his private satisfactions are added to one another, he is not 
 depicting a true ideal but deluding himself. The ideal must 
 have a structure and obey law ; it must fit the facts and take 
 cognisance of their characteristics and needs. If one's day- 
 drearas were— ^er impossibile—hTonght into existence, they 
 would exclude the deep and structural principles which make 
 life and the world worth having ; and such 'ideals ' are the 
 false subjective, not that which ought to be. 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 73 
 
 By thus setting aside the capricious and subjective and 
 by liberating and taking as its own the deeper and more 
 significant aspects of the real, the ideal receives the supremacy 
 which it claims. When duty is conceived as a mere ' ought ', 
 the unattained and the unattainable, it has no force behind 
 it. It is a categorical imperative, Kant tells us, which gives 
 no reasons and assumes no ends ; but, one may ask, does its 
 cloak of authority cover the rod of punishment ? There are 
 no terrors in mere demands which are quite unrelated to 
 facts ; no penalty follows their infringement, and if their 
 authority be demanded they have no warrant to show. It 
 is a commonplace in ethical theory that no answer can be 
 given to the question, why should I be moral ? But this 
 commonplace is not the whole truth. Unreasonable questions 
 can at least insist on having their self-contradictory character 
 made manifest ; and it is by no means clear that actual 
 failure to give a reply is a proof of the absurdity of a query. 
 The question. Why should I be moral ? is self-contradictory 
 only because it is asked by one whose standpoint is necessarily 
 within the moral sphere ; he is questioning that whereby he 
 is. But if a theory, like the formalism of Kant or any other 
 view which separates fact and ideal, leaves the larger portion — 
 the real portion — of life outside the ethical world, it is possible 
 for one to take one's stand on this large residuum, and from 
 thence hurl defiance at whatever may be beyond. It is not 
 open to formalism to say that one will thereby stultify one's 
 true nature, for by the hjrpothesis one's true nature is one's 
 existence, fact and not ideal. But when the ideal opens 
 itself to the actual, and waits upon the world to deliver it 
 of its meaning, the self-abnegation is the source of all strength. 
 The ideal is now the representative of the nature of things, 
 and the entire might of reaUty will avenge an insult offered 
 to it. The ideal, thus, for Hegel, is itself the notion, and 
 in surrendering all privacy of content it has gained the whole 
 as its own. 
 
 Hegel's view then is to be understood as a defence of the 
 reahty and potency of moral principle. He has committed 
 himself to the task of showing that whatever form of rational 
 life is not ethical is not fuUy real ; it may exist, but it is an 
 abstraction infected with contradiction. The critic who takes 
 up the standpoint of ethical empiricism — however else he 
 
74 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 
 
 may eke out his doctrine — and insists that the real is nothing 
 else than the existent, will be forced, if he faces Hegel's thought, 
 either to let rationality slip from the world, or to show that 
 the contradictions Hegel* finds in evil forms of moral hfe can 
 be reconciled. What has to be attempted in this latter case 
 will appear in the sequel. ^ 
 
 I have endeavoured to explain in what sense Hegel's philo- 
 sophy of right is a philosophic science. It is a science of ideals 
 — a normative science, if you hke — and it does not profess 
 to offer historical explanation or even description of fact. 
 It is not the part of philosophy to give that fuU, detailed, 
 concrete knowledge which alone" could be regarded as a suffi- 
 cient answer to the question. Why are things as they are ? 
 in the sense in which the question has significance. Philo- 
 sophy is not all knowledge, i.e. the ' idea ' of knowledge ; it 
 is at most the notion of it : and it is the task not of the 
 philosopher in his seclusion, but of aU mind in all its forms, to 
 carry out the process of embodying the abstract principles 
 of pure thought. The utmost demand which may reasonably 
 be made on pliilosophy is that it should provide principles 
 whereby things may be understood. Thus, ethics has to tell 
 us what evil inherently is, what kind of thing an evil act or 
 character is : but the common question, Why does evil arise ? 
 is no problem to be solved by it. For, on the one hand, evil i 
 in general is a timeless abstraction which does not arise, and, 
 on the other, the particular situations and events in which 
 evil things do occur imply for their full explanation principles 
 far other than those of ethics : they are acts in time, in space, 
 m the world of motion and subject to the laws of motion. 
 The general nature of evil, its general place in life, and its 
 relation to the ethical world— this is all that may be asked 
 of any ethical philosophy ; and the success which Hegel has 
 m solvmg these problems can be judged only by his actual 
 performance. But while the philosophy of right is a normative 
 and not primarily a historical science, it should throw light 
 on history and may seek inspiration from it. For the distinc- 
 tion of positive and normative, as we have seen, is no absolute 
 one. The ethical standards are in facts, and an ethical 
 philosopher is justified in seeking examples of and clues to 
 
 D.'-,^'l'l*^'^ discussion cf. A. Phal^n. Das Erkenntnisproblem in Hegek 
 r'mlosophte, pp. 389-99. -^ 
 
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 75 
 
 ethical relationships in the historical record. Much of the 
 richness of Hegel's own discussion of right comes from the 
 wealth of the historical knowledge of man and of states 
 that lies behind it. 
 
 Only one point in conclusion. Hegel well knew the Umita- 
 tions of his science. Philosophy presupposes the world ; it 
 is the effort to understand what is already there. Doubtless 
 the poUtical and social reformer must have insight into the 
 nature of man and society, and there is no reason why he 
 should not be abreast of the stage to which philosophy has 
 reached ; but as far as principles of right are taken merely 
 as that which ought to be and not as themselves actual, so 
 far is he excluded from 'philosophic ground. Hegel's view 
 should not be regarded as an impediment to reform, but rather 
 as a warning that the hfe which is busy with attaining is 
 not yet complete. The ethical insight of a time is limited 
 to the stage of rationality which has manifested itself in it ; 
 and fresh forms of Ufe must be established and proved before 
 they can carry philosophy a step further. Just as logic is not 
 an organon of discovery or a teacher of scienceTout the 
 interpreter of what science has already seen and the analyst 
 of its principles, so ethical philosophy is not a means to alter 
 the state, but an insight into the coherence which it has 
 attained. This is what Hegel says in the often-quoted passage 
 at the end of the preface to the Philosophy of Right. ' One 
 word more concerning the information of what the world 
 ought to be ; for that end philosophy always comes too late. 
 As the thought of the world, it first appears when reality 
 has concluded its constructive process and brought itself 
 to completion. What is thus taught by the notion, history 
 also shows to be necessary ; only in the ripeness of reality 
 does the ideal appear over against the actual, and build up 
 for itself that same world, apprehended in its substance, into 
 an intellectual kingdom. When philosophy paints its grey 
 in grey, some shape of Ufe has become old, and by grey in 
 grey it cannot be made young again, but only known. The 
 owl of Minerva spreads its wings only at the approach of 
 twilight.' 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MIND 
 
 In the previous chapter we glanced very briefly at Hegel's 
 conception of mind and its relation to nature ; we have now to 
 determine his view more in detail ; for he regards the ethical 
 life as a special way of articulating the general structure 
 revealed in all forms and phases of mind. We may begin by 
 stating the contrast between mind and nature as sharply as 
 possible. Nature, Hegel tells us, is in the realm of externality ; 
 it is called external nature not merely because it is outside us, 
 but because its characteristic feature is externality itself. 
 Everything in nature lies in time and space, and in these media 
 every part is outside every other part. Look as we will we 
 can find nothing which is not an individual fact, one among 
 others, subsisting alongside these, and standing in relations 
 of action and reaction with them. Everything in nature is 
 finite ; it is bounded by other things contiguous to it in time 
 and space, and by the forces which operate upon it and make 
 it what it is. Now, this finitude is constitutive of facts of 
 nature, and if it be taken away their identity is destroyed. 
 This is obvious with regard to spatial relationships. A 
 geometric figure is clearly determined by the adjoining parts 
 of space, and if the bounds which they set to it are removed 
 its essential character is lost. Most natural things can survive 
 a certain amount of such alteration, but there is a very narrow 
 limit to their power. And even when one special limit is 
 partly irrelevant, some other equally external boundary is 
 what constitutes the fact. Gold, e. g., may remain gold in 
 spite of certain alterations of figure, but it is constituted by 
 another limit. Its specific gravity is a term which we use to 
 indicate the comparison between the particular effects which 
 the attraction of the earth exercises on gold and on water. If 
 the action of this outside force were altered so that it produced 
 a different effect on gold, the specific gravity would change 
 and the essence of the metal would be lost. Clearly, then, 
 nature is a realm of finitude, a system of acting and reacting 
 
MIND 77 
 
 elements, and an embodiment of reciprocity. Everything 
 refers beyond itself endlessly for its explanation : it is the 
 joint product of all the forces of the universe and must be 
 resolved into these if it is to be explained in detail. It is in 
 a system of this sort that Hegel finds the meaning of necessity. 
 Necessity means, in the long run, external determination, the 
 dependence of a thing on things other than itself. We have 
 already traced in the second chapter the progressive forms in 
 which necessity is realized. In the category of substance it 
 first appears as the inward power of substance over its acci- 
 dents. In causality it begins to be explicit, its essence lying in 
 the division which has taken place within substance. Cause 
 and effect are one, it is true, but they are also immediately 
 different, and the two aspects are not reconciled. In reci- 
 procity the conception is completed, and we found that each 
 term has its being from and in a system of other terms outside 
 it. The true unity of the notion is lacking here : the identity 
 of the terms is stiU implicit and the obvious or explicit factor 
 is the resolution of each into that which is other than it. 
 When we say that the being of the thing is its relation to 
 others, we have dissipated it into these others and destroyed 
 its self-identity. In this endless outward resolution is neces- 
 sity. ' Necessity ', says Hegel, ' is often called hard, and 
 rightly so, if we keep only to necessity as such, i.e. to its 
 inunediate shape. Here we have, first of all, some state, or 
 generally speaking, fact, possessing an independent subsistence : 
 and necessity primarily implies that there falls upon such 
 a fact something else by which it is brought low. This is what 
 is hard and sad in necessity immediate or abstract. The 
 identity of the two things, which necessity presents as bound 
 to each other and thus bereft of their independence, is at first 
 only inward, and therefore has no existence for those under 
 the yoke of necessity.' ^ Such, then, is the character of the 
 natural as such : it is a finite individual, bounded and deter- 
 mined by other individuals, an embodiment of the category of 
 reciprocity, and under the sway of necessity. 
 
 The ultimate nature of mind is in contrast with all this. 
 
 To apprehend the character of mind we must look at it in its 
 
 strength, as it is when it realizes what it has in it to be, and 
 
 satisfies all its essential purposes. There is no external limit 
 
 ' Encyclopaedia, § 158 note ; Wallace's trans, p. 282. 
 
78 MIND 
 
 to the range of the mind's capacity ; there is nothing which 
 it cannot know, no rational satisfaction which it cannot 
 enjoy ; and no fact is so stubborn that it cannot be reduced 
 by mind and made a means to the fulfilment of life. In 
 contrast with the natural, mind cannot be moved from 
 without ; and if the powers of environment are to influence 
 mind, they must transmute themselves into ideas and motives, 
 into spiritual forces which are the substance of mind itself. 
 We are apt to speak of the environment of mind in a loose 
 sense, saying that mind conforms to its environment and is 
 moulded by the latter. But such a statement is an imperfect 
 expression, and utters only the less adequate aspect of one 
 thought. The truth regarding mind is rather that if deter- 
 mines itself through its environment. If we take the term 
 environment to mean that system or world which is related 
 to one self and forms the substance of its life — as, for example, 
 a man's nationality, his social surroundings, the influence of 
 his emplo5mient on him, the traditions of his circle, the books 
 he reads, his hopes and fears, and all else that has an outward 
 reference and origin — then the primary aspect is that mind 
 makes its environment. Of the countless forces that play 
 around the self only those touch it that are accepted by it, 
 and they alone are its environment. The social and physical 
 environment alike are my environment only if I apprehend 
 them and take them into my life. The books I cannot know 
 are no more than nothing to me, the beauties I cannot see do 
 not gain entrance into my world, and the music of the spheres 
 cannot charm me if I have no harmony in my own soul. Mind 
 must remake for itself every element of its world, and is 
 utterly impervious to purely external forces. We will discuss 
 later the objective aspect of the relation, but the first aspect— 
 and it is one which cannot be .revoked — is the self-possession' 
 of mind, the activity whereby all that it has and is results 
 from its own action. In contrast with nature, therefore, mind 
 is self-contained. 
 
 When this aspect of mind is regarded from another angle it 
 appears as the universality of the ego. The natural thing is 
 merely a particular ; it passes over into other things and its 
 unity with these remains latent. But however great be the 
 range of the mind's activities, it remains one with itself. It is 
 tied down to no single content, and there is nothing from which 
 
MIND 
 
 79 
 
 it cannot turn in abstraction. It is aware of itself as this 
 identical self present to all its experience, the universal of 
 which every mode of its life is a particular. 
 
 These characteristics of mind, its universality -and self- 
 dependence, maybe regarded in a one-sided fashion. Descartes, 
 for example, makes a sheer antithesis between thought and 
 things, and in consequence his view of mind is abstract. By his 
 method of doubt he removes from the self every content of 
 thought until he comes at last upon the bare empty form of the 
 ego as such. This immaterial, unextending, imponderable, 
 active, thinking substance is the contradictory opposite of the 
 material, extended, ponderable, passive world of things, and 
 Descartes takes the contrast as final. Doubtless the self, thus 
 described, is universal and self-contained, but these predicates 
 have a different meaning here from that borne by them in 
 reference to the true nature of mind. The ego as inferred from 
 the proposition, cogito, ergo sum, is universal in the sense that 
 it lacks all particularity and definition, and it is self-contained 
 in the sense that there is nothing in it for anything else to 
 contain. Hegel does not deny this power of the ego to empty 
 itself, to turn back into its self-identity and expel all its content 
 as not-self ; but he is careful to point out that there is another 
 side to the act in which is contained the elements which this 
 primary aspect excludes. In shutting out the world the self 
 adopts an attitude of opposition to it, and this attitude can be 
 maintained only by constant effort. Thus, in holding the 
 world from it as the not-self, the ego stands in a fundamental 
 relation to it, for it is only by conscious abstraction from the 
 particular that this kind of self-consciousness is possible. If 
 the contrast slips for a moment the self lapses into nothingness 
 arid thought disappears.^ 
 
 The dualism of which Cartesianism is an outstanding 
 example has extended far into the history of thought, and 
 many who would perhaps expHcitly reject Descartes' dualism 
 still retain the thought of the self as an inner core or impalpable 
 simple entity. In their view the self does not proceed from 
 nature, and the natural world is only the occasion and not the 
 substance of its life. Knowledge, on this view, is Uke the 
 light of a lamp shed on something set before it, and the self is 
 that which carries the lamp. If this view be taken as the whole 
 ' Cf. below, pp. 109. 
 
8o MIND 
 
 truth about the self, even in its poorest phase, it is subject to 
 grave criticisni. Indeed it comes under Hume's strictures; 
 for the self, by being set over against its world, becomes one 
 fact among others, a finite existent. If the view be taken 
 seriously the only difference between the. self and the other 
 particulars that make up its world is that the former cannot be 
 found. If we abstract from the objective content of the mind, 
 from that which we have already called its world or environ- 
 ment, we leave standing nothing but a void form. If it is said 
 that activity is left, one must point out that activity by itself 
 is simply an empty abstraction, a movement where there is 
 nothing moving. In an earlier chapter i we distinguished two 
 senses of the term, thought or experience, and the distinction 
 drawn there may be indicated by the contrast of the process 
 and the content of mind. The process is the external aspect 
 apprehended by an observer, the subjective object which 
 psychology studies ; the content is, as it were, the view from 
 within, what the mind in question feels, thinks, and wills. But 
 this distinction, although of importance, is not final ; and if it 
 is turned into a separation, mind becomes unintelligible. 
 When we think, feel, or will, it is the content of mind that is in 
 process, and beyond that content there is nothing present to 
 move. It is sheer superstition to suppose that mind is filled 
 with spiritual phantasms that gibber and cry round a portion of 
 the solid world, isolated by mind as its object. It is our world 
 itself that moves in our experience, and our known, felt, and 
 willed environment is shaped and developed in our activity. It 
 would perhaps shock common sense too much if one were to 
 say that objects of knowledge, tables, chairs, mountains, and 
 past ages, actually perform in our minds the transformations 
 which we are wont to assign to our ideas ; and, in truth, such 
 objects, qua natural things, do not act thus. But at the same 
 time we must insist that qua mental contents these things 
 do move in our mental processes, and that our life consists of 
 the processes of such stuff .^ 
 
 But surely, it will be said, there is more in mind than comes 
 
 ' Chap. I. p. 3. 
 
 " So far as I can understand, Hegel insists on the continuity and 
 identity of ' natural things ' and the moving mental content of mind 
 without denying the stolidity and ' independence ' of the former. This 
 problem goes beyond the scope of this book, but in the last chapter 
 I have suggested the demands which the solution must satisfy. 
 
MIND 8i 
 
 before it at any given moment, and that ' more ' cannot be 
 content. Hegel does not deny that there is more in mind than 
 comes .before it, and he insists that all finite mind is greater 
 inherently than it is explicitly, but his admission will not bear 
 the weight of the suggested inference. The suggestion is that 
 the ' more ' that is in mind is not explicit as content, but has 
 another form of explicit being, some kind of subjective activity 
 operating as another particular on the content in front of it. 
 Now, what is more may be of two sorts : it may be some 
 deeper form of unity, the implicit nature or capacity of mind, 
 which has not yet been realized, or it may be some particular 
 mode of feeling, thought, or will. But in the first case that 
 which is as yet merely implicit is, so far as existence goes, 
 nothing at aU : it is in no wise the process aspect of mind. 
 In the ordinary sense of the term it is an ideal which has not 
 yet been attained. And if this implicit character is not merely 
 implicit, but is active in mental life, then, no doubt, it is not 
 a special content among others ; but nevertheless the content 
 of mind is the field of its being and the principle is immanent 
 in that content as a universal, though not as a particular. For 
 example, the good which a criminal act violates is inherent in 
 and recognized by the criminal act, and the act contradicts 
 not only the character of the self but its own selfhood. The 
 immanent self is not an invisible entity over against the 
 content, but is latent in the content itself. These considera- 
 tions apply also if the element, which is said to be in the self 
 and not for it, is particular — with the addition that at some 
 time in the past the element was an explicit special content, 
 and, to use Hegel's terminology, has slipped back again from 
 actuality into possibility. Such things are but a poor filling 
 for the self, for it is liable to lose aU its substance merely by 
 thinking of it. The distinction between self and not-self does 
 arise, and we shall discuss it in the sequel,^ but it is a distinction 
 within the content of the self ; and we shall see that, in 
 Hegel's view, the self, even when" it shuts out its world as the 
 not-self and shrinks into the vacuity of its own abstract 
 universality, is at the same time the whole within which the 
 division has place. 
 
 By denying the Cartesian dualism, Hegel asserts the 
 identity of the self and its world. But like every other 
 • V. p. 93 ff- 
 
 22U G 
 
82 MIND 
 
 identity in the notion the unity is meditated ; it is a unity 
 of opposites. A mind cannot be constituted by grouping any 
 quantity of merely natural facts together ; nature by itself is 
 always an unfinished system of individual though interacting 
 facts, and, as we have seen, its externality is a constitutive 
 feature of it. If we compare any portion of the system of 
 merely natural things with the world of content which consti- 
 tutes a mind, the differences are obvious at once. Every 
 thing, the being of which is exhausted by its position in nature 
 — or in the objective order, if we like to call it such' — has 
 a fixed being dominated by space and time. The fall of a stone, 
 for example, as a natural fact, occurs at one specific place and 
 time and in no others. Having occurred now and here, it 
 cannot occur again or elsewhere except under new circum- 
 stances which make the second fall a separate event. What 
 is here may act on what is over there, but it itself is here and 
 not there. Everything is confined to its own proper space and 
 time, and cannot transcend it without being dissipated. But 
 qua contents of mind things are not so limited ; the same fall 
 of the stone may appear in my thought again and again, being 
 each time in fresh relations and context. It becomes connected 
 to other contents by the laws of association, it is an element i 
 in conative unities, it is the example of laws and principles, 
 and it is moulded into a thousand shapes and forms without 
 loss of its identity. Thus, contents of mind are not externally 
 limited by time and space as are natural events ; they have 
 acquired a finer texture, have become moments of a more 
 flexible system, and are wrought into a higher and more 
 subtle unity. Hegel expresses this by saying that facts of 
 nature lose their abstract particular existence or actuality 
 when they become contents of mind and take on the form of 
 ideality. By existence or ' actuality ' in this sense is meant 
 the externality they possess as particular things in the 
 reciprocal system, and their ' ideality ' signifies their libera- 
 tion from these bounds, their transformation into moments of 
 an organic whole, which gives them their function and place 
 and withdraws from them the appearance of ultimate fixity. 
 Thus when we say that, for Hegel, the objective world of the 
 mind constitutes the mind, we must remember that in consti- 
 tuting mind the world develops features which, qua natural,' it 
 does not possess ; it organizes itself into purposes and cogni- 
 
MIND 83 
 
 tions which are articulations of a single self-conscious subject ; 
 and it rises to a u nity which is not natural at all. 
 
 Before stating flie contrast between nature and mind in its 
 final aspect — viz. the antithesis of finite and infinite — we may 
 indicate the limits to the contrast that have emerged in the 
 preceding argument. We have found nature to be the realm 
 of particulars whose being passes over into other particulars 
 external to them, and we have found that mind is the universal 
 and self-contained ; but we have also seen that the univer- 
 sality of mind bodies itself forth in the particulars it knows, and 
 that it is self-contained because it grasps its world within it. 
 That is to say, mind overreaches nature and takes the latter 
 into itself, making it the content of mind and giving it a 
 spiritual subsistence. The difference between mind and nature 
 is not such that mind is merely other than nature, but rather 
 such that mind attains its higher character by including and 
 subordinating nature. Thus mind has a twofold character : 
 by virtue of its contrast with nature it is one side of a relation, 
 but by virtue of its comprehension of nature it is the whole 
 within which the contrast occurs. This is the point at which 
 Hegel's philosophy differs from that of Fichte and that of 
 Schelling. For Fichte, as for Hegel, the ego is supreme, but 
 in Fichte's philosophy there is no room for a genuinely natural 
 world. Fichte — such is Hegel's reading of him at least — is 
 afraid of genuine objectivity, and he does not let the self go 
 free into nature and have as its content a world of external 
 things. All that is in it is a mode and instrument of the 
 fundamental subject which in the last resort is all in all. 
 Hegel, on the other hand, in no wise denies the existence of 
 nature — nature which is temporally prior to the self, and in 
 which the self originates. The worid, for him, as for Fichte, 
 is spiritual, but it is not subjective in the sense of being 
 something produced by mind from its inward parts to satisfy 
 a need— even that of self-realization— existing in the self 
 apart from or prior to nature. And in Hegel's view the self 
 has to draw its purposes from nature and emancipate the 
 potencies that are in objective things. For Schelling, on the 
 other hand, nature is a partner in the whole on equal terms 
 with the subject. Its being is inherent and objective, and the 
 unity which it forms with mind is a unity in which neither 
 mind nor nature predominates. His favourite expression is 
 
 G 2 
 
84 MIND 
 
 that of polarity, or the neutralization of each aspect by the 
 other. Hegel agrees with this in part, by insisting that nature 
 has a character of its own which mind must find in it and by 
 believing that mind comes to itself not in an abstract unity 
 where all is subjective and nothing objective. But at the 
 same time he holds that the difference between nature and 
 mind falls within mind itself. The potencies of thought and 
 purpose which mind finds in its world are of a spiritual 
 character ; they can satisfy mind and in them mind can be at 
 rest with itself. In the last resort, if this view is to be upheld, 
 the very externality of nature must be a moment in the being 
 of mind ; mind must come to itself in its world not merely in 
 spite of the definition, the particularity, and the order which 
 pertain there, but rather because of it — and the category in 
 which we think mind must be nothing less than the ' idea ' 
 itself.i 
 
 We may sum the character of mind in Hegel's view, so far 
 as we have stated it, under two heads, (i) Mind obtains its 
 substance from the outer world ; the details of its content 
 have been found by it and can all be traced to ' natural ' 
 sources ; even its activities come from nature, for mind arises 
 in nature, and its impulses and desires, the staple of its 
 practical life, are set in it by the circumstances of its origin. 
 Its very form is a unity to which that which was natural has 
 risen. But at the same time the natural is transformed and 
 idealized when it becomes spiritual ; it achieves a unity and 
 constitutes a system which is mind and not nature. On one 
 side, therefore, mind is the internalizing of the external, the 
 deliverance into explicitness of the mind buried or latent in 
 nature. (2) By apprehending the objective and taking it as 
 content, mind articulates and determines itself. In its truth 
 it is not an empty or abstract universal but a concrete whole 
 developing itself into differences. Every objective fact or law 
 which mind understands and can henceforth use, is a fresh 
 organ which it has put forth, a determination whereby greater 
 concreteness is gained. Mind for Hegel is never the merely 
 inward, the notion as a bare principle, but always an arti- 
 culated universal, a world, the ' idea '. Its moments, how- 
 ever, are always ideal, members of itself, and live in its 
 medium and with its character ; and hence the ' reality ' 
 
 ' V. below, pp. 265 ff. 
 
MIND 85 
 
 of mind is of a higher order than the ' existence ' found 
 in nature. 
 
 This brings us to the final form of the contrast between 
 nature and mind. The natural is finite and under necessity ; 
 mind is infinite and free. We may take the former term first. 
 We have seen that the natural thing is finite because it is 
 externally determined and because if its limits are transcended 
 its proper quality qua natural thing is lost.' But mind in its 
 truth is not thus limited. Hegel does not deny that mind 
 may be finite, and two sections out of three — one of these two 
 being the science of the ethical life — of the philosophy of mind 
 are occupied with finite mind. But the finitude of mind is 
 other in character than the finitude of nature ; for even in its 
 finitude mind remains infinite. When mind is in its proper 
 form the place of finitude is within the whole : mind articu- 
 lates itself into moments each of which is individual and 
 definite — other than the whole, and hence finite. The word 
 infinite is used in common speech in a variety of ways. Some- 
 times the term denotes the contradictory opposite of the 
 finite, that which is not-finite — and it is in this sense that 
 Spencer's Unknowable is infinite. But to oppose the infinite 
 thus to the finite is to limit the former by the latter, and hence 
 to render it finite. An aUied use is that which identifies the 
 infinite with the endless or indefinitely extended ; in this 
 sense we speak of infinite space and time, or an infinite series 
 of numbers. But if this conception is taken seriously it means 
 simply the indefinite, that which transcends all bounds 
 because it has in it no principle of definition. It is all-compre- 
 hensive in the sense that nothing shuts it out, but it lacks 
 comprehension in the sense that differences do not belong to 
 it ; it is endless because abstract. If this thought is generalized 
 the infinite becomes utterly empty— pure being which is 
 nothing. But there is a third sense which stands scrutiny. 
 The infinite is that which includes and sustains the finite ; all 
 bounds belong to it and are modes of its being, but it is 
 confined by none of them. It is a whole system, leaving 
 nothing outside it, but including everything as its own and as 
 itself. In this sense the self is infinite. There is no range to 
 • the limit of its power, and nothing is inherently beyond the 
 ' scope of its thought and ultimate purpose. External nature 
 itself is the mind's own world and an embodiment of it— bone 
 
86 MIND 
 
 of its bone and the substance of its life. But if this be the 
 radical aspect of mind, what does its finitude mean ? ' Mind ', 
 says Hegel, in the Encyclopaedia, ' is the infinite "idea", and 
 finitude means here the incongruity of notion and actuality.' i 
 Mind is finite-w hen it i s in contradicii^in-wiibUtselfj_whei^ 
 giSbod^srtself in shape^wEclT cannot tmlyjr^ EzeiE ~~ns 
 coTitent is 'anen'to iT and withstands itTHegel points out 
 that the nature of mind lies not in the limit but in the infinite 
 that is distorted by the Hmitation. UnUke the natural thing, 
 the mind can transcend the limit without loss of identity ; it 
 may, by taking deeper thought, circumvent the obstacle and 
 even use it. Mind, unhke the thing, is not constituted by 
 being shut out by its neighbours. Moreover, even when mind 
 is limited it is also beyond the limit and its infinity appears 
 in its finitude modifying the latter. ' The very fact that we are 
 aware of a limit, is proof that we are beyond it and of our 
 unlimited being. . . . Only the unconscious is ^ hmited, for it is 
 not aw are of its limit, ^n the other Hand, He who is aware ol tlie 
 limit is aware-of it hot as a limit to his will but as something 
 known, something belonging to his knowledge. Only the 
 unknown would be a limit to the will, and the known limit is 
 no limit to it. Thus, to know one's limits is to know one's 
 unlimitedness.' ^ That is to say, Hegel sees no ultimate 
 difference between the determination which is felt to confine 
 the self and that in which the self is more thoroughly aware 
 of its freedom. In knowing the determination we have 
 appropriated it, and made it ours ; and even in this extreme 
 opposite the self maintains its universality and self-contained 
 being. Moreover, in being aware of its confinement it is aware 
 of the greater self whose nature the limit cramps. And the 
 process of transmuting the limit into a means is of the same 
 nature as the internalizing of the objective in general. A some- 
 what commonplace illustration may make this clearer. Sup- 
 pose a man becomes aware of a defect in his eyesight. In 
 order to do so, he must contrast what he sees with what he 
 should see, and must realize that a fuller vision properly 
 belongs to him. In order to know his Hmit he must apprehend 
 his essential nature of being beyond that limit. When he has 
 become aware of his defect it begins to lose its hmiting charac- 
 ter. He can now take into account the weakness of his sight i 
 1 § 386. 2 Encyclopaedia, § 386 note ; WW. VII b. p. 38. 
 
MIND 87 
 
 and judge external things accordingly. Then, by accurate 
 knowledge of his defect he may take steps to correct it, and 
 by such means as the use of glasses he may restore normal 
 vision and overcome his defect. Now, it is important to note 
 that when this limitation is thoroughly mastered it is not 
 annihilated. The defect is sublated or merged, as Hegel puts 
 it, but its special character is still operative. To have restored 
 eyesight is not to see without defective eyes but to have one's 
 eyes corrected and supplemented ; and the nature of the 
 supplementation depends on the special weakness of the eyes. 
 So, in general, the idealization of the objective is not its 
 destruction, but a transformation which also preserves it ; and 
 if this were not so mind would lose that opposite in which 
 alone it comes to itself. ' But when mind is explained to be 
 unlimited and truly infinite, we must not say for that reason 
 that the limit is whoUy and entirely excluded from mind. We 
 have rather to recognize that mind must determine itself, and 
 thus limit itself and make itself finite.' 1 Even the contra- 
 dictions of its immature forms must have a significance for 
 mind and be idealized into a mode of its self-reahzation. And j 
 so, after stating that the finitude of mind hes in the incongruity | 
 of its notion and its actuahty, Hegel adds that this finitude is 
 ' an appearance which the mind inherently posits in itself as 
 a Urait to itself, in order, by its sublation, expUcitly to possess 
 and know freedom as its essence, i.e. be completely mani- M 
 fested.' 2 
 
 The infinity of mind is its freedom. Freedom is not the mere 
 absence of constraint but is active self-determination. In 
 truth nothing can be free from constraint except by mastermg 
 the world, for the world is one connected whole. To withdraw 
 into the privacy of one's abstract self-identity is to exclude 
 from the scope of one's freedom all the forces that move one^s 
 life ; it is to pretend that one is a thing to which nature is 
 external. The self is free, according to Hegel, because m all 
 its actions it deals only with what is ideal and its own ; its 
 connexions with the world are those of feeUng, thought, and 
 will— mental powers in which the unity and self-identity of 
 the self is reaHzed. ' Freedom ', says Hegel, ' does not come 
 by flight from the other— it is rather an independence of the 
 other gained in the other, and comes to reality by mastery 
 1 Ibid. ' Ibid. § 386. 
 
MIND 
 
 over the other.' i By ideahzing nature mind preserves its own 
 supremacy and self-possession. As the concrete unity of 
 opposites, it finds its own self immanent in its world, the 
 ultimate significance of that world ; and hence in its relation 
 to its opposite it is in relation only to what is its own and the 
 embodiment of itself. The abstract view of freedom minimizes 
 the connexion between mind and reality, and at most regards 
 freedom as something preserved by mind in spite of the forces 
 of nature. Hegel, however, regards the natural as essential 
 to freedom ; but for its relation to things mind would be 
 isolated, empty, and impotent. It is by mastering the natural 
 bond and making it a means to the final unity, the self, that 
 mind develops its freedom. And the first step to mastery over 
 nature is connexion with it. ' This relation to the other is not 
 merely a possibihty but a necessity in mind ; for it is by 
 means of the other and by means of its sublation that mind 
 preserves itself, and indeed is that which it has to be accord- 
 mg to its notion, viz. the ideality of the external, the " idea " 
 which returns into itself out of its other-being, or — abstractly 
 put— the universal which differentiates itself, and in its 
 differentiation remains self -identical and exphcit.'^ Only the 
 infinite is free, for only the infinite is the absolute realized 
 system beyond which there is nothing. 
 
 Mind, we have seen, realizes itself in its world, but that 
 world thereby gains a new character ; it is ideahzed and given 
 a spiritual substance. The expressions of mind are thus not 
 mere facts but vehicles of the whole, particulars which are 
 suffused with the universal. ' The definite being of mind is 
 therefore manifestation. ' « By idealizing its world mind reveals 
 itself ; it comes to be what it is inherently. In the reciprocal 
 system of nature each element is, in a sense, the appearance of 
 the others ; for it is the definite expression of all the forces 
 which have conspired together to produce it. But since 
 natural facts are all particular, each is the appearance of what 
 is exphcitly other than itself. A sharp distinction is thus 
 drawn between the appearance and that which appears, and 
 the underlying or latent unity is unable to subordinate it. 
 Ihus, in spite of the identity of content which Hegel has 
 insisted upon in causality, cause and effect are different things, 
 and in appearing as the effect the cause renounces its individu- 
 ' Encyclopaedia, § 382 note. 2 Ibid. a /jj^ g 383. 
 
MIND 89 
 
 ality. But the character of mind is to reaUze itself in its 
 world ; ' mind is not lost in this other, rather it preserves and 
 realizes itself there, stamps its own inward nature on the 
 other, giving the latter a mode of being agreeable to the 
 nature of mind, and thus, by the sublation of the other, of 
 definite actual difference, attains concrete explicit being and 
 definite self -revelation. In this way what mind reveals in the 
 other is only itself, its proper nature.' ^ Hegel thus reaches 
 the position that self-revelation is what mind is ; its self- 
 manifestation is not an accidental attribute which it happens 
 to have but its essence and true being. This cannot be under- 
 stood if we separate content and form : it has significance 
 only if we see that in mind the form is not something imposed 
 on the content from without, but the unity to which the 
 content itself rises. In mind the modes of its life give them- 
 selves up, body and soul, to the whole, and the whole is filled 
 only with that into which it has articulated itself ; every 
 aspect is the revelation of the self-revealing. 
 _ The conception of mind which- we have thus summarily 
 indicated is Hegel's view of it in its truth. Mind is inherently 
 universal, self-contained, all-inclusive, infinite, self-revealing, 
 and free. But is this really a thinkable conception ? And do 
 the forms of mind which we meet in experience bear it out ? 
 Hegel's answer to this question is the whole philosophy of 
 mind. In the Philosophy of Right one of the levels of finite 
 mind is analysed, and the purpose of the subsequent chapters 
 of this book is to show how Hegel verifies these features in so 
 far as they are to be found in the ethical life. But although 
 the consideration of the whole philosophy of mind is beyond 
 our scope, we may indicate briefly in the next chapter the way 
 in which Hegel traces his general conception of mind in those 
 abstract forms which are dialectically prior to the ethical will. 
 
 ' Ibid. note. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 The philosophy of mind is divided into three parts, dealing 
 respectively with subjective, objective, and absolute mind. 
 Absolute mind is mind in its truth ; all discrepancy between 
 implicit and explicit has been overcome, and every determina- 
 tion — even the externality of nature and the uttermost self- 
 contradiction of which mind is capable — is thoroughly pene- 
 trated by mind and idealized. Objective mind is mind which 
 realizes itself in the outward world, giving to things a spiritual 
 essence and function, but Hegel judges it to be finite. Mind 
 here has particularized itself, given itself outward existence, 
 and built its ends into an objective world. But the world 
 thus developed by mind does not thoroughly include nature,; 
 its constructions — although realized — are artificial, and are 
 not seen as the full truth of the object. This is the world of 
 right and is the final standpoint of Fichte's philosophy. 
 This consideration, however, will come before us more appro- 
 priately when we have discussed the Philosophy of Right 
 itself. 1 Subjective mind is the first and most abstract aspect 
 of mind, the side which in a developed consciousness is recog- 
 nized to be one side of the relation of mind and its object. 
 It is mind on the side of its abstract form, considered not as 
 realizing itself in natural things but merely as a feeling, 
 thinking, willing self whose embodiment is its feelings, 
 thoughts, and purposes. Hegel points out that the term he 
 has used to denote this mode or aspect of mind is somewhat 
 misleading. Mind is always realized, for its notion is that 
 of the self-realizing and revealing. Hegel has apprehended 
 the point at which Cartesianism tried to overcome its dualism, 
 by identifying the essence and the existence of the self. The 
 self is its mental process, and its reality lies in those thoughts 
 and volitions which dualism separates from reality by an 
 impassable gulf. Mind stands behind the distinction of sub- 
 
 ' V. chap. XIII. p. 262 ff. 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND 91 
 
 jective and objective and is on both sides at once. Thus we 
 may regard the early imperfect appearance of mind either as 
 a subject which has yet to be objectified, or as an objective 
 fact which has not yet developed into genuine ideality or 
 subjectivity. On neither side has it completely overcome 
 the externality of nature, and its contents require to be more 
 fully sublated. Hegel puts the point thus. ' We have given 
 the name, subjective mind, to that form of mind which we 
 must consider first, because mind here is still in its undeveloped 
 notion, and has not yet made its notion objective. But in 
 this its subjectivity mind is also objective, and has an imme- 
 diate existence, by the sublation of which it first becomes 
 aware of itself, comes to itself, and attains the apprehension 
 of its notion and subjectivity. Thus one might just as well 
 say that mind is primarily objective and has to become 
 subjective, as conversely that it is only subjective and has 
 to make itself objective. Consequently, the distinction of 
 subjective and of objective mind is not to be regarded as 
 a fixed one.' ^ When the expression, subjective mind, is used, 
 this qualification has to be kept in view. Another way of 
 indicating the different stages is to distinguish them as 
 universal, particular, individual. But the same reservation 
 must be made in this case also ; for what is here called 
 universal mind is characterized by its abstract individuality, 
 and through its contrast with nature is itself a particular. 
 The truth is that the stages we are discussing are more concrete 
 embodiments of the general stages of the Logic; the first 
 stage of mind corresponds to, and is a concrete form of, the 
 categories of being, the second stage corresponds to essence, 
 and the third to the notion. Another way of distinguishing 
 the stages of mind which has less need of these constant 
 qualifications is to use the terms immediate or unmediated, 
 mediate, and self -mediating. Subjective mind is the imme- 
 diate mode of mind, its self-contained being, not yet articu- 
 lated into a world other than itself. 
 
 Hegel begins his account of mind with its poorest and 
 least adequate form of aspect, and to this he gives the name 
 of the sold. We need not follow the stages of his argument 
 closely and may depict its general course. The soul is mind 
 still imprisoned in nature ; it has as yet drawn no distinction 
 ' Encyclopaedia, § 387 note. 
 
92 SUBJ ECTIVE MIND 
 
 between itself and the external world, and the hard and fast 
 antitheses of later life do not exist for it. In a wide sense 
 of the term it can be called instinctive mind, for it does not 
 yet frame purposes to itself but is moved by forces welling 
 up in it, which we, the observers, see to be the immediate 
 transformation of natural influences into psychical form, 
 but which the soul itself simply gives expression to without 
 any consciousness of their origin or significance. Everything 
 in the soul is merged in one vague mass of feeling, which 
 glides from one phase to another, but it does not compare its 
 phases, and is hardly conscious of their difference. This 
 simplicity of the soul is not the same thing as the self-identity 
 of reflective consciousness ; it is simple merely because it has 
 not been broken up. Thought has not yet developed its 
 antagonisms and given the content definition for the soul 
 itself. At this level of mind there is a naive unity with the 
 natural ; the soul is receptive and passive, absorbing into its 
 substance and giving spiritual embodiment to the influences 
 of nature without any knowledge of its own transforming 
 power. The natural conditions of its bodily life provide its 
 content. Influences of climate and of race help to determine 
 the bodily structure and function of the living organism, and 
 such environmental features are immediately reflected in the 
 character of the soul. So too the temperament, talents, and 
 special character of families or individuals can be considered 
 as the transformation into psychical form of the natural and 
 material world in which they are found. In the same way 
 Hegel regards the influence on the soul of the natural stages 
 of life ; childhood, youth, manhood, and old age all reflect 
 themselves in the temperament of the soul and in the features 
 of its content and expression. The natural differences of the 
 sexes, not yet raised to spiritual significance by thought, nor 
 established by the ethical will in the family, assert them- 
 selves in the immediate being of the soul and give its features 
 a structure. Of course, all the modes of the soul are more 
 than natural, and have in them the marks of mind itself. 
 Mood, temperament, innate character, and instincts do not 
 belong to natural 'things', and the environment expresses 
 itself thus only in and as the soul ; but by contrast with the 
 later forms of mind, such abstract immediate life may well 
 be called natural and passive ; for its own nature is not yet 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND 93 
 
 apprehended by it. The feeUng soul is ' the form of the dull 
 stirring, the inarticulate breathing, of the mind through its 
 unconscious and unintelligent individuality, where every 
 definite feature is still "immediate" — neither specially deve- 
 loped in its content nor set in distinction as objective to 
 subject, but treated as belonging to its special, its natural 
 peculiarity.' ^ 
 
 In order to transcend this bare immediacy mind has to 
 idealize its content and escape from its direct immersion in 
 nature. One step in this progress is the development of habit. 
 Habit is a transformation of the immediate content into 
 a psychical form ; it is the supersession of nature by a second 
 nature. One must not allow the mechanical character of 
 habit to obscure the fact that it is a recasting of the natural, 
 the reduction of immediate feeling to a moment — though but 
 an inadequate one — of a single life, and the infusion of some 
 measure of universality and self into it. ' Habit is often 
 spoken of disparagingly and called lifeless, casual, and parti- 
 cular. And it is true that the form of habit, like any other, 
 is open to anything we chance to put in it ; and it is habit of 
 living which brings on death, or, if quite abstract, is death 
 itself : and yet habit is indispensable for the existence of all 
 intellectual life in the individual, enabling the subject to be 
 a concrete immediacy, an ' ideality ' of soul— enabling the 
 matter of consciousness, religious, moral, &c., to be his as 
 this self, this soul and no other, and be neither a mere latent 
 possibility, nor a transient emotion and idea, nor an abstract 
 inwardness, cut off from action and reality, but part and 
 parcel of his being.' ^ 
 
 As the soul articulates itself and attains a unity in the shape 
 of self-feeUng, there gradually arises within it the distinction 
 between the self and the not-self. Out of the shapeless mass 
 of primitive feehng there gradually emerge landmarks of 
 various sorts ; comparisons begin to be made, distinctions 
 acquire steadiness and permanence, and objects are recog- 
 nized. In this way the observer sees the self building its 
 content into a world of distinguished things in a concatenation 
 of relationships, grouping contents together and finding laws 
 in them. The Cartesian influence in philosophy has led some 
 
 ' Encyclopaedia, § 400; v. Wallace's translation, p. 21. 
 ^ Ibid. § 410 ; Wallace, p. 44. 
 
94 SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 thinkers to say that the primary content, the datum, of mirid 
 is subjective— a complex of ideas, desires, and feehngs from 
 which a transition has to be made to the objective and out- 
 ward. Thus Lotze speaks of the first step of thought as the 
 objectification of the subjective. Hegel's view differs from 
 this. The content with which mind begins is neither subjective 
 nor objective, but lies beneath that distinction ; or — to put it 
 otherwise — in the soul subjective and objective are imme- 
 diately identical with one another. Mind at this stage has 
 not risen to consciousness of its identity and permanence, 
 nor has it set the distinctions of mine and not-mine within 
 the continuity of its experience. The flow of its life has not 
 been checked so that it might be thrown back on itself and 
 made aware of the difference between the order of its thoughts 
 and the order of things. Nor has the conception of objec- 
 tivity been developed ; the soul does not yet know that it 
 lies in a world of things, and it neither reads mind into nature 
 nor denies it to the latter. Doubtless an external observer 
 can draw sharp lines between the activities of the soul and the 
 natural forces of which these activities are the utterance, 
 but for the soul itself these differences are still latent and 
 unobserved. To put this in another way, the activities of 
 the soul, the movements of its content, have not yet become 
 a content of which it is aware, and everything is submerged 
 in immediate feeling. Moreover when the distinction does 
 begin to develop, and the immediacy is broken, the construc- 
 tion which first laecomes explicit is that of objectivity. The 
 immediate possession of natural forces as one's psychical 
 substance is gradually transcended by an organization of the 
 content into a world — a world of things. That is to say, 
 the lower unities implicit in the matrix of the feeling soul are 
 the first to appear to it ; the higher aspects are developed 
 later. At this stage the observer sees the growing distinction 
 within the compass of the one mind, and he notes the difference 
 between that which the self does and the world which is about 
 it and in it. But just as the comparison of the various 
 contents of the soul was hidden from the soul itself, so this' 
 comparison of its activities and its world is also beyond the 
 view of the subject. What the subject is for us and what it is 
 for itself are as yet distinct. 
 
 The next step in mind's development is that whereby it 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND 95 
 
 becomes aware of itself and learns to say ' I '. In Kant's 
 phraseology, it becomes aware of its identity in its synthetic 
 act ; it ceases to be immersed in its object, and becomes 
 conscious that the entirety of this object is present to one self. 
 Thus self-consciousness is the reflection of the self from its 
 world upon itself. All consciousness is implicitly self- 
 conscious, for the external observer sees that it is only in and 
 through the synthetic activity of the self, which realizes 
 itself in each mode of its activity, that mind can build up 
 a world against it. In self-consciousness there becomes 
 explicit for the subject the self -identity in virtue of which 
 alone consciousness of the objective world is possible. And 
 hence Hegel says that self-consciousness is the truth of 
 consciousness. 
 
 Self-consciousness is at first abstract : Kant's conception 
 of the unity of apperception, which is abstractly self-identical 
 and is expressed by the analytic proposition ' I am I ', is an 
 accurate rendering of what is explicit to this incipient shape of 
 self-consciousness. The consideration that the identity rests 
 on and implies difference, that self-identity is possible only 
 for a self which maintains itself through a process, is still 
 hidden from the subject and is patent only to the observer. 
 Abstract self-consciousness is thus an embodied contradiction ; 
 for it is the whole taking itself to be only one side of the 
 relation. Self-consciousness in its truth comprehends con- 
 sciousness, and in its perfect form the unity of these opposites 
 is explicit ; but in abstract self-consciousness the unity is 
 still implicit and, like all latent and undeveloped principles, 
 shows itself by the immediate conversion of the one into the 
 other. This immediate conversion is seen in the identification 
 of itself by this abstract self-consciousness with one term of 
 the opposition, i.e. with consciousness and not with its 
 object. The specific mode in which this form of mind is 
 called forth is appetite. In the natural soul there lie dull 
 organic cravings, movements in which natural agencies take 
 mental shape, but the soul does not know the character of 
 these processes ; it has not set up ends for itself, and it is not 
 aware that it is idealizing the natural. But in appetite mind 
 finds itself confronted with a natural world, other than itself, 
 and even hostile to it. To maintain itself it has to dominate 
 that world and deny its indifference. Hence it consumes the 
 
96 SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 natural object and restores and maintains its self -identity. 
 At the level of appetite mind has not yet developed ends and 
 purposes in a strict sense, and it does not prefigure its satis- 
 factions and devise means ; it is immediately confronted by 
 an object threatening its independence, and it reacts directly 
 or instinctively. Appetite, however, stands higher than mere 
 organic impulse, because, although the conative process is 
 instinctive, it results in the awareness of self-satisfaction and 
 continued identity. Its defect, as a realization of mind, is 
 that it is individual and selfish. In appetite the object is 
 consumed, the individual natural thing is not merely trans- 
 formed but is destroyed ; and the transitory individual 
 satisfaction is unable to sustain the permanent harmony of 
 the self. The satisfaction of appetite is satiety, and there 
 arise new appetites equally incapable of giving rest to the 
 self as a whole. 
 
 This abstract mode of mind becomes more concrete in what 
 Hegel calls recognitive self-consciousness. Mind is not 
 satisfied with subordinating endless series of things to itself, 
 and it must have embodiment in some more adequate and 
 enduring way. This need is met normally only in a changed 
 medium, and self-consciousness attains greater fullness bj 
 apprehending that it is in relation not only to external nature 
 but also to other self-conscious beings. Hegel lays stress on 
 this consideration, and he believes that in it lies the philo- 
 sophic significance of slavery. The early and abstract efforts 
 of self-consciousness to express itself in a medium adequate 
 to it are fashioned somewhat on the model of its early domin- 
 ance over nature as realized in the satisfaction of appetite. 
 Another self is treated as a higher and more complex ' thing ', 
 and regarded as a mere extension of the selfhood of the 
 master ; the revolution of the individual self, which comes 
 about when it apprehends its concrete rationality in a society 
 of free selves, has not yet taken place. Aristotle's conception 
 of slavery is the naive expression of the point to which Hegel 
 here gives a context and a deeper meaning. The natural 
 slave is an animate thing, a living extension of the master's 
 person. The slave does not actively possess reason and is 
 unable of himself to live a full and free life ; but he is capable 
 of obeying the reason of his master, and his incompleteness is 
 supplemented from without by the active reason of his lord. 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND 97 
 
 Natural slavery thus is regarded as beneficial to both sides. 
 On the one hand the sphere and being of the master is extended 
 in the slave, and his rational freedom embodies itself in an 
 enduring object — indeed in a quasi-thinking and willing self ; 
 and on the other hand the slave is taught to renounce the 
 imperfect thought and will of his limited and unsubstantial 
 selfhood, and follows the dictates of a fuller self which he 
 must take as his own. 
 
