Vorlesungen über die Philosophie
der Geschichte
Vorlesungen über die Philosophie
der Geschichte
テキスト
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序論 A 歴史のとらえかた——（a）事実そのままの歴史 （b）反省をくわえた歴史 （c）哲学的な歴史 B 歴史における理性とはなにか——（a）精神の抽象的定義 （b）自由を実現する手段 （c）自由の実現体たる国家 C 世界史のあゆみ——（a）発展の原理 （b）歴史のはじまり （c）世界史のすすみかた D 世界史の地理的基礎——（a）新世界 （b）地理的条件 （c）旧世界 東洋世界——［１］中国 ［２］インド ［３］ペルシア ギリシア世界——［１］ギリシア精神の諸要素 ［２］美しき個人の形成 ［３］外交の時代 ローマ世界——［１］第二回ポエニ戦争以前のローマ ［２］第二回ポエニ戦争から帝制成立までのローマ ［３］帝制の時代 ゲルマン世界——［１］キリスト教=ゲルマン世界の諸要素 ［２］中世 ［３］近代 |
| Hegel Philosophy of History. Introduction. The subject of this course of Lectures is the Philosophical History of the World. And by this must be understood, not a collection of general observations respecting it, suggested by the study of its records, and proposed to be illustrated by its facts, but Universal History itself.[2] To gain a clear idea, at the outset, of the nature of our task, it seems necessary to begin with an examination of the other methods of treating History. The various methods may be ranged under three heads: I. Original History. II. Reflective History. III. Philosophical History. | |
| I.
Of the first kind, the mention of one or two distinguished names will
furnish a definite type. To this category belong Herodotus, Thucydides,
and other historians of the same order, whose descriptions are for the
most part limited to deeds, events, and states of society, which they
had before their eyes, and whose spirit they shared. They simply
transferred what was passing in the world around them, to the realm of
representative intellect. An external phenomenon is thus translated
into an internal conception. In the same way the poet operates upon the
material supplied him by his emotions; projecting it into an image for
the conceptive faculty. These original historians did, it is true, find
statements and narratives of other men ready to hand. One person cannot
be an eye or ear witness of everything. But they make use of such aids
only as the poet does of that heritage of an already-formed language,
to which he owes so much: merely as an ingredient. Historiographers
bind together the fleeting elements of story, and treasure them up for
immortality in the Temple of Mnemosyne. Legends, Balladstories,
Traditions, must be excluded from such original history. These are but
dim and hazy forms of historical apprehension, and therefore belong to
nations whose intelligence is but half awakened. Here, on the contrary,
we have to do with people fully conscious of what they were and what
they were about. The domain of reality – actually seen, or capable of
being so – affords a very different basis in point of firmness from
that fugitive and shadowy element, in which were engendered those
legends and poetic dreams whose historical prestige vanishes, as soon
as nations have attained a mature individuality. |
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| Such original historians, then,
change the events, the deeds, and the states of society with which they
are conversant, into an object for the conceptive faculty. The
narratives they leave us cannot, therefore, be very comprehensive in
their range. Herodotus, Thucydides, Guicciardini, may be taken as fair
samples of the class in this respect. What is present and living in
their environment is their proper material. The influences that have
formed the writer are identical with those which have moulded the
events that constitute the matter of his story. The author’s spirit,
and that of the actions he narrates, is one and the same. He describes
scenes in which he himself has been an actor, or at any rate an
interested spectator. It is short periods of time, individual shapes of
persons and occurrences, single, unreflected traits, of which he makes
his picture. And his aim is nothing more than the presentation to
posterity of an image of events as clear as that which he himself
possessed in virtue of personal observation, or life-like descriptions.
Reflections are none of his business, for he lives in the spirit of his
subject; he has not attained an elevation above it. If, as in Caesar’s
case, he belongs to the exalted rank of generals or statesmen, it is
the prosecution of his own aims that constitutes the history. |
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| Such speeches as we find in
Thucydides (for example) of which we can positively assert that they
are not bona fide reports, would seem to make against out statement
that a historian of his class presents us no reflected picture; that
persons and people appear in his works in propria persona. Speeches, it
must be allowed, are veritable transactions in the human commonwealth;
in fact, very gravely influential transactions. It is indeed, often
said, “Such and such things are only talk;” by way of demonstrating
their harmlessness. That for which this excuse is brought may be mere
“talk”; and talk enjoys the important privilege of being harmless. But
addresses of peoples to peoples, or orations directed to nations and to
princes, are integrant constituents of history. Granted that such
orations as those of Pericles – that most profoundly accomplished,
genuine, noble statesman – were elaborated by Thucydides, it must yet
be maintained that they were not foreign to the character of the
speaker. In the orations in question, these men proclaim the maxims
adopted by their countrymen, and which formed their own character; they
record their views of their political relations, and of their moral and
spiritual nature; and the principles of their designs and conduct. What
the historian puts into their mouths is no supposititious system of
ideas, but an uncorrupted transcript of their intellectual and moral
habitudes. |
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| Of these historians, whom we
must make thoroughly our own, with whom we must linger long, if we
would live with their respective nations, and enter deeply into their
spirit: of these historians, to whose pages we may turn not for the
purposes of erudition merely, but with a view to deep and genuine
enjoyment, there are fewer than might be imagined. Herodotus the
Father, i.e., the Founder of History, and Thucydides have been already
mentioned. Xenophon’s Retreat of the Ten Thousand, is a work equally
original. Caesar’s Commentaries are the simple masterpiece of a mighty
spirit. Among the ancients, these annalists were necessarily great
captains and statesmen. In the Middle Ages, if we except the Bishops,
who were placed in the very centre of the political world, the Monks
monopolize this category as naive chroniclers who were as decidedly
isolated from active life as those elder annalists had been connected
with it. In modern times the relations are entirely altered. Our
culture is essentially comprehensive, and immediately changes all
events into historical representations. Belonging to the class in
question, we have vivid, simple, clear narrations – especially of
military transactions – which might fairly take their place with those
of Caesar. In richness of matter and fulness of detail as regards
strategic appliances, and attendant circumstances, they are even more
instructive. The French “Mémoires,” also, fall under this category. In
many cases these are written by men of mark, though relating to affairs
of little note. They not unfrequently contain a large proportion of
anecdotal matter, so that the ground they occupy is narrow and trivial.
Yet they are often veritable masterpieces in history; as those of
Cardinal de Retz, which in fact trench on a larger historical field. In
Germany such masters are rare. Frederick the Great (“Histoire de Mon
Temps”) is an illustrious exception. Writers of this order must occupy
an elevated position. Only from such a position is it possible to take
an extensive view of affairs – to see everything. This is out of the
question for him, who from below merely gets a glimpse of the great
world through a miserable cranny. |
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| II. The second kind of history
we may call the reflective. It is history whose mode of representation
is not really confined by the limits of the time to which it relates,
but whose spirit transcends the present. In this second order a
strongly marked variety of species may be distinguished. |
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| 1. It is the aim of the
investigator to gain a view of the entire history of a people or a
country, or of the world, in short, what we call Universal History. In
this case the working up of the historical material is the main point.
The workman approaches his task with his own spirit; a spirit distinct
from that of the element he is to manipulate. Here a very important
consideration will be the principles to which the author refers the
bearing and motives of the actions and events which he describes, and
those which determine the form of his narrative. Among us Germans this
reflective treatment and the display of ingenuity which it occasions
assume a manifold variety of phases. Every writer of history proposes
to himself an original method. The English and French confess to
general principles of historical composition. Their standpoint is more
that of cosmopolitan or of national culture. Among us each labors to
invent a purely individual point of view. Instead of writing history,
we are always beating our brains to discover how history ought to be
written. This first kind of Reflective History is most nearly akin to
the preceding, when it has no farther aim than to present the annals of
a country complete. Such compilations (among which may be reckoned the
works of Livy, Diodorus Siculus, Johannes von Müller’s History of
Switzerland) are, if well performed, highly meritorious. |
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| Among the best of the kind may
be reckoned such annalists as approach those of the first class; who
give so vivid a transcript of events that the reader may well fancy
himself listening to contemporaries and eye- witnesses. But it often
happens that the individuality of tone which must characterize a writer
belonging to a different culture is not modified in accordance with the
periods such a record must traverse. The spirit of the writer is quite
other than that of the times of which he treats. Thus Livy puts into
the mouths of the old Roman kings, consuls, and generals such orations
as would be delivered by an accomplished advocate of the Livian era,
and which strikingly contrast with the genuine traditions of Roman
antiquity (e.g., the fable of Menenius Agrippa). In the same way he
gives us descriptions of battles, as if he had been an actual
spectator; but whose features would serve well enough for battles in
any period, and whose distinctness contrasts on the other hand with the
want of connection and the inconsistency that prevail elsewhere, even
in his treatment of chief points of interest. The difference between
such a compiler and an original historian may be best seen by comparing
Polybius himself with the style in which Livy uses, expands, and
abridges his annals in those periods of which Polybius’s account has
been preserved. Johannes von Müller has given a stiff, formal, pedantic
aspect to his history, in the endeavor to remain faithful in his
portraiture to the times he describes. We much prefer the narratives we
find in old Tschudy. All is more naive and natural than it appears in
the garb of a fictitious and affected archaism. |
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| A history which aspires to
traverse long periods of time, or to be universal, must indeed forego
the attempt to give individual representations of the past as it
actually existed. It must foreshorten its pictures by abstractions; and
this includes not merely the omission of events and deeds, but whatever
is involved in the fact that Thought is, after all, the most trenchant
epitomist. A battle, a great victory, a siege, no longer maintains its
original proportions, but is put off with a bare mention. When Livy,
e.g., tells us of the wars with the Volsci, we sometimes have the brief
announcement: “This year war was carried on with the Volsci.” |
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| 2. A second species of
Reflective History is what we may call the Pragmatical. When we have to
deal with the Past, and occupy ourselves with a remote world, a Present
rises into being for the mind – produced by its own activity, as the
reward of its labor. The occurrences are, indeed, various; but the idea
which pervades them – their deeper import and connection – is one. This
takes the occurrence out of the category of the Past and makes it
virtually Present. Pragmatical (didactic) reflections, though in their
nature decidedly abstract, are truly and indefeasibly of the Present,
and quicken the annals of the dead Past with the life of to-day.
Whether, indeed, such reflections are truly interesting and enlivening,
depends on the writer’s own spirit. Moral reflections must here be
specially noticed – the moral teaching expected from history; which
latter has not infrequently been treated with a direct view to the
former. It may be allowed that examples of virtue elevate the soul, and
are applicable in the moral instruction of children for impressing
excellence upon their minds. But the destinies of peoples and states,
their interests, relations, and the complicated tissue of their
affairs, present quite another field. Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are
wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience
offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this – that
peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or
acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such
peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly
idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations
connected with itself, and itself alone. Amid the pressure of great
events, a general principle gives no help. It is useless to revert to
similar circumstances in the Past. The pallid shades of memory struggle
in vain with the life and freedom of the Present. Looked at in this
light, nothing can be shallower than the oft-repeated appeal to Greek
and Roman examples during the French Revolution. Nothing is more
diverse than the genius of those nations and that of our times.
Johannes v. Müller, in his “Universal History,” as also in his “History
of Switzerland,” had such moral aims in view. He designed to prepare a
body of political doctrines for the instruction of princes,
governments, and peoples (he formed a special collection of doctrines
and reflections – frequently giving us in his correspondence the exact
number of apophthegms which he had compiled in a week); but he cannot
reckon this part of his labor as among the best that he accomplished.
It is only a thorough, liberal, comprehensive view of historical
relations (such e.g., as we find in Montesquieu’s “Esprit des Lois”)
that can give truth and interest to reflections of this order. One
Reflective History, therefore, supersedes another. The materials are
patent to every writer: each is likely enough to believe himself
capable of arranging and manipulating them; and we may expect that each
will insist upon his own spirit as that of the age in question.
Disgusted by such reflective histories, readers have often returned
with pleasure to a narrative adopting no particular point of view.
These certainly have their value; but for the most part they offer only
material for history. We Germans are content with such. The French, on
the other hand, display great genius in reanimating bygone times, and
in bringing the past to bear upon the present condition of things. [3]
The third form of Reflective History is the Critical. This deserves
mention as pre-eminently the mode of treating history now current in
Germany. It is not history itself that is here presented. We might more
properly designate it as a History of History; a criticism of
historical narratives and an investigation of their truth and
credibility. Its peculiarity in point of fact and of intention,
consists in the acuteness with which the writer extorts something from
the records which was not in the matters recorded. The French have
given us much that is profound and judicious in this class of
composition. But they have not endeavored to pass a merely critical
procedure for substantial history. They have duly presented their
judgments in the form of critical treatises. Among us, the so-called
“higher criticism,” which reigns supreme in the domain of philology,
has also taken possession of our historical literature. This “higher
criticism” has been the pretext for introducing all the anti-historical
monstrosities that a vain imagination could suggest. Here we have the
other method of making the past a living reality; putting subjective
fancies in the place of historical data; fancies whose merit is
measured by their boldness, that is, the scantiness of the particulars
on which they are based, and the peremptoriness with which they
contravene the best established facts of history.[4] The last species
of Reflective History announces its fragmentary character on the very
face of it. It adopts an abstract position; yet, since it takes general
points of view (e.g., as the History of Art, of Law, of Religion), it
forms a transition to the Philosophical History of the World. In our
time this form of the history of ideas has been more developed and
brought into notice. Such branches of national life stand in close
relation to the entire complex of a people’s annals; and the question
of chief importance in relation to our subject is, whether the
connection of the whole is exhibited in its truth and reality, or
referred to merely external relations. In the latter case, these
important phenomena (Art, Law, Religion, etc.) appear as purely
accidental national peculiarities. It must be remarked that, when
Reflective History has advanced to the adoption of general points of
view, if the position taken is a true one, these are found to
constitute – not a merely external thread, a superficial series – but
are the inward guiding soul of the occurrences and actions that occupy
a nation’s annals. For, like the soul-conductor Mercury, the Idea is in
truth, the leader of peoples and of the World; and Spirit, the rational
and necessitated will of that conductor, is and has been the director
of the events of the World’s History. To become acquainted with Spirit
in this its office of guidance, is the object of our present
undertaking. This brings us to... |
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| III. The third kind of history –
the Philosophical. No explanation was needed of the two previous
classes; their nature was self-evident. It is otherwise with this last,
which certainly seems to require an exposition or justification. The
most general definition that can be given, is, that the Philosophy of
History means nothing but the thoughtful consideration of it. Thought
is, indeed, essential to humanity. It is this that distinguishes us
from the brutes. In sensation, cognition, and intellection; in our
instincts and volitions, as far as they are truly human, Thought is an
invariable element. To insist upon Thought in this connection with
history may, however, appear unsatisfactory. In this science it would
seem as if Thought must be subordinate to what is given, to the
realities of fact; that this is its basis and guide: while Philosophy
dwells in the region of self-produced ideas, without reference to
actuality. Approaching history thus prepossessed, Speculation might be
expected to treat it as a mere passive material; and, so far from
leaving it in its native truth, to force it into conformity with a
tyrannous idea, and to construe it, as the phrase is, “à priori.” But
as it is the business of history simply to adopt into its records what
is and has been – actual occurrences and transactions; and since it
remains true to its character in proportion as it strictly adheres to
its data, we seem to have in Philosophy, a process diametrically
opposed to that of the historiographer. This contradiction, and the
charge consequently brought against speculation, shall be explained and
confuted. We do not, however, propose to correct the innumerable
special misrepresentations, trite or novel, that are current respecting
the aims, the interests, and the modes of treating history, and its
relation to Philosophy. |
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| The only Thought which
Philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of History, is the
simple conception of Reason; that Reason is the Sovereign of the World;
that the history of the world, therefore, presents us with a rational
process. This conviction and intuition is a hypothesis in the domain of
history as such. In that of Philosophy it is no hypothesis. It is there
proved by speculative cognition, that Reason – and this term may here
suffice us, without investigating the relation sustained by the
Universe to the Divine Being – is Substance, as well as Infinite Power;
its own Infinite Material underlying all the natural and spiritual life
which it originates, as also the Infinite Form – that which sets this
Material in motion. On the one hand, Reason is the substance of the
Universe; viz., that by which and in which all reality has its being
and subsistence. On the other hand, it is the Infinite Energy of the
Universe; since Reason is not so powerless as to be incapable of
producing anything but a mere ideal, a mere intention – having its
place outside reality, nobody knows where; something separate and
abstract, in the heads of certain human beings. It is the infinite
complex of things, their entire Essence and Truth. It is its own
material which it commits to its own Active Energy to work up; not
needing, as finite action does, the conditions of an external material
of given means from which it may obtain its support, and the objects of
its activity. It supplies its own nourishment, and is the object of its
own operations. While it is exclusively its own basis of existence, and
absolute final aim, it is also the energizing power realizing this aim;
developing it not only in the phenomena of the Natural, but also of the
Spiritual Universe – the History of the World. That this “Idea” or
“Reason” is the True, the Eternal, the absolutely powerful essence;
that it reveals itself in the World, and that in that World nothing
else is revealed but this and its honor and glory – is the thesis
which, as we have said, has been proved in Philosophy, and is here
regarded as demonstrated. |
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| In those of my hearers who are
not acquainted with Philosophy, I may fairly presume, at least, the
existence of a belief in Reason, a desire, a thirst for acquaintance
with it, in entering upon this course of Lectures. It is, in fact, the
wish for rational insight, not the ambition to amass a mere heap of
acquirements, that should be presupposed in every case as possessing
the mind of the learner in the study of science. If the clear idea of
Reason is not already developed in our minds, in beginning the study of
Universal History, we should at least have the firm, unconquerable
faith that Reason does exist there; and that the World of intelligence
and conscious volition is not abandoned to chance, but must show itself
in the light of the self-cognizant Idea. Yet I am not obliged to make
any such preliminary demand upon your faith. What I have said thus
provisionally, and what I shall have further to say, is, even in
reference to our branch of science, not to be regarded as hypothetical,
but as a summary view of the whole; the result of the investigation we
are about to pursue; a result which happens to be known to me, because
I have traversed the entire field. It is only an inference from the
history of the World, that its development has been a rational process;
that the history in question has constituted the rational necessary
course of the World-Spirit – that Spirit whose nature is always one and
the same, but which unfolds this its one nature in the phenomena of the
World’s existence. This must, as before stated, present itself as the
ultimate result of History. But we have to take the latter as it is. We
must proceed historically – empirically. Among other precautions we
must take care not to be misled by professed historians who (especially
among the Germans, and enjoying a considerable authority), are
chargeable with the very procedure of which they accuse the Philosopher
– introducing à priori inventions of their own into the records of the
Past. It is, for example, a widely current fiction, that there was an
original primeval people, taught immediately by God, endowed with
perfect insight and wisdom, possessing a thorough knowledge of all
natural laws and spiritual truth; that there have been such or such
sacerdotal peoples; or, to mention a more specific averment, that there
was a Roman Epos, from which the Roman historians derived the early
annals of their city, etc. Authorities of this kind we leave to those
talented historians by profession, among whom (in Germany at least)
their use is not uncommon. – We might then announce it as the first
condition to be observed, that we should faithfully adopt all that is
historical. But in such general expressions themselves, as “faithfully”
and “adopt,” lies the ambiguity. Even the ordinary, the “impartial”
historiographer, who believes and professes that he maintains a simply
receptive attitude; surrendering himself only to the data supplied him
– is by no means passive as regards the exercise of his thinking
powers. He brings his categories with him, and sees the phenomena
presented to his mental vision, exclusively through these media. And,
especially in all that pretends to the name of science, it is
indispensable that Reason should not sleep – that reflection should be
in full play. To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in
its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual. But the
various exercises of reflection – the different points of view – the
modes of deciding the simple question of the relative importance of
events (the first category that occupies the attention of the
historian), do not belong to this place. |
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| I will only mention two phases
and points of view that concern the generally diffused conviction that
Reason has ruled, and is still ruling in the world, and consequently in
the world’s history; because they give us, at the same time, an
opportunity for more closely investigating the question that presents
the greatest difficulty, and for indicating a branch of the subject,
which will have to be enlarged on in the sequel. I. One of these points
is, that passage in history, which informs us that the Greek Anaxagoras
was the first to enunciate the doctrine that nous, Understanding
generally, or Reason, governs the world. It is not intelligence as
self-conscious Reason – not a Spirit as such that is meant; and we must
clearly distinguish these from each other. The movement of the solar
system takes place according to unchangeable laws. These laws are
Reason, implicit in the phenomena in question. But neither the sun nor
the planets, which revolve around it according to these laws, can be
said to have any consciousness of them. |
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| A thought of this kind – that
Nature is an embodiment of Reason; that it is unchangeably subordinate
to universal laws, appears nowise striking or strange to us. We are
accustomed to such conceptions, and find nothing extraordinary in them.
And I have mentioned this extraordinary occurrence, partly to show how
history teaches, that ideas of this kind, which may seem trivial to us,
have not always been in the world; that, on the contrary, such a
thought makes an epoch in the annals of human intelligence. Aristotle
says of Anaxagoras, as the originator of the thought in question, that
he appeared as a sober man among the drunken. Socrates adopted the
doctrine from Anaxagoras, and it forthwith became the ruling idea in
Philosophy – except in the school of Epicurus, who ascribed all events
to chance. “I was delighted with the sentiment” – Plato makes Socrates
say – “and hoped I had found a teacher who would show me Nature in
harmony with Reason, who would demonstrate in each particular
phenomenon its specific aim, and in the whole, the grand object of the
Universe. I would not have surrendered this hope for a great deal. But
how very much was I disappointed, when, having zealously applied myself
to the writings of Anaxagoras, I found that he adduces only external
causes, such as Atmosphere, Ether, Water, and the like.” It is evident
that the defect which Socrates complains of respecting Anaxagoras’s
doctrine, does not concern the principle itself, but the shortcoming of
the propounder in applying it to Nature in the concrete. Nature is not
deduced from that principle: the latter remains in fact a mere
abstraction, inasmuch as the former is not comprehended and exhibited
as a development of it – an organization produced by and from Reason. I
wish, at the very outset, to call your attention to the important
difference between a conception, a principle, a truth limited to an
abstract form and its determinate application, and concrete
development. This distinction affects the whole fabric of philosophy;
and among other bearings of it there is one to which we shall have to
revert at the close of our view of Universal History, in investigating
the aspect of political affairs in the most recent period. |
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| We have next to notice the rise
of this idea – that Reason directs the World – in connection with a
further application of it, well known to us – in the form, viz., of the
religious truth, that the world is not abandoned to chance and external
contingent causes, but that a Providence controls it. I stated above,
that I would not make a demand on your faith, in regard to the
principle announced. Yet I might appeal to your belief in it, in this
religious aspect, if, as a general rule, the nature of philosophical
science allowed it to attach authority to presuppositions. To put it in
another shape – this appeal is forbidden, because the science of which
we have to treat, proposes itself to furnish the proof (not indeed of
the abstract Truth of the doctrine, but) of its correctness as compared
with facts. The truth, then, that a Providence (that of God) presides
over the events of the World – consorts with the proposition in
question; for Divine Providence is Wisdom, endowed with an infinite
Power, which realizes its aim, viz., the absolute rational design of
the World. Reason is Thought conditioning itself with perfect freedom.
