Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

The Moral View of the World 613 is detached and apart, nevertheless duty is alone the essential fact and nature by contrast is devoid of selfhood. That purpose in its entirety, which the harmony of the two constitutes, contains within it actuality itself. It is, at the same time, the thought of actuality.

The harmony of morality and nature, or — seeing that nature is taken account of merely so far as consciousness finds out natm'e's imity with it — the harmony of morality and happiness, is thought of as necessarily existing ; it is 'postulated. For to postulate or demand means that something is thought to he which is not yet actual, — a necessity affecting, not the conception qua conception, but existence.

But the requirement or necessity is at the same time essentially a relation through the conception. The existence demanded thus belongs, not to something present in the mind of some chance individual consciousness, but is implied in the very notion of moraUty ^^^ / itself, whose true content is the unity of pure with individual consciousness.

It falls to the individual consciousness to see that this unity is, for it, an actuality : — ^happiness as regards the content of the purpose, and existence in general as regards its form.

The existence thus demanded — the unity of both — is therefore not a wish, nor, looked at qua purpose, is it of such a kind as to be still uncertain of attainment ; the purpose is rather a demand of reason, or an immediate certainty and presupposition of reason. The first experience above referred to and this postulate are not the only experience and postulate ; a whole round of postulates comes to light.

For nature is not merely this completely detached external mode in which, as a bare pure object, consciousness has to reahse its purpose. Consciousness is per se essentially

614 Phenomenology of Mind something for which this other detached reaUty exists, i.e. it is itself something contingent and natural. This nature, which is properly its own, is sensibility, which, taking the form of volition, in the shape of Impulses and IncHnations, has by itself a determinate essential being of its own, i.e. has specific particular purposes, and thus is opposed to abstract will with its pure purpose.

In contrast with this opposition, however, pure consciousness rather takes the relation of sensibility to it, the absolute unity of sensibility with it, to be the essential fact. Both of these, pure thought and sensibility, are essentially and inherently one consciousness, and pure thought is just that for which and in which this pure unity exists ; but for it qiui consciousness the opposition between itself and its impulses holds.

In this conflict between reason and sensibility, the essential thing for reason is that the conflict should be resolved, and that the unity of both should come out as a result : not the original unity which consisted in both the opposites being in one individual, but a unity which arises out of the known opposition of the two.

So attained, such a unity is then the actual morality ; for in it is contained the opposition through which the self is a consciousness, or first becomes concrete and in actual fact self, and at the same time universal. In other words, we find there expressed that process of mediation which, as we see, is essential to morality.

Since, of the two factors in opposition, sensibility is otherness out and out, is the negative, while, on the other hand, pure thought of duty is the ultimate essence which cannot possibly be surrendered in any respect, it seems as if the unity produced can be brought about only by doing away with sensibility. But since

Tlie Moral View of the World 615 sensibility is itself a moment of this process of producing the unity, is the aspect of actuality, we have, in the first instance, to be content to express the unity in this form — sensibihty should be in conformity with morahty. This unity is hkewise a postulated existence ; it is not there as a fact ; for what is there is consciousness, or the opposition of sensibility and pure consciousness.

All the same, the unity is not a something per se like the first postulate, in which free external nature constitutes an aspect and the harmony of nature with moral consciousness in consequence falls outside the latter. Rather, nature is here that which lies within consciousness ; and we have here to deal with morahty (Moralität) as such, with a harmony which is the active self's very own.

Consciousness has, therefore, of itself to bring about this harmonious unity, and " to be always making progress in morality. The completion of this result, however, is pushed away into the remote infinite, because if it actually entered the life of consciousness as an actual fact, the moral consciousness would be done away with.

For morahty is only moral consciousness qua negative force; sensibility has merely a negative significance for the consciousness of pure duty, it is something merely " not in conformity with "' duty. By attaining that harmonj^ however, morality qua consciousness, i.e. its actuality, passes away, just as in the moral consciousness or actuahty its harmony vanishes.

The completion is, therefore, not to be reached as an actual fact ; it is to be thought of merely as an absolute task or problem, i.e. one which remains a problem pure and simple. Nevertheless, its content has to be thought as some-