Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

Culture and its S'phere of Reality 503 spiritual realities, each permeates both moments, pervades both aspects; and thus their nature is not exhausted in those specific characteristics [positive and negative]. The self-consciousness that has to do with them is self-complete, is in itself and for itself.

It must, therefore, relate itself to each in that twofold form in which they appear; and by so doing, this nature of theirs, which consists in being self-estranged determinations, will come to light. Now self-consciousness takes that object to be good, and to exist per se, in which it finds itself ; and that to be bad when it finds the opposite of itself there. Goodness means its identity with objective reality, badness their disparity.

At the same time what is for it good and bad, is per se good and bad ; because it is just that in which these two aspects — of being per se, and of being for it — are the same : it is the real indwelhng soul of the objective facts, and the judgment is the evidence of its power within them, a power which makes them into what they are in themselves.

What they are when spirit is actively related to them, their identity or non-identity with spirit, — that is their real nature and the test of their true meaning, and not how they are identical or diverse taken immediately in themselves apart from spirit, i.e. not their inherent being and self-existence in abstracto.

The active relation of spirit to these moments, — which are first put forward as objects to it and thereafter pass by its action into what is essential and inherent — becomes at the same ^(,, time their reflection into themselves, in virtue of which they obtain actual spiritual existence, and their spiritual meaning comes to light. But as their first immediate characteristic is distinct from the relation of

504 Phenomenology of Mind spirit to them, the third determinate moment — their own proper spirit — is also distinguished from the second moment.

Their second inherent natm:e {Das zweite Ansich derselben) — their essentiahty which comes to Kght through the relation of spirit to them — must in the first instance turn out different from the immediate inherent nature ; for indeed this mediating process of spiritual activity puts in motion the immediate characteristic, and turns it into something else.

As a result of this process, the self-contained conscious mind doubtless finds now in the Power of the State its reality pure and simple, and its subsistence ; but it does not find its individuality as such ; it finds its inherent and essential being, but not what it is for itself. Rather, it finds there its action qua individual action rejected and denied, and subdued into obedience.

The individual thus recoils before this power and tiirns back into himself ; it is the reahty that suppresses him, and is the bad. For instead of being identical with him, that with which he is at one, it is something utterly in discordance with individuality. In contrast with this.

Wealth and Riches are the good ; they tend to the general enjoyment, they are there simply to be disposed of, and they ensure for every one the consciousness of his particular self.

Riches means in its very nature universal beneficence : if it refuses any benefit in a given case, and does not gratify every need, this is merely an accident which does not detract from its universal and necessary nature of imparting to every individual his share and being a thousand-handed benefactor. These two judgments provide the ideas of goodness

Culture and its S'phere of Reality 505 and badness with a content which is the reverse of what they had for us. Self-consciousness has up till now, however, been related to its objects only incompletely, viz. only according to the criterion of the self-existent.

But consciousness is also real in its inherent nature, and has Hkewise to take this aspect for its point of view and criterion, and by so doing round ofi completely the judgment of self-conscious spirit. According to this aspect state-power expresses its essential nature : the power of the state is in part the quiet insistence of law, in part government and prescription, which appoints and regulates the particular processes of universal action.

The one is the substance pure and simple, the other its action which animates and sustains itself and all individuals. The individual thus finds therein his ground and nature expressed, organised, and exercised.

As against this, the individual, by the enjoyment of riches, does not get to know his own imiversal nature : he only gets a transitory consciousness and enjoyment of himself qua particular and self- existing, and discovers his discordance, his want of harmony with his own essential nature. The conceptions good and bad thus receive here a content the opposite of which they had before.

These two ways of judging find each of them an identity and a disagreement. In the first case consciousness finds the power of the state out of agreement with it, and the enjoyment that came from wealth in accord with it ; while in the second case the reverse holds good. There is a twofold attainment of identity and a twofold form of disagreement : there is an opposite relation established towards both the essential reahties. We must pass judgment on these different