[p. 279]
[Fair-copy draft, 1802/03]
Hegel’s manuscript from the autumn and winter of 1802/03, an unfinished fair copy of 22 sheets, not published in his lifetime. The title was given by Karl Rosenkranz; Georg Mollat published a first, incomplete edition in 1893, Georg Lasson the complete text in 1913. Translated from the text of the Gesammelte Werke (vol. 5, “Schriften und Entwürfe (1799–1808)”, ed. Manfred Baum and Kurt Rainer Meist, 1998, pp. 279–361). Additions by the editors stand in square brackets, as does the heading [Introduction]; the critical apparatus and the page numbers of the manuscript are not reproduced. Towards the end the fair copy turns into brief notes in keyword form.
Print version (PDF): for printing and taking along – each page of the PDF holds exactly one page of the printed edition, with a wide margin for one’s own notes.
The figures between vertical bars, e.g. |293|, mark the beginning of a page of the printed edition, so that a passage can be found again in one’s own copy.
The notes reproduce Hegel’s marginal notes; the italic indication before them (e.g. “Alongside and further down in the margin:”) is the editors’ of the Gesammelte Werke. The enumerators α, β, γ, δ and the Hebrew letters aleph (א), bet (ב) and gimel (ג) stand thus in Hegel’s manuscript.
Cross-reference: Hegel’s first draft of a whole practical philosophy, still in Schelling’s conceptual language (intuition and concept, “potencies”). Many doctrines of the Groundlines appear here for the first time: need, labour and the tool (§ 189 ff.), possession, exchange and contract (§ 45 ff., § 72 ff.), crime and punishment (§ 90 ff.), the estates (§ 201 ff.) and the government (§ 272 ff.). The essay on natural right, in which Hegel uses the expression “system of ethical life”, was written at the same time. At each section the corresponding place is noted as a cross-reference. The German text is on the German side of this edition.
Page by page: Each web page holds exactly one page of the Gesammelte Werke. Web page 1 is p. 279, web page 2 is p. 280, and so on; the web page for a printed page thus has the number “printed page minus 278”. The page number stands at the top of each web page in square brackets. The first and the last page are printed only in part.
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361
Contents
- [Introduction]
- I. Absolute ethical life according to relation
- A.
- B. Second potency of infinity, ideality, in the formal, or in relation
- b. The subsumption of intuition under the concept
- II. The negative, or freedom, or crime
- Part III. Ethical life
- A. The constitution of the state
- I. Ethical life as system, at rest
- II. Government
- A.
- B. Universal government
- A.
- B. The second system of government. System of justice
- C. Third system of government
[Introduction]
Cross-reference: The Idea of absolute ethical life as the unity of intuition and concept. In the Groundlines ethical life is “the Idea of freedom”, § 142 ff.
In order to cognise the Idea of absolute ethical life, intuition must be posited as perfectly adequate to the concept, for the Idea is itself nothing other than the identity of the two; but in order that this identity may be cognised, it must be thought as a being-adequate; but because they are held apart in being-equal, they are posited with a difference, the one in the form of universality, the other in the form of particularity, over against the other; so that this equating may thereby become complete, then conversely that which [was] here posited in the form of particularity [must] now be posited in the form of universality, and that which was posited in the form of universality now be posited in the form of particularity. But that which is truly the universal is intuition, while the truly particular is the absolute concept; each must therefore be posited over against the other once under the form of particularity, the other time under the form of universality; the one time intuition subsumed under the concept, the other time the concept under intuition; although the latter relation is the absolute one, for the reason given, the former is just as absolutely necessary, in order that complete equality might be there for cognition; for the latter is itself only one, and only One, relation; and so the absolute equality of intuition and cognition is not posited in it. Now the Idea of absolute ethical life is the taking-back of absolute reality into itself, as into a unity; in such a way that this taking-back and this unity is absolute totality; its intuition is an absolute people; its concept is the absolute being-one of individualities.
First, intuition must be subsumed under the concept; through this, absolute ethical life appears as nature; for nature itself is nothing other
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