System of Ethical Life

[p. 324]

|324| side of it by the other, is the highest, and it is rational only as absolute concept, in so far as it bears on this negativity.

But absolute nature is present in none of these in the shape of spirit, and therefore not as ethical life either; neither the family, nor still less the subordinate potencies, least of all the negative, is ethical. Ethical life must, with complete annihilation of particularity and of the relative identity of which the natural relation alone is capable, be absolute identity of intelligence; or the absolute identity of nature must be taken up into the unity of the absolute concept and be present in the form of this unity; a clear and at the same time absolutely rich essence; a perfect being-objective-to-oneself and intuiting of the individual in what is alien; thus the sublation of natural determinacy and configuration, complete indifference of self-enjoyment; in this way alone is the infinite concept absolutely one with the essence of the individual, and this essence present in its form as true intelligence; it is truly infinite, for all its determinacy is annihilated; and its objectivity is not for an artificial consciousness, for itself with sublation of empirical intuition; and for intellectual intuition; thus intellectual intuition is a real one through ethical life, and in it alone; the eyes of the spirit and the bodily eyes coincide perfectly; according to nature the man sees flesh of his flesh in the woman; according to ethical life alone he sees spirit of his spirit in the ethical being, and through it.

Ethical life is accordingly determined in such a way that the living individual, as life, is equal to the absolute concept, that his empirical consciousness is one with the absolute consciousness, and the absolute consciousness is itself empirical consciousness; an intuition distinguishable from itself; but in such a way that this distinction is something altogether superficial and ideal, and being a subject is nothing in reality and in the distinction. This complete being-equal is possible solely through intelligence, or the absolute concept, according to which the living essence [is] as the opposite of itself, as object; this object is itself absolute vitality and absolute identity of the one and the many, not posited like every other empirical

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83