“Hegel isn’t writing history—he’s reading history philosophically. He selects details that fit the grand arc of freedom’s development, as he sees it, from tribal liberty to modern constitutional life.”
Beezone
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The Philosophy of History
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1770-1831
Part II of IV
THE ROMAN WORLD
Napoleon, in a conversation with Goethe on the nature of tragedy, expressed the opinion that modern tragedy differed essentially from the ancient, because we no longer had a fate which overwhelmed men; politics had taken the place of the ancient fate. Therefore he thought that the irresistible power of circumstances to which the individual must bend should be used as the modern form of fate in tragedy. The Roman world is such a power, chosen for the very purpose of casting the ethical individual into bonds, as also of collecting all deities and spirits into the pantheon of world dominion in order to mold them into an abstract generality. This precisely is the difference between the Roman and Persian principle: that the former stifles all lively spirit, while the latter allowed of its existence in the fullest measure. The world sank into sorrow and grief because it was the end of the state that the indidviduals and their moral life should be sacrificed to it. The heart of the world was broken and it was all over with the genuineness of spirit, which had arrived at a feeling of fatality. Yet the super sensuous free spirit of Christianity could arise only from this feeling.
In the Greek principle we have seen the spiritual existence in its exhilaration, its serenity and enjoyment. Spirit had not yet retired into abstraction. It was still involved with the natural element, the particularity of individuals, on which account the virtues of individuals themselves became ethical works of art. Abstract general personality had not yet appeared, for spirit first had to develop itself to that form of abstract generality which has exercised such a severe discipline over humanity. Here then in Rome we find that free general outlook, that abstract freedom, which on the one hand places an abstract state, a political constitution and power, over the concrete individual, and subordinates it completely, on the other hand creates a personality in juxtaposition to that generality— the freedom of the ego, which must be distinguished from individuality. For such a personality constitutes the fundamental conception of law and right. It appears primarily in the category of property, but it is indifferent to the concrete characteristics of the living spirit with which individuality is concerned. These two elements which constitute Rome, political universality on the one hand, and the abstract freedom of the individual on the other, appear in the form of inwardness or subjectivity (Innerlichkeit) in the first instance. This subjectivity, this retreating into oneself which we observed as the corruption of the Greek spirit, here became the ground on which a new side of the world’s history arises. In considering the Roman world, we are not dealing with a concretely spiritual life, rich in itself. The world-historical element in the Roman world is the abstraction of universality, pursued with soulless and heartless severity, in order to validate that abstraction, the purpose of which is mere dominion or rule.
Democracy was the fundamental condition of political life in Greece, as despotism was in the East. In Rome, it is the aristocracy, rigid and opposed to the people. The democracy was also rent asunder in Greece, but only by factions. In Rome it is principles that keep the entire community in a divided state; they struggle and occupy a hostile position toward one another. First the aristocracy struggles with the kings, then the plebs with the aristocracy, till democracy gets the upper hand; then arise the factions from which arose the later aristocracy of commanding individuals which subjugated the world. It is this dualism that, properly speaking, marks Rome’s inmost being.
Erudition has regarded Roman history from various points of view and has adopted very different and opposing opinions. This is especially the case with the more ancient part of the history, which has been taken up by three different classes of scholars—historians, philologists and jurists.
The historians hold to the main features and show respect for the history as such, so that we may get oriented best under their guidance, since they allow the validity of the records in the case of the leading events. It is otherwise with the philologists, by whom generally received traditions are less regarded, and who devote more attention to various details which can be combined in various ways. These combinations first gain a footing as historical hypotheses, but are soon after claimed as established facts. The jurists in Roman law have instituted the minutest examination and mixed their inferences with hypotheses to the same degree as the philologists have in their department. The result is that the most ancient part of Roman history has been declared to be nothing but a fable, so that this department of inquiry is brought entirely within the province of learned criticism, which always finds the most to do where the least is to.be got for the labor. While on the one side the poetry and the myths of the Greeks are said to contain profound historical truths, and are thus transmuted into history, the Romans are made to have myths and poetical views. Epic poetry is affirmed to be the basis of what has hitherto been taken for prosaic and , historical fact.
[After a simple description of the geography of Italy, Hegel continues:]
We noted that subjective inwardness is the general principle of the Roman world. The course of Roman history therefore involves the progress of inward seclusion, of certainty of oneself toward an external reality. The principle of subjective inwardness in the first place only receives positive fulfillment and content from without, through the particular will to rule, to govern, etc. The development consists in the purification of inwardness into abstract personality; which gives itself reality in the existence of private property; the rigid persons can then be held together only by despotic force.
This is the general course of the Roman world: to proceed from the inner sanctum of subjectivity to its direct opposite. The development here is not of the same kind as that of Greece, the unfolding and expanding of its own content on the part of the principle. It is rather the transition of the principle to its opposite, which does not appear as an element of corruption, but is demanded and posited by the principle itself.
The common division of the particular sections of Roman history is that of the monarchy, the republic and the empire; as if different principles had made their appearance in thest forms. But the fact of the matter is that the same principle,, that of the Roman spirit, underlies all of this development. In our division, we must rather keep in view the course of world history. The annals of every world-historical people were divided above into three periods, and the statement must prove true in this case also. The first period comprehends the rudiments of Rome, in which the elements which are essentially opposed still repose in calm unity; until the contrarieties have acquired strength and the unity of the state becomes powerful, because it has produced and maintained this contrast within itself. In this vigorous condition the state directs its forces outward, that is, in the second period, and makes its debut on the theater of world history. This is the most beautiful period of Rome, that of the Punic Wars and the contact with the ante cedent world-historical people. A wider stage is opened toward the East. The history of the epoch of this contact has been treated by the noble Polybius. The Roman Empire now acquired that world-conquering extension which paved the way for its fall. Internal corrosion occurred, while the contrast was developing into a self-contradiction and utter incompatibility. The Roman world closes with despotism, which marks the third period. The Roman power here appears in its pomp and splendor, but it is at the same time profoundly ruptured within itself. The Christian religion, which began with the imperial dominion, receives a great extension. The third period comprises the contact of Rome with the North and the Germanic peoples, whose turn then comes to play their part in world history.
