The ethical theory of Hegel; a study of the Philosophy of right. / Reyburn, Hugh Adam

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THE 

ETHICAL THEORY 
OF HEGEL 



Oxford University Press, Ely House, London W. i 

GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON 

CAPE TOWN SALISBURY IBADAN NAIROBI LUSAKA ADDIS ABABA 

BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA 

KUALA LUMPUR HONG KONG TOKYO 



The ETHICAL THEORY 

of 

HEGEL 

A Study of the 
PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT 



By 
HUGH A. REYBURN 



OXFORD 
At the CLARENDON PRESS 



FIRST PUBLISHED IQ2I 
REPRINTED LITHOGRAPHICALLY IN GREAT BRITAIN 

1967 



TO 

SIR HENRY JONES, LL.D., RB.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 

PAGE 

Introduction . . . . . . xi 

CHAPTER I. The Logical Background i 

II. Fundamental Logical Categories . . 17 

III. The Real and the Rational ... 45 

IV. Mind ....... 76 

V. Subjective Mind ..... 90 

VI. Abstract Right 115 

VII. Wrong and Punishment .... 143 

VIII. The Principles of Morality . . . 158 

IX. Moral Teleology 185 

X. The Ethical Order and the Family . . 197 

XI. Civil Society or the External State . . 214 

XII. 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 
labour 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 political!} 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 wil] be well, 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 called practical politics He first 
broke ground by a discussion of the conditions of the state 
of Wurtemberg in 1798, and this was followed in 1802 by 
a severe criticism of the German confederation. In 1817 
Hegel returned to the affairs of Wurtemberg, and in 1831 he 
wrote a trenchant review of English reform legislation. 
These writings do not all appear in the standard editions of 
Hegel s works, and are most easily found in a volume entitled 
Hegel s Schriften zur Politik und Rechtsphilosophie, edited by 
Lasson. They are, however, only of indirect philosophical 
interest, 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 typical 
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 mind 
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 of 
practical mind into objective mind, given with great care in 
the Encyclopaedia, does not appear in the Phenomenology. 
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 exposi 
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 lacking, 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 
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 INTRODUCTION 



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 



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 Wirklichkeit 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 Wirklichkeit as 



xx INTRODUCTION 



Hegel uses it. Accordingly I have translated Wirklichkeit 
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 anything 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 Lasson 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 published, 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, logic, 
nature, and mind ; and the sciences of these three realms 
give us progressive, 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 
ythe specjfi_fgrm^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 

824318 B 



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 introductions, 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 trud 
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. The 
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 himself 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 : x 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 immediate 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 possibility 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 all 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 reality, which makes 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. 



THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 



nothing in the real world, how can the result give us a content 
in any way like the trans-subjective world of things ? More 
over, how can the exponent of such a view know that the 
laws of thinking are subjective and its results objective ? 
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. 1 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 logic 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 of 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 which 
we have any concern. Naturally, if reality is identified with 

1 For an acute criticism on historical lines of the attempt to separate 
logic from metaphysics v. Adamson, A Short History of Logic, pp. 1-163, 
reprinted, with additions, from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 



THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 



actual existence in space and time, and metaphysics identified 
with the science of such a reality, 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. Qij& ^ 

Having found the standpoint of logic, we may refer briefly 
to its limitation. The known world, for Hegel,, falls 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 exemplifying 
them, articulations of them, their expression in new media. 
This throws into relief the community of spheres, and it is to 
these underlying principles of both realms that logic is limited. 
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 
to their higher special embodiments. 

We may now consider briefly the historical development of 
Hegel s position from that of Kant. Kant had inquired into 
the 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 
and 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 
universality 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 knewledge 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 firm dualism of subject and object, in 
accordance with which universality and form are attributed 
to the former, particularity and content to the latter. If 
experience manifests universality, he argues, it is mind-made 
and subjective. From this Hegel dissents. 1 For Kant, in so 
far as he is a dualist, 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. 
1 Cf. Encyclopaedia, 41, Zusatz 2, WW. VI. pp. 87-9. 



THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 



Before dealing with any of the details of this scheme we 
may summarize Hegel s position. Kant found an a priori 
element in experience, a universality 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 all reference to common experi 
ence, and concocted an arbitrary scheme from the idiosyn- 
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, a^d^j^iajL^thepry may, 
be wholly rational and yet untrue. From this point of view, 
to evolve the world out of" oriels 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 wait 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. 1 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 formalism is unbounded. 2 Experi 
ence, or fact, is the basis of all 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 
: study of thejrdaticms o| unity nnH rllff^Tfpce, or of universal 
land i^articuiarT Each category, or determination, is a general 
pnnciple oy wnich we seek to make experience a consistent 
whole and render it a concrete universal ; and each has its own 
way of relating the two root factors, viz., unity and difference. 
Before discussing any of the categories themselves, however, 
it is necessary to glance at three preliminary points ; the 
connexion of the categories, the order of their exposition, and 
the motive power of the development. 

1 V. Encyclopaedia, 6-9, and notes ; WW. VII. p. 18. 

- V. Phenomenology, WW. II, Vorredc, in particular pp. 55-6. 



io THE LOGICAL BACKGROUND 

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 in 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 unifying 
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 n 

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 still 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. 2 
v Hegel calls this method that of emanation. It is a series of 

1 For the history of the development of Hegel s logical theory 
v. Baillie, Hegel s Logic. 

2 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 abstract 
to concrete, and it is a movement from the external to the 
internal. The effort of thought at first is to take one thing 
J 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 s 
yiew the Nemesis of such thought is that it turns into its 



f. 



. Apposite. Take the simplest example. The first category of 
th 



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 
(Sfi the idea of a thing ; the assertion is not that such and 
l ww. vn. p. 35. 



such a definite object is, for a definite object involves much 
more than does mere being . ^Ve are to say is , and 
nothing else. But _when we haye said this our meaning is 
indistingidshable"7rom J nothing/- I? we take aWay all lilt! 
particular qualities 6T 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 aspects 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. 1 

This brings us to the third point, the power behind the 
process. This has been said to be contradiction. 2 But such 

1 Encyclopaedia, WW. VI. 161 and note. 

* For a discussion of this view v. McTaggart, Studies in Hegelian 
Dialectic, p. 5 ff . 



a view is shallow ; for one immediately asks, What is behind 
V the contradiction? Contradiction itself is the immediate 

(orjrjosition _pf _one ph~aslT6Tlur75b]^ct~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 s Tu*s*"1bogic at this 
point. HegefmTds the essence of tragedy to lie in a conflict 
between spiritual forces which belong to one system and 
which ought to be in harmony. The catastrophe is the 
assertion by the whole of its complexity against the one- 
sidedness of some imperfect aspect. When the conflict 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, is not loss. 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 character of reality. The positive side, of course, 
is not fully developed in tragedy, 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 
wETclfacts anfflTeggtes ill it, tlidl is"~t6 say", ii ym UJ_Uiu>- 

substance with both the agents. It is divided against itself 
in them ; they are Us conflicting forces ; and in restoring its 
unity through negation it affirms 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. l 

Now logic in principle is even more than tragedy ; for it 
is the express reconciliation of the subordinated elements, 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 fuller 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. 2 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 
a ssertion sinned. The imperfect aspects can collide only 
-because they have^]JrogejLlslation and 6ugtllJ.U be luuun-^ 
HT^fl, pi* Hi^Jectic tnusis ai development of YeaSOn from" 

1 Oxford Lectures on Poetry, p. 91. 2 Cf. below, p. 40 ff. 



16 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_esence,. T 
It is not possible, of course, to deal with tfteTnTali 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 



i8 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 



essence ; and third, the categories of the notion. These may 
be regarded as three main ways in which unity and difference 
may be presented in thought. Taking the matter in broad 
outline, there are three modes in which we may apprehend 
these two aspects. We may be offered any of three alter 
natives (a) unity or difference, or (b) 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 multiplicity ; 
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 implication 
of the whole in each aspect or fragment is not made fully 
clear until the end, viz. the stage of the notion (in the wide 
sense) ; the defects of the categories of being are, at their 
own proper stage, shown only externally, and fresh light is 
shed on their true nature at each step in th6 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 of 
each element whereby it has community with every other 
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. 1 

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 
1 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 ; l 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 lie 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 

1 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. 



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. l 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. 2 
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 aspects 
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 

1 WW. II. pp. 86-7, Baillie s trans. I. pp. 107-8. a Ibid. 



FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 21 

sides. In his Logic Hegel shows that this conception fails 
in its task by noting how the essential, or mediate, aspect 
is upon closer scrutiny deposed from its proud position of 
identity with the real nature of the totality, and becomes 
itself a surface show ; it ceases to be the principle of union 
and becomes one term among others requiring relation and 
organization. We may take a shorter route here. The 
thing falls _intp_ t\KQ_ discordant aspects, unreconciled in 
thought On the one hand the thing is its properties ; if 
they are abstracted there is nothing left behind. On the 
other hand the thing is other than its properties, it is that 
which has them, their substrate or bearer. It is thus one 
and 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 
of 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, for 
theoretic reason, the transcendental ego is in 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 realization. 

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. 1 
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 alike. 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- 

1 For a slightly different view of the progress of the Logic particu 
larly in regard to causality v. McTaggart s Commentary on Hegel s 
Logic. 

2 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 totality. 

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. 1 
Substance, however, is its accidents ; it appears in them 
and exfsts 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. 2 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, 

1 V. Encyclopaedia, 125 note, last sentence. 

2 V. Larger Logic, WW. IV. p. 221. 



24 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 

and he has failed to find the meaning of matter because it 
has been identified with a substrate which has no attributes, 
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 one 
another. How is this unity to be understood ? Perhaps the 
physical conception of energy is the clearest instance of it. 
Energy remains constant in quantity through all its changes, 
and 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. Their 
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. 1 

2. Substance appears in its accidents as power or necessity. 
Kant, approaching the question from one side, had asked the 
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. 2 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 realized, and will appear only later ; 
but substance differs frorn 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 

1 Substance, as this identity of the appearing, is the totality of the 
whole, and includes the accidents ; and the accidental is the whole 
substance itself (Larger Logic, II. p. 221). 

8 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 still 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 
versal in the particular, but it does not take the universal 
concretely. If the conception of physical energy is used in 
such 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 
so on. The constant quantity of energy will be regarded as 
the 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 falls without sub 
stance ; and when the accidents are resolved into substance 
their aspect of difference and variety is lost. The essence 
of 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 
each 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 



- ,., ,* , . ^ * ,:,J , e-^~ 

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 in 
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 accidentally, 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 of 
substantiality reduces itself to substance which reveals itself 
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. l 

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 accidents, 
it is prior to them and does not develop through their change. 
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 which 
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 
1 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 i/ 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 
underived existence as a fact, while the determinist, on the 
other hand, is unable to find room for it within the world of 
knowledge. Now, we must discern that the category of 
substance is not adequate to freedom : the conception is in 
truth self-contradictory. Substance makes the most important 
of all assumptions it assumes itself. This difficulty is 
often felt in regard to freedom. One of the arguments for 
determinism is that the will is bound by the character ; 
actions spring of necessity from the nature of the agent, and 
he has no control over his character. The utmost reply the 
indeterminist can make to this is that the agent is not 
determined by external circumstances, i.e. by environment. 
But this reply, even supposing its truth, is not sufficient. 
For the whole man is more than a bare character ; Jie is 
a living concrete agent, with both structure and function,. "an...? 
indissoluble 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 
ment ; it becomes a force working in him from behind, and 
its externality is as real as that of circumstances, although 
that takes a temporal form while this is chiefly spatial. 1 
That is to say, for ethical purposes the alleged underived 
character 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. 
Substance must have accidents, it exists only in its accidents ; 
but yet it gains nothing by going out into them. It is in se 
and not in alio ; jyet it^ s only in gfti n g forth into finfayde. 
The two aspects, mediate and immediate, universal and 
particular, unity and difference, infinite and finite, original 

1 Hegel indicates the sublation of the past in the identity of thing- 
hood in the Encyclopaedia, 125. 

/w .? > 



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 implication 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 thought 
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 sense, 
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 intelligible 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 ; l in causality they determine one another. 
In the relation of substantiality A follows B because of the 

1 The accidents, as such, . . . have no power over one another. . . . 
In so far as such an accident seems to exercise a power over another, 
it is the power of substance which grasps both in itself, as negativity 
[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 
into its possibility and the latter as coming into reality (Larger Logic, 
WW. IV. p. 222). 



FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 29 

necessity of substance in each ; in the relation of causality 

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 cause 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 causality to mere sequence together with the 
expectation engendered by the experience of that sequence 
in the past. Kant saw that if causality is to be intelligible 
as an objective relation, the assumption of the absolute 
independence and self-sufficiency of its factors must be given 
up ; and in his view the relation is constitutive of the terms. 1 
Causality, 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 
ever, there is a gap between this transcendental principle and 
the concrete matter of sense by which it is filled ; and so far 
as the empirical sequence of events is concerned, Kant stands 
very close to Hume s position, not discerning the imperative 
need for the revision of the hard and fast boundaries between 
perceived objects. Hegel brings out the identity of cause 
and effect in a way which Kant failed to do. Kant s view 
is confined in effect to the necessity of the objective coherence 
of events in time and space ; Hegel realizes that in order to 
think this coherence we must be prepared to take the identity 
of the factors seriously, and not be content with its mere 

1 For a brief account of Kant s view of causality v. Adamson, On 
the Philosophy of Kant, pp. 57-66 ; cf. Macmillan, The Crowning PhUse 
of the Critical Philosophy, pp. 127-34, where stress is laid on the am 
biguous position of inner sense in Kant s view. 