But a difference – rather a contradiction – will manifest itself,
between this belief and our principle, just as was the case in
reference to the demand made by Socrates in the case of Anaxagoras’s
dictum. For that belief is similarly indefinite; it is what is called a
belief in a general Providence, and is not followed out into definite
application, or displayed in its bearing on the grand total – the
entire course of human history. But to explain History is to depict the
passions of mankind, the genius, the active powers, that play their
part on the great stage; and the providentially determined process
which these exhibit, constitutes what is generally called the “plan” of
Providence. Yet it is this very plan which is supposed to be concealed
from our view: which it is deemed presumption, even to wish to
recognize. The ignorance of Anaxagoras, as to how intelligence reveals
itself in actual existence, was ingenuous. Neither in his
consciousness, nor in that of Greece at large, had that thought been
farther expanded. He had not attained the power to apply his general
principle to the concrete, so as to deduce the latter from the former.
It was Socrates who took the first step in comprehending the union of
the Concrete with the Universal. Anaxagoras, then, did not take up a
hostile position toward such an application. The common belief in
Providence does; at least it opposes the use of the principle on the
large scale, and denies the possibility of discerning the plan of
Providence. In isolated cases this plan is supposed to be manifest.
Pious persons are encouraged to recognize in particular circumstances,
something more than mere chance; to acknowledge the guiding hand of
God; e.g., when help has unexpectedly come to an individual in great
perplexity and need. But these instances of providential design are of
a limited kind, and concern the accomplishment of nothing more than the
desires of the individual in question. But in the history of the World,
the Individuals we have to do with are Peoples; Totalities that are
States. We cannot, therefore, be satisfied with what we may call this
“peddling” view of Providence, to which the belief alluded to limits
itself. Equally unsatisfactory is the merely abstract, undefined belief
in a Providence, when that belief is not brought to bear upon the
details of the process which it conducts. On the contrary our earnest
endeavor must be directed to the recognition of the ways of Providence,
the means it uses, and the historical phenomena in which it manifests
itself; and we must show their connection with the general principle
above mentioned. But in noticing the recognition of the plan of Divine
Providence generally, I have implicitly touched upon a prominent
question of the day; viz., that of the possibility of knowing God: or
rather – since public opinion has ceased to allow it to be a matter of
question – the doctrine that it is impossible to know God. In direct
contravention of what is commanded in holy Scripture as the highest
duty – that we should not merely love, but know God – the prevalent
dogma involves the denial of what is there said; viz., that it is the
Spirit (der Geist) that leads into Truth, knows all things, penetrates
even into the deep things of the Godhead. While the Divine Being is
thus placed beyond our knowledge, and outside the limit of all human
things, we have the convenient license of wandering as far as we list,
in the direction of our own fancies. We are freed from the obligation
to refer our knowledge to the Divine and True. On the other hand, the
vanity and egotism which characterize it find, in this false position,
ample justification; and the pious modesty which puts far from it the
knowledge of God can well estimate how much furtherance thereby accrues
to its own wayward and vain strivings. I have been unwilling to leave
out of sight the connection between our thesis – that Reason governs
and has governed the World – and the question of the possibility of a
knowledge of God, chiefly that I might not lose the opportunity of
mentioning the imputation against Philosophy of being shy of noticing
religious truths, or of having occasion to be so; in which is
insinuated the suspicion that it has anything but a clear conscience in
the presence of these truths. So far from this being the case, the fact
is, that in recent times Philosophy has been obliged to defend the
domain of religion against the attacks of several theological systems.
In the Christian religion God has revealed Himself – that is, he has
given us to understand what He is; so that He is no longer a concealed
or secret existence. And this possibility of knowing Him, thus afforded
us, renders such knowledge a duty. God wishes no narrow-hearted souls
or empty heads for his children; but those whose spirit is of itself
indeed poor, but rich in the knowledge of Him; and who regard this
knowledge of God as the only valuable possession. That development of
the thinking spirit which has resulted from the revelation of the
Divine Being as its original basis must ultimately advance to the
intellectual comprehension of what was presented in the first instance,
to feeling and imagination. The time must eventually come for
understanding that rich product of active Reason, which the History of
the World offers to us. It was for awhile the fashion to profess
admiration for the wisdom of God as displayed in animals, plants, and
isolated occurrences. But, if it be allowed that Providence manifests
itself in such objects and forms of existence, why not also in
Universal History? This is deemed too great a matter to be thus
regarded. But Divine Wisdom, i.e., Reason, is one and the same in the
great as in the little; and we must not imagine God to be too weak to
exercise his wisdom on the grand scale. Our intellectual striving aims
at realizing the conviction that what was intended by eternal wisdom,
is actually accomplished in the domain of existent, active Spirit, as
well as in that of mere Nature. Our mode of treating the subject is, in
this aspect, a Theodicaea – a justification of the ways of God – which
Leibnitz attempted metaphysically, in his method, i.e., in indefinite
abstract categories – so that the ill that is found in the World may be
comprehended, and the thinking Spirit reconciled with the fact of the
existence of evil. Indeed, nowhere is such a harmonizing view more
pressingly demanded than in Universal History; and it can be attained
only by recognizing the positive existence, in which that negative
element is a subordinate, and vanquished nullity. On the one hand, the
ultimate design of the World must be perceived; and, on the other hand,
the fact that this design has been actually realized in it, and that
evil has not been able permanently to assert a competing position. But
this superintending vows, or in “Providence.” “Reason,” whose
sovereignty over the World has been maintained, is as indefinite a term
as “Providence,” supposing the term to be used by those who are unable
to characterize it distinctly – to show wherein it consists, so as to
enable us to decide whether a thing is rational or irrational. An
adequate definition of Reason is the first desideratum; and whatever
boast may be made of strict adherence to it in explaining phenomena –
without such a definition we get no farther than mere words. With these
observations we may proceed to the second point of view that has to be
considered in this Introduction. |
|
| II. The inquiry into the
essential destiny of Reason – as far as it is considered in reference
to the World – is identical with the question, what is the ultimate
design of the World? And the expression implies that that design is
destined to be realized. Two points of consideration suggest
themselves; first, the import of this design – its abstract definition;
and secondly, its realization. |
|
| It must be observed at the
outset, that the phenomenon we investigate – Universal History –
belongs to the realm of Spirit. The term “ World,” includes both
physical and psychical Nature. Physical Nature also plays its part in
the World’s History, and attention will have to be paid to the
fundamental natural relations thus involved. But Spirit, and the course
of its development, is our substantial object. Our task does not
require us to contemplate Nature as a Rational System in itself –
though in its own proper domain it proves itself such – but simply in
its relation to Spirit. On the stage on which we are observing it –
Universal History – Spirit displays itself in its most concrete
reality. Notwithstanding this (or rather for the very purpose of
comprehending the general principles which this, its form of concrete
reality, embodies) we must premise some abstract characteristics of the
nature of Spirit. Such an explanation, however, cannot be given here
under any other form than that of bare assertion. The present is not
the occasion for unfolding the idea of Spirit speculatively; for
whatever has a place in an Introduction, must, as already observed, be
taken as simply historical; something assumed as having been explained
and proved elsewhere; or whose demonstration awaits the sequel of the
Science of History itself. We have therefore to mention here: (1) The
abstract characteristics of the nature of Spirit. (2) What means Spirit
uses in order to realize its Idea. (3) Lastly, we must consider the
shape which the perfect embodiment of Spirit assumes – the State, (1)
The nature of Spirit may be understood by a glance at its direct
opposite – Matter. As the essence of Matter is Gravity, so, on the
other hand, we may affirm that the substance, the essence of Spirit is
Freedom. All will readily assent to the doctrine that Spirit, among
other properties, is also endowed with Freedom; but philosophy teaches
that all the qualities of Spirit exist only through Freedom; that all
are but means for attaining Freedom; that all seek and produce this and
this alone. It is a result of speculative Philosophy that Freedom is
the sole truth of Spirit. Matter possesses gravity in virtue of its
tendency toward a central point. It is essentially composite;
consisting of parts that exclude each other. It seeks its Unity; and
therefore exhibits itself as self-destructive, as verging toward its
opposite [an indivisible point]. If it could attain this, it would be
Matter no longer, it would have perished. It strives after the
realization of its Idea; for in Unity it exists ideally. Spirit, on the
contrary, may be defined as that which has its centre in itself. It has
not a unity outside itself, but has already found it; it exists in and
with itself. Matter has its essence out of itself; Spirit is
self-contained existence (Bei-sich-selbst-seyn). Now this is Freedom,
exactly. For if I am dependent, my being is referred to something else
which I am not; I cannot exist independently of something external. I
am free, on the contrary, when my existence depends upon myself. This
self-contained existence of Spirit is none other than
self-consciousness – consciousness of one’s own being. Two things must
be distinguished in consciousness; first, the fact that I know;
secondly, what I know. In self consciousness these are merged in one;
for Spirit knows itself. It involves an appreciation of its own nature,
as also an energy enabling it to realize itself; to make itself
actually that which it is potentially. According to this abstract
definition it may be said of Universal History, that it is the
exhibition of Spirit in the process of working out the knowledge of
that which it is potentially. And as the germ bears in itself the whole
nature of the tree, and the taste and form of its fruits, so do the
first traces of Spirit virtually contain the whole of that History. The
Orientals have not attained the knowledge that Spirit – Man as such –
is free; and because they do not know this, they are not free. They
only know that one is free. But on this very account, the freedom of
that one is only caprice; ferocity – brutal recklessness of passion, or
a mildness and tameness of the desires, which is itself only an
accident of Nature – mere caprice like the former. – That one is
therefore only a Despot; not a free man. The consciousness of Freedom
first arose among the Greeks, and therefore they were free; but they,
and the Romans likewise, knew only that some are free – not man as
such. Even Plato and Aristotle did not know this. The Greeks,
therefore, had slaves; and their whole life and the maintenance of
their splendid liberty, was implicated with the institution of slavery:
a fact moreover, which made that liberty on the one hand only an
accidental, transient and limited growth; on the other hand,
constituted it a rigorous thraldom of our common nature – of the Human.
The German nations, under the influence of Christianity, were the first
to attain the consciousness that man, as man, is free: that it is the
freedom of Spirit which constitutes its essence. This consciousness
arose first in religion, the inmost region of Spirit; but to introduce
the principle into the various relations of the actual world involves a
more extensive problem than its simple implantation; a problem whose
solution and application require a severe and lengthened process of
culture. In proof of this, we may note that slavery did not cease
immediately on the reception of Christianity. Still less did liberty
predominate in States; or Governments and Constitutions adopt a
rational organization, or recognize freedom as their basis. That
application of the principle to political relations; the thorough
moulding and interpenetration of the constitution of society by it, is
a process identical with history itself. I have already directed
attention to the distinction here involved, between a principle as
such, and its application; i.e., its introduction and carrying out in
the actual phenomena of Spirit and Life. This is a point of fundamental
importance in our science, and one which must be constantly respected
as essential. And in the same way as this distinction has attracted
attention in view of the Christian principle of selfconsciousness –
Freedom; it also shows itself as an essential one, in view of the
principle of Freedom generally. The History of the world is none other
than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom; a progress whose
development according to the necessity of its nature, it is our
business to investigate. The general statement given above, of the
various grades in the consciousness of Freedom – and which we applied
in the first instance to the fact that the Eastern nations knew only
that one is free; the Greek and Roman world only that some are free;
while we know that all men absolutely (man as man) are free – supplies
us with the natural division of Universal History, and suggests the
mode of its discussion. This is remarked, however, only incidentally
and anticipatively; some other ideas must be first explained. |
|
| The destiny of the spiritual
World, and – since this is the substantial World, while the physical
remains subordinate to it, or, in the language of speculation, has no
truth as against the spiritual – the final cause of the World at large,
we allege to be the consciousness of its own freedom on the part of
Spirit, and ipso facto, the reality of that freedom. But that this term
“Freedom,” without further qualification, is an indefinite, and
incalculable ambiguous term; and that while that which it represents is
the ne plus ultra of attainment, it is liable to an infinity of
misunderstandings, confusions and errors, and to become the occasion
for all imaginable excesses – has never been more clearly known and
felt than in modern times. Yet, for the present, we must content
ourselves with the term itself without farther definition. Attention
was also directed to the importance of the infinite difference between
a principle in the abstract, and its realization in the concrete. In
the process before us, the essential nature of freedom – which involves
in it absolute necessity – is to be displayed as coming to a
consciousness of itself (for it is in its very nature,
self-consciousness) and thereby realizing its existence. Itself is its
own object of attainment, and the sole aim of Spirit. This result it
is, at which the process of the World’s History has been continually
aiming; and to which the sacrifices that have ever and anon been laid
on the vast altar of the earth, through the long lapse of ages, have
been offered. This is the only aim that sees itself realized and
fulfilled; the only pole of repose amid the ceaseless change of events
and conditions, and the sole efficient principle that pervades them.
This final aim is God’s purpose with the world; but God is the
absolutely perfect Being, and can, therefore, will nothing other than
himself – his own Will. The Nature of His Will – that is, His Nature
itself – is what we here call the Idea of Freedom; translating the
language of Religion into that of Thought. The question, then, which we
may next put is: What means does this principle of Freedom use for its
realization? This is the second point we have to consider. (2) The
question of the means by which Freedom develops itself to a World,
conducts us to the phenomenon of History itself. Although Freedom is,
primarily, an undeveloped idea, the means it uses are external and
phenomenal; presenting themselves in History to our sensuous vision.
The first glance at History convinces us that the actions of men
proceed from their needs, their passions, their characters and talents;
and impresses us with the belief that such needs, passions and
interests are the sole springs of action – the efficient agents in this
scene of activity. Among these may, perhaps, be found aims of a liberal
or universal kind – benevolence it may be, or noble patriotism; but
such virtues and general views are but insignificant as compared with
the World and its doings. We may perhaps see the Ideal of Reason
actualized in those who adopt such aims, and within the sphere of their
influence; but they bear only a trifling proportion to the mass of the
human race; and the extent of that influence is limited accordingly.
Passions, private aims, and the satisfaction of selfish desires, are on
the other hand, most effective springs of action. Their power lies in
the fact that they respect none of the limitations which justice and
morality would impose on them; and that these natural impulses have a
more direct influence over man than the artificial and tedious
discipline that tends to order and self-restraint, law and morality.
When we look at this display of passions, and the consequences of their
violence; the Unreason which is associated not only with them, but even
(rather we might say especially) with good designs and righteous aims;
when we see the evil, the vice, the ruin that has befallen the most
flourishing kingdoms which the mind of man ever created; we can scarce
avoid being filled with sorrow at this universal taint of corruption:
and, since this decay is not the work of mere Nature, but of the Human
Will – a moral embitterment – a revolt of the Good Spirit (if it have a
place within us) may well be the result of our reflections. Without
rhetorical exaggeration, a simply truthful combination of the miseries
that have overwhelmed the noblest of nations and polities, and the
finest exemplars of private virtue – forms a picture of most fearful
aspect, and excites emotions of the profoundest and most hopeless
sadness, counterbalanced by no consolatory result. We endure in
beholding it a mental torture, allowing no defence or escape but the
consideration that what has happened could not be otherwise; that it is
a fatality which no intervention could alter. And at last we draw back
from the intolerable disgust with which these sorrowful reflections
threaten us, into the more agreeable environment of our individual life
– the Present formed by our private aims and interests. In short we
retreat into the selfishness that stands on the quiet shore, and thence
enjoys in safety the distant spectacle of “wrecks confusedly hurled.”
But even regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the
happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of
individuals have been victimized – the question involuntarily arises –
to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have
been offered. From this point the investigation usually proceeds to
that which we have made the general commencement of our inquiry.
Starting from this we pointed out those phenomena which made up a
picture so suggestive of gloomy emotions and thoughtful reflections –
as the very field which we, for our part, regard as exhibiting only the
means for realizing what we assert to be the essential destiny – the
absolute aim, or – which comes to the same thing – the true result of
the World’s History. We have all along purposely eschewed “moral
reflections” as a method of rising from the scene of historical
specialties to the general principles which they embody. Besides, it is
not the interest of such sentimentalities, really to rise above those
depressing emotions; and to solve the enigmas of Providence which the
considerations that occasioned them, present. It is essential to their
character to find a gloomy satisfaction in the empty and fruitless
sublimities of that negative result. We return them to the point of
view which we have adopted; observing that the successive steps
(momente) of the analysis to which it will lead us, will also evolve
the conditions requisite for answering the inquiries suggested by the
panorama of sin and suffering that history unfolds. |
|
| The first remark we have to
make, and which – though already presented more than once – cannot be
too often repeated when the occasion seems to call for it – is that
what we call principle, aim, destiny, or the nature and idea of Spirit,
is something merely general and abstract. Principle – Plan of Existence
– Law – is a hidden, undeveloped essence, which as such – however true
in itself – is not completely real. Aims, principles, etc., have a
place in our thoughts, in our subjective design only; but not yet in
the sphere of reality. That which exists for itself only, is a
possibility, a potentiality; but has not yet emerged into Existence. A
second element must be introduced in order to produce actuality – viz.,
actuation, realization; and whose motive power is the Will – the
activity of man in the widest sense. It is only by this activity that
that Idea as well as abstract characteristics generally, are realized,
actualized; for of themselves they are powerless. The motive power that
puts them in operation, and gives them determinate existence, is the
need, instinct, inclination, and passion of man. That some conception
of mine should be developed into act and existence, is my earnest
desire: I wish to assert my personality in connection with it: I wish
to be satisfied by its execution. If I am to exert myself for any
object, it must in some way or other be my object. In the
accomplishment of such or such designs I must at the same time find my
satisfaction; although the purpose for which I exert myself includes a
complication of results, many of which have no interest for me. This is
the absolute right of personal existence – to find itself satisfied in
its activity and labor. If men are to interest themselves for anything,
they must (so to speak) have part of their existence involved in it;
find their individuality gratified by its attainment. Here a mistake
must be avoided. We intend blame, and justly impute it as a fault, when
we say of an individual, that he is “interested” (in taking part in
such or such transactions), that is, seeks only his private advantage.
In reprehending this we find fault with him for furthering his personal
aims without any regard to a more comprehensive design; of which he
takes advantage to promote his own interest, or which he even
sacrifices with this view. But he who is active in promoting an object
is not simply “interested,” but interested in that object itself.
Language faithfully expresses this distinction. – Nothing therefore
happens, nothing is accomplished, unless the individuals concerned,
seek their own satisfaction in the issue. They are particular units of
society; i.e., they have special needs, instincts, and interests
generally, peculiar to themselves. Among these needs are not only such
as we usually call necessities – the stimuli of individual desire and
volition – but also those connected with individual views and
convictions; or – to use a term expressing less decision – leanings of
opinion; supposing the impulses of reflection, understanding, and
reason, to have been awakened. In these cases people demand, if they
are to exert themselves in any direction, that the object should
commend itself to them; that in point of opinion – whether as to its
goodness, justice, advantage, profit – they should be able to “enter
into it” (dabei seyn). This is a consideration of especial importance
in our age, when people are less than formerly influenced by reliance
on others, and by authority; when, on the contrary, they devote their
activities to a cause on the ground of their own understanding, their
independent conviction and opinion. |
|
| We assert then that nothing has
been accomplished without interest on the part of the actors; and – if
interest be called passion, inasmuch as the whole individuality, to the
neglect of all other actual or possible interests and claims, is
devoted to an object with every fibre of volition, concentrating all
its desires and powers upon it – we may affirm absolutely that nothing
great in the World has been accomplished without passion. Two elements,
therefore, enter into the object of our investigation; the first the
Idea, the second the complex of human passions; the one the warp, the
other the woof of the vast arras-web of Universal History. The concrete
mean and union of the two is Liberty, under the conditions of morality
in a State. We have spoken of the Idea of Freedom as the nature of
Spirit, and the absolute goal of History. Passion is regarded as a
thing of sinister aspect, as more or less immoral. Man is required to
have no passions. Passion, it is true, is not quite the suitable word
for what I wish to express. I mean here nothing more than the human
activity as resulting from private interests – special, or if you will,
selfseeking designs – with this qualification, that the whole energy of
will and character is devoted to their attainment; that other interests
(which would in themselves constitute attractive aims) or rather all
things else, are sacrificed to them. The object in question is so bound
up with the man’s will, that it entirely and alone determines the “hue
of resolution,” and is inseparable from it. It has become the very
essence of his volition. For a person is a specific existence; not man
in general (a term to which no real existence corresponds) but a
particular human being. The term “character” likewise expresses this
idiosyncrasy of Will and Intelligence. But Character comprehends all
peculiarities whatever; the way in which a person conducts himself in
private relations, etc., and is not limited to his idiosyncrasy in its
practical and active phase. I shall, therefore, use the term
“passions”; understanding thereby the particular bent of character, as
far as the peculiarities of volition are not limited to private
interest, but supply the impelling and actuating force for
accomplishing deeds shared in by the community at large. Passion is in
the first instance the subjective, and therefore the formal side of
energy, will, and activity – leaving the object or aim still
undetermined. And there is a similar relation of formality to reality
in merely individual conviction, individual views, individual
conscience. It is always a question of essential importance, what is
the purport of my conviction, what the object of my passion, in
deciding whether the one or the other is of a true and substantial
nature. Conversely, if it is so, it will inevitably attain actual
existence – be realized. |
|
| From this comment on the second
essential element in the historical embodiment of an aim, we infer –
glancing at the institution of the State in passing – that a State is
then well constituted and internally powerful, when the private
interest of its citizens is one with the common interest of the State;
when the one finds its gratification and realization in the other – a
proposition in itself very important. But in a State many institutions
must be adopted, much political machinery invented, accompanied by
appropriate political arrangements – necessitating long struggles of
the understanding before what is really appropriate can be discovered –
involving, moreover, contentions with private interest and passions,
and a tedious discipline of these latter, in order to bring about the
desired harmony. The epoch when a State attains this harmonious
conditon, marks the period of its bloom, its virtue, its vigor, and its
prosperity. But the history of mankind does not begin with a conscious
aim of any kind, as it is the case with the particular circles into
which men form themselves of set purpose. The mere social instinct
implies a conscious purpose of security for life and property; and when
society has been constituted, this purpose becomes more comprehensive.
