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History of Philosophy
German Philosophy: Hegel, the Hegelians
by Turner, William (S.T.D.)
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HEGEL
Life. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born at Stuttgart in
1770. His life, like that of all the great post-Kantian philosophers,
is merely the history of his academic and literary career. At the age
of eighteen he entered the theological seminary at Tübingen, where
he devoted himself to the study of Kant and Rousseau, having for
companions Schelling and the young poet Hölderlin, whose
enthusiasm for Greek poetry he fully shared. The years 1793-1800 he
spent as private tutor at Berne and at Frankfurt-am-Main; years in
which, through the study of Hellenic literature, he attained a
realization of the spiritual significance of nature as the key to the
harmony of existence. In 1801 he entered the University of Jena, and,
after a few years spent there as Privatdocent, was appointed
professor extraordinary (1805). While at Jena he renewed his
acquaintance with Schelling, who was at that time editor of the
Critical Journal of Philosophy. Soon, however, divergence of opinion between the
two great opponents of Fichte's subjectivism led to the development by
Hegel of a system opposed to the philosophy of identity; in 1807 he
published his Phänomenologie des Geistes, his first
important contribution to speculative philosophy. After spending a year
as newspaper editor at Bamberg, Hegel became rector of the gymnasium at
Nuremberg, and while there published his Logik
(Wissenschaft der Logik, 1816). In 1816 he was made professor of
philosophy at Heidelberg, and in 1818 was transferred to the University
of Berlin. While at Heidelberg he published the Encyclopaedia
(Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im
Grundrisse, 1817). He died at Berlin in 1831.
Sources. Hegel's works were published soon after his death
(Berlin, 1832 ff.), in nineteen volumes, the last volume being the life
of Hegel written by Rosenkranz. The Journal of Speculative
Philosophy (Vols. I-V, St. Louis, 1867-1871) published translations
of the Phänomenologie and of portions of the
Encyklopädie. The Logik was translated by W. T.
Harris, and is to be found in the second volume of the Journal
just referred to. Wallace has published translations of the most
important portions of the Encyklopädie (The Logic of
Hegel, Oxford, 1892, and Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, Oxford,
1894). The translation of the Vorlesungen über die Philosophie
der Geschichte, by Sibree, is published in Bohn's Library
(Philosophy of History, London, 1860, 1884).
Professor Caird's Hegel (Blackwood's Philosophical
Classics, Edinburgh and Philadelphia, 1896) will be found very
useful by those who are not prepared to take up Stirling's formidable
exposition, The Secret of Hegel (2 vols., London, 1865; vol.,
Edinburgh and London, 1898). Mind, especially in the new series,
contains many valuable articles expository and explanatory of Hegelian
philosophy. [1] See also Fischer's Hegel (Heidelberg, 1898-1901).
[1] For instance, N.S., Vols. III and IV (1894-1895), Time and
Hegelian Dialectic, and Vol. VI (1897), Hegel's Treatment of the
Subjective Notion. On Hegelian terminology, cf.
Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology (ed. Baldwin), article,
"Hegel's Terminology." Consult also Seth, Hegelianism and
Personality (second edition, London and Edinburgh, 1893), Morris,
Hegel's Philosophy of the State and of History (Griggs'
Classics, Chicago, 1887), and Hibben, Hegel's Logic (New
York, 1902).
DOCTRINES
The Problem of Philosophy. Thus far, in following the course of
the development of philosophic thought in Germany, we have
found that Kant, by failing to complete the synthesis of ultimate
reality, bequeathed the problem towards the solution of which all
post-Kantian speculation was directed. Fichte completed the synthesis
by merging the thing-in-itself (object) in the activity of the Ego
(subject). Schelling tried to effect a synthesis equally complete by
merging both subject and object in the indifference of the Absolute.
Hegel now approaches the problem anew. Dissatisfied with Schelling's
solution of the problem, he proposes to substitute for the Absolute of
indifference an Absolute of immanent activity. According to Schelling,
nature and spirit (object and subject) proceed from the
Absolute; according to Hegel, the Absolute becomes successively
nature and spirit. The Absolute of Hegel's speculative system is a
process rather than a source; it is infinite, but, unlike
the Spinozistic substance, it is an infinite of activity,
opposition, and tension, rather than of static immensity and
undifferentiated plenitude; it is a maelstrom rather than a sea of
unruffled rest.
This concept of the Absolute is Hegel's starting point; but we can
understand neither his starting point nor his method unless we first
obtain a clear conception of the frame of mind in which he
approaches the problems of philosophy. In Fichte, as in Kant, the
ethical character predominated, and in Fichte's philosophy the
practical reason retained its supremacy. In Schelling it was the
scientific-artistic character that prevailed, and in his philosophy the
real and the ideal, the rational and the imaginative, were given equal
play. In Hegel, the rational or idealistic, temperament is
predominant; in his vast philosophical synthesis the theoretical is
placed supreme above the practical, and action is subordinated to
thought, for thought is the center and sum of reality: "the rational
alone is real"; "all being is thought realized, and all becoming is a
development of thought." Mere science, he observes, looks for the
causal explanations of phenomena; philosophy seeks to find the ideal
interpretation of
phenomena, to understand them in terms of the Absolute, which is
thought.
