THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND

G. W. F. HEGEL

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND

Table of Contents

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND ...........................................................................................................1
G. W. F. HEGEL......................................................................................................................................1
PREFACE: ON SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE......................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................................28
A. CONSCIOUSNESS(1) .................................................................................................................................33
I. CERTAINTY AT THE LEVEL OF SENSE−EXPERIENCE−THE "THIS", AND "MEANING"........................................................................................................................................34
II. PERCEPTION: OR THINGS AND THEIR DECEPTIVENESS(1) .............................................39
III. FORCE AND THE UNDERSTANDING−THE WORLD OF APPEARANCE AND THE SUPERSENSIBLE WORLD(1) ...........................................................................................................46
B. SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS(1)......................................................................................................................60
IV. THE TRUTH WHICH CONSCIOUS CERTAINTY OF SELF REALIZES ..............................60
THE TRUTH WHICH CONSCIOUS CERTAINTY OF SELF REALIZES ....................................60
A. INDEPENDENCE AND DEPENDENCE OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS..................................64
LORDSHIP AND BONDAGE ............................................................................................................64
B. FREEDOM OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS: STOICISM: SCEPTICISM: THE UNHAPPY CONSCIOUSNESS ..............................................................................................................................69
C. FREE CONCRETE MIND ...................................................................................................................80
AA. REASON(2) ..................................................................................................................................80
REASON'S CERTAINTY AND REASON'S TRUTH ......................................................................81
A. OBSERVATION AS A PROCESS OF REASON ........................................................................85
a(1). OBSERVATION OF NATURE ..................................................................................................86
a (2). OBSERVATION OF ORGANIC NATURE ............................................................................90
b. OBSERVATION OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS IN ITS PURE FORM AND IN ITS RELATION TO EXTERNAL REALITY−LOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL LAWS .............104 b. OBSERVATION OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS IN ITS PURE FORM AND IN ITS
RELATION TO EXTERNAL REALITY−LOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL LAWS .............104 c. OBSERVATION OF THE RELATION OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS TO ITS IMMEDIATE ACTUALITY − PHYSIOGNOMY AND PHRENOLOGY. ....................................108 OBSERVATION OF THE RELATION OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS TO ITS IMMEDIATE ACTUALITY − PHYSIOGNOMY AND PHRENOLOGY.(1) ...............................108
THE REALIZATION OF RATIONAL SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH ITS OWN ACTIVITY ..........................................................................................................................................123
THE REALIZATION OF RATIONAL SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH ITS OWN ACTIVITY ..........................................................................................................................................123
a. PLEASURE AND NECESSITY ...................................................................................................127
b. THE LAW OF THE HEART, AND THE FRENZY OF SELF−CONCEIT................................130
c. VIRTUE AND THE COURSE OF THE WORLD ......................................................................134
C. INDIVIDUALITY, WHICH TAKES ITSELF TO BE REAL IN AND FOR ITSELF ..............138 a. INTRODUCTORY NOTE: SELF−CONTAINED INDIVIDUALS ASSOCIATED AS A COMMUNITY OF ANIMALS, AND THE DECEPTION THENCE ARISING: THE REAL
FACT140
.................................................................................................................................................. SELF−CONSCIOUS INDIVIDUALS ASSOCIATED AS A COMMUNITY OF ANIMALS
AND THE DECEPTION THENCE ARISING: THE REAL FACT ................................................141
b. REASON AS LAWGIVER ...........................................................................................................149
c. REASON AS TESTING LAWS ....................................................................................................151
VI. SPIRIT(1) ....................................................................................................................................155
A. OBJECTIVE SPIRIT(1) − THE ETHICAL ORDER(2) .............................................................157

