Phenomenology of Spirit — G. W. F. Hegel

710 Phenomenology of Mind ing thought, with the human form.* Still, the work lacks the form and existence where self as self appears : it also fails to express in its very nature that it includes within itself an inner meaning ; it lacks language, the element in which the sense and meaning contained are actually present.

The work done, therefore, even when quite purified of the animal aspect, and bearing the form and shape of self-consciousness alone, is still the silent soundless form, which needs the rays of the rising sun in order to have a sound which, when produced by light, is even then merely noise and not speech, shows merely an outer self, not the inner self.f Contrasted with this outer self of the form and shape, stands the other form, which indicates that it has in it an inner being.

Nature, turning back into its essential being, degrades its multiplicity of life, ever individuahsing itself and confounding itself in its own process, to the level of an external encasing shell, which is the covering for the inner being. And still this inner being is primarily mere darkness, the unmoved, the black formless stone.

1: Both representations contain inwardness and existence— the two moments of spirit : and both kinds of manifestation contain both moments at once in a relation of opposition, the self both as inward and as outward. Both have to be imited.

The soul of the statue in human form does not yet come out of the inner being, is not yet speech, objective existence of self which is inherently internal,— and the inner being of multiform existence is still without voice or sound, * The representations of the gods with forms half animal, half hmnan. t The statues of Memnon. X The Black Stone of Mecca : a fetish still worshipped by the faithful.

The Artificer "711 still draws no distinctions within itself, and is still separated from its outer being, to which all distinctions belong.

The artificer, therefore, combines both by blending the forms of nature and self-consciousness ; and these ambiguous beings, a riddle to themselves — the conscious strugghng with what has no consciousness, the simple inner with the multiform outer, the darkness of thought mated with clearness of expression — these break out into the language of a wisdom that is darkly deep and difficult to understand.* With the production of this work, the instinctive method of working ceases, which, in contrast to selfconsciousness, produced a work devoid of consciousness, For here the activity of the artificer, which constitutes self-consciousness, comes face to face with an inner being equally self-conscious and giving itself expression.

He has therein raised himself by his work up to the point where his conscious hfe breaks asunder, where spirit greets spirit. In this unity of self-conscious spirit with itself, so far as it is aware of being embodiment and object of its own consciousness, its blending and minghng with the unconscious condition of immediate forms of nature become purified.

These monsters in form and shape, word and deed, are resolved and dissolved into a shape which is spiritual — an outer which has entered into itself, an inner which expresses itself out of itself and in itself, — they pass into thought, which brings forth itself, preserves the shape and form suited to thought, and is transparent existence. Spirit is Artist. * Sphinxes

B Religion in the Form of Art* Spirit has raised the shape in which it is object for its own consciousness into the form of consciousness itself ; and spirit sets such a form before itself. The artificer has given up the external synthesising activity, that blending of the heterogeneous forms of thought and nature. When the shape has gained the form of self-conscious activity, the artificer has become a spiritual workman.

If we next ask, what the actual spirit is, which finds in the religion of art the consciousness of its Absolute, it turns out that this is the ethical or objective spirit. £-10 This spirit is not merely the universal substance of all individuals ; but when this substance is said to have, as an objective fact for actual consciousness, the form of consciousness, this amounts to saying that the substance, which is individuahsed, is known by the individuals within it as their proper essence and their own achievement.

It is for them neither the Light of the World, in whose unity the self-existence of self-consciousness is contained only negatively, only transitorily, and beholds the lord and master of its reahty ; nor is it the restless waste and destruction of hostile nations ; nor their subjection to " casts," which together constitute the semblance of organisation * Greek religion. 712