30 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 

assertion as a transcendental principle in conjunction with 
an uncritical view of the phenomena of experience. The 
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. 1 In reply to this statement it may be 
said that the conception embodied by it is not causality but 
substance. It was this omission of difference that set the 
problem which Hegel is here trying to solve, and it is hardly 
probable that he overlooked this. Hegel s illustrations are 
not always the truest index of his meaning, 2 but he does seem 
to meet this difficulty. In the Encyclopaedia he says, The 
rain (the cause) and the wet (the effect) are the self-same 
existing water. In point of form the cause (rain) is dissipated 
or lost in the effect (wet) : but in that case the result can 
no longer be described as effect ; for without the cause it is 
nothing, and we should have only the unrelated wet left. 3 
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 down, 
and the other is laid down. 4 But if this be so, there is only 
one substance present ; only in the effect does the cause 
become cause. That is to say, the cause determines itself, 
and in going into the effect it is really becoming itself. The 
cause, consequently, is in its full truth causa sui. 6 The 
difficulty which ordinary thought has in grasping this con- 

1 Cf. McTaggart, Commentary on Hegel s Logic, 173-4. 

2 Cf. Bosanquet in Mind, January 1911, p. 82. 

3 I 53. Wallace s trans, p. 277. 

4 Ibid. 153 note, Wallace s trans, p. 278. 

5 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. 1 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 causality, 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 causality at all. 2 

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 

1 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 Effect, 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 implications 
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 
embodying 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 eliminated by causality, 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 CATEGORIES 



entire failure to cope with the problem which substance left 
on Hegel s hands. Cause and effect must be two as well 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. l 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 causality, 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 causkl 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 unity- 
is not yet in its own true form, it is riot 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. 1 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 Causality is the embodiment of necessity ; and the 
nature of both principles lies in the dissipation of a thing 
into externality. 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 

1 Dr. McTaggart is not wrong in appealing to ordinary speech in this 
connexion : his error, I think, is in making 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 of 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. 

2 For Dr. McTaggart s view a critical one v. Commentary, 
chap. VII. 

824318 D 



34 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 

in causality demands more than this, and hence in order to 
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. 1 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 implies 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, 

1 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 which 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 establishing 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 realm 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 detail 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 which 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. 1 

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 case they can find good 
material for missiles in Hegel. 



3 6 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. x 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 substantiality 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 
recognize that it is the true individual. 

Before proceeding, we may gather together the main points 
1 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^mitahle flux, and endless 
movement into externality. The step which thought now 



takes brings it out of this infinite relativity. There 
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, andT in 
(developing an opposite brings into explicit being a unity 
^trong 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 membersj 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 b_ul_is_also_jtself. 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 






-V- 



bb<A^ 



3 8 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 

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 establishes 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 realizes 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 not 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 must 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-iis._own proper content, j. 
It will then leave nothing standing beyond.it to bind it, and 
it will 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 falls 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 unlike 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. Similarity, 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 
for one another. But for Hegel the negative aspect, difference, 
tension, opposition, is a moment though only a moment. 



The universal must limit itself, must take on the forms of 
finitude, and preserve that finitude even while going beyond 
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 into 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. 1 

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 perhaps 
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 the 
complete system actually seen to be the concretion of the 
simple immanent principle. The notion involves the idea , 
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 has 
actually mastered the external. The idea is the truth of 
the notion, the full self into which the notion develops itself. 
In the sequel, unless the context forbids, it is to be assumed 
that the term, notion, is used to indicate the narrow category 
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 
1 Cf. Phenomenology, WW. II. pp. 1516. 



FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 43 

analysis. We have spoken of the identity of opposites, but 
we are not thereby committed to the absurd statement that 
all opposites are identical, and that it is a matter of indifference 
whether we say yea or nay. The categories are not themselves 
the world, they are at most the principles of it ; and, although 
from a scientific point of view they are the more weighty 
aspect, yet in their abstractness they are a poor substitute 
for a world constituted by them. That is to say, when we 
have analysed a category we have only stated a demand ; 
the task still remains of satisfying that demand, of finding or 
organizing an experience which manifests the form of unity 
that the category reveals. It is one thing, e.g., to determine 
in the abstract the nature of substance, and another to 
possess a content of knowledge which in all its concreteness is 
itself a substance. Similarly, in the notion the demand for 
a world or medium in which the unity of opposites is achieved 
is not lightly satisfied. Ignoring for the present the difficult 
problem of the ultimate relation of the various spheres to one 
another, we may represent the various categories as the 
principles of various grades or realms of experience. Form 
and matter are inter-dependent, and each matter has a limit 
to its capacity of yielding forms. Some matter of experience 
is, as it were, too coarse to take on the finer forms, and the 
higher categories cannot be realized in it ; on the other hand, 
some matter is inherently too fine to be held by the rougher 
and less adequate forms. Hegel does not seek to find the 
notion and the idea in their proper shapes in the purely 
physical world of space and motion ; the lower categories in 
which externality predominates are the appropriate form of 
such stuff. Nor does he suppose that the categories of being, 
or even of essence, can give us the truth of the moral and 
intellectual life of mind. The proper field for the notion is 
self-conscious mind, and the ego is the realization of that 
principle. 1 If we are unable to think the nature of the notion 
in the abstract, and must have examples of it in the concrete 
in order that the identity of opposites be more than 

1 When the notion has developed into such existence as is free, it 
is nothing else than the ego or pure self-consciousness. Of course, 
I have notions, i.e. determinate notions ; but the ego is the pure notion 
itself, which, as such, has become a definite fact (H / H / . VI. pp. 13-14). 
Cf. Macran, Hegel s Doctrine of Formal Logic, p. 123. 



44 FUNDAMENTAL LOGICAL CATEGORIES 

a confused phrase, it is only in the life of self-conscious 
rational mind that illustrations can be found. The opposites 
of external nature are not identical for thought ; the sphere 
is, therefore, in itself, confined to and governed by lower 
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 Right 
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 
principle of thought which Hegel calls the notion, and we shall 
find that this is the fundamental principle of which the ethical 
world in all its forms is the articulation. But before examining 
the notion in its shape as an ethical system we have to deal 
with it in another of its forms. We have already briefly 
indicated the attitude of Hegel s philosophy to things, but 
we have confined our attention almost exclusively to his 
logical standpoint. We must, therefore, determine more 
precisely the view he takes of the special nature of ethical 
philosophy. In so doing we shall be elaborating the analysis 
of the notion, for philosophy is a form of reflective thought, 
and its moments are articulations of the basal principle of all 
mental life. Hegel s adoption of a scientific attitude in ethics 
has provoked severe criticism ; and in order to understand 
precisely what Hegel means by science here we shall examine 
his attitude in its general bearings. The main topic we have 
to discuss in this chapter is the identity of and distinction 
between the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of the 
ethical world. It seems advisable, therefore, to pursue our 
inquiry at first with special reference to Hegel s explicit 
statements regarding the philosophy of nature. The identity 
and difference which we seek will thereby become plainer 
when we analyse the specific nature of mind. 

For Hegel philosophy is a concrete attitude of mind ; it is 
not mere practice, nor yet is it what is usually called mere 
theory. Both in his early voyage of discovery, the Pheno 
menology, and in his more mature Encyclopaedia he places 
it highest in the ranks of the concrete attitudes of mind. 
Of course philosophy is not itself the whole of being ; its 
content is not the absolute in all its fullness, breadth, and 
detail ; nor is it all knowledge, for it treats much that is known, 
and 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 
ciple of which nature and mind are the embodiment. 1 There 
are two attitudes to objects which Hegel definitely repudiates 
as inadequate to philosophy. 2 The first of these we may call 
intellectualism, the purely theoretical standpoint. From this 
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 with 
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 seek 
earnestly to examine things disinterestedly and try to adopt 
a purely objective attitude to them, but thought will not 
permit us. Thought itself has a determinate structure and 
mode of functioning : we may intend to take each particular 
fact merely as it is and by itself, but thought insists on taking 
its objects not as mere particulars but as instances, and 
apprehends the minutest detail not merely as this or 
that but as such . 3 Whether we will or not, thought leads 
us to centre our attention on the universal, on the law, and 
to put the bare fact into the background as the mere vehicle 
of the law. Hegel does not need to be told that reality (or 
experience) is richer than thought. The more thinking 
enters into imagination , he says, the more the particularity 
and immediacy of things disappears from nature. By the 
invasion of thought the wealth of the infinite variety of nature 
is depleted, its vernal growth blighted, and its colours blanched. 
The sound of noisy life in nature is stilled in the silence of 

1 V. Phenomenology, WW. II. Das absolute Wissen , pp. 610-12, 
trans, pp. 820-3. 

2 Of course the division may be carried much farther the entire 
Phenomenology is an analysis of attitudes of which only the last is 
adequate. But the division indicated in the text is also Hegel s own, 
and is sufficiently representative for present purposes. 

3 V. Phenomenology, WW. II, Die Sinnliche Gewissheit oder das 
Dieses und das Meines , p. 73 ff., trans, p. 90 ff. 



THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 47 

thought ; its warm profusion, which clothes itself in a thousand 
wonderful shapes, withers into barren forms and universals 
shapeless as murky northern clouds. l By thinking it we have 
altered the given , and thereby set up a dualism. Things as given 
to us are detailed, concrete, individual indeed particular ; 
but the content of our thought is universal. Have we not 
converted real existences into contents of knowledge, into 
something which we have made ? In trying to grasp objects 
we have altered them, and we seem to have missed our hold. 
We make the thing universal and our own, and yet qua 
natural thing it ought to be free and independent. 2 Intel- 
lectualism thus has two sides. It puts forth realistic inten 
tions, and assumes that reality is the given, that which is 
independent of the apprehending subject. But at the same 
time it is an attitude of thought, and all thought is a transform 
ing and appropriating principle ; thus it chooses the relevant 
from the irrelevant, links up and interprets what is not given 
in that fashion, and in general bullies experience into supply 
ing it with contents marked by its own characteristics. On this 
side it manifests an unconscious idealism, and presents another 
instance 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 
of knowledge is a hard and impenetrable reality, inherently 
out of touch with the nature of apprehending knowledge. 
This assumption the opposite abstraction to pure theory, 
viz. the practical attitude, flatly denies. It assumes that 
things are utterly in relation to mind, and is a thorough-going 
idealism. The satisfaction of any desire or impulse naively 
crosses the gulf which intellectualism has declared to be 
impassable. 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, 
cold, wild beasts, water, fire, he knows means against them, 
and indeed he takes these means from nature and uses them 
against itself. The craft of his reason enables him to set one 
natural force against another, to destroy the one by the other, 
and so preserve and maintain himself. 3 In the practical 
attitude the objective is subordinated to the subjective, 

1 Encyclopaedia, WW. VII a. pp. 12-13. 

2 Ibid. p. 14. 3 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, 
Hegel 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 - 1 We shall 
see later 2 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, for 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 . 3 

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 

1 Encyclopaedia, WW.VlIa.. p. 10. 2 Chap. IX. 3 Ibid. p. 10. 



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 
fect 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 
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 
mental determinations of reality. The deficiency thus ad 
mitted may be filled up in more than one way. For example, 
the conception of a purely objective reality may be retained, 
and the task of reaching the unknowable may be handed over 
to the practical function of mind under the guise of faith or 
moral teleology. Another method, in which the practical 
side predominates, gives up the conception of the indepen 
dence of the objective and makes finite purpose the motive 
and test of thought itself. Thought does not reach independent 
reality, it admits, but there is no independent reality to reach. 
We have been making a false demand on thought ; its real 
function is to satisfy our purposes. It is a means to our 
satisfaction, and if it achieves that end no further claim should 
be made upon it. Satisfaction is thus put in place of reality, 
and thought becomes a moment in a finite will. 

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 believes that the realism 
of naive theory has a certain truth. All his teaching is an 

824318 E 



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 - 1 The first step in the solution of this 
dualism 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. 2 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, universality 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 individual thing as its substantial genus. The inscription 
on the veil of Isis, " I am that which was, is, and shall be ; 
and no mortal hath lifted my veil ", dissolves before thought. 
" Nature ", says Hamann with justice, " is a Hebrew word 
written only with consonants, and the understanding must 
point it". 3 Hegel does not suppose that the categories 

1 Encyclopaedia, WW. VII. p. 17. 2 Ibid. p. 16. 

3 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 facls. 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. 1 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, t>eing,_ 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 
1 Ibid. p. 1 8. 



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 oT 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 
(IrU-Tmined 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 realized. 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 

1 - 



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-impprtant consideration 
that ethics deals not merely with facts but with the will 
and with ideals. There is undoubtedly a grave difficulty 
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. 2 Empiricism objects 

1 WW. VIII. p. 17. 

2 Hegel s attitude to empiricism, as well as to the view which follows 
in 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-called 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 

liber 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 - 1 
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. Na ive 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, and 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 . 2 

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. 

3 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 
characteristic of Kant s ethics is the opposition of reason to 
experience and the emphasis laid on the primacy of practical 
reason. Empiricism in its purer form lays hold of the real 
in its immediacy, in its definite temporary moments as facts. 
The critical philosophy, on the other hand, recognizes that 
there is another aspect, universality or wholeness, and that 
the latter is the more fundamental for science and reason. 
Empiricism claims, as we have seen, to be science ; but it 
fails to discern that scientific totality cannot be reached either 
by the mere aggregation of particulars or by capricious selec 
tion among them. The particular must be radically trans 
formed before it can become a member of an organic whole. 
The compilation of separate parts can give only a mechanical 
and superficial unity ; it cannot reach the entirety and con 
gruence which rationality or intelligibility 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 

dilemma, and he gradually fills the legislation of practical 
reason with a foreign content to which it has no right. His 
task is difficult, and he adopts the expedient of applying the 
formal unity to various matters of experience and allowing 
it to articulate itself in conjunction with but not by means 
of them. When a practical course of action is in question, 
we may bring it to the bar of reason. Reason, however, will 
not itself provide a deliverance, for such action would bring 
it down from its lofty a priori status and stain it with the 
mire of contingency and fact. The moral law is not deter 
mined by its instances, but is an authoritative standard to 
which they refer. Pure practical reason, thus, falls into the 
category of substance in contrast with the notion. And Hegel s 
mode of attack is to point out that so long as Kant holds the 
universal to be independent of the particular, so long is the 
latter 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 g, system, but were 
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. 1 The moral law is an abstract principle 

1 WW. I. p. 351, Lasson VII. p. 353 ; cf. Larger Logic, WW . V. p. 28. 



60 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 

of reason out of all relation to experience, and cannot pass 
criticism on any particular mode of action or life. Kant 
escapes the tautology which is his sole right by the illicit 
introduction of experimental detail. 