[We selected one more brief passage from Hegel’s treatment, entitled:]
The Elements of the Roman Spirit
Before we come to Roman history, we have to consider the elements of the Roman spirit in general and mention and investigate the origin of Rome with reference to them.
To the unfree, non-spiritual and unfeeling intelligence of the Roman world we owe the origin and development of positive law. We saw above how, in the East, relations in their very nature belonging to the sphere of outward and inward mores were made legal commands. Mores were also juristic law among the Greeks, and on that very account the constitution was entirely dependent on mores and loyalty and had not yet a fixity of principle within it to counterbalance the mutability of mens inner life and individual subjectivity. It was the Romans who then succeeded in establishing this important separation and discovered a principle of law and right which is external, one not dependent on conviction and sentiment. While they have thus bestowed a valuable gift upon us in point of form, we may use and enjoy it without becoming victims of that sterile intellect, in other words, without regarding it as the ne plus ultra of wisdom and reason. The Romans were the victims of this principle, living beneath its sway; but they thereby secured freedom of spirit for others, that inward free- ‘ dom which has consequently become emancipated from the i sphere of the limited and external. Spirit, soul, conviction and religion have now no longer to fear being involved with that I abstract juristical understanding.
We thus see the Romans fettered by the abstract and finite intellect. This is their highest destiny, and hence also their I highest consciousness, in religion. For it was the very religion of the Romans to be thus constrained, while the religion of the Greeks was the serenity of free imagination. We are in the habit of looking upon Greek and Roman religion as the same. . . . This may do in so far as the Greek gods were more or less introduced by the Romans, but the Roman religion is not the Greek. It has been said that in Greek religion the awe of nature has been developed into something spiritual, a spiritual figure of the imagination, that the Greek spirit did not stop at the inner anxiety, but made the relation to nature one of freedom and serenity. The Romans, however, stopped at this silent and dull inwardness. The Roman spirit thus remaining inward became constrained and dependent as the word religio (from ligare) suggests.
[A very extensive treatment of Roman history follows which undertakes to show in detail how the general propositions we have given work out in the concrete unfolding of the Roman world. It is with regret that one omits these discussions which contain many an acute observation. Towards the end, the coming of Christianity is discussed and we offer a brief excerpt from that section.]
Christianity
At the beginning of the rule of the emperors, the principle of which we have comprehended as a finite and particular subjectivity raised to infinite scope, the salvation of the world was born within the same principle of subjectivity; namely, as this particular man, in abstract subjectivity, but in reverse, namely thus that finiteness is merely the form of his appearance, while its essence is infinity, the absolute being by and for itself. The Roman world, as we have described it, in its perplexity and in its sorrow of being abandoned by God, caused a breach with reality and a general longing for a pacification which could only be achieved inwardly and by the spirit; it thus prepared the ground for a higher spiritual world. The Roman world was the fate which crushed the Greek gods and the serene life in their service. . . . Its sorrow is like the birth pangs of another higher spirit which was revealed by the Christian religion. This higher spirit contains the reconciliation and the liberation of the spirit, because man now becomes conscious of the spirit in its universality and infinity. . . .
God is understood as spirit only by being known as the Trinity. This new principle is the hub around which world history revolves. History is divided by going forward to this point, and starting from it. ‘When the time was fulfilled, God sent his son . . ? it says in the Bible. That saying means that the self-consciousness had risen to those aspects which belong to the conception of the spirit, and to a desire of comprehending these aspects in an absolute manner.
[Then, after resuming once more what he had said about the spirit of the Greeks and the Romans, the natural spirit and its inwardness, Hegel continues:] i
Here we see the world-historical importance and significance of the Jewish people; for from it has sprung the higher development by which the spirit arrived at absolute self-consciousness. . . . We find this destiny of the Jewish people most beautifully and purely expressed in the Psalms and the books of the Prophets; for here the thirst of the soul for God, the deepest sorrow of the soul about its faults, the desire for justice and piety constitute the content. The mythical description of this spirit is found at the very beginning of the books [of the I Old Testament] in the story of the fall. Man, created in the Image of God, so the tale goes, had lost his absolute contentment, because he had eaten of the tree of knowledge of good I and evil. Sin is here the knowledge: by knowledge man has destroyed his natural happiness. This is a deep truth that evil results from consciousness; animals are neither good nor bad, and similarly the merely natural man. Only consciousness produces the splitting of the ego, according to the infinite freedom of arbitrary will, and the pure content of the will which is the good. I
[After stating his general views on this subject at greater length, Hegel continues:]
Sin is knowledge of good and evil, separating them; but knowledge also heals this old break and is the fountain of the infinite reconciliation. For knowledge also means to destroy the external and alien elements of the consciousness and is thus the return of subjectivity to itself. To posit this in the actual consciousness of the world means the reconciliation of the world. The identity of the subject and God entered the world when the time was fulfilled; the consciousness of this identity is the knowledge of God as He truly is. The content of the truth is the spirit itself, the living movement within itself. The nature of God of being pure spirit is revealed to man in the Christian religion. And what is the spirit? He (it) is the One, the infinite consistent within Himself (itself), the pure identity. . . . It is part of the appearance of the Christian God that it is unique in its way; it can happen only once, for God is subject and as an appearing subjectivity only one individual. . . . Furthermore, the sense existence in which the spirit appears, is only a passing aspect. Christ is dead; but only when dead is He raised to heaven and sits at the right of God; only thus is He spirit. He himself says: When I am no longer among you, the spirit will lead you to all the truth. Only on Pentecost the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit. When he was alive, Christ was not for his disciples what he became later as spirit of the community. … It is not right to think of Christ only as a past historical person. If one asks: what are the circumstances of his birth, of his father and mother, of his education, of his miracles, it all means [asking] what is He considered unspiritually? For if one considers Him only according to His talents, character and morality, as a teacher and the like, one places Him on the same level with Socrates, and others, even if one puts his morals higher. … If Christ is merely a splendid, even a sinless individual . . . the notion of the speculative idea, of absolute truth is being denied. But this is what matters and we must start from it. You can make by exegesis, criticism and historical research anything you want, you may show, j if you wish, that the doctrines of the church have been created at some council by the interest and the passion of the bishops. . . all such circumstances may be what they will. All that matters is what the idea or truth is in and by and for itself.
