Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

a Culture and its Sphere of Objective Eeality* The spirit of this world is spiritual essence permeated by a self-consciousness which knows itself to be directlypresent as a self- existent particular, and has that essence as its objective actuality over against itself.

But the existence of this world, as also the actuality of selfconsciousness, depends on the process that self-consciousness divests itself of its personahty, by so doing creates its world, and treats it as something alien and external, of which it must now take possession.

But the renunciation of its self-existence is itself the production of objective actuality, and in doing so, therefore, self-consciousness ipso facto makes itself master of this world. To put the matter otherwise, self-consciousness is only something definite, it only has real existence, so far as it alienates itself from itself.

By doing so, it puts itself in the position of something universal, and this its universality actualises it, establishes it objectively, makes it valid.

This equahty of the self with all selves is, therefore, not the equahty that was found in the case of right ; self-consciousness does not here, as there, get immediate recognition and acknowledgment merely because it is ; on the contrary, its claim to be rests on * It will be observed that " culture " embraces all means of selfdevelopment, "ideas" as well as material factors sucb as *' wealth," 494

Culture and its Sphere of Reality 495 its having made itself, by that mediating process of selfalienation, conform to what is universal. The spiritless formal universality which characterises the sphere of right takes up every natural form of character as well as of existence, and sanctions and establishes them. The universality which holds good here, however, is one that has undergone development, and for that reason it is concrete and actual.

The means, then, whereby an individual gets objective vaUdity and concrete actuahty here is the formative process of Culture. The alienation on the part of spirit from its natural existence is here the individual's true and original nature, his very substance.

The rehnquishment of this natural state is, therefore, both his purpose and his mode of existence ; it is at the same time the mediating process, the transi- jf^ tion of the thought-constituted substance to concrete actuality, as well as, conversely, the transition of determinate individuahty to its essential constitution.

This individuality moulds itself by culture to what it inherently is, and only by so doing is it then something fer se and possessed of concrete existence. The extent* of its culture is the measure of its reahty and its power. Although the self, qua this particular self, knows itself here to be real, yet its concrete reahsation consists solely in cancelhng and transcending the natural self.

The original determinateness of its nature is, therefore, reduced to a matter of quantity, to a greater or less energy of will, a non-essential principle of distinction. But purpose and content of the self belong to the universal substance alone, and can only be something universal. The specific particularity of * Bacon's phrase, "Knowledge is power,"

496 Phenomenology of Mind a given nature, which becomes purpose and content, is something powerless and unreal: it is a "kind of being " which exerts itself foolishly and in vain to attain embodiment : it is the contradiction of giving reality to the bare particular, while reality is, if so facto, something universal.

If, therefore, individuality is falsely held to consist in particularity of nature and character, then the real world contains no individualities and characters ; individuals are all alike for one another ; the pretence {vermeint) of individuality in that case is precisely the mere presumptive {gemeint) existence which has no permanent place in this world where only renunciation of self and, therefore, only universality get actual reality.

What is presumed or conjectured to be {Das Gemeinte) passes, therefore, simply for what it is, for a hind of being. "Kind" is not quite the same as Espece* " the most horrible of all nicknames, for it signifies mediocrity, and denotes the highest degree of contempt."!

"A kind" and "to be good of its kind " are German expressions, which add an air of honesty to this meaning, as if it were not so badly meant and intended after all ; or which, indeed, do not yet involve a clear consciousness of what " kind " and what culture and reality are.

That which, in reference to the particular individual, 59 appears as his culture, is the essential moment of spiritual substance as such, viz. : the direct transition of its ideal, thought-constituted, universality into actual reality; or otherwise put, culture is the single soul of this substance, in virtue of which the essen- * " Espece se dit de personnes auxquelles on ne trouve ni qualite ni merite. " — Littre. t Diderot's Ramcaus Neffe.