We may follow this in an example. The commonest 
understanding , he says, can distinguish without instruction 
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. l But this application involves more 
than Kant has any right to say in accordance with his dualistic 
assumption. The annihilation of deposits is quite a consistent 
action, if consistency means not coherence with a system but 
abstract self-identity. Kant has tacitly introduced a reference 
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- 
property ; .if there be no property, that which would be 

1 Kritik der practischen Vernunft. 4 Anm., Hartenstein, V. pp. 28-9, 
Abbott s trans, p. 115. 



THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 61 

property is cancelled. But the very point we have to prove 
is that property must be ; we are concerned only with that 
which lies 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. l 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 has 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 
non-moral fact. At most he has thrown the cloak of the good 
will over unregenerate inclination. Thus to depose the 
goodwill, to put passion on the throne of life with the sceptre 
of sanctity in its hand, is treason to the ethical ideal. But 
the only escape from this attitude is by the consistent denial 
to the pure but empty moral standard of any lot or part in 
action, and by the pessimistic conclusion that -morality in 
every shape and form is an unattainable ideal. 

This subjectivity to which Kant s teaching, taking it on its 
lower side, inevitably leads, was regarded by Hegel as a special 
danger of his time. Desiring to find a basis for the ethical 
life in reason, even fearing lest the objectivity of reason might 
crush out the moral life altogether, thinkers of various schools 
tended to despise scientific thought and to fall back on the 
inwardness and spontaneity of intuition and the convictions 
of the heart. Hegel himself in his earlier years dallied with 
1 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 the 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. l 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. 2 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. 3 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 

1 WW. II. p. 56, translated by Wallace in Prolegomena, p. 53. 
1 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 tojacts 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, will 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 
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 casual way the name of reality. But even our ordinary 

1 Ibid, note to preface, p. 9. 

2 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 
preface. The theory of divine free grace and the theory of absolute 
obedience 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, and 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 - 1 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. 2 

Hegel means by existence something akin to what we call 
1 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 exemplifies, 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. 10 ; cf. Wallace, pp. 10-11. 

2 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 
obliterated 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 which 
the inherent thing is, its truth. This existence which is merely posited 
and reflected in other-being is, however, equally a self-transcendence 
into its infinity ; the world of appearance sets itself over against the 
world which is reflected into self and inherent. 

But that which appears and that which is essential stand absolutely 
in relation to one another. Hence, thirdly, existence is essential 
co-relation ; the appearing manifests the essential, and the latter is 
in its appearance. The co-relation is the still imperfect reconciliation 
of reflection into other-being and reflexion into self ; their complete 
inter-penetration is reality (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 mind 
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 mind 
intelligible. Mind and nature are sometimes said by common 

824318 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 
intelligible 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, 



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. XC 
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. l 
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. 2 

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 
1 Encyclopaedia, WW. VII. p. 22. Ibid. 376 note. 



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 
conception 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 

1 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 implicit into explicit being ; and the 
term, implicit, 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. 1 

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. 2 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. 3 
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 denying 
it. But fact is not reality, and Hegel s contention is that in 
such a state man is not himself ; he is a contradiction, 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 

1 For Hegel s view of evil, v. chaps. VII and VIII. 

2 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 ? 

8 WW. VIII. p. 19, Lasson VII. p. 15. 



70 THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL 

lower which defies and flouts it. Crime is not merely unprofit 
able action, it is action against right ; yet right is the true 
nature of rational action, and crime in violating right violates 
itself. It is an act which by its self-contradiction contains 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. l 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. 10-11 ; cf. Wallace s trans, p. n. 



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 2 
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 things. 
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 pfemature unity, a synthesis which makes its world 
one by the simple expedient of denying that the awkward 

1 nicht als Substanz, sondern eben so sehr als Subjekt . 

2 Realitat 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 that 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 possibilities of the life 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 o/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 
dreams were per impossibile brought 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 hypothesis 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 reality 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 
reality 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 fully 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 life can 
be reconciled. What has to be attempted in this latter case 
will appear in the sequel. 1 

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 like and it does not profess 
to offer historical explanation or even description of fact. 
It is not the part of philosophy to give that full, 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 all 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 philosophy 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 
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, 
in 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 
in solving 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 

1 With this discussion cf. A. Phalen, Das Erkenntnisproblem in Hegels 
Philosophie, 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 limita 
tions of his science. Philosophy presupposes the world ; it 
is the effort to understand what is already there. Doubtless 
the political 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 life 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 life 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 science, but 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 life 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 still 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 
immediate 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. x 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 

1 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 it 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 employment 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, may be 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 
and thought disappears. 1 

The dualism of which Cartesianism is an outstanding 
example has extended far into the history of thought, and 
many who would perhaps explicitly 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 like 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 
1 Cf. below, pp. 109. 



8o MIND 

truth about the self, even in its poorest phase, it is subject to 
grave criticism. 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 1 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. 2 

But surely, it will be said, there is more in mind than comes 

1 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 
1 have suggested the demands which the solution must satisfy. 



MIND 8 1 

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 all : it is in no wise the process aspect of mind. 
In the ordinary sense of the term it is an ideal which has hot 
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 all its substance merely by 
thinking of it. The distinction between self and not-self does 
arise, and we shall discuss it in the sequel, 1 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 
1 V. p. 93 ff- 



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 
in cortative 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 unity which is not natural at all. 

Before stating the 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 umver- 
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 minH attains its higher character by including and 
subordinating nature. Thus mind has a twofold character : 
by virtiie~of its confFast 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 gp js^suprerne, 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 world, 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 



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. 1 

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 Jrorn^ mtu.re^.f or _mind arises 
in nature/ -and its impulses and desires, the staple of Tts 
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 
idalized when it.b_eomes spiritual ; it ajchiey-es--a_unily_and 
cnnsiituies. 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_is_iruth 
it_is..na an empty. or abstra^4-Aiiversal-but-a^concretje_^wJiQle 
dey eloping itself_ into Differences. Every objective fact or law 
which rnlhcT 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 
1 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 allied 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. x 
Mind is finite when it is in contradiction with itself, when it 
I embodies itself in shapes which cannot truly realize it. Its 
content is alien to it and withstands it. Hegel points out 
that the nature of mind lies not in the limit but in the infinite 
that is distorted by the limitation. Unlike 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, unlike 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 limited, for it is 
not aware of its limit. On the other hand, he who is aware of the 
limit is aware of it not 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. 2 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 limit he must apprehend 
his essential nature of being beyond that limit. When he has 
become aware of his defect it begins to lose its limiting charac 
ter. He can now take into account the weakness of his sight 
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 wholly and entirely excluded from mind. We 
have rather to recognize that mind must determine itself, and 
thus limit itself and make itself finite. l Even the contra 
dictions of its immature forms must have a significance for 
mind and be idealized into a mode of its self-realization. And 
so, after stating that the finitude of mind lies in the incongruity 
of its notion and its actuality, Hegel adds that this finitude is 
an appearance which the mind inherently posits in itself as 
a limit to itself, in order, by its sublation, explicitly to possess 
and know freedom as its essence, i.e. be completely mani 
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 mastering 
the world, for the world is one connected whole. To withdraw, 
into the privacy of one s abstract self-identity is to excludes 
from the scope of one s freedom all the forces that move one sj 
life ; it is_to pretend that one is a thing to which nature is; 
external. The self is free, according to Hegel, because in all 
its actions it deals only with what is ideal and its own ; its 
connexions with the world are those of feeling, thought, and 
will mental powers in which the unity and self-identity of 
the self is realized. 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, 2 Ibid. 386. 



88 MIND 

over the other. 1 By idealizing 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 possibility 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 
ing 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 explicit. 2 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 idealized 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. 3 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 explicitly 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. 
Thus, 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. 3 Ibid. 383. 



MIND 89 

ality. But the character of mind is to realize 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. 1 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. 

1 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 anrj explir.it 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. jnind is mind which 
realizes itself in the outward world, giving to 



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 nuocLon the side_ofjts abstract form, considered not as 
.XeaH?ing___itsejOn. natural things but __ merely r ._ as.. j._f eeling, 
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- 

1 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. x 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 imrne^ 
diate mode of mind, its self-contained being, not yet articu- 
latfidjntp a world other thanjtself . 

Hegel begins his account of mind with its _ponrest and 
least adequate form of aspect, and to this he gives the name 
of the soiil. 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 
1 Encyclopaedia, 387 note. 



92 SUBJECTIVE 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 sou] is merged in one vagiie-.inass-0-f.-iejeling. which 
glides from one phase to another, but it does not compare, its 
pjiases^ 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 nalYe_janity_.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 feeling 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. 1 

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 habitt 
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. 2 

As the soul articulates itself and attains a unity in the shape 
of self-feeling, there gradually arises within it the distinction 
between the self and the not-self. Out of the shapeless mass 
of primitive feeling 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 

1 Encyclopaedia, 400 ; v. Wallace s translation, p. 21. 
" Ibid. 410 ; Wallace, p. 44. 



94 SUBJECTIVE MIND 

thinkers to say that the jjrimary content, the datum, of mind 
is subjective a complex of ideas, desires, and feelings front 
which a transjLfapn has t" ^p made to the nbjprtjyp ^ nr | onf- 
wajd. Thus Lotze speaks of the first step of thought as the 
of thp sn.hjpr.tivp. 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 becomes explicit is that of objectivity. The 
immediate possession of natural forces as one s ps} chical 
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 

a warp of itself and Jparns 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 Hpgpl say; that ^plf-ron^rinn^np^ k thp 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. 
Ahstrart self-ronsrionsnpss 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 by 
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 
on both sides of the relation. By the total suppression of the 
active reason of the slave the master weakens and partly 
destroys the rationality of his own expression and utterance ; 

824318 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. 1 

The fuller 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-consciousness 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 
inherently 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 

1 A slight digression may be permitted here. Those who dwell on 
the influence of economic factors in the abolition of slavery are apt to 
ignore the full import of the situation. Doubtless slavery did not give 
way until its economic disadvantages began to appear, and it may be 
true that on the whole the emancipation of the slave was advantageous 
to the lord or employer if sufficient conpensation for capital-value 
was forthcoming. But this consideration in no way precludes the 
rationality of the process, and one has to insist that the driving principle 
was really the rational nature of mind. In slavery mind is broken into 
two, and each part is defective. The weakness of the relationship lies 
in the suppressed reason of the slave and the uneducated and unmediated 
character of the reason of the master. And it is a mistake to suppose 
the change of the situation is rational only if it comes about by self- 
conscious and deliberative benevolence on the part of the master. 
One may well ask, Why is slave-labour unprofitable ? and the final 
answer is that free labour is more profitable. But the latter is more 
profitable only because the slave, or potential free man, is inherently 
capable of active rationality. If the mind of the slave had no fuller 
truth in it than is implied in Aristotle s doctrine, then as a free labourer 
he would be less efficient than as a slave. Howevei the change comes 
about, the effective force is the inherent nature of mind breaking 
through its false shapes. 



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 bound 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 
nevertheless it is mind aware of its inherent notion, the soil 
from which all spiritual fruition springs. 

This position may not commend itself at first sight. Asso 
ciation with dualistic philosophies and faculty psychologies 
so often repudiated and yet adopted has given the word 
reason a narrow connotation alien to Hegel s meaning. 
Hegel never loses sight of the continuity of mind and of its 
wholeness in each of its phases ; reason, in his sense, is not 



ioo SUBJECTIVE MIND 



a faculty, nor properly speaking an aspect of mind, but 
rather a characteristic structure and function which becomes 
explicit at a certain level. At first sight it may seem that 
reason can be made the principle of all mind only by doing 
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 of 
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 recognizes contents and activities 
that are not purely theoretical. The paradox, however, rests 
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 sufficient 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 ror 

world, the possession of it in an ideal form, and the reduction 
of 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 ideality 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 
idealism 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 will 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 realized 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 must 
be known, and their adjustment to the end must be appre 
hended. A blind will, 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 more 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. l 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 
1 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. l 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 
net 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. 2 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. 3 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 mutual 
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 
1 Ibid. * Encyclopaedia, 443 note. 3 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 idealizing 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, explicitly 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 universalizing 
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. l 

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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 4 note. 



SUBJECTIVE MIND 105 

translating itself into definite being and striving to reach 
particularity. 1 The specific difference of will is the limitation 
and determination of the self. The subject singles out a de 
finite content from 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 distinctions 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. 2 

Let us see how this attitude develops. It begins with what 
Hegel calls practical feeling, 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 rres 
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 will demands 
that the affection should agree with it. This agreement is 
pleasantness, disagreement unpleasantness. 3 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 
1 Ibid. 2 Ibid. 3 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 life has yet become explicit ; each 
relation is judged separately, and the unity of 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-revealing 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 .* 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 on one 
aim and object. 2 But it is the basis of all higher life, and 
the ethical and religious consciousness must manifest this 
1 Encyclopaedia, 473. a 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. l 

Impulse and passion, however, taken as independent and 
not as moments of an ethical will, 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 life 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 will 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 
will fit together into a whole. The will 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 explicitly free. 

The meaning of this conception of the free will must be 
carefully noted. Freedom is not isolation from nature, nor 
is it lack of order ; it is possible only to a mind that is in 
close touch with nature and that manifests law in its action. 
But the contact with nature ceases to be a bond because 
in the will 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 the self : the real question 
to be decided concerns the nature and organization of that 
environment as it appears in the self ; and when we find that 
the whole takes the shape of a principle that transcends the 

1 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 stand 
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 determination 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. x This is the 
negative side of freedom, the recognition of the inadequacy 
of the natural as such to the principle of mind ; and, when 
it is fixed as a definite stage and phenomenon of the will, 
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 which destroys all subsisting civil order, removes 
all individuals who respect order, and annihilates every 
organization which seeks to come back to life. 2 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 
finite motives it places itself over against them and is itself 
finite. It is one v/ay of acting among other possible ones, 
and its special feature is abstract universality. This point 
will be discussed more fully in connexion with what Hegel 
calls morality. 3 Secondly, this negative freedom is in bondage 
to that which it denies. The negative always involves the 
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. 

1 Philosophy of Right, 5. * Ibid. 3 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. 1 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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 6 note. 



SUBJECTIVE MIND in 

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 will 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 will unites 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 will we are conscious of 
ourselves as free. Kant, in his stricter moments, will not 
allow us to speak of an object 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 know unconditioned reality we can think it, and the 
universality of the maxims of the moral consciousness is, so far 
as it goes, congruent with the nature of the thing-in-itself. 
The flaw in our mental constitution is that it breaks into two ; 
content and form come from different sources and cannot 
attain 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 



H2 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 the 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 
unintelligible the way in which the ideas of reason act on the 
understanding, and its persistent separation of the activities 
of mind 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 universals 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. 1 
To put the point in other words, the content of experience, 
for Kant, is purely natural and cannot sustain the proper 
unity ot 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 
arTd tiot 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 
irrationality 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 actuality, 
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 
1 V. above, p. 32 fi. 



