Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born on August 27, 1770, at
Stuttgart, the capital of Wuertemburg, in which state his father
occupied a humble position in government service. He was educated
at Tuebingen for the ministry, and while there was, in private, a
diligent student of Kant and Rousseau. In 1805 he was Professor
Extraordinarius at the University of Jena, and in 1807 he gave the
world the first of his great works, the "Phenomenology." It was not
until 1816 that Hegel's growing fame as a writer secured for him a
professorship at Heidelberg, but, after two years, he exchanged it
for one at Berlin, where he remained until his death on November
14, 1831. On October 22, 1818, he began his famous lectures. "Our
business and vocation," he remarked to his listeners, "is to
cherish the philosophical development of the substantial foundation
which has renewed its youth and increased its strength." Although
the lectures on the "Philosophy of History" and on the "Philosophy
of Religion" (Vol. XIII) were delivered during this period, they
were not published until a year after his death, when his collected
works were issued.
_I.--In the East Began History_
Universal or world-history travels from east to west, for Europe is
absolutely the end of history, Asia the beginning. The history of the
world has an east in an absolute sense, for, although the earth forms a
sphere, history describes no orbit round it, but has, on the contrary, a
determinate orient--_viz._, Asia. Here rises the outward visible sun,
and in the west it sinks down; here also rises the sun of
self-consciousness. The history of the world is a discipline of the
uncontrolled natural will, bringing it into obedience to a universal
principle and conferring a subjective freedom. The East knew, and to
this day knows, freedom only for one; the Greek and Roman world knew
that some are free; the German world knows that all are free. The first
political form, therefore, that we see in history is despotism; the
second democracy and aristocracy; and the third monarchy.
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 realised national freedom, developing itself
without advancing to subjective freedom. It is the childhood of history.
In the gorgeous edifices of the Oriental empires we find all national
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 stands (not as despot, in the sense of the Roman
imperial constitution) 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 the Oriental conception is the one individual as the
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 the absolute object. All the
elements of a complete state--even subjectivity--may be found there, but
not yet harmonised 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, moves at will without purpose or result.
Accordingly we find the wild herds 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
lost resultlessly 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, as it
were, to mere Space (as distinguished from Time); unhistorical history,
as, for example, in China, the state based on the family relation. Yet
the states in question, without undergoing any change in themselves, or
in the principle of their existence, are constantly changing their
opinion 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, is for the most part
really unhistorical, 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
cycle of decline and subsidence. And this subsidence, therefore, is not
really such; for through all this restless change no advance has been
made. History passes at this point--and only outwardly, that is, without
connection with the previous phase--to Central Asia. To carry on the
comparison with the individual man, this would be the boyhood of
history, no longer manifesting the repose and trustfulness of the child,
but boisterous and turbulent.
_II.--Greece, Rome and Christianity_
The Greek world may, then, be compared to the season of adolescence, for
here we have individualities shaping 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 abstractly,
but intimately bound up with the real, as in a beautiful work of art;
the sensible bears the stamp and expression of the spiritual. The
kingdom is consequently true harmony; it is a 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 without reflection the conduct and
habit prescribed by justice and the laws. The individual is, therefore,
in unconscious unity with the idea--the social weal.
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 labours 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. It works for a general aim, one in which
the individual perishes and realises 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 ends, to which they must surrender themselves in
this service of abstract generalisation. The Roman state is not a
repetition of such a state of individuals as was the Athenian _polis_.
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 when, subsequently, in the historical development, individuality
gains the ascendant, and the breaking up of the community into its
component atoms can be restrained only by external compulsion, then the
subjective might of individual despotism comes forward to play its part.
The individual is led to seek consolation for the loss of his freedom in
exercising and developing his private rights. 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 at the same time possesses a substantiality that is not grounded
in mere external existence.
Within the soul, therefore, arises the spiritual solution 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
the worldly empire this spiritual one wears a predominant aspect of
opposition, as the empire of subjectivity that has attained to the
knowledge of itself--itself in its essential nature--the empire of
spirit in its full sense.
The Christian community found itself in the Roman world, but as it was
secluded from this state, and did not hold the emperor for its absolute
sovereign, it was the object of persecution. Then was manifested its
inward liberty in the steadfastness with which sufferings were borne. As
regards its relation to the truth, the fathers of the Church built up
the dogma, but a chief element was furnished by the previous development
of philosophy. Just as Philo found a deeper import shadowed forth in the
Mosaic record and idealised what he considered the bare shell of the
narrative, so also did the Christians treat their records.
It was through the Christian religion that the absolute idea of God, in
if true conception, attained consciousness. Here man, too, finds
himself comprehended in his true nature, given in the specific
conception of "the Son." Man, finite when regarded for himself, is yet
at the same time the image of God and a fountain of infinity in himself.
