The family divides. One family becomes many families. Each stands on its own. They face each other as separate persons, externally, like neighbors.

What happens to the unity?

In the family, everything was one. Now it falls apart. Each pursues his own purposes. This looks like a loss of ethical life.

But this is only an appearance. Whoever believes he only cares for himself serves the whole without noticing. The universal remains the real power, even when each thinks only of himself. We call this world civil society. It is the world in which ethical life appears, but scattered.

How does it arise in history?

Either a family grows peacefully into a people. Then all share one origin. Or scattered families come together. They do this through force, or because they need each other and trade with each other.

Summary: The family breaks up into many families that stand on their own. Each pursues its own purposes. So civil society arises, in which the unity only seems lost.