824318 



n 4 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. Iri 
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 all-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 
abandon itself to an independently "existing plan, for the" plan 
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 will the practical attitude has become 
explicitly rational ; will, starting from thought, has returned 
to thought again. Its truth and adequacy lies 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 realized in an abiding world. These 
principles are the content of the science of right, and to them 
we must now turn. 



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 elerneiit , 
arioTis rprngnizp.d by others asa^ree and objective self, 
Hegel s point of view is unusual, and at first sight appears 
incompatible with the requirements of an ethical theory. 
The difficulty, however, has already been discussed in its 
general bearings in the third chapter, and may be dismissed 
here with a brief reference. Words like righj^ obligation, 
and }u**4-^m*-ftftw3--saiH to indicate critejja 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 
his 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 Recht. Recht means not only what we 



n6 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 and 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. x 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_j^nd 
r;ght areinserjaiable ; but it is not^^hojly_satifact^ry, for 
righTTSTToTln^re]ly_^^ law. TnOSe 

wh^fa^e^up~tKe positive po7itToTT^ai e r "apt tcPrd^Titify right 

IT JT i / O 

in general with what the courts will 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. RomaiL law falls into 
three JnainJiekLs : Jus Civile, Jus Gentium, and Jus Naturale? 
The^us 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 lMS^_Naturale is what nature has taught a41 
living things. That law is not peculiar to the race of men, 
1 Jurisprudence, Lecture V. 2 V. Digest, I. i. 1-4. 



ABSTRACT RIGHT 117 

but 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 
the male and the female 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. 1 
Nature is not a worthy sponsor of any section of right, but 
the conception of natural law has a relative truth against the 
view which lays all emphasis on the positive side. Natural 
right asserted itself with vehemence against mere legality in 
the century before Hegel ; and there would have been little 
excuse for him if he had failed 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 
he lays on the identity of the actual and the rational stands 
nearer in some respects to THbse^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. 2 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 
code, 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 
justification is turned into a justification by circumstances 

1 Institutes, I. 2, pr. ; also Digest, 1. c. 

2 Philosophy of Right, 3 note. 



n8 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 najjire^Qfjmind. In the last three chapters we 
have seen~that mind is ap inhprpnf reality wo.r}P n S ts,pH nnt 
in^thephenomenal shapes of human history. When mind 
first~Becornes~ self-conscious itlippTehends^the incongruence 
of its own principle with 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 
isirior^_t]ian_a_clairn, or_an__obligation, or thejdecree_of_an 
authority^: it isthe realization ol sell-conscious mind ; and 
this~realizatiorTis the intrifTsTc cTiaracTeY^oOiTind, IF 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 
:0f 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 but 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 the 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 fundamental 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 - 1 

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^djalectic ; the startJng___point. 
therefore, is the barest and simplest aspect, and each step 
brings to light the-immanenl complexity and mediateness- of 
the whole. Hegel Distinguishes jhrge_main_ sections, the first 
two being isolated moments of the__full_conceptibir, the third 
the conception taken concretely. Firstly, thejree will gives 
itself an immediate embodiment in objects ; it subordinates 
something to itself, gives it a place within the context of 
jm 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 by other .selves ; this is 
-*ke sphere of abstract or formal right. But, secondly, the 
ethical life is the embodiment of purposes 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 
abstract right, thefirst division of thefield. the free will^ 
fakeT forrp and dermTt^rbeTng in an individual thing r in The 

-"r?-^ - .".., " fcj i T*^*T i - 

Jals itsel 



sphere of morality, the second Division, ifT5Ve"aTs~itself as an 
individual subject. Thirdly, the ethical ideal in its complete 
ness contains both aspects : it is free will realizing itself 
both in tile rnngrienr.e o f individual subjects and ia- the outer 
world. -Ql. 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 morality 
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 terminology. 

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 



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 w^rd right inrHralp-S-^hnfh thp whale field 
of objective. mind^juJLth.? .JJISt- 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 
ofjight from the more concrete shapes by using special names 
for the latter and by 



.ir** r npu 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 itself. f 

Objective mind begins wit^i abstracfe-rigb4. Self-conscious j 
rational Tnind gives itself an immediate existence in an object 
and is recognized there by other like selves. This immediate 
existence is abstract. Every individual has his 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 r capacity and so forth that are born in him. But 
from the point of view of abstract right these are irrelevajit. 
The sole point, at this stage, is that the mind is universal. 
1 Philosophy of Right, 33 note. 



122 ABSTRACT RIGHT 



_spts -its nnivprsality hafnr p itsplf ac its prp-pmingnf 

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 Jeast... adequate aspect, the bare principle in 
virtue of which the field of objective mind is entered at all. 
When mind is thus regarded it has the form of rjCTSonality, 
and to be_a person is to be the snbjer.t..nr hearer of rights in 
general. Thus Hegel regards personality as a special aspect 
"of Tnode of mind in which the (jnoments of universality and 
particularity are united in a definite and characteristic way? 

Phe person, as such, is an immediate form of mind : but 
: 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 consideration arises. 
Now the same characteristic appears in personality. Ajself- 
co.nscio.us mind xan be recognized . J as~a,_prsjon-nnly 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 could 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 



of material in which he can place his will. 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 individuaj_ift-efestion 
r.onsjrlfirs nTJvtherjnint in which he isTJKe other persons and 
excludes rartiGnTar Differences. J3ut on that account the 
principle ne apprehends does not apply to the area which he 
has neglected ; and the similarity in question refers only jo 
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. l Jhp amount nf property a man should have requires 
for its determination some more concrete category than that 
of abstract right ; for it must include considerations wJiich 
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 explicit 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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 49. 



124 ABSTRACT RIGHT 

mind is below the level of self-consciousness, but in personality 
self -consciousness is explicit. Natural miadjnakes 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 explicit 
expression in an individual .subject, and is manifested in his 
activities. Mind implants itself in an object and is recognized 
there. ^J^ut 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 frnitTj Eve.ry step of the dialectic has 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 transform 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 



ABSTRACT RIGHT 125 



of content might be organized, there would appear a negating 
and limiting universal whose sole practical application con 
sisted in inhibiting certain activities. Its positive Content 
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. i 

Abs_tratj:ightis.thus a demand that one should be a person 
and^respectothersas persons ; and its categories are nok 
formulae for action but analyses of the principles involved 1 
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 variousV 
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 personality. 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-revealing 
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 properly is that it holds a will 
within it, and a living bein^dp^sjnpt^)wn_its_body unless Jife 
has developed into will. Thus Hegel says, Animals do 
indeed possess themselves, and their soul 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. x 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 to other 
selves. It is by rpparm. nf fhi^ sep .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 limiting itself ; for it becomes liable to the lot and 
chances that external things suffer. But Hegel insists that 
this limitation is an essential moment in mind itself, and 
without it the will remains an unrealized possibility and of 
no effect. Property thus is the basis of the ethical life, 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 fkatjnQnuent 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 oTman 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 contejit. 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 limitation 
of the will in a thing or as the subsumption of the thing 
under the will. The will defines itself, and the thing becomes 
a moment of a universal. Hegel insists that the manifest 
1 Philosophy of Right, 47 note. * Ibid. 43. 



ABSTRACT RIGHT 127 

^ is_^a-become property. The natural thing 
is byjtsejf imperfect and self-contradictory ; and at whatever 
stage we like to take it, whether as a thing in the strict sense x 
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. 2 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_il J a4jr2ears_here in abstract right, is one mode 
in which the defect of nature is made good. IiL_a human 
purpose the-tiHBg44as-usoul 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. 3 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 

1 V. pp. 19-21. 2 V. p. 38 f. 

1 Fichte, Grundlage d. Naturrechts, 19 A, trans, by Kroeger, 
pp. 298-9. 





128 ABSTRACT RIGHT 

distinction between the matter and the form of the object pos 
sessed. Ncrw 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 
j consent of my purpose, and there is nothing left for another 

take into possession. x 

The person is an individual conscious of his universality, 

, in other words, a universal will in the form of an individual, 
onsequently, property, th..ijbjei^ive_existence of a private 
tger. s -QS.js_als.o.^rivate. Hegel lays some stress on this point. 
IThe will in order to come to itself must develop the moment 
]of exclusiveness and externality ; 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. 
I 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 p^r^ojiality_a.s^uch, an elementary 
principle of practical life and not adequate to the poorest 
actual existing. being. Personality as such does not exist 
1 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 4he 
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. 1 
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 
\ i j person has. 2 

Hegel has gone too fast here. He ba,s still to consider tb p 
relation of the individual to the commoji^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 personality 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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 46. * Ibid. note. 

824318 K 



I 3 o 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. 1 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 

1 The distinction he draws 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. 1 

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 where the notion is not applicable. Only a specific 
thing, separable from the essence of the person and yet 
yifhin 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. 

TbpTTotiori "f property deyelops_rtself through threa* 
moments, ttie nrst of which is taking possession, inis process 
has three main modest 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, 

1 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. 2 Philosophy of Right, 54. 



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. a 
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. 2 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. 3 

The ,secon(i_mQment 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 trie fulfilment 
of the self, and idealizes it. Use is the articulation of the 
notion of property, and the effective externalization of the 
will. To have full use of the thing makes one owner of it, 
for beyond the complete circle of its use there is nothing 
further to be the property of another . 4 When the right of 
property does not include the full right of use, it is imperfect. 

1 Philosophy of Right, 56. 2 Ibid. 58 note. 

8 Ibid. 50 note. Ibid. 61. 



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. l 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. 2 

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, 3 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. 4 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 

1 Ibid. 6 1 note. 2 Ibid. 62. 

3 For the nature of this process, v. below, p. 135 ff. 

4 V. Philosophy of 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. l 

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. 2 

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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 62. 2 Ibid. 60. 



ABSTRACT RIGHT 135 

its value as well as its use. l 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. 2 When value is taken as the important 
aspect, the specific thing which has value is i 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. 3 Hegel applies 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 
1 Ibid. 63. * Ibid. 3 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, morality, 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 
plicitly hire myself to rob or kill, or undertake something 
that may involve crime. 1 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 reality, 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 inclina 
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. 2 

Although constitutive principles of mind cannot be alien 
ated, we have seen 3 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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 66. 2 Ibid. p. 70 note. 3 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. Thejjistinction here set forlhjs that between 
a slave and a modejrn servant or day .labourer. The Athenian 
slavejiad probably lighter and higher work than our workmen 
generally have, but he was still a slave, for the whole range 
of his-ativity was given over to a master. l 

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 power 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. 2 
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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 67 note. 2 Ibid. 69. 



138 ABSTRACT RIGHT 

of property in the order in which he has taken them : rst r 
taking possession, jthenuse ^lastly relinquishment. But we 
must ~re~m ember that the exposition is dialectical, and that, 
therefore, the stages becorite mcreasmgly~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 to 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 pf 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 
understood. 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 rHa.ler.tira.ny higher, because 
more complex, thanjthe simple affirmation prior to negation ; 
arfoTit 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-<.tegory of right, -viz, contract. Pro 
perty^ taken by itself, is the most abstract phase ; it states 
explicitly 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^requiipy --t-h Q Ypr occ 
consent of each, and thus renders explicit the recognition 
of~each wilt 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. l 

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, W T C 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 slayjiry_lh_-spfeffie-- : wifl, 
which functioned as the universal, was not the true, principle 
oTaT system, but mp.rp.1y a particular will arbitrarily extended 
over another_pexson. 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 
1 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. l 

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 no 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. 2 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 
will out of it, and recognized it as belonging to another 
individual. When contract and fulfilment fall apart 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 lines 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 intention, a subjective determination of the will 
which may alter. It may be asked, then, Why is one not 
1 Philosophy of Right, 74. 2 Ibid. 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 like 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 system 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 (b) sale, (2) rent either (a) of a specific thing or 

(b) of money loan at interest, (3) wages for service. 



142 ABSTRACT 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 sign 
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 on 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 carry 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 j^ojitract inartificial ; 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 ^cjoncreteness of the higher stages depends 
on the thorough d^Yeiapjnent of tfilTneffative^spect 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 cornes 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 jnclu.de 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. Indeed, 
v 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 they 
endeavour to cancel is explicitly the universal and substantial 
element of the rational will. They go deeper than mere con 
tract does for they admit a uni\^ersaL,wi3.o5e~ beiiiM is Tooted 
in solriHriiinjmjre_jyofQund_thj.n the accidental agreement 
of paTticulai_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- 

t 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 fultestrtfiffereiic e anorgfeunion of which abstract right is 
capable is held in ..suspension and is overcome. This will 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 

\"V; is one of Categories, not o^f processes. The elements of thought 
involved in the notion of contract pass inevitably into the i 
notion of wrong and are remodelled there ; but an actual I 
contract does not necessarily become a wrongful act. Even 
when the dialectic order is repeated in the sequences of history, 
actual 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 full 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 life, 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 
thatjn-historv logical relations are embodied in an external j .1^ 
medjum and are not found m.thfjr purity \ * 

We may now consider the subdivisions of wrong. These 
are three in number : viz. naive or non-malicious 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 validity and supremacy of the 
universal. The forms of wrong are comparable to logical 

824318 L 



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 
recognized here ; each person wills the right and seeks to do 
it alone ; his wrong consists in holding that what he wills is 
right. l 

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 \ Fr^a^Js___ap_arasite. It 
draws its substance from right and isaHiievedonly" by ex 
plicitly acknowledging right ; but it also denies right and 
makes it of no effect. Hegel compares ^raiid to_ an infinite 
jnrlgpmpnt ) wpajing a_positive./lQrrnT~ 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 
b.y 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. 