 In this relationship the moments of a higher rational life of 
 mind appear, although in an isolated and abstract way. For 
 one thing, there is the supremacy of self-consciousness, and 
 the single self of the master has spread itself over two minds 
 and embodied itself in another which is regarded as rational 
 in a passive or receptive fashion. Again, in the relationship 
 there is the renunciation of the abstract individuality of 
 a self-centred being, and the conscious subordination of 
 private ends to a whole at least nominally higher and more 
 rational. But on the other hand, these moments of -mind 
 are not set in their proper relation, and they are formal or 
 abstract. The two aspects we have indicated are inseparable 
 in the life of mind, and, as we shall see, each self overcomes 
 and merges its own self-will and finds itself in a wider and 
 more rational whole ; but in slavery the aspects are sundered 
 and allotted to different factors, and hence do not properly 
 interpenetrate one another. In slavery the supreme will is 
 still essentially private and unregenerate, it is the caprice of 
 the master extended arbitrarily over other persons. The 
 aspect of negation, the suppression of the narrow and indivi- 
 dual self, is confined to the side of the slave and has no power 
 over the lord. The relationship is thus not fully beyond 
 the sphere of essence and may be taken as a concretion of the 
 category of substance. The slave is an accident of the 
 master's will— or would be so, if slavery could be made the 
 whole truth of a human relationship at any stage of develop- 
 ment, a point which is highly doubtful— and the negative 
 element of the accident does not penetrate to the underlying 
 principle, viz., the will of the master. This first attempt of 
 self-consciousness to realize itself is thus abstract, and fails 
 ori both sides of the relation. By the total suppression of the 
 I active reason of the slave the master weakens and partly 
 ; destroys the rationality of his own expression and utterance ; 
 
 221 1 H 
 
98 SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 and on the other hand the right of self-consciousness in the 
 slave is bound to break through in time. The relation is thus 
 inherently unstable, and when the possibility of a truer form 
 of life makes itself clear, slavery cannot endure.^ 
 
 The fuUer form of self-consciousness is found in the rational 
 community where each self recognizes other selves as rational 
 and free and is in turn so recognized by them. We have seen 
 that self-conscious*ness arises when the subject is confronted 
 by a hostile object, and, by consuming it, sustains himself, 
 and is aware of his preserved identity. Another self is at 
 first sight such a threatening object, and its independence 
 is as grave a danger to myself as is an independent natural 
 object ; for the foreign self may bend things to his purposes 
 and satisfactions and exclude mine. When particular minds 
 collide, the first effort of each is directly negative with regard 
 to the other ; each seeks to destroy the other. When the 
 possibility of extending the self through slavery is perceived, 
 the ' other ' is preserved and subordinated in the way we have 
 just analysed. In the rational community, however, a deeper 
 truth appears : man has found there that the self is not 
 mherently private, and that it is not necessary to suppress 
 another self in order to preserve one's own. Mind is intrin- 
 sically universal, and its universality is capable of concrete 
 ^ A slight digression may be permitted here. Those who dwell on 
 the mfluence of economic factors in the abohtion of slavery are apt to 
 Ignore the fuU import of the situation. Doubtless slavery did not rive 
 S+w ^^^s^ economic disadvantages began to appear, and it maybe 
 true that on the whole the emancipation of the slave was advantageous 
 to the lord or employer— if sufficient conpensation for capital-valu« 
 r.«o.^lH °?^?^- ^"* *^'. consideration in no way precludes the 
 w. fit^i^+i, the process, and one has to insist that the driving principle 
 7Z t^7 I rational nature of mind. In slavery mind is broken into 
 two and each part is defective. The weakness of the relationship lies 
 rh^r.n3of4-l '■^'''°° °*. S^ '^^''^ ^°<^ *^^ uneducated and unmediated 
 thP rh^n™ *\V^^'f "" ?^ *^.® ™^'*^'^- ^"^^ it is a mistake to suppose 
 consdoT.? .^^ the situation is rational only if it comes about by self- 
 One ^T. w»^ f ^Trt■''''? benevolence on the part of the master. 
 answS^s tW frii' 7^ '' slave-labour unprofitable ? and the final 
 wofitab e ^^l Itr ^^°r,f ''i"°^^ profitable. But the latter is more 
 capable of prL/T^ *^! ^^^\%' °^ Potential free man, is inherently 
 truthinitth^n^«^ 1°''.^'^*^; ." *^^ °^™'i °^ tl^e slave had no fuller 
 Te wouW be Lss effilent t^ Aristotle's doctrine, then as a free labourer 
 aLur the effectl^ W. ''.f ^-'l^^^' However the change comes 
 throughlS fate hap ° '' " '"*^'''''* "'^'"^^ °^ '^'^'' ^^^^'^"« 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND 99 
 
 realization. In the community of self-conscious beings each 
 finds that the other self, which appeared at first sight to be 
 hostile and exclusive, is really one in principle with him, and 
 that his permanence and identity is not necessarily thwarted 
 by the freedom of other selves. Indeed, it is discovered that 
 only through the freedom of other selves is genuine selfhood 
 possible to the individual. Mind demands recognition, it 
 must have utterance in what is adequate to it, and this cannot 
 be attained except in free mind itself. That is to say, Hegel's 
 contention is that mind is not aware of its genuine principle 
 until it is aware of itself as the notion. In relation to what 
 is not mind — ^whether it be mere nature, or the suppressed 
 mind of the slave — mind is boimd to what is other than it, 
 and cannot transcend the alienation. In its lordship over 
 particular things of nature it is alone, and it does not find 
 itself in its object. Doubtless objects yield to it and are 
 unsubstantial against it, but mind demands more than this ; 
 it must not only dominate what is weaker than itself, it must 
 also realize and utter itself in a world which retains the 
 character of the self. It is easy to beat the mist aside, but 
 the toil is unsatisfying and leaves no permanent results. 
 In the fuller forms of spiritual life nature itself is gathered 
 into the substance of mind, and, for example in the religious 
 consciousness, mind finds mind in nature ; but the simplest 
 and most obvious sphere in which mind comes to itself is the 
 rational community where the rationality and freedom of 
 each is patent to the others. * 
 
 ^ At this level mind is aware of itself as reason, as a universal 
 principle appearing without loss of its singleness in different \ 
 selves. The principle is still formal, and is capable of articu- 
 lation in many ways — ^it is not yet the common life realized 
 in the ethical world, and may seek concreteness in such false 
 modes as the barren craving for fame or notoriety ; but I 
 nevertheless it is mind aware of its inherent notion, the soil 
 from which aU spiritual fruition springs. 
 
 This position may not commend itself at first sight. Asso- 
 ; elation with dualistic philosophies and faculty psychologies — 
 so often repudiated and yet adopted — has given the word 
 , ' reason ' a narrow connotation alien to Hegel's meanirig. 
 Hegel never loses sight of the continuity of mind and of its 
 'wholeness in each of its phases ; reason, in his sense, is not 
 
 H2 
 
100 SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 a faculty, nor — properly speaking — an aspect of mind, bui 
 rather a characteristic structure and function which becomej 
 explicit at a certain level. At first sight it may seem thai 
 reason can be made the principle of all mind only by doin| 
 violence to the facts, or by using the word in an entirely 
 unusual and capricious sense. Reason, it might be said, is 
 the principle of knowledge, and a deep gulf lies between 
 knowledge and the other aspects of mind. Surely there are 
 portions of the constitution of the living concrete mind oi 
 man that cannot be resolved into knowledge of any sort ? 
 And is it not therefore an inadequate rendering of mind that 
 bids us look on the principle of cognition as if it were the 
 principle of the whole feeling, thinking and willing self? 
 This criticism springs from a sound instinct, and the truth 
 it urges must be comprehended by any theory which makes 
 pretensions in modern times to philosophic rank. But, when 
 urged against the position that Hegel actually adopts, the 
 argument has no force ; it fails to apprehend the true differ- 
 ence between the various aspects of mind, and consequently 
 it is unaware of the way in which Hegel develops the difference 
 on which it insists. In order to gain a clearer view of the 
 principle of mind we must consider the relation of the theoreti- 
 cal and practical aspects of mind with a more positive inten- 
 tion than we have done in the third chapter. The view 
 which we have to expound is at first sight paradoxical, for 
 it both treats the principle of knowledge as the characteristic 
 feature of mind as such and recdgnizes contents and activities 
 that are not purely theoretical. The paradox, however, restg 
 on a special view of the composition of mind ; and it dis- 
 appears when that view is abandoned. We may, therefore, 
 examine the distinction as ordinarily presented, and then 
 restate it in accordance with Hegel's theory. 
 
 At first sight the distinction between knowing and willing 
 is so sharp that there is a temptation for a philosophy that 
 keeps close to ' common-sense ' to separate the two aspects 
 entirely. But a moment's consideration is siifiicient to dispel 
 the illusion that the two can be characterized by contra- 
 dictory opposite predicates. Willing undoubtedly is active: 
 but activity cannot "be refused to thinking ; for thinking is 
 a process" in which the subject expresses itself. Similarly, 
 when it is pointed out that knowledge is an insight into the 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND loi 
 
 world, the possession of it in an ideal form, and the reduction 
 ,Qf it to mental terms, it is at once obvious that these same 
 characteristics enter into the practical attitude also ; for 
 the realization of a purpose, at least on one side, modifies 
 the objective in accordance with a subjective end and idealizes 
 the real. Nor can a solution be found by taking the opposite 
 course, predicating ideaUty of the will and reality of thought ; 
 for it was made clear in the previous chapter that the apparent 
 realism of knowledge develops itself into a thorough-going 
 idealisiti which interprets and thinks the given. Moreover, 
 as will be seen later, the practical attitude, in spite of its 
 apparent ideality, involves the moment of realism and 
 objectivity. No pair of simple predicates suffices to dis- 
 tinguish wiU and thought ; the relation is too complex. 
 But we cannot stop here. Thought penetrates the will ; 
 and as the will develops it shows more and more plainly the 
 presence of thought within it. It is also true that willing 
 penetrates thinking, and we have seen that, for Hegel, the 
 philosophic attitude — the highest attitude of self-conscious 
 mind^ — contains both ; but, since we are concerned primarily 
 with the will as reaUzed in an ethical world, we may refrain 
 at present from discussing those higher forms of mind in 
 which willing, as such, is merged, and look at the matter only 
 from one side. Obviously willing involves thinking ; ends 
 and purposes are more than pure thought but they involve 
 thought, for they must be known. So, too, the means inust 
 be known, and their adjustment to the end must be appre- 
 hended. A blind wiU, or an unthinking will, is a contra- 
 diction in terms, the paradox of an abstract theory. But 
 there is more to be said in this connexion. In Hegel's view 
 the purpose or end is not known simply in an external way, 
 as the mere object of a contemplating subject ; it is even 
 constituted by principles of the same kind as those which are 
 found in knowledge proper. When a mind rises above its 
 early immediacy, and replaces appetite and impulse by 
 a developed will, the content of the purpose organizes itself 
 into a system, it develops and reveals laws and principles ; 
 and it assimilates its structure niore definitely to that of 
 thought as the will attains strength and character. In the 
 ethical world the objectivity which is the mark of the content 
 of developed knowledge is also the mark of the explicit will. | 
 
102 SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 ' According to this line of thought, willing and thinking seem 
 in danger of merging into one another without distinction, 
 and in order to prevent an abstract identification of them 
 we must regard the problem from a fresh angle. Mind is the 
 embodiment of the ' idea ', and the ' idea ' is the concrete 
 unity of opposites. Up to this point we have assumed a sheer 
 difference of will and thought, and in our discussion we found 
 that a fundamental unity submerged the distinctive features 
 on which we relied ; it seems clear, therefore, that a stable 
 distinction — stable in the sense that the unity of mind will 
 not exclude it — can be found only if we admit the unity of 
 the aspects from the start, and, taking our stand upon the 
 whole, look for an opposition the essence of which is to 
 contribute to the concrete identity of mind. Mind is essen- 
 tially two-sided, and may be regarded either as the inter- 
 nalization of the outward or as the objectification and articula- 
 tion of the inward. Hegel indicates these two aspects, the 
 objectivity and subjectivity of mind, by the words 'being' 
 and ' own '. ' Thus if we consider the initial aspect of mind, 
 that aspect is twofold — as being and as its own : by the one 
 mind finds itself something which is, by the other it affirms 
 it to be only its own.' ^ In its first shapes mind is immediate ; 
 its elements have not yet divulged the system that is implied 
 in them, and the unity of the whole has the abstract form of 
 immediate feeling. The development of mind is therefore 
 a process to mediacy, the revelation of the inter-relation of 
 the moments ; and at the same time a higher immediacy is 
 attained in and through this mediation. This double signi- 
 ficance of the term immediacy is another way of expressing 
 the difference between the abstract unity of the feeling and 
 the concrete unity of the systematic and explicit mind. 
 In this two-sided process both aspects of mind, its objectivity 
 and its subjectivity, are changed ; and Hegel regards them 
 as passing into one another. From one point of view the 
 naive facts of mind are seen to be laid hold of by the self and 
 to be adopted by it as its own being : from the other its 
 inherent nature works itself out in an objective content or 
 world. The former of these is the theoretic aspect of mind, 
 the latter the practical. As a theoretic activity, mind ' has 
 to do with the rational as its immediate affection which it 
 ' Encyclopaedia, § 443 ; Wallace, p. 62. 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND 103 
 
 must render its own : or it has to free knowledge from its 
 presupposedness and therefore from its abstractness, and 
 make the affection subjective.' ^ The impressions of sense 
 have to be divested of the given character, they have to be 
 resolved into laws and principles which are the substance of 
 mind itself. As a practical activity mind begins with a con- 
 tent which is recognized as subjective and its own, and 
 proceeds to translate that content into objectivity by embody- 
 ing it in the world and giving it shape as a power effective in 
 things. In the last resort the two aspects are inseparable, 
 and every whole activity of mind manifests both. In these 
 days we have been abundantly assured that thinking is always 
 purposive, it has a practical motive and makes a practical 
 difference to life. . Hegel goes even farther than this : he is 
 not content to place the practical aspect at each end, as 
 motive and result, but points out that the process of mind 
 which we have called thinking is itself infected with the 
 features of the practical. The distinction, he says, ' is no 
 absolute one ; for even theoretic mind has to do with its own 
 features, with thoughts.' ^ The very datum is one's own, and 
 in internalizing the datum one develops a content of mind 
 into objectivity. Similarly, will has the marks of knowledge ; 
 ' the ends of the rational will are not something belonging to 
 the particular subject, but something absolute.' * That is 
 to say, the content of the rational will is the law of the ethical 
 world, it is of the substance of the world as truly as is any 
 theoretic determination, and the process of embodying it is 
 the transmutation of given objects into an ethical, and 
 therefore spiritual, system. 
 
 We thus reach the position that the theoretical and the 
 practical attitudes of mind are two aspects, whose nature 
 is such that they involve one another, and in their nautual 
 implication constitute a unity of opposites, an embodiment 
 of the ' idea '. 
 
 But mind is not always itself ; it takes imperfect shapes, 
 and comes to maturity only through a series of one-sided 
 expressions. Accordingly there are activities of mind which . 
 can be described as either theoretical or practical : the 
 moments have a phenomenal independence and isolation. 
 In distinguishing consciousness from self-consciousness, we 
 ' Ibid. " Encyclopaedia, § 443 note. ' Ibid. 
 
104 SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 said that, in the former phase, an identical subject was 
 present, but that it was not aware of itself ; in self-conscious- 
 ness this subject became explicit or for itself. In the same 
 way mind may grasp one of its aspects rather. than another: 
 it may regard itself either as ideaHzing its world, or as express- 
 ing itself in an outward system, and it may lose sight of the 
 other side. In such a case it may be named in accordance 
 with its own valuation, i.e. in ■ accordance with its explicit 
 character, and called theoretical or practical. The other 
 aspect is seen to be present by the reflection of a contemplating 
 mind, but for the subject himself it is latent. With this 
 possibility of phenomenal abstractness in view, Hegel arranges 
 the aspects as stages of the dialectic process. First comes 
 theoretic mind, then practical mind, and thirdly, as the 
 unity of both, expUcitly free mind. Theory begins with the 
 objective and renders it mental. ' When I think an object 
 I rid it of its sensuous character and turn it into thought ; 
 I make it something which is essentially mine. It is in 
 thought that I first possess myself, for conceiving is the 
 penetration of an object which no longer resists me. I have 
 taken from it the private aspect which maintained its inde- 
 pendence against me. , . . Every presentation is a universaUzing 
 and belongs to thought, and to make anything universal 
 means to think it. The many coloured picture of the world 
 lies before me : I stand over against it, and, sublating the 
 opposition by thought, I make this content my own. The 
 ego is at home in the world when it knows it, still more when 
 it conceives it.' ^ 
 
 We cannot dwell any longer on Hegel's analysis of theoretic 
 mind, and must omit all the details of the development from 
 intuition, or bare perception, to conceptual thinking. Nor 
 can we insist further on the problems which arise when the 
 effort is made to fix and isolate the theoretic attitude and 
 treat it as a self-dependent activity. But it is necessary 
 to glance at the practical attitude, and to determine very 
 briefly its growth and its capability. The practical attitude 
 begins with a subjective content, and gives it outward being. 
 Its starting point, therefore, is thought, for it presupposes 
 the activity whereby consciousness recognizes a content as 
 its own. ' The will is a special mode of thought — thought 
 » Philosophy of Right, § 4 note. 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND 105 
 
 translating itself into definite being and striving to reach 
 particularity.' ^ The specific difference of will is the limitation 
 and determination of the self. The subject singles out a de- 
 finite content Irom the wide range of the known world which 
 it can abstractly claim as its own, and manifests itself in 
 a definite and limited outward shape. But, at the same time, 
 the universality that is the proper mark of thought is not 
 lost here ; the determinate will is the self-limitation of the 
 universal ego ; and one can say that in volition the totality 
 of his world, which is the man himself, has expressed itself 
 in one of its shapes. The content of will, whether as purpose 
 or as achievement, is not a mere particular but a differentia- 
 tion of a universal, an embodied life or self. ' When I am 
 active in a practical sense and act, I determine myself ; 
 and self-determination means the drawing of a distinction. 
 But the distinctions thus instituted are still mine, the features 
 are in conformity with me, and the ends to which I am 
 impelled are my own. Although I slacken my hold of these 
 features and (fistinctions and place them in the so-called 
 outer world, " even there they remain mine. They are that 
 which I have done or made, and they bear the imprint of 
 my mind.' ^ 
 
 Let us see how this attitude develops. It begins with what 
 Hegel calls practical feeUng, an immediate and undeveloped 
 form of the autonomy of mind. At this stage action is moved 
 by appetite; the self is not conscious of making ends for 
 itself but simply finds itself pleased or displeased. We have 
 seen that self-consciousness awakes in appetite, and the ego 
 is dimly aware of its own identity. Over against the self hes 
 the objective world, sometimes related to the ego in such 
 a way that its self-feeling is enhanced, sometimes thwarting 
 and diminishing it. ' The feeling will is thus the comparison 
 of its immediate and externally derived character with its 
 character as posited by its proper nature. Since the latter 
 has the significance of that which ought to be, the wiU demands 
 that the affection should agree wim it. This agreement is 
 pleasantness, disagreement unpleasantness.' ^ The self has 
 grasped its intrinsic supremacy over the world, and this inner 
 nature has become explicit as a demand or ' ought '. The 
 specific marks of practical feeling are that the agreement or 
 ' Ibid. 2 Ibid. ' Encyclopaedia, § 472 note. 
 
io6 SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 disagreement is simply found by the self, a mere matter of 
 fact, and that the test has not been universalized. _ No con- 
 ception of a concrete hfe has yet become explicit ; each 
 relation is judged separately, and the unity t)f the one self 
 is not apprehended as running through all the relations of 
 the environment to the subject ; a fresh appeal is made in 
 every case. Similarly on the objective side, things are taken 
 separately, and the environment is not judged as a whole and 
 seen to be a single world ; the reactions constitute a series 
 which the self does not gather into a system. Pleasantness 
 and unpleasantness, however, are only the first forms of 
 practical feeling, and in later shapes greater complexity is 
 attained. Hegel instances gratification, joy, hope, fear, 
 anxiety, pain, &c., as feelings in which the relation which is 
 immediately found by the self to pertain between it and 
 things is of various natures and holds of different kinds of 
 objects. A third class of practical feelings are the momentary 
 valuations of ethical and religious situations, and they are 
 those which in common speech we refer to the heart. Feeling, 
 however, is always immediate and contingent ; it is some- 
 thing which we merely find in ourselves and is not the proper 
 medium of self-reveahng mind. Hegel displays a higher level 
 of the practical attitude in impulse and passion. In impulse 
 the satisfaction reached is the work of the mind itself ; the 
 self is no longer content to accept accidental pleasures, but 
 seeks to mould things so that they may suit it. Conscious 
 activity, therefore, and effort are characteristic features here. 
 Further, the satisfaction is no longer purely particular; 
 activity is a process containing different elements, it includes 
 various stages of satisfaction within it. and is therefore 
 a universal. It is extended in time, and unites various 
 objects within one conative unity. Passion is a special form 
 of impulse, and is found when ' the totality of the practical 
 spirit throws itself into a single one of the many restricted 
 forms of impulse, each of which is always in conflict with 
 another '.i In itself passion is neither good nor bad, ' the 
 title only states that a subject has thrown his whole soul— 
 his interests of intellect, talent, character, enjoyment-ron one 
 aim and object.' 2 But it is the basis of aU higher life, and 
 the ethical and religious consciousness must manifest this 
 ' Encyclopaedia, § 473. " Ibid. § 474 ; Wallace, p. 96- 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND 107 
 
 moment of self-limitation and whole-hearted enthusiasm for 
 an end. ' Nothing great has been and nothing great can be 
 accomplished without passion. It is only a dead, too often, 
 indeed, a hypocritical moralizing which inveighs against the 
 form of passion as such.' ^ 
 
 Impulse and passion, however, taken as independent and 
 not as moments of an ethical wiU, are abstract ; although 
 universal when compared with appetite, they are not yet fully 
 universal, for they have not become the expression of the 
 entirety of life. The intrinsic self, which is the standard and 
 immanent end of the practical attitude, must make itself 
 explicit as the ideal of Ufe as a whole, and instead of being 
 revealed spasmodically in separate actions must be sought 
 in the complete range of one's activities. At this level Hegel 
 uses the name, happiness. Happiness is a universal, and 
 negates the particularity of separate impulses. These are 
 sacrificed to one another and to the general ideal, and the 
 good which is sought is no longer that of a moment but of 
 a life. At this stage the wiU raises itself above its first 
 immediacy, it does not let itself go into every possible satis- 
 faction which presents itself, but chooses only those which 
 wiU fit together into a whole. The wiU has now become 
 conscious of its freedom. The natural has lost its power over 
 mind, and every action is the expression of a principle which 
 is of a spiritual character. In choice the will is expUcitly free. 
 
 The meaning of this conception of the free wiU must be 
 carefuUy noted. F reedom i s not isolation from naturejUor 
 i s it lack of order"j~it is^ possil3te -Tonly'to~ariiniiiB^tliat is~in 
 close t ouch witfiTnat ure and thafnianifests' lawlii'i^aHion. 
 
 But the contact with nature "ceases to Be* a boiid "Because 
 in the wUl natural forces have been transformed ; appetite 
 and impulse have divested themselves of the particularity 
 and isolation which they had as natural, and have attained 
 a universality which transcends nature as such. Freedom is 
 not disproved when innumerable ties are shown to subsist 
 between man and his environment, for in the long run the 
 environment is that which becomes ttie se]Jj_ jhiersai.aag§1^n. 
 fo D e decided co ncerns the nature"ancL organization of that 
 enrnonrnenTaiTIlmpeafSnn The self ; and wKexTwelRnSTEat 
 thr^tKolTtaEenhe sHTpe ^fir-pTmciple that transcends the 
 
 ' Ibid. 
 
io8 SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 natural, a principle of self-identity and self-determination, 
 it is absurd to argue that it has to be judged from the standi 
 point of reciprocal action and treated as if the category of 
 necessity were adequate to it. Freedom is not a matter of 
 origin but of character, and the lowly beginnings of mind, 
 its immediacy and natural content, are powerless against 
 the might of the immanent selfhood which subordinates and 
 idealizes them. The content of the free will is its own, that 
 which it now is ; and in being determined by its motives the 
 will is determined by itself. This view of freedom is meaning- 
 less to those who regard the self as an impervious atom related 
 externally to all its phenomena, but freedom is not logically 
 defensible in any guise from that standpoint. If the self is 
 inherently indeterminate and empty, every cietennination of 
 it must be external. But Hegel rejects the assumption, and 
 by regarding the self in the light of the notion he is able to 
 combine objectivity and subjectivity and recognize the 
 freedom of self-determination. 
 
 Choice, then, is the practical attitude realized as explicit 
 free will. But this is only the beginning of freedom — ^its bare 
 notion — and the dialectic passes to more complete phases. 
 I do not think that Hegel's treatment is fairly rendered by 
 the expression, ' degrees of freedom '. The phrase has a 
 quantitative connotation, and suggests that freedom is 
 a substance capable of being cut into portions without altera- 
 tion of quality. The modes of freedom that we are about to 
 analyse differ in kind as clearly as in quantity, and although 
 they may be written as a series their proper relations are not 
 at all like the relations of their names on paper. This warning 
 seems necessary on account of a prevalent tendency to 
 suppose that the dialectic process is understood when it is 
 considered to be a scale of degrees of thought or reality : 
 such thinking forgets that degree, or quantity in general, 
 is one of the subordinate categories, and that the dialectic 
 process can be comprehended in its truth only from the point 
 of view of the notion. Having made this protest against the 
 phrase and the loose thinking that may be behind it, we may 
 proceed. The will is the unity of two moments — ^properly it 
 is the objectification of the subjective, the realization of the 
 ideal, the particularization of the universal. But the harmony 
 may be imperfect, and the will may take its essence to be 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND 109 
 
 either moment to the exclusion of the other. In such a case 
 each phase may be named in accordance with its explicit 
 character, i.e. its character for the subject himself. We who 
 analyse will see in what fashion the, immanent identity 
 asserts itself. 
 
 ' The will contains the element of pure indeterminateness 
 or of pure reflection of the ego into itself. Every limitation, 
 and every given definite and natural content, such as are 
 immediately present in need, appetite, and impulse is dis- 
 solved : this is the limitless infinity of absolute abstraction 
 or universality, the pure thought of self.' ^ This is the 
 negative side of freedom, the recognition of the inadequacy 
 of the natural as such to the principle of mind ; and, when i 
 it is fixed as a definite stage and phenomenon of the will, j 
 mind endeavours to exclude every content from itself and 
 make itself an empty form. ' It is freedom of the void which 
 has risen to be an actual shape and passion.' The theoretic 
 consciousness manifests it in the ideal of an abstract con- 
 templative life, and in the ethical world it comes to life as 
 ' a fanaticism wMch destroys all subsisting civil order, removes 
 all individuals who respect order, and annihilates every 
 organization which seeks to come back to life.' ^ Like every 
 other abstraction, this formal shape of freedom shows within 
 it the opposed moment of the whole, and the implicit unity | 
 reveals itself to the observer. Two points may be noted. \ 
 This abstract universal will is itself a particular ; by excluding j )^ 
 finite motives it places itself over against them and is itself 
 finite. It is one way of acting among other possible ones, 
 and its special feature is abstract universality. This point 
 will be discussed more fuUy in coimexion with what Hegel 
 calls morality.* Secondly, this negative freedom is in bondage , 
 to that which it denies. The negative always involves the l3J\ 
 positive, for where there is nothing to deny negation cannot ; 
 exist. Negation is not the absence of relation, but is itself : 
 a specific relation ; and it is dependent on that which it 
 denies. We smile at Kant when he writes down that he must 
 remember to forget his servant, Lampe, but Kant is expound- 
 ing the nature of every significant negative. When the will 
 appears as the principle of perversity and revolt, every portion 
 of its content comes from that which it rejects and despises. 
 
 • Philosophy of Right, § 5. = Ibid. ' V. chap. IX. 
 
no SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 If the established and old-fashioned are utterly removed, if 
 they are as if they had not been, the revolt against them is 
 meaningless. Diogenes when he parades his poverty is an 
 example of this. Take away the contrast with surrounding 
 luxury, take away the spectators who are to admire his 
 manliness and feel his scorn, then his pride and his virtue, 
 disappear also. Abstract and formal freedom is at the same 
 time unfree, for it is bound to its opposite by ties which it 
 does not include within itself. It must not be forgotten that, 
 even in this. extremity, the will is not a mere thing, wholly 
 under the domination of necessity. It is a self-contradictory 
 phenomenon, both free and not free ; a complex and special 
 unity of the two. It is not a mixture of freedom and necessity 
 in certain proportions, but a false form of freedom ; and one 
 is no more justified in measuring its degree of freedom than 
 one would be in computing the amount of good that is in evil. 
 The second moment in the will is that Of definition, dis- 
 tinction, and limitation. ' Here the ego comes out of distinc- 
 tionless indeterminateness, passes into difference and posits 
 a determination as a content and object. I do not merely 
 will, I will something. A will that . . . wills only the abstract 
 universal wills nothing, and is therefore no will. The parti- 
 cular, which the will wills, is a limitation, for the will must 
 in general limit itself in order to be will' ^ When this aspect 
 is predominant the will is faulty. We must remember, of 
 course, that we are dealing here with the will and not with 
 mere impulse, and that it is an ego, aware of its universality 
 and rational being, that pours itself into the narrow mould. 
 This naively objective will accepts some natural desire and 
 chooses that as its substance. In the simplest and most 
 typical cases of the mode of activity some object is singled 
 out, a place, a pursuit, a person, a finite end of some kind, 
 and all the worth of life is tied to it. The will is always the 
 activity of a universal self, and so the natural object is not 
 taken as it stands but it is given an enhanced value by being 
 made the sole vehicle of the entire man. Thus the pre- 
 dominant feature of this mode of life is a lack of perspective, 
 and it is open to all the contingencies that affect the finite. 
 No single thing is so secure that time and change will not 
 reduce it. The multiplicity of the world is endless, and 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 6 note. 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND iii 
 
 whatever be the object we adore, there are forces beyond 
 it, greater than it is, and these operate on it from outside. 
 The externality of nature is imperfectly sublated here ; 
 instead of taking the world as a true organism, the self has 
 tried to give it unity by grouping the parts around one 
 significant object, and has identified the worth of the world 
 with the permanence of this element within it. 
 
 The concrete wiU includes both moments explicitly ; it 
 is an activity whereby the self gives itself true expression 
 in a determinate world, each element of which is recognized 
 to embody the universal. Every moral action has this 
 character ; for by its means a world is built up, and in that 
 world the self finds its true nature. Hegel's conception of 
 the concrete rational wiU unit es two senses of objectivity 
 which are sometimes separated. Kant has already identified 
 objectivity in one of its uses with the universality and neces- 
 sity of ordered knowledge ; but he had contrasted the object 
 of experience with the thing-in-itself, and had condemned 
 the objectivity found in knowledge as itself phenomenal and 
 subjective, relative to the constitution of our minds, and not 
 true of unconditioned reality. But even when Kant seems 
 most unable to escape the ill effects of his assumptions, his 
 critical spirit appears and reminds us that his view is many- 
 sided. We come into contact with unconditioned reality in 
 practical reason, and in the good wiU we are conscious of 
 ourselves as free. Kant, in his stricter moments, will not 
 allow us to speak of an olDJect of practical reason, because an 
 object requires for its apprehension a detailed content which 
 reason itself cannot supply and which in cognitive experience 
 it receives from the intuition of sense. But although we 
 cannot ^oig_unconditioned reality we can IMnk it, and the 
 uni^eilaIity_of the rnaxinis of the moral consciousness is, so far 
 cLS it goes, congruent .with, the nature olihe tWng-in-itself. 
 TheTkwtnouf mental" constitution is that it, breaks into two ; 
 coiifgfflurd "foria come from different sources and cannot 
 atSri complete harmony. Sense experience has within it no 
 principle of self-determination ; it runs off into indefinite 
 series, and is unable to reach wholeness and complete its 
 content as a self-sufficient system. Pure reason on the other 
 hand possesses the required form of unity, but cannot supply 
 a content : it is an abstract universal unable to make itself 
 
112 SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 concrete. Kant sees quite clearly that the only satisfactory 
 ideal of mind is a self-determining principle, a system in which 
 form and content are at one ; and he has no doubt that 
 a principle cannot be wrought into a true system by being 
 filled from without. Such an alien content is not marked 
 by the characteristics of the whole and is not amenable to 
 reason. Underlying his thought in each of the three Critiques 
 is the ideal of an intuitive understanding, that is to say, 
 a self-determining and self-particularizing universal ; and his 
 position is that if sense experience could attain final coherence 
 and rationality, or if reason could give itself a specific and 
 detailed content, knowledge of things-in-themselves would be 
 possible. The condition of knowledge of reality is ihe unity 
 of the objectivity of experience and the objectivity of reason. 
 Hegel accepts this ideal, and, by revising Kant's initial 
 assumption, he finds the concrete universal to be, not merely 
 a negative standard, but the implicit nature of every rational 
 activity. The sharp lines which Kant draws between sense, 
 understanding, and reason are arbitrary, and, if mind can 
 attain such unity as Kant allows to it, it must be capable 
 of a still higher form. Kant's view is unstable. It leaves 
 unmtelligible the way in which thp ideas of reason act on the 
 understanding, and its persistent separation of the activities 
 of mmd renders their inter-action impossible. If reason is 
 isolated from experience and regarded as if it were a mere 
 form of unity without intrinsic difference, it could not be 
 a regulative ideal of knowledge. Reason, Kant urges, is a 
 spur to knowledge ; it holds up to it the standard of a rounded 
 unity and impels it forward in the endless quest for a coherent 
 and self-contained whole of experience. But the difference 
 between distinctionless unity and a totality of systematic 
 knowledge is immeasurable. Hegel has shown us that bare 
 unity— pure being— is separated by the whole range of 
 thought from the ideal unity of knowledge, the 'idea'; 
 and the former cannot function as the latter. If reason 
 presents the ideal of coherence to knowledge, and if that 
 coherence is to be attained through the extension of know- 
 ledge and not by a regress on the abstract universal that 
 experience contains from the beginning, then reason must 
 itself be more concrete than understanding : in its intrinsic 
 nature it must be the intuitive understanding which Kant seeks. 
 
SUBJECTIVE MIND 113 
 
 Accordingly Hegel revises Kant's assumption that the 
 apparent fixity and hardness of phenomena is the final truth 
 of them. Kant found that experience is constituted by the 
 category of reciprocity, and that things of experience interact 
 without realizing any deeper unity than that passage into 
 otherness which we have seen to be the essence of necessity.^ 
 To put the point in other words, the content of experience, ' 
 for Kant, is purely natural and cannot sustain the proper I 
 unity of mind. Hence, in the ethical world, the natural 
 content of appetite and impulse had to be discarded in order 
 to attain a true universality and a connexion with the un- 
 conditioned. For Hegel, on the other hand, the fixity and 
 incoherence of natural impulses is only a first appearance 
 and not the final truth. The practical attitude, of which 
 they are the crude manifestation, is capable of higher things ; 
 and in rationalizing its content and building it into a con- 
 sistent aim of life as a whole it is developing the intrinsic 
 nature of impulse, itself. Hegel denies that the crudity and 
 IrrationaTity of impulse is final : the natural springs of action 
 are developed when they are made adequate to mind, their 
 potential relations become explicit, and they show that there 
 is an aspect in them which is not realized when they remain 
 merely natural. Thus, impulse and will are respectively the 
 abstract and the concrete ; and Hegel insists that the imper- 
 fect and one-sided appearance of the natural motive is a tran- 
 sitory phase, which is merged in the rational will. The truth 
 of impulse is its ideality, i. e. its subordination to an ethical 
 principle and its capacity for rationality, not its actuaUty, 
 i.e. its apparent isolation and independent being. 
 
 It is in this way that the two meanings of objectivity 
 come together for Hegel. The full being of the objective or 
 natural world is not apparent until it reveals itself as the 
 objective and rationalized content of a comprehensive mind. 
 Rationality is the truth of the natural, and mind is the 
 liberation of the true nature of its environment. It is not 
 possible, in the end, to regard the systematic coherence of 
 reason as arbitrary, and as an external addition to the natural ; 
 for, to refer to nothing else, Kant's theory is a standing proof 
 that an extraneous reason cannot subdue a merely natural 
 world, and only those purposes are possible which things 
 » V. above, p. 32 fi. 
 2211 I 
 
114 SUBJECTIVE MIND 
 
 permit. Impulse can be transformed into will only if the 
 former is imperfect and capable of completion ; a true whole 
 cannot be constructed of genuinely independent wholes. In 
 order to fit together at all, the elements must be individually ab- 
 stract, and must find their completion only in their synthesis. 
 From this point of view the concrete will is not exclusive 
 but aU-comprehensive. Unlike its imperfect phenomena it 
 does not limit itself explicitly to the bare form of universality, 
 or to a single pre-eminent content, but wraps within it the 
 entire objective environment. It has admitted the world to 
 co-operation of its plans, and its scope is unbounded. It does 
 not vainly seek to frame arbitrary purposes — that is to say, 
 purposes drawn from some confined range of things and 
 inclusive only of certain aspects of the whole to the exclusion 
 of others — and impose those on objects. Its effort is rather 
 to read the meaning that is in the world, to take that meaning 
 as its own, and to make itself the vehicle of the forces that 
 move things. In so doing it rationalizes its environment 
 and gives the capacities of things an explicit shape that they 
 would not have apart from it. In contrast with the imperfect 
 ; forms of will it is completely free, for it does not shut out the 
 ! world, nor take the part for the whole. It is master over 
 every lesser thing, and there is none greater to master it. 
 The hands of the universe are its hands, and it is entirely 
 self-determined. This conception must not be mistaken for 
 that of mere resignation — the attitude proper to an accident 
 ! of substance. Resignation is the mere surrender of a self 
 that does not find itself again. The concrete will does not 
 i abandon itself to an independently existing plan, for the plan 
 i exists only in it. It is active, not passive ; it conceives and 
 carries out the greatest purposes, for they are those of the 
 whole world. 
 
 In the concrete free wiU the practical attitude has become 
 exphcitly rational ; wiU, starting from thought, has returned 
 to thought again. Its truth and adequacy Ues in its coherence 
 and comprehensiveness, and the further exposition of its 
 nature is the analysis of the structural principles by which 
 rationality is introduced into the chaos of immediate appetite 
 and impulse, and the self reaUzed in an abiding world. Thes^ 
 principles are the content of the science of right, and to them 
 we must now turn, 
 
( 
 
 
 f CHAPTER VI 
 
 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 We have now reached the stage of objective mind. In 
 discussing subjective mind we adopted an external point of 
 view : we indicated different stages and aspects of the 
 general principle, and glanced at the derivation of some 
 complex activities from simpler forms. But although we 
 stated the general requirement that practical mind must 
 organize its content and give it objective significance, we 
 did not show how that content is to be systematized or what 
 development mind itself undergoes when it articulates its 
 immanent principle into an orderly and spiritual world. In 
 dealing with objective mind we take up this other side, and 
 consider the constitutive principles through which mind, as 
 will or practical reason, embodies itself in an outer element, 
 and is recognized by others as a free and objective self. 
 Hegel's point of view is unusual, and at first sight appears 
 incompatible with the requirements of an ethical theory. 
 The dif&culty, however, has already been discussed in its 
 general bearings in the third chapter, and may be dismissed 
 here with a brief reference. Words like right, obligation, 
 and justice are often said to indicate criteria or norms which 
 are sharply divided from the world of facts ; they stand for 
 categorical and unconditional imperatives, independent of 
 the actual. Consequently, from this point of view, there is 
 a gap between the fact and the ideal ; and the normative 
 sciences, i.e. the sciences whose object is the ideal or norm 
 itself, must have some other starting-point and method than 
 those proper to the so-called positive sciences. Hegel, how- 
 ever, treats the philosophy of right as continuous with the 
 philosophic analysis of the subjective forms of mind ; and 
 liis standpoint seems as objective as, e.g., that of psychology. 
 English thought sympathizes the less readily with Hegel 
 because it has no word corresponding to the full significance 
 of the German word Rechi. Recht means not only what we 
 
 I 2 
 
ii6 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 ordinarily call a right but also law. A somewhat similar 
 difficulty arises in rendering the Latin word Jus, and a beginner 
 in jurisprudence sometimes has trouble in accommodating 
 himself to the required atmosphere. It may be useful to 
 indicate from this side the elements which Hegel includes in 
 the significance of his term. Borrowing from the Stoics 
 through Ulpian, Justinian said that ' Jurisprudentia is the 
 knowledge of things divine and human, the science of the 
 just a:nd the unjust '. There is a factor in this definition 
 which is incompatible with the purely positive treatment of 
 law. Austin, for example, urges not only that Justinian's 
 statement is too comprehensive, but also that it reverses the 
 true order : ' it affirms that law is the creature of justice, 
 which is as much as to say that it is the child of its own 
 offspring. . . . But, in truth, law is itself the standard of 
 justice.' 1 The view underlying this criticism has much to 
 recommend it as a working hypothesis for legal purposes, and 
 is not without an element of philosophic truth, for law and 
 right are inseparable ; but it is not wholly satisfactory, for 
 right is not merely derivative and dependent on law. Those 
 who take up the positive position are apt to identify right 
 in general with what the courts wUl uphold, and to derive 
 the authority of the law from the authority of those who do 
 in fact declare it. If the authority of the judge or legislator 
 is questioned, the theory tends to argue in a circle, and defend 
 the authority of the legislator by details of the law. The 
 aspect which is neglected by this attitude is found in a some- 
 what crude shape in Roman law. Roman law falls into 
 three main fields : Jus Civile, Jus Gentium, and Jus Naturale? 
 The Jus Civile was positive in character, consisting solely of 
 enactments by some constituted authority. The Jus Gentium 
 was a system of law governing the relations of Romans with 
 Latins and foreigners. Its terms were stated by the praetor 
 peregrinus, but it was supposed to be based on accepted 
 habits and customs. The idea developed, however, and later 
 jurists held that it was based on natural reason common to 
 all men. The Jus Naturale was even' farther removed from 
 dependence on merely positive sources, and Justinian describes 
 it thus. ' The Jus Naturale is what nature has taught all 
 living things. That law is not peculiar to the race of men, 
 ' Jurisprudence, Lecture V. 2 V. Digest, I. i. 1-4, 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 117 
 
 3ut applies to all living things that are born in the sky, on 
 the earth, or in the sea. Hence comes to us the union of 
 :he male and the femEile which we call matrimony, hence the 
 begetting of children and their upbringing. We see indeed 
 that all other things as well are held to know that law.' ^ 
 Nature is not a worthy sponsor of any section of right, but 
 the conception of natural law has a relative truth against the 
 i^iew which lays all emphasis on the positive side. Natural 
 right asserted itself with vehemence against mere legality in 
 the century b'efore Hegel ; and there would have been little 
 excuse for him if he had faUed to incorporate in his theory 
 the aspects of truth that had stirred men so deeply in the 
 revolutionary times. Indeed Hegel, in spite of the emphasis 
 lie lays on the identity of the actual and the rational, stands 
 nearer in some respects to those who appeal to nature or 
 reason than to those who look upon justice as the mere 
 creature of positive enactment. ' The consideration of the 
 appearance and development of the features of right in time 
 is a purely historical concern, which, together with the 
 knowledge of their intelligible consequences obtained by 
 comparison with other relations of right, constitutes a separate 
 and worthy sphere. This sphere is separate from that of 
 philosophy in so far as the development as an historical process 
 does not coincide with the development of the notion ; and 
 the historical explanation and justification is not absolutely 
 valid. This distinction, which is very important and should 
 be firmly grasped, is at the same time very obvious. A feature 
 of right may be shown to be grounded on and to follow from 
 the existing conditions and institutions of right, and yet 
 be absolutely wrong and irrational, as, e. g., many points 
 in Roman Law that flowed from the established power of the 
 father or husband in Roman society.' ^ He adds ' We are 
 accustomed to speak of Roman or German notions of right, 
 or of notions of right as they are determined in this or that 
 :ode, where in truth the notions are not forthcoming at all, 
 but only general features of right, propositions of the under- 
 standing, principles and laws, &c. By neglect of that dis- 
 tinction the standpoint is confused ; the question of the true 
 iustification is turned into a justification by circumstances 
 
 1 Institutes, I. 2, pr. ; also Digest, I. c. 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 3 note. 
 
ii8 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 and consequences and presuppositions which are themselves 
 valueless ; and in general the relative is set in the place of 
 the nature of the thing.' 
 
 But although right is not of empirical derivation, it is 
 rooted in the nature of mind. In the last three chapters we 
 have seen that mind is an inherent reality working itself out 
 in the phenomenal shapes of human history. When mind 
 first becomes self-conscious it apprehends the incongruence 
 of its ovra principle vnth its external surroundings through 
 the medium of disagreeable feeling ; and this apprehension 
 involves the superiority of the principle of mind to external 
 nature. Mind soon learns to elevate its own being above the 
 presented relation and set up its own satisfaction as a demand. 
 As self-consciousness develops, the demand ceases to be a mere 
 ' ought ', the arbitrary claim of one individual being on 
 another. Mind includes nature, and the essence of the 
 external object is its function as an element within mind. 
 This is the standpoint from which Hegel regards right. Right 
 is more than a claim, or an obligation, or the decree of an 
 authority : it is the realization of self-conscious mind ; and 
 this realization is the intrinsic character of mind, it is what 
 mind does as it comes to itself. Nor is it a mere fact, for 
 its essence is the infusion of rationality into the fact, and the 
 fulfilment of the claim made by mind that the satisfaction 
 and realization of mind itself is the inherent truth of the 
 situation. 
 
 Thus, for Hegel, it is an error to suppose that the essence 
 of right lies in a collision of what is and what ought to be," 
 and to imagine that the conception has no bearing in a realm 
 where each does as he ought. Right is itself fulfilment, the 
 realization and the objectivity of mind, with reference both 
 to things and to other minds ; and the possibility of failure 
 in the effort to reach fulfilment, though of profound importance 
 from many points of view, is a subordinate element in the 
 conception itself. Right may not be the category of a final 
 standpoint — that is a further question — ^btit it is too easily 
 discredited when it is regarded as a suicidal effort to remove 
 a discordance between ideal and factual, and when its essence 
 is laid in the discrepancy of these moments. Such a dis- 
 crepancy is rather the mark of the failure of right to reach 
 its true form, a sign that it is not fully explicit : and any 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 119 
 
 activity whose outcome is satiety, or in which mind cannot 
 find some rest, is inadequate to the principle of the ethical 
 world. 
 
 Right, then, is the general principle of the objective 
 realization of mind, and its special categories are the various 
 moments involved in this realization. Of course one must 
 not expect too much from philosophic analysis. The abstract 
 conceptions with which it deals do not themselves indicate 
 all the detail through which they operate or the many ways 
 in which phenomenal mind embodies them. Just as in the 
 analysis of a category such as thinghood logic did not under- 
 take a description of any particular thing, or state its par- 
 ticular attributes, but confined itself to an analysis of its 
 typical structure, and told us what it is to be a thing ; so 
 here no reference is to be expected to the particular terms of 
 rights — except by way of illustration — and th'e principles 
 evolved are simply the ' diamond net ' in which particular 
 rights are held. Hegel's philosophy of ethics presupposes 
 experience in the ethical sphere, and is concerned only with 
 the fundamentcd categories by which its ethical character is 
 determined. He sets aside ' the possible imagination or even 
 demand which supposes that the systematic development of 
 the notion of right should produce a positive book of statutes, 
 such as is needed in an actual state '.^ 
 
 We may now consider the general division of the subject, 
 and indicate the main stages into which it falls. The dominant 
 principle, of course, is the dialectic ; the starting point, 
 therefor^, is the barest and simplest aspect, and each step 
 brings to light the immanent complexity and mediateness of 
 the whole. Hegel distinguishes three main sections, the first 
 two being isolated moments of tbeJnll conception, the third 
 the conception taken concretely. ! Firs tly, the free will gives 
 itself an immediate embodiment m' objects ; it subordinates 
 something to itself, gives it a place within the context of 
 an abiding purpose, and regards it as the vehicle of mind. 
 The will thus gives itself an outward shape or existence in 
 the thing, and is recognized there byother selves ; this is 
 the sphere of abstract or formal rightw But, secondly, the 
 ethical life is the embodiment of purpoles or ends which arise 
 only within individual subjects. Right has an inward aspect ; 
 1 Philosophy of Right, § 3. 
 
120 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 for it is the satisfaction of a self, and, on one side, is con- 
 stituted by the insight and intention of the agent. This 
 is only a moment in the full being of right, but it may be 
 made explicit as if it were the whole. When the revelation of 
 duty to the individual conscience, the right of private inter- 
 pretation, the claim to be judged only by the standards one 
 .. recognizes as binding and in accordance with the results one 
 intended to. produce are treated as the fundamental and 
 sufficient features of the situation, right has taken the shape 
 of the moral consciousness and embodied itself in a medium of 
 claims and counter-claims that Hegel calls morality. ~In 
 a bstract right, the first di visioi l of the field, the free w5! 
 ,±a.kes_form a nd definite bem gjn^ an individuai tJung : ULthe 
 _ sphere of jnoiality, jtlie second division, TFreveaJsTtselTas an 
 individual subject. ^TKifdly; f he ethical ideal" in itSTJESiprete- 
 ness contains both aspects : it is free will realizing itself 
 both in the conscience of individual subjects and in the outer 
 world of things. It is both subjective and objective. It is 
 the good in which all moral agents can find the satisfaction 
 of their central purposes, and at the same time it is the 
 enduring and objective realization of mind in a common 
 world. Ethical mind constructs for itself a world of institu- 
 tions in which individual selves lead a common life, and in 
 which they find their highest and fullest freedom to be possible 
 only by whole-hearted acceptance of the ends of the rational 
 community as their own. Further characterization of morahty 
 and the ethical order will be more appropriate at a later stage 
 of our argument when we shall have analysed the simpler 
 categories which precede them, but brief notice may be made 
 here of two points in Hegel's terihinology. 
 
 The two words which Hegel uses to denote the second and 
 third divisions of the whole field of right might both be 
 translated into English by either of the two terms ' moral ' 
 and ' ethical '. The distinction between his terms is precise 
 and clear for Hegel, but it is much more blurred in ordinary 
 German, and in English it. can hardly be said to exist at all. 
 There is seldom an occasion when one might not write moral 
 for ethical, or ethical for moral. So, if we wish to follow 
 the articulation of Hegel's thought, we must resign ourselves 
 to giving these terms a restricted and somewhat arbitrary 
 significance. It would be possible, of course, to refer to the 
 
 .jtijyi 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 121 
 
 second division of the field of right by a periphrasis, such as 
 individual or private and subjective morality ; and to the 
 third by another, such as the social world of objective 
 observance and realized ends. But this course is not satis- 
 factory. On the one hand, the terms used make a prima 
 facie claim to accuracy, and they are not really sufficient ; 
 they need further qualification which is found only in the 
 whole exposition itself. And on the other hand, they are 
 too clumsy for ordinary use — in an adjectival form they are 
 impossible. I judge it better therefore to take the terms 
 ' moral ' and ' ethical ' as technicalities, which must gather 
 meaning as the argument proceeds. In accordance with the 
 practice of most of the translators I use ' morality ' and 
 ' moral ' in reference to the second sphere of right, and 
 ' the ethical order ' and ' ethical ' in reference to the third. 
 
 Secondly, the word right indicates both the whole field 
 of objective mind and the first division of it. ' By the word 
 right we signify not only civil right, which is its usual meaning, 
 but also morality, the ethical order, and world-history.' ^ 
 There is a single principle running through the whole sphere, 
 and each department or special mode is an articulation of 
 it. The first section of the whole is the principle as a bare 
 notion and develops through morality into the ethical order, 
 the ' idea ' of the sphere. Hegel distinguishes the first section 
 of right from the more concrete shapes by using special names 
 for the latter and by characterizing the former as abstract, 
 formal, or intrinsic right ; but the term is used in the twofold 
 manner in order to remind us of the continuity of the entire 
 process and as an indication that the principle of ethical 
 science is a notion which develops into an ' idea ' that is 
 the product and true nature of the notion itseLp 
 
 Objective mind begins with abstract right. fSelf-conscious ir- 
 rational mind gives itself an immediate existence'in an object 
 and is recognized there by other like selves.^This immediate 
 existence is abstract. Every individual hasTiis being within 
 a community, and has a status of however ill-defined a sort. 
 Moreover, he is characterized by all the natural features of 
 race, age, capacity and so forth that are born in him. But 
 from the point of view of abstract right these are irrelevant. 
 The sole point, at this stage, is that the mind is universal, 
 » Philosophy of Right, § 33 note. 
 