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Table of Contents

a. THE ETHICAL WORLD: LAW HUMAN AND DIVINE: MAN AND WOMAN ...................158 b. ETHICAL ACTION. KNOWLEDGE, HUMAN AND DIVINE. GUILT AND DESTINY ......166
c. THE CONDITION OF RIGHT OR LEGAL STATUS ................................................................172
B. SPIRIT IN SELF−ESTRANGEMENT − THE DISCIPLINE OF CULTURE ...........................175
I. THE WORLD OF SPIRIT IN SELF−ESTRANGEMENT ..........................................................178
a. CULTURE AND ITS REALM OF ACTUAL REALITY(1) .......................................................178
b. BELIEF AND PURE INSIGHT(1) ...............................................................................................192
II. ENLIGHTENMENT(1) ................................................................................................................197
a. THE STRUGGLE OF ENLIGHTENMENT WITH SUPERSTITION(1) ...................................198
b. THE TRUTH OF ENLIGHTENMENT(1) ....................................................................................210
III. ABSOLUTE FREEDOM AND TERROR(1) ............................................................................213
C. SPIRIT IN THE CONDITION OF BEING CERTAIN OF ITSELF: MORALITY ...................218
SELF−ASSURED SPIRIT: MORALITY..........................................................................................219
a. THE MORAL VIEW OF THE WORLD .......................................................................................219
b. DISSEMBLANCE .........................................................................................................................224
CONSCIENCE: THE "BEAUTIFUL SOUL": EVIL AND THE FORGIVENESS OF IT .............230
VII. RELIGION .................................................................................................................................246
A. NATURAL RELIGION ................................................................................................................251
a. GOD AS LIGHT(2) .......................................................................................................................252
b. PLANTS AND ANIMALS AS OBJECTS OF RELIGION(7) ....................................................253
c. THE ARTIFICER(9) ......................................................................................................................254
B. RELIGION IN THE FORM OF ART(1) ......................................................................................256
a. THE ABSTRACT WORK OF ART ..............................................................................................258
b. THE LIVING WORK OF ART .....................................................................................................263
c. THE SPIRITUAL WORK OF ART ..............................................................................................265
C. REVEALED RELIGION(1) .........................................................................................................273
VIII. ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE(1) ...............................................................................................288

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THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND

G. W. F. HEGEL

Translated by J. B. Baillie

This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.

http://www.blackmask.com

• PREFACE: ON SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

• INTRODUCTION

• A. CONSCIOUSNESS(1)

  • I. CERTAINTY AT THE LEVEL OF SENSE−EXPERIENCE−THE "THIS", AND "MEANING"

  • II. PERCEPTION: OR THINGS AND THEIR DECEPTIVENESS(1)

  • III. FORCE AND THE UNDERSTANDING−THE WORLD OF APPEARANCE AND THE SUPERSENSIBLE WORLD(1)

• B. SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS(1)

  • IV. THE TRUTH WHICH CONSCIOUS CERTAINTY OF SELF REALIZES

  • THE TRUTH WHICH CONSCIOUS CERTAINTY OF SELF REALIZES

  • A. INDEPENDENCE AND DEPENDENCE OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS

  • LORDSHIP AND BONDAGE

  • B. FREEDOM OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS: STOICISM: SCEPTICISM: THE UNHAPPY

  • CONSCIOUSNESS

• C. FREE CONCRETE MIND

  • AA. REASON(2)

  • REASON'S CERTAINTY AND REASON'S TRUTH

  • A. OBSERVATION AS A PROCESS OF REASON

  • a(1). OBSERVATION OF NATURE

  • a (2). OBSERVATION OF ORGANIC NATURE

  • b. OBSERVATION OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS IN ITS PURE FORM AND IN ITS RELATION TO EXTERNAL REALITY−LOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL LAWS

  • b. OBSERVATION OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS IN ITS PURE FORM AND IN ITS RELATION TO EXTERNAL REALITY−LOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL LAWS

  • c. OBSERVATION OF THE RELATION OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS TO ITS IMMEDIATE ACTUALITY − PHYSIOGNOMY AND PHRENOLOGY.

  • OBSERVATION OF THE RELATION OF SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS TO ITS IMMEDIATE ACTUALITY − PHYSIOGNOMY AND PHRENOLOGY.(1)

  • THE REALIZATION OF RATIONAL SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH ITS OWN ACTIVITY

  • THE REALIZATION OF RATIONAL SELF−CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH ITS OWN ACTIVITY

  • a. PLEASURE AND NECESSITY

  • b. THE LAW OF THE HEART, AND THE FRENZY OF SELF−CONCEIT

  • c. VIRTUE AND THE COURSE OF THE WORLD

  • C. INDIVIDUALITY, WHICH TAKES ITSELF TO BE REAL IN AND FOR ITSELF

  • a. INTRODUCTORY NOTE: SELF−CONTAINED INDIVIDUALS ASSOCIATED AS A

  • COMMUNITY OF ANIMALS, AND THE DECEPTION THENCE ARISING: THE REAL FACT

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND

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THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND

• SELF−CONSCIOUS INDIVIDUALS ASSOCIATED AS A COMMUNITY OF ANIMALS AND THE DECEPTION THENCE ARISING: THE REAL FACT

• b. REASON AS LAWGIVER

• c. REASON AS TESTING LAWS

• VI. SPIRIT(1)

• A. OBJECTIVE SPIRIT(1) − THE ETHICAL ORDER(2)

• a. THE ETHICAL WORLD: LAW HUMAN AND DIVINE: MAN AND WOMAN

• b. ETHICAL ACTION. KNOWLEDGE, HUMAN AND DIVINE. GUILT AND DESTINY

• c. THE CONDITION OF RIGHT OR LEGAL STATUS

• B. SPIRIT IN SELF−ESTRANGEMENT − THE DISCIPLINE OF CULTURE

• I. THE WORLD OF SPIRIT IN SELF−ESTRANGEMENT

• a. CULTURE AND ITS REALM OF ACTUAL REALITY(1)

• b. BELIEF AND PURE INSIGHT(1)

• II. ENLIGHTENMENT(1)

• a. THE STRUGGLE OF ENLIGHTENMENT WITH SUPERSTITION(1)

• b. THE TRUTH OF ENLIGHTENMENT(1)

• III. ABSOLUTE FREEDOM AND TERROR(1)

• C. SPIRIT IN THE CONDITION OF BEING CERTAIN OF ITSELF: MORALITY

• SELF−ASSURED SPIRIT: MORALITY

• a. THE MORAL VIEW OF THE WORLD

• b. DISSEMBLANCE

• CONSCIENCE: THE "BEAUTIFUL SOUL": EVIL AND THE FORGIVENESS OF IT

• VII. RELIGION

• A. NATURAL RELIGION

• a. GOD AS LIGHT(2)

• b. PLANTS AND ANIMALS AS OBJECTS OF RELIGION(7)

• c. THE ARTIFICER(9)

• B. RELIGION IN THE FORM OF ART(1)

• a. THE ABSTRACT WORK OF ART

• b. THE LIVING WORK OF ART

• c. THE SPIRITUAL WORK OF ART

• C. REVEALED RELIGION(1)

• VIII. ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE(1)

PREFACE: ON SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

In the case of a philosophical work it seems not only superfluous, but, in view of the nature of philosophy, even inappropriate and misleading to begin, as writers usually do in a preface, by explaining the end the author had in mind, the circumstances which gave rise to the work, and the relation in which the writer takes it to stand to other treatises on the same subject, written by his predecessors or his contemporaries. For whatever it might be suitable to state about philosophy in a preface − say, an historical sketch of the main drift and point of view, the general content and results, a string of desultory assertions and assurances about the truth − this cannot be accepted as the form and manner in which to expound philosophical truth.

Moreover, because philosophy has its being essentially in the element of that universality which encloses the particular within it, the end or final result seems, in the case of philosophy more than in that of other sciences, to have absolutely expressed the complete fact itself in its very nature; contrasted with that the mere process of bringing it to light would seem, properly speaking, to have no essential significance. On the other hand, in the general idea of e.g. anatomy − the knowledge of the parts of the body regarded as lifeless − we are quite

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sure we do not possess the objective concrete fact, the actual content of the science, but must, over and above, be concerned with particulars. Further, in the case of such a collection of items of knowledge, which has no real right to the name of science, any talk about purpose and suchlike generalities is not commonly very different from the descriptive and superficial way in which the contents of the science these nerves and muscles, etc.−are themselves spoken of. In philosophy, on the other hand, it would at once be felt incongruous were such a method made use of and yet shown by philosophy itself to be incapable of grasping the truth.