1 Philosophy of Right, 86 note. 



WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 147 

The third form of wrong is crime. 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. 1 

At this point the question arises, How is it possible to 
offer violence to the free will ? In one sense it is not possible, 
for mind is not a thing to be pushed about 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 ^wo 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 

StOlC apathy. This is an abstrar.t frpprfnm unworthy "i minrl 

~ut there is another metfiocL The outward factand power 
may be accepted, mind may put itself 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 wayorariother 
it may take possession of its opposite, idealizing~THe~Tatter 
and building it injn thp prjjjjr^ nf its own life. Every form of 
mind has a difjerent_^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, t 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 externalization or definite mode of a will. 2 
Oime is the act of a free man ; it cannot be imputed to the 
unthinking object or animal ; it implies a will and a rational 

1 Ibid. 95 ; Encyclopaedia, 173 ; and WW. V. p. 90. 

2 Ibid. 92. 



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 thp. art .of a self-conscious 
being whose essence is a universal will. But the act itself 
denfes^ : th^n5alaT~^fnrrpte-~of aTT"6r5Jective 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. 1 Thus the notion of crime contradicts 
itself : it cancels that in virtue of which it is, and is therefore 
intrinsically tiftreak - - 

This does not mean that the criminal act does not exist, 
for existence is no_l the__same_thiQg_as reality. The foulest 
blemisfTis 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 hself_jri_face_of jyrong ? The answer in 
brief is, by punishmervt The crime is an act, a positive 
existent in the external world, but it is self-contradictory, 
1 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 reality as a necessity which 
mediates itself with itself by sublating the injury to it. x 
Punishment is a realization of right, a process whereby the 
inherent nature of mind, as idea , works itself out by can 
celling 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. 2 

r According to Hegel, wrong and its recompense constitute 
a_single whole, they are not externally^acldedto^ne another, 
but are members of one body, elements of a single notion. 
This distinguishes his view from many others. Many theories 
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 J 
before we condemn Hegel and Plato let us take another 
glance at his view. What is his objection to our more humane O 
theories ? Briefly this"T they forget that man is a rational 
beingT" The first point to note is that these theories, which 
we may distinguish as the 1 deterrent and the^ reformatory, 
look on punishment as an evil. It is 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 will permit. We shall return 
to this point. The deterrent theory regards punishment as 
a-lhreat. and it rrTayTTay emphasis either on the individual 
or orjL^socjeJiy. 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 

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 hifn 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. l Punish - 
ment_based solely on such a ground would itself be a wrong, 
for it would not respect personality as such. 

The reformatory .fhjory 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 realization 
merely as a future event. The wrongdoer, it says, is at 
p/esUt_only a beast : by our punishment we will make him 
a. man. But this view overlooks the fundamental considera 
tion : a beast cannot do wrong, and without the law there is 
no sin. v Crime, then, is nothing but an obnoxious act, and the 
criminal is subjected to an elaborate punishment, and not 
destroyed out of hand, simply because it is possible to make 
him a pleasant and agreeable addition to society. Thus the 
connexion between crime and punishment is broken altogether. 
Trtefe 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 
better of reformatory treatment. 

H^gel__believes that punishment goes deeper into the nature 
of man than -thiv 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_jiot. explain the 
meaning of punishment in its ultimate ferms. Punishment is 
not fundamentally an evil, it is the cancelling of an evil, the 
negation of a negation, and hence the restoration of the 
positive principle of right. Punishment is just, notJbecause 
1 Philosophy oj 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 
act 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 pypn whprL a definite agreement is lacking ,\ k 
the__^uj[iishrncnt expresses the ultimate nature of his wifi.) 
By his offence he has manifested his participation in th^ 
identical constitutive principle of every will, and punishment 
is the return of his own inherent nature upon him. 

The nature of punishment is sometimes developed in 
a slightly different way by writers who draw much of their 
inspiration from Hegel himself. They 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 againsFThem ; it is itself the 
notion of the whole, a principle within which the~bther 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~iTot 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 rationality, however, does not always achieve 
perfect expression in outward processes, ^everjge. 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_pjmiishment is the develop 
ment of the crime, the other half that 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 thaiL_this^_ajid Jt 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- 



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 between 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 says, 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 



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 foy 



wrong! In this formthe 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. "Rntjh_frqnri anH rrjmP rpqnirp pnnkhmpnt 

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 j^ 

attack on the universal has to be taken into account, and so J^ t 



punishment is an act which invades and infringes the dis-*,j) 
torted will. Since the fundamental aspect is the universal, 
the principle oi < punis1imerit does TndrTequire a point for point 
rorrgg|5^^ATirA"Q|^fe i>umaliiiicnt and the crime. An eye 
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 arid 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 all 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, religious compulsion, &c., and those whose 
injury is limited in quality and extent . 2 The extreme 
penalty is not equitably exacted in cases which do not destroy 
personality in its full range, but cancel only some of its 
1 Philosophy of Right, 93 note. 8 Ibid. 96. 



al, \ L} 
int i 1 " j* 
for rf?i 



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 - 1 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 negaii^e-ekmpnt in rn in id. 
Two points may be mentioned. Hegel s theory here supports 
hi.s_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 spme_ sort, 
a critejioji, of action7~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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 101 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_jinfair 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 dialectic 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 simpliciter 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 wrongfulness 
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 trie whole which is thus created Jj not 
an indifferent third thmgJbeYgnd right and wrong, a neufrum 
in w4iich_eaclL cancels ~jhe. 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, hag supremacy, 
and over-reaches the other. Wrong is a contradiction, an 
imperfect and unstable appearance : right is the completion, 
the substantive jwhole. Thus it is true that wrong is cancelled 
by Bright ; 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 would be 
suspended in it as a negated element, f 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 evil 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. W T rong is broken 
by its dependence on right, and is negated when the implica 
tion is made clear; but jight"is~irrteRsified_and_jnade more 
complete .by iis^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 tobe : he analyses the stages whereby 



WRONG AND PUNISHMENT 157 

life makes itself rational and coherent ; and the conclusion 
to b?"^fawn 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 will 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. 1 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 morality. 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, 

1 For a criticism of Hegel s account of morality v. Rosenkranz, 
Erlduterungen zu Hegel s Encyclopddie, pp. 95102, and Hegel als 
deutscher Nationalphilosoph, pp. 155 ff. ; 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 earlier deter 
minations . . . were to drop out of my consciousness, and 
could not be reproduced when I passed on to later ones, 
I should never be conscious of a whole ; and hence not even 
the simplest and most elementary idea of space or time could 
arise in my consciousness. x That is to say, reproduction in 
imagination is a condition of the possibility of the synthesis 
of apprehension, which in turn is a condition of the perception 
of the manifold in the forms of space and time. In the next 
place, Kant discovers that reproduction in imagination 
itself has conditions. The reproduction must be orderly, 

1 WW. Ill, Hartenstein s edition, p. 569 ; Watson s Selections, 
P- 59- 



160 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. 1 Behind the tran 
scendental conceptions lies 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. 2 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 for the former ones. But 
this is only one side of the truth. The low,er 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 
I all categories, and the most inadequate to express the nature 
I of any concrete reality : neverthelessjt is true pjf. 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. 3 I do not see 
how any view which sets transformation against preservation 

1 WW Ill, Hartenstein s edition, p. 571 ; Watson, p. 61. 

2 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. 

3 Hegel, WW. XII. p. 314. 



THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 161 

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 content 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 whole 
system. Each successive category is the principle itself) 
taken at a certain level of concreteness ; iMs a development I 
of the notion by itself, and not a mere addition to it. The" 
whole is active as the notion ; and while it transforms each 
category of the dialectic as it passes beyond it, it also carries 
forward and preserves all that is in the less adequate forms. 

We may now consider the special transition from abstract 
right to morality 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 morality we fall back on further conditions which make 
abstract right itself possible. Mind in the field of abstract 
right appears asj^erspnality ; but we may ask, Is it possible 



824318 



162 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. 1 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 explicit, 
calling that explicit 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 explicit 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 in 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. 
Every rational being is a thinking and willing subject, with 
private ends and inclinations, and infused with the universal 
principle of all ethical life. Morality is a point of view at 
which principles constitutive of the person, but merely 
implicit in his consciousness, become explicit to the agent 
himself. Thus the dialectic takes a forward step in morality ; 
for the explicit or definite mode of mind becomes more 
adequate to its notion. 

What exactly has occurred here ? One part of the answer is, 
that abstract right has become subjective. We saw in the 
fifth chapter 2 that Hegel distinguishes three moments in the 
will : the will is universal, particular, and the concrete harmony 
of the universal and the particular. In abstract right the 
first of these aspects appears. No doubt it is the realm of 
1 V. e.g. above, p. 103!. 2 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 underlying law, not located anywhere, 
and constituting the rightful aspect of property, contract, 
and punishment in an indeterminate fashion. But in morality f 
the supreme principle is the rational nature of the willing. J 
subject, and the intrinsic will is recognized by the agent to 
be ultimately his own will. Right takes shape^ here nnt QC - a -" \ 





aggregate of pieces of ppMJfiTtyjUMl BfcMS 

" 



I \1but as a~realm" oF active minds. Moreover, each individual 
* mind claims complete autonomy : the only principles recog 
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 morality is the| 
explicit self-determination of the wiU^self-conscioiisJreedom ,f 
and all the stress is laid oh The inward side, on motivel 
intention, and responsibility. The law is binding because 
each sTirJJecTlays 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- 
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 will, 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. 1 

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 right is preserved in morality. The categories 
of abstract right are a gradual 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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 106 note. 



164 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 

wills, and the next category makes this contingency explicit. 
In wrong action the inherent wjll 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 
takes a central position, and the universal becomes immediately 
one with the privacy and the particularity of the will. 1 The 
sanctity which attached to the will in property now inheres in 
the autonomy of the will itself, and Hegel speaks specifically 
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 world by glancing at Hegel s conception 
of the nature of mind as the moral subject. Mind, we have 
seen, 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 
universality for all rational beings as such ; and here also 
the corresponding sense of subjectivity coincides with it. 2 
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 valid for ah" rational beings. In morality 
also these categories are present, but the concrete system of 
absolute mind has not yet become explicit. The phenomenal 
character or finitude of this sphere is constituted by this, 
1 V. Philosophy of Right, 104. 3 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. l 

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 something 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 inexplicable 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 mind 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 

1 Ibid. 

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166 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. l This 
is explicit 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 morality, 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. 2 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. 
1 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 
morality are a demand which is not yet satisfied. Since 
morality 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 : 
firstly, purpose and responsibility ; secondly, intention and 
well-being ; thirdly, goodness, conscience, and wickedness. 1 

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. 



168 THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 

tragedy by Oedipus treated the outward effect of its act 
as a whole ; it did not divide the consequences, but accepted 
the responsibility for the outcome in its totality. But the 
moral will draws distinctions ; it is aware that the individual 
is finite and that there are operative in him forces which he 
does not command, and with which he does not identify 
himself. It therefore claims that before praise or blame are 
allotted an answer must be given to the question, Did the 
individual really do the action, or did it merely happen 
through him ? and the question means, Did the consequences 
of the action lie in his purpose ? This is the first right of the 
moral 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, religion, and 
perfect knowledge. From these higher points of view the 
significance of the category is that mind in its full 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 othef every purpose and 
activity is given its shape by the permanent disposition and 
outlook 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 
end 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 morality. 

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 pte.ce, 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 life, and more the realiza 
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. 

Morality 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. x 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. 2 

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 life. 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. 3 The ideals 
of the individual, the content which his will has derived from 
nature and has idealized into the substance of his life, must 

1 Philosophy of Right, 120. * V. ibid. 124. 

3 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. x 

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 side. 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 limits. 
We are led from this or that mind to the conception of mind 
as such, to the underlying rationality of which all 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 limited 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 
1 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 
moral 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 will 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, 
but 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 realized 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 valid only in so far as it agrees with goodness 
and is subordinated to it. l 

1 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 all 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. x The 
individual moral 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 ill-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 oi success in making the world conform 
to one s end. 

Hegel traces the phases which the will 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 rational 
inature of the will : 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 

1 Ibid. 132. 



i 7 4 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 
.from these : it comes from reason and not from sense ; it is 
/ indifferent to the lots and chances of individuals ; it is uni 
versal, common to all rational beings and binding on them in 
virtue of their common rationality. 

Such a conception is an abstraction. I have already 
indicated generally how Hegel deals with it, 1 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. The positive features of the 
old conception can be identified in the new one, floating, as it 

1 Chap. III. pp. 57-61. 



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 limits 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 lie 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 allied 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 living 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 our moral experience itself idealized 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 living 
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 conscience 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 affairs 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. 1 It claims to know in itself what right and duty are, 
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. 2 

The negative gloss given by morality to conscience leads 
to the last main form "which the developed 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 
limitations of the conscience which remains wholly 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 morality and wickedness , says Hegel, have a 
common root in explicit self-conscious exclusive certainty of 
oneself. 3 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 authoritatively without 
indicating to itself any element of universality and reason in 
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. 478-9, trans, pp. 645-6, 

2 Philosophy of Right, 137. Ibid. 139. 

824318 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 finality 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 
reconciliation 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 until this 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 
elements 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 lies 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. 1 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 
explicitly evil consciousness. After speaking of the innocence 
of Eden before the Fall, Hegel remarks that other primitive 
races have held the same belief 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. 2 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 

1 V. Encyclopaedia, 24 note. 2 Ibid. ; Wallace, p. 55. 



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. l 

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 

1 139 note. 



THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY 181 

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 likeness 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. i 

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 sublated, 
not in the sense that the first standpoint of difference 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 

1 Encyclopaedia, 24 note ; Wallace, p. 55. 

2 Philosophy of Right, 139. 



182 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. 1 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 extrinsic 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 called 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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 140. * Ibid. 



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. x 

i The highest form of this subjectivity the extreme pinnacle 
of moral evil Hegel calls irony. The term, of course, is ~j 
somewhat arbitrary, as Hegel himself is aware ; but that / 
i is of little importance, provided its significance is understood. / 
1 The ironical self lacks all-sense oi the .worth, and substantiality 
of the objective world, i 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. All 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. 



184 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. x 

1 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 will 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. 1 

Hegel has been charged, from this standpoint, with not find 
ing room in his doctrine for all that is implied in morality. He 
slurs over the moral aspect of life, we are sometimes told ; he 
does not realize the infinite guilt of sin or the infinite value of 
holiness ; 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 holiness. 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. 

1 I do not claim that this is the only sense which this term may have, 
but the name is convenient here. 



i86 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 
to 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 
preted. 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. Still 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 
we have to postulate a final end or governing purpose in the 
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 
self-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 arises 
a system of determinate duties in which the general principle 
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 morality 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 
other 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 
morality, 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 



188 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 vitality 
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 
men must obtain happiness in proportion to their merits. 1 

These are the main postulates which this theory requires : 
the final purpose of the world, the final purpose of the self, the 
perfect self-consciousness wherein perfect righteousness dwells, 
and 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 
reason. It may not be knowledge in the ordinary sense of the 
term, like the knowledge of a thing seen or touched ; but it is 
a rational faith, which alone, according to this theory, renders 
moral experience possible. 

