For the sake of the abstract character of the good, the other moment of the Idea — particularity in general — falls into subjectivity, which, in its universality reflected into itself, is the absolute certainty of itself within itself, the positing of particularity, the determining and deciding element — conscience.
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1817), § 426:
§ 426. The all-round contradiction which this manifold ought expresses is the most abstract analysis of spirit, its deepest going into itself. The pure relation of the self-contradicting determinations is the abstract certainty of itself, the infinity of subjectivity, for which the universal will, the good, right and duty equally is and is not, and which knows itself as that which chooses and decides.
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1827), § 511:
§ 511. The all-round contradiction which this manifold ought — the essential being that is nevertheless at the same time not — expresses, contains the most abstract analysis of spirit within itself, its deepest going into itself. The relation of the self-contradicting determinations is only the abstract certainty of itself, the infinity of subjectivity, for which the universal will, the good, right and duty equally is and is not, and which knows itself as that which chooses and decides. This pure certainty of itself, raised to its extreme point, appears in the two forms, passing immediately into one another, of conscience and of evil. The former is the will of the good, which, however, in this pure subjectivity is the not-objective, not universal, the unsayable, and concerning which the subject knows itself, in its singularity, as deciding. Evil, however, is this same knowledge of its singularity as that which decides, insofar as it does not remain in this abstraction, but gives itself, against the good, the content of a subjective interest.
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830), § 511:
§ 511. The all-round contradiction which this manifold ought, the absolute being that is nevertheless at the same time not, expresses, contains the most abstract analysis of spirit within itself; its deepest going into itself. The relation of the self-contradicting determinations to one another is only the abstract certainty of itself, and for this infinity of subjectivity the universal will, the good, right and duty, equally is as also is not; it is this certainty that knows itself as that which chooses and decides. This pure certainty of itself, raised to its extreme point, appears in the two forms, passing immediately into one another, of conscience and of evil. The former is the will of the good, which, however, in this pure subjectivity is the not-objective, not universal, the unsayable, and concerning which the subject knows itself in its singularity as deciding. The evil, however, is this same knowledge of its singularity as that which decides, insofar as it does not remain in this abstraction, but gives itself, against the good, the content of a subjective interest.
One can speak very sublimely of duty, and such talk elevates the human being and makes his heart expansive; but if it advances to no determination, it becomes tedious in the end: spirit demands a particularity to which it is entitled. Conscience, by contrast, is this deepest inward solitude with oneself, in which everything external and every limitation has vanished, this thoroughgoing withdrawal into oneself. As conscience, the human being is no longer bound by the ends of particularity, and this is accordingly a high standpoint, a standpoint of the modern world, which has only now arrived at this consciousness, at this sinking into itself. The earlier, more sensuous ages have before them something external and given, be it religion or right; but conscience knows itself as thinking, and knows that this thinking of mine is what alone is binding for me.
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