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318

Public opinion therefore deserves to be as much esteemed as despised — despised with regard to its concrete consciousness and expression, esteemed with regard to its essential foundation, which, more or less obscured, merely shines through into that concrete form. |325| Since public opinion does not itself possess the standard of discrimination, nor the capacity to raise its substantial aspect to determinate knowledge, independence from it is the first formal condition for achieving anything great and rational, whether in actuality or in science. Whatever achieves this can in turn be certain that public opinion will in due course come to accept it, acknowledge it, and make it one of its own prejudices.

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2 responses to “318”

  1. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    In public opinion all that is false and all that is true are present, but to find the true within it is the business of the great man. He who tells his time what it wills and expresses, and accomplishes it, is the great man of the age. He does what is the inner essence of the time, actualizes it – and whoever does not know how to despise public opinion, as he hears it here and there, will never achieve anything great.

  2. Hegel (Simple) Avatar
    Hegel (Simple)

    § 318: Esteem and contempt

    Public opinion deserves both: esteem and contempt.

    Esteem because of its foundation. The true is present in it, more or less clouded.

    Contempt because of its expressions. It cannot itself tell the true from the false.

    What follows from this?

    Whoever wants to achieve something great and rational must be independent of it. This is the first condition, in life as in science. And he can be sure: later public opinion will accept his work. It then makes it one of its prejudices.

    The great man:

    To find the true in public opinion is the task of the great man. He tells his age what it wants, and he carries it out. Whoever does not know how to despise public opinion will never achieve anything great.

    Summary: Public opinion deserves esteem for its foundation and contempt for its expressions. Whoever wants something great must be independent of it. Later it makes his work into one of its prejudices.

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