[Hegel elaborates this central theme by further detailed analysis i and by quotation from the Bible, with special reference, of course, । to St. John, and the doctrine of the visible and the invisible church; j but he concludes with his central tenet of the consonance of reason | and religion:] ;
Often one has tried to establish a conflict between reason I and religion, just as between religion and world; but when 1 studied more closely, this is merely a distinction. Reason, gen- I erally speaking, is the essence of the spirit, the divine as well I as the human. The difference between religion and world is I merely this, that religion is reason in mind and heart, that it is | a temple of imagined truth and freedom in God; the state ac- i cording to this same reason is a temple of human freedom in | the knowledge of and the will for the actual reality, the content I of which may itself be called divine. Thus freedom in the state is confirmed and substantiated by religion, because ethical law in the state is merely the execution of what is the basic principle of religion.
[The tasks here involved Hegel believes to have been assigned to J the Germanic peoples.] :
THE GERMANIC WORLD
The Germanic spirit is the spirit of the new world. Its end is the realization of absolute truth as the unlimited self-determination of freedom, that freedom which has its own absolute form as its content. The destiny of the Germanic peoples is to be the bearers of the Christian principle. The principle of spiritual freedom, of reconciliation and harmony (of the objective and the subjective), was introduced into the still simple, unformed minds of these peoples. The part assigned to them in the service of the world spirit was that of not merely possessing the idea of freedom as the substratum of their religious conceptions, but of producing it in free and spontaneous developments from their subjective self-consciousness.
In entering on the task of dividing the Germanic world into its natural periods, we must remark that we cannot relate it externally to an earlier world-historical people, nor forward to a later one. History shows that the process of development among the peoples now under consideration was an altogether different one. The Greeks and Romans had reached inner maturity before they directed their energies outward. The Germanic peoples, on the contrary, began with self-diffusion, deluging the world, and overpowering in their course the inwardly rotten, hollow political fabric of the civilized nations. Only then did their development begin, kindled by a foreign culture, a foreign religion, polity and legislation. The process of culture formation they underwent consisted in taking over foreign elements and transcending them. Their history presents a turning inward and a relating of these alien elements to themselves. In the Crusades, indeed, and in the discovery of America, the Western world directed its energies outward. But it was not thus brought in contact with a world-historical people that preceded it; it did not displace a principle that had previously governed the world. Relation to an external principle here only accompanies, but does not constitute the history; the relation does not bring with it essential changes in the nature of those conditions which characterize the people in question, but rather it wears the stamp of an internal revolution. The relation to other countries is therefore quite different from that sustained by the Greeks and the Romans. For the Christian world is the world of perfection; the principle being fulfilled and consequently the end of our days is fully come. The idea can discover no point in the aspirations of the spirit that is not satisfied in Christianity. For its individual members, the church is, it is true, the preparation for an eternal state to be realized in the future, since the separate individuals who compose it, in their several isolated capacities, occupy a position of particularity. But the church also has the spirit of God actually present in it, it forgives the sinner and is a present kingdom of heaven. Thus the Christian world has no absolute existence outside its sphere, but only a relative one which is already implicitly vanquished. . . . Hence it follows that an external reference ceases to be the characteristic element determining the epochs of the modern world. We have therefore to look for another principle of division.
The Germanic world took up Roman culture and religion in their completed form. There was indeed a Germanic and Northern religion, but it had by no means taken deep root in the soul. Tacitus therefore calls the Germanic tribes: “Securi adversus deos” (secure against the Roman gods). The Christian religion which they adopted had received from the Councils and the Fathers of the Church, who possessed the whole culture and, in particular, the philosophy of the Greek and Roman worlds, a perfected dogmatic system. The Church likewise juxtaposed a fully developed language, Latin, to the native tongue of the Germanic peoples. A similar alien influence predominated in art and philosophy. What of Alexandrian and of formal Aristotelian philosophy was still preserved in the writings of Boethius and elsewhere, became the fixed basis of speculative thought in the West for many centuries. The same principle holds in regard to the form of secular rule. Gothic and other chiefs gave themselves the name of Roman Patricians, and the Roman Empire was restored at a later date. Thus the Germanic world appears, superficially, to be only a continuation of the Roman. But an entirely new spirit lived in it, through which the world was to be regenerated, that of the free spirit which rests on itself, the absolute self-determination (Eigensinn) of subjectivity. To this inner spirit (Innigkeit) is juxtaposed the content as something absolutely different. The distinction and antithesis which evolved from these principles is that of church and state. On the one hand, the Church develops itself as the embodiment of absolute truth; for it is the consciousness of this truth, and at the same time it works to make the individual correspond to it. On the other side stands secular consciousness, which, with its ends, occupies the world of the finite—the state, proceeding from the emotions, from faith and from subjectivity generally. European history presents the development of each of these principles by itself, in church and state; it also presents the antithesis of the two, not only against each other, but within each of them, since each of them is itself the totality. European history finally presents the reconciliation of this conflict and antithesis.
The three periods of this world will have to be treated accordingly.
The first begins with the appearance of the Germanic nations in the Roman Empire, with the first development of these peoples, which as Christians have now taken possession of the West. Because of the barbarous and simple character of these peoples, this initial period does not possess any great interest. The Christian world presents itself at this time as Christendom, one mass in which the spiritual and the secular are only different aspects. This epoch extends to Charlemagne.
The second period develops the two sides to a logically consequential independence and opposition, with the Church by itself as a theocracy, and the state by itself as 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 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 has the appearance of being altogether directed outward and of leaving its proper sphere. Christian freedom is perverted to its very opposite, both in the religious and the secular respect; on the one hand to the severest bondage, on the other hand to the most immoral excess, and to the crudity of every passion. Two aspects of society should be especially noted in this period. The first is the formation of states, which present themselves as a regulated subordination, so that every relation becomes a firmly fixed private right, excluding a sense of universality. This regulated subordination appears in the feudal system. The second aspect presents the contrast of church and state. This conflict exists solely because the Church, to whose management the spiritual was committed, itself descends into every kind of worldliness, a worldliness which appears only the more detestable because all passions assume | the sanction of religion.