In the same way too, by determining the relation which a philosophical work professes to have to other treatises on the same subject, an extraneous interest is introduced, and obscurity is thrown over the point at issue in the knowledge of the truth. The more the ordinary mind takes the opposition between true and false to be fixed, the more is it accustomed to expect either agreement or contradiction with a given philosophical system, and only to see reason for the one or the other in any explanatory statement concerning such a system. It does not conceive the diversity of philosophical systems as the progressive evolution of truth; rather, it sees only contradiction in that variety. The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant's existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. These stages are not merely differentiated; they supplant one another as being incompatible with one another. But the ceaseless activity of their own inherent nature makes them at the same time moments of an organic unity, where they not merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the other; and this equal necessity of all moments constitutes alone and thereby the life of the whole. But contradiction as between philosophical systems is not wont to be conceived in this way; on the other hand, the mind perceiving the contradiction does not commonly know how to relieve it or keep it free from its onesidedness, and to recognize in what seems conflicting and inherently antagonistic the presence of mutually necessary moments.

The demand for such explanations, as also the attempts to satisfy this demand, very easily, pass for the essential business philosophy has to undertake. Where could the inmost truth of a philosophical work be found better expressed than in its purposes and results? and in what way could these be more definitely known than through their distinction from what is produced during the same period by others working in the same field? If, however, such procedure is to pass for more than the beginning of knowledge, if it is to pass for actually knowing, then we must, in point of fact, look on it as a device for avoiding the real business at issue, an attempt to combine the appearance of being in earnest and taking trouble about the subject with an actual neglect of the subject altogether. For the real subject−matter is not exhausted in its purpose, but in working the matter out; nor is the mere result attained the concrete whole itself, but the result along with the process of arriving at it. The purpose of itself is a lifeless universal, just as the general drift is a mere activity in a certain direction, which is still without its concrete realization; and the naked result is the corpse of the system which has left its guiding tendency behind it. Similarly, the distinctive difference of anything is rather the boundary, the limit, of the subject; it is found at that point where the subject−matter stops, or it is what this subject−matter is not. To trouble oneself in this fashion with the purpose and results, and again with the differences, the positions taken up and judgments passed by one thinker and another, is therefore an easier task than perhaps it seems. For instead of laying hold of the matter in hand, a procedure of that kind is all the while away from the subject altogether. Instead of dwelling within it and becoming absorbed by it, knowledge of that sort is always grasping at something else; such knowledge, instead keeping to the subject−matter and giving itself up to it, never gets away from itself. The easiest thing of all is to pass judgments on what has a solid substantial content; it is more difficult to grasp it, and most of all difficult to do both together and produce the systematic exposition of it.

The beginning of culture and of the struggle to pass out of the unbroken immediacy of naive Psychical life has always to be made by acquiring knowledge of universal principles and points of view, by striving, in the first instance, to work up simply to the thought of the subject−matter in general, not forgetting at the same

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time to give reasons for supporting it or refuting it, to apprehend the concrete riches and fullness contained in its various determinate qualities, and to know how to furnish a coherent, orderly account of it and a responsible judgment upon it. This beginning of mental cultivation will, however, very soon make way for the earnestness of actual life in all its fullness, which leads to a living experience of the subject−matter itself; and when, in addition, conceptual thought strenuously penetrates to the very depths of its meaning, such knowledge and style of judgment will keep their clue place in everyday thought and conversation.

2. The element of truth is the Concept/Notion (Begriff), and its true form the scientific system

The systematic development of truth in scientific form can alone be the true shape in which truth exists. To help to bring philosophy nearer to the form of science−that goal where it can lay aside the name of love of knowledge and be actual knowledge−that is what I have set before me. The inner necessity that knowledge should be science lies in its very nature; and the adequate and sufficient explanation for this lies simply and solely in the systematic exposition Of philosophy itself. The external necessity, however, so far as this is apprehended in a universal way, and apart from the accident of the personal element and the particular occasioning influences affecting the individual, is the same as the internal: it lies in the form and shape in which the process of time presents the existence of its moments. To show that the time process does raise philosophy to the level of scientific system would, therefore, be the only true justification of the attempts which aim at proving that philosophy must assume this character; because the temporal process would thus bring out and lay bare the necessity of it, nay, more, would at the same time be carrying out that very aim itself.

