September 3, 2025 • 55 mins
Dive into Hegels enlightening lectures on the philosophy of world history, crafted to ease students into his complex ideas. Hegels engaging discourse sheds light on accessible themes like world events while he intricately defines and explores the concept of Geist, or spirit. This notion reflects the evolving culture of humanity, continuously adapting to societal changes while simultaneously driving those transformations through what Hegel termed the cunning of reason. A significant focus of the text is on world history rather than confined regional narratives. Influenced by the enigmatic writings of Jakob Bhme and captivated by the thoughts of Spinoza, Kant, Rousseau, and Goethe, Hegel examined the contradictions of modern philosophy and society. He sought to interpret these tensions‚like those between knowledge and faith, freedom and authority‚as part of a comprehensive, evolving rational unity he called the absolute idea or absolute knowledge. This unity emerges through contradiction and negation, leading to an uplifting resolution that preserves these conflicts as integral phases of development. Ultimately, Hegel posits that this rational, self-conscious whole is realized through individual minds, culminating in a collective understanding of this intricate developmental process. (summary by Wikipedia and D.E. Wittkower)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Essential Destiny of Reason subsection three. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Introduction two The Philosophy of History by Kyoruk Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
(00:24):
The Essential Destiny of Reason sub Section three The shape
which the perfect embodiment of Spirit assumes. The third point
to be analyzed is, therefore, what is the object to
be realized by these means? That is, what is the
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form it assumes In the realm of reality. We have
spoken of means, but in the carrying out of a
subjective limited aim, we have also to take into consideration
the element of a material, either already present or which
has to be procured. Thus the question would arise, what
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is the material in which the ideal of reason is
wrought out? The primary answer would be personality itself, human desires,
subjectivity generally in human knowledge, and volition as its material
element reason attains positive existence. We have considered subjective volition
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where it has an object which is the truth and
essence of a reality, namely, where it constitutes a great world.
Historical passion as a subjective will occupied with limited passions.
It is dependent and can gratify its desires only within
the limits of this dependence. But the subjective will has
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also a substantial life, a reality in which it moved
in the region of essential being, and has the essential
itself as the object of its existence. This essential being
is the union of the subjective with the rational will.
It is the moral whole, the state, which is that
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form of reality in which the individual has and enjoys
his freedom, but on the condition of his recognizing, believing in,
and willing that which is common to the whole. And
this must not be understood as if the subjective will
of the social unit attained its gratification and enjoyment through
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that common will, as if this were a means provided
for its benefit, as if the individual, in his relations
to other individuals, thus limited his freedom in order that
this universal limitation, the mutual constraint of all, might secure
a small space of liberty for each. Rather, we affirm
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our law, morality, government, and they alone the positive reality
and completion of freedom. Freedom of a low and limited
order is mere caprice, which finds its exercise in the
sphere of particular and limited desires. Subject of volition. Passion
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is that which sets men in activity, that which effects
practical realization. The idea is the inner spring of action.
The state is the actually existing, realized moral life, for
it is the unity of the universal essential will with
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that of the individual, and this is morality. The individual
living in this unity has a moral life, possesses a
value that consists in this substantiality alone. Sophocles, in his
Antigony says, the divine commands are not of yesterday nor
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of to day. No, they have an infinite existence, and
no one could say whence they came. The laws of
morality are not accidental, but are the essentially rational. It
is the very object of the state that what is
essential in the practical activity of men and in their
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dispositions should be duly recognized, that it should have a
manifest existence and maintain its position. It is the absolute
interest of reason that this moral whole should exist. And
herein lies the justification and merit of heroes who have
founded states, however rude these may have been in our
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history of the world. Only those peoples can come under
our notice which form a state. For it must be
understood that this latter is the realization of freedom, that is,
of the absolute, final aim, and that it exists for
its own sake. It must further be understood that all
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the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality,
he possesses only through the state. For his spiritual reality
consists in this that his own essence reason is objectively
present to him, that it possesses objective, immediate existence for him.
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Thus only is he fully conscious, Thus only is he
a partaker of morality, of a just and moral social
and political life. For truth is the union of the
universal and subjective will, and the universal is to be
found in the state, in its laws, its universal and
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rational arrangements. The state is the divine idea, as it
exists on earth. We have in it. Therefore the object
of history in a more definite shape than before that
in which freedom obtains objectivity and lives in the enjoyment
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of this objectivity. For law is the objectivity of spirit
volition in its true form. Only that will which obeys
law is free, for it obeys itself. It is independent
and so free. When the state or our country constitutes
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a community of existence. When the subjective will of man
submits to laws, the contradiction between liberty and necessity vanishes.
The rational has necessary existence as being the reality and
substance of things, and we are free in recognizing it
as law and following it as the substance of our
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own being. The objective and the subjective will are then
reconciled and present one identical, homogeneous whole. For the morality
sidlish kite of the state is not of that ethical
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moralitia reflective kind in which one's own conviction bears sway.
This latter is rather the peculiarity of the modern time,
while the true antique morality is based on the principle
of abiding by one's duty to the state at large.
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An Athenian citizen did what was required of him, as
it were, from instinct. But if I reflect on the
object of my activity, I must have the consciousness that
my will has been called into exercise. But morality is duty,
substantial right, a second nature, as it has been justly
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called for. The first nature of man is his primary,
merely animal existence. The development in extenso of the idea
of the state belongs to the philosophy of jurisprudence. But
it must be observed that in the theories of our time.
Various errors are current respecting it, which pass for established
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truths and have become fixed prejudices. We will mention only
a few of them, giving prominence to such as have
a reference to the object of our history. The error
which first meets us is the direct contradictory of our
principle that the state presents the realization of freedom. The opinion,
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namely that man is free by nature, but that in society,
in the state to which nevertheless he is irresistibly impelled,
he must limit this natural freedom. That man is free
by nature is quite correct in one sense, namely that
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he is so according to the idea of humanity. But
we imply thereby that he is such only in virtue
of his destiny, that he has an undeveloped power to
become such. For the nature of an object is exactly
synonymous with its idea. But the view in question imports
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more than this. When man is spoken of as free
by nature, the mode of his existence, as well as
his destiny, is implied. His merely natural and primary condition
is intended. In this sense, a state of nature is
assumed in which mankind at large are in the possession
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of their natural rights. With the unconstrained exercise and enjoyment
of their freedom. This assumption is not indeed raised to
the dignity of the historical fact. It would indeed be
difficult were the attempt seriously made to point out any
such condition as actually existing or as having ever occurred.
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Examples of a savage state of life can be pointed out,
but they are marked by brutal passions and deeds of violence.
While however rude and simple their conditions, they involve social
arrangements which, to use the common phrase, restrain freedom. That
assumption is one of those nebulous images which theory produces,
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an idea which it cannot avoid originating, but which it
fathers upon real existence without sufficient historical justification. What we
find such a state of nature to be in actual
experience answers exactly to the idea of a merely natural condition. Freedom,
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as the ideal of that which is original and natural,
does not exist as original and natural. Rather, must it
be first sought out and one, and that by an
incalculable medial discipline of the intellectual and moral powers. The
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state of nature is therefore predominantly that of injustice and violence,
of untamed natural impulses of inhuman deeds and feelings. Limitation
is certainly produced by society in the state, but it
is a limitation of the mere bruine emotions and rude instincts,
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as also, in a more advanced stage of culture, of
the premeditated self will, of caprice and passion. This kind
of constraint is part of the instrumentality by which only
the consciousness of freedom and the desire for its attainment
in its true that is, rational and ideal form, can
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be attained to the ideal of freedom, law and morality
are indispensably requisite, and they are in and for themselves
universal existences, objects and aims which are discovered only by
the activity of thought, separating itself from the merely sensuous
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and developing itself in opposition there too, and which must,
on the other hand, be introduced into and incorporated with
the originally sensuous will, and that, contrarily to its natural inclination.
