[p. 255]
|255| neither need the enjoyment of the action. In an action such as that of Decius Mus for his fatherland it lies that its effect was not to return to him as enjoyment. In general one must not make the consequences the principle of the action. The consequences of an action are contingent, because they are an external existence, which depends on other circumstances or can be sublated.
Pleasure is something secondary, something accompanying the deed. As the substantial is actualized, pleasure is added inasmuch as one also recognises one’s subjective element in the work. He who pursues pleasure seeks only himself according to his accidentality. He who is occupied with great works and interests strives only to bring the matter in itself to actuality. He is directed to the substantial, does not remember himself in it, forgets himself in the matter. People of great interests and labours are commonly pitied by the people for having little pleasure, i.e. for living only in the matter, not in their accidentality.
§ 38
Reason sublates the indeterminacy which the agreeable feeling has with regard to objects, purifies the content of the drives of the subjective and contingent, and teaches one to know, with regard to content, the universal and essential of what is desirable, but with regard to form or disposition the objective, or acting for the sake of the matter itself.
Explanation. At first the understanding or reflection goes beyond immediate pleasure, but does not alter the purpose or the principle. It goes beyond only the single pleasure, compares the drives with one another and can therefore prefer the one to the other. – Since it aims not at pleasure as a single thing but at that of the whole, it intends happiness. This reflection still remains within the subjective principle
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