When we state the true form of truth to be its scientific character−or, what is the same thing, when it is maintained that truth finds the medium of its existence in notions or conceptions alone−I know that this seems to contradict an idea with all its consequences which makes great pretensions and has gained widespread acceptance and conviction at the present time. A word of explanation concerning this contradiction seems, therefore, not out of place, even though at this stage it can amount to no more than a dogmatic assurance exactly like the view we are opposing. If, that is to say, truth exists merely in what, or rather exists merely as what, is called at one time intuition, at another immediate knowledge of the Absolute, Religion, Being−not being in the centre of divine love, but the very Being of this centre, of the Absolute itself−from that point of view it is rather the opposite of the notional or conceptual form which would be required for systematic philosophical exposition. The Absolute on this view is not to be grasped in conceptual form, but felt, intuited; it is not its conception, but the feeling of it and intuition of it that are to have the say and find expression.

3. Present position of the spirit

If we consider the appearance of a claim like this in its more general setting, and look at the level which the self−conscious mind at present occupies, we shall find that self−consciousness has got beyond the sub− stantial fullness of life, which it used to carry on in the element of thought−beyond the state of immediacy of belief, beyond the satisfaction and security arising from the assurance which consciousness possessed of being reconciled with ultimate reality and with its all. pervading presence, within as well as without. Self−conscious mind has not merely passed beyond that to the opposite extreme of insubstantial reflection of self into self, but beyond this too. It has not merely lost its essential and concrete life, it is also conscious of this loss and of the transitory finitude characteristic of its content. Turning away from the husks it has to feed on, and confessing that it lies in wickedness and sin, it reviles itself for so doing, and now desires from philosophy not so much to bring it to a knowledge of what it is, as to obtain once again through philosophy the restoration of that sense of solidity and substantiality of existence it has lost. Philosophy is thus expected not so much to meet this want by opening up the compact solidity of substantial existence, and bringing this to the light and level of self−consciousness −is not so much to bring chaotic conscious life back to the orderly ways of thought, and the simplicity of the notion, as to run together what thought has divided asunder

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suppress the notion with its distinctions, and restore the feeling of existence. What it wants from philosophy is not so much insight as edification. The beautiful the holy, the eternal, religion, love−these are the bait required to awaken the desire to bite: not the notion, but ecstasy, not the march of cold necessity in the subject−matter, but ferment and enthusiasm−these are to be the ways by which the wealth of the concrete substance is to be stored and increasingly extended.

With this demand there goes the strenuous effort, almost perfervidly zealous in its activity, to rescue mankind from being sunken in what is sensuous, vulgar, and of fleeting importance, and to raise men's eyes to the stars; as if men had quite forgotten the divine, and were on the verge of finding satisfaction, like worms, in mud and water. Time was when man had a heaven, decked and fitted out with endless wealth of thoughts and pictures. The significance of all that is, lay in the thread of light by which it was attached to heaven; instead of dwelling in the present as it is here and now, the eye glanced away over the present to the Divine, away, so to say, to a present that lies beyond. The mind's gaze had to be directed under compulsion to what is earthly, and kept fixed there; and it has needed a long time to introduce that clearness, which only celestial realities had, into the crassness and confusion shrouding the sense of things ,earthly, and to make attention to the immediate present as such, which was called Experience, of interest and of value. Now we have apparently the need for the opposite of all this; man's mind and interest are so deeply rooted in the earthly that we require a like power to have them raised above that level. His spirit shows such poverty of nature that it seems to long for the mere pitiful feeling of the divine in the abstract, and to get refreshment from that, like a wanderer in the desert craving for the merest mouthful of water. By the little which can thus satisfy the needs of the human spirit we can measure the extent of its loss.

This easy contentment in receiving, or stinginess in giving, does not suit the character of science. The man who only seeks edification, who wants to envelop in mist the manifold diversity of his earthly existence and thought, and craves after the vague enjoyment of this vague and indeterminate Divinity−he may look where he likes to find this: he will easily find for himself the means to procure something he can rave over and puff himself up withal. But philosophy must beware of wishing to be edifying.