The perpetually recurring misapprehension of freedom consists in regarding that
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term only in its formal, subjective sense, abstracted from its
essential objects and aims. Thus a constraint put upon impulse, desire, passion,
pertaining to the particular individual. As such a limitation of
caprice and self will is regarded as a fettering of freedom.
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We should, on the contrary, look upon such limitation as
the indispensable proviso of emancipation. Society and the state are
the very conditions in which freedom is realized. We must
notice a second view contravening the principle of the development
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of moral relations into a legal form. The patriarchal condition
is regarded either in reference to the entire race of
man or to some branches of it, as exclusively that
condition of things, in which the legal element is combined
with a due recognition of the moral and emotional parts
of our nature, and in which justice, as united with these,
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truly and really influences the intercourse of the social units.
The basis of the patriarchal condition is the family relation,
which develops the primary form of conscious morality, succeeded by
that of the state as its second phase. The patriarchal
condition is one of transition, in which the family has
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already advanced to the position of a race or people,
where the union therefore has already ceased to be simply
a bond of love and confidence. And has become one
of plighted service. We must first examine the ethical principle
of the family. The family may be reckoned as virtually
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a single person, since its members have either mutually so
surrendered their individual personality and consequently their legal position towards
each other with the rest of their particular interests and desires,
as in the case of the parents, or have not
yet attained such an independent personality. The children, who are
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primarily in that merely natural condition already mentioned, they live
therefore in a unity of feeling, love, confidence, and faith
in each other, and in a relation of mutual love.
The one individual has the consciousness of himself. In the
consciousness of the other, he lives out of self, and
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in this mutual self renunciation, each regains the life that
had been virtually transferred to the other, gains, in fact,
that other's existence and his own as involved with that other.
The farther interests, connected with the necessities and external concerns
of life, as well as the development that has to
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take place within their circle, that is, of the children,
constitute a common object for the members of the family.
The spirit of the family. The penates form one substantial
being as much as the spirit of a people in
the state, and morality in both cases consists in a feeling,
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a consciousness, and a will not limited to individual personality
and interest, but embracing the common interests of the members generally.
But this unity is, in the case of the family,
essentially one of feeling, not advancing beyond the limits of
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the merely natural. The piety of the family relation should
be respected in the highest degree by the state. By
its means, the state obtains as its members individuals who
are already moral, for as mere persons they are not,
and who, in uniting to form a state, bring with
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them that sound basis of a political edifice, the capacity
of feeling one with a whole. But the expansion of
the family to a patriarchal unity carries us beyond the
ties of blood relationship the simply natural elements of that basis,
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and outside of these limits the members of the community
must enter upon the position of independent personality. A review
of the patriarchal condition in extenso would lead us to
give special attention to the theocratical constitution. The head of
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the patriarchal clan is also its priest. If the family
in its jet general relations is not yet separated from
civic society in the state. The separation of religion from
it has also not yet taken place, and so much
the less, since the piety of the hearth is itself
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a profoundly subjective state of feeling. We have considered two
aspects of freedom, the objective and the subjective. If therefore
freedom is asserted to consist in the individuals of a state,
all agreeing in its arrangements, it is evident that only
the subjective aspect is regarded. The natural inference from this
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principle is that no law can be valid without the
approval of all. This difficulty is attempted to be obviated
by the decision that the minority must yield to the majority.
The majority therefore bear the way. But long ago Jean
Jacques Rousseau remarked that in that case there would be
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no longer freedom, for the will of the minority would
cease to be respected. At the Polish Diet, each single
member had to give his consent before any political step
could be taken, and this kind of freedom, it was
that ruined the state. Besides, it is a dangerous and
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false prejudice that the people alone have reason and insight
and know what justice is. For each popular faction may
represent itself as the people, and the question as to
what constitutes the state is one of advanced science and
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not of popular decision. If the principle of regard for
the individual will is recognized as the only basis of
political liberty, namely, that nothing should be done by or
for the state to w which all the members of
the body politic have not given their sanction, we have
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properly speaking, no constitution. The only arrangement that would be
necessary would be first a center having no will of
its own, but which should take into consideration what appeared
to be the necessities of the state, and secondly, a
contrivance for calling the members of the state together, for
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taking the votes, and for performing the arithmetical operations of
reckoning and comparing the number of votes for the different propositions,
and thereby deciding upon them. The state is an abstraction,
having even its generic existence in its citizens. But it
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is an actuality, and its simply generic existence must embody
itself in individual will and activity. The want of government
and political administration in general is felt. This necessitates the
selection and separation from the rest of those who have
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to take the helm in political affairs, to decide concerning
them and to give orders to other citizens with a
view to the execution of their plans. If, for example,
even the people in a democracy resolve on a war,
a general must head the army. It is only by
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a constitution that the abstraction the state attains life and reality.
But this involves the distinction between those who command and
those who obey. Yet obedience seems inconsistent with liberty, and
those who command appear to do the very opposite of
that which the fundamental idea of the state, namely that
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of freedom requires. It is, however, urged that, though the
distinction between commanding and obeying is absolutely necessary, because affairs
could not go on without it, and indeed this seems
only a compulsory limitation external to and even contravening, the
freedom in the abstract, the constitution should be at least
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so framed that the citizens may obey as little as possible,
and the smallest modicum of free volition be left to
the commands of the superiors. That the substance of that
for which subordination is necessary, even in its most important bearings,
should be decided and resolved on by the people, by
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the will of many or of all of the citizens,
though it be supposed to be thereby provided that the
state should be possessed of vigor and strength as a reality,
and individual unity. The primary consideration is then the distinction
between the governing and the governed, and political constitutions in
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the abstract have been rightly divided into monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy,
which gives occasion, however, to the remark that monarchy itself
must be further divided into despotism and monarchy proper that
in all the divisions to which the leading idea gives rise,
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only the generic character is to be made prominent, it
being not intended thereby that the particular category under review
should be exhausted as a form, order, or kind in
its concrete development. But especially, it must be observed that
the above mentioned divisions admit of a multitude of particular modifications,
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not only such as lie within the limits of those
classes themselves, but also such as are mixtures of several
of these essentially distinct classes, and which are consequently misshaped
unstable and inconsistent forms. In such a collision, the concerning
question is what is the best constitution. That is, by
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what arrangement, organization, or mechanism of the power of the
state its object can be must surely attained. This object
may indeed be variously understood, for instance, as the calm
enjoyment of life on the part of the citizens, or
as universal happiness. Such aims have suggested the so called
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ideals of constitutions, and as a particular branch of the
subject ideals of the education of princes or of the
governing body the aristocracy at large. For the chief point
they treat of is the condition of those subjects who
stand at the head of affairs, And in these ideals
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the concrete details of political organization are not at all considered.
The inquiry into the best constitution is frequently treated as
if not only the theory were an affair of subject
of independent conviction, but as if the introduction of a
constitution recognized as the best or as superior to others,
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could be the result of a resolve adopted in this
theoretical manner, as if the form of a constitution were
a matter of free choice determined by nothing else but
reflection of this artless fashion. Was that deliberation not indeed
of the Persian people, but of the Persian grandees who
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had conspired to overthrow the Pseudosperides and the Magi. After
their undertaking had succeeded, and when there was no scion
of the royal family living as to what constitution they
should introduce into Persia, and Herodotus gives an equally naive
account of this deliberation. In the present day, the constitution
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of a country and people is not represented as so
entirely dependent on free and deliberate choice. The fundamental, but
abstractly and therefore imperfectly entertained conception of freedom has resulted
in the republic being very generally regarded in theory as
the only just and true political constitution. Many, even who
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occupy elevated official positions under monarchical constitutions, so far from
being opposed to this idea, are actually its supporters. Only
they see that such a constitution, though the best, cannot
be realized under all circumstances, and that while men are
what they are, we must be satisfied with less freedom.