Consequently he has his true home in a super-sensuous world--an infinite
subjectivity, gained only by a rupture with mere natural existence and
volition. This is religious self-consciousness.
The first abstract principles are won by the instrumentality of the
Christian religion for the secular state. First, under Christianity
slavery is impossible; for man as man--in the abstract essence of his
nature--is contemplated in God; each unit of mankind is an object of the
grace of God and of the divine purpose. Utterly excluding all
speciality, therefore, man, in and for himself--in his simple quality of
man--has infinite value; and this infinite value abolishes, _ipso
facto_, all particularity attaching to birth or country.
The other, the second principle, regards the subjectivity of man in its
bearing on chance. Humanity has this sphere of free spirituality in and
for itself, and everything else must proceed from it. The place
appropriated to the abode and presence of the Divine Spirit--the sphere
in question--is spiritual subjectivity, and is constituted the place in
which all contingency is amenable. It follows, thence, that what we
observe among the Greeks as a form of customary morality cannot maintain
its position in the Christian world. For that morality is spontaneous,
unreflected wont; while the Christian principle is independent
subjectivity--the soil on which grows the True.
Now, an unreflected morality cannot continue to hold its ground against
the principle of subjective freedom. Now the principle of absolute
freedom in God makes its appearance. Man no longer sustains the relation
of dependence, but of love--in the consciousness that he is a partaker
in the Divine existence.
_III.--The Germanic World_
The German world appears at this point of development--the fourth phase
of world history. The old age of nature is weakness; but this of spirit
is its perfect maturity and strength, in which it returns to unity with
itself, but in its fully developed character as spirit.
The Greeks and Romans had reached maturity within ere they directed
their energies outwards. The Germans, on the contrary, began with
self-diffusion, deluging the world, and breaking down in their course
the hollow political fabrics of the civilised nations. Only then did
their development begin, kindled by a foreign culture, a foreign
religion, polity, and legislation. The process of culture they underwent
consisted in taking up foreign elements into their own national life.
The German world took up the Roman culture and religion in their
completed form. The Christian religion which it adopted had received
from councils and fathers of the Church--who possessed the whole
culture, and in particular the philosophy of the Greek and Roman
world--a perfected dogmatic system. The Church, too, had a completely
developed hierarchy. To the native tongue of the Germans the Church
likewise opposed one perfectly developed--the Latin. In art and
philosophy a similar alien influence predominated. The same principle
holds good in regard to the form of the secular sovereignty. Gothic and
other chiefs gave themselves the name of Roman patricians. Thus,
superficially, the German world appears to be a continuation of the
Roman. But there dwelt in it an entirely new spirit--the free spirit
which reposes on itself.
The three periods of this world will have to be treated accordingly.
The first period begins with the appearance of the German nations in the
Roman Empire. The Christian world presents itself as Christendom--one
mass of which, the spiritual and the secular, form only different
aspects. This epoch extends to Charlemagne. In the second period the
Church develops for itself a theocracy and the state a feudal monarchy.
Charlemagne had formed an alliance with the Holy See against the
Lombards and the factions of the nobles in Rome. A union thus arose
between the spiritual and the secular power, and a kingdom of heaven on
earth promised to follow in the wake of this conciliation. But just at
this time, instead of a spiritual kingdom of heaven, the inwardness of
the Christian principle wears the appearance of being altogether
directed outwards, and leaving its proper sphere.
Christian freedom is perverted to its very opposite, both in a religious
and secular respect; on the one hand to the severest bondage, on the
other to the most immoral excess--a barbarous intensity of every
passion. The first half of the sixteenth century marks the beginning of
the third period. Secularity appears now as gaining a consciousness of
its intrinsic worth; it becomes aware that it possesses a value of its
own in the morality, rectitude, probity, and activity of man. The
consciousness of independent validity is aroused through the restoration
of Christian freedom.
The Christian principle has now passed through the terrible discipline
of culture, and it first attains truth and reality through the
Reformation. This third period extends to our own times. The principle
of free spirit is here made the banner of the world, and from this
principle are evolved the universal axioms of reason. Formal
thought--the understanding--had been already developed, but thought
received its true material first with the Reformation. From that Epoch
thought began to gain a culture properly its' own; principles were
derived from it which were to be the norm for the constitution of the
state. Political life was now to be consciously regulated by reason.
Customary morality, traditional usage, lost their validity; the various
claims insisted upon must prove their legitimacy as based on rational
principles.
These epochs may be compared with the earlier empires. In the German
aeon, as the realm of totality, we see the earlier epochs resumed.