As to content, therefore, philosophy does not go beyond
experience; it is, to repeat Kant's distinction, transcendental but
not transcendent. Indeed, it cannot go beyond rational experience,
since the rational alone is real, and philosophy must necessarily be in
harmony with actuality and experience. [2] As to form, however, philosophy
differs from the empirical sciences; for, to the laws, classifications,
and categories of these sciences it adds the categories of notion,
being, essence, etc. In logic, as we shall see, these categories are
studied, as it were, in vacuo, that is, devoid of all empirical
content; but in the philosophy of nature and in the philosophy of mind
they are studied in their development and determination. Logic is,
nevertheless, a science of reality, for in it reality is studied
through the abstract categories.
[2] Logic, p. 10. References are to Wallace's translation
(Oxford, 1892).
Hegel's is a critical philosophy; yet it is, at the same time,
systematic or constructive. It is, as Wallace says, "a system which is
self-critical and systematic only through the absoluteness of its
criticism;" [3] or, to use Hegel's own phrase, it is "an immanent and
incessant dialectic."
[3] Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, p. xvi.
Briefly, then, Hegel 's philosophy is idealism in the absolute
sense of the word, -- logical or conceptual rather than ethical or
scientific. It is a philosophy of identity, inasmuch as it looks
upon nature and spirit as manifestations of a higher Absolute. It is a
philosophy of development, inasmuch as the Absolute from which it
deduces nature and spirit is not a static but a dynamic prius.
This dynamic prius of nature and spirit is the process from
in-itself (an-sich) through out-of-self (fürsich,
Anders-sein) to for-itself (an-und-füsich).
Before passing to consider Hegel's method it is necessary to emphasize
the importance of the idea of development and to explain the
principle which governs all development, whether
in the purely logical order or in nature and mind. In its barest
statement, the principle is that all development passes through three
stages, -- in-itself, out-of-self, and for-itself. This
may be called a metaphysical application of the maxim on which the
mystics insist, namely, "Die to live." For it pertains to the very
essence of spirit that through disintegration it must attain to
reintegration, through diversity to unity, through strife to peace,
through opposition to agreement. It is a law of thought as well as a
law of being (and thought is being) that a concept or a thing
realizes itself by going out from itself (losing itself in the
other) and returning to itself. To take one of Hegel's favorite
examples: Freedom is developed by discipline, which is its opposite.
The freedom of the child is surrendered in the discipline of education
in order to become the mature freedom of the man, and the freedom of
the man is in turn surrendered in the discipline of law in order to
become the freedom of the citizen.
Hegel's Method is to be understood in the light of this
principle of development. Fichte, while admitting in theory that
philosophic method consists in the use of thesis, antithesis,
and synthesis, failed to develop this idea of method and to
apply it to every department of thought. Schelling relied on intuition,
and gave free scope to his exuberant imagination. Hegel insists on the
pruning of the imaginative faculty and the discussion of all intuitions
by means of dialectic. Philosophy, he observes, being the
thinking study of things, does not stop at the intuition which
presents the thing (object) in its immediate unity, for that is only
part of the truth, but follows it out into the self-mediation whereby
it passes into its opposites and back again to reconstructed unity.
Philosophy, therefore, must pursue a concept or an object from its
immediate unity into the divergence of opposites, so as to arrive at
the full truth in the reconciliation of opposites. For "all position is
negation" (every concept contains its opposite), and "all negation is
position" (every
opposite contains that to which it is opposed); so that neither in
affirmation nor in negation is there the full truth, but in the
reaffirmation which follows affirmation and negation. Here we have the
famous dialectical method, the triadism which determines the division
as well as the method of Hegel's philosophy.
It is important to note here that "At least the first and third
category (the in-itself and for-itself) in every triad
may be looked upon as definitions of the Absolute, or metaphysical
definitions of God, -- the first where the thought-form of the triad is
formulated in its simplicity, and the third being the return from
differentiation to a simple self-reference. The second sub-category
(the out-of-self) in each triad, where the grade of thought is
in its differentiation, gives, on the other hand, a definition of the
finite." [4]
[4] Logic, p. 156.
We shall find as we proceed triad within triad. The first great triad
is Idea, nature, and spirit, which gives us the division
of philosophy.
Division of Philosophy. Philosophy starts with the Idea. It is
scarcely necessary to remark that the term Idea does not here designate
a phenomenon of the individual consciousness, but the system of reason,
the sum of reality. Now the Idea, following the law of development, is
at first in-itself (an-sich), then outside itself
(fürsich, Anders-sein), and finally, for-itself
(an-und-fürsich) There are, therefore, three parts of
philosophy: (1) logic, the science of the Idea in itself; (2)
philosophy of nature, the science of the Idea outside itself, or
in the state of otherness; (3) philosophy of mind, the science
of the Idea come back to itself out of otherness. [5] In each of these
divisions there are subordinate triadic divisions, so that each part is
a circle rounded and completed in itself, while philosophy as a whole
resembles a circle of circles. [6]
[5] Op. cit., p. 28; Werke, vi, 26.