Still less must this kind of contentment, which holds science in contempt, take upon itself to claim that raving obscurantism of this sort is something higher than science. These apocalyptic utterances pretend to occupy the very centre and the deepest depths; they look askance at all definiteness and preciseness meaning; and they deliberately hold back from conceptual thinking and the constraining necessities of thought, as being the sort of reflection which, they say, can only feel at home in the sphere of finitude. But just as the−re is a breadth which is emptiness, there is a depth which is empty too: as we may have an extension of substance which overflows into finite multiplicity without the power of keeping the manifold together, in the same way we may have an insubstantial intensity which, keeping itself in as mere force without actual expression, is no better than superficiality. The force of mind is only as great as its expression; its depth only as deep as its power to expand and lose itself when spending and giving out its substance. Moreover, when this unreflective emotional knowledge makes a pretence of having immersed its own very self in the depths of the absolute Being, and of philosophizing in all holiness and truth, it hides from itself the fact that instead of devotion to God, it rather, by this contempt for all measurable precision and definiteness, simply attests in its own case the fortuitous character of its content, and in the other endows God with its own caprice. When such minds commit themselves to the unrestrained ferment of sheer emotion, they think that, by putting a veil over self−consciousness, and surrendering all understanding, they are thus God's beloved ones to whom He gives His wisdom in sleep. This is the reason, too, that in point of fact, what they do conceive and bring forth in sleep is dreams.

For the rest it is not difficult to see that our epoch is a birth−time, and a period of transition. The spirit of man has broken with the old order of things hitherto prevailing, and with the old ways of thinking, and is in the mind to let them all sink into the depths of the past and to set about its own transformation. It is indeed never at rest, but carried along the stream of progress ever onward. But it is here as in the case of the birth of a

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child; after a long period of nutrition in silence, the continuity of the gradual growth in size, of quantitative change, is suddenly cut short by the first breath drawn−there is a break in the process, a qualitative change and the child is born. In like manner the spirit of the time, growing slowly and quietly ripe for the new form it is to assume, disintegrates one fragment after another of the structure of its previous world. That it is tottering to its fall is indicated only by symptoms here and there. Frivolity and again ennui, which are spreading in the established order of things, the undefined foreboding of something unknown−all these betoken that there is something else approaching. This gradual crumbling to pieces, which did not alter the general look and aspect of the whole, is interrupted by the sunrise, which, in a flash and at a single stroke, brings to −view the form and structure of the new world.

But this new world is perfectly realized just as little as the new−born child; and it is essential to bear this in mind. It comes on the stage to begin with in its immediacy, in its bare generality. A building is not finished when its foundation is laid; and just as little, is the attainment of a general notion of a whole the whole itself. When we want to see an oak with all its vigour of trunk, its spreading branches, and mass of foliage, we are not satisfied to be shown an acorn instead. In the same way science, the crowning glory of a spiritual world, is not found complete in its initial stages. The beginning of the new spirit is the outcome of a widespread revolution in manifold forms of spiritual culture; it is the reward which comes after a chequered and devious course of development, and after much struggle and effort. It is a whole which, after running its course and laying bare all its content, returns again to itself ; it is the resultant abstract notion of the whole. But the actual realization of this abstract whole is only found when those previous shapes and forms, which are now reduced to ideal moments of the whole, are developed anew again, but developed and shaped within this new medium, and with the meaning they have thereby acquired.

4. The principle is not the completion; against formalism

While the new world makes its first appearance merely in general outline, merely as a whole lying concealed and hidden within a bare abstraction, the wealth of the bygone life, on the other hand, is still consciously present in recollection. Consciousness misses in the new form the detailed expanse of content; but still more the developed expression of form by which distinctions are definitely determined and arranged in their precise relations. Without this last feature science has no general intelligibility, and has the appearance of being an esoteric possession of a few individuals−−an esoteric possession, because in the first instance it is only the essential principle or notion of science, only its inner nature that is to be found; and a possession of few individuals, because, at its first appearance, its content is not elaborated and expanded in detail, and thus its existence is turned into something particular. Only what is perfectly determinate in form is at the same time exoteric, comprehensible, and capable of being learned and possessed by everybody. Intelligibility is the form in which science is offered to everyone, and is the open road to it made plain for all. To reach rational knowledge by our intelligence is the just demand of the mind which comes to science. For intelligence, understanding (Verstand), is thinking, pure activity of the self in general; and what is intelligible (Verstandige) is something from the first familiar and common to the scientific and unscientific mind alike, enabling the unscientific mind to enter the domain of science.