The other form which this general attitude may adopt is, 
superficially 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 criticism 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. 

1 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. 1 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 obligation 
implies, from this point of view, that the ideal is not actually 
realized ; 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 realization 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 

1 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 more 
than suffer moral action to use it ; it conspires to arm and aim 
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 morality 
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 to 
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 morality 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 
moralized in moral action. Moreover, it is not only a material 
which reason may use ; it gives reason body a-nd 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 



in this case also. But we are driven back again in the same 
way as in the first postulate ; we are forced to distinguish 
between inherent and explicit in order to give scope for action. 
Imperfection is eternally necessary to moral action, and the 
attainment of the ideal is suicide. 

We cannot save the situation by calling in the conception 
of progress. If we say that morality is an endless progress, 
we shall be told that progress involves progressive achieve 
ment and realization ; and that since any realization of the 
moral ideal is ex hypothesi its annihilation, the conception 
does not apply. Moral action, thus, becomes mere fact, and 
hence non-moral. 

The other postulates fare in a similar fashion, and hardly 
need discussion. In the third, the contrast between the 
present evil world and the perfect one beyond conflicts with 
the concrete harmony which a real moral world requires. In 
the fourth, neither our finite worthiness nor our utter unworthi- 
ness can be given full credence ; and yet neither can be 
surrendered. 

These contradictions are inevitable in this form of moral 
teleology. Its postulates are an underhand device to gain 
the apparent benefits of a separation between real and ideal 
without its disadvantages, and to disguise the fact that it is at 
once a dualism and a monism. 

The other main form of moral teleology has already been 
criticized by implication. It rejects the postulates of the 
first form, and contents itself with an assertion of the value 
of the good will irrespective of its place in reality. Value is 
withdrawn from the objective world, and placed wholly 
within the mind. From this point of view the actual conse 
quences of action are irrelevant to its worth ; the motive is 
the essence. To mean well is enough, to be beautiful in soul. 
This view, in the end, involves utter pessimism. Of course, 
it is not willing to concede this, and claims to have an element 
of good in it. No one can fail to feel that his own humanity is 
quickened and strengthened when he sees some heroic stricken 
soul round whom the shades have gathered stand steadfast in 
his loneliness, looking death and hell itself in the face undis 
mayed. But it is by no means clear that moral teleology can 
claim such an experience as a true exposition of its own 
principles. The hero is master of himself ; he himself is 



ig2 MORAL TELEOLOGY 

a reality, and helps to give the world as a whole its character. 
But if the real were in truth alien 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 falling 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 unsullied 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 
1 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 painfullest 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 Capability 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 ? l 

The flaw which ruins moral teleology as a view of the world 
is the dualism of real and ideal on which it rests. Hegel rejects 
this dualism, and reaches a different result. The ideal is the 
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 
holds the moral self and the rude world together ; and when 
1 Sartor Resartus, The Everlasting No. 

824318 O 



i 9 4 MORAL TELEOLOGY 



the 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, 
have 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 
evil 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. l 

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 filled 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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 118. 



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 begin 
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. 1 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. 2 
This attitude is itself base and mean ; it is not the truth of the 
situation. 3 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 the 
whole ; but moral responsibility is an abstraction. 

The right to be judged by one s insight, and to have within 
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 
selves if our ideals are repudiated by the nature of things, and 
our moral righteousness is unethical. We must win our self- 

1 Ibid, 124. 2 Ibid. 

V. Phenomenology, WW. II. p. 502, trans, p. 675. 



- 196 MORAL TELEOLOGY 

ho.od, our freedom, and our ends by whole-hearted submission 
to reality. 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 rationality 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 
characteristics of thought, of laws and principles. Conscience, 
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. l 

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 morality 
itself depends. This brings us to the ethical world. 

1 Philosophy of Right, 137. 



CHAPTER X 

THE ETHICAL ORDER AND THE FAMILY 

MORALITY is an abstraction ; it is individualistic, formal, 
and capricious : the deeper truth which sustains it and from 
which it would Jain cut itself off is the ethical order. We are 
not concerned at present with the question why reality takes 
shape as a self-contradictory moral world at all, we seek 
merely 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 life 
must be social. Duty is a formal principle ; ethical concep 
tions must be concrete. The freedom claimed by the moral 
consciousness is ultimately capricious and indeterminate ; 
theethical will must manifest necessity. The moral sphere is 
sTfbJectfve ; the ethical order musi be obj ecti ve . 

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 no 
longer naive and formal. The dialectic has been mediated by 
the claims of the free will ; the infinite value of the individual 
self has been discovered ; and we have become aware that the 
sacred will of which property is the expression is a self- 
contained mind and not an impersonal force. The third main 
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 is 
to say, the logical principle underlying the ethical order is the 
idea and its categories are unities of opposites. The intrinsic |,| 
will of abstract right is to be found here, but it must hot be 
maintained at the expense of individuality. Moreover, the 
unity 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 secyuel we must recall the general view of 
mind outlined in thenrst part of the fourth chapter. The 
principles of morality are in truth merely claims or problems, 
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 
it is unprepared to use the connexions between the individual 
mind and the rest of the universe as means to freedom, it finds 
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 
shod over nature, but must follow the path laid for its feet, 
and march only when nature lets and bids it go. But how can 
this humiliation be freedom ? It is not ; and if the humility 
were all, freedom would have no place. But the humiliation 
is not all. Mind cannot merely follow nature ; for the very 
effort to apprehend nature transforms it. The paths whicb 
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 dualism 
which cannot be justified. The category of causality is 
It inadequate here, and the unity which comes to light in the 
1 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 explicit 
1 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. =Ihe 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 feelings, 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 alienation 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 
idealizations of nature. Mind is now concrete and full, but it 
is filled with a content which is not alien to it. It is orderly 
and necessary, nowhere capricious and merely formal ; and 
vet it is spiritual and free. 1 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 idealizes only one set of its 
conditions ; or perhaps it might be better to say, it recognizes 
them only in one mode of their appearance. Unlike morality 
it does not isolate man from man, but nevertheless it does not 
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 society. 

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 life. 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 3 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 life, of pastoral, agricultural, and industrial occupation, 

of custom, of the family even of religion. Characteristics of 

4 

1 V. Philosophy of Right, 144 and 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 
them to the physical conditions existing in nature we must 
interpose the social organism as a connecting link* Men reach 
individuality in social groups. At first there is no clear 
dividing line between the individual and his society ; indeed 
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 have 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. 1 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 
hope 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, 
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 ethical 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 
him. 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 
waste all activity by mere irresolution, but he insists that 
on 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 
principle, and they vanish when the principle is apprehended 
1 Philosophy of Right, 150 note. 



AND THE FAMILY 203 

concretely and with reference to the actual structure and 
organization of existing social life. But, apart from morbid 
doubt, true collisions do arise ; society is imperfect and its 
constitutive aspects work inharmoniously at points. In such 
cases the ethical order is not complete ; duty is not plain ; 
and one has to fall back on individual judgement. Private 
morality has its proper place in the interstices or at the 
frontiers 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 not 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 - 1 

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 
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 
thing. 

We may put this otherwise by saying that in the ethical 
world duty and right coincide. In abstract right the aspects 
are separated ; if I have a right, then the duty is binding on 

1 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 realized. 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, (b) 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 form 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, j 
and renders in terms of feeling the self-conscious 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 family 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 



206 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. 1 

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, 2 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. 2 Encyclopaedia, 220-2. 

3 Ibid. 366 ft. 



AND THE FAMILY 207 

live 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 
of individuals, if we prefer the word and the individuals 
are bound in inter-sexual relations. The kind reproduces 
itself in fresh individuals and is realized in a constant series 
of lives. As a natural process, thus, marriage is the realization 
of 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 
and its characteristics. And we may determine Hegel s 
attitude 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 
from that standpoint, with its self-dependent individual 
persons, in order to sublate it. 1 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 
one. But what comes into being by marriage is a union in 
which the individuals lose their independence and become 
members of a wider and deeper whole. For the present we 
may ignore exceptions and consider the positive principle. 
The union of husband and wife is a more concrete unity than 
that of separate individuals ; it may be called a higher person. 
Within this whole the individual ceases to pretend to be self- 
sufficient ; each as a spiritual being recognizes that his own 
spirit is present in the other. A family has habits, capabilities, 
an atmosphere, as specially marked as those of individuals. 
No two homes are quite alike, and the difference is not a mere 
series of particulars but resides in an attitude of things as 
a whole. This attitude grows up, it is true, by the communion 
of two minds, and in a sense it is a construct. But neverthe 
less the individual minds are moulded by it ; they cease to be 
their own and become elements in a common life. If we are 
not prepared to regard this as a sheer loss of personality we 
must believe that true individuality lies only within the 
common life, and that in the family the individuals come to be 
1 Philosophy of Right, 163. 



2 o8 THE ETHICAL ORDER 



explicitly what they are implicitly. Thus Hegel says Love 
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 - 1 

In accordance with this Hegel sets forth his view of the 
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 . 2 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. 3 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 . 

1 Philosophy of Right, 158 note. * Ibid. 166. 

3 Ibid. i 66 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 
totality ; and for its full wealth it requires that both husband 
and wife should have a personality of their own. Marriage 
is a free surrender of the private self, and the family is the 
poorer if the individualities thus surrendered are riot indepen 
dent at the beginning. The separate selves are the raw 
material 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 
a 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 full 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 - 1 
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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 167. 

824318 P 



210 THE ETHICAL ORDER 

world ; it must therefore have the conditions requisite to this 
situation. The husband, Hegel tells us, is the representative 
of the family when in its outward relations it touches other 
families ; and he has to earn its living, care for its needs, and 
administer the family means. The property of the family is 
a 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 
that 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. 

In this connexion Hegel insists that the ethical bond should 
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 family 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 the same time 
it transcends itself, since the result of the care and education 
is the production of a new personality for which there is 
no room in the family itself. 



211 



The child is potentially a free being, but its freedom is not 
yet actual and has to be brought into explicit being. On this 
the relation of the child to its parents depends. The child, 
unable to provide for itself, is dependent on the home which 
has called it into being, and has a right to be supported out 
of the family means. On the other side, the parents have 
a right to the service of the child, but Hegel points out that 
this right is closely circumscribed by the unity within which 
it falls. The child is called upon to play his part in the family 
circle, and minister to the ends which a proper care for the 
welfare of the family requires. But the nature of the child 
must not be forgotten, and the functions it is called upon to 
perform must not infringe its own rights to be considered 
a child. The child is not a thing, or a slave, nor yet a full 
personality. It should be subordinated to no private ends, 
and its proper duty is merely the other aspect of its right to 
support and development. 1 The right of the child, thus, is 
to be educated ; and the right of the parent over the free 
choice of the child is limited to what is necessary to this end. 
The relations of abstract rights are out of place here ; for the 
controlling conception is not justice but education. Hegel 
explains his view by a brief reference to the aims of education 
in the family. The mind begins in feeling, and, as Plato 
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 
work of the ethical character, and in its early years the child 
must live in the atmosphere of healthy family life. But the 
education must go farther, and its second aim is to enable the 
child 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. 
A self-dependent character has to be acquired, and is not 
easy of attainment. Children are not born either good or bad, 
and their impulses and tendencies are the undyed stuff of 
ethical life. Education has to instil order and rationality into 
impulse ; it must cultivate what is good and repress what is 
evil. An important element, therefore, is the readiness of the 
child to obey. It must be taught, by punishment if necessary, 
to forgo its momentary and capricious likings and to accept 
1 V. Philosophy of Right, 174, 175, and notes. 



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. 1 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 families. 
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 . 2 

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- 

1 One writer, Professor Mackintosh, seems to consider that the follow 
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 
in (Hegel and Hegelianism, p. 207). 

* Philosophy of Right, 175 note. 



AND THE FAMILY 213 

. . . , 

diate presentation of that unity in the medium of feeling. |j 
Hence one must admit that the permanence of marriage is 
relative and conditioned. The philosophy of the ethical 
world must deal with known institutions and not accept 
pious wishes for absolute laws. If total alienation has taken 
place, and the actual family unity been broken, not by 
momentary caprice, but in a permanent fashion, as through ; 
adultery, divorce should be allowed and recognized by law 
and religion. 

With the break-up of the family the common property 
passes into private possession, and the principle of this is 
inheritance. Hegel s view is that the members of the family 
are the natural heirs, but that no rigid principle can be laid 
down, caprice and chance having a say in the matter. The 
chief difficulty arises from the fact that as the children leave 
the home and set up new families they give up their former 
connexions and lose their former claims to support. They 
can be regarded as foreign persons for many purposes, and 
the tie of blood is a pale abstraction in comparison with the 
bonds 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 apt 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 machinery 
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 impossible 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 them, and sufficient identity of interest to stamp 
the whole as a new unit of society. 1 Whichever way it arises 
civil society presents the appearance of an aggregate, con 
sisting of various wants, impulses, and ends ; cohering at 
one point, falling apart at another ; and yet, in spite of all 
the struggle and separation it contains, holding together as 
one community. 

This society, for Hegel, is not the state ; but in the history 
of political theory it has often been mistaken for the state. 
So-called natural society is this civil society in the making ; 

1 Philosophy of Right, 181. 



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 fully later, is a uni 
versal ; it breaks forth into difference, and the system of 
self-seeking, conflicting, and co-operating individuals is an 
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. 
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 explicitly develops itself 
into a totality, and only therein has its truth and the right 
of its positive reality. x 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 
dualism. 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. i 86. 



216 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. Men 
are self-seeking and free ; so runs the doctrine of individualism. 
This Hegel grants, but his suggestion is that if you 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 
of 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 
on circumstances. And the proper category here is necessity 
because the individual does not identity 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 
they are conditioned. 1 

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 individuality proper 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 will, 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 duties of his station the individual finds an end recon 
ciling his own interest, the articulation of society, and the 
common 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 
1 Cf. above, chap. IV, p. 77 f. 



OR THE EXTERNAL STATE 217 

moments of this society whereby this realm of particularity 
works out its own peculiar 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 life. 
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 
wants ; the satisfaction of one leads to satiety and ultimately 
to dissatisfaction, so that mind is driven onward in an endless 
progression reaching after a receding ideal. This ideal Hegel 
identifies 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 material 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 limit. 