[6] Logic, p. 24.
1. Logic is the science of the pure Idea. This does not
mean that logic is the science of the forms of thought, or that it is
the science of mere thought. It is the science of reality; for the
Idea is the sum of reality, -- the synthetic unity of expenence.
Logic differs from the other parts of philosophy merely in this, that
it is the science of reality looked at through the medium of pure or
abstract thought. If, then, logic is the "morphology of thought,"
Hegelian logic is the morphology of the world, of life, of reality. As
Hegel himself says, "Logic coincides with metaphysics, the science of
things set and held in thoughts." [7]
[7] Op. cit., p. 45.
It is important to remark here that the identification of logic with
metaphysics necessitates a change in the meaning of the word
"category" and in that of the phrase "deduction of the categories." The
forms of thought are for Hegel what they were for none of his Kantian
predecessors, forms of being in a sense akin to that which the
schoolmen attached to substantial forms, although, of course,
they differ radically from the Scholastic forms inasmuch as they are
wholly dynamic processes rather than static entities conceived after
some remote analogy to a mold or die. If, then, the categories are
processes of being as well as forms of thought, the deduction of the
categories will be the tracing of their genealogy from the first form,
which is Being. It will not be enough to enumerate the categories and
to indicate their systematic articulation; it will be necessary to
discover and demonstrate their genetic connection, their functional
dependence, so to speak, on one another. Logic is not only the
morphology, it is also the physiology of thought.
It is important to note also that neither in the logic nor anywhere
else in Hegelian philosophy are the categories discovered. The task of
discovering the categories belongs to experience and to the empirical
sciences. The categories being given, philosophy shows how they grow
out of each other and are phases of the same reality. Philosophy not
merely enumerates them, for that would be simply a mechanical
synthesis; it also shows their
functional interdependence and interconnection, thus effecting an
organic synthesis.
Logic is divided into (A) Doctrine of Being (Sein), that is, of
the ldea in its immediacy; (B) Doctrine of Essence (Wesen) that
is, of the Idea in its reflection or mediation; (C) Doctrine of
Notion (Begriff), that is, of the Idea returned to itself. Being is
the notion implicit, or in germ; essence is the show or appearance
(Schein) of the notion, and the notion is Being or Idea in and
for itself. [8]
[8] Op. cit., p. 155.
A. Doctrine of Being. Logic begins with Being, because Being is,
on the one hand, pure thought, and, on the other, immediacy itself,
simple and indeterminate. Now, if Being is complete indeterminateness,
it is ideatical with Nothing (Nichts). Let us see what Hegel
means by the famous formula Being = Nothing. He means that,
while there is undoubtedly a distinction between Being and Nothing,
the distinction is not absolute but only relative. When
Aristotle enunciated the principle of contradiction, he gave expression
to what is only part of the truth. For, if it is true that every object
and every thought is differentiated from every other object and every
other thought, and is therefore identical with itself (A is not Not-A,
A = A), it is no less true that every object and every thought is
related to every other object and every other thought, and that, in so
far as it is related to another, it is differentiated from itself and
identical with that other (A is not A, A = Not-A). Aristotle,
emphasizing one aspect of thought, namely its differentiating power,
and failing to realize the equal importance of the relating power of
thought, formulated the principle of contradiction -- the
differentiation of things -- as if it were an absolute truth, whereas
it is only relative to one aspect of thought and being. Looking at
thought and being from the view point of totality, we see that the
absolute differentiation or the absolute identity of concepts or of
things is but part of the truth, the whole truth
being that concepts and things are partially differentiated and
partially identified. We have consequently as much right to say
that Being is Nothing as that Being is Being, since the whole truth is
that Being is both Being and Nothing, -- it is Becoming (das
Werden). Here we have the barest and most abstract form of
development by means of the union of opposites. Becoming is, as Hegel
himself says, a poor term (meager of content). Life and mind are
higher, richer, more intense unions of opposites than is mere
becoming, which, however, is the abstract formula of life and
mind.
The result of the union of Being and Nothing in Becoming is, first, the
process itself, -- an endless swaying, a constant tension; and
secondly, at each stage of the process, a product, so that to Being
identical with Nothing succeeds determinate being, or what we
call something, or being-then-and-there (Dasein). Now the
determinateness of Being is, in its immediacy, quality, from
which are deduced the categories otherwise-being, negation, limit,
alteration, being-for-self, which is the one with its
attraction and repulsion; but in attraction and repulsion
the one annuls itself and its determinates, becoming the many; at this
point, therefore, quality passes over into quantity.
