II. The Nature of Spirit: the essential destiny of Reason, the ultimate deign of the world.
“In considering world history we must consider its ultimate purpose. The ultimate purpose is what is willed in the world itself. We know of God that He is the most perfect; He can will only Himself and what is like Him. God and the nature of His will are one and the same; these we call philosophically, the Idea. Hence it is the Idea in general, in its manifestation as human spirit, which we have to contemplate. More precisely it is the idea of human freedom. The purest form in which the Idea manifests itself is Thought itself.”
1. It Abstract Characteristics: In comparing Spirit with Manner a number of contrasts emerge. First, as Gravity is the essence of Matter, Freedom is the Essence of Spirit. Matter as gravity seeks a self-annihilating Idea of Unit, something outside itself. Spirit is self-contained existence, existing in and with itself. Spirit is self-consciousness knowing Itself so that what I knows and that It Knows are one = Freedom. The final cause of the World at large is the consciousness of its own freedom on the part of Spirit and, ipso facto, the reality of that freedom (19). The Orientals only knew that one (the Despot) is free; the Greeks and Romans knows that some (citizens, but not slaves are free; The German nations under the influence of Christianity knows that human beings as human beings are free. The sacrifices in the long course of the world’s history serve the Idea of Freedom Translating Thought into religious terms, the Idea of Freedom = God = God’s Will.
2. The Means by which Spirit is Realized: This is an empirical question or matter. The actions of human beings proceed from their needs passions, characters, and talents. Although the Idea of Spirit is abstract and general in Its essence, It attains realization through Will, in particular, the passionate activity of human beings. Nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion. There must be a union of Idea and human passions. Passion means here human activity as resulting from private interests with the qualification that whole energy of will and character are devoted to their attainment and other interest are sacrificed to them. (p. 23) The development of Nature and human activities implicitly exemplify the realization of the Idea of Spirit. There is a union of objective (the Idea) and subjective (human will) and also a union of Freedom (human will) and Necessity (the Idea). Unhappiness exemplifies concern with particular purposes and while human beings act in terms of their private interests they are unknowingly serving the interests of Spirit. In addition World-Historical Individuals are agents of the World-Spirit. Examples of this are to be found in such as Alexander the Great, Caesar and Napoleon. They unconsciously serve the World-Spirit through some special insight into the needs of the time and act to bring about creative change. They are creative, determined, unorthodox and willing to sacrifice everything and others to accomplish their goals. From a purely personal perspective, they usually come to an unhappy end. Lesser persons may criticize with a sense of superiority, but only because they are lesser persons. “No man is a hero to his valet de chamber, but not because the former is no hero, but because the latter is a valet.” The Cunning of Reason sets the passions of human beings to work for the ends of the World-Spirit and lets the individual pay the penalty in the process. There is no separation of the ideal and the real, because Reason actualizes itself. Fault finding with the process shows an inability to concentrate on the World-Spirit and a focus on particular events or sacrifices. “For the fancies which the individual in his isolation indulges, cannot be the model for universal reality.” (p. 35)
“The religion, the morality of a limited life, e.g. that of a shepherd or a peasant, in its intensive concentration and limitation to a few perfectly relations of life, has infinite worth; but is quite shut out from the noisy din of the World’s History.” (p. 37)
3. The State as the Perfect Embodiment of Spirit: Although human desires or subjectivity generally might be thought to express the Idea of Reason, subjective will must unite with rational Will, a union which is the moral Whole, The State (p. 38). The State is the form of reality in which the individual has and enjoys freedom, on the condition that the individual wills what is common to the Whole. Freedom is not to be understood in terms of achieving gratification and enjoyment in a small space of liberty for the individual. Law, Morality, and Government and they alone are the positive reality and completion of Freedom. Subjective volition, passion is the practical spring of action: The Idea is the inner sprint of action; the State is the actually realized moral life, for Morality is the Unity of the essential Will with that of the individual will. Al the worth that human beings possess, all their spiritual reality, is possessed through the State, for only then is one fully conscious and a partaker of morality. Truth is the unity of the universal and subjective Will, and the Universal is only found in the laws, the universal and rational arrangements of the State. Law is the objectivity of Spirit, volition in its true form; so there can be no freedom without obedience to law in the sense of obeying oneself.
“When the State or out country constitutes a community of experience, when the subjective will of man submits to laws, the contradiction between Liberty and necessity vanishes. The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth. Common errors that have become fixed prejudices consist of the following. First, those human beings posses a freedom by Nature that is fettered by the State. So freedom becomes merely fulfillment of subjective desire, mere caprice. The State of Nature is a state of violence and injustice rather than true freedom, which must be acquired and won through an infinite process of knowledge and will power. Second, that the patriarchical condition is the primary conscious morality. This condition is based on feeling and the merely natural rather than on Reason. This condition is based on blood relations, which is not present for the state. This condition, the family, is valuable to the State however in its proper place. Third, that the People alone have reason and insight so that the generic existence of the State resides in its citizens. If individual will and consent are the basis for constitutional freedom, then there is no constitution. Commanding and obeying seem necessary to the functioning of a State. Hegel contends that Monarchy and not despotism is the highest expression of the State. (p. 44-46) As regards Religion and the State, Hegel argues that God constitutes the Unity of the Universal and Individual.
4. Spirit is “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.” (p. 53)