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The monarchical constitution under the givevers in circumstances, and the
present moral condition of the people being even regarded as
the most advantageous. In this view, also, the necessity of
a particular constitution is made to depend on the condition
of the people in such a way as if the
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latter were non essential and accidental. This representation is founded
on the distinction which the reflective understanding makes between an
idea and the corresponding reality. Holding to an abstract and
consequently untrue idea, not grasping it in its completeness, or
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which is virtually though not in point of form, the
same not taking a concrete view of a people and
a state, we shall have to show farther on that
the constitution adopted by a people makes one substance one
spirit with its religion, its art, and philosophy, or at
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least with its conceptions and thoughts its culture, generally not
to expatiate upon the additional influences ab extra of climate,
of neighbors, of its place in the world. A state
is an individual totality of which you cannot select any
particular side, although a supremely important one, such as its
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political constitution, and deliberate and decide respecting it in that
isolated form. Not only is that constitution most intimately connected
with and dependent on those other spiritual forces. But the
form of the entire moral and intellectual individuality, comprising all
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the forces it embodies, is only a step in the
development of the grand whole, with its place pre appointed
in the process, a fact which gives the highest sanction
to the constitution in question and establishes its absolute necessity.
The origin of a state involves imperious lordship on the
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one hand, instinctive submission on the other. But even obedience,
lordly power and the fear inspired by a ruler in
itself implies some degree of voluntary connection. Even in barbarous states.
This is the case. It is not the isolated will
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of individuals that prevails. Individual pretensions are relinquished, and the
general will is the essential bond of political union. This
unity of the general and the particular is the idea itself,
manifesting itself as a state, and which subsequently undergoes further
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development within itself. The abstract yet necessitated process in the
development of truly independent states is as follows. They begin
with regal power, whether of patriarchal or military origin. In
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the next phase, particularity and individuality assert themselves in the
form of aristocracy and democracy. Lastly, we have the subjection
of these separate interests to a single power, but which
can be absolutely none other than one outside of which
those spheres have an independent position, namely the monarchial. Two
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phases of royalty therefore must be distinguished a primary and
a secondary one. This process is necessitated so that the
form of government assigned to a particular stage of development
must present itself. It is therefore no matter of choice,
but is that form which is adapted to the spirit
of the people. In a constitution, the main feature of
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interest is the self development of the rational that is,
the political condition of a people, the setting free of
the successive elements of the idea, so that the several
powers in the state manifest themselves as separate, attain their
appropriate and special perfection, and yet in this independent condition
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work together for one object and are held together by it,
that is, form an organic whole. The state is thus
the embodiment of rational freedom, realizing and recognizing itself in
an objective form. For its objectivity consists in this that
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its successive stages are not merely ideal, but are present
in an appropriate reality, and that in their separate and
several workings they are absolutely merged in that agency by
which the totality, the soul, the individual unity is produced,
and of which it is the result. The state is
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the idea of spirit in the external manifestation of human
will and its freedom. It is to the state, therefore,
that change in the aspect of history indissolubly attaches itself,
and the successive phases of the idea manifest themselves in
it as distinct political principles. The constitutions under which world
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historical peoples have reached their culmination are peculiar to them,
and therefore do not present a generally applicable political basis.
Were it otherwise, the differences of similar constitutions would consist
only in a peculiar method of expanding and developing that
generic basis, whereas they really originate in diversity of principle.
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From the comparison therefore, of the political institutions of the
ancient world historical peoples, it so happens that for the
most recent principle of a constitution, for the principle of
our own times, nothing so to speak, can be learned
in science and art. It is quite otherwise. For example,
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the ancient philosophy is so decidedly the basis of the modern,
that it is inevitably contained in the latter and constitutes
its basis. In this case, the relation is that of
a continuous development of the same structure, whose foundation stone, walls,
and roof have remained what they were in art. The
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Greek itself, in its original form, furnishes us the best models.
But in regard to political constitution, it is quite otherwise.
Here the ancient and the modern have not their essential
principle in common. Abstract definitions and dogmas respecting just government,
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importing that intelligence and virtue ought to bear sway are
indeed common to both. But nothing is so absurd as
to look to Greeks, Romans, or Orientals for models for
the political arrangements of our time. From the East may
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be derived beautiful pictures of a patriarchal condition, of paternal
government and of devotion to it on the part of peoples,
from Greeks and Romans descriptions of popular liberty. Among the
latter we find the idea of a free constitution admitting
all the citizens to share in deliberations and resolves respecting
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the affairs and laws of the commonwealth. In our times too,
this is its general acceptation. Only with this modification that,
since our states are so large and there are so
many of the many, the latter direct action being impossible,
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should by the indirect method of elective substitution, express their
concurrence with resolves affecting the common weal. That is that
for legislative purposes, generally, the people should be represented by deputies.
The so called representative constitution is that form of government
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with which we connect the idea of a free constitution,
and this notion has become a rooted prejudice. On this theory,
people and government are separated. But there is a perversity
in this antithesis, an ill intention to ruse, designed to
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insinuate that the people are the totality of the state. Besides,
the basis of this view is the principle of isolated
individuality the absolute validity of the subjective will, a dogma
which we have already investigated. The great point is that freedom,
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in its ideal conception, has not subjective will and caprice
for its principle, but the recognition of the universal will,
and that the process by which freedom is realized is
the free development of its successive stages. The subjective will
is a merely formal determination, a carte blanche, not including
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what it is that is willed. Only the rational will
is that universal principle which independently determines and unfolds its
own being and develops its successive elemental phases as organic
members of this Gothic cathedral architecture. The ancients knew nothing.
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At an earlier stage of the discussion, we established the
two elemental considerations, first, the idea of freedom as the
absolute and final aim. Secondly, the means for realizing it,
that is, the subjective side of knowledge and will, with
its life, movement, and activity. We then recognize the state
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as the moral whole and the reality of freedom, and
consequently as the objective unity of these two elements. For
although we make this distinction in two aspects for our consideration,
it must be remarked that they are intimately connected, and
that their connection is involved in the idea of each
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when examined separately. On the one hand, recognized the idea
in the definite form of freedom, conscious of and willing itself,
having itself alone as its object, involving at the same
time the pure and simple idea of reason, and likewise,
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that which we have called subject self consciousness spirit actually
existing in the world. If, on the other hand, we
consider subjectivity, we find that subjective knowledge and will is thought,
but by the very active, thoughtful cognition and volition I
will the universal object, the substance of absolute reason. We
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observe therefore an essential union between the objective side, the idea,
and the subjective side, the personality that conceives and wills it.
The objective existence of this union is the state, which
is therefore the basis and center of the other concrete
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elements of the life of a people, of art, of law,
of morals, of religion, of science. All the activity of
spirit has only this object, the becoming conscious of this union,
that is, of its own freedom. Among the forms of
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this conscious union, religion occupies the highest position. In it. Spirit,
rising above the limitations of temporal and secular existence, becomes
conscious of the absolute Spirit, and in this consciousness of
the self existent being renounces its individual interest. It lays
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this aside in devotion, a state of mind in which
it refuses to occupy itself any longer with a limited
and particular By sacrifice, man excis expresses his renunciation of
his property, his will, his individual feelings. The religious concentration
of the soul appears in the form of feeling. It
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nevertheless passes also into reflection. A form of worship is
a result of reflection. The second form of the union
of the objective and subjective in the human spirit is art.
