Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

Evil and Forgiveness 673 consciousness ; for this latter, rather, is the real. In opposing the latter, it is a consciousness which is not entangled in the opposition of particular and universal involved in action. It stays within the universahty of thought, takes up the attitude of an apprehending intelligence, and its first act is merely that of judgment.

Through this judgment it now places itself, as was just observed, alongside the first consciousness, and the latter, through this identity, this hkeness, between them, comes to see itself in this other consciousness. For in the attitude of apprehension consciousness of duty is passive. Thereby it is in contradiction with itself as the absolute will of duty, as the self that determines absolutely from itself.

It may well preserve itself in its purity, for it does not act ; it is hypocrisy, which wants to see the fact of judging taken for the actual deed, and instead of proving its uprightness and honesty by acts does so by expressing fine sentiments. It is thus constituted entirely in the same way as that against which the reproach is made of putting its phrases in place of duty.

In both cases alike the aspect of reality is distinct from the express statements — in the one case owing to the selfish purpose of the action, in the other through failure to act at all, a result which is inevitable when there is mere talk about duty, for duty without deeds is altogether meaningless.

The act of judging, however, has also to be looked at as a positive act of thought and has a positive content : this aspect makes the contradiction present in the apprehending consciousness and its identity with the first consciousness still more complete. The active consciousness declares its specific deed to be its duty, and the consciousness that passes judgment cannot deny VOL. II.— S

674 Phenomenology of Mind this ; for duty as such is form void of all content and capable of any. In other words, concrete action, ii^herently implying diversity in its manysidedness, involves the universal aspect, which is that which is taken as duty, just as much as the particular, which constitutes the share and interest the individual has in the act.

The consciousness expressing its judgment does not now stop at the former aspect of duty and rest content with the knowledge which the active agent has of this, viz. that this is its duty, the condition and the status of its reahty. It holds on to the other aspect, diverts the act into the inner realm, and explains the act from selfish motives and from its inner intention, an intention different from the act itself.

As every act is capable of treatment in respect of its dutifulness, so, too, each can be considered from this other point of view of particularity ; for as an act it is the actuality of an individual. This process of judging, then, takes the act out of the sphere of its objective existence, and turns it back into that of the inner realm, into the form of specific and individual particularity.

If the act carries glory with it, then the inner aspect is judged as love of fame.

If it altogether fits in with the position and status of the individual, without going beyond this position, and is so constituted that the individuality in question does not have the position hanging on to it as an external appendage, but through itself supplies the content to this universality, and by that very process shows itself to be capable of a higher status — then the inner nature of the act is judged as ambition ; and so on.

Since, in the act in general, the individual who acts comes to see himself in objective form, or gets the feeling of his

Evil and Forgiveness 675 own being in his objective existence and thus attains enjoyment, the judgment on the act finds the inner nature of it to be an impulse towards personal and private happiness, even though this happiness were to consist merely in inner moral vanity, the enjoyment of a sense of personal excellence, and in the foretaste and hope of a happiness to come.

No act can escape being judged in such a way ; for " duty for duty's sake," this bare purpose, is something unreal. What reality it has hes in the deed of some individuality, and the action thereby has in it the aspect of particularity.

No hero is a hero to his valet, not, however, because the hero is not a hero, but because the valet is — the valet, with whom the hero has to do, not as a hero, but as a man who eats, drinks, and dresses, who, in short, appears as a particular individual with certain personal wants and idiosyncrasies.

In the same way, there is no act in which that process of judgment cannot oppose the particular aspect of the individuality to the universal aspect of the act, and set the valet of morahty against the hero who does the act.* The consciousness, that so passes judgment, is in consequence itself base and mean, because it divides the act up, and brings out and holds on to its inherent inconsistency and self-discordance.

It is, furthermore, hypocrisy, because it gives out this way of judging, not as another fashion of being wicked, but as the correct consciousness of the act ; sets itself up, in its unreality, in this vanity of knowing well and better, far above the deeds it decries ; and wants to find its mere words without deeds taken for an admirable kind of reahty.

On this account, then, putting itself on a level with * Cp. with above Philosophy of History, Intro. (Eng. trans., p. 32 ff.)