Charlemagne's time may be compared with the Persian Empire; it is the
period of substantive unity, this unity having its foundation in the
inner man, the heart, and both in the spiritual and the secular still
abiding in its simplicity. To the Greek world and its merely ideal unity
the time preceding Charles V. answers; where real unity no longer
exists, because all phases of particularity have become fixed in
privileges and peculiar rights As, in the interior of the realms
themselves, the different estates of the realm, with their several
claims, are isolated, so do the various states in their foreign aspects
occupy a merely external relation one to another. A diplomatic policy
arises which, in the interest of a European balance of power, unites
them with and against each other. It is the time in which the world
becomes clear and manifest to all (discovery of America).
So, too, does consciousness gain clearness in the super-sensuous world,
and respecting it. Substantial objective religion brings itself to
sensuous clearness in the sensuous element (Christian art), and also
becomes clear to itself in the element of inmost truth. We may compare
this time with that of Pericles. The introversion of spirit begins
(Socrates--Luther), though Pericles is wanting in this epoch. Charles V.
possesses enormous possibilities in point of outward appliances, and
appears absolute in his power; but the inner spirit of Pericles, and
therefore the absolute means of establishing a free sovereignty, is not
in him. This is the epoch when spirit becomes clear to itself in
separations occurring in the realm of reality; now the distinct elements
of the German world manifest their essential nature.
The third epoch may be compared to the Roman world. The authority of
national aim is acknowledged, and privileges melt away before the common
object of the state.
_IV.--Modern Times_
Spirit at last perceives that nature--the world--must be an embodiment
of reason. An interest in the contemplation and comprehension of the
present world became universal. Thus experimental science became the
science of the world; for experimental science involves, on the one
hand, the observation of phenomena; on the other hand, also the
discovery of the law, the essential being, the hidden force, that causes
those phenomena--thus reducing the data supplied by observation to their
simple principles. Intellectual consciousness was first extricated by
Descartes from that sophistry of thought which unsettles everything. As
it was the purely German nations among whom the principle of spirit
first manifested itself, so it was by the Romanic nations that the
abstract idea was first comprehended.
Experimental science, therefore, very soon made its way among them, in
common with the Protestant English, but especially among the Italians.
It seemed to men as if God had but just created the moon and stars,
plants and animals; as if the laws of the universe were now established
for the first time; for only then did they feel a real interest in the
universe when they recognised their own reason in the reason that
pervades it. The human eye became clear, perception quick, thought
active and interpretative. The discovery of the laws of nature enabled
men to contend against the monstrous superstition of the time, as also
against all notions of mighty alien powers which magic alone could
conquer.
The independent authority of subjectivity was maintained against belief
founded on authority, and the laws of nature were recognised as the only
bond connecting phenomena with phenomena. Man is at home in nature, and
that alone passes for truth in which he finds himself at home; he is
free through the acquaintance he has gained with nature.
Nor was thought less vigorously directed to the spiritual side. Right
and social morality came to be looked upon as having their foundation in
the actual present will of man, whereas formerly it was referred only to
the command of God enjoined _ab extra_, written in the Old or New
Testament, or appearing in the form of particular right, as opposed to
that based on general principles, in old parchments as _privilegia_, or
in international compacts. Luther had secured to mankind spiritual
freedom, and the reconciliation of the objective and the subjective in
the concrete. He had triumphantly established the position that man's
eternal destiny must be wrought out in himself. But the import of that
which is to take place in him--what truth is to become vital to him--was
taken for granted by Luther, as something already given, something
revealed by religion. Now the principle was set up that this import must
be capable of actual investigation, and that to this basis of inward
demonstration every dogma must be referred.
This is the point which consciousness has attained, and these are the
principal phases of that form in which the principle of freedom has
realised itself, for the history of the world is nothing but the
development of the idea of freedom. But objective freedom--the laws of
"real" freedom--demands the subjugation of the mere contingent will, for
this is in its nature formal. If the objective is in itself rational,
human insight and conviction must correspond with the reason which it
embodies, and then we have the other essential element--subjective
freedom--also realised. We have confined ourselves to the consideration
of that progress of the idea which has led to this consummation.
Philosophy concerns itself only with the glory of the idea mirroring
itself in the history of the world, and with the development which the
idea has passed through in realising itself--_i.e._, the idea of
freedom, whose reality is the consciousness of freedom and nothing short
of it.
That the history of the world, with all the changing scenes which its
annals present, is this true process of development and the realisation
of spirit--this is the true _Theodikaia_, the justification of God in
history. The spirit of man may be reconciled with the course of
universal history only by perception of this truth--that all which has
happened, all that happens daily, is not only not without God, but is
essentially His work.