This advances farther into the realm of the actual and
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sensuous than religion. In its noblest walk, it is occupied
with representing not indeed the spirit of God, but certainly
the form of God, and in its secondary aims that
which is divine and spiritual. Generally, its office is to
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render visible the divine, presenting it to the imaginative and
intuitive faculty. But the true is the object, not only
of conception and feeling, as in religion, and of intuition
as in art, but also of the thinking faculty. And
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this gives us the third form of the union in
question philosophy. This is consequently the highest, freest and wisest phase.
Of course, we are not intending to investigate these three
phases here. They have only suggested themselves in virtue of
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their occupying the same general ground as the object. Here
considered the state, the general principle which manifests itself and
becomes an object of consciousness in the state. The form
under which all that the state includes is brought is
the whole of that cycle of phenomena which constitutes the
culture of a nation. But the definite substance that receives
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the form of universality and exists in that concrete reality
which is the state, is the spirit of the people itself.
The actual state is animated by this spirit in all
its particular affairs, its wars, institutions, et cetera. But man
must also attain a conscious realization of this his spirit
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and essential nature, and of his original identity with it.
For we said that morality is the identity of the
subjective or personal with the universal will. Now the mind
must give itself an express consciousness of this, and the
focus of this knowledge is religion. Art and science are
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only various aspects and forms of the same substantial being.
In considering religion, the chief point of inquiry is whether
it recognizes the true the idea only in its separate
abstract form, or in its true unity. In separation God
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being represented in an abstract form as the highest being,
Lord of heaven and Earth, living in a remote region
far from human actualities, or in its unity God as
the unity of the universal and individual, the individual itself
assuming the aspect of positive and real existence in the
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idea of the incarnation. Religion is the sphere in which
a nation gives itself the definition of that which it
regards as the true. A definition contains everything that belongs
to the essence of an object, reducing its nature to
its simple characteristic predicate. As a mirror for every predicate,
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the generic soul pervading all its details. The conception of
God therefore constitutes the general basis of a people's character.
In this aspect, religion stands in the closest connection with
the political principle. Freedom can exist only where individuality is
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recognized as having its positive and real existence in the
divine being. The connection may be further explained. Thus, secular
existence as merely temporal occupied with particular interests is consequently
only relative and unauthorized, and receives its validity only in
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as far as the universal soul that pervades it its principle,
receives absolute validity, which it cannot have unless it is
recognized as the definite manifestation the phenomenal existence of the
divine essence. On this account, it is that the state
rests on religion. We hear this often repeated in our times,
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though for the most part, nothing further is meant than
that individual subjects, as God fearing men, would be more
disposed and ready to perform their duty, since obedience to
king and law so naturally follows in the train of
reverence for God. This reverence, indeed, since it exalts the
general over the special, may even turn upon the latter,
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become fanatical and work with incendiary and destructive violence against
the state, its institutions and arrangements. Religious feeling, therefore, it
is thought, should be sober, kept in a certain degree
of coolness, that it may not storm against and bear
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down that which should be defended and preserved by it.
The possibility of such a catastrophe is at least latent
in it. While, however, the correct sentiment is adopted that
the state is based on religion, the position thus assigned
to religion supposes the state already to exist, and that subsequently,
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in order to maintain it, religion must be brought into
it in buckets and bushels, as it were, and impressed
upon people's hearts. It is quite true that men must
be trained to religion, but not as to something whose
existence has yet to begin. For in affirming that the
state is based on religion, that it has its roots
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in it, we virtually assert that the former has proceeded
from the latter, and that this derivation is going on
now and will always continue. That is, the principles of
the state must be regarded as valid in and for themselves,
which can only be in so far as they are
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recognized as determinate manifestations of the divine nature. The form
of religion therefore decides that of the state and its constitution.
The latter actually originated in the particular religion adopted by
the nation, so that, in fact, the Athenian or the
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Roman state was possible only in connection with the specific
form of Heathenism existing among the respective peoples, just as
a Catholic state as a spirit and constitution different from
that of a Protestant one. If that outcry that urging
and striving for the implantation of religion in the community
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were an utterance of anguish and to call for help,
as it often seems to be expressing the danger of
religion having vanished or being about to vanish entirely from
the state that would be fearful, indeed worse in fact
than this outcry supposes, for it implies the belief in
a resource against the evil, namely the implantation and inculcation
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of religion, whereas religion is by no means a thing
to be so produced its self production, and there can
be no other lies much deeper, another and opposite folly
which we meet with in our time is that of
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pretending to invent and to carry out political constitutions independently
of religion. The Catholic Confession, although sharing the Christian name
with a Protestant, does not concede to the state an
inherent justice and morality, a concession which, in the Protestant
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principle is fundamental. This tearing away of the political morality
of the Constitution from its natural connection is necessary to
the genius of that really religion, inasmuch as it does
not recognize justice and morality as independent and substantial, but
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thus excluded from intrinsic worth, torn away from their last refuge,
the sanctuary of conscience, the calm retreat where religion has
its abode, the principles and institutions of political legislation are
destitute of a real center to the same degree as
they are compelled to remain abstract and indefinite. Summing up
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what has been said of the state, we find that
we have been led to call its vital principle as
actuating the individuals who compose it morality. The state, its laws,
its arrangements, constitute the rights of its members. Its natural features,
its mountains, air, and waters, are their country, the their fatherland,
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their outward material property, the history of the state, their deeds,
what their ancestors have produced, belongs to them and lives
in their memory. All is their possession, just as they
are possessed by it, for it constitutes their existence, their being.
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Their imagination is occupied with the ideas thus presented, while
the adoption of these laws and of a fatherland so conditioned,
is the expression of their will. It is this matured
totality which thus constitutes one being, the spirit of one
people to it the individual members belong. Each unit is
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the son of his nation, and at the same time,
in as far as the state to which he belongs
his undergoing development, the son of his age, none remains
behind it, still less advances beyond it. This spiritual being,
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the spirit of his time, is his he is a
representative of it. It is that in which he originated
and in which he lives. Among the Athenians, the word
Athens had a double import suggesting primarily a complex of
political institutions, but no less in the second place that
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Goddess who represented the spirit of the people and its unity.
This spirit of a people is a determinate and a
particular spirit, and is, as just stated, further modified by
the degree of its historical development. This spirit then constitutes
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the basis and substance of those other forms of a
nation's consciousness which have been noticed. For spirit, in its
self consciousness must become an object of contemplation to itself,
and objectivity involves in the first instance the rise of
differences which make up a total of distinct spheres of
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objective spirit. In the same way as the soul exists
only as the complex of its faculties, which, in their
form of concentration in a simple unity, produce that soul.
It is thus one individuality, which presented in its essence
as God, is honored and enjoyed in religion, which is
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exhibited as an object of sensuous contemplation in art, and
is apprehended as an intellectual conception in philosophy, in virtue
of the original identity of their essence, purport, and object,
the us. These various forms are inseparably united with the
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spirit of the state. Only in connection with this particular
religion can this particular political constitution exist, just as in
such or such a state, such or such a philosophy
or order of art. The remark next in order is
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that each particular national genius is to be treated as
only one individual in the process of universal history. For
that history is the exhibition of the divine absolute development
of Spirit in its highest forms, that gradation by which
it attains its truth and consciousness of itself. The forms
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which these grades of progress assume are the characteristic national
spirits of history, the peculiar tenour of their moral life,
of their government, their art, religion, and science. To realize
these grades is the boundless impulse of the world spirit,
the goal of its irresistible urging. For this division into
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organic members and the full development of each is its idea.
Universal history is exclusively occupied with showing how Spirit comes
to a recognition and adoption of the truth. The dawn
of knowledge appears, it begins to discover salient principles, and
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at last it arrives at full consciousness, having therefore learned
the abstract characteristics of the nature of Spirit, the means
which it uses to realize its idea, and the shape
assumed by it in its complete realization in phenomenal existence,
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namely the state. Nothing further remains for this introductory section
to contemplate, but the course of the world's history end
the essential destiny of reason sub Section three. The shape
which the perfect embodiment of Spirit assumes. This recording is
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in the public domain.
