Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

Dis semblance 631 of impulse and morality. But, in point of fact, the impulse is not only this empty conscious form, which might possibly have within itself a spring of action other than the impulse in question, and be driven on by that.

For sensibility is a kind of nature, which contains within itself its own laws and springs of action : consequently, morality cannot seriously mean to be the inciting motive {Triebfeder) for impulses (Triebe), the angle of inclination for incUnations.

For, since these latter have their own fixed character and pecuHar content, the consciousness, to which they were to conform, would rather be in conformity with thein — a conformity which moral self-consciousness dechnes to adopt. The i^fi^ harmony between the two is thus merely implicit and postulated. In moral action the reaHsed or present harmony of morahty and sensibihty was set up at one moment, and at the next is " displaced.

The harmony is in a misty distance beyond consciousness, where there is nothing more to be accurately distinguished or grasped ; for, to grasp this unity, which we have just tried to do, has proved impossible. In this merely immanent or implicit harmony, however, consciousness gives up itself altogether.

This immanent state is its moral completion, where the struggle of morality and sensibihty has ceased, and the latter is in conformity to the former in a way which cannot be made out.

On that account, this completion is again merely a dissemblance of the actual case ; for in point of fact morality would be really giving up itself in that completion, because it is only consciousness of absolute purpose qua pure and simple purpose, i.e. in opposition to all other purposes. Morahty is both the

632 Phenomenology of Mind activity of this pure purpose, and at the same time the consciousness of rising above sensibility, of being mixed up with sensibihty and of opposing and strugghng with it. That this moral completion is not taken seriously is directly expressed by consciousness in the fact that it shifts this completion away into infinity, i.e. asserts that the completion is never completed.

Thus it is really only the middle state of being incomplete that is admitted to have any value : a state nevertheless which at least ought to be one of progress towards completion. Yet it cannot be so ; for advancing in morality would mean approaching its annihilation and disappearance.

For the goal would be the nothingness above mentioned, the abolition of morality and consciousness itself : but to come ever nearer and nearer to nothing means to decrease. Besides, " advancing " would, in general, in the same way as " decreasing," introduce distinctions of quantity into morahty: but tliese are quite inadmissible in such a sphere.

In morality qua mode of consciousness which takes the i/t ' ethical end to be pure duty, we cannot think at all of difference, least of all of the superficial difference of quantity : there is only one virtue, only one pure duty, only one morality.

Since, then, it is not moral completion that is taken seriously, but rather the middle state, i.e., as just explained, the condition of no morality, we thus come by another way back to the content of the first postulate. For we cannot perceive how happiness is to be demanded for this moral consciousness on the ground of its worthiness to be happy.

It is well aware of its not being complete, and cannot, therefore, in point of fact, demand happiness as a desert, as something of

Dissemblance 633 which it is worthy. It can ask happiness to be given merely as an act of free grace, i.e. it can only ask for happiness as such, and as a substantive element by itself ; it cannot expect it except as the result of chance and caprice, not because there is any absolute reason of the above sort.

The condition of non-morahty herein expresses just what it is — that it is concerned, not about morality, but about happiness alone, without reference to morality. By this second aspect of the moral point of view, the assertion of the first aspect, wherein disharmony between morality and happiness is presupposed, is also cancelled.

One may pretend to have found by experience that in the actual present the man who is moral often fares badly, while the man who is not, often comes off happily. Yet the middle state of incomplete morality, the condition which has proved to be the essential one, shows clearly that this perception that morality fares badly, this experience which ought to be but is not, is merely a dissemblance of the real facts of the case.

For, since morality is not completed, i.e. since morality in point of fact is not, what can there be in experience that morality should fare badly ? Since, at the same time, it has come out that the point at issue concerns happiness alone, it is manifest that, in making the judgment, '' the man who has no morality comes oft" well," there was no intention to convey thereby that there is something \vrong in such a case.

The designation of an individual as one devoid of morality necessarily falls to the ground, when morality in general is incomplete ; such a characterisation rests, indeed, on pure caprice. Hence the sense and content of that judgment of experience is simply this, that