Quantity is defined as "pure Being where the mode or character
(quality) is no longer taken as one with the being itself, but
explicitly put as superseded or indifferent." Quantity arises from a
unit and the identification or equalization of (other) units.
Completing now the triadic circle within pure Being, we have measure
(Mass) as the union of quality and quantity. In measure these two are
united (so, for example, progressive diminution in temperature causes a
transition from heat to cold); for quantity is implicitly quality, and
quality is implicitly quantity.
Being which is thus determined by quality, quantity, and measure
becomes essence, or, in other words, the determinations quality,
quantity, and measure being transitory, the result of their dialectic
is essence.
B. Doctrine of Essence. Essence (Wesen) is defined as Being
coming into mediation with itself through the negativity of itself.
Being, as we have seen, is immediate in its self-identity; now when
this immediacy is "deposed," Being is reduced to a reflected light, and
essence is Being thus reflected on itself. [9] As reflection supersedes
immediacy, essence supersedes Being. The reflection is, however, to be
conceived as inward in direction; for the outer "rind or curtain" is
Being, and the inner reflection is essence. There is, therefore, a
duality here, -- the categories of essence come in pairs, as, for
instance, essence and appearance, force and expression, matter and
form, substance and accident, cause and effect, -- a duality which, as
we shall see, disappears in the notion, wherein the opposite
aspects of Being attain final unity.
[9] Op. cit., p. 207.
First, we have essence and appearance. Immediate Being is
now an appearance; yet it is not, as we should say, merely phenomenal,
for it is the appearance of an essence, and it is as necessary that the
appearance should have an essence as it is that the essence should
appear. Life, for example, must manifest itself, the cause
must produce an effect, and at the same time there is no
manifestation of life without life and no production of an effect
without a cause.
Next, as determinations of essence we have identity and
difference. The unity of these is the ground (Grund),
which is defined "the essence put explicitly in totality." At this
point essence has completed the circle of self-mediation (reflection),
so that we are back again at immediate Being, not at Being in its
primitive immediacy, but at Being in an immediacy which results from
the annulment of all intermediation. Being, which is immediate in this
sense, is existence. Developing now the categories of ground and
existence into an explicit unity, we arrive at the category of thing
(Ding). Thing in its relation to reflection on other things
develops the category of properties;
and the union of essence with existence, combining all the essential
with the existential aspects of Being, gives the form of actuality,
which is synonymous with reality.
Similarly, by processes the details of which it is unnecessary to set
down here, the categories content and form, power
and expression, inner and outer, substance
and accident, cause and effect, action and
reaction, are deduced from essence. It is important, however, to
note that as substance and accident, so cause and effect (and indeed
all the categories which come under the head of essence and appearance)
are inseparable. Cause passes over into effect, so that the effect is
the cause explicated or manifested, and effect in turn passes over into
cause. For the causal series is not a progress ad infinitum, the
rectilinear movement from cause to effect being bent back on itself so
as to form a circle in which every effect becomes the cause of its
cause. This reciprocity is illustrated in history; for example,
the character and manners of a nation influence its constitution and
laws, while in turn the constitution and laws of a country influence
the character and manners of its people. [10] The category of reciprocity
(Wechselwirkung) does away with the idea of predetermining
fatality, shows that freedom is to be found in the concept of
absolute but reciprocal necessity, and thus leads to the category of
the notion.
[10] Op. cit., p. 284.
C. Doctrine of the Notion. The notion (Begriff) is
"essence reverted to the immediacy of Being," [11] or, since each
category is inseparable from its antecedent, the notion is the
principle of freedom, the power of substance self-realized. In fact,
the notion contains all the earlier categories, and may therefore be
defined as the truth of Being and essence. Obviously, then, we may
understand the notion to be synonymous with totality fully realized,
which is apparently what Hegel means when he says that quality,
quantity, force, cause, necessity, freedom are nothing apart from the
notion. The dialectical process of Being
was transition, that of essence was reflection; the
movement of the notion is merely development. It is, Hegel tells
us, to be looked upon as play, for the other which it sets up is not
really an other.
[11] Op. cit., p. 281.
Following this play of the notion we find that its triadic
development is subjective notion, objective notion, and
absolute notion, or Idea.
a. Subjective notion is the notion as notion, and as such has
three moments, -- universality, particularity, and
individuality. The meaning is that the notion passes from unity
to partition and thence back to the explicit identification of parts in
the one. This reintegration is effected by means of judgment
(Urtheil), which, as its name implies, signifies the identification
of partition with primary unity, so that the abstract form in which all
judgments may be expressed is "The individual is the universal." Now
judgment, inasmuch as it affirms the identity of the individual with
the universal, contains a contradiction. This contradiction is removed
in the syllogism. The syllogism is, therefore, the complete
expression of the subjective notion, the reintegration of the
partitions of the notion in the universal by means of the particular.