The History of the World begins with its general aim – the realization
of the Idea of Spirit – only in an implicit form (an sich) that is, as
Nature; a hidden, most profoundly hidden, unconscious instinct; and the
whole process of History (as already observed), is directed to
rendering this unconscious impulse a conscious one. Thus appearing in
the form of merely natural existence, natural will – that which has
been called the subjective side – physical craving, instinct, passion,
private interest, as also opinion and subjective conception –
spontaneously present themselves at the very commencement. This vast
congeries of volitions, interests and activities, constitute the
instruments and means of the World- Spirit for attaining its object;
bringing it to consciousness, and realizing it. And this aim is none
other than finding itself – coming to itself – and contemplating itself
in concrete actuality. But that those manifestations of vitality on the
part of individuals and peoples, in which they seek and satisfy their
own purposes, are, at the same time, the means and instruments of a
higher and broader purpose of which they know nothing – which they
realize unconsciously – might be made a matter of question; rather has
been questioned, and in every variety of form negatived, decried and
contemned as mere dreaming and “Philosophy.” But on this point I
announced my view at the very outset, and asserted our hypothesis –
which, however, will appear in the sequel, in the form of a legitimate
inference – and our belief that Reason governs the world, and has
consequently governed its history. In relation to this independently
universal and substantial existence – all else is subordinate,
subservient to it, and the means for its development. – The Union of
Universal Abstract Existence generally with the Individual – the
Subjective – that this alone is Truth, belongs to the department of
speculation, and is treated in this general form in Logic. – But in the
process of the World’s History itself – as still incomplete – the
abstract final aim of history is not yet made the distinct object of
desire and interest. While these limited sentiments are still
unconscious of the purpose they are fulfilling, the universal principle
is implicit in them, and is realizing itself through them. The question
also assumes the form of the union of Freedom and Necessity; the latent
abstract process of Spirit being regarded as Necessity, while that
which exhibits itself in the conscious will of men, as their interest,
belongs to the domain of Freedom. As the metaphysical connection (i.e.,
the connection in the Idea) of these forms of thought, belongs to
Logic, it would be out of place to analyze it here. The chief and
cardinal points only shall be mentioned. |
|
| Philosophy shows that the Idea
advances to an infinite antithesis; that, viz., between the Idea in its
free, universal form – in which it exists for itself – and the
contrasted form of abstract introversion, reflection on itself, which
is formal existence-for-self, personality, formal freedom, such as
belongs to Spirit only. The universal Idea exists thus as the
substantial totality of things on the one side, and as the abstract
essence of free volition on the other side. This reflection of the mind
on itself is individual self-consciousness – the polar opposite of the
Idea in its general form, and therefore existing in absolute
Limitation. This polar opposite is consequently limitation,
particularization, for the universal absolute being; it is the side of
its definite existence; the sphere of its formal reality, the sphere of
the reverence paid to God. – To comprehend the absolute connection of
this antithesis, is the profound task of metaphysics. This Limitation
originates all forms of particularity of whatever kind. The formal
volition (of which we have spoken) wills itself; desires to make its
own personality valid in all that it purposes and does: even the pious
individual wishes to be saved and happy. This pole of the antithesis,
existing for itself, is – in contrast with the Absolute Universal Being
– a special separate existence, taking cognizance of specialty only,
and willing that alone. In short it plays its part in the region of
mere phenomena. This is the sphere of particular purposes, in effecting
which individuals exert themselves on behalf of their individuality –
give it full play and objective realization. This is also the sphere of
happiness and its opposite. He is happy who finds his condition suited
to his special character, will, and fancy, and so enjoys himself in
that condition. The History of the World is not the theatre of
happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are
periods of harmony – periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.
Reflection on self – the Freedom above described – is abstractly
defined as the formal element of the activity of the absolute Idea. The
realizing activity of which we have spoken is the middle term of the
Syllogism, one of whose extremes is the Universal essence, the Idea,
which reposes in the penetralia of Spirit; and the other, the complex
of external things – objective matter. That activity is the medium by
which the universal latent principle is translated into the domain of
objectivity. |
|
| I will endeavor to make what has been said more vivid and clear by examples. |
|
| The building of a house is, in
the first instance, a subjective aim and design. On the other hand we
have, as means, the several substances required for the work – Iron,
Wood, Stones. |
|
| The elements are made use of in
working up this material: fire to melt the iron, wind to blow the fire,
water to set wheels in motion, in order to cut the wood, etc. The
result is, that the wind, which has helped to build the house, is shut
out by the house; so also are the violence of rains and floods, and the
destructive powers of fire, so far as the house is made fireproof. The
stones and beams obey the law of gravity – press downward – and so high
walls are carried up. Thus the elements are made use of in accordance
with their nature, and yet to co-operate for a product, by which their
operation is limited. Thus the passions of men are gratified; they
develop themselves and their aims in accordance with their natural
tendencies, and build up the edifice of human society; thus fortifying
a position for Right and Order against themselves. |
|
| The connection of events above
indicated, involves also the fact, that in history an additional result
is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and
obtain – that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify
their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished,
latent in the actions in question, though not present to their
consciousness, and not included in their design. An analogous example
is offered in the case of a man who, from a feeling of revenge –
perhaps not an unjust one, but produced by injury on the other’s part –
burns that other man’s house. A connection is immediately established
between the deed itself and a train of circumstances not directly
included in it, taken abstractedly. In itself it consisted in merely
presenting a small flame to a small portion of a beam. Events not
involved in that simple act follow of themselves. The part of the beam
which was set fire to is connected with its remote portions; the beam
itself is united with the woodwork of the house generally, and this
with other houses; so that a wide conflagration, ensues, which destroys
the goods and chattels of many other persons besides his against whom
the act of revenge was first directed; perhaps even costs not a few men
their lives. This lay neither in the deed abstractedly, nor in the
design of the man who committed it. But the action has a further
general bearing. In the design of the doer it was only revenge executed
against an individual in the destruction of his property, but it is
moreover a crime, and that involves punishment also. This may not have
been present to the mind of the perpetrator, still less in his
intention; but his deed itself, the general principles it calls into
play, its substantial content entails it. By this example I wish only
to impress on you the consideration, that in a simple act, something
further may be implicated than lies in the intention and consciousness
of the agent. The example before us involves, however, this additional
consideration, that the substance of the act, consequently we may say
the act itself, recoils upon the perpetrator – reacts upon him with
destructive tendency. This union of the two extremes – the embodiment
of a general idea in the form of direct reality, and the elevation of a
speciality into connection with universal truth – is brought to pass,
at first sight, under the conditions of an utter diversity of nature
between the two, and an indifference of the one extreme towards the
other. The aims which the agents set before them are limited and
special; but it must be remarked that the agents themselves are
intelligent thinking beings. The purport of their desires is interwoven
with general, essential considerations of justice, good, duty, etc.;
for mere desire – volition in its rough and savage forms – falls not
within the scene and sphere of Universal History. Those general
considerations, which form at the same time a norm for directing aims
and actions, have a determinate purport; for such an abstraction as
“good for its own sake,” has no place in living reality. If men are to
act, they must not only intend the Good, but must have decided for
themselves whether this or that particular thing is a Good. What
special course of action, however, is good or not, is determined, as
regards the ordinary contingencies of private life, by the laws and
customs of a State; and here no great difficulty is presented. Each
individual has his position; he knows on the whole what a just,
honorable course of conduct is. As to ordinary, private relations, the
assertion that it is difficult to choose the right and good – the
regarding it as the mark of an exalted morality to find difficulties
and raise scruples on that score – may be set down to an evil or
perverse will, which seeks to evade duties not in themselves of a
perplexing nature; or, at any rate, to an idly reflective habit of mind
– where a feeble will affords no sufficient exercise to the faculties –
leaving them therefore to find occupation within themselves, and to
expend themselves on moral self-adulation. |
|
| It is quite otherwise with the
comprehensive relations that History has to do with. In this sphere are
presented those momentous collisions between existing, acknowledged
duties, laws, and rights, and those contingencies which are adverse to
this fixed system; which assail and even destroy its foundations and
existence; whose tenor may nevertheless seem good – on the large scale
advantageous – yes, even indispensable and necessary. These
contingencies realize themselves in History: they involve a general
principle of a different order from that on which depends the
permanence of a people or a State. This principle is an essential phase
in the development of the creating Idea, of Truth striving and urging
towards (consciousness of) itself. Historical men – World-Historical
Individuals – are those in whose aims such a general principle lies. |
|
| Caesar, in danger of losing a
position, not perhaps at that time of superiority, yet at least of
equality with the others who were at the head of the State, and of
succumbing to those who were just on the point of becoming his enemies
– belongs essentially to this category. These enemies – who were at the
same time pursuing their personal aims – had the form of the
constitution, and the power conferred by an appearance of justice, on
their side. Caesar was contending for the maintenance of his position,
honor, and safety; and, since the power of his opponents included the
sovereignty over the provinces of the Roman Empire, his victory secured
for him the conquest of that entire Empire; and he thus became – though
leaving the form of the constitution – the Autocrat of the State. That
which secured for him the execution of a design, which in the first
instance was of negative import – the Autocracy of Rome – was, however,
at the same time an independently necessary feature in the history of
Rome and of the world. It was not, then, his private gain merely, but
an unconscious impulse that occasioned the accomplishment of that for
which the time was ripe. Such are all great historical men – whose own
particular aims involve those large issues which are the will of the
World-Spirit. They may be called Heroes, inasmuch as they have derived
their purposes and their vocation, not from the calm, regular course of
things, sanctioned by the existing order; but from a concealed fount –
one which has not attained to phenomenal, present existence – from that
inner Spirit, still hidden beneath the surface, which, impinging on the
outer world as on a shell, bursts it in pieces, because it is another
kernel than that which belonged to the shell in question. They are men,
therefore, who appear to draw the impulse of their life from
themselves; and whose deeds have produced a condition of things and a
complex of historical relations which appear to be only their interest,
and their work. Such individuals had no consciousness of the general
Idea they were unfolding, while prosecuting those aims of theirs; on
the contrary, they were practical, political men. But at the same time
they were thinking men, who had an insight into the requirements of the
time – what was ripe for development. This was the very Truth for their
age, for their world; the species next in order, so to speak, and which
was already formed in the womb of time. It was theirs to know this
nascent principle; the necessary, directly sequent step in progress,
which their world was to take; to make this their aim, and to expend
their energy in promoting it. World-historical men – the Heroes of an
epoch – must, therefore, be recognized as its clear-sighted ones; their
deeds, their words are the best of that time. Great men have formed
purposes to satisfy themselves, not others. Whatever prudent designs
and counsels they might have learned from others, would be the more
limited and inconsistent features in their career; for it was they who
best understood affairs; from whom others learned, and approved, or at
least acquiesced in – their policy. For that Spirit which had taken
this fresh step in history is the inmost soul of all individuals; but
in a state of unconsciousness which the great men in question aroused.
Their fellows, therefore, follow these soul-leaders; for they feel the
irresistible power of their own inner Spirit thus embodied. If we go on
to cast a look at the fate of these World-Historical persons, whose
vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit – we shall find it
to have been no happy one. They attained no calm enjoyment; their whole
life was labor and trouble; their whole nature was nought else but
their master-passion. When their object is attained they fall off like
empty hulls from the kernel. They die early, like Alexander; they are
murdered, like Caesar; transported to St. Helena, like Napoleon. This
fearful consolation – that historical men have not enjoyed what is
called happiness, and of which only private life (and this may be
passed under very various external circumstances) is capable – this
consolation those may draw from history, who stand in need of it; and
it is craved by Envy – vexed at what is great and transcendant –
striving, therefore, to depreciate it, and to find some flaw in it.
Thus in modern times it has been demonstrated ad nauseam that princes
are generally unhappy on their thrones; in consideration of which the
possession of a throne is tolerated, and men acquiesce in the fact that
not themselves but the personages in question are its occupants. The
Free Man, we may observe, is not envious, but gladly recognizes what is
great and exalted, and rejoices that it exists. |
|
| It is in the light of those
common elements which constitute the interest and therefore the
passions of individuals, that these historical men are to be regarded.
They are great men, because they willed and accomplished something
great; not a mere fancy, a mere intention, but that which met the case
and fell in with the needs of the age. This mode of considering them
also excludes the so-called “psychological” view, which – serving the
purpose of envy most effectually – contrives so to refer all actions to
the heart – to bring them under such a subjective aspect – as that
their authors appear to have done everything under the impulse of some
passion, mean or grand – some morbid craving – and on account of these
passions and cravings to have been not moral men. Alexander of Macedon
partly subdued Greece, and then Asia; therefore he was possessed by a
morbid craving for conquest. He is alleged to have acted from a craving
for fame, for conquest; and the proof that these were the impelling
motives is that he did that which resulted in fame. What pedagogue has
not demonstrated of Alexander the Great – of Julius Caesar – that they
were instigated by such passions, and were consequently immoral men? –
whence the conclusion immediately follows that he, the pedagogue, is a
better man than they, because he has not such passions; a proof of
which lies in the fact that he does not conquer Asia – vanquish Darius
and Porus – but while he enjoys life himself, lets others enjoy it too.
These psychologists are particularly fond of contemplating those
peculiarities of great historical figures which appertain to them as
private persons. Man must eat and drink; he sustains relations to
friends and acquaintances; he has passing impulses and ebullitions of
temper. “No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre” is a well-known
proverb; I have added – and Goethe repeated it ten years later – “but
not because the former is no hero, but because the latter is a valet.”
He takes off the hero’s boots, assists him to bed, knows that he
prefers champagne, etc. Historical personages waited upon in historical
literature by such psychological valets, come poorly off; they are
brought down by these their attendants to a level with – or rather a
few degrees below the level of – the morality of such exquisite
discerners of spirits. The Thersites of Homer who abuses the kings is a
standing figure for all times. Blows – that is beating with a solid
cudgel – he does not get in every age, as in the Homeric one; but his
envy, his egotism, is the thorn which he has to carry in his flesh; and
the undying worm that gnaws him is the tormenting consideration that
his excellent views and vituperations remain absolutely without result
in the world. But our satisfaction at the fate of Thersitism also may
have its sinister side. |
|
| A World-historical individual is
not so unwise as to indulge a variety of wishes to divide his regards.
He is devoted to the One Aim, regardless of all else. It is even
possible that such men may treat other great, even sacred interests,
inconsiderately; conduct which is indeed obnoxious to moral
reprehension. But so mighty a form must trample down many an innocent
flower – crush to pieces many an object in its path. |
|
| The special interest of passion
is thus inseparable from the active development of a general principle:
for it is from the special and determinate and from its negation, that
the Universal results. Particularity contends with its like, and some
loss is involved in the issue. It is not the general idea that is
implicated in opposition and combat, and that is exposed to danger. It
remains in the background, untouched and uninjured. This may be called
the cunning of reason – that it sets the passions to work for itself,
while that which develops its existence through such impulsion pays the
penalty, and suffers loss. For it is phenomenal being that is so
treated, and of this part is of no value, part is positive and real.
The particular is for the most part of too trifling value as compared
with the general: individuals are sacrificed and abandoned. The Idea
pays the penalty of determinate existence and of corruptibility, not
from itself, but from the passions of individuals. |
|
| But though we might tolerate the
idea that individuals, their desires and the gratification of them, are
thus sacrificed, and their happiness given up to the empire of chance,
to which it belongs; and that as a general rule, individuals come under
the category of means to an ulterior end – there is one aspect of human
individuality which we should hesitate to regard in that subordinate
light, even in relation to the highest; since it is absolutely no
subordinate element, but exists in those individuals as inherently
eternal and divine. I mean morality, ethics, religion. Even when
speaking of the realization of the great ideal aim by means of
individuals, the subjective element in them – their interest and that
of their cravings and impulses, their views and judgments, though
exhibited as the merely formal side of their existence – was spoken of
as having an infinite right to be consulted. The first idea that
presents itself in speaking of means is that of something external to
the object, and having no share in the object itself. But merely
natural things – even the commonest lifeless objects – used as means,
must be of such a kind as adapts them to their purpose; they must
possess something in common with it. Human beings least of all sustain
the bare external relation of mere means to the great ideal aim. Not
only do they in the very act of realizing it, make it the occasion of
satisfying personal desires, whose purport is diverse from that aim –
but they share in that ideal aim itself; and are for that very reason
objects of their own existence; not formally merely, as the world of
living beings generally is – whose individual life is essentially
subordinate to that of man, and is properly used up as an instrument.
Men, on the contrary, are objects of existence to themselves, as
regards the intrinsic import of the aim in question. To this order
belongs that in them which we would exclude from the category of mere
means – Morality, Ethics, Religion. That is to say, man is an object of
existence in himself only in virtue of the Divine that is in him – that
which was designated at the outset as Reason; which, in view of its
activity and power of self-determination, was called Freedom. And we
affirm – without entering at present on the proof of the assertion –
that Religion, Morality, etc., have their foundation and source in that
principle, and so are essentially elevated above all alien necessity
and chance. And here we must remark that individuals, to the extent of
their freedom, are responsible for the depravation and enfeeblement of
morals and religion. This is the seal of the absolute and sublime
destiny of man – that he knows what is good and what is evil; that his
Destiny is his very ability to will either good or evil – in one word,
that he is the subject of moral imputation, imputation not only of
evil, but of good; and not only concerning this or that particular
matter, and all that happens ab extra, but also the good and evil
attaching to his individual freedom. The brute alone is simply
innocent. It would, however, demand an extensive explanation – as
extensive as the analysis of moral freedom itself – to preclude or
obviate all the misunderstandings which the statement that what is
called innocence imports the entire unconsciousness of evil – is wont
to occasion. |
|
| In contemplating the fate which
virtue, morality, even piety experience in history, we must not fall
into the Litany of Lamentations, that the good and pious often – or for
the most part – fare ill in the world, while the evil-disposed and
wicked prosper. The term prosperity is used in a variety of meanings –
riches, outward honor, and the like. But in speaking of something which
in and for itself constitutes an aim of existence, that so-called well
or ill-faring of these or those isolated individuals cannot be regarded
as an essential element in the rational order of the universe. With
more justice than happiness – or a fortunate environment for
individuals – it is demanded of the grand aim of the world’s existence,
that it should foster, nay involve the execution and ratification of
good, moral, righteous purposes. What makes men morally discontented (a
discontent, by the bye, on which they somewhat pride themselves), is
that they do not find the present adapted to the realization of aims
which they hold to be right and just (more especially in modern times,
ideals of political constitutions); they contrast unfavorably things as
they are, with their idea of things as they ought to be. In this case
it is not private interest nor passion that desires gratification, but
Reason, Justice, Liberty; and equipped with this title, the demand in
question assumes a lofty bearing, and readily adopts a position not
merely of discontent, but of open revolt against the actual condition
of the world. To estimate such a feeling and such views aright, the
demands insisted upon, and the very dogmatic opinions asserted, must be
examined. At no time so much as in our own, have such general
principles and notions been advanced, or with greater assurance. If in
days gone by, history seems to present itself as a struggle of
passions; in our time – though displays of passion are not wanting – it
exhibits partly a predominance of the struggle of notions assuming the
authority of principles; partly that of passions and interests
essentially subjective, but under the mask of such higher sanctions.
The pretensions thus contended for as legitimate in the name of that
which has been stated as the ultimate aim of Reason, pass accordingly,
for absolute aims – to the same extent as Religion, Morals, Ethics.