122 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 and sets its universality before itself as its pre-eminent 
 characteristic. This is the natural step in the dialectic. 
 Hegel has analysed subjective mind, and goes on to consider 
 its objective realization. The first phase, therefore, is the 
 emptiest and least adequate aspect, the bare principle in 
 jdrtue of which the field of objective mind is entered at ail. 
 
 ^^ jWhen mind is thus regarded it has the form of personality, 
 ^"Ixjaiid to be a person is to be the subject or bearer of rights in 
 genera^ Thus Hegel regards personality as a special aspect 
 or mode of mind in which the moments of universality and 
 particularity are united in a definite and characteristic way. 
 The person, as such, is an immediate form of mind : but 
 at the same time what is immediately "explicit is a universal. 
 To understand the nature of personality, according to 
 Hegel's interpretation of it, is to apprehend the implications 
 of this statement. Let us, therefore, compare this immediate 
 mode of objective mind with the immediate mode of sub- 
 jective mind which we glanced at in the last chapter. Both 
 are immediate because a mediation, which intrinsically belongs 
 to them and without which they could not be, is not made 
 explicit to mind itself. Immediate natural mind is of course 
 mediated as regarded by an observer. We see the natural 
 forces that enter into it and inform it, we see how one ex- 
 perience works upon and modifies others, and we know that 
 it is one life and one mind simply in virtue of the inter- 
 penetration of all its factors. But on its inward side the 
 natural mind has its contents immediately present, without 
 comparison between them. It does not trace its contents 
 to their origin or estimate their effect upon one another : 
 each is simply there for it, and no further consideratioiLarises. 
 
 ^Now the same characteristic appears in personality. JA self- 
 conscious mind can be recognized as a person only within 
 a society in which some detailed organization exists ; to say 
 that there are many selves is to speak abstractly, for these 
 many selves are bound together in many detailed ways, and 
 without these particular relations coiold not bring their 
 inherent universal being to light at all. But the person who 
 takes the standpoint of abstract right ignores these conditions. 
 He does not ask how his personality is possible ; he overrides 
 all particular features, and insists wholly on the sanctity of 
 his self-conscious universal will./ 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 123 
 
 The nature of the principle may be made clearer by a 
 criticism of a misuse of it. Property, as we shall see, is the 
 field of abstract right, and some theorists have maintained 
 that the principle requires an equal distribution of property. 
 Of course we are not concerned here with the view that the 
 higher good of society as a concrete organism demands 
 a different distribution, and possibly a more equal distribu- 
 tion, of wealth than that prevalent at any given time and 
 place : we have to consider only the contention that right 
 as such involves equality of property. Now the ways in 
 which a person's property comes into his possession are many. 
 They fall under a general heading, no doubt, but nevertheless 
 they correspond in detail to the infinitely various processes 
 of nature whereby man moulds objects to his purposes. As 
 an individual each man has capacities and opportunities 
 which belong to him alone : his strength, his birth-place, 
 his sensory acuity, &c., all help to determine the quantity 
 of material in which he can place his wiU. Now, these con- 
 ditions are excluded by the man who stands on his abstract 
 universality and declares only that he is self-conscious will, 
 a sacred person : and yet it is by them that property is 
 actually gained. That is to say, the individual in question 
 considers only the point in which he is like other persons and 
 excludes particular differences. But on that account the 
 principle he apprehends does not apply to the area which he 
 has neglected ; and the similarity in question refers only to 
 his form as a person and not to the details of the things in 
 which he places his personality. ' Like, in this case, would 
 be only likeness of abstract persons as such, and all that 
 concerns property, with its wealth of unlikeness, falls outside 
 it.' 1 The amount of property a man should have requires 
 for its determination some more concrete category than that 
 of abstract right ; for it must include considerations which 
 relate persons to persons in specific ways in accordance with 
 the needs of the state as a whole. Abstract right thus is 
 formal, or immediate, in that it does not make exphcit the 
 further principles of the rational community within which 
 alone it can exist. 
 
 But there is also a fundamental difference between the 
 immediate modes of subjective and of objective mind. Natural 
 ■ Philosophy of Right, § 49- 
 
124 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 mind is below the level of self-consciousness, but in personality 
 self -consciousness is explicit. Natural mind makes no deliberate 
 comparisons, and does not contrast itself with other minds or 
 with nature. The person is aware of the difference of selves 
 and recognizes other persons : his attitude is immediate and 
 abstract because these differences are accepted without 
 specification and without the totality of the conditions that 
 make them possible. The person is in a more concrete sphere 
 than subjective mind ; the principle with which personality 
 begins is the outcome and highest point of subjective mind, 
 and its immediacy is determined by reference to the mediation 
 of a concrete system of ethical relationships which do not 
 appear in the realm of subjective mind at all. That is to 
 say, the immediacy of abstract right is the immediacy in 
 virtue of which subjective mind as a whole is characterized 
 as one-sided. 
 
 In personality the universal nature of mind attains exphcit 
 expression in an individual subject, and is manifested in his 
 activities. Mind implants itself in an object and is recognized 
 there. But at the first the process is abstract : right, as 
 distinct from morality and the ethical order, does not explicitly 
 contain a positive system whereby the world can be given 
 entire coherence. It, is still an abstract universal and bears 
 little fruit. Every step of the dialectic lias a negative aspect, 
 and nowhere can it move forward in a perfectly straight, line. 
 That is to say, dialectical categories differ from their pre- 
 decessors by more than compass : they transfohn the content 
 which they contain. This is true of the first step as of the 
 last. Pure being, as an empty universal, is a complete negation 
 of the apparent wealth of the experienced world : and although 
 its primary feature is positive, yet with reference to all 
 pre-philosophic knowledge it is negative. So, too, the first 
 category of objective mind, abstract right, is negative with 
 regard to the rich content of individual minds ; it asserts the 
 irrelevancy of desires and impulses and sets forth a bare form 
 within which all concrete characteristics have yet to be 
 brought. If it were possible for some mind in the phenomenal 
 stages of its development to follow the progress of the dialectic 
 through subjective mind into objective mind, the transition 
 from the one stage to the other would be felt as a check. 
 Instead of a number of principles whereby a positive system 
 
 .jMi 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 125 
 
 of content might be organized, there would appear a negating 
 and hmiting universal whose sole practical application con- 
 sisted in inhibiting certain activities. \ Its positive content, u 
 is the infinite value of personality as such, and its decree is,'* 
 Do not injure personality. ' It has only prohibitions, and the 
 positive form of its commands rests at bottom on prohibition.' f 
 Abstract right is thus a demand that one should be a person 
 and respect others as persons ; and its categories are not 
 formulae for action but analyses of the principles involved 
 in actions which satisfy right. Mind is confronted by the 
 world of nature ; it is setting out in its task of subduing 
 nature to itself ; and the phases of right are the various 
 modes in which mind reaches some measure of success in its 
 endeavour. Within this abstract sphere Hegel indicates 
 three aspects or categories. The first is the simplest ; in it 
 the will stands in direct relation to a natural object and 
 makes the object a means and vehicle of itself. This is 
 property. The second phase, viz. contract, explicitly includes 
 the difference of selves each of which possesses property, and 
 contains the germ of a common will. In the third phase, 
 the will of an individual is divided against itself, and manifests 
 a collision of aspects within a single personahty. This gives 
 us wrong or crime. These three categories constitute a pro- 
 gressive movement from abstract to concrete, and in Hegel's 
 view they comprise the whole field of abstract right. We 
 must now look at them more closely. 
 
 Property is the realization of a self-conscious will in an 
 external thing. Since mind is essentially a self-reveahng 
 system, it must give itself an outward existence and maintain 
 its freedom in a world of things. The body is the obvious 
 object in which this is first accomplished ; for matter that has 
 come alive is the organ of the life, and the life is transfused 
 through it. But although a living being can always be said 
 to possess its body, possession is not necessarily the same 
 thing as property, and the category of right is not always 
 present. The characteristic of property is that it holds a will 
 within it, and a hving being does not own its body unless fife 
 has developed into will. Thus Hegel says, ' Animals do 
 indeed possess«themselves, and their ^oul is in possession of 
 their body : but they have no right to their life, because they 
 1 Philosophy of Right, § 38. 
 
126 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 do not will it.' ^ In taking possession of property the will 
 comes forth from its inwardness, and enters into the outward 
 world and is exposed there to the forces of nature and ta other 
 selves. It is by means of this step that a common world is 
 possible. A mind that is shut up within itself cannot be 
 recognized by others, it is cut off from any communication 
 with them, and the rationality within remains undeveloped. 
 The mind which places itself in a thing is from one point of 
 view hmiting itself ; for it becomes hable to the lot and 
 chances that external things suffer. But Hegel insists that 
 this hmitation is an essential moment in mind itself, and 
 without it the will remains an unreahzed possibility and of 
 no effect. Property thus is the basis of the ethical hfe, the 
 first outline of which the state is the completion. It is not 
 an arbitrary device of selfish men, but an indispensable 
 constituent in the rounded life of reason itself. 
 
 Since this first moment of objective mind is a limitation of 
 the abstract universality of the will, property involves 
 a certain externality. Property consists of things, and must 
 be capable of distinction from the will ; whatever cannot be 
 regarded as a thing cannot be property in the strict sense. 
 Hegel points out, however, that mind can place many of its 
 own contents in the outer world, and, in spite of their inward 
 and spiritual side, these can also be taken as external things. 
 ' Spiritual gifts, sciences, masses, prayers, the blessing of 
 sacred things, become objects of contract — ^recognized mer- 
 chandise.' 2 At first sight the relation of man to these mental 
 capacities and activities seems to be too intimate to allow 
 them to be treated as property ; they seem rather to be the 
 man himself. But we have seen that mind is a universal, and 
 can abstract from every particular content. Moreover, these 
 mental powers are activities, they produce effects in space 
 and time, and one can distinguish one's inner self from these 
 results. Wherever this distinction is drawn property exists, 
 and a legal view can be taken of the objects. 
 
 Property thus involves two aspects, a universal and a 
 particular ; and it can be regarded either as the Hmitation 
 of the will in a thing or as the subsumption of the thing 
 under the will. The will defines itself, and thathing becomes 
 a moment of a universal. Hegel insists that the manifest 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 47 note. 2 ibid, § 43. 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 127 
 
 destiny of things is to become property. The natural thing 
 is by itself imperfect and self-contradictory ; and at whatever 
 stage we like to take it, whether as a thing in the strict sense ^ 
 or as a factor in reciprocal system, it is an organization of 
 attributes reflecting an essence which fails to account for 
 them. Thinghood is the mere togetherness of the properties, 
 and yet it distinguishes its own properties and shuts out 
 others. Substance, too, when pressed back turns into a dark- 
 ness akin to emptiness.^ Natural things lack an inner principle 
 to bind them together, and the universals which connect them 
 into wholes are not final. Hegel believes that mind itself is 
 the ultimate principle in which alone rationality is found ; 
 and the will, as it appears here in abstract right, is one mode 
 in which the defect of nature is made good. In a human 
 purpose the thing has a soul given to it ; in itself it has no 
 soul, no right, no positive inward content, and it is unable 
 to exclude mind. Finite purpose itself is not a final principle 
 and has defects of its own ; but it is more adequate than any 
 purely natural category, and can subordinate and idealize 
 the latter.- In accordance with this position Hegel argues 
 that the right of the person in property is complete, the 
 person takes possession of the whole of the thing. He 
 maintains that Fichte's view of property involves an unreal 
 distinction. Fichte holds that the soil is not a possible object 
 of property. ' Hence ', he says, ' the right of the agriculturist 
 to a fixed piece of ground is solely the right exclusively to 
 raise products upon it and to exclude all others from doing 
 the same, or from using it for any other purpose which would 
 conflict with that use. The agriculturist, therefore, has no 
 right to prevent another use of his property, provided it does 
 not conflict with his own. He has not the right, for instance, 
 to prevent others from using his lands after harvest for 
 pasturage, unless he has obtained also the right of cattle 
 raising, nor to prevent the state from mining on his lands, 
 unless, indeed, his lands should thereby receive damages, in 
 which case the state must reimburse him.' ^ Fichte is arguing 
 from the point of view of abstract right, and not from 
 that of the good of the community ; and his theory draws a 
 
 ' V. pp. 19-21. 2 V. p.^sSf. 
 
 ' Fichte, Grundlage d. Naiurrechis, § 19 A, trans, by Kroeger, 
 pp. 298-9. 
 
128 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 distinction between the matter and the form of the object pos- 
 sessed. Now it may well be that an individual cannot bend 
 a thing entirely to his end ; his knowledge may be inadequate, 
 and his purpose imperfectly rational. Most things are 
 imperfectly penetrated by the will ; they have other aspects 
 than the ideality given to them by one owner, they may 
 outlast his activities and function in other schemes of mind. 
 But this does not justify the assumption of an impermeable 
 core in things possessed; it is rather a mark of the imperfection 
 of the finite will. Hegel's comment is as follows. According 
 to Fichte, ' if I have made a golden cup, it is open to another 
 to take the gold so long as he does not injure my work. 
 Plausible as this distinction is to the imagination, in fact it 
 is mere hair-splitting. If I take possession of a field and 
 plough it, it is not only the furrows that are my property 
 but the furrowed earth. I will to take the whole into posses- 
 sion ; the matter does not remain its own and without a 
 master. Even if the matter of the object be outside the form 
 which I have given it, the form is a sign that the thing is 
 mine. The thing is not external to my will ; it is within the 
 content of my purpose, and there is nothing left for another 
 to take into possession.' ^ 
 
 The person is an individual conscious of his universality, 
 or, in other words, a universal will in the form of an individual. 
 Consequently, property, the objective existence of a private 
 person, is also private. Hegel lays some stress on this point. 
 The will in order to come to itself must develop the moment 
 of exclusiveness and externaUty ; and lacking this element 
 the higher concrete unities of mind are weakened, if not 
 destroyed. Just as the higher logical principle must include 
 the element of difference contained in the lower, so the 
 ethical order must attain harmony in and through the 
 expression of different persons in their particular spheres. 
 On this ground Hegel condemns the community of goods 
 advocated by Socrates in the Republic. 
 
 It is necessary to keep in mind here the abstract nature of 
 the principles with which Hegel is dealing. Up to this point . 
 he has been concerned with personality as such, an elementary 
 pnnciple of practical life and not adequate to the poorest 
 actual existing being. Personality as such does not exist 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 52 note. 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 129 
 
 in its purity, or rather in its nakedness. What exists as 
 a person is always more than a person, and is constituted 
 both by particular ends and by more concrete universals 
 which are not explicit in personality itself. Hegel has now 
 brought to the forefront the moment of individuality, or 
 privacy, and he has thereby made the conception of per- 
 sonality more concrete. But he has not yet reached the 
 further principles and conditions through which alone person- 
 ality is rendered possible. These principles — which will 
 appear later — make a profound difference to personality, and 
 at this stage he ought not to prejudice the nature of the 
 modifications they entail. But in his desire to keep in touch 
 with facts Hegel tends to overlook this, and he gives hasty 
 illustiations of his view. ' Common property,' he says, 
 ' which according to its nature can be individually possessed, 
 has the character of an inherently dissoluble community, in 
 which my participation is explicitly a matter of choice.'^ 
 He gives examples. ' The agrarian laws in Rome aroused 
 a conflict between common and private ownership of land ; 
 the latter, as the more rational element, had to gain the upper 
 hand although at the expense of the other right.' ' Many 
 states have rightly abolished monasteries, since in the last 
 resort a community has no such right to property as the 
 person has.' ^ 
 
 Hegel has gone too fast here. He has still to consider the 
 relation of the individual to the common will, and he has no 
 right to prejudice the issue By assuming the latter to be 
 artificial. He would have been justified if he had pointed out 
 that wherever there is personality there is also private 
 property, and he might have enlarged his argument by 
 showing that even in the grasp of higher categories the 
 privacy of personaUty is always and necessarily correlated 
 with a privacy of property. He does not hold that the 
 privacy of individual wills is ultimately hostile to their 
 community and interpenetration, and accordingly, in his 
 examples, he should not have assumed that common owner- 
 ship impedes private possession. 
 
 At a later stage of his argument, after he had considered 
 the nature of the common will, Hegel would have been 
 justified in returning to the privacy of property, and in 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 46. ' Ibid. note. 
 
 22II K 
 
130 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 showing— if his view had then allowed it^that this privacy 
 can be preserved only if the exclusive element of the will is 
 made absolute, at least in some instances. But he could not 
 really have done so. In the higher categories of the ethical 
 order a person is not an exclusive atom. It is self-contained 
 and self-determining, as the will always must be ; but it is 
 also identical in its nature and in its ends with the other 
 individuals which it holds without it. And its objective 
 phase, its property, is also qualified by the fundamental 
 common will. Property does not cease to be private, but it 
 becomes common also ; indeed its privacy is in the last 
 resort a characteristic through which it is enabled to function 
 as an organ of the common will. 
 
 This contention belongs properly to a later stage of the 
 argument than that to which we have reached. The reason 
 for introducing it here is that Hegel has overlooked it in his 
 illustrations, and. that he does not bring it out clearly in its 
 proper place. He traces, as we shall see, the development 
 of the will from«its first naive independence and individuality 
 to its higher independence and individuality in the rational 
 community. But his analysis is incomplete. As the functions 
 of personality become organized in society, property develops 
 new phases which do not appear in its simpler forms where 
 the exclusive moment of the will is uppermost. Hegel does 
 not indicate these new characteristics sufficiently ; possibly 
 his acquaintance with economic facts and theory was not 
 sufficient to enable him to do 'so.^ From the point of view of 
 modern thought the gap thus left is of importance, and it still 
 requires to be filled. One form in which the defect shows itself 
 in Hegel's exposition is the way in which he is led to speak 
 of higher principles of social life interfering with private 
 property in the interests of ends which go beyond personality 
 in its first exclusive appearance. The expression is not 
 wrong, but it is only the negative side of a truth which should 
 also have been stated positively. These interferences are 
 also a defence of property itself, and make new forms of it 
 possible. They check special aspects in the interests of the 
 institution as a whole. Everything which widens the 
 
 ' The distinction he diraws later in discussing contract between use 
 for specific needs and use to produce wealth (v. below, p. 137) might 
 be developed in this direction. 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 131 
 
 objective field in which man can realize himself, and which 
 gives him means and opportunity to express his most rational 
 purposes in the world, increases property. Its restrictive and 
 negative aspect is a moment in its positive function.^ 
 
 Our criticism of Hegel's treatment of private property has 
 
 already digressed too far, and we must now return to his 
 
 exposition. Although he does not analyse clearly enough at 
 
 any stage of his argument the way in which the character of 
 
 property — or perhaps one should say the field of property — 
 
 is modified by social principles, he does indicate here some 
 
 spheres whera.the notion is not applicable. Only a specific 
 
 thing, separable from the essence of the person and yet 
 
 within human control, can be property. Thus, no one is able 
 
 to appropriate the elemental forces of nature or show an 
 
 indefeasible right to a fixed star. Again, persons, unlike 
 
 things, are not devoid of an inner principle, and can be 
 
 dominated only at the expense of crushing their own 
 
 rationality. In such a case, reason does not extend its 
 
 dominion over nature, but is divided against itself. 
 
 - The notion of property develops itself through three 
 
 moments, the first of which is taking possession. This process 
 
 has three main modes. ' We may take possession of a thing 
 
 by seizing it physically, by forming it, or simply by marking 
 
 it out.' 2 The first of these is the most obvious, but it is also 
 
 the most limited. It is confined to things of a manageable 
 
 bulk, and, although the most complete form of possession 
 
 while it lasts, it is transitory. When I give a thing a form 
 
 I impress my will upon it in a more adequate fashion. It iS 
 
 mine and embodies me even when I am not physically present, 
 
 ' A recent critic. Dr. Hastings Rashdall, exaggerates the defect 
 in Hegel's exposition here (' The Philosophical Theory of Property ', 
 in Property : Its Duties and Rights, p. 53). He quotes a paragraph 
 from Dr. Dyde's translation of the Philosophy of Right, § 44, and on 
 the strength of it accuses Hegel of arguing from the abstract right 
 of mind over things to a right of each man to appropriate to his own 
 exclusive use everything he can get irrespective of other people's 
 needs and wishes. Dr. Dyde's translation of the passage is doubtful, 
 and Dr. Rashdall's exegesis is wrong. Dr. Rashdall has failed to notice 
 that Hegel has not at that stage raised the question of private property 
 at all— it does not appear till § 46. What Hegel declares in § 44 to be 
 absolute is not the particularity and exclusiveness of one person against 
 others, but the right of mind against nature — a sound position of which 
 Dr. Rashdall himself approves. " Philosophy of Right, § 54. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 and my will penetrates more deeply into the structure of the 
 object. ' Under this head comes the process of forming 
 organic beings, where that which I effect upon the object 
 does not remain external but is assimilated by it ; for 
 example, the working of the soil, the cultivation of plants, 
 the taming, nourishing and tending of animals, and all con- 
 trivances for utilizing natural materials and forces, the use of 
 one material to produce effects upon another, and so forth.' * 
 Hegel applies this principle to a man's possession of his own 
 being. ' Man in his immediate existence is a natural being ■ 
 external to his own notion. He becomes possessor of him- 
 self, his own and not another's, by developing his body 
 and mind and especially by his self-conscious apprehension 
 of himself as free.' Taking possession of a thing by marking 
 it one's own is the most indefinite of these three modes ; 
 but it is in a sense the most adequate, for it reveals the 
 principle underlying the others. ' When I seize a thing, or 
 form it, the act is in the last resort symbolic. It excludes 
 others from the possession of the thing, and intimates that 
 I have put my will into it.' ^ The essence, thus, of taking 
 possession is the overt recognizable impression of my will on 
 the thing. Hegel points that a rule is sometimes stated, as 
 if it were a positive principle of right, to the effect that 
 'a thing belongs to the first who takes possession of it '. ' 
 The positive form of this rule, however, is deceptive. The 
 temporal element is a mere accident ; for the deliverance; of 
 right is in general. Do not injure personality. ' The first is 
 the rightful owner, not because he is first, but because he is 
 free will ; he is not first until another comes after him.' » 
 
 The second moment of the conception of property is use. 
 The original act of taking possession is continued and de- 
 veloped when I use the thing. By using it the ego proclaims 
 its superiority over the thing, subordinates it to the fulfilment 
 of the self, and ideahzes it. Use is the articulation of the 
 "?,V°", 2! property, and the effective externalization of the 
 will. To have full use of the thing makes one owner of it, 
 tor beyond the complete circle of its use there is nothing 
 further to be the property of another '.« When the right of 
 property does not include the full right of use, it is imperfect. 
 
 > Philosophy of Right, § 56. 2 j6j^. g ^8 ^ 
 
 ' /6»^. § 50 note. 4 j6j^. | |j. °''^- 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 133 
 
 ' The relation of use to property is that of substance to accident, 
 inner to outer, force to its expression. Just as force is only 
 in so far as it expresses itself, and a field is a field only in 
 bearing produce, so he who has the use of a field is the owner 
 of the whole. It is an empty abstraction to recognize a further 
 property in the object itself.' ^ When property is supposed 
 to reside in a person who is entirely excluded from the use 
 of the thing, his empty right is a contradiction — a notion 
 incapable of articulation — and Hegel says that it might 
 almost be called an insanity of personality.^ 
 
 But although the complete range of use is property itself, 
 a limited right of use does not constitute one an owner. 
 Ownership is a universal, and cannot be possessed by laying 
 hold of one or two of the particulars in which it appears. He 
 who holds all the accidents holds the substance also, for 
 the substance is only in the accidents : but substance is not 
 confined in any limited range of its modes, and he who grasps 
 only the latter cannot claim power over the universal. Thus 
 one is not justified in appropriating the possessions of another 
 on the ground that the owner was not at the moment using 
 them : the will of the owner may not have been properly 
 withdrawn from the thing,^ and consequently the thing may 
 not have ceased to be his property.. Use, the development 
 of the notion, is equivalent to the universal only when taken 
 in its totality.* So, too, when I acquire a limited use of 
 a thing it does not become my property. The will of the owner 
 still resides in it, my use is determined by his will and termin- 
 ates in accordance with it. The substance still resides with 
 him. Hegel lays down no rules whereby ownership is to be 
 determined in cases where the right of use is divided between 
 different people — ^the negative character of abstract right 
 does not permit such positive rules. He merely insists that 
 property is a thorough penetration of the thing, and when the 
 moments are sundered property is not in its true shape. If 
 the rights of one person can be regarded as fundamental and 
 universal when compared with those of another, and the 
 right of use which the latter has, taken merely as a limitation 
 of those of the former which preserves the essence, then 
 
 » Ibid. § 61 note. « Ibid. § 62. 
 
 ' For the nature of this process, v. below, p. 135 ti. 
 • V. Philosophy oj Right, § 59. 
 
134 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 probably the former should be held to be the owner, although 
 his right is mutilated. Different legal codes have different 
 ways of deciding the point, and the arbitrariness of the rule 
 is a sign of the imperfect way in which they realize the nature 
 of property. ' It is more than a millenium and a half since the 
 freedom of the person began to flourish under Christianity 
 and to be recognized as a general principle by at least a portion 
 of the human race. But it is only, one might say, since 
 yesterday that here and there the freedom of property has 
 been recognized. The importance of sentiment is rebuked 
 by this example from universal history of the length of time 
 taken by mind in its advance to self-consciousness.' ^ 
 
 Use has various modes and aspects. In its primary form 
 it is individual, a simple extension of the act of taking posses- 
 sion ; it is the satisfaction of a specific impulse or need. 
 Sometimes, however, it involves greater complexity and 
 universality. ' If the function of using is for the fulfilment 
 of a standing need and employs a constantly renewed material, 
 or perhaps merely preserves the source of the material, then 
 the individual act of grasping becomes a sign, giving the act 
 the significance of taking possession in its universal form ; 
 that is to say, it indicates the taking possession of the funda- 
 mental or organic sources and conditions of the material.' ^ 
 
 A further universality, however, is to be found in use as 
 a mode of abstract right. Things are qualitatively distinct, 
 and so are their uses ; but both can be expressed in quantita- 
 tive terms. Hegel does not indicate how the transformation 
 is accomplished, or by what means the measurement is effected; 
 he simply says that the specific utilities of things with reference 
 to a single need can be quantitatively compared, and that one 
 need may be similarly estimated against others. Perhaps 
 there is a certain philosophic loss in Hegel's omission; he is 
 prevented from tracing the balancing of satisfactions within 
 the individual to the .balance of them between individuals in 
 contract, and, in consequence, his sequent account of the 
 economic system lacks articulation. ' This universality, 
 which arises from the particularity of the thing, and yet 
 abstracts from its specific qualities, is the value of the thing, 
 that which constitutes its true substance and makes it an 
 object of consciousness. As true owner of the thing I own 
 ' Philosophy of Right. §62. 2 Ibid. § 60. 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 135 
 
 its value as well as its use.' ^ The transformation of quality 
 into quantity is an advance, for in value the specific quality 
 of the object is transcended but is still operative : it has 
 become a moment of a general principle. ' The qualitative 
 determines the quantum of the quantity, and in being sublated 
 it is preserved.' ^ When value is taken as the important 
 aspect, the specific thing which has value is 1 educed to the 
 status of a sign. It stands for the universal, and its peculiar 
 characteristics are lost sight of except in so far as they are 
 essential to its function as a bearer of value. Money is 
 a device whereby the specific character of the object is thrust 
 into the background and attention drawn to the value itself. 
 ' Money represents things, but since it is not itself the thing 
 needed, but only a sign of it, it is controlled by the specific 
 aspect of value which it abstractly expresses.' 
 
 The third moment in the conception of property is its 
 surrender. A thing becomes my property when I put my will 
 into it : it ceases to be mine when I take my will out of it. 
 This relinquishment may be either an explicit and definite 
 act, or an indefinite and lengthy process. In the latter case 
 it is indicated by a continued failure to maintain possession 
 and use of the thing, and the loss is incurred through prescrip- 
 tion. The amount of time which must elapse before pre- 
 scription can be recognized by law is, of course, arbitrary : 
 but it should be sufficient to show that the will of the previous 
 owner has really abandoned the thing. The principle itself, 
 however, is not arbitrary. Property is an external existence 
 of the will ; it is, therefore, subject to time : and the will must 
 maintain itself in time. ' Prescription is not merely forced 
 into the system of right in order to exclude the strife and 
 confusion which old claims would bring into the security of 
 property. On the contrary, it is based on the actual existence 
 of property, on the necessity which forces the will to express 
 itself if it is to possess.' ^ Hegel apphes the principle to the 
 national monuments of former peoples, to the rights of the 
 family of a writer to his works, and to vacant land set aside 
 for purposes that have no meaning in present times. When the 
 will of the original owner has lapsed from the thing, it is 
 a res nullius, and may become the private property of others. 
 
 Hegel discusses at considerable length what things can 
 ' Ibid. § 63. ^ Ibid. ' Ibid. § 64. 
 
136 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 be alienated by the will in accordance with right ; and the 
 general principle is that anything which is not separable from 
 the person, and which cannot be called property in the sense . 
 analysed above, cannot be rightfully given up. Personality, 
 the freedom of the will, morality, and religion constitute the 
 essence of the self-conscious individual, and cannot be alien- 
 ated. Abstract right, therefore, is violated by ' slavery, 
 bondage, incapacity to hold property, or imperfect control 
 of it. The surrender of reason, moraUty, and religion is 
 exemplified in superstition, in ceding to another the authority 
 and power to determine matters of conscience and religious 
 truth for me, or to prescribe what I shall do, as when I ex- 
 phcitly hire myself to rob or kill, or undertake something 
 that may involve crime.' ^ One's own consent is not binding 
 in such cases, for the self cannot be reduced to a mere thing. 
 ' It lies in the nature of things that the slave has an absolute 
 right to make himself free, and anyone who has hired himself 
 to commit crime may repudiate the contract, since it is 
 inherently nugatory.' The same principle applies to suicide. 
 A man has. no right over his life, for his life is the totality of 
 his activity, the man himself. It can be subordinated only 
 to some wider ethical idea, such as the state ; and when this 
 higher reahty, of which he is a member and from which his 
 substance comes, needs such a sacrifice the individual has no 
 right to refuse it. No personal reason can justify suicide, 
 for right is a universal principle overriding all private inchna- 
 tions and emotions. ' When Hercules destroyed himself by 
 fire and Brutus fell upon his sword, their outrage upon 
 personality was heroic ; but as to a simple right of self- 
 destruction, there is no such thing, even for heroes.' ^ 
 
 Although constitutive principles of mind cannot be alien- 
 ated, we have seen ^ that the individual productions of one's 
 mental powers can be externalized. So, too, can their limited 
 use. Carlyle overlooked this point in his famous statement 
 regarding negro slavery in America. He put the issue as if 
 it concerned merely the length of time by which the man 
 was hired : in the Northern states he was hired by the year 
 or month, in the Southern for life. The latter was the better 
 method in the circumstances, Carlyle contended, because 
 under it the negro was forced to be industrious and had to 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 66. ^ Ibid. p. 70 note. " p. 126. 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 137 
 
 acquire the virtues that come from actual work. Similarly, 
 other people have argued in favour of slavery that the slave 
 was better treated and had a happier lot than many workmen. 
 From Hegel's point of view these contentions ignore the 
 essential point, and forget that right is the soil of all virtue 
 and happiness. ' The distinction here set forth is that between 
 a slave and a modern servant or day labourer. The Athenian 
 slave had probably lighter and higher y^ork than our workmen 
 generally have, but he was still a slave, for the whole range 
 of his activity was given over to a master.' ^ 
 
 Hegel raises the question whether the right to use a thing 
 involves the right to reproduce it. And he says that the first 
 point to be settled in this connexion is ' whether such a dis- 
 tinction between property in the thing and the right to 
 reproduce is compatible with the notion of property and does 
 not destroy its completeness and freedom : for on the com- 
 pleteness and freedom of property rests the very J)ower of 
 the producer to reserve the right of production to himself, 
 to part with it as a thing of value, or to attach no worth to 
 it and give it away with each particular individual product.' " 
 Hegel proceeds to distinguish two modes of use here : the use 
 of the thing to satisfy an individual need and the use of it as 
 a source of further wealth by reproducing it. Since these 
 uses are themselves distinct processes in the external world, 
 the notion of property does not imply that the surrender of 
 the one carries the right to the other with it. The right of 
 reproduction is a specific source of wealth, and is a definite 
 and separate piece of property. Copyright and patent laws 
 are thus on a level with ordinary laws against theft, and 
 enforce the fundamental though negative demand of right 
 that the realization of a person in property be respected. In 
 this contention Hegel has suggested one point in the analysis 
 of the modes of property, but,, as was pointed out above, he 
 does not go into its implications. 
 
 It is not easy to state the exact difference between repro- 
 duction and the creation of a new product. No a priori rules 
 can be laid down to determine when a man has assimilated 
 a thought and recast it in such a way that it is stamped with 
 the impress of his own spirit. 
 
 It appears natural that Hegel should discuss the moments 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 67 note. " Ibid. § 69. 
 
138 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 of property in the order in which he has taken them : first, 
 taking possession, then use, lastly relinquishment. But we 
 must remember that the exposition is dialectical, and that, 
 therefore, the stages become increasingly concrete. The re- 
 linquishment of property is the unity of the other aspects. 
 Hegel does not mean by this statement that to give up property 
 is the same thing as not to give it up, and that after abandoning 
 a thing one goes on tQ^use it in precisely the same fashion as 
 before. His statement refers to the notion of relinquishment, 
 and points out that this notion includes the notion of posses- 
 sion within it. The explicit alienation of property is a de- 
 claration of my will with regard to the thing, it is something 
 I do to the thing, and, as it were, I am responsible for its 
 future condition. In repelling the thing I am still in relation 
 to it, although the relation is primarily negative. This view 
 of negation is characteristic of Hegel, and must be clearly 
 underst'Sod. The difficulty one is apt to feel in it at first 
 arises from a confusion of the analysis of notions with the 
 relation of actual processes. It is possible to have a process 
 directly embodying a positive notion, such as health, and 
 another process embodying a category which holds the positive 
 notion as a moment within it, the former notion being merged 
 or sublated, viz. disease. But although the notion of disease 
 involves the notion of health, and apart from the latter is 
 meaningless, yet the actual state of disease, as a fact of 
 a living organism, does not contain a normal and healthy 
 organism somewhere inside it. So, too, the conception of 
 the surrender of property involves the notion of property, 
 but the abandonment of property is a different process from 
 its retention. Categories are not necessarily related to one 
 another in the same way as are separate processes each of 
 which is the manifestation of one category. It is not to be 
 imagined, therefore, that the unity of opposites, on which 
 Hegel's philosophy rests, will permit a man to confuse affirma- 
 tion with negation. The abandonment of property is an act 
 of will whose content is the loosening of the thing from the 
 will. 
 
 The negative is in general dialectically higher, because 
 more complex, than the simple affirmation prior to negation ; 
 and it provides a transition to a higher positive within which 
 the negative itself is only a moment. Thus it is through the 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 139 
 
 voluntary surrender of property that the dialectic rises from 
 property to the next category of right, viz. contract. Pro- 
 perty, taken by itself, is the most abstract phase ; it states 
 exphcitly only the relation of the individual will to a particular 
 thing. But we have seen that this relationship is conditioned 
 by a rational community, and involves the recognition of 
 one will by others. In contract this context begins to appear : 
 each individual recognizes the right of the other contracting 
 individual, and a common will is established. 
 
 Contract involves the agreement of two individual wills 
 regarding the disposal of property : it requires the express 
 consent of each, and thus renders exphcit the recognition 
 of each will by the other, which abstract right involves, but 
 which is merely latent in the notion of property itself. ' It 
 is the process which expresses and mediates the contradiction 
 that the ego is, and continues to be, an independent and 
 exclusive owner of property only by identifying his will with 
 that of another and ceasing to be an owner.' ^ 
 
 In discussing the logical problem of the nature of concrete 
 thought and the concrete shape which that problem takes in 
 rational attitude of a philosophic science, we saw that a genuine 
 system involves a subordination and negation of the abstract 
 particular, and its reinstatement as the vehicle or moment 
 of a principle. On this ground we distinguished slavery from 
 the rational community, since in slavery the supreme will, 
 which functioned as the universal, was not the true principle 
 of a system, but merely a particular will arbitrarily extended 
 over another person. In contract the negation of the parti- 
 cular is found on both sides of the relation ; for both wills 
 recognize each other, and give supremacy to their free 
 agreement. But the negative element goes deeper than 
 this : property passes from one person to another, and in 
 his abandonment of a thing as his property the previous owner 
 affirms the continuance of the general principle or universal. 
 In the complete form of contract, where exchange takes place, 
 the relationship implies ' that each, in accordance with the 
 common will of both, ceases to be an owner, and yet is and 
 continues to be one. It is the mediation of the will to give 
 up an individual possession and the will to take property 
 which is another's : it operates within a whole where the 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 72. 
 
140 ABSTRACT RIGHT 
 
 purpose of the one can be carried out only in so far as that of 
 the other is present.' ^ 
 
 Hegel draws a distinction between formal and real contract ; 
 the former being an imperfect phase where the elements of the 
 complete relationship are divided between the contracting 
 individuals and do not apply in the same way to both. Con- 
 tract is formal when one person surrenders property and the 
 other gains it, and ho exchange takes place. In general it may 
 be called gift. Real contract is an exchange where each 
 surrenders a possession and obtains one of equal value. When 
 we remember that value is the universal aspect of property 
 we see that ' In real contract each retains the same property 
 with which he begins and which he at the same time gives up ; 
 and this which remains the same is the essential property in 
 the contract in distinction from the individual things which 
 change their owners.' ^ When a contract is intended to be 
 real and not formal, right is infringed by any glaring dis- 
 crepancy in the value of the things exchanged, and a code of 
 law should provide some relief in such instances. 
 
 In simple cases the objects of contract are exchanged at 
 one and the same time ; but in other cases they do not coincide 
 and a distinction must be drawn, based on that between mere 
 possession and property. The question which arises is, When 
 does a contract become binding ? Is A bound by his agreement 
 with B, or may he wait until B fulfils his part ? Hegel decides 
 that the contract is constituted by the agreement. The 
 essence of contract, as of property, lies in the will, and the 
 right of property passes from A to B whenever the agreement ' 
 is made. Although the object remain in A's possession for 
 a time it is no longer his property, for he has taken his private 
 wiU-Out of it, and recognized it as belonging to another 
 individual. When contract and fulfilment fall apairt in time, 
 the agreement may be given some separate form, and this 
 constitutes a stipulation. The stipulation is the substance of 
 the contract, for it contains the aspect of will. 
 
 On these Hnes Hegel distinguishes a promise from a con- 
 tract. Contract is an actual transaction, and in it the right 
 of property changes hands. A promise is a statement of 
 a future mtention, a subjective determination of the will 
 which may alter. It may be asked, then, Why is one not 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 74. a xbid. § 77. 
 
ABSTRACT RIGHT 141 
 
 entitled to change one's mind regarding a contract, parti- 
 cularly in the case where the fulfilment is a future event,? 
 We have seen that contract is the constitution of a common 
 will by different individuals ; one's private will becomes the 
 member of a system — though but an abstract one^and is 
 subordinated to it. The common will has thus a higher right 
 than the private will it sublates and cannot be cancelled by 
 the latter. It can be counteracted only by another agreement 
 of hke character with it, in which both wills partake. In 
 a promise this common will governing both sides is lacking, 
 and its fulfilment remains a matter of individual consistency 
 and honour. 
 
 When a contract and its fulfilment fall apart in time, the 
 future realization may be anticipated by a security. The 
 security is a provision whereby the value agreed upon may be 
 realized in one form if another breaks down ; and by placing it 
 in the hands of the other contracting individual I give him imme- 
 diate possession of his property on its universal side, viz. value. 
 
 The philosophic classification of contracts should not be 
 based on external features, relative, e. g., to the peculiarities 
 of some systeln of administration, but should rest on distinc- 
 tions in the nature of contract itself, viz., those between 
 formal and real contract, between property and possession, 
 and between value and the specific thing. It should begin 
 with the least developed and pass to the most fully developed 
 and articulated form. Moreover, it should include only 
 what belongs properly to the realm of contract. Promises 
 have no place in it, nor has bequest ; for in bequest the 
 property does not pass from the donor until his death^when 
 he is no longer owner. The whole subject of inheritance is 
 bound up with the nature of the family : and the validity of 
 claims to succession depends on civil society and the enact- 
 ments of positive law. Bequest, therefore, involves more 
 concrete considerations than those of abstract right, and 
 should not be included here. Hegel's classification may be 
 stated without further comment. 
 
 A. Gift ; comprising (i) gift proper, (2) loan without 
 interest, (3) the free grant of service. 
 
 B. Exchange ; comprising (i) exchange proper either as 
 [a) barter or (6) sale, (2) rent either (a) of a specific thing or 
 (6) of money — loan at interest,. (3) wages for service. 
 
142 A BSTRACT RIGHT _^ 
 
 C. Contracts involving a security or pledge. 
 .Contract applies only to property in the strict sense, i. e., 
 to things in which I may place my will and from which I can 
 withdraw it. Thus it involves an element of caprice and con- 
 tingency. On this ground ethical institutions like the family 
 and the state are not constituted by contract. They are 
 themselves more concrete relationships than contract, and are 
 the framework within which contract is possible. The express 
 consent of the individual is a superficial aspect of the state, 
 and one is not free to withdraw from it by refusing to sip 
 a covenant. In contract the identity of wills takes shape only 
 as a contingent agreement ; it is not a true universal, but 
 only a common element : but in the state — as in any ethical 
 institution — the identity goes deeper, the private element is 
 more thoroughly dependent oh the universal, which ex- 
 pressly constitutes the substance of the former. 
 
 Since contract is an abstract relation depending on the 
 casual correspondence of two independent wills, it involves 
 the possibility that the common will and the private will 
 diverge from one another. Individuals may disagree as to 
 the terms of a contract, and one may refuse to^arry out his 
 side of the bargain. The next step in the dialectic is that in 
 which right includes this possibility within its content, and 
 thus rises above its first immediacy and contingency. This 
 is the highest stage of abstract right, and through it the 
 dialectic passes into the sphere of morality. Although it is 
 properly a stage of abstract right, it is too important to be 
 treated at the end of a chapter, and must be discussed by 
 itself. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 
 
 The abstract principle of property is an immediate expres- 
 sion of the will, and it does not contain in itself the manifold 
 conditions which determine the nature and extent of property 
 in special cases. In contract the universality of the will 
 manifests itself as the agreement of two individuals ; and the 
 superiority of the universal aspect, the identity of will, is 
 explicitly recognized. But the elements of mind have not 
 yet been brought into a true rational form. The agreement 
 established in a contract is artificial ; for each person retains 
 his full individuality, and the special content of the agree- 
 ment is binding on him not because it springs inevitably 
 from the inner nature of reason but simply because of his 
 choice and assent. Moreover, when an identity of wills is 
 constituted by a contract the universal is still partial ; for 
 the fulfilment of the agreement remains in the hands of the 
 individuals, it is only required and not performed by the agree- 
 ment itself. Now, it may seem that the next category of 
 the dialectic should be one in which the universal incorporates 
 and idealizes the particular in a more genuine way ; and the 
 supposition is not incorrect. But at the same time one must 
 not forget that the concreteness of the higher stages depends 
 on the thorough development of the negative aspect of the 
 datum, and that one must take into account the full depth 
 of opposition of which the will is capable before a true unity 
 of opposites can be attained. Accordingly contract is suc- 
 ceeded in the dialectic of objective mind, not by some category 
 of the common life in which society is recognized as the 
 substance of every person, but by a principle in which the 
 contingency of abstract right comes to its highest point and 
 the immediacy of the realm is exhausted. The climax of 
 this section of objective mind is a category in which the 
 universal and the particular aspects of will fall apart and 
 oppose one another ; this is the principle of wrong. 
 
144 WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 
 
 At first sight it seems paradoxical to include wrong under 
 abstract right ; one may argue that wrong is the negation of 
 abstract right as a whole, and ought to form a capital division 
 by itself, the negative moment of the dialectic triad. But 
 the paradox is apparent rather than real. We shall see later 
 with what content Hegel fills the second main division of 
 objective mind, and need not discuss it here ; it is enough to 
 say that wrong, according to Hegel's treatment of it at this 
 stage, is not an absolute negation of abstract right. Indee4 
 the positive and substantial character of right is more explicit 
 in wrong than in the category of contract, for right appears 
 no longer as an artificial or posited universal, but as the 
 fundamental aspect of the will. At first sight this may seem 
 only to apply to the first form of wrong, naive or unintentional 
 wrong, and to be a forced interpretation of fraud and crime. 
 Doubtless, it may be said, the universal aspect, right as such, 
 is involved in these latter forms, for without a reference to 
 the positive their negative shape would be meaningless ; but 
 surely it is of the essence of fraud that right is converted into 
 a mere appearance, and does not crime overtly depose it and 
 deny its substantiality ? This objection is plausible, for right 
 is subordinated by wrongful action ; but there is more to be 
 said. Both fraud and crime recognize right, and, what th ey 
 endeavour to cancel is explicitly the universal and substantia l 
 element o f the rational will. They go deeper than mere con- 
 tract does, fur Lliey lidilliL a. universal whose being is rooted 
 in something more profound than the accidental agreement 
 of particular wills. And hence, in spite of their defiance of it, 
 they contain the principle of right in a more adequate shape 
 than has appeared hitherto. Further, Hegel includes punish- 
 ment as an element in their conception ; that .is to say, he 
 refuses to treat them as substantial and self-complete forms. 
 The negation and subordination of right by the will is in- 
 trinsically a failure ; it is a self-contradiction which demands 
 to be sublated. Crime and punishment constitute a single 
 category, whose nature is primarily positive, and in which 
 the fullest difference and disunion of which abstract right is 
 capable is held in suspension and is overcome. This wiU be 
 made clearer in the sequel. 
 
 Perhaps it is advisable to repeat a warning given above. 
 The connexion we have traced between contract and wrong 
 
WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 145 
 
 s one of categories, not of processes. The elements of thought 
 nvolved in the notion of contract pass inevitably into the 
 lotion of wrong and are remodelled there ; but an actual 
 contract does not necessarily become a wrongful act. Even 
 when the dialectic order is repeated in the sequences of history, 
 ictual processes must not be confused with conceptual 
 elements. Thus, for example, many contracts were probably 
 made before any one began to cheat, and right must have 
 been in some measure established before it was violated ; 
 but this logical necessity, although it controls facts in time, 
 is in no sense a compulsion driving any one who has hitherto 
 done justly forthwith to lead a wicked life. The reflection of 
 the dialectic in history is misunderstood if it is interpreted in 
 any such fashion. Space does not permit" a discussion of the 
 topic here, and a fuU exposition of Hegel's view would lead 
 us beyond the confines of ethical philosophy. But it should 
 be clear that any actual process of human life, although it 
 may be explicitly or self-consciously identified with one 
 philosophic category rather than another, nevertheless is 
 implicitly, or in the last resort, greater than it appears to be. 
 It is more complex, more concrete, than any of its explicit 
 constitutive universals, and has features which do not apply 
 to the logical interconnexion of categories themselves. Logic 
 does apply to the practical hfe, just as number applies to 
 things which we can count ; but the relations of logical 
 principles are as apt to differ from the relations of events to 
 one another as are the relations of numbers to differ from the 
 relations of the things counted. In this sense Hegel insists 
 that in history logical relations are embodied in an external 
 medium and are not found in their purity. 
 
 We may now consider the subdivisions of wrong. These 
 are three in number : viz. naive or non-mahcious wrong,)^ 
 fraud, and crime. In the first of these three the agent has no 
 intention of infringing right, he admits that whatever is right 
 should be done, and he errs only in mistaking the actual 
 positive content of right. Two men lay claim to ownership 
 of the same thing, each adducing grounds for his claim and 
 believing that right is on his side. Each seeks to exclude 
 the private will of the other person from the thing, but 
 recognizes and respects the vahdity and supremacy of the 
 universal. The forms of wrong are comparable to logical 
 
146 WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 
 
 judgements. ' This first form of wrong negates only the 
 particular will, and yields respect to the universal right ; it 
 is, therefore, the least form of wrong. If I say that a rose is 
 not red, I still recognize that it has colour ; I do not deny 
 the kind, but only the particular, red. Similarly, right is 
 
 I recognized here ; each person wills the right and seeks to do 
 it alone ; his wrong consists in holding that what he wills is 
 
 I right.' 1 
 
 Fraud is the second form of wrong. In naive wrong in- 
 trinsic right is recognized as the basis and substance of the 
 will, but there is a discrepancy between the principle and its 
 realization. The universal thus appears as something which 
 ought to be realized, but which may be thwarted and refused. 
 Fraud carries this a" step farther. It degrades right, the true 
 substance of the will, to the level of a means, and uses the 
 appearance of right to satisfy an unrightful individual end. 
 Fraud, thus, is an apparently positive form of right,, which 
 at the same time violates right by treating right, not as the 
 essence, but as non-essential. Its attitude contrasts with 
 that of non-malicious wrong. The latter respects the universal 
 and infringes the particular : the former respects the par- 
 ticular, ' since the person against whom the fraud is com- 
 mitted is led to believe that right is done to him ', and infringes 
 the universal, for ' the right which is demanded is posited as 
 a mere subjective appearance '. Fraud is a parasite. It 
 draws its substance from right and is achieved only by ex- 
 pHcitly acknowledging right; but it also denies right and 
 makes it of no effect. Hegel compares fraud to an infinite 
 judgement, wearing a' positive form, but expressing only 
 a tautology. The predicate of a positive judgement ought to 
 be a universal including and characterizing the subject ; but 
 the positive infinite judgement, A is A, simply repeats the 
 subject in the predicate and qualifies it by itself. It overtly 
 asserts a particular, but reduces the judgement to nonsense 
 by covertly excluding all objective significance. Hence, one 
 might argue that to stand by the letter of the law against its 
 spirit is fraudulent ; for in the last resort it is indistinguish- 
 able from the deceit of the coiner, who gives one an object 
 with a few superficial and particular qualities of money, but 
 lacking its true nature and value. 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 86 note. %. 
 
WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 147 
 
 > — 
 
 The third form of wrong is crirrie. Crime attacks both the 
 universal and the particular sides of right, and it leaves its 
 victim with neither the substance nor the shadow of what is 
 his due. It is action done against right both in its objective 
 and subjective being. Since fraud gains the assent of the 
 person deceived, it has no need of violence ; the sufferer 
 co-operates unwittingly in his own undoing. Crime, how- 
 ever, attacks the will of another in all its aspects and exercises 
 force. It is a negative infinite judgement, and invades not 
 merely this or that possession but the right of the person in 
 general.! 
 
 At this point the question arises. How is it possible to 
 ofier violence to the free will ? In one sense it is not possible, 
 for mind is not a thing to be pushed ab6ut or held in the hands ; 
 it must enter into the field of externality and be bound there 
 if it is to suffer compulsion from others. There are two ways 
 in which freedom may assert itself. On the one hand it may 
 retire into its own inward recesses, rejecting everything dis- 
 tinguishable from its inner principle as alien, and look upon 
 the lot and chances of the world with the indifference of 
 Stoic apathy. This is an abstract freedom unworthy of mind. 
 But there is another method. The outward fact and power 
 may be accepted, mind may put iteelf in the thing and be 
 constrained there. But it may refuse to regard the limit as 
 final, and may place itself beyond it. In one way or another 
 it may take possession of its opposite, idealizing the latter 
 and building it into the edifice of its own life. Every form of 
 mind has a different way of attempting this ; we shall see 
 shortly how it is accomplished by abstract right. 
 
