Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

a The Moral View of the World Self-consciousness knows and accepts duty as the Absolute. It is bound by that alone, and this substance is its own conscious life pure and simple ; duty cannot, for it, take on the form of something alien and external.

When thus shut up and confined within itself, however, moral self-consciousness is not yet affirmed and looked at as consciousness* The object is immediate knowledge, and, being thus permeated purely by the self, is not object. But, this knowledge being essentially mediation and negativity, there is implied in its very conception relation to some otherness ; and thus it is consciousness.

This other, because duty constitutes its sole essential purpose and objective content, is a reality completely devoid of significance for consciousness.

But again because this consciousness is so entirely confined within itself, it takes up towards this otherness a perfectly free and detached attitude ; and the existence of this other is, therefore, an existence completely set free from self-consciousness, and in like manner relating itself merely to itself. The freer self-consciousness becomes, the freer also is the negative object of its consciousness.

The object is thus a complete world within itself, with an individuality of * i.e. there is not the opposition of an object to subject which consciousness requires. 6io

The Moral View of the World 611 its own, an independent whole of laws peculiar to itself, as well as an independent procedure and an unfettered active realisation of those laws. It is altogether a nature, a nature whose laws and also whose action belong to itself as a being which is not disturbed about the moral self-consciousness, just as the latter is not troubled about it.

Starting with a specific character of this sort, there is formed and established a moral outlook or point of view which consists in a process of relating the implicit aspect of morality {moralisches Ansichseyn) and the explicit aspect {moralisches Fürsichseyn).

This relation presupposes both thorough reciprocal indifference and specific independence as between nature and moral purposes and activity ; and also, on the other side, a conscious sense of duty as the sole essential fact, and of nature as entirely devoid of independence and essential significance of its own.

The point of view or attitude of the moral life consists in the development of these moments, which are involved in this relation of such entirely antithetic and contradictory presuppositions. To begin with, then, the moral consciousness in general is presupposed. It takes duty to be the essential reality : itself is actual and active, and in its actuality and action fulfils duty.

But this moral consciousness, at the same time, finds before it the assumed freedom of nature : it learns by experience that nature is not concerned about giving consciousness a sense of the unity of its reality with that of nature, and hence discovers that nature may let it become happy, but perhaps also may not. The non-moral consciousness on the other hand finds, by chance perhaps, its realisa-

612 Phenomenology of Mind tion where the moral consciousness sees merely an occasion for acting, but does not see itself enjoying through its action the success of performance and the satisfaction of achievement.

It therefore finds reason for bewaihng a situation where there is no correspondence between itself and existence, and lamenting the injustice which confines it to having its object merely in the form of pure duty but refuses to let it see this object and itself actually realised. ^i,,c. The moral consciousness cannot renounce happiness and drop this element out of its absolute purpose.

The purpose, which is expressed as duty pure and simple, essentially implies retention of individual selfconsciousness and maintenance of its claims. Individual conviction and knowledge thereof constituted a fundamental element in morality. This element in the objectified purpose, in duty fulfilled, is the particular consciousness seeing itself as actually realised.

In other words, this moment is that of enjoyment, which thus lies in the very principle of morahty, not indeed of morality in the sense of immediate feeling and sentiment, but in the principle of the actualisation of morality. Owing to this, however, enjoyment is also involved in moral sentiment, for morality seeks, not to remain sentiment as opposed to action, but to act or realise itself.

Thus the purpose, expressed as a whole along with the consciousness of its elements or moments, is that duty fulfilled shall be both a purely moral act and a realised individuality, and that nature, the aspect of particularity in contrast with abstract purpose, shall be one with this purpose. While experience must necessarily bring to light the disharmony between the two aspects, seeing that nature