Nothing, as before remarked, is now more common than the complaint that
the ideals which imagination sets up are not realized – that these
glorious dreams are destroyed by cold actuality. These Ideals – which
in the voyage of life founder on the rocks of hard reality – may be in
the first instance only subjective, and belong to the idiosyncrasy of
the individual, imagining himself the highest and wisest. Such do not
properly belong to this category. For the fancies which the individual
in his isolation indulges, cannot be the model for universal reality;
just as universal law is not designed for the units of the mass. These
as such may, in fact, find their interests decidedly thrust into the
background. But by the term “Ideal,” we also understand the ideal of
Reason, of the Good, of the True. Poets, as e.g., Schiller, have
painted such ideals touchingly and with strong emotion, and with the
deeply melancholy conviction that they could not be realized. In
affirming, on the contrary, that the Universal Reason does realize
itself, we have indeed nothing to do with the individual empirically
regarded. That admits of degrees of better and worse, since here chance
and speciality have received authority from the Idea to exercise their
monstrous power. Much, therefore, in particular aspects of the grand
phenomenon might be found fault with. This subjective faultfinding –
which, however, only keeps in view the individual and its deficiency,
without taking notice of Reason pervading the whole – is easy; and
inasmuch as it asserts an excellent intention with regard to the good
of the whole, and seems to result from a kindly heart, it feels
authorized to give itself airs and assume great consequence. It is
easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in
Providence, than to see their real import and value. For in this merely
negative faultfinding a proud position is taken – one which overlooks
the object, without having entered into it – without having
comprehended its positive aspect. Age generally makes men more
tolerant; youth is always discontented. The tolerance of age is the
result of the ripeness of a judgment which, not merely as the result of
indifference, is satisfied even with what is inferior; but, more deeply
taught by the grave experience of life, has been led to perceive the
substantial, solid worth of the object in question. The insight then to
which – in contradistinction from those ideals – philosophy is to lead
us, is, that the real world is as it ought to be – that the truly good
– the universal divine reason – is not a mere abstraction, but a vital
principle capable of realizing itself. This Good, this Reason, in its
most concrete form, is God. God governs the world; the actual working
of his government – the carrying out of his plan – is the History of
the World. This plan philosophy strives to comprehend; for only that
which has been developed as the result of it, possesses bond fide
reality. That which does not accord with it, is negative, worthless
existence. Before the pure light of this divine Idea – which is no mere
Ideal – the phantom of a world whose events are an incoherent concourse
of fortuitous circumstances, utterly vanishes. Philosophy wishes to
discover the substantial purport, the real side, of the divine idea,
and to justify the so much despised Reality of things; for Reason is
the comprehension of the Divine work. But as to what concerns the
perversion, corruption, and ruin of religious, ethical, and moral
purposes, and states of society generally, it must be affirmed that in
their essence these are infinite and eternal; but that the forms they
assume may be of a limited order, and consequently belong to the domain
of mere nature, and be subject to the sway of chance. They are
therefore perishable, and exposed to decay and corruption. Religion and
morality – in the same way as inherently universal essences – have the
peculiarity of being present in the individual soul, in the full extent
of their Idea, and therefore truly and really; although, they may not
manifest themselves in it in extenso, and are not applied to fully
developed relations. The religion, the morality of a limited sphere of
life – that of a shepherd or a peasant, e.g., – in its intensive
concentration and limitation to a few perfectly simple relations of
life – has infinite worth; the same worth as the religion and morality
of extensive knowledge, and of an existence rich in the compass of its
relations and actions. This inner focus – this simple region of the
claims of subjective freedom – the home of volition, resolution, and
action – the abstract sphere of conscience – that which comprises the
responsibility and moral value of the individual, remains untouched;
and is quite shut out from the noisy din of the World’s History –
including not merely external and temporal changes, but also those
entailed by the absolute necessity inseparable from the realization of
the Idea of Freedom itself. But as a general truth this must be
regarded as settled, that whatever in the world possesses claims as
noble and glorious, has nevertheless a higher existence above it. The
claim of the World-Spirit rises above all special claims. These
observations may suffice in reference to the means which the
World-Spirit uses for realizing its Idea. Stated simply and abstractly,
this mediation involves the activity of personal existences in whom
Reason is present as their absolute, substantial being; but a basis, in
the first instance, still obscure and unknown to them. But the subject
becomes more complicated and difficult when we regard individuals not
merely in their aspect of activity, but more concretely, in conjunction
with a particular manifestation of that activity in their religion and
morality – forms of existence which are intimately connected with
Reason, and share in its absolute claims. Here the relation of mere
means to an end disappears, and the chief bearings of this seeming
difficulty in reference to the absolute aim of Spirit have been briefly
considered. |
|
| (3) The third point to be
analyzed is, therefore – what is the object to be realized by these
means; i.e. what is the 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 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 where it has an object which is the
truth and essence of a reality, viz., 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 also a
substantial life – a reality – in which it moves 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 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 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, are 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. |
|
| Subjective volition – Passion –
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 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 Antigone, says, “The divine commands are not of yesterday, nor
of today; 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 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 lie the justification and
merit of heroes who have founded states – however rude these may have
been. In the 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, i.e., of the absolute final aim,
and that it exists for its own sake. It must further be understood that
all 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. |
|
| 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 Unity of the universal and subjective
Will; and the Universal is to be found in the State, in its laws, its
universal and 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 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 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 own being. The objective and the subjective will are then
reconciled, and present one identical homogeneous whole. For the
morality (Sittlichkeif) of the State is not of that ethical
(moralische) 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]. 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 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 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, viz., 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; viz., that 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 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 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.
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; 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 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 won; and that by an incalculable
medial discipline ‘ of the intellectual and moral powers. The 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 and the State, but it is a limitation of
the mere brute emotions and rude instincts; 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 be obtained. 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, and developing itself, in opposition thereto; 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 a single person; since its members
have either mutually 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 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 natural love,
the one individual has the consciousness of himself in the
consciousness of the other; he lives out of self; and 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 take place within their circle, i.e., 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, 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 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 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; 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 the patriarchal
clan is also its priest. If the Family in its general relations, is not
yet separated from civic society and 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 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 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 sway. But long ago J. J.
Rousseau remarked that in that case there would be 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 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 not of
popular decision. If the principle of regard for the individual will is
recognized as the only basis of political liberty, viz., that nothing
should be done by or for the State to which all the members of the body
politic have not given their sanction, we have, properly speaking, no
Constitution. The only arrangement that would be necessary, would be,
first, a centre 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 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
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 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 e.g.,
even the people in a Democracy resolve on a war, a general must head
the army. It is only by 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, viz. that 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 freedom in the abstract –
the constitution should be at least 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 the will
of many or of all the citizens; though it is supposed to be thereby
provided that the State should be possessed of vigor and strength as a
reality – an individual unity. – The primary consideration is, then,
the distinction between the governing and the governed, and the
political constitutions in 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, 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
abovementioned divisions admit of a multitude of particular
modifications – 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 misshapen,
unstable, and inconsistent forms. In such a collision, the concerning
question is, what is the best constitution; that is, by what
arrangement, organization, or mechanism of the power of the State its
object can be most 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 Ideals of Constitutions, and – as a particular branch of the
subject – Ideals of the Education of Princes (Fenelon), or of the
governing body – the aristocracy at large (Plato); for the chief point
they treat of is the condition of those subjects who stand at the head
of affairs: and in these Ideals 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 subjective independent conviction, but as if the introduction
of a constitution recognized as the best – or as superior to others –
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 had conspired to overthrow the pseudo-Smerdis 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 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 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 if freedom; the monarchical constitution –
under the given 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 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 – 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 further on
that the constitution adopted by a people makes one substance – one
spirit: – with its religion, its art and philosophy, or, at 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 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 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 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 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
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 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, viz., the Monarchical. Two 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 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, work together for
one object, and are held together by it – i.e., 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 its successive stages are not merely ideal, but are
present in an appropriate reality; and that in their separate and
several working, they are absolutely merged in that agency by which the
totality – the soul – the individuate unity – is produced, and of which
it is the result. |
|
| The State is 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-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. 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; e.g., 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 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 –
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 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 a share in deliberations and resolves respecting 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 – 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 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-intentioned ruse designed to
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 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 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. 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, i.e., the
subjective side of knowledge and will, with its life, movement, and
activity. We then recognized the State 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 into 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
when examined separately. We have, 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, 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 act of
thoughtful cognition and volition, I will the universal object – the
substance of absolute Reason. We 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 centre of the
other concrete 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, i.e., of its own
Freedom. Among the forms of 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 this aside in Devotion – a state of
mind in which it refuses to occupy itself any longer with the limited
and particular. By Sacrifice man expresses his renunciation of his
property, his will, his individual feelings. The religious
concentration of the soul appears in the form of feeling; it
nevertheless passes also into reflection; a form of worship (cultus) 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 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 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
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 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 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,
etc. But man must also attain a conscious realization of this his
Spirit 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 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 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 Unity of the Universal and Individual; the
Individual itself assuming the aspect of positive and real existence in
the 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 – 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 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 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,
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 – 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 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, 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 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; i.e.,
the principles of the State must be regarded as valid in and for
themselves, which can only be in so far as they are 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 Roman State was possible only in
connection with the specific form of Heathenism existing among the
respective peoples; just as a Catholic State has 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 – were an
utterance of anguish and a 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, viz., the implantation and inculcation 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
pretending to invent and carry out political constitutions
independently of religion. The Catholic confession, although sharing
the Christian name with the Protestant, does not concede to the State
an inherent Justice and Morality – a concession which in the Protestant
principle is fundamental. This tearing away of the political morality
of the Constitution from its natural connection, is necessary to the
genius of that religion, inasmuch as it does not recognize Justice and
Morality as independent and substantial. But 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 centre, to the same degree as they are compelled to remain
abstract and indefinite. |
|
| Summing up 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,
their fatherland, their outward material property; the history of this
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. 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 the Son of his Nation, and at the same
time – in as far as the State to which he belongs is undergoing
development – the Son of his Age. None remains behind it, still less
advances beyond it. This spiritual Being (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 Goddess who represented the Spirit
of the People and its unity. |
|
| This Spirit of a People is a
determinate and particular Spirit, and is, as just stated, further
modified by the degree of its historical development. This Spirit,
then, constitutes 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 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 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, these various forms are
inseparably united with the 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,
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 which these grades of progress assume are the
characteristic “National Spirits” of History; the peculiar tenor 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 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 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 – namely, the State – nothing
further remains for this introductory section to contemplate but III.
The course of the World’s History. – The mutations which history
presents have been long characterized in the general, as an advance to
something better, more perfect. The changes that take place in Nature –
how infinitely manifold soever they may be – exhibit only a perpetually
self-repeating cycle; in Nature there happens “nothing new under the
sun,” and the multiform play of its phenomena so far induces a feeling
of ennui; only in those changes which take place in the region of
Spirit does anything new arise. This peculiarity in the world of mind
has indicated in the case of man an altogether different destiny from
that of merely natural objects – in which we find always one and the
same stable character, to which all change reverts; – namely, a real
capacity for change, and that for the better – an impulse of
perfectibility. This principle, which reduces change itself under a
law, has met with an unfavorable reception from religions – such as the
Catholic – and from States claiming as their just right a stereotyped,
or at least a stable position. If the mutability of worldly things in
general – political constitutions, for instance – is conceded, either
Religion (as the Religion of Truth) is absolutely excepted, or the
difficulty escaped by ascribing changes, revolutions, and abrogations
of immaculate theories and institutions, to accidents or imprudence –
but principally to the levity and evil passions of man. The principle
of Perfectibility indeed is almost as indefinite a term as mutability
in general; it is without scope or goal, and has no standard by which
to estimate the changes in question: the improved, more perfect, state
of things towards which it professedly tends is altogether undetermined. |
|
| The principle of Development
involves also the existence of a latent germ of being – a capacity or
potentiality striving to realize itself. This formal conception finds
actual existence in Spirit; which has the History of the World for its
theatre, its possession, and the sphere of its realization. It is not
of such a nature as to be tossed to and fro amid the superficial play
of accidents, but is rather the absolute arbiter of things; entirely
unmoved by contingencies, which, indeed, it applies and manages for its
own purposes. Development, however, is also a property of organized
natural objects. Their existence presents itself, not as an exclusively
dependent one, subjected to external changes, but as one which expands
itself in virtue of an internal unchangeable principle; a simple
essence – whose existence, i.e., as a germ, is primarily simple – but
which subsequently develops a variety of parts, that become involved
with other objects, and consequently live through a continuous process
of changes; – a process nevertheless, that results in the very contrary
of change, and is even transformed into a vis conservatrix of the
organic principle, and the form embodying it. Thus the organized
individuum produces itself; it expands itself actually to what it was
always potentially. – So Spirit is only that which it attains by its
own efforts; it makes itself actually what it always was potentially. –
That development (of natural organisms) takes place in a direct,
unopposed, unhindered manner. Between the Idea and its realization –
the essential constitution of the original germ and the conformity to
it of the existence derived from it – no disturbing influence can
intrude. But in relation to Spirit it is quite otherwise. The
realization of its Idea is mediated by consciousness and will; these
very faculties are, in the first instance, sunk in their primary merely
natural life; the first object and goal of their striving is the
realization of their merely natural destiny – but which, since it is
Spirit that animates it, is possessed of vast attractions and displays
great power and (moral) richness. Thus Spirit is at war with itself; it
has to overcome itself as its most formidable obstacle. That
development which in the sphere of Nature is a peaceful growth is, in
that of spirit, a severe, a mighty conflict with itself. What Spirit
really strives for is the realization of its Ideal being; but in doing
so, it hides that goal from its own vision, and is proud and well
satisfied in this alienation from it. |
|
| Its expansion, therefore, does
not present the harmless tranquillity of mere growth, as does that of
organic life, but a stern reluctant working against itself. It
exhibits, moreover, not the mere formal conception of development, but
the attainment of a definite result. The goal of attainment we
determined at the outset: it is Spirit in its Completeness, in its
essential nature, i.e., Freedom. This is the fundamental object, and
therefore also the leading principle of the development – that whereby
it receives meaning and importance (as in the Roman history, Rome is
the object – consequently that which directs our consideration of the
facts related); as, conversely, the phenomena of the process have
resulted from this principle alone, and only as referred to it, possess
a sense of value. There are many considerable periods in History in
which this development seems to have been intermitted; in which, we
might rather say, the whole enormous gain of previous culture appears
to have been entirely lost; after which, unhappily, a new commencement
has been necessary, made in the hope of recovering – by the assistance
of some remains saved from the wreck of a former civilization, and by
dint of a renewed incalculable expenditure of strength and time – one
of the regions which had been an ancient possession of that
civilization. We behold also continued processes of growth; structures
and systems of culture in particular spheres, rich in kind, and well
developed in every direction. The merely formal and indeterminate view
of development in general can neither assign to one form of expansion
superiority over the other, nor render comprehensible the object of
that decay of older periods of growth; but must regard such occurrences
– or, to speak more particularly, the retrocessions they exhibit – as
external contingencies; and can only judge of particular modes of
development from indeterminate points of view; which – since the
development, as such, is all in all – are relative and not absolute
goals of attainment. |
|
| Universal History exhibits the
gradation in the development of that principle whose substantial
purport is the consciousness of Freedom. The analysis of the successive
grades, in their abstract form, belongs to Logic; in their concrete
aspect to the Philosophy of Spirit. Here it is sufficient to state that
the first step in the process presents that immersion of Spirit in
Nature which has been already referred to; the second shows it as
advancing to the consciousness of its freedom. But this initial
separation from Nature is imperfect and partial, since it is derived
immediately from the merely natural state, is consequently related to
it, and is still encumbered with it as an essentially connected
element. The third step is the elevation of the soul from this still
limited and special form of freedom to its pure universal form; that
state in which the spiritual essence attains the consciousness and
feeling of itself. These grades are the ground-principles of the
general process; but how each of them on the other hand involves within
itself a process of formation – constituting the links in a dialectic
of transition – to particularize this must be reserved for the sequel. |
|
| Here we have only to indicate
that Spirit begins with a germ of infinite possibility, but only
possibility – containing its substantial existence in an undeveloped
form, as the object and goal which it reaches only in its resultant –
full reality. In actual existence Progress appears as an advancing from
the imperfect to the more perfect; but the former must not be
understood abstractly as only the imperfect, but as something which
involves the very opposite of itself – the so-called perfect – as a
germ or impulse. So – reflectively, at least – possibility points to
something destined to become actual; the Aristotelian dunamis is also
potentia, power and might. Thus the Imperfect, as involving its
opposite, is a contradiction, which certainly exists, but which is
continually annulled and solved; the instinctive movement – the
inherent impulse in the life of the soul – to break through the rind of
mere nature, sensuousness, and that which is alien to it, and to attain
to the light of consciousness, i.e., to itself. We have already made
the remark how the commencement’ of the history of Spirit must be
conceived so as to be in harmony with its Idea – in its bearing on the
representations that have been made of a primitive “natural condition,”
in which freedom and justice are supposed to exist, or to have existed.
This was, however, nothing more than an assumption of historical
existence, conceived in the twilight of theorizing reflection. A
pretension of quite another order – not a mere inference of reasoning,
but making the claim of historical fact, and that supernaturally
confirmed – is put forth in connection with a different view that is
now widely promulgated by a certain class of speculatists. This view
takes up the idea of the primitive paradisiacal conditon of man, which
had been previously expanded by the Theologians, after their fashion –
involving, e.g., the supposition that God spoke with Adam in Hebrew –
but remodelled to suit other requirements. The high authority appealed
to in the first instance is the biblical narrative. But this depicts
the primitive condition, partly only in the few wellknown traits, but
partly either as in man generically – human nature at large – or, so
far as Adam is to be taken as an individual, and consequently one
person – as existing and completed in this one, or only in one human
pair. The biblical account by no means justifies us in imagining a
people, and a historical condition of such people, existing in that
primitive form; still less does it warrant us in attributing to them
the possession of a perfectly developed knowledge of God and Nature.
“Nature,” so the fiction runs, “like a clear mirror of God’s creation,
had originally lain revealed and transparent to the unclouded eye of
man.”[3] Divine Truth is imagined to have been equally manifest. It is
even hinted, though left in some degree of obscurity, that in this
primary condition men were in possession of an indefinitely extended
and already expanded body of religious truths immediately revealed by
God. This theory affirms that all religions had their historical
commencement in this primitive knowledge, and that they polluted and
obscured the original Truth by the monstrous creations of error and
depravity; though in all the mythologies invented by Error, traces of
that origin and of those primitive true dogmas are supposed to be
present and cognizable. An important interest, therefore, accrues to
the investigation of the history of ancient peoples, that, viz., of the
endeavor to trace their annals up to the point where such fragments of
the primary revelation are to be met with in greater purity than lower
down.[4] |
|
| We owe to the interest which has
occasioned these investigations, very much that is valuable; but this
investigation bears direct testimony against itself, for it would seem
to be awaiting the issue of an historical demonstration of that which
is presupposed by it as historically established. That advanced
condition of the knowledge of God, and of other scientific, e.g.,
astronomical, knowledge (such as has been falsely attributed to the
Hindoos); and the assertion that such a condition occurred at the very
beginning of History – or that the religions of various nations were
traditionally derived from it, and have developed themselves in
degeneracy and depravation (as is represented in the rudely-conceived
so-called “Emanation System”); – all these are suppositions which
neither have, nor – if we may contrast with their arbitrary subjective
origin, the true conception of History – can attain historical
confirmation. The only consistent and worthy method which philosophical
investigation can adopt is to take up History where Rationality begins
to manifest itself in the actual conduct of the World’s affairs (not
where it is merely an undeveloped potentiality) – where a condition of
things is present in which it realizes itself in consciousness, will
and action. The inorganic existence of Spirit – that of abstract
Freedom – unconscious torpidity in respect to good and evil (and
consequently to laws), or, if we please to term it so, “blessed
ignorance” – is itself not a subject of History. Natural, and at the
same time religious morality, is the piety of the family. In this
social relation, morality consists in the members behaving towards each
other not as individuals – possessing an independent will; not as
persons. The Family therefore, is excluded from that process of
development in which History takes its rise. But when this
self-involved spiritual Unity steps beyond this circle of feeling and
natural love, and first attains the consciousness of personality, we
have that dark, dull centre of indifference, in which neither Nature
nor Spirit is open and transparent; and for which Nature and Spirit can
become open and transparent only by means of a further process – a very
lengthened culture of that Will at length become self-conscious.
Consciousness alone is clearness; and is that alone for which God (or
any other existence) can be revealed. In its true form – in absolute
universality – nothing can be manifested except to consciousness made
percipient of it. Freedom is nothing but the recognition and adoption
of such universal substantial objects as Right and Law, and the
production of a reality that is accordant with them – the State.
Nations may have passed a long life before arriving at this their
destination, and during this period, they may have attained
considerable culture in some directions. This ante-historical period –
consistently with what has been said – lies out of our plan; whether a
real history followed it, or the peoples in question never attained a
political constitution. – It is a great discovery in history – as of a
new world – which has been made within rather more than the last twenty
years, respecting the Sanscrit and the connection of the European
languages with it. In particular, the connection of the German and
Indian peoples has been demonstrated, with as much certainty as such
subjects allow of. Even at the present time we know of peoples which
scarcely form a society, much less a State, but that have been long
known as existing; while with regard to others, which in their advanced
condition excite our especial interest, tradition reaches beyond the
record of the founding of the State, and they experienced many changes
prior to that epoch. In the connection just referred to, between the
languages of nations so widely separated, we have a result before us,
which proves the diffusion of those nations from Asia as a centre, and
the so dissimilar development of what had been originally related, as
an incontestable fact; not as an inference deduced by that favorite
method of combining, and reasoning from, circumstances grave and
trivial, which has already enriched and will continue to enrich history
with so many fictions given out as facts. But that apparently so
extensive range of events lies beyond the pale of history; in fact
preceded it. |
|
| In our language the term
History[5] unites the objective with the subjective side, and denotes
quite as much the historia rerum gestarum, as the res gestae
themselves; on the other hand it comprehends not less what has
happened, than the narration of what has happened. This union of the
two meanings we must regard as of a higher order than mere outward
accident; we must suppose historical narrations to have appeared
contemporaneously with historical deeds and events. It is an internal
vital principle common to both that produces them synchronously. Family
memorials, patriarchal traditions, have an interest confined to the
family and the clan. The uniform course of events which such a
condition implies, is no subject of serious remembrance; though
distinct transactions or turns of fortune, may rouse Mnemosyne to form
conceptions of them – in the same way as love and the religious
emotions provoke imagination to give shape to a previously formless
impulse. But it is the State which first presents subject- matter that
is not only adapted to the prose of History, but involves the
production of such history in the very progress of its own being.
Instead of merely subjective mandates on the part of government –
sufficing for the needs of the moment – a community that is acquiring a
stable existence, and exalting itself into a State, requires formal
commands and laws – comprehensive and universally binding
prescriptions; and thus produces a record as well as an interest
concerned with intelligent, definite – and, in their results – lasting
transactions and occurrences; on which Mnemosyne, for the behoof of the
perennial object of the formation and constitution of the State, is
impelled to confer perpetuity. Profound sentiments generally, such as
that of love, as also religious intuition and its conceptions, are in
themselves complete – constantly present and satisfying; but that
outward existence of a political constitution which is enshrined in its
rational laws and customs, is an imperfect Present; and cannot be
thoroughly understood without a knowledge of the past. The periods –
whether we suppose them to be centuries or millennia – that were passed
by nations before history was written among them – and which may have
been filled with revolutions, nomadic wanderings, and the strangest
mutations – are on that very account destitute of objective history,
because they present no subjective history, no annals. We need not
suppose that the records of such periods have accidentally perished;
rather, because they were not possible, do we find them wanting. Only
in a State cognizant of Laws, can distinct transactions take place,
accompanied by such a clear consciousness of them as supplies the
ability and suggests the necessity of an enduring record. It strikes
every one, in beginning to form an acquaintance with the treasures of
Indian literature, that a land so rich in intellectual products, and
those of the profoundest order of thought, has no History; and in this
respect contrasts most strongly with China – an empire possessing one
so remarkable, one going back to the most ancient times. India has not
only ancient books relating to religion, and splendid poetical
productions, but also ancient codes; the existence of which latter kind
of literature has been mentioned as a condition necessary to the
origination of History – and yet History itself is not found. But in
that country the impulse of organization, in beginning to develop
social distinctions, was immediately petrified in the merely natural
classification according to castes; so that although the laws concern
themselves with civil rights, they make even these dependent on natural
distinctions; and are especially occupied with determining the
relations (Wrongs rather than Rights) of those classes towards each
other, i.e., the privileges of the higher over the lower. Consequently,
the element of morality is banished from the pomp of Indian life and
from its political institutions. Where that iron bondage of
distinctions derived from nature prevails, the connection of society is
nothing but wild arbitrariness – transient activity – or rather the
play of violent emotion without any goal of advancement or development.