 Before stating the way in which freedom restores itself in 
 and through any violence done to it, we may look at the 
 nature of violence in so far as it comes within the view of 
 right. .' Since the will is " idea " or really free only in so 
 far as it has a definite mode, and since the definite mode in 
 which it has laid itself is the being of freedom, force or violence 
 directly destroys itself ; for it is the externalization of a will 
 that cancels the externahzation or definite mode of a will.' ^ 
 Crime_is the act of a free man ; it cannot be imputed to the 
 unthinking^b'Ject" or' animal ; it implies a will and a rational 
 
 ' Ibid. § 95 ; Encyclopaedia, § 173 ; and WW. V. p. 90. 
 ^ Ibid. § 92. 
 
 L2 
 
148 WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 
 
 nature of one piece with the rational principle of all minds. 
 We may leave this statement without further explanation at 
 present, for the nature of responsibility will come before us 
 in the" next two chapters. £Crime is the act of a self-conscious 
 being whose essence is a universal wilL^But the act itself 
 denies the basal principle of all objective will, viz. right ; 
 and the rational agent conducts himself as if will were nowhere 
 to be found but in his private being, as if there were nothing 
 but dead things in the world. By thus attacking other wills 
 he attacks his own. Men are distinct from one another as 
 regards their special qualities and conditions in life, but this 
 distinction does not penetrate to their fundamental character. 
 Every man is free in essence, and only in virtue of his inherent 
 freedom and his capacity of rights is he a man at all. Right 
 is not a private possession, it is not divided into parts, but is 
 whole in every member ; and to touch it anywhere is to 
 touch it throughout.^ Thus the notion of crime contradicts 
 itself : it cancels that in virtue of which it is, and is therefore 
 intrinsically unreal. 
 
 This does not mean that the criminal act does not exist, 
 for existence is not the same thing as reality. The foulest 
 blemish is somewhat, and may taint much air in this world : 
 but it is not real in the truest sense of the word. It is a mere 
 semblance, a fragment ; it reflects borrowed light, and it 
 exists at all only because there is something beyond it. Right 
 is the substance of wrong, and if wrong could destroy right 
 it would destroy itself. This is not altogether a new doctrine. 
 ' What shall we say then ? Is the law sin ? God forbid. 
 Nay, I had not known sin, but by, the law.' ' For I was alive 
 without the law once : but when the commandment came, 
 sin revived, and I died.' Wrong would not be wrong if it 
 were final : it is wrong because right is in it as its truth and 
 as the universal of which it is an embodiment. In crime 
 abstract right is strained to the uttermost, but it is not 
 broken : if it were to break there would be no strain. 
 
 Crime is a form of right that violates the very principle of 
 right : how does right— or what is the same thing, freedom- 
 maintain or restore itself in face of wrong ? The answer in 
 brief is, by punishment. The crime is an act, a positive 
 existent in the" external world, but it is self-contradici;ory, 
 ' V. WW. XVIII. pp. 33-4. 
 
WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 149 
 
 suicidal if you will, and therefore intrinsically void. ' The 
 demonstration of its nullity is also an actual process annulling 
 the injury. Right, thus, has reahty as a necessity which 
 mediates itself with itself by sublating the injury to it.' ^ 
 Punishment is a realization of right, a process whereby the 
 inherent nature of mind, as ' idea ', works itself out by can- 
 ceUing and overcoming the false form. ' Abstract right is 
 a right to coerce, since wrong is a violation of the outward 
 mode of freedom in an external thing ; the maintenance of 
 this mode against the force is itself an external act and a force 
 sublating that first one.' ^ 
 
 According to Hegel, wrong and its recompense constitu te 
 a single whole, they are not externally added to one another^ 
 but~ are members o f one body , elements of a single no Lion . 
 Thfs~distinguishes his view from many others. ^Mafiyth^ories 
 of punishment regard it as a means to some finite end distinct 
 from right itself. Sometimes the deterrent effect of punish- 
 ment is set up as its cardinal purpose, and sometimes the 
 reformation of the offender. Men shrink in cold blood from 
 the barbarism of inflicting injury on the guilty person, and 
 denounce any appearance of retribution as a relic of primeval 
 savagery when lust and passion were uncontrolled by reason. 
 We should not give way to passion, they say, but should 
 punish only because it is useful for some beneficent end. To 
 such thinkers Hegel must seem the greatest of all reactionaries, 
 even less excusable than his distant predecessor Plato. But 
 before we condemn Hegel — and Plato — let us take another 
 glance at his view. What is his objection to our more humane 
 theories ? Briefly this : tljey forget that man is a rational 
 being. The first point to note is that these theories, which 
 we may distinguish as the deterren t and the j^f ormatory , 
 look on punishment as an evil IFis an injury done to some 
 one ; in itself, therefore, it is bad, and it is to be dispensed 
 with in so far as the end we seek wiU permit. We shall return 
 to this point. The deterrent theory regards punishment as 
 a threat, and it may lay emphasis either on the individual 
 or on society. In the first case it holds that the justice of 
 punishment depends on the previous knowledge which the 
 agent had of the threat ; in the second it justifies punishment, 
 even when he was unaware of the penalty, on the ground 
 1 Philosophy of Right, § 97. ' Ibid. § 94- 
 
150 WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 
 
 -T 
 
 that it acts as a threat to others. But Hegel asks if the 
 threat itself can be justified. ' It treats man as if he were 
 not free, and seeks to compel him by the representation of 
 an evil.' But right and justice have their seat in freedom 
 and the will, and not in the absence of freedom which is made 
 use of by the menace. When such a ground is alleged for 
 punishment, man is considered, not in his dignity and free- 
 dom, but like a dog over which a stick is raised.' ^ Punish- 
 ment based solely on such a ground would itself be a wrong, 
 for it would not respect personality as such. 
 
 The reformatory theory may seem to escape this criticism, 
 for it holds the end of punishment to be the development of 
 the full and rounded life that is thwarted and cramped in the 
 criminal in his unregenerate state. But this theory is defective 
 also, and in the same way. It admits the potential rationality 
 and freedom of the criminal, but it treats its reahzation 
 merely as a future event. The wrongdoer, it says, is at 
 
 ■ ^present only a beast : by our punishment we will make him 
 
 a man. But this view overlooks the fundamental considera- 
 
 "^-J^ion : a beast cannot do wrong, and without the law there is 
 
 no sin. Qime,thenjjsnothing butjji_obnoxious_axtj. andjhe 
 
 criminal isiubJectedTo an "eiaborate punishment, and not 
 
 ll destroyed out of hand, simply because it is possible to make 
 
 Ij him a pleasant and agreeable addition to society. Thus the 
 
 connexion between crime and punishment is broken altogether. 
 
 There is no clear reason why men who happen to do wrong 
 
 should be the only ones to undergo compulsory reformation ; 
 
 any undeveloped person should be punished if he is capable 
 
 of higher things. The actual commission of crime is only 
 
 a clumsy mark to indicate some people who would be the 
 
 =r-^7 better of reformatory treatment. 
 
 Hegel believes that punishment goes deeper into the nature 
 of man than this, and is a stern expression of his inherent 
 rationality. Prevention and reformation are excellent things, 
 and are of the utmost importance when the question of 
 punishment is in question, but they do not explain the 
 meaning of punishment in its ultimate terms. Punishment is 
 not fundamentally an evil, it is the cancelling of an evU, the 
 negation of a negation, and hence the restoration of the 
 positive princij)le of right. Punishment is just, not because 
 ^ Philosophy of Right, § 99 note. 
 
WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 151 
 
 it is useful for something else, though that may be a worthy 
 quality, but because it is the assertion of justice itself, a second 
 kct by which right annuls wrong. Hegel agrees with Plato 
 that punishment is the crininal's own right. It is desirable 
 that the wrongdoer himself should assent to the justice of the 
 punishment, but even when a definite agreement is lacking, 
 the punishment expresses the ultimate nature of his will. 
 By his offence he has manifested his participation in the 
 identical constitutive principle of every will, and punishment 
 is the return of his own inherent nature upon him. 
 
 The nature of punishment is sometimes dev^oped in 
 a slightly different way by writers who draw much of their 
 inspiration from Hegel himself. Xhey admit his criticism of 
 the views that single out some specific aspect of punishment 
 and set it up as an external end. The purpose and significance 
 of punishment, they insist, is the concrete universal, of which 
 these special ends are in truth moments ; hence retribution, 
 prevention, and reformation are inseparable aspects of the 
 true notion. This view, so far as it goes, is consistent with 
 Hegel and brings out much of his meaning ; but it leaves 
 aside a consideration which he emphasizes. It treats the 
 three moments as if they were parallel and coequal aspects, 
 each manifesting one side of the rounded whole. Hegel 
 expresses himself otherwise. Retribution is not one aspect 
 among others to be balanced against them ; it is itself the 
 notion of the whole, a principle within which the other aspects 
 are contained. Hegel is treating punishment here from the 
 standpoint of abstract right, and of course the principle 
 becomes more concrete when it is articulated within the 
 context of organized society. But the further aspects which 
 appear in this more concrete realm are not new principles 
 externally added from another source, and are not to be 
 balanced against the original one. They are modifications 
 and developments of the fundamental principle itself. Just 
 as the state is not a complex of right plus other considera- 
 tions, but is the development of right itself, the true mode 
 of right ; so the concrete view of punishment as it exists 
 within the state is the realization of the abstract principle of 
 requital. The reformation which punishment should bring 
 about is not an addition to the first principle, but is rooted 
 in the latter ; it is the assertion of the criminal's own intrinsic 
 
152 WRONG AND PUNISHMENT _ 
 
 will regarded from a special angle. So, too, punishment 
 deters because of the identity in substance of all individual 
 wills, and its particular modes are developments which 
 punishment undergoes when the right it asserts and restores 
 is no longer abstract, but is articulated into the law of an 
 organized state. There is no need to find a further principle 
 to explain the system within which retribution, reformation, 
 and prevention fall. The idea of retribution is itself the 
 notion of which that system is the ' idea '. 
 
 This inherent rationaUty, however, does not always achieve 
 perfect expression in outward processes. Revenge is the first 
 mode of punishment, ' and it is just in its content in so far 
 as it is retributive '. But it is an imperfect mode of right 
 because in its form it is a particular act of a subjective will, 
 a contingent mode of justice, which appears to the other 
 person as a new injury. Genuin epunishment is the develop- 
 ment of the crime, the other halt tnat is presupposed in it; 
 but when its performance is a matter of individual concern it 
 becomes bound up with many particular motives and con- 
 ditions, which cover over the objective content and hide its 
 justice. The act of revenge is thus not only a requital but 
 also a fresh wrong. In its turn it begets revenge, and the 
 attempt to fulfil right leads to an endless series, or one that 
 ends only by accident. Right demands some more perfect 
 mode than this, and it can be realized in its truth only by 
 an established court where the will of the judge is merely the 
 medium of the law and does not taint the latter by any sub- 
 jective elements. 
 
 The discussion of the realization of punishment in society 
 goes beyond the range of abstract right and involves con- 
 siderations more concrete than this realm affords. We may 
 note, however, that Hegel indicates a stage betwe,en private 
 revenge and the judgement of society expressed in an authori- 
 tative tribunal. In primitive society there arise men who 
 coerce their neighbours — ^heroes we call them — and force the 
 rudiments of law, and order on the people around them. 
 These acts, Hegel sa^ys, are just in spite of their violence, for 
 they are directed against inadequate and unrationalized forms 
 of will. The natural will is itself an offence against freedom, 
 and constraint offered to it is a second act of violence negating 
 the first. ' Mere goodness is^ impotent against the power of 
 
 jfilif^ 
 
WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 153 
 
 nature, and the violence of heroes is justified as embodying 
 the higher right of the " idea " over the natural.' ^ But 
 although the aim of the hero is right, necessary, and consistent 
 with society, he carries it out as if it were his own affair : 
 he belongs to uncivilized life, and is not so truly free as the 
 good citizen of a rational and well-organized state. 
 
 Punishment is not required for naive or non-malicious • 
 wrong. In this form the principle of right is not attacked in 
 itself, and is infringed only in a particular shape explicitly 
 distinguished from the universal. In the state this wrong is 
 righted by a civil action that decides which particular is to 
 be subsumed under right ; and when this is done there is no 
 further need to vindicate right, for as a universal it has not 
 been in question. Both fraud and crime require punishment. 
 The wrong is an outward act which leaves things in an altered 
 state, and they cannot be restored to their former condition ; 
 right is not satisfied, for example, by the simple restitution 
 of stolen goods. Over and above the particular side, the 
 attack on the universal has to be taken into account, and so 
 punishment is an act which invades and infringes the dis- 
 torted wUl. Since the fundamental aspect is the universal, 
 the principle of punishment does not require a point for point 
 correspondence of the punishment and the crime. An eye for 
 an eye and a tooth for a tooth is the maxim of a very imperfect 
 thought which sees no other way of constituting a universal 
 than that of summing particulars. The equivalence of the 
 wrong and its undoing is one of value, not of detailed quality, 
 and the law recognizes this principle when it grants com- 
 pensation for injury and punishes by fine and imprisonment. 
 
 Philosophy, however, cannot lay down any code of rules 
 whereby appropriate punishments are to be determined. 
 Actions in space and time are endlessly concrete, and must be 
 considered in aU their special context. But there is one point 
 on which the general principle can provide a decision. There 
 is a distinction between crimes ' which attack the entire 
 manifestation of the will in the infinity of its notion, as e. g. 
 murder, slavery, reUgious compulsion, &c., and those whose 
 injury is limited in quality and extent '.^ The extreme 
 penalty is not equitably exacted in cases which do not destroy 
 personality in its full range, but cancel only some of its 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 93 note. * Ibid. § 96. 
 
154 WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 
 
 alienable expressions. Murder, however, destroys the life, 
 and ' since the life is the full compass of a man's existence, 
 the punishment must take away not a value, for none is great 
 enough, but the life itself '.^ Although Hegel does not say 
 so, there seems to be no reason why the extreme penalty 
 must be regarded as the death sentence : penal servitude for 
 life, outlawry, or any other form of the total loss of rights, 
 is an equivalent of the death penalty ; it is death so far as 
 the rights of the person are concerned. 
 
 This analysis of wrong and punishment throws some light 
 on Hegel's general philosophy by illustrating and exemplify- 
 ing the position and function of the negative element in mind. 
 Two points may be mentioned. Hegel's theory here supports 
 his wider contention that the sublation of the negative does 
 not produce a merely positive result. Wrong — and in general 
 the imperfect and finite — ^is a false appearance, a contradic- 
 tion, an unreality : but this does not mean that it is in truth 
 nothing at all. Hegel has sometimes been interpreted as 
 holding that evil is due merely to a defect in our' vision ; in 
 itself the universe is wholly good and does not contain any 
 evil. And naturally the view has been subjected to severe 
 criticism. It does not explain how the illusion of evil is 
 possible. Further, by excluding evil from the absolute it 
 renders the latter finite ; for although evil is not a final 
 reality it is somewhat, and the world of so-called unreal 
 appearances stands over against the absolute, limiting it and 
 marring its comprehensiveness. Such a view is inadequate, 
 and ends in dualism. It presents us on the one hand with 
 a prefect world — probably conceived statically — containing 
 all good and nothing but good ; and on the other with a world 
 of appearances, either wholly unreal, or participating in some 
 mysterious way in the perfect world. Commerce between 
 these worlds is by the hypothesis an impossibility, and yet 
 human interest is divided between them and cannot afford 
 to give up either. Life demands a goal, an aim of some sort, 
 a criterion of action, and an assurance that its journey is 
 not a vain chase of a will o' the wisp. On the other hand, life 
 must have imperfection within it ; for progress implies 
 imperfection, and in our lives at least progress is of cardinal 
 importance. If the ethical ideal is as broad as life itself, if ' 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § loi note. 
 
WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 155 
 
 it is in any sense a goal for human beings, it must comprise 
 and explain all sides of conduct ; it must not be an abstrac- 
 tion consisting of satisfactions without their conditions, the 
 agreeable elements of experience stolen from their context 
 and externally combined by the imagination. The charge 
 generally brought against the philosophies of Plato and 
 Spinoza is that they separate the higher and the lower, and 
 do not make the inclusion of the latter in the former an 
 intelligible conception. Spinoza, in particular, is accused of 
 cutting the knot, and contenting himself with the denial of 
 the reality of the imperfect. 
 
 Now, whatever be the truth of this criticism with respect 
 to Plato and Spinoza, it is clearly unfair with regard to 
 Hegel. It is true that for Hegel evil is an untruth, and certain 
 passages can be quoted from him in which he insists that it 
 is an appearance and denies its finality. But these passages 
 should not be isolated, and ought to be read in the light of 
 his whole argument. No interpretation does justice to his 
 view if it omits either the finality of the positive aspect of 
 the whole or the existence of evil. We have seen that wrong 
 is a necessary category through which the diedectic must pass 
 in order to reach the concrete ethical sphere, and the result 
 of the dialectic is not indifferent to its process. Moreover, the 
 right that is restored by punishment is not sheerly identical 
 with that previous to wrong ; it is a richer principle, more 
 complex and concrete, and more adequate to itself. The 
 second act of violence sublates the first, but it does not turn 
 the hands of time back and restore naive innocence. Vindi- 
 cated right is greater than right that has not been tried and 
 has not proved itself ; for it has met its opposite and over- 
 come it, and made explicit what is merely inherent in the 
 abstract notion. I do not see how this view can be charged 
 with failing to include the lower in the higher. If mastery is 
 not mere annihilation, and if the whole is positive only because 
 it is the negation of a negation, surely it is only perversity 
 to imagine that an abstraction, wrongfulness, remains out- 
 side the restored right. When wrong becomes a moment of 
 good it does not itself become merely good any more than 
 a brick in a wall becomes merely a wall, or a citizen in the 
 state becomes himself a little state. There is a radical fallacy 
 in attributing simpUciter the characteristics of a whole to 
 
156 WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 
 
 its terms, and this applies even to the ' idea '. The new soul 
 that is infused into things evil uses their very wrorigfulness 
 as a moment in itself ; for mind is a unity of opposites, and 
 comes to its truth only because of the distinction between it 
 and its opposite. 
 
 This leads us to the second point. By punishment right 
 transcends wrong, but the whole which is thus created is not 
 an indifferent third thing beyond right and wrong, a neutrum 
 in which each cancels the other. We have seen that the 
 notion of right develops of necessity into wrong, and also 
 that wrong depends for its being and significance on right, 
 but this mutual implication does not set the terms on a level. 
 Hegel's position is that the one term, right, has supremacy, 
 and over-reaches the other. Wrong is a contradiction, an 
 imperfect and unstable appearance : right is the completion, 
 the substantive whole. Thus it is true that wrong is cancelled 
 by right ; it is preserved by being negated and by having 
 its private character used to maintain the very principle it 
 resists. If one were to omit punishment from the conception, 
 wrong would remain quasi-substantive, and right woidd be 
 suspended in it as a negated element. But thought cannot 
 rest here ; for the element thus negated is the substance 
 itself, and in being negated carries with it the negation of 
 the particular evU will itself. Wrong is inherently a sub- 
 ordinate aspect, and is enclosed by right at either end ; right 
 is both the notion it presupposes and the ' idea ' into which 
 it develops. Hegel's logical theory does not permit one to 
 assume that dependence is all of one kind. Wrong is broken 
 by its dependence on right, and is negated when the implica- 
 tion is made clear ; but right is intensified and made more 
 complete by its development, for its true nature is explicitly 
 to overwhelm and master wrong. Mastery and subordination 
 are both forms of implication, but they are not equivalent for 
 all that. 
 
 The limitation of the scope of this treatment of the ' pro- 
 blem of evil ' should be carefully noted, (i) Evil is considered 
 here only in the form of wrong ; other modes of it belong 
 to more concrete realms of life and must be explained there, 
 (ii) The analysis of notions is not an historical explanation. 
 Hegel does not say here that in every historical case wrong 
 is punished as it ought to be : he analyses the stages whereby 
 
 siiik 
 
WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 157 
 
 life makes itself rational and coherent ; and the conclusion 
 to be drawn is not that any historical event is in its limited 
 compass a perfect mode of justice, but that if it distorts 
 a category of right it is not just, and although it exists it is 
 neither rational nor ultimately real, (iii) The question 'is not 
 raised in the form. Why does evil exist ? Hegel tells us 
 what he understands evil to be, and what its relation is to its 
 relevant context. But he refuses to consider the hypothesis 
 that goodness is out of all relation to evil, and yet should 
 explain the latter. He has tried to show that naive right as 
 primitive innocence is not adequate to itself ; it is not fully 
 right, and any further request for a ' deduction ' of wrong 
 seems to him to be the meaningless question. Why is the 
 ultimate nature of the world as it is ? 
 
 These qualifications of the problem are not on one level. 
 The third is a legitimate refusal to answer self-contradictory 
 questions, but the first two indicate limitations in the capacity 
 of abstract right to solve the problem as a whole. Evil will 
 appear in a further shape in the moral consciousness, and we 
 shall comment on it there, but it has still other forms that 
 cannot be resolved by the categories of objective mind. And 
 in particular the problems that arise concerning the positive 
 relation of historical explanation and ethical justification 
 carry us beyond objective mind altogether. 
 
 We have now reached the end of the sphere of abstract 
 right. The principle has been developed as far as it wUl go 
 in the realm of naive objectivity, and we must consider the 
 development of the other moment, the subjective aspect of 
 the ethical whole. This we shall begin in the next chapter, 
 where we pass to the realm of morality. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 The second main division of right is called morality, and 
 it presents to us a distinct standpoint and set of categories. 
 Hegel's view of the nature of the, moral consciousness is of 
 importance for his general philosophy, and we must consider 
 it rather closely. There are three main sources from which 
 we may gain information here : the Phenomenology, the 
 Encyclopaedia, and the Philosophy of Right. The two latter 
 present to us the constitutive principles of the moral world, 
 indicating what kind of realization mind has through them 
 and in what way the dialectic is forced beyond them.^ The 
 Phenomenology deals with the actual organization of the moral 
 world, and with the structure of the moral consciousness as 
 a phenomenon. In this chapter I intend to state the constitu- 
 tive principles themselves, basing almost entirely on the 
 Philosophy of Right ; in the next chapter the attempt to 
 construe the world by their means will be considered, and 
 Hegel's criticism stated of the reality and coherence of the 
 moral self and its content. To that end the negative aspects of 
 the dialectic in the Philosophy of Right (and the Encyclopaedia) 
 will be combined with the main contentions of the relevant 
 portions of the Phenomenology. 
 
 In the first place we may consider the dialectical transition 
 from abstract right to morahty. In the former sphere we 
 found a series of categories which play an important part in 
 organizing the content of the rational will. They are the 
 constitutive principles which are explicit to the naive con- 
 sciousness. But it is evident that they are not sufficient to 
 determine the entire rational character of the world with 
 which we have to do in action ; they are formal and abstract, 
 
 • For a criticism of Hegel's account of moraKty v. Rosenkranz, 
 Erl&uterungen zu Hegel's Encyclopadie, pp. 95-102, and Hegel ah 
 deutscher Nationalphilosoph, pp. 155 f[. ; also Lasson's introduction to 
 his edition of the Philosophy of Right, p. xxvii ff. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 159 
 
 and expose to us only the barest outline of the features of 
 practical life. They are conditions without which an organ- 
 ized rational life is not possible, but they are not the sole 
 conditions. In morality we make a regress on another set 
 of transcendental principles which are implied in those of 
 abstract right. It may be useful, at the risk of some repetition, 
 to compare Hegel's procedure here — and in general — with 
 that of Kant in the earlier part of the Critique of Pure Reason. 
 In the Aesthetic and Analytic of that Critique we have 
 exposed to us a succession of principles which make experience 
 possible. Kant tells us at first that the manifold of sense must 
 be received in the sensible forms of space and time, and at 
 this stage he speaks as if the object of knowledge were given 
 to the mind completely determined except in these two 
 respects. But in the Analytic we are shown that there are 
 other conditions presupposed in the reception of the sensible 
 data in space and time ; a mind which had only these forms 
 could not have even these. The constant rain of impressions 
 which pours on inner sense must be held together, if it is to 
 constitute an intelligible object, by a single act of appre- 
 ' hension ; the various elements must be ' run over and held 
 together by the mind ', and the activity which fulfils this 
 condition is called the ' synthesis of apprehension in percep- 
 tion \ The next transcendental condition is entitled the 
 ' synthesis of reproduction in imagination '. In effect Kant 
 asks the question. How is it possible for the mind to hold 
 ' the various determinations of sense together ? And the answer 
 he gives is that former impressions of sense must be reproduced 
 by the mind along with present ones. ' If the earUer deter- 
 I minations . . . were to drop out of my consciousness, and 
 ; could not be reproduced when I passed on to later ones, 
 i I should never be conscious of a whole ; and hence not even 
 I the simplest and most elementary idea of space or time could 
 \ arise in my consciousness.' 1 That is to say, reproduction in 
 f imagination is a condition of the possibiUty of the synthesis 
 1 of apprehension, which in turn is a condition of the perception 
 , of the manifold in the forms of space and time. In the next 
 i place, Kant discovers that reproduction in imagination 
 ^ itself has conditions. The reproduction must be orderly, 
 * ' WW. III. Hartenstein's edition, p. 569 ; Watson's Selections, 
 > p. 59- 
 
i6o THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 and it must proceed in accordance with rules. ' There can 
 be no knowledge ', he says, ' without a conception, however 
 indefinite or obscure it may be, and a conception is in form 
 always a universal which serves as a rule.' ^ Behind the tran- 
 scendental conceptions Ues the supreme unity of reference, the 
 single self or ' transcendental unity of apperception ' ; and 
 it is a necessary condition of the other transcendental forms. 
 The point to be emphasized here is' this. These transcendental 
 principles of knowledge form a series, each member of which 
 conditions that which goes before it . They are not merely sepa- 
 rate rules, which when added together make objects possible ; 
 they are rather developments of one another, each stating a 
 condition involved in the possibility of the previous one. 
 
 Hegel's dialectic shows this same feature.^ The first 
 principles of knowledge are statements of the barest and widest 
 conditions which must be fulfilled by any object, and the higher 
 categories are further conditions necessary to the satisfaction 
 of the former ones. In some ways the progress of the dialectic 
 obscures this fact. The earlier categories are said to be 
 negated, merged, or sublated ; and one is apt to say that the 
 higher principles are substituted fdr the former ones. But 
 this is only one side of the truth. The lower categories are 
 set aside only because of their abstractness ; and although they 
 are inadequate they are true so far as they go. In the ' idea ' 
 these principles are preserved. They are modified, it is true — 
 transformed and transmuted, if one likes, but we must not let 
 the metaphor mislead us. They are not merely turned into 
 something other than themselves ; but remain ingredients in 
 true knowledge of the whole, although they are supplemented 
 and placed in due subordination. Being is the lowest of 
 all categories, and the most inadequate to express the nature 
 of any concrete reality : nevertheless it is true of everything. 
 ' All knowledge, mediate or immediate, and in general every- 
 thing else, at least is ; and that it is, is the least and most 
 abstract thing that we can say of anything.' ^ I do not see 
 how any view which sets transformation against preservation 
 
 ' WW. Ill, Hartenstein's edition, p. 571 ; Watson, p. 61. 
 
 ^ For Fichte's view of his own procedure v. WW. I. p. 446. It is 
 irrelevant to the argument of the text whether Kant was fully aware 
 or not of the dialectic form of his exposition. 
 
 = Hegel, WW. XII. p. 314. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY i6i 
 
 as an exclusive opposite is to be reconciled with Hegel's 
 doctrine of the notion and the ' idea ', which is the proper 
 standpoint of the interpretation of the dialectic. If we 
 examine any coirtent we see that it has being only because it 
 has more ; in order to be it must be a definite being ; and 
 so on. There is no reason why this should not apply even to 
 error and evil. If evil is a subordinate principle, then the 
 universe can be called bad only because it is finally good ; 
 and its goodness works in and through the imperfection. 
 But further discussion of this would take us too far afield at 
 present. • 
 
 Hegel's position, however, goes further than that of Kant. 
 Kant's transcendental principles are separate from one 
 another ; their co-operation in the constitution of an object 
 of knowledge is a quasi-mechanical one. But in Hegel's 
 dialectic the lower categories do not remain outside their 
 successors in the series. The higher category carries up the 
 lower, preserves it, and contains it as an element In order 
 to avoid confusion, we have to remember that we are discussing 
 bare categories here, and not concrete objects constituted by 
 them. It is not meant that, e. g., an existent called ' definite 
 being' contains another particular existent called 'being' : 
 the point is merely that the category ' definite being ' contains 
 the category ' being ' as a moment. This conception of the 
 relation of the categories is required by the doctrine of the 
 notion. The notion is at first the bare principle of a sphere, 
 it gives itself concreteness by developing a series of determina- 
 tions from within, and finally articulates itself into a ^Yhole 
 system. Each successive category is the principle itself 
 taken at a certain level of concreteness ; it is a developnaent 
 of the notion by itself, and not a mere addition to it. The 
 whole is active as the notion ; and while it transforms each 
 
 I category of the dialectic as it passes beyond it, it also carnes 
 1 forward and preserves aU that is in the less adequate fonns. 
 
 I We may now consider the special transition from abstract 
 right to moraUty in the light of these statements. Abstract 
 right exhausts the development of the universal aspect of 
 the ethical universe, when that aspect is considered by itself. 
 In moraUty we faU back on further conditions which make 
 abstract right itself possible. Mind in the field of abstract 
 
 I right appears as personality ; but we may ask. Is it possible 
 
 22II M 
 
i62 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 for a person to exist who is not something more than a person ? 
 Rational activity is possible only for a thinking subject, an 
 individual mind which acts from within, and is more than 
 a mere bearer of rights. We have to recur here to a principle 
 laid down in a previous chapter.^ There is always more in 
 finite mind than is explicit to that mind itself : consciousness, 
 e. g., would not be possible if self -consciousness were not 
 actually present ; for apart from the identity of the single 
 subject no unified world of objects is possible for knowledge. 
 But the subject who apprehends such a world may not reflect 
 on his own identity ; he may be absorbed in the objective 
 world and may abstract from its subjective aspect. It was 
 in this sense that we used the terms implicit and expUcit, 
 calling that exphcit which was for mind itself, and calling 
 that implicit which was present and operative but which was 
 detected only by us who analyse the mind in question. And 
 we have named the phenomenal appearances of mind in 
 accordance with what was exphcit in them. These considera- 
 tions apply here. The person, as distinct from the subject, 
 IS not a being which succeeds in maintaining itself in the world 
 as a mere bearer of rights, without ends or activities ; as 
 a mere person the subject is an abstraction for which purposes 
 are irrelevant, and for which the essence of the situation 
 lies entirely m the principles of abstract right. That is to 
 say, although the person is a phenomenal phase of mind in the 
 sense we have indicated, it is nevertheless an abstraction, 
 livery rational being is a thinking and wiffing subject, with 
 private ends and inclinations, and infused with the universal 
 j principle of all ethical life. Morality is a point of view at 
 which principles constitutive of the person, but merely 
 S?f 1" his consciousness, become exphcit to the agent 
 hxmself . Thus the dialectic takes a forward step in morality ; 
 
 ^LJt, f P-!'''* ?' '^^^"'^^ "^°^^ °f mind becomes more 
 adequate to its notion. 
 
 "+}..T^1* exactly has occurred here ? One part of the answer is, 
 fifth rh.iw.?^^^*i^^' ^."°'"" subjective. We saw in the 
 w 1 fW -n *^^* ^^^f- distinguishes three moments in the 
 wiU the ^ylU is universal, particular, and the concrete harmony 
 
 first of T7'''^^ ^""^ *^" particular. In abstract right th? 
 first of these aspects appears. No doubt it is the realm of 
 V. e.g. above, p. 103 f. ^ V. above, p. io8ff. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 163 
 
 immediacy ; but on that very account the intrinsic will is 
 abstractly universal. Mind embodies itself immediately in 
 external things, or in relations springing directly out of these, 
 and the intrinsic will is not recognized as a subjective principle. 
 It remains a vague underl5dng law, not located anywhere, 
 and constituting the rightful aspect of property, contract, 
 and punishment in an indeterminate fashion. But in morality 
 the supreme principle is the rational nature of the wiUingl 
 subject, and the intrinsic will is recognized by the agent to ; 
 be ultimately his own will. Right takes shape here not as an, 
 aggregate of pieces of property and rights arising from these,\ 
 but as a realm of active minds. Moreover, each individual! 
 mind claims complete autonomy : the only principles recog- 1 
 nized are those which appear inwardly to each subject. Thus ■ 
 the particular aspects of will come to light — not, of course, 
 as a group of mere particulars, but as a universal articulated 
 into a variety of instances each of which has the authority 
 of the universal within it. The principle of moraUty is the 
 explicit self-determination of the will, self-conscious freedom, 1 
 and all the stress is laid on the inward side, on motive,! 
 intention, and responsibihty. The law is binding because! 
 each subject lays it on himself ; and because of its inward' 
 character each will is free from all external interference. ( 
 'Since man wills to be judged in accordance with his self-j 
 determination, he is in this relation free whatever the external 
 features may be. No one can break into this conviction of 
 man within himself, no violence can happen to it, and the 
 moral wiU, therefore, is inaccessible. The worth of man is 
 estimated in accordance with his inner act, and hence the moral 
 standpoint is that of explicit freedom.' ^ ' 
 
 In his account of the transition in the Philosophy of Right 
 Hegel traces the continuity in a way which may enable us 
 to see how jight is^ preserved^in morality. The categories, 
 of abstract-right ar e - d:g xa :dn a:r development of the nature of 
 freedom. At first the will places itself directly in the external; 
 thing ; I characterize the object as ' mine ' and this predicate 
 is the shape which the free will takes at this stage. In con-\ 
 tract the universal is developed ; it is mediated by the will 
 of another, and becomes thereby explicitly universal. Con- 
 tract, however, is contingent on the agreement of private \ 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 106 note. 
 M 2 
 
i64 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 wills, and the next category makes this contingency explicit. 
 In wrong action the inherent will is treated as a mere appear- 
 ance by the individual ; that is to say, it is posited as 
 contingent by a particular will which is also contingent in 
 /character. At the standpoint of morality this very contingency 
 j takes a central position, and the universal becomes immediately 
 j one with the privacy and the particularity of the wiU.^ The 
 I sanctity which attached to the will in property now inheres in 
 I the autonomy of the will itself, and Hegel speaks specifically 
 I of the right of purpose, of intention, and of conscience. 
 Just as in abstract right the person has the right to property, 
 '. so here one has the right to be held responsible only for what 
 one purposes and intends, and to have the moral law within 
 one as conscience. And the very externality and immediacy 
 of abstract right have been carried up as the privacy and 
 individuality of the moral will. 
 
 , We may introduce the further analysis of the specific 
 principles of the moral worldby glancing at Hegel's conception 
 jf the nature of mind as the moral subject. Mind, we have 
 ;een, is never merely inward ; it is always, a mode of the 
 idea ', a notion which has a definite being and embodies 
 itself in the objective world. Objective, however, is an 
 ambiguous word, and Hegel distinguishes three senses of it 
 in the present connexion. In the first place it may mean 
 ' external immediate existence ', and the definite being of 
 things as facts. Corresponding to this there is the sense of 
 subjectivity in which the mind claims any objective existent 
 as its own, as belonging to the subjective. Secondly, it may 
 mean the adequacy of anything to its notion ; and in this case 
 subjectivity and objectivity coincide. Thirdly, it may mean 
 universaHty for all rational beings as such ; and here also 
 the corresponding sense of subjectivity coincides with it.^ 
 These three senses of objectivity are involved in harmony 
 in perfect or absolute mind. The rational self gives itself 
 outward expression in a world of existing things, which are 
 transparent media and organs of the central principle, and 
 constitute a system vaUd for all rational beings. In morality 
 also these categories are present, but the concrete system of 
 absolute mind has not yet become expHcit. ' The phenomenal 
 character or finitude of this sphere is constituted by this, 
 " V. Philosophy of Right, § 104. a V. ibid. § 112. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 165 
 
 that these features are separated at the moral standpoint, 
 or are united only in a contradiction ; and the development 
 of this standpoint is the development of these contradictions 
 and their solution, which, however, can be attained only 
 relatively within it.' ^ 
 
 Let us look first of all at the presence of the aspects. The 
 moral will expresses itself in action, and it is aware of the 
 action as its own ; the self is an active subject framing its 
 own ideals and purposes. The ideal which a man sets before 
 himself is sometljing which he has given to himself, it cannot 
 be forced into his mind from without, and it has power over 
 him only if he accepts it. That is to say, the will posits its 
 own determinations and is aware of its activity. But, at the 
 same time, it is also aware that a mere ideal is a futility and 
 requires to be carried out in the world. Hence mind is an 
 active principle altering the world, and bringing it into line 
 with the ideals which have arisen in the mind itself. This 
 activity is an inexpUcable mystery for all dualistic philosophies, 
 and such doctrines fail to make it credible that mind should 
 ever attempt such an absurdity as action at all. What 
 interest it could have in a world out of all relation to it and 
 how it sets about operating in that world are left unexplained. 
 But for Hegel, as we have seen, mind is not mere self-con- 
 sciousness ; the world which is over against it is part of its 
 own being, and the antithesis between mind and its object 
 falls within naind itself. If we must use spatial metaphors 
 we ought to say that mind is both one side and the whole. 
 Ideals and purposes arise from felt dissatisfactions ; and the 
 contrast between the demand of the self and the content it 
 gets from the present world is essential to this experience of 
 dissatisfaction. Thus, in the long run, for Hegel the activity 
 by which the self transforms its world is not the manipulation 
 of a foreign material, but the development of the notion of 
 mind into its ' idea '. Mind is not confined to the subjective 
 side of purpose, it is immanent in the satisfaction as well as 
 in the design, and it takes shape as an activity which overlaps 
 and includes external things. This shows us the first two 
 features of those indicated : mind gives itself external exist- 
 ence as action, and its activity sustains and articulates its 
 inherent identity. ' Truth requires that the notion should 
 
 ' Ibid. 
 
i66 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 have being, and that its definite mode should correspond 
 to it. The will in right has its definite mode in an external 
 thing ; but it is further required that the will should contain 
 its definite mode within itself, in an inner medium.' ^ This 
 is exphcit in the moral subject, where mind regards itself as 
 realized in its own processes. 
 
 The third feature is also present. In the moral sphere 
 right lies in the universal aspect of the will, in reason ; and 
 reason is -of one texture in all rational beings. Thus in spite 
 of the privacy of the supreme principle of piorality, and in 
 spite of the self-contained and exclusive character of the moral 
 subject, the principle which has come to light is a universal, 
 formally identical in all men. Thus, when we carry out our 
 individual purposes, we may be said to surrender our immediate 
 and private being. Our actions are performed before the eyes 
 of others who are also rational and moral agents. We give 
 ourselves a definite existence in an order which is common to 
 all rational beings, and hence we have to deal with the well-being 
 of other selves as well as with our own private satisfactions. 
 This seems to be Hegel's meaning in the following statement. 
 ' Since in carrying out my ends I maintain my subjectivity, 
 I thereby sublate its immediacy and individuality in objectify- 
 ing it. The external subjectivity which is thus identical with 
 me is the will of others. The field of the existence of the will 
 is now subjectivity, and the will of others is the other existence 
 which I give to my end. The carrying out of my end thus 
 involves the identity of my will with other wills, and it has 
 a positive relation to the will of others.' ^ We exist in a world 
 of actions ; we are concerned not with dead' things, but with 
 wills which include things as content. We speak as accurately 
 as metaphor will allow when we say that for abstract right 
 the will is in the thing which it owns, but for morality the 
 thing is in the will as means to an end. This positive relation 
 of wills is lacking in abstract right. Its commands are at 
 bottom prohibitions. Even in contract and wrong the 
 relation between wills is based on caprice, and its rightful 
 aspect consists in not infringing the rights of others : the 
 relation is not seen to be a necessary aspect of activity. In 
 morality, on the other hand, our action exists in an order 
 composed of subjects who with us make up the moral sphere. 
 » Philosophy of Right, § 104 note. " Ibid. § 112. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 167 
 
 We turn now to the lack of harmony between these aspects. 
 Briefly, the defect springs from the formalism of the moral 
 principle. We have made a regress, as it were, from the level 
 of consciousness to that of self-consciousness ; but we have 
 not taken self-identity concretely. We have brought to light 
 certain fundamental conditions of the ethical universe, but 
 we are not in possession of the further principles by which 
 these are conditioned. That is to say, the categories of 
 moraUty are a demand which is not yet satisfied. Since 
 morahty is a level of explicit self-determination, this abstract- 
 ness is apprehended by the subject itself, and a distinction 
 is patent between the supreme principle and its actual filling. 
 It is a standpoint of distinction, of finitude ; and the intrinsic 
 will appears as obligation, that which ought to be. Sub- 
 jectivity is the proper field of the ethical life, and the aspects 
 of objectivity present in the moral consciousness are the 
 materials out of which it is developed : but so far the concrete 
 objective order is merely something which may appear in it, 
 and which may also fail of actual attainment. The identity 
 of different selves is formal ; they are alike in principle but 
 they are not explicitly constituted as members of a social 
 whole from which both the matter and the form of rational 
 existence comes. Although formally one with it, the activities 
 of other selves are other actions than that of this self, and 
 each does not regard the other as a perfectly transparent 
 medium of its own good. Duty and self-interest are not seen 
 actually to be at one, and their coincidence is an ideal. Each 
 aspect of objectivity is thus defective, their identity is 
 abstract — in the category of essence — and not concrete ; and 
 the moments of the whole which they contain exist in separa- 
 tion from one another. 
 
 We now proceed to the dialectical categories which constitute 
 the moral universe as they are given in the Philosophy of! 
 Right and the Encyclopaedia. There are three such principles : I 
 firstly, purpose and responsibihty ; secondly, intention and \ 
 well-being ; thirdly, goodness, conscience, and wickedness.^ | 
 
 In the first place, responsibility depends on purpose. The > 
 
 right of the moral subject is to have imputed to him only 
 
 those consequences of action which lie in his foreknowledge 
 
 and will. The naive consciousness — exemplified in Greek 
 
 1 V. Philosophy of Right, § 114 ; Encyclopaedia, §§ 504-7- 
 
i68 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 teaeedv by Oedipus— treated the outward effect of its act 
 4s a whole ; it did not divide the consequences, but accepted 
 he responsibihty for the outcome in its totahty. But the 
 noral will draws distinctions ; it is aware that the individual 
 s finite and that there are operative in him forces which he 
 iocs not command, and with which he does not identify 
 limself . It therefore claims that before praise or blanie are 
 jillotted an answer must be given to the question, Did the 
 ihdividual really do the action, or did it merely happen 
 tiirough him ? and the question means, Did the consequences 
 df the action lie in his purpose ? This is the first right of the 
 lijoral will, and it is a necessary element in absolute mind. 
 Absolute freedom involves that action springs from the 
 rational content of the mind, and that the effect produced is 
 foreseen and designed. But we have not yet reached the level 
 of absolute mind, and the moral consciousness claims this 
 right in abstraction from the concrete content which be- 
 longs to the higher spheres of the ethical order, reUgion, and 
 perfect knowledge. From these higher points of view the 
 significance of the category is that mind in its fuU truth is 
 conscious of all that is in its world and of all that occurs 
 there ; but at the present stage mind is not explicit in its 
 full truth, and the category has in consequence a negative 
 bias transcended at the higher levels. It claims that finite 
 mind has an absolute right to hold itself aloof from all that it 
 does not purpose. 
 
 ' The second category of morality goes deeper. By purpose 
 Hegel understands a particular and immediate end before the 
 mind of an individual. But behind the result which is directly 
 aimed at there is a universal. Taken simply as a sum of pur- 
 poses the actions of an individual would be a mere congeries 
 of special acts, each separate from the others, and with no 
 real significance or unity. But human action is not to be 
 regarded in this way. Each act is a phase in the expression 
 of a character as a whole ; there is one and the same self 
 behind each ; and in some way or other every purpose and 
 activity is given its shape by the permanent disposition and 
 routlook of the agent. When we act we not only realize some 
 \immediate end, we also satisfy and articulate a relatively 
 /steady and universal attitude to things ; and our immediate 
 Und is an organ or embodiment of this ulterior principle. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 169 
 
 Hegel distinguishes the two aspects as purpose and intention*-; 
 and intention is the second category of moraUty. ; 
 
 There are two sides to this principle. On the one hand, 
 it is more objective than purpose. It co-ordinates the various 
 aspects of its content, and takes some account of objective 
 connexions which are overlooked at the lower level. That 
 is to say, in declaring more plainly why an act is done and 
 exposing the ulterior motive, an analysis of a man's intention 
 indicates more truly what it is that occurs. If a man inten- 
 tionally sets a forest on fire, we obtain a very inadequate 
 account of the event if we are content to discover that he 
 kindled the few leaves or twigs from which the fire may have 
 originated. We ought also to see the connexion between these 
 leaves or twigs and the rest of the wood ; and, if we would 
 know what was the moral fact which really took place, we 
 must note that behind the immediate purpose of producing 
 a few sparks there was the intention to produce the wide-, 
 spread conflagration. The intention is the purpose made more 
 comprehensive, more objective, more far-seeing, and in that 
 sense more rational. 
 
 On the other hand, intention is more subjective than 
 purpose ; it transcends the immediacy of the latter on both 
 sides. As it takes more account of the relations of things, 
 so it expresses a wider area of the self. It is more deeply 
 rooted in the individual character of the agent; it is less 
 a casual and momentary phase of his Hfe, and more the reahza- 
 tion of a permanent tendency of his being. And so to gratify 
 a man's intentions is to satisfy the relatively general ends 
 on which he sets store. On this subjective side we can call 
 the satisfaction of intention well-being or happiness. It 
 includes ' the particularity of the subject ', the tenor of his 
 special structure and function as this individual. 
 
 Morahty demands that action should be estimated from 
 this point of view ; we have to take into account the wider 
 end for the sake of which any particular action is performed. 
 Thus in the case of a crime, e. g. murder, the claim of the 
 moral consciousness requires us to consider whether or not 
 the murder was performed for the sake of something else ; and 
 ■ it insists that the moral quality depends on the ultimate 
 intention. The murder, it is argued, as a particular obnoxious 
 effect, was undoubtedly before the mind of the agent, but 
 
170 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 it was not his central purpose. It was done for the sake of 
 something else. Even when a man seems to take a delight in 
 killing, this point of view maintains that the end desired is 
 not evil as such ; the action springs from a natural desire to 
 exert one's power, and satisfaction of this delight is the real 
 intention. 
 
 The moral consciousness claims that this category should 
 be recognized as a right. A man is to be judged from the 
 moral standpoint of his intentions, and he is to be held re- 
 sponsible for his acts only in so far as their fundamental 
 characteristics were in his consciousness and sprang from his 
 nature. ' The right of intention is that the universal quality 
 of the act shall not be merely implicit, but shall be known 
 by the agent and be present in his subjective will.' ^ On the 
 other hand it claims that in a moral world there must be room 
 for the satisfaction of the general tenor of the individual's 
 will. He must be able to find a subjective value and interest 
 in his deeds, and be able to reach well-being or happiness by 
 carrying out those ideals which are nearest to his heart. The 
 arising of this claim into consciousness, says Hegel, is the 
 turning-point between ancient and modern thought. In its 
 most complete form it is voiced by Christianity and made an 
 organizing principle of the Christian view of the world. It 
 appears in more one-sided forms in various romantic move- 
 ments, when love, eternal happiness; and so forth, are set 
 up as the supreme values.^ 
 
 The claim thus made is a true element of the ethical view of 
 the world, and the aspect of self-realization which it demands 
 must be preserved by the highest forms of mind. Mind must 
 be self-conscious if it is to be adequate to itself ; it must 
 appreciate the more universal features of hfe. Moreover, 
 absolute mind must contain the subjective satisfaction which 
 comes from the achievement of intention. ' In magnis voluisse 
 sat est has the true meaning that one ought to will some- 
 thing great. But one must also be able to perform what 
 is great : otherwise the will is null. The laurels of mere 
 willing are dry leaves that never were green.' ^ The ideals 
 of the individual, the content which his will has derived from 
 nature and has idealized into the substance of his life, must 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 120. 2 V. ibid. § 124. 
 
 ' Ibid. § 124 note. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 171 
 
 be included in his moral realization. Natural ends are con- 
 tingent and non-moral when taken at their face value, but 
 mind spiritualizes them : it must do so, for it has no other 
 substance. ' That man is a living being is not contingent 
 but in accordance with reason ; and so far he has a right to 
 make his needs ends. There is nothing unworthy in being 
 alive ; and there is no higher spiritual world of subsistence 
 over against life, in which one might exist.' ^ 
 
 Intention, however, is less concrete than the categories of 
 absolute mind. The claim which the moral consciousness makes 
 at this stage strikes a negative note, and demands that we 
 abstract from all that does not enter into intention and 
 individual well-being. On the one hand, it requires moral 
 judgement to be based only on a consideration of the situation 
 as it appeared to the agent, excluding every phase which he 
 may have overlooked. On the other hand, it demands 
 satisfaction for him as he stands, without reference to the 
 validity of his ideals or relation to higher and more adequate 
 principles of mind. 
 
 The third category of morality is more profound than 
 intention and brings more definitely to light the essence of 
 the standpoint with which we are concerned in this section. 
 In the category of purpose we found a subject designing a 
 special act ; in the category of intention we found the inherent 
 universality of mind carried a step farther, both on the subjec- 
 tive and on the objective sidte. But the universality thus 
 revealed is still relative : it is limited by the scope of the actual 
 intentions of the individual agent-; and the good which it 
 contains is limited to his special well-being. The wider uni- 
 versality which is latent in mind forces us beyond these hmits. 
 We are led from this or that mind to the conception of mind 
 as such, to the underlying rationaUty of which aU particular^ 
 ends are but special forms. The free mind requires absolute 
 autonomy ; it claims to have the springs of its action within 
 it and to aim at an end which is set up by its own rational 
 being. In order to make this position effective it must identify 
 its essence with its highest aspect ; it cannot content itself 
 with any Hmited temporary or local end, but must have an 
 end which is congruent with the independence and perfect 
 freedom which it claims for itself. That is to say, the end to 
 » Ibid. § 123 note. 
 
172 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 which it devotes itself must have absolute worth and be 
 desirable in and for itself. 
 
