§ 184. All education desires to free man from his finitude, to make him
ethical, to unite him with God. It begins therefore with a negative
relation to naturalness, but at once falls into a contradiction of its
aim, which is to convert the opposition to nature into a natural
necessity. Spirit subjects the individual (1) to the rule of the family
as naturally spiritual; (2) to the rule of the caste as to a principle
in itself spiritual, mediated through the division of labor, which it
nevertheless, through its power of being inherited, joins again to the
family; (3) to the abstract self-determination of the monkish quietism,
which turns itself away as well from the family as from work, and
constitutes this flight from nature and history, this absolute
passivity, into an educational ideal.
--We shall not here enter into the details of this system, but simply
endeavor to remove from their differences the want of clearness which is
generally found involved in any mention of them, so that the phrases of
hierarchical and theocratical education are used without any historical
accuracy.--