The Essential Destiny of Reason subsection three. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Introduction two The Philosophy of History by Kyoruk Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
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The Essential Destiny of Reason sub Section three The shape
which the perfect embodiment of Spirit assumes. The third point
to be analyzed is, therefore, what is the object to
be realized by these means? That is, what is the
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form it assumes In the realm of reality. We have
spoken of means, but in the carrying out of a
subjective limited aim, we have also to take into consideration
the element of a material, either already present or which
has to be procured. Thus the question would arise, what
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is the material in which the ideal of reason is
wrought out? The primary answer would be personality itself, human desires,
subjectivity generally in human knowledge, and volition as its material
element reason attains positive existence. We have considered subjective volition
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where it has an object which is the truth and
essence of a reality, namely, where it constitutes a great world.
Historical passion as a subjective will occupied with limited passions.
It is dependent and can gratify its desires only within
the limits of this dependence. But the subjective will has
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also a substantial life, a reality in which it moved
in the region of essential being, and has the essential
itself as the object of its existence. This essential being
is the union of the subjective with the rational will.
It is the moral whole, the state, which is that
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form of reality in which the individual has and enjoys
his freedom, but on the condition of his recognizing, believing in,
and willing that which is common to the whole. And
this must not be understood as if the subjective will
of the social unit attained its gratification and enjoyment through
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that common will, as if this were a means provided
for its benefit, as if the individual, in his relations
to other individuals, thus limited his freedom in order that
this universal limitation, the mutual constraint of all, might secure
a small space of liberty for each. Rather, we affirm
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our law, morality, government, and they alone the positive reality
and completion of freedom. Freedom of a low and limited
order is mere caprice, which finds its exercise in the
sphere of particular and limited desires. Subject of volition. Passion
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is that which sets men in activity, that which effects
practical realization. The idea is the inner spring of action.
The state is the actually existing, realized moral life, for
it is the unity of the universal essential will with
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that of the individual, and this is morality. The individual
living in this unity has a moral life, possesses a
value that consists in this substantiality alone. Sophocles, in his
Antigony says, the divine commands are not of yesterday nor
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of to day. No, they have an infinite existence, and
no one could say whence they came. The laws of
morality are not accidental, but are the essentially rational. It
is the very object of the state that what is
essential in the practical activity of men and in their
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dispositions should be duly recognized, that it should have a
manifest existence and maintain its position. It is the absolute
interest of reason that this moral whole should exist. And
herein lies the justification and merit of heroes who have
founded states, however rude these may have been in our
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history of the world. Only those peoples can come under
our notice which form a state. For it must be
understood that this latter is the realization of freedom, that is,
of the absolute, final aim, and that it exists for
its own sake. It must further be understood that all
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the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality,
he possesses only through the state. For his spiritual reality
consists in this that his own essence reason is objectively
present to him, that it possesses objective, immediate existence for him.
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Thus only is he fully conscious, Thus only is he
a partaker of morality, of a just and moral social
and political life. For truth is the union of the
universal and subjective will, and the universal is to be
found in the state, in its laws, its universal and
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rational arrangements. The state is the divine idea, as it
exists on earth. We have in it. Therefore the object
of history in a more definite shape than before that
in which freedom obtains objectivity and lives in the enjoyment
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of this objectivity. For law is the objectivity of spirit
volition in its true form. Only that will which obeys
law is free, for it obeys itself. It is independent
and so free. When the state or our country constitutes
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a community of existence. When the subjective will of man
submits to laws, the contradiction between liberty and necessity vanishes.
The rational has necessary existence as being the reality and
substance of things, and we are free in recognizing it
as law and following it as the substance of our
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own being. The objective and the subjective will are then
reconciled and present one identical, homogeneous whole. For the morality
sidlish kite of the state is not of that ethical
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moralitia reflective kind in which one's own conviction bears sway.
This latter is rather the peculiarity of the modern time,
while the true antique morality is based on the principle
of abiding by one's duty to the state at large.
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An Athenian citizen did what was required of him, as
it were, from instinct. But if I reflect on the
object of my activity, I must have the consciousness that
my will has been called into exercise. But morality is duty,
substantial right, a second nature, as it has been justly
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called for. The first nature of man is his primary,
merely animal existence. The development in extenso of the idea
of the state belongs to the philosophy of jurisprudence. But
it must be observed that in the theories of our time.
Various errors are current respecting it, which pass for established
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truths and have become fixed prejudices. We will mention only
a few of them, giving prominence to such as have
a reference to the object of our history. The error
which first meets us is the direct contradictory of our
principle that the state presents the realization of freedom. The opinion,
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namely that man is free by nature, but that in society,
in the state to which nevertheless he is irresistibly impelled,
he must limit this natural freedom. That man is free
by nature is quite correct in one sense, namely that
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he is so according to the idea of humanity. But
we imply thereby that he is such only in virtue
of his destiny, that he has an undeveloped power to
become such. For the nature of an object is exactly
synonymous with its idea. But the view in question imports
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more than this. When man is spoken of as free
by nature, the mode of his existence, as well as
his destiny, is implied. His merely natural and primary condition
is intended. In this sense, a state of nature is
assumed in which mankind at large are in the possession
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of their natural rights. With the unconstrained exercise and enjoyment
of their freedom. This assumption is not indeed raised to
the dignity of the historical fact. It would indeed be
difficult were the attempt seriously made to point out any
such condition as actually existing or as having ever occurred.
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Examples of a savage state of life can be pointed out,
but they are marked by brutal passions and deeds of violence.
While however rude and simple their conditions, they involve social
arrangements which, to use the common phrase, restrain freedom. That
assumption is one of those nebulous images which theory produces,
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an idea which it cannot avoid originating, but which it
fathers upon real existence without sufficient historical justification. What we
find such a state of nature to be in actual
experience answers exactly to the idea of a merely natural condition. Freedom,
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as the ideal of that which is original and natural,
does not exist as original and natural. Rather, must it
be first sought out and one, and that by an
incalculable medial discipline of the intellectual and moral powers. The
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state of nature is therefore predominantly that of injustice and violence,
of untamed natural impulses of inhuman deeds and feelings. Limitation
is certainly produced by society in the state, but it
is a limitation of the mere bruine emotions and rude instincts,
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as also, in a more advanced stage of culture, of
the premeditated self will, of caprice and passion. This kind
of constraint is part of the instrumentality by which only
the consciousness of freedom and the desire for its attainment
in its true that is, rational and ideal form, can
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be attained to the ideal of freedom, law and morality
are indispensably requisite, and they are in and for themselves
universal existences, objects and aims which are discovered only by
the activity of thought, separating itself from the merely sensuous
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and developing itself in opposition there too, and which must,
on the other hand, be introduced into and incorporated with
the originally sensuous will, and that, contrarily to its natural inclination.
The perpetually recurring misapprehension of freedom consists in regarding that
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term only in its formal, subjective sense, abstracted from its
essential objects and aims. Thus a constraint put upon impulse, desire, passion,
pertaining to the particular individual. As such a limitation of
caprice and self will is regarded as a fettering of freedom.
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We should, on the contrary, look upon such limitation as
the indispensable proviso of emancipation. Society and the state are
the very conditions in which freedom is realized. We must
notice a second view contravening the principle of the development
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of moral relations into a legal form. The patriarchal condition
is regarded either in reference to the entire race of
man or to some branches of it, as exclusively that
condition of things, in which the legal element is combined
with a due recognition of the moral and emotional parts
of our nature, and in which justice, as united with these,
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truly and really influences the intercourse of the social units.