 ■"'This absolute end is, in the last resort, the essence of the 
 Imoral will. It cannot be a capriciously selected object, nor 
 can it be anything quite distinct from the will itself. If it 
 were of this latter character it would determine the will from 
 without, and in virtue of its inherent infinite worth would 
 override and subordinate freedom. The freedom of the will 
 and the absolute worth of its end can be reconciled only if in 
 the last resort the two are identical, or at least are aspects of 
 a single whole. The end at which the wUl aims is that which 
 the will seeks to become, it is the declared essence of the will. 
 And hence the end of the free will is realized freedom. 
 / The category which has now revealed itself Hegel calls 
 \goodness. At this level the will determines itself to an end of 
 /inherent worth in which it can be at home. The end has its 
 place not simply because it is desired by this or that individual, 
 mut because it is absolutely desirable ; and it is not an alien 
 constraint on the mind, for it is the substance, or the rational 
 principle, constituting the will itself. In this connexion the 
 elements of right which have already appeared are idealized, 
 and are contained as subordinate moments. Particular ends 
 of well-being are not recognized as final : the validity they 
 possess is seen to be derived from the fundamental principle 
 within them ; and if they become divorced from this supreme 
 category they cease to be right. The individual may not set 
 his special advantage against the highest good binding on him 
 together with all rational beings ; for this good is his true 
 self — the universal of which his particular interests have to 
 be the expression. And on the other hand, there must be 
 room in the highest good for the substantial ends of rational 
 life ; this good cannot be something alien to finite purposes 
 and intentions ; for it is reaUzed only through them, and is 
 their own real being. ' Goodness must be realized through 
 the particular will, and is at the same time the substance of 
 the latter ; and on that account it has absolute right against 
 the abstract right of property and the particular ends of well- 
 being. Each of these moments, in so far as it is distinguished 
 from goodness, is vahd only in so far as it agrees with goodness 
 and is subordinated to it.' i 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 130. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 173 
 
 The category of goodness, like those which preceded it, is 
 set forth by the abstract moral consciousness with emphasis 
 on its negative aspect. The claim to autonomy takes the form 
 of a claim to reject aU determination which does not arise 
 explicitly from its own self-consciousness. ' The right of the 
 subjective will is that what it has to recognize as valid shall 
 be seen by it as good, and that an act, as an end passing into 
 external objectivity, shall be reckoned just or unjust, good 
 or bad, lawful or unlawful, in accordance with the apprehen- 
 sion which the mind has of the act in this objectivity.' ^ The 
 individual mor^l subject is a meeting-point of the finite and 
 the infinite. His will is limited in circumstance, insight, and 
 power ; but he has in him as his own deeper nature the 
 rationality of absolute mind itself. The attempted recon- 
 ciliation which the moral consciousness offers here of these 
 two aspects is the claim that the individual shall be judged by 
 his insight, and that his duty is to act in accordance with 
 what he believes to be the highest. In the ethical sphere 
 mind grasps the objective principles through which the true 
 nature of the subject is developed into an abiding world ; and 
 the right claimed by morality is, on its positive side as well 
 as on the negative, a constitutive aspect of freedom. But 
 morality makes the claim apart from this objective appre- 
 hension, and demands infinite validity for the will even 
 although it has not brought itself into line with the concrete 
 world outside it. The inward maxim of the will is the ultimate 
 criterion and good, even when the will is iU-informed and is 
 frustrated by the objective order in attempting to carry out 
 the plans it has formed. It is enough, it is held, to aim high, 
 even although one fails of success in making the world conform 
 to one's end. 
 
 Hegel traces the phases which the wiU manifests in develop- 
 ing this principle. Taking them broadly, there are three in 
 number — duty, conscience, wickedness. 
 
 Hegel's treatment of duty is based very closely on Kant's) 
 analysis. Duty is the moral law springing from the rationay 
 nature of the wiU : it is the counterpart of freedom and the 
 principle governing good action. It claims absolute supre 
 macy, and demands to be sought and obeyed for itself alone 
 These features, however, are not sufficiently characteristic 
 
 ' Ibid. § 132. 
 
174 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 of duty, for they belong to every form which self-conscious 
 morality adopts. Its further characteristic is the separa- 
 tion of duty as a principle of action from the particular 
 natural elements, the impulses, needs, desires, and from all the 
 special interests which arise in the soul on account of its 
 'circumstances and endowments. Duty is sharply marked off 
 V from these : it comes from reason and not from sense ; it is 
 I indifferent to the lots and chances of individuals ; it is uni- 
 jversal, common to all rational beings and binding on them in 
 [virtue of their common rationaUty. 
 
 Such a conception is an abstraction. I have already 
 indicated generally how Hegel deals with it,i and a brief 
 reference at this point will suffice. On account of its abstrac- 
 tion from the concrete affairs of individual life, duty is a 
 barren form to which all particular content is alien. It has 
 no real community with one outward deed rather than another, 
 for ex hypothesi all the ends and needs which spring from nature 
 are non-moral. Duty, thus, has no other content than itself ; 
 it is incompetent to give rise to a doctrine of actual duties ; 
 it remains void and aloof from action. 
 
 This defect is fatal to duty even from the standpoint of 
 morality. If the barrenness and tautology of the mere 
 reverence for duty in the abstract, and of the maxim ' Duty 
 for duty's sake ', is pressed home, the whole moral sphere falls 
 away. Kant avoided this, in appearance at least, by passing 
 from the abstract form to more concrete principles, but his 
 advance was partly unreal, and for the rest it was unjustified 
 on the dualistic assumption which the abstract conception of 
 duty involves. Morality involves movement, particularity, 
 life ; and the principle which governs it must find some place 
 for the natural and contingent element of human existence. 
 On this account we are led from duty to the more concrete 
 principle of conscience. 
 
 In order to avoid misapprehension, it may be desirable to 
 state here that in this development from duty to conscience 
 we do not abandon duty utterly. We carry it up and trans- 
 form it. Conscience is duty itself re-interpreted, and given 
 greater body and effectiveness. "Jhe positive features of the 
 old conception can be identified in the new one, floating, as it 
 
 ' Chap. III. pp. 57-61. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 175 
 
 were, in the surrounding medium. One is therefore justified 
 in speaking of duty with reference to conscience itself ; for 
 conscience is duty, although it is also more. Nevertheless, 
 the sense has changed, and the meaning of duty becomes 
 more fully charged. 
 
 The reconciliation which conscience has to accomplish is 
 this. It has to retain the inwardness and the autonomy which 
 is claimed by the will which acts from the notion of duty ; and 
 at the same time it must pass judgement on particular actions, 
 order the details of 'life, and give satisfaction to the needs of 
 actual existence. It attempts to do this by an immediate 
 synthesis of the two sides. This statement may be more 
 easily understood if we go beyond the strict hmits of the 
 dialectical analysis for a moment and look at the phenomenon 
 of the moral life in which it is embodied. A rational human 
 being reacts as a whole to the stimulus of a moral situation. 
 His rational and his sensuous aspects do not he in water-tight 
 compartments ; they are not independent factors, but inter- 
 penetrate one another. The rational will is the organizing 
 principle of his desires and impulses ; it is the form to which 
 they rise and which is always immanent in them. Sometimes 
 it appears to govern them from without, and such a case is 
 found in the principle of duty which we have just discussed. 
 But the appearance is superficial, for the divorce is never 
 thorough. Duty can apply itself to a minor end only because 
 in some way or other the end is aUied to it, or rather is part of 
 its proper content. When we act from a sense of duty, duty 
 is concrete ; it is an embodying of our moral experience as a 
 whole, and not the application of a barren law to an indifferent 
 fact. An emotional sanction goes with it, the expression of 
 our organized instincts ; and the self as a Uving unity brings- 
 its moral experience into focus in the judgement. Even when 
 in estimating a situation we render a definite reason to our- 
 selves and express a general principle — as we often do — we 
 do not proceed in the quasi-mechanical fashion which some 
 doctrines of formal logic suggest. The general principle is 
 not bare and dead ; it is a living thing, on the one hand coming 
 to us as the burden and significance of our past experience, 
 and on the other developing itself in .the new situation and 
 binding further reaches of life into a whole. Our moral 
 principles are pur moral experience itself ideahzed by being 
 
176 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 unified and universalized ; they are the meaning of the whole, 
 the effective form in which it operates. 
 ) Conscience is this unified moral life. As Bishop Butler tells 
 us, it is an authoritative principle. But its authority belongs 
 to it because it is not merely a separate faculty, and because 
 it is the whole self operating in an individual act. In every 
 form of conscience the two aspects — ^universal and particular 
 — are present. They do not merely lie side by side ; they do 
 not merely co-operate ; they are the different aspects of a 
 unity. The principles at work are the principles of the situa- 
 tion itself and are not something added to it. It has taken 
 shape as them. And, on the other hand, the particularity of 
 the subject-matter is the body in which these principles exist. 
 In conscience the two aspects are only in one another ; and 
 when they are held apart in theory by an analytic understand- 
 ing they are mutilated, hardened, and distorted by the false 
 separation. 
 
 From the concrete phenomenon we may now pass back to 
 the category. In place of a will purged of all sense and 
 devoted only to the bare form of duty, we have the Hving 
 concrete will of a subject, full of latent content — tendencies, 
 instincts, habits, or whatever else they may be called — ready 
 to spring into life and assimilate any material presented to it 
 by some objective situation. Like the will governed by pure 
 duty, this will — c6nscience — is autonomous. The principles 
 by which it is moved are its own substance. They have come 
 from the natural world, it is true, but they have come into 
 mind ; and they govern it not from without but by consti- 
 tuting it. Formally at least, the whole worth of the individual 
 lies in conscience ; it is himself as a whole ; and hence it 
 realizes all that duty can offer to him. To follow it is to do 
 his duty. 
 
 In the concrete field of absolute mind, and partly at least even 
 in the ethical world, the will is so organized that the principles 
 which govern conscience are objective and concrete. Duty is 
 realized, for in the motive there is nothing alien to the universal 
 law, and conscience judges in such a way that the true essence 
 of life is thrown into high relief and the details made sub- 
 servient to it. This is true goodness. But in the abstract 
 moral sphere which we are considering at present the negative 
 note predominates. And the claim for supremacy, autonomy. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 177 
 
 and inherent value is made on behalf of the individual will in 
 the finite state in which it happens to be. The moral law, 
 from this standpoint, is not something over against the indi- 
 vidual, communicated to him as a command from without ; 
 nor is it a legal code or list of virtues : it is the voice of his 
 own higher being speaking within him concretely of the parti- 
 cular alfairs of his actual daily life. Conscience, thus, is the 
 direct certainty of the living subject, neither simple nor 
 relational, but an immediate identity of universal and parti- 
 cular.i It claims ' to know in itself what right and duty a're, 
 and that it should recognize nothing but what it thus knows to 
 be good, and also that what it thus knows and wills be right 
 and duty in truth.' ^ 
 
 The negative gloss given by morality to conscience leads 
 to the last main form which the developM moral conscious- 
 ness may adopt. Conscience dialectically passes into wicked- 
 ness. This statement may appear startling at first sight, but 
 there is no real paradox involved in it. It does not mean that 
 every one who acts conscientiously acts wickedly ; nor does 
 it assert that conscience as it appears in the ethical world, 
 where its negative aspect is merely the reflex of its positive 
 and objective comprehensive content, is the principle of 
 moral evil. It means that when due weight is given to the 
 Umitations of the conscience which remains whoUy with the 
 abstract moral sphere and fails to rise to the objective and 
 social standpoint of ethical observance, the principle of moral 
 evil is exposed. Abstract morality which tries to complete 
 itself in isolation from the higher reaches of mind is a negative, 
 principle — the principle of evil. ^ 
 
 ' Both morahty and wickedness ', says Hegel, ' have a 
 common root in explicit self-conscious exclusive certainty of 
 oneself.' * Conscience covers all forms of self-conscious moral 
 life, for in every such case judgement is passed by the self as 
 a whole. Sometimes, as we have seen, it offers a reason to 
 itself, and states a general principle ; but it does not always 
 do this, and at times it simply decides authontatively without 
 indicating to itself any element of universality and reason m 
 the situation. In this latter case, which is typical of conscience 
 per se, the justice of the judgement depends on the adequacy 
 
 1 V. Phenomenology, WW. II. pp. 4/8-9, trans, pp. 645-6. 
 
 " Philosophy of Right, § 137. ' Ibid. § 139- 
 
 221 1 N 
 
178 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY ^ 
 
 with which the individual subject has gathered the meaning 
 of his own experience and developed it in the situation before 
 •him. Nor does his claim to authority confer infallibility upon 
 him. The self which judges may be distorted, undeveloped, 
 and incoherent ; and from the point of view of its content it 
 may lack the finahty which its form claims. Knowledge 
 moves as a whole in science as well as in practice, and although 
 I may declare with fullest conviction that some physical law 
 which I enunciate is the true significance of my experience of 
 the physical world, I may be mistaken. Similarly, I may 
 misread my moral experience, and stake my soul upon an 
 error. There is no guarantee in purely moral experience that 
 the immediate unity of universal and particular, expressed 
 by a judgement of conscience, is sound. It lacks actual con- 
 firmation and defence ; it may be indefensible and false. 
 
 It is from this point that the dialectic transition proceeds. 
 Conscience turns away from an objective unity of its elements, 
 and presents only a subjective one. Whenever this subjective 
 reconciUation covers real discrepancy, and cannot support an 
 objective development, it is morally evil. That is to say, the 
 principle of moral evil is the principle of conscience carried 
 to the point where the autonomy of the individual is set 
 against objective considerations ; and this is the nature of 
 conscience when treated definitely within the moral sphere 
 and in opposition to the social and ethical world. 
 , The formalism which marred the abstract conception of 
 duty persists in conscience, when taken as the supreme 
 principle of the practical life, and turns it into evil. The 
 discrepancy between the inherent universal rationality of 
 man and the particular natural desires which move him is 
 not removed merely by fusing them together psychically. 
 The union must be objective and rationally coherent as well 
 as subjective and immediate ; and untiLthis is accomplished, 
 finite ends remain imperfectly idealized and unregenerate. 
 The fact that desires and impulses fall within the self and are 
 forms of it does not imply that they are perfect revelations 
 of the mind's deeper nature and in full harmony with it. The 
 finite self is opposed to itself ; and its moments come into 
 conflict with -one another because they have an identical 
 subject in them. Surrender to the lower and unrationalized 
 eleinents of life is wickedness, and not merely imperfection 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 179 
 
 and misfortune, because it is the inherently supreme and 
 autonomous mind, the self which delights in the law of God 
 after the inward man, that is brought into captivity to the 
 law of sin which is in its members. 
 
 This helps us to deal with an old question, whether man is 
 naturally good or evil. Much depends on what is meant by 
 ' natural ' in this context, and many who have expressed 
 views on the point have not stayed to define their meaning. 
 If ' natural ' is used to exclude rational and spiritual, the 
 question becomes an absurdity ; for manhood is not natural 
 in that sense. On the other hand, if natural is so extended 
 that it includes all that is in man, the highest as well as the 
 lowest, then by nature he is good ; for his immanent rationality 
 is his real nature. But natural may mean something between 
 these two extremes ; it may mean that man has in him desires 
 and impulses, which have been idealized in being given mental 
 form, but which have not been finally subjected to his higher 
 rational ends. In this case a conflict hes within him between 
 the rationality of his manhood and the natural characteristics 
 which he has failed to dominate and make coherent. And in 
 this sense he is naturally evil.^ The primitive state of man 
 may, no doubt, be called one of innocence ; for the intrinsic 
 will has not become explicit over against natural inclination. 
 But since it is man who occupies this condition, it cannot be 
 regarded as a non-moral state — much less one of perfection ; 
 although, of course, its defect is different from that of the 
 expUcitly evil consciousness. After speaking of the innocence 
 of Eden before the Fall, Hegel remarks that ' other primitive 
 races have held the same behef that the primitive state of 
 mankind was one of innocence and harmony. Now all this 
 is to a certain extent correct. The disunion that appears 
 throughout humanity is not a condition to rest in. But it is 
 a mistake to regard the natural and immediate harmony as 
 the right state. The mind is not mere instinct : on the 
 contrary it essentially involves the tendency to reasoning and 
 mediation. Childlike innocence no doubt has in it something 
 fascinating and attractive : but only because it reminds us of 
 what the mind must win for itself.' ^ This contention is 
 upheld by the Philosophy of Right : ' The natural will is in 
 contrast with the content of freedom ; and the child and the 
 
 • V. Encyclopaedia, § 24 note. ' Ibid. ; Wallace, p. 55. 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 uneducated man, who have only the former, are on that 
 account brought down to a lower grade of responsibility. 
 Now, when we speak of man we mean not the child but self- 
 conscious man ; when we speak of goodness we refer to 
 knowledge of it. Of course the natural is inherently without 
 moral character, neither good nor bad ; but in relation to the 
 will as freedom and as the knowledge of freedom it is not free 
 and is therefore bad. In as much as man wills the natural it 
 is no longer merely natural, but a negation of the good which 
 is the notion of the will.' ^ 
 
 The opposition of these two aspects is not to be understood 
 on the analogy of mechanical relations : we are not concerned 
 here merely with an interaction of self-subsisting forces. The 
 disharmony between the content and the form or intrinsic 
 being of man enters into each aspect. The true character of 
 each is displayed only in their congruence. The natural is 
 inherently the proper content of the good will — its truth, as 
 we have already phrased it, is its ideality — and, on the other 
 hand, mind as a whole is in contradiction with itself in wicked 
 action. When the autonomous self yields to arbitrary impulses 
 or follows the line of the ' strongest ' impulse, it represses the 
 concrete will for which that element is an important means. 
 The isolation of the particular moments of the entire good, the 
 attempt to take them one at a time and apart from the rest,' 
 breaks the wholeness, and substitutes a series of petty satis- 
 factions for the wealth of the total realization. By isolating 
 the natural impulse we diminish its meaning and capacity. 
 In its true context it is a vehicle of the final purpose of the 
 whole self and has infinite value : by itself it has only a 
 fragment of that content and worth. In wickedness, therefore, 
 the natural content of life is not in its true form ; its fuller 
 capacities and proper functions are suppressed. The contra- 
 diction violates the substantial and immanent being both of 
 the content and form of mind : and the actual shape which 
 mind takes is in opposition to that harmony and fullness in 
 which alone it can be satisfied. 
 
 Evil is not merely a regrettable flaw in the constitution of 
 things : it is a necessity in the very notion of mind. Mind 
 begins in nature, and apart from the content it derives from 
 nature it can produce no substance of its own. But it cannot 
 
 » § 139 note. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY i8i 
 
 rest in nature, for it has in it from the first an aspect which 
 transcends the natural. We have already traced in outline 
 the progress of subjective mind. It rises above its first 
 immediacy and becomes aware of a world of things. Then it 
 turns back on itself and distinguishes its own identity as a 
 being distinct from and immeasurably superior to any mere 
 object. This distinction must arise in the practical sphere as 
 well as in that of pure cognition — if the two can be separated 
 as different spheres at all — as mind becomes explicit. The 
 story of the Fall attributes ' the occasion which led man to 
 leave his natural unity ... to solicitation from without. The 
 serpent was the tempter. But the truth is, that the step into 
 opposition, the awakening of consciousness, follows from the 
 very nature of man : and the same history repeats itself in 
 every son of Adam. The serpent represents Ukeness to God 
 as consisting in the knowledge of good and evil : and it is just 
 this knowledge in which man participates when he breaks 
 from the unity of his instinctive being and eats of the forbidden 
 fruit.' 1 
 
 But the necessity of evil is not the last word. ' This aspect 
 of the necessity of wickedness is inseparably bound up with 
 the opposite aspect that wickedness is that which of necessity 
 must not be. That is to say, wickedness must be sublatied, 
 not in the sense that the first standpoint of difierence is not 
 to arise, for this constituted the distinction between man and 
 the unreasoning brute, but in the sense that the will must not 
 rest in it or hold fast to particularity as the essential aspect 
 against the universal, and that the natural must be overcome 
 and nullified.' 2 The self-contradiction of the bad will marks 
 its unreality. Evil is not final : its truth and being lie in a 
 wider system from which it is an abstraction, and in which it 
 is reduced to a negative moment. The dialectic is not yet at 
 a point of view from which we can see the ultimate relation 
 of wickedness to goodness ; we cannot yet say how- evil 
 appears in perfect mind. What we have discovered is that 
 it is a stage or moment which must appear in mind, but that 
 it is an inadequate stage and must also be transcended. If 
 we try to take the relation concretely at the level of morality, 
 it appears as a process in which evil arises and is submerged 
 ' Encyclopaedia, § 24 note ; Wallace, p. 55. 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 139- 
 
i82 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 again. That is not the final point of view, and the result thus 
 attained must be reconsidered and reinterpreted at a higher 
 level of insight. 
 
 We may conclude this portion of the exposition with a 
 reference to the various further forms of evil which Hegel 
 distinguishes at the end of his analysis of morality. First 
 there is the act done with an evil conscience, involving the 
 following moments, (a) Knowledge of the true universal, 
 whether in the form of the feeling of right and duty, or in the 
 form of deeper knowledge of them ; (b) the willing of the 
 particular in conflict with the universal ; (c) knowledge of 
 both moments in their contrast, so that the particular will is 
 determined as evil for the willing consciousness itself.^ It 
 is not necessary, however, for a bad act that these moments 
 should be definite and clear to the agent himself; and bad 
 action is not always accompanied by an active evil conscience. 
 Hegel quotes Pascal in illustration of the result of an opposite 
 view. ' These half-hearted sinners who have still some love 
 for virtue will all be damned. But as for these free and 
 hardened sinners, sinners without mixture, full and complete, 
 hell cannot -hold them ; they have deceived the devil by giving 
 themselves up to him.' But although it is not the only form 
 of evil, action done with an evil conscience may be taken as 
 the type, the shape in which the moments of wickedness in 
 general become explicit. 
 
 The second form of evil is hypocrisy. The evil man can 
 find reasons, good enough in themselves, which may be dis- 
 torted to justify his action ; he can present these to others as 
 the true import of his act and push the conflict of intrinsic 
 and extrmsic into the background. To action done with an 
 evil conscience hypocrisy adds ' the untruth of presenting the 
 wickedness to others as good, the setting up of oneself ex- 
 ternally as good, conscientious, and pious— features which are 
 only an illusion to deceive others.' 2 
 
 In the third form which he adduces Hegel's Protestantism 
 leads him to give what is perhaps an undue importance from 
 a scientific standpoint to Probabilism. The goodness of an 
 act is caUed probable, according to this point of view, if it 
 IS assented to by any accepted authority— the church, the 
 fathers, a learned doctor. And probability is accepted instead 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 140. a Jhid. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 183 
 
 of certainty and truth. We finite beings, it is said, cannot 
 attain perfect knowledge, and we have done all that can be 
 required of us if we adduce this kind of support for our deeds. 
 The correlation of one aspect with other aspects of the whole 
 situation is ignored by this attitude ; and the choice between 
 authorities is a matter of caprice. 
 
 In the fourth form this conception is carried farther. 
 Loyalty to the abstract form of goodness is held to be suffi- 
 cient. It is not very important what content is given to a 
 motive so long as some positive satisfaction is sought. If the 
 ulterior end is something that is in any way good, the act is 
 approved. This kind of evil has identified goodness with the 
 abstractly positive ; any kind of satisfaction is good if it is 
 intended. Objective considerations are thus thrown to the 
 winds, and individual caprice is set in their place. ' The 
 absolute and valid determinateness of goodness and wicked- 
 ness, of right and wrong, is sublated, and that characteristic 
 is ascribed to the feeling, imagination, and inclination of the 
 individual.' 
 
 In the next form an act is held to be right if one is convinced 
 that it is so. Loyalty to one's convictions is now the essence 
 of morality, and conscientiousness is the only virtue. This 
 is moral sophistry. ' It must be noted that the principle of 
 justification by one's convictions applies to the modes of the 
 action of others when they oppose my actions, and they are 
 justified in their opposition if, in their conviction, my actions 
 are crimes.' ^ 
 
 The highest form of this subjectivity— the extreme pmnacle 
 of moral evil— Hegel calls irony. The term, of course, is 
 somewhat arbitrary, as Hegel himself is aware ; but that 
 is of little importance, provided its significance is understood. 
 The ironical self lacks all sense of the worth and substantiality 
 of the objective world. It finds the world there as a material 
 with which it can amuse itself, but it looks upon it as in- 
 herently purposeless and vain. The only purpose and the 
 only value inhere in the subject, which stands above its 
 objects and particular ends. AU ends are thus regarded as 
 arbitrary. The ironical self decides in this way and chooses 
 these things, but it feels that it can just as well choose in an 
 opposite way. Consequently, it does not let itself go in its 
 
 1 Ibid. 
 
i84 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 
 
 object ; it does not humble itself before the greater world 
 which includes it ; it does not know that reality is instinct 
 with law. In this way all objectivity falls away from morality, 
 thus apprehended ; the self regards itself as beyond good and 
 bad, and as sanctifying whatever it touches merely because 
 it touches it. ' You ', it says, ' actually accept a law and 
 respect it as absolute. So do I, but, go farther than you ; I am 
 moreover beyond this law and can alter it in this way or that. 
 It is not the thing that is excellent but I who am so ; and I am 
 master of the law and the thing. I play with it as I like, and 
 in this ironical consciousness in which I let the highest be 
 subordinated I merely enjoy myself.' ^ 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 140. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 MORAL TELEOLOGY 
 
 In the present chapter I propose to turn aside from the 
 direct development of the dialectic to consider some of the 
 bearings of the principles which have appeared. In the moral 
 world we find the human mind claiming to speak with entire 
 authority. The imperative of duty and the judgement of 
 conscience assert themselves categorically ; and no appeal ■ 
 from them is to be recognized. Here, then, we have something : 
 fixed and certain, a basis on which we can constitute an: 
 intelligible universe. However it may be threatened, the 
 moral wiU can never be overwhelmed : in it man finds a path! 
 from his own frailties and from the confusion and finitude of 
 worldly things to the infinite and eternal. Moved by thoughts; 
 such as these, men have made the principles of morality the 
 guiding thought of their view of the world ; and in various 
 forms a philosophy has been erected which may be called 
 moral teleology.^ 
 
 Hegel has been charged, from this standpoint, with not find- 
 ing room in his doctrine for aU that is implied in moraUty. He 
 slurs over the moral aspect of life, we are sometimes told ; he 
 does not reahze the infinite guilt of sin or the infinite value of 
 hohness ; and he does not give full weight to individuality. 
 One may conjecture that the charge is sometimes due to 
 a misapprehension, at least in part. All that Hegel says on 
 these topics is not to be found in this middle section of the 
 Philosophy of Right : to speak of nothing else, one must take 
 his view of religion into account in order to do justice to his 
 treatment of sin and hohness. Nevertheless, the criticism 
 does touch our present level, and deserves attention. I pro- 
 pose, therefore, to consider in the first place the nature of the 
 theory on which it is based. 
 
 Hegel, as I shall try to make clear, does not flatly deny the 
 claims made by mind organized through moral categories. 
 ' I do not claim that this is the only sense which this term may have, 
 but the name is convenient here. 
 
^86 MORAL TELEOLOGY 
 
 But he does reject a certain view of life built on these principles 
 and claims. This view, moral teleology, takes as its first 
 principle the autonomy and infinite worth of the moral will. 
 This, however, is only its point of departure, and it proceeds 
 ^o construe the world in the light of that principle. 
 
 In the second place it draws a sharp distinction between 
 the ideal principle and the real world which is to be inter- 
 ipreted. The ideal, duty or the moral law, is not of empirical 
 origin ; it is a priori, coming, as it were, from heaven among 
 ['men. In other words, the free and moral will is not seen to be 
 [the principle of the world itself : it is something added to the 
 World organizing it from without. 
 
 After this point the theory may be developed in several 
 ways. Two may be considered. The first of these is the most 
 whole-hearted. It gives its first principle full scope, maintain- 
 ing the ultimate moral character of the universe. But the 
 world as it stands is not moral ; hence this theory expresses 
 itself in postulates. StiU retaining the sharp opposition of 
 what is and what ought to be, it requires us to think of the 
 world as in the last resort in harmony with the ideal. The 
 general position is developed in a number of postulates, 
 corresponding to the various ways in which the underlying 
 opposition of ideal and real appears. 
 
 / Firstly, the course of external nature must be in harmony 
 with morality ; at bottom it must be a moral order. Hence 
 jwe have to postulate a final end or governing purpose in th6 
 world. Secondly, the opposition between real and ideal falls 
 with man himself. The sensuous element in human motives, 
 the particular content of impulse and desire, must accord with 
 the rational will, so that the former conduces in the long run 
 to the satisfaction of the latter. The highest element in man, 
 the ideal which utters itself in him, must be the essence of his 
 whole being. And so we have to postulate the final end of the 
 feelf -conscious agent. 
 
 These postulates, however, by no means exhaust the field ; 
 for there are other discrepancies to resolve. When we remem- 
 ber that morality has its being only in and through action, 
 we find that we have to harmonize the aspects of universality 
 and particularity within the moral end itself. Duty, we must 
 believe, is one and undivided. Just as Socrates in the Prota- 
 goras of Plato reduces all virtues to the strand of knowledge 
 
MORAL TELEOLOGY 187 
 
 running through them, so the moral view of the world accords 
 final worth only to the universal principle in the various/ 
 situations ; that is, to the bare form of duty. The particular; 
 content of desire as such has no inherent value : its moral! 
 character, if it has any, is derived wholly from the element 
 of pure duty which informs it. This attitude is a direct 
 consequence of the abstract conception of duty, and of the 
 incapacity of the natural to supply moral ends. Only the 
 intrinsic will is finally good. Doubtless this will must have 
 some content, but its moral value lies entirely in the form. 
 This attitude is abstract. A bare form of duty, wholly! 
 indifferent to its content, cannot apply to action in the world.' 
 Hence, over against the conception of pure duty, there arisesj 
 a system of determinate duties in which the general principles 
 is articulated into diverse shapes in relation to varying/ 
 circumstances. It is with this latter system of definite moral 
 duties that the agent identifies himself as an actual being, and 
 some provision must be made for the world of pure duty. 
 Since moraUty exists at all only in being self-conscious, this 
 view of the world must provide some sort of consciousness 
 which corresponds to pure duty in contrast with that which 
 apprehends the determinate sphere of particular duties. This 
 otiier consciousness, may be variously imaged and named : it 
 may be the higher self, the pure ego, or, perhaps, God. It is 
 not altogether broken off from the empirical self, but never- 
 theless it is somehow beyond the actual ; its content is the 
 pure moral law, and the sacredness of particular duties is de- 
 rivative from it. This is the postulate of a pure moral subject. 
 When this conception is fairly grasped, the actual finite 
 moral consciousness becomes profoundly convinced of its own 
 frailty and unworthiness ; and the postulates which have 
 already been made do not cover its need. The postulate of the 
 final purpose of the world is made in the interest of complete 
 moraUty, and it insists on the conformity of things to perfect 
 virtue. But perfect virtue does not belong to finite beings ; 
 in contrast with the ideal moral self the actual self is stained 
 with sense. The final purpose of the world does not, as it 
 stands, throw any light on the relation of happiness to existing 
 moral beings. A further postulate is required, or a remodelling 
 of that old one, so that some relation may exist between our 
 happiness and our virtues. After all, morality is a matter 
 
i88 MORAL TELEOLOGY 
 
 which concerns us, and the centre of interest is the imperfect 
 but developing empirical self. Morality is realized only in 
 action, and we must concern ourselves with the forms of mind 
 which come into being in the actual world of full-blooded life. 
 And so the abstract reflection that man is utterly unworthy 
 before the perfect self, pales before the thought of the vitahty 
 and concreteness of human endeavour, and gives place to the 
 conception of grades of merit. Thus we postulate that 
 although perfect happiness cannot accrue to finite beings, yet 
 pien must obtain happiness in proportion to their merits.'^ 
 
 These are the main postulates which this theory requires: 
 jthe final purpose of the world, the final purpose of the self, the 
 [perfect self-consciousness wherein perfect righteousness dwells, 
 jand the attainment of happiness in proportion to virtue. The 
 content of these conceptions is postulated : it is not taken to 
 , be actual fact ; but is demanded, necessarily demanded, by 
 i reason. It may not be knowledge in the ordinary sense of the 
 iterm, like the knowledge of a thing seen or touched ; but it is 
 ia rational faith, which alone, according to this theory, renders 
 ^oral experience possible. 
 
 The other form which this general attitude may adopt is, 
 superficiaUy at least, more modest than the first one. In face 
 of the divergence of real and ideal, which both forms admit, it 
 does not feel able to assert the subordination of the whole 
 universe to the good. Instead of doing so, it sharply dis- 
 tinguishes value from reality, and gives pre-eminence to the 
 moral self only in the realm of the former. It may be, this 
 view says, that external nature is heedless of moral purpose ; 
 the higher self may not overcome all lower tendencies ; there 
 may be no Fortunate Isles and no perfect mind ; happiness 
 and merit may not coincide ; nevertheless duty alone is of 
 worth, and the good will is of surpassing excellence. 
 
 In considering Hegel's criticism of these points of view and 
 his reply to the criticisms on his own doctrine to which they 
 lead, we have to keep in mind the dualism underlying them. 
 The natural and the moral are assumed to be incompatible ; 
 and the cnticism urged against Hegel is due to his revision of : 
 this assumption. But before we pass to his own treatment. \ 
 we may consider the way in which moral teleology shows its ' 
 defects in his hands. 
 
 ' V. Phenomenology, WW, II. p. 460 f. 
 
MORAL TELEOLOGY 189 
 
 Hegel fastens on the conception of a postulate on which 
 the first form of moral teleology rests.^ A postulate is a syn- 
 thesis of unreconciled elements. In the present case it brings 
 the real and the ideal together without removing the gap 
 between them. In trying to do this moral teleology contra- 
 dicts itself again and again. It dare not take any of the parts 
 of its complex position in full earnestness ; nor yet can it treat 
 them as moments of a higher unity. Each is final for it, and 
 yet none can be taken as final. And so the theory becomes 
 a series of subterfuges, never working out the implications of 
 any point thoroughly, and passing from one standpoint to an 
 opposed one without committing itself to any. 
 
 Each of the postulates indicated above is open to this 
 criticism. The first was the moral purpose of the world. In 
 this conception there are two opposed elements. On the one 
 hand, nature is alien to morality ; on the other, it is essentially 
 in harmony with morality. Both must be true, and yet they 
 are incompatible : hence the following series of untenable, 
 positions arises. " 
 
 Suppose we decide to take the non-moral character of the 
 natural world seriously. The conception of .duty or obUgation 
 implies, from this point of view, that the ideal is not actually 
 resized ; it has to be brought about, and this could not be 
 done if the ideal already existed. This is a fundamental 
 position in the whole view. Nevertheless, morality cannot 
 rest content with it ; for moral action is the reaUzation of the 
 ideal, and in it the harmony of the two aspects is accomplished. 
 Moral action, thus, involves the . inherent subordination of 
 nature to purpose. We must, therefore, modify our first state- 
 ment : the discord between nature and duty is not final ; for 
 the moral self it exists as a means to the resulting harmony. 
 Nature by itself, we may say, is not moral ; but it is capable 
 of being moralized, and its resistance is a spur to our activity. 
 
 But we cannot stay in this position. We have, as it were, 
 taken one foot off our first standing-ground, and we must 
 bring the other after it. Moral action, as we are at present 
 regarding it, is contingent and finite. Duty itself in the 
 abstract may come down to us from the clouds, but the 
 particular ends and all the definite content and adjustments 
 
 ' The account of Hegel's criticism of moral teleology is based mainly 
 on the section, ' Der seiner selbst gewisse Geist ', of the Phenomenology. 
 
 \ 
 
igo MORAL TELEOLOGY 
 
 by which it is fulfilled come from beneath. Nature does mon 
 than suffer moral action to use it ; it conspires to arm and aiir 
 that purpose. If the world were really indifferent to duty 
 moral action' would be impossible ; it would have no means 
 Nature itself does everything in nature ; and when it realizes 
 moral purpose it manifests that it is not indifferent to moralitj 
 but is at heart in harmony with it. The discord, thus, is 
 a false appearance, and the harmony is the truth. 
 
 We have been driven from the one term of the postulate tc 
 the other ; if we now try to accept the latter we find that we 
 are forced back again. The harmony of nature and morality 
 cancels moral action. If the law of nature and the law of duty 
 are the same law, there is no need to alter nature and bring 
 it into line with the moral ideal. Indeed, ' moral action ' 
 becomes not only otiose, but even wrong. Any alteration of 
 nature — ^if such could really be carried out — would be for the 
 worse, away from harmony to discord ; and so would be 
 immoral. To avoid this extinction of moral action, we have 
 to restore the negative element which we have dropped out. 
 And so morahty distinguishes between inherent and explicit ; 
 insisting that the moral ideal is the inherent truth of the 
 situation but not the explicit fact. Recognizing that it must 
 maintain a conflict between what is and what ought to be, 
 it holds that the ideal is the essential truth only if and when 
 it is not explicit. In order that it may be at all, the moral 
 end of the world is made unattainable. This brings us back 
 to our initial position, viz. that only the difference between 
 morality and nature is real ; duty is merely that which is to be. 
 And so the antithesis between ideal and fact, on which moral 
 teleology rests, ruins each attempt to make the postulate 
 intelligible. 
 
 The second postulate breaks down in a similar fashion and 
 may be treated more briefly. Moral teleology assumes the 
 opposition of reason and sense ; and it believes that if the 
 struggle between them is superseded morality falls away. But, 
 on the other hand, sense is the element through which the final 
 purpose of reason comes into existence ; hence it becomes 
 morahzed in moral action. Moreover, it is not only a material 
 which reason may use ; it gives reason body and constitutes 
 the situation of action, not merely supplying means, but even 
 suggesting the end. And so we pass from discord to harmony 
 
MORAL TELEOLOGY 191 
 
 1 this case also. But we are driven back again in the same 
 ay as in the first postulate ; we are forced to distinguish _ 
 Etween inherent and explicit in order to give scope for action, 
 nperfection is eternally necessary to moral action, and the 
 ttainment of the ideal is suicide. 
 
 We cannot save the situation by calling in the conception 
 f progress. If we say that morality is an endless progress, 
 'e shall be told that progress involves progressive achieve- 
 lent and realization ; and that since any realization of the 
 loral ideal is ex hypothesi its annihilation, the conception 
 oes not apply. Moral action, thus, becomes mere fact, and 
 erice non-moral. 
 
 The other postulates fare in a similar fashion, and hardly 
 eed discussion. In the third, the contrast between the 
 resent evil world and the perfect one beyond conflicts with 
 he concrete harmony which a real moral world requires. In 
 lie fourth, neither our finite worthiness nor our utter unworthi- 
 ess can be given full credence ; and yet neither can be 
 urrendered. 
 
 These contradictions are inevitable in this form of moral 
 eleology. Its postulates are an underhand device to gain 
 he apparent benefits of a separation between real and ideal 
 without its disadvantages, and to disguise the fact that it is at 
 nee a duaUsm and a monism. 
 
 The other main form of moral teleology has already been 
 riticized by implication. It rejects the postulates of the 
 rst form, and contents itself with an assertion of the value 
 f the good will irrespective of its place in reality. Value is 
 withdrawn from the objective world, and placed wholly 
 dthin the mind. From this point of view the actual conse- 
 uences of action are irrelevant to its worth ; the motive is 
 he essence. To mean well is enough, to be beautiful in soul. 
 
 This view, in the end, involves utter pessimism. Of course, 
 : is not willing to concede this, and claims to have an element 
 f good in it. No one can fail to feel that his own humanity is 
 uickened and strengthened when he sees some heroic stricken 
 ml round whom the shades have gathered stand steadfast in 
 is loneliness, looking death and heU itself in the face undis- 
 layed. But it is by no means clear that moral teleology can 
 laim such an experience as a true exposition of its own 
 rinciples. The hero is master of himself; he himself is 
 
192 MORAL TELEOLOGY 
 
 a reality, and helps to give the world as a whole its character. 
 But if the real were in truth ahen to the ideal, the self would 
 be utterly empty, too ghostly to be heroic. 
 
 The self governed by such an ideal Hegel looked upon with 
 scorn. It rejoices in no great purpose carried out, no seed 
 sown in the broad plains of the earth, and no faithful ingather- 
 ing of the harvest. It fences itself from the world, shuts out 
 the wind and the rain, and in the unhealthy atmosphere of the 
 hot-house tends assiduously the forced growth of its delicate 
 flowers. The ' beautiful soul ' is an abstraction ; it is not 
 a reality but a shadow. Its values do not have the sanction 
 of the world behind them ; they are only the conceited 
 measures of the individual self. Its activity is feverish ; it 
 has no work in which it can occupy and satisfy itself. Every- 
 thing it takes up is trivial to it, futile, and unsatisfying. ' It 
 lacks force to externalize itself, the power to make itself 
 a thing and endure existence. It lives in dread of staining 
 the radiance of its inner being by action and existence. . . 
 The hollow object which it produces now fills it, therefore, 
 with the feeling of emptiness. Its activity consists of yearn- 
 ing ; it merely loses itself in becoming an unsubstantial 
 shadowy object, and, rising above this loss and falhng back 
 on itself, finds itself merely as lost. In this transparent purity 
 of its moments it becomes a sorrow-laden ' beautiful soul ', 
 as it is called ; its light dims and dies within it ; and it 
 vanishes as a shapeless vapour dissolving into thin air.' ^ 
 
 Hegel's criticism is not the outcome of an abstract wire- 
 drawn logic ; his principle is in living touch with fact. Stand 
 fast by the sophistry of moral teleology, measure the world 
 by the standard of the satisfaction of the finite individual, and 
 life becomes a mockery and a sham. The world does, not 
 accept our arbitrary valuations ; it grinds on all unheedful 
 of our yearnings and conceits. We, the pure unsulUed good, 
 are but a sport in its hands tossed hither and thither by the 
 submerged powers of nature. We are born without our choice ; 
 death will not tarry for our consent ; and between these 
 extremes we have no place and no vocation in the world 
 except that which the world gives to us and imperiously bids 
 us fulfil. A philosophic idealism may tell us that the under- 
 standing makes nature, but even the apostle of moral teleology 
 • Phenomenology, WW. II. p. 496, trans, pp. 667-8. 
 
MORAL TELEOLOGY 193 
 
 dare not say that individual purpose creates the world. The 
 self which cannot find itself in the world is a substance without 
 accidents, of all things the weakest. And Carlyle, who did 
 not know Hegel's philosophy, has gathered much of its import 
 when he wrote : ' The painfuUest feeling is that of your own 
 Feebleness ; ever, as the English Milton says, to be weak is 
 the true misery. And yet of our strength there is and can be 
 no clear feeling, save by what you have prospered in, by what 
 you have done. Between vague wandering Capabihty and 
 fixed indubitable Performance, what a difference ! A certain 
 Inarticulate Self-consciousness dwells dimly in us ; which 
 only our works can render articulate and decisively discernible. 
 Our Works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its 
 natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that impossible 
 precept. Know thyself ; till it be translated into the partially 
 possible one. Know what thou canst work at ? ' ^ 
 
 The flaw which ruins moral teleology as a view of the worldN 
 is the dualism of real and ideal on which it rests. Hegel rejects/ 
 this dualism, and reaches a different result. The ideal is thej 
 active principle of reality itself. It is not something shining! 
 afar off, and receding when we try to approach it ; it is present! 
 in every phase of the moral world and is embodied by every| 
 good action. The imperfect moral self -consciousness is not 
 master of itself ; and the world which it repudiates as non-, 
 moral is in truth its own substance. Each of its categories 
 is abstract, and they claim from a finite standpoint what can 
 be attained only by absolute mind. Over against each right 
 of subjectivity there stands a right of objectivity, and the 
 latter affirms the side of reality which morality would push 
 away. 
 
 The first claim of the moral person is to be held responsible 
 only for that which he purposes. But although the claim 
 limits the moral field, it does not break the continuity of the 
 world ; and we cannot imprint on the realm of action the 
 clear line which we would draw at the point where finite ( 
 insight stops. Our act recoils on us ; it does not hesitate for \ 
 a moment when the effects we foresaw are exhausted ; and , 
 our ignorance of further consequences will not prevent them^ 
 from disorganizing all our plans. There is a wider unity which j 
 holds the moral self and the rude world together ; and whenl 
 1 Sartor Resartus, ' The Everlasting No.' 
 
 2ZII O 
 
194 MORAL TELEOLOGY 
 
 fthe self claims to be judged by its knowledge, the world sets 
 up a counter-claim to be understood. When the moral 
 consciousness protests, and distinguishes between its deserts 
 and its fate, it has a right to the consolation that it is not 
 morally responsible for all that happens to it. But lest it 
 over-estimate the value of this admission, important as it is, 
 we may ask it this one question. How does nature,^ or fate, 
 tave any power over you at all ? If the sharp lines of morality 
 were the truth, the subject would be entirely self-contained 
 and unassailable. Fate and necessity lay hold of us only 
 because we are more than moral agents, and because there is 
 a deeper truth in mind than moral justice. We are not shut 
 up within the fortress of the moral self-consciousness, but are 
 on both sides of the battle. It is because we are not ourselves 
 that fate attacks us and sets our protests at naught. At the 
 level of morality mind is broken into two, and both sides are 
 abstract. ' The two maxims, that the consequences of actions 
 should be neglected, and that actions should be judged by 
 their consequences and these made the criterion of its justice 
 and goodness, are both alike abstract propositions of the under- 
 standing. The consequences are the proper immanent form 
 of the act ; they merely manifest its nature ; and are nothing 
 more than itself. The act thus cannot disavow or refuse them. 
 But, on the other hand, they include what is only externally 
 and contingently attached to the act and in no way penetrates 
 to its nature. . . . The criminal benefits when his act has few 
 evU consequences, just as the good act must submit when it 
 has few or no results ; but when a crime has developed its 
 consequences to the full it must bear the blame of them.' ^ 
 
 Similarly with the right of intention. When a claim is 
 made that the individual should find the satisfaction of 
 a universal self. in his activity, and that well-being should 
 accrue to him in virtue of good intentions, the world does not 
 recognize the claim if the intention has not taken full account 
 of the objective order. As we have seen, the abstract moral 
 self does not genuinely realize itself ; it is fUled by yearning 
 and unrest and not by achievement. And the unrest and 
 disappointment come from ' the infinite in man, which with 
 all his cunning he cannot quite hide '. The collision of nature 
 and intention is at bottom the incongruence of the explicit 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § ii8. 
 
MORAL TELEOLOGY 195 
 
 and the implicit self, and the moral intention fails because it 
 misrepresents the immanent end. Hegel indicates the abstract- 
 ness of justification through intention by showing how easily 
 the conception is perverted into its opposite. When we begiri 
 to divide the inward aspect, the ulterior motive, from the; 
 outward accomplishment, we inevitably trace the real purpose' 
 to some petty, finite, and unworthy element. If we take our 
 stand on the abstract moral standpoint, that of duty, we 
 cannot avoid the conclusion that no act is done for duty's,' 
 sake ; for such a bare purpose is nothing real. The effective! 
 end is therefore taken to be the particular, the non-moral. 
 This is the ' psychological view of history which minimizes 
 and disparages all great deeds and individuals. It exalts the; 
 inclinations and passions which found satisfaction within the 
 substantial reality, as, e.g., fame and honour, &c. — in general' 
 the particular aspect which it has beforehand decreed to be; 
 bad — to the highest position, and regards them as the actuating, 
 motives of what is done.' ^ This is not the ethical point of' 
 view ; it is the judgement of the valet ' for whom there are no 
 heroes, not for lack of heroes, but because he is only a valet.' ^ 
 This attitude is itself base and mean ; it is not the truth of the 
 situation.^ The whole point of view is insufficient. The right 
 of objectivity has been ignored and an abstraction set up in 
 place of the whole self in its concrete activity. We are not 
 justified in picking out special contents as the essence of 
 action, to proclaim them either good or bad ; and the philo- 
 sophic judgement must consider the total act in all its bearings. 
 We have a right, from this higher point of view, to the sub- 
 stantial worth of our acts, and are also indissolubly bound up 
 with their deficiencies. We are not morally responsible for thi 
 whole ; but moral responsibility is an abstraction. 
 
 The right to be judged by one's insight, and to have withi 
 one the knowledge of the good as good, is also abstract 
 Against the claim that what we consider right is right for us 
 there arises the claim of objectivity that what is absolutely 
 right must be known by us. It is not enough to be sincere 
 our sincerity must be well informed. We are untrue to our-j 
 selves if our ideals are repudiated by the nature of things, and 
 our moral righteousness is unethical. We must win our self j 
 
 ' Ibid, § 124. '- Ibid. 
 
 V. Phenomenology, WW. II. p. 5°2. trans, p. 675. 
 
 O 2 
 
ige MORAL TELEOLOGY 
 
 (hood, our freedom, and our ends by whole-hearted submission 
 to reahty. No plans can prosper with us unless we have found 
 them latent in our world, and satisfaction can come to us only 
 through the denial of our narrow individuality. ' Right and 
 duty, as the absolute fationality of the categories of the will, 
 are essentially not the private property of an individual, 
 i. e. sensuous knowledge, but have the form of universal 
 
 I characteristics of thought, of laws and principles. Conscience, 
 
 I thus, must submit to a criticism of its truth ; and its claim 
 to be judged only by itself is immediately opposed to that 
 which it wills, viz. the rule of a rational, absolutely valid, 
 
 ' universal mode of action.' i 
 
 The dialectic must, therefore, pass from the categories of 
 morality to the more concrete principles which moral teleology 
 
 \ ignores, but which are the deeper conditions on which moraUty 
 itself depends. This brings us to the ethical world. 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 137. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ETHICAL ORDER AND THE FAMILY 
 
 Morality is an abstraction ; it is individualistic, formalV! 
 ind capricious : the deeper truth which sustains it and from; 
 vhich it would fain cut itself off is the ethical order. We are 
 lot concerned at present with the question why reality takes 
 shape as a self-contradictory moral world at all, we seek 
 nerely to ascertain the general features of the fuller truth in 
 which the moral consciousness is supplemented and trans- 
 formed. The defects of the moral categories which have to be 
 overcome by the dialectic at this stage may be set forth in 
 several ways. Morality is individualistic ; the ethical lifeV^ 
 must be social. Duty is a formal principle ; ethical concep- \ 
 tions must be concrete. The freedom claimed by the moral j 
 consciousness, is ultimately capricious and indeterminate ; ji 
 the ethical will must manifest necessity. The moral sphere is j 
 subjective ; the ethical order must be objective. JJ 
 
 There is a sense in which the principles of the ethical world , 
 restore the objectivity of the first stage of right, but the; 
 restoration is also a transformation. The objectivity is noj 
 longer naive and formal. The dialectic has been mediated h-^l 
 the claims of the free will ; the infinite value of the individua 
 self has been discovered ; and we have become aware that th( 
 sacred wiU of which property is the expression is a self- 
 contained mind and not an impersonal force. The third maim 
 stage of right maintains both objectivity and subjectivity ; \ 
 it expresses neither aspect simply and in abstraction, but/ 
 preserves them as harmonious aspects of the whole. That isj 
 to say, the logical principle underlying the ethical order is the 
 
 idea ' and its categories are unities of opposites. The intrinsic 
 ivill of abstract right is to be found here, but it must not be 
 maintained at the expense of individuality. Moreover, the 
 inity must not be immediate like that of conscience, but must 
 sustain the distinction of the aspects. The standpoint of 
 the analysis must be behind the crude distinctions of egoism 
 
198 THE ETHICAL ORDER 
 
 and altruism, of right and duty, of self and others ; and at 
 the same time it must preserve whatever truth is in these 
 divisions. 1 
 
 How is this possible ? In order to understand the categories 
 developed in the sequel we must recall the general view of 
 mind outlined in the first part of the fourth chapter. The 
 (principles of morality are in truth merely claims or problems, 
 j and the moral sphere lapses into self-contradiction because it 
 [ presents these problems as if they were themselves adequate 
 solutions. Mind, it says, is free and infinite ; it forgets that 
 freedom is not to be had for the mere asking ; it omits the 
 analysis of the self for which freedom is demanded ; and since 
 lit is unprepared to use the connexions between the individual 
 (mind and the rest of the universe as means to freedom, it finds 
 I these connexions to be bonds from which it cannot escape. 
 \Further advance is not in a straight line. In order to satisfy 
 its just claims mind must humble itself ; it cannot ride rough- 
 hod over nature, but must follow the path laid for its feet, 
 Lnd march only when nature lets and bids it go. But how can 
 his humihation be freedom ? It is not ; and if the humility 
 vere all, freedom would have no place. But the humiliation 
 s not all. Mind cannot merely follow nature ; for the very 
 effort to apprehend nature transforms it. The paths which 
 nature opens to mind are not physical but spiritual ; they 
 'exist only for mind and in mind ; and the guidance which 
 nature offers is a spiritual light. 
 
