[p. 243]
|243| The universal is α) pure necessity in the singular labourer; – he has his unconscious existence in the universal, society is his nature, on whose elemental blind movement he depends, which sustains or sublates him spiritually and physically. He is there through immediate possession, [or] inheritance, complete chance. – He labours an abstract labour, he wins so much from nature; but this only turns round into another form of chance α) he can work up more; but this lessens the value of his labour, he does not thereby step out of the universal relation. β) needs are thereby multiplied – each single one is divided into several; taste is refined; it makes more distinctions; a preparation is demanded that brings the thing to be used ever nearer to easy use, and that all sides of its incongruity be provided for (cork, corkscrew, snuffers) he is cultivated as one who enjoys naturally γ) but equally, through the abstraction of labour, more mechanical, duller, more spiritless. – The spiritual, this fulfilled self-conscious life, becomes an empty doing, the power of the self consists in rich comprehending, this is lost. – He can leave some labour free as machine, all the more formal his own doing becomes. – His dull labouring confines him to one point; – and the labour is all the more perfect the more one-sided it is – But this multiplicity produces fashion, changeableness, freedom in the use of forms; – these things, cut of clothing, kind of furnishing, are nothing permanent – their change is essential and rational – much more rational than staying with one fashion, wanting to maintain something fixed in such singular forms – the beautiful is subject to no fashion – but here there is no free beauty, but a charming one, i.e. one that is the ornament of an other
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