"Consequently, at the present stage (in the deduction of the
categories) the definition of the Absolute is that it is a syllogism,
or, stating the principle in the form of a proposition: Everything
is a syllogism." [12]
[12] Op. cit., p. 314.
b. Objective notion. Thus far the notion has been considered in
its subjective stage, as it were in the abstract, as form without
content; but since it is a form which, in its ultimate development, is
a union of opposites, it constantly tends to objectify itself. The
notion as object is the totality of objects, -- the universe.
Here, as usual, we are to distinguish three forms: mechanism, or the
juxtaposition of independent objects held together
as an aggregate; chemism, or the mutual attraction,
penetration, and neutralization of objects (elements) held together by
affinity; and organism, or the complete unity of purposive
action in which the independence of the objects (body cells) disappears
and parts are made to serve the purpose of the entire structure.
Now, notion become object implies a contradiction; for as subjective
notion was form without content, so the object, as object, is content
without form. The play of the notion has here reached a point
where the notion is not a notion. The contradiction, however,
disappears in the Idea, or absolute notion.
c. Absolute notion is the truth in itself and for itself, the
absolute unity of notion and objectivity. It may be defined as reason,
subject-object, the union of the real with the ideal, of the body with
the soul, etc. It is essentially a process. In its immediate
form it is life. When it becomes its own object in the
theoretical order, it becomes the true; when it becomes its own
object in the practical order, it becomes the good; and when, by
its theoretical and practical activity (the knowledge of the true and
the pursuit of the good), it returns to itself from the bias and
finiteness of cognition and volition, it becomes the absolute
Idea. Life is defective, inasmuch as it is the Idea implicit or
natural; cognition-volition is defective in so far as it is the Idea as
merely conscious, and therefore one-sided; the absolute Idea unites the
truth of life with the truth of consciousness, supplying the defect of
the former and overcoming the one-sidedness of the latter. This is
the goal of the entire series of logical processes; in its next
phase the Idea passes over into otherness and becomes nature.
Thus far we have followed the triadic developments of the Idea
(reality, reason, the Absolute) through processes which in
non-technical language may be styled the dialectic of the Divine
Reason anteriorly to the creation of the universe. We come, in the next
place, to the study of reason in nature.
2. Philosophy of Nature. Nature is the Idea (reason)
in the state of otherness, -- a state intermediate between the
immediacy of reason as notion and the reintegrated immediacy of reason
as it fully realizes itself in spirit. In nature the Idea has become
externalized and particularized; its unity has disappeared, or rather
is concealed. Still, nature, while it is a state of the Idea, is also a
process of spirit, and although the natural sciences are right in
regarding phenomena as isolated realities, they do not fully exhaust
the truth of nature, the very plurality of phenomena being a
contradiction which of itself shows that nature is a process.
Philosophy, therefore, taking a higher view point than that of
science, represents nature as a series of successful struggles
by which the Idea, scattered as it were in plurality, regains unity and
self-identity (self-consciousness) in the individual spirit (man),
which is the goal of the processes of nature. Exclude this concept of
the upward struggle of nature, and natural phenomena become a tangled
mass of events in inextricable disorder. [13]
[13] Cf. Encyklopädie, No. 249; Werke
(edition 1847), Vol. VII, P. II, p. 32.
There are three stages in the process which is nature, namely
mechanics (matter and space), physics (bodies), and
organics (life). In bodies, nature attains individuality;
in living organisms, it attains subjectivity, or consciousness;
it is only in man that it attains self-consciousness (self as
subject and object). Man, however, while he is the highest product of
the Idea in nature, is, like nature itself, subject to the law of
development. No sooner, therefore, has the Idea become spirit by
attaining self-consciousness in man, than it undergoes a further and
final process of development as subjective, objective, and
absolute spirit. This last process is the subject-matter of the
philosophy of mind.
The philosophy of nature has been pronounced the least original and the
least consistent of the three portions into which Hegel's philosophy is
divided. It underwent more modification
at the hands of Hegel's pupils and successors than did the logic or
the philosophy of mind. Yet even in its modified form the Hegelian
philosophy of nature is far from being consistent with the principles
of absolute idealism. Indeed, the supreme test of a system of
metaphysics is its compatibility with the ultimate truth of empirical
science, -- a test to which, it is safe to say, no system of idealism
from the days of Parmenides to those of Hegel has consistently
conformed. Not that the metaphysical point of view is not
different from that of the physical sciences. There may,
however, be difference without antagonism; for, as Hegel himself
observes, "The philosophical way of presenting things is not a
capricious effort, for once in a way to walk on one's head as a change
from the ordinary method of walking on one's feet . . . , but it is
because the manner of science does not fully satisfy that we are
obliged to go beyond it." [14]
[14] Encyklop., II. Theil, Einleitung; Werke, VII, 18. On
the change of method implied in this admission, and on the possibility
of transition from notion to nature, cf. McTaggart in
Mind, N.S., Vol. VI (1897). For defense of Hegel's consistency
on this point, cf. Philosophical Review (1896), V,
273.