 But is this enough ? Has the claim to absolute autonomy 
 been satisfied when we discover that the bonds of the indi- 
 vidual mind are not literal chains but spiritual forces ? Are our 
 minds not individuals, and are they not constrained and bound 
 if they are governed by anything external, even although 
 the impelling force turns out in the last analysis to be mind 
 rather than corporeal substance ? • Hegel's answer to these 
 questions requires us to revise our view of the relation of mind 
 and nature still further. Our questions still retain a duahsm 
 which cannot be justified. The category of causality is 
 inadequate here, and the unity which comes to light ih the 
 ethical world robs necessity of its sting. The necessity which 
 compels us is that of freedom itself. 
 
 We may again look briefly at the identity which is exphcit 
 ' Cf. Philosophy of Right, § 143. 
 
AND THE FAMILY 
 
 199 
 
 at this stage. Mind is natural in the sense that it arises in and 
 from nature. But it is not merely another fact external to the 
 others. It does not stand in one place with its conditions 
 outside it in another place and on equal terms with it. The 
 earlier and most immature forms of mind approximate to this 
 condition, it is true, but we are now dealing with minds of 
 greater strength and development. Mind can recoil on its 
 conditions ; it can understand them, use them, desire them, 
 and abhor them, and in general idealize them as part of the 
 explicit content of its own being. Nature has not become 
 spiritual in a vague and general way ; it has become this 
 mind ; and the forces which operate on and in the individual 
 are themselves the constitutive principles of the individual. 
 Mind is not a mere aggregate of natural conditions, and it has 
 special laws and powers of its own ; but nevertheless there is 
 a sense in which nature is the sole content and substance of 
 each mind. The higher developments are not superimposed 
 on the natural, they are evolutions of it, unities and forms to 
 which the natural itself rises. Mind cannot, either in the 
 realm of theory or in that of practice, maintain a pure realism ; 
 it cannot conform to the merely natural ; for what is merely 
 natural is utterly beyond it, the abstract fiction of a thing-in- 
 itself . Nor are ' spiritual ' forces in a different case ; we must 
 not imagine that we avoid the difficulties of things-in-them- 
 selves and purely external relations — or rather identities — 
 by dubbing them spiritual. If we admit that a relation is 
 mental, we should not weaken the force of the admission by 
 treating the mental as infra-natural in its characteristics. 
 Solipsism is false, but it presents one side of the truth. The 
 will of another individual has inherently no more power over 
 me than a force of nature, if individuals are atomic units. In 
 one sense the individual cannot get beyond the circle of his 
 own world as it is constituted by his feehngs, thought, and will ; 
 nor can anything, whether it be nature or mind, come into that 
 circle unless it becomes his private possession. This self- 
 possession is no doubt imperfect in the main. There are 
 forces, natural and spiritual, external to any finite individual, 
 and when these appear in him they are distorted and misappre- 
 hended. But at the same time the very ahenation and other- 
 ness itself comes within the individual's world, and the conflict 
 is as much within as without him. Moreover, this weakness is 
 
200 THE ETHICAL ORDER 
 
 not final. The development of the self is a victory over it and 
 the gradual possession of the universe in its proper form. 
 
 In the ethical order this becomes explicit, and the dialectic 
 exposes categories which are both objective and subjective at 
 once. Unlike morality ethical theory recognizes the natural 
 origin of all that is in the self, and its principles are explicitly 
 j idealizations of nature. Mind is now concrete and full, but it 
 i is filled with a content which is not alien to it. It is orderly 
 and necessary, nowhere capricious and merely formal ; and 
 yet it is spiritual and free.i The ethical order, however, is not 
 the highest summit of mind, and it does not contain all that 
 mind may become ; it is a phase of objective mind ; it presents 
 the absolute character of mind in a certain aspect. The 
 ethical order recognizes and ideahzes only one set of its 
 conditions ; or perhaps it might be better to say, it recognizes 
 them only in one mode of their appearance. Unljke mojality_ 
 ! it does not isolate man from man, but nevertheless rrdSesnot 
 \ concern itself definitely with nature as such, nor with the 
 higher forms of spiritual unity which transcend the relation of 
 the individual to society ; 2 its object is society and the life 
 of the individual in societj'. 
 
 It is needless to insist here on the dependence of the indi- 
 vidual on society ; so much may be taken for granted. Not 
 only the developed life, but even bare existence would fail for 
 man apart from society ; and there is nothing in the whole 
 round of his being which is not mediated by social powers. 
 The most private and secret functions of the mind are shot 
 through with the influences of the common hfe. Even emotion 
 IS not fully private : it is an aspect of instinct ; and instinct 
 IS a social function. When we rid ourselves of the abstractions 
 with which abstract right and morality begin, we see that 
 objective mind is a -social growth. We have spoken in an 
 earlier chapter ^ of the passage of natural conditions into 
 ^mental substance, and Hegel has called the stage at which 
 this transition is not consciously apprehended natural mind. 
 But we must note that the mental traits thus produced are 
 social as well as individual. There are natural features of 
 tribal lite, of pastoral, agricultural, and industrial occupation, 
 of custom, of the family— even of religion. Characteristics of 
 ' V. Philosophy of Right, §§ 144 aiid 146.' 
 ' V. below, p. 259 ff. 3 Chap. V. p. 91 ff . 
 
AND THE FAMILY 201 
 
 this kind appear in the individual man, and if we are to relate i 
 them to the physical conditions existing in nature we must j 
 interpose the social organism as a connecting link. Men reach I 
 individuality in social groups. At first there is no clear 
 dividing line between the individual and his society ; indeed j 
 the distinction between the tribe and its physical conditions 
 is not sharply drawn. It is not to the point here to urge that 
 from the first men are distinct units, each within his own skin 
 and bound only by spiritual — and if you like, artificial — ties 
 to other men. The ties are not artificial, if that word means_ 
 a conscious construction of a common life by separate atomic 
 beings. The common life is fundamental, and one must not 
 read the philosophy of Anarchy into the primitive mind. The 
 tribe is of one blood ; indeed its being extends beyond the 
 range of human beings and includes totem animals and even 
 inanimate things. Self-conscious individuality is not the 
 datum, but a result ; it is a crystallization out of an ill-defined 
 common stream. The individual is the phenomenon of social 
 forces, the fact in which they exist ; and if this is ignored the 
 interpretation of the individual lapses into phantasy and 
 mystery. 
 
 At first the common life, the primitive entity, is far from 
 the organic and systematic unity that marks the modern 
 state ; nevertheless, it is only relatively fluid, and its structure 
 and function are not without some definition. The actions 
 of men in society are never purely natural, they are governed 
 by natural forces which hafve taken the shape of social or 
 ethical influences. The channels which the will follows \ 
 under these conditions are customs, and custom is the soul 
 of the primitive ethical order.* It is important not to mis- 
 interpret here. One is apt to look on customs as construc- 
 tions, and to suppose that the individual first exists and then 
 evolves customs. Such a priority is not to be justified. 
 Custom is rather the essence and it includes the individual's 
 actions. The antithesis between custom and the individual 
 cannot be maintained as ultimate ; for on the one hand 
 custom exists nowhere except in individuals, and on the other 
 individuals are shaped and constituted by the ethical forces 
 penetrating them. Hegel takes his stand on the whole, the 
 universal articulated into particulars : that for him is the 
 1 V. Philosophy of Right, § 151- 
 
202 THE ETHICAL ORDER 
 
 reality, and anything less is an abstraction. It is a waste 
 of time on the part of a theorist to elaborate a world of con- 
 ventions or laws, proposing either to introduce separately 
 existing individuals into it or to set them up in their freedom 
 against it ; there is no such world, and it should arouse neither 
 
 fliope nor fear. Society is the organic life of individuals. 
 
 ! Generally speaking, it cannot be superimposed on them ; 
 for apart from them it does not exist, and apart from it they 
 
 , are vanishing points. 
 
 In this sense of the term, society is in the individual, and 
 the latter is the existence of the universal. Consequently, 
 ethical theory has to transform the doctrine of duties. 
 Morality traced duty to the supreme principle of reason in 
 
 ^ man, but that principle was abstract. Ethical thought 
 possesses a more concrete conception of reason, viewing it 
 as social and articulated. In other words, duties now become 
 virtues, and virtues are the fulfilment by the individual of 
 social principles. In the ethical order duty becomes integrity, 
 
 j\or loyalty to the functions of one's station ; and the claim 
 'on the individual is that he should ' do what is presented 
 to him, expressed, and recognized in his relationships '?■ 
 In this conception the diversity contained but not rationalized 
 by conscience becomes explicit. Like conscience ethical 
 principle is removed from casuistry and the abstract balancing 
 of one intricate set of conditions against another. The 
 content which was immediately present in conscience is 
 recognized and accepted by the eftiical will. The constitutive 
 aspects of social life, the institutions and ordinances of human 
 concourse, these lay down broad lines of. action for the 
 individual, making his function and thus his duty plain to 
 
 Ahim. It will be objected to this that even in society collisions 
 arise, and it may be as hard in special cases to know one's 
 function and station as it would be to determine one's duty 
 in the abstract. Hegel does not deny this. He points out 
 that a hypercritical reflection can make trouble anywhere and 
 
 1 waste all activity by mere irresolution, but he insists that 
 
 Ion the whole the ordinary man's station is plain to him. 
 
 Imaginary difficulties arise chiefly from the false attempt 
 
 to deduce the individual's function a priori from some abstract 
 
 Ijjrinciple, and they vanish when the principle is apprehended 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 150 note. 
 
AND THE FAMILY 203 
 
 loncretely and with reference to the actual structure and 
 ffganization of existing social life. But, apart from morbid 
 loubt, true collisions do arise ; society is imperfect and its 
 ;onstitutive aspects work inharmoniously at points. In such 
 ;ases the ethical order is not complete ; duty is not plain ; 
 md one has to fall back on individual judgement. Private 
 morality has its proper place in the interstices or at the 
 [rentiers of society ; and where civil and common life is 
 lacking there is need for individual heroism. But even so 
 the task of private morality and heroism is to anticipate and 
 bring into being the ethical observance which is lacking. 
 The hero and sage do not create morality; they see deeper 
 than other men and understand how to liberate the forces of 
 the defective society itself. There is really no break of 
 principle. Usually the line of ethical action is plain and springs 
 at first sight from social institutions; when it is iiot plain 
 more profound insight is needed, but the solution is of the 
 same nature and comes from the same source. It is always 
 a social principle which determines duty, and the proper 
 station of each man is fixed by the needs of the social organism. 
 But in imperfect stages of society the objective institution 
 is weak, and ' the ethical and its realization is more an 
 individual inclination and a special natural endowment of 
 the individual '.^ 
 
 Thus in place of the abstract doctrine of duties Hegel sets 
 a concrete one. Duty in the ethical world has two sides. 
 On the one hand, it grows up in individuals, acquiring its 
 content from natural impulse and desire. In other words, 
 it is based on instinct and develops into rational dispositions. 
 On the other hand, the instincts are largely social, and their 
 rationalization into dispositions and sentiments is their '; 
 further socialization. And so ethical theory presents to us 1 
 organized social structures and functions, and these are the / 
 universals of which the private virtues are the manifestation 
 From this point of view the natural history of individual 
 mind and that of social organization are two sides of the same 
 
 We may put this otherwise by saying that in the ethical 
 world duty and right coincide. In abstract right the aspects i 
 are separated ; if I have a right, then the duty is binding on 
 
 » Ibid. § 150. 
 
204 THE ETHICAL ORDER 
 
 another person. In morality an advance is made, and duty 
 contains the private subjective right of the individual ; but 
 it is still abstract in that it lacks the objective side and is 
 a mere claim over against facts. In the ethical order his 
 duty is a man's right, and his right is his duty. The action 
 befitting his station is both what he must do and what he must 
 be allowed to do. And only if the two sides cohere is the 
 ethical principle reahzed. Where rights are lacking, duty is 
 a figment ; and where duty is not observed, rights are not 
 valid. 
 
 The main principles of Hegel's view of ethics is easily 
 discerned from what has been said, and before going farther 
 we may summarize it. What is real is not a mere group of 
 individuals, nor a set of bare principles. Mind, the reality of 
 the ethical situation, is the unity of individual and universal. 
 To those who regard society as an artificial union of self- 
 dependent individuals Hegel seems to assert the reality of 
 mere universals ; but they misunderstand him because they 
 misunderstand the facts. The universal exists only in the 
 particular, and the particular exists only as informed by the 
 universal ; the totality, which alone is the genuine actuality, 
 is the concrete institution, the actual mind, social and indivi- 
 dual at once. It is only an atomistic prejudice which leads 
 one to imagine that the actual mind manifested in a family 
 or in a people is an abstraction from inter-related individual 
 minds : it is the system within which they fall and which they 
 constitute. 
 
 We must now look at the constitutive categories of this 
 sphere. There are three main moments through which society 
 comes to itself : (a) the family, (6) the civil community, 
 (c) the state. The discussion of the first of these will occupy 
 the remainder of this chapter. 
 
 The first great ethical institution is the family. Ethical 
 principles are not spun by a superfine thought and imposed 
 ready made on human beings ; they are rather the main 
 aspects of the social life ; and in so far as they are products 
 at all are produced by the facts of human nature. Thus it is 
 that the dialectic of the ethical principles begins not with 
 some unity of mankind but with the simplest fornr of the 
 common life, one which springs directly out of nature. The 
 natural union of male and female has an inward side ; the 
 
AND THE FAMILY 205 
 
 instincts involved reflect themselves within mind as emotion, 
 and these emotions broaden out into love. Love is not mere 
 impulse, for it is a self-conscious and relatively permanent 
 disposition. Doubtless it is in the realm of feeling, and 
 feeling is subjective and momentary ; but at the same time 
 it is the feeling side of a persistent social organization, and it 
 has the durability and continuity of that outward union. 
 Love is not mere liking or inclination, however strong the 
 passion may be. It is the feature of a stable form of life, 
 and renders in terms of feeling the self-conscieus unity of the 
 family. From this point of view we have to put aside much 
 that delights the romanticist, and we must be prepared to 
 believe that the truest love is not necessarily the most 
 passionate. The first strength of passion is apt to diminish 
 in the quiet of family life, and desire gives way to satiety. 
 But if we see that with this sobering comes a deepening unity 
 and that lives become gradually intertwined and refashioned 
 to fit one another, we may believe that the calmer love has 
 a greater value, and that the first fierce clasp is no longer 
 needed where the different individuals have become of one 
 piece. The weakening of intensity is a superficial aspect, 
 the truth is the spiritualizing and completion of love. The 
 high wave has become a deep current, more settled and more 
 strong, and liable in self-maintenance to pile itself aloft 
 again against any outward resistance. 
 
 Hegel's analysis of the family exposes three categories, and 
 the institution cannot be understood without reference to all 
 three'. In considering them we must not forget the duty of 
 a philosophic theory. It is sometimes a strain on human 
 thought to keep before it all the features of a complex problem, 
 and, particularly when there is some immediate practical end 
 to serve, one is tempted to omit everything that appears 
 irrelevant. Political reformers find flaws in family life as it 
 exists ; defects of various sorts show themselves, sometimes 
 in the existing institution itself and sometimes in special 
 individuals. In order to redress such grievances politicians 
 have to diagnose the disease, and in order to spare themselves 
 and their supporters the toil of a complete review they take 
 one or other aspect of marriage and the famUy as the chief 
 one. They design the lawS" to conserve that end primarily, 
 and take the risk of injuring others. This is an attitude of 
 
2o6 THE ETHICAL ORDER 
 
 compromise, and it may be necessary to choose one side rather 
 than another in the hurry and collisions of imperfect social 
 relationships. But a philosophic theory cannot claim such 
 licence, and for it no abstract aspect constitutes the whole 
 circle of the ethical institution.^ 
 
 The first of these three moments is marriage. Hegel looks 
 at marriage both on its natural and on its spiritual side ; for 
 in order to be complete it must have both. His view of the 
 former aspect is somewhat unusual, but is congruent with his 
 general position ; it is to be found briefly in his Smaller 
 Logic? and at greater length in his Philosophy of 'Nature? 
 .His position is too intricate for full discussion here, and a brief 
 ; note must suffice. Our ordinary prejudices lead us to view 
 such a relation as this from an individualistic standpoint, 
 and to speak mainly of relations between individuals. We use 
 the category of terms and relations. Hegel is free from this 
 atomism. He remembers that the individual animal is not 
 \a self-enclosed unit ; it is born and dies ; it is one of a kind ; 
 and its individual characteristics are those of its kind. Nor 
 does he content himself by dismissing one set of these identities 
 as ' similarities ' and taking the others as external relations. 
 He insists rather that the ' likenesses ' and so forth are 
 constitutive of each animal and that the reality before us is 
 not understood unless we give these constitutive principles 
 full weight. To be one of a kind is not merely to have a charac- 
 teristic or two somehow fastened on to one ; it is to be a special 
 organ of a universal. Considerable difficulty will be experi- 
 enced in following this method of thought if, as is not unusual, 
 the category of causality is given a place of false importance. 
 A kind is not a cause, and we are apt to conclude that it is 
 therefore an empty abstraction. But, for Hegel, it is rather 
 the notion — even the ' idea ' — of the concrete species con- 
 taining 'the ' causal ' relations as content. That is to say, his 
 standpoint is that of the whole life of the animal species ; and 
 the diversity of individuals, their inter-relations, and history 
 are the articulation of the general principle. One may be apt 
 to regard this treatment as hypostatizing a convenient fiction, 
 but one must remember that Hegel regards it not as a deriva- 
 
 1 Cf. Philosophy of Right, § 164. = Encyclopaedia, §§ 220-2. 
 
 ' Ibid. § 366 ff. 
 
AND THE FAMILY 207 
 
 tive abstraction but as the constitutive principle. A kind 
 IS not a force, nor a cause, but it is a kind. 
 
 The kind or species is articulated into individuals — consists 
 Df individuals, if we .prefer the word— and the individuals 
 ire bound in inter-sexual relations. The kind reproduces 
 itself in fresh individuals and is realized in a constant series 
 Df lives. As a natural process, thus, marriage is the realization 
 Df features involved in the species. 
 
 When we consider marriage as an ethical principle we must 
 maintain this point of view and must consider its constitution 
 ind its characteristics. And we may determine Hegel's 
 ittitude by his answer to the question. Is marriage a contract ? 
 He speaks as follows : ' Marriage in its essential principle is ? 
 not a relation of contract ; for its very nature is to proceed / 
 [rom that standpoint, with its self-dependent individual) 
 persons, in order to sublate it.' ^ Marriage begins from the 
 standpoint of contract, and what it does is to sublate contract. 
 That is to say, by the choice of capricious wills a union is 
 formed which is not itself capricious and subordinate to these 
 wills. The one side of this statement needs little comment. 
 Marriage involves consent, and a forced marriage is no true 
 3ne. But what comes into being by marriage is a union in\ 
 which the individuals lose their independence and become 1 
 members of a wider and deeper whole. For the present wej 
 may ignore exceptions and consider the positive principle. 
 The union of husband and wife is a more concrete unity than 
 ;hat of separate individuals ; it may be called a higher person. 
 IVithin this whole the individual ceases to pretend to be self- 
 iufficient ; each as a spiritual being recognizes that his own 
 spirit is present in the other. A famSy has habits, capabilities, 
 in atmosphere, as specially marked as those of individuals. 
 J^o two homes are quite alike, and the difference is not a mere 
 ;eries of particulars but resides in an attitude of things as 
 I whole. This attitude grows up, it is true, by the communion 
 )f two minds, and in a sense it is a construct. But neverthe- 
 ess the individual minds are moulded by it ; they cease to be 
 heir own and become elements in a common life. If we are\ 
 lot prepared to regard this as a sheer loss of personality we 
 nust beheve that true individuality lies only within the 
 ommon life, and that in the family the individuals come to be 
 1 Philosophy of Right, § 163. 
 
2o8 THE ETHICAL ORDER 
 
 fexplicitly what they are implicitly. Thus Hegel says ' Lov< 
 j means in general the consciousness of my unity with another 
 ( such that I am not isolated from myself, but win my self- 
 consciousness only by giving up my explicit being [or indepen- 
 dence], and thereby know myself as the unity of myself with 
 ! the other and of the other with me '.^ 
 
 '" In accordance with this Hegel sets forth his view of thf 
 ethical distinction between the sexes. The family is an 
 organism, and the members have a diversified function. The 
 natural physical differences pass up into a spiritual world 
 and obtain a spiritual significance. In an adequate family 
 the bread-winner is the husband and father ; he is the repre- 
 sentative of the family in the outer world ; and it is his task 
 to work and strive for the objective ends which are necessary 
 to the family welfare. The life of the man calls for more 
 thought and will, it is less that of an artist and more that of 
 a thinker. The substantial life of the woman, on the other 
 . hand, lies within the home. She is not called upon to face 
 the full blast of the wind of the world, but is sheltered from it 
 by her husband. Her activity is directed to the sustenance of 
 the internal economy of the family and the preservation of 
 its proper life ; ' and in the feeling of family piety lies her 
 ethical disposition '? Since the ethical existence of the family 
 is one of love, the nature of woman is adapted less to reasoned 
 thought and more to immediate and emotional judgement. 
 ' Of course women may be educated, but they are not made 
 for the higher sciences, for philosophy, and for certain arts 
 which require universality. In women there is a more peaceful 
 development, the principle of which is the more indefinite 
 harmony of feeling.' ' The education of women occurs, one 
 hardly knows how, almost through the atmosphere of imagina- 
 tion, more through life than through the gaining of informa- 
 tion ; while man obtains his position only through the stress 
 of thought and through much specialized effort.'^ And 
 as a natural corollary we are told that ' if women were to 
 reach the summit of government the state would.be in danger ; 
 for they act not in accordance with the requirements of 
 universality but according to capricious inclinations and 
 whims '. 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 158 note. 2 Ibid. § 166. 
 
 ' Ibid. § 166 note. 
 
AND THE FAMILY 
 
 209 
 
 This spiritual diversity is carried a step farther by Hegel. 
 True family unity is not a blank sameness, but a concrete 
 otality ; and for its full wealth it requires that both husband 
 ind wife should have a personality of their own. Marriage 
 s a free surrender of the. private self, and the family is the 
 joorer if the individualities thus surrendered are not indepen- 
 ient at the beginning. The separate selves are the raw 
 Tiaterial of this ethical unity, and the richer they are the 
 greater is the height to which the concrete unity may rise. 
 This is the ethical consideration which makes consanguinity 
 1 bar to marriage. Individuals of the same family tradi- 
 tions and atmosphere, perhaps even of the same household, 
 do not have the initial independence required, and are not 
 in the fuU sense separate selves. Hegel goes even farther, 
 arguing that close friendship and intimacy should not precede 
 marriage on account of the tendency to prevent the genuine 
 difference of character which he desires. Spiritual unity must 
 not be untimely and premature. 
 
 The same consideration on another side leads to monogamy. 
 Polygamy is a caricature of true marriage ; for in it the renun- 
 ciation of individuality is not mutual. The surrender on the 
 part of the man is partial, and the woman is denied a full 
 personality ; ' for personality attains its right of being 
 conscious of itself in the other only in so far as the other as 
 a person or atomic individuality is within this identity '.^ 
 Polygamy bears much the same relation to the family as 
 slavery does to the rational community. 
 
 The last point we need discuss in connexion with marriage 
 is its explicit institution. It has the form of contract, but it 
 is more than contract ; as an ethical relation it concerns 
 a wider system than that of the two individual wills. It is 
 constituted only through the celebration of the ceremony ; 
 and the inward union of feeling and thought and will must be 
 consummated by an objective recognition and consent. The 
 ceremony is not a mere formality ; for there are no mere 
 formalities in the ethical sphere ; it is the actual constitution 
 of the marriage. 
 
 Marriage is only the first moment or category of the family, 
 and Hegel proceeds to consider its further character. The 
 family is a relatively permanent unit in the objective ethical 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 167. 
 
 2211 
 
210 THE ETHICAL ORDER 
 
 world ; it must therefore have the conditions requisite to thii 
 situation. The husband, Hegel tells us, is the representative 
 of the family when in its outward relations it touches othei 
 families ; and he has to earn its living, care for its needs, and 
 administer the family means. The property of the family ij 
 ja common possession ; no one has a special right to it, but 
 |each can claim support for his or her needs from it.- The duty 
 )of the husband and father is so to administer the family estate 
 jthat the just needs of each are satisfied. This principle is not 
 'always completely carried out. For one thing, the husband 
 may fail to subordinate his individual caprice to the ethical 
 whole, and the state has to guard against this — provision may 
 be made by law for certain ends, and certain funds may be 
 ear-marked. Further, since the family is only the first ethical 
 unity it is subject to violence and chance ; and so a marriage 
 settlement may condition it as a security against its dissolution. 
 In this case each individual retains a right to a definite portion 
 of the common store contingent on special circumstances, 
 r In this connexion Hegel insists that the ethical bond should 
 I override mere connexions of blood. Ethical love is a higher 
 principle than consanguinity, and marriage establishes a new 
 family with an independent position to be maintained against 
 the original stocks from which it arose. The wider circle, 
 connected by blood, is a feebler unity ; and the maintenance 
 of the individual should be drawn from the family income and 
 not from the more extended clan. The wife should be 
 supported by her husband and not by her father or brothers. 
 The third moment of the family is the education of the 
 children, and this leads to the dissolution of the family. 
 It is in the children of a family that the inward harmony of 
 love becomes actual ; in them it attains an outward and 
 independent embodiment. The child is each of its parents, 
 and in their love for it they love one another. The child is 
 both the strength and the weakness of the family ; for by it 
 the faniily is both completed and broken up. In the care for- 
 the child and its education, subjective feeling becomes 
 objective, develops into outward relationships and actions, 
 and builds itself into a concrete system ; and at tlie same time 
 It transcends itself, since the result of the care and education 
 IS the production of a new personaHty for which there Is 
 no room in the family itself. 
 
AND THE FAMILY 211 
 
 The child is potentially a free being, but its freedom is not 
 et actual and has to be brought into explicit being. On this 
 he relation of the child to its parents depends. The child, 
 nable to provide for itself, is dependent on the home which 
 las called it into being, and has a right to be supported out 
 if the family means. On the other side, the parents have 
 . right to the service of the child, but Hegel points out that 
 his right is closely circumscribed by the unity within which 
 t falls. The child is called upon to play his part in the family 
 ircle, and minister to the ends which a proper care for the 
 velfare of the family requires. But the nature of the child 
 nust not be forgotten, and the functions it is called upon to 
 jerform must not infringe its own rights to be considered 
 I child. The child is not a thing, or a slave, nor yet a full 
 jersonality. It should be subordinated to no private end§i 
 ind its proper duty is merely the other aspect of its right to 
 support and development.^ The right of the child, thus, is 
 :o be educated ; and the right of the parent over the fre^' 
 :hoice of the child is limited to what is necessary to this end.-' 
 The relations of abstract rights are out of place here ; for the 
 ;ontroUing conception is not justice but education. Hegel 
 explains his view by a brief reference to the aims of education \ 
 n the family. The mind begins in feeling, and, as Plato I 
 pointed out, education must first deal with it in accordance-^ 
 with this. Through the medium of love and obedience there 
 must be laid down those dispositions which are the ground- 
 ivork of the ethical character, and in its early years the child 
 must live in the atmosphere of healthy family hfe. But the 
 2ducation must go farther, and its second aim is to enable the 
 :hild to stand by itself and to become a free personality. 
 This is the final end, and the purpose of authority is to cancel 
 itself. This, however, is the end and not the beginning. 
 k self-dependent character has to be acquired, and is not 
 3asy of attainment. Children are not born either good or bad, 
 Md their impulses and tendencies are the undyed stuff of 
 ethical life. Education has to instil order and rationahty into 
 impulse ; it must cultivate what is good and repress what is 
 ;vil. An important element, therefore, is the readiness of the 
 :hild to obey. It must be taught, by punishment if necessary, 
 to forgo its momentary and capricious likings and to accept 
 ' V. Philosophy of Right. §§ 174, I75. and notes. 
 P 2 
 
212 THE ETHICAL ORDER 
 
 the guidance of those wiser than itself. A premature self- 
 dependence is evil ; for the self on which dependence can be 
 placed comes not by instinct but through training and culture. 
 Reverence is an emotion proper to children, and the lack of 
 it is a fundamental defect.* In consequence of this, children 
 must at first take things on trust, and their passage into the 
 world of thought must be gradual ; they acquire proper 
 attitudes to things before they understand the reasons for 
 them. But it is possible to fall into a mistake on the other 
 side. Education is not a game, and should not be made silly 
 to children. Children are not without their own apprehension 
 of the seriousness of life, and one ill requites their trust by 
 building up associations in their mind between one's teaching 
 and puerile nonsense. The very desire of children to be 
 grown up and to understand should warn one that it is a mis- 
 take to reduce everything to childishness. Their higher and 
 truer aspiration should be encouraged, and not stifled by 
 a precocious mockery of its gratification.' 
 
 When education attains its end the children become self- 
 dependent free personalities, and at this point the natural 
 disruption of the family begins. They must find a new 
 field, acquire property of their own, and found new famiUes. 
 They in their turn look forwards in the stream of life, 
 and form fresh ethical unities. The old family cannot make 
 that reciprocal sacrifice of a separate self to them, and they 
 must seek it elsewhere. It is natural that ' children on the 
 whole love their parents less than the parents do the children ; 
 for they pass on towards self-dependence and strength, and 
 leave their parents thus behind them, while the parents possess 
 in them the objective embodiment of their union '? 
 
 This is not the only possible dissolution of the family. The 
 family is not the supreme ethical principle and is subject to 
 defect. The death of one of the parents will destroy it in large 
 part ; or it may be broken by divorce. All ethical institutions 
 make a claim to permanence, but the claim is not absolute. 
 The family is not the highest ethical unity ; it is the imme- 
 
 ' One writer, Professor Mackintosh, seems to consider that the foUow- 
 ing IS a fair summary of Hegel's view of education : ' Again, to make 
 education pleasant to children is dangerous ; we ought to break them 
 m {Hegel and Hegehanism, p. 207). 
 
 ^ Philosophy of Right, § 175 note. 
 
AND THE FAMILY 213 
 
 iate presentation of that unity in the medium of feehng^ 
 [ence one must admit that the permanence of marriage is 
 ilative and conditioned. The philosophy of the ethical 
 rorld must deal with known institutions and not acceptj 
 ious wishes for absolute laws. If total alienation has taken 
 iace, and the actual family unity been broken, not byl 
 lomentary caprice, but in a permanent fashion, as through! 
 dultery, divorce should be allowed and recognized by law! 
 ,nd religion. ' 
 
 With the break-up of the family the common property 
 )asses into private possession, and the principle of this is 
 nheritance. Hegel's view is that the members of the family 
 ire the natural heirs, but that no rigid principle can be laid 
 lown, caprice and chance having a say in the matter. The 
 ;hief dif&culty arises from the fact that as the children leave 
 ;he home and set up new families they give up their former 
 ;onnexions and lose their former claims to support. They 
 :an be regarded as foreign persons for many purposes, and 
 ;he tie of blood is a pale abstraction in comparison with the 
 Donds of actual family affection. When the family is dissolved 
 this tie alone remains, and one cannot base an unbending rule 
 upon it. Hegel does not countenance either a fixed law of 
 succession or a complete freedom of arbitrary bequest. The 
 institution of heirs-at-law, irrespective of the actuality of family 
 ties, rests on a thin abstraction, viz. the family stock ; and, 
 moreover, is^pt to be unjust in its incidence to other members 
 of the family. On the other hand, complete freedom of bequest 
 may violate actual family rights and should be conceded only 
 when the family bond is weak and ineffective. The lines of 
 family connexion should be followed where they actually 
 exist, but beyond that no ethical principle can be laid down by 
 the consideration of the family itself. This vagueness is 
 intrinsic, and the actual lines of procedure must rest on positive 
 law. ._ 
 
 The dissolution of the family brings us to consider the larger 
 sphere in which families are separate units and where ethical 
 relationships are of a different kind, having at least the appear- 
 ance of externality. This is civil society. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 CIVIL SOCIETY OR THE EXTERNAL STATE 
 
 Civil society is the principle or realm which we reach 
 whenever we transcend the family. It is wider and embraces 
 more than the family does, and it is less closely knit together. 
 Indeed, it may seem to be more easily described in negative 
 than in positive terms ; for, in Hegel's eyes, it is a stage of 
 ■ 'difference. Civil society is not the same thing as the state ; 
 it is a collection of individuals, interacting with one another, 
 (but nevertheless each pursuing his own way and constituting 
 a system apparently by accident and as a by-product. Hegel 
 calls it the external state ; for in it we see not the essen- 
 tial organism and life, but the separate pieces of machinefy 
 which, when put together, are the framework and instruments 
 of social life. Civil Society is a product. A family may grow 
 too large and break up ; the ties of blood become attenuated, 
 and the original unity divide into a variety of self-centred 
 factors, which preserve many of the old relationships and 
 continue many of the former customs, but which claim an 
 independence and indifference to others impo^ible within 
 the family itself. Or, again, the origin may be in another 
 fashion. Members of many families drawn from separate 
 stocks may be brought by circumstances into continual and 
 close contact, until at length a substantial co-operation springs 
 up among theni, and sufficient identity of interest to stamp 
 the whole as a new unit of society.^ Whichever way it arises 
 civil society presents the appearance of an aggregate, con- 
 sisting of various wants, impulses, and ends; cohering a1 
 one point, falling apart at another ; and yet, in spite of al 
 the struggle and separation it contains, holding together as 
 one community. 
 
 This society, for Hegel, is not the state ; but in the historj 
 of political theory it has often been mistaken for the state 
 So-called ' natural society ' is this civil society in the making 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § i8i. 
 
CIVIL SOCIETY OR THE EXTERNAL STATE 215 
 
 and all forms of the contract theory regard this outward and 
 artificial unification as the characteristic feature of social life. 
 But for Hegel the state is not a product of this kind. It is 
 a fundamental condition of social life ; and although states 
 come into being and on one side can be called results, this is 
 not the fundamental aspect. The state is the proper essence ^ 
 of ethical life, and is not merely a stage in the history of social ) 
 organization. Consequently, Hegel is not led to regard civil / 
 society and the state as temporally distinct moments of the 
 common life ; the state, for him, does not signify a stage of 
 unity and organization to be reached only when difference and 
 particularity have disappeared and civil society has been left 
 behind. The state, as we shall see more fuUy later, is a uni- \ 
 versal ; it breaks forth into difference, and the system of | 
 self-seeking, conflicting, and co-operating individuals is an I 
 essential part of its own content. The external state is the / 
 state itself taken with respect only to some of its features. 
 
 Abstractly stated, the principle of civil society is the par- 
 ticular individual ; that is to say, we have to consider society 
 as constituted by members who take a self-centred view of 
 things and work primarily for their own private ends. But, 
 of course, this is not an absolute chaos ; it is still a society. 1 
 It is characterized by law and order, and the very chaos 
 which it contains is a cosmos. ' The principle of particularity 
 passes over into universality in that it expUcitly develops itself 
 into a totality, and only therein has its truth and the right 
 of its positive reality.' ^ The particular is itself a universal ; 
 the very self-interest of the individual is a common principle, 
 and casts men in one mould. Sheer particularity, absolute 
 indifference to a common life, is impossible in a rational being ; 
 and men, in order to gain their private aims, have to look at \ 
 the aims and actions of others. The social medium holds us \^ 
 together, and by rubbing against one another we work out 
 certain uniformities and principles— the universals of indivi- 
 duahsm. The characteristic of this sphere, its specific differ- / 
 ence, is the particular. In accordance with it men look at 
 society as a means ; no doubt, they have to take their place 
 in it and conform to the principles of its movement, but 
 although their range and scope is thus enlarged, their point of 
 view remains unaltered. Individualism, as a political theory, 
 1 Ibid. § 186. 
 
2i6 CIVIL SOCIETY 
 
 has fixed and isolated this aspect. The universal, the state 
 becomes for it a necessary evil, a compromise which unfor- 
 tunately cannot be avoided, but which must be reduced to the 
 lowest possible terms in order not to infringe the sacredness 
 of individual freedom. For Hegel, however, such freedom is 
 formal ; and it inevitably manifests itself as necessity. Mej 
 are self-seeking and free ; so runs the doctrine of individttftUsm. 
 This Hegel grants, but his suggestion is that if yoij look closely 
 at the system in which they are and which they constitute, 
 you will see that each presses on the others from the outside, 
 and that the economic and social order determines the field 
 o_f_ operation of each and even directs his activity. If you 
 carry the matter to the end you will discover that, wriggle 
 as they may, individuals are caught in a net, woven of the 
 purposes and functions of other individuals, from which they 
 cannot break away. They follow the path of their freedom : 
 but that path is laid down for them by wills which they 
 regard as other than their own. In unrestricted competition 
 the individual is formally free, but is also entirely dependent 
 J on circumstances. And the proper category here is necgsaty 
 I because the individual does not identify himself with the 
 ! controlling and governing whole, and fails to understand that 
 the true principle of his spiritual being is that wider common 
 ; life within which his narrower ends are contained and by which 
 I they are conditioned.^ 
 
 It need hardly be stated that for Hegel this freedom which 
 IS necessity is not the final word on the subject. It is indeed 
 an essential element, and the state is not true to itself if it 
 lacks the diversity and individuaUty propeF to this sphere. 
 But when we understand the state in its truth we see the 
 organization of society in a new light. Caprice gives way to 
 rational wiU, and the common weal becomes identical with his 
 own end for every true citizen. That is to say, the necessity 
 which comes to light here is retained but is overcome ; and 
 in the duti^ of his station the individual finds an end recon- 
 cihng his own interest, the articulation of society, and the 
 Nj^ommon good. 
 
 But we are anticipating. So far we have only reached the 
 general conception of the external state, the world of inter- 
 acting individuals ; we have now to discuss the constitutive 
 ' Cf . above, chap. IV, p. 7.7 f. 
 
OR THE EXTERNAL STATE 217 
 
 moments of this society whereby this realm of particularity 
 works out its own pecuUar universality. These are three in 
 number : (a) the system of needs, (b) the administration of 
 justice, and (c) the police and the corporation. 
 
 The ethical life is rooted in nature, and the elements of civil 
 society develop from the impulses and needs of animal hfe. 
 But in society, however crude it may be, these wants are 
 extended : by taking thought men achieve new desires, and 
 strive for other ends than the immediate satisfaction of 
 primary instincts. From Hegel's standpoint it is a profound ! 
 mistake to regard reason as a mere means to passion, an 
 instrument incapable of constituting a motive, and useful/ 
 only as a guide to ends laid upon it by a sub-rational side of 
 life. Reason changes passion ; it eats into the heart of the 
 practical life, and one of its first activities is this process of! 
 extending and transforming wants. There is no limit to human '. 
 Tgants ; tbfe satisfaction of one leads to satiety and ultimately/ 
 ts. dissatisfaction, so that mind is driven onward in an endless: 
 progression reaching after a receding ideal. This ideal Hegel 
 i3entifies with the English conception of ' comfort ', and its •, 
 ethical weakness is manifested by the impossibility of gratify- 
 ing it permanently. 
 
 Wants are developed in many ways. The very division of 
 labour which springs up in the economic world in order to 
 satisfy old needs begets new ones ; the conditions of labour 
 create new tendencies ; and each phase of the vast social 
 machinery, constructed originally as a means, invades the 
 realm of private ends, instituting customs and opinions which 
 in time demand fresh satisfactions. The desire to emulate 
 our neighbours and to attain social recognition, and at the 
 same time to assert our own individualities, are potent 
 instruments in this process. And, as society develops, the 
 spiritual element becomes predominant in the determination 
 of wants ; and men are both emancipated and enslaved by 
 conventions which mind itself produces. 
 
 •Want^,then,..is.the-raw ma-teriaJ of civil .society ; it springs 
 from nature, and is modified and spiritualized by thought and 
 will ; but at the end it remains an indefinite endlessly increas- 
 ing system, incapable of giving itself a final Hmit. 
 
 The satisfaction of want is achieved m the mai^i through 
 labour. Natural objects are seldom found in a condition fit 
 
2i8 CIVIL SOCIETY 
 
 to fulfil our needs, and must be transformed by human 
 agency. Work is a spiritualizing of nature, the infusion of 
 purpose into a soulless material, and the adaptation of it to 
 rational needs. But labour is more than a means. As we 
 have seen, man is not a being created with a fixed number of 
 impulses and desires, a definite empty space to be filled. His 
 whole life is organic ; and the satisfaction of one need itself 
 creates others. Labour itself becomes a need in his life, and 
 by it he not only satisfies original wants but also finds a mode 
 of expression, an activity, which is essential to his character 
 and freedom. 
 
 In this sphere the general paradox of civil society is clearly 
 manifested. In pursuit of individualistic motives men have 
 built industry into a system, labour has become specialized, 
 and men's interdependence and mutual relationship has been 
 confirmed. To gain his own end each produces for others and 
 plays his own part in a vast social structure built up by the 
 interactions of the aggregate of social individuals. 
 /Through this development of universality in and through 
 ^he particular we reach the conception of wealth. Private 
 satisfaction and enjoyment of things becomes conditioned by 
 a common process such that in order to understand the 
 correlation of individual wants, activities, and satisfactions, 
 we have to look at the economic world as a whole, and con- 
 sider a concatenated social system both of production and of 
 distribution. Wealth is a social product, the result of many 
 impinging activities, and its values are measured, not directly 
 by individual wants, but by the interplay of these in barter 
 and exchange. The details of this sphere, however, belong 
 to the science of economics and not to political philosophy. 
 
 Hegel contents himself here with some general observa- 
 tions. The first of these is that the economic world is a sphere 
 of contingency. The individual's share of the common 
 product depends on many features, chiefly accidental. Skill, 
 capital, differences of endowment, fortunate circumstances, 
 all play a part ; and the result is great inequalities of wealth. 
 These inequalities are not to be condemned as unethical. 
 Doubtless at times they may produce results hostile to the 
 well-being of society, and in that case the state is called upon 
 to intervane ; but in themselves these inequalities are not 
 wrong. Mind obtains its content from nature, and ethical 
 
07? THE EXTERNAL STATE 219 
 
 mind must reflect the variety and difference which its natural 
 medium presents to it. Civil society is a sphere of contin- 
 gency, and the unity which pervades the state is not to be 
 obtained at the expense of difference. Society is an organism, 
 not an aggregate of similars ; and only an abstract thought 
 can confuse the formal identity of principle in all men with 
 an artificial sameness imposed upon them from without. 
 
 Putting aside the false statement that all men are born 
 equal, Hegel goes on to consider one broad form of organiza- 
 tion running through civil society. Society, he says, is divided 
 into classes, and these classes spring from the nature of the 
 case. He points to the distinction between the town and 
 the country. The latter of these he calls the substantial 
 class, for it has a direct cormexion with nature, and is but 
 slightly modified by the self-consciousness and calculating 
 activities common to industrialism. The townsman is 
 essentially more artificial ; his life is mediated to a greater 
 extent by human contrivance and ingenuity, and he has less 
 the attitude of waiting upon nature than that of manipulating 
 and altering it. Commerce and industry are more artificial, 
 less placid, and more sophisticated than agriculture : and 
 these characteristics give a natural division between these 
 classes in society. There is also another class which Hegel 
 calls universal, consisting of those members of society whose 
 duty it is to attend to the public and common elements of 
 life ; the servants of the community as a whole, who do not 
 produce goods for exchange, but tend to the organization 
 and administration of the social organism. This class, says 
 Ilegel, ' must be relieved from direct labour for its needs 
 either by private means or by an allowance from the state 
 which claims its activity ; so that its private interest finds 
 satisfaction in its labour for the universal.' ^ 
 
 The second element in civil society is the administration of 
 justice. In the ethical world we pass beyond the bare con- 
 ceptions of aBstract right or of moral claims ; in the section 
 already discussed we have considered one form of externality 
 which must be found in objective mind— the system of needs 
 —now we reach another and more adequate one. The 
 system of needs is an institution, beginning in nature but 
 growing more spiritual as it develops, by which mind gives 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 205. 
 
220 CIVIL SOCIETY 
 
 itself a place in the outward course of events. But such an 
 
 embodiment is inadequate ; mind must attain a higher 
 
 realization. The category which we now consider is that in 
 
 which right becomes explicit in the medium of consciousness ; 
 
 .i. e. right becomes established law. It may not be altogether 
 
 futile to repeat here a warning given above. Hegel is not 
 
 engaged in proving by an extraordinary subtle dialectic that 
 
 there is no wrong, no unjust states, no absurd laws, no 
 
 I neglected rights. He tells us what ethical mind is, and an 
 
 1 essential point is that in order to attain- completeness the ' 
 
 ', inherent rights of property, and so forth, must be recognized 
 
 land established in society, or, in other words, must become 
 
 explicit. A right which is not thus established is an abstrac- 
 
 /tion. So, too, a law which does not realize an inherent right 
 
 'is also an abstraction, a counterfeit coin, a lie. But there is 
 
 no warrant for supposing that such abstraction and lies do 
 
 jnot exist, and the analysis of the notion must not be taken for 
 
 an historical transcript of phenomena. 
 
 Law arises_.from instinct ; for instincts are the primitive 
 
 regOlaflti^ and uniformities of animal life. Custom brings 
 
 us a step higher ; for custom, however mechanical, operates 
 
 through consciousness and involves knowledge. When such 
 
 uniformities or modes of action are consciously apprehended 
 
 ^^nd publicly recognized they begin to take the shape of laws. 
 
 ; ' The difference of customs from laws consists only in that 
 
 I custottis are known in subjective and contingent fashion ; 
 
 \ consequently, they are explicitly less determinate, and the 
 
 ; luniversality of thought is less clear in them.' ^ Hegel 
 
 'emphasizes strongly the ethical superiority of law to custtfe, 
 
 and~4iis-poiBt-of—view^is~ sharply opposed to that of those 
 
 individualistic thinkers who haiiker after an ideal state where 
 
 the naturar^goodness of men will render laws superfluous 
 
 [and obsolete. Law is not intrinsically a restraint and an 
 
 evil ; it is a liberation of right, a mode of freedom. Custom, 
 
 no doubt, is a form of life, and may be called natural inOTjjo- 
 
 sition to the artificiality of law ; but, says Hegel, TWk 
 
 i.e. the identity of the principle with the subject, is not th^ 
 
 whole essence of the matter ; right must be known by 
 
 thought, it must be a system in itself, and only as such can 
 
 it exist in a civilized nation.' ^ _^__^- 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right. § 221. = jbid_ note. 
 
OR THE EXTERNAL STATE ., ) 221 
 
 V.^ '' 
 
 This necessary objectivity of right brings us to a limitation" 
 of philosophy as Hegel understands it. Law is positive in 
 two senses : in the first place it is posited, laid down, estab- 
 lished, explicit, in contrast with inherent and merely formal 
 right ; in the second it is existent, contingent, empirically 
 conditioned, in contrast with the pure notion. For Hegel 
 these are not totally separate conceptions which merely 
 happen to converge at this point ; they are interdependent. 
 The objectivity of law is taken seriously by him, and in this 
 part of the difficulty of his philosophy lies. The same point 
 may be exemplified elsewhere. Thus the philosophy of 
 nature is an objectification of the logic, and Hegel constantly 
 af&rms that nature is a realm of contingency and externalitj^. 
 Here and elsewhere the logical doctrine by which he holds^ 
 fast is the achievement of unity in and through a genuine! 
 disruption into difference ; and he is not afraid to let his 
 first abstract principle plunge itself into its opposite. Hence,! 
 when the notion of right gains externality, it contains con-i 
 tingent elements. Philosophic analysis cannot determine the/ 
 details of this region for they depend in part on accidents and 
 circumstance ; and Hegel does not assent to the belief that 
 there is one all-sufiicing and all-just code of laws to which all( 
 our finite codes must approximate. Something is always left; 
 to concrete experience, to the logic of facts ; and political; 
 philosophy is confined to the general outline of the categories; 
 involved.^ 
 
 Right must become law ; but, further, law must be publicly 
 known. Hegel inveighs against the conception that the 
 jurist, or any other person, has ^ private possession in the 
 knowledge of the law. Just as right is not true to itself if it 
 does not become law, so law is not true to itself unless it is 
 a conscious rule for the people in general. The ethical world 
 reinterprets, but it dare not bluntly deny, the claims of the 
 moral consciousness ; and the right to apprehend the 
 governing principles of one's duty is not to be rejected. 
 ' Right concerns freedom, that which is worthiest and holiest 
 in man, and which he himself must know in so far as it is to 
 be binding on him.' ^ On this ground Hegel criticizes English 
 law, in which the knowledge of precedents and legal decisions \ 
 plays too great a part. Of course, it is not necessary — nor ' 
 ' Ibid. § 214 note. = Ibid. § 215. 
 
222 CIVIL SOCIETY 
 
 is it possible — for every jot and tittle of the law to be known 
 1 to all men. What Hegel insists on is that the general principle^ 
 'of law should be public, and that, although the application 
 i to new cases may be a matter of authority, nevertheless the 
 1 decision should be such that men may have confidence that 
 'a general and well-known maxim has governed it.^ 
 
 Through these considerations we discern the rationality 
 and necessity of a judicial court, an institution whose office is 
 the recognition and establishment of the law in special cases. 
 The law must be impartial and free from subjective bias ; 
 hence it must be administered by some one who speaks for 
 the community as a whole and is invested with this function 
 as his duty. It is by means of this explicitly universal institu- 
 tion that revenge is superseded by punishment. We have 
 seen that revenge is tainted by subjectivity ; it is the 
 capricious act of an individual and is regarded as itself a fresh 
 wrong. But the decision of a judge is expressly free from 
 this particularity. His own interests are not in question, the 
 principles of his action are laid down for him, and he acts for 
 the whole body. 
 
 In virtue of this universal character of the court of justice 
 the intrinsic identity of wrong and its punishment can be 
 realized. When one member of the community suffers wrong 
 the others suffer with him, and this integration of interests 
 lifts the wrong from the circle of purely private concerns and 
 gives it a direct public bearing. Wrong is an act by one 
 member of the whole on ariother member of the whole ; and 
 in punishment society corrects itself. 
 
 In Hegel's view the court should be open to any citizen 
 who has a case to bring before it, and there should be no 
 exemption from its jurisdiction. The dispensing of justice 
 is. not the private privilege oi a ruler, and he has no right, to 
 resist or influence its decisions. 
 
 This general view of the court of justice Ts used by Hegel 
 to justify trial by jury in certain cases. Justice must not 
 appear as something coming upon a man from above ; in 
 the long run it must be the voice of his own heart. This has 
 led at times to the demand that in criminal cases the accused 
 should confess his guilt before punishment. Hegel does not 
 accept this literally ; for, plainly, few criminals will confess 
 > English law admits Hegel's principle : cf. 4 Geo. II, cap. 26, 1731. 
 