Therefore no intelligent reminiscence, no object for Mnemosyne presents
itself; and imagination – confused though profound – expatiates in a
region, which, to be capable of History, must have had an aim within
the domain of Reality, and, at the same time, of substantial Freedom. |
|
| Since such are the conditions
indispensable to a history, it has happened that the growth of Families
to Clans, of Clans to Peoples, and their local diffusion consequent
upon this numerical increase – a series of facts which itself suggests
so many instances of social complication, war, revolution, and ruin – a
process which is so rich in interest, and so comprehensive in extent –
has occurred without giving rise to History; moreover, that the
extension and organic growth of the empire of articulate sounds has
itself remained voiceless and dumb – a stealthy, unnoticed advance. It
is a fact revealed by philological monuments, that languages, during a
rude condition of the nations that have spoken them, have been very
highly developed; that the human understanding occupied this
theoretical region with great ingenuity and completeness. For Grammar,
in its extended and consistent form, is the work of thought, which
makes its categories distinctly visible therein. It is, moreover, a
fact, that with advancing social and political civilization, this
systematic completeness of intelligence suffers attrition, and language
thereupon becomes poorer and ruder: a singular phenomenon – that the
progress towards a more highly intellectual condition, while expanding
and cultivating rationality, should disregard that intelligent
amplitude and expressiveness – should find it an obstruction and
contrive to do without it. Speech is the act of theoretic intelligence
in a special sense; it is its external manifestation. Exercises of
memory and imagination without language, are direct, [non- speculative]
manifestations. But this act of theoretic intelligence itself, as also
its subsequent development, and the more concrete class of facts
connected with it – viz. the spreading of peoples over the earth, their
separation from each other, their comminglings and wanderings – remain
involved in the obscurity of a voiceless past. They are not acts of
Will becoming self- conscious – of Freedom, mirroring itself in a
phenomenal form, and creating for itself a proper reality. Not
partaking of this element of substantial, veritable existence, those
nations – notwithstanding the development of language among them –
never advanced to the possession of a history. The rapid growth of
language, and the progress and dispersion of Nations, assume importance
and interest for concrete Reason, only when they have come in contact
with States, or begin to form political constitutions themselves. |
|
| After these remarks, relating to
the form of the commencement of the World’s History, and to that
ante-historical period which must be excluded from it, we have to state
the direction of its course: though here only formally. The further
definition of the subject in the concrete comes under the head of
arrangement. Universal history – as already demonstrated – shows the
development of the consciousness of Freedom on the part of Spirit, and
of the consequent realization of that Freedom. This development implies
a gradation – a series of increasingly adequate expressions or
manifestations of Freedom, which result from its Idea. The logical, and
– as still more prominent – the dialectical nature of the Idea in
general, viz. that it is self-determined – that it assumes successive
forms which it successively transcends; and by this very process of
transcending its earlier stages gains an affirmative, and, in fact, a
richer and more concrete shape; – this necessity of its nature, and the
necessary series of pure abstract forms which the Idea successively
assumes – is exhibited in the department of Logic. Here we need adopt
only one of its results, viz. that every step in the process, as
differing from any other, has its determinate peculiar principle. In
history this principle is idiosyncrasy of Spirit – peculiar National
Genius. It is within the limitations of this idiosyncrasy that the
spirit of the nation, concretely manifested, expresses every aspect of
its consciousness and will – the whole cycle of its realization. Its
religion, its polity, its ethics, its legislation, and even its
science, art, and mechanical skill, all bear its stamp. These special
peculiarities find their key in that common peculiarity – the
particular principle that characterizes a people; as, on the other
hand, in the facts which History presents in detail, that common
characteristic principle may be detected. That such or such a specific
quality constitutes the peculiar genius of a people, is the element of
our inquiry which must be derived from experience, and historically
proved. To accomplish this, presupposes not only a disciplined faculty
of abstraction, but an intimate acquaintance with the Idea. The
investigator must be familiar a priori (if we like to call it so), with
the whole circle of conceptions to which the principles in question
belong – just as Kepler (to name the most illustrious example in this
mode of philosophizing) must have been familiar a priori with ellipses,
with cubes and squares, and with ideas of their relations, before he
could discover, from the empirical data, those immortal “Laws” of his,
which are none other than forms of thought pertaining to those classes
of conceptions. He who is unfamiliar with the science that embraces
these abstract elementary conceptions, is as little capable – though he
may have gazed on the firmament and the motions of the celestial bodies
for a lifetime – of understanding those Laws, as of discovering them.
From this want of acquaintance with the ideas that relate to the
development of Freedom, proceed a part of those objections which are
brought against the philosophical consideration of a science usually
regarded as one of mere experience; the so- called a priori method, and
the attempt to insinuate ideas into the empirical data of history,
being the chief points in the indictment. Where this deficiency exists,
such conceptions appear alien – not lying within the object of
investigation. To minds whose training has been narrow and merely
subjective – which have not an acquaintance and familiarity with ideas
– they are something strange – not embraced in the notion and
conception of the subject which their limited intellect forms. Hence
the statement that Philosophy does not understand such sciences. It
must, indeed, allow that it has not that kind of Understanding which is
the prevailing one in the domain of those sciences, that it does not
proceed according to the categories of such Understanding, but
according to the categories of Reason – though at the same time
recognizing that Understanding, and its true value and position. It
must be observed that in this very process of scientific Understanding,
it is of importance that the essential should be distinguished and
brought into relief in contrast with the so-called non-essential. But
in order to render this possible, we must know what is essential; and
that is – in view of the History of the World in general – the
Consciousness of Freedom, and the phases which this consciousness
assumes in developing itself. The bearing of historical facts on this
category, is their bearing on the truly Essential. Of the difficulties
stated, and the opposition exhibited to comprehensive conceptions in
science, part must be referred to the inability to grasp and understand
Ideas. If in Natural History some monstrous hybrid growth is alleged as
an objection to the recognition of clear and indubitable classes or
species, a sufficient reply is furnished by a sentiment often vaguely
urged – that “the exception confirms the rule”; i.e., that is the part
of a well-defined rule, to show the conditions in which it applies, or
the deficiency or hybridism of cases that are abnormal. Mere Nature is
too weak to keep its genera and species pure, when conflicting with
alien elementary influences. If, e.g., on considering the human
organization in its concrete aspect, we assert that brain, heart, and
so forth are essential to its organic life, some miserable abortion may
be adduced, which has on the whole the human form, or parts of it –
which has been conceived in a human body and has breathed after birth
therefrom – in which nevertheless no brain and no heart is found. If
such an instance is quoted against the general conception of a human
being – the objector persisting in using the name, coupled with a
superficial idea respecting it – it can be proved that a real, concrete
human being is a truly different object; that such a being must have a
brain in its head, and a heart in its breast. |
|
| A similar process of reasoning
is adopted, in reference to the correct assertion that genius, talent,
moral virtues, and sentiments, and piety, may be found in every zone,
under all political constitutions and conditions; in confirmation of
which examples are forthcoming in abundance. If, in this assertion, the
accompanying distinctions are intended to be repudiated as unimportant
or non-essential, reflection evidently limits itself to abstract
categories; and ignores the specialities of the object in question,
which certainly fall under no principle recognized by such categories.
That intellectual position which adopts such merely formal points of
view, presents a vast field for ingenious questions, erudite views, and
striking comparisons; for profound seeming reflections and
declamations, which may be rendered so much the more brilliant in
proportion as the subject they refer to is indefinite, and are
susceptible of new and varied forms in inverse proportion to the
importance of the results that can be gained from them, and the
certainty and rationality of their issues. Under such an aspect the
well-known Indian Epopees may be compared with the Homeric; perhaps –
since it is the vastness of the imagination by which poetical genius
proves itself – preferred to them; as, on account of the similarity of
single strokes of imagination in the attributes of the divinities, it
has been contended that Greek mythological forms may be recognized in
those of India. Similarly the Chinese philosophy, as adopting the One
[Ton] as its basis, has been alleged to be the same as at a later
period appeared as Eleatic philosophy and as the Spinozistic System;
while in virtue of its expressing itself also in abstract numbers and
lines, Pythagorean and Christian principles have been supposed to be
detected in it. Instances of bravery and indomitable courage – traits
of magnanimity, of self-denial, and self-sacrifice, which are found
among the most savage and the most pusillanimous nations – are regarded
as sufficient to support the view that in these nations as much of
social virtue and morality may be found as in the most civilized
Christian states, or even more. And on this ground a doubt has been
suggested whether in the progress of history and of general culture
mankind have become better; whether their morality has been increased –
morality being regarded in a subjective aspect and view, as founded on
what the agent holds to be right and wrong, good and evil; not on a
principle which is considered to be in and for itself right and good,
or a crime and evil, or on a particular religion believed to be the
true one. |
|
| We may fairly decline on this
occasion the task of tracing the formalism and error of such a view,
and establishing the true principles of morality, or rather of social
virtue in opposition to false morality. For the History of the World
occupies a higher ground than that on which morality has properly its
position; which is personal character – the conscience of individuals –
their particular will and mode of action; these have a value,
imputation, reward or punishment proper to themselves. What the
absolute aim of Spirit requires and accomplishes – what Providence does
– transcends the obligations, and the liability to imputation and the
ascription of good or bad motives, which attach to individuality in
virtue of its social relations. They who on moral grounds, and
consequently with noble intention, have resisted that which the advance
of the Spiritual Idea makes necessary, stand higher in moral worth than
those whose crimes have been turned into the means – under the
direction of a superior principle – of realizing the purposes of that
principle. But in such revolutions both parties generally stand within
the limits of the same circle of transient and corruptible existence.
Consequently it is only a formal rectitude – deserted by the living
Spirit and by God – which those who stand upon ancient right and order
maintain. The deeds of great men, who are the Individuals of the
World’s History, thus appear not only justified in view of that
intrinsic result of which they were not conscious, but also from the
point of view occupied by the secular moralist. But looked at from this
point, moral claims that are irrelevant, must not be brought into
collision with world- historical deeds and their accomplishment. The
Litany of private virtues – modesty, humility, philanthropy and
forbearance – must not be raised against them. The History of the World
might, on principle, entirely ignore the circle within which morality
and the so much talked of distinction between the moral and the politic
lies – not only in abstaining from judgments, for the principles
involved, and the necessary reference of the deeds in question to those
principles, are a sufficient judgment of them – but in leaving
Individuals quite out of view and unmentioned. What it has to record is
the activity of the Spirit of Peoples, so that the individual forms
which that spirit has assumed in the sphere of outward reality, might
be left to the delineation of special histories. The same kind of
formalism avails itself in its peculiar manner of the indefiniteness
attaching to genius, poetry, and even philosophy; thinks equally that
it finds these everywhere. We have here products of reflective thought;
and it is familiarity with those general conceptions which single out
and name real distinctions without fathoming the true depth of the
matter – that we call Culture. It is something merely formal, inasmuch
as it aims at nothing more than the analysis of the subject, whatever
it be, into its constituent parts, and the comprehension of these in
their logical definitions and forms. It is not the free universality of
conception necessary for making an abstract principle the object of
consciousness. Such a consciousness of Thought itself, and of its forms
isolated from a particular object, is Philosophy. This has, indeed, the
condition of its existence in culture; that condition being the taking
up of the object of thought, and at the same time clothing it with the
form of universality, in such a way that the material content and the
form given by the intellect are held in an inseparable state; –
inseparable to such a degree that the object in question – which, by
the analysis of one conception into a multitude of conceptions, is
enlarged to an incalculable treasure of thought – is regarded as a
merely empirical datum in whose formation thought has had no share. But
it is quite as much an act of Thought – of the Understanding in
particular – to embrace in one simple conception object which of itself
comprehends a concrete and large significance (as Earth, Man –
Alexander or Caesar) and to designate it by one word – as to resolve
such a conception – duly to isolate in idea the conceptions which it
contains, and to give them particular names. And in reference to the
view which gave occasion to what has just been said, thus much will be
clear – that as reflection produces what we include under the general
terms Genius, Talent, Art, Science – formal culture on every grade of
intellectual development, not only can, but must grow, and attain a
mature bloom, while the grade in question is developing itself to a
State, and on this basis of civilization is advancing to intelligent
reflection and to general forms of thought – as in laws, so in regard
to all else. In the very association of men in a state, lies the
necessity of formal culture – consequently of the rise of the sciences
and of a cultivated poetry and art generally. The arts designated
“plastic,” require besides, even in their technical aspect, the
civilized association of men. The poetic art – which has less need of
external requirements and means, and which has the element of immediate
existence, the voice, as its material – steps forth with great boldness
and with matured expression, even under the conditions presented by a
people not yet united in a political combination; since, as remarked
above, language attains on its own particular ground a high
intellectual development, prior to the commencement of civilization. |
|
| Philosophy also must make its
appearance where political life exists; since that in virtue of which
any series of phenomena is reduced within the sphere of culture, as
above stated, is the Form strictly proper to Thought; and thus for
philosophy, which is nothing other than the consciousness of this form
itself – the Thinking of Thinking – the material o£ which its edifice
is to be constructed, is already prepared by general culture. If in the
development of the State itself, periods are necessitated which impel
the soul of nobler natures to seek refuge from the Present in ideal
regions – in order to find in them that harmony with itself which it
can no longer enjoy in the discordant real world, where the reflective
intelligence attacks all that is holy and deep, which had been
spontaneously inwrought into the religion, laws and manners of nations,
and brings them down and attenuates them to abstract godless
generalities – Thought will be compelled to become Thinking Reason,
with the view of effecting in its own element the restoration of its
principles from the ruin to which they had been brought. |
|
| We find then, it is true, among
all world-historical peoples, poetry, plastic art, science, even
philosophy; but not only is there a diversity in style and bearing
generally, but still more remarkably in subject-matter; and this is a
diversity of the most important kind, affecting the rationality of that
subject-matter. It is useless for a pretentious aesthetic criticism to
demand that our good pleasure should not be made the rule for the
matter – the substantial part of their contents – and to maintain that
it is the beautiful form as such, the grandeur of the fancy, and so
forth, which fine art aims at, and which must be considered and enjoyed
by a liberal taste and cultivated mind. A healthy intellect does not
tolerate such abstractions, and cannot assimilate productions of the
kind above referred to. Granted that the Indian Epopees might be placed
on a level with the Homeric, on account of a number of those qualities
of form – grandeur of invention and imaginative power, liveliness of
images and emotions, and beauty of diction; yet the infinite difference
of matter remains; consequently one of substantial importance and
involving the interest of Reason, which is immediately concerned with
the consciousness of the Idea of Freedom, and its expression in
individuals. There is not only a classical form, but a classical order
of subject-matter; and in a work of art form and subject-matter are so
closely united that the former can only be classical to the extent to
which the latter is so. With a fantastical, indeterminate material –
and Rule is the essence of Reason – the form becomes measureless and
formless, or mean and contracted. In the same way, in that comparison
of the various systems of philosophy of which we have already spoken,
the only point of importance is overlooked, namely, the character of
that Unity which is found alike in the Chinese, the Eleatic, and the
Spinozistic philosophy – the distinction between the recognition of
that Unity as abstract and as concrete – concrete to the extent of
being a unity in and by itself – a unity synonymous with Spirit. But
that co-ordination proves that it recognizes only such an abstract
unity; so that while it gives judgment respecting philosophy, it is
ignorant of that very point which constitutes the interest of
philosophy. |
|
| But there are also spheres
which, amid all the variety that is presented in the substantial
content of a particular form of culture, remain the same. The
difference above-mentioned in art, science, philosophy, concerns the
thinking Reason and Freedom, which is the self-consciousness of the
former, and which has the same one root with Thought. As it is not the
brute, but only the man that thinks, he only – and only because he is a
thinking being – has Freedom. His consciousness imports this, that the
individual comprehends itself as a person, that is, recognizes itself
in its single existence as possessing universality – as capable of
abstraction from, and of surrendering all speciality; and, therefore,
as inherently infinite. Consequently those spheres of intelligence
which lie beyond the limits of this consciousness are a common ground
among those substantial distinctions. Even morality, which is so
intimately connected with the consciousness of freedom, can be very
pure while that consciousness is still wanting; as far, that is to say,
as it expresses duties and rights only as objective commands; or even
as far as it remains satisfied with the merely formal elevation of the
soul – the surrender of the sensual, and of all sensual motives – in a
purely negative, self-denying fashion. The Chinese morality – since
Europeans have become acquainted with it and with the writings of
Confucius – has obtained the greatest praise and proportionate
attention from those who are familiar with the Christian morality.
There is a similar acknowledgment of the sublimity with which the
Indian religion and poetry, (a statement that must, however, be limited
to the higher kind), but especially the Indian philosophy, expatiate
upon and demand the removal and sacrifice of sensuality. Yet both these
nations are, it must be confessed, entirely wanting in the essential
consciousness of the Idea of Freedom. To the Chinese their moral laws
are just like natural laws – external, positive commands – claims
established by force – compulsory duties or rules of courtesy towards
each other. Freedom, through which alone the essential determinations
of Reason become moral sentiments, is wanting. Morality is a political
affair, and its laws are administered by officers of government and
legal tribunals. Their treatises upon it, (which are not law books, but
are certainly addressed to the subjective will and individual
disposition) read – as do the moral writings of the Stoics – like a
string of commands stated as necessary for realizing the goal of
happiness; so that it seems to be left free to men, on their part, to
adopt such commands – to observe them or not; while the conception of
an abstract subject, “a wise man” [Sapiens] forms the culminating point
among the Chinese, as also among the Stoic moralists. Also in the
Indian doctrine of the renunciation of the sensuality of desires and
earthly interests, positive moral freedom is not the object and end,
but the annihilation of consciousness – spiritual and even physical
privation of life. |
|
| It is the concrete spirit of a
people which we have distinctly to recognize, and since it is Spirit it
can only be comprehended spiritually, that is, by thought. It is this
alone which takes the lead in all the deeds and tendencies of that
people, and which is occupied in realizing itself – in satisfying its
ideal and becoming self-conscious – for its great business is
self-production. But for spirit, the highest attainment is
self-knowledge; an advance not only to the intuition, but to the
thought – the clear conception of itself. This it must and is also
destined to accomplish; but the accomplishment is at the same time its
dissolution, and the rise of another spirit, another world-historical
people, another epoch of Universal History. This transition and
connection lead us to the connection of the whole – the idea of the
World’s History as such – which we have now to consider more closely,
and of which we have to give a representation. |
|
| History in general is therefore
the development of Spirit in Time, as Nature is the development of the
Idea in Space. If then we cast a glance over the World’s-History
generally, we see a vast picture of changes and transactions; of
infinitely manifold forms of peoples, states, individuals, in unresting
succession. Everything that can enter into and interest the soul of man
– all our sensibility to goodness, beauty, and greatness – is called
into play. On every hand aims are adopted and pursued, which we
recognize, whose accomplishment we desire – we hope and fear for them.
In all these occurrences and changes we behold human action and
suffering predominant; everywhere something akin to ourselves, and
therefore everywhere something that excites our interest for or
against. Sometimes it attracts us by beauty, freedom, and rich variety,
sometimes by energy such as enables even vice to make itself
interesting. Sometimes we see the more comprehensive mass of some
general interest advancing with comparative slowness, and subsequently
sacrificed to an infinite complication of trifling circumstances, and
so dissipated into atoms. Then, again, with a vast expenditure of power
a trivial result is produced; while from what appears unimportant a
tremendous issue proceeds. On every hand there is the motliest throng
of events drawing us within the circle of its interest, and when one
combination vanishes another immediately appears in its place. |
|
| The general thought – the
category which first presents itself in this restless mutation of
individuals and peoples, existing for a time and then vanishing – is
that of change at large. The sight of the ruins of some ancient
sovereignty directly leads us to contemplate this thought of change in
its negative aspect. What traveller among the ruins of Carthage, of
Palmyra, Persepolis, or Rome, has not been stimulated to reflections on
the transiency of kingdoms and men, and to sadness at the thought of a
vigorous and rich life now departed – a sadness which does not expend
itself on personal losses and the uncertainty of one’s own
undertakings, but is a disinterested sorrow at the decay of a splendid
and highly cultured national life! But the next consideration which
allies itself with that of change, is, that change while it imports
dissolution, involves at the same time the rise of a new life – that
while death is the issue of life, life is also the issue of death. This
is a grand conception; one which the Oriental thinkers attained, and
which is perhaps the highest in their metaphysics. In the idea of
Metempsychosis we find it evolved in its relation to individual
existence; but a myth more generally known, is that of the Phoenix as a
type of the Life of Nature; eternally preparing for itself its funeral
pile, and consuming itself upon it; but so that from its ashes is
produced the new, renovated, fresh life. But this image is only
Asiatic; oriental not occidental. Spirit – consuming the envelope of
its existence – does not merely pass into another envelope, nor rise
rejuvenescent from the ashes of its previous form; it comes forth
exalted, glorified, a purer spirit. It certainly makes war upon itself
– consumes its own existence; but in this very destruction it works up
that existence into a new form, and each successive phase becomes in
its turn a material, working on which it exalts itself to a new grade. |
|
| If we consider Spirit in this
aspect – regarding its changes not merely as rejuvenescent transitions,
i.e., returns to the same form, but rather as manipulations of itself,
by which it multiplies the material for future endeavors – we see it
exerting itself in a variety of modes and directions; developing its
powers and gratifying its desires in a variety which is inexhaustible;
because every one of its creations, in which it has already found
gratification, meets it anew as material, and is a new stimulus to
plastic activity. The abstract conception of mere change gives place to
the thought of Spirit manifesting, developing, and perfecting its
powers in every direction which its manifold nature can follow. What
powers it inherently possesses we learn from the variety of products
and formations which it originates. In this pleasurable activity, it
has to do only with itself. As involved with the conditions of mere
nature – internal and external – it will indeed meet in these not only
opposition and hindrance, but will often see its endeavors thereby
fail; often sink under the complications in which it is entangled
either by Nature or by itself. But in such case it perishes in
fulfilling its own destiny and proper function, and even thus exhibits
the spectacle of self-demonstration as spiritual activity. |
|
| The very essence of Spirit is
activity; it realizes its potentiality – makes itself its own deed, its
own work – and thus it becomes an object to itself; contemplates itself
as an objective existence. Thus is it with the Spirit of a people: it
is a Spirit having strictly defined characteristics, which erects
itself into an objective world, that exists and persists in a
particular religious form of worship, customs, constitution, and
political laws – in the whole complex of its institutions – in the
events and transactions that make up its history. That is its work –
that is what this particular Nation is. Nations are what their deeds
are. Every Englishman will say: We are the men who navigate the ocean,
and have the commerce of the world; to whom the East Indies belong and
their riches; who have a parliament, juries, etc. – The relation of the
individual to that Spirit is that he appropriates to himself this
substantial existence; that it becomes his character and capability,
enabling him to have a definite place in the world – to be something.