3. Philosophy of Mind. Mind (spirit, Geist) is the
truth of nature. Its formal essence is freedom, -- the
absolute self-identity of the Idea. Mind, it is important to note, is
the most complete development of the Absolute, so that when we say "The
Absolute is Mind," we have the supreme definition of the Absolute. [15]
But although mind is absolutely the prius of nature, yet for
us it comes out of nature, and therefore brings with it what may be
called a germ of development. In this development we are to
distinguish, as usual, three stages, -- subjective mind, objective
mind, and absolute mind.
[15] Phil. of Mind, p. 7. References are to Wallace's
translation (Oxford, 1894).
A. Subjective Mind. If freedom is the formal essence of mind,
consciousness is its material essence; for it is by successive steps
towards complete self-consciousness that mind attains perfect freedom.
Hegel agrees with Spinoza in teaching that
the emancipative acts of the soul are conditioned by advance in
knowledge, -- a doctrine which does not surprise us when we remember
that, in Hegel's view, thought is essentially dynamic, having, so to
speak, a volitional as well as a cognitive phase. While mind was still
immersed in nature, it took part in the planetary life of the universe,
responding to the change of seasons, etc. Partially emerging from
nature, it experienced in the first dull stirring of consciousness,
namely sensation (Empfindung), a kind of vague realization of
itself as in and for itself; feeling (das Fühlen) succeeded
sensation, and was in turn succeeded by self-feeling
(Selbstgefühl), which is the ground of consciousness
(Bewusstsein). When it has reached this stage, mind, recognizing
itself as an ego, has divested itself of nature. Next, as theoretical
mind, it passes through the stages of intuition (Anschauung),
representation (Vorstellung), and thought (das Denken).
Having now taken possession (of its intuitions, representations,
and thoughts), it proceeds, as practical mind, to determine its
contents; this it does by means of impulse (Triebe), desire
(Begehren), and inclination (Neigung), thus arriving at
complete self-determination, which is freedom. Free will is, therefore,
the union of theoretical and practical mind.
"It was," Hegel remarks, "through Christianity that this idea (of
actual freedom) came into the world. According to Christianity, the
individual, as such, has an infinite value as the object and aim
of divine law." The Greeks and Romans, he explains, maintained that
freedom is an accident of birth, or is grounded in strength of
character, or is acquired by education and philosophy, while
Christianity on the contrary maintains that man as man is free. [16]
[16] Op. cit., p. 101.
Freedom, once attained, must be realized, and, according to the
universal formula of development, it must be realized through its
opposite, necessity. It is for this reason that mind objectifies itself
in law, the family, and the state. In this way, through
the discipline of necessity, the egotistic impulse becomes property
right, sexual impulse becomes moral in marriage, and the
inclination to revenge is transformed into punitive justice in the
state.
B. Objective Mind. The yoke of necessity, to which free will
subjects itself in order to realize full freedom, is (a) right
(Recht), in which freedom attains outer actuality, (b) morality
(Moralität), in which it attains inner actuality, and (c)
social morality (Sittlichkeit), in which it attains complete
actuality, which is both inner and outer.
a. From right springs ownership (property), and from
ownership the right to dispose of one's possessions by contract.
Now although contract refers primarily to individual property, it
implies the merging of two wills in the common will. Hence arises the
possibility of conflict between the will of the individual and that of
the community. In this conflict consists wrong (Unrecht), which
it is the duty of the public authority to correct by punishment.
In this way the idea of contract leads to the idea of the state.
b. From morality spring purpose (the inner determination of the
subject), intention (the subjective aim of the action to be
performed, inasmuch as that aim is implied in the general wellbeing of
the subject), and good and evil (the moral aspects of
action). These determine the moral standpoint, the conscientious
attitude, as we should call it, of the agent; however, they determine
it so vaguely and unsatisfactorily that a conflict of apparent duties
often results; for conscience is liable to error, and what is
subjectively represented as good may be objectively evil. To right,
therefore, and to morality must be added social morality. Right
regulates merely the external, material interests of life; conscience
is one-sided because it is subjective: social morality, being at
once objective and subjective, external and internal, is the complete
realization of freedom through the discipline of necessity.
c. Social morality. In social moral life the individual
recognizes that what he ought to do is; for his duty is
presented to him in its objective concrete realization in the family
and in the state. He is no longer subject to the uncertainty of
selective reflection: he sees his duty and he is, as it were,
constrained to fulfill it. It is by submitting to this restraint that
he attains the fullness of freedom.
The primary social moral institution is the family. It is the
foundation of the state, and is, of its nature, permanent. Hegel was
opposed to the principle of divorce, and would justify the granting of
divorce only in exceptional cases provided for by law.
Civil society (die bürgerliche Gesellschaft) is the
relative totality of individuals. It is different, on the one hand,
from the family, for the family is an individual, and, on the other
hand, from the state, for the state is a complete organic unity in
which individuals, as individuals, do not exist. Civil society aims
merely at the protection of individual interests; its mission is purely
economic.
