Comments on: 156 https://grundlinien.de/en/156/ Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:54:32 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 By: Hegel (Simple) https://grundlinien.de/en/156/#comment-3596 Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:54:32 +0000 https://grundlinien.de/?p=900153#comment-3596 § 156: The spirit of a family and of a nation

Where does ethical life really live? In the spirit of a family and in the spirit of a nation.

What does spirit mean here?

You feel it when you come into a strange family. There is a way of dealing with each other that belongs to that family alone. You also feel it in a foreign country. The people there have their own customs. This shared spirit is more than the sum of the individuals.

Two ways of looking:

We can start from the whole or from the individuals. Someone who starts only from the individuals puts the whole together as if from building blocks. That misses the spirit. For spirit is precisely the unity of the individual and the whole.

Summary: Ethical life is actual as the spirit of a family and of a nation. This spirit is more than the sum of the individuals. We must understand it from the whole.

]]> By: Eduard Gans (Additions) https://grundlinien.de/en/156/#comment-2141 Wed, 29 May 1833 13:40:50 +0000 https://grundlinien.de/?p=900153#comment-2141 Ethical life is not abstract, like the good, but actual in an intensive sense. Spirit has actuality, and the accidents thereof are individuals. Regarding ethical life, therefore, only two standpoints are ever possible: either one proceeds from substantiality, or one proceeds atomistically and ascends from individuality as the foundation: this latter standpoint is spiritless, because it leads only to a composite, whereas spirit is nothing individual, but the unity of the individual and the universal.

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