Category: Paragraph

181

Transition of the Family into Civil Society The family disintegrates, in a natural way, and essentially through the principle of personality, into a plurality of families, which conduct themselves, in general, as self-subsistent concrete persons, and thus externally toward one another. Or: the moments bound together in the unity of the family, as the ethical…
182

Second Section. Civil Society The concrete person, who is, to himself, a particular purpose, as a whole of needs and a mixture of natural necessity and arbitrary will, is the one principle of civil society; but the particular person, as essentially in relation to other such particularity, is such that each makes itself count and…
183

The self-seeking purpose, in its actualization, so conditioned by universality, grounds a system of all-round dependence, such that the subsistence and welfare of the individual, and his rightful existence, are interwoven with the subsistence, welfare, and right of all, are grounded on this, and are actual and secured only within this context. — This system…
184

The Idea, in this its division, grants to its moments a peculiar existence — to particularity the right to develop and range itself over all sides, and to universality the right to prove itself the ground and necessary form of particularity, as well as the power over it and its ultimate purpose. — It is…
185

Particularity, for itself, on the one hand, as the satisfaction of its needs, of contingent arbitrary will, and of subjective liking, indulging itself in every direction, destroys itself and its substantial concept in its enjoyments; on the other hand, as infinitely excited, and, in its thoroughgoing dependence on external contingency and arbitrary will as well…
186

But the principle of particularity, precisely in that it develops itself, for itself, into totality, passes over into universality, and has its truth, and the right of its positive actuality, solely in this. This unity, which, on account of the self-subsistence of both principles at this standpoint of division (§ 184), is not [yet] the…
187

As citizens of this state, individuals are private persons, who have their own interest as their purpose. Since this purpose is mediated through the universal, which thus appears to them as a means, it can be attained by them only insofar as they themselves determine their knowing, willing, and acting in a universal manner, and…
188

Civil society contains the three moments: A. The mediation of need and the satisfaction of the individual through his labour, and through the labour and the satisfaction of the needs of all others — the system of needs. B. The actuality of the universal of freedom contained therein — the protection of property through the…
189

A. The System of Needs Particularity, at first, as determined in opposition to the universal of the will in general (§ 60), is subjective need, which attains its objectivity — that is, satisfaction — through the means of α) external things, which are now likewise the property and product of other needs and wills, and…
190

a. The Kind of Need and Satisfaction The animal has a limited circle of means and ways of satisfying its likewise limited needs. The human being proves, even within this dependence, at the same time his going-beyond it, and his universality — at first through the multiplication of needs and means, and then through the…
191

Likewise, the means for particularized needs, and, in general, the ways of their satisfaction, divide and multiply themselves — these means becoming, in turn, relative purposes and abstract needs — a multiplication proceeding into the infinite, which is, in just the same measure, a differentiation of these determinations and a judging of the suitability of…
192

Needs and means become, as real existence, a being for others, through whose needs and labour satisfaction is mutually conditioned. The abstraction that becomes a quality of needs and means (see the preceding §) also becomes a determination of the mutual relation of individuals to one another; this universality, as being recognized, is the moment…
193

This moment thus becomes a particular determination of purpose for the means themselves, and for their possession, as well as for the manner and way of satisfying needs. It further contains, immediately, the demand for equality with others in this respect; the need for this equality, on the one hand, and the making of oneself…
194

In that, within social need, as the connection of the immediate or natural need with the spiritual need of representation, the latter, as the universal, makes itself the predominant [element], there lies, in this social moment, the aspect of liberation: that the strict natural necessity of need is concealed, and the human being relates himself…
195

This liberation is formal, since the particularity of purposes remains the underlying content. The tendency of the social condition toward the indeterminate multiplication and specification of needs, means, and enjoyments — which, just like the distinction between natural and uncultivated need, has no bounds — luxury — is an equally infinite increase of dependence and…
196

The mediation of preparing and acquiring means, likewise particularized, appropriate to particularized needs, is labour, which specifies, through the most manifold processes, the material immediately supplied by nature for these many purposes. This formation now gives to the means its value and its purposiveness, so that the human being, in his consumption, relates himself chiefly…
197

Through the manifold of the determinations and objects that engage his interest, theoretical culture develops — not only a manifold of representations and items of knowledge, but also a mobility and quickness of representing, and of passing over from one representation to another, the grasping of complicated and general relations, and so on — the…
198

The universal and objective [element] in labour, however, lies in the abstraction that brings about the specification of means and needs, and thereby likewise specifies production and brings forth the division of labour. The labour of the individual becomes, through this division, simpler, and thereby the skill in his abstract labour, as well as the…
199

In this dependence and reciprocity of labour and of the satisfaction of needs, subjective self-seeking turns into a contribution to the satisfaction of the needs of all others — into the mediation of the particular through the universal, as a dialectical movement — so that, in that each acquires, produces, and enjoys for himself, he…
200

The possibility of participating in the universal resource — that is, particular resources — is, however, conditioned, in part by an immediate basis of one’s own (capital), and, in part, by skill, which is, for its part, again conditioned, in turn, by that basis, but also by contingent circumstances, whose manifold variety brings forth a…