The State (Staat) is the perfect social organization. It does
not live for the individuals of which it is composed, but for the
ethical idea which it embodies, individuals being merely means which,
when occasion demands it, must be sacrificed, as all private interests
must be sacrificed, for the good of the whole.
Hegel, in treating of the state, takes up in succession
constitutional law (the inner form of particular state
organizations), international law (the outer form of states,
which is regulative of the interrelations of states), and the
dialectics of history (the laws of the general development of
the universal mind, which manifests itself both in the internal
constitution and in the outer forms of particular states).
alpha. Constitutional law (inneres Staatsrecht). The constitution is
the articulation, or organization, of state power. From the point of
view of the individual, the power of the state is a restriction. Still,
inasmuch as it functions for the common
good, it is the substance of the volition of the individual. By nature
men are unequal; but before the law, that is, by virtue of the
principle of state organization, -- the merging of individual freedom
in the objective mind, -- all men are equal. This, however, means that
as abstract persons they are equal; for in the concrete there is no
perfect equality, men being equal before the law only in so far as they
are equal outside the law.
The collective spirit of the nation is the constitution; the real
living totality (the embodiment of the collective spirit) is the
government, and although, according to the basic laws of
organization, the government must divide its powers (legislative,
judicial, and executive), it must, nevertheless, preserve the highest
form of organic unity. For this reason a constitutional monarchy is
superior to a republic on the one hand and to an absolute monarchy on
the other hand. But while Hegel opposes the extension of
individualism within the state, he is in favor of the
individualism of states with respect to one another; for the state
is based on the national spirit, and the national spirit is fostered by
unity of language, customs, religion, etc. So long as a nation stands
for a national ideal it is a crime, Hegel teaches, to annex it.
beta. International law (das äussere Staatsrecht),
including treaty law and natural law, governs the relations of states
to one another in time of peace and in time of war. War, Hegel teaches,
is the indispensable means of political progress. It is a crisis in
the development of the Idea, which is embodied in the different
states, a crisis out of which the better state, that is the state which
approaches more closely to the ideal, is certain to emerge victorious.
For right is might; the better state conquers because it is better.
Thus in every period of the world's history there has been some one
chosen people, a nation which realizes more perfectly than any other
the ideal of national life. This consideration leads to the next point,
the dialectics of history.
gamma. Dialectics of history. Hegel's philosophy of history is,
perhaps, the most important portion of his speculative system. In it we
find the most intelligible application of the principle of development,
which dominates the method and contents of the other portions of his
philosophy. Indeed, Hegel as well as Schelling insisted that the
lower is to be understood by the higher. The philosophy of history
will, therefore, throw light on the philosophy of nature and on logic.
The most general definition of the philosophy of history is that it is
the thoughtful consideration of history. [17] More specifically,
the thought which philosophy brings to the study of history is the
conception of a sovereign reason, of which the succession of historical
events is a rational process. This is at once a postulate of history
inasmuch as it is a demonstrated thesis of philosophy, and a conclusion
of history inasmuch as it is a most obvious inference from the study of
historical happenings. The "micrologist" admits the "peddling" of the
idea of Providence, but denies its applicability to the process of
history as a whole. We must not, Hegel observes, imagine God to be too
weak to exercise His wisdom on the grand scale. [18]
[17] Philosophy of History, Introduction, p. 9. References are to
Sibree's translation (London, 1884).
[18] Op. cit., p. 16.
History, then, is the process of reason as spirit.
Interest, passion, character, in a word, all the forces at play in the
process, are a compound of will and intelligence. The
world-historical persons, the great men of history, apparently
drew the impulse of their lives from themselves; in reality, however,
they were great because they "had an insight into the requirements of
the time, -- what was ripe for development." They embodied the
irresistible force of spirit in their own lives: they lived not for
themselves but for the Idea which was their master passion. Their fate,
therefore, was not a happy one.
The development of the spirit in history aims at complete freedom; the
process is, however, not a tranquil growth, but a
stern, reluctant working through opposition to complete
realization. Thus we have three stages, -- oneness, expansion, and
concentration. The Oriental monarchies represented despotism,
the Grecian republics represented the unstable equilibrium of
democracy tending towards demagogic rule, and the Christian and
parliamentary monarchy represents the reintegration of freedom in
constitutional government. Here we have an ideal example of thesis,
antithesis, and synthesis, -- the triadic movement which is
the law of all development.
Even in the highest and most perfect form of political organization,
mind is limited, and though the necessity which the state imposes makes
for ultimate freedom, yet it is necessity. Mind, therefore, having
objectified itself in the state, must complete the circle of
development by returning to itself, becoming identical with itself and
subjecting itself to itself alone, as Absolute Mind in art,
religion, and philosophy.