The time of Charles the Fifth’s reign, the first half of the sixteenth century, forms the end of the second, and likewise the beginning of the third period. Secularity appears now as §a^ng a consciousness 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 religion has now passed through the terrible discipline of being shaped QBildung), and it first attains truth and actual reality through the reformation. This third period of the Germanic world extends from the Reformation 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 intellect, had already been developed; but thought first received its true meaning with the Reformation, through the reviving concrete conciousness of the free spirit. From that epoch thought began to gain a shape properly its own: principles were derived from 1 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 and traditional usage lost their validity. The various rights had to prove that their legitimacy was based on rational principles. Only then is the freedom of spirit realized.
We may distinguish these periods as realms of the Father, the Son and the Spirit (Holy Ghost). The realm of the Father is the substantive, undifferentiated mass, merely changing, like the rule of Saturn who devours his children. The realm of the Son is the appearance of God merely in relation to secular existence, illuminating it like an alien object. The realm of the Spirit is the reconciliation.
These epochs may also be compared with the earlier world empires; for since the Germanic realm is the realm of totality, we see the distinction of the earlier epochs. Charlemagne’s time may be compared with the Persian Empire; it is the period of substantial unity, this unity having its foundation in the emotions and feelings of the inner man, still abiding in its simplicity both in the spiritual and the secular.
The time preceding Charles the Fifth answers to the Greek world and its merely ideal unity; real unity no longer exists because particular powers have become fixed in privileges and particular rights. Just as the different estates with their rights are isolated within the states themselves, so do the various states maintain a merely external relation to one another abroad. A diplomacy arises which leagues the states with and against each other in the interest of a European balance of power. It is the time in which the world becomes known (discovery of America). Consciousness likewise becomes clear within the world above the senses. Substantive, real religion achieves clearness in the sphere of the senses (Christian art in the age of Pope Leo), and also becomes clear to itself in the sphere of innermost truth. We may compare this time with that of Pericles. The turning inward of the spirit begins (Socrates—Luther), though Pericles is wanting in this epoch.
Charles the Fifth possesses enormous possibilities through outward means and appears absolute in his power; but he lacks the inner spirit of Pericles, and therefore the absolute means of establishing a free rule. This is the epoch when spirit be- । comes clear to itself through real divisions. Now the differences / within the Germanic world appear and manifest their essential nature.
The third epoch may be compared with the Roman world. The unity of a general principle is here quite as decidedly present, yet not as the unity of abstract world rule, but as the I hegemony of self-conscious thought. Rational purpose counts now, and privileges and particularities melt away before the common end of the state. People want right and law in and for itself; not only particular treaties are valid, but principles enter into diplomacy. Nor can religion maintain itself apart from thought, but either advances to the conception [the comprehension of the idea], or, compelled by thought itself, becomes intensive belief, into superstition.
The Barbarian Migrations
We have on the whole little to say respecting this first period, for it affords us comparatively slight materials for reflection. We will not follow the Germanic peoples back into their forests, nor investigate the origins of their migrations. Those forests of theirs have always passed for the abodes of free peoples, and Tacitus sketched his famous picture of Germania with a certain love and longing, contrasting it with the corruption and artificiality of that world to which he himself belonged. But we must not on this account regard such a state of wildness as an exalted one, and perchance fall into some such error as Rousseau’s, who represents the condition of the American savages as one in which man is in possession of true freedom. There is certainly an immense amount of sorrow and misfortune of which the savage knows nothing; but this is a merely negative advantage, while freedom is essentially affirmative. Only the blessings of affirmative freedom are those of the highest consciousness. …
[Here follow some more detailed comments on the several Germanic tribes.]
We find, moreover, a great Slavic nation in the East of Europe, whose settlements in the West extended along the Elbe down to the Danube. The Magyars settled in between them. In Moldavia, Wallachia and northern Greece appear the Bulgarians, Serbians and Albanians, likewise of Asiatic origin, left behind as broken barbarian remains in the shocks and counter-shocks of the advancing hordes. These people did indeed found kingdoms and sustain spirited conflicts with the various nations that came across their path. Sometimes, as an advanced guard, an intermediate nationality, they took part in the struggle between Christian Europe and unchristian Asia. The Poles even liberated beleaguered Vienna from the Turks; and a part of the Slavs were conquered by Western reason. Yet this entire body of peoples remains excluded from our consideration, because hitherto it has not appeared as an independent phase in the series of configurations of reason in the world. Whether it will happen hereafter does not concern us here; for in history we have to do with the past.
The Germanic nation was characterized by a sense of natural totality, and we may call this Gemut[*] or a “feeling mind.” Gemut is that enveloped, indeterminate totality of the spirit in reference to the will, in which man’s satisfaction is attained in a correspondingly general and indeterminate way. Character is a particular form of will and interest asserting itself; but Gemutlichkeit has no particular aim such as riches or honor; in fact does not relate to an objective condition, but to the entire condition, a general sense of enjoyment. It contains will purely j as formal will and its purely subjective freedom as a sense of self. For Gemutlichkeit, every particular object is important because the Gemut surrenders itself entirely to each. But since it is not interested in the particular ends as such, it does not become isolated in vile or evil passions, or evil, generally speaking. The Gemut, or feeling mind, does not thus divide itself; it looks, on the whole, more like benevolence. Character is its direct opposite.
Gemut[*] – The term “Germut” when used thur specifically, is untranslatable, but after Hegel characterizes it, is is clear that he has reference to a certain state of mind in which feeling is very much a part. Perhaps some such word as heartfulness might do, but we prefer to leave it untranslated. – Ed.