For he finds the being of the people to which he belongs an already
established, firm world – objectively present to him – with which he
has to incorporate himself. In this its work, therefore – its world –
the Spirit of the people enjoys its existence and finds its
satisfaction. – A Nation is moral – virtuous – vigorous – while it is
engaged in realizing its grand objects, and defends its work against
external violence during the process of giving to its purposes an
objective existence. The contradiction between its potential,
subjective being – its inner aim and life – and its actual being is
removed; it has attained full reality, has itself objectively present
to it. But this having been attained, the activity displayed by the
Spirit of the people in question is no longer needed; it has its
desire. The Nation can still accomplish much in war and peace at home
and abroad; but the living substantial soul itself may be said to have
ceased its activity. The essential, supreme interest has consequently
vanished from its life, for interest is present only where there is
opposition. The nation lives the same kind of life as the individual
when passing from maturity to old age – in the enjoyment of itself – in
the satisfaction of being exactly what it desired and was able to
attain. Although its imagination might have transcended that limit, it
nevertheless abandoned any such aspirations as objects of actual
endeavor, if the real world was less than favorable to their attainment
– and restricted its aim by the conditions thus imposed. This mere
customary life (the watch wound up and going on of itself) is that
which brings on natural death. Custom is activity without opposition,
for which there remains only a formal duration; in which the fulness
and zest that originally characterized the aim of life are out of the
question – a merely external sensuous existence which has ceased to
throw itself enthusiastically into its object. Thus perish individuals,
thus perish peoples by a natural death; and though the latter may
continue in being, it is an existence without intellect or vitality;
having no need of its institutions, because the need for them is
satisfied – a political nullity and tedium. In order that a truly
universal interest may arise, the Spirit of a People must advance to
the adoption of some new purpose; but whence can this new purpose
originate? It would be a higher, more comprehensive conception of
itself – a transcending of its principle – but this very act would
involve a principle of a new order, a new National Spirit. |
|
| Such a new principle does in
fact enter into the Spirit of a people that has arrived at full
development and self-realization; it dies not a simply natural death –
for it is not a mere single individual, but a spiritual, generic life;
in its case natural death appears to imply destruction through its own
agency. The reason of this difference from the single natural
individual, is that the Spirit of a people exists as a genus, and
consequently carries within it its own negation, in the very generality
which characterizes it. A people can only die a violent death when it
has become naturally dead in itself, as, e.g., the German Imperial
Cities, the German Imperial Constitution. |
|
| It is not of the nature of the
all-pervading Spirit to die this merely natural death; it does not
simply sink into the senile life of mere custom, but – as being a
National Spirit belonging to Universal History – attains to the
consciousness of what its work is; it attains to a conception of
itself. In fact it is world-historical only in so far as a universal
principle has lain in its fundamental element – in its grand aim: only
so far is the work which such a spirit produces, a moral, political
organization. If it be mere desires that impel nations to activity,
such deeds pass over without leaving a trace; or their traces are only
ruin and destruction. Thus, it was first Chronos – Time – that ruled;
the Golden Age, without moral products; and what was produced – the
offspring of that Chronos – was devoured by it. It was Jupiter – from
whose head Minerva sprang, and to whose circle of divinities belong
Apollo and the Muses – that first put a constraint upon Time, and set a
bound to its principle of decadence. He is the Political god, who
produced a moral work – the State. |
|
| In the very element of an
achievement the quality of generality, of thought, is contained;
without thought it has no objectivity; that is its basis. The highest
point in the development of a people is this – to have gained a
conception of its life and condition – to have reduced its laws, its
ideas of justice and morality to a science; for in this unity [of the
objective and subjective] lies the most intimate unity that Spirit can
attain to in and with itself. In its work it is employed in rendering
itself an object of its own contemplation; but it cannot develop itself
objectively in its essential nature, except in thinking itself. |
|
| At this point, then, Spirit is
acquainted with its principles – the general character of its acts. But
at the same time, in virtue of its very generality, this work of
thought is different in point of form from the actual achievements of
the national genius, and from the vital agency by which those
achievements have been performed. We have then before us a real and an
ideal existence of the Spirit of the Nation. If we wish to gain the
general idea and conception of what the Greeks were, we find it in
Sophocles and Aristophanes, in Thucydides and Plato. In these
individuals the Greek spirit conceived and thought itself. This is the
profounder kind of satisfaction which the Spirit of a people attains;
but it is “ideal,” and distinct from its “real” activity. At such a
time, therefore, we are sure to see a people finding satisfaction in
the idea of virtue; putting talk about virtue partly side by side with
actual virtue, but partly in the place of it. On the other hand pure,
universal thought, since its nature is universality, is apt to bring
the Special and Spontaneous – Belief, Trust, Customary Morality – to
reflect upon itself, and its primitive simplicity; to show up the
limitation with which it is fettered – partly suggesting reasons for
renouncing duties, partly itself demanding reasons, and the connection
of such requirements with Universal Thought; and not finding that
connection, seeking to impeach the authority of duty generally, as
destitute of a sound foundation. |
|
| At the same time the isolation
of individuals from each other and from the Whole makes its appearance;
their aggressive selfishness and vanity; their seeking personal
advantage and consulting this at the expense of the State at large.
That inward principle in transcending its outward manifestations is
subjective also in form – viz., selfishness and corruption in the
unbound passions and egotistic interests of men. |
|
| Zeus, therefore, who is
represented as having put a limit to the devouring agency of Time, and
stayed this transiency by having established something inherently and
independently durable – Zeus and his race are themselves swallowed up,
and that by the very power that produced them – the principle of
thought, perception, reasoning, insight derived from rational grounds,
and the requirement of such grounds. |
|
| Time is the negative element in
the sensuous world. Thought is the same negativity, but it is the
deepest, the infinite form of it, in which therefore all existence
generally is dissolved; first finite existence – determinate, limited
form: but existence generally, in its objective character, is limited;
it appears therefore as a mere datum – something immediate – authority;
– and is either intrinsically finite and limited, or presents itself as
a limit for the thinking subject, and its infinite reflection on itself
[unlimited abstraction]. |
|
| But first we must observe how
the life which proceeds from death, is itself, on the other hand, only
individual life; so that, regarding the species as the real and
substantial in this vicissitude, the perishing of the individual is a
regress of the species into individuality. The perpetuation of the race
is, therefore, none other than the monotonous repetition of the same
kind of existence. Further, we must remark how perception – the
comprehension of being by thought – is the source and birthplace of a
new, and in fact higher form, in a principle which while it preserves,
dignifies its material. For Thought is that Universal – that Species
which is immortal, which preserves identity with itself. The particular
form of Spirit not merely passes away in the world by natural causes in
Time, but is annulled in the automatic self-mirroring activity of
consciousness. Because this annulling is an activity of Thought, it is
at the same time conservative and elevating in its operation. While
then, on the one side, Spirit annuls the reality, the permanence of
that which it is, it gains on the other side, the essence, the Thought,
the Universal element of that which it only was [its transient
conditions]. Its principle is no longer that immediate import and aim
which it was previously, but the essence of that import and aim. |
|
| The result of this process is
then that Spirit, in rendering itself objective and making this its
being an object of thought, on the one hand destroys the determinate
form of its being, on the other hand gains a comprehension of the
universal element which it involves, and thereby gives a new form to
its inherent principle. In virtue of this, the substantial character of
the National Spirit has been altered – that is, its principle has risen
into another, and in fact a higher principle. |
|
| It is of the highest importance
in apprehending and comprehending History to have and to understand the
thought involved in this transition. The individual traverses as a
unity various grades of development, and remains the same individual;
in like manner also does a people, till the Spirit which it embodies
reaches the grade of universality. In this point lies the fundamental,
the Ideal necessity of transition. This is the soul – the essential
consideration – of the philosophical comprehension of History. |
|
| Spirit is essentially the result
of its own activity: its activity is the transcending of immediate,
simple, unreflected existence – the negation of that existence, and the
returning into itself. We may compare it with the seed; for with this
the plant begins, yet it is also the result of the plant’s entire life.
But the weak side of life is exhibited in the fact that the
commencement and the result are disjoined from each other. Thus also is
it in the life of individuals and peoples. The life of a people ripens
a certain fruit; its activity aims at the complete manifestation of the
principle which it embodies. But this fruit does not fall back into the
bosom of the people that produced and matured it; on the contrary, it
becomes a poison-draught to it. That poison-draught it cannot let
alone, for it has an insatiable thirst for it: the taste of the draught
is its annihilation, though at the same time the rise of a new
principle. |
|
| We have already discussed the
final aim of this progression. The principles of the successive phases
of Spirit that animate the Nations in a necessitated gradation, are
themselves only steps in the development of the one universal Spirit,
which through them elevates and completes itself to a
self-comprehending totality. While we are thus concerned exclusively
with the Idea of Spirit, and in the History of the World regard
everything as only its manifestation, we have, in traversing the past –
however extensive its periods – only to do with what is present; for
philosophy, as occupying itself with the True, has to do with the
eternally present. Nothing in the past is lost for it, for the Idea is
ever present; Spirit is immortal; with it there is no past, no future,
but an essential now. This necessarily implies that the present form of
Spirit comprehends within it all earlier steps. These have indeed
unfolded themselves in succession independently; but what Spirit is it
has always been essentially; distinctions are only the development of
this essential nature. The life of the ever present Spirit is a circle
of progressive embodiments, which looked at in one aspect still exist
beside each other, and only as looked at from another point of view
appear as past. The grades which Spirit seems to have left behind it,
it still possesses in the depths of its present. |
|
| Geographical Basis of History. |
|
| Contrasted with the universality
of the moral Whole and with the unity of that individuality which is
its active principle, the natural connection that helps to produce the
Spirit of a People, appears an extrinsic element; but inasmuch as we
must regard it as the ground on which that Spirit plays its part, it is
an essential and necessary basis. We began with the assertion that, in
the History of the World, the Idea of Spirit appears in its actual
embodiment as a series of external forms, each one of which declares
itself as an actually existing people. This existence falls under the
category of Time as well as Space, in the way of natural existence; and
the special principle, which every world-historical people embodies,
has this principle at the same time as a natural characteristic.
Spirit, clothing itself in this form of nature, suffers its particular
phases to assume separate existence; for mutual exclusion is the mode
of existence proper to mere nature. These natural distinctions must be
first of all regarded as special possibilities, from which the Spirit
of the people in question germinates, and among them is the
Geographical Basis. It is not our concern to become acquainted with the
land occupied by nations as an external locale, but with the natural
type of the locality, as intimately connected with the type and
character of the people which is the offspring of such a soil. This
character is nothing more nor less than the mode and form in which
nations make their appearance in History, and take place and position
in it. Nature should not be rated too high nor too low: the mild Ionic
sky certainly contributed much to the charm of the Homeric poems, yet
this alone can produce no Homers. Nor in fact does it continue to
produce them; under Turkish government no bards have arisen. We must
first take notice of those natural conditions which have to be excluded
once for all from the drama of the World’s History. In the Frigid and
in the Torrid zone the locality of World-historical peoples cannot be
found. For awakening consciousness takes its rise surrounded by natural
influences alone, and every development of it is the reflection of
Spirit back upon itself in opposition to the immediate, unreflected
character of mere nature. Nature is therefore one element in this
antithetic abstracting process; Nature is the first standpoint from
which man can gain freedom within himself, and this liberation must not
be rendered difficult by natural obstructions. Nature, as contrasted
with Spirit, is a quantitative mass, whose power must not be so great
as to make its single force omnipotent. In the extreme zones man cannot
come to free movement; cold and heat are here too powerful to allow
Spirit to build up a world for itself. Aristotle said long ago, “When
pressing needs are satisfied, man turns to the general and more
elevated.” But in the extreme zones such pressure may be said never to
cease, never to be warded off; men are constantly impelled to direct
attention to nature, to the glowing rays of the sun, and the icy frost.
The true theatre of History is therefore the temperate zone; or,
rather, its northern half, because the earth there presents itself in a
continental form, and has a broad breast, as the Greeks say. In the
south, on the contrary, it divides itself, and runs out into many
points. The same peculiarity shows itself in natural products. The
north has many kinds of animals and plants with common characteristics;
in the south, where the land divides itself into points, natural forms
also present individual features contrasted with each other. |
|
| The World is divided into Old
and New; the name of New having originated in the fact that America and
Australia have only lately become known to us. But these parts of the
world are not only relatively new, but intrinsically so in respect of
their entire physical and psychical constitution. Their geological
antiquity we have nothing to do with. I will not deny the New World the
honor of having emerged from the sea at the world’s formation
contemporaneously with the old: yet the Archipelago between South
America and Asia shows a physical immaturity. The greater part of the
islands are so constituted, that they are, as it were, only a
superficial deposit of earth over rocks, which shoot up from the
fathomless deep, and bear the character of novel origination. New
Holland shows a not less immature geographical character; for in
penetrating from the settlements of the English farther into the
country, we discover immense streams, which have not yet developed
themselves to such a degree as to dig a channel for themselves, but
lose themselves in marshes. Of America and its grade of civilization,
especially in Mexico and Peru, we have information, but it imports
nothing more than that this culture was an entirely national one, which
must expire as soon as Spirit approached it. America has always shown
itself physically and psychically powerless, and still shows itself so.
For the aborigines, after the landing of the Europeans in America,
gradually vanished at the breath of European activity. In the United
States of North America all the citizens are of European descent, with
whom the old inhabitants could not amalgamate, but were driven back.
The aborigines have certainly adopted some arts and usages from the
Europeans, among others that of brandy-drinking, which has operated
with deadly effect. In the South the natives were treated with much
greater violence, and employed in hard labors to which their strength
was by no means competent. A mild and passionless disposition, want of
spirit, and a crouching submissiveness towards a Creole, and still more
towards a European, are the chief characteristics of the native
Americans; and it will be long before the Europeans succeed in
producing any independence of feeling in them. The inferiority of these
individuals in all respects, even in regard to size, is very manifest;
only the quite southern races in Patagonia are more vigorous natures,
but still abiding in their natural condition of rudeness and barbarism.
When the Jesuits and the Catholic clergy proposed to accustom the
Indians to European culture and manners (they have, as is well known,
founded a state in Paraguay and convents in Mexico and California),
they commenced a close intimacy with them, and prescribed for them the
duties of the day, which, slothful though their disposition was, they
complied with under the authority of the Friars. These prescripts (at
midnight a bell had to remind them even of their matrimonial duties),
were first, and very wisely, directed to the creation of wants – the
springs of human activity generally. The weakness of the American
physique was a chief reason for bringing the negroes to America, to
employ their labor in the work that had to be done in the New World;
for the negroes are far more susceptible of European culture than the
Indians, and an English traveller has adduced instances of negroes
having become competent clergymen, medical men, etc. (a negro first
discovered the use of the Peruvian bark), while only a single native
was known to him whose intellect was sufficiently developed to enable
him to study, but who had died soon after beginning, through excessive
brandy-drinking. The weakness of the human physique of America has been
aggravated by a deficiency in the mere tools and appliances of progress
– the want of horses and iron, the chief instruments by which they were
subdued. |
|
| The original nation having
vanished or nearly so, the effective population comes for the most part
from Europe; and what takes place in America, is but an emanation from
Europe. Europe has sent its surplus population to America in much the
same way as from the old Imperial Cities, where trade-guilds were
dominant and trade was stereotyped, many persons escaped to other towns
which were not under such a yoke, and where the burden of imposts was
not so heavy. Thus arose, by the side of Hamburg, Altona – by
Frankfort, Offenbach – by Nürnburg, Fürth – and Carouge by Geneva. The
relation between North America and Europe is similar. Many Englishmen
have settled there, where burdens and imposts do not exist, and where
the combination of European appliances and European ingenuity has
availed to realize some produce from the extensive and still virgin
soil. Indeed the emigration in question offers many advantages. The
emigrants have got rid of much that might be obstructive to their
interests at home, while they take with them the advantages of European
independence of spirit, and acquired skill; while for those who are
willing to work vigorously, but who have not found in Europe
opportunities for doing so, a sphere of action is certainly presented
in America. |
|
| America, as is well known, is
divided into two parts, connected indeed by an isthmus, but which has
not been the means of establishing intercourse between them. Rather,
these two divisions are most decidedly distinct from each other. North
America shows us on approaching it, along its eastern shore a wide
border of level coast, behind which is stretched a chain of mountains –
the blue mountains or Appalachians; further north the Alleghanies.
Streams issuing from them water the country towards the coast, which
affords advantages of the most desirable kind to the United States,
whose origin belongs to this region. Behind that mountain-chain the St.
Lawrence river flows (in connection with huge lakes), from south to
north, and on this river lie the northern colonies of Canada. Farther
west we meet the basin of the vast Mississippi, and the basins of the
Missouri and Ohio, which it receives, and then debouches into the Gulf
of Mexico. On the western side of this region we have in like manner a
long mountain chain, running through Mexico and the Isthmus of Panama,
and under the names of the Andes or Cordillera, cutting off an edge of
coast along the whole west side of South America. The border formed by
this is narrower and offers fewer advantages than that of North
America. There lie Peru and Chili. On the east side flow eastward the
monstrous streams of the Orinoco and Amazons; they form great valleys,
not adapted however for cultivation, since they are only wide desert
steppes. Towards the south flows the Rio de la Plata, whose tributaries
have their origin partly in the Cordilleras, partly in the northern
chain of mountains which separates the basin of the Amazon from its
own. To the district of the Rio de la Plata belong Brazil, and the
Spanish Republics. Colombia is the northern coast-land of South
America, at the west of which, flowing along the Andes, the Magdalena
debouches into the Caribbean Sea. |
|
| With the exception of Brazil,
republics have come to occupy South as well as North America. In
comparing South America (reckoning Mexico as part of it) with North
America, we observe an astonishing contrast. |
|
| In North America we witness a
prosperous state of things; an increase of industry and population
civil order and firm freedom; the whole federation constitutes but a
single state, and has its political centres. In South America, on the
contrary, the republics depend only on military force; their whole
history is a continued revolution; federated states become disunited;
others previously separated become united; and all these changes
originate in military revolutions. The more special differences between
the two parts of America show us two opposite directions, the one in
political respects, the other in regard to religion. South America,
where the Spaniards settled and asserted supremacy, is Catholic; North
America, although a land of sects of every name, is yet fundamentally,
Protestant. A wider distinction is presented in the fact, that South
America was conquered, but North America colonized. The Spaniards took
possession of South America to govern it, and to become rich through
occupying political offices, and by exactions. Depending on a very
distant mother country, their desires found a larger scope, and by
force, address and confidence they gained a great predominance over the
Indians. The North American States were, on the other hand, entirely
colonised, by Europeans, Since in England Puritans, Episcopalians, and
Catholics were engaged in perpetual conflict, and now one party, now
the other, had the upper hand, many emigrated to seek religious freedom
on a foreign shore. These were industrious Europeans, who betook
themselves to agriculture, tobacco and cotton planting, etc. Soon the
whole attention of the inhabitants was given to labor, and the basis of
their existence as a united body lay in the necessities that bind man
to man, the desire of repose, the establishment of civil rights,
security and freedom, and a community arising from the aggregation of
individuals as atomic constituents; so that the state was merely
something external for the protection of property. From the Protestant
religion sprang the principle of the mutual confidence of individuals –
trust in the honorable dispositions of other men; for in the Protestant
Church the entire life – its activity generally – is the field for what
it deems religious works. Among Catholics, on the contrary, the basis
of such a confidence cannot exist; for in secular matters only force
and voluntary subservience are the principles of action; and the forms
which are called Constitutions are in this case only a resort of
necessity, and are no protection against mistrust. If we compare North
America further with Europe, we shall find in the former the permanent
example of a republican constitution. A subjective unity presents
itself; for there is a President at the head of the State, who, for the
sake of security against any monarchical ambition, is chosen only for
four years. Universal protection for property, and a something
approaching entire immunity from public burdens, are facts which are
constantly held up to commendation. We have in these facts the
fundamental character of the community – the endeavor of the individual
after acquisition, commercial profit, and gain; the preponderance of
private interest, devoting itself to that of the community only for its
own advantage. We find, certainly, legal relations – a formal code of
laws; but respect for law exists apart from genuine probity, and the
American merchants commonly lie under the imputation of dishonest
dealings under legal protection. If, on the one side, the Protestant
Church develops the essential principle of confidence, as already
stated, it thereby involves on the other hand the recognition of the
validity of the element of feeling to such a degree as gives
encouragement to unseemly varieties of caprice. Those who adopt this
standpoint maintain, that, as everyone may have his peculiar way of
viewing things generally, so he may have also a religion peculiar to
himself. Thence the splitting up into so many sects, which reach the
very acme of absurdity; many of which have a form of worship consisting
in convulsive movements, and sometimes in the most sensuous
extravagances. This complete freedom of worship is developed to such a
degree, that the various congregations choose ministers and dismiss
them according to their absolute pleasure; for the Church is no
independent existence – having a substantial spiritual being, and
correspondingly permanent external arrangement – but the affairs of
religion are regulated by the good pleasure for the time being of the
members of the community. In North America the most unbounded license
of imagination in religious matters prevails, and that religious unity
is wanting which has been maintained in European States, where
deviations are limited to a few confessions. As to the political
condition of North America, the general object of the existence of this
State is not yet fixed and determined, and the necessity for a firm
combination does not yet exist; for a real State and a real Government
arise only after a distinction of classes has arisen, when wealth and
poverty become extreme, and when such a condition of things presents
itself that a large portion of the people can no longer satisfy its
necessities in the way in which it has been accustomed so to do. But
America is hitherto exempt from this pressure, for it has the outlet of
colonization constantly and widely open, and multitudes are continually
streaming into the plains of the Mississippi. By this means the chief
source of discontent is removed, and the continuation of the existing
civil condition is guaranteed. A comparison of the United States of
North America with European lands is therefore impossible; for in
Europe, such a natural outlet for population, notwithstanding all the
emigrations that take place, does not exist. Had the woods of Germany
been in existence, the French Revolution would not have occurred. North
America will be comparable with Europe only after the immeasurable
space which that country presents to its inhabitants shall have been
occupied, and the members of the political body shall have begun to be
pressed back on each other. North America is still in the condition of
having land to begin to cultivate. Only when, as in Europe, the direct
increase of agriculturists is checked, will the inhabitants, instead of
pressing outwards to occupy the fields, press inwards upon each other –
pursuing town occupations, and trading with their fellow-citizens; and
so form a compact system of civil society, and require an organized
state. The North American Federation have no neighboring State (towards
which they occupy a relation similar to that of European States to each
other), one which they regard with mistrust, and against which they
must keep up a standing army. Canada and Mexico are not objects of
fear, and England has had fifty years’ experience, that free America is
more profitable to her than it was in a state of dependence. The
militia of the North American Republic proved themselves quite as brave
in the War of Independence as the Dutch under Philip II; but generally,
where Independence is not at stake, less power is displayed, and in the
year 1814 the militia held out but indifferently against the English. |
|
| America is therefore the land of
the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the
World’s History shall reveal itself – perhaps in a contest between
North and South America. It is a land of desire for all those who are
weary of the historical lumber-room of old Europe. Napoleon is reported
to have said: “Cette vieille Europe m’ennuie.” It is for America to
abandon the ground on which hitherto the History of the World has
developed itself. What has taken place in the New World up to the
present time is only an echo of the Old World – the expression of a
foreign Life; and as a Land of the Future, it has no interest for us
here, for, as regards History, our concern must be with that which has
been and that which is. In regard to Philosophy, on the other hand, we
have to do with that which (strictly speaking) is neither past nor
future, but with that which is, which has an eternal existence – with
Reason; and this is quite sufficient to occupy us. |
|
| Dismissing, then, the New World,
and the dreams to which it may give rise, we pass over to the Old World
– the scene of the World’s History; and must first direct attention to
the natural elements and conditions of existence which it presents.