The satisfaction of want is achieved in the main 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 
the 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 intervene ; but in themselves these inequalities are not 
wrong. Mind obtains its content from nature, and ethical 



OR 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 connexion 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 
Hegel, 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. x 

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 
1 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 
neglected rights. He tells us what ethical mind is, and an 
essential point is that in order to attain completeness the 
inherent rights of property, and so forth, must be recognized 
and 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 
not 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 
regularities 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 
and publicly recognized they begin to take the shape of laws* 
The difference of customs from laws consists only in that 
customs are known in subjective and contingent fashion ; 
consequently, they are explicitly less determinate, and the 
universality of thought is less clear in them. l Hegel 
emphasizes strongly the ethical superiority of law to custom, 
and his point of view is sharply opposed to that of those 
individualistic thinkers who hanker after an ideal state where 
the natural 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 in oppo 
sition to the artificiality of law ; but, says Hegel, Life, 
i.e. the identity of the principle with the subject, is not the 
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. 2 

1 Philosophy of Right, 221. a Ibid. note. 



OR THE EXTERNAL STATE 221 

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 
affirms that nature is a realm of contingency and externality. 
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 
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-sufficing 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. 1 

Right must become law ; but, further, law must be publicly 
known. Hegel inveighs against the conception that the 
jurist, or any other person, has a 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. 2 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 
1 Ibid. 214 note. * Ibid. 215. 



222 CIVIL SOCIETY 



is it possible for every jot and tittle of the law to be known 
to all men. What Hegel insists on is that the general principles 
of law should be public, and that, although the application 
to new cases may be a matter of authority, nevertheless the 
decision should be such that men may have confidence that 
a general and well-known maxim has governed it. 1 

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 another 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 of a ruler, and he has no right to 
resist or influence its decisions. 

This general view of the court of justice is 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 
1 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 arbitrariness, 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. 1 
The third section of Hegel s discussion 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 securing 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. 2 
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 
when men fail to provide for their dependants, society is 
bound to interfere ; it must protect itself against any actions 
1 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. 1 

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 mediating 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, 
1 V. Philosophy of Right, 240-2 and notes. 



CIVIL SOCIETY 225 



has become greater ; and the increase of capital and of 
large-scale industry has cut off the ordinary worker from 
a field which was formerly open to him. Employers associa 
tions and trade unions have taken the place of the old guilds, 
so far as the place has been taken at all. And the function 
which 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 is 
articulated. We began with the system of needs, compounded 
of individuals each seeking private ends. Through the 
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 further 
the inherent universality of ethical life. And, finally, this 
universality was made concrete, firstly by the direct applica 
tion of the principles of right to individuals by the police, 
and secondly by the institution of guilds within society. 
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 have 
still to discover how these systems cohere together, and by 
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. 



824318 



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 
both in practice and in theory it is sure to manifest itself in 
the long run. The possibilities of collision 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 other 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 
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 ov/n 
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 



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 
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 rationality 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 freedom 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 but 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. From 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 will, 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 l 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 

1 P- 77 i 

I 



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 willing 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 l 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 
1 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 rationalized 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 life in 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 
the 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 



involved in one another, and which by their conflict and 
confusion would otherwise mar the whole from which they 
come and on which they depend. Civil society implies the 
state. 

From this point of view the state is not an abstraction 
from the whole stream of life ; it is society itself brought 
to its final unity and made harmonious. It is not limited to 
the officials who are most obviously its servants, the king, 
the members of the government, the police, and the like, 
but comprises every citizen within the community. The 
lesser organizations within it are the substance of which it is 
composed, and it cannot be separated from them. 

The state in relation to its contents can be regarded from 
two points of view. On the one hand, it is the unity to 
which they rise. It is not a form forced upon them from 
without, but the outcome of their own nature and needs. 
As it comes to be in the course of history its special charac 
teristics are conditioned and determined by the lower 
principles of organization which run through society. The 
precise functions which it undertakes, and the special 
machinery which it uses, depend on the structure of the 
social life of the time. And the very alterations and regula 
tions which it produces are those which are inherent in the 
social fabric itself. That is to say, it is the idea of which 
the various forms of civil society are the moments. On the 
other hand, it is the principle, the notion , which is realized 
by these lesser institutions. It determines their functions, 
limits their spheres, and co-ordinates them in accordance 
with its own character. The relation is two-sided integration 
and differentiation ; and the two aspects are complementary. 

From this point of view the opposition between patriotism 
and political freedom disappears. The state has the same 
double relation to the individual. On the one hand, the 
individual must be aware that the state is something external 
to him, determining him, and even constraining him. The 
state must stand above every private interest within it and 
must have power to mould any of its factors, however powerful 
that factor may be. To it any member may appeal for 
protection and defence against any other ; it is the supreme 
judge and has supreme right. On the other hand, the 
individual must know that the state is not an alien power, 



234 THE STATE 



but the expression and realization of his own rational 
principle. It is only his caprice which is constrained ; his 
genuine will is emancipated and maintained. In the state 
and the various organizations which it contains the individual 
is universalized ; his purposes obtain their content and 
significance from the social world ; and the ends which he 
seeks are social. Consequently he can achieve these ends in 
their fullness, that is to say, can realize himself, only if he 
takes account of the nature of society and the principles by 
which it is constituted. An anti-social act attacks its own 
substance and is opposed to itself. 

The individual, 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 



ends. Necessity, as we have seen, is hard and sad only when 
it is external ; when that which contains the individual and 
into which he passes is seen not to be an other but his own 
substance, necessity becomes freedom and this is the only 
freedom that counts. The restraints of public life are the 
articulations which the state requires in order to attain its 
proper unity and organization, and the citizen who is con 
scious of his identity with the state is made free by them. 

This is the general standpoint from which Hegel regards 
the state : his task is now to set forth the principles through 
which 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 
an early stage of our discussion x that the dialectic, although 
a 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. Philosophy, 
as Hegel has told us, must wait until reality has completed 
itself ; and so long as some essential form of reality has not 
yet come to light, the philosophy of the sphere to which it 
belongs must be imperfect. 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 to 
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 
focussed his ideas, and led to his earliest political writing. 

1 E.g., p. 53. 



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 
Luneville, 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 outlines 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 



as is sometimes supposed, simply write down the Prussian 
constitution as the outline of the state, he failed to separate 
distinctly the essential and universal from the accidental and 
local. The lesson of the times seemed so strong : the weakness 
of 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 monarchy, 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. Hegel s reply is 
that this classification is partly superficial and partly as 
Plato thought an account of inferior and imperfect expres 
sions of the truth. The distinctions apply to undeveloped 
states, where antitheses between one ruler, a few, and 
a multitude have a fairly clear meaning. But in a true state 
the government is one and several and many. The polities 
in which these aspects are separated may be adjusted to their 
circumstances ; but this is because the social world has not 
fully developed itself in them, and its higher characteristics 
are 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 
there 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. 2 

Of course, on the other hand, the constitution of the state 
is not divorced from the world of fact. A constitution cannot 
be imposed upon nations from without. 3 Nor is it ever 
made , if making means some artificial work of thought. 
A constitution only develops from the national spirit identi 
cally with that spirit s own development, and runs through 
at the same time with it the grades of formation and the 
alterations 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. 4 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 to Hegel if nothing else did. But a nation in itself is 
not a state : and here again Hegel could draw on his own 
experience. A nation is held together by natural and 
emotional ties : kinship, propinquity, language, and so forth, 
are the modes of its union ; and although the state ought to 
preserve these it must have more. By themselves national 
ties are indefinite and subjective. The unity of the people 
has to be given real existence through objective forms. The 
differences which 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 life 
will not fall into harmony at a mere shake of the hand, and 

1 Philosophy of Right, 273 

2 V. ibid. 258. 3 V. ibid. 274 and note. 
4 Encyclopaedia, 540 ; Wallace, p. 137. 



THE STATE 239 



it is vain to expect it to present itself as truly organic unless 
the actual syntheses which constitute it are allowed to come 
into being. 

Hegel s treatment of the state falls into three parts : 
firstly, its internal structure the constitution ; secondly, its 
relation, as a particular state, to other states beyond it 
international law ; thirdly, the wider development of mind 
in the world, of which each particular state is only a special 
phase universal history. 

The constitution of the state is the way in which it brings 
its various component parts into focus, or, to look at it from 
the other side, develops itself into the diversity of concrete 
life. In relation to the individuals within it, its work, as 
we have seen, is two-fold. Firstly, it maintains them as 
persons, thus making right a necessary reality, then it pro 
motes their welfare, which each originally takes care of for 
himself, but which has a thoroughly universal side ; it pro 
tects the family and guides civil society. Secondly, it carries 
both back, and the whole disposition and action of the 
individual whose tendency is to become a centre of his 
own into the life of the universal substance ; and in this 
direction, as a free power it interferes with those subordinate 
spheres and retains them in substantial immanence. x 

The constitution is realized in the government. It is 
through the government that the natural differences which 
arise 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 fullness and these differences manifested 
in existence. l 

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 will 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. 2 
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. 

2 542 ; cf. Wallace, p. 139. 



THE STATE 241 



quent distribution between particular boards or offices, which 
having their business appointed by law, to that end and for 
that reason, possess independence of action, without at the 
same time ceasing to stand under higher supervision. x 
Moreover, a special official class comes into being, fulfilling 
the duties of these departments and looking after the general 
purposes of the community committed to them. Hegel s 
conception, as we shall see, is meant to be that of a constitu 
tional monarchy and not a despotism. But we are concerned 
at present with the form rather than the content of his 
exposition. 

When we turn to the Philosophy of Right, we find a different 
analysis. In 273 Hegel gives an outline of the elements of 
the constitution. These are : (a) the power of determining 
and establishing the universal the legislative power ; (b) the 
subsumption of special spheres and individual cases under 
the universal the administrative power ; (c) subjectivity as 
the final decision of the will the power of the prince. That 
is to say, the first moment of the Encylcopaedia is the third 
here, and the second of the Encyclopaedia is divided into the 
first and second of this paragraph. 

But when Hegel goes on in the Philosophy of Right to 
expound these categories, he turns them round and brings the 
arrangement into line with the Encyclopaedia in some respects, 
taking as the first moment the power of the prince, as the 
second the administration, and as the third the legislature. 

I do not know how Hegel would have accounted for these 
different presentations. They do not seem capable of recon 
ciliation as they stand ; and it is obvious that from the point 
of view of the dialectic they cannot all be true, however far 
each of them may rest on genuine phases of the facts. I think 
that Hegel has fallen into error here, and that none of these 
accounts is satisfactory, and I shall try to indicate the element 
which perverts them. Broadly speaking, the categories of 
this sphere should be three : firstly, the universal element ; 
secondly, the particular one ; and thirdly, the union of the 
two. The analysis in 273 of the Philosophy of Right seems 
to be the soundest in principle of the three offered. 

The first moment of the state is the establishing of the 
universal ; the defining of the rational and common principles 
1 543 ; Wallace, p. 140. 



242 THE 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 
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 
that each of its functions is itself the whole in that it has the 
other moments active and operative within it. l 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 
the forces which produce it custom, judicial decision, 
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 with 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. 

1 Philosophy of Right, 272. a V. Encyclopaedia, 544. 



THE STATE 243 



In his native state of Wvirtemberg he had seen the inability 
of the old feudal nobility and the other classes of the com 
munity to rid themselves of the encrusted traditions and 
private rights of a dead past and organize themselves in 
accordance with the changed times. The king had sought to 
give a new and what appeared to be a more rational constitu 
tion, and Hegel had sided with him. The king had failed, 
but what struck Hegel most was the contrast between the 
impotence of the parts of the state to form a living unity and 
the reforming zeal of the ruler. Then, there was the chaos of 
the French Revolution, even under the Directory, until 
a new point of focus was obtained in Napoleon. Again, the 
weakness of the Holy Roman Empire was vividly before him 
an Empire where the Emperor did not rule and where the 
parts destroyed the whole. Lastly, there was the power of 
unified 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 
in action, no doubt, but nevertheless supreme, and a centre 
for the whole life of the state. Collective bodies with majority 
rule, Hegel thought, had failed, and must fail : in any stress 
they 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 ; 
and 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 
have 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 
as self-determination into which everything else goes back, 
and from which everything receives the source of its reality. x 
But why, we may ask, does Hegel not adhere to this identi 
fication 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. 



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 will 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. 1 

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 
tutionallyin 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 whole 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 the totality 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 
1 V. Philosophy 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 
point of view the state is an aggregate, and one must simply 
count the units on each side in order to decide an issue. Hegel 
rejects this doctrine. The people, apart from its monarch 
and from the organization of the whole, required by and bound 
up with its connexion with him, is a formless mass which is 
no longer a state and lacks all the characteristics found only 
in a whole having a definite structure. x 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 sole aim of the state that a nation 
should not come to existence, to power and action, as such an 
aggregate. 2 It is a mistake, Hegel insists, to identify political 
freedom with such a conception ; for it attempts to make 
the individual prior to the state and, indeed, to deny the 
reality of the state itself. On the contrary, the individual 
does not enter directly into the state, but through mediating 
systems ; and he shares in the sovereignty of the whole, not 
as an independent unity, but as modified and conditioned by 
his whole status in the community. The people is sovereign 
only as so organized. Accordingly the legislature is not 
a mere representative body, mechanically registering the 
dictates of the multitude. Its roots are in the deep formative 
agencies of the common life, the customs and modes of 
being which characterize the nation as a living whole. 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 
1 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. 
The 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 
spokesmen of the various civil institutions. Hegel puts aside 
the notion of a purely democratic equality. What is to be 
represented is not the individual as such, but the institution 
or interest ; and class representation is the right principle. 
Of course, the delegates chosen must be fit for 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 fulfil 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 
of 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 and 
sharers in its government. He also points out the need for 
the action of public opinion on officialdom in order to keep the 
administration in touch with the sources of the national life. 
At the same time, it is at least doubtful if Hegel grasped fully 
the value of this element, and he was rather impatient of it in 
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 
questions like peace and war from popular control, 1 and he 
qualifies the freedom found by individuals in this field as 
subjective . Hegel tended at times to under-estimate the 
solid 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 will turn back 
again. The representation of the people by classes and 
guilds 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 swallowed up by one of them. It is difficult for 
any man to separate the accidents of his age from the essential 
and timeless, and Hegel 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 
ministration. 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. Since 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 
in turn by the other aspects. Civil society, with which the 
executive is in direct contact, exercises a certain influence, 
and opposes some friction to its efforts. And in the last resort 
the prince may interfere from above and over-rule any act 
which is not in accordance with the general weal. This 
intervention is needed particularly when social institutions 
are still in the making, and the organization of the lower 
grades of society is defective or altogether lacking. 