This is the abstract principle innate in the Germanic peoples, and the subjective side as compared with the objective one . in Christianity. The Gemut has no particular content; Christianity, on the other hand, is especially concerned with content as an object. The Gemut involves the desire to be satisfied in a general way; and it is exactly that which we found to be the content in the principle of Christianity. The indefinite as substance, objectivity, is the purely universal, is God; but that the individual be received in grace by God is the complementary aspect of Chrisitan concrete unity. The absolutely universal is that which contains in it all particulars, and hence is itself indefinite. The subject is the definite, yet both are identical. This was shown above as the content in Christianity; here we find it subjectively as Gemut or feeling mind. The individual subject must now also gain an objective form, that is, unfold into an object. It is necessary that, for the vague feeling of the Gemut, the absolute should become an object, in order that man may achieve a consciousness of his unity with that object. But this calls for the purification of the > subject, requires that it become a real, concrete subject, that it, as a secular subject, share in general interests, that it act in accordance with general ends, that it know of the law, and that it find satisfaction in it. Thus these two principles correspond with each other, and the Germanic peoples, as we have said, have the capacity to be the bearers of this higher principle of spirit.
Next, we consider the Germanic principle in the primary phase of its existence, that is, the earliest historical condition of the Germanic nations. Their Gemiltlichkeit is in its first appearance quite abstract, undeveloped and without particular content; for no substantial ends are found in the Gemut as such. Where the Gemutlich is the only form of a state of mind, it seems without character and merely dull. Gemut, when abstract, is dullness; thus we see a barbarian dullness, confusion and vagueness in the original condition of the Germanics.
We know little of the religion of the Germanic peoples. The Druids belonged to Gaul and were extirpated by the Romans. There was indeed a peculiar northern mythology, but how slight a hold the religion of the Germanic peoples had upon their hearts has already been remarked upon, and it is also evident from the fact that Germanic people were easily converted to Christianity. The Saxons, it is true, offered considerable resistance to Charlemagne; but this was directed not so much against the religion he brought with him as against oppression itself. Their religion did not have profundity, and the same may be said of their conceptions of law. Murder was not regarded and punished as a crime; it was expiated by a pecuniary fine. This indicates a lack of depth of sentiment, the Gemut is not divided against itself, which leads them to regard it only as an injury to the community when one of its members is killed, and nothing more. The blood revenge of the Arabs is based on the feeling that the honor of the family has been injured. Among the Germanics, the community had no dominion over the individual, for freedom is their first consideration when they unite into a social relationship. The ancient Germans were famed for their love of freedom; the Romans from the very first formed a correct idea of them in the particular. Freedom has been the watchword in Germany down to the most recent times, and even the league of the princes under Frederick II had its origin in the love of liberty. This element of freedom, when developing into a social relationship, can establish only popular communities. These communities constitute a whole, and every member of the community, as such, is a free man. Homicide could be settled by a fine because the free man was regarded as sacred, permanently and inviolably, whatever he might have done. This absolute validity of the individual constitutes a main feature, as Tacitus already observed. The community or its presiding officer, with the assistance of members of the community, delivered judgment in affairs of private law with a view to the protection of person and property. The whole community had to be consulted for affairs affecting the body politic at large, for wars and the like.
The second aspect is that social nuclei were formed by free 1 association, or fellowship, and by voluntary attachment to mil- I itary leaders and princes. The link in this case was that of I loyalty, for loyalty is the second watchword of the Germanic I peoples, as freedom was the first. Individuals freely attach 1 themselves to an individual and make this relation an inviola- I ble one. We do not find this with the Greeks and Romans. J The . German associations or fellowships are not only related I to an objective thing, but to the spiritual self, the subjective I inmost personality. Heart, Gemut, the entire concrete subjectivity, which does not abstract from content, but regards it as I a condition of attachment, making itself dependent on both the person and the thing, makes this relation a compound of * loyalty to a person and obedience to a principle.
The union of the two relations, of individual freedom in the community and of the bond implied in the association, is the main point’in the formation of the state. In this, duties and rights are no longer left to arbitrary choice, but are fixed as legal relations. But it works this way: the state is the soul of the whole and remains its lord, and from it are derived definite aims and the authorization both of political acts and powers, the generic character and interests of the community constituting the basis of the whole. Here we have the peculiarity of the Germanic states, that, contrariwise, social relations H do not assume the character of general terminations and laws, I but are entirely split up into private rights and private obligations. . . . Thus the state is compounded of private rights, and a sensible political life emerges only rather late from wearisome struggles and convulsions.
We have said that the Germanic nations were predestined to be the bearers of the Christian principle, and to carry out the idea as the absolutely rational end. At the beginning, there is only dull volition, in the background of which lies the true and the infinite. The true is present only as a task, for their Gemut is not yet purified. A long process is required to complete this purification so as to realize concrete spirit. Religion comes forward with a challenge to the violence of the passions and rouses them to furor. The power of the passions is embittered by a bad conscience and heightened to an insane rate.… We behold the terrible spectacle of the most fearful extravagance of passion in all the royal houses of that period. Clovis, the founder of the Frankish Monarchy, is stained with the blackest of crimes. Harshness and cruelty characterize all the succeeding Merovingians; the same spectacle is repeated in the Thuringian and other royal houses. The Christian principle is, to be sure, the task for their souls, but these souls are still rather crude. The will, potentially truthful, mistakes itself and separates itself from the true and proper end by particular, limited ends. Yet the will realizes involuntarily in this struggle with itself what it wants [i.e., what it is meant to will]; it fights what it truly wants, and yet achieves it; for basically and itself, it is reconciled. The spirit of God lives in the community; it is the inward propelling spirit. But it is in the world that the spirit is to be realized, in a material not yet brought into harmony with it. Now this material is the subjective will, which thus has a contradiction within itself. We often observe a change of this kind on the religious side: a man who has been fighting and hacking away at actuality all his life, 1 who has struggled and reveled in secular occupations with all the strength of character and passion, will on a sudden repudiate it all and go into religious seclusion. But secular business cannot be thus repudiated in the world; it calls for completion and the discovery is ultimately made that spirit finds the end of its struggle, and contentment in that very sphere which it made the object of its resistance—it finds that secular pursuits are a spiritual occupation.
We thus observe that individuals and peoples regard that which is their misfortune as their greatest happiness and, con- ; versely, struggle against their happiness as their greatest misery. La verite, en la repoussant, on Vembrace. Europe arrives at the truth since and in so far as it has rejected the truth.