The basis of the patriarchal condition is the family relation,
which develops the primary form of conscious morality, succeeded by
that of the state as its second phase. The patriarchal
condition is one of transition, in which the family has
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already advanced to the position of a race or people,
where the union therefore has already ceased to be simply
a bond of love and confidence. And has become one
of plighted service. We must first examine the ethical principle
of the family. The family may be reckoned as virtually
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a single person, since its members have either mutually so
surrendered their individual personality and consequently their legal position towards
each other with the rest of their particular interests and desires,
as in the case of the parents, or have not
yet attained such an independent personality. The children, who are
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primarily in that merely natural condition already mentioned, they live
therefore in a unity of feeling, love, confidence, and faith
in each other, and in a relation of mutual love.
The one individual has the consciousness of himself. In the
consciousness of the other, he lives out of self, and
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in this mutual self renunciation, each regains the life that
had been virtually transferred to the other, gains, in fact,
that other's existence and his own as involved with that other.
The farther interests, connected with the necessities and external concerns
of life, as well as the development that has to
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take place within their circle, that is, of the children,
constitute a common object for the members of the family.
The spirit of the family. The penates form one substantial
being as much as the spirit of a people in
the state, and morality in both cases consists in a feeling,
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a consciousness, and a will not limited to individual personality
and interest, but embracing the common interests of the members generally.
But this unity is, in the case of the family,
essentially one of feeling, not advancing beyond the limits of
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the merely natural. The piety of the family relation should
be respected in the highest degree by the state. By
its means, the state obtains as its members individuals who
are already moral, for as mere persons they are not,
and who, in uniting to form a state, bring with
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them that sound basis of a political edifice, the capacity
of feeling one with a whole. But the expansion of
the family to a patriarchal unity carries us beyond the
ties of blood relationship the simply natural elements of that basis,
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and outside of these limits the members of the community
must enter upon the position of independent personality. A review
of the patriarchal condition in extenso would lead us to
give special attention to the theocratical constitution. The head of
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the patriarchal clan is also its priest. If the family
in its jet general relations is not yet separated from
civic society in the state. The separation of religion from
it has also not yet taken place, and so much
the less, since the piety of the hearth is itself
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a profoundly subjective state of feeling. We have considered two
aspects of freedom, the objective and the subjective. If therefore
freedom is asserted to consist in the individuals of a state,
all agreeing in its arrangements, it is evident that only
the subjective aspect is regarded. The natural inference from this
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principle is that no law can be valid without the
approval of all. This difficulty is attempted to be obviated
by the decision that the minority must yield to the majority.
The majority therefore bear the way. But long ago Jean
Jacques Rousseau remarked that in that case there would be
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no longer freedom, for the will of the minority would
cease to be respected. At the Polish Diet, each single
member had to give his consent before any political step
could be taken, and this kind of freedom, it was
that ruined the state. Besides, it is a dangerous and
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false prejudice that the people alone have reason and insight
and know what justice is. For each popular faction may
represent itself as the people, and the question as to
what constitutes the state is one of advanced science and
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not of popular decision. If the principle of regard for
the individual will is recognized as the only basis of
political liberty, namely, that nothing should be done by or
for the state to w which all the members of
the body politic have not given their sanction, we have
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properly speaking, no constitution. The only arrangement that would be
necessary would be first a center having no will of
its own, but which should take into consideration what appeared
to be the necessities of the state, and secondly, a
contrivance for calling the members of the state together, for
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taking the votes, and for performing the arithmetical operations of
reckoning and comparing the number of votes for the different propositions,
and thereby deciding upon them. The state is an abstraction,
having even its generic existence in its citizens. But it
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is an actuality, and its simply generic existence must embody
itself in individual will and activity. The want of government
and political administration in general is felt. This necessitates the
selection and separation from the rest of those who have
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to take the helm in political affairs, to decide concerning
them and to give orders to other citizens with a
view to the execution of their plans. If, for example,
even the people in a democracy resolve on a war,
a general must head the army. It is only by
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a constitution that the abstraction the state attains life and reality.
But this involves the distinction between those who command and
those who obey. Yet obedience seems inconsistent with liberty, and
those who command appear to do the very opposite of
that which the fundamental idea of the state, namely that
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of freedom requires. It is, however, urged that, though the
distinction between commanding and obeying is absolutely necessary, because affairs
could not go on without it, and indeed this seems
only a compulsory limitation external to and even contravening, the
freedom in the abstract, the constitution should be at least
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so framed that the citizens may obey as little as possible,
and the smallest modicum of free volition be left to
the commands of the superiors. That the substance of that
for which subordination is necessary, even in its most important bearings,
should be decided and resolved on by the people, by
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the will of many or of all of the citizens,
though it be supposed to be thereby provided that the
state should be possessed of vigor and strength as a reality,
and individual unity. The primary consideration is then the distinction
between the governing and the governed, and political constitutions in
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the abstract have been rightly divided into monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy,
which gives occasion, however, to the remark that monarchy itself
must be further divided into despotism and monarchy proper that
in all the divisions to which the leading idea gives rise,
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only the generic character is to be made prominent, it
being not intended thereby that the particular category under review
should be exhausted as a form, order, or kind in
its concrete development. But especially, it must be observed that
the above mentioned divisions admit of a multitude of particular modifications,
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not only such as lie within the limits of those
classes themselves, but also such as are mixtures of several
of these essentially distinct classes, and which are consequently misshaped
unstable and inconsistent forms. In such a collision, the concerning
question is what is the best constitution. That is, by
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what arrangement, organization, or mechanism of the power of the
state its object can be must surely attained. This object
may indeed be variously understood, for instance, as the calm
enjoyment of life on the part of the citizens, or
as universal happiness. Such aims have suggested the so called
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ideals of constitutions, and as a particular branch of the
subject ideals of the education of princes or of the
governing body the aristocracy at large. For the chief point
they treat of is the condition of those subjects who
stand at the head of affairs, And in these ideals
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the concrete details of political organization are not at all considered.
The inquiry into the best constitution is frequently treated as
if not only the theory were an affair of subject
of independent conviction, but as if the introduction of a
constitution recognized as the best or as superior to others,
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could be the result of a resolve adopted in this
theoretical manner, as if the form of a constitution were
a matter of free choice determined by nothing else but
reflection of this artless fashion. Was that deliberation not indeed
of the Persian people, but of the Persian grandees who
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had conspired to overthrow the Pseudosperides and the Magi. After
their undertaking had succeeded, and when there was no scion
of the royal family living as to what constitution they
should introduce into Persia, and Herodotus gives an equally naive
account of this deliberation. In the present day, the constitution
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of a country and people is not represented as so
entirely dependent on free and deliberate choice. The fundamental, but
abstractly and therefore imperfectly entertained conception of freedom has resulted
in the republic being very generally regarded in theory as
the only just and true political constitution. Many, even who
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occupy elevated official positions under monarchical constitutions, so far from
being opposed to this idea, are actually its supporters. Only
they see that such a constitution, though the best, cannot
be realized under all circumstances, and that while men are
what they are, we must be satisfied with less freedom.
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The monarchical constitution under the givevers in circumstances, and the
present moral condition of the people being even regarded as
the most advantageous. In this view, also, the necessity of
a particular constitution is made to depend on the condition
of the people in such a way as if the
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latter were non essential and accidental. This representation is founded
on the distinction which the reflective understanding makes between an
idea and the corresponding reality. Holding to an abstract and
consequently untrue idea, not grasping it in its completeness, or
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which is virtually though not in point of form, the
same not taking a concrete view of a people and
a state, we shall have to show farther on that
the constitution adopted by a people makes one substance one
spirit with its religion, its art, and philosophy, or at
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least with its conceptions and thoughts its culture, generally not
to expatiate upon the additional influences ab extra of climate,
of neighbors, of its place in the world. A state
is an individual totality of which you cannot select any
particular side, although a supremely important one, such as its
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political constitution, and deliberate and decide respecting it in that
isolated form. Not only is that constitution most intimately connected
with and dependent on those other spiritual forces. But the
form of the entire moral and intellectual individuality, comprising all
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the forces it embodies, is only a step in the
development of the grand whole, with its place pre appointed
in the process, a fact which gives the highest sanction
to the constitution in question and establishes its absolute necessity.