Science, at its commencement, when as yet it has reached neither detailed completeness nor perfection of form, is exposed to blame on that account. But it would be as unjust to suppose this blame to attach to its essential nature, as it is inadmissible not to be ready to recognize the demand for that further development in fuller detail. In the contrast and opposition between these two aspects (the initial and the developed stages of science) seems to lie the critical knot which scientific culture at present struggles to loosen, and about which so far it is not very clear. One side parades the wealth of its material and the intelligibility of its ideas; the other pours contempt at any rate on the latter, and makes a parade of the immediate intuitive rationality and divine quality of its content. Although the first is reduced to silence, perhaps by the inner force of truth alone, perhaps, too, by the noisy bluster of the other side, and even though having regard to the reason and nature of the case it did feel overborne, yet it does not therefore feel satisfied as regards those demands for greater

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development; for those demands are just, but still unfulfilled. Its silence is due only in part to the victory of the other side; it is half due to that weariness and indifference which are usually the consequence when expectations are being constantly awakened by promises which are not followed up by performance.

The other side no doubt at times makes an easy enough matter of having a vast expanse of content. They haul on to their territory a lot of material, that, namely, which is already familiar and arranged ill order; and since they are concerned more especially about what is exceptional, strange, and curious, they seem all the more to be in possession of the rest, which knowledge in its own way was finished and done with, as well as to have control over what was unregulated and disorderly. Hence everything appears brought within the compass of the Absolute Idea, which seems thus to be recognized in everything, and to have succeeded in becoming a system in extenso of scientific knowledge. But if we look more closely at this expanded system we find that it has not been reached by one and the same principle taking shape in diverse ways; it is the shapeless repetition of one and the same idea, which is applied in an external fashion to different material, the wearisome reiteration of it keeping up the semblance of diversity. The Idea, which by itself is no doubt the truth, really never gets any farther than just where it began, as long as the development of it consists in nothing else than such a repetition of the same formula. If the knowing subject carries round everywhere the one inert abstract form, taking up in external fashion whatever material comes his way, and dipping it into this element, then this comes about as near to fulfilling what is wanted − viz. a self−origination of the wealth of detail, and a self−determining distinction of shapes and forms−as any chance fancies about the content in question. It is rather a monochrome formalism, which only arrives at distinction in the matter it has to deal with, because this is already prepared and well known.

This monotonousness and abstract universality are maintained to be the Absolute. This formalism insists that to be dissatisfied therewith argues an incapacity to grasp the standpoint of the Absolute, and keep a firm hold on it. If it was once the case that the bare possibility of thinking of something in some other fashion was sufficient to refute a given idea, and the naked possibility, the bare general thought, possessed and passed for the entire substantive value of actual knowledge; similarly we find here all the value ascribed to the general idea in this bare form without concrete realization; and we see here, too, the style and method of speculative contemplation identified with dissipating and. resolving what is determinate and distinct, or rather with hurling it down, without more ado and without any justification, into the abyss of vacuity. To consider any specific fact as it is in the Absolute, consists here in nothing else than saying about it that, while it is now doubtless spoken of as something specific, yet in the Absolute, in the abstract identity A = A, there is no such thing at all, for everything is there all one. To pit this single assertion, that "in the Absolute all is one", against the organized whole of determinate and complete knowledge, or of knowledge which at least aims at and demands complete development−to give out its Absolute as the night in which, as we say, all cows are black−that is the very naivete of emptiness of knowledge.

The formalism which has been deprecated and despised by recent philosophy, and which has arisen once more in philosophy itself, will not disappear from science, even though its inadequacy is known and felt, till the knowledge of absolute reality has become quite clear as to what its own true nature consists in. Having in mind that the general idea of what is to be done, if it precedes the attempt to carry it out, facilitates the comprehension of this process, it is worth while to indicate here some rough idea of it, with the hope at the same time that this will give us the opportunity to set aside certain forms whose habitual presence is a hindrance in the way of speculative knowledge.

5. The absolute is subject −−

In my view−a view which the developed exposition of the system itself can alone justify−everything depends on grasping and expressing the ultimate truth not as Substance but as Subject as well. At the same time we must note that concrete substantiality implicates and involves the universal or the immediacy of knowledge itself, as well as that immediacy which is being, or immediacy qua object for knowledge. If the generation

PREFACE: ON SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

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