While, therefore, this long process is commencing in the ’ West, a process in the world’s history necessary to that purification by which spirit in the concrete is realized, the purification necessary for developing spirit in the abstract, which we see carried on contemporaneously in the East, is more quickly accomplished. The latter does not need a long process, and we see it produced rapidly, even suddenly, in the first half of the seventh century, in Mohammedanism.
[Here follows an extended discussion of Mohammedanism.]
While the first period of the Germanic world ends brilliantly with a mighty empire, the second commences with a reaction resulting from the contradiction occasioned by that infinite falsehood which rules the Middle Ages and constitutes their life and spirit. This reaction is first that of the particular, nations against the universal rule of the Frankish Empire,’ manifesting itself in the splitting up of that great empire. The second reaction is that of individuals against legal authority and the state’s power, against subordination and the military and judicial arrangements. This produced the isolation and therefore the defenselessness of individuals. The universality of the power of the state disappeared through this reaction: individuals sought protection with the powerful, and the latter became oppressors. Thus a system of general dependence was gradually introduced, and this relationship of protection was then systematized into the feudal system. The third reaction is that of the Church, the reaction of the spiritual element against the existing order of things. Secular wildness was repressed and kept in check by the Church, but the latter was itself secularized in the process, and abandoned its proper position. From that moment begins the introversion of the secular principle. These relations and reactions all go to constitute the history of the Middle Ages, and the culminating point of this period is the Crusades; for with them arises h universal instability, but one through which the [separate] states first attain internal and external independence.
Feudality and the Hierarchy
Thus these three peoples (the Normans, Magyars and Saracens) invaded the empire from all sides in great masses and almost clashed with each other in^heir devastating marches. France was devastated by the Normans as far as the Jura, the Hungarians reached Switzerland and the Saracens Valaise. Calling to mind the existing military organization, and considering also this miserable state of things, we cannot fail to be struck with the inefficiency of all those far-famed institutions, which ought to have shown themselves most effective at such a juncture. We might be inclined to regard the picture of the noble and rational constitution of the Frankish Monarchy under Charlemagne as an empty dream, although it appeared to be strong, comprehensive and well-ordered, internally and externally. Yet it actually existed; the entire political system being held together only by the strength, the greatness, the noble soul of this one man; it was not based on the spirit of the people, nor had it entered into it. The constitution was superimposed a priori, like that which Napoleon gave to Spain, and which disappeared immediately with the physical power which had maintained it. But what gives a constitution reality is that it exists as objective freedom, as a substantial way of willing, as duty and obligation acknowledged by the subjects I themselves. But obligation was not yet recognized by the Germanic spirit, which hitherto showed itself only as Gemut and arbitrary subjective will. For the Germanic spirit there was I as yet no inwardness involving unity, but only an inwardness ; of an indifferent, superficial “being by itself?’ Thus that constitution was without firm bond . . . for in fact no constitution was as yet possible.
This leads us to the second reaction, that of individuals against the authority of the law. The capacity of appreciating legal order and the common weal is altogether absent, has no vital existence among the peoples themselves. The duties of every free citizen, the authority of the judge to give judicial decisions, that of the count to hold his court, and interest in the laws as such, show themselves as weals as soon as the strong hand from above ceases to hold the reins. The brilliant administration of Charlemagne had vanished without leaving a trace and the immediate consequence was the general need I of the individuals for protection. A certain need for protection I is sure to be felt to some degree in every well-organized state; I each citizen knows his rights and also knows that the social state is absolutely necessary for the security of private property. H Barbarians do not know this sense of need, they want of protection by others. They look upon it as a limitation of their freedom if their rights must be guaranteed by others. Hence, the impulse toward a firm organization did not exist. Men had to be placed in a defenseless position before they felt the necessity of the organization of a state. The forming of states had to start afresh. The commonwealth as then organized had no validity or firmness at all either in itself or in the minds of the people; and its weakness manifested itself in the fact that it was unable to give protection to its individual members. As observed above, the sense of obligation was not present in the spirit of the Germanic peoples; it had to be created. At the start, the will could be disciplined only regarding the externals of possession. As people experienced the importance of the protection of the state, they were forcibly brought out of their dullness and impelled by necessity to seek union and a social condition. Individuals were therefore obliged to look out for themselves by taking refuge with individuals, and by submitting to the authority of certain powerful men who had made a private possession and personal rule out of that authority which formerly belonged to the commonwealth. . . . This is the constitution of the feudal system. “Feudum” is connected with “fades”; the fidelity or loyalty implied in this case is a bond established on unjust principles, a relation that does indeed aim at something legitimate, but which has the unjust as its content; for the loyalty of vassals is not an obligation to the commonwealth, but a private one and therefore by this very fact subject to the sway of chance, caprice and violence. General injustice, general lawlessness is transformed into a system of dependence on and obligation to private individuals, so that the mere formal side of the matter, the mere fact of compact, constitutes its sole connection with the principle of right and law. . . .
| Hegel then proceeds to describe the further development of feudalism and sums it up:]
Thus all right and law vanished before particular might; for equality of rights and rational legislation, where the interests of the whole, of the state, are the end, had no existence.
The third reaction, noted above, was that of the element of universality against the real world as split up into particularity. This reaction proceeded upwards from below, from that isolated possession itself, and was then promoted chiefly by the Church. A general sense of the nothingness of its con- : dition seized on the world. In that condition of utter isolation, where only the might of the powerful had any validity, men : could find no repose and Christendom was, so to speak, agitated by the tremor of an evil conscience. In the eleventh century, the fear of the approaching final judgment and the 1 belief in the speedy end of the world spread through all ; Europe. This inner anxiety impelled men to the most absurd actions. Some bestowed the whole of their possessions on the ; Church, and passed their lives in continual penance; the majority dissipated their worldly possessions in riotous debauchery. The Church alone increased its riches through donations and bequests. About the same time, too, terrible j famines swept people away; human flesh was sold in open market. During this state of things, lawlessness, brutal lust, and the most coarse caprice, deceit and cunning were common. Italy, the center of Christendom, presented the most revolting view. All virtue was alien to these times, and consequently the word virtue lost its proper meaning; in common usage it denoted only violence and oppression, sometimes even rape. The clergy was equally corrupt. Their baliffs and stewards had made themselves masters of the ecclesiastical possessions, and ran them quite at their own pleasure, restricting the monks and clergy to a scanty pittance. Monasteries that refused to accept such stewards were compelled to do so, the neighboring lords taking the office on themselves or giving it to their sons. Only bishops and abbots maintained themselves in possession, being able to protect themselves partly by their own power, partly by means of their retainers, since these higher clerics were, for the most part, of noble families.
