The good of morality was empty. In ethical life it has gained a firm content.

What content?

Laws and institutions. The family, society, the state, their orders and rules. They do not depend on a whim. They stand firm, above the opinion and liking of the individual. And yet they are not accidental. They arise from the matter itself.

A word from ancient tragedy:

In a drama by Sophocles, Antigone says of the eternal laws: No one knows where they came from. They are simply there, and always have been. That is how the ethical looks from outside. People follow it without asking first.

Summary: In ethical life, the good has a firm content: laws and institutions. They stand above the whim of the individual. They follow from the matter itself.

§ 514. The substance that knows itself as free, in which the absolute ought is just as much being, has actuality as the spirit of a people. The abstract diremption of this spirit is its individuation into persons, of whose independence it is the inner power and necessity. The person, however, as thinking intelligence, knows that substance as its own essence, ceases in this disposition to be an accident of it, and beholds it as its absolute final purpose in actuality both as an attained here-and-now, in that it brings the same forth through its activity, yet as something that rather simply is; thus, without the reflection of choice, it accomplishes its duty as its own and as an existent, and has, in this necessity, itself and its actual freedom.

§ 514. The free substance, in which the absolute ought is just as much being, has actuality as the spirit of a people. Its abstract diremption is the individuation into persons, of whose independence it is the inner power and necessity. The person, however, as thinking intelligence, knows the substance as its own essence, ceases in this disposition to be an accident of it; beholds it as its absolute final purpose in actuality likewise as an attained here-and-now, as it brings the same forth through its activity, yet as something that equally simply is, and thereby, without the reflection of choice, accomplishes its duty as its own and as an existent, and in this necessity has itself and its actual freedom.

§ 431. The free substance, in which the absolute ought is just as much being, is, as a people, actuality. The abstract diremption of its negativity into existence is the individuation into persons, of whose immediate independence it is the inner power and necessity. The person, however, as thinking intelligence, recognizes the substance as its own essence, and in this disposition ceases to be an accident of it; it beholds its absolute final purpose in actuality just as much as an attained here-and-now as it brings it forth through its activity, yet as something that equally simply is; thereby, without the reflection of choice, it accomplishes its duty as its own and as an existent, and in this necessity has itself and its freedom.