C. Absolute Mind is the ultimate identification of mind with
itself. Here mind subjects itself to itself, not as limited, but as
infinite. There are three stages of Absolute Mind, -- art,
religion, and philosophy.
a. Art. In art, mind has an intuitive contemplation of itself as
infinite in the objective actuality of the art material. According as
the art material becomes more docile, less rebellious to the Idea, we
have architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and
poetry; this is at once the line of ascending perfection and the
line of historical development.
b. Religion. In religion, mind feels that the Idea is
superior to all its finite and particular manifestations. Religion
arises from poetry, the highest form of art; but it is, by its nature,
a protest against the tendency of art to become pantheistic. Religion
insists on the infinity of God and the finiteness of man, whereas the
tendency of art is to deify man and represent God as human.
Nevertheless, it is essential to religion to represent the
infinite and finite as in some relation with each other.
Oriental religions exaggerated the idea of the infinite; Greek
religion gave undue importance to the finite; Christianity, being a
synthesis of both, represents the union of the infinite and the
finite in the doctrine of the Incarnation, and represents all truth in
the dogma of the Trinity by teaching, as far as representation can
teach, the triadic development of immanent reason as idea,
nature, and spirit. The intellectual content of Christianity
is thus the same as that of philosophy: there is no supernatural truth
(gnosticism). Religion, however, contains the truth in the form
of symbols and representations. Philosophy, therefore, which contains
the truth as reason, is superior to religion.
c. Philosophy is the unity of art and religion. The infinite,
which, as the beautiful, was rendered visible in art, and, as God, was
made the object of representation and feeling in religion, is now, as
the true, made the object of the thinking faculty in philosophy.
Philosophy is, consequently, "the highest, freest, and wisest phase of
the union of subjective and objective mind, and the ultimate goal of
all development."
Historical Position. It is difficult to trace even in outline
the influence which Hegel's philosophy exercised on the thought of his
own and subsequent generations. Some of Hegel's contemporaries
regarded his system of philosophy as the organic synthesis of all
preceding speculation and the final form of philosophic thought. Others
believed, and not a few still believe, that that system must be the
foundation of all profitable speculation in the future. And when due
allowance is made for the exaggerations which are inevitable whenever
the cult of greatness attains, as in this instance it has attained,
almost to the proportions of religious veneration, it cannot be denied
that Hegel's was the mind which, in developing towards a more complete
unity the elements of Kantian thought, took the most comprehensive
synthetic view of the problems of philosophy, reached farthest and
deepest into every department of knowledge, and found in the principle
of development the bond best
suited by reason of its simplicity and universal applicability to hold
together the various elements of a system extending from the problems
of logic to the analysis of religion. It is safe to say that no
department of human knowledge has failed to feel the influence of
Hegel's doctrines, or at least of his method. And this is due partly to
the fact that his philosophy embodies the highest aspirations of the
spirit of the nineteenth century, -- the spirit of collectivism,
-- and partly to the fact that in his system of thought so large scope
is assigned to the principle of development, which has so dominated the
scientific as well as the philosophical thought of the century.
But the very greatness of Hegel's plan, the vastness of the enterprise
itself, was the surest guarantee of its ultimate failure. "The rational
alone is real" is a formula which, as understood and applied by Hegel,
means that there are no limits to the power of the thinking faculty.
For whether we understand the "rational" to refer to the Infinite
Reason of the Creator or to the finite reason of the creature, the
conclusion is ultimately the same, -- that everything real is to be
analyzed in terms of rational thought. How inadequate is this view of
reality the reaction against Hegelianism has taught us by insisting on
the importance of the non-rational, and how hopeless is the
self-imposed task of this new gnosticism is proved by Hegel's
concept of God, which is the least satisfactory portion of his
philosophy. The attempt to bring all reality under a single formula may
indeed be the ideal of philosophy, but it is certainly an ideal which
is as unattainable in practice as is the dream of the world conqueror
who would bring all the nations of the earth under the scepter of one
monarch. The highest unification which the finite mind can effect will
necessarily fall short of absolute unity; for it is not given to the
human mind to grasp the totality of being and to find in one formula a
rationale of all reality. No philosophical system can
consistently claim to comprehend God; it may discover Him, but it must
acknowledge that He and His ways are
inscrutable. Philosophy must leave room for faith, and its last
word must be the necessity of faith. Gnosticism, as the modern
world is just now realizing, is more irreligious than agnosticism.
It was the followers of Hegel who first revealed to the
religious world the true drift of Hegelianism. The so-called Hegelian
Leftists developed the anti-Christian elements in Hegel's
thought, while the Rightists maintained that the teaching of
Hegel accords with Christian faith and the doctrines of the Church. To
the Leftists belonged Strauss (1808-1874), author of Das
Leben Jesu, Bruno Bauer (1809-1882), author of Kritik der
evangelischen Geschichte des Johannes (not to be confused with F.
C. Baur [1792-1860], head of the Tübingen School),
Feuerbach (1804-1872), author of Das Wesen des
Christenthums, and the socialist Karl Marx (1818-1883). To
the Rightists belonged Göschel (1781-1861),
Rosenkranz (1805-1879), professor at Königsberg, and
Johann Eduard Erdmann (1805-1892), professor at Halle.
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