The origin of a state involves imperious lordship on the
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one hand, instinctive submission on the other. But even obedience,
lordly power and the fear inspired by a ruler in
itself implies some degree of voluntary connection. Even in barbarous states.
This is the case. It is not the isolated will
(29:34):
of individuals that prevails. Individual pretensions are relinquished, and the
general will is the essential bond of political union. This
unity of the general and the particular is the idea itself,
manifesting itself as a state, and which subsequently undergoes further
(29:58):
development within itself. The abstract yet necessitated process in the
development of truly independent states is as follows. They begin
with regal power, whether of patriarchal or military origin. In
(30:18):
the next phase, particularity and individuality assert themselves in the
form of aristocracy and democracy. Lastly, we have the subjection
of these separate interests to a single power, but which
can be absolutely none other than one outside of which
those spheres have an independent position, namely the monarchial. Two
(30:45):
phases of royalty therefore must be distinguished a primary and
a secondary one. This process is necessitated so that the
form of government assigned to a particular stage of development
must present itself. It is therefore no matter of choice,
but is that form which is adapted to the spirit
of the people. In a constitution, the main feature of
(31:10):
interest is the self development of the rational that is,
the political condition of a people, the setting free of
the successive elements of the idea, so that the several
powers in the state manifest themselves as separate, attain their
appropriate and special perfection, and yet in this independent condition
(31:33):
work together for one object and are held together by it,
that is, form an organic whole. The state is thus
the embodiment of rational freedom, realizing and recognizing itself in
an objective form. For its objectivity consists in this that
(31:56):
its successive stages are not merely ideal, but are present
in an appropriate reality, and that in their separate and
several workings they are absolutely merged in that agency by
which the totality, the soul, the individual unity is produced,
and of which it is the result. The state is
(32:22):
the idea of spirit in the external manifestation of human
will and its freedom. It is to the state, therefore,
that change in the aspect of history indissolubly attaches itself,
and the successive phases of the idea manifest themselves in
it as distinct political principles. The constitutions under which world
(32:47):
historical peoples have reached their culmination are peculiar to them,
and therefore do not present a generally applicable political basis.
Were it otherwise, the differences of similar constitutions would consist
only in a peculiar method of expanding and developing that
generic basis, whereas they really originate in diversity of principle.
(33:12):
From the comparison therefore, of the political institutions of the
ancient world historical peoples, it so happens that for the
most recent principle of a constitution, for the principle of
our own times, nothing so to speak, can be learned
in science and art. It is quite otherwise. For example,
(33:33):
the ancient philosophy is so decidedly the basis of the modern,
that it is inevitably contained in the latter and constitutes
its basis. In this case, the relation is that of
a continuous development of the same structure, whose foundation stone, walls,
and roof have remained what they were in art. The
(33:55):
Greek itself, in its original form, furnishes us the best models.
But in regard to political constitution, it is quite otherwise.
Here the ancient and the modern have not their essential
principle in common. Abstract definitions and dogmas respecting just government,
(34:15):
importing that intelligence and virtue ought to bear sway are
indeed common to both. But nothing is so absurd as
to look to Greeks, Romans, or Orientals for models for
the political arrangements of our time. From the East may
(34:36):
be derived beautiful pictures of a patriarchal condition, of paternal
government and of devotion to it on the part of peoples,
from Greeks and Romans descriptions of popular liberty. Among the
latter we find the idea of a free constitution admitting
all the citizens to share in deliberations and resolves respecting
(34:58):
the affairs and laws of the commonwealth. In our times too,
this is its general acceptation. Only with this modification that,
since our states are so large and there are so
many of the many, the latter direct action being impossible,
(35:20):
should by the indirect method of elective substitution, express their
concurrence with resolves affecting the common weal. That is that
for legislative purposes, generally, the people should be represented by deputies.
The so called representative constitution is that form of government
(35:40):
with which we connect the idea of a free constitution,
and this notion has become a rooted prejudice. On this theory,
people and government are separated. But there is a perversity
in this antithesis, an ill intention to ruse, designed to
(36:01):
insinuate that the people are the totality of the state. Besides,
the basis of this view is the principle of isolated
individuality the absolute validity of the subjective will, a dogma
which we have already investigated. The great point is that freedom,
(36:21):
in its ideal conception, has not subjective will and caprice
for its principle, but the recognition of the universal will,
and that the process by which freedom is realized is
the free development of its successive stages. The subjective will
is a merely formal determination, a carte blanche, not including
(36:46):
what it is that is willed. Only the rational will
is that universal principle which independently determines and unfolds its
own being and develops its successive elemental phases as organic
members of this Gothic cathedral architecture. The ancients knew nothing.
(37:11):
At an earlier stage of the discussion, we established the
two elemental considerations, first, the idea of freedom as the
absolute and final aim. Secondly, the means for realizing it,
that is, the subjective side of knowledge and will, with
its life, movement, and activity. We then recognize the state
(37:34):
as the moral whole and the reality of freedom, and
consequently as the objective unity of these two elements. For
although we make this distinction in two aspects for our consideration,
it must be remarked that they are intimately connected, and
that their connection is involved in the idea of each
(37:56):
when examined separately. On the one hand, recognized the idea
in the definite form of freedom, conscious of and willing itself,
having itself alone as its object, involving at the same
time the pure and simple idea of reason, and likewise,
(38:17):
that which we have called subject self consciousness spirit actually
existing in the world. If, on the other hand, we
consider subjectivity, we find that subjective knowledge and will is thought,
but by the very active, thoughtful cognition and volition I
will the universal object, the substance of absolute reason. We
(38:43):
observe therefore an essential union between the objective side, the idea,
and the subjective side, the personality that conceives and wills it.
The objective existence of this union is the state, which
is therefore the basis and center of the other concrete
(39:05):
elements of the life of a people, of art, of law,
of morals, of religion, of science. All the activity of
spirit has only this object, the becoming conscious of this union,
that is, of its own freedom. Among the forms of
(39:27):
this conscious union, religion occupies the highest position. In it. Spirit,
rising above the limitations of temporal and secular existence, becomes
conscious of the absolute Spirit, and in this consciousness of
the self existent being renounces its individual interest. It lays
(39:48):
this aside in devotion, a state of mind in which
it refuses to occupy itself any longer with a limited
and particular By sacrifice, man excis expresses his renunciation of
his property, his will, his individual feelings. The religious concentration
of the soul appears in the form of feeling. It
(40:11):
nevertheless passes also into reflection. A form of worship is
a result of reflection. The second form of the union
of the objective and subjective in the human spirit is art.
This advances farther into the realm of the actual and
(40:31):
sensuous than religion. In its noblest walk, it is occupied
with representing not indeed the spirit of God, but certainly
the form of God, and in its secondary aims that
which is divine and spiritual. Generally, its office is to
(40:53):
render visible the divine, presenting it to the imaginative and
intuitive faculty. But the true is the object, not only
of conception and feeling, as in religion, and of intuition
as in art, but also of the thinking faculty. And
(41:14):
this gives us the third form of the union in
question philosophy. This is consequently the highest, freest and wisest phase.
Of course, we are not intending to investigate these three
phases here. They have only suggested themselves in virtue of
(41:34):
their occupying the same general ground as the object. Here
considered the state, the general principle which manifests itself and
becomes an object of consciousness in the state. The form
under which all that the state includes is brought is
the whole of that cycle of phenomena which constitutes the
culture of a nation. But the definite substance that receives
(41:59):
the form of universality and exists in that concrete reality
which is the state, is the spirit of the people itself.