America is divided into two parts, which are indeed connected by an
Isthmus, but which forms only an external, material bond of union. The
Old World, on the contrary, which lies opposite to America, and is
separated from it by the Atlantic Ocean, has its continuity interrupted
by a deep inlet – the Mediterranean Sea. The three Continents that
compose it have an essential relation to each other, and constitute a
totality. Their peculiar feature is that they lie round this Sea, and
therefore have an easy means of communication; for rivers and seas are
not to be regarded as disjoining, but as uniting. England and Brittany,
Norway and Denmark, Sweden and Livonia, have been united. For the three
quarters of the globe the Mediterranean Sea is similarly the uniting
element, and the centre of World-History. Greece lies here, the focus
of light in History. Then in Syria we have Jerusalem, the centre of
Judaism and of Christianity; southeast of it lie Mecca and Medina, the
cradle of the Mussulman faith; towards the west Delphi and Athens;
farther west still, Rome: on the Mediterranean Sea we have also
Alexandria and Carthage. The Mediterranean is thus the heart of the Old
World, for it is that which conditioned and vitalized it. Without it
the History of the World could not be conceived: it would be like
ancient Rome or Athens without the forum, where all the life of the
city came together. The extensive tract of eastern Asia is severed from
the process of general historical development, and has no share in it;
so also Northern Europe, which took part in the World’s History only at
a later date, and had no part in it while the Old World lasted; for
this was exclusively limited to the countries lying round the
Mediterranean Sea. Julius Caesar’s crossing the Alps – the conquest of
Gaul and the relation into which the Germans thereby entered with the
Roman Empire – makes consequently an epoch in History; for in virtue of
this it begins to extend its boundaries beyond the Alps. Eastern Asia
and that trans-Alpine country are the extremes of this agitated focus
of human life around the Mediterranean – the beginning and end of
History – its rise and decline. |
|
| The more special geographical
distinctions must now be established, and they are to be regarded as
essential, rational distinctions, in contrast with the variety of
merely accidental circumstances. Of these characteristic differences
there are three: – |
|
| (1) The arid elevated land with its extensive steppes and plains. (2) The valley plains – the Land of Transition permeated and watered by great Streams. (3) The coast region in immediate connection with the sea. These three geographical elements are the essential ones, and we shall see each quarter of the globe triply divided accordingly. The first is the substantial, unvarying, metallic, elevated region, intractably shut up within itself, but perhaps adapted to send forth impulses over the rest of the world; the second forms centres of civilization, and is the yet undeveloped independence [of humanity]; the third offers the means of connecting the world together, and of maintaining the connection. |
|
| (1) The elevated land. – We see
such a description of country in middle Asia inhabited by Mongolians
(using the word in a general sense): from the Caspian Sea these Steppes
stretch in a northerly direction towards the Black Sea. As similar
tracts may be cited the deserts of Arabia and of Barbary in Africa; in
South America the country round the Orinoco, and in Paraguay. The
peculiarity of the inhabitants of this elevated region, which is
watered sometimes only by rain, or by the overflowing of a river (as
are the plains of the Orinoco) – is the patriarchal life, the division
into single families. The region which these families occupy is
unfruitful or productive |
|
| Only temporarily: the
inhabitants have their property not in the land – from which they
derive only a trifling profit – but in the animals that wander with
them. For a long time these find pasture in the plains, and when they
are depastured, the tribe moves to other parts of the country. They are
careless and provide nothing for the winter, on which account
therefore, half of the herd is frequently cut off. Among these
inhabitants of the upland there exist no legal relations, and
consequently there are exhibited among them the extremes of hospitality
and rapine; the last more especially when they are surrounded by
civilized nations, as the Arabians, who are assisted in their
depredations by their horses and camels. The Mongolians feed on mares’
milk, and thus the horse supplies them at the same time with appliances
for nourishment and for war. Although this is the form of their
patriarchal life, it often happens that they cohere together in great
masses, and by an impulse of one kind or another, are excited to
external movement. Though previously of peaceful disposition, they then
rush as a devastating inundation over civilized lands, and the
revolution which ensues has no other result than destruction and
desolation. Such an agitation was excited among those tribes under
Genghis Khan and Tamerlane: they destroyed all before them; then
vanished again, as does an overwhelming Forest-torrent – possessing no
inherent principle of vitality. From the uplands they rush down into
the dells: there dwell peaceful mountaineers – herdsmen who also occupy
themselves with agriculture, as do the Swiss. Asia has also such a
people: they are however on the whole a less important element. |
|
| (2) The valley plains. – These
are plains, permeated by rivers, and which owe the whole of their
fertility to the streams by which they are formed. Such a Valley-Plain
is China – India, traversed by the Indus and the Ganges – Babylonia,
where the Euphrates and the Tigris flow – Egypt, watered by the Nile.
In these regions extensive Kingdoms arise, and the foundation of great
States begins. For agriculture, which prevails here as the primary
principle of subsistence for individuals, is assisted by the regularity
of seasons, which require corresponding agricultural operations;
property in land commences, and the consequent legal relations; – that
is to say, the basis and foundation of the State, which becomes
possible only in connection with such relations. |
|
| (3) The coast land. – A River
divides districts of country from each other, but still more does the
sea; and we are accustomed to regard water as the separating element.
Especially in recent times has it been insisted upon that States must
necessarily have been separated by natural features. Yet on the
contrary, it may be asserted as a fundamental principle that nothing
unites so much as water, for countries are nothing else than districts
occupied by streams. Silesia, for instance, is the valley of the Oder;
Bohemia and Saxony are the valley of the Elbe; Egypt is the valley of
the Nile. With the sea this is not less the case, as has been already
pointed out. Only Mountains separate. Thus the Pyrenees decidedly
separate Spain from France. The Europeans have been in constant
connection with America and the East Indies ever since they were
discovered; but they have scarcely penetrated into the interior of
Africa and Asia, because intercourse by land is much more difficult
than by water. Only through the fact of being a sea, has the
Mediterranean become a focus of national life. Let us now look at the
character of the nations that are conditioned by this third element. |
|
| The sea gives us the idea of the
indefinite, the unlimited, and infinite; and in feeling his own
infinite in that Infinite, man is stimulated and emboldened to stretch
beyond the limited: the sea invites man to conquest, and to piratical
plunder, but also to honest gain and to commerce. The land, the mere
Valley-plain attaches him to the soil; it involves him in an infinite
multitude of dependencies, but the sea carries him out beyond these
limited circles of thought and action. Those who navigate the sea, have
indeed gain for their object, but the means are in this respect
paradoxical, inasmuch as they hazard both property and life to attain
it. The means therefore are the very opposite to that which they aim
at. This is what exalts their gain and occupation above itself, and
makes it something brave and noble. Courage is necessarily introduced
into trade, daring is joined with wisdom. For the daring which
encounters the sea must at the same time embrace wariness – cunning –
since it has to do with the treacherous, the most unreliable and
deceitful element. This boundless plain is absolutely yielding –
withstanding no pressure, not even a breath of wind. It looks
boundlessly innocent, submissive, friendly, and insinuating; and it is
exactly this submissiveness which changes the sea into the most
dangerous and violent element. To this deceitfulness and violence man
opposes merely a simple piece of wood; confides entirely in his courage
and presence of mind; and thus passes from a firm ground to an unstable
support, taking his artificial ground with him. The Ship – that swan of
the sea, which cuts the watery plain in agile and arching movements or
describes circles upon it – is a machine whose invention does the
greatest honor to the boldness of man as well as to his understanding.
This stretching out of the sea beyond the limitations of the land, is
wanting to the splendid political edifices of Asiatic States, although
they themselves border on the sea – as for example, China. For them the
sea is only the limit, the ceasing of the land; they have no positive
relation to it. The activity to which the sea invites, is a quite
peculiar one: thence arises the fact that the coast-lands almost always
separate themselves from the states of the interior although they are
connected with these by a river. Thus Holland has severed itself from
Germany, Portugal from Spain. |
|
| In accordance with these data we
may now consider the three portions of the globe with which History is
concerned, and here the three characteristic principles manifest
themselves in a more or less striking manner: Africa has for its
leading classical feature the Upland, Asia the contrast of river
regions with the Upland, Europe the mingling of these several elements.
Africa must be divided into three parts: one is that which lies south
of the desert of Sahara – Africa proper – the Upland almost entirely
unknown to us, with narrow coast-tracts along the sea; the second is
that to the north of the desert – European Africa (if we may so call
it) – a coastland; the third is the river region of the Nile, the only
valley-land of Africa, and which is in connection with Asia. |
|
| Africa proper, as far as History
goes back, has remained – for all purposes of connection with the rest
of the World – shut up; it is the Gold-land compressed within itself –
the land of childhood, which lying beyond the day of self-conscious
history, is enveloped in the dark mantle of Night. Its isolated
character originates, not merely in its tropical nature, but
essentially in its geographical condition. The triangle which it forms
(if we take the West Coast – which in the Gulf of Guinea makes a
strongly indented angle – for one side, and in the same way the East
Coast to Cape Gardafu for another) is on two sides so constituted for
the most part, as to have a very narrow Coast Tract, habitable only in
a few isolated spots. Next to this towards the interior, follows to
almost the same extent, a girdle of marsh land with the most luxuriant
vegetation, the especial home of ravenous beasts, snakes of all kinds –
a border tract whose atmosphere is poisonous to Europeans. This border
constitutes the base of a cincture of high mountains, which are only at
distant intervals traversed by streams, and where they are so, in such
a way as to form no means of union with the interior; for the
interruption occurs but seldom below the upper part of the mountain
ranges, and only in individual narrow channels, where are frequently
found innavigable waterfalls and torrents crossing each other in wild
confusion. During the three or three and a half centuries that the
Europeans have known this border-land and have taken places in it into
their possession, they have only here and there (and that but for a
short time) passed these mountains, and have nowhere settled down
beyond them. The land surrounded by these mountains is an unknown
Upland, from which on the other hand the Negroes have seldom made their
way through. In the sixteenth century occurred at many very distant
points, outbreaks of terrible hordes which rushed down upon the more
peaceful inhabitants of the declivities. Whether any internal movement
had taken place, or if so, of what character, we do not know. What we
do know of these hordes, is the contrast between their conduct in their
wars and forays themselves – which exhibited the most reckless
inhumanity and disgusting barbarism – and the fact that afterwards,
when their rage was spent, in the calm time of peace, they showed
themselves mild and well disposed towards the Europeans, when they
became acquainted with them. This holds good of the Fullahs and of the
Mandingo tribes, who inhabit the mountain terraces of the Senegal and
Gambia. The second portion of Africa is the river district of the Nile
– Egypt; which was adapted to become a mighty centre of independent
civilization, and therefore is as isolated and singular in Africa as
Africa itself appears in relation to the other parts of the world. The
northern part of Africa, which may be specially called that of the
coast- territory (for Egypt has been frequently driven back on itself,
by the Mediterranean) lies on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; a
magnificent territory, on which Carthage once lay – the site of the
modern Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. This part was to be – must
be attached to Europe: the French have lately made a successful effort
in this direction: like Hither- Asia, it looks Europe-wards. Here in
their turn have Carthaginians, Romans, and Byzantines, Mussulmans,
Arabians, had their abode, and the interests of Europe have always
striven to get a footing in it. |
|
| The peculiarly African character
is difficult to comprehend, for the very reason that in reference to
it, we must quite give up the principle which naturally accompanies all
our ideas – the category of Universality. In Negro life the
characteristic point is the fact that consciousness has not yet
attained to the realization of any substantial objective existence – as
for example, God, or Law – in which the interest of man’s volition is
involved and in which he realizes his own being. This distinction
between himself as an individual and the universality of his essential
being, the African in the uniform, undeveloped oneness of his existence
has not yet attained; so that the Knowledge of an absolute Being, an
Other and a Higher than his individual self, is entirely wanting. The
Negro, as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his completely
wild and untamed state. We must lay aside all thought of reverence and
morality – all that we call feeling – if we would rightly comprehend
him; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in this type
of character. The copious and circumstantial accounts of Missionaries
completely confirm this, and Mahommedanism appears to be the only thing
which in any way brings the Negroes within the range of culture. The
Ma-hommedans too understand better than the Europeans, how to penetrate
into the interior of the country. The grade of culture which the
Negroes occupy may be more nearly appreciated by considering the aspect
which Religion presents among them. That which forms the basis of
religious conceptions is the consciousness on the part of man of a
Higher Power – even though this is conceived only as a vis natures – in
relation to which he feels himself a weaker, humbler being. Religion
begins with the consciousness that there is something higher than man.
But even Herodotus called the Negroes sorcerers: – now in Sorcery we
have not the idea of a God, of a moral faith; it exhibits man as the
highest power, regarding him as alone occupying a position of command
over the power of Nature. We have here therefore nothing to do with a
spiritual adoration of God, nor with an empire of Right. God thunders,
but is not on that account recognized as God. For the soul of man, God
must be more than a thunderer, whereas among the Negroes this is not
the case. Although they are necessarily conscious of dependence upon
nature – for they need the beneficial influence of storm, rain,
cessation of the rainy period, and so on – yet this does not conduct
them to the consciousness of a Higher Power: it is they who command the
elements, and this they call “magic.” The Kings have a class of
ministers through whom they command elemental changes, and every place
possesses such magicians, who perform special ceremonies, with all
sorts of gesticulations, dances, uproar, and shouting, and in the midst
of this confusion commence their incantations. The second element in
their religion, consists in their giving an outward form to this
supernatural power – projecting their hidden might into the world of
phenomena by means of images. What they conceive of as the power in
question, is therefore nothing really objective, having a substantial
being and different from themselves, but the first thing that comes in
their way. This, taken quite indiscriminately, they exalt to the
dignity of a “Genius”; it may be an animal, a tree, a stone, or a
wooden figure. This is their Fetich – a word to which the Portuguese
first gave currency, and which is derived from feitizo, magic. Here, in
the Fetich, a kind of objective independence as contrasted with the
arbitrary fancy of the individual seems to manifest itself; but as the
objectivity is nothing other than the fancy of the individual
projecting itself into space, the human individuality remains master of
the image it has adopted. If any mischance occurs which the Fetich has
not averted, if rain is suspended, if there is a failure in the crops,
they bind and beat or destroy the Fetich and so get rid of it, making
another immediately, and thus holding it in their own power. Such a
Fetich has no independence as an object of religious worship; still
less has it aesthetic independence as a work of art; it is merely a
creation that expresses the arbitrary choice of its maker, and which
always remains in his hands. In short there is no relation of
dependence in this religion. There is however one feature that points
to something beyond; – the Worship of the Dead – in which their
deceased forefathers and ancestors are regarded by them as a power
influencing the living. Their idea in the matter is that these
ancestors exercise vengeance and inflict upon man various injuries –
exactly in the sense in which this was supposed of witches in the
Middle Ages. Yet the power of the dead is not held superior to that of
the living, for the Negroes command the dead and lay spells upon them.
Thus the power in question remains substantially always in bondage to
the living subject. Death itself is looked upon by the Negroes as no
universal natural law; even this, they think, proceeds from
evil-disposed magicians. In this doctrine is certainly involved the
elevation of man over Nature; to such a degree that the chance volition
of man is superior to the merely natural – that he looks upon this as
an instrument to which he does not pay the compliment of treating it in
a way conditioned by itself, but which he commands.[6] |
|
| But from the fact that man is
regarded as the Highest, it follows that he has no respect for himself;
for only with the consciousness of a Higher Being does he reach a point
of view which inspires him with real reverence. For if arbitrary choice
is the absolute, the only substantial objectivity that is realized, the
mind cannot in such be conscious of any Universality. The Negroes
indulge, therefore, that perfect contempt for humanity, which in its
bearing on Justice and Morality is the fundamental characteristic of
the race. They have moreover no knowledge of the immortality of the
soul, although spectres are supposed to appear. The undervaluing of
humanity among them reaches an incredible degree of intensity. Tyranny
is regarded as no wrong, and cannibalism is looked upon as quite
customary and proper. Among us instinct deters from it, if we can speak
of instinct at all as appertaining to man. But with the Negro this is
not the case, and the devouring of human flesh is altogether consonant
with the general principles of the African race; to the sensual Negro,
human flesh is but an object of sense – mere flesh. At the death of a
King hundreds are killed and eaten; prisoners are butchered and their
flesh sold in the markets; the victor is accustomed to eat the heart of
his slain foe. When magical rites are performed, it frequently happens
that the sorcerer kills the first that comes in his way and divides his
body among the bystanders. Another characteristic fact in reference to
the Negroes is Slavery. Negroes are enslaved by Europeans and sold to
America. Bad as this may be, their lot in their own land is even worse,
since there a slavery quite as absolute exists; for it is the essential
principle of slavery, that man has not yet attained a consciousness of
his freedom, and consequently sinks down to a mere Thing – an object of
no value. Among the Negroes moral sentiments are quite weak, or more
strictly speaking, non-existent. Parents sell their children, and
conversely children their parents, as either has the opportunity.
Through the pervading influence of slavery all those bonds of moral
regard which we cherish towards each other disappear, and it does not
occur to the Negro mind to expect from others what we are enabled to
claim. The polygamy of the Negroes has frequently for its object the
having many children, to be sold, every one of them, into slavery; and
very often naive complaints on this score are heard, as for instance in
the case of a Negro in London, who lamented that he was now quite a
poor man because he had already sold all his relations. In the contempt
of humanity displayed by the Negroes, it is not so much a despising of
death as a want of regard for life that forms the characteristic
feature. To this want of regard for life must be ascribed the great
courage, supported by enormous bodily strength, exhibited by the
Negroes, who allow themselves to be shot down by thousands in war with
Europeans. Life has a value only when it has something valuable as its
object. |
|
| Turning our attention in the
next place to the category of political constitution, we shall see that
the entire nature of this race is such as to preclude the existence of
any such arrangement. The standpoint of humanity at this grade is mere
sensuous volition with energy of will; since universal spiritual laws
(for example, that of the morality of the Family) cannot be recognized
here. Universality exists only as arbitrary subjective choice. The
political bond can therefore not possess such a character as that free
laws should unite the community. There is absolutely no bond, no
restraint upon that arbitrary volition. Nothing but external force can
hold the State together for a moment. A ruler stands at the head, for
sensuous barbarism can only be restrained by despotic power. But since
the subjects are of equally violent temper with their master, they keep
him on the other hand within limits. Under the chief there are many
other chiefs with whom the former, whom we will call the King, takes
counsel, and whose consent he must seek to gain, if he wishes to
undertake a war or impose a tax. In this relation he can exercise more
or less authority, and by fraud or force can on occasion put this or
that chieftain out of the way. Besides this the Kings have other
specified prerogatives. Among the Ashantees the King inherits all the
property left by his subjects at their death. In other places all
unmarried women belong to the King, and whoever wishes a wife, must buy
her from him. If the Negroes are discontented with their King they
depose and kill him. In Dahomey, when they are thus displeased, the
custom is to send parrots’ eggs to the King, as a sign of
dissatisfaction with his government. Sometimes also a deputation is
sent, which intimates to him, that the burden of government must have
been very troublesome to him, and that he had better rest a little. The
King then thanks his subjects, goes into his apartments, and has
himself strangled by the women. Tradition alleges that in former times
a state composed of women made itself famous by its conquests: it was a
state at whose head was a woman. She is said to have pounded her own
son in a mortar, to have besmeared herself with the blood, and to have
had the blood of pounded children constantly at hand. She is said to
have driven away or put to death all the males, and commanded the death
of all male children. These furies destroyed everything in the
neighborhood, and were driven to constant plunderings, because they did
not cultivate the land. Captives in war were taken as husbands:
pregnant women had to betake themselves outside the encampment; and if
they had born a son, put him out of the way. This infamous state, the
report goes on to say, subsequently disappeared. Accompanying the King
we constantly find in Negro States, the executioner, whose office is
regarded as of the highest consideration, and by whose hands, the King,
though he makes use of him for putting suspected persons to death, may
himself suffer death, if the grandees desire it. Fanaticism, which,
notwithstanding the yielding disposition of the Negro in other
respects, can be excited, surpasses, when roused, all belief. An
English traveller states that when a war is determined on in Ashantee,
solemn ceremonies precede it: among other things the bones of the
King’s mother are laved with human blood. As a prelude to the war, the
King ordains an onslaught upon his own metropolis, as if to excite the
due degree of frenzy. The King sent word to the English Hutchinson:
‘Christian, take care, and watch well over your family. The messenger
of death has drawn his sword and will strike the neck of many
Ashantees; when the drum sounds it is the death signal for multitudes.