OR THE EXTERNAL STATE 223 
 
 if a refusal to do so involves an acquittal. In order to mitigate 
 any suspicion of externality and abritrariness, however, the 
 facts should be decided by the man's peers and the judge 
 should be bound by the view of the facts which the jury finds.i 
 The third section of Hegel's discission of civil society is- 
 entitled ' the police and the corporation '. As is usual in the 
 progress of the dialectic, we can consider this step as the 
 development of the previous category or as the statement of 
 a condition of it. The court is the organ of justice ; but as 
 a definite institution it stands at a distance from the mass of 
 the people, and in order to be a true vehicle of right and law 
 it must be supplemented by other institutions. Thus, the 
 police and the corporation — or, perhaps, it would be better 
 to say the trade guild — mediate between the individual and 
 abstract judicial decision of law. Broadly speaking, the 
 function of civil society which is exercised by the police is 
 the seciiring of the rights of property, including defence 
 against violence. Abstract right in general is negative, 
 prohibitory in character ; and in consequence the activity 
 of the police shares that feature, its task being the removal 
 of dangers. But it is a mistake to over-emphasize this. 
 The distinction between negative and positive-^clear enough 
 in very abstract realms — ^becomes obscured in concrete social 
 life. The removal of hindrances is too closely bound up 
 with the promotion of positive conditions to admit any hard 
 and fast line limiting the sphere of police intervention. Hegel 
 points out that civil society makes itself responsible for the 
 lighting of the streets, the building of bridges, a certain 
 control over daily needs, and the care of public health. There 
 are two conflicting claims to be reconciled here : the right 
 of the individual to freedom, and the right to the conditions 
 of a fair life. ' Both sides are to be satisfied ; and the freedom 
 of trade must not be such that the general good is endangered.' ^ 
 In this connexion civil society ranks higher than the 
 family. Of course nothing may be done to injure the family ; 
 but society has the right to intervene in any domain, e.g. 
 that of education, in which the wider interests of the com- 
 munity demand it. When the family itself is defective, as 
 ivhen meii fail to provide for their dependants, society is 
 )ound to interfere ; it must protect itself against any actions 
 ' V. § 227 note, and § 228. » Philosophy of Right, § 236. 
 
224 CIVIL SOCIETY 
 
 which will produce in the future incompetent members of 
 society. 
 
 Society cannot divest itself of all responsibility for a pauper 
 class within it. Ethically the individual has the same right 
 to the conditions of happiness as to those of freedom ; for 
 in the last resort these coincide ; and hence on the one hand 
 society is bound to do what it can to provide these conditions, 
 and on the other has the right to prevent any individual 
 from any mode of action antagonistic to the public good. 
 Men have to be protected even against themselves, and 
 society should guard against the creation of an indigent and 
 shiftless class. 
 
 In this connexion Hegel points out that private charity is 
 not necessarily a supreme social principle. Such preventive 
 and ameliorative functions should not be sporadic and con- 
 tingent ; and the ethical spirit is best satisfied not by casual 
 sentiments and doles but by regulations binding on the 
 whole community. It is a duty to remove any social or 
 economic conditions which bear hardly on one section of the 
 people. Hegel does not indicate any specific against poverty, 
 but he insists that society should seek to discover a general 
 remedy against it.^ 
 
 The positive side of the mediation between the individual 
 and society is undertaken by the trade guild or corporation ; 
 its function is not to protect property but to care for and 
 provide the further conditions of subsistence and well-being. 
 In the ancient Greek state this was not necessary ; for the 
 small size of the community made it possible for every citizen 
 to enter directly into public life and take his place in the control 
 of general affairs. But the modern state is too large and 
 complex ; men enter into it not as isolated individuals, but 
 as members of mediatihg systems. The guild represents the 
 interests of its members and acts as a unity with society. 
 The guild has the right to control its members in order to 
 carry out its proper ends. It may, if necessary, restrict 
 conditions of employment or trade ; but it must not do so 
 arbitrarily or at the expense of the common weal. At the 
 time when Hegel wrote the guilds were disappearing, and 
 since his day the situation has changed completely. The 
 gulf between master and man, great enough as it was then, 
 ■ V. Philosophy of Right, §§ 240-2 and notes. 
 
CIVIL SOCIETY 225 
 
 las become greater ; and the increase of capital and of 
 arge-scale industry has cut off the ordinary worker from 
 I field which was formerly open to him. Employers' associa- 
 ;ions and trade unions have taken the place of the old guilds, 
 io far as the place has been taken at all. And the function 
 ivhich these organizations seek to fulfil is the same mediation 
 between the individual and the economic world as a whole. 
 
 Through these categories and institutions civil society isi 
 irticulated. We began with the system of needs, compounded J 
 of" individuals each seeking private ends. Through thq' 
 interaction of economic activities we found that society 
 became integrated ; both production and distribution being 
 social processes. Then the objectification of law by its 
 publication and judicial administration manifested furtherj 
 the inherent universality of ethical life. And, finally, thisj 
 universality was made concrete, firstly by the direct applica-! 
 tion of the principles of right to individuals by the policej 
 and secondly by the institution of guilds within society.1 
 Thus the community shows itself to be not a mere aggregate!, 
 of individuals kept in order from above ; but an inherent 
 organism, organizing itself into cohering systems. We havel 
 still to discover how these systems cohere together, and byj. 
 what principles of unity they are organized into a concrete 
 whole. The system of systems which we seek is the state,) 
 and to its analysis we now turn. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE STATE 
 
 The theory of the state affords a most searching test of 
 any political philosophy. In the state all the elements of 
 the practical life come together, and if they are not brought 
 into a true harmony the theory is bound to resolve itself 
 into a paradox. The paradox may be concealed by a failure 
 to carry the problems raised to their full conclusion. But 
 ^oth in practice and in theory it is sure to manifest itself in 
 ' the long run. The possibilities of colHsion between the 
 individual and society are so many and so important that the 
 theory of right which they involve cannot permanently be 
 hushed up. There is a disposition to be found sometimes — 
 particularly among English-speaking peoples — ^to regard the 
 whole question as one of expediency ; but the attitude cannot 
 be sustained in face of the gravity of the issues involved. 
 The state claims too much from the individual to be treated 
 as an accidental by-product of human life. At times it 
 claims that property and even life itself must be sacrificed 
 at its bidding ; that is to say, it claims authority over all the 
 Ordinary rights of everyday life and sets itself above them. 
 The theory of the state must account for the right of the state 
 to act thus, and indicate wherein lies that higher end to 
 which it subordinates other human interests. 
 
 Hegel's theory of the state may be better apprehended if 
 we consider briefly the way in which ether points of view fail 
 to cover the whole situation. Sheer individualism is not 
 a common theory, but it will give us a convenient point of 
 departure. In its most thorough form it would involve the 
 abolition of all government whatsoever ; the individual will 
 would have to be relieved of every form of social constraint, 
 and would be regarded as free only when utterly isolated. 
 This follows inevitably if we consider individual human wills 
 as impenetrable atoms, entirely self-contained and exclusive 
 y of one another. Such a position, however, is patently unten- 
 able, and in view of the points which we have already 
 
THE STATE 
 
 227 
 
 established may be set aside. The individual man is not 
 complete in himself, and the medium in which alone rights 
 can exist is a social one. 
 
 Short of this extreme, several compromises have been put 
 forward which deserve attention. A distinction may be 
 drawn between two broad elements in human life : certain 
 spheres may be declared social, and others non-social. Thus 
 we get Mill's distinction between self-regarding and other- 
 regarding actions. The state, or society — we have not yet 
 reached the question of the relation of these two — is concerned 
 with those actions which touch others, but not with those 
 in which only the individual agent is concerned. This dis- 
 tinction, however valuable for limited purposes, is not 
 accurate, and cannot be defended successfully. There are 
 no purely self-regarding actions ; and no sphere of the 
 practical life is related only to the individual agent. Even 
 if no other connexion can be discerned, there is always a link 
 between the individual's acts and other individuals in his 
 own personality. What he does in any situation makes 
 a difference to what he is as a whole, and what he is as a whole 
 affects those other actions which are admittedly social in 
 character. The point is trite enough, but perhaps an illustra- 
 tion may be allowed. At first sight it would seem that the 
 literature by which a man recreates his mind is only his own 
 concern, and that the paths of thought and fancy which he 
 pursues within himself are wholly free from a social bearing. 
 But this first impression is false. On the one hand, the 
 material he uses, the books he reads, the conceptions among 
 which he strays, are social. And however much he may 
 recast them within his mind, the gist of them is a social 
 construction which he obtains directly or indirectly from 
 others. On the other hand, these influences mould his mind ; 
 they inform it, rightly or wrongly, on various lines ; they 
 enable him to deal, wisely or unwisely, with certain situations ; 
 and they help to determine the reactions which he will give 
 to future social stimuli. What is in the man comes out 
 again ; for it is the nature of mind to externalize and manifest 
 itself. This does not mean, of course, that it is the duty of 
 the government to regulate in detail every element of 
 individual life : but it does mean that there is no feasible 
 distinction between the social and the non-social in human 
 
 Q2 
 
228 THE STATE 
 
 life, and that any limitation of the activity of the state in 
 dominating man's affairs must have some other ground than 
 that. 
 
 But surely, it may be said, there are some inalienable 
 rights vested in man — rights which accrue to him in virtue 
 of his being a man at all and which society itself must simply 
 recognize. The contention is based upon a true element of 
 right, but it is exaggerated and mis-stated. It is difficult to 
 see what rights of the individual are inalienable. Men, 
 unfortunately, do alienate even the right to life itself ; and 
 what holds here holds in lesser matters also. Moreover, it 
 
 ' is a mistake to suppose that those rights — alienable or not-r- 
 have their root in the individual rather than in society. 
 For one thing, they belong only to rational beings ; and 
 rationality is social. Take the right to freedom as an example. 
 A child does not have the right to freedom which a man has. 
 Its right to freedom can be granted as a reality and not as 
 a mere possibility only when the child comes to years of 
 discretion. And the development which it has to undergo 
 is socially conditioned, both on its physical and on its mental 
 side. The great principles which become the substance of 
 its later rationaUty are not mere latent inward possessions of 
 its own — they are the actual framework of the social world 
 into which the child is born and which the child recognizes 
 as akin to itself. Conversely, when society recognizes his 
 
 . rationality and grants his freedom to an individual, it does 
 not bow itself down before a right enforced upon it by a 
 higher but alien power. The ireedom which it gives him is 
 its own, an element essential to its own being. This right, 
 like all others, is both social and individual at once ; and it 
 could not be the one if it were not the other also. 
 
 But there is more than this to be said. The rights of man 
 simply as man are abstract : they are not individual rather 
 than social. The point of view which puts them forward 
 has abstracted from the concreteness of real life, and has 
 set its eyes on the bare universals apart from their special 
 manifestations. The social character of the individual and 
 the articulation which society receives in individuals are 
 left out of sight, and attention is given only to the undeveloped 
 conception of man below the concrete level of the ethical 
 world altogether. That is to say, when insistence upon these 
 
THE STATE 229 
 
 so-called inalienable natural rights seems to set individual 
 man in opposition to society, the real conflict lies elsewhere, 
 viz. between the rights of abstract manhood at a level below 
 the ethical world and the concrete rights and duties of the 
 manhood found in society. In such a case the abstract right 
 must give way. It could claim unconditional validity only 
 in a sphere where nothing biit abstract manhood subsisted ; 
 and such a sphere is nowhere real. 
 
 Passing from the attempt to divide life into two portions — 
 social and non-social — ^we come to a second view. This view, 
 which is held in one form or other by most theoretic Anarchists, 
 admits the social character of the individual, and rejects only 
 what it calls the state. It opposes voluntary co-operation to 
 compulsion ; maintaining that only the former is really 
 ethical and that the latter is unjustified. P'rom compulsion — 
 that is, the state or government generally — comes tyranny, 
 war, privilege, oppression, and slavery. The state is rooted 
 in lust and greed, and its fruit is worthy of it. In a moral 
 society men will work together of their own accord, and of 
 their free choice foster the great common ends of life. The 
 state may to-day be a necessary evil, though its necessity 
 may well be questioned : nevertheless it is an evil," and 
 somewhere in the brighter future the eyes of the free man 
 can discern the true polity which will recognize the brother- 
 hood of man. 
 
 In this view there is an exceedingly important element of 
 truth. It recognizes the rationality and self-consciousness of 
 the good wiU, and knows that the ultimate interests of mind 
 are social and not merely private. But it, too, is abstract 
 and ignores the full concreteness of the ethical ideal. The 
 distinction between force and reason will not bear the weight 
 which the Anarchist places upon it. There is a real distinction 
 between mere force and rational activity ; or, in other words, 
 between external necessity and freedom. But rational 
 activity does not lack force, nor is freedom something utterly 
 apart from necessity. We have already seen ^ that in freedom 
 necessity is carried up and made a subordinate element of 
 a higher conception : freedom is determined, although what 
 determines it is itself. The same point holds in the present 
 connexion. Rational activity uses force ; it is not a powerless 
 
 ' P- 77 ff- 
 
230 THE STATE 
 
 phantom, but a real agent turning the powers of nature to 
 its own ends. On no other terms could it come into the 
 world at all ; for nature will do nothing for mind unless mind 
 is wilhng to use the forces of nature. 
 
 To this it will be objected that it is one thing to use force 
 in the natural world, to move a physical thing either by the 
 strength of one's own body or by directing other forms of 
 energy upon it, and quite another to use force to constrain 
 a man. But this objection cannot be maintained ; for it 
 leads to an unreal division of the sphere of nature from the 
 sphere of mind. We have already seen ^ that the attempt 
 to draw a sharp line between the unforeseen consequences 
 of an act and the results for which the moral agent is 
 responsible breaks down. And the reason for the failure is 
 that the individual's true nature is not contained within the 
 limits of his actual self-consciousness. He is more than he 
 takes himself to be ; and his fuller rationality binds him 
 indissolubly to a far wider range of the external world than he 
 suspects. The rational being of the individual lies out there 
 in the world as well as here in his body and in his immediate 
 possessions. So, in using force on the things of nature, each 
 man uses force on his fellows. The point may easily be illus- 
 trated. If you plant and reap a field, you prevent me from 
 using it for some other purpose. If you build a house, you 
 may spoil my view. If you compete with me in trade, you 
 may impoverish me, even ruin me. In these and in innumer- 
 able other ways one man exercises constraint on another 
 quite as truly as if he laid hold of him physically. In making 
 themselves masters of nature men limit one, another ; and, by 
 altering the alternatives open to these others, put a con- 
 straint upon them. It is true, of course, that they also 
 enlarge the freedom of the others by joint-action ; but that 
 point is not relevant here. The compulsion is real, although 
 it is not the whole fact. 
 
 It may still be objected that in ethical society men are 
 agreed upon the activity which each has to exercise,, and 
 hence that the compulsion or constraint is thereby avoided. 
 The reply is not quite satisfactory. The compulsion has 
 changed, no doubt, but it is still present. The fact that the 
 use of a thing by one man precludes the use of it by another 
 ' Chap. IX. p. 193. 
 
THE STATE 231 
 
 was before the minds of the individuals when they agreed 
 together ; that is to say, the constraint is a term within the 
 purpose of each. It has been rationahzed but not destroyed. 
 
 But a weightier criticism of Anarchism still remains. Its 
 apparently extreme reverence for self-conscious freedom is 
 really an offence against it. Suppose some men— one man is 
 enough— do not agree to the common plan. The logical 
 position then is that the plan has to give way : the caprice of 
 the individual is to receive priority to the real good in the 
 world. In the alleged interests of reason, reason has been 
 subordinated to immoral action ; and this, as we have seen, 
 is evil. The true duty, on the contrary, of the good man is to 
 make the moral ideal by which he is inspired effective ; and 
 he has to use power or force in some form or another not 
 only against purely natural things but also against imperfect 
 forms of mind themselves if they threaten to hinder or over- 
 whelm the moral ideal. To deny the right of society to coerce 
 the unruly and unsocial individual is to exalt the form of the 
 individual good will at the expense of its true content, and to 
 subordinate ethical to moral categories. 
 
 Abandoning Anarchism, and accepting the right of society 
 to use force against nature and against evil-doers, we may 
 halt in another position short of that which Hegel occupies. 
 We may emphasize those social unities which mediate between 
 the individual and the whole political world ; and we may 
 try to place the substance of the ethical good in them at the 
 expense of any higher over-ruling unity. This tendency is 
 greatly increased by a reaction from the unsound habit of 
 setting the individual and society in sharp opposition to one 
 another as if they were two distinct units. When the reality 
 of corporate bodies is discovered, it seems a facile solution of 
 the old puzzles to take these bodies as the concrete fact and 
 to dismiss both the individual and the state as abstractions 
 made from them on opposite sides. That is to say, this 
 point of view refuses to go beyond the kind of unities which 
 have already appeared in Hegel's account of civil society, 
 and it dismisses the conception of a system of these systems. 
 
 This attitude, which tinges a considerable range of political 
 thought to-day, is ultimately unsound. It attempts to confer 
 on these social groups — corporations of one kind and another 
 — the finality which it confesses does not belong to particular 
 
232 THE STATE 
 
 men. But every argument which can be used to show that 
 the particular man is not complete in himself applies also to 
 these individual groups. Each of these larger corporate 
 personalities is a growth within a wider whole and depends 
 throughout on that whole. It will be enough to indicate one 
 point here, using the guilds as an example. Each of these 
 bodies was specialized ; it had a particular function of its 
 own, differentiating it from other guilds. None of them was 
 self-sufficing : each covered, or tried to cover, the whole 
 field in some one respect — to manufacture all the rope, spin 
 all the yarn, make all the glass, &c. — but none could pretend 
 to deal with the whole range of the practical life. This 
 differentiation did not rend human life ; and the underlying 
 unity brought the guilds into relation to one another, con- 
 necting them by economic relations, defining the rights and 
 privileges of each by law and custom, and constituting 
 a totality which transcended each. The same thing is true of 
 other corporate bodies. A trade-union, a church, a university, 
 a political party, and so forth — each of these is an organ which 
 obtains a purpose and a field only within the wider social 
 whole which it articulates in one direction. It is an organism, 
 no doubt ; but it is so because it is also an organ of a wider 
 organism within which alone it can exist. 
 
 The force of this contention is not «to be avoided by the 
 assertion that this wider social whole is simply the sum of 
 these corporate bodies. The real community is not a mere 
 sum or aggregate, any more than these bodies themselves 
 are mere aggregates of particular people. The institutions 
 of which society is comprised do not simply lie alongside one 
 another, but are interdependent ; for each is meaningless and 
 impossible apart from the broad stream of social hfein its 
 entirety. 
 
 The deeper unities which bind the lesser systems of civil 
 society together must-^like all other forms of spiritual life- 
 become explicit. As forms of objective mind, they must 
 become real social organizations, manifesting and achieving 
 ttie reconciliation of the interests which develop within them. 
 That IS to say, they demand realization in an institution 
 which will be supreme over every other phase of society. 
 The right and duty of this institution is to bring to a real 
 and objective harmony the various interests which are 
 
THE STATE 
 
 233 
 
 nvolved in one another, and which by their conflict and 
 ;onfusion would otherwise mar the whole from which they 
 ;ome and on which they depend. Civil society implies the 1 
 
 iTom this point o.f view the state is not an abstraction 
 'rom the whole stream of life ; it is society itself brought 
 :o its final unity and made harmonious. It is not limited to 
 ;he officials who are most obviously its servants, the king, 
 :he members of the government, the police, and the like, 
 3ut comprises every citizen within the community. The 
 esser organizations within it are the substance of which it is 
 ;omposed, and it cannot be separated from them. 
 
 The state in relation to its contents can be regarded from 
 :wo points of view. On the one hand, it is the unity to 
 ivhich they rise. It is not a form forced upon them from 
 ivithout,.but the outcome of their own nature and needs. 
 \s it comes to be in the course of history its special charac- 
 ;eristics are conditioned and determined by the lower 
 principles of organization which run through society. The 
 precise functions which it undertakes, and the special 
 nachinery which it uses, depend on the structure of the 
 iocial life of the time. And the very alterations and regula- 
 ions which it produces are those which are inherent in the 
 iocial fabric itself. That is to say, it is the ' idea ' of which 
 :he various forms of civil society are the moments. On the 
 rther hand, it is the principle, the ' notion ', which is realized 
 )y these lesser institutions. It determines their functions, 
 imits their spheres, and co-ordinates them in accordance 
 vith its own character. The relation is two-sided — integration 
 ind differentiation ; and the two aspects are complementary. 
 
 From this point of view the op p QcjitinnJnptwppn pntrioti gm 
 ind political freedom disappears. The stat f hr*" ^'^^ gamp. 
 ioubie relation to the i ndivi d un l On t h e one hand, the - 
 ndividual must be aware that th '' '^■[p*'^ '= grimptViinnr nYtnrml 
 
 :0_ him, determining him, an fj pvpn rnn straining, him Thfi 
 
 itate rnu gtj^ t n n d nn nvr nrryy prii-ntr int rrrn t within it nnri 
 nust have power to mould any of its factors how pvpr pnwprful 
 
 hat factor may he. I'o i f any mpmhpr mny npppgl for 
 
 ) rotection and defence against any ot her ; it i.s the suprem e 
 udge a n r" '^'"^ gn p remer rig h t. "On thp nthnr h n nd. tbc 
 tidividual must know that tVip stR^^ ^' ""^ '^" "^''p" po^^rf-r. 
 
234 THE STATE 
 
 but the expression and realization of his own rational 
 principle. It is only his _ca prir.e which is r.nnstrainerl ; h is 
 genuine ^jwil l is emanci paied-arMLjiiaintaineri. Tn the sfatp 
 a nd the' various organizations which it conta iii'i the ^nf^i•^^flnnl 
 is unive rsalizerl ; his purposes ob tai'n tlTpfr rnntpnt gij^r] 
 significance from thp c;nci a1 jworld^; — a ad the ends which h e 
 seeks are social. Consequently he can achieve jt hese enrls in 
 t heir fullness, that is to say, can realize h irnspjf, nnly H y 
 t alces account of the nature of society and the p rin-^iple? hy 
 which it is constituted. An anti-social act attac ks its own 
 su bstance anSjFopposed to Jtselt . 
 
 ^rfie~ln3ividual, however, does not lose his identity in 
 becoming aware of his universal character. It has often 
 been pointed out that, as we rise in the scale of organic life, 
 diversity of function and organ increases. The members 
 become less like the whole or like one another in becoming 
 more closely bound up with the whole. And in the "state the 
 universal principle realizes itself through the widest diversity. 
 The differences of nature, capacity, climate, and circumstance 
 in general are carried up into the state and are used by it. 
 The various natural differences of civil society are themselves 
 the reflection of the characteristics of the men who con- 
 stitute it, and the state preserves these features. It is in 
 virtue of this preservation and idealization of natural differ- 
 ences that the state claims the loyalty of the citizen. It is 
 the organized common life in which all that he is and all 
 that he holds dear are sustained, and of which they are 
 phases. True patriotism rests on this identity of the individual 
 and the state ; it springs from the various institutions and 
 spheres in which the individual lives, and is his participation 
 in the common life expressed in the medium of feeling. It 
 is not a sporadic emotion called into play only in the crises 
 of the state's history— though no doubt it is of the utmost 
 value there. It is rather the firm devotion to the state per- 
 vading the common life of citizenship, and it is found in every 
 act which builds up and sustains the fabric of our common 
 institutions. 
 
 Taken from another side this is political freedom. Every- 
 thing that builds up a man's self and provides a field for the 
 powers thus constituted is a means to freedom ; and it is 
 only in the state that man can find and fulfil his practical 
 
THE STATE 235 
 
 snds. Necessity, as we have seen, is hard and sad only whenVi 
 t is external ; when that which contains the individual and]' 
 nto which he passes is seen not to be an other but his own] 
 lubstance, necessity becomes freedom — and this is the only/ *i, 
 reedom that counts. The restraints of public life are the| ' 
 irticulations which the state requires in order to attain its\ 
 jroper unity and organization, and the citizen who is con-/l 
 icious of his identity with the state is made free by themj 
 
 This is the general standpoint from which Hegel regards 
 :he state : his task is now to set forth the principles through 
 (vhich it is realized. I do not think that he is completely 
 successful in his attempt to do this, and the course of the 
 dialectic is not altogether clear in this region. We saw at 
 a,n early stage of our discussion ^ that the dialectic, although 
 1 thoroughly rational method, is not a priori or independent 
 of experience. In the order of learning, though not in the 
 logical order, experience is prior to philosophy. Each of us ! 
 comes into life, as it were, at a corner ; and before he can 
 map the main features of the whole, each must travel over 
 the area and have some sort of contact with it all. ^^h ilosoph y, 
 as H egel has told us. must wait until realitv has^comp leted 
 itself ; and so long as some essential form o f reality has not 
 
 yet ^ r.mo t^ iigrht^ ifiP phjlr»gnphy nf thp sphere TfT wrjirh it! 
 
 bplragi must W imp^rfert, Hence, in his account of the 
 state, Hegel has to deal with it as it had already manifested|[ 
 itself in history ; it was no part of his philosophic task tol 
 evolve a ' perfect ' state out of his own inner consciousness. 
 He has laid hold of some of the essential characteristics of 
 the state, and in many respects his account is valid for all 
 time. Nevertheless, all that a state can be had not appeared 
 in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and Hegel's 
 insight was limited. 
 
 In addition to this, Hegel stood too near the object he was 
 studying. He lived in stirring political times, and he, like 
 a good citizen, tried to play his part in the mighty struggles 
 around him. When he was a student at college the French 
 Revolution broke out. Then came the war of the old order 
 against the new. The struggle between the reforming king 
 and the conservative people in his native state of Wiirtemberg 
 fbcussed his ideas, and led to his earliest political writing. 
 
 ' E.g., p. 53- 
 
 (P^ 
 
236 THE STATE 
 
 Before his mind was fully mature — Hegel ripened late— and 
 when his view of the world was still gradually falling into 
 shape, his eyes were opened to the radical weakness of 
 Germany, and, probably after the shock of the treaty of 
 LunevUle, he indicated the unreality of the German Empire. 
 The Empire was dissolved in 1806 ; three months later 
 Prussia was overthrown at Jena, and Hegel had to leave the 
 university there to turn schoolmaster at Niirnberg. These 
 stirring events before his eyes are reflected in his writings. 
 The Phenomenology was his most mature work up to this 
 point, and one looks in vain through it for a satisfactory 
 appreciation of the state. He saw the weakness of the states 
 of Germany ; and he was convinced — with the facts before 
 him — that nothing but the shock of war would reorganize 
 them. But his material did not present to him the clear 
 outlines of the ideal on which that reorganization should 
 depend. To this is largely due the way in which he passes 
 from conscience to religion in the Phenomenology without 
 developing the higher reaches of the ethical world. Like 
 most other great thinkers, in the failure of the objective world 
 to manifest its full rationality he fell back on the deeper 
 rationality of the world as a whole in its direct relation to 
 the individual. 
 
 While Hegel was at Niirnberg the political tide turned. 
 In 1812 came Napoleon's Russian campaign ; in 1813 the 
 battle of Leipzig, and in 1815 Waterloo. The regeneration of 
 Germany had begun through the War of Liberation, and 
 Prussia had redeemed herself. In 1817 Hegel, now at Heidel- 
 berg, published the Encyclopaedia, and in it the change of his 
 thought is plain. The state had again become manifest to 
 him, and in Prussia he saw the outhnes of the political state 
 which his thought required. Prussia was the political soul 
 of Germany, and to it Hegel turned like most of the great 
 German thinkers of that and the next generation. But 
 although Prussia had a political organization and strength 
 which served Germany well in her time of need, she had not 
 all the elements of strength which a true state must have. 
 She was strong for the essential purpose then, but she was 
 far from perfect. Hegel was too much immersed in his times 
 to see this clearly. He had seen how much Prussia could 
 give, and had given, to Germany ; and although he did not. 
 
THE STATE 237 
 
 IS is sometimes supposed, simply write down the Prussian 
 ;onstitution as the outline of the state, he failed to separate 
 iistinctly the essential and universal from the accidental and 
 ocal. The lesson of the times seemed so strong : the weakness 
 Df south Germany in political activity in contrast with the 
 strength of the north ; the particularism of the smaller states 
 in contrast with the unity of Prussia ; and behind this there 
 was, as Hegel saw it in his more mature years, the futility 
 of the populace in the French Revolution till a strong man 
 took things in hand and a real government was restored. 
 Napoleon, as well as Germany itself, both in his strength 
 and in his weakness, helped to form Hegel's political theory ; 
 and it is not at all surprising that the violence with which 
 all these tendencies pointed in one direction prevented Hegel 
 from seeing that he had not measured every force which 
 political life has to put forth. 
 
 Hegel saw clearly what he had to do : he had to describe 
 the essential nature of the state as such, to explain what it is 
 to be a true state. He did not falter in his attitude to the 
 immanent reality of political life. The principles of reason 
 are as settled and necessary here as elsewhere. A glance over 
 the various political organizations which have appeared in 
 history seems, at first sight, to reveal a diversity of kinds of 
 state. These have been classified into mofiarchy, aristocracy, 
 and democracy ; and it has been alleged that there is no 
 perfect kind of state, but that each must be considered 
 appropriate to its times and conditions. ^H egel's repl y is 
 that this classification is partly superficial and partly — as 
 Plato thuugliL — au accuuilL of iiile rior and iiupeifeLl -espres- 
 3ions ~of~the truth . The distinctions applyiro-tmdeveloped 
 stateC where antitheses between one ruler, a few, and 
 1 multitude have a fairly clear meaning. But in a t^-^p atgj-p / 
 t hg government is one and, several and many . The polities! 
 Li^nich tlrese aspects are separatee may be adjusted to their ( 
 circumstances ; but this is because the social world has not 
 fully developed itself in them, and its higher characteristics 
 ire still latent. In any case, distinctions of quantity, even 
 if relevant, would not go to the root of the matter : they could 
 not explain adequately the essential differences of such 
 concrete expressions of mind as types of state would be — if 
 ihere were more than one type of state. As it is, ' those three 
 
238 
 
 THE STATE 
 
 forms are indifferent from the point of view of the ' idea ' 
 in the opposite sense [opposite to the view that it does not 
 matter which is adopted], because one and all they are not 
 adequate to the " idea " in its rational development,' and in 
 none of them can it obtain its right and reality.' ^ From the 
 philosophic point of view we are not concerned with the 
 historical origin of the state, either as a whole or with reference 
 to particular states ; we have to indicate its rational and 
 universal categories, the principles which are implied in its 
 nature.^ 
 
 / Of course, on the other hand, the constitution of the state 
 lis not divorced from the world of fact. A cctfts4ifajtijQn cannat 
 jbe imposed upon nations from without .^ Nor is it ever 
 ."Tnade' , If making means some artificial work of thought. 
 \ ' A constitution only develops from the national spirit ident i- 
 I g aily with that spmi s own developmen t, and runs through 
 WTTTie same Uiue -wiLli IL tne grades 'of formation and the 
 alt erations required by its conception . It is the indwelling spirit 
 and the history of the nation (and, be it added, the history is 
 only that spirit's history) by which constitutions have been 
 and are made.' * But behind the spirit of each particular 
 people and its polity lies the one universal rational mind, and 
 each form is a manifestation, more or less imperfect, of the 
 ultimate immanent truth. It is with this inherent form, this 
 final reality of the state, that we have to do at present. 
 
 The basis of the state is the nation. Napoleon made this 
 clear tcJkegel it nothmg else did. But _a nation in itself is 
 not a state : and here again Hegel coufa draw on fiis own 
 txpwiehc^. A nation is held together by natural and 
 emotional ties : kinship, propinquity, language, and so fortji, 
 are the modes of its union ; and although the state ought to 
 preserve these it must have more. By themselves nat ional 
 tjgs-ac eJndefinite andsubiective._ Tfaeunitv oi thepeOTle 
 has toEejwen igf-i5?agtgfl£eIitoQiiiji objective fgrmsT^e 
 Vliil:er"5nre5-^hich develop in the community in the realm of 
 civil society must be subordinated and brought back into 
 unity ; and this can be done only by the state. Social Hfe 
 will not fall into harmony at a mere shake of the hand, and 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 273 
 
 ^ V. ibid. § 258. 
 
 ■■ Encyclopaedia, § 540 ; Wallace, p. 
 
 137- 
 
 V. ibid. § 274 and note. 
 
THE STATE 
 
 239 
 
 ; is vain to expect it to present itself as truly organic unless 
 he actual syntheses which constitute it are allowed to come 
 ato being. 
 
 Hegel's treatment of the state falls into three parts : 
 irstly, its internal structure — the constitution ; seconcfiy, its 
 elation, as a particular state, to other states beyond it — 
 nternational law ; thirdly, the wider development of mind 
 n the world, of which each particular state is only a special 
 )hase — universal history. 
 
 The constitution of the state is the way in which it brings 
 ts various component parts into focus, or, to look at it from 
 ;he other side, develops itself into the diversity of concrete 
 ife. In relation to the individuals within it, its work, as 
 ve have seen, is two-fold. ' Firstly, it maintains them as 
 persons, thus making right a necessary reality, then it pro- 
 notes their welfare, which each originally takes care of for 
 limself, but which has a thoroughly universal side ; it pro- 
 ;ects the family and guides civU society. Secondly, it carries 
 Doth back, and the whole disposition and action of the 
 individual — whose tendency is to become a centre of his 
 Dwn — ^into the life of the universal substance ; and in this 
 iirection, as a free power it interferes with those subordinate 
 spheres and retains them in substantial immanence.' ^ 
 
 The constitution is realized in the government. It is 
 through the government that the natural differences which 
 irise in the community are brought back into unity, and 
 ' those general aims of the whole which rise above the function 
 of the family and of civil society ' are carried out in the lower 
 spheres. To this end the government must be a complex 
 whole, with various aspects depending on the main functions 
 which it has to perform, but not divided into parts entirely 
 independent of one another. 
 
 It is easy, but fatal, to simplify the conception of the 
 government by dropping one or other of the two sides. On 
 the one hand, it has been held that the main departments of 
 government should be independent of one another— legisla- 
 ture, executive, and judiciary, and that these should be 
 balanced against one another to provide a check on each. 
 Hegel rejects this. He insists, as we shall see, on the element 
 of truth which it contains — ^the development of the unity 
 1 Encyclopaedia, § 537 ; cf. Wallace, pp. 131-2. 
 
240 THE STATE 
 
 of the whole into real difference — but he points out that it 
 overlooks the essential unity of the state. In some way or 
 other we must be able to regard the parts as articulations of 
 one whole and as having the spirit and authority of the 
 whole in them. They do not merely comprise a mechanical 
 system ; each speaks with the authority of the whole. The 
 legislature enacts laws for and in the name of the whole 
 state ; the judiciary defines them by the same authority ; 
 and the executive acts on behalf of the same common will. 
 These powers do not act each for itself ; they stand for the 
 whole, and run back into it. 
 
 On the other hand, the government must branch forth 
 into real differences, and its moments must have organizations 
 of their own. ' The one essential canon to make freedom 
 deep and real is to give every business belonging to the general 
 interests of the state a separate organization wherever they 
 are essentially distinct : for freedom is deep only when it is 
 differentiated in all its fuUness and these differences manifested 
 in existence.' ^ 
 
 At this point an ambiguity creeps into Hegel's exposition. 
 There are two — perhaps we should say three — accounts given 
 by him of the categories involved in the further development 
 of the constitution, and they do not altogether agree. We 
 may state the data before considering the problem they raise. 
 
 According to the Encyclopaedia the constitution realized 
 in the government has two moments. In the first place, the 
 unity of the state requires an ultimate point of reference, 
 a supreme wHl in which the will of the whole can be expressed. 
 This, in the true state, is not ' a so-called " moral person ", 
 or a decree issuing from a majority (forms in which the unity 
 of the decreeing will has not a real existence), but a real 
 individual— the will of one decreeing individual '—a monarch. ^ 
 ' The monarchial constitution ', Hegel adds, ' is therefore the 
 constitution of developed reason : all other constitutions 
 belong to lower grades of the development and realization of 
 reason.' In the second place, the differentiation of the unity 
 of the state leads to the distinction of the various branches of 
 the government—' legislative power, administration of justice 
 or judicial power, administration and police, and its conse- 
 1 Encyclopaedia, § 541 ; cf. Wallace, p. 138, 
 " § 542 ; cf. Wallace, p. 139. 
 
THE STATE 241 
 
 [uent distribution between particular boards or oifices, which 
 laving their business appointed by law, to that end and for 
 hat reason, possess independence of action, without at the 
 ,ame time ceasing to stand under higher supervision.' ^ 
 iloreover, a special official class comes into being, fulfilling 
 he duties of these departments and looking after the general 
 mrposes of the community committed to them. Hegel's 
 ;onception, as we shall see, is meant to be that of a constitu- 
 ional monarchy and not a despotism. But we are concerned 
 it present with the form rather than the content of his 
 ixposition. 
 
 When we tun^p the Philosophy of Right, we find a different 
 inalysis. In ^^^jHegel gives an outline of the elements of 
 he constitutibirrThese are : ' (a) the power of determining 
 md establishing the universal — ^the legislative power ; [b) the 
 iubsumption of special spheres and individual cases under 
 ;he universal — ^the administrative power ; (c) subjectivity as 
 :he final decision of the will — the power of the prince.' That 
 s to say, the first moment of the Encylcopaedia is the thirds 
 lere, and the second of the Encyclopaedia is divided into the I 
 irst and second of this paragraph. 
 
 But when Hegel goes on in the Philosophy of Right to 
 jxpound these categories, he turns them, round and brings the 
 irrangement into line with the Encyclopaedia in some respects, 
 :aking as the first moment the power of the prince, as the 
 lecond the administration, and as the third the legislature. 
 
 I do not know how Hegel would have accounted for these 
 iifferent presentations. They do not seem capable of recon- 
 liliation as they stand ; and it is obvious that from the point 
 )f view of the dialectic they cannot all be true, however far 
 iach of them may rest on genuine phases of the facts. I think 
 hat Hegel has fallen into error here, and that none of these 
 iccounts is satisfactory, and I shall try to indicate the element 
 vhich perverts them. Broadly speaking, the categories of 
 his sphere should be three : firstly, the universal element ; 
 lecondly, the particular one ; and thirdly, the union of the 
 wo. The analysis in § 273 of the Philosophy of Right seems 
 o be the soundest in principle of the three offered. 
 
 The first moment of the state is the establishing of the 
 miversal ; the defining of the rational and common principles 
 1 § 543 ; Wallace, p. 140. 
 
 2211 R 
 
242 TBE STATE 
 
 of social justice and duty. This category is not the law itself, 
 
 nor the legislative assembly, nor the electors, nor the law 
 
 courts. It is a movement of the whole state, and the entire 
 
 community is therefore immanent in it. ' The constitution is 
 
 I rational ', Says Hegel truly, ' in so far as the state distinguishes 
 
 \and determines its activity within itself in accordance with 
 
 the nature of its notion ; that is to say, in such a fashion 
 
 Ithat each of its functions is itself the whole in that it has the 
 
 other moments active and operative within it.''- The first 
 
 /moment is the whole state in one aspect : it is the law growing 
 
 /and developing from the body of the people, including all 
 
 I the forces which produce it — custom, judicial decision, 
 
 I electors, assemblies, and king, taken together as one organic 
 
 ' totality.2 
 
 The second category of the constitution is the aspect of 
 differentiation whereby the laws are put into force, the 
 general ends they prescribe cared for, and society regulated 
 in accordance witli them. It includes an analysis of the 
 distinction between various administrative bodies, indicating 
 the general ways in which social life calls for regulation and 
 supervision. It, too, is to be regarded concretely, including 
 the whole range of activity directed definitely to the common 
 good, from the acts of the supreme head of the state down to 
 the duties of the ordinary citizen to assist the police and 
 prevent the commission of crime. 
 
 The third category is the whole state, sovereign within 
 its own borders, making and enforcing law, and building up 
 a common life in every fibre of the social tissue. It is not the 
 prince, but the entire concrete organism. 
 
 Why does Hegel depart from this line of thought which 
 he has himself so nearly indicated ? The answer will take us 
 back to his historical conditions. In § 274 of the Philosophy 
 of Right, he has indicated — correctly, I think— two of the 
 moments of the state. But the third is slightly distorted. 
 In order that universality and particularity may come 
 together, he thinks, they must meet in a particular man, 
 the king ; and thus the highest reality of the state is identified 
 with the monarch. This last point is unsound, as I shall try 
 to show, but we may first ask what led Hegel to express such 
 a view. 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 272. » V. Encyclopaedia, § 544. 
 
THE STATE 243 
 
 In his native state of Wiirtemberg he had seen the inability 
 if the old feudal nobility and the other classes of the com- 
 Qunity to rid themselves of the encrusted traditions and 
 »rivate rights of a dead past and organize themselves in 
 .ccordance with the changed times. The king had sought to 
 ;ive a new and what appeared to be a more rational constitu- 
 ion, and Hegel had sided with him. The king had faUed, 
 )ut what struck Hegel most was the contrast between the 
 mpotence of the parts of the state to form a living unity and 
 he reforming zeal of the ruler. Then, there was the chaos of 
 he French Revolution, even under the Directory, until 
 I new point of focus was obtained in Napoleon. Again, the 
 yeakness of the Holy Roman Empire was vividly before him — 
 m Empire where the Emperor did not rule and where the 
 Darts destroyed the whole. Lastly, there was the power of 
 Jmified Prussia with its autocratic king and its centralized 
 government. The obvious lesson was the need of a single 
 supreme authority — advised by ministers and constitutional 
 n action, no doubt, but nevertheless supreme, and a centre 
 tor the whole life of the state. Collective bodies with majority 
 rule, Hegel thought, had failed, and must fail : in any stress 
 :hey showed that they were not real unities. To be a reality 
 the unity of the state must be embodied in a single man. 
 
 Taking this view, Hegel over-emphasized its importance ; 
 ind it led him to make the king one of the three moments of 
 the constitution. The only moment with which the monarch 
 can plausibly be identified, so long as the general analysis we 
 liave made is adhered to, is the third — ^the whole state. 
 'The princely power ', Hegel tells us, ' contains in itself the 
 three moments of the totality, the universality of the constitu- 
 tion and the laws ; deliberation as the reference of the par- 
 ticular to the universal ; and the moment of the final decision 
 IS self-determination into which everjHihing else goes back, 
 md from which everything receives the source of its reality.' 1 
 But why, we may ask, does Hegel not adhere to this identi- 
 acation in practice ? Why do we have two other accounts in 
 which the power of the prince comes first and not third ? 
 The reason is that the conception of the monarch, as Hegel 
 takes it, is an abstraction and not the real synthesis which is 
 required. It is the particularity of the king, his existence as 
 1 Philosophy of Right, § 275. 
 R 2 
 
244 THE STATE 
 
 a single person, that Hegel is upholding ; and this would 
 lead to the conception of an absolute autocrat. But such 
 a king is not the state itself, and it is false to say that his 
 decision is the real will of the state whatever he may say. 
 The royal will, for Hegel, is the real wOl only if it is free from 
 the caprice of the individual. And so Hegel tells us that the 
 king only gives the form and not the substance to the acts of 
 the state. He dots the ' i's ', and says ' yes ' when he is told.^ 
 
 Hegel thus is faced by a dilemma. On the one hand, if he 
 stands fast by the contention that the third moment of the 
 state, the final truth of it, is the individual monarch, he 
 will be forced to treat his will as complete in itself and as 
 having absolute right. The king's decision will be law of 
 itself, and the royal prerogative will cover the whole field 
 of political life. Such a monarch is not bound to act consti- 
 tutionally—in the ordinary sense of the term. It is not the 
 King-in-Council or the King-in-Parliament that is supreme ; 
 but the king by himself. On the other hand, if Hegel tries 
 to take the conception of sovereignty concretely, the king 
 becomes only one aspect of the whble notion, the mere form. 
 His councillors, his people, the whole system of law and order 
 are implied in his will as a constitutional monarch, and he, 
 as a particular person, is a mere abstraction, the form without 
 the content. In face of this difficulty Hegel is forced to com- 
 promise. He retains the individual monarch as one of the 
 three main dialectic principles, but recognizes its abstract 
 character ; and he begins with sovereignty, thus understood, 
 as the first category instead of treating it as the last. 
 
 Hegel is not altogether wrong in setting sovereignty in 
 the foreground in this fashion. Each category of the state 
 is a phase of sovereignty. The legislature is sovereignty in 
 its abstract universal form ; the administration is sovereignty 
 in relation to detail ; and.4he^otality of the state is real 
 sovereignty. This last category is sovereignty as individual ; 
 not as a particular person of course, but as a real self-conscious 
 unified world of social good. Hegel's mistake is to confine 
 sovereignty to the king, that is to say, to take it only ab- 
 stractly and not concretely. 
 
 In the light of this criticism it is desirable to reverse Hegel's 
 actual treatment in the Philosophy of Right and consider the 
 ' V. PMlQfophy of Right, § 280 note. 
 
THE STATE 245 
 
 ; categories in the proper order. The first of these is the legis- 
 lature. 
 There is a line of thought which traces all law back to the 
 
 - people, and which expresses its faith in the ultimate authority 
 of the whole body of the citizens by the watchword ' the 
 sovereignty of the people '. In a sense the position is sound, 
 but it is often interpreted in an individualistic fashion. In 
 this latter case it is made the basis of appeals away from the 
 organizations which normally legislate, to the mass of the 
 electors ; and it goes behind parliament by means of the 
 Referendum and similar conceptions. According to this.- 
 p oint of,vipw the state is an a^^regate. and one must simply 
 
 -, count the units on ea chside in order to decide an issue. Hegel 
 
 >.rpjprtc t>ijg rlnr-triTTp- "T hf^ pt^ftplp, ap art f rOm its mona rch_ 
 jjidjiflort he organization of the whole, required by and bound 
 up"with its connexion wit h him, is a f ormless rn assjwhidLJs 
 no longer a state and lacJcs all th e diaracteri sticiJQurrI rmly , 
 in a whole havin g a definite structllre.'_ ^ The people or nation, 
 in this sense, is an abstraction which has dropped exactly 
 those social and ethical elements which constitute right in 
 this realm. It is the vulgus and not the populus ; ' and in 
 this direction, it is the so le a i m of the atgtp tVigf a natin p 
 
 <;hnii1r| finf. rrmnp t" °y i st" n ^". ^•" p"^'^"'" anH artinn , ai <tur.h a-tL . 
 aggrp.gat f.:' 2 _Tt is a mistake , Hpgrp] inj^ij^ts. tn identify political 
 freerlnm with such a conception _L _ffli:-i t attempt s to make 
 the individual prior-to th e state and, indee d, to deny -the 
 ^^ty "^ ^^'' ^^^^^^ '^^^^^ nn the contra ry, the individnal- 
 Hnps Ti()t P"tpr Hirpr tly into ttip state, bnt through mediatiHff' 
 
 systems • and he s haresjn the soverei gnt y of t he who l e , not 
 as- an independent unity, bi^ _as_inp^ifiprl an ( i rnnHitinned by - * 
 luswhole fTtatns in thp rnmmnnity T he people is sovereign | 
 only as so nr ganiy.pH. Ac c ordingly the l egislature is not |1 
 a piprp rpprp=pnt a tii7P VinHy mer.banically registering the 
 ' dictates of the m irltitude. Jts rnnts are in the dpPT) forma tive 
 agencies, of the coriunarTlife, the custom s and mo.d£S-J3f 
 being which characterize the nation_ as_a living whok. Com- 
 mon law is law as well as statute. 
 
 In parliament, however, we have the most definite and 
 powerful organ of the legislature. It is self-conscious, and 
 can look forwards as well as backwards ; it can over-ride the 
 i-Ibid. § 279. " Encyclopaedia, § 544. 
 
246 THE STATE 
 
 common law ; and it is thus the most complete embodiment 
 of the legislature. For Hegel it, too, has to be conceived as 
 a unity of differences ; and the conception by which his 
 account is governed is that of mediation. On the one hand 
 we have the crowd, on the other the king ; the legislative 
 chambers lie between and unite the two extremes. The 
 legislature, Hegel says, contains the other two moments of 
 the constitution within it, viz. the executive and the monarch. 
 Tbe monarch makes the ultimate decision — gives his name 
 to the law — and the executive guides and advises the delibera- 
 tions. The executive should not be separated from the 
 legislature ; it is better that it should have a place in the 
 latter and be held responsible by it. Further, Hegel divides 
 parliament into two houses ; one consisting of the substantial 
 and landed classes, the other of representatives of the various 
 industrial and social organizations within the state. The 
 former section of the community Hegel regards as naturally 
 set apart for political service. The institution of primo- 
 geniture prevalent in it gives it something in common with 
 the prince, and at the same time it shares the wants and 
 rights of the mass of the people. Thus it mediates between 
 the monarch and civil society, and is a support to each. The 
 house of representatives, as we may call it, contains the 
 
 fikesmen of the various civil institutions. Hegel puts aside 
 nntinn nf a purely de mocratic, equality. What is to be 
 resented is not the individual as such, but the in stitution 
 interest ; and class representation is the right principl e, 
 course, the delegates chosen must be tit lor the post, and 
 must regard the common weal as the supreme interest ; and 
 to that end Hegel favours a property qualification. But they 
 are not mere representatives ; they embody the class interest 
 itself, and it is desirable that they should be members of the 
 class concerned. Every substantial interest ought to be 
 present in this house of -representatives and fulfU its part in 
 governing itself and the country. 
 
 / Some points in this view call for remark. In the first place, 
 Hegel is right in rejecting the conception of the sovereignty 
 Ipf the people in the sense of the mob. Whether or not the 
 plebiscite and similar measures are to be' recommended in 
 certain circumstances, they are not the ultimate and highest 
 form of political right. Public opinion is, of course, behind 
 
THE STATE 247 
 
 the legislature, or rather is in it as its lowest stratum ; but 
 as a form of sovereignty it is organized in parliament. 
 
 Secondly, Hegel recognizes the real basis of the popular 
 franchise — ^that it is not an off-set against paying taxes, but 
 that it springs from ' the right of the collective spirit to appear 
 as an externally universal will, acting with orderly and express 
 -efficacy for the public concerns '. Through it the individual 
 citizens are definitely recognized as part of the whole audi 
 sharers in its government. He also points out the need fori 
 the action of public opinion on officialdom in order to keep the 
 administration in touch with the sources of the national life.l 
 At the same time, it is at least doubtful if Hegel grasped fully l 
 the value of this element, and he was rather impatient of it in 1 
 practice. He was not entirely blind to the educative influence 
 of participation in government on the citizen, but the weakness 
 of democracy in his age is reflected in his tone. He reserves I 
 questions like peace and war from popular control,^- and he 
 qualifies the freedom found by individuals in this field as j 
 ' subjective '. Hegel tended at times to under-estimate the 
 • soHd rationality of the populace and to over-estimate the 
 ability of disinterested officials to recognize the real tendencies 
 and needs of the nation. Where he stood he could not see all 
 ' that the French Revolution produced, nor the limitations 
 of the Prussian regeneration of Germany. Reality had not 
 completed its formative process— nor has it done so yet. 
 
 In the third place some of the elements of Hegel's parliament 
 are reflections of his own time, and do not correspond to more 
 modern conditions. The position of the landlord and noble 
 has changed in the more industrialized communities ; the 
 guilds have disappeared ; trade has become more indifferent 
 to national boundaries, and even in these days it would be 
 rash to suppose that the hands of the clock wUl turn back 
 again The representation of the people by classes and] 
 guUds is less feasible now than in Hegel's time, for the ordinary 
 citizen has a larger number of allegiances than before and is 
 less easily swaUowed up by one of them. It is difficult for 
 any man to separate the accidents of his age from the essential 
 and timeless,andHegel does not entirely surmount the difficulty. 
 Lastly the distortion of the dialectic which we have 
 noticed gives the whole conception of the legislature a 
 1 Encyclopaedia, § 544- 
 
248 THE STATE 
 
 mechanical look. The king and the people enter it at opposite 
 ends, and they are brought together by suitable connecting 
 links. By reason of his emphasis on the individual reality of 
 the king, Hegel fails to treat the phases of the legislature as 
 the inherent differentiation of the whole sovereign body in 
 this its first phase, and his thought needs recasting. 
 