The actual state is animated by this spirit in all
its particular affairs, its wars, institutions, et cetera. But man
must also attain a conscious realization of this his spirit
(42:22):
and essential nature, and of his original identity with it.
For we said that morality is the identity of the
subjective or personal with the universal will. Now the mind
must give itself an express consciousness of this, and the
focus of this knowledge is religion. Art and science are
(42:47):
only various aspects and forms of the same substantial being.
In considering religion, the chief point of inquiry is whether
it recognizes the true the idea only in its separate
abstract form, or in its true unity. In separation God
(43:08):
being represented in an abstract form as the highest being,
Lord of heaven and Earth, living in a remote region
far from human actualities, or in its unity God as
the unity of the universal and individual, the individual itself
assuming the aspect of positive and real existence in the
(43:29):
idea of the incarnation. Religion is the sphere in which
a nation gives itself the definition of that which it
regards as the true. A definition contains everything that belongs
to the essence of an object, reducing its nature to
its simple characteristic predicate. As a mirror for every predicate,
(43:55):
the generic soul pervading all its details. The conception of
God therefore constitutes the general basis of a people's character.
In this aspect, religion stands in the closest connection with
the political principle. Freedom can exist only where individuality is
(44:18):
recognized as having its positive and real existence in the
divine being. The connection may be further explained. Thus, secular
existence as merely temporal occupied with particular interests is consequently
only relative and unauthorized, and receives its validity only in
(44:40):
as far as the universal soul that pervades it its principle,
receives absolute validity, which it cannot have unless it is
recognized as the definite manifestation the phenomenal existence of the
divine essence. On this account, it is that the state
rests on religion. We hear this often repeated in our times,
(45:04):
though for the most part, nothing further is meant than
that individual subjects, as God fearing men, would be more
disposed and ready to perform their duty, since obedience to
king and law so naturally follows in the train of
reverence for God. This reverence, indeed, since it exalts the
general over the special, may even turn upon the latter,
(45:28):
become fanatical and work with incendiary and destructive violence against
the state, its institutions and arrangements. Religious feeling, therefore, it
is thought, should be sober, kept in a certain degree
of coolness, that it may not storm against and bear
(45:48):
down that which should be defended and preserved by it.
The possibility of such a catastrophe is at least latent
in it. While, however, the correct sentiment is adopted that
the state is based on religion, the position thus assigned
to religion supposes the state already to exist, and that subsequently,
(46:12):
in order to maintain it, religion must be brought into
it in buckets and bushels, as it were, and impressed
upon people's hearts. It is quite true that men must
be trained to religion, but not as to something whose
existence has yet to begin. For in affirming that the
state is based on religion, that it has its roots
(46:35):
in it, we virtually assert that the former has proceeded
from the latter, and that this derivation is going on
now and will always continue. That is, the principles of
the state must be regarded as valid in and for themselves,
which can only be in so far as they are
(46:56):
recognized as determinate manifestations of the divine nature. The form
of religion therefore decides that of the state and its constitution.
The latter actually originated in the particular religion adopted by
the nation, so that, in fact, the Athenian or the
(47:17):
Roman state was possible only in connection with the specific
form of Heathenism existing among the respective peoples, just as
a Catholic state as a spirit and constitution different from
that of a Protestant one. If that outcry that urging
and striving for the implantation of religion in the community
(47:40):
were an utterance of anguish and to call for help,
as it often seems to be expressing the danger of
religion having vanished or being about to vanish entirely from
the state that would be fearful, indeed worse in fact
than this outcry supposes, for it implies the belief in
a resource against the evil, namely the implantation and inculcation
(48:06):
of religion, whereas religion is by no means a thing
to be so produced its self production, and there can
be no other lies much deeper, another and opposite folly
which we meet with in our time is that of
(48:27):
pretending to invent and to carry out political constitutions independently
of religion. The Catholic Confession, although sharing the Christian name
with a Protestant, does not concede to the state an
inherent justice and morality, a concession which, in the Protestant
(48:48):
principle is fundamental. This tearing away of the political morality
of the Constitution from its natural connection is necessary to
the genius of that really religion, inasmuch as it does
not recognize justice and morality as independent and substantial, but
(49:09):
thus excluded from intrinsic worth, torn away from their last refuge,
the sanctuary of conscience, the calm retreat where religion has
its abode, the principles and institutions of political legislation are
destitute of a real center to the same degree as
they are compelled to remain abstract and indefinite. Summing up
(49:35):
what has been said of the state, we find that
we have been led to call its vital principle as
actuating the individuals who compose it morality. The state, its laws,
its arrangements, constitute the rights of its members. Its natural features,
its mountains, air, and waters, are their country, the their fatherland,
(50:01):
their outward material property, the history of the state, their deeds,
what their ancestors have produced, belongs to them and lives
in their memory. All is their possession, just as they
are possessed by it, for it constitutes their existence, their being.
(50:24):
Their imagination is occupied with the ideas thus presented, while
the adoption of these laws and of a fatherland so conditioned,
is the expression of their will. It is this matured
totality which thus constitutes one being, the spirit of one
people to it the individual members belong. Each unit is
(50:50):
the son of his nation, and at the same time,
in as far as the state to which he belongs
his undergoing development, the son of his age, none remains
behind it, still less advances beyond it. This spiritual being,
(51:10):
the spirit of his time, is his he is a
representative of it. It is that in which he originated
and in which he lives. Among the Athenians, the word
Athens had a double import suggesting primarily a complex of
political institutions, but no less in the second place that
(51:35):
Goddess who represented the spirit of the people and its unity.
This spirit of a people is a determinate and a
particular spirit, and is, as just stated, further modified by
the degree of its historical development. This spirit then constitutes
(51:56):
the basis and substance of those other forms of a
nation's consciousness which have been noticed. For spirit, in its
self consciousness must become an object of contemplation to itself,
and objectivity involves in the first instance the rise of
differences which make up a total of distinct spheres of
(52:19):
objective spirit. In the same way as the soul exists
only as the complex of its faculties, which, in their
form of concentration in a simple unity, produce that soul.
It is thus one individuality, which presented in its essence
as God, is honored and enjoyed in religion, which is
(52:43):
exhibited as an object of sensuous contemplation in art, and
is apprehended as an intellectual conception in philosophy, in virtue
of the original identity of their essence, purport, and object,
the us. These various forms are inseparably united with the
(53:03):
spirit of the state. Only in connection with this particular
religion can this particular political constitution exist, just as in
such or such a state, such or such a philosophy
or order of art. The remark next in order is
(53:24):
that each particular national genius is to be treated as
only one individual in the process of universal history. For
that history is the exhibition of the divine absolute development
of Spirit in its highest forms, that gradation by which
it attains its truth and consciousness of itself. The forms
(53:49):
which these grades of progress assume are the characteristic national
spirits of history, the peculiar tenour of their moral life,
of their government, their art, religion, and science. To realize
these grades is the boundless impulse of the world spirit,
the goal of its irresistible urging. For this division into
(54:13):
organic members and the full development of each is its idea.
Universal history is exclusively occupied with showing how Spirit comes
to a recognition and adoption of the truth. The dawn
of knowledge appears, it begins to discover salient principles, and
(54:36):
at last it arrives at full consciousness, having therefore learned
the abstract characteristics of the nature of Spirit, the means
which it uses to realize its idea, and the shape
assumed by it in its complete realization in phenomenal existence,
(54:58):
namely the state. Nothing further remains for this introductory section
to contemplate, but the course of the world's history end
the essential destiny of reason sub Section three. The shape
which the perfect embodiment of Spirit assumes. This recording is
(55:22):
in the public domain.
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