Come to the King, if you can, and fear nothing for yourself.” The drum
beat, and a terrible carnage was begun; all who came in the way of the
frenzied Negroes in the streets were stabbed. On such occasions the
King has all whom he suspects killed, and the deed then assumes the
character of a sacred act. Every idea thrown into the mind of the Negro
is caught up and realized with the whole energy of his will; but this
realization involves a wholesale destruction. These people continue
long at rest, but suddenly their passions ferment, and then they are
quite beside themselves. The destruction which is the consequence of
their excitement, is caused by the fact that it is no positive idea, no
thought which produces these commotions; – a physical rather than a
spiritual enthusiasm. In Dahomey, when the King dies, the bonds of
society are loosed; in his palace begins indiscriminate havoc and
disorganization. All the wives of the King (in Dahomey their number is
exactly 3,333) are massacred, and through the whole town plunder and
carnage run riot. The wives of the King regard this their death as a
necessity; they go richly attired to meet it. The authorities have to
hasten to proclaim the new governor, simply to put a stop to massacre. |
|
| From these various traits it is
manifest that want of self-control distinguishes the character of the
Negroes. This condition is capable of no development or culture, and as
we see them at this day, such have they always been. The only essential
connection that has existed and continued between the Negroes and the
Europeans is that of slavery. In this the Negroes see nothing
unbecoming them, and the English who have done most for abolishing the
slave-trade and slavery, are treated by the Negroes themselves as
enemies. For it is a point of first importance with the Kings to sell
their captured enemies, or even their own subjects; and viewed in the
light of such facts, we may conclude slavery to have been the occasion
of the increase of human feeling among the Negroes. The doctrine which
we deduce from this condition of slavery among the Negroes, and which
constitutes the only side of the question that has an interest for our
inquiry, is that which we deduce from the Idea: viz., that the “Natural
condition” itself is one of absolute and thorough injustice –
contravention of the Right and Just. Every intermediate grade between
this and the realization of a rational State retains – as might be
expected – elements and aspects of injustice; therefore we find slavery
even in the Greek and Roman States, as we do serfdom down to the latest
times. But thus existing in a State, slavery is itself a phase of
advance from the merely isolated sensual existence – a phase of
education – a mode of becoming participant in a higher morality and the
culture connected with it. Slavery is in and for itself injustice, for
the essence of humanity is Freedom; but for this man must be matured.
The gradual abolition of slavery is therefore wiser and more equitable
than its sudden removal. |
|
| At this point we leave Africa,
not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the World; it
has no movement or development to exhibit. Historical movements in it –
that is in its northern part – belong to the Asiatic or European World.
Carthage displayed there an important transitionary phase of
civilization; but, as a Phoenician colony, it belongs to Asia. Egypt
will be considered in reference to the passage of the human mind from
its Eastern to its Western phase, but it does not belong to the African
Spirit. What we properly understand by Africa, is the Unhistorical,
Undeveloped Spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature,
and which had to be presented here only as on the threshold of the
World’s History. Having eliminated this introductory element, we find
ourselves for the first time on the real theatre of History. It now
only remains for us to give a prefatory sketch of the Geographical
basis of the Asiatic and European world. Asia is, characteristically,
the Orient quarter of the globe – the region of origination. It is
indeed a Western world for America; but as Europe presents on the
whole, the centre and end of the old world, and is absolutely the West
– so Asia is absolutely the East. |
|
| In Asia arose the Light of Spirit, and therefore the history of the World. |
|
| We must now consider the various
localities of Asia. Its physical constitution presents direct
antitheses, and the essential relation of these antitheses. Its various
geographical principles are formations in themselves developed and
perfected. First, the northern slope, Siberia, must be eliminated. This
slope, from the Altai chain, with its fine streams, that pour their
waters into the northern Ocean, does not at all concern us here;
because the Northern Zone, as already stated, lies out of the pale of
History. But the remainder includes three very interesting localities.
The first is, as in Africa, a massive Upland, with a mountain girdle
which contains the highest summits in the World. This Upland is bounded
on the South and Southeast, by the Mus-Tag or Imaus, parallel to which,
farther south, runs the Himalaya chain. Towards the East, a mountain
chain running from South to North, parts off the basin of the Amur. On
the North lie the Altai and Songarian mountains; in connection with the
latter, in the Northwest the Musart and in the West the Belur Tag,
which by the Hindoo Coosh chain are again united with the Mus-Tag. |
|
| This high mountain-girdle is
broken through by streams, which are dammed up and form great valley
plains. These, more or less inundated, present centres of excessive
luxuriance and fertility, and are distinguished from the European river
districts in their not forming, as those do, proper valleys with
valleys branching out from them, but river-plains. Of this kind are –
the Chinese Valley Plain, formed by the Hoang-Ho and Yang-tse-Kiang
(the yellow and blue streams) – next that of India, formed by the
Ganges; – less important is the Indus, which in the north, gives
character to the Punjaub, and in the south flows through plains of
sand. Farther on, the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates, which rise in
Armenia and hold their course along the Persian mountains. The Caspian
sea has similar river valleys; in the East those formed by the Oxus and
Jaxartes (Gihon and Sihon) which pour their waters into the Sea of
Aral; on the West those of the Cyrus and Araxes (Kur and Aras). – The
Upland and the Plains must be distinguished from each other; the third
element is their intermixture, which occurs in Hither [Anterior] Asia.
To this belongs Arabia, the land of the Desert, the upland of plains,
the empire of fanaticism. To this belong Syria and Asia Minor,
connected with the sea, and having constant intercourse with Europe. |
|
| In regard to Asia the remark
above offered respecting geographical differences is especially true;
viz., that the rearing of cattle is the business of the Upland –
agriculture and industrial pursuits that of the valley-plains – while
commerce and navigation form the third and last item. Patriarchal
independence is strictly bound up with the first condition of society;
property and the relation of lord and serf with the second; civil
freedom with the third. In the Upland, where the various kinds of
cattle breeding, the rearing of horses, camels, and sheep, (not so much
of oxen) deserve attention, we must also distinguish the calm habitual
life of nomad tribes from the wild and restless character they display
in their conquests. These people, without developing themselves in a
really historical form, are swayed by a powerful impulse leading them
to change their aspect as nations; and although they have not attained
an historical character, the beginning of History may be traced to
them. It must however be allowed that the peoples of the plains are
more interesting. In agriculture itself is involved, ipso facto, the
cessation of a roving life. It demands foresight and solicitude for the
future: reflection on a general idea is thus awakened; and herein lies
the principle of property and productive industry. China, India,
Babylonia, have risen to the position of cultivated lands of this kind.
But as the peoples that have occupied these lands have been shut up
within themselves, and have not appropriated that element of
civilization which the sea supplies, (or at any rate only at the
commencement of their civilization) and as their navigation of it – to
whatever extent it may have taken place – remained without influence on
their culture – a relation to the rest of History could only exist in
their case, through their being sought out, and their character
investigated by others. The mountain-girdle of the upland, the upland
itself, and the river-plains, characterize Asia physically and
spiritually : but they themselves are not concretely, really,
historical elements. The opposition between the extremes is simply
recognized, not harmonized; a firm settlement in the fertile plains is
for the mobile, restless, roving, condition of the mountain and Upland
races, nothing more than a constant object of endeavor. Physical
features distinct in the sphere of nature, assume an essential
historical relation. – Anterior Asia has both elements in one, and has,
consequently, a relation to Europe; for what is most remarkable in it,
this land has not kept for itself, but sent over to Europe. It presents
the origination of all religious and political principles, but Europe
has been the scene of their development. |
|
| Europe, to which we now come,
has not the physical varieties which we noticed in Asia and Africa. The
European character involves the disappearance of the contrast exhibited
by earlier varieties, or at least a modification of it; so that we have
the milder qualities of a transition state. We have in Europe no
uplands immediately contrasted with plains. The three sections of
Europe require therefore a different basis of classification. The first
part is Southern Europe – looking towards the Mediterranean. North of
the Pyrenees, mountain-chains run through France, connected with the
Alps that separate and cut off Italy from France and Germany. Greece
also belongs to this part of Europe. Greece and Italy long presented
the theatre of the World’s History; and while the middle and north of
Europe were uncultivated, the World-Spirit found its home here. The
second portion is the heart of Europe, which Caesar opened when
conquering Gaul. This achievement was one of manhood on the part of the
Roman General, and more productive than that youthful one of Alexander,
who undertook to exalt the East to a participation in Greek life; and
whose work, though in its purport the noblest and fairest for the
imagination, soon vanished, as a mere Ideal, in the sequel. – In this
centre of Europe, France, Germany, and England are the principal
countries. |
|
| Lastly, the third part consists
of the north-eastern States of Europe – Poland, Russia, and the
Slavonic Kingdoms. They come only late into the series of historical
States, and form and perpetuate the connection with Asia. In contrast
with the physical peculiarities of the earlier divisions, these are, as
already noticed, not present in a remarkable degree, but counterbalance
each other. |
|
| Classification of Historic Data |
|
| In the geographical survey, the
course of the World’s History has been marked out in its general
features. The Sun – the Light – rises in the East. Light is a simply
self-involved existence; but though possessing thus in itself
universality, it exists at the same time as an individuality in the
Sun. Imagination has often pictured to itself the emotions of a blind
man suddenly becoming possessed of sight, beholding the bright
glimmering of the dawn, the growing light, and the flaming glory of the
ascending Sun. The boundless forgetfulness of his individuality in this
pure splendor, is his first feeling – utter astonishment. But when the
Sun is risen, this astonishment is diminished; objects around are
perceived, and from them the individual proceeds to the contemplation
of his own inner being, and thereby the advance is made to the
perception of the relation between the two. Then inactive contemplation
is quitted for activity; by the close of day man has erected a building
constructed from his own inner Sun; and when in the evening he
contemplates this, he esteems it more highly than the original external
Sun. For now he stands in a conscious relation to his Spirit, and
therefore a free relation. If we hold this image fast in mind, we shall
find it symbolizing the course of History, the great Day’s work of
Spirit. The History of the World travels from East to West, for Europe
is absolutely the end of History, Asia the beginning. The History of
the World has an East kat xochn; (the term East in itself is entirely
relative), for although the Earth forms a sphere, History performs no
circle round it, but has on the contrary a determinate East, viz.,
Asia. Here rises the outward physical Sun, and in the West it sinks
down: here consentaneously rises the Sun of self-consciousness, which
diffuses a nobler brilliance. The History of the World is the
discipline of the uncontrolled natural will, bringing it into obedience
to a Universal principle and conferring subjective freedom. The East
knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and
Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are
free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History,
is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third Monarchy. |
|
| To understand this division we
must remark that as the State is the universal spiritual life, to which
individuals by birth sustain a relation of confidence and habit, and in
which they have their existence and reality – the first question is,
whether their actual life is an unreflecting use and habit combining
them in this unity, or whether its constituent individuals are
reflective and personal beings having a properly subjective and
independent existence. In view of this, substantial [objective] freedom
must be distinguished from subjective freedom. Substantial freedom is
the abstract undeveloped Reason implicit in volition, proceeding to
develop itself in the State. But in this phase of Reason there is still
wanting personal insight and will, that is, subjective freedom; which
is realized only in the Individual, and which constitutes the
reflection of the Individual in his own conscience.[7] Where there is
merely substantial freedom, commands and laws are regarded as something
fixed and abstract, to which the subject holds himself in absolute
servitude. These laws need not concur with the desire of the
individual, and the subjects are consequently like children, who obey
their parents without will or insight of their own. But as subjective
freedom arises, and man descends from the contemplation of external
reality into his own soul, the contrast suggested by reflection arises,
involving the Negation of Reality. The drawing back from the actual
world forms ipso facto an antithesis, of which one side is the absolute
Being, – the Divine – the other the human subject as an individual. In
that immediate, unreflected consciousness which characterizes the East,
these two are not yet distinguished. The substantial world is distinct
from the individual, but the antithesis has not yet created a schism
between (absolute and subjective) Spirit. |
|
| The first phase – that with
which we have to begin – is the East. Unreflected consciousness –
substantial, objective, spiritual existence – forms the basis; to which
the subjective will first sustains a relation in the form of faith,
confidence, obedience. In the political life of the East we find a
realized rational freedom, developing itself without advancing to
subjective freedom. It is the childhood of History. Substantial forms
constitute the gorgeous edifices of Oriental Empires in which we find
all rational ordinances and arrangements, but in such a way, that
individuals remain as mere accidents. These revolve round a centre,
round the sovereign, who, as patriarch – not as despot in the sense of
the Roman Imperial Constitution – stands at the head. For he has to
enforce the moral and substantial: he has to uphold those essential
ordinances which are already established ; so that what among us
belongs entirely to subjective freedom, here proceeds from the entire
and general body of the State. The glory of Oriental conception is the
One Individual as that substantial being to which all belongs, so that
no other individual has a separate existence, or mirrors himself in his
subjective freedom. All the riches of imagination and Nature are
appropriated to that dominant existence in which subjective freedom is
essentially merged; the latter looks for its dignity not in itself, but
in that absolute object. All the elements of a complete State – even
subjectivity – may be found there, but not yet harmonized with the
grand substantial being. For outside the One Power – before which
nothing can maintain an independent existence – there is only revolting
caprice, which, beyond the limits of the central power, roves at will
without purpose or result. Accordingly we find the wild hordes breaking
out from the Upland – falling upon the countries in question, and
laying them waste, or settling down in them, and giving up their wild
life; but in all cases resultlessly lost in the central substance. This
phase of Substantiality, since it has not taken up its antithesis into
itself and overcome it, directly divides itself into two elements. On
the one side we see duration, stability – Empires belonging to mere
space, as it were (as distinguished from Time) – unhistorical History;
– as for example, in China, the State based on the Family relation; – a
paternal Government, which holds together the constitution by its
provident care, its admonitions, retributive or rather disciplinary
inflictions; – a prosaic Empire, because the antithesis of Form, viz.,
Infinity, Ideality, has not yet asserted itself. On the other side, the
Form of Time stands contrasted with this spatial stability. The States
in question, without undergoing any change in themselves, or in the
principle of their existence, are constantly changing their position
towards each other. They are in ceaseless conflict, which brings on.
rapid destruction. The opposing principle of individuality enters into
these conflicting relations; but it is itself as yet only unconscious,
merely natural Universality – Light, which is not yet the light of the
personal soul. This History, too (i.e., of the struggles
before-mentioned) is, for the most part, really unhis-torical, for it
is only the repetition of the same majestic ruin. The new element,
which in the shape of bravery, prowess, magnanimity, occupies the place
of the previous despotic pomp, goes through the same circle of decline
and subsidence. This subsidence is therefore not really such, for
through all this restless change no advance is made. History passes at
this point – and only outwardly, i.e., without connection with the
previous phase – to Central Asia. |
|
| Continuing the comparison with
the ages of the individual man, this would be the boyhood of History,
no longer manifesting the repose and trustingness of the child, but
boisterous and turbulent. The Greek World may then be compared with the
period of adolescence, for here we have individualities forming
themselves. This is the second main principle in human History.
Morality is, as in Asia, a principle ; but it is morality impressed on
individuality, and consequently denoting the free volition of
Individuals. Here, then, is the Union of the Moral with the subjective
Will, or the Kingdom of Beautiful Freedom, for the Idea is united with
a plastic form. It is not yet regarded abstractedly, but immediately
bound up with the Real, as in a beautiful work of Art; the Sensuous
bears the stamp and expression of the Spiritual. This Kingdom is
consequently true Harmony; the world of the most charming, but
perishable or quickly passing bloom: it is the natural, unreflecting
observance of what is becoming – not yet true Morality. The individual
will of the Subject adopts unreflectingly the conduct and habit
prescribed by Justice and the Laws. The Individual is therefore in
unconscious unity with the Idea – the social weal. That which in the
East is divided into two extremes – the substantial as such, and the
individuality absorbed in it – meets here. But these distinct
principles are only immediately in unity, and consequently involve the
highest degree of contradiction; for this aesthetic Morality has not
yet passed through the struggle of subjective freedom, in its second
birth, its palingenesis; it is not yet purified to the standard of the
free subjectivity that is the essence of true morality. |
|
| The third phase is the realm of
abstract Universality (in which the Social aim absorbs all individual
aims) : it is the Roman State, the severe labors of the Manhood of
History. For true manhood acts neither in accordance with the caprice
of a despot, nor in obedience to a graceful caprice of its own; but
works for a general aim, one in which the individual perishes and
realizes his own private object only in that general aim. The State
begins to have an abstract existence, and to develop itself for a
definite object, in accomplishing which its members have indeed a
share, but not a complete and concrete one [calling their whole being
into play]. Free individuals are sacrificed to the severe demands of
the National objects, to which they must surrender themselves in this
service of abstract generalization. The Roman State is not a repetition
of such a State of Individuals as the Athenian Polis was. The geniality
and joy of soul that existed there have given place to harsh and
rigorous toil. The interest of History is detached from individuals,
but these gain for themselves abstract, formal Universality. The
Universal subjugates the individuals; they have to merge their own
interests in it; but in return the abstraction which they themselves
embody – that is to say, their personality – is recognized: in their
individual capacity they become persons with definite rights as such.
In the same sense as individuals may be said to be incorporated in the
abstract idea of Person, National Individualities (those of the Roman
Provinces) have also to experience this fate: in this form of
Universality their concrete forms are crushed, and incorporated with it
as a homogeneous and indifferent mass. Rome becomes a Pantheon of all
deities, and of all Spiritual existence, but these divinities and this
Spirit do not retain their proper vitality. – The development of the
State in question proceeds in two directions. On the one hand, as based
on reflection – abstract Universality – it has the express outspoken
antithesis in itself: it therefore essentially involves in itself the
struggle which that antithesis supposes; with the necessary issue, that
individual caprice – the purely contingent and thoroughly worldly power
of one despot – gets the better of that abstract universal principle.
At the very outset we have the antithesis between the Aim of the State
as the abstract universal principle on the one hand, and the abstract
personality of the individual on the other hand. But when subsequently,
in the historical development, individuality gains the ascendant, and
the breaking up of the community into its component atoms can only be
restrained by external compulsion, then the subjective might of
individual despotism comes forward to play its part, as if summoned to
fulfil this task. For the mere abstract compliance with Law implies on
the part of the subject of law the supposition that he has not attained
to selforganization and self-control ; and this principle of obedience,
instead of being hearty and voluntary, has for its motive and ruling
power only the arbitrary and contingent disposition of the individual;
so that the latter is led to seek consolation for the loss of his
freedom in exercising and developing his private right. This is the
purely worldly harmonization of the antithesis. But in the next place,
the pain inflicted by Despotism begins to be felt, and Spirit driven
back into its utmost depths, leaves the godless world, seeks for a
harmony in itself, and begins now an inner life – a complete concrete
subjectivity, which possesses at the same time a substantiality that is
not grounded in mere external existence. Within the soul therefore
arises the Spiritual pacification of the struggle, in the fact that the
individual personality, instead of following its own capricious choice,
is purified and elevated into universality; – a subjectivity that of
its own free will adopts principles tending to the good of all –
reaches, in fact, a divine personality. To that worldly empire, this
Spiritual one wears a predominant aspect of opposition, as the empire
of a subjectivity that has attained to the knowledge of itself – itself
in its essential nature – the Empire of Spirit in its full sense. |
|
| The German world appears at this
point of development – the fourth phase of World-History. This would
answer in the comparison with the periods of human life to its Old Age.
The Old Age of Nature is weakness; but that of Spirit is its perfect
maturity and strength, in which it returns to unity with itself, but in
its fully developed character as Spirit. – This fourth phase begins
with the Reconciliation presented in Christianity; but only in the
germ, without national or political development. We must therefore
regard it as commencing rather with the enormous contrast between the
spiritual, religious principle, and the barbarian Real World. For
Spirit as the consciousness of an inner World is, at the commencement,
itself still in an abstract form. All that is secular is consequently
given over to rudeness and capricious violence. The Mohammedan
principle – the enlightenment of the Oriental World – is the first to
contravene this barbarism and caprice. We find it developing itself
later and more rapidly than Christianity; for the latter needed eight
centuries to grow up into a political form. But that principle of the
German World which we are now discussing, attained concrete reality
only in the history of the German Nations. The contrast of the
Spiritual principle animating the Ecclesiastical State, with the rough
and wild barbarism of the Secular State, is here likewise present. The
Secular ought to be in harmony with the Spiritual principle, but we
find nothing more than the recognition of that obligation. The Secular
power forsaken by the Spirit, must in the first instance vanish in
presence of the Ecclesiastical (as representative of Spirit) ; but
while this latter degrades itself to mere secularity, it loses its
influence with the loss of its proper character and vocation. From this
corruption of the Ecclesiastical element – that is, of the Church –
results the higher form of rational thought. Spirit once more driven
back upon itself, produces its work in an intellectual shape, and
becomes capable of realizing the Ideal of Reason from the Secular
principle alone. Thus it happens, that in virtue of elements of
Universality, which have the principle of Spirit as their basis, the
empire of Thought is established actually and concretely. The
antithesis of Church and State vanishes. The Spiritual becomes
reconnected with the Secular, and develops this latter as an
independently organic existence. The State no longer occupies a
position of real inferiority to the Church, and is no longer
subordinate to it. The latter asserts no prerogative, and the Spiritual
is no longer an element foreign to the State. Freedom has found the
means of realizing its Ideal – its true existence. This is the ultimate
result which the process of History is intended to accomplish, and we
have to traverse in detail the long track which has been thus cursorily
traced out. Yet length of Time is something entirely relative, and the
element of Spirit is Eternity. Duration, properly speaking, cannot be
said to belong to it. |
|
| Source: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/introduction-lectures.htm |
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