The bishoprics being secular fiefs, their occupants were bound to the performance of imperial and feudal service. The investiture of the bishops belonged to the kings, and it was to their interest that these ecclesiastics should be attached to them. Whoever desired a bishopric, therefore, had to make application to the king, and thus a regular trade was carried on in bishoprics and abbacies. Usurers who had loaned money to the king thus received compensation; the worst of men came into possession of spiritual offices. There could be no question that the clergy ought to have been chosen by the religious community, and there were always some persons who had the right of electing them, who were influential; but the king compelled them to yield to his orders. Things were little better as far as the Holy See was concerned. This situation got too awful . . . Gregory VII . . . sought to protect the independence of the Church in this terrible situation by two measures. First, he enforced the celibacy of the clergy. . . * The second measure was directed against simony, that is to say the selling and arbitrary filling of bishoprics, or even the papacy. … By these two big measures Gregory VII intended to free the Church of its dependence and its violence. But Gregory made still further demands upon the secular power; all benefices should only be assigned to an incumbent after ordination by his superior, and only the Pope should dispose of the Church’s vast possessions. The Church aimed as a divine power to rule the secular, on the abstract principle that the divine is higher than the secular . . . whole communities became vassals of the Church. . . .
We have then to consider the spiritual element in the Church—the form of its power. The essence of the Christian principles has already been shown; it is the principle of mediation. Man realizes his spiritual essence only when he conquers his natural being. This conquest is possible only on the supposition that the human and the divine nature are essentially one, and that man, so far as he is spirit, also possesses the essentiality and the substantiality that belong to the idea of God. The mediation is conditioned by the consciousness of this unity; to see this unity was given to man in Christ. The main thing is, therefore, that man should lay hold on this consciousness, and that it should be continually awakened in him. This was the design of the Mass: in the host Christ is presented as actually present; the piece of bread consecrated by the priest is the present God, who is thus seen and offered up ever and anon. And it is true that the sacrifice of Christ is an actual and eternal happening, Christ being not , a mere sensuous and single, but a completely universal, i.e., divine, individual. But it is wrong to isolate the sensuous ; aspect, and to have the host adored, even apart from its being taken, and thus not to make the presence of Christ essentially one of spiritual vision. Rightly, therefore, did the Lutheran Reformation particularly attack this dogma. Luther proclaimed the great doctrine that the host had spiritual value ; and Christ was received only on the condition of faith in him; apart from this, the host, he affirmed, was a mere external thing, possessed of no greater value than any other thing. But the Catholic kneels before the host, and thus the merely outward is made into something holy. The Holy as a mere thing has a character of externality; thus it is capable of being taken possession of by another to my exclusion. It * may come into an alien hand, since the process of appropriating it is not one that takes place in spirit, but is conditioned by its quality as an external object, by its quality of thing- I ness. The highest of human blessings is in the hands of others. A distinction arises here between those who possess this blessing and those who have to receive it from others, between the clergy and the laity. The divine is foreign to the laity. This is the absolute schism in which the Church in the Middle Ages was involved: it arose from the recognition of the Holy as something external. The clergy imposed certain conditions to which the laity had to conform if they would be partakers of the Holy. The entire development of doctrine, spiritual insight and the knowledge of divine things, belonged exclusively to the Church. The Church has to ordain and the laity have simply to believe. Obedience is their duty, the obedience of faith, without insight on their part. This condition of things rendered faith a matter of external legislation, and resulted in compulsion and the stake.
As men are thus cut off. from the Church, so are they from the Holy in every form. For on the same principle as that by which the clergy are the mediators between man and Christ, as well as God, the layman cannot turn directly to the Divine Being in his prayers, but only through mediators: the saints, who—dead and perfect—conciliate God for him. Thus originated the adoration of the saints, and with it that conglomeration of fables and lies concerning the saints and their lives. The worship of images had for a long time been popular in the East and had, after protracted arguments, been retained. An image, a picture, though sensuous, still appeals rather to the imagination; but the coarser natures of the West desired something more immediate to look at, and thus arose the worship of relics. The consequence was a kind of resurrection of the dead in the medieval period; every pious Christian wished to be in possession of such sacred earthly remains. The chief object of adoration among the saints was the Virgin Mary. She is certainly the beautiful image of pure love, a mother’s love. But spirit and thought stand higher than even this; and in the worship of this image that of God in spirit was lost, and Christ himself was put to one side. The element of mediation between God and man was thus conceived and held as something external. And thus absolute un-freedom became the established law through the perversion of the principle of freedom. . . . The individual has to confess, is bound to expose all the particulars of his life and conduct to the view of the confessor, and is then informed what to do. . . . Thus the Church took the place of conscience: it put men into apron strings like children and told them that man could not be freed from the torments which his sins had merited by any self-improvement, but only by outward actions; actions not of his own good will, but performed by command of the ministers of the Church. They consisted of hearing Mass, doing penance, going through a certain number of prayers, and undertaking pilgrimages, for example, actions which are unspiritual, stupefy the soul, and which are not only mere external ceremonies, but are such as can be even in one’s stead performed by others. One could even buy some of the extra good works ascribed to the saints and thus secure salvation earned by them. An utter derangement of all that is recognized as good and moral in the Christian Church was thus produced; only external requirements are insisted upon, and these can be complied with in a merely external way. A condition of absolute un-freedom is injected into the very principle of freedom.
The absolute separation of the spiritual from the secular principle generally is connected with this perversion. There are two divine realms, the intellectual one in the Gemut and knowledge, and the ethical one whose material and ground is secular existence. It is science alone which can comprehend the kingdom of God and the time has worked toward realizing this unity. But piety as such has nothing to do with the secular; it may appear in the way of charity, but this is not yet legally ethical, is not yet freedom. Piety is outside of history, and has no history; for history is rather the realm of spirit present to itself in its subjective freedom as the ethical realm of the state. In the Middle Ages, the realization of the Divine in actual life was wanting; the contradiction was not yet harmonized. The ethical was represented as worthless, and that in its three most essential particulars.