 The second of the three moments of the state is the ad- 
 iministration. It consists of the various officials who work out 
 \the will of the prince, bringing matters before his notice and 
 carrying out his decisions. Its members, Hegel says, constitute 
 the most considerable part of the middle class, and by their 
 action the general spirit of the state is realized. Their task 
 also is essentially that of mediation ; they stand between the 
 prince on the one hand and the various individual constituents 
 of the popular life on the other. They have to busy themselves 
 with the ends of private persons and with the phases of civil 
 society ; regulating things so that private welfare is cared 
 for on the one hand, and the common good realized in indi- 
 vidual activities on the other. They are both administrators 
 of the prince's commands and advisers to him. These officials ' 
 have no private right to their offices: their appointment 
 depends on the one hand on the will of the prince, and on the 
 other on their fitness for the discharge of the duties of their > 
 offices. They are members of the universal class, working 
 not for private gain, but carrying out objective ends. The 
 performance of their functions is directly both a duty and 
 a right, and the failure to perform them an offence against 
 the state. Smce they are organs of the whole they can be 
 regarded as limiting and limited by the other organs. On 
 the one hand they define the activities of the prince and give 
 them existence, and also supervise and control the activities 
 of private persons and associations. Voluntary associations 
 sometimes act as if they were fully independent, and set them- 
 selves up as states within the state. The administration must 
 prevent this. One method of dealing with the difficulty is to 
 mingle the free choice of interested persons in the election of 
 the officers of such associations with some ratification by 
 a higher authority ; but the sphere, Hegel says, is always 
 open to a certain amount of contingency, and is the less 
 efficiently supervised by the executive the more trivial are 
 the interests at issue. 
 
THE STATE 
 
 249 
 
 The other side of this is the limitation of the administration 
 ti turn by the other aspects. Civil society, with which the 
 xecutive is in direct contact, exercises a certain influence, 
 ,nd opposes some friction to its efforts. And in the last resort 
 he prince may interfere from above and over-rule any act 
 s'hich is not in accordance with the general weal. This 
 ntervention is needed particularly when social institutions 
 ,re still in the making, and the organization of the lower 
 ;rades of society is defective or altogether lacking. 
 
 In view of the considerations which we have urged in con- 
 lexion with the legislature, little comment is needed on this 
 onception of the administration. Hegel conceives it too 
 larrowly and too mechanically. It is reaUy the articulation 
 if the law, the whole system by which the common will is 
 inforced. Like the legislature it includes the whole nation, 
 rom the king to the ordinary citizen. Hegel treats it too 
 auch as a class of oflBicials — as a certain part of the state 
 ying intermediate between two extremes, and bounded by 
 he other functions. But surely this conception of definition, 
 imitation, balance, or however else it is named, falls within 
 his category. The conception of the administration should 
 )e articulated by Hegel so that king, parliament, judiciary, 
 )oIice, and ordinary citizen are shown to have different phases 
 if the administrative work committed to them by the nature 
 if society itself. Their inter-relations fall within the ad- 
 ninistration itself ; making it something greater than a mere 
 lass in the middle reaches of society. Hegel is misled here 
 ly the general error which marks his treatment of all these 
 ategories. Instead of articulating a real movement of 
 ociety as a whole, he has begun by fixing two end points, and 
 e puts in the adrninistration to fill up the gap between them. 
 
 One further suggestion may be made in this connexion, 
 legel mig:ht have taken up his theory of punishment again 
 t this point. In an earlier chapter it was pointed out that 
 he fundamental aspect of punishment, retribution, is only 
 :s abstract notion ; and in the social world it develops new 
 bases and becomes more concrete.^ This is the point at 
 ^hich the transformation should have been brought out ; 
 ut Hegel's false step makes him overlook it. He thinks too 
 mch of the official and too little of the transformed society. 
 ' Chap. VII, p. 151. 
 
250 THE STATE 
 
 The third and final aspect of the constitution includes the 
 first two : we may call it concrete sovereignty. Sovereignty 
 has been a perplexing conception in the history of political 
 thought ; and the ' understanding ', as Hegel would call it, 
 has always sought to identify sovereignty with an abstraction, 
 and has awarded it a ' seat ' in various parts of the body 
 politic. From this point of view sovereignty is looked upon 
 as power over the rest of society ; th^t is to say, as the rule 
 of one over another. But in the end this is the essential 
 xonception of slavery ; and the criticism which holds of slavery 
 [holds here also.^ Against this we must urge that sovereignty 
 I in an ethical state must ultimately be the same thing as free- 
 [dom ; and what is true of freedom with regard to the self 
 /holds of this larger freedom also. If it is false to locate freedom 
 I in some irresponsible, or superlatively powerful, part of the 
 self — impulse, will, caprice, and so on — on the ground that 
 nothing less than the whole self is free ; then it is also 'false 
 to find true sovereignty in anything short of a whole self- 
 governing system in which the governor and the governed 
 are two aspects of the same whole. The distinctions drawn 
 by the ' understanding ' — the ' seat ' of sovereignty and the 
 |like — are no doubt true distinctions ; but they imply a deeper 
 junity through which alone the abstract sovereignty \hey 
 express is made possible. Freedom in the state ultimately 
 Irests on will ; and no part of the whole is strong enough to 
 A [govern the whole if the will of the whole is not on its side, 
 ur Hegel, however, moved by political considerations which 
 v| have already tried to indicate, does not give full weight 
 Ito this point. He identifies sovereignty with the prince. He 
 4ees, of course, the weakness of any conception of sovereignty 
 which does not carry up the whole people into it ; and it is 
 /essential to his view that the monarchy should be constitu- 
 Itional. Thus he says : ' Although the monarch appears as 
 the highest point of the constitution, still one must grant that 
 a conquered people is not identical in the constitution with 
 the prince. A rising in a province conquered by war is different 
 from a rebellion in a well-organized state. The conquered 
 are not in revolt against their prince, and they commit no 
 offence against the state, for they are not united in the "idea " 
 with the lord, nor in the inward necessity of the constitution : 
 ' Cf. above, p. 96 f. 
 
THE STATE 251 
 
 there is only a contract and not the bond which holds a state 
 together. " I am not your prince ; I am your master," said 
 Napoleon to the deputies from Erfurt.' ^ Nevertheless, by 
 his over-emphasis of this pinnacle or summit of the constitu- 
 tion, as he regards it, Hegel makes the sovereign an abstraction 
 and not a concrete reality ; and he distorts his notion by 
 applying features which properly belong to the whole of 
 society taken concretely to a single individual person within it. 
 
 His exposition takes the following form. In the first place, 
 sovereignty involves the ideality of all the other powers of 
 the state. They refer back to a single unity of which they are 
 functions and representatives. Moreover, there is no private 
 property in public offices. Official powers are not based in 
 private wUls, and those who exercise them are appointed not 
 on account of any right of possession but through the will of 
 the sovereign. In a community where the various functions 
 of public life are not referred to the whole but are vested in 
 independent communities or even in individuals, the true 
 nature of sovereignty is not present, and the state is not 
 realized. The true sovereign is the life of the social organism 
 from which no element can be isolated without political death. 
 
 The second element of sovereignty is that of particularity. 
 Sovereignty exists, of course, only in the medium of mind, 
 but it is not a mere universal ; for the state exists only 
 through the real unity and identity of this its highest truth. 
 Accordingly the sovereign must be a mind in which the 
 various moments of the state have an explicit and independent 
 realization. That is to say, the sovereign is not ' individuality 
 in general, but one individucil, the monarch '.^ 
 
 In the third place, the sovereign acquires the dignity of 
 monarch by a right of nature, viz. birth. Hegel's treatment 
 of this point is curious. A hereditary monarchy is not inerely 
 a device, to avoid contests for supreme power ; it is the 
 rational conception. The sovereign is an existing individual ; 
 the self of the state, as it were, has come alive and taken shape 
 as a natural fact. But since the entire content of sovereignty 
 is the common wUl, the authority and power which accrues 
 to the prince is not his in virtue of any private excellences 
 or faculties. It comes into being in and as him, but all that 
 it requires of him is bare natural existence. It is not his 
 » Philosophy of Right, § 281 note. " Ibid. § 279. 
 
252 THE STATE 
 
 private possession, and its material is objective and common. 
 The monarch cannot be capricious in his acts ; for his power 
 is grounded in will and not blind force. ' He is "bound to the 
 concrete content of the councils, and when the constitution 
 is fixed, he has often no more to do than to sign his name.' i 
 Now, what the state requires of the monarch is natural 
 existence ; it must not withdraw half-way and cancel its 
 loan. The monarch comes into being by birth, and the 
 process of generation is an essential ingredient in the concep- 
 tion of him as a particular existing fact in nature. Thus, 
 having abstracted from all his special qualities, we can connect 
 him with his office only by that aspect which he adds to the 
 common will, namely his natural existence ; and so he takes 
 his place on the throne simply because he is the son of his 
 father. 
 
 The weakness of Hegel's whole treatment of sovereignty 
 comes to a head in this doctrine. He generalizes from too 
 narrow an experience when he says that a real unity must 
 be a single particular man. The state does not come into 
 existence in the king taken by himself ; and on the other hand, 
 it does become real in any and every good citizen taken in his 
 proper context. The state gets natural existence at many 
 points and not at one alone ; consequently all that Hegel 
 says about hereditary monarchy is wide of the mark. 
 
 Hegel's treatment of the sphere is not valid for all time. 
 Nevertheless, it contains much that is true and suggestive. 
 There is much to be said for the contention that the constitu- 
 tional monarch, as the pinnacle of the state, is a satisfactory 
 means of giving coherence to the whole and bringing the 
 elements into unity. It does not really matter whether the 
 individual who fills this position is called a king or a president, 
 and holds it for life or for a shorter period ; nor yet whether 
 the office is elective or hereditary. These are things of local 
 time and circumstance, forms which the reality may wear 
 differently in different ages. Although Hegel did not see this, 
 and exalted the office of the king to a fiigher place than it can 
 rightfully claim, we can say of him as Ranke said of Bacon : 
 ' He loved the monarchy because he expected great things 
 
 from it. 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 279 note, 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 
 
 In the previous chapter we saw that Hegel's theory of the 
 state falls into three parts : the constitution, international 
 law, and universal history. We have already discussed the 
 first of these, and in this chapter we have to consider the two 
 remaining divisions. 
 
 In the first place we have to deal with his view of the 
 relation of states to one another from the point of view of 
 right. Each state is an individual, and it implies other 
 individuals beyond it. The final category of the constitution 
 was, although Hegel disguises the fact, real sovereignty ; and 
 in it the state is presented as a self-determining system, 
 rounded on itself, and standing forth in the world as a self- 
 dependent unit. From this point of view all the interna l 
 
 (jjffprpnppq ni gnnVty TTg COme Suh m PTf^fH, anH tTies nlidity of 
 
 th e citizen and hi*; pfte g tanHg nut This is most obvious in 
 the case of war. The purely civil state , He gel think s, is apt 
 toJosejdgouT-; Ihe differences within it te vr\ tn ViarHpn intn 
 open conflict and strif e : and men overlook the supreme unity 
 jigrvaHirig thp whnip In relation to another "state . these 
 differences dissolve again, and the individuality of the state 
 is made manifest. In our moments of edification we speak 
 of the transitoriness and insufficiency of mundane things, but 
 each of us takes it as applying chiefly to other people, and 
 thinks that he will retain his own goods and chattels. ' But 
 if this uncertainty expresses itself in earnest in the form of 
 hussars with gleaming sabres, that moving edification which 
 was prepared for everything turns round and pours forth curses 
 on the conqueror.' ^ In devotion to the state, and perhaps 
 the sacrifice of one's life for it, the fundamental identity of 
 the individual with the state is realized ; and this devotion 
 and sacrifice is ultimately a duty binding on the citizen. In 
 this relation ordinary virtues are transformed, or perhaps it 
 
 1 Ibid. § 324 note. 
 
254 THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 
 
 would be better to say, come to themselves. Courage ceases 
 to be a mere individual fearlessness, and becomes an act in 
 which the individual joins himself with his nation and opposes 
 himself to another state. Courage becomes wider in its 
 content in this way, and is as much a social as a personal 
 characteristic. 
 
 Each state is sovereign, and beyond it there is no recognized 
 higher authority on earth. Consequently, the relation of 
 states to one another is not on the same footing as that of 
 individuals within the state. This consideration iniluences 
 Hegel's account of the moral character of the state profoundly. 
 /His view turns on two points. On the one hand Hegel cannot 
 I treat the state as a mere non-moral fact, free from all obligation 
 land right. We have traced the forms in which mind realizes 
 Utself and makes the outward world the body of a living 
 Ispirit : we have seen how each succeeding form of mind in 
 the dialectic carries up the elements which have appeared 
 jefore it. At the present level — mind realized in the state — 
 ve cannot reverse this process and look at the world in which 
 1 tates are individuals as if it were not governed by rational 
 i.nd ethical laws. The dialectic is still within the field of 
 1 ight, and the category which it has put forth must be instinct 
 vith all the value and good that right can command. If 
 Jiis be not so, the entire ethical world collapses. If considera- 
 tions of right do not bind states together and control their 
 dealings with one another ; if each state can be looked upon by 
 other states as a mere fact, of no inherent worth and deserving 
 of no more respect than it can exact by force ; then the 
 ethical world culminates in a form in which mind is not 
 revealed, and where brute fact is master. Doubtless there 
 is a sense in which reality is a higher category than others 
 which at first sight seem more akin to finite mind, e. g. 
 those of the moral sphere.^ But in this sense reality is at 
 the opposite pole from mere fact, from the abstract world 
 of nature which lies below explicit mind altogether. It is 
 rather the comprehensive whole to whose character finite 
 mind is a more trustworthy guide than any purely objective 
 thing, and which needs those lesser categories of mind in 
 order to make itself manifest. Reality is higher than morality 
 
 1 Cf. Bosanquet's treatment of necessity and reality, Logic, Bk. I. 
 Chap. VI. 
 
THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 255 
 
 :because it is more moral ; that is to say, because it achieves 
 all that morality aims at and more. 
 
 On the other hand, Hegel cannot allow objective mind to 1 
 culminate in a form with a lower objectivity and reality than 
 that of any preceding category. Right, at this level, must 
 be something present in the world, something carried into 
 effect and accomplished openly. An unrealized ideal, a mere 
 ' ought ', at this stage would loosen the hold of all objective 
 mind on the solid world. The ethical life would be directed 
 and organized by a principle which was not immanent in 
 the world and upheld by the whole nature of things : it 
 would lack authority and power. ''' 
 
 Hegel seeks to avoid these two dangers, though not with , 
 complete success. He admits that ' the relation of states 
 ought to be inherently right ' ; but he maintains that this 
 relation cannot be directly identified with private morality. 
 There is a court over individuals enforcing the common interest 
 against the divergencies of wrong-minded individuals, but j 
 there is no similar court over states to enforce any code of •'^ 
 international law. States are self-dependent sovereign beings ; 
 they make agreements with one another, but they do not 
 thereby build up a body of positive, binding, and objective 
 law.^ Kant had looked forward to a condition of everlasting 
 peace, and was attracted by the notion of an alliance of 
 states which would adjudicate disputes between them. But 
 for Hegel, with his eyes on the Holy Alliance, this conception 
 is a dream. It forgets that each state is sovereign, and hence 
 that its adherence to the alliance is contingent, 'depending 
 on the individual will of each ruler. At the best, he argues, 
 the contracting parties would merely be allies ; and if one 
 broke away from the group, or in any other way infringed its 
 treaty obligations, it would not be faced by an impartial 
 magistrate but by other individuals on a level With itself. 
 Moreover, he thinks, if a group of states did continue in alliance 
 it would become a . fresh unit, opposed to other states or 
 alliances of states and possessing foreign relations of its owru 
 Thus for Hegel the right of states against one another is\ 
 inherently abstract. It is primarily a right to be recognized 
 as independent powers by other states ; and external relations 
 take the form of contracts. This recognition is usually / 
 1 V. Philosophy of Right, § 330 note. 
 
256 THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 
 
 granted, even where states are at war with one another; 
 and the relation between them is not altogether the state of 
 nature which Hobbes assumed. The assumption made by 
 states themselves is that war is a temporary condition, an 
 extremity and not the normal life of the state. War itself 
 is more humane than it used to be, and men fight under the 
 inspiration of duty rather than from personal hate. 
 
 The form taken by the abstract right which unites states 
 is international law. This, as we have seen, is not like law 
 within the state itself ; for it cannot be said to be established. 
 It is a good intention rather than an achievement. Its 
 general doctrine is that the contents of treaties must be kept 
 inviolate ; but this principle has no greater security than the 
 treaties themselves ; for it is not embodied in a supreme 
 general will, but exists only as a moment of' the particular 
 wills of the states concerned. Hegel is emphatic on this 
 point. ' Since states in their relation of self-subsistence are 
 opposed to one another as particular wills and the validity 
 of treaties rests on this, and since the content of the particular 
 will of the whole [i. e. the state] is its welfare, this particular 
 welfare is the highest law in the relation of one state to another ; 
 and all the more so because the " idea " of the state is simply 
 that in it the opposition of right as abstract freedom and of 
 the satisfaction of the particular content of welfare is sublated, 
 and recognition first comes to states as concrete wholes.' 
 Statesmanship is not a vague philanthropy ; it is a single eye 
 to the special well-being of the state in aU its definite conditions. 
 
 But this is not the whole of Hegel's view. Particularity and 
 contingency cannot be the highest notes of any form of mind, 
 and the very absence of a higher organization is a mark of 
 the incompleteness and limitation of states. States rub 
 against one another in the world ; they rise and fall in the 
 course of history ; and although no present ethical institution 
 stands over states, their fate is not in the hands of non-moral 
 nature. The forces which govern history are spiritual, and 
 each state, as a finite form of mind, is judged and determined 
 by the greater mind of which it is a manifestation. Just as 
 the forces of nature are means by which the deeper truth of 
 a man's nature reveals the abstractness of imperfect moral 
 categories and persons, so the chances which befall individual 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 336. 
 
THE LIM ITS OF THE STATE 257 
 
 tates are the doing of the universal mind which lies in them 
 .nd behind them. ' Their lots and deeds in relation to one 
 nother are the phenomenal dialectic of the finitude of these 
 ainds, out of which arises the universal mind, the unlimited 
 nind of the world. This mind wields its right — and its right 
 3 the highest — in them in universal history, the judgement of 
 he world.' ^ 
 
 This brings us to the limit of our subject — ^the transition 
 rom objective to absolute mind. But before we pass to it we 
 nay ask if Hegel has succeeded in avoiding the difficulties 
 ndicated at the beginning of the chapter. I do not believe 
 hat he has. He has not given way entirely to either tendency ; 
 le does not treat the state as a sub-moral fact, nor does he 
 ly to an abstract ideal apart from the real world. Neverthe- 
 ess he does not avoid either fault completely, and the con- 
 ;eption which he sets forth is neither thoroughly ideal nor 
 horoughly real. 
 
 On the one hand, he says definitely that a higher ethical 
 elationship ought to hold between states than is or can be 
 )ut into force, ' Now, the relation of states ought indeed to 
 )e inherently right ; but in the affairs of the world what is 
 nherent should have power. But since there is no power 
 jresent which can decide against the state what is inherently 
 ight and enforce this decision, we cannot get beyond a mere 
 ' ought " in this connexion. The relation of states is that of 
 lelf-dependent beings which make stipulations among them- 
 lelves, but which nevertheless stand above these stipulations.' ^ 
 '. do not wish to press the words of a note too far, but I do 
 lot teel this statement to be a mere inadvertence. Hegel 
 ieems aware through this section of his argument that the 
 udgement of the world— universal history — is not a sufficient 
 ixpression of the ethical relationship of states ; there is a law 
 )inding on states which they ought to recognize and which 
 hould be made the explicit law of their dealings with one 
 mother. But he leaves that law without an organization 
 idequate to it ; so that it appears to be a mere ' ought '. 
 
 In consequence of this he tends on the other hand to cling 
 
 fact against the ideal. In the face of the inherent rights of 
 
 he whole of organized society, each individual state is only 
 
 me element of the total good, and cannot claim at its own will 
 
 ' Philosophy of Right, § 340. " Ibid. § 330 note. 
 
 2211 S 
 
258 THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 
 
 the sacrifice of other individuals to it. Hegel is right in 
 pointing out that true statesmanship is a care for the weal of 
 the state in its definite characteristics and circumstances ; but 
 he does not point out clearly enough that the good of the state 
 is not something private to it, and that it can be secured in 
 the long run only if a still more general good is kept in mind, 
 namely, the good of the whole system of states. If a state 
 pushes its own direct and apparent interest at the expense 
 of other states and without regard to the welfare of them all 
 as a totality, it fights against itself, and however great be its 
 apparent gain in territory, wealth, and even culture, it suffers 
 a real spiritual loss. Hegel does not deny this anywhere, so 
 far as I know, but by insisting too strongly on the difference 
 between the individual and the state, and on the special good 
 of the particular state as the end of statesmanship, he fails 
 to make the higher common good a real end of self-conscious 
 objective mind, that is to say, an object of will. 
 
 It is not a sufficient reply to this criticism to point to the 
 course of history — the judgement of the world— by which 
 states are upheld and destroyed. Granted that in the end 
 history does manifest a moral or ethical order, this does not 
 remove the necessity that states must themselves self- 
 consciously control their relations by a rightful end. It is 
 true that if history is a moral order, the highest moral ideal 
 does not lack power to realize itself ; but it is also true that 
 this could not be the case if it were not the nature of the 
 immanent ideal to work out its own realization, and if the 
 common good of the family of nations were not a principle 
 binding on men and the proper end of their activities. The 
 moral order reveals itself in history only because the common 
 good of the nations is higher than the particular good of any 
 one of them ; and when the character and end of some state 
 is insufficient and false it is brought down in ruin by this 
 higher truth. There is more in the nature of objective mind 
 than any finite state can bring forth ; and this fuller truth 
 demands the adherence and allegiance of states themselves. 
 So long as it is not brought into being in the world of action, 
 and so long as the organized force of the nations is not placed 
 behind it, the moral order has not come to itself and realized 
 its immanent character. Hegel is right in insisting that there 
 are important differences between the morality of an individual 
 
THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 259 
 
 and that of a state ; but he is wrong in supposing one such 
 difference to be that altjiough the higher good of the individual 
 man has to be made real in the state, the good which stands 
 above particular states need not become a present form of 
 self-conscious will. 
 
 We have now to complete our survey of Hegel's theory of 
 objective mind by a brief consideration of the way in which 
 he draws the limits of that field. Objective mind passes into 
 absolute mind ; and although we are not to examine absolute 
 mind here for its own sake, we must discern sufficient of it 
 to know in general what lies beyond the limit, in order to 
 understand the limit of objective mind itself. It may be well 
 to state that in doing this we have to draw on other sources 
 in addition to the Philosophy of Right. The Philosophy of Right 
 deals simply with objective mind, and does not dwell on the 
 limitations which are appropriate in the complete survey of 
 all mind. It emphasizes each increase of concreteness as it 
 develops, and points out the way in which the infinite character 
 of mind is realized in the world. In the Encyclopaedia Hegel 
 keeps the complete exposition in- view ; and points out care- 
 fully that the self-determination of objective mind is still 
 limited, and its level can be transcended. We have therefore 
 to supplement the account of the Philosophy of Right from the 
 closely allied Philosophy of History, the Phenomenology, and 
 the Encyclopaedia. 
 
 We begin by considering the last phase of objective mind 
 itself. States, we have seen, are finite, they arise and fall in 
 time ; and beyond them is the judgement of the world, the 
 course of history itself. Hegel develops the view of history 
 involved here in accordance with his general philosophic 
 position. History is not chronology ; it is an attitude of 
 
 ithought, and is capable of profound philosophic significance. 
 History must be written with presuppositions, and it is quite 
 unscientific to demand that notions— a priori notions, if you 
 like— must be altogether avoided. The proper demand is 
 that the writer should have the true notions. An empty head, 
 or a lack of the principles of thinking, does not fit a man for 
 any intellectual activity. It is untrue to say that any histo- 
 rian merely records things as they come along. He does not 
 record everything; thought is never purely receptive; it 
 
 •transforms and selects. The difference between historical 
 
 s 2 
 
26o THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 
 
 attitudes is ultimately one of different principles of selection ; 
 and when the principle in question is uncertain, one-sided, or 
 changing, the method is bad. For Hegel the highest and 
 truest principle is clear. The proper object of the most 
 profound history is freedom, and the task is to see the course 
 of events in time in such a way that everything dealt with is 
 set forth in its due relations to freedom. But we have found 
 that freedom is realized in the organized community ; conse- 
 quently the object of history is the life of pohtical states. 
 Whatever else is introduced, facts from geology, meteorology, 
 biology — ^not to speak of sciences of the mind — must be bent 
 to the supreme end and accepted only because of the light it 
 sheds on states themselves. 
 
 The state, then, is the object of history ; the state as it 
 unfolds itself in time and in many particular states. 
 
 It is not necessary for us to concern ourselves very closely 
 with Hegel's historical exposition, given at length in his 
 Lectures on the Philosophy of History and very briefly in the 
 last few pages of the Philosophy of Right. But a few remarks 
 will not be altogether out of. place. History begins with self- 
 conscious social activity, in other words, with the nascent 
 state. It is not an accident that uncivilized peoples have no 
 history. It is true, of course, that we know many things about 
 them ; but we do not have such written accounts of them as 
 we have of peoples which have risen to be states. Of China 
 we have a long history ; and throughout it all China was a 
 state. Of India, on the other hand, we have very little ; and 
 in India the genius for pohtical activity has been singularly 
 lacking. This lack of information is not an accident : the 
 object of history is itself lacking. Nomadic wanderings, 
 endless individual chances and fates, and the tiresome mono- 
 tony of unregulated life where, in spite of change, there is 
 nothing new because there is nothing old and estabhshed, 
 these are not comparable to the deep streams of organized 
 societies where individuals are only phases and where there 
 are definite tendencies and principles to record. 
 
 Further, history is not a mere record of change, it shows a 
 development in human things. Freedom, or the state, is a 
 growth. At the dawn of history, mind was but dimly aware 
 of itself; its nature and capacities had still to be appre- 
 hended and wrought out ; and the development takes time. 
 
THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 261 
 
 Hegel believes that the stages of the evolution can be indicated, 
 and that in each a definite phase of the notion has been brought 
 to light. I do not intend to discuss these stages, and it will be 
 sufficient to name them. The first is the Oriental world, the 
 second the Greek world, the third the Roman world, and the 
 fourth the German world. 
 
 In the next place, Hegel insists that states have to be taken 
 concretely. Thev are n either mere a^rprrpga tes of individua ls, 
 nor colourless appearances of an abstract constitution. Each 
 is itself an individual, with a definite qucdity or character of 
 its own. The character of a state is as special and real as that 
 of a private person. Each state has its own constitution to 
 make, its own potentialities to realize, and when its work is 
 done it dies. History is not the straightforward unfolding 
 of a simple mind ; it is complex and has a negative side. Its 
 stages are themsdves individuals, and they have to give way 
 to make room for fresh forms. It may be true that in nature 
 there are recurrent series, but in mind there is no repetition. 
 Mind is more than a Phoenix arising rejuvenated from its 
 ashes ; it goes forward into higher forms, and becomes ' exalted, 
 glorified, a purer mind '. And if so, earlier and less developed 
 civilizations must give way before more adequate ones. The 
 judgement of the world is just this growth and decay itself. 
 ' Mind is essentially active ; it makes itself into that which it 
 is inherently, into its deed, its work. Thus it becomes an 
 object to itself, and has itself before itself as a definite being. 
 And so with the mind of a people : it is a determinate mind, 
 building itself on its religion, its worship, its habits, its con- 
 stitution, and its political laws, and the whole range of its 
 institutions and its events and deeds, into a present world 
 which stands and subsists now. That is its work : that is 
 this people. . . . The people is ethical, virtuous, and vigorous 
 when it produces what is in its will and protects its work 
 against external violence in the labour of objectifying it. The 
 discordance of what it is inherently, subjectively, in its inner 
 end and essence and what it is actually is sublated ; it is at 
 home with itself ; it has itself objectively before itself. But 
 then this activity is no longer necessary ; for what it wills it 
 has. The people can still do much in war and peace, within 
 and without ; but, as it were, the living substantial soul itself 
 is no longer active. The basis and highest interest has thus 
 
362 THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 
 
 gone out of its life ; for interest is present only where there 
 is opposition. The people, like an individual passing from 
 manhood to old age, lives in enjoyment of itself, in being 
 exactly what it willed and could attain. . . . This use and wont 
 (the watch is wound up and goes on of itself) is that which 
 brings on natural death.' ^ And Hegel's beUef is that the 
 death of a state is always due to internal weakness. ' A people 
 can die a violent death only when it has become naturally 
 dead in itself, as, e. g., the German imperial cities, the consti- 
 tution of the German Empire.' ^ 
 
 The distinction of states, however, does not break their 
 connexion nor destroy the identity of mind in them. It is 
 one rationality, one mind, which appears thus in history, and 
 the nations are but phases of it. The final end of the progress 
 in history is not merely to develop this or that nation and 
 achieve the purposes of some individual state. It has to bring 
 forth mind itself as it is in its truth, the state as such. And the 
 state, so comprehended, is not a bare abstraction, a mere 
 essence ; it is a concrete universal, the mind which expresses 
 itself in moments which are themselves minds ; it is the 
 Realized idea. Individual peoples cannot set themselves against 
 fthis mind : it is their substance 'and truth. ' The principles 
 of the minds of peoples in a necessary sequence of stages are 
 themselves only moments of the one universal mind, which 
 elevates and completes itself in history through them into a 
 self-comprehending totality.' ^ The insight into history from 
 this point of view is the deepest truth of objective mind, the 
 point at which it achieves itself and at which it passes into 
 the higher and final realm of absolute mind. It reveals the 
 development of freedom in the world, sets aside every irrele- 
 vant feature, and throws into the foreground the way in 
 which nature gathers itself up into self-conscious rational 
 mind : or, to take it from the other side, it manifests the 
 presence of God in the world, and shows that ' what has 
 happened and happens every day is not only not without God, 
 but essentially His very work.' * 
 
 What remains to be done here is to explain the statement 
 that at this its highest point objective mind passes into 
 absolute mind. Perhaps , we may achieve this end most 
 
 ' Philosophy of History, WW. IX, 3rd edit., pp. 91-3. 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 93. ' Ibid. p. 97. « Ibid. p. 547. 
 
THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 263 
 
 easily by urging a criticism against the conception of history 
 thus set forth. The whole method, it may be said, is arbitrary. 
 I see no reason to suppose that it must falsify history in the 
 sense that it must deny or invent facts. It is quite as able 
 as any other method to admit the existence of whatever 
 comes along. But it may be said to falsify facts in the sense 
 that it picks and chooses among them in such a way that 
 whole tracts of natural events are abbreviated or even pushed 
 aside altogether ; and, by emphasizing the bearing of every 
 fact on self-conscious freedom, it assigns to them another 
 importance than that which nature itself gives. The toil of 
 nature through centuries may be, for that method, of less 
 account than the transactions of a few moments ; conse- 
 quently, the method is not natural but arbitrary. 
 
 This criticism is both true and false. The danger of it is that 
 its falsity is often the more powerful side. In the end the 
 criticism urges that Hegel's philosophy of history is not 
 empirical, and the insinuation is that history should be empi- 
 rical. But we have seen that a genuinely empirical history is 
 an absurdity, and we need not say more on that topic. When 
 we firmly set this yearning for bare fact aside, the criticism 
 of Hegel's method which we have suggested applies equally 
 to any other method ; for its essence is that the method is 
 selective and abstract. The criticism, therefore, so far as 
 we can approve it, is that history as such is selective and does 
 not reproduce reality as reality produces itself. Several 
 courses are open to us here. One is simply to condemn history 
 in contrast with the facts ; and that way lies empiricism. 
 Another is to condemn the facts in contrast with history ; 
 and that way, in spite of the truth in it, lies all manner of 
 subjective vagaries. Another and more hopeful coiirse is to 
 admit the contrast, to admit the truth on both sides, and to 
 hold that the synthesis which history attempts is in principle 
 right, but in performance faulty because it is inevitably 
 abstract. This is the attitude which Hegel adopts. There is 
 a truth in nature which is omitted by history, there is a truth 
 in history which the bare facts as happenings lack ; and above 
 both is a higher truth, viz. absolute mind. Nature exists, or 
 if one prefers the word, is actual, and in a sense it is the basis 
 , of the reality of mind. But, in spite of this, it is not coherent ; 
 ' or, to put it otherwise, it is not complete in itself. Each of 
 
264 THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 
 
 its categories is self -contradictory ; they lie in the sphere 
 of essence, and involve the characteristic defects of that 
 sphere. This is plain in the conception of necessity, a general 
 principle which presents the highest truth of nature itself. 
 Time, Hegel tells us, is a form of self-externality ; and the 
 characteristic of whatever is in time is to pass onwards into 
 something new and other than itself. Yet the new fact is 
 what the old one has become ; and apart from this identity 
 the conceptions of time and change are quite unintelligible. 
 This incoherence of identity and difference, of self and other, 
 of inner and outer, infects the whole of nature ; and however 
 -far we extend our survey, however large we make our known 
 world, this defect remains. A weakness of quality is not to be 
 remedied by an increase in quantity ; for, as Hegel points out, 
 quantity itself is an indifference to qualitative determinate- 
 ness.'^ 
 
 The world as a mere sequence of events or aggregation of 
 facts is not perfectly coherent, and by no force and compass 
 of thought can it be made so. Those who accuse Hegel of 
 mistaking ends for realities, and of declaring a priori and in 
 defiance of the obvious state of the case that the existing 
 world must be in accordance with ideal principles of reason, 
 seem to me to misread the situation, if by ' reality ' we mean 
 the world as it unrolls itself in space and time. Hegel does 
 not assert its absolute conformity to reason ; rather he insists 
 that at its best it is discrepant with itself and abstract. The 
 difference between the views is ultimately in the treatment 
 of reality itself. What puts so many criticisms of Hegelout 
 of court is the sheer assumption that the conception of reality 
 is beyond examination, does not require to be scrutinized by 
 thought, and must be accepted uncritically as a first principle. 
 Hegel, on the other hand, notes that this acceptance is 
 demanded on the part of thought itself ; and he refuses to 
 admit the validity of any conception unless it prove valid for 
 thought. Reality is not a datum of knowledge, but a complex 
 interpretation of experience. Instead of being a dead wall 
 against which thought comes, it is in truth the world made 
 intelligible and transparent to thought. Imperfect and 
 incomplete things— like facts in space and time— which 
 involve hidden identities with a wide context and yet try to 
 
 ' V. Encyclopaedia, § 99 ; Larger Logic, WW. III. p. 209 ff. 
 
THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 265 
 
 ,et themselves up as self-contained units, are abstractions 
 rom reality and must be transcended if they are to be known 
 IS they really are. They are dominated by inadequate cate- 
 gories and cannot be self-subsistent and coherent so long as 
 hese categories are unchanged. The world as it unrolls itself 
 n space and time is not fin^y real ; it is not fully intelligible 
 ind cannot, as it stands, be an adequate object of thought, 
 ^nd so, when history does violence to nature, and brings to 
 ight a grouping of natural facts under the guiding conception 
 )f mind, it is on the right track, and is to be justified against 
 lature. , 
 
 On the other hand, history and the object it presents, viz.N 
 jthical mind, is a premature sjmthesis ; and the violence it 
 iocs to nature is not completely justified. A most illumi-/ 
 lating statement on this point is contained in a note to one/ 
 jf the paragraphs of the Encyclopaedia. Speaking of objective 
 nind Hegel says : ' Thus mind has stepped out of the form, 
 jf mere subjectivity. But the full realization of that freedom, 
 jvhich in property is still incomplete and formal, is reached) 
 3nly in the state, in which mind develops its freedom into a, 
 ivorld posited by it, an ethical world. Yet mind must sted 
 beyond this grade also. The defect of this objectivity o:^ 
 nind consists in that it is only something posited. The world) 
 must be let free again by mind and what is posited by mmd 
 5e grasped also as something which, immediately is. This 
 Dccurs at the third grade of mind, i. e. art, religion, ancj) 
 philosophy.' ^ 
 
 ' The world must be let free again by mind.' What doesl 
 :his mean ? In brief, the answer is that mind in the ethical 
 Drder faUs to recognize nature as such; nature has been, 
 :reated as a vehicle of mind and only as such. Let us -refer j 
 jack to Hegel's criticism of morality. The moral self recognized | 
 ;he inadequacy of external nature, and it knew that mind canj 
 36 satisfied only when its object and its field is mind itself, j 
 We saw how in pursuance of this belief the moral conscious-, 
 less sought to exclude from it the crude and unmoral world. ( 
 ^e also saw the futUity of this exclusion, the internal inco-; 
 lerence— ultimately the emptiness— of such a self, and the 
 •eassertion of the world outside the self and conditioning it. . 
 Ethical mind makes a great advance on this attitude, but it 
 
 » § 385 note. 
 
266 THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 
 
 does not altogether escape from the same difficulty. Broadly 
 jSpeaking, the change from the moral to the ethical point of 
 jview is that of the individual to society, and the natural world, 
 !in so far as it falls within the realm of human society, has 
 I become an integral part of the ethical end. But this end, as 
 it stands, does not explicitly include all that there is in nature. 
 The organization of men in society is indifferent to vast tracts 
 of being, and the common will may be realized without any 
 overt reference to the greater portion of the visible universe. 
 It is only as subordinate to social purposes and in the limited 
 shapes which it assumes there that nature is recognized in the 
 ethical sphere. Nature, no doubt, is not merely a means, a 
 soulless thing to be dominated from without by the will — ^that 
 ;is the abstract point of view of morality. Rightly considered, 
 lit sets the end as well as supplies the means of social life. 
 [Nevertheless, society is only one of its expressions and by no 
 (means exhausts it. Ethical life accepts the natural content 
 Iwhich attains explicit spiritual existence in the community 
 and its citizens ; but it accepts this material only in that 
 fecial mental form. Behind the immediate elements of 
 nature which are directly manifested in society lie other 
 elements and forces which broaden out ultimately until they 
 cover the whole field of existence. The ethical point of view, 
 however, does not involve the apprehension of this. Of course 
 it may be recognized by a moral agent ; and he may feel that 
 the stars in their courses and the whole nature of things are 
 behind him in his ethical endeavour. But in this consciousness 
 he has gone beyond the purely ethical point of view and carries 
 its principles within deeper and more comprehensive ones. 
 At its own level ethical mind appears only here and there in 
 the world. It claims, with justice, a deeper reality than any 
 purely natural fact, and it has the right to subordinate any 
 outward being to its purposes. But every organized society 
 disappears in time and the best of states is liable to decay. Its 
 weakness shows that its categories are not final : for only the 
 finite can suffer accident. By itself it is a finite mode of the 
 infinite, and does not explain the whole world. The distortion 
 which the philosophy of history puts upon nature must be 
 undone again, and the dialectic must pass on to higher 
 principles into which the truth already brought to light is 
 carried along with the whole range of natural fact, and by 
 
THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 267 
 
 vhich all the differences which objective mind neglects is 
 ncorporated and explained. 
 
 The categories of the final sta,ge of Hegel's philosophy 
 Lttempt this task. Objective mind must 'let the world 
 ree again '. It must accept the natural as such and deal 
 vith it as itself a phase of the truth. Nature, for Hegel, is a 
 noment of knowledge ; but we must not forget that in the 
 dea there are no mere moments. The ' idea ' — and absolute 
 nind is constituted by the ' idea ' — is a unity of opposites, 
 Lud the unity is reached because of the difference. Accord- 
 ngly, nature must be taken as a phase of the whole which 
 ealizes the whole in a special way ; and its peculiar contri- 
 )ution is necessary to that whole. Nature is other than self- 
 lonsciousness ; and if absolute mind is not an abstract 
 elf-consciousness but comprehends the truth of the lower 
 tage which is conscious of a world over against it, it must, 
 vhatever else it does, accept and maintain this other. From 
 legel's standpoint we do not solve the difficulty by ignoring 
 lature, or by suggesting that there is no nature at all and that 
 vhat appears to be nature is in fact a host of little minds. 
 Absolute mind needs the externality and difference of nature 
 ti order to make its content concrete, and the knowledge of it 
 3 possible only to a philosophy which allows the abstract, 
 acoherent, and incomplete world of nature to erect itself 
 nto a whole, and which merges this whole within it as a part 
 f its content. 
 
 The concrete conception which I am trying to indicate 
 ppe'ars no doubt to be a direct self-contradiction, an impos- 
 ible union of discordant terms. And in truth this appearance 
 ersists whenever we speak in the abstract of the identity 
 f opposites. Comprehension of the conception is always 
 ependent on the content in which , it is realized ; for there 
 lone can we see how difference can inform and support unity, 
 leave it, therefore, as a demand that has still to be carried 
 at by the science of absolute mind. The utmost that can 
 e done here is to suggest a line along which the transition 
 lay be made ; and we may find this in the consideration that, 
 L spite of apparent paradox, it is only when the world has 
 sen ' let free again by mind and what is posited by mind 
 rasped also as something which immediately is ' that mind 
 m present itself as the final truth of the world. For it is 
 
268 THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 
 
 when we realize that this result, these institutions, this state, 
 are natural facts, that wc begin to see that the nature which 
 produces these is no dead mechanical world but something 
 in which spiritual unity is itself present. And when we 
 perceive that time and the world in time are subordinate 
 principles of thought, and that if we would understand the 
 world in its truth we must not over-emphasize the temporal 
 priority of nature to mind — the externality of the two — ^then 
 we are forced to a standpoint for which mind is the very 
 essence of nature itself and is present in it. 
 
 The science of objective mind itself leads us to the verge of 
 this position. At every stage of the analysis we have seen 
 mind subordinating and yet carrying up the lower phases of 
 its being into the higher. And in the consideration of uni- 
 versal history, the judgement of the world, we have found 
 that states as they evolve carry forward the principles of 
 states which have previously appeared. The very possibility 
 of this, even in part, raises the state above the level of a mere 
 thing in time. We are in the presence of a mind which over- 
 comes the self-externality of time and preserves the past 
 within the depths of its present being. The state is only a 
 mortal God, but in its finitude it is still divine ; and it points 
 to that further truth in which mind is raised completely from 
 under the dominion of necessity and externality, and contains 
 time within it. 
 
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 :cident, see Substance. 
 :tuaUty, 71 ; see also Existence, 
 iministration, 230-42, 248-9. 
 larchy, 201, 220-31. 
 ppetite, 95-6. 
 priori, 5-8, 53-4, 186. 
 ristocracy. 237. 
 rt. 265. 
 
 eautiful Soul, 191-3. 
 equest, 213. 
 
 lusality, 28-34, 198, 206 ; see 
 also Reciprocity, 
 harity, 224. 
 hildren, 210-12, 
 hoice, 108. 
 ivil Community, 204, 214-25, 
 
 231-3- 
 
 lasses, in state, 2 10 ; representa- 
 tion of, 246. 
 
 omfort, 217. 
 
 ommerce, 219. 
 
 ommunism, 123. 
 
 onsanguinity, 210, 213. 
 
 onscience, 167, 174-7, 196, 207. 
 
 onscientiousness, 1S3. 
 
 institution. 238, 239, €43, 247. 
 261. 
 
 topyright, 137. 
 
 orporation (Guild), 223-5. -3i- 
 
 'ourage, 254. 
 
 :rime. 70, 136, 144, 145. 147-8. 
 150. 
 
 lustom, 201, 220. 
 
 )emocracy, 237, 247. 
 
 dialectic, ii-i6. Chapter II, 51, 
 
 70-2, 87, 91, lui. 122, 124. 138. 
 
 142, 143. I5S-(.12. 177, 197. 
 
 240-2. 240, 266. 
 divorce, 212-13. 
 Dualism. 70, 9°- 
 3uty. 55. 58-9. 73. 167. 173-7. 
 
 187, 196. 197. 2°3- 
 
 Education, 210-12. 
 
 Emanation, 11-12. 
 
 Empiricism, 10, 32-3, 46 ; (ethi- 
 cal), 54-8, 67. 
 
 Enei^, 22 note, 25. 30. 
 
 English Law, 221. 
 
 Environment, 78, 107. 
 
 Ethical point of view {Sittlich- 
 Iteit), 120-1, 107. 
 
 Evil, 68, 74, 154-7. 16.1. 180-4 ; 
 see also Crime, Wickedness, 
 Wrong. 
 
 Existence, 64 & note, 67-8, 73-4, 
 82, 148, 264 ; see also Reality. 
 
 Experience, 3, 9, 52, 71, 80, 113 ; 
 see also Empiricism. 
 
 ■ Fall", the, 181. 
 
 Family, 142, 204-13, 223. 
 
 FeeUng, 94, 105-6, 205, 213, 
 
 Finitude. of nature, 76-7 ; mean- 
 ing of, 85 ; of mind, 85 ; of 
 self, 1 78. 
 
 Formalism (ethical), 57-61 ; see 
 also Duty. 
 
 Franchise, 247. 
 
 Fraud, 144-6. 
 
 Freedom, 26-7, 38, 54, 87-8, 
 107-14, 147. 163, 171, 198, 216, 
 224, 22S, 220, 233-5, 240, 230, 
 260. 
 
 Goodness, 167, 172-3. 
 Government, 227, 220. 230. 
 Guild, see Corporation. 
 
 Habit. 93. 
 
 Happiness, 107, 188, 224 ; see 
 
 also Well-being. 
 Hedonism, 35, 55- 
 Hero. 152, 191, 195. 203.. 
 History, 117, 156. is>.=i, ^39. 257. 
 
 258, 259-60, 263-5. 
 Hypocrisy, 182. 
 
270 
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 'Idea'. 42, 43, 53, 70, 74, 112, 
 
 164-5, 233. 238, 267. 
 Ideal (and reality), 72, 115, 186- 
 
 92, 257-9. 
 Implicit (conception of), 56, 67-8, 
 
 69 note, 81, 162. 
 Impulse, 106, 1 13-14. 
 Individualism, 215. 
 Inductive science, 51, 53. 
 Infinity, meanings of, 85 ; of 
 
 mind, 85-7. 
 Inheritance, see Bequest. 
 Innocence, 179. 
 Instinct, 220. 
 IntellectuaHsm, 46—7. 
 Intention, 167, 168-71, 194-5. 
 Intuition, 61-3. 
 Intuitive Understanding, 112. 
 Irony, 183-4. 
 
 Jurisprudence, 116. 
 Jury, trial by, 222. 
 Jus, 116. 
 
 Justice, administration of, 219, 
 222-3, 239, 240. 
 
 Kind (species), 206. 
 
 Labour, 217. 
 
 Law, 220, 221-2, 245, 249 ; inter- 
 national, 239, 254-9. j 
 
 Legislature, 239-48. | 
 
 Logic, formal, 1 ; and Meta- j 
 physics, 2-5, 8-9 ; and experi- | 
 ence, 9 ; interconnexion of its 
 piiinciples, 10 ; general divi- 
 sion, 17 ; analysis of Cate- 
 gories of Essence, 18-40 ; cate- 
 gories as demands, 69 ; and 
 Philosophy of Mind, 91. 
 
 Love, 205, 210. 
 
 Manifestation, 88-9, 125. 
 
 Marriage, 206-9. 
 
 Matter, 23. 
 
 Mind, and the Notion, 43-4 ; and 
 nature, 65-7, 69 ; general 
 character, 77-89 ; and right, 
 119 ; Absolute, 9, 170, 265 ; 
 see also Objective Mind, Sub- 
 
 jective Mind ; philosophy of, 
 
 5. 45. 53. go- 
 Monarchy, 237, 240-4, 250-2. 
 I Monogamy, 209. 
 Morality (Moralitdt), 120, Chap- 
 ters VIII and IX, 197, 221, 
 254. 265. 
 
 Nation, 238, 245. 
 
 Nature, 65-7, 69, 76-88, 91-4, 99, 
 107, 113, 116-17, 189, 198, igg, 
 200, 217, 234, 263, 266-S; 
 philosophy of, 5, 45, 51, 53, 67, 
 221 ; state of, 56. 
 
 Necessity and Substance, 24, 26 ; 
 and Causality, 28, 33 ; and 
 Nature, 77 ; and finite Mind, 
 194 ; and freedom, 198, 229, 
 235 ; and reality, 254 note. 
 
 Negation, 109, 138, 139, 143, 
 154-6. 
 
 Normative sciences, 115. 
 
 ' Notion •, 37-44, 45, 51-3, 70-1, 
 82, 99, 161, 206, 233. 
 
 Obedience, 211. 
 
 Objective Mind, 90, Chapter VI 
 ad jin. 
 
 ParUament, 245-7. 
 
 Passion, 106-7. 
 
 Patent Laws, 137. 
 
 Patriotism, 233-4. 
 
 Personality, 122-5, 128-9, 150, 
 
 161-2. 
 Philosophic attitude, 45-54, 69, 
 
 74. 75- 
 Plebiscite, 246. 
 Pohce, 223. 
 Possession, 13 1-2. 
 Postulates (moral), 186-91. 
 Poverty, 224. 
 Practical attitude, 47-8. 
 Prescription, 135. 
 ProbabiUsm, 182. 
 Progress, igx. 
 Promise, 140, 141. 
 Property, 60, 123, 125-38, 223, 
 
 226. 
 Psychology, 3, 66, 115. 
 
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 271 
 
 Punishment, 55, 69-70, 149-54, 
 
 222, 249. 
 Purpose, 167-8, 193-4. 
 
 Realitat, see Actuality. 
 
 Reality (Wirklichkeit), 22, 64-5, 
 
 70-5, 186, 254, 264. 
 Reason, 99-100, 112-13, 166, 190, 
 
 229. 
 Rechi, 115. 
 
 Reciprocity, 34-7, 77, 82, 108. 
 Religion, 99, 106, 265. 
 Responsibility, 167-8, 193-5. 
 Revenge, 152. 
 Reverence, 212. 
 
 Self, and not-self, 81, 91-4 ; and 
 
 world, 105-8. 
 Self -consciousness, 95-9, 177 ; 
 
 moral, 167 ; see also Personality. 
 Self-interest, 215. 
 Self-regarding actions, 227. 
 Sin, 148, 185. 
 Slavery, 96-8, 98 note, 136-7, 
 
 139. 153. 250. 
 Soul, 91, 94- 
 Sovereignty, 242, 244, 246, 250- 
 
 •2. 254. 255- 
 State, 142, 151, 204, 214, 216, 
 
 219, 225, Chapters XII, XIII. 
 Stipulation, 140, 257. 
 Subjective Mind, Chapter V, 115. 
 
 Substance, 22-8. 35, 38-9, 59, 65, 
 71, 127. 
 
 Teleology, finite, 48 ; moral, 49, 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 'Thing*. 19-21, 23, 27 note, 35, 
 
 65. 92, 127. 
 Thing-in-itself, 6, iii, 199. 
 Thought, and its object, 67, 264 ; 
 
 and win, 100-5, ii4- 
 Time, 27 note, 31 & note, 68, 
 
 264-5, 268. 
 Town and country, 219. 
 Tragedy, 14-15. 
 
 Use, 130 note, 132. 
 
 Value, 134-5. 
 
 Wants, 217, 218. 
 
 War, 253, 256. 
 
 Wealth, 218. 
 
 Well-being, 167. 
 
 Wickedness, 167, 177-84 ; see 
 also Evil. 
 
 Will, and knowledge, 100-4 ; its 
 phases, 104-14 ; and property, 
 125-6 ; moral, 163, 166, 172, 
 176, 185 ; not atomic, 226. 
 
 Wrong, 143-9, 156, 222 ; see also 
 Evil. 
 
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