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66

Inalienable, therefore, are those goods, or rather substantial determinations, and the right to them likewise imprescriptible, which constitute my own most personal being and the universal essence of my self-consciousness — such as my personality as such, my universal freedom of will, ethical life, and religion.

That what spirit is according to its concept, or in itself, should also be in existence and for itself (and thus be a person, capable of property, possess ethical life and religion) — this Idea is itself its concept (as causa sui, i.e. as a free cause, it is such a thing, cujus natura non potest concipi nisi existens1; Spinoza, Ethics I, Def. 1). |69| In this very concept — of being, only through itself and as an infinite return into itself, out of the natural immediacy of its existence, what it is — lies the possibility of an opposition between what spirit is merely in itself and not also for itself (§ 57), as well as, conversely, between what it is merely for itself and not in itself (evil, in the will) — and herein lies the possibility of the alienation of personality and of its substantial being, whether this alienation occurs unconsciously or explicitly. – Examples of the alienation of personality are slavery, serfdom, incapacity to own property, unfreedom of ownership, and so forth; the alienation of intelligent rationality, morality, ethical life, and religion occurs in superstition, in conceding to another the authority and power to determine and prescribe for me what actions I ought to perform (as when someone explicitly hires himself out for robbery, murder, and the like, or for the possibility of crimes), or what is a duty of conscience, or religious truth, and so forth, for me. – The right to such inalienable things is imprescriptible, for the act by which I take possession of my personality and substantial being, making myself a being capable of rights and imputation, a moral and a religious being, precisely removes these determinations from that very externality which alone gave them the capacity to be in the possession of another. With this superseding of externality, the determination of time falls away, along with all the grounds that might be drawn from my earlier consent or acquiescence. This return of mine into myself, whereby I make myself existent as Idea, as a legal and moral person, supersedes the previous relation and the wrong that I and the other have done to my concept and reason, in letting, and having let, the infinite existence of self-consciousness be treated as something external. – This return into myself uncovers the contradiction of having given into another’s possession my capacity for rights, my ethical life, my religiosity — things which I myself did not possess, and which, as soon as I do possess them, exist essentially only as mine, and not as something external.

  1. ‘whose nature cannot be conceived otherwise than as existing’ ↩︎

DE ES

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3 responses to “66”

  1. Hegel (Notes) Avatar
    Hegel (Notes)

    [zu § 66] A minor has no right – legal majority is first of all [the] condition of all capacity for rights – of all rights. By their nature not [to] be another’s.
    I am the owner of animals, plants – and other things – on the presupposition that they are temporal, transient, mortal – subject to nature – this is their determination; – I myself a thing – the determination that I, as thing, as nature, perish, and become free – rise again – this is my determination
    – Nature there too injures property – Here it appears α) as a one-sided will on the part of the human being who makes himself free, violence – β) against his earlier will; – likewise with nature α) a one-sided act on the part of nature, β) against its earlier letting the thing be –
    Ways of acquiring property – ways, [the] progression from outer to inner.
    A. Taking possession as immediate. From this emerges the distinction between the possessed particular and the substance. Universal thing, sign, represented taking of possession.
    B. likewise a represented taking of possession – negation of immediacy, but mediated through use, i.e., the sublation of the immediate particularity in which I have the thing – use produces, designates property – I still take an external thing into possession, but not the immediate [element].
    C. likewise taking of possession – (use, which is not only taking of possession but also) production of the thing; (– acquisition of property α) abstractly: alienation, β) externalization as production) – a negation that is in itself positive. The inwardly mine – reflection into myself. Use and immediate taking of possession in one. –
    Progression: A. Negation of immediacy. B. Use, negation of immediacy and still possession, ownership of something immediate. C. Production out of myself.

    [zu § 66 Anm.] The right to live is also inalienable, i.e., [inalienable] as against arbitrary choice. One sells oneself, unto death; – money for one’s family or other use. – Whoever buys and kills him, [or] mutilates [him], [is] a murderer. (Castration – learning surgical operations – tooth extraction.)

    [zu „Diese Rückkehr meiner in mich selbst … “] a) What I am only in itself, I am [only] externally; – free, religious, ethical, etc. only in itself: hence unfree, not religious, etc.
    b) for myself – only then am I truly [so] – but this becoming-for-myself infringes upon the property, the possession, of the other – (compensation – equitable, in good faith – a mass-priest who lives by the saying of masses, engaged for that purpose, employed by the others or in the name of the others.)
    He has dealings with someone else.

  2. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    It lies in the nature of the thing that the slave has an absolute right to make himself free, that if someone has hired out his ethical being for robbery and murder, this is null and void in and for itself, and everyone possesses the authority to take back such a contract. The same holds for the hiring out of religiosity to a priest who is my confessor, for such inwardness the human being has to settle with himself alone. A religiosity in which one part is placed into the hand of another is no religiosity, for the spirit is only One, and it is to dwell in me; to me alone shall belong the union of being-in-and-for-itself.

  3. Hegel (Simple) Avatar
    Hegel (Simple)

    § 66: What you cannot give away

    Some things I cannot sell and cannot give away. They belong to me as a person. They include my freedom, my conscience, my ethical life and my religion. The right to them never lapses either.

    Why not?

    Because I do not own them like a thing. They are what I myself am. I cannot make myself into someone other than I am.

    How can a person still lose them, then?

    Spirit is not simply finished. It must first become what it is. That is why it can happen that a human being does not know his freedom. Or that he gives it away without understanding what he is doing.

    There are many examples. Slavery and serfdom. People who may not own property. Superstition. Or someone allows another person to tell him what he should do. What his conscience says. What he must believe. Or someone binds himself to rob or murder for another person.

    Such a contract is void:

    If you have bound yourself like this, you may cancel the contract at any time. The slave has an absolute right to free himself. And no one can hand over his conscience to another. Each person must settle these inner matters with himself.

    Why does time play no role?

    As soon as I grasp myself as free, everything earlier falls away. It does not matter how long I was unfree. It does not matter whether I once agreed. I had given away something that I did not even own myself. As soon as I own it, it is mine in its very essence.

    Summary: Freedom, conscience, ethical life and religion are not goods for sale. Whoever gives them away gives something that no one can give away. The right to them never lapses.

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