One aspect of ethics is that connected with love, with the emotions in the marital relation. It need not say that celibacy is contrary to nature, but that it is contrary to ethics. Marriage was indeed reckoned among the sacraments by the Church; but nonetheless, it was degraded inasmuch as celibacy was reckoned as the more holy state. A second aspect of ethics is presented in activity, in the work a man has to perform for his subsistence. His honor consists in his depending entirely on his industry, conduct and intelligence for the supply of his wants. On the contrary in the Middle Ages, poverty, laziness and inactivity were regarded as nobler, and the unethical thus was consecrated as holy. A third aspect of ethics is that obedience be rendered to the ethical and the rational as an obedience to laws which I know to be right; that it be not that blind and unconditional compliance which does not know what it is doing and whose action is a mere groping about without consciousness or knowledge. But it was exactly this latter kind of obedience that passed for the most pleasing to God. Thus the obedience of un-freedom, imposed by the arbitrary will of the Church, was put above the true obedience of freedom.
In this way the three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience turned out the very opposite of what they ought to be, and in them all, social morality was degraded. The Church was no longer a spiritual (geistige) power, but an ecclesiastical Qgeistliche’) one; and the secular world maintained to it an unspiritual, automatic and uncomprehending relation. As the consequence of this we see everywhere vice, unscrupulousness, shamelessness, and a distracted state of things of which. the entire history of the period offers a detailed picture.
According to the above, the Church of the Middle Ages exhibits itself as a manifold self-contradiction. For subjective spirit, although testifying of the absolute, is at the same time a finite spirit, existing as intelligence and will. Its finiteness begins in its being split by this distinction; here begins at once the contradiction and the self-alienation; for the intelligence and will are not permeated by the truth, which is for them something given. . . .
The second form of the contradiction has to do with the relation within the Church itself. The true spirit exists in man, is his spirit; the individual achieves for himself the certainty of this identity with the absolute in the religious worship or cult, the Church occupying merely the position of a teacher and a director of this cult. But here in the medieval dhurch, on the contrary, the ecclesiastical profession, like the Brahmins in India, are in possession of the truth, not indeed by birth, but by virtue of knowledge, doctrine and practice, but with the further proviso that these alone are not sufficient, and that only an external form, an unspiritual title, constitutes the actual possession of the truth. This outward form is ordination, whose nature is such that the consecration imparted inheres essentially like a sensuous quality to the individual whatever the character of his soul, be he irreligious, immoral or absolutely ignorant. The third kind of contradiction is involved in the Church’s acquisition of possessions and an enormous property, a state of things which is none other than a lie since, in truth, the Church despises or ought to despise riches.
The state of the Middle Ages is, as we saw, similarly involved in contradictions. We spoke above of an imperial rule recognized as assisting the Church and constituting its secular arm. But the power thus acknowledged contains the contradiction that this imperial rule is an empty honor, not serious in the eyes of the emperor himself, or of those who wish to make him the instrument of their ambitious aims. Passion and physical force exist by themselves and are not subject to any control by that merely abstract image. Secondly, the bond of union which holds the medieval state together and which we call loyalty is left to the arbitrary choice of men’s feeling (Gemut), which recognizes no objective duties. Consequently, this loyalty is the most disloyal. German probity in the Middle Ages has become proverbial; but examined more closely in history, we find a veritable Carthaginian or Greek loyalty; for the princes and vassals of the emperor are loyal and dependable only for their selfish ends, individual advantages and passions, but utterly disloyal to the empire and the emperor . . . the state is not organized as an ethical whole. A third contradiction presents itself within the individuals exhibiting, on one side, piety and the most beautiful and intense devotion, and on the other hand, a barbarous intelligence and will. We find an acquaintance with general truth and yet the most uncultured, the rudest ideas of the secular and the spiritual: a brutal show of passion along with a Christian sanctity which renounces all that is worldly and devotes itself entirely to holiness. So self-contradictory, so deceptive is this medieval period, and it is a fad of our time to make its excellence a slogan. Primitive barbarism, rudeness of manners and childish fancy are not revolting, but simply regrettable. But the highest purity of soul defiled by the most horrible barbarity; the known truth degraded to a mere tool by lies: and self-seeking; that which is most irrational, coarse and vile, justified and strengthened by the religious—this is the most disgusting and revolting specta.cle that was ever witnessed, and which only philosophy can comprehend and justify. For such a contradiction must arise in man s con- } sciousness of the Holy while this consciousness still remains primitive and immediate. The profounder the truth with which spirit comes into an implicit relation, while it has not yet become aware of its own presence in that profound truth, so much the more alien is it to itself in this its unknown form; but only as the result of this alienation does it attain its true reconciliation.
[After summing up the argument, and remarking upon the growth of cities, Hegel continues;]
The principle of free property, however, began to develop from the protective relation of feudal protection; that is, freedom originated from un-freedom. The feudal lords and barons enjoyed, properly speaking, no free or absolute property, any more than their subjects; they had great power over the latter, but at the same time they were also the vassals of princes higher and mightier than themselves and to whom they were under obligations which, to be sure, they only fulfilled when compelled to do so. The ancient Germanics had known of none other than free property; but this principle had been perverted to its complete opposite, and it is now for the first time in the later Middle Ages that we notice a few feeble beginnings of a reviving sense of freedom. Individuals brought into closer relation by the soil which they cultivated formed among themselves a kind of union or confederation.
[Hegel then describes the development of guilds, and freer institutions in the cities, as the other power opposing the growing dynastic power. There follows a section on the Crusades, which he views | primarily as a religious, yet as a forlorn enterprise. “Christendom found the empty grave, and not the linking of the worldly and the 1 eternal, and hence it lost the Holy Land.” After this disappointment, the searching spirit turned to the founding of knightly and monastic orders. With this he links the development of science and of abstract thought.]
Next – Transition from Feudalism to Monarchy
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