Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

Culture and its Sfhere of Reality 509 to the universal, and thereby brings this into existence ; the type of personaUty which renounces possession and enjoyment, acts for the sake of the prevailing power, and becomes a concrete reality in this way. Through this process the universal becomes united and bound up with existence in general, just as the individual consciousness makes itself by this renunciation essentially universal.

That from which this consciousness alienates itself by submitting to serve is its consciousness immersed in mere existence : but the being alienated from itself is the inherent nature. By thus shaping its life in accord with what is universal, it acquires a Reverence for itself, and gets reverence 3 6i> from others.

The power of the state, however, which to start with was merely universal in thought, the inherent nature, becomes through this very process universal in fact, becomes actual power. It is actually so only in getting that actual obedience which it obtains through self -consciousness judging it to be the essential reality, and through the self being freely surrendered to it.

The result of this action, binding the essential reahty and self indissolubly together, is to produce a twofold actuality, — a self that is truly actuahsed, and a state-power whose authority is accepted as true. Owing to this alienation [implied in the idea of sacrifice] state-power, however, is not yet a selfconsciousness that knows itself as state-power.

It is merely the law of the state, its inherent principle, that is accepted ; the state-power has as yet no particular will. For as yet the self-consciousness rendering service has not ahenated its pure selfhood, and made it an animating influence in the exercise of state-power ; the serving attitude merely

610 Phenomenology of Mind gives the state its bare being, sacrifices merely ^Ä./«'»,'^ its existence to the state, not its essential nature. This type of self-consciousness passes thus for something that is in conformity with the essential nature, and is acknowledged and accepted because of its inherent reality.

The others find their essential nature operative in it, but not their independent existence — find their thinking, their pure consciousness fulfilled, but not their specific individuality. It has a value, therefore, in their thoughts, and is honoured accordingly. Such a type is the haughty vassal ; he is active in the interests of the state-power, so far as the latter is not a personal will [a monarch] but merely an essential will.

His self-importance lies only in the honour thus acquired, only in the general opinion thinking of his concern for the essential will, not in an individuality gratefully thinking of his services ; for he has not helped this individuality [the monarch] to get independence.

The language he would use, were he to occupy a direct relation to the personal will of the state-power, which thus far has not arisen, would take the form of " counsel " imparted in the interests of what is the best for all. State-power has, therefore, still at this stage no will to meet the advice, and does not decide between the different opinions as to what is universally the best.

It is not yet governmental control, and on that account 5 1 ^ is in truth not yet real state-power. Individual selfexistence, the possession of an individual will that is not yet qua will surrendered, is the inner separatist spiritual principle of the various classes and stations, a spirit which keeps for its own behoof what suits itself best, in spite of its words about

Culture and its SfJiere of Reality 511 the universal best, and this clap-trap about what is universally the best tends to be made a substitute for action bringing it about. The sacrifice of existence, which takes place in the case of service, is indeed complete when it goes so far as death.

But the constant danger of a death which the individual survives, leaves a specific kind of existence, and hence a particular self-reference still untouched ; and this makes the counsel imparted in the interests of the universally best ambiguous and open to suspicion ; it really means, in point of fact, retaining the claim to a private opinion of his own, and a separate individual will as against the power of the state.

Its relation to the latter is, therefore, still one of discordance ; and it possesses the characteristic found in the case of the base type of consciousness — it is ever at the point of breaking out into rebellion.

This contradiction, which has to be got rid of, in this form of discordance and opposition between the independence of the individual conscious hfe and the universality belonging to state-authority, contains at the same time another aspect.

That renunciation of existence, when it is complete, as it is in death, is one that does not revert to the conscious hfe that makes the sacrifice ; it simply is : this conscious hfe does not survive the renunciation and exist by itself as an objective fact {an und für sich), it merely passes away in the unreconciled opposition.

That alone is true sacrifice of individuality, therefore, in which it gives itself up as completely as in the case of death, but all the while preserves itself in the renunciation. It comes thereby to be actually what it is implicitly, — the identical unity of self with its opposed self. In this way, by the