Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

598 Phenomenology of Mind Just as tlie individual self-consciousness does not find itself in this universal work of absolute freedom qua existing substance, as little does it find itself in the deeds proper and specific individual acts of will performed by this substance.

For the universal to pass into a deed, it must gather itself into the single unity of individuahty, and put an individual consciousness in the forefront ; for universal will is an actual concrete will only in a self that is single and one. Thereby, however, all other individuals are excluded from the entirety of this deed, and have only a restricted share in it, so that the deed would not be a deed of real universal self-consciousness.

Universal freedom can thus produce neither a positive achievement nor a deed ; there is left for it only negative action ; it is merely the rage and fury of disappearance and destruction. But the highest reality of all and the reality most of all opposed to absolute freedom, or rather the sole object it is yet to become aware of, is the freedom and singleness of actual self-consciousness itself.

For that universaHty which does not let itself attain the reahty of organic differentiation, and whose purpose is to maintain itself in unbroken continuity, distinguishes itself within itself all the while, because it is process or consciousness in general.

Moreover on account of its own peculiar abstraction, it divides itself into extremes equally 2.7^^ abstract, into the cold unbending bare universality, and the hard discrete absolute rigidity and stubborn atomic singleness of actual self-consciousness.

Now that it is done with exterminating and destroying express organisation, and subsists on its own behalf, this is its sole object, an object that has no other content left, no other possession, existence and external exten-

Absolute Freedom and Terror 599 sion, but is merely this knowledge of itself as absolutelypure and detached individual self. The point at which the object can be laid hold of and understood is solely its abstract existence in general.

The relation, then, of these two, since they exist for themselves indivisibly and absolutely and thus cannot arrange for a common part to act as a means for connecting them, is pure negation entirely devoid of mediation, the negation, moreover, of the individual as a factor existing within the universal.

The sole and only work and deed accomplished by universal freedom is therefore death — a death that achieves nothing, embraces nothing within its grasp ; for what is negated is the unachieved, unfulfilled punctual entity of the absolutely free self. It is thus the most cold-blooded mean and meaningless death of all, with no more significance than cleaving a head of cabbage or swallowing a draught of water.

In this single expressionless syllable consists the wisdom of the government, the intelhgence of the general will, when carrying out and executing its plans. The government is itself nothing but the self-established focus, the individual embodiment of the general will. Government, a power to will and perform proceeding from a single centre, wills and performs at the same time a determinate order and action.

In doing so it, on the one hand, excludes other individuals from a share in its deed, and, on the other, thereby constitutes itself a form of government which is a specifically determinate will and eo ipso opposed to the universal will. By no manner of means, therefore, can it put itself forward as anything but a faction.

The victorious faction only is called the government ; and just in that it is a faction lies the direct necessity of its overthrow ;

600 Phenomenology of Mind and its being government makes it, conversely, into a faction and hence guilty.

When the universal will holds to this concrete action of the government and holds this to be a crime which the government has committed against the universal will, then the government on its side has nothing tangible and external left whereby to estabhsh and show the guilt of the will opposing itself to it ; for what thus stands opposed to it as concrete actual universal will is merely unreal abstract will, bare intention.

Being suspected, therefore, takes the place, or has the significance and effect, of being guilty ; and the external reaction against this reality that lies in bare inward intention, consists in the fatuous barren destruction of this particular existent self, in whose case there is nothing else to take away but its mere existence.

In this its characteristically peculiar performance, absolute freedom becomes objective to itself, and self-consciousness finds out what this freedom is. In itself it is just this abstract self -consciousness, which destroys all distinction and all fixedness of distinction within itself. It is object to itself in this shape ; the terror of death is the direct apprehension (Anschauung) of this its negative nature.

This its reahty, however, finds absolute free self-consciousness quite different from what its own notion of itself was, viz. that the universal will is merely the positive substance of personality, and that this latter knows itself in it only positively, knows itself preserved there.

Eather for this self -consciousness, which qua pure insight completely separates its positive and negative nature — separates the unpredicated Absolute qua pure thought and qua pure matter — the absolute transition from the one to the other is found here present within