In view of the considerations which we have urged in con 
nexion with the legislature, little comment is needed on this 
conception of the administration. Hegel conceives it too 
narrowly and too mechanically. It is really the articulation 
of the law, the whole system by which the common will is 
enforced. Like the legislature it includes the whole nation, 
from the king to the ordinary citizen. Hegel treats it too 
much as a class of officials as a certain part of the state 
lying intermediate between two extremes, and bounded by 
the other functions. But surely this conception of definition, 
limitation, balance, or however else it is named, falls within 
this category. The conception of the administration should 
be articulated by Hegel so that king, parliament, judiciary, 
police, and ordinary citizen are shown to have different phases 
of the administrative work committed to them by the nature 
of society itself. Their inter-relations fall within the ad 
ministration itself ; making it something greater than a mere 
class in the middle reaches of society. Hegel is misled here 
by the general error which marks his treatment of all these 
categories. Instead of articulating a real movement of 
society as a whole, he has begun by fixing two end points, and 
he puts in the administration to fill up the gap between them. 

One further suggestion may be made in this connexion. 
Hegel might have taken up his theory of punishment again 
at this point. In an earlier chapter it was pointed out that 
the fundamental aspect of punishment, retribution, is only 
its abstract notion ; and in the social world it develops new 
phases and becomes more concrete. 1 This is the point at 
which the transformation should have been brought out ; 
but Hegel s false step makes him overlook it. He thinks too 
much of the official and too little of the transformed society. 
1 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 ; that is to say, as the rule 
of one over another. But in the end this is the essential 
conception of slavery ; and the criticism which holds of slavery 
holds here also. 1 Against this we must urge that sovereignty 
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 
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 
unity through which alone the abstract sovereignty they 
express is made possible. Freedom in the state ultimately 
rests on will ; and no part of the whole is strong enough to 
govern the whole if the will of the whole is not on its side. 

Hegel, however, moved by political considerations which 
I have already tried to indicate, does not give full weight 
to this point. He identifies sovereignty with the prince. He 
sees, 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 
tional. 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 : 

1 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. l 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 wills, 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 individual, the monarch . 2 

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 merely 
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 will, 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 
1 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. x 
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 higher 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. 

1 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 internal 
differences of society become submerged, and the solidity of 
the citizen and his state stands out. This is most obvious in 
the case of war. The purely civil state, Hegel thinks, is apt 
to lose vigour ; the differences within it tend to harden into 
open conflict and strife ; and men overlook the supreme unity 
pervading the whole. 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. x 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 influences 
Hegel s account of the moral character of the state profoundly. 
His view turns on two points. On the one hand Hegel cannot 
treat the state as a mere non-moral fact, free from all obligation 
and right. We have traced the forms in which mind realizes 
itself and makes the outward world the body of a living 
spirit : we have seen how each succeeding form of mind in 
the dialectic carries up the elements which have appeared 
before it. At the present level mind realized in the state 
we cannot reverse this process and look at the world in which 
states are individuals as if it were not governed by rational 
and ethical laws. The dialectic is still within the field of 
right, and the category which it has put forth must be instinct 
with all the value and good that right can command. If 
this 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. 1 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 
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 
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. 1 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 own. 
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 all 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 
1 Philosophy of Right, 336. 



THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 257 



states are the doing of the universal mind which lies in them 
and behind them. Their lots and deeds in relation to one 
another are the phenomenal dialectic of the finitude of these 
minds, out of which arises the universal mind, the unlimited 
mind of the world. This mind wields its right and its right 
is the highest in them in universal history, the judgement of 
the world. l 

This brings us to the limit of our subject the transition 
from objective to absolute mind. But before we pass to it we 
may ask if Hegel has succeeded in avoiding the difficulties 
indicated at the beginning of the chapter. I do not believe 
that he has. He has not given way entirely to either tendency ; 
he does not treat the state as a sub-moral fact, nor does he 
fly to an abstract ideal apart from the real world. Neverthe 
less he does not avoid either fault completely, and the con 
ception which he sets forth is neither thoroughly ideal nor 
thoroughly real. 

On the one hand, he says definitely that a higher ethical 
relationship ought to hold between states than is or can be 
put into force. Now, the relation of states ought indeed to 
be inherently right ; but in the affairs of the world what is 
inherent should have power. But since there is no power 
present which can decide against the state what is inherently 
right and enforce this decision, we cannot get beyond a mere 
" ought " in this connexion. The relation of states is that of 
self-dependent beings which make stipulations among them 
selves, but which nevertheless stand above these stipulations. 2 
I do not wish to press the words of a note too far, but I do 
not feel this statement to be a mere inadvertence. Hegel 
seems aware through this section of his argument that the 
judgement of the world universal history is not a sufficient 
expression of the ethical relationship of states ; there is a law 
binding on states which they ought to recognize and which 
should be made the explicit law of their dealings with one 
another. But he leaves that law without an organization 
adequate to it ; so that it appears to be a mere ought . 

In consequence of this he tends on the other hand to cling 

to fact against the ideal. In the face of the inherent rights of 

the whole of organized society, each individual state is only 

one element of the total good, and cannot claim at its own will 

1 Philosophy of Right, 340. * Ibid. 330 note. 

824318 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 although 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 
thought, 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 



260 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 political 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 political 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 established, 
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. They are neither mere aggregates of individuals, 
nor colourless appearances of an abstract constitution. Each 
is itself an individual, with a definite quality 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 themselves 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 



262 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. l And Hegel s belief 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. 2 

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 
this 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/ 3 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. 4 

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 

1 Philosophy of History, WW, IX, 3rd edit., pp. 91-3. 

* Ibid. p. 93. 3 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 course 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. 1 

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 Hegel out 
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 

1 V. Encyclopaedia, 99 ; Larger Logic, WW. III. p. 209 ff. 



THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 265 

set themselves up as self-contained units, are abstractions 
from reality and must be transcended if they are to be known 
as they really are. They are dominated by inadequate cate 
gories and cannot be self-subsist ent and coherent so long as 
these categories are unchanged. The world as it unrolls itself 
in space and time is not finally real ; it is not fully intelligible 
and cannot, as it stands, be an adequate object of thought. 
And so, when history does violence to nature, and brings to 
light a grouping of natural facts under the guiding conception 
of mind, it is on the right track, and is to be justified against 
nature. 

On the other hand, history and the object it presents, viz. 
ethical mind, is a premature synthesis ; and the violence it 
does to nature is not completely justified. A most illumi 
nating statement on this point is contained in a note to one 
of the paragraphs of the Encyclopaedia. Speaking of objective 
mind Hegel says : Thus mind has stepped out of the form 
of mere subjectivity. But the full realization of that freedom, 
which in property is still incomplete and formal, is reached 
only in the state, in which mind develops its freedom into a 
world posited by it, an ethical world. Yet mind must step 
beyond this grade also. The defect of this objectivity of 
mind consists in that it is only something posited. The world 
must be let free again by mind and what is posited by mind 
be grasped also as something which immediately is. This 
occurs at the third grade of mind, i. e. art, religion, and 
philosophy. 1 

The world must be let free again by mind. What does 
this mean ? In brief, the answer is that mind in the ethical 
order fails to recognize nature as such ; nature has been 
treated as a vehicle of mind and only as such. Let us refer 
back to Hegel s criticism of morality. The moral self recognized 
the inadequacy of external nature, and it knew that mind can 
be satisfied only when its object and its field is mind itself. 
We saw how in pursuance of this belief the moral conscious 
ness sought to exclude from it the crude and unmoral world. 
We also saw the futility of this exclusion, the internal inco 
herence ultimately the emptiness of such a self, and the 
reassertion of the world outside the self and conditioning it. 
Ethical mind makes a great advance on this attitude, but it 

1 385 note. 



266 THE LIMITS OF THE STATE 

does not altogether escape from the same difficulty. Broadly 
speaking, the change from the moral to the ethical point of 
view is that of the individual to society, and the natural world, 
in so far as it falls within the realm of human society, has 
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, 
it 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 
which attains explicit spiritual existence in the community 
and its citizens ; but it accepts this material only in that 
special 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 



which all the differences which objective mind neglects is 
incorporated and explained. 

The categories of the final stage of Hegel s philosophy 
attempt this task. Objective mind must let the world 
free again . It must accept the natural as such and deal 
with it as itself a phase of the truth. Nature, for Hegel, is a 
moment of knowledge ; but we must not forget that in the 
idea there are no mere moments. The idea and absolute 
mind is constituted by the idea is a unity of opposites, 
and the unity is reached because of the difference. Accord 
ingly, nature must be taken as a phase of the whole which 
realizes the whole in a special way ; and its peculiar contri 
bution is necessary to that whole. Nature is other than self- 
consciousness ; and if absolute mind is not an abstract 
seif-consciousness but comprehends the truth of the lower 
stage which is conscious of a world over against it, it must, 
whatever else it does, accept and maintain this other. From 
Hegel s standpoint we do not solve the difficulty by ignoring 
nature, or by suggesting that there is no nature at all and that 
what appears to be nature is in fact a host of little minds. 
Absolute mind needs the externality and difference of nature 
in order to make its content concrete, and the knowledge of it 
is possible only to a philosophy which allows the abstract, 
incoherent, and incomplete world of nature to erect itself 
into a whole, and which merges this whole within it as a part 
of its content. 

The concrete conception which I am trying to indicate 
appears no doubt to be a direct self-contradiction, an impos 
sible union of discordant terms. And in truth this appearance 
persists whenever we speak in the abstract of the identity 
of opposites. Comprehension of the conception is always 
dependent on the content in which it is realized ; for there 
alone can we see how difference can inform and support unity. 
I leave it, therefore, as a demand that has still to be carried 
out by the science of absolute mind. The utmost that can 
be done here is to suggest a line along which the transition 
may be made ; and we may find this in the consideration that, 
in spite of apparent paradox, it is only when the world has 
been let free again by mind and what is posited by mind 
grasped also as something which immediately is that mind 
can 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 we 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 



Accident, see Substance. 
Actuality, 71 ; see also Existence. 
Administration, 239-42, 248-9. 
Anarchy, 201, 229-31. 
Appetite, 95-6. 
A priori, 5-8, 53-4, 186. 
Aristocracy, 237. 
Art, 265. 

Beautiful Soul, 191-3. 
Bequest, 213. 

Causality, 28-34, 198, 206 ; see 

also Reciprocity. 
Charity, 224. 
Children, 210-12. 
Choice, 1 08. 
Civil Community, 204, 214-25, 

23I-3- 

Classes, in state, 219 ; representa 
tion of, 246. 

Comfort, 217. 

Commerce, 219. 

Communism, 123. 

Consanguinity, 210, 213. 

Conscience, 167, 174-7, 196, 207. 

Conscientiousness, 183. 

Constitution, 238, 239, 243, 247, 
261. 

Copyright, 137. 

Corporation (Guild), 223-5, 231. 

Courage, 254. 

Crime, 70, 136, 144, 145, 147-8, 
150. 

Custom, 201, 220. 

Democracy, 237, 247. 

Dialectic, 11-16, Chapter II, 51, 

70-2, 87, 91, 119, 122, 124, 138, 

142, 143; 158-62, 177, 197. 

240-2, 249, 266. 
Divorce, 212-13. 
Dualism, 79, 90. 
Duty, 55, 58-9, 73, 167, 173-7. 

187, 196, 197, 203. 



Education, 210-12. 

Emanation, 11-12. 

Empiricism, 10, 32-3, 46 ; (ethi 
cal), 54-8, 67. 

Energy, 22 note, 25, 30. 

English Law, 221. 

Environment, 78, 107. 

Ethical point of view; (Sittlich- 
keit), 120-1, 197. 

Evil, 68, 74, 154-7, l6l 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. 

Feeling, 94, 105-6, 205, 213. 

Finitude, of nature, 76-7 ; mean 
ing of, 85 ; of mind, 85 ; of 
self, 178. 

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, 228, 229, 233-5, 2 4. 250, 
260. 

Goodness, 167, 172-3. 
Government, 227, 229, 239. 
Guild, see Corporation. 

Habit, 93. 

Happiness, 107, 188, 224 ; see 

also Well-being. 
Hedonism, 35, 55. 
Hero, 152, 191, 195. 203. 
History, 117, 156, 195, 239, 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, 113-14. 
Individualism, 215. 
Inductive science, 51, 53. 
Infinity, meanings of, 85 ; of 

mind, 85-7. 

Inheritance, see Bequest. 
Innocence, 179. 
Instinct, 220. 
Intellectualism, 46-7. 
Intention, 167, 168-71, 194-5. 
Intuition, 61-3. 
Intuitive Understanding, 112. 
Irony, 1834. 

Jurisprudence, 116. 
Jury, trial by, 222. 
Jus, 1 1 6. 

Justice, administration of, 219, 
222-3, 2 39> 2 4- 

Kind (species), 206. 

Labour, 217. 

Law, 220, 221-2, 245, 249 ; inter 
national, 239, 254-9. 

Legislature, 239-48. 

Logic, formal, i ; and Meta 
physics, 2-5, 8-9 ; and experi 
ence, 9 ; interconnexion of its 
principles, 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, 2069. 

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- i 



jective Mind ; philosophy of, 
5, 45, 53. 90. 

Monarchy, 237, 240-4, 250-2. 

Monogamy, 209. 

Morality (Moralitat], 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, I ^9- I 98, 199, 
200, 217, 234, 263, 266-8 ; 
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 fin, 

Parliament, 245-7. 

Passion, 106-7. 

Patent Laws, 137. 

Patriotism, 233-4. 

Personality, 122-5, I 28-9, 150, 

161-2. 
Philosophic attitude, 45-54, 69, 

74, 75- 

Plebiscite, 246. 
Police, 223. 
Possession, 131-2. 
Postulates (moral) 186-91. 
Poverty, 224. 
Practical attitude, 47-8. 
Prescription, 135. 
Probabilism, 182. 
Progress, 191. 
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, J 66, 190, 

229. 

Recht, 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, 

; I39, 153. 2 50. 
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, in, 199. 
Thought, and its object, 67, 264 ; 

and will, 100-5, IT 4- 
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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